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420555 | Combinatorial optimization | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Combinatorial%20optimization | Combinatorial optimization
the following subclasses according to their approximability:
- "NPO(I)": Equals FPTAS. Contains the Knapsack problem.
- "NPO(II)": Equals PTAS. Contains the Makespan scheduling problem.
- "NPO(III)": :The class of NPO problems that have polynomial-time algorithms which computes solutions with a cost at most "c" times the optimal cost (for minimization problems) or a cost at least formula_30 of the optimal cost (for maximization problems). In Hromkovič's book, excluded from this class are all NPO(II)-problems save if P=NP. Without the exclusion, equals APX. Contains MAX-SAT and metric TSP.
- "NPO(IV)": :The class of NPO problems with polynomial-time algorithms approximating the optimal solution | 20,600 |
420555 | Combinatorial optimization | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Combinatorial%20optimization | Combinatorial optimization
by a ratio that is polynomial in a logarithm of the size of the input. In Hromkovic's book, all NPO(III)-problems are excluded from this class unless P=NP. Contains the set cover problem.
- "NPO(V)": :The class of NPO problems with polynomial-time algorithms approximating the optimal solution by a ratio bounded by some function on n. In Hromkovic's book, all NPO(IV)-problems are excluded from this class unless P=NP. Contains the TSP and Max Clique problems.
An NPO problem is called "polynomially bounded" (PB) if, for every instance formula_6 and for every solution formula_25, the measure formula_33is bounded by a polynomial function of the size of formula_6. The class NPOPB is the class of | 20,601 |
420555 | Combinatorial optimization | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Combinatorial%20optimization | Combinatorial optimization
NPO problems that are polynomially-bounded.
# Specific problems.
- Assignment problem
- Closure problem
- Constraint satisfaction problem
- Cutting stock problem
- Dominating set problem
- Integer programming
- Knapsack problem
- Minimum relevant variables in linear system
- Minimum spanning tree
- Nurse scheduling problem
- Set cover problem
- Traveling salesman problem
- Vehicle rescheduling problem
- Vehicle routing problem
- Weapon target assignment problem
# See also.
- Constraint Composite Graph
# References.
- "(Information on the largest TSP instances solved to date.)"
- "(This is a continuously updated catalog of approximability results for NP optimization problems.)"
# | 20,602 |
420555 | Combinatorial optimization | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Combinatorial%20optimization | Combinatorial optimization
stem
- Minimum spanning tree
- Nurse scheduling problem
- Set cover problem
- Traveling salesman problem
- Vehicle rescheduling problem
- Vehicle routing problem
- Weapon target assignment problem
# See also.
- Constraint Composite Graph
# References.
- "(Information on the largest TSP instances solved to date.)"
- "(This is a continuously updated catalog of approximability results for NP optimization problems.)"
# External links.
- Journal of Combinatorial Optimization
- The Aussois Combinatorial Optimization Workshop
- Java Combinatorial Optimization Platform (open source code)
- Why is scheduling people hard?
- Complexity classes for optimization problems / Stefan Kugele | 20,603 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
Edd Roush
Edd J. Roush (May 8, 1893 – March 21, 1988) was a Major League Baseball player who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. He played the majority of his career at center field, led the National League in hitting twice, and had his best years with the Cincinnati Reds.
# Career.
Roush made his major league debut on August 20, 1913 for the Chicago White Sox. He switched to the fledgling Federal League in and spent two seasons with the Indianapolis Hoosiers, who became the Newark Peppers in . In , he split the season between the New York Giants and the Cincinnati Reds.
With the Reds from 1916 to 1926, the left-handed hitting Roush never batted below .321, batted .352 in 1921, | 20,604 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
and won the National League batting title in 1917 and 1919, hitting .341 and .321. He was an important part of the Red's World Series championship in 1919, and for his entire life he insisted that even if the White Sox had played the 1919 World Series on the level, the Reds would have won.
Roush led the league in slugging average (.455) in 1918, in doubles (41) in 1923, and in triples (21) in 1924. He was renowned as having the best arm of any outfielder in his era. He held out most of the 1922 season over a salary dispute that continued into spring 1923.
Roush played for the New York Giants again from 1927 until 1929, and then rejoined the Reds for a single season in 1931 before retiring. | 20,605 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
He sat out the 1930 season over a salary dispute.
Roush finished his 18-year career with a .323 lifetime average, 268 stolen bases and 182 triples. He never struck out more than 25 times in a season and had 30 inside-the-park home runs.
Roush, who used a massive 48-ounce Louisville Slugger (the heaviest bat used in baseball), claimed that he never broke a bat in his big league career.
# Post-playing career.
Roush served one season as the Reds coach alongside his good friend, manager Bill McKechnie, who had previously been his teammate. During his career he had saved his money and was able to retire after he finished playing. He built a house in Bradenton, Florida, and used it as a winter | 20,606 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
residence. He frequently attended spring training and told stories of the old days. Roush spent most of his time in his hometown of Oakland City, where he served on the town and school boards and ran the Montgomery cemetery for 35 years.
He was one of the 22 players interviewed by Lawrence Ritter and included in the original version of "The Glory of Their Times", a ground-breaking book that set a standard for oral histories of baseball.
# Honors.
In addition to Roush's selection into the Baseball Hall of Fame, chosen with McKechnie, he is also a member of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, inducted in 1960.
Considered the greatest player in Reds' history at the time, Roush was invited to | 20,607 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
throw out the first ball at the last game at Crosley Field on June 24, 1970. Joe Morgan called Roush "the best of us all".
In 1981, Ritter and Donald Honig included Roush in their book "The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time".
# Death.
Roush died at the age of 94 on March 21, 1988, in Bradenton, Florida. At the time of his death he was the last surviving Federal League participant and the last surviving 1919 World Series participant.
# See also.
- List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
- List of | 20,608 |
420560 | Edd Roush | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edd%20Roush | Edd Roush
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
# External links.
- Edd Roush Oral History Interview (1 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital Collection
- Edd Roush Oral History Interview (2 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital Collection
- Edd Roush Oral History Interview (3 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital Collection | 20,609 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
Full motion video
A full motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information during cutscenes, games that are primarily presented through FMVs are referred to as full-motion video games or interactive movies.
# Arcades.
The first wave of FMV games originated in arcades in 1983 with the release of "Astron Belt" from Sega and "Dragon's Lair" from Cinematronics. Both games used Laserdiscs to store the video used in the game, which allowed for very high quality visuals compared to contemporary arcade games of the | 20,610 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
era. A number of arcade games using FMV with Laserdiscs were released over the next three years and the technology was touted as the future of video games. Some games released in this era reused video footage from other sources while others had it purpose made. "Cliff Hanger", "Bega's Battle", and "Firefox" reused footage while titles like "Space Ace", "Time Gal", "Thayer's Quest", "Super Don Quixote" and "Cobra Command" were entirely original.
The limited nature of FMV, high price to play (50 cents in an era where 25 cents was standard), high cost of the hardware and problems with reliability quickly took its toll on the buzz surrounding these games and their popularity diminished. By 1985, | 20,611 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
the allure of FMV and the Laserdisc had worn off, and the technology had disappeared from arcades by the end of 1987. RDI Video Systems ("Thayer's Quest") had branched out into making a home console called the Halcyon, but it failed and they went bankrupt. Cinematronics's fortunes fared little better and they were bought out by Tradewest in 1987. Companies such as Atari canceled more prototype Laserdisc games than they released. Others, like Universal, stopped development on games after only one release despite announcing several titles.
After only a few years, the technology had improved and Laserdisc players were more reliable. In addition, costs had come down and the average price to play | 20,612 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
a game had gone up. These factors caused a resurgence of the popularity of Laserdiscs games in the arcade. American Laser Games released a light gun shooting game called "Mad Dog McCree" in 1990 and it was an instant hit and then in 1991 with "Who Shot Johnny Rock"? , a game that might be the first ever live action interactive movie. American Laser alone would go on to lease almost a dozen Laserdisc games over the next few years and many other companies again rushed to release titles using the technology. , a title which had been shelved years earlier, was released by Leland to strong sales. "Time Traveler" further pushed the technology by using special projection technology to give the appearance | 20,613 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
of 3D visuals.
Again, the fad passed quickly. The limited nature of the Laserdisc hampered interactivity and limited replayability, a key weakness in arcade games. American Laser, the chief producer of Laserdisc games during this era, had stopped making arcade games in 1994 and most other companies switched over to newer technologies around the same time. With the rise of 3D graphics and the introduction of hard drives and CD-ROMs to arcades, the large, expensive and small-capacity Laserdisc could not compete and disappeared. While CDs would see some use in the mid and late 1990s, it was hard drives, GD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs that caused the largest jump in FMV use in the arcade. Their very large | 20,614 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
capacities and mature, reliable technology allowed for much cheaper hardware than traditional hardware systems, and FMV cut-scenes became commonplace. FMV as a major gameplay component had disappeared by this time because of the limited gameplay options it allowed.
# Home systems.
In 1984, a home console system called the Halcyon was released by RDI Video Systems that used Laserdiscs for its games and was to feature ports of several popular Laserdisc arcade games of the day. It used FMV exclusively, but the company folded after releasing only two titles for the system. The LaserActive from Pioneer would try the technology again in 1994, but it too failed.
By the early 1990s when PCs and consoles | 20,615 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
moved to creating games on a CD, they became technically capable of utilizing more than a few minutes' worth of movies in a game. This gave rise to a slew of original FMV-based computer games such as "Night Trap" (1992), "The 7th Guest" (1993), "Voyeur" (1993), "Phantasmagoria" (1995), and "Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT" (1995). Other titles were simply scaled down ports of Laserdisc arcade games, some of them a decade old by this time. Regardless of their sources, these FMV games frequently used B-movie and TV actors and promised to create the experience of playing an interactive movie or animation. However, production values were quite low with amateurish sets, lighting, costumes, and | 20,616 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
special effects. Animated titles either cobbled together footage from old anime or used cheaper overseas animation producers to create their footage. In addition, the video quality in these early games was low, and the gameplay frequently did not live up to the hype becoming well-known failures in video gaming. At this time, consoles like 3DO, CD-i, and Sega CD borrowed this concept for several low-quality interactive games. Companies such as Digital Pictures and American Laser Games were formed to produce full-motion video games.
Also, the "multimedia" phenomenon that was exploding in popularity at the time increased the popularity of FMV because consumers were excited by this new emerging | 20,617 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
interactive technology. The personal computer was rapidly evolving during the early-to-mid 1990s from a simple text-based productivity device into a home entertainment machine. Gaming itself was also emerging from its niche market into the mainstream with the release of easier-to-use and more powerful operating systems, such as Microsoft's Windows 95, that leveraged continually evolving processing capabilities.
Video game consoles too saw incredible gains in presentation quality and contributed to the mass market's growth in awareness of gaming. It was during the 1990s that the video/computer game industry first beat Hollywood in earnings. Sony made its debut in the console market with the | 20,618 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
release of the 32-bit PlayStation. The PlayStation was probably the first console to popularize FMVs (as opposed to earlier usage of FMV which was seen as a passing fad). A part of the machine's hardware was a dedicated M-JPEG processing unit which enabled far superior quality relative to other platforms of the time. The FMVs in "Final Fantasy VIII", for example, were marketed as movie-quality at the time.
FMVs in games today typically consist of high-quality pre-rendered video sequences (CGI). These sequences are created in similar ways as computer generated effects in movies. Use of FMV as a selling point or focus has diminished in modern times. This is primarily due to graphical advancements | 20,619 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
in modern video game systems making it possible for in-game cinematics to have just as impressive visual quality. Digitized video footage of real actors in games generally ended for mainstream games in the early 2000s with a few exceptions such as "" released in 2006, "" released in 2010, "Tesla Effect" released in 2014, "Her Story" released in 2015, the 2015 reboot of "Need for Speed", and "Obduction" released in 2016.
# Formats.
The early 1980s saw the almost exclusive use of the Laserdisc for FMV games. Many arcade games used the technology but it was ultimately considered a fad and fell out of use. At least one arcade game, NFL Football from Bally/Midway, used CEDs to play its video. Some | 20,620 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
1970s era Nintendo games used film and projectors. formats had the advantage of offering full frame video and sound without the quality problems of compressed video that would plague later formats like CDs.
With the re-popularization of FMV games in the early 1990s following the advent of CD-ROM, higher-end developers usually created their own custom FMV formats to suit their needs. Early FMV titles used game-specific proprietary video renderers optimized for the content of the video (e.g., live-action vs. animated), because CPUs of the day were incapable of playing back real-time MPEG-1 until the fastest 486 and Pentium CPUs arrived. Consoles, on the other hand, either used a third-party codec | 20,621 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
(e.g., Cinepak for Sega CD games) or used their own proprietary format (e.g. the Philips CD-i). Video quality steadily increased as CPUs became more powerful to support higher quality video compression and decompression. "The 7th Guest", one of the first megahit multiple-CD-ROM games, was one of the first games to feature transparent quality 640x320 FMV at 15 frames per second in a custom format designed by programmer Graeme Devine.
Other examples of this would be Sierra's VMD (Video and Music Data) format, used in games like "" and "Phantasmagoria", or Westwood Studios' VQA format, used in most Westwood games made from the mid-1990s up until 2000s "". These video formats initially offered | 20,622 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
very limited video quality, due to the limitations of the machines the games needed to run on. Ghosting and distortion of high-motion scenes, heavy pixelization, and limited color palettes were prominent visual problems. However, each game pushed the technological envelope and was typically seen as impressive even with quality issues.
"", was the first FMV title made by a Hollywood Studio. Sony Imagesoft spent over US$ 3 Million on the title. Instead of piecing together the title with filmed assets from their movie (directed by Robert Longo) of the same name, Sony hired Propaganda Code director Douglas Gayeton to write and film an entirely new storyline for the property. The CD-ROM's interactivity | 20,623 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
was made possible with the Cine-Active engine, based on the QuickTime 2.0 codec.
"" was one of the most significant FMV titles made in 1994, featuring big-name Hollywood actors. The video quality in the game suffered significantly from the aforementioned problems and was almost visually indecipherable in parts; however, this did not stop the title from earning significant praise for its innovative gameplay/FMV combination. Its sequel, "", used a similar custom movie codec in its CD-ROM release, but a later limited-volume DVD-ROM release saw MPEG-2 DVD-quality movies that far exceeded the original CD release in quality. A hardware decoder card was required at the time to play back the DVD-quality | 20,624 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
video on a PC. Wing Commander IV was also the first game to have used actual film (rather than video tape) to record the FMV scenes which attributed to the ability to create a DVD-quality transfer.
An exception to the rule was "The 11th Hour", the sequel to "The 7th Guest". "11th Hour" featured 640×480 FMV at 30 frames-per-second on 4 CDs. The development team had worked for three years on developing a format that could handle the video, as the director of the live-action sequences had not shot the FMV sequences in a way that could be easily compressed. However, this proved to be the game's downfall, as most computers of the day could not play the full-resolution video. Users were usually forced | 20,625 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
to select an option which played the videos at a quarter-size resolution in black-and-white.
As FMV established itself in the market as a growing game technology, a small company called RAD Game Tools appeared on the market with their 256-color FMV format Smacker. Developers took to the format, and the format ended up being used in over 3,000, largely PC based games.
With the launch of consoles with built-in optical storage (the Sega Saturn and Sony's PlayStation (console)) console manufacturers began more actively taking it upon themselves to provide higher quality FMV capabilities to developers. Sony included optimizations in their hardware for their MDEC (motion decompression) technology, | 20,626 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
and Sega chose the software route. Sega worked both internally on optimizing technology such as Cinepak, and externally by licensing video decompression technology from the NY based Duck Corporation. While Duck's offering won praise for its quality (showcased in games like Enemy Zero, major Launch titles in the US and the Saturn adaptations of console hits from the Sega AM2 arcade group) the opaque licensing and royalty structure impeded widespread adoption outside of Japanese and larger US developers.
Duck's TrueMotion technology was extended to the PC and Macintosh as well, showcased in the high profile "" and "", "The X-Files Game", "Final Fantasy VII", and the highly anticipated sequel | 20,627 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
to "Phantasmagoria", "" and other titles. It was reported that versions for PlayStation and GameCube were developed, but the last console version released was for Sega's short-lived Dreamcast.
As the popularity of games loaded with live-action and FMV faded out in the late 1990s, and with Smacker becoming outdated in the world of 16-bit color games, RAD introduced a new true-color format, Bink video. Developers quickly took to the format because of its high compression ratios and videogame-tailored features. The format is still one of the most popular FMV formats used in games today. 4,000 games have used Bink, and the number is still growing.
In the late '90s, Duck largely shelved its support | 20,628 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
for the console market (likely fueled by the direct support for DVD support in newer generation consoles) and focused its formats instead on internet delivered video. Duck went public as On2 Technologies and later generations of its technology was licensed by Adobe, Skype and was eventually bought (along with the company) by Google as the foundation for WebM. An early open source version of that work also appears as the renamed Theora codec of the Xiph Project.
Windows Media Video, DivX, Flash Video, Theora and WebM are also now major players in the market. DivX is used in several Nintendo GameCube titles, including "".
# See also.
- List of interactive movies
- Interactive movie
- Intelligence, | 20,629 |
420534 | Full motion video | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Full%20motion%20video | Full motion video
ts technology was licensed by Adobe, Skype and was eventually bought (along with the company) by Google as the foundation for WebM. An early open source version of that work also appears as the renamed Theora codec of the Xiph Project.
Windows Media Video, DivX, Flash Video, Theora and WebM are also now major players in the market. DivX is used in several Nintendo GameCube titles, including "".
# See also.
- List of interactive movies
- Interactive movie
- Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
# External links.
- "FMV WORLD - The Home of Full-Motion Video Games"
- The Rise & Fall of Full-Motion Video - Retrospective on the genre and why it failed
- What is Full Motion Video | 20,630 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was an Anglo-French financier, tycoon and politician who was a member of the prominent Goldsmith family.
In 1994 he was elected to represent a French constituency as a Member of the European Parliament. He founded the short-lived Eurosceptic Referendum Party in the United Kingdom, and was one of the key power-brokers in British political circles that initiated party political opposition to the country's membership of the European Union.
Goldsmith was allegedly the inspiration for the fictional character of the corporate raider "Sir Larry Wildman" in the 1987 American film "Wall Street".
Margaret Thatcher said of | 20,631 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
him: "Jimmy Goldsmith was one of the most powerful and dynamic personalities that this generation has seen. He was enormously generous, and fiercely loyal to the causes he espoused".
# Early life.
His father Frank Goldsmith changed the family name from the German "Goldschmidt" to the English "Goldsmith". The Goldschmidts, neighbours and rivals to the Rothschild family, were a wealthy, Frankfurt-based, Jewish family, who had been influential figures in international merchant banking since the 16th Century. James's great-grandfather was Benedikt Hayum Goldschmidt, founder of the Bank and consul to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. James's grandfather Adolphe Benedict Goldschmidt (1838–1918), a multi-millionaire, | 20,632 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
moved to London in 1895. His father had had to flee France with his family when Nazi Germany overran the country in 1940, only just managing to escape on the last over-loaded ship from the French port of exit, leaving behind their hotels and much of their property. His father and grandfather had lived in great style, and there was little left of the family's previous fortune by the time Goldsmith started out in business.
Born in Paris, Goldsmith was the son of luxury hotel tycoon and former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Major Frank Goldsmith and his French wife Marcelle Mouiller, and younger brother of environmental campaigner Edward Goldsmith.
He received his formal education at | 20,633 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
Millfield, and Eton College, which he left early in 1949 at the age of 16, after winning a horse racing bet of £10 on a three-horsed accumulator Lewes, winning £8,000 (equivalent to about £262,000 in March 2017). With his winnings he decided that he should leave Eton immediately; in a speech at his boarding house he declared that, "a man of my means should not remain a schoolboy!"
Goldsmith served as a Gunner in the British Army's Royal Artillery under the National Service requirements, during which time he received a commission as an officer.
# Business career.
During the 1950s and 60s, Goldsmith's involvement in finance and as an industrialist involved many risks, and brought him close | 20,634 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
to bankruptcy several times. His successes included winning the British franchise for Alka-Seltzer and introducing low-cost generic drugs to the UK. He has been described in the tabloid press or by those with a contrary political agenda as a greenmail corporate raider and asset stripper, a categorisation he denied vigorously. He claimed the re-organizations he undertook streamlined the operations, removed complacent inefficient management, and increased shareholder value.
Goldsmith started out in business after the tragic death of his first wife by taking on the management of a small enterprise selling an arthritis remedy in France. His father had set up the company with the initial intention | 20,635 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
that it would provide a career for the older son, Edward. But Edward had little interest in business and was more engaged with his pioneering environmental activism. After a publicity stunt involving an arthritic racehorse, sales escalated and, within a couple of years, the staff had been expanded from two to over a hundred. Goldsmith took on the agency for various slimming remedies and branched out into the manufacture of generic prescription drugs. His acquisition of the distributorship for Slimcea and Procea low-calorie breads was the start of the shift of focus towards the food industry. In the early 1960s, in partnership with Selim Zilkha, Goldsmith founded the Mothercare retail chain, | 20,636 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
but sold out his share to Zilkha who went on to develop it with great success.
With the financial backing of Sir Isaac Wolfson, he acquired diverse food companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange as Cavenham Foods in 1965. Initially, the group had an annual turnover of £27m and negligible profits. He added bakeries and then confectioners to the group, and then took over a number of wholesalers and retailers, including small chains of tobacco, confectioner and newsagent shops. By rationalising the activities, closing inefficient factories, and improving the management practices, he steadily improved productivity. By 1971, the turnover was £35m and profits were up to £2m.
In June 1971, he | 20,637 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
launched a bid for Bovril, which was a much larger company with a diverse portfolio including several strong brands (including Marmite, Ambrosia, Virol and Jaffajuice), dairies and dairy farms, and cattle ranches in Argentina. It was run by the third generation of the founding family and Goldsmith concluded that they were clueless. The bid was strongly contested and Goldsmith was fiercely attacked by the financial press. The directors tried to induce Beechams and Rowntree Mackintosh to make rival offers but, in the end, they both withdrew.
After the successful bid, Goldsmith sold the dairies and farms to Max Joseph's Express Dairies group for £5.3m, and found buyers in South America for the | 20,638 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
ranches. Sales of other parts of the company recouped almost all of the £13m that the acquisition had cost him. Some years later, he sold the brand names to Beecham for £36m. Later, he took over Allied Distributors, who owned a miscellaneous portfolio of grocery stores and small chains, including the Liptons shops. He set Jim Wood (who had been responsible for imposing systems and business discipline on the sweetshops) to work on rationalising the operations of these shops, and disposing of those that did not fit into the overall business logic. As journalists began to question his techniques of dealing with the funds and assets of publicly quoted companies, Goldsmith began dealing through private | 20,639 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
companies registered in the UK and abroad. These included the French company Générale Occidentale and Hong Kong and then Cayman-registered General Oriental Investments.
In early 1973, Goldsmith travelled to New York to assess US business opportunities, followed by a tour round Central and South America. He took the view that the UK economy was due for a downturn and began aggressively liquidating many of his assets. In December that year, in the midst of financial chaos, he announced that he had acquired a 51% controlling stake in Grand Union, one of the oldest retailing conglomerates in the US. He set Jim Wood – who had revitalised his British retail operations – to work on rationalising the | 20,640 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
operations of the chain, but he ran into continuous obstruction from both unions and management.
During the 1960s and '70s, Goldsmith received financing from the banking arm of the conglomerate Slater Walker, of which he succeeded founder Jim Slater as Chairman following the company's collapse and rescue by the Bank of England in the secondary banking crisis of 1973–75.
Goldsmith was knighted in the 1976 resignation honours – the so-called "Lavender List" – of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. In early 1980, he formed a partnership with longtime friend and merchant banker, Sir Roland Franklin. Franklin managed Goldsmith's business in the Americas. From 1983 until 1988, Goldsmith, via takeovers | 20,641 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
in America, built a private holding company, Cavenham Forest Industries, which became one of the largest private owners of timberland and one of the top-five timber-holding companies of any type in America. Goldsmith and Franklin identified a quirk in American accounting whereby companies with substantial timberland holdings would often carry them on their balance sheets at a nominal valuation (as the result of years of depreciation).
Goldsmith, a reader of financial statements, realised that in the case of Crown Zellerbach the underlying value of the timberland assets alone, carried at only $12.5m on the balance sheet, was worth more than the target company's total market capitalisation of | 20,642 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
around $900m.
With this insight, Goldsmith began raids that left him with a holding company owning huge tracts of timberland acquired at virtually no net cost. The majority of the pulp and paper assets were sold to James River Corporation in 1986, which in turn became a part of Georgia-Pacific in 2000. (The brown paper container division became Gaylord Container).
Additionally, in 1986, Goldsmith's companies reportedly made $90 million from an attempted hostile takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, although he regarded this profit as an inadequate consolation for the failure to carry the bid through to a successful conclusion. The management of the company coordinated a virulent | 20,643 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
campaign against Goldsmith, involving unions, the press and politicians at state and federal level.
Goldsmith retired to Mexico in 1987, having anticipated the market crash that year and liquidated his assets. However, he continued corporate raiding, including an attempt on British-American Tobacco in 1989 (for which he joined Kerry Packer and Jacob Rothschild). He also swapped his American timber assets for a 49.9 percent stake in Newmont Mining and remained on the board of Newmont until he liquidated his stake through open-market trades in 1993. He had been precluded by the original purchase of Newmont from acquiring a controlling shareholding in the company. In 1990, Goldsmith also began | 20,644 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
a lower-profile, but also profitable, global "private equity style" investment operation. By 1994, executives working in his employ in Hong Kong had built a substantial position in the intermediation of global strategic raw-material flows.
Studies of public filings have found signs of the same Goldsmith-backed Hong Kong-based team taking stakes in operations as diverse as Soviet strategic ports in Vladivostok and Vostochny, and in Zee TV, India's dominant private television broadcaster later sold to Rupert Murdoch.
A large Hong Kong-linked and Goldsmith-funded stake in one of the world's largest nickel operations, INCO Indonesia, was also disclosed in the 1990s, showing Goldsmith's ability | 20,645 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
to position capital before a trend became obvious to others. The group was also a major backer of the Hong Kong-based and Singapore listed major raw material player Noble Group, with low-profile long-time Goldsmith protégé Tobias Brown serving for many years as the company's non-executive chairman. Although little is known about the somewhat enigmatic Brown, he is widely credited with orchestrating the Goldsmith investments in the Far East, which have created more than a third of the family's wealth.
# Environmental campaigning.
Goldsmith became an active campaigner on environmental issues during his later years. He published a book entitled "The Trap" in 1994 outlining what he believed were | 20,646 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
some key challenges facing mankind, with a focus particularly on the fields of modern intensive farming and the use of nuclear power. This area had been a lifelong passion of his brother, Edward, but Goldsmith himself had shown little interest publicly in the topic during his business career. The book received criticism of its content from a variety of sources, including the European Commission, the British Tory politician Chris Patten, Brian Hindley of the Neo-Liberal Centre for Policy Studies, John Kay and Norman Macrae. Goldsmith rebutted their reaction in another publication entitled "The Response", published in 1995.
Posthumously Goldsmith's estate would provide funding for an organization | 20,647 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
entitled the 'J.M.G. Foundation', which supports a range of activism opposed to the commercial advance of Genetically Modified Organisms in farm production.
# Goldsmith and the press.
Goldsmith is known for his legal attack on the magazine "Private Eye", which referred to him as "Sir Jams" and in Goldsmith's Referendum Party period as "Sir Jams Fishpaste". In 1976 he issued more than 60 libel writs against "Private Eye" and its distributors, nearly bankrupting the magazine and almost imprisoning its editor Richard Ingrams. This story is detailed in Ingrams' book "Goldenballs!" The publisher of the magazine was Anthony Blond, an old friend; Blond and Goldsmith themselves remained on good terms.
The | 20,648 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
libel actions arose from a piece that "Private Eye" published following the disappearance of Lord Lucan after the murder of his children's nanny. The article stated (incorrectly) that Goldsmith had participated in a meeting called by John Aspinall after Lucan's disappearance, and further claimed that the meeting amounted to a conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice by hampering the police enquiries. Goldsmith certainly was acquainted with Lucan as a fellow regular at Aspinall's gambling club, the Clermont, but it is not clear how close they were (but apparently on good enough terms for Lucan to ask him for a loan of £10,000 the previous year, and for Goldsmith to counter with an offer to | 20,649 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
make him a gift of that sum).
The matter was made more serious by an action being brought for criminal libel in addition to the civil suits. This was a common law offence that had not been the basis of a prosecution for over fifty years, with a precedent which required a criminal libel to be "so serious as to risk the public order", and Ingrams was initially confident that the judge would dismiss the case. He became extremely anxious when Mr Justice Wein indicated that he favoured criminal proceedings, which then carried a jail sentence rather than just the award of damages as in the civil actions.
Goldsmith also pursued vendettas against other journalists who queried his methods, including | 20,650 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
Barbara Conway, who wrote the "Scrutineer" column in the City pages of the "Daily Telegraph"; he expressed the hope that she would "choke on her own vomit". In November 1977, Goldsmith made an appearance on "The Money Programme" on BBC television when he accused the programme of making up lies about him.
In 1977 Goldsmith bought the French weekly "L'Express" and between 1979 and 1981 published the UK news magazine "NOW!" which failed to survive. Oliver Stone's 1987 film "Wall Street" featured a British billionaire financier, Sir Lawrence Wildman. This character was modelled on Goldsmith as stated by the film's director Oliver Stone in the DVD special feature documentary and the director's commentary | 20,651 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
as Sir Lawrence Wildman is introduced.
# Into politics.
Goldsmith had become increasingly concerned throughout the 1980s about the nature of the European Economic Community, and harboured a deepening suspicion that at its core lay a desire for the domination of the European continent by Germany, a suspicion which was for him confirmed further when in 1992, via the passage of the Maastricht Treaty, the E.E.C. re-titled itself as the European Union, with dramatically centralizing governmental powers being enacted over its constituent member nations.
In March 1993 Goldsmith gave a televised lecture publicly declaring opposition to the European Union, which was transmitted across the United Kingdom | 20,652 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
on Channel 4 Television as part of its "Opinions" political commentary series, the text of which was published in "The Times" the following day under the title "Creating a Superstate is the way to destroy Europe". In the mid-1990s he financially supported a Eurosceptic think tank entitled the European Foundation.
In 1994 he published "The Trap", a book detailing his broader political philosophical thoughts, giving a critique of the dominance of Neo-Liberalism in the governments of the First World. In its text he criticized their ideological dogmatic pursuance of Free Trade, and the facilitation of the American Melting Pot societal model being copied by the rest of the First World's governments | 20,653 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
through mass foreign migration, driven by a pursuance of short term economic advantage, which he posited was fatally flawed in societal concept and brought with it great societal dangers. As an economic alternative he espoused a restoration of Classical Liberalism, and a return to Mercantilism. He also advocated the prevention by governmental action of mass migrations by populations from poorer areas of the globe into the First World driven by economic motivation, which he foresaw as an inevitability of escalating Third World population demographics and First World governmental Neo-Liberal and Socialist ideologies.
In 1994 he was elected in France as a member of the European Parliament, representing | 20,654 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
the "Majorité pour l'autre Europe" party, and subsequently became the leader of the eurosceptic Europe of Nations group within the European Parliament.
## The Referendum Party.
In the early 1990s, with the removal of Margaret Thatcher from the United Kingdom's Prime Ministerial office by the Tories, and their enactment into law of the Maastricht Treaty, Goldsmith, who up until that time had retained close links with the Conservative Party, came to the conclusion that it was no longer a serious political vehicle to oppose the European Union's advancing power, and that opposition would have to be created within the party political system beyond its current order of the Conservative, Labour and | 20,655 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
Liberal Democrats parties, all of which supported the United Kingdom's incorporation into the European Union.
In consequence, in 1994 Goldsmith founded and financed The Referendum Party in the United Kingdom, modeled upon the "Majorité pour l'autre Europe", with the objective of seeking a referendum for its national withdrawal from the European Union, which would go on to stand candidates in the country's general election of 1997. As the mid-1990s progressed Goldsmith involved himself in British politics, appearing with increasing regularity in the political press, and in domestic political televised debates, raising opposition to the nature of the European Union and what he perceived was mainstream | 20,656 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
media culpability in playing down its supranational ambitions, and pouring scorn on a Westminster parliamentary political order that he stated had failed the nation and was now willfully betraying its governmental sovereignty.
During the 1997 electoral campaign Goldsmith had mailed to approximately five million homes a VHS video cassette film to allow him to address the electorate free from the editorial control of the nation's mainstream media, having previously rejected the idea of by-passing the United Kingdom's legal restrictions on the broadcast of political information by the means of an offshore radio station named "Referendum Radio".
## 1997 United Kingdom general election.
At the | 20,657 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
1997 Westminster parliamentary general election, Goldsmith stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the London constituency of Putney, against the former Conservative Minister David Mellor, MP, in an electoral contest in which Goldsmith polled 3.5% of the vote. The declaration of the Putney result, which was televised and nationally broadcast live on the night of 1 May 1997, saw a charged atmosphere at the count, with a rowdy crowd in attendance of anti-European Union activists from the Referendum Party, and the recently inaugurated United Kingdom Independence Party (which would itself receive only a couple of hundred votes in Putney that night). An acrimonious confrontation between | 20,658 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
Mellor (who had lost his seat to the Labour Party candidate) and Goldsmith developed on stage after Mellor, in what was to be his valedictory address from politics, personally insulted Goldsmith's candidacy, during which part of the crowd, Goldsmith and some of the other candidates began a gleefully defiant collective repetitive shouting chant of "Out!" in response, in celebration of the perceived substantive damage having been done to a prominent member of the Westminster Parliamentary political order which they had become so contemptuous of.
Goldsmith's electoral performance at Putney had been, however, reasonably insubstantial, in a British electoral culture in which it is notoriously difficult | 20,659 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
for new political parties or maverick politicians to establish themselves. He was also terminally ill during the election, a fact which he had kept secret beyond his closest personal circle, and which had limited his ability to campaign. The 1,518 votes that his candidacy had garnered had not in itself defeated the incumbent Mellor, who had lost by 2,976 votes; moreover it amounted to less than 5% of the total votes cast, this being insufficient for Goldsmith to retain the candidate's financial deposit of £500, a part of the 20 million pounds that he had reportedly poured into "The Referendum Party" in its brief existence. Mellor had correctly predicted at the count that the Referendum Party | 20,660 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
was "dead in the water", and indeed the party did disappear with Goldsmith's death two months after the election. However, many of the Referendum Party's activists and voters would go on to join and support the nascent United Kingdom Independence Party, which would ultimately lead a sea-change in the nation's politics, which almost twenty years later would see the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union in a referendum on the issue.
# Death.
Two months after contesting the 1997 general election, Goldsmith died from the effects of pancreatic cancer at a farmhouse that he owned in Benahavís, southern Spain, on 18 July 1997. He was 64 years old.
# Personal life.
Goldsmith was married | 20,661 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
three times, and some assumed that he coined the phrase "When a man marries his mistress, he creates a job vacancy." However, the phrase was actually coined by Sacha Guitry.
His first wife, whom he married when 20, was the Bolivian heiress "Doña" María Isabel Patiño y Borbón, the 17-year-old daughter of tin magnate Antenor Patiño by his wife María Cristina de Borbón y Bosch-Labrús, 3rd . When Goldsmith proposed the marriage to "Don" Antenor Patiño, it is alleged his future father-in-law replied, "We are not in the habit of marrying Jews". Goldsmith is reported to have replied, "Well, I am not in the habit of marrying [Red] Indians". The story, if true, is typical of Goldsmith's humour. With | 20,662 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
the heiress pregnant and the Patiños insisting the pair separate, the couple eloped in January 1954. The marriage was brief: rendered comatose by a cerebral haemorrhage in her seventh month of pregnancy, Maria Isabel Patiño de Goldsmith died in May 1954. Her only child, Isabel, was delivered by caesarean section and survived. She was brought up by Goldsmith's family and was married for a few years to French sportsman Arnaud de Rosnay. On her father's death, she inherited a large share of his estate. Isabel has since become an art collector, and is the owner of Hotel Las Alamandas in Mexico.
Goldsmith's second wife was Ginette Léry with whom he had a son, Manes (born in 1959), and daughter, | 20,663 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
Alix (born in 1964). This marriage was dissolved by divorce in 1978 but they shared a house in Paris until his death and he built her a house on his Cuixmala estate. His son Manes worked for FIFA and CONCAF and has also owned football teams in Mexico. His daughter Alix took over his properties in Mexico managing them with her husband Goffredo Marcaccini whom she married in July 1991; together they have four children. Cuixmala and Hacienda de San Antonio are two of the most renowned hotels in Mexico, having won various prizes in the hospitality business.
In 1978, he married for the third time, to his mistress Lady Annabel Birley, by whom he had already had two children, Jemima (born in 1974) | 20,664 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
and Zacharias (born in 1975); they went on to have a third child, Benjamin (born in 1980). Zac and Jemima Khan have both become much reported-upon figures in the media, the former being a Conservative MP for Richmond Park from 2010 to 2016 and again from 2017, and the latter a journalist who was married to Pakistani cricketer and prime minister Imran Khan between 1995 and 2004. In 2003, Ben married heiress Kate Emma Rothschild (born 1982), daughter of the late Hon. Amschel Rothschild and his wife Anita Guinness of the Guinness Brewery family.
After his third marriage, Goldsmith embarked on an affair with Laure Boulay de La Meurthe (granddaughter of Bruno, Count of Harcourt and Princess Isabelle | 20,665 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
of Orléans), with whom he had two more children, Jethro and Charlotte. Charlotte married Philip Colbert and has a daughter.
Speculation about Goldsmith's romantic life was a popular topic in the British media: for example, there were claims in the press that James Goldsmith was the father of the family friend Diana, Princess of Wales, due to his friendship with Diana's mother and, later, with Diana.
# Publications.
- "The Trap" (1994)
# References.
- Books
- "Communist Propaganda Apparatus & Other Threats to The Media", by Sir James Goldsmith – a booklet containing his statement to the Media Committee of the Conservative Party at the British House of Commons, 21 January 1981. (The Conservative | 20,666 |
420538 | James Goldsmith | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith
981. (The Conservative Monday Club distributed this booklet).
- Geoffrey Wansell, "Sir James Goldsmith", HarperCollins, 1982, / .
- Geoffrey Wansell, "Tycoon: Life of James Goldsmith", HarperCollins, 1987, / .
Richard Ingrams, "Goldenballs!" London: Harriman House, 1993. .
- "The Mayfair Set", a 1999 BAFTA Award-winning documentary series by Adam Curtis describing buccaneer capitalists in the Thatcher years, focusing on James Goldsmith and other members of the Clermont Set.
# External links.
- The Lucky Gambler: Sir James Goldsmith Is a Billionaire Buccaneer, "Time", 23 November 1987
- James Goldsmith U.S. Senate Speech – 15 November 1994
- , featuring Goldsmith heckling David Mellor | 20,667 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger (born James Lablache Stewart; 6 May 191316 August 1993) was an English film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.
# Early life.
He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old Brompton Road, Kensington, West London, the only son of Major James Stewart, OBE and his wife Frederica Eliza (née Lablache). Granger was educated at Epsom College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He was the great-great-grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache and the grandson of the actor Luigi Lablache. When he became | 20,668 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
an actor, he was advised to change his name in order to avoid being confused with the American actor James Stewart. Granger was his Scottish grandmother's maiden name. Offscreen friends and colleagues continued to call him Jimmy for the rest of his life, but to the general public he became Stewart Granger.
# Career.
## Extra and theatre work 1933–40.
Granger made his film debut as an extra in 1933, starting with "The Song You Gave Me" (1933). He can also be glimpsed in "Give Her a Ring" (1933), "Over the Garden Wall" (1934) and "A Southern Maid" (1934). It was at this time that he met Michael Wilding and they remained friends until Wilding's death in 1979.
Years of theatre work followed, | 20,669 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
initially at Hull Repertory Theatre and then, after a pay dispute, at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Here he met Elspeth March, a leading actress with the company, who became his first wife. His productions at Birmingham included "The Courageous Sex" and "Victoria, Queen and Empress"; he also acted at the Malvern Festival in "The Millonairess" and "The Apple Cart" and was in the film "Under Secret Orders" (1937).
Granger began to get work on stage in London. He appeared in "The Sun Never Sets" (1938) at the Drury Lane Theatre and in "Serena Blandish" (1938) opposite Vivien Leigh.
At the Buxton Festival, he played Tybalt in a production of "Romeo and Juliet" opposite Robert Donat and Constance | 20,670 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Cummings. He also acted opposite them both in "The Good Natured Man". In London he was in "Autumn" with Flora Robson and "The House in the Square" (1940).
Granger had small roles in the film "So This Is London" (1939) and "Convoy" (1940).
## War service and after 1940–43.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Granger enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders, then transferred to the Black Watch with the rank of second lieutenant. However he suffered from stomach ulcers and he was invalided out of the army in 1942.
Granger had a small role in a war film "Secret Mission" (1942) and a bigger one in a comedy "Thursday's Child" (1943). He was in a stage production of "Rebecca" when he was asked to | 20,671 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
audition for the film that turned him into a star. Granger had been recommended by Donat, who most recently worked with Granger on stage in "To Dream Again".
### Gainsborough melodramas 1943–46.
Granger's first starring film role was as the acid-tongued Rokeby in the Gainsborough Pictures period melodrama, "The Man in Grey" (1943), a film that helped to make him and his three co-stars – James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood – into box office names in Britain.
Granger followed it with "The Lamp Still Burns" (1943) playing the love interest of nurse Rosamund John. More popular was another for Gainsborough Pictures, "Fanny by Gaslight" (1944), which reunited him with Calvert and | 20,672 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Mason, and added Jean Kent. "The New York Times" reported that Granger "is a young man worth watching. The customers... like his dark looks and his dash; he puts them in mind, they say of Cary Grant." It was the second most popular film at the British box office in 1944.
Another hit was "Love Story" (1944) where he plays a blind pilot who falls in love with terminally ill Margaret Lockwood, with Patricia Roc co-starring. Granger filmed this at the same time as "Waterloo Road" (1945), playing his first villain, a "spiv" who has run off with the wife of John Mills. This film was popular too, and it was one of Granger's favourites.
"Madonna of the Seven Moons" (1945), with Calvert and Roc, was | 20,673 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
more Gainsborough melodrama, another hit. Also popular was "Caesar and Cleopatra", supporting Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh; this film lost money because of its high production cost but was widely seen, and was the first of Granger's films to be a hit in the USA. At the end of 1945 British exhibitors voted Granger the second-most popular British film star, and the ninth-most popular overall. "The Times" reported that "this six-foot black-visaged ex-soldier from the Black Watch is England's Number One pin up boy. Only Bing Crosby can match him for popularity."
"Caravan" (1946), starring Granger and Kent, was the sixth most popular film at the British box office in 1946. Also well liked was "The | 20,674 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Magic Bow" (1946), with Calvert and Kent, where Granger played Niccolò Paganini That year he was voted the third-most popular British star, and the sixth-most popular overall.
## Rank Organisation 1947–49.
Granger went over to Rank, for whom he made a series of historical dramas: "Captain Boycott" (1947), set in Ireland, directed by Frank Launder; "Blanche Fury" (1948), with Valerie Hobson; and "Saraband for Dead Lovers" (1948), an Ealing Studios production. Granger was cast as the outsider, the handsome gambler Philip Christoph von Königsmarck who is perceived as 'not quite the ticket' by the established order, the Hanoverian court where the action is mostly set. Granger stated that this | 20,675 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
was one of his few films of which he was proud. However it was a disappointment at the box office, as was "Blanche Fury".
Granger wanted a change of pace and so appeared in "Woman Hater" (1948), a comedy with Edwige Feuillère. In 1949 Granger was reported as earning around £30,000 a year.
That year Granger made "Adam and Evelyne", starring with Jean Simmons. The story, about a much older man and a teenager whom he gradually realises is no longer a child but a young woman with mature emotions and sexuality, had obvious parallels to Granger's and Simmons' own lives. Granger had first met the very young Jean Simmons when they both worked on Gabriel Pascal's "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945). Three | 20,676 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
years on, Simmons had transformed from a promising newcomer into a star – and a very attractive young woman. They married the following year in a bizarre wedding ceremony organised by Howard Hughes – one of his private aircraft flew the couple to Tucson, Arizona, where they were married, mainly among strangers, with Michael Wilding as Granger's best man.
Granger's stage production of Leo Tolstoy's "The Power of Darkness" (a venture he had intended as a vehicle for him to star with Jean Simmons) was very poorly received when it opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on 25 April 1949. (During the run two men attempted to cut some locks from Granger's hair.) The disappointment added to his dissatisfaction | 20,677 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
with the Rank Organisation, and his thoughts turned to Hollywood.
## MGM 1950-1957.
In 1949 Granger made his move; MGM was looking for someone to play H. Rider Haggard's hero Allan Quatermain in a film version of "King Solomon's Mines". Errol Flynn was offered the role but turned it down; Granger's signing was announced in August 1949.
On the basis of the huge success of this film, released in 1950 and co-starring Deborah Kerr and Richard Carlson, he was offered a seven-year contract by MGM. He signed it in May 1950, and MGM announced three vehicles for him: "Robinson Crusoe", a remake of "Scaramouche" and an adaptations of "Soldiers Three".
His first film under the new arrangement was an | 20,678 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
action comedy "Soldiers Three" (1951). Granger followed it with location work for "Constable Pedley" in Canada. This was put on hold so Granger could make a light comedy, "The Light Touch", in a role meant for Cary Grant. It was a box office disappointment. However filming resumed on "Constable Pedley" which became "The Wild North" (1953) and that was a big hit.
In 1952, Granger starred in "Scaramouche" in the role of Andre Moreau, the bastard son of a French nobleman, a part Ramón Novarro had played in the 1923 version of Rafael Sabatini's novel. Granger's co-star Eleanor Parker said Granger was the only actor she did not get along with during her entire career. "Everyone disliked this man... | 20,679 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger was a dreadful person, rude... just awful. Just being in his presence was bad. I thought at one point the crew was going to kill him." However the resulting film was a notable critical and commercial success.
After this came the remake of "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1952), for which his theatrical voice, stature (6'2") and dignified profile made him a natural. It too was popular.
In 1952 he and Jean Simmons sued Howard Hughes for $250,000 damages arising from an alleged breach of contract. The case was settled out of court.
Columbia borrowed him to play the love interest of Rita Hayworth in "Salome" (1953), another big hit. Back at MGM he co-starred with his wife in "Young Bess" | 20,680 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
(1953), playing Thomas Seymour. The film was popular, though it did not recover its cost, and it remained a favourite of Granger's.
He had a commercial success in "All the Brothers Were Valiant" (1953), playing a villain opposite Robert Taylor. Granger lost out on "A Star Is Born", which went to James Mason instead. He had the title role in "Beau Brummell" (1954), opposite Elizabeth Taylor, and a box office disappointment. More successful was the adventure story "Green Fire" (1954), co starring Grace Kelly.
Granger went to Britain to make a film with Simmons, "Footsteps in the Fog" (1955), for Columbia. Back at MGM he was in "Moonfleet" (1955), cast as an adventurer, Jeremy Fox, in the Dorset | 20,681 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
of 1757, a man who rules a gang of cut-throat smugglers with an iron fist until he is softened by a 10-year-old boy who worships him and who believes only the best of him. The film was directed by Fritz Lang and produced by John Houseman, a former associate of Orson Welles. It was a flop.
Granger and Taylor were reunited in "The Last Hunt" (1956), a Western, with Taylor playing the villain, and a box office disappointment. So too was "Bhowani Junction" (1956), adapted from a John Masters novel about colonial India on the verge of obtaining independence. Ava Gardner played an Anglo-Indian (mixed race) woman caught between the two worlds of the British and the Indians, and Granger the British | 20,682 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
officer with whom (in a change from the novel) she ultimately fell in love.
Gardner was in Granger's next film, "The Little Hut" (1957), a sex farce which proved a surprise smash at the box office. He followed it with a minor Western, "Gun Glory" (1957). It was his last film under his MGM contract. Granger had turned down the role of Messala in the 1959 film "Ben-Hur", reportedly because he did not want to take second billing to Charlton Heston.
## Leaving MGM 1957-60.
Granger became a successful cattle rancher. He bought land in New Mexico and Arizona and introduced Charolais cattle to America.
In order to finance this he kept acting. He played a professional adventurer in a film for 20th | 20,683 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Century Fox, "Harry Black" (1958), partly shot in India. He went to Britain to be in a thriller "The Whole Truth" (1958) then returned to Los Angeles to support John Wayne in a comic "northern", "North to Alaska" (1960). By now his marriage to Simmons had ended and Granger decided to move to Europe.
## Continental European career 1960-69.
In June 1960 Granger announced he would appear in "The Leopard", then made two films for MGM in Britain, one of which was "I Thank a Fool" alongside Susan Hayward. He would follow it with "Pontious Pilate" for Hugo Fregonese and "The Tumbled House" for John Farrow. The role in "The Leopard" ended up going to Burt Lancaster, the one in "I Thank a Fool" to | 20,684 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Peter Finch, and the Fregonese and Farrow films were never made. Granger did go to Britain to appear in a thriller "The Secret Partner" (1961) for MGM.
He went to Italy and played Lot in Robert Aldrich's "Sodom and Gomorrah" (1962), filmed in Rome. When "Sodom" started filming Granger announced he had signed a three picture deal with MGM, which would include "I Thank a Fool", "Swordsman of Siena" and a third film for Jacques Bar. He also announced he had reactivated his production company, Tracy Productions, who would make "Dark Memory" by Jonathan Latimer. Granger did not appear in "I Thank a Fool" and "Dark Memory" was not made. Instead Granger stayed in Italy to make "Commando" (1962), an | 20,685 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
action film and "Swordsman of Siena" (1963), a swashbuckler. "Dark Memory" was not made. Granger was in a war film "The Secret Invasion" (1964) for Roger Corman shot in Yugoslavia.
In Germany, Granger acted in the role of Old Surehand in three Western films adapted from novels by German author Karl May, with French actor Pierre Brice (playing the fictional Indian chief Winnetou), in "Among Vultures" (1964), with Elke Sommer; "The Oil Prince" (1965) ("Rampage at Apache Wells") (1965), shot in Yugoslavia; and "Old Surehand" ("Flaming Frontier") (1965). He was teamed with Brice and Lex Barker, also a hero of Karl May films, in a crime movie, "Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt" ("Killer's Carnival") | 20,686 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
(1966).
Granger starred in several Eurospy films such as "Red Dragon" (1965), a West Germany-Italian film shot in Hong Kong; and "Requiem for a Secret Agent" (1966). He did "The Crooked Road" (1965), with Robert Ryan under the direction of Don Chaffey in Yugoslavia; "Target for Killing" (1966), a crime movie with Karin Dor; "The Trygon Factor" (1966), a British co produced based on a novel by Edgar Wallace.
Granger's last studio picture was "The Last Safari" (1967), shot in Africa and directed by Henry Hathaway. Granger was billed under Kaz Garas. He later called this "my last real film... the worst film ever made in Africa!"
In 1970 he described his recent films as "movies not even I will | 20,687 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
talk about". He later estimated that he made more than $1.5 million in the 1960s but lost all of it.
## US television.
Granger returned to the US and made a TV film "Any Second Now" (1969).
In 1970 he appeared as Colonial Mackenzie on the TV western series "Men From Shiloh" in the episode titled Colonial Mackenzie Verses the West (S9Ep01). Men of Shiloh was previously known as "The Virginian".
He subsequently replaced actors Lee J. Cobb, Charles Bickford and John McIntire on NBC's "The Virginian", as the new owner of the Shiloh ranch on prime-time TV for its ninth year (1971). Granger said he accepted the role for money and because it "seemed like it could be a lot of fun", but was disappointed | 20,688 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
by the lack of character development for his role.
He played Sherlock Holmes in a poorly received 1972 TV film version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles".
## Retirement.
In the 1970s Granger retired from acting and went to live in southern Spain, where he invested in real estate and resided in Estepona, Málaga. It was whilst living there that he became a friend and business partner of former barrister and television producer James Todesco ("Eldorado" TV series). Together they were involved in real estate investment and development.
He appeared in "The Wild Geese" (1978) as an unscrupulous banker, who hires a unit of mercenary soldiers (Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and others) | 20,689 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
to stage a military coup in an African nation. His character then makes a deal with the existing government, and betrays the mercenaries.
In 1980 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and told he had three months to live. Granger later said, "I was 67 and had smoked 60 cigarettes a day for 40 years, but the doctor said if I had an operation there might be a chance of two to four more years of life. So I said, "Who the hell needs that, but you better give me three months to put my house in order.'" Granger underwent the operation, had a lung and a rib removed, only to be informed he didn't have cancer after all – he had tuberculosis.
## Return to Acting.
He returned to acting in 1981 with the | 20,690 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
publication of his autobiography "Sparks Fly Upward", claiming he was bored. Granger spent the last decade of his life appearing on stage and television including playing Prince Philip in "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana"(1982), a guest role in the TV series in "The Fall Guy" starring Lee Majors, and as a suspect in "Murder She Wrote" in 1985. He even starred in a German soap-opera called in "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs" (The Guldenburg Heritage) (1987).
He moved to Pacific Palisades, California.
One of his last roles was in the 1989–90 Broadway production of "The Circle" by W. Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns and Rex Harrison in Harrison's final role. The production actually opened | 20,691 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
at Duke University for a three-week run, followed by performances in Baltimore and Boston before opening on 14 November 1989 on Broadway.
# Personal life.
He was married three times:
- Elspeth March (1938–1948); two children, Jamie and Lindsay
- Jean Simmons (1950–1960), (with whom he had starred in "Adam and Evelyne", "Young Bess" and "Footsteps in the Fog"); one daughter, Tracy
- Caroline LeCerf (1964–1969); one daughter, Samantha
Granger claimed in his autobiography that Deborah Kerr had approached him romantically in the back of his chauffeur-driven car at the time he was making "Caesar and Cleopatra". Although at the time he was married to Elspeth March, he states that he and Kerr | 20,692 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
went on to have an affair. When asked about this revelation, Kerr's response was, "What a gallant man he is."
In 1956 Granger became a naturalised citizen of the United States.
He died in Santa Monica, California, on August 16, 1993, from prostate and bone cancer at the age of 80.
His niece is "Antiques Roadshow" appraiser Bunny Campione, the daughter of his sister, Iris.
# Appraisal.
In 1970 Granger said "Stewart Granger was quite a successful film star, but I don't think he was an actor's actor."
Among the films that Granger was announced to star in, but that ended up being made with other actors, were "Ivanhoe" (1952), "Mogambo" (1953), "The King's Thief" (1955) and "Man of the West" | 20,693 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
(1958).
# Complete filmography.
- "The Song You Gave Me" (1933) as Waiter (uncredited)
- "A Southern Maid" (1933) (uncredited)
- "Give Her a Ring" (1934) as Diner (uncredited)
- "Over the Garden Wall" (1934) (uncredited)
- "A Southern Maid" (1934) (uncredited)
- "I Spy" (1934) (uncredited)
- "Under Secret Orders" (1937) (uncredited)
- "So This Is London" (1939) as Laurence
- "Convoy" (1940) as Sutton (uncredited)
- "Secret Mission" (1942) as Sub-Lieutenant Jackson
- "Thursday's Child" (1943) as David Penley
- "The Man in Grey" (1943) as Peter Rokeby
- "The Lamp Still Burns" (1943) as Laurence Rains
- "Fanny by Gaslight" (1944) as Harry Somerford
- "Love Story" (1944) as Kit Firth
- | 20,694 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
"Madonna of the Seven Moons" (1945) as Nino
- "Waterloo Road" (1945) as Ted Purvis
- "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945) as Apollodorus
- "Caravan" (1946) as Richard Darrell
- "The Magic Bow" (1946) as Nicolo Paganini
- "Captain Boycott" (1947) as Hugh Davin
- "Blanche Fury" (1948) as Philip Thorn
- "Saraband for Dead Lovers" (1948) as Konigsmark
- "Woman Hater" (1948) as Lord Terence Datchett
- "Adam and Evelyne" (1949) as Adam Black
- "King Solomon's Mines" (1950) as Allan Quatermain
- "Soldiers Three" (1951) as Pvt. Archibald Ackroyd
- "The Light Touch" (1951) as Sam Conride
- "The Wild North" (1952) as Jules Vincent
- "Scaramouche" (1952) as Andre Moreau
- "The Prisoner of Zenda" | 20,695 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
(1952) as Rudolf Rassendyll / King Rudolf V
- "Salome" (1953) as Commander Claudius
- "Young Bess" (1953) as Thomas Seymour
- "All the Brothers Were Valiant" (1953) as Mark Shore
- "Beau Brummell" (1954) as Beau Brummell
- "Green Fire" (1954) as Rian X. Mitchell
- "Moonfleet" (1955) as Jeremy Fox
- "Footsteps in the Fog" (1955) as Stephen Lowry
- "The Last Hunt" (1956) as Sandy McKenzie
- "Bhowani Junction" (1956) as Col. Rodney Savage
- "The Little Hut" (1957) as Sir Philip Ashlow
- "Gun Glory" (1957) as Tom Early
- "Harry Black" (1958) as Harry Black
- "The Whole Truth" (1958) as Max Poulton
- "North to Alaska" (1960) as George Pratt
- "The Secret Partner" (1961) as John Brent | 20,696 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
aka John Wilson
- "Sodom and Gomorrah" (1962) as Lot
- "The Legion's Last Patrol" (US: "Commando") (1962) as Captain Le Blanc
- "Swordsman of Siena" (1962) as Thomas Stanswood
- "The Shortest Day" (1963) as Avvocato (uncredited)
- "The Secret Invasion" (1964) as Maj. Richard Mace
- "Among Vultures" (1964) as Old Surehand
- "The Crooked Road" (1965) as Duke of Orgagna
- "Red Dragon" (1965) as Michael Scott
- "Flaming Frontier" (1965) as Old Surehand
- "The Oil Prince" (1965) as Old Surehand
- "Killer's Carnival" (1966) as David Porter (Vienna segment)
- "Target for Killing" (1966) as James Vine
- "Requiem for a Secret Agent" (1966) as Jimmy Merrill
- "The Trygon Factor" (1966) as | 20,697 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
Supt. Cooper-Smith
- "The Last Safari" (1967) as Miles Gilchrist
- "Any Second Now" (1969 TV movie) as Paul Dennison
- "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1972 TV movie) as Sherlock Holmes
- "The Wild Geese" (1978) as Sir Edward Matherson
- "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana" (1982 TV movie) as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
- "A Hazard of Hearts" (1987 TV movie) as the elder Lord Vulcan
- "Hell Hunters" (1988) as Martin Hoffmann
- "Chameleons" (1989 TV movie) as Jason
- "Fine Gold" (1989) as Don Miguel
## Unmade films.
- In 1944 it was reported Granger's ambition was to play Rob Roy – J. Arthur Rank announced he was interested in a Rob Roy project in 1945 but it was never made
- | 20,698 |
420537 | Stewart Granger | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger
"Digger's Republic" for Leslie Arliss as Stafford Parker (1946) – this became "Diamond City" with David Farrar in the role instead
- "Self-Made Man" (1947) from a script by Alan Campbell about a cocky type who comes out of the RAF and makes and loses a million dollars
- "Christopher Columbus" in the title role (1947) – film was eventually made with Fredric March
- "Pursuit of Love" for producer Davis Lewis at Enterprise Studios (1947)
- "Treacher" (1947) produced by Nunnally Johnson for Universal
- "The Saxon Charm" (1947)
- Reported as testing for John Huston in "Quo Vadis" (1949)
- "The House by the Sea" based on book by Jon Godden, with Granger as producer (1949)
- "The Donnybrook | 20,699 |
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