document_title: Thomas Edison

question_text: when did the first light bulb get invented

question_tokens: when did the first light bulb get invented

text: Thomas Edison

text: Early life

text: Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York).[5] His father, the son of a Loyalist refugee, had moved as a boy with the family from Nova Scotia, settling in southwestern Ontario (then called Upper Canada), in a village known as Shewsbury, later Vienna, by 1811. Samuel Jr. eventually fled Ontario, because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837.[6] His father, Samuel Sr., had earlier fought in the War of 1812 as captain of the First Middlesex Regiment. By contrast, Samuel Jr.'s struggle found him on the losing side, and he crossed into the United States at Sarnia-Port Huron. Once across the border, he found his way to Milan, Ohio. His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey; the surname had originally been "Edeson."[7]

text: Edison only attended school for a few months and was instead taught by his mother.[8] Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.[9]

text: Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. Around the middle of his career, Edison attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off the train in Smiths Creek, Michigan, along with his apparatus and chemicals. In his later years, he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.[10][11]

text: Edison's family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 and business declined.[12] Edison sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, and sold vegetables. He briefly worked as a telegraph operator in 1863 for the Grand Trunk Railway at the railway station in Stratford, Ontario, at age 16. He was held responsible for a near collision. He also studied qualitative analysis and conducted chemical experiments on the train until he left the job.[13][14]

text: Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers.[14] This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. These talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, including General Electric, which is still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.[15][16]

text: Telegrapher

text: Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J. U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway.[17]

text: In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead–acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.[18]

text: One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey, home. Some of Edison's earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, U.S. Patent 90,646, which was granted on June 1, 1869.[19]

text: Marriages and children

text: On December 25, 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children:

text:
Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"[20]
Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"[21]
William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.[22]

text: Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor[23] or a morphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning.[24]

text: Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family.[25]

text: On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio.[26] She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children together:

text:
Madeleine Edison (1888–1979), who married John Eyre Sloane.[27][28]
Charles Edison (1890–1969), Governor of New Jersey (1941–1944), who took over his father's company and experimental laboratories upon his father's death.[29]
Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992), (MIT Physics 1923), credited with more than 80 patents.

text: Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.[30][31]

text: Beginning his career

text:
Mary Had a Little Lamb

Thomas Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Problems playing this file? See media help.

text: Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877.[32] This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey.[2]

text: His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that the recordings could be played only a few times, the phonograph made Edison a celebrity. Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the most renowned electrical scientists in the US, described Edison as "the most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other".[33] In April 1878, Edison traveled to Washington to demonstrate the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences, Congressmen, Senators and US President Hayes.[34] The Washington Post described Edison as a "genius" and his presentation as "a scene... that will live in history".[35] Although Edison obtained a patent for the phonograph in 1878,[36] he did little to develop it until Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter produced a phonograph-like device in the 1880s that used wax-coated cardboard cylinders.

text: Menlo Park

text: Research and development facility

text: Edison's major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab. It was built in Menlo Park, a part of Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey (today named Edison in his honor), with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000 ($211,700 in today's dollars.[37]), which he gratefully accepted.[38] The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results.

text: William Joseph Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, started working for Edison and began his duties as a laboratory assistant in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device (see Hammer Historical Collection of Incandescent Electric Lamps). In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under General Manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting".[39] Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined the Edison organization in 1883. One of Sprague's contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical methods. Despite the common belief that Edison did not use mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such as Francis Robbins Upton, for example, determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by an analysis of Ohm's Law, Joule's Law and economics.[40]

text: Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for a 17-year period and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to a 14-year period. As in most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was unprecedented as describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds.[41]

text: In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material".[42] A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goes on.[43]

text: Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[44] This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.

text: With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application.[45] Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents.[25]

text: Carbon telephone transmitter

text: In 1876, Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones (at that time called a "transmitter") by developing a carbon microphone that used a button of carbon that would change resistance with the pressure of sound waves. Up to that point, microphones, such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell, worked by generating a weak current. Edison was one of many inventors working on the problem of creating a usable microphone for telephony by having it modulate an electrical current passed through it.[46] His work was concurrent with Emile Berliner's loose-contact carbon transmitter (who lost a later patent case against Edison over the carbon transmitters invention[47]) and David Edward Hughes study and published paper on the physics of loose-contact carbon transmitters (work that Hughes did not bother to patent).[46][48]

text: Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for Western Union.[47] In 1886, Edison found a way to improve a Bell Telephone microphone, one that used loose-contact ground carbon, with his discovery that it worked far better if the carbon was roasted. This type was put in use in 1890[47] and was used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s.

text: Electric light

text: In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil based lighting.[49] He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[50] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan, and Heinrich Göbel. Some of these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high electric current drawn, making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[51]:217–218 Edison realized that to connect a series of electric lights to an economically manageable size and using the necessary thickness of copper wire, he would have to develop a lamp that used a low amount of current. This lamp must have high resistance and use relatively low voltage (around 110 volts).[52]

text: After many experiments, first with carbon filaments and then with platinum and other metals, Edison returned to a carbon filament.[53] The first successful test was on October 22, 1879;[51]:186[54][55][25] it lasted 13.5 hours.[56] Edison continued to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires".[57] This was the first commercially practical incandescent light.[58]

text: Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways",[57] it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200 hours. The idea of using this particular raw material originated from Edison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo fishing pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state of Wyoming, where he and other members of a scientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July 29, 1878, from the Continental Divide.[59]

text: In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask,[60] and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."[61]

text: Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison's 1879 demonstration. Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard's company's new steamer, the Columbia. Although hesitant at first, Edison agreed to Villard's request. Most of the work was completed in May 1880, and the Columbia went to New York City, where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia's new lighting system. The Columbia was Edison's first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb. The Edison equipment was removed from Columbia in 1895.[62][63][64][65]

text: Lewis Latimer joined the Edison Electric Light Company in 1884. Latimer had received a patent in January 1881 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of carbon filaments for light bulbs. Latimer worked as an engineer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights.[66]

text: George Westinghouse's company bought Philip Diehl's competing induction lamp patent rights (1882) for $25,000, forcing the holders of the Edison patent to charge a more reasonable rate for the use of the Edison patent rights and lowering the price of the electric lamp.[67]

text: On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William E. Sawyer and was, therefore, invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years, until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid.[68] To avoid a possible court battle with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

text: Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic), opened in 1882, and was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps. Francis Jehl, Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, supervised the installation.[69] In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theatre.[70]

text: Electric power distribution

text: After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric "utility" to compete with the existing gas light utilities.[71] On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.[72]

text: In January 1882, Edison switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.

text: War of currents

text: As Edison expanded his direct current (DC) power delivery system, he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current (AC) systems. From the early 1880s AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and "step down" the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison's patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply.[73] Edison's DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks: it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities. Edison's DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers more than one mile from the plant, and left a patchwork of unsupplied customers between plants. Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system at all, leaving a large part of the market without electrical service. AC companies expanded into this gap.

text: Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically."[74] Many reasons have been suggested for Edison's anti-AC stance. One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand. Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from misinstalled AC systems killing customers and hurting the sales of electric power systems in general.[75] Primary was the fact that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was, in Edison's mind, out of the question. By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another AC-based competitor) built 22 power stations.[76]

text: Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines. This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it.[77][78] Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "battle of currents". The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse at the same time via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to make sure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.

text: Thomas Edison's staunch anti-AC tactics were not sitting well with his own stockholders. By the early 1890s, Edison's company was generating much smaller profits than its AC rivals, and the War of Currents would come to an end in 1892 with Edison forced out of controlling his own company. That year, the financier J.P. Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with Thomson-Houston that put the board of Thomson-Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric. General Electric now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market.[79][80]

text: Other inventions and projects

text: Fluoroscopy

text: Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, the technology was capable of producing only very faint images.

text: The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and was exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation. He later died of injuries related to the exposure. In 1903, a shaken Edison said: "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."[81]

text: Telegraph improvements

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text: The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph.

text: Motion pictures

text: Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design while his employee W. K. L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[51] In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.[83]

text: In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later, he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

text: Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when the rich American Businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Baucus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time, the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894, the Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary, the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck[84] of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne.

text: The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists.[85]

text: On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898, he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.[85]

text: Edison's film studio made close to 1,200 films. The majority of the productions were short films showing everything from acrobats to parades to fire calls including titles such as Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film in 1910. In 1903, when the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island announced they would execute Topsy the elephant by strangulation, poisoning, and electrocution (with the electrocution part ultimately killing the elephant), Edison Manufacturing sent a crew to film it, releasing it that same year with the title Electrocuting an Elephant.

text: As the film business expanded, competing exhibitors routinely copied and exhibited each other's films.[86] To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.[87]

text: In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.

text: Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf."[88] His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.[89]

text: Mining

text: Starting in the late 1870s, Thomas Edison became interested and involved with mining. High-grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast of the United States and Edison tried to mine low-grade ore. Edison developed a process using rollers and crushers that could pulverize rocks up to 10 tons. The dust was then sent between three giant magnets that would pull the iron ore from the dust. Despite the failure of his mining company, the Edison Ore Milling Company, Edison used some of the materials and equipment to produce cement.[90]

text: In 1901, Edison visited an industrial exhibition in the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada and thought nickel and cobalt deposits there could be used in his production of electrical equipment. He returned as a mining prospector and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903.[91] A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.

text: Battery

text: The Edison Storage Battery Company was founded in 1901. With this company Edison exploited his invention of the accumulator. In 1904 already 450 people worked at the company. The first accumulators were produced for electric cars. But there were several defects. Several Customers were complaining about the products. When the capital of the company was spent Edison paid for the company with his private money. Not until 1910 Edison showed a mature product: A Nickel-Iron-Battery with Lye as liquid.

text: Rubber

text: Edison became concerned with America's reliance on foreign supply of rubber and was determined to find a native supply of rubber. He joined Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford (each contributing $25,000) to create the Edison Botanic Research Corp. in 1927 and constructed a laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida the following year. Edison did the majority of the research and planting, sending results and sample rubber residues to his West Orange Lab. Edison employed a two-part Acid-base extraction, to derive latex from the plant material after it was dried and crushed to a powder.[92] After testing 17,000 plant samples, he eventually found an adequate source in the Goldenrod plant.

text: West Orange and Fort Myers (1886–1931)

text: Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of his first wife, Mary, in 1884, and purchased a home known as "Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for his second wife, Mina, in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1885, Thomas Edison bought property in Fort Myers, Florida, and built what was later called Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat. Edison and Mina spent many winters at their home in Fort Myers, and Edison tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber.[93]

text: Due to the security concerns around World War I, Edison suggested forming a science and industry committee to provide advice and research to the US military, and he headed the Naval Consulting Board in 1915.[94]

text: Edison's work on rubber took place largely at his botanic research laboratory in Fort Myers, which has been designated as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.[95] The laboratory was built after Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone pulled together $75,000 to form the Edison Botanical Research Corporation. Initially, only Ford and Firestone were to contribute funds to the project while Edison did all the research. Edison, however, wished to contribute $25,000 as well. After testing over 17,000 plant species, Edison decided on Solidago leavenworthii, also known as Leavenworth's Goldenrod. The plant, which normally grows roughly 3–4 feet tall with a 5% latex yield, was adapted by Edison through cross-breeding to produce plants twice the size and with a latex yield of 12%.[96]

text: Final years

text: Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers. Ford once worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and met Edison at a convention of affiliated Edison illuminating companies in Brooklyn, NY in 1896. Edison was impressed with Ford's internal combustion engine automobile and encouraged its developments. They were friends until Edison's death. Edison and Ford undertook annual motor camping trips from 1914 to 1924. Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs also participated.

text: In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[97] He was an active member in the club until his death, sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club's meetings.

text: Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death, the Lackawanna Railroad inaugurated suburban electric train service from Hoboken to Montclair, Dover, and Gladstone, New Jersey. Electrical transmission for this service was by means of an overhead catenary system using direct current, which Edison had championed. Despite his frail condition, Edison was at the throttle of the first electric MU (Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken in September 1930, driving the train the first mile through Hoboken yard on its way to South Orange.[98]

text: This fleet of cars would serve commuters in northern New Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in 1984. A plaque commemorating Edison's inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, which is presently operated by New Jersey Transit.[98]

text: Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours".[51] He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health. However, this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview about him, "correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies." She also said that during one of his periodic "great scientific adventures", Edison would be up at 7:00, have breakfast at 8:00, and be rarely home for lunch or dinner, implying that he continued to have all three.[88]

text: Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.[citation needed]

text: Death

text: Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. He is buried behind the home.[99][100]

text: Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento.[101] A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made.[102] Mina died in 1947.

text: Views on politics, religion, and metaphysics

text: Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker".[51] Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.[51] Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."[51] In an October 2, 1910, interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated:

text: Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.[103]

text: Edison was accused of being an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter:

text: You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.[51]

text: He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."[104]

text: Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he stated: "Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."[105][106] He was a vegetarian[107] but not a vegan in actual practice, at least near the end of his life.[51]

text: In 1920, Edison set off a media sensation when he told B. C. Forbes of American Magazine that he was working on a "spirit phone" to allow communication with the dead, a story which other newspapers and magazines repeated.[108] Edison later disclaimed the idea, telling the New York Times in 1926 that "I really had nothing to tell him, but I hated to disappoint him so I thought up this story about communicating with spirits, but it was all a joke."[109]

text: Views on money

text: Thomas Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt-based money. Famously, he was quoted in the New York Times stating "Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is an invention of Satan."[110]

text: In the same article, he expounded upon the absurdity of a monetary system in which the taxpayer of the United States, in need of a loan, can be compelled to pay in return perhaps double the principal, or even greater sums, due to interest. His basic point was that, if the Government can produce debt-based money, it could equally as well produce money that was a credit to the taxpayer.[110]

text: He thought at length about the subject of money in 1921 and 1922. In May 1922, he published a proposal, entitled "A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System".[111] In it, he detailed an explanation of a commodity-backed currency, in which the Federal Reserve would issue interest-free currency to farmers, based on the value of commodities they produced. During a publicity tour that he took with friend and fellow inventor, Henry Ford, he spoke publicly about his desire for monetary reform. For insight, he corresponded with prominent academic and banking professionals. In the end, however, Edison's proposals failed to find support and were eventually abandoned.[112][113]

text: Awards

text: The President of the Third French Republic, Jules Grévy, on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, Louis Cochery, designated Edison with the distinction of an Officer of the Legion of Honour (Légion d'honneur) by decree on November 10, 1881;[114] Edison was also named a Chevalier in the Legion in 1879, and a Commander in 1889.[115]

text: In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal. In 1890, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

text: The Philadelphia City Council named Edison the recipient of the John Scott Medal in 1889.[115]

text: In 1899, Edison was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal of The Franklin Institute.[116]

text: He was named an Honorable Consulting Engineer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's fair in 1904.[115]

text: In 1908, Edison received the American Association of Engineering Societies John Fritz Medal.[115]

text: In 1915, Edison was awarded Franklin Medal of The Franklin Institute for discoveries contributing to the foundation of industries and the well-being of the human race.[117]

text: In 1920, the United States Navy department awarded him the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.[115]

text: In 1923, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers created the Edison Medal and he was its first recipient.[115]

text: In 1927, he was granted membership in the National Academy of Sciences.[115]

text: On May 29, 1928, Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal.[115]

text: In 1983, the United States Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97—198), designated February 11, Edison's birthday, as National Inventor's Day.[118]

text: Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue in 1997, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years", noting that the light bulb he promoted "lit up the world". In the 2005 television series The Greatest American, he was voted by viewers as the fifteenth greatest.

text: In 2008, Edison was inducted in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

text: In 2010, Edison was honored with a Technical Grammy Award.

text: In 2011, Edison was inducted into the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame and named a Great Floridian by the Florida Governor and Cabinet.[119]

text: Tributes

text: Places and people named for Edison

text: Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State University, nationally known for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. Two community colleges are named for him: Edison State College (now Florida SouthWestern State College) in Fort Myers, Florida, and Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio.[120] There are numerous high schools named after Edison (see Edison High School) and other schools including Thomas A. Edison Middle School. Footballer Pelé's father originally named him Edson, as a tribute to the inventor of the light bulb, but the name was incorrectly listed on his birth certificate as "Edison".[121]

text: The small town of Alva just east of Fort Myers took Edison's middle name.

text: In 1883, the City Hotel in Sunbury, Pennsylvania was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison upon Edison's return to the city on 1922.[122]

text: Lake Thomas A Edison in California was named after Edison to mark the 75th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb.[123]

text: Edison was on hand to turn on the lights at the Hotel Edison in New York City when it opened in 1931.[124]

text: Three bridges around the United States have been named in Edison's honor: the Edison Bridge in New Jersey,[125] the Edison Bridge in Florida,[126] and the Edison Bridge in Ohio.[127]

text: In space, his name is commemorated in asteroid 742 Edisona.

text: Museums and memorials

text: In West Orange, New Jersey, the 13.5 acres (5.5 hectares) Glenmont estate is maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site, as is his nearby laboratory and workshops including the reconstructed "Black Maria"—the world's first movie studio.[128] The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum is in the town of Edison, New Jersey.[129] In Beaumont, Texas, there is an Edison Museum, though Edison never visited there.[130] The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young news butcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum.[131] The town has many Edison historical landmarks, including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St. Clair River. Edison's influence can be seen throughout this city of 32,000.

text: In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929, the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the lightbulb.[132] On the same night, The Edison Institute was dedicated in nearby Dearborn.

text: He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1969.

text: A bronze statue of Edison was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol in 2016, with the formal dedication ceremony held on September 20 of that year. The Edison statue replaced one of 19th-century state governor William Allen that had been one of Ohio's two allowed contributions to the collection.[133]

text: Companies bearing Edison's name

text:
Edison General Electric, merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric
Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon
Consolidated Edison
Edison International
Detroit Edison, a unit of DTE Energy
Edison S.p.A., a unit of Italenergia
Trade association the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying and research group for investor-owned utilities in the United States
Edison Ore-Milling Company
Edison Portland Cement Company
Ohio Edison (merged with Centerior in 1997 to form First Energy)
Southern California Edison

text: Awards named in honor of Edison

text: The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson. It is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts."

text: In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him. The award is an annual Dutch music prize, awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry, and is one of the oldest music awards in the world, having been presented since 1960.

text: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers concedes the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award to individual patents since 2000.[134]

text: Other items named after Edison

text: The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II.[135] In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine.[citation needed][136]

text: In popular culture

text: Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.

text: "Camping with Henry and Tom", a fictional play based on Edison's camping trips with Henry Ford, written by Mark St.Gemain. First presented at Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York, February 20, 1995.[citation needed]

text: On February 11, 2011, on what would have been Thomas Edison's 164th birthday, Google's homepage featured an animated Google Doodle commemorating his many inventions. When the cursor was hovered over the doodle, a series of mechanisms seemed to move, causing a lightbulb to glow.[137]

text: List of people who worked for Edison

text: The following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised.

text:
Edward Goodrich Acheson – chemist, worked at Menlo Park 1880–1884
William Symes Andrews – started at the Menlo Park machine shop 1879
Charles Batchelor – "chief experimental assistant"
John I. Beggs – manager of Edison Illuminating Company in New York, 1886
William Kennedy Dickson – joined Menlo Park in 1823, worked on the motion picture camera
Justus B. Entz – joined Edison Machine Works in 1887
Reginald Fessenden – worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1886
Henry Ford – engineer Edison Illuminating Company Detroit, Michigan, 1891–1899
William Joseph Hammer – started as laboratory assistant Menlo Park in 1879
Miller Reese Hutchison – inventor of hearing aid
Edward Hibberd Johnson – started in 1909, chief engineer at West Orange laboratory 1912–1918
Samuel Insull – started in 1881, rose to become VP of General Electric (1892) then President of Chicago Edison
Kunihiko Iwadare – joined Edison Machine Works in 1887
Francis Jehl – laboratory assistant Menlo Park 1879–1882
Arthur E. Kennelly – engineer, experimentalist at West Orange laboratory 1887–1894
John Kruesi – started 1872, was head machinist, at Newark, Menlo Park, Edison Machine Works
Lewis Howard Latimer – hired 1884 as a draftsman, continued working for General Electric
John W. Lieb – worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1881
Thomas Commerford Martin – electrical engineer, worked at Menlo Park 1877–1879
George F. Morrison – started at Edison Lamp Works 1882
Edwin Stanton Porter – joined the Edison Manufacturing Company 1899
Frank J. Sprague – Joined Menlo Park 1883, became known as the "Father of Electric Traction".
Nikola Tesla – electrical engineer and inventor, worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1884
Francis Robbins Upton – mathematician/physicist, joined Menlo Park 1878


document_title: Andre Emmett

question_text: who did andre emmett play for in the nba

root

text: Andre Emmett

text: College career[edit]

text: Emmett played college basketball for 4 years for Bob Knight at Texas Tech University. He is currently the Red Raiders' 2nd all-time leading scorer and the 4th all-time leading scorer in the Big 12 behind Buddy Hield, LaceDarius Dunn, and fellow Red Raider Jarrius Jackson with 2,256 points. During his freshman year and playing for Coach James Dickey, Emmett earned his way into the starting lineup averaging 7.7 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. When Bob Knight arrived at Texas Tech in 2001, Emmett saw his scoring average improve to 18.7 which was good enough for 3rd in the conference behind Drew Gooden and Kareem Rush and 1st team All-Big 12 honors. His junior and senior year, Emmett proved to be one of the best scorers in college basketball averaging 21.8 and 20.6 points per game, respectively. He also earned Unanimous 1st team All-Big 12 honors his junior and senior year and Consensus All-American honors his senior year. Emmett capped off his college career by winning the 2004 NCAA Slam Dunk Contest.[1]

tag: p

text: Professional career[edit]

text: 2004–05 season[edit]

text: Emmett was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics with the 35th overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft. He was later traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in a draft night trade. He joined the Grizzlies for 2004 NBA Summer League. On July 7, 2004, he signed his first professional contract with the Grizzlies. In the 2004–05 season, he played a total of 8 games for the Grizzlies.

text: 2005–06 season[edit]

text: Emmett re-joined the Grizzlies for the 2005 NBA Summer League. On August 3, 2005, Emmett was traded to the Miami Heat in a five-team trade involving the Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Utah Jazz, and New Orleans Hornets.[2] On October 31, 2005, he was waived by the Heat. In November 2005, he was acquired by the Austin Toros of the NBA D-League.

text: 2006–07 season[edit]

text: In July 2006, Emmett joined the Dallas Mavericks for the Las Vegas Summer League and the Seattle SuperSonics for the Rocky Mountain Revue. Later that year, he signed with Lietuvos rytas of Lithuania for the 2006–07 season. In December 2006, he left Lietuvos. On January 19, 2007, he was acquired by the Los Angeles D-Fenders.[3]

text: 2007–08 season[edit]

text: Emmett joined the Houston Rockets for the 2007 NBA Summer League. In December 2007, he signed with the Liège Basket of Belgium for the rest of the 2007–08 season, subsequently finishing the best scorer (23.9 ppg) of the Belgian championship.

text: 2008–09 season[edit]

text: Emmett joined the Indiana Pacers for the 2008 NBA Summer League. On September 29, 2008, he signed with the Philadelphia 76ers. However, he was waived by the 76ers on October 6. Later that month, he joined Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez of France for the 2008–09 season. In January 2009, he left Pau-Orthez after playing in only 5 games. He later joined Marinos de Anzoátegui for the 2009 LPB season.

text: 2009–10 season[edit]

text: In November 2009, he signed with the Shandong Lions of China for the 2009–10 season. In March 2010, he scored a (then) CBA-record 71 points in a game against the Jiangsu Dragons.[4] Following the CBA season, he joined Mets de Guaynabo for the rest of the 2010 BSN season.

text: 2010–11 season[edit]

text: In December 2010, he signed with Fujian Xunxing of China for the rest of the 2010–11 season.[5] On March 25, 2011, he was acquired by the Reno Bighorns.

text: 2011–12 season[edit]

text: On December 15, 2011, he was re-acquired by the Bighorns. On February 14, 2012, he signed a 10-day contract with the New Jersey Nets.[6] On February 24, 2012, he returned to the Bighorns. In April 2012, he signed with Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut of Lebanon for the 2012 FLB League playoffs.[7]

text: 2012–13 season[edit]

text: Emmett joined the NBA D-League Select Team for the 2012 NBA Summer League.[8] On October 1, 2012, he signed with the Chicago Bulls. However, he was waived by the Bulls on October 15.[9]

text: In December 2012, Emmett signed with Amchit Club of Lebanon for the rest of the 2012–13 season.[10] Following the FLB League season, he joined Cocodrilos de Caracas for the 2013 LPB season, but left after 5 games.

text: 2013–14 season[edit]

text: In January 2014, Emmett joined Cocodrilos de Caracas for the 2014 FIBA Americas League. In April 2014, he joined Halcones Rojos Veracruz of Mexico before re-joining Cocodrilos de Caracas for the 2014 LPB season. On July 13, 2014, he signed with Piratas de Quebradillas of the BSN where he played one game.[11]

text: 2014–15 season[edit]

text: On November 1, 2014, Emmett was selected by the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the second round of the 2014 NBA D-League draft.[12] On February 4, 2015, he was named to the Futures All-Star team for the 2015 NBA D-League All-Star Game, the second time in his career.[13] He went on to record 28 points, 4 rebounds and 4 steals, and was subsequently named the All-Star Game MVP.[14]

text: In March 5, 2015 Andre Emmett left the Mad Ants and signed with the Meralco Bolts of the Philippine Basketball Association for the 2015 Governor's Cup campaign.[15]

text: 2015–16 season[edit]

text:
On July 22, 2015, Emmett was selected by the KCC EGIS(전주 KCC 이지스) with the 5th overall pick in the 2015 KBL foreigner draft.[16]
Emmett is preparing for his first season in South Korea.

text: NBA career statistics[edit]

text:
Legend

  GP

Games played

  GS

Games started

 MPG

Minutes per game

 FG%

Field goal percentage

 3P%

3-point field goal percentage

 FT%

Free throw percentage

 RPG

Rebounds per game

 APG

Assists per game

 SPG

Steals per game

 BPG

Blocks per game

 PPG

Points per game

 Bold

Career high

tag: table

text: Regular season[edit]

text:
Year

Team

GP

GS

MPG

FG%

3P%

FT%

RPG

APG

SPG

BPG

PPG

2004–05

Memphis

8
0
3.5
.333
.000
.600
0.3
.0
.0
.0
0.9

2011–12

New Jersey

6
0
7.5
.571
.000
.625
1.0
0.2
0.3
0.2
2.2

Career

14
0
5.2
.462
.000
.615
0.6
0.1
0.1
0.1
1.4


document_title: Fake it till you make it

question_text: where does fake it til you make it come from

text: Fake it till you make it

text: This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: "Fake it till you make it" is a common English idiom, which suggests that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life. It echoes the underlying principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a means to enable a change in one's behavior.

text: The phrase "fake it till you make it" is similar in meaning to the idiom "act as if", and is also similar to Aristotle's idea that to be virtuous, one must act as a virtuous person would act.

text: In the 1920s, Alfred Adler, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, developed a therapeutic technique that he called "acting as if". This strategy gave his clients an opportunity to practice alternatives to dysfunctional behaviors. Adler's method is still used today and is often described as "role play".


document_title: Heath Ledger

question_text: who finished the dark knight as the joker

text: Heath Ledger

text: Early life

text: Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Sally Ledger (née Ramshaw), a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, a racecar driver and mining engineer whose family established and owned the Ledger Engineering Foundry.[13] The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust is named after his great-grandfather.[13] He had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.[14] Ledger attended Mary's Mount Primary School in Gooseberry Hill,[15] and later Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences, starring in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10.[5][13] His parents separated when he was 10 and divorced when he was 11.[16] Ledger's older sister Kate, an actress and later a publicist, to whom he was very close, inspired his acting on stage, and his love of Gene Kelly inspired his successful choreography, leading to Guildford Grammar's 60-member team's "first all-boy victory" at the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge.[13][17] Ledger's two half-sisters are Ashleigh Bell (b. 1990), his mother's daughter with her second husband and his stepfather Roger Bell, and Olivia Ledger (b. 1996), his father's daughter with second wife and his stepmother Emma Brown.[18]

text: Career

text: After sitting for early graduation exams at age 17, Ledger left school to pursue an acting career.[16] With Trevor DiCarlo, his best friend since he was three years old, Ledger drove across Australia from Perth to Sydney, returning to Perth to take a small role in Clowning Around (1992), the first part of a two-part television series, and to work on the TV series Sweat (1996), in which he played a gay cyclist.[13] From 1993 to 1997, Ledger also had parts in the Perth television series Ship to Shore (1993); in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama Roar (1997); in Home and Away (1997), one of Australia's most successful television shows; and in the Australian film Blackrock (1997), his feature film debut.[13] In 1999, he starred in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You and in the acclaimed Australian crime film Two Hands, directed by Gregor Jordan.[13]

text: From 2000 to 2005, he starred in supporting roles as Gabriel Martin, the eldest son of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), in The Patriot (2000), and as Sonny Grotowski, the son of Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), in Monster's Ball (2000); and in leading or title roles in A Knight's Tale (2001), The Four Feathers (2002), The Order (2003), Ned Kelly (2003), Casanova (2005), The Brothers Grimm (2005), and Lords of Dogtown (2005).[19] In 2001, he won a ShoWest Award as "Male Star of Tomorrow".[20]

text: Ledger received "Best Actor of 2005" awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for his performance in Brokeback Mountain,[21][22] in which he plays Wyoming ranch hand Ennis Del Mar, who has a love affair with aspiring rodeo rider Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.[23] He also received a nomination for Golden Globe Best Actor in a Drama and a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor for this performance,[24] making him, at age 26, the ninth-youngest nominee for a Best Actor Oscar.[25] In The New York Times review of the film, critic Stephen Holden writes: "Both Mr. Ledger and Mr. Gyllenhaal make this anguished love story physically palpable. Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn."[26] In a review in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers states: "Ledger's magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn't just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens; he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack's closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost."[27]

text: After Brokeback Mountain, Ledger costarred with fellow Australian Abbie Cornish in the 2006 Australian film Candy, an adaptation of the 1998 novel Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction, as young heroin addicts in love attempting to break free of their addiction, whose mentor is played by Geoffrey Rush; for his performance as sometime poet Dan, Ledger was nominated for three "Best Actor" awards, including one of the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards, which both Cornish and Rush won in their categories. Shortly after the release of Candy, Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[28] As one of six actors embodying different aspects of the life of Bob Dylan in the 2007 film I'm Not There, directed by Todd Haynes, Ledger "won praise for his portrayal of 'Robbie [Clark],' a moody, counter-culture actor who represents the romanticist side of Dylan, but says accolades are never his motivation".[29] Posthumously, on 23 February 2008, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the film's ensemble cast, its director, and its casting director.[30]

text: In his penultimate film performance, Ledger played the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 film The Dark Knight, released nearly six months after his death. While working on the film in London, Ledger told Sarah Lyall in their New York Times interview that he viewed The Dark Knight's Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy".[31] For his work on The Dark Knight, Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor with his family accepting it on his behalf, as well as numerous other posthumous awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, which Christopher Nolan accepted for him.[32][33] At the time of his death on 22 January 2008, Ledger had completed about half of the work for his final film performance as Tony in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.[34][35] Gilliam chose to adapt the film after his death by having fellow actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell play "fantasy transformations" of his character so that Ledger's final performance could be seen in theatres.

text: Directorial work

text: Ledger had aspirations to become a film director and had made some music videos, which director Todd Haynes praised highly in his tribute to Ledger upon accepting the ISP Robert Altman Award, which Ledger posthumously shared, on 23 February 2008.[30] In 2006, Ledger directed music videos for the title track on Australian hip hop artist N'fa's CD debut solo album Cause An Effect[36] and for the single "Seduction Is Evil (She's Hot)".[37][38] Later that year, Ledger inaugurated a new record label, Masses Music, with singer Ben Harper and also directed a music video for Harper's song "Morning Yearning".[31][39]

text: At a news conference at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Ledger spoke of his desire to make a documentary film about the British singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who died in 1974, at the age of 26, from an overdose of an antidepressant.[40] Ledger created and acted in a music video set to Drake's recording of the singer's 1974 song about depression "Black Eyed Dog" – a title "inspired by Winston Churchill's descriptive term for depression" (black dog);[41] it was shown publicly only twice, first at the Bumbershoot Festival, in Seattle, held from 1 to 3 September 2007; and secondly as part of "A Place To Be: A Celebration of Nick Drake", with its screening of Their Place: Reflections On Nick Drake, "a series of short filmed homages to Nick Drake" (including Ledger's), sponsored by American Cinematheque, at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Hollywood, on 5 October 2007.[42] After Ledger's death, his music video for "Black Eyed Dog" was shown on the Internet and excerpted in news clips distributed via YouTube.[40][43][44][45]

text: He was working with Scottish screenwriter and producer Allan Scott on an adaptation of the 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis, which would have been his first feature film as a director. He also intended to act in the film, with Canadian actress Ellen Page proposed in the lead role.[3][46][47] Ledger's final directorial work, in which he shot two music videos before his death, premiered in 2009.[48] The music videos, completed for Modest Mouse and Grace Woodroofe,[49] include an animated feature for Modest Mouse's song, "King Rat", and the Woodroofe video for her cover of David Bowie's "Quicksand".[50] The "King Rat" video premiered on 4 August 2009.[51]

text: Personal life

text: Ledger was an avid chess player, winning Western Australia's junior chess championship at the age of 10.[52] As an adult, he often played with other chess enthusiasts at Washington Square Park.[53] Ledger also had a keen interest in the West Coast Eagles, a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League and are based in his hometown of Perth.[54] Allan Scott's film adaptation of the chess-related 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit, by Walter Tevis, which at the time of his death he was planning to both perform in and direct, would have been Ledger's first feature film as a director.[3][46]

text: Relationships

text: Ledger had relationships with actresses Lisa Zane, Heather Graham and Naomi Watts.[55][56] In 2004, he met and began dating actress Michelle Williams on the set of Brokeback Mountain. Their daughter, Matilda Rose, was born on 28 October 2005 in New York City.[57] Matilda's godparents are Brokeback co-star Jake Gyllenhaal and Williams' Dawson's Creek co-star Busy Philipps.[58] In January 2006, Ledger put his residence in Bronte, New South Wales up for sale,[59] and returned to the United States, where he shared a house with Williams, in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, from 2005 to 2007.[60] In September 2007, Williams's father confirmed to Sydney's Daily Telegraph that Ledger and Williams had ended their relationship.[61]

text: After his break-up with Williams, in late 2007 and early 2008, the tabloid press and other public media linked Ledger romantically with supermodels Helena Christensen and Gemma Ward. On 30 January 2011, Ward stated that the pair began dating in November 2007 and their families spent Christmas together in their home town of Perth.[62][63][64][65][66][67]

text: Press controversies

text: Ledger's relationship with the press in Australia was sometimes turbulent, and it led to his abandonment of plans for his family to reside part-time in Sydney.[68][69] In 2004, he strongly denied press reports alleging that "he spat at journalists on the Sydney set of the film Candy", or that one of his relatives had done so later, outside Ledger's Sydney home.[68][69] On 13 January 2006, "Several members of the paparazzi retaliated ... squirting Ledger and Williams with water pistols on the red carpet at the Sydney premiere of Brokeback Mountain".[70][71]

text: After his performance on stage at the 2005 Screen Actors Guild Awards, when he had giggled in presenting Brokeback Mountain as a nominee for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, the Los Angeles Times referred to his presentation as an "apparent gay spoof".[72] Ledger called the Times later and explained that his levity resulted from stage fright, saying that he had been told that he would be presenting the award only minutes earlier; he stated: "I am so sorry and I apologise for my nervousness. I would be absolutely horrified if my stage fright was misinterpreted as a lack of respect for the film, the topic and for the amazing filmmakers."[73][74]

text: Ledger was quoted in January 2006 in Melbourne's Herald Sun as saying that he heard that West Virginia had banned Brokeback Mountain, which it had not; actually, a cinema in Utah had banned the film.[75] He had also referred mistakenly to West Virginia's having had lynchings as recently as the 1980s, but state scholars disputed his statement, observing that, whereas lynchings did occur in Alabama as recently as 1981, according to "the director of state archives and history" quoted in The Charleston Gazette, "The last documented lynching in West Virginia took place in Lewisburg in 1931."[76]

text: Health issues

text: In their New York Times interview, published on 4 November 2007, Ledger told Sarah Lyall that his recently completed roles in I'm Not There (2007) and The Dark Knight (2008) had taken a toll on his ability to sleep: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. ... I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."[77] At that time, he told Lyall that he had taken two Ambien pills, after taking just one had not sufficed, and those left him in "a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing."[31]

text: Prior to his return to New York from his last film assignment, in London, in January 2008, while he was apparently suffering from some kind of respiratory illness, he reportedly complained to his co-star from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Christopher Plummer, that he was continuing to have difficulty sleeping and taking pills to help with that problem: "Confirming earlier reports that Ledger hadn't been feeling well on set, Plummer says, 'we all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights. But Heath's went on and I don't think he dealt with it immediately with the antibiotics.... I think what he did have was the walking pneumonia.' [...] On top of that, 'He was saying all the time, 'dammit, I can't sleep'... and he was taking all these pills to help him.' "[78]

text: In talking with Interview magazine, after his death, Ledger's former fiancée Michelle Williams also confirmed reports the actor had experienced trouble sleeping. "For as long as I'd known him, he had bouts with insomnia. He had too much energy. His mind was turning, turning, turning – always turning."[79]

text: Death

text: At about 2:45 pm (EST), on 22 January 2008, Ledger was found unconscious in his bed by his housekeeper, Teresa Solomon, and his masseuse, Diana Wolozin, in his fourth-floor loft apartment at 421 Broome Street in the SoHo neighbourhood of Manhattan.[5][1]

text: According to the police, Wolozin, who had arrived early for a 3:00 pm appointment with Ledger, called Ledger's friend Mary-Kate Olsen for help. Olsen, who was in California, directed a New York City private security guard to go to the scene. At 3:26 pm, "less than 15 minutes after she first saw him in bed and only a few moments after the first call to Ms. Olsen", Wolozin telephoned 9-1-1 "to say that Mr. Ledger was not breathing". At the urging of the 9-1-1 operator, Wolozin administered CPR, which was unsuccessful in reviving him.[80]

text: Paramedics and emergency medical technicians arrived seven minutes later, at 3:33 pm ("at almost exactly the same moment as a private security guard summoned by Ms. Olsen") but were also unable to revive him.[1][80][81] At 3:36 pm, Ledger was pronounced dead, and his body was removed from the apartment.[1][80]

text: Autopsy and toxicology report

text: Two weeks later on 6 February 2008, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York released its conclusions, based on an initial autopsy of 23 January 2008 and a subsequent complete toxicological analysis.[7][82][83] The report concludes, in part, "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine." It states definitively: "We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescribed medications."[7][9]

text: While the medications found in the toxicological analysis may be prescribed in the United States for insomnia, anxiety, pain, or common cold (doxylamine) symptoms, the vast majority of physicians in the US are extremely reluctant to prescribe multiple benzodiazepines (e.g., diazepam, alprazolam, and temazepam) to a single patient, let alone prescribe the same to a patient already taking a mix of oxycodone and hydrocodone. Although the Associated Press and other media reported that "police estimate Ledger's time of death between 1 pm and 2:45 pm " (on 22 January 2008),[84] the Medical Examiner's Office announced that it would not be publicly disclosing the official estimated time of death.[85][86] The official announcement of the cause and manner of Ledger's death heightened concerns about the growing problems of prescription drug abuse or misuse and combined drug intoxication (CDI).[8][83][87]

text: Dr. Jason Payne-James, a forensic pathologist, has believed that Ledger might have survived if hydrocodone and oxycodone had been left out of the combination of drugs that the actor took just prior to his death.[88]

text: Federal investigation

text: Late in February 2008, a DEA investigation of medical professionals relating to Ledger's death exonerated two American physicians, who practice in Los Angeles and Houston, of any wrongdoing, determining that "the doctors in question had prescribed Ledger other medications – not the pills that killed him."[89][90]

text: On 4 August 2008, citing unnamed sources, Murray Weiss, of the New York Post, first reported that Mary-Kate Olsen had "refused [through her attorney, Michael C. Miller] to be interviewed by federal investigators probing the accidental drug death of her close friend Heath Ledger ... [without] ... immunity from prosecution" and that, when asked about the matter, Miller at first declined further comment.[91][92] Later that day, after the police confirmed the gist of Weiss's account to the Associated Press, Miller issued a statement denying that Olsen supplied Ledger with the drugs causing his death and asserting that she did not know their source.[93][94] In his statement, Miller said specifically, "Despite tabloid speculation, Mary-Kate Olsen had nothing whatsoever to do with the drugs found in Heath Ledger's home or his body, and she does not know where he obtained them," emphasising that media "descriptions [attributed to an unidentified source] are incomplete and inaccurate."[95]

text: After a flurry of further media speculation, on 6 August 2008, the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan closed its investigation into Ledger's death without filing any charges and rendering moot its subpoena of Olsen.[96][97] With the clearing of the two doctors and Olsen, and the closing of the investigation because the prosecutors in the Manhattan US Attorney's Office "don't believe there's a viable target," it is still not known how Ledger obtained the oxycodone and hydrocodone in the lethal drug combination that killed him.[97][98]

text: Effect on fans

text: Eleven months after Ledger's death, on 23 December 2008, Jake Coyle, writing for the Associated Press, announced that "Heath Ledger's death was voted 2008's top entertainment story by U.S. newspaper and broadcast editors surveyed by The Associated Press". He claimed that this was partially a result of the "shock and confusion" surrounding the circumstances of Ledger's death, as well as due to Ledger's "legacy...in a roundly acclaimed performance as the Joker in the year's biggest box office hit The Dark Knight."[99]

text: Controversy over will

text: After Ledger's death, in response to some press reports about his will, filed in New York City on 28 February 2008,[100][101] and his daughter's access to his financial legacy, his father, Kim Ledger, said that he considered the financial well-being of his granddaughter Matilda Rose an "absolute priority", whilst also stating that her mother, Michelle Williams, was "an integral part of our family". He added, "They will be taken care of and that's how Heath would want it to be".[102] Some of Ledger's relatives may be challenging the legal status of his will signed in 2003, prior to his involvement with Williams and the birth of their daughter and not updated to include them, which divides half of his estate between his parents and half among his siblings; they claim that there is a second, unsigned will, which leaves most of that estate to Matilda Rose.[103][104] Williams' father, Larry Williams, has also joined the controversy about Ledger's will as it was filed in New York City soon after his death.[105]

text: On 31 March 2008, stimulating another controversy pertaining to Ledger's estate, Gemma Jones and Janet Fife-Yeomans published an "Exclusive" report, in The Daily Telegraph, citing Ledger's uncle Haydn Ledger and other family members, who "believe the late actor may have fathered a secret love child" when he was 17, and stating that "If it is confirmed that Ledger is the girl's biological father, it could split his multi-million dollar estate between ... Matilda Rose ... and his secret love child."[106][107][108] A few days later, reports citing telephone interviews with Ledger's uncles Haydn and Mike Ledger and the family of the other little girl, published in OK! and Us Weekly, "denied" those "claims", with Ledger's uncles and the little girl's mother and stepfather describing them as unfounded "rumors" distorted and exaggerated by the media.[109][110]

text: On 15 July 2008, Fife-Yeomans reported further, via Australian News Limited, that "While Ledger left everything to his parents and three sisters, it is understood they have legal advice that under Western Australia law, Matilda Rose is entitled to the lion's share" of his estate; its executors, Kim Ledger's former business colleague Robert John Collins and Geraldton accountant William Mark Dyson, "have applied for probate in the West Australian Supreme Court in Perth, advertising for 'creditors and other persons' having claims on the estate to lodge them by 11 August 2008 ... to ensure all debts are paid before the estate is distributed...."[111] According to this report by Fife-Yeomans, earlier reports citing Ledger's uncles,[102] and subsequent reports citing Ledger's father, which do not include his actual posthumous earnings, "his entire fortune, mostly held in Australian trusts, is likely to be worth up to $20 million."[111][112][113]

text: On 27 September 2008, Ledger's father Kim stated that "the family has agreed to leave the US$16.3 million fortune to Matilda," adding: "There is no claim. Our family has gifted everything to Matilda."[112][113][114] In October 2008, Forbes estimated Ledger's annual earnings from October 2007 through October 2008 – including his posthumous share of The Dark Knight's gross income of "US$1 billion in box office revenue worldwide" –– as "US$20 million."[115]

text: Legacy

text: Memorial tributes and services

text: As the news of Ledger's death became public, throughout the night of 22 January 2008, and the next day, media crews, mourners, fans, and other onlookers began gathering outside his apartment building, with some leaving flowers or other memorial tributes.[116][117]

text: The next day, at 10:50 am Australian time, Ledger's parents and sister appeared outside his mother's house in Applecross, a riverside suburb of Perth, and read a short statement to the media expressing their grief and desire for privacy.[118] Within the next few days, memorial tributes were communicated by family members; the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd; the Deputy Premier of Western Australia, Eric Ripper; Warner Bros. (distributor of The Dark Knight) and thousands of Ledger's fans around the world.[119][120][121][122]

text: Several actors made statements expressing their sorrow at Ledger's death, including Daniel Day-Lewis, who dedicated his Screen Actors Guild Award to him, saying that he was inspired by Ledger's acting; Day-Lewis praised Ledger's performances in Monster's Ball and Brokeback Mountain, describing the latter as "unique, perfect".[123][124] Verne Troyer, who was working with Ledger on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at the time of his death, had a heart shape, an exact duplicate of a symbol that Ledger scrawled on a piece of paper with his email address, tattooed on his hand in remembrance of Ledger because Ledger "had made such an impression on [him]."[125] British indie band Kasabian paid tribute to Ledger in their song 'Vlad the Impaler', with the line "Joker, meet you on the other side". Singer Tom Meighan often changes the word "Joker" to either "Ledger", or the names of recently deceased celebrities.

text: On 1 February, in her first public statement after Ledger's death, Michelle Williams expressed her heartbreak and described Ledger's spirit as surviving in their daughter.[126][127]

text: After attending private memorial ceremonies in Los Angeles, Ledger's family members returned with his body to Perth.[128][129]

text: On 9 February, a memorial service attended by several hundred invited guests was held at Penrhos College, attracting considerable press attention; afterward Ledger's body was cremated at Fremantle Cemetery, followed by a private service attended by only 10 closest family members,[130][131][132] with his ashes interred later in a family plot at Karrakatta Cemetery, next to two of his grandparents.[129][133][134] Later that night, his family and friends gathered for a wake on Cottesloe Beach.[135][136][137]

text: In January 2011, the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia in Ledger's home town of Perth named a 575-seat theatre the Heath Ledger Theatre after him. For the opening of the theatre, Ledger's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor was on display in the theatre's foyer along with his Joker costume.[138]

text: Bon Iver's "Perth" was inspired by Heath Ledger.[139] Justin Vernon, the lead singer and songwriter of the American indie folk band, revealed back in 2011 that he had begun working on the song in 2008 and was scheduled to meet with a music video director who was good friends with Ledger, Matt Amato. "The first thing I worked on, the riff and the beginning melodies, was the first song on the record, 'Perth,'" Vernon told Exclaim!.[140] Amato was directing the band's "The Wolves (Act I & II)" music video the day that Ledger died. "It was no longer about just making a Bon Iver music video anymore," Vernon says. "This was now our chance to be there with Matt as he grieved. It was a three-day wake." Amato told Vernon stories about Ledger that eventually became the inspiration for "Perth," the opening track to the band's second studio album Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011).[139]

text: Method and style

text:
"You know when you see the preachers down South? And they grab a believer and they go, 'Bwoom! I touch you with the hand of God!' And they believe so strongly, they're on the ground shaking and spitting. And fuck's sake, that's the power of belief... Now, I don't believe in Jesus, but I believe in my performance. And if you can understand that the power of belief is one of the great tools of our time and that a lot of acting comes from it, you can do anything."

—Ledger (in 2006) on belief, power and acting.[141]

tag: div

text: Portraying a variety of roles, from romantic heroes to the reluctantly oppressed, Ledger created a hodgepodge of characters that are deliberately unlike one another, stating "I feel like I am wasting my time if I repeat myself". He also reflected on his inability to be happy with his work, "I feel the same thing about everything I do. The day I say, 'It's good' is the day I should start doing something else."[142] Ledger liked to wait between jobs so that he would start creatively hungry on new projects.[143] In his own words, acting was about harnessing "the infinite power of belief,"[141] thus using belief as a tool for creating.

text: Directors who have worked with the actor praised him for his creativity, seriousness and intuition. "I've never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents," The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan has written, expressing amazement over the actor's working process, genuine curiosity and charisma[143] Mark Foster, who directed Ledger in Monster's Ball, complimented him as taking the job "very seriously", being disciplined, observant, and understanding and intuitive. In 2007, director Todd Haynes compared Ledger's presence to actor James Dean, casting Ledger as Robbie Clarke, a fictive personification of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. Drawing on the similar characteristics between the actors, Haynes further highlighted Ledger's "precocious seriousness" and intuition. He also felt that Ledger had a rare maturity beyond his years."[142] Ledger, however, disconnected himself and acting from perfectionism. "I'm always gonna pull myself apart and dissect [the work]. I mean, there's no such thing as perfection in what [actors] do. Pornos are more perfect than we are, because they're actually fucking."[141]

text: "Some people find their shtick," Ledger reflected on the categorization of style. "I never figured out who 'Heath Ledger' is on film: 'This is what you expect when you hire me, and it will be recognizable'... People always feel compelled to sum you up, to presume that they have you and can describe you. That's fine. But there are so many stories inside of me and a lot I want to achieve outside of one flat note."[142]

text: Posthumous films and awards

text: Ledger's death affected the marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008)[10][34] and also both the production and marketing of Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, with both directors intending to celebrate and pay tribute to his work in these films.[34][35][144][145] Although Gilliam temporarily suspended production on the latter film,[35] he expressed determination to "salvage" it, perhaps using computer-generated imagery (CGI), and dedicated it to Ledger.[78][146][147] In February 2008, as a "memorial tribute to the man many have called one of the best actors of his generation," Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell signed on to take over Ledger's role, becoming multiple incarnations of his character, Tony, transformed in this "magical re-telling of the Faust story".[148][149][150] The three actors donated their fees for the film to Ledger's and Williams's daughter.[151]

text: Speaking of editing The Dark Knight, on which Ledger had completed his work in October 2007, Nolan recalled, "It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day. ... But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish."[145] All of Ledger's scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously.[152] Nolan dedicated the film in part to Ledger's memory, as well as to the memory of technician Conway Wickliffe, who was killed during a car accident while preparing one of the film's stunts.[153]

text: Released in July 2008, The Dark Knight broke several box office records and received both popular and critical accolades, especially with regard to Ledger's performance as the Joker.[154] Even film critic David Denby, who does not praise the film overall in his pre-release review in The New Yorker, evaluates Ledger's work highly, describing his performance as both "sinister and frightening" and Ledger as "mesmerising in every scene", concluding: "His performance is a heroic, unsettling final act: this young actor looked into the abyss."[155] Attempting to dispel widespread speculations that Ledger's performance as the Joker had in any way led to his death (as Denby and others suggest), Ledger's co-star and friend Christian Bale, who played opposite him as Batman, has stressed that, as an actor, Ledger greatly enjoyed meeting the challenges of creating that role, an experience that Ledger himself described as "the most fun I've ever had, or probably ever will have, playing a character."[10][156] Terry Gilliam also refuted the claims that playing the Joker made him crazy, calling it "absolute nonsense" and going on to say, "Heath was so solid. His feet were on the ground and he was the least neurotic person I've ever met."[157]

text: Ledger received numerous awards for his Joker role in The Dark Knight. On 10 November 2008, he was nominated for two People's Choice Awards related to his work on the film, "Best Ensemble Cast" and "Best Onscreen Match-Up" (shared with Christian Bale), and Ledger won an award for "Match-Up" in the ceremony aired live on CBS in January 2009.[158]

text: On 11 December 2008, it was announced that Ledger had been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight; he subsequently won the award at the 66th Golden Globe Awards ceremony telecast on NBC on 11 January 2009 with Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan accepting on his behalf.[12][32]

text: Film critics, co-stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michael Caine and many of Ledger's colleagues in the film community joined Bale in calling for and predicting a nomination for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in recognition of Ledger's achievement in The Dark Knight.[159] Ledger's subsequent nomination was announced on 22 January 2009, the anniversary of his death.[160]

text: Ledger went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the second person to win a posthumous Academy Award for acting (after fellow Australian actor Peter Finch, who won for 1976's Network), as well as the first comic-book movie actor to win an Oscar for their acting. Ledger's family attended the ceremony on 22 February 2009, with his parents and sister accepting the award on stage on his behalf.[161][33] Following talks with the Ledger family in Australia, the Academy determined that Ledger's daughter, Matilda Rose, would own the award. However, due to Matilda's age, she will not gain full ownership of the statuette until her eighteenth birthday in 2023.[162] Until that time, her mother Michelle Williams, will hold the statuette in trust for Matilda.[163]

text: On 4 April 2017, a Trailer was released for the upcoming documentary I am Heath Ledger which was released on 3 May 2017.[164] It features archival footage of Ledger and interviews.[165]

text: Filmography

text: Film

text:
Title
Year
Role
Note

Blackrock
1997
Toby Ackland

Paws
Oberon

10 Things I Hate About You
1999
Patrick Verona

Two Hands
Jimmy

The Patriot
2000
Gabriel Martin

A Knight's Tale
2001
William Thatcher

Monster's Ball
Sonny Grotowski

The Four Feathers
2002
Harry Faversham

Ned Kelly
2003
Ned Kelly

The Order
Alex Bernier

Lords of Dogtown
2005
Skip Engblom

The Brothers Grimm
Jacob Grimm

Brokeback Mountain
Ennis Del Mar

Casanova
Giacomo Casanova

Candy
2006
Dan Carter

I'm Not There
2007
Robbie Clark (Bob Dylan)

The Dark Knight
2008
The Joker
Posthumous release

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
2009
Tony Shepard

I am Heath Ledger
2017
Himself
Documentary[165]

text: Television

text:
Title
Year
Role
Note

Ship to Shore
1993
Cyclist
3 episodes

Sweat
1996
Snowy Bowles
26 episodes

Home and Away
1997
Scott Irwin
9 episodes

Roar
Conor
13 episodes

Storm Hawks
2007
Cyclonian Talon
Voice; one episode

text: Music video

text:
Title
Year
Performer
Note

"Cause an Effect"
2006
N'fa
Directed by Ledger

"Seduction is Evil (She's Hot)"

"Morning Yearning"
Ben Harper

"Black Eyed Dog"
2007
Nick Drake
Directed by and featuring Ledger[40]

"King Rat"
2009
Modest Mouse
Animated video; conceived by Ledger[49]

text: Accolades


document_title: Out of left field

question_text: where does the phrase out of left field come from

text: Out of left field

text: "Out of left field" is American slang meaning "unexpectedly", "odd" or "strange". The phrase came from baseball terminology referring to the area covered by the left fielder who has the farthest throw to first base. According to mlb.com there is another meaning: "The term 'way out in left field' is taken to mean 'crazy.'" Cook County Hospital (by the West Side Grounds, the Chicago Cubs first location under what is now the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine) had a mental institution behind left field, The bottom line is, patients could be heard yelling and screaming things at fans behind the left field wall.'"[1] Variations include "out in left field" and simply "left field".[2]

text: Music industry[edit]

text: Popular music historian Arnold Shaw wrote in 1949 for the Music Library Association that the term "out of left field" was first used in the idiomatic sense of "from out of nowhere" by the music industry to refer to a song that unexpectedly performed well in the market.[3] Based on baseball lingo, a sentence such as "That was a hit out of left field" was used by song pluggers who promoted recordings and sheet music, to describe a song requiring no effort to sell.[3] A "rocking chair hit" was the kind of song which came "out of left field" and sold itself, allowing the song plugger to relax.[3] A 1943 article in Billboard magazine expands the use to describe people unexpectedly drawn to radio broadcasting:

text: "Latest twist in radio linked with the war is the exceptional number of quasi-clerical groups and individuals who have come out of left field in recent months and are trying to buy, not promote, radio time."[4]

text: Further instances of the phrase were published in the 1940s, including more times in Billboard magazine and once in a humor book titled How to Be Poor.[5][6][7]

text: Later explanations[edit]

text: In May 1981, columnist William Safire asked readers of The New York Times to send him any ideas they had regarding the origin of the phrase "out of left field"—he did not know where it came from, and did not refer to Shaw's work.[8] On June 28, 1981, he devoted most of his Sunday column to the phrase, offering up various responses he received.[9][10] The earliest scholarly citation Safire could find was a 1961 article in the journal American Speech, which defined the variation "out in left field" as meaning "disoriented, out of contact with reality."[10][11] Linguist John Algeo told Safire that the phrase most likely came from baseball observers rather than from baseball fans or players.[12]

text: In Safire's Political Dictionary, Safire writes that the phrase "out of left field" means "out of the ordinary, out of touch, far out."[13] The variation "out in left field" means alternately "removed from the ordinary, unconventional" or "out of contact with reality, out of touch."[13] He compares the term to left-wing politics and the Left Coast—slang for the liberal-leaning coastal cities in California, Oregon and Washington.[13]

text: In 1998, American English professor Robert L. Chapman, in his book American Slang, wrote that the phrase "out of left field" was in use by 1953.[14] He did not cite Shaw's work and he did not point to printed instances of the phrase in the 1940s. Marcus Callies, an associate professor of English and philology at the University of Mainz in Germany, wrote that "the precise origin is unclear and disputed", referring to Christine Ammer's conclusion in The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms.[15] Callies suggested that the left fielder in baseball might throw the ball to home plate in an effort to get the runner out before he scores, and that the ball, coming from behind the runner out of left field, would surprise the runner.[15]

text: From the Way Out In Left Field Society: "The phrase "way out in left field" has evolved to mean an eccentric, odd, misguided or peculiar statement or act. Although the origin of the phrase has been challenged and debated over the years, the most logical and realistic explanation comes from an extinct baseball park called West Side Grounds that the Chicago Cubs called home from 1893 to 1915. As legend has it, a mental hospital called the Neuropsychiatric Institute was located directly behind the left field wall. The Institute housed mental patients who could be heard making strange and bizarre comments within listening distance of players and fans. Thus, if someone said that you were "way out in left field," the person was questioning your sanity and comparing you with a mental patient"[16][17]