document_title: List of The Middle characters

question_text: who plays sue heck in the show the middle

text: List of The Middle characters

text: Main characters[edit]

text:
Patricia Heaton as Frances "Frankie" Heck (née Spence), wife of Mike and mother of Axl, Sue, and Brick. Frankie is the central character in the show, as her voice is heard narrating at various points in every episode. She is a devoted wife and mother and sees family as the most important thing in her life. Her motto, "You do for family," guides her daily routine, despite the frustrations she encounters with her husband and three kids, as well as her older ailing relatives who often depend on her. Frankie attended college but did not finish. When the family goes on a trip, she always forgets "the blue bag" which has the food in it. She worked as a salesperson at Ehlert Motors, a job she took after losing her position as a dentist's receptionist when the office closed, only to lose her job at Ehlert Motors early in season 4. She completes dental assisting school, and gets a new job at a dentist's office near the end of season 4. Heaton wore a wig for seasons 1–4; from season 5 on, her real hair has been featured.
Neil Flynn as Michael "Mike" Heck Jr., Frankie's husband, known for his straightforward manner and lack of emotion. Mike works at the local limestone quarry as the manager. He reached his 20-year work anniversary at the quarry in the season 5 episode "The Award". Despite his no-nonsense approach to work and family, Mike is a devoted and understanding husband and father who always seems to come through for Frankie and the kids. It has been said on several occasions that Mike's favorite film is Reservoir Dogs and that he only asked Frankie out on a second date because she lied and said she also liked the film. Mike's reclusive, emotionally distant father, "Big Mike" (John Cullum), and Mike's well-meaning but unreliable brother Rusty (Norm Macdonald) both live in Orson. It is revealed in Season 8's "Clear and Present Danger" that Mike's mother died of lung cancer at age 42, and his father made him do his homework and go to school the next day instead of allowing Mike time to mourn. Mike loves all sports but is particularly passionate about seeing the Indianapolis Colts play in the Super Bowl. He and Rusty start a business in season 7, designing disposable diapers with sports team logos on them and naming their creations "Li’l Rivals."
Charlie McDermott as Axl Redford Heck, the oldest son of Frankie and Mike and who cannot be bothered to wear more than boxer shorts most of the time at home. As the elder brother, he is sarcastic, lazy, narcissistic, and selfish to his siblings. However, he has shown flashes of kindness to his family occasionally and is good at heart, which he shows when he deliberately loses a basketball game in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend, Morgan. He is frustrating to Frankie, who wishes he would be more open with her, as he was apparently a very loving "momma's boy" when he was a child, something Frankie seems to want to re-capture. Axl is much more popular and socially outgoing than his siblings, but is not as scholarly as they are. It is revealed in season 3 that Axl is two years older than Sue as he starts his junior year at high school while Sue starts her freshman year. Mike has said that Axl is his favorite child. He has gone to prom twice with Weird Ashley (Katlin Mastandrea), an outcast at his school, both times accidentally inviting her. Axl gets another girlfriend in season 4 named Cassidy, who tutors him after Sue runs over his foot and breaks it while learning to drive. Axl and Cassidy later break up in "Hallelujah Hoedown". As a running back on his high school football team, he was recruited by a Division II state college in Indiana. After being a star player in high school, Axl was a bench warmer in college, causing him to take his pursuit of a business degree a bit more seriously. In the end of season 8, he graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in business and currently traveling in Europe with Kenny to promote Kenny's upcoming apps. He plays the electric guitar, and it's presumed that he was named after Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose.
Eden Sher as Sue Sue Heck, socially awkward middle daughter of Frankie and Mike whose genuine nature, bubbly personality, and persistent sunny optimism tend to make her an object of ridicule, especially by her older brother. Despite her best efforts, she is usually unrecognized by teachers and other students, and snubbed by her peers. Her best friends are Carly and Brad. She looks up to reverend Tim-Tom. When she doesn't know something she goes to kickingitteenstyle.com. Many of her plot lines involve her being overlooked, or trying to organize parties or events and receiving no help. In season 1, she is not pictured in the yearbook despite having her picture taken three times, and she finds her favorite teacher has no memory of her at all. (She is eventually placed in the yearbook, but in the section reserved for students who died, with the caption reading: "In Loving Memory of Sue Heck, Gone Too Soon.") She wears braces on her teeth, which were briefly removed in season 3, but it was determined that they over-corrected her condition. She had them removed at the beginning of season 6, needing only a retainer. She is also left-handed, apparently the only southpaw in her immediate family. She is two years behind Axl in school, graduating high school in the season 6 finale. She is known for trying out for almost everything but never actually getting picked, because she is always terrible. When she is lying she says "and so on and so forth and what have you". In season 2, she joins the no-cut cross country team by heroically going around the track five times on crutches because she was hit by a deer the day before. She becomes a "wrestlerette" in season 3 (which turns out to be a group of fellow misfits) and dates a wrestler named Matt for a short time. In season 4, she dates Axl's friend Darrin. She is engaged to Darrin for three days in season 6, before deciding she doesn't want to get married yet and ending their relationship. This marks a rare moment where Sue is not a pushover, explaining her situation to Darrin in an intelligent, articulate, and socially mature manner. The season 3 episode "Leap Year" reveals she was a leap day baby, but then she had her 16th birthday the following season (season 4, episode 17, "Wheels of Pain"). She gets accepted to the same college Axl is attending. He didn't want her to go, but Mike and Frankie tell him it isn't his decision, and Sue does later accept the offer to attend the college. In season 9, she is a junior in college and is majoring in hotel management.
Atticus Shaffer as Brick Heck, youngest of Mike and Frankie's children. He loves to read and has a case of palilalia, which is demonstrated by his repeating words from previous sentences to himself in a whisper. In season 1 episode 5, it is revealed that he possesses an eidetic memory. He is smarter than most teenagers, having read Of Mice and Men, a book his elder brother is struggling with at the same time. He also loves the Planet Nowhere book series, which is native to the show, and the real-life Percy Jackson & the Olympians. He has referred to Diary of a Wimpy Kid as "the book that changed my life." He is exceptionally intelligent but easily distracted, leading him to procrastinate on doing his homework assignments and projects (it is loosely implied that he may perhaps have Asperger's syndrome). Brick is a known gephyrophobiac and is fascinated with fonts. Due to his awkwardness, he struggles to make friends. In season 2, he befriends an equally awkward boy named Arlo, whom even Brick struggles to deal with. He is five years behind Sue in school, starting the eighth grade in the seventh season. In season 2 Episode 7, it is revealed that he was accidentally switched at birth with another baby due to Mike watching a football game and taking home a child that the nurse brought up next to Brick, and he spent a month with that child's family while the other baby was with the Hecks. He has a girlfriend named Cindy. In Season 8, Brick makes it into the National Honor Society, a first for a Heck family member.

text: Recurring characters[edit]

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Actor
Character
Seasons

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Chris Kattan
Bob Weaver
Main
Recurring
Guest

Brock Ciarlelli
Brad Bottig
Recurring

Jen Ray
Nancy Donahue
Recurring

Beau Wirick
Sean Donahue
Recurring

Malcolm Foster Smith
Dave
Recurring

John Gammon
Darrin McGrew
Recurring

Blaine Saunders
Carly
Recurring
Guest

Jeanette Miller
Edie Freehold
Recurring

Brian Doyle-Murray
Mr. Elhert
Recurring
Guest
Recurring
Guest

Troy Metcalf
Jim
Recurring
Guest
Recurring

Peter Breitmayer
Peter Miller
Recurring
Guest

Frances Bay
Ginny Freehold
Recurring

Andrew J. Fishman
Zach
Recurring
Guest
Recurirng
Guest

Krista Braun
Mrs. Tompkins
Recurring
Guest

Alexa PenaVega
Morgan
Recurring

Paul Hipp
Reverend Tim-Tom
Guest
Recurring
Guest
Recurring
Guest

Guest

Marsha Mason
Pat Spence
Guest
Recurirng
Guest
Recurring

John Cullum
Michael Heck Sr.
Guest
Recurring
Guest

Guest

Pat Finn
Bill Norwood

Recurring

Recurring
Guest
Recurring

Julie Brown
Paula Norwood

Recurring

Guest

Recurring

Greg Cipes
Chuck

Recurring
Guest
Recurring

Nick Safer
Arlo

Recurring

Katlin Mastandrea
Ashley Wyman

Guest
Recurring
Guest

Guest

Norm Macdonald
Rusty Heck

Guest
Recurring
Guest

Sean O'Bryan
Ron Donahue

Guest
Recurring

Guest

Recurring

Jerry Van Dyke
Tag Spence

Guest
Recurirng

Grace Bannon
Ruth

Recurring
Guest
Recurring

Jessica Marie Garcia
Becky

Recurring
Guest

Brittany Ross
Courtney

Recurring
Guest

Natalie Lander
Debbie

Recurring
Guest

Christopher Darga
Mr. Farrar

Recurring
Guest

Moises Arias
Matt

Recurring
Guest

Jack McBrayer
Dr. Ted Goodwin

Recurring

Recurring
Guest

Galadriel Stineman
Cassidy Finch

Recurring

Guest

Dave Foley
Dr. Fulton

Recurring
Guest

Guest

French Stewart
Principal Cameron

Recurring

Guest

Tommy Bechtold
Kenny

Recurring

Alphonso McAuley
Hutch

Recurring

Brooke Dillman
Tink Babbit

Guest
Recurring
Guest

Casey Burke
Cindy

Recurring

Gia Mantegna
Devin Levin

Recurring
Guest

David Hull
Logan

Guest
Recurring

Jovan Armand
Troy

Recurring

Daniela Bobadilla
Lexie

Recurring

Will Green
Jeremy

Recurring

Keaton Savage
Tyler

Guest
Recurring

Greer Grammer
April

Recurring

text: Extended family[edit]

text:
Edie and Ginny Freehold (Jeanette Miller and Frances Bay, introduced in Season 1) are Frankie's elderly aunts who are heavy smokers and drinkers. Aunt Edie used to work in Mike's quarry as the bookkeeper, often showing signs of memory loss. One such occasion is when they went to a funeral for Edie and Ginny's brother, and Aunt Edie thought it was her birthday. Aunt Ginny uses a wheelchair and rarely talks. They have a sickly Basset Hound named Doris. On many occasions, Frankie is forced to care for Doris unexpectedly; on one such occasion, Doris gave birth to puppies. In the season 3 episode "The Map", which premiered in early 2012, Aunt Ginny dies. (The actress who portrayed her, Frances Bay, had died in real life.) Brick's elderly friend, Grandma Dot, then moves in with Edie to take care of her. In the early 2015 episode, "Hecks on a Train", Aunt Edie has just died (actress Jeanette Miller had retired from acting) and the Hecks are left to care for Doris.
Michael "Big Mike" Heck Sr. (John Cullum, introduced in Season 1) is Mike's reclusive, man-of-few-words father, who is a widower. He appears to be an unloving, uncaring parent, but this is primarily because he simply does not want to be a "bother" for either of his sons. He is also depicted as a hoarder. In Season 6, Big Mike and Axl fixed the Hecks’ kitchen sink, which was a rare bonding experience for the two of them.
Orville "Rusty" Heck (Norm Macdonald, introduced in Season 2) is Mike's unreliable, silly brother. He often makes up excuses why he can't be anywhere or do anything Mike asks him to do. He once took Brick out of school to bowl and to teach him how to drive, even though he was not old enough or ready. It is revealed in the season 3 finale that his real first name is Orville. In the season 3 finale the Hecks get an invitation to his wedding but it says the wedding is happening at their house. Rusty marries a woman called Marlene, but in season 5 when Marlene invites herself to Thanksgiving at the Hecks' house, Rusty tells them that they got a divorce because she slept with his best friend. Rusty appears later in season 5 and is homeless (again). He ends up moving in with the Hecks, and accompanies Mike and Brick to Brick's spelling bee in Chicago, where Rusty makes a deal with Brick to lose, allowing Rusty to win some money on a bet he made. In Season 7, Rusty comes up with a business idea that Mike shockingly thinks might work, and the two start a side business together.
Pat Spence (Marsha Mason, introduced in Season 1) is Frankie's mother. Pat appeared at least once in all of the first seven seasons. Her first appearance was in season 1 episode 22 ("Mother's Day"). Her latest appearance was in season 7, episode 22 ("Not Mother's Day").
Tag Spence (Jerry Van Dyke, introduced in Season 2) is Frankie's father. Tag is a schmoozer and always talks to Mike endlessly, which Mike finds very uncomfortable and annoying. In season 4 Tag calls Mike to meet up at a Stuckey's restaurant, to have man-to-man chats every Sunday. After a couple of meetings, Mike decides he just can't possibly stand to do it any longer, so he suggests that Tag should try chatting with people on Facebook. Tag's latest appearance was in season 6, episode 21 ("Two of a Kind"). The episode reveals a longstanding feud between Tag and his brother Dutch (played by Jerry Van Dyke's real-life brother Dick Van Dyke), which is mostly fueled by Tag's jealousy, and Mike and Frankie end up trying to resolve it.

text: Co-workers[edit]

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Bob Weaver (Chris Kattan, introduced in Season 1) is Frankie's co-worker and friend at Ehlert Motors. He is depicted as a lonely, insecure man who lives with his mother and doesn't seem to have any friends. Thus, he tends to insert himself into the Hecks' family life whenever he can. Bob was credited as a main character in the first two seasons, but the role was significantly reduced after Frankie was fired from Ehlert Motors. He was a recurring character in Season 3, and has since made two other appearances (the most recent in Season 5, when Frankie rushes out to her dental office job but accidentally goes to Ehlert Motors). Bob and Mike once moonlighted together delivering Little Betty snack cakes to stores.
Don Ehlert (Brian Doyle-Murray, introduced in Season 1) is the racist and misogynistic owner of the car dealership where Frankie used to work, and where Bob presumably still works. Frankie and Bob constantly worry that he is going to fire them. Ehlert's wife left him when he chose work over her, and Frankie was first sympathetic but later turned angry. He often drinks at work. Elhert, like Mike, likes sports. As with Bob, appearances by the Mr. Ehlert character were significantly reduced after Frankie was fired from Ehlert Motors.
Pete Miller (Peter Breitmayer, introduced in Season 1) is Ehlert Motors' best salesman and star employee, and he is not afraid to tell everyone about it. Pete often brags about his success at Frankie’s and Bob's expense, putting them down about how little they contribute to the business while developing a "teacher's pet" relationship with Mr. Ehlert.
Dave (Malcolm Foster Smith, introduced in Season 1) is an employee at the quarry Mike manages. He has appeared in at least two episodes every season.
Jim (Troy Metcalf, introduced in Season 1) is an employee at the quarry Mike manages. He has appeared in at least one episode every season.
Chuck (Greg Cipes, introduced in Season 2) is a younger employee at the quarry Mike manages. He once babysat for Brick, giving him questionable advice on a school project. He often speaks in the third person, referring to himself as "The Chuck".
Dr. Ted Goodwin (Jack McBrayer, introduced in Season 4) is the dentist who hires Frankie as a hygienist in season 4. He has few friends, and Frankie is forced to spend time with him after work in "The Jump" (season 5).[2] Ted's dental office is bought out by the conglomerate Smile Sensations in Season 7, and Frankie does not like the changes.
Edwin (Jimmy Bellinger, introduced in Season 5) is the young manager at Spudsy's, where Sue works.

text: Neighbors[edit]

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Sean Donahue (Beau Wirick, introduced in Season 1) is one of Axl's best friends, teammate on the high school football team, and neighbor Nancy Donahue's only son. He is helpful, polite, and friendly, which makes him outwardly the opposite of Axl; that said, he always supports everything Axl does. In season 2, Sue develops a crush on Sean, but eventually ends the one-way relationship. In season 5, Sean came back from college to take Sue to prom upon learning that she had no date, but by the time he arrived, Sue had made plans to go with Darrin. Similarly, he often makes the several hour drive home from Notre Dame (at the request of his mother) to help the Hecks whenever there is a crisis, only to find the crisis resolved by the time he gets there. It was revealed in the Season 7 episode "Hecks at a Movie" that his and Axl's respective first kisses were inadvertently with one another in a dark closet, something they have vowed to never speak of again. Also in Season 7, Sean has taken on a "hippie" persona and has become a vegetarian (much to Nancy's embarrassment). By Season 8, Sean has reverted by to a more clean-cut look. The events of Season 8 reveal that Sean and Sue have a mutual affection, but neither person is yet aware of the other's feelings.
Nancy Donahue (Jen Ray, introduced in Season 1) is the Hecks' neighbor and president of the booster club. The Donahues (Nancy, her husband Ron, their son Sean, and two daughters) are portrayed as the idyllic family Frankie yearns to be like. From Season 5, Episode 4 ("The 100th"), Nancy and Frankie's friendship has waned a little, mainly because Nancy overheard Mike and Frankie talking about her.
Ron Donahue (Sean O'Bryan, introduced in Season 2) is Nancy's husband and Sean's father, who appears to be very involved in his kids' lives.
Rita Glossner (Brooke Shields, introduced in Season 1) is the Hecks' uncouth and troubled neighbor. She is the single parent of three rambunctious boys, as she had kicked the boys' father out of the house some years ago. The Glossners appear to be the only family on the block that is worse off financially than the Hecks. Rita often shows her disdain for the Hecks' higher status, even calling Frankie a "one-percenter" in the Season 7 episode, "Halloween VI: Tick Tock Death". The Season 8 episode "Trip and Fall" reveals that Rita has a fourth son, Rodney, her oldest child who has just made her a grandmother.
Derrick Glossner (David Chandler), Wade Glossner (Parker Bolek), and "Diaper" Glossner (Gibson Bobby Sjobeck) (all introduced in Season 1) make up the dreaded Glossner boys, Rita's children. They are neighborhood bullies who used to terrorize Sue and Brick. In the first season, Sue and Carly attempt to fight the two older Glossner boys via a dance routine set to "Kung Fu Fighting". In the fifth season, Derrick reveals he has a crush on Sue and unexpectedly kisses her multiple times. Despite describing her as a "rich girl" with "one dad and two different kinds of chips" (and thus out of his league), he vows to better himself and come back for her someday.
Paula Norwood (Julie Brown, introduced in Season 2) is another of the Hecks' neighbors. She serves as somewhat of a counterpoint to the idyllic Nancy Donahue in that her life and family (including husband Bill) is depicted as being similar to Frankie's, having a lot of the same issues.
Bill Norwood (Pat Finn, introduced in Season 2) is the Hecks' neighbor and Paula’s husband who frequently embarrasses her. Bill tends to try too hard to convince Mike he's his friend, to the point of buying Mike expensive sunglasses for Christmas, even though the two had never agreed to exchange gifts.
Dierdre Peterson (Emily Rutherfurd, introduced in Season 7) is the Hecks' new next-door neighbor. She has three rambunctious, noisy children, plus a new baby.

text: Friends and classmates[edit]

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Darrin McGrew (John Gammon, introduced in season 1) is Axl's other best friend (along with Sean Donahue) and teammate. Darrin is the most passive and simple of Axl's friends, often landing himself, Sean, and Axl in problematic situations. In season 3, he takes Sue to the prom because of her "sunny disposition" and explained to Axl that he (Darrin) just wanted to go with someone and dance. In season 4, Darrin takes Sue to a Valentine's Day dance after her date cancels; and when tidying up in the hall after the dance they share a kiss. Later Darrin confides that he wants to continue dating Sue, which angers Axl. However, near the end of season 4, Sue breaks up with him after he accidentally punched her in the face while she was trying to break up a fight between him and Axl. After high school, Darrin enrolls in a heating and air conditioning repair school. In season 5, Sue feels like the breakup was a mistake and realizes that they only broke up because Axl was being so weird about it. With Axl having gone off to college, Sue gains a renewed interest in Darrin until she sees that he has a new girlfriend (Angel). Darrin later decides that his current girlfriend is too high-maintenance and he brings flowers to Sue, only to see her being kissed by Derrick Glossner. Despite a series of misunderstandings, the two ultimately reconnect at Sue's prom in season 5, and become a couple again. He proposes to Sue in the 6th season, and under pressure, she accepts. (In this episode, you see Darrin's mom for the first time and Darrin's last name is revealed to be McGrew, after Axl jokes that Sue's married name would be Sue Sue McGrew.) After realizing she doesn't want to be married yet, Sue breaks off the engagement with him three days later. Darrin has not appeared since that episode.
Carly (Blaine Saunders, introduced in Season 1) is Sue's best female friend. She began in season 1 as a geeky character, wearing glasses and braces. Her braces were removed mid-season 1, and she became more popular as a result. Sue seems to be jealous, if only subconsciously, and wears makeup which her family finds garish. From season 2 onwards, Carly has reverted to a more geeky look. After making multiple appearances in Seasons 1–4, Carly only made one appearance in Season 5 (Episode 14, "The Award") and one appearance in Season 6 (Episode 11, "A Quarry Story").
Zack (Andrew J. Fishman, introduced in Season 1) is Brick's friend from the socially challenged class. He has a tendency to behave like a cat, meowing and wearing oven mitts. Zack has not appeared in the show since Season 4.
Arlo (Nick Shafer, introduced in Season 2) is a friend Brick meets during the second season. He has an obsession with keeping everything on a schedule and takes frequent and lengthy bathroom breaks in the episode "Mother's Day II" when he is accompanying the Hecks to Brown County. He does not show up in the third or fourth season, although in "Year of the Hecks", he is mentioned.
Ashley "Weird Ashley" Wyman (Katlin Mastandrea, introduced in Season 2) is Axl's weird classmate who has twice been his accidental date to prom. She is also on Sue's wrestlerette team. She has a keen interest in wizards, although she has never heard of Harry Potter. At their third prom together, Ashley is not Axl's date but dances with him when he's announced as prom king, as Axl and his date Cassidy had broken up only a few moments before the announcement. Axl is known to have a hatred towards her as he still regrets sending a text message about going to a prom with her. In season 5, Ashley invites Sue to hang with her at prom, as they are both there without dates, while Frankie's voice-over chides: "It wouldn't be prom if a Heck wasn't accompanied by Weird Ashley." In season 6, Ashley appears in Axl's dorm building out of nowhere, announcing she has transferred to East Indiana State because of their hotel management program. She tells Devin Levin that Axl was her boyfriend, which Axl of course vehemently denies. During an encounter with Axl in Season 8 ("Exes and Ohhhs"), Ashley gets angry with him because he never officially said that he had no romantic interest in her, leading her to believe there was always a chance.
Ruth (Grace Bannon, introduced in Season 3) is a member of Sue's wrestlerette team, depicted as an extreme religious conservative, often referencing "the rapture". Unlike the other wrestlerettes, Ruth wears an ankle-length skirt.
Becky (Jessica Marie Garcia, introduced in Season 3) is a rough-and-tumble member of Sue's wrestlerette team.
Charles "Hutch" Hutchinson (Alphonso McAuley, introduced in Season 5) is Axl's football teammate, best friend, and eventual roommate at college. Like Axl, Hutch does not get much playing time on the East Indiana State football team.
Kenny (Tommy Bechtold, introduced in Season 5) is Axl's college roommate who does nothing but play World of Warcraft. He is mostly shown from behind as he sits at his computer. His face was shown briefly at the end of the season 5 episode "The Kiss". In an episode of season 6 ("The Table") Axl and Hutch move out of the dorm and into a rental house, but realize they can't afford it on their own. They look up Kenny and invite him to be their roommate, too, as he apparently is reliable in paying bills and rent. Kenny speaks on-screen for the first time (and his face is shown again) in the Season 7 episode "Halloween VI: Tick Tock Death". The Season 8 episode "Pitch Imperfect" reveals that Kenny has developed some apps in between playing games, and has a fairly substantial net worth.
Cindy (Casey Burke, introduced in Season 6) is a classmate of Brick's who becomes his pseudo-girlfriend in season 6. Though she stands taller than Brick, she seems as quirky as he is. She always wears a safari hat, her facial expression shows no emotion, and, since she finds Brick's missing shoe in her first appearance, it is heavily implied that the character is named for Cinderella. Cindy is very brief and direct in her communication. She has stated in multiple episodes that her favorite food is shrimp. Cindy's flaky parents are introduced in the season 7 episode "Crushed", when they ask the Hecks for a significant loan to save their house from foreclosure. The Hecks aren't able to help, forcing Cindy's family to move in with her grandparents. This seemingly ends her relationship with Brick, until it is shown that her grandparents live only a block away. It's implied in the season 7 episode "Halloween VII" that Brick and Cindy eventually marry and start a family. In Season 8's "The Final Final", Brick is elated to learn that Cindy's doctor told her she has likely stopped growing.
Troy (Jovan Armand, introduced in Season 7) is Brick's large classmate who initially protects him from school bullies, then later becomes his friend.
Lexie Brooks (Daniela Bobadilla, introduced in season 7) is Sue's college classmate who, like Sue, fails to get accepted by any sororities at the school. She later becomes Sue's dorm mate and friend. She loves horses, and her family is rich. In the Season 8 episode "Hoosier Maid", Lexie realizes she likes Axl, after denying his implications for several weeks. Because Axl is with April, she doesn't act on her feelings. However, after one date with Sean Donahue, Lexie tells Sue she thinks she wants more of a "bad boy". She ultimately reveals to Sue that she really really likes Axl in the Season 8 episode "Swing and a Miss". Axl returns her feelings by kissing her in "The Par-Tay." They date in secret in "The Confirmation" and then by the end of the episode, their relationship is public knowledge. In "The Final Final", they're shown to be happily together.

text: Axl's love interests[edit]

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Morgan (Alexa Vega, introduced in Season 1) is Axl's first girlfriend on the series, whom Frankie takes an instant liking to due to her straight-A grades and talent in multiple areas. However, after she breaks Axl's heart more than once, Frankie eventually explodes with anger and throws a beanbag at Morgan during a birthday party.
Courtney and Debbie (Brittany Ross and Natalie Lander, introduced in Season 3) are airheaded, think-alike cheerleaders in Axl and Sue's high school who date Axl as one. Because the two are inseparable, Axl struggles to figure out which one is his real girlfriend and which one is just hanging out with the other. He makes a calculated guess that Courtney is his girlfriend and kisses her, which causes both girls to slap him and break up with him. They perpetually overlook Sue, often thinking she is a new exchange student, and later calling her a freshman during her senior year. In Season 7, it is revealed that Courtney and Debbie are assistant cheerleading coaches at Orson High, and that they no longer like each other.
Cassidy Finch (Galadriel Stineman, introduced in Season 4) is Axl's girlfriend in his senior year of high school. She met Axl when he was trying to boost his grades and needed a tutor. They didn't get along very well in their first session, but then Axl kissed her and soon found out she had a boyfriend. She later broke up with her old boyfriend to be with Axl. Late in season 4, Cassidy's ex-boyfriend returns, putting tension between Axl and Cassidy for a while before they come back together. They break up in the episode "Hallelujah Hoedown", after Cassidy reveals she is going away in three weeks for an internship program and that they will be in different colleges come September. They begin speaking again in "The Award" (season 5), after Cassidy leaves an embarrassing message on Axl's voicemail. After a brief reconnection during spring break, Cassidy breaks up with Axl again, saying it isn't fair to either of them to pursue a relationship while being 800 miles apart.
Devin Levin (Gia Mantegna, introduced in Season 6) is a relative of Frankie's hairdresser who was only an acquaintance of Axl's in the past. In season 6, he notices how she has blossomed and that they share many interests, and they begin dating. The two briefly break up when Devin notices that Axl still has her listed as "Uggo from Idaho" in his cell phone contacts, but they get back together later on. Early in Season 7, they break up again, each agreeing they should see other people during their college years.
April (Greer Grammer, introduced in Season 8) is Axl's love interest, whom he meets offscreen between Seasons 7 and 8. April is beautiful and sweet, but not very smart. Frankie immediately tells Axl he can do better, causing a rift between mother and son. Mike initially likes April, but later has a conversation with Axl in which he calls her "dumb as a box of hammers". Defiant, Axl marries April in a civil service. After both sets of parents find out, the marriage is annulled. Axl briefly continues to date his ex-wife, but later breaks up with April in order to pursue Lexie.
Lexie

text: Sue's love interests[edit]

text:
Brad Bottig (Brock Ciarlelli, introduced in Season 1) is Sue's flamboyant, theater-loving, tap dancing and slightly camp ex-boyfriend, who is on the high school wrestling team. They date during Thanksgiving (Season 1), but soon break up. Mike and Frankie assume the breakup was the result of Sue learning that Brad is gay, but Sue claims it’s because she found out Brad has a smoking habit. Brad and Sue have remained good friends despite their breakup, and she remains seemingly unaware of his obvious, if stereotypical, homosexual behavior. From Season 5 onwards, Brad seems to be Sue's closest friend. In Season 7, Brad prepares to tell Sue a secret (in which he is about to come out as gay), to which she responds that she knows, and she shows him love and support. In Season 8, Brad transfers to East Indiana State, saying he felt dwarfed as a student at NYU.
Matt (Moisés Arias, introduced in Season 3) is a boy on the wrestling team at Sue and Axl's school who likes Sue; he becomes Sue's first real boyfriend but eventually ends the relationship after moving away and falling for another girl. In season 4, Matt asks Sue to the school Valentine's Day dance because he broke up with his girlfriend Sherrie. He later calls Sue at the last minute to say that he and Sherrie got back together, and he is no longer taking her to the dance. This paves the way for Darrin to swoop in and save the day for Sue.
Darrin McGrew
Logan (David Hull, introduced in Season 6) is a guy from another high school who works as a shirtless model in the Abercrombie store at the same mall where Sue works. He asks Sue to her prom after seeing her depressed over breaking up with Darrin, and later reveals that he likes her. The two later try to connect during a chance encounter at East Indiana State, but Sue had taken Brick along that day and he gets lost. Finally, Logan and Sue meet at a movie theater, where Logan says he is majoring in Religious Studies and plans to be a priest, disappointing Sue.
Jeremy (Will Green, introduced in Season 7) is a hardcore environmentalist and anti-capitalist whom Sue first meets when he is chained to a tree on campus. The two briefly date, but Sue breaks up with Jeremy early in Season 8.
Tyler (Keaton Savage, introduced in Season 7) is the young man who drives the safe ride cart on the East Indiana State campus. He becomes Sue's brief love interest in Season 8, until she spends most of their first date talking about Sean Donahue

text: School staff[edit]

text:
Mrs. Tompkins (Krista Braun, introduced in Season 1) is Brick's social skills mentor and guidance counselor.
Mr. Farrar (Christopher Darga, introduced in Season 3) is a teacher at Orson High.
Dr. Fulton (Dave Foley, introduced in Season 4) is the school therapist. He is an odd character who helps Brick bond with his peers and try to fit in more at school. An insecure man himself, Dr. Fulton is obsessed with his ex-wife Shelly, whom he mentions nearly every time Brick talks to him for "help". In Season 8, he tells Brick he is dating a 68-year-old woman named Barbara, whom he prefers to call "Shelly".
Principal Cameron (French Stewart, introduced in Season 4) is the principal at Orson High.
Coach Tink Babbitt (Brooke Dillman, introduced in Season 5) is a physical education teacher and detention monitor at Orson High. In the Season 8 episode "Swing and a Miss", Mike hires Tink as a part-time assistant at the quarry, solely for the purpose of making her eligible to play on the quarry's softball team.

text: Miscellaneous characters[edit]

text:
Reverend Timothy "Tim-Tom" Thomas (Paul Hipp, introduced in Season 1), is a youth minister at the Hecks' church whom Sue deeply admires. He surprised Sue by remembering her name after only having met her once, and always seems to appear just when Sue needs help the most. He is known for frequently playing his acoustic guitar and making almost anything into a song. He plays guitar with Axl on one occasion when encouraging him to do the right thing. In season 5, Reverend Tim-Tom gets a girlfriend (Reverend Tammy, played by Casey Wilson). Sue takes a disliking to Tammy and isn't sure how to tell Reverend Tim-Tom, but Sue changes her mind about Tammy after the two talk.
Reverend Hayver (Dierk Torsek, introduced in Season 1) is the pastor at the Hecks' church.

text: Notable guest stars[edit]

text:
Amy Sedaris as Abby Michaels (Season 1)
Betty White as Mrs. Nethercott (Season 1)
Doris Roberts as Mrs. Rinsky (Season 2)
Ray Romano as Nicky Kohlbrenner (Season 3)
Ed Asner as Ben (Season 3)
Richard Gant as Pastor Watkins (Season 3)
Whoopi Goldberg as Ms. Jane Marsh (Season 3)
David Koechner as Jeff Webber (Season 4)
Carolyn Hennesy as Connie McDonald (Season 4)
Marion Ross as Ms. Dunlap (Season 4)
Rachel Dratch as Principal Barker (Season 5)
Keegan-Michael Key as Reverend Deveaux (Season 5)
Casey Wilson as Reverend Tammy (Season 5)
Nicole Sullivan as Vicki (Season 5)
Mindy Cohn as Kimberly (Season 5)
Richard Kind as Dr. Niller (Season 6)
Kirstie Alley as Pam Staggs (Season 6)
Dick Van Dyke as Paul "Dutch" Spence (Season 6)
Faith Ford as Sheila (Season 7)
Cheryl Hines as Dr. Sommer Samuelson (Season 7)
Josh Cooke as Nick Grant (Season 7)
Alan Ruck as Jack Kershaw (Season 7)
Monica Horan as Anna Ferguson (Season 8)
Alan Rachins as Mort (Season 8)
Lisa Rinna as Tammy Brooks (Season 9)


document_title: The Great Escape (film)

question_text: steve mcqueen's nickname in the great escape

question_tokens: steve mcqueen 's nickname in the great escape

root

text: The Great Escape (film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: In 1943, having expended enormous resources on recapturing escaped Allied POWs, the Germans move those POWs most determined to escape to a new, high-security prisoner of war camp. The commandant, Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger, tells the senior British officer, Group Captain Ramsey, "There will be no escapes from this camp."

tag: p

text: Meanwhile, Gestapo agents Kuhn and Preissen and SS Lieutenant Dietrich bring RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett to the camp. Known as "Big X," Bartlett is introduced as the principal escape organiser. As Kuhn leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again, he will be shot. However, locked up with "every escape artist in Germany," he immediately plans the greatest escape ever attempted, with tunnels to break out 250 prisoners.

text: The POWs organise into teams. Flight Lieutenant Robert Hendley is "the scrounger" who finds needed materials, from a camera to clothes and identity cards. Australian Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick, "the manufacturer," makes tools like picks for digging and bellows for pumping air into the tunnels. Flight Lieutenants Danny Velinski and William "Willie" Dickes are "the tunnel kings" in charge of the digging. Flight Lieutenant Andrew MacDonald acts as intelligence provider and Bartlett's second-in-command. Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy devises a method of spreading soil from the tunnels over the camp, under the guards' noses. Flight Lieutenant Griffith acts as "the tailor," creating civilian outfits from scavenged cloth. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, who becomes nearly blind due to progressive myopia caused by intricate work by candlelight; Hendley takes it upon himself to be Blythe's guide in the escape. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, calling them "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry."

text: USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts, the "Cooler King," irritates guards with frequent escape attempts and irreverence. Hilts and Scottish RAF Flying Officer Archibald "Archie" Ives conceive an escape attempt through a short tunnel at a blind spot near the edge of the camp, a proposal which is accepted by Bartlett on the grounds that vetoing every independent escape attempt would raise suspicion of the collective escape attempt being planned. However, Hilts and Ives are caught and returned to the "cooler." Upon release from the cooler, Bartlett requests that Hilts use his next escape attempt as an opportunity for a reconnaissance of the area immediately surrounding the camp; Hilts turns down Bartlett's request but does assist the prisoners as a scrounger. Meanwhile, Hendley forms a friendship with German guard Werner, which he exploits as a means of obtaining his private documents, and then as blackmail to get hold of other items for the escape. Soon, Bartlett orders "Dick" and "Harry" to be sealed off, as "Tom" is closest to completion.

text: While the POWs enjoy a 4th of July celebration arranged by the three Americans in the camp, the guards discover "Tom." The mood drops to despair, and Ives walks in a daze to the barbed wire surrounding the camp and climbs it in view of guards; Hilts runs to stop him but is too late, and Ives is shot dead. The prisoners switch their efforts to "Harry," and Hilts agrees to reconnoiter outside the camp and allow himself to be recaptured. The information he brings back is used to create maps to guide the escapees.

text: The last part of the tunnel is completed on the scheduled night, but it proves to be twenty feet short of the woods. Knowing there are no other options, Bartlett orders the escape to go ahead, and Hilts improvises a rope signal system to allow them to exit the tunnel between sweeps of the guards on patrol. The claustrophobic Danny nearly refuses to go, but is helped along by Willie. Seventy-six prisoners escape, aided by an air-raid blackout: once back on the rope, however, Griffith impatiently exits the tunnel in view of the guards, and the escape is discovered.

text: After attempts to reach neutral Switzerland, Sweden, or Spain, almost all the POWs are recaptured or killed. Hendley and Blythe steal a plane to fly over the Swiss border, but the engine fails, and they crash-land. Soldiers arrive and Blythe, his eyesight damaged, stands and is shot. Hendley surrenders as Blythe dies.

text: When Bartlett is identified in a railway station by Gestapo agent Kuhn, Ashley-Pitt overpowers and shoots Kuhn with his own gun but is killed by soldiers while fleeing the station. The resulting confusion allows Bartlett and MacDonald to slip away, but they are later caught while boarding a bus. MacDonald is quickly apprehended, but Bartlett escapes until he is recognized and arrested by SS Lieutenant Steinach. Hilts steals a motorcycle at a checkpoint and is pursued by German soldiers; he jumps a first-line barbed wire fence at the German-Swiss border but before he's able to jump the second-line fence, the motorcycle is shot, causing it and him to become entangled in the bigger, second line of the fence and be captured.

text: Three truckloads of recaptured POWs are driven down a country road and split off in three directions. One truck, containing Bartlett, MacDonald, Cavendish, Haynes, and others, stops in a field and the POWs are told to get out to "stretch their legs." As Bartlett expresses that he's "never been happier," the prisoners are shot dead under the pretense that they were trying to escape. In all, 50 escapees are murdered; Hendley and 10 others are returned to the camp. Von Luger is relieved of command of the camp by SS Lieutenant Steinach for having failed to prevent the breakout.

text: Only three POWs make it to safety: Danny and Willie steal a rowboat and proceed downriver to the Baltic coast, where they sneak aboard the Swedish merchant ship, Alta; while Sedgwick slips through the countryside on a stolen bicycle before hiding aboard a freight train to France, where he is guided by the Resistance into Spain. Hilts is returned to the camp in handcuffs and taken back to the cooler, just as von Luger is relieved of his command. Lieutenant Goff, one of the Americans, fetches Hilts's baseball and glove and throws them to him when Hilts and his guards pass. The guard locks him in his cell and walks away but pauses when he hears Hilts bouncing his baseball against a cell wall.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Steve McQueen as Hilts "The Cooler King"
James Garner as Hendley "The Scrounger"
Richard Attenborough as Bartlett "Big X"
James Donald as Ramsey "The SBO"
Charles Bronson as Danny "Tunnel King"
Donald Pleasence as Blythe "The Forger"
James Coburn as Sedgwick "Manufacturer"
Hannes Messemer as Von Luger "The Kommandant"
David McCallum as Ashley-Pitt "Dispersal"
Gordon Jackson as MacDonald "Intelligence"
John Leyton as Willie "Tunnel King"
Angus Lennie as Ives "The Mole"
Nigel Stock as Cavendish "The Surveyor"
Robert Graf as Werner "The Ferret"
Jud Taylor as 2nd Lt. Goff
Hans Reiser as Kuhn (Gestapo)
Harry Riebauer as Stabsfeldwebel Strachwitz
William Russell as Sorren
Robert Freitag as Hauptmann Posen
Ulrich Beiger as Preissen
George Mikell as SS Obersturmführer Dietrich
Lawrence Montaigne as Haynes "Diversions"
Robert Desmond as Griffith "Tailor"
Til Kiwe as Frick
Heinz Weiss as Kramer
Tom Adams as Dai Nimmo "Diversions"
Karl-Otto Alberty as SS Untersturmführer Steinach

tag: ul

text: Production[edit]

text: Adaptation[edit]

text: The story was adapted by James Clavell, W. R. Burnett, and Walter Newman from Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape. Brickhill had been a prisoner at Stalag Luft III during World War II. In the book, Brickhill noted he had been a very minor member of the X Organization, one of the "stooges" who monitored German movements in the POW compound.

text: The film was to a significant extent fictional, based on real events but with numerous changes made to increase its drama and appeal, and as a vehicle for its box-office stars. While some of its characters were fictitious, most were amalgams of several real characters and others based on real people. In reality there were no escapes by aircraft or motorcycle: the motorcycle sequence was asked for by McQueen, a keen motorcyclist, who did the stunt riding himself (except for the final jump, done by Bud Ekins).[3] Nor were the recaptured prisoners executed at the same time. The screenwriters significantly increased the involvement of American POWs; the real escape was by largely British and other allied personnel. A few American officers in the camp initially helped dig the tunnels, and worked on the early plans; however, they were moved away seven months before the escape, ending their involvement.[4][5][6] In addition, the film suggests the three prisoners who escaped to freedom were British, Polish, and Australian; in reality, they were Norwegian (Jens Müller and Per Bergsland) and Dutch (Bram van der Stok).[7]

text: The film omits to mention the crucial role Canadians played in building the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so POWs, 600 were involved in preparations out of which 150 were Canadian. Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot and mining engineer who was the real-life "tunnel king," was engaged as a technical advisor for the film.[8]

text: Ex-POWs asked film-makers to exclude details about the help they received from their home countries, such as maps, papers, and tools hidden in gift packages, lest it jeopardise future POW escapes. The film-makers complied.[9]

text: Casting[edit]

text: Steve McQueen, in a role based on at least three pilots, David M. Jones, John Dortch Lewis,[10] and William Ash,[11][12][13] has been credited with the most significant performance. Critic Leonard Maltin wrote that "the large, international cast is superb, but the standout is McQueen; it's easy to see why this cemented his status as a superstar."[14]

text: Richard Attenborough was cast as Sqn Ldr Roger Bartlett RAF ("Big X"), a character based on Roger Bushell, the South African-born British POW who was the mastermind of the real Great Escape.[15] This was the film that first brought Attenborough to wide popular attention in the United States. During the Second World War, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. He volunteered to fly with the Film Unit and after further training, where he sustained permanent ear damage, qualified as a sergeant, flying on several missions over Europe filming from the rear gunner's position to record the outcome of Bomber Command sorties.

text: Group Captain Ramsey RAF (the "SBO") was based on Group Captain Herbert Massey, a WWI veteran who had volunteered in WWII. He is played by James Donald. Massey walked with a limp, and so did Ramsey in the movie who walked with a cane. Massey had suffered severe wounds to the same leg in both wars. There would be no escape for him but as Senior British Officer, he had to know what was going on. Group Captain Massey had been a veteran escaper himself and had been in trouble with the Gestapo. His experience allowed him to offer sound advice to the X-Organisation.[16] Another officer that had most likely inspired the character of Ramsey was Wing Commander Harry Day. There was an uncanny resemblance between "Wings" Day and James Donald as Group Captain Ramsey in this picture.

text: Flt Lt Colin Blythe RAF ("The Forger") was based on Tim Walenn and played by Donald Pleasence.[17] Pleasence himself had served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He was shot down and spent a year in German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft I.

text: Charles Bronson had been a gunner in the USAAF and was wounded, but had not been shot down. Like his character, Danny Valinski, he was a coal miner and suffered from claustrophobia.

text: James Garner had been a soldier in the Korean War and was twice wounded. He was a scrounger during that time, as is his character Flt Lt Hendley.[18]

text: Hannes Messemer was cast as the Kommandant of Stalag Luft III, "Colonel von Luger," a character based on Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau.[19] He had been a POW in Russia during World War II and had escaped by walking hundreds of miles to the German border.[20]

text: Angus Lennie's Flying Officer Archibald Ives, "The Mole", was based on Jimmy Kiddel, who was shot dead while trying to scale the fence.[21]

text: The film is accurate in showing that only three escapees made home runs, although the people who made them differed from those in the film. The escape of Danny and Willie in the film is based on two Norwegians who escaped by boat to Sweden, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller. The successful escape of James Coburn's Australian character Sedgwick (the manufacturer) via Spain was based on Dutchman Bram van der Stok. Coburn, an American, was cast in the role of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick who was an amalgamation of Flt Lt Albert Hake, an Australian serving in the RAF and the camps compass maker, and Johnny Travis, the real manufacturer.

text: Tilman 'Til Kiwe' Kiver played the German guard "Frick". He is the one who fires his pistol at Steve McQueen's character during the escape. Kiwe had been a German paratrooper officer who was captured and held prisoner at a POW camp in Colorado. He made several escape attempts, dyeing his uniform and carrying forged papers. He was captured in the St. Louis train station during one escape attempt. He won the Knight's Cross before his capture and was the cast member who had actually done many of the exploits shown in the film.

text: Location and set design[edit]

text: The film was made at the Bavaria Film Studio in the Munich suburb of Geiselgasteig in rural Bavaria, where sets for the barrack interiors and tunnels were constructed. The camp was built in a clearing of the Perlacher forest near the studio.[22][23] The German town near the real camp was Sagan (now Żagań, Poland); it was renamed Neustadt in the film.[23] Many scenes were filmed in and around the town of Füssen in Bavaria, including its railway station. The nearby district of Pfronten[24] with its distinctive St. Nikolaus Church and scenic background also features often in the film.[23] Many scenes involving the railway were filmed near Deisenhofen station and on the Großhesselohe - Holzkirchen line.[25] The castle Hendley and Blythe fly by while attempting to escape is Neuschwanstein Castle.[26]

text: The film depicts the tunnel codenamed Tom as having its entrance under a stove and Harry's as in a drain sump in a washroom. In reality, Dick's entrance was the drain sump, Harry's was under the stove, and Tom's was in a darkened corner next to a stove chimney.[27]

text: The motorcycle chase scenes with the barbed wire fences were shot on meadows outside Füssen, and the "barbed wire" that Hilts crashes into before being recaptured was simulated by strips of rubber tied around barbless wire, constructed by the cast and crew in their spare time.[28] The final jump scene was performed by stuntman Bud Ekins in place of Steve McQueen. Other parts of the chase were done by McQueen, playing both Hilts and the soldiers chasing him, because of his ability on a motorcycle.[29] The motorcycle was a Triumph TR6 Trophy which was painted to look like a German machine. The restored machine is currently on display at Triumph's factory at Hinckley, UK.[30]

text: Music[edit]

text: Intrada Records album[edit]

text: Disc one[edit]

text:
[show]Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

No.
Title
Length

1.
"Main Title"
2:30

2.
"At First Glance"
3:07

3.
"Premature Plans"
2:28

4.
"If At Once"
2:31

5.
"Forked"
1:28

6.
"Cooler"
1:59

7.
"Mole"
1:28

8.
""X"/Tonight We Dig"
1:30

9.
"The Scrounger/Blythe"
3:50

10.
"Water Faucet"
1:23

11.
"Interruptus"
1:33

12.
"The Plan/The Sad Ives"
1:43

13.
"Green Thumbs"
2:28

14.
"Hilts And Ives"
0:38

15.
"Cave In"
2:01

16.
"Restless Men"
1:56

17.
"Booze"
1:47

18.
""Yankee Doodle""
0:55

19.
"Discovery"
3:40

tag: table

text: Disc two[edit]

text:
[show]Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Cont'd)

No.
Title
Length

1.
"Various Troubles"
3:52

2.
"Panic"
2:05

3.
"Pin Trick"
0:59

4.
"Hendley’s Risk"
1:43

5.
"Released Again/Escape Time"
5:25

6.
"20 Feet Short"
3:06

7.
"Foul Up"
2:37

8.
"At The Station"
1:33

9.
"On The Road"
3:27

10.
"The Chase/First Casualty"
6:49

11.
"Flight Plan"
2:09

12.
"More Action/Hilts Captured"
6:07

13.
"Road’s End"
2:06

14.
"Betrayal"
2:20

15.
"Three Gone/Home Again"
3:13

16.
"Finale/The Cast"
2:47

text: Disc three[edit]

text:
[show]Original 1963 United Artists Score Album

No.
Title
Length

1.
"Main Title"
2:07

2.
"Premature Plans"
2:08

3.
"Cooler And Mole"
2:26

4.
"Blythe"
2:13

5.
"Discovery"
2:54

6.
"Various Troubles"
2:40

7.
"On The Road"
2:54

8.
"Betrayal"
2:05

9.
"Hendley’s Risk"
2:24

10.
"Road’s End"
2:00

11.
"More Action"
1:57

12.
"The Chase"
2:49

13.
"Finale"
3:14

text: Reception[edit]

text: The Great Escape grossed $11.7 million at the box office,[31] after a budget of $4 million.[32] It became one of the highest-grossing films of 1963, despite heavy competition. In the years since its release, its audience has broadened, cementing its status as a cinema classic.[33] It was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival where McQueen won the Silver Prize for Best Actor.[34]

text: Critical and public response has mostly been enthusiastic, with a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[35] In 1963 New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "But for much longer than is artful or essential, The Great Escape grinds out its tormenting story without a peek beneath the surface of any man, without a real sense of human involvement. It's a strictly mechanical adventure with make-believe men."[36] British film critic Leslie Halliwell described it as "pretty good but overlong POW adventure with a tragic ending".[37] In Time magazine 1963: "The use of color photography is unnecessary and jarring, but little else is wrong with this film. With accurate casting, a swift screenplay, and authentic German settings, Producer-Director John Sturges has created classic cinema of action. There is no sermonizing, no soul probing, no sex. The Great Escape is simply great escapism".[38]

text: In a 2006 poll in the United Kingdom, regarding the family film that television viewers would most want to see on Christmas Day, The Great Escape came in third, and was first among the choices of male viewers.[39]

text: In 2009, seven POWs returned to Stalag Luft III for the 65th anniversary of the escape[40] and watched the film. According to the veterans, many details of the first half depicting life in the camp were authentic, e.g. the machine-gunning of Ives, who snaps and tries to scale the fence, and the actual digging of the tunnels. In 2014, the RAF staged a commemoration of the escape attempt, with 50 serving personnel carrying a photograph of one of the men shot.[41]

text: Awards and honors[edit]

text:
Nominated Academy Award for Film Editing (Ferris Webster)
Nominated Golden Globe Award for Best Picture
Winner Moscow International Film Festival Best Actor (Steve McQueen)
Nominated Moscow International Film Festival Grand Prix (John Sturges)
Selected National Board of Review Top Ten Films of Year
Nominated Writers Guild of America Best Written American Drama (James Clavell, W. R. Burnett) (Screenplay Adaptation)

text: In popular culture[edit]

text: References to scenes and motifs from the film, as well as Elmer Bernstein's theme, have appeared in other films, television series, and video games.

text: Film[edit]

text: The films Chicken Run, Reservoir Dogs, the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Top Secret!, and Charlie's Angels, all contain references or homages to the film.[42]

text: Television[edit]

text:
Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Simpsons, Hogan's Heroes, Nash Bridges, Seinfeld, Get Smart, and Red Dwarf have all parodied or paid homage to the film.[42]
In "Escape From Stalag Luft 112B," an episode of Ripping Yarns, Maj. Errol Phipps (played by Michael Palin) is depicted as being the only prisoner of war never to escape from the camp of the title.[42]
A fictional, made-for-television sequel, The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, appeared in 1988. It starred Christopher Reeve and Judd Hirsch, with Donald Pleasence as an SS villain.[42]

text: Sport[edit]

text: Bernstein's Great Escape theme tune has been taken up by the Pukka Pies England Band, a small brass band who have played in the crowd at England football team matches since 1996.[43] They released an arrangement of the theme as a single for the 1998 FIFA World Cup and a newer version for UEFA Euro 2000.[44]


document_title: List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders

question_text: who has the most points in nba playoffs history

text: Scoring leaders[edit]

text: This article provides a list of National Basketball Association players by total career playoff points scored.

text:
^
Active NBA player

*
Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

†
Not yet eligible for Hall of Fame consideration[2]

text:
Rank
Player
Position(s)
Playoff team(s) played for (years)[3]
Total
points
Games
played
Points
per game
average[4]
Field goals
made
Three-point
field goals
made[5]
Free throws
made

1
James, LeBronLeBron James^
SF/PF
Cleveland Cavaliers (2006–2010, 2015–2018)
Miami Heat (2011–2014)
6,911
239
28.9
2,457
370
1,627

2
Jordan, MichaelMichael Jordan*
SG/SF
Chicago Bulls (1985–1993, 1995–1998)
5,987
179
33.4
2,188
148
1,463

3
Abdul-Jabbar, KareemKareem Abdul-Jabbar*[6]
C
Milwaukee Bucks (1970–1974)
Los Angeles Lakers (1977–1989)
5,762
237
24.3
2,356
0
1,050

4
Bryant, KobeKobe Bryant†
SG/SF
Los Angeles Lakers (1997–2004, 2006–2012)
5,640
220
25.6
2,014
292
1,320

5
O'Neal, ShaquilleShaquille O'Neal*
C
Orlando Magic (1994–1996)
Los Angeles Lakers (1997–2004)
Miami Heat (2005–2007)
Phoenix Suns (2008)
Cleveland Cavaliers (2010)
Boston Celtics (2011)
5,250
216
24.3
2,041
0
1,168

6
Duncan, TimTim Duncan†
PF/C
San Antonio Spurs (1998–1999, 2001–2016)
5,172
251
20.6
1,975
5
1,217

7
Malone, KarlKarl Malone*
PF
Utah Jazz (1986–2003)
Los Angeles Lakers (2004)
4,761
193
24.7
1,743
6
1,269

8
West, JerryJerry West*
PG/SG
Los Angeles Lakers (1961–1970, 1972–1974)
4,457
153
29.1
1,622
0
1,213

9
Parker, TonyTony Parker^
PG
San Antonio Spurs (2002–2018)
4,045
226
17.9
1,613
119
700

10
Wade, DwyaneDwyane Wade^
SG
Miami Heat (2004–2007, 2009–2014, 2016, 2018)
Chicago Bulls (2017)
3,954
177
22.3
1,450
103
951

11
Bird, LarryLarry Bird*
SF/PF
Boston Celtics (1980–1988, 1990–1992)
3,897
164
23.8
1,458
80
901

12
Havlicek, JohnJohn Havlicek*
SF/SG
Boston Celtics (1963–1969, 1972–1977)
3,776
172
22.0
1,451
0
874

13
Olajuwon, HakeemHakeem Olajuwon*[7]
C
Houston Rockets (1985–1991, 1993–1999)
Toronto Raptors (2002)
3,755
145
25.9
1,504
4
743

14
Johnson, MagicMagic Johnson*
PG
Los Angeles Lakers (1980–1991, 1996)
3,701
190
19.5
1,291
51
1,068

15
Nowitzki, DirkDirk Nowitzki^
PF
Dallas Mavericks (2001–2012, 2014–2016)
3,663
145
25.3
1,220
149
1,074

16
Durant, KevinKevin Durant^
SF
Oklahoma City Thunder (2010–2014, 2016)
Golden State Warriors (2017–2018)
3,656
127
28.8
1,238
269
911

17
Pippen, ScottieScottie Pippen*
SF
Chicago Bulls (1988–1998)
Houston Rockets (1999)
Portland Trail Blazers (2000–2003)
3,642
208
17.5
1,335
200
772

18
Baylor, ElginElgin Baylor*
SF
Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers (1959–1970)
3,623
134
27.0
1,388
0
847

19
Chamberlain, WiltWilt Chamberlain*
C
Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors (1960–1962, 1964)
Philadelphia 76ers (1965–1968)
Los Angeles Lakers (1969–1973)
3,607
160
22.5
1,425
0
757

20
McHale, KevinKevin McHale*
PF
Boston Celtics (1981–1993)
3,182
169
18.8
1,204
8
766

21
Pierce, PaulPaul Pierce†
SF/SG
Boston Celtics (2002–2005, 2008–2013)
Brooklyn Nets (2014)
Washington Wizards (2015)
Los Angeles Clippers (2016–2017)
3,180
170
18.7
1,022
276
860

22
Johnson, DennisDennis Johnson*
PG
Seattle SuperSonics (1978–1980)
Phoenix Suns (1981–1983)
Boston Celtics (1984–1990)
3,116
180
17.3
1,167
26
756

23
Erving, JuliusJulius Erving*
SF
Philadelphia 76ers (1977–1987)
3,088
141
21.9
1,187
7
707

24
Ginóbili, ManuManu Ginóbili^
SG
San Antonio Spurs (2003–2008, 2010–2018)
3,054
218
14.0
956
324
818

25
Worthy, JamesJames Worthy*
SF
Los Angeles Lakers (1984–1991, 1993)
3,022
143
21.1
1,267
14
474

text: Progressive list of playoff scoring leaders[edit]

text: This is a progressive list of scoring leaders showing how the record increased through the years.[1]

text:
Team abbreviations
Team(s) listed is the one player was on when he established the record.

BAL
Baltimore Bullets
HOU
Houston Rockets
OKC
Oklahoma City Thunder
SFW
San Francisco Warriors

BOS
Boston Celtics
IND
Indiana Pacers
PHI
Philadelphia 76ers
SEA
Seattle SuperSonics

CHI
Chicago Bulls
LAL
Los Angeles Lakers
PHO
Phoenix Suns
STL
St. Louis Hawks

CLE
Cleveland Cavaliers
MIA
Miami Heat
PHW
Philadelphia Warriors
SYR
Syracuse Nationals

DAL
Dallas Mavericks
MNL
Minneapolis Lakers
ROC
Rochester Royals
UTA
Utah Jazz

GSW
Golden State Warriors
NOP
New Orleans Pelicans
SAS
San Antonio Spurs
WAS
Washington Wizards

NYK
New York Knicks

text:
Playoff scoring leader at the end of every season

Season
Year-by-year leader
Pts
Active player leader
Pts
Career record
Pts
Single-season record
Pts
Season

1946–47
Joe Fulks*000PHW
222
Joe Fulks*000PHW
222
Joe Fulks*000PHW
222
Joe Fulks*000PHW
222
1946–47

1947–48
282
504
504
282
1947–48

1948–49
George Mikan*000MNL
303
George Mikan*000MNL
303
1948–49

1949–50
376
George Mikan*000MNL
679
George Mikan*000MNL
679
376
1949–50

1950–51
Arnie Risen*000ROC
273
847
847
1950–51

1951–52
George Mikan*000MNL
307
1,154
1,154
1951–52

1952–53
238
1,392
1,392
1952–53

1953–54
252
1,644
1,644
1953–54

1954–55
Dolph Schayes*000SYR
209
Jim Pollard*000MNL
977
1954–55

1955–56
Paul Arizin*000PHW
289
George Mikan*000MNL
1,680
1,680
1955–56

1956–57
Bob Pettit*000STL
298
Dolph Schayes*000SYR
1,192
1956–57

1957–58
Cliff Hagan*000STL
305
1,272
1957–58

1958–59
Elgin Baylor*000MNL
331
1,526
1958–59

1959–60
Bob Pettit*000STL
365
1,614
1959–60

1960–61
Elgin Baylor*000LAL
457
1,779
Dolph Schayes*000SYR
1,779
Elgin Baylor*000LAL
457
1960–61

1961–62
502
1,836
1,836
502
1961–62

1962–63
424
Bob Cousy*000BOS
2,018
Bob Cousy*000BOS
2,018
1962–63

1963–64
Wilt Chamberlain*000SFW
416
Bob Pettit*000STL
2,194
Bob Pettit*000STL
2,194
1963–64

1964–65
Jerry West*000LAL
447
2,240
2,240
1964–65

1965–66
479
Elgin Baylor*000LAL
2,511
Elgin Baylor*000LAL
2,511
1965–66

1966–67
Rick Barry*000SFW
521
2,582
2,582
Rick Barry*000SFW
521
1966–67

1967–68
John Havlicek*000BOS
493
3,010
3,010
1967–68

1968–69
Jerry West*000LAL
556
3,287
3,287
Jerry West*000LAL
556
1968–69

1969–70
562
Jerry West*000LAL
3,708
Jerry West*000LAL
3,708
562
1969–70

1970–71
Earl Monroe*000BAL
397
3,708
3,708
1970–71

1971–72
Walt Frazier*000NYK
388
4,052
4,052
1971–72

1972–73
Jerry West*000LAL
401
4,453
4,453
1972–73

1973–74
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*000LAL
515
4,457
4,457
1973–74

1974–75
Rick Barry*000GSW
479
John Havlicek*000BOS
3,413
1974–75

1975–76
Jo Jo White*000BOS
408
3,611
1975–76

1976–77
Julius Erving*000PHI
518
3,776
1976–77

1977–78
Elvin Hayes*000WSB
457
1977–78

1978–79
Gus Williams000SEA
454
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*000LAL
2,382
1978–79

1979–80
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*000LAL
479
2,861
1979–80

1980–81
Moses Malone*000HOU
562
2,941
Jerry West* &
Moses Malone*000HOU
1980–81

1981–82
Julius Erving*000PHI
461
3,226
1981–82

1982–83
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*000LAL
406
3,632
1982–83

1983–84
Larry Bird*000BOS
632
4,134
Larry Bird*000BOS
632
1983–84

1984–85
520
4,550
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*000LAL
4,550
1984–85

1985–86
Hakeem Olajuwon*000HOU
537
4,912
4,912
1985–86

1986–87
Larry Bird*000BOS
622
5,257
5,257
1986–87

1987–88
James Worthy*000LAL
506
5,595
5,595
1987–88

1988–89
Michael Jordan*000CHI
591
5,762
5,762
1988–89

1989–90
587
Larry Bird*000BOS
3,681
1989–90

1990–91
529
3,852
1990–91

1991–92
759
3,897
Michael Jordan*000CHI
759
1991–92

1992–93
666
Michael Jordan*000CHI
3,850
1992–93

1993–94
Hakeem Olajuwon*000HOU
664
James Worthy*000LAL
3,022
1993–94

1994–95
725
Michael Jordan*000CHI
4,165
1994–95

1995–96
Michael Jordan*000CHI
552
4,717
1995–96

1996–97
590
5,307
1996–97

1997–98
680
5,987
Michael Jordan*000CHI
5,987
1997–98

1998–99
Latrell Sprewell000NYK
407
Karl Malone*000UTA
3,931
1998–99

1999–00
Shaquille O'Neal*000LAL
707
4,203
1999–00

2000–01
Allen Iverson*000PHI
723
4,341
2000–01

2001–02
Shaquille O'Neal*000LAL
541
Michael Jordan*000CHI
5,987
2001–02

2002–03
Tim Duncan†000SAS
593
2002–03

2003–04
Kobe Bryant†000LAL
539
Karl Malone*000LAL
4,761
2003–04

2004–05
Tim Duncan†000SAS
542
Shaquille O'Neal*
000MIA 2004–07
000PHO 2007–09
000CLE 2009–10
4,546
2004–05

2005–06
Dwyane Wade^000MIA
654
4,970
2005–06

2006–07
LeBron James^000CLE
501
5,045
2006–07

2007–08
Kobe Bryant†000LAL
633
5,121
2007–08

2008–09
695
2008–09

2009–10
671
5,248
2009–10

2010–11
Dirk Nowitzki^000DAL
582
Kobe Bryant†000LAL
5,280
2010–11

2011–12
LeBron James^000MIA
697
5,640
2011–12

2012–13
596
2012–13

2013–14
Kevin Durant^000OKC
563
2013–14

2014–15
LeBron James^000CLE
601
2014–15

2015–16
Klay Thompson^000GSW
582
2015–16

2016–17
LeBron James^000CLE
591
LeBron James^000CLE
6,163
LeBron James^000CLE
6,163
2016–17

2017–18
748
6,911
6,911
2017–18

Season
Year-by-year leader
Pts
Active player leader
Pts
Career record
Pts
Single-season record
Pts
Season


document_title: Mid-ocean ridge

question_text: what type of magma formed at mid-ocean ridges

text: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Description[edit]

text: Mid-ocean ridges are geologically active, with new magma constantly emerging onto the ocean floor and into the crust at and near rifts along the ridge axes. The crystallized magma forms new crust of basalt (known as MORB for mid-ocean ridge basalt) and below it, gabbro.[1] They are formed by two oceanic plates moving away from each other. Hydrothermal vents are a common feature at oceanic spreading centers. [2]

text: The rocks making up the crust below the seafloor are youngest along the axis of the ridge and age with increasing distance from that axis. New magma of basalt composition emerges at and near the axis because of decompression melting in the underlying Earth's mantle.[3]

text: The oceanic crust is made up of rocks much younger than the Earth itself. Most oceanic crust in the ocean basins is less than 200 million years old. The crust is in a constant state of "renewal" at the ocean ridges. Moving away from the mid-ocean ridge, ocean depth progressively increases; the greatest depths are in ocean trenches. As the oceanic crust moves away from the ridge axis, the peridotite in the underlying mantle cools and becomes more rigid. The crust and the relatively rigid peridotite below it make up the oceanic lithosphere.

text: Slow spreading ridges like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) generally have large, wide rift valleys, sometimes as wide as 10–20 km (6.2–12.4 mi), and very rugged terrain at the ridge crest that can have relief of up to a 1,000 m (3,300 ft). By contrast, fast spreading ridges like the East Pacific Rise (EPR) are narrow, sharp incisions surrounded by generally flat topography that slopes away from the ridge over many hundreds of miles.

text: The overall shape of ridges results from Pratt isostacy: close to the ridge axis there is hot, low-density mantle supporting the oceanic crust. As the oceanic plates cool, away from the ridge axes, the oceanic mantle lithosphere (the colder, denser part of the mantle that, together with the crust, comprises the oceanic plates) thickens and the density increases. Thus older seafloor is underlain by denser material and 'sits' lower. The width of the ridge is hence a function of spreading rate – slow ridges like the MAR have spread much less far than faster ridges like the EPR for the same amount of cooling and consequent bathymetric drop-off.

text: Formation processes[edit]

text: There are two processes, ridge-push and slab pull, thought to be responsible for the spreading seen at mid-ocean ridges, and there is some uncertainty as to which is dominant. Ridge-push occurs when the growing bulk of the ridge pushes the rest of the tectonic plate away from the ridge, often towards a subduction zone. At the subduction zone, "slab-pull" comes into effect. This is simply the weight of the tectonic plate being subducted (pulled) below the overlying plate dragging the rest of the plate along behind it. The slab pull mechanism is considered to be contributing more than the ridge push.[4]

text: The other process proposed to contribute to the formation of new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges is the "mantle conveyor" (see image). However, there have been some studies which have shown that the upper mantle (asthenosphere) is too plastic (flexible) to generate enough friction to pull the tectonic plate along. Moreover, unlike in the image above, mantle upwelling that causes magma to form beneath the ocean ridges appears to involve only its upper 400 km (250 mi), as deduced from seismic tomography and from studies of the seismic discontinuity at about 400 km (250 mi). The relatively shallow depths from which the upwelling mantle rises below ridges are more consistent with the "slab-pull" process. On the other hand, some of the world's largest tectonic plates such as the North American Plate are in motion, yet are nowhere being subducted.

text: The rate at which the mid-ocean ridge creates new material is known as the spreading rate, and is generally measured in mm/yr. The common subdivisions of spreading rate are fast, medium, and slow with values generally being >100 mm/yr, 100–55 mm/yr, and 55–20 mm/yr, respectively. The spreading rate of the North Atlantic Ocean is ~ 25 mm/yr, while in the Pacific region, it is 80–120 mm/yr. Ridges that spread at rates <20 mm/yr are referred to as ultraslow spreading ridges (e.g., the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ridge) and they provide a much different perspective on crustal formation than their faster spreading brethren.

text: The mid-ocean ridge systems form new oceanic crust. As crystallized basalt extruded at a ridge axis cools below Curie points of appropriate iron-titanium oxides, magnetic field directions parallel to the Earth's magnetic field are recorded in those oxides. The orientations of the field in the oceanic crust preserve a record of directions of the Earth's magnetic field with time. Because the field has reversed directions at irregular intervals throughout its history, the pattern of geomagnetic reversals in the ocean crust can be used as an indicator of age.[5] Likewise, the pattern of reversals together with age measurements of the crust is used to help establish the history of the Earth's magnetic field.

text: Global system[edit]

text: The mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form the Ocean Ridge, a single global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part of every ocean, making it the longest mountain range in the world. The continuous mountain range is 65,000 km (40,400 mi) long (several times longer than the Andes, the longest continental mountain range), and the total length of the oceanic ridge system is 80,000 km (49,700 mi) long.[6]

text: History[edit]

text: Discovery[edit]

text: Mid-ocean ridges are generally submerged deep in the ocean. It was not until the 1950s, when the ocean floor was surveyed in detail, that their full extent became known.

text: The Vema, a ship of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, traversed the Atlantic Ocean, recording data about the ocean floor from the ocean surface. A team led by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen analyzed the data and concluded that there was an enormous mountain chain running up the middle. Scientists named it the "Mid-Atlantic Ridge".

text: At first, the ridge was thought to be a phenomenon specific to the Atlantic Ocean. However, as surveys of the ocean floor continued around the world, it was discovered that every ocean contains parts of the mid-ocean ridge system. Although the ridge system runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the ridge is located away from the center of other oceans.

text: Impact[edit]

text: Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912. He stated: "the Mid-Atlantic Ridge ... zone in which the floor of the Atlantic, as it keeps spreading, is continuously tearing open and making space for fresh, relatively fluid and hot sima [rising] from depth."[7] However, Wegener did not pursue this observation in his later works and his theory was dismissed by geologists because there was no mechanism to explain how continents could plow through ocean crust, and the theory became largely forgotten.

text: Following the discovery of the worldwide extent of the mid-ocean ridge in the 1950s, geologists faced a new task: explaining how such an enormous geological structure could have formed. In the 1960s, geologists discovered and began to propose mechanisms for seafloor spreading. The discovery of Mid-ocean ridges and the process of seafloor spreading allowed for Wegner's theory to be expanded so that it included the movement of oceanic crust as well as the continents.[8] Plate tectonics was a suitable explanation for seafloor spreading, and the acceptance of plate tectonics by the majority of geologists resulted in a major paradigm shift in geological thinking.

text: It is estimated that 20 volcanic eruptions occur each year along earth's mid-ocean ridges and that every year 2.5 km2 (0.97 sq mi) of new seafloor is formed by this process. With a crustal thickness of 1 to 2 km (0.62 to 1.24 mi), this amounts to about 4 km3 (0.96 cu mi) of new ocean crust formed every year.[citation needed]

text:
Oceanic ridge and deep sea vent chemistry

Age of oceanic crust. The red is most recent, and blue is the oldest.

Plates in the crust of the earth, according to the plate tectonics theory

Seafloor magnetic striping

A demonstration of magnetic striping

text: List of oceanic ridges[edit]

text:
Aden Ridge
Cocos Ridge
Explorer Ridge
Gorda Ridge
Juan de Fuca Ridge
American-Antarctic Ridge
Chile Rise
East Pacific Rise
East Scotia Ridge
Gakkel Ridge (Mid-Arctic Ridge)
Nazca Ridge
Pacific-Antarctic Ridge
Central Indian Ridge

Carlsberg Ridge

Southeast Indian Ridge
Southwest Indian Ridge
Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Kolbeinsey Ridge (North of Iceland)
Mohns Ridge
Knipovich Ridge (between Greenland and Spitsbergen)
Reykjanes Ridge (South of Iceland)

text: List of ancient oceanic ridges[edit]

text:
Aegir Ridge
Alpha Ridge
Kula-Farallon Ridge
Pacific-Farallon Ridge
Pacific-Kula Ridge
Phoenix Ridge


document_title: G. Callen

question_text: what is g's name in ncis la

question_tokens: what is g 's name in ncis la

text: G. Callen

text: Background[edit]

text: Prior to the series, Callen and Hanna had been partnered together for two years ("Partner"), while he and Lange first met when he escaped from a juvenile detention center, and Hetty kept him from being re-arrested ("Rage"). While his friends address him as "G", Lange refuses to do so, saying, "It's not a name, it's a letter." She instead addresses him as "Mr. Callen" ("Identity"). Callen once served with his good friend Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who now works at the NCIS Headquarters located in the Washington Navy Yard. Callen specializes in deep undercover work.

text: In addition to English, Callen is fluent in at least six other languages: Spanish, Polish, Russian, German (with an English accent, which is claimed to be Austrian), Italian (with a Northern accent), and French.[2] Callen also claims to speak Czech and Romanian;[3] furthermore, his Russian is arguably good enough to be taken for one, but not the other, Chechen dialect.[4] That fluency allowed Callen to infiltrate a Chechen terrorist cell in season four episode "The Chosen One" which eerily presaged the Boston Marathon bombing by Chechen immigrants less than three months later. The fake death certificate shown by Hetty to Alexa Comescu in the season-two finale states that his date of birth is March 11, 1970.[5] In the Season 1 episode "Search and Destroy" (S1:E4), Callen is shown easily reading Arabic, with enough fluency to translate on the fly into idiomatic English.

text: In "Archangel", Callen states that the first time he fired a gun was at the age of 20. In the same episode, it was revealed that Hetty has beaten him on a race up the NCIS rock wall three times in a row, and Callen refuses to challenge her to a re-match despite goading from Sam Hanna. In the episode "Pushback", it is revealed that Callen lived in 37 foster homes starting from the age of five. He sometimes moved every few days, and the longest he ever stayed in one place was for three months at fourteen, when he lived with the family of a Russian girl named Alina Rostoff (whom he called "little sister"). During the season six episode Rage, Callen experiences a series of flashbacks to his troubled teenage years and he reveals to Sam that Hetty saved him. Earlier flashbacks in the season two finale saw Callen suddenly remember that he spent part of his early childhood on the Romanian coast of the Black Sea.[6] It is revealed in "Identity" that he is called "G" not because he dislikes his first name, but because he does not actually know what it stands for, as the system never told him. As an adult, his foster-sister Rostoff was secretly sent to watch Callen and to prevent him from being killed by Russian mobsters. Callen is fluent in Russian due to his former relationship with the Rostoff family. Throughout the first season, it is shown that Callen is homeless, staying temporarily with his various NCIS colleagues and sometimes in the Operations Center itself.

text: Prior to joining NCIS, Callen worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration and Central Intelligence Agency. While with the Agency, he worked alongside recurring NCIS character, Trent Kort (David Dayan Fisher), and was partnered with Tracy Rosetti (Marisol Nichols); as part of their undercover mission in Uzbekistan, Callen and Tracy "married", using the surname Keller. Following this mission, where Callen accused Tracy of placing the success of the operation above both their professional and personal partnerships, the two 'divorced', with Callen joking that in the settlement Tracy received custody of Buddy, their dog. The marriage and subsequent divorce were of course fake.

text: Storylines[edit]

text: NCIS season 6[edit]

text: At the end of "Legend", Callen was almost killed in a drive-by shooting. Callen and the team later realized (in the first season episode "Pushback") that his shooting was related to a mission Callen took part in against the Russian Mob, as a DEA agent ten years earlier.

text: Season 1[edit]

text: In the first season finale "Callen, G.", Callen tracks down a woman named Amy Taylor (née Callen) who initially claims to be his older sister, but then admits her real name is actually Hannah Lawson, and that she was friends with the real Amy Callen when they lived in an orphanage together. The real Amy had died at the age of 11 when the two friends sneaked out at night to play in the nearby river, and Amy had been swept away in an accident. When Hannah returned, she slept in Amy's bed, and the authorities there never realized what had happened. When Amy's body was found a month later, she was buried under Hannah's name as the authorities didn't know any better. Callen later goes to visit his sister's grave, and finds flowers and a recent note left "For my Sweet daughter always in my Heart".[7] Also during the episode, Nate Getz discovers that a list of all of Callen's foster homes and orphanages was written by one person, albeit over a number of years, indicating that someone had been keeping an eye on Callen during that time. The same list showed the various orphanages and foster homes where the real and fake Amy, including the last foster home where Amy (aka Hannah) stayed for many years, indicating this person did not know about the switch between Hannah and Amy. In season 3 "Deadline", Callen discovers that Hetty had kept an eye on him during his youth (confirmed in season 6 "Rage"), and also knew his sister died. But in season 5's "Reznikov, N." it is revealed that Hans Schreiber also kept track of Callen's life, as a favor to Callen's father. It has not been confirmed who actually wrote the list of foster homes and orphanages however it is assumed that he wrote the list as Nate Getz analysed the list as having been written with an againg hand, as and when the changes of homes took place.

text: Season 2[edit]

text: In the season two premiere "Human Traffic", Hetty makes arrangements for Callen to purchase a house of his own—the very same house where he lived with Alina Rostoff as a foster child.

text: The second season mostly revolves around Callen, who has been stalked by someone he does not know. He sees someone near the grave of his sister, and over the course of the season, runs into people who seem to know more about his past than he does. When Hetty resigns and takes off to Prague, Callen finds out from Director Vance that Hetty has started her own investigation, Operation Comescu, which is all about Callen. Callen and the team then resign too when Vance refuses to fly them to Prague to get Hetty. Arriving in Prague, the team discovers that Hetty has been taken by the Comescus and that the Comescus have been in a decades-long blood feud with the Callens, of which G is the last one. The team tracks their safe house down to a house on the beach, and Callen starts to remember things from his past, as he realizes he has been on this beach before. Inside the house, Hetty fails to convince Alexa Comescu, the matriarch of the Comescu family, that Callen died three weeks ago, showing her a clip of the attempted assassination and a death certificate.

text: Season 3[edit]

text: In the third season premiere, "Lange, H.", it is revealed that Callen's grandfather was an OSS agent stationed in Romania. In the third season episode number 4 "Deadline", Hetty Lange reveals to Callen that his grandfather was named George Callen and that he parachuted into Romania during the War, and at the end took part in hunting those guilty of war crimes, he subsequently found and killed several members of the Comescu family. In 1947 he met and married a 'Roma Girl' (Callen's grandmother, name unknown). George Callen was murdered by the Comescu family. The remainder of Callen's family (his grandmother and her daughter, Callen's mother, Clara) fled to America where years later Clara was recruited by the CIA. She returned to Romania and then a year later vanished for six years. The Comescu family had not forgotten their grudge and came looking for the Callens. One of Callen's most vivid memories of his childhood is of being given a toy soldier by a stranger while he played on the beach. He realizes that the beach is not in California as he had always assumed, but on the Black Sea coast, and that the toy was given to him to distract him while a Comescu assassin killed his mother. It is never explained why the Comescu family let Callen and his sister live, though Alexa Comescu describes it as "a mistake". Despite Alexa's claim that she knows everything about him—including what his initial stands for—Callen does nothing to protect her and allows Hunter to kill her.

text: Back in LA, Hunter is the acting Operations Manager until Hetty returns to work after sustaining a gunshot. Callen does not trust her and wants to know more about himself and what was on the laptop that she retrieved at the Comescu house. Hunter later tells him that all the contents of the laptop were concerning the family's illegal activities and not about Callen. Hetty later returns when Hunter leaves for another undercover operation in Europe and offers to tell Callen everything starting with the reason she was trying to protect him: she had failed to protect his mother. She then gives him his mother's name: Clara. She also tells him that his mother was a CIA agent and that Hetty had been her handler when Clara had gone back on assignment to Romania. After a year of the mission, Clara vanished for six years and resurfaced with two children, desperate to get out of Romania. Hetty had been sent to meet her on the beach where the Comescus killed her. She also says that she doesn't know how he and his sister came to the U.S. and that she had no idea who his father is but that she was the one responsible for getting him out of the orphanage and into foster homes.

text: In the third season finale, "Sans Voir", Agent Mike Renko and former Operations Manager Lauren Hunter are both murdered at the hands of Marcel Janvier, also known as "The Chameleon". Callen responds by gunning down "The Chameleon" following a prisoner exchange and is arrested by the local police. The episode ends with Callen being arrested by LAPD and Hetty resigning from her position at OSP.

text: Season 4[edit]

text: A series of flashbacks in the season four opening episode "Endgame" reveal that the Chameleon's death was actually faked. After the Chameleon and Callen are traded back to their respective sides in a prisoner exchange, Callen, following his fake suspension, returns to lead the OSP team once again. Janvier returns again at the end of season 4

text: Season 5[edit]

text: Janvier returns in the season 5 opener following the end of season 4. He reminds Callen that he will be seeking his revenge, even if he has to wait many years to exact it.

text: In the season five episode "Reznikov, N.", a man named Michael Reinhardt appears, who claims to be actually named Nikita Alexsandr Reznikov, Callen's father. He is kidnapped and killed by one of the surviving members of the Comescu family, Vasile. At the end of the episode, Hetty and Arkady Kolcheck explain to Callen that Reznikov was actually a KGB major who was arrested and sent to a Soviet gulag in 1974, around the time Callen and his sister came to America. Reinhardt (actually named Hans Schreiber) was a former East German who owed Reznikov a favor and repaid it by keeping track of Callen and his sister. The Comescus mistook him for Reznikov, who kept the ruse to protect Callen. In Reinhardt's house, Deeks discovered an 8 mm film of Callen and Amy playing with Reznikov, which Hetty then gave to Callen.

text: In "War Cries", Sam, Michelle, and Hetty set Callen up on a blind date with Joelle Taylor, a friend of the Hannas and their daughter's former kindergarten teacher. Both aware of the trick, they nevertheless get on well although Callen immediately makes up a fake career to protect his role, and throughout season five, Joelle is mentioned as Callen's girlfriend.

text: Season 6[edit]

text: In "Humbug", an armed robber threatens Joelle in public after stealing some malware from a defense contractor. When it is learned that the robber placed the stolen malware on Joelle, Callen is forced to put himself in danger to protect her, eventually being forced to reveal to her that he is an NCIS agent. Although hurt by this revelation of Callen's deception, she eventually accepts to continue their relationship as long as he tells her more about himself. Callen and Joelle are confirmed to be still together by both Sam and Callen himself. Callen later tells the team he would not be against starting a family with Joelle.

text: Callen realises Arkady Kolchek knows more about his father than he's revealed and when a mission to find a ship with stolen barrels of oil leads to Russia, Arkady accompanies the team. Whilst there Arkady takes Callen to a coffee shop & show him a photo of Callen's father from the 1980s, long after he was supposedly sent to the Gulag. Hetty discovers through Eric's hacking, that his father took the name of Chernoff. Callen realises he was working in Moscow at the same time his father frequented the city.

text: Season 7[edit]

text: In season seven, Callen admits that he and Joelle are not suited and rowing a lot. They break up off screen but still spend Christmas together to avoid being lonely. In "Matryoshka, Part 2", Callen meets his father in Russia who reveals that his birth name is Grisha Alekandrovich Nikolaev but had to leave before he could find out any more information. Callen has since updated his personnel records and credentials with his full name.[1]

text: Season 8[edit]

text: Callen reunites with his father in "Glasnost", where he shoots a man who went after a woman victim he was visiting and reveals he had been in touch with Arkady Kolcheck since the Russia incident back in Season Seven. Callen interrogates his father, who admits he's in LA for work, not to see his son. After Hetty takes over the interrogation, she allows him to escape to finish what he started. Callen and Sam go to his rescue and Callen discovers that his father had a child with a woman after he helped her move to the U.S. That child has since become a parent, so Callen has a half-sister and is now an uncle. In the episode "Payback," Callen learns from Hetty that Joelle is an undercover CIA agent who has been assigned by rogue agency moles to spy on him. Feeling betrayed, Callen permanently severs his ties with Joelle.