Frank Beacham's Journal

Jacques Cousteau was born 112 years ago today

Jacques Cousteau with his dive saucer

Jacques Cousteau was born 112 years ago today.

Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

After an automobile accident cut short his career in naval aviation, Cousteau indulged his interest in the sea. In Toulon, where he was serving on the Condorcet, Cousteau carried out his first underwater experiments, thanks to his friend Philippe Tailliez who in 1936 lent him some Fernez underwater goggles — predecessors of modern swimming goggles.

His two sons, Jean-Michel (born 1938) and Philippe (1940–1979), took part in the adventures of the Calypso. In 1975, John Denver released the tribute song, "Calypso," on his album "Windsong," and on the B-side of his hit song, "I'm Sorry."

"Calypso" became a hit on its own and was later considered the new A-side, reaching #2 on the charts. Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members. He liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician."

Cousteau was, in reality, a sophisticated showman, teacher and lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the oceans. His work also created a new kind of scientific communication, criticized at the time by some academics.

The so-called "divulgationism," a simple way of sharing scientific concepts, was soon employed in other disciplines and became one of the most important characteristics of modern television broadcasting.

Cousteau died on June 25, 1997 at age 87.

Here is a short film on Cousteau’s work

Phillipe Cousteau

Here’s a personal remembrance of shooting video for Jacque Cousteau's television show onboard the Calypso.

Cousteau had long recorded his documentaries and television programs on film, but in the mid-1970s he began using video.

While based in Miami, I formed Television Matrix, one of the first small format video production companies. I got a call to shoot video for Jacques Cousteau and his son, Philippe, on the Calypso for The Cousteau Society.

Over a few months, we shot several segments with Jacques Cousteau on the Calypso. The main producer on the shoots was Philippe, who worked closely with his father on his film and video production.

On June 28, 1979, while the Calypso was on an expedition to Portugal, Philippe — Cousteau’s preferred and designated successor and with whom he had co-produced all his films since 1969 — died in a PBY Catalina flying boat crash in the Tagus river near Lisbon.

Jacques Cousteau was deeply affected by Philippe’s death and it was the last I worked with him. He then called his eldest son, the architect Jean-Michel Cousteau, to be at his side. Their collaboration lasted 14 years.

Personal Essay: On a Missed Opportunity

One of the great regrets of my life happened about 45 years ago and I’m still not over it yet.

I had been accepted in a week-long workshop in Florida with the great photographer Robert Frank and the poet, Allen Ginsberg. As part of the deal, I would bring my broadcast video camera, an RCA TK-76, and we would make a video together.

I had always admired the great Robert Frank and this workshop was a dream come true. There were very few video cameras around at this time, and I was offered $5,000 for a paying job on the very week the Frank-Ginsberg workshop was scheduled.

I tried desperately to change the timing of the job, but couldn’t. I needed the money to pay for the camera and had to cancel my participation with Frank and Ginsberg. I did it then because I felt I had to.

Today, looking back, I made the absolute wrong decision. It still hurts even to think about.

The timing of that workshop was also the time that Ginsberg himself resumed taking pictures more seriously. He was urged to this by Frank, his old friend, and a new friend, Berenice Abbott.

It was about this time that Ginsberg also began using better cameras and having his photographs printed professionally. “I had been taking pictures all along,” Ginsberg told an interviewer in 1991, “but I hadn’t thought of myself as a photographer.”

The most noticeable difference was a simple yet distinctive way he found to marry image and text. He began writing captions, sometimes quite lengthy, on each print. He extended the practice to earlier photographs, too.

His images, Ginsberg felt, “all had a story to tell, especially the old ones,” and his captioning was a way of acknowledging that.

Ginsberg’s printers had to start making his images smaller to leave room for the words he was writing beneath them — not so much captions, really, as brief excerpts from a running memoir.

I got to know Ginsberg in later years, but never met Robert Frank.

I don’t know what would have come from that week with Frank and Ginsberg, but, from that experience, I did learn to grab opportunity when it happens — no matter what.

There are no second chances in life. I learned that the hard way.

On April 8, 1935 — 87 years ago today — Congress voted to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal"

On April 8, 1935 — 87 years ago today — Congress voted to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal."

In his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt promised Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and outlined his New Deal — an expansion of the federal government as an instrument of employment opportunity and welfare.

In April, 1935, the WPA was established under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, as a means of creating government jobs for some of the nation's many unemployed.

Under the direction of Harry L. Hopkins, the WPA employed more than 8.5 million persons on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943. The program chose work that would not interfere with private enterprise, especially vast public building projects like the construction of highways, bridges and dams.

However, the WPA also provided federal funding for students, who were given work under the National Youth Administration.

The careers of many important American artists were also launched thanks by WPA endowments. Although its scale was unprecedented, the WPA never managed to serve more than a quarter of the nation's unemployed. Its programs were extremely popular, though, and contributed significantly to Roosevelt's landslide reelection in 1936.

Among the artists that the WPA assisted were Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Orson Welles, Arthur Miller, Burt Lancaster, Arlene Francis, Katherine Dunham, John Cage, John Houseman, Marc Blitzstein and Burgess Meredith.

Famous writers, who didn’t need assistance, included Eugene O’Neill and George Bernard Shaw, who offered their plays to the WPA for no money.

Photographers included Berenice Abbott, Andreas Feininger, August Sander, Dorothea Lange, Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Steichen, Gordon Parks, Lewis Hine, W. Eugene Smith, Walker Evans and William Gottlieb.

Lesser known artists also flourished under the WPA. Many veterans of the program went on to major motion picture studios and animation operations like Walt Disney Studios.

It was Congress that pulled the plug on the WPA when unemployments lessened due to World War II. It never came back even though it could rescue many creative people in the continuing recession since 2008.

Rehearsal for The Cradle Will Rock, 1937

The musical by Marc Blitzstein, was originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration. It was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman.

The musical is a Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed and includes a panoply of societal figures. Set in "Steeltown, USA," it follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town's workers and combat wicked, greedy businessman Mr. Mister, who controls the town's factory, press, church and social organization.

The Cradle Will Rock was to begin previews on Broadway June 16, 1937 at the Maxine Elliott Theatre with elaborate sets and a full orchestra. The production was shut down four days before its opening by the WPA.

The government claimed that due to budget cuts, the WPA was reorganizing its arts projects, and all openings of WPA plays, musicals, concerts and art galleries were to be delayed until after July 1. However, many asserted that the musical had been censored because the pro-union plot was "too radical."

The theatre was padlocked and surrounded by security guards to prevent anyone from stealing props or costumes, as these were considered U. S. Government property.

Welles, Houseman and Blitzstein, seeking a way to privately produce the show, rented the much larger Venice Theatre and a piano just in time for the scheduled preview on June 16, 1937.

The 600 audience members, who had gathered outside the Maxine Elliot Theatre for the preview, travelled 21 blocks north to the Venice Theatre. Many were on foot.

The sold-out house grew even larger when the show's creators invited people off the street to attend for free.

The musicians' union refused to play for the show unless Houseman could provide their full salaries, and Actors' Equity Association said that its members could not perform onstage at the new theatre without approval of the original producer (the federal government).

The show's creators thus planned for Blitzstein to perform the entire musical at the piano. Just after beginning the first number, Blitzstein was joined by Olive Stanton, the actress playing Moll, from the audience.

During the rest of the performance, various actors joined in with Blitzstein and performed the entire musical from their seats in the house.

Orson Welles told me the story during a long lunch in 1985. After his death later that year, I decided to option the property.

I took it to Tim Robbins, who wrote the script and directed the film. I was executive producer. “Cradle Will Rock” was released by Touchtone Films in 1999.

Ram Dass was born 91 years ago today

Ram Dass, born as Richard Alpert, was born 91 years ago today.

Dass was a contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book, Be Here Now. He was known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

He founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continued to teach via his website until his death.

Born to a Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts, he attended the Williston Northampton School, graduating in 1948 as a part of the Cum Laude Association. He then went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University, a master's degree from Wesleyan University and a doctorate (in psychology) from Stanford University.

After returning from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, Alpert accepted a permanent position at Harvard, where he worked with the Social Relations Department, the Psychology Department, the Graduate School of Education and the Health Service, where he was a therapist.

There he worked with close friend and associate, Timothy Leary. Both Alpert and Leary experimented with and devoted intensive research to the potentially therapeutic effects of hallucinogenic drugs such as psilocybin, LSD-25 and other psychedelic chemicals. They continued on to co-author a book, The Psychedelic Experience.

Leary and Alpert were formally dismissed from the university in 1963. According to Harvard President Nathan M. Pusey, Leary was dismissed for leaving Cambridge and his classes without permission or notice, and Alpert for allegedly giving psilocybin to an undergraduate.

In 1967, Alpert traveled to India, where he changed his name to "Ram Dass," which means "servant of God," referring to the incarnation of God as Ram or Lord Rama.

In February, 1997, Ram Dass had a stroke that left him with expressive aphasia, which he interpreted as an act of grace.

In 1975, while living in Miami, I started a video business and one of the first projects I did was a day long public workshop with Ram Dass. It was the first video Dass had ever done.

By today’s standards, the half-inch color recordings look crude and had many glitches. But for all of us, Ram Dass included, it was a miracle and proof that there was a future with this new medium called video.

Ram Dass died on December 22, 2019, at the age of 88.

Above photo of Ram Dass by Peter Simon

How do you convincingly tell a kid today that getting a good education is worth it?

Some Thoughts on Education...

How do you convincingly tell a kid today that getting a good education is worth it?

Things in the world of education are a big mess, and everyone — including the kids — know it. To hear the technologists tell it, the answer to America's education problem is to make sure every kid has access to a personal computer.

To Neil Postman, the late cultural critic, computers are just another false god. What kids really need, said Postman, is something to believe in — a transcendent narrative that gives meaning to education. I’ve been re-reading Postman, the New York University professor and author who died in 2003.

In his final days, Postman was on a intellectual tear in an attempt to strip away the warped reasons we use these days to tell kids why they need to get an education. I went to a Postman lecture and revisited the notes. It struck me how relevant all he had to say remains today.

Education, argued Postman, must be presented with a purpose. Traditionally, that purpose was encapsulated in a narrative, or story. That story tells of origins and envisions a future. It instructs ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority and gives a sense of continuity and purpose.

To make education work we need a compelling story.

"One that has sufficient credibility, complexity and symbolic power so that it's possible to organize one's life and one's learning around it," said Postman. "Without such a transcendent narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without purpose schools become houses of detention, not attention."

In an earlier era, Postman said, America offered its children such narratives, which, in effect, were answers to the question: what are schools for?

One of the greatest was the narrative of democracy. Thomas Jefferson helped write that story. In Jefferson's mind, public schools weren't designed so much to serve the public as to create the public. Schools would ensure that citizens know and how to protect their own liberty.

Another narrative was the great melting pot. In this story, the lost and lonely are offered a common bond to America's history and future. It was here they got the promise of freedom.

"It pains me to say that great American narratives are not as powerful as they once were," said Postman. "As significant narratives have faded from view, they have been replaced by stories that are thin, crass and certainly without transcendent meaning. As a consequence, the idea of public schooling is placed in jeopardy."

Four narratives — or 'gods' with a small 'g,' as Postman called them — are driving American public education today. They are:

— The god of economic utility. This one tells young people they are what they do for a living and therefore the main purpose for learning is to prepare for entry into economic life. "The idea is to teach the young how to make a living, not how to make a life," said Postman.

— The god of consumership. Here the young are told that the surest way to earn favor is to buy things. It tells them they are not what they do but what they own. "Its principal commandment is the slogan seen on some T-shirts: 'Whoever Dies With the Most Toys Wins,'" said Postman. "This is, of course, a dominant narrative of television which exposes the young to 600,000 television commercials in the first 20 years of their lives."

— The god of technology. This story insists the main purpose of learning is to help the young accommodate themselves to vast technological change. "This narrative is based on the false and somewhat hysterical premise that never before has there been so much technological change as now," said Postman.

For those who believe our century is unsurpassed in technological innovation, Postman listed "just a few inventions of the 19th century: telegraphy, photography, the rotary press, the telephone, the typewriter, the phonograph, the Trans-Atlantic cable, the electric light, radio, movies, the locomotive, rockets, the steamboat, the X-ray, the revolver and the stethoscope, not to mention canned food, the penny press, the modern magazine, the advertising agency, the modern bureaucracy and even the safety pin.

"Next to this the information superhighway, email and virtual reality do not to me seem to be so stunning and disorienting and it puzzles me why so many intelligent educators have latched into a 'gee whiz' mode about technology," said Postman.

— The god of tribalism, separatism or multiculturalism. Some
curriculums, he said, are used to promote exclusivity, a point of view that expresses the love of a tribe above all else. Learning that implies separateness from and hostility toward others.

Of the four contemporary narratives, Postman said their existence suggests a spiritual emptiness in our culture. "A sense of confusion about what schools are for and about what they can be for," he said. "This emptiness and confusion are the major problem facing public education in America."

Though it will be difficult, Postman said there is now opportunity to create new narratives for public schools. This, he said, will not come from the schools themselves (they are "state agencies") but from the society at large. "Schools are mirrors of social beliefs," he said, "giving back what citizens put in front of them."

Postman suggested three new public school narratives that should be
considered:

— The Story of Spaceship Earth. A narrative of global consciousness where human beings are stewards of the Earth, caretakers of a vulnerable space capsule.

"It's a relatively new narrative, not fully developed, but filled with excitement for young people," Postman said. "It evokes in young people a sense of responsibility and commitment and it's a story with power to bond people. It makes the idea of racism irrelevant and ridiculous."

The narrative, said Postman, makes clear the interdependence of human beings and their need for solidarity. Waste and indifference is depicted as evil. If any part of the spaceship is poisoned, everyone suffers.

This says the extinction of a rain forest in Brazil is not just a Brazilian problem, the pollution of the ocean is not just a Miami Beach problem and the depletion of the ozone layer is not just an Australian problem.

— The Story of the Fallen Angel. In this story, human beings — whatever our past may have been — are now in a situation where we must live forever in a state of imperfect understanding. We make mistakes all the time. It's in our nature to make mistakes. The curriculum here is the study of error and our heroic effects to overcome it. Students are taught to accept our cosmic status as the error-prone species.

In this narrative, for us to believe we are God-like or perfect is among the most serious sins of which we are capable. "The Greeks call the sin hubris. The Christians call it pride. Scientists call it dogmatism," said Postman. "The meaning of Angel is we are capable of correcting our mistakes provided that we proceed without hubris, pride or dogmatism."

— The Story of America as an Experiment. A narrative of "stunning and dangerous questions" that offers a sense of national pride without psychopathic nationalism or the belief that America is superior to all other countries.

"Is it possible to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people? And who are the people anyway? And how shall they proceed in government themselves? And how shall we protect individuals from the power of the people? And should we do all of this in the first place?

"The point is these questions are still unanswered and will always remain so," said Postman. "The American Constitution is not a catechism but a hypothesis. It is less the law of the land than an expression of the lay of the land as it has been understood by various people at different times."

Endless questions over democracy, citizenship and human rights have been debated by various nations over the centuries and we still don't the know the answers.

"There's the rub and the beauty and value of the story," said Postman. "So we argue and experiment and complain and rejoice and argue some more without end. In this story we needn't conceal anything from ourselves. No shame need endure forever and no accomplishment merits excessive pride. All is fluid and subject to change."

This story, said Postman, allows student participation in the great American experiment and teaches "which things are worth arguing about and what happens those arguments cease."

In suggesting the three new narratives for public education, Postman said he doesn't mean to imply that his proposed stories represent absolute truth. "These are simply ways of finding meaning in life and in learning," he said.

In light of Postman's ideas, self-serving endorsement by technologists that computers are the answer to education's problems today looks pretty lame.

Without a national media that even comprehends the issues at stake in contemporary education, this pro technology drivel has gone on for years without challenge.

Postman, on the other hand, was a man with a powerful message that was needed to cut through the mass media clutter. Though his lectures were powerful at the time, his books live on. His arguments need to live on as well.

Postman’s book, "The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School” is available in paperback from Amazon for $12.75. It's a very good read and I highly recommend it.

Fred Rogers was born 94 years ago today

Fred Rogers was born 94 years ago today.

An educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author and television host, Rogers created and hosted Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968–2001), which featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences.

Initially educated to be a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children and made an effort to change this when he began to write for and perform on local Pittsburgh-area shows dedicated to youth.

WQED developed his own show in 1968 and it was distributed nationwide by Eastern Educational Television Network. Over the course of three decades on television, Fred Rogers became an indelible American icon of children's entertainment and education, as well as a symbol of compassion, patience and morality.

He was also known for his advocacy of various public causes. His testimony before a lower court in favor of fair use recording of television shows to play at another time (now known as time shifting) was cited in a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Betamax case, and he gave now-famous testimony to a U.S. Senate committee, advocating government funding for children's television.

Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, some forty honorary degrees and a Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and was recognized by two Congressional resolutions.

Several buildings and artworks in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory, and the Smithsonian Institution displays one of his trademark sweaters as a "Treasure of American History."

Rogers was diagnosed with stomach cancer in December, 2002, not long after his retirement. He underwent surgery on January 6, 2003, which was unsuccessful.

Rogers died on the morning of February 27, 2003, at his home with his wife by his side, less than a month before he would have turned 75.

Here, Mr. Rogers remixed in a performance of “Garden of Your Mind”

The value of higher education

As students gather on college campuses throughout the nation, many are asking if the high cost and huge debt they face is worth it in the modern world we live in.

Perhaps these young people can gain some insight from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gave a speech on the subject of higher education on this day in 1837 — 183 years ago — to the Harvard chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

“We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe,” he said in the roughly 7,800-word address, titled “The American Scholar.” “The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame.”

The way to create a new scholarly model, and not follow Europeans blindly, he insisted, was independent thinking, self-knowledge and devotion to books, history and science.

Emerson practiced what he preached. Asian and Middle Eastern literature, for example, influenced his work and helped separate him from the parochialism of the era.

Of course, Europe wasn’t the only place that offered advanced education. Two centuries before the continent’s first universities were founded, Fatima al-Fihri, a visionary Muslim woman, started in 859 what became Qairouan University in Fez, Morocco.

It became a leading educational center in medieval times by offering more than religious instruction, and today it is the world’s oldest continuously operated educational institution.

It serves as an affirmation of Emerson’s belief that true learning can’t be done in an intellectual straitjacket.

The ability to think independently and gain self knowledge has always been the real reason one should go to college. Despite what many believe, it is not about training to do jobs or having the money to buy consumer goods.

It is about developing the ability to think for one’s self. The quality of life that comes with that ability is immense and reason enough to seek a higher education, no matter how or where.

Thanks New York Times

Robert Redford is 85 years old today

Robert Redford is 85 years old today.

An actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Redford has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was awarded French Knighthood in the Legion d'Honneur.

At the height of his fame in the 1970s and 1980s, he was often described as one of the world's most attractive men and remains one of the most popular movie stars. Redford's career — like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s — began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage.

Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including The Untouchables, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate and The Twilight Zone. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962).

One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.

Redford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

While still largely an unknown, Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), co-starring with John Saxon in a film set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the debuts of director Sydney Pollack, with whom Redford would later collaborate, and actor Tom Skerritt.

After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He was cast alongside screen legend Alec Guinness in the war comedy, Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines.

In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with Charles Bronson for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966) — again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved even greater success.

The same year saw his first teaming with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with Marlon Brando.

Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Redford found the property he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman.

The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable and sometimes sardonic good guy.

His overall career flourished with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972); the political satire, The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career; the blockbuster crime caper, The Sting (1973), which became one of the top 20 highest grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation. It was also nominated for an Oscar.

Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name. His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford.

Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter — the Watergate scandal — and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.

He also starred in a segment of the war film, A Bridge Too Far (1977), the prison drama, Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the fantasy baseball drama, The Natural (1984).

Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning a number of Oscars, including the Academy Award for best director for Redford himself.

His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention.

Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies together.

Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called "Timp Haven,” which was renamed "Sundance.”

He founded the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles north of the Sundance ski area.

The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films.

On this day in 1967 — 54 years ago — The Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose lecture on Transcendental Meditation they had gone to hear at the Hilton Hotel in London

On this day in 1967 — 54 years ago — The Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose lecture on Transcendental Meditation they had gone to hear at the Hilton Hotel in London.

Transcendental Meditation involved the silent repetition of a word or sound to produce a state of mind that reduces stress, calms the mind and energizes both mind and body. Encouraged by Pattie Harrison, The Beatles and their partners — minus Ringo and Maureen Starkey, whose second child, Jason, had been born five days previously — attended the lecture.

The Harrisons had become interested in Eastern philosophy during a six-week holiday in Bombay towards the end of 1966. The following year Pattie attended a lecture on Transcendental Meditation at Caxton Hall, London, where she had been given her mantra. Inspired by her new discovery, she encouraged George to accompany her to Maharishi's lecture at the Hilton.

A press conference followed the lecture, after which a 90-minute private audience with Maharishi was held for Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and the rest of their party. The yogi's words left them keen to learn more, and they made arrangements to travel to Bangor, North Wales, the next day to attend the weekend seminar being held there.

The Maharishi invited The Beatles to travel with him to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend more lectures. They accepted his invitation.

In February 1968, the Beatles took their interest a large step forward by traveling to the Maharishi’s home base in northern India. Lennon and wife Cynthia, and Harrison and Pattie Boyd arrived first (Ringo Starr and Paul would soon join them) along with other notable friends such as Beach Boy Mike Love, Donovan and actress Mia Farrow.

During their stay, they would learn more about meditation and would also find time to write many of the songs that would ultimately end up on The Beatles (aka the White Album). “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Dear Prudence” (written about Farrow’s sister, also in attendance), “Mother Nature’s Son,” and “Sexy Sadie” were just a few of the songs born out of their experiences there.

“I was really impressed with the Maharishi. I was impressed because he was laughing all the time,” said Ringo. “It was another point of view. It was the first time we’re sort of getting into Eastern philosophies.” McCartney described the stay in India as “very much like a summer camp,” with Starr adding, “It was pretty far out.”

Both McCartney and Starr cut their stay short, while others hung out for close to two months. The harmonious vibes of the trip, however, would soon come to an end when allegations arose about the more earthly interests of the Maharishi in one or more of the females in attendance as well as questions surrounding the Maharishi seeking financial involvement from the Beatles.

Exactly why the Beatles left the Maharishi is up to question. All left abruptly. According to a 2006 statement by Deepak Chopra, the Beatles and their entourage "were doing drugs, taking LSD, at Maharishi's ashram, and he lost his temper with them. He asked them to leave, and they did in a huff." This was confirmed in a 2008 article in The Washington Post that reported "others said the Beatles resumed drug use at the ashram."

Others said the Beatles learned the Maharishi sought financial gain, while others said, the supposedly celibate guru made a pass at female members of the group.

Upon their return, a reporter asked Lennon if the Maharishi was “on the level.” Lennon quipped, “I don’t know what level he’s on, but we had a nice holiday in India and came back rested.”

Frances Rappaport Horwich was born 114 years ago today

Frances Rappaport Horwich was born 114 years ago today.

Better known as “Miss Frances,” Horwich was the host of the popular children's television program, Ding Dong School.

Born in Ottawa, Ohio, Horwich earned her Master's degree in education from Columbia University and received her Doctorate at Northwestern University. She became the head of the department of education at Chicago's Roosevelt College.

Ding Dong School, with Horwich as host, was developed by the show's producer, Reinald Werrenrath, Jr., together with Judith Waller, director of public affairs programming for the NBC Central Division. It began to air in the Chicago area on WNBQ-TV (now WMAQ-TV).

The show quickly gained popularity among young children and was broadcast nationally on the NBC network, Monday through Friday, beginning in November of 1952.

In that year, Horwich won the George Foster Peabody Award. The show at one time is suspected of having a 95 percent share on all preschoolers. In 1954, Horwich moved to New York, where she supervised all of NBC's children's programming. She held this position until 1956, when Ding Dong School was canceled in favor of The Price is Right.

Horwich owned the rights to Ding Dong School and syndicated the show until 1965. In addition to resigning from NBC in protest of what she felt was commercialism over education, she would never advertise products a child could not use and would never advertise toys she felt glorified violence.

She is also cited as inventing the approach of talking to the viewing audience as if they were there with you.

Here is a clip of Miss Frances on Ding Dong School from 1953