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Jackie Chan Hardest Working Man
Start writing... Dayne Nourse flew in from Salt Lake City in the U.S. to show Chan his moves. He hardly looks like a formidable foe, especially to anyone with Chan’s kung fu skills. However, Hong Kong’s top hero has a weakness for such adversaries. Nourse, 14, stands waist-high, when he stands. Mostly, he sits in a wheelchair, crippled by brittle bone disease. The Make-A-Wish Foundation flew him to Hong Kong. Meeting idol Jackie Chan is his final wish.The ultimate pro, Chan responds with a performance that has all eyes misting up at a Chinese dinner he hosts for Nourse and another Make-A-Wish teen, Keisha Knauss, at a west Kowloon restaurant. Chan makes silly faces and flirts with Knauss, then teaches kung fu moves to Nourse. “He’s really cool,” Nourse gushes afterward. “I knew he was nice from his films, but I had no idea how nice he would be. This has really been a dream come true.”At the banquet filled with friends, Chan bounces from table to table, the perfect host. But he dotes on the teens. Knauss calls him “my boyfriend” to much laughter, but for one special day he really is. Earlier Chan took the teens around his Clearwater Bay film studio, showered them with souvenirs and demonstrated daring stunts. “I know how important this moment is,” he confides during a moment away from the youngsters. “If I can help them to live two more days, or two more years, whatever it takes. This is what makes me happy.”Chan, 57, punched his way to fame in scores of cheap sock ‘em flicks through the 1970s in Hong Kong before becoming the city’s first Hollywood star in the 1990s. Today he’s more than an entertainment juggernaut with more than a hundred films, television and cartoon shows, and record albums to his credit. In a city obsessed with commerce, where billionaires are celebrities, this grade school dropout is a Hong Kong icon. In earlier times it was hard to walk a block without seeing his face on a poster or product advertisement. The same now holds true in the rest of China, where he’s often on hand opening cinemas, hosting variety shows and making appearances.Unlike so many pretty boys in the Hong Kong industry, which was the biggest in the world after Hollywood until the 1990s, Chan rose from rags to riches and did it his own way–performing death-defying stunts himself. As a global star with international hits such as Rush Hour, he claimed fees of up to $25 million a picture. More important, he altered the formulaic way Hong Kong made and marketed films. “Jackie Chan helped create the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s and subsequently was part of the Hong Kong talent that succeeded in Hollywood and international cinema,” says Roger Garcia, executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. “He helped shape how the world today looks at Hong Kong movies.”Some critics term his films trivial, panning Chan’s cheesy mix of comedy, action and positive themes. Yet the blend has proven box office appeal; his fans span the globe and defy categorization. In December his Facebook page topped 10 million fans. Even critics concede that he injected life into Asian action films with his martial arts mastery.Along the way Chan has been transformed from stuntman and fighter to unlikely leading man and role model. However slapstick the script, his films usually have strong moral messages. He often defends underdogs or urchins. Invariably his movies are clean-cut, without sex scenes or graphic violence–call it Kung Fu Disney with Confucian characteristics.What is less known is how fame has transformed Chan into one of Asia’s premier philanthropists. Others may give more or get more attention, but probably nobody works harder for more causes than Chan. “Every time we ask him to do an event, he agrees without any question,” says Anthony Lau, director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Chan has been the face of everything from no-smoking campaigns to cleanup efforts. Lau recalls requesting the star’s appearance in Japan two years ago. Chan was working in remote China but flew 30 hours straight to the event. “The next day, he made the journey back–another 30 hours.”Chan has always regretted his lack of a formal education. So when he launched the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988, it offered scholarships and other help to young people. Over the years the scope has broadened to include medical services, help for the poor and quick responses to natural disasters. After China’s Sichuan earthquake he donated more than $1.3 million to relief. His impact is multiplied when he lends his name and puts his boundless energy behind a cause.Two days before meeting the U.S. teens, as FORBES ASIA trails the hyperkinetic Chan around Hong Kong, he bounds up several flights of an old apartment building, bursting into a room of photographers. Flashes pulsate as he poses with a giant cardboard check for around $3.4 million. This was raised in a concert he organized to help victims of the Japan quake and tsunami. He put up $150,000 of his own money.Twenty minutes later we are back in a car, Chan behind the wheel. “I love driving,” he says, zipping in and out of Hong Kong traffic, jabbering at every stoplight into a pair of phones–one for China, one for Hong Kong–before pulling into the driveway of his Kowloon Tong home. There are two old houses, side by side in a huge lot framed by giant thickets of bamboo. Jackie lives in one with his wife; his son, Jaycee Chan, also an actor and musician, lives in the other.This is an unscheduled stop in a day crammed with appointments. Chan is a ball of energy but easily distracted, making a shambles of any itinerary. Our meetings have been repeatedly rescheduled, month after month. Staff members say he’s a reluctant delegator who tries to do everything himself. Even so, they are intensely loyal and talk lovingly of their good-natured boss. Practically all have been with him for years, some for decades. “He wants to be on top of everything,” says Mabel Cheung, one of Hong Kong’s most respected film directors, who made Traces of a Dragon: Jackie Chan and His Lost Family.A dozen years ago Chan learned that both his parents had previously been married and had abandoned families in the mainland amid the chaos of the Chinese civil war. Cheung took a film crew to China and interviewed his half-siblings and then went to Australia and filmed him talking to his parents about their past. She says he is a joy to work with. “He followed my direction and never asked to change a single thing. He never even came into the editing room.”Unlike most Hong Kong stars, Chan travels under his own power, eschewing big entourages. We often leave a car in a lot–Chan parking himself–then ride an escalator and hustle to a meeting or meal. Maybe because he’s dressed down and lacks bodyguards, hardly anyone seems to notice. When they do, smiles invariably bloom. Everyone seems to cherish Jackie Chan. “Even as an international star, he’s very much a Hong Kong person,” notes Cheung. “He really acts like a big brother to everyone in the film industry in Hong Kong. He always has gatherings for his friends, in his house.”His superstardom and simplicity seem surprising in a city so consumed by flash and showiness. But his boisterous can-do spirit is the essence of Hong Kong. “I think Jackie Chan is one of the reasons people come here,” says Lau. “They know him and his attitude, and that says a lot about Hong Kong.”His wealth has been pegged at $130 million, but he’s happy to eat a bowl of dumplings set on a folding card table outside his house. The furnishings are modest. On a wall is a plastic decoration often seen in dentist offices, a kind of clock-shaped mingling of the words: “Live, Learn, Laugh, Love, Life.”Chan wears old sneakers and ripped jeans and seems uninterested in possessions or attention-grabbing statements. His yard does host a collection of cars, including a vintage Rolls-Royce . One has the license “123,” which cost him $150,000. He says he’s been offered six times that amount to sell the plates in numbers-obsessed Hong Kong. “But I’ll never sell.” The plate, he says, denotes the date, Dec. 3, his son was born. He also shares the property with a pair of Golden Retrievers–Jones and JJ. His wife of nearly 30 years is Taiwanese former actress Lin Feng-Jiao, or Joan. “It makes it easy–we’re all Js,” he says with that moon-size smile.Chan spent his early years atop Victoria Peak, Hong Kong’s most prestigious address, but his was never the life of privilege. His father worked as a cook at the French consulate; his mother did laundry. He lasted less than a year in school. Instead, when his father moved to another job, with the American embassy in Australia, Chan was enrolled in the China Drama Academy in Kowloon, a Peking Opera school run by Master Yu Jim-Yuen. He proved a superlative student of acrobatics and martial arts; he started working in films at age 8.Chan admits he didn’t take to charity at first. “When I started, people were always asking me to do stuff, and I was just too busy, so I always said no,” he says. “Then I finally agreed. I remember being so embarrassed. Kids came up to me and asked what I brought them, and I didn’t know. I hadn’t done it. Somebody else did it for me. They all thanked me, and I was shamed.” That was 25 years ago.At nearly the same time Chan was in Yugoslavia, filming a dangerous stunt. He’s listed in record books for doing the toughest stunts and has taken numerous tumbles, breaking most bones in his body. On this day he took a near fatal drop on his head. “It was one of the first times in my life where I started thinking, what have I really done, for myself, for my country, for society? I thought, if I recover I have to do more for everyone.”In 2004 he started his second foundation, the Dragon’s Heart Foundation, which builds schools and helps children and the elderly in remote parts of China. One of his cleverest schemes for this foundation has been to enlist kids from around the world to contribute, and he matches all funds. But the global bond is far more important than the folded dollars that flow in. “I want to show you something superspecial,” he says at his Clearwater Bay studio. One hallway is crammed with photographs signed by celebrity pals: Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner, Madonna, as well as Tiger Woods, James Brown and a Miss World or two. On the other wall are movie posters and trophies.But Chan guides me inside to his real treasures. “Look at this,” he says, pulling out a stack of poster boards filled with crayon coloring and collages, many featuring dollar bills. These are donations from kids all over the world. Some put together classroom projects, others went door-to-door or emptied their cookie jars. “Now I have to double everything,” he says. “There is no way I’d ever spend any of this. Someday, I’ll have a museum and hang this on the walls.”Chan talks of cinemas in China. He’s about to debut his epic, 1911, covering 100 years of Chinese history; the patriotic flick is his 100th. He’s recently opened China’s biggest Cineplex, with 17 screens, in Beijing and has plans for dozens more. He has his own line of clothing and Jackie Chan cafes and gyms. There are so many business ventures, he cannot keep track. When he’s on the phone I explore the studio and spot several Segways. Sure enough, he has a distributorship.A philanthropic pioneer among Hong Kong entertainers, Chan sets an example for stars such as Jet Li who have launched charities. It’s easy to understand why he works so hard. “When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money I began buying things. Now I want to give away everything. When I give somebody something and see their face, it just makes me so happy.”Chan believes giving will catch on in China, too. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett received a cold response when they visited to solicit support for a global campaign to get tycoons to pledge half their estates to charity after their death. Chan has taken the pledge. “China is an old country, but people are just starting to get money,” he says. “I think they will follow the same path; it’s just starting.” (Malaysia’s Vincent Tan has also taken the pledge. See list, following pages.).In the homespun wisdom of Jackie Chan, the way forward is simple. “I do small things. I try to do good things every day. If everyone does some good, think of what a good world this will be.”
By Zarinabanu Zarinabanu3 years ago in Humans
Funke Akindele, Bovi, and Other Celebrities React to Getting Slapped By Fans
When we are surprised, we sometimes react in a ways that do not make any sense. In the presence of celebrities, many people have famously completely lost their minds and done things that they would normally never do to a regular person on the street.
By Jide Okonjo3 years ago in Humans
7 Surprising Pregnancy Announcements (Photos)
Keeping a secret is hard. Keeping a secret is even harder when you’re a person that is in the public eye. But keeping a secret that physically changes your body and is very obvious – something like a pregnancy, when you’re in the public eye, now that is work!
By Jide Okonjo3 years ago in Humans
MGR history
Start writing... “IT IS NOT enough if you are a good man,” he said, “You must also appear to be so… You put forward an image of yourself if you want to get anywhere.” No one followed his words as assiduously as he himself did, though unaware, it seems, of the risks of getting ‘trapped’ in his own image. MG Ramachandran (1917-1987), a Malayalee born in Sri Lanka, matinee idol and the heart-throb of millions of adoring fans who became Tamil Nadu’s most popular mass leader, reworked the narrative of a state that had witnessed a resurgence of Tamil pride.Tamils elected him as Chief Minister of the state for two terms and more, and he was in power from 1977 until his demise in 1987. They voted him to power even when he was ailing and far away, being treated across the seas in the US. They worshipped him as a god and even built a temple with an enshrined image of him in his trademarks fur cap, dark glasses and gold watch. It was under him that Tamil Nadu shifted from its fiery Dravidian ideology of self-respect to a poster cult. The rest of the nation was baffled by the ‘MGR phenomenon’, but this made no difference to his followers.How much of MGR’s mystique was engineered? How meticulous was the strategy drawn out to win over the masses? How much political thinking was behind the myth? Once a reporter asked him, “When you fight your enemies in films, you beat up ten to twenty of them single handedly and come out victorious. Can anyone believe this?” MGR answered, “In the Mahabharata, the young Abhimanyu fights experienced warriors. He breaks complex strategies and defeats enemies. If Abhimanyu can do that, film heroes like me can also do the same.” But if MGR’s approach was as sharp as that of Abhimanyu in breaking through to enter the chakravyuh in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, his was even better in working out the aftermath: for he knew how to successfully come out of it, something poor Abhimanyu did not.The phenomenal rise and success of MGR as an actor and later as a politician, and the waves of emotion that his name continues to evoke among the state’s common people 30 years after his death, is something of an enigma.Marudur Gopalamenon Ramachandran (MGR) was born on January 17th, 1917, in Kandy, Sri Lanka. His father Gopala Menon died when he was barely a child and left the family penniless. Ramachandran’s mother Sathya moved to India with her children and settled in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. Hunger claimed the lives of his two sisters and an elder brother. Driven by extreme poverty, he embarked on an acting career as a child theatre artist at the age of seven, and joined the Madhurai Original Boys.Company, owned by M Kandasamy Pillai. Ramachandran was fair complexioned and was given female roles initially. It was after a long struggle that he got a break in cinema, doing small parts in mythological films. He then took to action films, which were to become his forte. Critics never thought much of his talent as a performer, though his films broke records at the box office. He also won a National Award for his role in Rickshaw Karan, a 1971 vigilante film.Despite amassing great wealth and becoming the most powerful man in the state for a long spell, his identification and empathy with the poor was legendary. In his essay on the leader, ‘The Image Trap’, the social scientist MSS Pandian argues that MGR carefully created a screen image that corresponded to ‘the cultural presuppositions’ of Tamil Nadu’s subaltern classes as manifested in the state’s folk-hero ballads. The typical MGR hero is a low-status underdog who acquires the power to dispense justice, uses education as a tool of struggle, and defends the honour of women. All this held a tremendous appeal for the poor. The ‘common sense’ of ordinary people, writes Pandian, was something that ‘MGR effectively manipulated to his own political advantage’. Whether it was a deliberate strategy or not, the range of roles MGR played onscreen elicited the empathy of many who saw real-life situations reflected in his films. His cinema dealt with a variety of popular demands, including the provision of land to live on, food and clothing, education, freedom from usury, higher wages, lower prices and an end to violence against women and the poor.He had no strong political beliefs. The regional thrust of Dravidian politics had taken a beating with MGR distancing himself from opposition parties demanding more power for the states.The extraordinary appeal of MGR rested on the fact that his film and political careers were closely intertwined ‘in a remarkably symbiotic manner’ that gave him an unbeatable image as a folk hero. His involvement with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) started in 1953 and he was made a member of the party’s General Council in 1956. That he was so closely identified with the DMK, and the DMK with him, was important in its impact. When people watched him onscreen, the party’s message became his message.The importance of MGR’s association with the DMK can hardly be underestimated. The reason for his success cannot be attributed to his star status and convincing portrayals of the invincible good guy alone. Several film stars have tried their luck in politics—Shivaji Ganesan, for instance who was a greater actor and just as popular—but none has been even remotely as successful as MGR was. The story of Rajinikant, who achieved superstar status as bewildering as that of MGR, again falls short in the sense that his appeal is narrower. Rajini’s anti- hero image, the irreverent, smoking, drinking woman-basher, appealed only to the disaffected male in search of an identity, and definitely not the female audience.Moreover, Rajini lacks the mass base provided by a cadre of committed party workers that MGR enjoyed. Also, MGR’s close associates worked hard on his image, keen to project the positive side of him in contrast with the negative propaganda they spread against M Karunanidhi, the rival DMK leader who became Chief Minister after the party’s first leader to occupy the position, CN Anna Durai, passed away in 1969.It was MGR who convinced his party colleagues that Karunanidhi ought to assume leadership. Yet, it was Karunanidhi who had the ‘audacity’ to expel MGR from the party when the latter, as DMK treasurer, openly demanded an explanation of discrepancies in the party’s accounts and challenged ministers and legislators to declare their assets. One week after his expulsion in 1972, MGR announced the formation of his new party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). The rest is history. People voted him to power for two successive terms and Karunanidhi could not challenge MGR as long as he was alive.MGR’S ASSOCIATES WERE,understandably, worried about his fascination with Jayalalithaa, a convent- educated, English-speaking Brahmin woman 30 years younger than him who had been his co-star in a number of films. They were anxious about how their closeness could hurt the impeccable image they had helped him craft. They tried their best— with part success—to keep her away from him, little realising that it was she who would assume his political legacy upon his death and rule Tamil Nadu for even longer than her mentor.It was the acceptance of MGR’s fan base that Jayalalithaa was relying on when she projected herself as the de facto leader of the AIADMK. The Chief Minister had made her the party’s propaganda secretary and the cadres never doubted her claim that she was his chosen heir. If MGR was their annan (elder brother), she was accepted as their anni (sister-in-law). They were not aware that their hero had left her in limbo when he died this no position or title to fend for herself, betrayed by the man who had brought her into politics with promises of a great future.The magic spelt by MGR was such that Jayalalithaa would invoke his name at every election campaign. Never mind if it became just lip service once she was sure her own name had achieved the same.The political edifice that MGR built, however, was formidable. His heroic image was strengthened by acts of charity off screen. He earned fame for his generosity and helpfulness. He was always the first to donate large sums for disaster relief. He was constantly in the news as one aiding orphanages and schools. After a spell of torrential rains in Madras, he once had raincoats emblazoned with the party insignia distributed to some 6,000 rickshaw waalaa. To be sure, his generosity was well advertised. Poor and old women would be planted by roadsides for him to stop his car and hug them for the cameras, asking an assistant to shove some currency notes in their outstretched palms.People trusted him and voted for him in droves. Yet, he had no strong political beliefs, not even an ideological sense of mission. The regional thrust of Dravidian politics had taken a beating with MGR distancing himself from opposition parties of the time that were demanding more power for the states. He was smart enough to realise that so long as the state depended on the Centre for funds, an anti-Centre stance made no sense. The anti-Brahmin plank of Periyar, whose ideas had inspired the Dravidian movement, carried little conviction for the AIADMK; the party’s propaganda secretary, Jayalalithaa, and a cabinet minister, HV Hande, were both Brahmins. MGR also soft-pedalled the issue of opposing north India’s imposition of Hindi on the south, and was not as vociferous as Karunanidhi in espousing the cause of Sir Lanka’s Tamils. MGR’s desire to water down the regional character of his politics was clear when he renamed his Anna DMK as ‘All India’ Anna DMK. Atheism as an ideological tenet took a back seat too. MGR was a believer and made no secret of it. Gods were resurrected and money doled out for the renovation of temples.MGR will nevertheless go down in history as the leader who introduced the most far-sighted welfare measure that any state had: free midday meals for 8 million school children in Tamil Nadu. “I have suffered hunger and poverty in my life,” he would often say, “I know the suffering of my mother, who could not give us a ball of rice when we returned from school. Till my last breath, I will work for the people so that no mother in Tamil Nadu will suffer the way my mother did.” The message was laden with emotion and the scheme endeared him to the poor. The programme is reported to have increased the enrolment of pupils, improved children’s health and given employment to 200,000 people, mostly women.The meal scheme apart, MGR had little else to brag about. In 1977, he had led the AIADMK to triumph in the state Assembly elections by campaigning on an anti-corruption platform. At a time when numerous charges of graft were being laid at the door of Karunanidhi’s DMK government, it went down well. The matinee idol turned politician would repeat the formula in the next polls, but towards the end of his tenure in office, he himself faced a raft of such allegations. MGR’s administration was generally seen as inefficient. Government decision-making was overly centralised in his hands, with the result that files moved slowly, if at all. The Chief Minister had an obsessive concern with secrecy, the administrative machinery was demoralised, police repression in the state was growing, and the use of the intelligence apparatus for political eavesdropping led to an air of suspicion and fear that also pointed to the government’s poor record on civil rights. An anti-press law put journalists in the dock. It made ‘scurrilous and indecent’ writing a cognisable offence punishable by a prison term varying from two to five years. The MGR government also passed a bill to curb the screening of films critical of legislators and ministers. This legislation was provoked by the success of Neethikku Thanda Nai, a 1987 film scripted by Karunanidhi that was critical of MGR’s rule. The state gained notoriety for police atrocities.the officially sanctioned killing of 22 young men in North Arcot and Dharmapuri in the guise of encounters, for example and custodial deaths. The number of people detained without FIRs was shockingly high, and the harassment of students, journalists and publishers too severe to escape notice.The regime’s prohibition policy, brought in with much fanfare to wipe the tears of ‘Motherland’ (community of mothers), had become a farce with vast multitudes drinking openly even though the consumption of alcohol without a permit was punishable by law. Industry was no happier and the state’s economic performance was lacklustre. The matinee idol had no clear-cut agenda. And yet, the MGR magic stayed on, despite ill health and periodic absences from India for medical treatment in the US. For the last three years of his rule, his speech was so impaired as to render him voiceless.None of MGR’s shortcomings diminished the adoration that the masses specially women voters and the poor had for him because of his welfare schemes. While these were freebies at the cost of economic growth, they became a success mantra that even rivals had to adopt. Karunanidhi, for example, followed a similar strategy to win the 2006 Assembly elections.The magic spelt by MGR was such that Jayalalithaa would invoke his name at every election campaign. Never mind if it became just lip service once she was sure her own name had achieved the same. If she outdid her mentor on handouts for the masses, she also went further in instilling fear among dissenters. From anni, she was to become Amma, the Universal mother. Yet, she never failed to end her speeches with ‘MGR ’ (long live MGR’s name). It will be difficult for Tamil politics to extricate itself from such an image trap.
By Zarinabanu Zarinabanu3 years ago in Humans
A FAMOUS ACTRESS ONCE TRAVELED WITH US.........
This incident happened when we were coming back from Singapore. We used to fly the Airbus 310 aircraft on that route and so we had business class and Economy class. Flights from Singapore to Mumbai were always full. When we went to check in our bags we were told that we have Ms. X,( famous actress of the nineties who made her debut with Amir Khan, is still alive so I would not name her), would be flying with us.
By AMLAN ROYCHOWDHURY3 years ago in Humans