Author: Jake Rossen

An estimated 5.7 million Americans suffer from heart failure, or an inability to pump a sufficient amount of blood throughout the body. Many submit to drug therapy, with resulting side effects; a small percentage receive heart transplants, though there aren’t nearly enough hearts to cover the demand for a healthier organ.

Now, researchers at Harvard, Cambridge, and other leading universities may have found an alternative solution: an implantable “soft” robot made of elastic material that can fit over the heart like a sleeve and assist it in pumping.   

According to a study published today in Science Translational Medicine [PDF], the robotic sleeve seeks to supplement—not replace—the heart’s natural motions. Silicone materials mimic cardiac tissue and conform to the heart’s surface anatomy; using compressed air delivered by a tethered line, the sleeve can twist itself, compress, or decompress to aid the organ in maintaining normal rhythms.

In the image below, you can see how the muscle fiber orientations of the outer layers of the heart (A) are mimicked by the device’s design (B).

In order to test the sleeve, the researchers implanted it in six sedated pigs who were put under general anesthesia and experienced drug-induced cardiac arrest. The result was an 88 percent restoration of cardiac output.

The device is also customizable to the individual, they write: “Our device could potentially be turned off when no longer required, and clinicians could tailor the device as a passive restraint device, partial support, or full support.”

The study’s authors acknowledge that this is an early and limited trial, and more information is needed on how the sleeve will perform over long periods of time. But if they’re successful, the implantable sleeve could eliminate potential complications from drug therapies, serve as a bridge treatment for patients awaiting transplants, and help usher in a new era of “soft” robotics that could support other physical functions.

The unidentified hijacker known as D.B. Cooper leapt from a commercial flight in November 1971 with a parachute and $200,000 in ransom money after threatening passengers and crew with a bomb. He was never located, although that’s not quite the same as having disappeared: Cooper became a folk hero, with both the FBI and curious amateur investigators sifting through scarce evidence for well over 45 years.

Last July, the FBI officially closed the case, citing a lack of promising leads, but continued to solicit public information if that information was compelling. The invitation appears to be paying off: A team of scientists in Seattle has recently extracted some intriguing new clues from the clip-on tie Cooper left behind.

Tom Kaye, spokesperson for a group called Citizen Sleuths, told King5 News that an electron microscope has identified several rare earth materials on the tie, including Cerium, Strontium Sulfide, and pure titanium, a cluster of particles that individuals would only have been exposed to in 1971 in very specific lines of work.

One of those lines of work is aerospace, a major industry in the Northwest. Kaye believes it’s possible the elements would have been found at Boeing during work on a Super Sonic Transport plane in the 1960s and 1970s. If the man who became known as Cooper was employed at Boeing, his tie could have been collecting debris from the workplace.

“The tie went with him into these manufacturing environments, for sure,” Kaye told King5.com. “He was either an engineer or a manager in one of the plants.”

Kaye and his team have been working on the case since 2009. Various hypotheses have been put forward about Cooper’s identity, including one surprisingly sound argument that he (or she) was a woman in disguise. Kaye is inviting anyone familiar with Boeing in that time period, or familiar with the materials found on the tie, to come forward with any information that could further aid in the famed hijacker’s identification.

[h/t King5.com]

In a report dated July 22, 1975, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded the details behind one of the biggest raids of a pirated movie collection in the agency’s history. The previous December, agents had descended on an opulent home in North Hollywood and seized more than 160 film canisters and more than 1000 video cassettes from the garage, all unlawfully copied for use in private screenings. The Bureau estimated the collection to be worth more than $5 million.

After boxes of films were hauled out of the home and into FBI vehicles, the owner of the collection was interviewed. Rather than face serious charges, he agreed to inform investigators about how he acquired his library and who else he knew that might be in possession of similar goods.

The film Giant, starring James Dean, had been given to him by actor Rock Hudson; Arthur P. Jacobs, producer of the long-running Planet of the Apes film series, was another source. Other names were redacted in the FBI’s official document released to the public.

The source of this one-man analog pirate operation was Roddy McDowall, a former child star who gained notoriety for his portrayal of Cornelius and Caesar in the Apes franchise. And while his criminal record would remain clean, his willingness to out other celebrity movie collectors would come at considerable personal cost.

Although the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has fought its biggest battles against copyright infringement in the age of broadband file-sharing, film piracy was a problem long before anyone was wired for internet access. In the 1920s, exhibitors tried to get away with cutting studios out of their share by screening films past the agreed-upon distribution windows; projectionists would sometimes make duplicate prints from originals, selling them for a profit. By the 1960s, consumer-use camcorders were being surreptitiously brought into theaters to point directly at the screen, a practice that endured for decades.

Fed up with the theft of their content, which may have cost them an estimated billion dollars in revenue annually, the studio-backed MPAA began a vigorous fight against infringement in the early 1970s. Bootleg sellers were cornered and litigated: if the government could prove they profited from the sale of a bootleg film—which could carry a price tag in the hundreds of dollars—fines and jail time were put on the table.

It’s possible the MPAA and the FBI didn’t stop to consider that some sizable collections would be found inside the industry’s own inner circle. But actors, producers, and studio personnel had something that conventional pirates had a difficult time accessing: original, high-quality prints of major studio films. Some would be loaned to talent for private screenings and then returned; others could be purchased outright, although never for duplication purposes.

In a written statement handed over to the FBI, McDowall said he had been collecting prints since the 1960s, when the actor had the money and means to begin acquiring personal copies of both his favorite films and those he had personally appeared in. The object, he explained, was to study the performances of other actors and to guard against the possibility that some might wind up being lost to neglect or age. The latter was not an unfounded fear: studios had been notoriously negligent in film preservation in the early part of the century.

McDowall eventually ended up with some 337 different films, many of which he transferred to cassette for easier storage and in the belief they might be better preserved that way. (Since his collection predates the mid-1970s introductions of VHS and Betamax, it’s possible he used Sony’s U-Matic magnetic tape technology, an expensive early format that never caught on with the general public.)

When McDowall grew tired of a certain film, he would sell it to a fellow collector, generally for whatever price he recalled paying for it in the first place. Three unnamed films, he wrote, once cost him a total of $705. He specifically recalled wanting to own Escape from the Planet of the Apes so that he could have a copy of his character’s death scene: 20^th Century Fox offered to sell him prints of the Apes series along with How Green Was My Valley. Unhappy with the quality, he declined.

Instead, the FBI raid found films like My Friend Flicka, Lassie Come Home, and hundreds of others. Rather than face criminal penalties, McDowall told authorities that singer Mel Torme, actor Dick Martin, and Rock Hudson were known to be collectors. He also had business dealings with Ray Atherton, a high-profile bootlegger the government had been targeting for some time. His disclosure of those contacts probably saved McDowall from being the first celebrity movie pirate to be charged with a crime.

For the MPAA, the resulting seizure of McDowall’s collection—the FBI never named its tipster, or what led them to McDowall—was significant. In their game of criminal investigation, a well-known party acted like a warning flare to other pirates. Media coverage of McDowall’s incident forced bootleggers to burrow further underground, driving up the prices for films.

The FBI didn’t pursue Hudson or any of the other parties McDowall named; the big fish was Atherton, who was charged but had his conviction overturned in 1977. Roughly 20 other dealers were indicted, with several convicted of conspiracy; the court proceedings were sometimes livened by the appearance of celebrities like Gene Hackman, who testified on behalf of the government to drive home the economic impact of pirated films.

Only a few short years later, the Supreme Court would rule that videotaping movies and television using home cassette recorders was not copyright infringement—so long as it was used for noncommercial purposes. The decision angered the MPAA, which saw the home video industry as a major threat to box office receipts. Later, they’d profit handsomely from sales of videocassettes.

It was too late for McDowall. While he escaped any criminal trouble, his reputation in the industry reportedly took a hit because of his willingness to point his finger at his fellow collectors. According to a friend, McDowall was considered a “rat” and was so crestfallen by the incident that he stopped screening films in his home, his garage empty of the films he had spent well over a decade compiling. They remained the property of the FBI.

Monday, January 16, marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal date of recognition for one of the most important figures in the civil rights movement. Signed by President Reagan in 1983, the holiday marked the culmination of efforts that started just four days after King’s assassination in 1968, when Representative John Conyers of Michigan began 15 years of introducing and reintroducing a bill to establish the holiday. (Stevie Wonder joined the chorus of Americans backing Conyers’ efforts; in 1980 he wrote the song “Happy Birthday” to help create a groundswell of support.)

While it would be impossible to encompass everything King accomplished in a mere list, we’ve compiled a few intriguing facts that may pique your interest in finding out more about the man who helped unite a divided nation.

1. MARTIN LUTHER KING WAS NOT HIS GIVEN NAME.

One of the most recognizable proper names of the 20th century wasn’t actually what was on the birth certificate. The future civil rights leader was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, named after his father Michael King. When the younger King was 5 years old, his father decided to change both their names after learning more about 16th century theologian Martin Luther, who was one of the key figures of the Protestant Reformation. Inspired by that battle, Michael King soon began referring to himself and his son as Martin Luther King.

2. HE WAS A DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY.

Using the prefix “doctor” to refer to King has become a reflex, but not everyone is aware of the origin of King’s Ph.D. He attended Boston University and graduated in 1955 with a doctorate in systematic theology. King also had a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Morehouse College and a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary.

3. HE TOOK 30 TRIPS TO JAIL.

A powerful voice for an ignored and suppressed minority, opponents tried to silence King the old-fashioned way: incarceration. In the 12 years he spent as the recognized leader of the civil rights movement, King was arrested and jailed 30 times. Rather than brood, King used the unsolicited downtime to further his cause. Jailed in Birmingham for eight days in 1963, he penned “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a long treatise responding to the oppression supported by white religious leaders in the South.

“I’m afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time,” he wrote. “I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?”

4. THE FBI TRIED TO COERCE HIM INTO SUICIDE.

King’s increasing prominence and influence agitated many of his enemies, but few were more powerful than FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. For years, Hoover kept King under surveillance, worried that this subversive could sway public opinion against the bureau and fretting that King might have Communist ties. While there’s still debate about how independently Hoover’s deputy William Sullivan was acting, an anonymous letter was sent to King in 1964 accusing him of extramarital affairs and threatening to disclose his indiscretions. The only solution, the letter suggested, would be for King to exit the civil rights movement, either willingly or by taking his own life. King ignored the threat and continued his work.

5. A SINGLE SNEEZE COULD HAVE ALTERED HISTORY FOREVER.

Our collective memory of King always has an unfortunate addendum: his 1968 assassination that brought an end to his personal crusade against social injustice. But if Izola Ware Curry had her way, King’s mission would have ended 10 years earlier. At a Harlem book signing in 1958, Ware approached King and plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest, nearly puncturing his aorta. Surgery was needed to remove it. Had King so much as sneezed, doctors said, the wound was so close to his heart that it would have been fatal.  Curry, a 42-year-old black woman, was having paranoid delusions about the NAACP that soon crystallized around King. She was committed to an institution and died in 2015.

6. HE GOT A “C” IN PUBLIC SPEAKING.

King’s promise as one of the great orators of his time was late in coming. While attending Crozer Theological Seminary from 1948 to 1951, King’s marks were diluted by C and C+ grades in two terms of public speaking.

7. HE WON A GRAMMY.

At the 13th annual Grammy Awards in 1971, a recording of King’s 1967 address, “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam,” took home a posthumous award for Best Spoken Word recording. In 2012, his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (it was included decades later because its 1969 nomination was beaten for the Spoken Word prize by Rod McKuen’s “Lonesome Cities”).

8. HE LOVED STAR TREK.

It’s not easy to imagine King having the time or inclination to sit down and watch primetime sci-fi on television, but according to actress Nichelle Nichols, King and his family made an exception for Star Trek. In 1967, the actress met King, who told her he was a big fan and urged her to reconsider her decision to leave the show to perform on Broadway. “My family are your greatest fans,” Nichols recalled King telling her, and said he continued with, “As a matter of fact, this is the only show on television that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to watch, to stay up and watch because it’s on past their bedtime.” Nichols’ character of Lt. Uhura, he said, was important because she was a strong, professional black woman. If Nichols left, King noted, the character could be replaced by anyone, since “[Uhura] is not a black role. And it’s not a female role.” Based on their talk, Nichols decided to remain on the show for the duration of its three-season original run.

9. HE SPENT HIS WEDDING NIGHT IN A FUNERAL PARLOR.

When King married his wife, Coretta, in her father’s backyard in 1953, there was virtually no hotel in Marion, Alabama that would welcome a newlywed black couple. A friend of Coretta’s happened to be an undertaker, and invited the Kings into one of the guest rooms at his funeral parlor.

10. RONALD REAGAN WAS OPPOSED TO A KING HOLIDAY.

Despite King’s undeniable worthiness, MLK Day was not a foregone conclusion. In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan largely ignored pleas to pass legislation making the holiday official out of the concern it would open the door for other minority groups to demand their own holidays; Senator Jesse Helms complained that the missed workday could cost the country $12 billion in lost productivity, and both were concerned about King’s possible Communist sympathies. Common sense prevailed, and the bill was signed into law on November 2, 1983. The holiday officially began being recognized in January 1986.

11. WE’LL SOON SEE HIM ON THE $5 BILL.

In 2016, the U.S. Treasury announced plans to overhaul major denominations of currency beginning in 2020. Along with Harriet Tubman adorning the $20 bill, plans call for the reverse side of the $5 Lincoln-stamped bill to commemorate “historic events that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial” including King’s famous 1963 speech..

12. ONE OF KING’S VOLUNTEERS WALKED AWAY WITH A PIECE OF HISTORY.

King’s 1963 oration from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, will always be remembered as one of the most provocative public addresses ever given. George Raveling, who was 26 at the time, had volunteered to help King and his team during the event. When it was over, Raveling sheepishly asked King for the copy of the three-page speech. King handed it over without hesitation; Raveling kept it for the next 20 years before he fully understood its historical significance and removed it from the book he had been storing it in.

He’s turned down offers of up to $3.5 million, insisting that the document will remain in his family—always noting that the most famous passage, where King details his dream of a united nation, isn’t on the sheet. It was improvised.

Coffee with a kick: Jack Daniel’s recently announced a line of non-alcoholic coffees infused with the flavor of their famous whiskey.

The company has partnered with World of Coffee to issue 8.8 ounce tins ($21.95) and 1.5 ounce bags ($6.95) in both caffeinated and non-caffeinated varieties. “The distinct caramel and vanilla notes of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey are evident in each sip,” according to the product’s web site.

The boozy coffee is currently available only in the Lynchburg Hardware and General Store in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and from the Jack Daniel’s online store. Or if you’re looking to broaden your coffee horizons without smelling like a distillery, you can check out our list of the Best Roasters in All 50 States.

[h/t Mashable]

For decades, physicians have cautioned against using cotton swabs like Q-Tips to clean out the ears (“nothing smaller than an elbow” is a popular refrain). For one thing, they simply don’t do a very good job, often pushing the cerumen (ear wax) deeper into the ear. For another, the tiny tufts of cotton can sometimes break off and become lodged in the canal and damage the very delicate tissues inside. Q-Tips even have a box label warning: “Do not use inside ear canal.”

The medical field has now made it official: Stop sticking swabs in your ears. This month, the American Academy of Otolaryngology issued a revised set of ear wax care guidelines that specifically warns against the use of the swabs to try and unclog your head.

“The product label of one of the leading manufacturers of cotton-tipped swabs specifically notes that the product should not be placed into the ear canal,” the AAO wrote. “The cotton buds at the end of cotton-tipped applicators may separate, requiring removal as a foreign body. One case report did report fatal otogenic meningitis and brain abscess due to retained cotton swabs.”

That’s a bit extreme, as most of us are unlikely to die from probing our ears. Still, absolutely nothing good can come of using the swabs for wax removal. If build-up is bothering you, see a physician about having it removed the right way: with suction, or with tiny forceps wielded by a professional.

[h/t STAT]

In January 1976, film producer Kevin McClory took out a full-page ad in Variety that made an audacious claim. A new James Bond movie, James Bond of the Secret Service, was about to enter production under the supervision of Paradise Films.

It was not to star Roger Moore, the current Bond who had appeared in two films and was due for several more; nowhere did the ad mention EON, the longstanding production company of all the Bond films. It was as though someone were daring the Bond caretakers to take notice of a bootleg 007 project.

The ad was a calculated move taken by McClory, who had no involvement with EON but believed he had the legal right to make a Bond film as a result of events that had happened well over a decade prior. McClory’s aim was to write his own chapter in Bond history, with his secret weapon being the man who had originated the role onscreen and whose presence still loomed large over the franchise.

Although the ad didn’t mention it, McClory’s plan was to restore Sean Connery behind the wheel of the Aston Martin, an ambition that would eventually decide once and for all which Bond moviegoers preferred.

Against the wishes of Bond creator Ian Fleming, Connery had been cast as the secret agent in 1962’s Dr. No. Projecting an air of charming menace, Connery’s performance was an immediate hit, winning over the author and kicking off one of the most durable Hollywood film franchises in history.

There would be four more films—From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), and You Only Live Twice (1967)—before the actor, bored with taking second place to the series’ increasing fetish for gadgets, left. EON recast with George Lazenby for one film, 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, before enticing Connery back for one last appearance in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. Earning $1.2 million, Connery felt Diamonds helped excise the character from his career while adding to the funds of his charitable efforts.

That film was, as far as Connery was concerned, the end. But in 1975, McClory approached Connery with an intriguing story: In the early 1960s, McClory and Fleming had sat down to hash out potential story ideas for the burgeoning Bond film franchise. Fleming eventually used some of those ideas for the novel Thunderball, which was adapted into a 1965 Connery vehicle.

McClory argued in court that certain rights to Thunderball were owed to him; in an effort to get that film made, EON agreed, but mandated that McClory not attempt to use any of the elements of the story he helped conceive for a 10-year period. Thunderball was produced, and McClory was silent—for exactly 10 years.

When he was legally able, he began to pursue his rogue Bond project. Legally, it could only be a loose remake of Thunderball, but that was of little consequence. McClory knew the plot was secondary to a return by Connery to the role that had made him famous.

Connery was surprisingly open to the idea. For one, he understood his name above a Bond marquee meant at least as much as Moore was earning: a reported $4 million per picture. For another, he wouldn’t have to deal with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the producer of the Bond films and a man with whom he had had numerous business disagreements during his first tenure as the spy.

Still, Connery didn’t fully commit to a return. Instead, he worked with McClory and writer Len Deighton on a script under titles like Warhead and James Bond of the Secret Service. When pressed for details, McClory told press his revamped version of Thunderball would feature mechanical sharks and an assault on Wall Street via the New York sewer system, with Orson Welles as the villain. His Bond, he said, would be like “Star Wars underwater.”

When EON got wind of their efforts, the latitude they had displayed 10 years prior had evaporated. Bond was now firmly a pop culture cash machine, and they took to the courts to resist McClory’s efforts. In joint action with distributor United Artists and the Fleming estate, EON successfully scared off Paramount, which was collaborating with McClory on the project.

As the 1970s came to a close, Connery was showing signs of becoming frustrated by the legal wrangling.

McClory’s salvation came in the form of Jack Schwartzman, a onetime tax attorney who wasn’t cowed by the litigation surrounding the project. So long as they colored inside the lines, sticking to the elements found in the Thunderball narrative, Schwartzman didn’t see any problem. He obtained the film rights from McClory, who was tired of the fighting and remained only loosely involved with the project; Connery was signed for a robust $5 million, with profit participation adding to his reward later on. Broccoli dropped most of his legal assault after Schwartzman promised him a share of the movie’s grosses and to delay release by several months in order to avoid competing head-to-head with EON’s Octopussy.

Never Say Never Again—a title suggested by Connery’s amused wife—began shooting in the fall of 1982 at London’s Elstree Studios, just a few miles down the road from where Roger Moore was shooting his Bond entry, Octopussy. The two reportedly had dinner together and compared shooting schedules; Moore would later say he never had a chance to catch Connery’s return onscreen.

Despite Connery’s early enthusiasm, script troubles and philosophical disagreements with director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back) made for a stressful production. While promoting its release, Connery told press, “There was so much incompetence, ineptitude, and dissention” during the making of the film that “it could have disintegrated.”

While it wasn’t everything Connery had hoped for, Never Say Never Again performed very admirably when it opened in theaters October 7, 1983. The film grossed $55.4 million domestically, making it the 14^th most successful film of the year. But the inevitable comparison to Moore’s Octopussy, which opened four months earlier, colored perception: Moore’s entry made $67.9 million, putting it in sixth place for the year.

Moore would play Bond just once more before retiring from the role in 1985. Connery made an unlikely return in 2005, lending his voice to a Bond video game. It would be as far as he was willing to go. Producers of 2012’s Skyfall didn’t even bother asking him about their idea to have him play a supporting role in the film as the Bond family’s onetime groundskeeper.

Schwartzman wouldn’t give up so easily. Insisting he somehow had the right to deliver another bootleg Bond in the 1980s, he tried to coerce Connery into a follow-up.

Connery was unmoved. “I’d be too old,” he told press in 1984.

But at 53, a reporter observed, he was three years younger than Moore. “He’s also too old,” Connery said.

Additional Sources:
Sean Connery, by Michael Feeney Callan

When we think of a medical examination, we usually picture a chilly gown, a sterile exam table, and a doctor using instruments developed well over a century ago to poke, probe, and magnify. But thanks to the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, a computer’s “eye” is now able to make diagnoses in seconds.

According to WIRED, an influx of phone apps and simple interfaces are popping up to aid physicians in complex medical cases where symptoms don’t point to obvious conclusions. Face2Gene, an app that sprung out of work identifying facial features for tagging purposes on Facebook, looks at subtle variations in the face—eye symmetry, ear position—and calculates what ailments might match that phenotype. (Face2Gene’s developers say the program can now identify nearly half of the 8000 genetic syndromes known to exist.)

Another application under development, the RightEye GeoPref Autism Test, tests eye movement using infrared sensors while a child observes video footage. Developers believe that the test can help assess symptoms of autism in infants as young as 12 months. Winterlight Labs’s “deep learning” machine, meanwhile, picks up subtle signs of cognitive impairment in speech, recognizing symptoms of Alzheimer’s before it’s too late to treat it.

While it might be some time before these resources are commonplace among specialists, they do point to a future where a diagnosis for hard-to-detect disorders and diseases may be faster and more accurate than ever before.

[h/t Wired]

What worried Russ Meyer most was that Roger Ebert might be murdered by Satan worshippers.

It was the summer of 1969, just weeks after actress Sharon Tate and her house guests had been brutally murdered by followers of Charles Manson, and Meyer wasn’t looking to take any chances. The director had hired Ebert to write his first major studio film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and situated him at the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood. He insisted Ebert take a second-floor room to avoid any crazed, knife-wielding intruders coming in through the window.

It was a bizarre request, but nothing about the situation was normal. Meyer was known in film circles as “King Leer,” a lascivious filmmaker who made films on modest budgets that capitalized on the female form without resorting to pornography; Ebert was a Chicago film critic with no screenwriting experience and an erudition that seemed above Meyer’s exploitative instincts. Somehow, the two found themselves in charge of a $900,000 film that 20^th Century Fox hoped would redeem a lousy run of flops.

Ebert took both the job and the room, making him one of the few critics to transition into filmmaking. Before it was over, people would be fired, the studio would be sued, and Ebert would find himself the credited writer on an X-rated movie. It is not the stuff future Pulitzer Prize winners are normally made of.

Growing up in Urbana, Illinois, Roger Ebert devoured science fiction novels. A voracious reader, he describes in his memoir, Life Itself, an early need to not only write but to publish. His neighborhood received unsolicited copies of the Washington Street News that was run off on a hectograph machine that used gel to make copies. While still in high school in 1958, the News-Gazette hired him to cover sports. At 16, Ebert could break curfew and stay out until 2 a.m. putting his column to bed.

While attending to his doctoral studies in English at the University of Chicago, Ebert was hired as a cub reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. In March 1967, he was named the paper’s movie critic, despite having no film education beyond going to matinees as a child. He figured he’d do it for a little while and then go off to become a novelist. The job lasted over 40 years.

Ebert had discovered Russ Meyer back in college: Students would duck in to see 1959’s The Immoral Mr. Teas, a comedy with a lot of nudity that seemed to play in perpetuity near campus. He observed Meyer’s work in 1965’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill and 1968’s Vixen! as surrealist fantasies of excess. Meyer’s women were empowered and buxom—and in many cases, empowered because of their endowments.  

The director’s reputation for turning a profit on his cheap features caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal: the newspaper profiled him in 1968 under the headline “King of the Nudies,” to which Ebert responded with a note congratulating them on recognizing Meyer’s talents. A flattered Meyer saw the letter and wrote to Ebert. The two met in Chicago, where Meyer grew to understand that Ebert was as much a fan of Meyer’s cleavage-heavy photography as anything.

“I’ve considered full and pendulous breasts the most appealing visual of the female anatomy,” Ebert later wrote. In Meyer, he found a kindred spirit: the director spoke of having to corral a starlet’s merits with brassiere structures “along the lines of what made the Sydney Opera House possible.”

When Meyer’s massive return-on-investment fortunes were publicized in The Wall Street Journal, it caught the attention of 20^th Century Fox. The studio was having a rough time, suffering flops like Barbra Streisand’s Hello, Dolly! and Doctor Doolittle at the same time Columbia Pictures was hitting a cultural chord with Easy Rider. Studio executives Richard Zanuck and David Brown were desperate enough to entertain Meyer’s brand of cinematic cotton candy. They signed him to a three-picture deal and told him he could do whatever he wanted with a title they had in storage: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Valley of the Dolls was their hit of 1967, a soapy melodrama about women addicted to downers (the “dolls”) and lousy men. Jacqueline Susann had written the novel it was based upon, but hadn’t been able to deliver a follow-up story agreeable to the studio. Hoping to cash in on the brand equity, they retained ownership of the sequel title and figured Meyer could apply his sensibilities in a way that made sense.

Excited, Meyer called Ebert and offered him the screenwriting job. It would pay $15,000, a tidy sum for the era, and would take just six weeks. At 27, Ebert was being asked to collaborate with a filmmaker he respected on a film that would almost certainly involve voluptuous women. He asked his editor at the Sun-Times for the time off and flew to California, getting shuttled directly into a Manson-proofed room near Sunset Boulevard. Roger Ebert was going to write a movie.

Ebert wrote every day from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. He and Meyer were granted an office on the Fox lot that consisted of three rooms. When Ebert stopped typing to ponder story or character, Meyer would rush in and ask if anything was wrong.

A treatment took just 10 days; their first draft was ready in three weeks. It was a frenetic pace, one that Meyer helped fuel by insisting Ebert abandon plans to diet and instead eat lots of meat to keep up his energy.

The plot reflected the expedited nature of their script work. In Dolls, three women form a rock band, The Carrie Nations, and head to Hollywood to achieve success while navigating the pitfalls of industry excesses. At the urging of Meyer, there were scenes of graphic violence, elements of winking satire, predatory characters, and a deeply irreverent tone. (As an indictment of the music industry, it was superficial at best: neither man had spent any time in the business.)  

Fox, needlessly worried their pending releases like MASH and Patton were going to be perceived as square in the coming months, largely left the two alone. Without an executive policing the script, Ebert was free to look up from his typewriter and announce that a sleazy record executive named “Z-Man” would be revealed as a woman. There would be a quadruple murder and a tri-couple wedding. By Ebert’s own admission, it was a kitchen-sink affair. If it could be forced to make even slight sense, it had a place in the film.

Satisfied with Ebert’s work, Meyer began shooting in December of 1969. A former Playboy photographer, the director cast two former Playmates—Cynthia Myers and Dolly Read—in leading roles and used repertoire actors like Charles Napier to round out the cast. Fearing any attempt by the performers to be funny on purpose would sink his project, he instructed them as though they were performing Macbeth.

Shooting took just three months. Though Ebert’s six-week engagement was over, he made frequent visits to the set and fielded concerns from actors who were puzzled by Meyer’s serious approach to the outrageous material. And though the director’s “King Leer” reputation was not undeserved, Ebert was amused to find Meyer didn’t play the part of lecherous filmmaker. While on the Fox lot, Ebert even introduced Meyer to his future wife, actress Edy Williams.

Despite the film’s relative lack of gore or adult content, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had little desire to validate a Russ Meyer movie. Over Fox’s protests, they gave Dolls an X rating each of the three times it was submitted. Fed up, Meyer then asked the studio if he could splice in some more nudity: an X was an X, after all.

They declined. The film was to be released immediately. Zanuck and Brown needed a hit. They would get it, but not without a price.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls opened on June 17, 1970. It made $9 million—an incredible sum considering its lack of name actors, rating, and inexperienced writer. Audiences enjoyed it for many of the same reasons they came out for the original Valley of the Dolls: sex, excess, and histrionics. (“This is my happening and it freaks me out!” became the movie’s signature quotable line.)

Meyer had pulled off what he always had—selling titillation for a modest investment—only on a much larger scale. But even though ticket buyers were placated, most everyone else was not. Jacqueline Susann was aggravated that the in-name-only sequel capitalized on her original work and sued Fox. (She died in 1974; her estate collected $1.5 million the following year.)

Zanuck and Brown, meanwhile, were vilified for even allowing Meyer in the front door. Amid poor reviews of the studio’s other scandalous movie, 1970’s Myra Breckinridge, the two were ousted from Fox—a harsh sentence considering Zanuck’s own father, Darryl, was still on the board of directors.

Meyer and Ebert collaborated a half-dozen times more through the 1970s, though only one project—1979’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens—was produced. It was the last feature Meyer made before his death in 2004. After Dolls, Ebert forbid himself from reviewing Meyer’s movies to avoid any conflict of interest; once he became a nationally syndicated critic, he decided not to involve himself in screenplays at all. “I don’t believe that a film critic has any business having his screenplays on the desks at the studios,” he told Playboy in 1991.

The film has gone on to have a remarkable shelf life despite what Ebert (who died in 2013) claimed was an attempt by Fox to ignore its existence. Musician Joan Jett told Ebert she was inspired to form her band after watching it; Mike Myers used the “This is my happening” quote as Austin Powers; Richard Corliss of Time would declare it one of the 10 best films of the 1970s, a fact Ebert enjoyed repeating often.

Corliss was the rare critic who found merit in Meyer and Ebert’s effort. Most were dismissive of the movie’s gratuitous violence and perceived tastelessness.

“For some reason,” one reviewer fumed, “Meyer has saddled himself with a neophyte screenwriter.” He called Dolls one of the worst films of 1970, made by filmmakers who “excuse their lack of art by saying they are just kidding.” The paper was the Chicago Tribune, and its critic was Gene Siskel.

Additional Sources:
Life Itself; Big Bosoms and Square Jaws

You might remember the story of Abul Bajandar, the Bangladeshi man who gained a measure of internet notoriety last year for his curious medical affliction. Since age 10, Bajandar has suffered from epidermodysplasia verruciformis, an ultra-rare skin disease characterized by extreme sensitivity to the human papillomavirus (HPV), which prompted bark-like warts to practically swallow his hands.

Homeopathy and natural cures didn’t work; neither did trying to remove them himself. They’d only grow back stronger and larger.

Fortunately, Bajandar’s story looks to have a happy ending. According to The Washington Post, physicians at Dhaka Medical College Hospital have spent the past year performing 16 separate surgeries in an effort to give Bajandar his hands back. They’ve succeeded.

Although he’s still recovering, Bajandar now has use of his hands, making him the first person to potentially be cured of EV. (While there is currently no long-term treatment to prevent the growths from returning, surgical excision seems to be effective.) Eating, writing, holding his daughter, and other fine motor skills are now possible. Previously, Bajandar was in so much pain that he was unable to work or care for his basic personal needs.

Doctors say Bajandar still has a few procedures left to go, mainly to improve his cosmetic appearance. While it’s possible the warts may grow back at some point, Bajandar appears to no longer have a need for his “tree man” label.  

[h/t Washington Post]