Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), known professionally as The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or Biggie,^[1] was an American rapper. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest rappers of all time.^[2]

Wallace was born and raised in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His debut album Ready to Die (1994) made him a central figure in East Coast hip hop and increased New York City's visibility in the genre at a time when West Coast hip hop dominated the mainstream.^[3] The following year, he led Junior M.A.F.I.A.—a protégé group composed of his childhood friends—to chart success. In 1996, while recording his second album, Wallace was heavily involved in the growing East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud. On March 9, 1997, he was murdered by an unknown assailant in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. His second album, Life After Death (1997), released two weeks later, rose to No. 1 on the U.S. album charts. In 2000, it became one of the few hip-hop albums to be certified Diamond.^[4]

Wallace was noted for his 'loose, easy flow';^[5] dark, semi-autobiographical lyrics; and storytelling abilities, which focused on crime and hardship. Three more albums have been released since his death, and he has certified sales of over 17 million records in the United States,^[6] including 13.4 million albums.^[7]

• 1Life and career
• 4Musical style
• 5Legacy
• 6Discography
• 7Media

Life and career

1972–1991: Early life and arrests

Wallace was born at St. Mary's Hospital in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 21, 1972, the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents. His mother, Voletta Wallace, was a preschool teacher, while his father, Selwyn George Latore, was a welder and politician.^[8][9] His father left the family when Wallace was two years old, and his mother worked two jobs while raising him. Wallace grew up at 226 St. James Place in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill,^[10] near the border with Bedford-Stuyvesant.^[8][11] Wallace excelled at Queen of All Saints Middle School winning several awards as an English student. He was nicknamed 'Big' because he was overweight by the age of 10.^[12] Wallace said he started dealing drugs when he was around the age of 12. His mother, often away at work, did not know of his drug dealing until he was an adult.^[13] He began rapping as a teenager, entertaining people on the streets, and performed with local groups the Old Gold Brothers and the Techniques.^[3] At his request, Wallace transferred from Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School to George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, where future rappers DMX, Jay-Z, and Busta Rhymes were also attending. According to his mother, Wallace was still a good student but developed a 'smart-ass' attitude at the new school.^[9] At age 17, Wallace dropped out of school and became more involved in crime. In 1989, he was arrested on weapons charges in Brooklyn and sentenced to five years' probation. In 1990, he was arrested on a violation of his probation.^[14] A year later, Wallace was arrested in North Carolina for dealing crack cocaine. He spent nine months in jail before making bail.^[13]

1991–1994: Early career and first child

After being released from jail, Wallace made a demo tape called 'Microphone Murderer', under the name Biggie Smalls, a reference to a character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again as well as his stature; he stood at 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) and weighed 300 to 380 lb (140–170 kg) according to differing accounts.^[15] The tape was reportedly made with no serious intent of getting a recording deal. However, it was promoted by New York-based DJ Mister Cee, who had previously worked with Big Daddy Kane, and in 1992 it was heard by the editor of The Source.^[14] In March 1992, Wallace was featured in The Source's Unsigned Hype column, dedicated to aspiring rappers, and made a recording off the back of this success.^[16] The demo tape was heard by Uptown RecordsA&R and record producer Sean Combs, who arranged for a meeting with Wallace. He was signed to Uptown immediately and made an appearance on label mates Heavy D & the Boyz's 'A Buncha Niggas' (from the album Blue Funk).^[3][17] Soon after Wallace signed his recording contract, Combs was fired from Uptown and started a new label, Bad Boy Records.^[18] Wallace followed and signed to the label in mid-1992.^[19]

On August 8, 1993, Wallace's longtime girlfriend gave birth to his first child, T'yanna.^[19] Wallace had split with the girlfriend some time before T'yanna's birth.^[20] Despite having dropped out of high school himself, Wallace wanted his daughter to complete her education. He promised her 'everything she wanted', saying that if his mother had promised him the same he would have graduated at the top of his class.^[21] He continued selling drugs after the birth to support his daughter financially. Once Combs discovered this, he forced Wallace to quit.^[3] Later in the year, Wallace, recording as the Notorious B.I.G., gained exposure after featuring on a remix to Mary J. Blige's single 'Real Love'. He recorded under this name for the remainder of his career, after finding the original moniker 'Biggie Smalls' was already in use.^[22] 'Real Love' peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was followed by a remix of Blige's 'What's the 411?'. He continued this success, to a lesser extent, on remixes with Neneh Cherry ('Buddy X') and reggae artist Super Cat ('Dolly My Baby', also featuring Combs) in 1993. In April 1993, his solo track, 'Party and Bullshit', appeared on the Who's the Man? soundtrack.^[23] In July 1994, he appeared alongside LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes on a remix to label mate Craig Mack's 'Flava in Ya Ear', which reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[24]

1994: Ready to Die and marriage to Faith Evans

On August 4, 1994, Wallace married R&B singer Faith Evans after they met at a Bad Boy photoshoot.^[25] Five days later, Wallace had his first pop chart success as a solo artist with double A-side, 'Juicy / Unbelievable', which reached No. 27 as the lead single to his debut album.^[26]

Ready to Die was released on September 13, 1994. It reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart^[27] and was eventually certified four times Platinum.^[28] The album shifted attention back to East Coast hip hop at a time when West Coast hip hop dominated US charts.^[29] It gained strong reviews and has received much praise in retrospect.^[29][30] In addition to 'Juicy', the record produced two hit singles: the Platinum-selling 'Big Poppa', which reached No. 1 on the U.S. rap chart,^[5] and 'One More Chance', which sold 1.1 million copies in 1995.^[31][32]Busta Rhymes claimed to have seen Wallace giving out free copies of Ready to Die from his home, which Rhymes reasoned as 'his way of marketing himself'.^[33]

Around the time of the album's release, Wallace became friends with a fellow rapper named Tupac Shakur. Cousin Lil' Cease recalled the pair as close, often traveling together whenever they were not working. According to him, Wallace was a frequent guest at Shakur's home and they spent time together when Shakur was in California or Washington, D.C.^[34]Yukmouth, an Oakland emcee, claimed that Wallace's style was inspired by Shakur.^[35] Wallace also befriended basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal said they were introduced during a listening session for 'Gimme the Loot'; Wallace mentioned him in the lyrics and thereby attracted O'Neal to his music. O'Neal requested a collaboration with Wallace, which resulted in the song 'You Can't Stop the Reign'. According to Combs, Wallace would not collaborate with 'anybody he didn't really respect' and that Wallace paid O'Neal his respect by 'shouting him out'.^[36] In 2015, Daz Dillinger, a frequent Shakur collaborator, said that he and Wallace were 'cool', with Wallace traveling to meet him to smoke cannabis and record two songs.^[37]

1995: Junior M.A.F.I.A., Conspiracy and coastal feud

In August 1995, Wallace's protégé group, Junior M.A.F.I.A. ('Junior Masters At Finding Intelligent Attitudes'), released their debut album Conspiracy. The group consisted of his friends from childhood and included rappers such as Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease, who went on to have solo careers.^[38] The record went Gold and its singles, 'Player's Anthem' and 'Get Money', both featuring Wallace, went Gold and Platinum. Wallace continued to work with R&B artists, collaborating with R&B groups 112 (on 'Only You') and Total (on 'Can't You See'), with both reaching the top 20 of the Hot 100. By the end of the year, Wallace was the top-selling male solo artist and rapper on the U.S. pop and R&B charts.^[3] In July 1995, he appeared on the cover of The Source with the caption 'The King of New York Takes Over', a reference to his Frank White alias from the 1990 film King of New York. At the Source Awards in August 1995, he was named Best New Artist (Solo), Lyricist of the Year, Live Performer of the Year, and his debut Album of the Year.^[39] At the Billboard Awards, he was Rap Artist of the Year.^[14]

In his year of success, Wallace became involved in a rivalry between the East and West Coast hip hop scenes with Shakur, now his former friend. In an interview with Vibe in April 1995, while serving time in Clinton Correctional Facility, Shakur accused Uptown Records' founder Andre Harrell, Sean Combs, and Wallace of having prior knowledge of a robbery that resulted in him being shot five times and losing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on the night of November 30, 1994. Though Wallace and his entourage were in the same Manhattan-based recording studio at the time of the shooting, they denied the accusation.^[40] Wallace said: 'It just happened to be a coincidence that he [Shakur] was in the studio. He just, he couldn't really say who really had something to do with it at the time. So he just kinda' leaned the blame on me.'^[41] In 2012, a man named Dexter Isaac, serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes, claimed that he attacked Shakur that night and that the robbery was orchestrated by entertainment industry executive and former drug trafficker, James Rosemond.^[42]

Following his release from prison, Shakur signed to Death Row Records on October 15, 1995. This made Bad Boy Records and Death Row business rivals, and thus intensified the quarrel.^[43]

1996: Collaboration with Michael Jackson, more arrests, accusations regarding Shakur's death, and second child

Wallace began recording his second studio album in September 1995 over 18 months in New York City, Trinidad, and Los Angeles. The recording was interrupted by injury, legal disputes, and a highly publicized hip hop dispute.^[44] During this time, Wallace also worked with pop singer Michael Jackson on the album HIStory.^[45]Lil' Cease later claimed that Wallace refused requests to meet Jackson, citing that he did not 'trust Michael with kids' following the 1993 child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson.^[46]

On March 23, 1996, Wallace was arrested outside a Manhattan nightclub for chasing and threatening to kill two fans seeking autographs, smashing the windows of their taxicab, and punching one of them.^[14] He pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. In mid-1996, he was arrested at his home in Teaneck, New Jersey, for drug and weapons possession charges.^[14]

In June 1996, Shakur released 'Hit 'Em Up', a diss track in which he claimed to have had sex with Faith Evans, who was estranged from Wallace at the time, and that Wallace had copied his style and image. Wallace referenced the first claim on Jay-Z's 'Brooklyn's Finest', in which he raps: 'If Faye have twins, she'd probably have two 'Pacs. Get it? 2Pac's?' However, he did not directly respond to the track, stating in a 1997 radio interview that it was 'not [his] style' to respond.^[41]

Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 7, 1996, and died six days later. Rumors of Wallace's involvement with Shakur's murder spread. In a 2002 Los Angeles Times series titled 'Who Killed Tupac Shakur?', based on police reports and multiple sources, Chuck Philips reported that the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang, the Southside Crips, to avenge a beating by Shakur hours earlier, and that Wallace had paid for the gun.^[47][48]Los Angeles Times editor Mark Duvoisin wrote that 'Philips' story has withstood all challenges to its accuracy, ... [and] remains the definitive account of the Shakur slaying.'^[49] Wallace's family denied the report,^[50] producing documents purporting to show that he was in New York and New Jersey at the time. However, The New York Times called the documents inconclusive, stating:

The pages purport to be three computer printouts from Daddy's House, indicating that Wallace was in the studio recording a song called Nasty Boy on the night Shakur was shot. They indicate that Wallace wrote half the session, was in and out/sat around and laid down a ref, shorthand for a reference vocal, the equivalent of a first take. But nothing indicates when the documents were created. And Louis Alfred, the recording engineer listed on the sheets, said in an interview that he remembered recording the song with Wallace in a late-night session, not during the day. He could not recall the date of the session but said it was likely not the night Shakur was shot. We would have heard about it, Mr. Alfred said.'^[51]

Evans remembered her husband calling her on the night of Shakur's death and crying from shock. She said: 'I think it's fair to say he was probably afraid, given everything that was going on at that time and all the hype that was put on this so-called beef that he didn't really have in his heart against anyone.' Wayne Barrow, Wallace's co-manager at the time, said Wallace was recording the track 'Nasty Girl' the night Shakur was shot.^[52] Shortly after Shakur's death, he met with Snoop Dogg, who claimed that Wallace played the song 'Somebody Gotta Die' for him, in which Snoop Dogg was mentioned, and declared he never hated Shakur.^[53]

On October 29, 1996, Evans gave birth to Wallace's son, Christopher 'C.J.' Wallace, Jr.^[19] The following month, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Kim released her debut album, Hard Core, under Wallace's direction while the two were having a 'love affair'.^[3] Lil' Kim recalled being Wallace's 'biggest fan' and 'his pride and joy'.^[54] In a 2012 interview, Lil' Kim said Wallace had prevented her from making a remix of the Jodeci single 'Love U 4 Life' by locking her in a room. According to her, Wallace said that she was not 'gonna go do no song with them,'^[55] likely because of the group's affiliation with Tupac and Death Row Records.

1997: Life After Death and car accident

During the recording for his second album, Life After Death, Wallace and Lil' Cease were arrested for smoking marijuana in public and had their car repossessed. Wallace chose a Chevrolet Lumina rental car as a substitute, despite Lil' Cease's objections. The car had brake problems but Wallace dismissed them.^[56] The car collided with a rail, shattering Wallace's left leg and Lil' Cease's jaw. Wallace spent months in a hospital following the accident; he was temporarily confined to a wheelchair,^[3] forced to use a cane,^[40] and had to complete therapy. Despite his hospitalization, he continued to work on the album. The accident was referred to in the lyrics of 'Long Kiss Goodnight': 'Ya still tickle me, I used to be as strong as Ripple be / Til Lil' Cease crippled me.'^[57]

In January 1997, Wallace was ordered to pay US$41,000 in damages following an incident involving a friend of a concert promoter who claimed Wallace and his entourage beat him following a dispute in May 1995.^[58] He faced criminal assault charges for the incident, which remains unresolved, but all robbery charges were dropped.^[14] Following the events, Wallace spoke of a desire to focus on his 'peace of mind' and his family and friends.^[59]

Death

In February 1997, Wallace traveled to California to promote Life After Death and record a music video for its lead single, 'Hypnotize'. On March 5, 1997, he gave a radio interview with The Dog House on KYLD in San Francisco. In the interview he stated that he had hired a security detail since he feared for his safety; but that this was due to being a celebrity figure in general, not specifically because he was a rapper.^[60]

On March 8, 1997, Wallace presented an award to Toni Braxton at the 11th Annual Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles and was booed by some of the audience.^[40] After the ceremony, he attended an afterparty hosted by Vibe and Qwest Records at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.^[40] Guests included Evans, Aaliyah, Combs, and members of the Crips and Bloods gangs.^[12]

On March 9, 1997, at 12:30 a.m. (PST), after the fire department closed the party early due to overcrowding, Wallace left with his entourage in two GMC Suburbans to return to his hotel.^[61] He traveled in the front passenger seat alongside his associates, Damion 'D-Roc' Butler, Lil' Cease and driver Gregory 'G-Money' Young. Combs traveled in the other vehicle with three bodyguards. The two trucks were trailed by a Chevrolet Blazer carrying Bad Boy's director of security,^[12] Paul Offord.^[62]

By 12:45 a.m. (PST), the streets were crowded with people leaving the party. Wallace's truck stopped at a red light 50 yards (46 m) from the museum. A black Chevy Impala pulled up alongside Wallace's truck. The driver of the Impala, an African-American male dressed in a blue suit and bow tie, rolled down his window, drew a 9 mm blue-steel pistol and fired at the GMC Suburban. Four bullets hit Wallace. His entourage rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. (PST).^[12]

Wallace's funeral was held on March 18, 1997, at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan. There were among 350 mourners at the funeral, including Queen Latifah, Flava Flav, Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim, Lil' Cease, Run–D.M.C., DJ Kool Herc, Treach from Naughty by Nature, Busta Rhymes, Salt-N-Pepa, DJ Spinderella, Foxy Brown, Sister Souljah and others. After the funeral, his body was cremated and the ashes were given to his family.^[63]

Posthumous releases

Sixteen days after his death, Wallace's double-disc second album was released as planned with the shortened title of Life After Death and hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts, after making a premature appearance at No. 176 due to street-date violations. The record album featured a much wider range of guests and producers than its predecessor.^[64] It gained strong reviews and in 2000 was certified Diamond, the highest RIAA certification awarded to a solo hip hop album.

Its lead single, 'Hypnotize', was the last music video recording in which Wallace would participate. His biggest chart success was with its follow-up 'Mo Money Mo Problems', featuring Sean Combs (under the rap alias 'Puff Daddy') and Mase. Both singles reached No. 1 in the Hot 100, making Wallace the first artist to achieve this feat posthumously.^[3] The third single, 'Sky's The Limit', featuring the band 112, was noted for its use of children in the music video, directed by Spike Jonze, who were used to portray Wallace and his contemporaries, including Combs, Lil' Kim, and Busta Rhymes. Wallace was named Artist of the Year and 'Hypnotize' Single of the Year by Spin magazine in December 1997.^[65]

In mid-1997, Combs released his debut album, No Way Out, which featured Wallace on five songs, notably on the third single 'Victory'. The most prominent single from the record album was 'I'll Be Missing You', featuring Combs, Faith Evans and 112, which was dedicated to Wallace's memory. At the 1998 Grammy Awards, Life After Death and its first two singles received nominations in the rap category. The album award was won by Combs's No Way Out and 'I'll Be Missing You' won the award in the category of Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group in which 'Mo Money Mo Problems' was nominated.^[66]

In 1996, Wallace started putting together a hip hop supergroup, the Commission, which consisted himself, Jay-Z, Lil' Cease, Combs, and Charli Baltimore. The Commission was mentioned by Wallace in the lyrics of 'What's Beef' on Life After Death and 'Victory' from No Way Out, but a Commission album was never completed. A track on Duets: The Final Chapter, 'Whatchu Want (The Commission)', featuring Jay-Z, was based on the group.

In December 1999, Bad Boy released Born Again. The album consisted of previously unreleased material mixed with new guest appearances, including many artists Wallace had never collaborated with in his lifetime. It gained some positive reviews, but received criticism for its unlikely pairings; The Source describing it as 'compiling some of the most awkward collaborations of his career'.^[67] Nevertheless, the album sold 2 million copies. Wallace appeared on Michael Jackson's 2001 album, Invincible. Over the course of time, his vocals were heard on hit songs such as 'Foolish' and 'Realest Niggas' by Ashanti in 2002, and the song 'Runnin' (Dying to Live)' with Shakur the following year. In 2005, Duets: The Final Chapter continued the pattern started on Born Again, which was criticized for the lack of significant vocals by Wallace on some of its songs.^[68][69] Its lead single 'Nasty Girl' became Wallace's first UK No. 1 single. Combs and Voletta Wallace have stated the album will be the last release primarily featuring new material.^[70]

A duet album, The King & I, featuring Evans and Notorious B.I.G., was released on May 19, 2017, which largely contained previously unreleased music.^[71]

Musical style

Wallace mostly rapped on his songs in a deep tone described by Rolling Stone as a 'thick, jaunty grumble',^[72] which went deeper on Life After Death.^[73] He was often accompanied on songs with ad libs from Sean 'Puffy' Combs. In The Source's Unsigned Hype column, his style was described as 'cool, nasal, and filtered, to bless his own material'.^[74]

AllMusic describe Wallace as having 'a talent for piling multiple rhymes on top of one another in quick succession'.^[5]Time magazine wrote Wallace rapped with an ability to 'make multi-syllabic rhymes sound... smooth',^[30] while Krims describes Wallace's rhythmic style as 'effusive.'^[75] Before starting a verse, Wallace sometimes used onomatopoeicvocables to 'warm up' (for example 'uhhh' at the beginning of 'Hypnotize' and 'Big Poppa', and 'whaat' after certain rhymes in songs such as 'My Downfall').^[76]

Lateef of Latyrx notes that Wallace had, 'intense and complex flows',^[77]Fredro Starr of Onyx says, 'Biggie was a master of the flow',^[78] and Bishop Lamont states that Wallace mastered 'all the hemispheres of the music'.^[79] He also often used the single-line rhyme scheme to add variety and interest to his flow.^[77]Big Daddy Kane suggests that Wallace didn't need a large vocabulary to impress listeners – 'he just put his words together a slick way and it worked real good for him'.^[80] Wallace was known to compose lyrics in his head, rather than write them down on paper, in a similar way to Jay-Z.^[81][82]

Wallace would occasionally vary from his usual style. On 'Playa Hater' from his second album, he sang in a slow-falsetto.^[83] On his collaboration with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, 'Notorious Thugs', he modified his style to match the rapid rhyme flow of the group.

Themes and lyrics

Wallace's lyrical topics and themes included mafioso tales ('Niggas Bleed'), his drug-dealing past ('10 Crack Commandments'), materialistic bragging ('Hypnotize'), as well as humor ('Just Playing (Dreams)'),^[84] and romance ('Me & My Bitch').^[84]Rolling Stone named Wallace in 2004 as 'one of the few young male songwriters in any pop style writing credible love songs'.^[73]

Guerilla Black, in the book How to Rap, describes how Wallace was able to both 'glorify the upper echelon'^[85] and '[make] you feel his struggle'.^[86] According to Touré of The New York Times in 1994, Wallace's lyrics '[mixed] autobiographical details about crime and violence with emotional honesty'.^[13] Marriott of The New York Times (in 1997) believed his lyrics were not strictly autobiographical and wrote he 'had a knack for exaggeration that increased sales'.^[14] Wallace described his debut as 'a big pie, with each slice indicating a different point in my life involving bitches and niggaz... from the beginning to the end'.^[87]

Ready to Die is described by Rolling Stone as a contrast of 'bleak' street visions and being 'full of high-spirited fun, bringing the pleasure principle back to hip-hop'.^[73]AllMusic write of 'a sense of doom' in some of his songs and the NY Times note some being 'laced with paranoia';^[5][88] Wallace described himself as feeling 'broke and depressed' when he made his debut.^[88] The final song on the album, 'Suicidal Thoughts', featured Wallace contemplating suicide and concluded with him committing the act.

On Life After Death, Wallace's lyrics went 'deeper'.^[73] Krims explains how upbeat, dance-oriented tracks (which featured less heavily on his debut) alternate with 'reality rap' songs on the record and suggests that he was 'going pimp' through some of the lyrical topics of the former.^[75]XXL magazine wrote that Wallace 'revamped his image' through the portrayal of himself between the albums, going from 'midlevel hustler' on his debut to 'drug lord'.^[89]

AllMusic wrote that the success of Ready to Die is 'mostly due to Wallace's skill as a storyteller';^[5] in 1994, Rolling Stone described Wallace's ability in this technique as painting 'a sonic picture so vibrant that you're transported right to the scene'.^[29] On Life After Death, Wallace notably demonstrated this skill on 'I Got a Story to Tell', creating a story as a rap for the first half of the song and then retelling the same story 'for his boys' in conversation form.^[83]

Legacy

Considered one of the best rappers of all time, Wallace was described by AllMusic as 'the savior of East Coast hip-hop'.^[3]The Source magazine named Wallace the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue in 2002.^[90][91] In 2003, when XXL magazine asked several hip hop artists to list their five favorite MCs, Wallace's name appeared on more rappers' lists than anyone else. In 2006, MTV ranked him at No. 3 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, calling him possibly 'the most skillful ever on the mic'.^[92] Editors of About.com ranked him No. 3 on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987–2007).^[93] In 2012, The Source ranked him No. 3 on their list of the Top 50 Lyrical Leaders of all time.^[94]Rolling Stone has referred to him as the 'greatest rapper that ever lived'.^[95] In 2015, Billboard named Wallace as the greatest rapper of all time.^[2]

Since his death, Wallace's lyrics have been sampled and quoted by a variety of hip hop, R&B and pop artists including Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Fat Joe, Nelly, Ja Rule, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Game, Clinton Sparks, Michael Jackson and Usher. On August 28, 2005, at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, Sean Combs (then using the rap alias 'P. Diddy') and Snoop Dogg paid tribute to Wallace: an orchestra played while the vocals from 'Juicy' and 'Warning' played on the arena speakers.^[96] In September 2005, VH1 held its second annual 'Hip Hop Honors', with a tribute to Wallace headlining the show.^[97]

Wallace had begun to promote a clothing line called Brooklyn Mint, which was to produce plus-sized clothing but fell dormant after he died. In 2004, his managers, Mark Pitts and Wayne Barrow, launched the clothing line, with help from Jay-Z, selling T-shirts with images of Wallace on them. A portion of the proceeds go to the Christopher Wallace Foundation and to Jay-Z's Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation.^[98] In 2005, Voletta Wallace hired branding and licensing agency Wicked Cow Entertainment to guide the estate's licensing efforts.^[99] Wallace-branded products on the market include action figures, blankets, and cell phone content.^[100]

The Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation holds an annual black-tie dinner ('B.I.G. Night Out') to raise funds for children's school equipment and to honor Wallace's memory. For this particular event, because it is a children's schools' charity, 'B.I.G.' is also said to stand for 'Books Instead of Guns'.^[101]

There is a large portrait mural of Wallace as Mao Zedong on Fulton Street in Brooklyn a half-mile west from Wallace's old block.^[102] A fan petitioned to have the corner of Fulton Street and St. James Place, near Wallace's childhood home renamed in his honor, garnering support from local businesses and attracting more than 560 signatures.^[102]

A large portrait of Wallace features prominently in the Netflix series Luke Cage, due to the fact that he served as muse for the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's version of Marvel Comics character Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes.

Biopic

Notorious is a 2009 biographical film about Wallace and his life that stars rapper Jamal Woolard as Wallace. The film was directed by George Tillman Jr. and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Producers included Sean Combs, Wallace's former managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts, as well as Voletta Wallace.^[103] On January 16, 2009, the movie's debut at the Grand 18 theater in Greensboro, North Carolina was postponed after a man was shot in the parking lot before the show.^[104] The film received mixed reviews and grossed over $44 million worldwide.^[105][106]

In early October 2007, open casting calls for the role of Wallace began.^[107] Actors, rappers and unknowns all tried out. Beanie Sigel auditioned^[108] for the role, but was not picked. Sean Kingston claimed that he would play the role of Wallace, but producers denied it.^[109] Eventually, it was announced that rapper Jamal Woolard was chosen to play Wallace^[110] while Wallace's son, Christopher Wallace Jr. was cast to play Wallace as a child.^[111] Other cast members include Angela Bassett as Voletta Wallace, Derek Luke as Sean Combs, Antonique Smith as Faith Evans, Naturi Naughton as Lil' Kim, and Anthony Mackie as Tupac Shakur.^[112] Bad Boy also released a soundtrack album to the film on January 13, 2009; the album contains many of Wallace's hit singles, including 'Hypnotize' and 'Juicy', as well as rarities.^[113]

Discography

Studio albums

• Ready to Die (1994)
• Life After Death (1997)

Collaboration albums

• Conspiracywith Junior M.A.F.I.A. (1995)

Posthumous studio albums

• Born Again (1999)
• Duets: The Final Chapter (2005)

Posthumous collaboration albums

• The King & Iwith Faith Evans (2017)

Media

Filmography

• The Show (1995) as himself
• Rhyme & Reason (1997 documentary) as himself
• Biggie & Tupac (2002 documentary) archive footage
• Tupac Resurrection (2004) archive footage
• Notorious B.I.G. Bigger Than Life (2007 documentary) archive footage
• Notorious (2009) archive footage
• All Eyez on Me (2017) archive footage

Television appearances

• New York Undercover (1995) as himself
• Martin (1995) as himself
• Who Shot Biggie & Tupac? (2017)
• Unsolved (2018)

Awards and nominations

References

1. ^Notorious B.I.G: In His Own Words, And Those of His FriendsArchived March 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (March 7, 2007). MTV News. Retrieved March 11, 2007.
2. ^ ^abThe 10 Greatest Rappers of All Time (November 12, 2015), Billboard.com; retrieved November 15, 2015.
3. ^ ^abcdefghiHuey, Steve. 'Notorious B.I.G. > Biography'. AllMusic. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
4. ^'Top 100 Albums'. RIAA. May 4, 2006. Archived from the original on December 21, 2006. Retrieved December 7, 2006.
5. ^ ^abcdeHuey, Steve. 'Ready to Die > Overview'. AllMusic. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
6. ^'Top Selling Artists'. RIAA. Retrieved May 3, 2013.
7. ^'The Notorious B.I.G. Scores Fifth Million-Selling Album'. February 16, 2018.
8. ^ ^abLang, Holly (2007). The Notorious B.I.G: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1–2. ISBN978-0-313-34156-4.
9. ^ ^abCoker, Cheo H. (March 8, 2005). 'Excerpt: Unbelievable – The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G.'Vibe. Archived from the original on February 16, 2009.
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Further reading

• Coker, Cheo Hodari (2004). Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN978-0-609-80835-1.
• Wallace, Voletta; McKenzie, Tremell; Evans, Faith (foreword) (2005). Biggie: Voletta Wallace Remembers Her Son, Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G. Atria. ISBN978-0-7434-7020-9.

External links

• The Notorious B.I.G. at MTV
• 'The Notorious B.I.G. collected news and commentary'. The New York Times.
• The Notorious B.I.G. on IMDb
• The Notorious B.I.G. at Find a Grave
• FBI Records: The Vault – Christopher (Biggie Smalls) Wallace at vault.fbi.gov

Notorious is a 1946 American spyfilm noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation. It was shot in late 1945 and early 1946, and was released by RKO Radio Pictures in August 1946.

Notorious is considered by critics and scholars to mark a watershed for Hitchcock artistically, and to represent a heightened thematic maturity. His biographer, Donald Spoto, writes that 'Notorious is in fact Alfred Hitchcock's first attempt—at the age of forty-six—to bring his talents to the creation of a serious love story, and its story of two men in love with Ingrid Bergman could only have been made at this stage of his life.'^[4]

Two scenes in the film have been widely cited as among Hitchcock's best: in one, Hitchcock starts wide and high on a second floor balcony overlooking the great hall of a grand mansion. Slowly he tracks down and in on Ingrid Bergman, finally ending with a tight close-up of a key tucked in her hand.^[5] Hitchcock also devised a scene that circumvented the Production Code's ban on kisses longer than three seconds by having his actors disengage every three seconds, murmur and nuzzle each other, then start again. The two-and-a-half-minute kiss was described by biographer Paul Duncan as 'perhaps his most intimate and erotic kiss'.^[6][7]

In 2006, Notorious was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'.

• 2Cast
• 3Production
• 5Reception

Plot[edit]

In April 1946, Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, is recruited by government agent T. R. Devlin to infiltrate an organization of Nazis who have moved to Brazil after World War II. When Alicia refuses to help the police, Devlin plays recordings of her fighting with her father and insisting that she loves America.

While awaiting the details of her assignment in Rio de Janeiro, Alicia and Devlin fall in love, though his feelings are complicated by his knowledge of her promiscuous past. When Devlin gets instructions to persuade her to seduce Alex Sebastian, one of her father's friends and a leading member of the group, Devlin fails to convince his superiors that Alicia is not fit for the job. Devlin is also informed that Sebastian once was in love with Alicia. Devlin puts up a stoic front when he informs Alicia about the mission. Alicia concludes that he was merely pretending to love her as part of his job.

Devlin contrives to have Alicia meet Sebastian at a riding club. He recognizes her and invites her to dinner where he says that he always knew they would be reunited. Sebastian quickly invites Alicia to dinner the following night at his home, where he will host a few business acquaintances. Devlin and Captain Paul Prescott of the US Secret Service tell Alicia to memorize the names and nationalities of everyone there. At dinner, Alicia notices that a guest becomes agitated at the sight of a certain wine bottle, and is ushered quickly from the room. When the gentlemen are alone at the end of the dinner, this guest apologizes and tries to go home, but another of the Nazi group insists on driving him, and it is implied that he will be killed.

Soon Alicia reports to Devlin, 'You can add Sebastian's name to my list of playmates.' When Sebastian proposes, Alicia informs Devlin; he coldly tells her to do whatever she wants. Deeply disappointed, she marries Sebastian.

After she returns from her honeymoon, Alicia is able to tell Devlin that the key ring her husband gave her lacks the key to the wine cellar. That, and the bottle episode at the dinner, lead Devlin to urge Alicia to hold a grand party so he can investigate. Alicia secretly steals the key from Sebastian's ring, and Devlin and Alicia search the cellar. Devlin accidentally breaks a bottle; inside is black sand, later proven to be uranium ore. Devlin takes a sample, cleans up, and locks the door as Sebastian comes down for more champagne. Alicia and Devlin kiss to cover their tracks. Devlin makes an exit. Sebastian realizes that the cellar key is missing – yet overnight it is returned to his key ring. When he returns to the cellar, he finds the glass and sand from the broken bottle.

Now Sebastian has a problem: he must silence Alicia, but cannot expose her without revealing his own blunder to his fellow Nazis. When Sebastian discusses the situation with his mother, she suggests that Alicia 'die slowly' by poisoning. They poison her coffee and she quickly falls ill. During a visit from Sebastian's friend Dr. Anderson, Alicia realizes both where the uranium has been mined and what is causing her sickness. Alicia collapses and is taken to her room, where the telephone has been removed and she is too weak to leave.

Devlin is alarmed when she fails to appear at their next rendezvous and sneaks into Alicia's quarters, where she tells him that Sebastian and his mother poisoned her. After confessing his love for her, Devlin carries her out of the mansion in full view of Sebastian's co-conspirators. Sebastian goes along with Devlin's story that Alicia must go to the hospital. Outside, Sebastian begs to go with them, knowing that the Nazis suspect the truth, but Devlin and Alicia drive away, leaving Sebastian behind.

Cast[edit]

• Cary Grant as T. R. Devlin
• Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman
• Claude Rains as Alexander Sebastian
• Leopoldine Konstantin as Madame Anna Sebastian
• Louis Calhern as Captain Paul Prescott, an officer of the US Secret Service
• Reinhold Schünzel as Dr. Anderson, a Nazi conspirator
• Moroni Olsen as Walter Beardsley, another Secret Service officer
• Ivan Triesault as Eric Mathis, a Nazi conspirator
• Alexis Minotis as Joseph, Sebastian's butler (billed as Alex Minotis)
• Wally Brown as Mr. Hopkins
• Sir Charles Mendl as Commodore
• Ricardo Costa as Dr. Julio Barbosa
• Eberhard Krumschmidt as Emil Hupka, a Nazi conspirator
• Fay Baker as Ethel
• Bea Benaderet as File Clerk (uncredited)
• Peter von Zerneck as Wilhelm Rossner, a Nazi conspirator (uncredited)
• Friedrich von Ledebur as Knerr, a Nazi conspirator (uncredited)

Cast notes[edit]

Biographer Patrick McGilligan writes that 'Hitchcock rarely managed to pull together a dream cast for any of his 1940s films, but Notorious was a glorious exception.'^[8] Indeed, with a story of smuggled uranium as a backdrop, '[t]he romantic pairing of Grant and Bergman promised a box office bang comparable to an atomic blast.'^[9]

Not everyone saw it that way, however, most notably the project's original producer David O. Selznick. After he sold the property to RKO to raise some quick cash, Selznick lobbied hard to get Grant replaced with Joseph Cotten; the United States had just dropped atomic bombs on Japan and Selznick argued that the first film out about atomic weaponry would be the most successful—and Grant was not available for three months.^[10] Selznick also believed that Grant would be difficult to manage and make high salary demands,^[11] but most telling of all—Selznick owned Cotten's contract.^[10] Hitchcock and RKO production executive William Dozier invoked a clause in the project sale contract, blocked Selznick's attempts, and Grant was signed to play opposite Bergman by late August 1945.^[12]

Hitchcock had wanted Clifton Webb to play Alexander Sebastian.^[13] Selznick pressed for Claude Rains in typical Selznick memo-heavy style: 'Rains offers 'an opportunity to build the gross of Notorious enormously... . [D]o not lose a day trying to get the Rains' deal nailed down.'^[14] Whether they were thinking in Selznick's box office terms or in more artistic ones, Dozier and Hitchcock agreed, and Rains' performance transformed Sebastian into a classic Hitchcock villain: sympathetic, nuanced, in some ways as admirable as the protagonist.^[13]The final major casting decision was Mme. Sebastian, Alex's mother. 'The spidery, tyrannical Nazi matron demanded a stronger, older presence',^[13] and when attempts to obtain Ethel Barrymore and Mildred Natwick fell through, German actor Reinhold Schünzel suggested Leopoldine Konstantin to Hitchcock and Dozier. Konstantin had been one of pre-war Germany's greatest actresses.^[13]Notorious was Konstantin's only American film appearance, and 'one of the unforgettable portraits in Hitchcock's films'.^[13]

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance, a signature occurrence in his films, takes place at the party in Sebastian's mansion. At 1:04:43 (1:01:50 on European DVDs and 64:28 of the edited cut) into the film, Hitchcock is seen drinking a glass of champagne as Grant and Bergman approach. He sets his glass down and quickly departs.

Production[edit]

Preproduction[edit]

Notorious started life as a David O. Selznick production, but by the time it hit American screens in August 1946, it bore the RKO studio's logo. Alfred Hitchcock became the producer, but as on all his subsequent films, he limited his screen credits to 'Directed by' and his possessive credit above the title.

Its first glimmer occurred some two years previously, in August 1944, over lunch between Hitchcock and Selznick's story editor, Margaret McDonell. Her memo to Selznick said that Hitchcock was 'very anxious to do a story about confidence tricks on a grand scale [with] Ingrid Bergman [as] the woman ... Her training would be as elaborate as the training of a Mata Hari.'^[15] Hitchcock continued his conversation a few weeks later, this time dining at Chasen's with William Dozier, an RKO studio executive, and pitching it as 'the story of a woman sold for political purposes into sexual enslavement'.^[16] By this time, he had one of the single-word titles he preferred: Notorious.^[17] The pitch was convincing: Dozier quickly entered into talks with Selznick, offering to buy the property and its personnel for production at RKO.

Dozier's interest rekindled Selznick's, which up to that point had only been tepid. Perhaps what started Hitchcock's mind rolling was 'The Song of the Dragon', a short story by John Taintor Foote which had appeared as a two-part serial in the Saturday Evening Post in November 1921; Selznick, who owned the rights to it, had passed it on to Hitchcock from his unproduced story file during the filming of Spellbound.^[16] Set during World War I in New York, 'The Song of the Dragon' told the tale of a theatrical producer approached by federal agents, who want his assistance in recruiting an actress he once had a relationship with to seduce the leader of a gang of enemy saboteurs.^[18] Although the story was a nominal starting point that 'offered some inspiration, the final narrative was pure Hitchcock'.^[19]

Hitchcock travelled to England for Christmas 1944, and when he returned, he had an outline for Selznick's perusal.^[16] The producer approved development of a script, and Hitchcock decamped for Nyack, New York for three weeks of collaboration with Ben Hecht, whom he had just worked with on Spellbound. The two would work at Hecht's house, with Hitchcock repairing at night to the St. Regis Hotel in the city. The two had an extraordinarily smooth and fruitful working partnership, partly because Hecht did not really care how much Hitchcock rewrote his work:^[16]

Their story conferences were idyllic. Mr. Hecht would stride about or drape himself over chair or couch, or sprawl artistically on the floor. Mr. Hitchcock, a 192-pound Buddha (reduced from 295) would sit primly on a straight-back chair, his hands clasped across his midriff, his round button eyes gleaming. They would talk from nine to six; Mr. Hecht would sneak off with his typewriter for two or three days; then they would have another conference. The dove of peace lost not a pinfeather in the process.^[20]

Hitchcock delivered his and Hecht's screenplay to Selznick in late March, but the producer was getting drawn deeper into the roiling problems of his western epic Duel in the Sun. At first he ordered story conferences at his home, typically with start times of eleven p.m.,^[21] to both Hecht's and Hitchcock's profound annoyance. The two would dine at Romanoff's and 'pool their defenses about what Hitchcock thought was a first class script'.^[21] Shortly, though, Duel's problems won out and Selznick relegated Notorious to his mental back burner.

Among the many changes to the original story was the introduction of a MacGuffin: a cache of uranium being held in Sebastian's wine cellar by the Nazis. At the time, it was not common knowledge that uranium was being used in the development of the atomic bomb, and Selznick had trouble understanding its use as a plot device. Indeed, Hitchcock later claimed he was followed by the FBI for several months after he and Hecht discussed uranium with Robert Millikan at Caltech in mid-1945.^[22] In any event, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the release of details of the Manhattan Project, removed any doubts about its use.^[23]

By June 1945, Notorious reached its turning point. Selznick 'was losing faith in a film that never really interested him';^[11] the MacGuffin still bothered him, as did the Devlin character, and he worried that audiences would dislike the Alicia character.^[11] More worrisome, though, was the drain on his cash reserves imposed by the voracious Duel in the Sun. Finally, he agreed to sell the Notorious package to RKO: script, Bergman and Hitchcock.

The deal was a win-win-win situation: Selznick got $800,000 cash, plus 50% of the profits, RKO obtained a prestige production with an ascendant star and an emerging director, and Hitchcock, though he received no money, did escape from under Selznick's stifling thumb.^[12] He also got to be his own producer for the first time, an important step for him: 'supervising everything from the polishing of the script to the negotiation of myriad post-production details, the director could demonstrate to the industry at large his skill as an executive.'^[12] RKO assumed the project in mid-July 1945, and furnished office space, studio space, distribution—and freedom.

There was no getting away from Selznick completely, though. He contended that his 50% stake in the profits still entitled him to input into the project. He still dictated sheaves of memos about the script, and tried to oust Cary Grant from the cast in favor of his contractee, Joseph Cotten.^[10] When the United States detonated two atomic bombs over Japan in August, the memos commenced anew and centered mainly on Selznick's continuing dissatisfaction with the script. Hitchcock was abroad,^[10] so Dozier called on playwright Clifford Odets, who previously wrote None But the Lonely Heart for RKO and Grant, to do a rewrite. With Hitchcock and Selznick both busy, Barbara Keon would be his only contact.

Odets's script tried to bring more atmosphere to the story than had previously been present. 'Extending the characters' emotional range, he heightened the passion of Devlin and Alicia and the aristocratic ennui of Alex Sebastian. He also added a soupçon of high culture to soften Alicia: She quotes French poetry from memory and sings Schubert.'^[10] But his draft did nothing for Selznick, who still thought the characters lacked dimension, that Devlin still lacked charm, and that the couple's sleeping together 'may cheapen her in the eyes of the audience'.^[24] Ben Hecht's appraisal, handwritten in the margin, was straightforward: 'This is really loose crap.'^[24] In the end, the Odets script was a blind alley: Hitchcock apparently used none of it.^[20]

What he did have in his hand, though, was the script for '... a consummate Hitchcock film, in every sense filled with passion and textures and levels of meaning'.^[25]

Production[edit]

Principal photography for Notorious began on October 22, 1945 ^[25] and wrapped in February 1946.^[13] Production was structured the way Hitchcock preferred it: with almost all shooting done indoors, on RKO sound stages, even seeming 'exterior' scenes achieved with rear projection process shots. This gave him maximum control of his filmmaking through the day; in the evenings he exercised similar control over the nightly soirées at his Bellagio Road home.^[26] The only scene requiring outdoor filming was the one at the riding club where Devlin and Alicia contrive to meet Alexander Sebastian on horseback; this scene was shot at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia, California. Second unit crews shot establishing exteriors and rear-projection footage in Miami, Rio de Janeiro and at the Santa Anita Park racetrack.

With everything stage-bound, production was smooth and problems were few, and small—for instance, Claude Rains, who stood three or four inches shorter than Ingrid Bergman.^[25] '[There's] this business of you being a midget with a wife, Miss Bergman, who is very tall', the director kidded with Rains, a good friend. For the scenes where Rains and Bergman were to walk hand-in-hand, Hitchcock devised a system of ramps that boosted Rains's height yet were unseen by the camera.^[27] He also suggested Rains try elevator shoes: 'Walk in them, sleep in them, be comfortable in them.'^[27] Rains did, and used them thereafter. Hitchcock gave Rains the choice of playing Sebastian with a German or his English accent; Rains chose the latter.

Ingrid Bergman's gowns were by Edith Head,^[1] in one of her many collaborations with Hitchcock.

One of the signature scenes in Notorious is the two-and-a-half-minute kiss that Hitchcock interrupted every three seconds to slip the scene through the three-second-rule crack in the Production Code. 'The two stars worried about how strange it felt', writes biographer McGilligan. 'Walking along, nuzzling each other with the camera trailing behind them, seemed 'very awkward' to the actors during filming, according to Bergman. 'Don't worry', Hitchcock assured her. 'It'll look right on the screen.''^[28]

Although the production proceeded smoothly it was not without some unusual aspects. The first was the helpfulness of Cary Grant toward Ingrid Bergman, in a way that 'was remarkably calm and pointedly unusual for him'.^[29] Although this was Bergman's second outing with Hitchcock (the first was the just-finished Spellbound), she was nervous and insecure early on. The often moody, sometimes withdrawn^[27] Grant, though, 'came to Notorious full of bounce'^[27] and coached her through her initial period of adjustment, rehearsing her the way Devlin rehearses Alicia.^[27] This began a lifetime friendship for the two.

There were two passionate turmoils going on on-set, and both served to inform the final product: one was Hitchcock's growing infatuation with Bergman, and the other was her torturous affair with Robert Capa, the celebrity battlefield photographer.^[30] As a result of this simpatico connection, and 'to accomplish the deepest logic of Notorious, Hitchcock did something unprecedented in his career: he made Ingrid his closest collaborator on the picture':^[30]

'The girl's look is wrong', Ingrid said to Hitchcock when, after several takes of her close-up during the dinner sequence, everyone knew something was awry. 'You have her registering [surprise] too soon, Hitch. I think she would do it this way.' And with that, Ingrid did the scene her way. There was not a sound on the set, for Hitchcock did not suffer actors' ideas gladly: he knew what he wanted from the start. Well before filming began, every eventuality of every scene had been planned—every camera angle, every set, costume, prop, even the sound cues had been foreseen and were in the shooting script. But in this case, an actress had a good idea, and to everyone's astonishment, he said, 'I think you're right, Ingrid.'^[31]

When production wrapped in February 1946, Hitchcock had in the can what François Truffaut later told him 'gets a maximum of effect from a minimum of elements ... Of all your pictures, this is the one in which one feels the most perfect correlation between what you are aiming at and what appears on the screen ... To the eye, the ensemble is as perfect as an animated cartoon ...'^[32]

Music[edit]

The music for Notorious is the least celebrated of the major Hitchcock scores, writes film scholar Jack Sullivan, one that few writers or fans talk about. 'The neglect is unfortunate, for Roy Webb composed one of the most deftly designed scores of any Hitchcock film. It weaves a unique spell, one Hitchcock had not conjured before, and the hip, swingy source music is novel as well.'^[33]

The composer was Roy Webb, a staff composer at RKO, who had most recently scored the dark films of director Val Lewton for that studio. He wrote the fight song for Columbia University while he was there in the 1920s, then served as assistant to film composer Max Steiner until 1935; his reputation was 'reliable, but unglamorous'.^[34] Hitchcock had tried to get Bernard Herrmann for Notorious, but Herrmann was unavailable; Webb too was a Herrmann fan: 'Benny writes the best music in Hollywood, with the fewest notes', he said.^[35]

Before the sale of the property to RKO, Selznick attempted, with typical Selznick gusto, to steer the course of the music.^[36] He was miffed that no hit pop song had come out of his previous Hitchcock picture Spellbound, so he considered eighteen 'gooey, sentimental songs'^[36] like 'Love Nest', 'Don't Give Any More Beer to My Father' and 'In A Little Love Nest Way Up on a Hill' for inclusion in Notorious. However, the sale removed Selznick as the decision-maker.^[36]

Hitchcock was glad to be out from under Selznick's thumb. There would be 'no sudsy violins in big love scenes, no more recycling of Selznick's favorite cues from past movies. He made sure there were no south-of-the-border cliches.'^[36] Selznick's exit also brought Hitchcock and Webb together into their natural sympatico. 'Selznick deplored 'Hitchcock's goddamned jigsaw cutting', the dreamlike, jagged images that create his signature subjectivity. But Webb didn't mind jigsaw cutting at all. It complemented his fragmented musical architecture, just as the blocked passions of the film's characters reflect his unresolved harmonies. Like Hitchcock, Webb favored atmosphere and tonal nuance over broad gestures. Both men were classicists dealing in darkness and chaos.'^[35] They featured complementary personalities, too: 'Webb had a modest ego, a handy trait when working for a control addict like Hitchcock.'^[37]Notorious was, however, their only film together.

Alicia and Devlin fall quickly in love once they arrive in Rio, and Webb uses tambourines, guitars, drums and Brazilian trumpets swinging into Brazilian dance music to provide 'sensuous foreplay for the tumultuous love affair'.^[38] Numbers include 'Carnaval no Rio', 'Meu Barco', 'Guanabara' and two sambas 'Ya Ya Me Leva' and 'Bright Samba'. Yet understatement and atypical use are everywhere:

Sexy and full of danger, [the love music] is a typical Hitchcock romantic theme, though it is rarely used romantically. Even when Alicia and Devlin ascend a hill with a spectacular view and embrace during the initial courtship scenes—surely the cue for a fortissimo eruption of love music à la Spellbound—the theme sounds only for a teasing instant. For the most part, it appears at unpredictable times, in increasingly troubled harmonies, to capture the couple's shifting sexual subcurrents: Alicia's hurt and suppressed longing, Devlin's fear jealousy, and hesitation.^[39]

Often, Webb and Hitchcock use no music at all to undergird a romantic scene. The two-and-a-half minute kiss begins with distant music when it commences out on the balcony, but goes silent when the couple move inside.^[40] Other times, they flout conventional wisdom: when Alicia asks the band to stop playing stuffy waltzes and liven things up with Brazilian music to cover her trip to the wine cellar with Devlin, Latin dance tunes replace the expected suspense cue.^[40][40]

Aspects of Hitchcockian humor are present: When Alicia first enters the Sebastian mansion, loaded with sinister Nazis, Schumann and Chopin are playing. 'Wicked they may be, but these terrorists have artistic sensibilities and impeccable taste.'^[38]

Cinematography[edit]

Roger Ebert described Notorious as having 'some of the most effective camera shots in his—or anyone's—work'.^[41] Hitchcock played off Grant's star power in his first scene, introducing his character with shots of the back of the actor's head showing him observing Alicia carefully. The excess of her drinking is reinforced the next morning with a close-up and zoom out from a glass of fizzing aspirin beside her bed. The camera switches to her point of view and the viewer sees Grant as Devlin, backlit and upside down.^[41] The film also contains a tracking shot at Sebastian's mansion in Rio de Janeiro: starting high above the entrance hall, the camera tracks all the way down to Alicia's hand, showing her nervously twisting the key there.^[5][41]

Themes and motifs[edit]

The predominant theme in Notorious is trust—trust withheld, or given too freely.^[42] T. R. Devlin is a long time finding his trust, while Alexander Sebastian offers his up easily—and ultimately pays a big price for it. Likewise, the film addresses a woman's need to be trusted, and a man's need to open himself to love.^[42]

Hitchcock the raconteur positioned it in terms of classic conflict. He told Truffaut that

The story of Notorious is the old conflict between love and duty. Cary Grant's job—and it's rather an ironic situation—is to push Ingrid Bergman into Claude Rains's bed. One can hardly blame him for seeming bitter throughout the story, whereas Claude Rains is a rather appealing figure, both because his confidence is being betrayed and because his love for Ingrid Bergman is probably deeper than Cary Grant's. All of these elements of psychological drama have been woven into the spy story.^[43]

Sullivan writes that Devlin sets up Alicia as sexual bait, refuses to take any responsibility for his role, then feels devastated when she does a superb job.^[40] Alicia finds herself coldly manipulated by the man she loves, sees her notorious behavior exploited for political purposes, then fears abandonment by the lover who put her in the excruciating predicament of spying on her late father's Nazi colleague by sleeping with him—a man who genuinely loves her, perhaps more than Devlin does. Alex is Hitchcock's most painfully sympathetic villain, driven by his profound jealousy and rage—not to mention his enthrallment to an emasculating mother—culminating in an abrupt, absolute imperative to kill the love of his life.^[40]

Hitchcock's own mother had died in September 1942, and Notorious is the first time he addresses his mother issues head-on. 'In Notorious, the role of mother is at last fully introduced and examined. No longer relegated to mere conversation, she appears here as a major character in a Hitchcock picture, and all at once—as later, through Psycho, The Birds and Marnie—Hitchcock began to make the mother figure a personal repository of his anger, guilt, resentment, and a sad yearning.'^[44] At the same time, he blurred mother-love with erotic love,^[45] and poignantly, in both the film and in its director's life, 'both kinds of love were in fact limited to longing and fantasy and unfulfilled expectations'.^[45]

The theme of drinking weaves its way through the film from beginning to end: for Alicia it is an escape from guilt and pain, or even downright poisonous.^[42] When a guest at the opening party tells her she has had enough, she scoffs: 'The important drinking hasn't started yet.' She camouflages emotional rejection with whiskey, at the opening party, the outdoor cafe in Rio, the apartment in Rio,^[46] then drinking becomes even more dangerous as the Sebastians administer their poison through Alicia's coffee. Even the MacGuffin comes packaged in a wine bottle. 'All the drinking is valueless and finally dangerous.'^[46]

Coming as it did on the heels of World War II, the theme of patriotism—and the limits thereof—make it 'astonishing that the movie was produced at all (and that it was such an immediate success), since it contains such blunt dialogue about government-sponsored prostitution: The sexual blackmail is the idea of American intelligence agents, who are blithely willing to exploit a woman (and even to let her die) to serve their own ends. The depiction of the moral murkiness of American officials was unprecedented in Hollywood—especially in 1945, when the Allied victory ushered in an era of understandable, but ultimately dangerous, chauvinism in American life.'^[30]

Reception[edit]

The film was the official selection of the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.^[47]Notorious had its premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on August 15, 1946, with Hitchcock, Bergman, and Grant in attendance.

Box office[edit]

The film made $4.8 million in theatrical rentals on its first American domestic release, making it one of the biggest hits of the year.^[48][49] (US rentals)^[50] It earned RKO a profit of $1,010,000.^[51]

Reviews[edit]

Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther praised the film, writing, 'Mr. Hecht has written, and Mr. Hitchcock has directed in brilliant style, a romantic melodrama which is just about as thrilling as they come—velvet smooth in dramatic action, sharp and sure in its characters, and heavily charged with the intensity of warm emotional appeal.'^[52]Leslie Halliwell, usually terse, almost glowed about Notorious: 'Superb romantic suspenser containing some of Hitchcock's best work.'^[53] Decades later, Roger Ebert also praised the film, adding it to his 'Great Movies' list and calling it 'the most elegant expression of the master's visual style'.^[41] On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall positive rating of 97%, with an average rating of 8.8/10 based on 39 reviews, with a consensus of: 'Sublime direction from Hitchcock, and terrific central performances from Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant make this a bona-fide classic worthy of a re-visit.'

Notorious is Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell's favorite of her father's pictures. 'What a perfect film!', she told her father's biographer, Charlotte Chandler. 'The more I see Notorious, the more I like it.'^[54]

Claude Rains was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Ben Hecht was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

Legacy[edit]

In 2005, Hecht's screenplay was voted by the two Writers Guilds of America as one of the 101 best ever written.^[55]The following year, Notorious was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. Time magazine listed it among of the All-TIME 100 films (a list of the greatest films since the magazine's inception) as chosen by Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.^[56]Entertainment Weekly also ranked it No. 66 in their book 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.^[57] In 2008, the film was voted in an Empire magazine poll as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.

Adaptations[edit]

• The silent film Convoy (1927), co-produced by Victor Halperin, was based on the same Saturday Evening Post story.
• A Lux Radio Theater adaptation was broadcast on January 26, 1948, with Ingrid Bergman reprising her role as Alicia Huberman and Joseph Cotten taking Cary Grant's role of T. R. Devlin. Another radio adaptation was produced for The Screen Guild Theater, again starring Ingrid Bergman, although this time with John Hodiak, and was broadcast on January 6, 1949.
• The film was remade in 1992 as the TV film Notorious directed by Colin Bucksey, with John Shea as Devlin, Jenny Robertson as Alicia Velorus, Jean-Pierre Cassel as Sebastian, and Marisa Berenson as Katarina.
• In the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars the season two episode 'Senate Spy' is almost a line for line adaptation of Notorious, even going so far as to frame the final shot of the episode the same way as the movie.
• Mission: Impossible 2 paid strong homage to Notorious, but the plot is about a deadly virus instead of uranium, with the core story, many of the scenes, and some of the dialogue from Notorious being used.^[58]
• Freddy Blohm's song 'Rio Blues' tells the story, grimly, from Sebastian's point of view.
• The operatic adaption Notorious by Hans Gefors was premiered in Gothenburg in September 2015, starring Nina Stemme as Alicia Huberman.^[59]

Tribute to Hitchcock[edit]

On March 7, 1979, the American Film Institute honored Hitchcock with its Life Achievement Award. At the tribute dinner, Ingrid Bergman presented him with the original UNICA key to the wine cellar - the single most notable prop in Notorious. After filming had ended, Cary Grant had kept it. A few years later he gave the key to Bergman, saying that it had given him luck and hoped it would do the same for her. When presenting it to Hitchcock, to his surprise and delight, she expressed the hope that it would be lucky for him as well.^[60]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc'Notorious: Detail View'. American Film Institute. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
2. ^Variety (February 19, 2018). 'Variety (September 1945)'. New York, NY: Variety Publishing Company – via Internet Archive.
3. ^Box Office Information for Notorious. The Numbers. Retrieved November 8, 2012.
4. ^Spoto, Donald (1983). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN0-345-31462-X. p. 304. Page numbers cited in this article are from the Ballantine Books first paperback edition, 1984
5. ^ ^abDuncan, Paul, (2003). Alfred Hitchcock: Architect of Anxiety 1899–1980. Los Angeles: Taschen. ISBN3-8228-1591-8. p. 110
6. ^Duncan, p. 109
7. ^Chandler, Charlotte (2006). It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography. New York: Applause Books. ISBN978-1-55783-692-2. p. 163
8. ^McGilligan, Patrick (2004). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN978-0-06-098827-2. p. 376
9. ^Leff, Leonard J. (1999). Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN0-520-21781-0. p. 207
10. ^ ^abcdeLeff, p. 207
11. ^ ^abcMcGilligan, p. 374
12. ^ ^abcLeff, p. 206
13. ^ ^abcdefSpoto, Dark, p. 302
14. ^Leff, p. 209
15. ^Spoto, Dark, p. 297
16. ^ ^abcdSpoto, Dark, p. 298
17. ^Notorious was his tenth single word-titled film: Downhill, Champagne, Blackmail, Murder!, Sabotage, Suspicion, Saboteur, Lifeboat and Spellbound preceded it; Rope, Vertigo and Frenzy followed. His other one-worders, Rebecca, Psycho, Marnie and Topaz take their titles from the one-word titles of the novels they derive from. Spoto, Notorious, p. 195n
18. ^McGilligan, p. 366
19. ^Spoto, Donald, (2001). Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. ISBN978-0-306-81030-5. p. 195
20. ^ ^abSpoto, Dark, p. 299
21. ^ ^abSpoto, Dark, p. 301
22. ^Truffaut, François (1967). Hitchcock By Truffaut. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN978-0-671-60429-5
23. ^McGilligan, p. 375
24. ^ ^abLeff, p. 208
25. ^ ^abcMcGilligan, p. 379
26. ^Spoto, Dark, p. 303
27. ^ ^abcdeMcGilligan, p. 380
28. ^McGilligan, p. 376
29. ^Spoto, Notorious, p. 198
30. ^ ^abcSpoto, Notorious, p. 197
31. ^Spoto, Notorious, pp. 197–198
32. ^Truffaut, p. 173
33. ^Sullivan, Jack (2006). Hitchcock's Music. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-13618-0. p. 124
34. ^Sullivan, p. 124
35. ^ ^abSullivan, p. 125
36. ^ ^abcdSullivan, p. 126
37. ^Sullivan, p. 130
38. ^ ^abSullivan, p. 127
39. ^Sullivan, p. 131
40. ^ ^abcdeSullivan, p. 132
41. ^ ^abcdEbert, R.Great Movies:Notorious, August 17, 1997. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 6 September.
42. ^ ^abcSpoto, Notorious, p. 196
43. ^Truffaut, p. 171
44. ^Spoto, Dark, p. 306
45. ^ ^abSpoto, Dark, p. 307
46. ^ ^abSpoto, Dark, p. 308
47. ^'Festival de Cannes: Notorious'. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved January 4, 2009.
48. ^Eliot, p. 420
49. ^'All-Time Top Grossers', Variety, 8 January 1964 p 69
50. ^'60 Top Grossers of 1946', Variety 8 January 1947 p8
51. ^Richard Jewell & Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1982. p212
52. ^Crowther, Bosley. 'The Screen in Review.' The New York Times, August 16, 1946
53. ^Walker, John, ed. Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN0-06-273241-2. p. 873
54. ^Chandler, p. 163
55. ^'101 Greatest Screenplays'. Writers Guild of America. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
56. ^Schickel, Richard (February 12, 2005). 'Notorious (1946) – ALL-TIME 100 Movies'. Time. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
57. ^'The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time'. Entertainment Weekly. 1999. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
58. ^Brevet, Brad. 13 Feb 2012. 'Did You Know 'Mission: Impossible 2' is a Remake of Hitchcock's 'Notorious'? Here, Have a Look. 13 Feb 2012. viewed 1 Jun 2012.http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/did-you-know-mission-impossible-2-is-a-remake-of-hitchcocks-notorious-here-have-a-look/
59. ^'Notorious'. Göteborgsoperan. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
60. ^McGilligan, p. 471

Sources[edit]

• Brown, Curtis F. The Pictorial History of Film Stars – Ingrid Bergman. New York: Galahad Books, 1973. ISBN0-88365-164-5, p. 76–81
• Eliot, Marc (2005). Cary Grant. London: Aurum Press. pp. 434 pages. ISBN1-84513-073-1.
• Humphries, Patrick. The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Crescent Books, a Random House company, 1994 revised edition. ISBN0-517-10292-7, p. 88–93
• McGilligan, Patrick (2003). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. London: John Wiley and Sons. pp. 850 pages. ISBN0-470-86973-9.
• Park, William (2011), 'Appendix A:Within the Genre', What is Film Noir?, Bucknell University Press, ISBN978-1-6114-8363-5
• Spoto, Donald (2001). Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman. America: DaCapo Press. pp. 474 pages. ISBN0-306-81030-1.

External links[edit]

• Notorious on IMDb
• Notorious at the TCM Movie Database
• Notorious at AllMovie
• Notorious at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Notorious an essay by William Rothman at the Criterion Collection
• Notorious radio adaptation on MP3 aired January 26, 1948 on Lux Radio Theatre (59 minutes, with Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten)
• Reprints of historic reviews, photo gallery at CaryGrant.net

Streaming audio

• Notorious radio adaptation on MP3 aired January 26, 1948 on Lux Radio Theatre (59 minutes, with Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten)
• Notorious on Screen Guild Theater: January 6, 1949