Unit three Reputation

LEAD-IN

Famous People

Listen to the tape and identify the people being described. If

possible provide some more biographical details.

Hints

1. She died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1962. Her real name was Norrna Baker.

2. One of his wives was Anne Boleyn (1533).

3. In 1964 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for political offences against the South African government.

4. She was born in Great Britain in 1926.

5. He was born in Trier, Germany, he moved to Paris in 1845 and in 1849 settled with his family in London.

6. By 1906 he was painting in the Cubist style for which he be­came famous. Born in Malaga, Spain.

7. In 1950 she started her sisterhood, the Missionaries of Chari­ty. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

8. She was born in 1960 in West Germany. She is believed to be the best female tennis player of the 80-ies.

A. Complete each sentence with one of the words or phrases given.

publicity	figures	posthumous	legendary
popularity	cowardice	recognition	best-seller
defeats	villain	notorious	status
champion	whizz-kid	renowned	prodigy
failure	outstanding	illustrious	beating
eminence

1. Ned Kelly was a(n)....................nineteenth-century Australian bandit.

2. Alan Sugar, the founder of Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc, is regarded as a(n)....................in financial circles.

3. Membership of the Royal Society is restricted to scientist who have achieved....................in their chosen field.

4. Jerez in southern Spain is .................... for sherry, and

Kalalamata in Greece for olives.

5. Winston Churchill came from a(n) .................... family,

being descended from John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough,

6. Robert Browning had to wait many years for

....................as a major poet, whereas his contemporary, Alfred

Tennyson, achieved....................with the public and critics early

in his career.

7. Mozart was an infant .................... who continued to

demonstrate his genius as he grew up.

8. Admiral Byng was accused of....................in the face of

the enemy, court-martialled, and executed in 1757.

9. Politicians are regarded as public .................... and can

expect their private lives to be subject to scrutiny.

10. Emily Dickinson was virtually unpublished in her lifetime. Her fame as a poet is entirely.....................

11. In England, unlike many other countries, being a waiter is not a job with high.....................

12. In Shakespeare's play «Othello», much of the interest is fo­cused on the ...................., Iago, whose lies and malice lead to

tragedy.

13. The famous novelist, Jeffrey Archer, paid off his huge debts by writing a(n).....................

14. Simon Bolivar suffered several .................... before his

great victory at Carabobo in 1821.

15. Pat Cash won the 1987 Wimbledon final, ....................

Ivan Lendl.

16. The World Chess ...................., Victor Korchnoy, re­tained his title in 1987 against the challenge of Anatoly Karpov.

17. Most film stars regard it as natural to spend their lives in the glare of.....................

18. Although Eddie «The Eagle» Edwards always came last in me ski-jump competitions, nobody regarded him as a(n) …………… .

19. Even in her lifetime, Maria Callas was a(n)

figure, because of a unique combination of acting and vocal skills.....

20. Mark Spitz gave a(n)....................performance at the 1972

Olympics, when he won more gold than had ever been won before.

aspiring	pressure	rewards	craft
fan	agent	stardom	talented
drop out	lured	achieve	in the public eye
invasion	dedicated	precarious	a big break
autograph	role	ruthless	negative aspects

B. Complete the text using the words and phrases given.

Fame

Fame is a very successful American TV series. Set in a New York theatre school, it charts the ups and downs in the daily lives of

a group of....................(1) performers as they learn about their

.................... (2). All are .................... (3) and ambitious,

.................... (4) to their future profession. A few are

....................(5) and will go to any lengths to....................(6)

their ambitions,

We see the students rehearsing, preparing for auditions, putting on their own shows. Occasionally, one of the lucky ones gets

....................(7)-is spotted by a leading....................(8) or is

offered a(n) .................... (9) in a film. Some students find the

.................... (10) too much and .................... (П). But the

majority are....................(12) by the bright lights, and complete

the course, ready to enter a(n)....................(13) profession where

.. . (14) can be great - wealth, glamour,

.................... (15), a life ....................06). Few at this time

think of failure, or even of the .................... (¹⁷) of success

................. (18) of privacy, constant recognition and mobbing

by................. ..(19) hunters and....................(20) and every

action under public scrutiny. It's a time of hope.

THEME ONE

Fame or Notoriety?

A. What do you know about horse-racing?

Do you know the names of any internationally famous jockeys? What rules are there about this sport in your country? Now read the text and answer the questions which follow.

Three-Year Sentence for Tax Evasion

Fall From Grace of a Man Who Rode His Luck Too Far

Lester Piggott has been hounded by controversy and is out of the saddle since he began riding over forty years ago.

Eleven times champion jockey, Piggott gained a record twenty-nine classic wins before retiring to take up training. He rode his first Derby winner, Never Say Die, at the age of eighteen.

However, the exceptionally talented youngster showed an in­creasing tendency to recklessness and, a fortnight after his Derby win, he was suspended for the rest of the season, as a result of his riding of the same horse at Royal Ascot. The stewards of the Jockey Club, racing's ruling body, told him that «in spite of continuous warnings he continued to show complete disregard for the rules and the safety of other jockeys».

Piggott's unique empathy with high-strung thoroughbreds led him to be recognised as the world's best jockey, and the most sought after. But, not even his greatest admirers would say he was the ea­siest man to get on with, and his association with two top trainers, Sir Noel Murless and Vincent O'Brien, for whom he rode many of his biggest winners, ended in deep bitterness.

As a freelance in the autumn of his professional life, he was fre­quently criticized for «jocking off» other riders. That is to say, he would use his reputation and his relationship with leading owners and trainers to get himself a coveted ride in a big race at the expense of a colleague.

A prime example was his eleventh-hour substitution for the great Australian jockey, Bill Williamson, on Roberto, before the 1972 Derby. The racing world showed what it thought of Piggott's beha­viour when his victory, one of a record nine Derby wins, was greeted with an unprecedented silence.

Such ruthlessness may have contributed to his unpopularity within the sport itself, but his singular will to win at all costs undoub­tedly helped him to become Britain's highest paid sportsman. His personal fortune was estimated at £20 million, at least.

Off the track, Piggott's indiscretions have often cost him dear in fi­nancial terms and kudos. In 1968, he was fined £750 for attempting to export currency. Later, he was fined £1000 for possessing guns and ammunition without a licence. Along with England's current leading jockey, Steve Cauthen, he also lost nearly £100,000 when they invested in a scheme intended to reap large profits on the world oil market.

Piggott received an OBE* in 1975, but the revelation of his tax and VAT* offences are thought to have cost him a knighthood. His conviction and his jail sentence meant the loss of his trainer's li­cence, although his wife, Susan, was allowed to take over the run-nine of his Newmarket stables.

Piggott could face further disciplinary measures by the Jockey Club over allegations in The People newspaper that he bet against himself in races.

The constant brushes with authority, together with Piggott's «loner» image, served to imbue him with something of a film star quality in the eyes of the public. His gaunt, deeply-etched face was ravaged by continual excesses of dieting to keep his body weight down to at least a stone below its natural minimum.

His natural reticence, almost certainly born out of the fact that he had a speech impediment and was partly deaf, made Piggott ap­pear aloof and certainly did nothing to dispel this perception of him.

Once, after riding a typically brilliant race to get home in front on a favourite, 'Old Stoneface', he remained as impassive as ever as the crowd cheered him. The trainer suggested that he might at least con­sider giving them a smile. To which Piggott replied: «Why should I? They'd be throwing things at me if I lost».

Most informed judges believe that he was certainly the greatest post-was rider, if not the best ever. At the same time, many of them questioned his unique riding style, perched high above his mount with his bottom thrust in the air. Clad in flamboyant jockeys' silks he looked like one of those exotic African birds that cheekily hitch a ride on the back of a hippo.

Piggott could be unbelievably subtle on a horse, brings irn with a perfectly timed run to pop his nose in front on the line and thus give him as easy a race as possible. Conversely, there was no stronger finisher in the game. You could almost hear the merciless cracking of his whip up in the grandstand as he drove Roberto to the narrowest of Derby wins.

The accumulation of Piggott stories, many of them apocryphal, would fill several bookshelves. A good many concern his muchpubli-cised meanness and obsession with all things financial. Of all stories, a personal favourite is the incident that occurred when Piggott was rid­ing in a race at Deauville. He dropped his whip at a crucial moment, but leaned across and grabbed the whip of a fellow rider. Piggott duly won the race and in that famous nasal monotone said of the incident afterwards: «Well, he had no chance of winning anyway!»

That, in a nutshell, was Piggott - unique, outrageous, a one-off.

(John Karter, The Independent)

* OBE: Order of the British Empire (an honour awarded by the Queen)

* VAT: Value Added Tax

B. Find a word or phrase in the text which, in context, is similar