Sam Kinison Personal life
what did he do in his personal life?
what did Sam Kinison do in his personal life?
Kinison acquired much of his material from his difficult first two marriages, to Patricia Adkins (1975-1980) and Terry Marze (1981-1989). He began a relationship with dancer Malika Souiri toward the end of his marriage with Marze. In 1990, Souiri alleged she was raped by a man Kinison had hired as a bodyguard that same day, while Kinison was asleep in the house. The bodyguard stated that the sex was consensual; the jury deadlocked in the subsequent trial and the charges were later dropped. On April 4, 1992, six days before his death, Kinison married Souiri at the Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas. They honeymooned in Hawaii for five days before returning home to Los Angeles on April 10 to prepare for a show that night at the Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Souiri sued Kinison's brother Bill in 1995 for allegedly defaming her in his book Brother Sam: The Short Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison, and then again in 2009 for allegedly forging Sam's will. In February 2011, the Toronto Sun reported that Kinison had fathered a child with the wife of his best friend and opening act, Carl LaBove, who had been paying child support for the girl for nearly 13 years. LaBove filed legal papers claiming the girl was Kinison's, and DNA tests taken from Kinison's brother Bill show a 99.8% likelihood that Kinison was the father of the unnamed woman, who was 21 at the time of the Toronto Sun story, and excluded LaBove as her father. CANNOTANSWER
Kinison acquired much of his material from his difficult first two marriages, to Patricia Adkins (1975-1980) and Terry Marze (1981-1989).
Samuel Burl Kinison (; December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. A former Pentecostal preacher, he performed stand-up routines that were characterized by intense sudden tirades, punctuated with his distinctive scream, similar to charismatic preachers.  Initially performing for free, Kinison became a regular fixture at The Comedy Store where he met and eventually befriended such comics as Robin Williams and Jim Carrey. Kinison's comedy was crass observational humor, especially towards women and dating, and his popularity grew quickly, earning him appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live.

Kinison received a Grammy nomination in 1988 for the single "Wild Thing" from his Have You Seen Me Lately? album, and a posthumous win in 1994 for Best Spoken Comedy Album, Live from Hell.

Early life
Samuel Burl Kinison was born in Yakima, Washington, on December 8, 1953, the son of Marie Florence (née Morrow) and Samuel Earl Kinison, a Pentecostal preacher. The family moved to East Peoria, Illinois, when Kinison was three months old. At the age of three years, Kinison was hit by a truck, which left him with brain damage. His father pastored several churches around the country, receiving little income. Kinison had two older brothers, Richard and Bill, and a younger brother, Kevin. His parents divorced when Kinison was 11 after which his brother Bill went to live with his father while Kinison stayed with the rest of the family, against his protestations. Bill described this as the root of much of Sam's anger. Kinison later attended East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria.

Kinison and his brothers emulated their father by becoming Pentecostal preachers. Between 1968 and 1969, Kinison attended Pinecrest Bible Training Center, an interdenominational, unaccredited, three-year bible school located in Salisbury Center, New York. His mother married another preacher and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Kinison lived for a while. He preached from the age of 17 to 24 and recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a "fire and brimstone" style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. His brother Bill, however, noted that "ironically, he had no stage presence" and he was not very successful at making money from preaching. After Kinison and his first wife were divorced, he abandoned preaching and took up comedy.

Career
Kinison began his career in Houston, Texas, where he performed in small clubs. He became a member of a comedic group at the Comedy Workshop, known as the Texas Outlaw Comics, that included Bill Hicks, Ron Shock, Riley Barber, Steve Epstein, Andy Huggins, John Farneti, and Jimmy Pineapple. Hicks cited Kinison as a major influence on his comedic style, noting that "He was the first guy I ever saw to go on stage and not in any way ask the audience to like him." In 1980, Kinison moved to Los Angeles hoping to find work at The Comedy Store, but was first employed as a doorman. He soon developed a cocaine and alcohol addiction, quickly progressing to freebasing cocaine, and struggled to gain a foothold in the business until his brother Bill moved to Los Angeles to help manage his career.

His big break came on HBO's Rodney Dangerfield's Ninth Annual Young Comedians Special in August 1985. After noting the performance of Bob Nelson, reviewer Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, "the most interesting of the other eight comedians is the savagely misogynistic Sam Kinison. Mr. Kinison specializes in a grotesque animalist howl that might be described as the primal scream of the married man." Kinison would later appear in Rodney Dangerfield's film Back to School in 1986.

In Kinison's debut television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1985, Letterman's introduction of Kinison warned his audience, "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison." Kinison played on his former role as a Bible-preaching evangelist, taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at the Bible, Christianity and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Kinison's daring comedy helped shoot him to stardom. On several videos of his stand-up routines, a shot of the personalized license plate on his 1986 Corvette reveals the words "EX REV." He was associated with the Los Angeles rock music scene and was occasionally accompanied by a touring band.

Howard Stern purchased the film rights to Kinison's biography, written by Kinison's brother, at one point (2008) reporting that HBO would make Brother Sam with Kinison being played by Dan Fogler. In an interview with Sam's brother and manager Bill Kinison, Bill mentioned film deals that were in development at the time of his death; one such deal was a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and another with Rick Moranis.

Personal life
Kinison acquired much of his material from his first two marriages, to Patricia Adkins (1975–1980) and Terry Marze (1981–1989). He began a relationship with dancer Malika Souiri toward the end of his marriage with Marze. In 1990, Souiri alleged she was raped by a man Kinison had hired as a bodyguard while Kinison was asleep in the house. The bodyguard stated that the sex was consensual; the jury deadlocked in the subsequent trial, and the charges were later dropped.

On April 4, 1992, six days before his death, Kinison married Souiri at the Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas. They honeymooned in Hawaii for five days before returning home to Los Angeles on April 10 to prepare for a show that night at the Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Souiri sued Kinison's brother Bill in 1995 for allegedly defaming her in his book Brother Sam: The Short Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison, and then again in 2009 for allegedly forging Sam's will.

In February 2011, the Toronto Sun reported that Kinison had fathered a child with the wife of his best friend and opening act, Carl LaBove, who had been paying child support for the girl for nearly 13 years. LaBove filed legal papers claiming the girl was Kinison's and DNA tests taken from Kinison's brother Bill show a 99.8% likelihood that Kinison was the father of the unnamed woman.

Death
On April 10, 1992, Kinison was driving his Pontiac Trans Am, when it was struck head-on on U.S. Route 95,  north of Interstate 40 and around  northwest of Needles, California, by a pickup truck driven by 17-year-old Troy Pierson. Prior to the accident, Pierson had been drinking alcohol. The pickup truck crossed the center line of the roadway while trying to pass another vehicle and moved into Kinison's lane. Kinison and his wife were on their way to Laughlin, Nevada to perform at a sold-out show.

Kinison was found unconscious between the seats of his car at the scene of the accident. He was not wearing a seat belt. His head smashed the windshield and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to his brother. He was 38 years old. His wife was also injured in the collision but later recovered after being taken directly to a hospital in Needles for treatment.  An autopsy found that Kinison sustained multiple traumatic injuries, including a dislocation in the cervical spine, a torn aorta, and torn blood vessels in his abdominal cavity, which resulted in his death within a few minutes of the accident.

Pierson pled guilty to one count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. He was sentenced to one year of probation and 300 hours of community service. Pierson also had his driver's license suspended for two years in connection with the collision.

Kinison's body was buried in a family grave plot at Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His gravestone is inscribed with the unattributed quote: "In another time and place he would have been called prophet."

Legacy
Comedian George Carlin's eighth HBO stand-up comedy special, Jammin' in New York, was dedicated to Kinison's memory. At the beginning of the broadcast, the words "this show is for SAM" appeared on the screen.

After his death, Kinison was fondly remembered by his friends and costars. Ozzy Osbourne said, "Apparently when Sam had the accident, I heard he got out of the car and looked up to the heavens and said, 'I don't want to die,' and then just said, 'Oh, okay,' and laid down and died. It sounds crazy and will probably offend a lot of my fans, but I believe there's a higher power. Some people may think Sam Kinison's in one place, but I know where he is. He's upstairs; he's next to God."

On May 23, 1993, FOX aired a special, A Tribute to Sam Kinison. The special contained archival footage of Kinison and stand-up comedy performances by comedians including Robin Williams, Rodney Dangerfield, and Jim Carrey.

Between 2008 and 2013, there were some press releases regarding a possible dramatic film to be based on the memoir Brother Sam: The Short, Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison, by Kinison's brother Bill Kinison and Steve Delsohn.

Discography
Louder Than Hell (1986)
Breaking The Rules (1987)
Have You Seen Me Lately? (1988)
Wild Thing (single) (1988)
Leader of the Banned (1990)
Live from Hell (1993)

Filmography

Film
Savage Dawn (1985)
Back to School (1986)
Three Amigos (1986) (scenes deleted)
Pauly Shore Is Dead (2004) (archive footage)
I Am Sam Kinison (2017) (Documentary)

Television
Rodney Dangerfield Hosts the 9th Annual Young Comedians Special (1985)
Saturday Night Live (1985–1986, guest performer; 1986, host)
Rodney Dangerfield: It's Not Easy Bein' Me (1986)
Rodney Dangerfield: Opening Night at Rodney's Place (1989, guest star)
Married... with Children (1989, guest star)
Tales from the Crypt (1990, guest star)
Charlie Hoover (1991, as Hugh)
In Living Color (Season 3, Episode 7, closing skit, Sunday, Nov. 3, 1991)
Fox New Year's Eve Live: 1992 (1991–1992, co-host)

Other appearances and music videos
 Live in a Rusted Out Garage concert video, Neil Young (1986) (Extended Cameo)
 Breaking the Rules (1987)
 "Wild Thing" music video, Sam Kinison (1988)
 "Bad Medicine" music video, Bon Jovi (1988) (Cameo)
 "Under My Thumb" music video, Sam Kinison (1989)
 "Kickstart My Heart" music video, Mötley Crüe (1989) (Cameo)
 "The Kids Goes Wild" music video, Babylon A.D. (1989) (Voice Over)
 "The Walk" music video, Cherry St. (1989) (Cameo)
 "Mississippi Queen" music video, Sam Kinison (1990)
 "Heartbeat" music video, D'Priest (1990) (Cameo)
 "What Do I Have To Do" music video, Kylie Minogue (1991) (Voice Over)
 Family Entertainment Hour (1991)
 Unleashed (2006) Sam kinison Banned Live at Felt Forum NYC 1990

References

Further reading

External links

Interview with Bill Kinison
A Multimedia Tribute to the Life and Comedy of Sam Kinison
Clip featuring an example of Kinison's stand up routine

1953 births
1992 deaths
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male television actors
American stand-up comedians
Burials in Oklahoma
Comedians from Illinois
Grammy Award winners
People from East Peoria, Illinois
People from Yakima, Washington
People with traumatic brain injuries
Road incident deaths in California
Warner Records artists
Las Vegas shows
Charles Monroe Sheldon (February 26, 1857 – February 24, 1946) was an American Congregationalist minister and leader of the Social Gospel movement. His novel, In His Steps, introduced the principle of "what would Jesus do?" which articulated an approach to Christian theology that became popular at the turn of the 20th century and had a revival almost one hundred years later. The stretch of US-24 on the north side of Topeka, Kansas between US-75 and K-4 is named the "Charles Sheldon Trafficway" in his honour.

Education and ministry 
Charles Sheldon was born in Wellsville, New York. He was a graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover (class of 1879) and of Brown University in 1883. He was pastor of a church at Waterbury, Vermont, from 1886 to 1888, and in 1889 became pastor of the Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas.

Sheldon became an advocate of the late nineteenth century school of thought known as Christian Socialism. His theological outlook focused on the practicalities of the moral life, with much less emphasis on the doctrinal traditions of personal redemption from sin in Christ. In the winter of 1896 Sheldon developed a sermon story that he read as a weekly series from the pulpit of Central Congregational Church. The unifying theme of these sermons was based on posing the question, "what would Jesus do?" when facing moral decisions. He viewed this question as traditional within Christianity and likely drew some inspiration from William T. Stead's If Christ came to Chicago! (1893) and other earlier sources.

Novel and theological influence 

The theme of the sermons was later fictionalized into the novel In His Steps. The central ethos of the novel was not about personal redemption but about moral choices related to encountering circumstances of poverty and deprivation. Sheldon's theological motif reflected his socialist outlook. Sheldon's own parish work became identified with the Social Gospel.

Walter Rauschenbusch, widely viewed as the chief architect of the Social Gospel, acknowledged the importance Sheldon placed on imitating Jesus. He saw the significance of Sheldon's work in bringing home the realization that it is hard to live a Christ-like life, given the temptations of modern society. While Rauschenbusch found this awareness valuable, he saw that it did not demand what he believed was a necessary transformation of social institutions. Sheldon was in touch with the concerns of middle-class America at the end of the century. He saw his role as one of communication—to introduce his congregation and the wider public to the ideas of Lyman Abbott, Richard Ely, George Herron, and Rauschenbusch. That was his intention in writing In His Steps.

Of the social issues Sheldon espoused during his lifetime, the two he was most passionate about were equality and prohibition. He believed that all persons were equal and should be treated as such. He was a pioneer among Protestant ministers in welcoming blacks into a mainstream church. He was also committed to fair treatment for Jews and Catholics, and proclaimed the equality of men and women. A strong supporter of the feminist struggle for equal rights, he urged women to enter politics. He also pushed for full equality in the workplace.

Sheldon was also a vegetarian who promoted compassion towards animals just as he did towards humans. He even criticized circuses for their treatment of animals.

Newspaper "career" 

In March 1900 he became editor for a week of the Topeka Daily Capital applying the "what would Jesus do?" concept. In that short time, the newspaper's circulation exploded from just under 12,000 to 387,000, overwhelming the paper's Topeka printing plant causing it to print 120,000 copies each in Chicago, Illinois and New York City.

After his retirement from Central Congregational Church in 1920, Sheldon edited "Christian Herald, An Illustrated News Weekly for the Home", a religious periodical, from 1920 to 1924 and continued to write articles after his final retirement in 1924.

"What would Jesus do?" 

In the 1990s WWJD bracelets became a popular item among young people and publishers increased sales of the public domain book In His Steps and tied it in with marketing of "what would Jesus do?" items.

A ten part mini-series produced by Topeka PBS affiliate KTWU featured an hour-long segment "Beyond Theology: What Would Jesus Do?" which examines how this question might be considered in context of the political, social and cultural changes that have taken place in America. The program also takes a look at the manner in which Sheldon applied the social gospel in his own life and in his community.

List of works
 1892: Richard Bruce, or the Life That Now Is 
 1893: Robert Hardy's Seven Days; a Dream and its Consequences
 1893: The Twentieth Door
 1894: The Crucifixion of Phillip Strong
 1895: His Brother's Keeper; or Christian Stewarship
 1897: In His Steps "What Would Jesus Do?"
 1898: The Redemption of Freetown
 1898: Malcom Kirk: A Tale Of Moral Heroism In Overcoming The World
 1898: One of the Two; "Be not overcome the evil, but overcome evil with good"
 1899: John King's Question Class
 1899: The Miracle at Markham; How Twelve Churches Became One
 1899: Lend a Hand
 1899: For Christ and the Church
 1900: Born to Serve: a story
 1900: Edward Blake: College Student
 1901: The Reformer
 1903: His Mother's Prayers
 1903: The Narrow Gate 
 1904: The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon; a hunter's explorations for wild sheep in sub-arctic mountains
 1905: The Heart of the World: A Story of Christian Socialism
 1906: The spirit's power: or the revival
 1909: Paul Douglas-journalist
 1911: The High Calling
 1912: A Builder of Ships; The Story of Brander Cushing's Ambition
 1914: "Jesus is Here!" Continuing the Narrative of In His Steps (What Would Jesus Do?)
 1912: In His Steps; a Dramatic Adaptation of the Story (with Frank H. Lane)
 1912: The Wilderness of the North Pacific Coast Islands: A Hunter's Experiences while Searching for Wapiti, Bears, and Caribou on the Larger Coast Islands of British Columbia and Alaska
 1916: Howard Chase, Red Hill, Kansas
 1916: Of One Blood
 1917: Modern Pagans
 1919: All The World
 1920: Heart Stories
 1921: In His Steps To-day. What would Jesus do in solving the problems of present political, economic and social life?
 1921: The richest man in Kansas
 1924: The everyday Bible (as editor)
 1924: The Mere Man and His Problems
 1925: Charles M. Sheldon: His Life Story
 1925: Two Old Friends
 1926: The Life of Jesus
 1927: Casework Evangelism: Studies in the Art of Christian Personal Work (only Introduction)
 1928: The 13th Resolution
 1929: Life's Treasure Book, Past, Present, and Future
 1930: The Wilderness of Denali
 1941: The Golden Book of Bible Stories: Favorite Stories from the Old and New Testaments Retold for Children

References

Further reading 
 James Smylie, "Sheldon's In His Steps: Conscience and Discipleship," Theology Today, Volume 32, number 1 (July 1975) pp. 32–45.

External links 

 
 
 
 Kansas State Historical Society archived documents on Charles Sheldon 
 
 PBS Documentary "Beyond Theology: What Would Jesus Do? http://ktwu.washburn.edu/productions/WWJD-BT/

1857 births
1946 deaths
American Christian socialists
American Congregationalist ministers
American evangelicals
Christian writers
Congregationalist socialists
People from Wellsville, New York
Phillips Academy alumni
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Topeka, Kansas Matt Bish (born 15 May 1975), also known as Matthew Bishanga, is a Ugandan filmmaker and the Creative Director at Bish Films. He directed the first Ugawood feature film, Battle of the Souls, in 2007.

Personal life and education
The first of four children born to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bishanga, Bish obtained his early education in Uganda. There, as a boy, he grew to love film, attending the cinema but also being exposed to many movies at home with his family on his father's home video system. He credits his parents with inspiring his film career. After his primary education, he attended Makerere University in Kampala, where he studied Architecture, before moving to the Netherlands in 1998 and studying Digital Filmmaking at the SAE Institute in Amsterdam.

Career
In 2005, Bish returned to Uganda to start an audiovisual production company "Bish Films Ltd" with his younger brother Roger Mugisha. At first limited to music videos, it soon branched out into films. Bish worked on his first feature film in 2006. Battle of the Souls is the first feature film in Uganda.

Bish Films produces TV commercials and documentaries, as well as films and music videos as they did when they first began. He believes Ugandan films that try to maintain quality should not be categorised as kina-Uganda (like ki-Nigeria) but rather Nile Films, Ugawood or something else.

"A critic is someone who can't do what you do the way you do it..." - Matt Bish

Filmography

 Short films

 Documentaries

References

1975 births
Living people
Ugandan film directors
Ugandan film producers
Place of birth missing (living people)
Ugandan screenwriters