Home

Word of the Day

Archives

Clever Clue of the Month

The Cruciverbalist

Links

Daily Email

LEN (len)

Len Deighton: British historian and author

Len Carou: Canadian actor

Len Dawson: Former professional football player

Len Berman: Former weekday evening sports anchor on WNBC-TV

Common clues: Author Deighton; Actor Cariou; Ex-QB Dawson; "The Ipcress File" author Deighton; Sportscaster Berman; Spy novelist Deighton; Deighton or Dawson

Crossword puzzle frequency: 10 times a year

Frequency in English language: 11821 / 86800

Video: Funeral in Berlin trailer

Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one. ~ Len Deighton

Leonard Cyril Deighton (born on this day in 1929) is a British historian and author of spy fiction and historical novels.

Len Deighton (left) teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg on the set of The Ipcress File.

Several of his novels have been adapted for films. His first few novels featured an unnamed hero, which in the movie versions was dubbed "Harry Palmer" and was played by Michael Caine. The first trilogy of his Bernard Samson series was made into a 13-part television series by Granada Television in 1987.

Deighton has also published a series of cookery books.

***

Leonard Joseph “Len” Cariou (born September 1939) is a Canadian actor.

Cariou started acting in Winnipeg at the Manitoba Theatre Centre and later at the Stratford, Ontario, tackling classical roles like King Lear, Macbeth, Prospero, Coriolanus, Brutus, Petruchio, Iago, Oberon, and Henry V. He was offered a scholarship at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal but, married with a young child and financial responsibilities, he rejected it. Cariou also became a lead actor with the Guthrie Theatre company in Minneapolis in the mid-1960's, where he played Orlando in As You Like It, and Agamemnon in Tyrone Guthrie's compilation of The House of Atreus. In 1968, Cariou made his Broadway debut in The House of Atreus. Two years later he landed his first starring role in Applause, a musical adaptation of the film All About Eve. It earned him a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Musical and won him the Theatre World Award. In 1973 he garnered his second Tony nod for A Little Night Music; he repeated the role for the 1977 film version. Six years later he won both the Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street in the Stephen Sondheim musical. During these years, Cariou also appeared in a number of benefits, including A Christmas Carol for the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York, playing Scrooge, with Helen Hayes, Raul Julia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, directed by W. Stuart McDowell at the Symphony Space in 1985.[3] His next projects, the Alan Jay Lerner-Charles Strouse musical Dance a Little Closer (1983), Arthur Miller's sole musical, Up from Paradise (1983), and Teddy & Alice (1987) proved to be far less successful.

In 2002, Cariou joined Anne Heche and Neil Patrick Harris as the replacement cast in the award-winning drama Proof. Cariou's film credits include Flags of Our Fathers, About Schmidt, Thirteen Days, The Four Seasons, and the Harold Prince-directed screen adaptation of A Little Night Music with Elizabeth Taylor. He played the father in the 2007 film 1408, and the nominal lead role in The Onion Movie, based on the satirical newspaper. On television, Cariou has appeared in The West Wing, Law & Order, Star Trek: Voyager, The Practice, Ed, The Outer Limits, and multiple episodes of Murder, She Wrote. He had a continuing role in 2006-2007 as power broker Judd Fitzgerald in the Showtime series Brotherhood.

Cariou narrated Major League Baseball's World Series films from 1992-1997. He has recorded a number of books, including several by Michael Connelly, for audiotape release. In 2004, he was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

***

Len Dawson was an American college and professional football player from Purdue University. He was another who was called an “NFL reject” by that league’s talent evaluators when they decided some players weren’t good enough to play in the NFL. But in his first year in the American Football League, Dawson led his Dallas Texans to a double-overtime victory over the two-time defending American Football League Champion Houston Oilers. The game was a classic, and Dawson ran a ball-control offense for a 17-14 win. Dawson had a 28-yard touchdown pass to Hall of Fame halfback Abner Haynes.

In his first season, 1962, Dawson had led the league in touchdowns and yards per attempt. He was The Sporting News' selection as the AFL MVP for 1962. A pinpoint passer with four AFL passing titles, Len Dawson went on to be selected an American Football League All-Star six times, and holds the AFL’s number one career passer rating. He quarterbacked his team to three American Football League championships.

Dawson was the MVP in the Fourth AFL-NFL World Championship game (Super Bowl IV), the last game ever played by an American Football League team. He led the league out in glory, with his Kansas City Chiefs defeating the heavily-favored Minnesota Vikings, who, like the Colts of the previous year, had been touted as “the best team in pro football history”. Dawson was named to the second team All-Time All-AFL Team, and is a member of the American Football League Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

***

Len Berman (born June 14, 1947) is the former weekday evening sports anchor on WNBC-TV. Berman was with WNBC/NBC from 1982-2009. He was previously with WCBS-TV from 1979–1982, and before that at WBZ-TV in Boston from 1973–1978.

At the end of WNBC's 11 p.m. newscast on Wednesday April 22, 2009, following taped messages of goodbye and good luck from Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and Brian Williams, Berman announced that it was his last sportscast. He was given a cake with best wishes from his colleagues, including Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons.

While Berman's immediate future for television is unknown, sources say he might make periodic appearances on the Today Show.[1] Currently, he is working on his latest project, Len Berman Sports, an online blog which recounts Len's top 5 most interesting sports stories of the day.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Len Deighton", “Len Cariou”, and "Len Dawson" and “Len Berman”.