Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 January 22

= January 22 =

Jeanne Burns and Jerry Arlen
I would like to know when and where composer Jeanne Burns and Jerry Arlen were married and divorced. Jerry Arlen (born Julius Arluck in 1912) was composer Harold Arlen's younger brother. Thanks for any help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.146.45 (talk) 05:11, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Best I can find is she's got an entry in The ASCAP biographical dictionary of composers, authors and publishers as "Arlen Jeanne Burns". Clarityfiend (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Good and rich hero
I would like to find a book (or several) with a main character who are:
 * rich
 * good

It's hard to find that sort of books. I know only one example - Largo Winch. I'm looking for something similar.

If you can name a sci-fi book, I would be really happy.

Can you help me? --Ewigekrieg (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What about Thorby at the end of Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy? More generally, I would certainly mention Lord Peter Wimsey in the Dorothy Sayers books.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Depending on how you define good: The Count of Monte Cristo. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:03, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Heinlein's Waldo was rich.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:06, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Anything featuring Batman (a billionaire apparently).--Shantavira|feed me 22:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The protagonist of The Mote in God's Eye, Roderick Blaine, was recruited for the mission specifically because he was one of the richest people in the galaxy. Apparently this meant he would be impossible to bribe. Comradezombie1 (talk) 22:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Willard Phule of the Phule's Company series.Dru of Id (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Schindler's Ark -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Paul Atreides in Dune is quite rich, and mostly good. Staecker (talk) 01:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * You might find some more suggestions at TV Tropes under "Rich Idiot with No Day Job" (Sir Percy Blakeney, Don Diego de la Vega, plus some characters who are not good, of course) or "Crimefighting with Cash" (Watchmen, ...). ---Sluzzelin talk  02:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * No one is good in the Watchmen. Von Restorff (talk) 02:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't categorize Harry Potter as "rich", but he did inherit a sizable amount of money from his parents. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 06:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Bertie Wooster is rich, and tries to be good, though sometimes with bad consequences that he needs to be rescued from by Jeeves. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Ayn Rand's fiction tends to be about wealthy heroes (Heinlein, already mentioned, has quite a few such heroes as well, like Lazarus Long). Much of William Faulkner's work is about powerful Southern families, e.g. Absalom, Absalom!  The novels of Jeffrey Archer tend to be about rich men, some good, some bad.  There's also a lot of fiction about certain wealthy and powerful monarchs like Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Mary, Queen of Scots, Queen Christina of Sweden; many portray them in a positive (if occasionally tragic) light - also lots of fantasy novels about kings, but I'm no expert on that. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * And I'm not sure if James Bond is rich, or puts it all on expenses. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * As for Rand, only Atlas Shrugged had a rich protagonist, and I suppose that Dagny gives it all up (what's left of it) for Galt's Gulch .. neither The Fountainhead or Anthem had a wealthy protagonist, though it is some years since I read any of them. Lazarus Long was poor as many times as wealthy, though I imagine at the Tertius stage, he's pretty well set up.  I do not think Bond is mentioned as being particularly wealthy, although he doesn't seem to want for anything.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Dick Francis's The Edge. Although most of Dick Francis's heroes can muck out stalls with the best of them.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Around the World in Eighty Days deserves to be mentioned.DI (talk) 14:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed. And "A Christmas Carol".--Wehwalt (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't agree there. Dickens seemed to make the poor people good and the rich people bad, at least in this story.  Scrooge was good early on, while poor, but then became rich and nasty.  At the end he reformed, but this probably also means he was going to give away his money, such as by paying for the operation for Tiny Tim and buying a huge Christmas goose for everyone (I wonder if geese think Scrooge turned bad at the end :-) ).  StuRat (talk) 23:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest that Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby spends most of the book being portrayed as good (if rather unusual). --jjron (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Daddy Warbucks from Annie. -- Jayron  32  19:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If he's so rich and good, you'd think he's spend some of that fortune on surgery to replace everyone's missing pupils and irises. :-) StuRat (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Did anyone mention The Scarlet Pimpernel? Heck froze over (talk) 21:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The 1930s movie If I Had a Million, and the somewhat similar TV series The Millionaire (TV series). Also, an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, in which multi-millionaire Pat O'Brien leaves nearly all his money to charity. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You can add to the gentleman detective/thief/vigilante genre The Saint, A. J. Raffles, Arsène Lupin. (But like Batman, there's a degree of moral ambiguity to these rich people.) It's a long time since I've read them, but Asimov's Foundation series are about a hugely powerful and wealthy but benevolent organization. There's a lot of romance novels in which women are pursued by glamorous millionaires. This goes back to more ambiguous romantic heroes like Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Rochester in Jane Eyre. --Colapeninsula (talk) 23:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Venturing into comics, we have Richie Rich. StuRat (talk) 23:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * On the OP's request for Sci-Fi, I suppose you'd say Flash Gordon would be close to fitting the bill, if you count that as a book. --jjron (talk) 11:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Since someone already mentioned Batman and now Flash Gordon has been brought up, I suppose Tony Stark should get a nod. Dismas |(talk) 11:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)