Jesse Owens | WatchedThis
Jesse Owens
Acting
Biography
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour, at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan—a feat that has never been equaled and has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport". He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black American man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy". The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete. Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century. Jesse Owens, originally known as J.C., was the youngest of ten children (three girls and seven boys) born to Henry Cleveland Owens (a sharecropper) and Mary Emma Fitzgerald in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, 1913. He was the grandson of a slave. At the age of nine, he and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio for better opportunities as part of the Great Migration (1910–40) when 1.6 million African Americans left the segregated and rural South for the urban and industrial North. When his new teacher asked his name to enter in her roll book, he said "J.C.", but because of his strong Southern accent, she thought he said "Jesse". The name stuck, and he was known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life. As a youth, Owens took different menial jobs in his spare time: he delivered groceries, loaded freight cars, and worked in a shoe repair shop while his father and older brother worked at a steel mill. During this period, Owens realized that he had a passion for running. Throughout his life, Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior high school track coach at Fairmount Junior High School. Since Owens worked after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school instead. Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon (1915–2001) met at Fairmont Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 and she was 13. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter Gloria in 1932. They married on July 5, 1935, and had two more daughters together: Marlene, born in 1937, and Beverly, born in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1980. Owens first came to national attention when he was a student of East Technical High School in Cleveland; he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 100 yards (91 m) dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (7.56 m) at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago. ... Source: Article "Jesse Owens" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Black Power Salute
A film about one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, the moment when the radical spirit of the 1960s upstaged the greatest sporting event in the world. Two men made a courageous gesture that reverberated around the world, and changed their lives forever. This film is about Tommie Smith and John Carlos' protest at the 1968 Olympics.
The Negro Soldier
Documentary focusing on the contributions to the American war effort of African-American soldiers.
Hitler's Forgotten Victims
The story of black and mixed race people in Nazi Germany who were sterilised, experimented upon, tortured and exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps. It also explores the history of German racism and examines the treatment of Black prisoners-of-war. The film uses interviews with survivors and their families as well as archival material to document the Black German Holocaust experience.
Der wahre Champion: Siegen mit Hightech
Every year, top athletes set new world records. But are today’s record holders really better than those of the past? Or do modern athletes get their edge from their high tech gear? Top sports scientist Steve Haake sets off on a journey to investigate. He travels to Canada, the USA, and Germany to meet five champions. Each athlete demonstrates how their modern training and equipment enhances their performance, and then Steve challenges them to compete against a legendary athlete using old-school vintage gear. Each experimental matchup has a surprising result.
Jesse Owens et Luz Long : le temps d'une étreinte
Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin
The rise of National Socialism in Germany and Hitler’s anti-semitic policies and advocation of the superiority of the Aryan race resulted in several calls for a boycott of the games. Against this political backdrop, Jesse Owens’ haul of four gold medals is all the more significant. For a black athlete to demonstrate clearly his superior athleticism and so convincingly outperform his white counterparts was a massive slap in the face for Hitler and made a mockery of his racist theories during his Nazi showpiece games. Standing in the box at the Olympiastadion where Hitler sat to watch the games, Jesse Owens tells with pride that the flag of the US team was the only one not to be dipped as the athletes passed the Führer. (andberlin.com)
The Record Breakers
Welcome to a hard driving video about the biggest winners of all, the athletes and teams who broken records in their sports.
Olympic Cavalcade
Documentary footage recaptures the excitement of the 1948 London Olympics, the first games since 1936.
The Century Is Fifty
As the title of this French documentary indicates, Ce Siecle a 50 Ans examines the 20th Century at its halfway point. Utilizing the archives of several European film reserves, director Denise Tua offers a fascinating mosaic of the people and events that shaped the years 1900 to 1950. Complementing the vintage film clips are three dramatized sketches, delineating the romantic customs of three different points in time. These sketches are inadequately performed, and can easily be ignored. Ce Siecle a 50 Ans both preserved and provided celluloid material for scores of future documentaries.
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