YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: BIOGRAPHY

Allende, Isabel Author of four novels, including the critically acclaimed and popular La casa de los espritus (1982; The House of the Spirits, 1985), Isabel Allende wrote in the style of magic realism, which incorporated fantastic and mythical elements into realistic fiction. Her work included some of the most spiritual and highly charged literature of the late 20th century. Sometimes compared to Gabriel Garca Mrquez, Octavio Paz, and Carlos Castaneda, Allende was one of the few female Latin-American authors whose name was well known and whose works (translated into more than two dozen languages) could be found on bookshelves worldwide. She considered herself part of a feminist literary awakening, one that tied together minority writers with a shared "dimension of emotion, passion, obsession and dream." Born on Aug. 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, Allende spent her adolescence in Chile, where her uncle, Pres. Salvador Allende, was assassinated in 1973 in a military coup. With her husband, Miguel Frias, and children, Paula and Nicols, Allende immediately fled to Venezuela, where she lived in exile for the next several years. She and Frias divorced around the time her maternal grandfather was diagnosed as being terminally ill. It was the divorce, coupled with her deep respect for her grandfather, that spurred her first novel, La casa de los espritus. The book was a retelling of much of her family history, and it was later made into a motion picture. After immigrating to the United States in 1987, Allende took up residence outside San Francisco with her second husband, William Gordon, a lawyer who claimed to have fallen in love with her through her novels. Allende said that it was writing her fourth novel, El plan infinito (1991; The Infinite Plan, 1993), that brought her closest to her husband and to an America she had grown to respect deeply. Her other works include De amor y de sombra (1984; Of Love and Shadows, 1987), Eva Luna (1987; Eng. trans., 1988), and Cuentos de Eva Luna (1989; The Stories of Eva Luna, 1991), a collection of short stories. Allende's first nonfiction work, Paula (1994; Eng. trans., 1995), was written as a letter to her daughter. After falling into a coma resulting from a hereditary blood disease, the daughter died in 1992. During the year of her illness, Allende found solace by "writing" to her daughter every day, often about a long legacy of female endurance: "I think of my great-grandmother, of my clairvoyant grandmother, of my own mother, of you, and of my granddaughter who will be born in May, a strong female chain going back to the first woman, the universal mother." It was partly this legacy that made Allende's such a strong and passionate literary voice. (SARA N. BRANT) Asahara, Shoko At the end of 1995, self-styled messiah Shoko Asahara was in prison facing charges of having masterminded a series of crimes that included murder, kidnapping, and manufacturing sarin, the poisonous nerve gas that caused thousands of casualties when released in a Tokyo subway. Chizuo Matsumoto, who changed his name to Shoko Asahara, was born in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, on March 2, 1955. At the age of six, he was sent to a school for the blind to learn how to cope with severely impaired vision. After graduating in 1975, he failed to gain admission to the School of Medicine at Kumamoto University, so he studied acupuncture and pharmaceuticals. In 1975 he tried to enter Tokyo University but was unsuccessful. He then opened his own pharmacy, specializing in Chinese medicaments, in nearby Chiba. In 1982 he was arrested for selling fake remedies. After his business went bankrupt, he started a yoga school and sold health drinks. Asahara, assisted by his wife, set up Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) in 1987 and began producing numerous books that included a prediction that Armageddon would come with a gas cloud from the United States as early as 1997. By 1989, when the Tokyo metropolitan government granted Aum Shinrikyo legal status as a religious organization, Asahara had begun calling himself the "Holy Pope," "Saviour of the Country," and "Tokyo's Christ." He usually dressed in satiny pajamas, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong, and boasted that he could levitate and bestow superpower on his disciples. The cult, which honoured Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration, claimed to have 10,000 followers in Japan and 20,000 abroad, mainly in Russia, and regional offices in the U.S., Germany, and Sri Lanka. Many of Asahara's followers came from prosperous families and were well educated. The top Aum leaders held degrees in such fields as law, biotechnology, medicine, chemistry, computer science, and rocket technology. All were expected to donate everything they owned to the cult. Cult members ate rice and stewed vegetables once or twice a day, often fasting in Buddhist fashion. They performed yoga exercises, and some acolytes at the Yamanashi training centre wore helmets equipped with electrodes, which were reported to increase their alpha waves. Devoted worship was rewarded with a drink from the "miracle pond"--Asahara's bathwater. Asahara dispatched trusted lieutenants to buy chemicals, obtain licenses to fly Russian military helicopters, and buy the aircraft and secondhand weaponry. His attempt to gain a voice in national politics failed miserably when all 25 Aum Shinrikyo candidates who ran for seats in the lower house of the Diet in 1990 were defeated. (KAY K. TATEISHI) Baiul, Oksana Displaying a technical mastery and artistic flair far in advance of her age, Ukrainian figure skater Oksana Baiul won gold medals at both the 1993 world figure skating championships in Prague and the 1994 winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, to emerge in 1995 as one of the world's most gifted athletes. The fact that she had competed at the international level for only two seasons, when she was 15 and 16, made her feat even more incredible. Behind her delicate-looking elfin appearance was a fierce determination that was evidenced at the Olympics. After the opening technical segment, Baiul was placed second and needed a remarkable free-skate performance to challenge the leader, U.S. skater Nancy Kerrigan. During a practice session on the eve of the finals, Baiul and a German skater were involved in a collision, in which Baiul bruised her back and received a nasty shin wound that required three stitches. Fortified with two injections of painkillers, she took the ice to the music of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and landed five triple jumps that--combined with her artistic aplomb--helped her capture the gold and the hearts of those who dubbed her "the swan of Odessa." Her life was not always likened to a fairy tale. Baiul was born on Nov. 16, 1977, in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, then part of the U.S.S.R. After her father's unexplained disappearance, she was raised by her mother, who together with her grandparents gave her emotional support. Baiul's grandfather bought her skates when she was about four so she could exercise to lose weight. Her mother died in 1991 after both grandparents had died, and Baiul was orphaned. Her coach, Stanislav Korytek, briefly gave her shelter until he left for a job in Canada. Skating coach Galina Zmiyvskaya, at the request of her eldest daughter, Nina, took Baiul as a pupil and welcomed the orphan into her cramped, three-room apartment. Baiul was also taken under the wing of countryman Viktor Petrenko, Nina's husband. Under Zmiyvskaya's direction, Baiul was transformed into a world-class skater in one year. She finished second to Surya Bonaly of France at both the 1993 and 1994 European championships but finished first at the 1993 world championships and the 1994 Olympics. In 1994 she was unable to defend her world title owing to injury. Subsequently she moved to the U.S. with Zmiyvskaya to live and train in Simsbury, a suburb of Hartford, Conn. In 1995 she participated in professional ice shows and competitions and starred in the touring production of Nutcracker on Ice. Olympics enthusiasts were left wondering whether Baiul, who counted teddy bears and Snickers candy bars among her favourite things, would ever return to amateur skating, a possibility open to her under existing rules. (HOWARD BASS) Banderas, Antonio With 43 movies under his belt, Antonio Banderas in 1995 was on his way to becoming America's next "Latin lover." His undeniable sexuality and European flair made this Spanish actor a full-fledged Hollywood film star. Banderas was born on Aug. 10, 1960, in Mlaga, Spain. After seeing a performance of Hair at the age of 15, he said of acting, "I want to be part of this ritual; I want to do this forever." In 1981 he embarked on a five-year acting stint with the Spanish national theatre in Madrid. There he was discovered by movie director Pedro Almodvar, who offered him roles in films. In his first movie with Almodvar, Banderas played the first of several roles as a homosexual. Under Almodvar's direction the young actor was able to express his talent fully through unconventional roles such as rapist, mental patient, and kidnapper. This experience proved valuable for Banderas after he moved to Hollywood in 1989. There in 1992 he landed a role in The Mambo Kings, playing a young Cuban musician living in New York City. Although he spoke almost no English, Banderas was able to learn his lines phonetically and later took intensive English courses, which helped him land the role of Tom Hanks's lover in the box-office hit Philadelphia in 1993. Wanting to take the U.S. by storm, Banderas then embarked on a whirlwind acting spree. His movies include The House of the Spirits (1993), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Miami Rhapsody (1995), Desperado (1995), Assassins (1995), and Never Talk to Strangers (1995). There also were plans for the release of the big-screen musical version of Evita starring singer-actress Madonna as Eva Pern and Banderas as the Latin-American revolutionary Che Guevara. Banderas conceded to being ambitious but said that in Spain actors prove their success by making one film after another. Success for Banderas came with a price. His personal life recently became public when he fell in love with costar Melanie Griffith from the film Two Much, which was expected to be released in early 1996. Gossip columns across the country were filled with news about the breakup of his eight-year marriage to a Spanish actress. Banderas insisted that his marriage had been unstable for some time and said of Griffith, "I love this woman, and I want to make her happy--that is my only purpose." (MARIA OTTOLINO RENGERS) Barnett, Gary Gary Barnett in 1995 played the fairy godmother in the most compelling Cinderella story to come along in years. As head coach he guided the Northwestern University football team, longtime lovable losers of the Big Ten Conference, to a national top-10 ranking. When Barnett arrived on the campus of Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., in 1992, the Wildcats had not had a winning season since 1971. Between 1979 and 1982 they lost 34 consecutive games, setting the all-time futility mark in the history of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-A football. Northwestern had not won a Big Ten title since 1936, and in its entire football history the team had played in only one bowl game, the 1949 Rose Bowl. During Barnett's first three seasons, the Wildcats turned in typically poor performances, winning only 8 games while losing 24 and tying one. Through those years, however, he recruited a high calibre of student-athlete and built the confidence of the coaching staff and players. The results of his patience and dedication shone through in the very first game of the 1995 season, when Northwestern surprised Notre Dame 17-15; it was its first win there in 34 years. A disappointing loss to Miami (Ohio) the next week seemed to erase all the promise of the Notre Dame victory. But, playing rugged and fundamentally sound football, the Wildcats won the next nine games, including victories over two national powerhouses, Michigan and Penn State. Barnett's squad finished the Big Ten schedule without a loss, and after Michigan defeated Ohio State in the last week of the regular season, Northwestern claimed sole possession of the conference title and a trip to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Though Northwestern lost 41-32 to Southern California in the Rose Bowl, it was ranked eighth in the final national poll and had captured the nation's attention as the biggest story of the year in NCAA football. Barnett was born May 23, 1946, in Lakeland, Fla. He attended the University of Missouri at Columbia, where he played wide receiver on the football team and earned a bachelor's degree in 1969. He remained at Missouri, taking a master's degree in education in 1971 and working as a graduate assistant coach for the football team. After a decade as a successful high-school coach, Barnett became head coach at Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colo., in 1982. He moved in 1984 to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he served as an assistant coach and was offensive coordinator of the 1990 national championship team. After Northwestern's success Barnett received many different Coach of the Year honours, including the Bear Bryant Award. (JAMES HENNELLY) Benetton, Luciano A duck drenched with crude oil, a man's naked derriere stamped "HIV Positive," the blood-soaked uniform of a soldier killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina: these were not the sort of images one generally associated with fashionable clothing--unless one happened to be Luciano Benetton, the driving force behind the Benetton Group, the billion-dollar family-run apparel empire that conquered the fashion world in the 1980s with its bright-coloured knitwear. Self-described "tastemaker" Benetton and creative director Oliviero Toscani conducted a "shock" advertising campaign that focused not on the company's products but on controversial social issues. Benetton argued that the ads reflected the company's social consciousness and advocacy of tolerance and diversity; others branded them immoral. By mid-1995 the Benetton Group had lost lawsuits in France (a court ruled that the "HIV Positive"-stamped flesh "evoked Nazi barbarity") and in Germany. Born in Treviso, Italy, on May 13, 1935, Benetton left school at age 14 to work in a clothing store after the death of his father, a businessman. In 1965 he, his brothers, Carlo and Gilberto, and his sister, Giuliana, formed the company--now based in Ponzano Veneto, Italy--that would eventually have more than 7,000 retail outlets in some 120 countries. Reputedly, the sale of Luciano's bicycle had raised the money needed to buy the company's first knitting machine. More important, the implementation of a wool-softening process that he had encountered in Scotland helped establish a pattern of productivity and innovation that would become the company's trademark. Under a "system of services," Benetton contracted out most manufacturing to smaller textile producers and specialized in design, dying, and cutting. It also established an unusual franchise arrangement whereby independent retailers stocked only Benetton clothing. Franchises proliferated wildly and, helped by favourable exchange rates, the firm prospered during the 1980s and early '90s even as its primary market, Western Europe, suffered a recession. During this period the Benetton family began to diversify its holdings, but by 1994 the core apparel business was struggling owing to the continuing recession. A group of store owners in Germany refused to pay for stock, claiming that the controversial advertising had caused sales to drop by 30-50%. Blaming poor local management for the losses, the Benetton Group sued the rebellious stores for nonpayment and in February 1995 won a case in a German court. In July, however, a German appellate court ruled that the advertising violated the standards of fair competition because it exploited human suffering by using compassion for commercial purposes. Wary of shock advertising, Benetton's siblings appeared to be wresting control of the company from the man who had once posed naked for a poster to raise money for the homeless. (JEFF WALLENFELDT) Bjrk Already unique among pop stars because of her unlikely origins, Bjrk went a step farther in 1995 and created for herself a distinct musical identity that transcended mere geographic boundaries. The Iceland native, employing spectacular vocal gymnastics and an insatiable desire for experimentation, forged a career that by 1995 had catapulted her from the punk-rock clubs of Reykjavk to international recognition and critical acclaim. Bjrk Gudmundsdottir was born in Reykjavk on Nov. 21, 1965. She recorded her first solo album, a collection of cover versions of popular songs, as an 11-year-old music student in 1977. Although she never took voice lessons, the diminutive singer credited her vocal technique to breath control learned while studying karate. Throughout her teens she performed with various short-lived bands, ending up at age 18 with Kukl, a punk group that eventually became the Sugarcubes. With Bjrk as lead vocalist the Sugarcubes won acclaim in the U.K. with the single "Birthday" and their first album, Life's Too Good (1986). After recording two more albums, Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week! and Stick Around for Joy, over the next five years, the band broke up, and Bjrk embarked on a solo career. In 1993 she released Debut, her first international solo album. Debut produced a number of hit singles--"Human Behaviour," "Venus as a Boy," "Big Time Sensuality," and "Violently Happy"--and won Bjrk the Best International Newcomer and Best International Female Artist awards at the 1994 Brit awards. The album sold more than 2.5 million copies. It was a departure from the harder-edged sound of the Sugarcubes and included a wide variety of musical styles ranging from techno-pop to jazz. Never content to conform--even to her own standards--Bjrk sought to challenge herself even more for her next album because, she said, pop music should reflect the varying moods of the "emotional roller coaster" of everyday life. After two years she produced Post. The 1995 release opened with the single "Army of Me," a characteristically throbbing, synthesized track accompanied by the singer's now-familiar breathy yodel. Farther into the album, however, Bjrk traveled a strange musical journey, accompanied at times by strings and even a harpsichord. Ironically, the futuristic musical journey of Post reached perhaps its wildest moment with "It's Oh So Quiet," the cover of a 1940s big-band tune originally performed by the movie star Betty Hutton. Bjrk's shrill version of the song included a 20-piece orchestra. Critics and fans praised the new album and wondered where Bjrk's musical whims would take her next. (ANTHONY G. CRAINE) Blake, Sir Peter James A knighthood beats every other distinguishing mark in New Zealand. When the South Pacific nation of 3.5 million people wrested the America's Cup from the U.S. in mid-May, in the challenge series off San Diego, Calif., Peter Blake served as "grunt" aboard the winning yacht, Black Magic. On board he was a "mainsheet traveler," assisting a trimmer in the gut-wrenching task of supplying sail as signaled by the shipboard hierarchy. Ashore, however, Blake was in charge of the whole Team New Zealand operation. When the final gun sounded the victory, he was acclaimed as the vital factor. Back home supporters, who had bought 100,000 pairs of Blake's "lucky" red socks to raise money for the team, made him a national hero. Russell Coutts, Black Magic's young skipper, had put it this way: "We all think we've sailed a lot, but Peter has sailed more. . . . Everyone on this boat respects Peter." At 46, Blake was the master of round-the-world odysseys (including many Whitbread races), two-man races, Fastnet Cups, and even a catamaran charging round the world. In previous attempts to win the America's Cup, Sir Michael Fay, a businessman interested in yachting, had established himself as the Kiwi patron and manager, without bringing all the pieces together on the water or any of the pieces home in victory. Blake came aboard after circling the world in a catamaran--a 90-footer--and capturing the 1994 Jules Verne Trophy for completing that course in 74 days, 22 hours. He was used to crowds--and solitude. "This is the toughest thing I have ever been involved with. . . . There is always something else to consider. . . . In the Whitbread you were off on your own. . . . Here it's the time on the boat, sailing, that I look forward to." Blake was born in Auckland, N.Z., on Oct. 1, 1948. He was interested in learner yachts at age 8 and built his first ocean racer (a 24-footer) at 18. Blue water beckoned the following year when he won a New Zealand junior off-shore championship. By 1979 he had participated in a number of international classics, including the first two Whitbreads round-the-world. Blake was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1983 and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1991. In the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 1995, for his contribution to yachting over the years, he was awarded the title Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. At year's end he was planning New Zealand's America's Cup defense, scheduled for 2000. (JOHN A. KELLEHER) Boyz II Men By 1995 the vocal quartet Boyz II Men had harmonized their way into the record books and earned many of the music industry's top prizes, including multiple Grammy awards for best rhythm and blues vocal group performance. In 1992 their recording of "End of the Road," from the movie sound track of Boomerang, spent 13 consecutive weeks in the number one slot on Billboard's pop chart, eclipsing by two weeks the previous record set by Elvis Presley--"Don't Be Cruel" backed with "Hound Dog"--in 1956. In 1994 after Whitney Houston broke their record by spending 14 weeks at number one with "I Will Always Love You," Boyz II Men came back to tie her record with "I'll Make Love to You." Then, as if to punctuate their success with an exclamation point, the release of their follow-up single, "On Bended Knee," put them with an elite group of artists (Elvis Presley and the Beatles) who succeeded themselves at the number one spot. The members of Boyz II Men included Wanya (pronounced wan-YAY) Morris and Nathan Morris (the group's founder and no relation to Wanya), who were born in 1973 and 1971, respectively, and Shawn Stockman and Michael McCary, who were both born in 1972. They grew up in separate neighbourhoods of Philadelphia and came together as high-school friends at the Philadelphia High School for the Performing Arts, where they studied classical music and vocal arts. The name Boyz II Men came from a song that had been recorded by the pop quintet New Edition. In 1989 the quartet managed to meet Michael Bivins--who had been a member of New Edition--and gave him an impromptu audition. Bivins later signed on as their manager and helped define their gentlemanly image. In 1991 Boyz II Men debuted on Motown records with the album Cooleyhighharmony, which went on to sell more than seven million copies. That success led to the enormous popularity of "End of the Road," and in 1994 the group helped write and produce the album II, which included the hits "I'll Make Love to You" and "Water Runs Dry." As 1995 drew to a close, singles continued to be released from II, a Spanish version of the album was planned, and the quartet pondered what future musical direction they would take. Said Stockman, "We don't want to limit ourselves creatively. . . . We don't want to be considered just R&B singers." (ANTHONY L. GREEN) Bussell, Darcey Andrea When the Royal Ballet's fall season began in London in October 1995, the star of the season opener, Swan Lake, was to have been Darcey Bussell. For the second year in a row, however, injury deprived her of that opportunity. It deprived the audience as well. In her few years with the company, she had come to be regarded as one of the finest ballerinas in the world, equally at home in such dramatic classical ballets as Giselle and Romeo and Juliet and the more modern works of George Balanchine. Her fame was not confined to the ballet stage, however. With the beauty, height, and long legs of a supermodel, Bussell found her way onto the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair. In addition, she appeared on television with, for example, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (q.v.); her portrait was hung in the National Portrait Gallery; and she screen-tested with Harrison Ford for the remake of the classic movie Sabrina (though the part finally went to an actress believed to have greater name recognition). Bussell was born April 27, 1969, in London. When she began attending White Lodge, the Royal Ballet's lower school, at the age of 13, she had difficulty with the strenuous exercises and dance routines. Though she had been studying ballet since she was a small child, she had started her serious training later than most students at the school. She persevered nevertheless, and in 1986, when she was 17, she was chosen for the lead in a school performance at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House. She also won the Prix de Lausanne that year. After Bussell graduated in 1987, she was taken into the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet (later Birmingham Royal Ballet). A year later she was back at the Royal Ballet as a soloist, having been selected to create the role of Princess Rose in Sir Kenneth MacMillan's new version of The Prince of the Pagodas. She was promoted to principal dancer the day after its premiere in 1989, and in 1990 she was named Dance & Dancers magazine's Dancer of the Year. Bussell went on to perform every major role in the Royal Ballet's repertoire and made frequent guest appearances with such companies as the New York City Ballet, the Paris Opra Ballet, and the Frankfurt (Germany) Ballet. She was praised especially for the purity and radiance of her dancing, her strength and dynamism, and the intelligence and passion with which she portrayed her characters. Her intelligence was also evident in her attitude about injuries. Even after being sidelined for more than six months in 1994, Bussell felt that the time off had been valuable for her mental growth and had brought a new maturity and confidence to her work. Her audience was delighted when recovery from her latest injury enabled her to return to the stage late in the year. (BARBARA WHITNEY) Chan, Jackie Since crashing onto the martial-arts movie scene in the late 1970s, Hong Kong actor-director Jackie Chan had been a smash. The popular film star broke box-office records in Asia, along with many of the bones in his body, by performing his own outrageous acrobatic stunts that gave his adventure-comedy films a kinetic blend of over-the-top action and engaging physical humour. Although he had cracked movie markets in Europe, Australia, and South America, he had had little impact in the U.S.--the film capital of the world. If 1995 was any indication, however, he was poised for his big American break; in June he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S. cable network MTV. His blockbuster films Rumble in the Bronx and Thunderbolt were released in Asia in January and August, respectively. Although Rumble in the Bronx had limited U.S. distribution in 1995, it was slated for broad U.S. release in 1996, along with some of his classic titles. Reportedly, Chan's impoverished parents nearly sold him for a pittance to the British doctor who delivered him in Hong Kong on April 7, 1954. When he was six years old, his family moved to Canberra, Australia, but the following year they sent him back alone to Hong Kong to attend a strict boarding school for Peking opera. From 7 to 17 he studied acrobatics, singing, martial arts, and mime--skills that launched him into a professional tumbling troupe and landed him bit roles as a child actor and, later, as a stuntman. He was discovered by independent film producer Lo Wei, who, hoping to find a successor to the late Bruce Lee, cast him in a series of lacklustre kung fu movies in 1976-78. Chan soon traded in Lee's gritty persona for a hero more in the mold of silent-film star Harold Lloyd. This penchant for physical comedy first emerged in the 1978 films Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, in which he played a bumbling but talented student of martial arts. In 1980 Chan made his directorial debut in Young Master with the production company Golden Harvest, which he subsequently helped to transform into Hong Kong's largest movie conglomerate. In the early 1980s, at the time when he was making an unsuccessful foray into English-language cinema, he moved beyond traditional martial arts period movies to modern action-adventure films, such as Project A (1983) and Police Story (1985) and their sequels. These films, which brought him newfound stardom, showcased his directorial talent for fight and stunt choreography. His own stunts were literally death-defying; he nearly perished from a fall in Armour of God (1986) that fractured his skull and impaired his hearing. Because of their spectacular nature, Chan's films were often interrupted by shots of the same stunt in succession from different angles, and mishaps were generally arranged in a montage of outtakes that appeared as the credits rolled. (TOM MICHAEL) Chirac, Jacques Ren On his third attempt to win the French presidency, Mayor Jacques Chirac of Paris at last succeeded in May 1995. First topping his friend and fellow Gaullist Prime Minister douard Balladur, Chirac then was pitted against the Socialist Party (PS) candidate, Lionel Jospin. With France facing a soaring budget deficit and steadily rising unemployment, Chirac convinced voters that a change was needed and that he was the man for the job. Two times the prime minister of France (1974-76 and 1986-88), Chirac had twice before run for president. His first attempt, in 1981, split the conservative vote with Valry Giscard d'Estaing and resulted in the election of Franois Mitterrand of the PS. When a strong conservative coalition won a slight majority in the National Assembly in 1986, Mitterrand appointed Chirac prime minister. This power-sharing arrangement, known as cohabitation, gave Chirac the lead in domestic affairs. He ran against Mitterrand in 1988 but was defeated in runoff elections. Chirac was born on Nov. 29, 1932. He graduated from the Institut d'tudes Politiques de Paris in 1954, served as an army officer in Algeria (1956-57), and earned a graduate degree from the cole Nationale d'Administration in 1959. He then became a civil servant and rose rapidly through the ranks, serving as a department head and a secretary of state before becoming minister for parliamentary relations in 1971-72 under Pres. Georges Pompidou. He was elected to the National Assembly as a Gaullist successively from 1967. After serving as minister of agriculture (1972-74) and the interior (1974), Chirac was appointed prime minister by newly elected President Giscard. Citing personal and professional differences with Giscard, Chirac resigned that office in 1976 and set about reconstituting the Gaullist Union of Democrats for the Republic into a neo-Gaullist group, the Rally for the Republic. With the new party firmly under his control, Chirac was elected mayor of Paris in 1977. He proceeded to build up his political base among France's several conservative parties, and it was this power base that ultimately led to his victory. One of his first moves in office was to name Alain Jupp prime minister. Soon Jupp was embroiled in a scandal over his distribution of city-owned apartments to friends and cronies, a scandal that threatened to involve Chirac as well. In a decision of more far-reaching proportions, Chirac insisted upon the resumption of nuclear tests in the South Pacific. He remained undaunted by the international protests pouring into his office. On the home front, at year's end he faced workers' strikes of major proportions. (KATHLEEN KUIPER) Cho, David Yonggi The flourishing Christian church in South Korea owed much of its vitality to the Rev. David Yonggi Cho, who in September 1995 was unanimously reelected in Jerusalem to serve as chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. Cho Yonggi was born on Feb. 14, 1936, in a country village of Kyongsang Namdo, Korea. At the age of 17, when he was dying from tuberculosis, he experienced a healing from God and was led into the Christian faith. After graduating from Full Gospel Theological Seminary in 1958, he opened a tent church on a hillside near Seoul. At that time many Koreans were homeless and jobless as a consequence of the Korean War. Cho's hopeful message and reports of faith healing attracted many of the unfortunate to his church. As the congregation grew, the church was moved to a downtown area of Seoul and in 1973 to a new sanctuary known as Yoido Island. By 1981 Cho's congregation was said to include 200,000 people, and by 1995 it numbered an incredible 700,000. The central philosophy of Pastor Cho's ministry was the fivefold message of the gospel: rebirth, fullness of the Holy Spirit, blessings, healing, and the return of Jesus Christ to Earth; and the threefold message of salvation: spiritual, circumstantial, and physical blessings, presented as the nucleus of the gospel. Characteristic elements of his message were: the presence of God's kingdom, God's absolute sovereignty, total redemption and salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, and walking together with the Holy Spirit. Fluent in English and Japanese, Cho had preached the gospel through television and radio in the U.S., Japan, Africa, and elsewhere. The church had sent more than 700 missionaries to 472 churches in 48 nations, including some in the Third World. Cho was also chairman of the Kook-min Daily, a newspaper he founded on Christian principles in 1988. The social work of the church included Elim Social Welfare Town, which cared for senior citizens who had no supporting families. Poverty-stricken young men and women were also trained there in a choice of four occupations. With funds earned from wastepaper collected for recycling, the Yoido Full Gospel Church had been able to give 2,000 children a new lease on life through open-heart surgery. The Bread of Grace an ongoing coin-collection campaign, supported Food for the Hungry programs throughout the world. Recently rice, clothes, medicine, and medical vehicles were given to some of the world's poorest nations. On Oct. 3, 1994, Cho led the World Prayer Rally via satellite, linking Korea's one million Christians with delegates from 133 nations gathered on Seoul's Yoido Plaza as they prayed for world peace and the preservation of the environment. (KANG SUK-KYU) Christo and Jeanne-Claude On June 25, 1995, when the last panel of silver fabric fell into place, the biggest artwork of the year was completed in Berlin by site artists Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude. But this was a veiling, not an unveiling; "Wrapped Reichstag" covered the 101-year-old German parliament building with 100,000 sq m (1,076,000 sq ft) of fabric held in place by nearly 16 km (10 mi) of blue rope. In a now-familiar pattern, skeptics wary of the concept delighted in the execution, seeing in the wrapped structure a monumentality and mystery that symbolized . . . something, perhaps the end of one historical era and the beginning of another or the transformation of control to freedom. All this monumentality carried an equally impressive price tag--some $10 million. Christo Javacheff was born in Gabrovo, Bulg., on June 13, 1935, the son of a textile mill owner and the general secretary of an art academy. After attending the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia, Bulg., he went to Prague. His family had already run afoul of the communist government; the 1956 Hungarian uprising led him to flee, with Paris as his ultimate destination. While working there as a portrait artist, Christo met Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon, whom he married in 1959. Jeanne-Claude, who was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on the same day in 1935 as her husband, was once described as her husband's publicist and business manager. She later received equal billing with him in all creative and administrative aspects of their work. Christo began his Dadaist wrapping on a small scale--bottles, motorcycles, a girl, a tree--and created shrouded and packaged forms. Then in 1968 he and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Kunsthalle (art museum) in Bern, Switz., and in 1969 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. They created huge plastic packages of "wrapped air" in Eindhoven, Neth.; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Kassel, West Germany. They hung the "Valley Curtain" across Rifle Gap in the Colorado Rockies (1972), and they wrapped a beach in Australia (1969) and the Pont Neuf in Paris (1985). The couple surrounded 11 Florida islands with pink skirts (1983), ran a 39.5-km (24.5-mi)-long white fabric fence through Marin and Sonoma counties in California (1976), and, in a 1991 project, installed 1,340 giant blue umbrellas across the Sato River valley in Japan and 1,760 giant yellow ones in Tejon Pass, California. As the scope of their projects widened, increased time was needed for planning and construction phases, the securing of permits, and environmental impact research. For each project they formed a corporation, which secured financing and sold the primary models and sketches. Most installations were documented in print and on film, and the materials that created them were sold or given away after the projects were dismantled. (ANITA WOLFF) Close, Glenn On July 2, 1995, Glenn Close took her final bow as the delusional former film star Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatrical production of Sunset Boulevard. Critics had hailed Close's definitive portrayal of the murderous, manipulative Desmond as an artistic triumph, an opinion shared by Close's peers, who presented her with the 1995 Tony award for best actress in a musical. Although best known for her work in films, for which she had received five Academy Award nominations, Close was no stranger to the footlights. She had a long and distinguished theatrical rsum and had received Tony awards in 1984 and 1992 for her work in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden. One of the few performers to be nominated for the top awards in film, theatre, and television, Close also earned an Emmy award for her 1995 role in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story. Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Conn., a town that her ancestors had helped found in the 17th century. Her father was a well-known surgeon who, when Close was 13, left the mansions and well-manicured lawns of Greenwich to open a medical clinic in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire). Close spent several years in Africa and at boarding schools in Switzerland before returning to Connecticut to live with her grandmother and attend Rosemary Hall, an exclusive girl's school in Greenwich. Following her high-school graduation in 1965, Close spent several years touring Europe and the U.S. with the musical group "Up with People." In 1970 she enrolled at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. After graduating in 1974 with a degree in drama and a Phi Beta Kappa key, she joined the New Phoenix Repertory Company and made her Broadway debut that same year. A succession of other theatre roles followed, and Close's reputation grew. In 1980 she received a Tony award nomination for her role in Barnum, drawing the attention of motion-picture director George Roy Hill, who offered her a role in The World According to Garp (1982), for which she received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress. Following her film debut in Garp, Close was nominated for Oscars in 1983 and 1984 as best supporting actress for roles in The Big Chill and The Natural. In 1987 and 1989 she received best actress Academy Award nominations for her roles as a psychopathic temptress in the thriller Fatal Attraction and as the scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, but she again failed to win. Although theatre remained her first love, Close continued to accept television and film roles--but only if they were interesting. (JOHN H. MATHEWS) Davies, Paul Charles William On May 3 the mathematical physicist Paul Davies was awarded the 1995 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Professor of natural philosophy at the University of Adelaide, Australia, Davies received the honour, which carried a monetary award of $1 million, for his effo