
Actor Kurt Russell makes 4th of July visit to Arlington home of ancestor killed in Revolutionary War
'According to legend, the actor's forefather shot down and bayoneted on his own doorstep,' the statement said.
Advertisement
After the battle, British regulars went through every home, ransacking and plundering them before setting the homes on fire, the statement said. There are at least 13 surviving scars on the property from the battle.
After visiting the home, Russell and his son took a tour guide to the Old Burying Ground, where they saw the gravesite of Jason Russell and his compatriots. Russell said in the statement that it was 'an incredibly eye-opening experience' after visiting both locations.
'It was haunting to see the bullet holes that remain in the wall from that fateful battle, but it was also inspiring,' Russell said. 'To see the grave of Jason Russell was something I won't ever forget. That's a humbling reminder of how grateful we should be for the freedom that our forefathers fought for and won for us.'
Advertisement
Adam Sennott can be reached at

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


American Press
4 hours ago
- American Press
Swimming with Sharks: Behind the (underwater) lens
Dan Beecham is a British underwater cinematographer who specializes in shooting wildlife sequences for documentaries. In this photo Beecham took, he films Bertie Gregory for his latest show, 'Sharks Up Close With Bertie Gregory.' (Dan Beecham / National Geographic) Patience is a crucial virtue for a cinematographer — in particular for underwater cameraman Dan Beecham. Beecham was part of a team of divers and cinematographers who followed National Geographic explorer Bertie Gregory on a cage-free mission to film the great white sharks off the coast of South Africa. The film, 'Sharks Up Close With Bertie Gregory' premieres at 9 p.m. today on National Geographic and will stream starting July 6 on Disney+ and Hulu as part of the channel's 15 days of 'Sharkfest' presentations. 'What's nice in this film is it did give quite an honest representation of what wildlife filming can be like,' Beecham said in a Zoom interview with the American Press. 'It can be a lot of sitting around in a boat, in the rain, everyone getting kind of fed up because things aren't happening. But the reality is at any moment the next 10 minutes could be what makes the film.' Beecham said it only takes minutes for the water's visibility to change, for the wildlife sought to appear, and for the magic to happen. 'You've got to stay a bit frosty all the time and even when for weeks on end the thing's not happening — as you see in the film — you just have to pretend it is going to happen at any moment, really,' Beechum said. The team spent five weeks in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, searching for the elusive white shark. Some days involved diving as long as five hours at a time. 'Every morning when 5 a.m. rolls around and you're getting up to get out to sea for sunrise, and you haven't dived in weeks, you've got to pretend everything is going to happen — the gears are ready, the batteries are charged, everything is perfect on the camera because the universe knows when you let your guard drop, that's when it all happens,' he said. 'We've had to learn that the hard way.' Beecham said the job can have its drawbacks — like being away from home quite often, moving in and out of airports, and experiencing extreme temperatures — but it's something he adores doing. 'It often looks like more fun than it is, but we all love those moments when the really big thing happens that we might not have ever seen before,' he said. 'We might know no one else has seen this on TV before and you're looking down at the monitor seeing something amazing on screen and you know it's going to be on a big screen one day. That's an amazing buzz. That's a drug that's impossible to replicate. As a cameraman, it gives you such an adrenaline hit.' Underwater, there's no script and surprises happen. Though the film's focus is the white shark, playful seals followed the cameraman around, popping up to examine his monitors. He also captured footage of a mother whale sleeping as her calf rode her dorsal fin. 'We never would have guessed that would happen on that shoot,' Beecham said. 'Just by spending the time out there, having the right approach with the animals — myself and Bertie have both worked with whales a lot in different parts of the world — and with a very cautious manner, that's what gets you those encounters.' No two dives are alike. Beecham said he learns something new each time — either about himself or the world around him. 'Especially in South Africa where the weather changes so much, the ocean changes so much. Everywhere you go these days people say the weather is different, the weather is changing more. That makes shoots very difficult to plan and predict because the conditions are so unpredictable. That means you have to be ready for anything at any time. Each thing that happens you have to take as a gift because it might not happen again.' The ultimate message of the film is how humans and sharks can share the ocean together. By entering their domain, Beecham said the team quickly discovered the challenges sharks are facing on this rapidly changing planet. 'It's a bold topic to go towards with the film because the two attacks there that happened where very shocking for the town. It was pretty horrific attacks,' he said. 'We're certainly not making light of those by going and diving with these animals. We do it with the upmost respect. But it's an important topic to shine a light on and talk about and it's good for Bertie to go and speak to all of the stakeholders — the shark spotters and all the different parties that are involved there — and get an understanding from an outsiders' point of view. There's a line Bertie says in the film, 'You can't manage sharks, but you can manage people,' to make it to where sharks and people can co-exist. That's a great way to sum this up. That's what has to happen, basically.'


Boston Globe
6 hours ago
- Boston Globe
A Napoleon from Long Island meets his Waterloo
'For me, it's not a problem,' Springuel said. 'But the public doesn't expect that from Napoleon,' he said. For the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the organizers held their biggest reenactment in a decade, with 2,200 actors restaging the battle last weekend before 17,000 spectators. Advertisement Mark Schneider, born on Long Island, New York, secured the job over other would-be Napoleons, including from Belgium and Italy, in part because of his unrivaled ability to command respect on the battlefield, several organizers said. 'Even though it's 200-plus years later, they look to me as their Napoleon, and I look to them as my Grande Armée,' said Schneider, 55. For anyone who had an issue with his American accent, well, 'haters gonna hate,' said Schneider, who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he works as a historian and professional actor. He added that Napoleon himself, born in Corsica, spoke French with an Italian accent (especially when angry), so 'it's very Napoleon to speak French with an accent.' Many of the reenactors' assignments aligned with their nationalities: German and Polish reenactors formed the Prussian battalions, British fought with the British, and French with the French. But there were exceptions: Portuguese reenactors studied Dutch phrases so they could follow their Dutch-speaking unit, Czech people fought with the French (the stylish uniforms were a draw, one said), and some Spaniards and Italians fought in a kilt-wearing Scottish battalion. Advertisement And then, of course, there was the American leader of the French army. Schneider has in recent years become the most sought-after Napoleon globally. 'I get more street cred, if you will, because I rose up through the ranks,' he said, referring to his start as a rank-and-file reenactment soldier. 'I didn't immediately make myself the emperor.' In 2015, for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, organizers chose a French Napoleon, Frank Samson, a lawyer in Paris. But Samson's retirement just after the battle sparked a search for replacements. For bigger anniversaries, like the 210th, organizers stage a larger event, while holding smaller reenactments in other years. Franky Simon, a reenactment organizer who played Napoleon's right-hand man, Marshal Michel Ney, said that organizers had to search far and wide for an emperor up to par for this year's battle. 'For small events, we take a local Napoleon, and for big events, we take Mark,' said Simon, a Belgian librarian, praising Schneider's equestrian skills. Last year, Jean-Gérald Larcin of Belgium played Napoleon for the pared down 209th anniversary. On Sunday morning, on a wheat field rented from a farmer, war reenactors and 100 horses staged the battle -- which lasted around 10 hours in real life -- in 90 minutes. One reenactor had to be assisted off the field because of the heat, made more trying by the woolen uniforms as temperatures soared into the high 80s. Advertisement At the time of the 1815 battle, the real Napoleon Bonaparte, 45, had recently left exile on Elba and returned to power. At Waterloo, on June 18, he faced a coalition of European armies, led by Britain's Duke of Wellington and Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher of Prussia. More than 60,000 men were killed, wounded or captured in the battle, which ended Napoleon's reign and France's quest to dominate Europe. In a speech at the start to hundreds of reenactors, Michael Haynes, who played a British general, tied Waterloo to modern events. 'We are going to remind the world of how that tyrant was stopped and pulled down,' he said of Napoleon. 'We will encourage Europe and the world that there is hope when faced with oppression.' Haynes spent the nights leading up to the battle camping in one of the hundreds of tents erected a few miles from the French army's encampment. (He confessed that he slept on an air bed, not a wooden and canvas one, like some of the most dedicated reenactors). While the mood among the allied forces before the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was reported to have been anxious, the encampment last week was lively. Alcohol flowed freely, and drinking songs lasted until the early hours. When, at 7 a.m. one day, someone started playing bagpipes, shouts of 'shut up,' with expletives, could be heard from the tent of an annoyed reenactor trying to sleep, according to Mair Mason, from Birmingham, England, who played a friend of the Duke of Wellington's wife. As for Schneider, after 20 years of leading the French army into mock battles across Europe, he plans to pass the baton following his career-crowning performance at Waterloo. Advertisement 'There are a bunch of Napoleons popping up left and right,' he said. 'I want to give them an opportunity. Whether they be the Polish Napoleon, the Dutch Napoleon, or the Belgian.' Or maybe, one day, Napoleon will be French again. This article originally appeared in


Boston Globe
15 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Actor Kurt Russell makes 4th of July visit to Arlington home of ancestor killed in Revolutionary War
The home, which was built by 'According to legend, the actor's forefather shot down and bayoneted on his own doorstep,' the statement said. Advertisement After the battle, British regulars went through every home, ransacking and plundering them before setting the homes on fire, the statement said. There are at least 13 surviving scars on the property from the battle. After visiting the home, Russell and his son took a tour guide to the Old Burying Ground, where they saw the gravesite of Jason Russell and his compatriots. Russell said in the statement that it was 'an incredibly eye-opening experience' after visiting both locations. 'It was haunting to see the bullet holes that remain in the wall from that fateful battle, but it was also inspiring,' Russell said. 'To see the grave of Jason Russell was something I won't ever forget. That's a humbling reminder of how grateful we should be for the freedom that our forefathers fought for and won for us.' Advertisement Adam Sennott can be reached at