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• Jethro Tull, ‘…And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps’ (1978)

  

  The English prog-rock band’s 11th album, Heavy Horses, was inspired by leader Ian Anderson’s life on his new country estate. For the rustic rocker “….And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps,” he salutes his cat Mistletoe, who must’ve had the mice around the place on constant high alert: “With claws that rake a furrow red/Licensed to mutilate,” Anderson sings. The end of the song turns its title into a scary, growled chant, enough to make any rodent scurry for the next farm.—Jon Dolan

• Phoebe Buffay, ‘Smelly Cat’ (1995)

  

  Phoebe Buffay’s signature song was almost about a different household pet. “My dog was so smelly his name was Gouda, because he smelled like bad cheese,” said Friends writer Betsy Borns, who helped craft the song. We’re lucky that didn’t happen, because this stinky feline made for some great Friends moments, like when Lisa Kudrow taught it to Chrissie Hynde, or when Phoebe got to make an official Eighties-style music video, only to learn her voice was overdubbed. But she finally got her due in 2015, when Taylor Swift brought Kudrow onstage, in character, during the 1989 tour. Together, they delivered the tale of “Smelly Cat” to thousands in an arena. “This singer has only ever played in coffee houses before,” Swift joked. —Angie Martoccio

• Takako Minekawa, ‘Fantastic Cat’ (1996)

  

  Takako Minekawa always had her own style. The Japanese synth mastermind was one of the most acclaimed artists to emerge from Tokyo’s shibuya-kei scene in the Nineties, along with fellow indie-techno eccentrics like Buffalo Daughter, Kahimi Karie, and Cornelius. On gems like Roomic Cube, she cut her electro grooves with vintage lounge pop. “Fantastic Cat” is her high-energy synth-pop ode to the world’s coolest neko, a groovy kitty who wears chic boots, plays with her Minimoog, and lives in a “candy canvas.” —Rob Sheffield
  

• Ted Nugent, ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ (1977)

  

  The Motor City Madman had a Seventies hard-rock hit with the hot guitar riff and sex-addict metaphor of “Cat Scratch Fever.” Nugent reveals that he first contracted this highly infectious ailment “from the kitty next door” at the tender age of 10. “Well, I make a pussy purr/With the stroke of my hand,” he goes on to specify. It’s the highest-charting song of his career, reaching Number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1977.—J.D.
  

• The Miller Sisters, ‘Ten Cats Down’ (1956)

  

  “Ten Cats Down” is a scratch-and-claw rockabilly classic from the Miller Sisters, in the early days of Sun Records. The Tupelo duo of Elsie Jo and Mildred Miller did their first session with Sam Phillips in Memphis in 1954 — the week before Elvis Presley released “That’s All Right.” On “Ten Cats Down,” these wild gals really put their cat clothes on, flaunting their pads, paws, and claws on the dance floor with their suitors, chanting, “Rock, cat, rock!” —R.S.
  

• Megan Thee Stallion, ‘Kitty Kat’ (2021)

  

  One of the best taunting phrases in English involves cats: “Here, kitty kitty.” It’s also the chorus for Megan Thee Stallion’s “Kitty Kat,” a rap song full of bravado that calls out all of the Houston hottie’s enemies. Instead of pushing her naysayers away, she draws them in closer so she can spit bars at them directly. With bombastic production behind her, Megan walks down all the “pussies”: strangers talking about her on the internet, the label that tried to ruin her success, and other female emcees that try to compete with her prowess. The song establishes Megan as a big dog in the industry, and all the cats better run for shelter–Elise Brisco

• Weakerthans, ‘Plea From a Cat Named Virtue’ (2002)

  

  The Weakerthans were an indie-rock band from Winnipeg, Canada, led by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. This highlight from the band’s 2002 album, Reconstruction Site, is a study in apathy sung from the perspective of Samson’s cat. “Why don’t you ever want to play/I’m tired of this piece of string/You sleep as much as I do now, and don’t eat too much of anything,” the remonstrative feline implores over ironically anthemic guitars. If every slacker’s cat could talk this is what they’d say.—J.D.

• Cab Calloway, ‘Hep Cat’s Love Song’ (1941)

  

  Songwriters looking to work cat imagery into their music have the Harlem jazz musicians of the 1930s and ’40s to thank. The cat began its pop-music life as slang for an especially cool jazz musician. In 1938, swing superstar Cab Calloway published The Hepster’s Dictionary, and recorded a version of it too. Calloway defines a hep cat as “a guy who knows all the answers … a highfalutin’ student of the Calloway vocab.” His finest cat-jazz jam is the 1941 tune “Hep Cat’s Love Song,” which features cool come-ons like “When I hug ya, you stay hugged/When I dig ya, you stay dug.” —J.D.

• Parliament, ‘I Call My Baby Pussycat’ (1970)

  

  Subtlety — who needs it? “I call my baby pussycat! I spell it P-U-S-S-Y!” George Clinton and his P-Funk collective were just getting their act together in 1970. At this early stage, Parliament and Funkadelic were basically the same band with two different names, sharing the same acid-fried rock concept where Jimi Hendrix meets James Brown. “I Call My Baby Pussycat” is the sex-crazed banger from Osmium, with Eddie Hazel wilding out on guitar, looking for love in the litter box. —R.S.
  

• Gene Vincent, ‘Cat Man’ (1957)

  

  Rockabilly madman Gene Vincent became a greaser legend in the Fifties, yelping primitivist hits like “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “Crazy Legs,” with his Virginia band the Blue Caps. But he really makes the fur fly in “Cat Man,” his feral ode to feline bloodlust. Vincent howls and moans like a tomcat in heat — paid, laid, and unspayed. Nick Cave covered “Cat Man” with the Birthday Party — but even Cave sounded like a tame calico by comparison. —R.S.
  

• Melvins, ‘Boris’ (1991)

  

  Melvins opened their Bullhead album in the Year Punk Broke with “Boris,” and it’s still one of the heaviest, sludgiest songs in their repertoire. It also contains one of the best lyrics of the grunge era: “I say I can’t/But I really mean I won’t.” The song bowled over Tool’s Adam Jones so completely he once asked the band’s Buzz Osborne about it. “I said, ‘That song “Boris” really means a lot to me.’ And he says, ‘Oh, that song’s about my cat,’” Jones told Guitar World. “So it’s good to not get too analytical about this stuff.” Maybe so, but knowing this adds weight to the lyrics, especially “Boris likes a lot of little things to kick.” —Kory Grow

• Hiroshi Suzuki, ‘Cat’ (1976)

  

  The late trombonist’s 1976 album was largely forgotten about for decades, until a 2015 reissue gave it a cult following and renewed appreciation. It’s now seen as a Japanese jazz essential, with tight, cohesive cuts (the delightful opener “Shrimp Dance,” the twinkly “Romance”), featuring his former Freedom Unity bandmates (Hiromasa Suzuki, Akira Ishikawa, Takeru Muraoka, and Kunimitsu Inaba). And while the title track is the shortest, it’s Suzuki at his finest — an exploration into deep grooves that drip with each note, effortlessly cool and suave — much like the black cat on the album cover. —A.M.

• T. Rex, ‘Cat Black (The Wizard’s Hat)’ (1969)

  

  
  While Marc Bolan is best known for riding a white swan into a glam-rock haze, T. Rex got their start as the whimsical folk-rockers of tracks like this one from their 1969 LP, Unicorn — about “Catblack the wizard’s hat/Spun in lore from Dagamoor.” It’s not as bombastic a sound as Bolan is known for, but this track is still imbued with the band’s otherworldly lore — Tolkien-flecked, legend-laden, Keatsian. It’s the kind of song you’d hear trailing behind a caravan driven by a coven of witches and their black-cat familiars.—Brenna Ehrlich
  

• Kinks, ‘Phenomenal Cat’ (1968)

  

  Roughly three decades after T.S. Eliot wrote about a “phenomenal cat” named “Mr. Mistoffelees” (and a little more than a decade before Andrew Lloyd Webber immortalized the words), Ray Davies wrote “Phenomenal Cat,” a serene meditation on feline splendor, for the Kinks’ celebrated Village Green Preservation Society album. Davies’ cat had flown all over the world but decided life was best spent getting “big and fat” in a tree. “He just lived to eat ’cause it kept him fat,” Davies sings. “And that’s how he wanted to stay.” Ray’s brother Dave loved the song, telling Rolling Stone, “It’s a metaphor, saying, ‘You do have a soul.’ The cat is the coolest part of you.” He’s right, too.—K.G.

• Prince, ‘Velvet Kitty Cat’ (1984)

  

  Prince was a master of the double entendre, especially when it came to singing about women and sex. Recorded in 1983, “Velvet Kitty Cat” is a silly, synth-y pop song that generally remains light and fun. However, with tongue-in-cheek lines such as “My velvet kitty cat, she’s man’s best friend/Furry, cuddly, and fat,” we’re reminded this is still a track from Prince’s prime. The song was originally intended for the Time or Vanity 6, but it didn’t see an official release until it found its way onto the 2017 posthumous Purple Rain Deluxe Edition and Purple Rain Deluxe Expanded Edition. —Yaasmiyn Alam

• Taylor Swift feat. Ice Spice, ‘Karma’ (2022)

  

  The only pop star whose personal stationery says “Feline Enthusiast.” The only pop star to proclaim herself a “Childless Cat Lady” in a public insult to MAGA. The only pop star to make a video with the Panic! at the Disco guy starring her real-life cats: Olivia, Meredith, and Benjamin. (Let’s not even mention that movie, OK?) Nobody but Taylor could get the whole world singing along with the theological postulate that “Karma is a cat/Purring on my lap ’cause it loves me.” —R.S.
  

• Tacocat, ‘Cat Fancy’ (2012)

  

  Seattle punk rockers Tacocat have the perfect song for any child who subscribed to Cat Fancy, anxiously waiting at the mailbox for their monthly injection of cuteness. As Emily Nokes croons, “Who cares about world affairs?/Who cares about politics?… All cats all the time, that’s what you’re gonna get.” Simple, sweet, surfy, and straightforward, this song captures the pure joy of fiending for felines and cute cat pics. —B.E.
  

• Norma Tanega, ‘Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog’ (1966)

  

  The Greenwich Village folk singer Norma Tanega scored a bizarre worldwide hit in 1966 with “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog.” Her NYC apartment building didn’t allow dogs, so she named her cat “Dog” and took it for walks around the city. (Tanega also became the longtime girlfriend of a more famous pop star: Dusty Springfield.) “Walkin’” became an unlikely U.S. Top 40 hit (it reached Number 22) and blew up even bigger overseas. —R.S. 
  

• Janet Jackson, ‘Black Cat’ (1989)

  

  A funky jam from Janet Jackson’s classic LP Rhythm Nation 1814, “Black Cat” opens with one of the most intense tiger roars ever committed to wax. The song is a cautionary tale about drug abuse and gang violence with a tough heavy-metal guitar riff. “Don’t understand why you insist/On ways of living such a dangerous life,” she sings. The message is pretty clear: Get it together before it’s too late, because you only have nine lives to live. —J.D. 
  

• Pink Floyd, ‘Lucifer Sam’ (1967)

  

  A highlight from Pink Floyd’s psychedelic Summer of Love masterpiece The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, driven by Syd Barrett’s demented dive-bombing rockabilly guitar and his wonder at the mysterious ways of his Siamese cat, Sam. In the lyrics, Sam is transmogrified into a metaphor for another guy who’s always prowling around Syd’s girlfriend. “Be a hip cat, be a ship’s cat/Somewhere, anywhere,” Barrett sings with terrified urgency. Rarely has hanging around with your pet while stoned taken on such stark emotional resonance.—J.D.
  

• Father John Misty, ‘Goodbye Mr. Blue’ (2022)

  

  A feline-folk masterwork, in this elegiac highlight from Father John Misty’s 2022 album Chloë and the Next 20th Century, the singer-songwriter is in the midst of a devastating breakup, and a beloved Turkish Angora is the final shared possession linking FJM and his soon-to-be ex. “This may be the last time/Last time I put on my shoes/Go down to the corner/And buy the damn cat the expensive food,” he sings over a gently flowing acoustic guitar that brings to mind the Harry Nilsson of “EVerybody’s Talkin’.” When Mr. Blue gets sick and dies, the couple share one final moment of poignant togetherness.–J.D.

• Coasters, ‘Three Cool Cats’ (1959)

  

  The B-side to the Coasters’ rock & roll classic “Charlie Brown,” written by songwriting legends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. With an appropriately sly, slinky beat, it’s the story of three cool cats hanging around on the corner, “in a beat up car/Dividing up a nickel candy bar,” watching three cool chicks stroll by and deciding which cat is going to go after which girl. The Beatles did the song in their earliest days as the Quarrymen and demoed it for Decca Records in 1962, with George Harrison on vocals, and it’s been covered by a number of other artists. —J.D.

• David Bowie, ‘Cat People Putting Out Fire’ (1982)

  

  Goth-y, syrupy, and dark, Bowie’s contribution to the 1982 sexy horror film Cat People is about a slinkier kind of feline. Bowie’s velvet baritone — juxtaposed with Giorgio Moroder’s New Wave-washed production — hones in on a Sphinx-like entity with eyes “colder than the moon,” gazing out onto eternity. Kitty has claws, though, whipping Bowie up into a lather akin to “putting out fire with gasoline,” a phrase he turns into a glorious refrain buoyed by a female chorus. But it’s not a cat fight — it’s an erotic slow-burn that erupts into an inferno. —B.E.

• Beyoncé, ‘Kitty Cat’ (2006)

  

  Felines are many things: soft, cunning, dominant, and the perfect metaphor for a woman’s dignity. Beyoncé does an exceptional job at landing this comparison in her B’DAY deep cut, “Kitty Kat.” Over a funked-out Neptunes beat, queen Bey lays out all the failed conditions of the Performance Improvement Plan she put her man on and why she’ll be rescinding her offer of love and “sweet little nookie.” Coming home late? Making her sleep alone? Not calling back? Wack sex game? Time to put her paws on a new Tom cat.–E.B.

• The Grateful Dead, ‘China Cat Sunflower’ (1969)

  

  
  “God knows how I wrote ‘China Cat Sunflower,’” the legendary Dead lyricist Robert Hunter once told us. “I find that writing on pot, I throw an amazing amount of stuff away that looked groovy to me while I’m stoned and doesn’t look groovy afterwards.” Thankfully, he kept this one, and it became one of the band’s most beloved and recognizable gems. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir’s riffs shimmer and interact with each other, like two cats about to playfully pounce for the same snack, which sounds a lot like the trippy journey Hunter went on when he wrote the track in Mexico. “This cat took me in all these cat places,” he said. Sounds like a dream vacation. —A.M.

• The Stray Cats, ‘Stray Cat Strut’ (1981)

  

  Brian Setzer holds the rare distinction of being the only person in the past 69 years to take Carl Perkins literally when he sang, “Go, cat, go!” His band, the Stray Cats, played rockabilly like Perkins, and on the band’s theme song, “Stray Cat Strut,” Setzer, whose spirit animal is a “black and orange stray cat sittin’ on a fence,” did his hero proud with lyrics that are the cat’s whiskers: He meows, struts with his tail in the air, and exudes feline cool, so much so he doesn’t even bother chasing mice around. He’s got cat class, and he’s got cat style. —K.G.

• Elton John, ‘Honky Cat’ (1972)

  

  Elton John has always been a friend to the feline community, but never more so than in his 1972 smash “Honky Cat.” Elton was heavily into Southern-man cosplay in those days, drawling about his “redneck ways” over funky horns and New Orleans-style piano, chanting, “Get back, honky cat!” The same album, Honky Chateau, has his second-furriest cat anthem, “Hercules,” though it’s just a whisker ahead of his 2004 drag-ball tribute, “They Call Her the Cat.” —R.S.
  

• Squeeze, ‘Cool for Cats’ (1978)

  

  Look, some of the lyrics to this 1979 hit haven’t aged all that well, and, no, the song doesn’t have anything to do with actual cats (it’s named after a British TV show from the Fifties). But that chorus is so catchy, and that punk-y disco beat is so bouncy. Let it hit you in the right mood and you’ll be saying it’s cool to be a cat, too. —Simon Vozick-Levinson

• Al Stewart, ‘Year of the Cat’ (1976)

  

  Scottish soft-rock bard Al Stewart had his signature hit with “Year of the Cat,” a smooth short story that provided the title track for his finest album. It’s the tale of a tourist enjoying a “morning from a Bogart movie/In a country where they turn back time.” His trip is upended when he meets a mystery woman who “looks at him coolly” and “comes in incense and patchouli.” The title alludes to astrology, though the cat could also be the patchouli-scented temptress herself.—J.D.
  

• The Cure, ‘The Lovecats’ (1983)

  

  No rock star has ever been more of an honorary cat than Robert Smith. Maybe boys don’t cry, but the Cure frontman always knows how to meow, and “The Lovecats” is his ode to feline romance. He shows off his repertoire of purrs and hisses over that frisky jazz bass line. (Once in the Eighties, Smith appeared on the cover of Melody Maker in tabby drag, with the headline: “Careless Whiskers.”) These “Lovecats” slip down the city streets by night, purring, “Should we have each other with cream?” Robert, goth kitties around the world give you four paws up, forever. —R.S.
  

Had he kept his mouth shut about his racist views for just a couple of years longer, we might never know how hate-filled the guy was, but I tend to think it’s good that he revealed his true nature before he died. Otherwise, the undeserving man would have been more celebrated when he passed.

It is worth mentioning, though, just how successful Adams had been. Dilbert ran from 1999 until 2023, totaling more than 12,000 comic strips. Dilbert appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers at its height. The comic also had tons of merchandise made and a short-lived cartoon series (which was great, but that’s a different hill to die on for another day). The reason for this success was that Dilbert perfectly captured the frustrations of working in a corporate office in a way that was on par with Mike Judge’s 1999 film Office Space, as well as the British and American versions of The Office (especially the British original). Dilbert spoke to people trapped in that monotony themselves, so much so that it became common for office workers to post Dilbert comics on the inside of their cubicles.

Image: Scott Adams

Recently, Polygon has been tracking down the best quotes and panels of some of the greatest comic strips of all time, including Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and The Far Side. And while I still think Adams was an awful person, I wondered if it might be possible to track down the best Dilbert quote, too — a quote that spoke to why the comic was so successful, regardless of the man behind the strip — if such a thing is even possible.

I’ll admit that I didn't enjoy this search as much as the other comic strip pieces I’ve done. When revisiting the likes of Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side, I would get caught up in reading dozens of comics, simply out of the pure joy they brought. But with Dilbert, I couldn’t quite get myself to forget who I was reading, even if the comics themselves were entirely apolitical.

I wanted to pick a quote that spoke to Dilbert’s central, cynical viewpoint, specifically the frustrations of working with people in an office, particularly in a setting where a person feels they are smarter and more qualified than most of the people around and definitely those above them. In that regard, there were a lot of good quotes, like, “Leadership is the art of trading imaginary things in the future for real things today.”

Image: Scott Adams

“The key to happiness is self-delusion” is another good one.

Image: Scott Adams

My favorite that I found ended up being “As you gain experience, you’ll realize that all logical questions are considered insubordination.”

Image: Scott Adams

But regardless of how funny and well-written these quotes are and how well they speak to that corporate frustration that made Adams’ creation famous, I felt like the best Dilbert quote shouldn’t just speak to that cynical sense of frustration. It should also be a rebuke of Adams’ hateful viewpoints, which is why I’ll say that this is the best Dilbert quote:

“When did ignorance become a point of view?”

Image: Scott Adams

There may very well be better Dilbert quotes out there, but that’s about all the Dilbert I can take right now. %!s()

“Ellen asked me to let you know that she recently took a fall,” Gyllenhaal said from the podium. “She’s OK, but she is moving more slowly — which is fine because it’ll give us more time to clap.”

Indeed, the room burst into applause as Burstyn, clad in a vibrant yellow gown, sauntered onto the stage with a walker. Burstyn cried and wiped away her tears with a tissue as she was greeted with a heartfelt, minutes-long standing ovation.

“You’re making me cry!” she said, which did little to stop the enthusiastic applause. “You’re overwhelming me, you know! I don’t know how to recover from that generous greeting.”

Burstyn has achieved a lot in her seven-decade career in Hollywood, which she was quick to remind the crowd, but she puts the Venice award among the top honors.

“You can’t imagine how meaningful this is to me It’s one thing to win an Oscar, a Tony or an Emmy — all of which I’ve won,” she said. “But this … it’s a lot.”

Since she learned she’d receive the Golden Lion, she said, she’s been reflecting on her life — and what it means to get a career tribute.

“At 93, it means you have a far about of lifetime to look back on,” she said. “I thought, maybe it’s not just a record of what you’ve accomplished, but what you’ve learned.”

During her speech, she recalled that while shooting Martin Scorsese’s 1974 drama “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” she was required to film a nighttime driving scene while the director and the cinematographer were blocking her view of the street.

“I couldn’t see the side of the road; I could go off and kill all of us,” Burstyn said. “But then I noticed, this is a two-way road. There’s a white line in the middle of the road, and I can see that. So all I have to do is look up to the left, and follow the white line. And that’s how I managed to not kill Martin Scorsese.”

She then drew a parallel between the funny story and the fraught state of the U.S. right now, saying: “I wanted to close out saying how deeply appreciative I am of this Golden Lion and I hope — no, pray — that my own country will find its own white line.”

Burstyn was awarded the Golden Lion on Monday afternoon during the premiere of Gyllenhaal’s short film “Flesh Impact.” Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson and Murray Bartlett, her co-stars in “Place to Be,” a comedic drama that premieres Wednesday on the Lido, attended the ceremony. The trio were among the first to lead another standing ovation when Burstyn exited the stage and went to sit in the audience.

Dedicated to Marilyn Monroe on what would be her 100th birthday, the 20-minute-long “Flesh Impact” portrays Dakota Johnson as the actress at the height of her fame and Burstyn as the version of Monroe the world never got to see. The star died on Aug. 4, 1962 at age 36 from an acute barbiturate overdose. The short’s title, “Flesh Impact,” comes from a phrase once used to describe the aura of Monroe — “that she looked so real and luminous on camera that viewers felt they could touch her through the screen,” according to the synopsis.

Prior to the ceremony, Burstyn sat on Monday morning for a press conference and spoke about a fleeting encounter with Monroe way back when.

“We never met. We saw each other once. We went to a nightclub, and she was sitting across from me,” Burstyn recalled. “And of course, I was enchanted by just looking at her. She was such a magical creature. And then she looked at me and nodded at me. And I was very early in my career, and I thought, was I just recognized by Marilyn Monroe?”

She had another connection to Monroe, through Ralph Roberts, an actor-turned-masseur to the stars.

“Ralph Roberts, who had been Marilyn’s masseur, and not only that, but her confidant, he had lots of stories to tell me about Marilyn,” Burstyn said. “So I used to get my massages and hear Marilyn’s stories. My favorite one was that her whole persona was a construction.”

Burstyn was asked if she had any other memorable encounters with other Hollywood luminaries, to which she responded, “When I met Marlon Brando briefly, and I almost fainted. That was pretty spectacular.”

Then, she cracked, “I can’t think of anyone else — it mustn’t have impressed me too much.”

She also recalled the early career advice she received from Bette Davis, who was 24 years her senior.

“I had just become known,” Burstyn said. “I was new, but famous. I met [Davis] and she said, ‘Let me tell you one thing, honey. At the beginning of your illustrious career, the only thing that’s important is your work. Anybody that tries to get in the way of you and your work, they’re your enemy. You know what you say to them? ‘You are my enemy.’ I said, “Thank you, Mrs. Davis…” 

Burstyn has two movies at Venice, the other being Kornél Mundruczó’s quirky drama “Place to Be,” which premieres on Wednesday. She stars in “Place to Be” alongside Waititi, Anderson, Édgar Ramírez, Lena Waithe and Bartlett. Mundruczó and Burstyn previously collaborated on “Pieces of a Woman,” which premiered on the Lido in 2020.

Burstyn, who is still acting as a nonagenarian, described her rationale for saying “yes” to projects.

“When I get a script, I sit down and read it — and if it makes me laugh, that’s good. If it makes me cry, that’s good. If it makes me laugh and cry, that’s terrific,” she said. “By the time I finish the script, I have to feel moved in some way to say, ‘I want to do this.'”

As Burstyn mentioned in her Golden Lion Speech, she is one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, earning an Oscar for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and a Tony for “Same Time, Next Year” in 1975, and two Emmys for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Political Animals” in 2009 and 2013, respectively. Over her 60-year career in Hollywood, Burstyn has received dozens of nominations for films and television shows including “The Exorcist,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Requiem for a Dream” and “House of Cards.”

Burstyn believes roles for women in entertainment have changed “enormously” over the decades. She added that although the industry is “not quite 50-50” in terms of parity, “they’re close.”

“When I first started working, which was 150 years ago, there were no women on set. No women crew. No women directing. It was all men,” she said. “If a woman was on set, it meant she was an actress. And then slowly, thanks to blessed Gloria Steinem, who just died, the consciousness started to be changed.” %!s()

Okay, glad we got that out of the way early because at Gamescom I played a little of its remake Persona 4 Revival, alongside interviewing series producer Kazuhisa Wada (via interpreter) to glean some new information and perspective on remaking a game like Persona 4. When I mention this is my first time playing Persona 4 to Wada, I receive a humoured eyebrow raise and the assurance that “We wanted this to be an excellent entry point for those who want their first taste of the game, but in order to do that, we need to get to the essence of what made Persona 4 great, and for that we need to grab the hearts of existing fans and make this game something they would remember.”

My limited time with Revival let me play a little of the main story, early in the game. As transfer student Yu Narukami, partied up alongside awkward classmate Yosuke, we fight a few mooks before encountering Yosuke’s Shadow form. In the real world, Yosuke, also a recent transfer student, has struggled to make friends. In the metaphysical realm, his shadow form manifests as a representation of his desperate hiding behind a class clown mask to cover his fear of loneliness. His shadow, his repressed inner self, is only defeated by Yosuke accepting his inner and outer self together.

In a separate section, we delve into a realm created by the subconscious of Yu's friend Yukiko – and take on the Shadow of Chie, another classmate of Yu. Enveloped by her envy of the conventionally beautiful Yukiko, the dominatrix-themed shadow form claims the girls' friendship is a lie, and purely for Chie's gain.

With there being quite a bit of time spent on combat in this demo, I can happily say that it feels fantastic, and my god, does it look beautiful. Persona 4, for the strength of its artstyle, is ultimately a PS2/PS Vita game, so it is stellar seeing that incredible art direction granted the modern touch of models and effects at the same fidelity as those of Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal. I’m around twenty years late on saying Persona 4 has excellent turn-based combat, I know, but the rhythm of finding weaknesses and playing around patterns keeps me engaged and even led me, as a newcomer, to a touch of struggle against Shadow Chie. Small intricacies like choosing between spending mana or health on spells kept me on my toes, especially with such limited options so early in the game. In their approach to the remake’s combat, Wada lets me know that “as the original system is quite old now, especially compared to the modern standards of Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal, there’s elements in there that will feel a little frustrating. We did our best to remove those stressful moments of the battle systems and update it to modern expectations.” To their credit, I find that the system does feel fair — minus one moment in which Shadow Yosuke obliterates me with two critical hits in a row thanks to the ‘One More’ system allowing for an extra turn on critical or weakness hit. Still, I guess that’s just turn-based RPG luck. So it goes.

Between battles, I have the joy of experiencing Persona 4’s writing and story for the first time. Due to the cultural osmosis inherent to being a girl who’s grown up on the internet, I have a decent awareness of Persona 4’s deal, its general themes of accepting the true self or slowly breaking down, its arcing narrative and its characters; still, actually being able to sit down and take it in via a preview of its remake is something special. The central conflict across the cast of the inner and outer self pulls me in instantly, and I’m impressed by how uncompromising the writing is about how much denying and pushing down your inner self will destroy you from the inside. Yosuke gently admitting “When you get down to it, all of this is me” and Chie yelling out “Don’t look at me!” while their Shadows took over are brilliant, efficient insights into their different approaches to their true selves and both touched my heart.

On a lighter note, after the battle sections, I also got to take the mysterious Marie on a date in the sleepy town of Inaba. Witnessing Yu’s attempt to make his date with Marie exciting in their quiet town during her social link was as touching as it was painfully funny; I’ve been Yu in that situation! It’s an uphill battle! Social links, a bond-making mechanic that not only builds up relationships between Yu and his party members/friends but also makes party members more effective in battle, are core to Persona 4 and apparently won’t be changing much. The story and social links themselves will remain just about the same in Revival, according to Wada, with some minor differences: “Our approach was to not touch the elements that made the game really special, so the characters and story are exactly as they were. That said, there are things that, when we looked at the script, seemed unclear or didn’t have as much information as we wanted to, so we tweaked things a little for additional nuance. The social links are, you know, the core elements of the characters you befriend in the game, so we didn’t really change anything.”

Wada’s note that the story and social links will be untouched other than tweaking a few things for nuance interests me, as I was curious if he’d specify what might be worth taking a second look at. Previously, he’s touched on Yosuke’s characterisation being “a little bit insensitive” (thanks Oisin!), which I take as a gentle way of saying ‘a homophobic asshole’, so a few changes wouldn’t be unwelcome. On the note of changes, Revival has also seen a full recast of its voice actors; from what I heard of the new performances in Revival, they're great, but it’s difficult to ignore the knowledge that several members of the original cast openly stated that they asked to return. Or in the case of original Yosuke actor Yuri Lowenthal specifically, ‘begged’ — so much for a second chance. As such, I’m similarly conflicted knowing that Wada stated in an interview with GamesRadar that “there were quite a few people we weren’t able to get.” In our conversation, Wada shed no more light on that disconnect, but revealed that the auditions for Revival weren’t labelled as such for the actors auditioning, but the team were “listening to the auditions and trying to pick people who matched the vibe of the characters, but at the same time giving them room to take them in their own direction.”

To close out the interview, I ask Wada a question I don’t feel is considered enough in the current zeitgeist of remasters and remakes being the reliable moneymaker for studios: why remake Persona 4 at all? “When we originally conceived the idea of Persona 3 Reload, we knew we wanted to do P4R as well; we had to put it on the backburner, but it was something we thought of at the same time. For me, I think a remaster or remake is some kind of cultural preservation. As a creator, it’s your duty to take the things you’ve done and make sure they’re not lost, and are still around in the modern day. From that same perspective, Persona 1 and 2 are something we’ll probably eventually do too.”

I can’t tell you I was expecting a soft confirmation of remakes of the first two games to come out of this interview, but I’m not about to complain. I appreciate Wada’s answer of cultural preservation being the driving force behind remaking their older work for his genuine acknowledgement that remakes do need a reason to exist other than just ‘money.’ I’m grateful for my time with Revival and Wada, and I think this experience is what has finally convinced me to give Persona 4 Golden a shot. I promise, I’m installing it as I write this!

Travel and accommodation to Gamescom were provided by Hooded Horse.

Still, she said her family's "happiest years" were those spent with her husband, President John F. Kennedy, in the White House.

Before they moved there, the couple lived in a 19th-century red-brick home in Georgetown, Washington, DC, which recently sold for $6.125 million, Mansion Global reported. The Kennedys bought the home in 1957 for $82,000.

While most of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' former homes can only be admired from the outside, one of her final properties is open to visitors.

Parts of what was once known as Red Gate Farm on Martha's Vineyard opened to the public last summer, The Vineyard Gazette reported in 2025. Five miles of public trails meander through the land, which the Kennedy family sold to two nonprofits in 2020 and is now known as Squibnocket Pond Reservation.

Here are all of the impressive places she lived in and owned in her lifetime.

Before she was a Kennedy or an Onassis, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier spent her early years in New York City.

In 1932, the Bouviers moved into an apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of 740 Park Avenue.

The apartment building was developed by her grandfather, James T. Lee, The New York Times reported. At least for a period, her father couldn't afford to furnish it so Jackie and her sister could roller skate from room to room, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The apartment building later became a home for billionaires and was once considered one of the most iconic apartment buildings in the city.

In 2017, her old apartment sold for $25.25 million.

In the 1940s, Bouvier's mother remarried, and they left New York.

They moved into a Georgian-style mansion called "Merrywood" in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, DC.

The 23,000-square-foot mansion, which was built in 1919, had nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms.

Bouvier's mother had married an oil magnate named Hugh D. Auchincloss, who owned the mansion.

The home sits on the edge of the Potomac River and has an extensive garden.

Bouvier wrote fondly about the house in her diary, saying, "I always love it so at Merrywood — so peaceful … with the river and those great steep hills."

Bouvier spent her summers at her paternal grandfather's East Hampton estate.

The 8,500-square-foot home, which was built in 1917, is called "Lasata," which means "place of peace," in the native Algonquian language.

In 2023, fashion designer Tom Ford bought it for $52 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.

She also spent some of her summers at her maternal grandfather's house in East Hampton called "Wildmoor."

The 18th-century home, covering about 5,700 square feet, was a shingle-and-clapboard wooden house with a view of fields, a swamp, and the sea, per the WSJ.

In 2021, the house was sold for $6.8 million.

Her next notable property was the Kennedy family's summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Joseph Kennedy Sr., John F. Kennedy's father, bought a white-shingled cottage in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in 1928 for $25,000, or about $470,000 today. The coastal Massachusetts cottage became the Kennedy family's home base for years to come.

Before they married, Bouvier and John F. Kennedy spent time together there.

It later became known as the "Kennedy Compound."

In 1953, Bouvier became a Kennedy when the couple married in Newport, Rhode Island.

They had the wedding reception at her mother's husband's sprawling estate, known as "Hammersmith Farm," anchored by a grand, 28-room Victorian-era mansion.

The property was last sold in 1999 for just over $8 million.

The estate became a part-time summer home for the Kennedys, along with the Kennedy Compound.

Jackie Kennedy spent summers on the estate during her childhood, and the Kennedys later vacationed there in the summer of 1961.

In 1953, not long after the Kennedys were married, they rented a four-story, four-bedroom house in Washington, DC.

The Kennedys lived there for almost two years.

They enjoyed throwing dinner parties and spending time in the back gardens.

The house, which was built in the 1940s, is about 3,000 square feet.

It last sold for $4 million in April 2025.

Two years later, in 1955, the Kennedys moved to "Hickory Hill," another Georgian-style house.

The home was built in 1815 and had a tennis court, a pool, and 12 fireplaces on a 5.6-acre plot in McLean, Virginia.

They bought it from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, The Washington Post reported.

Two years later, the Kennedys sold it for $125,000 to John's brother, Robert, who would end up raising his own family there.

Jackie didn't want to go back after her daughter was stillborn.

The couple sold it to Robert Kennedy for the same price they'd paid, The Washington Post reported.

Robert Kennedy was at the house when he heard John had been assassinated, the Baltimore Sun reported. He spent an hour alone, walking around the estate.

In 1956, the Kennedys bought a summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, right beside the original Kennedy summer home.

The 4,484-square-foot clapboarded home sat on less than an acre of land and soon became part of the "Kennedy Compound."

They spent $45,948 on the house, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In 1957, the Kennedys bought an 18th-century brick row house in Georgetown for $82,000.

Jackie spent about $18,000 on remodeling the home, called Marbury House for William Marbury (you might remember his name from social studies class), which was built in 1811, and she decorated it with armchairs and fine porcelain.

Her husband campaigned and was elected president during their years here, Architectural Digest reported. They lived in the home between 1957 and 1961, selling it soon after.

In 2026, the 5,215-square-foot, five-bedroom home sold for $6.125 million.

Though not a property she owned, Jackie lived in the White House with her family during her husband's presidency from 1961 to 1963.

She later described this period as her family's "happiest years," The Daily Beast reported.

While they were living in the White House, they spent winters at her father-in-law Joseph Kennedy's Palm Beach estate.

The Palm Beach estate became known as the Kennedys' "winter White House." In 2020, the house sold for $70 million and underwent extensive renovations by the new owner.

In 1963, after her husband was assassinated, Jackie and her children left the White House and moved into an 18th-century home in DC.

She paid around $175,000 for the five-bedroom house but only lived there for about a year. It was too public, and she reportedly became overwhelmed with all of the tourists.

In 2017, it was purchased for $5.25 million.

In 1964, they returned to New York after she bought a 5,300-square-foot apartment on Fifth Avenue.

The then-$200,000 apartment had five bathrooms, three fireplaces, two terraces, and a library. It also had a view of Central Park.

Jackie Kennedy owned the apartment until she died in 1994.

It was bought from her estate in 1995 for $9.2 million. 

The buyer said she hadn't done much upkeep, and they ended up gutting the whole apartment.

While she was alive, she began dividing her time between France, Greece, Martha's Vineyard, and New Jersey.

She kept New York as a home base.

She also got married again in 1968 to a Greek shipping magnate named Aristotle Onassis and became Jackie Onassis, or "Jackie O."

In 1974, she purchased a country home, a converted barn on almost 10 acres, for $200,000 in Peapack, New Jersey.

She liked the area for its natural beauty and space for horse riding, The New York Times reported.

She knew the area well because she had previously rented a farmhouse described by The Times as a "badly made-over barn" in Bernardsville since 1965.

After she bought the property, she painted it yellow with white trim.

After her death, a neighbor and friend bought the property for $1.47 million in 1997.

The neighbor, Marjorie McDonnell Walsh, told The Wall Street Journal they tore the house down.

"It doesn't matter," she said when declining to share details about the new house. "The much more important thing is we both love the property. It's a private valley. It's beautiful."

In 1979, after her second husband died, Jackie decided to build a new house called "Red Gate Farm" on 340 acres of Martha's Vineyard land.

She reportedly spent a little more than $1 million on the land, and then another $3.1 million on building the house, which was finished in 1981.

The main building covers 6,456 square feet. There's also a four-bedroom guest house, a pool, and a tennis court. The property stretches across a mile of beach.

Starting in 2020, parts of the estate were sold for $37 million. The land opened as a public park in 2025.

Two nonprofits, the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank and Sheriff's Meadow Foundation, bought 304 acres of the land for $27 million, the Vineyard Gazette reported, and the Land Bank later bought an additional 32 acres for $10 million. It is now known as Squibnocket Pond Reservation, and members of the public can walk on trails that cut through the land.

But it's not easy — in the summer, just 10 parking spaces are open to the public, and you need an online reservation to get them.

The Kennedy family still owns 65 acres of the estate, including the home, the Vineyard Gazette reported in 2025. This land is out of view from the public area, meaning you're unlikely to see any Kennedys running around, The New York Times reported.

Editor's note: This story was first published in September 2023 and was most recently updated in September 2026 with additional information. %!s()