What is "heathcliff"

Heathcliff may refer to:

• Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights), the central character from the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  • Heathcliff (musical), a musical based on the book Wuthering Heights
• Heathcliff Slocumb, a former American baseball player
• Heathcliff (comic strip), a comic strip about a cat of the same name
  • Heathcliff (1980 TV series), a cartoon based on the above comic strip, produced by Ruby-Spears
  • Heathcliff (1984 TV series), a cartoon based on the same comic strip, produced by DiC
• Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, the lead character on The Cosby Show, played by Bill Cosby
• Heathcliffe Hope, a character from the TV series Emmerdale

Heathcliff is an American comic strip created by George Gately in 1973, featuring the title character, a wisecracking cat. Now written and drawn by Gately's nephew, Peter Gallagher, it is distributed to over 1,000 newspapers by Creators Syndicate, who took over the comic from McNaught Syndicate in 1988.

The strip is usually presented in single-panel gag frames on weekdays. On Sundays, though, the strip is expanded to multiple panels and titled Sunday with Heathcliff. A regular feature in the Sunday strips is Kitty Korner, where unusual cats in the real world are described.

Heathcliff is a musical, written by singer Cliff Richard and based loosely on the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It is focused on the character of Heathcliff and the story is adapted to fit with the musical staging and production. The musical attempted to fill some gaps in Heathcliff's personal story by taking leads from implications made by Emily Brontë in the novel and fitting them into the sequence of events as written. All of the dialogue in the show is from the novel, although some parts were transposed to better fit the manner in which it was being performed.

The music was composed by John Farrar with lyrics written by Sir Tim Rice. The book is by Cliff Richard and Frank Dunlop.

As a forerunner to the theatrical presentation, in early October 1995, Richard released the first single, "A Misunderstood Man", followed later in the month by the studio album Songs from Heathcliff, consisting of ten songs from the musical, five featuring Olivia Newton-John in duets. Three more singles followed, "Had to Be" (a duet with Olivia Newton-John), "The Wedding" (a duet with Helen Hobson) and "Be With Me Always".

Rehearsals for the musical took place during the summer of 1996 in Camden, London, before moving to Earls Court 2 for production rehearsals featuring the stage sets and full band. Several public previews were held at Earls Court before the show moved to the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

Heathcliff opened on 16 October 1996 having raised considerable interest from the media regarding Cliff Richard playing the dark, barely civilized character; with many sources speculating that Richard could not carry off such a role. Box office records were broken for first-week ticket sales. Following the run in Birmingham, the show transferred to Edinburgh for four weeks, before returning to the National Indoor Arena for a few additional dates before Christmas. After the New Year, the show opened in the Palace Theatre, Manchester before transferring to London. The final performance was at Hammersmith Apollo, in May. Heathcliff played to audiences of close on half a million people, and had broken box office records at almost every theater.

Although the musical was not well received by critics, with one referring to it as "living dull", it was popular with Richard's fans. An advertising campaign for the show used some of the critics' quotes, such as "This Wretched Show" and "Withering Rather Than Wuthering", to contrast the opposing views of critics and fans.

The opening advance takings for the show were £8.5m, believed to be a record at the time. A cast recording of the show was released in October 1996 to coincide with the start of the tour and the single of "Be With Me Always" was released at that time.

A film recording of the show was made at the Hammersmith Apollo, the video of which stayed at the top of the charts for 8 weeks.

Heathcliff is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series based on the Heathcliff comic strip created by George Gately and produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. It premiered on ABC on October 4, 1980, with a total of 26 episodes produced under the titles Heathcliff and Dingbat and Heathcliff and Marmaduke.

Heathcliff is a fictional character in Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, he is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured romantic hero whose all-consuming passions destroy both him and those around him.

He is better known as a romantic hero, due to his love for Catherine Earnshaw, than for his final years of vengeance in the second half of the novel, in which he grows into a bitter, haunted man, and for a number of incidents in his early life that suggest that he was an upset and sometimes malicious individual from the beginning. His complicated, mesmerizing, consumable and altogether bizarre nature makes him a rare character, with components of both the hero and villain.

Heathcliff (aka Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats) is a French-Canadian-American animated television series that debuted on September 5, 1984. It was the second series based on the Heathcliff comic strip and was produced by DIC Entertainment. It ran in syndication until 1988 with a total of 86 episodes. The first show based on the comic strip was Heathcliff and Dingbat, which debuted in 1980. The Catillacs Cats characters were created by Jean Chalopin and Bruno Bianchi. Mel Blanc provided the voice of Heathcliff.