Liam Neeson on "Kinsey"

If you're starting to hear some ringing in your ears right now, it may just be the very loud Oscar buzz surrounding Liam Neeson.

He has already been named Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics and received Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominations for playing pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in "Kinsey."

In 1948, Kinsey irrevocably changed American culture with his book, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male." Interviewing thousands of people about the most intimate aspects of their lives, the researcher lifted the weight of secrecy and shame from a society in which sexual practices were mostly hidden. His work sparked one of the most intense cultural debates of the past century - a debate that rages on today liquid

Kinsey graced the cover of every major publication; he became the subject of songs and cartoons, editorials and sermons. But as the country entered the Cold War era of the 1950s, Kinsey's follow-up study on women is seen as an attack on basic American values. The ensuing outrage and scorn caused Kinsey's benefactors to abandon him, just as his health began to deteriorate. At the same time, the jealousies and acrimony caused by Kinsey's attempt to create a private sexual utopia threatened to tear apart the research team and expose them to unwelcome scrutiny.

Directed by Academy Award-winner Bill Condon of "Gods And Monsters," the film also stars as a team of researchers, Peter Sarsgaard (Clyde Martin), Chris O'Donnell (Wardell Pomeroy) and Timothy Hutton (Paul Gebhard); as well as Laura Linney as Kinsey's wife Clara McMillen.

As of yet, no one has repeated Kinsey's research on such a broad scale, or shown that his main conclusions were wrong. Meanwhile, the institute he founded at Indiana University, renamed the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, continues to carry out scientific study in a field that might not exist at all without Kinsey.

TIME LINE

• 1894, June 23 Alfred Charles Kinsey born in Hoboken, N.J.
• 1898, Oct. 2, Clara Bracken McMillen born in Brookville, Ind.
• 1912, Kinsey is valedictorian of his class of 1912, Columbia High School; begins engineering studies at Stevens Institute
• 1913, Kinsey is one of only 77 Eagle Scouts in the U.S.
• 1914-1916, Kinsey leaves Stevens Institute for Bowdoin College, studying biology and psychology; graduates magna cum laude
• 1917, Kinsey makes first field trip to collect gall wasps [American Cynipidae]
• 1919, September Kinsey is awarded a Sc.D. in taxonomy from Harvard University
• 1920, August - Kinsey joins faculty of Indiana University as assistant professor of zoology
• 1921, June 3 - Kinsey marries Clara Bracken McMillen, in Brookville, Ind.
• 1926 Publication of Kinsey's "An Introduction to Biology"
• 1937, American Men of Science lists Kinsey as one of its "starred scientists"
• 1938, June - Kinsey teaches marriage course at Indiana University, presenting sexual information with unprecedented frankness
• 1938, July - Kinsey develops 350-question interview technique to record people's sex histories
• 1940, Kinsey devotes himself to amassing sex histories fulltime; he and his team travel across the country, eventually accumulating over 18,000 histories
• 1943, Kinsey meets with Alan Gregg from the Rockefeller Foundation, resulting in promise of $135,000 funding over 3-year period
• 1947, April - Institute for Sex Research incorporated with Alfred C. Kinsey as Director
• 1948, January - Publication of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male"
• 1950, U.S. Customs seizes erotic material being sent to the Institute
• 1953, Aug. 20 - "K-Day:" the day magazines and newspapers were allowed to pre-publish Kinsey's findings on female sexuality, with Americans flooding newsstands
• 1953, September Publication of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female"
• 1954, Under pressure from Congressional investigators on "un-American activities," the Rockefeller Foundation withdraws its funding for Kinsey's research
• 1956, Aug. 25 - Kinsey dies of heart failure at age 62

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