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| Judy Garland |
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| Ida Lupino |
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| Fay Wray and Gary Cooper |
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| Ann Rutherford |
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| Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra |
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| Thelma Todd |
Friday, October 31, 2014
PHOTOS OF THE DAY: A CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD HALLOWEEN
It is that time of the year - Halloween when all of the gremlins and ghouls come out! I like to dust off some movies I always watch around this time of the year like: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and even Arsenic And Old Lace (1944). I may have to watch the creepy Freaks (1932) as well. It's a movie I can not watch every year though. I also like to look through how classic Hollywood celebrated October 31st. Some of the pics are really great to look at again:
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE: MY FAVORITE COMEDY
I love movies that make me laugh, but often with classic comedies the humor does not transfer through the generations. That is not the case with this 1944 slapstick comedy. The movie is 70 years old now, but I laugh as though it came out yesterday. Sure, I laugh at the modern comedies of Steve Carell and Will Ferrell, and some of them are quite good. There is just something about this Cary Grant comedy that makes me laugh every time I have seen it. I have watched it now at least 20 times! It is not really a scary movie, but for some reason I love to watch it around Halloween.
The director Frank Capra
actually filmed the movie in 1941 because of star Cary Grant's availability,
but it was not released until 1944, after the original stage version had
finished its run on Broadway. The lead role of Mortimer Brewster
was originally intended for Bob Hope, but he could not be released from his contract with Paramount. Capra had also approached Jack Benny
and Ronald Reagan
before learning that Grant would accept the role. Boris Karloff
played Jonathan Brewster, who "looks like Karloff," on the Broadway
stage, but he was unable to do the movie as well because he was still appearing
in the play during filming, and Raymond
Massey took his place. The film's supporting cast also features Priscilla
Lane, Jack Carson, Edward Everett Horton and Peter Lorre.
Josephine
Hull and Jean Adair portray the Brewster sisters, Abby
and Martha, respectively. Hull and Adair, as well as John Alexander (who played Teddy
Roosevelt), were reprising their roles from the 1941 stage production. Hull and Adair both received an eight-week leave of
absence from the stage production that was still running, but Karloff did not
as he was an investor in the stage production. He really wanted to transfer his stage role to the movie. Karloff later expressed that it was one of the regrets he had in his career.
After making the
bold statement that this film was the best comedy of all-time, I better give
some pretty good examples, and this film is full of it. It is just wonderful to
see the transformation of Cary Grant’s character (Mortimer Brewster) throughout
the film. In the first scenes, he seems to be a man who is confident and
self-assured. He is getting married to his beautiful girlfriend (played cutely
by Priscilla Lane). He returns home to his aunts who have helped to raise him
to discover that for years the saintly aunts have been murdering people and
burying them in their basement. There is no scene in Cary Grant’s career as
great as the scene when he first discovers one of the victim’s bodies in living
room storage chest.
Raymond Massey (as Grant’s criminally insane brother) and Peter Lorre (as his meek assistant) are supposed to be horrific criminals, but they add a lot of comedy as well. When they discover the aunts are murderers, they give huge astonished looks like Grant did. However, what is even funnier is Massey and Lorre are trying to count the total number of men they murdered, and the aunts have beat them.
Raymond Massey (as Grant’s criminally insane brother) and Peter Lorre (as his meek assistant) are supposed to be horrific criminals, but they add a lot of comedy as well. When they discover the aunts are murderers, they give huge astonished looks like Grant did. However, what is even funnier is Massey and Lorre are trying to count the total number of men they murdered, and the aunts have beat them.
John Alexander is
another scene stealer as the uncle who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt. There is
some funny historic humor. When the director of
a mental hospital (Edward Everett Horton) comes to evaluate the uncle, Alexander
gives him a dirty look. Cary Grant asks his uncle what is wrong and he sticks
out his tongue and says “That’s Taft!” (William Taft was a protégé of
Roosevelt, who later had a falling out with him). The aunts have used “Teddy”
to help bury the bodies by telling him that their murder victims died because
of the Yellow Fever in Panama.
I think what makes
me laugh at Arsenic And Old Lace so
much is that the movie shows us a family that seem normal as the movie opens,
but they turn out to be genuinely crazy. Everyone’s family is like that.
Everyone has a crazy uncle or a brother who is the black sheep. After Grant
discovers his aunts are serial killers, and his brother is completely deranged,
Cary does not even want to get married. He’s afraid he will go crazy too, and
by the end of the movie it seems like he will go completely nuts. The aunts
though have one more secret to tell Cary before they are taken away…literally.
Cary Grant was adopted. He is not part of the Brewster family! The movie did
not depend on topical humor like the war so the laughs are not dated.
Basically, the jokes are about the absolute absurdity of this family. When you
think the family is as crazy as it gets, it just gets crazier. I don’t think I
would have laughed at the film as much if Cary Grant had not been in it. His
slapstick approach to the role, his facial expressions, and his decent into
insanity himself is just hilarious. There are a lot of comedies, old and new,
that make me laugh, but Arsenic And Old
Lace is my favorite of all-time…
Sunday, October 26, 2014
WHAT A CHARACTER: MARGARET HAMILTON
When I recently showed by 4 year old The Wizard Of Oz (1939), I thought
he would be afraid of the flying monkeys as I was growing up. It was not those
monkeys that gave him nightmares, but it was the Wicked Witch. It is a
testament to the actress that played the Witch, Margaret Hamilton that could
still scare little children some 75 years after the movie came out.
A former
schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in films for seven years
before she was offered the role that defined her public image. The Wicked Witch
of the West was eventually ranked No. 4 in the American
Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time, making her
the highest ranking female villain. In later years, Hamilton made frequent
cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also
gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit
children and animals, and retained a lifelong commitment to public education.
Margaret Hamilton
was born on December 9, 1902 to Walter J. Hamilton, and his wife, Jennie (née
Adams), in Cleveland, Ohio, and was the
youngest of four children. She later attended Hathaway Brown
School, while the
school was located at 1945 East 93rd Street in Cleveland. Drawn to the theater
at an early age, Hamilton made her stage debut in 1923. Hamilton also practiced
her craft doing children's theater while she was a Junior League of Cleveland member. She
later moved to Painesville,
Ohio. Before she
turned to acting exclusively, her parents insisted that she attend Wheelock College in Boston, which she
did, later becoming a kindergarten teacher.
Hamilton's
career as a film actress was driven by the very qualities that placed her in
stark contrast to the stereotypical Hollywood
glamour girl. Her image was that of a New England spinster, extremely pragmatic and impatient with all manner of
"tomfoolery". Hamilton's looks helped to bring steady work as a character actor. She made her
screen debut in 1933 in Another Language. She went on to appear in These Three (1936), Saratoga, You
Only Live Once, When's
Your Birthday?, Nothing
Sacred (all 1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), and My
Little Chickadee (1940). She strove to work as much as possible to
support herself and her son; she never put herself under contract to any one
studio and priced her services at $1,000 a week.
In 1939,
Hamilton played the role of the Wicked
Witch of the West, opposite Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale
in The
Wizard of Oz, creating not only her most famous role, but one of the screen's most
memorable villains. Hamilton was cast after Gale Sondergaard, who was first
considered for the role, albeit as a more glamorous witch with a musical scene,
declined the role when the decision was made that the witch should appear ugly.
She suffered a
second-degree burn on her face and a third-degree burn on her hand during a
second take of her fiery exit from Munchkinland, in which the
trap door's drop was delayed to eliminate the brief glimpse of it seen in the
final edit. Hamilton had to recuperate in a hospital and at home for six weeks
after the accident before returning to the set to complete her work on the
now-classic film, and refused to have anything further to do with fire for the
rest of the filming. After she recuperated, she said, "I won't sue,
because I know how this business works, and I would never work again. I will
return to work on one condition — no more fireworks!" Garland visited
Hamilton while the latter recuperated at home.
When asked
about her experiences on the set of The Wizard of Oz, she said that her
biggest fear was that her monstrous film role would give children the wrong
idea of who she really was. In reality, Margaret Hamilton was very nice and had
a great love for children, frequently giving to charitable
organizations. She often
remarked about children coming up to her and asking her why she had been so
mean to poor Dorothy. She appeared on an episode of Mister
Rogers' Neighborhood in 1975, where she explained to children that she was
only playing a role, and showed how putting on a costume "transformed"
her into the witch. She also made personal appearances, and Hamilton described
the children's usual reaction to her portrayal of the Witch.
In the 1940s
and 1950s, Hamilton had a long-running role on the radio series Ethel and Albert (a.k.a. The
Couple Next Door) in which she played the lovable, scattered Aunt Eva (name
later changed to Aunt Effie). During the 1960s and 1970s, Hamilton appeared
regularly on television. She did a
stint as a What's My Line? Mystery Guest on the popular Sunday Night
CBS-TV program. She played Morticia Addams' mother, Hester Frump, in three
episodes of The
Addams Family (1965–66; Hamilton had been offered the role of Grandmama but turned it
down.)
In the 1960s,
Hamilton was a regular on the CBS soap opera, The Secret Storm, playing the
role of Grace Tyrell's housekeeper, "Katie". In the early 1970s, she
joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, As the World
Turns, playing
"Miss Peterson". She had a small role in the made-for-TV film, The
Night Strangler (1973), and appeared as a befuddled neighbor on Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters. In The
Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976), she portrayed Lynde's housekeeper, reprising the
Wicked Witch role as well as introducing Lynde to the rock group KISS. She reprised her role as the Wicked
Witch in an episode of Sesame Street, but after
complaints from parents of terrified children, it has not been seen since 1976.
She appeared as herself in an episode of Mister
Rogers' Neighborhood and continued acting regularly until 1982. Her last
roles were two guest appearances as veteran journalist Thea Taft (in 1979 and
1982, respectively) on Lou
Grant.
Hamilton
married Paul Boynton Meserve on June 13, 1931, and made her debut on the New
York stage the following year. While her acting career developed, her marriage
began failing; the couple divorced in 1938. They had one son, Hamilton
Wadsworth Meserve (born 1936), whom she raised on her own. She had three
grandchildren, Christopher, Scott, and Margaret. Hamilton never remarried. She
died in her sleep following a heart attack on May 16,
1985, in Salisbury,
Connecticut. She was
cremated at Poughkeepsie
Rural Cemetery. Her ashes were scattered in Amenia, New York. As
a character actress, there was no one better than Margaret Hamilton. Even ask
my son who currently is not allowed to watch The Wizard Of Oz because of her.
Hamilton was so wicked in that role, she was good…
Friday, October 24, 2014
NEW ROSEMARY CLOONEY CDS
Rosemary Clooney is one of those singers that I enjoy, and I have a load of her music, but I never seem to listen to her music much. These two new CD issues may change all that...
Another White Christmas costar, Rosemary Clooney, also happened to be one of Bing Crosby’s closest friends. Crosby’s production company created and produced Rosemary’s CBS radio programs in the mid-1950s. On Clooney’s commercial recordings of the period, her talent was often awash in overly produced (and in the early days, gimmicky) middle-of-the-road material. But her personal taste tended more toward authentic compositions by America’s great songsmiths, and in a stripped-down setting, she could positively glow. Rosemary’s record producers might have reined her in with iron fists, but Bing Crosby let her record what she wanted to record for her radio shows. And those recordings appear – most for the first time since they were broadcast – on the new Mosaic Records five-CD, 104 track boxed set, The Rosemary Clooney CBS Radio Recordings 1955-61. With Bing’s frequent musical collaborators Buddy Cole and His Trio backing her, Clooney’s voice shines on compositions by Cole Porter, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Mercer, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, and George and Ira Gershwin. Plus music made famous by Joe Bushkin, Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and more. The radio shows were a blank canvas for great songs and singing. The original session tapes from the Bing Crosby Archive have been restored and remastered to Mosaic’s exacting standards. The Rosemary Clooney CBS Radio Recordings 1955-61 is the perfect companion to Mosaic’s 2009 seven-CD release, The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings 1954-61. Many of the tracks on these collections come from the same recording sessions. The duets from these sessions are available on the two-CD set, Bing & Rosie: The Crosby-Clooney Radio Duets from the Bing Crosby Archive / Universal Music Enterprises.
Because Rosemary Clooney was under contract to Columbia Records when Irving Berlin’s White Christmas was filmed, she did not appear on the Decca Records soundtrack album that featured Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, who both recorded for Decca. Instead, Columbia recorded an entirely different album of songs from the film with only Clooney. That eight song, 10” LP will be released as a fifteen song CD from Real Gone Music on November 4th.
Rosemary Clooney: In Songs from the Paramount Pictures Production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (Expanded Edition) features the original album and seven bonus tracks from the Bing Crosby Archive – including a previously unissued Crosby – Clooney duet on “Silver Bells.”
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
THE GRANDCHILD OF THE LITTLE TRAMP
Carmen Chaplin, granddaughter of the legendary Hollywood actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, will be a guest at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s opening gala screening of Ali Mostafa’s From A to B on Thursday night.
The English actress and director has appeared in films such as Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World, Sidney Pollack’s Sabrina and The Serpent’s Kiss, alongside Ewan McGregor. She will be seen next year alongside Malcolm MacDowell in the New Orleans crime thriller Vicious, and has been a member of the international jury at the Rome Film Festival.
Chaplin has also emulated her famous grandfather by moving into directing. In 2012, she made the short film Tryst in Paneme, starring her sister Dolores Chaplin and Bambou Gainsbourg, about a woman whose sense of self-value is wrapped up in her beauty.
Last year she made another short film, A Time for Everything, commissioned by the luxury watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, one of ADFF’s partners. She also starred in the film – a meditation on the theme of time celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company’s presentation to Charlie Chaplin of a special Memovox watch when he settled in Switzerland, alongside her mother and daughter.
“I love antique watches and the idea that they have a past and a story to tell,” she says. “My grandfather’s watch particularly moves me, because he gave it to my father, Michael Chaplin, his son, when he turned 14. Then my dad gave it to my mum as proof of their love on their wedding day. It was a real good-luck charm because they have been in love now for 45 years.”
This year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, she directed and produced The Innovators, a short sci-fi comedy about three scientists who look to the past to save Earth’s decaying ecosystem...
The English actress and director has appeared in films such as Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World, Sidney Pollack’s Sabrina and The Serpent’s Kiss, alongside Ewan McGregor. She will be seen next year alongside Malcolm MacDowell in the New Orleans crime thriller Vicious, and has been a member of the international jury at the Rome Film Festival.
Chaplin has also emulated her famous grandfather by moving into directing. In 2012, she made the short film Tryst in Paneme, starring her sister Dolores Chaplin and Bambou Gainsbourg, about a woman whose sense of self-value is wrapped up in her beauty.
“I love antique watches and the idea that they have a past and a story to tell,” she says. “My grandfather’s watch particularly moves me, because he gave it to my father, Michael Chaplin, his son, when he turned 14. Then my dad gave it to my mum as proof of their love on their wedding day. It was a real good-luck charm because they have been in love now for 45 years.”
This year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, she directed and produced The Innovators, a short sci-fi comedy about three scientists who look to the past to save Earth’s decaying ecosystem...
Monday, October 20, 2014
RECENTLY VIEWED: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS...
The film was produced by United Artists and directed by David Swift, with original staging by Bob Fosse. The cast includes Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee (reprising their original Broadway roles), Michele Lee, Anthony Teague, Tucker Smith (in an uncredited role), and Maureen Arthur. The film marks the debut of Lee, who later appeared in the popular 1980s television series Knots Landing.
J. Pierpont Finch buys a book How to Succeed in Business, describing in step-by-step fashion how to rise in the business world. The ambitious young window cleaner follows its advice carefully. He joins the "World-Wide Wicket Company" and begins work in the mailroom. Soon, thanks to the ethically-questionable advice in the book, he rises to Vice-President in Charge of Advertising, making sure that each person above him gets either fired or moved or transferred within the company. Finch begins to fall in love with Rosemary Pilkington, a secretary at the company. Finch finds out that the president of the company, J. B. Biggley, has made advances towards Hedy LaRue, a beautiful but incompetent woman the company has hired. Finch uses this information to assist his climb on the corporate ladder. Biggley's annoying nephew, Bud Frump, also takes advantage of the situation and tries to get to the top before Finch.
All of Rosemary's songs (including "Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm" and "Paris Original") were cut from the movie version. To make up for this "I Believe In You" was given to her for the movie. In the stage play, she does not sing this to him, and the first time it is heard is during the scene where Finch sings it to himself in the executive washroom, but she does a brief reprise of the song after this scene. In the film, she sings the full version in an earlier scene, making Finch's washroom version the reprise.
The scene featuring Robert Morse skipping & dancing down the street on his way to work (immediately after the "Old Ivy" fight song duet with Rudy Vallee) was filmed on location in New York City using hidden cameras and a small earpiece to cue Morse on his timing. The various amused & astonished passersby were not extras, but rather were New Yorkers reacting genuinely to someone dancing to his own tune.
Tony Curtis, who was over 40 at the time, campaigned to get the Robert Morse role, and Dick Van Dyke was briefly considered, but Robert Morse made the movie. Sure, he was not a wonderful singer or dancer, but he is Finch. I can not really picture anyone else doing the role, although the Broadway show has been revived countless times. Another high point of the movie was Rudy Vallee. Vallee, who was a top crooner in the 1920s and 1930s until Bing Crosby surpassed him in popularity, was perfect as well as the clueless company president. It was really the last important role that Vallee had in his career.
My favorite song in the film is one that is barely ever mentioned: "Brotherhood Of Man" was basically the finale of the film where the whole company joins Robert Morse singing. A song that my son and daughter like is "It's Been A Long Day". I guess they like the repetitiveness of the song lyrics, but it is catchy. Do yourself a favor and watch How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. It's a harmless 1967 romp, and I guarantee you'll be tapping your feet and almost wishing you worked in an office...
MY RATING: 9 OUT OF 10
Friday, October 17, 2014
BORN ON THIIS DAY: RITA HAYWORTH
Rita Hayworth,
who is my opinion was one of the most beautiful women to ever be captured on
film was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on this day - October 17, 1918 in Brooklyn, New
York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest
child of two dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., was from Castilleja de la
Cuesta, a little town
near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish-English
descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The couple married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo Jr. and
Vernon Cansino.
Margarita's father
wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would
become an actress. Her paternal grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was renowned as a
Spanish classical dancer. He popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Hayworth later
recalled, "From the time I was three and a half... as soon as I could
stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons." She noted "I didn't
like it very much... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I
began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my
girlhood". She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed
publicly from the age of six. In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La
Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.
In 1927, her
father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured
in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own
dance studio, where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments as commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form
"The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law Margarita was too
young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work
across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist
spot for people from Los Angeles. Due to her working Cansino never graduated
from high school, but she had completed ninth grade at Hamilton
High in Los Angeles.
Cansino (Hayworth)
took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934) at age 16, which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. She danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the
Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club
and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed
by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract
at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of two name changes for her film
career.
During her time at
Fox, Hayworth appeared in five pictures in non-notable roles. By the end of her
six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer.
Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Hayworth, Zanuck did not renew her contract.
Feeling that she had screen potential, the salesman and promoter, Edward C.
Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several
independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Hayworth to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in
Columbia features. It was at this time that the Rita Hayworth that we all knew
and loved would be born…
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: BING CROSBY'S FUNERAL
On October 18, 1977 was the private funeral mass for Bing. The early hour (6 a.m. Los Angeles time) eliminated what Crosby did not want -- a clamorous Hollywood funeral. There were no fans on the quiet side street.
The mourners included a few of Crosby's companions from show business -- Bob Hope and his wife, Mrs. Dolores Hope; Rosemary Clooney, who sang with Bing in his final concerts, and her son by Jose Ferrer, Miguel; Phil Harris, comedian and his wife Alice Faye, and Bob Crosby, Bing's singer-brother.
The rest were Crosby's business associates, fishing companions and personal friends, including his secretary, Ms. Nancy Briggs; Richard Bergen, his attorney; Basil Grillo, producer; Buster Collier, former actor, and Alan Fisher, his butler. Crosby's sister, Mrs. Mary Rose Pool, and Mrs. Crosby's sister, Mrs. Frances Meyer, also were present.
Crosby's six sons, including Gary, Dennis, Phillip, and Lindsay, acted as pallbearers. Burial was in Holy Cross Cemetery near the graves of Crosby's parents and first wife, Mrs. Dixie Lee Crosby, who died of cancer in 1952. The grave is on a hillside overlooking the graves of other family members, about 150 yards inside the cemetery's entrance...
Saturday, October 11, 2014
HARRY PRIME: THE LAST BIG BAND SINGER
Harry Prime doesn’t let anyone pull anything over on him and he doesn’t forget a friend. Both poles of his personality were on display at his dinner show at the Epicure Cafe on September 24th. And, oh yeah, he can still sing.
Some people go to Harry’s shows to hear about Grace Kelly or the picture postcard stories from the good old days. And Harry doesn’t disappoint. He can spin a clean, upbeat tale as well as anyone, evoking the old neighborhood with the same precision as he croons the rolling bass notes of Summer Wind.
But we go to his shows for the scrappier, funny, and sometimes profane stories about growing up in East Falls, living on the road when he was a singer in a big band, and what life is like when you’re pushing 95.
Harry has often said that life on the road in the 40s and 50s was a series of mostly “less drunk and completely drunk” nights, but when he told the story of the gabardine jacket to the Epicure crowd, it offered a peek into the craziness of a crowded touring bus full of “vipers (pot smokers) and drinkers.”
“It’s always the sax players,” said Harry, as he explained the drunk who’d relieved himself at Harry’s expense. He settled the score shortly afterward, with only one complaint from orchestra leader Ralph Flanagan—“Couldn’t you have hit him in the gut, not the mouth?” Flanagan couldn’t afford a sax player with a banged-up mouth.
The crowd at the Epicure roared with laughter as Harry launched into the next song without a pause.
At another pause, we saw Harry’s softer, more sentimental side as he spoke about “his great friend” Ron Astle, who’d moved away to Florida over a year ago. He remembered how they’d first met years ago, with Ron giving Harry a CD of Harry’s songs.
He also spoke fondly about their partnership at previous Epicure performances, with Ron playing background tracks while Harry sang. We could hear a hint of sorrow in his voice as he told the story about Ron moving away, a slight tremor in that weathered baritone. And he wasn’t the only emotional one there. Not bad for a 95 year old crooner...
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
JAMES GARNER WAS MY FATHER
I should qualify this by saying that I was just a small child and the show Maverick was on television. My late father, William Rust, looked just like Maverick, who was a fabulous, sly, and clever gambler in the Wild West (a role reprised by Mel Gibson), and Maverick turned out to be played by James Garner, not my dad. But you couldn't convince me of that!
My dad would dress as Maverick and shoot his eyebrows straight to the sky and back down to the dry dusty plains of the Ole West, and he had a Maverick hat with pink silk lining. I repeat: pink silk lining! Yes, sir, he was Maverick through and through and even taught us children how to play poker! We would put our silver plastic cowboy guns up on the game table and play "Spit in the Ocean" with Maverick himself... or so we thought!
Both James Garner and my father, William Rust, stood well over six feet of solid muscle and had black curly hair which was de rigeur for a leading man then. They both shared that square-jawed head that could project danger, especially when they worked their eyebrows and bedroom eyes. They were, in a word, drop-dead handsome. They were the very definition of handsome! While they did not look exactly alike, people see what they want to see, and I guess when they saw Dad, they wanted to see Mr. Garner -- so they did!
Who knows whether my father was gracious enough to accept being mistaken for James (Jim) Garner, or James Garner was gracious enough to sometimes be considered to be my father! They were both such gentleman at a time when being a gentleman counted for something!
With the recent passing of James Garner, we lost not only a major television and film talent, but a true gentleman who was warm, winsome and wonderful, and for whom my father was mistaken for, at the very least, once a day but usually more. And sometimes by a whole crowd!
I didn't have to say something idiotic such as, "You look just like my daddy," because when I was with my father, the two men would look at each other, smile, then simply start laughing. My father thought laughter was something short of sacred so I must have already comprehended this because the laughter brought me such joy. Also, for men to be shopping was also pretty cool... it showed they were "liberated" men, not bound by the strains of convention. These were cool men!
My father and Mr. Garner were able to joke beyond their looking like brothers... they joked that maybe there was more going on in their families than they knew! They always promised a joint family barbecue but both were busy with their adored families and lives and that never came to pass -- except in my imagination where it happened many times!
Dad's career was not in acting so he was not competing for roles or attention -- he was a businessman... though it was with entertainers. I can't say that I could see much of a difference between the two men and I would happily have taken both home with the fresh eggs and great produce! The only difference was that Dad had blue eyes and Mr. Garner had brown.
As a grown up, I would also see Mr. Garner at industry events. Once with Angela Lansbury, who is equally gracious, he was just as warm then, as though I were still five, even when I was all grown up and a contributing member to the entertainment industry myself! His hair had thinned a bit while my fathers only thickened and whitened, which left my father to look more like our local anchorman, Jerry Dumphy, while Mr. Garner colored his.
That did not stop people, however, and once, when my father fell at a local restaurant, an ambulance was called for James Garner! Mr. Garner and my father shared many common interests and when my father had back surgery for a local bodysurfing injury, Mr. Garner was the first to want to know how it went because he suffered with a bad back. Later, showing off his "new back," my father somersaulted through the entry of the Riviera Country Club and everyone gave James Garner credit! Mr. Garner could never have done what Dad did, but Dad was delighted that people thought it was Mr. Garner.
Mr. Garner was grateful to acting because he never set out to become an actor but was "discovered" when he went with a friend to an audition, I believe. I think he was always slightly astonished by his remarkable success and never took it for granted. He also had some great writers such as Stephen Cannell and some terrific writers for the big screen, too, and got to play cool parts such as Philip Marlowe, Maverick, Rockford, and even his Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley were loved. I adored James Garner and I feel like a lost my father's twin brother at his passing. He will be missed for his warm ways and enormous heart and talent...
SOURCE
Friday, October 3, 2014
THE WALKING DEAD: A MODERN CLASSIC
The group is
led by Rick Grimes, who was a
sheriff's deputy before the zombie
outbreak. At every turn they are faced with the horror of the walking zombies,
the changing dynamic of their group, and hostility from the scattered remains
of a struggling human populace who are focused on their own survival now that
society's structures have collapsed.
The Walking Dead premiered on
October 31, 2010, on the cable television channel AMC in the United States.
It premiered internationally during the first week of November 2010 on Fox
International Channels. Based on its reception, AMC renewed the series for a second
season of 13
episodes, which premiered on October 16, 2011. Two episodes into the second
season, AMC announced that the show would return for a third
season of 16
episodes, which began airing on October 14, 2012. On December 21, 2012, AMC
renewed The Walking Dead for a fourth
season of 16
episodes, which premiered on October 13, 2013. On October 29, 2013, AMC renewed
it for a fifth season.
The series has
been well received and has been nominated for many awards, including the Writers
Guild of America Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. he series has
also attained strong Nielsen ratings, surpassing
various records for a cable series, including viewership of 16.1 million for
its season
four premiere, making it the
most-watched drama series telecast in basic cable history.
I was not sure
I would like the series when I first watched it. Next to rats and death, I
think I am most afraid of zombies, but it really only took me a few episodes
before I realized the show was more than zombies. Its success is due to the
character development. The zombies are second to the characters, and in some
episodes one can forget about the zombies entirely. I am thankful I discovered
this show while it was still on, and I recommend The Walking Dead. It is definitely a modern “classic”…
