A sultry blonde with a smoky voice. She seemed made for film noir movie duty as in THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS with Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin and DEAD RECKONING with Humphrey Bogart. My favorite of her films is Paramount's Technicolor drenched DESERT FURY with Burt Lancaster and, as "Aunt Fritzi," Mary Astor.
After having watched hours of Hurricane Ian live news coverage, I needed to refresh my spirits. So, I turned to actress Lizabeth Scott. She wasn't just a film noir babe, she had a cool way of handling a jazz tune.
Here's Lizabeth Scott doing "He's a Man."
Up for another one? Here she is doing "Can't Get Out of This Mood."
September 25th is the birthday of actor/producer Michael Douglas. He's one of those stars I loved interviewing. Like his dad, Kirk Douglas, he was always present and charming and smart in his interviews. And he made it a point to remember your name. Michael Douglas has had terrific success in the film area of show business. We saw him in box office hits such as THE CHINA SYNDROME,ROMANCING THE STONE, JEWEL OF THE NILE, FATAL ATTRACTION and BASIC INSTINCT. He won the Best Actor for WALL STREET (1987). He won a producer Oscar for giving us the Best Picture of 1975 -- ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.
As an actor, we know him from and like him in those box office hits. I certainly do. However, my favorite Michael Douglas performances are in smaller films, films that may have been a bit under the box office radar in their theatrical release. They are films in which leading man Michael Douglas lets his hair go gray, if you will. In those smaller movies, he gives his acting muscles a real workout. He stretches himself and it's excellent to see. Mind if I share my favorites with you?
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA (2013): I still feel that if this HBO production had been a theatrical release, Michael Douglas would have been in the Best Actor Oscar race. After films like ROMANCING THE STONE and WALL STREET, he seemed like an unlikely choice to play the flamboyant pianist/showman, Liberace, but he's remarkable in the role. He plays Liberace as he was in the last highly-publicized and highly-successful chapter of his career. He's shrewd, self-absorbed, lusty, involved with a younger man and is going pleasantly to seed. Matt Damon co-stars. This is one of those features that shows what an underrated actress Debbie Reynolds was. She plays Liberace's mother.
SOLITARY MAN (2009): Off-screen, Douglas had a reputation for having been a lovable and liberal Lothario. In this indie movie, he stars as a successful car dealer who gets a medical check-up. When he realizes that he's getting older and has a medical issue, he's forced to face some facts about past business practices and romances.
KING OF CALIFORNIA (2007): In this loopy indie movie role, Douglas plays a jazz-loving dad with a conquistador beard who's released from a mental institution. He moves in with his daughter. She works at a McDonald's. He makes her life a little chaotic when he believes that there's Spanish gold buried underneath a local Costco store and he's determined to dig it up.
WONDER BOYS (2000): Based on a novel by Michael Chabon. Screenplay by Steve Kloves who gave us THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS. Directed by Curtis Hanson who gave us L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Douglas is in peak form as a gray-haired novelist/professor experiencing a long streak of writer's block. This frustrates his young editor. His book is overdue, his wife s leaving home, he's having some other high drama in his personal life. What a juicy role and what a fine performance in an equally fine film.
There you have it. A few of my favorite Michael Douglas film performances. By the way, did you know that he and his Oscar winner wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, share a birthday? Happy Birthday to them both.
The first time I heard Broadway actor Josh Groban sing, I became an immediate fan. I saw him as a guest co-host on the ABC morning show with Kelly Ripa. He was totally charming with a warm and breezy personality. Then I saw him act in a short-lived Netflix series. He's really got the right stuff. I added Josh Groban to my list of current actors who -- if they were in 1940s & 50s Hollywood when big studios were in operation -- would have never been out of work, especially in musicals. Chris Pine and Jake Gyllenhaal are on that list.
Josh Groban played a Brooklyn police detective in THE GOOD COP. He's a highly intelligent bookworm of a guy known for going by the book to such as extent that he often exasperates co-workers. His widower dad was also a cop. But he strayed and wound up a convicted felon who did time behind bars. He's now on parole and lives in Brooklyn with his son. Tony Danza plays the tainted papa. There's a little tension yet also love between father and son. The tension is mostly generated by the son. Dad tends to act like he's a member of Frank Sinatra's old Rat Pack. We see a touch of melancholy about Groban's character. We get laughs in the episodes, but comedy is not forced. Each episode run about 45 minutes. The murders committed are quite clever and we wait to see how the son -- with a little help from his dad -- is going to solve the complicated crimes.
I watched episodes a couple of years ago I was hooked within the first ten minutes of Episode #1. I felt THE GOOD COP would have been ripe to air as a series on NBC or CBS. Since then, I've seen new shows on the big three senior networks -- shows that can and, blessedly, went within a season or two. I revisited the first three episodes of THE GOOD COP on Netflix last night. I still loved it. I had more of an appreciation for how the murders were set up and committed. In the first episode, Tony Caruso (Danza) and Tony Jr. (Groban) may be suspect in a murder. A cop Tony hated was shot and killed ... with Tony Jr.'s gun. But the strait-laced young police detective doesn't recall having killed anyone. There's a terrific bit of business with some black olives from a pizza. In the second episode, a man is shot and killed in a hotel room while he's watching Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY (a great touch). Meanwhile, Tony is dating a rich, blonde Victoria's Secret model who's young enough to be his daughter. In the third episode, Tony Jr. has no idea that the big German woman renting the basement room in his house is really a man in drag. A man who escaped from prison.
Here's a trailer for THE GOOD COP.
If you get Netflix, and you're up for a little pastime, give this 2018 show a look. You might like it.
One famous man tells of having paid as much as $35.00 for a cup of coffee in Europe, but the coffee couldn't compare to the 5 cent cup of coffee he had at the automat. The automat's coffee and pie inspired Irving Berling to write a song for a Broadway show. The automat was highlighted in movies and network TV shows. The automat inspired a painting by Edward Hopper. A dying gentleman ordered a beef pie from the automat to have as a last meal. The automat inspired Starbucks and some social attitudes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Horn & Hardart automat, once a truly iconic longtime eatery in New York City, is the subject of THE AUTOMAT. This documentary, directed and produced by Lisa Hurwitz, runs 1 hour and 20 minutes. It's not just about the celebrated coffee and food.
We recently saw the majestic funeral services for England's Queen Elizabeth II. On network news, contributors who covered the Royal Family and Brits who lined the streets for hours to see the royal coffin and mourn the Queen's, passing praised her for her extraordinary service, her consistency, her devotion to crown and country. She was loved.
You feel those qualities in the history of Horn & Hardart. The men who started the company were dedicated to service, quality and the people.
The documentary opens with Mel Brooks sharing his memories of the automat. They are great memories. He also gives a few tips to director Lisa Hurwitz. Mel's tagged as "comedian," onscreen. He should've been tagged as "comedian and filmmaker." Mel leads us into the history of the automat's origins with comments from historians and relatives of the owners. We see the art deco design of the place that was so popular and get a sense of the warmth given by its staff. Horn & Hardart locations were very welcoming and democratic. And the coffee was great. Not just that -- items cost only a nickel. In the Depression this was a blessing.
The descriptions of and the comments about the food will make your mouth water.
Then the documentary takes on some added juice when Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Colin Powell speak. We learn how significant the eatery was at a time when restaurants discriminated. Horn & Hardart didn't discriminate. It welcomed racial inclusion. You see how Horn & Hardart was involved with TV shows that had very young, future Broadway talent such as Elliott Gould and Madeline Kahn. It's a fascinating history. Here's a trailer.
As society changed after World War 2 and the Vietnam War, H&H could not keep up its locations and its quality. Folks had moved to the suburbs. Fast food chains were looming large on the scene. Expensive coffees at places like Starbucks had replaced the famous 5 cent cups of coffee.
I loved seeing this New York history. It goes from the 1930s to the early 1990s. I knew of the automat and loved seeing images of its old art deco design plus the windows of foods, windows that opened when you put nickels in a slot. But I didn't know about its social significance and the company's longtime devotion to service and quality -- a devotion that made employees love working for the company.
You can see THE AUTOMAT on Amazon Prime Video. For more information on it, go here: www.automatmovie.com.
The documentary ends with a song about the automat written by and performed by the Tony Award winning songwriter -- Mel Brooks.
Ryan Murphy is a White, openly gay and very successful TV writer-director-producer. The shows in his list of credits include POSE, GLEE, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, FEUD starring Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford during the making of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, his HOLLYWOOD mini-seriesand HALSTON, the Netflix mini-series bio starring Ewan McGregor as the famous fashion designer.
Murphy's current creation for Netflix is MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY. It's based on a true story of pure evil that darkened Milwaukee for years. A serial killer preyed upon mostly gay men of color in Milwaukee. When his crimes came to light, the news shocked Milwaukee. But, to me, it should not have been a total shock based on the city's long, noted history of racism and homophobia. I lived in Milwaukee for 10 years. My apartment was 5 blocks away from his. Jeffrey Dahmer left a White, middle class suburb and moved into a predominantly Black neighborhood where residents were under-served and treated like second class citizens. He could play his White Privilege card when dealing with police.
I wrote about this a few days in my "Ryan Murphy and DAHMER" blogpost. I also added that Dahmer, when he hit the gay bars in search of victims, did not have a dorky bookworm appearance. He ditched the glasses, slicked his hair back and pulled his attire together. He was a handsome man who looked like an A-list male model for print ads or designer cologne TV commercials. He used that look as his personal spider web. There was no trailer for this new Murphy creation that I could put in my previous post about his Dahmer project. There is one now. Here it is.
Maybe I'm being too sensitive. Maybe it's because I had my bouts with racism and homophobia in Milwaukee. Maybe it's because I'm still angry over the Black and Brown lives taken that would not have been taken had White police protected and served that under-served community. But I can't watch this production to review it at this time.
It's obvious that Ryan Murphy likes to give us shows with a gay sensibility and gay characters. It's obvious that he likes to put Black characters and actors in his shows. However, in this case, I wish he'd given us something else.
Why couldn't Murphy have given us a TV mini-series bio on the life and times of Bayard Rustin, the brilliant and openly gay activist/singer who was Dr. Martin Luther King's top advisor, the man who was called "The Architect of the March on Washington"? There is -- at last -- a biopic of Rustin now in production with Emmy winner Colman Domingo in the lead role. An openly gay Black actor will be playing an openly gay Black historical figure.
Why couldn't Murphy give us the story of the celebrated singer/songwriter who reigned during the disco era -- Sylvester?
Or a mini-series biopic about groundbreaking Black and openly gay playwright Lorraine Hansberry? Not only did she write the Broadway play A RAISIN IN THE SUN, the show that made Sidney Poitier a star, she also write the screenplay for the 1961 film adaptation. Hansberry was the first Black woman to get an onscreen credit as screenwriter for a film released by a major Hollywood studio. Louis Gossett Jr invited me into his L.A. home to tape an interview. I asked him who should play Lorraine Hansberry if a biopic was done on her. Gossett was in the original Broadway cast of A RAISIN IN THE SUN and in the 1961 film. His immediate answer was "Taraji P. Henson."
FEUD and HOLLYWOOD showed his fascination lore. Maybe he could create a production inspired by the life and career of the late Ashley Boone. When I was new in my TV career and flew to L.A. and New York to interview celebs during movie junkets for entertainment, I learned of Ashley Boone from TV cameramen. They all said his name with reverence and affection.
When he was on contributor on the CBS weekday morning news show and wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter, future TCM host Robert Osborne said that Boone should be included in books about Hollywood studio heads.
Ashley Boone was Black, openly gay and he pretty much ran 20th Century Fox for half a year and pulled the studio out of the shambles it was in at the time. He was a marketing whiz. When THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW flopped at the box office in its initial theatrical release, he came up with the idea of the weekend midnight showings of it in theaters. Those became hugely popular and made the movie a pop culture favorite. When Hollywood insiders predicted that the first adventure would go immediately to drive-ins, Ashley Boone was the marketing whiz behind the initial STARS WARS trilogy. Need I tell you how big a hit that was for 20th Century Fox? He also worked on YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and ALIEN. Boone was a beloved Hollywood figure. His sister, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, is the first Black woman who was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I think you get my point. There may be critics who saw MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY and gave it a good review. But, right now, I just cannot bring myself to see my people being ignored and victimized.
"I was not expected to live. I was born two months premature." Those are the words of screen great Sidney Poitier as the new documentary, entitled SIDNEY, opens. The Bahamian-American actor/director passed away early this year at age 94. I admit it. When I heard the news, I cried. He'd been significant in most of my life and, obviously, in the life of Oprah Winfrey. She's the producer of this documentary and she appears in it with stories to tell and comments about Mr. Poitier. There was no one like Sidney Poitier. He was unique, remarkable and, in his own distinguished way, a rebel. This new documentary reminds us of that. Oprah produced it in close collaboration with the Poitier family and she provided several hours of her own interviews of the groundbreaking Oscar winner. We see the older, elegant Poitier speak to the camera and we see the handsome young box office star Poitier in earlier interviews. With the expected reverence, it covers the legacy of the man who was constantly striving. It gives us some strong, revealing new information. For instance, his long friendship with singer/actor Harry Belafonte. Together, they experienced hellish situations down South during the Civil Rights era when the two stars were highly visible activists. There were times they had falling outs and didn't speak to each for quite a while. Harry would get jealous of Sidney. Poitier had an affair during his first marriage and he was in therapy at the time. We see the acclaim he achieved as a barrier-blasting Black actor and we see the crap he had to endure sprung from his stardom.. He was not a perfect man. This is nor a perfect documentary. But, like the actor, it has heart and substance.
He was born into poverty to parents to loved each other. His early formative years were spent in Florida where he came face to face with racism. One incident found him with a gun at his head. He headed to New York. That's where he embarked on an acting career while working as a dishwasher. That's where he met Harry Belafonte. Belafonte had a role in a play and Sidney was his understudy. One night, Sidney went on for Harry -- and a Broadway producer happened to be in the audience. Sidney got a career boost. Harry got jealous. Sidney got his first major movie break when he was cast as a hospital doctor in the 1950 race drama, NO WAY OUT, directed and co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Poitier tells us that he felt it was a first of its kind in its Hollywood depiction of a Black person. Hollywood had long cast Black actors as domestics and such. That's a point where the documentary is not so perfect. Here's a trailer for SIDNEY.
Before Sidney Poitier and before 1950's NO WAY OUT, there was James Edwards in 1949's HOME OF THE BRAVE, a movie my WW2 veteran dad introduced me to when I was a kid and it aired on local TV. Edwards was handsome, talented and should have gotten some of the lead role opportunities that Poitier did. In HOME OF THE BRAVE, he played an educated Black man whose best friend from school days is a white fellow (played by Lloyd Bridges). They served together in WWII. Private Moss (Edwards) is an engineer topography specialist. He is hit with racism from fellow GIs that's so severe, it wounds him emotionally -- like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He's left with a paralysis and undergoes psychotherapy to recall what happened and overcome the paralysis. The role James Edwards had was far from the typical role given to Black actors.
I wondered if Sidney Poitier knew James Edwards and if they ever discussed the challenges of being Black actors trying to bring new images of Black people to the big screen. You can see 1949's HOME OF THE BRAVE on Amazon Prime Video.
Of his two Best Actor Oscar nominations, Poitier received his first one for 1958's THE DEFIANT ONES co-starring Tony Curtis. Poitier's daughters were also interviewed for the documentary. One daughter boasts that her father was the first Black performer since Hattie McDaniel of 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND to get an Oscar nomination.
Well ... Dorothy Dandridge made Black Hollywood history with her Best Actress Oscar nomination for 1954's CARMEN JONES.
Sidney Poitier made Hollywood history when he won the Best Actor Oscar for 1963's LILIES OF THE FIELD. The script had been originally sent to Harry Belafonte. He felt it was a "terrible movie." But he loved Sidney in it. I remember how my parents cheered in our South Central Los Angeles living room when Anne Bancroft announced Sidney's name as winner. I was happy too. I became aware of Sidney Poitier in the backseat of the family car when we went to the drive-in movies. We saw him in THE DEFIANT ONES, ALL THE YOUNG MEN (1960), A RAISIN IN THE SUJN (1961), PARIS BLUES (1961) and LILIES OF THE FIELD. Even if elements of the plots and patches of the dialogue were beyond my full grasp -- because I was a little boy -- I was riveted to him, He was vibrant, passionate, smart and he reflected people I knew, people like my dad and our neighbors.
In the turbulent 1960s, Poitier was the first Black person ever to be in the Top Ten at the box office. He broke through White Hollywood margins that had been erected around Black actor. And then Black people criticized him for not being Black enough as society was changing. Shakespeare: "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." During those turbulent times, in which the actor continued to be an activist, we see touching footage. There is news footage of presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy, telling a crowd of Black supporters that Poitier's friend, Dr. Martin Luther King, had been shot and killed. Kennedy would suffer that same fate just two months later.
Poitier continued to act and proved to be groundbreaking behind the camera as well. He directed films and opened doors for Black people to also work behind the cameras.
Of course, this famous scene in 1967's IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is discussed -- and rightfully so. Here's Poitier as Detective Virgil Tibbs. Oddly, he did not get an Oscar nomination for what became his most quoted film role. Rod Steiger took home the Oscar for Best Actor. I don't know about you but this scene sure is Black enough for me.
Reginald Hudlin directed SIDNEY. High praise goes to him for doing such a fine job with such an astonishing person whose life could've filled out a documentary miniseries over this 1 hour 50 minutes feature.
In 2016, my wonderful cousin and I went to a Los Angeles htoel to meet a couple of visiting friends and go out to dinner. At the hotel, we turned a corner and unexpectedly found ourselves up close to Oscar-winning screen great, Sophia Loren. Our jaws nearly dropped down to our shoes. When she smiled at us, we felt as though we'd entered the gates of Heaven, greeted with music from an angel choir. She was tall, regal, radiant and gorgeous
I write a lot about how we Black lovers of films, classic and new, domestic and foreign, were long excluded from the conversations of films on television. The way we were presented and approached by white entertainment journalists (and their producers), you would have thought that Black folks only went to see Blaxploitation movies.
My father was a postal clerk. My mother was a registered nurse. Our family lived in South Central Los Angeles, near Compton. I was blessed to have parents who loved movies. My favorite family pastime was when we went to the drive-in movies on a weekend. We went to the drive-in movies frequently. Those nights were like Christmas Day to me. Always a double feature with a cartoon and coming attractions.
On one of those nights, I was a little boy. My sister and I, as usual, were in the backseat of the family car wearing our pajamas under our street clothes. We'd get home around or after midnight and that made it easier for Mom and Dad to get us ready for bed.
We were at the drive-in. I was totally delighted by the sound of Mom and Dad howling with laughter in the front seat at a scene in a foreign film -- YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW directed by Vittorio De Sica. The scene? Sophia's character was doing an afternoon striptease for a man giddy with glee and played by Marcello Mastroianni. For a little taste of the foreign film, click onto the link below:
I loved that night, the parents' laughter and the sight of Sophia Loren. Wow! When I grew up, I rented the VHS of that De Sica film several times from my local video store. To me, De Sica films like that oe could have been shot with a Black cast in my hometown. His memorable characters -- their personalities, the wits, their passions, their perseverance and their environment -- always reminded me of my family and our neighbors in South Central L.A.
If you get Netflix, I've got a recommendation for you. This slightly quirky and totally warm-hearted feature runs only 30 minutes. An Italian-American grandmother in New Jersey give us an on-camera fan letter to La Loren. She tells us how much she loves the screen legend and how certain performances the actress gave have helped her get through some emotionally rough times. It's called WHAT WOULD SOPHIA LOREN DO? Here's a trailer.
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Sophia Loren. Molto Bella! I love her so very, very much.
Forget FRANKENSTEIN. Forget PSYCHO. Forget ALIEN and ALIENS. This feature is one of the most frightening productions I have ever seen on a screen. What makes it most frightening is that it's true. It all really happened. And elements of it are happening again.
Endangered democracy. The rise of authoritarian rhetoric. The attitude that Black lives don't matter. Anti-Semitism. Anti-immigration sentiments. Book banning. These elements are seen in the newest documentary from Ken Burns. It's THE U.S. and the HOLOCAUST and it's airing on PBS stations. I cannot urge you enough to see it. I watched the first episode and, within the opening 45 minutes, it just about scared the color off me. Look at the U.S. from the torch-bearing white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 to today's investigation into the January 2021 insurrection and current anti-immigrant news being made by governors in Florida and Texas. Our current United States parallel to 1933 Berlin will chill you to the bone. This important documentary series is also a warning, an alarm that demands our attention.
Watch it, record it, stream it, tell your friends about it. History seems to be repeating itself and we should be very, very afraid. For more information on this PBS presentation, click onto this link: www.pbs.org.
Ryan Murphy, the successful and openly gay white writer, director and producer who has AMERICAN HORROR STORY, episodes of GLEE, the HOLLYWOOD mini-series, and FEUD with Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford during the making of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? on his long list of credits, is now giving us MONSTER; THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY as a limited series on Netflix. Dahmer was a gay serial killer who truly was a monster in Milwaukee. His reign of evil was able to continue for as long as it did because of racism and homophobia in the city -- especially when those two weapons of discrimination were aimed at people of color in under-served neighborhoods. I graduated from a university in Milwaukee and stayed in the city after graduation to start my professional broadcast career with the goal of getting to New York. I was in Milwaukee for 10 years total. I grew up in Los Angeles on a cul-de-sac block in South Central L.A. with neighbors who were Black, Mexican, Filipino and White. The Los Angeles I knew was racially and culturally diverse with warm weather all-year round. When I arrived in Milwaukee to start my college education, I was rattled by two things -- how racially polarized the city was and how cold snow was. I'd never been in snow.
About the racial polarization: After graduation, when I had landed my first professional broadcast job, I lived in an apartment near an entrance to the 27th Street viaduct. It went from the North Side to the South Side. In Milwaukee, folks called it "the bridge that connects Africa to Poland." My apartment building was five blocks away from where Jeffrey Dahmer had lived alone in an apartment.
He preyed upon gay men of color at gay bars in the city. Bars I knew. Bars where gay guys could go, hang out with friends, catch up with friends and dance. There was often a CHEERS-like atmosphere in the clubs. People knew your name and, often, you liked seeing regulars whose names you didn't know but it was always a hoot to see them. In my group of friends, such a person was a guy they called "The Martex Towel Boy" because often had his hair in a white Martez towel wrapped like a turban on his head. He didn't even need a dance partner. He was a gentle free spirit who'd hit the dance floor and spin happily on it by himself.
It was long known that, at that time, there was an antagonistic relationship between the Black community and the Milwaukee police force. Dahmer lived with a relative in a predominantly white suburb. I worked on-air at the city's ABC affiliate. One afternoon, I was shooting a station promo in that suburb. Our crew took a station van to the location, a van with the station logo painted in huge letters and numbers it/ For our commercial, I had to deliver dialogue while holding a portable TV. There I was, on a sidewalk, wearing a microphone, our producer was a few feet away, holding a clipboard and a stopwatch and right behind her was our cameraman with the camera pointed right at me.
A cop car pulled up and the cop, looking at me, said "Can I help you?" All three of us politely explained that we were taping a commercial for WISN TV/Channel 12. The officer apologized for ruining our take and drove on his way. I was the only Black person in our three-person crew.
Jeffrey Dahmer left that suburb, called West Allis, and moved to the North Side in a mostly-Black neighborhood. It would be easier for him to bring men of color back to his place frequently in a predominantly Black area than it would be in white suburban West Allis where neighbors would be watching suspiciously and calling the cops. And the cops would respond quickly.
For months, Black residents complained to authorities about the extreme foul orders and strange, loud nocturnal noises coming from Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment. Nothing was done. He was enabled by White Privilege when approached by police.
When he hit the gay bars, he did not have the dorky and twisted bookworm look he has in the Netflix promo. He was handsome and used that as his personal spider web. Cleaned up and pulled together to hit the clubs, Dahmer looked like a male model in a designer cologne commercial on national TV. That was his trap.
Here's a trailer for the upcoming Netflix series about the serial killer.
My career goal was to get a TV job offer from New York City -- which I did in 1985. One thing that also fueled my goal to leave Milwaukee was that I tired of being called "n****r" and "f****t." I had racist and homophobic things shouted at me in Milwaukee from drive-by cars and once even at a Bruce Springsteen concert. I worked on an FM rock radio station where one of the DJs said that I would be "swishing in" soon for my shift. I was the only Black person in the station's on-air team. There were racial slurs directed to me in anonymous snail mail and in voicemails left on my phone after work hours.
None of that happened to me in New York.
I'm interested to see how the racial element is handled and revealed in this upcoming Ryan Murphy creation. I hope he had a good number of Black people in his production crew.
One last thing -- the Martex Towel Boy was one of Dahmer's victims.
Scott Feinberg is a skilled, popular TV and film columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. I've been reading his column for years. A few times -- very few -- have I found a criticism of his to be a bit off or just downright tone deaf. His review today of last night's Emmy Awards show on NBC is such a case. I got irritated reading it because it made me wonder -- yet again -- if established white critics, critics who consider themselves liberal in their work, really have a knowledge of Black actors, their history, the history of racial images in Hollywood, and the lack of diversity in the entertainment industry that has long blocked Black talent from being privileged with equal opportunities and equal pay.
Within the last two years, the Emmy Awards had been criticized for its lack of Black/Latino nominees. Was last night's Emmys show perfect? No. And I did not expect it to be. But significant history was made. I saw the magnificent Sheryl Lee Ralph in the original Broadway cast of the hit musical, DREAMGIRLS. I watched her on the TV sitcom MOESHA. I've seen her in films. I interviewed her once of live TV about her years of tireless activism ranging in issues from AIDS awareness to voting rights. Last night, Sheryl Lee Ralph won an Emmy for her work on the smart, sophisticated, relevant ABC sitcom, ABBOTT ELEMENTARY. She plays the wise veteran schoolteacher who knows how to deal with the self-absorbed and clueless principal while doling out advice to the young, new teachers, She's the voice of reason working with a principal whose life goals included being on THE BACHEORLETTE and was known to push grade schoolers out of the way during a fire drill.
Sheryl Lee Ralph is the second Black woman in TV history to win the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. The first was Jackee Harry for the 227 sitcom 35 years ago. In her glowing praise and congratulations on Twitter last night following Ms. Ralph's victory, Jackee Harry revealed that NBC originally wanted Sheryl Lee Ralph for the role Ms. Harry got on the 1985-1990 sitcom.
Sheryl Lee Ralph's win got a standing ovation, and her acceptance speech was one of the highlights of the show. Her speech was a lead story today in the first 10 minutes of the CBS MORNINGS 2-hour telecast.
Critic Scott Feinberg wrote: "A few thoughts on a bungled telecast packed with repeat winners from the same handful of shows that TV Academy members have recognized before..."
Quinta Brunson, the wonderful creator/star of ABBOTT ELEMENTARY, also won an Emmy. She is the second Black woman in TV history to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
We are well into the sixth paragraph of Feinberg's column before those two accomplished women get a mention in his review and that brief mention does not include the broadcast history they made.
I wondered about the knowledge of Black entertainment history that white TV & film journalists have. Here's an example: ABC entertainment news anchor, Chris Connelly, and Jess Cagle, highly regarded and handsome Editor-in-Chief of People magazine, were live on ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA to await the list of Oscar nominees for 2017. Two white critics and good men. The nominations were announced and both men commented on the umpteenth Oscar nomination Meryl Streep received. Neither Connelly nor /Cagle remarked that, with her Best Supporting Actress nomination for FENCES, Viola Davis had just become the most Oscar-nominated Black actress in Hollywood history. It was her third nomination. Neither mentioned that her co-star, Denzel Washington, continued his reign as the most Oscar-nominated Black actor in Hollywood history. FENCES earned him his seventh nomination for acting. Not only that -- Denzel Washington directed FENCES and got a producer nomination for being one of the FENCES producers which got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
As I've written repeatedly in previous posts, White TV journalists never, ever dug into the story of why the TV field of film critics, whether single or in duos, were predominately white for decades. From the days of the groundbreaking Siskel & Ebert rean in the 1980s, Joel Siegel on ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA, Gene Shalit on the TODAY Show, Leonard Maltin on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, Rex Reed, Jeffrey Lyons, Richard Roeper, down to the syndicated team of Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons (young son of Jeffrey Lyons) in 2008...that national TV gig was dominated by White dudes praising and recommending films such as THE COLOR PURPLE, DO THE RIGHT THING, BOYS N THE HOOD, THE HELP and 12 YEARS A SLAVE. I can tell you that there were often times when I felt like the Rosa Parks of critics' screenings in Manhattan for upscale films. I was the only Black person in the room.
And the White film critics -- who also considered themselves to be liberal in their viewpoints and were quick to note racial discrimination and oppression in the stories of films they praised -- were always oddly silent about the lack of racial inclusion in their own field. They rarely -- if ever -- spoke out about the need for critics of color to be seen in the national TV or print spotlight. They never asked why there was such as lack of Black critics in attendance at the annual New York Film Critics Circle awards dinner. They never investigated a story like the severe lack of Black agents in top entertainment agencies, a lack that impacted the lack of opportunities and representation for Black talent. Did you see the one Black agent at a prestigious agency that Kevin Hart played in the Chris Rock show biz satire TOP FIVE (2014)? As a former client of the William Morris Agency, I can report that Hart's performance as a frustrated agent was funny and totally accurate. So was all of Robert Townsend's 1987 satire, HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. I left William Morris because I tired of my White agent submitting me to play Black thugs and homeboy hoods after my years as a celebrity talk show host on VH1 with A-list film, stage, TV, music and literary guests. To name a few -- Kirk Douglas, Meryl Streep, Hume Cronyn & Jessica Tandy, Paul McCartney, Carlos Santana, Joan Baez, Raul Julia, Spike Lee, James L. Brooks, Sally Field, Whoopi Goldberg, Fran Lebowitz, Norman Mailer and Dominick Dunne. The straw that broke this camel-of-color's back was when he submitted to play a wacky Black thug in the 1993 sequel to WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S. The role, written by a white man, would've required me to perform voodoo on the comedy corpse with boombox music and a bucket of fried chicken in the men's room of a Times Square porno movie theater. That scene is in the movie.
I say "Brava, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Quinta Brunson!" I bow to and recognize the history you made at this year's Emmy Awards with your victories. I wish Scott Feinberg had fully recognized your history too. I am thrilled that ABBOTT ELEMENTARY will be back soon for its second season.
Von Ellstein: "You know what you must do, Mr. Shields, so that you will have it exactly as you want it? You must direct this picture yourself. To direct a picture, a man needs humility. Do you have humility, Mr. Shields?" ~from 1953's THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL directed by Vincente Minnelli.
Way back in the late 1980s, I told myself that -- if I ever had the opportunity to conduct a sit-down interview of director Steven Spielberg -- I would ask him that question from Minnelli's Hollywood-on-Hollywood drama. And here's why:
The legendary cartoon character voice actor, Mel Blanc, told me that he did not like young Spielberg. He felt that Old Hollywood voting members of the Academy would not really embrace him until he learned humility. I did a half-hour interview of Mr. Blanc in his warm, inviting L.A. home for my old VH1 talk show. We taped and aired the show in June 1988. Blanc passed away the following month at age 81. He was a most gracious man, appreciative of the interview. Off-camera he told me how Spielberg had irritated him.
Steven Spielberg was one of the hottest New Hollywood filmmakers at that time. When I was in high school, classmates and I were raving about the ABC TV Movie of the Week we'd seen the night before. It was a made-for-TV thriller called DUEL about a motorist whose vehicle is being threatened by an almost demonic-seeming diesel truck. The 1971 production was directed by Spielberg, then in his early 20s. He'd been directing episodes of network TV shows. Then he graduated to directing innovative box office blockbuster films such as JAWS (1975), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and E.T. the EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL.
Mr. Blanc said that Spielberg, although extremely talented, had to learn how to work with veteran production people. He added that Spielberg would hire crew members who'd worked on Hollywood classics, but not honor their experience by asking for their input. They had to follow his orders. That was the lack of humility noted by Old Hollywood crew people. They felt he needed to learn a lesson. Mel Blanc then pointed out the success of Spielberg's THE COLOR PURPLE.
Spielberg had gotten Best Director Oscar nominations for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and E.T. the EXTTRA-TERRESTRIAL. THE COLOR PURPLE got an impressive 11 Oscar nominations including Best Actress, two for Best Supporting Actress, Best Song and Best Picture of 1985. Spielberg did not get a nomination for Best Director.
Why was Mel Blanc, who had about 50 years of fame as a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon character voice actor, mad at Spielberg? The director was the executive producer of 1988's WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. He wanted Mel Blanc to recreate some of his cartoon character voices for the fabulous live action/animated feature.
But he wanted Mel Blanc, basically, to audition. That's when Blanc blew his top. He got the job -- without auditioning.
An older, more mature Spielberg got his next Best Director Oscar nomination for 1993's excellent, important SCHINDLER'S LIST. He won and his film won for Best Picture.
According to entertainment news, Steven Spielberg's new film premiered to "a rapturous audience" over the weekend at the Toronto Film Festival. THE FABLEMANS was described as "a semi-autobiographical tale about the director's early life and how he fell in love with filmmaking." Variety wrote that it "could be a frontrunner for Best Picture." Deadline Hollywood calls it a "glorious tribute to art and family." The Hollywood Reporter calls it "a deeply moving childhood memoir" and critic Matt Neglia writes "Michelle Williams is heartbreakingly magnificent while Judd Hirsch and David Lynch steal the film..."
I love this from critic Brian Tallerico: "Life ain't like the movies. And yet the movies help us hold onto life. Spielberg's whole heart is up on that screen."
It never ceases to amaze me how classic old films -- by that I mean films made before 1980 -- can still feel relevant and timely. We should pay attention to the literature of cinema. Films are part of our fine arts.
When Donald Trump hurled himself into the U.S. presential race, having had neither previous political nor military experience, I thought immediately of the character Andy Griffith played in Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD. As a popular network entertainment TV figure who schemes to infiltrate politics with his dark ambitions, Griffith gave a brutal and blistering performance that should have landed him in the Oscar race for Best Actor of 1957.
In the 1980s, Trump was a popular millionaire figure in New York City. The case of the Central Park Five was a crime story that made international headlines. Five Black and Latino teen males were accused of attacking a White female jogger in Central Park. Trump took out full page New York newspaper ads calling for the execution of the minority teens. In the years to come, when the five males had progressed into adulthood, they were exonerated. Trump never apologized.
Even after having done that, he got bookings on entertainment talk shows. He was on live daytime TV with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Kathie Lee chatted about her new friendships with Trump wives Ivana Trump and, later, Marla Maples. Donald Trump was in Macy's TV commercials. He hosted an edition of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Then he hit weekly prime time television as the host of CELEBRITY APPRENTICE on NBC. During his time as host, he took to Twitter to post basically racist comments about President Barack Obama. He demanded to see Pres. Obama's birth certificate, tweeting that he was not really an American.
This made me wonder if he had a TV contract with the standard morals clause in it. Every TV contract I've ever signed since with 1980s -- be it for entertainment or for news work -- had a standard morals clause which states that you could be given the heave-ho if you did something to shame or embarrass your TV employers. He kept insulting President Obama and he kept his job as host of a network TV reality game show. Then he insulted Mexican immigrants. Then he was caught telling NBC's Billy Bush (a relative of two former presidents) on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD about grabbing women by the genitals.
Then he became President of the United States.
Here's a trailer for 1957's A FACE IN THE CROWD:
Hollywood greats Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy appeared in 9 films together. The ones that usually get highlighted are their first movie together, 1942's romantic comedy WOMAN OF THE YEAR, George Cukor's 1949 "battles of the sexes" comedy, ADAM'S RIB in which they play happily married lawyers who have to oppose each other in the courtroom and their final film together, 1967's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER with the pair as parents whose daughter is engaged to a Black doctor played by Sidney Poitier.
One film of theirs that rarely gets mentioned is George Cukor's 1942 political drama, KEEPER OF THE FLAME. It was not a hit like the three classics I mentioned in the above paragraph. I had never watched it all the way through until this year -- a year after the January 6th Insurrection in Washington, D.C. Cukor's drama doesn't entirely work. There's a scene with a crazy mother that's like the kind of classic film scene that would've inspired a spoof sketch on the old Carol Burnett show. However, the strong last 25 minutes of the movie just about made my jaw dropped down to my shoelaces at how timely they felt. Katharine Hepburn plays the widow of a beloved American patriot. Spencer Tracy plays a reporter trying to write a biography about him but senses he's not getting the real story.
Here's a trailer for 1942's KEEPER OF THE FLAME:
"I saw the face of fascism in my own home." ~ Katharine Hepburn as the patriot's widow. Her late beloved patriot husband was really a man who admired great dictators and planned to abuse the free press -- social media, if you will -- for his dark political ambitions.
In her 20s, Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress Oscar for her work in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012). It was the third of her four Oscar nominations. She is now 32 and one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood. She made $40 million for the 2014 and 2015 releases in THE HUNGER GAMES franchise, according to entertainment news reports.
This week, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, she gave quite a candid and muscular cover story interview to Vogue magazine. She talked about her miscarriages, the Roe v Wade meltdown, the important role that politics play in her life -- and the inequality of being paid less than her male co-stars. Reportedly, she made $5 million less than Leonardo DiCaprio on DON'T LOOK UP. Said Lawrence: "It doesn't matter how much I do, I'm still not going to get paid as much as guys, because of my vagina?"
I totally, thoroughly understand her point. However, since she is a feminist and passionate about equality, I want to remind her that she is a talented White actress who makes millions and received other good Hollywood script opportunities after her Oscar nomination for WINTER'S BONE (2010), her first Oscar nomination.
Cicely Tyson got $6000 for her extraordinary performance in SOUNDER (1972) and it brought her a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
After her one -- and only -- Oscar nomination, Tyson had to turn to TV for further steady employment and significant roles because Hollywood had no good follow-up opportunities for her. Other Black actresses who followed Cicely Tyson in getting just one Oscar nomination and then were forced to turn to TV for steady work afterwards include Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (of 1996's SECRETS & LIES), Taraji P. Henson and Gabourey Sidibe. Even Viola Davis turned to TV and did ABC's HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER because Hollywood offered no big screen opportunities to her after her second Oscar nomination.
I want to include Rita Moreno in my women of color list because she had no Hollywood script offers for seven years after she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for WEST SIDE STORY. She, too, turned to television.
This is a history of inequality that White entertainment journalists never covered nor pointed out.
Jennifer, you're right. It's not fair. But you're still luckier than other gifted performers of your gender but of a different race.
I wish you a very relaxing and enjoyable Labor Day holiday. I'm a proud union member of the Screen Actors Guild. My union makes sure that I am being treated respectfully in the workplace, that I get paid in a timely manner and that I get a raise when it's deserved.
Here's an example of why I love the Screen Actors Guild which also takes care of TV & radio performers: When I do union work, I get paid every two weeks. Quite some time ago, I did nearly a year of non-union work on Food Network and I was lucky if I got paid every two months. THAT'S why I am grateful to have the SAG/AFTRA union behind me.
In honor of Labor Day, here's a number done by striking factory workers, lead by Doris Day, in the 1957 Warner Bros film version of the Broadway musical comedy hit, THE PAJAMA GAME.
As I write this, it is National Cinema Day here in the U.S. and the U.K. Movie tickets at cineplexes are priced at only $3.00 just for today. If you took advantage of that wonderful discount and saw the new Kevin Hart comedy, ME TIME, that would have been $3.00 more than you should have spent. This new buddy comedy is on Netflix -- and I sat through it so you don't have to. The movie runs 1 hour and 35 minutes which is probably the same amount of time that director John Hamburg spent writing the script. Hart plays the devoted stay-at-home dad in suburban Sherman Oaks. His wife, played by the versatile and gifted Regina Hall, has a busy career as an architect. Mark Wahlberg stars as the dad's longtime best friend, an unconventional guy who has a history of getting his conventional buddy into some wacky and wild misadventures. Dad is stressed out dealing with housework, the kids and school activities. And he's jealous of his wife's handsome Latino co-worker. Dad wants some time to himself. In comes the best friend to, once again, lead his married buddy astray in the name of fun.
This could have been a light, entertaining movie. What we get is something like an enjoyable episode of BLACK-ISH that devolves into a lame 90 minutes-long frat boy party. It's weighed down by bathroom humor, gags about middle-aged sex, four-letter words and situations that just make no damn sense. What hurts the most is that ME TIME boasts a talented cast: Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg, Regina Hall plus veteran sitcom actors John Amos and Anna Maria Horsford. Seal makes a very cool special guest appearance to do a musical number with Hart.
Before ME TIME dropped on Netflix, entertainment news ran with the amusing story that Mark Wahlberg had to stand naked for a scene on his first day of filming. Well...director/writer John Hamburg does give us an appreciable amount of time to gaze at Wahlberg's bare butt -- yet even that eye candy cannot make up for a bad script and a waste of good talent.
