In the first ten minutes of Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN, we see Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln talking to two Black soldiers on a Civil War battlefield. One of those soldiers was played by actor Colman Domingo. For his performance as Lincoln in that 2012 release, Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Oscar for Best Actor, Today, Colman Domingo is receiving well-deserved Best Actor Oscar buzz for his lead performance in a film that is also a biopic.
Domingo plays the brilliant, influential and greatly overlooked mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bayard Rustin was called "the Architect of the March on Washington" headed by Dr. King in 1963. That's where King made his historic "I have a dream" speech.
I am admittedly old enough to recall being a little boy and watching the March on Washington with my parents when it was a live telecast on CBS. I remember seeing tall, slim Bayard Rustin with his salt and pepper hair and wearing horn-rimmed glasses speak forcefully and passionately and then stand behind Dr. King. In my adult years, I learned that he was highly-educated, a Quaker, a singer of spirituals who had recorded albums and performed on Broadway, an outspoken Civil Rights activist -- and an openly gay man in the days when one could be arrested for simply having a cocktail in a gay bar. When I learned that fact, I realized why the famous Rustin became a very minor character -- if seen at all -- in modern-day biopics about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. For all his achievements and contributions, Rustin had been pushed into the shadows because of his sexuality. Back in July 2020, I blogged a post about our need for a Bayard Rustin biopic. Well...now we have one, And it was worth waiting for. Barack and Michelle Obama are executive producers. It was directed by George C. Wolfe. Actor Colman Domingo gives an extraordinary performance as the controversial and complicated American activist. Domingo commands the screen and seems to have been born to play Bayard Rustin. He did his homework extremely well. Also, he's made Hollywood history. He is an openly gay Black actor playing an openly gay Black historical figure.RUSTIN is in theaters and now on Netflix. This is a remarkable, stirring must-see biopic.
Glynn Turman, Jeffrey Wright, CCH Pounder and, in a dramatic role, Chris Rock co-star. This is a film that our LGBTQ community needs to see and support. As for Mr. Colman Domingo, I am so proud of him and I add to the praise that he deserves to be an Oscar nominee for Best Actor.
...We all make mistakes. That written, I must disagree politely with something you said on TCM back in July. It's in a clip that I viewed this morning on the Turner Classic Movies: TCM page on Facebook.
Eddie is a noted author, a film noir historian and an extremely popular, dapper host of film noir classics that air weekly on TCM. (My aunt back in L.A. loves him.) Occasionally, he's pulled from out of the film noir shadows of TCM's Noir Alley on weekends to introduce something brighter. Such is the case when, back in July, he hosted films selected by guest programmer, Shari Belafonte. One of her selections was the 1950 comedy, HARVEY, starring James Stewart and Josephine Hull as his character's ditzy sister, Hull won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. About that win, Eddie Muller said: "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never gives Oscars for comedy performances. They don't."
If I had been a TCM segment producer working on those segments, I would have gracefully edited that statement out before it aired to his benefit -- and I would have, also gracefully, explained why to Mr. Muller.
The same year Josephine Hull won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for HARVEY, Judy Holliday won the Best Actress Oscar for BORN YESTERDAY.
Some other actors who took home Hollywood gold for performances in film comedies are --
Walter Matthau, Best Supporting Actor for Billy Wilder's THEFORTUNE COOKIE
Goldie Hawn, Best Supporting Actress for CACTUS FLOWER
Lee Marvin, Best Actor for the comedy western CAT BALLOU
Glenda Jackson, Best Actress for A TOUCH OF CLASS
Julie Andrews, Best Actress for the musical comedy MARY POPPINS
Barbra Streisand, Best Actress for the musical comedy FUNNY GIRL
George Burns, Best Supporting Actor for Neil Simon's THE SUNSHINE BOYS
Maggie Smith, Best Supporting Actress for Neil Simon's CALIFORNIA SUITE
Richard Dreyfuss, Best Actor for Neil Simon's THE GOODBYE GIRL
Diane Keaton, Best Actress for Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL Dianne Wiest, Best Supporting Actress for Woody Allen's HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Dianne Wiest, Best Supporting Actress for Woody Allen's BULLETS OVER BROADWAY
Mira Sorvino, Best Supporting Actress for Woody Allen's MIGHTY APHRODITE
Kevin Kline, Best Supporting Actor for A FISH CALLED WANDA
Sir John Gielgud, Best Supporting Actor for ARTHUR
Olympia Dukakis, Best Supporting Actress for MOONSTRUCK
Cher, Best Actress for MOONSTRUCK
...and Whoopi Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress for GHOST
There you have it. Some actors who got laughs and then got Oscars for their work.
July 19, 2020. That's the date of my blog piece titled "We Need a Bayard Rustin Biopic." I'm old enough to recall seeing Bayard Rustin speak at the historic March on Washington in 1963. My parents watched as it was a live network news telecast on CBS. I was a little boy and watched with them. Bayard Rustin was a gifted singer, a Quaker, an intellect and a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was Dr. King's top advisor and was called "the Architect of the March on Washington."
In my July 2020 post, I wrote: "He was a key figure in the Civil Rights movement. The late Bayard Rustin was also an openly gay man. This is why his monumental contributions to the Civil Rights movement were unjustly overlooked and downplayed. Tell Hollywood that we are in major need of a well-done Bayard Rustin biopic."
Well, finally....finally we're getting one. It was directed by George C. Wolfe. The executive producers are Barack and Michelle Obama. RUSTIN opens in theaters come November and it will air on Netflix. Colman Domingo stars as Rustin. He is no stranger to big screen biopics. He has a key scene as a soldier talking to President Abraham Lincoln in the first ten minutes of Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN (2012) and he played activist Ralph Abernathy in Ava DuVernay's Martin Luther King biopic, SELMA (2014).
I've read a few reviews of RUSTIN written by respected, professional film critics and I'm thrilled that there is Best Actor Oscar buzz for Mr. Domingo's performance. We've seen hetero actors such as the William Hurt, Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal get Oscar nominations or win Oscars for playing gay men. In RUSTIN, we are graced with an openly gay Black actor portraying an openly gay Black historical figure. That's history too. Here's a trailer.
Following RUSTIN, Colman Domingo will also be seen in the film adaptation of Broadway's hit musical version of THE COLOR PURPLE.
I'm currently living with a sweet relative in the Twin Cities area. I truly, madly, deeply miss New York City. We live in a downtown civic center with tall business business buildings and I'm a short walk away from a deluxe hotel and a gorgeous library. However -- this area has no Chinese restaurant hat delivers, no good Mexican or Italian restaurant, the coffee shops are closed on weekends and there is no nearby movie theater. Again -- I truly, madly, deeply miss New York City.
One thing I loved about going to the movies was seeing the trailers of coming attractions. Here are some I found online.
Woody Allen has received rave reviews for his new film which is subtitled and in French. It's a drama called COUP de CHANCE.
I've been a Randall Park fan ever since 2011 when I lived in San Francisco and noticed him in national TV commercials. He's just got the gift -- acting talent and charisma. I loved him as the dad on the ABC sitcom, FRESH OFF THE BOAT. He's wonderful in the fabulous Netflix romantic comedy, ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE. Randall Park now makes his directorial debut with SHORTCOMINGS, a story set in the Bay Area.
In the 70s and 80s, the newest Woody Allen film was always on the A-list of movies for New Yorkers to see. In the 90s, critics began to tire of the lack of minority representation in his films -- films that we set in the ethnically-diverse city of New York. With that in mind, compare Park's SHORTCOMINGS to Woody Allen's 2013 Oscar winner, BLUE JASMINE. Cate Blanchett won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the New York socialite who flees to San Francisco when her privileged life starts to fall apart. Many scenes were shot in San Francisco. Some were shot near where I lived. I interacted with and/or was around Asian-American people every single day in San Francisco. BUT -- in Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE -- not one Asian-American actor is seen in a role that has at least 5 lines or more. Randall Park could've played the role done by Louis C.K. John Cho or Daniel Dae Kim would've been perfect for the role played by Peter Sarsgaard. Ken Jeong could've played Jasmine's San Francisco dentist.
Helen Mirren deservedly won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in THE QUEEN (2006). Mirren plays another strong woman of historical note who had the world's attention. She's Israeli Prime Minister Gold Meir in GOLDA.
It's out now and making a lot of money. In fact, director/writer Greta Gerwig is the first female filmmaker whose film has grossed $1 billion globally. BARBIE, the comedy movie in the pink, has the iconic doll becoming human and experiencing an existential crisis. Margot Robbie is getting Oscar buzz for her performance as Barbie and so is Ryan Gosling as the rather clueless Ken. If I lived near a cineplex, I would've seen it by now. But I don't. For you -- here's a taste of Ken.
STRANGE WAY OF LIFE from that fabulous director, Pedro Almodovar, runs only 30 minutes. His short feature has been called an answer to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal are the stars. It opens soon.
GILDA, the 1946 drama from Columbia Pictures, was surely the film that made Hollywood star, Rita Hayworth, an international screen legend. I have been in awe of Rita Hayworth's talent ever since I was a pre-teen growing up in Los Angeles. Acting-wise, Hayworth was never mentioned in the same category with Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck. But, like Stanwyck, she could effortlessly go from comedy roles (in her case, musical comedy roles) to being a femme fatale in film noir thrillers such as Orson Welles' THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947).
Welles had Hayworth dye her hir blonde for that role.
When I was a kid watching her old movies on television, this was back in the day before VHS tapes, DVD rentals, streaming and cable. I saw her movies on local stations. The night I saw her dance with Fred Astaire in YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH (1941) with an original score by Cole Porter, I felt like I was experiencing a joyful out-of-body experience.
Their 1942 musical comedy, YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER, also thrilled me. They introduced the Jerome Kern & Jonny Mercer song, "I'm Old-Fashioned." Nan Wynn sang for Rita.
With her famous red hair getting the Technicolor treatment in the 1944 musical, COVER GIRL, she was once again fabulous as she danced with Gene Kelly.
Then came the glove strip number to "Put the Blame on Mame" in GILDA, a noir love story. (Rita's singing voice was usually dubbed in her musicals. Anita Ellis did Rita's vocals in GILDA.)
In later years, Rita Hayworth showed her sensitive dramatic skills in MEET SADIE THOMPSON (1953), SEPARATE TABLES (1958) and the murder trial courtroom film, THE STORY ON PAGE ONE (1959). In that courtroom drama, she had scenes opposite famed acting teacher Sanford Meisner and was directed by Clifford Odets. I've long felt that Rita Hayworth deserves more appreciation for her acting. She was really quite good and versatile.
I love Rita Hayworth's film work. I've mentioned it in my decades of entertainment reporter on radio and national TV -- work that started in the 1970s. This week on Twitter, I tweeted that Hayworth may not have been in a league with Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn (acting-wise), but she was a good, sincere and talented actress -- as she displayed in GILDA. GILDA was airing on TCM at the time.
This post is for all those who are tweeting me the information that she was also a dancer.
One of the most thrilling moments of my life occurred in Chicago in the 70s. On Saturday mornings, when I had recently graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee and living in a campus area apartment, I would listen to the Roy Leonard Show on WGN out of Chicago. One morning, Roy had a movie trivia contest. I called in -- and I won! I won two tickets to see Frank Sinatra in concert in Chicago. That was fantastic but it got even better when my date and I arrived at the theater. We were smack dab in the front row, a few feet away from the stage.
Sinatra, radiating charisma, was in terrific voice with a full orchestra behind him. I was in Heaven. My date and I seemed to be the youngest couple in that sold out audience. As Sinatra was taking his bows to a standing ovation after one of his encores, he looked at me in the audience and motioned me over to shake his hand before he walked into the wings. I felt my soul leave my body. The experience was the awesome.
When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, a local radio station had.a weeknight program called "Sinatra at Seven." At 7pm, the host would play a half-hour of recordings by Frank Sinatra. I loved that show and was a regular listener -- yes, even though I was in high school. The singer/actor was a revered talent in our household.
I think it's time we were reminded of what a supreme singer he was. Here are four cuts of his from movies he did. "All My Tomorrows" is a song he sang in his 1959 comedy, A HOLE IN THE HEAD.
Frank Sinatra gave one of his strongest film performances in the 1920s era drama, THE JOKER IS WILD. He introduced the song, "All The Way," in that 1957 release and it was a big hit for him. "All The Way" won the Oscar for Best Song.
Cole Porter penned all the tunes heard in the 1956 MGM musical comedy, HIGH SOCIETY. It's a musical version of the 1940's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY with Frank Sinatra taking on the role originally done onscreen by James Stewart and Grace Kelly taking on the role first done by Katharine Hepburn. I love this Cole Porter tune, "Mind If I Make Love To You."
I close it out with Sinatra being ultimately cool as the bad boy nightclub crooner/ladies' man in 1957's PAL JOEY co-starring Rita Hayworth as a wealthy widow. Here he sings "The Lady Is A Tramp."
And there you have it. I hope you liked my picks for some Essential Sinatra.
"It would be a shame to retire when you feel like you still got it." A line from 80 FOR BRADY.
This fluffy comedy stars four heavyweight female talents now in their senior years -- Oscar winners Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Sally Field and the remarkable Oscar nominee Lily Tomlin. Inspired by a true story, it's about four friends determined to go to the Super Bowl and to meet Tom Brady. This is the kind of feature that, back in the day, would have been a made-for-network TV movie. It's the kind of inoffensive feature that makes for a good airplane movie. I happened to see it this weekend -- and I enjoyed it! Some of it's predictable. Personally, I could've done with less scenes that included Guy Fieri of Food Network. However, the four female stars still have it. They know how to make this unchallenging material work. And they look great. Jane Fonda seems to be wearing a 1970s Connie Stevens wig collection, but she's still cool.
I really lit up to see Tony winner Billy Porter have a fun scene with the ladies as a Super Bowl show choreographer. Yes, he gets all four to dance. I've been a fan of Billy's for over 20 years-- going back to his stage work and his scene-stealing role in the 2000 movie, THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB: A ROMANTIC COMEDY. It's a comedy about a group of gay male friends, members of a weekend baseball team, as they try to find love in West Hollywood. One of the things I love about the movie as that the group of friends is race and age inclusive. I met Billy in 2008 at a SAG-AFTRA job networking event in New York City, attended by many of us who were in need of employment. I stunned to see Billy standing next to me at one booth, also taking pamphlets and other information. With his set of skills and talents, I couldn't believe he was unemployed. But he was. He could not have been more gracious and supportive speaking with me. After that, if I saw him on the street, he'd stop and chat with me. Then things turned around for him. Came a Broadway musical version of the British comedy film, KINKY BOOTS. Billy got a top role in it. And he won a Tony. He is a walking lesson in perseverance.
Here's a bit of the movie.
Lily Tomlin has a dramatic scene in a locker room with Tom Brady -- and he's very good in it. I had a most enjoyable pastime watching five people I've had the privilege to meet in my career -- Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Lily Tomlin and Billy Porter.
On Monday night, July 10th, Shari Belafonte was a terrific Guest Programmer on TCM. The actress, writer, producer and daughter of the late, great Harry Belafonte has a keen knowledge of classic film. She selected films to air and her first choice was the strong 1959 crime drama, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW starring her father and Robert Ryan. Her next selection was a comedy starring James Stewart and based on a hit Broadway play. The movie was 1950's HARVEY with James Stewart as the lovable Elwood P. Dowd, a man whose best friend is an imaginary giant rabbit. Elwood is a gentle soul who likes to drink. His great gift is his kindness. His fluttery, critical sister wants him committed to a sanitarium. Josephine Hull played the sister and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.
Shari Belafonte did her segments with film noir expert/author Eddie Muller. Eddie said to Shari that Hull's win was noteworthy because the Academy doesn't give Oscars for comedy performances. I tweeted to Eddie's attention that Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert won Oscars for the classic screwball comedy IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Judy Holliday won Best Actress for BORN YESTERDAY and Whoopi Goldberg won for GHOST. That was all the space I had a single tweet on Twitter. He tweeted back, "Out of how many nominations? I'll stand by this statement, but thanks for pointing out the rare exceptions."
I replied that there have been Oscar nominations for comedy performances -- Carole Lombard in MY MAN GODFREY, Rosalind Russell and Peggy Cass for AUNTIE MAME, Jack Lemmon for SOME LIKE IT HOT, Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE and Melissa McCarthy for BRIDESMAIDS. But it's oddly rare for actors to win for the hard work of screen comedy. Again, all the room I had for one single tweet.
THEN...a tweeter messaged me that Marisa Tomei won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for MY COUSIN VINNY. Another tweeter reminded me that Sir John Gielgud won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his wisecracking but loving butler role in ARTHUR -- a comedy that brought Dudley Moore a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his starring role. Another chimed in with the Best Actress Oscar Cher won for MOONSTRUCK. Olympia Dukakis won for Best Supporting Actress.
Those tweets juiced up my movie memory and I added these Oscar winners for comedy performances: Diane Keaton ... Best Actress for Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL...
Mira Sorvino -- Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for Woody Allen's MIGHTY APHRODITE...
...and Dianne Wiest got one of her two Best Supporting Actress Oscars for Woody Allen's BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. After years of dramatic work, what did Lee Marvin win a Best Actor Oscar for? The 1965 comedy western, CAT BALLOU.
And there you have it. I'd like to take Eddie Muller out for a drink and tell him about all this. I'd also add the Barbra Streisand Best Actress Oscar victory for FUNNY GIRL -- especially the first half of the film.
I hope Shari Belafonte is invited back to be a special TCM Guest Programmer again. She was wonderful.
Seeing this classic sci-fi horror thriller again brought back some warm childhood memories. 1953's INVADERS FROM MARS was a Saturday afternoon movie I watched numerous times on KTTV/Channel 11 in Los Angeles when I was a child of the 60s. The modestly-budgeted movie came out during America's new atomic age, and that also contained paranoia as an offshoot of Senator Joe McCarthy's blacklisting. Like THE WIZARD OF OZ and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, INVADERS FROM MARS is a story related from a child's viewpoint.
Young David McLean is a smart, polite, loving little boy in Small Town America. He loves his parents -- his blonde and lovely mother and his brawny, devoted, scientist dad. David also loves science and has a telescope in his bedroom. He's up at 4:30 in the morning, gazing at the skies. His parents wake up and gently tell him to go back to bed. They fall asleep. The minutes later, a storm erupts. We notice that the trees outside are barren and the grass is not green.No flowers are growing. A sign that a crisis is about to happen. David sees a spaceship hovering in the sky and then it lands, disappearing into the sand behind the hill. "There's something out there," David says.
He has to tell his parents, but this taps into a fear many of us had as kids. Not being believed by our parents. But David's kind-hearted dad is different. He knows that David is not a kid who would fabricate tall tales. He goes to investigate.
He returns, but he's not the same. His face is frozen with a cold blank stare coming from his eyes. He's verbally brutish to David and his mother. He strikes David. The boy knows immediately that something changed his father -- something behind the hill. This taps into another childhood fear -- losing our parents in some way,.
David's mother goes behind the hill to look for her husband. She returns cold and changed. Soon other protective figures besides his parents are changed by an alien force -- local cops, members of the military.
David must contact scientists in town and get the story out. He must be believed. There are evil Martians under the sand and in the earth. The Martians leave a mark on the back of the necks of those humans they've changed.
Originally, a 20th Century Fox release, 1953's INVADERS FEOM MARS has received a mighty fine restoration and is now available thanks to Ignite Films.
This film is so modestly-budgeted that it looks as though it might have been made for TV. But it's art direction, the slightly expressionistic look of it, is something I vividly recall from my childhood viewings. Some of the evil Martian slaves to their leader did look like big middle-aged guys in some ill-fitting costumes, but I was still thrilled. And the Martian leader, a head in a large globe, really creeped me out.
Jimmy Hunt had a perfect All-American 1950s look for his role as David. He's excellent in the role. I felt his anxiety and fears and determination. His determination to be believed by policemen who say, "Flying saucers, disappearing scientists. What next?" Jimmy Hunt carries you into and through the horror of the movie. In a bit part, you'll see Barbara Billingsley four years before she won fame as a TV sitcom mom on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.
When I was a kid, TV sets came in either black and white (picture-wise) or color. We had a black and white set. INVADERS FROM MARS is in color and seeing this restoration was a thrill. I had not seen the movie in quite a few years, but I was amazing at how much I remembered about the visuals of the set design and the way the actors were photographed. INVADERS FROM MARS was directed by William Cameron Menzies. He also designed the production. That explains the creative visuals. Menzies received a special Oscar for his use of color in 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND. His other credits as an art director include Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA, Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
His direction, production design, tone and simplicity give an immediacy and depth to the horror of INVADERS FROM MARS. It truly is one of the top entries in the 1950's sci-fi horror genre. I can't remember much about the big-budgeted 1986 Tobe Hooper remake. But I remember a lot about the original. 1953's INVADERS FROM MARS still sends chills.
This short feature, running about 10-12 minutes, is a TCM Original Production labeled as "a Brief History." There are three commentators in it -- a White gentleman named Eric Lott and two African American scholars -- Professor Jacqueline Stewart, director of the Motion Picture Academy Museum, and noted author Donald Bogle. This short feature aired on the 4th of July right before the airing of YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. I'm sure it was programmed that way because there's blackface number in that musical biopic of old Broadway's George M. Cohan.
The TCM short feature is important but, to me, it feels unbalanced. I wish I could've been a writer on the project. I wanted to see less of one aspect and see more about others. I wanted more information
In the first 90 seconds, we see footage from the 1934 Warner Bros movie, WONDER BAR, starring Al Jolson. We also see Fred Astaire and young Judy Garland.
One weekend afternoon, watching a local independent Southern California TV station, my sister and I were watching WONDER BAR to pass the time. When Al Jolson did the "Goin' To Heaven On a Mule" number, a long production number set in a swanky nightclub, my sister were slack jawed at the abundance of racially offensive images and stereotypes. We were only in middle school, but we looked like audience members watching the "Springtime for Hitler" number in Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS. That Al Jolson number doesn't get as much attention as Astaire's "Bojangles of Harlem" number in SWING TIME, a number that -- no pun intended -- pales in comparison to Jolson's "Goin' To Heaven On a Mule."
WONDER BAR was directed by Lloyd Bacon. The musical numbers were designed and directed by Busby Berkeley. Whenever I've seen an hour-long documentary on Berkeley or segments praising his innovative work, they focus rightfully on his kaleidoscopic overhead images. He used all-Caucasian showgirls as glamorous props in musical numbers with geometric designs -- such as "The Shadow Waltz" in GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933. His numbers in 1933's 42nd STREET were groundbreaking and influential as was the thrilling and slightly militaristic "Lullaby of Broadway" number in GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935. Never mentioned is Berkeley's affinity for blackface which we see in 1930s Eddie Cantor musicals for Goldwyn Studios, in Warner Bros.musicals and in MGM musicals starring teen Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Berkeley's name does not come up in the TCM feature.
As for the Judy Garland clip, she did blackface numbers when she was a juvenile under contract to MGM. Middle-aged White studio bosses told her what to wear, what to do, where to be and at what time. They even told her what she could and could not eat. She was a kid following orders. When she became an adult and had starring roles in MGM musicals such as PRESENTING LILY MARS, GIRL CRAZY and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, she had some clout and never did blackface again. I would've cut Judy some slack.
Fred Astaire''s "Bojangles of Harlem" number in 1936's SWING TIME was meant as a salute to dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Astaire never did another blackface number. In it, Astaire didn't use the coal-black make-up that Al Jolson always applied, His make-up was a shade lighter. Also, he did not don a nappy, Brillo-like wig. We saw his real hair. However, Stewart and Bogle spend an oddly extensive amount of time criticizing Astaire.
Astaire did not write the song, design the set, design his costume or direct the movie. George Stevens directed the movie. Wearing coal-black make-up, dancer Eleanor Powell also did a musical salute to Bill Robinson in the 1939 MGM musical, HONOLULU. That's not mentioned in the TCM short feature. Like Astaire, Powell never did another blackface number.
There were other Classic Hollywood movie stars who did a blackface number once and then never again. We don't see them in the TCM feature. Some of them are: Betty Hutton (THE PERILS OF PAULINE), William Holden (FATHER IS A BACHELOR), Doris Day (I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS), Joan Crawford (TORCH SONG) and Janet Leigh (WALKING MY BABY BACK HOME).
Then there's Bing Crosby. Like Astaire, Crosby professed a great admiration for Black musical talent -- especially Louis Armstrong. Crosby finessed Armstrong's feature film debut with him in 1936's PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. Crosby did a blackface number in 1942's HOLIDAY INN. We see a snippet of it in the TCM short feature. He starred in the 1943 historical musical DIXIE. The whole period piece movie is about the beginning and popularity of blackface minstrel shows with Crosby in several blackface performances. The Johnny Mercer song, "Accentuate the Positive" was a hit song during WW2 and sung by Bing Crosby in the 1944 musical comedy, HERE COME THE WAVES. Why don't we ever see a clip of him singing that? Because Bing sang it in blackface...during WW2 when America was at war and the troops were segregated. So why is there such a long verbal spanking of Fred Astaire for his only blackface number in his entire film career?
And now this: The first performer to get an Oscar nomination for playing a Black character was Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel for 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND. The third performer to get an Oscar nomination for playing a Black character was Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Ethel Waters for 1949's PINKY.
The second person to receive an Oscar nomination for playing a Black character was Caucasian. The porcelain-white British actress Flora Robson played the housekeeper/narrator in William Wyler's WUTHERING HEIGHTS and she played Queen Elizabeth I in THE SEA HAWK with Errol Flynn.
Somehow, Warner Bros. executives looked at her and said, "Wow! She'd be perfect to play the dark-skinned stern Haitian maid to Ingrid Bergman's character in SARATOGA TRUNK!"
In dark make-up, about the same shade as Fred Astaire's in the "Bojangles of Harlem" number, Flora Robson played the Haitian maid. She had her hair up in a bandana and wore round earrings. Caucasian Flora Robson got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress thanks to her performance as an unsmiling Black maid. How did this bit of Hollywood casting happen?
If that 1944 movie role was strong enough to get a woman an Oscar nomination, why didn't the studio give the role to a Black actress -- like lovely Theresa Harris who played the maid to Bette Davis's southern belle in JEZEBEL and was the best friend to Barbara Stanwyck's character in BABY FACE?
I would have preferred hearing Stewart and Bogle go into that bit of blackface in Hollywood history instead of the too-long criticism of that one Fred Astaire dance number.
Those are examples of why I feel the TCM short historical feature is not quite balanced. I've been an avid TCM fan and viewer since 1999. The TCM Blackface & Hollywood feature is available on YouTube.
I am a sincere Kim Cattrall fan. I have been ever since I sat in a movie theater and saw her in the 1981 comedy, PORKY'S, and the fun 1986 action/adventure, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. I just happened to check out Netflix this weekend and discovered she's starring in a new Netflix series called GLAMOROUS. I watched the first episode and, I must say, my love for Kim Cattrall continues. She's a knock-out in it.
Today, Cattrall is known for having played sexy Samantha on HBO's SEX AND THE CITY series. There's been a reboot of that series, with three members of the quartet as they are today. Reportedly, Cattrall wasn't interested in doing the reboot.
When I lived in the Chelsea section of New York City, then Manhattan's gay epicenter, SEX AND THE CITY was hugely popular. I almost had my gay card revoked when I mentioned that I got bored with the series. Why? Well..Carrie wrote a column. I knew several women who were print journalists in the City and we'd grab a bite or otherwise partake in some entertainment. There was always a time when one of them would call and say, "I need to reschedule. I'm on deadline." Or they had to do a last-minute revision. Carrie never seemed to have a deadline. She never seemed to do any real research. She never seemed to do a rewrite. She plopped down on her bed in a cute little designer outfit and write something about the ups and downs of her Manhattan white girl love life. Next -- the four women did not seen to have any relatives. We never saw their parents or siblings, if they had any. Last, but not least, I'd watch the show and kept saying to myself, "Do the producers realize there are smart, sophisticated, stylish Black and Latino women in New York City -- with upscale jobs?" SEX AND THE CITY was quite Caucasian. Years later, when I read news that there would be a reboot, I knew that the reboot -- just like the WILL & GRACE reboot -- would be peppered with people of color in speaking roles. Unlike the original productions.
As for Cattrall, she went on to star in a series for HBO Canada called SENSITIVE SKIN that ran from 2014 to 2016. It should've run longer. It was terrific and displayed Cattrall doing some of her best acting in years in a more mature show. She played a former model, a wife and mother in her AARP years, who is dealing with middle age, her loving but complicated marriage and her grown son. One of her closest friends is Black. The former model has a sister with whom she bickers. The sister was wonderfully played by Joanna Gleason. When I watched this series and Cattrall's sensational work in a more dimensional role, I felt that she was not interested in a SEX AND THE CITY reboot because she had outgrown that character, as was evident in her SENSITIVE SKIN shows. Why HBO U.S.A. didn't air the show, I have no idea. I watched every single episode.
Now Kim Cattrall is starring as former supermodel Madelyn Addison on GLAMOROUS. The former supermodel now has a handsome but vapid grown gay son and her own big city cosmetics business. She's an idol of a 22-year old, gay social media "influencer" who posts cosmetics tips videos. He says "I need freedom...I need to feel like anything is possible." He wants to be "a star" and "a diva" -- however, he doesn't really want to do the work. He wants microwave fame. He just wants to be on a red carpet as soon as possible and then attend a fabulous party.
His single, working Latina mother reminds him that he's 22, still living with her and has a part-time cosmetics counter job at the mall. He needs to get a real job. She can hook him up with a clerical job at a law firm. His name is Marco. Marco and Madolyn meet. She likes his quick mind and hires him as an assistant. This will begin his process of really growing up. And Marco has better ideas for the company than Madolyn's handsome son with the fab abs does.
I'm going back to watch more episodes. The first one was very entertaining and well-acted. Besides..as I wrote earlier...my love affair with Kim Cattrall continues.
We had records by her in our home when I was a kid in Los Angeles. To me, the voice of Astrud Gilberto was the voice of Bossa Nova -- the voice of foreign spots I wanted one day to visit. That lilting voice of hers was the perfect companion to a sweet summer day. Her voice was like a tender embrace.
News came from her son that Gilberto passed away this week at age 83. Today's younger audience may be unfamiliar with her vocal stylings and some older audience members may have forgotten it. So, in her memory, I'm posting a couple of what became her signature tunes. Here's her gender switch rendition of the song titled "The Girl From Ipanema."
I love her rendition of "My Foolish Heart."
And now.... "Corcovado."
Thank you for taking time to treat your ears to the wonderful Astrud Gilberto.
I went back to Twitter and found a few more critics weighing in on this current season of TED LASSO. I still do not understand why they wrote that this season -- probably its last -- was a mess and unfocused. Personally, I felt a definite core of forgiveness running through the season, a core that touched me deeply.
I watched the final episode. I was surprised. I laughed. I cried. I watched it twice. If you get Apple+, if you're able to see it but haven't seen it yet...see it over the weekend.
Ted -- the ultimate fish out of water across the pond. A divorced dad from Kansas, a football coach, now eoaching a team in England. His unflappable, often laughable, optimism was brave and sincere. His sunny outward optimism worked to eclipse the lingering gray clouds in his heart.
I 💗 TED LASSO. Thanks for including us. 🌈 This season with rich with wit, inclusion, tenderness and humanity. What a terrific cast TED LASSO had and what a gift this show was from its lead actor/creator Jason Sudeikis.
I was apartment-sitting for a friend in New York. While I was there at her place, I logged onto Netflix one lazy weekend summer afternoon and watched the 2017 documentary entitled FIVE CAME BACK. Narrated by Meryl Steep, it focuses on classic Hollywood filmmaker history -- but it's about much more than that. It's about how they recognized and realized the red flags invisibly waving in news of their day and how they responded to them,. Similar red flags are waving in society today,
Directors Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, John Ford and William Wyler were men in uniform during World War 2 and documented real life -- and death -- during the war. Discrimination was noted as America fought overseas for freedom and liberty. Our U.S. troops were segregated then.
Keep in mind that this was all occurring in the pre-television era. People got their daily news via newspapers and the radio. As for news footage, they saw newsreels at the movies that preceded the main entertainment features.
Modern-day filmmakers Guillermo del Toro, Francis Ford Cop[pola, Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg give excellent, insightful commentary. At the beginning of FIVE CAME BACK, one absolutely gripping section comes when we see how director Frank Capra realized the true, massive evil of the growing Nazi Party and Hitler's growing armies in Germany. The evils of this fascism slithered into our American cities before 1940. Democracy was threatened. It's chilling footage. And it's footage that, sadly, is relevant again today.
The wartime footage and documentaries from those five filmmakers heavily influenced the post-war movies that they made.
I was so riveted to and moved by FIVE CAME BACK that summer afternoon in my friend's apartment that I watched it again that same day. FIVE CAME BACK is still available on Netflix.
This fascinating documentary series, perfect for Memorial Day viewing, is based on a book of the same name by Mark Harris. Thank you, Mr, Harris.
The next time you watch 1959's BEN-HUR, directed by William Wyler, think of Jewish Judah Ben-Hur as a Berliner in the 1930s who's witnessing his non-Jewish boyhood friend be seduced by the wicked promises and power of Hitler.
1984. I was a few years into my first professional TV job. I worked on the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee. I lived with a. groovy roommate in a groovy apartment on Milwaukee's East Side. On Prospect Avenue, to be exact. From where our apartment was situated, I could get one of the Chicago TV stations on my television. One morning, I watched A.M. Chicago, a local show that had long been in the basement, ratings-wise. The show had a studio audience and a set that looked like it cost about $49.95.
One this particular morning, I watched the show with its new host. Her guests were Jackie Zeman, actress from daytime TV's GENERAL HOSPITAL, and a woman who wrote a pasta recipes cookbook. For the whole show, the three women talked and made pasta salads. I felt magnetized to the TV by the charisma, warmth, interest and spontaneity A.M. CHICAGO's new host. She was fresh. She was different. At a time when the typical female TV host was a perky young and slim Caucasian woman, this was a lively young Black woman with an unusual first name. Oprah. The show's ratings began to rise. DJs on morning radio shows were talking about her. Chicago residents were talking about her. She started getting terrific national publicity. The show got a new set and a new title. A.M. CHICAGO was renamed OPRAH. She was one of daytime TV's hottest new celebrities and the show was on the brink of going into what would be history-making syndication.
During this time, Oprah Winfrey had read and become obsessed with Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning 1982 novel, THE COLOR PURPLE. When she heard that Steven Spielberg would be directing a film adaptation, she was determined to get an audition for a role.
With all that in mind, watch the clip below with Oprah talking about her journey to an audition. Remember that, at the time, she was nationally popular, beloved in Chicago, and had her own daytime weekday talk show. But she was still a Black woman. Pay attention to what a casting director said to her.
TV host Oprah Winfrey got a part in Spielberg's 1985 film version of THE COLOR PURPLE.
Amongst the many Oscar nominations it received, which included Best Picture, Oprah Winfrey was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2005, THE COLOR PURPLE became a Tony-winning Broadway musical.
Now, that musical version has been adapted into a movie that opens in December. Watch this trailer.
The power of Oprah. I wonder if she ever got an apology from that rude casting director?
On Twitter, I read a few comments from critics about this current -- and final -- season of TED LASSO. The critics felt that the current season was lacking in character development. Well...I'm of the point now in my life where I feel there are way too many critics who are basically writing to seem high-tone and impress other critics. There's no passion in their work but, often, there is passion in the imperfect but worthwhile work they criticize. I've been loving this current season of TED LASSO. We discover more about Coach Ted, the complicated optimist whose sunny disposition hides some of the storm clouds in his heart.
I just watched Episode 11 on Apple+. Ted's mother flies to London for a surprise visit. That's not a spoiler. We learn it in the first minute. Later in the episode, there's lovely moment involving a clip from a Tom Hanks romantic comedy. And Nate learns a big lesson in forgiveness.
I was so touched that I broke out crying in the last 10 minutes of Episode 11. The episode is about forgiveness and it touched a couple of sensitive areas in my heart that I'd pushed way, way back some years ago.
For those who've never seen the show, here's a taste of the current season.
Keep this in mind for your TV viewing this coming Friday night, May 26th. HBO will premiere a new documentary entitled BEING MARY TYLER MOORE. We will learn new things about the woman who won national TV fame playing Laura Petrie on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, local newsroom producer Mary Richards on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and got a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for her dramatic performance in ORDINARY PEOPLE, Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1980. Terry Sims is the documentary's associate producer. He was Moore's executive assistant for 25 years.
I met Terry and Mary when she was doing TV interviews to promote her new film work in 1982's SIX WEEKS co-starring Dudley. I worked on the ABC affiliate at the time, doing entertainment features for the city's edition of PM MAGAZINE. My interview of Mary Tyler Moore was one of my first celebrity interviews to air nationally. She and Terry brought me good luck.
Both of them were extremely gracious. I came away feeling that Mary was not only a strong actress but also a strong woman. There was a air of steeliness about her. Not meanness, mind you. But a strength and steeliness that was forged from years of hard work, disappointments, loss and perseverance.
I'd read the novel, ORDINARY PEOPLE, when it was a hardcover best-seller. Initially, there was an entertainment news report that Lee Remick was a top choice to play the glacially sophisticated, emotionally guarded Chicago area housewife/mother who has suffered the loss of one son.
When I read that news that director Robert Redford gave Mary Tyler Moore the complicated role, I was young and stunned. Why? Because I was thinking of her as her sitcom characters and the dainty lady who did a dance number in an elevator with Julie Andrews in the movie musical, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE.
After I'd seen 1980's ORDINARY PEOPLE and after I'd interviewed the actress, I was fully aware of why Redford wisely cast her in the role. Here's trailer for the HBO documentary.
In New York City during my VH1 years (1987 to 1990), Terry Sims was a very cool new buddy and extremely kind to me. Sometimes, if I retuned a phone call to his office, Mary would answer the phone. That voice of hers was immediately recognizable.
When I was hired by VH1, I was given a 3-year contract. When I got good reviews in national publications for my veejay work and got my own prime time weeknight celebrity talkshow, my contract was extended to 5 years.
Three years into my job, new management came in and made some sweeping changes. One was to do away with veejay hosts. So I was notified that, come the end of the third year on my contract, I'd be released.
I called Terry to let him know and to thank him for his kindness and support. I told him I'd be job-hunting. He told Mary and, in background, she asked "Is he getting unemployment?"
I had never applied for unemployment in my life at that point. Applying for unemployment money had never even occurred to me.
Mary Tyler Moore got on the phone, asked me to tell her what was going on with my contract and, after I did, responded with "You'll be eligible for unemployment." She told me what to do.
That fact that "Mary Richards" was the one who informed me of my unemployment eligibility after I'd served my time under a broadcast TV contract will always be one of the most awesome moments of my career.
I will definitely be watching the documentary this coming Friday night.
HORSEPLAY, written and directed by Marco Berger, opens in theaters on June 2nd and hits digital platoforms on June 13th. This is a beautifully photographed, well-acted film that takes place during a modern-day summer in Argentina and has a strong undercurrent of homophobic machismo and some homosexual interest. It's subtitled. It will have appeal to the LGBTQ audience -- especially males who may crave a drama with a generous amount of full frontal and total backside male nudity.
Berger focuses on a group of ten buddies who, at first, seem like members of a sports team -- like the team in the TED LASSO episodes. But this is basically a group of attractive, slim, well-built slackers who, collectively, display about 1/4th a cup of emotional depth and substance. They are quite languid in a large, roomy, rather elegant house which none of them ever attempts to keep clean. A female housekeeper does that. Due to the space, some of the buddies will sleep together on the same bed. Some are dressed. Some are totally naked. Their main daily activity is engaging in horseplay. They like to prank each other making secret homo-suggestive videos and then sending them to friends or posting them on Instagram. The material consists of one guy smooching another's butt, two pals pretending to fondle each other, wiggling one's johnson over the head of a snoozing roommate -- that sort of juvenile stuff. These guys have been engaging in that sort of behavior ever since they were 16. They're now 25 and the horseplay carries on for such an extended amount of time that -- to the viewer -- it gets annoying. The young men talk about hot babes and make fun of homosexuals. We wait to discover which one is closeted. Well..one is. And he's attracted to a bisexual housemate.
Some young women, ready to party, visit the guys. One interesting thing to note is that these females are also hormonally charged but their conversation is different. The guys talk about what pranks they've done and what pranks their planning. They smoke cigarettes, weed, and they drink. The females talk about sexism, science and environmental issues. One calls the guys out on the sexually-driven prank videos and how they view two shapely, gorgeous women making out as normal but view two shapely, gorgeous men making out as unnatural.
The girlfriend of one of the housemates has had it with his instigating some of the videos. As I wrote, this is a beautifully photographed film with a deluxe set location of a house with a pool. At times, HORSEPLAY looks like a David Hockney painting come to life. But, after a while, we long for a solid point to all this. Will there be a major revelation? Will these young men finally grow up? Will the closeted gay one come out? Here's a trailer for HORSEPLAY.
Initially, there seems to be a sexual fluidity amongst this group of friends. As I wrote earlier, several share a bed with one sleeping in the raw. They greet each other with a kiss. But you do sense restrictions and great immaturity in their conversations that accompany the pranks. At the beginning, one housemate declares "You know this is just horseplay." Later, during one nudity-infused prank cellphone camera shoot, they all chant "Home photo!" Eventually, this takes us to an ending that I felt...well, let's say we've seen that kind of ending before in dramatic films with a gay male storyline.
It's May 16th. Happy Birthday, Debra Winger. Back in the 1980s, there were vert few new actresses as interesting, as feisty, as original and as gifted as Debra Winger. We loved her in URBAN COWBOY (1980), AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (1982 and 1983's classic TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. She went to do more solid in films such as 1993's SHADOWLANDS. We can see her be one of the best things in the kinda lame Netflix sitcom, THE RANCH. It's a production that makes he say "This is the best material you can come up with for Debra Winger?!?!?"
I want to recommend one of my favorite Debra Winger performances in a film that rarely gets mentioned. It's a 1988 soy thriller that, sadly, feels achingly timely in light of our country's current political turbulence. Directed by Costa-Gavras (who gave us Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in MISSING and the foreign thriller Z), this 1988 film is called BETRAYED.
Debra Winger plays an undercover FBI agent on the case of a Jewish radio host who was murdered by a suspected white supremacists. She has to infiltrate a rural community that may be harboring some of those suspects. The film co-stars Tom Berenger as the friendly single dad farmer who welcomes her into the community.
Kate the Great. As of yet, no actress has matched her record of four Oscar wins for Best Actress. Her first was for 1933's MORNING GLORY and her last for 1981's ON GOLDEN POND. My mother loved Katharine Hepburn. I grew up loving Katharine Hepburn. When I was in my last two years of high school in Los Angeles, fellow teens and college kids I'd encountered talked about hot new actress of the day -- Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda. They also talked about Katharine Hepburn. 1967's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER did very well at the box office. Young moviegoers were paying to see her in 1968's THE LION IN WINTER, a historical drama based on a Broadway play. Both of those 1960s films brought Hepburn Best Actress Oscars. And young moviegoers were also taking about Hepburn's now-famous impromptu TV interview with Dick Cavett. Her independence, her intelligence, her energetic Connecticut feminism and even her unique and well-tailored tomboy-ish fashion statement made this actress, a movie star since the 1930s, seem modern and hip to a new audience in the 60s and 70s. And there was her legendary screen teaming with Spencer Tracy -- a special relationship onscreen and off. One of their classics is George Cukor's 1949 comedy, ADAM'S RIB. They starred as married New York lawyers who wind up on opposite sides in the courtroom in this comedy about women's equality.
From a buddy on Facebook, I learned that there's a new documentary on Netflix about Hepburn. CALL ME KATE was written and directed by Lorna Tucker. If you're a fellow Hepburn fan, you should check out the 90-minute feature. It's full of footage and information we don't usually see -- or have never seen -- in previous features on the fiercely private screen great. We see home movies, if you will, and learn about her parents in Connecticut and how Kate's mother was a major force in influencing how Hepburn crafted her screen image. We learn about her beloved brother who died by his own hand. We learn about her early Broadway flop performances from which she learned and carried on with a steely ambition.
In her early Hollywood years, we hear how she shook off rumors of lesbianism and had a romance with millionaire Howard Hughes. Then there's Spencer Tracy, Lorna Tucker's documentary delves deep into this 30-year relationship that obviously had its turbulence. Tracy drank too much, he was far from being as outgoing as she, he had fits of depression and was wracked with Catholic guilt because he was a married man with children. We hear from relatives of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. We also hear Hepburn in never-before-revealed taped interviews.
I saw the show when it played in L.A. at the Music Center. I was in high school and a family friend gave me her ticket to a matinee performance because she had to be out of town. I was not the only one in the audience who was awestruck by Katharine Hepburn's magnetism, energy and her skill in the musical numbers. She talk/sang like Rex Harrison in MY FAIR LADY and Robert Preston in THE MUSIC MAN. She never missed a beat and her vocal delivery was a crisp as a ripe apple. You could hear every single syllable. It was her first and only Broadway musical -- yet she seemed born to do it.
The audience gave her a well-deserved and most loving standing ovation. This was back in the day when a standing ovation really meant something -- especially in L.A. where enthusiastic audiences tended to keep their seats because they were used to TV and being in movie theaters or cars at the drive-in.
You will learn new things about the complicated, charismatic Katharine Hepburn in CALL ME KATE. Check it out on Netflix. In the meantime, click onto the link below to hear Katharine Hepburn as Coco Chanel on the original Broadway cast album of COCO.
I am so ready for spring to really take hold where I am. We made it to a new month. I pray it's a great month for you filled with only pleasant surprises. Be cool, be kind, be safe. Let's celebrate with this tune from CAMELOT.
I started my professional TV career in the fall of 1979 as a once-a-week movie critic on Milwaukee's ABC affiliate. During that time, I went to a downtown Milwaukee screening room to see an upcoming, new movie release. It was GREASE 2, a 1982 follow-up to the hugely successful movie musical, GREASE.
I felt that GREASE 2 was rather tepid. However, there was one cast member whose work hit me like a bolt of sweet lightning. Not only was she a major babe, she had major talent and undeniable screen charisma. After the movie ended, I asked the publicist, "Who was that blonde?" The answer was...Michelle Pfeiffer.
In the late 80s, I had my own prime time celebrity talk show on VH1. Actor Beau Bridges was my guest for one edition and revealed that he and his brother, Jeff Bridges, would be playing bickering brothers who are a piano duo act in a new movie. He added that they were looking for "the right girl" for the female lead of the singer brought into the act.
The right girl was certainly found. Michelle Pfeiffer played the female lead in 1989's THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, one of the best American films of the 1980s. The performance brought her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Today is Michelle Pfeiffer's birthday.
I flew my mom in to New York to visit me and be entertained for a few days. I took her to see THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS. It was about the third time I'd seen it. After the movie, Mom said this about Michelle Pfeiffer: "She's about the best thing since Barbara Stanwyck!"
Here's a reminder of how good that movie is --
Here's a trailer from another film that earned Pfeiffer one of her three Oscar nominations. It's for 1992's LOVE FIELD.
Happy Birthday to Ms. Pfeiffer. She sure has come a long, long, fabulous way since GREASE 2.
I am one of those folks who has become addicted to the loopy optimism and complicated heart of TED LASSO.
Ted's team goes on the road in the current episode. If you have access to the series on Apple+, you must see it. Episode 6 shines with four things I love -- Chet Baker music, Burt Bacharach music, the beauty of Vincent Van Gogh and male bonding.
Here's a Season 3 trailer.
LET'S GET LOST is the name of a documentary about jazz musician/vocalist Chet Baker that was made by Bruce Weber and released in 1989. Baker sang "Let's Get Lost" on one of his albums. The song came from a 1940s Paramount musical called HAPPY GO LUCKY starring Mary Martin, Dick Powell and Betty Hutton.
I'll end with a quote from Lasso team player Zava in one of this season's episodes:
"if you put your energy into the thing you truly love, the Universe puts its thing back into you."
I loved him ever since I was a little boy growing up in South Central Los Angeles. We had his records. Every Harry Belafonte TV appearance was Must-See Family Viewing in our house. We loved his smart, entertaining music variety specials. We saw his movies on TV and on the big screen -- his three films with Dorothy Dandridge: 1953's BRIGHT ROAD, 1954's CARMEN JONES for which Dandridge received her groundbreaking Best Actress Oscar nomination, and 1957's ISLAND IN THE SUN. At the drive-in, we saw him in THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL and ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW. He showed his skills as a character actor in 1972's BUCK AND THE PREACHER, a western co-starring and directed by Sidney Poitier.
He spoke words of wisdom as a character in Spike Lee's Oscar-winning 2019 film based on a true story, BlacKkKlansman. Harry Belafonte received an honorary Oscar in 2014.
We saw his tears and joined him in grief as we watched the live 1968 network news telecast of Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral. Belafonte sat with King's family as he attended his assassinated friend's funeral. Belafonte had also attended Dr. King's historic 1963 March on Washington
Harry Belafonte was a singer, a true and trailblazing show business icon, a stage and screen actor, a Civil Rights activist and a great humanitarian. He was an elegant, earthy warrior. His work, his words and his wisdom had a tremendous impact on my life and career goals. I loved him deeply and dearly. He will be missed.
In a fine documentary by my friend, Joan Walsh, I am extremely proud to have been a contributor. Joan and I are seen in this short promo for her documentary.
I grew up in an L.A. household where the scheduled day for the prime time airing of a CBS Mitzi Gaynor music variety special was like a Holy Day of Obligation decreed by our mother. Those sensational specials were required viewing. Mom loved Mitzi Gaynor -- and I picked up the love from Mom. My favorite Mitzi Gaynor movie is the 1958 adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway classic, SOUTH PACIFIC. It's a tale of love, war and a plea for racial tolerance with a gorgeous score. Mitzi Gaynor plays the All-American, girl next door Army nurse stationed in the South Pacific during World War 2. Rosanno Brazzi stars as the French expatriate, the widower of a Polynesian woman, who helps the American naval forces. They two fall in love. Later, Army nurse Nellie Forbush is emotionally conflicted when she meets his two dark-skinned children. She's a native of Little Rock, Arkansas where, unfortunately, her community did not embrace racial diversity and equality. Here's any early scene from SOUTH PACIFIC with Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi. His singing was dubbed.
The Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play starred Mary Martin. The play and the movie are loosely based on the James A. Michener collection of short stories, TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. The 1947 publication won a Pulitzer Prize as did the 1949 Broadway show.
The main story used from the book is "Our Heroine" and focuses on Nellie Forbush. I read it a few summer ago and was by how bold and relevant it is. One of the main views Michener puts forth is the complexity of that war. Were all G.I.'s patriotic men fighting for freedom and democracy or were some hiding racial bigotry and using the war as an license to kill people of another race? Nellie and the other army nurses had to be careful and protected against nighttime rape by G.I's who would later be jailed. She was taught in Little Rock that it might be okay to date an Asian because they were seen as light-skinned like White people -- but dating anyone darker was definitely forbidden. While a war rages on around her, Nellie Forbush is at war with herself. Her friend, Lt. Joe Cable from Princeton, New Jersey, is also at war with himself because he has fallen in love with a lovely Tonganese woman. Here is a very strong and accurate song he sings -- the kind one did not often hear in a Broadway musical of that time. John Kerr, also dubbed, sings "Carefully Taught."
The song still holds up in today's America.
One of the strongest, most surprising and most memorable sections of the "Our Heroine" short story is Nellie's inner monologue about race and what she's been taught. She says the N-word over and over again with a World War 2 machine-gun like rapidity. She's exorcising the word and those bigoted lessons from her life so she can move on to love the expatriate and his children.
A SOUTH PACIFIC movie DVD had Mitzi Gaynor's audition as one of the extra features. When I saw it and when I watched the depth of some of her dramatic scenes in the movie, I came away with a feeling that in between the audition and landing the role, she read the source material and realized she'd be, in part, playing a dark side of the sunny All-American girl. I love her performance.
If you can find it at your local library, consider reading Michener's book -- especially that short story. Here's a Mitzi Gaynor screen test for the lead role.
Today is April 18th. On this day, back in 2019, I was contacted directly and hired to be a freelance scriptwriter for primetime hosts on cable's TCM (Turner Classic Movies). I grew up in Los Angeles where Hollywood movie production was a major industry like Lockheed used to be. My love for classic films started about the same time I was learning how to read in elementary school. I was blessed with having working class Black parents in South Central L.A. who loved classic and new movies. My favorite pastime was a Rivers Family night at the drive-in movies. I was thrilled to see people on the big screen who looked like me, my relatives and neighbors in films like A RAISIN IN THE SUN and PARIS BLUES, both starring Sidney Poitier. Other movies we went to see included SAYONARA, THE BIG COUNTRY, ELMER GANTRY, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, HUD, EL CID, foreign films like YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni and even fun, fizzy entertainment such as BYE BYE BIRDIE and WHAT A WAY TO GO! To this day, Mom and Dad were the only people I knew who saw SPARTACUS and said that it was perfectly timed for the Civil Rights Movement era in that had overtones of America's history of slavery and discrimination.
In the late 1980s, when I got my own prime time celebrity talk show on VH1, Kirk Douglas was my first guest.
When they aired on TV, Mom introduced me to ON THE WATERFRONT, ALL ABOUT EVE, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, BORN YESTERDAY and just about any movies starring Barbara Stanwyck, Ingrid Bergman and Simone Signoret. My first introduction to Shakespeare came thanks to my postal clerk dad who a multi-record set of scenes from HAMLET starring Laurence Olivier. Dad's favorite classic films were FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, KINGS ROW and SHANE.
I tell you that because, at the time, local L.A. television had no shortage of movie hosts and Hollywood news reporters. But none of them was Black. We were left out of the classic film TV hosts jobs and the general discussion of classic films. And we were not assigned a Hollywood/film beat either in TV or in local newspapers. There was no representation of people who looked like my parents, grandparents, neighbors and teachers. This was how the community I lived in and loved was portrayed in national news. Our family lived in the curfew area during the Watts Riots, as they were called. Click onto the link below:
I wanted to challenge that image in my TV career. I wanted to give some history and representation in my own way.
In scripts I wrote for TCM's Ben Mankiewicz, I added film-related history about trailblazing African American architect Paul Revere Williams who designed homes for Johnny Weissmuller, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck and Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz. He was designing Hollywood homes when Black people were not permitted to buy homes in Hollywood. I wrote that tennis great, sports legend and jazz vocalist Althea Gibson had a role as a plantation maid in John Ford's THE HORSE SOLDIERS starring John Wayne and William Holden (1959). The film was shot on location in Louisiana. But Gibson, a Wimbledon and U.S. Nationals tennis champ, had to shoot her scenes in Hollywood because deluxe Louisiana hotels discriminated against Blacks. The Althea Gibson casting and significance is something I learned from Mom and Dad when I was a kid. I wrote that veteran Black actor Clarence Muse (Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT, Lubitsch's HEAVEN CAN WAIT, the musical FLYING DOWN TO RIO and last seen in THE BLACK STALLION) got onscreen credit for co-writing the screenplay to a 1939 RKO period musical. He co-wrote it with famed Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. That was a major achievement for Black artists contributing to a major Hollywood studio release. The film is 1939's WAY DOWN SOUTH. Ben read those items from my scripts plus other info such as the Irving Berlin song "Easter Parade" was introduced in a Broadway musical by...Clifton Webb, star of the film noir murder mystery, LAURA, and that Carol Lynley absolutely loved working with a very professional Judy Garland for two weeks of rehearsals for the 1965 black and white biopic, HARLOW. Lynley was cast as Jean Harlow. Garland was in rehearsals to play Harlow's mother, but she was replaced by Ginger Rogers who had replaced Judy in the 1949 MGM musical, THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY, starring Fred Astaire.
I hope Ben likes my work. I think my parents would.
The film from the late, great director is the 1997 release, ROSEWOOD. It's a historical drama.
As you know, John Singleton gave us the 1991 classic, BOYZ n the HOOD starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett followed by 1993's POETIC JUSTICE starring Janet Jackson, Regina King, Tupac Shakur and Maya Angelou. Singleton also directed. remake of SHAFT that starred Samuel L. Jackson. When he was just 24, John Singleton became the first African American filmmaker to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director thanks to his BOYZ n the HOOD.
ROSEWOOD stars Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle and Jon Voight. It was inspired by a horrible racist event in 1923 that really happened. The comfortable African American community of Rosewood was the victim of a massacre committed by a white racist mob. The town was destroyed and townspeople were killed. This disgusting crime against the Black community made news and was reported in newspapers.
Here's a segment with John Singleton talking about the film.
I want you to remember and even see John Singleton's ROSEWOOD because it's based a a real-life racist tragedy that happened in 1920s Florida.
Today, the current governor of Florida may make it hard for people to rent a DVD of ROSEWOOD if it's available in local libraries. Click on the link below to see a ROSEWOOD trailer.
It's a day for parades and green beer here in the U.S. St. Patrick's Day was always festive when I was a youngster. That's because I went to Catholic schools and we treated the day with a sweet reverence. At St. Leo's, the first Catholic school I attended, we had an old Irish priest. Yes, in South Central L.A. The media in those days did not ever report on how diverse sections of South Central Los Angeles truly were. Monsignor O'Donnell would hear our confessions every Friday afternoon. Penance was always "Say 10 Hail Marys and the Our Father." We were grade schoolers. If you committed any really serious sin -- like murder or purposely eating meat on Fridays -- you might have to say 20 Hail Marys or the whole rosary.
There was one of the 10 Commandments that I just did not understand. In fact, I thought a word in it was misspelled. I though that instead of "covet," it should've been "cover." I didn't know what "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" meant and I doubted "covet" was a real word. But I was curious as to how bad breaking that commandment was -- and I could determine that by the penance Father O'Donnell would give.
Father O'Donnell was a burly, gentle old man with a distinct Irish accent. After I confessed my grade school sins of not doing all my chores when Mom told me to and telling a fib that I had not eaten any candy before dinner, Father O'Donnell asked "Is there anything else you'd like to confess, my son?"
I replied, "Yes. I coveted my neighbor's wife."
Silence.
Father O'Donnell left his booth quickly opened my confessional door, took me by the arm and walked me over to my 3rd grade teacher who was seated in a church pew. He leaned over to the nun, whispered in her ear and she covered her face with her hands. I could see her shoulders shaking. I thought she was extremely angry. I know now that she was probably laughing. Putting on her serious face, Sister Mary Magdalena said, "Robert Rivers, kneel here next to me and ask the Lord's forgiveness. Say 10 Hail Marys and the Our Father."
I guess it was obvious that I hadn't had an affair with one of the middle-aged women on my block.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. Here's Gene Kelly in a number from the 1949 MGM musical comedy, TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME. It's perfect for today.
Brendan Fraser, who got laughs years ago in GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE and AIRHEADS, won the Best Actor Oscar for his heartbreaking performance as the morbidly obese English Lit. teacher in THE WHALE. Not only is his character a reclusive 600-pound man teaching a course about the classic novel Moby Dick to an online class, he's a 600-pound gay man who grieves having lost the male love of his life.
So..this post is a quick one about movies with gay male characters who are on the much lighter side in movies that you may enjoy.
My first recommendation is a 20th Century Fox film that never gets mentioned today in the talk about LGBTQ-related films but it was a much-publicized groundbreaker when it came in 1982. I was in my first TV job at the time and interviewed its female lead star, Kate Jackson. I worked for an ABC affiliate and she was hot on ABC's CHARLIE'S ANGELS at the time. The movie is MAKING LOVE, a bittersweet love story starring Michael Ontkean, Kate Jackson and Harry Hamlin. Ontkean and Jackson play a happily married young couple in L.A. He's a doctor. She's an executive in TV production. He meets a handsome and flirty novelist, played by Hamlin, and starts coming out of the closet. He falls for the novelist even though he still have a deep affection for his wife.
This was a modestly-budgeted film. No, it doesn't look low-budget. I grew up in L.A. and I recognized several of the film's locations -- like residential, working class areas of Hollywood, the Century City mall and part of the gay-centric West Hollywood. All three lead actors commit to their characters. That includes seeing the two men shirtless and kissing. The story is simply told. The screenplay came from openly gay Hollywood screenwriter, Barry Sandler. I interviewed Jackson. I interviewed Sandler too. I told him that I'm also gay and he sent me a lovely note afterwards. This tender love triangle tale was directed by Arthur Hiller. His directorial credits included THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, LOVE STORY, THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, and THE HOSPITAL starring George C. Scott.
We care about the three lead characters in MAKING LOVE and watch their relationships evolve. Harry Hamlin went on to a successful TV career. He should've had a much bigger film career but he faced industry discrimination for playing an openly gay character back then in the early 80s. Today, playing an openly gay character can be straight actor's shot at an Oscar nomination. Proof? Starting with William Hurt in 1985's KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, Tom Hanks (PHILADELPHIA), Philip Seymour Hoffman (CAPOTE) and Sean Penn (MILK) all won Best Actor Oscars for portraying openly gay men. MAKING LOVE is worth a look. Dame Wendy Hiller (PYGMALION, I KNEW WHERE I'M GOING, SEPARATE TABLES) co-stars.
The marvelous John Malkovich played a real-life gay character in a movie based on a real-life incident. A con man bilked people by claiming to be the famous director Stanley Kubrick. In a way, you may feel that those people deserved to be bilked for believing that this hot mess of a queen was the creative man behind SPARTACUS, PATHS OF GLORY and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The movie is 2005's COLOR ME KUBRICK. It looks at how folks become dazed and a bit clueless when they believe they've come in contact with a celebrity.
Val Kilmer as the tough, no-nonsense, well-dressed and openly gay L.A. police detective in the 2005 crime thriller, KISS KISS, BANG BANG, was just too cool. The fresh and festive spin on the cop buddy movie was an under-publicized Warner Bros. release co-starring Robert Downey Jr. Maybe the studio didn't know how to handle a good movie in which the gay guy is the hero. It was written and directed by Shane Black. He wrote the 1987 blockbuster Warner Bros, hit, LETHAL WEAPON, I love KISS KISS, BANG BANG.
My last recommendation is a movie I saw with two heterosexual Black friends. Not only did all three of us love it, but we were stunned that we'd never heard of the 1980s British news story that served as the basis for the story. The film was sorely under-seen and under-appreciated here in the U.S.
Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, Dominic West (of HBO's THE WIRE) and Paddy Considine (of HBO's HOUSE OF THE DRAGON) star in PRIDE. It's a 2014 release about the British LGBT community and straight British coal miners becoming allies during an intense British miners' strike during the reign of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. This is the true story of opposites finding common ground and joining forces. It was a top LGBT news story in Great Britain. It's a mighty fine comedy/drama.
And there you have it. I really wish there was more attention given to MAKING LOVE. That film was truly a trailblazer. Also -- after having seen such films as KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, PHILADELPHIA, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and MILK in later years -- I've come to appreciate even more how refreshing it was to see a movie in which the openly gay male lead characters are all alive and well at the end of the story.
I was going to take a long break from blog posting. However, I was moved to tears more than once during last night's Oscars telecast and just had to write about it. Overall, acceptance speeches gave me hope and the inspiration to not give up on dreams. To persevere. I was hoping Ke Huy Quan would win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. He did and tears were streaming down my face during his touching, heartfelt acceptance speech. He's an immigrant who came to the U.S. at a very young age and grew up in the downtown L.A. area. I grew up in L.A.
He shot the movie about three years ago and then lost his union health insurance because he could not book any work after he completed filming. That's mainly because the door for diversity was closed. All of us people of color who could not get representation, who were out of work for a long time because of lack of opportunities and perhaps also lost insurance know the feeling and cheered last night's Oscar success for Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh. Those of us who were told we were too old to be hired also cheered. Michelle Yeoh is in her 60s. So is Jamie Lee Curtis.
For those of us considered to be "minorities," as Michelle Yeoh said, one frustrating thing about pursuing our work is that our White friends think that the playing field is level. If we're seen on-air, they assume all is well. That was my case for years. I had a wonderful commercial agent for 12 years. She got me on-air and voice-over work in commercials that kept me financially afloat. She pushed for people to let me into auditions. As for my weekly work on TV, broadcast agents turned me down for representation -- even when I was on national TV. The comment I heard the most from them was "I wouldn't know what to do with you."
The work I did on VH1, my work as host in two game show pilots that aired, my years on local WNBC and Fox5 morning news shows, my year as a film critic for ABC News, my Food Network show host work and the national radio job I had with Whoopi Goldberg -- that was all employment that I got on my own. No broadcast agent submitted me for it. The ABC News job, which was on a live weekday that show aired on Lifetime TV, and the Whoopi Goldberg radio show were national. I was hired at $500 a week.
I was sure the exclusive one-hour VH1 interview I did of Paul McCartney in London would help me get an audition/interview to be an entertainment contributor on CBS SUNDAY MORNINGS. I pitched myself for years and never got a response. I quit the local WNBC job after I was told by my boss that, although my work was excellent and I was popular with viewers, I would never be under contract and I would "never move up to network" exposure. I had to fight for the ABC News film reviewer job audition in 2000 because producers were not sure I "knew anything" about movies. I got the job.
After my VH1 years, I met with Disney executives in L.A. about doing a possible syndicated celebrity interview show. Someone there loved my weeknight celebrity talk show on VH1. One top Disney TV V.P. (who was later fired) said he was concerned because some of my material "seemed gay." When I was shooting episodes for a classy game show pilot, TV execs wondered if America would "accept a Black game show host." This was all in the early 90s. In 2002, a broadcast agent said he couldn't get me work because I was "getting older." Two months later, I booked the job as a Food Network show host. The show aired from 2002 to 2008.
I reveal all this to let you know the depth of why those acceptances speeches touched me show. They touched me and motivated me to not give up on my dreams regardless of my age. And color.
If you want to see work I've done, check out my previous post -- OSCAR WINNERS AND ME.
In the meantime, see EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. I'm so glad that it won top Oscars. Representation matters.
