Diana Sands in THE LANDLORD (1970)

In March, I blogged about the excellent and exciting actress, Diana Sands.  The late Ms. Sands had talent, wit, charisma and spirit.  Had she lived, I would not have been surprised at all if she was the first African-American woman to win the Best Actress Academy Award and the first to have more than one Oscar nomination to her credit.

In the theatre world, she performed Shakespeare.  She performed Shaw.  She refused to

be stereotyped and broke down a barrier in the casting of ethnic actresses.  Joining actor Philip Bosco, she was the first black woman to play Shaw's Saint Joan on Broadway.  Some folks were screaming as the barrier fell on them in the mid-1960s when Diana Sands won the role of Doris, the exasperating hooker in the new Broadway comedy, The Owl and the Pussycat.  A new actor named Alan Alda played Doris' neighbor, a bookstore clerk. This followed her work in the breakthrough hit play, A Raisin in the Sun.

He wants folks to think he's an intellectual author whose writing genius has yet to be appreciated.  He's never been published.  She sees herself as a model and an actress.  Bill Manhoff's 2-character play was not written with Doris as a black woman.  Sands was cast on her talent.  Not her color.  The 1970 film adaptation was tailored to fit the talents of Funny Girl Oscar winner, Barbra Streisand.

(I love Doris' work attire in the movie.)  A two-time Tony Award nominee, Diana Sands joined Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee as an original Broadway castmember who recreated her role in the 1961 film version of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.

Seen on the far right of the above pic, Sands played the intellectual sister to Sidney's character.  When I was a youngster, this is where I first discovered Diana Sands.  I was watching A Raisin in the Sun with Mom and Dad.  When Sands was in a scene, she had "that little something extra" that James Mason as Norman Maine talks about in Cukor's A Star Is Born.  He's explaining what star quality is.  To me, Diana Sands had that charisma.  I also watched her on TV as Cousin Sara in the groundbreaking NBC sitcom, Julia, starring Diahann Carroll.

Sands (on the left) reminded me of every cool black woman who was one of Mom's friends, a neighbor, a school teacher of mine or any other member of our community.  She was fabulous.  I highly  recommend you rent the 1970 Hal Ashby satire that is now available on DVD.  Other films that Ashby directed -- Harold and Maude, The Last Detail with Jack Nicholson, Shampoo, Coming Home with its Oscar winning performances by Jane Fonda and Jon Voight and Being There -- get more attention.  But this movie, the first one Hal Ashby directed, is quite good and deserves your attention.  One of its highlights is the luminous performance by Diana Sands as Francine.  Wow.

It's the kind of part Barbara Stanwyck would've had in a late 1930s/early '40s film.  Francine is a working class woman trying to make ends meet in an economically depressed section of Brooklyn.  Young Beau Bridges plays the upscale, privileged new landlord of her building.  He's the Caucasian face of gentrification.  He'll fix the place up and force the folks out when he raises the rent.  He's totally clueless to racial matters yet he sees himself as liberal.  Francine is ambitious.  She has a plan.  Like a classic Stanwyck character, she's often the smartest one in the room and the dame who can pull a  fast one over on the guys running things but she may ultimately be fooling herself too.

Lee Grant played the landlord's rich mother.  She was a Best Supporting Actress nominee for this film and deserved her nomination.  The scene where she visits and unexpectedly gets high with the building's gun-totin' tenant played by Pearl Bailey is a hoot.  But now when I look at this movie, I gasp at how good Diana Sands is.  She should have also been in that Oscar category for Best Supporting Actress of 1970.

A beautiful performance and a damn good script.  The Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for 1970 was Helen Hayes as the cute old lady who scams her way to free flights in Airport.  After you see The Landlord, see another Oscar-winning performance.  Patricia Neal took Best Actress of 1963 for her turn as the world-weary, hard-working, wise housekeeper in Hud.  Paul Newman starred as Hud.  As the only woman in the story and the only woman in a ranch house of men, Alma seems to be the only woman in town who is on to Hud's self-absorbed macho stud lover bullshit.

This ain't Alma's first time at the rodeo.  She knows men.  She likes men.  She loves herself more.  She knows how to take triflin' men down a peg.  She's the only woman who can throw Hud off his game.  They crack each other's tough exteriors.

It's not a large role but it's a juicy one.  Hud was directed by Martin Ritt, the man who also directed Sounder, The Great White Hope, Norma Rae and the racially/sexually progressive Paris Blues (1961).   Did Patricia Neal deserve that Oscar?  Absolutely!  Hollywood studios were still timid on interracial casting in the early 1960s.  In the Larry McMurty novel, Alma -- the housekeeper for the Hud household -- is a black woman.  If Paramount Pictures had been really progressive when letting Martin Ritt direct this classic film, Diana Sands would have been BRILLIANT as Alma.

Sands was set for the lead role in Claudine when she was stricken with cancer.  She suggested that her friend Diahann Carroll take over the role.  Carroll did and she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress of 1974 thanks to Claudine.  Diana Sands passed away in 1973 at age 39.  She was a superb actress.

Springsteen & Lucille Ball

This is a blog piece about the memorable St. Patrick's Day I saw two show biz greats in person -- rock star Bruce Springsteen and TV star Lucille Ball.  This happened thanks to my job as a veejay and talk show host for VH1.  If any journalist would want to confirm whether or not "The Boss" and I were in the same location at the same time, just check the guest record for West Hollywood's Sunset Marquis Hotel on March 16th & 17th in 1989.  I don't mean to irritate the those of you who worship at the rock shine of Springsteen, but I flew back to Manhattan thinking that "The Boss" in the late '80s...

...could've taken a tip in the art of celebrity class from the lady who gave us Lucy Ricardo.

We veejays introduced Bruce Springsteen music videos frequently on VH1.  How many times did I mention that a then-unknown young actress named Courteney Cox played the audience fan he brings onstage to join him in the Dancing in the Dark video?  Countless!  A group of us from MTV and VH1 had to fly to New York to L.A. to tape interviews and for the network.  I was taping interviews for my prime time celebrity talk show, Watch Bobby Rivers.  The hotel was packed with TV and music industry folks that week. TV camera crews were set up by the pool and in rooms for interviews.

I arrived from my direct flight to L.A. and went to the hotel.  I'd stayed there before when shooting features for VH1.  The network had a corporate account with the hotel, somewhat of an entertainment industry lodge.  It was usually full of folks in the TV, music or film business who were there while doing business.  It wasn't like a Days Inn full of tourists.  I was acquainted with the very friendly and attentive front desk staff.  That day, the staff was apologetic when I arrived at the check-in desk.  The hotel was fully occupied and my reserved room was unavailable.  Why?  Because, as the hotel manager told me confidentially, Bruce Springsteen was still in the room way after his check-out time.  There were no other available rooms.  I left my luggage with the bellperson and took a walk, which is something residents rarely do in the good weather of Southern California.  I took a stroll in West Hollywood and killed time having coffee at a diner on Santa Monica Boulevard.  I walked back to Sunset Marquis about one hour later.  The manager was still apologetic.  He'd contacted Springsteen and told him what the situation was.  The rock star was still in the room.  I took another walk to kill more time while waiting for any room to become available.  I browsed in Book Soup bookstore and in Tower Records.  I went back to the Sunset Marquis at the end of a second hour without a room.  Now I'm tired from a work-related travel day to the West Coast that began early Eastern Daylight Time.  I had interviews to prepare. I needed a nap.  Bruce Springsteen and his companion were being relocated to a star-worthy suite that was becoming free.  I waited some more, inconvenienced by "The Boss."  The rock star was really white hot in those days.

His songs told a story.  And they were shorter stories than Billy Joel's.  Some hailed Bruce as the rock Voice of the Working Class in the Age of Yuppies.  (Remember that word?)

During the FM rock radio job I had in Milwaukee when I started my professional broadcast career and, years later, during my gig at VH1, I'd seen Springsteen in concert.  One thing I noticed at each show:  The only other black person I saw at a Springsteen concert was onstage playing back-up for Bruce.  And that was the late, great Clarence Clemons.  The audiences weren't racially mixed like for a Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna or even a Bette Midler concert.  Did Bruce's music speak only to a specific part of Blue Collar America?  Were his tickets too expensive?  Did he notice the lack of racial diversity when looking at his audiences?  The Beatles did.  I know because I asked Paul McCartney in my VH1 interview about the lack of black teens in the audience when The Beatles played CBS' The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

I decided to see if being inconvenienced by Bruce Springsteen could benefit my veejay segments.  I wrote a short and courteous note on hotel stationery introducing myself and asking if I could interview him for 2-3 minutes by the pool for VH1.  I requested a couple of soundbites that I could use in my veejay segments.  I didn't need a long interview.  I just needed him to sit down, clip a microphone onto his shirt or jacket and tell me about his current album and upcoming projects.  Quick, simple, easy and for a network that promoted his product a lot.

I never got an apology for being put out of a room for over two hours. I never got a response to my polite request for a short interview.  The hotel manager said that he'd delivered my note to Mr. Springsteen personally.  The next day was a sunny St. Patrick's Day.  I'm having an early lunch outside on the hotel patio and -- a few tables away -- there's Springsteen with a companion.  I'm right in his eyeline.  I smile and nod.  No response.  But, he was wearing shades and perhaps he didn't see me.  Another hotel front desk clerk came over and asked me if I'd gotten lucky.  She asked if he was going to do a brief interview.  I answered, "No."  He hadn't responded at all.  She was surprised and said something along the lines of "Well...he knows who you are.  We pointed you out."  And I was the only black host on VH1.  I was easy to spot on the network.

A New York friend was also in L.A. that week for work.  He was staying with a relative.  The relative was comedian/actor Gary Morton, the second husband of Lucille Ball.  He gave me a number and told me to call him "at the house" on St. Patrick's Day.  Lucy answered the phone with that distinctive latter-day lower-register voice of hers.

I was nervous.  I didn't need to be.  Not only was she very gracious on the phone, she complimented me on my work!  She'd seen my Watch Bobby Rivers interview show when Sally Field was my sole half-hour guest.  It gets better.  Then Lucille Ball -- a woman who was a Hollywood movie star before Bruce Springsteen and I were born to run...and an actress who became an even bigger star on TV thanks to her historic sitcom, I Love Lucy, co-starring her first husband, TV producer/actor Desi Arnaz -- invited me to come over to her house for cocktails at 6:00 that evening.  If I wasn't busy.  Of course, I went!  It was of the best St. Patrick's Day experiences this Catholic man ever had.  Lucille Ball and I laughed and talked over cocktails for nearly an hour.  Gary Morton came downstairs and joined us.  I could not believe my luck and her generosity.  My buddy, Gary's nephew, was there and watched all this.  I am still so grateful to him.  As I prepared to leave, Lucy and Gary were about to sit down to pork chops for dinner and watch Wheel of Fortune.  "I'd ask you to stay," she said, "but we've only got two pork chops."  She told me she was going to be in New York in April and, perhaps, we could have dinner then.  Wow.  From Bruce Springsteen I only wanted 2 or 3 minutes.  TV legend Lucille Ball gave me more.

Unfortunately, she passed away before making it to New York.  We lost Lucy on April 26, 1989.  I'll never, ever forget that St. Patrick's Day at Lucy's house.  She had balanced international movie and television stardom with working class sensibilities.  When I arrived at her house, she'd been answering fan mail.  She continued to be grateful to her fans.  She appreciated that I knew things about her early films -- like the 1942 drama., The Big Street.  If she'd ever gotten an Oscar nomination for a film, it should've been for her tough-as-nails nightclub entertainer who winds up crippled and cared for by a low-income restaurant worker ( played by Henry Fonda).  Her last scene in it makes me cry.

Bruce Springsteen became a major show biz humanitarian through the years.  I simply cannot carry a grudge at a star who has used his fame to help so many who were down and out.  And he got something Lucille Ball never did -- an Oscar nomination.  His "Streets of Philadelphia" for the AIDS-related drama, Philadelphia, won the Oscar for Best Song of 1993.  Both stars added Kennedy Center Honors to their accomplishments.

I grew up the son of working class African-American parents in South Central L.A.  I was a child of the Civil Rights era.  We lived in the curfew area during the Watts Riots of the 1960s.  After my parents divorced, Mom, a registered nurse, was a single working mother of three.  She refused alimony and child support checks, unfortunately, did not come regularly from Dad.  I studied hard in school.  I worked and eventually was able to help her pay the bills.  We moved to the Midwest.  In good times and when times were bad, who could always put a smile on our faces?  Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo.  As we had drinks, Lucy said "People need a good laugh as much as they need a good doctor."  I grew up watching her and being inspired by her and by Desi Arnaz when I chose to seek work on TV as my profession, regardless of how difficult the journey could be.  Kids from my old L.A. neighborhood weren't supposed to get national TV talk shows in New York City with A-list celebrities.  One day in 1989, the rocker who was called the Balladeer for Blue Collar America was the one who was so close and yet so far.  The iconic movie & TV star who lived in a big house in Beverly Hills was the one whose kindness and attention touched my working class heart.  That's why, to this day, I love Lucy.

A Reel Opportunity

The new Woody Allen comedy out is called To Rome With Love.  Actress Judy Davis works with him again.  Here, she plays his sophisticated and loving longtime wife.

Jerry (Allen) is a nervous flyer but he and Phyllis (Davis) are flying to Rome to visit their sweet daughter and the Italian she plans to marry.  They are very happy parents.  Jerry's in the entertainment business and Phyllis is used to enduring his occasionally lame ideas for hits.  She and their daughter attend once such event Jerry arranges in Rome.  He discovered the Esther Williams of opera singers.  The singer needs water for confidence and to bring out his true star potential.  He's related to Jerry's future son-in-law.

The daughter is played by Allison Pill who's currently in the regular cast of the HBO series, The Newsroom.  When I was in San Francisco watching the movie, it hit me that Judy Davis and Allison Pill were playing mother and daughter for the second time.  The first time around was when Davis gave  one of the best ever TV biopic performances as singer/actress/show biz legend Judy Garland in the 2001 ABC network adaptation of Life with Judy Garland:  Me and My Shadows.  The production was based on a book by Garland's daughter, Lorna Luft.  Allison Pill played young Lorna.

The biopic got rave reviews and Judy Davis won an Emmy for this performance.  Had it been a film release, I'm positive she would've had another Oscar nomination to her credit.

I liked her work in To Rome With Love.  I'll mention Woody Allen's comedy later on this month in a great TV opportunity that I got.  It's not a job but it's the closest I've come to being considered for a possible job since I was laid off a couple of years ago.

I'll be the co-host in a TV pilot for a possible new film review/interview show!  As I wrote, this is not a definite gig.  We tape the pilot near the end of the month.  Then big city execs decide whether or not to give it a green light.  BUT ... I so dig talking about movies, talking to people who make movies, and inspiring young viewers to embrace the art of classic films.  I am very grateful the auditions and this opportunity came my way.  The producer likes things I know about movies and actors -- like the fact that Judy Davis and Allison Pill worked together before playing mother and daughter for Woody Allen.

Say one for me.  I could contribute some good things to a show like this.

A Fowl Deed

A certain fast food franchise ruffled a lot of feathers this week.

Is it wrong of me to secretly wish that a Chick-fil-A establishment...

...would be rammed in the back entrance by an out-of-control one of these?

Without injuries, of course.  I know.  It's wrong.  But, would anyone be interested in going with me to a location late one night when it's closed and adding a few letters to the name so that, come the dawn, it reads: Chick-fil-A-Shio?  Think about it.

Hitchcock Tops: VERTIGO

Every ten years, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine conducts an international film critics' poll for a list of the 10 Best Films.  Since this poll started in the early 1960s, the same film took the top spot.  The 2012 list was published and a San Francisco police detective with a fear of heights replaced the newspaper magnate called Citizen Kane.  Yes, the 1941 Orson Welles classic is now in second place.  In the top spot is Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo -- another Hitchcock film to have James Stewart as a character in peril dangling from the outside of a building and the first Hitchcock film to incorporate color animation in a sequence with live action.  It's visually rich and hypnotic.

The list kept classic film fans and bloggers busy in online debates.  I totally dig Vertigo.  Like Citizen Kane, it's a work that wasn't fully appreciated when initially released here.  The French loved Hitchcock's 1958 film.  In time, his tale of obsession became a classic.  I discover new things when I see it again.  If you've seen Vertigo, here's an example:  There's a strong floral motif in Hitchcock's picture with the Kim Novak character.

Stewart is the detective John "Scottie" Ferguson.  Flowers will become an element in the big picture of his obsession.  Novak's "Madeleine" has a bouquet with her when she

gazes at a portrait in the art museum.  The woman in the painting, Carlotta, is holding a bouquet.  Carlotta and an animated bouquet will appear in Scottie's revealing nightmare.

Madeleine is picking petals from a bouquet of flowers and tossing them into the water shortly before she plunges into the San Francisco bay.  What possesses her?

Vertigo is one of those old Paramount releases aired on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies when I was a kid.  Then legalities took the classic off the market for years.  Eventually it was restored to us and, for a time, re-released in special theatrical engagements.  I saw it at the Ziegfeld Theater when I lived in New York City.  On the big screen, I noticed something I'd not noticed before -- when the "new" Madeleine emerges from her hotel room bathroom for Scottie's approval, his erotic/romantic obsession is now shouting "Boy, Howdy!"  In the art direction, Hitchcock continues the floral motif in a cheap painting above the bed and on the bedspread.  Hitchcock's inspired literature of film.

It adds to the sexual tension of the scene.  Fashion stylists should be urged to watch this classic.  Vertigo is a perfect example of what happens when good beauty makeovers go bad.  That scene gets me every time.  It's sort of Frankenstein meets Elizabeth Arden.  Up for some weekend fun?  If you like to have a responsible drink every once in a while and you have a couple of Hitchcock fan friends who do too, invite them over to play my Vertigo Drinking Game.  Get some food and drink, rent Vertigo and do a little shot of something every time you see person or a figure of a person falling in the movie.  This includes the partially animated nightmare sequence.  Be prepared.  The falls begin soon after the opening credits.  Stewart dangled previously in Hitchcock's Rear Window.

Make sure no one has to drive home when the movie is over.  Citizen Kane and Vertigo have a few things in common.  The director of each classic appears in his film.

Both films have an original music score composed by Bernard Herrmann.

Both films focus on a middle-aged man who becomes romantically obsessed with a lovely young blonde and proceeds to buy her things.  Heartbreak ensues.

If, after you finish watching Vertigo and playing my Vertigo Drinking Game, there's still some more food left and your friends feel like seeing one more movie, I recommend making it a theme double feature.  Have some giggles with Mel Brooks' Hitchcock parody, High Anxiety.  The brilliant Madeline Kahn co-stars as Mel's Hitchcock Blonde.

Oh.  And it's another movie in which the director appears in his own film.  Enjoy.

Monroe & Merman: The Odd Couple

Just as Barbara Stanwyck excelled at showing us light and dark variations on the ambitious woman (Stella Dallas, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity and The Furies), Marilyn Monroe was a then-unappreciated pro at showing us light and dark variations on the all-American showgirl.  Lorelei Lee may not know at first that a diamond-studded tiara goes on your head and not around your neck, but she knows how to get one.  Monroe's Lorelei in the film version of Broadway's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is one of the best musical comedy performances in a 1950s Hollywood film. Her "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" number is a jazzy knockout.  I dig her velvety singing voice.

Lorelei is a talented showgirl, a loyal friend and dumb-like-a-fox.  Ultimately she knows exactly what she's doing on and off the stage.  Not like Cherie, the totally clueless hillbilly chanteuse in Bus Stop whose off-key rendition of "That Old Black Magic" would make Van Gogh want to cut off his other ear.

Monroe's "That Old Black Magic" number is the high point of Bus Stop.  Cherie tries so hard and she's so untalented.  Monroe blends fine comedy skills with acting depth.

And there's Sugar Kane in Billy Wilder's classic comedy, Some Like It Hot.  She sips bourbon to sooth a breaking heart.  She's the singer with an all-girl band who's tired of always getting "the fuzzy end of the lollipop."  She wants to marry a millionaire.  What Sugar wants more than money or a diamond bracelet "worth its weight in gold" is true love.  If Jessica Lange got an Oscar for Tootsie, Marilyn Monroe should have, at least, been an Oscar nominee for Some Like It Hot.  She was a great screen comedienne.

Sugar's sweetness makes a love 'em-and-leave 'em guy in a dress want to be a better man.  Try to imagine this movie working without Monroe's presence.  Try to imagine anyone else doing Monroe's part.  As a 20th Century Fox contract player, after 1953's deluxe Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and right before her star power went white hot with Billy Wilder's 1955 The Seven Year Itch, she played another showgirl in a big budget, everything but the kitchen sink, wide-screen musical.  She was Vicky, the ambitious showgirl who is so sexy and shapely that, apparently, she could spell "doom" for a famed Irish Catholic show biz family act called The Five Donahues.  This 1954 feature is There's No Business Like Show Business -- stuffed with the Irving Berlin songbook.  Marilyn is at her best in the musical numbers -- like "After You Get What You Want."

It's interesting to watch her attempt to make something of this thankless role.  Vicky works as a a hat-check girl.  She wants to be a singer.  She can sing.  She gets coaching.  She has an agent.  But she draws comments that would make you think she's the Hoochie Mama of Manhattan.  Most of those pointed comments come from the star of the movie.  Someone at Fox came up with this idea:  "Hey! Let's put Marilyn opposite Ethel Merman!"  Marilyn Monroe, who mastered the breathy, kittenish, slightly-above-a-whisper voice so well-suited for the intimacy of movie cameras...opposite the Queen of Broadway whose singing voice could've been used as a New York City car alarm.  Perfect.

They're an odd couple but interesting to watch now because of entertainment history.  "The Merm" was a Broadway legend by then.  Monroe was a newcomer, on her way to becoming a Hollywood legend.  In a way, it's as if Monroe's Miss Casswell in All About Eve got a supporting role in a Broadway play opposite Margo Channing.  Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey star as the vaudeville headliners.  Molly and Terry Donahue had kids and made the kids part of the act.  They're played by Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor and 50's recording star, Johnnie Ray.  Mitzi is a trouper like Mom.  Donald is the hotshot son who likes to party.  Johnnie is the sensitive brother who often disappears at night.  No one knows where he goes.  The Five Donahues all sing and dance.  A lot.  I think the "Alexander's Ragtime Band" number is the first half-hour of the movie.  Vicky is the love interest for Tim (O'Connor).  The minute he sees her...Hubba! Hubba! Hubba!  But Mom starts acting as if Vicky's cleavage alone is a Communist threat to all that is sacred in America.   Tim falls for Vicky and Vicky starts to get somewhere in her career.  Mom hates this.  To make matters worse, The Five Donahues and Vicky wind up on the same bill in a nightclub booking.  If Molly didn't think Vicky was a Hootchie Mama before, she certainly does now when she sees her pelvic thrusting in the "Heat Wave" number.

Feeling that Marilyn looked good in anything, Travilla used the title from a 1952 film she appeared in with  Barbara Stanwyck as his theme for the color combination when he designed her costume for the "Heat Wave" number:  Clash By Night.

Offstage, Vicky's respectable. She's not a gold digger.  But Molly and Terry are Old School.  In some of the few minutes when the stars are not belting out Berlin tunes, Steve (Johnnie Ray) tells his parents where he's been going at night.  To church.  Steve Donahue wants to become a priest.  He might as well have said, "I'm gay, I'm a drag queen and I'm in love with a black man."  Because that's how his parents take the news.  His Catholic parents.  Life is destroying their Broadway act.  First a hot blonde.  Now the Vatican.  If you feel like you've seen this kind of story before, you have.  Fox basically made an early Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland MGM musical.  Merman's was a Sophie Tucker role, Dan Dailey had the Charles Winninger role, Mitzi Gaynor was the Judy Garland character, Donald O'Connor did Mickey Rooney's and Marilyn was a young Lana Turner type -- like in Ziegfeld Girl.  (Johnnie Ray was Douglas McPhail, the actor who sang the Babes in Arms title tune with Mickey and Judy in that musical.)  Molly remains cold to Vicky.  She won't cut Vicky any slack even after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  She blames that on Vicky too.  Brash Tim quarrels with dad and disappears.  No one can find him.  Not even the cops.  Molly cries as we're dragged down Donahue family memory lane with yet another musical montage.  We're down to the last ten minutes and the writers forgot to give any business to Mitzi Gaynor.  So they wrote a short scene with daughter Katy ending the big chill between Molly and Vicky backstage at a benefit.

Merman again sports a full-lenth mink coat made from animals she trapped herself.  Monroe manages to inject charm into this role and she had a nice chemistry with O'Connor, a talent who deserved more A-list musicals than he got.  We're close to the big finish.  Merman will belt the title tune, a song she introduced on Broadway in Annie Get Your Gun.  Runaway Tim will reappear.  He's secretly joined the Navy to learn humility.  Besides, serving in WWII would be quieter than being around his mother.  Vicky loves him.  She never was a Hootchie Mama after all.  That means...she can be in the finale.  Good thing too.  Katy's in red, Molly's in white.  Vicky's in blue and it balances out the USA theme.  The Five Donahues have been reunited onstage.  Plus one.

In the 1940s, Universal could have made five Donald O'Connor musicals with the budget for this one number alone.  Early in the story, we had two Catholic parents freak out when their son wanted to become a priest instead of procreating and supplying them with grandkids.  Now we get a finale that makes a gay pride parade in West Hollywood look like the chain gang in Cool Hand Luke.  Merman, Marilyn, Mitzi, a rousing showtune, dozens of chorus dancers in pastels and men in uniform.  Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus.

The only thing missing from this closing number is a nativity scene with live animals.  With a flimsy role, all that business going on and Ethel Merman, Marilyn still shines through.  Your eye goes to her.  That's star quality.  There's No Business Like Show Business is a musical that shouldn't work, but it does.  Monroe and Merman -- what an odd couple!

You can see all four of those Marilyn Monroe movies on TCM.  Thanks to Sittin' on a Backyard Fence for lettin' me be a part of the 2012 TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon.

sittinonabackyardfence.com

"Spider-Man" Bit Parts

What a difference a decade can make.  Like millions of others Americans, I'm determined to emotionally and financially rebound from The Big Recession.  Having been hit hard by it put me in the position of temporarily living with relatives.  What a blessing to be offered their spare room and kindness after I got laid off a couple of years ago.  How great to have time to bond with my totally cool grade school nephews.  One night recently, the kids invited me to watch a DVD with them.  They put on the 2002 hit, Spider-Man.

I hadn't seen this fun movie since it was in theatrical release ten years ago.  There's an old saying that "There are no small parts, only small actors."  How true.  It means that even a bit part -- a character with less than a dozen short lines of dialogue -- still affords you a chance to practice your craft, to be creative, to gain experience...and to get paid.  In the first 20 minutes of Spider-Man,  I sat with the kids and said to myself, "Wow."  And I wasn't reacting to the terrific special effects.  A tall actor opposite Tobey Maguire had a bit part as the bully, Flash Thompson.  He picks on Peter Parker in the school cafeteria.

Peter outwits and out-maneuvers Flash with his new Spider-Man powers.  The bully is defeated.  That's the last we see of Flash for the rest of the film.

It's 2012 and Joe Manganiello has worked up from that bit part as Flash to being a star on the HBO series, True Blood.  He's a hot character who makes vampires jealous.

He's the protective werewolf in True Blood.  Sookie falls for his animal magnetism.

Within that same opening section of Spider-Man, Peter signs up for amateur night at a Manhattan wrestling match. The actress with the role of Check-In Girl has about two or three short lines of dialogue.  Today, she's known for a story that took us below the Mason-Dixon line.  Octavia Spencer worked up from that bit part as Check-in Girl to play Minny, the steely 1960s Southern maid getting sweet revenge on bigotry in The Help.

A decade after those few lines in Spider-Man, she now owns an Academy Award.  For her performance in The Help, Octavia Spencer was voted Best Supporting Actress of 2011.

There's a lesson to be learned in those Spider-Man bit part performances.  We can't all become stars in show business.  But we can be professionals and take the work seriously.  Perseverance pays off.  I told that to my nephews.  Keep the faith.