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…well, yes, I was Jack Wrangler’s butt boy…I’m totally kidding. But I actually worked for him back in 1997, under circumstances more akin to an ass-kicking; I was a replacement for one in a trio of boy singers who backed the female lead in a review called It Could Happen to You: The Songs of Jo Stafford….
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He made you hear the twisted murmurings of colonial India, the elegiac Russian winter and the swirling Arabian desert sands. His film scores comprised the breadth of modern cinema: Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, The Tin Drum, A Passage to India, Fatal Attraction, Dr. Zhivago, Witness and Ghost. There were three Academy Awards and…
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A strange week, ending with a Manhattan snow shower on the day the city held a wake for an actress whose end qualifies as legitimate tragedy. Such events upend us like unexpected storms; for me, it unlocked the genesis for the elegiac aspect of this blog. Back in the early nineties I was appearing as…
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A Redgrave’s been felled. Natasha, a daughter of Vanessa, suffered injuries resulting from a skiing accident. This lovely actress was scheduled for an upcoming NY revival of A Little Night Music; the rumor is, she’s suffered brain damage, and is in critical condition. Hope they’re not true–still harbor ecstatic memories of her in Cabaret, and…
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The author of screenplays (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies) and plays (The Trip to Bountiful, The Young Man from Atlanta, Dividing the Estate). What delicate, human worlds he gave us. What a towering talent. RIP.
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In recent years I’ve had my issues with Oscar. The caveats have ranged from the relentless campaigning, to the bone-crushing length of the show itself (sorry, I’m a big fan of sleep on a Sunday night). Somehow the Oscar telecast had lost its sense of occasion; true, I’ve also missed a time when movies…
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Delaney Bramlett, Freddie Hubbard, Bernie Hamilton, Daniel Nagrin, Ann Savage, and Edward Purdom—this list of high-and-low cultured show folk said their last goodbyes at year’s end. Now Pat Hingle’s gone, a character actor whose work spanned TV, film and the Broadway stage. So many memorable performances (he was unforgettable as the hood who burned a…
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The film director whose versatility behind the lens gave us masterpieces like To Kill A Mockingbird, and other flicks that were merely fascinating—Inside Daisy Clover, Fear Strikes Out, The Other, Love With The Proper Stranger, Up The Down Staircase, to name but a few. If you’re unfamiliar with these soulful, intimate works (ones containing great…
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