White Christmas Performed by The Kings Academy Players

Although it’s been years since I watched 1954’s Silver Screen version of White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye when the last musical number concluded and we put our hands together in stunned appreciation for the High School company that just performed it for Debra and I, in my mind it could have rivaled any production stage or screen.  Maybe that’s overstating things a bit after all it was a High School production. But Ladies and Gentlemen what a production!

If these young adults many of them anyway aren’t headed for Julliard then for the Broadway stage knock me down with a feather. When you look at the Broadway like Playbill and then peruse the pictured actors and bios they look like kids. Yet up on the stage they become transformed into 20 something and when they open their mouths they become adult performers and in a flash of lightning you’re whisked away to the Great White Way in the exquisitely designed Page Family Center for Performing Arts. 

The story a simple one Bob Wallace and Phil Davis ex Army vets team up with sister act Betty and Judy Haynes put on a Christmas show in rural Vermont in a failing Country Inn run by their ex General Henry Waverly. With a little romance mixed in, the cast performs music by the legendary Irving Berlin with voices this side of heaven. This troupe featured junior Kyle Martin in Bing Crosby’s role filling the crooner’s delivery with a mellifluous voice that filled every inch of negative space and with his sidekick Graham Popadic a senior with equally rousing melodic chords in the Danny Kaye portrayal as the devil may care playboy suddenly struck by Cupid’s arrow by dancer and singer Gracie O’Connor in the Vera Ellen role. And rounding out the love interest duo is senior Jessica Turley as Betty Haynes who was instantly equally smitten to Kyle Martin. Gracie and Jessica both with earthbound Angelic voices complimented each other like no duo in recent memory.  These Haynes sisters together, apart and as a trio with Kate Higgins also a senior and a quartet with the boys nearly flattened me with each note. A surprising addition was the diminutive sophomore Sara Meldrim playing the General’s granddaughter belting out “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” took the audience by surprise in terms of it’s strength and melodic timbre.  Some of the best and lesser known masterfully crafted Berlin musical compositions are here including “Blue Skies”, “Sisters”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and of course “White Christmas”. However what made the whole evening astonishing was how the production blended the music with the pageantry of dance and costume. We will look forward to the King’s Academy’s next production which is slated for late January, Peter and the Star Catcher. 

The choreography alone is worthy of Broadway.  The dancers had our pupils widened with each scene. The tap dance numbers were syncopated with precision and the costuming was visually stunning. And leading this production is a Tony nominated director with the moniker of David Snyder without whom despite these gifted players this spectacular show could not have been elevated to this level of success.

The Kings Academy players are the crème de al crème and with White Christmas not only did they set the mood for the season but these teenagers made us hearken back to a period in this Country to a simpler time and for two hours had us riveted to our seats until it was time for us to bolt from our winged chairs and applaud them for this phantasmagorical Christmas delight. 

    

Frank Sinatra

Our star for this Christmas season is also our Birthday boy Frank Sinatra. Born on December 12, 1915 Ol’ Blue Eyes would’ve been 102 this year. He passed however in 1998 at the age of 82 too soon by most accounts but let’s dig a little deeper into this American icon and see if we can come up with some factoids that you might not be aware of shall we? Although he was widely known for his active support of JFK in his election bid in 1960 it was his ardent support for the state of Israel that had him switch to the Republican Party in the 1970’s.  

His longtime friend Bing Crosby said a voice like Sinatra comes along once in a lifetime but why did it have to come along in mine! Bing Crosby was indeed a humble man and had a tremendous career of his own both on screen and in the recording studio but his story is for another time. Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken New Jersey to Northern Italian immigrants Natalina Della Garaventa and Saverio Antonio Martino Sinatra a boxer, fireman and bar owner. It was that same friend that spurred Sinatra as a teenager to become a singer watching and listening to Bing Crosby. Sinatra began his career performing in glee clubs and later in local nightclubs. When the radio found his voice as he was later dubbed “The Voice” it was with the bandleader Harry James he made his first recording “All or Nothing at All” in 1940. He later joined the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and after one chart topper after another in 2 years he struck out on his own. Dorsey fought tooth and nail to hold on to his star attraction and it was rumored not until Frank’s mafia ties threatened the bandleader did he allow him out of his contract. 

Oddly enough Frank was turned down for the military because of a ruptured eardrum and it was during these years that the Bobby Soxers would swoon over his baritone voice and brand him with names like “The Voice”, “Ol’ Blue Eyes” and later “Chairman of the Board” He even made his film debut in 1943 with “Reveille With Beverly” and “Higher and Higher”. After the war though musical tastes began to change and it was during this period that Sinatra’s career flagged badly and he lost his recording contract. He even considered suicide and with damaged vocal chords his fate as a singer seemed all but sealed but Providence would intercede. In 1953 with the help of the love of his life (not hers) wife Ava Gardner harangued movie mogul Harry Cohn into giving the part of Maggio to Frank in his epic “From Here to Eternity” and when Cohn relented Frank’s performance won him the Academy Award for best Actor in a Supporting Role. Magically his acting and singing career was revived and to some he would rise to even greater heights. 

He struck a deal with Capitol Records and with his mature sound and jazzier delivery his renaissance was complete. In fact in 1955 another Academy Award Nomination would be his with “The Man With the Golden Arm” about a heroin addicted card dealer and then in 1962 he would achieve critical acclaim with “The Manchurian Candidate.” By the end of the decade and the British Invasion Sinatra had to endure yet another musical drought and as he ended his association with Capitol he bought his own record label Reprise. 

By the mid-60’s though Frank was back on top yet a 3rd time this time he had company and it was a formidable group. And as most of us know it was later to be known as The Rat Pack. At its core were Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. Their success especially in Las Vegas was legendary.  Even Jim Morrison of the Doors was to give Sinatra his due when he said, “No one can touch him.” 

They made some movies together some memorable “Oceans Eleven” and some forgettable like “Four for Texas”.  In 1966 he would have maybe his biggest commercial success with his recording of “Strangers in the Night” winning a Grammy and soon after a duet with daughter Nancy (My Nancy With the Laughing Face) in “Something Stupid” and in 1967 recording Paul Anka’s “My Way”.  

Sinatra’s personal life would take too much space to cover here but suffice it to say Frank married 4 times Nancy Barbato in 1939 who he sired 3 children with, in 1951 to Ava Gardner and in 1966 to Mia Farrow. The latter two were short lived but it was wife number 4, Barbara Marx (Ex-wife of Zeppo Marx) that Frank would have the most enduring marriage of 20 years until his death in 1998.  As a side note 2013 Mia Farrow said that Sinatra was the love of her life in an interview with Vanity Fair and also claim that her only biological son Ronan was Sinatra’s child. 

In 1987 Kitty Kelly published an unauthorized biography of Sinatra while he was still alive. It was mostly negative and highlighted his mob ties and his philandering and his overall despicable character. A hit piece if there ever was one but his career and impact was just too great and it turned out to be merely a flesh wound on a remarkable life and career.   Frank died of a heart attack on May 14, 1998 in Cedars-Sinai in California. At Yankee Stadium after every victory they play his hit “New York, New York”.  

    

Tyrone Power

Robert Osborne once wrote that two men stood out as if they were born on Mount Olympus the first was MGM’s Robert Taylor and the other is our Star of the Month for December 20th Century’s heartthrob Tyrone Power. In his time he gave mega stars Clark Gable and Errol Flynn a run for their money as Hollywood’s resident sex symbol. 

First though let’s trace his beginnings. Born in May of 1914 born to a family with  a long lineage of stage and screen actors. Tyrone began acting at age 7 and before his father died in 1931 he appeared with him before he was 17 in Chicago on stage in a production of The Merchant of Venice. 

After heading to California his father’s name opened a few doors but yielded not much more than jobs as an extra so it was back to Broadway to sharpen his skills and he landed one as an   understudy  to Burgess Meredith and it was there that  talent scouts from the West Coast brought him back to Hollywood where he signed with 20th Century Fox in 1936. After his first disaster in Sing Baby Sing he was undaunted and with Hollywood angel’s Alice Faye and Hedda Hopper by his side Tyrone continued to find regular work in light comedies like Girls Dormitory and Ladies in Love. With his two influential supporters  and his striking good looks Power would receive his landmark role that same year that minted his stardom in Lloyd’s of London. Within 6 months of that film’s release Power had his hand and footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and was #2 Box Office behind Mickey Rooney.   

He was finally off to the races as Power proved a bankable star in two big musicals Thin Ice in 1937 with Sonja Henie and then Alexander’s Ragtime Band in 1938 in which he sang the title track. Tyrone Power singing? He was no Sinatra but his voice was mellifluous enough for studio executives.  Then Tyrone went Western as he began to stretch his acting capabilities first in Jesse James in 1939 and Noir in 1940 with Johnny Apollo. Things then turned to the romantic side for Power as he reeled off The Rains Came, The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand the latter two costarring with the strikingly beautiful 17-year-old Linda Darnel and then The Black Swan  with Maureen O’Hara. It was these films and  the double edged sword of success  that rocketed Tyrone to superstardom yet kept him typecast in roles that prevented him reaching his true desire to be taken as a serious actor.

When WWII came Power joined the Marines in 1942 and although he remained stateside until 1945 he finally he became active in the War when he flew cargo and troop missions to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. When he returned home he was a changed man and after an affair with Judy Garland and a terminated pregnancy with her Tyrone was through with musicals and he sought more serious roles the first being Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge in ’46 and then very dark Nightmare Alley in ’47 the story of a con man’s rise and fall against the backdrop of a carnival. It was this role that proved his mettle way beyond his good looks. Studio bosses kept the film on the down low and after it’s release pushed hard with the release of  The Captain from Castile which was more in keeping with their image of who they thought America wanted to see.  So often when heroic stars take on roles that are so atypical it’s a risk for their career and the studio but Power pulled it off. In 1957 in what most critics agreed was his most acclaimed role opposite Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, Power plays a U.S. War Veteran accused of murder. It was a landmark film for its time garnering 6 Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture.    

Tyrone Power was one of the best swordsman in Hollywood and in what was to be his final film Solomon and Sheba in 1958 starring opposite his friend George Sanders while engaged in the film's sword fight Tyrone would exclaim: Must Stop! It was then he would drop to the floor then in seconds he fell supine  and expired  of a heart attack at age 44 a disease similar to his father. Yul Brynner was to take his place and if you look closely you can see Power in the long shots but this role would be just be an unaccredited one. 

Tyrone Power would sire 3 children 2 with second wife  Linda Christian and 1 with his companion of 6 months Deborah Minardos who gave birth to a child 2 months after his death. All 3 have pursued acting albeit to minor success including his namesake Tyrone Power Jr. 

Tyrone Power dead at age 44 November 15th 1958.  

Shirley Temple

Our Golden Age Star is truly a Golden Star. Shirley rocketed to fame at age 4 and unlike most child stars whose fame had an expiration dates like milk Shirley lives on forever in film and in our hearts. Many factors contribute I suspect to that fact, talent being the number one ingredient and like Gary Cooper once said no one rises to stardom without the help of a person of influence and that man was David O. Selznick who guided her successfully from age 4 until age 21.  Of course Shirley’s ambitious mother Gertrude played a huge role in gaining the exposure Shirley needed to land her the first movie contract but her Mom never impeded Shirley’s success but also kept a watchful eye on her daughter’s global stardom. Her father George as if by serendipity a bank employee became her financial advisor. However what I think was the number one factor the real key to Shirley’s longevity was that everyone that worked with her or knew her loved her. Stars like Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Bill Robinson (Mr. Bo jangles) were never threatened by her stardom because she was genuinely humble, naturally charming on screen and off and one of the most charitable Hollywood stars of any age. 

Shirley born in Santa Monica California on April 23, 1928 got her start at just 3 years old in movie shorts called “Baby Burlesques” and her Mother Gertrude spotting her natural flair for dancing enrolled her in dance lessons at 3 ½.  These two factors the low budget films and dance classes landed her a contract with Fox Film at age 6.  Her first celluloid was the smash hit Little Miss Marker in 1934 costarring Adolphe Menjou that began her 4 year meteoric reign as the top box office draw for the Studio. Next came maybe one of her most famous musical numbers in Bright Eyes wherein she performed The Good Ship Lollipop. This tune is timeless.   Her parents hoped she would do just 3 films a year but relented to 4 and we are so glad they did because in 1935 The Little Colonel, Our Little Girl, Curly Top and The Littlest Rebel followed wherein we witnessed her spectacular dance number with Bill Robinson. Eye popping for it’s time a little white girl dancing with a black man but audiences embraced it with a fervor that was unparalleled for that time in history.  Her friendship with Bill lasted until his death in 1949. 

One of this writer’s favorite came in 1937 Heidi. Most of you know the story. The grandfather played by Jean Hersholt a curmudgeonly old man hated by the town is transformed by the magic of his granddaughter who is thrust upon him unceremoniously by the wicked Aunt Dete played perfectly by Mady Christians. Ripped apart and happily reunited this film had all the makings of a classic that proved to be the exclamation point on a childhood stardom that will last from here until eternity. 

As her childhood slipped away so did the roles being offered to Shirley however one that still stands out is the 1947 The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer where she starred with the aforementioned Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. When roles she tried for were being offered to other stars Shirley knew the handwriting was on the wall and she bowed out gracefully.  Her personal life featured two marriages one unsuccessful to John Agar who she starred in one film Fort Apache in 1948 with John Wayne and Henry Fonda. Her second time around found longevity and happiness followed for more than a half-century to Charles Black. Mr. Black recounted had the surf not been flat that day he might not have met Shirley. Instead he went to that cocktail party and that’s when he met Shirley Temple still just 22 he was 31 at the time.   A veteran of WWII living in Honolulu at the time and son of the president of Pacific Gas and Electric he was in the eyes of the World the man who married Shirley Temple.  That mattered little to Charles he had met the love of his life and their offspring Charles Black Jr. said of his parents they never spent more than a couple nights apart from each other in the nearly 55 years they were married until Charles’ death in 2005 to a bone disease. 

Shirley made guest appearances albeit grudgingly from time to time more for her fans than for herself. She had some bouts with cancer and Robert Osborne who met her in the 1990’s was surprised that she still continued to smoke cigarettes. The fact that she smoked at all he felt was incongruous to her pristine life and not to mention deleterious to her health.    

She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for congress in 1967 and Shirley the diplomat’s career began in 1969 when she represented the U.S. for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Next she was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana from December 1974 until July of 1976, then for Czechoslovakia in 1989-92. Appointed to many Board of Directors concurrently after that but that’s just boring filler Shirley Temple our Star for October was one of a kind and when her light went out on February 10, 2014 at age 85 it was as if Luna Park went dark. 

The Merry Mailman

There are many people in our lives that we like to call friends. But are they really? Truth is the word friend is a somewhat an ambiguous term. We have Facebook friends for example but are they in reality? Most I would venture to say are not more than Hallmark acquaintances that we rarely or never see. This is a story about someone and I like to think of him as my friend that carries letters and is more significant to me than most of any follower on Instagram or Facebook.  Each day I ride my bike through my neighborhood and invariably if my timing is right I pass the Merry Mailman. With this man I experience someone who retains a demeanor that never wavers. He is cheerful, loquacious, funny and never in a bad mood. And what’s even more unusual he’s not my friend on the aforementioned Facebook, or a follower on Instagram and I don’t have his email. On top of that I don’t even know his name.*But this Merry Mailman typifies something more than just a someone with a sunny disposition he is professional that performs his vocation with a discernment unlike many of his counterparts not only in the postal service but in many other career callings as well. Delivering mail on foot particularly in hot humid South Florida is not exactly and excuse the pun a walk in the neighborhood. He does it with pizzazz and you don’t often see your postal carrier with gesticulating moves like this man. No disrespect but the mail carrier on my route delivers our posts in perfunctory fashion no smile no emotion no vitality and certainly no animation. Not my friend every step is bounding and his energy is reminiscent of a lithium battery. 

With this man I experience someone who retains a demeanor that never wavers. He is cheerful, loquacious, funny and never in a bad mood. And what’s even more unusual he’s not my friend on the aforementioned Facebook, or a follower on Instagram and I don’t have his email. On top of that I don’t even know his name. But this Merry Mailman typifies something more than just a someone with a sunny disposition he is professional that performs his vocation with a discernment unlike many of his counterparts not only in the postal service but in many other vocations as well. Delivering mail on foot especially in hot humid South Florida is not exactly and excuse the pun a walk in the neighborhood. 

The Merry Mailman is an exclamation point on my ride and I look for him each time I clip into my bike and we always have something to say to each other. It’s rarely a matched tete a tete in fact rarely so but it matters not but it’s an exchange that is often invigorating and always spontaneous and extemporaneous. Sometimes I hear him laugh when my words spill out and that makes me smile as words can have a lasting affect bouncing off one to the other.   However his natural charm doesn’t need any assistance and when he drops his letters in each box they have an extra postmark on them “From Your Merry Mailman”.  

*His name is Arnie

Jimmy Stewart

Robert Osborne started off his tribute to Jimmy Stewart by telling us roles he didn’t portray. He donned full makeup for the part of an Asian in The Good Earth when he was but 27 but thankfully as he points out that role went to a much shorter Keye Luke who actually was Chinese. Then there was over a 100 others including North By Northwest that actually Alfred Hitchcock had him in mind for but, as fate would have it Cary Grant landed that iconic role instead. But let’s turn to this actor’s fabled career as we leave behind movies he didn’t star in shall we?  

Alfred Hitchcock and he would team up for four films Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much (which was a remake of one of Hitch’s earlier films) Vertigo and probably his most famous of all Rear Window where he costarred with Grace Kelly before she would become Princess Grace of Monaco. The latter film remains in the top 10 films of all time no small feat in view of all the magic of CGI of late mainly because the story is singular in nature and it’s premise of Stewart being held hostage with a broken leg (they had plaster casts back then) inside his hot apartment overlooking the courtyard of his residential complex and everyone’s rear window had never been done. 

James Maitland Stewart born May 20, 1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania to English-Scottish parents who owned a hardware store. Jim was educated at a prep school and excelled in football and track he also sang played the accordion and acted on occasion. At Princeton where he studied architecture Jim got more exposure to acting with the University Players, which took him around the country and a small stint on Broadway. Here he would meet his lifelong friend Henry Fonda. 

In 1934 his first screen appearance in a short titled Art Trouble actually starred Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame but it was his collaborations with the legendary Frank Capra in roles like You Can’t Take It With You costarring Jean Arthur in 1938, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in 1939 and after WWII in the holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life that launched Stewart into superstardom and his iconic “everyman” persona with that Pennsylvania “aw shucks” demeanor so many Americans loved him for.  It was George Cukor however that directed him in his only competitive Oscar win in 1940 The Philadelphia Story opposite the luminaries Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.  After that film Uncle Sam played a hand.  

 Jimmy Stewart drafted into the Army in 1940 would begin another starring role this time for his Country. He began army life as a private but during the course of the war rose to the rank of colonel and he because he had learned to fly in 1935; he flew combat missions in Europe. Jim remained in the U.S. Air Force Reserve until 1959 where he rose to the rank of brigadier general. And as one of my favorite database notes it was after the war that his career really took off.  

The lighter fare continued in 1950 in one of his favorite roles Harvey where his companion is an imaginary rabbit that has his relatives and friends completely bollixed with except of course Jim. But Stewart wanted grittier roles and they started to follow. Winchester ’73 and Broken Arrow both in 1950 then as we alluded to earlier Alfred Hitchcock came calling with his 4 productions. Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder in 1958 also found rave reviews for Jimmy’s resume. 

Stewart in the ‘70s tried his hand at television The Jimmy Stewart Show a sitcom which had a short run a drama called Hawkins and then opposite Lauren Bacall and John Wayne The Shootist in 1976. Jimmy Stewart married to his wife Gloria since 1949 had largely disappeared from the public eye showing up for various awards and with the loss of his wife in 1994 he was deeply affected. They had twin daughters and he had become father to her two sons by her previous marriage. Jimmy Stewart left this earth at age 89 and he was as most will recall a good man.  

Humphrey Bogart

Martha Vickers in the opening scene of 1946’s The Big Sleep says to Humphrey Bogart: “You’re not very tall are you?”  He looks askance at himself and responds: “Well I try to be!” A metaphor if there ever was one for this months Golden Age Star. Entertainment Weekly has called him The Greatest Movie Star of All Time and The Greatest Screen Actor by the American Film Institute. 

As Robert Osborne noted a male movie star had to be tall dark and handsome. Leading men like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Robert Taylor and Cary Grant come to mind to name a few that would fit that bill easily but Humphrey Bogart? Well hardly. He had a craggy face, somewhat of a lisp, he stood but 5 foot 8 inches and when he spoke his mouth looked like a man with a twisted lip. 

Born on Christmas day in 1899 in New York.  His father a successful heart surgeon and his mother an accomplished painter and illustrator and artistic director of a woman’s fashion magazine The Delineator. Oddly enough one of his mother’s drawings of him as a baby was used in a national advertising campaign for Mellin’s baby food and Humphrey was a brief national sensation.  Never a grade A student he ended up being expelled for poor grades from and exclusive boarding school. Often derided by his name in school Humphrey was glad to get away and he enlisted in the Navy at 17 and it was rumored that in a scuffle with a prisoner and a pair of handcuffs that gave him that iconic scar above the right corner of his lip. When he came out at age 19 he became a manager with a touring company and two years later he broke in with his first   role with one line playing a Japanese waiter. He thrashed around Hollywood for 10 years before he landed his breakthrough role in 1934’s The Petrified Forest. Humphrey with his dead stare, dangling arms, and bent body shocked the screen audience and cemented his nook as the arch villain of the screen.  Roles in The Great O’Malley 1937, Dead End 1937 which featured Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall, Crime School 1938, and King of the Underworld 1939 emblazoned his image across the screens of America. 

But even with this great success he felt typecast and the perfect transitional role came to him in The Maltese Falcon in 1941. Often called the first film noir masterpiece Bogart playing the detective Sam Spade a slightly less than reputable shamus gets involved with some shady characters in pursuit priceless "Falcon". In the films climax Bogart’s character turns virtuous and turns in his love interest murderer Mary Astor and departs his villainous portrayals albeit for a time  for maybe his greatest role in 1942 Casablanca.  The film winning Best Picture to this day carries memorable quotes often used in everyday speech. Ten years later in 1951’s The African Queen alongside Katherine Hepburn he would finally win his Oscar. His final films all notable The Caine Mutiny 1954, Sabrina 1954 co-starring with Audrey Hepburn and William Holden and The Harder They Fall in 1956 would round out his glorious 80 film career.   

Married four times but there was only one and that one was Lauren Bacall. When they met on the set of To Have and Have Not she was only 19 he was more than 20 years her senior but the electricity jumped off the screen and even the audiences knew that these two were headed for a love that would be heralded as one of Hollywood’s iconic ones that would rival any you could name. They had two children together.  Often in almost every film Bogart  could be seen with a cigarette dangling from his lip and even lighting one for his costar but ultimately that habit would hasten his death at 57 succumbing to esophageal cancer. He and Bacall had 10 glorious years together.  

Humphrey Bogart didn’t fit your typical tall dark and handsome movie start but he certainly acted like he did

Break Time

I have taken a break from politics as it has become too virulent for me. Discourse has turned into name-calling and profanity. Its not spirited debate anymore it’s an attack on me personally which fortunately for me I don’t take personally because the attackers don’t know anything about me except their perceived notion of the politics I represent. Too bad too because I am a reasonable man and when confronted in a reasonable way with a cogent argument I will think about it and if there is merit to it either respond with my view or even change or modify my own. Isn’t that what debate is all about? No it seems my antagonists and I have to frame them with that word because they have determined in advance that they think they know who I am. It’s sad because they don’t. One thing I think I have determined though is that some of the friends that have departed my company have decided that any view that doesn’t coincide with theirs is a personal attack on them. This epiphany has made it all the more clear why some have reacted the way they have. Everyone isn’t a racist, a misogynist, a fascist, a white supremacist simply because you say so. Yes a break I need until the Country if ever let’s go of the diatribe they seem hell bent on.  I am just too old for this crap.  

Robert Osborne

I am taking a departure this month and instead of honoring a Hollywood Golden Legend I’m choosing instead to pay homage to a man that introduced so many of them for over 22 years as host of TCM or for the uninitiated Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne. 

Robert Osborne passed away last month on March 6th and I admit unabashedly that it was an emotional day for me. He became part of my life in such a visceral fashion because he made the movies I love so much come alive in a way not many could ever do. He did it in the vernacular no hip speak without the dreaded metaphors even his successor has deemed necessary. Robert spoke of people in loving tones without being insipid and if he didn’t have something positive to say he said nothing at all. He never engaged in gossip and when his guest hosts veered away from the topic of movies he gently steered the conversation back to the narrative of what the viewer had tuned in for in the first place the back story of how the movie was made and what made the story stand out in that particular moment in time. There was never revisionist history, as so many actors love to engage in. You know what I mean taking the mindset of today and trying to make it apart of what was. I see that often in movies today. 

For many years on Saturday night at 8 pm Robert along with a season long guest co-host featured a show called The Essentials. A Hollywood star would kibbutz with Robert before and after each movie that they both (most of the time) agreed was an “Essential” movie in Hollywood History. Alec Baldwin and Drew Barrymore grand offspring of the Barrymore legends each stayed several seasons and had particular great chemistry with Robert. Baldwin loved and respected Robert and he was more than happy to spend 3 seasons introducing with Robert these classic films often trying to keep up with Robert’s insane movie historical film knowledge. Although as I alluded Osborne was never arrogant about the depth of his screen acumen and he deeply impressed the young Drew Barrymore especially when the two would introduce films featuring her Grandfather John and Grand Uncle Lionel and Grand Aunt Ethel Barrymore. Although she knew and had seen those films her relatives have starred in she wasn’t up to speed on the history Robert brought to her in the seasons she spent with him.  

Another trait that I loved about Robert was that he never brought his personal life into his work. We never knew if he was a Conservative, Liberal, Republican or Democrat and when his co-hosts questioned him on who his favorite stars were he would let you know but it never clouded his judgment on their individual performances. He just had a gentle way about him and when Golden Age stars would talk about him they swooned but it was never syrupy sweet it was genuine love. 

Robert actually started in movies but it was another legend Lucille Ball that convinced him he should write about Hollywood instead and his book 85 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards is the exclamation point about the Annual Awards Show. His DVD featuring 30 conversations with Hollywood legends some who has already passed away is a treasure trove of information about stars and their lives.  These past luminaries are so forthcoming about their lives as Robert gets them to reveal secrets as easily as taking candy from a baby. 

Robert Osborne was one of a kind he will never be repeated and although I will continue to watch TCM it will never be the same. 

The Unlived Life

Have you ever thought what if I had never married her? I never went out with him? I never took that job or went to a different school or joined the Navy? Well I have and it’s quite a ride in the land of permutations and incantations. To start with if you’re happy right now but still have some regrets in your life I’m here to say lose them because without those “mistakes” or “errors in judgment” you might be somewhere else and not living in the house of sublime you’re in right now.  

I often look at some of my friends that have wildly successful marriages people like Andy and Liz Lison or a gay couple I know who’ve been together in excess of 50 years. It is a true marvel in the 21st Century when it’s so easy to say I quit this doesn’t work for me I’m out of here. Some people are born to be together they’re like ducks mated for life. Unfortunately for me I was probably never cut out for marriage but I don’t envy their success only congratulate them because they figured out how to solve the rubix cube and at age 66 there’s another factor that I’m faced with. You can’t go back. Next life I tell myself but I can do some things in the present and not fall into the trap my father did like letting his body and mind atrophy with the passing of his wife my mother back in 2000. He finally succumbed in 2014 but that’s not the point instead of stagnation which he fell into I can be part of generativity. Bring light and guidance to the next generation. And hopefully I do that each day. And when God calls me home I’ll get to look at my unlived life in that movie in a seat in Heaven alongside some of the loved ones that have preceded me. If I’ve been good enough that is. 

Paulette Goddard

Born Marion Levy in Whitestone Landing, Queens on June 3, 1910 she became a child model at the tender age of 13. Her initial claim to fame came from The Ziegfeld Follies as the girl on the crescent moon she married quite young to wealthy man Edgar James at 16 they separated after just 2 years and they divorced in 1932. It was here she changed to her stage name Paulette Goddard. Paulette would marry 4 times next to Charlie Chaplin in 1936, which may have cost her the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (more on that later) and later still to Burgess Meredith and finally to and most satisfyingly to Erich Remarque in 1958 for 12 years until his death in 1970. Paulette had no children although miscarried a child with Burgess Meredith. 

Paulette secured a small role in 1932 in an Eddie Cantor film as a blond Goldwyn girl in The Kid From Spain but Paulette and Goldwyn didn’t get along and so she drifted making a series of uncredited Hal Roach films until 1936. It was in this year she met Charlie Chaplin. They soon became an item in Tinsel Town and married in 1936 and that very same year he cast her opposite him in Modern Times a huge hit and later in The Great Dictator a controversial film parodying Adolph Hitler but her career stalled most likely because of her relationship with Chaplin as exemplified when she lost her role in Gone With the Wind as Scarlett O’Hara. The imperious producer David O.  Selznick felt there was a conflict with Chaplin’s studio and therefore declined Paulette the role.  The reasoning was never quite clear but that’s the official excuse Selznick used after he decided on Vivien Leigh. However it was her role in the distaffed mega hit The Women the following year that secured her a contract with Paramount. The movie was all about men but had none of them in a starring role but directed by one who seemed to know women  the legendary George Cukor. Later that year she twice starred with Bob Hope first in The Cat and the Canary and then one of my personal favorites that influenced some of the phantasmal movies of today The Ghost Breakers. In 1943 her proudest moment came as she was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar in So Proudly We Hail opposite Claudette Colbert and Veronica Lake and Television’s first Superman George Reeves. 

Cecille B. DeMille cast her in several blockbusters Northwest Mounted Police in 1940, Reap the Wild Wind, 1942 and The Unconquered in 1947.  Previously she headlined Kitty, 1945 probably her most successful film and then Diary of a Chambermaid in 1946 wherein she starred opposite her then 3rd husband Burgess Meredith. She and Burgess were victims of the Hollywood blacklist and once were mobbed by a crowd screaming “Communists!” on their way to a premiere.  

In 1947 she made An Ideal Husband for Alexander Korda and in 1949 formed a production company with John Steinbeck called Monterey Pictures. Her last starring roles came in A Stranger Came Home retitled in the States as The Unholy Four and The Charge of the Lancers in 1954. She did some summer stock on television and reprised The Women albeit in a different role. When she retired from acting Paulette moved to Switzerland with her 4th husband in 1964. One comeback film came in an Italian effort that year, Time of Indifference with Claudia Cardinale and finally on television in 1972 The Snoop Sisters about mystery sleuths opposite Mildred Natwick and Helen Hayes. Paulette’s education never went beyond High School but she bequeathed a sizable donation of 20 million to New York University and a freshman residence is named Goddard Hall in her honor.  Paulette went through massive treatment for breast cancer in 1975 which was seemingly successful and it wasn’t until 1990 at age 79 that she succumbed to heart failure and was buried alongside her mother and 4th husband Remarque in Ronco cemetery in Switzerland.  

James Cagney

Let’s start this story with a little known fact courtesy of my favorite movie historian Robert Osborne. Jimmy Cagney started his show business career as a female impersonator on stage playing a chorus girl.  I bet you didn’t know that and neither did I.  Now other than that little factoid I don’t have much detail but most likely his vivid red hair may have assisted him in that short-lived endeavor. Adding to that carrot-top characteristic you’d think it would lend itself to color films but that didn’t take place until 1942’s Captain of the Clouds and he would not make another 3 strip Technicolor foray until ten years later. Interesting side note it was Jimmy who was slated to star in 1938’s big budget Technicolor epic Robin Hood but that of course went to Errol Flynn. Staying on this topic before the meat of this story James nixed Paramount’s Going My Way where Bing Crosby stole Best Actor and he also turned down the role of Vito Corelone in The Godfather. Back in his contract days with Warner Brothers 1932-42 he and Bette Davis were known as the “King and Queen of Suspensions” because they turned down so many roles and were suspended without pay every time they turned down a part.  

Born on the Lower East Side in Manhattan in July of 1899 some described him rather deftly as an actor that had a spontaneous humor, innate intensity, curling lips, and a breathless slang. Jimmy just 5-foot 8 ½ inches had a one of a kind jaunt to his step and a choreographed motion to his body that lent to his Academy Award win in Yankee Doodle Dandy in which he danced his way into America’s hearts and that very same fancy footwork as a “hoofer” lent gloriously to his amazing fight scenes in and out of the ring in so many of his roles. Cagney could fake a punch better than anyone in Hollywood.  

In 1931 he became the screen’s top mobster in Public Enemy and the scene that has been shown as part of movie lore has him stand up from the table with that patented contorted look as he responds to his girlfriends want of “respectability” and he ceremoniously squashes a half grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face. Audiences were at first shocked but then enthralled by his bold act and after this movie his stardom was assured. Years later Mae would often credit Cagney and thanked him on numerous occasions for making her so famous for just that scene alone. Whether he played gangster, song and dance man or Military hero Cagney was a bankable star. Not all of his films were notable however but every one was, as critics would agree “Essentially Cagney”.  

Jimmy looked with disdain on “method acting” he felt you act for the audience not for yourself. It was as if to say acting was a performance not something you psyched yourself up for. And who could argue with him. Cagney’s roles were so varied and intricate he didn’t need an acting coach he performed from within and didn’t engineer his performance as so many of the actors did beginning in the late 40’s and early 50’s. There’s no doubt new pioneers like Lee Strasberg who taught stars like Brando and Dean brought to the screen a new age of performance artists Cagney’s brand never went out of style.  

Cagney off-screen was amiable, self-effacing didn’t smoke and rarely drank liquor. His colleagues, directors and stagehands admired him. The latter being a true measure of a person as Cagney never let his stardom precede him. He had a close circle of friends and avoided Hollywood parties and Night Life and was married to Frances Willard “Billie” Vernon from 1922 until his death in 1986.  In 1974 he won the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute and the Medal of Freedom in 1984.

Cagney loved country living and retired with “Billie” to their farm in Duchess County New York where he raised horses. He also owned a spread in Martha’s Vineyard where he would find retreat between films. Jimmy received many offers to return to films but steadfastly refused but did return for one cameo in 1981 when Milos Foreman convinced him to perform in Ragtime. 

James Cagney a true American icon and his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame makes him a true legend in The Golden Age of Hollywood.  

Footnote from last month in case you may have noticed. In my tribute to Ida Lupino the intended description was “herstory” not her story a play on history.   

.

Ida Lupino

I chose this star because amidst all the fanfare that women have advanced the narrative to in so many endeavors once held as a man’s domain because  this woman did it without so much as a tweet, a news story on 6o minutes, a sound byte on social media or even a long winded pundit waxing on like some sycophants often do.  Ida Lupino was a woman decades ahead of her time and she did it in a man’s world and moved about in it with a deftness simply because she was just flat out great as an actress, producer and maybe most importantly as a director. Yes a director. I’ll get to that later. 

Ida Lupino was born in London on February 4, 1918 during of all things a German zeppelin bombing, to a traveling player family that had migrated from Italy back in the 17th Century. Acting with her sister by age 15 in a theater built by her father she eventually made 5 films in England and then signed with Paramount in 1933 where she took on over a dozen or more ingénue roles over the next 5 years. Her breakout films however came next in “The Light that Failed” in 1939 opposite Ronald Colman playing a vengeful prostitute and then “They Drive by Night” in 1940 costarring George Raft and the up and coming Humphrey Bogart as a demented murderer. These two roles cemented her a long-term commitment with Warner Brothers. A personal note here from me, watching her in these two movies astride the 1939 “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” with Basil Rathbone as a demure debutante displayed Ida’s great range in acting ability. Many actors even to this day are always themselves but Ida took on the character akin to a Meryl Streep of the present day.  Peter Flint wrote in 1995 that Ida Lupino was an earthy intelligent movie actress that created a luminous gallery of worldly-wise villainesses, gangster molls and hand wringing neurotics.  

Ida continued with Humphrey Bogart in 1941’s High Sierra and won the New York Film Critic’s award for best actress playing an embittered woman and stage mother to her musically talented daughter in “The Hard Way” two years later.  Ida formed her own production company and started to take on controversial social themes and in 1949 wrote and directed “Not Wanted” about the travails of an unwed mother. She also addressed rape and bigamy topics that were largely disregarded at the time but in retrospect make Ida Lupino a true pioneer not only as a woman but as a filmmaker as well.  

In the 1950’s her film career started to wane but television came calling and Ida began to direct shows like “Have Gun Will Travel”, “The Untouchables”, “Daniel Boone”, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, “Bonanza”, “The Virginian”, and in the 60’s and 70’s “Batman”, “Bewitched”, “Police Woman”, “Mod Squad” and “Charlie’s Angels”  

Personally Ida was married 3 times first to actor and part time swashbuckler and full time suave leading man Louis Hayward and also to Howard Duff with more longevity, which yielded a daughter Bridget Duff. Ms. Lupino small in stature at 5’ 2” and lithe in figure at 112 pounds pursued skin diving, wrote short stories, composed music and one of her works “Aladdin Suite” was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  Ida Lupino died in August of 1995 of a stroke following a battle with cancer at age 77. Ida Lupino a woman who made herstory without bragging about it.  

.