Some of you may know that Richard Burton starred in a movie called Prince of Players about Edwin Booth and his relationship with his infamous brother.  My mom caught part of it on TV, and she wanted me to try to find it on DVD or VHS so she could see the rest of it. 

As far as I can tell, though, it’s not available anywhere.  Would any of you folks happen to know where I could get a copy?

By way of thanks, here’s something neat I found while I was looking for it online.

Bob Willoughby, the man considered by many to be the greatest set photographer of all time, died Friday at his home in Vence, France. He was 82.

It’s difficult not to love Willoughby’s work. He shot the most beautiful people, his pictures are graphically bold and often full of action, and they give us regular people privileged access into the private, behind the scenes moments of our favorite movies. But what am I saying? That’s what all set photographers do.

What makes Willoughby’s work stand up taller than the rest, is that it contains a true, open-eyed love for the process of making movies. One look at any of his pictures, and you’ll see he saw the stars, directors, and technicians, the way we want to see them, with curiosity, the enthusiasm of true fans, and, unlike the classical Hollywood portraits of Hurrell, only the slightest touch of idealism.

Today, we like to see movie people cut down to size. And why shouldn’t we? Many of them are just too rich and too happy (or so they seem) for us to want to let them stay that way.  But Willoughby’s work forsakes that impulse, and reminds us of all that was wonderful – and indeed still may be wonderful – about the picture industry. And the way Willoughby saw it, it was truly an industry – of stunning people out there doing stunning work.

I’m happy to say I had the good fortune to speak with Willoughby over the last year. Our communication began when I contacted him out of the blue to see if I could get the rights to a photo of his which I wanted to use for the cover of my book about Blake Edwards. Though he owed me no favors, he wanted to give it to me for a very, very low price. He didn’t have to; I was willing to pay pull price (for this shot, attached below, you would have too), but he insisted.

And when I told him I was working on a book about his muse, Audrey Hepburn, he assured me that everything they ever said about her was true. She was the loveliest person in pictures, perhaps the loveliest person he had ever met. The way he said it, with such tender reverence, it was impossible not to believe him.

So here’s to Bob Willoughby, who loved making movies. The proof is in the pictures.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(1966)

Blake Edwards and Natalie Wood, The Great Race (1965)

Judy Garland and George Cukor, A Star is Born (1954)

Dustin Hoffman and script supervisor Meta Rebner, The Graduate (1967)

Back in at Cinema Books: How to Be a Movie Star Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood by William J. Mann, $28.00 cloth. Who invented the celebrity movie star? Her affair with Richard Burton knocked John Glenn’s orbit of the earth off the front pages of America’s newspapers. She fought the studio to control her career and won. Not just another glamour girl.

I think this is one of the most powerful plays ever written.  I don’t think that anyone could have brought it to life better then Taylor and Burton. It’s raw and it’s real and it’s moving.  It’s life.

New in at Cinema Books: Hellraisers The Life and Inbriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed by Robert Sellers, $25.99 cloth. The public loved these boozers for their charm and talent, allowing them to get away with riots, orgies , sexual conquests. These were the last days of political incorrectness and Burton, Harris, O’Toole and Reed took full advantage of it.

CLICK FOR TRAILER

What?

Regan MacNeil is haunted by dreams of flying. She has visions. She is in psycho-analytic therapy. It has been four years since a priest of the Catholic Church exorcised a demon from her, and yet…there are still the dreams. Father Lamont and Dr. Gene Tuskin work together, trying to clear the last corners of Regan’s spiritual disorder. They trace the evil back to Africa and the cult of the locust…

Where?

At home.

With?

That same massive headache.

Why?

As I said yesterday, I’m making my way through the saga and this is next on the list. I have to say though, the reviews have been awful for this so I’m expecting a speed bump already. Honestly, the one I’m looking forward to most is Dominion.

But holy crap, the trailer for this is hilarious! *DOW NOW NOW NOW, NOW NOW NOW, NA NA NA NA NA NA NOW*

Worth It?

What an absolute clustercuss of a movie. The reviews didn’t lie, the trailer didn’t lie, IMDB didn’t lie.

This is a terrible, nonsensical, poorly acted/scripted/directed movie that I hope never to poison my eyes with for as long as I shall live. I am literally in shock that the same man who directed this heap of excrement, is the same man who brought us the absolutely immense ‘Deliverance’.

I’m not saying anymore. This piece of awful doesn’t deserve my typing or your reading.

God.

Please let part 3 be an improvement, I’m struggling to think how it can’t!

1.5/10

From left, John Springer Collection/Corbis; Alan Pappe/Corbis; Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamay; Getty Images

From left, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed. The boisterous drinking habits of the four actors are chronicled in the book “Hellraisers,” by Robert Sellers.

As the shade of the late Ed McMahon must be saying to that of the even later Johnny Carson, “EVERY legendarily drunken British actor of the 1960s who EVER appeared on our show nursing a drink and a smoke is in this book (“You are, for a change, RIGHT, Clydesale breath.” – Johnny.)

Limelight Lives, Burned by Booze

By JANET MASLIN

A rowdy collection of riotous tales about four of the British Isles’ most stylish drunken actors: Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed.

…How accurate are these stories? That can’t be a serious question. On the occasion when [Oliver] Reed is said to have drunk 126 pints of beer in 24 hours, it’s highly unlikely that anyone really bothered to keep the numbers straight.

And for this book the truth doesn’t really matter. Even for actors, its four subjects were uncommonly theatrical and loved telling merrily exaggerated stories about themselves. “I did quite enjoy the days when one went for a beer at one’s local in Paris and wake up in Corsica,” [Peter] O’Toole once quipped…

[Richard] Harris joked of having formed a support group called Alcoholics Unanimous that worked this way: “If you don’t feel like a drink, you ring another member and he comes over to persuade you.”

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds comes out on dvd in December. To celebrate, here’s my unabrigded interview with the director earlier this fall. Two 20 minute sesssions, along with two different Swedish journalists. This is session one. Read the original story here and my interview with Col. Landa actor Christoph Waltz here (both in Norwegian).

How long have you wanted to do scene from a French Café?

QT: That’s a good question. The thing is, it’s only natural when we do a World War II movie, especially taking place in Nazi-occupied France, to do a scene in a French café, because I have a tendency to have scenes take place in restaurants all the time. The first scene for the first movie I ever wrote from beginning to end was Reservoir Dogs, and that took place in a restaurant. I’m a big fan of writing scenes that takes place in restaurants, so a French café is absolutely natural for me in the context of the story.

You have put a lot of attention to languages in the movie, which is not alway the case in WWII movies, where the Germans speak English with a German accent.

QT: The languages was definitely always in the script, it was always my intention. Some people are speculating, will that limit the movie’s potential, because of all the different languages? I think it’s the exact opposite. The stuff where the Germans speak like The Royal Shakespearan Company out of The Old Vic, I think that’s what makes those movies old-fashioned. That was like your father’s WWII movies. It was a contrivance you accepted then, but I don’t think people accept that anymore. Literally, that was makes them seem old-fashioned.

That’s one way of looking at it, just from an aesthetic way, but the other way is actually practical as far as the movie is concerned. Your ability with languages, either to understand them or to speak them, was the difference between life and death. Language itself is one of the most important aspects of this movie, as well it would be, in Europe. It wouldn’t even be the same thing if you were trying to deal with WWII as far as Asia was concerned. The movie could take place in China, and you wouldn’t have to speak anything other than Mandarin.

In the case of Europe, all the time you see movies like Where Eagles Dare. In it, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood are supposed to be able to speak German so magnificently well that they could put on officer uniforms and walk into a tavern and just kick it in German, and they just know two-three-four ways about it. No worries whatsoever! For the contrivance of the movie, you more or less buy it.

But if Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood were speaking German, that would be a senseful element that would be brought into the movie. And because there would be German speakers out there, it would either be completely phony or it would be exciting. But then again, at the same time, it’s like the way a second generation person speaks German, that they learned in either Canada or they learned in America, is not necessarily the way a person who lives in Frankfurt is going to speak it. That’s just a whole aspect of excitement and suspense that I tried to take full advantage of, because it really hadn’t been explored to the depth that I was exploring it before.

Also, you have all these wonderful German actors, and what often happens in international productions. You’ll have American and British actors, speaking in their own language, maybe feign a Spanish accent, but maybe not. Jeremy Irons doesn’t do that, but then Antonio Banderas walks in, and he truly has a Spanish accent, but where the fuck does he come from? So he actually throws the film off by being authentic. With all these wonderful German actors in there, they all had to be speaking the right thing. That was also the reason that I didn’t cast Dutch or Swedish actors as, I wanted them to be German.

How will the movie be dubbed in Europe?

QT: I actually worked on the dubbing myself, especially when it comes to France, Italy and German. I ended up with a story that couldn’t be dubbed, because it wouldn’t make sense if everybody in the movie spoke the same language. What happened, in the case of Italy and France. German is German, but English will be dubbed. In the case of Germany, French becomes French.

There have been made a lot of WWII movies from historical sources. Was it important for you to make up your own story? To keep distance to History?

QT: You described it pretty well, that’s pretty much the same. I did a tremendous amount of research when I started to write the story a long time ago. I found that I was held back by the research, I got enamored with it. Six months doing research, and spent six months of trying to fit the research into my story. I wanted to show off all this knowledge that I gained, I wanted to give a history lesson.

But I had to get over that. When it comes to stuff like German cinema under The Third Reich, I already had a lot of information on that, so I didn’t need to do a lot of research as far as that was concerned. When I picked up the pen to start writing the story again, I already had done research about the occupation in France, so I had a lot of stuff back here.

I just wrote my story, I didn’t look up anything, and anything that I came to that I didn’t know exactly the historical right and wrongs of it, we’re talking about things like when was curfew during the occupation, I just made it up. I made it up so I wouldn’t have to go backwards. So I could just keep telling my story, I got the freedom to tell my the sory the way I would normally tell them. When I got to the end of it, I looked up the facts. And sometime I liked my way better.

This is the way I normally write, by not trying to make it any different. In a script you have tunnels that your characters can get into, and screenwriters put roadblocks in front of some tunnels, because they can’t afford to have their characters go that road if they want to sell it as a movie. I never had these roadblocks, but this time history itself was a roadblock. I was more or less prepared to respect these roadblocks, but when I got to them, I realised “fuck it”: My characters are gonna do what my characters are gonna do.

My characters don’t know that this is history, my characters don’t know that they can’t go down this road. History hasn’t happened yet, they can do it. If one wants to look at my story as a fairytale, then you’re more than welcome to look at it that way. I don’t look at it like that way. I look at like: My characters changed the outcome of the war. Now that didn’t happen, because my characters didn’t exist. But if they had existed, all that happened in this movie is very plausible.

It seems that Inglourious Basterds treats History like a Western movie treats the history of the American West. It’s more like World War II told as a western, populated with characters and myths.

QT: You guys are really good, I would agree with that. I did actually approach this movie as a way that you would approach a western. In westerns, there is reality and myth, and what survives is what survives.

How did you get to work with Brad Pitt?

QT: We always wanted to work together, but we’ve waited for the right character. While I wrote Aldo, it all came together. One of the things that make Brad so iconic for the role is… Brad’s in a great place as far his career and his superstar persona is concerned. He’s been around for a while, done a lot of movies and worked with some of the most talented directors. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s not a boy anymore. He’s grown out of his boyish good looks, and now they’ve become handsome manly good looks.

There is this special thing about working with Brad at this time, at this time in his career, this is one of the most exciting times to work with him. Both as part of his popularity is concerned, and as far his iconic stature and persona is concerned. He gets thrilling when you set up a shot and look through the viewfinder at him. I can imagine this is the same kinda thrill that Sydney Pollack felt when he was shooting Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford. He looked through the viewfinder, and thought he was at the movie theatre.

Cinema plays a big part in this movie, but do you think you could ever make a movie from a time where there was no movies?

QT: You mean before the 20th century? Yeah, I could do that. If I did a swashbuckler it wouldn’t be about the love of cinema, or maybe it would? A western maybe, how would that end up working out? I did not think that years ago, when I came up with the idea of Inglourious Basterds, that at the end of the day that the movie would end being this wild love letter to cinema.

I never thought of that when I came up with the idea of doing a WWII movie. But at some point, when I was writing the first scene between Shoshanna and Fredrick Zoller, it ended up as a conversation about Max Linder. Man, I’ll  do a WWII movie and it becomes a movie about cinema. I guess that’s who I am.

You must have enjoyed shooting the movie at the legendary Studio Babelsberg?

QT: That was so exciting! I’m a lot like Archie Hickox in the movie, and I have a fetishist love of German cinema of the 1920’s and those directors. Actually we were not only shooting in the studio, but at the same sound stages where Josef von Sternberg shot Der Blaue Engel. The place where we built the theatre, that was the stage Marlene Dietrich sang “Falling in Love Again”. And to actually walk the streets where G.W. Pabst walked, our productions offices were on Papst Strasse.

To make the movies where Papst made his movies, the fact that the studio logo was the False Mariah from Metropolis. It was more exciting than working at 2oth Century Fox. The history was lovely there, it goes all the way, our production manager’s office was actually Joseph Goebbel’s old office.

You picked your German actors from the very best of the crop?

QT: I was thinking about the international audience, and I didn’t want a famous person playing Hitler. If it’s Alec Guiness or Anthony Hopkins as Hitler you think “oh that’s Anthony Hopkins doing Hitler”. But if I watch a minor WWII movie and Hitler shows up, looking more or less like Hitler, I’ll go “okay, that’s Hitler”. I don’t really question it.

Martin Wuttke, who plays Hitler is very well known in Germany, where he had done one of the best Hitler performances ever, in a Brecht play where Hitler turns into a dog. He actually said no several times, so we had to talk him into it. In the case of Sylvester Groth, who played Goebbels, he played him before in Mein Führer, which was a black comedy. He’s an amazing actor, just look at the way he brings comedy into his Goebbels portrayal, especially at the scene that takes place at their little Hollywood luncheon. That’s the sequence that’s closest to Ernest Lubisch’s To Be or not To Be. I love the idea of dealing with Goebbels, not as this architect of evil, but as his job as a studio head. Dealing with him in this practical job, that he considered his number one job, and was the production of all these movies. He’s not like Louis DeMille, he’s not a businessman, he’s an artist at heart, much closer to David Zelnick.

And doing a WWII movie got you an opportunity to portray nazis, which you can say are very stylish villains, fashionwise.

QT: Well, whatever you want to say about the Nazis, you really can’t complain about their fashion sense, ha ha. They definitely had a very striking look, even their architecture was something to behold. It was a lot of fun, going through the uniforms and learning about them. Even the two guards outside Hitler’s opera box, those were special uniforms done for Hitler’s guard, and they have never actually been captured on film before. That was eye-opening and interesting.

What do you think of Stockholm? (obligatory question from Swedish journalist)

QT: This is my seventh visit to Stockholm, and it’s a very nice town, with a couple of bars I like. Also, you have one of the most amazing records stores in the world, Pet Sounds. Whenever you bring the name up to a vinyl collector, you think of the highest quality when you hear the name.

Part two of this interview will be published tomorrow.

Brigitte Bardod (sic), Alain Delon, Marilyn, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor et les Beatles dans le même film. Ce casting à tout casser est au générique de Kachi Kachi Yama, film d’animation joyeusement foutraque de Tadanori Yokoo sorti en 1965. Artiste avant-gardiste pop et psychédélique, graphiste, photographe, paresseusement décrit comme le « Andy Warhol japonais », Tadanori Yokoo dont le style mélange l’iconographie nipponne traditionnelle et l’imagerie occidentale, fit très tôt figure d’iconoclaste. L’artiste parle de « dépasser le moderne en utilisant l’imagination pré-moderne ».

Tellement pré-moderne que Yokoo fait monter les 4 Beatles à bord d’un sous-marin, un an avant que ces derniers n’enregistrent Yellow Submarine et trois avant que le dessin animé du même nom ne sorte dans les salles. Avec un nom pareil, rien d’étonnant me direz vous.

Au programme, 3 courts-métrages d’animation à regarder d’une traite : Kiss, Kiss, Kiss (1964), Kachi Kachi Yama (1965) et Tokuten Eizou Anthology No. 1 (1964).

George: Carol, you’re a delight to work with because you are a great artist.

Carol Channing: Thank you, George. And it’s a thrill to work with you because you’ve always been my idol. I’ve watched you work for years, and you’ve really got it.

George: I’ve got it?

Carol: Oh, yes.

George: I hope that’s a compliment.

Carol: Oh, it is. You know, to be a star some people have to be great singers, or great dancers, or great comedians, or great actors, but you made it without any of that.

George: But I got it.

Carol: Oh, yes.

George: Well, Carol, what is this thing that I’ve got? Is it sort of a hidden talent?

Carol: Oh, George, what you’ve got isn’t hidden. Anybody can see it, it’s right out in the open.

George: So before it catches cold?what would you say it is?

Carol: Well, George, it’s a certain something, and you’ve got it. You’ve not only got it, but you’ve always had it.

George: Let me see?it’s something that I’ve got. Has Sinatra got it?

Carol: Yes, but you’ve got twice as much.

George: Well, maybe it’s because I’m older.

Carol: Sure, so yours is developed more.

George: Now I’m really confused. How about Dean Martin, has he got it?

Carol: Of course he’s got it. But alongside of you, you can’t even notice it.

George: Now this thing that I’ve got?and I’ve got twice as much as Sinatra?and when I’m with Dean Martin you don’t notice his?has?has?has Richard Burton got it?

Carol: Of course he’s got it. And I know because Elizabeth Taylor happens to be a very close friend of mine.

George: This is something that I’ve got, and I’m glad I got it?and I certainly wouldn’t like to lose it?but I’d like to know what it is?can you describe it? Is it square? Is it round? Is it?is it as big as a breadbox?

Carol: George, there’s no way to measure it. You can’t buy it, you can’t sell it, you’re born with it. You can’t put your finger on it.

George: That maybe I’ve got?. Now, when did you find out I had it?

Carol: The first time I ever saw you. You were playing the Palace Theater and I was in the audience. The moment you walked out on the stage I said to the woman next to me, “He’s got it.”

George: What did the woman say?

Carol: She said, “he must be hiding it, because I can’t see it.”

George: She couldn’t see it, but you could?

Carol: Well, that’s because I’m in show business. I recognized it right away because I’ve seen it before.

George: Anyway, this something that I’ve got?at my age have I got enough of it left to last until the show is sover?

Carol: Why not? It’s lasted all these years.

George: Well, whatever it is, it must be pretty tired by now?. One more question and I’ll quit. Is there anybody else who’s got as much of it as I have?

Carol: Shirley MacLaine.

George: That I didn’t expect. Georgie Jessel maybe, but Shirley MacLaine, never.

Carol: Oh, George, everybody in show business has got it.

George: Well, if I’ve still got it, I hope I don’t lose it at the blackjack table.

Our household are massive fans of Jeff Waynes musical version of The War of The Worlds.
We got to see the live show at the O2 in Dublin in June and to our delight the show is returning again in November 2010.

Today the tickets were on pre-sale to the fans and I am trying to buy them….but failing. Either because we weren’t given a password or the ticketmaster site isn’t working. Anyway I will keep trying.

We were lucky enough to be staying in the same hotel as the cast and got to meet some of them. Jeff Wayne is a lovely man and spent a long time talking to us.

We were disappointed to hear that Alexis James is no longer the artillery man, he was fantastic in the role and really made it his own. This time Jason Donovan will be playing the part. He certainly looks the part anyway. My mother in law loved Jason, she had all his records.

Liz McClarnon is taking the part of Beth. Beth has been played by several different ladies including Jennifer Ellison (who we also met in June), Sinead Quinn and Tara Blaise. Liz has a lovely voice so should be well suited to the part.

Sorry for the small photos, I couldn’t work out the right way to insert them into the post. The full size ones are on PicApp.

Justin Hayward is returning in his role as the 'sung thoughts of the journalist'. The rest of the cast has yet to be announced.

Hopefully I'll get to book tickets soon! For more info have a look at the official site

Just an update. I finally got the password and have booked our tickets so very pleased about that. I also saw this video on youtube, thanks to Artilleryman2009 for letting me post it.

Today would have been Richard Burton’s 84th birthday. He is one of my very favorite actors, and it’s a shame that his personal life has always overshadowed his talent. (Not that I’m not also fascinated with his personal life.) Perhaps Hamlet is not the most appropriate play for a birthday, but it’s the best showcase for Richard Burton’s talent as an actor.

–YoSaffBridge

Made in Wales

Tis Richard Burton’s Birthday! They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, kiddies x

WORD

animus [an-uh-muhs] n. 1. strong dislike or enmity; hostile attitude; animosity 2. purpose; intention; animating spirit 3. (in the psychology of C. G. Jung) the masculine principle, esp. as present in women

BIRTHDAY

Martin Luther (1483), Winston Churchill (1871), Russell Johnson (1924), Richard Burton (1925), Ennio Morricone (1928), Roy Scheider (1932), Russell Means (1939), Saxby Chambliss (1943), Tim Rice (1944), Sinbad (1956), Linda Cohn (1959), Mackenzie Phillips (1959), Neil Gaiman (1960), Michael Jai White (1967), Tracy Morgan (1968), Warren G. (1970), Brittany Murphy (1977), Eve (1978), Miranda Lambert (1983)

STANDPOINT

While I’m not writing this blog or reading a book or doing something of a social nature or whatever the hell else I feel like, I am a bartender. I like being a bartender. I like serving drinks, talking to people and making them laugh. It’s important to like what you do. For those of you out there who don’t like your chosen occupation, get out while you still can. That’s my advice to you. So there.

In any case, there’s one aspect of bartending that grates on my fucking nerves – listening to people drone on and on about something that matters so little to everyone everywhere and no one yet realizes it.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of pointless nonsense about one subject in particular. You see, I bartend in a little town called Skippack. Down the road a ways is a slightly-larger, but no more important, town named Collegeville, cleverly because of the fact Ursinus College is located within it.

But nowadays, no one’s talking about Ursinus. To be fair, it’s likely they weren’t anyway. Nevertheless, there’s only one thing everyone wants to talk about no matter what: the grand opening of the Wegmans, a supermarket that, apparently, has the ability to capture the collective consciousness of everyone within a 45-minute drive.

It’s all anyone can talk about. So automatically I hate it. In general, I have a problem with anything that no one has a problem with. That’s mainly my problem with almost everything.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to talk about a place you can go to buy food. (a) I’m not particularly dazzled by recollections of an, until now, never before seen selection of cheese. Also, (b) I’m not entirely impressed by the fact there’s a pub inside a supermarket. In addition, (c) I’m not remotely interested in the largest selection of seafood in the area. (These three things, by the way, are almost always offered as the main reasons one would ever go to Wegmans, although not the only ones.)

Granted, I am a single, 35-year old male (temporarily) living in an area greatly overpopulated with parents and children. For parents, it is a unique opportunity to provide for your family and afford yourself a few drinks while doing it, instead of having to wait to get home, unload the groceries, make dinner and put the kids to bed before opening a bottle of wine, or four, and get your buzz on. I am not ignorant of this fact. As I’ve been more exposed to parents as an adult, I’ve figured out that good parenting is directly proportionate to the amount of weekly alcohol consumption. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up but that’s the way it is now. At least, for the most part. Not saying all you parents out there are getting bombed every night. But a lot of you are. I can’t blame you. If I were a parent, I would probably be within your ranks.

In any case, hearing people swap stories about their first (and second and third) trip to Wegmans is about as depressing a level of converation that can be reached.

I refuse to participate.

So I’m not going. Even it means never talking to anyone again. Or, at least, until I move downtown in January. Then, I’ll have to talk to all the single folks about how fresh everything at Whole Foods seem to be. But, somehow, it doesn’t seem like it’ll suck half as much.

QUOTATION

The weirder you’re going to behave, the more normal you should look.  It works in reverse, too.  When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person. → P.J. O’Rourke

TUNE

Sometimes, all it takes is a killer line in a song to make listen to it about 93 times – over and over. Such is the case with Mike Doughty’s tune, “I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress To Keep On Dancing.” It’s a good and quick song that features the line, “I’ll assess the essence of the mess…” Not sure why I like that so much. But I do. And that’s that.

GALLIMAUFRY

→ If you haven’t seen the video footage of University of New Mexico’s women’s soccer player, Elizabeth Lambert, you should. This chick is so completely crazy, I’m surprised I’ve never dated her.

→ Just want to officially thank the Philadelphia Phillies for coming oh-so-very-close to winning back-to-back World Series. I know the whole organization has been waiting for me to weigh in. Once again, I will state Philadelphia is a “baseball town.” I will keep saying that until everyone believes it. Because it’s the truth.

→ In a world gone mad, sometimes I read some news that alleviates all the numbness and actually allows me to feel again. The fact Steven Tyler has officially left Aerosmith was not that kind of news. I’m sure there’s a large group of people out there who care when a middle-aged singer leaves a band that hasn’t contributed anything musically solid in decades. I’m just not a member of that group.  

On November 10:

1483 Martin Luther, German Protestant reformer, was born.

1619  René Descartes had the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy.

1697 – William Hogarth, English artist, was born.

William Hogarth, self-portrait, 1745

1728  – Oliver Goldsmith, English playwright, was born.

1775 The United States Marine Corps was founded at Tun Tavern in Philidelphia by Samuel Nicholas.

1810 George Jennings, English sanitary engineer, was born.

1868 About 60 people – roughly equal numbers of Maori and Pakeha – were killed in the Matawhero Massacre led by Te Kooti.

1871  Henry Morton Stanley located missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, allegedly greeting him with the words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

1880  Jacob Epstein, American sculptor, was born.

1925  Richard Burton, Welsh actor, was born.

1938 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, dies.ustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, died.

1940 Screaming Lord Sutch, English musician and politician, was born.

1944  Sir Tim Rice, English lyricist, was born.

1947 – Dave Loggins, American songwriter and singer, was born.

1951 Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

1958  The Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.

1975 The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.

2007  ¿Por qué no te callas?  (why don’t you shut up?) incident between King Juan Carlos of Spain and Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Elizabeth Taylor as Queen of the Nile in "Cleopatra" (1963)

There’s a delicious new Elizabeth Taylor biography on the market: How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood by William Mann. I’ve been reading juicy excerpts online. The book is so good, so rich in scandalous detail, that I’ve ordered a copy to be sent to my doorstep.

I’m devouring the chapter on the early 1962 filming of “Cleopatra,” when Elizabeth famously ditches husband #4 Eddie Fisher for her Welsh costar Richard Burton. Author Mann paints Elizabeth Taylor as quite the pampered diva, ensconced in her Italian villa, filming in Rome by day. Her butler, for example, was one of many charged with satisfying her every frivolous need.

An example: Elizabeth was a pack-a-day smoker – despite the fact that she was recovering from pneumonia and a tracheotomy that had seriously delayed the movie’s production and almost cost Elizabeth her life. Nevertheless, she smoked, and with a cigarette holder. She never used the same holder twice.

“Fresh ones - at least ten a day –  had to be at the ready, and they had to be color-coded. A green dress called for a matching holder – and Madame changed outfits quite frequently as her moods shifted. Every morning Oates [her butler] prepared a box of cigarette holders based on what Elizabeth would be wearing that day and evening, and not only did the holders have to match her outfits, they couldn’t clash with the tablecloth.” (1) 

Richard Burton as Marc Antony with Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra" (1963)

But Richard Burton wasn’t dazzled by Liz’s Hollywood fame. Twentieth Century Fox was paying her $1 million to play the Queen of the Nile in their production. Elizabeth Taylor was the highest-paid actress of the day – but Richard Burton called her “Lumpy” - and to her face. She was intrigued by his dismissive attitude toward him.

Burton was a heavy drinker.  In his first big scene with Taylor, he appeared on the set with a terrible hangover. Elizabeth, although the mother of 3 children at the time, with an adoption of a fourth child in the works, had never been particularly maternal. Yet when she saw how sick Burton was, she felt an overwhelming need to take care of him. It was the turning point. They began a hot-and-heavy and very public romance.

Rumors seeped out and crossed the Atlantic, creeping into gossip columns by Hedda Hopper and Dorothy Kilgallen, scandalizing the film industry and the public who were just recovering from Liz’s latest romantic acquisition, when she stole the married Eddie Fisher from actress wife Debbie Reynolds.

In early 1958, Fisher embraces wife Reynolds in Las Vegas, though his eye seems to be on Taylor, his best friend Mike Todd's wife. In March, Todd dies in a plane crash, and Fisher soon leaves Reynolds for Taylor.

Meanwhile, back on the “Cleopatra” set, Eddie Fisher learned of his wife’s affair. Their marriage had already been on shaky ground but was not yet in complete tatters. He wanted to salvage it. On February 5, at the suggestion of his  wife’s secretary, he took Elizabeth shopping. He chartered a flight to Paris. The international press followed their every move, as the former nightclub crooner Fisher and his gorgeous celebrity wife visited Parisian fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent, Chanel, and Dior, where Eddie wrote check after check for gowns, jewels, and furs for his flagrantly unfaithful wife. Eddie Fisher once said,

“To keep Elizabeth happy, you have to give her a diamond before breakfast every morning.”

Delighted with her new trinkets, Elizabeth promised Fisher she would stop seeing Burton. A rupture was temporarily averted; they flew back to Rome.

Two weeks passed yet things did not go better for Fisher. Liz did not keep her word. She continued seeing Burton. On February 17, 1960, drinking heavily, Elizabeth swallowed 14 sleeping pills and passed out cold.  She was hospitalized for what was considered a suicide attempt. She was distraught over her personal life. She could not make the break with Burton. She had fallen head-over-heels in love with him.

A little over a week later, she turned thirty, and her parents flew to Rome for the celebration. Shortly afterward, Burton confronted her in front of Fisher and told her she must choose between her two men. On the spot, she chose Burton. Richard divorced his wife of 13 years, Sybil Burton. In 1964, Elizabeth divorced Fisher and married Richard Burton.

(1) Mann, William J. How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

Sunday Audio

SUNDAY

Black day, tempestuous Sunday—drama served

To us on platters of wet and wild March—wind pulls

My tail, calling me to a Monday list away from a book,

The smell of coffee, the promise of fire.

A year ago today we awaited Pentecost—but the

Fire and fury are dampened—not by wet and wind

And wild—the sky behaving as though it were Good

Friday—but by the damp in my soul and the ache in

This heart—by a missed mass—a forgotten liturgy is

Nothing to cry home about but I do miss the words,

The miracle, the communal reflection that on the third

Day—before dawn when things once happened—the

Hewn cave was empty and a small cluster of women

Carrying jars discovered coiled sheets.

I see Richard Burton as Becket slain on the altar of

Faith come December after December—finding

Hope and even less than that in re-enacted dramas

Of this—the once and future Faith.

Lent 2009

Dan Davis, © 2009

Muchas veces hay músicas que desde muy pequeño se meten en nuestra mente y no sabemos de donde proceden. La que hoy os presento, quizás sea una de ellas.

Bajo “La Guerra de los mundos” se funden diversas imágenes y sonidos a lo largo del tiempo. Los jóvenes cinéfilos la asociarán a una película donde el binomio Steven Spielberg – Tom Cruise, intenta amedrentarnos de nuevo con una invasión extraterrestre, como ya lo hizo Byron Haskin en el año 1953, donde su película ganó el Oscar a los mejores efectos visuales.

Jeff Wayne

Los ávidos lectores nos apuntarán que ambas películas están basadas en el libro de Herbert George Wells del mismo título, que junto con La máquina del Tiempo, supusieron sus dos grandes éxitos. Tampoco hemos de olvidar la adaptación radiofónica de Orson Welles. Pero muy pocos se acordarán de una obra musical, una autentica joya creada por Jeff Wayne.

En el año 1978, el compositor Jeff Wayne decide realizar su particular versión musical de la Guerra de los Mundos, rodeado de grandes de la materia. Para la ocasión contó con Phil Lynott, cantante y bajista de los Thin Lizzy, con Justin Hayward, cantante y guitarrista de los The Moody Blues, con David Essex y  Julie Covington. La guinda a tan magnífico reparto, la puso el actor Richard Burton, que hizo las veces de narrador.

Richard Burton

Musicalmente esta obra iba contracorriente a los cánones de la época (finales de los 70). Esto no impidió que se vendiesen millones de copias de su trabajo. Bajo riffs de guitarra y teclados que nos evocan en cuanto los oímos a los primeros sintetizadores, se esconde una auténtica obra de rock sinfónico, que junto con las narraciones de Richard Burton, envuelven al oyente en una atmósfera de inquietud permanente. Se convirtió en la banda sonora más vendida en el Reino Unido, a pesar de que no fuera al uso banda sonora de ninguna película.

Fue tanto su éxito, que se realizaron versiones adaptando las narraciones al idioma de cada país y dejando inalteradas las partes cantadas. En España fue Teófilo Martínez, doblador muy conocido de la época, quien tuvo el honor de doblar a Richard Burton.

El siguiente paso que siempre quiso dar Jeff Wayne, fue el de representar su obra en directo, pero las muertes de Richard Burton, y de Phil Lynott truncaron en parte su sueño. No obstante Wayne no abandonó nunca su gran anhelo, y en el año 2006, obtuvo su recompensa.

Con un espectacular despliegue multimedia, Wayne decidió combinar para la representación de su obra, intérpretes originales con nuevas incorporaciones. Pudo contar con Justin Hayward y Chris Thompson de la formación inicial e incorporó al grupo Black Smoke Band y al  ULLAdubULLA Strings, que junto con un Richard Burton virtual, e imágenes multimedia sorprendentes, supusieron un éxito rotundo, en todas las representaciones que se dieron de la obra.

Aquí os dejo una parte de la representación de la obra musical de Jeff Wayne ( Si os da error, pinchar en HQ). Espero que os guste.

Y finalmente los más curiosos pueden descargar la obra de Jeff Wayne.

Disc 1 – The Coming of the Martians

1 The Eve of the War
2 Horsell Common and the Heat Ray
3 The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine
4 Forever Autumn
5 Thunder Child

Disc 2 – The Earth Under the Martians

1 The Red Weed (Part 1)
2 The Spirit of Man
3 The Red Weed (Part 2)
4 Brave New World
5 Dead London
6 Epilogue (Part 1)
7 Epilogue (Part 2) NASA
The New Files 1996
8 The Spirit of Man
9 Forever Autumn (remix 96)
10 Forever Autumn (dark autumn dub)
11 The Eve of the War (mix)

http://rapidshare.com/files/27144854…sc_1.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27147564…sc_1.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27149429…sc_1.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27145640…sc_1.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27151487…sc_2.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27159875…sc_2.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27161370…sc_2.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27163262…sc_2.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27165052…sc_2.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/27149750…sc_2.part6.rar

New York’s Broadway theaters have spawned the world’s greatest publicists, but only David Rothenberg—whose clients have ranged from Richard Burton to Alvin Ailey—can claim to have also launched the first organization to help ex-convicts. In 1966, Rothenberg, promoter of the original production of Hair, became intrigued by a play about prison conditions called Fortune and Men’s Eyes. Dipping into this own pocket for much of the dough, he raised $12,000 to get it launched at the old Actors’ Playhouse off Sheridan Square. The Times yawned, but Voice critic Jerry Tallmer raved—and a hit was born. The play ran for a decade. It drew so many ex-cons who shared their own stories that Rothenberg decided to launch an organization to help. That was the aptly named Fortune Society—now a major nonprofit helping 4,000 men and women a year handle the switch from prison to everyday society. Not bad for a Broadway flack.

OCTOBER 21-27, 2009 | VOL LIV NO. 43 | AMERICA’S LARGEST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER  VILLAGEVOICE