Charlie Wilson is on the warpath, an English woman in India goes down the wrong path, and Ginger Rogers takes the path of least ...
on 2008-04-25 00:50:52
Dancer Auditions -- Brit a No-Show
Filed under: Wacky and WeirdTMZ.com: Britney Spears didn't show up (again) for the dancer auditions for her upcoming music video, but other talent certainly did -- and lucky for you, TMZ was there to catch some of the greatest dancers since Ginger R on 2007-10-16 16:01:24
Dancer Auditions -- Brit a No-Show
Filed under: Wacky and WeirdTMZ.com: Britney Spears didn't show up (again) for the dancer auditions for her upcoming music video, but other talent certainly did -- and lucky for you, TMZ was there to catch some of the greatest dancers since Ginger R on 2007-10-16 16:09:15
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/03/DDGOCBI5HV19.DTL
He was blacklisted in a national witch hunt. Yet writer Dalton Trumbo never
lost his integrity.
Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic
Thursday, March 3, 2005
At the 1956 Academy Awards, Deborah Kerr called out the winner of that
year's Oscar for best original story -- Robert Rich, for "The Brave One. "
But Rich was not present to accept the award, and for an original reason.
No, he was not "on location" making another movie, and he was not ill. He
did not have any philosophical problem with the notion of awards ceremonies.
Nor was his wife at the hospital, about to give birth to a baby, which is
what Jesse Lasky Jr. of the Writers Guild claimed upon accepting the award.
Rich had the best possible reason of all not to be present: He did not
exist. He was a pseudonym, one of many, for Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted
writer. One of the Hollywood Ten, Trumbo had gone to prison in 1950 for
refusing to answer questions by the House Un-American Activities Committee,
which was trying to root out communism in the motion picture industry. Upon
his release 10 months later, he could find no work under his own name, but
scratched together a living by turning out s either under fake names
or for fellow writers, who fronted for him and funneled the money to him.
Hollywood is never at a loss for writers. But Trumbo, even stigmatized, was
worth working with because he was good, reliable and fast. He could write in
any genre, though his films tended, above all, to celebrate restless spirits
and individualists. He had flair and a voice, and he was also a gifted
novelist. His anti-war novel, "Johnny Got His Gun," written in 1939, is
still in print. A mainstay of junior high school English courses, it is
often the first novel that students read all the way through. Trumbo is the
subject of a play ("Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted") starring Brian
Dennehy, opening Tuesday at the Post Street Theatre.
Years later, we think of the blacklist in much the same way that we think of
Prohibition: The country went through a nutty phase and then, after a few
years, things went back to normal and everything was OK. But what seems like
a blink of an eye in the light of history was hardly that for the people who
experienced it. When Trumbo started having trouble with the government, he
was 41. When he went to jail, he was 44. When the blacklist finally lifted,
he was 54. Those are prime years that he spent under a cloud.
The career that Trumbo was willing to give up on principle had been hard-
earned. He was born in Colorado in December 1905 to a family of modest
means. When his father died, he had to drop out of college. He worked the
night shift at a bakery for most of his 20s, spending his days trying to
learn how to write. He started contributing articles to Vanity Fair, and
this led to a job as a reader at Warner Bros. It was pretty humble work. The
job of a reader in those days was to read plays and novels, summarize them
and advising whether they might be adapted into good movies. But his status
improved following the publication of his first novel, "The Eclipse," in
1934, and Trumbo soon became a screenwriter, working for the studio's
B-picture unit.
For the next 13 years, Trumbo cranked s out, gradually getting better
assignments. He wrote "Kitty Foyle" (1940) for Ginger Rogers and earned an
Oscar nomination. He wrote "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944) about Jimmy
Doolittle's daring attack on Japan in 1942. Also notable, though only in
retrospect, was "Tender Comrade" (1943), about three Army wives who pool
their resources while their husbands are away fighting. After the war, it
was labeled communist propaganda, though the film seems pretty innocuous --
and patriotic -- today.
Politically, Trumbo had always been a liberal, and in 1943 he joined the
Communist Party. But the party was never a big part of Trumbo's life, and he
eventually left it. Still, when subpoenaed by the committee, he refused to
name names, which put him in contempt of Congress and led to his prison
sentence.
Trumbo did some of his best work under the blacklist. He wrote "Gun Crazy"
(1949), the classic film noir, with another writer fronting for him. With
screenwriter Ian McLellan Hunter as a front, he wrote "Roman Holiday" (1953)
and earned an Oscar -- for McLellan. (McLellan later acknowledged that he'd
had nothing to do with the screenplay and, posthumously, the award was given
to Trumbo.) The blacklist period is full of ironies and strange
coincidences. One of the first screenplays Trumbo wrote when he got out of
prison was "He Ran All the Way" (1951), which proved to be the last film by
blacklisted actor John Garfield. In 1955, he contributed to "The
Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell," about a visionary military man unfairly
vilified by Congress. It starred Gary Cooper, who had been a friendly
witness before the committee.
The individual in rebellion against monolithic power: That was a familiar
Trumbo theme, and it makes one wonder how Trumbo could ever have flirted
with communism or considered himself a Communist. Unlike, say, John Howard
Lawson ("Success at Any Price"), a member of the Hollywood Ten whose work
was identifiably Marxist, Trumbo was more in the old tradition of American
literature, which maintained faith in individual genius and asserted
individual rights. Trumbo's defiance of the committee, like his work, seems,
in retrospect, more an act of patriotism than subversion.
When word got out that Trumbo had written "The Brave One," it led to a
national re-examination of the blacklist, but change was not immediately
forthcoming, and he continued to write pseudonymously. Finally in 1960, with
the films "Exodus" and "Spartacus" -- two epics about defiance on a grand
scale -- Dalton Trumbo once again got a screen credit.
By this point, his best work was behind him, but he continued to get A- list
assignments. He wrote "The Sandpiper" (1965) for Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton, and "The Fixer" (1968) and "The Horsemen" (1971) for
director John Frankenheimer. In 1971, he wrote and directed an adaptation of
his novel, "Johnny Got His Gun," about a wounded veteran with no arms, no
legs, no eyes, no nose and no mouth. It was not a commercial success. His
last feature screenwriting credit was for "Papillon" (1973).
Trumbo did most of his writing in the bath, on a tray suspended over the
tub. According to his wife, he'd spend days in the tub, writing and
soaking -- and smoking. According to Kirk Douglas, Trumbo smoked six packs
of cigarettes a day. This caught up with him eventually, and in 1973 he got
lung cancer. He died in 1976 of a heart attack.
Trumbo's legacy is his work, of course. But his legacy is also in his
example of individual courage and integrity, and in his graciousness in the
years following the blacklist. In 1970, when he won the life achievement
award from the Writers Guild of America, he used the forum to call for
healing and said that everyone who testified -- those who named names and
those who did not -- were all victims. It was an uncommonly generous gesture
from a man who'd spent a dozen of his best years as a pariah.
E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
* Just for you Fiona ....btw ...this was on a CANADIAN site today too
....Rick :))))))) ....guess that lumps you in with the Paddies, no ?????
http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2005/03/02/947501-ap.html
Travolta, Thurman chill out for 'Be Cool'
By DAVID GERMAIN
Actors Uma Thurman and John Travolta. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - They went on one of the coolest movie dates ever, at
least until she OD'd and he rammed an adrenaline needle through her breast
to jump-start her heart.
Eleven years after Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Uma Thurman are back on
the dance floor in Be Cool, a follow-up to Travolta's 1995 crime caper Get
Shorty.
Travolta returns as super-smooth loan-shark-turned-producer Chili Palmer,
this time abandoning the fickle movie industry to try his hand in the music
business.
Thurman plays Edie, owner of a small record label where Chili brings his
latest discovery, a singer-songwriter with the voice of an angel and the
face of a cover-girl pop diva.
While Chili's not the wholly respectable type and Edie's record company has
its shadier sides, the two are model citizens compared to addict and hit man
Vincent and coke-head Mia, whom Travolta and Thurman played in Quentin
Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
Vincent and Mia's evening out progressed from cozy dinner at a kitschy
restaurant, to an off-kilter take on The Twist in a dance contest, to Mia's
misstep in snorting Vincent's heroin, believing it to be cocaine.
A more conventional romance develops between Chili and Edie, who do share
some time on the dance floor, spinning to the Black Eyed Peas' cover of a
1960s tune by Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim.
In a recent interview, Travolta, 51, and Thurman, 34, answered the following
questions about the new film and about old times:
AP: What was it about Vincent and Mia that made them work so well together?
Travolta: Certainly, Quentin's imagination.
Thurman: And she is a speed freak and he is a junkie, so there's no
conflict. Nobody's trying to take up anybody else's space.
Travolta: Those characters, I say they were hell bent for death, and these
characters are hell bent for life. I think these guys really want to
survive. And the difference is, we're both higher than a kite during the
whole film in Pulp Fiction, and when we went up to dance, we're doing
novelty dances, gimmick dances from the '60s. Here, we're doing something
much more traditional, which kind of adds to that.
AP: Did the two of you find you had instant chemistry?
Thurman: I wouldn't even have thought sitting with John when we met, I was
kind of a gnarly little 23-year-old, I wouldn't have known that we had such
screen chemistry.
Travolta: I don't think it's something you can even predict. It's innate.
Thurman: And a lot of times, people have intense chemistry in life, like
people who are infatuated with each other and become lovers, and they end up
not having screen chemistry at all. They're dead to watch, in a way. Couples
often are very boring to watch.
AP: Were you able to fall right back into your old chemistry when you
started Be Cool?
Travolta: I have to say, I wasn't aware. I have such innate affinity for
Uma. I get happy when I'm around Uma. I can't wait to talk to her, I can't
wait to catch up. I'm comfortable. So what the effect of that is on others
while watching, I don't know how to explain that, but I know how I feel -
that I'm just excited to be with Uma, whether we're acting or talking. A lot
of the time, the takes were interrupting our conversations.
Thurman: It's absolutely true. What was really a lovely thing about getting
to step into this movie was to start from a place of so much more trust, a
sense of the bond and time. Someone who really did know you 10 years ago.
Something about it I find very touching, and it reaffirms life for me in a
way to reconnect.
AP: Uma, dancing with the guy who did Saturday Night Fever, were you
intimidated?
Thurman: Always. When I'm luckiest, I spend the best part of my time being
intimidated and inspired. That's when I'm doing good. It means I'm picking
the right partners in life. . . . I never had any advanced level of dance
training. I'm just a huge fan and always fantasized about dancing, though
I'm very shy about it. I don't really like to dance socially, but whenever I
get a chance to dance where I feel like it's my job, gotta dance, I'm so
happy, and the fear factor as soon as I start to dance goes away.
AP: You're co-starring with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in the remake
of Mel Brooks' The Producers. Do you get to sing and dance?
Thurman: I'm dancing every day now. I'm in heaven. I'm in absolute hog-pig
heaven. I'm really, literally having the best experience.
Travolta: Are you dancing alone or with people?
Thurman: I have a big sort of Ginger Rogers number with Matthew, which is
kind of like the whole shebang.
Travolta: Is that a movie-within-the-movie dance number?
Thurman: It's kind of a love-scene dance number. He kind of sings the song
to himself, and she, the big, dumb Swedish bimbo, is trying to get his
attention. She's very comfortable, she knows who she likes, and she likes
him, and so she's trying to get his attention, and they have this sort of
big, magical dance sequence.
Travolta: I'm envious. I would love to be doing that.
Thurman: It's to die. You've done it, so you know.
AP: Chili's warned that music is a tougher business than movies. John,
you've recorded albums. Which is harder?
Travolta: Music is tougher. It's more fleeting. You can be here for one hit.
I think that everybody in the movie industry, if they have a hit, gets about
two more chances. I think in the music industry, that's it.
Thurman: You have a hit, and what they say is, thank you, really. Right?
AP: And show you the door?
Travolta: Yeah, it's always been that way. So I think it's a tougher
business, and it is more gangster, it's more Mafioso. We exaggerate it in
this movie for entertainment's sake, but there is a truth to that. I think
the movie industry is much more white collar. It's much more mainstream,
Wall Street.
Thurman: Corporate, in a way. You feel its corporateness, whereas you feel a
maverick quality in the music business more.
Travolta: Because it's everybody's game.
Thurman: Kind of lawless.
Travolta: It is lawless
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
"Thanatos" wrote in message
news:atropos-5602CE.21455318032008@news.giganews.com...
> In article
> ,
> TranslucentAmoebae wrote:
possession"http://www.tmz.com/2008/03/11/mary-ann-busted-with-mary-jane/
responsibility"http://www.tmz.com/2008/03/12/it-wasnt-mary-anns-mary-jane/
> difference?
He can't tell you...too drunk.
Wow. I was gonna say Dan Haggerty and Michael McDonald, but I guess I
am on the wrong track here.
Oh, yes and Ginger Rogers.
Sorry about the NLSTP - changed it in different thread.
LR wrote:
> Dancer Ann Miller Dies of Cancer at 81
> and dancer whose machine-gun taps won her stardom during the golden age
> of movie musicals, died Thursday of lung cancer. She was 81.
> longtime friend and former publicist.
> career at MGM in the late 1940s and early '50s with "On the Town,"
> "Easter Parade" and "Kiss Me Kate."
> Broadway and touring with Mickey Rooney (news) in "Sugar Babies," a
> razzmatazz tribute to the era of burlesque.
> in films," she once recalled. "I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl.
> I never really had my big moment on the screen.
> talent. I'll never think of her as being gone."
> and I said, 'Keep your head up, kid.' I'm just very sad."
> 500 taps a minute) earned her jobs in vaudeville and night clubs when
> she first came to Hollywood. She adopted the stage name of Anne Miller.
> Her early film career included working as a child extra in films and as
> a chorus girl in a minor musical, "The Devil on Horseback."
> at RKO studio, where her name was shortened to Ann.
> next played an acting hopeful in "Stage Door," with Katharine Hepburn at Columbia Pictures started impressively with the role of the would-be
> ballerina in Frank Capra (news)'s Oscar-winning "You Can't Take It with
> You."
> "True to the Army," "Priorities on Parade" and "Hey Rookie."
> MGM with Fred Astaire (news), Miller replaced her. That led to an MGM
> contract and her most enduring work.
> the Town," Red Skelton (news) in "Watch the Birdie," and Bob Fosse in
> "Kiss Me Kate."
> Town Girl," "Deep in My Heart," "Hit the Deck" and "The Opposite Sex."
> ended in 1956. Miller remained active in television and the theater,
> dancing and belting songs on Broadway in "Hello, Dolly" and "Mame."
> the road with her dynamic tapping in "Sugar Babies" when. The show,
> starring her and Rooney, opened on Broadway in 1979 and toured for
> years. In 1990, she commented that "Sugar Babies" had made her
> financially independent.
> remarked in a 1984 interview. "It is a very, very lonely life. When you
> work the way I work — that means hard — there's no time for play."
> dictated by her father, who had wanted a boy. After her parents
> divorced, she was called Annie, for reasons she never knew.
> helped straighten her legs. Her mother was almost totally deaf and could
> not find work. By the age of 12, Annie was almost full grown at 5 feet
> 5, and she danced to support her mother and herself.
> in the town's night life, and she caught the eye of Louis B. Mayer,
> all-powerful head of MGM. They began dating and could be seen on the
> dance floors of Ciro's and Mocambo.
> he was lonely," she wrote in her 1972 autobiography, "Miller's High
> Life." Another reason: "He knew or reasoned that I was as virginal as
> the day I was born."
> mother would not allow it. She decided to accept the offer of marriage
> from steel heir Reese Milner.
> later, she divorced Milner. Marriages to oilmen William Moss and Arthur
> Cameron also ended in divorce.
>
in article BB88FAB0.88C6C%StrokerChic@earthlink.net, Predatory Rock Chick at
StrokerChic@earthlink.net wrote on 9/13/03 5:47 PM:
> WebCrab:
> revealing -- but the clichéd essays breathlessly-presented re: Le Leni are
> just puttin' THIS gal to sleep....
> Hugs,
> Janice, who was hopin' the Male Nurse To Geriatric Divas had a personal tale
> to tell re: LR -- comme the ones re: Ginger Rogers, Fay Wray et al.
My issue with the whole breathless adoration session was the blithe
supposition that the main problem of "Le Leni"'s legacy was that she merely
happened to work under the wrong fascistic regime. There were a few more
problems with her art, however "stunning" it may have been.
Though I see where a point is being made about her talent, it has a faint
whiff of Le Pen's infamous line about the Gas chambers of the Holocaust
being a "point of detail". It's just an inconvenient "detail" of
Riefenstahl's talent that it was, however inadvertantly or not, used to
promulgate the Nazi regime and what it underpinned. The resonance of her
effort proved to be evidence of its success as an ideological tool. She is
accountable in the end for that as well as being credited with her
achievements.
I don't deny there were some "pretty" and powerful images within her opus to
Aryan power.
and Eisenstein was no choirboy either.
Richie wrote:
>has this Blackwell creature ever
>designed a frock that was made and
>worn by anyone other than himself ....
My Blackwell story....I was at an event
attended by the late Ginger Rogers.
who came in in a wheel-chair.
The event was at the Beverly Hilton
hotel, site of the Golden Globes,
and many Hollywood events...Blackwell
was hanging around with his young
assistant ...he happened to stand next to me and muttered, "What's wrong
with Ginger?"
I had read that she had had a stroke
and mentioned that to Blackwell who threw a small fit, turned
to his assistant, and griped, "Why didn't
someone tell me, why didn't someone
tell me?"
Well, if I--a mere fan and "civilian"
knew about Ginger, why didn't Hollywood
"insider" Mr Blackwell?
He must be woefully out of loop
in showbiz, and I doubt that anyone
takes his Worst Dressed List seriously
or regards him as notable designer.
Buster
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
--T.S. Eliot
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Adopt-a-claw: http://busterthecrab.com/
DiCaprio takes to the sky
Hughes biopic takes flight with high Oscar hopes
By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun
The Aviator tells some of the truth, but not the whole truth, so help me
God, about Howard Hughes.
That was a deliberate if difficult choice made by the team of director
Martin Scorsese, screenwriter John Logan and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who
not only plays the enigmatic playboy-aviator-filmmaker Hughes, but was the
one who put this film into motion in the first place as a vanity project.
This is, DiCaprio says in a Los Angeles interview, "the first truly
distinctive film on Howard Hughes."
There have been others, sometimes with Hughes thinly disguised, such as in
The Carpetbaggers (1964) when George Peppard played him under the fictional
name Jonas Cord.
Without lingering over biographical details but by sticking mostly to facts,
The Aviator tackles the early adult life of Hughes. After a brief childhood
vignette, the film chronicles the turmoil of the years from 1927 -- when the
orphaned, rich young Texan took his inheritance and stormed Hollywood by
shooting his aviation war spectacle Hell's Angels -- to the late 1940s,
after he had energized the airline industry through his ownership of TWA.
That was also the period when a testy Hughes fought off Congressional
hearings threatening to destroy his reputation as a test pilot and inventor
who revolutionized modern aviation. A Senate committee tried to take Hughes
to task over his failure to deliver spy planes during World War II and also
for the apparent flop of his famous Hercules flying boat, the Spruce Goose.
Hughes triumphed but first he had to be dragged out of a disturbing,
self-destructive depression by Hollywood friends before he could even show
up in public for the hearings. He suffered from a serious case of obsessive
compulsive disorder (OCD) that overtook him later in life.
Telling Hughes' youthful story allowed the filmmakers to weave a larger
dramatic story of "the state of our country" and how it grew up during that
era, DiCaprio says. And it allowed him to tackle a personal challenge, one
that could bring him another Academy Award nomination, although competition
is tough, vaunted U.S. distributor Miramax Films seems to have lost its
promotional drive and DiCaprio personally never mentions the possibility.
"As an actor," DiCaprio says, "you're constantly searching for that great
character. And, being a history buff and learning about people in our past
and the amazing things that they've done, I came across a book about Howard
Hughes."
The man, DiCaprio says, was "the most multidimensional character I could
ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies. No
one seems to be able to categorize him ... He was such an obsessed human
being. He was so obsessive with everything ... whether it be planes or women
or films he made. And that is the direct result of his OCD."
DiCaprio took the book to filmmaker Michael Mann, who served as co-producer.
Mann brought in Logan (The Last Samurai) to craft the screenplay. Scorsese
was hired to direct, with DiCaprio entrenched in the lead role.
Key cast additions included a Cate and a Kate -- Cate Blanchett plays
Hughes' lover, Katharine Hepburn, and Kate Beckinsale plays Hughes' longtime
if tempestuous friend Ava Gardner. Jude Law pops up in a delicious cameo as
barfly actor Errol Flynn. Alec Baldwin is Juan Trippe, Hughes' business
rival. Alan Alda plays sleazy Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, who chaired the
1947 committee which skewered Hughes as an alleged war profiteer (Hughes
famously called Brewster's vicious attacks "a pack of lies!").
DiCaprio says Logan deserves credit for the final structure of the film.
"(He) really came up with the concept, saying, 'You can do 10 different
movies about Howard Hughes. Let's focus on his younger years. Let's watch
his initial descent into madness but, meanwhile, have the backdrop of early
Hollywood.' "
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was born in Houston on Christmas Eve 1905 (although
some references cite his birthplace as nearby Humble, Tex.). His father,
Howard Robard Hughes Sr., became a millionaire by designing and
manufacturing a drill bit, the Hughes Rock Eater, that is still used in the
oil business. His mother, Allene Gano Hughes, planted in the mentally
unstable Hughes a lifelong aversion to germs, unless they were his own (he
often lived in his own filth).
Before he was 20, both parents were dead. Lured briefly by schooling, more
by golfing and mostly by an uncle (actor-screenwriter Rupert Hughes) who had
made it in the movie business, Hughes went to Hollywood.
By the time he left Los Angeles to live as a madman hermit who holed up in a
room at Las Vegas' Desert Inn until his death in 1976, Hughes had become a
legend. He was both celebrated and reviled for spectacular successes (he
produced the original Scarface in 1932), for miserable failures (three
pilots died shooting the Hell's Angels aerial combat scenes and the picture
cost $4 million because he shot most of it twice), for a litany of
glamour-girls affairs (Jean Harlow, Billie Dove, Ginger Rogers, Katharine
Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Jean Peters and many others) and for his aviation
triumphs and disasters (Hughes once crashed his prototype spy plane into
swank Beverly Hills and nearly died).
These Los Angeles years are the focus of The Aviator.
"Howard Hughes," says Scorsese, "was this visionary who was obsessed with
speed and flying like a god. (He was) as rich as one of the Greek mythical
kings ... (He was) young, energetic and filled with wonder and excitement,
not only for aviation but also for Hollywood and making big movies. Hell's
Angels was a big film." While Hughes had to pay a steep price, says
Scorsese, "I loved his idea of what filmmaking was. He became the outlaw of
Hollywood, in a way."
Scorsese, a one-time Hollywood outlaw himself, had no choice in the casting
of DiCaprio, but he also had no problem with the arrangement, particularly
because DiCaprio had Hughes down cold.
"I'd had a pretty good relationship working with Leo in Gangs Of New York,"
Scorsese says. "That was a baptism of fire because it was a difficult
picture to make." DiCaprio now says Scorsese "is every actor's dream to work
with."
Physically, says Scorsese, DiCaprio captured the look of the young Hughes
because of "the lankiness, the tallness, the frame itself. I felt that he
did remind me of the young Howard Hughes." In the case of the later Hughes,
"the one with the moustache after the plane crash, he just suddenly sort of
became Howard Hughes."
DiCaprio's dynamism in the role is no surprise to Beckinsale. "I've always
been a huge fan of his," she says in Los Angeles. She remembers, as an
18-year-old, seeing What's Eating Gilbert Grape, in which a teen DiCaprio
played the mentally challenged brother of Johnny Depp.
Beckinsale, an aspiring actress, turned to her then-boyfriend when they
spilled out on a Paris sidewalk after the screening and said, "Oh my God, I
hope that's a real boy and not an actor because, if it's an actor, we're all
screwed. I mean, that's really raised the bar for everybody in a terrifying
way."
Even though the 30-year-old DiCaprio was amiable with fellow cast members on
set, he recalls that the role of Hughes burrowed more deeply into him than
most characters.
"How did I shake him? I've always been pretty good at being able to go home
and be me again. But, I'd say more than any other character I've played in
the past, this one stayed with me the most. Especially with this stuff
having to do with obsessive compulsive disorder.
"We all have obsessive things we do to some degree, a primal thing in our
brain. I remember as a child stepping on cracks on the way to school and
having to walk back a block and step on that same crack or that gum stain.
So, for the movie, I kind of let all that stuff go (into action) and was
constantly stepping on things and reorganizing things. (I) wanted to
encourage that to come back and it really did. Once you don't stop yourself
from doing that stuff, it can just go on and on and on. People with genuine
OCD, people that aren't able to make that distinction, truly live in a
24-hour hell of constantly playing mindgames with themselves."
DiCaprio went through weeks of shooting depression scenes in a studio where
designers built a replica of Hughes' private screening room, his refuge.
"You sort of get into your own headspace and don't really want to talk to
anyone," DiCaprio says. "I spent a lot of time just sitting around in the
screening room alone. But, pain is temporary, film is forever."
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
To remember her only as the beautiful, vivacious dancing partner of Fred Astaire in their classic 1930s musicals is to do Ginger Rogers a great disfavor: She was a much better actress than most Hollywood wags gave her credit for, even before her Oscar win for Kitty Foyle (1940). Rogers was a performer from childhood, the product of an aggressive stage mother. She danced professionally in vaudeville while still in her teens, married to partner Jack Pepper at the age of 17. Her first film was Campus Sweethearts (1929), a short subject starring Rudy Vallee; she made several minimusicals in New York while performing in the Gershwin stage smash "Girl Crazy," in which she had the second female lead.
Paramount, at that time operating a stu dio in Astoria, Queens, gave Rogers a break in feature films, slotting her in the Claudette Colbert starrer Young Man of Manhattan (1930). She appeared in a few more minor films for the studio before going in 1931 to Hollywood, where she worked as leading lady in a slew of program pictures including The Tip Off, Suicide Fleet (both 1931), Carnival Boat, The Tenderfoot, Hat Check Girl, You Said a Mouthful, The Thirteenth Guest (all 1932), A Shriek in the Night, Broadway Bad, Don't Bet on Love, Sitting Pretty (introducing the song "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?"), and Chance at Heaven (all 1933). Unlike many attractive young women in Hollywood, Rogers seldom played dewy-eyed ingenues; her characters were nearly always wisecracking, worldly dames who knew their apples.
The year 1933 provided Ginger with her best breaks to date. First, she won star billing for the first time at a major studio in RKO's Professional Sweetheart. Second, she won plum supporting roles in two Warner Bros. musicals, 42nd Street (as monocled "Anytime Annie") and Gold Diggers of 1933 (introducing the song "We're in the Money"-and singing one chorus in pig latin). Third, she was teamed with dancer Fred Astaire for the first time in Flying Down to Rio also for RKO, in which they danced to the lilting strains of the "Carioca."
RKO put Rogers under contract in 1934 (after she'd finished Twenty Million Sweethearts for Warners), developing a starring vehicle for her and Astaire. The Gay Divorcee sported songs by Cole Porter (including "Night and Day") and gave the Astaire-Rogers team plenty of opportunity to strut their stuff. The picture's overwhelming success kept the pair together in a series of delightful, lavishly mounted musicals, all of which featured songs by the country's top tunesmiths (Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins) and provided escapist entertainment for Depression-battered moviegoers. Rogers and Astaire were an incomparably well-matched team; as perceptive critics noticed, they seemed to make love through their dance routines, and their smart comic performances as on-again, off-again lovers were a treat. Rogers also made sure she always had one prime solo song in each film. Audiences loved Top Hat, Roberta (both 1935), Swing Time, Follow the Fleet (both 1936), Shall We Dance? (1937), Carefree (1938), and the more serious The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle (1939).
Although RKO allowed her to make films without Astaire-including Romance in Manhattan (1934), Star of Midnight (1935, opposite William Powell in this imitation Thin Man), In Person (1936), Stage Door (1937, in which she provided a lively and engaging counterpart to top-billed Katharine Hepburn), Vivacious Lady, Having Wonderful Time (both 1938), and Bachelor Mother (1939)-she felt she'd never blossom on her own without shedding her demanding dancing partner. For his part, Astaire had had enough of Rogers and the RKO musicals, and was more than willing to leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
After starring in two relatively minor films, Lucky Partners and The Primrose Path Rogers hit pay dirt by letting her blond hair go naturally dark and forgoing glamour-girl treatment to play the feisty, independent working girl in Kitty Foyle (all 1940), pleasantly surprising critics and audiences with her warm, impassioned performance. She won a Best Actress Academy Award, and solidified her position as RKO's top star.
Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) gave her a delightful romantic comedy vehicle. The following year, off the RKO lot, Rogers shined in Roxie Hart (playing a gumchomping, wisecracking publicity hound) and The Major and the Minor (as another high-spirited, self-reliant working girl, who disguises herself as a 12-year-old to save on train fare). By contrast, her RKO vehicles of the period, including Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) and Tender Comrade (1943), seemed weak. Paramount's overproduced, Technicolor Lady in the Dark though, gave Rogers her first real flop, being the tale (based on a Moss Hart play-but shorn of most of its Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin songs) of a "boss lady" who undergoes psychoanalysis.
Rogers' star never again shone as brightly, even though she still retained the power to hold and satisfy audiences. Weekend at the Waldorf (1945), Heartbeat, Magnificent Doll (both 1946, miscast in the latter as Dolley Madison), It Had to Be You (1947), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949, reteamed one last time with Astaire, this time at MGM), Perfect Strangers (1950), the highly dramatic Storm Warning and The Groom Wore Spurs (both 1951) saw a gradual diminution in her popularity. She made something of a comeback with three 1952 comedies-We're Not Married, Dreamboat (playing a silent-screen star, a part for which she seemed too young), and Monkey Business-but she couldn't compete with a newer, younger group of stars such as Monkey Business's Marilyn Monroe.
Rogers gave tolerably good performances in Forever Female (1953), Black Widow (1954, as a temperamental actress), Tight Spot (1955), and The First Traveling Saleslady (1956), but found decent starring vehicles fewer and far between, and after Teenage Rebel (also 1956) and Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957), she returned to the stage and nightclubs. (Some years later, she played a madam opposite Ray Milland in 1964's mercifully unreleased The Confession/aka Quick, Let's Get Married/aka Seven Different Ways and was Carol Lynley's mother in 1965's Harlow.)
She remained a star, however, as she proved W_hen she took over the leading role in the Broadway smash "Hello, Dolly!" in 1965, and played the title role in the 1969 London production of "Mame." Professionally inactive in her later years, she was confined to a wheelchair but still made myriad personal appearances, especially to promote her 1991 autobiography, "Ginger: My Story." (A 1942 juvenile novel, "Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak," was written by her mother Lela, who also worked for years as a talent scout and nurturer at RKO, and caused considerable ripples as a Communist witch-hunter in the 1950s.) Rogers was married to actors Lew Ayres (1934-41), Jacques Bergerac (1953-57), and William Marshall (1961-62).
"You bring out a lot of your own thoughts and attitudes W_hen acting. I think a great deal of it has to do with the inner you. You know, there's nothing damnable about being a strong woman. The world needs strong women. There are a lot of strong women you do not see who are guiding, helping, mothering strong men. They want to remain unseen. It's kind of nice to be able to play a strong woman who is seen."
"I don't care what the critics say. My fabulous mom will give me a good review if nobody else does."
"In everything that I do I learn and try to put it to use. I have learned to go through life not into it. It's like a boat. You mustn't let the water in or you're sunk. Of course, I've made mistakes and I have had failures, but I do not dwell on them because people don't care about garbage. When I make a mistake it's like a bad leaf on a lettuce - I throw it out into the waste basket."
"I'm most grateful to have had that joyous time in motion pictures. It really was a Golden Age of Hollywood. Pictures were talking, they were singing, they were coloring. It was beginning to blossom out: bud and blossom were both present."
[On her screen partnership with Fred Astaire] "We had fun and it shows. True, we were never bosom buddies off the screen; we were different people with different interests. We were only a couple on film."
[Her explanation for bringing excess luggage to London in 1969 for her year long stint on stage as 'Mame'] "I believe in dressing for the occasion. There's a time for sweater, sneakers and Levis and a time for the full-dress jazz. As for the little touches, well, a year is quite a long time and they make one feel at home."
"Even W_hen one is of a certain age to make one's own decisions there are many times when it is great to be able to go back and talk it over with the people one loves - one's family."
"It'd be fun to have a chum around, but it's very hard to have a chum unless you're married to him. And I don't believe in today's concept for living with someone unmarried." - 1987
[on working with Katharine Hepburn] "She is snippy you know, which is a shame. She was never on my side."
"The most important thing in anyone's life is to be giving something. The quality I can give is fun, joy and happiness. This is my gift."
[on her partnrship with Astaire] "After all, it's not as if we were Abbott and Costello. We did have careers apart from each other."
"Hollywood is like an empty wastebasket."
"When you're happy, you don't count the years."
"I don't know which I like best. I love the applause on the stage. But pictures are so fascinating - you reach many millions through them. And you make more money too." - in early 30s.
"The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first"
'They're not going to get my money to see the junk that's made today' (1983)
"When two people love each other, they don't look at each other, they look in the same direction."
"My mother told me I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months."
Was badly affected by diabetes in her last years which left her wheelchair bound and visibly overweight while her voice had become shrunken rasp.
Always the outdoor sporty type, she was a near-champion tennis player, a topline shot and a keen angler.
She made her final public appearance on 18th March 1995 (just five weeks before her death) W_hen she received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.
Always the outdoor sporty type, she was a near-champion tennis player, a topline shot and loved going fishing.
The well known quote often attributed to Miss Rogers - "My first picture was 'Kitty Foyle'. It was my mother who made all those films with Fred Astaire" - was actually fabricated for a 1966 article in 'Films In Review'.
Was badly affected by diabetes in her last years which left her wheelchair bound and visibly overweight while her voice had become a barely audible rasp.
Author Graham Greene always said he would have liked Ginger to play the role of Aunt Augusta in the film version of his novel 'Travels With My Aunt' [W_hen the film was made in 1972 the role was played by Maggie Smith].
In a 1991 TV interview W_hen asked why the Astaire/Rogers union wasn't known as 'Ginger & Fred' rather than 'Fred & Ginger' (as Ginger had been in films longer) she proclaimed 'It's a man's world!'.
The first Rogers and Astaire teaming, 'Flying Down To Rio', was her twentieth film appearance and only Fred's second.
Was Hollywood's highest paid star of 1942.
A keen artist, Ginger did many paintings, sculptures and sketches in her free time but could never bring herself to sell any of them.
Was fashion consultant for the J.C. Penney chain from 1972-75.
Turned down lead roles in 'To Each His Own' and 'The Heiress', both roles were made famous by Olivia de Havilland.
Directed her first stage musical,'Babes in arms', at age 74
Suffered with diabetes in her final years and a lot of the time was wheelchair bound.
She neither smoked nor drank: the bar at her house was stocked with ice-cream sodas.
Sort-of cousin of Rita Hayworth. Ginger's aunt married Rita's uncle.
At age 19, she briefly dated famed, founding editor of New Yorker magazine Harold Ross, then 37.
Interred at Oakwood Memorial Park, Chatsworth, California, USA, the same cemetery as long-time dancing/acting partner Fred Astaire is located.
Brought her cousin Helen Nichols to Hollywood, renamed her Phyllis Fraser, and guided her through a few films.
Was given the name "Ginger" by her little cousin who couldn't pronounce "Virginia" correctly.
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