Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Granger

He had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s throught the early aughts. Farley Granger is known best for starring in a pair of Alfred Hitchcock Films with legendary homosexual subtexts: Rope & Strangers on a Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for it’s continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

 

3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his may lovers were Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in Laurents memoir- Original Story By. Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope and Strangers on a Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Count Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor this spring.

Born On This Day- June 10th.. Francis Ethel Gumm

How can I come up with a gay connection to Judy Garland? Lets see… her father was gay, 2 of her husbands were gay, the man she hand picked as a husband for her daughter was gay, her gay fans remained her most steadfast fans through the drugs & the booze ups & downs, the fruit of her loins was Liza Minnelli & then there is that little film- The Wizard Of Oz.

42 years after her death, Judy Garland remains the very definition of gay icon. Her failed relationships, her self-doubt, & her battle with substance abuse are aspects of a life that most of us can identify with, while her live performances reflect a truth & freedom that are desired by anyone that has wasted time hiding their own emotions.

Gay culture can't escape Garland's influence. The Stonewall riots have been attributed to the anger & grief felt on Garland's funeral that day. The term- "Friend of Dorothy," is from our identification with Garland's most famous role.

Garland's 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall is a landmark in Show Biz. 2 years earlier, she had been advised to retire from performing after being diagnosed with hepatitis, but instead she took on a series of concerts in Europe & the USA that reestablished her reputation as the top entertainer of all time. The Carnegie Hall show is regarded as the greatest evening in show-business history. The live recording of that concert spent more than a year on the Billboard charts & won 7 Grammys, including Album of the Year.

Last year, my dear friend- WCK3 & I stayed up late into the night watching CDs of her TV show from the early 1960s. I was entranced by her presence & horrified by the histrionics. Sometimes when listening to her recordings, I am off put by the feeling that she sings every single song as if it were her last. Her over the top interpretations of the great standards push me away. But, then I hear her original version or her late in life version of Over The Rainbow & I end up crying. Judy Garland loved her fans & they loved her back. I love her for that.

Norma Jean

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius & it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."

It was announced at the Cannes Film Festival that Naomi Watts will play Monroe in a biopic based on author Joyce Carol Oates’s controversial, fictionalized memoir, 2000’s Blonde. The movie, also called Blonde, is to start filming in January 2011. Michelle Williams is to play Monroe in a film directed by Simon Curtis, which focuses on the screen legend’s time spent in England while filming 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier.

She is long gone but never forgotten.

Marilyn Monroe, star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, How to Marry a Millionaire & Bus Stop, was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles.

She signed her first studio contract with Twentieth Century Fox in 1946 for $125 a week, Norma Jeane dyed her hair blonde & changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe was pure & profane, & she soon became myth & metaphor as Hollywood’s most famous martyred saint. At the height of her fame, she had received 5,000 fan letters a week. Many were from men & women who talked about the sadness in her eyes, her vulnerability, &how they identified with her.

From Monroe’s first film, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, in 1948, to her last, The Misfits, in 1962, she went from studio created blonde bimbo to a trained, heartbreaking actress of depth & soul. She is beyond camp. she was different than Jayne Mansfield & Mamie Van Doren, who Hollywood used to replace her. She was irreplaceable.



On an early morning in the summer of 1962, Monroe died in her sleep at her Brentwood, California home. Suicide, accident or murder? She was 36 years old. Monroe remains a gay icon. She would have been 85 years old today. If she had lived, Monroe could have tossed off her demons & would have probably become a nimble comic actor, making fun of herself & guest hosting on SNL to acclaim & high ratings.

Born On This Day, May 23rd... My Good Close Personal Friend- Betty Garrett

I was living in L.A. in the early 1970s & was fortunate enough to be an acquaintance of actress/singer Betty Garrett. We had met through a mutual friend, a Jesuit priest, who had taught her 2 sons. Her boys were actually my age, but I preferred to hang with the adults. I traveled in this circle for a couple of years, & although we never had a date, just the 2 of us, we saw each other with some frequency at dinners & parties. We knew each other by name & I found her to be friendly, engaging, warm, & she could spin a delicious tale.

Garrett told me about her husband- Larry Park’s political history, & that because of their past affiliations with the Communist Party, thanks to Parks' involvement with people from the Group Theatre, Garrett & Parks became embroiled with the House Un-American Activities Committee, although only Parks was forced to testify. While Parks willingly admitted he had been a member of the party, he had refused to name others, although it was widely assumed that he had, & he found himself on the Hollywood blacklist.
Garrett also had trouble finding work, although as the mother of 2 young sons, she did not mind being unemployed as much as her husband did. Betty related to me that the only person that would see them socially in Hollywood was Frank Sinatra( she played a woman in love with him in 2 films), who defied Hollywood convention & was open in his support of the couple with friendship & money.


The occasion was being received back stage by Betty Garrett, after her one-woman show- Betty Garrett & Other Songs at the Westwood Playhouse in Spring 1976. Betty Garrett had been my acquaintance for a while, but we had recently been at a very informal outdoor dinner thrown by mutual friends. Betty & I had a very special conversation that evening that ended with Betty offering house seats to her show the next evening. I took her up on the offer, & the show was terrific, after her last number, but before the curtain call, Betty looked into the house with her hands shielding her eyes & announced while pointing : “Celeste & Stephen… I want to see you both in my dressing room in a few minutes.” I turned to the person next to me & nudged & whispered- “That’s me… I'm that Stephen… I’m not Celeste.”


So, Oscar winner & consummate character actor Celeste Home, & & a very young Stephen hung out in the dressing room. While Betty Garrett got out of costume & make up, Celeste Holm & our hero made small talk & loudly praised Ms. Garrett’s show. I declined an offer from the 2 amazing stars of Hollywood’s golden era to move on to the next party. Instead, I would opt for Studio One in West Hollywood, hoping that some hot man would shove that little brown bottle under my nose, the one that makes me feel so sexy & really connect with music… & I will meet a beefy redhead that will take me home, use me for my considerable talents & then make me breakfast. I came to the fork in the road, & I made the wrong decision. I could have partied away the evening with the fabulous Betty Garrett & with the woman who introduced the world to the showstopper- I Can't Say No (by coincidence, the title of a chapter in my memoir), but I took the fork that got me forked later tha evening.


I always glow a bit when I when catch Betty Garrett in an old film or aTV show. She had a 70+ year career in Radio, TV, Film & Stage. Her last public appearance was this past summer. Garrett appeared alongside former 2-time co-star- Esther Williams during Turner Classic Movies' first annual Classic Film Festival. Their film Neptune's Daughter was screened at the pool of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, while a Williams-inspired synchronized swimming troop, The Aqualilies, performed.


Betty Garrett left this life at 91 years old this past February. She was surrounded by her family. Thanks for the outstanding performances, the stories, the kindness, & the pleasure of your company, lovely Betty Garrett. You & your work will not be forgotten.

Alla Nazimova Was Born On This Day- May 22nd

 

She wasn’t in therapy, didn’t wear a fanny pack, had never sang along with the Indigo Girls & she didn’t play on a softball league, but Alla Nazimova was one luscious lesbian.

Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon, in the Ukraine, on this day in 1879. She studied with Stanslavski at the Moscow Arts Theatre. Nazimova was a mjor star in Moscow, Berlin & London by the time she arrived in NYC in 1905. She became an acclaimed actress & the toast of Broadway in the first deacde of the 20^th Century with success performing the works of Chekov, Turgenev & Ibsen. 

In 1918, Nazimova began producing, writing, & starring in films of her stage triumphs. Her film adaptations, her own film making techniques, & her acting style were considered daring at the time. 

In 1920s Hollywood, she counted as her many lovers: Patsy Ruth Miller, Anna Mae Wong, both of Rudolph Valentino's wives- Jean Acker & Natacha Rambova, Eva Le Gallienne, director- Dorothy Azner, & writer- Mercedes de Acosta. She coined the term "sewing circle" as code for her lesbian group of gal pals.  

Her private lifestyle was the topic of widespread rumors of decadent & debauched parties at her mansion on Sunset Boulevard, in West Hollywood known as The Garden of Allah. The Moorish palace was built in 1919. 

In 1927, Nazimova converted her estate into a 3.5 acre semi tropical trysting resort. She retained a private apartment upstairs in her former mansion, with the bottom story converted into a café & bar. The property became a complicated colorful collection of Spanish style bungalows & detached apartments, 25 villas were constructed around the pool, designed with drama & dash; the pool was shaped like the Black Sea.

The Garden Of Allah went bankrupt within a year & was bought by a developer who raised the rent. Nazimova stayed & among those who chose to live there: Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, Ramon Navarro, Harpo Marx, Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ernest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, Joe E. Lewis, Artie Shaw, Marlene Dietrich, George Kaufman, F Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Benchley & Laurence Olivier.  

 
Sham marriages, fights, feuds, egos, liquor during Prohibition, spoiled celebrities, recreational sex, drugs, drunken rages, loach liaisons, writer’s block, orgies, money problems, sudden changes of plans, the Garden Of Allah was a true Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. 

At the corner of Sunset & Crescent Heights, The Garden Of Allah is now a strip mall. The Joni Michell Song- Big Yellow Taxi is about the destruction of the site. Nazimova died in 1945, at the age of 66. She is buried at Forest Lawn.

If you should find yourself in LA & you desire the expert attention of a true insider, I recommend my blogger friend Felix & his World Class Tour Of Hollywood... take his tour!

Born On This Day- April 5th... Ruth Elizabeth Davis

"Everybody has a heart. Except some people."

Bette Davis

I believe All About Eve to be a perfect film, with not a wasted piece of dialogue or an unnecessary scene. It is one of the greatest films about theatre of all time. For me, Margo Channing is the finest & bravest Bette Davis creation (she lost the Oscar to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday).

Davis was a movie star, but also the most fearless & the least vain actresses of the Golden Age. I am fan of all her 6 decades of work on stage, & on film with Of Human Bondage, The Petrified Forest, Jezebel, The Old Maid, Elizabeth & Essex, The Letter, All This & Heaven Too, The Little Foxes, Old Acquaintance, Pocket Full Of Miracles, & What Ever Happened To Baby Jane among my favorites.

Besides Margo Channing, my favorite would have to be Bette’s work in 1987’s The Whales of August, featuring an understated Vincent Price, a rare & delicate late career performance by the great Lillian Gish, whose career stretched back to the films of D.W. Griffith, & Ann Sothern in her only Oscar nominated performance. But for me the true enjoyment of this film came from seeing Bette Davis do again what Bette Davis always could do: create an indelible, complex character & command every scene in which she appears.

When she was filming Whales of August, the cast & crew were having dinner when Davis started complaining about Joan Crawford. Cast member Harry Carey Jr, became unhappy & told Davis that Crawford had been his friend & that he didn't want to hear anything negative about her. Davis, without missing a beat, responded, "Just because a person's dead doesn't mean they changed."

Davis bickered with her directors over the smallest details, & had a reputation for being difficult to work with. Still, she was so beloved by audiences that she was in great demand, & is one of the few actors in history who worked until the very end of her life, making well over a 100 films. She would dare us to hate her, & we often did, which is why we loved her.

Warner Brothers treated Davis badly for many years, & they paid her far less than other stars. She sued the company & lost, but the court case gave her much valuable publicity. She was able to create a new persona for herself on her own terms, as a strong-willed independent thinker, as strong as any man.

Bette Davis has been an icon for generations of gay men. She helped them learn that with wit, style & camp, it is possible to transcend the hard, unhappy, hateful & often humiliating world that was given to us.

Born On This Day- April 4th... Closet Case Anthony Perkins

Artist Don Bachardy & longtime friend: ''Of course we'd heard Tony married. I thought that was just awfully odd behavior for him. Did he honestly think that marriage to Berry Berenson (sister of actress Marisa) could make him a heterosexual?'' Anthony Perkins had a taste of the best men of late 20th century, having had affairs with: Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Rudolf Nureyev, Leonard Bernstein, James Dean, Stephen Sondheim, & dancer/choreographer Grover Dale, with whom Perkins had a 6 year relationship before his marriage to Berenson.

He was a very talented, Oscar nominated actor of stage, screen & TV, but one unforgettable movie-1960's Psycho resulted in the kind of typecasting that kills a bright career. The heir apparent to James Dean after a string of star making stage performances in Tea & Sympathy & Look Homeward, Angel, by 1981, Anthony Perkins was reduced to doing Psycho sequels & commercials in Japan.

The era of Perkins, Tab Hunter & Rock Hudson was an especially claustrophobic & chancy period for gay actors. Longtime Perkin's affair- Tab Hunter: ''It was the excruciating dance of the 1950s''. There were men only private parties, the Times Square gay porno theaters where Perkins sometimes passively watched other men have sex, the arranged dates with starlets for Modern Screen, & the fear gay actors had that magazines like Confidential would expose them, the way it did with Tab Hunter, one of Perkins' first lovers. It was the 1950s, a public person could not go public, even if he wanted to, & Perkins didn't want to.

Who would have suspected that he way gay?

Perkins was nothing if not ambitious. Perkins' buddy Alan Sues:''Nothing was going to get in the way of his career". He lived platonically for years with a domineering older woman- Helen Merrill while enjoying sex with a long line of male lovers.

Yet Perkins' puzzling marriage to Berenson in 1973 seemed more than just a marriage of convenience. Berenson, who'd had a schoolgirl crush on Perkins, pursued him relentlessly, & the couple eventually had 2 sons- Osgood & Elvis. Perkins was devoted to Berenson & his boys, though his gay friends privately doubted his claims that he was faithful to her. Perkins, in trying to convince Hollywood he was straight by marrying, may have actually brought himself real happiness. Closeted Dominick Dunne:''It was a real sense of marriage betweeen them. Whatever they had, it was wonderful. I mean, it was a real & loving family."

Perkins acknowledged he had AIDS posthumously, in a statement dictated to his sons, Osgood & Elvis: ''I chose not to go public about this because, to misquote Casablanca, 'I'm not too much at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of one old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world.'' Perkins died at age 60, on September 12, 1992, from complications of AIDS. He was cremated, & his ashes were given to his family. Berenson was killed on American Airlines Flight 11, on September 11th, 2001, the day before the anniversary of his death.



Footnote: As a youth I collected Original Broadway Cast Albums & in my collection was Greenwillow, a stinker, even with a score by the great Frank Loesser.This play was being rehearsed in New York while Anthony Perkins was simultaneously filming Psycho in LA. Over the years in interviews about the infamous shower scene in that film, Anthony Perkins has always said that during the whole week of filming required for that scene, his stand-in was used, because he was in NYC rehearsing for a Broadway play. Greenwillow was that play. The musical did have one magical musical number, a song I like a great deal, but never got to sing in my act- Never Will I Marry, odd, Perkins & I both got married.

Born On This Day- April 3rd ... The Talented Doris Mary Ann Hasselhoff

She is a favorite at Post Apocalypic Bohemia. All of us, The Husband, Larry, Junior, & I think that Doris Day is shamefully shrugged off as a star & a singer.

One of Hollywood’s most versatile & talented performers ever, Day conquered comedy, drama, musicals & suspense, working with master director Alfred Hitchcock on The Man Who Knew Too Much, featuring the song that would be her trademark: Que Sera Sera.

Not only bringing joy to millions of fans through her films & recordings, Day’s animal welfare work has meant even more to the 4 legged friends she has helped since her retirement from the big screen awith With 6 You Get Eggroll, in 1968.

Totally devoted to her work through the Doris Day Animal League & the Doris Day Animal Foundation in cooperation with the Humane Society, Doris Day is a treasure, onscreen and off. She is a Grammy winning recording artist, Oscar nominee, Golden Globe winner, as well as the recipient of the Cecille B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement.

Doris turns an astonishing 89 today!

It is darn difficult to decide on a definitive Doris Day movie or performance, the clip below from Calamity Jane captures her vibrant talent through singing, dancing & sheer spunk. I think this song deserves a place in the list of Gay Anthems, who can not relate to this song:

Born On This Day- March 23rd... Gay Icon Lucille Fay LeSueur

To gay men of a certain age, she is an important icon. My young wards (20-30years old) at my work have no idea who she was, but they know the entire cinema curriculum vitae of someone named Kristen Stewart.

The Husband & I are going to watch Mildred Pierce before viewing Portland's own Todd Hayne's version on HBO this weekend.

I have enjoyed her considerable talents & glamour in Grand Hotel, Mildred Pierce, & The Women. I also snickered at the camp value of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, Johnny Guitar & Straight Jacket. But, I would later come to appreciate Joan Crawford as a complex, cryptic, contradictory product of a certain era & her own difficult life. Just as she devoted herself to her fans, she doubtless inspired the downtrodden in the audience to want more out of life & go out & get it. She relied on men as her pathway into a man's world. Crawford was often required to suffer for her ambition but she was living in an age when she was actually allowed & expected to carry & dominate a film. She was up to the task.

Joan Crawford was a convincing creative force; an underdog who embraced good taste, glamour, & fantasy. She addressed & defied the class conscious & the studio system that tried to marginalize & deprive her. Through all her trials she kept her head held high. In her films, as in her life, she demanded to be counted as a woman, & as an outsider. Her struggle was every marginalized person’s struggle, but especially resonant to gay people. She was ridiculed for her excesses & yet the emotion was raw, real & she often underplayed it. Beneath the toughness was the frightened woman.

Gay men recognize & love that vulnerability. Beneath the flamboyance was shyness. Her promiscuity was a mirror of gay male sexuality. Most gays can appreciate why Joan would hide her insecurities & grim past behind a facade of Hollywood perfection & we love it that she did it for her fans. She was always grateful to her fans. One of her directors & lover- Vincent Sherman said her personal life was terrible & that it took hours to bring her down from crying scenes.

As a bad girl myself, I appreciate that her bad behavior seemed to stem from her fears, although, just like me, she was known as a consummate professional on the set.

Crawford was on a search for love & belonging. She almost certainly had affairs with other women. She never seemed to have found that love. She was a glamorous feminist icon, a fabulous gay icon, & still very human. She was a diva & a survivor who never forgot her fans. Crawford could play anguish & hope on screen, the same complex contradictions she had to play in her own life. This flawed person beneath a stunning glamour & power makes her continue to resonate to gay people.

In 1971, I remember reading her book -My Way of Life. I sat on my blanket at the beach, ready to devour Joan Crawford’s racy tell-all bio, instead I got Crawford's meticulous advice on grooming, wardrobe, exercise, house cleaning, & food storage. Her advice came in handy.

Born On This Day- February 27th... Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky

She came into my focus as my mother sat me down at 5 years of age & explained the entire Elizabeth Taylor + Eddie Fisher – Debbie Reynolds = scandal equation. I got it. She remains my mother’s favorite star; they are the same age & were born in the same month. She is a favorite of mine & I think she is the last of the truly great Hollywood Royalty, & very possibly the most beautiful woman of all time. I love her deeply.

Taylor has been a trusted friend to the gay community, & we have loved her right back. She was very close friends & a confidant of gay men: Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, George Cukor, Noel Coward, James Dean & most famously to Montgomery Clift. Were there ever any 2 actors at the apex of their beauty, more stunning than Taylor & Clift kissing in A Place In The Sun?



Elizabeth Taylor is a conundrum: truly classy, but perfectly campy, deeply kind, but shamelessly embarrassing, perennially lonely, & serially monogamous. Pills, coke, booze, men, the commercials, the mascara, Studio 54, the guest appearances on soap operas… Elizabeth Taylor & I got through the 1970s together. She gave audacious performances in film adaptations of “gay” plays as Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer & Cat On A Hot Tim Roof, & Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I met her once, at the 50th Anniversary of MGM Ball. I was thrillingly treated to a 7 minute conversation. She amazingly asked about me. I explained that I was a Theatre major at Loyola Marymount University & Taylor quizzed me on my curriculum & my stage roles. I told her was a huge fan of her work. She touched my arm & looked at me with the famous violet eyes & murmured: "I always thought that I was a fine actress, but I spent a lifetime feeling that I was held back because I have such a terrible speaking voice. The coaches at MGM attempted to help me & I did improve, but I will never shake the fact the dreadful small voice was what stopped me from being truly great..." She was only in her early 40s, wearing a beautiful canary yellow mini-dress with yellow flowers in her hair. She was smoking a cigarette with a holder. She was faultlessly beautiful. I nearly fainted.

I appreciate that, like me, she has had a taste for expensive pharmaceuticals, rich fabrics & rich men. I tremble at the thought of her 8 tumultuous marriages & the public denunciation by the Vatican as a home wrecker. I love her for her dramatic tracheotomy scar, of which she was never ashamed. I appreciate her love affair with jewelry that inspired a book simply titled My Love Affair with Jewelry… it looks handsome on the shelf with my own volume- My Love Affair with Whiskey. I admire her unswerving devotion to her friends, to gay people, & for gay activism & attention to fund raising for HIV/AIDS. My feelings are simpatico with Elizabeth Taylor. My mother loves us both, we have both lived with incidents replete with slurred speech, jokes about weight gain, inelegant gestures of elegance & displays of dignity in the face of devastation.


On Oscar day today, the Oscar winning actress turns 78  & she is hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for for treatment of congestive heart failure. I send her love & healing white light. A world without Elizabeth Taylor will not be a good place.

I Saw Something Nasty In The Woodshed

It would be impossible to underestimate the influence 2 of John Schlesinger's films had on my life as a gay man. Midnight Cowboy (I was 15 when I saw this X rated film) & Sunday Bloody Sunday (I was 17) both contained mind blowing moments for me. Truly great films, they both have fascinating gay characters as well as homoerotic moments that lodged in my young gay mind & stayed through my middle age. Jon Voight is luscious in Midnight Cowboy, & Murray Head could be the poster boy for sexy 1970's male in Sunday Bloody Sunday. Glenda Jackson watching Murray's perfect physique as he showered made me consider how I felt when I stood next to beautiful boys in the showers. I kept sneaking a peek & wondering if any of them would ever be mine.

Sunday Bloody Sunday is an astonishing film for it's time, the 1st film I ever saw where a gay man was rather "normal" & sympathetic & where male attraction we inevitable & fated. The film asks: Is it better to share a lover than to have none at all? This is essence of John Schlesinger's film, a story of 2 people, a gay middle-aged Jewish doctor played Peter Finch & a 30-ish working woman- Glenda Jackson, who are romantically intertwined with a boyish artist-Murray Head who treats them both with a dismissive interest.

My favorites Schlesinger films:

• 1965 Darling
• 1969 Midnight Cowboy
• 1971 Sunday Bloody Sunday
• 1976 Marathon Man
• 1996 Cold Comfort Farm

John Schlesinger was well reviewed & celebrated in his life time, but history has not been as kind. He won Oscars for Best Picture & Director in 1969, received nominations in 1965 & 1971, was still doing important work through the 1970’s, but made so many missteps in the 1980’s & 1990’s that when he made his last great feature film, it was all but ignored. He followed that up with the 2 worst films he ever made, the dreadful thriller Eye for An Eye & the miserable Madonna & Rupert Everett vehicle The Next Best Thing (it must have seemed a good idea on paper) & then he died in 2003, remembered only with headlines- “Oscar winning director dies.”



But Schlesinger was a very important part of British cinema in the 1960’s, making the brilliant swinging 1960s- Darling & Billy Liar, A Kind of Loving & the beautiful Far from the Madding Crowd. All were brilliant, with gorgeous production values & 1st rate acting. He then moved to Hollywood & made such thoughtful films as Day of the Locust & Falcon & The Snowman. It is true that his films after that rarely rose above mediocrity, but his last great film is truly a great treasure & one of the Husband & my all time top 10 favorites.

Technically, Cold Comfort Farm came out in 1995, & would have been Oscar eligible had it not played on television in Britain. The film received good reviews but not much notice. Maybe it was a matter of timing, the film was riding the wave of Jane Austen films,though it is not Austen & set in the early 1930’s rather than the 19th century, but it was a British costume comedy of manners. How much more would it get noticed today now that Ian McKellen is known the world over & not just as the guy from the interesting Richard III & that Kate Beckinsale is thought of as one of the world’s most beautiful women & not just the actress who was okay in Much Ado About Nothing.


Cold Comfort Farm is a divine peach of a film. Kate Beckinsale (wearing no black leather jumpsuits) portrays a city girl who goes to live with her cousins in the country & perhaps discover herself as a writer. The collection of very odd cousins include the crazed matriarch (Sheila Burell), the earthy Seth (Rufus Sewell) & enigmatic preacher father, played by Ian McKellen in a fantastic & eccentric performance. Bryan Singer told McKellen, 2 years later while making Apt Pupil, that McKellen should watch this guy’s performance in Cold Comfort Farm to get some ideas, he didn’t realize he was talking to the very same person. Add in nutty, only slightly restrained performances by the great Eileen Atkins, Julia Margolyes, Joanna Lumley, & Stephen Fry for a great mix of humor & style.


The film has a happy ending, as a Hollywood producer enters the story, but the true happiness is that Schlesinger made one more great picture, even if it was mostly ignored on impact.

Schlesinger underwent a quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering a stroke in December 2000. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on July 24, 2003 by his life partner of over 30 years, photographer Michael Childers. Schlesinger died early the following day at the age of 77.

The Joker's Wild... Born On This Day, Cesar Romero!

From everything I have read, Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. was the consumate professional, brimming with talent, & a total nice guy… one of the good ones. Famous as a "confirmed bachelor," the "Latin from Manhattan" was Hollywood's most popular date. After a hard day at the studio, he always dove into the nightlife & the social world. There was rarely a film or gallery where the debonair, dramatically dressed man was not seen with a famous star on his arm: Joan Crawford, Linda Darnell, Barbara Stanwyck, Lucille Ball, Ann Sheridan, Jane Wyman, or Ginger Rogers. It was reported that Romero's closets held 30 tuxedos, 200 sport coats, & 500 suits. Romero rarely spent an evening in his Brentwood home, which he shared with his sister Maria. It was well known in Hollywood that the likable Romero was gay, and it was well assumed that after he dropped off his beautiful date, he would end up in the arms of long time lover-Tyrone Power.


Cesar Romero had supporting roles in nearly 100 films from the 1930s-1980s, musicals, period pieces, westerns, noir, comedy, he did it all.

In 1953, Romero starred in a 39-episode TV serial, Passport To Danger, & he continued to do guest spots on TV shows: I Love Lucy & the special Lucy Takes A Cruise To Havana, Zorro, 77 Sunset Strip, Fantasy Island, & Murder She Wrote.

Romero achieved his greatest fame in 1966 as The Joker in the highly successful TV series Batman & repeated the role in the 1966 movie, making him the first film Joker, before Nicholson, & like heath Ledger, he was robbed of an Oscar.

Romero danced with Carmen Miranda on a live broadcast of The Milton Berle Show. Wearing glittering sequins & colorful fruit, Miranda forgot her panties while changing between acts, & when Cesar twirled her above his head, she exposed herself to millions of TV viewers across the country. Talk about your wardrobe malfunctions!

Enduringly popular, the wealthy Romero continued to work steadily through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, & beyond.

Romero had a great sense of humor. Once, after taping a talk show featuring him & a beauty queen, the technician began removing their clip-on microphones, Romero quipped: "You can do the young lady first. The young queen before the old queen."

In 1968, Romero was named one of the “most beautiful men in the world" by T.V. Guide Magazine with "hair the color of stainless steel," an "alert, erect posture," & "charm to spare." Romero continued to appear in films almost yearly throughout the 1970's and 1980's. In 1985, the still handsome & popular man actor was cast as Jane Wyman's love interest on the popular Falcon Crest.

Romero: "Those beautiful actresses all had individuality & a flair for glamour…years ago the gals were real stars. There was an excitement to the business then."

The elegant Cesar Romero, loved & adored by his friends & fans, died of complications from a blood clot on New Year's Day, 1994.

Right Actor/Wrong Film... A Meditation On Oscar

The Husband is so kind to DVR shows, even bits & pieces of broadcasts that would be of interest to me. Sadly, I go to sleep quite early 3 nights a week, having to be at work at 4:30am. So, I do marathon catching ups. He has recorded quite a few things I would been sorry to miss: a Robert Rauschenberg bio on PBS, a spectacular concert by Tap Dogs on HBO, A documentary about Jerome Robbins, male prostitutes on Oprah,The Making Of Sweeney Todd, The Kennedy Center Honors, Justin Beiber in concert on the Today Show…



This week the Husband captured Colin Firth on Inside The Actors Studio with the always zany James Lipton. I am a very big fan of Mr. Firth’s work going all the way back to Apartment Zero in 1988 (note to self: revisit this film), & he was the best Mr. D'Arcy ever. I was struck by Firth's smarts, skill, sagacity, & striking storytelling as he bounced answers off the waxen Mr. Lipton’s queries.

Reflecting on his sure win at the Academy Awards in 2 weeks, & couldn’t stop myself from noting that he is just one actor in a long tradition of giving the right actor their due for the wrong role. I feel that Firth should have won last year for his restrained work in the brilliant A Single Man. I loved The King’s Speech; I give it a great big strong B+ on The Steve Report Card, & his performance is honest & heartfelt, but what he accomplished in the quite moments of A Single Man deserved an Oscar win. Jeff Bridges won last year, & he probably should win for True Grit this year, but the Oscars have a history of awarding the statue to actors in the wrong film, to make up for past slights & misses.


Katherine Hepburn, who had won a few: "the right actors win Oscars, but for the wrong roles."

The first example of conspicuous compensating voting in Oscar history that I remember, would be Elizabeth Taylor winning her first Oscar for the role as New York call girl who wishes for a better life in Butterfield 8. Her performance never even comes close to matching her nominated role the previous year as the emotionally disturbed Catherine in Suddenly, Last Summer. Butterfield 8 is a trashy movie that needed a trashy performance in the lead. Taylor: "it stinks… I have never seen it & I have no desire to see it." To her lasting credit, she also has publicly stated that she didn’t deserve the award.


Her win was a sympathy vote by the Academy after Taylor had been through a series of personal crises including a near fatal case of pneumonia. Debbie Reynolds, whose husband, Eddie Fisher, had been stolen by Taylor during g the filming of Butterfield 8: “Even I voted for her”. Shirley MacLaine, who was favored to win for The Apartment: “I lost out to a tracheotomy.”


Taylor proved a more worthy recipient when she won another Oscar 6 years later for Martha, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?


Bette Davis’s award for her melodramatics in the dreary Dangerous, which has to be seen to be believed, was compensation for Academy’s failing to nominate her then revolutionary turn in Of Human Bondage the year before. 3 years later, they still felt guilty enough to hand her another little gold man for Jezebel. But, 12 years later they’d decided she’d had enough. & denied her the award for her career best as Margo Channing in All About Eve.


Here are some of my favorite Oscar winners that come to mind:


Jack Lemmon wins for Mister Roberts, a smart win for a sly turn by an upcoming talent, but he was looked over when he showed his comic genius in Some like It Hot & The Apartment. The Academy waited for a dramatic vehicle to come along to honor him again, but not quality The Days of Wine & Roses but the dreary Save the Tiger, a film & performance remembered & revered by precisely nobody. Had they known Missing & The China Syndrome were still to come, they might have contained themselves.


Judi Dench: “I should only get a little bit of him!” After winning her fun & flashy, incidental 8 minute cameo as Elizabeth I in one of my favorire films, the 1998 Oscar winner- Shakespeare In Love, Dench was responding with modesty. The award was the Academy’s response to a widespread belief that she was robbed the previous year, when her performance as that other Queen- Victoria, in Mrs. Brown began her late in career Oscar run. 8 years later, she deserved it for the nasty little Notes on a Scandal, but having rewarded her already, the Academy opted again for British monarchy, & Helen Mirren’s Elizabeth II in The Queen.


Kate Winslet won for The Reader when should have won for Titanic or Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. This is the classic case of the make up award. I’m not certain that everyone would agree she was most deserving of the award for Little Children. I’ve heard great things about her performance in Revolutionary Road. Sometimes the Academy gives the award because it is about time.


James Stewart won for The Philadelphia Story & he should have won for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. The Philadelphia Story is an ensemble piece with great performances by the entire cast, but Stewart’s monologue in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington should have by itself won him the Oscar. It’s not a movie that I really liked all that much but Stewart was the reason I kept watching. It is comparable to Gregory Peck’s work in To Kill a Mockingbird.


Paul Newman won for The Color of Money & should have won for just about anything else, but certainly for The Hustler. Another make-up Oscar, for sure. The Academy practically admitted they were wrong in 1961 7 gave him the Best Actor award even when he was the supporting character to Tom Cruise’s leading role. Newman was worthy of Oscars all throughout his career: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Cool Hand Luke & The Verdict. He wasn’t nominated for Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid or The Sting.


Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire gave an iconic stage performance that translated well to the screen. Brando brought a new kind of passion & strength to films & an anti-establishment mystique to Hollywood. They didn't like him for it & the Oscar went to Jose Ferrer for the title for the stagy Cyrano de Bergerac. Of course Brando got his Oscar later for On The Waterfront, & then he won again for his creation of The Godfather. I think he was robbed of a nomination for his paraody of his Godfather role in the very funny 1990 film- The Freshman with Matthew Broderick.


I will never forget thestunning impact his performance as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy gave me at 15 years old. But in 1969, Dustin Hoffman lost the statue to the sentimental favorite John Wayne for True Grit. The Academy gave him a consolation Oscar for Kramer vs.Kramer which was a OK film made better by Meyrl Streep. Of course, Hoffman is interesting in almost anything & he won again for work as an autistic man in Rain Man, because the Academy loves to reward actors for playing a character with any kind of handicap or disease. 


Al Pacino loves to chew the scenery & there are times he is transcendent. He's been nominated for a bunch of performances in leading actor & supporting roles. So did he win for his memorable roles in Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather or Serpico? No, it was for that schmaltzy performance as a blind military man in the stupid Scent of a Woman. He was brilliant in Glengarry Glen Ross & nominated for best supporting actor for that role in the same year of 1993. But he was competing against himself so they gave him the Oscar for best actor although it was a lesser role.


John Wayne won his Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. But it wasn't his best role. He didn’t even receive a nomination for his own favorite role in The Searchers, or for Red River, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, or my favorite Wayne performance- The Quite Man. If the Academy was feeling sentimental, they also could easily have been considered Wayne for an Oscar in his poignant last film, The Shootist.

Henry Fonda was honored for his role as a creaky, cantankerous husband & father, playing against Katherine Hepburn & his daughter Jane in On Golden Pond. It was his 3rd nomination in an illustrious career, but it certainly was not his best work. Fonda, was equally good in both comedy & drama. His finest roles where characters that represented a “voice of conscience,” like in his 2 previous nominations as the Okie migrant, Tom Joad, in The Grapes of Wrath & as 12 Angry Men. An Oscar for either of these  performances would have been more deserved.

Katherine Hepburn won over formidable competition in Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, Faye Dunaway in Bonnie & Clyde, Dame Edith Evans for The Whisperers, & Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark to win her second Oscar as the concerned mother in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, a story of interracial love. It was not the best of her 4 Oscar wins. Her role consists of expressing shock when learning that her daughter’s fiancé is a “Negro” & appearing teary eyed as her husband played by Spencer Tracy delivers the climatic soliloquy on race relations. Why did she win? Like Elizabeth Taylor, it was a "she is owed it" vote. This was Hepburn’s 10th nomination, but she had not won since 1932 for Morning Glory. Hepburn did not win for her superior performances in The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, or her greatest role as Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night. Hepburn may have won because of her co-star & longtime companion- Spencer Tracy. He was gravely ill during the filming of this movie & died shortly after it wrapped. Many Academy voters feeling that the angst Hepburn showed in the film was actually a reflection of her own inner turmoil.

Meryl Streep has been nominated for an Oscar more than any other actor,16 nominations, but she has not won since 1982 for Sophie's Choice. She is due for a "you-have-waited-too-long" award like Hepburn's. Too bad Julia Child wasn't blind, she could have won last year for her career best- Julie & Julia.

Firth would have my vote to win, but Jeff Bridges probably really should win for True Grit, & Firth should have won for A Single Man. Maybe they can swap Oscars at the Vanity Fair party later that night.

Would you weigh in with your Right Actor/Wrong Film?

Born On This Day- January 18th... Film Icon Cary Grant

My favorite era of Cary Grant, handsome & middle-aged.

Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England. He remains the embodiment of “movie star”. He has always been a favorite, if not THE favorite, of the Husband & mine.


"In my earlier career I patterned myself on a combination of Englishmen—Rex Harrison, Noel Coward, & Jack Buchanan, who impressed me as a character actor. He always looked so natural. I tried to copy men I thought were sophisticated & well dressed like Douglas Fairbanks or Cole Porter.”


"I cultivated raising one eyebrow & tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease & nonchalance. But at times, when I put my hand in my trouser pocket with what I imagined was great elegance, I couldn't get the blinking thing out again because it dripped from nervous perspiration!"


"I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at someone I wanted be until I became that person. Or he became me."


These are fascinating statements. He was box office gold for decades, & the Cary Grant persona was a consciously created phenomenon. He did it. The studios didn't do it, the marketing people didn't do it, Grant didn't even have an agent! The fact that he seemed so easy & commanding onscreen is just one of the many miracles of Cary Grant. It is even more startling to see him be awkward & sport a Cockney accent when in his early roles, before he hit the right spot with The Awful Truth. Later in life, he expressed mild annoyance when Mae West would give herself the credit for "discovering" him. She had, indeed, pulled him out of the crowd to be the eye-candy in She Done Him Wrong, & then in I'm No Angel.

Grant was allegedly involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, & he lived with Randolph Scott for more than 12 years. Grant & Scott  seemed to have been deeply, madly in love, & alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published many times. Arthur Laurents: " Grant told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless. I was out for the night". Alexander D'Arcy, who appeared with Grant in The Awful Truth: "Grant & Scott lived together as a gay couple. I think Cary knew that people were saying things about him. I don't think he tried to hide it." The 2 men were frequently each other's dates to parties & premieres.

The Husband & I had the photograph above of Cary Grant & Randolph Scott, on their pool’s diving board, in a frame for a long time. Their relationship fascinated us. Ironically Cary Grant & Randolph Scott began their relationship while filming the movie Hot Saturday in 1932 & moved in together shortly after. Press reports during the first 2 years described the actors’ shared celebrity home & domestic life using phrases like: “Hollywood’s twosome” & “the happy couple.” The innuendos provided details about the actors’ personal lives which thrilled fans, making the actors appear to be a couple of men sharing more than a home. They named their house- Bachelor Hall.

The pair continued their domestic relationship even after Grant’s marriage to Virginia Cherrill in early 1934. Reporters noted, “The Grants & Randolph Scott have moved, all 3, but not apart.” Indeed, this choice for living arrangements appeared pre-planned. An item from 2 weeks prior to Grant’s marriage observed that Scott would not seek any permanent quarters until he heard from Grant. Innuendos continued later that year. Shortly after Grant’s divorce from Cherrill, an article proclaimed that Randolph Scott had moved back in with Grant. This article was titled- A Woman Is Only a Woman, suggested that the 2 men forged a home life with each another & that they probably had no room for a woman. These press items associated the actors’ home with a forbidden sexuality, turning the place into an exotic experience.

The Paramount publicity department shot over 30 photographs of Grant & Scott within different rooms of their Santa Monica beach house. The studio focus of these pictures was on the stars’ personalities, bachelorhoods, & use of the house. The caption stamped on the back of each photograph highlighted that the actors were 2 of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors who shared quarters, but lived independent lives.

The actors’ living arrangement lasted until early 1942 when they moved apart for the remainder of their lives. Grant married 5 times. He died, on stage, at 82 in Davenport, Iowa while rehearsing his one-man show.

Is it telling that among Cary Grants films, we find these titles: I'm No Angel, Born To Be Bad, Kiss & Make Up, The Awful Truth, In Name Only, Suspicion, The Talk Of The Town, People Will Talk?

Search For Beauty

Last night I watched one of the selections on a Sundance festival of Pre- Hayes Code Films. 1934's  Search For Beauty is one of the most demented pieces of cinema that I have viewed in quite some time. To make the experience even more zany, I was very "altered" while watching it.


Search For Beauty is the story of 3 sleazy racketeering publishers promoting their "health & beauty" magazine... which is all beefcake & muscles & sex. After hiring young Olympic stars to lure young athletes both strapping males & winsome females to Los Angeles to compete in a contest, the participants are routed instead to a health farm to entertain debauched connoisseurs of young flesh.

Real Olympian- Buster Crabb

There is plenty of snappy dialogue by the stars with exceptional quips between James Gleason & Robert Armstrong. Gertrude Michael competes with Ida Lupino for the affections of a hunky Buster Crabbe. This film was released just a few months before the "code" took effect in 1934. Bare butts & most of the dialogue would have been censored after that.  In 1933, sponsored a Search for Beauty contest in which they attracted contestants from around the USA.


The finalists all appear in the film & a few were offered contracts which gave them minor careers. One contestant, Ann Sheridan, did find stardom, although it took her 4 years & a switch to Warner Brothers where she was promoted as the "Oomph Girl".


Favorite Lines:
Dan Healy (James Gleason): "I got nothin' against sex. Either you got it, or you go lookin' for it".


Larry Williams (Robert Armstrong): "Boy, this is something! It's colossal!"
Dan Healy: "It's better than that. It's positively mediocre!"


Dan Healy: " Nothing's worth ten thousand in cash, not even a million."


Beauty Shop Manager: (Looking at the photographs of scantily clad men Jean has given her) "Well, look who's fallen among us! Mmmm-mmm!"
Jean Strange (Gertrude Michael): "We're using these boys in an idea we're working on, otdoor sports with indoor trimmings."
Beauty Shop Manager: "As far as I'm concerned... outdoors, indoors, or behind doors!"