The Sheila Variations

Yet another cousin in the news!

My cousin Meredith (with a cameo by my uncle Tim) is featured in a Boston Globe article about Halloween costumes.

Go, Meredith! You can read more on Meredith here. She's 13? When did THAT happen??

It's Cashel's birthday today!

I spoke to him last night.

"So, Cash, are you excited about your birthday tomorrow?"
Brief pause.
"It's daunting."
"It is?"
"Yes! I have less than 24 hours left of being 10 years old!"
"That is pretty scary."
"It's daunting!"

I know it's daunting, but I also know that our little man is up to the challenge. In many ways, it seriously does seem like only yesterday that I made my way to Beth Israel Hospital in New York, and sat in the waiting room with my parents and Maria's parents, waiting to hear the news. Then Brendan came out, in his scrubs, rolling a little tupperware tub-like thing, with a small curlycue wrapped-up creature in it, with huge staring eyeballs - and Brendan whispered, "It's a boy!" and we all flipped OUT. And now that small curlycued creature is telling me his birthday is DAUNTING.

Oh, and I asked him what he was going to be for Halloween.

"Cash, what are you going to be for Halloween?"
"The economy."

I NEED PICTURES.

"Once upon a midnight dreary ..."

Ted posts the raven (nevermore) - with some great images.

Look out! Charlie Manson's in the chimney!

Here is a Halloween story. I have told it before, but it's too good to not tell again. A Halloween story set in the roller-coaster landscape of San Francisco, where I lived for a brief 2 months. This was right before my brief 3 month sojourn in Los Angeles.

I was all about brief sojourns for a while.

I lived in San Francisco with my boyfriend, who had gotten a job at a big corporate law firm. We had uprooted our entire lives in Philadelphia, drove across the country ... I had never even been to California. I'm an East Coaster. I'm a Rhode Islander, for God's sake. I missed my family. I was 22 years old, or something like that.

The boyfriend had been working in the public defender's office in Philadelphia, and while it was grueling, upsetting, and not-well-paid work, it was what he really wanted to be doing, what turned him on about law. But then came the massive school loans - and so he took the corporate job - and felt like he made some Faustian deal ... he worked 85 hour weeks, I had no job at the time ... he and I were also breaking up as quickly and as messily as we POSSIBLY could ...

All in all, the sojourn in San Francisco was a disaster.

In the middle of all of this came Halloween. Halloween in San Francisco is basically treated like a national holiday. I've never seen Halloween celebrated so ferociously, with such commitment. It's like the Gay Pride here in New York. EVERYONE is in costume, costumes which have been lovingly prepared for months in advance.

My boyfriend and I were invited to a Halloween party, hosted by one of the other lawyers. I would have rather just wandered the streets, staring at the spectacle, but whatever. I joined the boyfriend at the party.

Boyfriend went as Atlas. His costume consisted of tank top, sweat pants, and he carried a balloon globe on his shoulders.

I went as Lynette (aka Squeaky) Fromme, one of Charles Manson's freak followers, who also attempted to assassinate President Ford, and is in prison to this day.

I like sick costumes. I like to dress up as someone who actually existed. A person from history. Someone messed up, complicated, someone I can embody. I enjoy having people look at me askance on Halloween and get mildly angry that I am being "disrespectful". That's my goal when I dress up, to have some Playboy bunny tell me I'm being disrespectful.

I didn't shave my head, but I wore a beret - like she did in the earlier days - and drew an X on my forehead - and wore a long flowing black cape. She and her good buddy Sandra Good would hang around outside the courthouse, the two of them wearing capes, like messengers of death with sweet little-girl faces. Squeaky Fromme is obviously insane, but Sandra Good always struck me as the more dangerous one.

But the REALLY sick part of the costume was the sign I made.

I got a huge piece of cardboard, and enlarged that wild-eyed picture of Charles Manson - the famous one. I'm sure you know it.

So I made it HUGE. And then wrote under it, in red marker: "CHARLIE'S CHRIST." (That was Squeaky's whole thing.) And then on the other side I wrote in huge jagged letters: "PRESIDENT FORD - WATCH YOUR BACK."

I'd probably be arrested for such a costume today.

The responses he and I got as we walked through the streets - I wish I had a photo of it. He staggered beside me, back bent, head down, with the globe on his shoulders. Every time I looked over at him, tears of laughter would stream down my face. But then there I was, stalking along beside him, carrying this insane and violent sign - with a big black X on my forehead ... I remember people pointing and laughing at Atlas, calling out to him from across the street, "Hang in there, man!" or "Thanks for holding the world up for us!" But I got responses of much wider variety. Some people stopped and stared. One guy (who happened to be dressed as Spock, which just added to the humor of it all) came running over to me, and pretended to bow to me. But it was SPOCK. And then there were people who were downright pissed off. Or scared of me. Hysterical: some dude with a fake knife coming out of his neck, and blood seeping out onto his shirt - being freaked out by ME.

We got to the lawyer Halloween party which was a big ol' yawn. Most of the women-lawyers just had on Playboy bunny ears, or were dressed vaguely as sluts, or something - You know, the kind of costume designed to get you laid.

But there was Little Miss Scary Freak Squeaky Fromme. Drinking wine like a lunatic, and watching all the hot young lawyer-esses hit on my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. I said to him later, "That one chick who told you she wanted to lend you a book she liked ... she's gonna be the first one to make a move on you when I'm out of the picture." He scoffed at this. "I am SO not interested in her. Stop it. No, she won't." But heh heh heh, I was right. The second I moved to Chicago, she pounced. He turned her down, but still. Do not underestimate women's intuition about other women. I'm rarely wrong.

And she was the one, too, who kind of got pissed off at my costume.

"That's not funny," she scolded me. I already could smell the competition coming off of her ... she wanted my boyfriend ... she didn't like me already ...

"I never thought it was funny," I said. "This isn't a joke to me."

"You know that that whole Manson family actually started here in San Francisco." she informed me snottily.

"Yes. A freak show like that WOULD start in San Francisco, wouldn't it." (She was originally FROM San Francisco, so she didn't like that at all.) Meanwhile, in my mind, all I'm thinking is: It's not the costume you don't like. It's ME. You want to get your paws on my man. Well, okay, babe - I'm gonna be in LA soon, and you'll have your chance...

She kept staring at my sign, as though it were hypnotic. "That's just ... SO not funny." she kept saying.

Oh, get over it, lady.

The party was, to put it mildly, very lame. My boyfriend and I both agreed. So we left. And wandered the streets. We had a blast, doing only that.

A couple of days later - Boyfriend was trying to get his fireplace to work, in his new apartment. But the flue wouldn't stay open, or something ... not sure what was the problem - but we ended up taking my CHARLIE'S CHRIST poster off the stick, and putting it up in the chimney. I can't remember WHY we did this, or even if it was a working fireplace ... Maybe he wanted to air it all out, I don't know - but the CHARLIE'S CHRIST poster fit perfectly up there, and held the flue open, and all was well.

We promptly forgot all about it.

I moved to Los Angeles. He stayed in San Fran. I then moved to Chicago. He stayed on in San Fran. He lived in that apartment for another year, and finally met another woman (whom he is now married to) - and he moved in with her in some other apartment.

I never thought about the CHARLIE'S CHRIST poster. I was busy making a tear through Chicago, I couldn't even really remember that dark autumn when I was racing up and down the coast of California, trying to find my own life. But then one day - I remembered it. Wait a sec ... what ever happened to that poster? We put it up the chimney for whatever reason ... did we ever take it out again?

Or ... my God ... did we leave it there ... only to be found by the next tenants? Who would have had NO IDEA that this was part of a Halloween costume ... they might think it was ... real ... a relic of some kind ...

I pictured the scene. A nice young couple, moving their stuff in ... They've got their IKEA furniture, they've got pasta in glass jars, they have a cat, they have a nice stereo system ... You can see them, can't you? And he decides to open up the flue, but something's up there ... he's not sure what it is ... He reaches up, and slowly draws out my insane poster ... with the massive Charles Manson photo ... the feverish warning to Gerald Ford ...

If you found something like that in your chimney, wouldn't you be completely freaked out???

Many years later, I asked my ex-boyfriend: "Do you remember if you ever took that Charles Manson thing out of the chimney?"

Funny how memory works. He didn't know what I was talking about at all.

"Charles Manson? Chimney? What? I was Atlas for Halloween? What?"

No memory.

This tells me that that poster was left behind in that apartment when he moved out. Who knows ... maybe it's there still!

Happy birthday to John Keats

Keats was born on this day in London, 1795. "Ode to Autumn" is perhaps my favorite of his - but today, for his birthday, I will post: "Ode on Melancholy". And below the poem are a bunch of compiled quotes - from Keats and about Keats. He brings up strong reactions in people. Many adore, many think something is lacking ... but all give him the props. I particularly love the quote I found from Robert Graves.

Ode on Melancholy

1.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

"One song of Burns is of more worth to you than all I could think of for a whole year in his native country. His Misery is a dead weight on the nimbleness of one's quill ... he talked with Bitches, he drank with blackguards, he was miserable. We can see horribly clear in the works of such a Man his whole life, as if we were God's spies." -- John Keats on Robert Burns

"Shelley was a volatile creature of air and fire: he seems never to have noticed what he ate or drank, except sometimes as a matter of vegetarian principle. Keats was earthy, with a sweet tooth and a relish for spices, cream and snuff, and in a letter mentions peppering his own tongue to bring out the delicious coolness of claret. When Shelley in Prometheus Unbound mentions: "The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom", he does not conjure up, as Keats would have done, the taste of the last hot days of the dying English year, with over-ripe blackberries, ditches full of water, and the hedges grey with old man's beard. He is not aware of the veteran bees whirring their frayed wings or sucking rank honey from the dusty yellow blossoms of the ivy." -- Robert Graves

"On the whole, I do not like Keats. His poems are, in reality, too full of beauty. One feels stifled in roses ... There is little in Keats' poems except luscious beauty -- so much of it that the reader is surfeited." -- L.M. Montgomery

"These are the pure Magic. These are the clear vision. The rest is only poetry." -- Rudyard Kipling on John Keats and Samuel Coleridge

"He'd planned to become a surgeon, but he realized his real vocation was poetry, and in the spring of 1818, he published his first major long poem Endymion. And then he set out on a hike through the countryside with his friend Charles Brown. Wordsworth was one of Keats's favorite poets, and he knew that Wordsworth had been inspired by walking around England, so Keats decided to do the same that summer.

Keats was a London boy. He had never seen the mountains. He had never seen a waterfall. He wrote letters back to his brother about the wonderful things that he saw, but gradually on his hike he realized he was no Wordsworth, that he did not want to write about scenery. He hated descriptions. He was more interested in the people whom he saw along the way. He was fascinated by the peasants who walked barefoot on the roads, carrying their shoes and stockings so they would look nice when they got to town. He saw an old woman being carried along the road in a kind of a cage like a dog kennel, smoking a pipe.

He came back to London and learned that the reviews of his last book of poetry, Endymion, were coming in and critics had written ferocious attacks on him. He was crushed. And his brother had come down with a serious case of tuberculosis. His brother died in December, and by the end of that year, John Keats had contracted tuberculosis himself. He would die three years later, in 1821. It was in those last three years of his life that he wrote most of his greatest poems." -- Garrison Keillor

"He ramped through [Spenser's[ Fairie Queen ... like a young horse turned into a Spring meadow." -- Cowden Clarke, a friend of Keats

"The imagery he chose was predominantly sexual. Poetry for him was not a philosophical theory, as it was for Shelley, but a moment of physical delirium." -- Robert Graves

"... miserable self-polluter of the human mind."-- Shelley

"I look upon fine phrases as a lover." -- John Keats

"Keats as a poet is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous, but the question with some people will be, whether he is anything else." -- Matthew Arnold

"The three great narratives, rich in detail, idealized characterization, and gothic elements, inspired poets, painters and musicians later in the century. The Pre-Raphaelites in particular drew sustenance from them. 'The Eve of St. Agnes' radically reconfigures resources of tone and characterization that Keats adapted from Chaucer to Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet was not far from his hand when he wrote the poem. And his phrasing owes Shakespeare a debt. Cymbeline suggests the way Madeline's bedchamber is made solid before our eyes. Keats does not imitate his masters: he has assimilated them. The odes - 'To a Nightingale,' 'On a Grecian Urn', 'To Autumn', and the lesser 'To Psyche' and 'On Melancholy' -- are incomparable. The charge that he 'lacked experience' is fatuous; nor are they 'merely sensuous'. They are the step beyond moral romance to the romance of feeling itself, feeling as subject, the 'true voice'." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

"I have loved the principle of beauty in all things." -- John Keats

" ... a sensuous mystic." -- Louis MacNeice

"Keats was short-sighted. He did not see landscapes as such, so he treated them as painted cabinets filled with interesting objects ... His habit was to allow his eye to be seduced from entire vision by particular objects ... He saw little but what moved: the curving, the wreathing, the slanting, the waving - and even then, it seems, not the whole object is in motion but only its edge, or highlight." -- Robert Graves

"Keats's yearning passion for the Beautiful is not a passion of the sensuous or sentimental poet. It is an intellectual and spiritual passion." -- Matthew Arnold

"Milton had an exquisite passion for what is properly, in the sense of ease and pleasure, poetical luxury, and with that, it appears to me, he would fair have been content, if he could, so doing, preserve his self-respect and feeling of duty performed." -- John Keats

This Grave
contains all that was Mortal
of a
Young English Poet
Who
on his Death Bed
in the Bitterness of his Heart
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies
Desired
these words to be engraved on his Tomb Stone
"Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water."
-- Keats' epitaph

"Poetry should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance." -- John Keats

More on John Keats' short life here

I hate that dummy

Yes - what the man says is true:

Apparently, kids who saw this during prime-time in 1978 got the shit scared out of them so badly they still have this nattering ventriloquist's voice stuck in their head to this day.

Yes.

That is my life there he's talking about.

I just watched it again and while it's not quite as scary as it was back on that awful night when I was assaulted by that trailer for the first time in the middle of a Disney movie or something while innocently sitting on the couch in my feetie pajamas eating Rice Krispies - there are one or two moments that still fill me with a revulsion and an inner kind of panic. When his upper lip curls up when he says the word "bed" (AWFUL. It's the first moment his top lip moves), and how his eyes roll back at the end ... but you know that he - or IT - is still "in there".

1978 comes rushing back.

I hate that dummy.

The costume montage

I'm going out of town tomorrow, so I thought I would post my montage of costumes thru-the-years, like I always do.

These are the photos that exist. I do remember other costumes but I lack evidence.

Here's a photo of my brother and me. I am a bunny rabbit. He, obviously, is a clown. The height of his hat is taller than his actual body. My mom made both of those costumes.

Here I am as a flapper. This is during my junior high years, my Eight is Enough pariah years. My best friend and I were obsessed with the 1920s. We loved flappers. We had seen Bugsy Malone. We were HOOKED. So we dressed up as flappers. Sadly, though, the neighborhood mothers, opening the doors to trick-or-treaters - all assumed that we were hookers. I don't know. I think it's PERFECTLY obvious that I am a flapper!!! This was my last year trick-or-treating.

Now we move on to college, when it becomes cool to dress up again. Here I am at a party with my college boyfriend. I was a blind mute French beggar. The sign around my neck says "J'ai faime!" (Quoi??)

My boyfriend didn't wear a costume. JUST KIDDING.

He dressed up as a nerd.

Here we are at the start of the party, costumes intact, the illusion complete.

And here we are a couple hours, 2 makeout sessions, and many underage beers later.

Costumes not so pristine now. I love that picture.

At that same party - my friends Jackie and Mitchell dressed up as Jackie's grandparents - who were FAMOUS to all of us. Chester and Millie. It was like one word. Chester and Millie, Chester and Millie. They died within days of one another. Truly devoted to each other. Anyway, as a tribute - Jackie and Mitchell dressed up (or should I say channeled) Millie and Chester. Here they are.

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Look at Mitchell's EYES! He is completely in character. I am also particularly amused by Jackie's mouth. Like: what is Millie saying to Chester? Is she calming him down? I hope so, cause he looks a little worried.

A year later, Mitchell and I joined forces and dressed up as Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick. Again, the expression on Mitchell's face in this photo KILLS me. He looks so bored, so arrogant, so OVER it.

A couple years after that - while we were living in Chicago - Mitchell and I got invited to a Halloween party. The whole Woody Allen-Soon Yi thing had just exploded, so we dressed up as Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Please note that:

1. Mitchell is carrying Crime and Punishment
2. He is using photos of Geisha girls as a bookmark

So wrong. So funny.

The weirdest thing about it was that when we arrived at the party, NOBODY ELSE WAS IN COSTUME. We had somehow missed the memo that it was a "formal" party - so everyone's in black suits and cocktail dresses and we show up looking like that. They weren't even enough of a COSTUME to protect us. It just appeared that we were slobs who didn't know how to go out in public.

A couple years ago, I was invited to a Halloween party where we had to dress up as someone who was actually dead. A person from history, what have you.

So yeah. I'm evil.

I have written "Helter Skelter" all over my arms and legs with red marker.

To make matters even more evil, I rode the subway to the party dressed like that. I had a huge pregnant belly as well. I got on the F train from Brooklyn, took it to 47th Street, and then walked through the crowds to the apartment where the party was which was on the east side. I was freezing. Now, it was Halloween night, so I certainly was not the only one in costume. I saw witches and warlocks and Playboy bunnies and Medusae and a couple of Chuckies and Buzz Lightyears. I sat on the subway surrounded by daemons from the deep. But there was something different about my costume. I was a walking crime scene. People looked at me once, grimaced and looked away, before glancing back to see if I really was who I seemed to be.

OR, even better, they just stared at me, shaking their head slowly in judgment and disapproval.

Here's the side view of my pregnant belly as I dance with Jackie Kennedy and Mrs. Al Capone.

A couple of years earlier, along the same lines, I had gone to a Halloween party as Squeaky Fromme. It is obviously a theme. No pictures exist of that costume, but I still remember it fondly.

For Halloween ...

... a montage of pin-ups.

Love it. Can't decide my favorite although I am partial to Phyllis Coates flying through the air on the diagonal.

That screening of Diner

So I recounted some story I got off of a documentary about a screening of Diner - and now I read that James Wolcott was there at that screening back in 1982. Exciting!

Yup. The love for Diner rolls on.

I got together with Ted last night and we had a great talk about the movie. Ted was raving about Kevin Bacon and how good he was ... I forget the exact word Ted used for Bacon's performance. Was it my third glass of wine that has obliterated the memory? Ted loved, in particular, the scene where Kevin Bacon stages his own death early in the movie, tipping the car over and lying dead and bloody for his friends to come upon him.

I love when Bacon gets wasted (well, he's wasted through the whole thing) and punches out the Wise Men in the nativity scene on the church lawn. It's so absurd.

But then I love the counterpoint scene of Bacon sitting by himself in his apartment, shouting out the answers to a television quiz show questions. "HERODOTUS. HERODOTUS." or "THOREAU." He gets very little joy out of being right, he's more contemptuous of the ones who didn't get the answer than anything else ... but I just love how Bacon plays that scene. You realize: Huh. This guy has some gifts I hadn't seen before. He's sharp, quick, not just a self-destructive mess. I wonder what happened to him. I wonder why he is so lost.

That's all because of how Bacon plays it.

Well, and how it's written, of course.

Wolcott writes:

At first the movie didn't quite click. The rhythms seemed disjointed, the staging of the fake car wreck didn't quite work, there was a sense that we might be witnessing yet another Americanized version of Fellini's I Vitelloni gone askew, but then came the diner-booth scene where the characters converged and fell into place and the hilarious argument over the sandwich escalated into a guy spat and from then on Rourke and his smooth moves seemed to contour the entire movie to the bittersweet fade.

Diner fans - go read Wolcott's piece.

Today in history: October 30, 1938

From Simon Callow's Orson Welles: Volume 1: The Road to Xanadu:

Focusing on the device of an interrupted programme, he dared to attempt a verisimilitude that had rarely been essayed before. The apparent breakdowns in transmission, the desperate irruptions of dance music, the sadly tinkling piano were all held longer than would be thought possible. The actors too were galvanised into startlingly real and precisely observed performances. Frank Readick as Carl Phillips, the reporter on the spot who describes the invasion and then collapses dead at his mike, had listened over and over again to a recording on the explosion of the Hindenburg air balloon from a year or two before and exactly imitated the original commentator's graduation from comfortable report through growing disbelief to naked horror. Using skills honed on The March of Time, the show became, until about its halfway point, a brilliantly effective transposition of the original novel, sharp enough to make even the most sceptical listener wonder, however idly, how Americans might react to the unprecedented event of an invasion, not from Mars, of course, but from Europe - from Germany or perhaps even from England.

The vividness of the dramatisation stems from its imitation of the newscasts whose bulletins so frequently concerned events ominously gathering in Europe. Neither Koch nor Houseman nor Welles intended any serious parallel, of course; they were simply trying to liven up a dull book, using what was all around them, on the air and in the papers.

What no one at all could have predicted was that anyone might have thought that an actual invasion from Mars was being reported. There was no attempt to conceal the fact that the listener was hearing a dramatisation of a novel, from the beginning of the programme, with its standard announcement ('CBS present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in a radio play by Howard Koch suggested by the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds') and the appropriately but conveniently chilling introduction from Welles, taken with only small modifications from the novella: 'We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's but as mortal as his own ... [who] regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the thirty-eighth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.' Only towards the end of this introduction does Koch start the process of relocation. 'It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30, the Crossley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios ...' So the programme is clearly framed as a broadcast within a broadcast. Then comes the neatly devised sequence of weather report, musical interlude (from the non-existent Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York), news flash about peculiar explosions, more music, more announcements, rambling interview with Professor Pierson, head of the Observatory at Princeton (a gruff and bumbling and highly recognisable Welles), followed by the brilliant on-the-spot reporting sequences.

It was at this point (8.12 p.m. according to Houseman) that the crucial event occurred which precipitated the subsequent panic. The programme that had freed up the slot which gave the Mercury access to the air waves at all was the massively popular Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy show, that most improbable of radio successes, featuring a ventriloquist and his anarchic dummy. Just under a quarter of an hour into the programme, the monocled dummy, his operator and the assembled zanies including Mortimer Snerd, Effie Klinker, Ersel Twing, Vera Vague and Professor Lionel Carp, were given a rest while a vocalist trilled. Immediately, and rather depressingly for the vocalist in question, a large proportion of the listeners would reach for their dials, and twiddle until they found something more congenial, usually returning to the dummy after a few minutes. On the night of 30 October 1938, 12 per cent of Bergen and McCarthy's audience, twiddling away, suddenly found themselves listening, appalled, to a news report of an invasion, by now well under way, by Martians ...

By now a small but significant portion of the audience (with heavy concentration in the New Jersey area) were in a state of high hysteria. The Mercury audience had effectively doubled from its usual 3.6 per cent of the total audience (Bergen and McCarthy had a regular listenership of 34.7 per cent) to six million. Before the programme was even halfway through, the CBS switchboard was jammed with demands for verification, as were switchboards all over the country (Koch reports an operator who very properly replied to a question as to whether the world was coming to an end, 'I'm sorry, we don't have that information here.') Other listeners assumed that the broadcast was the unvarnished truth needing no verification ... The nature of radio, whose unique appeal to the audience's imagination Welles and his collaborators had so brilliantly exploited in their earlier broadcasts, made the Martian broadcast horribly convincing ...

Terrified listeners who had called CBS angrily threatened violence against Welles and the company on discovering that they were victims of what seemed to them to be a malicious hoax ... Reporters besieged the building; when they could get through by telephone, they asked Welles or Houseman how they felt about the many deaths the broadcast had caused. Bewildered, frightened and genuinely remorseful, with no means of checking what the reporters were telling them, they could only protest the innocence of their intentions. Columbia were very nervous and steeled themselves for the legal actions which duly followed. They put out hourly disclaimers, affirming the fictional nature of the broadcast. The planned official midnight Hallowe'en broadcast, in which ghosts were to figure prominently, was cancelled ...

Welles himself was palpably shaken by the furore he had unleashed.

In a newsreel interview with assembled pressmen, he apologises, unshaven and boyish, for the distress unwittingly caused. He has the attitude of a repentant schoolboy, big-eyed, serious-mouthed, frightened and exhilarated at the same time: circumspect, but nervously ready to burst out laughing. He says, his voice nervously high-pitched and slightly adenoidal, that the only anxiety they had before the broadcast was that it might have been boring, his only thought as he came off the air that he hadn't given a very good performance. It was planned simply as a Hallowe'en joke, he says, ('I'd every hope people would be excited, just as they are in a melodrama') and he certainly would never do anything like it again. He is charming, but shifty, not quite sure whether he'd got off without any more serious penalties. (Legal actions were filed against both CBS and the Mercury; all failed.) Later, Welles became more articulate about the incident. 'The most terrifying thing,' he
told the Saturday Evening Post 'is suddenly becoming aware that you are not alone. In this case the earth, thinking itself alone, suddenly became aware that another planet was prowling around.' He had another theory, too: 'the last two generations are softened up because they were deprived in their childhoods, through mistaken theories of education, of the tales of blood and horror which used to be part of the routine training of the young. Under the old system the child felt at home among ghosts and goblins, and did not grow up to be a push-over for sensational canards. But the ban on gruesome fairy tales, terrifying nursemaids and other standard sources of horror has left most of the population without any protection against fee-fi-fo-fum stuff.' This second theory seems very personal: the need to embrace demons; the necessity of healthy terror and - presumably - guilt.

The War of the Worlds incident, though giving rise to an extraordinary event, and revealing some remarkable aspects of America in 1938, was one of the most purely fortuitous events of Welles's career. His personal responsiblity for it is negligible, beyond having directed it with great flair. Houseman precisely analyses the skill of the production, especially its slow build-up of tension; but most of the people who had been frightened by it had only joined the programme a third of the way through, so they were never subject to that manipulation. Nor was Welles responsible for the adaptation. He later attempted to claim authorship for the script, but there is a great deal of entirely conclusive evidence on the contrary ... There is, moreover, no evidence that the programme was planned as the devilishly clever Hallowe'en prank that it seemed to be. Describing the programme as a practical joke was an idea improvised on the spot as a sop to the panic released during the broadcast. Nor was there a conscious attempt to play on fears of a European invasion. The fact is that Welles had barely thought about the programme, being wholly occupied until the very last minute by his losing struggle with Danton's Death.

Welles was praised for having his finger on the pulse of his times, and for being the conman of the century, able to make anybody believe anything. The truth is that he was more surprised than anyone at what had happened, and extremely irritated by it ... For Welles in October 1938, the immediate result of the broadcast was notoreity. People who had never been to the theatre, who had never so much as read a review and who would never have dreamed of consciously tuning in to the Mercury Theatre of the Air, suddenly knew who he was. And not just in America: the news of the panic flashed round the world, where the incident was held up (particularly in Europe) as proof, if any were needed, of the ingrained idiocy of Americans. 'America today hardly knows whether to laugh or to be angry,' scoffed the London Times. 'Here is a nation which, alone of the big nations, has deemed it unnecessary to rehearse for protection against attack from the air by fellow-beings on this earth and suddenly believes itself - and for little enough reason - faced with a more fearful attack from another world.' It was left to the more popular end of the market to report on Welles himself: the Daily Express piece was headed HE'S A LAD. Recapitulating favourite yarns it hailed him as 'America's best villainous radio voice,' whose 'ha-ha's and hee-hee's are adored by millions.' The Star (STORMY WELLES) offered a more sober assessment: 'he has had a career almost as remarkable as his broadcast ... making history at the Mercury Theatre, New York.' The Evening News was also more interested in his theatrical reputation: 'by his energetic direction and ruthless manhandling of the classics, he has made his theatre, the Mercury, the liveliest in New York ... the broadcast has set the seal on his reputation as the enfant terrible of the New York stage.' It had entirely done that, though its most important effects were to come.

Excerpt from my diary, my senior year in high school:

Then we threw darts and sang the score of The Music Man. He said, "Hey! I have a tape of The Fantasticks!" And he went rummaging around for it but instead he found another tape - with a coo of delight. "Oh! I know! Want to hear War of the Worlds?" I'd heard of it, knew what it was about, knew it was Orson Welles, but had never heard it - so I said yes. Brett put the tape in (he loves it) - then he went around turning off all the lights in his room except for a tiny one on his bedside table.

Then he said, "Okay - get on the bed."

Then he climbed on the bed beside me and we listened to it. We pretended it was real. We pretended that we were a married couple in the 1920s and just normally listening to the radio - and then that comes on. It was SO MUCH MORE FREAKY that way. I convinced myself that I totally believed it. It was really fun.

Then when they announced that it was a recording, we both started screaming and laughing and rolling around, going, "I can't believe that!!!"

Happy birthday, Mr. Tony!

Today is Mitchell's birthday. One of my dearest friends in the world. We met (officially) when I was 18 and he was 19, although he knew OF me before that time, and basically stalked me through the Wakefield Mall, hiding in a potted plant outside of Cherry Webb & Torraine. We were destined to be friends. And when it happened, when we clicked, we very quickly became insufferable to pretty much anyone who knew us. It was as though NOBODY HAD EVER BECOME FRIENDS BEFORE since THE DAWN OF TIME. We would literally hold hands and SKIP through the lobbies of our college campus. We were out of control. We fell in love. And we're still in love. He's one of my best and dearest friends.

Our adventures are beyond number. Yes, he ripped Jackie's brown wool leg-wraps, and that was a bitter pill for both of us to swallow. But we moved on. We are all still friends. After college - David, Maria, Jackie, Mitchell and I all ended up in Chicago together. To say we "wreaked havoc" is to misuse language.

But why the title of this post?

That is an old old OLD joke (and it has spawned many other jokes) from when we all first met in college. So it's ancient history yet it is the gift that keeps on giving.

Mitchell was calling his mother at work. I can't remember where she worked - but it was a situation where an intercom would announce the call (Mitchell, do I have this right?) - as in: "Millie, your son's on line 2." So Mitchell, naturally, could never call and just say it was him. He made up names, identities - so that his mother would be called to the phone for "Mr. Zamboni on line 3." (This spawned another game where we would try to come up with the most ridiculous names and it always had to be in the context of a business call. "Mr. Slingback Pump is on line 2." "Yes, can I tell him who's calling?" "Mr. Shrimp Marsala is returning his call." Mitchell and I STILL play this game.)

But one day, Mitchell found himself unable to think of a name under fire. "May I tell her who is calling?" asked the secretary?

Brief horrifying pause where Mitchell went blank, and he then said, "Mr. Tony."

Mr. TONY?? That's the best you can do? Mitchell was like, "I couldn't think of anything! And out came 'Mr. Tony'!"

Of course his mother was now used to this rigmarole, and she came to the phone, picked it up and said, "Fuck you, Mr. Tony."

"Mr. Tony" has so entered the lexicon of our friendship that it is hard to remember where it all started. Everyone is Mr. Tony. Mr. Tony is ubiquitous. It is helpful if you give yourself an adenoidal sound to your voice and an uptight British accent. "Yes, hello, this is Mr. Tony." You can even draw out the "Mr" for extra fun.

How "Mr. Tony" eventually gave birth to "Mrs. Barney" will have to be left for another day.

So, my dear Mr. Tony, I have known you before I knew who I was. You knew who I was. You knew me at my worst, my best. And we're still here. ("A to Z!")

Happy birthday, spacetwin.

The Books: "Life Is a Banquet" (Rosalind Russell)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Life Is A Banquet, by Rosalind Russell (and Chris Chase)

Marvelous book. Laugh-out-loud funny, touching inspiring, serious - with awesome character sketches (her sister Duchess will live on in my memory FOREVER) and just a real joie-de-vivre feeling. You like her SO much. She seems like a great dame. Made good friends, kept them for life, had a great relationship with her husband, had a rocky road of a career (she was one of those actresses "hard to place") - but had the great good fortune to NAIL it in one or two crucial roles in films that will live on forever. She made her mark, man. Imagine a world without His Girl Friday, or imagine that film with any other actress in it. Noooo!!

Her autobiography was published after she had finally succumbed to cancer. She had lost both of her breasts, she was weakened to the point of needing oxygen, a wheelchair ... and yet still: every day, she would dress up, in a lovely suit, and have lunch (with martinis) with her husband. Her husband of 35 years or something like that - Freddie Brisson. They were set up by Cary Grant, who was the best man at their wedding in 1941.

Freddie wrote a prologue to her book. He writes:

After she died I found a petition she had tucked away in her prayer book. It said in part, "Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on aches and pains. They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by."

Freddie writes of their courtship. Rosalind gave him a HELL of a hard time. He would call to ask her out, and her maid would answer the phone, and he would hear Rosalind bellowing in the background: "Tell him I'm out!!" hahahaha But he was persistent. The two of them went to the races, they went out dancing until 2 o'clock in the morning ... but still. She held him off. She was Hollywood's "Bachelor Girl", after all. She had a great career, and a great life. It would have to be a prrreeeety damn good offer for her to give that up ... and she knew that. She put Brisson through his paces.

Listen to his story of his proposal:

The first time I proposed, she didn't accept. I persisted. "I'm going to write your mother and ask for your hand." And I did. "There's no way I'm going to get rid of you, is there?" Rosalind finally said, laughing. But when she gave up, she gave up on her own terms. "I don't like any of these proposals after you've had an evening out. I'm not interested in that nonsense. If you want to propose, then come around at seven o'clock in the morning, and put a white handkerchief on the ground and kneel down and ask for my hand."

At seven o'clock the next morning Roz at last accepted.

The two of them were faithfully married from 1941 to 1976, when she passed away.

Rosalind Russell, in her book, comes off as a person who had her head on straight. Much of that could probably be attributed to her family, and the values they instilled in her. It was a humorous eccentric family, full of siblings ... all powerhouses ... full of accomplishment and lunacy. They were a family who loved to laugh. You can see that in her face. Her face is made for laughter. She comes off as a loyal person. If she was your friend, she was your friend for life. She was quite a clotheshorse and was also responsible for launching the careers of a couple of up-and-coming designers. James Galanos was one of them. He was her dressmaker and stylist for decades.

Her husband, Freddie Brisson, writes in the introduction a story that brings tears to my eyes:

In 1960, after she had the first mastectomy, Rosalind went to [James] Galanos. He says it was the only time he ever saw her break down. She had come to his office, very crisp, very businesslike. "I'm going to tell you something nobody in the world knows except Freddie and my doctor. I've had my breast removed, and I want to keep it quiet. So long as I can be active, I don't want to be thought a freak, I don't want people looking at me in person or on the screen and wondering about my sex life." (You have to consider the era. Women had not yet begun to go public about their mastectomies.)

"I want you to start thinking in terms of how I can now be dressed," Rosalind said to Jimmy, and then she began to take her clothes off. She started to cry, and he saw that she could hardly lift her left arm, it was so swollen, and he broke down too. From that day forward, he specially designed every piece of her clothing, and neither he nor his fitter ever told a soul.

She was an actress, not a glamour girl or a starlet. She could never play an ingenue. She was too much of a wisecracker. Her face was too angular to be considered naive or youthful or even, in certain angles, beautiful. Even as a toddler, she looks like she's about to bark out some snarky comment. She had to grow into herself before Hollywood really knew where to place her. I love journeys like hers. It gives hope to all of the odd ones out there, the misfits, the ones who don't conform - not because they don't WANT to, but because they flat out CAN'T. She was one of those.

The book sparkles with life. For example, often in autobiographies like these - the childhood sections come off as schmaltzy or cliched in some way. It's hard to write believably about childhood. You have to be specific. Get rid of the golden mist of nostalgia before you try to do it.

But listen to one of Russell's stories:

We children would be up on the third floor -- we had a billiard room there; my father played billiards, not pool, and to this day I can shoot so well, people think I must have earned my living at it -- playing games and racketing around over my mother's head, while she sat downstairs doing those name tapes. We had turned an alcove on the third floor into a bowling alley, and we also had a pool table.

My poor father, he never made a bet in his life, he didn't approve of betting, and he brought up a bunch of gamblers. After he died those of us who were still in school used to come home at different hours -- sometimes just for weekends -- and there was always a crap game going in my father's library. My mother permitted it, and stayed to supervise. The dice were going all the time, and I remember arriving late one Friday night and having a chum of one of my brothers, a young man who didn't know I was a member of the family, warn me against the Russells. "Do you know those people?" he whispered. "Be careful, they're all sharp shooters."

And in the background my relatives were yelling, "Get your money up, get your money up, it;s all cash here ..."

Now I don't know about YOU, but I want to hang out at the Russell house.

"Do you know these people?" hahahahahaha

A terrific book all-around. Read it, that's all.

Here's an excerpt that has to do with His Girl Friday. Listen to how smart she is about acting, process, directing. She is totally in charge. Just let her GO. Prepare the space for her, and let her GO.

Clip from His Girl Friday below.

EXCERPT FROM Life Is A Banquet, by Rosalind Russell (and Chris Chase)

The next morning, going into New York on the train with my brother-in-law, Chet La Roche, and most of the people who had been at dinner the night before, everyone had his own copy of the New York Times, and we were all reading, and it said in the New York Times that Rosalind Russell was to play this part in a picture called His Girl Friday. Then it said the names of all the women who'd turned the part down. Howard Hawks, who would be directing, had tried to get Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur; he'd asked every leading woman in town before Harry Cohn had stuck him with me. (I was told later that Cohn had asked Hawks to go up to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and take a look at The Women, but I don't think he ever went.)

Anyway, coming down from Fairfield, I didn't dare look up from the paper. I kept thinking about all these people saying, "Oh, how marvelous."

I arrived back in California in a bad mood, and California was in the middle of a heat wave. I'd built my first swimming pool, a salt-water pool (you just dumped salt in, but you had to have special pipes), and it was about a hundred and seven degrees outside, and I was supposed to go down and see Hawks, but I kept brooding about being humiliated in the New York Times, and before I went to Columbia, I jumped in the pool, got my dress and hair all wet, and then went and sat in Hawks' outer office.

I was always so sassy, it seems to me, so unattractive, now that I think about it.

Hawks came out, did a triple take, and ushered me inside.

"You didn't want me for this, did you?" I said. (Besides being sassy, I was forever assaulting some guy -- Bill Powell, Howard Hawks -- with the news that he really hadn't wanted me.)

"It'll be all right," Hawks said. "You'll be fine. Nonw go to Wardrobe and tell them I'd like you in a suit with stripes, rather flashy-looking."

"Okay, Mr. Hawks, goodbye," I said. "I'll see you later."

His Girl Friday was to be a remake of The Front Page, a story about the newspaper business. Columbia had bought the property from Howard Hughes, who'd already made it once with Pat O'Brien and Lee Tracy as the reporter and editor. It had been Hawks's idea to change the Hildy Johnson character into a woman.

We'd been shooting two days when I began to wonder if his instructing me that my suit should be kind of hard-boiled-looking was the only advice I was going to get from Mr. Hawks.

He sprawled in a chair, way down on the end of his spine, and his eyes were like two blue cubes of ice, and he just looked at me.

After the second day I went to Cary Grant. "What is it with this guy? Am I doing what he wants?"

"Oh, sure, Ross," Cary said. (All the English call me Ross.) "If he didn't like it, he'd tell you."

"I can't work that way," I said. I went over to where Hawks was sitting. "Mr. Hawks," I said, "I have to know whether this is all right. Do you want it faster? Slower? What would you like?"

Unwinding himself like a snake, he rose from his chair. "You just keep pushin' him around the way you're doin'," he said. I could hardly hear him but I could see those cubes of eyes beginning to twinkle.

He'd been watching Cary and me for two days, and I'd thrown a handbag at Cary, which was my own idea, and missed hitting him, and Cary had said, "You used to be better than that," and Hawks left it all in. It's a good director who sees what an actor can do, studies his cast, learns about them personally, knows how to get the best out of them. You play the fiddle and he conducts. I think filming the scene is the easiest thing. It's preparing for it, rehearsing with it, trying to get at the guts of it, trying to give it meaning and freshness so that the other actor will relate to you and think of you as his mother or his wife or his sister, rather than just reciting lines, that's the actor's real work. A good director knows how to help you with it.

A good director also knows when not to direct. Nobody ever tried to direct Gable. They let Gable be Gable. I don't mean that he wouldn't take direction, but when he walked in with the gun and the uniform, and he'd just been over the top, what more could anybody do about that? Gable was the same sitting on the sidelines as he was when he got up and played the scene, and nobody wanted him to be anything else. People like Gable, Wayne, they're personalities, and a personality is an asset, you don't destroy it or mess with it.

Grant was different; he wasn't just a personality, he could immediately go off into a spin and become any character that was called for. He was terrific to work with because he's a true comic, in the sense that comedy is in the mind, the brain, the cortex. (Every actor you play with helps you or hurts you, there's no in between. It' s like tennis, you can't play alone or with a dead ball; and a lot of pictures fail right on the set, not in the script, where they say it starts. A group of actors and a director can wreck a good script; I've seen it happen.)

Cary loved to ad lib. He'd be standing there, leaning over, practically parallel to the ground, eyes flashing, extemporizing as he went, but he was in with another ad-libber. I enjoyed working that way too. So in His Girl Friday we went wild, overlapped our dialogue, waited for no man. And Hawks got a big kick out of it.

Then I started worrying that all this noisiness and newsroom high spirits might seem too chaotic to a watcher, and one night after we were finished I again went to Hawks. "I'm afraid," I said, "that audiences won't follow us."

"You're forgetting the scene you're gonna play with the criminal," Hawks said. "It's gonna be so quiet, so silent. You'll just whisper to him, you'll whisper, 'Did you kill that guy?' and your whispering will change the rhythm. But when we're with Grant, we don't change it. You just rivet in on him all the time."

Everybody in the world talks to me about that picture, though it happened in 1940 and they couldn't get another actress to do it. I've had so many indifferent directors, the kind who didn't prepare, didn't do their homework, faked their way through (and the actor is really the victim of the director), but I've been good with good directors, and for me to get Cukor and Hawks in rapid succession was terrific.

(That an actor needs not only decent direction, but decent material goes without saying. You're home free if you get material that holds you up. George Burns, who won the Academy Award for his part in The Sunshine Boys, told me it didn't even feel like work, playing that Neil Simon script - "The stuff is so funny, the words he uses, the way he puts it together." Being given good material is like being assigned to bake a cake - I might as well add baking to the other similes, tennis, violin playing, I've hauled in here - and having the batter made for you. It's all there, you only have to pour it in the pan, get the oven going at 350 degrees, and you're home free, everybody says you're a master cook.)

Hawks was a terrific director; he encouraged us and let us go. Once he told Cary, "Next time give her a bigger shove onto the couch," and Cary said, "Well, I don't want to kill the woman," and Hawks thought about that for a second. Then he said, "Try killin' 'er."

And once Cary looked straight out of a scene and said to Hawks (about something I was trying), "Is she going to do that?" and Hawks left the moment in the picture -- Cary's right there on film, asking an unseen director about my plans.

Today in history: October 29, 1929

Stock prices virtually collapsed yesterday, swept downward with gigantic losses in the most disastrous trading day in the stock market's history. Billions of dollars in open market values were wiped out as prices crumbled under the pressure of liquidation of securities which had to be sold at any price.

There was an impressive rally just at the close, which brought many leading stocks back from 4 to 14 points from their lowest points of the day.

From every point of view, in the extent of losses sustained, in total turnover, in the number of speculators wiped out, the day was the most disastrous in Wall Street's history.

-- NY Times, October 29, 1929

Or, to put it another way:

"My shares, which on Monday I bought,
Were worth millions on Tuesday, I thought.
So on Wednesday, I chose my abode,
In my carriage on Thursday I rode,
To the ballroom on Friday I went,
To the workhouse next day I was sent."

-- Anon., c. 1720, on the collapse of the Mississippi Company in France

October 29, 1929, a compilation.

"Sooner or later a crash is coming, and it may be terrific."

-- Roger Babson, September 5, 1929, speaking before his Annual National Business Conference

All speculative bubbles go through four stages, each with its own internal logic. The first stage, which is sometimes referred to as the "displacement", starts when something changes people's expectations about the future -- a shift in government policy, a discovery, a fabulous new invention. A few well-informed souls try to cash in on the displacement by investing in the new vehicle of speculation, but most investors stay on the sidelines. The early investors make extremely high returns, and this attracts the attention of others. Next comes the boom stage, when prices are rising sharply and skepticism gives way to greed. The sight of easy money being made lures people into the market, which keeps prices rising, which, in turn, attracts more investors. Eventually, those upstanding citizens who haven't joined in the festivities feel left out. Not just left out. They feel like fools. If their daughter's boyfriend, who does nothing all day but sit around and play with his computer, can make fifty thousand dollars on his America Online stock, why can't they? Boom passes into euphoria. Established rules of investing, and often more common sense, are dispensed with. Prices lose all connection with reality. Investors know this situation can't last forever, and they vie to cash in before the bubble bursts. As Charles Kindleberger, an MIT economic historian, wrote in his book Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis, "Speculation tends to detach itself from really valuable objects and turns to delusive ones. A larger and larger group of people seeks to become rich without a real understanding of the processes involved. Not surprisingly, swindlers and catchpenny schemes flourish." Finally, inevitably, comes the bust. Sometimes there is a clear reason for the break; sometimes, the market implodes of its own accord. Either way, prices plummet, speculators and companies go bankrupt, and the economy heads into recession. A few months later, everybody looks back in amazement, asking: "How did that happen?"

-- John Cassidy, "Dot.con: How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era" (excerpt here)

Until the beginning of 1928, even a man of conservative mind could believe that the prices of common stock were catching up with the increase in corporation earnings, the prospect for further increases, the peace and tranquility of the times, and the certainty that the Administration then firmly in power in Washington would take no more than necessary of any earnings in taxes. Early in 1928, the nature of the boom changed. The mass escape into make-believe, so much a part of the true speculative orgy, started in earnest.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

"There is no cause for alarm. The high tide of prosperity will continue."

-- Andrew W. Mellon, late September, 1929

Some of those in positions of authority wanted the boom to continue. They were making money out of it, and they may have had an intimation of the personal disaster which awaited them when the boom came to an end. But there were also some who saw, however dimly, that a wild speculation was in progress and that something should be done. For these people, however, every proposal to act raised the same intractable problem. The consequences of successful action seemed almost as terrible as the consequences of inaction, and they could be more horrible for those who took the action.

A bubble can easily be punctured. But to incise it with a needle so that it subsides gradually is a task of no small delicacy. Among those who sensed what was happening in early 1929, there was some hope but no confidence that the boom could be made to subside. The real choice was between an immediate and deliberately engineered collapse and a more serious disaster later on. Someone would certainly be blamed for the ultimate collapse when it came.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

The rich man's chauffeur drove with his ears laid back to catch the news of an impending move in Bethlehem Steel; he held fifty shares himself on a twenty-point margin. The window-cleaner at the broker's office paused to watch the ticker, for he was thinking of converting his laboriously accumulated savings into a few shares of Simmons. Edwin Lefevre (an articulate reporter on the market at this time who could claim considerable personal experience) told of a broker's valet who made nearly a quarter of a million in the market, of a trained nurse who cleaned up thirty thousand following the tips given her by grateful patients; and of a Wyoming cattleman, thirty miles from the nearest railroad, who bought or sold a thousand shares a day.

-- Frederick Lewis Allen, "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's", published in 1932

Thursday, October 24, is the first of the days which history -- such as it is on the subject -- identifies with the panic of 1929. Measured by disorder, fright, and confusion, it deserves to be so regarded. That day 12,894,650 shares changed hands, many of them at prices which shattered the dreams and the hopes of those who had owned them. Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell. October 24, 1929, showed that what is mysterious is not inevitable. Often there were no buyers, and only after wide vertical declines could anyone be induced to bid.

The panic did not last all day. It was a phenomenon of the morning hours. The market opening itself was unspectacular, and for a while prices were firm. Volume, however, was very large, and soon prices began to sag. Once again the ticker dropped behind. Prices fell further and faster, and the ticker lagged more and more. By eleven o'clock the market had degenerated into a wild, mad scramble to sell. In the crowded boardrooms across the country the ticker told of a frightful collapse. But the selected quotations coming in over the bond ticker also showed that current values went far below the ancient history of the tape. The uncertainty led more and more people to try to sell. Others, no longer able to respond to margin calls, were sold out. By eleven-thirty the market had surrendered to blind, relentless fear. This, indeed, was panic.

Outside the Exchange in Broad Street a weird roar could be heard. A crowd gathered. Police Commissioner Grover Whalen became aware that something was happening and dispatched a special police detail to Wall Street to insure the peace. More people came and waited, though apparently no one knew for what. A workman appeared atop one of the high buildings to accomplish some repairs, and the multitude assumed he was a would-be suicide and waited impatiently for him to jump. Crowds also formed around the branch offices of brokerage firms throughout the city and, indeed, throughout the country. Word of what was happening, or what was thought to be happening, was passed out by those who were within sight of the board or the Trans-Lux. An observer thought that people's expressions showed "not so much suffering as a sort of horrified incredulity." Rumor after rumor swept Wall Street and these outlyinhg wakes. Stocks were now selling for nothing. The Chicago and Buffalo Exchanges had closed.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

We were crowded in the cabin
Watching figures on the Board;
It was midnight on the ocean
And a tempest loudly roared.

"We are lost!" the Captain shouted,
As he staggered down the stairs.

"I've got a tip," he faltered,
"Straight by wireless from the aunt
Of a fellow who's related
To a cousin of Durant."

At these awful words we shuddered,
And the stoutest bull grew sick
While the brokers cried, "More margin!"
And the ticker ceased to tick.

But the captain's little daughter
Said, "I do not understand --
Isn't Morgan on the ocean
Just the same as on the land?"

-- anonymous poem, published in "The Literary Digest", August 31, 1929

On Sunday [October 27] there were sermons suggesting that a certain measure of divine retribution had been visited on the Republic and that it had not been entirely unmerited. People had lost sight of spiritual values in their single-minded pursuit of riches. Now they had had their lesson.

Almost everyone believed that the heavenly knuckle-rapping was over and that speculation could be now resumed in earnest. The papers were full of the prospects for next week's market.

Stocks, it was agreed, were again cheap and accordingly there would be a heavy rush to buy. Numerous stories from brokerage houses, some of them possibly inspired, told of a fabulous volume of buying orders which was piling up in anticipation of the opening of the market. In a concerted advertising campaign in Monday's papers, stock market firms urged the wisdom of picking up these bargains promptly. "We believe," said one house, "that the investor who purchases securities at this time with the discrimination that is always a condition of prudent investing, may do so with utmost confidence." On Monday the real disaster began.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

On September 3, 1929, by common consent, the great bull market of the nineteen twenties came to an end. Economics, as always, vouchsafes us few dramatic turning points. Its events are invariably fuzzy or even indeterminate. On some days that followed -- a few only -- some averages were actually higher. However, never again did the market manifest its old confidence. The later peaks were not peaks but brief interruptions of a downward trend.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

The singular feature of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few as possible escaped the common misfortune. The fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met that there would still be another. In the end all the money he had was extracted from him and lost ...

The Coolidge bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Great Crash 1929"

Transcript from Senate Hearings, April - June, 1932:

Senator Couzens: Did Goldman, Sachs and Company organize the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation?

Mr. Sachs: Yes, sir.

Senator Couzens: And it sold its stock to the public?

Mr. Sachs: A portion of it. The firm invested originally in 10 per cent of the entire issue for the sum of $10,000,000.

Senator Couzens: And the other 90 percent was sold to the public?

Mr. Sachs: Yes, sir.

Senator Couzens: At what price?

Mr. Sachs: 104. That is the old stock ... the stock was split two for one.

Senator Couzens: And what is the price of the stock now?

Mr. Sachs: Approximately 1^3/4.

Until 1928, stock exchange prices had merely kept pace with actual industrial performance. From the beginning of 1928 the element of unreality, of fantasy indeed, began to grow. As Bagehot put it, "People are most credulous when they are most happy." People bought and sold in blissful ignorance. In 1927 the number of shares changing hands, at 567,990,875, broke all records. The figure then rose to 920,550,032.

Two new and sinister elements emerged: a vast increase in margin-trading and a rash of hastily cobbled-together investment trusts. Traditionally, stocks were valued at about ten times earnings. During the boom, as prices of stocks rose, divident yields fell. With high margin-trading, earnings on shares (or dividend yields), running at only 1 or 2 percent, were far less than the interest of 8-12 percent on loans used to buy them. This meant that any profits were on capital gains alone. Over the past 125 years of American history, divident yields have averaged 4.5 percent. The figures show that, whenever the divident yield sinks to as low as 2 percent, a crack in the market and a subsequent slump is on the way. That had been true of the last two bear markets before 1929 came, and investors or market analysts who studied historical performance, the only sure guide to prudence, should have spotted this. There were indeed some glaring warnings. Radio Corporation of America, which had never paid a divident at all, and whose earnings on shares were thus zero, nonetheless rose from 85 to 420 points in 1928. That was pure speculation, calculated on the assumption that capital gains would continue to be made indefinitely, a manifest absurdity. By 1929 some stocks were selling at fifty times earnings. As one expert put it, "The Market was discounting not merely the future but the hereafter."

-- Paul Johnson, "A History of the American People" (excerpt here)

Among the speculators' favorites during the 1920s were issues like Wright Aeronautics, Boeing, and, especially, Radio Company of America (or Radio, as it was then known), which was the most glamorous and fastest-growing corporation of the 1920s. Commercial radio was a revolutionary medium that shrunk the country like nothing before it, and Radio was the major player in the industry; it both manufactured radio sets and provided the programming they transmitted. In 1921 it's stock hit a low of 1^1/2. Thereafter, it climbed steadily until 1927, when it headed for the stratosphere. In April 1929, Radio hit a high, after adjusting for stock splits, of 570. During the stunning ascent, old-timers shook their heads in disbelief. Despite its rapid growth, Radio had never paid a cent in dividents, and many of its shareholders were professional gamblers. In October 1929, the stock lost 75 percent of its value. It recovered a bit during 1930, but then collapsed again, and remained collapsed for the rest of the decade. Despite the strong growth of commercial radio, RCA's stock didn't recover its April 1929 level until 1964 -- thirty-five years later.

-- John Cassidy, "Dot.con: How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era"

On Monday, October 21, for the first time, the ticker-tape could not keep pace with the news of falls and never caught up. In the confusion the panic intensified (the first margin calls had gone out on the Saturday before) and speculators began to realize they might lose their savings and even their homes. On Thursday, October 24 shares dropped vertically with no one buying, speculators were sold out as they failed to respond to margin calls, crowds gathered on Broad Street outside the New York Stock Exchange, and by the end of the day eleven men well known in Wall Street had committed suicide. Next week came Black Tuesday, the 29th, and the first selling of sound stocks in order to provide desperately needed liquidity.

Business downturns serve essential purposes. They have to be sharp. But they need not be long because they are self-adjusting. All they require on the part of governments, the business community, and the public is patience. The 1920 recession had adjusted itself, helped by Harding's government cuts, in less than a year. There was no reason why the 1929 fall should have taken longer, for the American economy was fundamentally sound, as Coolidge had said. On November 13, at the end of the immediate four-week panic, the index was at 224, down from its peak at 452. There was nothing wrong in that. It had been only 245 in December 1928 after a year of steep rises. The panic merely knocked out the speculative element, leaving sound stock at about their right value in relation to earnings. If the recession had been allowed to adjust itself, as it would have done by the end of 1930 on any earlier analogy, confidence would have returned and the world slump need not have occurred. Instead the market went on down, slowly but inexorably, ceasing to reflect economic realities -- its true function -- and instead became an engine of doom, carrying into the pit the entire nation and, with it, the world.

-- Paul Johnson, "A History of the American People"

So long sad times
Go long bad times
We are rid of you at last
Howdy gay times
Cloudy gray times
You are now a thing of the past

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again

Altogether shout it now
There's no one
Who can doubt it now
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again

Your cares and troubles are gone
There'll be no more from now on
From now on ...

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So, Let's sing a song of cheer again

Happy times
Happy nights
Happy days
Are here again!

-- recorded in late 1929 - it became the #1 hit of 1930. In the new context of 1930 the song lyrics drip with sarcasm.

"We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia."

"Do you ever get the feeling that there's something going on that we don't know about? "

"Boog, the bet was 'touch your pecker' not 'pecker in popcorn'."

"What is she ... twelve?"
"She'll be twelve."

"That's what you get for going out with 11th graders. Their brains aren't developed yet."
"Yeah, but her tits were."
"Uh-uh. Falsies."
"Were they?"
"First-hand info."
"Aw, shit."

"Elise's mother's on the phone. How's she doing?"
"The guys think it could go either way."
"Either way. Okay."

"You sonofabitch ... You're a virgin."
" .... Technically."
"Boy, you've got a lot to learn."

Pauline Kael on Diner, 1982:

A wonderful movie, set in Baltimore, around Christmas of 1959. A fluctuating group of five or six young men in their early 20s hang out together; they've known each other since high school, and though they're moving in different directions, they still cling to their late-night bull sessions at the diner-where, magically, they always seem to have plenty to talk about. It's like a comedy club-they take off from each other, and their conversations are all overlapping jokes that are funny without punch lines. Conversations may roll on all night, and they can sound worldly and sharp, but when these boys are out with girls, they're nervous, constricted, fraudulent, half crazy. Written and directed by Barry Levinson, DINER provides a look at middle-class relations between the sexes just before the sexual revolution, at a time when people still laughed (albeit uneasily) at the gulf between men and women. It isn't remarkable visually but it features some of the best young actors in the country: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Daniel Stern, Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, Paul Reiser, and Timothy Daly.

This is one of those rare moments when a critic actually had something to do in a tangible way with a film's success. And not just success - but its survival, its existence. The fact that we have it and were able to see it can be traced, in part, to Kael's review.

I can think of an example of this from the theatre world, when Ashton Stevens championed this new-fangled dreamy play Glass Menagerie written by a newcomer with a weird name, Tennessee Williams. It had opened in an ice-coated Chicago and had not found an audience. Stevens had seen the play and knew something amazing was happening here. Not just in Laurette Taylor's once-in-a-century performance - but in the play itself. It MUST survive. Stevens felt it MUST survive - this small delicate piece of nostalgia. So he hammered away in his columns, begging the Chicago populace to brave the wintry blast and go see it. Celebrities from New York and Los Angeles started flying in to Chicago, or stopping off via train, to see the show. It was one of those moments that happens once in a lifetime - it really COULDN'T happen more than that - because work, in general, just isn't usually that good. But here it was ... and Stevens went to town, drumming up an audience. It worked. That play could have closed in Chicago for good, changing American theatrical history as we know it. Tennessee would obviously have gone on - he had already had a couple of flops - he was the ultimate survivor - and perhaps his "time" WOULD have come later, if it hadn't come with Menagerie - but we'll never know that. It happened the way it happened. The cast, crew, composer (Paul Bowles) ... everyone was working at the top of their game ... but Stevens is a huge part of that story.

When the studio execs first saw Diner, they didn't want to release it at all. Nobody got it. There were no stars in it. Nothing seemed to happen. Diner was going to be shelved. Paul Reiser, who played the mooch Modell ("You gonna finish that?") says in a behind-the-scenes documentary I watched:

There's a story that Barry always told afterward when the movie came out, how executives didn't know what to do with it, the studio guys, and they watched a rough cut of it, a screening, and they said, 'Look, like that scene in the diner when they're arguing about the sandwich - why doesn't he just give him the sandwich and get on with the story?' And Barry said, 'Because there is no story. That is the story. The fact that they're hocking each other for 15 minutes over a sandwich is the story.'

In the middle of this back-and-forth with the studio, someone showed a copy of it to Pauline Kael. At this point, there wasn't even a release date. It couldn't be seen anywhere. Not in New York, Los Angeles or anywhere else. But she wrote a glowing review in The New Yorker - of a film that no one, at that moment, could see.

Ellen Barkin, who plays Beth, the suffering wife of Shrevie, the music fanatic, says:

They didn't want to release it at all and I think it was only released out of embarrassment. They thought, how do we have a movie sitting here that Pauline Kael says is so great, and we're not releasing it ... So let's throw it out there.

And so they did. It certainly wasn't a blockbuster, and it didn't make a ton of money, but you would be hard pressed to find a bad review of the film. And not only that, but it has just grown in stature over the years, for all sorts of reason. It was the launching of the career of Barry Levinson, first of all, and the first of his Baltimore movies. Like Steve Guttenberg says, "Every city would be lucky if it could have a biographer like Barry." But it has also grown in stature because of the long careers that virtually everyone involved has gone on to. It's remarkable. These were all young guys, starting out, green ... they all talk about being terrified at the beginning because they barely knew what they were doing. They also talk about the "green"-ness of Barry and how he would forget to say things like "Action" and "Cut" ... they were newbies. But every single name in that picture has gone on to amazing success. Ups and downs, sure, but look at the longevity and diversity of these people. They are ALL still around. Tim Daly, Daniel Stern, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser, Ellen Barkin, Steve Guttenberg and, of course, Mickey Rourke. Remarkable.

Posted, naturally, in the Mickey Rourke category

"Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it."

Ed Copeland on John Carpenter's Halloween, which turned 30 years old last Saturday.

And Jeremy shares some screenshots from Halloween (some of them which give me a chill of remembering just looking at them. It's always the most BENIGN image that freaks me out, more so than any gore or bloodshed. The laundry on the line? TERRIFYING.)

More in my own personal "book of laughter and forgetting"

Prologue here, in which Michael remembers more than I do, an unheard-of situation in my personal experience.

Me to Michael in response to first email:

What??? I had already seen Johnny Handsome? What am I, on crack? I remember EVERYTHING ... how could I have forgotten?? I was probably just so aware of your smokin' hottiness next to me ... could that be it? ... I am mortified. I wonder what else I have forgotten. Horrifying.

Michael in response:

yes, you completely forgot a lovely afternoon in which we watched JOHNNY HANDSOME together. i feel that Pat may have been there with us, in that uncomfortable apartment with that weird, fey drug addict dude with the dark eyes. i remember lots of cat hair or dog hair, but we watched it. we may have justified watching it for the Southern accents, i don't know, but we watched it all right. i think the assumption that you were distracted by my "hotness" is accurate, though, and i'm willing to forgive you.

Believe it or not, the "dog hair cat hair" detail actually does spark something in my memory, as well as the fey drug addict who eventually became so bizarre that Pat and Michael fled into the night to find other lodgings.

To quote Inspector Clouseau in one of my favorite moments in the entire Pink Panther series: "Yes, it's all coming back to me now ......" (crash ... bang ... boom ...)

Haunted libraries

Just in time for Halloween - a charming piece about ghosts in libraries in the Northeast. I like the sound of this ghost who is said to haunt the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers:

The ghost of an old man sits in a reading room of this 1892 building. Some say he has shushed people talking loudly.

hahahaha Good for you, ghost.

Then, this awesome tidbit from a library in New Jersey:

Phyllis the library ghost was so active at one time that the staff issued her a library card. Jean Hill, a volunteer in the Local History Room, remarked that Phyllis “was not put on our computer with the rest of us mortals, but her card is always available should she choose to use it.” Beginning in 1974, employees started seeing an apparition moving through the front rooms of the building, which was the Vealtown Tavern during the Revolutionary War. The ghost is said to be that of Phyllis Parker, the innkeeper’s daughter, who suffered a nervous breakdown when her boyfriend, a British spy, was hung in 1777 and delivered to the tavern in a coffin. The fireplace in the former reading room was a focal point for phenomena. Another Local History Room volunteer, Eileen Luz Johnston, wrote a 46-page booklet about the spook titled Phyllis—The Library Ghost? in 1991. One of the last known Phyllis sightings took place in November 1989, when a 3-year-old boy saw a lady in a long, white dress in the reading room and said hello to her.

(Speaking of haunting, check out Jonathan's latest in his month-long "October Kill Fest" - an essay about the role of the witch in horror films and fairy tales - It's Witchcraft!)

The Books: "Ginger: My Story" (Ginger Rogers)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Ginger: My Story, by Ginger Rogers

This is my kind of celebrity memoir. It is juicy, gossipy, defensive, and full of sentences like, "I need to set the record straight". In her Introduction, she uses the words "pernicious rumors". She wants to tell her story from HER side, and she just babbles (entertainingly) on and on for almost 400 pages, and you just can't put it down. There is an invisible audience of critics in her mind, reading it, and she writes to them. "Yes, I had a lot of marriages. So what? I loved being married." You know, when you live in the public eye for your whole life, you probably get used to having people (that you know and don't know) weigh in on your behavior - be it professional or personal - and she's internalized that. She can't help herself.

A lot of the book has a "I know what you're going to say, but let me explain" tone. I happen to despise that kind of writing when it's done by bloggers - I've written about it before. I despise it because I fell into that trap in my early days as a blogger, when I suddenly had a lot of readers, many of whom found my love of movies to be irritating. (Don't ask. These people are now long gone - well, one or two hangers-on). But anyway, I found my writing to be going in that defensive direction - starting paragraphs with, "Now, I know what you're going to say ..." Everything needed to be qualified, adjusted. I was constantly acknowledging the people who found me irritating. Terrible writing!! It drove me crazy. And Beth emailed me at one point, mentioning that tendency of mine, and telling me it weakened my writing. She basically was like, "Just say what you want to say!" My first feeling when I read her email was defensive ... but in the next moment, I realized: She is 100% right. I don't like writing this way, anyway. So I consciously got rid of that tendency. Having been through that, I notice it in others, I suppose ... and to me, at least with bloggers, it makes the blogger seem WAY too self-important. As though they have THRONGS of people weighing in at all times ... and although that FEELS true, it really isn't, come on, let's be honest. (Reminds me of the funny cartoon Larry just posted on his site.) Just write your opinion, let people criticize - answer in the comments if you want - but don't muddy up your writing with "Now I know that some of you out there feel ..." caveats.

HOWEVER. When it comes to giants of the film industry - that kind of thing is just a joy to behold. I know it's biased. That's the whole point to reading memoirs of famous movie stars. I WANT bias. I WANT them to stick up for themselves, and tell their side, and set the record straight ... That's why I think Lana Turner's autobiography is seriously one of the best out there. Try to put that book down. TRY. And if anyone had the "public" weighing in on her behavior - it was that one!!

So Ginger sets forth to dispel the "pernicious rumors", to talk back to her critics, to tell it like it REALLY was - and all of that makes for a beautifully entertaining, sometimes funny read. She's likable. I read this book years ago, when it first came out, and there was much about Ginger Rogers that I did not know. My bad!

I grew up poring over the pages of TV Guide for any sign that a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie was playing. I ADORED them. It seemed to be from a different world. Still in the same century I was living in, but boy, nothing was recognizable to me. Where were those big nightclubs with shiny floors and flowing curtains? Even their voices sounded different. Nobody talked like Fred Astaire in MY world. They seemed ancient - not to mention in black and white - but also so exciting, and beautiful, and I never ever got sick of seeing those movies (it's been almost 40 years now, and I'm STILL not sick of seeing them.)

When I was 11 years old, my drama teacher (Jan Grant, let's give the props) had us all write a report on someone who inspired us from movies or theatre. I wrote my report on Fred Astaire. I remember how hard I worked on that thing. I must have taken books out of the library. I set about to write down Fred's entire journey - with his sister Adele, etc. - and I remember my dad saying to me, gently, "I think what Jan is looking for is not the biography, Sheila - but what he means to you." I have tears in my eyes. He was trying to help me focus. I don't think I took it that way at the time, because I was really proud of my essay - with its "Fred Astaire was born on a cold dark day" details ... but I did take his advice, and spent the last 10 pages of the thing talking about why he was so great, and which movies of his I loved, and why, etc. etc. Thank you, Dad.

My first experience of Ginger Rogers was those movies, and for years I had no idea - ZERO - NONE - NADA - that she was such a heavy-hitting actress as well. One of the big female stars of RKO. It was Rogers, Katharine Hepburn and Irene Dunne - there's a documentary about those three and their competition included in the special features of my Bringing Up Baby DVD. It's fascinating. They each had a niche, they dominated the industry, but they were also pitted against one another.

Rogers got her start in vaudeville as a teenager, did a couple of movies, and then appeared on Broadway in a musical called Girl Crazy. Fred Astaire didn't do the choreography but he was hired to help out. This was how they met. Girl Crazy made Ginger Rogers a Broadway star. With the power of that success behind her, she signed a contract with Paramount, but then got out of it (I love all the contractual stuff - I've mentioned that before. I love to hear the business side of things) - and signed with RKO. It was under the auspices of RKO that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made their many many films together. They were the biggest stars in the world. Those movies came at a time when America really needed them. And also - they were unlike the other musicals at the time ... those two completely revolutionized that tired genre (it was already tired!) and made it something new and fresh. Not to mention the cinematography ... If you watch the filming of those dance scenes, you can see that the camera glides and flows WITH the couple, at the same time that we always see both of them in the screen at the same time. I wish I wish I wish that musicals today would stop it with the jumpcuts and Flashdance-inspired fragmented filmmaking - and just let us see the dancing, dammit. Astaire said about Rogers: "Ginger had never danced with a partner before. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn't tap and she couldn't do this and that ... but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong."

The thing I guess I didn't know about Ginger was that she was primarily an actress. After a decade of musicals, she made the unpopular decision to stop for a while and do straight drama. It paid off. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle. If you've seen the film (or any of her other straight dramas), you know how good she was. (And I'm sure De could speak to all of this far better than I could. She's probably the biggest Ginger Rogers fan that I know!)

Ginger Rogers was one of those people who was known, primarily, for one thing. She was extremely fortunate - and also had a magic about her that came out when dancing with Astaire that still is money in the bank. Like, you can cash in that check for centuries. Actresses dream of "hitting" something like that - not just being successful - but tapping into something "magic" ... and she did.

But my favorite stories in her chatty defensive funny book are about her struggles to either be taken seriously, or her lobbying for parts that nobody was thinking of her for, because of her reputation for being an actress for musicals.

Garson Kanin, in his chatty awesome book Hollywood tells the story of Ginger Rogers campaigning HARD to play Queen Elizabeth in John Ford's Mary of Scotland ... and it just really moves me, because she knew, in her heart, how good she would be, but she also knew she had to prove it. She was a gigantic star. Didn't matter. Not everybody can play everything. You have to PROVE it to the powers-that-be and proving it takes a lot of guts. Because, more often than not, you are facing a group of people who basically don't see you for the part, don't want you for the part ... it is an unwelcoming atmosphere from the get-go. I talked about this a bit when I mentioned Camryn Manheim's journey as an actress and how she had to SHOW the client that she could be a mechanic, even though they had it in their heads that they wanted a man for the part. Guts. It is my belief that those who become most successful are not necessarily the most talented - but those who do not CAVE in moments such as that. Those who do not CHOKE but "show up", 100%.

So although Ginger Rogers' book is chock-full of great stuff, I chose the excerpt that had to do with her trying to get the part of Queen Elizabeth, because THAT is why Ginger Rogers' career spanned 50 years, I am convinced. She didn't even GET the part. Doesn't matter in the slightest. It's the attitude I am talking about.

30 years later, Ginger Rogers said to Garson Kanin, "They should have given me that part. I would have been sensational."

I agree.

I've also included a clip below from Top Hat.

EXCERPT FROM Ginger: My Story, by Ginger Rogers

At a dinner party one evening, I cornered Pan Berman. "Pan," I said, "I know you're producing Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland and that Kate Hepburn is starring. I've also heard that John Ford is directing. Now, Pan, you have tested everybody under the sun but Shirley Temple or me for the role of Queen Elizabeth. Why not let me test for the role?"

"You?" interrupted Mr. Berman. "Why would you want to play the role of such an embittered woman?"

"Oh, come on, Pan, you know I want to get out of those soft chiffon dresses and play something that has some starch in it."

"Dear Ginger," he said, patiently patting me on the shoulder. "You should be glad you do what you do so well. Why don't you just stick to your high-heeled slippers and be happy?"

With that, he gently brushed me off with a smile.

With that, I determined to devise a plan.

I called Leland Hayward. "You're my agent, why don't you talk to Berman about my playing the role of Elizabeth? He won't listen to me."

"Why don't you corner John Ford?" suggested Leland. "Catch him at the commissary during lunch."

I rarely went into the commissary while filming - unless I had to be there for a conference; I preferred to have lunch in my dressing room. Since I wasn't filming, I decided to follow Leland's suggestion. I found out the day and time that the tests were to be made and I went into the commissary. As Ford and some of his camera crew were leaving, I went up to him and told him what I wanted. I knew if I showed up as Ginger Rogers, I wouldn't get to first base. However, if I appeared under a false name, all made up as Elizabeth, the test I made would be judged only on the basis of my performance. John Ford loved a practical joke, and the idea of fooling Pan Berman tickled his funny bone. "Sounds terrific. Call me at home and we'll figure it out."

I called Leland with the good news and told him I thought I should pretend to be British so I'd even have the right accent. Leland loved the idea, and we decided I would become "Lady Ainsley." Listen, if I was going to be British, I might as well go all the way and be an aristocrat! Leland called Pan and told him he had a visiting British actress who might be talked into taking the role.

I got in touch with Mel Berns in makeup and Edward Stevenson in wardrobe. They were both sworn to secrecy. A lot of painstaking detail went into this charade; among other things, I had to get a studio pass under my pseudonym, Lady Ainsley.

The day of the test, I wore clothes different from any I had been seen in before, donned a brunette wig, and put a turban around my head. At the studio, I didn't go through the automobile gate but headed for the Gower Street door. The Gower Street entrance was the first test of my disguise. Studio pass in hand and my British accent at the ready, it worked like a dream. I galloped to Mel Berns's chair and he went to work. First, a plastic skull cap was put over my head. It reached down to my eyebrows, and created the appearance of a very high forehead. Later, a faithfully designed eighteenth-century wig was put over the skull cap. The period makeup for Elizabethan times was a ghostly white, for men as well as women. You can't imagine how this white stuff changed my features. Mel gave my eyes a beady look by creating a narrowness around them and painted a slit-like mouth over my full lips. Eddie Stevenson found a period costume with the full regalia of queenly dress, including a huge stiff ruffle around my neck. If clothes make the woman, then I felt like the real Queen of England! As far as knowing that the queen was Ginger, I didn't think even Lelee would have recognized me.

Leland played his part well, too; he phoned John Ford and gave him the lowdown on my character. Lady Ainsley had been playing Shakespearean roles for the past five years on the London stage where her name was well known. While her husband, Lord Ainsley, was on safari in Africa hunting lions, Lady Ainsley had accepted an invitation from Mary Pickford to stay at Pickfair for a fortnight. Though she was uninterested in making an American movie, Lady Ainsley was persuaded to do the test as a lark. She was a great admirer of John Ford's films, and would enjoy meeting Katharine Hepburn.

John Ford ate it up. Leland then advised John to call Pan Berman and give him the story. "If he doesn't buy it, tell him to call me, and I'll convince him."

When the time came for me to test, I casually strolled onto the stage in this fantastic regalia and felt ten feet tall! Hiding behind character makeup was a new experience for me. Three other women in courtly costumes stood on the set waiting for the camera test. One of them was Anita Colby, a very good friend of my mother's and mine. Each of the ladies-in-waiting curtsied as the assistant director introduced them to "Lady Ainsley". Even Anita bowed; I could hardly wait to tell Lela. I moved off to the test stage and made a grand entrance. No one recognized me. The entire crew stepped aside deferentially, giving me a wide berth. The rumor was that Lady Ainsley was doing this test as a favor to John Ford. I had a ball fooling all the folks I'd worked with month after month. There's nothing Hollywood loves more than a bona fide title, and Lady Ainsley had one ... or so they believed.

John Ford came onto the set and went right to me. He played it straight but I could see the twinkle in his eye.

"Lady Ainsley, we have never met. However, I have seen you perform. I was in London eighteen months ago."

"Perhaps you saw me with Maurice Evans in As You Like It," I answered in my high-toned British accent.

"Yes, that must be it. My, that's wonderful makeup you're wearing. No one could possibly recognize you," he said audibly, and then, lowering his voice so only I could hear, whispered, "I had to tell Hepburn who you are. She'd kill me if she found out later, and I've got to make this film with her."

Katharine Hepburn came onto the stage dressed in her Mary costume. "Miss Hepburn, this is Lady Ainsley," announced the director. Kate looked at me as one does at an adversary.

"Hello," she managed. Kate looked at me again with an indescribably expression.

John placed us for the test and gave the signal, "All right. Camera, action. Don't just sit there. Talk to each other."

We were seated in high-backed oak chairs and a large mahogany table stood in front of us. I turned to Kate, and in my best British accent I said, "I've enjoyed watching your performances very much, Miss Hepburn."

Although everything looked normal above the table, below decks Kate swung her leg back and kicked me in the shins. Her expression was unchanged as she muttered in a stage whisper, "You 0#%&*$!! Who do you think you're fooling?"

I was surprised by her outburst and looked to see if the sound boom was in place. If her remarks had been recorded, that would spoil the whole deal. Luckily, it was a silent test. I bit my tongue to keep from answering back. My composure was slipping, but somehow I managed to offer another weak-tea type compliment. Her look was that of the cat ready to pounce on the canary, and I was the canary. History was reversing itself. "Mary" was going to behead "Elizabeth"!

Ford broke the spell. "Look to the left, then turn to the right. Just keep talking to each other." I moved my mouth as though speaking, as Kate continued to glare at me.

"Thank you, Lady Ainsley," said Ford. "As soon as the other tests are over, I'll come into your dressing room."

I got up slowly from my chair, and turned to Kate. "Thank you, Miss Hepburn," I said through clenched teeth. "Thank you very much."

As I headed for the portable dressing room, I ran smack into my old buddy Eddie Rubin. Eddie wasn't in on this ruse as he hadn't been around when this idea was hatched. He looked right at me as if I was a stranger and let me pass. I waited for the bomb to explode over my disguise. But nothing happened until John Ford burst into the room and said in a loud voice, "Lady Ainsley, thank you so much for your time and trouble. I knew we interrupted your holiday, but in a day or two, we'll get back to you. Leland Hayward is representing you - correct?"

"Yes, that's right, Mr. Ford."

"Good. I will speak with Leland after we see the test. Your Shakespearean ability is known to us, but we needed to see how you photographed opposite Miss Hepburn. Mr. Berman and I will be seeing this footage sometime late tomorrow afternoon. Thank you again." And he disappeared.

I returned to my dressing room, got out of the Renaissance clothing, and then went over to Mel Burns to get the makeup removed. I slipped out of the studio without being detected, and when I reached home, I called Leland to describe the events. He roared at hearing how Kate had kicked me.

A couple of days later Leland called and told me Pan had seen the tests and liked them. Now he wanted them reshot in sound. My ruse was really snowballing!

Alas, someone leaked the story, and the next day Louella Parsons's column was devoted to the Lady Ainsley incident. Lolly sharply criticized me for spending the company's money on a practical joke. Louella loved to give me the "raspberry" whenever she could. Hedda Hopper, on the other hand, seemed to like me, and I liked her. I think this was because she secretly thanked Lelee for not accepting a job offer with the Los Angeles Times. They then offered it to Hedda - and the rest is history. But Louella was another story. Unfortunately, I was not Carole Lombard, who could get away with anything. Louella called it a "practical joke", but in my heart, it was serious. I wanted that part so much I could taste it. And I had no other way of getting a test for the role.

I raced to the telephone to call Berman's house, and spoke with his wife, Vi. She told me Pan had not seen the morning paper because he had gone to the races at Santa Anita early that morning. Shortly thereafter, a friend called and asked me to the races ... at Santa Anita. To go or not to go, that was my dilemma. What if I ran into Berman? I decided to take the risk of bumping into him. With twelve thousand people at the races, that wasn't very likely.

So far, so good! I was standing near the betting window with my friend when I heard a familiar voice behind me. "You little devil! You know, young lady, you really had me going." I turned to face Pan Berman. "That was the best trick ever pulled on me. I had no idea that you were that 'lady' I saw on the screen. I never would have guessed it was you!"

I laughed and suggested that I do a second test. To his great credit, Pan Berman wasn't the least bit angry. His sense of humor about this was far better than anyone could have expected. But I didn't get the second test and I didn't get the part. The role of Elizabeth was given to Florence Eldridge. Maybe it was just as well, because the film wasn't favorably reviewed by the public. And if I had played the role of Elizabeth, both the studio and the public would probably have laid their complaints at my door!

The strip scene in 9 1/2 Weeks

Believe it or not, I think this scene was a difficult one to pull off effectively, at least in terms of the goals of the film. I do want to talk more about the film and the fine line the whole damn thing walks (which Adrian Lyne, to put it mildly, is NOT able to capture in some of his other "Oooh, graphic sex" films) ... but for now let's talk about the strip scene. He turns on Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and she strips for him, as he sits back, eating popcorn and enjoying her.

What's sexy about it (and this is not the case with a couple of the other more sexual scenes in the film) is that you really feel that these are two characters going through this - not just bodies and attitudes. Often in movies, when it comes time for the characters to have sex - the soundtrack comes on, the lights go down, and these characters become Olympic athletes of the sexual variety. The fact that they are people - who might have feelings about getting naked, or whatever - vanishes (in movie-land, anyway). In 9 1/2 Weeks - which is risky material any way you look at, and could have ended up being just a joke - or soft-core stuff like Wild Orchid - Lyne (and Rourke and Basinger) do not lose sight of the MEAT of the film - which is the relationship between these two. And - (and this is key) - NOT just his controlling of her (although that becomes more and more paramount as the film goes on). But his growing affection and love for her. Actually, that affection is there from the start, which makes him so off-putting (and yet sexy) in his first couple of scenes. He stands too close. He smiles intimately at her like he already knows her. Guy could come off as a creep, but he obviously senses a receptivity in her, a willingness ... and he plays her like a violin. But again: it is NOT just his controlling interest, it is not just his "let me feed you and infantilize" you attitude that comes out over the course of the film. 9 1/2 Weeks is mainly her battle, her battle to stay present, to ask herself questions like, "How far am I willing to go?" ... but by the end, we realize that it was his battle as well. This is a damaged individual. Look at his closet. I would see a closet like that and run screaming into the night. No, just kidding. But it's an interesting character detail, never really dwelled upon, just showed - and we are left to make up our own mind about it. All we need to know about the guy is what his closet looks like, and also the moment that he fills up with emotion at the very end right at the moment that he says the words, "My mother ..." Mickey Mickey Mickey, why are you so brilliant. A lesser actor would only be interested in playing the cool aloof part of the character, because it's safer that way.

Like I said, a film like this could end up being rather silly, and there are silly moments in it - some intentional, some not intentional. Having sex is sexy while you're doing it - but if you put a camera on two people going at it, it can look rather amusing. When the two of them have sex in the rainy stairwell - I know THEY'RE turned on, but to me, it's a funny scene. Not like goofy or dumb, but funny - because in that moment, those two people are totally focused on having sex, dammit, and it's just ridiculous! Actors have the same insecurities that real people do about all of this, so sometimes - as a defense mechanism against that - you can see male actors playing it "cool", like they'll never ever lose their cool - even in mid-sex ... Mickey Rourke is not playing that here, although in their "game" scenes, he definitely takes the lead, and loves taking the lead. But - what he never forgets to play - the element he never forgets to add into the pot - is HIS growing feeling for this woman. When he says at the end, "There have been a lot of girls ... but none I reacted to this way ..." I believe him. Not totally - it's a very unbalancing moment, and his performance is the most unbalancing thing in it, that's why it's great - but because of how he has played other moments (laughing at her jokes, being playful, moments of just BEING with her - when they're cooking in her kitchen, stuff like that) - I buy it. It costs him a lot to say it. And you know (or at least I know) that, in the life of this man, this is the most open he will ever get. This was his chance. She will have other chances. He will not. NONE of this is said, and that's why I think the film works.

I don't think it's a great film, but for me, it does work - and it's that strangely unsettling mix of fondness and cool control that makes it work.

So imagine the strip scene being played in Wild Orchid fashion (only without the plumped-out cheeks): a cool-as-ice man, smirking on the sidelines, as he watches a woman push past her comfort zone. A cool man who would never "lose it", who is always wound up tight, but without ever showing the effort. He would look on as she stripped, maybe he would have one eyebrow raised - that's as close as he would come to showing arousal. He would hold back, withhold ... and cackle with interior joy at her abandon.

That's not what is being played here and that's why the scene is so good, I think. I feel like they're a couple, first of all. This strip scene didn't happen on their first night together. It would have had a much different feeling if it had happened earlier in the timeline. This is at the halfway mark. She doesn't have to be coaxed or cajoled (although she does have a couple of cute freakout moments at the beginning) - and he is into it - not in a "Oooh, look at how much control I have over this woman" way ... but in a "Holy shit, I am the luckiest man alive" way. He's playing that. Some of the other sex scenes are played slowly - lingered over to an almost fetishistic degree - this one is not. They are having a blast.

And he's doing some very unexpected fun things as he's watching her. It's hard to have any focus on yourself in a scene where a woman is taking her clothes off. How do you compete? He does. This is not a scene where it's all about HER (even though it is) - HE is an essential part of making the whole thing work.

Just by watching.

And not just by watching. But HOW he watches.

(Screenshots and clip below. Check out what he does at around the 2:10 - 2:13 mark ... that's the kind of thing I mean).

"Let it not come by word of mouth..."

Today is Sylvia Plath's birthday. Seems weird to wish her a "happy" birthday. Much of this post will be familiar to regular readers. As always, I hone it, from year to year - adding links, taking things away. But it's a day I feel I need to honor regularly - just because of how much her poems have meant to me.

That's a sketch she did of her own hands. She found drawing very relaxing. She would lose herself in it, and spent most of her honeymoon in Spain (a place she found almost unbearably upsetting - Ted Hughes, her husband, wrote a poem many years later called "You Hated Spain") huddled over a sketch pad. She drew the streets, the fruit baskets, the fishing boats. Was there pleasure in it for her? I don't know. I think it was a way to unhinge her brain for a moment, lose herself in the moment - where all she could do, all she was able to do, was just copy what she saw. She didn't have to find the right word, or struggle with the poetry muse ... she just had to sit down and copy what she saw. Ted Hughes wrote a poem, too, about her drawing.

In honor of the birthday of this eventually astonishing poet (she didn't start out that way, although she was certainly precocious - but NONE of her early work could prepare you for what her work became in the last 2 years of her life - it's like another PERSON came out of her ....) - I have dug up some wonderful old photographs of her. She was a chameleon. She was an all-American girl. She was a bleached blonde beach-blanket-bingo girl. She was an academic prodigy. She was a depressive who had survived a suicide attempt her junior year in college. She was the woman who married the big brash English outdoorsman, and suddenly found herself fishing, and hunting, and tromping through the woods in galoshes. Who was she? I have no idea. But you can take a look at all the photographs and see how startling are the transformations. This is not just about the passage of time, and someone looking different as they grew older ... this really seems to be about a shedding of selves (like she writes in Lady Lazarus, in one of my favorite lines: "my selves dissolving, old whores petticoats") -

I look at the picture of the bodacious blonde at the beach:

This was from her summer of recovery from her suicide attempt in college. She spent months in an institution - and then went back to Smith to finish out her education. When summer came - she bleached her hair. Her mother Aurelia Plath was shocked. She pretended to be supportive - but deep down, she wanted a conventional daughter. I have read enough about that woman to feel totally comfortable in weighing in with a judgment like that. Sylvia tormented herself trying to be conventional (many of her problems arose from what she felt was expected from her - as a daughter, as a wife, as a woman, in general) - and bleaching her hair was part of a necessary rebellion. Also, she started having sex. Left and right. Willy nilly. No more good 1950s girl. That "be a good girl" thing had nearly killed her. Her doctor at the time encouraged this rebellion, and taught her about birth control, so she could at least have sex safely. This was a revelation to Sylvia. She was a very sexual person, passionate, kind of wild actually. You know, the thing is - any type of artist is usually, to some degree, on the fringe of polite society - even if they are well-behaved, merely because they have chosen to make their living at art. The strict rules on women at that time were fetters around Sylvia's wrists. NOT CARING what people thought of her - was one of the biggest breakthroughs in her life. NOT CARING if people whispered, "She's a slut." And they did. Especially when she got to England on her Fulbright. Tapping into her REBEL, into her "I just don't care" persona was really important - but ultimately, it didn't matter at all. Because once she got married and once she had kids - these old conventional "roles" started constricting her again (she writes about it extensively in her poems) ... It seemed that there was an incompatability: between the poetess and the woman. Could she be a wife and ALSO a poet? What were the expectations of her? It did not help matters (although she might have thought it would) that she married not just another poet - but one of the most important up-and-coming poets in England - a man who eventually (years later) would be Poet Laureate. Like - Ted Hughes was a big deal. And he was on his way to becoming a big deal when Sylvia met him. How can two poets tryiing to make their names live together? Would they compete? To quote Meryl Streep in Postcards from the Edge, in regards to her competitive mother, "I couldn't compete with you, Mother. What if somebody won??"

Ted Hughes insists (and he has also written extensively about it) that he did not expect a good polite 1950s wife at all. When he first met Sylvia at a party - they both were drunk - and they basically found themselves in an empty room - making out ferociously. Sylvia bit his cheek so hard she drew blood. They were married 4 months later. THIS was their beginning. There was no nice good-girl 1950s courtship. They didn't go out for sodas and a drive-in. No. They were bohemians, for God's sake. They were poets. People like that don't live by society's rules, nor should they. (Especially if the rules are stupid.) But Ted, in some of his later poems, has described how baffled and hurt he was - after their marriage - when Sylvia suddenly got writer's block. She had writer's block for an agonizing year, year and a half - directly after their wedding. Hmmmm, coincidence? I think not. It seems apparent that Sylvia was so terrified of doing BETTER than her husband that ... everything shut down. She then tried to be the perfect housewife - and ... Ted, again, was hurt and confused by this. Where is that wild poetess? Where is my crazy American girl who shouts out lines of Chaucer to the cows? Why is she in the kitchen, tears running down her face, trying to bake pies? I mean ... what has happened??

Then I look at the picture of her with her two kids (taken a month or so before she committed suicide):

Her mother took that photograph during her fateful visit to her daughter. Sylvia was living in England - and her husband Ted Hughes had just left her for another woman. Comparing that photograph to the blonde bikini one - it;s hard to believe it's the same person. Perhaps there's something similar in the smile - there's something phony in both smiles, to my eye. Anyway, I find it fascinating - perusing the photos of Sylvia Plath.

Not nearly as fascinating as her poems themselves which have never lost their power - no matter how times I have read them.

I have gone through a bunch of Plath phases - and I am sure I will go through more. I continue to re-visit her work, every couple of years ... and re-read all those 1960-1963 poems again - sometimes in order - sometimes muddling it up - and every single time, even though I always have different responses, and sometimes one poem suddenly seems THE BEST when a couple years before it was another poem that was obviously HER BEST - but anyway, every single time I read those poems from her last 3 years, they take my breath away. They're no picnic, especially if you read them chronologically. If you read them chronologically - you can feel her get manic - in October of 62 - and she starts cranking out 2, 3, sometimes 4 poems a day. These were not pot-boilers, folks. These poems are now taught in colleges. These are the poems that would make her name. She wasn't just scribbling out insane manic fantasies - these are highly intricate, passionate, unbeLIEVable poems. Then there is a brief falling away for a month - December ... she was still writing, but obviously it was the calm before the storm. Then January and February 1963 came along - and it was the coldest winter London had ever had - and her pipes froze - and she had no help, and two young babies - and things started getting worse and worse in her mind. And her art kicked in yet again - with ferocity and power. She would write these poems at 4 in the morning - her only time to herself. You can feel the wheels start cranking again - in January, February - she wrote some of her best poems then. They are more frightening, however, than the October poems. She is beginning to embrace the idea of death ... Death is always a factor in Plath's poems, but it takes on a new form in those last couple of poems. It is no longer just a fantasy, death is no longer a dream-lover in the night ... or a mysterious figure behind the curtain ... she is now making plans. The rage of October (which gave us such poems as "Daddy", and "Poppies in October", and the entire bee-keeping sequence) is now gone. And you can feel a chilling resolve creep into her work. She is getting ready to go.

I have interspersed the photos of Plath I found with some of my favorite of her poems.

In honor of her birthday, here's one that she actually wrote about her upcoming birthday - in 1962. She wrote this poem, now one of her most well-known, on Sept. 30 1962 ... right before the blast of creativity and rage that would fuel her through that painful next month. Sylvia always had a fatalistic thing with birthdays:

A Birthday Present

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine-----

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and too numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

That's a picture of Sylvia from 1953 - right before her first suicide attempt. She was living with her mother - and her mother made her take shorthand classes and typing classes (again: there is something evil about that. That very same attitude is why Barbra Streisand has always had such long nails. People laugh at those nails, or make fun of Babs for them ... but I see them, and I love them. Because to her - those nails meant freedom. Her mother was negative about Barbra's actual goals - she wanted to have a normal daughter - so she signed her up for typing classes. In rebellion, Babs grew her nails to extraordinary length so that even if she wanted to learn how to type - she couldn't physically do it because the nails got in the way. So when I see those nails now - on a 60 something year old woman - I smile. It's a reminder.) There is a story here: of the mother who truly DOESN'T love her daughter. She doesn't. Not really. She wants ANOTHER daughter. She is proud of Sylvia's accomplishments, and Sylvia responds in kind - bombarding her mother with letter after letter listing all of her triumphs and victories - sometimes 3 letters a day ... it's too much. Sylvia, at the end of her life, was starting to come to terms with the relationship with her mother and how toxic it was for her. She writes, quite blatantly, in her journal, "I can never live near my mother again." Her mother comes to visit in Oct. 1962, right after Ted has moved out - to be with Assia Wevill, the woman with whom he had been having an affair. Sylvia was tormented by having her mother see her in such a weak moment. To her, it was unforgivable. She wrote her poem "Medusa" about that experience - which is, you know, shocking in its hatred, and anger. But again: poets who live by society's rules and play well with others are usually not poets to be reckoned with. Sylvia coming to terms with her rage was part of her finding her voice.

"The Moon and the Yew Tree" was written in 1961 - and is considered a breakthrough - by those who have studied Plath's work. In it - she finds some of that cold clear eerie imagery - that she will write about until the very end. She looks out her window and sees a moon, a church, and a black yew tree. It is a beautiful image - and yet ... in the poem ... it becomes a harbinger. Of death, doom.

And personally - I think the first line of this poem is one of her best lines ever.

The moon and the yew tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky ----
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness ----
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness -- blackness and silence

Little Fugue

The yew's black fingers wag:
Cold clouds go over.
So the deaf and dumb
Signal the blind, and are ignored.

I like black statements.
The featurelessness of that cloud, now!
White as an eye all over!
The eye of the blind pianist

At my table on the ship.
He felt for his food.
His fingers had the noses of weasels.
I couldn't stop looking.

He could hear Beethoven:
Black yew, white cloud,
The horrific complications.
Finger-traps--a tumult of keys.

Empty and silly as plates,
So the blind smile.
I envy big noises,
The yew hedge of the Grosse Fuge.
Deafness is something else.
Such a dark funnel, my father!
I see your voice
Black and leafy, as in my childhood.

A yew hedge of orders,
Gothic and barbarous, pure German.
Dead men cry from it.
I am guilty of nothing.

The yew my Christ, then.
Is it not as tortured?
And you, during the Great War
In the California delicatessen

Lopping off the sausages!
They colour my sleep,
Red, mottled, like cut necks.
There was a silence!

Great silence of another order.
I was seven, I knew nothing.
The world occurred.
You had one leg, and a Prussian mind.

Now similar clouds
Are spreading their vacuous sheets.
Do you say nothing?
I am lame in the memory.

I remember a blue eye,
A briefcase of tangerines.
This was a man, then!
Death opened, like a black tree, blackly.

I survive the while,
Arranging my morning.
These are my fingers, this my baby.
The clouds are a marriage of dress, of that pallor.

The Bee Meeting (this is one of the poems in her famous "bee sequence" - which she cranked out at 1 or 2 a day, during October of 1962.)

Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers ---
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?
Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,
Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees.
Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.
They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.

Which is the rector now, is it that man in black?
Which is the midwife, is that her blue coat?
Everybody is nodding a square black head, they are knights in visors,
Breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits.

Their smiles and their voices are changing. I am led through a beanfield.

Strips of tinfoil winking like people,
Feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers,
Creamy bean flowers with black eyes and leaves like bored hearts.
Is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string?
No, no, it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible.

Now they are giving me a fashionable white straw Italian hat
And a black veil that molds to my face, they are making me one of them.
They are leading me to the shorn grove, the circle of hives.
Is it the hawthorn that smells so sick?
The barren body of hawthon, etherizing its children.

Is it some operation that is taking place?
It is the surgeon my neighbors are waiting for,
This apparition in a green helmet,
Shining gloves and white suit.
Is it the butcher, the grocer, the postman, someone I know?

I cannot run, I am rooted, and the gorse hurts me
With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.
I could not run without having to run forever.
The white hive is snug as a virgin,
Sealing off her brood cells, her honey, and quietly humming.

Smoke rolls and scarves in the grove.
The mind of the hive thinks this is the end of everything.
Here they come, the outriders, on their hysterical elastics.
If I stand very still, they will think I am cow-parsley,
A gullible head untouched by their animosity,

Not even nodding, a personage in a hedgerow.
The villagers open the chambers, they are hunting the queen.
Is she hiding, is she eating honey? She is very clever.
She is old, old, old, she must live another year, and she knows it.
While in their fingerjoint cells the new virgins

Dream of a duel they will win inevitably,
A curtain of wax dividing them from the bride flight,
The upflight of the murderess into a heaven that loves her.
The villagers are moving the virgins, there will be no killing.
The old queen does not show herself, is she so ungrateful?

I am exhausted, I am exhausted ---
Pillar of white in a blackout of knives.
I am the magician's girl who does not flinch.
The villagers are untying their disguises, they are shaking hands.
Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am I cold.

Fever 103 (another Oct. 1962 poem)

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora's scarves, I'm in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern ---

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise ---
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean.
Not you, nor him.

Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) ---
To Paradise.

The Couriers (written in Nov. 1962)

The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf?
It is not mine. Do not accept it.

Acetic acid in a sealed tin?
Do not accept it. It is not genuine.

A ring of gold with the sun in it?
Lies. Lies and a grief.

Frost on a leaf, the immaculate
Cauldron, talking and crackling

All to itself on the top of each
Of nine black Alps.

A disturbance in mirrors,
The sea shattering its grey one -

Love, love, my season.

I think the following poem is the saddest she ever wrote. Now who can ever say what is in the mind of another - and it is always a dangerous thing to read too much into these poems (at least in a biographical way). They are, after all, art. But I believe that one of the reasons she killed herself is to spare her children a mother whose face was "a ceiling without a star". Not that that excuses her actions. But she wrote this poem in January of 1963, 2 weeks before she put her head in the oven. I find this poem nearly unreadable in its sadness. Yet - wonderful writing as well.

Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new

Whose names you meditate ---
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes - newlyweds. Happier days. What a gorgeous couple they were.

And this is the last poem that Sylvia Plath completed. It's chilling, yes, but standing alone - as a poem - I think there's a lot to talk about here, a lot of stuff - not just biographical.

The line "her blacks crackle and drag" is fantastic genius-level imagery with major staying power. "Her blacks crackle and drag." (And yes ... let me just throw a shout-out to Paul Westerberg - who has also recognized the genius imagery in that line.) It's scary. "Crackle"? "Drag?" All kinds of very frightening images come to mind in those two simple words ... and the internal rhyme of "blacks" and "crackle" make it seem even more eerie. She completed her last poem (below) on February 4, 1963. She killed herself on February 11.

Edge

The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

Let us not do a disservice to this great artist and see her only in terms of her self-inflicted end. Let us look at her art, please. Let us focus on that. If we can remove the context of her life from the poems; what is left? What do we see? What about those words, huh? What about her WORK?

Other posts I have written about Plath:
The so-called villainy of Ted Hughes

Plath's writer's block of 1959-1960

On the re-issuing of "Ariel"

The Plath/Hughes exhibit

On Assia Wevill

On The Bell Jar

In which Michael, an ex-boyfriend, remembers more than I do

Mitchell has always referred to me as "the Homer in our group of friends", due to my propensity to write everything down and to retain EVERYTHING. I have a tendency to shock my friends with my memory about THEIR lives. I not only retain my own life, but everyone else's as well.

When it comes to my ex-boyfriends, I sometimes feel like I carry around ALL the memories for both of us, which is not entirely fair of me, it's just a perception I have.

Cut to a couple weeks ago. I am starting my Mickey Rourke obsession and I write a piece on Johnny Handsome, which I hadn't seen.

Last night, I get an email from Michael, one of my ex-boyfriends. I dated him for 6 weeks over 10 years ago, yet we have remained in touch, and good friends. Michael has gone on to great success - and I included the movie he directed (and also wrote and starred in) - Kwik Stop - in my under-rated movies series. I'm proud of him. In 2006, he came and stayed with me for a week, and while the whole week was full of talk - we also had a great conversation, on the roof, about "what we remembered". I love that crap. The world can be a howling wilderness. It is so nice to be reminded that you are specific to someone, that YOU are held in THEIR brain ... it gives substance to the intangible. It means a lot to me.

SO. There is the preamble for the hysterical email I received last night.

He and I haven't talked in a couple of months and suddenly an email from him comes in.

I read it and started laughing.

I wrote him back and asked him permission to post it on the blog, because it is too funny a joke on myself NOT to share. When I asked him if I could post it, he replied,

of course you can quote my email (i'm a whore).
more soon.
#1 Mickey fan

I am laughing out loud.

So here is Michael's email entire.

And remember that I had made this huge deal on my site out of not seeing Johnny Handsome:

ok.
so i just read most of your posts on Mickey and as you already know, i worship the man. more than Travolta. in fact, it's always been a joke amongst my friends that i could go on for hours about his career and how important he is, etc., and for nearly a decade, i was still renting all those straight-to-video pieces of garbage for a glimmer of the former man (Another 9 1/2 Weeks, Bullet, Thursday, etc) and hoping for a comeback in Animal Factory or The Pledge or even Get Carter and finally, yes, Sin City, but The Wrestler seems to be the film to finally put our man back on top.

So.

what's this bullshit that you NEVER saw Johnny Handsome before? uh, excuse me, but i distinctly remember showing it to you in Ithaca, at that first apartment Pat & i were staying at, one cloudy Sunday afternoon, talking throughout, pointing out his genius, especially the scene in which he takes off the bandages. how could you forget any precious moment with me?

I have no reason to doubt Michael's memory - although, in my defense, I have NO memory of this - and that is so so weird to me, because like I said - I remember everything. I thought I remembered EVERYTHING about our relationship. That's the whole point of the damn cup I stole. But somehow, I did NOT remember him showing me Johnny Handsome and "pointing out his genius" to me "one cloudy Sunday afternoon". Not only that - but the movie itself has VANISHED from my memory. That is so weird. I remember word for word dialogue from 8 is Enough episodes that aired in 1979 and I don't remember Johnny Handsome, a movie starring my favorite actor? Was I on crack? Was I so overwhelmed by Michael's presence that I wasn't thinking straight? What the hell?

Perhaps it will come back under hypnosis.

So now I am getting a taste of my own medicine. Someone remembers MORE than I do. Very odd. And also - I have been SO busted on my "Ohmygod I have not seen Johnny Handsome" statements and I just love it when that happens. It's so funny to me. I love picturing Michael reading that post and being like, "What the hell is her problem? Yes, she DID see Johnny Handsome. BAH HUMBUG."

Fact-checked by an ex.

So, yeah. I guess I DID see Johnny Handsome, lo those many years ago, as the clouds rolled in from the north, sitting next to my boyfriend, as he pointed out moments he loved, a movie that clearly means a lot to him. But as far as I'm concerned NONE of it remains in my brain. I'll just have to trust him that it happened.

I revel in the novelty of this experience.

The Mickey Rourke refresher course ...

... continues.

Hope's psychological realities

When Hope came to live with me, my bed was up underneath my big window. The window has a wide wide sill and that is, naturally, her favorite place to be. I discovered very early on that Hope was not a cuddler, and she never slept in the bed with me. She would sleep on the window sill, hunched up like a Cornish hen, her ears black silhouettes like a little bat in the night. I would sometimes try to drag her into bed with me, to see how she would tolerate it, but no. She would ENDURE it for 2 seconds and then wriggle away to go back to the window. I eventually just let her be.

Then, last weekend, horrors: I moved my bed. I took it out from under the window and placed it across the room against the wall - with no window any where near. I like to lounge about in my bed, surrounded by my books and my laptop. It is my hangout place. Back when the bed was by the window, Hope would sit next to me - only ON THE WINDOWSILL - not on the bed - which was, perhaps, too much of a separation anxiety for Hope, being 2 feet away from the great outdoors, as opposed to her nose up against the screen.

But now that the bed has moved ... hmmmm, not to make too big a deal out of it ... but Hope now hangs out on the bed with me. She still likes her spot in the window (she is there right now) - but she also climbs up on the bed while I am there, and goes into a blissful kneading of the blankets with her paws, and then flops across the pillows, lounging like a pasha. She even lets me pat her belly. Her purrs fill the room.

So. Not to totally anthropomorphize, but obviously Hope made a choice when the bed moved. She actually DID want to be close to me (which is in evidence at other times when she follows me from room to room) ... and so she chose to forsake the window for long stretches of time so that she could be close to me. Not on my lap, but near enough for ... comfort? Togetherness?

A cat's heart is as deep as the ocean.

I have no explanation

3 p.m. Stopped for gas on 95 South at a rest area. I said to gas attendant, "Fill it up with regular, please." He was a short Hispanic man, as short as he was wide. He said, "Someone like you - beautiful woman - beautiful car - should only buy SUPER because YOU are Super!" I started laughing - and he pointed at the directions on the gas tank - and where it said, "Lift nozzle", he said - pretending to read it out loud, "If beautiful woman drives up, she get 50% off." He was basically overwhelming me with compliments. As I drove off, I called out the window, "Thank you!" and I heard his voice come back, "Bye bye, beautiful lady!"

5:15 pm Drove to a home-goods store near my house to stock up on this rose oil I have recently discovered for my oil-burning lamp. I bought it at this same store - I had gone in there just looking for incense a couple of days ago. It is run by a very nice family from China (I got their whole life story in the 10 minutes I was there.) The younger woman pointed out a lamp to me and told me why it was so good. She was a brilliant saleswoman. I bought it. So now - I need to re-stock on the rose oil I like. I walked in and now it was the father, sitting behind the counter. I went right to the counter and picked up a big bottle of rose oil. We started chatting about my new lamp. I told him how much I liked it and how I am a huge fan. The bottle of oil was $20.33. I gave him $25.00 and he handed me back the five saying, "You beautiful. You pay me 33 cents later."

5:30 I stopped off at the wine store to get a bottle of wine. The guy in front of me in line was Italian and telling the man behind the counter about how he's from Italy and they had their own secret recipe for whatever drink it was back home in Italy and he was going to make it for the holidays. He wasn't being noticeably a pain in the ass, but he certainly was not hurrying up the end of the conversation even though I was in line behind him. Then he walked off and I went up to the counter. The fat balding Italian man behind the counter smiled at me, and I said, "How are you?" He said, "Much better now, beautiful."

I considered asking him for a discount, just to see what I could get away with, wielding my newfound beauty that had been stunning men of all accents up and down the eastern seaboard in the last 2 hours. I have no explanation. I had been crying yesterday, so I looked a wreck. I was wearing sunglasses, my hair in a messy ponytail, I had on a baggy Red Sox T shirt, black leggings and a big bulky sweater. I didn't look as bad as this:

but I was pretty darn close.

However, for a brief 2 and a half hours, I was the most beautiful woman in the world, apparently.

It was nice. Made the day full of smiles.

Oct. 25: "We few, we happy few ..."

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t'old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

-- Henry V (Act IV, scene iii)

Two film versions of this magnificent speech below. (The music in the Kenneth Branagh version is brilliant, I think. The speech is so good you don't really need to add too much to it ... but in that case, the music works. Also - watch how he builds it. You keep thinking it can't get more intense ... and yet it does. And, in the Olivier version - i remember vividly my acting teacher in college talking about how Olivier did this speech, especially his last vocal moment, when he says 'day' and catapults his voice up and up and up the scale - it is odd, artificial, and yet also completely fearless and specific. Nobody could pull off a vocal stunt like that except Olivier. )

Harold Clurman and Clifford Odets: Film Noir

Clurman and Odets, old colleagues from the Group Theatre, were reunited in 1946 (at least professionally - they were good friends in real life) to do the film Deadline at Dawn.

I was asked to write a review of Deadline at Dawn for the great site Noir of the Week - and so I did (I was VERY interested to see the only film that Harold Clurman - great man of the theatre - ever directed - not to mention the fact that it was written by Clifford Odets!)

It's a two-part review:

Part 1
Part 2

Diary Friday

I posted this one a couple of years ago. It is from my junior year in high school. I am in love with someone. The first sentence of this journal entry makes me laugh out loud.

NOVEMBER 14

I am going to Donkey Ball tomorrow at 7:30. It's a wicked fun thing where the classes compete by playing basketball on donkeys. I've never been but everyone's making such a big deal about it. It'll be fun. The band'll be there. [I was in love with DW, band president - so naturally I suddenly became a huge band afficianado.] Now I didn't know that when I bought tickets. This just makes it all the more great. I can't wait!

If you can stand it, I've got a few more DW tidbits for you! And I'm not sorry! [Who ya talkin' to, Sheila?] School is so fun now. Everything goes by so fast. Suddenly it's 4th period French. He's always in there before me. Today, though, he was right behind me. I always recognize his voice. Anyway, I came into the room and put my stuff on my desk. DW brushed past me to get to his desk. I hopped up on my desk and sat there swinging my feet. DW came by to throw something away and as he walked by, he glanced down at me and said, "I saw you at the game on Saturday, Sheila." (in a joking accusing way). My heart started going 5 million beats a milli-second. [Wow. That's so specific.] And I said, "Well, I saw you too!" That was the best I could come up with spur of the moment. I am a dumbass. Then as he walked by again, I started singing, "Duh- duh - duh - duh - deduh! Duh duh duh duh duh duh ..." [What are you retarded, Sheila? I have no idea what that song is supposed to be.] Hearing that, he immediately stopped and looked at me. Okay, I suppose I did sing it cause I knew he would hear. Anyway, he started to his desk, singing his jazzy part. [Again with the jazzy?] I almost died. He's so musical. Really nice deep voice. I felt like throwing myself on him and saying, "You are such a good sax player!" Of course I didn't. [Glad you didn't. Also: y'know what, Sheila Teenager? You're musical too. You have a terrific singing voice. Don't make him out to be God. You're pretty awesome yourself. Just thought you should know.]

Anyway, after class - DW walked out in front of me. God, is he tall - I love it - It's getting easier and easier to just talk to him - it comes more natural. I have inklings sometimes about him, but they're embarrassing to say. [And saying "I'm going to Donkey Ball tomorrow at 7:30" ISN'T embarrassing?] He is always looking over at me. Anyway, I said, "DW!" He stopped and sort of twisted his body to look back at me. [Notice the detail. I noticed EVERYTHING. And I remember EVERYTHING. Body language, how someone stands, turns, their glances, their slight grins - Especially with guys I am crazy about. Their body language is usually emblazoned on my brain like a newsreel. I can still see how the boy I loved when I was 11 tilted his head to the side when he was writing at his desk, etc. etc. A strange phenomenon. And it was in full-blown mania stage with this DW character.] What does he see when he looks at me? Does he see anything? [Er - I hope so. You do, after all, take up space, and are made up of matter. It's not like you're a little ghostie and you call out his name - he turns around and there's nothing there!] I trotted up to catch up to him and we walked along together.

[Please try to read my first comment to DW without guffawing.]

"Is it too late to buy a donkey ball ticket?"

[I am shaking with laughter.]

He said, "Nope!" Very confident voice - not chipper - but ... he looked very - pleased, sort of. Happy. Because I was talking to him? Oh God, Sheila. SHUT UP. Anyway, I said, "Can I buy one at lunch?" "You sure can!" I love him! I love his voice! I love the way he walks, talks, smiles at me, holds his books.

Then I turned and flew lightly down the stairs to Math. When the break bell rang, I ran to meet Mere so we could go to lunch together. I assaulted her with: "LET'S GO TO DONKEY BALL! AHHHH!" [Sheila, what the hell is up with your whole Donkey Ball obsession?] Poor Mere was depressed because of BB and I was so up up up! I saw her face, sobered up and said, "Okay. Sorry. I'm serious now." I tried to keep a straight face, but a smile exploded through, which then got Mere laughing.

We went into the lunch room. There, sitting at one table, with a big donkey ball sign [I swear, if you say "donkey ball" one more time, I'm gonna kick your ass.] was DW! I had a heart attack. I attacked Mere, crying, "Oh, let's get tickets! Let's get tickets!" Mere nodded wearily. "Okay. Okay." [hahahahaha "wearily" ] She leant me some money [Good Lord. She leant me money FOR DONKEY BALL TICKETS? That is above and beyond the call of friendship duty] and I casually strolled over. [Sheila, you couldn't be casual if you tried.] He was sitting - sort of languidly - his long legs jutted out, and I came up. He glanced up, saw me, and smiled -- real smile - I love his smile - I mean, it's like trying to describe how I feel when I'm acting. I can't say it, or describe it. I just do it. I gave him the money for our tickets and he handed me the change, saying, "Thank you, ma'am! Tell all your friends!"

I can't -- I just can't -- I can't tell you how I feel!! But I know how I feel, even though I can't say it.

9 1/2 Weeks:

A couple things:

1. The Manhattan in 9 1/2 Weeks is one that I recognize, and that is not always the case when it comes to the representation of my fair city in film. I am thinking of Unfaithful, another of Adrian Lyne's films, where the streets of Soho look art decorated to death, an idea of itself, rather than the genuine article. Perhaps that was appropriate for Unfaithful, but here in 9 1/2 Weeks, we can see the Manhattan of Midnight Cowboy and other gritty 1970s films. Perhaps not quite as disgusting as the Manhattan of Taxi Driver, but still: the greyness, the random glimpses of humanity, the long long vistas of crazy avenues, the cabs that barrel along looking just as ready to kill you as pick you up ... and the general frenetic air of things like Chinatown and street fairs ... all of this ring true. The opening section of the film, as the beginning credits start, shows Kim Basinger strolling through the streets of New York to her job (at the Spring Street Gallery which means Soho) ... and seriously this woman must have the longest walk to work since my great-great-grandpappy struggled through 10 feet of snow to get to school every day and he liked it. Hasn't she ever heard of subways? She appears to live on the Upper West Side and so she walks 70 odd blocks to work? Also, she strolls under grimy overpasses, walks down roads that look like Broadway, crosses over on side streets, narrow and wet ... Does she cover all 5 boroughs in her morning commute or what exactly is going on here? Maybe that's how she stays so slim. She walks 20 miles to work every morning even though Manhattan is only 13.4 miles long. Anyway. Ridiculousness of her morning walk aside ... Lyne takes the time to show a New York that appears to not have a mask on. A woman with curlers stands on the sidewalk, waiting for her dog to pee, looking annoyed - but not at all concerned that she is out in public in her curlers. Garbage men hoot and holler at Basinger as she walks by. Things are seen and then vanish - which is just what it is like when you walk through Manhattan on any given day. I liked that part of the film ... that even with all its sexual shenanigans - it seems place-able. It seems like it happens in the real world - not some Art Deco soft-core version of New York. (There are a couple of exceptions to this in the film which I'll get to later in some other post. This is just a preliminary post.)

2. I liked how - in the first half of the film - both Rourke and Basinger are, more often than not, filmed from at a distance, with things passing in front of their faces, or a pane of glass in between them and the camera, reflections going by ... Basinger strolls through a street fair, and we see glimpses of her - through the displays of scarves and necklaces, and the bubbles floating through the air. We see Rourke too, and he is also partially hidden by foreground objects or people. It gives a voyeuristic feeling to the film - and yes, I do think that was deliberate - BUT - more than that, it dovetails with what I observed in my first comment: This is New York City, a crowded metropolis. You rarely look at anything without other things in the way. You look up at the spire of the Empire State Building, and there are 10 buildings in between you and it. You look at a sign across the street, and it comes to you in flashes because of passing busses, or garbage trucks, or just the throngs of people. It is a city that seems to keep you at a distance - but at the same time, it beckons you, "Come closer ... come closer ... the only way you will ever really get to know me is if you come really close ..." 9 1/2 Weeks captures perfectly that distant yet intimate feeling in the streets of New York ... and places its characters firmly in that environment. It is not just about them. It is about them navigating their way through the world, with all kinds of things in the way - even just things like a display of necklaces - so that whatever it is that is facing them cannot, yet, be seen directly. Nothing comes off as whole. You have to make sense of the fragments.

This is not wholly successful in the film and there are times when it flat out does not work ... but if you notice by the end of the film - when Basinger finally cracks - we see her head-on. We see him head-on. She stands in his main room, looking at him. Nothing in the way. And he stands in the doorway looking at her, nothing in the way there either. And it's unbearable. They can't be with it - neither of them can ... and so it ends.

I may be reading more into this than is there, but I don't think so.

Some screenshots illustrating all of this below.

Sunset on the river

Don't mind me, Lady. Just doin' my own thing. Where's the Fancy Feast?

Normally when I come home after a long day, Hope is standing right at the door, purring so loudly that I worry for her emotional state of mind. I pick her up and she literally snuggles, purring like crazy, and while I realize that it is really about the possibility of a Fancy Feast meal, I like to think she is happy to see me.

BUT - sometimes - once in a blue moon, I walk in the door and the small purring machine is NOT waiting for me. My hallway (if you can call it that) is empty and barren. She is nowhere to be seen. I have to admit I have a moment of loneliness when this occurs, I miss being greeted like that, so I call out, "Hope?" No response. I check the sink. She's not there. "Hope?" I call out again, like a jealous lover. I move into the apartment, still no furry purring creature ...

... and I walk into my main room and this is what I see.

She is so in the midst of doing her own thing, sleeping so deeply that even when I pet her she barely stirs ... and it just cracks me up because it makes me realize that I do not have a pet, really. I have a roommate. I love that. I love when she just goes ahead and does her own thing - although sometimes it is amusing when she follows me from room to room, even deciding to urinate when I decide to urinate ... like: Hon, you don't need to sync up your bladder with mine, seriously, just chillax ... but I love it best when I see her splayed out in some napping pose like that and can't even be bothered to greet me at the door.

Of course once she realizes I'm home, she becomes a pest and a half, due to the impending Fancy Feast ritual.

Literary Couples

Got this question from Ted:

“Name a favorite literary couple and tell me why they are a favorite. If you cannot choose just one, that is okay too. Name as many as you like–sometimes narrowing down a list can be extremely difficult and painful. Or maybe that’s just me.”

I am not limiting myself to romantic couples. I am thinking in terms of pairs.

John and Alma Summer and Smoke, (excerpt here). The play itself has some problems, and it is certainly not as well-known as Tennessee Williams' more famous plays - but the love story of John and Alma burns right through me. It is his most tragic relationship ... because you know, if the universe were a FAIR one, these two would be together. And nothing at all can be right in the world as long as it didn't work out between the two of them. I can't read this play without weeping. I have lived it.

Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (excerpt here) Cousins. Comic book artists. At first Sam is resentful of this refugee cousin who has to now share his room in Brooklyn. But gradually, the relationship blossoms into friendship - and not only that, but colleagues. The last conversation in the book between the two cousins made me weep when I first read it. I felt such understated yet unbelievable love there ... And the added layer of Sam Clay being gay - and finally coming to know that about himself ... Killer. I invested in those two. I missed them when that book ended. I still do.

Max and Eleanor. Hopeful Monsters (excerpt here) A British boy, a German-Jewish girl, fighting across war-torn Europe to be together ... and they don't even know why ... they just know that the world is somehow balanced between them, they teeter on a tightrope wire over the abyss - and somehow ... whatever else happens, Europe being swallowed up by fascism and dictatorship ... their love must survive. Whatever form it takes. The form is irrelevant. Amazing relationship.

Nelson Denoon and unnamed narrator. Mating (excerpt here). I honestly can't go into it at this time. All I know is - these people live, and if it is life and death to THEM whether or not they get back together, then it is life and death to me too.

Beverly and Derek Life Without Friends (excerpt here) Please do not judge. This romance GETS to me ... and I re-read the book this summer, and although I am not 17 years old or however old I was when I first read it - it STILL gets to me. I love both of those people. And I love both of them together.

Aubrey & Maturin. The Master & Commander series (excerpt here) Their relationship spans so many books and it never gets old, never seems stale - or like it's schtick. These people were obviously very alive to Patrick O'Brian - I never feel him getting into a rote-mode with them, they are difficult complex men - polar opposites in some ways ... and as they get older, their differences just become more entrenched, rather than softening at the edges. Yet there is obviously something in each one that the other relies upon - and gets from him like no other. They are intellectually curious 19th century men, and their relationship is one I treasure. You want them never ever to stop talking to one another.

Jo and Laurie. Little Women (excerpt here). I don't know who Amy and her blond curls and her stolen limes thinks she is - but Laurie is JO'S MAN ... and the second half of the book always (still) throws me off when stupid German professor with his maudlin poetry enters the picture. Regardless - the first half of that book - when Jo and Laurie become friends ... FUGGEDABOUTIT. Doesn't get any better. I love those two people so much.

Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. Jane Eyre (excerpt here) The weirdest creepiest literary romance I can think of, with a cross-dressing episode and a calling-across-the-space-time-continuum ending ... an unclassifiable book with two unclassifiable leads. I adore them.

Gillian and the djinn. "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" (excerpt here). I know it's obscure but the short story had me in its grip and I still dream and fantasize about it, it was that captivating. Gillian is an academic, a celibate middle-aged woman, who somehow lets a genie out of a paperweight that she bought at a bazaar in Turkey. The genie (or "djinn") is an enormous turban-swathed creature - who somehow - over the course of their evening together - reveals himself as someone with tremendous insight into Gillian, the uptight brainiac. I can't describe it without making it sound trite or silly, and maybe it is all that as well, but God, did I love these two characters. I want a whole book about them!

Johnny Wheelright and Owen Meany. A Prayer for Owen Meany (excerpt here). A cosmic relationship, showing the ultimate structure of the universe, basically. But grounded in the reality ... it's a dynamic that killed me when I first read it, and enraged me, and made me laugh out loud ... and those two people, and their frienship and what it led them to - stays with me to this day. I'm almost afraid to re-read this book.

Valancy and Barney. The Blue Castle (excerpt here). I think it is Lucy Maud Montgomery's finest romance - way better than Anne and Gilbert. Valancy is an uptight spinster, overridden by her family - who - after getting the diagnosis that she only has a year to live - goes INSANE. She bobs her hair. She eats hotdogs on the sidewalk. She moves out of her mother's house and goes to live with a local reprobate whose daughter is dying (after giving birth to a baby out of wedlock). Valancy sets herself up as a housekeeper and nursemaid and eventually meets Barney - a man who has a terrible reputation in town, all sorts of horrible rumors fly about him ... but they meet and connect. Because Valancy only has a year to live, she asks him to marry her. She wants to experience marriage and all that entails. Barney is startled and says, "You know I don't love you, right Valancy? But I have always thought you were sort of a dear." So he marries her. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE THEIR ROMANCE. Valancy is head over heels, and she feels, because she only has a year left to live, that she can fully love and express that love - because why waste any time? It makes her free and abandoned. Barney knows about the diagnosis, and while he is a confirmed bachelor, accepts her as his wife - and ... well. You'll just have to read the book to see how it all ends. LOVE IT.

Romeo and Mercutio Romeo and Juliet. I always found the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio to be far more interesting than the one Romeo has with Juliet, which is pretty standard (albeit gorgeous) young-love stuff. But the friendship of those two men is one of the reallest in all of Shakespeare's canon, and I never read that play without feeling the loss of it, the sadness of losing such a friend. They're brothers.

ROMEO
I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO
And so did I.

ROMEO
Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO
That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she--

ROMEO
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing.

MERCUTIO
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

I think Mercutio is the best part in that play.

Charlotte and Wilbur. Charlotte's Web Heartcrack. Charlotte's selfless support of Wilbur, her dedication to his LIFE, and Wilbur's growing love of her. They go through all the stages - dawning realization of kindred spirit, one friend the stronger than the other, Wilbur taking advantage of Charlotte, Charlotte sulking, but still doing what she needs to do - because she has this gift. This gift of language. And the last two lines of that book rival any in all of literature. I can barely type it out without tearing up:

It is not often someone comes along that's a true friend and good writer. Charlotte was both.

The Books: "'Tis Herself: A Memoir" (Maureen O'Hara)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

'Tis Herself: A Memoir, by Maureen O'Hara (with John Nicoletti)

Maureen O'Hara was one of those "old" movie stars that I grew up knowing about because of the yearly showing of Miracle on 34th Street on television, as well as my absolute obsession with Parent Trap. God, how I loved that movie. I wanted to be in it, I wanted to live it, I wanted to go to that camp, I wanted a British accent, and I wanted to wear little yellow sunsuits. Maureen O'Hara, with her flaming red hair and SLAMMING body (so soft and voluptuous in the early 50s - in Parent Trap transformed into a veritable zigzag of curves accentuated by bullet bras that would put your eye out), was so much fun in that movie, and I, as a little kid watching it on TV, thought: "Oh, it is so OBVIOUS that she still loves her husband!!" I liked her temper tantrums, her sort of self-righteous attitude - because it was so obvious that underneath it she was as soft and vulnerable as anyone. That was, unbeknownst to me at the time, the major element of O'Hara's appeal (well, that and the red hair, green eyes, and slamming body): the temper-y hothead, untameable, a shrew, a wild lion ... but what all of that is hiding is a soft womanly heart. If you could tap into it, and access it, you'd be the luckiest man alive. The other reason she was an actress who was familiar to me was because of, of course, The Quiet Man. Beloved by many, but beloved in particular by Irish Americans (as evidenced by my conversation with Eamonn at the Ice Bar in Dublin). When I saw ET, I felt like the smartest person in the world because I recognized that clip of the kiss in the wind from Quiet Man: that wasn't just some old movie, it was a movie I knew by heart! I loved one of my father's comments about Quiet Man, and he said this, oh, 20 years ago, but for some reason I remember the jist of it perfectly: "It has the best fight scene I've ever seen, and when I first saw it I really thought it was about 20 minutes long. It involves the whole town and goes over the fields ... and when every time I see it, it feels like the fight scene gets shorter and shorter. But I still remember the first time I saw it and I couldn't believe how long that fight scene was!" I am sure you all know the fight scene I mean. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.

In the years to come, I would watch many more of Maureen O'Hara's pictures - filling in all of the many blanks (she made 5 films with John Ford - and a bunch with John Wayne - she has said, "He [Wayne] was my best friend for 40 years.") - and had her struggles with Hollywood, like most successful actresses did. She felt she was not considered for really dramatic parts, and that they were trying to pigeonhole her. Of course that was true - and her role in The Quiet Man is the ultimate pigeonhole - fiery untamed Irish lassie - but she found a way to work the system, and be okay with it. She really was a "fiery" woman. I love the stories about her battles with John Ford - who, obviously, felt very strongly about his own Irish-ness.

O'Hara would sashay onto the set, and they'd basically do "Irish schtick" together, for the crew - and it was Ford's way of asserting, "I'M IRISH, I'M IRISH, LOOK HOW IRISH I AM, I CAN GO TOE TO TOE WITH MAUREEN" - and O'Hara knew that that was what he was doing, and that was what was expected of her - but at the same time, when he pissed her off she would let him have it. A fascinating relationship.

But she was one of those people who fought to hold her ground, who did contractual battles, and battles with studio execs - she wasn't a cringing violet, who felt lucky to just be working. For example, when she signed on to do Parent Trap, it was in her contract that she would have top billing. She was the leading lady of the picture and a huge star. When she eventually saw the poster, it said:

O'Hara went ballistic. She knew that Walt Disney had decided to ignore her contract and promote Hayley in the double role (basically calling attention to the revolutionary split-screen filming that they had done to make her appear as twins). O'Hara complained - and it started moving up the chain of command - 'take it to this person', 'take it to SAG' ... and to actually take on Disney was not (then or now) a pleasing prospect. Is this the hill you want to die on? O'Hara never worked for Disney again. Which is a shame, because I think she was the perfect Disney leading lady. But that was who she was. Do NOT take advantage of her, and more than that: don't betray her. That ad campaign for Parent Trap put Disney in breach of Maureen's contract - but they obviously knew that they held all the cards and whatever fight she wanted, she would not win.

Her autobiography is full of great anecdotes like that. She was a canny businesswoman - protective of herself and her interests ... and eager to show all that she could do, even if Hollywood wanted to pin her down. Her stories of battling the studios (and hell, I love crap like that - I love the stories of Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe - and all of those people who really stood up for themselves in that environment) are fasciating - a real glimpse into a world that no longer exists, but with much relevance to young actresses today.

Maureen O'Hara was born into an eccentric arts-loving family who lived in Ranelagh, a suburb on the outskirts of Dublin. (My last trip to Dublin I stayed in Ranelagh.) Her mother also was a crazy redhead, and O'Hara grew up surrounded by jokes, laughter - an Irish cliche, basically. But she remembers it all as warm, beautiful, and joyous - a wonderful beginning for life. Her parents were into opera, football, fashion (her mother was, apparently, a clotheshorse - and brought the young Maureen shopping with her) - her mother was also an actress and a singer. Maureen knew quite early that acting was what she wanted to do - and she got some jobs on the radio, and what amounts to summer stock - she was only 13, 14 years old ... but finally, she got serious enough to begin studying for real. At 14, she auditioned for the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin and was accepted - it was there that she really began to learn how to be an actress. Things were on fast-forward for her, when you read about it. Everything seems to proceed in a logical fashion. Of course she would be approrached to do a screen test. Of course she would resist at first - what about being a stage actress? Then of course she would come to her senses and go to London for the screen test. And of course Charles Laughton would see the screentest and be struck dumb by her eyes, he was so struck by her that he put her under his own personal contract. And the rest is history. Maureen O'Hara was one of the most successful stage actresses in Ireland (winning prizes left and right) by the time she was 15 years old, and when she went to Hollywood, under the wing of Charles Laughton, started off playing leads. Pretty incredible. No working her way up the ladder. Her book details that journey in humorous prose. You really like her. She seems very personable, with a temper you admire, and a seriousness about the work that is undeniable. Her desire to be a good actress is supreme.

She was an actress MADE for the invention of Technicolor. She's a gorgeous woman, even in black and white ... but what sets her apart from other gorgeous women? Her coloring. The red hair, pale skin, and green eyes ... It's almost like Technicolor was developed FOR her. That first glimpse of her in Quiet Man depends on the colors.

Maureen O'Hara retired from acting in the70s and in many way her post-acting career has almost been more interesting. She married a pilot - Charles Blair- who was killed in a plane crash in 1978. He had a long history with Pan Am, and in his wake, she managed his company - Antilles Airboats, traveling the world, promoting the excitement and possibilities of aviation. She eventually became President and CEO of the company (the first female CEO of an airline) - and lives, to this day, down in the Virgin Islands. She is one of those go-to gals for aviation fanatics around the world, because of the history she has seen in that industry. She supports and promotes aviation museums, the restoration of air boats and other classic aircraft, and the keeping of that history. She donated her husband's Sikorsky VS-44A plane (nicknamed "Queen of the Skies") to the New England Air Museum - and a friend of mine who is a freak about all things aviation gave me a postcard of the plane which is on my bulletin board. A Spruce Goose, indeed. She's done a couple of films in the 90s - coming out of retirement - and she is a very old woman now. Almost 90. She maintains her connections with all the different worlds she inhabited - Irish, filmmaking, aviation ... a truly interesting woman.

Oh, and let's not forget the groundbreaking moment when O'Hara became an American citizen (while maintaining her Irish citizenship) in 1946 and she put up a stink about being referred to as a "British subject":

There must have been a thousand questions on their standard questionnaire. After I completed it, I went and took the exam. I must have passed because I was then sent before a woman, ann officer of the court, who instructed me to raise my right hand and forswear my allegiance to Great Britian. FULL STOP!

Forswear my allegiance to Britain? I didn't know what she was talking about. I told her, "Miss, I'm very sorry, but I cannot forswear an allegiance that I do not have. I am Irish and my allegiance is to Ireland." She looked at me with consternation for a moment and then said, "Well, then you better read these papers." She handed me back the stack of papers I had filled out before my exam. I perused them and was stunned to see that on every page where I had written "Irish" as my former nationality, they had crossed it out with a pen and written "English".

I told the woman, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't accept this. It's impossible for me to do. I am Irish. I was born in Ireland and will only do this if I am referred to as an Irish citizen." She seemed perturbed that I would break the routine of the allegiance ceremony, and said, "I can't do that. You'll have to go to court to obtain the order for me to do it."

"Fine," I said. "When shall I go back to court?" I didn't have to come back. I did it right then and was taken straight to the courtroom. No attorneys were allowed in the courtroom with me, only my two witnesses. I stood in front of the judge, whose name I can't remember, and listened as the clerk explained why I was there before the court. Then I told the judge, "I am Irish. I will not forswear allegiance to Great Britain because I owe no allegiance to Great Britain. I was born in Dublin, Ireland."

The judge and I then went into a very long discussion of all of Irish history. He challenged my assertions. We kept going over it and over it, back and forth, but I wouldn't give an inch. I couldn't. Finally he said, "We're going to have to find out what Washington thinks." He instructed the clerk, "Check Washington and see what they consider a person like Miss O'Hara." The clerk left the courtroom and returned shortly after that. He told the judge, "Washington says she is a British subject." I was furious and told the judge, "I am not responsible for your antiquated records in Washington, D.C." He promptly ruled against me.

I had no choice but to thank him and tell the court, "Under those circumstances, I cannot accept nor do I want to become an American citizen." I turned to walk out of that courtroom, but having the kind of personality that I do, thought I couldn't give up without taking one last crack at him. I was halfway out of the courtroom when I turned back to him and said, "Your Honor, have you thought for one moment about what you are trying to force upon and take away from my child and my unborn children and my unborn grandchildren?" He sat back and listened intently as I went on, "You are trying to take away from them their right to boast and brag about their wonderful and famous Irish mother and grandmother. I just can't accept that."

He'd had enough. The judge threw his hands up and explained, "Get this woman out of here! Give her anything on her papers that she wants, but get her out of here!" The clerk moved in my direction and I simply said, "Thank you, Your Honor."

I didn't know at that time that my certificate of naturalization had already been created, and that they had listed my former nationality as English. Sometime between that date and the date when I was called to be sworn in as an American citizen, they changed my certificate in accordance with the order of the court. Where my former nationality was printed, they had erased "English" and typed over it "Irish". On the back of this document it states that "the erasure made on this certificate as to Former Nationality 'Irish' was made before issuance, to conform to petition. Name changed by order of the court." It is signed by the U.S. District Court.

This was the first time in the history of the United States of America that the American government recognized an Irish person as being Irish. It was one hell of a victory for me because otherwise I would have had to turn down my American citizenship. I could not have accepted it with my former nationality being anything other than Irish, because no other nationality in the world was my own.

A scandal arose in the wake of this, when incorrect reports came out that she had challenged the court during the ceremony in which the oath of allegiance was taken. Judges across the land wrote terrible things about Miss O'Hara, and the federal judge who had presided over that particular allegiance ceremony said that Miss O'Hara was a liar, and that the incident never happened.

He was correct that the event did not happen in his courtroom, but very wrong that it didn't happen at all.

The implications of the decision to list Maureen O'Hara as "Irish" were widespread - and crossed the Atlantic. O'Hara writes:

Apparently, the Irish government was unaware that its citizens were being classified as subjects of Great Britain. On January 29, Prime Minister Eamon De Valera issued the following statement:

We are today an independent republic. We acknowledge no sovereignty except that of our own people. A fact that our attitude during the recent war should have amply demonstrated. Miss O'Hara was right when she asserted she owed no allegiance to Britain and therefore had none which she could renounce.

The prime minister then dispatched his envoys to Washington, D.C., where the Republic of Ireland formally requested that this policy be changed. The policy was changed, and my stand had paved the way for every Irish immigrant to the United States, including my own brothers and sisters, to be legally recognized as Irish from that day forward.

Pretty amazing.

Her autobiography (written with a little bit of help) is lovely. It came out in 2004, which is exciting - because what a long life she has lived! What scope - so you can really get a sense of it in her book. You can hear her voice. There are times when it seems she is leaning towards you, the reader, to whisper a secret. It is not a distant voice, or a cold voice. It's chatty and argumentative (still - I love that - she's like, "I know that everyone SAID I had an affair with John Ford, but I am here to tell you I did not, and all of you boys are barking up the wrong tree." You tell 'em, Maureen!) - charming, passionate, logical, and funny.

I highly recommend it. I recommend it for aviation fans, too. Some good anecdotes here about Howard Hughes, not to mention her later years when she devoted her life to aviation.

The excerpt I chose today just HAD to be about The Quiet Man because you know what? I can't resist.

Watch her smarts as an actress here, in the following excerpt. Not just smart about acting, but smart about script analysis: how she knew what the most important scene in the picture was, and if she nailed THAT, the rest of the picture would flow. That's important - an important mark of a good actress - to not just be worried about her closeups, and her crying scenes - but about the STORY being told. Watch how she goes back to the source material, to look for clues on how to play that scene. Love that.

I also love her version of the famous "whisper" at the end of Quiet Man - what did she whisper? (I wrote about that moment here). In the last shot, the two of them stand together, waving out at the road, laughing, beautiful - and she leans over and whispers something to him. Watch Wayne's reaction. Ha!!! The whisper obviously gets a rise (literally) out of Wayne because in response he chases her back to the house, and, presumably, to bed at the end of the picture. What did she say??

EXCERPT FROM 'Tis Herself: A Memoir, by Maureen O'Hara (with John Nicoletti)

The single day that it did rai was just when Mr. Ford needed it. Right after the scene where Duke and I kiss in the windy cottage and I hit him, there is the sequence in which I run from the cottage, cross a stream, and then fall as the rain and wind storm about me. That was real rain in the scene. The rest of the rain in the picture came from rain machines. The wind actually blew me down in that scene, but I kept going because Mr. Ford always made it clear to his actors that "You do not stop acting no matter what happens in a scene until I say cut. I am the director,"

I loved Mary Kate Danaher. I loved the hell and fire in her. She was a terrific dame, tough, and didn't let herself get walked on. As I readied to begin playing her, I believed that my most important scene in the picture, the one that I had to get just right, was when Mary Kate is in the field herding the sheep and Sean Thornton sees her for the very first time. There is no dialogue between them. It's a moment captured in time, and it's love at first sight. I felt very strongly that if the audience believed it was love at first sight, then we would have lightning in a bottle. But if they didn't, we would have just another lovely romantic comedy on our hands. It had to be perfect, and the script provided me with a little inspiration, but not enough. Sean's line to Michaeleen - "Hey, is that real? She couldn't be" - didn't quite give me what I needed. I found a passage in Walsh's story that hit the mark, and I used it as motivation for how I would play the scene:

And there leaning on a wall was the woman. No ghost woman. Flesh and blood or I have no eyes to see. The sun shining o nher red hair and her scarf green as grass on her shoulders. She was not looking at me. She was looking over my head on the far side of the pool. I only saw her over my shoulder but she was fit to sit with the Mona Lisa amongst the rocks. More beautiful by fire and no less wicked. A woman I never saw before, yet a woman strangely familiar.

The scene comes off so beautifully. Mr. Ford brilliantly kept the camera stationary and had me walk slowly down and out of the frame instead of following me as I walked away. It's one of my favorite shots in the movie, and, if you have never noticed it before, it's worth watching the movie again just to see it.

Of course, the scene that everyone always asks me about is the scene with Duke and me in the cemetery. Most of the Quiet Maniacs, those who keep the film in its cult-classic status, tell me that this is their favorite scene. It's the sequence on the bicycle when Sean and Mary Kate escape Michaeleen's watchful eye. We run into the cemetery and it begins to rain. As thunder chases me under the arch, Duke takes his coat off and wraps it around me to keep me dry and warm. The rain drenches us and his white shirt clings to his body and becomes translucent. In that moment, we are truly together in each other's arms, and we kiss. It is sensual, passionate, and more than any other scene we ever did together displays the on-screen eroticism of the Wayne and O'Hara combination.

There were two parts to that scene. The first part we had to get in one take or Mr. Ford would have strung us up by our toes. It's everything that happens right up to the embrace and kiss. We had to get it in one take because our clothes were sopping wet when we finished. If we missed it, then our costumes would have to be cleaned, dried, and ironed. Our hair would have to be washed, dried, and reset. Makeup would have to be reapplied. These things take hours and hours and cost thousands and thousands of dollars for each take. We got it in one.

Once we were drenched and part one was in the can, we could focus on the kiss. But Mr. Ford rarely allowed more than a couple of takes, and I think we got that one in two. Why is the scene so erotic? Why were Duke and I so electric in our love scenes together? I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne. Duke's presence was so strong that when audiences saw him finally meet a woman of equal hell and fire, it was exciting and thrilling. Other actresses looked as though they would cower and break if Duke raised a hand or even hollered. Not me. I always gave as good as I got, and it was believable. So during those moments of tenderness, when the lovemaking was about to begin, audiences saw for a half second that he had finally tamed me - but only for that half second.

Mr. Ford did not make Duke perform the kiss over and over, as I've read. The suggestion has been that Mr. Ford was living, through Duke, the experience of kissing me. Not in this scene, although I do believe John Ford longed to be every hero he ever brought to the screen. He would have loved to live every role John Wayne ever played. He would have loved to be Sean Thornton. His vivid stories - of riding with Pancho Villa or his longing to be a great naval hero or an Irish rebel - were all fantasies of being men John Ford could never be in life, yet desperately wanted and needed to be. He was a real-life Walter Mitty, years before Thurber gave Mitty literary life.

Visually, there are so many magnificent sequences in the film, like the windy kiss in White O'Morn when Mary Kate is caught cleaning the cottage. That scene was shot in Hollywood, and Mr. Ford used two large wind machines to blow our clothes and my hair for the effect. These were two large airplane propellers on a stand that Mr. Ford controlled by sending hand signals to an operator. Once again, it was a scene tailor-made for Duke and me. He pulls me away from the door and kisses me as I struggle to break free. He tames me for that half second, and I kiss him back, but then follow up with a hard blow across the face for the offense.

Now let me tell you what really happened with that slap. That day on the set, I was mad as hell at Duke and Mr. Ford for something they had done earlier in the day. My plan was to sock Duke in the jaw and rally let him have it. But Duke was no fool, and he saw it coming, he saw it in my face. So he put his hand up to shield his chin, and my hand hit the top of his fingers and snapped back. My plan backfired and my hand hurt like hell. I knew I had really hurt it and tried to hide it in the red petticoat I was wearing. Duke came over and said, "Let me see that hand. You nearly broke my jaw." He lifted it out of hiding; each one of my fingers had blown up like a sausage. I was taken off the set and sent to the local hospital where it was X-rayed. I had a hairline fracture in one of the bones in my wrist, but in the end got no sympathy. I was taken back to the set and put to work.

While one is working on a motion picture, it's natural to get mad at the others from time to time. I almost found myself in John Ford's barrel while we were shooting the Innisfree horse-race sequence down on the beach. The scene again required the use of wind machines during one of my close-ups. But instead of the wind machine blowing my hair away from my face, Mr. Ford put the machine behind me and blew my hair forward. Well, at that time I had hair like wire. It snapped and snapped against my face. The wind was blowing my hair forward and the hair was lashing my eyeballs. It hurt, and I kept blinking. Mr. Ford started yelling at me and insulting me under his breath: "Keep your goddamn eyes open. Why can't you get it right?"

He kept yelling at me and I was getting madder and madder. I finally blew my lid. I put my two hands down the side of the cart and yelled, "What would a baldheaded old son of a bitch like you know about hair lashing across your eyeballs?"

The words had no sooner left my mouth than I was nearly knocked off my feet by the sound of a collective gasp on the set. No one spoke to John Ford that way. There was absolute silence. No one dared move, speak, or even breathe. I don't know why I did it. He made me mad and I just blew my stack. Immediately, I thought, Oh my God. Why didn't I keep my bloody mouth shut? He's going to throw me off the picture. After years of waiting to make The Quiet Man, I was sure I was about to be tossed off the set. I waited for the explosion. I waited without moving a muscle and watched as Mr. Ford cased the entire set with his eyes. He looked at every person - every actor, every crew member, every stuntman - and he did it fast as lightning. I could see the wheels in his head turning. The old man was deciding whether he was going to kill me or laugh and let me off the hook. I didn't know which way it would go until the very moment that he broke into laughter. Everyone on the set collapsed with relief and finally exhaled. They followed Mr. Ford's lead and laughed for ten minutes - out of sheer relief that I was safe. Then we went on and shot the scene.

But in the end the old man got the last laugh. He and Duke agreed to play a joke on me. To do it, they chose the sequence where Duke drags me across town and through the fields. I bet you didn't know that sheep dung has the worst odor you have ever smelled in your life. Well, it does. Mr. Ford and Duke kicked all of the sheep dung they could find onto the hill where I was to be dragged, facedown, on my stomach. Of course, I saw them doing it, and so when they kicked the dung onto the field, Faye, Jimmy, and I kicked it right back off. They'd kick it in, and we'd kick it out. It went on and on, and finally, right before the scene was shot, they won, getting in the last kick. There was no way to kick it out. The camera began to roll and Duke had the time of his life dragging me through it. It was bloody awful. After the scene was over, Mr. Ford had given instructions that I was not to be brought a bucket of water or a towel. He made me keep it on for the rest of the day. I was mad as hell, but I had to laugh too. Isn't showbiz glamorous?

And the sequence itself is perfect for Duke and me. I fight him the entire way, but he won't have it. I swing at him, so he kicks me in the rear. In the end, he tosses me at the feet of Red Will and wins my dowry, and I concede. But the audience knows that he only thinks he has tamed me for good.

One thing I have always loved about John Ford pictures is that they are full of music. Whether it's the Sons of the Pioneers or the Welsh Singers, you know that eventually someone is going to sing in the movie. I was thrilled on The Quiet Man because it was finally my turn. I sang "Young May Moon" in the scene with Barry Fitzgerald, and, of course, "The Isle of Innisfree". I first heard that melody when played by Victor Young at John Ford's home in 1950, and I thought it was beautiful. When we returned from Ireland, John Ford, Charlie Fitz, and I wrote the words that I sang in the movie.

We finished filming in Ireland in early July, and returned to Hollywood to complete the interiors. Half the picture was shot there. Naturally, some of the "Irish Players" had to come back with us, and I was blessed that Charlie and JImmy were among them. I now had my two brothers living with me in America. The interiors were completed at the end of August, and Mr. Ford went right to work editing his movie. When I went in to see the film at Argosy, Duke was there, having just seen it. I walked into the office and he ran over to me, picked me up, and spun me around. He said, "It's wonderful, and you're wonderful." But Herbert Yates of Republic had a different reaction. He wanted The Quiet Man to be no more than a certain length. Ford's version was more than a few minutes over that, and Yates told him to cut the picture further.

But Ford was far too smart for him. When The Quiet Man was previewed to distributors and theater operators at Republic, Mr. Ford instructed the projection operator to stop the projector at the precise length that Yates had requested. Of course, Ford hadn't cut the film at all, and so the screen went black right in the middle of the fight-sequence finale. The audience went wild and demanded that the projector be turned back on. Mr. Ford cued the operator and the fight sequence continued. The audience rose to their feet and cheered when it was over. Old Man Yates wasn't about to touch it after that, and Mr. Ford was allowed to keep his extra ominutes.

There is only one fitting way to end our discussion of The Quiet Man, and that's with a whisper. No matter what part of the world I'm in, the question I am always asked is: "What did you whisper into John Wayne's ear at the end of The Quiet Man?" It was John Ford's idea: it was the ending he wanted. I was told by Mr. Ford exactly what I was to say. At first I refused. I said, "No. I can't. I can't ay that to Duke." But Mr. Ford wanted a very shocked reaction from Duke, and he said, "I'm telling you, you are to say it." I had no choice, and so I agreed, but with a catch: "I'll say it on one condition - that it is never ever repeated or revealed to anyone." So we made a deal. After the scene was over, we told Duke about our agreement and three of us made a pact. There are those who claim that they were told and know what I said. They don't and are lying. John Ford took it to his grave - so did Duke - and the answer will die with me. Curiosity about the whisper has become a great part of the Quiet Man legend. I have no doubt that as long as the film endures, so will the speculation. The Quiet Man meant so much to John Ford, John Wayne, and myself. I know it was their favorite picture too. It bonded us as artists and friends in a way that happens but once in a career. That little piece of The Quiet Man belongs to just us, and so I hope you'll understand as I answer:

More on Mickey:

More on Mickey Rourke at clarkblog - an extensive piece about the actor.

Excerpt:

For my money, he never burned brighter than in The Pope of Greenwich Village, an immensely enjoyable character-driven story elevated into the mythic by Rourke's magnetic presence. He stars as a struggling NYC restaurateur so desperate to make a buck that he foolishly steals from the mob. He's loose and fun and tense and frantic all at once -- an embodiment of the city itself. Rourke's amazing work here is matched on every level by Eric Roberts, never better anywhere, as his weak-willed and shifty cousin. In the shot above, Rourke's playing stick ball while dancing a dreamlike lilt to Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind." It's always this scene that springs to mind first whenever I think back to this film.

And:

That pale, sometimes ruddy but always soft face is gone. But as a washed-up and battered wrestler still struggling for glory, it's a face that fits the role. Look beyond the rebuilt cheekbones, the suddenly lantern-sized jaw, the plastic pug nose and Cro-Magnon brow, and there they are: that unforgettable pair of wounded, human eyes.

Read the whole thing.

Speaking of Pope of Greenwich Village, here's an essay about it by one of my favorite film bloggers out there.

Jeremy writes:

Twenty eight year old Mickey Rourke was on absolute fire in 1984. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had a major hit yet or wasn’t even a household name, nearly every critic and fan was laying down odds that this guy was the rightful heir to Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Searing, intense and beautiful, Rourke had just floored many people with his triple shot of Body Heat (1981), Diner (1982) and Rumble Fish (1983) and it looked like he was getting ready to absolutely explode. Watching him today in The Pope Of Greenwich Village, I still feel the same way I do when I see Brando in On The Waterfront or Pacino in Serpico. It is that performance that comes in every great actors career, when everything falls into place and there is something nearly sacred in their work. I’ll take Mickey’s relatively un-acclaimed work as Charlie in The Pope Of Greenwich Village over almost any Oscar winning work you care to name…he was my guy back in the mid eighties and he is still my guy today.

Yes.

And ... you knew this was coming right? I just set up a Mickey Rourke Category. I can't believe it, actually ... that the Mickey Rourke I so admired 20 years ago ... is actually walking amongst the living again ... enough that I feel safe enough to resurrect my interest in him.

More thoughts on him to come. It's been a lot of fun and strangely moving to watch his movies again - because somehow - in him - I see my OWN journey ... I fell in love with his acting when I was, what, 19 years old? What time does to us all. I am aware of that when I see Rourke now.

Disgruntlement ...

... thy name is Hope.

"Purple Rain" redux

My brother Brendan, among his many talents and being a great dad, is also a fantastic writer.

He is writing a series of essays on his blog now about great albums. It has been so so fun to watch what he picks, and what he has to say about it.

His latest is on Prince's Purple Rain and his writing gave me chills. It also made me want to put on Purple Rain immediately to listen to it again. (That was one of those albums which I pretty much listened to DEATH back then. I rarely listen to it now. Perhaps it's time for a resurgence).

People can, of course, get very personal about the music they love - and Brendan is one of the most passionate music fans I know. I had him write an essay about the first time he heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in France - he had told me that story so many times, and it's just so exciting to me.

Anyway - please go read Bren's essay on Purple Rain ! It brought back SO many memories!!

The Books: "The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journals of Clifford Odets"

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journal of Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets (playwright in the 30s and 40s - inspiration to Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, a generation of playwrights - and he inspires still (although some of his plays have dated badly) kept a journal throughout his tumultuous life. His plays mean the world to me. I was in a production of Golden Boy in Chicago, and his language, of all the great playwrights, is one of the funnest to chew on. It's meaty, poetic, streetsmart, idealistic, tough, hard-boiled, soft underbelly - it's evocative so much of a time and place (you can usually FEEL the Great Depression in his work ... that world is IN the language) - and it's not easy for modern actors to get that language right. It's not NOW. It's not strictly THEN either. But if you have a line like (one of my favorites of his): "Don't give me ice when your heart's on fire!" - you cannot - you MUST not - say it with a wink at the audience, you must NOT add any sense of irony to it ... you must find it within yourself to really feel and mean "Don't give me ice when your heart's on fire" - or you will just sound like a big fat phony up onstage. And worse than that, a condescending phony. Clifford Odets, as a playwright, really reveals falsity in actors ... You can't hide, or do any tricks when you're in an Odets play. You have to be comfortable with that language, make it your own, and you have to fill up the inner life with whatever needs to be there - so that that language feels organic. Nobody SINKS an actor like Clifford Odets. We've got lines in his plays like:

We got the blues, Babe -- the 1935 blues. I'm talkin' this way 'cause I love you. If I didn't, I wouldn't care ...

Or

You won't forget me to your dyin' day -- I was the first guy. Part of your insides. You won't forget. I wrote my name on you -- indelible ink!

Or this, from the same scene = I love this line:

So I made a mistake. For Chris' sake, don't act like the Queen of Romania!

Or

Yes, yes, the whole thing funnels up in me like a fever. My head'll bust a vein!

Or

A sleeping clam at the bottom of the ocean, but I'll wake you up. I'm through with the little wars: no more hacking, making a pound in a good day. Like old man Pike says, every man for himself nowadays, and when you're in a jungle you look out for the wild life. I put on my Chinese good luck ring and I'm out to get mine. You're the first stop!

Or this famous exchange from Golden Boy:

JOE. What did he ever do for you?

LORNA. [with sudden verve] Would you like to know? He loved me in a world of enemies, of stags and bulls! ... And I loved him for that. He picked me up in Friskin's hotel on 39th Street. I was nine weeks behind in rent. I hadn't hit the gutter yet, but I was near. He washed my face and combed my hair. He stiffened the space between my shoulder blades. Misery reached out to misery --

JOE. And now you're dead.

LORNA. [lashing out] I don't know what the hell you're talking about!

JOE. Yes, you do ...

This is tough stuff. It requires 100% authenticity. It's easy to make it a cliche - the hard-boiled mugs of the 1930s - but if you miss out on what is underneath - these people's real fire and dreams - you got nothin'. Sylvester Stallone has credited Clifford Odets as a major influence on his own writing, and you can hear echoes of it in Rocky and even more so in Paradise Alley - a movie I adore (that will be next up in my Under-rated Movies series) - which takes place in the early years of the 20th century, and the SCRIPT. That's one of the few movies where I thought: "I need to get my hands on that script. I want to see that language on the page." It's fantastic!

Clifford Odets was catapulted into fame in the early 30s with his play Waiting for Lefty (excerpt here. He became a resident playwright with the influential Group Theatre (although they didn't believe in him at all at first - but the success of Waiting for Lefty changed things). It hadn't even been, strictly, a Group Theatre production - it was put together for a benefit night to support a Communist magazine - it was one piece in a long night of agitprop. But it hit to such a degree that it was one of THOSE moments in American theatre - a watershed moment ... God, for a time machine to have seen that play in its first incarnation in 1935! Wendy Smith in her comprehensive book about the Group Theatre Real Life Drama describes what happened on that night, and what it meant:

To Kazan, seated in the auditorium waiting for his cue, the response was "like a roar from sixteen-inchers broadside, audience to players, a way of shouting, 'More! More! More! Go on! Go on! Go on!'" Swept up by the passion they had aroused, the actors were no longer acting. "They were being carried along as if by an exultancy of communication such as I have never witnessed in the theatre before," wrote [Harold] Clurman. The twenty-eight-year-old playwright was awed by the emotional conflagration he'd ignited. "You saw theatre in its truest essence," Odets remembered years later. "Suddenly the proscenium arch of the theatre vanished and the audience and actors were at one with each other."

As the play mounted to its climax, the intensity of feeling on and offstage became almost unbearable. When Bobby Lewis dashed in with the news that Lefty has been murdered, no one needed to take an exercise to find the appropriate anger - the actors exploded with it, the audience seethed with it. They exulted as Joe Bromberg, playing the union rebel Agate Keller, tore himself loose from the hired gunmen and declared their independence: "HELLO AMERICA! HELLO. WE'RE STORMBIRDS OF THE WORKING-CLASS ... And when we die they'll know what we did to make a new world!"

"Well, what's the answer?" Bromberg demanded. In the audience, as planned, Odets, Herbie Ratner, and Lewis Leverett began shouting "Strike!" "LOUDER!" Bromberg yelled - and, one by one, from all over the auditorium, individual voices called out, "Strike!" Suddenly the entire audience, some 1,400 people, rose and roared, "Strike! Strike!" The actors froze, stunned by the spontaneous demonstration. The militant cries gave way to cheers and applause so thunderous the cast was kept onstage for forty-five minutes to receive the crowd's inflamed tribute. "When they couldn't applaud anymore, they stomped their feet," said Ruth Nelson. "All I could think was, 'My God, they're going to break the balcony down!' It was terrible, it was so beautiful." The actors were all weeping. When Clurman persuaded Odets to take a bow, the audience stormed the stage and embraced the man who had voiced their hopes and fears and deepest aspirations. "That was the dram all of us in the Group Theatre had," said Kazan, "to be embraced that way by a theatreful of people."

"The audience wouldn't leave," said Cheryl Crawford. "I was afraid they were going to tear the seats out and throw them on the stage." When the astounded stage manager finally rang down the curtain, they remained out front, talking and arguing about the events in a play taht seemed as real to them as their own lives. Actors and playwright were overwhelmed and a little frightened by the near-religious communion they had just shared. Odets retreated to a backstage bathroom; his excitement was so intense he threw up, then burst into tears. The dressing room was hushed as the actors removed their makeup. They emerged onto 14th Street to find clusters of people still gathered outside, laughing, crying, hugging each other, clapping their hands. "There was almost a sense of pure madness about it," Morris Carnovsky felt.

No one wanted to go home. Sleep was out of the question. Most of the Group went to an all-night restaurant - no one can remember now which one - and tried to eat. Odets sat alone: pale, withdrawn, not talking at all. Everyone was too dazed to have much to say. It was dawn before they could bring themselves to separate, to admit that the miracle was over.

There had never been a night like it in the American theatre. The Group became a vessel into which were poured the rage, frustration, desperation, and finally exultation, not just of an angry young man named Clifford Odets, but of every single person at the Civic Rep who longed for an end to personal and political depression, who needed someone to tell them they could stand up and change their lives. The Group had experienced the "unity of background, of feeling, of thought, of need" Clurman had said was the basis for a true theatre: during his inspiring talks at Brookfield, at the thrilling final run-through of Connelly, in some of the best performances of Success Story. Never before had they shared it with an entire theatre full of people, never before had it seemed as though the lines they spoke hadn't been written but rather emerged from a collective heart and soul. Theatre and life merged, as Clurman had promised they could.

Waiting for Lefty changed people's ideas of what theatre was. More than an evening's entertainment, more even than a serious examination of the contemporary scene by a thoughtful writer, theatre at its best could be a living embodiment of communal values and aspirations. Theatre mattered, art had meaning, culture wasn't the property of an affluent, educated few but an expression of the joys and sorrows of the human condition as they could be understood and shared by everyone.

Waiting for Lefty made Clifford Odets a star in New York, and in the circles of the American Left - and while the Group Theatre had been devoted to developing new work, and fostering playwrights who could speak to the NOW, they had missed out on the genius in their midst. They ended up putting on many of his plays - which are now considered classics of the American theatre: Awake and Sing (excerpt here), Paradise Lost (excerpt here), Golden Boy (excerpt here) - just to name a few. He was the voice of the Great Depression, of the angry radical, the Jewish New Yorker, the downtrodden, the hopeful. Odets was a Zeitgeist kind of guy. It's one of the reasons why he found his later career so strenuous and difficult ... when you tap into a Zeitgeist of a certain time and place (and not just tap into it - but give voice to it) it can be nigh on impossible to translate that into another time/place. That's what happened to him. Also, how do you compete with such blazing early success? I love all of Odets' plays - not just his famous 1930s plays - I love Big Knife (excerpt here), I love Country Girl (excerpt here), I love The Flowering Peach (excerpt here)... but his time, his PLACE, was the mid-1930s. And that's IT. Without context, Odets' work does not translate. HIs writing does ... but these are, necessarily, "period" pieces, although at the time of their first productions they were the most relevant new thing anyone had ever seen. There's a similarity here to William Inge, although his themes and style are quite different. He was the biggest playwright of the 1950s. He was a Neil Simon, a Tony Kushner - in terms of the HITS that he had. But outside of the stifled conventional atmosphere of the 50s - where young people bucked up against the social and sexual conventions of the older generation - his work doesn't travel. You can't REALLY update William Inge. You have to place those plays in the 50s. They don't travel.

Without understanding that context of Odets, his plays may seem ... trite, or small, or naive. His theme is how the individual man can maintain his dignity, his human worth, in the middle of a capitalist society. He has written lines like, "Is life written on dollar bills?" WORTH has nothing to do with money ... but when you have no money, it sure as shit is difficult to remember that. His plays in the 30s insist upon human dignity, but also (like in Golden Boy) insist on the fact that there is compromise, and tragedy. This is where he can seem, to modern eyes, a bit naive - but it is essential to place him in his context.

But what remains (for me anyway) is not so much the thematic elements, the snapshot of urban life in the 30s - but the language. Odets' language!! It's raw, it's poetic, and it's not realistic. I like to read his plays out loud, just to myself - that language is fun fun fun to say.

Harold Clurman wrote about Odets:

Odets wrote some of the finest love scenes to be found in American drama. An all-enveloping warmth, love in its broadest sense, is a constant in all Odets' writing, the very root of his talent. IT is there in tumultuous harangues, in his denunciations and his murmurs. It is by turns hot and tender. Sometimes it sounds in whimpers. It is present as much in the scenes between grandfather and grandson in Awake as in those of Joe and Lorna in Golden Boy. It is touchingly wry in Rocket. This explains why these scenes are chosen by so many actors for auditions and classwork.

The Group Theatre lasted for only a decade. By the end of it, much of the original mission had been smoothed over - and they were hiring "outside" people for roles, as opposed to relying on the ensemble, and there were many other issues. People wanted out. And the world was changing, too - the Group had some really rough times at the end, where they couldn't seem to "hit it" as they had earlier in the decade. Had they just run their course?

Clifford Odets wrote a play called Night Music, and it is, I think, one of his best. It has Saroyan elements - a sort of magical middle-of-the-night quality - and there is much of it that I feel Lanford Wilson was inspired by, later in the 60s - even though his characters in Balm in Gilead are the dregs of society. But Odets - by having his play full of people - there has to be 40, 50 characters in that play - similar to Wilson - and these denizens of the night streets, the people who only come out at 2 a.m. ... the floating snippets of conversation, fragments heard, all operating in order to highlight the lonely journey of the two leads towards each other - really reminds me of Wilson. Night Music is an ambitious play and I would love to see it done more. It's funny, it's touching, it has great characters - and it's one of those plays that take place in only one night - a crazy night when nobody gets any sleep, and everyone appears to be homeless, looking for something in the crazy 3 a.m. hour. This would be the last play put on by the Group Theatre. It was 1940. Elia Kazan was the male lead. I believe Harold Clurman directed. It was a production and a half - a giant stage, tons of characters ... and for many different reasons, the play was a huge flop. It was the end of the Group Theatre. They had really needed a hit, and had hoped Night Music would be it. I somehow think that Night Music COULD have been a hit. It is not a dreary play, there are not awkward plot elements like some of Odets' earlier stuff - he keeps it light and funny and romantic. Seems like a sure thing to me. But for whatever reaon (and Clifford had many opinions about it) - the play failed to find an audience.

It was over. The grand experiment in American theatre was over. The ensemble members would scatter to the four winds. Some would find their way to movie stardom (like John Garfield, Elia Kazan) - others would eventually become the premiere acting teachers in this country (Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Bobby Lewis). Many of them were impacted by the Hollywood blacklist, due to their Communist associations in the past - and also just guilt by association. Odets went to Hollywood and started writing screenplays. His journey is told in the Coen brothers' Barton Fink. Odets never found his stride in Hollywood - he had a similar sensibility to F. Scott Fitzgerald - he was an artist and he couldn't seem to protect himself properly from the mercenary demands, and ... he was always left with the feeling of: "Is this all there is?"

Not a happy man.

In 1940, during the rehearsal and failed production of Night Music, Clifford Odets kept a journal. That journal has been published and it is now certainly a classic of its kind, essential reading for anyone who is an artist, for struggling actors, playwrights - whatever - When I was in grad school, I didn't know one person who hadn't read it. It's AMAZING and it makes you want to ... oh ... I don't know ... run out and be an artist! Have every part of your life reflect your commitment to your art! LIVE TO THE FULLEST. Etc. Odets was obviously not having the best year in 1940 - so he was not at the top of the world ... Much of the diary describes late nights at jazz clubs, troubled rehearsals during the day, and evenings when he would lose himself in his beloved Beethoven (boy, is he eloquent on Beethoven) - to try to regroup. It's a rather wandering type of journal - as any journal would be ... and on every single page there is something to "take away". Almost none of it has to do with to-do lists or what he did that day. He is trying to work out his own artistic problems in the pages of his journal - his issues with "form" and character and subtext ... at times he's like a dog with a bone - an entire week he devotes to talking about "form", and what that means for him as a playwright, and how Beethoven teaches him about form.

It's a wonderful book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I pick it up all the time - it's one of my constant books, something I dip into, just open it up and whatever page it falls on there will be some gem, something that helps me to go deeper, to contemplate, to struggle, to strive.

He is about to go into his long decline - which is sad, because he has such fire and energy here. In 1944, he made his directorial debut with None but the Lonely Heart - starring Cary Grant. This was the second part Grant was nominated for an Oscar for - mainly because of the big crying scene at the end. (The fact that Grant would not be nominated - then or now - for his performance in His Girl Friday - is just indicative of how silly those awards can be!!)

Odets and Grant were friends until the very end - and Odets had a particularly sad end. The guy had a long way to fall, and boy, did he fall. Grant would lend him money, or go and sit with him and talk and laugh and try to help his friend. None but the Lonely Heart is obviously Odets-ian - the themes, the compromises (it's always about choosing money or love, choosing money or humanity) - but what's really interesting about it is how great it LOOKS. The MOOD of the movie is really the reason to see it. It has an almost Fritz Lang-ish feel to it, eerie, melancholy, big empty urban streets, the alienation of urban life made manifest in the dark cobblestones - it's a great looking movie.

But The Time is Ripe gives us just a glimpse - a glimpse of a working man of the theatre in 1940 - working on one particular play - and, as Stanley Kauffman has said in response to the book - Odets comes off as "bursting, struggling, impatient, agonizing, egocentric, limited ... generous ... eager to understand his society, even more eager to be the best dramatist that his times and his talents would allow."

I consider The Time is Ripe to be required reading. Not only is it interesting about Odets himself - but it is interesting about America, and cultural issues, and Marxism, and Stalin, and the big thought of Russia - and all of those elements of the Left at that time - here they are, on paper. As always, Odets was a man of his time. He embodied it. Thank God he could write. He might have been just another propagandist, but you cannot argue with the power of those early plays. Yes, he has a point of view. What good artist doesn't? But as I mentioned before: what really remains, what he has left us, is those WORDS.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journal of Clifford Odets

Thursday, February 22, 1940

This is the time for opening the play. Harold gave the cast a brief line run-through, but I stayed at home, sleeping, resting, lounging it out against my slowly constricting nerves. Restless, finally, I jumped into the roadster and rode out to Sunnyside to take Bill and Lee to dinner. I chattered away, quite calm, really, to that peculiar point of indifference which comes from having done all that one can do in a situation. We rode into New York and had dinner across the street from the theatre, at Sardi's. A lot of the people who are going across the show were eating dinner there - it was like running the gauntlet. Stella Adler was there with a party, smoke-eyed and neurotic - usually when you are dying she is more dramatic about the event than you are! Finally I pushed my way through a lot of well-wishing people and went over to the theatre. The cast was in fine shape, quietly making up in their own rooms; no noise, no excitement backstage, things routine and orderly.

The audience was no better or worse than the usual opening night crowd. If anything they were an edge more respectful. Harold I had met outside the theatre for a moment - he was white and tired and was going to see a musical comedy, true to his habit of never attending an opening. I, on the other hand, get a kind of perverse spiteful pleasure from attending an opening. I saw none of the critics but shook hands with several friends.

The performance of the play was tip-top - the cast had never been better. The play suffered from what had always been wrong with it because of a certain lack in the direction - a lack of clear outlining of situations, a lack of building up scenes, a certain missing in places of dramatic intensity. But none of these things was enough to do vital harm to a beautiful show, smooth, powerful and yet tender, fresh, moving, and touching, with real quality in all the parts. But I could see during the first act that the audience was taking it more seriously than it deserved; and I knew that the old thing was here again - the critics had come expecting King Lear, not a small delicate play. It all made me very tired, but at the end I thought to myself that it didn't matter, for the show was more or less what I intended; it was lovely and fresh, no matter what the critics said. And I knew, too, that if another and unknown writer's name had been on the script, there would have been critical raves the next day.

People surged backstage after the curtain - they all seemed to have had a good time. There were the usual foolish remarks from many of them - "Enjoyable, but I don't know why," etc., etc. Also, a good deal of insincere gushing from a lot of people who would like nothing better than to stick a knife in your ribs. God knows why!

I invited some people down to the house for a drink. Along came the Eislers, Kozlenkos, Bette, Julie [John] Garfield, Boris Aronson, old Harry Carey and his wife, Morris and Phoebe later, Harold, Aaron Copland and Victor [Kraft[, Bobby Lewis and his Mexican woman, etc. etc. We drank champagne, Scotch when the wine ran out, smoked, filthied up the house, listened to some music. Then they went and I dropped into bed, dog-tired, unhappy, drunk, knowing what the reviews would be like in the morning. In and out I slept, in and out of a fever - all of modern twentieth-century life in one day and a night.

Friday, February 23, 1940

The biggest shock I have experienced since the auto crash in Mexico a year ago was the reviews of the play today. Perhaps it was the serious lack of sleep which kept me so calm and quiet. I wanted to send the Times man a wire telling him I thought his notice stupid and insulting, but I gave up that idea after a while. Equally distressing to me was the attitude at the office, an ugly passivity. They are quite inured there to the humdrum commercial aspect of doing a play this way - close if the notices are bad.

My feelings were and are very simple. I feel as if a lovely delicate child, tender and humorous, had been knocked down by a truck and lay dying. For this show has all the freshness of a child. It was Boris A. who called the turn. He said, "This show is very moving to me, a real artwork, but I don't think they will get its quality - it is not commercial."

In the morning I cashed fifteen thousand dollars worth of the baby bonds I hold. I thought to spend it on advertising, to keep the show open, etc., but by the time I finished at the office in the afternoon it was easy to see the foolishness of that; the show costs almost ten thousand a week to run.

So, friend, this is the American theatre, before, now, and in the future. This is where you live and this is what it is - this is the nature of the beast. Here is how the work and delight and pain of many months ends up in one single night. This is murder, to be exact, the murder of loveliness, of talent, of aspiration, of sincerity, the brutal imperception and indifference to one of the few projects which promise to keep the theatre alive. And it is murder in the first degree - with forethought (perhaps not malice, perhaps!), not second or third degree. Something will have to be done about these "critics", these lean dry men who know little or nothing about the theatre despite their praise of the actors and production. How can it happen that this small handful of men can do such murderous mischief in a few hours? How can it be that we must all depend on them for our progress and growth, they who maybe drank a cocktail too much, quarreled with a wife, had indigestion or a painful toe before they came to see the play - they who are not critics, who are insensitive, who understand only the most literal realism, they who should be dealing in children's ABC blocks? How can the audience be reached directly, without the middleman intervention of these fools?

I think now to write very inexpensive plays in the future, few actors, one set; perhaps hire a cheap theatre and play there. Good or bad, these "critics" must never be quoted, they must not opportunistically be used. A way must be found to beat them if people like myself are to stay in the theatre with any health and love. Only bitterness results this way, with no will or impulse for fresh work. The values must be sorted out and I must see my way clearly ahead, for I mean to work in the American theatre for many years to come.

I have such a strong feeling - a lovely child was murdered yesterday. Its life will drag on for another week or ten days, but the child is already stilled. A few friends will remember, that's all.

I guess I should feel honored ...

... that Hope feels so comfortable with me.

Of all the things going on here, I find her wide open bug-eyes the most alarming.

I did rearrange my entire apartment this weekend - by myself - which involved me lugging mattresses and bed frames and box springs and entire stacks of books and an entire bookcase across rooms. If it was traumatic for me, I can't imagine what it was like for her. She crouched in the corner, staring at the new layout with suspicion and terror, as though the very room were alive.

Welcome to the fold

If you read The Pioneer Woman with regularity, then you know about her brother Mike and you know how he feels about firemen. So her latest post - detailing the gifts that have been pouring in from random strangers around the country killed me. I nearly lost it when I got to the handwritten notes. "I'm so proud to have you as a brother in the fire service"??? Are you trying to KILL me?

"the loneliness of the long-distance literary editor"

A piece that is of great interest to me now in my life (and I had somehow missed it although James Wolcott is one of my regular destination pitstops on the Web): Long-distance literary editors and the whole process of editing, in general. Wolcott takes, as his launching-off point, a couple of tributes to editors, now dead, and the magazines they worked for. But I liked, mostly, the thoughts on editing - from Wolcott and the excerpt he chose to share.

It reminds me of the relationship Maxwell Perkins had with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and here is just a brief excerpt of the giant letter Perkins wrote to Fitzgerald after getting the manuscript of The Great Gatsby:

The other point is also about Gatsby: his career must remain mysterious, of course. But in the end you make it pretty clear that his wealth came through his connection with Wolfstein. You also suggest this much earlier. Now almost all readers numerically are going to be puzzled by his having all this wealth and are going to feel entitled to an explanation. To give a distinct and definite one would be, of course, utterly absurd. It did occur to me though, that you might here and there interpolate some phrases, and possibly incidents, little touches of various kinds, that would suggest that he was in some active way mysteriously engaged. You do have him called on the telephone, but couldn't he be seen once or twice consulting at his parties with people of some sort of mysterious significance, from the political, the gambling, the sporting world, or whatever it mayb be. I know I am floundering, but that fact may help you to see what I mean ... I wish you were here so I could talk about it to you for then I know I could at least make you understand what I mean. What Gatsby did ought never to be definitely imparted, even if it could be. Whether he was an innocent tool in the hands of somebody else, or to what degree he was this, ought not to be explained. But if some sort of business activity of his were simply adumbrated, it would lend further probability to that part of the story.

Editing is not easy. It is certainly not easy to edit your own work, and I have found that it sometimes takes me MONTHS of stepping away from something before I can even look at something I have written with anything even resembling clarity. Distance is great. Reading what you have written out loud is invaluable. But when that outside eye comes ... Boy. If it's someone you trust, then you had best listen.

I had written a piece I felt was perfect. I don't know, the piece just flowed, as far as I was concerned. I worked hard on it, editing, chopping it up, rearranging things - and I really felt that there was nothing more I could do with it. I sent it to my agent just to get her feedback, and we talked on the phone about it. She said one thing, "It feels like the piece has three climaxes."

The light broke in on my head. I resisted her words, vaguely, because I fear change, and it would mean totally re-thinking the whole thing ... but once I realized that I had been building the narrative to not one, but three climaxes - I realized, well, obviously, three is too many. How about just focusing on ONE, Sheila? So I chopped that poor thing up some more, honing in on just the one. It made the piece infinitely better. Maybe the two other climaxes could be their own stand-alone pieces, who knows. But I honestly can't imagine I would have, all on my own, realized that flaw in the piece. Maybe I would have - you never know, I have a good eye ... but sometimes that outside first-impression eye from someone you trust is the only thing you really need.

Follow Wolcott's links ...

More agent and editor talk from my friend Cara.

Favorite photos

I love this post (I love that site in general). I love it because of the photos she chooses to share, and how she talks about why she loves them. She loves "gents surrounded by ladies", she loves any photo with a year in it, she loves photos of trios, she loves photos of "snooty Edwardian women", she loves photos with old radios or old appliances in them.

Who can say why we love the things we do. The "why" is not interesting. What is great is the FACT of the love, and how it is expressed and shared. It's why I love her site so much.

So in the spirit of that. These are not my favorite photos, per se, but they are representative of the themes and images I am compulsively drawn to.

I like photos of women from the 20s wearing furs, little hats, and cute strappy shoes.

I like photos of little ragamuffin children working in factories at the turn of the last century.

I like any photo that involves an old-fashioned kitchen. I love to see old toasters and percolators and eggbeaters and refrigerators with rounded edges.

I like photos of old-fashioned (but brand new then) gleaming cars.

I like photos of Rosie the Riveter women working on assembly lines during WWII.

I like photos of women floating underwater.

I like photos of Coney Island, back in the day.

I love photos of Ziegfeld girls.

I love photos of old movie palaces.

Any photo involving an aviatrix is dear to my heart.

I love photos that involve: sailors or guys with slicked ducktails, girls with curled hair, a floor smudged with cigarette ash, Coke bottles on the table, an integrated crowd (as an added bonus) and a dance floor.

Make sure you go check out her favorites - the images she has in her collection is extraordinary!

"O tell me all about Anna Livia!

I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now. You'll die when you hear."

-- Finnegans Wake, James Joyce

A wonderful post from one of my favorite bloggers about Finnegans Wake, which he calls "one of history's freakish cul-de-sacs", (I love that).

Like Patrick, I have read Finnegans Wake - in increments - and mainly outloud to myself. In my opinion, it reads much better out loud - you can hear it - because Joyce, being nearly blind himself, was mostly all about the sound of things. He experienced the world not visually, but aurally ... and the music of Finnegans Wake, because that is what it is, is in what it sounds like.

I was in grad school, a rigorous environment already - and I found, while I was in school, that I only gravitated towards mostly difficult works. My brain was used to difficulty (and I've never been one who thinks "it's an easy book" is the highest of compliments anyway) so while I was in school, and already tremendously strapped for time, I found myself reading difficult things like Leviathan and Antonin Artaud (Artaud? I need you to CHILLAX, okay? You're freaking me out. Just CHILLAX) and Finnegans Wake. If it wasn't rigorous, it didn't hold my interest at that time. Finnegans Wake was not a book I carried around with me, reading while I was in line at the bank. It didn't seem to lend itself to that kind of behavior, so typical for me with other books. I couldn't just pick it up and put it down again. I needed to clear a space for it, intellectually, and I did so every morning for about half an hour at a time.

Then, as now, I was a morning creature - waking up at 5:30 a.m. to have quiet alone time before charging off to school where I would be busy until 11 o'clock at night, with barely time to grab a granola bar for lunch. I would sit on the couch in the living room, and read out loud to myself (quietly, because I had a roommate) - drinking my coffee - and sometimes taking notes, underlining things that struck me. I could only do a couple of pages a day. That was fine for me. I felt no pressure. I didn't try to read it like a regular book.

I had, of course, already read all of Joyce's other stuff - multiple times - "The Dead" is a story I go back to time and time again (I consider it to be that rarity: a truly perfect thing) - (excerpt and essay about it here) ... not to mention certain sections of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (excerpt and essay here) - and my reading experience of Ulysses, one summer, under the tutelage of my dad, is one of the most memorable and exciting reading experiences I have ever had, rivaled only by my first re-reading of Moby-Dick, 15 years after I had first read it (and hated it) in high school.

There is always a 'code' in Joyce, he loved codes and symbols and secret messages - and while there is always much for me to learn with Ulysses, that first time, with the help of my dad, I cracked the code. I got it. Once I could see what he was doing, it was seriously like Alice in Wonderland going through the magic locked door into the Queen's garden of roses. Not that the language is that opaque, it's really not - certainly it's not the mysterious dreamspace language of Finnegans Wake - but it's way more fun to figure out what Joyce was attempting so that you can then just relax, and stop struggling. ("The Oxen of the Sun" chapter in Ulysses is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It is, by far, the most difficult chapter of the book - with language that predicts Finnegans Wake - and it was the only time where I felt, within 1 or 2 pages, "Yeah, uh-huh, so I am obviously not QUALIFIED to read this." And I still feel that way, to some degree - I am not a linguist, so I can't say what Joyce is up to 9 times out of 10 - but with the help of my dad, I saw what Joyce was doing - and so it stopped being a foggy mystery, a wall of incomprehensible language - and suddenly became, oh, one of the most genius things I have ever read in my life. Not because it was difficult - but because it was complex and had an inner structure that I couldn't really see until I adjusted my own vision. I was really pleased when I received an email from a graduate student in Ireland, telling me that he had tripped over my post about the "Oxen of the Sun" episode, and it had really helped him crack the code for himself. I MUST give the props to my dad for that, because he was a big reason why I could figure it out. "Okay, so that's a chapter about birth. So look for nine sections ... everything's about NINE in that chapter..." etc.)

Finnegans Wake (excerpt and essay here) makes Ulysses seem easy, like a dime-store novel. But to me, that is the fun of it. Ironically (or, not so ironically) Joyce considered it his most accessible book. Joyce did not worry about his audience (of course he didn't - he went 17 years in between books!!) - but he felt that Finnegans Wake was almost populist in nature, made up of folklores, myths, oral history, legends ... Anyone could understand it. (Of course "anyone", at least in the Western world, was way more educated back then - Greek, Latin, all of that was par for the course in primary education ... so the frame of reference was much larger). Nora (Joyce's wife) looked at one of his pages of gobbledygook language and said, "Why can't you write a book that people would want to read?"

However, she - a rough uneducated girl from Galway - said, after his death, when reporters continually brought up Ulysses to her:

"What's all this talk about Ulysses? Finnegans Wake is the important book."

I can't say I enjoyed Finnegans Wake (although once I got into it I actually found the whole thing to be a hoot. Seriously. A HOOT.) Joyce famously said about Ulysses:

The pity is the public will demand and find a moral in my book — or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honor of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it.

And you know, the more I read Joyce, the more I see what he was talking about. He obviously took his work seriously, agonizing over commas, and stuff like that ... but regardless of his giant reputation in the canon of 20th century literature - and the shadow he casts forward and back ... I always find there to be a silliness in his work, a lightness (this is actually not the case in The Dubliners, which feel like straight-up social realism to me - you can feel the influence of Ibsen there, Joyce's favorite writer) ... but I find the books to be ABOUT nothing. There is no "theme", no "message" and if you try to pin it down you will certainly miss the whole of it. Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are not their plots (thank God - because what the hell happens in those books??) ... they are their language.

To quote Samuel Beckett, who had this to say about Finnegans Wake:

You cannot complain that this stuff is not written in English. It is not written at all. It is not to be read. It is to be looked at and listened to. His writing is not about something. It is that something itself.

And once I surrendered, once I let JOYCE lead, and stop trying to lead the book myself ... the language took over, filling my head with sounds and echoes and reverb ... silly, juvenile, audacious, pointless - yet fun. Because it was fun for Joyce.

E.M. Forster gave a series of lectures on "the novel" and devoted a great deal of time to Melville's Moby Dick. He closed his lecture with words I find appropriate for Joyce as well, and Finnegans Wake in particular:

Moby Dick is full of meanings: its meaning is a different problem. It is wrong to turn the Delight or the coffin into symbols, because even if the symbolism is correct, it silences the book. Nothing can be stated about Moby Dick except that it is a contest. The rest is song.

And speaking of song: Patrick also has a link to James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake.

James Baldwin shimmying

Mitchell - linking to this awesome photo for you!

The Books: "As I Am: An Autobiography" (Patricia Neal)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

As I Am: An Autobiography, by Patricia Neal

This is one of those rare books where my response to it was, "Dear God, it's me, Sheila. Could you please give Patricia Neal a break? Hasn't she had enough??" The bare bones of her life story are enough to make my blood run cold - because so much of what happened to her was random, the luck of the draw. It's a great fear of mine - to be incapacitated by something like a stroke - something where my mind has gone, and I have to rebuild it ... where I am still in there, but my body won't behave. It's terrifying. Not to mention being (like Patricia Neal was) pregnant! But there's so much more to this fantastic book than just the story of her stroke and her incredible recovery (which had as much to do with pure grit and willpower than anything else). It's beautifully written - emotional and in-the-moment ... The things that hurt her once still seem to hurt her, the experiences she had as a young woman still seem real to her ... Patricia Neal is not "over" it, she doesn't come across as distanced in any way - and yet at the same time, I don't get that ikky sense that I get from some biographies that she has an axe to grind. No, what I get is that Neal - as a wonderful actress - is able to do the same thing in her writing that she can do as an actress: imagine herself into another world, this time her past - and re-experience it. You FEEL what she feels. You can't believe what this woman has gone through.

And what an actress.

Life is unfair. That's one of the things I get from this book (although I have plenty of evidence before my own eyes to realize that) ... and much of what life is has to do with how you RESPOND to the SHIT that happens to you.

I think Neal's book is fantastic. It's fantastic about acting, and her career - moments where she had breakthroughs, troubled moments with directors, whatever ... and it's also fantastic about the real-life aspects: love affairs, life, motherhood, grief, religion, career ... It's quite a book, and I love the title. You really feel, by the end of the book, that you have been through the wringer with her - and that she has truly earned the right to say the words, "As I Am." It was hard-won, that peace with herself, hard hard won ... She had to scrape and claw for so much, she had to climb herself back to health, she had to insist to herself that life, after all, was worth living. The story of her recovery from her stroke brings tears to my eyes. It's terrible. She describes lying in bed, being unable to think of the words for things ... saying things like "coliseum" when she means "cigarette" ... and also stuff like shitting the bed, but being unable to move, and weeping, as the nurses come to clean her up, humiliated, devastated.

Roald Dahl, her husband, was not a warm man. There was something off about him. He told Patricia Neal he loved her twice in their whole marriage. But his response to her stroke - what we would call now as "tough love" - is much of why she recovered. Well, that and the neurosurgery team at the hospital. But when Neal came home, she was on her own. Dahl refused to baby her. If it took her 45 minutes to button her blouse, then it took her 45 minutes. He would not help. They would have enormous battles, and she would be screaming at him - only she still couldn't remember the words for things (horrifying - it just gives me chills) - so she'd be shouting gibberish, trying, trying, to remember the word for, oh, "son of a bitch" or "I hate you".

Prior to marrying Roald Dahl, Neal - early in her career - had been cast in The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper.

Gary Cooper was a married man, but he was also a famous philanderer. He had great respect for his wife, Rocky, and always stopped his affairs before they went too far. Rocky knew all about them, and I have no idea what it was like for her - but the two of them seemed good companions. Cooper needed to be married, having a homelife was very important to him - and Rocky loved her position in society as his wife. It was a tradeoff. Cooper and Neal had an affair. Neal was not a floozy, not really, and she fell so in love with Gary Cooper that she counts him as the great love of her life. Really the only man she ever loved. Her entire book ends with her going out to lunch with Rocky, and the two of them talking about Gary, and Rocky seeming to understand what it was that Neal had lost (after all, she loved him too) - and it felt good for the two of them to sit there and reminisce about him. Rather extraordinary, huh? Neal writes:

This was the one man I loved passionately, the one I had fought to get. But the bond of his marriage was stronger than our passion. And I was forced to submit to that. I am now grateful that I did. If I had not married Roald Dahl, I would have been denied my children, even my life, because he truly saved me and I will be forever grateful to him for that.

Complicated. Life is not simple.

In 1963, Patricia Neal played Alma, the earthy humorous housekeeper in Hud. How I love that performance. Her scenes with Paul Newman should be studied by anyone who is interested in acting. THAT is how it's done, peeps. Obstacle, objective, decisions being made on the fly, impulses followed or ignored, subtext stronger than text ... So so good. Neal won the Oscar for Best Actress.

The year before, her 7-year-old daughter Olivia had died, unexpectedly, from measles encephalitis. Neal was still struggling, at the time of filming Hud, with an almost baffled sense of grief, how do you incorporate such an event into your life, how on earth do you go on?? Watching her as Alma is a true testament to the power of art as some kind of healing force. She is not "playing" her own biography here. Alma is a tough Texas woman, with some miles on her, a divorce in her past, and yet a philisophical attitude which allows her to hang out with tough men and be one of them. Despite her housekeeper status. It's a marvelous portrayal - three-dimensional in its scope and a constant surprise. Her grief about her daughter was somehow mysteriously channeled into that performance ... It was like Neal needed to lose herself in her work, and boy, did she ever.

In 1965 she had a debilitating stroke. Actually, she had three strokes - which left her in a coma. It was thought she would never come out of it. She was 39 years old. A long road to recovery followed, and she credits much of it to Roald Dahl, who shouted at her until she could do nothing else but fight back. He would not let her be weak. Whatever issues they had in their marriage (and who knows, maybe Dahl sensed all along that he was her second choice) it did not stop Dahl from insisting that she get strong. If she had to hate him in the process, then maybe that would be good for her, motivational.

Neal describes sitting and watching the Academy Awards in 1965 - post-stroke - where, if she hadn't been incapacitated, she would have been there to present the award to the Best Actor - it was her spot, because she had won the award the year before. Audrey Hepburn gave out the award in her place, and Neal - still sick, still unable to form or remember words - had the expectation that Hepburn would at least acknowledge her - would say something nice about her, to remind the audience, "This should have been Patricia Neal presenting ..." but Hepburn didn't say a word. Just gave out the award. Neal flipped out. She and Dahl were sitting on the couch at home, and Neal started shouting at the television, expressing her anger at being so forgotten and ignored. It hurt her. But because of the stroke, what came out was gibberish - she couldn't remember any words for anything - but the sentiment was clear.

Dahl took that as a wonderful sign. That Neal had a memory of something outside of her own sickness, and was invested enough in it to be pissed off ... He thought that was great. A sign of health. Being able to say, "Goddammit, that is so UNFAIR" is a sign of mental health (I've often thought so ... when we stop having the ability to rail at the unfair-ness of things, we lose a lot of our fire ...). I think Dahl was on to something - and perhaps he didn't really love her (sure doesn't sound like it) - but perhaps it was that very DISTANCE from her, the fact that he could remain separate from her, and see her clearly, that he didn't feel the need to hover over his poor darling, cooing over how sick she was ... that made him such a great and enormous help in her recovery.

She was offered the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (amazing to contemplate, huh?) - but she turned it down, feeling that it was still too close to her stroke. Neal rebuilt her life. She worked with a speech therapist, she worked with neurologists ... and she came back. When she returned to work, in The Subject Was Roses, she was again nominated for an Academy Award.

As I Am is one of my favorites in this particular genre: entertainment autobiography ... It palpitates with real feeling, and is very specific. She remembers people - Kazan, Cooper ... and she also, frankly, comes off as someone I would love to know. A real person. Whose life has been a true journey. Who had shit thrown at her - time and time again - and she survived it. Not without a lot of fighting and a lot of grief - and one nervous breakdown - but she survived.

Her memories of Gary Cooper are so tender that it makes my heart crack ... and I often wonder, in my own life, what is left in me to give someone else ... after my great and failed love. My guy said to me, in a song he wrote for me, "You'll always be my great lost love." Thanks for nothing, pal. No, just kidding. But it really resonated with me, her journey. And how she tells it like it is. She does not spare Dahl in many respects. He had an affair with her best friend - which was what finally ended their 30-year marriage. He laughed in her face when she told him her heart was broken. I don't think he ever really recovered from his daughter dying ... it made him twisted and mean. So Neal just tells it like it is. BUT she does not throw out ye olde baby with ye olde bathwater. Dahl MADE her get well, MADE her recover, on her own, from the strokes that should have killed her. And so, like she says, she owes him her LIFE. Pretty amazing.

I chose an excerpt today that really moves me. In 1959 Patricia Neal was cast in the play Miracle Worker, being directed by Arthur Penn. She was a big enough star at that point that she was hurt that she was not offered the role of Annie. She played Helen's mother. BUT: Neal took the role, knowing that she needed to work - rather than not work - and yes, her ego took a blow ... but I love her grace here, and also her honesty. It was not easy to back off and not be the star. But she did.

EXCERPT FROM As I Am: An Autobiography, by Patricia Neal

It was April in 1959 when I heard from Arthur Penn, the director. He was casting William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, about the young Helen Keller. Everyone knew it was bound to be one of the biggest hits of the season and the vehicle of a lifetime for the actress who played Annie Sullivan, Helen's teacher.

The only problem was, Arthur was not offering me that part. He thought I would be wonderful as Helen's mother. It was not a starring role, but I hadn't done a play in the United States in four years or a film in three. I was in no position to command the star spot and I knew it. I could fantasize all I wanted, but if I was to keep working I would have to go with what was offered.

The star of Miracle Worker was Anne Bancroft. Like me, Anne had left Hollywood and returned to New York to make a new start. I first saw her at The Studio and admired her as an actress. Later I got to know her socially at the Strasberg parties. She was great fun and I liked her very much. Our paths were destined to cross many times.

We were in rehearsal only a few days when Anne and Arthur invited me for a drink. Arthur asked me quite candidly if I resented not playing the star role. I was equally candid. I admitted that I did, indeed, find it tough to step down, but I was trying my damndest to do it graciously. They breathed sighs of relief. Both of them thanked me for being honest and assured me they knew how difficult it was. I can truthfully say that the fact that I adored Anne and Arthur helped. I felt better than I had in days for having gotten it out. It was one of the happiest companies I ever worked with. It also afforded me a reunion with Phyllis Adams, of my pavement-pounding days. Phyllis was now married to George Jenkins, our set designer.

Near the end of rehearsals I saw Fred Cox, our producer, in the auditorium with a man and a woman. I couldn't see their faces from the stage, but the man kept waving at me. Finally I walked down the aisle to see who he was.

"Do you recognize me?" he asked with a tinge of wickedness. "We met in Chicago."

I searched the familiar face for a name.

"I'm the fellow you told not to go into show business."

"Oh yes," I said, nodding. "Michael ..."

Fred helped me out. "Nichols."

The woman with him, of course, was Elaine May.

I had gone six weeks without my family and we were just beginning out-of-town previews in Boston when Roald arrived with the girls. I could not wait to see my babies, and as they got off the elevator, I bellowed my welcome. Olvia looked at me with fright and Tessa let out a terrified wail. They obviously had no idea they were coming to see me and, in fact, did not seem to know why I had been absent from their lives for so long. I was annoyed with Roald for this oversight, but later, when all was well and we laughed it off, I scolded myself for making too much of it.

Eventually Roald came to the show. Following the performance, Arthur appeared at my dressing room. He was shaking with anger. "He's quite a fellow, that husband of yours. He doesn't think we have much of a play. Of course, he gave us his recommendations. We'd appreciate it if you'd see that he doesn't come again."

I was humiliated. And so angry that when Roald came backstage, I seethed. "This has nothing to do with you. Will you keep your fucking nose out of my business and let me make my own enemies!" We did not speak again about the progress of the play.

The Miracle Worker opened on October 19, 1959. Our reviews were as great as everyone hoped. Especially for Anne and little Patty Duke, who played Helen.

I got pregnant on opening night. Obviously Roald did not hold grudges.

Patty was older than the six-and-a-half-year-old Helen she portrayed on stage. I used to take her home with me and she was the perfect guest, completely charming and gracious. She loved to read stories to the girls, who adored her. Her visits spurred Olivia's pestering to come and see Mummy act for the first time. I arranged for Sonia to take her to a matinee but asked that she kept in the lobby during my first scene, fearing my frantic screams for my stage child might set up a howl from my own. After the performance, she looked at me very seriously and said, "I loved you, Mummy. You were jolly good." At that moment I didn't mind that Anne had gotten all the reviews. I had just gotten the most important notice of my life.

Introducing Jan the Actress

Steve Buscemi's Animal Factory, a screen adaptation of Eddie Bunker's book about being in prison (Bunker also wrote the screenplay), came out in 2000. Willem Dafoe and Eddie Furlong starred. The rest of the cast is full of New York regulars, people you would recognize from the independent film world, Buscemi's world.

It's about a young privileged kid (Decker) who finds himself in prison for dealing marijuana and having to survive, suddenly, a rough institutional life. Willem Dafoe plays Earl, a guy who has been in the prison for a long time, someone who has learned to work the system, bribe the guards, get revenge to keep people in line - and in general bend the rules to get his needs met. Dafoe is bald, which just accentuates his odd face - and his body, in this film, is hard as a pit bull's. He looks terrifying. But then you realize he's actually not. Or maybe he is. Who knows. All we know is is that he sees Decker and, for whatever reason (it even seems opaque to him at times) decides to protect him. Maybe it's a fatherly impulse. Or maybe it's a remembrance of what it was like to be "outside". Everyone in the prison has been basically "in the system" since they were juveniles. But the Eddie Furlong character actually lived in the "real world", and brings with him a whiff of that. Dafoe gives him Demons (Dostoevsky's book), saying, "Read it. You'll like it. It's a new translation." I admit I rolled my eyes at that one. Okay, okay, he's educated and weird. I got it.

There's nothing really new in Animal Factory. We've seen it all before. It has elements of Shawshank Redemption (older veteran, younger white-collar guy), although the prison in Animal Factor isn't as golden-lit with care-bear sentimentality as Shawshank. It's the real deal, and feels much more authentic. There's the older jaded man, the younger innocent ... there's the father on the outside (played by John Heard) who is trying to get his son out ... Seymour Cassel plays a prison guard who has basically befriended the Dafoe character - they've both been at the prison for the same amount of time.

I saw the film when it first came out in very (very) limited release. I saw it at the Angelika Theatre, here in New York, in a 50-seat theatre. About 25 people were there. So I watched the movie, and I found it a little bit boring (although Dafoe is good, always fun to watch) - and I find Eddie Furlong, at times, hard to take. Sometimes he's good, but sometimes he just seems lost as an actor. Animal Factory revolves around his journey, becoming "institutionalized", and he, the actor, didn't seem up to it. There are some horrifying scenes of violence, a prison strike, riot guards, and a various cast of characters to fill up the screen. It's okay. Willem Dafoe always seems more like someone from commedia dell arte (with apologies to Mitchell) than a realistic world. Even in gritty movies, there is something mannered about him - a lot of it has to do with what he looks like. He has said it himself. I think he said something once like, "I look like a woodcut", and that's pretty much the size of it. His face isn't one thing, it's a blank slate almost - or a mask - that the audience can project things onto. He looks rather severe. But when he cracks a smile, it's so mischievous you want to join in the fun. And here, he has a quiet strength - he's like a coiled spring. Territory is there to be defended. You are never safe. He's been "in" long enough that he's at home in prison, but there are always threats to the alpha dog. Dafoe is good. His job in this film is to look at Eddie Furlong and feel a dawning tenderness towards someone for the first time in eons. And that wasn't really an easy job with Furlong not giving him much to work on. Dafoe is playing that relationship as it should be played.

All in all, it was a pretty typical movie.

But there's one character named Jan the Actress, a transvestite who is Eddie Furlong's cellmate in the first half of the film. The entire movie takes off when Jan the Actress enters. You miss her when she's gone. She only has three short scenes, and you keep waiting for her - it throws the movie off balance. You think she will be more important, mainly because you just want to see her again. At least that was my experience.

She lies on her bottom bunk, in full makeup, smoking, with big hard biceps - she's wearing a sleeveless vest with a lacy bra underneath - and she calls Eddie Furlong "sugarplum", and yet there's more of a big brother-ly (or sisterly) aspect to it. You don't feel like she's going to rape Eddie Furlong or insist on anything scary. She just reads magazines, likes to gossip - makes psychological statements about other inmates ("When he first got in here, he was the most dysfunctionary man I have ever seen ..") - and basically shoots the shit. She is definitely a queen, but more of an East Village circa 1983 queen: tough, brutal, sweet on the outside, hard as nails inside. The role could have been offensive. Roles like this always can be. If it seems as though the filmmakers or the actor is condescending to the part, and using it as a punchline (cue St. Elmo's Fire with the gay character who just HAS to be drinking a frilly pink drink when we see him - it's a kind of shorthand which is just another word for bigotry) - then it's not good. I'm not against cliche. Cliches exist in life. All of the characters in Sopranos were cliches - but they seemed real, too. I'm a cliche, you're a cliche - we each have our little box that we could be nailed down into with a couple of key phrases. But that's not what makes up good acting (or good script writing). What makes up good acting is a feeling that what you are looking at is real. Sometimes the reality means so fully embodying the cliche that audience members will gasp to one another, "I know someone just like that!!" It's accurate, yet it is not just its surface.

Jan the Actress is tough. She talks about wanting to become a butterfly and fly to "Paris France" where she can sit on a "motherfucking cherry blossom tree" and watch all the "pretty people". "And I can say to the pretty boy waiting on me - 'Mama, go get me a caffe latte and a jelly donut' ..." But then when Furlong asks him how he should handle a certain situation, Jan gets pissed. "How should you handle it? You get a fucking knife, that's how you handle it. You won't survive in here, sugarplum, if you don't look after yourself. How should you handle it ... Jesus Christ."

Jan the Actress is nobody's fool, although she puts on a flirty act, just to survive. In prison, identities harden - you have to project a SELF, as hard as you can, as a message that you are someone not to be fucked with. Jan the Actress has done that, with her flamboyant outfits, her long green acrylic nails, her movie magazines, and her language - which has a whiff of Blanche Dubois in it.

The actor playing the part is riveting. He has one moment after his long monologue about Paris, France - when you can suddenly hear the clang of a door shutting, and something happens on his face - something primal ... It's like after years of being incarcerated (you have no idea what this guy has done to get imprisoned, but you know he's going to be there for a long long time) he suddenly feels the sound of a door clanging shut. And locking. After going off into a rambling monologue (and the actor is great - I have no idea if that was scripted, but the monologue is ridiculous - yet heartfelt - "I'll see all the pretty places and people will take me to pretty places and they'll be polite to me and I'll walk down the fucking Champs Elysee and I'll be in Paris France ..." You know, he's articulate in a way, but not neat or poetic about it ... and the actor plays it perfectly) ... so after going off into a rambling monologue, it is as though the sound of a door clanging shut affects him. He doesn't wince, or cringe ... he barely looks sad ... It's like he feels the sound. That's all. He feels the sound. That sound is in him. He ain't never getting out.

Jan the Actress disappears halfway through the movie when Eddie Furlong is moved to another cell and I never quite recovered from her absence. It ruined the rest of the movie for me, because every scene then became about (for me): "Will Jan show up?" as opposed to, "I wonder how this whole father-son relationship is going to end ..." She tipped the movie over. She couldn't help it. Her acting was that good.

The credits at the beginning of the movie had been brief and simple - with only Dafoe's and Furlong's name of the actors - so I waited at the end of the movie to see who Jan the Actress had been played by.

Was she familiar? Did her voice ring a little bit familiar to me? Haven't I seen her before?

I was stunned - literally - my jaw dropped - when I saw the credit roll by:

JAN THE ACTRESS ............. Mickey Rourke

What???

THAT was Mickey Rourke? So suddenly it became not just the best part of the movie - but an exciting moment of possibility, of wondering ... will he ... will he work again?? I haven't written much about him, mainly because I find it to be a painful topic. His work didn't just mean a lot to me back in the late 80s - he was really IT, as far as I was concerned. I didn't sleep after watching Angel Heart. He raised the bar for all of us - anyone who was interested in acting got fired up after watching him. So I did have that strange feeling of personal connection to Mickey Rourke. To watch him back out of the arena, on purpose, was painful for me. I've liked other actors since - I was VERY excited when Russell Crowe arrived on the scene (and the response to him, in actor circles anyway - was similar to the response to Rourke) ... but Rourke was the one back then, and you never forget those people who show you the way back then. I would watch some of his movies in the 90s and finally I just stopped, because it was too painful.

So to see that Jan the Actress was Mickey Rourke ... and how good she had been, how much she made the movie ... and that it would turn out to be Rourke, the guy from back then, I just felt strangely exhilarated about it. Moved. Like I wanted to write him a letter or something and tell him how much I had missed him. It was so good to see him. Because he was so in CHARGE of that thing. And now that I know it's him, he's completely recognizable - the voice, the phrasing, the eyes, the mouth ... totally Rourke, unmistakable. But he was channeling something else as Jan and it is never less than 100% convincing. And not just convincing - because hell, Dafoe is convincing, and I wasn't waiting with baited breath for HIM to come back onscreen - but exciting. Addictive. Palpable with reality. Riveting - you can't look away.

Buscemi had taken a risk and called Rourke, offering him the part. Rourke read the script, and was confused. You want me to play HER? He couldn't see it. Buscemi said yes - he wanted him for Jan. So Rourke said he would do it. It was a low-budget film, of course, and Rourke worked for one or two days only. It had been a long time since Rourke had had a job that excited him. He went shopping for Jan's clothes, which is so amusing - imagining Rourke trying on bras and such. From what I understand, and what I can glean (because Rourke, like all the greats, doesn't really talk about HOW he does what he does) ... in the time before filming, Rourke started dreaming his way into the part. He saw Jan as someone who was totally institutionalized - had been in juvie as a teenager and just graduated to hard-time incarceration. It was a process of assimilation for Jan - at first you fight against the bars, then you accept them, and finally - life is like you're just living in a slightly seedy hotel (where the doors are locked at night). You are institutionalized. That's what Rourke wanted to convey. He also decided (who knows why) to have no front teeth as Jan - so he went to his dentist and had his dentist remove his front bridge. (This makes me want to cry. I love actors. Who knows why Rourke wanted to have no front teeth, but he did - "I thought it would be an interesting aspect to the character" - and had his dentist do this huge procedure so that Rourke ACTUALLY had no teeth during filming). Rourke was nervous. He had never played such a part before. He's such a macho kind of guy, and he knew he needed to break the ice with playing this type of part. He would have no rehearsal for the film, he'd have to show up and start shooting - so to ease into it, so to speak, he flew across the country to get to New York in character. This wasn't a stunt, or a game to him ... It was a practical solution to the situation of having no rehearsal. He just didn't want to have to have the first time he put on those clothes out in front of people to be on the set, right before shooting a scene, when his nerves would be up. So, toothless Mickey Rourke, wearing a sleeveless vest, with a bra strap hanging down, and a full face of makeup, boarded the plane at LAX. Hysterical. But it did the trick. By the time he walked on that set, he WAS Jan. He also loved working with Buscemi, who is also an actor, and so Rourke felt good in his hands - safe.

Jan the Actress is a glorified cameo but he dominates that whole movie.

Rourke's main problem over the years (well, he had many problems) - but the main problem was that no one would insure him for the run of a film. And as long as he kept insisting on boxing - even during shooting - then there was no way that a director or producers would take a risk with someone who could come back with a broken nose and ruin their continuity. So he stopped being insure-able. There were other issues - mainly how bored he had become with acting (the mark of a true genius), how tedious it was, and how he had done a couple of jobs just for the money and it had really damaged him. Because this guy was serious about acting. This wasn't just a guy who fell into it. He worked, studied, devoted himself to the kind of acting he wanted to do. So to have mercenary concerns really hurt him, and it made him feel like never going back to work again. Not to mention the slow transformation of his face over the 90s - into something barely recognizable. He had been punched in the face so many times that they had to rebuild the cartilage in his nose (a la Michael Jackson) by taking parts of his ear and whatnot. His doctors told him he needed to stop. He also started having short-term memory problems. "I could remember what happened 20 years ago, but couldn't remember yesterday." On top of all this, he had major money problems - addiction problems - and a tempestuous relationship with his wife, involving arrests for domestic abuse (charges later dropped) and a messy divorce that he did not recover from (emotionally, I mean). She walked out on him and Rourke lost it. (I'm talking about all of this like I know him. Sorry. I know that can be obnoxious. But whatever, I've read a lot. I've been following Rourke's career - on AND off - since 1987 or whenever it was Angel Heart came out). He has said, 10 years later, that he would still get back together if she wanted it. But anyway, in the wake of the divorce began the whole chihuahua obsession - I think he has 8 of them now - and he walked off the set of a movie because his chihuahua was not allowed. All of this stuff hit the news ... Rourke, now out of the business for 14, 15 years - still got headlines. For all the wrong things, it seemed ... but he was not forgotten. His work still had an impact.

When Sin City came out, suddenly there was a Rourke resurgence, which I found very very exciting. I was almost afraid to hope for it (to quote Cashel, when he prays: "Dare I hope???") because it would just be too awful if he fell off the rails again. I mean, awful for him, certainly - but awful for me, too, as a giant fan. Rourke started doing interviews again, and I was amazed by his softness, sweetness, and how the scary image he had built up in the 90s was not at all the whole truth. He was honest about his face, and how it had to be rebuilt from getting punched one too many times - he was honest about the boxing, and about how he had alienated so many people in Hollywood with his attitude that he really had to prove it to them that he was worthy of their trust. He said in one interview, "Look. Lots of people treated me like shit - but when you don't work for 14 years, you have to take responsibility for the fact that you made one or two mistakes." He was asked once if he regretted any of it, and he said, "I regret all of it." But, he added, "I'm being given a second chance." He had wanted to start working again in the mid-90s - but that was around the time when he found that no one would insure him. He turned down some very famous roles (most famous being Bruce Willis' part in Pulp Fiction). He has kept his peace about the missed opportunities "because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings anymore". He's a Roman Catholic, very devout, and he is what I would call a true eccentric. He's NUTS. But his energy in interviews, albeit nuts (you know, stroking a chihuahua in his lap as he answers questions, wearing sunglasses, chain-smoking) is utterly sincere. He knows he's good. He knows he blew it - but it seemed like those were the choices he had to make back then. He and Sylvester Stallone are friends and Stallone would advise him during the rough years, saying - "You have to be able to think of this as a business as well as art ... you need to toughen up a bit ... It's okay that it's a business - you can still do your art ..." But Rourke had never found that balance. He, like Meryl Streep's character in Postcards From the Edge, doesn't want life to imitate art, he wants life to be art. And so he is the classic case of someone who was chewed up and spit out. As tough as he is, he didn't have a thick skin. That's probably why he's so phenomenal as an actor.

So back in 2000, sitting in the darkened empty theatre in New York, years before this Rourke Renaissance happened (or appears to be on the cusp of happening, anyway, fingers crossed) ... I saw his name go rolling by and I found myself thinking, "Oh, God. Please let him come back."

The Books: "Marilyn and Me" (Susan Strasberg)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Marilyn and Me, by Susan Strasberg

There is much to say here, about the smothering psychodrama of the Strasberg family - and the introduction of Lee Strasberg's most famous student - Marilyn Monroe - as practically an adopted daughter into the family.

Lee Strasberg had been one of the founding members of the Group Theatre in the 30s. It soon became clear that his gift was not in acting or in directing - but in teaching, and theorizing. People came to him for help with scenes - he was a close student of the Stanislavksy "system" (known, in its American version, as "the Method") - and he put his own spin on it very early on, by introducing what is known as "affective memory" [corrected!] into the pot.

"Sense memory" is when you, the actor, concentrate on creating, say, a coffee cup full of coffee. You work at it with your hands, you try to feel the weight of the cup, you try to feel the heat emanating, you try to create for yourself the smell of coffee. These exercises are meant to unleash the actor's creativity and imagination. The point of acting is to come alive under imaginary circumstances and for some actors that takes practice. Strasberg was always fascinated by those who did it anyway, who did it easily - who did it naturally, with no training. What was it in, say, Eleanora Duse - or Paul Muni - that was so authentic? Duse is famous for blushing on stage when a blush was called for (it was George Bernard Shaw who first noticed it and commented on it, how it seemed to him to be the purest example of imagination and creativity he had ever seen). Her sense of reality and being in-the-moment was so intense, so unshakeable, that she would blush. On cue. No one alive today has seen "Duse's blush" - any audience member from her time is now long dead - and yet the impression it made has remained famous, and you will still hear people reference "Duse's blush".

Strasberg wondered if such authenticity (which came natural to the geniuses of the world - the Duse's, the Brando's) could be taught. Could an actor train his concentration so that the world of the play would be so real that all kinds of involuntary things (like a blush) could be possible? The "affective memory" exercise that Strasberg developed is the most controversial aspect of the Method, and I have pretty mixed feelings about it (mainly because it didn't work for me). You go back in time (in your mind) to re-create a memory, something from your past ... trying to not just think about it, or remember it intellectually - but re-live it. This is not meant to be a general experience, a re-hashing of an old familiar narrative from your life - that would do you no good as an actor. The point is to use that concentration you have been training - on creating coffee cups and taking a shower and a hot humid day - in the services of resurrecting that old memory - but you do not do it by focusing on the emotions of the old memory, you do it by focusing on the sensory details. For example, one day when you were 6 years old, a phone call came, and your mother answered, and the news arrived that your beloved grandmother had died - and it was your first moment of grief, loss, fear, whatever ... It was an important moment. For "affective memory", you don't go straight for the jugular, and think about your grandmother dying. No. You focus on how the light looked on the kitchen tile that day, and the smell of breakfast on the stove ... the shoes your mother was wearing, the sound of the telephone ring ... and through focusing on those sensory details, you can get closer to the actual source of the memory. Because, of course, our bodies remember sensoral details better than it remembers actual information. You touch a hot stove once, you never do it again, to use an obvious example. Much of this is at a primitive level, an animal level ... but we, as complex intellectual creatures, tend to distance ourselves, or we forget ... But to quote Metallica: "the memory remains" - not in the brain, but in the sensoral apparatus at our disposal. I have been in classes where everyone is doing an "affective memory" at the same time and it is literally like sitting in the main room of a psych ward. People babble, weep, moan, talk out loud - some people freak out so badly they have to stop the exercise. Just because it never worked for me is not to say that it is not a useful exercise, or that some people were really set free by it. Actors are not cookie-cutters. We are all different.

For me, I certainly could do the exercise. It wasn't that I was blocked or anything like that. I could re-create anything. I live in a fantasy world half the time, anyway, this shit is old hat to me. The problem (for me) came when I had to "use" it in my acting. As an exercise it was fine, but I never seemed to use it when I was actually onstage acting. Now, much of the purpose of sense memory and effective memory IS just for training. It helps you hone your skills, it's a craft, you have to practice - it's like practicing giving yourself permission to enter an imaginary world. Sense memory helps you do that, and it also helps you to be specific, as opposed to general. Actors who are good are good because of all kinds of reasons - but actors who are bad all have one thing in common: They are GENERAL. Generality is death to good acting. But people working on sense memory DURING a scene had a tendency to look like they were in a fog, they were unable to connect with their scene partner, they were so busy creating the damn sound of rain on the windows. It had a tendency to look belabored. I would rather be an actor who is not, perhaps, transported to another dimension by a sense memory exericse - but is able to listen and talk in a believable manner onstage. However: it doesn't have to be either/or. It actually shouldn't be either/or. I ended up basically just using sense memory as strictly a training exercise - like practicing meditation ... which can be difficult. It was a way to leave the workaday everyday world, and surrender to the moment. It was about giving myself permission to be a little kid again. Again: this is not to say my experience is right. It was just my experience. Judging other people's acting processes is, to me, a little bit like judging how other people have sex. There cannot be a more pointless and idiotic way to spend your mental energy. If it works for someone, who are you to say it shouldn't? What kind of an arrogant insecure son-of-a-bitch are you anyway? But you see that a lot. Young actors, perhaps not as knowledgeable as they should be, try to assert their own process as THE way to do things. I have noticed this, too, with my friends who have become mothers. Other mothers can't just be like, "I do things THIS way with my baby - maybe that would work for you ..." They have to be like, "I do things THIS way with my baby, and if you DON'T do it that way, then you are abusive and selfish." It's retarded. So because Spencer Tracy didn't consciously sit around using sense memory, that means he's somehow lesser? How fucking condescending. You use it if you NEED it. But there can be a rigidity in acting training - because it's such an uncertain pursuit - there are no guarantees - and so actors (some actors) want to believe that there is only one way to do things, and if they could just "do it right", then all the glory in the world will follow.

There are also teachers out there who are charlatans - of the New Age Deepak Chopra variety - who insist that THEIR way is the only way, if you follow THEM you will succeed ... It's almost like a cult. Like, if you decide to switch teachers, or stop taking class altogether, it's seen as you leaving the fold, going beyond the pale. Acting careers, like any other, have pressures, and people are looking for the magic bullet, the golden goose, whatever it is.

My process usually involves music (I always have a "mix tape" for whatever show I'm in ... stuff that gets me into the world of the play) - and then just practical concerns - like learning my lines, and doing what the character does, whatever that may be. I like things like costumes ... they help set me free and launch me into another person's psyche as opposed to my own. Things like shoes are very important. How you walk, and how your feet feel ... it's something palpable, tangible. And then, I'm a huge fan of what I call the "Bang Bang You're Dead" school of acting. I go into that a bit here, in my piece on William Holden. Meaning: when a little kid is playing cops and robbers and shouts at his friend, "BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD", the other little kid will launch into a swandive of death more convincing than any seasoned actor could ever hope to accomplish. There is no gap between impulse and action, there is no questioning of "how" to do it ... You know that you have to die, and you have been shot, and so you throw your body into the void. Much of acting is remembering what it was like to be a child playing make-believe (at least it is for me) - when you are unselfconsciously in the world you have created ... and so much of my process involves doing whatever I have to do to get into that state. This (for me) never involved sense memory. Or, maybe I'm stating it too strongly. There were moments, yes, when it came in useful. Working on Summer and Smoke, and doing a scene that happens on a hot humid night, where the air sits there like soup, making you sluggish and tired. I would use sense memory for that ... to create the sensation of humidity, and still thick air. Often, though, it seemed to me that it came easier if I would just give myself the cue, the "Bang Bang Youre Dead" cue - only this time it was, "Hot Humid Night - GO" ... and, because I'm a human being, aware, and open, my senses would jump into action. I remember humidity. I didn't need to turn myself inside out to get there. However, that could just be a matter of practice and talent ... You don't always need to turn yourself inside out (and I very much disliked teachers who were suspicious of ease. Those people have a vested interest in you, the student, being in their thrall, of needing them ... so they keep you weak. They don't like ANYTHING to come easy.)

All of this is to say that Lee Strasberg was THE teacher of "The Method" for 20, 30 years - and even with the controversies, having ringing endorsements from people like Al Pacino did much to maintain his mystique (and the mystique of the Actors Studio- with which Strasberg was forever linked - as though they were one and the same).

Lee Strasberg remains a controversial figure (and his third and last wife Anna Strasberg even more so_, a very important man in American theatrical history, but there is no "official" version of him. Some people hated him, some loved him, some felt liberated by his teaching (Ellen Burstyn), some felt stifled. There is no right answer here.

But when we get into the Marilyn Monroe connection, things get even more murky. I have read both of Susan Strasberg's books (Marilyn and Me and Bittersweet) - and I have to say: they make me feel stifled. Susan Strasberg, daughter of Lee and Paula Strasberg, was an actress. Because of who her parents were (and Paula had been an actress in the Group Theatre - she became Lee Strasberg's second wife - they had two children) - it was expected that she would go into the theatre, but it was also expected that she would study with her father, join the Actors Studio, take that route. They were unbelievably pushy parents. Or, Paula was pushy ... a very ambitious woman, bloated with her own thwarted dreams ... Paula was an acting coach herself (and she ended up having a very close relationship with Monroe - which caused all sorts of problems on movie sets - with Monroe deferring to PAULA'S judgment as opposed to the director's) ... and she wanted her daughter to thrive. However, I can't help but get the sense that she wanted her daughter to thrive on HER terms. She didn't REALLY want Susan to be free and independent. Whatever Susan had as an actress (and she had a pretty fine run!) would be OWNED by her parents. Just the thought of that makes me a little sick to my stomach.

Lee Strasberg was, famously, a very remote man. He was cut off, somewhere deep inside, and while he obviously had a gift of insight into acting - and into other people's processes - he wasn't as good with his own family. The house was always full of actors, all toadying up to Lee, and Susan grew up in that heady atmosphere, a little dark-haired girl on the sidelines, watching movie stars suck up to her father. Would there be room in that for HER? The thought of breaking free of her parents was unthinkable. They were too powerful. However, Susan started studying at the Actors Studio. Of course that meant that she was studying with her father - which, naturally, would make her freeze up ... If he treated her like he treated the other students (pushing at them, shouting at them, slicing through their defenses) ... how would she take that home with her? How would that affect their relationship? But even with these struggles, Strasberg started working. Very early. She got the role of Anne Frank in the Broadway production - she was just a teenager - and it was a giant smash hit. She was the toast of Broadway. Here's a picture of Susan from that time - and you can see, smiling above her - the mouth of Marilyn Monroe - one of the oddest things to see - because Marilyn Monroe is always the focus of any photo she is in. But here - in this case - she is not. It's Susan Strasberg's night.

She went on to minor success - playing Millie Owens in Picnic (a part with which I have many fond memories myself) and other roles.

Meanwhile, though, Marilyn Monroe had latched on to Lee Strasberg (and the feeling was mutual). Marilyn Monroe had moved to New York at the height of her career with two goals in mind: 1. To nab Arthur Miller and 2. To study with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Monroe and Shelley Winters were great friends, and Winters had suggested that the Studio would be a good no-pressure place (ha!) for Monroe to go to work on her acting. She could take classes, have private sessions with Lee. Monroe would probably never get the chance to work on Nora in Doll's House (although I think she would have been wonderful in the part) - but there at the Studio she could.

Monroe dedicated herself to her classes at the Studio, and Strasberg very early on had some kind of connection to her. Perhaps he was enamored at the thought that this glamorous movie star had chosen him. Perhaps he was a little bit in love with her. Perhaps he had a Svengali complex. I think there was all of that going on. His devotion to Marilyn Monroe became paramount. He was more devoted to her than he was to his own children (at least that is how Susan and Johnny - the Strasberg's son - felt). Both of them had artistic ambition and dreams ... why couldn't their famous father stay focused on THEM?

Marilyn Monroe became ensconced in the Strasberg household. She and Lee would have hours-long sessions in his study, and she would emerge, unsteady on her feet, drained from weeping, and ready for a drink. Boundaries were blurred. Monroe slept over (as a matter of fact, she slept in the same room as Johnny - who was a 16 year old boy at the time - can you imagine the sexual confusion of that situation for him?) John, though, years later, would remember very movingly his first impressions of her, the biggest movie star in the world:

The first time I met her I remember she came out of the living room and Pop said, "This is my son," and my first impression of her was that she was different from most of the people who came to the house. I'd watch all these people trading their most human qualities, betraying themselves for success at all costs, to become rich and famous, and afterward, when it was too late, they'd realize they had lost the best part of themselves along the way, but she, she was like me. When I looked into her eyes, it was like looking into my own, they were like a child's eyes. I was still a child. You know how children just look at you. My feeling was she had less ego or was less narcissistic than most of the actors who never really bothered with me. She was just another person to me, another one from that world I felt cut off, excluded, from. She was nicer, real simple, no makeup, and she really looked at me as if she saw me. It wasn't that I wanted people to look at me, but I knew the difference when she did. I knew everyone said she was the sexiest, most sensual woman in the world. Not to me. I thought there was something wrong with me for not feeling that from her. I'd felt it from other women who came to the house. I was pretty sexually frustrated then. She was so open, so loose, and her sensuality as such was so totally innocent, nothing dirty in it at all, and the first time it was just like talking to an ordinary person, only realer than most who came into the house in those days. She was quiet, too, I remember, like an animal is quiet, and I was like that too, survival tactics. She seemed smart, but not in an educated way, instinctively smart, nobody's fool.

They had a special bond. She had a special bond with Susan as well, they were practically like sisters. They would sleep in in the mornings, lying in Susan's bed, talking about boys and makeup and life. As Susan Strasberg started getting important parts in plays that were truly relevant, Monroe was proud and happy for her - but jealous as well - since she had never been given the chance to do anything that would be "important". Monroe, like most brilliant comediennes and sex bombs, yearned to be taken seriously. Her relationship with the Strasbergs was deep, complex, disturbing to read about, and, frankly, a mess. Everyone was just trying to get their needs met. But her presence in the family messed up an already strained dynamic.

Monroe looked to Strasberg as a father figure, and if there were any sexual shenanigans (who knows, just speculating) Paula looked the other way. Paula insinuated herself into Monroe's life, becoming a constant companion. She, in lieu of Lee, would travel with Marilyn, going on her shoots with her, to work on the part privately, and have private sessions. Directors HATED her. They HATED her. She would stand behind them as they shot the scene, and the director would call "Cut" and Marilyn would not look at the director to see if it was good, she would glance over the director's shoulder to Paula. An insufferable situation. Paula Strasberg was banned from many sets. She was seen as interference. She got in the way of Marilyn doing good work - as opposed to the other way around. It was almost like (and this is my interpretation from all the reading I've done) that Paula's presence made Marilyn doubt herself. Marilyn was a huge talent. Yeah, she had problems memorizing lines (she probably was dyslexic) and had other issues ... but dammit, she knew how to be a movie star. Come on. She created that all on her own without the help of Paula Strasberg. In a cynical sense, I can see that Lee and Paula saw Marilyn as a possible gravy train (and the debacle with Marilyn's estate - a controversy to this day - is indicative of what perhaps they had hoped to happen). Lee Strasberg made his living through acting teaching. He was not a director, he was not an actor. So he wasn't a wealthy man. Marilyn Monroe was loaded, and willing to pay.

But I think, too, there was something in Marilyn that was, perhaps, weaker than other actresses - who also need to be coddled and told they are wonderful, etc. Marilyn Monroe yearned to be seen as a real actress, and Lee Strasberg, unlike most of the folks in Hollywood, saw it in her. He saw potential unlike anything he had ever seen before. I do think that part of it was genuine for him. He made her work on Anna Christie and Shakespeare. He made her work on Molly Bloom's monologue at the end of Ulysses. He saw that Marilyn Monroe had a natural ability - rare indeed - to project herself, her personality, her soul - out into the open. Most actors need to be taught to do what she did naturally.

Regardless: the Strasberg involvement in Monroe's life was intense. It makes me stifled to read it. By the end of Marilyn's life, she was trying to cut the cords. It was not easy. It is never easy to change a dance step. To say to someone who is convinced that you need them: "Yeah, thanks, I got it now. I can do it on my own." Especially when there is a financial element to the relationship. They depended on Marilyn financially.

Anyway, books have been written about all of this. You could obviously look at it through many different lenses. Arthur Miller was furious at the Strasbergs for taking advantage of Marilyn, as he saw it. John Huston was like, "If I ever see that black bat [meaning Paula Strasberg] on my set ..."

The book Marilyn and Me is Susan's story - of trying to survive in that environment and carve out her own place. Even though her work was good and she was getting great reviews ... it didn't seem to win her parents' approval. They would drop everything if Marilyn called. And Marilyn - never a woman with rock-hard boundaries - seemed to not realize how much damage she did ... she couldn't help herself. She also loved the Strasbergs (all 4 of them, not just Paula and Lee). She loved them as the family she never had.

But boy. What a mess.

You can't wait for Susan and Johnny to move out and get on with their OWN lives. Interestingly enough, Marilyn seemed to sense that as well. She had a big sister role to the two younger Strasbergs, and sometimes (with her sensitivity) could see what the situation was clearer than any insider could. John Strasberg (who has gone on to be an amazing director and teacher - I took a workshop with him and he blew me away) tells a beautiful story about Marilyn, one of my favorites:

I think I was talking about cars to Mother and Father. You know how I loved cars. I'd just come home and it was going to be my eighteenth birthday. I'd wanted to come for that.

Mother and Father hadn't wanted me to come. "Why don't you wait till the end of the year?" Well, i'd already been kicked out of college. They didn't know yet.

When I'd gone off at the airport, I'd turned to Mother and said, "For two cents, I won't go." Nobody gave me the two cents, but I'd meant it. What I'd wanted to do was work. I'd wanted to work from the time I was fifteen, and they were always against any effort on my part to be strong or independent. I remember how much I resented it. "You don't have to work, we'll take care of everything," undermining me.

So I was talking about cars, no one was listening, and Marilyn was there and out of the blue said, "Why don't you take my car, Johnny?"

I thought I hadn't heard her right, and I said, "What?" She had remembered the summer before, in California, I'd had that Chevy I'd rented. God, I loved that car, a '57 Bel Air silver Chevy, and she had the Thunderbird.

She continued, "I've got the Ford Mustang the corporation gave me, and Arthur and I have a car. That one's just sitting in the garage, we don't use it."

I was stunned. I couldn't believe she meant it.

Mother and Father were horrified; they didn't like it at all. I don't know if it felt like too much to give me or if they were worried about my driving in my state of mind, but they objected strenuously. "He's too young. Maybe later, Marilyn. You don't have to. It's impossible, he can't afford it, it could be dangerous."

Marilyn just said, "Well, don't worry about any of that, it's in the corporation's name, so I'll take care of the insurance."

I'll never forget that ... There were so few, so very few people who were generous like that. Especially to me, who couldn't do anything for her.

I think that car saved my life.

It was a family, what can you say. A makeshift one, with all kinds of weirdness - described by Susan. When Susan was in Anne Frank on Broadway she was 16, 17 ... and she started an affair with the married Richard Burton, who was also on Broadway at the time. It was her first love. Paula Strasberg was Susan's mother. Instead of being either scared for her daughter, or judgmental - she was thrilled. What a great opportunity for her daughter - to lose her virginity to one of the biggest stars of the stage! I mean, I'm coarsening it - but Paula was so excited - had Burton over to the house, let him sleep in Susan's bed, and made sure that Susan was well-versed in all things birth control. Paula was a woman who, in the 30s, had been a blonde buxom fraulein-type girl, a committed Socialist, and a good actress. Years would destroy her. She was obese by the 50s, and dressed only in black, with a black scarf draped over her head like a bubushka. She had had dreams, of course, she had been at the forefront of the American theatre for a brief decade and life seemed to pass her by. She had married the ultimate acting coach ... and who knows ... I think there were a lot of issues there. If you read books about the Group Theatre, you meet Paula as one kind of person ... then you read the books about Marilyn Monroe, and another person entirely emerges. She was despised by those who loved and cared about Monroe. She was like a leech, a bloodsucker ... and she restricted access to Monroe, isolating Monroe from the world. You had to go through her. So who knows - I don't feel qualified to weigh in on who Paula actually was - I can only guess.

But Susan Strasberg experienced her mother as bossy, intrusive, strangely passive around her husband, and a woman who was full of mystical thoughts about signs, messages, portents ... She had a sense of destiny. Marilyn Monroe came along, and it was the most exciting thing that had happened to the family.

Susan loved Marilyn Monroe. She considered her to be her best friend.

Here are the two of them, sitting in one of Lee Strasberg's classes.

But it must have seemed kind of like a dream - those years of the 50s into the 60s ... those years when Marilyn Monroe came to stay with us ... She was such a big star. Such a troubled woman. I happen to think she was a wonderful actress - but there was something in the Strasbergs that, yes, made her go deeper into her work - but also stymied her, made her stuck. I don't take the condescending snotty view that Marilyn Monroe working on Shakespeare is silly because why would she ever be cast in such plays? That's the whole point of training. That's the whole point of the Actors Studio, actually: a place where you can work on things outside of commercial considerations. But like I mentioned: all the boundaries got blurred, and Monroe started being nervous about making a choice in her acting, ANY choice, without running it by the Strasbergs first.

Must have been quite an ego trip for them, but that may be a cynical interpretation.

Marilyn and Me is not well-written. It is the definition of conventional prose, which makes me believe that Susan wrote every word. If it was better written, I might suspect she had some outside help. The text is interspersed with long bits where people who knew Marilyn tell what they remembered - Susan Strasberg had obviously gone around getting people on tape for the purposes of the book. The anecdotes are fascinating. Actually, the whole book is fascinating. The picture that emerges of Marilyn Monroe is absolutely 100% three-dimensional. She was not an evil witch-woman who stole Strasberg's parents. It was like Monroe went back to her years in the foster care system, and joined the family for a time. She was clearly a grownup but she was a good friend to the two young ones, too. She was a movie star, completely in control of her persona, absolutely in love with her own fame ... but she was also a woman who still woke up from nightmares of her time in the orphanage ... and who dreamt, wistfully, of being in a play like The Diary of Anne Frank - of having the critics and the public ACCEPT her as a serious actress.

Monroe said to Susan Strasberg once:

“Being a most serious actress is not something God has removed from my destiny as He chooses to destroy my chances of being a mother. It’s therefore my perogative to make the dream of creative fulfillment come true for me. That is what I believe God is saying to me and is the answer to my prayers.”

This has been an unearthly long entry, but I obviously have a lot of thoughts about the Strasbergs. I have been studying them, as a family, since I was 12 years old and decided that the Actors Studio was where I needed to be. My main response to the book (besides the revelatory anecdotes about Marilyn) is: Sheesh. Thank God I wasn't in that family.

Here's an anecdote from when Marilyn first started taking classes with Lee.

EXCERPT FROM Marilyn and Me, by Susan Strasberg

Pop and Marilyn decided that she would observe at the studio, work with him at home, sit in on the private classes and eventually do the exercise work and scenes with the other students. Observer privileges at the studio were a courtesy that was extended to foreign or already established actors. Some came once, like Laurence Olivier; others came often.

My father had gone out of his way for both known and unknown artists before, if they were needy, financially or emotionally, and if they were talented. He said that often the depth of the emotional problem was correspondent to the degree of talent. He was fascinated with the transmutation of antisocial behavior into creative work. Because of this, he was accused of doing therapy. One student and friend remarked, "Lee, you should have been a therapist."

He shook his head. "Why, darling? I have more freedom in my work."

He sent numerous actors to psychiatrists, and many doctors sent their patients to class because they felt his work helped theirs in analysis.

He felt Marilyn had to go into therapy before he could work with her. She'd seen doctors before only on a hit-and-run basis, emergency room therapy with no continuity. Now she agreed to commit on a long-term basis.

After a day of teaching, my dad was usually too exhausted to talk, and even when he wasn't exhausted, he wasn't exactly a magpie. Now, three times a week after work he and Marilyn disappeared into the living room. Soon I'd hear laughing or weeping, sometimes an outburst of anger, a diatribe against her studio or someone who'd betrayed her trust. She was very unforgiving during these bouts, it was all ablack and white for her. People were either for her or against her, there was no middle ground. If she even suspected they were against her, and she could be very suspicious, she'd go wild. I don't know if "those bastards ... sons of bitches ..." and so on were ever told off in person, but if they were, I doubt they would have ever forgotten it. And she didn't stutter once.

Her scatological language fascinated me. My parents rarely cursed in private. You didn't say certain words in public, it just wasn't done. Others could do it, but we didn't except my brother, who refused to obey the unspoken rules. "Hypocrites!" he'd yell at my parents. "Goddamned hypocrites!"

Marilyn's vocabulary included words I'd never ever heard of, and she wielded them like a sailor, with no embarrassment. She had quite a temper when she lost control. It didn't faze my father, perhaps because he was always battling his own prodigious rage, which more than matched hers. He seemed to have a calming effect on her. Her tirade would evaporate and, as if nothing had occurred, they'd be speaking quietly about very personal matters - men, her mother, her feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness. It was such a stark contrast to the way she behaved with me. I could hardly believe it was the same woman.

When I overheard snatches of these sessions I'd get excited with a sense of being part of something forbidden. As if I were a sieve, I'd feel her emotions run through me. If she cried, tears came to my eyes.

On the other hand, I was ambivalent about the tenderness I heard in my dad's voice as he consoled her. When I'd gone to my father to talk about something personal in my life - my fights with Mother, my need for more freedom, a young man I'd been dating who never called me any more - he closed up. "Darling, I'm not concerned with that except as it relates to the work." It was true, mine weren't life-or-death problems, but they felt that way to me, and he acted as if they were so trivial he couldn't be bothered. I wanted to cry out to him, "I don't care about the work. I'm young, I want to have a good time. I don't want to suffer or be in pain, I want you to help me. I want you to hold me." The words lodged in my throat, and I couldn't say anything.

Another thing confused me - given that my middle name was confusion. It confused me to observe the attention and time my father devoted to Marilyn. It began to dawn on me that there was some connection between them that went beyond the work. She was so different from the classic actresses he spoke of with glowing admiration, the actresses he admired - Rachel, the great French tragedienne, whom I looked like; Eleonora Duse, whom he'd seen and whom he believed was the greatest actress that had ever lived. He advocated willpower and structure and discipline. Marilyn seemed such an unlikely disciple. Her work and life seemed the antithesis of everything he stood for to me. Was he in love with her? I didn't think so. But he was practically a stranger to me. In some ways our entire family were intimate strangers. I wondered if my mother was jeaous of the time he gave to Marilyn.

"She's not your father's type, you know," Mom confided.

"My type is Jennifer Jones, that dark-haired, fair-skinned beauty," Pop affirmed.

"It's her talent he loves," Mother assured herself. "She's so incredibly talented." Then she wondered whether I should darken my hair and eyebrows for a more glamorous look. Eventually I did and, when I saw the photos of myself, dark and dramatic, I realized with a shock that I resembled a young Jennifer Jones.

Someone who'd known Pop from the Group Theatre days was reminiscing to me: "There were two things we knew about Lee. He loved baseball and Alice Faye." Alice Faye was a blonde like Marilyn, like my mother. Maybe my father didn't have a type.

Even when Marilyn wasn't physically present, she often monopolized the conversation. My father was unaccustomedly verbal about her. After dinner one night he told us, "She has this phenomenal sensitivity, her instrument is incredibly responsive. Despite the bad mannerisms and habits she may have acquired in Hollywood, and with all the abuse she was subjected to, they haven't touched what is underneath. It's difficult because you have to look past what she looks like to see what's hidden. She had to hide it or she'd have been too vulnerable to survive, and she's so eager and willing, as if she's a flower that's been waiting all this time for someone to water her."

There was this strange constriction in my throat as he continued. Was it boredom, or was it resentment? He never talked about me with that look in his eyes. He wasn't finished either; he went on to say, "After Marlon, she has the greatest talent, raw talent, that I've ever come across, except in her it's just not at all developed. But she has the desire. And if she has the discipline, the will, she can do it."

Early one evening Marilyn had finished a particularly grueling session wtih Pop. We were waiting for dinner, which we ate around six-thirty, and she'd borrowed some of my makeup to fix up her face because she'd been crying. She was unusually relaxed and pleased about whatever they'd done. We were in my bedroom and I sprawled on my bed, watching her apply my rouge and mascara, the only makeup I used.

As she began to talk to me, she seemed to be talking to herself, too. Her voice was hushed but clear. "I thought your father would be so forbidding, I was terrified the first time I was alone with him in there. But he wasn't scary at all. Gadge [Elia Kazan, the director], a lot of people told me he was scary, but I think they just didn't want me to see him. Susie, the best thing that ever happened to me was when your father took me seriously. I've always wanted for people to see me, not the actress, the real person. Your daddy does. He treats me like I'm a human being. I was so sick of being treated like a poster babe or a broad out there. Everybody laughed when I said I wanted to play Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov, like I was a dummy. They were the dummies. If they'd bothered to read the book, they'd know she was this sensual girl, a barmaid. I could really have played her."

She turned to look at me. "You know why I make fun of myself? So I'll do it before they do. That way it's not so bad, doesn't hurt so much. It's either commit suicide or laugh." She had this pensive look on her face, as if she were figuring something out.

Daylight was fading fast, and she switched on the lamp near the mirror. "And you know, since your daddy's given me his stamp of approval, other people are suddenly changing their tune. Only I'm not sure they believe it like he does."

Inside I was dying. I'd been one of those people who'd looked down at her aspirations. Thank God she couldn't read my mind.

In a stream of consciousness her voice flowed on. "I worked with this woman in California for years. She taught me, educated me, like your father, gave me books to read, but even she thought I was a dummy. He doesn't, and the most important thing is, with your father for the first time I feel it's OK to be me, the whole kit and caboodle, you know, the whole mess.

"I never dared to even think about it before - who's got time to think when you gotta survive? But now I want to be an artist, pardon the expression, a real actress. I don't care about the money and the fame, although I'm not knocking it, but like the man says, 'Life's not written on dollar bills,' right? Since I came here to New York, I feel I'm accepted, not as a freak, but as myself, whoever the hell that is. I'm kind of just finding out."

She was so open, her face flowing with fervor and longing. I felt glad for her, and I wondered if this was what my father was drawn to - this longing of hers.

She turned off the makeup light, and then, almost as if she'd made a discovery, she continued, "You know, for the first time in a long time I feel that something good is going to come out of my life ... and I'm beginning to think that the something good is me. I know your father's really going to help me. You don't know how lucky you are." I assumed she meant to have a father like that, and I was a little embarrassed on general principles and just nodded agreement.

It was dark in the room now, and we sat, unable to see each other's faces, lost in our own thoughts. Faint notes of some lyrical strains of flute music drifted in the air. The sweet-sour aroma of red cabbage and brisket made my mouth water.

Listening to her had reminded me of this story about an agent who sold a producer on this actress, saying she'd stop the show if he cast her. On opening night she did stop the show and got a standing ovation. The agent turned to the producer triumphantly. "You see, I told you she was great, and now I believe it."

Marilyn seemed like the agent before the ovation, hoping for the best yet not convinced.

It amazed me that she was so much older, had achieved so much, yet she was just as insecure as, maybe even more insecure than, me. She had won my complete admiration for one thing: she wasn't scared of my father, not even a little bit. I determined I'd watch her closely so I could learn her secret.

Today in history: October 19, 1781

The surrender at Yorktown, which ended the American Revolutionary War.

Day before:

General Lord Charles Cornwallis to General George Washington, October 18, 1781

I agree to open a treaty of capitulation upon the basis of the garrisons of York and Gloucester, including seamen, being prisoners of war, without annexing the condition of their being sent to Europe; but I expect to receive a compensation in the articles of capitulation for the surrender of Gloucester in its present state of defence.

I shall, in particular, desire, that the Bonetta sloop of war may be left entirely at my disposal, from the hour that the capitulation is signed, to receive an aid-de-camp to carry my dispatches to Sir Henry Clinton. Such soldiers as I may think proper to send as passengers in her, to be manned with fifty men of her own crew, and to be permitted to sail without examination, when my dispatches are ready: engaging, on my part, that the ship shall be brought back and delivered to you, if she escapes the dangers of the sea, that the crew and soldiers shall be accounted for in future exchanges, that she shall carry off no officer without your consent, nor public property of any kind; and I shall likewise desire, that the traders and inhabitants may preserve their property, and that no person may be punished or molested for having joined the British troops.

If you choose to proceed to negociation on these grounds, I shall appoint two field officers of my army to meet two officers from you, at any time and place that you think proper, to digest the articles of capitulation.

(Check out the full correspondence in the days leading up to the 19th)

Cornwallis had realized that aid would not come in time - and after two days of bombardment - he sent a drummer out into view, who apparently beat the rhythm of: "STOP! LET'S TALK!!!" A British officer high in rank came forward, was blindfolded and taken to George Washington (who was on his last legs himself).

The surrender document had already been drawn up, with Washington dictating the terms. Oh - here are the Articles of Capitulation.

Over 7,000 soldiers surrendered at Yorktown. The war was over.

The story is that as the defeated army marched away, the song "The World Turned Upside Down" was played. I did a quick Google search and there are lots of defensive people out there who feel the need to shout out into the wilds of the Internet, "There is NO evidence that 'The World Turned Upside Down' was played at that moment ..." Ha. I love freaks who take sides in meaningless historical debates like this. I adore them. We are all geeks cut from the same cloth. But still. It's a good story, I think. There are a couple of versions of said song (which has, by itself, a long interesting history). Here is one of the versions:

If buttercups buzz'd after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.

Dr. James Thacher, who served in the Continental Army, is one of our eyewitnesses of the capitulation, and he published his version of events a couple of years later, the relevant passage being:

"At about twelve o'clock, the combined army was arranged and drawn up in two lines extending more than a mile in length. The Americans were drawn up in a line on the right side of the road, and the French occupied the left. At the head of the former, the great American commander [George Washington], mounted on his noble courser, took his station, attended by his aides. At the head of the latter was posted the excellent Count Rochambeau and his suite. The French troops, in complete uniform, displayed a martial and noble appearance; their bands of music, of which the timbrel formed a part, is a delightful novelty, and produced while marching to the ground a most enchanting effect.

The Americans, though not all in uniform, nor their dress so neat, yet exhibited an erect, soldierly air, and every countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy. The concourse of spectators from the country was prodigious, in point of numbers was probably equal to the military, but universal silence and order prevailed.

It was about two o'clock when the captive army advanced through the line formed for their reception. Every eye was prepared to gaze on Lord Cornwallis, the object of peculiar interest and solicitude; but he disappointed our anxious expectations; pretending indisposition, he made General O'Hara his substitute as the leader of his army. This officer was followed by the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step, with shouldered arms, colors cased and drums beating a British march. Having arrived at the head of the line, General O'Hara, elegantly mounted, advanced to his excellency the commander-in-chief, taking off his hat, and apologized for the non-appearance of Earl Cornwallis. With his usual dignity and politeness, his excellency pointed to Major-General Lincoln for directions, by whom the British army was conducted into a spacious field, where it was intended they should ground their arms.

The royal troops, while marching through the line formed by the allied army, exhibited a decent and neat appearance, as respects arms and clothing, for their commander opened his store and directed every soldier to be furnished with a new suit complete, prior to the capitulation. But in their line of march we remarked a disorderly and unsoldierly conduct, their step was irregular, and their ranks frequently broken.

But it was in the field, when they came to the last act of the drama, that the spirit and pride of the British soldier was put to the severest test: here their mortification could not be concealed. Some of the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly chagrined when giving the word "ground arms," and I am a witness that they performed this duty in a very unofficer-like manner; and that many of the soldiers manifested a sullen temper, throwing their arms on the pile with violence, as if determined to render them useless. This irregularity, however, was checked by the authority of General Lincoln. After having grounded their arms and divested themselves of their accoutrements, the captive troops were conducted back to Yorktown and guarded by our troops till they could be removed to the place of their destination."

One of my favorite sites, Boston 1775, describes the blame-game that ensued, following the capitulation, between the British generals.

I have put a strategic military map from 1781 below the fold. On it you can see the positions of the British Army commanded by Cornwallis - you can see the American and French forces commanded by Washington - and check out the French fleet comin' down the pike - under Count de Grasse!! The last-minute cavalry charge!

And here is a story - (perhaps it's apocryphal, or an out-and-out fabrication - but I love it nonetheless and I will continue to do my part to spread word of this story far and wide) of Benjamin Franklin's response to the news of the surrender. He was, of course, in Paris at the time, setting the world on fire with his homespun wisdom, bacchanalian propensities, chess-playing abilities, fur-lined hats, and his dazzling ways with the ladies. The vision he presented to the world of what liberty, American-style, looked like. An international celebrity.

Word came to France of the decisive American victory, and the complete surrender to George Washington in Yorktown. Franklin attended a diplomatic dinner shortly thereafter - and, of course, everyone was discussing the British defeat.

The French foreign minister stood, and toasted Louis XVI: "To his Majesty, Louis the Sixteenth, who, like the moon, fills the earth with a soft, benevolent glow."

The British ambassador rose and said, "To George the Third, who, like the sun at noonday, spreads his light and illumines the world."

Franklin rose and countered, "I cannot give you the sun or the moon, but I give you George Washington, General of the armies of the United States, who, like Joshua of old, commanded both the sun and the moon to stand still, and both obeyed."

Map found here in this awesome collection - I could get lost in there forever.

Hope as Marilyn Monroe

Speaking of Marilyn Monroe:

We all know the famous photographs that Bert Stern took of Monroe near the end of her life, where she rolled around naked in white sheets.

Bert Stern recently re-created that photo shoot for NY Magazine with Lindsay Lohan.

Well.

Bert Stern is not done with the recreations.

Cue Hope.

The Books: "Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words : Marilyn Monroe's Revealing Last Words and Photographs" (George Barris)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words : Marilyn Monroe's Revealing Last Words and Photographs, by George Barris

George Barris claims that these were the last photographs of Mariliyn Monroe before she died. Bert Stern claims that his photos (the ones of Marilyn lying naked in bed, drinking champagne) are the last photos of Marilyn Monroe. Neither are correct. There was actually another photo shoot that was her last. The competition to be the "last" with Marilyn is intense ... her last moments, the phone calls, the meetings, have been narrowed down to the second ... as though something in the banal could reveal her state of mind, or her intention. The 'myth' of Marilyn can obscure her. I have always loved Marilyn Monroe, and while, of course, the "myth" affects me - it's like osmosis - you can't really help it ... I have always been interested in getting beyond the myth. Not so much in terms of knowing her biographical details (which will always be murky with Monroe) - that doesn't interest me as much - but in understanding her as an actress: her struggles, her commitment, what she was good at, what she knew she had to work at - her fights with the studio, her negotiating power and how she used it - her work at the Actors Studio and what that was all about for her ...

Since I first saw Marilyn Monroe on television in Some Like It Hot, I've thought: "Who the hell is that luscious woman and why is she so damn FUNNY??" Her funniness can often be skated over, as can her dramatic ability - just because of her looks, and the va-va-voom nature of her persona. I mean, I know it's understood that she was a marvelous comedienne, but still: I think the "myth" tends to override everything else, until it is hard to believe that this was, you know, a real woman, an actress, a person like any other. The myth had already begun when she was alive. She was the biggest female star in the world. An international phenomenon.

The pressure began very early to have her appear in certain kinds of parts ... and the studio often punished her by putting her in projects unworthy of her - not only unworthy of her talent, but unworthy of her stature as a giant star. There were those in power who thought she was a whore who just got lucky. Now, not everyone felt this way. She had powerful friends. She knew how to shmooze and get what she needed. And once you were a trusted ally of Monroe, you were a trusted ally forever. There were agents and directors who went to bat for her, who tried to protect her ... but, once you look at the whole of her life - and the decisions she made - you begin to realize that the myth of Marilyn - as one of the greatest victims of all time - was actually nothing of the sort. Sure, she had some bad things happen to her (again, I'm talking career-wise), some hard knocks - but once you delve into the details, you really can see her as a businesswoman, her own career manager - playing hardball with the big boys. She was no victim. I've always been a bit annoyed by that characterization of her.

At the height of her career, she refused to do a couple of pictures, because she didn't like the material. She was put on suspension, as though she were a recalcitrant child. She didn't care. She moved to New York City at that time, and started taking acting classes at the Actors Studio. I am trying to imagine one of our most giant stars behaving in that way today. How refreshing it would be! She knew she needed to grow as an actress, and there was no way she could do so if she relied on the studio to put her in challenging projects. So she took charge. In the mid-50s, the Studio was THE place to be - having turned out stars such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and others. Monroe put herself on the line, her reputation, knowing that there were those in the Studio who sneered at her ("big movie star trying to be a serious actress ...") - and began to study, taking acting classes, doing scenes, working on Eugene O'Neill and others. At the same time, she formed her own production company - another thing relatively unheard of at that time. An actress trying to have control over her own destiny? Who does she think she is? She should be grateful that we let her act at all! Make no mistake: that vibe was present in the studio, and it was reflected in her low-balled salary and the projects they put her in.

She gave a press conference in New York, announcing her move to New York and the creation of her new production company. The joint was mobbed, photographers and journalists clamoring to the microphones to shout questions at her. She was quite open about how unhappy she was in Hollywood, and had no hesitation in saying so. She said she didn't like the projects that had been coming her way - she wanted people to know she was more than just her body and her glamorous image - she wanted people to know that she was a real actress. She announced that she wanted to develop The Brothers Karamazov for the screen. One of the reporters called out, "Do you even know how to spell Dostoevsky, Marilyn?" Look at that. Look at that open contempt. This was something Marilyn faced every day. So she must have been used to it because she replied calmly, "Have you read the book? There's a character in it named Grushenka - she's a real seductress - and I think it would be a great part for me." Marilyn, you've got more class in your pinky toe than any of those folks looking down on you, and her calm (yet pointed) response to the reporter is one I really admire. "Have you read the book?" That's really all you need to say to some bigot who tries to put you down.

Unfortunately, her "Grushenka" never came to fruition - but I share that anecdote because it shows Marilyn's business smarts. She always had it. She was one of those rare rare stars who is chosen by the public to be famous. I've written my theories about such people before - the Julia Roberts-es, the Tom Cruise-es, There is something indestructible about the fame of these people (well, until one of them leapt on a certain couch and made history). But let me get back to my point: You can feel when the industry is trying to MAKE a star. The best example I can think of is when Vanity Fair put Gretchen Mol on their cover 10-odd years ago.

Mol obviously had powerful people behind her, and everyone wants to be the one to take credit for finding "the next hot thing". But the backlash from that cover ("who does she think she is?" "Who the hell is Gretchen Mol and why are her hardened nipples staring at me from the magazine rack??") was acute. Her WORK had not yet even been seen in a wide way, and so the cover was perceived (by many in the industry as well as by the public) as pushy, too-much-too-soon (even Mol has said that about the cover - her career was delicate, she had done a couple of indie movies, and the level of scrutiny the cover brought her was WAY too much) - She hadn't even done any movies yet that had any real kind of buzz (out in the larger world, I mean, outside the boundaries of Hollywood) ... and so trying to CREATE the buzz backfired. (Sometimes that ploy will work, but Mol, a lovely actress, is really representative of how it can NOT go over well). The question on the Vanity Fair cover was a mistake, in my opinion: "Is she Hollywood's next 'It' girl?" The answer came back - from Hollywood and the public (who had never heard of Mol, and many of her movies weren't even playing in most cineplexes in America - it was strictly an "insider's" cover) - a resounding "No."

But with someone like Julia Roberts: her fame took even her own agent by surprise. Yes, she was being groomed for good stuff ... she had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Steel Magnolias (Julia now says that she sees that as one of those polite "welcome to the business" nominations - as opposed to anything with more fire behind it) - and she was already playing leads. But she was on location for Sleeping With the Enemy when Pretty Woman opened - she hadn't even done publicity for the film!! It wasn't thought that it would be necessary. Can you imagine?? Pretty Woman had its opening weekend, and Roberts, on location in South Carolina, had no idea the BROU HAHA that had broken loose. This is pre-Internet days, pre-blackberry days ... If you were out of town, you were most decidedly out of town. Her agent called her and said, "Do you have any idea what is happening right now?" When Roberts came back to Hollywood after her shoot, she was the biggest box-office star in the world. It was a true Cinderella story. And it was the PUBLIC who did that, the PUBLIC who screamed, "WE WANT MORE OF HER." It took the industry by surprise. Best kind of fame.

I want to make it clear that I am not really talking about "talent" here. There are plenty of fantastic actresses out there who are doing work superior to Julia Roberts. What I'm talking about is fame. And whether or not you like Julia Roberts is irrelevant to what actually happened to her back in the early 90s. It was one of those rare rare things: a public-driven phenomenon. It's not that Gretchen Mol is less of an actress. It's that the industry was trying to create something with her before it was time, before she had "the role", before she had even "hit". Julia Roberts "hit" all on her own. The amount of good will that that generated towards Julia Roberts is still in evidence today. That's what I mean when I say there is something "indestructible" about that kind of fame. If you play it right, you can ride that wave for a long long time.

If you look at some of the choices Roberts made in the wake of her stardom - it's incredible. She, like Monroe, was unhappy with all of the Pretty Woman II scripts she was being offered. So she didn't make a movie FOR TWO YEARS. I mean, the balls!! She had made Dying Young and Sleeping with the Enemy - but these were both filmed before the firestorm of the opening of Pretty Woman. Both films opened on the heels of Pretty Woman, which gave the illusion that they were now "Julia Roberts Pictures" - but they weren't - not yet. The Julia Roberts acting in those films was unaware that the genie in the bottle was about to be released. In 1991, the year after Pretty Woman came out, she was Tinkerbell in Hook which amounted to maybe a week of work - but other than that, she stopped working immediately following her giant breakthrough. This is unheard of. But I think Roberts was smart. Probably at the time it felt crazy to her, and I know that her agent was pulling her hair out, begging Roberts to get back to work - to do something - ANYTHING - to remind the public of why they had loved her so much in Pretty Woman. But Roberts remained firm. I'm convinced that that is one of the reasons she is still such an enormous star. She's her own person. She would not be manipulated. From very early on, she refused to do nude scenes. Even in Pretty Woman, where you would think it would be par for the course, she refused. Contract negotiations were stalled because Roberts refused to take her top off. No, no, no, she would not do it. Garry Marshall obviously wanted her badly enough that he caved. They compromised - she did one scene in her panties, so there is the impression that she is nude, but she actually is not. To this day, Roberts has never done a nude scene. But the important thing about this whole story is that before she was famous she knew her limits, and she wasn't afraid to say "no". In such a soulless world as Hollywood, where people are willing to do anything, anything, to be famous - even if it means contradicting their own ideals for themselves - this is rare. And I think that, too, goes a long way towards explaining the Julia Roberts phenomenon. People GET that about her. To be clear (yet again): I don't think doing nude scenes is a bad thing, and I don't judge anyone who makes that choice. I was nude onstage once. Whatever, it was important to the part. I didn't have to spout lines that told the audience I was a manipulative trashy person with ZERO boundaries. The nudity did it all for me. It was great. Embarrassing at first, but eventually no big deal. I like Shelley Winters' quote about nudity: "I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience." hahahaha But Roberts didn't feel right about it, and she stuck to her guns.

I happen to love Julia Roberts, and I know she has her detractors. My point in all of this, though, is to demonstrate the power and strength of a star who is chosen by the public, as opposed to by the industry. There's just something untouchable about that kind of fame.

This is what happened to Marilyn Monroe, who started out as a starlet in a line of starlets, indistinguishable from any of the rest. Of course what WAS distinguishable was her drive, her desire to be not only famous but GOOD, to be a "real actress". Her performance in Don't Bother to KNock (my review here) is proof that Marilyn was not just whistling into the wind with her ambition, there was real talent there, and a real capability for true dramatic expression. But that was not what was wanted of her. What "hit" with the public was her giggly bubbly sex goddess, the kind-hearted innocent woman who also had the body of a pin-up. Powerful directors pulled her out of obscurity and gave her small things to do ... Asphalt Jungle, All About Eve ... and somewhere along the line the publicity department at the studio decided to put their power behind this new blonde starlet, and they went into overdrive, putting her in photo shoots that appeared in Life magazine - and the fan mail started pouring in. People loved her. Who knows what they sensed ... but they wanted more. When the nude photos she had done earlier in her life came to light, a shitstorm erupted. It was scandalous, horrible - and many of those in charge at the studios wanted her to apologize, to be contrite. Marilyn refused. She made a statement acknowledging that yes, that was her in the photos, and no, she wasn't sorry, because her rent had been due and she had no money, and she was desperate. This was not at all what the studio bigwigs wanted her to say - but imagine their surprise - the public overwhelmingly supported her. The publicity department was bombarded with sacks and sacks of mail from all over the world - women AND men (that was another key element of her appeal: women loved her and wanted to be like her, men desired her and wanted to protect her - if you have that kind of cross-gender appeal, then it is your OWN fault if you don't capitalize on it - because it is rare rare rare - Julia Roberts has the same thing) - and the letters all said the same thing: "We love this girl!" Her honesty shone through. People respect honesty. What Monroe's detractors had hoped would be her downfall (you know, the ones who had the sneering, "She's just a whore who got lucky" attitude) ended up being one of her biggest triumphs. THAT'S the power of a public-driven stardom. The industry was ready to cut her loose. As far as they concerned, she was a dime a dozen. But she wasn't. In Marilyn Monroe's case, the public ALWAYS knew better than the industry.

George Barris, the author of this book, interviewed Marilyn extensively and took the famous photos of Marilyn playing in the surf in Santa Monica, drinking champagne, cavorting on the beach in an orange bathing suit. Monroe had only a month or so left to live. She had already been fired from Something's Got to Give, and was eloquent about what she thought had happened. She comes off, here, as lucid, sweet, and determined. I feel like any book about Marilyn Monroe has to be taken with a grain of salt - there is soooo much to gain by saying, "Hey, I spoke with Marilyn Monroe and here is what she said" - that I am suspect of mostly everything. But this is a beautiful volume, glossy, Marilyn's words on various topics interspersed with Barris' photographs. I love the Barris photographs because many of them feel candid. It seems like he just turned his camera on her and "caught" her, behaving. She's wearing a little bit of eye makeup, but nothing much else. She jumps and laughs and seems to be talking right at the camera, at times ... They have a wonderful vibe, and capture, to me, what I feel is Monroe's essence. Yes, she was damaged, and insecure, and frightened, and (ironically) sexually frigid. All of that is true. But she was also a nature-loving beach girl, a woman who was funny, and who loved funny people. Also: she LOVED the camera, and the camera LOVED her. (I wrote a post called Marilyn and the Camera which has some great quotes from photographers who had worked with her). She was beyond being photogenic. She was magic, and she created that magic for herself. It was like a button was pushed in her when that camera was pointed her way, and she came to life. It was what she did. It made her happy, and you can tell that that is true in the photographs Barris took of her that day on the beach.

Barris keeps the narration to a minimum. Occasionally he interjects with explanatory footnotes, but most of the text is Marilyn speaking. She talks about her childhood, her mentally ill mother, her marriage as a teenager, Joe DiMaggio, her acting, John Huston, the nude calendar, etc. etc. Again, a grain of salt is needed here ... but even that being said, this is a beautiful book. A coffee table book, I guess - and the photos are haunting. You can hear her laughter mixed with the crashing surf.

I chose an excerpt where Marilyn talks about various different topics, nothing too deep or personal ... just her own preferences in life.

EXCERPT FROM Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words : Marilyn Monroe's Revealing Last Words and Photographs, by George Barris

On Aging: Women as they grow older should take heart. They've gained in wisdom. They're really silly when they are twenty.

Carl Sandburg, who's in his eighties - you should see his vitality, what he has contributed. Why, he could play the guitar and sing at three in the morning - I like him very much.

On Food, Fragrance, and Flowers: I love food as long as it has flavor. It's flavorless food I can't stand. I usually have a steak and a green salad for my dinner, also for breakfast when I'm really hungry. I keep away from pastries - I used to love them, and ice cream, too. I skip all desserts unless it's fruit. I just don't like the taste of pastries As a kid I did, but now I hate it - and as for candy, I can take it or leave it, usually leave it. But I love champagne - just give me champagne and good food, and I'm in heaven and love. That's what makes the world go round.

I like different scents of perfume, beside Chanel No. 5.

My favorite flower is the delphinium. Roses, any color, are [among my] favorites, too.

On Traveling: I like getting there, not the actual traveling itself. I've never been to Italy, but I love Italians. Paris I hear is a marvelous plae - the city of lights. It must be beautiful; I hope someday to go there and all these other exciting places.

I've traveled to England, Korea, Japan, and Mexico. I've been to Canada, too - when I made the film River of No Return, in 1953. We were on location in the Canadian Rockies and Banff. Did you know I almost drowned in the Bow River, when the icy torrent dragged me downstream? I also tore a ligament in my ankle when I tripped over a rock in the river. They had to put me in a cast for ten days when my ankle swelled badly. Now I can laugh about it, but it wasn't funny then. Imagine, this was my contact with nature - poor little me. A big-city girl, drenched, half drowned, and crippled, crushed by the wilderness. But if you remember the picture, I rode a log raft down the rapids. It sure was beautiful country. Oh, yes, how can I ever forget Canada?

On Television and Movies: The only time I watch television is for the news program or for a good movie. I'm not what you'd call a TV fan. I was going to do Somerset Maugham's Rain - the Sadie Thompson role. I find it an exciting one, but the deal fell through. I wanted Lee Strasberg, my drama coach, to direct me in it, but NBC wanted an experienced TV director. I think it can be an exciting movie for the big screen - I believe in movies. Everyone should get out of their house once in a while - not just sit around with their socks on.

On Acting and Actors: When anyone asks me for advice on how to become an actress, the only advice I feel qualified to give is only through my own experience. So here goes: Always be yourself. Retain individuality; listen to the truest part of yourself. Study if you can. Get a good teacher. Believe in yourself. Have confidence, too.

I have favorite motion-picture stars, like everyone else. You know who mine are? My favorite is Marlon Brando. I mean, really, I believe we'd be an interesting combination. I've said that about Marlon for a long time, but we haven't found the right story. Can you imagine us on the big screen? I hope something happens soon.

Greta Garbo, I've never met her. It really bugs me when I miss one of her films on TV. Oh, if you could only get me to meet her! I've also heard wonderful things about Jeanne Eagels and Laurette Taylor. And the one they called the Blond Bombshell: Jean Harlow. Kay Kendall was a great comedian. She was really talented.

I would have loved working with Gerard Philipe, the handsome French star - his films I've been told were a huge success in France, as were his stage plays. I was told he wanted to make films with me. Oh, what a shame we never got the opportunity. We would have made an interesting team. What a shame. He was so young to die; he was thirty-six. He had been ill and apparently died of a heart attack.

On Marilyn: Those things the press has been saying about me [are fine] if they want to give the wrong impression. It's as simple as all that. I'm not interested in being a millionaire. The one thing a person wants most in life is usually something basic money can't buy. I'm not the girl next door - I'm not a goody-goody - but I think I'm human.

The reason to see Angel Heart

Yeah, the atmosphere.

Yeah, the exquisite filming of objects.

Yeah, the people in it.

It's a true collaboration, the entire team were old friends, who had already worked together many times. You can feel it in the film. Not only does it look great, but it feels like it was a blast to make it.

But you know, there's only one reason to really see the movie.

"I know who I am ... I know who I am ... I know who I am! ... I know who I am ... I know who I am ... I know who I am ..."

You keep thinking he will stop, that he is "done", that there are no more depths of grief for him to explore.

But you're wrong.

Where you think he will stop, he keeps going.

An extraordinary talent.

The atmosphere of Angel Heart

Angel Heart was filmed, for the most part, on location in New York and Louisiana. Even the interior shots - like the hotel room where Rourke and Bonet have crazy bloody sex, and Charlotte Rampling's red-walled apartment - were actual rooms in actual buildings, not sets. Of course they were dressed up for the film, but they were already existing spaces. Filming in this way is highly difficult. You have to squeeze your camera crew in, you have to make room for equipment, you can't just knock down walls (although it has been done), it limits your choices. That's why Parker likes to work that way. He likes the limits. In some of the scenes, there was only room for a cameraman, Parker, and the cinematographer (Michael Seresin). That's why the film has such a sense of reality. You can smell New Orleans. You can feel the wet. You are in humid air. Your fingertips are grimy. These are not sets. This is real. When they needed to re-vamp something for the purposes of their film, they did. For example, the scene where Rourke meets up with DeNiro in the huge church in New Orleans - that was a deserted church that was still very much intact with the stained glass windows still there, all the pews, etc. But the rest of it was completely dilapidated. So the film crew went in there and put in a gleaming tile floor, re-created an altar, put up a bank of candles, etc. It ended up being a blessing (even though it was a pain in the ass) because getting permission to film in actual working churches (especially for a movie that is, uhm, about the freakin' devil) is very challenging.

Location scouts are crucial. Parker and Seresin and the scouts traveled all over New Orleans to look for perfect places. And then it was up to Seresin to make it pop off the screen, to ooze with atmosphere, to insist upon the audience's psyche: "I am real. You are here."

The atmosphere of the film, with its voodoo craziness and occult presence, is the best of the sensibility that I would call "campy". "Camp" is not just drag, or divas. It is also an over-the-top immersion in something that might seem artificial. It is investment, total 100% investment, in the surface of things. Plumbing the depths of meaning in what something looks like.

That's the atmosphere of Angel Heart.

The objects of Angel Heart

The wonderful Armin Ganz was the art director of Angel Heart. Alan Parker had used him before in Birdy. Ganz had a long successful career as a set decorator (he was nominated for an Oscar for Tucker) - and if you look at his bio you can see many "period" pieces on it: mid-20th century Americana was his milieu. Robert Franco and Leslie Pope (both Oscar-nominated artists) were the set decorators for Angel Heart. The art director is in charge of the whole look of the picture (or, the cinematographer is REALLY the one in charge) - and the set decorators are the ones who fill the apartments with knick-knacks, period-appropriate calendars, family photos, whatever. They are the ones in charge of atmosphere. They are the ones who will butt in and say, "There were no milk cartons then. There were only milk bottles." They are the nitpickers. They research the period exhaustively (if it's appropriate, I mean) and make sure, to the best of their abilities, that there are no glaring errors. Like someone writing with a ballpoint pen in 1941, for example (ha. If you've seen Angel Heart recently you'll get the reference). The way the lamps were, what the clocks were like ... they're in charge of all that.

(I like to focus on how objects are filmed, how they are handled in films.)

For Angel Heart there was, again, multiple layers going on at the same time. It takes place in 1955. And while it is a movie about the devil, and supernatural evil exerting its influence on us here on earth - Alan Parker never wanted to film it in the style of a horror movie. He always wanted to keep it in the cliched world of the crumpled gumshoe, the tough-talking Sam Spade guy, trying to put his case together. It just happened that the devil was involved. Because Parker made that conscious choice, the art direction and set decoration followed suit. There should be no "clue" that this will be a supernatural story about the occult. The objects in the film should reflect the period and yet at the same time comment on it, and work with the audience expectations that, oh yes, they know what kind of movie this is, because they had seen it before ...

Nothing should grate or pull you out of it. So that - in those startling supernatural scenes - with the elevator grate sliding open, and the scary black-shrouded woman walking up the spiral staircase - images clearly out of a surreal non-realistic world - should come as a surprise, and be even more terrifying. Because here in our everyday world, we don't see things like that, and so we don't know how to interpret it.

The juxtaposition works wonderfully, I think. The atmosphere of the film is truly creepy. Through the objects we see, the coffee pots, the crumpled cigarette packs, the key rings and newspapers ... we think we know where we are. Not just in terms of time and place, but in terms of what movie we are in. We have seen this before, in every lonely detective story ever made. And so there's a kitschy feeling to some of it - which appears to me to be deliberate. With some films, the kitsch is not deliberate - and those are the films that "wear" their "period" like a self-conscious costume. "Oh, look at me, using an old-fashioned percolator with marcelled hair! Aren't I cute? Weren't people so cute back then??" It's condescending. Kitsch doesn't necessarily have to be phony. In Angel Heart, I feel like it is giving us clues, breadcrumbs through the forest, sometimes leading us astray. We see the old-fashioned cars and garter belts and think: "Oh yes, oh yes, I know where I am." The kitsch here is appropriate - because it serves as a misleading signal. By the time we realize we are in the middle of a really fucking scary story about Mephistopheles - and not a cute little period-piece movie - it's too late. We can't escape.

The cinematographer (Michael Seresin) is also responsible here - for choosing to cut-away from closeups of faces to objects ... at times when it seems odd, pulling you out of the action, distancing you ... and he should be congratulated. I think it helps to create a really haunting atmosphere, yet beautiful and seductive at the same time.

The faces of Angel Heart

Risa Bramon was the casting director for Angel Heart. She also cast Something Wild, Jacob's Ladder, True Romance, all of Oliver Stone's pictures, Flirting With Disaster (if there was an Academy Award for "casting", she should have won it for that film), Flesh and Bone and many many others.

Casting is not just about reaching out to the giant movie stars, or finding co-stars appropriate to the giant movie star who has already signed on. Casting is about finding the right woman to play the hatcheck girl who has one line, or the closeups of various people in crowd scenes, the little girl sitting on the steps in one scene, everyone. The faces of a film help us into its atmosphere, its world. People like Howard Hawks, working as he did within the studio system, would try as much as he could to fill his crowd scenes with actual people who seemed like they actually LIVED in that world (as opposed to hopeful starlets and professional extras). It gives his films a sense of reality that many others at that time do not have. Witness To Have and Have Not (my post about it here - look at some of those faces - they appear indiginous to the world of the movie, not the world of Hollywood) or witness Only Angels Have Wings (here is my post on the first 10 minutes of that movie - launching us headfirst into that world, and look at the faces ... Look at the people Hawks found to fill up his screen.) It makes what we are looking at seem authentic, as opposed to re-created.

Casting directors have different jobs for different movies. If you're casting something like The Matrix, you will not have the same considerations as if you were casting Dog Day Afternoon. Often, it is just about the look. People are cast for their looks, I mean that is obviously the case ... and it is always better to find someone who already IS that part, who already has it in them ... than to cast potential. Stallone has talked about the casting of the original Rocky and how important it was: first of all, the budget was low, so that limited their choices (which ended up being a blessing). But second of all, he cast people who "already had it in them". Burt Young didn't have to turn himself inside out to find Paulie. He already had it in him. Just put him into the right context, turn the camera on, and get out of the damn way.

Often, a casting director will take a risk that pays off. A dear friend of mine is a successful casting director here in New York. Years ago, she had seen a fabulous one-woman show by an unknown actress named Camryn Manheim. Because of her weight, Manheim had obviously had a rough time getting cast in things ... so Manheim did the best she could, either struggling in obscurity, doing whatever job she could get ... or, finally, writing something of her own to perform. It was a hit. But again, Manheim is fat - and let's remember: it's not easy for THIN people to get work, so you can imagine the struggle for someone like Manheim. People just didn't think of Manheim when they were casting certain things - even if the part didn't necessarily call for a thin person to play it. Anyway, my friend saw her one-woman show and thought, "This chick is amazing. I need to start calling her in for things."

So she did. Any job that came up (my friend casts commercials) that she thought Camryn would be good for, she'd call her in to audition. Nothing happened. But it's a long process. You aren't going to hit a home run on the first try, so my friend kept working at it. Eventually, a commercial came along that required a car mechanic to be working on a suspended car. The mechanic would be standing, the car overhead, the mechanic's head inside the guts of the car - and then the mechanic would duck down, show his (of course it would be a he, right?? Aren't all mechanics "he"??) face, say his lines, etc. A simple commercial, albeit a national one (that's where all the money is, booking a national commercial). My friend got the idea to call Camryn in for it. Naturally, the producers and the client had envisioned a man for the part. They hadn't said as much, but it was implicit. My friend decided to pretend that she DIDN'T know it was supposed to be a man - and while yes, she called in as many big burly guys that she had on her books - she also set Manheim up with an audition (without revealing to the client that she had done so, without warning them, "Now ... I'm going to call in a woman for this ..."). My friend could just SEE Manheim in mechanics' overalls, hidden in the car, and then the surprise on the reveal of her face - that it was a woman. She thought she would be perfect for it. On the day of the audition, the casting office filled up with big burly guys, wearing battered jeans, tool belts, and boots. Sitting amongst them, was Camryn Manheim, going up for the same part. Ha!! I love it. My friend ran the casting session, ushering each actor in to the room with an introduction to the producers and clients - and so, with no fanfare, no preparation, she opened the door, and said, "Next up - Camryn Manheim." And Manheim walked into the room. After a day of seeing only men, there was naturally a weird vibe in the air, but Manheim set herself up in front of them, the camera started rolling, she started working on the imaginary car in the air, saying her lines, and she nailed it. She booked the commercial. It had taken a courageous risky casting director to see beyond the stereotype, and think, "Yeah, yeah, I know - big burly guys are mechanics ... but I know that Manheim would be GREAT here ... so let's just throw her before the client and see what happens ..." Non-traditional casting sometimes takes a risk like that, because people do have a picture in their mind of what a part should look like: she should be a blonde, he should have a mustache, the guy should be fat, he should be white ... whatever. There are some parts that obviously call for traditional casting. Driving Miss Daisy is the story of a black chauffeur and a white rich woman. That's the story. But sometimes a story does NOT call for a specific racial aspect ... why can't the best friend by Asian? Why can't the associate at the law firm be gay? Why can't that couple be interracial? Why can't these things exist outside of the plot?? That's my favorite kind of casting: a person who just happens to be gay, a person who just happens to be black ... Our identifiers, our separateness from others, is not the whole story. But again: sometimes it takes someone taking a RISK to make such casting decisions a reality. And of course - if Camryn Manheim had gone into that casting room and bombed, they wouldn't have hired her. You, as the actor, have to "show up" - even MORE so than an actor who is "perfect" for the part. You have to SHOW them that you can do it. You have to open up their minds to other possibilities. Manheim did so. She walked in there and she WAS that mechanic. She wasn't "given" that part. She TOOK it.

Having just seen Angel Heart again a couple of nights ago (get ready for a Mickey Rourke kick. If I had had a blog in the late 80s, it would have been all Mickey Rourke all the time) I was struck by a lot of different things - and I'll write more about it ... but right now, I find myself thinking about all of the faces in that film. Not just of the leads (although their faces are burned in my brain as well) but of every single person who ever shows up on screen in that film. Alan Parker, when he films on location, always holds open casting calls for the locals - and, as much as he possibly can, fills up the smaller parts with people who either have no acting experience but look perfect for the role, or people who are stars in the local community theatre, and can do a specific part that Parker needs. The boys tap dancing in the streets in Angel Heart were actually a group of boys Parker saw in New Orleans, tap dancing on the street, so he put them in the movie, and they become very important thematically. The obese sweaty guy who plays the cop investigating all the murders was a New Orleans local. He's fantastic. The woman who works in the voodoo shop behind the counter had ZERO acting experience but she has a very important scene (mainly of exposition) with Mickey Rourke, and she nailed it. Apparently, too, Rourke was very kind to her, sweet and inclusive, making her feel comfortable. She's terrific. The job of a casting director in this type of film - with diverse locations (New York and Louisiana) as well as a two-pronged theme (the typical detective story in the Raymond Chandler genre mixed with the occult) is very specific. Parker didn't want too many known faces in the film. Rourke, DeNiro and Bonet were enough - well, and Charlotte Rampling, although her face-recognition-factor to American audiences was not as strong (and even Bonet was an odd choice. She was very young and the star of the most wholesome sitcom in television history. To cast her as a writhing voodoo goddess was non-traditional and out-of-the-box thinking at its finest and most brave). For all of the rest, Parker wanted unknowns.

And so, as I watch the film, still as powerful today as it was to me the first night I saw it in college with all of my friends (and we all FLIPPED OUT about it and went out to Bickford's afterwards and talked about Rourke deep into the night), what strikes me now is the faces that fill up every frame.

It helps give the film its stamp of odd authenticity, its slightly off-kilter reality. These are not "horror film" faces, they are locals who appear to inhabit the world Parker is trying to convey. And what the faces do, ultimately, is to create a world that serves to highlight best the work of the leads. Rourke, especially. He navigates a strange space here, trying to understand, trying to see ... and without all of the startling and individual faces that were cast to make up the rest of the film, his work would not have been showcased as it should have been. As it is: he seems the most human, the most open, the least opaque ... everyone else appears to be holding on to secrets and demons (and again: this is a matter of CASTING right ... some people's faces just LOOK odder than others) ... and Rourke appears to be an open book. Of course, in light of what his character eventually realizes about himself over the course of the film, it was a perfect choice. Because he is has the biggest secret of all. It's so big he doesn't even know he HAS a secret.

The Books: "Timebends: A Life" (Arthur Miller)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Timebends: A Life, by Arthur Miller

This is truly bizarre. Today happens to be Arthur Miller's birthday. His is the next book on the shelf. So happy birthday, Arthur Miller.

When Timebends came out, in 1987, I remember there being mixed reviews. I think mainly folks were expecting salacious revelations about Marilyn Monroe - and the book decidedly does not deliver on that score. But why does it not deliver? Because Marilyn Monroe was not some unearthly sexual goddess to Arthur Miller. She was a real girl, sweet, troubled, innocent, lovely - and she was his wife. He does not take us into their bedroom, and he does not "explain" her. She can't be "explained" by one person alone, and it is not up to Miller to interpret her for us. The Marilyn sections of the book are very lovely - I loved the picture of her that emerged ... but it's certainly not the whole book, it is not even the context in which the entire book is placed. It is an event, like any other ... something that made up a good deal of his emotional life for some time, as well as his creative life (as he tried to write material that would show the world she was a "real actress"). (Once upon a time I put together a giant post called "The Making of The Misfits" - filled with photos and book excerpts about that troubled film-shoot. The whole thing really had began as Miller's desire to write something he felt Marilyn could do, something worthy of her.) But in general, the Marilyn in the book is revealed as a real person, maybe more beautiful than most, certainly more famous ... but a woman with anxieties, quirks, and a lovely sense of humor and intellect that he found captivating.

Additionally, there is a lot of politics in the book (which is also not surprising) - and in many ways it gives a grand sweeping look at the journey of the American Left from the 30s to the 50s ... well, and yes, into the 60s - but by then many of the definitions had changed. Miller was from New York, and had grown up going to see productions at the Group Theatre, that bastion of the American Left, and had been gobsmacked by Clifford Odets' fiery language, and the vision that theatre could be somehow relevant and revolutionary. His compassion for the downtrodden, the persecuted, the forgotten masses could be seen as radical (and it certainly was at the time) - yet at the same time he had great contempt for the Soviet system of oppression and censorship, and worked hard through his life to support the persecuted writers in the Soviet bloc. And while he had seen the downside to American capitalism in his own family misfortunes, he was also amazed during the groundbreaking production of Salesman in Beijing in 1983 - which took China by storm. I actually remember some of the news reports about that production trickling down to me in junior high. I had read Salesman by then, so I knew of it ... but that production can be seen, in certain lights, as a watershed moment in China's cultural history. People went NUTS for Salesman in China. They had gone NUTS for Salesman in America in the 1940s and there, 50 years later, in a Communist country, they went nuts again. Even more nuts. Miller was amazed by the response. The curtain would go down at the end of the production, and Chinese men in suits would be hugging one another in the aisles, weeping. Amazing. It had spoken to them, to their experience, their hopes and dreams - another culture, another political system - none of that mattered. The message of Salesman, of the inherent dignity of man, despite his financial success, had a deep deep resonance for the Chinese. Salesman traveled, in other words. John Updike shares an interesting anecdote about Miller, which, I think, might surprise some people who just brush Miller off as a radical:

I went to the Soviet Union [in 1964] for a month as part of a cultural exchange program ... I came way from that month ... with a hardened antipathy to communism ...

There was something bullying egocentric about my admirable Soviet friends, a preoccupation with their own tortured situations that shut out all light from beyond. They were like residents of a planet so heavy that even their gazes were sucked back into its dark center. Arthur Miller, no reactionary, said it best when, a few years later, he and I and some other Americans riding the cultural-exchange bandwagon had entertained, in New York or Connecticut, several visiting Soviet colleagues. The encounter was handsomely catered, the dialogue loud and lively, the will toward friendship was earnest and in its way intoxicating, but upon our ebullient guests' departure Miller looked at me and said sighingly, "Jesus, don't they make you glad you're an American?"

Miller's family lost everything in the stock market crash, and so their situation was quite reduced. I believe they moved to Brooklyn, a huge downward step, off the island, so to speak, and Miller was a young child, but very much remembers the stress and fear of that time. Much of his memory would be put to use later on when writing Death of a Salesman - the tenement buildings, the change of Brooklyn from a more rural area to something crowded and fetid ... Not to mention the fact that he did have an uncle who was a salesman, a brash funny and vaguely pathetic man - an early prototype for Willy Loman.

I did not go into Timebends with any specific expectation like some people did. I didn't think, "He had BETTER talk about Marilyn Monroe for 300 pages straight!" Or "He had BETTER dish on how he felt about Kazan and the HUAC - if he doesn't? I will HATE the book" ... or etc. etc. I found some of it didactic and rather humorless, and much of his political sections were boring and preachy ... but you move through them and then get on to the business of theatre. To Miller, it all was one. You can tell that in his plays as well. His plays always have a "message", some social, political, or cultural message ... and it is that reason that they can sometimes seem didactic in a way that Tennessee Williams' plays never do. It's interesting: they were contemporaries, the two giant stars of the American stage, the two men (with O'Neill and Odets in the generations before paving the way) who brought an American voice and an American perspective where before there had been none. Much of the Broadway fare in the early years of the 20th century, up into the 1920s, was written by Americans, sure, but they took as their inspiration the works of Noel Coward, or Shaw, or other Europeans. It was not a truly American art-form. Vaudeville was, but not the mainstage of the Broadway theatres. That began to change with O'Neill - and Odets ... two wildly different playwrights with different perspectives ... but they cleared the space for what would happen in the 40s, and 50s - when out came playwrights like Miller, and Williams, and Inge, and Saroyan. These playwrights are American to the core. It is a voice I am talking about, a sensibility - it is its own thing, and these guys helped put American on the map, at least in a theatrical sense.

Miller's book details his own part of that historic moment in our cultural life.

It has since come to light that Miller and his last wife - Inge Morath, a photographer - had a child who had Down's Syndrome, and Miller was so horrified and embarrassed that he put the child in an institution and never saw him again. He never even acknowledged the child's existence. For decades. Inge Morath would go to visit her son, but it was a horrible situation. The child is now a man, and many of Miller's old friends have reached out to him - but Miller himself never did. And there's not a word of this in Timebends, which is truly chilling. The daughter he had with Morath - Rebecca - is now a director, actress, writer - and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis - and Miller showers her with praise and love in Timebends. The story about the Down's Syndrome child came out this past year - so reading Timebends in the 80s, you'd never ever know that this giant THING was missing. Miller had some major demons going on, obviously, and I do wonder what price he paid (psychologically, I mean) in keeping this huge thing a secret. His last play was Finishing the Picture (2004) and it was (obviously, if you know Miller's life) the story of the making of The Misfits, with its star actress going deeper and deeper into madness and incomprehensibility, as the hard-drinking macho cast and crew wait for her to appear, so that they can "finish the picture". Miller was 90 years old, and there he is ... going back in time to a moment when maybe he thought he could "save" someone ... going over it and over it (as he had done before, in his play After the Fall) ... maybe in doing so he thought he could change his own past. He died before the revelation came out about his abandoned son, so naturally there has been MUCH chatter on the airwaves about it. For my part, it makes me look at his work in a different way: the evocations of fathers and sons, so common in his work ... the passing on of the torch, so important in all matters of family and mortality ... what do we pass on? What have we, as men, as fathers, made of ourselves? What can I give to my son? What do I have to give? There is a whole new way to look at these existential questions now. It's awful, but I wonder if a lot of his torment and didacticism came from the fact that he had done this awful thing and he felt the need to hide it.

The excerpt I share below is giant, so sit back, and get ready. It is the story of the making of Death of a Salesman, and it is not only my favorite section in the book - but perhaps my favorite section of ANY book. He's an elegant writer, not too emotional, but his memories of that time in his life are intense and you really get the sense that he was pushing himself THROUGH something, he was dreaming himself into a space where he could find his voice and share it. Not an easy thing to do. He had already had one success - All My Sons ... but with Salesman he went deeper. It was profound for him. I will not re-cap his thoughts here - they are all below.

But the elements of this story resonate for me, and have for years, ever since I first read it:

-- his experience of seeing Streetcar Named Desire for the first time, and what it said to him, what it did to him ... It basically gave him permission. To go big, to go huge, to be relevant and important ... not to imitate Williams, that could not be done, they were different men ... but to stop being microscopic and go into the macro-level. (His giving-of-the-props to Williams here is incredibly generous. Because he could very easily have taken the credit himself for what happened to American theatre in the 1940s ... Salesman was as huge a phenomenon as Streetcar ... but he doesn't. He hands that to Williams.)

-- his feeling that he needed to build a shack with his own hands to write the play (he didn't know why he had to, but he knew he did ...) Here he is in front of the shack, many years later.

-- the fact that he would finish work on the play after a long day, and find that he had been crying all day ... without even realizing it

-- Kazan signing on to direct - a huge deal. (And Kazan's response to reading the play for the first time ... gulp ...)

-- finding their Willy Loman. The story of Lee J. Cobb - who was really too young for the part, he was the contemporary of Arthur Kennedy who played his own son ... but how Cobb basically insisted that the part was his and his alone.

-- then - the UNBELIEVABLE story of the moment in rehearsal when Lee J. Cobb "got it". I have goosebumps right now just thinking about it.

-- and then: opening night ... and what happened in that theatre that night.

It is a magnificent story, from beginning to end, and one I treasure. It feels, in a weird way, like it belongs to me. In the same way that I feel that the signing of the Declaration of Independence belongs to me, or that Walt Whitman belongs to me, or that the first walk on the moon belongs to me. These are stories that make up our culture, our history ... and they are part of me, mine.

At the end of Death of a Salesman, Willy's wife Linda says what are probably the most famous lines in the entire play:

Don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

And so it has.

EXCERPT FROM Timebends: A Life, by Arthur Miller

Already in the sixties I was surprised by the common tendency to think of the late forties and early fifties as some sort of renaissance in the New York theatre. If that was so, I was unaware of it. I thought the theatre a temple being rotted out with commercialized junk, where mostly by accident an occasional good piece of work appeared, usually under some disguise of popular cultural coloration such as a movie star in a leading role.

That said, it now needs correction; it was also a time when the audience was basically the same for musicals and light entertainment as for the ambitious stuff and had not yet been atomized, as it would be by the mid-fifties, into young and old, hip and square, or even political left and middle and right. So the playwright's challenge was to please not a small sensitized supporting clique but an audience representing, more or less, all of America. With ticket prices within reason, this meant that an author was writing for his peers, and if such was really not the case statistically, it was sufficiently so to support an illusion that had a basis in reality. After all, it was not thought particularly daring to present T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party on Broadway, or Laurence Olivier in a Greek tragedy, or Giraudoux's The Madwomen of Chaillot, or any number of other ambitious works. To be sure, such shows had much shorter lives than the trash, but that was to be expected, for most people would much rather laugh than cry, rather watch an actor being hit on the head by a pig bladder than by some painful truth.

The net of it all was that serious writers could reasonably assume they were addressing the whole American mix, and so their plays, whether successfully or not, stretched toward a wholeness of experience that would not require specialists or a coterie to be understood. As alienated a spirit as he was, O'Neill tried for the big audience, and Clifford Odets no less so, along with every other writer longing to prophesy to America, from Whitman and Melville to Dreiser and Hemingway and so on.

For Europe's playwrights the situation was profoundly different, with society already being split beyond healing between the working class and its allies, who were committed to a socialist destiny, and the bourgeoi