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- “You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
- “If I don’t feel it, I can’t play it.” — James Cotton
- “I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” — Lena Horne
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Category Archives: Actors
Happy Birthday, David Cassidy
This is what I wrote when David Cassidy died. Re-posted now for his birthday. Maybe you “had to be there” to really get just how huge he was back then. I wasn’t the biggest Patridge Family fan in the world, … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Music, On This Day, RIP, Theatre
21 Comments
R.I.P. Seymour Cassel
Seymour Cassel has died. A John Cassavetes regular, an essential member of that merry band of actor misfits, who followed their own sense of truth with an improvisatory and free-flowing jazz-riff style so impossible to replicate (even though so many … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, RIP
Tagged Faces, Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Love Streams, Minnie and Moskowitz, Seymour Cassel
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Happy Birthday, Lon Chaney
Like so many great clowns, Lon Chaney had a huge and tragic soul, at the heart of his persona was an abyss of sadness. He plays a clown, but he gives deeply tragic performances of towering stature. He’s overwhelming to … Continue reading
R.I.P. George Morfogen
George Morfogen as the head waiter in What’s Up, Doc?, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. I just learned Morfogen died in early March. He was one of Peter Bogdanovich’s oldest friends. And great in his much larger role in Bogdanovich’s They … Continue reading
“Masters of the Acting Art”: An Interview with Author Dan Callahan
Dan Callahan is one of our best writers on the craft of acting. Not only does he describe why a performance is good, he digs into the much thornier issue of how it is good. This is where most critics … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged Al Pacino, Cate Blanchett, Charles Laughton, Diane Keaton, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Gena Rowlands, interviews, John Cassavetes, Judy Davis, Laurence Olivier, Lee Strasberg, Maggie Smith, Marlon Brando, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Patricia Clarkson, River Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Stella Adler
11 Comments
The Wedding Party (1963): Really Young Young Robert De Niro and Jill Clayburgh
In 1963, Brian De Palma made his first movie, basically a student film, co-directed with Wilford Leach. (It’s listed as 1969, because that’s when it was completed, and got released, because of De Niro/De Palma’s rising stardom. It’s just been … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies
Tagged Brian De Palma, comedy, Jill Clayburgh, Robert De Niro
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R.I.P. Julie Adams
Julie Adams, the beloved star of Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) has died at the age of 92. She was one of those figures who hit paydirt (if not financially – then culturally) in a monster movie which has … Continue reading
“Is your dad here?” A moment from Eighth Grade
That’s Missy Yager there, as the mom of the Queen Bee of middle school in Eighth Grade (which I reviewed for Ebert.) What is so funny about this small moment is that the mother is happy to see Kayla come … Continue reading
The Vulnerability of Nick Nolte: Going Deep
At a party scene early on in North Dallas Forty, the 1979 film adaptation of wide receiver Peter Gent’s raunchy cynical novel about pro football (side note: Nancy Dowd worked on the script in an uncredited capacity, the woman who … Continue reading
Posted in Actors
13 Comments
“Take the Scissors and Throw Them Because WHY DO YOU NEED THEM?”
I post this helpful tutorial from Katharine Hepburn (aka my good friend Alexandra Billings) every year. Just in case you need some ideas for decorating your Christmas tree. Oh, Alex. I love you.