{"id":43019,"date":"2011-10-24T22:25:41","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T02:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=43019"},"modified":"2011-10-25T00:17:36","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T04:17:36","slug":"obsession-dovetail-this-is-for-jennchez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=43019","title":{"rendered":"Obsession Dovetail: This Is For Jennchez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z2XFfHmApfE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Jennchez mentioned Cary Grant in her last comment.  Cary Grant has been an obsession of mine for years, decades, a lifetime (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?tag=cary-grant\">176 posts<\/a> and counting.)<\/p>\n<p>And so:  Elvis opened in Vegas in the summer of 1969.  I wrote a bit about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=42069\">his rehearsal process<\/a> for that momentous show, as well as the cray-cray <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=42530\">press conference<\/a> the day after.  These were his first live shows in over a decade.  Extraordinary.  It was an event of the highest order.  Everyone came.  Not just Elvis fans, but every celebrity in a 3,000 mile radius.  There is brief footage of the mayhem backstage, of a gorgeous Elvis (when was he not?  Even fat, he was gorgeous) greeting everyone, looking like a big happy and kind of shy kid.  His sideburns have their own zip code.  The footage is rough, but watch for Cary Grant&#8217;s entrance.  (This footage is included in the 1970 doc <i>Elvis: That&#8217;s The Way It Is<\/i>.)<\/p>\n<p>Cary Grant said, after seeing Elvis live: &#8220;He is the greatest live performer since Al Jolson.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can feel his enthusiasm in how he bursts into that crowded room.  It&#8217;s a <i>commotion<\/i>, a Cary Grant COMMOTION.  Sammy Davis Jr. is there, and is more of a cool cat, enthusiastic and happy, yes, but more like a fellow performer who knows the ropes and is psyched for Elvis on that score.  Cary Grant, an old man by that point, is a gushing FAN bursting into the room.  He had that freedom with himself.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a great couple of seconds where the two of them are talking, and I find it fascinating to watch.  Elvis Presley is the man of the hour.  But here is Cary Grant.  Elvis says, &#8220;You made it back?&#8221; (Meaning backstage, which is a bit charming in a naive way.  He&#8217;s Cary Grant. Who is going to deny him access backstage?  It&#8217;s sweet the way Elvis says it. Solicitous.)<\/p>\n<p>But what I really love is: Watch how Cary just stares at him, smiling, totally attentive, totally supportive, his entire considerable energy force pouring out of him AT Elvis. He is COMPLETELY selfless in that moment.  (That, my friends, is how you congratulate someone on a job well done. Don&#8217;t stand back with your arms crossed &#8211; as Kevin Costner hopefully learned eternally after watching his cringe-inducing awkward backstage moment with Madonna during her &#8220;Blond Ambition&#8221; tour documenary, don&#8217;t say, &#8220;It was really interesting what you were doing&#8221;, don&#8217;t try to be original, don&#8217;t try to be clever.  Be <i>all about that other person&#8217;s triumph<\/i>.  And that is what Cary Grant is doing in the way he looks at Elvis.)<\/p>\n<p>I will analyze body language now.  Since apparently I&#8217;m writing fanfic on my site, why not.  The way Cary Grant bursts into the room and bombards Elvis Presley with love and excitement, seems to relax Elvis, almost instantaneously, and you can hear him say to Cary, &#8220;I was a little bit too nervous at first &#8230;&#8221;  And Cary immediately leans forward and whispers something to him.<\/p>\n<p>Two old pros, commiserating. <\/p>\n<p>One of the biggest stars of his day, a valid leading man for the <i>entirety of his career<\/i> (unheard of &#8211; he only stopped being a leading man because he retired), whispering supportively in the ear of another man who had taken the world by surprise and storm at the age of 21, then went on to dominate Hollywood for a decade during its roughest toughest downturn, headlining in 30 movies in 10 years or whatever it was, and at this point is <em>still<\/em> only 35 years old, ready to start a new exciting chapter.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s thrilling footage, because it is so casual.  Even with the star wattage in that room, it&#8217;s the same scene backstage at community theatre, a high school play, or an off-Broadway opening.  Two men who came from poverty, who knew they were blessed, who created personae out of thin air &#8211; (and they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7614\">chose the RIGHT personae<\/a>, instinctively, they chose the personae that would most serve them, that would set them free the highest, that would last the longest &#8211; very few people are able to do that, very few people have that innate self-knowledge) &#8211; who were the biggest most glitteringest stars in the sky of the 20th century, whispering about being nervous during a performance.<\/p>\n<p>I could watch them whisper all day.<\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time I was telling my Cousin Mike about the jealous back-stabbing of some of my fellow grad school students, and he said to me, &#8220;You&#8217;ll find, Sheila, as you continue in this career, that the most talented people are usually the most generous. Talented people are rarely stingy or petty or jealous. Never forget that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what I see here.  On both sides of the exchange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jennchez mentioned Cary Grant in her last comment. Cary Grant has been an obsession of mine for years, decades, a lifetime (176 posts and counting.) And so: Elvis opened in Vegas in the summer of 1969. I wrote a bit &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=43019\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,17],"tags":[120,2095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43019"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43043,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43019\/revisions\/43043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}