I can’t tell you how many times I’ve completely forgotten
something that’s happened over the past four years and had to consult my blog
archives. Having a blog is the perfect antidote
to early-onset memory loss. The problem is, I then start to believe my own
ravings and I forget my “coloring” of life events. I enjoyed Neil Kramer’s
year-end recap on his popular blog Citizen of the Month. He reviewed his emotional progression through2008 which he found to be a very difficult year and included posts he felt best reflected where he was at as the year
progressed.
I thought I’d dip into my own archives to get a birds-eye
view of what was on my mind this year, including links to a sample post for
each month. Yes, this is an exercise in total narcissism but so is every aspect of
blogging. So what was I doing in 2008?
January
Dished some fifty-year-old celebrity dirt, debated the
anti-Hillary crowd, kvetched about out-of-control cell phone usage, grieved the
loss of Suzanne Pleshette, Bill Idelson, Lois Nettleton, and Heath Ledger, shielded my eyes during some gruesome horror films, and started my yearly obsession with
the Oscars.
Said good-bye to First Daughter Margaret Truman, defended
actress Thelma Ritter, interviewed a blogger from Argentina and got interviewed
by one from Alaska, was bored silly by the Oscar telecast, and begged Natalie
Cole to throw me a cupcake on the red carpet.
Headed east to Manhattan, went nuts on Broadway, avoided Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service guards at "Saturday Night Live," made contact with one of my favorite hotties from
Tudor England, paid homage to the new 50-year-olds (from Alec Baldwin to Eve
Plumb to Viggo Mortensen), and condemned Barack Obama’s ugliest vice.
Came clean about my brief stint as a truck smuggler in
Germany, spent time with a pre-60 Minutes Mike Wallace, spewed religious venom
at the motherfucker who stole my computer, and watched my daughter become a
woman.
Paid a visit to a crazy Technicolor maven,
revealed my mother’s private papers, became physically ill from George W. Bush’s stupidity, responded to the sad news about Ted Kennedy, and
said good-bye to TV icons Dick Martin, Earle Hagen, and Harvey Korman,
Trashed the new “Sex and the City,” ordered a white hood for
Brigitte Bardot, overdosed on political mudslinging, jumped for joy at the
decision in California to legalize gay marriage (if only we’d known),
contemplated family secrets, honored the Chairman of the Board, and mourned the
loss of Cyd Charisse and George Carlin.
Paid homage to Bozo and Jesus Christ, gloated about the
effect I was having on Barack Obama’s campaign, sent out a cry for help
regarding my wife’s transformation into Bette Davis, predicted the death of the
Batman franchise, fretted about American teens, and revealed my sister’s role
in the Apollo space program.
Headed to Chicago for rock concerts and fun, bid adieu to Evelyn
Keyes, went to summer camp, regressed to infancy, tried to extricate family
secrets from a new stash of memorabilia, attended the resurrection of a former president, and welcomed Joe Biden and Sarah Palin to the party.
Put the presidents’ wives on trial, spent my 49th birthday with a corrupt politician, revisited the worst experiences of my life, took a two-part course in
feminism, thought about white privilege, asked gays what the hell they were
doing in the Republican Party, returned to Chicago to attend synagogue, and reluctantly said
good-bye to the amazing Paul Newman,
Burned out on the presidential campaign, stalked a cemetery, visited a
tenement, spent Yom Kippur with my new spiritual leader, admired Neil Young,
embarrassed myself in front of Norah Jones, started to worry about Proposition
8, and welcomed the Colbert Report debut of my newest family member, Joffrey
Velvet.
Declared my support for William Howard Taft, thanked the
Good Lord Above for Obama’s victory, marked the anniversaries of Kristallnacht
and the JFK assassination, helped our house come out of the closet as a
lesbian, crashed another celebrity funeral, started going to the movies with
wild abandon, and considered plucking my own turkey.
Spewed some anti-holiday diatribes, lusted after Rita
Moreno, had a schizophrenic episode involving Van Johnson, solved the
economic crisis (in Yiddish), kvelled over my nephew’s debut at Madison Square
Garden, exposed Santa Claus as a dangerous carcinogen, enrolled Eartha Kitt in the Witness Protection Program, sent some birthday lovin’ to my
daughter, and advised Jennifer Aniston on her troubled career.
And there you have it—all neatly summarized for any future
hearings on my mental competency.
I thank all of you who have stopped by over the past 12
months and wish you all an exciting and financially secure 2009! I have a feeling
that great things are in store for all of us in the coming year.
I’ve seen all of the big holiday movies and I’m itchin’ to
talk about them but right now I just want to briefly comment on the absurd
“news” headline that’s been blaring at me from my computer for the past two
days:
“Box-Office Battle of Exes Goes to Jennifer Aniston”
This is in reference to the two films that opened this past
weekend starring former spouses Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, “The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button” with Pitt and Cate Blanchett and “Marley & Me”
featuring Aniston and Owen Wilson. The media mavens are falling over themselves
to pit Aniston and Pitt against each other, as if the reception of their
respective films is a referendum on their failed marriage. Looking at the box
office receipts from the holiday weekend, Aniston has clearly won custody of America's pocketbooks. “Marley & Me,” the sentimental film version of the best-selling
book about a couple’s marriage as seen through their ownership of a mischievous
dog named Marley took in a whopping $37 million over the three-day weekend (plus
an unprecedented Christmas day opening of over $14 million) while “Benjamin
Button,” the epic tale of a man who ages backwards over the course of the 20th century, took in $27.2 million and is already trailing off. Why am I even
commenting on this non-story? Because a) pitting Aniston and Pitt against each
other in this way makes me want to puke, and b) I’m worried that the stupendous
box office numbers for “Marley & Me” will send the wrong message to filmmakers and studio executives.
On Saturday, I went to see “Valkyrie,” the new Tom Cruise
film about a failed 1944 plot by top German officials to assassinate Adolf
Hitler. The big trend this Christmas season is movies about “good Nazis,” from
the benevolent wife of the commandant of Auschwitz in “The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas” to Kate Winslet’s sympathetic former SS guard in “The Reader” to
Cruise’s heroic but doomed Claus von Stauffenberg. Is our own culture imploding
so fast that we now have to look to Nazi Germany for our feel-good nostalgia? I
have my issues with Cruise and his acting style but I have to admit I enjoyed
the film and its careful attention to the look and feel of this time period.
Having all of the actors playing Nazis speaking in their own accents (American,
English, German, and so on) could have ruined the film for me but thanks to a
clever device at the beginning of the film that “explained” their use of
English, I was able to get past it and even be grateful that they didn’t force
British accents on the American cast members as directors often do when the
characters are supposed to be speaking a foreign tongue (see the seven
Americans playing the Von Trapp children in “The Sound of Music” for a bad
example of that phenomenon).
The one problem dogging the suspense of “Valkyrie” is that
we all know how it turns out. Obviously, the people who plotted against der
Führer did not succeed—Hitler survived to cause far more damage throughout
Europe until he took his own life in 1945. There’s not much back story to the
characters here, and I wonder if the motives of the “good” Nazis were always as
pure as depicted. The truth is, either you’re interested in this particular
piece of history or you’re not. I was interested enough to stick with it.
I saw the film at the 14-screen cineplex at the Grove in Los
Angeles. The films are usually scheduled to avoid sneak-ins—none of them are
beginning as the other ones are ending. There also tends to be employees
standing in front of each theatre checking ticket stubs. As I left the film, I
noticed that the film in the neighboring theatre was about to begin. Hmmm, and
no one checking tickets? How could I resist? The film was “Marley & Me.”
I’d seen the preview and it looked sort of appealing. What did I have to lose?
It would be a good antidote to the tensions of “Valkyrie” and help get me out
of that terrifying time period.
My verdict? I’d rather be in Nazi Germany.
It’s been a long time since I saw a film that was so
offensively bad that it caused me to audibly moan in the theatre. I know that
“Marley & Me” is based on a true story and I apologize to the real-life
author and his family but to my sensibilities there wasn’t a single authentic
moment in the film. True, I did tear up briefly during the inexcusably
manipulative ending but that just made me hate it more. I was so miserable
watching this film that a man behind me took two calls on his cell phone during
the film and I didn’t even bother to turn around and try to shut him up. I
truly felt insulted by this test-marketed dreck.
Why all the venom? There
are far more important things to rant about than this stupid film. What was it
about this story that annoyed me to the point where I would have rather have
spent two more hours in Hitler’s bunker than five more minutes in Owen Wilson
and Jennifer Aniston’s set decorated house? The dog was adorable (well, all 22 dogs who played Marley at different ages), Wilson and Aniston have never
looked better, and the film was populated by actors I usually like, but I just
couldn’t get past the absence of any real emotion at its core. Is it the
mediocrity of the film that angers me or am I more frustrated at the audiences
for lapping it up so readily? When I got home and heard that “Marley & Me”
was the #1 film in the country, I wanted to spit, especially when there are so
many more worthy films out these days that will never get a following. I can
see the studio execs now, green-lighting every treacly film full of artificial
spoon-fed emotions while putting the kibosh on innovative projects that demand
a lot more from their audiences.
Projects like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I’m
glad this ambitious film has the star power of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett
behind it because such a sweeping historical epic that clocks in at almost
three hours is going to be a way tougher sell than “Marley & Me’s” Readers
Digest date-night appeal. We saw “Benjamin Button” Sunday night and were
transfixed by its unique plot (bearing no resemblance to the F. Scott
Fitzgerald short story) and by the mesmerizing performances of both Pitt and
Blanchett. I’m going to be careful not to give any critical plot points away
here so I can’t discuss the story in any detail but suffice it to say that it’s
fascinating to see both of these excellent actors playing characters far younger
and far older than they currently are. It’s not a perfect film but it forces
you to think about mortality in new and interesting ways and for me it had the
same haunting effect as the final ten minutes of the series “Six Feet Under.”
Wisely, the trailers for “Benjamin Button” go easy on the images of the
wrinkled, wizened Brad Pitt and focus on the star at his hunkiest. Thanks
to the state-of-the-art special effects and the excellent cinematography, we
see the best aging effects ever produced on screen as well as Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as they would have appeared about twenty years
ago, when Blanchett was still wowing theatre audiences in Sydney and Pitt was
heating up Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in “Thelma and Louise.” The
supporting cast is terrific. In addition to the leads, I think that Tilda
Swinton, Jared Harris, and Taraji Henson are shoo-ins for Oscar nominations.
Compare that to the painfully bad supporting performances in “Marley & Me,”
from an intolerable Eric Dane doing a badly written parody of his McSteamy
character from “Grey’s Anatomy,” Alan Arkin parodying Alan Arkin, and worst of
all, the fabulous Kathleen Turner in a monstrously ugly and surprisingly small
role as an unpleasant dog trainer. Sigh.
Oh God, I’ve fallen right into the trap set by Entertainment
Tonight and the E! Network—comparing these two films as if it makes any sense
to do so. Would you compare a complex French cassoulet with Chicken McNuggets? I
guess I sound like a horrible snob but it’s not that I’m against so-called “chick
flicks,” God knows, or even films with paper-thin plots. Last night I saw “Last
Chance Harvey,” a film that had no right to be any good at all, and I loved it thanks to the sheer charisma and talent of Dustin Hoffmann and Emma Thompson
and their ability to convey authentic feelings. There may have been some plot
oddities in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” but Brad Pitt was able to
portray a range of difficult emotions that served the film beautifully. Suffice
it to say that in my book, Pitt wins the Battle of the Exes hands down.
I admit that the huge box office success of “Marley &
Me” helped to ratchet up my disgust. The last time I hated a film so much was
exactly three years ago and it wasn’t nearly as successful as this one,
but…oops…it did star Jennifer Aniston. I seem to have a history of evoking Nazi
Germany when discussing her films. Commenting on her relationship with Mark
Ruffalo in the awful “Rumor Has It,” I said that “the chemistry between the two
of them is so poor I would have been more turned on by a romantic comedy
starring Hitler and Eva Braun.” Yikes. I swear I have no vendetta against
Jennifer Aniston. I loved her in “Friends,” I thought she was great on a recent
episode of “30 Rock,” and in films, I thought she did a wonderful job in “The
Good Girl,” but that was way back in 2002. If I could give the mega-star any
advice (and of course, now that I’m trashing her #1 film, why wouldn’t she come
to me?), I’d say she should do whatever it takes to find some interesting parts
that do not focus on her beautiful and bubbly exterior. I heard that she was up
for the part of Marianne Pearl in the film “A Mighty Heart.” Now that would
have been fantastic for her career. But in the end that part went
to…um…Angelina Jolie. Gulp. Sorry, Jen!
Today is my daughter Leah’s 14th birthday. I find
that very hard to believe, but I guess I said the same thing on her 10th,
11th, 12th, and 13th birthdays! I turned 14 in
1973, a year I seem to be forever referencing on this blog. I wonder if Leah
will have a lot of memories of 2008 when she’s an adult. I hope not, at least
not for the same reasons. I think I tend to obsess on the early 1970s because
of how unhappy and out of it I was back then. Leah seems to be in a very good
space these days. She’s in the middle of 8th grade, loving her
school, and has a lot of really great friends.
Leah is sitting across from me right now on her MacBook,
humming “Spring Awakening” songs and talking to her friends on iChat. I showed
her this photo I wanted to post, one of my recent favorites—Leah at Susina, an L.A. bakery we often hang out at (and where I write many
of these posts). It’s after school and she’s doing her homework. I love the
expression she’s giving me as I aim my camera at her. That sort of irritated
tolerance kids of this age specialize in. “I love you, dad, but dear God, what
are you going to do to embarrass me now?” Leah doesn’t like this photo but gave
me permission to use it provided I also include the one underneath, a posed
glamour shot from last April. The two of them together represent the whole of
the 14-year-old experience. Navigating through constantly changing moods,
shifting allegiances, experiencing a growing self-awareness, wanting to shine
brightly one minute and just be part of the crowd the next. Leah clearly has a
stronger foothold in adolescence today than she did last year at this time. As
she continues to mature and separate from her parents, I’m finally learning how
to let go and stay attached at the same time, if that makes any sense.
Some people never mention their family members on their
blogs, some use pseudonyms for their children, and some reveal terribly
intimate details that I’m sure land them in hot water. Up to now Leah has
enjoyed seeing any mention of herself on the few posts of mine she’s read over
the years—she is a budding actress after all. But I’ll continue to be careful
about that.
I know that kvelling about your children can be obnoxious
and I hope I haven’t gone too far in that direction. I’ve resisted the urge to
post clips from all of my daughter's musicals but I’m going to close this birthday
post with a short clip from a show Leah did at our synagogue earlier this year
on Purim, a parody of “Cabaret” as seen through the Book of Esther. Leah was
the only kid in the cast of cross-dressing adults. The video resolution is
awful but to me the clip is the perfect glimpse of my daughter at this stage in
her life. Her confidence amazes me. And yes, the Mama Rose in me
teared up when she got applause for that extended note. Sing out, Louise! I
love you, Leah!
Eartha Kitt, self-described “sex kitten” and
singer of the yuletide classic “Santa Baby” died this week on Christmas
Day. Kendall and I had one memorable encounter with Kitt last year at LAX. We
were waiting for my sister and her family to arrive from Chicago on an American
Airlines flight. In the terminal, we were standing next to a limo
driver holding a sign that said “Kitt.” I wondered if he could possibly be
waiting for the star who I was first was introduced to as a child on the TV show “Batman.” Kitt was the
controversial replacement for Julie Newmar’s Catwoman character, and while my
heart always belonged to Julie, I had to admit that the feline Kitt was a
sexy-as-hell, delightfully evil villain—one of the first black women on television
who was allowed to exude such sex appeal in the 1960s.
Suddenly, descending down the airport escalator, we saw a
breathtaking vision of old school glamour: gorgeous Eartha Kitt, already 80,
decked out in a glittery turban and false eyelashes, and holding a floor-length
mink coat. My family members were right behind her, but we ignored them
completely since our eyes were riveted to the incandescent Star. As she walked
toward us, the driver stuck out his hand to introduce himself. “How do you do,
Miss Kitt,” he said politely. Without missing a beat or even glancing in his
direction, Eartha dropped her heavy mink coat onto the driver’s outstretched
hand and continued walking, looking like a queen who could not be bothered to
make eye contact with her subjects. Wow.
Let’s take a look at one of Kitt’s trademark numbers, “ I
Want to Be Evil.” She loved playing the mischievous, sexy vixen, and though
she’s not the best lip-syncher in the world, this 1962 clip shows Eartha at her
sultry best:
To listen to Eartha Kitt’s unique speaking voice and to hear
her strangely accented singing, an uninitiated fan might think she hailed from
the West Indies or perhaps some exotic European principality. But Eartha Kitt
was a product of the American Deep South, born in the tiny town of North, South
Carolina, in 1927. Her mother was a poor African-American woman and her father
was the white son of a plantation owner. When Kitt’s mother later married
another white man, he wanted nothing to do with his wife’s mixed-race child, so
Eartha was shipped off to poor relations in Harlem.
Kitt’s difficult early life in the ghettos of New York and
then in London and Paris are well documented in her obituaries, as is her early
rise to fame—as a dancer in Katherine Dunham’s company, playing
opposite Orson Welles in a European production of “Dr. Faustas,” and finally her
breakthrough role on Broadway in “New Faces of 1952.” She was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of a 15-year-old girl living in the ghetto in "Mrs. Patterson," starred in films opposite Nat King Cole and Sidney Poitier, and became world-famous for her sexy nightclub performances. There’s much to say about
Kitt’s amazing career, but instead I want to focus on a pivotal episode in her life that I vividly remember from
childhood: when Eartha Kitt went to the White House in 1968 and was condemned
for making First Lady Lady Bird Johnson cry.
In January 1968, Kitt was invited to a luncheon the First
Lady was giving that featured a discussion on crime and juvenile delinquency. Always known for speaking
her mind, Kitt caused a sensation when she challenged Mrs. Johnson about the
effects of the war on young people in America. As the New York Times reported:
Singer Eartha Kitt stunned fellow guests at a White House
luncheon and left Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson in tears Thursday when she declared
angrily that the Vietnam War was causing American youth to rebel in the cities.
About 50 white and Negro women invited to the White House to
discuss President Johnson’s proposals to combat crime in the streets sat at their
tables in embarrassed silence as Miss Kitt delivered an emotional tirade
against the war.
“You send the best of this country off to be shot and
maimed,” she told her fellow guests. “They rebel in the street. They will take
pot…and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re
going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”
Mrs. Johnson rose afterward and looked directly at the
singer, who leaned against a podium in the yellow-walled family dining room.
“Because there is a war on—and I pray that there will be a just and honest
peace—that still doesn’t give us a free ticket not to try to work for better
things such as against crime in the streets, better education, and better
health for our people,” Mrs. Johnson said, her voice trembling and tears
welling in her eyes.
The President had dropped in on the luncheon briefly, and
answered a pointed question from Miss Kitt, but left before her outburst.
Miss Kitt, her eyes flashing in defiance while she puffed on
a cigarette and jabbed a finger at her startled audience, said American youth
are “angry because their parents are angry…because there is a war going on that
they don’t understand.” She told Mrs. Johnson that youngsters feel alienated
because “they can’t get to you and they can’t get to the President, and so they
rebel in the streets.”
Many in the crowd sat in stunned silence and then cheered the
wife of the governor of New Jersey who rose next to defend the war.
Kitt probably had no idea that a media frenzy would erupt over her words and
that her career would be severely affected. To her credit, the First Lady never
accused Kitt of doing anything wrong. Realizing that she may have offended
people, Eartha tried to explain herself toward the end of the luncheon.
Miss Kitt rose during a question-and-answer period afterward
and apologized for speaking up if she had offended the President and his wife.
But, she said, turning to the other well-dressed guests. “I have to say what is
in my heart.” She said she had not walked the streets of ghettos as a crusader
as some of the other guests had, but “I have lived in the gutters.”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Johnson replied. “I cannot understand the
things that you do. I have not lived with the background that you have. I cannot
speak as passionately or as well as you. But I think we have made advances in
these things and we will do more.”
Still, the irrepressible Kitt couldn’t stop herself. She
continued:
“We have to realize where the truth really is,” she said,
pointing her finger at the guests who sat transfixed. “The children of America
are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We
don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. For no reason. They are rebelling
against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country,
particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons—and I know what
it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson—we raise children
and send them to war.”
She said that today’s youth feels there is no reason to be a
“good guy.” He would rather go to jail as a “bad guy” and avoid the draft, she
said. “They feel that if they have any life, it’s best to live because they may
not be here tomorrow.”
Was anybody ever that honest to a President or
First Lady? The reporters couldn’t get out of that room fast enough to file
their stories, some of them in support of Eartha’s right to speak up, but many
highly critical. Editorials condemning the singer appeared around the country,
as well as many angry letters. Everyone got into the act, from actress Martha
Raye and former child star Shirley Temple Black, who criticized
Eartha, to writer Gore Vidal who praised her. President
Johnson’s pastor felt it his duty to apologize for Miss Kitt in a publicized
telegram sent to the President the next day:
“I commend you for all the work you have been doing to urge
more justice and opportunity, especially for Negroes, and because all the
Americans are in a sense a family, I apologize for any member of that family
including Negroes who are ill-mannered, stupid, and arrogant.”
Shocked by the negative response to her comments, Kitt was
accosted at the airport when she returned to Los Angeles.
Arriving from Washington, Miss Kitt explained that she had
said “only what was in my heart and head. People thought I was rude, but
there’s nothing rude about telling the truth. All those very nice people kept
saying very nice things about putting flowers in Harlem and making bigger street
lights to keep the cities safe,” she said. “I thought they were avoiding
talking about the reasons we have problems with crime and problems with our
children.”
Letters sent to the New York Times about the matter ran the
gamut. Many took Kitt to task:
Once again bad taste has been flaunted in the guise of
“Freedom.” Eartha Kitt’s “performance” at the White House was unforgiveable.
The legitimate cause of civil rights and the image of our Negro population is
damaged by irresponsible acts like this. Why must the Negro be subjected to and
exploited by Communists and publicity-seeking egotists who will espouse any
current cause without knowledge or research or soul-searching. Eartha Kitt
could not afford to buy the front-page publicity that her affrontery reaped.
And this:
Eartha Kitt said she spoke for millions when she behaved in
a rude and stupid manner towards Mrs. Johnson. She did not speak for anyone
except hate-filled gutless fools. She did not speak for my son in the army; for
my daughter who is working hard so her husband can finish college; for me, or
my husband or our three younger children. We were all shocked at her
unnecessary behavior. She had a tough childhood…so did I and I’m not
crying…that meeting wasn’t for her to air her crude adjectives and gripes of
life.
But others supported the star:
Three cheers for Eartha Kitt! In a few words she expressed
what is in my heart, and Im sure many other mothers’. Hers must have been the
first honest words the White House walls have heard in a long time—words that
were not first edited, programmed, pre-digested, and homogenized before the
President heard them. And fie on those who feel they must apologize for her. No
apologies necessary.
As well as this
articulate response from a doctor in Philadelphia:
Eartha Kitt is to be commended for her courageous direct
speaking to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. The Vietnam War is alienating our
youth—whether in the streets or on the college campuses. Our young people see
our society expending the major portion of its economic resources and many
thousands of lives (their lives) to achieve, by morally dubious means,
questionable political ends. The Vietnam war is preventing desperately needed
efforts to solve our grave domestic problems that include the needs for
improved education, better housing, urban renewal, more jobs for the
underprivileged—problems which lie at the root of racial tensions.
The Johnson Administration needs to know that there are
many, many people in this country who understand this, who are gravely
concerned, and who are—yes—angry because they feel utterly frustrated in their
attempts to transmit their concern to their President and to the Congress For
this reason I applaud Miss Kitt’s plain speaking.
The real issue about this incident is not whether Miss Kitt
was discourteous or unpatriotic or publicity-seeking; it is whether she was
speaking the truth. I believe that she was.
As the furor deepened, Kitt got more defensive about her
actions:
“People have the feeling that I yelled and was impolite;
that’s not true at all. I raised my hand and Mrs. Johnson asked me my opinion.
I said, as unemotionally as possible under the circumstances, that we had been
hiding our heads in the sand, that we hadn’t got to the core of the problem of
juvenile delinquency. Reality was being overlooked. As a citizen of my
country—thank heavens there is a country left that has the guts to let its
people say what they thing—as an actress, a Negro, whoever, I am entitled to my
opinion, particularly when it is asked of me.”
Following the incident, nervous nightclub owners and
producers cancelled Kitt’s contracts and, according to the New York Times,
“recoiled at the mention of her name.” Eartha was not contrite. “For years I
went along with the idea that entertainers should not get involved with
politics. Today, I realize that because of our contact with the public, we have
to speak out, to make those who are responsible more aware of what is happening
where they perhaps cannot see. Particularly someone like myself, who has lived
the life of poverty.”
Kitt began a lengthy tour of Europe but eventually was able
to get gigs in the United States. Although the “activist” label she never
sought stayed with her, she returned to entertaining with her ultra-sexy stage
persona. It wasn’t until 1975 that she learned, via a front-page story in the
New York Times, how she had been closely watched by the CIA:
The Central Intelligence Agency compiled a dossier of
secondhand gossip about entertainer Eartha Kitt’s social life at the request of
the Secret Service in 1968 but produced no evidence of foreign intelligence
connections. The CIA’s report was prompted by Miss Kitt’s criticism of the
Vietnam war to Lady Bird Johnson during a White House luncheon on January 18,
1968.
Miss Kitt was depicted in the report as having a “very nasty
disposition” and as being a “spoiled child, very crude, and having a vile
tongue.” Miss Kitt, who is black, was said in the report not to associate with
other black persons and to have “bragged” that she had “very little Negro
blood.”
The CIA document noted that Miss Kitt signed an
advertisement in support of the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s civil rights
drive in the South, and then observed that “a number of persons identified in
the past with the Communist Party” had also endorsed the ad.
Eartha was horrified by the allegations which included
charges from the CIA that she was a “sadistic nymphomaniac.” She spoke out:
This is too much. This is more than I can or will take. I am
determined to do my part in stopping the gradual erosion of American freedom.
If this is not done, the day when the enemies of freedom—be they Communist,
Fascist, or what have you—walk right in and take over our country will come
sooner than most of us are inclined to think.
As for reports of the CIA’s invasion of my right to privacy,
I am insulted, disappointed, and annoyed, but I don’t find it particularly
surprising. This is only one of a number of hardships that I have had to endure
since making those remarks in 1968.
Following my little talk at the White House, most of my
nightclub and hotel engagements in this country were canceled—even though
contracts had been entered into. That I should be singled out appears, at first
glance, to be puzzling. Scores of Hollywood, television, and music
personalities, both American and foreign-born, have been far more critical of
America’s foreign and domestic policies than I have. The difference, of course,
is that I am not Barbara Howar or Jane Fonda or Candice Bergen. I am a black
woman.
I have always known that racism was widespread in America;
after all, I spent most of my childhood in South Carolina on a cotton
plantation and in the streets of Harlem. But it took the aftermath of the 1968
incident to prove to me just how deeply racial prejudice is rooted in the
American national character.
Because I am black, I had to be taught a lesson, and put
back into my place as a singing, dancing, mindless automaton who saw no evil,
did no evil, and most important, publicly spoke no evil.
In my case, the CIA apparently didn’t even have accurate
information. For example, the news stories said the agency had learned I did
“not associate with other black persons.” That’s nonsense. I have always taken
an interest in the black community, even before it became fashionable to do so.
I taught dancing at the Harlem YWCA as early as 1952, and have been teaching a
dance class in Watts for almost 10 years.
I don’t regret anything that I’ve said or done. I have
suffered a lot financially, but I have survived. I only have pity and sympathy
for those who tucked their moral tails in between their legs and cuddled up to
the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ immoral and unjust policies.
How can you not admire a woman with such guts? She didn’t
step foot in the White House again until Jimmy Carter invited her there in
1978. In 2006, she even returned there to light the Christmas tree with George
W. Bush.
Kitt’s personal life was never a happy one, at least not in
terms of men. She used to sum up her love life in six words: rejected, ejected,
dejected, used, accused, abused.. But her brief marriage to William McDonald
produced her beloved daughter Kitt, and she was very close to her grandchildren
before she died.
There are so many other fascinating details about Eartha
Kitt’s life—triumphs and challenges, scandals and tragedies, her unwavering
support of Israel and Jewish causes, but I’ll end with a quote from the first
of her three autobiographies. This is from her 1956 book called “Thursday’s
Child.”
“I think I am an example of what can happen to someone who
tries. I am a Negress out of the cotton fields. I had enough ambition within
myself to try to create a better world—in spite of the depressions and the
suppressions, and I had my share. I hope that I can encourage others to try,
and that you don’t have to crush anybody to get there, you don’t have to push
through too harshly.”
Still have some people on your list you need to buy presents for? In these difficult times, nothing says “Merry Christmas”
like lung cancer and emphysema, right? This morning I was remembering how many
beautiful red-and-green cigarette cartons my mother used to receive for the
holidays. (I’m surprised they didn’t make blue and silver-foil boxes for the
eight nights of Hanukkah.) It was certainly an easy gift—the cartons were
pre-wrapped, delightfully festive, relatively cheap, and greatly appreciated by
the recipient. True, most of those lucky folks, including my mom, would later
die from hideous smoking-related diseases but hey, let’s not be a Scrooge about
it.
As you can see, it was the favorite gift of our beloved
former President. To be fair, Reagan wasn’t President when he posed for this ad,
and I think he stopped smoking before he went to Washington. If memory serves,
Gerald Ford was the last commander-in-chief who smoked regularly in the White
House, but it took twenty more years until cigarettes were banned from the
President’s home (thanks to Hillary Clinton). Now we have a President-elect who
says he recently quit his decades-old nicotine habit but admitted to Barbara
Walters this month that he’s fallen off the wagon a few times since beginning
his campaign. Come on, Barack, listen to Ronnie’s wife, once a heavy smoker,
and “Just Say No!”
But few said “No” during my childhood. In fact, some of the
most revered icons of my TV-watching youth hawked cigarettes directly to their
fans. Here’s Rob Petrie and Sally Rogers extolling the virtues of cigarettes at
Christmas time:
I wonder if the actors ever objected to these commercials. They
clearly weren’t written by Carl Reiner or any of the other superb writers of
“The Dick Van Dyke Show,” the best sitcom in the history of television. Take a
look at the following commercial and tell me if the real Laura Petrie would ever act
this way:
The Petries weren’t the only 60s TV stars who thought
cigarettes made a fabulous holiday gift:
But at least the tobacco companies never tried to appeal to
young children:
Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of this blog. I send
nicotine-free thanks to everyone who has stopped by during that time. I keep
hearing reports about how worse off we all are this year and how everything is
going to hell in a handbasket, but I don’t buy it. True, four years ago this
month the stock market was booming, but, as we know, that was about as real as
the 1960s claims that cigarettes were actually good for your health. On the day
I started this blog, we were a few weeks away from the second Inauguration of
George W. Bush. It was even worse the second time around because we knew exactly what
we were getting. There had recently been a huge increase in insurgent attacks
in Iraq and no end to the war in sight. The full horror of the Abu Ghraib
scandal was shocking people around the world. Michael Jackson was in court
facing multiple charges of lewd acts against a minor and Enron’s CFO had just
pleaded guilty to covering up the company’s financial woes. 2004 wasn’t so
great.
We may all have less money to spend on the holiday this
year, but we are more aware, more conscious, and more hopeful as we prepare to
usher George W. Bush out of Washington for good. And you won’t be finding many
cigarette cartons under Christmas trees in 2008. Apart from needing a
hard-to-get bank loan to purchase a carton these days, smoking rates in this
country have been plummeting for years. The per capita consumption of
cigarettes has fallen to levels not seen since the early 1930s. Now that’s good
news, no matter what that cancer-causing fat man says!
As I kid I always liked it when Hanukkah overlapped
with Christmas as it does this year. Today is the first day of the eight-day
Festival of Lights so Christmas is nestled firmly inside of it. The confluence
of the two holidays helps with the overall seasonal mood but also promotes the
notion of Hanukkah as a kind of “Jewish Christmas” which always bothered me
since the two holidays have nothing to do with each other. The double holiday week also
seems to be doing little to help retailers during this miserable economic
downturn—I just heard a report that said they’re expecting their worst
Christmas season in over 40 years. Ah well, maybe that will make everyone more
focused on the true meaning of the holidays. (Yeah, right.)
Not that most Jewish people understand the
true meaning of Hanukkah. Sure, we've all heard about Judah Maccabee, Antiochus, the small amount of oil that burned for eight days, menorahs, latkes, and dreidels, but I bet if you did man-on-the-street interviews with Jews around the world you’d get
about a hundred different versions of the story. By contrast, Christmas is
gloriously High Concept. That holiday lends itself easily to an
“elevator pitch,” the notion in the movie industry that film executives can only listen to an idea for a new project in the time it takes for a quick elevator ride. “Son of
God…holy birth…Virgin Mary…no room at the inn…three wise men,” the screenplay practically writes itself!
Maybe that’s the trouble with Hanukkah—there’s never
been a definitive movie treatment. I probably wouldn’t know squat about Passover
if it weren’t for Charlton Heston’s imperial Moses in De Mille’s “The Ten
Commandments.” The list of heartwarming Christmas movies is endless,
both religious and secular. Last week I went to a screening of the gorgeously
restored “Miracle on 34th Street” at the Motion Picture Academy.
What a great film. Watching no-nonsense career woman and single mom Maureen
O’Hara eventually crack her hard-scrabble exterior and accept the true meaning
of the holiday gets me every time, and seven-year-old Natalie Wood deserved an
Oscar for her moving portrayal ofO’Hara’s cynical daughter. I thought I was immune to the emotions this
film used to induce in me as a child but once again I found myself sobbing during
the scene at Macy’s when (the real) Santa Claus starts talking perfect Dutch to
the sad little immigrant girl which causes Natalie Wood to question her mother's insistence that Santa Claus is simply a marketing tool. And I love Maureen O’Hara’s exquisitely
delivered line that follows: “Susan, I speak French but that doesn’t make me Joan of Arc!”
But what is there in the American movie canon to
commemorate Hanukkah? Adam Sandler’s “Eight Crazy Nights?” That’s all I can
think of, apart from some relatively recent TV specials like “A Rugrats
Chanukah” and one featuring Shari Lewis’s sock puppet Lamb Chop. Oy. How
pathetic. Would it have killed Charlton Heston to don Judah Maccabee’s robes
and chew up the scenery while he rededicated the altar of the Holy Temple
following its defilement by Antiochus and his minions? I’m truly surprised this
film has never been made. Maybe they need to get a bunch of hunky young actors of today to
play Judah and his four brothers Jochanan, Simon, Eleazar, and Jonathan. I can
see the tagline: “Zac Efron IS Judah Maccabee!” (Hey, he’s already Jewish even
if he does consider himself agnostic.)
I know, I know, Jews complaining about how Hanukkah
compares to Christmas in terms of media treatment has become something of a
cliché, I’m sure I’ve been moaning about it for the past four years on this
blog. Instead of kvetching further, I’ll tell you about the new CD and video
that I’ve been listening to this year that helps to turn that around: it’s a
rip-roaring tribute called “Lights: Celebrate Hanukkah Live in Concert.” This
rousing concert includes Hipster Heebs such as the Klezmatics, Dave Koz,
Michelle Citrin, Alberto Mizrahi, and, my personal favorite, Mare Winningham. Do you remember actress Winningham from her days as a member of the Brat Pack
in films like “St. Elmo’s Fire” and her series of TV movies in which she was
always cast as homeless women, prostitutes, or other tragic figures? I’ve
always thought she was a brilliant actress, even in high-camp classics such as
“Miracle Mile” in which she escapes a nuclear attack on Los Angeles by jumping
into a helicopter on top of a Wilshire Boulevard skyscraper with Anthony Edwards. Her 1995 star
turn in “Georgia” with Jennifer Jason Leigh was the first time I realized what
a kick-ass singing voice she has, and I’ve heard her sing at various live
events over the years. Winningham has always fascinated me because of her
conversion from Roman Catholicismto Judaism—not because she was married to a Jew or anything (her husband
and five children are not Jewish), but simply because she was drawn to the
religion on her own. Like many converts, Winningham is a better Jew than most
born ones, and she sings two wonderful songs in this concert: the Hebrew
“Hanerot Halalu” and a fun ditty she wrote herself called “The Convert Jig.”
Here’s a clip (not from this particular concert) of Winningham singing that
original song:
Now that’s one good Jew! I’d like to cast her as
Judith in my modern film version of the Hanukkah story. Are you familiar with
Judith? She’s an early feminist icon of Judaism who is revered by many (my
mother was named for her) but forgotten by most. In the second century, B.C.
E., following the invasion of the Assyrian Army of a town called Bethulia, the
city’s elders agree to surrender the famine-stricken town if they are not
rescued within a few days. Judith, a feisty widow, challenges the wussy men to
take more responsibility for their future. She enters the Assyrian camp on her
own and eventually wins the trust of their leader, Holofernes, who invites her
to a banquet. When he falls asleep in a drunken stupor, Judith wastes no time.
She takes the Assyrian’s sword and decapitates him in one fell swoop. This
throws the army into total chaos at which point the Israelites mount a surprise
victorious attack. I think I’ll hire fellow Brat Packer Rob Lowe to play
Holofernes in a bit of stunt casting that will appeal to Baby Boomers.
Winningham will be brilliant as Judith and will receive her second Oscar
nomination.
I know kvelling about family members can be insufferable on
blogs, especially if you have a tendency to overdo it (which I do), but how can
I not mention my nephew Spencer’s unique celebration of his thirteenth birthday
this week?
Spencer’s birthday fell on the last day of Wilco’s tour with Neil Young so the whole family hightailed it to New York
to catch the last concert at Madison Square Garden. During the set, Jeff called
Spencer to the stage to sit in with the band. As I’ve mentioned before, I think
that Wilco’s drummer, Glenn Kotche, is one of the finest percussionists in the
history of rock. I’ve spent many a Wilco show staring in awe at Glenn’s
sweat-soaked genius. The only other drummer I know who is
such a natural is Spencer Tweedy. From the time he was a toddler, Spencer has
been drumming on anything he could get his hands on, whether it was the kitchen
table, his car seat, or his little brother. He plays the drums in his own band and has already had gigs in front of appreciative crowds.
But nothing like the hordes who filled Madison Square Garden
on Tuesday night. Before Spencer started playing, Jeff mentioned that it was
his son’s birthday and the crowd sang their birthday wishes. I cannot imagine
what it must feel like to be sung to by 15,000 people, from Bill Murray and Amy
Poehlerto Donald Trump and
thousands of fans who traveled across the country (and the world) to see this
show. (The last time I heard “Happy Birthday” sung at Madison Square Garden it was Marilyn Monroe singing it to President Kennedy!) It brought tears to my eyes when I first read about the spontaneous
birthday tribute to Spencer and I cried again when my sister sent me this shaky video clip
of the moment:
What I really wanted to show you was the song itself.
Spencer played “The Late Greats” with the band and he killed. But the clip
wouldn’t come through my email, darn it. The only other video I have is the
applause at the end of the song, another high point of my nephew’s birthday, I
would say:
I laughed at my brother-in-law’s tongue-in-cheek comment at
the end of the clip, following his son’s appearance in such a vaunted venue:
“It’s all downhill from here, kid!” Of course he was kidding and I have no
doubt both my nephews will go on to do amazing things, whether they are in the
public eye or not. We would’ve been there cheering Spencer on but Tuesday was
also the night my daughter opened as Snoopy in a local production of “You’re a
Good Man, Charlie Brown.” (Leah was brilliant in the role but I’ll try to limit
my insufferable kvelling to one family member per post!)
Happily, Spencer is far too grounded to let any of this go
to his head. And that’s a good thing, because yesterday, Rolling Stone
published an article called “Spencer Tweedy, Boy Genius.”
While the blockbuster tour featuring Neil Young and Wilco
wound to a close last night at Madison Square Garden, Spencer Tweedy was
celebrating his coming-out party. Spencer—son of Jeff Tweedy—celebrated his
13th birthday last night, playing drums on the A Ghost Is Born gem “The Late Greats”
during Wilco’s set. Then, the entirety of MSG sang “Happy Birthday” to
him. Spencer has been playing drums since he was two. He formed his first band
when he was six—their repertoire consisted of one song, Wilco’s “Heavy Metal
Drummer.” The band was called the Blisters, then changed their name to
Tullymonster. (They discovered that there's another band called Tullymonster,
so Tweedy's trio is currently nameless.) “Hopefully we'll have our #1 album out
by next year,” he says.
When he's not performing, Tweedy enjoys reading—he's
almost done with the Christopher Paolini's fantastical novel Brisingr—and
venting on his blog. In fact,
prior to his trip to New York, he wrote: “On my birthday, I will be with my
family for a hopefully and surely amazing rock concert. My dad, Jeff Tweedy,
and his band, Wilco, will be performing before the iconic rock legend, Neil
Young, takes the stage. I absolutely can’t wait.”
Above are backstage photos of my nephews with the brilliant
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (the Lunt and Fontanne of modern comedy) and one
with Jack McBrayer who plays NBC intern Kenneth on our favorite show, “30
Rock.” (My sister said she expected McBrayerto sound totally different from his character but he was
surprisingly like Kenneth. He even called her Ma’am!)
Just a typical thirteenth birthday celebration, right? Let’s
see, on September 4, 1972, the day I turned thirteen, I spent the evening in my
room watching Mark Spitz win his seventh gold medal and getting engrossed in a
rerun of “Marcus Welby, M.D.”
Because I write frequently about Jewish themes on this blog,
I get my share of ravings from crazy anti-Semites. This is even more true when
I write something on the Huffington Post about Jewish customs or rituals—one time those responses were so hideous that I ended up deleting the post.
Growing up in Chicago and living in Los Angeles for the past 22 years, I tend
to forget about all the ignorant buffoons out there who look for opportunities
to spew their anti-Jewish venom. I often delete such comments—no use polluting
my own site. But sometimes I’ll leave them up. After writing
a post about Hitler a few years ago, I remember getting a comment from the
grandson of Hitler’s ambassador to Italy who vigorously defended der Fuhrer.
I think it’s important to know that there are people out there with these
beliefs. But I rarely, if ever, engage these people in dialogue—I don’t have the
stomach for it.
Yesterday I received a comment on an old post I wrote about
Santa Claus. The person was outraged by my tongue-in-cheek criticisms of Jolly
St. Nick and he tried to explain how Santa Claus is an all-important tool for
parents to use, especially during tough times, so that they don’t raise spoiled
little brats. Without Santa, the author of the comment claimed, these kids might
become just as horrible as Jewish children:
...in times of plenty and comfort, the effect of Santa is
thrown out as parents indulge their kids all year and the children lose all
humility. This was the situation with the Jewish kids when I grew up. They were
the spoiled ones who had everything. Their parents spoiled them to “buy” their
kids love, especially the Jewish mothers. They gave their children things, but
they did so only to get something in return and many Jews grew up twisted by
this pulling, cloying kind of love. When Santa gives, the children aren’t
obligated to him, they are obligated to be good to other people throughout the
year. Sorry you have a problem with that. Do you think it’s just a coincidence
that almost all the crooks on Wall Street are Jewish? In a country where they
make up only 3% of the population?! Do you think having a holiday which
celebrates a historical event where the Jews were able to keep, by trickery,
tax revenues they had squeezed out of several provinces of non-Jews—Hannukah—is
a beautiful thing?
Forgetting his crazy point that the idea of Santa Claus
really does make children “good” all year long, I’m fascinated by his closing
comment. Forget everything you’ve heard about Antiochus IV of Syria who looted the
Temple in Jerusalem and basically condoned the wholesale slaughter of Jews in 165 B.C., the true raison d'etre of the Maccabees was a money-grubbing taxation without
representation agenda. Sigh. Get a bunch of anti-Semites in a room and every
Jewish holiday and event can be retold in terms of how the Jews were
out to get more money. Even the Holocaust. Everything happened because of the
international conspiracy of Jewish bankers, right? That’s why millions of
destitute Jewish villagers had to be systematically murdered—Hitler had to root
out the greedy bankers from the shtetls.
In 1938, a children’s book was published in Germany
called Der Giftpilz about a little girl named Liselotte. Here is a translated
excerpt from this extremely popular book:
“Tell me, mother, how does it happen that the Jews
are so rich? Our teacher has told us at school that here are thousands of Jews
in the world who are millionaires. And yet the Jews do not work. It is the
non-Jews who must work. The Jew only trades. But one cannot become a
millionaire by trading with paper, bones, old clothing and furniture!”
Mother explains how it is done.
“The Jew is quite indifferent when the cheated
non-Jew goes hungry. Jews have no pity. They strive for one thing: money. They
do not care two hoots how they get it.”
Liselotte asks how they can behave in this mean way.
Mother answers:
“Child, one thing you must realize. The Jew is not a
person like us. The Jew is a Devil. And a Devil has no sense of honor. A Devil
deals only in meanness and crime. You have read your Bible, Liselotte. There it
says the Jewish God once said to the Jews: ‘You must eat up the people of the
earth!’ Do you know what that means? It means the Jew should destroy all other
peoples. They should bleed and exploit them till they die. That is what it
means.”
Liselotte tries to understand these things. Mother
continues:
“Yes, my child, that’s the Jew! The God of the Jews is gold.
There is no crime he would not commit to get it. He has no rest till he can sit
on the top of a gold-sack. He has no rest till he has become King Money. And
with this money he would make us all into slaves and destroy us. With this money
he seeks to dominate the whole world.”
I first visited Germany when I was 15 years old in the
mid-1970s. I was in the Black Forest region of the country, the Schwarzwald,
near Baden-Baden. I remember that whenever the subject of my being
Jewish came up, the awkward silence would be followed by attempts to say
something “nice” about Jewish people. “They’re very good with money!” was
something I heard repeated again and again. (If I hadn’t heard it with my own
ears, I wouldn’t have believed it.)
I remember thinking then (and now) when I heard such a
statement, “We are? I WISH!” I understand some of the historical antecedents of
that stereotype—from the existence of Jewish moneylenders in the Middle
Ages to the cultural tendencies among many modern Jews that place a great deal
of importance on education and careers. But I was always aware that the comment
was actually an indictment masked as praise. “Jews are good with money” could
also be translated as “All Jews care about is money.” The subtext of the
stereotype is riddled with images of greed, avarice, and ruthlessness.
Still, I used to bemoan the fact that I never got the
infamous “good with money” gene. Damn it. If I had, I surely would
have gone into a different line of work and I’d be rolling in it today. Like
all stereotypes, I’m not saying that there isn’t some foundation to such crazy
comments. I haven’t done a study of this, but I’m guessing that compared to the
percentage of Jews in the general population (as my dear anti-Semitic reader
points out above), there is a disproportionate number of Jewish doctors,
lawyers, and accountants in this country. I remember a funny Tracy Ullmann
sketch I saw once when a character played by Ullmann rushes her husband to the
hospital following a heart attack. Several doctors are sent to her husband’s
room to consult on his case—an African-American, an Indian, and an Asian.
Eventually, Tracy runs into the hospital corridor and screams on the top of her
lungs, “GET ME ANY JEW!” I bet many an anti-Semite has hired a Jewish doctor,
lawyer, or accountant, thinking them superior to their Gentile colleagues.
A recent book, written by two Jews, promotes the “Jews are
good with money” belief.Jewish Wisdom for Business Success: Wisdom for the
Torah and Other Ancient Texts by Levi Brackman and Sam Jaffe, maintains that
the reason Jews are disproportionately successful and good at business is
because of the lessons, wisdom, and teachings that come from the Torah that
they learn from a young age and then apply to business. Hmm.
Come to think of it, I DO believe the stereotype, and I can
prove it. I just attended the 2008 Jews Are Good With Money Conference in Boca
Raton, Florida, and I secretly recorded the keynote lecture by Ronald Kornblow,
the World’s Most Successful Jew™. Although I’m breaking all confidentiality
agreements, I’m going to share this amazing wisdom with you right now and put a
quick end to the economic crisis that’s gripping this country. Hit the "play" icon on the bar below and listen very
closely…
I have to face it: I have an obsessive compulsive disorder.
The second I heard that MGM heartthrob Van Johnson died today at the age of 92, my hands started creeping toward my computer keyboard.
Stop it! For God’s sake, you don’t have to
write about every celebrity that kicks the bucket. What makes you think that
anyone (under 70) even knows who Van Johnson is, much less wants to read a post
about him?
Stop being so disrespectful. The man
isn’t even cold to the touch yet and you’re acting as if his passing is no big
deal. Do you have any idea how big he was back in the day?
Of course I do. Who do you think you’re
talking to? But that was over 50 years ago. Who made you the official obituary
writer for the final dregs of the MGM stock company?
Oy, again with the disrespect. And for your
information, you ass, I don’t write obituaries. There are so few people left
who appeared in those wonderful films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, I just feel
compelled to honor them with a few words when they leave us. Why is that so
wrong?
I’m not saying it’s wrong, just not of much
interest to the majority of your readers.
How do you know? Maybe one of those posts will motivate
someone to rent a classic film. Maybe I’m having an impact on a whole new
generation of moviegoers. Besides, if you were so interested in upping your
stats, why do you write so many freaking posts about the Nazis and World War II? Do you
really think anyone read that endless drivel you wrote on the anniversary of
Kristallnacht?
Fuck you. At least that was about an important period of
history.
And the classic movies of the 20th century
aren’t important?
Look, you know that I love those old films. I’m just saying
that writing some long essay about Van Johnson may alienate most of your
readers.
Oh please. What should I be doing then, pandering to the
Wilco crowd like you do every other post? I swear, if I read one more comment
about how tight Jeff and Sue are with the Obamas, I’m going to call my precinct
and see if I can switch my vote to McCain.
Okay, I get it. But be careful you don’t pigeonhole
yourself with all this dead celebrity stuff. Now any time you even mention a
celebrity, people will think they just dropped dead. Remember how Leah was looking over
your shoulder last night when you were writing about Rita Moreno’s birthday and
exclaimed 'Oh my God, Anita died?'
Point taken. But I can't help it. I didn’t mention Nina Foch at all when she died
last week and I still feel guilty about it. Hey, do you remember if Van Johnson
ever made a film with Nina Foch?
I don’t think so, but he made several with Cyd Charisse and
Irving Brecher, whose funerals you recently stalked—er, I mean, attended.
Oh right, all three of them did ‘Ziegfeld Follies.’ And Van
and Cyd co-starred in ‘Brigadoon,’ a gorgeous film that was never one of my
favorites.
Which of his films are your favorites then?
Oh my God, there are so many. That William Saroyan story, ‘The Human
Comedy,’ is one of my all-time favs. Van co-starred with Donna Reed, Fay
Bainter, Frank Morgan, and Mickey Rooney, but you know me, I also love the
musicals, the Esther Williams extravaganzas, and the three movies he made with
June Allyson.
I can’t believe June is gone, too. So sad. Don’t forget
‘State of the Union,’ his movie with Tracy and Hepburn, and ‘In the Good Old
Summertime’ with Judy Garland, the movie in which two-year-old Liza Minnelli made her film debut as their daughter in the final scene.
Oy, could you sound more gay? You probably also love ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ with Elizabeth
Taylor. I like his more serious films, too, such as ‘A Guy Named Joe,’
‘Weekend at the Waldorf,’ ‘Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,’ and ‘Battleground.’ And
remember his appearance on ‘I Love Lucy’ as himself? That was great.
Yeah, I loved when Lucy Ricardo met celebrities, that was
always so funny. Speaking of TV, how about Johnson’s role as a villain on
‘Batman?’
Loved it. Almost as scary as Ethel Merman’s ‘Batman’
character. And don’t forget Van’s later work. Guilty secret, but I loved him in
the 1968 Lucille Ball/Henry Fonda comedy, ‘Yours, Mine, and Ours’ which I actually
saw recently in a special screening if you can believe it. And he was perfect
in Woody Allen’s ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’ in 1985. He appeared in lots of
miniseries like ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ and all sorts of TV series. I hear his
personal life wasn’t so great, though.
That's what I heard. He married his best friend Keenan Wynn’s ex and that
was a disaster even though it produced a daughter. His ex-wife later claimed
that he married her just to quell the rumors that he was gay.
Did he ever officially come out?
Not really, but it was pretty well known in Hollywood. And
he became more openly flamboyant as he got older. But I’m not sure he ever had
a serious relationship with either sex. I hope he did, it all seems pretty
sad.
I heard he wasn’t even on speaking terms with his
daughter?
I don’t think so. Maybe they communicated before he died. I
hope so.
Don’t forget that he got his start way back in 1940 in the
original cast of ‘Pal Joey.’
That’s right! And the new version of that musical opens on
Broadway next week with Stockard Channing and Martha Plimpton. Did I tell you that Martha is my Facebook friend?
Oh my God, don’t start. You are obsessed with that woman.
How many times have you mentioned her in this blog—50?
No, only 12, you ass.
And you dare to criticize my OCDs?
Well, I guess I am glad that you talked about Van Johnson on here. I just hope that no other elderly celebrities die this week.
Oh, okay, I'll call the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills and tell them to keep everyone on life support because you're worried about the number of readers on your stupid blog.
Fuck you.
Right back atcha.
And farewell, Van Johnson. I hope they have red socks in heaven.
I want to take a moment to mark the 77th birthday
of that Puerto Rican firebrand Rosita Dolores Alverío, better known as Rita
Moreno, one of the very few people on the planet ever to win all four major
awards: an Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and Emmy. I’ve loved Moreno ever since I heard
her scream “HEY, YOU GUYS!” every day on “The Electric Company” in the 1970s.
But her biggest claim to fame, and one of the few times she played an actual
Puerto Rican in a film, was her dazzling performance in 1961’s “West Side
Story” for which she won the Oscar. Moreno may have been the only Puerto Rican
among the Puerto Rican Sharks. Her boyfriend Bernardo was played by
Greek-American George Chakiris (who I saw recently at Cyd Charisse’s funeral)
and, of course, Maria was played by Natalie Wood who is about as Puerto Rican as I
am.
I just listened to a fascinating interview with Moreno and I
like her even more than before I heard her speak so candidly about her career.
The most powerful scene in “West Side Story” and the one that clearly won Rita
the Academy Award is when she is trying to bring Tony a message from Maria but
is attacked and nearly raped by the rest of the Jets. Moreno broke down in tears during the filming of the scene
because of her own childhood experiences of sexual abuse. The actors
immediately stopped what they were doing and tried to comfort the actress.
Director Robert Wise explained that the audience would be horrified by the ugly
act against Anita and Moreno gamely completed the scene. Here's a brief look at Rita Moreno at her best:
In the two-hour interview (you can find it on
YouTube—I wish every actor from the Golden Age would be interviewed in such
depth), Moreno talks about her first gig as a kid when she moved to New York
from Puerto Rico. At the age of 11, she got a job dubbing the voices of child
actors for the Spanish language versions of big studio films. This included
being the Spanish Margaret O’Brien in “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the voice for
Peggy Ann Garner in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” and many other starring
juvenile roles. In 1949, while rehearsing for a show that never opened, Moreno was discovered by an MGM talent scout and was sent up to meet Louis B. Mayer at
the Waldorf-Astoria penthouse just before Christmas. Mayer liked what he saw
and signed her to a seven-year contract. As the New York Times reported,
“Superior Judge Clarence M. Hanson played a somewhat formal and august Santa
Claus as he placed the Christmas seal of approval on Rita Moreno’s present. The
gift was a seven-year motion picture contract with Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios.
Judge Hanson, as he okayed the contract which begins at $200 a week and rises
to $1500 by options as seven years pass by, ordered the vivacious 18-year-old
girl to invest 10% in government savings bonds.”
At MGM, Rita played a bunch of sultry and exotic “ethnic”
roles in B-list musicals. But she soon had the amazing good luck to be chosen
by Gene Kelly for a non-Hispanic featured role in “Singing in the Rain.”
Moreno’s character, flapper Zelda Zanders, made a strong impression in the film
but MGM didn’t know what to do with her after that and dropped her. Rita was
devastated.
Moreno made lots of lousy films for other studios, again
playing vixens of various ethnic backgrounds. She said that there could have
been a Rita Moreno box for every role she had during that time period. The box
would contain dark foundation make-up (nothing like her actual skin tone),
bright red lipstick, large gold hoop earings, and a wig. She also appeared many
times on TV in the 1950s, always playing heavily-accented senoritas or other
exotic beauties like an East Indian exchange student (on “Father Knows Best” no
less!). Moreno got another lucky break when she was cast as the Siamese slave
Tuptim in “The King and I.” She said that the heavy Siamese headdress she had
to wear gave her headaches that lasted for weeks. Five years later she got the
part of Anita in “West Side Story” and her career was made. Or was it?
Moreno was often presented in the press as the same kind of
sizzling spitfire she played in the movies. Her life somewhat played into that
image. She had a tempestuous 12-year relationship with Marlon Brando and was
often seen with the actor in passionate embraces or fights. A bizarre story
from the mid-1950s placed her in the Laurel Canyon home of the heir to the
Hormel meat-packing fortune when narcotics detectives burst in to arrest him
for drug trafficking. Moreno thought it was a gag set up by Hormel, especially
after the officers introduced themselves as Detectives O’Grady and O’Connor, and she got in trouble for punching one of the cops. The actress remained frustrated with her career and in 1962 took a five-year break from
Hollywood. Her Oscar had turned into a symbol of her frustration. “I hung
around here for a year after that, and all they offered me was more Latin
spitfire roles, which was mostly what I’d had before ‘West Side Story.’ You
remember. I was always the girl with the flaring nostrils and those fucking
sandals,” Rita recalled. It was true. In one week Rita appeared on TV as
spitfire Lola Montez in a “Tales of Wells Fargo” episode, as a “fiery
half-breed” in a show called “Trackdown,” and as what a press agent referred to as a “Mexican
hot tamale” in an episode of “Zane Gray Theatre.” ¡Ay, carumba!
In 1965, Moreno married a nice Jewish doctor from New York named Lenny Gordon and two
years later they had a daughter named Fernanda Luisa. As I said, Rita spent much of the 1970s on
“The Electric Company” with Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman, and a cast member I’ve
mentioned several times, Judy Graubart, the granddaughter of Judah Leib
Graubart who was the Chief Rabbi from my family’s shtetl in Poland (and
followed my great-grandparents to Toronto). I hear a new version of “The
Electric Company” is in the planning stages and I only hope it’s as innovative
and impressive as the first one was. Here’s Moreno bellowing her famous line:
I met Rita Moreno once in the early 1980s when she appeared
in our friend Sam Bobrick’s play, “Wally’s Café,” co-starring James Coco and
Sally Struthers. Moreno has had a solid career for over 50 years. As she got
older, she must have been relieved that she was no longer typecast as the
Latina spitfire. I liked her in Alan Alda’s film “The Four Seasons” and thought
she was perfect as Belle Abromowitz, the Jewish wife of Alan Arkin in “The
Slums of Beverly Hills.” She was excellent as the atypical nun Sister Peter
Marie on the gritty HBO series “Oz” and is still one of the hardest working
dames in theatre, film, and television.