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Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas

Another running Facebook feature I just finished was an impromptu "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute where, for three weeks, I paid homage to Jews seen enjoying the goyishe festivities. A few people asked me to include those entries (including today's addendum honoring Jack Klugman who died yesterday on Christmas Eve) in one place so that non-Facebook folks could read them, so why not here? 

12/3/12: Being a Jew in Hollywood, I'm kicking off my "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" series. First up: Nice Jewish girl, Betty Joan Perske, daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Romania. You may know her as Lauren Bacall. Here is beautiful Betty with hubby Humphrey Bogart and their son Stephen who grew up to look an awful lot like dad and seems like a really cool guy. Sadly, Stephen was only 8 when his father died of cancer. 88-year-old Bacall is still with us, of course. Wonder if she's busy putting up a tree or grating potatoes for her latkes? Betty made her first movie, the wonderful "To Have and Have Not," 67 years ago. And she's still going. Her most recent movie, "The Forger," came out this summer.

12/4/12: Next up in my "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute is Pauline Levy aka Paulette Goddard. Okay, only her dad was Jewish and they were estranged most of her life but hey, that would've been enough for Hitler. Paulette also gets special mention because she played Miriam Aarons, the only Jewish character in the brilliant 1939 film, "The Women." She's so great in that film and is often overlooked. Goddard came close to getting the part of Scarlett O'Hara that year which would have changed her career in a big way but she made a lot of good films and was nominated for an Oscar in 1943 for "So Proudly We Hail." In some ways she's more famous today for her husbands: Charlie Chaplin (they were together six years but there's debate about their actual marital status), Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque. This isn't the best photo of the stunningly beautiful Goddard. Remember the great fight scene in "The Women" when Rosalind Russell chomps down on her leg?

12/5/12: Today in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas," we honor Eddie Fisher, whose Russian-Jewish immigrant mother Gitte (later Katie) probably wept every time her son came out with a new Christmas album. Or maybe she was too busy kvetching about his first three wives, Hollywood shiksas Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, and Connie Stevens. At least Taylor had already converted to Judaism (Elizabeth's prior husband, Mike Todd, was Jewish but she later claimed she converted only because she was drawn to Judaism). I think people today forget how insanely famous Eddie Fisher was back in the day. He was a massively popular singer but made some really dumb mistakes in his career. And, of course, his incessant womanizing and the Great Scandal of leaving sweet Debbie for sultry Liz didn't help his reputation much. As an actor, he was no great shakes. All four of his kids (two with Debbie, two with Connie) went into showbiz including the brilliant Carrie Fisher who once said in her stage performance that she wanted to have her DNA fumigated. But I think they were close again by the time Eddie died in 2010. Despite the fact that he should have been home spinning dreidels, Fisher was a fixture at Christmas time. There was even a hit 1954 song recorded by Betty Johnson called "I Want Eddie Fisher for Christmas." Oy.

12/6/12: Next on "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" is Brooklyn-boy David Daniel Kaminsky aka the brilliant Danny Kaye. Of course Kaye starred in one of the most beloved holiday movies of all time, "White Christmas," with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen (screening tonight at the Academy's outdoor theater in Hollywood, complete with fake snow and Kaye's daughter Dena in attendance!). Danny's parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. His marriage to nice (and talented) Jewish girl Sylvia Fine lasted from 1940 until his death in 1987 although they were were separated for a chunk of that and Kaye dated a bunch of women (including Eve Arden). There are also persistent rumors about him and Laurence Olivier but those are denied by most people who knew them. Apart from "White Christmas," I mostly remember Danny Kaye from "Hans Christian Anderson" ("Inchworm...inchworm...") and from his wonderful TV series that I watched religiously when I was very young. Joyce Van Patten and Harvey Korman were regulars on that show. I remember when our neighbor June Kaiser wrote to him as a kid, he wrote her back a long letter by hand. She still treasures it. There's a famous story of Jewish studio head Sam Goldwyn ordering Kaye to get a nose job in the 1940s because he "looked too Jewish." Danny refused but did agree to dye his hair red (as if many Jews, including my entire family, didn't have red hair!) which became something of a trademark for him. By all accounts, Danny Kaye was a real mensch.

12/7/12: Closing out the week in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas," we honor Sonia Hurwitz, better known as ventriloquist and puppeteer Shari Lewis. Oh, what a crush I had on Shari Lewis as a kid. She sort of looked like my mom (cough--issues?) and was just so sweet. She channeled all of her neuroses through her main sock puppet, Lamb Chop. It's not even like Lewis was the most skilled ventriloquist--her lips totally moved, but it didn't matter, I believed Lamb Chop was real! I spent my whole childhood thinking the puppet was a boy and it was relatively recently when someone convinced me Lamp Chop was actually female. Oy. Lamb Chop may be the only puppet allowed to speak before Congress--in 1993 when Lewis was testifying in favor of protections for children's television. By all accounts, Lamb Chop was one of the most impassioned, articulate speakers that day. Shari Lewis and her husband wrote an episode of the original "Star Trek" that she had hoped to star in but some other actress got the role. She did several Christmas specials but also a Hanukkah show and she wrote some Jewish-themed books toward the end of her life. Sadly, she died at 65 (the same age as my mom!) in 1998.

12/10/12: Because of my interview earlier today (I had just come from interviewing Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen for MSN Movies), I don't need to tell you who's opening this week's "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute. Just color me BARBRA! For a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn, Babs has come out with at least three Christmas albums! I have fond childhood memories of the first one, released in 1967 and which has gone platinum five times over. I love her rendition of "Jingle Bells" in which she inserted mention of Fannie Brice. This is a classic and it's not limited to the secular tunes. No one can match Streisand's "Ave Maria" in my book. She also knocks "The Lord's Prayer" out of the ballpark, if that's not too odd to say. Oy, wonder what Barbra's mother thought of it! Crazy that it's been 45 years since this album came out and yet she's still going strong. Go, Barbra!

12/11/12: Today in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas," we salute Benjamin Kubelsky, born in Chicago to Polish-Jewish immigrants in 1894. You may know him better as Jack Benny. The violin-playing Benny entertained the troops during World War I, started touring in vaudeville, and met a Jewish girl named Sadie Marks at Zeppo Marx's Passover seder. He married the girl who then changed her name to the shiksa-sounding Mary Livingstone. Jack Benny was a pioneer in both radio and TV. His movie career was more limited but he and Carole Lombard were brilliant as two actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw in Ernst Lubitsch's "To Be or Not To Be." This photo shows Benny as Santa Claus for longtime supporting player Dennis Day, Day's wife, and seven of their eventual ten children. I love Jack Benny and only have to think of his perfect delivery to make myself laugh. "Your money or your life!" (very long pause) "Well?!" "I'm thinking it over!"

12/12/12: Crazy day (just got back from the world premiere of "This Is 40," not for my job but in place of my sister and brother-in-law because Jeff has a song in the film--they couldn't come in for the premiere so Kendall and I went and snarfed down all the free food while trailing Albert Brooks all night) but I still have a few minutes to post today's entry in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas." It's lovely Dinah Shore, born Frances Rose Shore to Russian Jewish immigrants who settled in Tennessee of all places (hey, my Jewish grandmother was born in Kentucky because that's where HER Russian Jewish parents went!). Who doesn't love Dinah? I remember my mother playing her version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" when I was little and we used to watch various incarnations of her TV show. (Barbra Streisand made one of her first national TV appearances on Dinah's show!) In the 70s she was known for her relationship with Burt Reynolds, 20 years her junior (mercifully, the term "cougar" hadn't been coined yet!) but my favorite Dinah Shore memory is her appearance on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (which my mother- and father-in-law worked on) when Loretta Haggers (Mary Kay Place) appears on her show and unwittingly destroys her burgeoning country music career by saying that she was surprised the Jews who worked on Dinah's show were so nice considering the fact that they killed the Lord! I could go on but there are only a few minutes left to 12/12/12 so I'll end this tribute like Dinah ended all of her countless broadcasts. MWAH!!

12/13/12: Today's entry in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" is TV legend Sid Caesar, still with us at the age of 90. His most famous series, "Your Show of Shows," was well before my time but I've seen many of the skits and with people like Imogene Coca (seen here), Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Neil Simon involved, it's no wonder this is one of the most beloved shows in TV history. Caesar was born in Yonkers to Russian Jewish immigrants. He worked in the family restaurant as a kid where he learned how to fake foreign languages and dialects, and started performing in the Catskills at a very young age. He made his first TV appearance in 1949 and "Your Show of Shows" began its four-year run in 1950. Caesar and Coca were the first to do elaborate take-offs of popular movies on their show and the comedy still holds up today (check out "From Here to Oblivion" if you can find it online!). Caesar was apparently a bit of a maniac behind the scenes. He inspired Carl Reiner's Alan Brady character on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as well as the movie "My Favorite Year" and the Neil Simon play "Laughter on the 23rd Floor." Happy 5th Day of Hanukkah, Sid! You look good in that Santa suit!

12/14/12: Closing out Week 2 of "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" are (at least) two Jews we know and love, seen here at the Hollywood Canteen during Christmas 1943. That's Eddie Cantor as Santa Claus. Born Edward Israel Iskowitz in 1892 to Russian immigrants in New York, Eddie's mother died in childbirth when he was only one year old and his father died of pneumonia the following year. He was raised by his grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz. Eddie and his wife Ida had five daughters. He was a phenomenally successful singer and comedian, in saloons, vaudeville, and finally the Ziegfeld Follies, with later fame on radio, in films, and on TV. His musical hits include "Makin' Whoopee" and "If You Knew Susie," and he also did a lot of humanitarian work, especially with the March of Dimes. It was Eddie Cantor who introduced the song "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" in 1934. Considering what a superstar Cantor was back in the day, it's sad that he's nearly forgotten today. To the far left with her arms around a serviceman is two-time Oscar winner Shelley Winters, born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis to Austrian Jewish parents. Shelley started out as a blonde bombshell sex symbol, was good friends with young Marilyn Monroe, and had four marriages and all sorts of adventures which are deliciously detailed in her two autobiographies. Winters was an amazing actress who worked for years at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. My favorite films of hers include "Lolita," "A Patch of Blue," "Alfie," "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," and of course, "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "The Poseidon Adventure." She also made plenty of stinkers, but even those were great fun such as "What's the Matter with Helen?" with Debbie Reynolds and "King of the Gypsies." The Oscar she won for playing Mrs. Van Daan is still on display at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

12/17/12: Opening up Week 3 of "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" is the great George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum in 1896 New York to Romanian-Jewish immigrants. His cantor father died when he was very young so he started working to help support his family. He entered showbiz at the age of 7 and had success in vaudeville, movies, radio, and TV. His beloved wife and partner, Gracie Allen (wonder how his family handled him marrying an Irish Catholic girl!) died in 1964 but George's career was resurrected when he was in his 80s. He toured extensively, played "God" in several movies, and constantly appeared on TV. He lived to be 100 years old and said toward the end that he looked forward to dying so he could be with Gracie. He had her Forest Lawn crypt marker changed to "Gracie Allen & George Burns—Together Again," saying that he wanted Gracie to have top billing! I went to Northwestern with Burns' niece, Alisa Birnbaum. Made a movie with her in filmmaking class. I remember her telling me early on that her uncle discovered Ann-Margret. It took a minute for me to realize she was talking about George Burns!

12/18/12: Today's entry in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas," Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor, is a little tricky. That the Gabor sisters were Jewish is not in question--their mother Jolie was the daughter of Jozef Tilleman, a Hungarian Jew, and his Austrian-Jewish wife Franceska. But the Gabors' life story was always, shall we say, fluid, and they didn't talk much about their Jewish heritage. Writer Cindy Adams, who helped Jolie with her memoirs, recalls asking her about the huge cross Eva was wearing at one of her weddings. "Eva's new husband hates Jews," Jolie told Adams, "so in this book you make us Catholic." Oy. With older sister Magda, gorgeous Zsa Zsa and Eva took L.A. by storm when they arrived from Hungary in the 1940s. They were among the first celebrities who were "famous for being famous," not unlike Zsa Zsa's relative by marriage, Paris Hilton. While far from the greatest actresses in town, everyone my age remembers Eva fondly from her stint as clueless but sweet Lisa Douglas on "Green Acres" and Zsa Zsa from her various movie and TV appearances (my favorite Zsa Zsa film was the classic "Picture Mommy Dead" with Don Ameche) not to mention Zsa Zsa's later problems with the Beverly Hills police. Eva had five husbands during her lifetime and Zsa Zsa nine, including Conrad Hilton (a character on "Mad Men" a few seasons ago), actor George Sanders, and her current husband, an alleged member of German royalty. Zsa Zsa is the only Gabor left, and at the age of 95, is not in good shape at all. Biz hundert un tsvantsik, Zsa Zsa! And Happy Hanukkah!

12/19/12: In a few hours my daughter Leah will be watching Scarlett Johansson as Maggie the Cat in the new Broadway version of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." In honor of that, we take a rare visit to the present for today's "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute. Yes, despite the Danish surname, Scarlett is a bona fide Heeb. Her mother is an Ashkenazi Jew and Scarlett self-identifies as a member of the tribe. I always enjoy Johansson's work—I thought she was especially fun this year as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in "The Avengers." Scarlett actually shot a movie in our house a few years ago when Christopher Nolan decked out our whole first floor as a London saloon in "The Prestige." Only a few minutes of the scenes filmed in our house made it to the final film but there's a nice shot of Johansson bounding down our stairs. Scarlett says she observed Shabbat growing up and even knows a smattering of Yiddish. No wonder Woody Allen loves her! So what's with the goyishe Santa outfit?

12/20/12: Just back from a screening of the crazy long but exquisite "Django Unchained" so I'm posting today's "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute in the nick of time. After honoring Scarlett yesterday (Leah did talk to her after the show!), I thought I'd stay in the present just long enough to give two of her male contemporaries their due. Let's hear it for Jake Gyllenhaal and Jesse Eisenberg, two actors who received Oscar nominations while still in their 20s. Like yesterday's pick, you may be surprised that Jake is Jewish because of his last name, but despite the Swedish moniker, Jacob Benjamin was raised a good Jewish boy by his mother, screenwriter Naomi Foner (who got an Oscar nod herself for one of my favorite films, "Running on Empty"). I'm always happy to see Jake and his talented sister Maggie (Margaret Ruth) pop up in any film, they are one talented bunch. Jesse Eisenberg's Judaism is less of a surprise, of course. He's been turning in great performances for years but joined the A-list with his dead-on portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network." Remember when his little sister, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, was the famous one in the family? Now 32 and 29, Jake and Jesse are both involved in a lot of social causes and both of these successful mensches seem to be single at the moment. Anyone available for a shiddach?

12/21/12: Today's entry in "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" is nice Jewish girl Bea Arthur, aka Bernice Frankel. Why couldn't either of Arthur's iconic characters, Maude Findlay or Dorothy Zbornak, be Jewish? Arthur won a Tony Award for playing Vera Charles in the original "Mame" opposite Angela Lansbury but she also created the role of Yenta the Matchmaker in "Fiddler on the Roof" so at least she put in some time as a Jew on stage! Hard to believe she's been gone three years, it seems like yesterday we saw her very funny one-woman show. Did anyone have a better deadpan delivery than Bea Arthur? I remember going to a "Golden Girls" taping in the 80s with my mom and Estelle Getty kept messing up a line so they did this one scene over and over again. EVERY single time Arthur read her line, her delivery was so good I laughed hysterically as if I was hearing it for the first time. I wrote to Bea Arthur when I was a kid when she was doing "Maude" and she wrote back a nice handwritten letter. Does anyone do that anymore?

12/24/12: For the final entry in our "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute, we pay homage to the observant Jew who may have had the biggest impact on the Christmas holiday (other than Jesus himself). I'm talking about Israel Beilin, better known as Irving Berlin, the Russian-born son of an orthodox cantor who penned one of the world's most beloved Christmas carols, "White Christmas." Bing Crosby's recording of this beautiful song (written by Berlin poolside at a resort in Arizona) is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling single of all time (more than 50 million). If you count all the recordings of the song, it's sold well over 100 million. "White Christmas," of course, has been covered by countless artists from Frank Sinatra and Perry Como to Elvis Presley and Twisted Sister to Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Among Jewish singers, we have well known versions by Eddie Fisher, Steve & Eydie, Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, and Barbra Streisand, to name a few. Irving Berlin also wrote the popular Christmas tune, "Happy Holiday." I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on Berlin's other accomplishments. George Gershwin called him "the greatest songwriter who ever lived," and composer Jerome Kern said that "Irving Berlin has no PLACE in American music, he IS American music!" And that's it for this year. Merry Christmas, chaverim!

12/25/12: Special holiday addendum to my "Hollywood Jews Celebrate Christmas" tribute to honor Jack Klugman, a gifted, funny actor who died yesterday on Christmas Eve at the age of 90. He was born Jacob Joachim Klugman in Philadelphia, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Klugman played Herbie in the original production of "Gypsy" on Broadway opposite Ethel Merman and was great in many other roles, from the wonderful "Days of Wine and Roses" with Lee Remick and Judy Garland's last film, "I Could Go On Singing," to his series "Quincy, M.E.," but my main memory of him, of course, is as Oscar Madison in the TV series "The Odd Couple" opposite Tony Randall, That show ran for five years in the 1970s and I don't think I missed an episode. Klugman's ex-wife on the show was played by his real-life wife Brett Somers, who was Kendall's godmother and a good friend of the family. They split during the run of the series but never divorced and were married for 54 years until Brett died in 2007. The last time I saw Klugman in person was at the memorial for Tony Randall in New York in 2004 and even though his voice was very affected by his recent throat cancer, he gave one of the funniest, most moving eulogies I've ever heard—everyone in the theater was crying. I like to think that Brett and Tony are with him right now—thrilled to see him but kvetching up a storm!

And that's it for this year. Oy, I'm sure I missed plenty of Jews who have no doubt seen a little tinsel in their lives. Maybe I'll do it again next year and include folks like the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Peter Lorre, Milton Berle, Phil Silvers, Luise Rainer, Kirk Douglas, Red Buttons, Don Rickles, Carl Reiner, Paul Newman, Jerry Lewis, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Leonard Nimoy, Dyan Cannon, Woody Allen, Lesley Ann Warren, Andy Kaufman, Madeline Kahn, Goldie Hawn, Bob Dylan, Richard Dreyfuss, Billy Crystal, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Debra Winger, Mandy Patinkin, Carol Kane, Amy Irving, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Fierstein, Ally Sheedy, David Schwimmer, Sean Penn, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julianna Marguilies, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Natalie Portman. Until then, Chag Sameach, everyone! 

Christmas Resurrection

Oops, wrong holiday to talk about resurrecting. But it's been over five damn months since I've written in here, and I've refused to read the last rites! So maybe I'll just quietly resume. I guess the blog was the victim of my work writing for MSN Movies as well as Facebook which has become the repository of many of my non-sequitir pop culture musings. To get back in the swing of things, I may move some of those over here. Let's start with some Christimas cheer! (There's nothing Jews love more!)

I've been participating in Neil Kramer's online holiday concert extravaganza since he started it in the glory days of blogging seven years ago and this year Charlie, Leah, and I contributed our third video (we forgot how it was only in 2009 when videos became easy to upload for anyone--before that Neil's concert was all audio).

This year, having exhausted our Hanukkah repertoire, we returned to Christmas songs, by way of the Broadway musical "Annie." Charlie has been singing this entire song on the top of his lungs all week, including at our Christmas Eve dinner last night at Kendall's mom's house. 

 

We were better Jews last year and paid tribute to the Festival of Lights (with a few Xmas twists). Note that a few minutes after feeding our dogs those latkes that you see in the video, they promptly threw up big time. Was it the potatoes, the onions, or the oil? Oy.

 

Charlie still enjoys watching that video! 2010 was the only year I missed Neil's concert, but in 2009 we made our first video when he was just a little baby! Look how young Leah looks, too, she was about to turn 15. A few minutes after shooting this, our dog Emma completely destroyed that cute manger-like bassinet that Charlie is in. Oy. But he wasn't in it at the time--don't worry! 

 

And there you have our time-lapsed holiday concert. We seem to be acknowledging our Judaism every other year so I need a killer Hanukkah tune for 2013. All ideas welcome. Maybe by then Charlie will be able to sing in Hebrew.

Andy, Ernest, and Celeste: The Dark Blog Rises

Oy, is this blog officially defunct? NO, not as long as I’m still the CEO of Jew Eat Yet, Inc.! Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of my gig writing for MSN Movies and the one-year anniversary of leaving this blog in the dust! My fantasy was that I’d continue using this space for other, more personal writing since that fulfills a whole different kind of writing need, but there are only so many hours in the day and between my movie work and editing books for various publishers I’ve come up terribly short in the blogging department. Not that this move has caused much rioting in the streets and in even commenting on it I’m doing what I swore I’d stop doing—writing about blogging. (Yawn.) As if regular ol’ blogging wasn’t narcissistic enough? 

Anyway, the main times lately when I’ve really felt the absence of my blog is when some of my favorite stars have kicked the bucket. Let's face it—this site has practically become a clearinghouse for celebrity obituaries in recent years! The last time I wrote on here, over a month ago, was when lovely Ann Rutherford died. But what about Andy Griffith, who died two weeks ago at the age of 86. Or Ernest Borgnine, who died a week ago today at the age of 95? Today clinched the deal when I heard that one of my favorites, Celeste Holm, died. Like Borgnine, Holm was 95. I had to write about her, especially after what happened just before I found out about her passing. It was such a bizarre experience that I already wrote about it on Facebook AND in a personal anecdote on the MSN Movies site. Forgive me if you’re already read about it there!

I was walking along Hollywood Boulevard this morning with Charlie in our weekly trek to the Sunday Farmers Market in Hollywood. We always gaze at the stars on the Walk of Fame and play this game where I see which star Charlie stops on and then try to find some significance in that. Well, this morning we were walking along when Charlie suddenly darts over to Celeste Holm’s star and begins to touch it tenderly (which he’s never done with any star). Remember this was early in the morning before I heard anything on the news about the actress. I quickly snapped this photo at which point Charlie sat down on the star (again, something he’s never done!) and refused to budge! At one point he was lying face down across Holm’s name (taking in the full filth of Hollywood Boulevard, I may add!). Very odd. We finally went on to the market and about an hour later, when we got back into my car, the very first thing I heard on the radio was that Celeste Holm had died this morning. Whaaaat?? Is Charlie a celebrity empathic? The reincarnation of one of Holm’s hundreds of co-stars? Or just his father’s son, in tune with the comings and goings of Old Timey Hollywood? Yikes! I really got the chills when I heard the news.

Not that I ever have a difficult time making celebrity deaths all about ME, ME, ME! Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel compelled to write about Griffith and Borgnine, because I didn’t feel a strong personal connection. On the other hand, I did feel somewhat connected to Andy since our friend Sam Bobrick wrote some of the best “Andy Griffith Shows” back in the 1960s and we used to watch it every week looking for his name. I don’t think I ever missed an episode and I always had the hots for Andy’s girlfriend, whether it was Elinor Donahue in the early years or Aneta Corsaut’s schoolteacher Helen Crump later on. I wrote about Don Knotts on here when he died in 2006 and how moved I was by his relationship to Andy Griffith that lasted until his death.

On Facebook, I noted what I think is Andy Griffith’s best performance—in the Elia Kazan film “A Face in the Crowd” with Patricia Neal. Griffith is utterly brilliant (and terrifying) in the role of “Lonesome” Rhodes, a drunken drifter who is discovered by Neal in rural Arkansas and rises to fame and power on TV. Take a look at this clip and then go watch the hard-hitting film which I believe was way ahead of its time.

 

Ernest Borgnine? I don’t think I ever met him and I didn’t even watch “McHale’s Navy” as a kid (hey, sue me, it was on opposite “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.!”). But I certainly admired many of his films including “From Here to Eternity,” “Marty,” “The Catered Affair,” “The Dirty Dozen,” and yes, “The Poseidon Adventure!” Come on—who didn’t cry when Borgnine loses his sexy wife, Stella Stevens? (Oops—spoiler alert!)

And dear Celeste Holm, an ageless woman who first appeared on Broadway 72 years ago, won an Oscar 65 years ago, and starred in a TV series as recently as 12 years ago. As I wrote earlier today, Celeste Holm was nominated for three Best Supporting Actress Oscars and she was the very definition of a “supporting actress.” Not in the sense that her roles were shorter or less important that those of the film’s leads, but more that Holm was such an ideal ensemble player who upped the game of everyone around her. While her Academy Award for “Gentleman’s Agreement,” a hard-hitting 1947 film about American anti-Semitism starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire, was well deserved, my favorite Celeste Holm performance by far is in the 1950 Bette Davis classic, “All About Eve.” Holm plays Karen Richards in the film, the sweet wife of playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) and best friend to temperamental diva Margo Channing (Davis). It is Karen who first introduces the conniving Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) to Margo, and she remains the heart and soul of the film through all the machinations and histrionics of the main players.

Holm’s third Oscar nomination was for the 1949 film, “Come to the Stable,” in which she and Loretta Young play French nuns who come to a small New England town to help the residents build a children’s hospital. My other favorite Celeste Holm films include “The Tender Trap” (1955) and “High Society” (1956), both opposite Frank Sinatra. On stage, Holm originated the role of Ado Annie in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” (1943).

The first time I ever saw Celeste Holm as a kid was on the beloved TV version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” starring Holm as the Fairy Godmother and Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella. In another odd twist of fate, I was at a screening at the Motion Picture Academy last night and found myself sitting directly in front of the still beautiful Warren. I wish I had turned around and talked to her about working with Celeste Holm all those years ago.

The first stage musical I ever saw when I was growing up in Chicago was a touring company of “Mame” starring Celeste Holm as the irrepressible Mame Dennis. I’ve seen her several times since then, the most recent being in 2008 when she introduced a screening of “All About Eve” at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood. With her memory fading, Holm was joined on stage by her husband Frank Basile (over 40 years her junior!), who helped her remember various anecdotes about the making of the film. In addition to stories bout “All About Eve,” Holm told us about the time she purposely stalled an elevator so she could beg director Anatole Litvak for a role in “The Snake Pit.” (She got the part!) She also told a story about the “swear jar” that goody-two-shoes actress Loretta Young set up on the set of “Come to the Stable.” Celeste and the other actors were forced to drop a quarter into the jar every time they so much as uttered a “damn” in Young’s presence. When ballsy Ethel Merman heard about the swear jar, she stormed onto the set, shoved a twenty-dollar bill into the jar and said, “There you go, Loretta. Now go fuck yourself!”

Needless to say, Celeste Holm brought the house down with that story, as she’s been doing with audiences for over seven decades in the spotlight. Rest in peace, Celeste!

Farewell, Polly Benedict!

It’s not that I expected Hollywood to screech to a halt following the death of Ann Rutherford yesterday, but I’m sort of bummed that the news of her passing is barely getting a blip. If it weren’t for the fact that she played Scarlett O’Hara’s youngest sister Careen in “Gone With the Wind,” it might have been ignored completely.

Anyone who read this blog in its early days knows about my obsession with the Andy Hardy movies—the original title of this space was “Andy Hardy Writes a Blog.” The 17 movies of that MGM series starred Mickey Rooney as the irascible Andy Hardy, living in idyllic Carvel (aka MGM’s Culver City backlot) with his beloved parents (Lewis Stone and Fay Holden), his maiden (cough) Aunt Millie (Sara Haden), and his trouble-making older sister Marian (Cecilia Parker). Down the street, in a mansion that appeared in countless other MGM films before it was unceremoniously torn down in the 1970s to make way for a hideous condo development, was Andy’s longtime girlfriend, Polly Benedict, played by beautiful Ann Rutherford.  Since the Hardy films were a training ground for MGM’s incoming roster of young talent, you’d often find Andy cavorting with other teenaged beauties including Esther Williams, Lana Turner, Kathryn Grayson, Donna Reed, Bonita Granville, and, of course, young Judy Garland who appeared in several of the films as Betsy Booth, a talented but naïve girl who had a serious crush on Mr. Hardy. But no matter how far he strayed, Andy always returned to Polly’s stern but ultimately forgiving arms by the end of the picture.

It’s hard to go into a room in our house without seeing Ann Rutherford staring you in the face. Back in my collecting days, I managed to get my hands on a bunch of gorgeous Andy Hardy movie posters from the 30s and 40s and had them restored and framed. When Leah was a toddler, she would frequently refer to “Andy’s girlfriend” and now Charlie does the same. Both went through a period where they thought I WAS Andy Hardy. Mickey Rooney is still with us, of course, as cantankerous as ever. I’ve seen him many times, the most recent being when I covered the red carpet at the opening night of the TCM Film Festival in February. He looked pretty frail. When I interviewed Robert Osborne during the festival, I asked him about Ann Rutherford. He reminded me that she had attended the year before but said that recently she'd taken ill.

Kendall and I ran into Rutherford at many events including a Friars benefit for June Allyson many years ago. We talked to her for quite a while and when I told her about what she and the Andy Hardy movies meant to me, she actually wiped a tear from her eye. She was very sweet and very active until recently. We’d see her at so many screenings that celebrated the history of movies and she was often on hand at “Gone With the Wind” events. 

Other notable Ann Rutherford roles include the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Reginald Owen version of “A Christmas Carol,” Lydia Bennet in the 1940 version of “Pride and Prejudice,” a series of movies with Red Skelton, and opposite Danny Kaye in “The Secret Life of Water Mitty.” She played Suzanne Pleshette’s mother on “The Bob Newhart Show” and guest-starred on a bunch of series in the 1970s.

I know, I know, there’s nothing new in any of this and I know most people won’t be that interested, but there’s no way I wasn’t going to pay tribute to Ann Rutherford on this blog. From what I could see, she seemed to have a great life after her heyday in Hollywood and was philosophical about her role in the movies. “It’s titillating to do an occasional film,” she said in her later years, “but really, I don’t need it. Oh, I suppose, if you were a Helen Hayes, it might mean something if you left the business. You’d be depriving the world of something. I’m depriving the world of nothing.” 

I beg to differ, Ann. Farewell, Polly, my first true love!

 

The May 23rd Club

What do Henry V, Kit Carson, Henrik Ibsen, Bonnie and Clyde, John D. Rockefeller, Heinrich Himmler, Moms Mabley, George Jessel, Sterling Hayden, Lloyd Bentsen, and my mother have in common? They all died on May 23rd. The way my insane mind works, I’m now busy thinking of all the connections between my mom and these other folks who died on the same day (different years, of course!). Trust me, it’s not hard. For starters, I’ve seen movies about, by, or with the majority of those people with my mother (we went to at least one movie a week together from my earliest childhood until the day I moved to Los Angeles and watched endless classic movies together on TV), and I certainly remember discussing Lloyd Bentsen’s famous debate line to Dan Quayle with her (“I knew Jack Kennedy, and sir, you are no Jack Kennedy”), especially since she worked for the Kennedy-owned Merchandise Mart for most of her adult life. As far as Heimlich Himmler goes…please! Anyone who knows me can imagine how many times that name came up in casual dinner conversation!

I could talk about the horrible day 13 years ago today when my mother died at my sister’s home in Chicago after a dreadful five-month “battle” with small-cell lung cancer, but I think I’ve written about it before and I really don’t feel like dwelling on it today. And since I just wrote a whole post about my mother on what would have been her 78th birthday the week before last, I’m instead remembering the great influence she had on me that led me to see the connections with that diverse group of May 23rd departees. Maybe my mom is meeting up with that illustrious group in some other dimension right now. I could see her relating to aspects of Bonnie Parker’s life, and even Moms Mabley’s. To be honest, there were times in my mother’s life that made her seem a lot like a character out of Ibsen, especially Nora in “A Doll’s House.” (Incidentally, I saw a Broadway revival of “A Doll’s House” with my mom in the 1970s with Liv Ullmann as Nora and Sam Waterston as Torvald.)

Why do I always do that? If I think about it, every single post on this blog is about me taking one moment in the present and connecting it to a thousand threads in the past. Do I have some kind of Asperger’s? This afternoon I interviewed Brandon Routh, who played Superman in the most recent “reboot” six years ago (Henry Cavill has now taken on the role in yet another reboot that will be out next year). My mother died years before Routh’s version came out, but sitting across from him an hour ago, I still visualized going to see the very first Christopher Reeve “Superman” movie on opening day with my mother at a theater on the Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1978. I swear I can remember where we were sitting in the theater and the gigantic cut-outs of Christopher Reeve in the lobby. I was going to school in Paris that year and my mother was visiting for a few weeks when the film came out.

I guess my constantly spinning spiderweb of past and present is simply the way I make sense out of the world. I can’t not do it. In the ten minutes that I’ve been writing this, I’ve thought of a dozen more connections between my mother and the people on that list. Don’t even get me started on the people who were BORN on May 23rd, such as my mother’s favorite actress, Betty Garrett, who became a friend of ours and had a hand in bringing me and Kendall together, or Rosemary Clooney, one of my mom’s favorite singers.Come on-a my house!

Okay, okay, I’ll stop. For now, I’ll just think of all the grieving family members of the May 23rd Club. I’m sure all those folks were deeply mourned, even Reichsführer Himmler! (And even THAT is an inside joke to my mom: I can hear her screaming about me ending a post about her by mentioning a Nazi! Love you, mom!) 

The Judy Miller Show: 78 RPM

Today would have been my mother’s 78th birthday. I’ve been paying tribute to her every year on this day, always calling the posts “The Judy Miller Show,” after the recurring “Saturday Night Live” sketch that my mom loved in which Gilda Radner played a hyper but very imaginative little girl named Judy Miller who put on crazy shows in her bedroom.

May is always a tough month. My mother died in 1999, shortly after her 65th birthday (not to mention Mother's Day). I woke up thinking of her this morning, imagining what it would be like if she were here and involved in the lives of her four grandchildren. It’s been so long. Leah and Spencer have a few memories, but Sammy and Charlie were born after she died and only know her from pictures and stories. That makes me so sad. 

This afternoon I interviewed the actress Andie MacDowell and her real-life daughter, Rainey Qualley, who appear as mother and daughter in an upcoming film called “Mighty Fine” about a dysfunctional Jewish family in the 1970s who are living above their means. Hello? Paging the Millers! I remember seeing “Four Weddings and a Funeral” with my mom back in the 1990s. She loved MacDowell, who, back then, was the quintessential southern shiksa. Who could have guessed that 20 years later I’d be talking to the actress and her daughter about the Jewish characters they were playing that so evoke my own family members and that I'd be telling Andie MacDowell, teary-eyed, about my mom and the fact that today was her birthday. (So much for professional journalism!) 

I was very moved a few minutes ago to get an email from my mother’s longtime co-workers at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago who never let May 10th go by without remembering and talking about her. “The person with the biggest heart in the world,” her friend Nancy said. “God put Judy in our lives for a reason,” another friend wrote. “She taught us all how to LOVE.”

I’ve been looking at photos of my mom and wanted to share them with all the people who knew her. There was a singer my mother loved that always makes me think of her. Remember Marilyn Michaels? A Jewish entertainer in the 1960s with fabulous pipes, the niece of the famous cantor, Moishe Oysher. Marilyn Michaels was famous for her impressions of people ranging from Debbie Reynolds to Zsa Zsa Gabor to Barbra Streisand (who she closely resembled). Michaels starred in the first national touring company of “Funny Girl” and I remember watching her with my mom on shows like “Ed Sullivan,” “The Hollywood Palace,” and the Jerry Lewis telethon. In the video below you can hear Marilyn Michaels singing a song that made me sob the first time I heard it because of how much it reminded me of my mom. Michaels sings the song with her then 14-year-old son who I believe today is a playwright in New York. It’s schmaltzy as can be but the perfect song for me to listen to today.

Happy Birthday, Mom! We miss you so much!

 

 

Charlie Turns Three!

I can never sleep the night before Charlie’s birthday. I go to bed feeling carefree and happy and wake up in the middle of the night, as I’ve done again, in a fit of weird dreams and anxiety. Oh, Charlie’s birthday itself will be fun, we’ve already started celebrating, but I seem to have some kind of permanent cell memory about that terrifying day exactly three years ago when Kendall woke me at 4:30 am when she was only 24 weeks pregnant, complaining of weird pains. The pains were getting stronger and stronger so we jumped in the car and headed to Cedars, convinced we’d be home by 9 am. We weren’t. After trying all sorts of extreme measures to stop the labor, they wheeled her away and performed an emergency C-section. I’ve written about that day several times so I won’t go into detail again, but the memory of that trauma is still there, as much as I’d like Charlie’s birthday to only be about joy at his arrival.

Charlie’s whole life is about joy but I just can’t pretend his birth day was anything but terrifying. I also can’t not think of his twin brother Oliver on this day and what it felt like to stand there and watch the two teams of doctors and nurses working simultaneously on our sons. Charlie’s team looked serious and busy while Oliver’s team seemed increasingly worried and desperate, constantly calling in other people to take a look and try something new. But despite all their noble efforts, Oliver died 12 hours later. I will never forget how his seemingly weightless one-pound body felt in my arms. I can see the incredibly compassionate NICU nurses taking his body and gently pressing his tiny feet onto an inkpad and cutting wisps of his blonde hair for his memory box.

And then there was Charlie—fighting to survive at just over a pound with severely underdeveloped lungs and his eyes still fused shut. The sterile confines of the Cedars-Sinai NICU would be Charlie's only home for the next five months, through his Level 3 and 4 intraventricular hemorrhages (IVH) or “brain bleeds,” his necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) which caused him to have a colostomy bag for several months, the constant manual tapping of his built-up cerebrospinal fluid as a result of the brain bleeds until the placement of his ventriculoperitoneal shunt that he still has and which is still presumably draining the fluid into his peritoneal cavity.

I mention these medical terms, not just because they’re forever seared into my brain, but because I want parents in a similar situation who are desperately Googling these words to find this post. I want them to find it because I want them to see how great Charlie is doing three years later, knowing how I constantly searched online for stories other babies with the same problems to see what happened to them in the years that followed—desperate for anything that would give us hope, especially with all the dire predictions and prognoses we were hearing daily. And there IS hope—tons of it! Charlie is such a miracle. In his most recent evaluations at the Regional Center which has been providing excellent services for the past three years, they looked at the physical delays he is still experiencing and said that compared to other children his age he’s significantly behind but making a lot of progress. But cognitively? After reading his medical history, the therapists were flabbergasted at Charlie’s verbal skills and his cognitive abilities and pronounced him at the 99th percentile (it can’t get any better than that!). Again, when I remember all the scary predictions and fears that he may never even talk, I want every parent of an extremely premature baby to know that while each situation is completely different, there is every reason to be optimistic about the future.

We'll go back to the NICU later this morning as we've done every year on Charlie's birthday so I can deliver the cake I made for the staff there who saved his life over and over again during those 136 days and cared for him so beautifully. How can our gratitude for something like that ever go away? 

Here is a video I made when Charlie reached the 100-day mark in the NICU. It includes images of him from the very beginning. Some of those early images may be scary to some people but hey, it is what it is!

 

And here Charlie is now—the most loving, fun, bright, sweet boy on the face of the earth, very excited about his all-chocolate third birthday as he plays with an antique egg beater we have in our kitchen!

 

Happy Birthday, Charlie! We love you so much!

What Is Don Draper's Favorite Movie?

Are you excited as I am that “Mad Men” is finally back on the air? It’s been way too long since we’ve been able to follow the troubled exploits of Don Draper, advertising man extraordinaire and partner in Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. As the fifth season begins, Don is newly married to Megan, his former secretary, and he seems to be fairly content with his life. (At least for the first 20 minutes of the premiere episode.)

The times seem to be a-changing for Don and the rest of the “Mad Men” gang. It’s now 1966 and we’re seeing widespread social changes beginning to encroach on the lives of our beloved characters. Since we last hooked up with the Madison Avenue set, babies have been born, a few marriages are barely holding on, and the advertising gurus are busy thinking up new ways to keep Americans convinced that they desperately need the products that they’re hawking.

In 1966, going to the movies was still a big deal. People tended to dress up for the evening. Since ticket prices had creeped up to a whole dollar in many cities, moviegoers were a bit more choosey in what they spent their money on. Especially with gas prices at an unheard-of 32 cents a gallon! What were the films that Don Draper and his co-horts enjoyed the most in 1966?

Don Draper: John Frankenheimer’s “Seconds” stars John Randolph as a wealthy but unhappy middle-aged man who, thanks to a mysterious organization called “The Company” and a series of surgeries, is able to transform himself into a young, strapping Rock Hudson and get a second chance at life.

Peggy Olsen: “Georgy Girl” stars Lynn Redgrave as an eccentric single gal who tries to find herself through men while over-compensating for her deep-down belief that she is an ugly duckling.

Pete Campbell: William Wyler’s “How to Steal a Million” features Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole in a wild caper as beautifully dressed con artists specializing in forged art.

Betty Draper Francis: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” directed by Mike Nichols, features Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as a warring, boozing couple who nearly destroy each other with their vicious verbal sparring.

Joan Holloway Harris: Antonioni’s risqué “Blowup” stars Vanessa Redgrave as a seductive but emotionally reclusive woman who gets involved with an arrogant, self-indulgent photographer played by David Hemmings.

Roger Sterling: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” is a zany musical starring Zero Mostel that is set amidst the hierarchy of slaves and their masters in Ancient Rome.

Megan Draper: Claude Lelouch’s lush “A Man and a Woman” tells the sexy story of a young woman and an older man who quickly develop a strong and possibly dangerous mutual attraction.

Trudy Campbell: Debbie Reynolds is adorable as “The Singing Nun,” based on a real-life sister who topped the charts with her hit song “Dominique.”

Bert Cooper: Old-school hijinks abound in “Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!” with Bob Hope as a middle-aged married man who hooks up with a gorgeous actress played by Elke Sommer.

Ken Cosgrove: Andy Warhol’s underground film “Chelsea Girls,” shot at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, follows the provocative adventures of some of Warhol’s avant-garde circle including Nico, Ondine, and Brigid Berlin.

Harry Crane: The science fiction adventure “Fantastic Voyage” features sexy Raquel Welch as a surgeon’s assistant who is miniaturized and inserted into the body of a Soviet scientist to try to remove a blot clot in his brain.

Bobby Draper: A big-screen version of the hit television show “Batman” features Adam West as the Caped Crusader and Burt Ward as Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Sally Draper: Hayley Mills shines in “The Trouble with Angels” as a rebellious but scathingly brilliant girl who manages to wreak havoc at her all-girl boarding school.

Henry Francis: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Torn Curtain” is a nail-biting political thriller that stars Paul Newman and Julie Andrews as pawns in a game of human chess where loyalties are tested.

Lane Pryce: Michael Caine plays “Alfie,” a British man who leads a self-centered hedonistic life until personal events force him to confront past decisions.

Faye Miller: In “The Group,” a bunch of female graduates from an east coast college in the 1930s examine controversial topics such as free love, contraception, abortion, and lesbianism.

Sal Romano: In “The Oscar,” hunky Stephen Boyd plays a movie star who will stop at nothing to claw his way to the top of the Hollywood food chain.

My Davy Jones Story

Sad to hear that Davy Jones died this morning in Florida of a massive heart attack. And shocked to realize that the former Monkee was 66 years old. When I look at the crazy long list of celebrity obituaries that I have written on this blog (see column on the right), I’m amazed (and slightly creeped out) at how many times I am able to dredge up some kind of personal connection to the departed star. I never met Davy Jones but he was certainly a part of my childhood, including one of the most traumatic events of my early years.

I can already hear everyone who knows me, especially my sister, starting to groan—they know what’s coming. My obsession with being left behind when the rest of my family took a fun-filled road trip from Chicago to the 1964 New York World’s Fair is hardly along the lines of the actual abuse that so many unfortunate children have experienced but I haven’t stopped bitching about it for over 40 years! I was discussing it with my mom on her death bed in 1999 and I frequently torment the rest of my family members with queries that may be at the root of my well-burnished abandonment issues.

Why my parents would leave their five-year-old son behind on such a child-centered fantasy vacation is beyond my comprehension. They planned the trip for months—got all the maps, read through the colorful brochures, planned their detour through Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the air smells like chocolate, and packed everything they needed into our 1963 Buick Skylark for the long trip east. Everything, that is, except one little thing they decided to leave behind…ME!

I suppose I should come clean and admit that most of my outrage took shape years later when I realized the full import of the event—I don’t remember feeling particularly upset about it at the time. But I’m still confused. Was I such an out-of-control brat that my parents worried that I’d jump off the Unisphere at the World’s Fair or get lost in the Johnson Wax Pavilion? My sister, who has a tendency to infantilize me, swears that I was left home with my grandparents so that they could teach me how to walk. AT THE AGE OF FIVE? If my parents did have a five-year-old who couldn’t walk, they should have been taking me to see a team of doctors, not gallivanting around General Motors’ Futurama or singing along with “The Happy Plastic Family” at DuPont’s Wonderful World of Chemistry.

When the Betrayers finally returned home from The Best Family Vacation in History, my brother and sister regaled me with stories of unlimited fun and excitement. One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Imperial Theater in New York to see the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning musical “Oliver!” This cast included the legendary Georgia Brown as Nancy, Clive Revell as Fagin, Barry Humphries (now known as “Dame Edna”) as the undertaker, and as the Artful Dodger, a young 19-year-old former horse jockey named Davy Jones. My sister, like her doppelganger Jan Brady a few years later in a famous episode of “The Brady Bunch,” instantly fell in love with Jones and described the musical that I missed in explicit detail, reading her cherished Playbill over and over again.

Okay, I did it again. Davy Jones died and it’s all about ME, ME, ME! But why else do we ever note the passing of people in pop culture if not to remember where we were in our own lives when their stars were shining brightest. It was only a year later that the Artful Dodger left the cast of “Oliver!” and auditioned for a TV show in which producers picked four people to become part of a Beatles-like rock group. “The Monkees” became a huge sensation, and Davy Jones’ fame hit the stratosphere. (The more famous he became, of course, the more my sister reminded me that she saw the heartthrob live before any of the other screaming girls ever laid eyes on him!)

 

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit what a big fan of The Monkees (featuring Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork) I was. I knew their songs at least as well as I knew The Beatles’ repertoire. I could sing every word of “I’m a Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,” and “Daydream Believer” and I could probably still perform an impromptu concert of these tunes today if asked (so please don't!). I watched every episode of “The Monkees” from 1966 to 1968, not quite realizing that they were a fake band put together for a TV show. The Beatles were very good-natured about the TV cloning and actually came to admire The Monkees. During one meeting between the two groups, Mike Nesmith reportedly asked John Lennon if he thought they were a cheap imitation of The Beatles. “I think you’re the greatest comic talent since the Marx Brothers,” Lennon replied. “I’ve never missed one of your programs!”

 

Davy Jones participated in many reunion tours over the years. The group last played together (sans Mike Nesmith) in 2011 but after a few dates the tour was cancelled because of “internal group issues and conflicts.” The Beatles have lost half of their members but Davy Jones is the first Monkee to go. I’m surprised that the obituaries I’ve read don’t even make reference to his Tony-nominated performance in the original Broadway production of “Oliver!” I’ll always remember Jones most as the Artful Dodger I never got to see.

Consider yourself at home 
Consider yourself one of the family 
We’ve taken to you so strong  
It’s clear we’re going to get along…

Five Ways to Improve Next Year’s Oscar Telecast

Nobody wants to read about the Oscars three days later, and I already posted these comments on MSN Movies, but because I've always shared my post-mortem of the Academy Awards broadcast on this blog, I feel compelled to include this here as well. This year I live-blogged the entire evening with a colleague from MSN Movies. It was fun, exhausting, and definitely colored my experience a little. (If you want to check out any of those ramblings, it was in three separate posts: pre-show, Oscars part 1, and Oscars part 2.) Writing about something as you're watching it changes your perceptions, there's no way around it. I think film critics should watch a film once straight through just to be in the experience, immersing themselves in the story and images without taking notes or thinking about what they're going to say. Then they can watch it again before they write it up. Of course that's never going to happen--who has the time?

Not that watching the Oscars broadcast more than once would have changed my opinion that it was a bit of a snoozefest. True, the show was a vast improvement over last year’s utter FAIL, hosted by a comatose James Franco and a perky-to-distraction​ Anne Hathaway. At least the Academy let go of its obsession with appealing to a younger, hipper crowd (apart from a brief and funny moment with Justin Bieber in Billy Crystal’s opening film sequence). After an opening montage in which Crystal predictably but amusingly inserted himself into clips from the nominated films, the dependable host all but disappeared into the woodwork of the former Kodak Theater, appearing every once in a while to tell an unfunny joke about Christopher Plummer’s age (we should all be in such shape when we’re 82!) or an uncomfortable remark about “The Help” (Billy, there actually ARE black people living in Beverly Hills!).

I was happy enough with the awards themselves (and scored a Personal Best by correctly guessing the winners in 19 out of 24 categories), but things were so glaringly predictable that any half-hearted attempt (whether deliberate or accidental) to spice up the proceedings (the “Wizard of Oz” focus group bit, J-Lo’s and Diaz’s butt shot, Angelina Jolie’s odd right leg maneuver, Ferrell and Galifanakis, Downey and Paltrow) were tweeted more than the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

What gives? Is this show such a grandiose behemoth that there’s no way to save it? After watching this year’s better-but--boring telecast, here are five suggestions for next year’s producers:

1. Once and for all, STOP CUTTING PEOPLE OFF! Don’t get me wrong—I realize no one wants to hear the winners go on and on, thanking their managers, accountants, and dog walkers. I get that the producers need to keep the show on track, but the obnoxious way that the Academy cuts people off just makes already nervous winners way more nervous. Case in point: Octavia Spencer. It seemed like the actress had no sooner reached the podium when they started giving her the sign to wrap it up. Her real emotion was a breath of fresh air but giving her the bum’s rush just made her step all over her words and miss an opportunity for a more moving speech. The most egregious moment came when the folks who made the documentary “Undefeated” were giving their delightful speeches and had their mics cut off in mid-sentence. Really, Academy? Thank God Meryl Streep has been around long enough to simply ignore the control-room hysteria and do whatever she wants—and her speech was wonderful. I can think of a million other things to trim to give the winners more time. I also liked the idea I read on Slate.com last week about having all nominees supply a list of people they want to thank in advance. Then, when someone wins, the names would appear in a scroll on the bottom of the screen, freeing them up to be more thoughtful and inspiring.

2. Ground the clip montages in some kind of context. As an avid lover of classic films, I am always down for a fun montage of old movie clips. But they need some kind of context. The clip sequences on this year's show seemed all over the place. They were not well thought out or executed. And sticking the “Twilight” couple in the middle of clips of beloved actors from some of the greatest films of all time made everyone in my house scream in horror.

3. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but bring back the Best Song performances. The bizarre Academy rules that led to only two song nominations this year have to be changed. And, as much as I’ve been a vocal critic of the frequently awful Best Song category, it just seemed weird to not have performances of the nominated songs. Why? This year’s show could have really used some more live entertainment. I was almost missing Debbie Allen’s much-ridiculed dance numbers of yesteryear. (Bring back Rob Lowe and Snow White’s dirty dancing!) Seriously, this is a SHOW, throw the audience a few bones between the awards. Take a look at how the Grammys do it! True, there was the Cirque du Soleil performance that, like all their efforts, was absolutely amazing…and yet, if I may, what relevance did it have to the general proceedings?

4. Restore the honorary Oscar recipients to the main show. I find it outrageous that the honorary Oscars are now part of an untelevised event and that we only get to see a few edited moments from those proceedings. The way that sequence was edited, it was hard to even follow who was being honored. Oprah? James Earl Jones? These awards belong IN the show, even if they have produced some uncomfortable cringing in years past involving a few elderly celebrities. The truth is they've also provided some of the most moving moments in Oscar history. Show some respect, Academy! And if you’re worried about time, simply limit the number of recipients to one or two.

5. Find some new writers! No offense (!) to the writers of this year’s telecast, I know it’s not an easy job, but am I the only one who longed for more jokes? I mean, jokes that are actually funny? Has Bruce Vilanch been kicked off the show? Where was all the topical humor? Is there nothing to skewer in today’s news? How about the Republican candidates’ newfound fear of contraception? Why not a few jabs at Oprah’s OWN network? At the new craze of converting older movies to 3D? Come on, people. Billy Crystal was playing it so safe I kept imagining what it would be like if Ricky Gervais were hosting. Or the originally planned Eddie Murphy, for that matter. I’m not saying Crystal was bad, but I doubt anyone would say he hit it out of the ballpark and he probably won't be asked back for a while. Is it too late to exhume Bob Hope?

HOLD THE PHONE: Forget everything I've written about the Oscars, the biggest travesty was leaving our friend Betty Garrett out of this year's "In Memoriam" tribute. She died on February 12 last year and wasn't included in the show later that month because they said she was past the "cut-off date." But Whitney Houston died on February 11 this year and WAS included in Sunday's Oscar tribute. (And God knows Betty had a hell of a lot more to do with the movies than Whitney.) Really outrageous. I'm ashamed I didn't realize this hideous omission until three days after the broadcast when I read the blog of our friend, Naomi Caryl, one of Betty's closest friends, who was understandably horrified by the Academy's mistake. Kendall was infuriated that they left Dorothy McGuire off the list when she died in 2001 but this is worse! 

I'll never forget when Kendall and I went straight from the Cedars NICU where Charlie was still struggling for his life to the celebration of Betty's 90th birthday at the old Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. It was one of the only times we broke away from the hospital but I'm so glad we were able to honor our friend and attend that event. Here is a wonderful video retrospective of Betty's career that they showed on that night: