<--- Meanwhile, in my weekly column for Towleroad I've issued a cinema-altering challenge to James Cameron involving Elizabeth Taylor, bitched about the MPAA and their fear of peen, and shared a performance moment from the dueling trans stars of Portugal's Oscar submission. Why is it that no matter where you go in the world, the drag playlists remain exactly the same?
I really wish more actors would take up photography! Jeff Bridges is another example of an actor who kills time between takes with his camera. But maybe today's paparazzi culture has lessened the desire to document life on set.
Freddy: Tallulah Bankhead? She's glamorous. She seems more uncompromising than a movie star. She's on Broadway.
Peggy: She never got off Broadway because she's not beautiful enough.
Freddy: Shame on you. C'mon.
[imagining commercial] A little backstage at the makeup mirror with Ponds. Opening night 'The choice of professionals.' It's good, right?
Peggy: All of their research says they're trying to get young women.
Freddy: Young women look up to older women.
Peggy: For beauty tips. Are you joking?
Freddy: On the short list I got Tallulah, Jessica Tandy, Barbara Stanwyck, and Doris Day -- different types.Freddy's wish-list suggests that he goes to the theater a lot (Tandy & Tallulah both being stage rather than movie stars). An argument erupts between them about what young girls want and whether they'll get married or not and such. Peggy, who has just been called "old fashioned" by her boyfriend in a previous scene, deflects the insult Freddy's way.
Peggy: I don't even understand your list. What's wrong with Elizabeth Taylor?
Freddy: Isn't about making old ladies look good?
Peggy: Nothing makes old ladies look good.
Freddy: The Ponds does.
Peggy: You know, Freddy, I've brought up your name a hundred times to come in and freelance for me. But everyone is right about you. You and your grand dames and your poor old typewriter and your desperate spinsters. You're so old fashioned, you know that?Hey, if loving grande dames makes you old fashioned, I've been old fashioned since I was five years old! I've always loved theatrical women of a certain age.
"Desiree" via Eva Dahlbeck (55), La Liz (77), CZJ (09) and Bernadette (10)
[Trivia Tangent: Because we've been talking about the EGOT and the triple crown lately due to the upcoming Emmy awards, here's how that shakes out. As you know Catherine Zeta-Jones just won the Tony for this role so she only has to win an Emmy to get a triple crown. Bernadette, replacing her, has multiple Grammys -- or does she? -- and Tonys. She's been nominated for Emmys but hasn't won and the Oscar (let alone a nomination) eluded her even at the heighth of her fame in the late 70s / early 80s when she was in the mix at the Golden Globes winning for Pennies From Heaven and nominated for Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. Elaine has a Tony and multiple Emmys. No Grammy or Oscar.] 
If you had a power ring, what kind of things would you make it do? I mean, besides conjuring up free Broadway tickets.
I think these are original release posters (?) Might be wrong. Tough to find dates to coincide with poster designs. But note that the book was actually the initial selling point of East of Eden and that Dean was only top billed once (for Rebel). 
Reissues and such. Note how Dean takes over. 
And a few foreign versions for fun. I find it quite interesting that Sal Mineo gets to pull focus on the Italian poster (photo src) but then he does have the gun and what is that they say about movies? All you need is a girl and a gun. Speaking of the girl, Natalie Wood rarely gets much focus in Rebel Without a Cause merchandising which is strange since she's such a classic screen icon herself.
...but they don't always get equal billings on the posters. Sometimes Rock & La Liz are the focus (as they were in the 40th anniversary release) sometimes Liz & James are the focus like you see in the 70s rerelease version of the poster from Japan above. And though it's another discussion entirely you know that if the film were released in our current era James Dean would've been nominated (and won) posthumously for supporting actor instead of lead, since they're so scared of 'same sex but both leads' campaigns these days.
Betty: ...she was in the lounge of the Savoy. She didn't look cheap except for this two carat stone. But she wasn't with a date. She was with... a companion.True to form the Mad Men writers don't explain the time capsule reference but for movie buffs and Elizabeth Taylor devotees this particular movie note is well detailed.
Francine: I don't understand.
Betty: Don agreed with me. He was an old man. She's a call girl.
Francine: Really?! BUtterfield 8. I wonder what that's like?
Consider just five years in her life and try to imagine how mammoth she'd be today given the 24 hour news cycle. I bet she'd dwarf any other star including Angelina Jolie (who is occasionally compared to her)
Even if at first glance she's only referred to in the title, the ghost of the British author hovers all over Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? her name is supposed to symbolize the fear of leading empty lives and existence out of illusion. While Edward Albee's play is notorious for its explosive nature (as opposed to Woolf's universe of inner conflict) it's feasible to say that the playwright's intention was precisely to make us wonder what would push us to release all those violent, damaging emotions from our minds.
Last but not least, today would be a good day as any, to re-watch Nicole Kidman's Academy Award winning performance as Woolf in The Hours.
1.10 "The Long Weekend"Joanie: How about a movie? Have you seen The Apartment?At this point he realizes the conversation isn't strictly about the movie. Sterling tries to smooth things over.
Sterling: I went last week with Mona and Margaret.
Joanie: I hear Shirley Maclaine is good.
Sterling: Oh please, a white elevator operator? And a girl at that? I want to work at that place!
Joanie: [turning on him] Oh, I bet you do. The way those men treated that poor girl, handing her around like a tray of canapes. She tried to commit suicide.
Sterling: So you saw it, huh?
Sterling: Oh, Red, that's not how it is. Look, It was crude. That's the way pictures are now. Did you see that ridiculous Psycho? Hollywood isn't happy unless things are extreme.Later in the same episode we see that Joanie, who never intended to spend the weekend with her boss/lover, has also completely soured on seeing a movie. She makes plans with her best friend Carol (Kate Norby) instead.
Joanie: It didn't seem that extreme to me.
Sterling: Are we actually going to get into a fight over a movie? You know Mona had a dream once where I hit the dog with the car. She was mad at me all day. And I never hit the dog. We don't even have a dog.
Carol: All I want to do is sit in the movies and cry.Since Shirley Maclaine has already been name-checked, you should know that we've moved on from the emotional volatility of The Apartment and we're now entering the subdued internal terror of The Children's Hour (1961). Carol is not so interested in the bachelors if you know what I mean.
Joanie: No movies. Let's look for some actual bachelors, empty their wallets.
I don't know what to say... two pop culture icons lost in one day. I was leaving for the movies when I first heard the news (then but a rumor) so I'm just catching up now. Like many pop stars Michael Jackson wanted to be in movies and the Peter Pan obsession in particular was one he never shied away from expressing. His Steven Spielberg / Peter Pan project never happened -- well it did but without songs and without Michael Jackson and in a different form altogether -- and neither did the movies. But, like Madonna, he was a mammoth small screen star by way of the music video.
If all the shit that he went through couldn't knock Thriller, Off the Wall, Bad and, to whatever degree, Dangerous and HIStory out of our hearts, minds and asses, a little thing like death isn't going to, either.Scanners investigates the mask and the problems with adult stardom
Audrey, Kate, Vivien, Ingrid, Natalie, Jane, Bette, Meryl,
The truth of it is that most celebrated actors don't maintain the kind of decade after decade Name in Lights prominence that Paul Newman did to his very last. Shirley Maclaine and Sophia Loren who rose to fame roughly concurrently with Newman still walk the earth (in heels), god bless, both at 74. But the closing chapter I fear the most will be losing Elizabeth Taylor. La Liz, who is 76, has been internationally famous for sixty-two years now. To me she's the last of the Immortals. She's had so many health scares for so many decades that it became a joke to think of her as being perpetually at death's door. It's not at all funny anymore. I hope there's a great screening room in heaven. When Taylor finally arrives -- and I hope that's a long long time from now -- Newman, Monroe, Brando, the Hepburns, Bogie and Garland will undoubtedly have a seat ready for her: diamond encrusted, the one right between Richard Burton's and Montgomery Clift's.
Just lovely, yes?
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