My goodness, Bob of Boston, only two people born today? That's a first, right? Thanks for the duet, buddy, and the funny about the bar fly. Here's one that is similar.
Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside.
He looked up and said weakly, 'I have something I must confess.'
'There's no need to,' his wife replied.
'No,' he insisted, 'I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!'
'I know, I know,' she replied. 'Now just rest and let the poison work.'
Nikki Yanofsky may be just on the cusp of turning 14, but she's already one of the jazz world's biggest sensations. She plays a pair of sold-out shows at the Isabel Bader Theatre next week. Her preternatural talent has wowed audiences everywhere she sings. Now Nikki Yanofsky is set to tackle no less an institution than Carnegie Hall after two shows here - not too bad for a 13-year-old
Not many kids get a Carnegie Hall debut for their 14th birthday.
"I'm so thrilled," giggles budding Montreal singing sensation Nikki Yanofsky about her upcoming performance. She'll share the spotlight Friday with the New York Pops.
"I was telling one of my friends about it, and she said, `Oh, that's nice.' So I said, `I guess you don't even know what Carnegie Hall is,' so I had to explain it," Yanofsky relates over a poor Internet phone connection from the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Unlike other Canadian families, who go to the Caribbean to soak up sun and rum, it was strictly business for Yanofsky and her parents last weekend. She was singing at the Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival.
hbg, that child has an amazing voice and range. Imagine a fourteen year old kid from Montreal doing scat and speaking fluent French. Eveyone was on her jazz album in 2007.
edgar, I recall the melody of love by The Ames Brothers, but thanks for the reminder, Texas.
Time for me to say goodnight, y'all, and remember, tomorrow is SUPER TUESDAY, so I thought I would close with A Politicians' Song. ( you are NOT supposed to understand the words.)
"Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr (February 5, 1848 - February 3, 1889), was a famous American female outlaw.
Early life
She was born Myra Maybelle Shirley (known as May to her family) on her father's farm near Carthage, Missouri. In the 1860s her father sold the farm and moved the family to Carthage buying an inn and livery stable on the town square. May Shirley received a classical education and learned piano. After a Union attack on Carthage in 1864, the Shirleys moved to Scyene, Texas. According to legend, it was at Scyene the Shirleys became associated with a number of Missouri-born criminals, including Jesse James and the Youngers. In fact, she knew the Younger brothers and the James boys because she grew up with them in Missouri, and her brother John Alexander Shirley (known as Bud) served with them in Quantrill's Raiders, alongside another Missouri boy, James C. Reed. Her brother served as one of Quantrill's Scouts. Bud Shirley was killed in 1864 in Sarcoxie, Missouri, while he and another scout were being fed at the home of a Confederate sympathizer. Union troops surrounded the house and when Bud attempted to escape, he was shot and killed. [1].
After the Civil War
After the war the Reed family also moved to Scyene and she married Jim Reed in 1866. She gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee (nicknamed Pearl), in 1868. Jim turned to crime and was wanted for murder. He moved his family to California, where their second child, James Edwin (Eddie) was born in 1871. Later returning to Texas, Jim Reed was involved with several criminal gangs. In April 1874, despite a lack of any evidence, a warrant was issued for Reed's wife's arrest for a stage coach robbery by her husband and others. Jim Reed was killed in Paris, Texas, in August of that year.
Marriage to Sam Starr
Allegedly, Belle was briefly married to Bruce Younger in 1878, but this is not substantiated by any evidence. In 1880 she did marry a Cherokee Indian named Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family in the Indian Territory. In 1883, Belle and Sam were charged with horse theft and tried before "Hanging" Judge Isaac Parker's Federal District Court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She was found guilty and served six months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. In 1886, she escaped conviction on another theft charge, but on December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with Officer Frank West. [2] Both men were killed.
Belle Starr's unsolved murder
To keep her residence on Indian land, she married a relative of Sam Starr. His name was Jim July Starr. In 1889, Belle herself was killed. She was shot from ambush while out riding. There were no witnesses; however, suspects with apparent motive included her new husband and both of her children. A neighbor, Edgar J. Watson [3] killed in 1910, was tried for her murder, but was acquitted. The murder is still considered "unsolved".
One source suggests her son may have been her killer [4] whom she had allegedly beaten for mistreating her horse.
Belle Starr's story becomes popularized
Although an obscure figure throughout most of her life, Belle's story was picked up by the dime novel and National Police Gazette publisher, Richard K. Fox. Fox made her name famous with his novel Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, published in 1889 (the year of her murder). This novel is still often cited as a historical reference. It was the first of many popular stories that used her name.
Belle Starr's children
Belle's son Eddie was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889. Judge Parker sent him to prison in Columbus, Ohio. Belle's daughter, Rosie Reed, also known as Pearl Starr, became a prostitute to raise funds for his release. She did eventually obtain a presidential pardon in 1893. Ironically, Eddie became a police officer and was killed in the line of duty in December 1896.
Making a good living in prostitution, Pearl operated several bordellos in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas, from the 1890s to World War I.
Historical fiction
Gene Tierney played the title role in the 1941 Hollywood film "Belle Starr." Isabel Jewell was Belle in the 1946 movie "Daughter of Belle Starr," and Jane Russell took on the role in 1952's "Montana Belle." None made any pretensions to accuracy. Elizabeth Montgomery was Belle in the 1980 TV movie "Belle Starr."
Pulp western author J. T. Edson featured Belle Starr in several of his "Floating Outfit" series of novels, as the love interest of one of the three lead protagonists in the series, Mark Counter. Edson's novel "Guns In The Night" features Belle Starr's being murdered when pregnant with Mark Counter's child, after which the Floating Outfit teaming up to catch her murderer.
One of the more distinctive adaptations of the legend of Belle Starr was made by the Japanese mangaka Akihiro Itou - perhaps best known to Western audiences as the creator of Geobreeders - who in 1993 created a manga known as Belle Starr Bandits, loosely based on historical figures, facts and events.
Trivia
The Starrs were related to bank robber Henry Starr, who had killed a Deputy Marshal, Floyd Wilson[5], and portrayed himself in a movie.
Contrary to legend, as stated in Handbook of Texas, Belle Starr was not a lover of Cherokee killer Bluford "Blue" Duck, although their picture was taken together.[6]
American composer Libby Larsen set Belle Starr's words as the first song, Bucking Bronco, in her song set Cowboy Songs.
American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan twice makes reference to Belle: in his song "Tombstone Blues" from the album "Highway 61 Revisited" and in "Seeing the Real You at Last" 20 years later on the album "Empire Burlesque" (1985).
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:33 am
John Carradine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Richmond Reed Carradine
Born February 5, 1906(1906-02-05)
New York, New York, United States
Died November 27, 1988 (aged 82)
Milan, Italy
Other name(s) Peter Richmond
Spouse(s) Ardanelle McCool Cosner (1935-1941)
Sonia Sorel (1944-1956)
Doris Rich (1957-1971)
Emily Cisneros (1975-1988)
John Carradine (February 5, 1906 - November 27, 1988) was a Daytime Emmy Award-winning American actor, perhaps best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns.
Contents [hide]
Biography
Early life
Carradine was born Richmond Reed Carradine in New York City, the son of Genevieve Winifred (née Richmond), a surgeon, and William Reed Carradine, a correspondent for the Associated Press.[1] He originally planned a career as a painter and sculptor. He began his career in show business as a Shakespearean dramatic actor and made his cinematic debut in 1930 under the name Peter Richmond. He adopted the stage name "John Carradine" in 1935, and legally took the name as his own two years later.
Career
Carradine appeared in ten John Ford productions, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He also portrayed the Biblical hero Aaron in The Ten Commandments (1956). He did considerable stage work, much of which provided his only opportunity to work in a classic drama context. He toured with his own Shakespearean company in the 1940s, playing Hamlet and Macbeth. His Broadway roles included Ferdinand in a 1946 production of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Ragpicker in a 13-month run of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, Lycus in a 15-month run of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and DeLacey in the expensive one-night flop Frankenstein in 1981. He also toured in road companies of such shows as Tobacco Road and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in which he was properly emaciated as the cancer-ridden Big Daddy.
Carradine claimed to have appeared in more than 450 movies, but only 225 movies can be documented (He did not bother to differentiate between theatrical movies and TV shows shot on film.) He often played eccentric, mad or diabolical characters, especially in the horror genre with which he had become identified as a "star" by the mid-1940s. He appeared in seemingly dozens of low-budget horror films in the 1940s, in order to finance a touring classical theatre company. He even sang the theme song to one film he appeared in briefly, Red Zone Cuba. He also made more than 100 television appearances, including recurring guest appearances as mortician Mr. Gateman on The Munsters. In 1985, Carradine won a Daytime Emmy award for his performance as an eccentric old man who lives by the railroad tracks in the Young People's Special, 'Umbrella Joe'. Carradine's last released film credit was Bikini Drive-In, released years after his death.
In 1982, he did the voice of the Great Owl in the animated feature The Secret of NIMH.
Carradine's deep, resonant voice earned him the nickname "The Voice". He was also known as the "Bard of the Boulevard" from his idiosyncratic habit of strolling Hollywood streets while reciting Shakespearean soliloquys, something he always denied.
Personal life
Four of Carradine's five sons became actors: David Carradine, Robert Carradine, Keith Carradine, and Bruce Carradine. David's show, Kung Fu, featured his father John and half-brother Robert in the episode "Dark Angel". John would appear as the same character, the Reverend Serenity Johnson, in two more episodes: "The Nature of Evil" and "Ambush". Keith Carradine portrayed a younger version of his brother David's character throughout the series.
Carradine was married four times. His wives were: Ardanelle McCool, mother of Bruce and David. Bruce was adopted by John. He is actually Ardanelle's son from a previous marriage. John was married to Ardanelle from 1935 to 1941; Sonia Sorel, mother of Keith and Robert (Sonia is also the mother of Michael Bowen Jr.) , and Chris from 1944 to 1956; Doris Rich, 1957 to 1971, ending in her death; and Emily Cisneros, 1975 to 1988, who survived him.[1]
Carradine suffered from painful and crippling arthritis during his later years, but continued working nonetheless.
Death
On November 27, 1988, Carradine died of natural causes in Milan, Italy. He was 82 years old.[1]
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, John Carradine has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6240 Hollywood Blvd.
In 2003, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:36 am
Red Buttons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Aaron Chwatt
Born February 5, 1919(1919-02-05)
New York City, New York
Died July 13, 2006 (aged 87)
Century City, Los Angeles, California
Years active 1935 - 2006
Spouse(s) Roxanne Arlen (1947-1951)
Helayne McNorton (1949-1963)
Alicia Prats (1964-2001)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
1957 Sayonara
Red Buttons (February 5, 1919 - July 13, 2006) was an American comedian and actor.
Biography
Early life
Red Buttons was born Aaron Chwatt[1] on February 5, 1919 in New York City to Jewish immigrants.[2] At sixteen years old, Buttons got a job as an entertaining bellhop at Ryan's Tavern in City Island, Bronx. The combination of his red hair and the shiny buttoned bellhop uniform inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him Red Buttons, the name under which he would later perform.
Later that same summer, Buttons worked on the Borscht Belt;[1] his straight man was Robert Alda. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque; in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show The Admiral Had a Wife. The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor, and it was due to open on December 8, 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years Buttons would joke that the Japanese only attacked Pearl Harbor to keep him off of Broadway.
Career
In September 1942, Buttons at last got his Broadway debut in Vickie with Ferrer and Uta Hagen. Later that year, he appeared in the Minsky's show Wine, Women and Song; this was the last Burlesque show in New York City history, as the Mayor La Guardia administration closed it down. Buttons was on stage when the show was raided.
1943 saw Buttons in the Army Air Corps. He was chosen to appear in the Broadway show Winged Victory, as well as appearing in the Darryl F. Zanuck movie version. He later went on to entertain troops in the European Theater of operations in the same unit as Mickey Rooney.
Red Buttons playing opposite Miyoshi Umeki and Marlon Brando in SayonaraAfter the war, Buttons continued to do Broadway shows. He also performed at Broadway movie houses with the Big Bands. In 1952, Buttons received his own variety series on television - The Red Buttons Show ran for three years, and achieved high levels of success. His catch phrase from the show, "strange things are happening," entered the national vocabulary briefly in the mid-1950s.
His role in Sayonara was a dramatic departure from his previous work. In that film, he played Joe Kelly, an American airman stationed in Kobe, Japan during the Korean War, who falls in love with Katsumi, a Japanese woman (played by Miyoshi Umeki), but is barred from marrying her by military rules intended to reassure the local populace that the U.S. presence is temporary. His portrayal of Kelly's calm resolve not to abandon the relationship and touching reassurance of Katsumi impressed audiences and critics alike; both he and Umeki won Academy Awards for the film. After his Oscar-winning role, Buttons performed in numerous feature films, including Hatari!, The Longest Day, Harlow, The Poseidon Adventure, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Pete's Dragon, and 18 Again! with George Burns. Buttons also made many memorable TV appearances on programs including Little House on the Prairie, It's Garry Shandling's Show, ER and Roseanne.
He became a nationally recognizable comedian, and his "Never Got A Dinner" sketch was a standard at the Dean Martin roasts for many years.
Number 71 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time, Buttons received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television, located at 1651 Vine Street.
Personal life
Buttons was married to actress Roxanne Arlen in 1947, but it soon ended in divorce. His next marriage was to Helayne McNorton, from December 8, 1949 until 1963. His last marriage was to Alicia Prats, which lasted from January 27, 1964 until her death in March 2001. Buttons had two children, daughter Amy Buttons Norgress and son Adam Buttons. He was the advertising spokesman for the Century Village, Florida retirement community.
Death
Buttons died of vascular disease on July 13, 2006 at his home in the Century City area of Los Angeles. He was 87 years old. Buttons had been ill for some time and was with family members when he passed away.[1]
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:41 am
Tim Holt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Charles John Holt III
Born February 5, 1919(1919-02-05)
Beverly Hills, California
Died February 15, 1973 (aged 54), aged 54
Shawnee, Oklahoma
Spouse(s) 1) Birdee Stephens (1952 - February 15, 1973) (his death)
2) Virginia Ashcroft (? - ?) (divorced)
3) Alice Harrison (? - ?) (divorced)
Tim Holt (February 5, 1919 - February 15, 1973) was an American film actor.
Early Life and Career
Born Charles John Holt III in Beverly Hills, California, he was the son of actor Jack Holt and his wife, Margaret Woods. He was sent to study at Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana from which he graduated in 1936 then immediately went to work in the Hollywood film business.
After five minor roles, in 1938, at the age of nineteen, Holt had a major role under star Harry Carey in The Law West of Tombstone. It was the first of the many Western films he made during the 1940s. At the same time, his sister, Jennifer Holt, also became a leading star in the Western film genre.
Film Roles
Tim Holt had one of the leading roles in Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), but the following year he became a decorated combat veteran of World War II, flying in the Pacific theatre with the United States Army Air Forces as a B-29 bombardier. He returned to films after the war, appearing as "Virgil Earp" to Henry Fonda's, "Wyatt Earp" in John Ford's Western My Darling Clementine. Holt was next cast in the role that he is probably most remembered for, in a film in which his father also appeared in a small part, portraying "Bob Curtin" next to Humphrey Bogart's character "Fred C. Dobbs" in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, made in 1946. Holt did another four Western films before "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was released in 1948. He made two dozen more Western films until 1952, when the genre's popularity waned. He was then absent from the screen for five years until he starred in a less than successful horror film in 1957. He then appeared in only two more uninspiring motion pictures during the next fourteen years.
Death
In 1973, at the age of fifty-four, Tim Holt died from bone cancer in Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he had been managing a radio station. He was interred in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Harrah, Oklahoma. Harrah, the town in which he and his wife resided, subsequently named Tim Holt Drive in his honor.
In 1991 Tim Holt was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:50 am
Barbara Hershey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Barbara Lynn Herzstein
Born February 5, 1948 (1948-02-05) (age 60)
Hollywood, California
Spouse(s) Stephen Douglas (1992-1993)
[show]Awards
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries/Movie
1990 A Killing in a Small Town
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Miniseries
1991 A Killing in a Small Town
Other Awards
Best Actress Award - Cannes Film Festival
1987 Shy People
1988 A World Apart
Barbara Hershey (born February 5, 1948) is an American actress, known for her many film roles.
Biography
Born Barbara Lynn Herzstein on February 5, 1948 in Hollywood, California to an Irish American mother and a Jewish American father who was a horse-racing columnist, Hershey attended Hollywood High School. Her debut was guest starring in three episodes of Gidget in 1965, which she followed up by being cast in the television series The Monroes (1966). She found working on The Monroes to be such a dispiriting experience that she wrote pseudonymous letters to the producers asking that the show be cancelled. In 1967 she also made a guest appearance on the hit series "Daniel Boone" in an eposide titled, "The Kings Shilling." Her feature film debut was in the 1968 comedy - With Six You Get Eggroll - which also marked Doris Day's final screen appearance. This was followed by the 1969 Glenn Ford western Heaven with a Gun, where one of her co-stars was future Kung Fu star David Carradine. They became a romantic couple and a prominent symbol of the Hollywood counterculture, becoming parents to a child whom they named Free (who later changed his name to Tom).
Later that year came the drama Last Summer, based on the novel by Evan Hunter (better known for his police procedurals written under the pseudonym Ed McBain) and directed by future Mommie Dearest helmsman Frank Perry. The film received an X rating for a graphic rape scene and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for co-star Catherine Burns. During the filming of a scene for Last Summer, a seagull was killed. Hershey felt a sense of personal responsibility for its death and went by the name of Barbara Seagull for several years in the early 1970s as a tribute to the creature.
Her 1970 film The Baby Maker explored the idea of surrogate motherhood many years before it became a mainstream reproductive option and reinforced her image as a free-spirited hippie.
This image helped secure her the starring role in the 1972 Roger Corman production Boxcar Bertha, which was being directed on a typically low Corman budget by a fresh-out-of-film-school Martin Scorsese. During filming, Hershey gave Scorsese a copy of her favorite book - Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ. Adapting that book into a film would become a 16-year labor of love for Scorsese, who would eventually cast Hershey as Mary Magdalene - though not before making her audition, to prove that she had earned it. Hershey's co-star in Boxcar Bertha was once again David Carradine. They would later recreate their love scene in a hay-filled boxcar for a Playboy magazine pictorial.
In 1976, she starred alongside Charlton Heston in The Last Hard Men. However, the hippie label soon became a career impediment and by the late 1970s she was appearing in made-for-TV movies like Flood! and Sunshine Christmas. But her work in Richard Rush's 1980 critical favorite The Stunt Man - her first big screen appearance in four years - began a gradual career renaissance.
Her appearance in the 1981 horror film The Entity - where she played a woman repeatedly raped by an unseen supernatural force - sufficiently impressed Michael Douglas to have him later fight to have her cast as his estranged wife in Falling Down.
Hershey's performance as a manipulative queen bee made a large impression on Woody Allen, who would later foster her mid-80s career revival by casting her in his greatest commercial success Hannah and Her Sisters. She gained increased visibility with performance as Glennis Yeager, wife of test pilot Chuck Yeager, in Philip Kaufman's 1983 film, The Right Stuff. In mid-decade, she followed the commercial success of Hannah and Her Sisters with unprecedented back-to-back wins for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Shy People and for A World Apart.
For her role in the 1988 Bette Midler melodrama Beaches, she injected collagen into her lips - an act that drew negative media coverage.[1]
In 1990, she won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special for her turn as real-life murderer Candy Morrison in A Killing in a Small Town. Throughout the nineties, Hershey made more small independent films and television projects.
As Madame Merle in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of the Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady, Hershey earned an Oscar nomination and won the Best Supporting Actress award from the National Society of Film Critics. In 1999, Hershey starred in Drowning on Dry Land with Naveen Andrews - with whom she entered into a romantic relationship. During a brief separation in 2005, Andrews fathered a child by another woman. He and Hershey have reconciled.
In 2001, Hershey was part of a largely Australian ensemble cast for the critically successful Australian film Lantana, which also starred Kerry Armstrong, Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush playing a troubled psychiatrist. She appeared in 11:14 in 2003.
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:54 am
Jennifer Jason Leigh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Jennifer L. Morrow
Born February 5, 1962 (1962-02-05) (age 46)
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States
Spouse(s) Noah Baumbach
(2005-present)
Parents Vic Morrow
Barbara Turner
[show]Awards
Golden Globe Awards
Best Ensemble Cast
1994 Short Cuts
Other Awards
NYFCC Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990 Last Exit to Brooklyn and Miami Blues
NYFCC Award for Best Actress
1995 Georgia
Jennifer Jason Leigh (born February 5, 1962) is a Golden Globe- and NYFCC Award-winning American actress who has appeared in numerous films.
Her work has drawn high critical praise. Salon praised her as "one of America's best actors", Paul Verhoeven, who directed her in Flesh & Blood, similarly claimed "There is no greater actress working in America", and in 1994 Vogue claimed "Leigh sets a standard that all future film actresses must attempt to match (She has) an extraordinary range and power. The proof is in her diverse, courageous and mesmerizing body of work". She has already received three separate career tributes - at the Telluride Film Festival in 1993, a special award for her contribution to independent cinema from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2002, and a week-long retrospective showing of her film work held by the American Cinematheque at Los Angeles' Egyptian Theatre in June 2001. In addition to these achievements, Leigh was selected as one of "America's 10 Most Beautiful Women" by Harper's Bazaar in 1989.
Biography
Early life & career
Leigh was born Jennifer L. Morrow in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Combat! actor Vic Morrow and Pollock screenwriter Barbara Turner.[1] Both of Leigh's parents were Jewish, although Leigh was raised mostly without religion.[2] Leigh changed her last name, taking the middle name "Jason" in honor of a family friend, Academy Award-winning actor Jason Robards.
At the age of 14, she attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York and summer acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg. She received her Screen Actors Guild membership in an episode of the TV show Baretta when she was 16. An episode of The Waltons and several TV movies followed, including an unusually powerful portrayal of an anorexic teenager in The Best Little Girl in the World, for which Leigh wasted away to 86lbs under medical supervision. She made her screen debut as a blind, deaf and mute rape victim in the 1980 slasher movie Eyes of a Stranger. In 1982, she played a teenager who gets pregnant in Amy Heckerling's popular high-school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which served as a launching pad for several then-unknown future stars besides Leigh, including Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Phoebe Cates.
Adult roles
As an adult, Leigh gravitated towards portraying fragile, damaged or neurotic characters. She was initially cast as victims - a virginal princess kidnapped and raped by mercenaries in Flesh & Blood (1985), an innocent waitress dismembered with a semi truck in The Hitcher (1986), and a young woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the seedy nightclub inherited from her uncle in Heart of Midnight (1989).
It wasn't until 1990 that Leigh made a significant career breakthrough when she was voted the year's Best Supporting Actress, by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Boston Society of Film Critics for her portrayals of two very different prostitutes: first as the tough, emotionally numb sex worker Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn, and then as the sweet waif whose dreams of suburban bliss are shattered by sociopathic ex-con Alec Baldwin in Miami Blues. She then portrayed an undercover narcotics policewoman who becomes a junkie in the line of duty in Rush (1991), and one of her signature roles: Hedy, the psychotic "roommate from hell" in the thriller Single White Female (1992). She then played a fast-talking, hard-as-nails reporter who has her heart melted by Tim Robbins in the Coen Brothers' surreal comic fantasy The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and won many awards for her eccentrically-mannered portrayal of the writer and poetess Dorothy Parker in Alan Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). Some criticized Leigh's decision to deliver dialogue in a slurring, lock-jawed mumble, but her speech was an accurate impersonation of Dorothy Parker; she received a Golden Globe nomination and Best Actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics Association and Fort Lauderdale Film Critics.
Next up was the role that many critics, fans and even Leigh herself considers the best of her career: Sadie Flood, an angry, drug-addicted barroom rock singer living in the shadow of her successful older sister (played by Mare Winningham) in Georgia (1995). For the role Leigh dropped to 90 pounds (40 kg) and sang all the songs live, including a painful 8½-minute version of Van Morrison's "Take Me Back". Critic Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that "(Leigh's) fierce, funny, exasperating and deeply affecting portrayal commands attention", James Berardinelli claimed "There are times when it's uncomfortable to watch this performance because it's so powerful", while Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said "Leigh's exceptional performance tears you apart we've never seen anything like it before". This time around she won Best Actress awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and Montreal World Film Festival, though not the expected Oscar nomination that still eludes her.
Other memorable Leigh roles of this era included a jaded phone sex operator who diapers her newborn baby while plying her trade in Robert Altman's Academy Award-nominated masterpiece Short Cuts (1993), Kathy Bates' tormented, pill-popping daughter in the Stephen King adaptation Dolores Claiborne (1995), a streetwise kidnapper in Altman's jazz tribute Kansas City (1996), a mousy 19th century spinster heiress courted by a gold-digger in Washington Square (1997), and a virtual-reality game designer hunted by terrorists in David Cronenberg's surreal eXistenZ (1999). In 2001 she joined forces with Scottish actor Alan Cumming to write, direct and produce a film together, shot in 19 days on digital video and starring real-life Hollywood friends like Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Beals, John C. Reilly and Parker Posey. The result was The Anniversary Party, a well-received ensemble comedy in the style of The Big Chill or Peter's Friends. Leigh and Cumming jointly received a citation for Excellence in Filmmaking from the National Board of Review, and were nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay.
More recently Leigh has been cast in smaller character roles: as gangster Tom Hanks' doomed wife in Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition (2002), as Meg Ryan's brutally murdered sister in Jane Campion's In the Cut (2003), and as Christian Bale's sympathetic hooker girlfriend in the dark thriller The Machinist (2004) (causing Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle to comment that, "As the downtrodden, sexy, trusting and quietly funny prostitute, Leigh is, of course, in her element"). Her performance as a manipulative stage mother in Childstar won her a Genie Award in 2005.
Also a stage actress, Leigh took on the singing, dancing lead role of Sally Bowles in the popular musical Cabaret on Broadway from August 4, 1998 to February 28, 1999, and took over from Mary-Louise Parker in Proof from September 13, 2001 to June 30, 2002. Other theatrical appearances include The Glass Menagerie, Man of Destiny, The Shadow Box, Picnic, Sunshine and Abigail's Party.
Other work
Leigh's least favorite role was as a normal girlfriend in the popular 1991 firefighting drama Backdraft; Hollywood legend has it that Leigh told director Ron Howard, "The only role I want to play in this film is the fire".
She filmed a role for Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), but when Kubrick wanted to do re-shoots, she was unavailable and her entire part was redone with another actress. In 1997, she was featured in Faith No More's music video for "Last Cup of Sorrow".
She turned down roles in sex, lies, and videotape (1989), Pretty Woman (1990), Singles (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), Boogie Nights (1997) and The Brown Bunny (2003), and narrowly missed out on Linda Hamilton's role in The Terminator (1984) and the Clarice Starling role in Hannibal (2001). She was one of several actresses considered by Jane Campion for the Holly Hunter role in The Piano (1993), but she was unable to meet with her because she was shooting Rush at the time. She also turned down the role of Libby, which was eventually played by Cynthia Watros, on ABC's popular thriller series Lost.[3]
Leigh is known for doing extensive method acting research in every role, including keeping diaries written in the character's voice, and in the past has interviewed psychiatrists, mental patients, drug addicts, sexual abuse survivors, prostitutes and phone sex workers to prepare for her roles.[4]
Personal life
When Leigh was 20 years old, her father was killed when a helicopter stunt went awry while shooting Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Leigh and her sister filed suit against Warner Brothers, John Landis and Steven Spielberg. They settled out of court a year later and the terms of the settlement have never been made public. Leigh and her boyfriend of four years, Academy Award-nominated independent film writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), were married on September 3, 2005.[5] Baumbach directed Margot at the Wedding which starred Leigh opposite Nicole Kidman and Jack Black.
She has been best friends with her Fast Times at Ridgemont High / The Anniversary Party co-star Phoebe Cates for over 25 years. Other close friends include Mare Winningham, Jennifer Beals, Alan Cumming and John C. Reilly. Her stepfather is television director Reza Badiyi.[6]
According to various magazine interviews and her 1999 guest slot on the TV show Inside the Actors Studio, Leigh is a fan of the photographer Nan Goldin, and the musicians Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Liz Phair and Ella Fitzgerald. Her favorite films include My Night at Maud's, Dog Day Afternoon, Forbidden Games (aka Jeux interdits), Naked, Sweetie, Born Free and The Fly.
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bobsmythhawk
1
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 07:55 am
A local United Way office realized that the organization had never received a donation from the town's most successful lawyer. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.
"Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $700,000, you give not a penny to charity. Wouldn't you like to give back to the community in some way?"
The lawyer mulled this over for a moment and replied, "First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?"
Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbled, "Um ... no."
The lawyer interrupts, "or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?"
The stricken United Way rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.
"or that my sister's husband died in a traffic accident," the lawyer's voice rising in indignation, "leaving her penniless with three children?!"
The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, said simply, "I had no idea..."
On a roll, the lawyer cut him off once again, "So if I don't give any money to them, why should I give any to you?"
0 Replies
Letty
1
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 08:15 am
Good morning, BioBob. UhOh, another lawyer joke and a damn good one, hawkman. Hmmm, folks, wonder where Ticomaya is.
I read your background on Barbara Hershey, but couldn't find her "villain" role in the movie, The Natural. Perhaps I missed it.
Well, she was really good in Beaches, so let's hear the song by Bette from that flick.
The Natural (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Directed by Barry Levinson
Produced by Mark Johnson
Written by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry,
(based on a novel by Bernard Malamud)
Starring Robert Redford
Robert Duvall
Glenn Close
Kim Basinger
Barbara Hershey,
Darren McGavin,
Wilford Brimley
Richard Farnsworth
Distributed by TriStar Pictures
Release date(s) May 11, 1984
Running time 137 Min
144 Min Director's Cut
Language English
Budget $28,000,000
IMDb profile
For the book upon which this film is based, see The Natural.
The Natural is a 1984 film adaption of Bernard Malamud's 1952 baseball novel of the same name. The film was directed by Barry Levinson and stars Robert Redford. The film, like the book, recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent. Early in the film, Roy's father tells him that his success will involve his natural ability less than how hard he works to be successful. The remainder of the film chronicles Roy's trials and suffering.
The Natural was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close), and nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger). Many of the baseball scenes were filmed in Buffalo, New York's War Memorial Stadium, built in 1937 and demolished a few years after the film was produced. Buffalo's All-High Stadium stood in for Chicago's Wrigley Field in a key scene.
Darren McGavin was cast late in the process and went unbilled in the film; the other uncredited actor was the radio announcer heard from time to time throughout the picture. As Levinson stated on the DVD extras for the 2007 edition, there had been too little time to find a bona fide announcer during post-production, so Levinson himself recorded that part of the audio track.
Plot
The movie begins with Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) as a grown man, looking rather old for his mission, silently awaiting a train that will take him to New York for a last chance at baseball. The specifics of his early career are not revealed until later. The film then cuts to a lengthy flashback showing Hobbs as a young boy playing baseball on an American farm, somewhere in the Midwest, with his father. He is obviously a highly-talented baseball player. When a tree, under which his father had died, is destroyed by lightning, Roy takes a piece of the tree and makes a bat from it, on which he burns a lightning bolt and the label 'Wonderboy'. He carries the bat with him throughout his career, in a trombone case.
Hobbs embarks on his baseball career, not as a batter but an ace pitcher. Enroute to Chicago for a tryout with the Cubs, the teenage farm boy accepts a wager to throw three pitches to "The Whammer" (Joe Don Baker), the top hitter in the major leagues. He promptly strikes him out on three straight pitches. Honorable, but young, and a bit cocksure, the young Hobbs is seduced by Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), an alluring but dark and sinister woman who gravitates to him after judging that he is the best baseball player who ever lived. In a hotel room, Bird shoots Hobbs in the mid-section.
The story skips forward 16 years to 1939 (the Baseball Centennial patches on the uniforms being a clue to date the movie). Hobbs is now 35 and has just arrived in New York by train. He helps a down-on-their-luck, fictitious National League team called the New York Knights and is signed by a scout (in a blunder that later turns out to be part of the movie's main subplot) who thinks he is a washout, without consulting the team's manager and co-owner. The gruff manager, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley) is unimpressed by the aged Hobbs. However, Hobbs refuses to leave, and eventually gets a chance to take batting practice, where he hits every ball well past the fence. Still skeptical, Fisher agrees to let Hobbs play. In Hobbs's first at bat in a major league game, Pop Fisher tells Hobbs to knock the cover off the ball, not expecting Hobbs to do just that. Hobbs literally knocks the cover off the ball, sending an unraveling ball of string into the outfield for a triple. From that point on, Hobbs hits massive home runs time after time, rising to stardom and reversing the bottom-dwelling Knights' fortunes.
Despite his seemingly supernatural talent, Hobbs and his abilities are vulnerable to temptation. An unscrupulous and cynical reporter, Max Mercy (Robert Duvall), hounds Hobbs through the season. The mystery of those 16 years is slowly revealed as Roy's childhood sweetheart, Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), returns to his life. It is later revealed that an encounter between Roy and Iris 16 years earlier had produced a son.
The corrupt owner of the Knights, The Judge (Robert Prosky), tries to persuade, and even bribe, Hobbs to throw the remainder of the season owing to a contractual agreement between The Judge and Pop Fisher, whereby The Judge will obtain full ownership from Pop if the team fails to win the pennant. Hobbs feels strong loyalty to Pop, particularly as Pop has confided to him that his one dream is to win the pennant; Pop doesn't care about winning the World Series, he just wants to be there. Hobbs cares little about money and stands firm against The Judge's attempts to buy his honor. However, The Judge realizes Hobbs's one weakness - he can be corrupted by a woman. A gambler associate of The Judge, Gus Sands (Darren McGavin), introduces Hobbs to his mistress, Memo Paris (Kim Basinger).
Hobbs battles through many distractions and adversities, including succumbing to the sexual persuasions of Memo, who, while not as clearly sinister as the woman who shot him years ago, is most definitely an amoral and corrupting character. As Roy falls further into Memo's embrace and away from his honor, his play suffers. Before the pennant-deciding game, Hobbs eventually resolves to break free of Memo's and The Judge's web, and The Judge resorts to poisoning Hobbs (leading to a re-aggravation of the injuries to his stomach sustained in the shooting). Up until the last minute it is doubtful Hobbs will be able to play, after he collapses while attempting batting practice (against doctor's orders).
Hobbs, of course, plays in the game even as his stomach bleeds through to his shirt. The game stays close, but the Knights trail by two after their pitcher, who has also been paid off by the Judge's underworld associates, intentionally gives up a two-run home run. Iris Gaines, his childhood sweetheart, is in the stands. She is with a boy, who looks to be about 16 and bears a striking resemblance to Hobbs. After Hobbs struggles at the plate and strikes out several times, Iris hurriedly passes a note down through the crowd to Hobbs. He reads it, presumably saying that the boy is his son.
Roy comes to bat in the bottom of the ninth, with a chance to win the game. His stomach is bleeding more than ever, and he realizes that he may die. As Hobbs steps up to the batter's box, the lightning flashes again, and Hobbs swings Wonderboy and connects. But he gets around on it: hard and dead foul. Having dropped the bat, Hobbs looks down and sees that Wonderboy has shattered. No longer able to depend on his seemingly magical bat, Hobbs keeps his emotions in check and tells the bat boy to "pick me out a winner, Bobby." The youngster selects a bat that Hobbs had helped him make earlier: "Savoy Special". Roy takes the bat. Their eyes meet as Bobby hands him the bat just as a camera bulb flashes.
Hobbs's stomach has started bleeding visibly, and he accepts the fact that the biggest swing of his life could disable or kill him. Hobbs shrugs off the umpire's concern about the bleeding, telling him to play ball and staring down the pitcher. Hobbs hits a towering fly ball, a pennant-winning home run, which soars into the stadium's lights and starts a chain reaction that bursts the lights and rains sparks down over the field, backed by Randy Newman's iconic score.
The Knights have won the pennant, and true to Pop Fisher's dream, we don't see what happens in the World Series. It's the end of baseball for Hobbs, and the film ends with a scene of Hobbs playing catch with his son in a sun-dappled wheat field, with Iris standing by.
Production
The film's producers stated in the DVD extras that the film was not intended to be a filmization of the novel, but was merely "based on" the novel. Malamud's daughter said on one of the DVD extras that her father had seen the film, and his take on it was that it had "legitimized him as a writer."[1]
Darren McGavin was cast late in the process and was uncredited in the film. Another uncredited actor was the radio announcer heard from time to time throughout the picture; Levinson stated on the DVD extras for the 2007 edition that there had been too little time to find a bona fide announcer during post-production, so Levinson himself recorded that part of the audio track[2] (and probably also that of the scout, who appears in just two lines, over the phone).
Many of the baseball scenes were filmed during the summer of 1983 in Buffalo, New York's War Memorial Stadium,[3] built in 1937 and demolished a few years after the film was produced. Buffalo's All-High Stadium stood in for Chicago's Wrigley Field in a key scene in the film.[citation needed]
Release
Critical reception
Critics were not universally impressed when the film appeared. Leonard Maltin's annual Movie Guide said in its 1985 edition that the film is "too long and inconsistent." Dan Craft, long-time critic for the Bloomington, Illinois paper, The Pantagraph (May 19, 1984), gave it three stars, while saying, "The storybook ending is so preposterous you don't know whether to cheer or jeer." Frank DeFord, reviewing the film for Sports Illustrated (May 21, 1984, p.71), had faint praise for it: "The Natural almost manages to be a swell movie." Both John Simon of the National Review and Richard Schikel of Time were disappointed with the screen adaptation of Malamud's novel. Simon contrasted Malamud's story about the "failure of American innocence" with Levinson's "fable of success . . . [and] the ultimate triumph of semi-doltish purity," declaring "you have, not Malamud's novel, but a sorry illustration of its theme."[4] Schickel laments that "Malamud's intricate ending (it is a victory that looks like a defeat) is vulgarized (the victory is now an unambiguous triumph, fireworks included)," and that "watching this movie is all too often like reading about The Natural in the College Outline series."[5]
Roger Ebert fairly savaged it, calling it "idolatry on behalf of Robert Redford."[6] Ebert's television collaborator Gene Siskel praised its themes and acting performances, giving it four stars.[7]
Awards
The Natural was nominated for four Academy Awards: Actress in a Supporting Role (Glenn Close), Cinematography, Art Direction (Caleb Deschanel), and Music (Randy Newman).[8] Kim Basinger was also nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.[citation needed]
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Raggedyaggie
1
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Tue 5 Feb, 2008 08:58 am
Good morning WA2K.
Still laughing at the lawyer joke.
Letty: In the "Natural", Barbara Hershey played the deranged woman who's desire was to kill "the best" in every sport. She lured Robert Redford's character into a hotel room and then shot him in the stomach with a silver bullet.
Birthday gallery: Belle Starr; John Carradine; Red buttons; Tim Holt; Barbara Hershey and Jennifer Jason Leigh
