Hey, Raggedy. Thanks for the great sextet of notables. I love it when we all talk at cross purposes. I told BioBob that I didn't see Barbara Hershey's role as a villian in his background info, so he did the whole bit about the movie. I knew that, because I saw The Natural and loved it. If I recall correctly, the movie didn't do so well at the box office because ET phone home was playing at the same time. Need to check that out, however.
I know that I have read short stories by Benard Malamud, but I cannot locate a one with which I am familiar.
Ok, Let's hear a song about "Single White Female" that starred Jennifer Jason Lee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krzCeKZxfQ8
Bernard Malamud
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 - March 18, 1986) was an American writer, allegorist, and a well-known Jewish-American author. He has received international acclaim for his novels and short stories. His 1952 baseball novel The Natural was adapted into a film starring Robert Redford.
Biography
Bernard Malamud was born April 26, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York to Russian Jewish immigrants, Max and Bertha (Fidelman) Malamud. His brother, Eugene, was born in 1917. Bernard attended high school in Brooklyn and during those years he often visited the movie houses and after would describe the plots to his schoolhood friends. He was especially fond of Charlie Chaplin's comedies. From 1928 to 1932 he attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.[1] He received his Bachelor's degree from City College of New York in 1936. He worked for a year at $4.50 a day as a teacher-in-training, before attending college on a government loan. Malamud later earned his Master's degree from Columbia University in 1942. Malamud aspired to teach English, however, the scarcity of work in pre-World War II New York led him to find work in Washington, D.C., with the Bureau of the Census. In 1949 he began teaching at Oregon State University, an experience that he would later fictionalize in his novel A New Life (1961). He left this post in 1961 to teach creative writing at Bennington College in Vermont.
Writing career
Malamud began actively writing short stories in 1941 and in 1943 he published his first stories, "Benefit Performance" in Threshold and "The Place Is Different Now" in American Preface.
In 1948, at the age of 34, he had completed his first novel but he eventually burned it. In the early 1950s, many stories began appearing in Harper's Bazaar, Partisan Review, and Commentary.
The Natural, Malamud's first novel, was published during 1952. The novel is one of his best remembered and most symbolic works. The story traces the life of Roy Hobbs, an unknown middle-aged baseball player who reaches legendary status with his stellar talent. Malamud's fiction touches lightly upon mythic elements and explores themes as initiation and isolation. The Natural also focuses upon a recurring writing technique that marked much of Malumud's works.
Malamud's second novel, The Assistant (1957), set in New York and drawing on Malamud's own childhood, is an account of the life of Morris Bober, a Jewish immigrant who owns a grocery store in Brooklyn. Although he is struggling financially, Bober takes in a drifter of dubious character.
Most of the short stories in Malamud's first collection, The Magic Barrel (1958), depict the search for hope and meaning within the bleak enclosures of poor urban settings. The title story focuses on the unlikely relationship of Leo Finkle, an unmarried rabbinical student, and Pinye Salzman, a colorful marriage broker. Finkle has spent most of life with his nose buried in books and therefore isn't well-educated in life itself. However, Finkle has a greater interest - the art of romance. He engages the services of Salzman, who shows Finkle a number of potential brides from his "magic barrel" but with each picture Finkle grows more disinterested. After Salzman convinces him to meet Lily Hirschorn, Finkle realizes his life is truly empty and lacking the passion to love God or humanity. When Finkle discovers a picture of Salzman's daughter and sees her suffering, he sets out on a new mission to save her. Other well-known stories included in the collection are: The Last Mohican, Angel Levine, Idiots First, and The Mourners, a story which focuses on Kessler, the defiant old man in need of 'social security' and Gruber, the belligerent landlord who doesn't want Kessler in the tenement anymore.
He is most renowned for his short stories, oblique allegories often set in a dreamlike urban ghetto of immigrant Jews. His prose, like his settings, is an artful pastiche of Yiddish-English locutions, punctuated by sudden lyricism. On Malamud's death, Philip Roth wrote: "A man of stern morality, [Malamud was driven by] a need to consider long and seriously every last demand of an overtaxed, overtaxing conscience torturously exacerbated by the pathos of human need unabated".[citation needed]
The Fixer, won the National Book Award in 1966 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Malamud's novel The Natural was made into a movie starring Robert Redford (described by the film writer David Thomson as "poor baseball and worse Malamud"). Among his other novels were Dubin's Lives, a powerful evocation of middle age which uses biography to recreate the narrative richness of its protagonists' lives, and The Tenants, an arguably meta-narrative on Malamud's own writing and creative struggles, which, set in New York, deals with racial issues and the emergence of black/African American literature in the American 1970s landscape. Malamud taught at Oregon State University from 1949-1961.
Marriage
In 1942 Malamud met Ann De Chiara (November 1, 1917 - March 20, 2007), an Italian-American Roman Catholic, who was then working at an advertising firm. They married on November 6, 1945, over the opposition of both Malamud and De Chiara's parents. They had two children, Paul (b. 1947) and Janna (b. 1952).
Ann Malamud, a 1939 Cornell University graduate, typed 100 application letters for a college teaching job for her husband. She also typed and reviewed his manuscripts.
Janna Malamud Smith relates her memories of her father in her memoir, My Father is a Book.
Major Themes, Historical Perspectives, and Personal Issues
Writing in the last third of the twentieth century, Malamud was aware of social problems: rootlessness, infidelity, abuse, divorce, and more, but he believes in love as redemptive and sacrifice as uplifting. Often, success depends on cooperation between antagonists. In The Mourners, for example, landlord and tenant learn from each other's anguish. In The Magic Barrel, the matchmaker worries about his "fallen" daughter, while the daughter and the rabbinic student are drawn together by their need for love and salvation.
Quotations
"I write a book or a short story three times. Once to understand her, the second time to improve her prose, and a third to compel her to say what it still must say."
"It was all those biographies in me yelling, "We want out. We want to tell you what we've done to you."
"Once you've got some words looking back at you, you can take two or three-or throw them away and look for others."
"Where there's no fight for it there's no freedom. What is it Spinoza says? If the state acts in ways that are abhorrent to human nature it's the lesser evil to destroy it."
"All men are Jews, though few men know it."
"Life responds to one's moves with comic counterinventions."
"Without heroes we would all be plain people and wouldn't know how far we can go."
"Life is a tragedy full of joy."
"I write...to explain life to myself and to keep me related to men."
Awards
National Book Award
(1959) Fiction, The Magic Barrel
(1967) Fiction, The Fixer
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
(1967) The Fixer
O. Henry Award
(1969) Man in the Drawer
PEN/Malamud Award
Given annually since 1988 in honor of the late Bernard Malamud, The PEN/Malamud Award recognizes excellence in the art of the short story. The basis of the award fund was a $10,000 bequest from Mr. Malamud to the PEN American Center; the fund continues to grow through the generosity of many members of PEN and other friends, and with the proceeds from the annual readings.
Previous winners include such notable authors as John Updike (1988), Saul Bellow (1989), Eudora Welty (1992), Joyce Carol Oates (1996), Alice Munro (1997), Sherman Alexie (2001), Ursula K. Le Guin (2002), and Tobias Wolff (2006).
Bibliography
The Natural (novel) (1952)
The Assistant (novel) (1957)
The Magic Barrel (short story collection) (1958)
A New Life (novel) (1961)
Idiots First (short story collection) (1963)
The Jewbird (1963)
The German Refugee (1964)
The Fixer (novel) (1966)
Pictures of Fidelman (short story collection) (1969)
The Tenants (novel) (1971)
Rembrandt's Hat (short story collection) (1974)
Dubin's Lives (novel) (1979)
God's Grace (novel) (1982)
The Stories of Bernard Malamud (short story collection) (1983)
The People and Uncollected Stories (unfinished novel short story collection) (1989)
The Complete Stories (1997)
Bob, as a result of your information, I was able to recall the short story that I liked best by Bernard. It was "The First Seven Years." What irony lies in the outcome of that short story, Boston, and thank you for the inspiration.
Here's a song that fits the situation, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVWo4qVcFFM
Hey, Rex. I like Peter, Paul, and Mary as well. I always read that as "If I had a hamster."
The Mardi Gras in New Orleans is in full swing, and guess who is still playing, folks.?
Let's listen to Pete Fountain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61WTC4vTot0
Hey, edgar. I liked that country song, buddy. I like a new moon as well. Thanks, Texas.
Here's a Monday new moon song by the guys who were considered as the second British invasion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjAnMuAkCd4
these two are certainly not LIGHTWEIGHT , but ... ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPbtvJibKEU
I've always loved this song by Chuck Berry. If you listen to this and then listen to Surfin USA, you will realize they are the same song with the words changed up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJJpiw2RBc
Ah, hbg. I love the tango. What a great job that couple did, Canada. Thanks for the memory of Rudolph. <smile>
edgar, indeed that is the melody to Surfin USA. Nothing new under the sun, right Texas?
Boy, folks, am I confused. I was looking for a rhumba and came up with this one. Have no idea who this particular Vanessa Williams is, but the song sounds as though it's done in Spanish.
Let's listen, and perhaps one of you can tell me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os4dWaqmwgY
My word. That was Vanessa Williams of Bill Cosby fame. I didn't recognize her.
Time to say goodnight, all, and this song by The Beatles (well, one of them at least) will be my sign off song.
Now it's time to say good night
Good night, sleep tight
Now the sun turns out its light
Good night, sleep tight
Dream sweet dreams for me
Dream sweet dreams for you
Oooooooooooh.
Good night.......
Goodnight to all of you.
From Letty with love
Letty wrote:Hey, edgar. I liked that country song, buddy. I like a new moon as well. Thanks, Texas.
Here's a Monday new moon song by the guys who were considered as the second British invasion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjAnMuAkCd4
Good one Letty!
Gosh, the internet is such a wonderful place for ideas to flourish.
Thx!
Ten years ago Falco died in a car accident. Something to remember him...
Falco - Out of the dark
Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.
hbg, thanks for the Cuban melody; however, the tom toms overshadowed the singers and their guitars, buddy.
Yes, Rex. The internet is amazing as are the phases of the moon.
Urs, I did some research on Falco. Such a pity, gal, concerning his death. Great voice, and I really liked Out of the Dark. Thanks for the introduction and the tribute.
Speaking of tribute, y'all, today is Natalie Cole's birthday, so how about one of my favorites this morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-b7dLq11jI
Mornin', edgar. I think, perhaps, that Bukowski is another example of why poets should NOT read their own creations. Hmmm, so he is considered the poet laureate of skid row? Thanks, Texas, for the introduction.
Well, to follow the theme of "poetry and motion", here is another "less than perfect" vocalist. Hey, we do everything on our cyber radio station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPM5khluZWE
Good Morning WA2K and a Happy
91st to Zsa Zsa Gabor; 77th to Rip Torn; 77th to Mamie Van Doren; 68th to Tom Brokaw and 65th to Fabian
(as they were then)
and a Good Day to all.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Sári Gábor
Born February 6, 1917 (1917-02-06) (age 91)
Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Spouse(s) Burhan Belge
(1937-1941)
Conrad Hilton
(1942-1947)
George Sanders
(1949-1954)
Herbert Hutner
(1962-1966)
Joshua S. Cosden, Jr.
(1966-1967)
Jack Ryan
(1975-1976)
Michael O'Hara
(1976-1982)
Felipe de Alba
(1983-1983)
Frédéric von Anhalt
(1986- Present)
[show]Awards
Golden Globe Awards
Special Award
1958 Most Glamorous Actress
Zsa Zsa Gábor (born February 6, 1917) is a Hungarian-born American actress and socialite.
Biography
Early life
Zsa Zsa Gábor was born Sári Gábor in Budapest, Hungary on February 6, 1917, the daughter of Jolie Gábor (née Tilleman), a manager, and Vilmos Gábor, a soldier.[1] She had two sisters, Magda and Éva, both well-known actresses and socialites. Gabor's mother was born Jewish and was related to Annette Tillemann, the wife of politician Tom Lantos.[2] Gabor was named after the then top Hungarian actress Sári Fedák, also called Zsa Zsa because her daughter was unable to pronounce the name Sári, which is Hungarian for Sarah. (The Gábors's family name is Hungarian for Gabriel; hence, "Sári Gábor," her real name, is Hungarian for "Sarah Gabriel.") Following studies at a Swiss boarding-school Gábor won the Miss Hungary beauty contest in 1936, but was disqualified for being underage. On a trip to Vienna in the same year she was discovered by the famous tenor Richard Tauber and was invited to sing the soubrette rôle in his new operetta Der singende Traum ("The Singing Dream") at the Theater an der Wien, her first stage appearance. At the time she had a romance with a composer named Willi Schmidt-Kentner, according to the 1960 "bio-autobiography" Zsa Zsa Gábor, by Gerold Frank.
Personal life
Gabor has been married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage was annulled. Her husbands, in chronological order, are:
Burhan Belge (1937 - 1941) (divorced)
Conrad Hilton (April 10, 1942 - 1947) (divorced)
George Sanders (April 2, 1949 - April 2, 1954) (divorced)
Herbert Hutner (November 5, 1962 - March 3, 1966) (divorced)
Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. (March 9, 1966 - October 18, 1967) (divorced)
Jack Ryan (January 21, 1975 - 1976) (divorced)
Michael O'Hara (August 27, 1976 - 1982) (divorced)
Felipe de Alba (April 13, 1983 - April 14, 1983) (annulled)
Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (August 14, 1986 to present)
In 1974, Gabor purchased from Elvis Presley a two-story Bel Air home with an eccentric-looking French roof, built by Howard Hughes. There is a magnificent view of Los Angeles from the pool area. She was not married at the time of the purchase making it possible, according to Zsa Zsa, to add a three-tiered closet thirty feet long, twelve feet wide, and fourteen feet high. The closet contained over 5,000 garments that were sorted through and given to charities, with the exception of her classically designed gowns, every one to two years?-about 30,000 dollars worth of designer clothing every year.[citations needed]
Gábor is the only Gábor sister to bear a child. According to Gábor's book One Lifetime Is Not Enough her pregnancy resulted from her being raped by Conrad Hilton.[citation needed] Hilton and Gabor's only child, born after their divorce, is Francesca Hilton (Gabor) born March 10, 1947. In 2005, Zsa Zsa accused her daughter, Francesca, of larceny and fraud, and filed a lawsuit against her in a California court.[3]
In the late 1950s, Zsa Zsa had dinner with Frank Sinatra at LaRue's on the Sunset Strip and spent only one romantic evening with him. Gabor also had a relationship with Porfirio Rubirosa, a noted Dominican international playboy and sometime diplomat. She refused to leave George Sanders to marry Rubirosa, whereupon Rubirosa married Barbara Hutton (for seventy-three days) and then renewed his relationship with Zsa Zsa. Zsa Zsa claims that Rubirosa proposed to her every time he could, and would change the subject when she refused. She just wouldn't budge. They had a four-year relationship and were at one time engaged. Technically, Zsa Zsa broke the engagement when "Rubi" claimed he would break the engagement if she took a part in the movie Death of a Scoundrel which starred her ex-husband George Sanders.
Gabor's initial fame came from her work as an actress, and grew from her public appearances in the 1970s and 1980s.
Legal difficulties
The 1989 mugshot of Zsa Zsa Gabor.On June 14, 1989 Gabor was accused of slapping the face of a Beverly Hills police officer named Paul Kramer when he stopped her for a traffic violation.[4] She was found guilty of the assault in a well-publicized trial and sentenced to three days (72 hours) in the El Segundo jail--and the judge required her to pay $13,000 in court costs. She testified that her behavior had been provoked by the officer, who she said had behaved extremely rudely and insulted her with obscenities.
Gabor poked fun at her role in the incident in various cameo appearances:
In the 1991 film The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, Zsa Zsa was pulled over by the police car at the end of the opening credits. She then proceeded to step out of the car and slap the red light, then walked away, muttering, "Ach, this happens every ******* time when I go shopping."
In the 1993 film version of The Beverly Hillbillies: she claimed that the officer had slapped her in what was described as a "drive-by slapping."
In A Very Brady Sequel: she gloated upon the publicity she earned from the incident.
In the November 18, 1991, season 2, episode 10 of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: when Gabor showed up as a guest at the Banks' residence, Hilary asked, "There's something that I'm just dying to know." Zsa Zsa responded by saying, "Yes, I did it...and he deserved to be slapped." Subsequently, Carlton accidentally slapped a cop when trying to slap his cousin Will, Zsa Zsa replied by saying, "I have witnesses, it wasn't me."
Recent health
Gabor was a passenger in an automobile accident that occurred on November 27, 2002. She was initially reported as being in a coma when she was actually conscious at the time medical assistance arrived. She left the hospital in early January 2003 but required continued physical therapy. She sued and was awarded $2 million.
On July 7, 2005, Gabor suffered a massive stroke leaving her in critical condition at a local hospital. She underwent surgery to remove a blockage in her carotid artery. She returned home on July 15 and was said to be making a good recovery.
In early September 2007, Gabor underwent surgery to deal with after-effects of her previous stroke. On September 18, 2007 Gabor underwent successful surgery to treat a leg infection which developed as a result of her immobility.[5]
Patrick Macnee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Daniel Patrick Macnee
Born 6 February 1922 (1922-02-06) (age 86)
Paddington, London, England
Patrick Macnee (born 6 February 1922) is an English-born actor, best known as the inimitable secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers
Biography
Early life
Macnee, an only child, was born Daniel Patrick Macnee in Paddington, London [1], the son of Dorothea Mary (née Henry) and Daniel "Shrimp" Macnee, a race horse trainer. [2]. His maternal grandmother was Frances Alice Hastings, who descended from the Earls of Huntingdon - Macnee has long suggested that he may be a distant relation of Robin Hood, sometimes said to have been a black sheep of the Huntingdon family. Macnee's great-grandfather was Scottish portrait artist Sir Daniel Macnee and he is a cousin of the magician David Nixon.
His parents divorced after his mother declared her lesbianism and had a live-in partner (referred to in Macnee's memoirs as "Uncle Evelyn") who helped pay for young Patrick's schooling. He was educated at Eton College, was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and was awarded the Atlantic Star for his service during World War II. After nurturing his acting career in Canada, Macnee appeared in supporting roles in a number of films, notably in the Gene Kelly vehicle Les Girls (as an Old Bailey barrister) and opposite Anthony Quayle in the 1956 war movie The Battle of the River Plate. He had a small role in the 1951 version of Scrooge (A Christmas Carol in the U. S.) as young Jacob Marley. He became an American citizen in 1959.
The Avengers
Despite numerous roles in theatre, on television and in cinema, Macnee is still best known as John Steed in the series The Avengers (broadcast from 1961 to 1969). Initially a secondary character ?- the series was conceived as a vehicle for Ian Hendry, who played an associate of Steed's ?- Steed (and Macnee) became the centre of the show after Hendry's departure at the end of the first season. He played opposite a succession of female partners that included Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and finally Linda Thorson. Steed was also the central character of a revival, The New Avengers, in which he was teamed with Purdey, portrayed by Joanna Lumley, and Mike Gambit, played by Gareth Hunt.
Although Macnee evolved the role as the series progressed, the key elements of Steed's persona and appearance were there from very early on: the slightly mysterious demeanour, and increasingly, the light, suave, flirting tone with ladies (and always with his female assistants). Finally, from the episodes with Honor Blackman onwards, the trademark bowler hat and umbrella completed the image. Traditionally associated with London 'city gents', the suit, umbrella and bowler had developed in the post-war years as mufti for ex-servicemen attending Armistice Day ceremonies. Macnee, alongside designer Pierre Cardin, adapted the look into a style all his own, and he went on to design several outfits himself for Steed based on the same basic theme.
During the 1960s, Macnee co-wrote two original novels based upon The Avengers: Dead Duck and Deadline. In 1988, he wrote his autobiography entitled Blind in One Ear. In 1995, he hosted a documentary, The Avengers: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas.
Later roles
Macnee's other notable roles have included playing 'Sir Godfrey Tibbett' opposite his friend Roger Moore in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, as 'Major Crossley' in The Sea Wolves (again with Moore), guest roles in Alias Smith and Jones, Hart to Hart, Murder, She Wrote, Battlestar Galactica and The Love Boat. Ironically, though Macnee found fame as the heroic Steed, the majority of his guest appearances have been in villainous roles. He also presented the American paranormal series, Mysteries, Magic and Miracles.
Macnee had recurring roles in the crime series Gavilan with Robert Urich and in the 1984 satire on big business, Empire as the menacing M.D. 'Calvin Cromwell'. In 1984, Macnee appeared in Magnum, P.I. as a retired British agent who believes he is Sherlock Holmes (in a season 4 episode entitled Holmes Is Where The Heart Is). He in fact had played Dr Watson to Roger Moore's Sherlock Holmes in a 1976 TV movie, Sherlock Holmes in New York and went on to play Holmes in another TV movie, The Hound of London (1993). He played Watson in two TV movies with Christopher Lee (Incident at Victoria Falls and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady).
He also appeared in several cult movies: in The Howling as 'Dr George Waggner' (named whimsically after the director of 1941's The Wolf Man) and as 'Sir Denis Eton-Hogg' in the rockumentary comedy This is Spinal Tap. He took over Leo G. Carroll's role as the head of U.N.C.L.E. in The Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1983. Patrick starred in the 1990s science fiction series Super Force as E.B. Hungerford (called "MR. H." by lab assistant F.X.) in the pilot and his computer counter-part; after his character was killed. MacNee also appeared as a supporting character in the 1989 science fiction parody, Lobster Man from Mars, as Prof. Plocostomos.
Macnee serves as the narrator for several "behind-the-scenes" featurettes featured on the James Bond series of DVDs. He lent his voice in a cameo as 'Invisible Jones' in the 1998 critically lambasted film version of The Avengers (in which Steed was played by Ralph Fiennes), and he also featured in two pop videos: in his Steed persona in The Pretenders' video Don't Get Me Wrong, and in the Oasis' video of their song Don't Look Back in Anger in 1996, with the familiar smart suit and umbrella, but minus the bowler hat.
Personal life
Macnee has two children, Rupert and Jenny, from his first marriage to Barbara Douglas (from 1942 to 1956). His second marriage (1965 - 1969) was to actress Katherine Woodville. He has been married to third wife Baba Majos de Nagyzsenye since 1988. They live in southern California, USA, dividing their time between Rancho Mirage and La Jolla in the summer.
