View allAll Photos Tagged Repressed
HIJRAS
the equivalent to
crossdressers
transgenders
usually and most often
homo sexual males ...........
statements made that they are
a third gender................
is IMHO..............total BS
this third gender nonsense is
to give them some grandeur
or portray them as less threatening to a homophobic
repressed society
they are not a 3rd gender!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they struggle to survive
and
begging is a necessity
DELHI
Photography’s new conscience
No dia 8 de março de 1857 operárias de uma fábrica de tecidos de Nova Iorque fizeram greve e ocuparam a fábrica para reivindicar melhores condições de trabalho, entre as quais a redução da jornada de trabalho de 16 para 10 horas diárias, equiparação de salários com os homens, que chegavam a receber o triplo do salário das mulheres, além de tratamento digno no ambiente de trabalho.
A manifestação foi reprimida com violência, as mulheres foram trancadas e a fábrica incendiada, resultando na morte e carbonização de aproximadamente 130 tecelãs.
Em 1910, numa conferência na Dinamarca, ficou decidido que o 8 de março passaria a ser o "Dia Internacional da Mulher", em homenagem as mulheres que morreram na fábrica em 1857, mas somente em 1975, através de um decreto, a data foi oficializada pela ONU (Organização das Nações Unidas).
O objetivo da criação do "Dia Internacional da Mulher" não é apenas o de comemorar conquistas, mas, sobretudo, dedicado à realização de conferências, debates e reuniões com o objetivo de discutir o papel da mulher na sociedade atual, procurando eliminar com o preconceito e a desvalorização da mulher, que, apesar de todos os avanços, ainda sofrem, em muitos locais, com salários baixos, violência masculina, jornada excessiva de trabalho e desvantagens na carreira profissional. Muito foi conquistado, mas muito ainda há para ser modificado nesta história.
Uma data marcante para as mulheres brasileiras é o dia 24 de fevereiro de 1932, quando foi instituído o voto feminino. As mulheres conquistavam, depois de muitos anos de reivindicações e discussões, o direito de votar e serem eleitas.
Apesar de acreditar que todos os dias são dias das mulheres, dos homens, dos índios, dos pretos, dos homossexuais, em suma, de todos os seres humanos, e, portanto, oportunos para debater todas as questões, sobretudo as que envolvem discriminações, e, ainda, que a instituição destas "datas comemorativas" embute imensa carga de hipocrisia, associo-me às homenagens da data com a publicação desta foto que retrata Dila, a minha mulher, praticando Yoga na Praia do Carro Quebrado.
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Google translation of the introductory text of this post. Sorry if there are errors.
On March 8, 1857 workers of a textile factory in New York went on strike and occupied the factory to demand better working conditions, including the reduction of working hours from 16 to 10 hours daily, with the equalization of wages men, who would receive triple the salary of women, and decent treatment in the workplace.
The demonstration was violently repressed, the women were locked and the factory burned down, resulting in death and carbonization of about 130 weavers.
In 1910, a conference in Denmark, it was decided that March 8 would be the "International Women's Day" in honor of women who died in the factory in 1857, but only in 1975 through an ordinance, the date was formalized by the UN (United Nations).
The purpose of establishing the "International Women's Day" is not only to celebrate achievements, but above all, dedicated to conferences, debates and meetings with the aim of discussing the role of women in society today, seeking to eliminate the prejudice and the devaluation of the woman who, despite all the advances, they still suffer in many places with low wages, male violence, excessive working day and disadvantages in professional careers. Much has been achieved but much remains to be changed in this story.
A remarkable day for Brazilian women is on February 24, 1932, when it was established the women's vote. Women conquered after many years of discussions and claims the right to vote and be elected.
While I believe that every day is a day for women, men, Indians, blacks, homosexuals, in short, all human beings and, therefore, timely to discuss all issues, especially those involving discrimination, and, further, that the imposition of these "holidays" embed tremendous amount of hypocrisy, I join the tributes to the publication date of this picture that portrays Dila, my wife, practicing yoga on the beach of Broken Car.
During the Middle Ages, the town of Soria in Castille was home to several orders having to do with the Holy Land. Among them were the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, who were given a little church by the side of River Duero, outside of the town itself so that they could build a hospital and even a leprosy —not too far from the main road, yet out of the way to avoid the plague spreading. The church was, and still is, pretty nondescript, and can still be seen as such today. The Hospitallers re-did the vaulting of the single apse but, more spectacularly, built two astounding ciboria, those Oriental canopies of stone that cover and protect the altars. Two new altars were built underneath them, so that the knights/monks could perform their traditional rites and follow their own early Syrian church-inspired liturgy.
Truly, stepping inside that church and seeing those is like being transported to the Mediæval Orient!
Now, trying to produce decent photography of monuments is never easy, but when busload upon busload of tourists come into play, it borders on impossible! Furthermore, and this is the only time it ever happened to me in Spain (contrary to Italy, alas!), I was ordered by some repressed prison warden (judging by her amiability and kindness) posing as the welcome (very much so!) person for the monument, not to use the tripod to take pictures! And why, pray? Because that’s the way it is! Unbelievable. As I am cleverer than she was, I managed to beat the system and snap the first two or three exposures on the tripod at ISO 64, but for the rest, I had to bump up the ISO to 500 to accommodate whatever little light there was. Sorry for the resulting loss of quality.
Besides that amazingly “orientalized” church, the cloister is the main reason people come visit this ancient place. Art historians reckon it was built around 1200 by mudéjar architects and masons, maybe from Toledo. It is an absolutely unique achievement, unlike anything else I had seen before, and I’m probably not about to see the like of it anytime soon!
One last look at those crazy Oriental arches. I can’t get enough of them! Thinking about it, the Knights Hospitaller deserve a big congratulation for accepting to include such an innovative design in their cloister!
Myanmar or Burma?
The ruling military junta changed the country's name from Burma to Myanmar, Rangoon became Yangon, in 1989, one year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising (human rights groups say at least 3,000 people were killed). The United Nations recognised the name change, as did such countries as France and Japan, but not the United States and the United Kingdom.
Are Sanctions effective?
Europe and the United States first imposed sanctions on Burma almost 20 years ago hoping to have the military relinquish power, but the generals continue to find abundant alternative sources of investment: China and India particularly, Russia and Asia too, all competing for diplomatic, military and economic influence. Despite international sanctions, Chevron (US) and Total (France) are major companies still doing business with the regime.
What next?
There is repressed anger throughout Burma, particularly about the brutal treatment of the monks, but fear, fear of the regime, fear of being the next to be taken, pervades every aspect of Burmese life. The UN, as ever, is "trying" but how succesful can they be - China vetos every UN resolution critical of the Junta. Can China be persuaded to "influence" its Burmese trading partner? Probably not, unless Western governments are prepared to be tough on China to exert its influence. Boycott the Olympics? Doubtful they'll do it. So the poor people of Burma will be left alone, again, to continue to fight the evil regime.
Beyond Rangoon John Boorman's 1995 movie (fictional) based on real life events. However, this is the current reality. View this large; be sickened by this regime.
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Saray (in Arabic) is a Castle or Palace. The word originated from Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. Zabeel Saray Resort reflects this historic background for the word with a distinct architecture that reflects the era where "Saraya / Saray" repressed Grand Palaces, castles and buildings of power.
Dubai, UAE
Graffiti and paint can under the High Level Bridge. I have NEVER seen a tagger in 10 years on the street. They are like ghosts or owls.
This was close. Could still smell repressed artist in the air...
IMG_0264
Variations on a theme «...with a film across Moscow»
Church of Dimitry Donskoy in Spaso-Andronikov Monastery
Camera: Canon EOS 5
Lens: Canon EF 28-105 1:3.5-4.5 USM
Film: Astrum 135 Colour Negative Film (ISO 125)
Photo taken: 11/10/2018
Scanner: Noritsu LS-1100
Before us is a reconstructed necropolis of the Savior-Andronikov Monastery. There used to be a churchyard where the warriors of the Kulikov Field were buried (their remains were brought here by Dmitry Donskoy with his squad), the Northern and Seven Years Wars, the Patriotic War of 1812, as well as monks and representatives of ancient aristocratic families (Golovins, Saltykovs, Trubetskoy, Naryshkins , Stroganovs, Volkonsky, Baratynsky, Demidovs, Tretyakovs ...). Both the dead and the repressed have found their last refuge here. Thousands of graves in 8 layers.
The necropolis was virtually completely destroyed during the Soviet era. In the period 1918-1922, one of the first concentration camps of the Cheka for the officers and political opponents of the new government, where mass executions were carried out, was located on its territory.
The site in front of the monastery of the XIV century has long been a subject of debate among historians and businessmen. But the city defenders managed to prove its cultural value and to achieve the demolition of the kebab house and the suspension of the shooting gallery that was built here.
Today, work is underway to restore the necropolis. Here it is planned, in particular, to restore the cemetery of famous nobles and generals. The project also assumes the restoration of an ancient cemetery. Part of the tombstones on it will be exact copies of the real, now stored in the museums of the city, and the other - this is found during excavations and surveys of new designs.
In the background is the Temple in the name of the Holy Grand Duke Dimitri Donskoy (Built in 2000–2015 according to the design of the architect AV Klimochkin. A modern single-domed temple with facades completed by zakomaras. Focused on buildings of the Early Moscow architecture of the 14th - early 15th centuries. Modern the building is organically combined with the architecture of the Savior-Andronikov Monastery and the Savior Cathedral.)
Flying Rats are Animals that are 200 collectibles easily noticed by the distinctive cooing sound they make and the red glow they're highlighted with. Killing all 200 Flying Rats adds 2.5% to the game completed percentage and also unlocks an Annihilator helicopter on a helipad near Star Junction in Algonquin.
The in game website www.whattheydonotwantyoutoknow.com shows the location of the flying rats. Small dots are one flying rat, while large dots represent two or more. On Happiness Island, the large dot represents six flying rats.
The book largely functions as an immersive meditation on the human condition. As a struggling writer, Miller describes his experience living among a community of bohemians in Paris, where he intermittently suffers from hunger, homelessness, squalor, loneliness and despair over his recent separation from his wife. Describing his perception of Paris during this time, Miller wrote:
There are many passages explicitly describing the narrator's sexual encounters. In 1978, literary scholar Donald Gutierrez argued that the sexual comedy in the book was "undeniably low... [but with] a stronger visceral appeal than high comedy".The characters are caricatures, and the male characters "stumbl[e] through the mazes of their conceptions of woman".
Michael Hardin made the case for the theme of homophobia in the novel. He proposed that the novel contained a "deeply repressed homoerotic desire that periodically surfaces".
Music and dance are other recurrent themes in the book. Music is used "as a sign of the flagging vitality Miller everywhere rejects". References to dancing include a comparison of loving Mona to a "dance of death", and a call for the reader to join in "a last expiring dance" even though "we are doomed".
saudade: is a unique Galician-Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. Saudade describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. It's related to the feelings of longing, yearning.
Something has ruptured here — but in silence. A chilling stillness reigns, as if the image itself were apologizing for witnessing an event it can’t fully contain. A house — ordinary, suburban, almost harmless — stands upright. But it is being eaten. Disintegrated from within. Devoured by a crystalline, black, inhuman growth.
These sharp-edged, mirrored geometries burst forth from the building like mental thorns, or fragments of a code compressed too long. These aren’t ruins — they’re proliferations. Dissonant structures erupting from the walls like repressed thoughts made solid.
At the base, leaves and plants intensify the disturbance. They seem more alive than the building. More human. Nature, usually quiet, becomes a witness — or perhaps a collaborator. There is a vegetal tension in this scene, as if flora were calmly watching a mutation unfold.
The sky offers no comfort. No warning. No apocalypse. It watches. It waits.
This image captures the exact moment when architecture begins to rebel. When the concrete world yields to a mathematical intrusion — a dissidence from a realm deeper than matter.
What ever!
You see before you
a) People dancing with lit-torches.
b) Cylindrical hot air balloons with "messages of peace" written on them.
c) Political figureheads from a categorically repressed religious minority phoning over to his boss to say "Boss, the fools have been duped...again...into believing that we are the best among all political ideologies. Sure I'll bring some Bacardi tonight."
I hope Budda was pleased that day. He's had gone through some baaad times recently.
Also check out magnum photographer Marilyn Silverstone in "The East was Tugging at My Soul". MS converted to Buddhism because she was tired with all the malice in the world and wanted to discover her true "subconscious" , especially after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
What a pussy.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
American actress Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses in the early 1960s. At 4, she started out as a child actress and at 16, she became a star, when she co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 1961, she played Maria in the hit musical West Side Story. She was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Only 43, Wood drowned during a boating trip with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm (1983) co-star Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, USA, in 1938. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her father Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko was a day laborer and carpenter and her mother Maria Zudilova was a housewife. Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Maria had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She wanted her daughters to pursue an acting career, and live out her dream. Maria frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where Maria could study the films of Hollywood child stars. The impoverished family could not afford any other acting training to Wood. The Zakharenko family eventually moved to Santa Rosa, where young Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. The family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name "Natalie Wood for her. The first name was based on her childhood nickname Natalia, and the last name was in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalia's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin (1946) would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood. Natalie made her film debut in the drama Happy Land (Irving Pichel, 1943) starring Don Ameche, set in the home front of World War II. She was only 5-years-old, and her scene as the 'Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone' lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family over the next few years. Wood had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was "unable to cry on cue" for a key scene. So her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene. Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), starring Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. The film was a commercial and critical hit and Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood. She received many more to play in films. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter or sister of such protagonists as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child actress. The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
Natalie Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. She played the role of a teenage girl who dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father (William Hopper) who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child star to ingenue. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, but the award was instead won by Jo Van Fleet. Her next significant film was the Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), playing the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of the protagonist Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The film was a commercial and critical hit and has since been regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School, with her graduation serving as the end of her school years. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, the studio had her paired up with teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter as a duo. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period is the role of the eponymous protagonist in the melodrama Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958) with Gene Kelly, playing a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. Wikipedia: "The central conflict in the film revolves around the traditional models of social behavior and religious behavior expected by New York Jewish families in the 1950s, and Marjorie's desire to follow an unconventional path." The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the 1950s. Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (Michael Anderson, 1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker (played by Robert Wagner) without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded a loss of 1,108,000 dollars. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt.
With her career in decline following this failure, Natalie Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) with Warren Beatty. The film was a critical success and Wood for first nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The award was instead won by rival actress Sophia Loren. Wood's next important film was West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth in a film, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about 44 million dollars in gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed and is still regarded among the best films of Wood's career. However, Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the film. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956). Wood's next leading role was as the burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the Biopic Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) alongside Rosalind Russell. Some film historians credit the part as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterisation. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1962 and well-received critically. Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in the comedy-drama Love with the Proper Stranger (Robert Mulligan, 1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night stand with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), finds herself pregnant, and desperately seeks an abortion. The film underperformed at the box office but was critically well-received. The 25-year-old Wood received her second nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but it was won by Patricia Neal. Wood continued her successful film career and made two comedies with Tony Curtis: Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) and The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), the latter with Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. For Inside Daisy Clover (Sydney Pollack, 1965) and This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford, Wood received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. However, her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. 175,000 dollars to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Natalie Wood made her comeback in the comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969), with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her 750,000 dollars fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars over the course of three years. Wood was pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson (1970). She chose to go into semi-retirement to raise the child, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery-comedy Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) starring Michael Caine, the Science-Fiction film Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) with Sean Connery, the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (Gilbert Cates, 1980) with George Segal and Valerie Harper, and the posthumously-released Science-Fiction film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983). In the late 1970s, Wood found success in television roles. Laurence Olivier asked her to co-star with him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Robert Moore, 1976). After that, she appeared in several television films and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (Buzz Kulik, 1979), with William Devane and Kim Basinger. For From Here to Eternity, she received a Golden Globe Award and high ratings. She had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of 'Anastasia'. On 28 November 1981, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983), Natalie Wood joined her husband Robert Wagner, their friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. The four of them were on board Wagner's yacht Splendour. On the morning of 29 November 1981, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat. The autopsy revealed that she had drowned. Wikipedia: "The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as 'drowning and other undetermined factors' in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Wood's death." Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots. Natalie Wood was married three times. Her second husband was the British film producer and screenwriter Richard Gregson (1969-1972). She was twice married to actor Robert Wagner, from 1957 till 1962 and from 1972 till her death in 1981. She had two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (1970) with Richard Gregson, and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Robert Wagner. The 2004 TV film The Mystery of Natalie Wood chronicles Wood's life and career. It was partly based on the biographies 'Natasha: the Biography of Natalie Wood' by Suzanne Finstad and 'Natalie & R.J.' by Warren G. Harris. Justine Waddell portrays Wood.
Sources: Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Study Opp. Here is an appropriately named bee. Andrena ziziae. It is a specialist on...Zizia (Golden Alexanders or its 2 sisters (presumably)). Now Zizia is widely planted, but is Andrena ziziae benefiting? Does it leave its wildish landscapes to move into the mulch puddles of its pollen plant that now dot suburbia? [Side bar. Like in the old days where marks and signs were used to identify safe houses for repressed groups who were on the lam, the presence of a Zizia planting in your yard identifies you (at least to me) as a gentle progressive and makes me smile] So, back to the original point. It would be interesting to check out all these plantings to see if any of them are fraternizing with this bee. Just so you know, this is a small bee, about 1/2 the size of the honey bee. Wimpy sting too, can't even penetrate a baby's skin. This bee was collected by Ai Wen in Iowa and the photo taken by Cole Cheng.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information:
Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:
bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective psychological test. Historically, it has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of such tests. Its adherents assert that the TAT taps a subject's unconscious to reveal repressed aspects of personality, motives and needs for achievement, power and intimacy, and problem-solving abilities. -- Wikipedia
Been feeling down lately and not sure why. Decided I needed to go see my psycho-therapist, Dr. Ziegman Floyd. He said I had an acute case of depression. A form of depression that in the past was very unusual, but one which is now becoming more and more common in the 21st century. Seems I wasn't expressing myself effectively in social media. Using my words simply isn't enough. He explained that in order to release all my pent-up feelings, I would have to get in touch with all my repressed Emojis. What a scary thought!
Strobist:
The two human subjects were each shot with an AB800 from a high angle, close in front, through a white umbrella at 1/16th power. The strobes were triggered with a Phottex Ares RF trigger.
Fine 'art' nude shooters are lame, they pay women and shoot their girlfriends, shame on them, Women are not objects, go out and shoot for real, 'artist' of my foot: you get more erotica in life than your studio sh*t easy shots; those wannabe 'fine art' should know people surf more adult web sites than their 'art', don't care about dodging / burning cheating on skin tones in post, they are useless and disrespectful, stop materializing with non existent values you are not capable to transmit, try shooting Street, Macro, Landscapes, etc, for instance? grow up fine 'art' nude repressed and rude shooters, disrespectful to Women, shame on you
The first time I encountered this fantastic character was a few months ago, at the Easter Day Parade on 5th Avenue. That day, she had some sparkling stars covering her nipples. And the photo I took of her that day may have been acceptable to show/share according to the "moral" standards in American media/culture.
Last week, on the most scorching day of the heatwave in NY, I saw her again. This time her breasts were fully displayed. She felt free and she made a statement with her own body. I snapped a photo of her walking by, she saw me and asked if I wanted a better picture of her. So she posed for me. And she looked interesting, natural, beautiful... Only this time the original image could not be shared or seen... Because society has grown a culture of shame on nudity, on skin exposure, on owning your own body.
From Spain, my mom always gets angry at the average American puritanical vision that caused what was called "The Nipplegate" in the infamous wardrobe malfunction that led Janet Jackson's nipple be shown accidentally on stage at the hands of Justin Timberlake on their performance together. It is indeed terrible hypocrisy to denounce something like that as obscene, while I can turn CNN on any night while having dinner and see violence worthy of a forbidden "snuff movie" on my TV. And yet, no one screams against any of that.
A woman's breast, a man's buttocks, some pubic hair showing... No matter in what context will be fought by those who claim it can traumatize or pervert children's minds. And seeing someone being shot in the head or blown up by a bomb in the Middle East won't do that, right? Sometimes I feel like screaming "Wake Up!". Children of the 21st century are way more ahead than you'd think. And if they want to see or learn about sex, there's nothing you can do to stop that. Then again, that is the whole key of the issue... How nudity, in the mind of short-minded people, can ONLY mean sex, or lust or sin... Not an art representation, not a personal freedom, just something dirty... I say... Could it be that what's really dirty is the repressed desire to do thar very same action they scream against?
Meanwhile, this woman walked the streets like that, without the forbidden signs you see now, that I include to be able to make my point without having my account shut down. If you (or anyone) would have walked around Broadway last Wednesday, you would have had to see her... No place to hide, no forbidden signs, no censorship in real life...
Broadway, Soho,
New York
July 2011
© Sion Fullana
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
DO NOT use or reproduce without my explicit permission. THANKS!
PS: I admit a polite debate about the issue at hand. However, any hateful or insulting comment or disrespectful to the girl in the picture, myself or any other commenter will be deleted and may cause the offender to be blocked/reported
PS 2: If you want to be faithful to this brave woman's statement and see her in all her glory like she intended, feel free to check the uncensored original photo HERE.... but you need to have your account set to be able to see restricted images.
Thai postcard byStarpics / Suwan Studio. Photo: Paramount / Fox. Publicity still for Titanic (James Cameron, 1997).
Kate Winslet (1975) is often seen as the best English-speaking film actress of her generation. The English actress and singer was the youngest person to acquire six Academy Award nominations, and won the Oscar for The Reader (2008).
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born Reading, England, in 1975. She is the second of four children of stage actors Sally Anne (née Bridges) and Roger John Winslet. Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11. The following year, Winslet appeared in a television commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal, in which she danced opposite the Honey Monster. Winslet's acting career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season (Colin Cant, 1991). On the set, Winslet met Stephen Tredre, who was working as an assistant director. They would have a four-and-a-half-year relationship, and remained close after their separation in 1995. He died of bone cancer during the opening week of Titanic, causing her to miss the film's Los Angeles premiere to attend his funeral in London. Her role in Dark Season was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV film Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (Diarmuid Lawrence, 1992), the sitcom Get Back (Graeme Harper, 1992), and an episode of the medical drama Casualty (Tom Cotter, 1993). She made her film debut in the New Zealand drama film Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994) . Winslet auditioned for the part of Juliet Hulme, an obsessive teenager in 1950s New Zealand who assists in the murder of the mother of her best friend, Pauline Parker (played by Melanie Lynskey). Winslet won the role over 175 other girls. The film included Winslet's singing debut, and her a cappella version of Sono Andati, an aria from La Bohème, was featured on the film's soundtrack. The film opened to strong critical acclaim at the 51st Venice International Film Festival in 1994 and became one of the best-received films of the year. Winslet was awarded an Empire Award and a London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Actress of the Year. Subsequently she played the second leading role of Marianne Dashwood in the Jane Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995) featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. The film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a worldwide box office total of $135 million and various awards for Winslet. She won both a BAFTA and a Screen Actors' Guild Award, and was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In 1996, Winslet starred in Michael Winterbottom's Jude, based on the Victorian novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. She played Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin (Christopher Eccleston). She then played Ophelia, Hamlet's drowned lover, in Kenneth Branagh's all star-cast film version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1996). In mid-1996, Winslet began filming James Cameron's Titanic (1997), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. She was cast as the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat Rose DeWitt Bukater, who survives the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. Against expectations, Titanic (1997) became the highest-grossing film in the world at the time and transformed Winslet into a commercial movie star. Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet. Despite the enormous success of Titanic, Winslet next starred in were two low-budget art-house films, Hideous Kinky (Gillies MacKinnon, 1998), and Holy Smoke! (Jane Campion, 1999). In 1997, on the set of Hideous Kinky, Winslet met film director Jim Threapleton, whom she married in 1998. They have a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton (2000). Winslet and Threapleton divorced in 2001.
Since 2000, Kate Winslet's performances have continued to draw positive comments from film critics. She appeared in the period piece Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000) with Geoffrey Rush and Joaquin Phoenix, and inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade. The actress was the first big name to back the film project, accepting the role of a chambermaid in the asylum and the courier of the Marquis' manuscripts to the underground publishers. Well received by critics, the film garnered numerous accolades for Winslet. In Enigma (Michael Apted, 2001), she played a young woman who finds herself falling for a brilliant young World War II code breaker (Dougray Scott). She was five months pregnant at the time of the shoot, forcing some tricky camera work. In the same year she appeared in Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001), portraying novelist Iris Murdoch. Winslet shared her role with Judi Dench, with both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life. Subsequently, each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Winslet her third nomination. Also in 2001, she voiced the character Belle in the animation film Christmas Carol: The Movie, based on the Charles Dickens classic novel. For the film, Winslet recorded the song What If, which was a Europe-wide top ten hit. Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes in 2001, and she married him in 2003 on the island of Anguilla. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born in 2003 in New York City. In 2010, Winslet and Mendes announced their separation and divorced in 2011. In the drama The Life of David Gale (Alan Parker, 2003), she played an ambitious journalist who interviews a death-sentenced professor (Kevin Spacey) in his final weeks before execution. Next, Winslet appeared with Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004). In this neo-surrealistic indie-drama, she played Clementine Kruczynski, a chatty, spontaneous and somewhat neurotic woman, who decides to have all memories of her ex-boyfriend erased from her mind. The film was a critical and financial success and Winslet received rave reviews and her fourth Academy Award-nomination. Finding Neverland (Marc Forster, 2004), is the story of Scottish writer J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) and his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Winslet), whose sons inspired him to pen the classic play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. The film received favourable reviews and became Winslet's highest-grossing film since Titanic.
In 2005, Kate Winslet played a satirical version of herself in an episode of the comedy series Extras by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While dressed as a nun, she was portrayed giving phone sex tips to the romantically challenged character of Maggie. Her performance in the episode led to her first nomination for an Emmy Award. In the musical romantic comedy Romance & Cigarettes (John Turturro, 2005), she played the slut Tula, and again Winslet was praised for her performance. In Todd Field's Little Children (2006), she played a bored housewife who has a torrid affair with a married neighbor (Patrick Wilson). Both her performance and the film received rave reviews. Again she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, and at 31, became the youngest actress to ever garner five Oscar nominations. Commercial successes were Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), also starring Cameron Diaz, and the CG-animated Flushed Away (2006), in which she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Roddy (Hugh Jackman) escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. In 2007, Winslet reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio to film Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by her husband at the time, Sam Mendes. Portraying a couple in a failing marriage in the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare themselves for the film. Winslet was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance, her seventh nomination from the Golden Globes. Then she starred in the film adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel The Reader, (Stephen Daldry, 2008), featuring Ralph Fiennes and David Kross in supporting roles. Employing a German accent, Winslet portrayed a former Nazi concentration camp guard who has an affair with a teenager (Kross). As an adult, he witnesses in her war crimes trial. While the film garnered mixed reviews in general, she earned her sixth Academy Award nomination for her role and went on to win the Best Actress award, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors' Guild Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2011, Kate Winslet headlined in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, based on James M. Cain's 1941 novel and directed by Todd Haynes. She portrayed a self-sacrificing mother during the Great Depression who finds herself separated from her husband and falling in love with a new man (Guy Pearce), all the while trying to earn her narcissistic daughter's (Evan Rachel Wood) love and respect. This time, Winslet won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Roman Polanski's Carnage (2011) premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. The black comedy follows two sets of parents who meet up to talk after their children have been in a fight that day at school. Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz co-starred in the film. In 2012, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In Jason Reitman's big screen adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel Labor Day (2013), she starred with Josh Brolin and Tobey Maguire. Winslet received favorable reviews for her portrayal of Adele, a mentally fragile, repressed single mom of a 13-year-old son who gives shelter to an escaped prisoner during a long summer week-end. For her performance, Winslet earned her tenth Golden Globe nomination. Next she appeared in the science fiction film Divergent (Neil Burger, 2014), as the bad antagonist Jeanine Matthews. It became one of the biggest commercial successes of her career. This year, Winslet also appeared alongside Matthias Schoenaerts in Alan Rickman's period drama A Little Chaos (2014) about rival landscape gardeners commissioned by Louis XIV to create a fountain at Versailles. Next she can be seen in the crime-thriller Triple Nine (John Hillcoat, 2015), the sequel in the Divergent series: Insurgent (Robert Schwentke, 2015) and in The Dressmaker (Jocelyn Moorhouse, 2015). Since 2012, Kate Winslet is married to Ned Rocknroll, a nephew of Richard Branson; The couple's son have a son, Bear Blaze Winslet. They live in West Sussex.
Sources: Tom Ryan (Encyclopedia of British Film), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
Italian postcard by CVB Publishers, no. 56772. Photo: Sam Shaw. Caption: Marlon Brando, New York City, 1960.
American film star Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. A cultural icon, Brando is most famous for his Oscar-winning performances as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) and Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972). He initially gained popularity for recreating the role of Stanley Kowalski in the film A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan,1951), adapted from the Tennessee Williams play in which he became recognized as a Broadway star during its 1947–49 stage run. Then followed his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), as well as for his iconic portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (Laslo Benedek, 1953), which is considered to be one of the most famous images in pop culture.
Marlon Brando was born in 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a pesticide and chemical feed manufacturer, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. Brando had two older sisters, Jocelyn Brando (1919–2005) and Frances (1922–1994). Jocelyn was the first to pursue an acting career, going to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City. She appeared on Broadway, then in films and on television. Marlon had been held back a year in school and was later expelled from Libertyville High School for riding his motorcycle through the corridors. In 1943, he decided to follow his sister to New York. Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the 'emotional memory' technique of Russian theatrical actor, director, and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." This technique encouraged the actor to explore his own feelings and past experiences to fully realise the character being portrayed. Brando's remarkable insight and sense of realism were evident early on. In 1944, he made it to Broadway in the bittersweet drama I Remember Mama, playing the son of Mady Christians. New York Drama Critics voted him 'Most Promising Young Actor' for his role as an anguished veteran in Truckline Café, although the play was a commercial failure. His breakthrough was the role of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Brando based his portrayal of Kowalski on the boxer Rocky Graziano, whom he had studied at a local gymnasium. Brando's first screen role was the bitter paraplegic war veteran in The Men (Fred Zinnemann, 1950). In typical Method fashion, he spent a month in an actual veteran's hospital in preparation for the role. Brando rose to fame when he repeated the role of Stanley Kowalski in the film A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951). The role is regarded as one of Brando's greatest. The reception of Brando's performance was so positive that Brando quickly became a male sex symbol in Hollywood. The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination but lost despite Oscars for his co-stars, Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. Brando was also Oscar-nominated the next year for Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952), a fictionalised account of the life of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. His next film, Julius Caesar (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1953), received highly favourable reviews. Brando portrayed Mark Antony opposite John Gielgud. Another iconic portrayal is the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (Laslo Benedek, 1953), riding his own Triumph Thunderbird 6T motorcycle. His rowdy portrayal is considered to be one of the most famous images in pop culture. After the movie's release, the sales of leather jackets and blue jeans skyrocketed. Then followed his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), a crime drama about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. As the decade continued, Brando remained a top box office draw but critics felt his performances were half-hearted, lacking the intensity and commitment found in his earlier work. He co-starred with Jean Simmons in Désirée (Heny Koster, 1954) and the musical Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955). In Sayonara (Joshua Logan, 1957) he appeared as the United States Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver. The film was controversial due to openly discussing interracial marriage but proved a great success, earning 10 Academy Award nominations, with Brando being nominated for Best Actor. The following year, Brando appeared opposite Montgomery Clift as the sympathetic Nazi officer Christian Diestl in The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958), dyeing his hair blonde and assuming a German accent for the role, which he later admitted was not convincing. The film was the last hit Brando would have for more than a decade.
Marlo Brando directed and starred in the cult Western One-Eyed Jacks (1961), a critical and commercial flop. After both Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah had walked off the project, Brando had grabbed the directorial reins. He never again directed another film. During the 1960s, he delivered a series of box-office failures, beginning with the film adaptation of the novel Mutiny on the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1962). Brando's revulsion with the film industry reportedly boiled over on the set of this film. His diminishing box-office stature, combined with his increasingly temperamental behaviour, made him a target of scorn for the first time in his career. The downward spiral continued for some years. Interesting was Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston, 1967), an adaptation of a Carson McCullers novel in which he portrayed a closeted and repressed gay army officer. He also did influential performances in The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966), the Italian-French anti-colonialist drama Queimada/Burn! (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1970) and the British horror film The Nightcomers (Michael Winner, 1971). However the films were financial flops and Hollywood began to perceive him as a bad and unnecessary risk. By the dawn of the 1970s, Brando was considered 'unbankable' and critics were becoming increasingly dismissive of his work. Brando's performance as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's 1969 bestseller, was a career turning point. The Godfather was then one of the most commercially successful films of all time. The film put him back in the Top Ten and won him his second Best Actor Oscar. He followed The Godfather with Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972) opposite Maria Schneider. The film features several intense, graphic scenes involving Brando, and the controversial film was another hit. Brando took a four-year hiatus before appearing in the Western The Missouri Breaks (Arthur Penn, 1976) with Jack Nicholson. Then he made a rare appearance on television in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), for which he won an Emmy award. In this period, he was content with being a highly paid character actor in glorified cameo roles, such as in Superman (Richard Donner, 1978) and The Formula (John G. Avildsen, 1980), before taking a nine-year break from motion pictures. However, he also did his controversial performance as Colonel Kurtz in the Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now (Francis Coppola, 1979). The film earned critical acclaim, as did Brando's performance. Marlon's whispering of Kurtz's final words "The horror! The horror!", has become particularly famous. It was his last great performance. Years later though, he did receive an eighth and final Oscar nomination for his supporting role as an attorney in the anti-Apartheid drama A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989) after coming out of a near-decade-long retirement. Brando was an activist with deep political convictions, supporting many causes, notably the African-American Civil Rights Movement and various American Indian Movements. He made another comeback in the Johnny Depp romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco (Jeremy Leven, 1994), which co-starred Faye Dunaway as his wife. Brando owned a private island off the Pacific coast, the Polynesian atoll known as Tetiaroa, from 1966 until his death in 2004. He was married three times. First to actress Anna Kashfi in 1957. They divorced in 1959. In 1960, Brando married Movita Castaneda, a Mexican-American actress seven years his senior; the marriage was annulled in 1968. Tahitian actress Tarita Teriipaia, who played Brando's love interest in Mutiny on the Bounty, became his third wife. She was 18 years younger than Brando. They divorced in 1972. Brando had a long-term relationship with his housekeeper Maria Christina Ruiz, by whom he had three children. In 2004, Marlon Brando died of respiratory failure in Westwood, California, at age 80. He left behind 14 children (two of his children, Cheyenne and Dylan Brando, had predeceased him), as well as over 30 grandchildren. The last words are for Jason Ankeny at AllMovie: "Marlon Brando was quite simply one of the most celebrated and influential screen and stage actors of the postwar era; he rewrote the rules of performing, and nothing was ever the same again. Brooding, lusty, and intense, his greatest contribution was popularizing Method acting, a highly interpretive performance style which brought unforeseen dimensions of power and depth to the craft. (...) He is one of the screen's greatest enigmas, and there will never be another quite like him."
Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
"Country" explores some of the most remote cultural traditions of the Indigenous peoples of Australia and focusses on contemporary aboriginal culture in the Australian Outback.
The exhibition is the result of a two-year research project by artist Georgia Severi who, within this Venetian setting, retraces her journey through the Australian continent. All participating artists share an investigative interest in social and political themes, each focusing on the concepts of identity.
The exhibition represents an ongoing study of memory and traditions through the used of mixed media aiming to reveal a new and broader perspective on what still remains a repressed and marginalized culture and to reflect upon it from both an historic and an artistic point of view. The show presents both a unique and collective experience about life, family, tradition, kinship and mere survival, constructing an imaginary bridge linking Western and Aboriginal cultures.
Variations on a theme «...with a film across Moscow»
Church of Dimitry Donskoy in Spaso-Andronikov Monastery
Camera: Canon EOS 5
Lens: Canon EF 28-105 1:3.5-4.5 USM
Film: Astrum 135 Colour Negative Film (ISO 125)
Photo taken: 11/10/2018
Scanner: Noritsu LS-1100
Before us is a reconstructed necropolis of the Savior-Andronikov Monastery. There used to be a churchyard where the warriors of the Kulikov Field were buried (their remains were brought here by Dmitry Donskoy with his squad), the Northern and Seven Years Wars, the Patriotic War of 1812, as well as monks and representatives of ancient aristocratic families (Golovins, Saltykovs, Trubetskoy, Naryshkins , Stroganovs, Volkonsky, Baratynsky, Demidovs, Tretyakovs ...). Both the dead and the repressed have found their last refuge here. Thousands of graves in 8 layers.
The necropolis was virtually completely destroyed during the Soviet era. In the period 1918-1922, one of the first concentration camps of the Cheka for the officers and political opponents of the new government, where mass executions were carried out, was located on its territory.
The site in front of the monastery of the XIV century has long been a subject of debate among historians and businessmen. But the city defenders managed to prove its cultural value and to achieve the demolition of the kebab house and the suspension of the shooting gallery that was built here.
Today, work is underway to restore the necropolis. Here it is planned, in particular, to restore the cemetery of famous nobles and generals. The project also assumes the restoration of an ancient cemetery. Part of the tombstones on it will be exact copies of the real, now stored in the museums of the city, and the other - this is found during excavations and surveys of new designs.
In the background is the Temple in the name of the Holy Grand Duke Dimitri Donskoy (Built in 2000–2015 according to the design of the architect AV Klimochkin. A modern single-domed temple with facades completed by zakomaras. Focused on buildings of the Early Moscow architecture of the 14th - early 15th centuries. Modern the building is organically combined with the architecture of the Savior-Andronikov Monastery and the Savior Cathedral.)
Italian postcard by Playboy edizioni Italiana, no. 2, 1982. Photo: Roberto Rocchi.
Beautiful and sexy Italian film actress Laura Antonelli (1941) appeared in 45 films between 1965 and 1991.
Laura Antonelli was born Laura Antonaz in 1941 in Pola (now Pula, Croatia), which at the time was the capital of the Italian province of Istria. She moved with her family first to Genoa and then to Venice, before they all eventually settled in Naples. She had a childhood interest in education, and as a teenager she became proficient at gymnastics. Setting aside ambitions to make a career in mathematics, she graduated as a gymnastics instructor. She moved to Rome, where she became a secondary school gym teacher and was able to meet people in the entertainment industry, who helped her find modelling jobs. Antonelli earliest engagements included Italian advertisements for Coca Cola and appearances on the TV show Carosello (1957-1977). In 1965, she made her first, uncredited film appearance in Le sedicenni/16 Year Olds (Luigi Petrini, 1965). Her 'American' debut came was in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (Mario Bava, 1966), an Italian-American coproduction starring Vincent Price. Two versions of the film were made, Italian and American. The American version was re-written, re-scored and re-edited without the participation of Bava. The film was not particularly successful. According to Wikipedia it is considered by many critics to be director Bava's worst film yet it was his commercially most successful film in Italy. Vincent Price's Goldfoot is the only character who appears in both versions. American distributor Samuel Z. Arkoff said the film's commercial reception was hurt by the refusal of Laura Antonelli to take her clothes off. Arkoff claimed she was originally willing to, but then his nephew, Ted Rusoff, who was sent to supervise the film, developed a crush on her and persuaded her not to do it. Other roles for Antonelli followed. She appeared in a number of sexy films such as the erotic drama Venere in pelliccia/Venus in Furs (Massimo Dallamano, 1969) and Il merlo maschio/The Male Blackbird (Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1971) about a frustrated cello player (Lando Buzzanca), who exposes his wife (Antonelli) in a reworking of the renowned photograph by Man Ray. In 1971, she also appeared opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in the successful French comedy Les Mariés de l'an Deux/The Married Couple of the Year Two (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1971) and the two stars also privately had a longtime affair. She did more French films with Belmondo, such as the black comedy Dr. Popaul (Claude Chabrol, 1972).
In 1973, Laura Antonelli had her breakthrough with the comedy Malizia/Malicious (Salvatore Samperi, 1973) for which she won the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Award, Nastro d'Argento in 1974. The film is about the parallel desire of a widower and his three teenage sons for their new housekeeper. The film challenged sexual taboos by presenting and mixing such themes as a 14 years old boy (Alessandro Momo) who blackmails the housekeeper into eventually tolerating his increasingly aggressive physical sexual harassment. In the same year, she also had a huge commercial success with the anthology comedy Sessomatto/How Funny Can Sex Be? (Dino Risi, 1973). From then on, she played leading roles in some major films. In Luchino Visconti's last film, L'innocente/The Innocent (1976) she played the wife of Giancarlo Giannini. Based on a novel by Gabriele d'Annunzio, the film is set amongst the aristocracy of 19th-century Italy. Wealthy Tullio (Giannini) thinks nothing of squiring his mistress (Jennifer O'Neill) in full view of his friends and the public. But when Giannini's cast-off wife (Antonelli) begins an affair with a young novelist, it is too much for the philandering aristocrat. In the romance Mogliamante/Wifemistress (Marco Vicario, 1977) with Marcello Mastroianni, she played a repressed wife experiencing a sexual awakening. Later she appeared in Passione d'Amore/Passion of Love (Ettore Scola, 1981). Antonelli's final role was in the sequel Malizia 2000/Malice 2000 (Salvatore Samperi, 1991). In 1991, cocaine was found during a police raid on Antonelli's home. She was subsequently convicted of possession and dealing and sentenced to house arrest. She spent ten years appealing the conviction which was eventually overturned. In 2006 the Italian court of appeals ruled in the favour of Antonelli and ordered to pay the former actress 108,000 euros.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.
This appears to be a vintage press photo of an older photo. This young lady comes with quite the story, as you'll read below.
That is what I imagine to be a nude body suit used for artist-modeling which allowed them to be clothed, but naked in a time when public nudity was a major crime?
Written on back:
#44387
Irene Kelynack
"The Venus of the 20th Century"
Artist's Model
Hesser
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Dorothea Irene Kelznack/Kelynack was born on January 27, 1895, in New York City, New York to RICHARD & Mary Kelynack. She married Ernest J. Turley on December 21, 1917, in Boston, Massachusetts. She died in 1973 in New York at the age of 78.
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From a 2016 Article by Lynn Peril:
On March 15, 1916, New York’s Evening World newspaper declared 21-year-old Dorothea Irene Kelynack “an exact flesh-and-blood replica of the marble Venus of the Louvre.” This was newspaper hyperbole, of course; to begin with, the Venus de Milo is six feet eight inches tall. Nevertheless, for a short period of time just before America entered the First World War, newspapers declared one or another young woman “a modern Venus” based on her measurements’ adherence to a scaled-down version of the statue. There was a Swarthmore Venus and one from Wellesley (the women’s colleges had such data at the ready as incoming freshmen were routinely measured nude in a relentless hunt for scoliosis; men’s colleges did the same, but no competition to discover a “modern David” followed). Now, Venus had emerged from New York City.
According to the paper’s “Venus Chart,” Kelynack was a smidge under five feet four inches tall, weighed 125 pounds, and measured as follows: neck, 12.5 inches; chest, 34.2 (two inches larger when inflated); waist 25.9. Her ankle measured a dainty 8.2 inches. The female reporter cooed about the “springing, supple lines” and “arresting charm” of Dorothea’s “perfectly modeled, perfectly managed body.”
The new Venus conceded she wore a corset, albeit a “very loose” one. Otherwise, she was a bit of a rebel. “I drink a little wine with my dinner when I feel like it, and I eat candy,” she said, though she practiced “temperance” when it came to both (this may have been a jibe at prohibition bluenoses to whom temperance meant full abstinence where alcohol was concerned). She believed that a career kept a woman “mentally alert” and helped to “preserve her beauty longer than the mere idler.” Dorothea herself had trained at the London Academy of Music, and aspired to appear on the stage or in the movies.
She had been a tomboy, who loved to climb trees and ride horses. “I believe that the tomboy has a better chance of becoming a Venus than the affected, artificial, repressed child whose one duty in life is to be ‘be a little lady,’” she concluded, in the type of statement for which the word “foreshadowing” was invented.
One might have expected Dorothea to make a match equal to that of her non-Venusian sister, who married a wealthy linen dealer after a shipboard romance. Instead, Dorothea eloped with Ernest Turley, a Navy man, in early 1918. The papers later called him “a handsome, two-fisted, go-getting sort of fellow” who “put up a whirlwind wooing that made paunchy millionaires, in Dorothea’s eyes, seem just funny,” but he was without question a bit player in the drama that followed. A daughter, Mattie, was born in December, and a son the following year.
The family moved to California, then, in July 1933, to Arizona, hoping the climate would aid Dorothea’s asthmatic lungs. News photos showed a rustic shack in which Ma and Pa Kettle would have felt right at home. It was easy to imagine a skunk taking up residence under the house. Mattie said she was aiming at one on November 18, 1933, when she tripped and unloaded both barrels of her shotgun into her father’s back. He was wounded, but alive. Mattie was a month shy of her fifteenth birthday.
But when the sheriff asked why, if the gun discharged as she fell, the shot’s path through her father’s body angled up and not down, Mattie let loose with a bombshell. She shot Ernest Turley on purpose — because the Ouija board she and her mother consulted said that her father must die in order for Dorothea to marry a handsome cowboy. “Mother told me the Ouija board could not be denied,” Mattie later told a jury, “and that I would not even be arrested for doing it.” Despite her professed belief in the Ouija’s infallibility, Dorothea nevertheless sought a second opinion. She reached for a deck of cards and drew one. “The ace of spades,” Mattie testified, “meant death for Daddy.” She lost her nerve when she first took aim, then thought about “how much it would mean” to her mother and fired.
Mattie pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder. Law enforcement wisely looked to the other set of hands on the planchette during that fateful session with the Ouija board and jailed Dorothea as an accomplice.
Ernest Turley died six weeks after the shooting. Dorothea was charged with murder, and the newspapers went berserk. Mattie was now the “beautiful 15-year-old shotgun slayer of her father.” Still “pretty” at 38, Dorothea had been chosen the American Venus over 3,000 or 50,000 other beauty contest entrants (in 1916 she told a New Jersey paper that her resemblance to the statue had been “discovered by accident” when “a relative noticed in the papers something about a would-be Venus at one of the colleges, and asked her to have herself measured”). Pictures of mother and daughter ran side by side for comparison.
Details were lurid. The handsome cowboy was tracked down, a 22-year-old named Kent Pearce. Like Dorothea before him, he dreamed of a movie career. Mattie testified that her mother and Pearce frequently drove out of town for late-night petting parties, with 14-year-old Mattie and a friend of Pearce’s in the backseat. Once the foursome stayed out until morning. “I have a hell of a good time on the Mesa,” Dorothea told a neighbor.
Dorothea maintained that the shooting was accidental. Yes, she owned a Ouija board, but she never asked it “Shall we kill father?” as her daughter testified. Mattie was angry with her and her father because they “didn’t want her to use rouge or to run about at night with cowpunchers or to cross her legs the way she did or to wear such short dresses.” She tried to pin the blame on her mother, Dorothea said, “because some of the cowboys didn’t like me.”
Through it all, Mattie stuck to the Ouija story. She also expressed deep remorse. “They thought I wouldn’t take the rap,” she said. “But I killed Daddy and I want to pay for it. That’s the only way I can show the world and him how sorry I am.” When she was taken away to begin serving her sentence at the grim-sounding State School for Girls, Dorothea told her, in what Mattie called and cold and sarcastic tone: “I thank you for your cooperation. Be a good girl.”
Dorothea was sentenced to 15 to 25 years for masterminding her husband’s murder, but had served less than three when she was granted a new trial and the charges against her were dropped. She went straight to the convent where Mattie remained in custody following the closure of the reform school. A “happy and contented” Mattie at first refused to meet with her mother, then relented long enough to tell Dorothea she never wanted to see her again. She was paroled shortly thereafter, and disappeared into what one can only hope was a satisfying adult life.
Dorothea told reporters that the day would come when Mattie would “realize the terrible wrong” she had done her to her mother. In the meantime, she unsuccessfully sued the former superintendent of the State School for Girls for “poisoning” her daughter’s mind against her.
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This is a scanned image from a batch of wire photos, publicity photos, vintage snapshots, cabinet cards, CDVs and real photo postcards purchased at auction. You are welcome to pin, re-post, embed and share this image, but please do not reproduce for your personal gain or profit without my permission.
I did some small, cosmetic clean-up retouches in photoshop.
Any comments or observations are much appreciated!
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, nr. 111, 1964. Dep. Legal B 14.1618-1964.
Elegant Catherine Deneuve (1943) is an icon of the French cinema who graces the screen for already more than five decades. She gained recognition in the 1960s for her portrayal of cool, mysterious beauties in classic films of directors like Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski and François Truffaut. Apart from a great actress, she is also an archetype for Gallic beauty. From 1985 to 1989, she succeeded Brigitte Bardot as the model for the national symbol Marianne, seen on French coins and stamps.
Catherine Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in 1943, in Paris, France. She was the third of four daughters to the stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Deneuve (who was the French voice of Esther Williams, and whose name Catherine uses). Her sisters were actress Françoise Dorléac, Sylvie Dorléac and Danielle Dorléac. When Catherine was 13 she had the opportunity to play in Les Collégiennes/The Twilight Girls (1956, André Hunebelle) during the summer school holidays with her sister Sylvie, and she accepted because she was curious to see how a film was made. She continued with small parts in minor films, until she met Roger Vadim, the former husband of Brigitte Bardot. Stunning and only 17 years old, Deneuve and the 32 years old Vadim began romancing. She dyed her naturally brown hair to blonde to please Vadim, who gave her a leading part in the Marquis de Sade adaptation Le vice et la vertu/Vice and Virtue (1963, Roger Vadim). Her breakthrough came the next year with the musical Les parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy) in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man. The gifted Demy also cast Deneuve in the less successful Les demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy), with her elder sister, Françoise Dorléac. That year Françoise would die in a fatal car crash on the French Riviera. only 25 years old. The sisters were extremely close and Deneuve was devastated.
Catherine Deneuve had had her English speaking film debut in Polanski’s shocking psychological thriller Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski). She delivered a creepy performance, as Carol, a sexually repressed, paranoid schizophrenic, whose descent into madness results with her murdering men who lust after her. She was again a sensation as a bored housewife who fulfills her sexual fantasies while working as an afternoon call girl in Buñuel’s masterpiece Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (1967, Luis Buñuel). She also worked with the Spanish director in Tristana (1970, Luis Buñuel), in which she portrayed again an innocent beauty exploited by a lecherous older man, played by Fernando Rey. Unlike in Belle de jour, this time her character achieved independence and eventually exacted revenge on the man who exploited her. The film garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. She gave another great performance in a dual role in La sirène du Mississipi/Mississipi Mermaid (1969, François Truffaut), a kind of apotheosis of her ‘beautiful ice maiden’ persona. She had a relationship with Truffaut, and when their relationship failed, Truffaut reportedly had a nervous breakdown.
Catherine Deneuve was the muse of fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, who dressed her for Belle de jour, La chamade/Heartbeat (1968, Alain Cavalier), La sirène du Mississipi, Un flic/A Cop (1972, Jean-Pierre Melville), Liza (1972, Marco Ferreri) and The Hunger (1983, Tony Scott). She was the face of Chanel No. 5 in the 1970’s and caused sales of the perfume to soar. In the USA, the press nominated her as the world's most elegant woman. She appeared in two American movies, the comedy The April Fools (1969, Stuart Rosenberg) opposite Jack Lemmon, and the crime drama Hustle (1975, Robert Aldrich) with Burt Reynolds. She remained active in European films during the 1970s, but she didn't find parts of the same caliber as her roles of the 1960’s. She made five films together with Marcello Mastroianni: Ça n'arrive qu'aux autres/It Only Happens to Others (1971, Nadine Trintignant), Liza (1972, Marco Ferreri), L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune/A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973, Jacques Demy), Touche pas à la femme blanche/Don't Touch the White Woman! (1974, ), and Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/A Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1995, Agnès Varda). She played a magnificent role in Le dernier métro/The Last Metro (1980, François Truffaut) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris. It was the first of six films in which she starred opposite Gérard Depardieu. For her performance she won a César Award, and the film, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, revived her international career. Deneuve played a bisexual vampire in the slick The Hunger (1983, Tony Scott), with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. The role brought her a significant lesbian following. Her appearance in the romantic thriller, Le Lieu de crime/Scene of the Crime (1986, André Techiné), with Danielle Darrieux, was also well received.
Catherine Deneuve has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright. However she is universally hailed as one of the ‘grandes dames’ of the French cinema, joining Michèle Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, and Juliette Binoche. In the 1990’s Deneuve continued to appear in a large number of films She was very good in the epic drama Indochine/Indochina (1992, Regis Warnier) as a plantation owner in the 1930’s, for which role she earned her first Academy Award Nominaton and second César Award. She starred in several films by André Téchiné, Ma saison préférée/My Favorite Season (1993) and Les Voleurs/The Thieves (1995), with Daniel Auteuil. She joined the documentary L'Univers de Jacques Demy (1995,Agnès Varda), to show tribute to the director who made the film that brought her to fame. In 1998, she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as a jeweler s widow in Place Vendôme (1998, Nicole Garcia) and in 1999 she appeared in five films, Est-Ouest/East-West (1999, Régis Wargnier), Le temps retrouvé/Marcel Proust's Time Regained (1999, Raoul Ruiz), Pola X (1999, Leos Carax), Belle-maman/Beautiful Mother (1999, Gabriel Aghion), and Le vent de la nuit/The Wind of the Night (1999, Philippe Garrel).
Catherine Deneuve surprised everyone with her portrayal as the factory worker sidekick of Icelandic singer Bjork in the melancholy musical Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier). She had seen Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) and was so impressed with the Danish director; that she wrote him a letter requesting a part in one of his upcoming projects. He obliged, and her performance provided further proof that she was much more than a pretty face, and had always been. Though it polarized critics and audiences alike, the film was selected for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Femmes/8 Women (2002, François Ozon). Deneuve's only marriage was from 1965 to 1972 with British photographer David Bailey. The couple divorced in 1972 but remained friends. She has had relationships with Roger Vadim, François Truffaut, Marcello Mastroianni, and Canal+ tycoon Pierre Lescure. Deneuve has two children: actor Christian Vadim (1963), from her relationship with Roger Vadim, and Chiara Mastroianni (1972), from her relationship with Marcello Mastroianni. She is now the grandmother of Anna (2003) and Milo (1997). In 2005 she published her diary A l'ombre de moi-meme/Close Up and Personal: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve, in which she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine, and Dancer in the Dark. At the unheard of age of 62, she signed a deal with Mac Cosmetics in 2006, and a year later, nabbed a contract modeling for Louis Vuitton. She voiced the mother in Persepolis (2007 Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi); an animated film based on Satrapi´s graphic novel of the same name. Her daughter Chiara Mastroianni voiced the anti-Disney heroine, a rebellious, teenaged Iranian girl who loves heavy metal. The edgy animated feature was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2008, Catherine Deneuve appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël/A Christmas Tale (2008, Arnaud Desplechin). She resides in the luxurious neighbourhood of Saint Germain des Pres in Paris, and continues to work steadily making at least two or three films per year.
Sources: Geoff Andrew (The Guardian), Thanassis Agathos (IMDb), Rebecca Flint Marx (All Movie Guide), Wikipedia, Yahoo! Movies, Films de France, and IMDb.
During the Middle Ages, the town of Soria in Castille was home to several orders having to do with the Holy Land. Among them were the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, who were given a little church by the side of River Duero, outside of the town itself so that they could build a hospital and even a leprosy —not too far from the main road, yet out of the way to avoid the plague spreading. The church was, and still is, pretty nondescript, and can still be seen as such today. The Hospitallers re-did the vaulting of the single apse but, more spectacularly, built two astounding ciboria, those Oriental canopies of stone that cover and protect the altars. Two new altars were built underneath them, so that the knights/monks could perform their traditional rites and follow their own early Syrian church-inspired liturgy.
Truly, stepping inside that church and seeing those is like being transported to the Mediæval Orient!
Now, trying to produce decent photography of monuments is never easy, but when busload upon busload of tourists come into play, it borders on impossible! Furthermore, and this is the only time it ever happened to me in Spain (contrary to Italy, alas!), I was ordered by some repressed prison warden (judging by her amiability and kindness) posing as the welcome (very much so!) person for the monument, not to use the tripod to take pictures! And why, pray? Because that’s the way it is! Unbelievable. As I am cleverer than she was, I managed to beat the system and snap the first two or three exposures on the tripod at ISO 64, but for the rest, I had to bump up the ISO to 500 to accommodate whatever little light there was. Sorry for the resulting loss of quality.
Besides that amazingly “orientalized” church, the cloister is the main reason people come visit this ancient place. Art historians reckon it was built around 1200 by mudéjar architects and masons, maybe from Toledo. It is an absolutely unique achievement, unlike anything else I had seen before, and I’m probably not about to see the like of it anytime soon!
This is the craziest part of the Orient-inspired or mudéjar colonnade in the cloister: an arch resting on... nothing! No, there is no column missing, the arch was designed to be like that, and has remained firmly in place for 800 years...
British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC2041. Photo: Vaselli. Clint Eastwood in Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964).
American film actor and director Clint Eastwood (1930) rose to fame as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (1965), and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Later in the US, he played hard-edge police inspector Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films, which elevated him to superstar status, and he directed and produced such award-winning masterpieces as Unforgiven (1992), Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).
Clinton ‘Clint’ Eastwood, Jr. was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. His parents were Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migrant worker, and Margaret Ruth (Runner) Eastwood, a factory worker. Clint has a younger sister, Jeanne. Because of his father's difficulty in finding steady work during the depression, Eastwood moved with his family from one Northern California town to another, attending some eight elementary schools in the process. Later he had odd jobs as a fire-fighter and lumberjack in Oregon, as well as a steelworker in Seattle. In 1951, Eastwood was drafted into the US Army, where he was a swimming instructor during the Korean War. He briefly attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting. Eastwood married Maggie Johnson in 1953, six months after they met on a blind date. However, their matrimony would not prove altogether smooth, with Eastwood believing that he had married too early. In 1954, the good-looking Eastwood with his towering height and slender frame got a contract at Universal. At first, he was criticized for his stiff manner, his squint, and for hissing his lines through his teeth. His first acting role was an uncredited bit part as a laboratory assistant in the Sci-Fi horror film Revenge of the Creature (Jack Arnold, 1955). Over the next three years, he more bit parts in such films as Lady Godiva of Coventry (Arthur Lubin, 1955), Tarantula (Jack Arnold, 1955), and the war drama Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956) with George Nader and Lex Barker. His first bigger roles were in the B-Western Ambush at Cimarron Pass (Jodie Copelan, 1958), and the war film Lafayette Escadrille (William A. Wellman, 1958), starring Tab Hunter and Etchika Choureau. In 1959, he became a TV star as Rowdy Yates in the Western series Rawhide (1959–1966). Although Rawhide never won an Emmy, it was a ratings success for several years. During a trial separation from Maggie Johnson, an affair with dancer Roxanne Tunis produced Eastwood’s first child, Kimber Tunis (1964). An intensely private person, Clint Eastwood was rarely featured in the tabloid press. However, he had more affairs, e.g. with actresses Catherine Deneuve, Inger Stevens and Jean Seberg. After a reconciliation, he had two children with Johnson: Kyle Eastwood (1968) and Alison Eastwood (1972), though he was not present at either birth. Johnson filed for legal separation in 1978, but the pair officially divorced in 1984.
In late 1963, Clint Eastwood's Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made Western. Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from his Rawhide image, signed the contract. The Western was called Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), to be directed in a remote region of Spain by the then relatively unknown Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars, also with Gian Maria Volonté and Marianne Koch, was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961). Eastwood played a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town, torn apart by two feuding families. Hiring himself out as a mercenary, the lone drifter plays one side against the other until nothing remains of either side. Eastwood started to develop a minimalist acting style and created the character's distinctive visual style. Although a non-smoker, Leone insisted Eastwood smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the ‘mask’ he was attempting to create for the loner character. Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) was the first installment of the Dollars trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the US, coined another term for it: the Man With No Name trilogy. ‘The second part was Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965), a richer, more mythologized film that focused on two ruthless bounty hunters (Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef) who form a tenuous partnership to hunt down a wanted bandit (Gian Maria Volontè). Both films were a huge success in Italy. They both contain all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone. Eastwood also appeared in a segment of Dino De Laurentiis’ five-part anthology production Le Streghe/The Witches (Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1967). But his performance opposite De Laurentiis' wife Silvana Mangano did not please the critics. Eastwood then played in the third and best Dollars film, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Again he played the mysterious Man with No Name, wearing the same trademark poncho (reportedly without ever having washed it). Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portrayed the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. Yuri German at AllMovie: “Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive 'spaghetti western,' rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).” The Dollars trilogy was not released in the United States until 1967, when A Fistful of Dollars opened in January, followed by For a Few Dollars More in May, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in December. Eastwood redubbed his own dialogue for the American releases. All the films were commercially successful, particularly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which turned Eastwood into a major film star. All three films received bad reviews and marked the beginning of a battle for Eastwood to win American film critics' respect. According to IMDb, Sergio Leone asked Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef to appear again in C'era una volta il West/Once Upon A Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), but they all declined when they heard that their characters were going to be killed off in the first five minutes.
Stardom brought more roles for Clint Eastwood. He signed to star in the American revisionist western Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968), playing a man who takes up a Marshal's badge and seeks revenge as a lawman after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead. Using money earned from the Dollars trilogy, accountant and Eastwood advisor Irving Leonard helped establish Eastwood's own production company, Malpaso Productions, named after Malpaso Creek on Eastwood's property in Monterey County, California. Leonard arranged for Hang 'Em High to be a joint production with United Artists. Hang 'Em High was widely praised by critics, and when it opened in July 1968, it had an unprecedented opening weekend in United Artists' history. His following film was Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968), about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (Don Stroud) through the streets of New York City. Don Siegel was a Universal contract director who later became Eastwood's close friend, forming a partnership that would last more than ten years and produce five films. Coogan’s Bluff was controversial for its portrayal of violence, Eastwood's role in creating the prototype for the macho cop of the Dirty Harry film series. Coogan's Bluff also became the first collaboration with Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the jazzy score to several Eastwood films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Dirty Harry films. Eastwood played the right-hand man of squad's commander Richard Burton in the war epic Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968), about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the alpine mountains. Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career, Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969). Then, Eastwood starred in the Western Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Sigel, 1970), with Shirley MacLaine, and as one of a group of Americans who steal a fortune in gold from the Nazis, in the World War II film Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970)). Kelly's Heroes was the last film in which Eastwood appeared, which was not produced by his own Malpaso Productions.
Clint Eastwood’s next film, The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1970), was a tale of a wounded Union soldier, held captive by the sexually repressed matron of a southern girl's school. Upon release, the film received major recognition in France but in the US it was a box office flop. Eastwood's career reached a turning point with Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), The film centers around a hard-edged San Francisco police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. Dirty Harry achieved huge success after its release in December 1971. It was Siegel's highest-grossing film to date and the start of a series of films featuring the character Harry Callahan. He next starred in the loner Western Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972). In 1973, Eastwood directed his first western, High Plains Drifter, in which he starred alongside Verna Bloom. The revisionist film received a mixed reception but was a major box office success. Eastwood next turned his attention towards Breezy (Clint Eastwood, 1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met actress Sondra Locke, who would become an important figure in his life. He reprised his role as Detective Harry Callahan in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973). This sequel to Dirty Harry was about a group of rogue young officers (including David Soul and Robert Urich) in the San Francisco Police Force who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals. Eastwood teamed up with Jeff Bridges in the buddy action caper Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974). Eastwood's acting was noted by critics but was overshadowed by Bridges who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His next film The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood, 1975), based on Trevanian's spy novel, was a commercial and critical failure. His next film The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) was widely acclaimed, with many critics and viewers seeing Eastwood's role as an iconic one that related to America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. The third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer (James Fargo, 1976) had Harry partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay terrorist organization. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was a major commercial success grossing $100 million worldwide. In 1977, he directed and starred in The Gauntlet opposite Sondra Locke. Eastwood portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mafia. In 1978 Eastwood starred with Locke and an orang-utan called Clyde in Every Which Way but Loose. Panned by critics, the film proved a surprising success and became the second-highest-grossing film of 1978. Eastwood then starred in the thriller Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the last of his films to be directed by Don Siegel. The film was a major success and marked the beginning of a critically acclaimed period for Eastwood. Eastwood's relationship with Sondra Locke had begun in 1975 during the production of The Outlaw Josey Wales. They lived together for almost fourteen years, during which Locke remained married (in name only) to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson. Eastwood befriended Locke's husband and purchased a house in Crescent Heights for Anderson and his male lover.
In 1980, Clint Eastwood’s nonstop success was broken by Bronco Billy, which he directed and played the lead role in. The film was liked by critics, but a rare commercial disappointment in Eastwood's career. Later that year, he starred in Any Which Way You Can (Buddy Van Horn, 1980), which ranked among the top five highest-grossing films of the year. In 1982, Eastwood directed and starred in Honkytonk Man, as a struggling Western singer who, accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son Kyle) goes to Nashville, Tennessee. In the same year, Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed Firefox alongside Freddie Jones. Then, Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), the darkest and most violent of the series. ‘Go ahead, make my day’, uttered by Eastwood in the film, became one of cinema's immortal lines. Sudden Impact was the last film which he starred in with Locke. The film was the most commercially successful of the Dirty Harry films, earning $70 million and received very positive reviews. In the provocative thriller Tightrope (Richard Tuggle, 1984), Eastwood starred opposite Geneviève Bujold. His real-life daughter Alison, then eleven, also appeared in the film. It was another critical and commercial hit. Eastwood next starred in the period comedy City Heat (Richard Benjamin, 1984) alongside Burt Reynolds. Eastwood revisited the Western genre when he directed and starred in Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985), based on the classic Western Shane (George Stevens, 1953). It became one of Eastwood's most successful films to date and was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best Western to appear for a considerable period. He co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986), about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. Then followed the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988), with Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, and a young Jim Carrey. It is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series. Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz, he directed Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Eastman himself is a prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn. He received two Golden Globes for Bird, but the film was a commercial failure. Jim Carrey would again appear with Eastwood in the poorly received comedy Pink Cadillac (Buddy Van Horn, 1989) alongside Bernadette Peters. In 1989, while his partner Sondra Locke was away directing the film Impulse (1990), Eastwood had the locks changed on their Bel-Air home and ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. During the last three years of his cohabitation with Locke, Eastwood fathered two children in secrecy with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves, Scott Reeves (1986), and Kathryn Reeves (1988). Eastwood finally presented both children to the public in 2002.
In 1990, Clint Eastwood began living with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of Pink Cadillac in 1988. They had a daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (1993). Eastwood and Fisher ended their relationship in early 1995. Eastwood directed and starred in White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an adaptation of Peter Viertel's roman à clef, about John Huston and the making of the classic film The African Queen (1951). Later in 1990, he directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in The Rookie, a buddy cop action film. Eastwood revisited the Western genre in the self-directed film Unforgiven (1992), in which he played an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. Unforgiven was a major commercial and critical success; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) co-starring John Malkovich. The film was among the top 10 box office performers that year, earning a reported $200 million. Later in 1993, Eastwood directed and co-starred with Kevin Costner in A Perfect World. At the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and in 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. Opposite Meryl Streep, he starred in the romantic picture The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995), another commercial and critical success. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. In early 1995, Eastwood began dating Dina Ruiz, a television news anchor 35 years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993. They married in 1996. The couple has one daughter, Morgan Eastwood (1996). In 1997, Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller Absolute Power, alongside Gene Hackman. Later in 1997, Eastwood directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. He directed and starred in True Crime (1999), as a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (Isaiah Washington). In 2000, he directed and starred in Space Cowboys alongside Tommy Lee Jones as veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.
Clint Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller Blood Work (2002). He directed and scored the crime drama Mystic River (2003), dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. The film starred Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, (2004). He played a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with a female boxer (Hilary Swank). The film won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). At age 74 Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. In 2006, he directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. The first, Flags of Our Fathers, focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and featured the film debut of Eastwood's son Scott. This was followed by Letters from Iwo Jima, which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. Eastwood next directed Changeling (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realize he is an impostor. Eastwood ended a four-year self-imposed acting hiatus by appearing in Gran Torino (2008), which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Gran Torino eventually grossed over $268 million in theatres worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far. Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with Invictus, a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. In 2010, Eastwood directed the drama Hereafter, with Matt Damon as a psychic, and in 2011, J. Edgar, a biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. Eastwood starred in the baseball drama Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz, 2012), as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. Director Lorenz worked with Eastwood as an assistant director on several films. Clint Eastwood is also politically active and served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California from 1986 to 1988. Shawn Dwyer at TCM: “Although a registered Republican since the early-1950s, Eastwood's politics, like the man himself, were that of a true iconoclast. Over the years he had voted for candidates from both parties and publicly denounced the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. And while he had initially wished President Barack Obama well during the start of his first term in office, Eastwood, became a vocal booster for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, dissatisfied with what he viewed as Obama's inability to govern.” But the cinema is Eastwood’s major career. He has contributed to over 50 films as an actor, director, producer, and composer. According to the box office revenue tracking website, Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than US $1.68 billion domestically, with an average of $37 million per film.
Sources: Shawn Dwyer (TCM), Yuri German (AllMovie), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Sokkhim was aged 14 at the time (2003). He was a charming child, polite, quiet, rather prissy. Stayed out of trouble. From the look in his eye with a gun in his hand, he may have had a repressed emotion or two bubbling in there.
Now on at Red Dot
SHADOW
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Turtle%20Falls/89/155/1076
Image feature in group
Shadow
In Jungian psychology, the shadow (also known as ego-dystonic complex, repressed id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot, projected (as archetypes—or, metaphorical sense-image complexes, personified within the collective unconscious); e.g., trickster.
In this exhibition of portraits we meet; The Ancient, The Beast, The Beautiful, The Bride, The Fairy, The Femme Fatale, The Flower, The Horned, The Innocent and The Mirror.
During the Middle Ages, the town of Soria in Castille was home to several orders having to do with the Holy Land. Among them were the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, who were given a little church by the side of River Duero, outside of the town itself so that they could build a hospital and even a leprosy —not too far from the main road, yet out of the way to avoid the plague spreading. The church was, and still is, pretty nondescript, and can still be seen as such today. The Hospitallers re-did the vaulting of the single apse but, more spectacularly, built two astounding ciboria, those Oriental canopies of stone that cover and protect the altars. Two new altars were built underneath them, so that the knights/monks could perform their traditional rites and follow their own early Syrian church-inspired liturgy.
Truly, stepping inside that church and seeing those is like being transported to the Mediæval Orient!
Now, trying to produce decent photography of monuments is never easy, but when busload upon busload of tourists come into play, it borders on impossible! Furthermore, and this is the only time it ever happened to me in Spain (contrary to Italy, alas!), I was ordered by some repressed prison warden (judging by her amiability and kindness) posing as the welcome (very much so!) person for the monument, not to use the tripod to take pictures! And why, pray? Because that’s the way it is! Unbelievable. As I am cleverer than she was, I managed to beat the system and snap the first two or three exposures on the tripod at ISO 64, but for the rest, I had to bump up the ISO to 500 to accommodate whatever little light there was. Sorry for the resulting loss of quality.
Besides that amazingly “orientalized” church, the cloister is the main reason people come visit this ancient place. Art historians reckon it was built around 1200 by mudéjar architects and masons, maybe from Toledo. It is an absolutely unique achievement, unlike anything else I had seen before, and I’m probably not about to see the like of it anytime soon!
This is where the cloister begins to go crazy: at first when you enter it, all is normal: a nice, barrel-arched Romanesque colonnade with twin columns resting on a low wall... Well, a Romanesque cloister! And then, the low wall disappears and the arches go mad...! Look at those shapes, how they split and mix and intertwine...! Have you ever seen anything like this?
Spanish postcard, no. 342.
American actress Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses in the early 1960s. At 4, she started out as a child actress and at 16, she became a star, when she co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 1961, she played Maria in the hit musical West Side Story. She was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Only 43, Wood drowned during a boating trip with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm (1983) co-star Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, USA, in 1938. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her father Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko was a day laborer and carpenter and her mother Maria Zudilova was a housewife. Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Maria had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She wanted her daughters to pursue an acting career, and live out her dream. Maria frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where Maria could study the films of Hollywood child stars. The impoverished family could not afford any other acting training to Wood. The Zakharenko family eventually moved to Santa Rosa, where young Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. The family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name "Natalie Wood for her. The first name was based on her childhood nickname Natalia, and the last name was in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalia's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin (1946) would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood. Natalie made her film debut in the drama Happy Land (Irving Pichel, 1943) starring Don Ameche, set in the home front of World War II. She was only 5-years-old, and her scene as the 'Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone' lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family over the next few years. Wood had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was "unable to cry on cue" for a key scene. So her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene. Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), starring Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. The film was a commercial and critical hit and Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood. She received many more to play in films. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter or sister of such protagonists as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child actress. The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
Natalie Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. She played the role of a teenage girl who dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father (William Hopper) who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child star to ingenue. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, but the award was instead won by Jo Van Fleet. Her next significant film was the Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), playing the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of the protagonist Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The film was a commercial and critical hit and has since been regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School, with her graduation serving as the end of her school years. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, the studio had her paired up with teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter as a duo. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period is the role of the eponymous protagonist in the melodrama Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958) with Gene Kelly, playing a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. Wikipedia: "The central conflict in the film revolves around the traditional models of social behavior and religious behavior expected by New York Jewish families in the 1950s, and Marjorie's desire to follow an unconventional path." The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the 1950s. Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (Michael Anderson, 1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker (played by Robert Wagner) without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded a loss of 1,108,000 dollars. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt.
With her career in decline following this failure, Natalie Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) with Warren Beatty. The film was a critical success and Wood for first nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The award was instead won by rival actress Sophia Loren. Wood's next important film was West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth in a film, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about 44 million dollars in gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed and is still regarded among the best films of Wood's career. However, Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the film. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956). Wood's next leading role was as the burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the Biopic Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) alongside Rosalind Russell. Some film historians credit the part as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterisation. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1962 and well-received critically. Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in the comedy-drama Love with the Proper Stranger (Robert Mulligan, 1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), finds herself pregnant, and desperately seeks an abortion. The film underperformed at the box office but was critically well-received. The 25-year-old Wood received her second nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but it was won by Patricia Neal. Wood continued her successful film career and made two comedies with Tony Curtis: Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) and The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), the latter with Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. For Inside Daisy Clover (Sydney Pollack, 1965) and This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford, Wood received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. However, her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. 175,000 dollars to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Natalie Wood made her comeback in the comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969), with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her 750,000 dollars fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars over the course of three years. Wood was pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson (1970). She chose to go into semi-retirement to raise the child, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery-comedy Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) starring Michael Caine, the Science-Fiction film Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) with Sean Connery, the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (Gilbert Cates, 1980) with George Segal and Valerie Harper, and the posthumously-released Science-Fiction film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983). In the late 1970s, Wood found success in television roles. Laurence Olivier asked her to co-star with him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Robert Moore, 1976). After that, she appeared in several television films and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (Buzz Kulik, 1979), with William Devane and Kim Basinger. For From Here to Eternity, she received a Golden Globe Award and high ratings. She had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of 'Anastasia'. On 28 November 1981, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983), Natalie Wood joined her husband Robert Wagner, their friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. The four of them were on board Wagner's yacht Splendour. On the morning of 29 November 1981, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat. The autopsy revealed that she had drowned. Wikipedia: "The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as 'drowning and other undetermined factors' in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Wood's death." Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots. Natalie Wood was married three times. Her second husband was the British film producer and screenwriter Richard Gregson (1969-1972). She was twice married to actor Robert Wagner, from 1957 till 1962 and from 1972 till her death in 1981. She had two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (1970) with Richard Gregson, and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Robert Wagner. The 2004 TV film The Mystery of Natalie Wood chronicles Wood's life and career. It was partly based on the biographies 'Natasha: the Biography of Natalie Wood' by Suzanne Finstad and 'Natalie & R.J.' by Warren G. Harris. Justine Waddell portrays Wood.
Sources: Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale published by F. Chapeau of Nantes.
Although the card was not posted, someone has written a date on the back:
"5. 12. 32".
Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne
Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne is a large castle located in the city of Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique département of France.
It is located on the right bank of the Loire, which formerly fed its ditches. It was the residence of the Dukes of Brittany between the 13th. and 16th. centuries, subsequently becoming the Breton residence of the French Monarchy.
The castle has been listed as a Monument Historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862.
Restoration of the Château
Starting in the 1990's, the town of Nantes undertook a massive programme of restoration and repairs to return the site to its former glory as an emblem of the history of Nantes and Brittany.
Following 15 years of works and three years of closure to the public, it was reopened on the 9th. February 2007, and is now a popular tourist attraction. Night-time illuminations at the castle further reinforce the revival of the château.
The restored edifice now includes the new Nantes History Museum, installed in 32 of the castle rooms. The museum presents more than 850 objects of interest with the aid of multimedia devices.
The château and its museum try to offer a modern vision of the heritage by presenting the past, the present and the future of the city.
The 500-metre round walk on the fortified ramparts provides views not just of the castle buildings and courtyards but also of the town.
The Sale of Liquor
So what else happened on Monday the 5th. December 1932?
Well, on that day, a joint resolution was introduced to the U.S. Congress repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, and turning the regulation of liquor over to the individual states.
British War Debts
Also on that day, the British government suggested issuing bonds to cover its war debts to the United States.
'Jane'
Also on that day, the comic strip 'Jane' by Norman Pett first appeared in the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror.
Little Richard
The 5th. December 1932 also marked the birth, in Macon, Georgia, of Little Richard.
Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades.
Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950's, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll.
Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.
He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop, and his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.
"Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. His next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart, followed by a rapid succession of fifteen more hits in less than three years.
Richard's performances during this period resulted in integration between the white Americans and black Americans in his audience.
In 1962, after a five-year period during which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe.
During this time, the Beatles opened for Richard on some tour dates. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.
Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing black and white people together despite attempts to sustain segregation.
Many of his contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, recorded covers of his works.
Impressed by Richard's music and style, and personally covering four of Richard's songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him, and that he was "the greatest".
Richard was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Richard was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres, and for helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concerts in the mid-1950's.
"Tutti Frutti" was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2010, which stated that:
"Richard's unique vocalizing over the
irresistible beat announced a new era
in music".
Little Richard - The Early Years
Richard Wayne Penniman was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side, and who also owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. Richard's mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church.
Initially, his first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo", but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. In childhood, he was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by his family because of his small and skinny frame.
The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, he began singing in church and taking piano lessons at a young age.
Possibly as a result of complications at birth, Richard had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait, and he was mocked for his allegedly effeminate appearance.
Richard's family were very religious, and joined various A.M.E., Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music.
Richard later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because:
"There was so much poverty, so
much prejudice in those days".
He had observed that:
"People sing to feel their connection
with God, and to wash their trials and
burdens away."
Gifted with a loud singing voice, he recalled that:
"I was always changing the key upwards,
and I was once stopped from singing in
church for screaming and hollering so loud.
My singing gave me the nickname "War Hawk".
Richard recalled that:
"As a child, I would beat on the steps
of the house, and on tin cans and pots
and pans, or whatever, while I was
singing, and this used to annoy the
neighbors."
Richard's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams.
Joe May, a singing evangelist who was known as "The Thunderbolt of the Middle West" because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Richard to become a preacher. He credited the Clara Ward Singers for one of his distinctive hollers.
Richard attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. He eventually learned to play alto saxophone, joining the school's marching band while in fifth grade.
While still in high school, Richard got a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. He sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and his favorite singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Little Richard's Music Career
(a) 1947–1955: Beginnings
In October 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe overheard the fourteen-year-old Richard singing her songs before a performance at the Macon City Auditorium, and she invited him to open her show.
After the show, Tharpe paid Richard, inspiring him to become a professional performer. Richard stated that his piano style was greatly influenced by Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88".
In 1949, Richard began performing in Doctor Nubillo's traveling show. He was inspired to wear turbans and capes in his career by Nubillo, who also:
"Carried a black stick and exhibited
something he called 'the devil's child'—
supposedly the dried-up body of a
baby, with claw feet like a bird, and
horns on its head."
Nubillo told Richard:
"You're gonna be famous, but you'll
have to go where the grass is greener".
Before entering the tenth grade, Richard left his family home and joined Hudson's Medicine Show in 1949, performing Louis Jordan's "Caldonia". Richard recalled that the song was the first secular R&B song he learned, since his family had strict rules against playing R&B music, which they considered "devil music".
Little Richard was influenced by Jordan. In fact, the whoop sound on Jordan's record "Caldonia" sounds eerily like the vocal tone Little Richard adopted, in addition to the "Jordan-style pencil-thin mustache".
Richard also performed in drag during this time, performing under the name "Princess LaVonne".
In 1950, Richard joined his first musical band, Buster Brown's Orchestra, where Brown gave him the name Little Richard. Performing in the minstrel show circuit, Richard, in and out of drag, performed for various vaudeville acts such as Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, the King Brothers Circus, and Broadway Follies.
Having settled in Atlanta at this point, Richard began listening to rhythm and blues, and frequented Atlanta clubs, including the Harlem Theater and the Royal Peacock, where he saw performers such as Roy Brown and Billy Wright onstage.
Richard was further influenced by Brown's and Wright's flashy style of showmanship, and was even more influenced by Wright's flamboyant persona. Inspired by Brown and Wright, he decided to become a rhythm-and-blues singer, and after befriending Wright, began to learn how to be an entertainer from him.
Richard began to sport a pompadour hairdo similar to Wright's, as well as a pencil mustache, using Wright's brand of facial pancake makeup and wearing flashier clothes.
Impressed by his singing voice, Wright put him in contact with Zenas Sears, a local D. J. Sears recorded Richard at his station, backed by Wright's band. The recordings led to a contract that year with RCA Victor. Richard recorded a total of eight sides for RCA Victor, including the blues ballad, "Every Hour", which became his first single, and a hit in Georgia.
The release of "Every Hour" improved his relationship with his father, who began regularly playing the song on his nightclub jukebox. Shortly after the release of "Every Hour", Richard was hired to front Perry Welch and His Orchestra, and played at clubs and army bases for $100 a week.
Richard left RCA Victor in February 1952 after his records for the label failed to chart; the recordings were marketed with little promotion from RCA Victor, although ads for the records showed up in Billboard Magazine.
After his father´s death in 1952, Richard began to find success, RCA Victor re-issued the recordings on the budget RCA Camden label. He continued to perform during this time, and Clint Brantley agreed to manage Richard's career.
Moving to Houston, he formed a band called the Tempo Toppers, performing as part of blues package tours in Southern clubs such as Club Tijuana in New Orleans, and Club Matinee in Houston.
Richard signed with Don Robey's Peacock Records in February 1953, recording eight sides, including four with Johnny Otis and his band that were unreleased at the time. Like Richard's venture with RCA Victor, none of his Peacock singles charted, despite Richard getting knocked out by Robey during a scuffle.
Disillusioned by the record business, Richard returned to Macon in 1954. Struggling with poverty, he settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines.
While in Macon, he met Esquerita, whose flamboyant onstage persona and dynamic piano playing deeply influenced Richard's approach to performance. That year, he disbanded the Tempo Toppers, and formed a harder-driving rhythm and blues band, the Upsetters, which included drummer Charles Connor and saxophonist Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith.
In 1954, Richard signed on to a Southern tour with Little Johnny Taylor. The band supported R&B singer Christine Kittrell on some recordings, then began to tour successfully, even without a bass guitarist, forcing drummer Connor to thump "real hard" on his bass drum in order to get a "bass fiddle effect". Around this time, Richard signed a contract to tour with fellow R&B singer Little Johnny Taylor.
At the suggestion of Lloyd Price, Richard sent a demo to Price's label, Specialty Records, in February 1955. Months passed before Richard got a call from the label. Finally, in September of that year, Specialty owner Art Rupe loaned Richard money to buy out of his Peacock contract, and set him to work with producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.
Upon hearing the demo, Blackwell felt that Richard was Specialty's answer to Ray Charles. However, Richard told him that he preferred the sound of Fats Domino. Blackwell sent him to New Orleans, where he recorded at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios, recording there with several of Domino's session musicians, including drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonist Lee Allen.
Richard's recordings that day failed to produce much inspiration or interest (although Blackwell saw some promise). Frustrated, Blackwell and Richard went to relax at the Dew Drop Inn nightclub. According to Blackwell, Richard then launched into a risqué dirty blues he titled "Tutti Frutti".
Blackwell felt that the song had hit potential, and hired songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie to replace some of Richard's sexual lyrics with less controversial ones. He also changed the microphone placement, and pushed Richard's voice forward.
Recorded in three takes in September 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was released as a single that November, and became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It reached No. 21 on the Billboard Top 100 in America, and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies.
(b) 1956–1962: Initial Success and Conversion
Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit number one on the R&B chart and number thirteen on the Top 100 while reaching the top ten in Great Britain. Like "Tutti Frutti", it sold over a million copies.
Following his success, Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas.
Richard began performing on package tours across the United States. Art Rupe described the differences between Richard and a similar hitmaker of the early rock and roll period by stating that:
"While the similarities between Little Richard
and Fats Domino for recording purposes were
close, Richard would sometimes stand up at
the piano while he was recording and onstage,
whereas Domino was plodding, and very slow,
Richard was very dynamic, completely uninhibited,
unpredictable, and wild. So the band took on
the ambience of the vocalist."
Richard's performances, like most early rock and roll shows, resulted in integrated audience reaction during an era where public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. In these package tours, Richard and other artists such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry would enable audiences of both races to enter the building, albeit still segregated (e.g. blacks on the balcony and whites on the main floor).
As his later Producer H. B. Barnum, explained, Richard's performances enabled audiences to come together to dance. Despite broadcasts on television from local supremacist groups such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warning that rock and roll "brings the races together", Richard's popularity was helping to shatter the myth that black performers could not successfully perform at "white-only venues", especially in the South where racism was most overt.
Richard's high-energy antics included lifting his leg while playing the piano, climbing on top of his piano, running on and off the stage and throwing souvenirs to the audience. He also began using capes and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins. Richard said he began to be more flamboyant onstage so that no one would think he was "after the white girls".
Little Richard recalled:
"A lot of songs I sang to crowds first
to watch their reaction. That's how I
knew they'd hit."
Richard claims that a show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to some women throwing their panties onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying that it was "the first time" that had happened to any artist.
Richard's show stopped several times that night due to fans being restrained from jumping off the balcony and then rushing to the stage to touch him.
Overall, Richard produced seven singles in the United States alone in 1956, with five of them also charting in the UK, including "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up", "Ready Teddy", "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Lucille".
Immediately after releasing "Tutti Frutti", which was then protocol for the industry, "safer" white recording artists such as Pat Boone covered the song, sending the song to the top twenty of the charts, several positions higher than Richard's.
His fellow rock and roll peers Elvis Presley and Bill Haley also recorded his songs later that same year. Befriending Alan Freed, Richard was given a role in "rock and roll" movies such as Don't Knock the Rock, and Mister Rock and Roll.
Richard was given a larger singing role in the 1956 film, The Girl Can't Help It starring Jayne Mansfield. That year, he scored more hit successes with songs such as "Jenny, Jenny" and "Keep A-Knockin,'" the latter becoming his first top ten single on the Billboard Top 100.
By the time he left Specialty in 1959, Richard had scored a total of nine top 40 pop singles and seventeen top 40 R&B singles.
Richard performed at the famed twelfth Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles on the 2nd. September 1956.
Also performing that day were Dinah Washington, The Mel Williams Dots, Chuck Higgins' Orchestra, Bo Rhambo, Willie Hayden & Five Black Birds, The Premiers, Gerald Wilson and his 20-Piece Recording Orchestra, and Jerry Gray and his Orchestra.
Shortly after the release of "Tutti Frutti", Richard relocated to Los Angeles. After achieving success as a recording artist and live performer, Richard moved into a wealthy, formerly predominantly white neighborhood, living close to black celebrities such as boxer Joe Louis.
Richard's first album, Here's Little Richard, was released by Specialty in March 1957, and peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Top LPs chart. Similar to most albums released during that era, the album featured six released singles and a number of "filler" tracks.
In October 1957, Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. During the middle of the tour, he shocked the public by announcing that he intended to follow a life in the ministry.
Richard claimed in his autobiography that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney, his plane was experiencing some difficulty, and he claimed to have seen the plane's red hot engines, and felt that angels were "holding it up".
At the end of his Sydney performance, Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him, and claimed that he was "deeply shaken". Though he was eventually told that it was the launching of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, Richard took it as a "sign from God" to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle at the time.
Returning to the States ten days earlier than expected, Richard later read that the flight he had originally planned to take had crashed into the Pacific Ocean, He regarded this as a further sign to "do as God wanted".
After a "farewell performance" at the Apollo Theater and a "final" recording session with Specialty later that month, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology.
Despite his claims of spiritual rebirth, Richard admitted his reasons for leaving were more monetary. During his tenure at Specialty, despite earning millions for the label, Richard complained that he was unaware that Speciality had reduced the percentage of royalties he was to earn from his recordings.
In early 1958, Specialty released Richard's second album, Little Richard, which didn't chart.
Specialty continued to release Richard's recordings, including "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and his unique version of "Kansas City", until 1960. Finally ending his contract with the label, Richard agreed to relinquish any royalties for his material.
In 1958, Richard formed the Little Richard Evangelistic Team, traveling across the country to preach. A month after his decision to leave secular music, Richard met Ernestine Harvin, a secretary from Washington, D.C., and the couple married on the 11th. July 1959.
Richard ventured into gospel music, first recording for End Records, before signing with Mercury Records in 1961, where he eventually released King of the Gospel Singers, in 1962, produced by Quincy Jones, who later remarked that Richard's vocals impressed him more than any other vocalist that he had worked with.
Richard's childhood heroine, Mahalia Jackson, wrote in the notes of the album that:
"Richard sings gospel the
way it should be sung".
While Richard was no longer charting in the U.S. with pop music, some of his gospel songs such as "He's Not Just a Soldier" and "He Got What He Wanted", and "Crying in the Chapel", reached the pop charts in the U.S. and in the UK.
(c) 1962–1979: Return to Secular Music
Mick Jagger said of Richard:
"I heard so much about the audience
reaction, I thought there must be some
exaggeration. But it was all true.
He drove the whole house into a
complete frenzy ... I couldn't believe
the power of Little Richard onstage.
He was amazing."
In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there.
With soul singer Sam Cooke as an opening act, Richard, who featured a teenage Billy Preston in his gospel band, figured it was a gospel tour and, after Cooke's delayed arrival forced him to cancel his show on the opening date, performed only gospel material during the show. This led to boos from the audience, who were expecting Richard to sing his rock and roll hits.
The following night, Richard viewed Cooke's well-received performance. Bringing back his competitive drive, Richard and Preston warmed up in darkness before launching into "Long Tall Sally", resulting in frenetic, hysterical responses from the audience.
A show at Mansfield's Granada Theatre ended early after fans rushed the stage. Hearing of Richard's shows, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, asked Don Arden to allow his band to open for Richard on some tour dates, to which he agreed.
The first show for which the Beatles opened was at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. The following month they, along with Swedish singer Jerry Williams and his band The Violents, opened for Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg.
During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.
Back in the United States, Richard recorded six rock and roll songs with his 1950's band, the Upsetters for Little Star Records, under the name "World Famous Upsetters", hoping this would keep his options open in maintaining his position as a minister.
In the fall of 1963, Richard was called by a concert promoter to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Richard agreed, and helped to save the tour from flopping.
At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled The Little Richard Spectacular. The special became a ratings hit, and after 60,000 fan letters, was rebroadcast twice.
In 1964, now openly re-embracing rock and roll, Richard released "Bama Lama Bama Loo" on Specialty Records. Due to his UK exposure, the song reached the top twenty there, but only climbed to number 82 in the U.S.
Later in the year, he signed with Vee-Jay Records, then on its dying legs, to release his "comeback" album, Little Richard Is Back. Due to the arrival of the Beatles and other British bands as well as the rise of soul labels such as Motown and Stax Records and the popularity of James Brown, Richard's new releases were not well promoted, nor well received by radio stations.
In November 1964, Jimi Hendrix joined Richard's Upsetters band as a full member.
In December 1964, Richard brought Hendrix and childhood friend and piano teacher Eskew Reeder to a New York studio to re-record an album's worth of his greatest hits. He went on tour with his new group the Upsetters to promote the album.
In early 1965, Richard took Hendrix and Billy Preston to a New York studio where they recorded the Don Covay soul ballad, "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", which became a number 12 R&B hit.
Three other songs were recorded during the sessions, "Dance a Go Go" aka "Dancin' All Around the World", "You Better Stop", and "Come See About Me." However "You Better Stop" was not issued until 1971, and "Come See About Me" has yet to see official release.
Around this time, Richard and Jimi appeared in a show starring Soupy Sales at the Brooklyn Paramount, New York. Richard's flamboyance and drive for dominance reportedly got him thrown off the show.
Hendrix and Richard clashed over the spotlight, as well as Hendrix's tardiness, wardrobe and stage antics. Hendrix also complained over not being properly paid by Richard. In early July 1965, Richard's brother Robert Penniman "fired" Jimi. However, Jimi wrote to his father, Al Hendrix, that he quit Richard because:
"You can't live on promises when
you're on the road, so I had to cut
that mess aloose".
Hendrix had not been paid for five-and-a-half weeks, and was owed 1,000 dollars. Hendrix then rejoined the Isley Brothers' band, the IB Specials.
Richard later signed with Modern Records, releasing a modest charter, "Do You Feel It?" before leaving for Okeh Records in early 1966.
His former Specialty labelmate Larry Williams produced two albums for Richard on Okeh - the studio release The Explosive Little Richard, which utilised a Motown-influenced sound and produced the modest charters "Poor Dog" and "Commandments of Love." Secondly Little Richard's Greatest Hits: Recorded Live! which returned him to the album charts.
Richard was later scathing about this period, declaring Larry Williams "the worst producer in the world". In 1967, Richard signed with Brunswick Records, but after clashing with the label over musical direction, he left the label the following year.
Richard felt that producers on his labels failed to promote his records during this period. Later, he claimed they kept trying to push him to record in a style similar to Motown, and felt he wasn't treated with appropriate respect.
Richard often performed in dingy clubs and lounges with little support from his label. While Richard managed to perform at huge venues in England and France, in the U.S. Richard had to perform on the Chitlin' Circuit.
Richard's flamboyant look, while a hit during the 1950's, failed to help his labels to promote him to more conservative black record buyers. Richard later claimed that his decision to "backslide" from his ministry, led religious clergymen to criticise his new recordings.
Making matters worse, Richard said, was his insistence on performing in front of integrated audiences at the time of the black liberation movement shortly after the Watts riots and the formation of the Black Panthers. This caused many black radio disk jockeys in certain areas of the country, including Los Angeles, to choose not to play his music.
By then acting as his manager, Larry Williams convinced Richard to focus on his live shows. By 1968, he had ditched the Upsetters for his new backup band, the Crown Jewels, performing on the Canadian TV show, "Where It's At".
Richard was also featured on the Monkees' TV special 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee in April 1969.
Williams booked Richard shows in Las Vegas casinos and resorts, leading Richard to adopt a wilder, flamboyant, and androgynous look, inspired by the success of his former backing guitarist Jimi Hendrix.
Richard was soon booked at rock festivals such as the Atlantic City Pop Festival, where he stole the show from headliner Janis Joplin. Richard produced a similar show stealer at the Toronto Pop Festival with John Lennon as the headliner.
These successes brought Little Richard to talk shows such as the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and the Dick Cavett Show, making him a major celebrity again.
Responding to his reputation as a successful concert performer, Reprise Records signed Richard in 1970, and he released the album, The Rill Thing, with the philosophical single, "Freedom Blues", becoming his biggest charted single in years.
In May 1970, Richard made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Despite the success of "Freedom Blues", none of Richard's other Reprise singles charted, with the exception of "Greenwood, Mississippi", a swamp rock original by guitar hero, Travis Wammack, who incidentally played on the track.
It charted only briefly on the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box pop chart, also on the Billboard Country charts; it made a strong showing on WWRL in New York, before disappearing.
Richard became a featured guest instrumentalist and vocalist on recordings by acts such as Delaney and Bonnie, Joey Covington and Joe Walsh, and was prominently featured on Canned Heat's 1972 hit single, "Rockin' with the King".
To keep up with his finances and bookings, Richard and three of his brothers formed a management company, Bud Hole Incorporated. On American TV, Richard announced that he would appear in a Rock Hudson motion picture, playing "The Insane Minister". (The appearance has never seen the light of day.)
Richard also mentioned a new project involving Mick Jagger and Joe Cocker, celebrating his 20 years in show business, though it was never realized.
By 1972, Richard had entered the rock and roll revival circuit, and that year, he co-headlined the London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley Stadium with his musical peer Chuck Berry, Richard would come on stage and announce himself as "The King of Rock and Roll", fittingly also the title of his 1971 album with Reprise, and told the packed audience there to "let it all hang out".
Richard, however, was booed during the show when he climbed on top of his piano and stopped singing; he also seemed to ignore much of the crowd. To make matters worse, he showed up with just five musicians, and struggled through low lighting and bad microphones.
When the concert film documenting the show came out, his performance was considered generally strong, though his fans noticed a drop in energy and vocal artistry. Two songs he performed did not make the final cut of the film.
The following year, he recorded a charting soul ballad, "In the Middle of the Night", released with proceeds donated to victims of tornadoes that had caused damage in twelve states.
Richard did no new recordings in 1974, although two "new" albums were released. In the summer, came a major surprise for fans, "Talkin' 'bout Soul", a collection of released and unreleased Vee Jay recordings, all never before on a domestic LP. Two tracks were new to the world: the title tune and "You'd Better Stop", both uptempo.
Later that year came a set recorded in one night, early the previous year, called "Right Now!", and featuring "roots" material, including a vocal version of an unreleased Reprise instrumental "Mississippi", released in 1972 as "Funky Dish Rag"; his third try at his gospel-rock "In the Name"; and a 6 minute plus rocker, "Hot Nuts", based upon a 1936 song by Li'l Johnson ("Get 'Em From The Peanut Man").
1975 was a big year for Richard, with a world tour, and acclaim over high energy performances throughout England and France. His band was perhaps his best to date. He cut a top 40 single (US and Canada), with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "Take It Like a Man".
Richard worked on new songs with sideman, Seabrun "Candy" Hunter. He told Dee-Jay, Wolfman Jack, that he planned on releasing a new album with Sly Stone, but it never materialized.
In 1976, he decided to retire again, being physically and mentally exhausted, having experienced family tragedy and the drug culture. He was talked into once again re-cutting his greatest hits, for Stan Shulman in Nashville. This time, they did not use new arrangements, but stuck to the original arrangements.
Richard re-recorded eighteen of his classic rock and roll hits for K-Tel Records, in high-tech stereo recreations, with a single featuring the new versions of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up," with both tracks reaching the UK singles chart.
Richard later admitted that he was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. By 1977, worn out from years of drug abuse and wild partying, as well as a string of personal tragedies, Richard quit rock and roll again and returned to evangelism, releasing one gospel album, God's Beautiful City, in 1979.
At the same time, while touring once again as a minister and returning to talk shows, a controversial album was released by the discount label, Koala, taken from a 1974 concert.
It includes an 11 minute discordant version of "Good Golly, Miss Molly". The performances are widely panned as subpar, and the album has gained some notoriety amongst record collectors.
(d) 1984–1999: Comeback
In 1984, Richard filed a $112 million lawsuit against Specialty Records, Art Rupe and his publishing company, Venice Music, and ATV Music for not paying royalties to him after he left the label in 1959. The suit was settled out of court in 1986.
According to some reports, Michael Jackson allegedly gave him monetary compensation for his work, which he co-owned with Sony-ATV, songs by the Beatles and Richard.
In September 1984, Charles White released the singer's authorized biography, Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard, which put Richard back in the spotlight. Richard returned to show business in what Rolling Stone referred to as "a formidable comeback" following the book's release.
Reconciling his roles as evangelist and rock and roll musician for the first time, Richard stated that the genre could be used for good or evil. After accepting a role in the film Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Richard and Billy Preston penned the faith-based rock and roll song "Great Gosh A'Mighty" for its soundtrack.
Richard won critical acclaim for his film role, and the song found success in the American and British charts. The hit led to the release of the album Lifetime Friend (1986) on Warner Bros. Records, with songs deemed "messages in rhythm", including a gospel rap track.
In addition to a version of "Great Gosh A'Mighty", cut in England, the album featured two singles that charted in the UK, "Somebody's Comin,'" and "Operator".
Richard spent much of the rest of the decade as a guest on television shows and appearing in films, winning new fans with what was referred to as his "unique comedic timing."
In 1988, he surprised fans with a serious tribute to Otis Redding at his Rock and Roll of Fame induction ceremony, singing several Redding songs, including "Fa Fa Fa (sad song)", "These arms of mine", and "Dock of the Bay ".
He told Otis' story, and explained how his 1956 tune "All Around the World" was Redding's reference on his 1963 side, "Hey, Hey Baby".
In 1989, Richard provided rhythmic preaching and background vocals on the extended live version of the U2–B.B. King hit "When Love Comes to Town". That same year, Richard returned to singing his classic hits following a performance of "Lucille" at an AIDS benefit concert.
In 1990, Richard contributed a spoken-word rap on Living Colour's hit song, "Elvis Is Dead", from their album Time's Up. That same year he appeared in a cameo for the music video of Cinderella's "Shelter Me".
In 1991, he was one of the featured performers on the hit single and video "Voices That Care" that was produced to help boost the morale of U.S. troops involved in Operation Desert Storm.
The same year, he recorded a version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation benefit album For Our Children. The album's success led to a deal with Walt Disney Records, resulting in the release of a hit 1992 children's album, Shake It All About.
In 1994, Richard sang the theme song to the award-winning PBS Kids and TLC animated television series The Magic School Bus based on the book series created by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. He also opened Wrestlemania X from Madison Square Garden on the 20th. March that year, miming to his reworked rendition of "America the Beautiful".
Throughout the 1990's, Richard performed around the world and appeared on TV, film, and tracks with other artists, including Jon Bon Jovi, Elton John and Solomon Burke.
In 1992 he released his final album, Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka, featuring members of Richard's then current touring band.
(e) 2000–2020: The Later years
In 2000, Richard's life was dramatized for the biographical film Little Richard, which focused on his early years, including his heyday, his religious conversion and his return to secular music in the early 1960's.
Richard was played by Leon Robinson, who earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his performance.
In 2002, Richard contributed to the Johnny Cash tribute album, Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash. In 2004–2005, he released two sets of unreleased and rare cuts, from the Okeh label 1966/67 and the Reprise label 1970/72. Included was the full Southern Child album, produced and composed mostly by Richard, scheduled for release in 1972, but shelved.
In 2006, Little Richard was featured in a popular advertisement for the GEICO brand. A 2005 recording of his duet vocals with Jerry Lee Lewis on a cover of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" was included on Lewis's 2006 album, Last Man Standing.
The same year, Richard was a guest judge on the TV series Celebrity Duets. Richard and Lewis performed alongside John Fogerty at the 2008 Grammy Awards in a tribute to the two artists considered to be cornerstones of rock and roll by the NARAS.
That same year, Richard appeared on radio host Don Imus' benefit album for sick children, The Imus Ranch Record. In June 2010, Richard recorded a gospel track for an upcoming tribute album to songwriting legend Dottie Rambo.
In 2009, Richard was Inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame in a concert in New Orleans, attended by Fats Domino.
Throughout the first decade of the new millennium, Richard kept up a stringent touring schedule, performing primarily in the United States and Europe. However, sciatic nerve pain in his left leg and then replacement of the involved hip began affecting the frequency of his performances by 2010.
Despite his health problems, Richard continued to perform to receptive audiences and critics. Rolling Stone reported that at a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., in June 2012:
"Richard was still full of fire, still a master
showman, his voice still loaded with deep
gospel and raunchy power."
Richard performed a full 90-minute show at the Pensacola Interstate Fair in Pensacola, Florida, in October 2012, at the age of 79, and headlined at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in March 2013.
In September 2013, Rolling Stone published an interview with Richard who said that he would be retiring from performing. He told the magazine:
"I am done, in a sense, because I don't
feel like doing anything right now.
I think my legacy should be that when I
started in showbusiness there wasn't no
such thing as rock'n'roll.
When I started with 'Tutti Frutti', that's
when rock really started rocking."
Richard performed one last concert in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 2014.
In June 2015, Richard appeared before a benefit concert audience, clad in sparkly boots and a brightly colored jacket at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville to receive the Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from and raise funds for the National Museum of African American Music.
He charmed the crowd by reminiscing about his early days working in Nashville nightclubs. In May 2016, the National Museum of African American Music issued a press release indicating that Richard was one of the key artists and music industry leaders that attended its third annual Celebration of Legends Luncheon in Nashville.
In 2016, a new CD was released on Hitman Records, California (I'm Comin') with released and previously unreleased material from the 1970's, including a cappella version of his 1975 single release, "Try to Help Your Brother".
On the 6th. September 2017, Richard participated in a long television interview for the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, appearing in a wheelchair, clean-shaven, without make-up, dressed in a blue paisley coat and tie, where he discussed his lifelong Christian faith.
On the 23rd. October 2019, Richard addressed the audience after appearing to receive the Distinguished Artist Award at the 2019 Tennessee Governor's Arts Awards at the Governor's Residence in Nashville, Tennessee.
Little Richard's Personal Life
(i) Relationships and Family
Around 1956, Richard became involved with Audrey Robinson, a sixteen-year-old college student, originally from Savannah, Georgia. Richard and Robinson quickly got acquainted, despite Robinson not being a fan of rock and roll music.
Richard said in his 1984 autobiography that he invited other men to have sexual encounters with her, including Buddy Holly, although Audrey denied those statements.
Richard proposed marriage to Robinson, but she refused. Robinson later became known under the name Lee Angel as a stripper and socialite. Richard re-connected with Robinson in the 1960's, though she left him again after his drug abuse worsened.
Robinson was interviewed for Richard's 1985 documentary on The South Bank Show, and denied Richard's statements. According to Robinson, Richard would use her to buy food in whites-only fast food stores, as he could not enter any, due to the color of his skin.
Richard met his only wife, Ernestine Harvin, at an evangelical rally in October 1957. They began dating that year, and wed on the 12th. July 1959 in California. According to Harvin, she and Richard initially enjoyed a happy marriage with "normal" sexual relations.
When the marriage ended in divorce in 1964, Harvin said it was due to her husband's celebrity status, which had made life difficult for her. Richard said the marriage fell apart due to his being a neglectful husband and because of his sexuality.
Both Robinson and Harvin denied Richard's statements that he was gay, and Richard believed they did not know it because:
"I was such a pumper
in those days".
During the marriage, Richard and Harvin adopted a one-year-old boy, Danny Jones, from a late church associate. Richard and his son remained close, with Jones often acting as one of his bodyguards. Harvin later married McDonald Campbell in Santa Barbara, California, on the 23rd. March 1975.
(ii) Little Richard's Sexuality
In 1984, Richard said that he just played with girls as a child, and was subjected to homosexual jokes and ridicule because of his manner of walking and talking. His father brutally punished him whenever he caught him wearing his mother's makeup and clothing.
The singer said he had been sexually involved with both sexes as a teenager. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home when he was fifteen. In 1985, on The South Bank Show, Richard explained:
"My daddy put me out of the house.
He said he wanted seven boys, and
I had spoiled it, because I was gay."
Richard got involved in voyeurism in his early twenties. A female friend would drive him around picking up men who would allow him to watch them having sex in the backseat of cars.
Richard's activity caught the attention of the Macon police in 1955, and he was arrested after a gas station attendant reported sexual activity in a car Richard was occupying with a heterosexual couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail, and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.
In the early 1950's, Richard became acquainted with openly gay musician Billy Wright, who helped in establishing Richard's look. Billy advised Richard to use pancake makeup, and to wear his hair in a long-haired pompadour style similar to his.
As Richard got used to the makeup, he ordered his band, the Upsetters, to wear makeup too, in order to gain entry into predominantly white venues. He later stated:
"I wore the make-up so that white
men wouldn't think I was after the
white girls.
It made things easier for me, plus
it was colorful too."
In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine:
"I figure if being called a sissy would
make me famous, let them say what
they want to."
Richard's look, however, still attracted female audiences, who would send him naked photos and their phone numbers.
During Richard's heyday, his obsession with voyeurism and group sex continued, with his girlfriend Audrey Robinson participating. Richard wrote that Robinson would have sex with men while she sexually stimulated Richard.
Despite saying he was "born again" after leaving rock and roll for the church in 1957, Richard left Oakwood College after exposing himself to a male student. The incident was reported to the student's father, and Richard withdrew from the college.
In 1962, Richard was arrested for spying on men urinating in toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. However he still participated in orgies, and continued to be a voyeur.
On the 4th. May 1982, on Late Night with David Letterman, Richard said:
"God gave me the victory. I'm not gay
now, but, you know, I was gay all my
life. I believe I was one of the first gay
people to come out.
But God let me know that he made
Adam be with Eve, not Steve.
So, I gave my heart to Christ."
In his 1984 book, while demeaning homosexuality as "unnatural" and "contagious", he told Charles White that he was "omnisexual".
In 1995, Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay, saying "I've been gay all my life". In 2007, Mojo Magazine referred to Richard as "bisexual".
In October 2017, Richard once again denounced homosexuality in an interview with the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, stating that:
"Homosexual and transgender identity
is an unnatural affectation that goes
against the way God wants you to live."
(iii) Little Richard's Drug Use
During his initial heyday in the 1950's rock and roll scene, Richard was a teetotaler, abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Richard often fined bandmates for drug and alcohol use during this era.
By the mid-1960's, however, Richard began drinking large amounts of alcohol, as well as smoking cigarettes and marijuana. By 1972, he had developed an addiction to cocaine. He later lamented that period:
"They should have called me
Lil Cocaine, I was sniffing so
much of that stuff!"
By 1975, he had developed addictions to both heroin and PCP, otherwise known as "angel dust". His drug and alcohol misuse began to affect his professional career and personal life. He later recalled:
"I lost my reasoning."
Of his cocaine addiction, Richard said that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Richard admitted that his addictions to cocaine, PCP and heroin were costing him as much as $1,000 a day.
In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill Richard for failing to pay his drug debt. Richard said that this was the most fearful moment of his life; Williams' own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable.
Richard did acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends," and when reminiscing about the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking:
"I knew he loved me—
I hoped he did!"
Within that same year, Richard had several devastating personal experiences, including his brother Tony's death from a heart attack, the accidental shooting of his nephew whom he loved like a son, and the murder of two close personal friends – one a valet at "the heroin man's house."
These experiences convinced the singer to give up drugs and alcohol, along with rock and roll, and return to the ministry.
(iv) Little Richard and Religion
Richard's family had deep evangelical (Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal) Christian roots, including two uncles and a grandfather who were preachers. He also took part in Macon's Pentecostal churches, which were his favorites, mainly due to their music, charismatic praise, dancing in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.
At the age of ten, influenced by Pentecostalism, he would go around saying that he was a faith healer, singing gospel music to people who were feeling sick, and touching them.
He later recalled that they would often say that they felt better after he prayed for them, and would sometimes give him money. Richard had aspirations of being a preacher due to the influence of singing evangelist Brother Joe May.
After he was born again in 1957, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, a mostly black Seventh-day Adventist college, to study theology. It was also at this time that he became a vegetarian.
Richard returned to secular music in the early 1960's. He was eventually ordained a minister in 1970, and resumed evangelical activities in 1977. Richard represented Memorial Bibles International, and sold their Black Heritage Bible, which highlighted the Book's many black characters.
As a preacher, he evangelized in anything from small churches to packed auditoriums of 20,000 or more. His preaching focused on uniting the races, and bringing lost souls to repentance through God's love.
In 1984, Richard's mother, Leva Mae, died following a period of illness. Only a few months prior to her death, Richard promised her that he would remain a Christian.
During the 1980's and 1990's, Richard officiated at celebrity weddings. In 2006, in one ceremony, Richard wedded twenty couples who had won a contest.
Richard used his experience and knowledge as an elder statesman of rock and roll to preach at funerals of musical friends such as Wilson Pickett and Ike Turner.
At a benefit concert in 2009 to raise funds to help rebuild children's playgrounds that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Richard asked guest of honor Fats Domino to pray with him and others. His assistants handed out inspirational booklets at the concert, a common practice at Richard's shows.
Richard told a Howard Theatre, Washington, D.C. audience in June 2012:
"I know this is not Church, but
get close to the Lord. The world
is getting close to the end. Get
close to the Lord."
In 2013, Richard elaborated on his spiritual philosophies, stating:
"God talked to me the other night.
He said He's getting ready to come.
The world's getting ready to end,
and He's coming, wrapped in flames
of fire with a rainbow around His
throne."
Rolling Stone reported that Richard's apocalyptic prophesies generated snickers from some audience members as well as cheers of support. He responded to the laughter by stating:
"When I talk to you about Jesus, I'm
not playing. I'm almost 81 years old.
Without God, I wouldn't be here."
Little Richard's Health Problems and Death
In October 1985, having finished his album Lifetime Friend, Richard returned from England to film a guest spot on the show Miami Vice. Following the taping, he accidentally crashed his sports car into a telephone pole in West Hollywood. He suffered a broken right leg, broken ribs and head and facial injuries.
Richard's recovery from the accident took several months, preventing him from attending the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in January 1986 where he was one of several inductees. He instead supplied a recorded message.
In 2007, Richard began having problems walking due to sciatica in his left leg, requiring him to use crutches. In November 2009, he entered hospital to have replacement surgery on his left hip.
Despite returning to performing the following year, Richard's problems with his hip continued, and he was brought onstage in a wheelchair, only being able to play sitting down.
On the 30th. September 2013, he revealed to CeeLo Green at a Recording Academy fundraiser that he had suffered a heart attack at home the week before. Taking aspirin and having his son turn on the air conditioner saved his life, according to his doctor. Richard stated:
"Jesus had something for me.
He brought me through."
On the 28th. April 2016, Richard's friend Bootsy Collins stated on his Facebook page that:
"Richard is not in the best of
health, so I ask all the Funkateers
to lift him up."
Reports began being posted on the internet stating that Richard was in grave health, and that his family were gathering at his bedside. On the 3rd. May 2016, Rolling Stone issued a rebuttal by Richard and his lawyer. Richard stated:
"Not only is my family not gathering
around me because I'm ill, but I'm still
singing. I don't perform like I used to,
but I have my singing voice, I walk
around, I had hip surgery a while ago,
but I'm healthy.'"
His lawyer said:
"He's 83. I don't know how many
83-year-olds still get up and rock
it out every week, but in light of
the rumors, I wanted to tell you
that he's vivacious and conversant
about a ton of different things, and
he's still very active in a daily routine."
Though Richard continued to sing into his eighties, he kept away from the stage.
On the 9th. May 2020, after a two month illness, Richard died at the age of 87 at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee, from a cause related to bone cancer. His brother, sister, and son were with him at the time.
Richard received tributes from many popular musicians, including Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Elton John, and Lenny Kravitz, as well as many others, such as film director John Waters, who were influenced by Richard's music and persona.
Richard was laid to rest at Oakwood University Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama.
Little Richard's Legacy
Richard claimed to be "The Architect of Rock and Roll", and history would seem to bear out his boast. More than any other performer—save, perhaps, for Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona.
On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.
Richard's music and performance style had a pivotal effect on the sound and style of popular music genres of the 20th. century. As a rock and roll pioneer, Richard embodied its spirit more flamboyantly than any other performer.
Richard's raspy shouting style gave the genre one of its most identifiable and influential vocal sounds, and his fusion of boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B and gospel music blazed its rhythmic trail.
Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.
He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come.
Combining elements of boogie, gospel, and blues, Richard introduced several of rock music's most characteristic musical features, including its loud volume and vocal style emphasizing power, and its distinctive beat and innovative visceral rhythms.
He departed from boogie-woogie's shuffle rhythm, and introduced a new distinctive rock beat, where the beat division is even at all tempos. He reinforced the new rock rhythm with a two-handed approach, playing patterns with his right hand, with the rhythm typically popping out in the piano's high register.
His new rhythm, which he introduced with "Tutti Frutti" (1955), became the basis for the standard rock beat, which was later consolidated by Chuck Berry.
"Lucille" (1957) foreshadowed the rhythmic feel of 1960's classic rock in several ways, including its heavy bassline, slower tempo, strong rock beat played by the entire band, and verse–chorus form similar to blues.
Richard's voice was able to generate croons, wails, and screams unprecedented in popular music. He was cited by two of soul music's pioneers, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, as contributing to the genre's early development.
Redding stated that most of his music was patterned after Richard's, referring to his 1953 recording "Directly From My Heart To You" as the personification of soul, and that:
"Richard has done a lot for
me and my soul brothers
in the music business."
Cooke said in 1962 that:
"Richard has done so
much for our music".
Cooke had a top 40 hit in 1963 with his cover of Richard's 1956 hit "Send Me Some Loving".
James Brown and others credited Richard and his mid-1950's backing band, The Upsetters, with having been the first to put funk in the rock beat. This innovation sparked the transition from 1950's rock and roll to 1960's funk.
Richard's hits of the mid-1950's, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Keep A-Knockin'" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly", were generally characterized by playful lyrics with sexually suggestive connotations.
AllMusic writer Richie Unterberger stated that:
"Little Richard merged the fire of
gospel with New Orleans R&B,
pounding the piano and wailing
with gleeful abandon. While other
R&B greats of the early 1950's had
been moving in a similar direction,
none of them matched the sheer
electricity of Richard's vocals.
With his high-speed deliveries,
ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed
force of personality in his singing,
he was crucial in upping the voltage
from high-powered R&B into the
similar, yet different, guise of rock
and roll."
Emphasizing the folk influences of Richard, English professor W. T. Lhamon Jr. wrote:
"His songs were literally good
booty. They were the repressed
stuff of underground lore.
And in Little Richard they found
a vehicle prepared to bear their
chocked energy, at least for his
capsulated moment."
Ray Charles introduced him at a concert in 1988 as:
"A man that started a kind of music
that set the pace for a lot of what's
happening today."
Richard's contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, all recorded covers of his works.
As they wrote about him for their Man of the Year – Legend Category in 2010, GQ magazine stated that:
"Richard is, without question, the
boldest and most influential of the
founding fathers of rock'n'roll."
Little Richard's Influence on Society
In addition to his musical style, Richard was cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, despite attempts to sustain segregation.
As H. B. Barnum explained in Quasar of Rock:
"Little Richard opened the door.
He brought the races together."
Barnum described Richard's music as follows:
"It wasn't boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy,
they were fun records, all fun. And they
had a lot to say sociologically in our
country and the world."
Barnum also stated that:
"Richard's charisma was a whole
new thing to the music business.
He would burst onto the stage
from anywhere, and you wouldn't
be able to hear anything but the
roar of the audience. He might
come out and walk on the piano.
He might go out into the audience."
Barnum also stated that Richard was innovative in that he would wear colorful capes, blouse shirts, makeup and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins, and that he also brought flickering stage lighting from his show business experience into performance venues where rock and roll artists performed.
In 2015, the National Museum of African American Music honored Richard for helping to shatter the color line on the music charts and changing American culture for ever.
Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of the heavy metal band Motörhead spoke highly of Little Richard, stating:
"Little Richard was always my main
man. How hard must it have been
for him: gay, black and singing in
the South? But his records are a
joyous good time from beginning
to end."
The Influence of Little Richard
Richard influenced generations of performers across musical genres. Quincy Jones stated that:
"Richard was an innovator whose
influence spans America's musical
diaspora from Gospel, the Blues &
R&B, to Rock & Roll, & Hip-Hop."
James Brown and Otis Redding both idolized him. Brown allegedly came up with the Famous Flames debut hit, "Please, Please, Please", after Richard had written the words on a napkin.
Redding started his professional career with Richard's band, The Upsetters, and first entered a talent show performing Richard's "Heeby Jeebies", winning for fifteen consecutive weeks.
Ike Turner claimed that most of Tina Turner's early vocal delivery was based on Richard, something Richard reiterated in the introduction to Turner's autobiography, Takin' Back My Name.
Bob Dylan first performed covers of Richard's songs on piano in high school with his rock and roll group, the Golden Chords; in 1959 when leaving school, he wrote in his yearbook under "Ambition": "to join Little Richard".
Jimi Hendrix was influenced in appearance (clothing and hairstyle/mustache) and sound by Richard. He was quoted in 1966 saying:
"I want to do with my guitar what
Little Richard does with his voice."
Check out more of my shots at www.christophlr.com
Also, not trying to guilt anybody into anything but if you have too much disposable income and would like to help me with buying more film, I have prints available at society6.com/christophlr
..., qui voulait que tout délit, même mineur, soit réprimé et puni.
ENGLISH :
In the mid 1990s, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani put all his efforts to improve the neighborhood and to restore security. Prostitution, delinquency and crime have been eradicated by the application of the so-called "zero tolerance" policy , that wanted that any offense, however minor, was repressed and punished.
Let me say, first, that i know nothing of these two fellows, and do not know what their relationship was. They seem quite friendly. Isn't that enough?
But allow me, if you will, to use this occasion for a bit of personal reminiscence. As a boy, and as a young man, I got hit on a lot, or at least a fair amount, by other men. I'd like to think that was because I was at least a little bit good-looking, but I'll let other people be the judge. Oftentimes, those encounters were less than pleasant. It was often dark, late at night, in a park, or at the bus station, or i was hitch-hiking. Alone. Perhaps vulnerable (perhaps more exposed than I knew, or care to think about now). I was determined to reject such advances (which sometimes were crudely expressed), but I didn't understand why they were directed at me. I don't think my response was ever inappropriate or overtly homophobic, but i won't say the encounters weren't very troubling. Why were other men attracted to me, I wondered? Why, when what i wanted was (well, there's a word for it), why weren't girls, of all shapes and sizes, throwing themselves at my feet, and making themselves completely available. I had a girlfriend, a very pretty, bright, industrious young thing, but she was, ahem, incompletely available.
But anyway, I would say that my repressed homophobia persisted well into adulthood. It only began to wane when I learned that one of my very good friends was rather flagrantly, and vocally, bisexual, and i met other people, men mostly, who were gay, out, and rather likeable fellows. In a word, like everybody else.
So now, at this point in my life, i feel like i've arrived at a place much closer to where God intended me to be. Tolerant. Accepting. Nay, Celebrating. Love is love, folks, as somebody said on here the other day. If your hearts are not completely open, open them a little wider. We all can do that.
I am so glad that I bought this photograph. I've had it for a long time. I guess I was just waiting for the right time to post it. The one guy looks like that actor on Spin and Marty, if you remember that long ago Disney serial from the Mickey Mouse Club.
cheers. johnny
German postcard. Photo: Constantin / Paul March.
American film actor and director Clint Eastwood (1930) rose to fame as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (1965), and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Later in the US, he played hard edge police inspector Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films, which elevated him to superstar status, and he directed and produced such award-winning masterpieces as Unforgiven (1992), Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).
Clinton ‘Clint’ Eastwood, Jr. was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. His parents were Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migrant worker, and Margaret Ruth (Runner) Eastwood, a factory worker. Clint has a younger sister, Jeanne. Because of his father's difficulty in finding steady work during the depression, Eastwood moved with his family from one Northern California town to another, attending some eight elementary schools in the process. Later he had odd jobs as a fire-fighter and lumberjack in Oregon, as well as a steelworker in Seattle. In 1951, Eastwood was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he was a swimming instructor during the Korean War. He briefly attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting. Eastwood married Maggie Johnson in 1953, six months after they met on a blind date. However, their matrimony would not prove altogether smooth, with Eastwood believing that he had married too early. In 1954, the good-looking Eastwood with his towering height and slender frame got a contract at Universal. At first, he was criticized for his stiff manner, his squint, and for hissing his lines through his teeth. His first acting role was an uncredited bit part as a laboratory assistant in the Sci-Fi horror film Revenge of the Creature (Jack Arnold, 1955). Over the next three years, he more bit parts in such films as Lady Godiva of Coventry (Arthur Lubin, 1955), Tarantula (Jack Arnold, 1955), and the war drama Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956) with George Nader and Lex Barker. His first bigger roles were in the B-Western Ambush at Cimarron Pass (Jodie Copelan, 1958), and the war film Lafayette Escadrille (William A. Wellman, 1958), starring Tab Hunter and Etchika Choureau. In 1959, he became a TV star as Rowdy Yates in the series Rawhide (1959–1966). Although Rawhide never won an Emmy, it was a ratings success for several years. During a trial separation from Maggie Johnson, an affair with dancer Roxanne Tunis produced Eastwood’s first child, Kimber Tunis (1964). An intensely private person, Clint Eastwood was rarely featured in the tabloid press. However, he had more affairs, e.g. with actresses Catherine Deneuve, Inger Stevens and Jean Seberg. After a reconciliation, he had two children with Johnson: Kyle Eastwood (1968) and Alison Eastwood (1972), though he was not present at either birth. Johnson filed for legal separation in 1978, but the pair officially divorced in 1984.
In late 1963, Clint Eastwood's Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made Western. Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from his Rawhide image, signed the contract. The Western was called Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), to be directed in a remote region of Spain by the then relatively unknown Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars, also with Gian Maria Volonté and Marianne Koch, was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961). Eastwood played a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town, torn apart by two feuding families. Hiring himself out as a mercenary, the lone drifter plays one side against the other until nothing remains of either side. Eastwood started to develop a minimalist acting style and created the character's distinctive visual style. Although a non-smoker, Leone insisted Eastwood smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the ‘mask’ he was attempting to create for the loner character. Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) was the first installment of the Dollars trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the U., coined another term for it: the Man With No Name trilogy. ‘The second part was Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965), a richer, more mythologized film that focused on two ruthless bounty hunters (Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef) who form a tenuous partnership to hunt down a wanted bandit (Gian Maria Volontè). Both films were a huge success in Italy. They both contain all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone. Eastwood also appeared in a segment of Dino De Laurentiis’ five-part anthology production Le Streghe/The Witches (Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1967). His performance opposite De Laurentiis' wife Silvana Mangano did not please the critics. Eastwood then played in the third and best Dollars film, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Again he played the mysterious Man with No Name, wearing the same trademark poncho (reportedly without ever having washed it). Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portrayed the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. Yuri German at AllMovie: “Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive "spaghetti western," rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).” The Dollars trilogy was not released in the United States until 1967, when A Fistful of Dollars opened in January, followed by For a Few Dollars More in May, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in December. Eastwood redubbed his own dialogue for the American releases. All the films were commercially successful, particularly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which turned Eastwood into a major film star. All three films received bad reviews, and marked the beginning of a battle for Eastwood to win American film critics' respect. According to IMDb, Sergio Leone asked Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef to appear again in C'era una volta il West/Once Upon A Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), but they all declined when they heard that their characters were going to be killed off in the first five minutes.
Stardom brought more roles for Clint Eastwood. He signed to star in the American revisionist western Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968), playing a man who takes up a Marshal's badge and seeks revenge as a lawman after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead. Using money earned from the Dollars trilogy, accountant and Eastwood advisor Irving Leonard helped establish Eastwood's own production company, Malpaso Productions, named after Malpaso Creek on Eastwood's property in Monterey County, California. Leonard arranged for Hang 'Em High to be a joint production with United Artists. Hang 'Em High was widely praised by critics, and when it opened in July 1968, it had an unprecedented opening weekend in United Artists' history. His following film was Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968), about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (Don Stroud) through the streets of New York City. Don Siegel was a Universal contract director who later became Eastwood's close friend, forming a partnership that would last more than ten years and produce five films. Coogan’s Bluff was controversial for its portrayal of violence, Eastwood's role creating the prototype for the macho cop of the Dirty Harry film series. Coogan's Bluff also became the first collaboration with Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the jazzy score to several Eastwood films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Dirty Harry films. Eastwood played the right-hand man of squad's commander Richard in the war epic Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968), about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the alpine mountains. Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career, Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969). Then, Eastwood starred in the Western Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Sigel, 1970), with Shirley MacLaine, and as one of a group of Americans who steal a fortune in gold from the Nazis, in the World War II film Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970)). Kelly's Heroes was the last film in which Eastwood appeared, that was not produced by his own Malpaso Productions.
Clint Eastwood’s next film, The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1970), was a tale of a wounded Union soldier, held captive by the sexually repressed matron of a southern girl's school. Upon release the film received major recognition in France but in the US it was a box office flop. Eastwood's career reached a turning point with Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), The film centres around a hard-edged San Francisco police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. Dirty Harry achieved huge success after its release in December 1971. It was Siegel's highest-grossing film to date and the start of a series of films featuring the character Harry Callahan. He next starred in the loner Western Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972). In 1973, Eastwood directed his first western, High Plains Drifter, in which he starred alongside Verna Bloom. The revisionist film received a mixed reception, but was a major box office success. Eastwood next turned his attention towards Breezy (Clint Eastwood, 1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met actress Sondra Locke, who would become an important figure in his life. He reprised his role as Detective Harry Callahan in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973). This sequel to Dirty Harry was about a group of rogue young officers (including David Soul and Robert Urich) in the San Francisco Police Force who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals. Eastwood teamed up with Jeff Bridges in the buddy action caper Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974). Eastwood's acting was noted by critics, but was overshadowed by Bridges who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His next film The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood, 1975), based on Trevanian's spy novel, was a commercial and critical failure. His next film The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) was widely acclaimed, with many critics and viewers seeing Eastwood's role as an iconic one that related to America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. The third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer (James Fargo, 1976) had Harry partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay terrorist organization. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was a major commercial success grossing $100 million worldwide. In 1977, he directed and starred in The Gauntlet opposite Sondra Locke. Eastwood portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mafia. In 1978 Eastwood starred with Sondra Locke and an orang-utan called Clyde in Every Which Way but Loose. Panned by critics, the film proved a surprising success and became the second-highest grossing film of 1978. Eastwood then starred in the thriller Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the last of his films to be directed by Don Siegel. The film was a major success, and marked the beginning of a critically acclaimed period for Eastwood. Eastwood's relationship with Sondra Locke began in 1975 during production of The Outlaw Josey Wales. They lived together for almost fourteen years, during which Locke remained married (in name only) to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson. Eastwood befriended Locke's husband and purchased a house in Crescent Heights for Anderson and his male lover.
In 1980, Clint Eastwood’s nonstop success was broken by Bronco Billy, which he directed and played the lead role. The film was liked by critics, but a rare commercial disappointment in Eastwood's career. Later that year, he starred in Any Which Way You Can (Buddy Van Horn, 1980), which ranked among the top five highest-grossing films of the year. In 1982, Eastwood directed and starred in Honkytonk Man, as a struggling Western singer who, accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son Kyle) goes to Nashville, Tennessee. In the same year Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed Firefox alongside Freddie Jones. Then, Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), the darkest and most violent of the series. ‘Go ahead, make my day’, uttered by Eastwood in the film, became one of cinema's immortal lines. Sudden Impact was the last film which he starred in with Locke. The film was the most commercially successful of the Dirty Harry films, earning $70 million and received very positive reviews. In the provocative thriller Tightrope (Richard Tuggle, 1984), Eastwood starred opposite Geneviève Bujold. His real-life daughter Alison, then eleven, also appeared in the film. It was another critical and commercial hit. Eastwood next starred in the period comedy City Heat (Richard Benjamin, 1984) alongside Burt Reynolds. Eastwood revisited the western genre when he directed and starred in Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985), based on the classic Western Shane (George Stevens, 1953). It became one of Eastwood's most successful films to date, and was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best Western to appear for a considerable period, He co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986), about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. Then followed the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988), with Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, and a young Jim Carrey. It is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series. Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz, he directed Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Eastman himself is a prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn. He received two Golden Globes for Bird, but the film was a commercial failure. Carrey would again appear with Eastwood in the poorly received comedy Pink Cadillac (Buddy Van Horn, 1989) alongside Bernadette Peters. In 1989, while his partner Sondra Locke was away directing the film Impulse (), Eastwood had the locks changed on their Bel-Air home and ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. During the last three years of his cohabitation with Locke, Eastwood fathered two children in secrecy with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves, Scott Reeves (1986), and Kathryn Reeves (1988). Eastwood finally presented his and Reeves' children to the public in 2002.
In 1990, Clint Eastwood began living with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of Pink Cadillac in 1988. They had a daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (1993). Eastwood and Fisher ended their relationship in early 1995. Eastwood directed and starred in White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an adaptation of Peter Viertel's roman à clef, about John Huston and the making of the classic film The African Queen (1951). Later in 1990, he directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in The Rookie, a buddy cop action film. Eastwood revisited the Western genre in the self-directed film Unforgiven (1992), in which he played an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. Unforgiven was a major commercial and critical success; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) co-starring John Malkovich. The film was among the top 10 box office performers that year, earning a reported $200 million. Later in 1993, Eastwood directed and co-starred with Kevin Costner in A Perfect World. At the May 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and in 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. Opposite Meryl Streep he starred in the romantic picture The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995), another commercial and critical success. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. In early 1995, Eastwood began dating Dina Ruiz, a television news anchor 35 years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993. They married in 1996. The couple has one daughter, Morgan Eastwood (1996). In 1997, Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller Absolute Power, alongside Gene Hackman. Later in 1997, Eastwood directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. He directed and starred in True Crime (1999), as a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (played by Isaiah Washington). Eastwood's real-life offspring Francesca played his daughter in the film. In 2000, he directed and starred in Space Cowboys alongside Tommy Lee Jones as veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.
Clint Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller Blood Work (2002). He directed and scored the crime drama Mystic River (2003), dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. The film starred Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, (2004). He played a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with female boxer (Hilary Swank). The film won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). At age 74 Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. In 2006, he directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. The first, Flags of Our Fathers, focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and featured the film debut of Eastwood's son Scott. This was followed by Letters from Iwo Jima, which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. Eastwood next directed Changeling (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realize he is an impostor. Eastwood ended a four-year self-imposed acting hiatus by appearing in Gran Torino (2008), which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Gran Torino eventually grossed over $268 million in theatres worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far. Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with Invictus, a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. In 2010, Eastwood directed the drama Hereafter, with Matt Damon as a psychic, and in 2011, J. Edgar, a biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. Eastwood starred in the baseball drama Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz, 2012), as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. Director Lorenz worked with Eastwood as an assistant director on several films. Clint Eastwood is also politically active and served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California from 1986 to 1988. Shawn Dwyer at TCM: “Although a registered Republican since the early-1950s, Eastwood's politics, like the man himself, were that of a true iconoclast. Over the years he had voted for candidates from both parties and publicly denounced the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. And while he had initially wished President Barack Obama well during the start of his first term in office, Eastwood, became a vocal booster for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, dissatisfied with what he viewed as Obama's inability to govern.” But the cinema is Eastwood’s major career. He has contributed to over 50 films as actor, director, producer, and composer. According to the box office-revenue tracking website, Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than US$1.68 billion domestically, with an average of $37 million per film.
Sources: Shawn Dwyer (TCM), Yuri German (AllMovie), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.
Northern Territory Gothic
The land
Where there are no crumbling castles
No bloodsucking vampires
No ancient monsters
No antiquity
Too immature for proper history
The terror is unseen
The terror has been repressed
Through imperial violence, fear, and subversion
Mass transportation to the dungeon of the world
Read More: www.jjfbbennett.com/2020/10/australian-gothic.html
This hotel was built in the 20's when Auburn was a center of the production of the fancy cars Jazz age.-Duesenburgs, Auburns, Cords. It hosts the largest antique car aution in the world. My coffee shop sits across the street and I watch people come and go. It is now a flop house, or a shooting gallery for people with addictions and de facto homeless shelter given the lack of affordable housing and no homeless shelter within 40 miles. It has not been renovated since the 1940's. People pay 100 dollars a week. One often sees families and down on their luck people carrying what they own in and out.
The town (population 13K) has decided, or rather the people who are still living off old money, to turn the town into a 1920's Disneyland simulacrum. There are many very beautiful large houses built during the roarin' 20's. To create this simulacrum the town has very strict zoning laws. The most disturbing is the restriction of multi-family housing to a two block area. Low wage workers live in small towns that have been gutted of businesses and schools.
It is hard not to see Auburn as a Harbinger or the returned of the repressed in Trump's America. I think it would be safe to say that Trump won 80% plus of the 2016 vote.
Money has been dumped into gentrification and fancy joints to eat and drink. Because of cost and overt dissuastion the non-affluent are not welcome. Regular bars and places have been displaced in the name of gentrification which further segregates people.
Another very divisive issue is religion. The town has been taken over by mega-churches which teach the prosperity gospel and whose model is that of business. Local reality agencies regularly advertise churches that "went out of business". These are bought by upstart religious evangelical born again Christians who want their market share or by larger churches which open franchises. The two coffee shops are recreational and organizational spaces for these churches. It is interesting to listen to meetings of marketing committtees discussing books discussing how to market your church to improve market share. They use all the buzzwords of corporations.
This competition and religious clanishness leads to people only talking to people they know and often who go to their mega-church. I have went for coffee at this coffee shop for over a year and on average 15 hours a week. I have had a handful of short conversations with people. I am not one of them and I don't quite look like them even though I am white.
This is related to an interesting phenomenon associated with my picture taking. In the last year, within a 15 mile radius, I have been confronted by men wearing MAGA hats and 9mm handguns in their crotch ask "What Ya Doing?". Cops are often called and I am harassed at least one third of the time I go out to shoot. Farmers are afraid I am a g'ment man enforcing near non-existant environmental laws concerning mega/maga farms. Indiana has a law that you can't take pictures of agricultural properties even if standing on public property-such as a road. Indiana has no state wide Democratic elected officials and this county hasn't had a Democrat elected in I am guessing well over 50 years...maybe much longer.
The other group of people who hassle and intimidate me seem to be working class or poor people who having been whipped into a racist ferver but lack minorities to harass have to go to extreme measures to find an "Other". So if I am taking art pictures I must be weird, liberal, gay or a pedophile as a surrogate for latinos, blacks and gays. People yell insults or just call the police. I have had warning shots fired from 200 yards when I was shooting in the opposite from the house. I have been instructed to raise my hands and been frisked by cops because I was taking pictures of reflections on water puddles and trees.
Unfortunely it is too easy to see this as not only a microcosm of Trump's America but the canary in the coal mine.
This picture is really a vehicle for the narrative. It's a studio style shot from three years ago I took one evening on the self timer. I'm using it because I loved how I felt that evening, I was thrilled to free my female self for few hours.
My desire to spend time as a woman is consuming me just now. I have never experienced the desire as powerfully as it has been these last few days. I last cross-dressed as a woman ten months ago and have missed freeing my female persona.
Since the Spring a sea change has been occurring within me. It both excites and terrifies me. Up until March I was more than happy to cross-dress in private and enjoy the thrill of being a man pretending to be a woman. With no real warning that attitude has changed, suddenly I actually want to spend time as a woman. Let me clarify that statement, I actually want to become a woman when I cross-dress not be aware I'm a man dressed up and acting the part. Something has switched in my head and I now know when dress as Helene in the future I desire to become her. The man I am will be gone.
Of course I know it will still be temporary as I will inevitably return to my male life after a few hours. What has changed is how emotionally I want to make the gender switch when I cross-dress. What I think this means (I'm still coming to terms with the change) is I am willing cross the line and inhabit my female alter ego as if she really is female. I won't be thinking I'm a man anymore. It's a bit scary yet I'm excited and thrilled at the prospect. I think I've suppressed this for years and was deluding myself. I now desire to be a woman when I dress as one. It has increased my confidence greatly. I think previously keeping the fact I am a man in the front of my mind has restricted me as a woman.
I'm sure many will indeed call me delusional, it's a fair point. As I lacked the nerve to transition when I was younger I know I must now express my transsexual nature in a real world environment, I actually want to be a woman and experience part of my life as one. It feels like a dam has broken and the repressed dreams and desires are now cascading through the breach. The part that has terrified me is the paradox that I am an heterosexual man with no attraction to men at all yet as a woman I now like to become an heterosexual woman…I am still trying to get my head around how such conflict can co-exist within me. I feel such a sentiment will draw derision and I may be accused of homosexuality or being bi-sexual. I can honestly say though the reality as a man is I'm a man and when I'm Helene I'm a woman. My gender now switches in my head.
It was good to express this out loud as it has frustrated me for many months now. Make of it what you will. Surely similar emotions and desires exist within other cross-dressers? Maybe I'm going mad with it all. All I know is right now I want to be a woman, I really do want to be one.
Helene x
Vintage postcard.
German actor and writer Hardy Krüger (1928) passed away on 19 January 2022. The blond heart throb acted in numerous European films of the 1950s and 1960s and also in several classic American films. He played friendly soldiers and adventurers in numerous German, British and French films and also in some Hollywood classics. Although he often was typecasted as the Aryan Nazi, he hated wearing the brown uniform. Krüger was 93.
Franz Eberhard August Krüger was born in 1928 in Berlin. He was the son of engineer Max Krüger. From 1941 on Hardy attended the Adolf-Hitler-Schule at Burg Sonthofen, an elite Nazi boarding school. Here the blonde and handsome 15 year old was cast for the film Junge Adler/Young Eagles (Alfred Weidenmann, 1944) starring Willy Fritsch. This propagandafilm for the Wehrmacht was filmed in the huge Ufa studio in Babelsberg. After his successful performance as the apprentice Bäumchen, director Wolfgang Liebeneiner tried to persuade him to continue his film career. In March 1945 the young Krüger was drafted into the SS Division 'Nibelungen', where he was drawn into heavy fighting before being captured by US forces in Tirol. After his release he began to write but did not publish. Instead he started to perform in German theatres. In 1949 he made his first post-war film, the comedy Diese Nacht vergess Ich nie/I'll Never Forget That Night (Johannes Meyer, 1949), with Gustav Fröhlich and Winnie Markus. In the following years his film career took off.
Hardy Krüger became known as a handsome young man with an effortlessly natural attitude in such films as Illusion in Moll/Illusion in a Minor Key (Rudolf Jugert, 1952) starring Hildegard Knef, the drama Solange Du da bist/As Long as You're Near Me (Harald Braun, 1953) with O.W. Fischer, and the comedy Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach/The Girl on the Roof (Otto Preminger, 1953) with Johannes Heesters. The latter was the German version of the Hollywood production The Moon is Blue (Otto Preminger, 1953) starring William Holden and Maggie McNamara. Hardy Krüger and co-star Johanna Matz also appeared uncredited as tourists at the Empire State Building sequence in the American version. The quality of some of his next films did not match his talents. And although the jungle fantasy Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald/Liane, Jungle Goddess (Eduard von Borsody, 1956) with a briefly topless Marion Michael was one of the biggest German box office hits of the 1950s, he declined to star in further Liane films for 'artistic reasons'.
Hardy Krüger is fluent in English, French and German, and found himself in demand by British, French, American and German producers. J. Arthur Rank cast him in three British pictures practically filmed back-to-back. The first one was The One That Got Away (Roy Ward Baker, 1957), the story of the positive and unpolitical lieutenant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war to successfully escape from numerous British POW camps during the Second World War and return to Germany. The second was the comedy Bachelor of Hearts (Wolf Rilla, 1958), and the third the thriller Blind Date (Joseph Losey, 1959) with Stanley Baker and Micheline Presle. In reviews, Hardy was described as 'ruggedly handsome' and a 'blond heartthrob'. Despite anti-German sentiment still prevailing in postwar Europe, he became an international favorite. He appeared in the German Shakespeare update Der Rest ist Schweigen/The Rest Is Silence (Helmut Käutner, 1959), and in the French WW II adventure Un taxi pour Tobrouk/Taxi for Tobruk (Denys de La Patellière, 1960). A highlight was the French drama Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray/Sundays and Cybele (Serge Bourguignon, 1962). This hauntingly beautiful film about a platonic relationship between a former bomber pilot with a war trauma and amnesia, and a 12-year-old orphan girl (Patricia Gozzi), was awarded with the 1962 Best Foreign Film Academy Award. It paved Krüger's way to Hollywood.
In the USA, Hardy Krüger started in the African adventure Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962), at the side of John Wayne and Elsa Martinelli. His later films included Hollywood productions like the original version of The Flight of the Phoenix (Robert Aldrich, 1965) about the survivors of a plane crash in the middle of the Sahara desert, and the war comedy-drama The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Stanley Kramer, 1969) with Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani. In the star studded war epic A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977), he portrayed a Nazi General. Hardy Krüger related during the shooting how he hated to wear a Nazi uniform. Between takes he wore a topcoat over his SS uniform so as "not to remind myself of my childhood in Germany during WW II." Although he often played German soldiers, his characters were mostly positive, he personified the 'good German'. Krüger also appeared in many European productions like Le Chant du monde/Song of the World (Marcel Camus, 1965) with Catherine Deneuve, the controversial box office hit La Monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (Eriprando Visconti, 1969) about a 17th-century Italian nun's long repressed sexual passion, the Italian-Russian coproduction Krasnaya palatka/The Red Tent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1969) starring Sean Connery, and the murder mystery À chacun son enfer/To Each His Hell (André Cayatte, 1977) with Annie Girardot. During that period, he made his sole appearance in a film of the New German Cinema in Peter Schamoni's comedy-western Potato Fritz/Montana Trap (Peter Schamoni, 1976). Most memorable is his role as the Prussian Captain Potzdorf in the Oscar winner Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) featuring Ryan O'Neal. His last film appearance was in the Swedish-British thriller Slagskämpen/The Inside Man (Tom Clegg, 1984) starring Dennis Hopper.
In the 1970s Hardy Krüger had taken up writing fiction and non-fiction, and he started a new career as a globe trotter for TV. In 1983, after several novels, story collections, and a children's book he published the novel Junge Unrast, an only slighty disguised autobiographic account of his life. On television, he played the role of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the popular American TV series War and Remembrance (Dan Curtis, 1989) starring Robert Mitchum. In 2011 appeared as the pater familias in the TV film Die Familie/The Family (Carlo Rola, 2011) with Gila von Weitershausen as his wife. Hardy Krüger married three times. His marriages with actress Renate Densow and Italian painter Francesca Marazzi ended in a divorce. He married his current wife the American Anita Park in 1978. He has three children. His daughter by Renate Densow, Christiane Krüger (born in 1945, when he was only 17) and his son by Francesca Marazzi, Hardy Jr. Krüger are both actors too. Hardy Krüger was awarded many times for his work. In 2001 he was made Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in France, and in 2009, Germany honoured him with the Großes Verdienstkreuz (Great Cross of Merit). Since then, Hardy and Anita Krüger lived in California, and in Hamburg. Krüger died at his home in Palm Springs, California, on 19 January 2022, at the age of 93.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line - German), Tom Hernandez (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1411. Photo: Warner Bros. Natalie Wood in Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958).
American actress Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses in the early 1960s. At 4, she started out as a child actress and at 16, she became a star, when she co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 1961, she played Maria in the hit musical West Side Story. She was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Only 43, Wood drowned during a boating trip with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm (1983) co-star Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, USA, in 1938. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her father Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko was a day laborer and carpenter and her mother Maria Zudilova was a housewife. Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Maria had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She wanted her daughters to pursue an acting career, and live out her dream. Maria frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where Maria could study the films of Hollywood child stars. The impoverished family could not afford any other acting training to Wood. The Zakharenko family eventually moved to Santa Rosa, where young Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. The family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name "Natalie Wood for her. The first name was based on her childhood nickname Natalia, and the last name was in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalia's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin (1946) would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood. Natalie made her film debut in the drama Happy Land (Irving Pichel, 1943) starring Don Ameche, set in the home front of World War II. She was only 5-years-old, and her scene as the 'Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone' lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family over the next few years. Wood had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was "unable to cry on cue" for a key scene. So her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene. Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), starring Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. The film was a commercial and critical hit and Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood. She received many more to play in films. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter or sister of such protagonists as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child actress. The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
Natalie Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. She played the role of a teenage girl who dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father (William Hopper) who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child star to ingenue. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, but the award was instead won by Jo Van Fleet. Her next significant film was the Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), playing the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of the protagonist Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The film was a commercial and critical hit and has since been regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School, with her graduation serving as the end of her school years. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, the studio had her paired up with teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter as a duo. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period is the role of the eponymous protagonist in the melodrama Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958) with Gene Kelly, playing a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. Wikipedia: "The central conflict in the film revolves around the traditional models of social behavior and religious behavior expected by New York Jewish families in the 1950s, and Marjorie's desire to follow an unconventional path." The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the 1950s. Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (Michael Anderson, 1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker (played by Robert Wagner) without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded a loss of 1,108,000 dollars. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt.
With her career in decline following this failure, Natalie Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) with Warren Beatty. The film was a critical success and Wood for first nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The award was instead won by rival actress Sophia Loren. Wood's next important film was West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth in a film, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about 44 million dollars in gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed and is still regarded among the best films of Wood's career. However, Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the film. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956). Wood's next leading role was as the burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the Biopic Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) alongside Rosalind Russell. Some film historians credit the part as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterisation. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1962 and well-received critically. Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in the comedy-drama Love with the Proper Stranger (Robert Mulligan, 1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), finds herself pregnant, and desperately seeks an abortion. The film underperformed at the box office but was critically well-received. The 25-year-old Wood received her second nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but it was won by Patricia Neal. Wood continued her successful film career and made two comedies with Tony Curtis: Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) and The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), the latter with Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. For Inside Daisy Clover (Sydney Pollack, 1965) and This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford, Wood received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. However, her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. 175,000 dollars to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Natalie Wood made her comeback in the comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969), with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her 750,000 dollars fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars over the course of three years. Wood was pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson (1970). She chose to go into semi-retirement to raise the child, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery-comedy Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) starring Michael Caine, the Science-Fiction film Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) with Sean Connery, the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (Gilbert Cates, 1980) with George Segal and Valerie Harper, and the posthumously-released Science-Fiction film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983). In the late 1970s, Wood found success in television roles. Laurence Olivier asked her to co-star with him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Robert Moore, 1976). After that, she appeared in several television films and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (Buzz Kulik, 1979), with William Devane and Kim Basinger. For From Here to Eternity, she received a Golden Globe Award and high ratings. She had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of 'Anastasia'. On 28 November 1981, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983), Natalie Wood joined her husband Robert Wagner, their friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. The four of them were on board Wagner's yacht Splendour. On the morning of 29 November 1981, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat. The autopsy revealed that she had drowned. Wikipedia: "The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as 'drowning and other undetermined factors' in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Wood's death." Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots. Natalie Wood was married three times. Her second husband was the British film producer and screenwriter Richard Gregson (1969-1972). She was twice married to actor Robert Wagner, from 1957 till 1962 and from 1972 till her death in 1981. She had two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (1970) with Richard Gregson, and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Robert Wagner. The 2004 TV film The Mystery of Natalie Wood chronicles Wood's life and career. It was partly based on the biographies 'Natasha: the Biography of Natalie Wood' by Suzanne Finstad and 'Natalie & R.J.' by Warren G. Harris. Justine Waddell portrays Wood.
Sources: Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Small Belgian collectors card, no. 148.
American actress Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses in the early 1960s. At 4, she started out as a child actress and at 16, she became a star, when she co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 1961, she played Maria in the hit musical West Side Story. She was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Only 43, Wood drowned during a boating trip with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm (1983) co-star Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, USA, in 1938. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her father Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko was a day laborer and carpenter and her mother Maria Zudilova was a housewife. Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Maria had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She wanted her daughters to pursue an acting career, and live out her dream. Maria frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where Maria could study the films of Hollywood child stars. The impoverished family could not afford any other acting training to Wood. The Zakharenko family eventually moved to Santa Rosa, where young Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. The family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name "Natalie Wood for her. The first name was based on her childhood nickname Natalia, and the last name was in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalia's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin (1946) would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood. Natalie made her film debut in the drama Happy Land (Irving Pichel, 1943) starring Don Ameche, set in the home front of World War II. She was only 5-years-old, and her scene as the 'Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone' lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family over the next few years. Wood had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was "unable to cry on cue" for a key scene. So her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene. Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), starring Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. The film was a commercial and critical hit and Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood. She received many more to play in films. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter or sister of such protagonists as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child actress. The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
Natalie Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. She played the role of a teenage girl who dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father (William Hopper) who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child star to ingenue. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, but the award was instead won by Jo Van Fleet. Her next significant film was the Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), playing the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of the protagonist Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The film was a commercial and critical hit and has since been regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School, with her graduation serving as the end of her school years. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, the studio had her paired up with teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter as a duo. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period is the role of the eponymous protagonist in the melodrama Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958) with Gene Kelly, playing a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. Wikipedia: "The central conflict in the film revolves around the traditional models of social behavior and religious behavior expected by New York Jewish families in the 1950s, and Marjorie's desire to follow an unconventional path." The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the 1950s. Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (Michael Anderson, 1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker (played by Robert Wagner) without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded a loss of 1,108,000 dollars. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt.
With her career in decline following this failure, Natalie Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) with Warren Beatty. The film was a critical success and Wood for first nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The award was instead won by rival actress Sophia Loren. Wood's next important film was West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth in a film, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about 44 million dollars in gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed and is still regarded among the best films of Wood's career. However, Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the film. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956). Wood's next leading role was as burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the Biopic Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) alongside Rosalind Russell. Some film historians credit the part as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterisation. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1962 and well-received critically. Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in the comedy-drama Love with the Proper Stranger (Robert Mulligan, 1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), finds herself pregnant, and desperately seeks an abortion. The film underperformed at the box office but was critically well-received. The 25-year-old Wood received her second nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but it was won by Patricia Neal. Wood continued her successful film career and made two comedies with Tony Curtis: Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) and The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), the latter with Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. For Inside Daisy Clover (Sydney Pollack, 1965) and This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford, Wood received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. However, her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. 175,000 dollars to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Natalie Wood made her comeback in the comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969), with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her 750,000 dollars fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars over the course of three years. Wood was pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson (1970). She chose to go into semi-retirement to raise the child, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery-comedy Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) starring Michael Caine, the Science-Fiction film Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) with Sean Connery, the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (Gilbert Cates, 1980) with George Segal and Valerie Harper, and the posthumously-released Science-Fiction film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983). In the late 1970s, Wood found success in television roles. Laurence Olivier asked her to co-star with him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Robert Moore, 1976). After that, she appeared in several television films and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (Buzz Kulik, 1979), with William Devane and Kim Basinger. For From Here to Eternity, she received a Golden Globe Award and high ratings. She had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of 'Anastasia'. On 28 November 1981, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983), Natalie Wood joined her husband Robert Wagner, their friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. The four of them were on board Wagner's yacht Splendour. On the morning of 29 November 1981, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat. The autopsy revealed that she had drowned. Wikipedia: "The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as 'drowning and other undetermined factors' in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Wood's death." Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots. Natalie Wood was married three times. Her second husband was the British film producer and screenwriter Richard Gregson (1969-1972). She was twice married to actor Robert Wagner, from 1957 till 1962 and from 1972 till her death in 1981. She had two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (1970) with Richard Gregson, and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Robert Wagner. The 2004 TV film The Mystery of Natalie Wood chronicles Wood's life and career. It was partly based on the biographies 'Natasha: the Biography of Natalie Wood' by Suzanne Finstad and 'Natalie & R.J.' by Warren G. Harris. Justine Waddell portrays Wood.
Sources: Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. N. 41.
American actress Natalie Wood (1938-1981) was one of Hollywood's most valuable and wanted actresses in the early 1960s. At 4, she started out as a child actress and at 16, she became a star, when she co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 1961, she played Maria in the hit musical West Side Story. She was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Only 43, Wood drowned during a boating trip with husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm (1983) co-star Christopher Walken.
Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, USA, in 1938. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her father Nikolai Stepanovich Zakharenko was a day laborer and carpenter and her mother Maria Zudilova was a housewife. Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Maria had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming an actress or ballet dancer. She wanted her daughters to pursue an acting career, and live out her dream. Maria frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where Maria could study the films of Hollywood child stars. The impoverished family could not afford any other acting training to Wood. The Zakharenko family eventually moved to Santa Rosa, where young Wood was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. The family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name "Natalie Wood for her. The first name was based on her childhood nickname Natalia, and the last name was in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalia's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin (1946) would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood. Natalie made her film debut in the drama Happy Land (Irving Pichel, 1943) starring Don Ameche, set in the home front of World War II. She was only 5-years-old, and her scene as the 'Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone' lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family over the next few years. Wood had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role opposite Orson Welles as Wood's guardian and Claudette Colbert in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was "unable to cry on cue" for a key scene. So her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene. Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), starring Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O'Hara. The film was a commercial and critical hit and Wood was counted among the top child stars in Hollywood. She received many more to play in films. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter or sister of such protagonists as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood appeared in over twenty films as a child actress. The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom, Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
Natalie Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo. She played the role of a teenage girl who dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father (William Hopper) who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child star to ingenue. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, but the award was instead won by Jo Van Fleet. Her next significant film was the Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), playing the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of the protagonist Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). The film was a commercial and critical hit and has since been regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School, with her graduation serving as the end of her school years. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, the studio had her paired up with teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter as a duo. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period is the role of the eponymous protagonist in the melodrama Marjorie Morningstar (Irving Rapper, 1958) with Gene Kelly, playing a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. Wikipedia: "The central conflict in the film revolves around the traditional models of social behavior and religious behavior expected by New York Jewish families in the 1950s, and Marjorie's desire to follow an unconventional path." The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the 1950s. Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (Michael Anderson, 1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker (played by Robert Wagner) without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded a loss of 1,108,000 dollars. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt.
With her career in decline following this failure, Natalie Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) with Warren Beatty. The film was a critical success and Wood for first nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The award was instead won by rival actress Sophia Loren. Wood's next important film was West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, 1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth in a film, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about 44 million dollars in gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed and is still regarded among the best films of Wood's career. However, Wood was disappointed that her singing voice was not used in the film. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), and Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956). Wood's next leading role was as burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the Biopic Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) alongside Rosalind Russell. Some film historians credit the part as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterisation. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1962 and well-received critically. Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in the comedy-drama Love with the Proper Stranger (Robert Mulligan, 1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen), finds herself pregnant, and desperately seeks an abortion. The film underperformed at the box office but was critically well-received. The 25-year-old Wood received her second nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but it was won by Patricia Neal. Wood continued her successful film career and made two comedies with Tony Curtis: Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) and The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), the latter with Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. For Inside Daisy Clover (Sydney Pollack, 1965) and This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), both of which co-starred Robert Redford, Wood received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. However, her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. 175,000 dollars to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Natalie Wood made her comeback in the comedy-drama Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969), with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her 750,000 dollars fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars over the course of three years. Wood was pregnant with her first child, Natasha Gregson (1970). She chose to go into semi-retirement to raise the child, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery-comedy Peeper (Peter Hyams, 1975) starring Michael Caine, the Science-Fiction film Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) with Sean Connery, the sex comedy The Last Married Couple in America (Gilbert Cates, 1980) with George Segal and Valerie Harper, and the posthumously-released Science-Fiction film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983). In the late 1970s, Wood found success in television roles. Laurence Olivier asked her to co-star with him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Robert Moore, 1976). After that, she appeared in several television films and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (Buzz Kulik, 1979), with William Devane and Kim Basinger. For From Here to Eternity, she received a Golden Globe Award and high ratings. She had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of 'Anastasia'. On 28 November 1981, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983), Natalie Wood joined her husband Robert Wagner, their friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. The four of them were on board Wagner's yacht Splendour. On the morning of 29 November 1981, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat. The autopsy revealed that she had drowned. Wikipedia: "The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as 'drowning and other undetermined factors' in 2012. In 2018, Wagner was named as a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Wood's death." Natalie Wood was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983) was incomplete at the time of her death. It was ultimately finished and released, but Wood's character had to be written out of three scenes while a stand-in and changing camera angles were used for crucial shots. Natalie Wood was married three times. Her second husband was the British film producer and screenwriter Richard Gregson (1969-1972). She was twice married to actor Robert Wagner, from 1957 till 1962 and from 1972 till her death in 1981. She had two daughters, Natasha Gregson Wagner (1970) with Richard Gregson, and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Robert Wagner. The 2004 TV film The Mystery of Natalie Wood chronicles Wood's life and career. It was partly based on the biographies 'Natasha: the Biography of Natalie Wood' by Suzanne Finstad and 'Natalie & R.J.' by Warren G. Harris. Justine Waddell portrays Wood.
Sources: Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1133. Photo: Rank. Anne Heywood in Checkpoint (Ralph Thomas, 1956).
British film actress Anne Heywood (1931) started her career as Miss Great Britain in 1950. In the mid-1950s, she began to play supporting roles as the ‘nice girl’ for Rank. Gradually she evolved into a leading lady, best known for her dramatic roles in the pioneer lesbian drama The Fox (1967) and La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969).
Anne Heywood was born as Violet Joan Pretty in Handsworth (now Birmingham), England in 1932. She was one of the seven children. Her father, Harold Pretty, was a former orchestral violinist, turned factory worker. Her mother died when Violet was just 13. She had to leave school at fourteen to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go to art school. Instead, she joined in 1947 the Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and stayed there for two years gaining stage experience. At only 17, the knockout brunette won the National Bathing Beauty Contest in 1950, later renamed as the Miss Great Britain contest. Her prizes were £1000 and a silver rose bowl. The following year she made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951, Frank Launder) with Dennis Price. That year she also became the personal assistant of Carroll Levis, a talent spotter on a radio show, which toured along the main theatres of Great Britain. She stayed at the show for four years and even appeared three times with the show on television. Heywood attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace, she was spotted by a talent scout for the Rank Organization. In 1956, she signed a seven-year contract and her name was changed to Anne Heywood. According to Glamour Girls at the Silver Screen, she later recalled: “I always hated my name. It sounded unreal.” For Rank, she appeared in supporting roles as the 'nice girl'. Her films included the comedy Doctor at Large (1957, Ralph Thomas) starring Dirk Bogarde, the crime drama Violent Playground (1958, Basil Dearden) opposite Stanley Baxter, and the adventure Dangerous Exile (1958, Brian Desmond Hurst) starring Louis Jourdan. Gradually Heywood evolved into a leading lady.
Anne Heywood met in 1959 producer Raymond Stross at the set of A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters (1960, Tay Garnett) starring Robert Mitchum. A year later they married in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 16 years her senior. Stross started to reshape her image with such sexy, offbeat dramas as The Very Edge (1963, Cyril Frankel) with Richard Todd, and 90 Degrees in the Shade (1965, Jiri Weiss). At the Berlin Film Festival, the latter won the International Critics' Prize. Her breakthrough role was Ellen March in The Fox (1967, Mark Rydell), co-starring Sandy Dennis. This film adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novel caused controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb on Heywood and Dennis: “the two were quite believable as an unhappy, isolated couple whose relationship is irreparably shattered by the appearance of a handsome stranger (Keir Dullea). At the height of the movie's publicity, Playboy magazine revealed a ‘pictorial essay’ just prior to its 1967 release with Anne in a nude and auto-erotic spread.” Heywood was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The Fox, a Canadian film, did win the ‘Best Foreign Film Golden Globe. Heywood did not. The Fox is now respected as a pioneer, ground-breaking lesbian film. Heywood’s next film was La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969, Eriprando Visconti) with Hardy Krüger. This controversial drama tells the tale of how a 17th-century Italian nun's long-repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes and impregnates her. Later she is captured and captured and given a horrible life sentence. This ‘true story’ of Sister Virginia, the nun of Monza, was shot in a fifteenth-century castle 27 miles north of Rome and in medieval churches in Lombardy, where the original story took place. The nasty exploitative drama grossed more than $1,000,000 in its initial run in Italy and paid back its negative cost in three weeks. The box office success lead to an Italian subgenre of ‘nunsploitation’ films in the 1970s.
Anne Heywood and Raymond Stross moved from Switzerland to the US. Despite the Golden Globe nomination and the Playboy spread, Heywood never endeared herself to American filmgoers. Such Hollywood productions as the caper Midas Run (1969, Alf Kjellin) with Fred Astaire, and the action drama The Chairman (1969, J. Lee Thompson) with Gregory Peck were no successes. She seemed drawn toward highly troubled, flawed characters, like in I Want What I Want (1972, John Dexter) and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979, Marvin J. Chomsky). In the 1970s, she also appeared in several Italian films, including the Giallo L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (1972, Alberto De Martino) with Telly Savalas and Willeke van Ammelrooy, the nunsploitation Le monache di Sant'Arcangelo/The Nun & The Devil (1973, Domenico Paolella) with Ornella Muti, and the romantic drama La prima volta sull'erba/Love Under the Elms (1975, Gianluigi Calderone). Her career declined in the 1980s. Her final feature was What Waits Below (1985, Don Sharp. Hal Erickson at IMDb: “a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of a lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface-dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed.” Her penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel on the American TV series The Equalizer (1988), starring Edward Woodward. In 1988 her husband Raymond Stross died. The following year she appeared in a final television movie, Memories of Manon (1989, Tony Wharmby) based on the character from The Equalizer. After this role, she retired. She remarried to George Danzig Druke, a former New York Assistant Attorney General. Anne Heywood Druke resides with her husband in Beverly Hills, USA. She has one son, Mark (1963), with Raymond Stross.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.