#1969 film sweet charity

[billdecker]

SWEET CHARITY (1969) dir. Bob Fosse

[filmap]

Sweet Charity Bob Fosse. 1969

Bridge Gapstow Bridge, Central Park, New York, NY 10019, USA See in map

See in imdb

Bonus: also in this location

[lizardthirty]

vittorio vidal is such an underrated character.

He's taken with Charity immediately and his affection for her is sincere and not at all condescending. He likes her because she's funny and charming and honest. He asks her opinion on how to deal with his girlfriend, and he takes her advice. He lets her into his home. He serves her food. When she asks for his autograph he not only gives it to her, he gives her multiple props from old movies so she can convince her friends it really happened. He kisses her forehead. When Charity ends up in the closet, he's embarrassed. he leads her out of his home in shame.

and that whole sequence could have gone so differently. a worse writer would have done the whole "self absorbed celebrity breaks the naive fan's heart" thing. but no! vittorio genuinely likes her! he's kind to her! he doesn't judge her for her job! When charity leaves, he tells her that he'd wished it had gone differently!

what if i started screaming and never stopped, basically.

[vital-deloin]

The ability to remember and recognize a musical theme does not seem to be affected by age, unlike many other forms of memory. "You’ll hear anecdotes all the time of how people with severe Alzheimer’s can’t speak, can’t recognize people, but will sing the songs of their childhood or play the piano,” says Sarah Sauvé, a feminist music scientist now at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom.

Sweet Charity (1969) is a musical film that marks the film debut as a director of stage director and choreographer Bob Fosse.

[broadwaydivastournament]

Movie Musical Divas Tournament: Round 1

Bea Arthur (1922-2009): Mame (1974) as Vera Charles

"The saving grace of that Mame film adaptation. Serving cunt in a deep gravelly voice. She served in the Marine Corps in WWII, had a celebrated stage career, and is one of our forefront gay icons. In one night, she raised $40,000 for homeless queer youth with one of her one-woman shows. Everything she has done for us-tumblr's core demographic-means she deserves our vote. What more do you need?" - anonymous

Shirley MacLaine (1934- ): Sweet Charity (1969) - Charity Hope Valentine | Can-Can (1960) - Simone Pistache | Artists and Models (1955) - Bessie Sparrowbrush | What a Way to Go! (1964) - Louisa May Foster

"do you like JOY and WHIMSY? then consider voting for shirley maclaine! a devoted student of ballet in her youth who got her start in broadway musicals as a teenager, it's honestly criminal that someone who dances as well as her hasn't been in more than a handful of movie musicals. she's also extremely skilled at physical comedy and often incorporates this into her dance numbers to great effect. the scene in artists & models where she terrorizes jerry lewis with her love declaration for four straight minutes by shout-singing innamorata at him and capering around like a lithe lovestruck elf while he repeatedly falls down a flight of stairs is honestly a work of art and the high point of the whole movie.

and who could forget her in fosse's sweet charity, taking over the role originated by gwen verdon on the stage, bringing her trademark tragicomic élan to the naive but unstoppable charity. her other biggest musical lead role is in can-can opposite frank sinatra, where she gets to show off her athleticism and comedic abilities, sing classic cole porter tunes, and have a great showpiece in a lengthy surreal ballet number. and rounding things off is what a way to go!, which is mostly a zany dark comedy but briefly becomes a musical in the gene kelly section.

truly a shame for musicals fans (me) that she came to prominence in an era when they were becoming fewer and farther between (although her non-musical acting career is nothing to sneeze at and is in fact iconic) but charity hope valentine you will always be famous." - anonymous

This is Round 1 of the Movie Musical Divas tournament. Additional polls in this round may be found by searching #mmround1, or by clicking the link below. Add your propaganda and support by reblogging this post.

ADDITIONAL PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

Bea Arthur:

Photos and video submitted by: anonymous

Shirley MacLaine:

Photos and video submitted by: anonymous

[ufonaut]

the way todd phillips chose to alienate general audiences as well as fangirls and fanboys of all varieties in favor of making a film aimed at insane film-literate gay people only in which he left behind all the derivative elements of the first movie and instead created a wholly singular psychological thriller taking its cues from sweet charity 1969 of all things... well exactly

[wellntruly]

oh man, old movies!! my dad was a huge movie guy so I grew up watching that. My movie knowledge is basically 30s-50s and then abrupt jump to the 2000s lol It's instilled in me an adoration for bombastic musicals and over the top Hijinks. I absolutely adore the Marx Brothers and Basil Rathbone is, in my opinion, DRASTICALLY underappreciated. He was a fantastic Sherlock, but he was also such an amazing chameleon in so many vastly different roles! What are your favs with them, or any advice on what I should watch based on those loves.

Hi buddy!!!! WHAT a fun brief, have I got recs for you:

First up for sure for sure, have you ever seen Love Me Tonight (1932), by Rouben Mamoulian? One of the most insane things I have ever seen, COMMMMPLIMENTARY. It’s a pre-Code musical comedy with killer songs that are themselves having a lot of meta fun with the concept “musical comedy”—it’s wild! So funny, so strange, Myrna Loy is there being hilariously horny, just an exquisitely bonkers time.

Where: multiple copies just floating free on YouTube

And wow this is where I discover that I am still vanishingly low on Basil Rathbone movies! But you’ve made me think of mysteries, and gosh I really really loved The Lady Vanishes (1939). One of the lesser seen Hitchcocks, according to Letterboxd it’s all the way back in the 15th most popular, and that’s so crazy because it rules. Its mix of comedy, drama, twists, and an increasingly imperative political angle actually reminded me most of all of Bong Joon Ho. Two very charming lead performances too, which I bet you'll like!

Where: Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Prime

And since you mentioned that you had a sort of abrupt halt at the end of the 50s, if you want another wild musical, I cannot get enough of showing people Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969). It totally flopped at the time because half the audiences were over studio musicals, and the other half that did still love a musical were baffled by this one’s edge. But today, it feels like such a treasure. Unbelievably funny, mesmerizing dance sequences, inventive editing, full of colors and life and yet again, this fascinating dark undercurrent, sometimes overcurrent.

Where: this one can be harder to find, but you can always try your local library, I have a lot of pals who use theirs to find all sorts of old movies

Signed, Your Classic Films Thesaurus

[hooked-on-elvis]

ELVIS FELT BETTER SINGING DIRECTLY TO SOMEONE ON HIS MOVIES 🎬🎠

— BEHIND THE SCENES: 'HAVE A HAPPY' PRODUCTION NUMBER IN 'CHANGE OF HABIT' (1969)

The above 'Have A Happy' production number was filmed on the Universal back lot park (between March and April, 1969).

The scene was in fact shot three times. The first shoot used a small old merry-go-round, which looked out of place. The second shoot had technical problems with the sync and the camera, (The playback system had just been used on 'Sweet Charity', another 1969 movie with, among others, Sammy Davis Jr. on the cast, using quarter inch tape) then after a third attempt, some pick ups were still needed because Amanda (Autistic child character played by Lorena Kirk) wasn't smiling at the end of the number.

About that 'no smile' issue, Cynnie Troup (assistant trainee script supervisor) said:

To get that little girl to smile, oh my god! They had a day of re-takes, after the whole movie was over, after the wrap party, which Elvis was certainly involved. It was not a very good song, that scene was awful. It was tough to match, who sitting on what horse, it wasn't fun scene at all.

I highly disagree with 'the scene was awful' thing, but possibly Cynnie Troup is talking about the production work behind the cameras and not the final cut properly, but even if those are her thoughts on the final scene, it's a matter of opinion, really. Even though the scene is perceived as 'silly' mainly by adult audience, to me it looks joyful and carefree and personally I enjoy the song very much. The merry-go-round scene is cute, except one of the final moments when Mary Tyler Moore arches her back so slowly while she's silly smiling, looking kinda horny even, and it looks the character is on a acid trip (something common back in the 60s, so it's funny watching her look like that on the movie but it's a just a brief moment). The only thing I say as a viewer that slightly bothers me on the scene is that I get a little dizzy while watching it because of the obvious - the camera work and the actors walking around in that gyrating thing. I can't even imagine how Elvis must have felt filming this, since he is the only actor moving around that merry-go-round the entire time - and they filmed it 3 times fully!

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On the same scene, Director William A. Graham recalled:

We were shooting this musical number on a merry-go-round where he's taken this little girl to the park. He takes her on the merry-go-round and she's riding around and Elvis is singing to her. Well, she was a very young girl and she could only work for a few hours a day with us getting into all kinds of penalties and overtime. So when it came time to do Elvis' close up the little girl wasn't available to do the offstage. Also, you know, her attention span was not that great. So Elvis said to me, 'I always feel better when I'm singing a song if I can look at somebody and if I can sing to somebody'. He says, 'I wonder if you would mind standing beside the camera and let me sing to you when I do my close ups'. So I had Elvis Presley sing a song directly to me in a movie, and that was quite a thrill.

Source: This article comes from the website www.elvis.com.au.

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Taking the opportunity since we're mentioning 'Change of Habit', there's one brief interview from elvis.com.au with another actor on the cast of the movie, you can find it in HERE: Interview with Ed Asner (below), who played a cop in 'Change of Habit'.

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I shared this article because, watching all the Elvis movies, I often wondered if Elvis felt even slightly shy while having to sing directly at one person over and over again while filming his movies. Yes, he was used to sing to people, obviously, but singing in a movie set while there's more actors in the scene with him is one thing, while singing looking directly at one person (normally his love interests in the movies, all attractive females) is another, so I wondered if he ever felt uncomfortable singing directly at the ladies in his movies but it turns out he probably didn't. He liked it better this way. Haha, funny. ♥

[afrotumble]

Paula Kelly was an American actress that began her acting career in 1968. She appeared in her first theatrical movie in 1969 called "Sweet Charity" and in 1971, she landed a significant role in "The Andromeda Strain." During the early 1970s, Kelly starred in several movies in the famed Blaxploitation era. In 1972, she appeared in "Cool Breeze," Top of the Heap," and "Trouble Man." While most of her roles were minor, she still had a strong presence on screen, earning some more substantial parts later.

She starred in "Soylent Green" and "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" in 1973, and in 1974, she starred in "Lost in the Stars," where she displayed her singing and dancing talents, some of her greatest attributes. However, her part in "Uptown Saturday Night" was one of her most memorable roles as the fierce and charismatic "Leggy Peggy." Kelly continued acting in film and T.V. throughout the mid to late 70s, appearing in "Drum," "Good Times," and "Kojak."

During the 80s, Kelly's career flourished. She appeared in several T.V. shows with reoccurring roles such as "Nights Court" and "Santa Barbra." She also had excellent parts in "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling" (1986) and "The Women of Brewster's Place" (1989). She earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in "Night Court" and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special for "The Women of Brewster Place." In the 1990s, Kelly continued her acting career in T.V. shows and films until 1999, when her acting credits stopped. She finished her career with 51 total acting credits. She passed away on Feburary 8th, 2020.

Paula Kelly was a phenomenal actress that was a joy to see on the screen. In addition, she was an excellent singer, dancer, and very charismatic. You knew you'd get someone who took her craft seriously when you saw her on screen.

[johannestevans]

Bunch of new pieces this week!

Good evening!

Apologies for the lack of email last week, and the lack of bonus erotica episode too - I'm traveling back and forth at the moment as I try to sort out flat stuff, and unfortunately my asthma is kicking my ass at the moment and making it really hard to sit and record audio even when I have the time. I'm hoping after some rest my chest will chill out a bit and I'll be able to record by next week, but unfortunately it's not predictable.

I had a great time at Bristol Pride and met some of you guys, so if that was you, thanks so much for saying hello!

I will be at Leeds Pride in August, too, so looking forward to that.

Before I get to media recommendations and my new works published in the past two weeks, just your reminder that I am now running a trans erotica publication on Medium!

I'm reccing a favourite in my Media Recs section below, but since starting off, there's 20 new erotic pieces there to peruse, and I'm so, so excited to see a broad swathe of authors and works as time goes on and the publication reaches more people.

Trans Erotica on Medium

Please don't feel that you have to be transmasc or MLM to submit just because I am, by the way, I'd love to see more transfem and trans woman authors, as well as lesbians and WLW, submitting too!

Here are the Submission Guidelines, and here's a basic guide to Medium to get you started if you're new to the platform. Want a prompt to get you started? Here's the July 2023 prompt set.

Media Recs

Fashioning a Fop by Damien Locke- Short fiction. An 18th century tale of a trans man discovering himself through dressing in men’s clothing for the first time. This piece is fucking spectacular, so gorgeously written and with such wonderful 1700s-style prose, very hot, very fun!

What's in the Tea? by Achilles King - Short fiction. 18+ Erotica. Cis M/M and Cis M/Trans M. This is a gorgeous little piece playing with massage and the drugging effects of a particular tea, and I love the power play in this one.

The Music Man (1962, dir. Morton DaCosta) - A musical! I've been in the mood for musicals the past few days, and I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected - a lot of the music has really stuck with me, I love the brass band stuff and the rapid patter pace of the show, especially because I love a conman. With that said, Marian Paroo is a ridiculous name for a woman - the librarian love interest should be a man. I also watched and enjoyed Sweet Charity (1969, dir. Bob Fosse), and I never realised Big Spender was from this show! So that was fun.

I had a gay movie marathon with my boyfriend, Lewis, so first we watched A League Of Their Own (1992, dir. Penny Marshall) and Thelma and Louise (1991, dir. Ridley Scott). These are both great films, obviously - A League of Their Own is a semi-biographical story about the first female baseball league in the USA during the war, and the second is a crime drama with two besties/lovers stuck in an escalating spiral after one of them shoots an attempted rapist. Lewis was surprised that Thelma and Louise is actually gay, so just FYI, it really is actually gay! It's not a happy ending and it's not uncomplicated, but Thelma and Louise are such great characters, and I love them a lot.

We also watched a favourite of mine, which is Gods and Monsters (1998, dir. Bill Condon), starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. If you love sexy manipulative old gay men fucking with the heads of younger mostly straight men who don't know how to deal with being the object of a man's desire, who are terrified of queerness on so many levels, but are also drawn to the novel and new? Yeah, baby. This is the flick for you.

Goetia (2016) - This is a point-and-click videogame that I played on PS4, although I also have it on PC, and I just finished it today. If you're interested in demonology and you love a 20th century haunted house, this is a short game with some great character writing and a really engaging mystery - a lot of it is pretty fucking creepy, and while the ending didn't entirely land for me, I enjoyed the game enough that I do want to recommend it. This is fucking difficult as a puzzle game, though, so definitely keep a notepad and pen handy.

We also caught the Super Mario Bros. (2023, dir. Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath) movie, and it was grand - it was honestly very well-paced, funny, and they did a lot of creative stuff with the source material, plus I'm obviously disgustingly horny for Bowser at all times, so it was good food for my libido.

With that said, it was a bit too aggressive with the heterosexuality, and the racial politics of the whole thing are... Fucking bad. Like, there's a lot to unpack there that I'd need a whole essay to pick apart, and as a white dude I really don't know that it's my place - there's always been some racism in the franchise, like the British studio's addition of a lot of anti-Black coding in making Donkey Kong 64, but just the whole vibe of the Mushroom Kingdom's worship of Princess Peach is like... Weird.

And lastly, I watched and loved The Wicker Man (1973, dir. Robin Hardy), and I have an extensive review below.

New Works Published

June's Top Short Story: Agony and Ecstasy

June's most popular short story of mine was Agony and Ecstasy!

Erotic short. An abbot takes a stranded sailor on for… personal duties.

6k, M/M, rated E! Age difference, virginity kink, some naivety, some oral and anal, first time enthusiasm.

On Medium / / On Patreon

TweetFic: Notes of Lavender

A secretary bonding and connecting with the only male secretary at work. 1960s. Featuring lavender marriages and LESBIANS.

On Twitter

New Podcast: A Stranger's Visit: The Story, Episode 4

Fantasy short. A priest of Freyr receives a strange visitation.

3.6k, rated T. MB. Originally published May 29th, 2021. A little bit of Norse godliness versus Norse priestliness. Featuring Esben. Adapted from a TweetFic.

RSS Feed / / On Spotify / / On Google Podcasts / / On YouTube

New Podcast: Temple Service: The Story, Episode 5

Romance short. A servant at the temple to Hephaestus lusts after an olive-tender.

Rated M, 2.2k, cis M/M, some ancient Greeks! Originally publiushed June 3rd, 2022. A temple servant and a grove-worker, lots of teasing and banter and flirting.

RSS Feed / / On Spotify / / On Google Podcasts / / On YouTube

Romance Short: Sickbed Trade

One sailor tends to another in his sickbed.

Just a little M/M piece with some love and intimacy. 500w.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Film Review: The Wicker Man (1973, dir. Robin Hardy)’s Spit in the Face of Cops and Colonialism

Exploring The Wicker Man’s themes of authority and control on its 50th anniversary.

On Medium / / On Patreon / / On Tumblr

Erotic Short: Intensive Care

A paediatric nurse takes some time after work with the Head of Psychiatry.

3.4k, cis M/M. Some fucky power play between coworkers, both of them very aware of each other’s character flaws, featuring age difference, size difference, riding, oral, anal, lots of physical intimacy and affection, with a hint of overstim at the end.

CW for mentions of past trauma, implied rape and sexual abuse, and incest. None of these things are explicit or present-day, and they’re discussed in the context of unpacking a trigger and some invasive thoughts.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Essay: The Relief of a Queer Audience as a Fruity Stand-Up Comic

Explaining one's existence takes time.

I’m a stand-up comedian.

Last week, I did some comedy at a queer-run, queer-centred open mic — suddenly, a twelve-minute set fit into six, because I was in a room full of queer people who knew exactly what I was talking about...

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Public Performance

A vampire shows off his toy for a club.

1k, cis M/trans M. A vampire fucks his trans boyfriend in a crowded nightclub as people dance below them.

Featuring some chem sex with the drugging effects of a vampire belt, public sex, fingering and vaginal sex, overstimulation, and implications of a fevered gangbang in the aftermath.

On Medium / / On Patreon

[muzaktomyears]

Cake with Elton, coke with Marianne — my life as a rock biographer

As his latest book about George Harrison is published, Philip Norman reminisces on his run-ins with Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones

George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle is my tenth and probably last biography of a big rock name. In the gaps between its predecessors I’ve written novels, short stories, feature films, plays, much journalism and three musicals, two of which were produced. Yet there’s been no escape from the typecasting that followed my Shout! The True Story of the Beatles in 1981.

Admittedly, if I’d pursued a career in fiction as I originally intended (after being among Granta’s first 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983), I could never have found a comparable readership. Shout! is estimated to have sold about a million copies; the other titles have appeared in America, most of the EU countries, Russia, China, India, Australasia, Japan, South Korea, Macedonia, Mexico and Brazil. Fantasising about this hugely diverse audience, I picture Himalayan yak-herders debating Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts’s rival merits as drummers, and remote Amazonian tribes gripped by the subtext of marital infidelity to John Lennon’s Norwegian Wood.

At parties I’ve come to dread being outed as the Beatles’ biographer. Such is the band’s eternal fascination that I’ll have people waiting in line to rehash the Hamburg strip club days or recall exactly what they were doing when they heard of Lennon’s assassination. I could never totally dislike our former chancellor, George Osborne, having once spent an hour discussing the Revolver album with him in that high Tory sanctum the Carlton Club, where even the portraits of Churchill and Macmillan seemed to be raptly eavesdropping.

Nonetheless, I’m aware of being thought not quite respectable by the literary establishment. When biographers congregate, it’s far more impressive to be able to say “I’m doing Augustus John” than “I’m doing Elton John”. I can hardly complain since no one could think less than I do of “rock writing”. Frank Zappa defined music journalists as “people who can’t write preparing articles about people who can’t think for people who can’t read”; indeed, the subject brings out a latent prattishness even in authors of the calibre of Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis.

Albert Goldman’s infamous biographies of Lennon and Elvis Presley, for me, remain exemplars of how not to do it, with their vestigial research and ludicrous fabrications but, above all, their snobbish contempt for their subjects. To write an 800-page book about somebody one despises is a sublimely pointless exercise. Yes, rock stars can be monsters on a par with the nastier Roman emperors. But, while taking all that into account (and blessing heaven for the high comedy it provides), you have to love your monster.

I’ve bent this rule somewhat with Harrison who, although capable of great generosity and even nobility (witness his historic charity concert for Bangladesh), was often far from loveable and had always seemed to me a miserable character who showed little gratitude for his stupendous good fortune. In 1965, when I interviewed the other three Beatles during their last British tour, Harrison’s gaunt, unhappy face floated in the background as he watched The Avengers on television. In 1969, when I went on the road with his best friend, Eric Clapton, that same gaunt, unhappy face joined Clapton on stage, decorated now by a hippy beard and a black Stetson.

Retracing his tragically foreshortened life showed me how much he had to look miserable about, the guitarist eclipsed by the creative dynamo of Lennon and McCartney for years before proving himself their songwriting equal with Here Comes the Sun, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, My Sweet Lord and Something, acknowledged to be one of the 20th century’s greatest love songs. His final chapters of illness and financial catastrophe — cruelly topped off by almost becoming the second Beatle to be murdered — moved me as much as anything I’ve written.

Few of my biographies have received any meaningful help from the various icons’ PR people. Until I found my brilliant research associate, Peter Trollope, I had to trace every potential source by myself. Having Shout! behind me was a useful calling card; when I did the Rolling Stones, it opened the door to Mick Jagger’s ex-partner, Marianne Faithfull, with whom politeness dictated that I took my first (and only) snort of cocaine.

My most bizarre pursuit was of Elton John’s former fiancée, Linda Woodrow, reputed heiress to the Epicure pickled onion fortune. Already suspecting he was gay, Elton had been so terrified of matrimony that he’d attempted suicide. As recounted in his song Someone Saved My Life Tonight, his lyricist Bernie Taupin came to his rescue, albeit was not entirely convinced the attempt had been for real.

I finally tracked Woodrow’s father, Al, to Davenports magic shop in the arcade under Charing Cross station, where he worked part-time. He wasn’t expecting me and, before introducing myself, I had to wait while he sold a magic trick. What I didn’t realise was that selling a magic trick can take for ever, first the salesperson demonstrating it, then the customer repeatedly trying it out. Which explains why I know so well how to make a ping-pong ball seem to vanish from under an inverted cup.

My longest pursuit was of Buddy Holly’s “widowed bride”, Maria Elena Holly, that poignant presence in Don McLean’s song American Pie, which was inspired by Holly’s death in a plane crash aged only 22. It took me a year just to get her on the phone in Dallas, and then her opening line was “all writers are scumbags”. Eventually she was persuaded that I might not be a scumbag and agreed to see me on condition that it was at her lawyer’s office and I paid for the lawyer’s time. American Pie had suggested a delicate Dresden figurine but she was dressed all in black with a floppy beret like a French fascist policeman in the Second World War. However, rather than an interview in front of her lawyer as the dollars racked up, she suggested the two of us just went off to lunch.

Of all my biographies only one came close to being authorised in the conventional way, when subject tells all to writer and vets the material before publication. But others have been endorsed retroactively or approved by the back door.

Five months after Lennon’s death, while I was in New York publicising Shout!, Yoko Ono saw me on breakfast television and phoned me at the ABC studios. “What you just said about John was very nice,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to come over and see where we were living.” That afternoon, I was inside the Dakota Building, looking around their vast white seventh-floor apartment which was just as Lennon had left it, his guitar still hanging on the wall above his bedhead. One small, twilit room contained every piece of clothing he’d ever worn back to his Beatle days, all on revolving racks like some ghostly boutique.

When I was researching my Elton John book, its subject was undergoing multiple detoxifications, so was inaccessible to any interviewer. But just after its publication, my telephone rang and a familiar voice said, “This is Elton.” I only wish I’d had the balls to ask, “Elton who?” He said the biography was “pretty accurate”, invited me to tea the next day and, over Earl Grey and chocolate cake, virtually dictated a postscript chapter about his rehab.

The most surprising case was that of Paul McCartney, whom I admit to having grossly misjudged in Shout! and who’d since referred to it as “shite”. When I let him know as a courtesy that I was embarking on a biography of Lennon, I expected no response. But one day my telephone rang and a voice said, “Ullo, it’s Paul here.” I wish I’d had the balls to ask, “Paul who?” We talked for about 40 minutes, I not like a writer — because I expected nothing from him — but simply as one bloke to another. The upshot was that he let me interview him for the Lennon book by email. Six years later when I proposed a companion volume about him, he came back personally with his “tacit approval” within two weeks.

On the Lennon biography I found myself de-authorised by rock’s other famous widow. For three years, I’d had Ono’s total co-operation: not only 14 hours of interviews with her — when she even told me what she and Lennon used to do in bed — but conversations with their son, Sean, and her daughter from a previous marriage, Kyoko. The sole proviso was that she’d read my manuscript and, if she liked it, would contribute a foreword (to which my publishers weren’t exactly looking forward).

The final bit of access I hoped for was to read Lennon’s diary, kept locked away in the vaults of the Dakota Building, which seemed guaranteed by Ono’s friendly invitation to drop by for “a cup of tea”. As I walked across Central Park to the Dakota, a thought suddenly popped into my head: “Suppose she’s waiting for me with a lawyer?” In fact, she was waiting with two lawyers. After reading my manuscript, she’d decided the book was “mean to John” and was withdrawing her quotes, as well as those of Sean and Kyoko. For two highly unpleasant hours, she and the lawyers tried to persuade me to hand over the interview tapes. Also present was an unidentified women whose role was unclear until Ono shouted, “How could you say that John masturbated?” (which she herself told me with a smile during our interviews). At this, the mystery woman went “Ugh!” and gave a theatrical shudder, and I realised she was Ono’s personal shudderer.

Our one-page agreement gave Ono no prerogative to withdraw her quotes and the tapes belonged to me, not her. Even so, during the long run-up to publication, I checked my email every day, braced for a legal onslaught from her. But it never came.

My books have received some good reviews, some justifiably critical ones and some verging on the psychotic. I’ve noticed that the lighter and sweeter the music, the more grimly obsessive are its hardcore fans. While promoting the Buddy Holly biography, I realised I was being stalked by a member of Holly’s British “appreciation society”, who’d somehow procured a list of my radio interviews and was appearing on each show ahead of me, warning its listeners not to believe a word I said.

Retribution of a less sinister nature came on the first occasion I used that earlier quip about Elton John being a less portentous biographical subject than Augustus John. It was when I spoke at the Porlock Literary Festival, one of whose supporters, the novelist Margaret Drabble, sat in the front row with her husband, Michael Holroyd.

That’s right, the biographer of Augustus John. Now what were the odds?

(source)

[gone2soon-rip]

CHITA RIVERA (1933-Died January 30th 2024,at 91).

American actress, singer, and dancer. Rivera received numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, and a Drama League Award. She was the first Latina and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.She won the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018.

After making her Broadway debut as a dancer in Guys and Dolls (1950), she went on to originate roles in Broadway musicals such as Anita in West Side Story (1957), Velma Kelly in Chicago (1975), and the title role in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993). She was a ten-time Tony Award nominee, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice for her roles in The Rink (1984) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in Bye Bye Birdie (1961), Chicago (1975), Bring Back Birdie (1981), Merlin (1983), Jerry's Girls (1986), Nine (2003), Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life (2005), and The Visit (2015).Rivera acted in the film Sweet Charity (1969) and appeared in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), and Tick, Tick... Boom! (2021). She played Connie Richardson in the CBS sitcom The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1973–1974). She also appeared on television in The Judy Garland Show (1963), The Carol Burnett Show��(1971), and Will & Grace (2005). Chita Rivera - Wikipedia

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Sweet Charity Bob Fosse. 1969

Museum MoMA, 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA See in map

See in imdb

Bonus: also in this location

[olafsings]

Music History Today: April 1, 2023

April 1, 1969: The film Sweet Charity, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Shirley MacClaine, was released. "The Rich Man's Frug" is classic Fosse: creative use of hats + gloves, funky body positioning, and small isolated movements. His style was hugely influenced by his formative experiences dancing in burlesque clubs. He spent countless nights conducting research at strip clubs, fascinated by bringing that movement quality to Broadway.

[bossymarmalade]

Ciao from your SRS 🧑🏼‍🎄 Such an eclectic list of movies; you are quite the film aficionado. I, too, love LOTR and Moulin Rouge! What old-school productions can compete? I may not be able to suggest a movie you have never seen. So I'll offer a list in the hope that you may find a few you haven't viewed. Hope you don't mind--I extended my own boundaries of 50s-70s to make recommendations. 📼

The Thief Of Bagdad (1940) fantasy/full movie on Youtube under DK Classics Down Argentine Way (1940) a Hollywood try at diversity; great musical numbers. Also available under DK Classics Some Like It Hot (1959) filmed in b & w to make Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon more believable in drag but it really reinforces the 20s aesthetic Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) bffs Sweet Charity (1969) Bob Fosse directed and choreographed Lady Sings The Blues (1972) Billie Holiday bio with Diana Ross (full movie on Youtube) Excalibur (1981) based on Le Morte d'Arthur

Since I'm guessing that you may have seen some of these, may I offer one bonus suggestion: Watership Down (1978) animation (full movie on Youtube)

This is such an amazing and well thought-out list! I've seen (or half-seen) many of them but there's still a couple that I haven't and will check out. I ADORE Butch and Sundance, and I think there's a Bessie Smith bio with Queen Latifah out so I might make that a double feature with the Billie Holiday bio!

But omg. You have unwittingly hit upon something that's VERY dear to me from my childhood, and that's Watership Down. Dear secret santa at one point in Grade 7 we were asked to do a 5-page book report on anything we liked. I chose Watership Down and produced a 20-page report complete with charts of the rabbits and their personalities. My teacher gave me full marks and commented "I didn't ask for this". XD

Needless to say I was also obsessed with the movie and still rewatch it now and again and this has prompted me to revisit it once more! I can't be the only one who gave scandalized laughs whenever Kehaar yelled "PISS OFF" at the rabbits and had nightmares about Woundwort's bloody froth.

Incidentally, once I did a fic challenge asking my dreamwidth friendslist to make outlandish requests, and @stupidlullabies wanted me to write a kyrielle for Watership Down. I haven't thought of that in ages. It's here on AO3:

act of frith

Thank you for this unexpected trip down memory burrow. XD

[xabiramone]

Happy birthday to the late Ann Reinking (November 10, 1949 – December 12, 2020) was an American dancer, actress, choreographer and singer. She worked predominantly in musical theater, starring in Broadway productions such as Coco (1969), Over Here! (1974), Goodtime Charley (1975), Chicago (1977), Dancin' (1978), and Sweet Charity (1986).

Reinking won the Tony Award for Best Choreography for her work in the 1996 revival of Chicago, which she choreographed while reprising the role of Roxie Hart. For the 2000 West End production of Fosse, she won the Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer. She also appeared in the films All That Jazz (1979), Annie (1982), and Micki & Maude (1984).🎂