#Marlon Brando career retrospective

[esonetwork]

Brando - The Man In The Leather Jacket

New Post has been published on http://esonetwork.com/brando-the-man-in-the-leather-jacket/

Brando - The Man In The Leather Jacket

This week on Tales from Hollywoodland, Arthur, Julian, and Steve explore the mannerisms, machismo, and mythos of the truly iconic actor, Marlon Brando. From yelling “Stella!” so memorably in A Streetcar Named Desire, to his mumblings in the jungle in Apocalypse Now, with a visit along the way to The Wild One, Guys and Dolls, The Young Lions, The Godfather, and so much more, they explore the man who changed acting forever. 

Links

Tales From Hollywoodland on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/talesfromhollywoodland 

Tales From Hollywoodland on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/talesfromhollywoodland/

Tales From Hollywoodland on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLX2kbwHqdn47FNN6vVN7Q 

We want to hear from you! Feedback is always welcome. Please write to us at  talesfromhollywoodland@gmail.com and why not subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Goodpods, PlayerFM, YouTube, Pandora, Amazon Music, Audible, and wherever fine podcasts are found. 

#MarlonBrandopodcast #HollywoodlegendMarlonBrando #TalesFromHollywoodlandepisode #MarlonBrandocareerretrospective #Brandosactinglegacy #HollywoodiconMarlonBrando #Brandosimpactoncinema #Methodactingpodcast #Brandofilmographyanalysis #ClassicHollywoodpodcast #HollywoodGoldenAge #MarlonBrandobiography #Hollywoodactorspotlight #Brandosmemorableroles #Hollywoodactingtechniques #Brandosinfluenceonactors #HollywoodstarMarlonBrando #Brandosculturalsignificance #Hollywoodpodcastdiscussion #Brandoscontributiontofilmhistory

[hellomynameisbisexual]

“Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream; you’d be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.” This endearing analogy, uttered by equally endearing Icelandic icon Björk, stresses her steadfast opinion that “everyone is bisexual”. But even if bisexuality doesn’t describe everyone, it makes up the largest proportion of all people non-compliant to the adjective ‘straight’. Simply put, bisexuality is a term to describe individuals who feel romantically and/or sexually attracted to both sexes, meaning their preference is neither exclusive to men nor women.

But despite its sizeable demographic, and the numerous studies which conclude pure hetero- or homosexuality to be a myth, bisexuals often fall victim to social ostracism. Too gay for straights, too straight for gays, bisexuals are too frequently labelled as frauds or experimentalists, incapable of committing to one sole party. And as society’s understanding of sex and gender progresses, leaving little room for binaries, ‘bi’sexuality becomes increasingly complex.

Bisexuality Pride LGBTQ David Bowie Lady Gaga Freddie Mercury Music Pop Culture Pride 2019 Pansexual Queer Think Piece

A constant and bothersome companion to bisexuality is its apparent ambiguity—society’s inability to grasp the potential for erotic or amorous interaction with not just one of the two sexes has wrongfully made bisexuality a matter of superstition. A recent study found that bisexuals, of all sexual minorities, are the most likely to suffer from mental illness along the lines of anxiety and depression, stemming from both internalised and externally inflicted biphobia on account of stigmatisation and discrimination induced not only by straight people, but by members of their own community as well. The most prevalent vehicle for intolerance of bisexuals is (surprise, surprise) the narrow-minded idea of there only being two sides to pick from, leading to nonsense-assessments à la “bi people are repressing something”, “bi people are on the verge”. Moreover, male-identifying bisexuals are regularly pigeonholed as gay men who want to feel more “normal” every now and then by strutting alongside a woman, whereas many bisexual women endure belittlement, their experiences reduced to mere trial and error phases of rebellious college years.

But what does being bi even really mean in an age when dating apps such as Tinder offer more than 20 options to describe one’s own identity? How timely is the concept of bisexuality when we’re on the cusp of throwing out expired definitions meant to mathematise human sexuality and identity politics? Connecting the dots—ranging from those force-feeding frequently surreal interpretations of bisexuality to the rusty roles and rules of gender coinciding herewith—brings along another, very new problem for and with the titular term. Bisexuality is rooted in duality—its name is predicated on the ‘fact’ that there are two genders: male and female. Present day’s discourse, however, has done its best at dismantling said duality, pushing the notion of gender as a social construct. What makes bisexuality a problem for mainstream culture to comprehend is the underlying, subtle reality that it ultimately caters to everyone but the straight cis-man—unfathomable for a mindset cemented in patriarchal convictions. It, with other things, then leads to a phenomenon called bi-erasure, and furthermore to bigotry at its broadest, sourced from wide-spread disregard for sexual fluidity and refusal of the concept that one doesn’t feel exclusively drawn to one thing in favour of the other.

It’s this exact type of treatment that exhibits the general populace’s insufficient degree of sensibility in dealing with matters “out of the ordinary” and why, despite it’s historic prolificacy (ancient Greek, Japanese and Roman depictions of bisexual relationships were fairly common), sexual fluidity didn’t gain mainstream momentum until the 70s, when Freddie Mercury and David Bowie emerged as two high profile beacons of the cause. Where previously bisexuality had been the product of retrospective speculation—Hollywood figures such as James Dean, Marlon Brando and Greta Garbo were ‘outed’ after their careers ended—pop music popularised bisexuality in the present—and for an audience beyond the queer underground.

That’s not to say Bowie’s take on bisexuality exactly exuded ‘Pride’—in fact, the artist explained more than once that officially coming out did him more harm than good. Still an undeniable legend in- and outside of the LGBTQ+ cosmos, Bowie—just as other people in his shoes—had difficulties with the term in question, revoking or minimising claims again and again—to the point that, to this day, biographers, fans and exes alike remain unsure wether or not he felt honestly attracted to women and men, or was merely intrigued by bisexuality on a shock value- or curiosity-level. It resembles the kind of borderline sensationalism that brought forth Madonna and Britney’s VMA kiss, vague-at-best comments by celebs in interviews and other question-worthy instances of how bisexuality has been brushed up against, but rarely embraced on a genuine level by people of public interest.

It all charts back to what is referred to as the male gaze—the filter through which we’ve been taught to consume our environment, particularly by way of media. Even the little bits and pieces one does see tapping into alternatives to classic hetero monogamy are mostly blemished by negative stereotyping and bizarrely hypersexualised scenes fresh out of frat-bro wet-dreams. Going against this grain is Desiree Akhavan’s series “The Bisexual”, in which the 35-year old actress, director and HBO’s “Girls��-alumna has managed to entertainingly and thoughtfully depict what might be be one of the first examples of how to pop culturally handle the often conflicting topic of being bisexual with care.

Aforementioned proceedings considered, execution and a heightened awareness for cause-and-effects are why a new generation of vocal youth has, across all platforms, boosted a conversation to crack open the boxes we are either placed in, or choose to place ourselves in for fear of bad resonance. More modern, more inclusive designs like pansexual—the tendency to sexually or romantically like someone in spite of biologically- or self-ascribed traits of gender or sex—are on a rise. To many, ‘queer’ is the least restrictive of all labels, indicative of liberation from the binary. In this instance, it seems as though bisexuality in its traditional sense no longer remains the most politically correct of all notions.

But that being said, we mustn’t forget: labels can do harm, but they also set free. The ability to engage in conversations like these is a privilege we’ve been afforded in the West—a privilege that’s important to remember at the time when our part of the globe celebrates Pride, while others in the LGBTQ+ community elsewhere are being imprisoned or even killed for their sexual identities. Bisexuality, and everything that has branched from it to articulate sexual fluidity, needs to be taken seriously within our own, local spaces—just as serious as every other letter in the line-up that constitutes the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Resisting to defy suppressions of any kind—even if you’re not personally vulnerable to their consequences—results in nothing. It’s only through efforts to increase visibility inside our already comparatively progressive realms that we can transport Pride’s cause to places still at unease with non-heteronormativity, and actually feel proud.

[queerchoicesblog]

Epilogue: Underwater (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series)

As promised, here the epilogue of the Zetta x Adele Series, folks. 

This is the very end of a project that meant me quite a lot to me and got me through the last terrible year. Thanks to all those who supported it: hope you enjoyed it and will enjoy this ending.

In case you were wondering, this song inspired the whole series, particularly the last chapters:

I will skip the tag list for once since it’s pointless anyway. 

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15 , Ch. 16, Ch. 17

_________________________

Almost a century after the sinking of the RMS Titanic and to celebrate Canada becoming the first country outside Europe to legalise same-sex marriage, the Canadian Film Institute decided to work side by side with several LGBTQ+ organisations across the world to put together an exhibition focused on the early queer cinema and the many queer stars who were forced to hide their true selves in the Golden Age of cinematography, spanning from 1890s till the aftermath of Second World War. "A testament to the role the LGBTQ+ community played in the history of cinema and that we have always been here, even if people hardly saw us" as a journalist wrote on a queer magazine. After the recent discovery of some private documents, the curators were overjoyed to include an icon of the 1900s - 1910s cinema like Zetta Serda into the retrospective and cast a new light on her extraordinary career sadly soon forgotten after the advent of the sound era. Yet, the silent picture star was mentioned as a model and 'endless source of inspiration" by many queer movie stars like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo all part of the retrospective. Rumor has it that as soon as she landed in America, Marlene Dietrich demanded his agent a meeting with Mrs King.

A curator drove all the way to Montreal to meet the last known heir, a certain Mrs. Julia Nowak, who greeted him on the threshold of a cosy downtown apartment. She offered him a coffee and a slice of a Polish sweet bread: the recipe was a family heirloom, she explained, beaming. She was in her late fifties, a therapist, she said. Her hazel eyes gleamed when she added, in a pleasantly soothing voice that betrayed a hint of excitement: "I must confess I am so incredibly happy that you contacted me about the retrospective. I adore the idea and I will make sure to attend it. Also" she nodded to a wedding picture hung to the wall "did you know that my wife is in politics? She campaigned for the legalisation...yes, Madeleine Fournier: see, you know her! We got married right after the law passed. If anything, your call and project made me twice as happy". She took a pause, smiling over her coffee in remembrance. "Anyway, back to the matter of your visit...yes, as far as I know, I am Zetta's last heir. As you probably know, my family wasn't officially related to her but she stated otherwise in her will". She moved to the couch and gestured the curator to follow her as she opened up one of the boxes and chests piled into the living room and picked out an old album, the leather cover worn at the edges. Dust waltzed in the air as she opened it with caution and gentle care. She showed him a slightly discoloured black and white picture of a young couple kissing for the camera in front of a church. Another wedding picture, from a different era. "Nana Hileni and Papa Maciej's wedding picture. I still remember them even if they both died when I was barely a teen...as if one couldn't bear to live without the other. Or so I like to think. She would help me with the homework, mathematics particularly, and he baked this bread for me till he was too weak to do so. He always claimed that he won Nana's heart with his pastries but she always denied it laughing". She passed another picture of the same couple proudly standing in front of the Nowak family bakery in Hoboken. "Frankly, I believe that Papa's broad shoulders and Marlon Brando smile are more likely to blame for this coup de foudre" she laughed. "And he knew how to deal with her no-nonsense attitude and vice versa. They...balanced each other, if you wish". She picked another picture and handed it to him. A woman was looking down in tender adoration and awe to a baby nestled in her arms looking up at her, outstretching a tiny arm in an attempt to touch her face. "There! This is Dad" she pointed at the baby before turning the picture where someone wrote 'Alex meets Auntie Adele'. Turning it again, she pointed at the woman. "This is Adele Carrem. Or Auntie Adele as I've always heard calling her. Nana's sister and Zetta's publicist and companion" Putting it back into the album, she carefully picked a bunch of other old pictures. "You surely know who this one is" she smiled, handing out the one on top. The photo was rather grainy but you could still recognise the same kid, slightly older, around two, sucking his thumb, cuddled up in Zetta's lap. The actress had aged a little but her features were unmistakable and it was endearing to see her sitting by the fireplace to read that kid with the sleepy face a bedtime story. "Sadly, I have never met them. I wish I did, oh you have no idea...but stories of them lived through in our family" Julia continued. "My Dad loved his Aunties - as he called them - dearly and by what I've heard and read, they loved him in manner as if he was their own. He knew little of them or Zetta's career back then...to him they were just the sweet ladies who would buy him ice-cream in Central Park or take him to see his favourite pictures over and over again at the movie theater. He said he will never forget the afternoons he used to spend with them in a Manhattan cafe that no longer exists around Christmas: Nana and Papa worked like crazy as the festive season approached and the glorious cup of hot chocolate with an elegant puff of cream on top with the Aunties became a tradition to him. He kept it alive somehow as he did the same with me". She handed the curator a bunch of other pictures: Zetta cleaning up Alex's face smeared with jam, the both of them laughing; Zetta posing with Maciej and her Dad at a table in the Hoboken bakery. He eventually mirrored her smile seeing a five years old Alex at the beach all engrossed in building a sandcastle with Hileni and Adele, and he standing at the water edge hand in hand with Miss Carrem, looking out into the distance. "These are family pictures. I'll show you the Zetta's private memorabilia we cherished". Julia searched a little, opening an old chest and handling every item inside with tender care. When she found what she was looking for, she showed the curator an elegant set of smaller boxes containing letters, dried flowers and photos. "I have already received an offer to get these published. I'm still pondering it. Before agreeing, I want to consider throughly if this is a thing they would have wanted, even if they're no longer here" The curator nodded as she kept searching. He skimmed a few letters and smiled as his eyes fall on the photos hidden away in those boxes: the two women sitting together and chatting at Hileni's wedding, Zetta's reading a script, lazily sprawled on a chaise long in her apartment. Some had short lines handwritten on the back, like a promotional picture with "Missing you" written by Zetta herself. The curator showed another to Mrs Nowak: a visibly excited Miss Carrem proudly showing to the camera a document announcing her voter registration. On the back, in Zetta's penmanship: "On the way to vote...my sweet Adele won!". "Oh you didn't know? Auntie Adele was a suffragette! I couldn't believe it when I first heard it! Nana told me that she was in and out jail when they lived in London because of protests. You know, like those suffragettes you read about in history books but less famous. Yet she fought for women's rights and kept fighting for them even in America. She was quite disappointed though by some major decisions of some feminist movements and eventually joined a socialist Union 'more rightfully welcoming working class individuals, immigrants and black brothers and sisters'. It's all in those letters but yeah, you couldn't possibly know. So little is known about her outside family". A little smile drew on her face as she put back the photo. "That photo was taken the day of the first election open to women. I checked the date. I suppose Zetta wanted to immortalise the moment...it was sweet of her, huh? Auntie Adele must have been so proud and overjoyed that day! You know, my Dad was born in 1920 when women's right to vote was legalised nationally and Nana once told me that Auntie commented the lucky coincidence saying she was incredibly happy her nephew would get to live in a fairer world. She was a true force of nature...she never talked much of the sinking of the Titanic just like Zetta and Nana actually but when one day Dad asked...he was barely a child and probably found an old article about the tragedy...Auntie Adele minimised but Nana assured him that her sister saved her life that night, risking her own to go down to the belly of the sinking ship to bring her to safety. Auntie simply shrugged, saying that it was what sisters do and that they made it to the lifeboats only thanks to Zetta, who shouted protests to stubborn officers and eventually found them a spot on a boat. I cannot even bring myself to imagine how scary that must have been: I cried so much when Madeleine took me to see Leo and Kate...to think they were there and it was all real!" She picked a few other objects out the box: a Shakespeare Sonnets book in a leather cover with golden engravings, with a little handwritten dedication 'To Adele, my sonnet 116. Happy birthday! With all my love, Zetta'; old scripts with annotations, a framed photograph of Adele and Zetta slow dancing barefoot in the living room of a gorgeous Long Island mansion. "These have a sentimental value" Mrs Nowak noted, her voice betraying the flicker of emotions as she picked it up. She took a deep sigh and continued. "I remember the day I told Dad I was gay as it was yesterday. We had always been quite close so it came natural to tell him first. We were in his car, he had come straight from college to pick me up at ice-skating practice. I..I dropped it in the middle of a conversation, bracing myself for the worst. I heard so many bad stories about coming out to your parents I was terrified of the consequences but I couldn't hide it anymore. I mean, yes, in public: bullies get even nastier if they know and I didn't want people shouting me "dyke" at school. But I needed to get it out of my chest...with someone at least. He kept quiet for a moment and I felt like drowning in shame. But then he spoke". A nostalgic tender smile formed Julia's lips. "He said he had two amazing Aunties that contributed to make his life a wondrous adventure. It was thanks to them that he, the son of a baker, could attend a prestigious college, for instance: they offered to pay for it without asking a penny back. They also helped him write his first romantic letter to his childhood sweetheart and consoled him when the little girl turned him down. But his Aunties had a secret, he added. He said: to my kid eyes they were no less a couple than Mom and Dad and at home we all treated them in manner but one day Mom made me promise to behave differently when we were in public. In public I would refer to her sister as 'Auntie Adele' but call Zetta by her name. He didn't get it and it took some getting used to. He soon noticed that even the Aunties behaved a bit differently out in the sun: they wouldn't hold hands or use endearing words in the street or when other people were around. They simply behaved like good friends did. He understood it later when he, as stubborn as a mule, asked them directly". Julia gently grazed her fingers on the glass of the framed photograph, caressing it. "And they told me everything, he said. That they were in love, just like mom and dad were, but people out there could be uncomfortable and extremely rude to women loving other women and men loving other men. That they kept their companionship a secret in public because those people had no problems with women being friends and they didn't want to have bad words or worse happening to them. I remember asking him what he thought about it. He smiled. 'I cried. Since Auntie Zetta mentioned people claiming that women like them were sick and would burn in hell, I actually started crying. I sobbed desperately in her arms, crying that I didn't want them to burn in hell, I loved my Aunties and I was happy they loved each other. Eventually they explained me it was just a vile lie spread my malignant people. But I got quite a scare and kept staring at them with puffy red eyes and my face wet with tears for a while. It required lots of cuddling to bring a smile back on my face'. He shook his head, laughing of his endearing naivety. Then he pulled over and looked at me. He continued: 'I still don't get why people keep spreading those mean lies but I know for sure that my Aunties weren't sick and didn't end up in hell and so won't you. Don't believe bullshits like that for a split second, okay? And I also want you to remember that it doesn't change a thing for me and mom too. You will always be my little girl, our little girl and we love you'. We shared a long hug before driving back home. On the way back he insisted to buy my favourite chicken and waffles for dinner, saying mom's veggie soup could wait. For my birthday, a month later or so, he asked me to follow him to the attic and showed me this chest. To meet the Aunties that 'would have surely been there for me'". She tipped away a tear. "I told you I married Madeleine right after the legalisation of same-sex marriages. My wedding was also the last public event Mom and Dad attended together before his health worsened irremediably. He passed away last year". For a moment she looked on the verge of tears but she recovered quickly. "Sorry...anyway, that day Dad insisted on walking me down the aisle even if he was getting weak. He beamed with pride when a friend fixed a rainbow ribbon to his jacket. Later at the lunch he read a speech he had written for the day, his hand shaking. He shared the story of his Aunties. He said that despite the hardships their situation forced upon them, they had quite a happy life together, a happiness carefully hidden from the world. He wished us to find something similar to what they shared without needing to hide anymore. He said Adele and Zetta would have been so happy and proud to celebrate with all of us that day" Mrs. Nowak picked the Shakespeare Sonnet book and gave him a fond look. "He brought this to the wedding. And he read for us the sonnet 116, the one Zetta mentioned in her dedication. You know, the one that starts with 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments..." ----------------------- A few months later the exhibition on old Hollywood queer cinema and artists opened. Each artist had a room that soon filled with a crowd of enthusiastic visitors. In the first half, in a room arranged as a turn of the century nickelodeon with velvet chairs, all the memorabilia of Zetta Serda's public life: panels explaining the various stages of her career and the birth of her myth, promotional pictures of her performances, articles about her and a copy of a gazette announcing her wedding with the director Richard King. On the wall, on a screen her entire filmography rolled up in loop, bewitching spectators after a century. In display cases: the gorgeous sapphire necklace she wore on her last night on the Ship of Dreams and at the movie party of Surviving the Titanic, and a replica of her Cleopatra costume. The aging Queen of Egypt with a tragic love and destiny immortalised by Shakespeare was her last role back on the theater stage before retiring from the scenes. Old scripts with her personal annotation were displayed with photographs taken on sets and mundane events. The wall hosting the motion-picture screen cut the room in half. On the other side, the hidden half of her life. Her life with Adele no one suspected back then. A life kept secret that now unveiled in front of the eyes of the visitors. The curators discovered that finding public pictures of Miss Carrem was nearly impossible, true to the nickname she acquired as time went by: The Shadow. She stayed at Zetta's side until and even after she stopped acting, showing rare loyalty and devotion, but ever surrounded by this mystery allure. No one, even the most stubborn reporters managed to know anything about her and she was soon dismissed as a Titanic survivor, possibly a fan, who worked as Zetta's secretary and somehow gained her respect. Little they knew about the depth of their relationship and what stacks of secret letters and family memories revealed of the life of Miss Carrem. A panel finally told her story and her secret achievements: Adele, or better Adal, kept fighting for a fairer world and society her whole life and marched for women's right to vote on the famous parade in 1915. She also passed the teaching of Edith Garrud to her American sisters. The only pictures of her came from the Nowak family, except for one. The only photograph of a public appearance of Miss Carrem as well as the only known public appearance of Zetta and Adele. An old grainy photo accurately framed showed Adele shaking hands with The Unsinkable Molly Brown on a podium. In her free hand a shiny medal and a few steps behind the mayor of New York. According to the panel, the survivors' committee founded by Mrs. Brown decided to award Miss Carrem a medal for bravery and a generous check "to help her and her sister starting a new life in America". With great surprise, Miss Carrem received the medal and the check, thanked the board but refused the honors. Instead, she asked to deliver them both to the family of a certain Charlie Stoke, a stewart that lost his life in the sinking to save her life and those of many passengers. She added that her friend expressed the desire to study naval engineering one day and she wished that the money kindly offered to her would be enough to establish a scholarship for boys like him across the ocean. In another picture, Miss Carrem and her sister chatted with Moll Brown in company of Zetta. Eventually, other philanthropists and wealthy socialites signed checks for her cause so that the Stoke family received a generous contribution too. And today, as another picture confirmed, the faculty of naval engineering of the University of Newcastle hosts a marble engraving of Charlie Stoke: to his memory a scholarship had been instituted one year after on the anniversary of the sinking. Since 1913 it has been helping students of poor background to get an education and improve their life. Zetta herself became a philanthropist during her Renaissance and ever since. The first act of her new phase of her life was joining the Moll Brown survivors committee to provide help to the second and third class passengers families and survivors. Some said that the tragedy she witnessed touched her heart, other claimed that it was to be attributed to the influence of her publicist. Jokingly, she used to say that after all, she had too much money yet all she could have wished for in her life, so why not doing some good with it? A considerable donation under her and Mr King was received by the main hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic; she was particularly active in providing financial help to struggling neighbourhoods and female education institutions. In the middle of the room, a long glass display hosted the Shakespeare Sonnets opened at sonnet 116 and a selection of the private correspondence between Zetta and Adele. My darling, You will receive this letter tomorrow morning when I'll be already off to Chicago. The suitcases are ready and packed, this is a goodnight note scribbled the night before leaving you to remind you how much I love you and care about you. How much I'm going to miss you even if - thank God! - we won't be parted for long... Do not forget you promised me to write every day! Write to me, Adele, write to me whatever thought crosses that gorgeous mind of you: you know I could you rambling for hours without getting tired of the sound of your voice, of your sparkling wisdom. I wanna know everything. So don't be shy: I'll be waiting your letters with tender impatience. Can't wait to be in your arms once more. Adoringly yours, Zetta - Dear, dearest Zetta, I went to Central Park today with Hileni. It was a gorgeous spring day, sunny, a gentle breeze blowing: 'simply too beautiful to be wasted inside' as my sister put it. Did I tell you that she's still exchanging letters with the delivery boy from the hat shop? I thought they were over but apparently he invited her to the nickelodeon next week. Anyway, walking in the park with her I suddenly realised how I wanted to share that spring wonder with you. When are you coming back to New York? Tell me soon, please. And even 'soon' won't be soon enough: you're always on my mind since you left. But yes, tell me soon so I can make you promise we will go for a walk before the weather becomes too hot. Do you think I can wrap my arm with yours? Is it professional enough for a publicist? Even just for a few steps: oh you have no idea how I would love that! Or maybe you have? I hope so: it'd mean you miss me as much as I miss you when we are apart. Oh, I almost forgot: all settled with that magazine you mentioned before your departure! I negotiated a two pages long interview, plus pictures. And a cover mention. Hope I did well: you have already fired me as your secretary, I must prove you I am just what you're looking for in a publicist... Can't wait to see you again! Loving you always, Adele Only one letter was copied on a panel of its own on the main wall side by side with a blow-up of the picture of Adele and Zetta slow-dancing barefoot and free, for a blessed moment immortalised in a discreet shot. Adele pressing a tender kiss on Zetta's forehead, drawing a soft smile on the acrtress' lips. Many visitors commented it was heartwarming to see such a photograph that conveyed the intimacy and the warmth of affection radiating from the dancing couple. Some said that Zetta was even more beautiful like that: free, hair slightly askew and genuinely happy, loved. What stole their hearts away though was the letter attached to it. It was no surprise that the curators decided to name the retrospective Underwater. Dearest Adele, Forgive me for the tone of this letter. I am writing it down in bed while I cannot sleep and my mind runs back to you as if we could meet halfway between the miles separating us, in a world of fantasy of our own. It's ridiculous how much I miss you! I want you near, I need you near all the time. Take tonight: if you were here with me, I would be heavenly sleeping in your loving embrace. Most unfortunately, you are not and I'm lying here, insomniac, thinking of you. And about my life. No, don't frown. I am not getting all sad again. It's...bittersweet. And - I'll spoil you the ending so you will stop worrying, hopefully - it gets better the more you proceed. Have you ever felt trapped underwater? I did, my whole life. Always hiding, always measuring words, gestures, gazes not to let them see, not to let them know...so little time to go up and break the surface. Drop the mask and breathe. In, out. Once, twice. In my lowest moments I repeated to my myself: how are you gonna survive? One day an acquaintance with a remarkable passion for the sea explained me and the other bored commensals that you can keep someone alive by breathing oxygen into their mouth underwater. Pretty much like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation helps an unconscious person to regain consciousness. I found it interesting but doubted his words. Then I met you, Adele. My dearest, wondrous Adele. And I learnt that yes, you can't breathe if you're constantly underwater...but you won't drown if you have the right person swimming by your side in those deep waters. Put your lips on me, Adele. Touch me, hold me in your arms. And I can live underwater. With your love, I can live underwater. We can live underwater. I love you. I want to cover a full page of these three simple words: I love you. I want to cry them out and entrust them to the winds, to the night. But what for? Who cares if the world knows or not? I'll whisper them over your lips when we will be reunited. So you can breathe underwater. Counting down the hours separating us, my love. Eternally yours, Zetta

[your-dietician]

Celebrities with a history of protest

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/celebrities/celebrities-with-a-history-of-protest/

Celebrities with a history of protest

Chris Compendio, provided by

June 30, 2021Updated: June 30, 2021 6:07 a.m.

1of77

Celebrities with a history of protest

Despite calls for actors, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities to eschew activism to focus on entertainment, there is a long-standing precedent for famous people to leverage their platforms to enact change.

From Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier establishing themselves as leaders during the civil rights movement to Leonardo DiCaprio and Jane Fonda among many stars pushing for environmental protections and justice, hundreds if not thousands of celebrities in the last century have pushed the needle on a wide variety of causes. Today’s celebrities commonly use their mantles to protest animal cruelty, police brutality, government surveillance, military action, environmental injustice, and civil rights among dozens of other causes.

Stacker has highlighted 50 celebrities from the last 75 years with a history of protest. Our list includes actors, athletes, and musicians. Several of the contemporary stars made headlines in 2020 for their efforts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, appearing at numerous protests in the wake of the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and many others. Others were instrumental in successful efforts to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline.

Keep reading to find out what causes some of your favorite celebrities are fighting for.

You may also like: 50 best space movies of all time

Spencer Platt // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

2of77

Jane Fonda

Actor Jane Fonda has been known for her activism throughout her decades-spanning career. She was arrested in 1970 for protesting the Vietnam War. Despite continued action against the conflict, Fonda avoided further arrests until 2019, when she was arrested five times while protesting fossil fuels and calling for environmental action.

John Lamparski // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

3of77

4of77

Muhammad Ali

Legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali became an outspoken figure against the Vietnam War, refusing to join the U.S. Army. Declaring himself a conscientious objector, in part due to his religious beliefs, Ali was arrested and stripped of his titles. Ali became a countercultural figure for civil rights and pacifism, and his conviction for draft evasion was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.

David Fenton // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

5of77

Mark Ruffalo

“Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo is one of the highest-profile activists against fracking, participating in multiple protests against oil companies. Ruffalo also produced and starred in a 2019 anti-fracking film called “Dark Waters” and co-founded The Solutions Project, an organization providing funding for climate justice projects in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. While fracking has been a central issue for Ruffalo for decades, the actor also protested against former President Donald Trump’s policies during his term, and was one of the few celebrities to call for justice for Palestine in 2021.

Barcroft Media // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

6of77

7of77

Alicia Keys

As a musician, Alicia Keys has added musical flair to her activism. Keys spoke at various demonstrations protesting Trump administration immigration policies, the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and police brutality, and contributed several protest songs speaking to some of these issues, notably “Perfect Way to Die.”

Kevin Mazur // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

8of77

George Clooney

As one of the most prolific celebrities in Hollywood, George Clooney has used his star power time and again to bolster his humanitarian efforts. Clooney had long been vocal about finding a resolution to the War in Darfur, interfacing with world leaders and the United Nations as well as taking part in a number of documentaries spreading awareness about the conflict. In 2012, Clooney was arrested along with his father during a protest at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C. In 2020, Clooney and his wife Amal donated $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative following the murder of George Floyd.

You may also like: Best Picture Winner From the Year You were Born

The Washington Post // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

9of77

10of77

Rosario Dawson

Actor Rosario Dawson is a well-documented activist, primarily demonstrating in support of the Democratic Party. In 2004, Dawson was arrested during the Republican National Convention while protesting against President George W. Bush. She also protested in Washington D.C. in 2016 while attending a rally and spoke out against the role of money in politics. Dawson founded the non-profit organization Voto Latino, which works to motivate young Hispanic and Latino Americans to register to vote. Her political activism led her to a fundraiser for Ben Jealous, a 2018 gubernatorial candidate for Maryland, where she met her current partner, Sen. Cory Booker.

Pacific Press // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

11of77

Marlon Brando

Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando was influential not only for his roles in films like “The Godfather” and “On the Waterfront,” but also for his political idealism and activism. Brando participated in the movement for civil rights in the 1960s and favored a boycott toward South Africa for its apartheid policies. In support of Indigenous people in the Americas, Brando refused to accept his Best Actor trophy at the 1973 Academy Awards and sent Native American actor Sacheen Littlefeather to speak on his behalf.

Bettmann // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

12of77

13of77

Eartha Kitt

Active in a number of social causes, actor Eartha Kitt advocated for and supported underprivileged children in Los Angeles. Kitt also protested against the Vietnam War, and as with many politically active celebrities at the time, she was surveilled by the CIA. Her most public and vocal criticism of the war came during a White House luncheon that President Lyndon Johnson attended.

ARNOLD SACHS/AFP // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

14of77

Christopher Reeve

Former “Superman” Christopher Reeve had a well-documented history of human rights and environmental activism dating back to at least the mid-’70s. He was very involved with America’s Watch, Amnesty International, The Environmental Air Force, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Save the Children. He flew to Santiago, Chile, in 1987 in support of 77 actors whom the Pinochet regime threatened to execute. Thrown from a horse and paralyzed in 1995, Christopher Reeve spent the rest of his life and career advocating for stem cell research and the treatment of neurological disorders. He creating the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to fund research and improve the quality of life for patients, testified in support of federal funding for stem cell research before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, and successfully helped get the budget for that National Institute of Health doubled over the course of five years.

Pool // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

15of77

16of77

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

The power couple of former Beatle John Lennon and musician and artist Yoko Ono primarily focused on promoting peace with their works of art, with “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance” being some of the more famous songs from the duo. The Nixon administration attempted to deport Lennon from the United States over the musician’s outspoken leftist politics. Following Lennon’s murder in 1980, Ono has continued with her peace activism and art through today; she had a massive retrospective exhibit called “Peace is Power” in 2019 at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts in Germany.

You may also like: 100 best Westerns of all time

Keystone // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

17of77

Woody Harrelson

Actor Woody Harrelson has made many of his sociopolitical views known to the public, including his support for marijuana legalization and environmental protection. At a 1996 protest, Harrelson and several other protesters scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to hang up a sign criticizing Maxxam Inc. CEO Charles Hurwitz. The outspoken activist and vegan narrated the 2020 documentary “Kiss the Ground,” which centers on promoting regenerative agriculture as a method for mitigating ecologically damaging farming practices from fossil-fuel use to factory farming.

Justin Sullivan // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

18of77

19of77

Elliot Page

After coming out at the Human Rights Campaign’s Time to Thrive conference in 2014, actor Elliot Page became a public advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. In an anti-Donald Trump protest after the president’s inauguration, a video of Page debating a homophobic preacher went viral online. After coming out as transgender in December of 2020, Page has become an outspoken advocate and activist for trans issues.

Rich Polk // Getty Images for IMDbShow MoreShow Less

20of77

Leonardo DiCaprio

Being one of the most famous actors in film today benefited Leonardo DiCaprio’s environmental activism. For the bulk of his career, DiCaprio has been active in efforts for preservation and combating climate change. His activism led to him conferring with national leaders, donating millions of dollars to environmental causes, attending marches, and speaking out about climate change in his acceptance speech for Best Actor at the 88th Academy Awards. He formed the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 (now part of Earth Alliance), which forms partnerships with organizations, experts, and activists to foster biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

AFP // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

21of77

22of77

Janelle Monae

In support of the Black Lives Matter movement, musical artist Janelle Monae wrote and performed a protest song called “Hell You Talmbout,” which invoked the names of several Black Americans who were victims of police violence and racially motivated crimes. Monae also marched in Black Lives Matter protests.

Noam Galai // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

23of77

James Cromwell

Actor James Cromwell, who became a vegan while shooting the film “Babe,” began his activism during the civil rights movement and Vietnam War. He was arrested in 1971 for civil disobedience at the famed May Day anti-war protests in Washington D.C. His half-century-plus of activism has run the gamut from environmental issues, peace efforts, animal rights, and equality. He has participated in Black Lives Matter protests back to at least 2017, served as a spokesperson for PETA, was arrested during a protest against a dog laboratory in 2019.

You may also like: Best and worst Leonardo DiCaprio movies

Pacific Press // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

24of77

25of77

Shailene Woodley

“Divergent” and “The Fault in Our Stars” actor Shailene Woodley is an avid activist for environmental issues and is active in a number of progressive organizations. While protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline, Woodley was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.

John Lamparski // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

26of77

Mos Def

Rapper and actor Yasiin Bey, also known as Mos Def, has been outspoken about police brutality and violence against Black Americans. He held an impromptu concert outside the MTV Video Music Awards in 2006, performing a protest song called “Katrina Clap” that criticized the Bush administration’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Despite having a permit, Mos Def was arrested for the performance.

Mark Horton // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

27of77

28of77

Adèle Haenel

French actor Adèle Haenel (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) has been active in France’s #MeToo movement. Having had her own experiences with abuse and harassment in the film industry, Haenel in 2020 protested Roman Polanski’s win at the César Awards by walking out of the ceremony with several others.

NurPhoto // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

29of77

America Ferrera

The daughter of Honduran immigrants, actor America Ferrera has spent most of her career encouraging and mobilizing Latin Americans to be politically active. Ferrera spoke several times at Democratic national conventions as well as at the 2017 Women’s March. She has also served as a prominent voice in the Keep Families Together movement against family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border and served as an artist ambassador for the global organization Save the Children.

Theo Wargo // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

30of77

31of77

Joaquin Phoenix

When winning multiple awards for his lead role in the film “Joker,” Joaquin Phoenix used the awards stage to promote diversity in the film industry and awareness of animal cruelty. His 2020 speech at the Oscars specifically condemned the dairy industry for its treatment of cows. Phoenix was arrested in 2020 while protesting the climate crisis along with Jane Fonda and Martin Sheen.

You may also like: The strange and beautiful worlds of Tim Burton movies

Tasos Katopodis // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

32of77

Emily Ratajkowski

Model Emily Ratajkowski has used her platform to advocate for feminism, sexual expression, and a positive body image. She has designed dresses with partial proceeds supporting Planned Parenthood, and leveraged her Instagram profile to speak out against an Alabama state law that banned abortion. Upon the nomination and eventual confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Ratajkowski and others were arrested at a protest in Washington D.C.

Tom Williams // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

33of77

34of77

Ted Danson

Star of “Cheers” and “The Good Place,” Ted Danson has been an outspoken voice for environmental issues, particularly those concerning the world’s oceans. Danson in late 2019 participated in one of Fonda’s many protests demanding action on climate change and arrested alongside her.

Bill Clark // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

35of77

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

Along with being legendary performers on stage and screen, married couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were also both prominent activists in the civil rights movement. Organizing a number of marches, the two were also friends with Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and Malcolm X, with Davis delivering eulogies for King and Malcolm X.

Anthony Barboza // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

36of77

37of77

Humphrey Bogart

During a period in which politicians such as Joseph McCarthy were leading a fight against communism in America, several individuals and figures in the film industry were targeted and blacklisted for their suspected political alignments. Classic Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart organized the Committee for the First Amendment and protested the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Bettmann // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

38of77

Sammy Davis Jr.

The multi-talented Sammy Davis Jr. was also politically active, supporting the election campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, although he later became close with Richard Nixon—a friendship he eventually regretted. Regardless, Davis remained active in the civil rights movement, especially after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and criticized Nixon for his shortcomings on civil rights.

You may also like: Movie trivia for the top 100 films of all time

William Lovelace // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

39of77

40of77

Cate Blanchett

Australian actor Cate Blanchett has been outspoken up about the role of women in the film industry. Blanchett is also a longtime ambassador for the Australian Conservation Foundation. She has also advocated for the rights and protection of refugees.

Andreas Rentz // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

41of77

Danny Glover

Since his time as a student, “Lethal Weapon” star Danny Glover has been an activist fighting for civil rights and worker unions. Politically, Glover has endorsed progressive candidates running for president of the United States. Glover was arrested in 2010 in Maryland during a protest for better working wages and conditions outside French food corporation Sodexo. In May of 2021, Glover spoke at a rally against anti-Asian bias in New York City.

NICHOLAS KAMM // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

42of77

43of77

Emma Watson

Hermione Granger herself, actor Emma Watson, was appointed as a U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014. Watson has used her worldwide fame to speak out about women’s issues and human rights and declared her support for transgender people after transphobic comments from “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling. In 2021, Watson was one of 400 signatories in a letter demanding the UK government include women in decision-making roles at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference.

Paul Morigi // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

44of77

Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen may be famous for his acting, but he has stated that activism is “what [he does] to stay alive.” A humanitarian and social activist, Sheen has been arrested more than 65 times for protesting. Sheen primarily participates in anti-war, pro-worker, and environmental protests.

Paul Morigi // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

45of77

46of77

Hayden Panettiere

“Heroes” star Hayden Panettiere was 18 when she was involved in a confrontation in Japan in which she and several others attempted to prevent dolphin hunting by paddling out on the water and blocking fishermen. A warrant for her arrest was issued and she and the other participants left the country. Panettiere has since been protesting for liberal causes and animal rights.

You may also like: Movie Trivia for the Top 100 Films of all Time

Peter Carrette Archive // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

47of77

Bill Nye

Being a celebrity science advocate famous for his children’s educational television show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” Bill Nye has used his status to promote climate change activism. Against perceived anti-science rhetoric from conservatives, Nye participated and spoke in the 2017 March for Science and continues to advocate for science on cable news appearances. He launched a successful Netflix series in 2017 aptly titled “Bill Nye Saves the World.”

Paul Morigi // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

48of77

49of77

Joan Baez

Much of the music by Joan Baez is rooted in activism, counterculture, and protest. Baez has been politically active for several decades since the beginning of the civil rights movement and has written and performed songs for marches and protests, among her most famous being her cover of “We Shall Overcome.”

Keystone // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

50of77

Steve-O

Steve-O has never shied away from controversy, including making waves with a pro-environmental stunt. The daredevil in 2015 climbed a 100-foot crane and held up a sign that said “SeaWorld Sucks,” while also holding an inflatable Shamu balloon and shooting fireworks. He was, unsurprisingly, arrested.

Beck Starr // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

51of77

52of77

Daryl Hannah

Actor Daryl Hannah, known to audiences for her roles in “Casino” and “Kill Bill,” has been an environmentalist for most of her life and has been arrested multiple times at protests. One such instance had her protesting the development of farmland and handcuffing herself to a tree.

SAUL LOEB // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

53of77

Bruce Springsteen

Rock and folk musician Bruce Springsteen has been one of the more prolific musical activists in recent history and has consistently spoken out for gay rights, same-sex marriage, and transgender rights. Springsteen was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, especially in regard to the coronavirus pandemic response.

You may also like: 100 best John Wayne movies

Spencer Platt // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

54of77

55of77

Jamie Lee Curtis

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis has fought for numerous humanitarian causes and engaged in extensive philanthropy. For gay marriage rights, Curtis acted in a play by Dustin Lance Black called “8” that reenacted the trial that overturned the same-sex marriage ban, appearing alongside Brad Pitt and Martin Sheen. In 2020, she came out in support of professional athletes who boycotted games and league events in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Emma McIntyre // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

56of77

John Boyega

One of the main stars of the contemporary “Star Wars” trilogy, British actor John Boyega received attention for his passionate speech and participation in Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. Stating “I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this” while speaking to other protesters with a megaphone, Boyega’s co-stars and collaborators came out in support of his activism.

Justin Setterfield // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

57of77

58of77

Halsey

As a young bisexual musical artist, Halsey has spoken for a number of issues that affect young women and LGBTQ+ people. She has advocated for mental health and suicide prevention awareness, transgender rights, and support for sexual assault victims. During the 2020 protests for Black Lives Matter, Halsey marched alongside protesters and came to the aid of injured demonstrators.

Pacific Press // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

59of77

Sean Penn

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn hasn’t shied away from controversy over his political views and affiliations. He widely criticized former President George W. Bush, during whose term Penn provided aid to Hurricane Katrina victims, supported same-sex marriage, and protested against the Iraq War. Penn has also been involved internationally, defending Hugo Chavez and marching alongside Egyptian protesters in 2011.

Brendan Smialowski // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

60of77

61of77

Laura Dern

Actor Laura Dern has had her hands in several social causes, including gender pay disparity, Down syndrome awareness, women’s rights, the environment, and immigrants’ rights. With the latter two issues, Dern has been involved in organizations and protests for those causes in the past few years, particularly Families Belong Together.

You may also like: Best and worst Jennifer Lopez movies

Sarah Morris // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

62of77

Amy Schumer

After a fatal shooting during a screening of her film “Trainwreck,” comedian and actor Amy Schumer joined her father’s cousin, Sen. Chuck Schumer, in advocating for gun control reform in the United States. Alongside Emily Ratajkowski, Schumer was arrested in 2018 during a protest against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She came out in full support of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Paul Morigi // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

63of77

64of77

Susan Sarandon

Primarily fighting for progressive and leftist causes, actor Susan Sarandon is also known for being a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. A demonstration in 1999 over the police killing of an African immigrant in New York City led to the arrests of Sarandon and 218 other protesters. She was a firm supporter of the farmers’ protests in India in early 2021.

Yvonne Hemsey // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

65of77

Miley Cyrus

Though the public image and perception of Miley Cyrus has changed through the years, the singer has made her support for social causes quite clear in the past decade. Cyrus has participated in benefit concerts and contributed charity singles. Her biggest contribution to date is her founding of the Happy Hippie Foundation, which supports LGBTQ+ rights, homeless youths, and other vulnerable populations.

Chip Somodevilla // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

66of77

67of77

Liza Minnelli

Broadway and Hollywood star Liza Minnelli is also a well-known philanthropist and has expressed her support for multiple causes, including LGBTQ+ rights. Minnelli was heavily invested in the AIDS crisis and incited Elizabeth Taylor’s own activism in raising awareness and funds for AIDS research.

MIGUEL MEDINA // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

68of77

Charlize Theron

Hailing from South Africa, actor Charlize Theron has been involved in movements and organizations meant to support African youth in the fight against AIDS. Theron has also marched in several pro-choice and women’s rights marches, including the 2017 Women’s March.

You may also like: Can you answer these real ‘Jeopardy!’ questions about movies?

John Parra // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

69of77

70of77

Lucy Lawless

In addition to her famed role as the titular character on “Xena: Warrior Princess,” Lucy Lawless is also a climate ambassador for Greenpeace. In 2012, Lawless and five other activists boarded an Arctic oil-drilling ship in protest and were subsequently arrested. Even still, Lawless continues to protest with the organization against climate change and oil drilling.

Hannah Peters // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

71of77

Olivia Wilde

Actor and director Olivia Wilde was a vocal supporter of Barack Obama during his presidential run and terms, as well as serving as an advocate for Planned Parenthood and Time’s Up. As a feminist, Wilde has also participated in multiple Women’s Marches. In response to the Charlottesville white supremacist marches in 2017, Wilde, alongside other celebrities such as Mark Ruffalo, protested outside of Trump Tower.

Presley Ann // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

72of77

73of77

Cynthia Nixon

“Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon has long been an advocate for public education. She was arrested in 2002 while protesting outside of City Hall in New York City to demand better funding for schools. As a Bernie Sanders-supporting progressive, Nixon ran against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic gubernatorial primaries in New York in 2018 but lost by 30 points. She spoke at a June 2021 rally in Albany, New York, where people advocated for single-payer health care.

Drew Angerer // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

74of77

Madonna

Superstar Madonna has spent decades-long advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and HIV/AIDS awareness. For her work and advocacy, Madonna was awarded the Advocate for Change award at the 30th annual GLAAD Media Awards. In June 2020, Madonna was also seen protesting for Black Lives Matter, even with an injury that left her in crutches.

Noam Galai // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

75of77

76of77

Cher

Cher has contributed to numerous causes throughout the decades, including but not limited to AIDS relief, veterans care, the Flint water crisis, and COVID-19 relief. In response to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Cher participated in a number of anti-Trump rallies, including one right after election night in 2016 that included Madonna and Mark Ruffalo.

You may also like: Best Robert De Niro movies

Ethan Miller // Getty ImagesShow MoreShow Less

77of77

Stacker highlights 50 celebrities with a history of protest from the 1960s to today.

Written By

Chris Compendio

Source link

[elizasvintagemoviesblog]

Dirk Bogarde: Denial and daring...a star with a secret never told

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2011/07/16/16/624945.bin?w968

David Benedict on an actor, soon to be celebrated at the BFI, who let his choice of roles do the talking

Sunday 17 July 2011 

Hot Hollywood agent Diane is in crisis: her cute movie star client Mitchell is on the rise, on magazine covers and, to her horror, on the brink of coming out. It's time for straight-talking. "Are you British? Do you have a knighthood? If not, shut up!"

The laugh that gets in Douglas Carter Beane's 2006 play The Little Dog Laughed reveals its truth. Take Sir Ian McKellen and Rupert Everett out of the picture and now try naming another out gay male movie star. You can't? That's because there aren't any. None. With secrecy and the fear of discovery still engulfing gay actors in 2011, is it any wonder that the career – and life – of the entirely closeted Dirk Bogarde was a conundrum and a contradiction?

A seriously handsome, bona fide star who had made 35 films by the age of 40, Bogarde was both British and knighted and made more arrestingly bold choices than any actor of his generation, taking name-above-the-title roles in The Servant and Accident with Joseph Losey, Death in Venice and The Damned for Luchino Visconti, The Night Porter for Liliana Cavani, Providence for Alain Resnais and Despair for Rainer Werner Fassbinder. All that from a man who as early as 1958 was the biggest draw at the British box office – pulling bigger audiences than Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley.

In addition, by the time of his death, in 1999, he had reinvented himself. He published six novels, plus collections of correspondence and criticism, and, crucially, seven best-selling volumes of memoirs throughout which he staunchly claimed to be straight. Actress Glynis Johns, a contemporary most famous as the suffragette mother in Mary Poppins, tartly observed, "I never believed more than one sentence of what Dirk wrote." She should know: she was once married to Tony Forwood who had divorced her and subsequently lived with Bogarde as his "manager" for almost 40 years.

Bogarde's position was, initially, understandable. Born in 1921, for his first 46 years homosexuality was against the law. Any man caught in "homosexual acts" faced imprisonment. That prohibition was ruthlessly policed. In 1955, 2,504 men were arrested for "homosexual offences", ie, about seven people every day. Even Ian McKellen, 18 years younger, didn't come out until 1988, when he was 49. Bogarde never did.

Although fully entitled to privacy, his blanket denials on television, radio and in print post-1967 legalisation became, for me, increasingly hard to stomach. Posthumously, the man behind the painstakingly maintained mask was uncovered in home movies and commentaries from family and friends in a BBC documentary The Private Dirk Bogarde (2001) and John Coldstream's biography. The great irony of Bogarde's position, however, is that no other screen actor has given such affecting and extraordinarily powerful gay performances.

Even now, the industry regards playing gay as being potentially career-damaging, an act so "brave" that your Oscar virtually comes with the contract – step forward William Hurt for Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985), Tom Hanks for Philadelphia (1993), Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (2005), Sean Penn for Milk (2008). Probably the only reason Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal didn't win for Brokeback Mountain was that their dual presence cancelled one another out.

Regardless of the authenticity – or lack thereof – of those performances by straight actors, they pale beside the still astonishing impact of Bogarde's shockingly truthful performance back in 1961 as a barrister embroiled in a secret gay affair in Victim.

Bogarde plays married barrister Melville Farr who discovers that a blackmailed young man who loved him has hanged himself in police custody rather than reveal their relationship. Realising Farr's intention to uncover the plot, the blackmailers threaten to expose him. In the central scene – whose dialogue was rewritten to more explicit effect by Bogarde himself – Farr is confronted by his distressed wife (played by Sylvia Syms).

Shot in high-contrast black-and-white, edged with the darkness of a sitting-room at night but trapped in a fierce spotlight, Bogarde is mesmerising. Crisply suited, dry-voiced and on the edge of tears, he painfully stifles the emotion threatening to destroy him. With the camera locked in close-up, he lifts his chin ever so slightly in defiance, his eyes widening into a glare of triumph that costs him everything.

"You won't be content until I tell you, will you, until you've ripped it out of me. I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Can you understand – because I WANTED him."

I can still remember being transfixed – and terrified – by that moment when I first saw it by accident on television one night. It was the 1970s, I was a guilt-ridden, fiercely closeted teenager and I had never, ever seen or heard a man on screen or off express such piercing desire for another man. I felt physically torn between an absolute need to keep watching and the cramping fear that my parents would come in and instantly understand why I was watching something so incriminating.

Bogarde always maintained that the camera photographed thought. Nowhere is that more true than in that scene. It wasn't just this teenager who recognised the staggering truth behind that performance and its implications for the actor.

In a television interview to promote the film, he was asked the not-so-veiled question: "You must feel very strongly about this subject to risk losing possibly a large part of your audience by appearing in such a bitterly controversial film?"

With manufactured insouciance, Bogarde counters, "I don't think so, no. This is a marvellous part and in a film I think is tremendously important because it doesn't pull any punches: it's quite honest. I don't have to use any old tricks for the fans, it's a straightforward character performance."

Necessarily disingenuous as that was, in hindsight it's also seriously unconvincing due to his immensely camp "who me?" manner, his left eyebrow arched, his fingers playing with his ear and chin.

Being able to pinpoint a scene that changed a career is rare, but that's what that Victim scene did. And having just engineered his release from his constraining 14-year-old contract with the Rank Organisation, Bogarde accelerated to an international reputation taking on increasingly complex roles with adventurous directors. Contrarily, the finest of those performances were in roles amplifying his hidden sexuality.

He was memorably viscous as the vicious Barrett, the manservant manipulating imperilled, upper-class James Fox into sex-and-power games in Losey's superbly elliptical (and Pinter-scripted) The Servant. And, in 1971, he crowned his career with Death in Venice, playing a man who falls fatally in love with the ideal of beauty exemplified by a beautiful boy. With almost no dialogue, the film amounts to a 125-minute reaction shot. As casting director Michelle Guish observed of Helen Mirren the day after the first Prime Suspect aired, no other British actor could have played that role that well because no one else had that depth of screen experience.

Was it arrogance that pushed the controlled Bogarde to the brink of self-exposure in this and other defining roles? He destroyed almost all of his personal papers, so we'll never know. Whatever conclusion we try to draw, the screen evidence survives.

'He Who Dared', a two-month Dirk Bogarde retrospective, begins at the BFI Southbank on 3 Aug

source: independent

[idasessions]

Famous Muses & Girlfriends in Filmmaking Pt. 12

GIRLFRIEND: Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley)

Vivien was born on November 5th, 1913 in Darjeeling, British India to Ernest and Gertrude Hartley. Her father was an English broker stationed in India, but Vivien was raised and educated in a London convent from ages 6-14, and later studied abroad while traveling with her parents in her teens. One of her school friends was another future Hollywood actress and co-star, Maureen O’Sullivan. It was Maureen who inspired Vivien to enroll at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with ambitions of her own acting career in 1931. But after only a year into her training, Vivien dropped out to marry 32-year-old barrister Herbert Holman. In 1933 she gave birth to their daughter, Suzanne. About a year later Vivien picked up performing again in local stage productions and films. In 1938, she crossed over to Hollywood and become one of the most acclaimed and remembered superstars of all time. Her most famous performances are as protagonists Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche DuBois in the movie adaptations of Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Both films gained her two Best Actress Academy Awards and she is one of only six actors to be 2 for 2 with Oscar noms-wins. Vivien also won Best Actress in a Musical at the Tonys with ‘Tovarich’ on Broadway in 1963. Her other popular films include A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Caesar & Cleopatra (1945), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and Ship of Fools (1964). In theatre, she participated in many Shakespeare revivals including ‘Richard II’ (1936), ‘Henry VIII’ (1936), and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (1937).

From 1940 to 1960, Vivien was married to and a frequent collaborator with acting legend and innovator Laurence Olivier. They first met after one of Vivien’s stage performances of ‘The Mask in Virtue’ in 1935, and began an affair while co-starring in the period drama Fire Over England (1937). By all accounts, it was love at first sight and the two actors wanted to be in an open relationship, but their spouses—Holman and Jill Esmond—refused to grant divorces right away. While Viv & Larry were secretly living together by the end of ’37, they would begin one of the most prolific acting partnerships of all time. Nearly all of Vivien’s Shakespeare theatre portrayals would co-star and/or be directed by Larry, such as ‘Hamlet’ (1937), ‘Romeo & Juliet’ (1940), ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ (1951), ‘12th Night’ (1955), and ‘Macbeth’ (1955). They also co-starred in the stage version of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Caesar & Cleopatra’ in 1951 and Larry was the director of Viv’s original 1949 London stage performance of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ 21 Days (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941) would be their two other movies together, with the latter considered one of their best.

The couple also lobbied regularly to play each other’s love interests in their classic films, like Larry did with both Wuthering Heights (1939) and Rebecca (1940) and Viv with Waterloo Bridge. Larry was so irritated at Vivien being passed on the lead in Rebecca that he would regularly snub and be short with eventual co-star Joan Fontaine. By the end of the exhausting production of Gone with the Wind, Viv would be depressed not only because of the year long, erratic filming process, but because she missed Larry so much. Around this time, Vivien also started showing early signs of what would later be diagnosed as ‘manic depression’ (or bipolar disorder). Larry mentions in his 1982 autobiography, Confessions of an Actor, that during their early plays together, Viv would occasionally have extreme mood swings and no recollections of the outbursts. On the week they were to marry, Vivien uncharacteristically told Larry that she loved him more like brother rather than romantically in complete seriousness. Larry said retrospectively that was the sign their relationship was doomed.

Even with their careers blooming together and Viv being called ‘Lady Olivier’ after Larry’s knighthood in 1947, their personal love struggled. Vivien had a nervous breakdown after experiencing a miscarriage in 1945, and her emotional instability caused her to be treated with electric shock therapy. Affairs began to occur on both sides of the marriage out of frustration. In 1954, Vivien was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor in the adventure flick Elephant Walk after having another alleged breakdown. The producers were also worried she would revive a previous affair with co-star Peter Finch. In her 1983 memoir, Limelight & After, actress Claire Bloom revealed that she had an affair with Larry, her Richard III (1955) co-star. Yet she felt that he was just going through the motions and probably only slept with her because he assumed most famous men had affairs. In his 1994 memoir Songs My Mother Taught Me, Vivien’s Streetcar co-star Marlon Brando revealed that he was attracted to Viv during filming. But didn’t seduce her because Larry was such a nice guy and would’ve felt guilty. In 1960, Larry and Vivien officially divorced and by this time Larry was already seeing his future 3rd wife Joan Plowright. Viv would spend the rest of her life with companion John Merivale before dying of tuberculous at age 53 in 1967. Even after the divorce, Vivien kept a photo of Larry next to her bed until her death.

[marijory]

Exhibition - Broad Horizons

On the 25th September our class went to visit both the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Stills Centre for Photography in Edinburgh. 

The first exhibition that we went to see was in Stills Gallery and was work by Cindy Sherman this was an brilliant exhibition with very unique photos.

Black and white photos are taken with a medium format camera, Sherman did not try to hide the shutter cable which, in my opinion, gives these photos a certain charm.

The exhibition pull together of 16mm photos, called “Dolls Clothes”, its her first published book “Untitled Film Stills 1977-80″ and a range of photographs “Untitled (Murder Mystery People)”.

This major new retrospective explores the development of Sherman’s work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and features around 150 works from international public and private collections as well as new work never before displayed in a public gallery.

Focusing on the artist’s manipulation of her own appearance and her deployment of material derived from a range of cultural sources, including film, advertising and fashion, the show explores the tension between façade and identity.

Sherman is known for her self-portraits in which she assumes a number of different identities influenced by art history, TV, magazines, film, and the internet. Considered to be one of the most influential artists of our time, Sherman also became largely admired throughout her career for her explorations of the nature of representation and the construction of the contemporary idea of identity.

Highlights of the presentation at Stills include Doll Clothes(16mm film works made during her time in art school at the State University College at Buffalo), some of her earliest self-portraiture—Untitled (Murder Mystery People)—and Untitled Film Stills, which garnered Sherman her first international recognition.

And the second exhibition we visited that day was Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

This exhibition was consecrated to the work of three outstanding photographers.

Francesca Stern Woodman

was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.

Space², Providence, Rhode Island 1976 

This square-format, black and white photograph is a self-portrait of the artist Francesca Woodman.

 Woodman, wearing a dark dress and knee length boots, occupies an empty interior space with bare white walls. A dark skirting board runs along the base of the wall where it meets the lighter grey concrete floor. 

The adjacent wall can be seen on the far right of the image and features a window through which light enters the room. With feet firmly planted, right in front of the left, Woodman appears to lunge forward.

 Her body is oriented away from the camera; her knees are bent, back hunched and arms stretched out gesturing toward the window. 

Although her feet are in sharp focus, her body from the ankles up is blurred as if in motion, totally obscuring Woodman’s face.

Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.

Her work continues to be the subject of much positive critical attention, years after she died by suicide at the age of 22, in 1981.

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in Queens, New York. One of six children, he was brought up in a strict Catholic environment. When he was sixteen he enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he studied drawing, painting, and sculpture. 

The image reminds us of Hollywood icons James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause1955 and Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones 1953. As in many of his portraits, Mapplethorpe poses facing the camera straight-on and his mouth is at the very centre of the photograph.

FROM POLAROID TO PROFESSIONAL

Early in his career Robert Mapplethorpe was influenced by a range of artists including assemblage artist Joseph Cornell and dada artist Marcel Duchamp. He experimented with mixed media collages, using images cut from books and magazines.

In 1970 he bought a Polaroid camera so he could take photographs to use in his collages. But he began to appreciate the quality of Polaroid photographs in their own right and his first solo exhibition, in 1973 at the Light Gallery in New York City, was called Polaroids. Two years later Mapplethorpe bought a more sophisticated camera, a Hasselblad medium format camera, and began photographing the people he knew. Artists, musicians, pornographic film stars, and other members of the edgy New York underground scene were all captured on Mapplethorpe's camera.

Robert Mapplethorpe Truman Capote 1981 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith 1979 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

Robert Mapplethorpe Francesco Clemente 1982 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

[chiseler]

An Interview with Joyce Meadows

In 1957, a then 22-year-old Joyce Meadows starred in her second feature, and what would turn out to be her only foray into science fiction. In the Nathan Juran-directed The Brain from Planet Arous, Meadows was cast as Sally Fallon, the high-spirited but long-suffering fiancee of an atomic scientist (genre stalwart John Agar) who finds himself possessed by an evil alien brain with some mighty diabolical plans for world domination. Things only grow stranger with the arrival of a benevolent alien brain from the same planet, who, in an effort to track down and capture the evil brain, possesses Meadows’ dog.

The Brain from Planet Arous is a delightful and wildly entertaining bit of Fifties sci-fi cultdom with some solid performances and a remarkable score. It’s the film for which Meadows is best remembered, and the reason she continues to be invited to science fiction conventions to this day. Although she was a film and television fixture in the Fifties and Sixties, looking back on an acting career that has now spanned over six decades, her onscreen work isn’t central in Meadows’ own mind.

Born Joyce Burger in Alberta, Canada in 1935, she spent her earliest years on the family farm, where the nights were often marked by music, singing, and dancing on the back porch. It was on that porch that a three-year-old Meadows would sing her first song in front of an audience, but dreams of becoming a professional performer were still years away.

“You have to understand,” explains Meadows, still vibrant, sharp and charismatic at eighty-three. “My mother’s side of the family came over from Europe. She was first generation. They were Russian and Romanian, and they were very musical. Grandpa played the squeezebox, my mother sang and danced, and my auntie taught me to sing when I was two, as soon as I could talk. There was no thought of showbiz, this was just who they were. Music was a part of life. It’s just what you did on the back porch at the end of the day after all the chores were done.

Not long after that, the family moved to the States, settling first in Montana, then in Oregon. It was in Montana, when she was eight, that Meadows saw her first motion picture.

“It was that one with Glen Ford and Rita Hayworth,” she recalls. “Gilda I think it was called. They usually showed two films back then, double features, but I forget what the second one was. An older cousin took me. She was fifteen or sixteen. After she sat me down in the seat, she told me to wait, because she was going to go get some popcorn. As I sat there I started wondering how these people on the screen could be talking. When my cousin came back, I wasn’t in my seat. I was very curious. I stood up and went to the front of the theater, then up the steps to the stage they had there. I was standing by the screen. I think the newsreel had come on. I reached out and touched the screen and thought, ‘This is just paper. How can they make paper talk?’ That’s how I was thinking. By then my cousin saw where I was, and the people in the audience were getting a little upset. You have to understand we had moved from a farm where we had no electricity, no running water. The house was lit with kerosene lamps, there was an outhouse. When we moved to the United States, I was just beginning to learn about all these high-tech things.”

A year later, when she was nine, the Burgers settled in Sacramento, California. It was in high school, after joining the thespian club, starring in several school plays, and forming a song and dance duo with a friend that Meadows first began looking ahead.

“That’s when I became interested in performing as a career. I realized you could make a living at it. You could get paid.”

The years following her graduation from high school were busy and tumultuous. She started acting in local theaters (sometimes by lying about her age), including an early turn as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. The local Chamber of Commerce also nudged her to enter the Miss Sacramento pageant.

“It wasn’t something I was considering, but it was suggested to me. I looked into it and saw there were a lot of opportunities, like free modeling lessons, so I entered.”

It was her singing as well as her looks that caught the judges’ attention in the Miss Sacramento pageant, and after winning that she was contacted by the owner of The Wagon Wheel in Lake Tahoe.

“He started bringing me up there on weekends to sing in the lounge. I was a kind of opening act for a lot of big names. Every weekend he would put a couple hundred dollars in an envelope and hand it to me. I was paid in cash, and it was a lot more than I was making working for the telephone company. My father was opposed to the idea of show business as a career, so arranged to get me a decent stable job. I worked for the telephone company during the week, then went to the Wagon Wheel on weekends, but had to be back in Sacramento in time for work Monday morning.”

At nineteen, after working in assorted theaters and singing in small venues around Sacramento, she set her sights higher. Leaving the phone company behind, Meadows moved to Hollywood, changing her name from Burger to Meadows somewhere along the line. She earned a scholarship to the famed Pasadena Playhouse, and later studied acting with the legendary Stella Adler.

“She was so good,” Meadows says of Adler. “I adored her. I studied acting with a lot of people, but she was my favorite. She’d gone to Russia and studied with Stanislavsky himself, then brought his technique back to the United States. She taught so many people, and changed the whole nature of stage acting here. People always talk about how Marlon Brando was a method actor—I guess some people use that term—and how he’d studied at The Actor’s Studio. But when his autobiography came out, he said he’d never been to The Actor’s Studio, that he learned everything from Stella Adler. Of course Brando had been born in a trunk. His mother was an actress. But I learned so much from Stella, and liked her much more than the others.”

Around 1954, Meadows career took another turn.

“It was pretty straightforward and technical,” she says. “This was about two years before the film came out. A casting director saw me in a play. He said he had a part in an independent film, and that I should come down an audition.”

Although she would always remain a stage actor at heart, Meadows went for the audition and got the role. The picture in question was the American International Western, Flesh and the Spur, directed by Edward L. Cahn. Released in 1956, the revenge picture starred Mike Conners (who at the time was going by the name “Touch”) and meadows’ future Brain from Planet Arous co-star John Agar.

“It wasn’t a very big role,” Meadows says in retrospect. “And I think I get killed off pretty early.”

I asked her about the learning curve involved in switching from theater to film.

“Oh, sure,” she says.”It’s a different process, but I think I learned a lot more on Brain.”

Less than a year following her debut feature, and after appearing in episodes of the TV series’ Highway Patrol and The Web, Meadows was offered the lead in The Brain from Planet Arous.

“You need to reign things in a little,” she continued about the transition from stage to film. “You need to learn about camera placement and where your mark is. ‘Mark? What’s a mark?’ And you need to keep moving. But with my background in theater that wasn’t an issue, because in the theater you’re moving all the time.”

And what about having to act with a talking dog who’d been possessed by an alien brain?

“Talking to the dog was not a big deal. My mother always had a dog and a cat on the farm, and used to talk to them all the time. When we moved to California, the dog was just another member of the family, and we all talked to him as if he could understand us and respond.”

The decade between 1956 and 1965 was an incredibly busy one for Meadows. She appeared in a string of films ranging from Frontier Gun, in which she once again co-starred with Agar, to Walk Tall to Back Street to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In that same period, a quick scan through her filmography might give the impression she appeared in every TV show on the air at the time: 77 Sunset Strip, Wagon Train, Sea Hunt, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Tales of Wells Fargo, Maverick, and on and on, often appearing on these shows more than once. I asked what the atmosphere in Hollywood was like for a young and attractive female actor in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

“You mean creatively or the business end? The business was much tougher. There was a lot of politics involved, and back then…how do I put this? Let’s just say ‘sexual harassment’ didn’t exist. You couldn’t sue people for sexual harassment. So there were a lot of those ‘chasing around the desk’ scenes. But I was tough. I was surrounded by acting coaches and singing coaches and agents, and they knew people. It got to where casting directors would call my agent and say, ‘I have a role here I think would be perfect. It’s not a big role and it’s a new show, but it’s a way to get your foot in the door.”

“Back then,” she went on, “a lot of TV shows only had two or three main actors, so for every episode they had to bring in a lot of other actors who were prepared to play leads, which I was. That’s how I ended up on shows like Perry Mason or M Squad or 77 Sunset Strip three or four times. You look at TV shows nowadays, and they have eight or ten or twelve regular actors. The people they bring on are only going to get a small role—just one scene, or a few lines. A ‘Five or Under,’ they call it. I saw a show not long ago where Glenn Close had just one scene. And she’s a big actor! So in that way I feel fortunate to have been involved with the industry when I was.”

At the same time she was doing television, Meadows was also a member of The West Coast Ensemble , an L.A.-based theater troupe. It was an Equity waiver group, meaning they performed plays in theaters with fewer than ninety-nine seats, the actors were paid less than Equity scale, and non-union actors were welcome.

“I knew so many amazing actors there,” Meadows says. But few of them ever made the move to films or TV. There was one young woman, we were great friends. She was a great actor, a female Marlon Brando, but ended up becoming a mathematician at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories. A lot of these people just couldn’t take the rejection. If you were an actor in a troupe like that, you were working. It was harder with TV, and they couldn’t deal with the rejection. If I had a lot of money and was producing, I wouldn’t even bother with a casting director. I’d just hand the scripts out to all these people.”

I asked if, after appearing in over 200 films and TV shows, any particular shows or productions were especially memorable.

“People ask me that,” she said, sighing a little. “But not really. I got to work with some very good people. I became good friends with John Agar and his wife. He was a wonderful man. Chuck Connors, too. I was a little scared of him at first, but when he saw I came prepared and knew my lines, we got along fine. One day this really beautiful woman walked on the set, not an actress. It turned out to be his girlfriend. They were the cutest couple of kids you’ve ever seen. I was a little scared of Lee Marvin, too, because he had this reputation for being really mean to other actors. But again, when he saw I knew my lines and was professional, we got along well. Just two actors working together.”

After appearing in 1970’s The Christine Jorgensen Story, about the world’s first sex-change operation, Meadows seemed to completely vanish from film and TV for nearly two decades.

People thought that since they didn’t see me on TV I wasn’t doing anything,” she explains. “I was having a difficult time in Hollywood back then. So in the Seventies I teamed up with a group of musicians, and we toured everywhere. All over the country. They had a female singer lined up, but it didn’t work out, so they contacted me. I have no idea how they found me, because they were all based in Vegas. We were called The New Ideas, we toured for most of the decade, and it was a wonderful time.

Meadows returned to acting in the early Eighties, joining The Company of Angels, LA’s first Equity waiver theater troupe, which had been formed in 1959 by Vic Morrow. Leonard Nimoy, Vic Tayback, and Richard Chamberlain. In the second half of the decade she stepped back in front of the cameras, appearing on episodes of Punky Brewster, L.A. Law, and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, among others.

I got in touch with my agent, and he said ‘I thought you were dead.’ What a nice thing to say. But the roles were pretty good. I did a couple soaps. I was on Days of Our Lives, a five-episode storyline, and I was on another one that isn’t on anymore. I think it was called Santa Barbara. And then that other big one—it’s still around but I forget the name right now. And I gotta hand it to these soap actors. When you’re doing a film, you shoot maybe two pages a day, but these people are doing an entire script every day. I wasn’t having a very good time, so thought, ‘I don’t think I’ll do any more soaps.’ I did a lot of commercials, a few shows now and again, then quietly began to retire.

Having removed herself from the film and TV industry by the late Nineties, Meadows and a close friend, Shakespearean actor David Sage, just for fun, took it upon themselves to study and analyze all of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

“We would get together once a week and take the sonnets apart, trying to figure out where they’d come from. We did this for two years, and it was one of the best times of my life. When we were finished, his wife asked us if we were planning on turning it into a show. Well, that idea had never occurred to us, but it was a wonderful idea. We wrote back stories for all the sonnets, stories about where they’d come from, and turned it into a two-person show. We’d perform the back stories, and the sonnets themselves were done as monologues. We had to memorize thirty Sonnets. And we began touring with that. We called it Will Will Fulfill: The Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the title coming directly from Shakespeare. We did that for about ten years. When David got too ill to go onstage, I did it myself. Turned it into a one-woman show and did it for a few more years.

Following that, she said, she heard from a friend who worked in a vocational center for the mentally disabled.

“If Universal had a few hundred envelopes that needed stuffing, they’d send them down there,” she says of the center. “It was work they could do, it was a job, and they’d be paid for it. She told me one day that a lot of the people down there  were interested in acting. They were from all ages, about sixteen to maybe forty-three.”

Meadows, who has also taught acting, could sense the potential there. At the time she was involved with another Equity waiver troupe.

“We rounded up some actors, had some scripts written, and we began working together. We did a Western melodrama, a vaudeville show, and a detective show. I had never had any dealings with the mentally disabled before—there were people with Down’s Syndrome and all sorts of things—but they were acting with us and we were acting with them.”

Under the name “The Meridian Theatre Academy Presents…,” the mix of professional and developmentally disabled actors staged productions in Burbank, Glendale, Newport Beach and elsewhere, usually before audiences of two or three hundred.

More recently, Meadows has become involved with a new ensemble, A Cup of Water, which she describes as “senior citizen actors performing for senior citizens.” But to Meadows personally, it’s much more than that.

“I always regretted not going to New York when I was younger,” she admits, “That was my real dream—to do musical theater on Broadway—but instead I stayed in Hollywood. Now we’re getting permission to cut these plays, like Guys and Dolls and South Pacific, down to an hour. And I’m finally getting the chance to sing all these songs I’ve always wanted to sing! I never had the chance to sing when I was doing television.”

She added that she was a little amazed at the sound that came out when she opened her mouth to sing for the first time after so many years. “It was pretty good. I didn’t sound like an old person. So I’m going to keep doing it. When the day comes I open my mouth and it’s just {growling} ‘rah-rah-rahr,’ then I’ll stop.

While for decades now, The Brain from Planet Arous has remained a perennial cult favorite among fans of classic low-budget sci-fi, more recently the resurrection of old TV shows on DVD, cable and the internet has cast a new light on Meadows extensive screen career.

“Someone told me the other day, ‘you had ten shows on last night,’ and I couldn’t believe it.”

The re-emergence and rekindled interest in vintage TV has also earned Meadows a new generation of fans.

“I get hundreds and hundreds of letters from all over the world,” she says. “Germany, Greece, Russia, Japan, even China. All these young people who have such nice things to say about my work. It’s very gratifying. It’s so cute to see them write, ‘I really love what you did in this movie or that TV show, and I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful career.’”

For more information about Joyce Meadows, as well as autographed photos and other merchandise, please visit:

http://joycemeadows.net/

by Jim Knipfel

[superpoweredfancast]

NeoText—a new digital publishing company dedicated to publishing short-form prose ranging from science fiction and noir novellas to investigative journalism and narrative nonfiction—is publishing exclusive, regular content on its website. Today’s essay is a retrospective gallery showcasing the work of Luigi Corteggi, cover artist for crime and neo-gothic Italian comics such as Kriminal and Satanik.

  Other essays on NeoText’s site include a definition of science fiction by Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated writer Adam Roberts; an essay from Paco Taylor the intersection of comic books and hip hop; a feature on Judge Dredd and police brutality by NeoText Cultural Editor-At-Large Chloe Maveal; a career overview of comic legend Howard Chaykin by Michael Tisserand; photographer and director Neil Krug’s look at the work of Academy award-winning director Elio Petri; and R. Emmet Sweeney’s essay on Stephen Chow.

THE LAST WESTERN Release date: August 18th. $2.99

Award-winning journalist and investigative reporter Rone Tempest presents the gripping true crime story of a Puerto Rico-born undercover officer gunned down by a white Wyoming lawman in 1978 — and the notorious frontier trial that followed.

“THE LAST WESTERN is quick moving, deeply sourced, and a page-turning snapshot of an event that rocked the state and still lingers – for better or worse.”

— C.J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author of LONG RANGE

“Hugely entertaining…. Think: High Noon meets Training Day in Deadwood.” —Mike Sager, Esquire, author of The Devil and John Holmes and Hunting Marlon Brando.

Of all the possible explanations for why lawman Ed Cantrell shot and killed his deputy Michael Rosa in the parking lot of the Silver Dollar saloon, the least likely was the one that prevailed at trial—that a deranged Rosa went for his gun and Cantrell outdrew him in self-defense. In his powerful and compelling reconstruction of the infamous 1978 killing in boomtown Rock Springs, Wyoming, award-winning journalist Rone Tempest tracks the parallel lives of Cantrell, an Indiana schoolboy who fashioned himself into a 19th-century Western gunfighter on the right side of the law, and Rosa, a Puerto Rico-born and West Harlem-raised decorated U.S. Marine who worked under Cantrell as an undercover narc.

For a time, Tempest writes, the two were an efficient team: Cantrell, the steely-eyed Wild West throwback and Rosa, the street-savvy New Yorker with an impressive flair. But then came a falling-out. Tensions and paranoia built to a breaking point until a midnight meeting in a saloon parking lot where Cantrell, with two other cops beside him, drew his Model 10 .357 and shot Rosa between the eyes, killing him instantly as he sat in the backseat of an unmarked police car. Unearthing previously unseen investigators’ notes, military records, personnel files, census records, college transcripts and even airplane manifests, Tempest skillfully demonstrates the true aim and cost of the raucous murder trial that followed the killing.

NeoText to Showcase the works of Luigi Corteggi NeoText—a new digital publishing company dedicated to publishing short-form prose ranging from science fiction and noir novellas to investigative journalism and narrative nonfiction—is publishing exclusive, regular content on its website.

[fifiweihao-blog]

Ten Foot Flowers (1967) – Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987)

Centro Cultural de Belem, Berardo Collection, Belem, Lisbon, Portugal

Material: Silk-screen ink on synthetic polymer on canvas Collection: Berardo

BIOGRAPHY

Born Andrew Warhola; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist, director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as POP ART.

His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.

Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental film Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist.

His New York studio, THE FACTORY, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame".

In the late 1960s, he managed and produced the experimental rock band THE VELVET UNDERGROUND and founded Interview magazine. He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement. After gallbladder surgery, Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia in February 1987 at the age of 58.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster); his works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.[5] A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market".[6]

EARLY LIFE AND BEGINNINGS (1928–49)

Warhol’s childhood home. 3252 Dawson Street, South Oakland neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[7] He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola, Sr., 1889–1942)[8][9] and Julia (née Zavacká, 1892–1972),[10] whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their move to the U.S.

His parents were working-class Lemko[11][12] emigrants from Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now called Miková, located in today’s northeastern Slovakia). Warhol’s father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol’s grandparents. Warhol’s father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.[13] The family was Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two older brothers—Pavol (Paul), the oldest, was born before the family emigrated; Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol’s son, James Warhola, became a successful children’s book illustrator.

In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham’s chorea (also known as St. Vitus’ Dance), the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness.[14] At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.[15]

As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School in 1945. Also as a teen, Warhol won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award.[16] After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh in the hope of becoming an art teacher, but his plans changed and he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society.[17] He also served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948[18] and a full-page interior illustration in 1949.[19] These are believed to be his first two published artworks.[19] Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949.[20] Later that year, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising.

The 1950s

Warhol’s early career was dedicated to commercial and advertising art, where his first commission had been to draw shoes for Glamour magazine in the late 1940s.[21] In the 1950s, Warhol worked as a designer for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller.[21][22] American photographer John Coplans recalled that

nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place. The kids in the apartment [which Andy shared in New York – note by Coplans] noticed that the vamps on Andy’s shoe drawings kept getting longer and longer but [Israel] Miller didn’t mind. Miller loved them.

Warhol’s "whimsical" ink drawings of shoe advertisements figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York.

Warhol was an early adopter of the silkscreen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. A young Warhol was taught silk screen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan.[23] While working in the shoe industry, Warhol developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme, a method that prefigures his 1960s silk-screen canvas. In his book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."

Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope.[25] Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, his ‘first boyfriend'[26] the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol’s often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch’s photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette (c.1956),[27] for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his dollar bill series,[28][29] and for Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable), of 1962 which initiated Warhol’s most sustained motif, the soup can.

With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.[30]

The 1960s

Warhol (left) and Tennessee Williams (right) talking on the SS France, 1967. He began exhibiting his work during the 1950s. He held exhibitions at the Hugo Gallery[31] and the Bodley Gallery[32] in New York City; in California, his first West Coast gallery exhibition[33][34] was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles with Campbell’s Soup Cans. The exhibition marked his West Coast debut of pop art.[35] Andy Warhol’s first New York solo pop art exhibition was hosted at Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. At the Stable Gallery exhibit, the artist met for the first time poet John Giorno who would star in Warhol’s first film, Sleep, in 1963.[36]

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell’s Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign in the civil rights movement. During these years, he founded his studio, "The Factory" and gathered about him a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola:

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

New York City’s Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol’s open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol’s reception.

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini’s Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol’s painting of a can of Campbell’s soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can be sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.[citation needed]

Andy Warhol, between 1966 and 1977 As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol’s aluminium foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol’s Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).

During the 1960s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films (many premiering at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse) of the 1960s, revealing Warhol’s connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life including writer David Dalton,[39] photographer Stephen Shore[40] and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician Beck).[41]

Attempted murder (1968) On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol’s studio.[42] Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored in 1967 the S.C.U.M. Manifesto,[43] a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film I, a Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script had apparently been misplaced.[44]

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived: surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again. He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset.[14] The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol’s life and art.[45][46]

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault, after turning herself into police. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene heavily increased security, and for many, the "Factory 60s" ended.[46]

Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it’s the way things happen in life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it’s like watching television—you don’t feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it’s all television."[47]

The 1970s

President Jimmy Carter and Warhol in 1977 Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol’s work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot.[48][49] Warhol’s famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Warhol socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max’s Kansas City; and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54.[51] He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square."

In 1979, along with his longtime friend Stuart Pivar, Warhol founded the New York Academy of Art.

The 1980s

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. Before the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney and Cy Twombly, and contributed a Speed Skater print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics poster.[55]

By this time, graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to Warhol when he painted an entire train with Campbell soup cans. This was instrumental in Freddy becoming involved in the underground NYC art scene and becoming an affiliate of Basquiat.[56]

By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist".[57] In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. They also criticized his 1980 exhibit of 10 portraits at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They’re going to sell."[57] In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol’s superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."[57]

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re so beautiful. Everything’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."[58]

In 1984 Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, in order to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, Orange Prince (1984) was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol’s very first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop colour palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.

In the Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol recorded how excited he was to see Prince and Billy Idol together at a party in the mid-1980s, and he compared them to the Hollywood movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s who also inspired his portraits: "… seeing these two glamour boys, its like boys are the new Hollywood glamour girls, like Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe".

WORKS

PAINTINGS

By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist’s palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Marilyn Monroe was a pop art painting that Warhol had done and it was very popular. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning). Warhol’s first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller’s window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced.[65]

It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol’s dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter.[66] For his first major exhibition, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell’s soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life. A 1964 Large Campbell’s Soup Can be sold in a 2007 Sotheby’s auction to a South American collector for £5.1 million ($7.4 million).

He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.[68]

In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group-4 race version of the then "elite supercar" BMW M1 for the fourth instalment in the BMW Art Car Project. It was reported at the time that, unlike the three artists before him, Warhol opted to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer his scale-model design to the car.[69] It was indicated that Warhol spent only a total of 23 minutes to paint the entire car.[70]

Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colours—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series. The Death and Disaster paintings included Red Car Crash, Purple Jumping Man, and Orange Disaster. One of these paintings, the diptych Silver Car Crash, became the highest-priced work of his when it sold at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction on Wednesday, November 13, 2013, for $105.4 million.

Some of Warhol’s work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there ‘on the surface’."

His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy’s New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy’s "piss paintings":

Victor … was Andy’s ghost pisser on the Oxidations. He would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy or Ronnie Cutrone, a second ghost pisser much appreciated by Andy, who said that the vitamin B that Ronnie took made a prettier colour when the acid in the urine turned the copper green. Did Andy ever use his own urine? My diary shows that when he first began the series, in December 1977, he did, and there were many others: boys who’d come to lunch and drink too much wine, and find it funny or even flattering to be asked to help Andy ‘paint’. Andy always had a little extra bounce in his walk as he led them to his studio.

After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand in a series of more than 50 large collaborative works done with Jean-Michel Basquiat between 1984 and 1986. Despite negative criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.

Andy Warhol was commissioned in 1984 by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo Delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria Delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci’s mural can be seen.[77] Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper).[78] The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist.[79] The series of The Last Supper was seen by some as "arguably his greatest,"[80] but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless."[81] It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist.[80]

Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That’s probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration towards Cattelan’s magazine and photography compilations, such as Permanent Food, Charley, and Toilet Paper.[82]

In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.[83]

A self-portrait by Andy Warhol (1963–64), which sold in New York at the May Post-War and Contemporary evening sale in Christie’s, fetched $38.4 million.

On May 9, 2012, his classic painting Double Elvis (Ferus Type) sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York for US$33 million. With commission, the sale price totalled US$37,042,500, short of the $50 million that Sotheby’s had predicted the painting might bring. The piece (silkscreen ink and spray paint on canvas) shows Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the Double Elvis, nine of which are held in museums.

In November 2013, his Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) diptych sold at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction for $105.4 million, a new record for the pop artist (pre-auction estimates were at $80 million).[71] Created in 1963, this work had rarely been seen in public in the previous years.[87] In November 2014, Triple Elvis sold for $81.9m (£51.9m) at an auction in New York.[88]

SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

Posted by pedrosimoes7 on 2019-11-05 21:22:41

Tagged: , Andy Warhol , Flowers , Azul , BLUE , Bleu , Centro Cultural de Belem , Berardo Collection , Belem , Lisbon , Portugal , Pop Art , The Factory , 15 minutes of fame , THE VELVET UNDERGROUND , ✩ Ecole des Beaux Arts✩ , **Contemporary Art Society**

The post Ten Foot Flowers (1967) – Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987) appeared first on Good Info.

[budley]

            Levi’s Growth from 1964 to 1974

             (From Rodeo Gear to Worldwide Icon)

                      Meet the author: Bud Robinson

                     Introduction

In 1971, Harvard MBA Ed Combs had just been appointed Executive VP of Levi Strauss In San Fransisco largely based on his outstanding work as Director of Levi’s International department. The company was in the midst of implementing a McKinsy reorganization designed to creat 5 independent divisions with substantial automomy (Jeans, Boys, Womens,Casuals and International).

Ed chose Pete Thigpen to be the new Director of Europe repacing Bud Robinson (your author whom he had picked to head up the new International Division). Pete was a Stanford MBA who had been Levi’s first expatriate merchandise manager based in Belgium. Pete had transitioned the  product line from merely denim to a diverse and highly successful line of fashion jeans… especially those made from corduroy in a growing number of colors. Each new  season brought the eagerly sought-after three or four new fashion shades like, pink,  violet, burgundy, a gray named Belgian Fog, etc. And these unisex jeans were so wildly popular that the 9 European Levi’s subsidiaries (former distributors and a few started from scratch) would not let Pete drop any of the existing colors. The sole remaining independent distributor in France was even pressuring him to add new silhouettes, particularly one with patch pockets on the front as well as on the rear (being sold for astronomical prices by French jeans upstart, Newmann). This, of course, was rejected by the new GM since it was bad enough to have grown the line to  28 colors with both straight legs as well as bell bottoms, in 10 waist sizes and 6 inseams! (Hmm…let’s see now, 2810x6 x2x …isn’t that 3,360 separate corduroy items in the inventory?)

Adding the new model would of course double these astronomical stock keeping units (sku’s as they were affectionately called by the bean counters). No way Jose!

To further justify Pete’s refusal to the French, he pointed out that Levi’s two biggest and best US factories were churning our these basic corduroy sausages at unheard-of efficiencies, and a new model changeover would so decimate their profit flow that they had refused to cancel our long-term commitment. Ed had fought too hard to get these prime factories devoted exclusively to us to take this purely French fight to the front office.  But to the French business mind, that logic became a carte blanche for them to source the new jeans themselves, and they found an all-          too-willing co-conspirator in our own Hong Kong General Manager. After Levi’s had carved each part of the world into a profit center, run by eager young expatriate Harvard and Stanford MBA’s, and this one smelled BIG BONUS!  

If the French would guarantee him 1 million pair the first year he would make the patch pocket model. Done and done!

Can you sense the impending doom?

No one should ever underestimate the French Fashion Nose!

As soon as the new style’s first shipments hit Galleries Lafayette in Paris, all of the hip young Europeans doffed their ugly old jeans and clamored for the new ones (in 28 colors, of course). Wrangler’s were the first to break price to move their decaying inventories, followed quickly by Lee, and lastly by Levi’s. After all, the US factories were still grinding out sausages.

By the time this latest American smoke over Europe cleared away, newly public Levi’s had to take a $12 million markdown, and your author was “promoted”  to Director of Corporate Marketing, to make way for an executive from BVD, hired to “fix” the International problem and assuage Wall Street .

This sad tale became a Harvard Business School case study designed to help their new graduates maintain some perspective, and you can read about it in the attached April 1974 issue of Fortune magazine multi-colored corduroy story as “When Levi Strauss Burst It’s Britches”. The story spawned several attractive job offers for your author, particularly one from Revlon also attached as “An Evening with Charlie”.

Bud later left Levi’s to become Executive Vice President of The Gap, a new idea in retailing, based on selling only products made by Levi’s, a company that he was involved in starting in 1968 .

So let’s revisit some of the milestones on this Indigo Blue Brick road, that Ed and Bud had traveled seeking fame and getting…Fortune…

                   CHAPTER 1

Bud and Ed and Levi’s…the Beginning

In early 1961, after Procter&Gamble allowed newly aquired Clorox’s San Francisco ad agency, Honig Cooper, to bend the rules and hire Bud, one of their former advertising department managers Bud was asked to be the agency’s assistant media director, concentrating on bleach and servicing the Clorox management in Oakland,CA, He also worked on accounts like Italian Swiss Colony Wine, C&H Sugar, and Levi Strauss & Co makers of Levi’s jeans, a major rodeo sponsor. The company was convinced that their consumers were inspired by the “Macho” image of real cowboys. Philip Morris obviously agreed and copied this image for their famous Marlboro Man, successfully changing it from a small brand favored by women to the world’s top selling filter cigarette. Ironically, Bud suffered a lecture several years later from the man responsible for this cigarette image program, Phillip Morris Chairman Joe Cullman III, who became Levi’s first outside director after Levi’s was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. One of Bud’s first projects was for Levi’s, heading a crew that counted the butts of fans entering professional rodeo’s, like The California Rodeo in Salinas, California, and The Grand National at San Francisco’s Cow Palace.

This butt watching was to gauge how many were wearing Levi’s jeans vs. those of arch-  rivals Wrangler and Lee

     1961 was not yet the ‘Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” in San Francisco, and the only flowers in anyone’s hair were from spent Cannabis blooms on those Levi’s-clad hippy poets at Grant Avenue’s Co-Existence Bagel Shop (clients had to be taken there to gawk and use the unisex bathroom with a peephole in the door, but no lock). But there were growing signs that America’s youth were being inspired to a new rebellious independence by marijuana, rock-and-roll music, and iconoclasts like Marlon Brando, Marylyn Monroe and James Dean, who all wore Levi’s. The Paris youth riots and Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement were still a few years distant, but early young rebels were putting on their Levi’s as soon as school was over, to thumb their noses at their parents and at high school dress codes that forbade the wearing of blue jeans to class.

 Cowboys’ wearing apparel was the farthest thing from their often chemically altered minds, so Bud tried to get Levi’s account supervisor, Bill Day to shift some rodeo advertising dollars to media favored by these teenagers, like top- 40 radio, but he was not interested.

 Bud’s real kindred spirit at the agency was Ed Combs, the Clorox account executive, an ex-Nestle product manager and Harvard MBA, and he was soon transferred to the bleach account as Ed’s co-account executive. In retrospect, Humphrey Bogart’s immortal closing line from Casablanca about the beginning of a beautiful new friendship, is exactly what it became.

 Two busy and exciting years later, Ed, determined to return to the international business career he had started at Nestle in Switzerland, took a job as Time Inc.’s first European manager. A few months later Bud accepted an offer to help make Texize, a Greenville, South Carolina bleach and soap company into a national presence and did what Thomas Wolfe said not to do; went home again…to the Deep South. The agency offered to make him account executive on Levi’s if he would stay, but, counting butts and butting heads with Bill Day didn’t interest him at all.

On Bud’s frequent trips to New York, where Ed was in training at Time Inc., they would drink beers near his Greenwich Village townhouse and reminisce about San Francisco, often regretting leaving Baghdad by the Bay. One night Ed announced his return to San Francisco as General Manager of the newly established International division of Levi Strauss & Co, whose owners felt a need for consumer product management expertise to format their growth.

 Green with envy at Ed’s return to San Francisco, Bud  uneasily wondered if he wasn’t making a major mistake going to work for a cowboy pants company.

Then one night in 1964, Ed called and ordered Bud to San Francisco ASAP to be interviewed for Advertising Manager of Levi’s, having convinced their management that he was the man for the newly created job. And so it began……

       CHAPTER 2  

His First Pair of Levi’s

       John Johnson

Bud’s first meeting was with Levi’s President, Walter Haas Jr., who, like Ed had earned an MBA from Harvard. As Ed was before Bud, he was charmed and inspired by “Wally”, as Levi’s president insisted he be called, and Bud soon became a believer in the future of the company under his and Ed’s leadership. Bud carefully explained his reticence about fighting Wally’s father and his friend Bill Day to redirect Levi’s entire promotional effort as he felt it should be, but Wally said Bud would be reporting directly to him and guaranteed to back him 100%. He assured Bud that Bill Honig would also, and added that Honig was simultaneously interviewing a new account executive, a Canadian MBA, named John Johnson, from Lever Brothers. Although John would work under Bill Day, he would work directly with Bud, should they both join the fight.  Giving Wally his conditional acceptance, pending a discussion with Bill Honig the next day after John signed on too.  

  Lunch with Bill (replete with crab, sourdough bread, and wine) centered initially around Bill Day. Bud learned that the agency management, as well as Wally, were as frustrated as he had been years earlier with Day’s refusal to consider advertising directly to the youth market (the only youth concession that Day had allowed in the past 3 years was to show teens dressed as cowboys, sitting on a corral fence as a horse was broken to the bit).

 Honig said that if Bud took the Levi’s job, he would change its reporting structure so that he would become the agency’s chief management contact with Wally.

But, Honig wanted to table the youth issue and discuss the immediate Levi’s project on the agency’s docket, the introduction of a new Levi’s product called Sta-Prest slacks. Bill explained that Sta-Prest was a revolutionary permanent press process for which Levi’s had obtained an exclusive license from inventor Joe Koret, a fellow San Francisco apparel manufacturer. Joe was the owner of Koret  ladies sportswear, and had developed and patented “Koratron”, a permanent-press process which actually baked the garments in an oven, to help market his popular, but maintenance-heavy, pleated skirts.

       Years later, Bud discovered that Joe had “borrowed” the idea from a major British fabric supplier, who had developed it for an English pleated skirt firm. Ironically, Adrienne Jonas, the English secretary to Levi’s new casual pants merchandiser had been laughed at for suggesting that her newly purchased British skirt’s permanent pleats might be adapted to Levi’s casual pants. This, of course was prior to Joe’s US patent.

   1Adrienne Jonas

Levi’s, frustrated in their weak attempts to sell casual slacks, saw permanent-press as a way to become dominant in the washable slacks market.  Plus they could use Sta-Prest to expand their jeans distribution in major department stores by requiring them to stock Levi’s jeans if they wanted to have a 6 month market exclusive on the new miracle Sta-Prest pants.

  So, Levi’s had approached Joe with the idea to adapt Koratron to men’s cotton slacks, and pushed him hard for an exclusive 6 months license before he would let other pants companies have a license. The only difficulty with the negotiations was that Levi’s insisted on calling the process Sta-Prest, a name they had hurriedly registered, but this was soon resolved by Levi’s agreeing to use Joe’s Koratron hang-tag on each garment, and credit Koratron in their ads.

  Using typical P&G daytime soap operas, Sta-Prest was to be advertised to mothers on TV, and in newspaper ads paid for by carefully pre-selected major department stores granted an exclusive for their market’s introduction (particularly those who had not yet stocked Levi’s jeans).  A team of Levi’s executives had just returned from spanning the country with portable clothes dryers in hand where they demonstrated the Sta-Prest miracle to the selected department stores in their executive offices. As the presentations began, they put a pair of wet Sta-Prest pants in the portable dryer, which ran noisily while the merchants were obliged to watch a slide show describing the process, timed to end with the dryer’s loud finishing signal.

 Honig said that every store was amazed when the perfectly pressed Levi’s emerged from the dryers. They not only enthusiastically signed up for an exclusive local introduction of Sta-Prest slacks, but also took the “suggested” Levi’s jeans assortment. They even acquiesced to pay 100% for their local newspaper ads and to be featured on Levi’s local TV spots, unheard of by vendors like Levi’s who refused to pay “co-op” money as a condition of sale.

 Excited by this major new P&G-type program, Bud relegated the youth question to the back burner and accepted the job from Wally that same day. He was passed between various top Levi’s managers for their stamps of approval, and the deal was sealed.

 When Bud’s Eastern friends and associates learned of his move West to Levi Strauss & Company, they unanimously asked “Who…?” and when he described the unfamiliar firm’s products, they added “a DUNGAREE manufacturer…?...you’ve got to be kidding!”

But, knowing Bud’s  love for San Francisco, they graciously attributed his madness to “The City’s” famed sourdough bread, wine, and crabs (not completely irrelevant to his decision!)

                                   CHAPTER 3

 The Birth of Levi’s Youth Image

  Peter Haas, who was running the operations side of the company (while Wally specialized in Marketing), mandated that Bud take an initial two week cross-country drive from South Carolina to the Golden Gate, replete with stops at two Levi’s distribution centers, the new ovens for baking Sta-Prest slacks in Knoxville Tennessee,  and six southern sewing factories. By the time Bud re-crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, he felt like a veteran ragman or “Schemata-man” as clothing managers were disparaging called in the Yiddish vernacular’

  Digging in on the TV commercial planning for the post-introduction Sta-Prest spots, Bud had the agency do some focus group research with local teenage boys to learn their attitudes about pants as well as their family’s laundry habits. A focus group is done by professional researchers behind a one-way mirror, like those favored by police interrogators, where a small group of the target market is led in a group discussion designed to elicit attitude responses.  Bud discovered that a surprising number of young men at the time were ironing their own cotton slacks (Khakis primarily) prior to a date.

 Bud also confirmed that most either directed the specific clothing brands to be bought for them by their mothers, or they did their own shopping. This was all the ammunition he needed to change the Sta-Prest television commercials from the planned P&G-type “Slice-of-Life” directed to mothers to those aimed straight at teenagers on such programs as Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and the new “Hootenanny” on ABC.

 So, Bud’s back-burner plan to advertise Levi’s to young rebels actually started by encouraging young men to become sex objects (much like today’s beer commercials) by wearing ultra-neat Levi’s Sta-Prest slacks on their dates. The first spot was called “Hey…There’s a Neat New Guy in Town”, which, not too subtly, implied that you might get into her pants if you got into our pants.

The next plank in Levi’s rush to become a Youth Icon was generated their their teen customers’ tricky dodge around those school dress codes that forbade wearing blue jeans to class. These young rebels were bleaching their Levi’s to the extent that they became canvas colored, almost white.  As soon as this ploy made the news, Levi’s jumped up with a new product dubbed “White Levi’s”, an exact copy of their blue jeans, but made in light canvas colors and offered with the new Sta-Prest feature. This was a reverse play on the 1950’s pre-dirtied white buck shoes that were offered to “Joe College” as a short-cut to being “hip”.

 To reinforce this new, more acceptable school garment, Bud mounted a major letter-writing campaign to every public and private high school he found with a “no Levi’s” dress code. Levi’s letters acknowledged their right to set dress standards, but enjoined them to refrain from forbidding blue jeans by using Levi’s protected trademark “Levi’s” in a generic sense. Levi’s pointed out that the name Levi’s also meant perfectly acceptable neatly pressed White Levi’s, and of course the famous Sta-Prest slacks and even offered to give them pre-printed colorful brochures that communicated to the students, in their own jargon, what type of Levi’s were acceptable school wear. The program was highly successful and with the students help, many school’s dress codes were soon relaxed.

  The following quote is from an educator’s recent talk regarding the 60’s dress codes:

 “Like most people who grew up in the 60’s, I’m a veteran of the culture wars. One war I particularly remember was the battle we fought in high school over dress codes. When I was in 12th grade I participated in a massive sit-in on the lawn to protest our school’s “rigid and archaic” rules about what students could and could not wear to class. We had a short but forceful list of demands:

·       girls should be allowed to wear pants and should not be required to wear hose;

·       boys should be allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts.

 To our great amazement, we won the battle and our requests were granted!

I remember one elderly teacher - she was probably about 50 - shaking her head telling a group of us that we would all rue the day that dress codes were abolished. “When students start wearing sloppy clothes, they’ll start behaving in sloppy, disrespectful ways,” she said. “You watch and see what happens to the way students act around here.”

        We, of course, ridiculed the idea that the way you dress could influence the way you behaved. But in recent years, as I’ve seen more public schools turning to uniforms, and heard the way kids talk to their teachers and to one another, I’ve wondered if that teacher wasn’t right after all.”

 Most of this new agency activity was opposed by Bill Day, or started behind his back by John Johnson and Bud, but when Bill learned that the agency had started seeking out new San Francisco acid rock bands to do Levi’s radio spots, he decided to confront the issue head-on. He began by bending Walter Haas Sr.’s ear on their daily train to San Francisco work about how these two young outsiders (John and Bud) were destroying a revered brand name by attempting to get in bed with drug addicts, juvenile delinquents, and draft dodgers. Bill urged Walter to stop us before it was too late. John had even heard that Bill Day was about to fire him or take the account to another agency, without him.

 But on the next Sunday after Bill had launched his attack, John called Bud’s home at 8am and announced that Bill Day had died in his sleep. (With his boots on??)

And so, with this sad news, Levi’s headlong advertising rush to get close to the youth of America proceeded with no further impediments. After a suitable mourning period, Walter Sr. called an unannounced board meeting, including all department heads, to discuss our new youth image program, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that virtually everyone approved of the direction Bus was taking.  

 As a direct result of that meeting Levi’s closed their money losing authentic Western Wear division, the sole purpose of which had been to maintain Levi’s cowboy image, and transferred its manager to head of fabric quality control, mainly denim from Cone Mills.

                   Chapter 4

Levi’s Presents…The Jefferson Airplane!

  The newly unfettered Levi’s creative group at Honig Cooper was challenged to pull out all the stops in their thinking and devise new ways to promote to the new young rebels who were driving Levi’s growth. Underground newspapers like The Berkeley Barb were flourishing as a new youth medium and psychedelic art posters were adapted to Levi’s print ads. Embroidery on jeans was getting popular and Levi’s sponsored art contests using the product as the canvas. Jeep introduced a Levi’s model with denim seats and leather trim. School notebook covers made with the distinctive Levi’s back pocket were sold. Levi’s sponsored  Battles of the Bands, popular local high school competitions, and because “hot-dog” skiers were wearing jeans on the slopes, Levi’s began a junior ski competitions at major resorts where the entrants had to compete in Levi’s jeans.

  But far more challenging was finding a way to become an actual part of the rock music scene that was such a compelling element in youth’s new separation from ‘The Establishment’. Dealing with the top-40 radio stations of the day, which had had the power of life or death for new rock groups, was a tricky business.  Most of them were  basically whores, or rather pimps, for their top disk jockeys (or Jocks as they were known) who had local cult followings at least as great as that of the stars they made by promoting their records. These stations still charged advertisers based on whatever the market would bear, and had just been hit hard by government scrutiny of their business practices. These headline grabbing inquiries and congressional hearings resulted in the passage of a strict new “Payola” law, whereby, record companies could no longer pay these star jocks to promote new groups and records, regardless of their “merit”.

The world Payola was coined to describe the bribes Jocks routinely took to give a new group air time.  Payola" is a contraction of the words "pay" and" Victrola" (LP record player), and entered the English language via the record business. The first court case involving payola was in 1960, when, on May 9, Alan Freed, arguably the country’s top rock and roll Jock on New York’s WABC radio, was indicted for accepting $2,500. Freed claimed it was a token of gratitude and did not affect airplay. He paid a small fine and was released. His career faltered and in 1965 he drank himself to death. In 1986 Freed was among the original inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and In 1991 a comprehensive biography, Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll was published. That same year, Freed received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Before Alan Freed's indictment, payola was not illegal; however, after the trial the anti-payola statute was passed under which payola became a misdemeanor, with a penalty up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison.

  But Levi’s was in San Francisco, not New York, and their eventual answer was to join the rock scene with Levi’s brand image advertising was all around them.  During the 1950s and 1960s, San Francisco had gained a reputation as the preeminent Bohemian community in the United States. This reputation was never more deserved than during the mid-sixties, when the hipster of the Beat movement grew into the hippie of a more mainstream counter-culture. By the 1960s, the literary North Beach scene had given way to the emerging Haight-Ashbury, and radical politics had a niche across the Bay at the University of California at Berkeley.

  San Francisco’s venerable Fillmore Auditorium was the new center of the The City’s “acid rock” revolution. Audiences experienced musical and cultural renaissance that produced some of the most innovative, exciting youth music ever to come out of San Francisco. The careers of the Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Moby Grape, the Butterfield Blues Band, and countless others were launched from The Fillmore stage. The most significant musical talent of the day was appearing there: Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Cream, Howlin' Wolf, Captain Beefheart, Muddy Waters, and The Who, to name a few.

 Finally, the agency came up with a truly radical way for Levi’s to become an integral part of rock and roll itself, legally using the nation’s top-40 radio stations’ local cult status, who could no longer be bribed to play a new record.

 They proposed that Levi’s get involved with promoting new local rock groups just as they were on the cusp of national recognition, and have them actually write and produce the radio spots for us in their group’s own style. The bands would be given loose copy guidelines, placing restraints only in the areas of taste and potential censorship by the stations. Then they would be required to make at least twice as many different spots as were actually needed, allowing culling out the best for consideration. They would be paid a modest up-front fee for their work, enough to cover their time and expenses, and would they get a standard commercial contract only if Levi’s accepted the work for broadcasting.

 The main incentive to the group would be that, if aired, the spots would clearly identify the name of the group at the beginning of each commercial and Levi’s would run saturation schedules on every top-40 station in the country, tied in with Levi’s store promotions and personal appearances by top Jocks. These promotions would be negotiated by the agency before signing the air-time contract.

 Since the spots would showcase the group’s name and style, Jocks would be virtually forced to discuss and play their new albums.

 The agency had discovered legal Payola! What a brilliant concept! So Levi’s gave the green light and the agency quickly honed in on The Jefferson Airplane.

  The Jefferson Airplane, which became one of the most popular psychedelic rock bands of the 60’s, was formed in San Francisco in July 1965 by Marty Balin as a sextet and was soon joined by Grace Slick, a sexy-voiced vocalist/songwriter who had just folded her own band, The Great Society. The Airplane, as they were known locally, had played the in the very first show that year at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium, had landed a deal with RCA Records for $25,000, and just released their first album, “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off”; but the group was still largely unknown outside California. They were very popular in the Bay Area, performing at the Fillmore with other local acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Paul Butterfield, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead.

 Bill Graham was a veteran of the local artistic community, but his greatest talents were his keen business acumen and his ability to organize events. In 1965, Bill managed R.G. Davis's San Francisco Mime Troupe, whose “Commedia Del 'Arte” production of Il Candelaio was deemed "too risqué" by the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Commission, but they performed it anyway and were subsequently busted.

 Bill staged a benefit for the group's legal defense at the Fillmore to raise money for the troupe and to increase awareness concerning growing censorship. To lure a crowd, he enlisted several aspiring new local rock bands an even got Bob Dylan to promote it.

Thousands flocked to the Fillmore, and the general mayhem created an event which ignited the hippie community. Inspired by the success of the event, Bill staged the Fillmore’s first non-benefit concert in February 1966 headlined by The Jefferson Airplane and marking the true beginning of Bill’s rock impresario status and acid rock’s enshrinement of the Fillmore. By March, the youth happenings were a huge phenomenon, which the police didn't like at all, so Bill's request for a dance hall permit was denied and a subsequent police raid on the unlicensed Fillmore happenings resulted in the arrest of 14 juveniles and Bill Graham himself.

Public pressure resulted in charges against Bill being dropped and the Board of Permit Appeals reversed its decision, certifying Bill as a "dance-hall keeper." (In 1992, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to rename the auditorium after the rock concert impresario Bill Graham, who had died the previous year in a helicopter crash)

  It was into this newly legitimate den of rock and roll’s subculture that John  and Bud boldly went, naively assuming that Bill, who was The Airplane’s manager by now, would eagerly accept our offer to have the band sign a national radio commercial contract to do Levi’s spots. After all, the band lived in the product as did Bill, and the money we offered was good. Maybe our button-down shirts and ties set him off, but ignite he did, and, as he described where to put the contract, he threatened to throw them out bodily. “There’s no way the Airplane is going to sell out to the “Establishment”’ (the author’s censored version of his epitaphs). Bill finally calmed down and when he heard exactly how  they would participate, he began to warm to the concept.

 Knowing that The Airplane’s first album was in early release from RCA and was not selling too well due to their lack of notoriety outside the Bay Area, Bud and John proposed the following:

Using     only a brief list of product point we wanted to convey, we wanted them to     write and produce the entire contents of five 45 second spots, words and     music.

We     would dub the beginning of each spot with “Levi’s presents The Jefferson     Airplane” providing the group with priceless national name recognition,

Levi’s     would run saturation schedules on all the top-40 radio stations, timed to     coincide with the early 1967 release of their second album, “Surrealistic     Pillow”,

Levi’s     would not attempt to exploit the group in any commercial way, other than     using the spots for a six month period, after which The Airplane could     re-sign for more commercials at their option.

 Being a good businessman, Bill agreed to talk to the group and get report back. They agreed and signed a few days later for much less than the $25,000 that RCA had given them.

 In less than a week Bill called Bud and Honig Cooper to come to the Fillmore and hear the results of a single all-night creative burst when The Airplane had produced a dozen studio-quality 45 second spots.

  They sat is awe as the thunderous words and music shouted Levi’s products features. The Airplane had made Levi’s sound as if they were as important to a young rebel as his love of the music and distain for conformity. We couldn’t believe that they had done this tour de force in just one night until a younger member of Honig Cooper’s creative staff suggested that they probably had help from a muse named “Mary Jane” (a popular euphemism for marijuana).

 More time was spent time picking the best five spots than The Airplane did in making them. Not trusting their “buttoned-down minds” to be the sole judges, Bud  decided to use the focus group technique to let the customer decide which were best. (Too bad they had agreed to use just 5 spots, because Bill was keeping them to that pledge).

   Grace slick gives the finger

The young ears that screened these gems agreed that each was like a mini-song and no two were alike, but they all voted and two stood out above all the rest:

Grace Slick singing nothing more than the names of the five

colors of the new White Levi’s to an excellent take-off of her surreal “White Rabbit” music track from the new album. White Rabbit

became a Billboard top ten hit on the charts for weeks,

later that Spring.

 And, in the other winner, there was a strong Airplane acid rock

track with no words at all for 20 seconds after the intro, which

suddenly stopped to a loud “Quack! Quack!” followed by… “I am a Duck…I can’t wear Levi’s…You are probably human…You have all

the luck!”

(fade to retailer tag).

 When these gems were proudly previewed at the next weekly Levi’s management meeting, there was a stunned silence from the older contingent, but the younger ones were smiling and waiting for Wally’s critique. “Well” he said, “I guess the agency knows what the kids like…Let’s go with it!” But after the meeting he asked for a copy to play for his and Peter’s kids to see for himself. Fortunately, The Airplane proved worthy to them

  Honig Cooper immediately approached each major top 40 radio station, most of which had serious local competition, with a big spending proposal, telling them that they were being“considered”, but Levi’s would spend on the stations that offered  the best overall deal. These stations were constantly fighting each other for market share by staging dances, shopping center remote broadcasts, celebrity interviews, etc., and freely offered sponsor participation as a quid pro quo. Levi’s usually settled for a major promotion that would involve their celebrity Jocks, and their retailers with the station’s coordination, but under Levi’s control. Then Levi’s legally offered the exclusive promotion to the stores of their choice by making the radio station the source of this valuable co-op money. One of the most popular items in these promotions was a 45 rpm record made from the master commercial disc that Levi’s sent to the stations for broadcasting, The Airplane’s Levi’s spots. Those 45’s were gobbled up in record numbers, and today would be a collector’s item if you could find one.

You can hear two of these historic spots on track 16 of The Airplane’s 1987 RCA release, “2400 Fulton Street: An Anthology”, an otherwise unremarkable release according to some fans; witness the following online review:

    “The collection "2400 Fulton Street" is a decent survey and worth looking into for the "musical roots" of the awakening of America. It's worth the struggle through the cheese, when it got way too commercial and became pure crap, but the old Levi’s commercials’ tracks are pretty cool”.

 Levi’s and The Airplane took off like a rocket, but they declined to do any more commercial for us or anyone else, including turning down big money from Coke. It seems that their fellow rock performers and many of their oldest fans were very critical of The Airplane’s flirt with “The Establishment”, especially the fact that they had lent their signature music style to the commercials.

 The San Francisco Chronicle explained this attitude of the bands of 1960's:

 "Commercialism was condemned and selling out was a horror, but every San Francisco rock'n'roller had to decide whether to sell out or change the world, and some decided they could do both at once. For example, the Jefferson Airplane, who did Levi's commercials, then went on to sell out to future spaced-out generations by changing their name to Jefferson Starship”

 The Airplane’s sudden fame was also keeping them busy with TV appearances and road trips, so Levi’s de-planed after the 6 month deal ended.

 Levi’s attempted to continue this radical new form of radio advertising with similar efforts solicited from other new groups like The Sopwith Camel, Country Joe and The Fish, The Grateful Dead, The Sons of Champlin, and Paul Revere and The Raiders, but  none approached the impact of The Airplane. They all tried to make actual commercials instead of just being themselves as The Airplane had, and they were mostly too contrived, so very few similar new spots were made.

 Levi’s continued to seek out new young music talent, but concentrated on outfitting new bands with Levi’s rather than using them in commercials. Network television advertising was getting more and more of our budget as we grew from a regional to a truly national brand, and youth-oriented TV programming was expanding rapidly.

 The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank, (University of Chicago Press October 1998) recalls the marriage of the 60’s turmoil and Menswear retailing with this opening paragraph:

“For as long as America is torn by culture wars, the 1960s will remain the historical terrain of conflict. Although popular memories of that era are increasingly vague and generalized—the stuff of classic rock radio and commemorative television re-playing of the 1968 Chicago riot footage—we understand "the sixties" almost instinctively as the decade of the big change, the birthplace of our own culture, the homeland of hip, an era of which the tastes and discoveries and passions, however obscure their origins, have somehow determined the world in which we are condemned to live”.

 And while this was happening, Bud was turning Levi’s advertising attention more and more to retail co-op advertising as they rapidly gained distribution with the major department stores, who all demanded, and got, big advertising spending by their major vendors.

                                  Chapter 5

 Getting in Bed with the Big Stores

      Levi’s had for years provided their independent retailers with “ad mats”, a term used for an actual Paper Mache mold from which a newspaper could make a lead printing plate. This service was free, but, of course dictated the exact style and content of the ad All the store could do was add their own name and address and a small amount of copy. This was fine for small retailers, but department stores had their own advertising departments, produced all their ads, and were supported largely by major co-op dollars from their vendors. Some more aggressive stores actually made a profit from their advertising department. The practice was rife with coercion and actual fraud, when it came to proving how much they had spent on a vendor’s ads. Plus many deducted these unsubstantiated ad costs from their usually late merchandise payments with no proof of spending at all. Many smaller apparel manufacturers were totally at these big stores’ mercy on co-op deductions, so the survivors had built hefty margins into their prices to cover it.

 Levi’s had refused to play this game by not offering co-op money to any store, but then, they had done so little business with department stores prior to the 60’s that the question was moot.  

  Now, the resounding success of Levi’s Sta-Prest and the new wave of young shoppers demanding Levi’s jeans from these stores was making co-op spending loom large in every discussion with a major store. As the inevitability of starting a co-op program loomed, Bud  embarked on a swing around the country meeting with Advertising Managers of all our major new accounts to help understand exactly what

Levi’s could afford that would help solidify their position as a “Major Preferred Vendor”. Complicating the issue was increasing scrutiny from federal Anti-Trust and Fair-Trade watchdogs. In general, sections 2(d) and 2(e) of the Robinson-Patman Act require that a seller offering payments to resellers for promotional services or providing such services is obligated to make the offer to all competing customers on proportionally equal terms

To avoid their wrath, a co-op program had to meet at least the following criteria:

 ·       The offer to provide anything of value to a customer must be offered to all customers in a given market, defined as the US Census Standard Metropolitan Area (SMA). So you couldn’t do one thing in Manhattan and another, or nothing, in Brooklyn.

·       The offer must be in writing and distributed to all customers in the SMA.

·       Both the vendor and the merchant were required to keep auditable records of co-op spending.

·       Both parties were enjoined from making co-op dollars a condition of sale.

 Virtually all department stores abused and/or ignored these rules and few were ever brought to task over the issue.

 So Bud did learn how to play the game and Levi’s launched their, first-ever, new co-op program in 1966.

 Of course, Honig Cooper, like all agencies, was opposed to co-op because it ate up clients’ advertising monies that became unavailable to them to spend.  In those days virtually all advertising agencies were paid a 15% commission on the money they spent on behalf of an advertiser in reputable media (plus actual net costs of production material). This commission was remitted to them by the media as a discount from the published rate cards. So a retailer got the same discount for his ads as an agency earned for its clients, but not both for the same ads.

 From zero dollars spent on co-op programs in 1965, Levi’s retail ad budget mushroomed to over 25% of its annual total by 1968 and threatened to continue climbing as big stores became more important to Levi’s. It’s national brand image program was actually contracting as co-op expanded, but they were certain it was helping build Levi’s national distribution, so Levi’s simply tried to control it as best

they could.

  The main controls were to limit total dollar exposure to 2% of the customer’s prior year’s purchases, rigid copy, product pricing, and trademark rules, and a list of pre-approved media, beyond which, prior approval was required. They also demanded proof of performance for each ad claimed, and verified that the account had not exceeded its percentage of sales allowed for co-op. Finally, Levi’s applied it’s own published maximum approved local ad rates that were estimates of what the big stores actually paid the media, (national advertisers paid much higher rates than local companies). Only then would Levi’s pay its 50% share for the ads. Its credit department would not allow refusal of merchandise payment from a customer that had unauthorized deductions for advertising, but they aggressively pursued collections from those they had disputed. Another control developed was based on the fact that Levi’s co-op program refused to pay retailers for any production costs for their ads. So any advertising that had excessive production costs, like TV or four color newspaper inserts, were the claims that were carefully scrutinized.

 This excessive internal auditing was expensive, but soon proved worth it, as major stores gradually learned that Levi’s were not patsies, and began more honest co-op claiming from Levi’s.

 Thet also experimented with legal ways to work with a major store who wanted to do special advertising that would benefit the brand, and found one that worked. Levi’s published a special offer to all Levi’s customers in the major store’s store’s markets and which paid 50% of all production material, but only for the specified time period that the big store needed for the project, labeling this special offer as a test that was available only in the specified markets. Usually no other store was able to take advantage of the offer with such short notice, so they legally paid production cost co-op for just the targeted store’s special program.

 In 1968, the success of this “test market” approach lured Bud into a major debacle in Chicago when he did a similar market-wide test designed to impress the 10,000+ prestigious menswear stores attending a major apparel show.sponsored by Menswear Retailers of America (MRA). He wanted these stores’ management to see Levi’s ads being run in The Chicago papers each day by their local contemporaries during their stay in Chicago.

      McCormick Place Convention Center

Even though Levi’s was rapidly gaining new distribution, it still felt like poor country cousins to the many prestigious menswear stores and their quality vendors who exhibited their new lines with impressive presentations at MRA annual conventions. MRA was the official organization of the leading upscale independent menswear stores that were so dominant in post-war America.

These stores felt that Levi’s were just an insignificant teenager’s product, but the Sta-Prest line was rapidly expanding to include more tailored slacks for men in a new group named “Mr. Levi’s” and Levi’s desperately wanted the attention of these prestige stores.

 The 1968 show was scheduled for Chicago, where Levi’s  had fairly good distribution, so Bud decided to offer all local Levi’s retailers a special co-op deal to last only during the 5 days of the MRA at McCormick Place. The deal was that  Levi’s would pay 100% of the expensive color premium that newspapers charged in addition to 50% of the regular black and white rates, for any store that would run a full page color ad for Levi’s during that period. Bud felt pretty safe in making this generous offer, since the cost of producing color ads was much higher than black and white, and a full page ad was too expensive for smaller stores anyway. Only the largest of Levi’s specialty and department stores were spending this kind of money for single ads and most of them had the in-house ability to produce 4-color. And, of course, Levi’s was not paying for production costs. So, routinely, Bud mailed the special offer to all Chicago area Levi’s account several weeks prior to the show.

 The day the show opened, he was up early, in spite of having worked well past midnight overseeing the setup of Levi’s expansive (and expensive) display booth at the convention center. Levi’s display was festooned with huge geometric piles of square cardboard boxes printed on all sides with new magazine ads.

Eagerly opening that day’s Chicago Tribune, Bud was astonished to see 8 full page Levi’s 4-color ads from small stores he had never heard of, plus 2 from major stores. The less expensive tabloid Sun Times had 12!

 Over the next 4 days, Levi’s was definitely the talk of the entire show, as each day’s papers shouted Levi’s from an eventual total of over 50 pages of 4-color ads, many of them from the prestigious stores we had “targeted”, but most from smaller stores with strangely similar ads. I soon discovered from a visitor to our booth that an enterprising art studio had gotten its hands Levi’s written co-op offer, and convinced his bosses to produce a selection of full page color ads for Levi’s that met the requirements. They gave these production materials to any small stores who agreed to run a full page ad, and subsidized this by getting a special commission from both papers for selling the ads on their behalf.

  After all the bills were paid for this debacle, Bud had spent over $100,000 of his newc o-op budget in 5 days, and had to promise Wally to never again offer a “test market” deal to cater just to department stores.

 Putting this $100,000 into perspective, Chicago’s SMA population was 4% of the US, which projects the Chicago one week expenditure to $2,500,000 if it were national, and over $100 million if it were repeated weekly. This amount would surely have earned a place in the record books.

 In later years, when chided about this event, Bud could only weakly protest that Chicago had become Levi’s best Eastern sales region, and remains so to this day.

       CHAPTER 6

Levi’s “Rolls Royce” Ad

 As wearing Levi’s jeans quickly became “hip” or “chic”, celebrities like Marylyn Monroe, British Royalty, and even President Jimmy Carter began wearing 501’s, the button fly original version of Levi’s. This phenomenon, in turn, quickly moved Levi’s and all other jeans from the 60’s “Sub-Culture” to the mainstream masses that were influenced by fashion leaders.

                    There are several negative product aspects of 501’s that make the goal of owning a well-worn pair quite tedious, and contribute to their mystique. They shrink a significant amount in the length and only slightly less in the waist, so the buyer must follow a size guide if the product is to fit after washing.

              ·       They also shrink all over, resulting in a much tighter fit than when new (most females like this feature), hence the Levi’s slogan “Shrink-to-Fit”.

·       They will also mold themselves to one’s body if they are put on wet and allowed to dry while wearing them. The action of salt water contributes to the worn look and is also effective in setting the indigo dye somewhat, so it was common for early surfers to wear a new pair while in the water on their boards.

·       When new, Levi’s exclusive XX heavy weight denim is as stiff as a board, and only relaxes after frequent wearing and washings.

·       The Indigo dye used will fade into anything that is washed with a 501, so they must be washed totally separately for many times, before the dye dissipates.

·       The fly is buttoned, not zipped, and quite difficult to handle until the fabric finally softens.

 Prior to 1968, the major stores in the East who were selling Levi’s jeans, had eschewed 501’s as being too much like a hardware store item, and had had stocked only the versions that featured pre-shrunk denim and a zipper fly, and even some models that were “vat-dyed” to prevent fading.

 These products sold well enough to Easterners who had never seen 501’s, but Levi’s soon began getting frequent letters from Eastern customers who wanted to buy the “real” Levi’s.

 On a flight home from a visit to Macy’s where Bud had failed to interest them in stocking 501’s, he saw an Rolls Royce ad in the New Yorker magazine that gave him the germ of an idea. The ad’s headline made a simple product claim:

      “At 60 miles per hour loudest sound you hear is the ticking of the clock.”

In the center of the ad was an illustration of the latest Rolls with detailed copy explaining each unique feature of the car. I don’t recall another ad that was so compelling and informative, drawing the reader into each separate story, all of which served to justify the extraordinary, unmentioned, price. And the tag line at the end of the ad was a clincher…”Of course if you are diffident about driving a Rolls, we can offer you the Bentley”.

 This ad’s special was that lt broke almost all the existing “rules” which most copy writers followed, mainly of brevity, and concentrating on a single major selling point, three at the most.

 When Bud showed the ad to Levi’s creative director the next day, with the suggestion that they might copy the style, he was, naturally rebuked.

 No agency likes the client to dictate creative content…that’s what they get paid for. But when he explained what he had just run into at Macy’s New York while trying to interest them in being the store to introduce 501’s in the East, they began to warm to the idea. It had been made obvious to Bud that a now-routine Levi’s special co-op program was not enough to get Macy’s to stock 501’s, and the mere hint of putting them in on consignment was unthinkable to Levi’s.

  What Bud needed to do was motivate New York consumers to demand the product from their favorite department stores, and that usually meant heavy advertising. And if the consumers responded and couldn’t easily find the product, the money was wasted and no one was happy. But his P&G background told him there must be a way,

 Hashing the problem around for several hours they reached a consensus:

  The New York Times Sunday     Magazine would be the medium for the NY assault. It was not only equal to     the New Yorker magazine in its quality content, but it had become a major     national fashion chronicle, read religiously by apparel retailers and     fashion leaders everywhere. It also had the virtue of being saved by the     typical Sunday Times reader long after Monday’s trash caught the rest of     the paper. Bud justified the high, unbudgeted, cost by canceling one     Women’s Wear Daily trade ad and borrowed the rest from co-op funds.

A consumer money-saving mail-in     coupon would be included in the ad, unheard of in the apparel industry at     the time, which would be redeemable only at the stores which carried 501’     in Metro New York.

They would not limit the ad to     just one major store, but would feature all major stores that agreed to     buy a pre-set and sizeable initial stock of 501’s.

Thet were actually asking Macy’s     and Gimbel’s to be in the same ad…along with Abraham & Strauss,     Bloomingdales, Lord& Taylor, and Bonwitt Teller. This was retail     heresy!

Bud would ask Levi’s for a $.50     per pair retail price increase to help pay for the coupon and follow-up     promotions, (The existing suggested retail price for 501’s was $6.25, and     price changes to the sacred cow, which had never exceeded, $.25, required     board approval).

The project was to be kept     confidential until they all had a chance to see the ad and could present     it to Levi’s management at the same time they asked for the price     increase.

 Within a short time, Honig Cooper’s entire creative department was working on this project, each one eager to be the originator of a 2-page spread in the prestigious New York Times Magazine that would be groundbreaking in apparel introductions.

 They developed several very compelling ad concepts, but clearly the best was a direct copy of the Roll Royce ad, but with a creatively reversed negative headline claim:

 “Guaranteed to Shrink, Wrinkle, and Fade”

 Each negative feature of 501’s was bulleted and explained in small copy boxes, just as the Rolls ad extolled positive features. Both pages were crowded with boxed copy, but each spoke to the center illustration of a well-worn and faded pair of Levi’s Original, XX denim, five- pocket, buttoned fly, riveted, shrink-to-fit, free-pair-if-they-rip, 501 jeans!

 And, the lower right corner had a coupon for a $1 dollar refund if they would send a receipt to Levi’s, dated within 2 weeks, from any of following stores…

 It was gorgeous!

 Bud hurriedly called a Levi’s management meeting to present this surprise project that they had kept entirely under wraps, and phoned each board member to assure their presence. A packed boardroom got the entire pitch before the agency unveiled the ad.

 After each one had time to follow the reading of all the copy, and the coupon details, Bud sprung the price increase request on the board. After all the pointed questions about the ad itself were answered, Wally said, “I love it and we will definitely run it, but you don’t get the price increase” Then Bud told the group that he had the ad cost covered already, and since there was a 2 week limit on the rebate coupon, it would undoubtedly be a minor price to pay for the new distribution.

 Bud went with the National Sales Manager to pitch the stores, and they came home with firm orders from Macy’s, Gimbel’s, A&S, and Bloomingdales, all agreeing to share the space (definitely a first!)

 501’s had successfully crossed the Mississippi, and while some of this new Eastern distribution of 501’s was replacement sales from zippered models, most of the sales were to totally new customers.

                      cHAPTER 7 Avoiding tennis and meeting joe cullman iii By 1968, Levi’s new products, booming youth business, and new cooperative attitudes about working with major stores, were well known in the trade. And, Bud found his time was being spent more and more with key accounts, and with the myriad of outsiders eager to profit from Levi’s new national prominence.

 Each new major customer proposal involved them looking to Levi’s as the key vendor that could help them to lure teenagers into their stores. Yes, big stores were finally looking to the newly emancipated teenagers as a huge potential revenue source and were seeking them out, rather than throwing them out. New departments were springing up everywhere with loud colors, the latest teen fashions, younger sales clerks, and even rock music blaring in the aisles. Special events were all the rage to draw young customers, and Levi’s store promotions became more and more important.

Frequently store Presidents and top merchandisers would visit Levi’s offices to meet with their Levi’s counterparts and plan the following year’s sales increases. Levi’s was fast becoming a “Major Preferred Vendor”, and entire Levi’s departments were springing up in these flagship stores. Of course, they always had their hands out for more and more cooperative efforts to build their business with us, and Bud did his best to accommodate them.

 One of Bud’s less enjoyable new responsibilities was when Wally asked him to “handle” certain people for him. Most of those, increasingly referred to him for quick dispatch, were friends or social acquaintances who wanted something from Levi’s and Wally didn’t want to be the bad guy who declined to help them.

  The simplest cases to discourage were those who wanted Levi’s to advertise in media inappropriate to Levi’s new youth marketing focus…”Thank you, but Levi’s no longer supports cowboy events…etc.…click!”

 Some, like Wally’s sister-in-law’s boss, Gladys Heldman, the publisher of World Tennis, a new tennis magazine aimed at professional players and their fans, used larger caliber weapons to gain access to Levi’s budget.

Gladys had gotten Joe Cullman III, the Chairman of Phillip Morris, a tennis playing pal, to advertise his cigarettes in her first issues. In fact, his established brands, as well as the new Virginia Slims were virtually the only ads she had gotten so far in World Tennis’ initial issues. Wally was an inveterate tennis player, having been on the varsity team at Cal Berkeley, and he had played occasional games with Joe in New York. So Gladys had Joe, via Wally’s wife Evie, via Evie’s new sister-in-law, Sarah Palfrey Danzig (the new advertising manager of World Tennis), put the bite on Wally for Levi’s advertising support in World Tennis. Whew!  Is that convoluted or what?!

Here is a bio of Sarah’s tennis credentials from the Women’s Tennis Hall of Fame records: The five Palfrey sisters were a  brood of tennis prodigies, each of whom won at least one U.S. junior title, but Sarah was the one to achieve international renown. After her playing career, she was a successful business executive (as Mrs. Jerry Danzig) in New York where she was Advertising Director for World Tennis Magazine. Sarah died in 1996.

Bud was soon summonsed to an audience with Joe Cullman III, Chairman of the mighty Phillip Morris Company in New York on his next trip east. He took his wife Wanda with me, knowing they would be wined and dined by Gladys and Sarah in Manhattan’s top celebrity bistros, and thinking they might as well enjoy the first phase of the eventual brush-off. They were perfect lunch and dinner hostesses, leaving the hard sell to Joe, who had begun his cigarette career as Advertising Manager of Phillip Morris. But Bud was getting far more concerned than usual about finding a polite way to say no to Joe.

  Fortunately Joe showed him the way.

 Sitting at attention in his cavernous top floor executive suite, Bud was first assaulted with a hard-sell monologue on the virtues of being in on the ground floor of professional tennis, as Joe proudly showed his multiple ads in World Tennis. Bud listened attentively, nodding occasionally, as Joe next launched into a long lecture about the importance of consistent spending on consumer brand image advertising. Joe used multiple examples of the way Phillip Morris did it, and finished with a strong warning that if Bud didn’t convince Wally to start a similar consumer image advertising program right away, the Levis brand was doomed. He sat back and waited for a response.

What an opening!

 Bud told Joe that in the past two years Levi’s had, in fact, spent significant monies on a strong brand image campaign directed solely at a teen target market, young men aged 12-17, and were planning to double the budget this year! Then, before he could recover, Bud added emphatically that he was personally delighted to know that Joe was totally unaware of it! Continuing to pre-empt his response to my impertinence, Bud explained that 100% of of Levi’s ad budget was being spent exclusively in the budding new youth-oriented media, like TV’s teen dance party shows, rock and roll radio, underground newspapers, and psychedelic posters, and the fact that Joe and his age group had never seen or heard any of it was proof positive that Levi’s advertising money was not being wasted by reaching non-prospects like him.

Budcouldn’t resist a parting barb, asking Joe how he thought advertising cigarettes to professional tennis athletes, to whom wind and stamina are crucial, could be justified as good target marketing.

 Of course, in his self-righteous young zeal, Bud severely underestimated the depth of Joe’s passion for tennis. Nor that he would persevere in its support, making The Virginia Slims the world’s preeminent women’s tennis event, as described in Gladys’ obituary:

      NEWPORT, R.I. Tuesday, June 24, 2003-- Gladys Medalie Heldman, a  tennis Hall of Famer who is credited with helping create the women's tennis tour, died Sunday at the age of 81.She will most be remembered for her unstinting support and encouragement in helping women's tennis start their own tour. A maverick herself, Heldman persuaded her friend Joe Cullman, head of Phillip Morris, to bankroll the seed money needed to fund the first Virginia Slims tournament in 1970.

 Nor did Bud have any inkling that Joe would later become Levi’s first outside director, after Levi Strauss went public!

 Here’s an excerpt from Joe’s Obituary

  Philip Morris’s former chief, Joseph F. Cullman 3rd, an ex-smoker who evidently gave up in time, died yesterday at the age of 92. In Jan. 3, 1971, the day that the federal ban on cigarette advertising on television went into effect, Mr. Cullman, who by then had become chairman of the Tobacco Institute’s Executive Committee, appeared on the program ‘Face the Nation’. In response to a question about a study that concluded that smoking mothers gave birth to smaller babies than nonsmoking mothers, Mr. Cullman replied, ‘Some women would prefer having smaller babies.’

 That’s our Joe.

  CHAPTER 8

Falling Into The Gap

  Bud’s  next “handling” of Wally’s friends was infinitely more rewarding than giving Joe Cullman the brush-off, in that it helped spawn the Gap Stores!

One day, Wally asked him to meet with Don Fisher, a real estate broker, and fellow member of the private, largely Jewish Concordia Argonaut Club. Don had told Wally of some sort of crazy sounding new retail idea so Bud was very curious to hear what he might want from Levi’s that he, as Advertising Director, could influence or reject.

 Later, Bud realized that this meeting had been one of the most productive of his young career.

Levi’s was now sold in virtually all the major department and specialty apparel stores, and had also held on to its loyal small retailers throughout this hectic expansion. All sorts of other retailers, like Sears, Wards, Penney’s, K-mart, Mervyns, and Target put tremendous pressure on to sell them Levi’s branded lines, but Levi’s refused.

Discounters constantly tried to get product from any source they could to run large loss-leader Levi’s ads to draw traffic. Levi’s thought they had reached a point of near-maximum distribution in the type of store they wanted and were devoting more effort on new styles and  product lines like, Levi’s for Gals, Big & Tall men’s sizes, shirts, sweaters, belts etc., and improving service to existing customers for the bulk of future domestic growth.

 But  after Wally’s friend described his idea to in detail, Bud was intrigued.

Don was a minor partner in an expanding regional furniture chain, to which he primarily brought his commercial expertise of retail store location selection. He was definitely not a merchant, but, he had been recently intrigued by a successful new shoe retailer named the Tower of Shoes in Sacramento, CA. which had broken all three sacred tenets of real estate…Location...Location…Location, and yet was wildly successful.

  The Tower had rented a cheap and decrepit Quonset hut in a Sacramento valley Industrial area, well away from any other retail stores, and stocked it with all the current styles and sizes of a good selection of top brand name women’s shoes. And, the Tower of Shoes was drawing record crowds to this cheap, remote location.  How? Simply by spending large sums of his vendors’ co-op money on TV advertising that no matter what size or style of top brand name shoe a woman might want , she was sure to find it at The Tower of Shoes. Price cutting was not a part of his business plan. And there was a Tower of Clothing on the starting blocks.

 Don’s real estate location expertise led him to think that a chain of small free- standing stores in low rent strip malls, adapting this new concept to the booming Levi’s teenage market, would be a winner. His store research showed that even a large Levi’s customer, like Macy’s California, had a relatively small selection of product in each branch, and the style, sizes and colors became “broken” as soon as the most popular ones were sold, resulting in unhappy customers and lost sales. On top of this, the department stores’ slow re-ordering cycle took weeks to replace the sold “heart” sizes of the bestselling products, resulting in even more unhappy customers, who, if they returned soon still couldn’t find their size!  In addition, he saw that while most of these “prestige” stores didn’t yet understand how to cater to teenagers, they were learning fast.

 Don’s stores would not only welcome this generation, they would cater to them exclusively, employing teens as sale clerks, and operating only from 3pm when school was out until 11pm when they had to get home (a single 8 hour shift!). And, as a drawing card, he would sell all the latest rock & roll records, allowing the customer to stay and listen to their hearts content! In fact he planned to devote exactly 50% of his floor space to records and listening booths.

 But the most important element of his idea was in the total variety and depth of Levi’s he would stock, which was sure to satisfy every customer’s “right now” demands. He would carry every style, color, and size that Levi Strauss made for both men and women and have them available at all times. This would be at least 20 times the product variety and depth of a typical Macy’s departments for both boys and girls combined.

  Another brilliant feature was that all merchandise would be stocked by size grouping, vs. the department standard display of a single style on a rack with all of its sizes together. Don’s sales clerks, (a fast disappearing species in department stores) need only ask what size a customer wanted and lead them to a virtual store-within-a store size section of a multitude of Levi’s styles and colors.

 Also, every item in the store would have a special tear-off tag that showed style, size and color of the item. The clerks would be required to tear this tag off each item they sold for proper commission credit to them, and turn in all tag stubs each evening.

 A clerk trained in an early version of the fax machine would summarize and transcribe that day’s exact sales directly to the Levi’s order entry desk in the warehouse over a night phone line to be automatically replenished in the next day’s shipments to Don.  

 Don’s expansion plan for the stores was pretty much based on the Mc Donald’s concept. Each new store would be exactly like all the others in design, layout, location, signing, etc. Store employees would be high school students and they would be promoted to management as soon as new stores were opened. All training would be uniform so that employees could walk into a new store and be immediately effective.

He would have a store opening team trained to move around the country and get new stores operational in record time.

 What a brilliant idea! The more Bud heard, the more he was determined to find a way to make it work.  Levi’s would virtually have their own stores, yet not own them, completely circumventing the existing apparel industry cardinal rule that wholesalers of brand name apparel could never have their own retail stores, and still hope to keep department stores as customers..

 Bud’s first main obstacle was that Don wanted Levi’s to share all his large market-wide advertising and promotion costs 50/50 up front before the first store opened.

 And then he needed a guarantee of first priority on his daily re-order shipments to keep his promise of a “never-out” inventory.

 The ad money request was the kind Levi’s could legally justify for a large department store chain opening a new store, but never for a radical unproven single store that didn’t even exist yet. And to ask that his orders be placed in front of Macy’s on the priority list was heresy! Still… What an idea!

 Spending the next several hours examining ways to make it work, Bud and Don came up with the following tentative agreement:

 1.    The legal issue was solved by Levi’s agreeing to offer the same ad co-op terms to any retailer in the Bay Area (and any in other markets Don opened) if they would agree to stock only Levi’s products, and in all styles, colors and sizes. This was the birth of the “Levi’s Only” category of stores, a concept that spread like wildfire and eventually threatened the capacity of US denim mills.

 2.    TV’s high costs were prohibitive, so they agreed that Don would use only top-40 radio. Don’s and Levi’s target market was tuned into the hot new rock and roll radio stations more than television anyway. Plus Levi’s agency had become expert at producing very effective radio commercials and promotions with top 40 radio stations. These stations were eager to negotiate much lower rates for local advertisers like Don, than they charged national advertisers like Levi’s.

 3.    To ensure that Don’s radio ads were of the same high quality as Levi’s, Bud agreed to introduce him to his agency’s chief radio commercial writer/producer and look the other way as he moonlighted as Don’s first ad manager (but only if Don would limit the mutual ad spending to radio and merely mention that he sold all the latest the latest records as long as he didn’t specify titles).

 4.    Levi’s initial dollar commitment to Don was set at 50% of an initial budget sufficient to buy a 3 month saturation afternoon radio schedule on all Bay area rock stations. These ads would run every weekday and Saturday during school sessions and on weekends during the summer. This program would bombard every hearing Bay Area teenager with Levi’s messages at saturation levels and surely drive them to the store.

 5.    Don knew the stores couldn’t use the Levi’s name and promised to come up with a catchy new name.

 With this agreement firmly in hand, Bud spent the next morning in a hastily called management meeting to outline this new concept. Bud assured Wally that theycould afford to test the concept by reducing Levi’s own radio ads in the Bay Area proportionately, at least until Don’s store was open and they could gauge its appeal. The Sales Manager eagerly supported the test and agreed to personally handle the account, so that no salesman commissions need be paid for the new store(s), since there was no “selling” involved. Wally approved the test and, in turn, arranged for Levi’s extremely  tough new account credit terms to be suspended (with a lien on Don’s opening inventory), and a promise to give the store top shipment priority for all automatic re-orders received overnight .

  Don planned to open the first store in San Francisco and expand in the Bay Area to saturation before moving the concept to a second metro area. This controlled the initial co-op offer to the Bay area metro area, making it legal to refuse a similar deal to anyone else in another market, and it allowed our advertising dollars to achieve maximum efficiency. Don had decided on National Football League markets first, reaching saturation as soon as he could, before tackling the smaller American Football League Markets. Don’s logic was that the NFL had already done the research and picked off the best markets to reach men, so why  argue with success?

Don not only got Honig Cooper’s radio wizard to moonlight for him by paying him well, but he eventually hired him as his first ad manager. The first radio spots he produced for Don were every bit as good as the ones he had done for Levi’s, and they did an excellent job of brand image advertising. By late summer 1969, Don was ready for his very first store opening, a San Francisco State University commercial neighborhood storefront on the same side of the street as the local movie theater. Of course, Don had already negotiated several other leases for his next Bay Area locations, and his master store plan was ready to duplicated at a moment’s notice.

 The new store was named the Gap by Don’s wife Doris, (after the Generation Gap) and the first radio commercial had shouted to the blare of acid rock…”Fall into the Gap”, a clarion call that was heeded by the multitudes!

Bud attended the Grand Opening mob scene of teens and Levi’s on an August night  and, reminded of the early Fillmore frenzies, he was certain that The Gap and Levi’s had an amazing future together. Very soon, The Gap stopped selling records completely to maximize the floor space for the far more profitable Levi’s, which needed no extraneous “draw” to attract teen customer. The Gap was rapidly opened wide indeed.

 Who could imagine that a scant 5 years later BudI would become Executive Vice President of The Gap’s 350 stores in 1975, and that The Gap’s various divisions would eventually grow to over 3,000 worldwide locations in 2018 with revenues of $15 billion (over three times the size of Levi Strauss!).

 And they would no longer sell a single Levi’s brand product!  

            CHAPTER 9

Since 1850?

  Another aspect of Levi’s history that had puzzled Bud since his arrival, was the prominent tag line use on all earlier ads, stationery, signage, and on the product shipping containers themselves, to wit: ”Levi’s…Since 1850”.  “why 1850?…why not 1849? Didn’t Levi Strauss come West with the gold- rush prospectors in 1849?”

 For many years Levi’s had been credited with the invention of the original copper riveted, sturdy “waist overalls” as jeans were known originally. The story had been told and retold that Levi Strauss made the first pair of these sturdy pants from a single roll of canvas, one of his few worldly possessions when the 1849 lure of “Gold in them thar Diggin’s” brought him to San Francisco. The patented copper rivets were to keep a gold miner’s jagged ore samples from tearing normal pants pockets

 Every time Bud stood outside Wally’s door, chatting with Rita Guiney, his longtime assistant, he would scan the framed 1902 front page obituary of Levi Strauss from The San Francisco Bulletin. Here’s the entire obituary:

Death has claimed Levi Strauss, another of the pioneers of the Golden West. Mr Strauss died at his residence, 621 Leavenworth Street, on Friday night, after a brief indisposition, which, even to his physicians, Dr W W Kerr, Dr Herzstein and Dr Newmark, did not appear to call for especial concern.

Mr. Strauss had suffered lightly from his heart, but even that was not sufficiently serious to cause alarm when last Tuesday he complained of not feeling quite as well as usual.

He had been to his office on the previous day, and was to all appearances in such remarkably excellent health and mental strength that it was remarked that his recent sojourn at Monterey had been of great benefit to him.

On Wednesday he complained that he was still feeling far from well, and the family called in his medical attendants, who pronounced him suffering from slight congestion of the liver. On Friday, Mr Strauss arose, declaring that he was better, and took dinner with his family in the evening, over which he was as lighthearted and jovial as he had ever been. Dr Kerr had been to see him and had left the house, having prescribed a simple remedy for the liver. Mr Strauss then retired for the night. During the night the nurse in attendance heard a slight moan. On hastening to the bedside he asked Mr.Strauss how he felt.

With the reply, “Oh, about as comfortable as I can under the circumstances,” Mr Strauss turned his head on his pillow and breathed his last with the calmness of one passing into a sleep.

Mr Strauss’ family consisted of four nephews, Jacob Stern, Sig Stern, Louis Stern and Abraham Stern. Louis Stern is in charge of the New York House. There are also two nieces, Mrs. A W Scholle of New York and Mrs. S W Heller.

Arrangements have been completed for the funeral, which will take place tomorrow morning from the residence. The remains will rest in a mausoleum in the Home of Peace Cemetery. The pallbearers will comprise the intimate friends and several of the oldest employees of the firm.

Levi Strauss was born in the kingdom of Bavaria in 1829, and before he attained his majority came to America to seek the fortune that awaited brains and energy, such as he possessed.

He spent five years in Louisville, Kentucky, and other parts of the South in the mercantile business, and in 1853 came with the swelling tide of gold seekers to California. He did not turn his attention to the gold fields, however, except in an indirect way.

With an inborn instinct for trade opportunities and his previous experience in the East as to needs of Americans and the American way of supplying them, he saw in the fast filling country beyond a great field for distribution of goods from the East, for which San Francisco was the natural entrepot.

In that time San Francisco built up from a small town of 5000 or 6000 people to the magnificent city of nearly 400,000 she is today. Levi Strauss was ever active and energetic in that upbuilding, and at the same time built up a fortune for himself and a world-wide business for his house. Fairness and integrity in his dealings with his Eastern factors and his customers and liberality toward his employees soon gave the house a standing second to none on the coast. The business grew apace.With small capital, but with a clear head, a willing and hopeful heart, he opened up the house of Levi Strauss & Co., dry goods and general merchandise, at the head and principal owner of which he remained until his death – nearly forty-nine years.

The first store, on the north side of California Street, between Sansome and Battery, was abandoned for more commodious quarters at 117 Sacramento street. More room being soon again wanted Mr Strauss, in 1866, availed himself of an opportunity to buy the building then known as the “bonded warehouse,” on Battery Street, near Pine, which forms a part of the present structure occupied by the firm, though additions and remodeling have changed its size and appearance.

In that place for thirty-six years Mr Strauss daily gave his attention to the details of the ever growing business and the work of the small army of employees in the selling and manufacturing departments thereof.

In 1890, he incorporated the firm, making his four nephews partners therein. Though still remaining at the head of the house he gradually let some of the burden bear on their shoulders.

Mr Strauss was a man of great financial ability and his advice was much sought in such matters. He was long a director in the Nevada Bank, the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance Company and the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company, besides many other corporations. He was one of the promoters and subscribers to the Valley Railroad and was interested in many other enterprises for the upbuilding of the material interests of this city. He was a member and at times director of several charitable societies and organizations and was a liberal supporter of others not of his own creed.

In 1897 Mr Strauss duplicated the provision made for twenty-eight State of California scholarships at the State University by providing a fund for twenty-eight more, known as the Levi Strauss scholarships. The annual income from the fund is $3500.

Mr Strauss was the last of his immediate family, leaving no brothers or sisters. Though he never married, he was a man of very pronounced domestic tastes and spent most of his time outside of business in his splendid home, 621 Leavenworth street, with his nephews and their families, only going occasionally to the Concordia Club, of which he was a member.”

  Casually mentioned in the details of his life history, was that he had arrived in San Francisco in January of 1853!  Finally, it dawned on Bud that even the 1850 claim was wrong. So he asked Wally about this anomaly and was told “you’d better ask my father about that”. Since I was the new “keeper of the brand”, Bud called Senior and put the question to him. He smiled and related the following:

“It seems that several years ago, an ex-salesman was brought in the home office to handle publicity, having proven his interest and skill in getting customers to promote Levi’s. This new publicity “flack” knew, and regretted, that Strauss hadn’t arrived in San Francisco until 1853, not 1849, and that the copper riveted pants weren’t  invented until 20 years later by Reno tailor, Jacob Davis, not Strauss. Furthermore, during this double decade, Strauss had become a millionaire dry goods wholesaler, never having manufactured anything. Levi Strauss’ first pants factory wasn’t opened until 1873 when Levi Strauss was given ½ of the copper rivet patent by Davis for doing the paper work to get the patent approved”.

 In return, Davis became the manager of the first Levi’s pants factory in San Francisco that year, and remained so for 35 years.

That Valencia Street plant building remained as Levi’s first, and last, company owned factory in the US until its closure in 2002, but recently the building has been renovated and sensitively rehabilitated into the San Francisco Friends School.

 These facts were certainly not romantic enough for the new publicity man, so he set about molding history to suit himself “Out of Whole Cloth”. For two years, the date of Levi’s arrival in San Francisco was cheated back one year from 1853,  and closer to his goal of proclaiming “Levi’s…Since 1849”, to correlate with the start of the famed Gold Rush. But, according to Walter Senior, the ex-salesman perpetrator of this myth died the year he had forged 1850 into the history books and his successor abandoned the quest to shave one more year.

  Bud saw no benefit from replacing the well ingrained myth with the truth. Nor did anyone else, until the company cooperated with a corporate biographer named Ed Cray, who authored Houghton Mifflin’s 1978 book simply titled “Levis” and the entirely accurate history was published. Today Levi’s has a full-time Historian on the payroll that meticulously purveys the truth about Levi Strauss.  But I wouldn’t want to test the majority of the public’s perception of what he did back then, “In Them Thar Diggin’s”.

 So, for all those years, the Levi’s legend had been a total advertising fable, including Levi’s centennial celebration held in 1950 and attended by many celebrities (this bogus history was still being published in the California high school history textbook as late as 1969)

 But after Cray’s book set the clock straight, Levi’s delayed their sesquicentennial celebration until 2003, eliminating the purloined 3 years.

                   CHAPTER 10

The Challenge of Change and the Two Horse Brand

 The last of Levi’s traditional weekend-long annual conventions, aptly named “The Challenge of Change”, was staged at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach in 1969. Prior conventions were far less grand and included more home office employees, but the growth in the number of management employees was only exceed by its sales increases, so continuation of the tradition was deemed too costly. Thus Levi’s planned to make this last one especially memorable.

 A New York theatrical firm was engaged to write and produce an original musical about the company, replete with very funny caricatures of top management, and it was the convention’s smash hit opening night show. Bud’s department had made a film of all  recent television spots, including unseen footage, and  unveiled what many still feel was the best Levi’s jeans commercial ever made. The commercial, named “The Two Horse Brand”, was greeted with an enthusiastic standing ovation.

Since the beginning, each pair of original 501’s has been adorned with a leather patch on which there is a “branded” image of a pair of work horse drivers, called drovers, with a team of horses, trying to tear the pants apart. It became Levi’s symbol of its original product’s ruggedness, and to this day every pair shows the struggle. Bud was unable to learn if the tug-of-war event ever really took pace, and if so, whether the horses or the pants were victorious. This strength concept, promoted by referring to 501’s as “The Two Horse” brand, continued to intrigue Bud beyond the clever double entendre.

 Several customer letters over the years told of harrowing escapes from injury or death, thanks to Levi’s strength. One described being snatched from under a train’s wheels by the fact that his Levi’s got caught on a hook as he fell from the train. Another told of him and his car being towed from a ditch using just a twisted a pair of 501’s as an emergency rope. And there were many sad parting letters from those who were sending back their dead jeans, to redeem Levi’s famous warranty,” A New Pair Free if They Rip”. Many of these letters spoke as if they had lost a close friend.

 Intrigued with the 501 product’s legendary strength, and needing a new jeans television commercial to direct to the growing age diversity of its buyers, Bud asked  the agency to consider a TV spot that delivered a product strength message, or, perhaps actually re-created the fabled contest between dray horses and Levi’s.

 Once again, he was testing the agency’s tolerance by attempting to dictate the creative content of their work, and once again they rose to the challenge.

 Several ideas were shown that staged re-enactments of the “escape from danger” letters, and they looked promising, but the horse vs. pants contest was clearly the best. This proposed commercial’s storyboard (a scene-by-scene artist’s rendering of the commercial concept, complete with copy and staging notes) titled “Two Horse Brand”, was expertly described by the copywriter and director with embellishments not drawn on the board, as a third writer dramatically read the exact copy aloud.

 It began with dramatic western music (like the Bonanza theme) and a close-up of the steaming nostrils of a huge dray horse, not unlike the Budweiser Clydesdales, on a cold early dawn in a dusty desert location. As the sun rose, the camera pulled back to reveal two drovers, dressed more like miners than cowboys, and cleverly drawn to look like young Levi Strauss himself. Each was urging a mighty horse to pull in opposite directions, with an iron rig between them attached to each leg of a pair of Levi’s 501’s.

 To no avail, the horses snorted and strained in the morning chill, raising clouds of dust, but not dismembering the 501’s.  As the battle ensued, the voice-over announcer spoke of Levi Strauss’s humble beginnings and the amazing pants he had invented that wild horses couldn’t rip apart. But if you did, you could get a new pair for free.

 It sounded perfect, but Bud wondered if it could be filmed without any “artistic license”…in other words, could it be done honestly without faking it. No one wanted to actually pre-test the contest without filming it, because of the excess cost of doing it twice if it worked, and the danger that, when repeating the scene on location, it might fail. The agency decided to discuss it with actual drovers and get their advice before we proceeded.

  Their reports later came back that it had an excellent chance of success!  It seems that good dray horses are trained to pull, not jerk, and when they meet a strong resistance, they hold their position, straining, but not enough to hurt themselves. The drovers assured us that they could coordinate the two horses sufficiently to make the commercial with no trickery or deceptive editing, and the pants would probably hold.  Thry decided to chance and set off from the Las Vegas Stardust Hotel and Casino for the nearby Nevada desert one cold pre-dawn morning. The location was a desert foothills national park near Las Vegas, and they were set to stage test shots an hour before the sun rose. Bud couldn’t believe how big these silent monstrous horses were when he arrived in the dark. Their harnesses and iron tow bars that had been specially made to look old, were very heavy leather, iron, and wood. Each rig had a connection device that firmly gripped one leg of the jeans yet allowed the pants to be seen clearly between the equine behemoths.

 The test shots were made using several different pairs of 501’s, each in a different stage of wear, and to everyone’s vocal relief, all but the most faded and worn pair survived the tug-of-war.The crisp crystal-clear Nevada morning air was broken by the sudden sun as we began final filming, and the desert took on a deep red “other- worldly” hue, rapidly turning to gold. The setting looked straight out of the 19th century, the colors were perfect, and the struggling drovers and their horses earned their Actors Equity cards.

 And the 501’s held fast!

 Only after our film was in the can and they were driving back to Vegas, did the agency guys admit that they had brought an unneeded emergency steel cable that would fit hidden inside the pants to prevent them ripping apart… “just in case”.

 Bud silently wondered what he would have done with the commercial if they had actualy needed the cable. That still remains an unanswered question.

 When they viewed the “rushes”, as raw footage is called, they knew it was Oscar quality cinematography and would yield superbly to the editor’s touch.

 But the best actor Oscar would have to go to victor of this Herculean struggle, the unyielding Levi’s 501’s themselves, the true hero’s of the day!

                Chapter 11

Europe Beckons (Secretly for a While)

              “The Challenge of Change” involved more than just show biz, and the three days were filled with training sessions, business plan reviews by all domestic groups, plus a presentation, planned to be delivered by Ed Combs, detailing Levi’s impressive international growth and diversification. Ed’s wife was unable to accompany him to Florida, being on call from the stork. The uncooperative bird landed in San Francisco just a few hours after Ed did in Florida, So he quickly flew back home to meet his new baby girl, Leslie Combs, named after Bud’s own 11 year old daughter..

 Ed’s part of the meeting was ably handled by his staff and they impressed everyone with the rapid and profitable progress Ed had made in exotic foreign markets, especially in Western Europe.

 The recent  broadening of Bud’s involvement in sales and retailing had whetted his appetite to expand beyond  advertising, and several weeks before the Miami event, he had boldly asked Wally to consider another job for him at Levi’s that would add to his future worth to the company. Bud had built an excellent staff, particularly one very bright account executive named Frank Brann, whom he had hired as Assistant Advertising Manager, from one of P&G’s New York agencies. Bud had carefully groomed Frank to replace him and Wally agreed that he was probably ready for the challenge. So he promised to think about it and see what might be made available to Bud.

  Soon, Wally had found two strong possibilities. One was as Regional Sales Manager for the Midwest, based in Chicago. Levi’s five regional sales managers earned almost as much as Wally made, due to their good salaries, plus commission overrides on all Levi’s sales in their region. Many of the best Levi’s territory salesmen actually made more than Wally because there was no limit on their straight commission income (other than cutting the size of their territory, which was done frequently). The only way Levi’s could get their top salesmen to accept “promotion” to a regional manager’s job was to include a commission override.  

 Bud didn’t relish the move or losing the daily contact with top management that he had as Advertising Manager in his beloved San Francisco…but the money was very tempting!

 The second job that Wally proposed was for Bud to replace the current General Manager of Europe and report directly to his best friend, Ed Combs. The incumbent European manager was a former US salesman who had handled export sales while based in San Francisco. He had been moved to Brussels to broaden bulk sales to distributors and to set up an import and re-shipping warehouse in Antwerp after the advent of The Common Market.  He had done a good job, but Ed felt he wasn’t capable of planning and carrying out the major changes Ed wanted to make in Europe.

   Bud's wife Wanda

So, Bud’s friend and eventual boss, Ed Combs, the President of Levi’s International, had saved him from becoming a wealthy Regional Sales Manager in Chicago with a a chance to move to  Europe and become far more than a mere Advertising manager. Bud’s wife Wanda agreed that they had to grab that brass ring.

 Bud had rationalized that his lust for the expatriate world was really for his daughter’s benefit. After all, she would go to private school at company expense in Brussels, plus, since he was to be the boss, he and Wanda could show her all the wonders of Europe, by setting all his business meetings on Fridays or Mondays in Paris, Rome, London, etc.

 Yes, it was decided!  Bud sadly declined the beauties of Chicago, to suffer the drab rigors of living in, and traveling all over Europe, for Leslie’s sake.

  There was only one caveat. The decision was made in April 1969 to replace the incumbent with Bud, butsince he was a loyal veteran of cowboy days, Wally insisted that he be told face to face in July during Wally’s upcoming summer grand tour of Europe.

Thus Bud’s and Wanda’s lips were sealed. Not just sealed, but zipped shut with copper!!

Nobody, including parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors, NOBODY was to know until Wally delivered the coup de grace in person.

 At that year’s sales convention in Miami, Wally had not yet disclosed anything about Bud’s imminent departure for Europe, but was due to be there soon to complete his personal dismissal of the incumbent General Manager in Brussels, and free Bud from his vow of silence.

Meanwhile, Ed and Bud spent long hours discussing his vision for the future of Levi’s business in Europe.

         CHAPTER 12

 Background of Ed’s European Vision  

 in 1948, shortly after WWII, a small family of Jewish survivors from France, named Frenkel, showed up unannounced at Levi Strauss headquarters, with a request that they be named Levi’s first European distributor, and they were armed with a suitcase full of cash. Laying the impressive stack of money on the table, they told their story and described their qualifications:

Before the fall of Paris to the Nazi’s, the Frenkels, had  built a successful dry goods wholesale business, similar to the one Levi Strauss had in San Francisco by 1873, when he opened his first jeans factory. As the Nazi armies neared the gates of Paris, the Frenkel family finally fled to Switzerland, taking only the small cache of assets they had managed to hide.

Surviving there until VE day (Victory in Europe), they returned to France with a remaining hoarded $10,000 to restart their business in Paris.

  The first opportunity they seized upon was an auction of surplus, sealed railroad cars marked “Miscellaneous Textiles” being held by the hastily departing US Army Quartermaster Corps. With no content manifests available, and a “sight unseen” condition of sale, they gambled half of their entire fortune and bid $5,000 for one car’s contents. Praying that they would find something of value to sell from what they assumed was probably rags, they were astounded to find that they were high bidders for a railroad car full of brand new 100% wool Army blankets, made in the USA!  Imagine just how valuable these were in a country ravaged by war, hunger, and no fuel for heat in winter! Overjoyed at their good fortune, the Frenkels, quickly bid on another “textile” car with their last $5,000 and were totally overwhelmed when its contents proved to be several thousand pairs of new US Army wool trousers!!

 The blankets went fast, and they were able to get top francs for the much needed and admired US wool pants. These sturdy uniform pants earned far more for the Frenkels than the blankets, so they soon became an early pants wholesaler as Europe’s apparel companies gradually returned to production.  Then the Frenkels wisely decided to try to obtain another durable US pant to sell in France, namely Levi’s 501’s.

  The Haas family had great empathy for Holocaust survivors and not only sold the Frenkels as many still-scarce Levi’s as their cash would buy, but granted them the exclusive rights to import Levi’s to France as wholesale distributors. Soon thereafter, fellow survivors, and prewar friends of the Frenkels, were appointed distributors in Austria, Germany, Holland, and England, and six others were selected for the remaining major Western European countries (Levi’s hired many other holocaust survivors who had immigrated to the US).

 Levi’s continued to be made only in the USA and individually exported to these distributors, who in order to have a profitable business, wholesaled them with gross margins similar to other local wholesalers. Since this gross margin had to be based on the distributors’ total cost, they necessarily had to add to the US export price, the freight costs and the import duties levied by each country. This resulted in much higher Levi’s prices to the ultimate consumer than Americans paid at home.

 For example, if a pair of Levi’s 501’s in the US cost Levi’s $1.50 to make, they sold it to Macy’s for $3.00, a gross margin of 50% of their sales price (erroneously called a 50% markup by retail apparel people).  Macy’s then marked it up to $6.00 for the consumer.  But in Europe, the distributor’s $3.00 purchase became $4.00 after the freight and duty were paid, and the distributor wholesaled it to his retail customers for $6.00 (taking only a 33% gross profit). After the stores added their markup, their customers paid $12.00…DOUBLE the US retail price But, In spite of this huge price disparity, and Europeans’ much lower postwar income, Levi’s sales boomed in Europe. So, as Europeans achieved a post war recovery, spurred by The Marshall Plan, and their own Common Market integration, Levi’s enjoyed rapid growth. It should be recalled that this was largely due to the very high esteem everything American enjoyed, the US being almost revered as their liberator and savior. The US rode this popularity horse for many years in Western Europe, and the eventual collapse of the Berlin Wall and, later, the dreaded USSR itself, only served to increase the appeal of virtually anything perceived to be authentic “Yankee”.  In fact, long after Levi’s abandoned the cowboy image in America, “Le Cowboy” was still a strong masculine image promoted in Europe as typically “Yankee”.

Each distributor’s contract enjoined them from becoming retailers themselves, and also required them to spend a minimum percentage of their sales volume on advertising Levi’s products to their country’s consumers. This advertising had to comply with strict US guidelines, and get prior approval from Ed’s US staff.

  Meanwhile, the process of European commercial integration, first launched in 1950 when France officially proposed it, was accelerating. This initiative, known as the European Economic Union (EEU) was formalized in 1957. Six countries, Belgium, beginning, and in 1960 seven other countries, Denmark, Sweden,  Norway, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, started a competitive market group named the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). European Economic Union (EEU

      EEU in 1957

In 1973 The Common Market incorporated the largest members of EFTA, added Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. Following the addition of

Romania

and

Bulgaria

in 2007, the EU's membership now stands at twenty-seven. Negotiations are also under way with a number of other states.

 Postwar Europe, especially France, was quickly regaining its pre-war fashion leadership reputation, and local competitors were starting to copy and update the Levi’s look with fashion colors and fabrics. These upstarts didn’t suffer from custom duties, long lead times and supply lines. They had easy access to forward looking European textile mills, and our distributors were urging Levi’s to begin manufacturing new products to compete with these new local competitors.

 With this background, Ed felt the time was ripe for Levi Strauss to reclaim the distributors’ rights to sell Levi’s to the European retailers. He planned to establish Levi’s wholly-owned subsidiary companies in both the Common Market and EFTA, by buying the distributors’ companies if feasible, or starting from scratch where necessary. Simultaneously, Ed foresaw our beginning to manufacture Levi’s in local European factories run by a Levi Strauss Europe headquarters staffed with a product merchandising group and fed by European textile mills.

  Ed had carefully set the stage for acquisition of the best distributors by numerous “private” discussions with them about the inevitability of it all, and he had planted the seeds with Wally, who agreed in theory. The main obstacle was their mutual feeling that the job was too big for the incumbent. So when I put my oar in the water for a promotion, they had agreed that sending Bud to Europe would be a conceivable solution. A classic example of the old English proverb: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know”. Even though Bud had never run anything as complex as an entire company, and his 1959 Xavier University MBA financial skills were pretty rusty after 10 years, they agreed to offer it to him Ed’s plans were very grandiose but well thought out and exciting to contemplate. He outlined crash refresher courses in finance and accounting that Bud should take and a very attractive compensation and expatriate benefit package that covered the 5-year commitment he demanded of Bud.

 Chapter 13

The Cat Escapes the Blue Denim Bag

  Three months is not too long to keep a secret, is it?  Of course not!  And Bud and Wanda told no one, that is, not until the day before the realtor’s sign was due to appear in his front yard.

 Wally was only days from Brussels, when, that night at dinner with their best Marin County friends and neighbors (who would see his home’s new “for sale” sign the next day), Bud swore him and his wife to keep his fabulous secret, and spilled the beans. They were thrilled for him and Wanda, and, being an executive with Southern Pacific, he understood the need for silence. So too, Bud thought, did his wife.

 What she did seemed innocent enough, and was intended simply to help Wanda adjust to living abroad as an American executive’s wife. Unbeknownst to Bud, she called her best girlfriend in Malmo, Sweden and asked her to send Wanda any adjustment tips she had learned being herself an expatriate American wife of an executive in Sweden.

This prompted her friend to immediately relay the request to her American sister in Brussels who was married to the Director of the Benelux Bank of America and was herself the past president of the same American wives’ club This sister was also President of the Brussels American Women’s’ Club. Who better to welcome a new American executive’s wife to Belgium?  As an aside, Bank of America was our lead bank in Europe and Wally was on their board.

 You guessed it! The wife of the soon-to-be deposed Levi’s General Manager, got an instant call asking why the hell she hadn’t told her best friend that her husband was being replaced with some Advertising guy from San Francisco… Plunk! The next day, before Bud had time to warn Wally of this pre-Internet instant messaging, he arrived in Brussels and heard it from his intended victim!

 From that day to this, Bud always corrects everyone who claims to know a secret with “There is no such thing!”

  Meanwhile during that secret summer, Ed had Bud enroll in several American Management Association executive training courses. One was designed to sharpen his rusty Management Accounting skills.

Another was devoted to a making a quick transition to living and working abroad. A third was a detailed review of the newly formed Common Market and European Free Common Market Trade Association (EFTA)

Wanda and Budf also had private tutors attempt to teach them French, which is spoken by roughly half the Belgians. The other half speaks Flemish, a Dutch dialect that is almost impossible for an American to articulate. We read books, had garage sales, postponed all unnecessary major purchases and generally did our best to keep a low profile.

 Every day at work, when Ed was not traveling, he and Bud spent as much time togetheras thet could without raising suspicions. There were also lots of evening sessions at our respective homes and restaurants. Ed’s wife was Belgian by birth, but had been a Swiss resident when they met, so she was very helpful to Wanda’s understanding of what NOT to do as an American wife in Brussels.

 After his appointment was announced, Bud took a quick solo trip to Brussels to meet the small HQ staff, and arrange a transition period with the former manager, who had decided not to return to the US. Bud rented a house in Sept Fontaines, an affluent Brussels neighborhood far from the Gringo Gulch that Ed had advised him to eschew, and even got a cat to replace the one Leslie had reluctantly agreed to leave behind.

When, the final week arrived for our move in late August, I accepted an invitation to appear at the gala opening of Don Fisher’s very first Gap Store. It was on the 1969 Labor day weekend, the night before Wanda, Leslie, Tony and Bud were leaving for Europe on the new QE2…a fitting farewell to his Advertising career.

                Chapter 14

Culture Shock

 Although Ed was impatient for me to get started in Europe, he agreed to my request to go via the new QE2 cruise ship, since I could take Tony, our French Poodle, and substantially more baggage than the Airlines would allow. For me it was an effort to soften the shock of entering a totally new culture after only 12 hours on an airplane.

 The Queen Elizabeth 2, the flagship of the Cunard Line, made her maiden voyage in 1967 and this was only her 9th crossing. The liner was the longest-serving ship in Cunard's 168-year history. She crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times and carried more than 2.5 million passengers before she was sold in 2007 to a Dubai Investment company that planned to use her as a floating hotel for the 2010 World cup.

 We were scheduled to make landfall at Le Havre, France in just 5 days, and I had reserved the largest station wagon that Avis had in it European fleet for the four hour drive to our new home in Brussels.

 After a crowded bon voyage party in our stateroom and the adjoining passageway, we finally said goodbye at 4 pm to the many friends who had journeyed to see us off, and prepared for the standard confetti farewell as we steamed away. But, after all our streamers were spent, the loudspeaker announced that the electrical system had failed and we would remain dockside until further notice. A cold buffet was available by candlelight in the darkened dining rooms, but we elected to sleep off the effects of the excess champagne in our stateroom. Waking after dark to the silent movement of the ship, we hurriedly arrived on deck just as we passed the magnificently illuminated Statue of Liberty and headed into the inky darkness of the open sea. All three of us were choked-up with emotion at the combination of beauty and the same fear of the unknown that Columbus must have felt as he sailed from Spain.

By the time we landed in France early on a Friday morning, we were confirmed sailors destined to become lifelong vacationers via cruise ships. Our poodle, Tony, agreed, since his kennel was on the top deck and he had feasted daily on the choices from the doggy menu of steaks and chops.

 But then it began….Avis had no large vehicles available in Le Havre, and we had to settle for a 4-door Fiat with a roof rack, and a trunk too small for more than one of our many large suitcases. But Yankee ingenuity prevailed and I was able to tie everything else onto the roof leaving only our dog’s bulky kennel behind. Even the sudden shower was not to defeat me, as I had bought a large plastic sheet from the same small hardware store that had provided the yards of rope used to secure the entire rooftop load.

  So after two hours on land, our small family and French poodle started off in the late afternoon on the most frightening drive I had ever made. I was totally unprepared for the bravado of the French drivers or for the three lane roads that allowed priority to the first car to enter the center lane. A constant game of “Chicken” kept us on the edge of our crowded seats, as our overloaded Fiat labored to pass numerous large “Lorries” grinding up the incessant hills, barely avoiding crashing head-on with oncoming Porsches traveling down the hills at the speed of light, and frantically flashing their high beams.

  Seven hours later, we arrived at Brussels’ southwestern city limits, totally exhausted and promptly got lost in the dark. We also immediately encountered the famous Belgian “Prioritie a Droit” which simply means that any car approaching from your right will not slow or stop, but will ignore you completely as it seizes its right-of-way. After many near catastrophes, we arrived via a wrong turn into a one-way street at the center of Brussels’ famous “Grande Place” just at the height of a huge parade that quickly engulfed us. We sat for over an hour, unable to move or even disembark the car as a sea of masked revelers pushed past us, shouting and leering in at the frightened passengers. Our poodle was apoplectic, but we soon relaxed and “went with the flow”. As the crowd finally thinned, I managed to snare an English speaking reveler who gave me directions to the street of Levis Company flat and we crept off watching constantly for a death car from the right.

 Leslie was suffering from a bad cold which was quickly turning into the flu, so George Steyt, the assistant to the Merchandising Manger, who was still waiting for us at the company flat, was sent to fetch a doctor for her. The doctor arrived quickly and announced in French that Leslie indeed had La Grippe, gave her a penicillin shot and left us a supply of quinine pills. We later learned that the Belgians’ decades of fighting malaria in The Congo had caused them to prefer quinine to aspirin for any form of high fever.

 After she was asleep, I went across the street to a small, but elegant bistro and managed to order takeout of 2 typical four course French meals. While I waited for the gourmet feast, I was shocked to see that almost every well-dressed patron had a dog lying under his table, and eating from a china dinner plate.

 My food was handed to me in several stainless steel containers that they trusted me to return, sans deposit, and I hurried home to tell Wanda of the doggy diners. She was equally amazed and proclaimed that Tony would go with us the very next evening.

  Since the next day was Saturday, I took Wanda and Leslie, who was over her fever, to see the new house and cat, and put Tony in a nearby dog groomer for ”the works”. It was getting cold when we arrived at the new brick house in our lovely suburb named Sept Fontaines (after the nearby lakes and seven fountains that they contained). The heat in the house, imbedded in the marble floors and fed by an oil-fired boiler, was turned off. I checked the fuel gauge and saw that it was at a mere 700 liters, nearly empty, but the boiler fired up with no problem. I noted that the capacity of the underground fuel tank was 5000 liters and made a note to have my new secretary order a fill-up on Monday, my first day at the office.

 Our furniture was due on Monday also, as it had been preceded us by a few days, so we spent the rest of the day buying a full set of new appliances, knowing that our US brands which we had sold, would not work on the standard 220 volts in Belgium. These too were to arrive on Monday... a busy, but productive day.

 Under the table for two?

That evening we dressed for a formal dinner and with Tony, newly groomed and brushed, we walked across the street with the borrowed dinner containers from the night before and ordered a table for three with a plate for Tony beneath. To our very relieved surprise, Tony quickly sized up the situation and went quietly under our table forgoing his usual friendly nose-up-the-rear greeting to any other fellow dog diner. Nary a growl or whimper escaped his muzzle as he shared our Rack of Lamb and Crème Brule, in regal silence. Apparently his QE2 table manners were still with him, and he was smart enough to know a good thing when he smelled it (besides he WAS French eh?).

 Later that week, after my secretary had ordered the oil fill up for our furnace, I was called from a meeting by a frantic message from Wanda to return home at once because something was terribly wrong with the furnace. A sudden cold front was spreading an early winter blast from the North Sea and Brussels was getting a dusting of snow as I roared up our driveway to be greeted my Wanda in a fur coat and Leslie bundled up holding a shivering Tony on his leash.  The smell of fuel hung heavy in the air as Wanda frantically related the story. The oil truck had arrived just after I left for the office, the driver hooked up his hose to the outside tank input, set the flow to our tank’s capacity of 5000 liters and crawled back into his warn truck cab to escape the blizzard (whoops!... didn’t we have almost 700 liters left?),

 Apparently he dozed off before the tank overflowed into the air vent and began to flood the basement with the excess fuel. As we stood there in the snow, the driver was in the basement brushing the remnants into a basement drain grill that took it away from the house, probably to the nearby lakes and their beautiful swans and ducks. We had heralded our arrival to this exclusive Brussels neighborhood by creating a harbinger of the Exxon Valdez!

So ended the first week of what proved to be a near constant state of culture shock, eased only by our frequent trips to London and nearly familiar surroundings.

                       Chapter 15

 Getting a Very Quick Start

  My first task in Brussels was the design and implementation of a 3 year Management Plan which included a complete Profit and Loss projection and an organization plan capable of managing a totally new autonomous Marketing and Manufacturing business. Major effort was planned in sourcing European fabrics that would meet our US standards of quality and timely deliveries, particularly in the hard to duplicate US Indigo Denim. We had the complete cooperation of our US Operations staff and when I presented this ambitious program in January 1970, it was enthusiastically approved on all counts.

During an initial whirlwind tour of Europe I had visited all the Levi’s exclusive distributors in England, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France. And I formally advised each of them that Levi’s was planning to immediately form an autonomous manufacturing and Marketing Corporation headquartered in Brussels with Sales Subsidiaries in each country. None of them was surprised at this, since Ed had done a good job of warning them of the certainty of this happening soon after my arrival.

 After I had my plan approved, I asked each distributor to prepare a list of leases, assets, employees, and customers on which we would base our offer to buy them, and to be prepared to negotiate the terms of a sale to us within the next 30 days.  I alerted Arthur Anderson, our European auditors and Baker McKenzie, our International Attorneys to get ready to start the process in company with us and each distributor’s financial and legal counterparts.

 Over the next 5 months I held multiple meetings with each distributor to negotiate and sign the terms of our purchase of their assets; primarily people, inventories, and goodwill such as customer lists and records. Each owner was assured of becoming employed by us as the General Manager, as were all their key staff and salesmen. One by one we completed the acquisitions until all but France were in the fold. The French employee laws were particularly onerous for us to navigate and it took 3 years for my successor to finally bring France into the fold.

 Meanwhile, I went on a hiring binge to allow us to organize a top group of HQ managers in Brussels, including as many qualified Europeans as we could find, and they in turn were expected to build their own cadre.

 Of course, I eagerly attacked the problem of each distributor having had its own local advertising agency, and the Brand Image dissonance that had been created over the years. Plus they had been heavily influenced by the concept of Le Cowboy, as the French called it and I wanted to talk directly to the rebellious youth in a way similar to what we were doing in the US.

I was determined to have one major agency which could create a modern youth message for Levi’s that would transcend the language and cultural differences of so many ancient cultures and work all over Europe (and hopefully elsewhere outside the US also). After several detailed meetings and numerous presentations, I settled on Young and Rubicam Europe, headquartered in London with sufficient branches in Europe to handle all the local nuances we needed to run a centralized campaign.

 In all these meeting I had used early VW Beetle ads as prime examples of Visual Messaging with little or NO copy that eliminating the need for using multiple languages.

And Y&R captured what I was looking for with a series of 4 color ads that were also perfect for making into posters, a teenage room decorating craze that was just starting to boom everywhere.

  They offered us an extraordinary concept which used instantly recognizable art icons wearing or proffering actual Levi’s jeans products, such as

·       Michelangelo’s David wearing a pair of cut-off Levis

·       God Handing Adam a pair of Levi’s instead of the Spark of Life shown on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

·       William Tell shooting the Apple off his son’s head (son dressed in Levi’s)

·       Cranach The Elder’s Eve handing Adam a pair of Levi’s cords instead of the apple.  

 The only copy in the ads was the red Levi’s logo and it worked with every language group. We ran these ads all over Europe in Teen magazines and gave away thousands of posters in store promotions. The campaign was so popular that it attracted a Ban from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden for breaking a Swedish law about defiling works of art. We cancelled the program for Sweden, but the wire services picked the story up and the international awareness caused the popular poster program to virtually double everywhere else, and of course become a hot black market item in Sweden.

 Within 3 years we were supplying our 7 new European factories with Indigo denim and corduroy in 20+ colors that met all our specifications. We also established 2 new warehouses, one each for both the Common Market and EFTA countries, and 2 IBM computer centers. And our European staff grew to over 3000, virtually all natives of their respective countries. This frenetic activity was accompanied by 25% annual sales and profit increases and which obscured growing cracks in the safety of the corporate structure. Following is a Fortune Magazine article excerpt describing the corporate reasoning and approval for this 3 year frenzy of activity:

                                 Chapter 16

 Why Belgium and Brussels?

Belgium, a Monarchy headed by King Albert II, is precisely divided into 2 regions, Flemish speaking Flanders in the north and French speaking Wallonia in the South. But Brussels, the capital, is physically completely within Flanders while its official language is French!  Here is what US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prophetically said to the British War Cabinet in 1942:

“In Belgium there are two communities. One people are called Walloons and they speak French, the others are called Flemings and they speak Flemish, a kind of low Dutch. They can't live together. After the war, we should make two states, one known as Wallonia and one as Flemania, and we should amalgamate Luxembourg with Flemania. What do you say to that?”

  Since the end of the Second World War, Brussels has been a main centre for international politics. Its hosting of principal EU institutions as well as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has made the city a polyglot home of numerous international organizations, politicians, diplomats and civil servants. Although historically Dutch-speaking, Brussels became increasingly French-speaking over the 19th and 20th centuries.

  Today a majority of inhabitants are native French-speakers, although both languages have official status. Fueling the tensions is a change of economic fortune and a long grudge match between the Flemish and the French. Belgium, a relatively new country, declared its independence in 1830. At first, the country’s aristocracies spoke French and the country’s French-speaking regions, rich from iron and coal manufacturing, were often contemptuous of the largely agricultural north. During World War I, most Belgian officers were French-speaking and made little effort to translate for Flemish soldiers (The country was so devastated during WW I, that when Hitler started attacking it on May 10, 1940, and the Germans rushed to the shore isolating Allied forces in Belgium from France, Belgium surrendered in eighteen days and avoided a second major bloodbath).

 These days, however, the French part of Belgium, population about four million, is poorer, while Flanders, population about six million, has grown wealthy with a diverse economy. Many Flemish voters resent their taxes’ flowing south, where in some parts of Wallonia the unemployment rate is close to 20 percent. Nonetheless, the Walloons can refuse a job if it is more than 15 miles from their homes and collect unemployment. In the north, there are jobs that could be filled, and that really annoys a lot of the Flemish.

  Linguistic tensions remain, and the language laws of the municipalities surrounding Brussels are an issue of much controversy in Belgium (on our first Sunday tour of Brussels, we were surprised to note that virtually every street sign had been defaced with graffiti which obliterated both the Flemish and the French names, making it impossible for us to know where we were going.)

 In 2009 Belgium was the 12th largest trading nation in the world, actively importing and exporting due to its long history of reliance on trade and lack of natural resources.

When the Common Market was formed in 1957 by six countries, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Belgium seized upon its excellent network of distributors and a well-developed transportation system of railroads, highways and ports and aggressively sought imports that had formerly gone separately to each other member’s customs ports for collection of duties.

A major incentive offered was very low cost government backed inventory loans, which resulted in Belgium collecting all the customs duties that formerly went to the other member countries.  Belgium eventually became one of the highest per capita exporters in the world, with imports and exports each equivalent to approximately 70 percent of GDP, and today over 70% percent of Belgium's foreign trade is with other EU countries, demonstrating the pivotal role Belgium plays as a commercial center in Western Europe.

Foreign investment contributed significantly to Belgian economic growth in the 1960s. In particular, U.S. firms played a leading role in the expansion of light industrial industries in the 1960s and 1970s, and are the largest foreign investor in Belgium, with over 1500 US companies making this country their European home.

The Belgium government continues to uphold an encouraging and open trading climate conducive to foreign investment

But on June 17, 2010 a major election shift has clouded their economic future as reported by The UK Guardian:

 “A rightwing separatist party that wants independence for the Dutch-speaking region of northern has won a shock victory in the country's general election.

The New Flemish Alliance (NVA) is on course to become the largest party in parliament, the first time in Belgium's 180-year history that a Flemish nationalist party has gained more seats than the traditional federalist parties.

 Belgium is also preparing to take over the presidency of the European Union in July. Divisions between the 6.5 million Dutch speakers in Flanders and the 4 million French speakers in Wallonia in the poorer south of the country have caused decades of disputes which permeate every aspect of Belgian society. There are separate language sections of almost every organization from Scouts and charities, such as the Red Cross, to national political parties.

 The election outcome was seen as a warning to French-speaking politicians to negotiate seriously about granting Dutch and French-speakers more self-rule, or Dutch-speaking Flanders would seek independence.

The Francophone daily Le Soir said: "Flanders has chosen a new king", referring to Bart de Wever, 39, the NVA leader and a potential new Belgian prime minister, who urged "Francophobes to make (a country) that works".

De Wever seeks an orderly breakup of Belgium. His party accuses French-speaking Wallonia of poor governance that has raised the unemployment rate to double that of Flanders.

 The divide goes beyond language. Flanders is conservative and free-trade minded. Wallonia's long-dominant Socialists have a record of corruption and poor governance. Flanders has half the unemployment of Wallonia and a 25% higher per-capita income, and its politicians say they are tired of subsidizing their French-speaking neighbors.

 As governments worldwide tried to tame a financial crisis and recession, the four parties that led Belgium since 2007 struggled with linguistic spats, most notably over a bilingual voting district comprising the capital, Brussels, and 35 Flemish towns bordering it. The high court ruled it illegal in 2003 because Dutch is the only official language in Flanders. Over the years, Francophobes from Brussels have moved in large numbers to the city's leafy Flemish suburbs, where they are accused of refusing to learn Dutch and integrate.”

End of a nation? ‘Get ready for the break-up of Belgium’ Sunday, September 5th, 2010 -- 2:55 pm

BRUSSELS — A top Belgian politician warned the country's citizens on Sunday to "get ready for the break-up of Belgium," as King Albert II seeks to re-launch knife-edge coalition talks. Leading francophone Socialist Laurette Onkelinx considered a potential successor to party chief Elio Di Rupo, who gave up on negotiations with separatist Flemish leaders on Friday, gave her prognosis in a newspaper interview "Let's hope it doesn't come to that because if we split, it will be the weakest who will pay the heaviest price," she told La Derniere Heure. "On the other hand, we can no longer ignore that among a large part of the Flemish population, it's their wish."So yes, we have to get ready for the break-up of Belgium. Otherwise we're cooked."When I look at the letters I receive, loads of people think it's possible. (Our) politicians have to be prepared," underlined the current caretaker federal minister for health and social affairs.

(ed note) Belgium continues as one nation as of June 2018

EPILOG

 In 1964, when I joined Levi Strauss in San Francisco as Director of Advertising, the company had finally reached $50 million in sales after more than 100 years by using the “Marlboro Man” image as a major rodeo sponsor. By 1974 sales had mushroomed to over $1 billion after they dropped the cowboy market and aggressively courted the rebellious youth of the world

 By thev1990’s Levi’s had truly reached worldwide Icon status as the uniform of an entire generation.

 (By the mid 1990’s Levi’s annual sales topped out at an impressive $4.5 billion, but has stagnated there for almost three decades where it remains to the date of this edit in June 2018)

 Skeletons in the Blue Denim Closet

  Suddenly in April 2003, a denim-seeking missile, in the form of a lawsuit, landed on the steps of Levi Strauss & Company’s Battery Street headquarters in San Francisco, and the blast was heralded on the front pages of the world’s financial press.

 Levi Strauss & Company had been sued for wrongful termination jointly by two of its former top financial officers, Chief Tax Attorney, Robert Schmidt, and former Chief Tax Accountant, Thomas Walsh, both Directors of Levi’s Global Tax department. The lawsuit contended that they were both fired because they had uncovered, and refused to conceal, massive fraudulent tax schemes.

 The duo stated that these multiple instances of US tax evasion and fraud were the reason they were fired, and they said they had company documents to substantiate these allegations.

 Five months earlier, on December 10, 2002, Levi’s had summarily fired the pair just five days before Levi’s new auditors, KPMG, (hired to replace the hastily fired Arthur Andersen firm (AA), arrived at Battery Street to conduct a comprehensive audit of the company.

 These former executives alleged that Levi’s willfully concealed information from the IRS and retaliated by firing them when they tried to produce documents for the IRS. They also claim that Levi’s was creating a false illusion to the investing public that it was successfully turning around its business, by issuing false reports to the Security and Exchange Commission (Although Levi’s is a privately owned company, it files similar reports of financial results as do public companies, mainly because of massive amounts of so-called “Junk Bonds” being held by the investing public).

 The allegedly fraudulent tax schemes and actions, which served to lower the company's US tax rate and pump up reported income, were claimed to be:

  A Brazilian tax     shelter designed to use favorable exchange rates to lower US tax.

A Belgian branch     used as a conduit financing scheme to avoid U.S. tax.

Fraudulent     inter-company bad debt and worthless stock transactions.

Failure to     report taxable gains to the IRS from foreign transactions.

Filing false and     misleading reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that     grossly misrepresented its financial position to the public.

 They also allege that, had Levi’s complied with the law, it would have reported a loss of $336 million, for fiscal year 2002, rather than the $49.5 million of net income that it did report to the SEC And, to add insult to injury that year, Levi’s Chief Executive Officer, Phil Marineau, lately from Pepsi Cola, had received a bonus of approximately $23million, under the terms of a profit incentive program, half of the total net income reported by the entire company in 2002.

 Similarly, Financial Vice President Vince Fong also got a $950,000 incentive bonus. Neither executive would have earned any bonus at all that year if the deficit financial results that are alleged by Schmidt and Walsh were reported.

 Schmidt and Walsh also said they were instructed to withhold material documents from the IRS and to limit tax information given to Levi’s new external auditor, KPMG, who was hired to replace Levi’s former long time auditor, Arthur Anderson, disgraced and forced to disband as a result of their complicity in the Enron scandal.

 Until May 2002, Levi’s had a 40+ year working relationship with Arthur Andersen & Co (AA), the top-ranked member of the elite “Big 8” independent Accounting Firms. Additionally, AA had sold separate consulting services for several recent years to Levi’s US management, for an annual fee of approximately $ 2,000,000, according to the plaintiffs.

 In addition to these lucrative consulting arrangements, AA also continued to perform the annual audits of Levi Strauss’ financial reports to the SEC. Then Levi’s fired them just weeks before Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice in a federal trial that had lasted almost 2 months.

 This cozy combination of selling business advice to companies whose books they also audited has been consistently frowned upon by other, more ethical accounting firms, but was gaining acceptance by some, by calling their consulting arm, “Independent”.

 Here’s what the disclaimer on all of KPMG’s current literature says about their newly renamed consulting practice:      

      “Bearing Point, Inc., formerly KPMG Consulting, Inc., is an independent          consulting firm and is not affiliated with KPMG International or any KPMG        member firm”

 And here’s the spin-off of Andersen’s consulting arm:

        “In January 2001, we changed our name to Accenture and launched a new brand and image in the marketplace, after Anderson Consulting was granted complete independence from financial obligations or future relationships with Arthur Andersen and Andersen Worldwide”      

 Granted independence, indeed!  Another horse gets out of an open barn door.

 Even before Arthur Andersen was hired by Levi’s in the US in the 1960’s, I had been using them to prepare audits of all of Levi Strauss International’s subsidiary corporations, taking over from local auditors as soon as we acquired each foreign company, or started one from scratch. I never conducted any foreign acquisition meeting without the presence of a local AA senior partner (plus an interpreter and a lawyer form our worldwide attorneys, Baker & McKinsey). Naturally, being in on the early stages of all new Levi’s company formations, AA felt uniquely qualified to sell us their general business consulting services. Every new “Blue Back” as they called their narrative summaries that accompanied each audit, extolled their consulting capabilities. And, just as often as they solicited it, I steadfastly rejected their offers to do management consulting for any of the 25 separate foreign entities under my control.

 “How in hell” I asked, “can AA pretend to be independent external auditors of our financial reports, if you are also getting paid to give us business advice?”

But, I noticed that they were increasingly adding operations comments to the financial results that they sent to Levi’s corporate accounting for consolidation. Every time I saw these, I angrily told AA to stop using these financial reports to drum-up International consulting assignments from Levi’s corporate, but they continued to claim that these observations were valid financial “footnotes”, so I tried to restrain my displeasure.  Later I saw what this clear conflict of interest could come to when the Enron scandal erupted, and when the Big 8 all rushed to disassociate themselves from so-called “Consulting”. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was a direct result of the AA scandal and it now makes this type of auditors’ dual service to corporations illegal.

 On June 16, 2002, after a six-week trial and 10 days of deliberations, a federal jury convicted Andersen of obstructing justice when it destroyed Enron Corp. documents while they were on notice of a federal investigation.

 The once grand 89 year old Arthur Andersen was discredited and soon disbanded.

 Multinational Monitor named Arthur Anderson the #1worst business of 2002:

 “Heading the list is Arthur Andersen, for a massive scheme to destroy documents related to the Enron meltdown."Tons of papers relating to the Enron      audit were promptly shredded as part of the orchestrated document destruction," a federal indictment against Andersen alleged. "The shredder at the Andersen     office at the Enron building was being used virtually constantly and, to handle the overload, dozens of large trunks filled with Enron documents were sent to Andersen's main Houston office to be shredded." Andersen was convicted for illegal document destruction, effectively putting the company out of business”.

 Arthur Anderson’s Baptist Church Fiasco

  In 2002, after Houston energy giant Enron collapsed, and Arthur Anderson was on trial for its complicity as their auditors, the Attorney General of Arizona implicated Arthur Anderson in the largest bankruptcy of a non-profit charity in US history by formally asking the Federal government to investigate Andersen to see if this accounting giant was guilty of a pattern of deceptive auditing.. This was in regard to the 1999 alleged swindling of $600 million from investors in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona (BFA), an Andersen client at the time.  Two former executives with the Baptist Foundation of Arizona were sentenced to prison and ordered to repay millions for defrauding thousands of investors in a botched financial scheme that bankrupted the non-profit organization.

Former foundation president William Crotts, 61, was sentenced to eight years in prison, and former general counsel Thomas Grabinski, 46, was sentenced to six years on fraud and racketeering charges.

Both men also were ordered to pay $159 million to make up for money investors lost when the foundation collapsed in 1999.

In both the Enron and Baptist foundation cases, the auditing firm gave clients clean bills of financial health, despite the fact that huge losses were hidden from investors in a maze of subsidiaries.

  In June, 2002 Andersen agreed to a settlement in the amount of $236,000,000 to resolve a class action suit against them in connection with professional services they had rendered in the past to this branch of the Baptist Church.  

Enron's collapse was the largest bankruptcy of a publicly traded company in United States' history and the Baptist Foundation of Arizona's collapse was the largest bankruptcy of a non-profit charity.

Then on  June 20, 2003, a second missile landed, this one in the form of IRS summonses directed at Schmidt and Walsh, demanding any documents they possessed in support of the ex-employees' claims related to Levi’s alleged tax-shelter abuse and illegal accounting practices.

 Fenwick & West, one of the nation’s top corporate law firms, representing  Levi’s, launched a legal bid to block the IRS from obtaining the documents claiming they are privileged Levi’s documents, a bold move, since in recent high-profile cases, the IRS had gone after lawyers and accountants who try to shield their own questionable work with claims of professional privilege. The plaintiff’s attorneys claimed that two Fenwick partners were "deeply entwined and enmeshed" in the tax issue, and are likely to become material witnesses in the suit Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Walsh have filed.”

 Of course, Levi's has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and has maintained its financial statements and tax positions were legal and accurate. The company filed a countersuit against Schmidt and Walsh accusing them of making "false, misleading and defamatory statements" about the company and illegally disclosing internal financial information after they left the company. Levi's also said that the employees were fired for just causes, not at all related to their lawsuit claims, including repeatedly failing to perform their jobs adequately.

 The IRS does not comment on issues related to specific taxpayers and thus declined to discuss the civil summonses issued to Walsh and Schmidt. Levi's had unresolved tax audit issues going back as far as 1986, resulting in part from their complicated initial 1985 leveraged buyout. The IRS has a long memory, but Levis had good attorneys and deep pockets.

 So 5 years after the insiders’ whistle was blown, and while Levi’s sales continued to stagnate at $4 billion, the following San Francisco Chronicle article closed this unhappy chapter:  

 LEVI'S EX-MANAGERS SETTLE LAWSUIT

San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008

 “Levi Strauss & Co. settled a lawsuit with two former managers who claimed the San Francisco-based company cheated on its taxes and fired them for refusing to help hide the wrongdoing.

 The lawsuit filed by Thomas Walsh, former manager of Levi's global taxation department, and Robert Schmidt, an attorney in the department, was resolved at a settlement conference Monday, according to court records.  Mark Fredkin, an attorney for the men, confirmed without providing details that a settlement was reached.

 The men, in a 2004 (sic) complaint filed in federal court, claimed Levi's created a fraudulent Brazilian tax shelter to deduct $149 million in taxes from 1986 to 1994.  The company avoided paying $70 million in federal taxes from 1997 to 1999 and cheated in other ways so executives could reap bonuses tied to the tax rate on operating revenue, they said.

    Important Publicity of My Era

  ENTIRE FORTUNE MAGAZINE ARTICLE April 1974

               (my exit… stage left)

      NEWSWEEK ARTICLE 08/27/1953

 The San Francisco Chronicle 1973

        ED COMBS’ TRAGIC (& IRONIC) DEATH   (caused by a rodeo!)

  An Evening with Charlie… More Fire than Ice

When the April 1974 issue of Fortune magazine arrived at Levi’s,Bud was more than chagrined at the headline: “When Levi Strauss Burst its Britches”, having, he thought, carefully guided the reporters down our primrose PR path.

 All the same, the contents were accurate enough and presented a good basis for a Harvard Business School case study, which it soon spawned.

For Bud, the chief architect of this corporate “mooning”, it was an outstanding resume (“Like a rhinestone cowboy... Gettin‘ cards and letters from people I don’t even know...and offers comin’ over the phone”)

  Bud’s most intriguing offer came from Scottsdale’s posh Camelback Inn, where an Executive Vice President of Revlon was golfing at the Company retreat. “Could Bud fly over and talk” he enticed. Even in the best of times, Bud had a rule of never refusing to hear what adventures might lay ahead in greener pastures.

 So, Bud arrived in Phoenix on the next morning and spent the day hearing how Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon had read the piece in Fortune and thought Bud might fit in somewhere with Revlon’s growing business. Charles’ dictatorial reputation preceded him by at least a mile, but Bud was in just the mood to be flattered by such a world famous Icon. So he grabbed the bait and a meeting with Charles was arranged for the following week in NYC.

  On the day Bud arrived at Revlon’s top floor offices in the GM building, Charles’ beloved nephew, world champion Grand Prix driver Peter Revson, was laid to rest at a lavish memorial at New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral. He had lost his life on March 22, 1974, due to suspension failure while testing the hot new Fl Shadow at Kalama circuit in South Africa. At 6pm, Charles’ secretary seated Bud in his inner sanctum on a leather couch adorned by a needlepoint cushion, which proclaimed “Nobody Loves a Smart-ass”, a very appropriate gift from his wife Lynn, he later learned.

 “Mr. Revson will be returning shortly from the funeral” she assured. An hour later, Charles bustled in, followed by the EVP Bud had met and an entourage of three other executives, all in identical black Saville Row mourning suits and carrying stacks of late edition NY newspapers. After shaking hands all around, Bud said “Charles, I will certainly understand if you want to postpone this meeting, knowing how close you were with Peter”

 “Fuck him.., he’s dead and I have a business to run!” he proclaimed. And, so, the most bizarre evening of Bud’s young career began.

The next few minutes were spend in a thorough search of the newspapers, pages flying, obituaries sorted, and Charles finally shouting, “Those Times bastards have a close-ups of that cunt (Miss World), Peter’s girlfriend du jour), and all they have of me is the back of my head! Cancel our advertising in the rag!” With that, he announced that we were off to his suite at the Waldorf where he wanted to take a nap.

 As his extra-long limo shuttled the entourage the few blocks to the hotel, Charles sized Bud up. “For God’s sake don’t smoke in my car”... (Snuff, Snuff!)... “And throw that damn thing out the window”... (Toss, Toss!)

  Up in the top-floor suite of the Waldorf, as soon as Charles disappeared into one of the three bedrooms, the scotch and forbidden cigarettes immediately appeared, ties were loosened and they began to talk normal business talk. The job Charles had in mind for Bud was president of Revlon International, based in his beloved London. Hearing that, Bud had a double scotch and relaxed in the haze of smoke and grandiose visions of he and his bride and me living in Belgravia and entertaining royalty. When Bud learned this was not a vision, but exactly what Charles expected hum to do, he started to sober up. At around 11:30, Charles emerged in a silk robe and proclaiming his hunger, ordered, “Let’s go to Broadway Joe’s”, Joe Naimath’s new steak joint on Broadway. “But Charles, they close at 11”... ‘Call them for Christ’s sake and tell them it’s me. They’ll open up for us!” He did and they did.

 Being the sole occupants of Joe’s, their waiters hovered, and the orders started with Charles handing over a tin of Mediterranean tuna from his pocket.

 “I want this on a small plate with no other crap on it; no lettuce, no mayo, nothing! Got it?” Then the four executives all ordered various healthy dishes, while Bud asked for a rare strip sirloin. “Don’t you know that shit will kill you” Charles snarled? “Maybe”, Bud said, “but last year all the beaches on the Med were closed due to sewage pollution and I hope your Tuna wasn’t a bottom feeder”.

 Then Bud learned, first-hand, the sound that the proverbial “turd in a punchbowl” makes. His recovery was to order a double scotch and light a Viceroy, not to taunt him so much as to let him know he didn’t want his shitty job anyway.

 The dinner progressed with small talk, when suddenly Charles shouted, “Son-of- a-Bitch” and putting his fingers in a mouth full of tuna, pulled out a small wad of masticated mush. He then passed it to the executive on his left and said, “Is that a tooth?” Squinting at the lump under the candlelight, he allowed as how it might be a bone, and passed it on to my friend the EVP, who sadly proclaimed it to be a tooth indeed. “Call my dentist”, Charles ordered. The comment that it was almost 2am was rebuffed by Charles with “I pay that bastard enough money... he’ll kiss my ass in Macy’s window if I tell him to”.

At 2:30 am they pulled up to a doorway on 5th Avenue containing a huddled figure shivering in the March cold. He and Charles disappeared for about 45 minutes and upon his newly capped return, Charles told Bud he wanted to hire him. He liked his experience and his refusal to kiss his ass; a remark directed more to the others in the limo than to Bud. There was only one condition to the job offer: Bud had to be checked over by Charles’ personal heart specialist the next morning, and if he passed muster, the job washis. Bud’s weak protest that getting an appointment with such a world-renowned doctor with no notice might be difficult was passed aside by Charles with an epitaph similar to the one his dentist got.

Back in his hotel at 4am, Bud put in a wakeup call for 8 and when he was startled awake at 7 with a call from a nurse confirming his 10 am doctor’s appointment (yes, it was also on Park Avenue) Bud couldn’t help but marvel at what money can do.

  The doctor was very punctual and pleasant, so the framed Time Magazine cover with his picture on it got only a hurried glance fromBud. His exam was thorough, and he announced that Bud was in the pink.

Bud asked about his relationship with Charles and he told of his annual spring/summer trips to the Mediterranean aboard Charles’ 275 foot yacht the Ultima II, known to be the “Largest in New York”.

 “Charles would fly over, but insisted that I and other members of his staff crossed on the yacht, since it was going empty otherwise”. (Not hard to understand how Bud was seen with only a few early morning hours’ notice).

 Back at the GM building, the EVP detailed the offer and spelled out the main job responsibilities. Aside from running a $200 million business around the globe,the primary job was to quickly and lavishly befriend “All of the people who mattered in London”. Since London was also Charles’ favorite city, he would often arrive with only a day or two’s notice and would expect to entertain whomever of the glitterati Bud could round up.

“Sort of a social secretary”, Bud said, as he politely declined the job offer.

Somewhat stunned, he was offered more money, and time to talk it over with his wife before getting back to him. When Bud got home and spun this incredible story, his wonderful soul mate, Wanda, said, “Thank God you turned it down! I can’t’ imagine how awful that would be!” Several pot-sweetening phone calls arrived over the next few weeks but were all firmly declined.

 In August of the next year, Charles died from pancreatic cancer, just weeks after giving his third wife Lyn -- $30,000 in a sealed tin can, along with divorce papers inside, for their tenth anniversary (she wore everything he hated to the funeral, according to Andrew Tobias’ fascinating biography of Charles: ‘Fire and Ice’).

 When Bud heard the news, he realized that Charles must have known of his condition the night they shared poisonous food at Joe’s, and if he had told him, Bud might have taken the job.

 Several sweetening offers were made by the EVP, but with Wanda’s complete support, I declined.

           How Levi's Trashed a  Great American Brand

FORTUNE Magazine April 12, 1999

While Bob Haas pioneered benevolent  management, his company came apart at the seams.

By Nina Munk Reporter Associate Jane Hodges

When Robert Haas led the most recent LBO of Levi Strauss  & Co. in 1996, he took one of the world's most successful brands and  placed its entire future in the hands of four people: himself, an uncle, and  two cousins. Other family shareholders had two choices: Cede all power to  this group for 15 years, or cash out. Most stayed in. It seemed a good bet at  the time. Haas was the guy who had saved the troubled family company back in  1984. He shut dozens of plants, jettisoned unpromising subsidiaries, expanded  overseas, and refocused on Levi's core product. In 1985 he took Levi Strauss  semiprivate in a limited LBO. Levi's stock climbed more than 100-fold, from  $2.53 a share (adjusted for splits) to $265 a share. Haas was a hero.

A Harvard MBA who worked for the Peace Corps and McKinsey  before joining Levi Strauss, Haas had been lionized in management circles and  business journals (such as the very one you're reading) for applying his  enlightened management practices to an old-line clothing manufacturer. Haas  chafed at the idea of merely dressing the world in riveted denim; he was  intent on showing that a company driven by social values could outperform a  company hostage to profits alone.

         While shareholder-driven companies  like Coke and Gillette rushed into China,       Haas  pulled out--to protest human rights abuses. He sent sewing machine workers to  off-sites to reprogram them from a mentality of piecework to one of teamwork.  And shortly before the latest LBO, he began a massive reengineering project  that was supposed to make Levi Strauss the most responsive apparel company in  the industry, reducing the time it took to get jeans to stores from three weeks  to 72 hours.

If the family shareholders had been paying careful  attention to what was really going on at Levi's well before the '96 LBO, they  might have bet differently. Sometime around 1990, a great brand began coming  apart at the seams. Levi's market share among males ages 14 to 19 has since  dropped in half, it hasn't had a successful new product in years, its  advertising campaigns have been failures, its in-store presentations are  embarrassing, and its manufacturing costs are bloated. The reengineering--with  an $850 million budget--was a disaster. J.C. Penney, Levi's biggest customer,  reports that last fall Levi's delivered its all-important back-to-school  line--get ready--45 days late. Says Levi's Thomas Kasten, who led the  reengineering: "I don't think we fully accomplished anything, to be  honest."

Since 1997 the company has announced plans to shut 29  factories in North America and Europe and to eliminate 16,310 jobs. A month  ago it said 1998 sales had dropped 13%, to just under $6 billion. FORTUNE estimates  that since the '96 LBO--since Bob Haas became unaccountable to anyone but his  three relatives--Levi Strauss' market value has shrunk from $14 billion to  about $8 billion. By comparison, cross-town San Francisco rival Gap has grown  from $7 billion to over $40 billion during the same period. "Bob is very  smart," says a former Levi's executive. "But then the question is,  'What's he smart at? Is he smart at running an apparel company?' I think  that's an open question."

Levi Strauss is a failed utopian management experiment.  It's a story of what can happen when well-intentioned but misguided managers  run a private company answering to no one. Above all, it's an epic tale of  opportunity lost, of what might have been. Retailing people often compare  Levi Strauss with Gap--not favorably. "Levi's has always had a lot of  very technically oriented people who know how to make good, consistent  product," says Howard Gross, CEO of Miller’s Outpost, a chain of 220  stores that sell Levi's. "But typically in apparel you have merchants,  men like [Gap CEO] Mickey Drexler. I'm not sure Bob Haas has ever been  trained to be a merchant. I'm not sure he's even been in a store, waiting on  customers, talking to them so that he could hear them say, 'Why are the legs  on those jeans so tight?'"

The criticism does not appear to bother Haas. "By  personality and instinct, I am not the rock star CEO," says Haas, in an  obvious reference to Drexler. "It's a fantasy to think that somebody in  a corner office on the seventh floor in San Francisco can be all-seeing and  all-knowing. It's crazy."

We're not writing an obituary for this 150-year-old  company. Levi's is still one of the world's great brands, better known than  Marlboro, Nike, or Microsoft. No one--not Tommy Hilfiger, not Lee, not Gap--comes  close to it in jeans sales. And 75% of American men own a pair of Levi's  Dockers khakis. Above all, Levi Strauss is a cash machine. As a privately  held company, it does not divulge profits. But FORTUNE managed to get a look  at its financials: Last year, on revenues of just under $6 billion, Levi  Strauss produced $1.1 billion in cash flow. That's more than Tommy, Polo  Ralph Lauren, Nautica, and Liz Claiborne--combined. More than Nike. More, by  a pinch, than Gap.

It takes a long time to sink a great brand. "A big  brand like Levi's is an aircraft carrier," remarks Steve Goldstein, who  left the company last summer after 20-year tenure, most recently as head of  marketing for Levi's. "You can turn the engines off and the actual speed  of the carrier will not slow perceptibly for a long time. With the Levi's  brand we gradually dialed down our propeller speed and the carrier kept  moving. People up on the deck said, 'We're still moving fast!' But those down  in the engine room said, 'Whoa! We're going to be dead in the water!'"

For all his empathy toward the engine room, Haas is a man  born to the bridge. Although he dressed casually for FORTUNE's photo shoot,  Haas is not a casual man. Even his language is carefully in place. He speaks  in paragraphs of elevated diction; an off-hand conversation can sound like a  lecture. He's known for extraordinary (some say obsessive) attention to  detail. Poring over press releases and in-house memos, he corrects split  infinitives and misplaced modifiers. His handwriting is tiny and meticulous.  He goes to bed at 9:30 P.M.

Haas envisions Levi Strauss as a company where a factory  worker's voice is as likely to be heard as the CEO's. "He's not the sort  of manager who says, 'Here's what you did wrong,'" explains Levi's  former CFO George James. "Instead, he sits down, looks you in the eye,  and asks, 'What do you think you did wrong?'" Because of his obvious  sincerity, Levi's employees are fiercely loyal to him, although they don't  always approve of his management style. "I love Bob to death, but he has  a tendency to want to involve everybody in decision-making. He's  compassionate to a fault," says Peter Thigpen, former president of Levi  Strauss USA.

No matter how well-intentioned, group decision-making  usually degenerates into endless meetings, task forces, memos, and e-mails.  That's what happened at Levi Strauss. "Everything had to go into a  corporate process, so nothing ever got resolved," says Robert Siegel,  who left the company after 29 years to become CEO of Stride Rite in 1993.  "Almost half my time was spent in meetings that were absolutely  senseless." Clearly frustrated even now, Siegel adds, "If you asked  [Levi's executives] for the time, they would build you a clock, and still not  be able to tell you the time." In the olden days--when Levi's was  synonymous with jeans--none of that really mattered. But now Levi's doesn't  just compete with Lee and Gap and Calvin Klein. Now it has hundreds of  competitors with names like JNCO, Mudd, Arizona, Fubu, LEI, Kikwear, Badge,  Union Bay, Canyon River Blues, Bongo, Stussy, Menace, Faded Glory--names that  Levi's executives may or may not have heard of.

It's worth noting that Bob Haas has excelled at everything  he's ever done. He was president of his primary school student body, editor  of his high-school yearbook, and valedictorian of his 1964 class at UC  Berkeley, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. The business world never  much interested Haas: He majored in English and considered becoming a Chaucer  scholar. Then he joined the Peace Corps, where he spent two years in the  Ivory Coast. Still, after returning from Africa, Haas dutifully attended  Harvard Business School, like his father before him. When he graduated in  1968, he became a management  consultant at McKinsey & Co. (SEE  POSTSCRIP BELOW)

Some San Franciscans joke that to understand what's gone  wrong at Levi Strauss, all you need to know is that Bob Haas was in the Peace  Corps and worked at McKinsey.

Haas joined Levi's in 1973 as an inventory management  analyst. In 1984, at 42, he became the fifth-generation family member to run  the company (his father, Walter A. Haas Jr., was CEO from 1958 to 1976). Bob  Haas had big plans. He wanted to create a company with a social mission, a  purpose larger than sewing together pieces of 14 1/2-ounce denim. "When  I became CEO there was a cry: 'What are our values? What do we stand for as a  company?' “he explains.”I said, let's fix the business issues first, but as  soon as we have our business back on track we have to attend to our culture,  because that's the glue that unites us, the beacon that guides our  actions."

Levi Strauss has always believed in corporate philanthropy  and social responsibility. When the firm went public in 1971, its offering  prospectus made corporate history by warning that profits might be affected  by a commitment to social programs. But Bob Haas wanted to go further--much  further. In 1987 he developed the Levi Strauss Mission and Aspirations  Statement, which promoted teamwork, trust, diversity, empowerment, etc., etc.  Printed on recycled blue denim, the aspirations statement was hung on office  walls, posted in factories, enclosed in Lucite paperweights, and laminated on  wooden plaques. For most CEOs, that would have done it: State your mission,  act accordingly, and expect your employees to do the same. Haas, however, had  something to prove: that a company driven by social values could outperform  one driven by profits.

He changed Levi's compensation plans so that one-third of  executives' bonuses reflected their ability to manage "aspirationally."  He assigned 80 task forces to make the company more "aspirational."  The work-and-family task force sent a 25-page questionnaire to 17,000  employees. The global-sourcing task force spent nine months creating  guidelines that would hold Levi's overseas contractors to the highest  possible standards of labor practices. A diversity focus group organized  off-site sessions that paired white, male managers with women and minorities  to discuss racial and gender stereotypes.

By the early 1990s, Levi's employees were attending the  company's "core curriculum," a three-part, ten-day course that  covered leadership, diversity, and ethical decision-making. Joined by at  least one senior manager, groups of 20 employees discussed their  vulnerabilities, shared their deepest fears, and even composed their  obituaries. "It was all about personal disclosure and human  connections," says Barry Posner, dean of Santa Clara University's  business school, who helped implement the core curriculum. "It was about  asking, 'How do I find meaning in the workplace?' It was about seeing that  work is noble, that we're doing more than getting pants out the door."

Bob Haas had discovered his vocation. At one time he  distributed AIDS leaflets outside the company cafeteria. He gave a long  interview to the Harvard Business Review called "Values Make the  Company." He delivered a keynote speech on business and ethics to the  Conference Board. Levi's wasn't just a garment company committed to social  responsibility. It was a politically correct organization that happened to be  in the garment business. "The problem is some people thought the values  were an end in themselves," says Levi's President Peter Jacobi, who  recently announced his retirement. "You have some people who say, 'Our  objective is to be the most enlightened work environment in the world.' And  then you have others who say, 'Our objective is to make a lot of money.' The  value-based people look at the commercial folks as heathens; the commercial  people look at the values people as wusses getting in the way."

In hindsight, the wusses did get in the way. For even as  Bob Haas pioneered utopian management, the business began to look threadbare.  Despite its enlightened benevolence, Levi's clung to old ways of doing  things. It stopped innovating. It ignored, or was oblivious to, the  marketplace. The "principled reasoning approach" to decision-making  taught in the core curriculum didn't help. "Unless you could convince  everyone to agree with your idea, you didn't have the authority to make a  decision," says former CFO George James. "That made it very  difficult to be responsive."

Case in point: Dockers, launched by Levi's in 1986. Dockers’  khakis were an immediate success, hitting the market just as American men  began replacing suits with more casual attire. But in 1993, Dockers missed  one of the biggest trends in the khaki market: wrinkle-resistant pants. As  other manufacturers began selling them, Dockers stayed put. Sales collapsed.  That same year, Levi's reported its first decline in profits since 1988.

The denim market was changing too. Levi's 501s used to be  the hot jeans. "But in '93, kids started telling us the legs were too  narrow," says Gross of Miller’s Outpost. In response, Miller’s Outpost  created its own line of jeans with legs as wide as 23 inches. Then J.C.  Penney and Sears got into the act, making jeans with flared legs and boot  cuts. Tommy Jeans splashed the Hilfiger logo all over its baggy pants. JNCO  introduced jeans with 40-inch-wide legs and 17-inch-deep pockets. Through it  all, Levi Strauss kept on pushing its basic jeans, with 16-inch-wide legs and  6-inch pockets. At the same time, kids were spending more and more money at  specialty stores like Hot Topic and Pacific Sunwear and Gap, whereas Levi's  sold almost exclusively to now-out-of-favor department stores. It wasn't that  Levi's management didn't see the changes. "We told Levi's about extreme  fits," says Gross. "We showed them our numbers. We told them what  kids were asking for. They even attended some of our focus groups. But they didn't  want to believe."

Or else they were distracted. In 1993, Levi Strauss  embarked on something called the Customer Service Supply Chain initiative.  Once again, what began as a well-intentioned project morphed into a monster.  The stated goal of the initiative was to make Levi's more responsive to  retailers. The company wanted to get new products to market in three months,  down from 15 months, and to reduce the time needed to restock a pair of jeans  from three weeks to 72 hours. Amazingly, no one seriously considered the  possibility that getting a pair of jeans to stores in 72 hours might double  or triple Levi's costs. "There was no cost boundary," says Tom  Kasten, who headed the effort. "I mean, we talked a little about how it  shouldn't cost more, but it really was an afterthought."

In June 1993, 200 of Levi's best people began designing a  new supply chain. Many were vice presidents of important divisions, divisions  that would now be without leaders. Others left work behind, forcing  colleagues to do double duty. Joined by at least 100 Andersen consultants,  the group took over the third floor of headquarters, soon covering the walls  with vast organizational charts and maps. The place resembled a war room. The  members of the Third Floor Brigade weren't just on a mission; they were, in  their words, "creating a revolution." To convince skeptics at  Levi's that this was serious stuff, they collected magazine cover stories on  companies like IBM, GM, and Digital that were in turmoil because they had  ignored their changing markets. Proselytizing, the Brigade blew up the  covers, pasted them to poster boards, and carried them around the  organization. "It created huge battle lines," says Jacobi, Levi's  president. "There were Moonies and there were nonbelievers, and they avoided  each other and said bad things about each other. But there was no way to get  out of it. It was like quicksand."

The Customer Service Supply Chain initiative was no longer  just about improving service to retail customers. It was about improving  everything. Whole new categories of jobs were created. The Third Floor  Brigade rewrote more than 600 job descriptions; all over the company people  had to reapply for their positions. To help employees evaluate their  aptitudes and handle the imminent changes, the Brigade put together a  145-page handbook called Individual Readiness for a Changing Environment.  "Let yourself feel the loss, then let go and move on," it advised.  "New ways should be viewed as neither right nor wrong, neither better  nor worse, than the previous ones."

Levi's employees freaked out. Some, who didn't get the  jobs they had applied for, or re-applied for, broke down. Others simply quit.  "It pushed me over the edge," says a former employee. The  retailers--the people actually meant to benefit from all this--shook their  heads in disbelief. "The reengineering changes had us confused as  hell," says a buyer at one major Levi's account. "One minute there  was no customer service, the next minute they'd overdo it." By the time  Levi's board of directors put an end to the nonsense in late 1995, the  reengineering team's budget had swollen by 70%, to $850 million. As for  restocking basic product, J.C. Penney's standard is 20 days; Levi's average  last year was 27 days.

How did this go on for so long? Simple. Haas has the  power, and most family members seem content with the arrangement--despite the  sagging value of their shares (which have declined by about 40% in three  years), despite the fact that they get no dividends. "I've always looked  on it as a long-term investment," says Robert Friedman, cousin to Bob  Haas and a member of the Levi's board. Rumor has it some family members want  out, or at the very least would like a new CEO. They won't get one. Other  than the four men who control the votes, no one has any say in the company  until 2011, when the shareholder agreement expires.

One family member who spoke to FORTUNE on the record is  Richard Goldman, husband of Bob Haas' late aunt Rhoda Haas Goldman. In 1946,  4-year-old Bob Haas was the ring bearer at the Goldman’s' wedding. Half a  century later the Goldmans and Bob Haas were no longer speaking. Rhoda  Goldman was the only member of the 12-person board who opposed the 1996 LBO.  She and her husband didn't want to hand the company over to four people for  the next 15 years. "It didn't make any sense to her or to me,"  Richard Goldman says. "As shareholders, we were surprised anyone would  go along with it."

The disagreement wasn't just about control; like most  squabbles, it was also about money. Levi's bankers at Morgan Stanley, valuing  the shares at $189 each, said the firm was worth $10 billion. Bob Haas  offered shareholders $250, a one-third premium. But the Goldmans' bankers at  Robertson Stephens valued the stock at between $315 and $387. In response,  Haas increased his offer to $265 a share, valuing the company at $14 billion.  After a lengthy battle, the Goldman family decided to accept that offer,  cashing out their 12.5% interest for $1.7 billion. They were lucky; if they  had held on, their shares would now be worth about $950 million.

"One could argue that we overpaid, in light of  subsequent events," says Bob Haas. "But I would much rather be  restructuring and reinvigorating ourselves as a private company than trying  to talk, not just to you, but to every security analyst and financial  reporter in the world who wants to do yet another tedious story about our  problems and offer gratuitous advice as to what went wrong and how to fix it.  Those kinds of distractions get in the way of operating effectiveness."

Last year, Levi's redefined its utopian mission. The old  one, which appeared in the preamble to the mission and aspirations statement,  was: "To sustain responsible commercial success." The new one is  simply, and ambiguously: "To be the casual apparel authority." So,  once again, the company is in the midst of major organizational changes. It  recently shifted to a brand-management structure long popular with consumer  companies like Procter & Gamble and Sara Lee. So, once again, people are  moving into new jobs, being given new titles. Because management now  recognizes that one of Levi's problems was inbreeding, an urgent mandate is  to fill one-third of all openings with outsiders. Headhunters have been  directed to find a new president/COO from the outside. Already, Levi's has brought  in as its new CFO William Chiasson, from Kraft Foods. Its new creative  director for the U.S. youth market is Devon Burt, formerly of Nike.

Levi's finally understands what people in the fashion  business have always known: Kids don't wear the same jeans as their parents.  It recognizes that cool retailers won't be caught dead or alive stocking the  same product as J.C. Penney. "The mistake we made was to make one brand  for everyone--it ended up being nothing to anyone," says Robert Holloway,  who heads Levi's U.S. youth market division. The company is now creating a  portfolio of brands and sub-brands, each targeted at a different  "tribe," in Levi's language. Some will be created in-house; others  will be acquired from the outside.

Levi's big customers say they are cautiously optimistic  about the new lines. But Levi's multi-brand strategy is nothing more than  what its competitors have done for years. Think of Gap, for example, with its  high-end Banana Republic, its middle-of-the-road Gap, and its low-priced Old  Navy. To reach the next level, to be a real player, Levi's has to become cool  again. It must figure out how to appeal to a small, but hugely influential  group of city dwellers who set fashion trends, a tribe Levi’s call  "cultural creatives."

Late last year, in a bid to be culturally creative, Levi's  furtively launched Red Line jeans, distributing them to just 25 cutting-edge  shops, where they sell for $99. To position Red Line as far away from Levi's  as possible, the unit's headquarters is in Venice, Calif. Nothing on Red Line  jeans indicates that they have any relation to Levi's. The brand isn't  mentioned on Levi's Website. So determined is Red Line to remain underground  (i.e., cool) that its manager, Julia Hansen, refused to talk to FORTUNE, nor  would she provide any product publicity shots.

Retailers report that Red Line is selling well. To Levi's,  however, that's not really the point. It doesn't expect Red Line to have much  impact on its bottom line; the idea is for the jeans to have a "halo effect,"  for the hipness associated with Red Line to somehow seep into Levi's other  lines. The Dockers division is pursuing a similar strategy: To make its pants  known as something other than the "uncool khaki" or the "fat  man's khaki," it recently launched a hip line called K-1 Khakis. In  Europe, there's a new Dockers line called Equipment for Legs, made of  high-tech fabrics like Gore-Tex and targeted at the yuppie urban warrior.

It will be years before anyone knows if the new  initiatives have worked. In the meantime, it seems reasonable to ask two  basic questions: Would Levi Strauss be scrambling so desperately if it were a  public company? And would Bob Haas still be CEO? Says Haas: "I wouldn't  be CEO, because I wouldn't want to work in the company. It's that simple. My  passion for this place is about doing the right thing for the enterprise, its  people, the communities in which they operate, and making this a winning  organization. My passion would be considerably diminished if I had to deal  with the kinds of frivolous and nonproductive distractions that many of my  peers at public companies have to deal with."

On Wednesday, June 12, 1996, a crowd of Levi Strauss  employees gathered in San Francisco to hear a major announcement. Standing  proudly before them, Bob Haas revealed a new incentive plan. With the company  now fully in family hands, Haas could not offer employees stock options.  Instead, he promised that if Levi's reached $7.6 billion in cumulative cash  flow by 2001 (after three years, it's just $2.8 billion), every employee in  the world, all 37,000 of them--from sewing machine operators in El Paso to  salesmen in Barcelona--would receive a bonus worth one year's salary. Giddy  employees cheered. Here was the latest confirmation that they were working  for the world's most enlightened employer. Sincere notes of gratitude poured  in to headquarters: "Bob, thanks for this great opportunity. Only 1,895  days to go! Many thanks, Estelle." And: "Bob, many thanks for your  generous & exciting idea. What a great challenge to rise to, Paul  T." And: "Bob, see you in 2001 for the big party! Kel."

One more thing: The party will be in utopia.

(editor’s post script)

Bob was on a fast track to partner at McKinsey and had  no interest in working at Levi’s. But Ed and Wally asked me as President of  Levi’s International to try to seduce him into coming onboard.

I was hip deep in problems in Europe and wanted to hire  a management consultant anyway, so I asked Bob to take a leave of absence  from McKinsey and spend 6 months in Europe doing the job as a temporary  manager with a handsome salary and all expenses paid…(yet considerably less  than McKinsey charges for a consulting assignment).

He jumped at it!

When he presented his plans to Levi’s Board 6 months  later they gave us the budget to do it all. My gamble worked and Bob happily  came on board ‘The Family Business’, starting at the bottom in Merchandising  in 1973. In a little over 10 year Bob became the fifth generation of family  members to head LS&Co.

                        · Back Cover

·  a 60’s ad man guides levi’s growth to Worldwide youth icon

 Bud Robinson was graduated from Duke University in January 1954 and began working for Procter & Gamble in sales, later transferring into their Ohio Advertising Department.

 He became West Coast Sales Manager for Better Homes & Gardens in San Francisco and was recruited by Honig Cooper & Harrington advertising agency to be Assistant Media Director and Account Executive for Clorox Bleach.

 Later Bud was recruited to become Account Supervisor on Texize Chemicals, and Miles Laboratories New Products.

 In 1964 he was asked to join Levi Strauss & Co as Director of Advertising in 1964. In the ensuing 10 years Bud was appointed Director of Levi Strauss Europe, and then President of Levi Strauss International.

 This book details the highlights of Bud’s 10 years as the prime Architect of Levi’s transition from a regional Cowboy product to a worldwide youth Icon and ponders their current status.

[chocolateheal]

Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

The titans of Abstruse Expressionism are on appearance now at The Royal Academy of Arts in London. It’s a massive appearance absolute 163 works by 30 painters, sculptors, and photographers, and will acceptable go bottomward in history as the better accommodation exhibition of its kind.

Pop Art. – ppt video online download – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

It’s been abutting to 60 years back a appearance like this has been captivated on European clay (“New American Painting” toured eight European cities including the Tate, London, in 1958). The 12 colossal Beaux-Arts galleries can almost board this atomic and advancing analysis of the prevailing personalities and perspectives associated with America’s greatest art movement. Curated by David Anfam, the movement’s arch expert, the appearance is brash, irreverent, and unconstrained, aloof like the aeon it aims to express. (For a acclimatized archival epitomize of the exhibition, buy the appropriately absorbing advertisement that accompanies the show).

Never has a bearing of beat artists been added admired than those axial to the Abstruse Expressionist movement in America. Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and their counterparts Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, David Smith, and Jack Tworkov fabricated history with their gestural works adulatory existentialism and raw humanity. It is their works that administration absolute in the show. Bonding through their time calm on the WPA in the 30s and the affability of The Club in the 50s, these artists fabricated New York City the new basic of the art apple with their new art.

Abstract Expressionism apparent the aboriginal time in history that authentic abstruse art would battling old Modernism. “It was the moment back New York artists aback accomplished self-awareness,” wrote the analyzer Thomas B. Hess in a contour about the arena for New York Magazine in December 1974, “realizing that they were together, and calm could move advanced apart of a airless Paris-based aesthetic, which had bedeviled all-embracing markets of account and banknote for over 150 years.”

Recalled painter Jack Tworkov:

The axis point was 1949. 1949 was the year back the abstraction of a accumulation crystallized. Aback you accomplished that you weren’t talking to the aforementioned bodies that Picasso and Braque were talking to. Aback we accomplished that we were attractive at anniversary other’s assignment and talking to one another, not about Picasso or Braque. We had created for the aboriginal time an atmosphere area American artists could allocution to American artists […] Aback what the guys about me were adage was important […] We aback chock-full actuality absorbed in Paris […] we became absorbed in one another.

americanwiki / Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Much has been said about the movement’s roots in Surrealism (the focus of the aboriginal arcade at the RA). But as Philip Pavia, architect of The Club, explained, “The surrealists didn’t go far enough, or aerial enough, or abysmal enough, because they chock-full at dreams […] they never faced up to the antecedent problems of ablaze and space. […] Dreams and absent-mindedness do not accomplish the space, the light, or the admeasurement appropriate by the accurate artificial modernists.” And we’re all too accustomed with attempt of the artists of the aeon to degrade Picasso, and abounding affidavit about the ever-important access of the brand of Kandinsky, Cezanne, and Soutine. But, after downplaying Anfam’s ballsy undertaking, the alone accurate way to appearance this exhibition is to chargeless ourselves of these celebrated anchorings and see the movement for what it was: an advancing chat amid and amid artists. “Each in their own way acquainted a charge to advice body and strengthen an outsiders’ association of painters, sculptors, poets, composers, and camp geniuses,” wrote Hess.

These guys (and a few women) were all about the accommodate of the mark — besom wielding and blaze breathing. Moreover, they were all about one-up-manship, and through the bond and bond of abounding ballsy and celebrated loans from collections about the world, this exhibition gives us the befalling to see them battle it out in a acceptable old argy-bargy: Gorky vs. the Surrealists, Pollock vs. de Kooning, Rothko vs. Newman, Still vs. Still, and the abiding Motherwell dabbling about.

The amount backbone of the appearance are the galleries committed to alone artists, which are alike to mini-retrospectives. Unlike the truncated yet bookish efforts we accept accomplished in the past, at the RA, the cardinal of works by an alone artisan acquiesce us to acquaintance the abounding facets of his evolving bulk as we expedition from one massive blind to the next.

A arresting arcade of Gorkys sets the clip for appearance — and the revolution. “Gorky had a arresting adroitness for camouflaging forms,” writes Anfam in the exhibit’s introduction, “so that their identities hover amid the apparent and the cryptic, the aesthetic and the convulsive.” Mature works like “Water of the Flowery Mill” (1944) and “The Unattainable” (1945) aberration and angle as they battle bottomward subject, light, space. The adverse contest surrounding Gorky’s activity bout the agitation in his paintings, and they laid the background for a ascent band of personalities.

Eighteen works by Jackson Pollock in the abutting arcade are affidavit of his singularity. On affectation calm for the aboriginal time, “Mural” (1943) and “Blue Poles” (1952) are prime examples of his all-embracing antecedent of authentic energy, and they bookend the career of one of America’s greatest painters.

A Fine Line Between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism | Art for … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

The arcade committed to Rothko could be the assault affection of the exhibition. Added than any painter associated with the movement, it was he who emoted most. Standing amidst these aerial works, I am reminded of what de Kooning already told Rothko: “Your abode has abounding mansions.” “No. 15 (Dark Greens on Blue with Green Band)” (1957) is actually a tsunami of blush and emotion. Seeing a backward assignment by Rothko blind abutting to one by Jack Tworkov was decidedly gripping, because that Tworkov was one of the aftermost bodies to see Rothko alive. It’s epiphanies such as this that accomplish the appearance a sensation.

Anfam told me, “Getting nine above masterpieces from the Clyfford Still Museum to biking consistently seemed a anticipation too acceptable to be true.” But he did it (I’m abiding his actuality the museum’s chief consulting babysitter helped). And while abounding accept commented that seeing so abounding works by Stills all at already tend to abolish anniversary added out, I begin the consistence on such calibration staggering.

Barnet Newman and Ad Reinhardt allotment a arcade amid them, which is acceptable the alone affair they anytime shared. And the arcade committed to de Kooning offers added than an absorbing cardinal of signature canvases arch up to and accretion above his “Women.”

When we aren’t experiencing a distinct artisan full-throttle, several galleries are thematic. While I see the educational artlessness abaft this decision, these galleries appear beyond as abstruse and simplistic, and they are abstemious with the articulate being that absolutely affronted these guys in the aboriginal place. They attenuate the intentions and dialogues amid the artists and barrier the drive of the movement (and the exhibition as a whole). It’s like acute abeyance while watching Viva Zapata! to altercate the dialogue. We don’t affliction what the motives are — we aloof wanna see Marlon Brando bear his lines.

Surprisingly, Lee Krasner’s attentive “The Eye Is the Aboriginal Circle” (1960) is the aboriginal painting to boss the arcade abrogation Gorky and arch to Pollock. It’s through curatorial moves like this (and additionally the admittance of distinct works by Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, and Janet Sobel) that Anfam takes swings at the accustomed male-dominated bureaucracy of Postwar American Art. Unfortunately, it’s not a larboard angle or the knockout bite abounding of us accept been cat-and-mouse for.

Impressionism vs. Expressionism – Canvas: a blog by … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

The appearance will do little to aggrandize the “official” canon. One or two works by women, alike if they are as unparalleled as Joan Mitchell’s “Mandres” (1961–62) and her leash “Salut Tom” (1979), which dominates the final gallery, or Louise Nevelson’s “Sky Cathedral” (1957–60), do not angle a angry adventitious adjoin the brand of 18 de Koonings, 15 Rothkos, 13 sculptures by David Smith, and 12 paintings by Clyfford Still. What Anfam’s alternative is absolutely cogent us is that sometimes, whether we like if or not, history is absolutely how it’s been written.

Yet in his own way, which is at times awash and absolutely clumsy (like agreement Baziotes’ “Mariner,” 1960–61, as the final painting in the show), Anfam continues to columnist the attendance of women and outliers Mark Tobey (West Coast), Norman Lewis (African-American), Bradley Tomlin (homosexual), and photographers Barbara Morgan, Aaron Siskind, and Minor White. Anfam pushes these artists not as minorities but for their appropriate contribution. It’s at these moments that he could accept been added unapologetic, added aweless — added like the men who bound accoutrements at the Cedar Bar.

The show’s better accident is that it will leave you assertive that the alone sculptor accumbent with the painters was David Smith. Four awe-inspiring Smiths are installed alfresco in the Annenberg Courtyard, and abounding added dot the capital galleries. You will not see the names Ibram Lassaw, Seymour Lipton, or Reuben Nakian. There is added to be told than is here.

On the allurement about Abstruse Expressionism that continues to fascinate, Anfam told me: “It’s the arduous appetite of it. The artists’ affection for what they were accomplishing as if it were a amount of activity and death. And the allure of art that approved to be a accent of the emotions.”

Abstract Expressionism is an adventurous affectation of authoritative might. It’s a celebrated affectation of works that admonish us how almighty the chat and animosity amid artists can be.

Impressionism vs. Expressionism – Canvas: A Blog By … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism continues at The Royal Academy of Arts (Main Galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD) through January 2, 2017. The exhibition will biking to the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, from February 3 to June 4, 2017.

Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | Pleasant to help our blog site, on this period I am going to show you regarding keyword. Now, this can be the initial graphic:

Impressionism vs. Expressionism – Canvas: A Blog By … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

What about impression earlier mentioned? will be that will remarkable???. if you believe and so, I’l t provide you with a few impression yet again beneath:

So, if you like to have these amazing images regarding (Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism), click on save icon to download the images in your pc. They are prepared for obtain, if you appreciate and want to take it, just click save logo in the page, and it will be instantly downloaded to your laptop computer.} At last in order to obtain unique and recent photo related to (Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism), please follow us on google plus or bookmark this blog, we try our best to provide daily update with all new and fresh shots. Hope you love keeping right here. For most upgrades and latest information about (Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism) graphics, please kindly follow us on twitter, path, Instagram and google plus, or you mark this page on bookmark area, We try to offer you up grade regularly with fresh and new pictures, enjoy your browsing, and find the ideal for you.

Here you are at our site, contentabove (Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism) published .  Nowadays we are pleased to declare we have discovered a veryinteresting contentto be pointed out, namely (Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism) Lots of people trying to find details about(Here’s What No One Tells You About Expressionism Vs Abstract Expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism) and definitely one of these is you, is not it?

Picsoc – generelle – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy – YouTube – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

A Movement in a Moment: Abstract Expressionism | Art | Agenda | Phaidon – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Still Coloring Out Of The Lines: Part 5: Watercolor VS … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstraction vs Venus – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism: A Tribute to Harold Rosenberg | Smart Museum … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Color Theory winstonbauer – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionist Wolf Kahn: Spontaneous Tendencies – Artists … – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

object vs mind – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism vs. Fauvism – Abstract Expressionism – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

08 abstract expressionism – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Impressionism vs. Expressionism | Owlcation – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism (practice) | Khan Academy – expressionism vs abstract expressionism | expressionism vs abstract expressionism

from WordPress https://americanartist.club/heres-what-no-one-tells-you-about-expressionism-vs-abstract-expressionism-expressionism-vs-abstract-expressionism/

[thegloober]

NYFF 2018: The Times of Bill Cunningham, Cold War, Detour

by Odie Henderson

October 12, 2018   |  

Print Page Tweet

In 1978, candid photographer and fashion column writer Bill Cunningham took a picture of a woman passing by him on a New York street. He was interested in the coat she was wearing, which struck him as unusual. As luck would have it, Cunningham had inadvertently snapped a picture of the long-retired famous movie actress, Greta Garbo, who hadn’t been seen on screen since 1941. The New York Times snapped up the photo and gave Cunningham a long-running photography series called “On the Street.” Every week, readers discovered who crossed the viewfinder of the bike-riding shutterbug wearing his trademark blue shirt.

Advertisement

Premiering at the New York Film Festival, director Mark Bozek’s “The Times of Bill Cunningham” chronicles the photographer’s career, starting with his time as a milliner, then working through his writing at magazines like Women’s Wear Daily before settling on the thing for which he is most famous, his street photographs. Our tour guide for this entertaining journey is Cunningham himself, who appears onscreen in a 1994 interview conducted by Bozek. Bozek structures his film around this lengthy interview, supplementing it with home videos and pictures rather than using a bunch of talking heads. The film has occasional narration of actress Sarah Jessica Parker, an inspired choice; her Carrie Bradshaw character from “Sex and the City” would have loved to live the bohemian lifestyle Cunningham did.

Cunningham was one of the most famous people to live in the Carnegie Hall Studios, residing there for over 50 years in a small room crammed with file cabinets overflowing with photographs, memorabilia and even diamonds. His famous neighbors included Leonard Bernstein, Norman Mailer and Marlon Brando who, we are told, hid out in Cunningham’s flat after female fans broke down his apartment door. Cunningham also rubbed elbows in the 1950’s with famous celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, who’d stop by his Chez Ninon office to try on the hats he designed, and Jacqueline Bouvier, who would later bring ladies’ hats back into style during her days as First Lady.

Though Cunningham comes off as a very nice guy whose thick Boston accent must have stood out like a sore thumb in Manhattan, there’s still some snootiness and shade bubbling underneath the surface, especially when he talks about fashion. It’s amusing coming from a guy whose wardrobe for decades consisted of thrift shop items or hand-me-downs from wealthy women whose husbands had bought the farm. “They were nice clothes!” Cunningham protests when Bozek presses him about this detail, but he then adds that he would have never been showcased in his own column.

Advertisement

Cunningham describes his picture-taking as “stealing the shadows” of his subjects. One such set of shadows leads to the film’s most poignant moment. Cunningham suddenly breaks down when talking about how he’d photographed Gay Pride parades since their inception in NYC, and how he’d lost many of the people he knew to AIDS. We later learn that the man who lived so frugally had also donated millions of dollars to AIDS charities. Cunningham worked practically until his death in 2016; not even being hit by a truck could keep him off his beat for long.

“The Times of Bill Cunningham” runs a scant 74 minutes, which seems a perfect amount of time for a man who was so humble that he didn’t even attend the premiere of a prior documentary about him made back in 2011. Instead, he stood outside the theater and took pictures.

While festival centerpiece “Roma” has deserving buzz as a shoo-in for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, let’s not forget the hauntingly romantic “Cold War,” the new film from “Ida” director, Pawel Pawlikowski. It’s Poland’s official Oscar submission and the winner of the Golden Lion at the Polish Film Festival and the Best Director award at Cannes. Aided by the transcendent black and white cinematography of Lukasz Zal, who also worked on “Ida,” Pawlikowski tells a love story that feels symbolic of Poland during the Cold War era of the film’s setting. Music plays a big part here, first as a symbol of national pride and then as a means of escape via that Western world music known as jazz.

Stuck—or should I say trapped—within this framework are Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (a fantastic Joanna Kulig). Wiktor first encounters Zula while auditioning folk singers with his musical partner and former lover Irena (Agata Kulesza). Zula seems the wrong match for the more straight-laced Wiktor—she’s a hustler who’s wise beyond her teenaged years and who has infamously stabbed her father. “He mistook me for my mother,” she tells Wiktor, “and I used my knife to show him the difference.” Wiktor falls for her anyway.

Advertisement

Many a love story has hinged upon people who are clearly mismatched but try like Hell to make it work. This duo drifts apart and comes together repeatedly, both behind and in front of the Iron Curtain, yet they’re as unlikely a pair as the film’s principal settings of rural Poland and Paris. Pawlikowski deftly uses his pacing and framing to keep our attention: Time passes in the blink of an eye, sometimes without prior warning. The timeline is as fractured and unpredictable as the lovers themselves, and the actors are often dwarfed on the screen by the cold, grey elements of nature that take up much of the screen. There’s a sense of impending doom, but “Cold War” doesn’t telegraph nor elicit our emotions. Its matter-of-factness is its greatest asset.

“Cold War”’s Kulig, “Roma”’s Yalitza Aparicio and “If Beale Street Could Talk”’s Kiki Layne form a trio of the best lead actress performances I’ve seen this year at NYFF. Their films are also the best ones I’ve seen here. “Beale Street” takes the top honor for me, however, for reasons I’ll explain later in my upcoming review. I’ll just say this for now: Barry Jenkins does Jimmy Baldwin proud and, like the directors of the other two films I mentioned, he gives his lead character free rein of the viewer’s gaze to great dramatic effect. Kulig, Layne and Aparicio each have moments when they pull us into their powerful orbits with just a look or a gesture. Add in “The Favourite,” “Ash is Purest White” and “3 Faces”  and It was a very good year for actresses.

I’ll close out on a few notes from the Revivals and Retrospectives sections of the festival. Following up on my last dispatch, I took in the screening of “Detour” and can confirm that it was indeed a splendid restoration. I noticed things I never saw before, including details in a shot I could never make out in prior versions. It’s getting a release from Janus Films at the end of November and is well worth the 68-minute investment of your time.

In the theater next to my “Detour” screening, NYFF was showing “My Dinner With Andre.” Our beloved Roger introduced me to that movie on Siskel & Ebert, and his love for it made me rent it when it came out on video. I was 12 or so, and I thought it was the most boring movie I’d ever seen. Good Lord, I hated this movie with the heat of a thousand suns. Now, I have no idea why this was being screened, but I considered it a sign! Maybe this was Roger telling me I should revisit the 1981 Louis Malle movie as an adult, because I have more wisdom and life experience now. Since I couldn’t be two places at the same time, I had to rent “My Dinner With Andre” on Amazon Prime rather than see it on the big screen.

And you know what? It was even worse than I remembered. It’s like being trapped in a college professor’s belly button for 2 hours, but there’s no lint in there to mercifully plug your ears to avoid having to listen to him. Forgive me, Roger! Actually, I think Roger’s laughing wherever he is, shaking his finger at me with mock shame as he often did. You got me, big guy.

See you all next year.

Advertisement

Previous Article: CIFF 2018: Transit, Non-Fiction

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

comments powered by

Source: https://bloghyped.com/nyff-2018-the-times-of-bill-cunningham-cold-war-detour/

[djgblogger-blog]

What 'Last Tango in Paris' teaches my students about sexual ethics

http://bit.ly/2ACC9kY

Director Bernardo Bertolucci, left, discusses a scene from "Last Tango in Paris" with leading actor Marlon Brando and actress Maria Schneider. AP Photo

Today’s news is awash with accounts of behind-the-scenes sexual assaults involving such prominent figures as producer Harvey Weinstein, director Brett Ratner and actor Kevin Spacey. In some cases, colleagues and friends of the accused have expressed disbelief, as in the cases of popular news personalities Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer.

In my teaching of ethics at Indiana University, my students and I devote a great deal of attention to classic works in philosophy, such as the ethical writings of Plato, Aristotle and Tolstoy. But far more recent events provide ample opportunity for ethical reflection and conversation.

One of the most notorious cases of sexual manipulation took place not off screen but right in front of the camera. Its stark visibility provides an opportunity to explore darker sides of human relationships that are usually hidden from view.

‘Last Tango in Paris’

The manipulation in question took place during the filming of one of the 1970s most widely discussed and debated films, “Last Tango in Paris.”

The 1972 film recounts the story of a middle-aged American hotelier whose wife has recently taken her own life. The man (portrayed by Marlon Brando) meets a young French woman (Maria Schneider), and the two begin a sexual relationship that he insists must remain anonymous.

One day, the young woman returns to the site of their encounters only to discover that he has packed his things and departed unannounced. Later he returns, tells that he loves her and asks her name. She pulls a gun from a drawer, tells him her name and then shoots him. As the film ends, she is planning her testimony as a victim of attempted rape by a stranger.

Bernardo Bertolucci. AP Photo.

The manipulation involved a simulated on-screen sexual encounter that proved all too real, in large part because Schneider was not informed about it in advance, and which she – as expected by Bertolucci and Brando – found unbearably degrading.

The film achieved notoriety in part because of its remarkably explicit portrayal of sex and sexual violence. Attempts were made in countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. to censor the film. Director Bernardo Bertolucci’s native Italy initiated criminal proceedings against him.

Not only was the film banned, but prints in Italy were seized, all copies were ordered destroyed and Bertolucci received a suspended prison sentence.

Manipulation

The relationship between actors Schneider and Brando was marked by a great imbalance of power. Schneider was 19 when the movie was filmed, while Brando was 48. He was an international star, while she was an unknown. Brando was paid US$3 million, but Schneider received $4,000.

Years after the film was released, Schneider revealed that she felt manipulated by Bertolucci. Reflecting on the experience in 2007, she told the London Daily Mail:

“Some mornings on set Bertolucci would say hello and on other days, he wouldn’t say anything at all. I was too young to know better. Marlon later said he [too] felt manipulated, and he was Marlon Brando, so you can imagine how I felt. People thought I was the girl in the movie, but that wasn’t me.”

In retrospect, she said, “I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set, because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that. Marlon said, ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but I was crying real tears.”

The aftermath

Life after the film was difficult for Schneider.

“I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol but I wanted to be recognized as an actress. The whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown.”

Though she starred in other films, including 1975’s “The Passenger” with Jack Nicholson, she struggled with depression and drug addiction and even attempted suicide on at least one occasion.

Throughout her subsequent career, Schneider served as an advocate for improving the experience of women in the film industry. She worked for an organization that aims to assist aging actors and directors who are down on their luck. After a career that included approximately 50 films, she died in 2011 at the age of 58.

Enduring ethical insights

Schneider’s story reveals several important lessons that deserve particular attention today, when so many reported cases of sexual manipulation occur behind the scenes.

There are important lessons in Maria Schneider’s story. AP Photo/files

First, although the world of screenplays, cameras and big screens may seem pure make-believe, the actors whose bodies and feelings are portrayed on film remain real. What transpires in front of the camera, as in the case of Schneider, can have enduring and sometimes devastating consequences.

Second, everyone – perhaps especially those involved in the production of news and entertainment – needs to be reminded to take personal responsibility for the protection of human dignity. The mere fact that some individuals happen to be famous, powerful or wealthy in no way absolves them of the responsibility to respect the humanity of others.

In fact, the sense of being above others is one of the most important risk factors for inhumane conduct in any sphere of life, which is why great writers since Homer have been highlighting the common humanity of people of all cultures and walks of life. Philosophers such as Plato recognized thousands of years ago how problematic it is to treat any person as a tool for another’s gratification.

As my students and I discover in our study of philosophers, the double life of Brando’s character – apparently shared by many of today’s accused abusers – is an intrinsically dangerous one, at least morally speaking. Integrity means more than observing a code of behavior. It means being the same person in all spheres of life, whether in front of the camera or behind it, in a room full of people or one-on-one.

The instant we begin to think that it is acceptable to treat people as objects – in any setting, ever – is the moment we begin to lose our moral bearings. An object is a thing, not a person, and treating someone as an object stunts the humanity of everyone involved.

Dangers of objectification

Schneider longed to revisit her decision to star in “Last Tango in Paris,” declaring that if she had the opportunity to do it over again, “I would have said no.”

Both Schneider’s experience as an actor in helping to create the film and the viewer’s experience of watching it provide powerful warnings against the dangers of objectification. Though each of us is biologically human, there is another dimension of our being that must be protected and enriched if we are to realize the full measure of our humanity.

Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

[cristinaramosdesk]

I wrote a review of Spanish artist duo Cabello/Carceler retrospective exhibition at CA2M for This is Tomorrow. You can read it here and here in an expanded version:

...

Cabello/Carceller: Draft for an Untitled Exhibition (Chapter II)  ///  Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid 20 January - 7 May 2017

A retrospective is defined as an exhibition that chronologically presents the works of an artist to show their artistic trajectory. Yet the title of Cabello/Carceller’s survey show, ‘Draft for an Untitled Exhibition (Chapter II)’, invites visitors to reject traditional notions of artistic practice and exhibition making straight from the beginning.

Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller, who began collaborating in 1992, present an artistic and critical approach to the discourse surrounding the representation of gender, sexuality, minorities and the role of institutions within the context of a late-capitalist society.

The exhibition rooms at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo juxtapose works – mostly video installations and photography – from different periods, to reinstate the temporal complexity of life experience beyond the idea of linear progress. In the first room, a time line of the artists’ career is spliced with socio-political facts related to the status of the queer body. The opening entry dates from 1586, ‘the Vicar of Madrid requests a genital examination of Eleno/Elena de Céspedes, hermaphrodite’, while a more recent statistic reminds visitors that homosexuality is still illegal in a third of countries. By integrating personal experience with political history, a different relationship between body and time is proposed.

Cabello/Carceller’s working methods include the use of fiction, the play of representation and the inclusion of untrained actors in their videos to dismantle stereotypes, uncovering divergences with conventional values and facilitating alternative narratives. ‘The State of the Art, a performative essay’, was both filmed and exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennial. A migrant woman encounters three other fictional characters in the halls of the pavilion, all of whom are auditioning for employment, a recurring experience for much of the Spanish population. The characters are of different social statuses but all of them engage in some form of sexual dissidence. The film, which borrows feminist, queer and Brechtian aesthetics from experimental cinema, asks how we can resist in a capitalist system that praises extreme competition and economic value.

Judith Butler’s argument that gender is performative provides an important framework for contextualising the artists’ work. The notion that a stable gender identity is an illusion can be seen in ‘Archive: Drag Models’, a series of photographs in which women present themselves as male characters from films – those played by the likes of Marlon Brando, Brad Pitt and James Dean. The photos – conceived by Cabello/Carceller in collaboration with their models – are displayed alongside the iconic film stills they reference, radicalising history by the means of fictional narrative while illustrating the codes of gender.

Cabello/Carceller’s narratives also question physical spaces marked for the creation of genre. For instance, ‘Some Place’ is a series of photographs depicting clubs once they have closed: emptied of people, action performed. I am writing these words back in London, in a cafe opposite the glowing neon of Dalston Superstore, a venue where LGBTQ party-goers and drag artists dance each weekend with no discrimination or judgement. I wonder if a future in which people are never defined by their gender or sexuality is possible, considering the weight of history we are carrying in our contemporary bones.

By performing subversive actions and troubling the categories of hegemonic systems, Cabello and Carceller offer hope that, one day, transformative politics would emerge.