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tcm · 5 years ago

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International Women’s Day: Actresses Who Became Activists By Raquel Stecher

International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on March 8th and recognized by the United Nations, raises awareness for women’s rights and celebrates the achievements of women across the globe. Utilizing their fame as a platform to do good, actresses from the golden age of Hollywood and beyond have supported a variety of philanthropic causes. Myrna Loy worked on behalf of UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Ida Lupino made NEVER FEAR (’50) to raise awareness about polio. Ruby Dee fought for civil rights. Rita Moreno continues to champion the Latinx community. Martha Raye entertained the troops during three separate wars. Debbie Reynolds was a mental health and AIDS advocate. Tippi Hedren empowered Vietnamese women to become business owners. And, Shirley Temple raised awareness about breast cancer. There are many, many examples of actresses devoting their time, energy and, in many cases, finances for humanitarian, environmental and political causes. Let’s take a look at some of the notable actresses who became activists.

Doris Day

In 1937, Doris Day’s coonhound Tiny was hit by a car and killed. The guilt Day felt for Tiny’s untimely demise would fuel her activism on behalf of animals. Day transitioned from acting in the 1970s to become an animal welfare advocate. She co-founded the non-profit organization Actors and Others for Animals in 1971. In 1978, she started the Doris Day Pet Foundation (later renamed the Doris Day Animal Foundation). This organization advocates for the humane treatment of animals. By the late 1980s, she would allow only a handful of interviews with the sole intention of publicizing her charitable efforts. She even called up President Ronald Reagan, her costar in THE WINNING TEAM (’52), to discuss animal rights legislation. In 1987, she started The Doris Day Animal League, which eventually merged with The Humane Society of the United Sates, and established World Spay Day. In 2011, she started the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center, and Day recorded the album “My Heart,” the proceeds of which went to her non-profit. Day was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2004 for her work.

Jane Fonda

Outspoken political activist Jane Fonda has championed many causes over the years. She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, which landed her in some hot water. In 1970, while Fonda was organizing and fundraising a protest with Vietnam War veterans, she was arrested for possession of drugs. The drugs were in fact vitamins and she was eventually cleared of all charges. In a moment of defiance, she held up a fist for her now iconic mugshot. Two years later, Fonda would travel to Vietnam and a photo of her sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi would stir up controversy. She was labeled “Hanoi Jane,” a moniker that is still negatively used against her to this day. While she regretted her actions, she did not let this prevent her from continuing her political activism. She’s been a champion for civil rights, feminist causes and has lent her support to Native Americans. In recent years, she’s taken on several environmental causes including protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and Arctic drilling. As of the publication of this article, Fonda has been arrested five times for her climate change demonstrations (Fire Drill Fridays) in Washington D.C.

Audrey Hepburn

During her childhood, Audrey Hepburn suffered the effects of living through WWII and the Dutch famine of 1944-1945, which would have long lasting effects on her health. In 1946, early ambassadors from the newly created organization UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) offered her assistance. She never forgot their kindness and her own personal experience led to her to become a champion for children in need. Hepburn began working with UNICEF in 1954 and started traveling on field missions in 1988. The following year she was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the organization. She traveled to Turkey, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and elsewhere, assisting with medical treatments, nutrition projects and working directly with children and their mothers. Her last trip was to Somalia in 1992, four months before she died. In 1993, she was posthumously awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award.

Helen Hayes

Actress Helen Hayes was best known for her theatrical productions, but when her severe asthma put an end to her stage career (the dust on stage proved to be too much), she transitioned to television and film. Hayes used her fame to help raise funds for asthma research. She also donated to the arts, including the Riverside Shakespeare company. She was on the board of her directors for the New York Chapter of the Girl Scouts in the 1970s. Besides being an EGOT (an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning performer), her greatest claim to fame should be her work with the New York State Rehabilitation and Research Hospital which helps rehabilitate patients with disabilities. Hayes first became involved with the hospital in the 1940s. Throughout the years, she donated, fundraised and hosted events at her mansion, the “Pretty Penny,” and offered support in any way she could. She lobbied for funding to renovate the hospital, a project that cost over $37 million dollars. She served as a member of the board from 1944 until her death in 1993. The hospital was renamed The Helen Hayes Hospital in 1974 and is still going strong today.

Lena Horne

Lena Horne’s activism began at a very young age. In 1919, at the age of two, she appeared on the cover of the NAACP journal The Crisis. Influenced by her grandmother Cora Calhoun Horne, a suffragist and activist who was a political ally of W.E.B. Du Bois, as well as her activist father, Horne championed civil rights before the movement ever began. She joined the NAACP while she was still a high school student. She also leant her support to the Urban League, the Progressive Citizens of America and the SNCC. During WWII, Horne supported the war effort by entertaining black troops. She filed a complaint through the NAACP when she saw that black service members had to sit behind German POWs during her performances at Fort Reilly. When MGM removed her from the tour, she self-financed her trips and continued her efforts. During WWII, she also spoke up on behalf of the mistreatment of Japanese Americans. Horne campaigned for anti-lynching legislation with Eleanor Roosevelt, although that ultimately failed. During the Civil Rights Movement, Horne performed at rallies and was in the March on Washington in 1963. In 1983, the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal for being an “artist humanitarian and living symbol of excellence. Her humanitarian efforts live on and the annual Lena Horne Prize, awarded by Town Hall, honors artists for their social impact.

Marsha Hunt

The name Marsha Hunt should become synonymous with activism. Hunt has been indefatigable in her humanitarian efforts. Influenced by her progressive mother, she became a liberated woman with strong political beliefs. Those beliefs would come under scrutiny during the McCarthy Era witch hunt. She joined the Committee for the First Amendment, a group of Hollywood actors and writers who supported the Hollywood Ten. She was ultimately blacklisted. Over the years, she became an advocate for UNICEF, The March of Dimes, The Red Cross and the United Nations. She was named an Ambassador for Peace in 2007. Hunt has championed many humanitarian causes including homelessness, mental health, world peace, the environment and the plight of refugees. She is a founder of the San Fernando Valley Mayor’s Fund for the Homeless. Hunt helped raise money to buy a motel that was renovated into a homeless shelter for women and children. She supported the shelter throughout the years by donating supplies and helping with the upkeep. Hunt has also been a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ community. Back in the 1970s, she wrote a song about same-sex relationships called “Here’s to All Love,” and it was performed by Glee star Bill A. Jones in 2013. A documentary about her life, career and humanitarian efforts MARSHA HUNT’S SWEET ADVERSITY was released in 2015.

Mary Pickford

Actress, producer, writer and business woman, Mary Pickford was an enterprising woman and instrumental in the formative years of the film industry. In 1921, she conceived of the idea for the Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization intended to help other members of the film industry who had fallen on hard times. She used the remaining funds from her work selling Liberty Bonds during WWI to help finance the project. Pickford became one of the founding members of what is now called the Motion Picture Television Fund. She also served as the organization’s first vice president. She oversaw various initiatives including the Playroll Pledge Program, which encouraged industry members to donate 0.5% of their paycheck to the fund. She helped raise money to buy walnut and orange groves in Woodland Hills, which would become the home for the fund and its hospital. Pickford was on the board for many years and attended every fundraising event she could. In addition to the MPTF, she established the Mary Pickford Foundation in the 1950s. The foundation focuses on preserving films in partnerships with film archives.

Rosalind Russell

Ever since Rosalind Russell portrayed Sister Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who took great strides to help children suffering from polio in the film SISTER KENNY (’46), Russell became a tireless advocate for various health causes. Russell, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, served on the National Commission on Arthritis and Related Musculoskeletal Diseases starting in the 1970s. The Rosalind Russell Medical Research Center for Arthritis University of California San Francisco was named in her honor. She was a founding member of the United Service Organizations (USO) and the League for Crippled Children. She was a chairman and advocate for The Lighthouse for the Blind, Catholic Charities of New York, The National Arthritis Foundation, Children Services of Connecticut and the MPTF. Russell lent her efforts to senior care centers and in assisting tornado victims. For her numerous philanthropic pursuits, she received a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1973.

Elizabeth Taylor

When her good friend and co-star in GIANT (’56), Rock Hudson, died from complications of AIDS, Elizabeth Taylor was devastated. Fueled by the tragedy, she became a tireless advocate for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. She helped raise awareness, fund research and combat ignorance in a time when AIDS was still highly misunderstood. She testified before the House and the Senate for the Ryan White Care Act and helped convince President Ronal Reagan to publicly acknowledge the disease. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center at the Whitman-Walker Clinic in D.C. which offered free HIV/AIDS testing. In 1985, she chaired the AIDS Project Los Angeles’ Commitment to Life fundraising project and co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, established in 1991, provides financial and moral support to patients suffering from AIDS. She shifted her focus from acting to her humanitarian efforts and raised millions of dollars for different foundations. After her death in 2011, her estate keeps funding her foundation. Taylor was awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1993.

#International Women's Day #IWD2020 #female activists #actress #classics movies #old hollywood #TCM #Turner classic movies #Elizabeth Taylor #Lena Horne #Marsha Hunt #Rosalind Russell #Audrey Hepburn #Doris Day

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meanstreetspodcasts · 3 years ago

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Episode 275 - Marsha Hunt

Marsha Hunt began her career in Hollywood in the 1930s, but she was blacklisted after she took a stand against McCarthyism and the Communist witch hunt in Hollywood. Though she continued to act in films and television, she rededicated her life to philanthropy and activisim, and she's still with us today. We'll hear her as a long-suffering niece who sees an opportunity to get rid of an abusive (and wealthy) aunt in "Pink Camellias" (originally aired on CBS on December 27, 1945). Then, she's a woman with no shortage of lovers, a husband she doesn't love, and a murder plan in "Self Defense" (originally aired on CBS on October 16, 1947).

Check out this episode!

#suspense #old time radio #golden age of radio

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years ago

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WILDCAT

December 17, 1960

Wildcat is a musical comedy about Wildcat Jackson and her sister who come to oil country in 1912 to strike it rich. She runs into the prowess of Joe Dynamite, and a battle of the sexes and the oil tycoons ensues.

Wildcat wasn’t written with the 48 year-old queen of comedy in mind so when she showed interest, the script by N. Richard Nash had to be radically re-written.

At the start of the 1960’s Ball’s career was taking a new direction. She was leaving her TV personae Lucy Ricardo (as well as her real-life husband Desi Arnaz) behind for newer horizons. It was their company Desilu that would produce Wildcat with Lucy having say over who would be cast as her co-star. After several of her first choices proved not available (including Clint Eastwood), she settled on Keith Andes.

Although Ball was not known for her singing (a fact she traded on in “I Love Lucy”) or her dancing (which she was far better at), she had the determination of Wildcat Jackson to attempt it eight times a week.

Director and choreographer Michael Kidd – known for his athletic dances – would put Ball through her paces. The score was by Cy Coleman with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, giving Ball the rousing anthem “Hey, Look Me Over!” and the tuneful “What Takes My Fancy.”

The out-of-town critics were mixed, but obviously adored the red-headed star. The show was headed up the New Jersey Turnpike in trucks headed for Broadway when a serious blizzard stranded the caravan, causing the opening night to be delayed.

With just two previews under their belt, the show opened at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon) on December 17, 1960. Box office sales were buoyed by audiences expecting to see Lucy Ricardo, not Lucille Ball as Wildy Jackson, so eventually Ball interpolated more and more of her trademark comic inflections into her character.

Then Ball took ill. She left the show for a bit with the idea to return and continue the run. But upon her return she collapsed on stage. Producers decided to close the show for as long as it took her to recover and resume when her strength and health had returned. But the musicians union insisted upon payment during the hiatus, which made the wait financially unfeasible.

All in all, Wildcat lasted 171 performances. It wasn’t Ball’s only musical, however. In 1974 she took on the title role in the film of Mame with mixed to poor critical reactions.

"Then I go to New York with the two children, my mother and two maids. We have a seven-room apartment on 69th Street at Lexington. I’ll start rehearsals right away for a Broadway show, 'Wildcat.’ It’s a comedy with music, not a musical comedy, but the music is important. I play a girl wildcatter in the Southwestern oil fields around the turn of the century. It was written by N. Richard Nash, who wrote 'The Rainmaker.’ He is co-producer with Michael Kidd, the director. We’re still looking for a leading man. I want an unknown. He has to be big, husky, around 40. He has to be able to throw me around, and I’m a pretty big girl. He has to be able to sing, at least a little. I have to sing, too. It’s pretty bad. When I practice, I hold my hands over my ears. We open out of town - I don’t know where - and come to New York in December.” ~ Lucille Ball, TV Guide, July 16, 1960

THE SCORE

Lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and Music by Cy Coleman

Act I

I Hear - Townspeople

Hey, Look Me Over - Wildy and Jane

Wildcat* - Wildy and Townspeople

You've Come Home - Joe

That's What I Want for Janie* - Wildy

What Takes My Fancy - Wildy and Sookie

You're a Liar - Wildy and Joe

One Day We Dance - Hank and Jane

Give a Little Whistle and I'll Be There - Wildy, Joe, The Crew

Tall Hope - Tattoo, Oney, Sadie, Matt and Crew

Act II

Tippy Tippy Toes - Wildy and Countess

El Sombrero

Corduroy Road

You've Come Home (Reprise) - Joe

(*) Songs cut sometime after opening night.

THE CAST

Lucille Ball (Wildcat Jackson) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon, which was not a success and was canceled after just 13 episodes.

Keith Andes (Joe Dynamite) was born John Charles Andes in Ocean City, New Jersey, in 1920. Andes played Lucy Carmichael’s boyfriend Bill King on “The Lucy Show” in “Lucy Goes Duck Hunting” (TLS S2;E6) and “Lucy and the Winter Sports” (TLS S3;E3) and played Brad Collins in “Lucy and Joan” (S4;E4) co-starring Joan Blondell. Andes took his own life in 2005 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Valerie Harper (Dancer, right) became one of television’s most recognizable stars as “Rhoda” (1974-78) a spin-off of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” She appeared in at “Kennedy Center Presents” honoring Lucy in 1986. She died in August 2019 after a long battle with brain cancer.

Paula Stewart (Janie) appears in the fourth of her six Broadway musicals between 1951 and 1965. Her only series television appearance opposite Lucille Ball was in “Lucy and Harry’s Tonsils” (HL S2;E5) in 1969. In 2017, she published a memoir titled Lucy Loved Me, about her friendship with Lucille Ball.

Hal Linden (Matt, replacement) became one of television’s most recognizable stars as “Barney Miller” (1974-82). He appeared at an “All-Star Party for Lucille Ball” in 1984 and at “Kennedy Center Presents” honoring Lucy in 1986.

Howard Fischer (Sheriff Sam Gore)

Ken Ayers (Barney)

Anthony Saverino (Luke)

Edith King (Countess Emily O'Brien)

Clifford David (Hank)

HF Green (Miguel)

Don Tomkins (Sookie)

Charles Braswell (Matt)

Bill Linton (Corky)

Swen Swenson (Oney)

Ray Mason (Sandy)

Bill Walker (Tattoo)

Al Lanti (Cisco)

Bill Richards (Postman)

Marsha Wagner (Inez)

Wendy Nickerson (Blonde)

Betty Jane Watson (Wildy Understudy)

Dancers: Barbara Beck, Robert Bakanic, Mel Davidson, Penny Ann Green, Lucia Lambert, Ronald Lee, Jacqueline Maria, Frank Pietrie, Adriane Rogers, John Sharpe, Gerald Tiejelo

Singers: Lee Green, Jan Leighton, Urylee Leonardos, Virginia Oswald, Jeanne Steele, Gene Varrone

MRS. MORTON

Lucy met Gary Morton while doing Wildcat on Broadway. She put off their first date due to her rigorous performance schedule. Eventually, he showed up with a pizza just when Lucy was craving one. They married on November 19, 1961.

Comic Jack Carter served as best man at Lucy and Gary’s wedding in 1961. A few weeks later he married Paula Stewart, who played Lucy’s sister Janie in Wildcat. He acted in “Lucy Sues Mooney” (TLS S6;E12).

“HEY LOOK ME OVER!”

On June 4, 1976 Lucille is joined by Valerie Harper and Dinah Shore on “Dinah!” to sing her signature song from Wildcat, “Hey, Look Me Over.”

When Lucille Ball was celebrated at “The Kennedy Center Honors” in December 1986, Valerie Harper, Beatrice Arthur, and Pam Dawber sang a song parody of the “I Love Lucy” theme expressing their affection for Lucy. The medley ends with a specially-tailored “Hey Look Me Over��.

In “Lucy and Carol Burnett: Part 2″ (TLS S6;E15) on December 11, 1967, Lucy, Carol, and the ensemble perform “Hey, Look Me Over” with specially written lyrics to suit the episode’s theme of air travel.

In “Lucy Meets Danny Kaye” (TLS S3;E15) on December 28, 1964, the opening of “The Danny Kaye Show” is underscored with the music to “Hey, Look Me Over.”

While David Frost is trying to sleep during a transatlantic flight, Lucy wears her headset and hums along to “Hey Look Me Over” while tapping it out on the glasses with her cutlery. The scene is from “Lucy Helps David Frost Go Night-Night” (HL S4;E12) aired on November 12, 1971.

In “Lucy and Petula Clark” (HL S5;E8) in 1972, Lucy Carter leaves the office singing “Hey Look Me Over.”

On “Life With Lucy,” Lucy’s grandson Kevin plays on the YMCA soccer team The Wildcats. The name of the team is probably a reference to Lucille Ball’s only Broadway show.

In the second scene of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (1986), an un-aired episode of “Life With Lucy”, Lucy comes down the stairs of the living room singing “Hey Look Me Over.”

WILDCAT WILDCARDS

In April 1961, Lucille Ball played softball in Central Park for the Broadway Show League when she was appearing in Wildcat. Julie Andrews (starring in Camelot) was the catcher! The catcher was Joe E. Brown.

In the play Love! Valour! Compassion! Buzz, a gay musical theater aficionado (Nathan Lane on Broadway) breaks the fourth wall (a common conceit of the play) to tell the audience something personal about himself.

The song title was also the title of a 2018 revue about rarely produced musicals at City Center in New York City. Performer Carolee Carmello called it her “hair homage to Lucille Ball.”

~ From the memoir Under the Radar by Clifford David, who played Hal in Wildcat

#Wildcat #Lucille Ball #Lucy #Broadway #Musical #Keith Andes #Gary Morton #Paula Stewart #Valerie Harper #Clifford David #Cy Coleman #Hey Look Me Over #Alvin Theatre #Hal Linden #Richard Nash #Life With Lucy #Here's Lucy #The Lucy Show #TV

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stubobnumbers · 2 years ago

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Turner Classic Movies - October 12-14th, 2022.

Turner Classic Movies October 12th-14th.

Wednesday October 12th (starting at 9:30 AM ET): Jeopardy (1953). Detour (1945) - This is a quality film-noir. Our Old Car (1946). The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) - I enjoy this film. Bette Davis for the win. The Long, Long Trailer (1954). Gadgets Galore (1955). Slither (1973). Corvette Summer (1978). Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). Bedazzled (1967).

Thursday October 13th: Angel On My Shoulder (1946). Cabin In The Sky (1943). The Horn Blows At Midnight (1945). Du Barry Was A Lady (1943). Roberta (1935). Silk Stockings (1957). The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Lili (1953). Gigi (1958).

High Noon On The Waterfront (2022 Documentary) Synopsis - An inventive remembrance of the impact of the Hollywood Blacklist on two American classics, rendered as a visually mesmerizing dialogue between Carl Foreman (voiced by Edward Norton) and Elia Kazan (voiced by John Turturro). The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.

High Noon (1952). The documentary again.

On The Waterfront (1954).

Friday October 14th: That documentary for a third time.

Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity (2015) Synopsis - After Marsha Hunt's successful acting career was destroyed when she was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, she became an agent of change for good all over the world.

Carnegie Hall (1947).

Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1960).

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950). The Corn Is Green (1945). Gun Crazy (1950). Strangers On A Train (1951) - Quality Hitchcock film. Side Street (1950). Behave Yourself! (1951). Small Town Girl (1953). Network (1976). Rebel Without A Cause (1955).

#movies

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outoftowninac · 3 years ago

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CIRCLE THEATRE

1951

By the 1950s, Atlantic City’s heyday of being an incubator for plays headed to the Rialto was all but a distant memory. Most of the City’s once-thriving theatres had been relegated to cinema, closed, or bulldozed. But being “The World’s Playground” the City still supported spurts of live theatre.

In 1951, for one season only (9 weeks), The Circle Theatre was located in Atlantic City’s Hotel Chelsea.

The Hotel Chelsea was not the first hotel in Atlantic City to bear the name, nor would it be the last. It sat adjacent to the Ambassador Hotel, property now occupied by the Tropicana Casino Resort. Performances were held in Westminster Hall, originally a convention space that also hosted concerts and other public events. Seating for 2,000 was reduced to 680 when the space was arranged for the arena theatre. The Circle’s producer was Fran Oliver.

Their first offering was Candlelight, a comedy by P.G. Wodehouse, adapted from a German play. It was originally seen on Broadway in 1929 starring Gertrude Lawrence, Leslie Howard, and Reginald Owen. Jean Parker was primarily known as a film star, but by 1951 had two short-lived Broadway shows to her credit. In 1951, her career in a slump, she married and got pregnant with her only child.

Lurking in the ensemble of Candlelight playing the Baroness was a young off-Broadway performer, another newlywed named Mrs. Gene Saks, aka Beatrice Arthur. She would stay with the Circle for most of the season, escaping the heat of Manhattan for the summer of 1951.

Following up, Circle presented For Love Or Money by F. Hugh Herbert starring English actor John Loder, recreating the role he played when the play opened on Broadway in 1947. Although it was his only Broadway credit, it played 263 performances. Loder’s co-star on Broadway was June Lockhart, who also received the very first Tony Award for Outstanding Performance by a Newcomer. His co-star in Atlantic City was Stanja Lowe. Her new husband John Marley was performing on Broadway at the time, but her own Broadway debut wouldn’t come until 1987 in Coastal Disturbances, a play ironically set on the beach. Future “Maude” Beatrice Arthur played Nita.

Ann Corio starred in Personal Appearance. Former burlesque queen turned legit Corio also did the play in July at the Cleveland Ring Theatre, which was also a theatre-in-the-round housed by a hotel, The Hotel Allerton. The play by Lawrence Riley had been a 500-performance hit on Broadway in 1934 and also was a popular vehicle for touring and regional sit-downs. Acting with Corio was future “Golden Girl” Bea Arthur as Jessie.

Janis Paige was to be next up in Lady in the Dark, but for reasons unknown, she pulled out at the last minute. A repeat of Lady at Westchester (NY) Playhouse in August was also scuttled. Likely this was in prep for Paige’s Broadway debut in Remains to Be Seen at the Morosco. She followed-up with The Pajama Game and the rest is history. Whether Dark was replaced or the Circle went dark is unknown.

Sylvia Sidney was in Goodbye My Fancy, a play she had been doing for New York State’s Famous Artists Country Theatre. The play is a three-act comedy by Fay Kanin that scored nearly a year on the Rialto in 1948 starring Shirley Booth.

In between New York and New Jersey, Sidney flew to California to divorce her husband. Just a typical day in the life of a celebrity.

Marsha Hunt was originally announced in Woman with the Red Hair.

“People were not denied work on the Broadway stage. Movies, radio and television were overcome, but the theatre was not. When I was unable to work in any of the blacklist media, I could always do a play in stock, around the country.” ~ Marsha Hunt, on being blacklisted by the HUUAC

Although this title was announced, there is no record of it as a playscript, nor any evidence that Hunt came to Atlantic City. Instead, more woes for Oliver...

The August 11, 1951 issue of Billboard reported that attempts to rejuvenate the theatre scene in Atlantic City were not going well. Week seven (August 13-18) was supposed to present Liza Kirk in Animal Kingdom.

Instead, Voice of the Turtle was announced, a tried-and-true chestnut on the tour / regional / community boards. Earlier in 1951, Vivian Vance was on tour with Turtle, when she was spotted by Desi Arnaz and signed up to play TV foil to Lucille Ball. Ball’s 1974 co-star in the film Mame was Bea Arthur, who also appeared in this sand Turtle as Olive, same as Vance.

Changing cabins on the Titanic, Circle shuffled dates and productions frantically, often confusing both the newspapers and theatre-goers. While Voice of the Turtle may not have been the very next offering, a circular Streetcar definitely arrived at Chelsea and Boardwalk at some point.

Speaking blacklisted actors, Will Lee (nee William Lubovsky) directed what was said to be the first production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the round.

Lee (later known on “Sesame Street” as Mr. Hooper) later mentioned this credit proudly when he testified in 1956 before the HUUAC. Osna Palmer played Stanley. The production moved on to a week in adjacent Cape May.

A flurry of summer stage productions of Streetcar immediately preceded the film version, which hit the Boardwalk on July 31, 1951, at the Warner.

Billboard’s mention of “Yox” was a reference to the smash hit musical revue Bagels and Yox, then doing a brisk business on the Boardwalk at the Million Dollar Pier Theatre. The show camped out pier-side till Labor Day, even adding a Saturday night midnight show to appease thirsty ticket buyers. Free bagels and salt water taffy sweetened the deal. The smell of fresh-made bagels and the continual echo of yox must have irked struggling Circle Company, just a short jaunt down the Boardwalk.

Shuffling the plays and the players of her failing season, Oliver offered Born Yesterday starring Treva Frazee. The play was nothing short of a Broadway blockbuster, finally clocking out with more than 1600 performances on the Main Stem and a well-received film version released in 1950. Frazee’s Broadway credit was five days in the 1949 flop Sundown Beach starring Julie Harris, Martin Balsam, Cloris Leachman, Phyllis Thaxter, and Joan Copeland in her Broadway debut. Frazee (1923-2017) was best known for her TV work.

Clutterbuck had just closed on Broadway on June 30 when Arthur Treacher opted to tour the show at several T.I.T.R. (theatres in the round), including Circle in Atlantic City. Treacher told the press he wanted to play the role on Broadway (it was taken by Charles Campbell) but had contractual obligations to Caesar and Cleopatra.

FULL CIRCLE ~

In the next decade, the Hotel Chelsea that housed Circle Theatre for that brief summer of 1951, went through many iterations. Eventually, the property was subsumed by its neighbor, the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, which re-named it the Chelsea Tower at Tropicana. The Tropicana has a showroom that has occasionally presented live musical theatre; Can-Can in 1983, and, more recently, Little Shop of Horrors in 2005.

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news4me · 5 years ago

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How Marsha Hunt fought Hollywood blacklisting

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It’s 70 years since Red Channels was published in the USA – a directory of writers, actors and producers alleged to be communists or communist sympathisers. The red scare ended many careers. Now 102, actress Marsha Hunt is almost the last person still alive named in the book.

Marsha Hunt never wanted to do anything except act. Born in 1917, she grew up in New York City…

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#blacklisting #fought #hollywood #hunt #Marsha

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salam2050 · 5 years ago

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How Marsha Hunt fought Hollywood blacklisting

Marsha Hunt never wanted to do anything except act. Born in 1917, she grew up in New York City and…

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sbrown82 · 2 years ago

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I’m reading PP Arnold’s book and I hate how she was treated in England. The only person who wasn’t as bad was Jimi compared to the others. I hated that she dated Mick, he was an asshole and Marianne was uncalled for. She was disgusting to Pat for no reason. I know she was mad about Pat & Mick messing around but she was too, she wasn’t even in love with Mick to act the way she did towards Pat. Comparing her childhood as a Baroness daughter to Pat’s rough childhood was disgusting. Marianne was just awful and people love taking up for her, she even said she didn’t care that Brian was beating Anita in her book, also said rude things about Chrissie while she was in the hospital for almost overdosing. But karma came to bite her back when her mother and her mother in law (micks mom) was ashamed to be seen with her and Mick ruined her career. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Marianne was a sick minded individual, even made fun of lesbians when she was clearly having sex with women to get Mick’s attention. Also she talked about how she met Claudia and Marsha, they both were claiming to be the inspiration behind Brown Sugar, which I would’ve been embarrassed to even know this guy if he made such a degrading song about black pussy.

Oh, P.P. was treated horribly. Mick is mean and emotionally abusive. Also funny how he likes to cheat on his girlfriends with Black women. But Marianne Faithfull was a low-key (but high-key) chicken head. In her book, she even made it seem like she didn’t know who P.P. was and even referred to her as “The Ikette” like bitch, weren’t you going down on her just so Mick could watch? It’s giving “Pick Me” behavior.

And "Brown Sugar" is absolutely inspired by Marsha Hunt. I'll get into the details of it later, but here's what she said about it a while ago:

#p.p. arnold #marsha hunt #marianne faithfull #mick jagger #the rolling stones #brown sugar #1960s #rock & roll #old school tea #anon #sbrown82

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littlequeenies · 3 years ago

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New page!

Hi everybody, We've created a new page for Marsha Hunt's acting career, enjoy it!! :D

#updates #new page #Marsha Hunt #actress #stage actress #Marsha Hunt acting career #acting career #HAIR #Catch my Soul #Dracula AD 1972 #The Howling II #Hammer Horror Films #The Sender #Brittania Hospital

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giststand · 5 years ago

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Marsha Hunt dwell Hollywood blacklisting

It’s 70 years since Red Channels was published in the USA – a directory of writers, actors and producers alleged to be communists or communist sympathizers. The red scare ended many careers. Now 102, actress Marsha Hunt is almost the last person still alive named in the book.

Marsha Hunt never wanted to do anything except act. Born in 1917, she grew up in New York City and remembers going to…

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#Marsha Hunt dwell Hollywood #Marsha Hunt dwell Hollywood blacklisting

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tcm · 4 years ago

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Celebrating the Charismatic Ann Rutherford By Kim Luperi

“I’m out in the fresh air, I’m my own boss, and at least there’s a thick pane of glass between me and the drunks.” – Patty (Ann Rutherford) in TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE (’45).

I’ve been an Ann Rutherford fan for as long as I’ve loved classic films. I credit most of the cast of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (’40) for hooking me on the Golden Age of Hollywood, and Rutherford, who plays the youngest Bennet daughter Lydia, made the most of her small role. It’s the persona she radiated in this movie – the dynamic, merry, headstrong young woman – that I’ve come to associate her with. Today, TCM celebrates the star’s birthday, and I perked up because at first I thought 2020 was her centennial… until I remembered that MGM shaved three years off Rutherford’s age, as they did with many actresses.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I ended up spending a lot of time in two places closely associated with Rutherford: I landed a job five minutes from the home she resided in for almost 70 years until her passing in 2012, and I live mere blocks from where she went to high school. Though I’ve always felt some sort of connection through that physical proximity, I still knew little about the actress. That changed after reading Phillip Done’s book The Charms of Miss O’Hara: Tales of Gone With the Wind & the Golden Age of Hollywood from Scarlett’s Little Sister. Done shared stories the star regaled him with during their friendship, presenting me with reams of new knowledge and a new regard for Rutherford as a person.

One of my favorite tales came from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE co-star Marsha Hunt. One day, Rutherford showed up on Hunt’s doorstep bearing a brand-new evening gown. Rutherford explained that she just bought the beautiful dress but didn’t find it “becoming” on her. “When I look at it, it makes me think of you,” Rutherford told Hunt, handing over the dress. That’s just one of many stories – in Rutherford’s own words and anecdotes from friends and family – in which she comes across as a generous, thoughtful woman with a positive attitude and warm, vibrant spirit.

She was a wonderful woman, but she sure lied a lot! “My motto was: Fake it till you make it,” she explained to Done. Well, that adage certainly worked throughout her career. Rutherford fibbed about her acting experience to secure her first radio gig at 15 and then pretended to be her sister Judith, a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1934, to land her first film role in STUDENT TOUR (’34). At 17, Rutherford’s mother allowed her to say she was one year older so she could legally sign a contract with Mascot Pictures/Republic, only to bring her to court to nullify it a year later when she thought her daughter was working too hard! (Ironically, when Rutherford signed with MGM the following year, 1937, they made her younger.) Rutherford left MGM in 1942, but she continued making movies throughout the 1940s until she transitioned to television in the 1950s.

Comedy, drama, Western, noir – Rutherford exemplified a willingness to try almost anything in more than 60 films. The iconic GONE WITH THE WIND (’39), in which Rutherford was honored to play Scarlett’s sister Carreen, will forever be the picture she’s best known for. Her tenure as Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney)’s All-American sweetheart Polly Benedict in 12 Hardy films from 1937-1942 also remains memorable to fans.

While I enjoy the actress’ humor and pep in comedies like THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (’47) and the Whistling series with Red Skelton, one of my favorite Rutherford pictures is TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE. Rutherford enjoyed working in film noir, “where men wear hats and start drinking at ten o’clock in the morning,” she told Done. (This B-movie, the first film Anthony Mann directed for RKO, doesn’t even make it to 10am.) Co-star Tom Conway led the studio’s Falcon series, and tonally, TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE reminds me of those pictures – it’s another light mystery led by a suave main character. In the movie, Rutherford plays Patty, a cab driver who encounters an injured amnesiac man (Conway) who may or may not be involved in a murder.

Over the course of one night, they piece together his identity to exonerate him. With a runtime of 68 minutes and a lot of ground to cover (complete with a twist ending!), the story gets convoluted at times, but Rutherford’s snappy, spirited performance always brings a smile to my face. Independent, kindhearted and open to any adventure, Patty is someone I admire, and she seemingly shared those characteristics with Rutherford, too. That’s why I adore TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE and recommend it as an excellent way to celebrate Rutherford on what would be her 103rd – or 100th, if MGM records had anything to do with it – birthday.

#Ann Rutherford #classic hollywood #old hollywood #Andy Hardy #Golden Age #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Gone with the Wind #Kim Luperi

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Republicans ready to look past Trump’s brash intervention in Roger Stone case

By Mike DeBonis | Published February 12 at 6:23 PM EST | Washington Post |

Posted February 12, 2020 |

Congressional Republicans showed little sign Wednesday that they would move to check President Trump’s brash public intervention in the federal prosecution of a former campaign confidant, leaving Democrats largely alone to fume about the evaporation of another norm of American governance.

Trump this week publicly decried a Justice Department sentencing recommendation for political operative Roger Stone, then congratulated Attorney General William P. Barr in an early-morning tweet Wednesday for “taking charge” and overruling it — creating at least the appearance that the long-standing taboo against overt political influence on prosecutorial matters had been obliterated.

But what ensued on Capitol Hill on Wednesday appeared to be less of a break-the-glass moment of crisis and more of a recurring episode in a three-year-old soap opera: While Democrats were aghast, members of the president’s party either expressed mild dismay or excused Trump’s tampering entirely.

“It doesn’t bother me at all, as long as the judge has the final decision,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who sharply criticized the administration of President Barack Obama for alleged politicization of the Justice Department.

He added about the president’s tweet: “I think a president’s got freedom of speech just like everybody else has.”

Democrats cast the lack of pushback as further evidence that Trump feels emboldened, unchecked and unleashed after his Senate acquittal on two impeachment charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — at his trial, which ended last week.

Besides the president’s public statements on the Stone case, Democrats pointed to his dismissal of subordinates who testified in the House impeachment probe and his decision to withdraw one executive nomination this week — that of a former U.S. attorney who had overseen the Stone case at an earlier stage — and the possible abandonment of a Defense Department nominee who had questioned a White House hold on military aid to Ukraine.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) seized on the demise of the nomination of Jessie K. Liu to serve as undersecretary of the Treasury Department for terrorism and financial crimes as proof that Trump is “on a retribution tour.”

“I mean, it’s just one thing after another,” said Brown, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, where Liu was set to testify Thursday at her confirmation hearing. “The president clearly feels he’s unleashed. And [Republicans] all said he learned his lesson — the lesson he learned is he can get away with whatever he wants.”

Asked what lessons he learned from impeachment, Trump said Wednesday, “That the Democrats are crooked. They got a lot of crooked things going. That they’re vicious.”

Tempering the Democratic outrage has been the reality of their tenuous political position: In the Senate minority, they have no direct power to call hearings or force action by the Republican majority. The Democratic House majority, meanwhile, has been chastened by the failed impeachment effort and a desire among party leaders to turn a page from Trump investigations and toward an economic policy message as Election Day draws closer.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that Barr would make his first appearance as Trump’s attorney general before the panel on March 31. Nadler told Barr in a letter that the recent tumult has raised “grave questions about your leadership of the Department of Justice.”

Nadler indicated that the panel would inquire about the handling of the Stone case and other prosecutions related to Trump, as well as Barr’s decision to evaluate material that Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about former vice president Joe Biden and his family.

The seven-week delay in getting answers vexed many Democrats, who cast Trump’s intervention in Stone’s sentencing as a matter of grave constitutional concern.

“Seven weeks would not be an inordinate delay in normal times,” said Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), a Judiciary Committee member. “This is Trump time we’re dealing with, and so that is multiple felonies and high crimes and misdemeanors from now.”

Nadler declined to comment about the timing of the hearing.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday chose stronger words, calling the overt intervention in the Stone case “one of the most horrible things President Trump has done” and “Third World behavior, not American behavior.”

The decision to overrule the initial sentencing recommendation prompted four career prosecutors to withdraw from the case Tuesday.

Schumer’s call for emergency oversight hearings putting Barr and other Justice Department officials under oath was quickly dismissed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who said Wednesday that after a conversation with Barr, he was “very confident” that the department has acted properly. Graham also gently rapped Trump for speaking publicly about the case.

“These people were way out of bounds in my view,” he said of the front-line prosecutors, who recommended a sentence as long as nine years for Stone after his conviction for lying to Congress and tampering with a witness. “You’re not gonna go to seven to nine years on a 70-year-old guy when the alleged victim said they didn’t feel threatened. That’s just revenge. That’s sour grapes. But having said that, the president shouldn’t have said anything.”

The GOP reaction this week was markedly different from when, in 2016, then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch met privately with former president Bill Clinton on a plane at the Phoenix airport while federal investigators moved to close the case on Hillary Clinton as she moved toward the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) at the time called for a special prosecutor to take over the Clinton case. On Wednesday, he fully defended the decision to overrule the front-line prosecutors’ sentencing decision.

“I think the world is sort of turned on its head where subordinates somehow dictate policy,” he said. “In this case, the judge is going to make the decision, not anybody else.”

Asked about Trump’s tweets and the Clinton-Lynch uproar, he said, “The president has First Amendment rights, too.”

Top Republican leaders offered little pushback. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment on the Stone case at his weekly media availability Tuesday, while Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) offered only faint criticism Wednesday: “I’m not a lawyer, but strikes me at least that you want to let the legal process move forward the way it’s intended to.”

Other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were similarly reluctant to comment Wednesday on a matter squarely inside the panel’s oversight portfolio.

“I want to get the information on it before I give you a comment,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

“I don’t know the facts of the case; I haven’t been following it,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).

“I think the tweet was problematic and gave the appearance that the president was more involved than he actually was,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.).

Meanwhile, the Republican senators who have been more willing to criticize Trump did not go much further.

“I don’t think the president should be determining what the sentences are,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), while Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Trump “should not have gotten involved,” and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, “Politics should not play a part in law enforcement,” without directly criticizing the president.

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Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

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TRUMP TAKES ON JUDGE AMY BERMAN JACKSON AHEAD OF ROGER STONE’S SENTENCING

By Ann E. Marimow | Published Feb 12 at 6:22 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 12, 2020 |

First he went after the prosecutors who recommended a multiyear sentence for his friend Roger Stone. Then President Trump turned his Twitter ire to the “witch hunt disgrace” of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, which led to Stone’s indictment. But perhaps most surprising was Trump’s decision to target U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — who will determine Stone’s fate when he appears in her courtroom next Thursday.

It was not the first time Trump had gone after a federal judge or questioned the judiciary, but Tuesday’s attack was nevertheless vexing to current and former judges as Jackson prepares to decide whether to send the president’s friend to prison — and for how long.

“The timing is outrageous, and the notion that you’re attempting to influence a judge,” retired federal judge Nancy Gertner said.

“He’s trying to delegitimize anyone appointed by someone other than him and say that the only people who can be trusted are Trump judges,” she said.

The targeting of Jackson, who has presided over a set of cases involving Trump associates in the past year, is the latest in a drumbeat of disparagement from the president when he disagrees with rulings. After Trump criticized a district court judge who ruled against the administration in 2018, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took the rare step of responding and countering the president’s characterization of the judge as an “Obama judge.” Roberts, a nominee of President George W. Bush’s, has himself been the target of the president’s ire. Trump labeled him an “absolute disaster” for his vote in 2012 to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

Other presidents have expressed dismay at court decisions, as President Obama did during his 2010 State of the Union address after the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC opened the door for corporations and unions to spend freely in elections. But Trump’s criticism comes as Stone’s sentencing is pending and the president is being lobbied to pardon his friend. Michael Caputo, a former campaign adviser to Trump, on Wednesday announced a committee to raise money for Stone’s appeal alongside a petition drive for him to be pardoned.

“Roger Stone stood up for Donald Trump. Now America should stand up for Roger Stone. Please take just a few seconds to help by signing the petition to pardon Roger Stone!” says the committee’s website.

When asked Wednesday by reporters whether he was considering a pardon for Stone, Trump said, “I don’t want to say that yet.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[Who is Judge Amy Berman Jackson? ]

Stone’s sentencing by Jackson is scheduled for Feb. 20. A jury convicted Stone in November on charges of witness tampering and lying to Congress about his efforts to gather damaging information about Trump’s 2016 presidential election opponent Hillary Clinton. Stone’s defense has asked for a sentence of probation, citing his age, 67, and lack of criminal history.

On Tuesday, Trump criticized as unduly harsh the initial sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years made by front-line prosecutors. Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department signaled that it would seek a more lenient sentence for Stone, a move that prompted all four career prosecutors to withdraw from the case — and one to resign from the government.

Hours later, Trump targeted Jackson for her treatment of another ally of his, Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, and suggested that the judge had been soft on Hillary Clinton.

“Is this the judge that put Paul Manfort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!” the president wrote, sharing a tweet that named Jackson as the judge who sentenced Manafort.

Just one day before Trump voiced his displeasure with Jackson, the judge issued a ruling favorable to the administration. She threw out a lawsuit filed by historians and watchdog groups seeking to compel the White House to preserve records of the president’s calls and meetings with foreign leaders.

Jackson, 65, has played a central role in cases involving Trump associates and Mueller’s Russia investigation. She sentenced Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, in December. She presided over the trial of Gregory B. Craig, a Democratic former White House counsel who was charged in a spinoff from the Mueller probe and was acquitted in September.

Before adding 3½ years to the almost four years Manafort received after his trial in Alexandria, Jackson said, “This defendant is not public enemy number one, but he’s also not a victim either. There’s no question this defendant knew better, and he knew exactly what he was doing.”

She did not as a judge, however, have any authority over the conditions of Manafort’s confinement, as the president suggested in his tweet.

Jackson, a 2011 nominee of Obama’s, was born in Baltimore, the daughter of a U.S. Army-trained physician. A graduate of Harvard University and its law school, Jackson spent time both as a federal prosecutor in Washington and as a white-collar defense lawyer. With lawyer Robert P. Trout, she represented former Louisiana congressman William J. Jefferson on corruption charges after a search turned up $90,000 in cash stashed in the Democrat’s freezer.

Jackson, through a court spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Her current and former colleagues say she is unquestionably independent and will not be pressured by Trump’s tactics, even if she would prefer not to be the subject of his attacks.

“I have no doubt that she will not be deterred, pressured or intimidated by the unwarranted and inappropriate remarks of the president or anyone else for that matter,” said a colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, another colleague of Jackson’s on the court in Washington, recently warned of the consequences of similar attacks from the president. Trump, Friedman said in a speech, “seems to view the courts and the justice system as obstacles to be attacked and undermined, not as a coequal branch to be respected even when he disagrees with its decisions.”

Jackson has already tangled with Stone. Last February, a photo of the judge on Stone’s Instagram account seemed to violate a gag order she had imposed on him because of concerns about pretrial publicity. The image appeared to show a gun sight’s crosshairs next to a photo of Jackson’s face. Stone said he wasn’t sure who posted the image, but he said he viewed it as a Celtic cross. He apologized for it.

Paul G. Cassell, a former federal judge in Utah, called the personal nature of the president’s attacks “highly unusual and an extraordinary departure from the way things are ordinarily handled.”

But, he said, the nation’s system of government insulates judges from political pressure because they are appointed for life. While most judges would prefer not to be the target of attacks on social media, including from the president, he said, the independence of the judiciary provides protection from repercussions.

“Judge Jackson will simply move forward and decide the case,” said Cassell, now a law professor at the University of Utah, “and ignore the surrounding atmospherics from the president and the others who are responding to him.”

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Spencer S. Hsu and Allyson Chiu contributed to this report

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Barr faces fresh scrutiny over Stone sentencing controversy

By Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett | Published February 12 at 6:43 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Feb 12, 2020

President Trump on Wednesday put Attorney General William P. Barr squarely in the middle of the brewing controversy over the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone, praising Barr for seizing command of the case from career prosecutors.

The president’s Twitter message came just a day after the Justice Department was again thrust into a political firestorm, when the four prosecutors on the Stone case withdrew from the proceedings amid a dispute over what penalty they should propose for the president’s close associate.

Legal analysts and others said the episode represented a low moment for the agency, suggesting that its Trump-appointed leaders were bending to the president’s political whims and trying to undermine the last prosecution brought by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump, though, made clear he was pleased with the department’s moves — and with Barr, in particular.

“Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” Trump wrote. “Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought & tainted.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the president’s statements.

Some current and former Justice Department officials have long feared that Barr is willing to risk the institution’s historic independence to serve an irascible president. The top Democrat in the Senate called for the Justice Department inspector general to investigate the Stone episode, and the House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday it would have Barr testify March 31 to address that case and other recent incidents that it said “raise grave questions” about Barr’s leadership.

Among those is Barr’s recent acknowledgment that he had created what he called an “intake process” for Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to give the Justice Department what Giuliani has claimed is damaging information about former vice president Joe Biden and his family.

Two people familiar with the matter said Barr has instructed the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh to handle such information. Giuliani’s claims are particularly problematic for the Justice Department because he is the president’s lawyer, and under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York for his business ties to two men accused of breaking campaign finance laws.

Barr also has faced criticism for his handling of the Mueller probe — particularly those cases, including the prosecution of Stone, that have continued after the closure of the special counsel’s office last year.

Stone was convicted by a jury in November of obstructing Congress and witness intimidation. Career prosecutors on the case — working out of the U.S. attorney’s office in the District — on Monday filed their recommendation on what penalty Stone should face when he is sentenced Feb. 20.

That recommendation, though, proved to be thornier than most, as the career prosecutors sparred with their supervisors over what was appropriate. The prosecutors argued the sentencing guidelines called for seven to nine years in prison. Political leadership at the Justice Department, though, pushed for something less, arguing Stone’s conduct did not merit a lengthy addition to his sentence for threatening violence.

On Monday, it seemed the career prosecutors had won out. All four signed on to a recommendation, also endorsed by interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Timothy Shea, that recommended a sentence based on a guidelines calculation. The move enraged Trump, who tweeted early the next morning: “This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”

Hours later, a senior Justice Department official claimed department leadership was “shocked” at the recommendation and would move to undo it. All four career prosecutors moved to withdraw from the case, with one quitting the government entirely. The Justice Department then filed a new recommendation — signed by Shea and a different career prosecutor — that said the previous guidance “could be considered excessive and unwarranted under the circumstances.” It did not advocate for a specific penalty but suggested three to four years in prison would be reasonable.

Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that the department had decided before Trump’s Tuesday tweet to revise the recommendation and that there were no discussions between the White House and Justice Department about the Stone case in the days leading up to the prosecutors’ guidance.

A Justice Department official said senior leaders at the agency had expected the first Stone filing to say what the second filing did.

Officials have not provided a clear timeline of the interactions between career prosecutors and department leadership, or fully explained how leadership could have been taken aback by the initial sentencing recommendation. Shea was a counselor in Barr’s office before he was named as interim U.S. attorney last month. Also involved in the discussions was David Metcalf, who had been a counselor in Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen’s office and now works for Shea.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment or address questions about Shea and Metcalf’s handling of the matter.

The Stone episode comes just weeks after the U.S. attorney’s office for the District also seemed to soften its stance on another case originally brought by Mueller against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s former ambassador to the United States.

In early January, prosecutors recommended that Flynn be sentenced “within the Guidelines range” of zero to six months in prison. But in another filing just weeks later, they made clear they agreed with Flynn that a sentence of probation is “reasonable.”

Prosecutors did not explain in the later filing why they emphasized probation as a reasonable sentence for Flynn. Both documents were signed by career prosecutors — Brandon L. Van Grack and Jocelyn Ballantine. Flynn is now seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging a variety of government misconduct.

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Spencer S. Hsu and Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.

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THE DEGRADATION OF WILLIAM BARR’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS NEARLY COMPLETE

By Editorial Board | Published February 12 at 4:02 PM EST |Washington Post |

Posted February 12, 2020 |

MARK THIS as ANOTHER BIG STEP in the EROSION of STANDARDS at Attorney General William P. Barr’s Justice Department.

The department on Tuesday suggested a light sentence for President Trump’s old friend Roger Stone, by overturning a previously filed and tougher proposal. It did so over the strong objections of four career line prosecutors, all of whom resigned from the case; one left the department entirely. This extraordinary intervention played out publicly after Mr. Trump tweeted his displeasure over the initial recommendation that Mr. Stone spend seven to nine years in prison for obstructing Congress and witness tampering, which was in line with the department’s sentencing guidelines.

The Justice Department insists that the decision to reverse course came before the president’s tweet. But senior officials did not need a tweet to conclude that the president would react angrily to a tough sentence for his longtime crony, and to act in anticipation — or fear — of the president’s predictable reaction.

Meanwhile, the line prosecutors’ resignations provide strong evidence that the department’s reversal was unusual and unwarranted. Indeed, given the crimes of which Mr. Stone was convicted — and the fact that he was caught allegedly threatening a witness — it would have been unreasonable for prosecutors to seek the substantially lighter punishment that Justice now appears to favor.

Now the department has lost at least one career civil servant and yet more credibility. Mr. Barr had already, last year, manipulated the release of the Russia investigation’s findings, using his power over how it would be presented to the public to paint Mr. Trump in a positive light that the actual conclusions did not warrant. Now his department has intervened publicly to skew the punishment that one of the bad actors uncovered in that probe, Mr. Stone, will receive.

The most important role of the attorney general is to protect the department from improper political influence, including from the president. Mr. Barr should have ensured that Mr. Stone’s case was handled with strict professionalism, as the career prosecutors sought to do, and shielded them from White House pressure, direct or indirect. To all appearances, he did the opposite. Mr. Trump evidently thinks so: “Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” he tweeted.

Senior Democrats are calling for a congressional inquiry. That is certainly warranted. What was the attorney general’s understanding of what the Stone sentencing recommendation was going to be? At what point did he form this understanding? With whom? To what extent was that understanding a reflection of Mr. Stone’s relationship with the president — or set in anticipation of the president’s likely reaction to a tough sentence? Why, after line prosecutors went a different route, was the decision deemed so egregious that it must be overturned, prompting obvious questions about the politicization of the Justice Department?

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said there would be no special hearing on the matter. Given his newfound role as presidential enabler, that’s no surprise. But it’s not right, either.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barr should reflect on how, under his watch, the department he has served for so long has become so tarnished.

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THIS IS A REVOLTING ASSAULT ON THE FRAGILE RULE OF LAW

By Chuck Rosenberg | Published Feb 12 at 2:30 PM EST | Washington Post |

Posted February 12, 2020 |

***Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. attorney, senior FBI official and acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Something extraordinary and deeply troubling happened at — and to — the Justice Department this week. Four federal prosecutors properly, and as a matter of conscience, withdrew from the Roger Stone case. They had shepherded that case through the criminal-justice system but in an alarming development were ordered to disavow a sentencing recommendation they filed with the federal judge overseeing the matter.

Their original recommendation — asking the judge to sentence Stone within the range set by the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the offenses for which Stone was convicted at trial — was a perfectly ordinary filing. It is the type of pleading filed in federal courts by federal prosecutors every day. Certainly, when a defendant is convicted at trial, it is routine for prosecutors to suggest to the judge that he be sentenced within a prescribed range — the result of a cumbersome sentencing guidelines calculation that is often debated between the parties and adjudicated by the court.

Of course, the filing was just a recommendation to the judge, who has ample authority to sentence Stone within that range — or above it or below it — as she determines. Prosecutors do not sentence defendants; judges do. So how did something so ordinary become so extraordinary?

First, some background. The Justice Department that I know and love — and in which I worked for two decades in many roles — must always be two things to the public it serves: fair and perceived as fair. These are related but distinct concepts. Our work must be fair — that is, we must have fair outcomes as a matter of practice and principle. Anything less is unacceptable, which is one reason, for instance, we turned over exculpatory evidence (a constitutional obligation) and why we publicly fronted our mistakes when we made them.

But our work must also be perceived as fair. Fair outcomes are not worth much if the public does not perceive those outcomes as fair. One way, among many, we ensure that is to assiduously avoid politics in our work. When I was a career federal prosecutor in Virginia, my colleagues and I simply did not talk about politics. I did not know then, and I largely do not know now, how my colleagues (including the federal agents with whom we worked) voted or even if they voted. It simply did not matter to our work. Folks did not talk about it. It was irrelevant to our work. We knew that unwritten rule. Whatever our view, we kept it to ourselves, because it had no place in our world and because letting it seep in would corrode our work. We worked free of political interference or influence. Always.

Until now, apparently. What happened? Following the routine filing by the career prosecutors — in line with the sentencing guidelines applicable to the Stone case — the president inexplicably tweeted that the sentence Stone faced was a “miscarriage” of justice, calling it a “horrible and very unfair situation.”

And then — and this is the part that is so disturbing — the prosecutors were ordered, either because of the president’s tweet or irrespective of it (and both scenarios are awful), to rescind their original recommendation and to ask the judge that Stone receive more lenient treatment at his sentencing. What the prosecutors were ordered to do was dangerous and unsettling and undermined everything they — and we — stood for as Justice Department professionals. They properly refused.

We all understand that the leadership at the top of the department is politically appointed, and we make peace with that (in addition to my work as a career federal prosecutor, I served in political positions under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the Justice Department and worked for thoughtful appointed leaders of both parties), but being asked by that leadership to allow politics to corrode our work is not remotely normal or permissible. And it is treacherous.

The rule of law is a construct. It was made by people — and is nurtured and preserved by people. It can also be destroyed by people. And unlike the law of gravity, which works everywhere and all the time (at least on this planet), the rule of law is precious and fragile. As citizens and prosecutors, we either safeguard it or we surrender it. That’s the choice. What political leadership did here — mandating a favor for a friend of the president in line with the president’s publicly expressed desire in the case — significantly damages the rule of law and the perception of Justice Department fairness.

Principled resignations by career federal prosecutors highlighted this dangerous stunt. I am proud of them for that.

But I find it revolting that they were pushed into that corner (one resigned his job; three others resigned from the case) and saddened by their sacrifice. This is not normal and it is not right,and it is dangerous territory for the rule of law.

SAFEGUARD or SURRENDER. YOU CHOOSE.

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Venezuela’s opposition says Guaidó’s uncle was detained, holds Maduro responsible

By Mariana Zuñiga & Anthony Fabiola| Published February 12 at 7:21 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Feb 12, 2020

CARACAS, Venezuela — Opposition officials on Wednesday condemned the disappearance and apparent detention of Juan Guaidó's uncle after the opposition leader returned home this week from a global tour to build support for his effort to oust President Nicolás Maduro.

Guaidó’s uncle, Juan José Márquez, traveled with him on a flight from Lisbon that landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía shortly after 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Senior opposition officials said Guaidó last saw Márquez just before he crossed into an arrivals hall, where Guaidó’s supporters clashed with Maduro’s backers, who hurled insults at the opposition leader and appeared to manhandle him as he tried to make his way to a waiting car.

Márquez does not hold an official position in the opposition leadership.

“I hold you responsible, usurper Nicolás Maduro, and each one of your minions in Maiquetía for what happens to Juan José Márquez, an honest and brave man who knows the value of this fight and whose only responsibility is to worry about his family,” Guaidó tweeted Wednesday.

Venezuela’s communications ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Guaidó, the National Assembly president who is recognized as Venezuela’s rightful leader by the United States and more than 50 other nations, defied a travel ban to spend 3�� weeks in Europe and the United States lobbying for more international pressure to isolate Maduro and force him from office. The United Nations last year issued a report documenting the torture, arbitrary arrest and killing of government opponents and citizens under Maduro.

Before Guaidó’s return Tuesday, the Trump administration warned Maduro not to harm or detain the leader. The opposition’s U.S. backers quickly decried his uncle’s disappearance.

“Kidnapping interim president @JGuaido’s relatives only demonstrates that the dictatorship is weak and desperate,” tweeted Michael G. Kozak, the acting assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs. “We demand the immediate release of Juan José Márquez unharmed. #Democracy cannot be intimidated, this must stop!”

Romina Botaro, Márquez’s wife, said her husband called her while being held at customs. She said he was wearing a protective vest that he was told he needed to declare.

That was the last she heard from him, she told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. When Márquez’s lawyers went to the airport late Tuesday, she said, they were told he had disappeared from the building.

Later, Botaro, speaking to reporters in Caracas, said that she had spoken to her husband again at 5 p.m. Wednesday and that he confirmed he was being detained at the headquarters of Military Counter-Intelligence in northern Caracas. He additionally told her that he was due to be arraigned in court, she said.

On Wednesday, opposition lawmaker Delsa Solórzano tweeted, “They inform us that they are transferring Juan Márquez, uncle of the President @jguaido, to court.” Opposition officials said they could not immediately confirm that Márquez had turned up in custody. But they denounced what they said was an attempt by “the Maduro dictatorship” to give him a public defender.

“Juan José Márquez . . . has a private [attorney],” Guaidó’s press team tweeted. The Washington Post could not immediately reach attorney Joel García.

Botaro said Márquez, an airline pilot, had nothing to do with politics.

“Like any protective uncle, he only wanted to escort his nephew and protect his safety,” she said.

Guaidó said Maduro had targeted his family.

“Threats have not stopped us or will stop us,” he said.

The opposition denounced the arrest of the organizers of Guaidó’s homecoming rally Tuesday evening. Several hundred supporters gathered in eastern Caracas to hear the opposition leader speak. Opposition officials said the drivers of three buses that carried lawmakers to the airport to greet Guaidó were stopped and detained.

Deyalitza Aray, an opposition lawmaker, was held but later released.

“It was an illegal detention, without any sense,” she told reporters Tuesday in Caracas. “This is a dramatic situation because it demonstrates how the regime acts against citizens and the congress.”

The country’s national press union said at least six journalists covering Guaidó’s return were attacked and robbed. Some of them were bitten and punched, the union said.

Maduro’s government has sought to penalize Guaidó’s supporters in recent months. Government forces closed down the hotel and seized the cars he used during at least one campaign stop. Pollster and political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said it was clear Maduro was sending “a message.”

“Politicians, deputies, assistants, many people have been arrested and intimidated,” he said. “And not only people, but places have also been closed down. This is a very clear strategy that tries to encircle anything that supports Guaidó.”

Maduro’s message, he said, is that Guaidó’s “fight is expensive, and his uncle is a perfect way to send this message.”

*********

BACKGROUND INFORMATION BELOW:

Trump withdraws Treasury nomination of former U.S. attorney for D.C. Jessie K. Liu after criticism of her oversight of Mueller prosecutions

By Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett | Published February 11 at 11:41 PM EST | Washington Post |

Posted February 12, 2020 |

President Trump on Tuesday withdrew the nomination of former U.S. attorney Jessie K. Liu of the District of Columbia to a high-ranking Treasury Department post after being lobbied by critics of her office’s handling of cases, including ones inherited from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, two people familiar with the decision said.

Liu, 47, served more than two years in the politically sensitive post of top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital and was Trump’s firstnominee to the position, serving from September 2017 until Jan. 31.

In the job, Liu oversaw late-stage courtproceedings for top Trump aides and Mueller defendants, including Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as well as the November trial and conviction of longtime Trump political adviser Roger Stone.

However, over the past two weeks, coinciding with Liu’s departure, the U.S. attorney’s office has changed its sentencing stances in both Flynn and Stone’s cases, with prosecutors moving from stiffer sentencing recommendations to more lenient ones.

Emerging accounts of the circumstances surrounding Liu’s departure from the administration cast those decisions in a new light.

The White House’s move to drop Liu was disclosed Tuesday after all four career U.S. prosecutors handling the case against Stone withdrew from the legal proceedings when the Justice Department undercut their sentencing recommendation for Trump’s longtime friend and confidant. Prosecutors on Monday said Stone should serve 7 to 9 years in prison.

Trump has been lobbied extensively against Liu by people who do not like her handling of the D.C. office — particularly as it relates to the Mueller probe, an administration official said. The decision to withdraw the nomination was made Tuesday afternoon, the official said.

A second administration official confirmed Liu was notified at that time.

A third person familiar with the situation — who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly— said Liu’s nomination was opposed vocally by Barbara Ledeen, a conservative operative and Republican Senate staffer unhappy about Flynn’s prosecution for lying to the FBI.

Ledeen’s husband co-wrote a book with Flynn and she was named in the Mueller report as a person Flynn contacted during Trump’s 2016 campaign to obtain Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s private emails.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation, the person said Ledeen had made little headway before the recent storm over Stone’s sentencing, calling it a turning point. Treasury officials believe Trump himself made the call to withdraw Liu because her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee was set for Thursday, and Trump was concerned she would be asked about the case, the person said.

Liu had no role in Stone’s sentencing recommendation, having left office before it was sent to supervisors for approval, several people said.

Ledeen, a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer since 2000, said in an interview: “I’m a Senate staffer. I can’t lobby either the Senate or the White House. I’m kind of amazed my name came up in this.” She added, “Somebody likes to throw around my name.”

Liu did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s reversal was striking because Liu, who had served on his presidential transition team and was a Treasury appointee early in his term, was personally vetted by then-White House counsel Donald McGahn, and met with Trump in the White House before he first named her U.S. attorney.

Late last year, the White House announced plans to promote her, saying on Dec. 10 that Trump intended to nominate her to undersecretary of the Treasury Department for terrorism and financial crimes, to lead the administration’s use of economic sanctions as a national security and foreign policy tool.

Liu’s nomination was sent to the Senate on Jan. 6, and she told the U.S. attorney’s office of plans to leave at the end of the month, people in the office said. Liu’s departure at that time was seen as somewhat unusual because she had not yet received Senate confirmation for her new job before being replaced on an interim basis by Timothy Shea, a former counselor to Attorney General William P. Barr.

That same period saw a shift by Flynn’s prosecutors. On Jan. 6, prosecutors recommended that Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., be sentenced to zero to six months in prison, emphasizing that defendants in similar cases served time behind bars. But in a follow-up filing Jan. 29, they made clear they agreed with Flynn “that a sentence of probation is a reasonable sentence” for him, citing cases where defendants were spared incarceration.

The filing came as Flynn continues his effort to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging government misconduct. Prosecutors did not explain in their filing the reason for the shift.

______

Keith L. Alexander contributed to this report.

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Attorney General William P. Barr names Timothy Shea, one of his counselors, as the District’s interim U.S. Attorney

By Keith L. Alexander, Spencer S. Hsu and Matt Zapotosky | Published Jan. 30, 2020 at 3:13 p.m. EST |Washington Post | Posted February 12, 2020 |

Attorney General William P. Barr on Thursday named former federal prosecutor Timothy Shea as the District’s interim U.S. attorney.

Shea, 59, currently serves as a counselor to Barr at the Justice Department. He will oversee the nation’s largest U.S. attorney’s office with 300 prosecutors.

The announcement comes just a day before Jessie K. Liu, the city’s current U.S. attorney, leaves office on Friday.

Liu, 47, has served in the post for a little over two years. President Trump on Jan. 6 nominated her to become the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, and her nomination is pending before the Senate Banking Committee.

The U.S. attorney’s office in the District is unique in that it handles both local and federal cases, from violent crimes in the city to high-level national security and public corruption prosecutions.

Prosecutors there have taken to trial former Trump confidant Roger Stone and former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, and have taken over cases involving former Trump deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. They are managing a grand jury investigation into former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, who is accused of misleading federal investigators about a media disclosure, and are handling a leak case in which they have focused at least some of their questioning on former FBI director James B. Comey. Comey and McCabe have been outspoken critics of Trump, and the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office has faced criticism that it is unfairly targeting the president’s political rivals.

In a statement, Barr described Shea’s reputation as “a fair prosecutor, skillful litigator, and excellent manager is second-to-none, and his commitment to fighting violent crime and the drug epidemic will greatly benefit the city of Washington.”

Shea has served in a variety of roles in federal and state government, including as a prosecutor in federal court in Virginia. Trump ultimately must nominate, and the Senate must confirm, a candidate to fill the U.S. attorney job.

Liu, who worked as a line prosecutor in the office decades before returning as its chief in 2017, declined to comment on her tenure or her plans. She also will require Senate confirmation for the Treasury role.

Her departure has been a source of concern from some who say the city needs a long-term top prosecutor to put in place strategies to curb crime and ensure convictions amid a rising number of homicides.

“It’s very disturbing to me there is turnover this quickly,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said. “It’s not good for public safety not to have that stability.”

Mendelson praised Liu for working with city leaders and residents but added he was concerned that her successor may not share the same ideas of what is of importance for the District.

While overseeing federal cases, Liu also turned her attention to crime issues in the city. In early 2019, her office began taking more gun cases to federal court as part of a crackdown on repeat violent offenders and felons found illegally possessing firearms. District leaders had pushed to take these cases away from D.C. Superior Court believing sentences were often inconsistent or too lenient.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham described Liu as a “really good partner” to the department, but echoed Mendelson about his concerns of a new U.S. attorney taking over as law enforcement work to identifying new approaches to reduce violence. “There is something to be said for consistency,” Newsham said. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to start all over again with a new leader.”

On Thursday evening, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Shea had contacted city officials, and they plan to meet in the coming days. Bowser said she hopes Shea will keep some of the initiatives that Liu put in place, including pursuing gun cases in federal court. “He is already on board,” Bowser said. “We want to make sure he recognizes the context of how the U.S. attorney’s offices and annexes work together for a stronger D.C.”

Liu oversaw myriad high-profile cases. It was her call last year to dismiss charges against 188 defendants who were charged with rioting during Trump’s 2017 inauguration. Nearly two dozen defendants pleaded guilty; prosecutors were unable to secure convictions at trial in other cases.

Liu’s office last year also petitioned a federal court judge to seek the early prison release for 1980s D.C. drug kingpin Rayful Edmond III after he spent decades cooperating with authorities.

Liu became most visible in the community when she clashed with some city council members over a proposed amendment to a D.C. law that would grant additional inmates convicted of serious crimes a chance at early release.

That law, the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, allows people who committed crimes as juveniles a chance to petition for release after serving 15 years in prison. The proposed amendment, sponsored by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), would expand the group of eligible inmates to include those who were as old as 24 when they offended, as opposed to age 17.

The amendment was originally planned for a council vote last fall. Allen spokesman Erik Salmi said the measure was “not dead,” but no date for a vote has been determined.

Liu came under criticism for the handling of hate-crime prosecutions, with community leaders saying her office failed to aggressively prosecute such cases and pursue enhanced penalties when authorities said they believed the victim was targeted because of race, sexual orientation or religion.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D. C.) said she repeatedly tried to convince Liu to address a rise in hate-crime arrests in the city, but prosecutions were stagnant.

Norton, who has represented the nation’s capital since 1991, described Liu being “at the bottom of the list” in terms of quality among the U.S. attorneys with whom she has worked.

“As she moves on, it seems clear she never wanted this position in the first place and appeared to be using this job to move onto to where she is moving to now within the administration.”

Liu previously was nominated by Trump for the No. 3 position in the Justice Department, but she withdrew from consideration in March after Republican senators raised concerns about her past membership in a lawyers group that supported abortion rights.

Karl A. Racine, the District’s first elected attorney general, said he disagreed with some of Liu’s decisions such as moving more firearm crimes to federal court. But they had common ground on other issues.

When he expressed concern over an increase in fraud cases involving elderly victims, Racine said, Liu allowed one of his local prosecutors to team with her office on such investigations.

“I had an enthusiastic partner in Jessie,” Racine said.

_______

Peter Hermann and Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.

*********

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secondsightcinema · 6 years ago

Text

Raw Deal (1948): Crashing Out of Corkscrew Alley

“I believe in the nobility of the human spirit. It is that for which I look in a subject I am to direct. I do not believe that everybody is bad, that the whole world is wrong. The greatness of Shakespeare’s plays is the nobility of the human spirit, even though he may destroy the character.” —Anthony Mann, 1964, cite source, p.8 (Introduction)

First and most important, if you don’t know this movie and you love noir, see it.

If you don’t know much about noir but appreciate exciting, beautifully made movies, see it.

If you are moved by great storytelling, acting, and extraordinary cinematography, see it.

If you have 78 minutes and feel like something thrilling, creepy, romantic and tragic?

Well, you get the idea.

Watch Raw Deal, and don’t do it on the fly—sit down, turn off your phone, and give it your full attention. You will be rewarded.

There, my job is done. Now we can talk about the movie. Here’s a link to a synopsis if you are so inclined: here you go.

Corkscrew Alley is a crushing habitat for nobility of the human spirit. It’s great shorthand for the corrupt world so many noir characters desperately try to escape. It’s just that most of its denizens have had the aspiration knocked out of them by brutality and poverty, and their spirits are in moth-eaten tatters. Even when they act on an impulse toward decency, they get it in the neck and are knocked back into crime, shabbiness: Corkscrew Alley.

In Raw Deal, Mann focuses primarily on four characters, three in a romantic triangle. The fourth is an impressively disgusting villain, a sadistic pyromaniac criminal whose efforts to kill the protagonist before he comes to claim the $50,000 owed him create the simple, on-the-lam plot.

But it’s the romantic triangle, particularly the two women, who Mann develops beyond the usual scope of noir. As Jeanine Basinger notes in Anthony Mann (2007), it is in Raw Deal that Mann for the first time creates two characters who are deeply fused, almost mirror images, a dynamic he would develop further in his westerns. In this case it’s two great actresses and noir goddesses, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt, who form this dyad.

I always wonder when in the thrall of a work of collaborative art, if those who made it had a sense of its quality or importance while caught up in the process of making it. Was the power of (forgive me, I date myself) Blonde on Blonde, or Sgt. Pepper, or Astral Weeks apparent to the musicians and producers as they worked?

Maybe the lower the budget, the less likely those involved are to be aware of having a part in making something extraordinary, something that could live on for many decades and in some cases become celebrated in ways unthinkable in the movie’s own time. It’s great the Edgar Ulmer lived to see Detour celebrated, and the same of Joseph H. Lewis and Gun Crazy. But in an interview with Claire Trevor, decades after making Raw Deal, she hardly remembers it. And you can see why. She was a busy actress, going from one movie to another. Noir didn’t exist yet, not as an artistic designation, and so Trevor’s noirs when she was making them were just low-budget crime movies. Raw Deal was for Trevor just another gig.

Marsha Hunt’s memories of working on Raw Deal mostly centered on her perception that Mann didn’t direct the actors, focusing instead on lighting and camera placement, leaving his cast to work out their own characterizations and bits of business. The director, who had himself been an actor on Broadway before moving into film, knew he could trust this fine cast. The versatile Dennis O’Keefe, equally at home in comedy and drama and was also a published writer who aspired to direct, holds his own with his leading ladies, two of the very best.

To Anthony Mann, still in the first phase of his Hollywood career, Raw Deal was just a follow-up to his previous year’s success with T-Men, also starring homme fatale Dennis O’Keefe, also shot by John Alton. Like Trevor’s experience going from one film to another, Mann’s was as a busy journeyman director, air-dropped from one project to the next, so that he couldn’t afford to invest much emotionally in any of them.

//////***MOVE THE NEXT FEW ‘GRAPHS UP TOWARD THE TOP*** “There has been so much yapping over the years about the film director, the film *auteur*…that it has been very difficult for the general public and even for the informed public, to realize that making a film is an industrial process and it is perfectly possible to edit, alter, present and have a resounding success without the director having anything more to do with the film from the moment he stops shouting at the actors.” —Michael Powell

Right! Great thing to bear in mind when we love a film and imagine that the director had overall control of the project, that directing was for most an artistic endeavor rather than the reality that they were hired guns who came in, shot a movie, then moved on to the next one. Yes, there are exceptions among directors (and even stars). But in the main, Hollywood filmmaking was, as Powell says, “an industrial process,” not a personal artistic one.

That makes the greatness of so many movies made in this industrial process even more miraculous. Sometimes the stars and cinematic elements aligned—the right producer, script, director, cinematographer, and cast, and the result is a thing of beauty that continues to delight, disturb, and enrich us many decades later.

Raw Deal is one of those.

So what is it that sets it apart from a couple hundred other noirs?

First thing is what Mann said in the quote at the top of this piece, in 1964. There is a yearning for redemption, to express “the nobility of the human spirit,” that curls around the characters like cigarette smoke, like that San Francisco fog that Alton evoked so convincingly. Joe (O’Keefe) is a gangster, but when he was a kid he risked his life to rescue some other kids from a fire—Ann (Hunt) tells Joe that’s what first got her interested in him. She wants something better for him, and though he resists her pressing him away from the dirty life he’s trapped in, toward “a little common decency,” as she says, she gets under his skin. And even Joe longs for “a breath of fresh air,” not a feature of his gangster life, prison, Corkscrew Alley.

Joe wants to crash out, like weary gangster Roy Earle (Bogart in a break-out role) in High Sierra (1941). He dreams of living like normal people, not under constant threat from the law or your own crime boss.

Joe’s moll, Pat (Trevor), is so broken, so beaten down from Corkscrew Alley life that she takes insults and abuse without flinching. But still, even Pat has a pilot light of yearning for something better. It’s just that she’s so damaged she can’t imagine anything better than a life with career criminal Joe. Unlike some other noir dames Trevor played (thinking particularly of *Murder, My Sweet* and *Born to Kill*), who are the sociopathic equals of any onscreen, Pat has the vulnerability of Trevor’s most famous role as TK in Stagecoach*(1939), as a prostitute, and in Key Largo (1949), as Edgar G. Robinson’s battered, alcoholic moll.

Course part of that is just sex, not spiritual yearning. Joe knows he’s hot for social worker Ann, but Ann isn’t quite as honest with herself about her feelings for him. She tells herself it’s just professional concern for a client, but Joe knows better. (One thing about Corkscrew Alley: it attunes you to the basic, baser motivations.)

Ann (Hunt) is the only one of the four principals who wasn’t formed by Corkscrew Alley. She grew up in slightly more genteel poverty, her father a schoolteacher who imbued her with ambition for a better life—”He died in the war of the Depression, only we didn’t get any medals,” she says bitterly to Joe when he accuses her of having had it easy. She hits back, hard, telling him she’s had to fight, just not “that stupid way,” with a gun. She’s managed to get an education, a decent apartment and car, a solid job. Her interest in Joe is a threat to everything she’s accomplished, but she’s blind to that until it’s too late. But when she tells Joe all she wants is “just a little decency, that’s all,” he looks like she’s broken through his defenses.

The third member of the triangle is Pat (Trevor), a hard-time girl who loves Joe desperately. She reminds me a little bit of Marie, Ida Lupino’s character in High Sierra, so emotionally damaged that she doesn’t know if she’s good enough for aging gangster Roy Earle. Marie and Pat are so battered by life that they have no experience of tenderness, kindness, love. The crooks they fall for look good to them because anything better is beyond the scope of their dreams.

Jeanine Basinger writes about how Pat and Ann are almost twinned, two characters who reflect each other, I would say in their differences as well as their similarities. In the first scene, at the prison, we first see each woman hatted and veiled, so their faces, which give away their feelings, are fenced off from the world and the unstable feelings it evokes. Pat wants nothing but Joe, her slender hope for any kind of happiness is all condensed into her desire to be with him, while Ann, who has relied on self-discipline to make her way in the world, is less connected to her own feelings about Joe, and if she were aware of them, she’d see instantly how hopeless they are. Toward the end, Pat finds that as much as she wants to hate Ann, she can’t—she recognizes her as another woman who loves Joe. This approaches compassion, an astonishing spiritual attainment for someone as emotionally beat-up as Pat, and a kind of metaphorical fresh air that lifts her above her own suffering.

But it’s the feelings we don’t recognize that control us, and while Ann didn’t ask to be taken hostage on Joe’s and Pat’s cross-country odyssey, and her revulsion at their casual criminality and violence are authentic, this good girl finds herself drawn closer to Joe’s way of life than she could ever comfortably acknowledge.

One of Raw Deal’s novelties is its use of the almost ubiquitous noir voiceover, usually a male voice relating past-tense events, often in flashback. Here the first difference is that the film’s voice is present-tense, and it belongs to Pat, her feelings are about the only things she owns. The second difference is that it is a female voice, not the norm in noir. It’s fitting that Pat should speak directly to us, or rather that we are allowed to eavesdrop on her internal storytelling of the narrative in which she finds herself. One of my only quibbles with Raw Deal is the theramin that underscores all of Pat’s voiceover. It feels like one of those club-us-like-baby-seals things where someone—perhaps Mann, perhaps not—decides we need something to tell us we’re hearing a voiceover. Like we need a frickin’ neon sign. The theramin is intrusive and stylistically at odds with the very good score. I’m guessing it was a producer who insisted on it: PRODUCER, flicking cigar ash: What’s—what’s she saying? Why isn’t her mouth moving? ASSISTANT: Right, sir. It’s a voiceover. PRODUCER: Voiceover…but it’s a dame! ASSISTANT: Yes, sir. It’s a little bit different, but we thought— PRODUCER: Never mind what you thought! Put some kind of sound with it, so the audience knows why her mouth isn’t moving! ASSISTANT: Well…we have an hour’s credit at the recording studio. I’ll talk to the composer, we just need one cue, we can repeat it every time the voiceover comes in… PRODUCER: Yeh, whatever, just make sure when we hear the dame’s voice and she ain’t talking, we know it’s on purpose. ASSISTANT: Sure thing, L.Q….

Most oft-discussed of Raw Deal are its visuals: the glorious cinematography, how Mann and Alton trap Joe and his girls in tight, closed spaces. Joe is suffocating for lack of fresh air, that’s how he expresses his drive to escape the dirty dead end of Corkscrew Alley. From the film’s opening, through its series of action sequences, we and the characters are repeatedly crammed into tight shots in cars, closets, freighter cabins, and framed in windows, behind bars or mesh.

Mann makes use of his female stars’ extraordinary acting in long closeups. Their faces pass through what would take paragraphs or pages to express, and we feel an intimate connection to their interior lives.

The film’s final bravura sequence, with a thrilling gun ambush in the street followed by a knock-down, drag-out fight in the middle of a raging fire, brings us back to, where else?—Corkscrew Alley. Pat does the right thing, partly because she knows she will never really have Joe and partly because she’s not quite bad enough to let her rival face grievous harm. Joe does the right thing, too, and finally gets that breath of fresh air he’s spent his life searching for. Both of them have found a little bit of grace they didn’t know they had, but it doesn’t change their fate.

Rick meets his fate, too, and Mann and Alton make sure it’s as baroque and horrific as anything Rick could dream of doing to an enemy (or a girlfriend, but you’ll have to see the movie to understand that ref).

And Ann? Her boundaries broken, her understanding of the world and her own psyche shattered, she has to go back to the life she worked so hard to attain, but neither she or that carefully crafted life will ever be the same. At the beginning of the story, she is a kind person, but it takes the events of Raw Deal to force her to confront her own unruly desire and even potential for violence.

Everyone loses what they prize most. And three of the four find that they are able to sacrifice their own fondest desires to serve something larger than themselves. Apparently there’s room for a spark of nobility, even in Corkscrew Alley.

This post was written for the Classic Movie Bloggers’ Association 2019 Spring blogathon. Do yourself a favor and head on over to read more noiry goodness.

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