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marmalodi · 3 years

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono Interview: St. Regis Hotel, 9/5/1971

When we turned up at the St. Regis for our first interview, John and Yoko were still in bed. It was nearly afternoon and there was a flurry of activity in the adjacent rooms. May Pang was much in evidence, bustling about, her long black hair swirling around her. (This was a year or two before her affair with John.) She told us that our interview would have to be interrupted by a fitting for Yoko, which turned out to be to our advantage, because in Yoko's absence John was prepared to go back into the past and talk about Hamburg and the role of Brian Epstein.

We were served tea on a silver tray. John chain-smoked Gauloises, and the interview proceeded. It was obvious from the start that he was still angry at Paul, but when I played the tapes back later, I noticed he did not say anything negative about Paul's music. He attacked Paul for being bossy, arrogant, chauvinistic, etc, but in the next breath he would be telling us about Hamburg and about Paul having to be onstage for an hour and a half playing 'What'd I Say,' and you could hear the affection in his voice.

I have listened to these tapes many times, and I have always been struck by the contradictions within John Lennon. He tended to see the world in terms of black and white, and people were either on his good list or his hit list, and often subject to being switched from one to the other, according to which way the conversation turned. He was always outspoken, yet the charm of John's outspokenness was not only his way with words, but also that he was as critical and candid about himself as others. In the end it was this that made him endearing. He bared his soul about everything -- his insecurities, his mistakes -- and when he did so, even when he appeared ridiculous, he was a breath of fresh air in the entertainment world.

One moment I remember during the interview was when John and Yoko were leaning toward the microphone, each jostling the other to tell the story of how they met and fell in love. No one could have been in their presence for those minutes and not have been affected by it.

Neil Aspinal, the Beatles' longtime friend, said, 'The Beatles' world was an unreal world... a war zone.' It surely was. In a way I think Yoko brought John home. He found comfort, love, and understanding with her. He had a son by her and devoted himself to his child. I have no doubt he was a happier man in 1980 than he was in 1967 when he walked into that London art Gallery. - Peter McCabe (1984)

Q: "Let's talk about the Beatles' breakup, and the falling out between you and Paul. A lot of people think it had to do with the women in your lives. Is that why the Beatles split up?"

JOHN: "Not really. The split was over who would manage us -- Allen Klein or the Eastmans -- and nothing else really, although the split had been coming from Pepper onward."

Q: "Why, specifically?"

JOHN: "Paul was always upset about the White Album. He never liked it because on that one I did my music, he did his, and George did his. And first, he didn't like George having so many tracks. He wanted it to be more a group thing, which really means more Paul. So he never liked that album, and I always preferred it to all the other albums, including Pepper, because I thought the music was better. The Pepper myth is bigger, but the music on the White Album is far superior, I think."

Q: "That's your favorite, of all the Beatle albums?"

JOHN: "Yeah, because I wrote a lot of good shit on that. I like all the stuff I did on that, and the other stuff as well. I like the whole album. But if you're talking about the split, the split was over Allen and Eastman."

Q: "You didn't like Lee Eastman (Linda's father), nor John (Linda's brother), and the Eastmans didn't like Allen Klein..."

JOHN: "The Eastmans hated Allen from way back. They're from the class of family... like all classes, I suppose, they vote like Daddy does. They're the kind of kids who just think what their fathers told them."

Q: "But for a while you didn't get along with Linda."

JOHN: "We all got along well with Linda."

Q: "When did you first meet her?"

JOHN: "The first time was after that Apple press conference in America. We were going back to the airport and she was in the car with us. I didn't think she was particularly attractive. A bit too tweedy, you know. But she sat in the car and took photographs and that was it. And the next minute she's married him."

YOKO: "There was a nice quality about her. As a woman she doesn't offend you because she doesn't come on like a coquettish bird, you know? So she was alright, and we were on very good terms until Allen came into the picture. And then she said, 'Why the hell do you have to bring Allen into it?' She said very nasty things about Allen."

Q: "Yoko, you weren't with John the first time he met her?"

YOKO: "No. The first time I met her was when she came to the EMI studio. And you know, when Beatles are recording, there's very few people around, especially no women. If a young woman comes into the room, everybody just sort of looks at her. So I was there, and the first thing Linda made clear to me -- almost unnecessarily -- was the fact that she was interested in Paul, and not John, you know? She was sort of presupposing that I would be nervous. She just said, 'Oh, I'm with Paul.' Something to that effect. I think she was eager to be with me and John, in the sense that Paul and John are close, we should be close too. And couple to couple we were going to be good friends."

Q: "What was Paul's attitude to you as things progressed?"

YOKO: "Paul began complaining that I was sitting too close to them when they were recording, and that I should be in the background."

JOHN: "Paul was always gently coming up to Yoko and saying, 'Why don't you keep in the background a bit more?' I didn't know what was going on. It was going on behind my back."

Q: "So did that contribute to the split?"

JOHN: "Well, Paul rang me up. He didn't actually tell me he'd split, he said he was putting out an album. He said, 'I'm now doing what you and Yoko were doing last year. I understand what you were doing.' All that shit. So I said, 'Good luck to yer.'"

Q: "So, John. You and Paul were probably the greatest songwriting team in a generation. And you had this huge falling out. Were there always huge differences between you and Paul, or was there a time when you had a lot in common?"

JOHN: "Well, Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother... and obviously missed his mother. And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things. He wouldn't go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind me back, I found out later. He'd say to George, 'Why don't you get rid of John, he's just a lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers,' like I was the bad influence because I was the eldest. So Paul was always like that. And I was always saying, 'Face up to your dad, tell him to fuck off. He can't hit you. You can kill him (laughs) he's an old man.' I used to say, 'Don't take that shit.' But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, 'I need a steady career.' We couldn't believe it. Once he rang up and said he'd got this job and couldn't come to the group. So I told him on the phone, 'Either come or you're out.' So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me. But it was a long trip."

Q: "So you think with Linda he's found what he wanted?"

JOHN: "I guess so. I guess so. I just don't understand. I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty. But you don't really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd married Jane because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like -- boom! She was in and that was the end of it."

Q: "So if the falling out was essentially with Paul, what made you decide not to participate in the Bangladesh concert with George?"

JOHN: "I told George about a week before it that I wouldn't be doing it. I just didn't feel like it. I just didn't want to be fucking rehearsing and doing a big show-biz trip. We were in the Virgin Islands, and I certainly wasn't going to be rehearsing in New York, then going back to the Virgin Islands, then coming back up to New York and singing. And anyway, they couldn't have got any more people in, if I'd been there or not. I got enough money off records and I don't feel like doing two shows a night."

Q: "Do you have any regrets about not doing it?"

JOHN: "Well, at first I thought, 'Oh, I wish I'd been there,' you know, with Dylan and Leon... they needed a rocker. Everybody was telling me 'You should have been there, John,' but I'm glad I didn't do it in a way because I didn't want to go on as 'The Beatles.' And with George and Ringo there it would have had that connotation of Beatles -- Now let's hear Ringo sing 'It Don't Come Easy.' That's why I left it all. I don't want to play 'My Sweet Lord.' I'd as soon go out and do exactly what I want."

Q: "John, you said you 'get enough off records,' but you used to say you weren't as rich as people thought you were. Are you rich enough finally?"

JOHN: "Well, I do have money for the first time ever, really. I do feel slightly secure about it, secure enough to say I'll go on the road for free. The reason I got rich is because I'm so insecure. I couldn't give it all away, even in my most holy, Christian, God-fearing, Hare Krishna period. I need it because I'm so insecure. Yoko doesn't need it. She always had it. I have to have it. I'm not secure enough to give it all up, because I need it to protect me from whatever I'm frightened of."

YOKO: "He's very vulnerable."

JOHN: "But now I think that Allen Klein has made me secure enough, it's his fault that I'll go out for free."

Q: "You mean tour for free?"

JOHN: "Well, I thought I can't really go on the road and take a lot more money. What am I going to do with it? I've got all the fucking bread I need. If I go broke, well, I'd go on the road for money then. But now I just couldn't face saying, 'Well, I cost a million when I sing.'"

YOKO: "It's criminal."

JOHN: "It's bullshit, because I want to sing. So I'm going out on the road because I want to this time. I want to do something political, and radicalize people, and all that jazz. I feel like going out with Yoko, and taking a really far-out show on the road, a mobile, political, rock and roll show."

YOKO: "With clowns as well."

JOHN: "You know what I was thinking -- when Paul's going out on the road, I'd like to be playing in the same town for free next door! And he's charging about a million. That would be funny."

YOKO: "Our position is -- I come from the East, he comes from the West -- a meeting of East and West, and all that. And to communicate with people is almost a responsibility. We actually are living proof of East and West getting along together. High water falls low, you know. And if our cup is full, it's going to flow. It's natural for us to give because we have a lot. If we don't give, it's criminal, in the sense that it's going against the law of nature. In order to go against the law of nature you have to use tremendous energy."

Q: "Let's talk about Allen Klein. He has a reputation as a tough wheeler-dealer in the music business. What made you decide to have him as your manager?"

JOHN: "Well, Allen's human, whereas Eastman and all them other people are automatons. And one of the early things that impressed me about Allen -- and obviously it was a kind of flattery as well -- was that he really knew which stuff I'd written. Not many people knew which was my song and which was Paul's, but he'd say, 'Well, McCartney didn't write that line, did he?' I thought, anybody who knows me this well, just by listening to records, is pretty perceptive. I'm not the easiest guy to read, although I'm fairly naive and open in some ways, and I can be conned easily. But in other ways I'm quite complicated, and it's not easy to get through all the defenses and see what I'm like. Allen knew to come to me and not to go to Paul, whereas somebody like Lew Grade or Eastman would have gone to Paul."

Q: "Did Klein hope to get Paul back into the group?"

JOHN: (laughs) "He came up with this plan. He said, "Just ring Paul and say, 'We're recording next Friday, are you coming?' So it nearly happened. Then Paul would have forfeited his right to split by joining us again. But Paul would never, never do it, for anything, and now I would never do it."

Q: "There was a lot of negative publicity about Klein. Didn't that bother you?"

JOHN: "Well, he's a businessman. He's probably cut many peoples' throats. So have I. I made it too. I mean, I can't remember anybody I literally cut, but I've certainly trod on a few feet on the way up. And I'm sure Allen did also."

Q: "How does Klein compare with Brian Epstein as a manager?"

JOHN: "Well, Brian couldn't delegate, and neither can Allen. But I understand that. When I try and delegate it never gets done properly. Like with my albums and Yoko's, each time I have to go through the same process -- Get the printing size right. I want it clear and simple. I have to go through the same jazz all the time. It's never a lesson learned."

Q: "Let's get back to something we were talking about earlier. The attitude of the other Beatles toward Yoko."

JOHN: "They don't listen to women. Women are chicks to them."

Q: "What about George?"

JOHN: "George always has a point of view about that wide (he holds his hands close together), you know? You can't tell him anything."

YOKO: "George is sophisticated, fashionwise..."

JOHN: "He's very trendy, and he has the right clothes on, and all of that."

YOKO: "But he's not sophisticated, intellectually."

JOHN: "No. He's very narrow-minded. One time in the Apple office I was saying something, and he said, 'I'm as intelligent as you, you know.' This must have been resentment. Of course he's got an inferiority complex from working with Paul and me."

Q: "John, what did you think of Yoko's work when you first saw it?"

JOHN: "Well, her gallery show was a bit of an eye-opener. I wasn't sure what it was all about. I knew there was some sort of con game going on. She calls herself a concept artist, but with the 'cept' left off, it's con artist. I saw that side of it and that was interesting. And then we met."

Q: "Was it love at first sight?"

JOHN: "Well, I always had this dream of meeting an artist woman I would fall in love with. Even from art school. And when we met and were talking I just realized that she knew everything I knew -- and more probably. And it was coming out of a woman's head. It just sort of bowled me over. It was like finding gold or something. To have exactly the same relationship with any male you'd ever had, but also you could go to bed with it, and it could stroke your head when you felt tired or sick or depressed. Could also be Mother. And if the intellect is there... well, it's just like winning the pools. So that's why when people ask me for a precis of my story, I put, 'born, lived, met Yoko.' because that's what it's been about.

"As she was talking to me I would get high, and the discussion would get to such a level that I would be going higher and higher. And when she'd leave, I'd go back into this sort of suburbia. Then I'd meet her again and my head would go off like I was on an acid trip. I'd be going over what she'd said and it was incredible, some of the ideas and the was she was saying them, And then once I got a sniff of it I was hooked. Then I couldn't leave her alone. We couldn't be apart for a minute from then on."

YOKO: "He has this nature, and I'm thankful for it. Most men are so narrow-minded. Somebody once told me, 'You don't make small talk, and that's why men hate you.' I mean, I have so many male enemies who try to stifle me. What the hell."

JOHN: "I did the same, of course. I found myself being a chauvinist pig with her. Then I started thinking, 'Well, if I said that to Paul, or asked Paul to do that, or George, or Ringo, they'd tell me to fuck off.' And then you realize -- you just have this attitude to women that is just insane! It's beyond belief , the way we're brought up to think of women. And I had to keep saying, 'Well, would I tell a guy to do that? Would I say that to a guy? Would a guy take that?' Then I started to get nervous. I thought, 'Fuck, I better treat her right or she's going to go. No friend's going to stick around for this treatment."

Q: Did you know anything about rock music, Yoko, when you first met John?"

YOKO: "I didn't know anything about rock music, or anything like it. I thought of rock songs as something a bit lower than poetry. It was like reading poetry that had a definite rhythm to it."

JOHN: "She used to say, "Why are you doing the same beat all the time?' I used to get very irritated."

Q: "What were your feelings about art and the art world at that time?"

JOHN: "Well, I went to art school and I thought that was the art world, virtually. And they're all such pretentious hypocrites. There was no artist I admired, except for maybe Dali or someone from the past. And when I read the art reviews... I couldn't understand why I wasn't being reviewed for my art, because I always felt like an artist.

"So I went to her show. I was thinking, 'Fucking artist shit. It's all bullshit.' But then there were so many good jokes in it, real good eye-openers."

YOKO: "That's another thing, most artists don't have a sense of humor."

JOHN: "And there was a sense of humor in her work, you know? It was funny. Her work really made me laugh, some of it. So that's when I got interested in art again, just through her work."

YOKO: "All the men I met, I felt they were more pretentious than me, hypocritical, narrower than me, and not genuine. And I'm talented. Because I can compose, I can paint, I can be in many fields. Most men that I met were bragging about their professionalism in one field."

JOHN: "They get one idea and flog it to death, and become famous on one idea."

YOKO: "And fucking conservative, you know? And they talk about women not having a sense of humor. I used to despise every man that I met. I was thinking, 'There's something wrong with me, because everybody hated me for it.' And then I met this man, and for the first time I got the fright of my life because here was a man who was just as genuine, maybe more genuine than me. He's very genuine. And he can do anything I can do, which is very unusual. And I got surprised. And that happened at the first meeting."

JOHN: "It took me a long time to get used to it. Any woman I could shout down. Most of my arguments used to be a question of who could shout the loudest. Normally I could win, whether I was right or wrong, especially if the argument was with a woman -- they'd just give in. But she didn't. She'd go on and on and on, until I understood it. Then I had to treat her with respect."

Q: "Yoko, did you have any idea of what the Beatles' life had been like, on tours for example?"

JOHN: "She was really shocked. I thought the art world was loose, you know? And when I started telling her about what our life was like, she couldn't believe it."

YOKO: "I came from a different generation. I mean, my friends didn't want me to know they smoked pot, you know? So I thought 'Oh, he's an artist. He's probably had two or three affairs.' Then I heard the whole story and I thought, 'My God!'"

JOHN: "She was just like this silly Eastern nun wandering about, thinking it was all spiritual."

YOKO: "He once said to me, 'Well, were you a groupie in the art world?' I said, 'What's a groupie?'"

JOHN: "So I said, 'Just tell me. I don't want to go 'round and fucking Picasso or someone comes up and says, 'Yes, I've had her.'"

YOKO: "And I really didn't know the word 'groupie.'"

JOHN: "So anyway, I'd been dying to tell her about the 'raving' on tour. I just wanted her to know what a scene it was. I thought it was silly not to say it. And of course the people with us were living like fucking emperors when we were locked in our rooms. That's why they cling so much to the past."

Q: "Talking of your entourage, do you resent it that so many people take credit for their contributions to the Beatles?"

JOHN: "Well, there was an article on George Martin in Melody Maker -- he's telling all these stories. He says, well, I showed them how to play feedback, or put tape loops together, or some arbitrary little technical thing... Where is the great talent of George Martin and Derek Taylor, and the legacy of Brian Epstein? Where is their talent?"

YOKO: "It's like my ex-husband saying that he sacrificed his talent for me, or something."

JOHN: "Well, I never had anything against George Martin. I just didn't like all the rumors that he actually was the brains behind the Beatles. I can't stand that."

Q: "Let's talk about Brian Epstein, your first manager. What did you think of him?"

JOHN: " I liked Brian. I had a very close relationship with him for years, like I have with Allen, because I'm not going to have some stranger running the scene, that's all. I was close with Brian, as close as you can get with someone who lives sort of the fag life, and you don't really know what they're doing on the side. But in the group I was closest to him. He had great qualities and was good fun.

"He was a theatrical man rather than a businessman, and with us he was a bit like that. He literally fucking cleaned us up. And there were great fights between him and me, over years and years, of me not wanting to dress up. He and Paul had some kind of collusion... to keep me straight. Because I kept spoiling the image, like the time I beat up a guy at Paul's twenty-first. I nearly killed him, because he insinuated that me and Brian had an affair in Spain. I was out of me mind.

What I think about the Beatles is that even if there had been Paul and John and two other people, we'd never have been the Beatles. It had to take that combination of Paul, John, George and Ringo to make the Beatles. There's no such thing as 'Well, John and Paul wrote all the songs, therefore they contributed more.' because if it hadn't been us we would have got songs from somewhere else. And Brian contributed as much as us in the early days, although we were the talent and he was the hustler."

Q: "So after Brian died you made 'Magical Mystery Tour.' You said Paul was acting as if he were going to take charge of everything?"

JOHN: "Well, I still felt, every now and then, that Brian would come in and say, 'It's time to record,' or 'Time to do this.' And then Paul started doing that -- 'Now we're going to make a movie,' or 'Now we're going to make a record.' And he assumed that if he didn't call us, nobody would ever make a record. Well, it's since shown that we managed quite well to make records on time. I don't have any schedule, I just think, 'Now I'll make it.' But in those days, Paul would say that now he felt like it. And suddenly I'd have to whip out 20 songs. He'd come in with about 20 good songs and say 'We're recording.' And I had to suddenly write a fucking stack of songs. Pepper was like that. Magical Mystery Tour was another. So I hastily did my bits for it and we went out on the road. And Paul did the thing for his album -- the big-timer, auditioning directors."

Q: Let's go back for a minute and talk about all the early influences on the Beatles. What would you say had the greatest effect on the group? Was it Liverpool? The Cavern? Hamburg? Did Hamburg really improve the playing?"

JOHN: "Oh, amazingly. Because before that we'd only been playing bits and pieces, but in Hamburg we had to play for hours and hours on end. Every song lasted 20 minutes and had 20 solos in it. We'd be playing eight or ten hours a night. And that's what improved the playing. Also, the Germans like heavy rock, so you have to keep rocking all the time, and that's how we got stomping. That's how it developed. That made the sound. Because we developed a sound by playing hours and hours and hours together."

Q: "You all must have found yourself playing in some unbelievably bad conditions."

JOHN: "Yeah, but it was still rather thrilling when you went onstage. A little frightening because it wasn't a dancehall, and all these people were sitting down, expecting something. And then they would tell us to 'mak show'. After the first night they said, 'You were terrible. You have to make a show -- Mak show!' So I put my guitar down and I did Gene Vincent all night. You know -- banging and lying on the floor and throwing the mic about and pretending I had a bad leg. They're all doing it now -- lying on the floor and banging the guitar and kicking things and just doing all that jazz.

"Then they moved us to another club, which was larger and where they danced. Paul would be doing 'What'd I Say' for an hour and a half. And these gangsters would come in -- the local mafia. They'd send a crate of champagne onstage... this imitation German champagne, and we had to drink it or they'd kill us. They'd say, 'Drink it and then do What'd I Say.' We'd have to do this other show, whatever time of night. If they came in at five in the morning and we'd been playing for seven hours, they'd give us a crate of champagne and we were supposed to carry on. We'd get pills off the waiters then, to keep awake. That's how all that started.

"I used to be so pissed I'd be lying on the floor behind the piano, drunk, while the rest of the group was playing. I'd just be onstage fast asleep. Some of the shows, I went on just in me underpants. I'd go on in underpants with a toilet seat 'round me neck, and all sorts of gear on. Out of me fucking mind!"

Q: When did you get into acid? Did Paul time his LSD announcement to coincide with the release of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?"

JOHN: "No. We'd had acid on Revolver. Everyone is under this illusion... even George Martin saying 'Pepper was their acid album,' but we'd had acid, including Paul, by the time Revolver was finished."

Q: "So why did he make that big announcement?"

JOHN: "Because the press had cornered him. I don't know how they found out about him taking it. But that was a year after we'd all taken it. Rubber Soul was our pot album, and Revolver was acid. I mean, we weren't all stoned making Rubber Soul because in those days we couldn't work on pot. We never recorded under acid or anything like that. It's like saying, 'Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?' What the fuck does that have to do with it? The beer is to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on him. The drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. They don't make you write better. I never wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not on acid."

Q: "Did the fact that Sergeant Pepper inspired so many people to try LSD surprise you?"

JOHN: "Well, I never felt that Haight-Ashbury was a direct result. It always seemed to me that all sorts of things were happening at once. The acid thing in America was going on long before Pepper. Leary was going around saying, 'Take it, take it, take it.' We followed his instruction. I did it just like he said in the Book Of The Dead, and then I wrote Tomorrow Never Knows,' which is on Revolver, and which was almost the first acid song -- 'Lay down all thought, surrender to the void' -- and all that shit. Do you remember if Paul's statement on acid came out after Sergeant Pepper?"

Q: "Just as it was released."

JOHN: "I see. He always times his big announcements right on the letter, doesn't he. Like leaving the Beatles. Maybe it's instinctive. It probably is. Anyway, 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' is not about LSD. And Henry the Horse is not about smack on Sergeant Pepper, because I'd never even seen it when we made Sergeant Pepper. But those kinds of stories evolved from it -- people thought if you listened to it backwards it said 'Paul is dead.' All that shit is just gobbledygook."

Q: "Still, many who got into acid might never have followed Timothy Leary but did follow the Beatles."

JOHN: "Well, blame it on Dylan. He turned us onto pot."

Q: "Having written so much with Paul, do you think it's possible for there to be some type of settlement, outside of business?"

JOHN: "Well, there's no way for it to be settled 'outside business,' because it all gets down to who owns a bit of what. It's a house we own together, and there's no way of settling it, unless we all decide to live in it together. It has to be sold."

Q: "Have you missed writing songs with him?"

JOHN: "No I haven't. I wrote alone in the early days. We used to write separately. He used to write songs before I even started writing songs. I think he did. And we'd written separately for years. I wrote 'Help.' I wrote 'A Hard Day's Night.' He wrote 'Yesterday.' They'd been separate for years.

"In the early days we'd write together for fun, and later on for convenience to get so many numbers out for an album. But our best songs were always written alone. And things like 'A Day In The Life' was just my song and his song stuck together. I mean we used to sit down and finish off each other's songs. You know, you could have three quarters of a song finished and we'd just sit together, bring ten songs each, and finish off the tail ends, and put middle eights in ones that you couldn't be bothered fixing, because they weren't all that good anyway.

"We usually got together on songs that were less interesting. Now and then we'd write together from scratch. 'I Want To Hold Your Hand,' things like that were done like that. But we'd been working apart ever since we were working together. It was only news to the public that a lot of Lennon-McCartney songs weren't Lennon-McCartney. That was something we'd agreed on years ago."

Q: "Do you think it was a mistake in retrospect to have named everything Lennon-McCartney?"

JOHN: "No, I don't, because it worked very well and it was useful. Then it was useful, so it was quite good fun. I've nothing against it."

Q: "If you got, I don't know what the right phrase is... 'back together' now, what would be the nature of it?"

JOHN: "Well, it's like saying, if you were back in your mother's womb... I don't fucking know. What can I answer? It will never happen, so there's no use contemplating it. Even if I became friends with Paul again, I'd never write with him again. There's no point. I write with Yoko because she's in the same room with me."

YOKO: "And we're living together."

JOHN: "So it's natural. I was living with Paul then, so I wrote with him. It's whoever you're living with. He writes with Linda. He's living with her. It's just natural."

Source: Transcribed by www.beatlesinterviews.org from original magazine issue

#john: where is the great legacy of brian epstein? where is their talent?#john two minutes later: brian contributed as much as us in the early days #i've seen a lot of quotes from this interview going around on tumblr but not the whole thing #tw f slur #john lennon #yoko ono #the beatles #shanty’s posts

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bm2ab · 3 years

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Arrivals & Departures 07 July 1949 Shelley Alexis Duvall

Shelley Alexis Duvall is a American former actress and television producer, who is known for her portrayals of distinct, eccentric characters. Her accolades include a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Peabody Award and nominations for two BAFTA Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Duvall began her acting career in the 1970s, appearing in various films by director Robert Altman, including Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974) and Nashville (1975), the latter of which brought her recognition. She had her breakthrough with the thriller 3 Women (1977), also directed by Altman, for which she earned critical acclaim, receiving the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and also earning a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She also had a supporting role in Annie Hall (1977). In the 1980s, Duvall starred in lead roles as Olive Oyl in Altman's Popeye (1980) and Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's horror film The Shining (1980). She subsequently appeared in Terry Gilliam's fantasy film Time Bandits (1981), the short comedy horror film Frankenweenie (1984), and the comedy Roxanne (1987).

Duvall ventured into producing television programming aimed at children and youth; she created, hosted and appeared in Faerie Tale Theatre (1982–1987) and Tall Tales & Legends (1985–1987), the latter of which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 1988, followed by the young adult-aimed horror series Nightmare Classics (1989), which she created and produced. In the 1990s Duvall continued to appear in film, including supporting roles in Steven Soderbergh's thriller The Underneath (1995) and the Henry James adaptation The Portrait of a Lady (1996), directed by Jane Campion. Her last performance was in Manna from Heaven (2002), after which she retired from acting.

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thecoleopterawithana · 4 years

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"I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted" I think this quote is so telling but I haven't seen much commentary on it. Do you have any particular thoughts? It seems to put John in a very sad light. And to me it's one of his most revealingly repressed-gay quotes, but maybe there's another way to interpret & I'm overstepping.

Hello there, dear anon!

I hope you’re still around to see this! As usual, I’ve taken an appalling amount of time answering this thought-provoking ask. However, in this instance, that “appalling amount of time” is probably over a year; a new record for me. Wherever you are now, I hope you are well, and if my ramblings don’t reach you, may they interest others.

I also have to admit that at the time I received this ask, I was most likely not equipped to understand all the layers of meaning in this sentence. And it’d be quite presumptuous of me to assume that I am completely prepared now. But let’s just hope that my ability to perceive their nuances has grown since then, and will continue to do so in the future.

Needless to say, this is only my current interpretation, and I welcome any commentaries that will help broaden it! (And please don’t fret for a second about offering your own interpretation and somehow “overstepping”; we’re all just having a decades-spanning conversation here.)

Now, on with your question.

First, let’s integrate that sentence in its full quote:

Q: So, John. You and Paul were probably the greatest songwriting team in a generation. And you had this huge falling out. Were there always huge differences between you and Paul, or was there a time when you had a lot in common?

JOHN: Well, Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother… and obviously missed his mother. […]

JOHN: So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that’s not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He’s in Scotland. He told me he doesn’t like English cities anymore. So that’s how it is.

Q: So you think with Linda he’s found what he wanted?

JOHN: I guess so. I guess so. I just don’t understand. I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty. But you don’t really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d married Jane (Asher) because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like – boom! She was in and that was the end of it.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So, the interviewer inquires about their differences and similarities during the relationship, probably to assess the pervasiveness of the clashes that supposedly led to the “huge falling out” in “the greatest songwriting team in a generation.”

And John answers that “Paul always wanted the home life.”

At first glance, and following the logic of what was asked, one might assume John was pointing to a difference that always existed between them. And an irreconcilable difference at that, given that it’s the first thing he points out in answer to a question that is probing for sources of conflict that might explain their falling out.

So we get a feeling that John saw Paul having a family as incompatible with Paul maintaining a partnership with him. They were mutually exclusive; thus, Paul getting a family resulted in a falling out between them.

That right there carries a lot of implications already.

Because John himself also wanted the “complete family life”:

Q: But with that much experience behind you, now, would you like to have more children?

JOHN: Yeah, I – as – as many as come, you know. If Lennon roll out, as they. [thoughtful] I like large families. The idea of it.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Brian Matthew (13 November 1965).

And we shouldn’t take his disappointment with the suburban life in Weybridge as proof that he’d given up on that fantasy. It’s all about the circumstances, in the end; who you’re sharing your dream with.

After all, Yoko herself came with a “ready-made family”: a six-year-old daughter named Kyoko, who she was fighting to get the custody of, after divorcing the father, Anthony Cox, in February 1969; by then John and Yoko would even have a baby of their own.

This would all eventually fall through, as Yoko suffered a miscarriage in late November 1968, and Cox would disappear with Kyoko in 1971. Yoko would not see her daughter again until almost three decades later.

So you could see how John could have felt resentful of the family life Paul had built. Always perfect mirror images, Paul was living the dream, while John’s turned into a nightmare.

But with John, the situation is always doubly complicated. Because if he was often envious of Paul, John was also jealous. Note that “envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you’re worried someone’s trying to take what you have.”

So we have to go back to his first answer. We’ve established that wanting “the complete family life” was something they had in common rather than something they differed in.

But Paul wanting a family is still presented here as a reason for their falling out, or at least tangentially related. And John goes on to present his theory about how Paul’s choice in life partner was based on who could provide that for him. It wouldn’t be the career-focused Jane, or the inconsequential groupies.

And it couldn’t be John himself.

We should also note that, in answer to the second question, it is made clear that John’s previous declarations were but a retrospective interpretation of what happened. As he goes on to admit, at the time, John was surprised by Paul marrying Linda instead of Jane.

And that is how we finally get to the sentence in question:

“I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.”

A possible first layer of meaning is what I’m guessing you meant by this being “one of his most revealingly repressed-gay quotes.”

1. The emphasis being placed on John never knowing what he wanted in a woman, and thus not being able to know what Paul would find more desirable in a wife.

He does go on to use admittedly questionable pronouns: “I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty.” It happened in other instances in this interview:

I just realized that [Yoko] knew everything I knew, and more, probably, and it was coming out of a woman’s head. It just sort of bowled me over, you know? And it was like finding gold or something. To find somebody that you can go and get pissed with, and have exactly the same relationship as any mate in Liverpool you’d ever had, but also you could go to bed with him, and it could stroke your head when you felt tired, or sick, or depressed. It could also be Mother. And obviously, that’s what the male-female – you know, you could take those roles with each other.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So one could see how, at this time, John was struggling to manage the differences between male and female partners. As Cynthia put it:

I think he was trying to find himself a… what he’d call a soulmate. Someone who had as mad ideas as he had. I think he felt that she had the talent… but that’s debatable. But he needed that— he didn’t need a ‘mumsie’ partner at that point. He needed a mate. And I think he actually said, at some stage, in an interview that, you know— She’s the nearest thing to a man — a mate; man — that he’s ever had in a woman.

— Cynthia Lennon, interviewed by Alex Belfield for BBC Radio (2006).

Another angle that I find curious is:

2. The parallel drawn between Linda’s knowledge of Paul’s wants (and her ability to satisfy them) versus John’s.

“[Linda] knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him.” / “I never knew what he wanted”

This one integrates a theme I’ve been interested in exploring recently: their epistemology of each other. Basically, assumptions of knowledge; when it works out and when it doesn’t.

1968: I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do

JOHN: Well, [‘How Do You Sleep’]’s an answer, you know? Paul, uh, personally doesn’t feel as though I insulted him or anything. ’Cause I had dinner with him last week, and he was quite happy.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Mike Douglas on The Mike Douglas Show (12 February 1972).

1973: And I know just how you feel / And I know now what I have done / And I know and I’m guilty (yes I am) / But I never could read your mind

In this specific case, he could be humbly admitting he never knew what Paul wanted. But another possible reading of the sentence is the exact opposite:

3. The assumption that they were so connected, so much like a single entity, that to know himself was to know Paul. That their wants and needs are aligned, and what John wants must be what Paul wants.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.

1967: I am he / As you are he / As you are me / And we are all together

1969: I know you, you know me

The mirror image of this interpretation would be Paul’s own thought-provoking declarations:

[T]he Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals— all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl.

— Paul McCartney, for Life Magazine (7 November 1969).

Q: Will Paul and Linda become John and Yoko?

PAUL: No, they will become Paul and Linda.

— McCartney press release (9 April 1970).

And finally, I believe another very important facet expressed in this sentence is:

4. The theme of John not knowing what he wants for himself.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. […] But you don’t really know what you want until you find it.

This is a sentiment that John has expressed before.

JOHN: Weybridge won’t do at all. I’m just stopping at it […] I think of it every day — me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I’ll take my time; I’ll get my real house when I know what I want. You see there’s something else I’m going to do, something I must do — only I don’t know what it is. That’s why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn’t it for me.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard (4 March 1966).

JOHN: I think, in one way, all of us were under the slight illusion that we might— or maybe it wasn’t an illusion and maybe had we pushed harder we would have got what we wanted, but I’m not sure that anybody really knew what we wanted. We knew we didn’t like what was happening but nobody quite knew what it was that we wanted, cus we’d never had it!

This is another very fascinating avenue I’ve been wondering about.

John Lennon, the Dreamer, not actually knowing how that dream would manifest. Him having a vague romantic idea of what he wanted, but not really knowing how to practically bring it about.

[Imagine here a whole essay of John versus Paul in the studio, and their contrasting abilities to materialize the sounds they heard in their head and turn them into something that others could experience with them.]

In conclusion, these are about all the potential levels of nuance I can read in John’s statement at the moment. All of them fascinating and worth exploring. So I’m truly grateful to you for giving me the perfect opportunity to do so.

It would fill me with joy to have this conversation continued with all who feel like adding their own perspectives to it!

#asks me why #i never knew what he wanted in a woman because i never knew what i wanted #it's like a marriage #wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine #I'm just a jealous guy #and if i say i really knew you well #i know you you know me #you may say i'm a dreamer #the person i actually picked as my partner #johnny #macca #linda #yoko ono #Cynthia #3rd verse #1971 #quote #meta

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pynkhues · 4 years

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Movies I watched in...

Some pics and details under the cut! I’ve put a star next to the ones I really recommend in case anyone’s looking for something to watch :-)

1. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) [Drama] I hadn’t seen this before! I really enjoyed it! Jude Law is inhumanly beautiful in it.

2. Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (2019) [Documentary]. P good true crime doco, but I wish it had gone a bit deeper than it did? It ultimately felt a bit shallow given the subject matter.

3. XX (2017) [Horror Anthology]. Like all anthology films, a mixed bag. A couple of really good shorts though! A few really bad ones. Love that they were all directed by women though!

⭐ 5. The Sorrow & the Pity (1969) [Documentary]. Incredible doco about Vichy France having to reconcile with their compliance with the Nazi’s during WWII. Extremely affecting and hard to watch, but feels so, so topical with the rise of fascism again.

5. Straw Dogs (1971) [Thriller] I hated this movie a LOT, so do not recommend. Super, super misogynistic in a way that will make you feel extremely ill at various points.

6. Klute (1971) [Thriller / Drama] Yes, that IS a baby Jane Fonda as a lead! Also features a baby Donald Sutherland as a detective, so automatically, it scores points. P good little mystery movie!

⭐ 7. The Handmaiden (2016). I’m the Lady Gaga Flawless gif right now. So, so, so good. Watch it ASAP.

8. Shaft (1971) [Crime / Action]. V much a product of its time, but still pretty fun? Good for a good time.

9. The Andromeda Strain (1971) [Science Fiction]. Absolutely hilarious to watch this two months before a global pandemic hits your town, haha.

10. Cromwell (1970) [Historical Biopic] ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. But fine, I guess.

11. Marriage Story (2019) [Drama / Wankery]. *stares at the camera like I’m on The Office*

⭐ 12. The Nightingale (2019). [Australian Historical]. Extremely violent against both women and POC, so just a heads up in advance. Explores a dark chapter during Australian colonisation, but has an inherent humanity to it that director Jennifer Kent is really committed to (she also had therapists on set for the actors for the duration of the shoot too to handle the trauma the actors might experience through the content, which I respect). I was really moved by this film, but I know it won’t be for everyone.

13. Scrooge (1971) [Christmas Movie]. I should’ve watched this over Christmas, haha, but still, it’s a pretty fun adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

14. Little Big Man (1971) [American Historical / Western]. Dustin Hoffman plays a white guy raised by Native Americans, so that should tell you everything you need to know.

⭐ 15. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) [American Historical / Western]. I mean, do you SEE Warren Beatty’s coat in the pic below?? But actually this is pretty fun. A gambler and a sex worker become business partners and they basically run a small town until Capitalism ruins everything for everyone. Need a brio au yesterday tbh.

16. Thelma (2017) [Supernatural Thriller]. SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. And it ruins a lot of it tbh. Visually stunning, but I wish the script was better.

17. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) [American Historical / Action]. I say this as someone who, despite herself, usually enjoys Quentin Tarantino movies, this is a D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R. Like. Straight up mess.

18. The Boy Friend (1971) [Back stage Musical / Satire]. Oof, I wanted to love this, but it didn’t work for me. A hollow movie about how hollow Hollywood is. It, like many movies, became what it tried to critique.

19. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) [Fantasy / Family]. I actually hadn’t seen this before! Shockingly! Haha. I think I would’ve loved it if I’d watched it when I was 8, but as an adult, watching it for the first time was odd. I think it’d make a pretty great drinking game though.

⭐ 20. Her Smell (2018) [Drama / Musical]. Don’t know if I enjoyed it, but I thought it was good! Elisabeth Moss really is a force of nature, and I quite liked the layered plot. It really worked as a character study.

So that’s January for you! I think I’ll do February tomorrow! ;-)

#movies #god i watch a lot of movies hahaha #20 in a month is a lot even for me though #like literally #i only watched three in feb #but that's definitely unusually low for me #anyway #has anyone seen any of these?

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caitlynlynch · 4 years

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A set of three novellas all set at Christmastime at different parts of the Tudor era, I’m going to give each of these a separate review.

Christmas at Court by Blythe Gifford

The court of Richard III was a terrifying and treacherous place… especially for a young woman whose family was sworn to Elizabeth Woodville, and a man dedicated to seeing Henry Tudor take England’s throne. Set over three consecutive Christmases - two in Richard’s court and one in Henry’s - this tells the story of Sir John Talbot and Lady Alice, who are betrothed to each other at the connivance of their families, all of whom are busily assuring Richard of their loyalty even while quietly working behind the scenes against him. Everyone is playing dangerous games and nobody dares say anything, because the walls have ears… but nevertheless across the twelve days of the first Christmas they spend in each others’ company, John and Alice begin to develop feelings for each other, but it isn’t until Henry has the throne that they are finally able to think of a future together. What I liked most about this was the air of tension that permeated it; the whole court was paranoid, looking over their shoulders, wondering what the future would hold, and that really came across in Alice and John’s interactions; both nervous about anything they said in the fear that it might be fatal if their trust was misplaced.

Secrets of the Queen’s Lady by Jenni Fletcher

Anne of Cleves is considered by many to be the luckiest of Henry VIII’s famous six wives; their marriage lasted a scant six months before he divorced her and married Katherine Howard, but he treated her as a ‘favoured sister’, setting up her own court at Richmond. This story follows one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Pippa - a widow in her late thirties - and Kit, a young lord who has been acting as a diplomat in Europe. This one is interesting because Pippa is eight years older than Kit; they first met when he was only 17 and she took pity on him bumbling lost around a palace. After surviving a ghastly marriage, Pippa has vowed not to wed again, but Kit’s devotion eventually persuades her to reconsider.

His Mistletoe Lady by Amanda McCabe

Daughter of one of Catherine of Aragon’s former ladies in waiting, Catherin Greaves is summoned with her mother to Queen Mary’s court. With her father in the Tower following his apparent involvement in a plot to remove Mary from the throne, Catherine’s future is uncertain, and she’s definitely not eligible to marry Don Diego de Vasquez, an important and wealthy Spanish lord. The two of them are inexorably drawn together, though, and Catherine dares to dream of a future far from England’s shores. Based on the real story of Jane Dormer and the Count of Feria (who also appear in the story).

I really enjoyed this collection. All three stories were beautifully written and researched and felt so true to the period, each really capturing the mood of the courts in which they took place. I think Pippa and Kit’s story was my favourite, but then I’m always a sucker for an older woman/younger man story. All three of them are well worth reading. Five stars for a fantastic Tudor Christmas collection.

Tudor Christmas Tidings is available now.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via Rachel’s Random Resources.

#5 star review #tudor romance #story collection

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jasonfry · 4 years

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With baseball quickly approaching (for who knows how long), time for a pandemic installment of Classic Movies Everyone’s Seen But Me!

Summertime (1955)

David Lean works small (for him) in terms of both running time and vistas. He does a wonderful job with Venice, making the city practically a character in its own right -- and as someone who knows Venice well and loves it, I only caught Lean cheating on the geography a couple of times.

The real star isn’t the setting but Katherine Hepburn. Hepburn plays Jane Hudson, a middle-aged secretary from Akron, Ohio, who claims to have given up on romance. She hasn’t, of course, but it appears as if romance has given up on her -- Jane is a third wheel for the movie’s other couples and feels left out of even men on the make’s appraisals, spending the early part of the movie bonding with a street kid and the widow who runs her pensione. I’d write that it’s the kind of part that wasn’t written for actresses in the 1950s, but it’s the kind of part that isn’t written for actresses today. Hepburn inhabits the character beautifully, letting you see Jane’s hesitation and heartbreak in piercing scenes that sometimes rely entirely on body language, and Lean gives her the space to work, even when it’s an uncomfortable experience. A near-flawless performance.

The love story feels a little slight at first, but the ambiguity about what you should feel is intriguing. (Apparently this was even more the case in The Time of the Cuckoo, the play upon which Summertime was based.) Extra points for the Code-evading shot that tells us two characters have consummated their relationship. It’s only slightly subtler than the famous conclusion of North by Northwest.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Claude Rains has a marvelous time as the title character, an unruffled bureaucrat in charge of the afterlife who has to fix the case of a boxer taken up to Heaven a bit too soon. (The film was remade in the 70s with Warren Beatty and called Heaven Can Wait, the name used in its first incarnation as a play.) Rains is terrific, but the rest of the movie is pretty forgettable: Robert Montgomery is genial but not particularly memorable as prizefighter Joe Pendleton, and the plot logic breaks down completely in the endgame.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Another Rains vehicle, in he stars as the evil Prince John, scheming brother of Richard the Lionhearted and foe of Robin Hood, played (of course) by Errol Flynn. Rains somehow retains his dignity despite a horrific wig and some astonishing costumes -- there’s one black and silver getup whose shoes have to be seen to be believed.

But all the characters are wearing ridiculous things all the time, shown off via the movie’s thoroughly saturated palette. There are men-at-arms in purple and pink motley, the merry men’s green tights, Flynn’s honest-to-goodness bedazzled emerald top, a lady-in-waiting’s Fancy Shriner fez, and we haven’t even discussed the get-ups Olivia de Havilland sports. The costume designer whizzes past All Too Much before the first reel’s over and just keeps going. And the dialogue keeps up with the costumes. Robin Hood may be the campiest movie I’ve ever seen -- it makes The Birdcage look like Shoah.

Flynn is capable with a sword and performs his stunts with swashes properly buckling, but man oh man could he not act. He has two basic expressions: fighting and making merry, and looks a little lost when the story requires him to investigate whether a situation requires choosing between the two.

Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often, and you’ll have fun anyway. This is the template for about a billion adventure stories made since then, and it’s entertaining even when you’re not elbowing the other person on the couch to point out what was waiting in Claude Rains’s dressing room this time. Think of it as a live-action cartoon and enjoy the ride.

Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Audrey Hepburn is the innocent, cello-playing daughter of a Paris private investigator (Maurice Chevalier) who interferes with her father’s work by preventing an American playboy (Gary Cooper) from getting shot by a jealous husband, then pretends to outdo the playboy at his own no-consequences game.

The story is light and amusing, with Chevalier ably serving as the fulcrum who helps it turn into something poignant and more interesting at the end. (The voiceover as coda, by the way, was added for Code reasons.) And Billy Wilder (co-writing and directing) guides the ship with a light, skilled hand -- the scenes between Cooper’s Frank Flanagan and his hired band are particularly fun.

There’s a fatal flaw, though: While Hepburn has never been more luminous, Cooper is too old to be the leading man. Wilder knew this, using soft focus and dim lighting in an effort to be kind that just calls attention to the movie’s fatal flaw. Moreover, Flanagan’s neither particularly interesting nor pleasant, so you never believe Hepburn’s Ariane would actually be interested in him. (He’s rich, granted, but she doesn’t seem to care about that.)

Directors kept doing this to Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s: Three years earlier, Wilder stuck her with a half-rotted Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina; in 1957 she also had to put up with a mummified Fred Astaire in Funny Face. Beyond the fact that it’s creepy, it doesn’t work for those stories.

I’m going to look on the bright side: Hepburn deserves even more adulation than she gets, since she rises above her AARP romantic leads to carry all three pictures.

The 39 Steps (1935)

A clever early Hitchcock I found intriguing because you can see the visible language of film evolving before your eyes. Some scenes look utterly modern, with intriguing camera angles and blocking, but they’re right next to oddly static compositions, or scenes filled with cuts that cross the line for no apparent reason. But there’s also a justifiably famous transition shot from a cleaning woman’s horrified discovery to a train whistle, a tricky perspective change from inside a car, and some other nice surprises.

The movie is a prototype Hitchcock thriller, with a plot that carries you along provided you don’t ask too many questions. (Or any questions, really.) But the movie hits its stride surprisingly late, coming into focus once Robert Donat’s Richard Hannay winds up manacled to Madeleine Carroll’s Pamela. Hang around that long and you’ll be well entertained.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

This one made my list because it was an inspiration for Solo, a Star Wars spinoff movie I think deserved a better reception and suspect will be viewed more fondly in time. Yep, that’s Warren Beatty’s fur coat that Alden Ehrenreich wears, and the bar Beatty visits in the town of Presbyterian Church is a dead ringer for the one where Han and Lando Calrissian meet over cards.

So that was fun. As for the rest, after my usual post-movie reading, I get what Robert Altman was going for. This is an anti-Western that relentlessly inverts the genre’s tropes, with the climactic gunfight happening not in the center of town before all eyes, but scarcely noticed as the townspeople rush to put out a fire.

But I found that more interesting to read about than to watch. I was never invested in Beatty’s McCabe or Julie Christie’s Mrs. Miller, finding them less memorable than a young visitor who runs afoul of trouble (Keith Carradine) or the lead bounty hunter sent after McCabe (Hugh Millais, exuding genial menace).

Still, the movie has a powerful sense of place, I keep finding myself thinking about it, and lots of people whose opinions I respect consider it a classic. So perhaps I’ll revisit this one someday. But for now, my conclusion is that I’m missing whatever gene you need to appreciate chilly, airless Hollywood art-house movies of the 1970s -- a movement, ironically, that screeched to a halt when Jaws and Star Wars introduced the era of the summer blockbuster.

#movies

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letterboxd · 5 years

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Milking It.

Peerless American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt talks to Ella Kemp about her new film, First Cow, her favorite animal performers, and getting down to the nitty gritty of things.

We’re resharing this post to mark the arrival of ‘First Cow’ on VOD. The interview took place timed to the original release of the film in March, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

With little fuss, Kelly Reichardt has been making some of the most tender and thoughtful films about American loneliness for decades. The quietly acclaimed director, writer and film lecturer began her feature career in 1994 with River of Grass, a runaway story of a couple caught in a tragedy, and now celebrates her ten-title milestone as a filmmaker by gifting the world the peaceful and moving portrait of another pair of nomads in First Cow.

Reichardt has earned her reputation as one of the most impressive and reliable American filmmakers with knockouts including the stripped-back heartbreaker, Wendy and Lucy and the stunning portrait of feminine isolation and frustration, Certain Women. There is always a common thread—and there is often Michelle Williams—but then, also, each film is a rich, vivid new tale that feels like it belongs to you and no one else.

Based on the 2004 novel The Half-Life, written by Reichardt’s frequent collaborator Jonathan Raymond, First Cow has been coming together for over a decade, and feels like the culmination of Reichardt’s finest skills and sensibilities. The story follows Cookie (John Magaro) a taciturn cook travelling alongside fur trappers in 19th-century Oregon, whose ambition comes into focus when he meets King Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant. Together, they develop not only an essential friendship, but also a delicious business model, which involves slyly stealing milk from a cow owned by a wealthy landowner. It’s a film of subtle gestures, of deeply tender attentions, with a sharp eye across endless landscapes, and already has devoted fans on Letterboxd.

“I have never felt so well cared for by a movie,” writes Liz Shannon Miller in her Letterboxd review. Zachary Panozzo appreciates the way the film tackles American capitalism as a system, writing that “First Cow, in the most pleasant and honest way, calls bullshit on that.” And Phil Wiedenheft observes: “It feels—like all her work—so simple and elegant that it’s a wonder how [many] histrionics so many other filmmakers have to perform to end up saying less.” And, everyone wants those butter-honey biscuits.

First Cow premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last year and went on to the New York Film Festival shortly after, before impressing European audiences last month in competition at the 2020 Berlinale.

Sharing memories of the writers who shaped her movies, the first film that proved that cinema could show a different view of the world, and the greatest animal performers of all time, Reichardt chats with our London correspondent, Ella Kemp.

Orion Lee as King-Lu and John Magaro as Cookie in ‘First Cow’.

How did you choose where to strip The Half-Life back, to get to a film-sized story? Kelly Reichardt: The novel goes through four decades and they sail to China, so it was way outside the realm of what we could do. It also has a contemporary thread, and that just became a prologue and we settled into the 1820s. We found the main mechanism, the cow, which doesn’t exist in the novel—in the novel they’re selling the oil from beaver glands to China. So once we had the narrative element of the cow, we could work our own way into the script while still using a lot of the themes and stories from John’s novel. And the other thing John did, which was great, was to combine two characters from the novel. King Lu is actually a fusion of two people in the novel.

On paper, First Cow might seem like a straightforward Western but in practice it feels much softer. How do you see it in terms of genre? I didn’t feel any limits by a genre, and I wasn’t really thinking of it as a ‘big W’ Western. I actually see it as a heist film if anything. When I made Meek’s Cutoff, we were dealing with bonnets and wagons and the desert and people crossing West. That felt like having to deal with the whole history of the Western while we set up the camera, but I didn’t feel like that at all here. I just felt like we were telling an intimate story about two people. We were in the minutiae of trying to find out as much as we could about the Multnomah tribes that lived on the Columbia river, and we had fashioned Toby Jones’ character—the Chief Factor—after John McLoughlin in the [retail business group] Hudson’s Bay Company. It was more about researching the beaver trade and definitely taking artistic liberties, while also really trying to stay pretty true in the details to the period. It was such a little world we were building, I didn’t really have the feeling that I was confined in a genre at all.

Kelly Reichardt. / Photo by Jens Koch courtesy Berlinale

You work with outdoor landscapes a lot, particularly in Oregon. There are similarities with Meek’s Cutoff but also with Wendy and Lucy—the nomadic loners, the animal companion… What keeps you coming back to these places? I’ve actually worked outdoors much more than I’ve worked indoors. It’s really the indoors which was really fun to shoot here, because with Tony Gasparro, who was the production designer on First Cow, he and I were able to design these cottages and interiors and build around what [we] wanted to shoot, which is really great and a first for me. But outdoors is where I’m usually mostly shooting. It was recognizable to me at different points in the film that we were recalling Old Joy and Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy. It was like the ‘Best Of’ of my movies.

There were some echoes of the other films for sure. It’s interesting to think how that’s happened. Because really, John’s novel The Half-Life is the first thing I ever read of his, and I wrote to him asking if he had any short stories—because I knew the novel was too big back in 2004—and he sent me Old Joy, the short story, which became the first thing we did together. But in between all that we’d been musing together for a decade, whenever there’s a lull in whatever we’re working on, we’d ask ourselves how we could do The Half-Life. It’s been cooking on the back burner for a long time, so maybe it’s bled into other films along the way.

Would you ever consider working in the city? I’m definitely ready to do something contemporary. It could be anything. I will just say on the practical side I do enjoy going away with a crew and feeling somewhat off the grid while making a film, separate from everyday life. When you say a city, I immediately think of New York. Never say never, but it’s just the practicalities of it… even if you can hire the crew you want, it doesn’t jump out at me as the most inviting thing.

In First Cow, your central characters are two men. Did you encounter different things in delving into male psychology after shaping so many rich female characters across your filmography? I don’t think of it in terms of gender, more in terms of personality. Maile Meloy’s short stories that I was working off for Certain Women focus on isolated women, a theme in some of her writing. But it’s really more about getting down to details on all levels of filmmaking for me. You have at some point the bigger picture, but I like to get down to the nitty gritty of things, in the story I’m telling and the people I’m making the story about and not worry about what gender anybody is. It’s more about who are these characters. A big draw to The Half-Life was that the Cookie character was so great. King Lu was totally fascinating as well. So it was more about keeping track of what they wanted, what they were to each other in the minute-by-minute, more even than in the big sense.

Lucy, the very good girl in Reichardt’s ‘Old Joy’.

Evie, the titular cow, is a terrific performer. What is your favorite animal performance on film? Oh god… Lucy! My own beautiful dog in Old Joy (2006), actually. No, of course there’s others. The animal that probably made the biggest impression on me as a kid was in Mike Nichols’ The Day of the Dolphin (1973). That dolphin was everything. You’re always afraid the animals are going to come to some demise. There’s [Vincente] Minnelli’s Home from the Hill (1960), which has the tragic hunting dog there. But it’s such a beautiful film. Whenever a film is named after the animal, you know it’s bad news for the animal.

Do you have a favorite film to teach your students? I’ve been teaching since 1998 so I wouldn’t call anything a favorite, but one film I’ve used in a sound class a lot is the opening scene of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), where we’re just listening to the sound, and we turn off the image and the students describe the space. And so by doing that over the years I have René Auberjonois’ voice so firmly planted in my head, as he’s the bartender in the opening scene. I had the great pleasure of working with him on Certain Women and we wrote a little part for him [in] First Cow where he’s the cranky guy in town with the raven.

What is the film that made you want to be a filmmaker? When I was a kid and I saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) on TV, and there was a scene on a beach at night that happened in black and white. It was the first time I’d seen the ocean in black and white—I grew up in Miami. It was the first time I became aware that people could do something as far as film went. I think when I was in art school, Stranger Than Paradise (1984) came out, and it probably opened the door to a lot of people’s minds—like a lot of people who saw the first band who played their own music and not cover tunes, like, ‘maybe I could tell my own story on film’. It made something seem possible, for myself anyway.

‘First Cow’ is in US cinemas now. An international release is yet to be confirmed. Kelly Reichardt’s films ‘First Cow’ and ‘Wendy and Lucy’ feature in Letterboxd’s Official Top 100 Narrative Feature Films Directed by Women.

#kelly reichardt #first cow #american film #american cinema #capitalism #animal performers #hollywood animals #female filmmakers #directed by women #52 films by women #female director #letterboxd #interview #q&a

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reading-writing-revolution · 5 years

Text

This is long but it is important. Thanks for this!

#resist

This is where I stand. I feel that our 45th President, his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all the people I love. Some people are saying that we should give Trump a chance, that we should "work together" with him because he won the election and he is "everyone's president." I am willing to do all of that if/when his policies seem reasonable. However:

•I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years...

•I will not "work together" to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid.

•I will not "work together" to build a wall.

•I will not "work together" to persecute Muslims.

•I will not "work together" to shut out refugees from other countries.

•I will not "work together" to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the middle class and poor.

•I will not "work together" to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his family and cronies.

•I will not "work together" to weaken and demolish environmental protection.

•I will not "work together" to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then spoil those lands.

•I will not "work together" to enable the killing of whole species of animals just because they are predators or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.

•I will not "work together" to remove civil rights from anyone.

•I will not "work together" to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.

•I will not "work together" to slash funding for public education.

•I will not "work together" to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

•I will not "work together" to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.

•I will not "work together" to mark transgendered men and women as something to fear.

•I will not "work together" to eliminate the minimum wage.

•I will not "work together" to support so-called "Right To Work" laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.

•I will not "work together" to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.

•I will not "work together" to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.

•I will not "work together" to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.

•I will not "work together" to put even more "big money" into politics.

•I will not "work together" to violate the Geneva Convention.

•I will not "work together" to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.

•I will not "work together" to deny health care to people who need it.

•I will not "work together" to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a "pre-existing condition."

•I will not "work together" to increase voter suppression.

•I will not "work together" to normalize tyranny.

•I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.

•I will not "work together" with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.

•I will not support anyone that thinks its OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans. And, it would run under the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of people. An accident waiting to happen.

This is my line, and I am drawing it.

•I will stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings.

•I will use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN:

That "winning", "being great again", "rich" or even "beautiful" is nothing... When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

If you agree, feel free to copy and re-post (this results in larger numbers of people seeing a post than sharing...just press your finger down on your phone screen, hit "copy", go to your Facebook...comment by pressing your finger on your comment area and hit "paste"), and if you want, sign your name below ours.

Also, if we have left anything out, feel free to add it to this list.

Signed:

Annette Joseph-Walker

Denise Edlow

Patricia Rollins Trosclair

Andrea Dora Zysk

George Georgakis

John Christopher

John Bowles

Patrick St.Louis

Carla Patrick

Darnell Bender

Vickie Davis

JMichael Carter

Janice Frazier-Scott

Rev. ELaura James Reid

Jeanette Bouknight

Rev. Dollie Howell Pankey

Gerald Butler

Carolyn McDougle

Vaughn Chatman

Adrienne Brown

Gary Trousdale

Steven E Gordon

Isis Nocturne

Debi Murray

Maureen O. Betita

Mona Enderli

Fernie James Tamblin

Myrna Dodgion

Alan Locklear

Tom Wilmore

Jackie Evans

Donna Endres

Lora Fountain

Roberta Gregory

Heather A Mayhew

Stevo Wehr

Nathan Stivers

Jen RaLee

Joan Holden

Leigh Lutz

Deborah Kirkpatrick

Linda Levy

Tom Rue

Nancy Hoffmann-Allison

Beejay McCabe

Michael James Myers

Edward T. Spire

Rupert Chapman

Dawn R. Dunbar

Robin Wilson

Monique Boutot

Laura Brown 💪🏼

Susan Aptaker

Steve Katz

Bonnie Wolk

Risa Guttman-Kornwitz

Angela Gora

Butch Norman

Sharon Tolman

Sue Zislis

Maurice Hirsch

Satch Dobrey

Jim Krapf

Don Starwalt

Deb Johansen

Daniel Anderson

Diane Kenney

Rebecca Koop

Nancy Shuert

Bill Pryor

Patrick Lamb

Bob Travaglione

Margaret Ragan

Martha Peters

Steve Wilson

Lauren Sullivan

Scott Bevan

Roger Saunden

Jane Ayer

Alex Simon

Laura Gross

Kevin Geiger

Michael Mikula

CJ Niehaus

MaryLou Mateja

Robert E Mateja, Sr.

Diane williams

Joseph Mele

Brenda Horne Bain

Laura Love

Christine L. Linde

Carlotta Spears

Kate Schmidt

Antonia Nelson

Mayo Underwood

Jackie Miller

Daniella Zimmerman

Margot Kovacs Fulmer

Ann Denison

Devney Schendorf

Matt Wheeler

Monica Bruno

Debbie Pierson

Rachel Licitra

Carol Mele

Dan Moldovan

Ray Miller

Diane Miller

Joey Frank

Lisa Del Sordi

Philip J Ofiesh

Carol Mulligan

Michelle Gonnering

Darian Gavin

Scott Meek

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safflowerseason · 5 years

Note

Is Cassie every gonna find out about the extent of her fathers dick head behavior? Like all the women he fucked over for his career?

Hmmm…another really great and complex question!

Like I said in the last ask, I haven’t fully worked out for myself how Cassidy is going to process the reality of her parents’ careers and their shitty misdeeds, and I think a lot of your question hinges on that answer. Is she going to be like Catherine and resent it? Is she going to be like Dan (and Amy, to a lesser degree) and grasp that it’s all part of the political game? I honestly do not know yet! It’s also worth pointing out that Amy has done some morally corrupt things, too…not to the degree that Dan has, and certainly she doesn’t exploit male attraction to her, but she’s made bad deals and gotten her hands dirty lots of times. What I think is more likely than Cassie learning about Dan and Amy’s pasts is the two of them doing something morally ambiguous while she’s old enough to care about it…making some teeth-gritting deal or engaging in some borderline illegal behavior (although I suspect Amy, at least, would be far less cool with actually breaking the law once she had a kid, and she’d keep Dan in line as well).

I guess what I’m saying is, Dan’s behavior toward women is far from the only bad thing about him that Cassie will have to confront. (…why do I like these characters so much?)

For the sake of the question, I do think this is a bit of a different situation from Cassie learning about Sophie, which is a piece of family history. For one thing…I don’t know every single thing my parents did before I was born. I know some details, yeah, but not all the nitty gritty details of their past relationships and career choices. If doesn’t affect anything in the present day, I can’t see Cassie as being super interested in it, to be honest. And Dan’s tendency, in the early seasons of the show, to use sex as a political tool does not really influence his actual parenting. Cassie is the apple of Dan’s diabolical eye, and he is married to a pretty fierce and cutthroat woman in her own right—a woman who has also made some pretty morally corrupt decisions, although not to the degree that Dan has.

So, in that sense, it is hard for me envision that Cassie will eventually learn every shitty thing her parents ever did, and that includes all the times Dan slept with a woman for his career. That’s quite a list, and also…Dan himself isn’t exactly burdened by his past behavior. He doesn’t regret what he did to any of those women. Does sixty-year old Dan even remember who Carol Hallowes is? Probably not.

Looking at Dan and Amy’s relationship in the show with a wide perspective, it’s also not hard to fit Dan’s sleeping around in S5 and S6 as a very obvious reaction to being on the outs with Amy (this is one reason that Dan and Amy’s arc in S6 still fits with the rest of the show in a way that S7 just doesn’t). So, like, if Cassie ever wanted an explanation for that period of Dan’s life—and maybe the Jane McCabe debacle, which is Dan’s most public sexual misadventure, if one that was entirely invented—I think that’s probably the answer he’d give.

Obviously, in BMTL, when Dan decided to commit to Amy, he stopped screwing other women in all contexts—either for fun or because he wanted to open a professional door. And by the time Cassie is old enough to even think about these types of things, Dan and Amy will have been together for years and years and very, very settled into their twisted-yet-functional relationship patterns. She won’t ever know them apart from one another—she won’t know the version of Dan who slept around for career advancement (who, at one time, thought about sleeping with Selina). At the same time, she does know her parents weren’t together when she was born, and she understands that their careers are central to their lives, and that their relationship is part of that.

So, all this taken into account, what seems realistic to me is that over time, Cassie will grasp that her father is a powerful man who clearly relies on his sex appeal. That, coupled with the Sophie thing, could cause her to have questions about his life before he and Amy figured it out. In that context, she could learn that her dad sometimes used sex as a political tool, when he was young and ambitious and wanted to get ahead by any means possible. But again—I haven’t not fully worked out her reaction to that knowledge yet.

#veep fic #bring me to light universe #cassidy brookheimer egan #dan egan

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yexiu · 5 years

Note

Who are your favorite female heroes from Marvel and DC?? I’m looking for good wimins contents

oooh i have a lot!! but why does my brain always go blank when i get these asks 😅

for marvel:

XI’AN COY MANH!!! new mutants original run good...also that one run of astonishing x-men she was in? liu i think

sue storm!! i have a whole f4 reading list linked here

anya corazon! order here

same with mayday parker

kamala khan is a great starting point for marvel and she’s been in some really good books! i have a general order for her here. its kinda outdated tho so i would add the current champions run and the magnificent ms. marvel too

ororo munroe! try greg pak’s storm solo i remember really liking it. and wilson (?)’s x-men v4 is good too

felicia hardy! spider-man & black cat: the evil men do is a good mini

monet st. croix! x-men v4 again lmao

mary jane watson.....i really like her in the lee/romita run but straczynski writes a fantastic mj too

jennifer walters...big gf. i’m blanking on which run of hers was my fav...i think it was the tamaki one?

for dc:

CASS CAIN!!! read her batgirl run and the outsiders run coming out rn!!

obviously diana!! personally rucka’s runs are my fav ever!! i suggest reading the hiketeia too

mari mccabe (vixen)!! try orlando’s justice league of america

mera had a pretty decent miniseries out recently and i’ve heard good things about her graphic novel!

renee montoya! try gotham central for her

loma shade!! shade the changing girl and then shade the changing woman

linda park....my momther....try waid’s wally flash run for her

courtney whitmore! jsa 2007 is so much fun

cassie sandsmark too...original young justice is good

thats all thats coming to mind rn.....will update later if i remember more

#comics.txt #anons #📬#thank you for asking!!

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saleintothe90s · 5 years

Text

392. Phyllis George hosting the CBS Morning News

So you know the morning show on CBS is mostly drama free, save for when Charlie Rose was fired for being a perv a while back. It’s been pretty consistent with (aunt) Gayle King hosting. This is the first time in 30+ years that the show has been consistent.

Way back in the early 1980s, the morning show as hosted by Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis. (clip from 1981/1982-ish -- I’m living for that intro) Bill Kurtis is the guy who did the voiceovers for those crime shows that A&E used to show at nauseam in the mornings back in the late 2000s. What was the show, American Justice? If you’re into crime programming, you know him from that. If you live in Chicago, you know him as the long time newscaster for the CBS station there. In 1984, Diane grew tired of the morning beat and moved to 60 Minutes. Bill stayed, thinking that Meredith Viera or Jane Wallace was going to be the next host.

Nop. Former Miss America, former first lady of Kentucky, and former NFL Today co host, Phyllis George. She was chosen by CBS Executives with a leader who was in the advertising business, and not in the journalism business. 1 Drama instantly began. Richard Salant, former President of CBS News said upon her hiring, “I am heartbroken. [...] put the show in the Entertainment Division, or the Record or the Toy Division, but get it out of news.” 2 He had a point, the lady had no journalism experience.

(this is a clip from October of 1984--when CBS was trying out several women to to see who would replace Diane Sawyer, as you can see, Phyllis was one of the women who auditioned. This was in the old ‘newsy” format.)

The new show began in January of 1985, during the soft chit-chat at the beginning of the show, Phyllis asked Bill if he wanted to hear about her troubles moving to New York. He said no. Dang. 3

Things didn’t improve. One time Phyllis wanted John Candy on the show:

Welp, it all came crashing down come May. In Illinois, Gary Dotson had been released from prison, after being there for eight years for a rape he did not commit. The accuser, Cathleen Mae Webb had become a born again Christian and had recanted her accusation from 1977. The press had a field day with this and the big three networks were all trying to chase the two down in New York City for an interview during their morning shows. 4 On May 15, 1985 the two sat down to all three shows i one morning, Today first, second rated Good Morning America second and scrappy ass CBS Morning News was third. Seriously, Cathleen and Gary’s interview was around the final 10.15 minutes of the show. So, they’re siting down with Phyllis, the interview starts:

...a track meet?

I don’t have a transcript, the interview is not online anywhere, but I’ve read in articles that she also said this:

"I read this morning that you've had 41 television offers to put this into a movie. Is that right? Do you feel like a celebrity?" [She had a big grin on her face through all of this.] When Dotson said he'd had "offers" of jobs, now that he is out of prison, George jovially asked, "Starring in your own movie?", apparently thinking he meant that kind of offer. Said Dotson, "No." 5

....HOWBOUTTAHUG?!

The switchboards lit up with complaints. I know it was a stupid choice of words, but I can’t believe that people called in, but 20 people in the Washington D.C. area did. 5 I don’t see anywhere where she apologized on the show the next day.

By June 7th, Bill Kurtis had left the show, to return to Chicago. Bob Schieffer was recruited in to help the show. At first, he didn’t want to do it. He thought, “Oh shit, not the morning news again.” He only took the job because his pay doubled, and he was just going to be the temporary guy. Bob mentioned in his book This Just in: what I couldn’t tell you on TV that Phyllis seemed to make less mistakes through the Summer. Bob also mentions that since he didn’t want the job, he would waltz into work calm around 6am. 6 My boy Bob didn’t give a...

However, on her days off, Maria Shriver filled in. That was probably the next to last nail in the coffin for her days at CBS. Maria was so much better. Here’s a clip of Bob and Maria when Bob spills coffee on her foot. See, I told you he didn’t care.

The ultimate nail, however was the realization that celebrities wouldn’t come on the show because they didn’t want Phyllis interviewing them. 3 On the Friday before labor day, calls were made, deals were made and Phyllis was off the air. Of course, the press release said that she decided to leave the show because she was tired and wanted to return to Kentucky. 7 Upon learning of her departure, someone who worked on the show ceremoniously threw away a set of tapes of “famous couples” interviews that Phyllis had done that had not aired yet, and said, “they’ll never run.” 3

---

Related Links:

@BillKurtis : Grim and tragic quotes from A&E television host Bill Kurtis. (not Bill’s real twitter, twitter has’t been updated in nearly 10 years). I believe Bill’s real twitter is @BillKurtis1.

@bobschieffer hasn’t updated his twitter since 2017 when his newest book came out. John McCain was his last retweet :/.

Bob Schieffer retires Sunday after 46 years at CBS News

Bob Schieffer signs off

There’s an episode of American Justice about Dotson -- guess who narrates it. Yup, Bill Kurtis. Phyllis was actually mentioned in the pilot episode of Growing Pains.

1. Wittebols, James H., The Soap Opera Paradigm (Landham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 71.

2. Issacs, Norman E., Untended Gates: the mismanaged press (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 197.

3. McCabe, Peter, Bad News at Black Rock: the sell-out of CBS News (New York: Arbor House), 191, 102, 123, 186, 193.

4. McDowell, Edwin, “KEY FIGURES IN ILLINOIS RAPE CASE APPEAR ON TV,” New York Times, May 16, 1985.

5. Shales, Tom, “Invitation to a Hug Phyllis George's Gaffe With Dotson & - The Washington Post,” Washington Post, May 16, 1985. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/05/16/invitation-to-a-hug-phyllis-georges-gaffe-with-dotson-38/abd90ef2-c53a-4785-947a-56709e47d0b5/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.acc74e109e91

6. Schieffer, Bob, This just In: what I couldn’t tell you on TV (New York: Berkley), 302-305.

7. Smith, Sally Bedell, “PHYLLIS GEORGE QUITS 'CBS MORNING NEWS',” New York Times, August 31, 1985. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/arts/phyllis-george-quits-cbs-morning-news.html

#1985 #the 1980s #phyllis george #bill kurtis #cbs #morning television

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wecouldstillbegreat · 6 years

Text

Veep Season 7 Speculation Masterpost *Contains Spoilers*

Since filming is officially over, I thought it’d be fun to make a post about what we know so far based on bts pics, vids, and casting calls. 🚨There are spoilers.🚨 Please let me know if there are episodes or scenes that seem to be out of order, if there’s anything you want to add, and what your thoughts are!

7x01

Episode title: Iowa

Season 7 ties up loose ends from season 1 and 2.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/reid-scott-talks-satisfying-final-season-veep-watch-1155959?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Picks up right after season 6 season finale and takes place in Des Moines Iowa.

http://casliyn.tumblr.com/post/178669576156/at-the-end-of-the-last-season-she-was-going-to

Selina’s in her suite with Gary.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1029778420761124864

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1029931847449378816

There’s a hotel hallway scene with Dan and Amy.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1029861684985323522

There’s another hotel scene with Dan and Amy?

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1029868505166835712

Jonah holds a campaign rally as “New Hampshire’s Favorite Son” (Bill Ericsson, Teddy, and Richard are there).

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1030121450286473216

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1030240385291837440

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1030241154514604033

Selina arrives at an airport. Her supporters are seated in bleachers, along with a marching band (Dan and Amy are there).

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1030539434129649664

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1030473523846729729

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1030600666069184512

Guest star Jimmy Tingle.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1032119016821731328

Jane Mccabe is back to interview Jonah in his house with Paul Scheer/Stevie. Teddy is also in Jonah’s house.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1031731303639441408

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1031715151659954176

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1031731603267964928

The team is at a rally? There are signs saying Run Selina Run.

https://twitter.com/AnnetteACaton/status/1031962753844436992

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1032120339705155585

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1027632487080443905

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1031971162631286784

There’s an office scene with Gary, Kent, Ben, Amy, Dan. There’s a poster of Selina’s book A Woman First in the background. Amy is wearing the same blue dress from the airport and Dan is wearing the same suit.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1032411392886767617

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1032483154391588864

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1032364883612856320

In this episode? Amy wears Penn Pajamas and stands in front of a hotel vending machine.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm2BPzQAPgN/

The floor plans for 7x01 have Dan and Amy’s rooms right next door to each other. There is a designated spot for FaceTime with Sophie.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1029179317035487232

Written on 7x01 script: Dan is coming around.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1024069852368056320

Buddy and Sophie are back.

Cast list includes: Sarah Sutherland, Clea Duvall, Hugh Laurie, Matt Oberg, Diedrich Bader, Patton Oswalt, Margaret Colin, Nancy Lenehan, Brian Huskey, Mary Catherine Garrison.

7x02

Takes place on a ranch.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034268863096008704

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1035255461639909376

There’s a scene that takes place in a bathroom.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034261953349177344

There’s a group breakfast.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034604803622457344

Dan skips rocks with Amy.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034523880277196800

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034535742981074949

Tom James is at the ranch.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1034596968805195776

Charlie Hall guest stars.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnlxZQOAUUi/

Selina discovers something on the phone, group takes off running. Buddy running announcement?

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1035034185285611521

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1035031278037299201

Country club supporters are seated outside on a grassy area, while someone makes an an announcement. There’s a fire pit? Ben, Kent, Amy, Gary are in the scene.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1035658193127366656

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1035283016082370561

Casting call: extremely wealthy, upscale, upper class, attractive Caucasian looking Country Club Men and Women from 30s to 50s!!! NO TATTOOS

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155828321980017

There is square dancing.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1035730618934472704

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7806352/?ref_=ttep_ep2

7x03

Time jump?

Jonah has a rally in New Hampshire.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbzhrBUjYq3/

Conference call scene with Marjorie, Catherine, Dan, Amy, Leon West

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1041803369315102720

Hallway scene with Ben, Selina, Gary, Kent at Selina headquarters.

Ben: “Ma’am we got a new game plan” Selina: “What?” Ben: “(Inaudible)…That’s the basics.”

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1041849250991099905

Selina has a new tour bus and the team goes to the Iowa County Fair.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042185616794869760

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042086650803671042

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042072911316582401

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1042149918478151683

Casting call: NO Allergies to Animals for VEEP There will be a cat and a donkey on set!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155867083865017

Jonah argues with Teddy at the fair.

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1042444548306165761

Presidential Primary Debates between Selina, Jonah, Buddy, and Tom James. The team is in the CNN green room.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1043237527807610880

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042948001545641984

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042921112319881216

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042889614267101185

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042826424288067584

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1042948001545641984

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoCMbQnBQzo/?taken-by=adriamystique

Casting call: Good looking, Upscale, Professional Milennial Types looking Debate Audience from can portray 24 to 33 years old! Everyone must have matching suits! NO TATTOOS!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155877645755017

There’s another funeral/church scene (Richard, Catherine, Marjorie are there).

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1044749297969881089

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1044733517958012928

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1044611877957885952

Casting call: Mid Western looking Caucasian men and women from 35 to 70 to attend a funeral. No Tattoos.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155888358425017

Selina has a rally in a high school gym in Iowa. Dan, Amy, Gary, Kent, Ben are at Selina’s rally.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1045116688088293376

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1044998982047416320

Wendy is back.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1044772982608936960

Leon West, Dan, Gary, Kent, Ben have a meeting in the hotel?

https://twitter.com/VeepHBO/status/1047909748199149568

Guest stars: Katie Aselton, Emily Sulenski-Pendergast, Armen Weitzman, Patton Oswalt.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1045152386040221698

Brie Ramachandran is back.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7870754/?ref_=ttep_ep3

Amy and Dan take a road trip to the clinic. There are two unforgettable scenes.

In the rehearsal script for 7x03? I thought it said 7x03. There is a hallway scene between Dan and Amy in the hotel. They might have scrapped this. Here is what I could piece together with info from the post below:

http://casliyn.tumblr.com/post/176974445266/instagram-story-that-features-the-danamy-hallway

VEEP Ep. 703(?) Rehearsal Draft

119 INT. — Massachusetts

Amy and Dan exit the elevator and walk together.

AMY

Back in Massachusetts again — I was just out of law school when I started working for Selina and we — for her announcement and I realize I — to quit. And here we are.

Dan removes an Apple EarPods from his ears.

DAN

Huh? Sorry. Planet —

AMY

(holds up key card)

502.

DAN

504.

AMY

Well keep it — neighbor. Amy laughs and hates (herself?)

AMY

Well. Here we (are?)

DAN

(loudly) — earbuds. ‘Night.

Dan enters and (closes?)

120 INT. AMY’S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUED

Amy enters to see they — are open. Dan appears.

7x04

The team is in South Cakalacky/South Carolina at Selina HQ. Mike is in casual wear (he wears a lot of casual wear this season, including several fedoras, salmon pants, tennis shoes). Takes place during winter.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1048375154382753793

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1048280576061362176

Casting call: We are now in South Carolina!!! MUST HAVE a HEAVY WINTER COAT to be booked NO wind breakers NO track jackets. Blue collar, business and liberal looking supporters. Age Range is 30 to 60s! Upscale business Caucasian looking supporters for Selina. Age Range is 38 to 60s! NO Tattoos! NO Facial HAIR!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155903136760017

There’s a plane scene with Marjorie and Catherine with Little Richard and Leon West.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1049380748522733568

There’s a scene in Southern Baptist Church with choir members.

Casting call: Tomorrow will be a large call of at least 350 folks! The scene is a Southern Baptist Church. African American Women for a church scene. All ages are welcome. You must come in your Sunday Best outfit! Males & females to portray African American, age 30's to 60's to portray choir members in a church - you will be positioned right behind our actors

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155918743610017

Selina’s wears a fascinator, there are fancy hats.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1049844025853767682

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1049827318422626305

Another Jonah rally. Bill and Teddy are there. Amy’s in the audience and does not look happy about whatever is going on on stage. Amy is Jonah’s campaign manager. During the filming of this scene, David Mandel shouts out an alt line (that is shut down by Julia) for Timothy Simons/Jonah so the crowd will turn on his own staff/Amy.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1050161974900715520

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/17/julia-louis-dreyfus-acts-out

Jonah wears a wedding ring.

http://thebookofmaev.tumblr.com/post/179344819157/jon-h-ryan

Selina visits a school and Michael Keegan Key guest stars.

http://casliyn.tumblr.com/post/178950772116/julia-louis-dreyfus-keegan-michael-kay-and-clea

7x05

Becky Martin is directing.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1058145863090884608

Tom James is in this episode.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1052689742276390912

They’re back in New York.

Casting call: Upscale New Yorkers MEN 40s to 60s! FBI, Upscale Patrons etc.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155942235320017

There’s a drunk pastor.

Casting call: Need also a Caucasian looking Male to play a drunk pastor with his own full BLACK suit.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155942211250017

Dan is with Richard somewhere.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1054433133469229056

Dan, Gary, Richard have a meeting in a restaurant.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1054554263852961792

There’s a bar scene with Dan and Amy.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1054534098708922368

There’s a scene set in Florida and Jonah is campaigning there.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1054846138480611328

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1058151965526581248

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1056043219127951360

Casting call: The scene is set in Florida. Need folks with sun tans...Mariann is taking submissions for Cuban, Caucasian and Jamaican looking men and women from 30s to 70s.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155948209560017

Casting call: Mariann is taking submissions for Cuban, Caucasian hipster looking women from 20s to 30s. Dress size 0 to 6

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155948363115017

There’s a scene with Gary and Marjorie in Selina’s New York brownstone.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1055242369656705024

There’s a scene in a factory.

Casting call: Mariann is taking submissions of blue collar, overworked factory Caucasian looking worker types (men & women). 35 to 50 years old. No tattoos!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155951952005017

Jonah is back in New Hampshire.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1057414762559004672

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1055542066086727680

Casting Call: Mariann is taking submissions for 2 Men & 2 Women to play New Hampshire Volunteers: 30s to 50s!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155953407745017

There’s a political convention in Tennessee.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1057083154282905601

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1057032665314951168

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1057077529603764224

Casting call: VEEP is the show. The scene is a political convention in Tennessee. So I need Brand New Faces who never worked the show or if you haven't worked on the show for 4 weeks you are welcomed to submit...Mariann is taking submissions for small town, conservative looking 78% Caucasian; 18% African American men and women ages 40s to 60s.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155953787010017

They’re back in Alabama.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1058039240485785601

Casting call: Mariann is taking submissions for Southern, conservative, Bible thumping Caucasian looking Men and Women to play Alabama Volunteers for Selina. 40 to 59 age range. Its a New state so no one who worked in Iowa, New Hampshire or Oklahoma.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155963978140017

The team is in Virginia.

Casting call: Mariann is taking submissions for Upscale, Attractive, Well Groomed Man and Women from 35 to 50s. The story is now set in Virginia. Clean Shaven! No visible tattoos!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155966205030017

Lennon Parham/Karen is back.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1058079234810249216

There’s going to be a party.

Casting call: UNION SUBMISSIONS FOR FEMALES TO PORTRAY AGE 40'S -EARLY 50'S WHO HAVE NOT WORKED VEEP IN THE LAST 12 WEEKS. Shoots on Thurs 11/1 in Hollywood. Please submit sub line: PARTY

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155966665920017

7x06

Dan and Amy are in Jonah’s mom’s kitchen. Amy has changed her style.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1062527086290657280

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1062782302386700288

Jonah does a speech at a hospital. There are Jonah supporters wearing red shirts, nurses in scrubs, doctors, state troopers, people in business wear. Greg is there. Dan and Richard are also at the hospital.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1063198087617728514

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1063290187977912320

Michael Mckean guest stars.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1062826798801543168

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1062899648593973248

Thomas Lennon guest stars.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1063247573908021248

Jonah holds a rally and Amy can be seen in the background.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1063556301358166016

Someone will receive a Nobel Peace Prize (Maybe Selina for her work in Tibet).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqQIgCpAcHc/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqyUll0gr9m/

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1067289592384999424

https://twitter.com/MrTonyHale/status/1063192604416724992

Casting call: Mariann is taking submissions for both Union and Non Union Ethnic men and women who have their own traditional formal wear. I will need the following:

East Indian Traditional Formal Wear (saris, Jodhpuri or a Bandhgala, pagri)

African Traditional Formal Wear (Daishikis)

Indonesian Traditional Formal Wear (baju takwa, kebaya, peci)

ANY Middle Eastern Formal Wear (Bisht, Keffiyeh, Thawb, Hijāb, Niqāb)

Bald Tibetan Monks (Asian Men)

OR any other Ethnic Formal Wear from other Countries

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155996542910017

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155994867845017

There is going to be a prize. (Might be same as Nobel Peace Prize?)

Casting Call: Advance Booking for Monday 11-26 MUST have a Full Matching Single Breasted Suit or Cocktail Dresses Non Union Only Must be registered with Central Casting Works Monday 11-29 in LA VEEP is the Show! New Faces who never worked the show OR if you haven't worked on the show for 3 weeks please feel free to submit! Mariann is taking submissions from Men and Women with a Full Matching Single Breasted Suit or Cocktail Dresses age range 35 to 60. Ladies size 0 to 8 Men 5'10 to 6'3 32 to 36 waist Please submit a photo of yourself in formal wear with your name and phone # and email Title it: "Prize"

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156006483635017

There is going to be be a ball. (Not sure if this is part of the Nobel Peace Prize?)

Casting Call: Advance Booking for Monday 11-29 MUST have a Tux or Long Floor Length Gowns Non Union Only Must be registered with Central Casting Works Monday 11-29 in LA VEEP is the Show! New Faces who never worked the show OR if you haven't worked on the show for 3 weeks please feel free to submit! Mariann is taking submissions from Men and Women with Full tuxedos and floor length gowns, age range 35 to 60. Ladies size 0 to 8 Men 5'10 to 6'3 32 to 36 waist

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156006290075017

They’re back in Finland and/or meeting with Minna’s team

https://twitter.com/frankrichny/status/1064250950179672065

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1065050355740770304

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1067483576189411328

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1065050355740770304

Casting call: UNION SUBMISSIONS FOR MALES AND FEMALES TO PORTRAY FINNISH, AGE 30'S TO 40'S. MUST HAVE BLONDE HAIR AND BLUE EYES. You cannot have worked Veep in the last 12 weeks. Shoots on Friday 11/16. Please submit Sub line: Finland

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10155996542910017

Ted Mattison guest stars.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1065064358449897473

There’s going to be an animal rights protest.

Casting call: Non Union Only Must be registered with Central Casting Works Thursday 12-06 in Paramount Studios @ 4:48pm or 5pm Last shots of the day. Come Having Had LUNCH! VEEP is the show. Brand new faces or if you haven't worked on it for 1 month Mariann is taking submissions for Animal Rights Protesters 30s to 50s. People who look like extreme Activists! Mostly Caucasian with a sprinkle of Ethnics.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156004933290017

7x07

Tom James is in this episode.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1069873677972328449

There are going to be flashbacks, including the debate and scenes at the ranch.

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1071087420202934272

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrI63KxHC_r/

https://twitter.com/DavidHMandel/status/1071241335334551553

http://thebookofmaev.tumblr.com/post/180913702547/buddy-is-her-running-mate-i-have-to-kill

The team is going to be at the National Democratic Convention

Casting Call: VEEP is the show! Brand New Faces! Or if you haven't worked on the show for 1 month (4 Weeks) The scene is the Democratic Convention. You must be Okay working in a 600 person call. Mariann is taking submissions for upscale, attractive Caucasian looking men to play press, staffers, lobbyists. Age Range 35 to 50s. If you look younger than 35 please do not submit. Men: 5'9 to 6'3 with a 30 to 36 waist.

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156006483635017

There’s a scene in Sweden.

Casting Call: Non Union Only Must be registered with Central Casting Works Friday 12-14 @ Paramount Studios VEEP brand new faces OR haven't worked on the show for 1 month Mariann is taking submissions for Swedish Looking Men and Women. You MUST have blonde hair and blue eyes!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156054745475017

There’s a scene with Heads of State.

Non Union Only Must be registered with Central CastingWorks Monday 12-17 in West LA @7am Veep is the show! Brand New Faces OR if you haven't worked on it for 1 month feel free to submit. It is a Large Call 500 BG. Mariann is taking submissions for upscale, professional, conservative Heads of States Men and Women. 40s to 60s Mostly Caucasian 20% Ethnics. NO FACIAL HAIR NO TATTOOS

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156057107975017

There’s a scene with Military Police.

Non Union Only Must be registered with Central Casting Works Monday 12-17 in West LA Veep is the show! Brand New Faces OR if you haven't worked on it for 3 Days feel free to submit. It is a Large Call 500 BG. Mariann is taking photo submissions of Gentlemen with High and Tight Marine haircuts to play a Military Police. 20s to 30s age range. 5'11 to 6'2 with a 32 to 34 waist

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/photos/a.10150115675905017/10156056537940017/?type=3

There’s a horse?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Brgss0LH4Pt/

There’s a scene with Selina’s staffers.

Casting Call: Non UNION ONLY Must be registered with Central Casting Works Tuesday 12-18 @ Paramount Studios 3PM Veep is the show. This is the last show. I need people that never worked on it this past season. Please be honest because I am sending your photos to production to see if they recognize anyone from this season. Mariann is taking submissions for very, very professional. progressive, attractive Caucasian looking men and women to play Selina's Staffers. Mid 20s to Mid 30s. Females Dress Size 0 to 6 Men waist 32 to 34, 5'10 to 6'3

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156063011765017

There’s a scene with Secret Service.

Casting Call: UNION SUBMISSIONS FOR MALES TO PORTRAY SECRET SERVICE. YOU CANNOT HAVE WORKED ON "VEEP" IN THE LAST 18 WEEKS - THIS IS SO IMPORTANT. Shoots on Tuesday 12/18 in Hollywood. Secret Service: Males to portray age 35 to 45, very fit, clean shaven with short hair. Please send a selfie - taken today - do not send me an old selfie please!

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156063170715017

There’s a scene in a hospital. Not sure if this is a flashback or not.

Casting Call: Non UNION ONLY Must be registered with Central Casting Works Tuesday 12-18 @ Paramount Studios 7:30am Veep is the show. This is the last show. I need people that never worked on it this past season. OR you haven't worked on the show for 6 weeks! Mariann is taking submissions for very, very professional. attractive looking men to play Orderlies in a hospital. Mid 20s to Mid 30s. Need 1 African American looking Male and 1 Caucasian Looking Male! NO Facial Hair or NO Tattoos! Short Hair Men waist 32 to 34, 5'10 to 6'2

https://www.facebook.com/centralcastinglosangeles/posts/10156063381670017

Sufe Bradshaw is back as Sue Wilson.

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/casliyn/181248897661

Heather McPhaul is back as Tracy.

https://twitter.com/HeatherMcPhaul/status/1075788065333858304

The team can be seen in the Oval Office.

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/casliyn/181231294561

The final scene of the show features Selina alone in the Oval Office by her phone.

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/casliyn/181235982246

There is going to be a 15-year time jump in the last episode.

http://thebookofmaev.tumblr.com/post/181741350372/omg-apparently-there-is-going-to-be-a-15-yr-time

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7870762/?ref_=ttep_ep7

#veep #veep7 #season 7 #bts #bts: season 7 #speculation #masterpost #i'd love to read all of your theories

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