goodness gracious

'chance' and 'heavenly' from 'sweet bird of youth.' (paul newman and shirley knight)

imagination running wild

julie calling shirley knight to wish her a happy birthday today!

call it a day well spent

some fun facts i discovered on shirley knight's website:

Shirley completed the filming of: MY IDIOT BROTHER with Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks, and
Emily Mortimer, all of whom are playing Shirley's Children.

Shirley's film PETULIA is now out on DVD


















i love that she has a website! i also love that she has never been anything less than marvelous in every role i've seen her play. she is wonderful in 'petulia' even if it is considered a julie christie movie. i once recognized the actress Kathleen Widdoes who played her friend in that film. i told her 'petulia' is one of my fave movies. she said it was certainly a strange film.

people who make movies can never know how they appear to me, an outsider! yes, 'petulia' was innovative and disjointed, but i never once lost the thread. i would even call it a classic. the year was 1968. the director was richard lester. the man who directed the fab four!

bonus points go to the handsome richard chamberlain as the 'psycho tuna' who plays 'petulia's' husband. ah, the misfortune of marrying into the wrong fortune. one viewing of this movie will occupy your mind for days. if i could turn back time...

photos: awesome poster/shirley featured in a poster for the film!/julie and chamberlain/just julie

Romy Schneider by Giancarlo Botti, Paris 1974

get blanchett on the blower

i know, but it is not cate!

Annemarie Schwarzenbach was a Swiss writer, journalist, traveler and photographer. In July 1939 she and ethnologist Ella Maillart drove from Switzerland to Afganistan via Istanbul in a small Ford car.

imagine casting cate to play annemarie. the film would be an intellectual 'thelma and lousie.'

by way of illustration

let me entertain you, let me make you smile

laurence olivier is the most famous british actor. we love him for 'heathcliff' and for being the adoring husband of vivien leigh. he was a talented, handsome, and knighted shakespearean actor. he ruled the stage and gave many great film performances. it is his role as 'archie rice' in 'the entertainer' that leaves the longest echo.

olivier said that 'the entertainer' is the film he is the most proud of. it is easy to understand why. the film was made in 1960, the director was tony richardson, and the writer was john osborne. those ingredients are like a molotov cocktail. the young dark eyed actress who played olivier's daughter was joan plowright. he and joan met on this film. she became his third and last wife.

the movie is bleak, brilliant and beautifully british. the theme song is achingly lovely.

As Olivier later stated, "I am Archie Rice. I am not Hamlet."

the simple act of removing one's greasepaint after a performance is turned into poetry in this touching portrayal of a man who is out of step with the changing world.

vaudeville heartbreak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QOnruGEB04

"WHY SHOULD I CARE?"
John Addison

'Why should I care?
Why should I let it touch me?
Why shouldn't I
Sit down and try
To let it pass over me?
Why should they say?
Why should I let it get me?
What's the use of despair
If they call you a square?
You're a long time dead --
Like my old pal Fred.
So why, oh why should I bother to care?
When they see that you're blue
They look down on you.
So why, oh why should I bother to care?'

-- Sung by Laurence Olivier in the film "The Entertainer" (1960

nobody does it better

it's nature's way

she has 101 screen credits, five of which are films in production. though many of her fellow french women have traded in their natural beauty, isabelle huppert is allowing her face to age and refine. she has always been a brilliant freckle face and she just grows lovelier with time. deneuve and adjani have both denied themselves the experience of letting nature take its course. c'est dommage!

millinery faux paux

olivia de havilland and sister joan fontaine with the infinitely chicer dorothy lamour.

happy birthday

birthday gal olivia de havilland. 95! she was the lovely and understanding 'melanie' who won 'ashley' for her husband, against all the tricks and wishes of 'scarlett o'hara.' who wouldn't want to win the affections of someone played by leslie howard?

olivia, who has worked with all the greats, was absolutely divine as the good girl who falls for the bad guy in 1941's 'hold back the dawn.' i think i love her sister joan fontaine's work more than she does but you know, sibling rivalry. both olivia and joan made terrific films. i really cannot imagine one playing the role done by the other. they were both so good yet so different. ain't that how sisters ought to be? perhaps their famous feud had something to do with... a hat!

'The 1941 Oscar's marked the first round in the battle of the feuding sisters, when both of them were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Joan received the nod for Suspicion, her second film with Alfred Hitchcock directing her, while Olivia was recognized for Hold Back the Dawn.

Joan actually didn't plan on attending the ceremony, stating that she had to be up early the next morning, however, older sister, Olivia twisted her arm, stating, "You have to be there. Your absence would look odd."

Gingers Rogers presented the Best Actress award, while the two sisters sat next to each other at the Selznick table. When she called out Joan's name, Joan remembers how she just froze. "Get up there," her sister nudged. Joan remembers bursting into tears at that very moment. "All the animus we felt toward each other as children," she recalled. "The hair pulling, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collar bone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery. My paralysis was total ... I felt age four, being confronted by my older sister. Damn it! I incurred her wrath again."'