Tune & Minnelli Share A Birthday

2 talented directors share a birthday. I can't help reflect on what a difference it must have made in one man's life to have been in the closet & the other to have been able to be openly & unmistakenly GAY.

The life of Vincente Minnelli, the director of classic MGM musicals like Meet Me in St. Louis, Gigi & An American in Paris, was as peculiar as the dream ballets that became his trademark. Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in 1903, he grew up the only child in a family of traveling performers in the Midwest. His mother, Mina Mary LaLouche LeBeau, played the ingénue in stock melodramas, while his father, Vincent, conducted the Minnelli Brothers Tent Theater orchestra.


In young adulthood, shy, stammering Lester Minnelli, who had had a penchant for trying on his mother’s clothes, read a biography of the flamboyant painter James McNeill Whistler & decided to reinvent himself as a worldly aesthete, working as a window dresser in Chicago before making his name as a designer of lavish theatrical sets in New York. It was there that he became “Vincente.”

Once he moved to Hollywood as a director in MGM’s stable, Minnelli quickly built a reputation as a fearsome perfectionist, despite his passive, retiring personality. A closeted gay man, Minnelli had been known to sport “light makeup” & yet, he married 4 times , most famously, to Judy Garland & he fathered 2 daughters, including the perpetually re-self-inventing Liza Minnelli.

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There is 6’6’’ & Texan, with the improbable name-Tommy Tune who is an actor/dancer/singer/choreographer/director, & the winner of 9 Tony Awards, the only person in theatrical history to win in 4 different categories & to win the same Tony Award 2 years in a row.

Tune danced onto the Broadway scene in the chorus of Baker Street in 1965 & hasn't stopped since. I saw him in Michael Bennetts’s Seesaw in 1973, for which he received raves & his first Tony (Best Featured Actor in a Musical). He directed his first show, the off-Broadway production of The Club in 1976. he directed & choreographed The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, A Day in the Hollywood/ A Night in the Ukraine (his 2nd Tony- Best Choreography), Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9, Nine (his 3rd Tony-Best Direction of a Musical), My One & Only (his 4th & 5th Tony-Best Choreography, Best Actor in a Musical). Stepping Out, Grand Hotel (Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical), & Will Roger's Follies (Best Choreography, Best Musical).


Tune has an art gallery in Tribeca . In his 1997 memoir Footnotes, he writes about what drives him as a performer, choreographer & director, offers stories about being openly gay in the world of theatre, his partners David Wolfe & Michael Stuart, about his days with Twiggy in My One & Only & meeting & working with his many idols.

I find him likable & remarkably talented... & tall. He turns 73 today.

Broadway Baby

Happy Birthday, Bernadette Lazzara! Of all the Broadway Divas: Betty, Barbara, Patti, Chita, Kristin, Audra, Chita, Carol, or even Angela, the one with the most special place in my heart & on my stereo is Bernadette Peters. I first saw her in George M! in 1968 & I absolutely fell in love with the voice, the va va voom curves, the cinnamon curls, the dramatic chops, & the crack comic timing. But, it is really about the voice. She has been working on stage for 59 years: Curley McDimple, Dames At Sea, George M!, On The Town, Mack & Mabel, Sunday In The Park With George, Song & Dance, Into The Woods, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, & Gypsy!.

Bernadette does amazing work for animal rights with her organization with Mary Tyler Moore- Broadway Barks & is the author of a popular children’s book of the same name.


I have seen her many times in musicals & in concert. My personal favorite was Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway in 1999. Peters sings with her whole body. Not just a few arm gestures for punctuation, as many excellent singers offer, but the music seems to travel from her toes to the tip of her nose as she bends, reaches & throws her head back to let out the final notes.


Peters is wrapping up a run in Follies on Broadway, a production that started at The Kennedy Center last summer. I believe that her version of Losing My Mind on the cast album is the most moving of all the many takes on this ballad.


Peters turns 64 today & she looks terrific. A perfect example of the advantage of staying out of the sun. But again, for me it is all about the voice:

What Is Your Personal Favorite Tear Jerker?

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories."

Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember



Could It Be That It Was All So Simple Then?

Tim was an acquaintance-friend, not quite in my circle, but dating one of my best friends. He was cute, bright, & talented. I knew him for a while before we had a long-ish conversation where I discovered that his father was the esteemed & popular big band leader & arranger- Paul Weston & his mother was the beautiful Jo Stafford, one of the great jazz singers of the 1940s & 50s, with a pure & understated voice.

I was, & remain, a huge fan of Jo Stafford’s & I think Tim was taken aback a bit when I gushed. I actually dragged him back to my apartment to show him my collection of LPs of his parents’ music.


He was kind enough to invite me over to the house in Beverly Hills. He owed me nothing & we were not really close. It was a lovely gesture. I brought one album for Jo Stafford to sign. She was very lovely & quite funny. She & her husband had a great act throughout the 1950s, as Jonathan & Darlene Edwards, a bad lounge act. Stafford, as Darlene, would sing off-key in a high pitched voice; Weston, as Jonathan, played an untuned piano off key & with bizarre rhythms. They won a Grammy in 1961 for Best Comedy Album for Jo Stafford & Paul Weston Present: The Song Stylings of Jonathan & Darlene Edwards, on which the pair intentionally butchered some of the best popular music. The couple continued to release Jonathan & Darlene albums for several years, and in 1977 released a final single, a cover of The Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive with I Am Woman on the flip side. A very funny couple.

During my short visit with the Westons, their neighbors from behind their Beverly Hills house dropped by to talk about what to wear to the Academy Awards the following week. This handsome couple were nominated for an Oscar for Best Song, for a little number that they called- The Way We Were, sung by their good friend Barbra Streisand who was also nominated for Best Actress. I was just a little starstruck, but I was able to tell Marilyn & Alan Bergman that I would be seeing them at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion the following Monday (the awards were held on Mondays then, the day that theatres were traditionally dark, I guess so actors in Broadway or touring shows could attend).


My good school chum & fellow actor in the theatre program- Gina had offered me a ticket. Her father- Arthur Piantadosi was Secretary of the Academy that year & a 7 time nominee (he became an Oscar winner, for Best Sound for All The Presidents Men). They were not attending the awards & had a single ticket up for grabs. I wore my tux from Private Lives, which was still in production at the time. I was frantic about getting some makeup stains off the white dinner jacket. I got myself to the Chandler Pavilion, parking a mile away, & I was seated a row away from Paul & Linda McCartney & Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward (who was nominated). The nominees that year:




Best Picture:
THE STING, American Graffiti, Cries & Whispers, The Exorcist, A Touch of Class


Actor:
JACK LEMMON in Save the Tiger, Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris, Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail, Al Pacino in Serpico, Robert Redford in The Sting


Actress:
GLENDA JACKSON in A Touch of Class, Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist, Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty, Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were, Joanne Woodward in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams


Supporting Actor:
JOHN HOUSEMAN in The Paper Chase, Vincent Gardenia in Bang the Drum Slowly, Jack Gilford in Save the Tiger, Jason Miller in The Exorcist, Randy Quaid in The Last Detail


Supporting Actress:
TATUM O'NEAL in Paper Moon, Linda Blair in The Exorcist, Candy Clark in American Graffiti, Madeline Kahn in Paper Moon, Sylvia Sidney in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams


Director:
GEORGE ROY HILL for The Sting, Ingmar Bergman for Cries & Whispers, Bernardo Bertolucci for Last Tango in Paris, William Friedkin for The Exorcist, George Lucas for American Graffiti

My new good close personal friends- The Bergmans did win that night.  I deeply wanted Streisand to win. I still love The Way Were  & the moment where Barbra moves a lock of Robert Redford's blond hair with her gloved hand still destroys me. Babs lost to Glenda Jackson in a stunning upset. I still have my ticket/pass to the ceremony.

Jo Stafford left us in 2008. The Bergmans continue to work. I have watched the Oscar Ceremony on TV since I was 5 years old. I used to hold up a big brass candlestick & practice my acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror: " I thank no one for this award. I did it all myself with talent & gumption..."

Born On This Day- February 27th... Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky

She came into my focus as my mother sat me down at 5 years of age & explained the entire Elizabeth Taylor + Eddie Fisher – Debbie Reynolds = scandal equation. I got it. She remains my mother’s favorite star; they are the same age & were born in the same month. She is a favorite of mine & I think she is the last of the truly great Hollywood Royalty, & very possibly the most beautiful woman of all time. I love her deeply.

Taylor has been a trusted friend to the gay community, & we have loved her right back. She was very close friends & a confidant of gay men: Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, George Cukor, Noel Coward, James Dean & most famously to Montgomery Clift. Were there ever any 2 actors at the apex of their beauty, more stunning than Taylor & Clift kissing in A Place In The Sun?



Elizabeth Taylor is a conundrum: truly classy, but perfectly campy, deeply kind, but shamelessly embarrassing, perennially lonely, & serially monogamous. Pills, coke, booze, men, the commercials, the mascara, Studio 54, the guest appearances on soap operas… Elizabeth Taylor & I got through the 1970s together. She gave audacious performances in film adaptations of “gay” plays as Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer & Cat On A Hot Tim Roof, & Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I met her once, at the 50th Anniversary of MGM Ball. I was thrillingly treated to a 7 minute conversation. She amazingly asked about me. I explained that I was a Theatre major at Loyola Marymount University & Taylor quizzed me on my curriculum & my stage roles. I told her was a huge fan of her work. She touched my arm & looked at me with the famous violet eyes & murmured: "I always thought that I was a fine actress, but I spent a lifetime feeling that I was held back because I have such a terrible speaking voice. The coaches at MGM attempted to help me & I did improve, but I will never shake the fact the dreadful small voice was what stopped me from being truly great..." She was only in her early 40s, wearing a beautiful canary yellow mini-dress with yellow flowers in her hair. She was smoking a cigarette with a holder. She was faultlessly beautiful. I nearly fainted.

I appreciate that, like me, she has had a taste for expensive pharmaceuticals, rich fabrics & rich men. I tremble at the thought of her 8 tumultuous marriages & the public denunciation by the Vatican as a home wrecker. I love her for her dramatic tracheotomy scar, of which she was never ashamed. I appreciate her love affair with jewelry that inspired a book simply titled My Love Affair with Jewelry… it looks handsome on the shelf with my own volume- My Love Affair with Whiskey. I admire her unswerving devotion to her friends, to gay people, & for gay activism & attention to fund raising for HIV/AIDS. My feelings are simpatico with Elizabeth Taylor. My mother loves us both, we have both lived with incidents replete with slurred speech, jokes about weight gain, inelegant gestures of elegance & displays of dignity in the face of devastation.


On Oscar day today, the Oscar winning actress turns 78  & she is hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for for treatment of congestive heart failure. I send her love & healing white light. A world without Elizabeth Taylor will not be a good place.

Gratuitious

My dearest readers & fellow blogging buddies,
I am sorry to have not posted much in the past 72 hours. Sometimes it is difficult to come up with something to hold your interest between my job, whiskey shots & nervous breakdowns.
It is not because you don't matter; you mean the world to me. Because I feel that I might have let you down, I offer up something gratuitous:

Forgive me?

With love from frozen Portland, Oregon USA,

The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian

Born On This Day- February 26th... That Big Old 'Mo- Christopher Marlowe

400 years after his mysterious, violent death cut short his brilliant career, Christopher Marlowe: playwright, poet, spy, radical atheist & homosexual, still fascinates with his poetic & tragic life. He was depicted as a suave genius with the looks of Rupert Everett in the film Shakespeare In Love.


Scandal clings similarly to Marlowe’s legend. He was arrested for fighting in the streets & for counterfeiting. Historical records suggest that he spied on Roman Catholics as a secret agent for the Queen's fanatically Protestant court. He was also an atheist with a penchant for blasphemy, a serious charge in 16th century England. Just before his death in 1593, he was denounced for mocking religion & for atheism. He was arrested & ordered to report daily to the Queen's Council.

Marlowe died under very dubious circumstances. He was stabbed through the eye in a brawl that could be interpreted as a quarrel over a bill at a tavern. His killer & several witnesses had criminal & espionage connections, some scholars believe he had been marked for political assassination.


Adding a further twist to the mystery are theories that Marlowe may have written portions the Shakespearean canon, even after 1593, with the possibility that his death was staged & Marlowe escaped to live & write under another identity.


Marlowe wrote Edward II, which I believe to be the 1st major play with a gay hero. Check out Ian McKellen's (then in the closet) breakthrough performance as Edward II from the1969 Edinburgh Festival available on DVD, & openly gay Derek Jarman’s accessible, interesting, relevant, contemporary film adaptation from 1991.

We'd Like to Propose a Toast

"She was drunk. She showed up at ten o'clock in the morning for the first read-through, and she was bombed. She was drinking straight vodka from this silver flask, and she was drinking it in front of the kids. She was saying all the words, but it was like she was a robot. About lunchtime, Joan passed out cold, and that did it. As soon as she woke up, I fired her." - Lucille Ball on Joan Crawford

Business as Usual

"Miss Dunaway is not a professional at all! She's always late and doesn't know her lines. No, she is impossible and everyone in the industry knows it." - Bette Davis

Easy to Be Hard

"Roz Russell is hard as nails...She came up the hard way, and it shows." - Ann Sheridan

Grace Under Fire

"She couldn't act, she was arrogant, anti-Semitic, and alcoholic, and talk about social climbing!" - Anne Baxter on Grace Kelly

Eat Your Heart Out

"Too thin is too thin, especially when you get older and all the veins show...Diana Ross looks like she just arrived from Ethopia." - Dame Judith Anderson

Present Laughter

"If she had a neck, I would wring it." - Noel Coward on Claudette Colbert

That Is The Most Hyperbole That I Have Ever Experienced In A Zillion Years!

February Arctic Blast!, complete with special graphics & theme music. 6am-noon, the networks' programing was preempted by local coverage of the crippling blizzard of 2011. The openly gay mayor of Portland held a press conference yesterday urging citizens to drive only if they really must & to consider public transportation. Schools were canceled. Businesses closed. In the end, we experienced the tiniest dusting of snow that lasted a couple of hours.

The view downtown early in the morning

I grew up in Eastern Washington, where it snowed several feet a season, with storms from Halloween to Easter. I took my initial drivers' test when I was 16, during a snow storm. We must give a good chuckle to the rest of our great country as Portland, Oregon grapples with the paralyzing flurries that stopped us cold. I am embarrassed. In fact I am more embarrassed than I have ever, ever been in my entire life!

 The view of the back garden at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. Note the impressive total snow fall.

The forecasters caledl it all wrong, as usual, but we are going to experience record setting cold in the next 48 hours. The most cold Arctic air that has ever blasted into Portland ever in the history of our city! I will most likely freeze to death!

Buckle up, Readers. Buckle the &%#$ up.

I want you to look at the following photo.  Drink it in.  Pull it into your mind like it's your own memory.  Make this photo a part of you.  Are you ready? OK Look:

This photo says it all.

That's Larry on the left and Bob on the Right.  Uncle Bob.  My 2nd cousin, Larry.  They grew up together.  His Dad and Bob's Mom are siblings.  Bob has wrestled a deer, fallen through the ice in the Arctic,  become a Grandfather and augured an ice fishing hole at a curling rink during a tournament so that he could pretend he was ice fishing.  He also collected thousands of ice skates to give to poor kids in Russia.   Larry is the the most ruthless kid teaser who ever walked the earth.  When I was a kid, he liked to pour cat food into a cereal bowl and pretend he was going to give it to me for breakfast.   He would sit at the dinner table when I was a child, and eat his dinner wearing oven mitts.   He would steal my mother's potatoes while he knew I was watching and fill his pockets and pretend he was leaving. "GOODBYE EVERYONE!  *limping through the kitchen toward the door with OUR potatoes!".  These are interesting men.

That no good, horrible man stole our potatoes.  Thank God I caught him every time and my Mom made him put them back.

I grew up having my mind carefully warped and twisted into the complex machine it is today. It took years of psychological warfare to sharpen and hone a mind like mine to perfection.  Hilarious mind games are not just a fine art to me.  They are second nature.  They are the fabric of our family.  In fact, the first thing we check when a baby is born into the family is its sense of humor. 

Doctor: It's a boy!

Mother: Give it to me straight, doctor... is he funny?

Doctor:  It's too early to tell, Ma'am

Mother: It is not.  My cousin peed in the nurse's eye the second he was born.  Now, did he pee on anything funny?

Doctor: I'm sorry Lady.  He's just sleeping quietly"

Mother: Oh My God, I knew I shouldn't have married into that dull family.  They've passed it to my children!"

Father: I'm sorry, darling....

Mother: Yeah yeah... Well... can he at least take a joke?

Doctor: Pardon me??. A joke? he's 4 minutes old..

Mother: Yeah... a joke!  Here, give him to that cleaning lady over there and make him think she's his mother.... see if he laughs...

Doctor:  Um...

Mother:  Yeah, see what he does if we put his pajamas on upside down.  He won't know, right?  THAT is funny.  I'll bet you ten bucks right now that he'll just sit there and wear 'em.  TEN Bucks.  Yeah, I bet he can take a joke.  HEY!  I SAID PUT THEM ON HIM UPSIDE DOWN!

Doctor: We just need to get you transferred to a clean bed, Ma'am

Mother: Oh for PETE SAKE.  It's about TIMING.  Way to ruin the joke.  This place sucks.  Just kidding.  It's awesome here.

So anyway, I'm here to tell you about the time I went into labour and the aforementioned uncle & cousin were keeping me company.  My uncle had been in the hospital with heart problems.  Larry was there visiting him.  I was going in to be induced to have my baby girl.  They caught wind that I was there and came to see me.  My Uncle Bob was excited because he was finally going to be allowed to hold a baby from the nursery. 

He'd been in the hospital for a long time and he really loves babies.  He'd been by to see all the babies born every day for weeks.  I couldn't believe they wouldn't let him hold those babies.  He would have done a good job holding them. 

Well, I got all checked into my room. Unpacked.  Neil was all excited, My sister in law was there, My Mom was there.... Bob was there............ Larry was there.

Then the nurse came in to start the whole induction of labor thingy.  I shooed Uncle Bob out (Who told me he wouldn't look).  Unpleasant, but I got through it.  I will spare you the gory details. I texted my friend, Jenna to update her as I had promised.  Uncle Bob waited outside.

"Cervadil in.  Now we wait", I punched into my phone. I hit send.

But I accidentally texted it to her land line, I found out later, so a computer voice read it to her over the phone and it creeped her out.  

 

I guess it's kind of unnerving when a robot phones your house and updates you on the state of your friend's lady parts. It's not like I had any idea that I kept texting updates to her land line for the robot to read out loud to her. 

How was I supposed to know it was going to her land line?

Maybe she should have double checked that I had put her numbers into my phone correctly.

 

I mean, she's the one who said she wanted lots of updates.

Sometimes, her husband answered the phone.

And I guess her Nanna was by for tea.

She was the one who eagerly told me to let her know how I was doing as soon as I could, wasn't she?

I mean, how convenient that this particular hospital allows cell phone use?

Seriously, Jenna.  Would it KILL you to answer some of these texts?  

I got a little sidetracked from my story. Where was I?

So Uncle Bob waited outside while the nurse put me on cervadil in the morning...  Nothing happened all day.... wait wait waaaait.... supper time... blahblahblahhhh.... still nothing was happening. So my Mom and Neil & Sister in Law went to grab a quick bite to eat.  Bob & Larry were keeping me company.  After a while, they decided to nip out to Tim Hortons.  They had asked before they left if I wanted anything.  I told them that I would love some timbits (which are little donut middles for those of you who are not in the know with Canadian snack cuisine) and some tea.  Sure thing.  Off they went to bring me tea & timbits. 

Naturally, the second everyone left, my labor finally kicked in.  Not in an emergency sort of way.. but in a "Ok.  this is real" sort of way.  I wasn't going to drag anyone from their dinners just yet, so I held tough.  It wasn't too long before Bob & Larry returned from Tim Hortons.  Larry hands the bag to me and looks at me like this:

Larry: I got you some treats, Michelle.

Me: Oh thank you Larry.  You're [contraction] sweet.

Larry: Yep.  Why don't you open it, Michelle?  [Larry's eye twinkles]

Me: I know that look, Larry.  That is a look that goes veeeeery far back in history. [contraction] [texts Jenna about the contraction]

Me: What's actually in this donut bag, Larry ?[contraction]

Larry: Now WHY would you think there is anything in that bag but nice treats?

Me: Because [contraction] Larry...   Only you would play a practical joke on someone in labor.

Larry: Oh it don't hurt that much, I bet.  [That's right.  he's teasing a woman in labor]

[contraction]

[contraction]

Larry: I wouldn't play a joke on you Michelle,  not in this delicate condition you went and got yourself in.  Where is that Neil?

Me: he went for dinner [contraction] with Mom. 

Larry: Well he'll be back soon.  You sit back and we'll keep an eye on you, won't we Bob?

Bob: Yes, we sure will.  I was present for all of my daughter's deliveries and I'm going to be the first one to hold that baby.

[contraction]

Me: You might be the fifth one. Anyhow, alright.  Is there cat food in this treat bag [contraction], Larry?

Larry: WHAT!?! What would make you think I'd do something like THAT?

Me: I smell cat food.

Larry:  It's just a little Meow Mix.  

Me: So there are no donuts, Larry?

[contraction]

Larry: I ate them to make room for the cat food.

The funny thing here is that my family is not going to bat an eyelash when they read that dialogue.  They will be able to hear and see Bob & Larry in my delivery room.  They will know this conversation is real.   Larry went home after Neil came back.  Uncle Bob stayed as long as the nurses would let him.  He came to check on me every 10 minutes or so all night long.  My Mom had to keep him from coming into the room at 4 am because I was in the final stage of labor.  Some people wouldn't want this, but i appreciate their sweetness.  Their teasing me to keep my spirits up.  They're alright, I guess. 

A few hours later, Eleanore was born at 5:55 am.

Sweet Uncle Bob & Eleanore.  6 am.

You Gotta Have a Gimmick

A cocktail and a fag always worked for us.

Good Girl Gone Bad

What would Ned Nickerson have to say about this?

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