“I LOVE YOU, BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT”

Almost teetering on the verge of tweeness, I am still always won over by Wes Anderson’s films, indeed, his movies are among my favorites of the last 15 years. No American filmmaker, not even Woody Allen, has a more recognizable aesthetic, & Moonrise Kingdom may be the most, well, Andersonian movie yet. His style recalls storybook illustrations, puppet shows, school-project dioramas, & community theatre productions.

Moonrise Kingdom is the best film I have seen in a very long time. It is a film of transporting beauty & visual brilliance, perfectly cast, a paean to precocious puppy love, a parable set in a parallel world, somewhere on the New England coast during the summer of 1965, & concerned with the all-consuming passion between a pair of oddball, seriously serious 12-year-olds.

Moonrise Kingdom is a restorative film: unabashedly uplifting, breathing fresh air into our dusty old hearts & reminding me what it is like to love with the absolute conviction & utter abandon of the young.

After experiencing this film, I want to remember what it was like to play fast & loose with my heart, even when it seemed foolish, because there was so much of what I desired buried underneath words like ‘dangerous’ & ‘absurd’.

Moonrise Kingdom left me thinking about what brought The Husband & I together instead of how we are going to pay our bills. I want to feel like I’ve found my place in the world & that it’s exactly where I am, & every line on every map that does not outline this place will be erased. I want to save myself before I need saving. I want to flip through faded old photographs plucked from moments earlier in my life & feel the sun on my face & the salt from the sea air settle on my skin. I want to find my own Post Apocalyptic Bohemia to be a Moonrise Kingdom, a place where they will never find us, because maybe, just maybe, there’s still some lightning in me in my old age. 

Born On This Day- June 22nd... James Whale

I have done several posts about my admiration for Bill Condon’s film- Gods & Monsters,&Sir Ian McKellen’s masterful performance as director James Wale. Thinking of James Wale this morning on his birthday, I landed on the moment when McKellen's James Whale murmurs about the hunky Brendan Frasier’s "architectural skull." Who else could appreciate a skull more than the man who designed the impressive & imposing head of the Frankenstein monster?

"It's the horror movies you'll be remembered for", the geeky fan/ interviewer tells the aging Whale in the film, & despite his gentlemanly manners, you can see irritation in McKellen's eyes. But, the geek is correct of course. Whale's other movies, even his successful version of the musical- Show Boat are mostly forgotten in the 21st century, but people still watch Frankenstein & The Bride of Frankenstein. The look of the monster: square head, seams, scars & neck bolts is a visual icon of the 20th century.

James Whale was a painter before he was a stage & film director, his eye for design is part of what makes his films so memorable. Besides the look of the monster, played by Boris Karloff, he also created the hairstyle & elegantly stitched scars of the Bride played by Elsa Lanchester. Whale had seen the great German silent horror movies that were never widely released in the USA, & from them he took the starkly dramatic lighting & impressionistic sets. Along with his art director Charles Hall, Whale created the style of “Universal Studios Gothic”: huge shadowed interiors with enormous doors, imposing staircases & long shadows.

Gods & Monsters asks us to consider that a major influence on Whale's work was his time in the trenches in WW1. The film uses flashbacks of a foxhole lover to provide Whale with awful memories of the young lover’s death. But the war really did the same for the actual Whale. He was in the thick of some intense battles, before ending up in a POW camp, where he began his stage career by producing amateur theatricals.

There is a beauty, perversity, & wit in Whale's Frankenstein films. His dark, horrid, witty work paved the way for directors like Brian De Palma, David Lynch, George A. Romero & Tim Burton.

Whale was an un-closeted gay man in Hollywood during the1930s. While Gods & Monsters is fiction, his real last lover was a gas station operator who for a while had to share Whale with a male nurse. I have read that the Frankenstein films were a way for Whale to give a coded guide to his sexuality & his feelings of being a misunderstood outsider, a lonely monster. Gods & Monsters evokes this with an understanding & elegance. But, Whale's longtime partner, David Lewis stated: "Jimmy was first & foremost an artist, his films represent the work of an artist, not a gay artist, but an artist." Whale may have identified with the monster not because of his sexuality, but because of his background as a member of a lower class in England.

Whale directed the 1928 play Journey's End on London’s West End & then on Broadway . He moved to Hollywood to direct the film version & stayed there for the rest of his life, most of that time with his longtime companion, David Lewis, the producer of films such as Dark Victory& Raintree County. They were a couple for 22+ years.

He will always be remembered mostly for his work in the horror film genre: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) & Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but Whale directed many films in other genres, including what is considered the definitive film version of the musical Show Boat (1936). He became increasingly disenchanted with his association with horror & never returned to the genre.

Having experienced WW1 first hand, Whale seemed an inspired choice to direct The Road Back, a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front in 1937, but the film was a critical & commercial failure.

A string of failures followed & by 1941 his film directing career was over. Whale continued to direct for the stage & also rediscovered his love for painting. He had invested wisely & he lived a comfortable life until suffering several strokes in 1956 left him in pain. Whale committed suicide in May 1957 by drowning himself in his backyard swimming pool. His former lover- Lewis would later reveal the details of Whale's suicide note.

There is a terrific chapter about Gods & Monsters in Christopher Bram's (the author of the novel) memoir- Mapping The Territory. I recommend this very entertaining & emotional book to anyone that is interested in the process of writing.

Born On This Day- July 16th... Barbara Stanwyck

When asked my favorite male & female stars of Hollywood's 1st golden age; I have no problem in announcing Barbara Stanwyck as my female choice.

Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens in Brooklyn. She had an unusual beauty & distinctive husky voice & was an extremely versatile actor, easily moving between, melodrama, thrillers, westerns & comedies. The buzz was that she was wonderful to work with, professional, fun on the set, & never acted like the star that she was.

Stanwyck was nominated for 4 Oscars, but never won. In 1982, Stanwyck was awarded an honorary Oscar for "superlative creativity & unique contribution to the art of screen acting". Later in her career Stanwyck found work in TV, starring in the series The Big Valley & the miniseries The Thorn Birds (kissing the very gay Richard Chamberlain).

Stanwyck left a legacy of 93 films including one of my top 10 of all time- Ball Of Fire, with my male choice for best of the golden age- Gary Cooper. Stanwyck married twice, the first time to vaudevillian Frank Fay & the second time to Robert Taylor. Although she rebuffed any questions about her sexuality or her marriages, most of the Hollywood community believed that neither Stanwyck nor either of her husbands was straight.

In my research, I don’t find many names named for Stanwyck’s lovers. She seems to have been both discreet & well loved by those in the industry. There were the usual suspects- Joan Crawford & Tallulah Bankhead, not all that impressive as they both fucked me.

"Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, & I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing."

I'll Cry Tomorrow... Born On This Day- June 30th... Edythe Marrenner

"When you`re dead, you`re dead. No one is going to remember me when I`m dead. Oh, maybe a few friends will remember me affectionately. Being remembered is not the most important thing anyhow. It`s what you do when you are here that`s important."


I was late in coming to appreciate Susan Hayward. When I was younger I was not attracted to the turgid, soapy films that seemed to be her specialty. He movies blended into one big melodrama about a pill popping alcoholic on death row who sings an overwrought song before she dies. After revisiting Valley Of The Dolls in my 40s, I came to appreciate her stunning beauty &, her style, & her portrayals of strong determined women.

She worked as a photographer’s model in NYC before traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to audition for David Selznick for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. She was not even seriously considered, but Hayward managed to secure a contract & was given her new name by her 1st manager.

Hayward's first film appearance was as a ‘starlet at table’, in Hollywood Hotel. Hayward played many early minor roles, she later said that she “paid her dues” as a newcomer. The determined Hayward was finally had a more substantial role in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper.

She made a strong impression opposite John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) & played opposite him again in The Fighting Seabees (1949). Hayward’s roles & films improved, & her popularity with the audiences increased.

Haywards performance in Smash-up: the Story of a Woman(1947) was an introduction to the type of strong willed woman she would play many times. Her portrayal of an alcoholic club singer earned Hayward an Academy Award nomination. Susan received another Oscar nomination for her work in My Foolish Heart (1950). In 1951, she starred opposite Gregory Peck in the lavish biblical epic David & Bathsheba. Her 3rd Academy Award nomination came for her role in With a Song in My Heart (1952), based upon the real life story of singer Jane Froman who persevered after being seriously injured in a plane crash. Hayward gave another outstanding performance in the bio-pic of Lillian Roth- I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955). Miss Roth, was a singing star of the 1920s & 1930s, who survived to write about her life as an alcoholic. Nominated again for the Oscar, Susan did not win that year.

Susan Hayward finally won her Oscar, & the NY Film Critics Award, & the Golden Globe for I Want To Live!. the fictionalized story of Barbara Graham, an innocent woman sentenced to die. Oddly enough, I Want To Live, I'll Cry Tomorrow, & Smash-Up are titles of chapters in my own memoir- Jockstraps & Vicodin: The Early Years. Perhaps Miss Hayward was a big influence on my early life after all.


In 1972 she was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. Speculation continues to this day about the possible cause. In 1956 she worked on the film The Conquerors which was filmed in the Utah desert. The location was 137 miles from a nuclear testing site that was fully in use at that time. Crew & cast of that movie included John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Dick Powell, John Hoyt, & Pedro Armendáriz. Of the 144 people involved in making this film, 91 developed cancer & 46 had died of cancer by 1972.

Susan Hayward appeared in more than 60 films, & many TV programs. She died too young at age 57 in 1975. Intensely private, she was perceived as cold, icy, aloof, & not one for small talk or interviews, but she was known as an intelligent conversationalist among her friends. She did not like socializing with crowds. She disliked homosexuals & effeminate men. Hayward & I have that in common... just kidding. I love a super butch guy, but I am a sucker for a sissy. She turned down a role because George Cukor was the director. Susan was a John Wayne sort of girl. Ironic then, that she should become a camp icon for her emotional, hyper, overstrung work... especially as Helen Lawson in the gay fave- Valley Of The Dolls. Most directors enjoyed Susan’s professionalism & her high standards. She was considered easy to work with, but she was not chummy after the cameras stopped. I find her to be one of the most beautiful actresses of her time. Susan Hayward was greatly admired for her strong individualism. You have to admire that.

Born On This Day- May 6th...Rudolph Valentino

Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla was born in Italy. He arrived in NYC in 1913 where he became a taxi dancer & an exhibition dancer. He found his way to Los Angeles, where he played a number of small parts in silent movies. He was impressive enough to be cast as the lead in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). The film was a success & made him a star. Later the same year, The Sheik made him a legend.

In 1926, Rudolph Valentino collapsed with a perforated ulcer; after an apparently successful operation, peritonitis set in & 8 days later, the greatest romantic leading man of the silent era was dead. He was just 31 & had been a star for just 5 years. More than 100,000 distraught women mobbed his funeral.

Male audiences were offended by Valentino's extravagant dress, makeup, & willingness to display his body on screen. Valentino disrupted the era's rigid codes of sex & gender.

His legendary star status is set in history, but the legacy of his work died with the silent film era. He retains an extraordinary beauty, star quality & charisma on screen,  but the body of work is lacking compared with other cinematic greats. Like his style of acting, Valentino's work is frozen in time & almost incomprehensible to modern viewers with the heavy makeup & exaggerate, melodramatic emoting. Accused at the time of denigrating masculinity with his perceived effeminacy, time has not been kind & Valentino now appears camp.

Valentino's sexuality was a badly kept secret in Hollywood gay circles, despite his marriages to & divorces from Jean Acker & Natacha Rambova, both lesbian.

Born On This Day- January 18th... Archibald Leach

My favorite era of Cary Grant, handsome & middle-aged.

You know this, of course. Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England. He remains the embodiment of “movie star”. He has always been a favorite, if not THE favorite male star at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia.

"In my earlier career I patterned myself on a combination of Englishmen: Rex Harrison, Noel Coward, & Jack Buchanan, who impressed me as a character actor. He always looked so natural. I tried to copy men I thought were sophisticated & well dressed like Douglas Fairbanks or Cole Porter.”

"I cultivated raising one eyebrow & tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease & nonchalance. But at times, when I put my hand in my trouser pocket with what I imagined was great elegance, I couldn't get the blinking thing out again because it dripped from nervous perspiration!"

"I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at someone I wanted be until I became that person. Or he became me."

These are fascinating statements. He was box office gold for decades, & the Cary Grant persona was a consciously created phenomenon. He did it. The studios didn't do it, the marketing people didn't do it, Grant didn't even have an agent! The fact that he seemed so easy & commanding onscreen is just one of the many miracles of Cary Grant. It is even more startling to see him be awkward & sport a Cockney accent when in his early roles, before he hit the right spot with The Awful Truth. Later in life, he expressed mild annoyance when Mae West would give herself the credit for "discovering" him. She had, indeed, pulled him out of the crowd to be the eye-candy in She Done Him Wrong, & then in I'm No Angel.

Grant was allegedly involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, & he lived with Randolph Scott for more than 12 years. Grant & Scott seemed to have been deeply, madly in love, & alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published many times. Arthur Laurents: " Grant told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless. I was out for the night". Alexander D'Arcy, who appeared with Grant in The Awful Truth: "Grant & Scott lived together as a gay couple. I think Cary knew that people were saying things about him. I don't think he tried to hide it." The pair were frequently each other's dates to parties & premieres.

The Husband & I hada photograph of Cary Grant & Randolph Scott, on their pool’s diving board, in a frame for a long time. Their relationship fascinated us. Ironically Cary Grant & Randolph Scott began their relationship while filming the movie Hot Saturday in 1932 & moved in together shortly after. Press reports during the first 2 years described the actors’ shared celebrity home & domestic life using phrases like: “Hollywood’s twosome” & “the happy couple.” The innuendos provided details about the actors’ personal lives which thrilled fans, making the actors appear to be a couple of men sharing more than a home. They named their house- Bachelor Hall.

The pair continued their domestic relationship even after Grant’s marriage to Virginia Cherrill in early 1934. Reporters noted, “The Grants & Randolph Scott have moved, all 3, but not apart.” Indeed, this choice for living arrangements appeared pre-planned. An item from 2 weeks prior to Grant’s marriage observed that Scott would not seek any permanent quarters until he heard from Grant. Innuendos continued later that year. Shortly after Grant’s divorce from Cherrill, an article proclaimed that Randolph Scott had moved back in with Grant. This article was titled- A Woman Is Only a Woman, suggested that the 2 men forged a home life with each another & that they probably had no room for a woman. These press items associated the actors’ home with a forbidden sexuality, turning the place into an exotic experience.

The Paramount publicity department shot over 30 photographs of Grant & Scott within different rooms of their Santa Monica beach house. The studio focus of these pictures was on the stars’ personalities, bachelorhoods, & use of the house. The caption stamped on the back of each photograph highlighted that the actors were Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors who shared quarters, but lived independent lives.

The actors’ living arrangement lasted until early 1942 when they moved apart for the remainder of their lives. Grant married 5 times. He died, on stage, at 82 in Davenport, Iowa while rehearsing his one-man show.

Is it telling that among Cary Grants films, we find these titles: I'm No Angel, Born To Be Bad, Kiss & Make Up, The Awful Truth, In Name Only, Suspicion, The Talk Of The Town, People Will Talk?

My favorite Cary Grant movie? Hmmm... I think I would have to go with North By Northwest.

Born On This Day- January 14th... Terrific Tom Tryon

I recollect my fascination with the photo on the back cover of the hardback edition of The Other. The movie star handsome author of the tome was staring back at me from the book jacket & I was all a tingle, with my teenage hormones in overdrive. I was 17 years old & doing summer stock in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. All 4 shows were up & running by the beginning of August, leaving me with days free to swim, sun, smoke joints & read. I bought the book because of the author’s photo, but The Other turned out to be a very well written thrill ride of a horror story, & I now had quite a crush on the writer Thomas Tryon as well.

Tom Tryon was an American film & TV actor, as well as author of several science fiction, horror, and mystery novels. He was born Thomas Tryon in Hartford, Connecticut on this day in 1926. He used his birth name as an author & the shortened version for his acting career.

At 26 years old, Tryon was on Broadway in Wish You Were Here, a long running 1952 musical starring Florence Henderson & Jack Cassidy. He moved on to Hollywood and was cast in several films, including Moon Pilot, The Longest Day & In Harm’s Way. He appeared often on TV series & made for TV movies.

His rugged good looks & masculine demeanor typecast him as a matinee idol & Tryon was unhappy at the lack of good acting roles. His best known work was as the star of The Cardinal, a role which brought him a Golden Globe. He fought often with the director Otto Preminger, who seemed to take sadistic delight in humiliating Tryon on the set. Preminger actually fired Tryon in front of his parents when they visited the set, then rehired him after being satisfied that Tryon had been sufficiently humiliated.

The experience with the abusive Preminger & lack of interesting roles moved Tryon to put the brakes on an acting career & he moved to writing novels. His first book- The Other (1971), a spooky thriller about a pair of evil twins, was a blockbuster bestseller & became a film by Richard Mulligan starring my good close personal friend- Uta Hagen in a rare film appearance. Next was the equally as scary-Harvest Home, a terrifying tale that was made into a rather campy TV mini-series starring Bette Davis. His collection of novellas on the theme of moviemaking- Crowned Heads featured- Fedora, a thinly disguised tale of Greta Garbo, & was made into a 1978 film by Billy Wilder with William Holden. I think the movie is terrific & true to the book. I loved all his books but I have a soft spot for Night of the Moonbow (1989), about a young kid at camp who snaps after being harassed by his fellow cabin mates. Tryon’s best work revolved around boys, & the mischief they get into.

As a young man, I sensed that Tryon was gay. He struggled with his sexuality throughout his career, but basically came out when he became the lover of Calvin Culver, known in the porn world as the superstar Casey Donovan. At the same time, Tryon also was lovers with Clive Clark, a member of the original cast of A Chorus Line, & an interior designer who decorated Tryon's Central Park West apartment, which was featured in Architectural Digest. Culver helped Tryon finish Crowned Heads on an extremely tight deadline by typing up the revisions & offering suggestions. Their relationship ended because the attention & publicity his lover received made the closeted Tryon fearful of being outed, which he felt could destroy his career as a writer.

But, Tryon never wrote explicitly about homosexuality. He was never part of the gay scene. His feelings on the matter are hidden in between the lines of his strange, moody works. He died in 1991 from stomach cancer. I can still picture that handsome man on the back of the book jacket.

How To While Away A Monday In January

The Husband & I had the best of intended plans to make it to a showing of The Artist today, a rare day off together. We each barely made it out of the house for our individual errands. We took a nap in the early afternoon & then chose to stay in for a movie. We watched The Help. I didn't intend to enjoy it. I wanted to remain cynical. I had not read the best seller that the film was adapted from, but I knew what to expect from the film version... Pure Oscar Bait Hollywood Sap. I felt it would be a little trite & twee &, possibly, offensive.

Tate Taylor

Emma Stone stars as a young writer exposing the injustices suffered by black housemaids in 1960s Mississippi in the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel by openly gay screenwriter/director Tate Taylor, his very first full length feature. Stone: “I didn’t live through the ’60s, so one of the ways I was able to really understand that struggle was by looking at what’s happening in America now with the gay community.”

Plans change & preconceived notions are blurred. I loved The Help. I give it a strong B+ on the Steve Report Card. What a lovely experience to watch Sissy Spacek & Cisley Tyson doing quality work in 2011! Terrific roles for women of different races & ages, acted with real commitment & class. I say just hand Octavia Spencer a golden statue. Viola Davis’ Aibileen trembles with a world weary world view & compromised pride of an intelligent woman forced to serve a dangerous & unfair world.

I was cautious because civil rights-era films are usually rousing works. The Help is an easily funny, well acted, sincere film that makes you angry when it’s supposed to, & makes you sad when it’s appropriate. It’s recommend it.

_____________________________________

We then shook off the moving experience of viewing The Help by watching something more typical of the offering I use tune in to- Blazing Saddles. Always a favorite at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. I couldn't be bothered to get up & do something constructive because I'm Tired:

Here I stand, the goddess of Desire

Set men on fire

I have this power

Morning noon & night it's drink & dancing

Some quick romancing

& then a quick shower

Stage door johnnies always surround me

They always hound me

With one request

Who can satisfy their lustful habits

I'm not a rabbit!

I need some rest!

I'm tired,

Sick & tired of love

I've had my fill of love

from below & above

Tired

Tired of being admired

Tired of love uninspired

Let's face it

I'm tired!

I've been with 1000's of men

again & again

They promise the moon

They always coming & going

Going & coming

& always too soon!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a crying shame?

I'm so tired

God dammit I'm tired!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a crying shame

I'm so tired

Tired of being admired

Tired of love uninspired

I've been with 1000's of men

Again & again

They sing the same tune

They quote Byron & Shelly,

& jump on your belly

& bust your ballon!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a freakin shame

I'm so...

Let's face it,

Everything below the waste is kapput!
Brooks
1973

 

Born On This Day- August 24th... Stephen Fry

Comedian, successful novelist, star of the silver screen, raconteur & wit are all part of the dazzling resume of Stephen Fry.

He recently played The Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. I have really enjoyed the work of funny actor/writer Stephen Fry since I first spotted him in the very agreeable & amusing BBC series Jeeves & Wooster with Hugh Laurie (he has appeared on Laurie’s series- Bones), based on the books by P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves books, which I had read in early college. At the time, I felt that I would make a very good Jeeves, who is an improbably well informed & talented valet in 1920s England. Mr. Fry was fabulous in this role. I have been following & enjoying his work since this series stopped airing in the early 1990s. The openly gay actor has stated, when asked about his coming out: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother & thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those.'”

I thought he was hysterical as King Charles l in Black Adder. He is good personal friends with Prince Charles & his horsey 2nd wife, even though his performance in Black Adder was a parody of Elizabeth 2’s son. Other favorite performances: Oscar Wilde in Wilde with Jude Law (“a role that I was fated to play”) & 2 of my all time favorite films- Gosford Park & Cold Comfort Farm. I understand that he appears in something refered to as The Harry Potter Series of films.

I have also enjoyed his books- The Liar, Making History, The Hippopotamus & The Star’s Tennis Balls. Fry lives in London with his husband- Daniel Cohen. He famously drives a black TX4 London cab. Mr. Fry has & maintains a nifty blog- The New Adventures Of Mr. Stephen Fry.

Born On This Day- July 24th... My Good Close Personal Friend Filmmaker Gus Van Sant

"Fate sucks. I swear. "

Matt Dillon as Bob in Drugstore Cowboy

If I had been somewhat clairvoyant while on the set of Drugstore Cowboy, I would have realized that one day I would someday be living in Portland Oregon, in fact, just 1 mile from where we were filming. I most likely would have dismissed the entire notion as too much candy from crafts service. I loved living in Seattle & I had the best agent in town. I had been fortunate enough to have worked in television (Murder She Wrote, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, A Day in the Life) & a whole lot of commercials & voice-overs, but the Gus Van Sant project was my first feature film. I was thrilled to be working with the talented director of Mala Noche, a film I was crazy about & that had received an enthusiastic reception at The Seattle Film Festival in 1985.

I was working in a feature! My scenes were with Matt Dillon! I have done 12 films, but this one will always be so special because the very soft spoken Gus Van Sant creates an extremely creative atmosphere for working. Many of the actors that have done films with Van Sant have remarked on how great he is to work with & how wonderful the conditions are on the set of his films. He was not big on rehearsing, but he would ask for something completely different with each take. Matt Dillon (who I have worked with twice) was such a nice gentleman. He would stay & read his lines back to me for our reverse shots & he was such a “regular” guy. He would eat lunch, sitting at a big long table, with the rest of the cast, crew & grips & rarely spent time in his trailer. The rest of the cast were fun & friendly: Kelly Lynch, James LeGross & Heather Graham. I did not get to meet William S Burroughs…my only regret from this experience.

I was invited to the premier of Drugstore Cowboy, but did not attend because I was performing in a play at the time. The film went on to rave reviews & won Independent Spirit Awards for Best Screenplay for Mr. Van Sant & Daniel Yost, Best Cinematography, Best Actor for Matt Dillon, & Best Supporting Actor for Max Perlich. It won Best Screenplay awards from the LA Film Critics Association, the National Society of Film Critics & the NY Film Critics Circle, & Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. At the film’s Seattle premier, the Husband turned to me half way through the viewing & stated- “Oh. My. God. You are in a really GOOD movie!”

 Gus Van Zant’s films have ranged from Oscar winning studio fare: Good Will Hunting & Finding Forrester, to very experimental: Gerry & Last Days, Indies: Elephant & Paranoid Park, noble, brave & baffling experiments: the shot by shot re-make of Psycho & Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. He has done 4 films that I love & to which I award 5 Steve Stars: Drugstore Cowboy (of course), My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, & in my top 10 films of all time- Milk.

In 2002, shortly after relocating to Portland after 20 years in Seattle, I was standing with some new Portland friends & some dear former neighbors from Seattle on a street in the Peal District. My friend Susan: “oh my God… look! That is Gus Van Sant!”. The Husband: “Yeah, he lives in this neighborhood & Stephen knows him”. Our little group mumbled some- “yeah, sures & uh-huhs”. When Mr. Van Sant walked past us, he looked up, & said in his usual soft manner- “hello… there… Stephen. I haven’t seen you in a while... strange… your head looks bigger…” & then he went on his way. My friends looked baffled & everyone wanted to know what he meant. I had no idea (what could he have meant?), but I told them that it was an industry term, that good actors had heads that were proportionately too large for their bodies. It was my Gus Van Sant moment.

Born On This Day- March 18th... Fred Astaire's Straight Man

From the very start of film as an art form, slightly coded gay characters were used for the easy laugh: sissies, gallery owners, interior decorators, fussy bachelors & prissy artistic types. These incidental characters added spice to the urbane sophisticated comedies of the era. The homosexual hints these minor characters provided were in juxtaposition to the livelier & sexier romantic men of the era. Film comedies deftly employed actors like Clifton Webb, Frances Langford, & Edward Everett Horton as gay comic relief with stereotypes that didn’t threatened the moviegoers, male or female.



I have always had a place in my heart for the work of Edward Everett Horton. I immediately identify Horton with his work in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals at RKO including the apt named The Gay Divorcee, but he provided notable roles onscreen during the 1930s included a portrayal of The Mad Hatter in the 1933 Alice in Wonderland, & a neurotic paleontologist, who first appears disguised as a woman, in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937).

Starting in the early 1930s, Horton made at least 6 films a year for a quarter of a century. Reflecting his work on the stage, there were occasional serious variations in his roles. He played an unusually forceful role in Douglas Sirk's Summer Storm (1944), & he delivered a comedic masterful turn in Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (1943).


Horton worked steadily for more than 60 years. He may have been a sissy, but he was no dummy. He bought up property in the San Fernando Valley starting in the 1920s. He developed what he named- Beleigh Acres, a 23-acre development where he lived with his long time partner- Gavin Gordon & his mother, who passed away at age 102.


Like a good homo, Horton collected antiques, & at the time of his death in 1970, he had a collection worth a million dollars. He was busy on television throughout the 1950s & 1960s: onscreen, voice-overs for commercials, & as host for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Horton was on the silly Western series F Troop, playing Running Chicken, a Hekawi Indian tribe medicine man. But his most enduring work from the 1960s was as the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales, on Rocky & Bullwinkle, in which he was prominently billed in the opening credits of every episode. This work endeared him to millions of baby boomers like me. One of my favorites of his appearances is an I Love Lucy episode, where he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor.




Edward Everett Horton died in 1970, at age 84. He continued to work up until the week he passed away.

“I Think That Making Love Is The Best Form Of Exercise” Cary Grant

My Top 10 Favorite Cary Grant Films:
•Bringing Up Baby (1938)
•His Girl Friday (1940)
•The Awful Truth (1937)
•Notorious (1946)
•Arsenic & Old Lace (1940)
•Charade (1963)
•The Philadelphia Story (1940)
•North By Northwest (1959)
•Topper (1937)
•The Bishop's Wife (1947)



Because his performanc­es seemed so effortless & because the debonair, dashing "Cary Grant" persona he created seemed so believable­, I think his talent has been underrated­. I particular­ly love NOTORIOUS. A great favorite of the Husband is THE AWFUL TRUTH, & the team of Grant & Irene Dunne is scintillat­ing, & the Husband cries whenever he catches an another of his favorites, the heartbreak­ing & heartwarmi­ng PENNY SERENADE, again with the fabulous Irene Dunne. ARSENIC & OLD LACE, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, NORTH BY NORTHWEST.­..what a wonderful legacy he left. I don't think he made a misstep as an actor. What is your favorite Cary Grant performance?

Born On This Day- January 14th... Actor/Writer Tom Tryon

I recollect my fascination with the photo on the back cover of the hardback edition of The Other. The movie star handsome author of the tome was staring back at me from the book jacket & I was all a tingle, with my teenage hormones in overdrive. I was 17 years old & doing summer stock in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. All 4 shows were up & running by the beginning of August, leaving me with days free to swim, sun, smoke joints & read. I bought the book because of the author’s photo, but The Other turned out to be a very well written thrill ride of a horror story, & I now had quite a crush on the writer Thomas Tryon as well.

Tom Tryon was an American film & TV actor, as well as author of several science fiction, horror, and mystery novels. He was born Thomas Tryon in Hartford, Connecticut. He used his birth name as an author & the shortened version for the acting career.

Tryon was on Broadway in Wish You Were Here, a long running 1952 musical starring Florence Henderson & Jack Cassidy. He moved on to Hollywood and was cast in several films, including Moon Pilot, The Longest Day & In Harm’s Way. He appeared often on television series & made for TV movies.

His rugged good looks & masculine demeanor typecast him as a matinee idol & Tryon was unhappy at the lack of good acting roles. His best known work was as the star of The Cardinal, a role which brought him a Golden Globe. But he fought often with the director Otto Preminger, who seemed to take sadistic delight in humiliating Tryon on the set. Preminger actually fired Tryon in front of his parents when they visited the set, then rehired him after being satisfied that Tryon had been sufficiently humiliated.

The experience with the abusive Preminger & lack of interesting roles moved Tryon to put the brakes on an acting career & he moved to writing novels. His first book- The Other (1971), a spooky thriller about a pair of evil twins, was a blockbuster bestseller & became a film by Richard Mulligan starring my good close personal friend- Uta Hagen in a rare film appearance. Next was the equally as scary-Harvest Home, a terrifying tale that was made into a rather campy TV mini-series starring Bette Davis. His collection of novellas on the theme of moviemaking- Crowned Heads featured- Fedora, a thinly disguised tale of Greta Garbo, & was made into a 1978 film by Billy Wilder with William Holden. I think the movie is terrific & true to the book. I loved all his books but I have a soft spot for Night of the Moonbow (1989), about a young kid at camp who snaps after being harassed by his fellow cabin mates. Tryon’s best work revolved around boys, & the mischief they get into.

I sensed that Tryon was gay. He struggled with his sexuality throughout his career, but basically came out when he became the lover of Calvin Culver, known in the porn world as the superstar Casey Donovan. At the same time, Tryon also was lovers with Clive Clark, a member of the original cast of A Chorus Line, & an interior designer who decorated Tryon's Central Park West apartment, which was featured in Architectural Digest. Culver helped Tryon finish Crowned Heads on an extremely tight deadline by typing up the revisions & offering suggestions. Their relationship ended because the attention & publicity his lover received made the closeted Tryon fearful of being outed, which he felt could destroy his career as a writer.

But, Tryon never wrote explicitly about homosexuality. He was never part of the gay scene. His feelings on the matter are hidden in between the lines of his strange, moody works. He died in 1991 from stomach cancer. I can still picture that handsome man on the back of the book jacket.

Born On This Day- January 3rd... Film Pioneer Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner was the most well known female director during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Arzner began her film career as a screenwriter, eventually rose through the ranks as an editor, & finally became a feature film director. Never hiding her lesbianism, Arzner went against conventions of the time by wearing men’s suits & sporting short hair. She lived openly with choreographer Marion Morgan for more than 40 years

.

Between 1927 & 1943, Arzner directed 17 features. Almost all have unconventional heroines, strong & self-sufficient, who must reconcile marriage & career. Like James Whale, her films resonate with gay subtexts.

After an illness in 1943, Arzner never again directed a feature & no one knows exactly why. She made Army training movies & taught film at UCLA, and she shot some Pepsi commercials, probably at the express request of her longtime friend & rumored lover, Joan Crawford. The Directors Guild of America, which she was the first woman to join in 1936, finally honored her work in 1975, four years before her death.

A Few Of My Favorite Things in 2010

“I like doing this because it’s what I’ve always wanted my entire life — people asking me my opinion.”
Fran Lebowitz

“I live like Marie Antoinette, if she had had money.
I like to live well & that takes work”.
Joan Rivers

Documentary films are having a golden age in the first decade of the 21st century, & 2 of my favorite films of 2010 were surprisingly honest documentaries about very funny New York women, both are favorites at Post-Apocalyptic Bohemia: Public Speaking, Martin Scorcese’s conversation with Fran Lebowitz & Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work from Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg.


Directed with inimitable & energetic style, Scorsese filmed Fran Lebowitz sitting & talking from 11pm-5am for a few nights, seated at her regular table at the Waverly Inn, in an onstage discussion with longtime friend- writer Toni Morrison & on the streets of NYC. Scorsese’s idea, Lebowitz said. The subject matter was not known ahead of time, her idea. Lebowitz: “The only deal that Marty & I made was Marty said, ‘O.K., we will not leave Manhattan.’ ”





“We live in a world where people think happiness is a condition, but it’s not; it’s a sensation. It’s momentary. So do I have little moments of happiness? Yes. Is that my general condition? No. Is that anyone’s general condition? I can’t believe that’s the case. Are there people that are generally more buoyant than I am? Yes, most people. I don’t think of myself as being unhappy, I think of myself as being morose, but it’s just natural, it’s not my circumstances so much. I can be in bad circumstances like anyone else, or I can be in good circumstances, but in general, if you broke into my apartment & I didn’t know you were there, you would not see me whistling around the house.”


Fran Lebowitz is smart, sharp,& very funny. She started in the New York literary scene in the early 1970s when Andy Warhol hired right off the bus to write a column for Interview magazine. Decades later, she’s an acclaimed author with fans like me who clamber for her acerbic wit.

Lebowitz offers insights on gender, race & gay rights, as well as her pet peeves: celebrity culture, smoking bans, tourists & strollers. Lebowitz: “Gender is a very big piece of luck. Any white gentile straight male who is not President of the United States failed.” On Barack Obama & racism: "Racism a fantasy of superiority & a fantasy can end, you know. It probably won’t, but it can.” On aging: “At a certain point, the worst picture taken of you when you were 25 is better than the best picture taken of you when you’re 45.” About NYC: “New York was not better in the 1970s because there was more crime. It was better because it was cheaper.”


Public Speaking is on HBO on Demand this month. I plan to watch it several more times. I really need to get my cranky on & Fran helps. It receives an A on the Steve Report Card.


I saw Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work on a first date on a beautiful summer evening. The Husband & I were double dating with our dear friend Lil’ Jake & his new beau- Special K. To me, a movie seems an odd first date, just as dining does, sitting with a stranger, performing an intimate act not always meant to be shared: Crying, Laughing, Chewing.


That first date went well, & now we face the true test of a friendship involving 2 couples- Travel. The Husband & I, Li’l Jake & Special K are going to attempt to visit Palm Springs in mid-February for Modernist Festival. After viewing Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work, we all agreed that it was a superior documentary, entertaining, insightful, & freighting (including Ms. Rivers without make-up).



In the film, Rivers is presented as deeply human, motivated by anger, desperation, & fear. & yet Rivers' displays of sadness, grief, & outrage might be calculated for the film makers. Is Rivers just playing the part of an aging celebrity baring her soul in a documentary? Worth watching for the very funny & vulgar humor balanced with unexpected honesty & lack of vanity. An exceptional film about a complex woman. It receives an A on the Steve Report Card.

Put these 2 films on your Netflicks Queue.

Born On This Day- December 10th... Dreamboat Tommy Kirk

He is actually one of my youngest memories, & I sure could have done much worse. I was beside myself with grief after watching Old Yeller at age 4. I have never recovered. I used to use the memory of this movie as my method of crying on cue when I was an actor.

I had my 1st crush, before I could have ever formulated the concept or known why I felt so dizzy & tingly while watching The Hardy Boys serial on my favorite show- The Mickey Mouse Club. Michael Constantine & Tommy Kirk! I couldn’t stop feeling dreamy about them. Oh, how I wanted to be a Hardy Boy & solve mysteries along with those 2 boys. I almost couldn’t make it through Swiss Family Robinson with all the shirtless males & Tommy Kirk as close to naked as I could have ever imagined, & I magine I did.


Tommy Kirk was one of Walt Disney’s leading male star of the late 1950’s & early 1960’s: Babes In Toyland, The Shaggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber. His regular presence on the Wonderful World of Disney rocked my young world.


Tommy was the All American Boy. Someone I related to & wanted to emulate. His clean good looks, honest face & comic timing, & wholesome roles were how I aspired to be an actor. Little could I have understood that Tommy was gay.


Kirk knew his sexuality would create problems with his career as well as his strict Baptist parents. Kirk: "I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy. I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people &, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated."




At age 23, Kirk was involved with a 15 year old boy he had picked up from a public pool. The boy's mother went to Walt Disney to complain, & Walt decided Kirk had become a liability, & personally fired him. His contract was dropped, but the studio did allow him to come back for The Monkey's Uncle (1965), which coincidently was Annette Funicello’s last Disney film as well.

Kirk: “My early sexual experiences as desperate & miserable. Mostly brief encounters, very back alley kind of things. When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to change. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that is was going to wreck my Disney career & maybe my whole acting career. Eventually, I became involved with somebody and I was fired. Disney was a family film studio & I was supposed to be their young, leading man. After they found out I was involved with someone, that was the end of Disney."


It was 1964 & Kirk was 23 years old & had been a star for more than a decade, & he was "box office poison." His films during this time included the campy Pajama Party & Mars Needs Women. Kirk: "After I was fired from Disney, I did some of the worst movies ever made & I got involved with a manager who said it didn’t matter what you did as long as you kept working." Kirk’s personal life also took a downward spiral: "I wound up completely broke. I had no self-discipline & I almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times. It’s a miracle that I lived through it all."


Kirk eventually left show business. Kirk: "Finally, I said, to hell with the whole thing, to hell with show business. I’m gonna make a new life for myself, & I got off drugs, completely kicked all that stuff." For 20+ years, Kirk has had his own carpet & upholstery cleaning business headquartered in the Valley. He wants to be remembered for the Disney work, especially Swiss Family Robinson, his favorite.



Kirk turns 69 today… one of my favorite numbers. Thanks Tommy Kirk for teaching a young boy how to be horny.