Southern Bookman

Farewell, Kris Kristofferson and Pete Rose

Kris Kristofferson and Pete Rose gained fame as American outlaws.

In a fitting juxtaposition of fate, Kristofferson and Rose both died over the weekend.

Kristofferson, 88, one of the ground-breaking Nashville songwriters who transformed country music in the 1970s, died Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, surrounded by his family.

Rose, 83, who broke Ty Cobb's all-time hits record and was the driving force for Cincinnati's Big Red Machine, was found dead at his home Monday, according to the medical examiner of Clark County, Nevada. He had appeared at an autograph show over the weekend. 

A former Army officer and Rhodes scholar, Kristofferson refused a post teaching English at West Point to move to Nashville, where he worked as a janitor before achieving major success as a songwriter, with the help of Johnny Cash. Kristofferson wrote some of the most memorable lines in American music, and with his rugged masculinity found stardom as a Hollywood sex symbol.

Rose, known to detractors and fans as Charlie Hustle, shook up baseball with his reckless, devil-may-care play. He seriously injured Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse, barrelling into him in an all-star game, which once meant something to participants.

After propelling the Reds to two World Series titles in the 1970s, Rose brought his harem-scarem style to the Philadelphia Phillies. He finished his career with 4,256 hits, a record that Major League baseball doesn't honor because of Rose's banishment from the sport in a gambling scandal.

The 17-time all-star was banned in 1989 by Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on games while managing the Reds. As one social media wag noted, Rose's lifetime ban has now ended, possibly making him eligible for election to his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.

Kristofferson and Rose both exemplified a roguish, hyper-charged masculinity. Each of them were transformational stars who excelled in fields of entertainment that fascinate millions.

The rules-breaking songwriter and ballplayer sparked outpourings of acclaim and vilification, two outlaws who changed American culture.

 

 

Welcome back: Shakespeare, Wilder, Sondheim and Mamet to return to Broadway

William Shakespeare's the hottest New York theater playwright.

Born 460 years ago, the English theater titan will reach 21st century Manhattan audiences with Broadway revivals of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello" and a new production of "King Lear."

Opening this month, "Romeo and Juliet" at the Circle in the Square Theater stars Kit Connor, best known for his performance in Netflix's "Heartstopper," and Rachel Zigler, who received raves for her portrayal of the Juliet-like Maria in Steven Spielberg's movie version of "Westside Story." Connor and Zigler will make their Broadway debuts in Shakespeare's tragedy of two doomed teenage lovers unable to escape the snares of their rival families.

The production will be directed by Sam Gold, lauded for his recent production of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People." Jack Antonoff composed music for the revival.

Film and stage heavyweight Denzel Washington and Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaall star in "Othello," which opens in February at the Barrymore Theater. English stage and film actress Molly Osborne plays the tragic Desdemona to Washington's doomed Moorish general Othello, and Gyllenhaall's duplicitous villain Iago.

Lauded Shakepeare actor and director Kenneth Branagh stars and directs a production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" from Oct. 26-Dec. 15 at the Griffin Theater at the Shed, located in New York's Hudson Yards development.

Along with Shakespeare, classic American theater will also return to Broadway with productions of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," Stephen Sondheim's "Gypsy" and David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross."

Directed by Atlanta's Kenny Leon, who also will helm "Othello," Wilder's nostalgic classic about residents of a small New England town returns to Broadway for the first time in 2o years.

Starring Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Zoey Deutch, Ephraim Sykes, Billy Eugene Jones and Richard Thomas, the production begins this month at the Barrymore Theater.

Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald takes charge of the famous role of Momma Rose in Sondheim's beloved "Gypsy," beginning in November at the reopened Majestic Theater.

In a stirring contrast to Shakespeare, Wilder and Sondheim, Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross" returns to Broadway next spring in a revival starring Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr.

With a dazzling array of Hollywood stars bringing fresh energy to the classics, Shakespeare, Wilder, Sondheim and Mamet will light up Manhattan stages for longtime fans and a new generation. 

 

 

 

 

Rewatching "Sopranos" reveals country's enormous changes since show began

Like old home movies, HBO current "Sopranos" retrospective looks back to a different time.

Not yet destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Twin Towers gleam in the background as Tony Soprano makes the show's opening drive from Manhattan to his New Jersey home.

David Chase's series began in 1999, before George W. Bush's contested presidential election victory over Al Gore brought a change in American politics.

The show ended before Barack Obama's election to president. Donald Trump was just another New York developer.

While "The Sopranos" registers women's economic and social gains, misogyny and male violence rule. Chase's women skate on the edge of desperation.

At the dawn of its domination of the American economy, the Internet has not yet ravaged local news: Tony and Junior Soprano still pick up their newspapers from their driveways each morning. Meadow and A.J. Soprano aren't consumed by social media.

The performances are timeless. James Gandolfini and Edie Falco take the TV domestic comedy into territory far beyond "Make Room for Daddy." Shocking violence is yoked to comic sentimentality. The mobsters also suffer middle class anxieties and consumer aspirations. Yet, they are not like us. They kill on a whim.

HBO's replaying "The Sopranos" in connection with filmmaker Alex Gibney's documentary "Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos," which airs Saturday night on the cable network.

In the film, in which Chase will be interviewed by Gibney on a set styled after the office where Tony came for sessions with Dr. Melfi, former cast members will reminisce about the show's production. Chase in an interview discloses that Tony's depressive and needy mother was based on his own.

Chase, along with the other Davids Simon and Milch, created HBO shows that examine masculine battles to control insular hierarchies and maintain their power over women.

While the pioneering "Sex in the City" looks at women's friendships and relationships with men from a feminine perspective, "The Sopranos," "The Wire" and "Deadwood" are a triumvirate exploring the fragile and volatile male ego. 

Al Pacino in excerpt from memoir "Sonny Boy" looks back on South Bronx childhood

Al Pacino's three closest childhood friends succumbed to heroin.

Acting, and his mother's love, saved Pacino from a similar fate, as he vividly recalls in his forthcoming memoir "Sonny Boy." 

In an excerpt titled "Early Scenes" in the current issue of The New Yorker, Pacino looks back on his childhood roaming the South Bronx with his wild friends.

Abandoned by his father, Pacino and his mother lived with his Sicilian grandparents in a small apartment in a multi-cultural neighborhood near the Bronx River. His mother's father, a plasterer, really did come from the small Sicilian village of Corleone.

Pacino's emotionally fragile mother took her "Sonny Boy" to the movies from an early age and did her best to protect him from the worst excesses of the streets. Through the years, Pacino rarely saw his father, although he remembers him fondly.

At age 16, Pacino discovered the theater, viewing a small company's production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" at the Bronx's Elsmere Theater. 

The self-taught actor rode the subways reading the Russian writer's plays. Later, after classes at New York's High School for the Performing Arts and lessons at an actor's studio, he recited Shakespeare soliloquies while walking the city streets. He and his roommate, Martin Sheen, worked menial jobs at small theaters seeking to break into acting.

His mother's accidental drug death left Pacino numb with grief. In his warm recollections of her, he never mentions her name.

Despite the devastating loss, Pacino refuses an offer to return home and live with his grandparents. "Early Scenes" ends with his decision to begin the next act.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Griffin Dunne recounts Hollywood life of triumph, tragedy in "The Friday Afternoon Club"

Griffin Dunne's "The Friday Afternoon Club" upholds his family's glittering literary heritage.

The nephew of famed writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne and son of acclaimed author and crime reporter Dominick Dunne, Griffin Dunne looks back on a life of privilege, heartbreak and tragedy.

In the tradition of other revealing Hollywood memoirs, the 69-year-old actor, director and producer examines the intense pressures and fear of failure at the heart of film glamour.

Dominick Dunne enjoyed a blossoming career as a film producer, hosting sumptuous Hollywood parties with his wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, that attracted a dazzling array of film stars. Griffin rccalls Sean Connery saving him from drowning, Elizabeth Montgomery serving as his babysitter, and his mother's close friendship with Natalie Wood.

It all crashed when Dominick Dunne at a dinner party told a cruel joke about the high-powered agent Sue Mengers. Suddenly, no one returned Dominick's calls, and he was finished as a film tycoon.

The book's tragic center is the murder of Griffin Dunne's beautiful and vivacious sister Dominique, a rising film star. The book's title derives from the name his late sister gave to a group of young actors with whom she frequently met.

The 22-year-old star of the movie "Poltergeist" was strangled by her boyfriend, John Sweeney, on Halloween in 1982. In a trial presided over by an incompetent judge who issued several prejudicial rulings in favor of Sweeney's attorney, the killer was found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder, eventually serving three years in prison.

Griffin Dunne recalls the family's outrage over the trial and the defense attorney's malicious tactics. But the family's anger resulted in Dominick's emergence as a writer for Vanity Fair. Tina Brown, the magazine's new editor, met Dominick at a New York dinner party, and when he mentioned the trial, asked him to write about it. 

Dominick's success from reporting on the trial upset his son, who grew up admiring his uncle more than his father. Griffin poignantly describes his reconciliation with his father before his death in 2009 from cancer at age 83. As Griffin details, Dominick was tormented by his homosexuality, which he struggled to resist until late in life.

At times not an admirable character, Griffin fearlessly recounts scandalous behavior and career missteps. Yet he never loses the reader's sympathy.

One of the book's most captivating vignettes is his youthful friendship with Carrie Fisher before she gained fame portraying Princess Leia in "Star Wars."

Dunne amusingly recalls how Fisher didn't expect the movie to be a hit and was shocked by her sudden rise to stardom. They remained friends, and he endearingly recalls his final goodbye to her before her death.

With inside glimpses of the New York and Los Angeles film and theater worlds, and a full cast of memorable characters, "The Friday Afternoon Club" affirms the enduring power of family love.

 

 

"Easy Rider's" cinematic beauty salvages film's fatuous script

"Easy Rider's" visual majesty contrasts with the film's time-worn performances.

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda's counterculture epic creaks with the fatuous dialogue of their screenplay, co-written with Terry Southern. Under Hopper's direction, the film's fast pace does build suspense and narrative momentum. While the script seems dated overall, some of the lines retain their power.

Laszlo Kovacs' gorgeous cinematography eloquently expresses the film's message of corrupted American beauty. The soundtrack also enhances Hopper and Fonda's flamboyant performances as hippies riding from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Hopper's zany antics as Billy result in a hippie caricature, more cornball than cutting edge after all of these years. Fonda's Wyatt - the equally trite "Captain America" - displays moments of quiet dignity reminiscent of his father Henry. Wyatt and Billy - yes, we get it, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Instant irony, kids.

The two groovy dudes finance their trip with a cocaine deal - deemed heroic at the time, but contemptible now. Phil Spector makes an amusing cameo appearance as an all too easily pleased drug dealer who eagerly buys their cocaine stash, which they had acquired in Mexico.

Jack Nicholson's brief appearance in his breakout role as the dissolute lawyer George Hanson raises the film's temperature. Karen Black, Nicholson's co-star in the more accomplished film "Five Easy Pieces," also injects energy as a New Orleans prostitute forced to act out an unconvincing acid trip in New Orleans' above-ground tombs.

Once again, I resented the film for slandering my native state by depicting Louisianians as violent, prejudicial rednecks. Many are, but I doubt they'd murder white hippies. At the time, plenty of longhairs roamed the state.

Despite their heavy-handed performances, the shots of Fonda and Hopper cruising past American vistas deliver a rare cinematic excitement, thanks to Kovacs.

 

 

 

 

Farewell Robert Towne, acclaimed "Chinatown" screenwriter

Robert Towne raised the prominence of scriptwriting in American culture.

Towne, who died Monday at his Los Angeles home at age 89, received the critical acclaim once given directors and novelists.

Although recognized by Academy Awards categories, screenwriting was undervalued until Towne and other "New Hollywood" script mavens arrived in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Following Towne, many young literary aspirants turned to writing movies rather than plays, magazine articles and books.

Receiving the 1975 Academy Award for his "Chinatown" screenplay, Towne also wrote "The Last Detail" and "Shampoo" and made significant contributions to "The Godfather" and "Bonnie and Clyde," along with other movies.

While Towne's "Chinatown" script is known as an exemplar of the screenwriter's art, director Roman Polanski changed the ending, to Towne's intense opposition.

Still grieving the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Charles Manson gang, Polanski insisted that the movie end with the shocking slaying of Faye Dunaway's character Evelyn Mulwray by her father, the despicable Noah Cross, chillingly played by John Huston. In Towne's original script, Cross is killed by his daughter.

Mrs. Mulwray's tragic end leads to the famous last line, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

It's never been disclosed who wrote the finale, but Towne originally had the idea of Chinatown as a symbol of Los Angeles' greed and immortality, which he said derived from a conversation with a Los Angeles detective.

According to author Sam Wasson's "The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood," Towne received uncredited help on his "Chinatown" script from his Pomona College classmate Edward Taylor, with whom Towne worked throughout his career.

Towne like his close friend Jack Nicholson began writing, directing and acting for B movie horror master Roger Corman, who recently died. Nicholson portrayed Towne's 1930s Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes in "Chinatown" and Navy officer Billy L. "Badass" Buddusky in "The Last Detail," two of Nicholson's defining roles.

Warren Beatty, another Towne friend, also portrayed a memorable Los Angeles prototype, the hairdresser George Roundy, in the 1975 movie "Shampoo," which Beatty co-wrote with Towne.

Towne directed several movies, including the 1988 crime thriller "Tequila Sunrise" and the 2006 romantic drama "Ask the Dust," starring Collin Farrell and Salma Hayek.

Inspired by Los Angeles writer Raymond Chandler and his famous detective Philip Marlowe in writing "Chinatown," Towne also wrote the screenplay of  "Ask the Dust," saluting John Fante, another classic Los Angeles author. 

Towne's cinematic visions of Los Angeles match Chandler and Fante's depictions of the city as a soulless place of broken dreams.

While "Chinatown" and other Towne movies will excite new generations of viewers, young writers will also study his scripts for their literary value.

 

 

 

Griffin Dunne receives widespread attention for his memoir "The Friday Afternoon Club"

Griffin Dunne's drawing intense media anticipation for his book "The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir," to be published next week.

In a chorus of media interviews, the actor says completing the memoir fulfills one of his lifetime goals. He still wishes to learn to play a musical instrument and master Spanish.

The scion of a famed literary and Hollywood family, Dunne felt immense pressure to finish the book following the acclaimed literary careers of his father, Dominick, his uncle, John Gregory Dunne, and his aunt, Joan Didion.

Interviewed this week by New York magazine, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian and the Literary Hub, Dunne says he felt compelled to revisit the murder of his sister Dominique, a rising young actress slain by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in 1982.

The 22-year-old actress's buoyant spirit still shines against the darkness of her death, Dunne says. The book's title comes from the name of his sister's acting group.

Vanity Fair in a recent issue published Dunne's recollections of his sister's murder, and the trial of her killer, which outraged his family.

Sweeney, accused of murder, was convicted of manslaughter, serving three and a half years in prison. Dominick Dunne in an article for Vanity Fair magazine divulged his disgust for Sweeney's attorneys and the presiding judge. The piece launched his spectacular career covering celebrity trials for the magazine.

Griffin says he was initially incensed by his father's success stemming from the trial of his sister's killer. Griffin eventually reached a rapprochement with his father on that and other points of contention. His father died in 2007 at age 83.

The book recounts Griffin's Hollywood childhood. Dominick, a closeted homosexual, built a successful career as a producer before wrecking his insider status with an insult of super-agent Sue Mengers published in the Hollywood Reporter.

After years of destitution, Dominick Dunne rebuilt his life writing for Vanity Fair and making frequent TV appearances as a crime expert.

Griffin as a youth often attended parties given by his aunt and uncle, renowned Hollywood scriptwriters who never lost their standing.

In the book, he recalls being saved from drowning by Sean Connery and having his girlfriend hit upon by Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.

"Like three wolves sniffing a baby lamb," he told New York magazine's Shawn McCreesh.

Griffin discloses in the interviews that the book revisits his up and down acting career. After initial success in Hollywood films and on the New York stage, Dunne struggled with lackluster roles and substance abuse.

The 69-year-old has undergone a resurgence in recent years, producing and appearing in the documentary "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold," a retrospective of his late aunt's career. He also starred in the popular NBC hit "This Is Us."

Now, he's matching his family's literary radiance.

 

 

 

D-Day anniversary brings childhood memories of watching "The Longest Day" in theater

D-Day's 80th anniversary recalls a vivid childhood memory.

My mother dropped my sister and me off at a theater in downtown Baton Rouge to watch "The Longest Day," a Hollywood extravaganza depicting the Allied invasion, based on Cornelius Ryan's pioneering book.

The film, released in 1962, featured a "galaxy of stars," ranging from John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Peter Lawford and Robert Mitchum to Red Buttons, Eddie Albert, George Segal, Paul Anka and Fabian. Many just made cameo appearances.

I still remember sitting in the dark theater, eating my popcorn, transfixed by the luminous action on the screen.

In those days, parents thought nothing of letting their children go alone to the movie theater, the mall, the barbershop or the golf course.

The theater where my sister and I saw "The Longest Day" is long gone now, a victim of suburban multi-screen theaters.

Hollywood's dramatization of D-Day captured the mammoth scope of the invasion, and the heroism of individual soldiers.

It was one of the first movies I watched in a theater, opening an exciting world.

 

Broadway buzzing over Audra McDonald's autumn appearance in "Gypsy"

Broadway will receive a boost this fall when six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald stars in Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's "Gypsy."

McDonald will bring her star power to one of the musical theater's greatest roles, following other stage legends. She'll perform some of Sondheim's most memorable songs in her portrayal of the mesmerizing Rose, the stage mother who pushed the career of her daughter, the exotic dancer Gypsy Rose Lee.

Previews begin Nov. 21 at the renovated Majestic Theater. The production, directed by George C. Wolfe, opens on Dec. 19, drawing huge holiday ticket sales.

Camille A. Brown, who's received four Tony nominations, will choreograph the production. Ticket sales opened last week.

Wolfe, the winner of five Tony awards, collaborated with McDonald on the 2016 Tony nominated production of "Shuffle Along or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All that Followed."

"Gypsy," with a book by Tony winner Arthur Laurents and Styne's music and Sondheim's lyrics, premiered on Broadway in 1959 starring Ethel Merman as Rose, the stage mother who steered her daughter's career while secretly desiring fame for herself. The role has also been performed by Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daiy, Bernadette Peters and Patti Lupone.

The "Gypsy" revival will continue Sondheim's posthumous presence on Broadway. Staring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, the revival of his "Merrily We Roll Along" has received seven Tony nominations. The musical, which portrays the characters' lives in reverse order, was a flop when it first appeared on Broadway in 1981.

McDonald's dazzling talent, and the enduring brilliance of Stern and Sondheim's songs, will take "Gypsy" to new heights.