Books & Magazines
Lady Zeppo
Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank By Barbara Sinatra with Wendy Holden (Crown Archetype, 2011) Not that I care nothing about Frank Sinatra, but the reason I got Lady Blues: My Life With Frank out of the library was that, before Barbara Ann Blakeley became Mrs. Frank Sinatra, she was Mrs. Zeppo Marx. Few … Continue reading
Sci-Fi Shakespeare: Four novels
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: The Graphic Novel Illustrated by Tony Leonard Tamai with Alex Nino. Script by Arthur Byron Cover. (Puffin Books 2005) Most graphic novels based on classic lit, whether the original source is play or book, are content to let the medium be the message. They refrain from adding new interpretive spins on the … Continue reading
Bond… St. James Theatre Bond
“After my great undercover work”—Nkosi’s arm swept around the room—“I now know I am quite the actor. I will come to London and work in the West End. That’s where the famous theaters are—correct?” “Well, yes.” Though Bond had not been to one voluntarily in years. The young man said, “I’m sure I will be … Continue reading
Proscenium Archie
The criticism seems rather harsh, considering that the performance brought Mr. Weatherbee to tears. And who among us wouldn’t wish to see Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper performing 19th century melodrama?
Rah Rah Rattigan
BBC Radio 4 Extra is winding down its crash course on Terrence Rattigan. After airing radio renditions of some of his best-known plays, the online channel is airing a multi-part documentary about him. (Technically, it’s recitations from Michael Darlow’s biography Terrence Rattigan—The Man and His Work, but Clive Merrison’s lively reading style and amusing impersonations … Continue reading
Lax on Lux
I plowed through Scott Eyman’s massive Empire of Dream: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille (Simon & Schuster 2010) not because I’m a fan of color-saturated epic biblical photoplays—that Technicolor overkill leaves me cold—or even because of DeMille’s appearance in Sunset Boulevard. (Buster Keaton’s cameo is so much cooler.) No, I’m just a fan … Continue reading
The Dick Van Dyke Won’t-Show
Dick Van Dyke—My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business—A Memoir By Dick Van Dyke (Crown Archetype, New York) OK, he’s in his 80s and one of the most well-liked performers of the 20th century, a guy who always worked “clean” and endeared himself to such iconic iconoclastic artistic geniuses as Gower Champion, Carl … Continue reading
Turn Off Your Cell Phones, ‘Cause Whoopi Says So
Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There? By Whoopi Goldberg (Hyperion New York 2010) Whoopi Goldberg’s scattershot career has probably disappointed more people than it has impressed. She has the distinction of being one of the only African Americans to win an Oscar and one of the only African American characters on … Continue reading
What is this dagger I see before me?
Excerpt from Campus Tramp by Andrew Shaw (a pseudonym of famed mystery writer Lawrence Block), a 1959 softcore porn novel newly reissued as a trade paperback (Creeping Hemlock Press, 2010): She kept working, knowing that she would have to withdraw at the end of the term anyway, knowing that the work she was doing wouldn’t … Continue reading
Who’s Afraid of Jeannie?
Extract from Barbara Eden’s ingenious autobiography Jeannie Out of the Bottle, released in April by Crown: One night we went to see Richard Burton in Camelot, then playing in Chicago, I’d loved Richard Burton ever since seeing him in The Robe … and I was excited to see him onstage in person. I loved … Continue reading