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Original caption: " 'BREAKING IN' A NEW CALENDAR: Alice Day, the clever comedienne of the Sennett Pathecomedies, celebrates 'Laugh Month' and the coming of the New Year simultaneously." I wonder if we can still celebrate January as laugh month? It's worth a try. |
Original caption on this 1934 photo: "Lois January, A Universal Junior Star, becomes a calendar and wishes you a Happy New Year." Given her name, I imagine Miss January had to endure poses like this more than once. |
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Shapely, platinum blonde chorus girl Ethelreda Leopold--one of Busby Berkeley's latter-day favorites--promotes Gold Diggers of 1937, which was fortuitously released on December 28, 1936. |
Original caption: "Rinty--the clever dog actor who plays in Warners pictures--is welcoming the New Year in all on his own. There's no question about his little celebration being a howling success." This proves beyond dispute that it wasn't just good-looking starlets who had to pose for silly publicity pictures! You will recall that in the mid-to-late 1920s Rin-Tin-Tin was in fact Warner Bros' biggest box-office star. |
It wasn't just during the 1920s and 30s that studio publicity departments kept their actresses busy doing cheesecake poses. MGM recruited contract star Cyd Charisse to help usher in the 1952 New Year with this headline-breaking pose. |
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Veteran actress and producer Peggy Webber was honored in October for her continuing work with California Artists Radio Theater, on the occasion of a live performance of the charming George Bernard Shaw play A Village Wooing featuring Norman Lloyd and Samantha Eggar at Los Angeles Valley College. Also in attendance were actress Marsha Hunt, who interviewed Peggy onstage before presenting her with an award from the school, and the dean of radio writers Norman Corwin. You can learn more about Peggy’s work at CART’s website.
Norman’s play The Rivalry, about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, was recently revived by another radio-centric group, L.A. TheatreWorks with Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn in the leading roles. It already aired on their public radio series The Play’s The Thing and will be available for sale in audio form early in 2009.
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Two veterans share the stage: Marsha Hunt and Peggy Webber. Their vigor and outlook on life belie their chronological ages
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Look at this amazing bronze plaque. I haven’t had an opportunity to research its origins, or whether it originally hung in the same spot it occupies now, an undistinguished office building next to the recently-dubbed William Fox Theater. Considering that the vast lot on Pico Boulevard was once called Movietone City, it would make sense that sound would be celebrated this way. |
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The Fox lot is dotted with history.
Some former sound stages are no longer used for their original purpose
but their exterior design work remains intact. Here is a view of Stage 8. |
Here is a closer look at the gilded relief work that
decorates a number of buildings on the lot.
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And here, worn down by time, is a plaque
on Stage 8 that was dedicated to
the memory of Fox’s greatest star
of the early 1930s, Will Rogers. |
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If you’ve ever attended a movie showing at the El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, chances are you’ve heard Rob Richards performing on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. Rob’s enthusiasm is positively infectious, and that encompasses his feelings for the instrument itself. Here are some backstage photos I snapped earlier this year, with captions supplied by Rob.
This is the bottom end of the huge pedal Wood Diaphones. The lowest/tallest pipe is over thirty feet long! These have been nicknamed the "Thunder pipes" as they are installed unenclosed on a shelf backstage. They really shake the whole building! Robert Hope-Jones, the eccentric English genius who invented the theatre organ, also created many of its unique sounds (called "ranks" or "stops" in the organ). A version of his Diaphone remains in use today, although it has a less musical use: as an air operated foghorn!
Here is the blower which supplies the wind for the organ. Looking not unlike a small steam locomotive, it has a huge 50 horsepower motor. Within the black cast iron housing are a series of large fan blades which deliver high pressure wind.
This is one of the four organ chambers, the Orchestral division, located on the audience (upper) right. The pipes in the foreground are the low end of the English Horn. The tall pipes on the right are the low end of the Strings. These imitate the sound of bowed orchestral strings in the pedal. The two drums are the Bass Drum (left) and the Military Drum (right). Underneath the Military Drum, you can see the mallets for the Tuned Tympani. If you look closely between them you can just barely see the Cathedral Chimes against the back wall.
If you’re curious to know more about this amazing instrument, want to see more pictures, or just want to hear what Rob Richards sounds like on the Mighty Wurlitzer, visit his website.
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Steven Schacter and William H. Macy pose for me just outside the Starlight Theater on Nantucket Island, where a full house greeted their movie The Deal with continuous laughter. |
This year’s screenwriting award was given to comedy’s man of the moment, Judd Apatow, who was appropriately irreverent—and grateful. He was accompanied by his adorable young daughter Maude, who was exposed to dialogue from his movies he’d managed to keep from her until
that very evening! |
The Nantucket award is distinctive to that seaside community.
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Longtime Nantucket residents Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller are welcome participants in the island’s annual film festival...
and they’re just as funny as ever.
Their son Ben Stiller sent a hilarious video greeting to his old friend and colleague Judd Apatow. |
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In May, members of the animation community in Los Angeles gathered on what would have been Joe Grant’s one hundredth birthday to celebrate his vast influence and his great spirit. Joe was a mainstay at the Walt Disney studio in its glory years and made memorable contributions to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, and Dumbo (which he wrote with his longtime partner Dick Huemer). He left the fold in the 1950s to pursue other artistic endeavors but returned in the 1980s, and served as an inspiration to everyone who crossed his path. Pixar’s Pete Docter and Disney’s Mike Gabriel helped gather friends and family to remember Joe.
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Ted Thomas, son of the legendary animator Frank Thomas, with Roy E. Disney, another of Joe’s many admirers. |
Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter chats with master animator Andreas Deja. |
Ron Clements (co-director and co-writer of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules and the upcoming The Princess and the Frog) with Bill and Sue Kroyer (whose credits include FernGully and the Oscar-nominated short Technological Threat). |
Joe Grant worked his magic in a variety of media, from sculpture to calligraphy. Here is a charming painting of Joe’s wife and daughter Carol, which Carol brought to share with everyone that night.
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Carol Grubb shares some of her father’s precious artwork with such fans as Bill Kroyer. |
Another charming painting by Joe Grant. There was life and expression in every drawing he made. |
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