tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26753937187024675502024-03-18T20:42:29.763-07:00Hill PlaceRandom musings on all things related to movies and television...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger152125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-54352020743028235552017-05-23T08:07:00.000-07:002017-05-23T09:04:25.481-07:00Lois Chiles remembers Roger Moore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoF5TP-nwYFOvBOeFiEvi3hQpqCeBkvgFTjhh2kQK_X6s7fHfRMFqM9EyzouBPuV7DqQ8EhartU9SenXxCIKGGhVy-MQf6xQHZcWH7ufKAhbCL977thRIJe1mS7959knExDmFwwAnKus/s1600/MoonrakerPhoto.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoF5TP-nwYFOvBOeFiEvi3hQpqCeBkvgFTjhh2kQK_X6s7fHfRMFqM9EyzouBPuV7DqQ8EhartU9SenXxCIKGGhVy-MQf6xQHZcWH7ufKAhbCL977thRIJe1mS7959knExDmFwwAnKus/s400/MoonrakerPhoto.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Actress Lois Chiles, a friend of this blog, asked me to share with the public her memories of her friend & colleague Roger Moore, who passed away today in Switzerland at age 89. She played NASA scientist & CIA Agent Dr. Holly Goodhead, opposite Roger Moore's James Bond, in "Moonraker" (1979): <br />
<br />
<i><b>"Roger was a joy to work with and to know. He was kind and elegant and had a GREAT sense of humor. He loved his family and life in general. I am sad to know that he is gone." </b></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-55598573384428795872017-04-05T16:06:00.001-07:002017-04-11T18:10:15.770-07:00Emotions & Images: An Interview with actress & artist Belinda Montgomery<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPA5SSZZjDWtK1DCHVC0bHJnRCQ4gSqIN5l8YjfwsMa6jLT71Du1wmN7W95mZ1iepgtgiv0vgmPxxmgo6o35rcJNf9PfkHoDzATWP1IxBboLlUONiUcg3eOOzYEVqUZNAt7R4xawKUzqM/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPA5SSZZjDWtK1DCHVC0bHJnRCQ4gSqIN5l8YjfwsMa6jLT71Du1wmN7W95mZ1iepgtgiv0vgmPxxmgo6o35rcJNf9PfkHoDzATWP1IxBboLlUONiUcg3eOOzYEVqUZNAt7R4xawKUzqM/s400/17.JPG" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
In the 1970s,
actress Belinda Montgomery made a name for herself playing vulnerable,
imperiled heroines in a variety of television guest roles and Movies of the
Week that made her a primetime fixture throughout the decade. Attractive
and intelligent, she distinguished these roles by providing an air of wisdom
and maturity that belied the naiveté of these characters. As she got
older, Montgomery's screen image continued to mature, as she began to essay a
series of confident, assertive authority figures--often in the medical
profession--who learned to resolve conflicts on her own. Similarly,
Montgomery herself prospered and matured in the industry so that she was able
to make the most of the opportunities presented to her, without having to
experience the pitfalls that so many of her peers, who also started at a young
age, dealt with. After more than 30 years in the business, Montgomery
took time off to focus on caring for her elderly parents, as well as resume her
studies and develop a new reputation for herself as an accomplished painter and
artist. Her artwork can be seen on her website, <a href="http://www.belindamontgomery.com/">www.belindamontgomery.com</a>. While she has not completely turned her back on acting--she still
maintains an agent and appeared on the big screen in 2010 in "TRON: Legacy"--Montgomery now enjoys focusing her time on mastering her other
talents and abilities. She graciously consented to an interview with Hill
Place Blog to discuss her acting days, as well as share insights about her
current work as a painter. In our conversations, Montgomery comes across
as warm and likable as expected from her screen image, but with a tough,
assertive edge that underscores how she does not suffer fools gladly. I
would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Belinda Montgomery for opening up
her heart and memories for this interview. A special Thank You is also in
order to her husband Jeff Stillman, who demonstrated the utmost patience while
I kept his wife busy on the phone with my numerous questions about her acting
career.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMFWO-YODQCcrMX1A0X0ijUD_ZzdPHSymesCTA6BRx9SsMV2V5A9RzOVRpw8yo8s1usfZarNkzjRM6mdl-FrJSKzlTMvu05hLhj4Q8NtErIC-SYbTngvsd-kRZWgopth1zobGBhdk02g/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMFWO-YODQCcrMX1A0X0ijUD_ZzdPHSymesCTA6BRx9SsMV2V5A9RzOVRpw8yo8s1usfZarNkzjRM6mdl-FrJSKzlTMvu05hLhj4Q8NtErIC-SYbTngvsd-kRZWgopth1zobGBhdk02g/s400/11.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Belinda
Montgomery was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of accomplished
actor Cecil Montgomery, who was active in television, radio and theater in
Canada. Montgomery recalls how her father,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"was an Irishman who came
to Canada in 1948. He had a couple of different jobs and then a friend of
his was an actor going to a reading for something and invited my dad along. He said, 'We've got radio here in Manitoba
that's going to broadcast across Canada and they want to do a weekly series.'
The radio series was called 'The Jacksons,' and it was about a family on
the prairies. For a lark, my dad
auditioned and got the role of this irascible old Irishman named Tim Murphy. And because this was a radio show, you know, nobody knew what he looked like. Just like “A Prairie Home Companion,” the show was
broadcast, live, from various Canadian towns, now and then. And because this was a radio show, you know,
nobody knew what he looked like. So
before the show began the announcer would introduce the cast and people would
applaud when the actor would come out. And then they'd say, 'Here's Cecil
Montgomery as Tim Murphy!' Well, they loved Tim Murphy, and they couldn't
wait to see him, and my dad would come out and he was like this, I don't know,
32 year old guy. Tall, handsome, young guy with a thick head of black
hair and was met with an eerie silence. (laugh) And then the cast
would start to do the show, and as soon as my Dad would talk everybody would go
'Oh!' recognizing his voice and they'd start to applaud!"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTpyG5HkyWu_HrvaAY7Mvj3oMvdZ7BPjwuCo88niiMuwo27Pcl4hT7I9Mqsawp-mLioEdKYlnfVJ_2FHKBv78YLbnKa_5wjfR4knQ2JX4iM-ZWeTQWDthQTcDzu1CasBdpnm1e_K0Syk/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTpyG5HkyWu_HrvaAY7Mvj3oMvdZ7BPjwuCo88niiMuwo27Pcl4hT7I9Mqsawp-mLioEdKYlnfVJ_2FHKBv78YLbnKa_5wjfR4knQ2JX4iM-ZWeTQWDthQTcDzu1CasBdpnm1e_K0Syk/s400/12.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Because
of her father's success in radio, Montgomery eventually followed in his
footsteps and became an actress as well.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"He
would go in three or four times a week to do these live broadcasts and sometimes
I would go with him into the CBC studio. It was just this fascinating
world. So I'm there this one time and
we're waiting for them to start to record the show, and the director is in a
panic because this kid who was supposed to play a little boy hasn't shown up.
They don't know what happened to him and it's live. So they look
around and the director says, 'What about Belinda? Do you think she could
do this?' My Dad says, 'Do you think you
want to be in the show?' And I said, 'Yeah!' (laugh) So they
gave me the lines to read and I did them a couple of times and went off into a
corner with my dad to rehearse and then they started to record. I had a very husky, gravelly voice as a kid,
(lowers her voice) 'like this,' so I could easily play little boys. And
so that's how I started as an actress! I started by playing little boys
on the radio! (laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhqQwJTz2roDasWalGqVpTd-bl5PY3UKr7MMbbkpvDrN4Hd4_SYMVp0qpefYNiUQHdRhbLKIdIcWo2HB4P3g0sJrnkz77mnHt9GuFWRXVcYOjo6pahiv0EmH0cD1S9snkwwPcJrWuLhM/s1600/21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhqQwJTz2roDasWalGqVpTd-bl5PY3UKr7MMbbkpvDrN4Hd4_SYMVp0qpefYNiUQHdRhbLKIdIcWo2HB4P3g0sJrnkz77mnHt9GuFWRXVcYOjo6pahiv0EmH0cD1S9snkwwPcJrWuLhM/s400/21.JPG" width="255" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Because
of her natural talent and mature professionalism that belied her youth,
Montgomery soon made a name for herself as a prolific child actress working in
radio and television throughout Canada. She recalls how,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I never performed in
school plays because I was already doing them professionally. My sister
and I did a couple of television shows that went right across Canada that were
live on the CBC. One was called 'Brandynose,' it was a Christmas story
that was a play on 'Rudolph.' It was a big fiasco from the moment it
started. Sets started to move on their
own in the background, actors forgot their lines and walked off and came on
again, windows moved, just strange things occurred on-air. And my dad and
Helene Winston, who was a wonderful Canadian actress, were standing there
helpless and trying to hold back laughter. And this was dreadful because
it was going live across Canada. So they all pulled it together anyway
and it looked like a surreal 'I-don't-know-what' but the audience loved it.
Everybody just kept going: I was
supposed to make an entrance coming through a front door. The door wouldn't open and I'm trying to get
it open and my sister's standing right beside me and we're supposed to go in
and say some line and it's a cue for other things to happen in the scene.
So I thought, 'Well, there's a window and it's open!' So my sister
Tanis and I climbed through the window, just as the camera panned over and they
catch us coming through the window, which was totally bizarre, since I had just
been knocking at the door, so now I'm crashing into somebody's house through
the window. And we started to say our lines and I could see the other
actors off in the side with tears coming down their faces, because they were
laughing so hard, it was so ridiculous. But we somehow got through it.
After that I thought, 'Well, who wouldn't want to be an actor?'
(laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhLQi2KVzGStvrjTyKLVMOwjDIHz4KwCMYI-GfZbQgitWkA_AXHJHIJX8A8Kj2puvh3V3OammHUxzvlc5QALqLgDWRdtXy0fiSZCz-K344W03SzUGAEBJL2Bwt2_4ZQMQeTF5fWTRzfM/s1600/26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhLQi2KVzGStvrjTyKLVMOwjDIHz4KwCMYI-GfZbQgitWkA_AXHJHIJX8A8Kj2puvh3V3OammHUxzvlc5QALqLgDWRdtXy0fiSZCz-K344W03SzUGAEBJL2Bwt2_4ZQMQeTF5fWTRzfM/s400/26.JPG" width="253" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though she was already laying the groundwork for her acting career, starting at
an early age, and continuing throughout her life, Montgomery always painted.
She readily acknowledges that she would have focused on a career as an
artist if she had not pursued acting as her professional vocation. Montgomery
recalls that<b><i> "as a kid, a Van Gogh exhibit came through town and my
dad took me and that was it. I was just inspired by the colors and the magic
of his paintings. I always painted on my own throughout my acting career.
When I was 10 years old, I drew a portrait of a face that was 3 feet by 4
feet and it was black and white. It was black down one side, and white
down the other side. A newscaster in Canada, Warren Davis, bought it.
He was a friend of my father's and he said he had to have it so he bought
it and put it up prominently in his living room over his fireplace. It was my first sale, for $50.00. To
me, that was a lot of money. (laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkna6XKqI5yxpP6CYv1hDKcM8Ln2QaOFWHaI-L03uU5P8JhWwE2mMaK2QBi7ksszNYWgvG-pA_MxbWscEBphLH-QMkJuDOS4WYprb-ItKpeINpQOA-5GvRhTSbLMDUQOe4olCw3bTVtQ/s1600/40.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkna6XKqI5yxpP6CYv1hDKcM8Ln2QaOFWHaI-L03uU5P8JhWwE2mMaK2QBi7ksszNYWgvG-pA_MxbWscEBphLH-QMkJuDOS4WYprb-ItKpeINpQOA-5GvRhTSbLMDUQOe4olCw3bTVtQ/s400/40.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
When
Montgomery was 11 years old, her father moved the family to England, and she
lived for a period of time in London. During those years, Montgomery
focused more on her schoolwork, but acknowledges that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Somebody saw my sister
Tanis and I when my dad was doing some show and he said, 'Oh, we'd love to have
them for a commercial!' So Tanis and I did a chocolate TV commercial and
we had fun doing that. But we didn't really do any acting over there.
We were primarily in school during that time, and trying to understand
the language. (laugh) We were in London for two years and dad did
work on the BBC. We moved around London
quite a bit. As a kid, I was not fond of that because I was very, very
shy. Going into new schools, being introduced into new classes--Oh my
God, I thought I would die! I didn't like being over there only because I
felt like the odd one out. And different teachers would say, when a
question would come up, 'Oh, let's ask the Yank!' I mean, I didn't know
these people. I didn't know what they were talking about half the time,
and so I'd sort of stand up there and try to get through answering their
question. A couple of times I'd say under my breath, 'I'm not a Yank!'
It was pretty much rainy and moldy and damp for the two years we lived
there and my dad couldn't stand it. He said, 'What the Hell?! What
was I thinking coming back overseas?! We're
leaving!' So my poor Mom had to bundle everything up together.
There were three kids--my brother, my sister and myself--and we took a
ship back to Montreal, Quebec. We had our little English accents by that
time. I just absorbed it, you know how kids do. I came back
sounding all breathy like Hayley Mills, and my sister came back, Oh God,
sounding like a Cockney. We don't know where she got it from. It
used to drive my father insane. I think that's another reason why we came
back. My sister would wake my parents up in the middle of the night and
say, [Cockney accent] 'Daddy! May I have a drink of water!' and he'd
say [Canadian-American accent] 'If you ask for it properly in
English!' (laugh)"</i></b> <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOUyciHpaFmmVPEf8F59BxA8hhSDiaKA0Rjdfswfot3bWVHy_tsnb2j-aukmgsPXz-sgJmUonve1zLfm09aYdk5ZRpRlLqDOCo6EBYRbQgQ9suIPf5alErl1kl0rO8J5-UWhRRpnSyDYE/s1600/54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOUyciHpaFmmVPEf8F59BxA8hhSDiaKA0Rjdfswfot3bWVHy_tsnb2j-aukmgsPXz-sgJmUonve1zLfm09aYdk5ZRpRlLqDOCo6EBYRbQgQ9suIPf5alErl1kl0rO8J5-UWhRRpnSyDYE/s400/54.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4uygtMs7pVoD-0-9fwgDWho1_1ZqOXyFcJTGJgMEiIUI1dWvxhKQILFPEXXhv3LWQJBIITJXxKLsUMUR-R52YifiShOOgsNjnOvRqDe2pcBzPFd-4ZXFujsN0GFwNGZz_10HlrxIYF6c/s1600/51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4uygtMs7pVoD-0-9fwgDWho1_1ZqOXyFcJTGJgMEiIUI1dWvxhKQILFPEXXhv3LWQJBIITJXxKLsUMUR-R52YifiShOOgsNjnOvRqDe2pcBzPFd-4ZXFujsN0GFwNGZz_10HlrxIYF6c/s400/51.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
When
Montgomery returned to Canada, she found the adjustment challenging because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I was thirteen when we
returned, which was a really awkward age, you know? You're so
self-conscious and you're in adolescence and early puberty. I was glad to
be going back, but we didn't go back to Manitoba because my dad wanted to move
to Toronto. So we spent the next several years in Toronto. I went
to high school there and I did a lot of modeling there. I was shy, so my mother thought 'OK, I'm going
to send Belinda off to modeling school.' So she enrolled me in a modeling
school run by a wonderful woman. They had deportment classes where you'd
learn to keep your head up and photography, etc., and my mom thought, 'Oh,
that'll be nice for her!' The career
sort of took off with modeling and my sister Tanis joined in and we used to do
a ton of modeling for magazines and catalogues. When Twiggy came to town,
I was in a show with her. I have a front-page newspaper clipping of me,
with my hair really short, and there I am with Twiggy in the same show.
We had a lot of fun. She was such an icon at the time--this must
have been 1966 maybe?-- and she was lovely. She was really sweet and
very, very shy. We just kept staring at her, you know, because we all
wanted to look like Twiggy, although some of us were not destined and I was one
of those. (laugh) I wasn't going to be a stick no matter what I
did."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvaTHDsqh4cABiKoeCZKyF8VHPl4EeaY-XOyb7nsvjHdPMZjQuegYw8qo1CCw_k3UbJsQOxrvtAzluPj6T4uhlG7hB767qUFwkpVt7cFAMGeVC3pR6QKLtil-zwzZKDDeEg1b-GfZcqw/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvaTHDsqh4cABiKoeCZKyF8VHPl4EeaY-XOyb7nsvjHdPMZjQuegYw8qo1CCw_k3UbJsQOxrvtAzluPj6T4uhlG7hB767qUFwkpVt7cFAMGeVC3pR6QKLtil-zwzZKDDeEg1b-GfZcqw/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimbkyl_Cg0_iCVMyvakh5Yivs-e7DQDqvpbgnDbeSCPx9xzrk-GeEZ2ch6lf_x5-k5NSh4xwtNPQCF6LUgQY7jf9ngJRuG7QrF5HjWahshznsKjKI-YSYioQtpsOHtk85D03ycPpx4iE/s1600/53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimbkyl_Cg0_iCVMyvakh5Yivs-e7DQDqvpbgnDbeSCPx9xzrk-GeEZ2ch6lf_x5-k5NSh4xwtNPQCF6LUgQY7jf9ngJRuG7QrF5HjWahshznsKjKI-YSYioQtpsOHtk85D03ycPpx4iE/s400/53.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZadnHk77CbGQeRCUfAi1LH2WTOUzgRLqE5_AdCUNJtZVPbkrI_0RKmJq1GCzJsWhryWMM_kn4ir-A2gjJ4QG6zeVIxy11ZhUKh3aNpHkstPgObs4DWK1HrMUsaPeTshRzq5Z14HEMr9A/s1600/57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZadnHk77CbGQeRCUfAi1LH2WTOUzgRLqE5_AdCUNJtZVPbkrI_0RKmJq1GCzJsWhryWMM_kn4ir-A2gjJ4QG6zeVIxy11ZhUKh3aNpHkstPgObs4DWK1HrMUsaPeTshRzq5Z14HEMr9A/s400/57.jpg" width="396" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Being
back in Canada ultimately provided Montgomery with further career opportunities
as an actress. She landed the lead role in the CBC television
special "Hey, Cinderella!" (1968), an adaptation of the classic fairy tale.
"Cinderella" was notable for being directed by Jim Henson and
featuring early appearances of his legendary Muppets, especially Kermit the
Frog. As she recalls,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I'd
go to the CBC to visit my dad, because he was doing a couple of series there,
and somebody said, 'You know, Belinda would be really good for this show
'Barney Boomer.' What do you think?' And I don't know if I even
auditioned for it, but the show was a kids’ show in the afternoon and it was a
lot of fun. So I did that for, I don't know, a year or a year and a half
and then I was working with Jim Henson in his TV special 'Hey, Cinderella!'
He came in from New York, I think, or from L.A. I was 17 years old when I did that. There was
a big audition for it and every actor my age went down there to read for it. I was lucky enough to get it. It was so
much fun and he was such a lovely man. He was just charming and laid-back
and there was never any stress on the set. I believe that that show was
where he introduced Kermit the Frog and the character really developed from
there. And so Kermit was sitting there espousing what he had to say in
such a tongue-in-cheek manner that the dialogue also spoke to adults on a different
level, which was unheard of in children's programming back then. And the
wonderful Frank Oz was my dog Rufus in that show! He was so delightful
and sometimes, when the camera would stop, we might be sitting there and Rufus
would be saying something to me and I'd be sitting there talking to Rufus and
then, 'Wait a minute! Frank! What are we doing? I'm talking
to a Muppet here! We're having a conversation!' Frank would stay
in-character and just kept the conversation going through Rufus and it was
lovely. He was just a delightful man and, of course, he went on to
complete anonymity! (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnKGxstPEgB0vkNqBr39wszpPmgoDQOKe86ZNC9VFUTCuQ55BfmtNy4UQt6HQTjsx7glAgqawGMcnpmFqC55QNiBocxU9VQCHRK18uGDjCjVE2b2DhaFe0Xr-ID4M5m3iifstuUkXvoXo/s1600/61.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnKGxstPEgB0vkNqBr39wszpPmgoDQOKe86ZNC9VFUTCuQ55BfmtNy4UQt6HQTjsx7glAgqawGMcnpmFqC55QNiBocxU9VQCHRK18uGDjCjVE2b2DhaFe0Xr-ID4M5m3iifstuUkXvoXo/s400/61.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROe6sjezhWh2HM9k4GvwU3H_Tijp6zQsSUJWE7IIhyphenhyphenXrze6vdzqMSDtHm7pcaE2T3ehs51EQSkvnr0sPNxRaVY4ZrhrX2W7xzUIVwf26mxxjXeK7Al131vZdkUVinllMQd6F2umznlK8/s1600/63.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROe6sjezhWh2HM9k4GvwU3H_Tijp6zQsSUJWE7IIhyphenhyphenXrze6vdzqMSDtHm7pcaE2T3ehs51EQSkvnr0sPNxRaVY4ZrhrX2W7xzUIVwf26mxxjXeK7Al131vZdkUVinllMQd6F2umznlK8/s400/63.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmpU7Ck3x2yrCf8gU1smaZU5heVzgtoAV6DVkL4r1eOa4mLiLm046pSGGgKKwJdi14BwpKrkTW63q3JPcxrO1a5G1L4SbTDmUc07QNBBFoS8DQyz4xnZGE_OnEq31z38fo2H3s4XyvkS8/s1600/62.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmpU7Ck3x2yrCf8gU1smaZU5heVzgtoAV6DVkL4r1eOa4mLiLm046pSGGgKKwJdi14BwpKrkTW63q3JPcxrO1a5G1L4SbTDmUc07QNBBFoS8DQyz4xnZGE_OnEq31z38fo2H3s4XyvkS8/s400/62.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Even though the Muppets were still
relatively unknown at the time, Montgomery found that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"When I was working on
'Hey, Cinderella!' I found it very easy to maintain that suspension of
disbelief and really believe in the Muppets as real characters and as actors in
the scene, especially with the evil sisters in the show. They were also
Muppets and they were just so funny. Joyce Gordon was a wonderful Fairy
Godmother, she was a well known Canadian actress, she was just terrific.
Pat Galloway played the evil Wicked Stepmother and she had been a great
theatrical actress. We just had the best time ever. Jerry Nelson
played Featherstone and he also did the voice of Stepsister #2. He was a
brilliant guy. We had such a wonderful
time shooting it. We shot this show at
Laurence Productions in Toronto. I remember having a
meal break or something where they couldn't take the time to get me out of my
Cinderella costume. So I said, 'Why don't I just go like this?' So
I took my wand and I had my diamond tiara on along with my ball gown--it was
after the Fairy Godmother had changed me into the princess in the
storyline--and there I am going down the street with Frank Oz and Jerry Nelson
to a cafe with me dressed up as Cinderella. When we walked in, it was
like an apparition had walked in. People sort of did a double-take like
'Am I dreaming? Have I had too much to drink?' I loved doing that,
of course, being a teenager and startling people, so that was a lot of
fun."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4-gRCw-NmxZGqTOe_1NsIFLQ27cAtujJVXJHne_Y3sQQTjfJ2EZDMp7rBGMFYflNp9BQRQgLwWbvapHH7qQlF4KFdiKHlLapjMQf_SHIc-mTVh9e02ywk4LAZwDrWEPMWnxa8vqlWHg/s1600/52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4-gRCw-NmxZGqTOe_1NsIFLQ27cAtujJVXJHne_Y3sQQTjfJ2EZDMp7rBGMFYflNp9BQRQgLwWbvapHH7qQlF4KFdiKHlLapjMQf_SHIc-mTVh9e02ywk4LAZwDrWEPMWnxa8vqlWHg/s400/52.jpg" width="303" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belinda Montgomery in the CBC production of "The Basement"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaGZu6qjMMCaModkpVulWbQJ53E9yrXAHA7VOuC-bmJthwselyImVvcfigVdaFlOB0MQrxDaDulrURaaEfKDcAupUFq4E_B2ZO3ZXIvAQSdLowTwJtsg0iq76OsjFN02ehdwPp9bVcj4/s1600/55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaGZu6qjMMCaModkpVulWbQJ53E9yrXAHA7VOuC-bmJthwselyImVvcfigVdaFlOB0MQrxDaDulrURaaEfKDcAupUFq4E_B2ZO3ZXIvAQSdLowTwJtsg0iq76OsjFN02ehdwPp9bVcj4/s400/55.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Eventually,
Montgomery's work with the CBC landed her a seven-year contract with Universal
Studios in Hollywood. Montgomery recalls that the contract came about
because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I had done
some period piece for educational TV in Toronto. I had also done another TV show in Toronto.
It was a Harold Pinter play called 'The Basement,' and was very risqué.
It was the story of this girl with these two men and she comes into their
lives and looking to be taken in. I've forgotten what the play was all
about now. We rehearsed it for three weeks and then we shot it like a
Canadian version of the 'Hallmark Hall of Fame.' Some of the stuff I
played in it, I was coy and a bit of a vixen and I had to get under the sheets
and I don't have any clothes on in the story, as I'm snuggling up to Gerard
Parkes in the scene. And, of course, I had stuff all down my front,
material all plastered all over me so I wasn't nude at all, but from the back I
looked like I was naked. And it caused such an uproar in Canada! I
was on the cover of TV Guide in Canada saying 'Oh golly! But I wasn't
naked at all!' with a big picture of me looking like a baby! (laugh) The Prime Minister of Canada called for an
inquiry and said 'How could they put something that looked like it should be
Rated R or whatever on television! There was nudity!' He couldn't
believe it! He wanted a copy for himself. Everybody made a lot of fun about that!
Of course he wanted a copy for himself! (laugh) It was the educational program that brought
me to the attention of Eleanor Kilgallen, who ran the talent program with
Monique James at Universal. And this was before I was 19 years old!"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaitO9R2c7L3fLkGehKcss8iaINTs1_H-Yo7ZwBCzu11f7beQ5v9i6LKOBfHPPrp7VmHlXMGqYfY3MawTP4_YEdfg3QcvLOuNfwDeQQ19cPXiv4iZCYaA4syryaaHUS7iicv1cEbE4oz0/s1600/68.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaitO9R2c7L3fLkGehKcss8iaINTs1_H-Yo7ZwBCzu11f7beQ5v9i6LKOBfHPPrp7VmHlXMGqYfY3MawTP4_YEdfg3QcvLOuNfwDeQQ19cPXiv4iZCYaA4syryaaHUS7iicv1cEbE4oz0/s400/68.JPG" width="260" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
When
Montgomery learned about the offer from Universal, she didn't believe it at
first because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I was
off touring around the provinces in this play called 'Boeing, Boeing.' Melanie Morse, who was the daughter of actor Barry Morse, was in it. Steven Sutherland and his brother David Sutherland were also
in it. David was a wonderful Shakespearean actor and we did this silly
farce and I had so much fun. It was winter and we were traveling around in a
bus, going from town to town and we just had a great time. I think it was
when we were in Frederickton, New Brunswick that I got a phone call at the
hotel. They said, 'There's a call for you, Belinda.' I picked up the phone and this woman said,
'Hello, my name is Eleanor Kilgallen from MCA and we’d like to ask you to come
to Hollywood and take some meetings at Universal Studios.’ And I just
went, ’Oh, come on!' and I hung up. (laugh) I thought it was my
girlfriend being silly and just having me on and I thought, 'Well, that's
really dumb!' And then there was a call back and I said, 'I'm not gonna
listen to this anymore, Annie! It's just too stupid!' and I hung up
again. The third time she rang she said, 'My dear, before you hang up on
me again, I really am Eleanor Kilgallen and you can check me out. I'm
with MCA in New York, affiliated with Universal Studios.' And I sort of
took a breath in and went 'Oh!' So obviously I apologized for hanging up
in her ear three times. She said, 'Would you like to fly out to meet us
in Los Angeles?' And I said, 'I don't know. I'm on tour with a play
right now!' (laugh) She said, 'I know you are, dear. Where
are you? What is the weather like there?' I said, 'Well, I think
there's 7 feet of snow outside the door.' She said, 'OK, well I hope
you're bundled up. You know, why don't you call me back when the play is
finished?'" </i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBC48hBpUft89DHDXziDYBaKTbSJowwivbp8RXChjO2Q_dF1-_XvL_5xsZmM7gJ3wWPvpj18Sn-1ch7bvnQH82EUxw81daBEK2AGGDgtVzIw9Rj4nCssRHFithwgx9zzH3-c7FuB74LPQ/s1600/69.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBC48hBpUft89DHDXziDYBaKTbSJowwivbp8RXChjO2Q_dF1-_XvL_5xsZmM7gJ3wWPvpj18Sn-1ch7bvnQH82EUxw81daBEK2AGGDgtVzIw9Rj4nCssRHFithwgx9zzH3-c7FuB74LPQ/s400/69.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Uncertain
about whether or not to pursue this opportunity, Montgomery was ultimately
convinced by her father to take it seriously,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I
told him about the phone call and he said, 'Eleanor Kilgallen called you?'
I said to him, 'I don't really know if I want to go down to Los Angeles.'
Just then, 'Hey Cindrella!' had played on television and everybody was
making a big fuss about it. And what is the next thing I get? I get
a call from my agent for a 'Silent on Camera'--an 'S.O.C.' in a commercial--and
my dad said, 'That's the way it's going to be up here. You're going to do
these things and then you're going have to try and make a living doing
something else or, you know, doing commercials or whatever. You might
have a real opportunity down there in Hollywood with this Universal prospect.
I think it would be really foolish not to investigate this. Come
on, you need to go down there.' After he convinced me, Eleanor Kilgallen
first brought us down to New York to meet her. My father and I met with
her at her big offices at MCA and here was this woman who was the perfect New
York businesswoman. She had succeeded in a business where only men had
dared travel. Eleanor and her partner, Monique James, who headed up the
Contract Player system in Los Angeles, were very instrumental in starting--Oh
my God!--everybody's career all during the 1960s and I came in at the tail end
of all of this in 1968. She was a self-confident woman with a glamorous Jackie
Kennedy pageboy, a perfect Chanel suit and she greeted us when we came into her
large office. We had a wonderful conversation and she talked to me about
what it might be like to go to Los Angeles and she asked if I would like to go
and of course I said, 'Yes!' and then we were off! A huge limousine met
us upon arrival at LAX and drove us to Universal Studios."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQSx8nHv2ulNl3Ic0Dch-Fdq8puWOJIQbQ4-kI96k-MIJrFC1AxsdeZFkl7iMlx1cKHnTEbkHY9YKyyQF7QvTENc-w8M3RVQeZgVRIq5r7PI7tDdlYsCJXcZ88T2H8cDv_ZcXk-e_hcXY/s1600/72.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQSx8nHv2ulNl3Ic0Dch-Fdq8puWOJIQbQ4-kI96k-MIJrFC1AxsdeZFkl7iMlx1cKHnTEbkHY9YKyyQF7QvTENc-w8M3RVQeZgVRIq5r7PI7tDdlYsCJXcZ88T2H8cDv_ZcXk-e_hcXY/s400/72.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJpqRy4p1umAkyvAdX-CorCTOoqH0jbYR1d8aIbIH2OKbVBkoyGYNqF7bTl6mRB9TPH1SWogjZxdcUSn9Ba-7ndwAQzpySO5GiV0zBCZLbxGPG7eRnBOIr4FSKSFE-ZP0VklnRXvikFY/s1600/73.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJpqRy4p1umAkyvAdX-CorCTOoqH0jbYR1d8aIbIH2OKbVBkoyGYNqF7bTl6mRB9TPH1SWogjZxdcUSn9Ba-7ndwAQzpySO5GiV0zBCZLbxGPG7eRnBOIr4FSKSFE-ZP0VklnRXvikFY/s400/73.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
All these
years later, Montgomery still has vivid memories of her first impressions of
Universal,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"The big
Black Tower at Universal, where all the executives worked, was the tallest
building in the Valley at the time. You could see it for miles, you know?
There was the Sheraton Universal hotel at the top of the hill and the
Tower was down below. Because I was underage, they sent my dad a ticket
as well and we both flew out to Los Angeles. It was so exciting.
They had a little motel across the street from Universal where we stayed.
And this motel had a wonderful little cafe where the waitresses had aprons
on and little hats that you'd see in movies. They had the best homemade apple pie there.
Anyway, we stayed at that motel and just walked across the street for our
meetings. We went straight to Monique James' office where she brings me
in and had Claire, her assistant, there. She sat me down and shook my
hand. I remember her saying, 'Oh, Belinda! It's such a pleasure to
meet you!' She would frequently take a
big suck on her cigarette, that was held in an elegant black cigarette holder,
and blow it out to the side. Even though she was very tiny and about five
feet tall, I thought she was the most elegant woman alive. So she makes
appointments for me to go and meet the guys in the Tower. I met the guy
with the big glasses, Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal. And then I
had a meeting with various other people. And I was trying to be really
adult and sophisticated having all these meetings. Then they sent me to an office of a man with a
plaque outside his door named 'Edd Henry,' with two Ds to his name. I thought
maybe the second D was supposed to be his middle initial, or maybe they spelt
Ed differently in Hollywood. I left that
meeting and went back down to Monique's office. I must have been so
uptight about all the meetings because, when I sat down to talk to her, she
asked [deep sophisticated voice] 'Well, darling, how did it go?' I couldn’t catch my breath or answer her. I
think I had been so terrified by all these meetings! So she immediately called
for her assistant, 'Claire, darling! Come in here! Please get
Belinda an aspirin and a glass of water...Immediately!' (laugh) When we continued talking Monique asked
'Would you like to join us here? I've seen your work, I saw the
educational TV show that you did and we'd like to have you here at Universal.
We're going to send contracts up to your lawyers and begin the process. It's going to take a bit of work because we
have to get you a Green Card!' It was very difficult at that time to get
a Green Card, as it usually is. Even though I had a job to come to, and
Universal was offering me, you know, a 7-year contract, it was still a bit of
an effort and challenge to get the Green Card, but eventually I got it."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4NFVy_cqWkvaUowY9JgP8-dzzf5XQ8tzNnXTkW3G6n2xqEN63oUlDtcRt0OkJE2iusMbSPjE3epE11mULlyFiqJBrujyFNiYpYJ3QuLs0-uw7XYNUDzq9O9KX8jXXYGpnWVIp_cvMxE/s1600/50.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4NFVy_cqWkvaUowY9JgP8-dzzf5XQ8tzNnXTkW3G6n2xqEN63oUlDtcRt0OkJE2iusMbSPjE3epE11mULlyFiqJBrujyFNiYpYJ3QuLs0-uw7XYNUDzq9O9KX8jXXYGpnWVIp_cvMxE/s400/50.JPG" width="317" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Because
Montgomery was moving to Los Angeles to work at Universal, it inspired her
family to join her out there to pursue their own opportunities,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"My parents and siblings
were able to join me in Los Angeles about four months after I moved here." </i></b>Once she was able to move to LA, she
quickly went about the business of finding a home and becoming acclimated to
her new environment,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Monique
James set me up with an agent in Los Angeles at International Famous
Agency--IFA--named Wilt Melnick. He was a delightful man, so sweet, and
so protective of me because, really, I was such an innocent and here I was--I
wasn't even 19 years old yet, and I'd moved to another country with just a
suitcase. So I come down here and Wilt goes around town helping me take a
look at apartments. Because I didn't know how to drive yet--we find an
apartment right around the corner from the studios. It was a little old
apartment building and I had the upstairs unit. It was one bedroom and
tiny and there was a backdoor that went downstairs from the kitchen and, of
course, there were stairs going up the front of the building where you would
enter in into the living room. I remember, in the beginning, I would go
away for the weekends with new friends, or Monique would want me to go to some
social gathering to meet some people. My
downstairs neighbor would come up and say, 'Belinda, you've left your door open,
again! It was wide open.’ And I'd say, 'Oh my God! You're
right! I'm not used to my Mom not being here to close and lock the
doors!' (laugh) I was very fortunate to have people looking out for
me. I quickly learned to be more careful and lock my doors and look out
for myself. I realized I was in a different city and country, and learned
to be responsible for protecting myself."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbotlJ0PjImyMvQf9DKeXiZwTVDF9uDy7IlPaNotZe29UBWh-eYkTU1mPmEe1cj2X1RNTpOsyQsR08mwZVmajSUlQJLqwXLLt3WnnC-jJWp06fivAJwIUsKsJg4IS5qRHBQW2XKed5VRE/s1600/44.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbotlJ0PjImyMvQf9DKeXiZwTVDF9uDy7IlPaNotZe29UBWh-eYkTU1mPmEe1cj2X1RNTpOsyQsR08mwZVmajSUlQJLqwXLLt3WnnC-jJWp06fivAJwIUsKsJg4IS5qRHBQW2XKed5VRE/s400/44.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
also remembers how her downstairs neighbor provided her with her first sense of the
quirky and offbeat nature of living and working in Los Angeles' entertainment
industry,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Lance
Rimmer was my neighbor who lived in the apartment below me. He was
wonderful and handsome and was a cowboy stunt man up at the Universal Studios
show. They were doing the studio tour
and stunt shows back then, even though it wasn't as big as it is now, of course. He would do the gun-fights in the Western
shows. When I would look out my kitchen
window every morning, there would be Lance leaving for work. I'd see him leave his apartment with a black
cowboy hat on, black shirt, black pants, and black cowboy boots with spurs.
He would get into his big, black Cadillac and would drive off to go to
work. And I thought, 'Well, that's just the way it is in L.A.
Everybody sort of dresses the part, I guess!' My first introduction
to L.A. and, already, I have a neighbor who dresses like this all the time!
(laugh) It was a wild time. I lived there for about a year,
and Lance was a wonderful neighbor."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizX0EBzBS91iLI2akYCDfWMrnj_ZI-yE4or1LELWQWwRqU2XDYn_NXv7BvsiYatwXkDI_x16uBLJQq44dhE1udEU9KnVWzHI3kYMv8WS4_vpG7X77N8spUHP2UgBJ-IP8GvmpVM9Kbxb0/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizX0EBzBS91iLI2akYCDfWMrnj_ZI-yE4or1LELWQWwRqU2XDYn_NXv7BvsiYatwXkDI_x16uBLJQq44dhE1udEU9KnVWzHI3kYMv8WS4_vpG7X77N8spUHP2UgBJ-IP8GvmpVM9Kbxb0/s400/2.jpg" width="321" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Once
Montgomery was settled living in Los Angeles and ready to start working, she
quickly acclimated to the camaraderie and environment of working at Universal,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"It was great. You'd
be up in make-up at 6:00 in the morning. And all the make-up rooms were
in a big building next to the wardrobe building. We were just above Alfred
Hitchcock’s little studio house. We'd see
Hitchcock going into his little abode there. After we'd finish in make-up, it was 8:00 or 9:00
when we'd be called to the set and sometimes you'd see Hitchcock walking around
and looking--not at you, but deep in thought, doing something in his head, of
course. So that was always kind of extraordinary to witness. When we'd go to make-up, there were SO many rooms.
Well, there were two floors and they were all make-up rooms, right?, When you entered the front of the building
you'd see the list of names of all the shows and actors shooting at that
time--'The Virginian,' 'Marcus Welby,' 'Ironside,' 'Dragnet,' 'Adam-12,'--all
these different shows and you'd go to the make-up room for the show you were working on and you started chatting
with the make-up artists while they prepared you. The breakfast was prepared downstairs by this older
woman. She had a huge personality and very loud voice. She'd say, 'Who wants to have waffles this
morning?!' If we went down there, and you talked to her, you might get
some onions thrown on. You'd definitely have scrambled eggs and bacon and
toast with your breakfast plate. So you're having your make-up put on
while drinking orange juice and eating bacon and eggs. And then you'd see
somebody that was getting made-up four rooms down and you'd say 'Hi' and chat
with them. We would go into wardrobe next and we had these great wardrobe
people there that knew our figures and measurements. If you were under
contract, they knew your dimensions so they had these clothes ready for you
when you went in to try them on. And then they'd do little nips here and
tucks there and bring in the waist here and there. We knew everybody on the lot at Universal.
It was like a big family. It was very comfortable. There was a great camaraderie
among the personnel working at Universal at that time. It was kind of a
wonderful period. I was appreciative, even at the time, to have been one of
the last of the Hollywood contract players."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4t8YeIpVVgIxMX5-OIWmZj1LC05ldXB8p6tlHH9h6Mix98u3THAepAbsow9TxMX307NQIIiek-8MJ6l6QWyT2nBNMSWX3zr5Qu_HptE9Ve5u6dE1lQfWGkcZftmvbHH66NOAjzUmIy3I/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4t8YeIpVVgIxMX5-OIWmZj1LC05ldXB8p6tlHH9h6Mix98u3THAepAbsow9TxMX307NQIIiek-8MJ6l6QWyT2nBNMSWX3zr5Qu_HptE9Ve5u6dE1lQfWGkcZftmvbHH66NOAjzUmIy3I/s400/15.JPG" width="322" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
In
addition to the camaraderie between the other contract players and the crew
members, Montgomery also enjoyed her time at Universal because of the support
she experienced from the executives at the studio,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I didn't have to audition
much for parts at Universal. Monique would get the scripts and then she
would call me and say, 'I have a script for you. I'm going to send it
over to you. Read it and tell me what you think.' After I'd read
it, she'd ask, 'Would you like to do it?' Most of the time, they were
great. I was just eager to do all of it because, you know, I was so new
down here that I thought, 'Yeah, I want to do everything!' I think there
were a couple of movie scripts that were sent over. They were feature
scripts that I didn't want to do. One was, 'The Magic Garden of Stanley
Sweetheart' (1970) with Don Johnson. It was like a psychedelic movie.
They were talking about me doing that and I just thought 'I don't think I
want to do it.' If I had done it at that time, I guess I would've met
Don, whose wife I later played on 'Miami Vice.' Another film I turned
down was one that was directed by John Erman, who I already worked with on
'Marcus Welby,' that I can't remember the name of, but it would have involved
a lot of nudity. Even though I was dedicated as an actress, I really
balked at showing my 'whatever' on camera 50-feet wide, you know? And
directors who wanted me to do nudity would say to me 'Oh, but you know, it
doesn't matter because there'll only be a small crew: the cameraman, the
soundman, and the A.D.' and I'd go, ‘What about when it gets into theaters and
people are oogling my 50-foot boobs!' (laugh) So I turned that down. I didn't figure why I had to take off all my clothes for that part!
(laugh) I just felt uncomfortable about it and I made a choice that
was right for me. But I was never pressured into doing anything I didn't
want to do when I was at Universal."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjenJgtla_oZD19ldOjO7vWVpAnXcuq59PiO92N2e7QNw0bwvkv0pKqgNSjQfms9itE9Ct9nbSJ-Z3ziCu3nThZM3EILl_T13lP4KfC6nBkbRYQC6aeD3ah4Im7MFOqwCcLNNtGxeJS4ak/s1600/20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjenJgtla_oZD19ldOjO7vWVpAnXcuq59PiO92N2e7QNw0bwvkv0pKqgNSjQfms9itE9Ct9nbSJ-Z3ziCu3nThZM3EILl_T13lP4KfC6nBkbRYQC6aeD3ah4Im7MFOqwCcLNNtGxeJS4ak/s400/20.JPG" width="377" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Even though Montgomery had a positive
experience working with Monique James at Universal, she acknowledges the
qualities that caused Cristina Raines to have a contentious working
relationship with James. As I previously discussed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2014/06/since-youve-gone-cristina-raines-interview.html">in
my Cristina Raines interview</a>, Monique James was
known to be severe with actors and actresses she did not bring into Universal
and who she disfavored. As Montgomery opines,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I didn't have the same
experience with Monique as I read Cristina Raines had with her.
Fortunately for me, Monique really adored me like her daughter. She
would sign notes to me with a smiley face and an inscription saying 'From your
Fairy Godmother,' because she enjoyed the Henson Muppets project that I did, 'Hey,
Cinderella!' And she really was. She was my entree into Hollywood.
She was my mentor, she was my go-to person. I recognize how Monique
would have been different with Cristina Raines because the executives at
Universal picked her and not Monique. That was unfortunate because
Cristina was a very talented actress. Monique
was TERRIBLY intimidating considering she was about 5 feet tall, but she was
quite a force, quite an amazing woman. So I knew she could be tough on
people.”</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZqrcqPPERgqkvk9gDBqQB-BpqJXKpNr1oao5-rBgoWO-qpWxnexWUXHlt0J8x3PITfIMuQRTcEUJNCnpsg-IK55TJtzhjLdA6MFUvO2LXYRXaD-VkNI0E6keebI0X_wcxEXyRpE-PfeA/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZqrcqPPERgqkvk9gDBqQB-BpqJXKpNr1oao5-rBgoWO-qpWxnexWUXHlt0J8x3PITfIMuQRTcEUJNCnpsg-IK55TJtzhjLdA6MFUvO2LXYRXaD-VkNI0E6keebI0X_wcxEXyRpE-PfeA/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyAtWOBdsqrBDORv4yp0t3H6AOVlknZ4th8gbzI4450xlMnF3c-Mcrm_dZultpgQNVD4QmCqbAHjV5UEMLf73uza6AO1YxiX4DvDIOa_tf2ssxhw7WRjD78x5cg6qQXspNbWEuVpqmyHM/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyAtWOBdsqrBDORv4yp0t3H6AOVlknZ4th8gbzI4450xlMnF3c-Mcrm_dZultpgQNVD4QmCqbAHjV5UEMLf73uza6AO1YxiX4DvDIOa_tf2ssxhw7WRjD78x5cg6qQXspNbWEuVpqmyHM/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery's
first role at Universal was on "Marcus Welby, M.D.," playing a young
married woman whose pregnancy is in jeopardy due to medical complications from
an earlier abortion. It would be the first of two guest appearances
Montgomery would make on the acclaimed medical series. Montgomery
recalls,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Richard
Thomas played my husband and it was Richard's and my first show in Los Angeles.
He had just come in from New York and, of course, I had just come in from
Canada. We played husband and wife and we were babies. The episode
was so well-received that Universal promoted it for an Emmy, because they
thought it was terrific. It was my first venture out and it was wonderful
to get that positive feedback. It didn't get nominated for an Emmy in the
end, but I think it was a really good role. Richard and I played a couple
from Oklahoma who moved to California. Then
my character had pregnancy complications so a visit to Dr. Welby was in order. I know we were believable because two of the
actors on the show, Jesse and Alan Vint, were from Oklahoma and wanted to know
what part I was from. It was a very dramatic show and was so
well-received they did a follow-up episode where they brought our characters
back. John Erman directed that first 'Welby' episode, and he was a lovely man. On the first day of shooting, John
wanted Richard and I to get to know each other, so we all went to lunch up the
street at this Chinese restaurant on Cahuenga Boulevard. We sit down and
we're looking at the menu and Richard looks up to the waiter and he starts
speaking to him in a lot of sing-song kind of sounds. I said, 'Oh my
Gosh!' and I look to John and I'm thinking 'Is he making fun of the waiter?!'
Not at all, because the waiter starts talking back to Richard. And damned if he didn't know Mandarin
Chinese! He ordered the right stuff and
we all loved it! (laugh) But, anyway, I had a wonderful experience
working with John Erman on 'Marcus Welby.' I also had such a great
experience with Robert Young. He wrote me the most lovely letter after he
first worked with me. He was such a
lovely man. And, of course, I worked with James Brolin and Jimmy was just
this young guy at the time who lived up north. I think he used to commute
from Universal to someplace like Paso Robles where he had his family and kids.
He would do that every weekend. That
was a long commute for him. He was really terrific."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvJdLjyJ_pDLH0_htXhoBCBeWNSsPoCmnSMYXQHBLZ-CbO21h-Dcm5t3tUshTQSQ07MjU4MuGVHkNSOtzKjwrKDddFRH5cJpfClUpSdiF8saXC6WXF0_BWlhJPbqhgHYVLlkEk5c_yEk/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvJdLjyJ_pDLH0_htXhoBCBeWNSsPoCmnSMYXQHBLZ-CbO21h-Dcm5t3tUshTQSQ07MjU4MuGVHkNSOtzKjwrKDddFRH5cJpfClUpSdiF8saXC6WXF0_BWlhJPbqhgHYVLlkEk5c_yEk/s400/16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Montgomery quickly moved on to other
guest roles at Universal, including an appearance on "The Virginian,"
where she worked with Doug McClure. She recalls how, <b><i>"I wasn’t
crazy about doing Westerns, not because of the subject matter, but because we
had tight corset kind of tops on and long, long dresses and kind of lace-up
boots because we had to look like the era. And it was dusty and difficult
getting on and off horses, you know, but we had a really good time otherwise.
I really enjoyed guest-starring on that series. John McIntire was a
great, wonderful man to work with. Michael Constantine played my father and he
played my father in a number of shows after that… just a great guy. Oh
there were a lot of good people I worked with on 'The Virginian.' My
favorite, though, was probably Doug McClure. I think he was about 38 at
the time, and I was 19. He asked me out while I was working on his show
and we became an item. Doug had a house in the Encino hills, and his
housekeeper was always going to quit because he always had so many people
visiting that it was chaotic. Doug was so generous, he always had people
up there for meals and pool parties. He was
a big, sweet guy. While we were dating, my parents were moving to Los
Angeles from Canada, bringing my sister and brother with them. Doug
insisted on having a big limousine pick them up at the airport. So they
land at the airport and my parents give me a hug, look over at Doug and say, ‘...Uh,
who's this? Doug McClure?!' I said
to them, 'Doug has a limousine waiting for you' and they both went, 'What?!'
And we get into the limousine and my dad's looking sideways at Doug and
thinking 'Uh-huh,' and Doug said, 'I've got rooms for you up at the Sheraton,
up above Universal. That way Belinda's nearby and you're up at the hotel
and you can relax and get over jet-lag.' By this time, my mother takes me
aside and says, 'WHAT have you been doing for the past couple of months?!'
I said, 'I've been having a great time!' Which was true, it was a
wonderful time in my life. Doug was just the sweetest, nicest guy.
Despite our age difference, he was a real gentleman and my parents grew
to adore him. My whole family spent time going up to his place up in
Encino. I remember Doug said to my dad, 'There's a house for sale, right
below me here. I can make an appointment and you can look at it with a realtor.
What do you think?’ So my dad said, 'Fine,' and that was the house
that they lived in for a number of years. It was a great home and I wish
they never got rid of it. It looked out over the Valley and had a
swimming pool and fruit trees and everything. Doug and I broke up after 8
months because…I was too young. I didn't understand that at the time, but
of course I do now! (laugh) But we remained friends and every time
Doug drove down from his house to go to work, he'd beep his horn as he passed
my parents house and my dad would say, 'Well, Doug's on his way to the
studio!'"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCnnyjEKxEf0fud0vAYRqBbU48giKkHu0Nml14kHPeeZXrOIq34xHcoC0ss8WcPCGjbc-Mu-Mywm4ltVK3KmvFpZTWgi__09-HGHprP0SLxK6SQd7srq7sa8QmH4pNN3HRY-VmHFuZJA/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCnnyjEKxEf0fud0vAYRqBbU48giKkHu0Nml14kHPeeZXrOIq34xHcoC0ss8WcPCGjbc-Mu-Mywm4ltVK3KmvFpZTWgi__09-HGHprP0SLxK6SQd7srq7sa8QmH4pNN3HRY-VmHFuZJA/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery's
next role at Universal was a co-starring role in the made-for-TV horror film
"Ritual of Evil" (1970) starring Louis Jourdan, Anne Baxter, and John
McMartin. Montgomery played an heiress terrorized by a religious cult. It
would be her first encounter with the horror genre, which she would
occasionally return to through the years. She vividly recalls the making
of "Ritual of Evil" because of the friendships she would develop with
her costars, <b><i>"Annie--Anne Baxter--treated me like her
daughter. After we finished the shoot, she took me home and introduced me
to her real daughter Katrina, whose father was John Hodiak and we became
friends. Annie lived in Westwood, near UCLA, in a wonderful home.
She would take me up to her closet, if I was going on a date to a movie
with a guy, and she would say, 'Oh my darling, come in here,' in her whiskey
voice, and she would take out a Pucci dress or a Chanel and she'd throw them on
the bed and say 'These would look divine on you, darling, take them home. Wear one
tonight for your beau.' And I'd thank her and I'd take these wonderful
outfits home and I'd wear jeans and an old T-shirt to the movies and then I'd
bring them back. I never told her I didn't wear either one because, you
know, I had no reason to do that. I lived in jeans, but she was SO
generous in offering me her wardrobe and giving me advice on how to be a woman
and what to expect from men and stuff." <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQz6U6yB2S71TkiUg7GUPeOAYxNcE_UMEVXKhqum_ex7Il2wvkvMYuMU1f1bLExTk90aZht3S_3N2PIlTV9by1qFXI7JuDbNoGHZJqRzPp9lqPjgQy94b4VPiPRu8iZy2H9BTbohKjkeg/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQz6U6yB2S71TkiUg7GUPeOAYxNcE_UMEVXKhqum_ex7Il2wvkvMYuMU1f1bLExTk90aZht3S_3N2PIlTV9by1qFXI7JuDbNoGHZJqRzPp9lqPjgQy94b4VPiPRu8iZy2H9BTbohKjkeg/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
In
addition to Anne Baxter, Montgomery recalls becoming friends with the reserved
and refined Louis Jourdan during the making of this TV movie,<b><i> "Louis Jourdan was just the most amazing man. I was madly in love
with him. We shot part of the movie up in Santa Barbara in Hope Ranch at
a wonderful house that was supposed to be our estate there. I remember
Louis Jourdan would be sitting and reading a French novel off to the side.
Nobody approached him except his make-up lady because everybody was sort
of terrified. He was a huge movie star. Nobody talked to Louis
Jourdan! So we rode up in limousines to Santa Barbara and on the ride
back the transportation personnel wanted to pair me in a limousine with Louis.
I remember going, 'We're gonna be like an hour and a half in the same
car. What am I gonna say?!' They said, 'Oh no, you'll be fine with
him.' So we get in the car and he's very polite and he looks over and I
said, 'You know, Louis, I guess you think I'm very young because I look very
young, right?' And he said, [French accent] 'Well, of course! You
are just a baby!' And I said, 'No, really, I'm 28 years old.' And
he said, 'You are what?!" And I repeated, 'I'm 28 years old.'
I lied through my teeth! I couldn't even get a drink in Santa
Barbara because I was underage. He said, 'You're 28?!' I said,
'Yes!' And then he said, 'Oh my goodness!' and then we had the most
wonderful conversations because he felt he could relate to me better. I
said to him, 'So, Louis, everybody's afraid to talk to you because they think
you're so smart and so learned and you're this big movie star and you haven't
got time for people.' And he said, [French accent] 'The reason I'm
sitting by myself is because nobody is talking to me!' So I said, 'You
and I can continue to chat when we get back to the set in Los Angeles?'
And he said, 'But, of course!' And so from then on I kidded him
about things and I would make him laugh. And, you know, I like people
feeling comfortable when I'm working with them. So the first day back on
the set in Los Angeles at Universal, we're shooting a scene with Louis and I’m
on the set, Louis is sitting over on the other part of the stage reading by
himself like before. I looked over and I said, 'Where's Louis?' And
the crew said, 'Mr. Jourdan is sitting over in his chair, Belinda.' And I
said, 'Well, I'm here! Why the heck isn't he here rehearsing with me?'
I said 'Hey, Louis! Are you ever gonna get up and join me?'
And we had already arranged this, the two of us, and Louis said, 'Oh,
excuse me! I’m sorry Belinda! I'm coming right now!' And the
crew's faces, their jaws dropped to the ground. We had banter back and
forth and people soon realized, 'They're
*joking* with each other?!' It helped Louis break the ice with the rest
of the cast and crew and eventually everybody loved Louis. I told Anne
Baxter, 'I'm going to marry Louis Jourdan!' She said, 'He's 30 years
older than you, has a son your age, and his wife will probably be very
interested that you feel that way! You're not going to marry Louis
Jourdan!' (laugh) So it was a crush from afar!"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsINITxFKo4SfP1CEBGSMB39rv3xCu1Jw1sk1t8JD8zGIo9xYi6yYxtDsTkaBl6tSk_fsx6GozUZ2Tt7W1JHN6tu3clpcGCnax_d2pTy5L_r4WFeJhgBJVemO8Wi4LzqZaqUc_XX4-tHc/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsINITxFKo4SfP1CEBGSMB39rv3xCu1Jw1sk1t8JD8zGIo9xYi6yYxtDsTkaBl6tSk_fsx6GozUZ2Tt7W1JHN6tu3clpcGCnax_d2pTy5L_r4WFeJhgBJVemO8Wi4LzqZaqUc_XX4-tHc/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
"John McMartin, who was a famous Broadway star, was in 'Ritual of Evil' as well.
I thought he was great. Funniest
man on the set! Great guy, handsome and he had this shock of white hair.
One evening, we all convened at the foyer of the hotel and he said, 'OK,
so we're all going out for dinner and then we're going to a bar in Santa
Barbara. Are you coming, Belinda?' I said, 'Sure!' So we had
dinner and then we went to a bar and they asked, 'You can drink, Belinda?
I mean, you're of age, right?' And I went, 'Oh, no problem!'
I think I was 19. The waitress comes over and everybody's ordering and
they ask me what I'd like and I said, 'Well, I'd like a corkscrew!'
(laugh) And the waitress said, 'You want a what?' 'I'd like a
corkscrew.' And John McMartin grinned and looked at me and said, 'Do you
mean a screwdriver?' I went, 'Yes! That's what I mean!'
(laugh) So the waitress said, 'May I see your I.D.?' and I said,
'Why?!' I was like incensed, right?, I was putting on this big act.
'Why would you need to see my I.D. just because I said 'corkscrew'
instead of 'screwdriver?' We finally found a bar that would take me
without asking how old I was. I had
three screwdrivers and I ended up getting sick. I spent the whole night
at my hotel trying to stop vomiting. It
was like hell night for me. I could barely keep water down. The
next day, I knew I had to be up early and on the set. Annie is out there
and I think Louis was out there. And there's something about eating
sandwiches in the scene I'm shooting with Anne Baxter. John McMartin told
the crew I was deathly ill with a terrible hangover. I thought I was
keeping it to myself but my face was probably green. So when I'd have to
get the sandwich, take a big bite out of it and keep talking and doing my scene
with Anne Baxter, they were giving me sandwiches with peanut butter and pickles
and mayonnaise. Yecch. The crew was thinking this was just the
funniest thing so I'd take a mouthful and I'd do the scene and run off the set
to get sick in a bucket. And the crew was just laughing like hell.
They thought it was funny that they were witnessing my first hangover.
Isn't that dreadful? (laugh)." </i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj252VIm5mBLGYgkH5CV5-XXBhhOGJtsLowoo_aHkfyvNFD27_RvHKEWzikiTHbOoBk95ZLri4Vksz6Yo6hDV3gYbFCYaftWqJejN2xrdd03w86wosOSWYlYyp_wynQ6Ed6TsF-1tPZvqo/s1600/60.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj252VIm5mBLGYgkH5CV5-XXBhhOGJtsLowoo_aHkfyvNFD27_RvHKEWzikiTHbOoBk95ZLri4Vksz6Yo6hDV3gYbFCYaftWqJejN2xrdd03w86wosOSWYlYyp_wynQ6Ed6TsF-1tPZvqo/s400/60.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcnqaxDHuttqBu4YkO7AxHQB9HDRf53xNBvXh-XvXxdcDPdqNPkl_uN_MVfnUcamJUnY_9ES7slxNP3YyRqAbfTS_Prho3icKHgXGyE6Hz-nH-nHkkVPvyUObjIVxFFTT6-Y7mTAkMz4/s1600/59.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcnqaxDHuttqBu4YkO7AxHQB9HDRf53xNBvXh-XvXxdcDPdqNPkl_uN_MVfnUcamJUnY_9ES7slxNP3YyRqAbfTS_Prho3icKHgXGyE6Hz-nH-nHkkVPvyUObjIVxFFTT6-Y7mTAkMz4/s400/59.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Montgomery continued guest-starring on
other shows at Universal, including "Ironside" starring Raymond Burr.
She warmly recalls how,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I
loved 'Ironside,' and Raymond Burr was such a doll to work with. My
brother, Lee Montgomery, was also under contract to Universal. He got
signed the year after I was, and he's got his own memories of his experience at
Universal. I remember once when we brought my aunt Vera over from
Ireland, and my brother was so happy to have her here and wanted her to meet
Raymond Burr. He burst into Raymond Burr's private dressing room on the
lot, which was a little house, and he said, 'Ray! I want you to meet my
Aunt Vera!' Burr was still getting
dressed and he asked, 'Do you mind if I finish dressing, Lee?' (laugh)
Anyway, I had a great time working on 'Ironside.' Don Mitchell and I were an item for awhile.
I just adored him. The studio wasn't really thrilled about that…interracial concerns, you know. Of course, this was 1970 and that was a big
'No-No,' at least from the studio's point of view. This was at the same time Peggy Lipton was
going with Quincy Jones. Georg Stanford Brown was another actor under
contract to Universal. I worked with him on 'Ritual of Evil,' and he was
a good actor and he became a wonderful director and he was married to Tyne
Daly. So there was nothing unusual about my dating Don. Don was
just a wonderful man. He was so handsome and so nice and we had a great time
together while we were dating. I'm really glad that we had that time
together."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZ1WlcdsdtA_V7URJNkU6cctXDYKhNkkcSFqB6-fZJekRTcwpNKyB16RvTzA5RAVowjSxPUfIVz1T4TCRruq9efJejR-tFOoFqnHpbF5ZJSepmClsu5dcDhE7tClfE6JpKRKtRcXy22Y/s1600/24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZ1WlcdsdtA_V7URJNkU6cctXDYKhNkkcSFqB6-fZJekRTcwpNKyB16RvTzA5RAVowjSxPUfIVz1T4TCRruq9efJejR-tFOoFqnHpbF5ZJSepmClsu5dcDhE7tClfE6JpKRKtRcXy22Y/s400/24.JPG" width="381" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>During Montgomery's tenure at
Universal, she was occasionally loaned out to other studios and production
companies. Montgomery recalls that these loan outs came about
because, <b><i>"These other productions would go to Monique James and
she would ask me, 'What do you think of this script?' and I'd read it and say
'Yay' or 'Nay' if I didn't want to do it. She was really mentoring me in
picking out vehicles that she thought were good for me, so I could experience
working at other studios. One time I was loaned out to do one of the last,
I think, 'Playhouse 90s' at CBS. It was called 'Appalachian Autumn.'
Arthur Kennedy, Teresa Wright, Estelle Winwood were in it. It was a
stellar cast. Philip Alford, who played the little boy in 'To Kill a
Mockingbird' (1962) played the main character in it. He was very, very
good in it and we had a lot of fun together.
Shooting was a little frenetic because Teresa Wright was trying to do
what she thought was a really good performance and the director, Bill Graham,
was really hard on Teresa. She was in tears some of the time and I
remember I wasn’t quite sure why because she would say, 'Look, I'm doing my
best!' so I don't know what that was all about, but it was a little tense on
the set. Nevertheless, Arthur Kennedy was just fabulous. He was very
intense. So the lightness on that show came, interestingly enough, from
Estelle Winwood. I don't know how old Estelle was. She looked like
she may have been 95 years old at the time but, you know, anybody over 20 or 30
looked 95 to me. So she'd be sitting there and, I was sitting beside her,
and this one time the wardrobe lady comes over and says, [slow, careful, loud
tone] 'Miss Winwood, we would *love* it if you could come with us and try that
dress on again, because we have to make an alteration.' Estelle said,
'What the hell's the matter with you?! I'm not deaf and I’m not senile!
If you ask me properly, maybe I'll go!' (laugh) She was full
of piss and vinegar and spunk, and she wasn't having any of this. She
just happened to be a little old lady who was sharp as a tack, you know?
The only thing old about her was her body, because her mind wasn't. And Teresa Wright was just a gentle, wonderful
soul. We had quite an incredible cast when I think about it now.
And we had rehearsals. This was one of the last times I would ever
do a show where we had rehearsals because it was television, you know? I think we had two weeks over at CBS
rehearsing this show. We had this great rehearsal hall on Third St. near
the Farmers Market on Fairfax. So that was great to be able to work on
something where you knew the characters pretty well."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cjviSvTQzvaYkB6N9Hgoe0HZXZQ5cZxJBl7ZUvW261ZYR3PO29y9P-Nz5MpTNX5QjfCBmOfa5yTtwzUBmF3iLrbo-3rQ9VAug1lrlPsRqKPGt-qudtVXBeVZlwVvIupdIUr_Pjqg2GE/s1600/66.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cjviSvTQzvaYkB6N9Hgoe0HZXZQ5cZxJBl7ZUvW261ZYR3PO29y9P-Nz5MpTNX5QjfCBmOfa5yTtwzUBmF3iLrbo-3rQ9VAug1lrlPsRqKPGt-qudtVXBeVZlwVvIupdIUr_Pjqg2GE/s400/66.JPG" width="310" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
"Appalachian
Autumn" was also memorable for Montgomery because she became friends with
its writer, Earl Hamner, <b><i>"My husband and I saw him about a year ago
because my friend Michael McGreevey, who is a darling, produced a documentary
about Earl's life and career that I participated in. He wanted to have
every person who knew Earl to come out and say hello to him at a screening for
the documentary because his health was fading at that point. So we all
came out and they showed the movie with the interviews and our recollections of
him and he was there to see the love and respect we all felt for him. It
was just great. He was in a wheelchair and we were able to come up and
kiss him and tell him that we love him. He used to be a neighbor of mine
in Studio City up in the hills. When I was shooting 'Doogie Howser,' I had a house in the Hollywood Hills and then
I moved to another location in the Studio City hills. I would take my dog
for a walk in the maze of streets up in the hills. I'm walking along and I hear this melodic voice of a husband talking with his wife, I presumed. So I look up
and there's a white picket fence and Earl talking to his delightful wife, who's
in the garden planting flowers. I called out, 'Earl! Is that you?!'
And he looked up and he says, ‘Well, look who it is!' And they
both come over and give me a hug. So when I'd take my dog for a walk past
their place, I would say hi if they were home. They were just darling.
Earl was a real sweetheart, I really was very fond of him, and I loved
his accent!"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8ryHGdBsrVIIGhG_9NMQA6Il_ISC0MJZapnxF6FDM0YiVTu6YGQEurpgjNvqr9U1D8qbsTqWx40dexWpbV7jcOQQtQGGmD_405zZRkKUbN-G-JSQL0_DJnWt6ubRS43sPMOH3sfMOM8/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8ryHGdBsrVIIGhG_9NMQA6Il_ISC0MJZapnxF6FDM0YiVTu6YGQEurpgjNvqr9U1D8qbsTqWx40dexWpbV7jcOQQtQGGmD_405zZRkKUbN-G-JSQL0_DJnWt6ubRS43sPMOH3sfMOM8/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
While on
loan out from Universal, Montgomery made her feature film debut in the
psychological thriller/character study "The Todd Killings" (1971).
Robert F. Lyons starred as Skipper Todd, an aimless young man who exerts
a dangerous influence on the disaffected youth living in a small Northern
California town. Montgomery played Roberta, a young woman living in town
who is initially resistant to Todd's interest in her, but whose eventual
curiosity about him results in grim consequences for her and her sister.
Montgomery admits she was drawn to the film because <b><i>"I
remember the script was so dark and I had never been killed in anything before.
So I thought that that would be interesting. I thought the script
was very dramatic and good. My intention at the time was to be primarily
a dramatic actress, I didn't see myself as a comedic actress. It was only
later that I got into other stuff that was lighter like 'Doogie Houser,' so if
it was a dramatic role at the time, I wanted to be a part of it. My
sister Tanis played my sister and we both were killed in the story, so that
made it an even darker story. The lead was played by Robert Lyons, who
was a great actor. I don’t think he got the notoriety that he deserved,
but he was a fabulous actor. He was very good in this and very frightening.
I remember when he would be very scary in a scene he would say, 'You
know, Belinda, I'm just acting!' (laugh)" </i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIEnOAWUVW8LYCBIrS4ZIeIxccfLwpJckJOlcU4hGvSY9uDz6UJQTEwCBOtB_AASKIzyJO0674mFQhFZv7ZGKjiyG9MPgTcZP9vWo0R9gVe9rFTk2h-8rDpqlIZq8f8wVXfWvI8PjC5U/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIEnOAWUVW8LYCBIrS4ZIeIxccfLwpJckJOlcU4hGvSY9uDz6UJQTEwCBOtB_AASKIzyJO0674mFQhFZv7ZGKjiyG9MPgTcZP9vWo0R9gVe9rFTk2h-8rDpqlIZq8f8wVXfWvI8PjC5U/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though Montgomery was attracted to the challenge that the script posed, she
soon found that working with director Barry Shear proved to be more than she
bargained for, <b><i>"It was a difficult movie to shoot and I
remember the director Barry Shear and I would lock horns. He was a brash New Yorker and, I don't know,
I guess he just kind of grated on me. I had already worked with him on various
shows at Universal. My dad worked with
him on the production end for awhile and found him to be very amusing and
interesting. Anyway, Barry directed this and I remember Meg Foster was
also in this playing a waitress and she was a lovely gal. She had white-blue eyes and looked very
exotic. You couldn't take your eyes off of her eyes, you know? I
remember Barry coming to me and saying, 'All right, we're gonna have the rape
scene and he's gonna tear off all your clothes' and I would stand firm and say
'Well, I'm not going to be naked in this movie! I'm not going to be
completely nude because I don't do that!' and he'd say 'Well, we're gonna have
to shoot it around you!' And I remember we'd film the bar scene and he
was always trying to get women to take off their bras to do all of this stuff and
the women were all saying, 'We're not doing that!' And so everybody
completely thwarted his ideas of what that film should look like. (laugh)
If there was real nudity in that film involving my character, it must
have been a stand-in because I refused to do it. So they would show my
back when I was running trying to get away and then Robert would pull me down
in the scene. I admit that I was very nervous about doing that scene
because it was a very uncomfortable moment. I remember Barry saying,
'Here are the rewritten pages!' 'What
rewritten pages?' And Barry said, 'Oh, he's going to grab you and he's
going to tear your clothes off and then he's going to stuff your panties in
your mouth' and I went 'What?!' And he continued, 'Yeah, he's going to do
that to shut your mouth,' and I went 'Wrong! That's not in the script I
read. That's not what I signed on for!' And Barry said, 'But don't
you think it'd make the scene more interesting?' and I said, ‘Maybe for
you.’ So I was always fighting off Barry
during the making of that movie like a mosquito! Anyway, we shot that
rape scene, it made me very uneasy, plus the fact, apart from being 20 years
old, whatever the hell I was at the time, some of the studio heads wanted to be
there because they heard there was going to be a rape scene, right? I was not happy about that. Of course,
if I had been older, I would have just said, 'I'm not doing this scene unless
you get all of these guys out of here!' So that irked me like crazy and
my wardrobe gal, who was just wonderful, made me a couple of stiff drinks that
I downed in the dressing room because I didn't know what to expect. I
haven't thought about it in a long time but, yeah, that was a real
uncomfortable shoot."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZw53ULzt_NRdu_2T2W6Z9G900nF8BuYn1x7od1M0vXWyeOAYyaxYZSxwcc5dEChJ2vCcLLixwNQl1ws1eD2vdYaCIWyvQDXY6HVL_94POg0CDtM6lCQ9NOLRvC5HkXqtTzeo90HfiMs/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZw53ULzt_NRdu_2T2W6Z9G900nF8BuYn1x7od1M0vXWyeOAYyaxYZSxwcc5dEChJ2vCcLLixwNQl1ws1eD2vdYaCIWyvQDXY6HVL_94POg0CDtM6lCQ9NOLRvC5HkXqtTzeo90HfiMs/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><i><br />
</i></b>As she continues sharing memories of
that film, Montgomery recalls how the making of "The Todd Killings"
also proved to be uncomfortable for her mother and sister as well, <b><i>"They
filmed the killing of my character, and my sister Tanis's character, out
in beautiful Tujunga Wash. It was our location most of the time, and it
was very dry and rocky and reflected that element of the film well. I
remember being there to watch the scene where my sister was being killed. Our mother was there and was appalled that we
were in the film. ‘I don't want to have
to look at a film where both of my daughters are murdered!' and I said, 'OK,
well don't see the film.' Anyway, Bobby Lyons comes up to Tanis to murder
her and she gasps and goes 'Eek!' and Barry the director says, 'Cut!...Eek?!'
I go up to her and I say, 'Tanis! Eek?!' And she says, 'I...I
don't know what to say!' So I said, 'Just scream!' And she said,
'Well, I don't really scream' and I said, 'Well, you would if you were going to
be murdered!' (laugh) I think the filming of that scene freaked her
out but she did another take that worked great."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMV0HmOFl6giJBNmF4qAmWUX42lQsHVjyKMBsabWOT1HJavAs_7ir39J1QUd4e2SW42fOrSGljNatUQbKWM8eU1yP1wIZYbyPx1tOS_fDlDg7aXoSYh9U1vu0n-EyoJl3QcMROi2VwLkI/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMV0HmOFl6giJBNmF4qAmWUX42lQsHVjyKMBsabWOT1HJavAs_7ir39J1QUd4e2SW42fOrSGljNatUQbKWM8eU1yP1wIZYbyPx1tOS_fDlDg7aXoSYh9U1vu0n-EyoJl3QcMROi2VwLkI/s320/15.JPG" width="263" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpfS9XY9pTFVi3TIW_0IT5reXko1ge_S50XL1N3GVTQ9IEwydMeTx0DL6douEBGlz9cNqabEwkUAbzMwsYRwC_lvGBzG5yWZ67Pq4fzi-YWVUmt73LQXgp7w8kx47yzBsPIoF-0SwioM/s1600/75.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpfS9XY9pTFVi3TIW_0IT5reXko1ge_S50XL1N3GVTQ9IEwydMeTx0DL6douEBGlz9cNqabEwkUAbzMwsYRwC_lvGBzG5yWZ67Pq4fzi-YWVUmt73LQXgp7w8kx47yzBsPIoF-0SwioM/s400/75.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Back at
Universal, Montgomery next worked with William Conrad and Robert Conrad on the
TV movie, "The D.A.: Conspiracy to Kill" (1971), which also proved to
be a challenging experience for the young actress. Montgomery recalls
how, <b><i>"I liked working with Robert Conrad. I thought he
was handsome and nice. He was great to work with, had a great sense of
humor. He was a 'workaholic' kind of person. He was just so focused
and on top of everything. However, I found working with William Conrad to
be just so irritating. He would tell dirty jokes and people felt
obligated to laugh. I didn't. I said, 'Really?’ And he'd say,
'Well, it's funny.' And I'd say, 'Well, maybe to you.' And, of
course, everybody couldn't believe that I was speaking like that to him.
And then, of course, when we'd have scenes to do, I would learn all my
lines, but what would he do? He'd try to paste cue cards on your forehead
so he could read off them. I wouldn't let him do that to me, but
they were everywhere else on the set! They were on every surface that he
could put his lines up on so he didn't have to bother learning his script.
(laugh) And I just thought it was disrespectful, you know?
When I did 'The D.A.: Conspiracy to Kill,' I didn't know much about
William Conrad. The next time I worked with him, when I did a 'Cannon,' I
liked him even less. But the third time I worked with him was on a TV
movie that was supposed to be a pilot for a series, 'Turnover Smith' (1980) and
I just thought, 'Oh no! He hasn't changed! He's gonna want to put
stickers all over my face with his lines and dialogue.' Mind you, he did it so well! On-screen,
he was just great."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxCwLJrqelXRiZ3kDqKfBnTJrZUYRm_OjMicMQ8bTzmd4Ev5iSSmzKSqv6wRjK-wsPMQp_MgRpqZlA3VaYe79ysSvu1rHIXuHVRAEWrfVnQY_v3BCLdpSPU0JcK7QtqjgAKhGcQxtT0Y/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxCwLJrqelXRiZ3kDqKfBnTJrZUYRm_OjMicMQ8bTzmd4Ev5iSSmzKSqv6wRjK-wsPMQp_MgRpqZlA3VaYe79ysSvu1rHIXuHVRAEWrfVnQY_v3BCLdpSPU0JcK7QtqjgAKhGcQxtT0Y/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
During
this time, as she was establishing her career in Hollywood, Montgomery started
being billed on-screen as "Belinda J. Montgomery." She
continued being credited throughout the 1970s with the middle initial
"J." until the early 1980s, when she dispensed with it entirely.
Montgomery explained that she started being billed with the middle
initial because<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"There
was a man who worked in the Universal music department named Rudy Friml Jr. who
my parents became friends with. His wife, Dianna, was into numerology and
one time while we were visiting at their house, she looked at my name and said,
‘You have to put a middle initial in your name to even it out, or else your
career is going to be insane! It's going to be disastrous!' and I went,
'What?!' So she went through all of these different suggestions and one
of the initials she came up with was 'X' and I said, 'I don't want to be known
as 'Belinda X. Montgomery. I don't think I'm ready for that.'
(laugh) So she said, 'You could put a 'J' in your name.' So I
became 'Belinda J. Montgomery' all during the 1970s when I had dark hair.
And then I did a show where I was blonde and I kept the blonde hair and I
stopped using the 'J' because it was driving me crazy. Once I took the
'J' out, some people thought that there were two actresses with the name
'Belinda Montgomery,' one with dark hair with a 'J' in her name, and one who
was blonde with no middle initial. So I inadvertently cloned myself,
unbeknownst to me. (laugh) The
reason I actually stopped using the 'J' is because I was working with Linda
Evans on this TV movie called 'Bare Essence' (1982) and she asked, 'Why do you
have a 'J' in your name, Belinda?' I told her the whole story and she
said, 'Well, I do numerology and I don't agree with Rudy's wife. You
don't need a 'J' in your name. Is the middle initial causing you unwanted
attention from this, that and the other?' And I said, 'Yeah' and Linda
said, 'Then take the 'J' out! 'Belinda Montgomery' works fine!' So
I did and there you have it!"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4wH0YNlZkfq4r5ZJp-5hnzu32lUjkTzaeyG6FsV_DuKNdFaI2bCywjJDN2quOZUvhUmurkIZtdMHbPTywOQnIouDjaNR4dBmYysUgw39vtcBeHBGj7TUfGDdwyopdTijcTjAIQILag4/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4wH0YNlZkfq4r5ZJp-5hnzu32lUjkTzaeyG6FsV_DuKNdFaI2bCywjJDN2quOZUvhUmurkIZtdMHbPTywOQnIouDjaNR4dBmYysUgw39vtcBeHBGj7TUfGDdwyopdTijcTjAIQILag4/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipb2vOf-smWkX0tue0P3u5zzy9laGPG8bK7AVfgnzUM7fJtPZqqH9bfU4LS7tdlTEZ36iEcAr79Acy5Konokw8HzsMTvghxzmPfRkbN3hP-OlAP2jbJzdy34Z0eP227AcYwPSL_6b9nzQ/s1600/42.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipb2vOf-smWkX0tue0P3u5zzy9laGPG8bK7AVfgnzUM7fJtPZqqH9bfU4LS7tdlTEZ36iEcAr79Acy5Konokw8HzsMTvghxzmPfRkbN3hP-OlAP2jbJzdy34Z0eP227AcYwPSL_6b9nzQ/s400/42.JPG" width="302" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmxzkSO3xdSqIXDOi6hLilOFgCbBG3JlyZQ1FBqyMkEJsUQdPygWTBjkU86eZbhrbsm0U4e_zxNKViTx9Yw8osdPV50uFcqnMdEbR8lOMrsC6cwUK90mZseEZBlAR3kRhc9ORRqTTIvQ/s1600/45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmxzkSO3xdSqIXDOi6hLilOFgCbBG3JlyZQ1FBqyMkEJsUQdPygWTBjkU86eZbhrbsm0U4e_zxNKViTx9Yw8osdPV50uFcqnMdEbR8lOMrsC6cwUK90mZseEZBlAR3kRhc9ORRqTTIvQ/s400/45.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
returned to the Western genre with the Universal TV movie "Lock, Stock and
Barrel" (1971), where she and Tim Matheson starred as a young frontier
couple attempting to escape from Montgomery's disapproving father. In the
course of their adventures, they encounter a kindly escaped convict played by
Claude Akins. Montgomery recalls how, <b><i>"I loved Claude
Akins! Years later he lived in Pasadena close to where I was living at
the time and we would run into each other at the dry cleaners and go have
coffee with his wife. Apart from Merlin Olsen, he was the kindest man I
ever worked with. Claude and I ended up working together many times
through the years. I believe he may have
put my name in there when I did 'Movin' On' because we adored each other.
He told such great stories about John Wayne and all those times he did
Westerns with director John Ford and all the great stars. I think Claude
never really got his fair share, which he should have, because he was a
wonderful actor. 'Lock, Stock and Barrel' was the first thing we did
together. Tim Matheson also starred in that and we shot up in the
mountains outside Durango, Colorado 12,500 feet up in the air. The
horses, imported from Hollywood, needed oxygen masks to survive the thin air.
The humans weren’t used to it, for that matter. I remember a scene
where there was dynamite under this bridge that was supposed to blow up as soon
as we crossed it. So we're filming all these scenes involving the bridge
and we're planning to blow it up afterwards, and all of a sudden there's a huge
rainstorm. So we broke for lunch. There's
thunder and lightning and it's raining like crazy and there's Claude covered with
a plastic tablecloth serving lunch to the crew as he did everyday. That's
the kind of guy he was. He would be serving
food and laughing and the crews loved him because he was just the best.
So he's serving us food and we go under a tent to eat and lightning is
going on all around us, I hear *big* crashes of thunder! and I've had it!
I don't want to be there anymore! I'm walking down to the
honeywagons and the A.D. is coming after me asking 'What are you doing?' and I
said, 'There's dynamite around that bridge ready to go! I'm going to
finish the rest of my meal down here and hope that the rain stops.' So
I'm sitting in my little room and Jack Albertson knocks on the door and comes
into the room and he says, 'Belinda! You don't have to worry about that,
honey! Probably nothing's going to happen!' And I said, 'Jack,
you're probably right, but I'd like to live long enough to get to be your age!
So I'm going to stay here, if you don't mind, for a little while!'
(laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKxl3AgBf5F_xsrJlqWD5NeLc_mCx2roTZ2Ny-s0VHKApdlUXRs_JRDIqYUNBiDl_-4DH4SXr_5upwkBgwlUuOLivs-a-H6cPEdGdr4m1jwlTL16LlVQW0jKxHO_kNyVyPbxuiINZsgw/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKxl3AgBf5F_xsrJlqWD5NeLc_mCx2roTZ2Ny-s0VHKApdlUXRs_JRDIqYUNBiDl_-4DH4SXr_5upwkBgwlUuOLivs-a-H6cPEdGdr4m1jwlTL16LlVQW0jKxHO_kNyVyPbxuiINZsgw/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
continued with Westerns with the Universal TV movie "The Bravos"
(1972) starring George Peppard as the commanding officer of a remote cavalry
post. Montgomery played a young pioneer woman traveling west with a wagon
train of settlers who encounters the cavalry unit. As with "Lock,
Stock, and Barrel," "The Bravos" proved to be a challenging
shoot due to the rugged location as well as other unexpected elements she
encountered during filming. Montgomery recalls that, <b><i>"I
loved working with George Peppard and we dated for some time afterwards, even
though Monique James said he was too old for me. He was wonderful, but it was a Western. (laugh)
We had wagons and that horrible dust while we were outside Flagstaff,
Arizona on the reservation shooting and so it was just dusty the whole time.
We hired some Native Americans who really didn't want to be there and
sometimes they would come to the set and sometimes they wouldn’t. So it
was a little haphazard working on that film. I remember I had a scene
where I was supposed to be lost in the desert. I was gone and suddenly I
had come back, I don't know if I was on the horse or if I had staggered back
into the little fort there, but my lips were completely dried out and I had
frost in my hair because it was so cold at night and I collapsed when I got
back into the village, I guess. Well, there was a lot of talk about how
they would put the ice on my hair. We had one of the famous Westmore’s in
charge of make-up. He decided to put
melted wax all over my long dark hair and they shot the scene with the sand
flying all over the place and my lips are dried out, etc. and then the director
yells 'Cut!' I went to Westmore and
asked him how I was to get the wax out of my hair. He said simply, 'Oh, I'll buy you a drink
later' and left. I was livid! His wonderful make-up assistant
Marina and I were there in the chair for three more hours while she
painstakingly tried to crack each piece of wax off of my hair. I wanted
to kill him! The next day, they wanted to put the wax back on to continue
the scene and I said, 'I'm not doing it!' So they had to find a different
way to do it and this time they used baking soda and water and just dripped it
on my hair and I said to Westmore, 'Why the hell couldn't you do this the day
before?' and he said, 'Oh, well we just didn't think of it.' That's just
one of the strange things that happens while you're working. When you
look back on it, you can laugh about it, but at the time it's not funny because
it's happening to you."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lBwEjyfCHUYozMiIxEzQHCugLcQoEtVyXuosO8wQkB2VQtHQVvC5_UPw5TeVCPCoR84oOM6DFRGelytW_mE8Ivt77Q0IKntO5K5CmDwJeJIhqUUzT4k47x_M4DBnm7UEPL0RlrYpYR0/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lBwEjyfCHUYozMiIxEzQHCugLcQoEtVyXuosO8wQkB2VQtHQVvC5_UPw5TeVCPCoR84oOM6DFRGelytW_mE8Ivt77Q0IKntO5K5CmDwJeJIhqUUzT4k47x_M4DBnm7UEPL0RlrYpYR0/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsYAQ73HVLKYGanLHc_Q9hVlqm2lwMTpwHbE1Y7srcq1vbCuPlMaTYvc_9G00JH7GKe0avTYHJfLlkwrcc6xjnPcwSB8yjJYli3GCm0jKpNOngIgLkAY3D-gZQFxD5izgUiZRNLNsMnY/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsYAQ73HVLKYGanLHc_Q9hVlqm2lwMTpwHbE1Y7srcq1vbCuPlMaTYvc_9G00JH7GKe0avTYHJfLlkwrcc6xjnPcwSB8yjJYli3GCm0jKpNOngIgLkAY3D-gZQFxD5izgUiZRNLNsMnY/s400/6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>As she reflects further on the making
of "The Bravos," Montgomery recalls how <b><i>"Big Bo
Svenson was in it, along with another wonderful actor who was under contract to
Universal named Barry Brown. Barry was a wonderful, very serious actor.
He was just great. He was just starting his career and was very
sweet. He wanted us to be a couple, but
it wasn't meant to be. Some years later, Barry called me in the middle of
the night and said, 'Did you hear that Pete Duel killed himself?' The press soon descended on me because I had
just had lunch with Pete that day at Universal. It was really difficult
dealing with all of that because I didn't have any idea he was going to take
his life later that day. So Barry and I were really upset about what
happened with Pete. And then a couple of years later I get a call
learning that Barry had committed suicide. I just couldn't believe it.
And Shelly Novack was another wonderful actor at Universal who, in his
case, died of a heart attack at too young an age. These were my fellow actors at Universal that
I knew and worked with. Shelly was a
surfer boy from the Palisades, I think his dad had a surfing shop there.
I remember we used to all hang out at the beach together. It was
terrible to lose all three of them at such a young age. My experience as
one of the last contract players at Universal was ecstatic and also sad because
people that I worked with, respected immensely, and cared about had issues and
problems that were really deep in some instances. I'm sorry that nobody
knew they had such deep problems or maybe we could have helped them, I don't
know. That's why Universal is kind of a bittersweet experience. It
was a wonderful time for me, just the best, but also a very sad time during
these occasions, you know?"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2P-6xWFmPAM3vo8Vrovkk1EDIrx3hWgtOmo87nMbZS6bJZfvJkmI6hk0Dyol_DZgRjZBC4BxCmnL82W0TVkP4T0ViVKkL5D6hqo8TWndXtee1MviefDDXS5_FI3Z8-P8KGaW585oeOM/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2P-6xWFmPAM3vo8Vrovkk1EDIrx3hWgtOmo87nMbZS6bJZfvJkmI6hk0Dyol_DZgRjZBC4BxCmnL82W0TVkP4T0ViVKkL5D6hqo8TWndXtee1MviefDDXS5_FI3Z8-P8KGaW585oeOM/s400/5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though Montgomery's contract with Universal was originally for 7 years, and she
enjoyed working there, she chose to leave the studio in 1972 after about 4
years. As Montgomery recalls,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I
was under contract for, I think, 4 years and then I left. I wanted to
branch out and do my own thing. So I started making the rounds on
auditions. I'd go into auditions with a lot of gals that I knew and
respected because I had seen their work. We'd go to auditions and see
each other and go, 'Oh! You're here! Oh, right! Of course you
are!' We always had fun seeing each other. It was good to be
proactive and audition because you learned how to land work on your own without
a studio looking out for you. It felt like a smooth transition leaving
Universal because it felt like I was growing up and out on my own. It worked out well for me. If the director said at an audition, 'That's really good,
but I had sort of this in mind instead' and change an aspect of the script, you
would be able to go, 'That's fine! Let me read it that way!' I
found the whole process great. You could
collaborate with the director because he knew what he wanted. Now, you go
in front of a camera, and they do a video of you reading and they send it to
the director and then that's it. They now look at it and go, 'Well, I
like it' or 'I don't like it' and so you don't have that kind of conversation
with the director during the audition anymore. That's too bad because I
loved having a conversation with the director during the audition. I could ask questions and they would give you
a little bit more insight and it was tremendously helpful for everybody."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-n2ZPxX-ATwNtD2S0mJfW5s4Qg4P7eJT7hdb9JUhK9lj0GnDrhgFKMPrnKrIKZRiqZvw_3bU_9tp_kF0xVhOiMVd6BdROJB9aBwdbDvdCwssYa1JDwJMvh12MVpauRSKvkotsdcIGbPM/s1600/51.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-n2ZPxX-ATwNtD2S0mJfW5s4Qg4P7eJT7hdb9JUhK9lj0GnDrhgFKMPrnKrIKZRiqZvw_3bU_9tp_kF0xVhOiMVd6BdROJB9aBwdbDvdCwssYa1JDwJMvh12MVpauRSKvkotsdcIGbPM/s400/51.JPG" width="322" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZYXe-PK5HdgL4WSlKSLF-ohSWTQYMVHX1mVbVtn68voWPwKdyxrB4qEmus774g5VobsuGwoMdJ0ibBwE1g8OZGWgRpaW3fiYIMOAHQZtXQDEqStFPSEgiLilMqvP5YME0PkChOH9qzg/s1600/44.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZYXe-PK5HdgL4WSlKSLF-ohSWTQYMVHX1mVbVtn68voWPwKdyxrB4qEmus774g5VobsuGwoMdJ0ibBwE1g8OZGWgRpaW3fiYIMOAHQZtXQDEqStFPSEgiLilMqvP5YME0PkChOH9qzg/s400/44.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2Iudbz5MvzVzoKT_P51qUM0uCg0lkKt0Yoo4PKYO4pW2uCJC3PLetrFEL0CrjnsKrlRBIlWPPvbzaibVcSOVgusCgWIOKib5VPA61bWmmN7qTRD_u2eiRgtuC_AuiJxVTbD2m0vc8jg/s1600/45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2Iudbz5MvzVzoKT_P51qUM0uCg0lkKt0Yoo4PKYO4pW2uCJC3PLetrFEL0CrjnsKrlRBIlWPPvbzaibVcSOVgusCgWIOKib5VPA61bWmmN7qTRD_u2eiRgtuC_AuiJxVTbD2m0vc8jg/s400/45.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqfxcTsyp0VIUSzXdES6APt1fzlKj5kg98rkmlsdxgGWpB7jb2-UHW2u39sdmLnyahH-V0qMWHznn1z1_hWZzoC_AhrjaPmNANRXKZ5-JV2BfqS4yUyaNSw8u_facXoGcx3cPL1Aj8wk/s1600/46.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqfxcTsyp0VIUSzXdES6APt1fzlKj5kg98rkmlsdxgGWpB7jb2-UHW2u39sdmLnyahH-V0qMWHznn1z1_hWZzoC_AhrjaPmNANRXKZ5-JV2BfqS4yUyaNSw8u_facXoGcx3cPL1Aj8wk/s400/46.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNIyLt41EKtdpQDXnPf8tVSyGoHYJsE__BnggwwtFRbhv2pZsMu0E4RI-PHnx-M0IIkorbixXwnbARrLLmVAmA5pwII29N_Cj5A1yPqgwF6HD9Eb1IYqJzVYqMfhhbwgexO80ohpax53I/s1600/47.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNIyLt41EKtdpQDXnPf8tVSyGoHYJsE__BnggwwtFRbhv2pZsMu0E4RI-PHnx-M0IIkorbixXwnbARrLLmVAmA5pwII29N_Cj5A1yPqgwF6HD9Eb1IYqJzVYqMfhhbwgexO80ohpax53I/s400/47.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
After
leaving Universal, Montgomery guest starred on numerous crime and medical
dramas on television, including "The FBI," "Mannix,"
"Medical Center," "Barnaby Jones," and "The Streets of
San Francisco." While her memories of the specific storylines and
characters she played remain hazy all these years later, Montgomery recalls
how,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Efrem Zimbalist,
Jr. on 'The F.B.I.' was the nicest, most lovely man. I remember he always made it an enjoyable
experience being on 'The F.B.I.' Mike Connors was the same way on
'Mannix.' He was another joy to work with. He had such a great sense of humor and was
very giving and such a wonderful actor to work with. You know, when you
had your scenes to do, he was right there acting out his part of the scene
while you were doing your close-ups. Chad
Everett on 'Medical Center' was another one I loved. Every time I came on
that show, and I did that show a lot, I would cry my eyes out for at least half
of the show because there was always something wrong with my characters, I had
some disease or something. (laugh) We had a really good working
relationship and I really liked him and I also liked the producer, Frank
Glicksman. I adored working with him, and he really, really liked me and
asked me back often, so we had a wonderful association. I don't remember
a lot about the 'Barnaby Jones' that I did, except that Buddy Ebsen was this
neat guy. I got to know Buddy much better when we did a TV movie years
later called 'Stone Fox' (1987) which we shot up near Calgary. I had
dinner with Buddy and his girlfriend every night after we finished filming for
the day, he shared wonderful stories about being at MGM during the 1930s.
He talked about Gable and Shirley Temple and losing the part of The Tin
Man in 'The Wizard of Oz' because of the toxic paint they used for the make-up
on him, which caused him to go to the hospital, where he nearly died because
his skin couldn't breathe. They recast with Jack Haley and used better
make-up and paint on him and the rest is history. All the stories that
Buddy had--Oh my Gosh!--it was just a treat. He was in his 80s at the
time but, boy, his mind was still as sharp as a tack. I also remember how
Karl Malden, on 'The Streets of San Francisco' was such a sweetheart. So
lovely and welcoming on the set. Michael Douglas was a fabulous young
guy. Very mellow, because he was brought up in the business, so nothing
was a big deal to him. One of the shows I did with them, I had to play a
mute girl and it was driving me crazy. Michael said to me, 'So you
thought it was going to be easy--just come up here, didn't have any lines, just
sort of mumble and makes sounds, right?' And I said, 'Yeah, I was so
wrong! I want to say something so badly, and I can't say anything!' and
he said, 'I knew you'd say that!' (laugh) Years later, when I was
on 'Man from Atlantis,' Michael Douglas was on the lot shooting 'Coma' (1978). Pat Duffy and I visited him in his dressing
room. I remember he was kind of apprehensive because he was making the
leap from television to films, but of course we all know now that he's done
beautifully and he's surpassed even his father in many ways with his own
accomplishments."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv1GFXFCQdKEk6MTHwzfqWRAEno8x81pe7umMygjWtRaTW3H3Mrgn6kXs4XGGr9ArgHdH1xxP3Xx0FtdQkqiY5PRzg9SQJA5f9tRsX5YEAl2wksA6rwII86YL2X9tZOvhGAfbxd5-qpbA/s1600/34.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv1GFXFCQdKEk6MTHwzfqWRAEno8x81pe7umMygjWtRaTW3H3Mrgn6kXs4XGGr9ArgHdH1xxP3Xx0FtdQkqiY5PRzg9SQJA5f9tRsX5YEAl2wksA6rwII86YL2X9tZOvhGAfbxd5-qpbA/s400/34.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoLtJ53ACFYN7cid7JYRcjB4AA0w9ArnLV5HVATfR0DPjJUyDoBeGgaBVFHT8zwfNNgDBHYDDKSQ7QQpI-fbPHfSENKq3nOoo90kQUxe9tHWRi_9bKGB98owXzRjmFgZDNzcgyJJMeiOk/s1600/35.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoLtJ53ACFYN7cid7JYRcjB4AA0w9ArnLV5HVATfR0DPjJUyDoBeGgaBVFHT8zwfNNgDBHYDDKSQ7QQpI-fbPHfSENKq3nOoo90kQUxe9tHWRi_9bKGB98owXzRjmFgZDNzcgyJJMeiOk/s400/35.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROs2v_GXD53-yFyZ7DtGSVbvcnZas8uefTQoInKI05yyyxKndEMlqw31H0U16CCGP9P24ybfqKmmog5c8ecABxr1hA1LXCCVax8_1IKwKIKAF1VfhZJffoTiPWRQTU-Xunj-JPQqU2ig/s1600/47.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROs2v_GXD53-yFyZ7DtGSVbvcnZas8uefTQoInKI05yyyxKndEMlqw31H0U16CCGP9P24ybfqKmmog5c8ecABxr1hA1LXCCVax8_1IKwKIKAF1VfhZJffoTiPWRQTU-Xunj-JPQqU2ig/s400/47.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
One of
Montgomery's most notable appearances as a freelancer was her role in the TV
movie "Women in Chains" (1972). Montgomery played a fragile
young woman wrongly convicted of murder who is sent to a brutal women's prison.
Montgomery has very positive memories of the cast on that film, <b><i>"I
love Barbara Luna. She's great. She's a very feisty lady who
doesn't take nothing from nobody! I remember she used to call me a
nickname, something like 'Muffin Cheeks' or something. What the Hell did
she call me? I remember being so irritated by it, I wonder if she'd
remember it, because I had this little round face and I was the innocent one in
the story. It was really an apt nickname because I played the young one
saying 'I really didn't kill anyone!' whatever it was I said! (laugh)
Viewing her and listening to me, you would believe her, and of course I'm
sure that my character was really a serial killer after all. (laugh)
Lois Nettleton was a fabulous actress and beautiful woman and died way
too young. I also loved working with Jessica Walter. Jessie is a
wonderful actress and she's funnier than hell. She was very interesting
to work with because she was very particular with what she wants and requires
but I thought she was great to work with. Ida Lupino was also great. I loved her because Ida was such a strong woman and such
a great actress. Of course, I just thought, 'God, this is a classic movie
star!' and I was just thrilled to be there, working with her. I think my
brother Lee worked with her on a TV movie called 'Female Artillery' (1973) and he
loved her as well. I had such admiration for her being a trailblazing
woman director because there weren't any other women directors at the time.
So she was a total pioneer and I thought she was great. I remember
an incident where the director, Bernard Kowalski, was filming a scene where we
were all locked in and he wanted us to create this impressive and tense
atmosphere. So all the doors were locked to help create the mood and
suddenly there was a freak fire that started in one of the cells and they were
trying to open the doors. People were totally panicking. I don't
know how that fire started, and a number of the extras were really shaken by
it. I still don't know what really happened that day on the set."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiat13cp7wgiuVv7jmKId-Ei66EFiZMD3FIKP4kyVsedhC_FMIaf6yrkyuByiB3yTMz-E_OTmLHyeuVLHLFxFslkbrJp-Q4bSKh2zLrVjgOiSUVM3hxZ_QLM_dOi4OBhuJcdaOEstIE9E/s1600/40.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiat13cp7wgiuVv7jmKId-Ei66EFiZMD3FIKP4kyVsedhC_FMIaf6yrkyuByiB3yTMz-E_OTmLHyeuVLHLFxFslkbrJp-Q4bSKh2zLrVjgOiSUVM3hxZ_QLM_dOi4OBhuJcdaOEstIE9E/s400/40.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
next appeared as the title character in the TV movie "The Devil's
Daughter" (1973), as an unsuspecting young woman who learns that she is
the grown daughter of Satan himself. She tries to make a life for herself
independent of the Satanic cult who is coercing her to submit to an arranged
marriage with an emissary of the Devil. Montgomery gave a sympathetic and intelligent performance playing a young woman being manipulated from all sides. She recalls how,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"It was sort
of like 'Rosemary's Baby Grows Up,' right? I was very young so I accepted
that part because I thought it would be a lot of fun to play. The people
on it were all very memorable. Oh my gosh, Shelley Winters was a
nightmare! I mean, she's a lovely woman, but she would just, I
mean...Shelley was just high maintenance. The first day we had a big scene to do
together, and I'm sitting on the couch with Shelley and the actor from 'Dark
Shadows,' Jonathan Frid--who plays her manservant--is standing behind us
while we're sitting on the couch. Shelley is trying to tell me something.
And as she's telling me and she's going up on her lines, she's snapping
her fingers [Montgomery snaps her fingers to demonstrate] she says to Jonathan
[mimics Shelley Winters's diction] 'I...uh...how can I do this scene?...You
didn't hand me the cigarette...You're supposed to hand me the cigarette!'
And Jonathan says, 'Oh! Was I supposed to hand you a cigarette?'
and Shelley insists, 'Well, yeah.' So then we did another take and she
starts to cough [Montgomery starts mimicking Winters coughing] and so she had a
choking fit. And then she had another take, and each take there was
something where she blamed poor Jonathan or somebody who was walking in back of
the camera for causing her to blow the take. I think we were into 10 or 11
takes and our French director, Jeannot Szwarc, was getting more and more tense. Where other directors might fidget or
chainsmoke, Jeannot would change his berets every few minutes. He must have gone through 8 or 9. We
were going over schedule and he didn't want any more overtime. Anyway, we were sitting on the couch and I
just looked at Shelley and she went on and on so I just pretended to faint on
the ground. You know, I feigned a faint! (laugh) And then sat
back up on the couch and she started to laugh and I said, ‘Come on
Shelley! Let's get on with it!' She started to laugh and then she
finally did the scene properly! (laugh). I don't know if she was putting
people on to create a feeling of tension on the set, but she was making
everybody very uncomfortable. And, when I made her laugh, that's when we
all relaxed and got the scene done."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9njhdlrOkI-NIFEa3CoaElP-oVUfrffpwwOj3dsDcWVUw0eOJjHMxL5Qlap1bq4a9Pse8pLxCwje1BK2HVDnb3tFNAr8OqwS4UvcwKfn6SkeuCy-4guBnP_vYisFhbXEePKA7O2A2bfY/s1600/36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9njhdlrOkI-NIFEa3CoaElP-oVUfrffpwwOj3dsDcWVUw0eOJjHMxL5Qlap1bq4a9Pse8pLxCwje1BK2HVDnb3tFNAr8OqwS4UvcwKfn6SkeuCy-4guBnP_vYisFhbXEePKA7O2A2bfY/s400/36.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Montgomery recalls having further
challenging moments dealing with Shelley Winters during the making of "The
Devil's Daughter,"<b><i> "We were shooting up in Monterey, a
graveyard scene that was very emotional and I was getting myself ready for it.
So we started to shoot, and then Shelley just went [imitates Winters
again] 'Uh...uh...You're not really, you're not really gonna do it like that,
are you?' And I went, 'Well, yeah.' And she said, 'Uh...you really
need to investigate my face...You need to look at my face...Look at my
eyes...Look at my nose, my mouth! I mean, look at my face!' I must
have looked like a lunatic in that scene--as if I'm looking at a fly on her
face or something—because my eyes were looking all over her face! (laugh)
Up and down, from her forehead to her chin! You know, she was just
doing that to set me off. And then when it came time for my closeup, she
was standing off-camera saying her lines and looking at my forehead! So I
very gently went up on my toes but she kept looking at the top of my head! Years
later, having experienced enough stuff afterwards, I realized, 'Oh, she was
just screwing with me!' But I really thought at the time, 'Oh my gosh!
Maybe I should be a little taller, so I could make her feel more
comfortable?' No, she was just looking at my forehead the whole time to
mess with me, and then telling me how to investigate her face was just rubbish!
She was high-maintenance in the classic sense of the word. It was
hysterical!"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPO35EAlKjoAJhBQOcHVWLNb2eSvcTiQRPruW_zi__knGvr5p8iBopL6WwLy-tXKfBeOMWqH2URpIUnVemYqhFexIxM_bJOEi7E18JphcaIbK0TGTcFrjipiVa2lLHgRNuKvssxJn_4Iw/s1600/39.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPO35EAlKjoAJhBQOcHVWLNb2eSvcTiQRPruW_zi__knGvr5p8iBopL6WwLy-tXKfBeOMWqH2URpIUnVemYqhFexIxM_bJOEi7E18JphcaIbK0TGTcFrjipiVa2lLHgRNuKvssxJn_4Iw/s400/39.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoPWum0EYwHQzrDfK_hlIgN5DXldJRP1Q16KNwe1I8d7ypInA2ZyA7yaPjNM21DXzP2jaj9Zm3vhtnyrApWdVrjRfsjI-rCGqsMWMhLb34dKiPIxRvRi927LfZOlRkMzpFq8dBxzOC4Y/s1600/58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoPWum0EYwHQzrDfK_hlIgN5DXldJRP1Q16KNwe1I8d7ypInA2ZyA7yaPjNM21DXzP2jaj9Zm3vhtnyrApWdVrjRfsjI-rCGqsMWMhLb34dKiPIxRvRi927LfZOlRkMzpFq8dBxzOC4Y/s400/58.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though Winters was a challenge to work with, Montgomery still enjoyed making
"The Devil's Daughter" because of the opportunity to work with Joseph
Cotten,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"He was
just a delight! I worked with him a
couple of times, but this was the first time. He was just a tall, gentle
gentleman. We talked and I asked him some questions about his career, but
really, I should've been really grilling him about Orson Welles and 'Citizen
Kane' and interviewing him and writing about it! You learn these things
afterwards and realize, ‘What did I miss?' you know? Oh, Joseph Cotten
was such a lovely man! And Robert Foxworth was just great!” </i></b>"The Devil's Daughter" is
notable for its memorably grim ending, where her character is unable to escape
her fate and is trapped into marrying the emissary from the devil chosen by the Satanic cult.
Montgomery recalls that the filming of the ending<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"was...what would I say?...it
was very somber trying to shoot that ending and then getting up enough emotion
at the end where you realize that your character is doomed. (laugh)
I remember that ending scaring a lot of people. You know, that
movie was written by Colin Higgins, who also wrote 'Harold and Maude' (1971).
I used to see him on the set all the time and he signed a copy of the
'Harold and Maude' novelization for me. He was very unobtrusive when he came
down to the set. You know, writers can sometimes make their opinions
known and he just came down there and sat back and enjoyed everything."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrL1KPQtF-2mxZxc7iYMedmyptg4ILQlwl56lMEII8WA7gylHU3odI7F7-kmItoaJ1rpnLTJDLM6EVjq5Ad5KdVCFMya25IMLM7o3cR-XjGZdi7BK2A9hyw_vQNW-vBx6P5AB0iYSvCYc/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrL1KPQtF-2mxZxc7iYMedmyptg4ILQlwl56lMEII8WA7gylHU3odI7F7-kmItoaJ1rpnLTJDLM6EVjq5Ad5KdVCFMya25IMLM7o3cR-XjGZdi7BK2A9hyw_vQNW-vBx6P5AB0iYSvCYc/s400/8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmSN4CMSSKFsgmS7mRfonaby60HwFBPQj_sJ7j5JF50Yk2_JesIbXCAxhqm8AqIXrTSHMXTQc5FM-XJYGRsi9fvwxPN8Jzw1TVi4IPYJItSXQTCdGuLKmosrk4R_rzg-mfMLS0rDK1QQ/s1600/52.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmSN4CMSSKFsgmS7mRfonaby60HwFBPQj_sJ7j5JF50Yk2_JesIbXCAxhqm8AqIXrTSHMXTQc5FM-XJYGRsi9fvwxPN8Jzw1TVi4IPYJItSXQTCdGuLKmosrk4R_rzg-mfMLS0rDK1QQ/s400/52.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-iK-5GNfNyFZ0Bae8W-KQ00OPiNX3kuGJEwsbRgB1rzi5p11_4tVTl0WghmLsDnbqMVO7jIMRLKpDYgAJTK1Qft2dMSs-cNpGze_2-HpQX4hlfAGCNITRwcfSKtvxqAqp4RWU7pP_mAc/s1600/53.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-iK-5GNfNyFZ0Bae8W-KQ00OPiNX3kuGJEwsbRgB1rzi5p11_4tVTl0WghmLsDnbqMVO7jIMRLKpDYgAJTK1Qft2dMSs-cNpGze_2-HpQX4hlfAGCNITRwcfSKtvxqAqp4RWU7pP_mAc/s400/53.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Throughout
the 1970s, Montgomery occasionally appeared in feature films including the hit
"The Other Side of the Mountain" (1975), the bio-pic about the
real-life paralyzed skier Jill Kinmont. Montgomery played a key
supporting role as Kinmont's best friend Audra Jo. However, Montgomery
acknowledges that she was originally up for the lead role in the film<b><i> "and then Marilyn Hassett came along and she looked so much like the real Jill
Kinmont that she got it and I looked so much like Audra Jo that it was uncanny.
When the real Audra Jo and Jill Kinmont visited the set together, the
resemblance between all of us was a little eerie. We shot it up in
Mammoth and that was such a fun location to work at. It was like one big
family and after finishing shooting at the end of the day we would all meet in
the Great Room there at the hotel by the fire and have hot toddys and it was
just a great shoot. Larry Peerce was our director. He was very funny and a total madman and was
very, very tough on Marilyn. Marilyn was well cast in that role because,
a few years before that, while shooting some commercial, an elephant actually
stepped on her pelvis. She was in
traction for six months or maybe even a year in the hospital. So Marilyn
could really relate to that role with the scenes involving the hospital and
being in traction. I remember it was very difficult for her to shoot that
stuff because she was reminded of what she had gone through when she was
younger. Dabney Coleman was such a wild man and fabulous actor. He hadn't come into his own yet because it
was still a few years away from '9 to 5.' He was handsome and sarcastic
and I really adored him. Bill Vint was also in it and he was a fabulous
actor. Beau Bridges was lovely and just great. The thing about that
film was a number of us didn't know how to ski, and we were supposed to be
playing Olympic skiers, right? (laugh) So on the second day there,
the ski instructor has us go up to the top of the mountain and then she
instructed us to go down! And we went, 'What?!' and she says, 'Go down!'
and she instructed us to snowplow--how do you call it?--to break. She
would show us how to break if we got into trouble and we just about killed
ourselves getting down the mountain--so much so, that a couple of us took off
our skis and walked down the rest of the way or we were going to be dead!
(laugh)"</i></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> Montgomery
reprised the role of Audra Jo in the sequel, "The Other Side of the
Mountain, Part 2" (1978), three years later but acknowledges how,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"The bloom was off the
rose, so to speak, and it was fun to work on because we all loved getting back
together, but it wasn't as good a film. They used so much footage from
the first film that there wasn't anything new or exciting about the sequel, but
we had a chance to see everybody and I'm glad we did it."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-T4PpZgmTfFFTjkgP6JJ2WKLia0rXCt-8EJ1sPqC8ZJjsECdpYouGfiB3KtFJNiRG9hC10sXTHD-UYaGfbsuf_IV69MDXpb_8_plILgqlN9GUqtmvah9Z0-8VngZO3GKMpKsPbr-msLI/s1600/30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-T4PpZgmTfFFTjkgP6JJ2WKLia0rXCt-8EJ1sPqC8ZJjsECdpYouGfiB3KtFJNiRG9hC10sXTHD-UYaGfbsuf_IV69MDXpb_8_plILgqlN9GUqtmvah9Z0-8VngZO3GKMpKsPbr-msLI/s400/30.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHEi5V2s6RzaLQqiazPUWRw7DB1oX_G9TnDY_KNg7Rybyj3uK6Kg049gvumrPhfrDJt3pd7tYfUniV5ED-cOZOiOQXivkmieLvcla0s3-LNkG3eyRu26EsDRNbgqXJlnva_aX2EHaw9g/s1600/55.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHEi5V2s6RzaLQqiazPUWRw7DB1oX_G9TnDY_KNg7Rybyj3uK6Kg049gvumrPhfrDJt3pd7tYfUniV5ED-cOZOiOQXivkmieLvcla0s3-LNkG3eyRu26EsDRNbgqXJlnva_aX2EHaw9g/s400/55.JPG" width="341" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
During
this time, Montgomery returned to her native Canada to star in "Breaking
Point" (1976), an action melodrama starring Bo Svenson as a murder witness
who finds his family threatened after he agrees to testify against the mob.
Montgomery played his sister in the film. Montgomery recalls how
director Bob Clark was,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"a
great guy who was really laid back and a lot of fun to work with. I
remember he was such a good director and Linda Sorenson, a wonderful Canadian
actress who played Bo Svenson's wife, became one of my best friends. She's
one of the funniest women I know. However, I found
Bo to be very difficult to work with. I don't know what was going on with
him at the time, perhaps he was believing his own publicity or something, but
he wasn't the easiest person to work with on that film. I'll leave it at
that."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKDCMwOCwlcvtJfwEcD4siY10Z9VJlmAHdErsIb2V-2cBvnvLiDoldLbJi7PyJ-UyYgeR2-z1CexbOADjdfJjWWSovQlu7FA_XfUYgs8M7Dih5-yrdtfaTcVMllEy0cmEQ7uuZmY5CuBY/s1600/29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKDCMwOCwlcvtJfwEcD4siY10Z9VJlmAHdErsIb2V-2cBvnvLiDoldLbJi7PyJ-UyYgeR2-z1CexbOADjdfJjWWSovQlu7FA_XfUYgs8M7Dih5-yrdtfaTcVMllEy0cmEQ7uuZmY5CuBY/s400/29.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
continued working on Canadian features when she starred in "Blackout"
(1978), a gritty suspense action film about hoodlums terrorizing the residents
of a Manhattan sky rise apartment building during the 1977 power outage that
affected New York City. Montgomery played a gutsy resident of the
apartment building who assists police officer Jim Mitchum in dealing with the
crisis at hand. Montgomery recalls that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"It was a very violent
story, but I loved filming it in Montreal. That's one of the reasons I
accepted that role, because I thought it would be great working in that city
and I had not spent much time there before. There was a lot of partying
and festivities in old Montreal when we finished filming each night we would go
to these nightclubs and dance until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. I'd be
dead now if I tried to do that, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
(laugh) Working with Jim Mitchum was a little surreal because he
looked so much like his father that it was frightening. If we had a day
off we would go out and see the town together and while walking down the street
people would look at us and go, 'Oh! It's Robert Mitchum!' and then
they'd take another look because he looked so much younger than Robert Mitchum
would have been by that time. During filming, I didn't have much of a
chance to interact with Ray Milland, Jean-Pierre Aumont or June Allyson.
I was too busy being tied to a bed, kidnapped and harassed by the
hoodlums in that film. I only met Ray Milland at the wrap party at the
end of the shoot, and that was exciting, but unfortunately I didn't get to work
with him."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2VH_4yFlHiMjG-1ZweZDyamMjf-VwwuK0-bjZ3S7L0Kn-NK9cpKmqliQxAyR5v1obgpOvd_bD6QexUFNkTVUSuHLS4abdqwtqOu-nDNKNgWsOx_R55YpJr6PU3gKlU7SuiHHrNpCuYw/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2VH_4yFlHiMjG-1ZweZDyamMjf-VwwuK0-bjZ3S7L0Kn-NK9cpKmqliQxAyR5v1obgpOvd_bD6QexUFNkTVUSuHLS4abdqwtqOu-nDNKNgWsOx_R55YpJr6PU3gKlU7SuiHHrNpCuYw/s400/10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
While
working in feature films throughout the 1970s, Montgomery still continued
appearing frequently on television and landed the female lead in the
short-lived science fiction series, "The Man from Atlantis" that
aired on NBC during the 1977-78 season. She played Dr. Elizabeth Merrill,
a scientist with the Foundation for Oceanic Research, who teams up with a
survivor of the lost civilization of Atlantis, named Mark Harris (Patrick
Duffy), to explore the depths of the ocean. Montgomery was attracted to
the series because<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"the
script for the TV movie pilot was wonderful. I remember it was so well
written that I wanted to be part of it. I remember going in and meeting
with the producers, Herb Solow and his colleagues, and we just all sort of
clicked. That same day they were auditioning people to play the title
role. One of those people was Patrick Duffy, and they were already considering
me for the female lead, so I did a little audition on film for them with
Patrick. I remember Patrick saying, 'Oh yeah, she's Dr. Elizabeth
Merrill' and I said, 'I love Patrick!' and it just worked well between us from
the beginning. We had great fun together because we just clicked.
So we loved doing the pilot, it was just great. Patrick was very
skinny when we did the pilot, but when we shot the series he had really worked
out and was buff and looked great. He didn't need any padding under the shirt
because by that time he looked like he had been working out all of the time.
He had really transformed himself into The Man from Atlantis. I
remember he had to wear those horrible contact lenses for the role, which
covered his eyes, and I think it gave him a bad eye infection for awhile.
And, of course, everyday on the set our makeup artist would have to shave
him because he couldn't have any hair on his body and that was only some of the
uncomfortable things that he went through. I always said to Patrick, 'You
paid your dues on that show, you totally paid for everything!'
(laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5J97wE9vppTv8dIfmEilc0ffxkLledeVS8WINdOdxWHlLZs1Ra7wvoCm2SnyCCQ7TRqlyHLRcU_nMMkYDpVwHN8zdJk3TdYjDKzHpdDC8pVteDICE8rye6zEb3CLpymQATdljxUUmmWg/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5J97wE9vppTv8dIfmEilc0ffxkLledeVS8WINdOdxWHlLZs1Ra7wvoCm2SnyCCQ7TRqlyHLRcU_nMMkYDpVwHN8zdJk3TdYjDKzHpdDC8pVteDICE8rye6zEb3CLpymQATdljxUUmmWg/s400/7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZN3ndl0dlGoUZ4-t3LcdsfCt0uKoegY8Jy_CVQLZaC1vjmJV8WKDlvIWAWYDnNCHHFWfZMWrb8Pkq_YHvDkz44sk_ow50OZIjY2hBFVDje-M9p_5FjoQsp3KdLVstuQ6vszhuPD4iwN8/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZN3ndl0dlGoUZ4-t3LcdsfCt0uKoegY8Jy_CVQLZaC1vjmJV8WKDlvIWAWYDnNCHHFWfZMWrb8Pkq_YHvDkz44sk_ow50OZIjY2hBFVDje-M9p_5FjoQsp3KdLVstuQ6vszhuPD4iwN8/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though Montgomery enjoyed working with Patrick Duffy on "The Man from
Atlantis," Montgomery candidly admits that she was not upset that the
series only lasted for one season,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I
was just really relieved when it ended. I loved the pilot, but the series
didn't live up to it. It just became progressively silly and it didn't
have to be that way. It's just that the writing wasn't the same because
they didn't give the writers enough time and they put these silly shows
together. When Patrick and I celebrated the DVD release of the series at
the Paley Center in Beverly Hills, and we discussed the series onstage with a
crowd of people there, I reminded Pat, 'Do you remember that one show where I
had to say, 'It's the mudworm and it's heading straight for us!'' (laugh)
We couldn't get through that scene and we had to do it, like, eight times
and the director was getting really ticked off at us, but it was getting really
ridiculous after awhile. It was so silly! I remember the director
of the pilot, Lee H. Katzin, who was a very good director, would call us up at
night after he saw each episode and he would say, 'What the Hell are you doing
with the show?! You ruined it! The writing is
terrible! What silly things are you saying?!' And Patrick and I
would tell him, 'I'm sorry! We don't have any control over that!'
(laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZspZHY9aNwnevCh-nlQ1KWFACV3vTW2IL0TI7pNHkTX31JfteNwlTiB1ka1m-xqPE5ZB55oahikHaRa9FwdKaBQHyOQ2CdxDk7loTyG9-G7k532ig4xk-br0hyphenhyphenmiOwgqq6CVbJjFv1A/s1600/33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZspZHY9aNwnevCh-nlQ1KWFACV3vTW2IL0TI7pNHkTX31JfteNwlTiB1ka1m-xqPE5ZB55oahikHaRa9FwdKaBQHyOQ2CdxDk7loTyG9-G7k532ig4xk-br0hyphenhyphenmiOwgqq6CVbJjFv1A/s400/33.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
After
"Man from Atlantis," Montgomery continued starring in Canadian-made
feature films with her appearance as an undercover police detective in the
thriller, "Stone Cold Dead" (1980) starring Richard Crenna as a
homicide detective investigates the serial killing of prostitutes who are being
targeted by a ruthless sniper. Montgomery was involved with the film
because<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"my best
friend Linda Sorenson was in the film playing the prostitute and her then-significant other, George Mendeluk, was the writer/director of that film.
They had spent a couple of years getting this off the ground and, when
they put it together, they said to me, 'You have to be in this!' I said
that I wanted to play the vice cop and they said, 'Oh, you don't want to play
the vice cop!' They wanted me to play one of the other hookers who gets
up on the stage and takes off her top. George would say, 'Come on! You've
got those boobs! Let's show them!' and I went, 'No! I've gone this
long, I'm not taking them out! I want to play the cop!' I loved
working with Richard Crenna. Everybody had a mad crush on him because he
was just the nicest guy and had a great sense of humor. We really were
thankful that he did the part. George and Linda were thrilled that he
played the lead. He was wonderful."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWZDDVyHMV37UC2GeHm7u64t8qJxHxpD8IKWbLhLOO8k49SiwgAwdat9q6OVq8gG99B541Kxek6rJ_Y9fINq9J2qTjcpLEkIbVXPv5XGe2osdZbft1TnoojSVtF9e1jBLqey-ajUSPfE/s1600/32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWZDDVyHMV37UC2GeHm7u64t8qJxHxpD8IKWbLhLOO8k49SiwgAwdat9q6OVq8gG99B541Kxek6rJ_Y9fINq9J2qTjcpLEkIbVXPv5XGe2osdZbft1TnoojSVtF9e1jBLqey-ajUSPfE/s400/32.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
One of
the unexpected plot twists of "Stone Cold Dead" involved Montgomery's
character being killed by the sniper before the case is resolved.
Montgomery recalls that the filming of the scene was awkward because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"They put the squibs on you
to simulate the blood splattering when you get shot. It was outside by
the side of the car in the middle of winter, and I remember it was freezing!
I had never been so cold because I think we were filming beside the lake
in Toronto. They shot this sequence and whoever was putting on this special
effect did it wrong and put it on my skin, which you're not supposed to because
you're supposed to put it on some sort of material inside your vest or
something. So when they went 'Bang! Bang!' and these squibs went off and
I'm supposed to fall down, I fell down and George Mendeluk comes over and says,
'OK, Belinda! That was great!' And I said, 'No, it wasn't! I
really think I've been shot! My chest really hurts here!' That
squib had gone off and really left a burn mark on me. Of course, the
medics came over and took a look at it, but it was too late by then. It was not fun and it took several weeks to
heal because it was red and raw looking."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4sfWM6YiBKXcDxMeC9hCsdLGypRWmg6dNHWMLT5m79sbUAtJxTNLEU0lsIpPz-8nlWtA08SBL1Gau62J2Ne87smJsodZl7zTSmfna3R7hcXRyg7wN8JHELy3D7tpcCrHyO0cE2rhAkY/s1600/56.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4sfWM6YiBKXcDxMeC9hCsdLGypRWmg6dNHWMLT5m79sbUAtJxTNLEU0lsIpPz-8nlWtA08SBL1Gau62J2Ne87smJsodZl7zTSmfna3R7hcXRyg7wN8JHELy3D7tpcCrHyO0cE2rhAkY/s400/56.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
In the
1980s, Montgomery continued developing a
more mature persona playing confident, professional-type of characters in her film and TV appearances, a trend that started with "The Man from Atlantis." Notable among these roles was her appearance as a tough-as-nails fashion
designer in the 2-part CBS TV movie "Bare Essence" (1982), a soap opera
set in the fashion and perfume industry, which later led to a short-lived
series of the same name. While Montgomery enjoyed her role, she
acknowledges that the filming of "Bare Essence" turned out to be one
of the most challenging situations of her career,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"It was a bit of a silly
movie. I called it 'Bare Asses' while working on it. (laugh) Everybody was
in it: Linda Evans, Donna Mills, Lee Grant, and Bruce Boxleitner--a lot of very
good actors. I particularly enjoyed working with Bruce again because we had such a great time filming 'How the West Was Won' years earlier. Bruce and I had a real brother-sister kind of rapport working on that one. Anyway, it was fun filming 'Bare Essence' in New York and I took my mom with me,
so we had fun touring the city. The one thing that was not great was the
director, Walter Grauman, who I had worked with before on 'Streets of San
Francisco' and 'Barnaby Jones' and he was always very pleasant on those earlier
occasions. Well, when we were talking about doing the 'Bare Essence' part
back in L.A. before we started shooting, he said, 'We've got three blondes in
this. We've got you and Linda Evans and Donna Mills.' And I said,
'Is that all right?' and he said, 'Oh yeah! That looks wonderful!'
But when I arrived on the set in New York, he suddenly lit into me and
said, 'What the hell, Belinda?! What's with the hair?!' And I said,
'What do you mean? You said you liked it.' He said, 'I didn't say I
liked it! I said that we need you to have dark hair!' And I
responded, 'Well, that's the first I've heard about it!' So the
hairdressers in New York gave me dark red hair for the role, but he continued
to be really nasty to me throughout that whole movie and I've never experienced
that before or since in my entire career. Walter and I always got along
great when we worked together before and so I didn't expect that kind of
behavior from him. He was always a very nice man and very complimentary
and a good director, and I don't know what happened to him on this show to make
him behave that way. Even Linda Evans--who is a fabulous, great
lady--noticed. She'd say to me, 'What is with him? Why is he
picking on you like this?' I realized
that he was basically blaming me for his mistake with the hair. In his
defense, there were a lot of logistics and different locations and a huge
number of stars involved with that film to coordinate, so it was probably a
really challenging movie for him. That was probably the most difficult
working relationship I ever had in my career. Even with all the
idiosyncracies I've encountered with other actors or directors, most of them
have basically been great."</i></b><o:p></o:p><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMve4jZ41sBYH6_0ulSUgkHJDhJ6mG6hS8JZK18SfeJFkUn15wA9M07hKrZGZy5x2YhG5pd3drsE6NpSCLijGNz9nLHjbmAtogZkyK8H9tFy76qAYc9ETFrpZaNAyn4G45dAPtM4pHMk/s1600/48.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMve4jZ41sBYH6_0ulSUgkHJDhJ6mG6hS8JZK18SfeJFkUn15wA9M07hKrZGZy5x2YhG5pd3drsE6NpSCLijGNz9nLHjbmAtogZkyK8H9tFy76qAYc9ETFrpZaNAyn4G45dAPtM4pHMk/s400/48.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_12pHo20UA2H__wezeAuOBhyphenhyphenvrvwY5cJ3fUX345dIuylpXUDhnqA3V7OkoAsklACzryaJlqnU1ijhvcrB2pJ1ETMqAJb4ZutjENQXO7Ctj1zQrEVkE4cl33RcApUwg21azJHJK9-EIY/s1600/50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_12pHo20UA2H__wezeAuOBhyphenhyphenvrvwY5cJ3fUX345dIuylpXUDhnqA3V7OkoAsklACzryaJlqnU1ijhvcrB2pJ1ETMqAJb4ZutjENQXO7Ctj1zQrEVkE4cl33RcApUwg21azJHJK9-EIY/s400/50.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQXGgj_lPjUwZ7a4vOHYuuXtvMPlRpTm27J-ScEJRJGp4wM9chjqQMNoo-38pTfRMV4LjefM0McmL3r_d_nbb7q-FkZiiY0mbUWmCb2GYBX54YzfowOivSNNE0a08I7rX-32zl_OgCwo/s1600/71.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQXGgj_lPjUwZ7a4vOHYuuXtvMPlRpTm27J-ScEJRJGp4wM9chjqQMNoo-38pTfRMV4LjefM0McmL3r_d_nbb7q-FkZiiY0mbUWmCb2GYBX54YzfowOivSNNE0a08I7rX-32zl_OgCwo/s400/71.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
During
the 1980s, she continued guest-starring on numerous prime time television
shows. As she recalls, <b><i>"I did a lot of 'Simon & Simon'
episodes because I had a great time working with Gerald McRaney and Jameson
Parker. I became known on that show as their 'non-regular' regular!
(laugh) That's what they used to call me whenever I came on their
show. Those guys were just the best, and Gerald McRaney used to remind me
of the time when we were shooting 'How the West Was Won' years earlier where I
played Florrie the outlaw with my own gang. I think it was early in his
career and he said that when we finished shooting, I came down to the restaurant,
and I was sitting at the bar with the director and I waved at him to come over
and join us. He said that he appreciated me inviting him over. I don't remember doing that, but I said to
him, 'That's good, because look at you now! I hope you'll always remember
to ask me to sit at the bar with you!' (laugh) I also enjoyed
working with William Shatner on 'T.J. Hooker.' I remember I had to ride a
horse and I think it was one of his own show horses. We shot that in the equestrian
park in Burbank and he was just so much fun and I think he liked working with me because I was a
fellow Canuck. I just remember a lot of laughs working with him.
Another person who was great was working with Angela Lansbury on 'Murder,
She Wrote.' I adored her. She's just the wonderfullest. I
played her niece in this episode and we filmed that at the Queen Mary. It
was a great location and we had our dressing rooms in the cabins down below.
One time, Angela and I and Leslie Nielsen were in the elevator with
tourists coming up from where our dressing rooms were, and Leslie kept making
these farting noises with this whoopee cushion that nobody could see.
Leslie kept saying, 'Oh, pardon me!...Oh, goodness, excuse me!' And
the tourists kept looking at each other thinking, 'This elevator's moving
awfully slowly...when can we got out of here?' When we finally get out,
Angela just looks at Leslie and says, 'I guess that's what comes of living
alone!' (laugh)"</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-_BfQ4Pp3aROiE_UPvdxzIXdeCCsVy5iZjHyulSY-xPJdU0stEJF1lIbzhFWzYOYBroFBMzpJ24YhGKI6Fn-TqFSuepyizYfEsXg9d2ENxXQqu5cbvBtp_V6U84hOw7Q3A4A52paliw/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-_BfQ4Pp3aROiE_UPvdxzIXdeCCsVy5iZjHyulSY-xPJdU0stEJF1lIbzhFWzYOYBroFBMzpJ24YhGKI6Fn-TqFSuepyizYfEsXg9d2ENxXQqu5cbvBtp_V6U84hOw7Q3A4A52paliw/s400/25.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
One of
the notable examples of Montgomery's more mature and confident screen image
during the 1980s was her performance as the dedicated and concerned
psychiatrist on the trail of a serial killer unwittingly released from the
asylum in the 3-D slasher horror film "Silent Madness" (1984).
Despite its low budget, Montgomery rises above the material thanks to her
thoughtful and sympathetic performance. She became involved with the film
because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"The
director, Simon Nuchtern, pursued me for the role and he sent me the script and
said he would very much like me to do it. I had never done a horror film
quite like that before, and he said they would be filming in New York.
And so the reason I did that film is because it allowed me a chance to
live like a New Yorker for a change. I thought that that would be fun. And
the movie looked like it would be a lark so I thought, 'OK, well, I'm off!'
Because it was shot in 3-D, I remember there were all sorts of
complications with the cameras. Our cameraman, Gerald Feil, worked hard
to get the camera and lighting right so that he could shoot it both plain and
in 3-D. We filmed in an abandoned hospital in New Jersey for a lot of
stuff where I'm running through the underground passages with hot pipes and
steam all over the place. Nobody was there and we were shooting on the 8th
floor and in the basement. When we were in the basement, it was like 100
degrees and everybody was dying from the heat. And there were a lot of
scenes of me running around and fighting, so it was a difficult shoot."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjok_tL0j2x-iLdkurqQxrlzWYI7EFePT9Zs7X0NlqIzRW-xRBssIJ09sw0Fd-OMv8GvbHuFXxLd8vCDZsZohRs__h_v3DssknyiGXzFLhWEVewEMnRxIGVEIsyCP60aK8vr67xNkbRp80/s1600/27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjok_tL0j2x-iLdkurqQxrlzWYI7EFePT9Zs7X0NlqIzRW-xRBssIJ09sw0Fd-OMv8GvbHuFXxLd8vCDZsZohRs__h_v3DssknyiGXzFLhWEVewEMnRxIGVEIsyCP60aK8vr67xNkbRp80/s400/27.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQSTB67vmcNI2P9R6PGigiYkm-l3d6aetKUkooJRMttqUbUlTVomP0euS0nkENSWAKw07OEFyNgeY_3B8LJ61SJTI0NN8Dc1YEwamFv9BSZX2BujzJ7s4WnC4IVfo2caujgNgwbpXfXk/s1600/26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQSTB67vmcNI2P9R6PGigiYkm-l3d6aetKUkooJRMttqUbUlTVomP0euS0nkENSWAKw07OEFyNgeY_3B8LJ61SJTI0NN8Dc1YEwamFv9BSZX2BujzJ7s4WnC4IVfo2caujgNgwbpXfXk/s400/26.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery
recalls that filming at the other major location for the film, which stood in
for the sorority house where much of the mayhem takes place, also posed its own
sets of challenges,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"We
shot the sorority house scenes in this mansion where wealthy, hippie kind of
people were living. The place was
painted bright green and orange. The house sort of gave you the creeps
and my dressing room was like up the back stairs, because there were two
stairways in the house. It was on the
third floor attic. There were many rooms up there and you really didn't
want to go up alone at night to change clothes because it was kind of eerie. This was a slasher film and Solly Marx, who
was a South African stuntman, was killing all the cheerleaders in the film.
He was a really nice guy, but very scary in the movie. So all of
this stuff is going on during the making of the movie and we leave for the
weekend. When we come back on Monday, we see that people are mopping up
some blood on the property. Apparently there was a guy who lived in the
guest house who committed suicide over the weekend. That really unsettled
everybody. It was scary and a pall came over the set."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8nUdQNKnypolC30sdKoQpqrfpqsHwV6nbhxKqvte7A-vIpn1K7VJ71X1sRWsNZuE6B0j7jEgdZx2PxW2hAezLxfC27iqNPtfCo5nt3cvRAleNV62PRjaJnLh4YagEZs0GuDgIxeKtln8/s1600/56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8nUdQNKnypolC30sdKoQpqrfpqsHwV6nbhxKqvte7A-vIpn1K7VJ71X1sRWsNZuE6B0j7jEgdZx2PxW2hAezLxfC27iqNPtfCo5nt3cvRAleNV62PRjaJnLh4YagEZs0GuDgIxeKtln8/s400/56.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFffFHjcgOXeBKGQm852Jr0p1ypuGD5U3BJdk9Cf4wJLMiLr4udWrEGimIElzgxWKsJo4jh3Xqoa2VBHVeX7sYuelyx0JihQGOG7Q0rGnSeYt2YQC2rMDHQJ1XySyAJHHIjjXcQxFHlkU/s1600/28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFffFHjcgOXeBKGQm852Jr0p1ypuGD5U3BJdk9Cf4wJLMiLr4udWrEGimIElzgxWKsJo4jh3Xqoa2VBHVeX7sYuelyx0JihQGOG7Q0rGnSeYt2YQC2rMDHQJ1XySyAJHHIjjXcQxFHlkU/s400/28.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery recalls how one of her
co-stars made the filming of "Silent Madness" even more challenging,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"We had that Swedish
actress, Viveca Lindfors, on the film. She
was supposed to be the next Ingrid Bergman back in the 1940s. Well, she
wasn't and I remember she was talking with all the actresses playing the sorority
sisters, purportedly giving them advice on what to do with their careers.
She was saying to them, 'Yes! Get out there and bare your breasts!
Don't worry about anything! Just do it!' And I said, 'Really?
You're going to tell them to bare their breasts for a little horror film?
Girls, don't listen to her! That's the silliest thing I've ever
heard!' Here I am, trying to keep them
from years later having to say, 'Gee, I'm really sorry I did that!' I
didn't like Viveca at all. The movie was not an easy experience, but I
did have a great time living in New York during the filming of it and a couple
of the crew members became good friends, so I'm glad I made that film."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJH6eqaS-cYpy1SmsBh-8lkooG5rdv0o_dRf_LE-1DAfUThoe7wU9AXlP-C14vn6fVzbISNDmB7tle5Tab3Zk4Sz4tQbVEqP-Q35_Ta3iJwK397yhwa2TTORA-eR2hO6Koc0u3uqub1o/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJH6eqaS-cYpy1SmsBh-8lkooG5rdv0o_dRf_LE-1DAfUThoe7wU9AXlP-C14vn6fVzbISNDmB7tle5Tab3Zk4Sz4tQbVEqP-Q35_Ta3iJwK397yhwa2TTORA-eR2hO6Koc0u3uqub1o/s400/16.JPG" width="306" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpnzrLaY4A22L2cCPBLLwLXcSYPzAMNmdD5vAnftPTRgDUlh5GZvLejTvEZDfxW2AbR8bzSAbQilb9twDA_-NNYhyphenhyphengAKiPr2XHXppHWuQTUkYVGw7fx_c10pnzmNKdYuzzwLNTb_-Abak/s1600/33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpnzrLaY4A22L2cCPBLLwLXcSYPzAMNmdD5vAnftPTRgDUlh5GZvLejTvEZDfxW2AbR8bzSAbQilb9twDA_-NNYhyphenhyphengAKiPr2XHXppHWuQTUkYVGw7fx_c10pnzmNKdYuzzwLNTb_-Abak/s400/33.JPG" width="260" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
After
"Silent Madness," Montgomery started a recurring role on "Miami
Vice" (1984-89) playing the role of Sonny Crockett's (Don Johnson)
estranged ex-wife. Even though Montgomery appreciated the visibility that
"Miami Vice" brought to her career, she readily acknowledges that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I wanted to play a vice
cop on that show, any vice cop. I kept saying, 'Just pick me!' and they
wouldn't. Anthony Yerkovich, who created 'Miami Vice' was just great but
he said to me, 'You can't play that!' and I said, 'Why not? I do not want
to play Don’s wife, soon to be an ex! Don has many exes, they're all
exes!' and so he laughed and said,
'Well, we think you should play his wife.' And I said, 'Well, that's
going to be the end of my character! I want to be a vice cop!' So
they couldn't see it even when I sent them a copy of 'Stone Cold Dead' to
convince them that I had played a vice cop before." </i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ7ZvY6QfPv8_10h-r5ii4ns-V73GbD6DWRqFbbq410RlVte9-Bm9afMYHxiN1j09CCujukrrl-V5SEXAJvV4IPmAKRl-ULgGbo4-4tQy6Nc_fhQMzqIUS0XX3VEig8OJQe0hJdMM2gCY/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ7ZvY6QfPv8_10h-r5ii4ns-V73GbD6DWRqFbbq410RlVte9-Bm9afMYHxiN1j09CCujukrrl-V5SEXAJvV4IPmAKRl-ULgGbo4-4tQy6Nc_fhQMzqIUS0XX3VEig8OJQe0hJdMM2gCY/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQPsap7pIpmAwTfOevH6SYuOF_mxox9bo7EFz4IRhDSk2w6PH2N24gj4UdhVxfzDkEDcRORYX2blxIl0Dz_loQtF6DrpMvIniBtni7cxrT1WoAqgb044mvlcYhD8NobqNmsl8Y-MltUmU/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQPsap7pIpmAwTfOevH6SYuOF_mxox9bo7EFz4IRhDSk2w6PH2N24gj4UdhVxfzDkEDcRORYX2blxIl0Dz_loQtF6DrpMvIniBtni7cxrT1WoAqgb044mvlcYhD8NobqNmsl8Y-MltUmU/s320/20.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
though Montgomery didn't get to play a vice cop, she still readily accepted the
opportunity to be part of what proved to be an innovative, trend-setting show. As she recalls,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I ended up arriving in
Florida to shoot the pilot and there's Don and he's really glad that I'm there.
You know, he's such a ladies man and he's got such great 'it' energy.
Whatever that energy is, boy, he's got it. Women just fall at his
feet, they always have. So I'm there and we're on the first day's shoot
and we've left the hotel. As we're coming back after that first day,
we're getting reports that there are riots in the streets because there was a
racial incident that had just taken place in the city and it was just terrible. To safely get back to the hotel Don and I
hid, lying down, in the back of a van. Our
director, Thomas Carter, who happens to be black, thought it would be the smart
move for him to drive. So Don and I just
look up and said, 'Oh my God! I'm so glad you're here!' And Thomas
looked back and said, 'Well, I'm not glad you're here!' When we got back
to the hotel, it had been chewed up and the trees and doors and glass had all
been smashed. People had thrown things through the hotel doors and we all
thought, 'Oh my God!' So we had been there during kind of a difficult
time in the city's history. Even though I didn't love that character, I
loved all the times I came back to appear on it because it was *the* show at
the time. Everywhere I went, people asked, 'What is like working with
Don?!' And it was easy to tell them that he was great to work with.
He was a crazy guy and I always had a good time working with him.
I'm very happy that I did 'Miami Vice.'"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLJoMMGBogv3xTO0cKybhXL8jDuHNwwuxpzklWwaK4Uvf87RrzwdKbpwKOhaEUUX_ulKgdOzuTp6MulLMVL4G7ngAlnlUlK4bBQ04-jLrHBiQdFBXrGLZqSP4D03AZ34f4I97n-H5eXc/s1600/42.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLJoMMGBogv3xTO0cKybhXL8jDuHNwwuxpzklWwaK4Uvf87RrzwdKbpwKOhaEUUX_ulKgdOzuTp6MulLMVL4G7ngAlnlUlK4bBQ04-jLrHBiQdFBXrGLZqSP4D03AZ34f4I97n-H5eXc/s400/42.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
In 1988,
Montgomery landed another series as the female lead on NBC's "Aaron's
Way." Montgomery starred with Merlin Olsen as a married Amish couple
who move to California after learning their son has been killed and left behind
a pregnant girlfriend. The series, which also starred Jessica Walter as
the mother of the pregnant girlfriend, dramatized the adjustment that the
family makes to their new environment. Montgomery remembers "Aaron's
Way" as one of her favorite projects and recalls how<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"we shot the pilot in
Adelaide, Australia. We were supposed to shoot in Napa, California but it
was the wrong season and they wanted to have the grapes in the wine country in
bloom and it wasn't grape season in Northern California at that time. I
was very surprised about the location because all of a sudden they were telling
us that they were flying all of us to Australia. Getting out there was an
adventure because we left at 9:00 at night and several hours into the flight
the pilot announced that there was mechanical trouble, one of the engines had
frozen up, and that we would be landing in Hawaii. When we landed in Honolulu,
the airport was closed and the flight attendants announced that we're supposed
to stay on the plane while it's being fixed. After about an hour, I asked
them for a status update and I found out that we would all be continuing on
another flight to Australia that would be leaving at 1:00 in the afternoon.
Because it was about 2:00 in the morning Hawaii time, I asked them what
they planned to do about accommodations for the passengers because there were
families and children on board. The flight attendant said, 'Well
everybody can just stay here' and I said, 'Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Taxi us to the terminal and let us out!' I made them open the doors
and we all got on the payphones and I was looking for hotels that could put us
all up for the night. I ended up getting rooms for everybody except
myself. (laugh) I found myself taking off in a cab with actor
Richard Tyson and his brother, going up and down Waikiki Beach in the middle of
the night looking for a hotel room. We stopped at one hotel and I went up
to the desk and I said, 'Hi, we need a room, any room, for the night.'
And the desk clerk asked, 'Aren't you Belinda Montgomery?' And I
responded, 'Yes...does that make a difference?' (laugh) He had one
room left on the 15th floor and so we took it. There was only one queen
sized bed in the room, so Richard's brother combined two chairs out on the
patio and creates a bed for himself. I'm too tired to worry about
propriety so I joked to Richard, 'Just imagine an imaginary line down the middle
of the bed. I'll sleep on this side, and you can sleep on that side.'
So we basically go to bed fully dressed and then Richard turns over and
jokes, 'I can't go to sleep...I need a bedtime story!' (laugh) They were both perfect gentleman, but I don't
think any of us got any sleep that night because it was such an odd living
situation we were in. In the morning, I
called NBC and the producers and told them the weather was great in
Waikiki. They nearly had a fit when they
learned what happened to us and they made sure we got another flight to
Australia that afternoon, and were on our way. Sometimes, strange things
happen when you're working on a TV show."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakcz2V4aw6XNcw51mtUtKpuJbPMhZRJeQP4LxF-_TeYaa5_uatgT_ghGXiqJffnisYWJqCFslGM6NXEHKtsgygxBDhqDQr6BU3Dhi1YyFXTSTZ65RFMAthqfPiKYZp8Z0LEDD6KMLtYU/s1600/21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakcz2V4aw6XNcw51mtUtKpuJbPMhZRJeQP4LxF-_TeYaa5_uatgT_ghGXiqJffnisYWJqCFslGM6NXEHKtsgygxBDhqDQr6BU3Dhi1YyFXTSTZ65RFMAthqfPiKYZp8Z0LEDD6KMLtYU/s400/21.JPG" width="310" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyCStWM2BMWfDqiFN_W1ZiCHRVll2ExSGEMnwUMYi5BG5wDvxv0TjOIS6i0ctOpMJrTaspNhogx3Oxpq0vWwmMER4jHoFwKZxgvHq4rZkY9W7QPrXH6LN5tjI2KAqd3VaxWpu16dnA8c/s1600/28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyCStWM2BMWfDqiFN_W1ZiCHRVll2ExSGEMnwUMYi5BG5wDvxv0TjOIS6i0ctOpMJrTaspNhogx3Oxpq0vWwmMER4jHoFwKZxgvHq4rZkY9W7QPrXH6LN5tjI2KAqd3VaxWpu16dnA8c/s400/28.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Once
Montgomery started filming the series, she found herself enjoying "Aaron's
Way" immensely,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Shooting
the pilot in Australia was wonderful. I remember the entire Australian
crew was so handsome, they could have all been movie stars. (laugh)
During lunch, Merlin and I would sit at a table eating our meals and the
crew would kid around with us. One of the assistant cameramen joked, 'You
Yanks! You're really a riot! For every glass of wine you have, we
have a bottle!' And I joked back to them, 'I noticed!' (laugh)
Lunchtime would last for 2 hours and then we'd resume shooting, so it was
a very laid-back environment. We had such a wonderful time shooting
there. One night, Merlin, who was such a gentleman, went out to dinner
with me and Jessie Walter and two Aussie guys came up and tapped Merlin on the
shoulder and said, 'You think you're so smart, don't you, you Yanks! Just
because you were a big football player! You just think you're the kingpin
don't you?' Merlin just looked at them
and he said, 'Gentlemen, I'm with these ladies and we're having dinner. I
think you've probably had too much to drink.' They still challenged him
and said they could take Merlin on. So he stands up and he gets each of
them by the scruff of the neck with each hand and picks them up off the ground
and sits them down on nearby stools and says 'There. Be good.' And
then he rejoins me and Jessie and those guys didn't say 'Boo!' after that.
(laugh)"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy36R9BChhaRPFa1tRWvlGngbKGlvgUm7vZujwyn5pgEATJfD8cxvztROJizHtk9bDps11oUf9F5guubgI10YBt1-Fnn3nC27LoaQm8-gpDboObYq84lnFMA4-3u0pqZah7ZFvsoiOBPU/s1600/22.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy36R9BChhaRPFa1tRWvlGngbKGlvgUm7vZujwyn5pgEATJfD8cxvztROJizHtk9bDps11oUf9F5guubgI10YBt1-Fnn3nC27LoaQm8-gpDboObYq84lnFMA4-3u0pqZah7ZFvsoiOBPU/s400/22.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
After NBC
picked up the series, Montgomery recalls,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"We
shot the rest of the series on the old MGM lot in Culver City. Working on
'Aaron's Way' was the most wonderful experience. I loved that experience
more than any other project in my career. My character was quite prim and
I remember when I went in to audition for that part at NBC, just as I was about
to go in and meet with the producers, I saw a framed portrait of Don Johnson on
the wall in front of me and I just felt it gave me good luck. I just
winked at him and I said, 'Well, here goes, Don! I'm going from playing
your wife to an Amish woman!' During the audition, I did a scene that I
just loved where I'm telling my son Frank about life and my son is saying,
because the family has just moved to San Francisco, 'But, mother, the other
women here don't look like you at all! They've got all their soft parts!'
and I said, 'Well, that's wonderful, Frank!' So anyway we did this scene
in the audition and I felt like I was channeling my grandmother, my father's
mother, and a year later the producer Bill Blinn told me ‘You know you got the part as soon as you
walked out the door. We cancelled everybody else after we saw you' and I
said, "I wish I had known that! It's nice for a girl's ego to hear
that about an audition!' (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrMZyHWFxr3sfsBcN5hYbuSEqnTk0C8NkCNeMtnKlnIVDRa8RFU2Z-r_sRKuy_9_y2pSd4bSF2QfdZMo9PJNI7SUC7GCUAv2H0MgZXRguKiVsshMzLXbK9ZHxQKi-XgxctS24Mu81ng-s/s1600/23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrMZyHWFxr3sfsBcN5hYbuSEqnTk0C8NkCNeMtnKlnIVDRa8RFU2Z-r_sRKuy_9_y2pSd4bSF2QfdZMo9PJNI7SUC7GCUAv2H0MgZXRguKiVsshMzLXbK9ZHxQKi-XgxctS24Mu81ng-s/s400/23.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0H7wwKHGk-BR0BkTjEnzxQuLMJAjuveI3jpJfKdjzJwZ9WHY8Ji_3cTVJkqODYvNXeb0waOTZZBtjCUOxw0uo1OfW8-VZkSgcbf7Ckqs5E77pWiQcDrLjTPw9u6Ah0odwe_LLluwhEJg/s1600/29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0H7wwKHGk-BR0BkTjEnzxQuLMJAjuveI3jpJfKdjzJwZ9WHY8Ji_3cTVJkqODYvNXeb0waOTZZBtjCUOxw0uo1OfW8-VZkSgcbf7Ckqs5E77pWiQcDrLjTPw9u6Ah0odwe_LLluwhEJg/s400/29.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br />
</i></b>Despite her enthusiasm for the series,
"Aaron's Way" lasted only one season. Montgomery candidly
admits that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I was
sorry that we only lasted one season because Brandon Tartikoff wanted to get
rid of all the family shows on NBC. He thought family shows were a thing
of the past and that was unfortunate. Deidre Hall was filming her own
series 'Our House' on the stage next door to us and we would have lunch
together and she was dismayed that Tartikoff had cancelled her series as well
because we both loved our individual shows. I loved shooting that, I
loved working with Merlin, I loved working with Jessie Walter again.
Samantha Mathis got her start on that series and she was already a gifted
actress. Bill Blinn and Jerry Thorpe were wonderful producers. We
were a great family and I wish it could have lasted longer."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjtSoLHVaW0iFAZ_M8e3vcYgyUZwgJ3yV3fsEeIGAlWqnCs-cWS47bbgPK7fheKqMTgVRDbubkZTI9Z6wPG5V7BKYr0jGhQ6aGhaJ21spVf1DtqD1WGVFdStUCmRtYJg5E020-Da9oho/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjtSoLHVaW0iFAZ_M8e3vcYgyUZwgJ3yV3fsEeIGAlWqnCs-cWS47bbgPK7fheKqMTgVRDbubkZTI9Z6wPG5V7BKYr0jGhQ6aGhaJ21spVf1DtqD1WGVFdStUCmRtYJg5E020-Da9oho/s400/9.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_b0omivk7AuqzF_OV6ydyKe_cXvArp9BDZIvS52LcR0G9nnjkuYt4l_rZ-oN71ImzHPqPL9yuV6Yz9qqaAaxTB7kruYOOIgxBNrzDZJGFf7hVdZleAxC2m24yGj-967ILpEOIsorwZ8/s1600/25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_b0omivk7AuqzF_OV6ydyKe_cXvArp9BDZIvS52LcR0G9nnjkuYt4l_rZ-oN71ImzHPqPL9yuV6Yz9qqaAaxTB7kruYOOIgxBNrzDZJGFf7hVdZleAxC2m24yGj-967ILpEOIsorwZ8/s400/25.JPG" width="283" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Soon
after "Aaron's Way's" cancellation, Montgomery landed another series,
one that would end up becoming her most well-known role. Montgomery
starred as the concerned, compassionate mother of the title character in the
Steven Bochco/David E. Kelley comedy-drama "Doogie Howser, M.D."
(1989-93). Neil Patrick Harris starred as Doogie Howser, with James B.
Sikking also starring as his father. Montgomery has very fond memories of
working on this series and recalls that she landed the role because,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I went in to audition, as
did a lot of my friends. And I remember that, right before the audition,
I had just decided to cut my hair very short and I let it go curly. I had
been a redhead for awhile in 'Aaron's Way,' and so I went back to blonde.
So I went in and read and I got it.
In the first year, Neil looked like he really could be my son. It
was perfect casting and I think changing my hairstyle back to blonde helped me.
I loved my husband and son on the show. Jim Sikking was cast by
Steven Bochco because they had worked together on 'Hill Street Blues' and he
was marvelous. He had a sardonic way about him and a great, wry sense of
humor. Very droll and a wonderful actor. And I loved working with
Lawrence Pressman. Larry's just this big sweetheart. I've known
Larry forever, since the time we did 'Man from Atlantis' together. And Neil was adorable. He was this
great kid. I helped him buy his first house. I guess he was 18
years old at the time, and my then-husband and I went out with him to look at
houses. All during my acting career, I had bought and flipped and sold a
lot of houses. I was like a 'house addict.' My mother used to say,
'Belinda never saw a house she didn't like and that she couldn't re-do!'
So I used to stage houses and put things together and sell houses myself
because I loved it. There was no HGTV at the time, I did it all on my
own, it was like being an art director or production designer and creating a
set. Neil grew up in the business and he has gone on to become this big
star. I always expected him to become a director, and he may end up doing
that anyway. He's such a showman.
He's not shy at all, what can I tell you? He's very, very
confident. And we had a great reunion when we did the red carpet together
at the Laguna Art Festival where we were both guests and he was emcee of the
Pageant of the Masters. He's just a great guy. We last spoke when he was in Santa Barbara
and I had an art show up there."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImKt5XvzeRHM9paWm_MKlpOl6ZbSdgb8pIx2yAZv7Ew_oVAHO-r3eRjBIh_Eag-2C8TVsm7eiEJUSYWlG7G3Y3WPZY-Ir2K5f5Ioyvy9ikJ0yVbbWW2dzFV7i1Zs-AGtXkfxImSLfP4s/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImKt5XvzeRHM9paWm_MKlpOl6ZbSdgb8pIx2yAZv7Ew_oVAHO-r3eRjBIh_Eag-2C8TVsm7eiEJUSYWlG7G3Y3WPZY-Ir2K5f5Ioyvy9ikJ0yVbbWW2dzFV7i1Zs-AGtXkfxImSLfP4s/s400/6.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFVsvWqrl0E1_mSh1vKu2HrfB8bRK2Vub36gBX-jHfiV3b_4AJ3SHpASow92hqI46LcpH9oczaZhyphenhyphenSr5c6-qqEpIJSuZyBwnZNUGLq0wLF-AUC3wGsrf_HXOtIcbUHLzPfBMNPmyL9Ok/s1600/32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFVsvWqrl0E1_mSh1vKu2HrfB8bRK2Vub36gBX-jHfiV3b_4AJ3SHpASow92hqI46LcpH9oczaZhyphenhyphenSr5c6-qqEpIJSuZyBwnZNUGLq0wLF-AUC3wGsrf_HXOtIcbUHLzPfBMNPmyL9Ok/s400/32.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Montgomery also recalls how she deeply enjoyed working with "Doogie Howser" producer Steven Bochco
due to his great professionalism and kindness,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I remember Steven saying
to me, 'Belinda, this show is going to go for five years. It's going to
be a really good show, there's going to be really great writing. You're
going to enjoy yourself. Do you want to
be on board?' I said, 'Are you
kidding?!' He was just the best producer to work for. He was a
giant at the time and was a dream producer. My then-husband had been
diagnosed with colon cancer at that time and he was being treated at Cedars
Sinai hospital. When they operated on him, they found that the cancer had
spread and eaten up three quarters of his liver. So I slept at Cedars and
I would go to work from the hospital. Steven had heard about this and he
called me and said, 'Belinda, I know that your husband is really sick. I
just want you to know that I have a jet that is ready and able at any moment to
fly you anywhere in the world if you think there's a specialist out there who
can help him.' It was one of the nicest and most thoughtful offers
anyone's ever given me. It really made me feel like the people I worked
for cared about what was happening in my life. I just love Steven, he's a
wonderful man. David E. Kelley wasn't around as much as Steven was on
that show, but he was also a really great and talented guy to work for. They
gathered a wonderful crew for that show. I had worked with the
cinematographer, Michael O'Shea, many times through the years on many different
shows, so it was a very comfortable work environment. I was really
privileged to have worked with everybody on that show. It was a great
experience."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSelvZVTrXBuY_vJLOw0cx4Q0RTu5xi4IQTKJsK9TnkG-Z5ExwU-ys-2wC4z8eSSVR2yJUZcrmRm8d6oegdcEyvLv8ES43r-ZPMZyigFbTaQlOgbiS2vpcc-m3X-FA76qZM-9goWWSA94/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSelvZVTrXBuY_vJLOw0cx4Q0RTu5xi4IQTKJsK9TnkG-Z5ExwU-ys-2wC4z8eSSVR2yJUZcrmRm8d6oegdcEyvLv8ES43r-ZPMZyigFbTaQlOgbiS2vpcc-m3X-FA76qZM-9goWWSA94/s400/12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
While
Montgomery enjoyed working on "Doogie Howser, M.D.," she acknowledges
there were times she wished she had more to do on the series,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I liked my character very
much and they were always trying to think of ways to bring her out there to
give her more to do on the series. We talked that maybe she was a potter
or she would do this or that. They were having me come over to do more
things at the hospital, which was good because otherwise I never saw any of
those people in that part of the series, and they didn't see me, because my
character's scenes were often at the house. I wanted to break out of the
'mom' thing on the series because you can get caught in that 'mom' mode and get
typecast. The irony is that I've had millions of kids on-screen, but I
don't have any of my own, though I do have a stepson who is wonderful. I
just rented other people's children on these shows. (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixrgCDgrL23vAylVfqBdugabFAVaeaRnJafyW7q-NbXxj84s3jO27DYHtN9A9JHZFsye_c6B1p1RgLw2U1C3y5rIySY2iSu6V6AMFIpAIwz5aWtLA0Cuji1D5ijhyge95g5lG3QVyM80w/s1600/31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixrgCDgrL23vAylVfqBdugabFAVaeaRnJafyW7q-NbXxj84s3jO27DYHtN9A9JHZFsye_c6B1p1RgLw2U1C3y5rIySY2iSu6V6AMFIpAIwz5aWtLA0Cuji1D5ijhyge95g5lG3QVyM80w/s400/31.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Despite
Bochco's promise that "Doogie Howser, M.D." would last for five
years, the show was abruptly cancelled in 1993 at the end of its fourth season.
Montgomery recalls that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"It
only went for four years, unfortunately. For whatever reason, ABC decided
to cancel the show. They pulled the plug on us having a fifth season,
even though we had good ratings. That was a disappointment, but we still
had a great run. I'm just thrilled we were all together. And, of
course, my son went on to complete anonymity. (laugh)"</i></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> After "Doogie Howser"
was cancelled, Montgomery continued working as an actress throughout the 1990s
and into the 2000s, but slowly started moving away from the business to focus
on other aspects of her life. Montgomery explains that,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"After 'Doogie Howser'
ended, I was running around and acting and doing things for several more years.
I shot a couple of more shows after that, but then my parents started
having health problems and I was very busy taking care of them. I just
couldn't concentrate on acting anymore. My mother needed a lot of help
because she had a lot of physical issues and heart problems. I wanted to
be available to help them. Many
mornings, the phone would ring and I would come out of a dead sleep and learn
that something had happened and I would rush over to their home to help them.
It was very exhausting. I moved my parents next door. After
my mother passed away in 2005, my father lived for another 10 years and I would
take him out for his walk and prepare his meals. My father had his own
health issues. He also had a balance
problem where he would fall and break his hip or his femur or his wrist.
That was tough to witness because my dad was this big, strong guy.
It's hard to wrap your head around the idea that your parents are not
strong anymore. I just didn't have time to focus on my acting career
because I was too tired."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi5_41r9anqeAn0ZzXCLmxOi8tZQZxZq88IMvmBmnuNigKGdbB_-uoLySv3Y95tBqBm0XTpkWnt9M2kNaa0NB7jYSMJ96iIKfEZVOd8gSDHTex2gtlOCPURlWZx9ZFJBguuynNuedNYQ8/s1600/57.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi5_41r9anqeAn0ZzXCLmxOi8tZQZxZq88IMvmBmnuNigKGdbB_-uoLySv3Y95tBqBm0XTpkWnt9M2kNaa0NB7jYSMJ96iIKfEZVOd8gSDHTex2gtlOCPURlWZx9ZFJBguuynNuedNYQ8/s400/57.JPG" width="327" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><i><br />
</i></b>After Montgomery's mother passed away,
she decided to focus her attention working on her painting and art rather than
on her acting career. Throughout her life and career, Montgomery always
painted and recalls how <b><i>"my mother had always said, 'I
think you'll go back to one of your first loves,' which was art. And I
did. After my mother died, I decided that I needed to go to art school,
rather than continue to act, so I went to college out here in the Valley.
The primary thing they taught me was to set a deadline for myself in
order to bring things to fruition and doing research on the subjects I would
paint. That training and discipline has stayed with me and it was a very
good lesson. Instead of just talking about a deadline for working on my
paintings, you had real deadlines and you had to produce. That allowed me
to go off on my own to work on my paintings, and I've been doing a lot of that for
the past several years."</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3iWLPyzymKw3K_nwAPk-_EmuqSIjIWupR1sdfmeEvFsSTDxXS5uqs24VNrtDqYBiHXXi4sF6y2-eNs_p9esI9IB83OGJ_XHYtWjJZEmjfAd9Tm4u6s9BRc9cQWYtf6FeI-8yz8q-Fjmw/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3iWLPyzymKw3K_nwAPk-_EmuqSIjIWupR1sdfmeEvFsSTDxXS5uqs24VNrtDqYBiHXXi4sF6y2-eNs_p9esI9IB83OGJ_XHYtWjJZEmjfAd9Tm4u6s9BRc9cQWYtf6FeI-8yz8q-Fjmw/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Even
while she was focusing on taking care of her elderly father, and on her
education and art work, Montgomery still found time to appear as Jeff Bridge's
mother in "TRON: Legacy" (2010). Montgomery recalls that her
participation in that film,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"Came
out of the blue. They just asked me if I would come up to Canada and play
this small part. I think I was cast because I'm Canadian. So I said, 'OK.' I didn't think anybody would even notice me in
it. The irony is that more people have come up to me saying, 'I saw you
in that!' and I thought, 'Really? You blink and I’m gone.' But I had
a lot of fun on that film. Even though it was a small part, we were up
there for several weeks. We went up and then they wanted us back to reshoot
something and we were like, 'Great!' I went up with my husband Jeff and
our dog Lily and we stayed at a great hotel and it was like a great working
vacation. Donnelly Rhodes played my husband and I had worked with him
before. He's a terrific guy and a big star up in Canada. I also loved working on 'TRON: Legacy' because I was reunited with Bruce Boxleitner on location. It was great to see him again, and I remember my husband and I went out to dinner in Vancouver with Bruce and my friend Linda Sorenson, who lives there now. And, of
course, Jeff Bridges played my son and, when I saw him on the set, he was
getting ready and I was getting ready, and I said, 'Hello, son' and he said,
'Mom!' and he gave me a big hug! People ask me, 'How could you have
played Jeff Bridges' mother in that movie?' and I always have to remind them
that it was a time-lapse thing in the storyline, of course, because Jeff and I
are almost the same age!' (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7eEwk2LwJ1PaVJN616otFRTFjIQlTbVqjszhHT-wV5057_syVBZzwYhzQOTUnafeENP7l97r_pFrr2RO6wwjntgfRvLUTVLmzXEcaJILjOzo2YhuRpJXwqkTjQmDDZel2Q25yeWs7og/s1600/58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7eEwk2LwJ1PaVJN616otFRTFjIQlTbVqjszhHT-wV5057_syVBZzwYhzQOTUnafeENP7l97r_pFrr2RO6wwjntgfRvLUTVLmzXEcaJILjOzo2YhuRpJXwqkTjQmDDZel2Q25yeWs7og/s400/58.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
When
asked what she considers the best work of her acting career, Montgomery remains
proud of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"'Aaron's
Way.' I just loved that character and working with Merlin Olson. I
also loved this TV movie 'Casey's Gift: For the Love of a Child'" (1990)
where I played a grieving mother. And I also loved the TV movie 'Bare Essence'
(1982), because I played such a b-tch in it. You know, I enjoyed each of
the things I appeared in for various reasons. I was very lucky as an
actress and I'm proud of my work. I still have an agent and I'd be up to
return to acting if a good part comes up. And I'm continuing to work as a
painter. I have a commission that I'm working on right now. And, as
I mentioned, I'm still buying houses because that's another one of my passions.
My husband Jeff and I recently bought some houses back East that we redid
and we're renting them out, and so that's another project that I've been busy
with. Back when I was shooting 'Aaron's Way,' in between shooting that
show I'd continue to go back to Florida to work on 'Miami Vice' whenever they
needed me to come and give Don Johnson hell for being a bad husband and father.
It was such a juxtaposition to go from wearing an Amish outfit, to
working on this really cool show. And, in between all of that, I was
working on two houses I had bought and my agent called and said, 'Belinda, this
director wants to see you tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.!' And I'd tell him,
'There's no way! I've got a plumber coming tomorrow!' My agent
would say, 'You've got to get it straight! What's more important?!' And
I'd say, 'Well, tomorrow, the plumber!' I've always had pulls and tugs in
my life and career, so I'm not an actress that will do anything for her art.
I mean, I took it very seriously and I'll work whenever I can, but I've
got to get there from here! (laugh) I think having other things in
my life is why I did as well as I did as an actress. I didn't have to
sacrifice my life for my career."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyt_9X6lTtPFqG82f6bgLm6v3AacSSME1OFIQjTt2N8iDwv74-Vcurm0JwE5_7eGGNlxhRwS6tOIhMINzFRmlLzWCR2oqcGTPXmZFuqbrwGniBVb_35gZm-MIdFX9gCxaguRj7tyLLWk/s1600/27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLyt_9X6lTtPFqG82f6bgLm6v3AacSSME1OFIQjTt2N8iDwv74-Vcurm0JwE5_7eGGNlxhRwS6tOIhMINzFRmlLzWCR2oqcGTPXmZFuqbrwGniBVb_35gZm-MIdFX9gCxaguRj7tyLLWk/s400/27.JPG" width="270" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMQN6IRmK_cfZa06z5swYwTxDFyhzNzVm5rIyFy197Fzk9kC_EiOmaLoteiCKWVCNgdDq-arhYu8dMChwh24yvVDFgBo036VrkDhVGakPko3_B0wnxKNOQQfshy5hHhpSKPu6NTAls1g/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMQN6IRmK_cfZa06z5swYwTxDFyhzNzVm5rIyFy197Fzk9kC_EiOmaLoteiCKWVCNgdDq-arhYu8dMChwh24yvVDFgBo036VrkDhVGakPko3_B0wnxKNOQQfshy5hHhpSKPu6NTAls1g/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
As she
reflects on her life and acting career, Montgomery candidly opines,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>"I really fell into my
career because my dad was an actor. As I mentioned before, if I hadn't
been actress, I would've been an artist and pursued that full time, because
that was actually my passion. I was extraordinarily lucky when the acting
took off, and Universal approached me for a contract that brought me down to
L.A. Things always came to me. I
don't know if that was good or bad, but it meant I was more relaxed about
things because I knew something would be just around the corner. Even
when I was auditioning during the 1970s and the 1980s, I was really fortunate.
I think, because I was kind of a 'people person,' when I would go on
auditions, I would chat with the director and really get a feeling about what
they wanted and a lot of times be able to accomplish that. I approached
things with a steady vision, and I never went off on a tangent because I saw it
as a job. I never took it for granted because I knew I was a very
fortunate girl to have this opportunity. I have had a wonderful life and
was able to earn a good living and have a comfortable lifestyle. I’m appreciative of how my career opened up
opportunities for both me and my entire family to create lives for ourselves in
the United States. Even though I love my roots in Canada, England and
Ireland, I love America. I think America is still the best country in the
world, and anybody that wants to denounce it, they've got to go through me!
(laugh) I've always been thankful
that people still remember me now if I meet them at events, or if I'm shopping
in the supermarket. But, now that I'm this older woman and people still
care enough to write to me, or say hello to me, it reminds me to be even more
appreciative and humble about this business. I think that came from my
dad, who was always very appreciative of being an actor in Canada. He
would always say, 'Do you know how lucky you are, that we're in this great
business? How fortunate we are to be in the midst of all this?' My career provided a whole lifetime of
experiences…By playing so many characters in such different circumstances,
places and times, I got to inhabit other lifetimes. So, yes, I know how lucky I am."</i></b></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-27268704641489520702016-12-17T15:42:00.000-08:002017-02-24T07:38:36.940-08:00Medium Cool: An Interview with Actress Marianna Hill<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3oxBgCmpwgqmwV5MD4znTr4XncAD4DJ5Jg9Sx764UPI_oPpVyGFwptD-kNTDmVOW0PGvSGDdl_aLDqtt-VcyiaNzlpxe8ES3QIdjpfRkokO5b7u-vBeDCidP_P8aqk_IPNCY6YosHVE/s1600/30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3oxBgCmpwgqmwV5MD4znTr4XncAD4DJ5Jg9Sx764UPI_oPpVyGFwptD-kNTDmVOW0PGvSGDdl_aLDqtt-VcyiaNzlpxe8ES3QIdjpfRkokO5b7u-vBeDCidP_P8aqk_IPNCY6YosHVE/s400/30.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the best, most underrated, most versatile actresses working in films and television during the 1960s and 1970s was the chameleon-like Marianna Hill. With a flair for foreign accents and a willingness to change her personality and appearance for each role (she has been blonde, red head and brunette at different stages of her career), Hill graced a wide variety of cinema masterpieces, cult favorites, horror films, and classic TV shows during her 20-plus year career in Hollywood. After building an accomplished, varied and prolific body of work, Hill (a lifetime member of the prestigious Actors Studio) left Hollywood and moved to England in the 1980s to teach Method acting at the Lee Strasberg Studio and its replacement organization, The Method Studio, for over 22 years. During that time--as interest in her work grew and a cult following developed--Hill distinguished herself by focusing on her teaching career and avoiding the limelight. With the exception of rare appearances--including a London "Star Trek" convention in 2012, and the Autographica show in Birmingham, England in 2015--Hill has not made herself as ubiquitous on the convention/autograph show circuit as her peers, and has not given an in-depth interview in decades. (The closest Hill came to giving an interview was her participation, along with director Haskell Wexler and editorial consultant Paul Golding, in the 2001 DVD audio commentary for the film "Medium Cool" (1969) originally released by Paramount Home Video--now featured on the <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/28426-medium-cool" target="_blank">Criterion Collection Blu-Ray for the film</a>--where she offers insight into the making of the film, but scrupulously avoids talking about herself.) <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBEH-WSKAXUsCxQzoNPZjqP3x9RgN4GSy6Kddhvr6cBCO8yQ2Yi1Ise2zMSbPaeTeXTSeA8YWn8rkRfpr1Fm-RkXjRm7exHpnut19ZAKB8EUGc3F_Hrpz9F-cqlk5h3stBrdK4yw16hbI/s1600/169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBEH-WSKAXUsCxQzoNPZjqP3x9RgN4GSy6Kddhvr6cBCO8yQ2Yi1Ise2zMSbPaeTeXTSeA8YWn8rkRfpr1Fm-RkXjRm7exHpnut19ZAKB8EUGc3F_Hrpz9F-cqlk5h3stBrdK4yw16hbI/s400/169.jpg" width="343" /></a></div>
<br />
By avoiding the spotlight, Marianna Hill inadvertently made herself more mysterious, intriguing and elusive to fans curious about her life and career, in contrast to her contemporaries who made themselves exceedingly available through internet, social media, and convention appearances. The air of mystery surrounding Hill is heightened by the versatility of her acting work: She was so thorough with submerging herself into a broad range of characters that audiences never had a hint as to who the real Marianna Hill was. Through the years, while researching Hill's life and career, I have heard anecdotes about her from friends and colleagues that heightened my interest in her work. From their stories, I concluded that, during her Hollywood career, Marianna Hill established a colorful and off-beat reputation for herself as a dedicated, courageous actress who never conformed to convention and possessed an independent perspective that reflected a willingness to look at a situation from outside the box. In the course of her experiences, she not only crossed paths with such luminaries as Joan Crawford, Elvis Presley, Klaus Kinski, Haskell Wexler, Clint Eastwood, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Howard Hawks, Lee Strasberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Al Pacino, but also such key historical figures of the 20th Century as Studs Terkel and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXSAAbI5a4qcBlo0QrJJs7Wd4w9GeYgV1or2h3520BFJ1ZSow5Tv2SZd7PscU1nGi9w4MayRzedjlYFPtozcYTcW7Y1RV-WxcXzVdOWLhkztTLBXLqJc9-QQX0NYO3D_WLsp3uVKYVAA/s1600/62.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXSAAbI5a4qcBlo0QrJJs7Wd4w9GeYgV1or2h3520BFJ1ZSow5Tv2SZd7PscU1nGi9w4MayRzedjlYFPtozcYTcW7Y1RV-WxcXzVdOWLhkztTLBXLqJc9-QQX0NYO3D_WLsp3uVKYVAA/s400/62.JPG" width="356" /></a></div>
<br />
After years of maintaining a low-key profile, Hill has re-emerged thanks to the current release of the last film she made in America before moving to London, the funny and prescient political satire "Chief Zabu." After sitting on the shelf for 30 years, co-directors Neil Cohen and Zack Norman have mounted a grassroots effort to complete and release the film. It recently enjoyed a week-long awards-qualifying run at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica, California, and had its east coast debut at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. A well-acted and charming farce about a New York real estate developer (played by Allen Garfield) dabbling in politics, Cohen and Norman decided that the time was appropriate to release "Chief Zabu" in the wake of New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump's successful 2016 bid as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. To prepare for its release, Neal Cohen reconnected with Marianna Hill thirty years after shooting wrapped on "Chief Zabu" and invited her to the Los Angeles premiere. Her recent trip allowed her to meet with friends and colleagues from her years in Hollywood. The irony is that her last American film is now her newest film. As a result, Marianna Hill has graciously consented to an interview with Hill Place Blog to help promote "Chief Zabu" and discuss her accomplished and varied career in films and television. In our interview, Hill comes across as colorful, funny, and larger-than-life as I have heard through the years. At the same time, she also proves to be intelligent, forthright, and down-to-earth about her life and career. A study in contrasts, Hill is accessible and kind, as well as very private, which helps maintain her air of mystery and intrigue. I'd like to thank Marianna Hill for opening up her heart and memories for this interview. Special thanks must go to filmmaker Neil Cohen for his generosity in helping to arrange this interview, as well as for sharing his own memories of working with Hill on "Chief Zabu."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50XbLgVytC6S80tHpeJyt8H2L6XfFzFEhWJt1RTqV-MWyKL8YNxAYpWVV0qgDP93ekiVJuYnkKOkC4rS97lVepbRi9p2TEbD4B-iaQhUBuMSKnkcFX0nBs78n_00TS4EV5ylb1IRIMBE/s1600/137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50XbLgVytC6S80tHpeJyt8H2L6XfFzFEhWJt1RTqV-MWyKL8YNxAYpWVV0qgDP93ekiVJuYnkKOkC4rS97lVepbRi9p2TEbD4B-iaQhUBuMSKnkcFX0nBs78n_00TS4EV5ylb1IRIMBE/s400/137.jpg" width="356" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill was born Marianna Schwarzkopf, the daughter of architect Frank Schwarzkopf and Mary Hawthorne Hill, a writer who worked as a script doctor during the classic era of Hollywood and was close friends with many film legends. She remains proud of being born into a family of accomplished individuals. Earlier this year, a ranch house in La Jolla, California that her father designed in 1961 <a href="https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/sr-2314_rue_adriane.pdf" target="_blank">was designated as historically significant</a> by the Historical Resources Board of the City of San Diego. In addition to her parents, her grandfather Rudolph Schwarzkopf was a building developer/contractor and civic leader responsible for the growth of the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia. When her grandfather died, local newspapers noted that he was called "Mr. Arcadia" because of his contribution to the development of that city. Her paternal aunt, Dolly Connelly, was a renowned journalist and photographer for publications such as <i>Time</i>, <i>Life</i>, and <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, covering the outdoor and the environment. Connelly wrote a famous 1965 <i>Sports Illustrated</i> piece covering Senator Robert F. Kennedy's first climb of the Yukon peak named after his brother, John F. Kennedy, and interviewed rock legend Grace Slick for a 1968 <i>Life</i> Magazine cover story. Another aunt--Kathryn Schwarzkopf, better known as Kay Mulvey--was a famous publicist at MGM and was later a popular Los Angeles-area TV personality. Hill is also the first cousin once removed of Major General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., who served in the United States Army in World War I and World War II and who also investigated the Lindbergh kidnapping case while serving as Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. His son, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., commander of Coalition forces for Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield, was Hill's second cousin. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXjS9pbi7OPFn_T45xzvQQmI_Qz2LZyBFzVLnImcy8QCKo47p9qnaqJ8_7bhMUZTTiIhw0KtozqE2Pw9P5E5PsOrLGQ0-GG_BXoZr6_vKidhiVo2TFPNpej0veXyXPPFECiGBdNG1g5Q/s1600/173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXjS9pbi7OPFn_T45xzvQQmI_Qz2LZyBFzVLnImcy8QCKo47p9qnaqJ8_7bhMUZTTiIhw0KtozqE2Pw9P5E5PsOrLGQ0-GG_BXoZr6_vKidhiVo2TFPNpej0veXyXPPFECiGBdNG1g5Q/s400/173.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As Marianna Hill recalls, <i><b>"I was born in Santa Barbara de Nexe in Portugal because my father Frank Schwarzkopf was an architect and he worked on restoring the old churches there. People write that I was born in Santa Barbara, California because they don't hear you and they just put down what they want, but they don't mean any harm. My father was a very talented architect who studied at the University of Edinburgh and St. Andrews University and designed many houses that were built all over LaJolla, California. But he was also very keen on acting--it was his hobby--and he acted under the name 'Frank Rawls.' Somehow or other, he got into these films such as 'Mystery Submarine' which was directed by that wonderful director who made everything beautiful and glowing with color, Douglas Sirk. Daddy actually did a lot more acting work than people realize. He was on 'The Lone Ranger' and was also on a show called 'You Be the Jury' where he played this Judge. His side of the family was Alsatian, which are people who are essentially a mixture of French and German, and he was also part Iroquiois from my grandmother's side of the family. My grandmother was a beautiful woman and was highly intelligent and she attended Stanford, and that's where she met my grandfather Rudy, who was Alsatian. Rudy was a great man. I never loved anybody as much as I loved Rudy. I just worshiped him. He was like a very good, much more handsome Joe Kennedy. He just had that charisma and strength and authority and gravitas, and with even more of a sense of grace and duty. I also have a bit of Dutch blood. My aunt, Kay Mulvey, was a publicist at MGM who was very good friends with Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and all of the big stars. They all loved her and she was a very beautiful woman with sparkling beautiful eyes and red hair. She was gorgeous. I also had another aunt, Dolly Connelly, who was a very famous writer. She traveled the world writing for magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time, and Life and all of these travel journals. She wrote about the environment and the cultures she encountered in her travels and did things that were extraordinary for a woman at the time. She was a pioneer in photojournalism and she was like Amelia Earhart because she was out there exploring the world living with different cultures and writing about them."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7tfh81-uWxyvc_uD_KZSko3_Z3TJDTb9J2bGuLYUE0C5VJN8J_qOUqkbRB_C8FE4i-RikZjOmDSLk1JrL6hByxN4DowT078Y1XE-gFdPF781896B3ODmgjqWNE_KmVQgDKN-8wP93hg/s1600/150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7tfh81-uWxyvc_uD_KZSko3_Z3TJDTb9J2bGuLYUE0C5VJN8J_qOUqkbRB_C8FE4i-RikZjOmDSLk1JrL6hByxN4DowT078Y1XE-gFdPF781896B3ODmgjqWNE_KmVQgDKN-8wP93hg/s400/150.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While clearly proud of the Schwarzkopf side of her family, Hill is also quick to point out her mother's accomplishments as a writer, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">My mother, Mary Hawthorne Hill, was a screenwriter and she also worked at MGM. She was descended from Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Washington. Her ancestors came over on the third boat after the Mayflower, and helped create the towns of Lowell and Waterford. This was really an old family that Mommy comes from, and somehow or other she inherited that ability to write from some ancestor. When she was very young she was discovered at UCLA, where she had a scholarship. She was such a genius, not that I am, but she was. And she worked at MGM when she was very young from the time she was 17 years old for about 15 years. Louis B. Mayer was like a dad to everybody there. People say he was such a jerk, but according to my mother he was a great man. He protected everybody, he was like a daddy to them. He made sure people went home on time and did their work and he didn't want anybody fooling around and getting into trouble. Mayer always looked out for my mother and protected her from huge stars, who shall remain nameless, who wanted to take off with her for the weekend. He'd say to them, 'You're not taking her anywhere!' because she was a very beautiful young woman and totally innocent. She knew a lot of people who were absolutely fabulous--a lot of the classic Hollywood stars--and so I grew up in that atmosphere. And she would do a lot of ghostwriting for a lot of very famous people who were 'out to lunch' or drank too much. I don't want to mention their names out of respect to them. My mother was introduced to my father because she and my Aunt Kay both worked at MGM. Mommy met Aunt Kay at MGM and Aunt Kay took her over to Arcadia to Grampa's house and that's how she met Daddy. My mother just had this fabulous career and these show business people would show up at my dad's ranch and they'd sort of pass out there because it was so beautiful and full of nature. So that's how I sort of got into acting because I knew all of those fabulous people through my family."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1bEtTxBtqZcJk8mEP5GxREMMW5UiU1EPPNNcYmTliW9ZtbNT1i_ur8GXZLdW-zJert9u6JWQq-9_l4RWC9D1-x4GR9GfkV3aTkiFpBLhptevJo_JmYQs-9ANYfZ-9GGQJc67tij0VxfE/s1600/153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1bEtTxBtqZcJk8mEP5GxREMMW5UiU1EPPNNcYmTliW9ZtbNT1i_ur8GXZLdW-zJert9u6JWQq-9_l4RWC9D1-x4GR9GfkV3aTkiFpBLhptevJo_JmYQs-9ANYfZ-9GGQJc67tij0VxfE/s400/153.JPG" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite being a very private person who has not given an interview in decades, Hill comes across as an open and accessible, yet respectful, person while talking strictly about her career in a non-sensational manner. Throughout our conversations, she sheds some light as to why she has not sought attention and the limelight in quite some time, <i><b>"The columnists and writers I did interviews with during my career would say whatever they want. They quote me for saying things I never said, and they wrote that I dated people I've never even met. A lot of the things on the internet about me are wrong because they come from these interviews and columns. That's why a lot of actors don't like to look at their printed interviews, because they just make stuff up. I think one reason why they would write these incorrect and false things is because columnists and writers--and people in the movie and TV industry in-general--thought that all the actresses at the time were the same. They thought we were all like little flowers in a row, and that we were interchangeable. In some ways, we were interchangeable, because we were all the same-looking kind of gal with long hair and people would get us mixed up, but we actually weren't interchangeable because we all had our own distinct personalities and qualities. I was called at least ten different names by people. They'd get me mixed up with everybody, and everybody else in the business got mixed up with me. There were guys who would say that they went out with me and I'd say, 'What?! He went out with me?! What is his name?!' This happened a lot. There was another guy--and he wrote a book and I won't say his name--but he wrote that I dated him and I swear to God I never met the guy! I went up to this one guy at Canter's Delicatessen because I got sick of hearing about him saying that I used to go with him. My friend Sacha told me, 'Listen, Marianna, I'm always in Canter's and he says that to me and other people there.' And I said, 'Why is he saying it to you? He knows that I know you. Well, I'm going to talk to him about this.' So I went in there one time and I confronted him and said, 'Listen, what is this? You went out with me? What are these expressions you're using about me?...You sound like you're at war with me!' And he asked, 'Oh...uh...uh...Who are you?' I said, 'My name is Marianna Hill.' And he said, 'Oh! You're not the one I'm talking about!' And I thought, 'Oh, brother!' (laugh) I also recall having dinner in restaurants and people would come up to me saying, 'I loved you in 'Birds Land on Mars!' and I'd respond, 'Well thanks!' and then I'd think, 'Oh my God. They think I'm so-and-so.' (laugh) But this was Hollywood and people thought all the girls looked alike and thought we were all the same. I think, because of this, people would get us confused and write false and incorrect things about us and now these things are all over the internet. I wish there was some way you could take these things off of the internet. Some guy who is a phony cousin is on the internet saying he's related me. I don't even know him, but he says he's my cousin and he tells stories about me. I don't even remember what he's called, I can't even deal with it but, anyway, people just make things up."</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBSN6LivKqZnP5oy3ZlNdNDvpNKkhLjhLKb-9G0zJGK4zr34lMa3j_wc-ZzqeLqi1T_QVwqTrxoJi9NvW1wK8ukyneGiD73QVmIJGy1eHBjZeDI5UcuP-DkcYueMLFNYrTJ4i2SjDmFnk/s1600/151.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBSN6LivKqZnP5oy3ZlNdNDvpNKkhLjhLKb-9G0zJGK4zr34lMa3j_wc-ZzqeLqi1T_QVwqTrxoJi9NvW1wK8ukyneGiD73QVmIJGy1eHBjZeDI5UcuP-DkcYueMLFNYrTJ4i2SjDmFnk/s400/151.JPG" width="295" /></a></div>
<br />
In addition to her own experiences with the press and the media, Hill credits her mother and her grandfather for influencing her to maintain a private perspective with her life, <i><b>"People have said, 'Marianna, why don't you write a memoir? You've been around, you know this guy and that woman.' So I know a lot of stuff about people, but I can't reveal it. I'm not going to dish the dirt about all of these people that I know and betray a trust, and my mother was the same way. She worked at MGM and she knew who killed that person with their car, and she knew who drank and who wound up on the beach with so-and-so, but she would never crack, never reveal anything! I learned from her, 'Don't gossip about the people that you knew or worked with! Just shut up!' P</b></i><i><b>eople that I've known have done all kinds of foolish things--and I acknowledge that I've done some foolish things in my lifetime as well--because we're human and we make mistakes and we learn from them. I don't want people to say stuff about me and I won't say anything negative about them. I'm happy to praise and pay tribute to the wonderful people I knew and worked with, but I don't believe in gossiping about their personal life. Another reason I rarely talk about the past is because </b></i><i><b>I also remember my grandfather would say, 'You just must keep going forward! Don't look back, keep going forward!' So I did."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdDIiCAjfyXO4gE7p3FmnoqyArazSNNnzgTB65fIxWW6eJyiixY6SAXSATPx2etwbzsIh-dR6Cmu4D_LXzGIdgNXihPYolTGKyvAiANc6bIgaV6VdgzDA-yMHTadT6SwVX1k7wq3k25FQ/s1600/152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdDIiCAjfyXO4gE7p3FmnoqyArazSNNnzgTB65fIxWW6eJyiixY6SAXSATPx2etwbzsIh-dR6Cmu4D_LXzGIdgNXihPYolTGKyvAiANc6bIgaV6VdgzDA-yMHTadT6SwVX1k7wq3k25FQ/s400/152.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While describing her childhood, Hill recalls that <i><b>"We lived in La Jolla, California when I was very young and I was very fortunate that as a young girl, physically, I was the size that I am now when I was 11 years old. And my mother's friend Joan Crawford said, 'Look, Mary, that girl's an actress.' And my mother said, 'I don't know about that, are you sure?' and Joan said, 'Yeah, I can spot one a mile away! That kid's tough! You don't even know she is. Don't worry about that kid! Put her to work! She's an actress!' My mother would say, 'She's too young!' and Joan would say, 'No, she's not! Just shove her out there!' Anyway, that's what happened. My mother said, 'Marianna, you don't really know how to be an actress,' so she </b></i><i><b>put me into an acting class at an early age</b></i><i><b> a</b></i><i><b>nd, also, I served as an apprentice backstage at the La Jolla Playhouse. </b></i><i><b>They let me go to work when I was very young. </b></i><i><b>There were wonderful actors who worked there, James Mason and James Whitmore and Eartha Kitt and these were wonderful performers. </b></i><i><b>I was not a normal person as a child. (laugh) When I was very young, we lived on my grandfather's island on British Columbia. There was a gypsy woman who lived there who told my mother, 'Mary, don't worry about her. She's like an old soul, and she'll make a lot of mistakes, but she'll come out all right.' So Mommy never worried about me. She never worried if I was working with much older people and I was about 11 or 12 years old. I never looked my age and I lied and put 10 or 12 years on my age, anyway, because I didn't want people knowing I was just this kid. So I wasn't this normal kid. I was like this old person in this young person's body. Even when I was 6 years old I would have these strange premonitions about things--not that I'm superior or psychic--it's just that I was never young. And I have pictures of myself with my cat when I was around 6 years old and I looked around 50 years old. It's just one of those things that sometimes happens with kids."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SdOhhG3D10Fnn3vdzBLDGo1MFU4BCvbWbYLcrQ9Sj7PZa4ede8gOF6ltlKu51gWiPvrMEzCyDO2s18tB4g1F_LT-As8ds86uv_hqIXFtcjQxB6K07PM3vR1xfpzE48EeOQby9guY_6g/s1600/45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SdOhhG3D10Fnn3vdzBLDGo1MFU4BCvbWbYLcrQ9Sj7PZa4ede8gOF6ltlKu51gWiPvrMEzCyDO2s18tB4g1F_LT-As8ds86uv_hqIXFtcjQxB6K07PM3vR1xfpzE48EeOQby9guY_6g/s400/45.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga35fZ3urQuEKQ7ntSkNbCPN0wZO5z5HSPvUX6X4zYcnKCDaWrnnqgIspc8LxRBJz9AKTHS519BqOeIc3osDXe37D_gHgT8Ip8sFsceFYMjhHGHAzppr8qIl3_4TZ_sMTRubrw6DTnyaQ/s1600/46.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga35fZ3urQuEKQ7ntSkNbCPN0wZO5z5HSPvUX6X4zYcnKCDaWrnnqgIspc8LxRBJz9AKTHS519BqOeIc3osDXe37D_gHgT8Ip8sFsceFYMjhHGHAzppr8qIl3_4TZ_sMTRubrw6DTnyaQ/s400/46.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill's first professional job on television was on the CBS soap opera "For Better or Worse." Hill recalls, <i><b>"'For Better or Worse' was one of the things I did when I shouldn't have been working because I was underage. My agent Walter Kohner, who was a friend of my dad's, didn't know I was that young. It's a long story, but my mother had died when I was very young and Walter said, 'Well Marianna should go over and sign up with the Screen Actors Guild.' How I got that part in 'For Better or Worse' was kind of a convoluted social story. I went somewhere and some man met me and he got me mistaken as being part of the Miss Universe contest. All of those people had to be 18 years old or over. So I just (laugh) told a bunch of stories because I wanted to get to work professionally. And then Walter sent me to the Screen Actors Guild to get signed up and I added about 12 years onto my age because nobody knew any better. In those days, nobody knew to ask 'Where's your I.D.?...Where's your driver's license?'--Nothing!--because I didn't look like a kid. I remember I'd be working with people and they would be confiding in me about their love problems and I didn't know what they heck they were talking about! I didn't understand because I was still innocent. (laugh) But it was great because here I was around all of these adults and picked up all of this information and got to work when I was young, which was so important to me!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKJOKhMGBcrbPAboUcMxWErgxlVoLjVJTAE8InreWoFSic-b13BumE6HUy4HtypBZFqjJ9p2U-vNaPJkQqQSj_zjUUToF2pBYH0JDokqqS5gU9-dSLohrAmwQrUAZ729sZt22X5XLQxE/s1600/72.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKJOKhMGBcrbPAboUcMxWErgxlVoLjVJTAE8InreWoFSic-b13BumE6HUy4HtypBZFqjJ9p2U-vNaPJkQqQSj_zjUUToF2pBYH0JDokqqS5gU9-dSLohrAmwQrUAZ729sZt22X5XLQxE/s400/72.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
From the beginning, Hill demonstrated her versatility as an actress by playing a Spanish girl on "For Better or Worse." The role helped establish her as the go-to person in Hollywood to play young women of different ethnic backgrounds. She became a master at skillfully essaying foreign accents, an ability that kept her in high demand. Throughout her career, Hill has played French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, and even Hawaiian characters. Hill recalls that, <i><b>"I always played people who were ethnic because I have some Native American blood in me. I have an unusual kind of look about me where people always think I'm some sort of person that comes from an ethnic background. And also Walter Kohner, and his brother Paul Kohner of the Kohner Agency, handled all the big European stars. So, naturally, if you were with them, it was thought that you were probably an ethnic type of person. They were absolutely fabulous to work with, it was like having a family. They were very European and they'd call me up and say [Austrian accent] 'Now, Marianna, we heard you're driving around too fast in your car!' They were like Dads and Moms and I would respond 'How did you hear about that?' Of course I *was* driving around too fast because I shouldn't have done any of these things I did. But, in those times, nobody stopped you. I didn't have a mom. My dad was dealing with personal issues at the time. My brother was older than me in military school and he was not there. There was no one around in my family to say, 'Don't drive too fast in your car!' But, fortunately, I had gone to school with nuns in the convent who drilled some moral fiber and infrastructure into me. Luckily I didn't get into the thick of it all like a lot of young girls did, so I didn't become a narcissistic delusional person lost in Hollywoodland. I didn't do drugs and I didn't drink and I didn't smoke because I was too busy trying to work. I knew that I had to do that from the time I was around 8 years old. I had a work ethic from a young age and it came from outer space. (laugh)"</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLkFJRlJjAN614dfKskvx3lL3jUmFGP-Tp4QhyphenhyphenCGoXYDINSZ56g8gluLipXpKlIJj0c0Z0_DE1j-sjsTLZUpqAOu9_4dGeHWyPcoHT_izeQSM3hKYVGbzQDBTlvy_j11SvFhMAU5BJc8/s1600/44.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLkFJRlJjAN614dfKskvx3lL3jUmFGP-Tp4QhyphenhyphenCGoXYDINSZ56g8gluLipXpKlIJj0c0Z0_DE1j-sjsTLZUpqAOu9_4dGeHWyPcoHT_izeQSM3hKYVGbzQDBTlvy_j11SvFhMAU5BJc8/s400/44.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After working on daytime TV in "For Better or Worse," Hill quickly became a guest star on countless prime time television shows of the era. Hill first debuted in prime time in the Western series "Tate" in the episode titled "A Lethal Pride," which aired on NBC on July 20, 1960. Hill played a Mexican girl raped by a wealthy American boy Clay Barton (Ronald Nicholas). Her father Arriaga (Gregory Morton) hires one-armed gunman Tate (David McLean) to bring Barton to justice. Hill recalls, <i><b>"David McLean was Walter's client. He was lovely and had a beautiful, characterful face. I remember Walter saying, [Austrian accent] 'Marianna, you are to go to work on this show called 'Tate'!' So I just went over there and got to work. I didn't audition or anything because he handled David McLean and the Kohners handled the whole show. By that time I had proven myself. They would send me out to do a lot of plays, because the Kohners would say [Austrian accent] 'You need more experience!' And so I did all of these plays out in the Valley in these really tiny theaters. Because all of their clients were Europeans, we would do plays such as 'Lillian' by Ferenc Molnar, 'Look Back in Anger' by John Osborne, and even Sandy Wilson's musical 'The Boyfriend.' It was wonderful because it kept us in a place where we were attempting to do the very best we could do. After 'Tate,' I was guest-starring on many TV shows. It was not a whirlwind or overwhelming, it was wonderful, because it's what I wanted and expected from myself."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_nclR4uZ-4aY_y8yvgS3fYxA9_Zbd7N7sWjgPNVaExuKMat9a9Sxmgu2_dI_BLe3eKXos3MxiiWhJVc9PfIbnUA7xdxtOKdhJnu51Z8b7uGaJfZD3lglrXXFwGFMeKBOtzeJzHgHep0/s1600/73.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_nclR4uZ-4aY_y8yvgS3fYxA9_Zbd7N7sWjgPNVaExuKMat9a9Sxmgu2_dI_BLe3eKXos3MxiiWhJVc9PfIbnUA7xdxtOKdhJnu51Z8b7uGaJfZD3lglrXXFwGFMeKBOtzeJzHgHep0/s400/73.JPG" width="307" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTqHj7GdOgarZssPqgw41B0LOIUeSkvxewjd5cZ-90dz4xmVvPhJ55DvxxmJQw83a-kFxCyd_truQl34_jE5HxyzdCCCSY5yCvj83b1zXkl0-_N5MFtHNhNv9DUJ1MWz7lCkkaGHe7zI/s1600/171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTqHj7GdOgarZssPqgw41B0LOIUeSkvxewjd5cZ-90dz4xmVvPhJ55DvxxmJQw83a-kFxCyd_truQl34_jE5HxyzdCCCSY5yCvj83b1zXkl0-_N5MFtHNhNv9DUJ1MWz7lCkkaGHe7zI/s400/171.jpg" width="356" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill's first major television credit was a recurring role in the NBC Western series "The Tall Man," a fictionalized drama of the Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett legend. Clu Gulager starred as Billy Bonney, trying to go straight and reform, with veteran actor Barry Sullivan playing Pat Garrett as a fatherly mentor to Billy. Hill played Rita, Billy's Mexican girlfriend, in five episodes throughout the first and second seasons of the series. Hill vividly recalls how "The Tall Man" was a turning point for her as a young actress because of <i><b>"working with Barry Sullivan. Barry Sullivan was this incredible guy. What he had was something that a lot of people don't seem to understand anymore. He was a gentleman who had a proper demeanor, behaved in a kindly and gentle manner, and turned up on time and did his work. He'd come to the set and would just sit there and study his lines and I'd ask him, 'What are you doing now, Barry?' because I was eager to learn. And he'd say, 'Well, I'm learning my jokes,' because he'd call the lines of dialogue, 'jokes,' which is an old kind of Broadway expression. </b></i><i><b>I've told this story before to people and they ask me, 'What do you mean? You learned about acting from Barry Sullivan?' And I'd say, 'Not exactly, but yes in a certain way I did because of his complete focus on what he was doing.' He just was quiet and he'd watch everything and then he'd go right into his work. Hit his marks. Boom! That was just the greatest education. There are still a few people now, like Tom Hanks, who have that incredible sensibility. S</b></i><i><b>o anyway I watched how Barry Sullivan behaved, how dignified he was, how kind he was to people, how he never had any tantrums or acted like a fool or anything. Everything I needed to know about being an actor, I learned from him."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXyoXqOxtFVphcKV6UAi-Rz5n8oDey0qR-KJ-097Mw-7xDVYMNXQKwYV7kNF42Scp6yUKoHjncJdHsyeQbcCATiHreX-CkwokUCnpbwtuy-B08HOIzNp6y-_-SDdRgGa4o-oyfMi7zcUg/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXyoXqOxtFVphcKV6UAi-Rz5n8oDey0qR-KJ-097Mw-7xDVYMNXQKwYV7kNF42Scp6yUKoHjncJdHsyeQbcCATiHreX-CkwokUCnpbwtuy-B08HOIzNp6y-_-SDdRgGa4o-oyfMi7zcUg/s400/3.JPG" width="330" /></a></div>
<br />
After making numerous television guest appearances, Hill made her feature film debut in "Married too Young," a juvenile delinquent melodrama starring Harold Lloyd, Jr. as a teenage race car driver who gets involved with a stolen automobile ring run by the mob so that he can support his young bride Jana Lund. Hill played Marla, the prototypical "bad girl" who is friends with Lloyd and Lund's characters. She next appeared on the horror film "Black Zoo," produced by Herman Cohen and starring Michael Gough as a zookeeper who uses his animals to kill his enemies. "Black Zoo" would be Hill's debut in a genre in which she would make occasional appearances throughout her career. Even though these films launched her big-screen career, Hill candidly admits that she remembers very little about them, <i><b>"I don't remember much about making 'Married too Young.' I only remember how Harold Lloyd, Jr. was this very sweet guy. 'Black Zoo' also doesn't ring a bell at all. </b></i><b><i>I wish I could remember the plots of movies and shows I worked on. I don't mean to be a jerk and not care about my work, because I do, but the plots kind of blend together sometimes. </i></b><i><b>I think it could be because I worked so much during that time and also because I'm a survivor of an era where a lot of people from that time are not with us anymore. A lot of things have happened to them on their journey but the thing is that I'm still here and I'm in good health and I still look OK. Sometimes your mind shuts certain things out so that you can keep going."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif_42ykyg7RFUj2hTuBlnuKWrAOevP5f6sN_SjKvHFS0U7j3__4sAvFhersaamvqA0DFv_7bsMqZhwpKNoYXe2AwSR8TrrheB0jlqtpLa5PI12phg8pGLXoTfpRN9xgFnCZLrmOvlPAW4/s1600/47.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif_42ykyg7RFUj2hTuBlnuKWrAOevP5f6sN_SjKvHFS0U7j3__4sAvFhersaamvqA0DFv_7bsMqZhwpKNoYXe2AwSR8TrrheB0jlqtpLa5PI12phg8pGLXoTfpRN9xgFnCZLrmOvlPAW4/s400/47.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Returning to television, Hill continued making numerous guest appearances on the top shows of the era. She appeared in the April 18, 1963 episode of the classic CBS series "Perry Mason" titled "The Case of the Greek Goddess" where she played an innocent Greek girl who is caught in the middle of a murder investigation and trial when the American artist who hired her to model for a sculpture is accused of murdering her mother. Hill recalls that, <i><b>"Raymond Burr was just the nicest man, the warmest person with the greatest sense of humor. I loved him, he was just wonderful. He had this warm, sunny, lovely gentleness that just radiated from him and he was very funny. I remember he made very subtle cracks the whole time we were working like, 'How about this stab wound here?' He was just great to be around and was like a warm, cuddly Teddy Bear."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqOZz9M3nN4niSoxJ0HJBvG7bByG5EthL2MmhBCm8Mur1h4tm9avlN5hNZlpVUfXvnvXQbixJe8G8BrNtg2dPapGFmPFXmErtBj0NDntjxpV7zCwnavtJkmaES9jruBeJ1EKYZ4hfMxg/s1600/48.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqOZz9M3nN4niSoxJ0HJBvG7bByG5EthL2MmhBCm8Mur1h4tm9avlN5hNZlpVUfXvnvXQbixJe8G8BrNtg2dPapGFmPFXmErtBj0NDntjxpV7zCwnavtJkmaES9jruBeJ1EKYZ4hfMxg/s400/48.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Later that year, she appeared as an orphaned young woman caught in a battle for control of a farm between its rightful owners, and a ruthless family of hillbillies determined to steal the property, in the December 28, 1963 episode of the CBS series "Gunsmoke" titled "Pa Hack's Brood." As with "Perry Mason," Hill admired her leading man and vividly recalls how <i><b>"The storyline was about a bunch of hillbillies and Lynn Loring was also in it and she was lovely. I mainly remember James Arness because he had such a fantastic presence and he was so wonderful. He was like the new John Wayne, you know, the John Wayne of TV! He had this wonderful grace and presence that was just manly. I just loved working with him."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisbjuVTmHMqvAmaXRvaMId4ddCf7iktQTe1ZXwA6KdnczeSz8OWTgNSIweu-F_azafpBolMAP0TRgOUz265zVqCiTLQHTiYFCw2-ccsOiQLBlZ-D-e-jyzuNwqpRsK7BKyIc4gakcOQgk/s1600/49.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisbjuVTmHMqvAmaXRvaMId4ddCf7iktQTe1ZXwA6KdnczeSz8OWTgNSIweu-F_azafpBolMAP0TRgOUz265zVqCiTLQHTiYFCw2-ccsOiQLBlZ-D-e-jyzuNwqpRsK7BKyIc4gakcOQgk/s400/49.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill next guest starred as a seductive Mexican girl who wins the heart of all the Cartwright brothers in the light hearted "Bonanza" episode titled "Ponderosa Matador" that aired on NBC on January 12, 1964. As with "Gunsmoke," Hill enjoyed working on this episode because of the opportunity to work with her leading men Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon. Hill recalls, <b><i>"When I was a kid I worked at the La Jolla Playhouse and Lorne Greene was in a show that Jose Ferrer wrote called 'Edwin Booth,' which was about the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Lincoln. Edwin Booth was a great actor in London, but because of his brother killing the President, he was just disgraced and ruined. The play was about people kicking Edwin Booth out of the business and that's how I knew Lorne. He was great and Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon were so fascinating because they were all down to earth. They became so imbued in their characters that they really were the people they played. They weren't acting. They just *were.* And many an instance, they'd sit on the set and they'd talk about their real estate, just like they did in the show. They would say, 'I've irrigated the land and got the 10 acres there and we're going to develop it and we'll use the proceeds to feed the Mexicans living there,' or they'd say, 'Well, now we've got the orange grove and what are we going to do? There are all of these people there who were interred in the Japanese work camps years earlier and we've got to put them to work.' They were very socially minded people and they were very politically advanced. They really wanted to help people with their purchase of land by growing crops and taking care of the locals. They were good people who were highly moral and principled guys. They completely echoed the people they played."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTawSutrE8G5byiQmNjRXeljvSmE8nHLKeR9g5tAN6jqMJ0e_wV1aKC0nebwKQ0z46VwMuuCoxfLPVW9mvNxD21g3VM3Z79WNFlZbpv_4AZ_n6InAFRXAY_1M3c-3efdA5qNmySaf5fD8/s1600/102.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTawSutrE8G5byiQmNjRXeljvSmE8nHLKeR9g5tAN6jqMJ0e_wV1aKC0nebwKQ0z46VwMuuCoxfLPVW9mvNxD21g3VM3Z79WNFlZbpv_4AZ_n6InAFRXAY_1M3c-3efdA5qNmySaf5fD8/s400/102.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoeWaZoYDA7y-CLyBXbmetmKzktPsdPm56Pb4zzaZ-sVtKKllPh6Z63SoGG3aCRgZoYRAfylmPP1CU8VDe7NMbrbDvh6q4KlDiOxrrbPxjeNnWxrZTslLGHO8XErcSWO0j_tz1N-DGcfs/s1600/101.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoeWaZoYDA7y-CLyBXbmetmKzktPsdPm56Pb4zzaZ-sVtKKllPh6Z63SoGG3aCRgZoYRAfylmPP1CU8VDe7NMbrbDvh6q4KlDiOxrrbPxjeNnWxrZTslLGHO8XErcSWO0j_tz1N-DGcfs/s400/101.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQiBELWuVenn-oNZtPr4rq-hktn9sKIHyFiRRebYdugOSJbg0LZzFuG_QXlx8IvAAJfN8k-C_EA4ruxUqbGoMTaBFiTaVCliegXW6b3sCnUGHs4-XC8xKt0V1YDlvrr7jcf4BnVSt9h8s/s1600/103.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQiBELWuVenn-oNZtPr4rq-hktn9sKIHyFiRRebYdugOSJbg0LZzFuG_QXlx8IvAAJfN8k-C_EA4ruxUqbGoMTaBFiTaVCliegXW6b3sCnUGHs4-XC8xKt0V1YDlvrr7jcf4BnVSt9h8s/s400/103.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Continuing to appear in some of the most notable TV shows of that era, Hill guest-starred on the "I, Robot" episode of the classic ABC science-fiction anthology series "The Outer Limits," which aired on November 14, 1964. Hill played Nina Link, the sincere and concerned niece of scientist Dr. Charles Link (Peter Brocco), who has created an intelligent robot named Adam. When Dr. Link is accidentally killed, and Adam is wrongfully blamed for his creator's death, Nina hires attorney Thurman Cutler (Howard Da Silva) to defend Adam at trial to prevent local authorities from dismantling the robot. A thought-provoking allegory debating the definition of humanity, the "I, Robot" episode remains one of Marianna Hill's most notable acting credits. As Hill recalls, <i><b>"What was really great about 'The Outer Limits' was that it had the same energy as the 'Star Trek' set. Everybody felt a big high and innocence while working on those shows. There was no hanky-panky, no flirtations, there wasn't any ego on those sets. The people working on 'The Outer Limits' were totally committed to their work and infused with this passion and creativity. The robot in this episode was a very good and insightful character because he was almost human. He had goodness in his heart and he cared about humanity and he demonstrated that by saving that little girl at the end of the episode when she ran out into the street and he sacrificed himself by pushing her out of the truck's path. 'The Outer Limits' was a very idealistic show because it demonstrated that there was goodness in this man-made machine. I loved the script and thought the show was great since it showed how human beings could create this machine that was imbued with goodness because they had put their good consciousness into that robot. I also liked how the show demonstrated that the bad people in the storyline didn't understand that and wanted to take him apart. It's just like in real life: There are people who close their eyes to the innovation and wonder around them and don't get anything. 'The Outer Limits' was great because it was a show that examined the ongoing dilemma between good and evil, and so the set had an incredible energy and enthusiasm because everybody was excited about the concepts it was examining. We were all engaged with the issues and the plot and the theme of that show when we made that episode, and that's why it has resonated through the years. That gave us this blast of energy that you don't always get when you're working. As an actress, you have your own energy, of course, but some shows engender it where you are able to connect with that wall of energy on the set and 'The Outer Limits' was that kind of a show. Audiences picked up on that energy because they saw something pure, clean and genuine coming straight at them from 'The Outer Limits,' as well as 'Star Trek.' Both shows gave them a great belief that something wonderful was just around the corner."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlMfGL-TxvV9do5cCMME4K_YKbUUsFdc5w2cRggCSB13wEXqKpTcrHV-iSuhRPW6KBmYZ9FL5aUAIXilQ45dUwBgYJBLfAEg_43Glq-0oM5ZIq-znj1XmjY0nHZQeuw8BKQyFwg-_cgrE/s1600/140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlMfGL-TxvV9do5cCMME4K_YKbUUsFdc5w2cRggCSB13wEXqKpTcrHV-iSuhRPW6KBmYZ9FL5aUAIXilQ45dUwBgYJBLfAEg_43Glq-0oM5ZIq-znj1XmjY0nHZQeuw8BKQyFwg-_cgrE/s400/140.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKg7-5FQs5DLX39G0yaa-l5vmMhE1m9FleL0freJ0yKw9VAHE0zSXLpeJlfbAy7NvtwEDIW-iuKPUZeC0rdnSq97tnjCDU-rQO1CvJr-cOZ_ImHXaNC2OW64VKpjcx3U_frZwNe_eK1E/s1600/80.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKg7-5FQs5DLX39G0yaa-l5vmMhE1m9FleL0freJ0yKw9VAHE0zSXLpeJlfbAy7NvtwEDIW-iuKPUZeC0rdnSq97tnjCDU-rQO1CvJr-cOZ_ImHXaNC2OW64VKpjcx3U_frZwNe_eK1E/s400/80.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_CWu1_-yLJZcEXmXKMBS6HDEVAuYMuWmb6r2opVWHJI1obOP1DlStJY-hpRCpqs3Cnc5vS3Nq0nWkhUSdpufNkDDeifwT0ZIjjwNlnI9Vp2bo77gQEIE2XI9wdKMMUZ2WLwuiPjccAo/s1600/138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_CWu1_-yLJZcEXmXKMBS6HDEVAuYMuWmb6r2opVWHJI1obOP1DlStJY-hpRCpqs3Cnc5vS3Nq0nWkhUSdpufNkDDeifwT0ZIjjwNlnI9Vp2bo77gQEIE2XI9wdKMMUZ2WLwuiPjccAo/s400/138.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill returned to the big screen with small roles in major studio productions such as "Wives and Lovers" (1963) starring Janet Leigh and Van Johnson (where she played a young girl who greets Jeremy Slate as he enters the bar at the Algonquin hotel); "Roustabout" (1964) starring Elvis Presley (where she plays one of a pair of attractive carnival performers who Presley flirts with by stealing their towels and robes while they are taking an open-air shower--it would be the first of her two films with the singing legend); and "The New Interns" (1964) starring Dean Jones, Stefanie Powers, Michael Callan and Barbara Eden (where Hill played an attractive party-goer who flirts with married Dean Jones). Even though she had already played featured and leading roles on television, Hill recalls that <i><b>"The director of those films, John Rich, was a friend of my mother. They had gone to school together and he was a wonderful man. In those movies, I had to do something like come in and wave at the other people. I didn't care about how small my parts were. I just wanted to try different things and be a good actor and support the rest of the cast."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgj1YTVBMs98DIvebpueYjG8AdYwsXECkZqYb_oa4XAzVLsCBp7MVplFDQdLW0P1OvfgSY-4iTowUqUtxvlzu3okpLWkVy5AorklEqaloM7YYp3mS-aOgNIXL1nWWFUFtoJXnGlFm5R_4/s1600/63.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgj1YTVBMs98DIvebpueYjG8AdYwsXECkZqYb_oa4XAzVLsCBp7MVplFDQdLW0P1OvfgSY-4iTowUqUtxvlzu3okpLWkVy5AorklEqaloM7YYp3mS-aOgNIXL1nWWFUFtoJXnGlFm5R_4/s400/63.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After building up credits and experience, Hill landed the meatiest role of her career thus far by playing an exciting French girl who romances brooding race car driver James Caan in legendary director Howard Hawks' "Red Line 7000" (1965). "Red Line 7000" was Hawks' attempt to examine the zeitgeist of 1960s youth, the story of three race car drivers and the women who love them, and attempted to use the film as a vehicle to discover new young talent. As the wise, sophisticated and independent Gabrielle Queneau, Hill effects a very convincing French accent and performs with uninhibited gusto and abandon as she dances up a storm in sequences set at a nightclub and in front of a Pepsi Cola machine at a motel, with rock and roll versions of "The Old Grey Mare" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad" blaring on the soundtrack. She effectively balances moments of comedy and drama throughout "Red Line 7000" to create a sympathetic, intelligent, and substantial character. Hill recalls landing the role because <i><b>"Howard Hawks was looking for new people because he made the incredible discovery of Lauren Bacall, as well as other people that became great stars. He wanted to do this again and create a cadre of performers that would belong to him, like the MGM players. He watched a television show that I was in called 'The Greatest Show on Earth' where I was this performer on a circus trapeze, which was a terrific show because we had really good actors on that. So Howard Hawks saw it and he thought, 'I'll put that gal to work.' I didn't have to test for him because he liked what he saw in that TV show, and he knew that I could cut the mustard. So that's how I got that job." </b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaeedI9TT9FxoSbtU65bIpnaIS8NZ3NWR_gYldGYwSoRJl0spcSRD3XeI1RjWgdc4gjU9Z51XuHgGrB126nYCF38-qBFZZhv5y7nQaWb62QdYIY6qbEKLu_6cFKyg__FItjtSF369pYg8/s1600/109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaeedI9TT9FxoSbtU65bIpnaIS8NZ3NWR_gYldGYwSoRJl0spcSRD3XeI1RjWgdc4gjU9Z51XuHgGrB126nYCF38-qBFZZhv5y7nQaWb62QdYIY6qbEKLu_6cFKyg__FItjtSF369pYg8/s400/109.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Once Marianna Hill started working with Howard Hawks, she quickly realized she was in the presence of a filmmaking legend and deeply appreciated the experience and the guidance he provided as a director, <i><b>"He was just a wonderful guy! He'd tell me these incredible stories about all the stars from the classic era like Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck and all of the things he experienced and created. He was incredible. It was like being with the encyclopedia of the film business. As a director he was a genius. I just wanted to make him happy because I thought, 'This man is one of the Monarchs of Hollywood. He's like the King Solomon of the business, so I've got to do the best possible job!' So I just went in there and I was breathing fire! And I got to be French in that role, and when you get to be French that frees you because they have a whole different sensibility. Once you start doing that accent it just kind of takes over."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZ3mMZXNQDkXtqpyQYlNxRYkLiKhp-TQ817hJnqV4aYyyEQ38oe1nYS4FUGaUeChyphenhyphensrwh9xvtL7RpKgrNUrvXZrk6C3czv8AMSz9ogszG3hlU3ZsTNfxzEcmmYhBLjBQY0X6SfGm58VI/s1600/141.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZ3mMZXNQDkXtqpyQYlNxRYkLiKhp-TQ817hJnqV4aYyyEQ38oe1nYS4FUGaUeChyphenhyphensrwh9xvtL7RpKgrNUrvXZrk6C3czv8AMSz9ogszG3hlU3ZsTNfxzEcmmYhBLjBQY0X6SfGm58VI/s400/141.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill has very fond memories of working with her co-stars on "Red Line 7000" and recalls how: <b><i>"Laura Devon was so beautiful. She was a fabulous being! I loved her! I remember we were just so protective of Gail Hire because Howard would just say, 'So, Gail, I want you in this scene to do this.' Jimmy Caan and I were experienced actors and Howard would also give us all of this directorial stuff, which we knew what to do with, but Gail didn't. She had had no experience, and she was just in shock. So Jimmy and I would do our best to help her. I would say to Gail, 'Why don't you try to use this for the scene?' and Jimmy would try to encourage her by saying, 'Yeah, try that!' but she didn't get the lingo. If she had had a couple of years of solid experience and training, she would have been wonderful."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-eqpoaBtcy4kMJRv5e8tOclixwXQoHYEhj1cyWoF9j2sMdm61b0ARKItlMd0eUWJgbQt2OZFESGs9-wDLYdcu-SPf3yWwbgp4vpz8iXqOAOTKKSukyzIMToUZHQDLP_RZp9gvWZz5D0/s1600/59.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-eqpoaBtcy4kMJRv5e8tOclixwXQoHYEhj1cyWoF9j2sMdm61b0ARKItlMd0eUWJgbQt2OZFESGs9-wDLYdcu-SPf3yWwbgp4vpz8iXqOAOTKKSukyzIMToUZHQDLP_RZp9gvWZz5D0/s400/59.JPG" width="321" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMg2A6kYtC3ecvYkUYJvjPwPH_IhnuhNxkChvRxFVtvwqbj7KV_K82rxNX6U3FCSz-Jtwj7O2M1z_fZp-DaQ9PQQyuM8ppem1_RfrSOpsFaB_yBo764I6JQQb3PQlof-_hvq0KLgBkK8U/s1600/91.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMg2A6kYtC3ecvYkUYJvjPwPH_IhnuhNxkChvRxFVtvwqbj7KV_K82rxNX6U3FCSz-Jtwj7O2M1z_fZp-DaQ9PQQyuM8ppem1_RfrSOpsFaB_yBo764I6JQQb3PQlof-_hvq0KLgBkK8U/s400/91.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In addition to working with Howard Hawks and her other co-stars, Marianna Hill enjoyed making "Red Line 7000" because of her experience working with James Caan, who was at the beginning of his career. Hill recalls how, <i><b>"He was just lovely! He had this incredible energy and look what he became. He shot to the top and became the next big star with 'The Godfather.' His work as Sonny Corleone was marvelous, he stole that movie. He was just extraordinary. He was so great in those scenes where he beat up whats-her-name's husband, and then he got shot and died in a hail of gunfire! What a performance! He's a great actor and a great person. I'm just very proud to have worked with Jimmy Caan."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX3LsJNhQvxZwkdAgZq87DY3yKVVmMW9DbtIHbSrZ4AjiUAlHGysr-os8FHo5wCcaih4Zrl8Qe6EiZ77txclRkZuq5UkoH53eI1Q7w3X8RG4WaKaYlEB4BGju0jqjVkAlRDdTbo0Q4aNg/s1600/108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX3LsJNhQvxZwkdAgZq87DY3yKVVmMW9DbtIHbSrZ4AjiUAlHGysr-os8FHo5wCcaih4Zrl8Qe6EiZ77txclRkZuq5UkoH53eI1Q7w3X8RG4WaKaYlEB4BGju0jqjVkAlRDdTbo0Q4aNg/s400/108.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEFAxRChVpzcFu4mAfIsi6qqHHQ38p2IKorPDtm6NPNOwNtYtrf0C8-YVuh-zykAKAOKmRCTZ6ZFjSJGI9xEAuhDNsnfBzHEl0TVvHyX_jU2UkE3ct50AD1kftXR8UhC8WH-49rBrwKw/s1600/110.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEFAxRChVpzcFu4mAfIsi6qqHHQ38p2IKorPDtm6NPNOwNtYtrf0C8-YVuh-zykAKAOKmRCTZ6ZFjSJGI9xEAuhDNsnfBzHEl0TVvHyX_jU2UkE3ct50AD1kftXR8UhC8WH-49rBrwKw/s400/110.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Despite the good reviews James Caan and Marianna Hill received for "Red Line 7000," the film did not have as big an impact as it should have had on her career because, as a whole, it received poor reviews. Hill candidly, yet respectfully, explains, <i><b>"The problem is that it failed. I went to the screening and, </b></i><i><b>like Humpty Dumpty,</b></i><i><b> they couldn't put it together because it was broken. The main reason is that the chemistry didn't work with most of the actors. Now, Jimmy had been in New York working on stage and television. I'd been appearing on everything, so here you had a couple of people who were like dynamite charged up to work and we were ready to go. </b></i><i><b>However, some of the people Howard discovered were very beautiful people, but they didn't have the experience of being actors before. Some of them had come from the modeling world and were, therefore, untrained and inexperienced</b></i><i><b>, and that's why the chemistry between them didn't work. There's no doubt they could've had great chemistry had they had more training and experience, because they were lovely, good people who worked very hard on that film. Howard was used to trusting people like the fabulous Lauren Bacall. She was a model and her name was Betty Perske from the Bronx, but she was like this fabulous, automatic star. He was very fortunate with that, and he just had an eye for that, and I'm not quite sure why it didn't work as well in this instance. But, the deal is, it was out of my hands. At the end of the day, movies are ultimately out of your hands."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFVKh0hmagFHvHyzPZAXu-jCEsUghWAbbcUMXNaIuQp8g7TnXsAA0sSZ-GouUpHwwFNzw9R9NGIrLvDlLBy5dscwhUxYpY0Lk_QyR0_eq3RgZq0ijVNeCYveEqIRwcSoN7HJZ_CHAtno/s1600/111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFVKh0hmagFHvHyzPZAXu-jCEsUghWAbbcUMXNaIuQp8g7TnXsAA0sSZ-GouUpHwwFNzw9R9NGIrLvDlLBy5dscwhUxYpY0Lk_QyR0_eq3RgZq0ijVNeCYveEqIRwcSoN7HJZ_CHAtno/s400/111.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As a result of the good reviews she received for "Red Line 7000," Hill suddenly found herself fielding offers of long-term contracts with Paramount, the studio that released the film, and with Howard Hawks himself. As Hill recalls, <i><b>"After 'Red Line 7000,' everything went pear-shaped because Howard came to me with a contract. He said, 'Oh, Marianna! I want you to be in my next film, 'El Dorado,' because this chemistry worked out with you and Jimmy Caan and I want to recreate it there. I'd like you to sign a contract with me.' However, I couldn't accept Howard's offer because I was about to sign a contract with Paramount. I was very fortunate to have been offered both contracts, but it was a complicated situation choosing between them. I ultimately accepted Paramount's contract because it had been offered to me first, and they were expecting me to sign it, so I felt it was the honorable thing to do. As a result, Howard went in a different direction with that role. I would have loved to have worked with Howard and Jimmy again, but it wasn't meant to be. I will always be grateful to Howard for hiring me to do 'Red Line 7000.' S</b></i><i><b>omehow I've survived the ups and downs of the business, and things turned out OK in the end, so the gypsy on my grandfather's island who said to my mother, 'Mary, do not worry about your daughter!' </b></i><i><b>was right.</b></i><i><b>" </b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE50w5CqUYRQ6i55lbrRiSIb19ep6NYonFa0TgDfGAa7jNJsbayDm7UdnHHS1j3z8Kr-iiVazwc7R3oUCfgDVgfmAr9yqAob8NelnM7xl-9Kf7zDeSrf8gK4WOqq95I4aYTtKui7hb6Lw/s1600/92.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE50w5CqUYRQ6i55lbrRiSIb19ep6NYonFa0TgDfGAa7jNJsbayDm7UdnHHS1j3z8Kr-iiVazwc7R3oUCfgDVgfmAr9yqAob8NelnM7xl-9Kf7zDeSrf8gK4WOqq95I4aYTtKui7hb6Lw/s400/92.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
After accepting the Paramount contract, Hill found herself cast as the second female lead in the Elvis Presley vehicle, "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" (1966). Often cast as ethnic types, Hill now found herself playing Hawaiian nightclub singer Lani Kaimana, one of several women who Presley's character romances while manipulating them to help his helicopter charter business. Hill relished the opportunity to work more closely with Presley. After briefly working with him on "Roustabout," it was not until she did "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" that she really had an opportunity to get to know him. As she recalls, <i><b>"Paramount put me in an Elvis movie, and that was a wonderful experience. I'm so glad I had the experience of knowing Elvis. What a fabulous talent! He was a force of nature! He just came out of the earth with this voice that was this brilliant culmination of humanity. He was King of the World and yet he was the sweetest person you ever met in your life. He had his friends around him and they would all bring their lunch pails and their briefcases. I'd say, 'I want to know what's in those briefcases!' and they'd say, 'No, you can't look in them!' and I said, 'Oh, yes I will!' So I looked in one of the briefcases and somebody had a bunch of comic books and Coke bottles. It wasn't for Elvis, it was for his friends. They were reading comic books and drinking Coca Cola. Those were his buddies and they loved him and were there to protect him. At the time, I wondered if their presence kept him from the world, so to speak, and in a cocoon. But I now realize that a lot of it had to do with their desire to protect him because he was truly innocent. He was who he was because he was pure and he didn't put on airs to cover up his insecurities. He simply *was,* and that was his great gift."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWua2fHYsmmbxn9F5XT_JU6HO3SFY-huJfCpY39bXq2cz_SyfCDsYrxseswRX-VeCZirVdxOvEE2RnaQPoBTZu3mbA8yJmSesqAOz0G3AAdOoCu5FonuJZMA-dLbS0hDynEQH8zNUrycQ/s1600/96.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWua2fHYsmmbxn9F5XT_JU6HO3SFY-huJfCpY39bXq2cz_SyfCDsYrxseswRX-VeCZirVdxOvEE2RnaQPoBTZu3mbA8yJmSesqAOz0G3AAdOoCu5FonuJZMA-dLbS0hDynEQH8zNUrycQ/s400/96.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWoR0DFBILSSt35EqavTEN700bFevHmOkY2DFzWqT7aPlBpDAYKCRn9mq6L9EyQ7XmuV4Wu6-dI9dB0VIL1Cn58G7DU6FSycxuVlw_wyQ4uJNZgPNGgRAF-kQEdtU4dIJTbsUXK4OrLU/s1600/100.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWoR0DFBILSSt35EqavTEN700bFevHmOkY2DFzWqT7aPlBpDAYKCRn9mq6L9EyQ7XmuV4Wu6-dI9dB0VIL1Cn58G7DU6FSycxuVlw_wyQ4uJNZgPNGgRAF-kQEdtU4dIJTbsUXK4OrLU/s400/100.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In "Paradise, Hawaiian Style," Hill distinguished herself as one of the few actresses--Ann-Margret, Juliet Prowse and Nancy Sinatra being some of the others--who performed a duet with Elvis Presley on-screen. She performed the sensual and playful "Scratch My Back (Then I'll Scratch Yours)" with Presley in a club sequence early in the film. Hill humbly recalls, <b><i>"I'm not the greatest singer or dancer but I rehearsed it over and over again. These wonderful people helped me do it because--this lovely couple who were choreographers--they said, 'Oh, Marianna, we know you don't think you can do it.' I said, 'What am I supposed to do?' And they said, 'We're going to get you through it.' They just worked with me on it and somehow we did it. We rehearsed it all the time, it became tattooed on my soul so that I can do it even now, because I wanted to be good with Elvis."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoLl_sb2BmemzdpBRkfSc6EruGw2pHFyiPuRlLbNdEljb_Bd0otBMkTBEEA6ZiRaq1LyLl9pmPh0mqt13biusrg_3wCt8DiwlvbkB27YTozXqUDKxw00zH-q-x1aaBAwZ26woKWcmuriA/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoLl_sb2BmemzdpBRkfSc6EruGw2pHFyiPuRlLbNdEljb_Bd0otBMkTBEEA6ZiRaq1LyLl9pmPh0mqt13biusrg_3wCt8DiwlvbkB27YTozXqUDKxw00zH-q-x1aaBAwZ26woKWcmuriA/s400/2.JPG" width="312" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUI3uXlNvN9sDMrUE0XdXQvk-9l_NrkKYKMGV2LesoFzVaURXNSn3oQ8JBqzvjWjH9mzwHt7PrZE3f0CnorQFzbcGc8JsW9s1bZiMiDl2aGwCHd861EtmtJ_dJHrWjM8403tkOuqSjZ1g/s1600/98.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUI3uXlNvN9sDMrUE0XdXQvk-9l_NrkKYKMGV2LesoFzVaURXNSn3oQ8JBqzvjWjH9mzwHt7PrZE3f0CnorQFzbcGc8JsW9s1bZiMiDl2aGwCHd861EtmtJ_dJHrWjM8403tkOuqSjZ1g/s400/98.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Because co-star Suzanna Leigh, a blonde actress from England, was dating Elvis Presley during the filming of the movie, she urged Presley to make Marianna Hill, who was blonde at the time, wear a black wig for the film. Leigh describes the incident in her memoir, "Paradise, Suzanna Style." This change in appearance may be one reason why Hill's character was portrayed as Hawaiian in the storyline. When asked, Hill confirms the veracity of Leigh's admission, <i><b>"Yes, that's true. I remember it was such a terrible wig, but let me tell you something: I actually had very light hair at the time, but I look good in black hair and I don't know why. Maybe it has to do with my dad being half Native American. Even though they dressed me like some kind of dog, because it was not a pretty wig, somehow I looked fine! I never saw the movie, but I enjoyed wearing the wig. I always liked wearing subdued, different looks so I don't have to be me. It's much easier to be some other character than to be me. My friend Devon Rachel was this psychic and she read everybody like Aristotle Onassis and she once said to me, 'Oh, Marianna, just be yourself.' I joked, 'I don't know how to be me! I can turn into anything, but don't tell me to be myself! Which one of them?! I've got about four thousand of them living rent free inside my mind!' (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwl5c4eoOhd2Kf_0G8rNiMhWWSSI78KvED20w7sDuDzMRyLV3V_awskIvfuokYe26BQ9bkVEFveq4-P8xfKhIO1oLFb_ISHvhAOyHlIE9yPLFmE-SXSDx_nMJUPpyllJLhiGEt-fWyFIU/s1600/94.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwl5c4eoOhd2Kf_0G8rNiMhWWSSI78KvED20w7sDuDzMRyLV3V_awskIvfuokYe26BQ9bkVEFveq4-P8xfKhIO1oLFb_ISHvhAOyHlIE9yPLFmE-SXSDx_nMJUPpyllJLhiGEt-fWyFIU/s400/94.jpg" width="331" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Suzanna Leigh made Hill wear a black wig in "Paradise, Hawaiian Style," she still enjoyed working with Leigh and the other female co-stars in the film, including Julie Parrish and Irene Tsu, <i><b>"I love Irene Tsu. She's the most wonderful girl and we were friends for many years. She's fantastic! I think about her a lot because a lot of the people from that film are gone. Irene was such a fabulous goddess and such a wonderful gal! Julie Parrish, who was also a wonderful girl, passed away and went off to Heaven. She's up there with God and the Angels now. I really dug Julie Parrish, and I also liked Suzanna Leigh. I ran into her in London. She said, 'Oh, Marianna! I've felt such guilt for what I did to you.' I said, 'What for? What did you do to me? You're great!' And she said, 'I made you wear that wig!' So I reassured her, 'I looked fantastic when I wore that wig! What a big problem to have! I didn't have an issue with the wig! Put anything on my head, I don't care! I did a movie once called 'The Traveling Executioner' where I was bald and that was fantastic, so who cares about the wig?' (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mOmHDRX_J5zrMQg8m4aRVgLZSBrcd1DzSMN8L3C3AnGVsNLkqd6-zO5kdK8axzyW7zivSfBtCfIgOULVhWL2OtdxUyVZiHFZTdv1SqTrXSU525sSb9tGzb-7P-7-_Ui-fmqclI2Fomg/s1600/104.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mOmHDRX_J5zrMQg8m4aRVgLZSBrcd1DzSMN8L3C3AnGVsNLkqd6-zO5kdK8axzyW7zivSfBtCfIgOULVhWL2OtdxUyVZiHFZTdv1SqTrXSU525sSb9tGzb-7P-7-_Ui-fmqclI2Fomg/s400/104.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Paradise, Hawaiian Style," Marianna Hill's contract with Paramount came to an unexpected and abrupt end during the transition that took place when the studio was sold to the American conglomerate Gulf+Western, run by industrialist Charlie Bluhdorn. As she recalls, <i><b>"The Paramount contract ended because of a change in management. That's what happened and I can't get involved in the politics of it all. That's just fate. You just have to keep going and get other work if you can."</b></i> Despite the end of her contract, Hill forged ahead and continued to have a long association with the studio, appearing in many of their TV shows and feature films through the years. Notable among the many TV guest roles after her Paramount contract ended was her appearance as Starfleet psychiatrist Dr. Helen Noel in the "Dagger of the Mind" episode of "Star Trek," which aired on NBC on November 3, 1966. The ninth episode of the first season of the iconic science fiction series, "Dagger of the Mind" concerned the Enterprise's inquiry into a planet housing a rehabilitation facility for the criminally insane. Hill's character, Dr. Helen Noel, assists Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in investigating the facility's questionable rehabilitation methods. Perhaps the most famous of Hill's television guest roles, she has vivid and positive memories of the experience and of her association with the "Star Trek" franchise, <i><b>"Nobody had any idea about 'Star Trek' and how it would become so successful. I remember Walter called me and said [Austrian accent] 'Oh, Marianna, I've got you this new show, 'Star Trek.' I don't know anything about it, I don't know what it's about, I don't know if it's any good.' So, of course, I went over there and did 'Star Trek' and we *know* what 'Star Trek' is! I've got these cards, they have pictures of me all over it, I threw some of them at the audience at the 'Chief Zabu' screening last night and they really were happy to get them, those kind of little laminated cards. 'Star Trek' is bigger than all of us! There are people that truly believe in Kirk and the Klingons and the Federation and the Prime Directive, whatever it is that they teach or talk about on the show. I just remember that it was the funniest show, the greatest experience working with those guys. I loved it!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZNUZ_leGBetYJDWLS_zIzZcQf482cWxsgbTqsznesH2b-usWya-WTJ2FWn1b3vVFGXJnM7Uzxd5LKt4mRCo5JpT2EH91T3QDKFUoPUaRLxrGbPLpCqq0PxI0tb47g1S_jvWKbtMstNk/s1600/107.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZNUZ_leGBetYJDWLS_zIzZcQf482cWxsgbTqsznesH2b-usWya-WTJ2FWn1b3vVFGXJnM7Uzxd5LKt4mRCo5JpT2EH91T3QDKFUoPUaRLxrGbPLpCqq0PxI0tb47g1S_jvWKbtMstNk/s400/107.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As a result of her appearance in this episode, Hill made a rare public appearance at a 2012 "Star Trek" convention in London. Despite not being used to the atmosphere of the convention circuit, Hill enjoyed herself, <i><b>"The 'Star Trek' people have invited me to some conventions which are so much fun because the Trekkies show up in these wonderful costumes! And people are so positive about it all. It's given them some sort of belief in something with regards to the future! At first I didn't understand it, and then I went and thought, 'Oh, my God! Look at this! It's a phenomenon!' And it's created a belief system that's so supportive and so positive and that's why it's gone on and on!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgoNDI4VDYFFXibv7dOUpuxG9xcBNulwUlxDzO662C7rzqV1DuhwjaJL_MPCYzlFKMy5G4wKkLK9ab1yJwwJXLWD2JZJufE0Ls-P8Lphx90U5echSlS14dCKKKK2970B_2eCVdGEU4WU/s1600/105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgoNDI4VDYFFXibv7dOUpuxG9xcBNulwUlxDzO662C7rzqV1DuhwjaJL_MPCYzlFKMy5G4wKkLK9ab1yJwwJXLWD2JZJufE0Ls-P8Lphx90U5echSlS14dCKKKK2970B_2eCVdGEU4WU/s400/105.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Marianna Hill memories of working on 'Star Trek' remain vivid, as she enthusiastically recalls her memories of working with Leonard Nimoy, <i><b>"He was the sweetest person in the whole world. The most sensitive, caring, deep kind of a guy. He was just adorable. I had worked with Leonard before on 'The Tall Man,' where he played the Sheriff, and on 'The Outer Limits,' where he played a reporter. I remember, when we worked together before 'Star Trek,' he was uncertain about his career and he confided in me about it. He knew he had something special to offer as an actor and, up to that point, he hadn't been given that opportunity to demonstrate those qualities that every performer hopes for. He was simply concerned, as all talented actors do, that he hadn't landed that right part. He wasn't going to find it on 'The Tall Man,' where he wasn't given much to do except to arrest Billy the Kid, or even 'The Outer Limits.' That opportunity finally came when he donned those pointed ears on 'Star Trek' and all of that beautiful sensitivity, idealism and depth was finally put to use. Usually, when people stick it out, they eventually land that opportunity and that's what happened when he found Spock. It gave him that wonderful freedom to be the glorious person that he was."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4M1cb4MMWIAfK1JzrbRvdRGMWPINw7EeVdHPKvsX1XCf_cclPhwi59QnPV3lgFupKgtyc3XGEe6yhU9F9WFcZUyFCtOE1vA8KcXveO3546tsw30oetoXe_S6bJRUIF4PAFga1Svvus0/s1600/106.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4M1cb4MMWIAfK1JzrbRvdRGMWPINw7EeVdHPKvsX1XCf_cclPhwi59QnPV3lgFupKgtyc3XGEe6yhU9F9WFcZUyFCtOE1vA8KcXveO3546tsw30oetoXe_S6bJRUIF4PAFga1Svvus0/s400/106.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Hill's enthusiasm for 'Star Trek' continues as she goes on to praise William Shatner,<b style="font-style: italic;"> "William Shatner's fantastic! Nobody understand's Shatner--some people, maybe, although I don't know if I have the brains to understand him--but he has this incredible drive which I recognized. I thought, 'I know what he's doing. He just wants to be the *best* that he can be.' He had this *incredible* energy and the two of them, Nimoy and Shatner, worked so well together because they pulled down stuff from each other's energy. Leonard has this kind of saturnine sort of depth, and Shatner was just this *alive* guy who wanted to do the best! We'd be on the set and he'd say, 'Let's do it this way, let's try it that way!' That's how I like to work, and I'd say, 'OK, let's do it!' and we were just like very excited children! We would say to each other 'I want to play it this way' or 'Do you like how I do it that way?' We would do all of these different set-ups because, with Shatner, he allowed us to do that. He was great and he fought for his character and people didn't understand that. They thought he was temperamental. He was *not* temperamental. He was a very caring and highly motivated professional. He came from the theater and he had that work ethic, just like Barry Sullivan. He just cared about the work and wanted to do the very best that he possibly could have done. A lot of people didn't understand that about him. They thought...I don't know what they thought! I have read things about him which are totally not true. He was just the most dedicated, caring actor, as much as Marlon Brando or any other major star. Shatner was so cute at the 'Star Trek' convention I did in London, and he really loves the fans. He shows up and he really gives them his all! I remember when he came back into the green room, he was breathless because he had given so much of his energy out to them! He loves them and they love him! This phenomenon would have never happened without him. He *is* Captain Kirk, you just remember that, and he deserves our respect."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM2T6RBMkUIvBH5H9s4XlAXwiVEP8LLA2hyphenhyphenKfqBGLzjwPAlqQx0pZaQYThFYz3OLY-og1I4k2fndmxoNjCbg38SqVQ327bVyQDOj0NDKEdCtL3bVKra66oUCfGoBU_UXB0Cow4eZvnQ3k/s1600/20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM2T6RBMkUIvBH5H9s4XlAXwiVEP8LLA2hyphenhyphenKfqBGLzjwPAlqQx0pZaQYThFYz3OLY-og1I4k2fndmxoNjCbg38SqVQ327bVyQDOj0NDKEdCtL3bVKra66oUCfGoBU_UXB0Cow4eZvnQ3k/s400/20.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill also appeared in another iconic 1960s adventure series, "Batman," in the episodes "The Spell of Tut" and "Tut's Case is Shut" which aired on ABC on September 28 and 29, 1966 on ABC. She played Cleo Patrick, the female associate of King Tut (Victor Buono), who is disguised as Commissioner Gordon's fill-in secretary at Gotham City Hall in order to spy on Batman and Robin on King Tut's behalf. As with "Star Trek," Hill has warm and positive memories of appearing on "Batman," <i><b>"</b></i><i><b>Oh, we had so much fun doing 'Batman.' </b></i><i><b> I played Cleopatra to Victor Buono's King Pharoah, and we were up to no good and burned down the city. He was a great actor, Victor Buono. I also remember how Adam West was just the sweetest person. He had great energy and he reminded me of Shatner a lot. He really loved the character and he came in enthused and he was full of this commitment and the energy he had was just glorious, and that's why the 'Batman' show is still running."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvSvGJbORj07bf0RqyKiW6ZwJs3cdRTrcHM45dKJeEzIWzGyy6pwYf_xsAL92wGVYepqalTRqoOsBPnnbtfRqeEqhLKWC9Sk8Kp7Ee-WVQIPcyH6OpVi_j0B9iRs_GmW_uJ1N1kKmtKw/s1600/88.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvSvGJbORj07bf0RqyKiW6ZwJs3cdRTrcHM45dKJeEzIWzGyy6pwYf_xsAL92wGVYepqalTRqoOsBPnnbtfRqeEqhLKWC9Sk8Kp7Ee-WVQIPcyH6OpVi_j0B9iRs_GmW_uJ1N1kKmtKw/s400/88.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill also appeared as another moll, this time named Belladonna, opposite Michael Dunn's Miguelito Loveless, in the "Night of the Bogus Bandits" episode of the CBS espionage Western series, "The Wild Wild West," which aired April 7, 1967. Hill warmly remembers how series star Robert Conrad was, <i><b>"So adorable! Poor man, I've heard he's not feeling well. Am I wrong? I hope I'm wrong and that he's doing very well because I remember he was just so adorable and fun. All of these people at that time were so innocent. It's not like now, I don't know what's wrong with people now, but they seem to be cynical or something. Not everybody, of course, but you know in those times everybody was so *happy* to be in these shows and so happy to be working. We were just jumping with enthusiasm of getting to work, and Robert Conrad was one of those people who made the work fun. I also loved working with Michael Dunn on that show. He's another one who has gone to heaven. He was just lovely and I felt my heart went out to him because he was this forceful man and I felt his consciousness was affected by his size. He was four foot one, but he was so talented and I remember what a sweet-natured person he was."</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4Wh9DrrAtF2_afvgbwpmqkLEkTZl8Yma3oXvitW0oJM3PUcwbA95mXzKcA0AE_qJ5esL-T9JS_006i2nPpkWHmTLAwRK7v54Bx89x5NqqlzZLZq4NtT1mpRSJCNv3uT_FviZmx3PDxU/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4Wh9DrrAtF2_afvgbwpmqkLEkTZl8Yma3oXvitW0oJM3PUcwbA95mXzKcA0AE_qJ5esL-T9JS_006i2nPpkWHmTLAwRK7v54Bx89x5NqqlzZLZq4NtT1mpRSJCNv3uT_FviZmx3PDxU/s400/6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During this time in the 1960s, Marianna Hill started studying with Lee Strasberg and eventually became a member of the esteemed Actors Studio. Hill credits Strasberg and the Actors Studio with helping her further develop the knowledge and skills that have served her well in her career. As she recalls, <i><b>"I can't remember when exactly I started studying with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. It was such a long time ago. I always wanted to study with him and then he came to California and he gave these classes. I went to these classes and I eventually auditioned to become a member of the Actors Studio. I did this scene from Arthur Miller's 'After the Fall,' that play about Marilyn Monroe and her marriage to Miller, with my friend David Groh. He was my dear friend and he's passed away--may God heal his soul, wherever he is--and he and I eventually did a lot of work together at the Actors Studio. We just did one try out and we got into the Actors Studio, and there are a lot of people who do ten tryouts and never got in. If I didn't get in the first time, I don't think I would've ever tried out again because it would've been too humiliating for me. (laugh) I was very grateful that--knowing that so many famous people have to audition many times to get in--we were able to be accepted as a member after only one try."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnitg_uLLOr3AxMlR7mFPXtD7ZOZ2wHkPVkgADZPvvmBfRWAHFPTYPGxd4wf5UYqUQUh4FhanYagARVRy7OgX-Wu9_FrzOddv_dnWWMTXa4EEL-1Mo8Zl6mfq-1ZEqcrFqRk5myE2gYWs/s1600/170.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnitg_uLLOr3AxMlR7mFPXtD7ZOZ2wHkPVkgADZPvvmBfRWAHFPTYPGxd4wf5UYqUQUh4FhanYagARVRy7OgX-Wu9_FrzOddv_dnWWMTXa4EEL-1Mo8Zl6mfq-1ZEqcrFqRk5myE2gYWs/s400/170.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill is quick to stress the practical and common-sense approach to acting that Lee Strasberg imparted to his students at the Actors Studio, <i><b>"Since you ask me about Lee, I'm happy to share what I know. Sometimes, his name comes up in the course of teaching because he was the preeminent master at what he taught, but at the same time you don't want to go around dropping his name like you're his closest buddy. He had a lot of pupils and we all loved and adored him. I didn't have any more special a relationship with him than anybody else, except for Al Pacino, because Al was like a son to him. Lee was very practical about what he taught us. He would yell at us sometimes and he would correct your habits. He had a fierce way of doing it and most of us could take it. I could take it because I'd think, 'This is a great teacher! Just grow up!' When he told you that he didn't want you to do this again, what he was saying was 'Don't do any light-weight work! Get into the backstory of a character, work to understand your character, work moment to moment.' I also remember he would say, 'Now, listen, I don't ever want to hear that you went on a set saying things to directors like 'What's my motivation?' because they're busy with the budget and the other actors and they're having to prepare the set-up and the lighting and the producers are mad at them because they didn't do the scene the way they wanted them to do it. 90% of the work of the actor is done at home! You have to work out beforehand 'Why would my character behave like this?' You have to find some motivation to play this character beforehand, that way you can come in and do your work without unnecessarily burdening the director because you've got some preparation.'"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtrFYKf1qRK0i0H3dIQs0wvBGOdI2O5gZBnZSzXG9pbpgNlSnzYHq9yWTl7qX08gbcGfXSsZ4J_ZqRfZ4bIOHcwp2chvaJAYbtFBWcmtoX0fu7QzFaORBCpuaO0_izH9SqtshvuArkG9U/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtrFYKf1qRK0i0H3dIQs0wvBGOdI2O5gZBnZSzXG9pbpgNlSnzYHq9yWTl7qX08gbcGfXSsZ4J_ZqRfZ4bIOHcwp2chvaJAYbtFBWcmtoX0fu7QzFaORBCpuaO0_izH9SqtshvuArkG9U/s400/32.jpg" width="256" /></a></b></i></div>
<br />
After focusing on television for several years, Marianna Hill returned to the big screen with a co-starring role in Haskell Wexler's "Medium Cool" (1969), a semi-documentary political drama dramatizing the life of television news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster) as he covers the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Shot on location during the actual convention in the summer of 1968, "Medium Cool" has risen to prominence in recent years as one of the most important and accomplished American films of its time. Hill played Ruth, Forster's nurse girlfriend, who confronts him about his indifference towards the subjects he covers, as well as the people in his life, in a memorable scene in his loft apartment where he playfully chases her around while both are nude. The full frontal nudity of both Hill and Forster in this sequence earned the film a then-controversial X-rating with the MPAA. Hill's enthusiasm for "Medium Cool" remains undiminished as she recalls her experience working with director Haskell Wexler, <i><b>"'Medium Cool' was produced by Paramount, and I remember going out there to meet with Haskell Wexler, who was a completely marvelous man. He should be canonized as a Saint. He had seen me in something and he said, 'Oh Marianna, I want you to read for this part' and I said, 'OK, what do you want?' I can't remember all the details, but I got the part. I got along so well with him because, like me, he was another Aquarian, and Aquarians are all idealistic and we really don't care about material stuff. We just want to do good work and he was a far more a dedicated idealist than me and so he just said, 'You're OK. You can do this.' So off we went to Chicago and what a film that turned out to be! Except for 'Chief Zabu,' that's the best experience I had on a film because of working with Haskell. He was a genius and he came from a very wealthy Chicago family and he was a total idealist. He was always on the side of the downtrodden and the underdog and, because of that, he wanted to do this documentary about the Chicago conventions."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWYSkrZcxcYNXfUT0hd0tzwBBCy2JiYkfeHAZuFJRYiEGMZXnrmwtlsiBGHHWquGzLnc9ktExPtB4UsI9ltHg7LBWUMV-X7bpiasrsV048qzv7alFYUaqIEnFLzgh0rZWbaYp0qLlNEM/s1600/39.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWYSkrZcxcYNXfUT0hd0tzwBBCy2JiYkfeHAZuFJRYiEGMZXnrmwtlsiBGHHWquGzLnc9ktExPtB4UsI9ltHg7LBWUMV-X7bpiasrsV048qzv7alFYUaqIEnFLzgh0rZWbaYp0qLlNEM/s400/39.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill vividly recalls how she and co-star Verna Bloom were inadvertently caught up in the violence and mayhem surrounding the real-life Democratic National Convention while casually taking a walk in a nearby park during a break in filming, <i><b>"'Medium Cool' was a very tough shoot because we were running around being firebombed and gassed all over Chicago. This was during the Democratic Convention, everybody was rioting and there were terrible, horrible rumors about these terrifying things happening in the areas surrounding Chicago. The cops were frightened because</b></i><i><b> they were being given a lot of weird misinformation about things going on in the background</b></i><i><b>. So Verna Bloom and I were walking in the park and both of us had these shapely figures. We couldn't help it if we were born that way. Anyway, this policeman came running after us. He said, 'OK, you two, you're going off to the police station!' And we thought, 'What? Are you talking to us?' And he said, 'Yeah, you're going to have to come with us...We're going to have to jail you girls.' And we asked, 'What for? Because we were walking in the park? What are you thinking?' He said, 'Well, we know that you're...' I don't know what he thought! I think he thought we were call girls, I swear to God, because we had these shapely figures. And then Verna--who is a very intellectual girl, she's far more intelligent than me--started trying to speak some reason into this man, but he wasn't exactly the brightest penny or the sharpest knife, right? She was so idealistic that she thought she could have a proper conversation and reason with him. So she started saying, 'Gee, officer, I'm just here doing a film,' and he put his handcuff on her. The other part of the cuff was hanging loose from Verna's wrist and I thought, 'I'm not going there!...You're not going to put me in the slammer!' So being an instinctual type of person, I just took a run for it! As I was running, all of these Chicago people were saying 'Go, baby, go!' because they thought I was a bad girl or a revolutionary since the dress I was wearing was one of those types of dresses people wore then. It had different colors and all kinds of patterns, and it probably looked like a provocative dress. It was just that kind of look that people had then. So I went for a run and then everybody was mad at me when I got back to the hotel about 2 hours later after running around Chicago thinking, 'Oh, no! I hope nobody's after me!' I show up at the Sherman House and I got all these calls and Haskell said, 'Where have you been? Marianna, have you abandoned Verna?' and I said, 'She should have run! Did you really want me to go to jail, Haskell?! I am not going in there! Where's Verna now?' and Haskell said, 'We've got to go bail her out!' and I said, 'She did nothing! All we did was take a stroll!' So it was a big scandal and then Studs Terkel, who was consulting and advising Haskell during the making of the movie, wrote a whole story about what happened to me and Verna like we were some sort of 'Gretel in the Park!' Studs Terkel was so alarmed by that incident because he was an idealist, and he wrote a wonderful story about two girls walking in the park and getting arrested for just being girls. It was a cause celebre and was in the headlines in the Chicago Sun </b></i><i><b>for about two weeks</b></i><i><b>."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwjMPNs7h-Z6CYVQrILgiKtpciFaX82vYqv-D9OtM0ed2nqHh-lUEv47K40tkW3Mv9-j8A2SGmHGlARFtxQWMBmL9u1BCu-UpU20tnJzm0vQ86dE_d0oCnymdf71bA27kf3Qt_VIBQkio/s1600/36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwjMPNs7h-Z6CYVQrILgiKtpciFaX82vYqv-D9OtM0ed2nqHh-lUEv47K40tkW3Mv9-j8A2SGmHGlARFtxQWMBmL9u1BCu-UpU20tnJzm0vQ86dE_d0oCnymdf71bA27kf3Qt_VIBQkio/s400/36.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill also enjoyed working with leading man Robert Forster on "Medium Cool," and vividly recalls how Forster <i><b>"was different politically from Haskell. Haskell wanted everybody to be liberal-minded, and he thought Robert Forster was the same. (laugh) They would have these discussions and Robert Forster was conservative. He was from a little town in upstate New York--Rochester!--and Haskell would think, 'How can you not care about that?!' They enjoyed having these discussions about politics. They never fought, they were very civil, but it was very interesting listening to them because they had different points of view about whatever was going on. And whatever was going on wasn't going on because it was all smoke and mirrors and rumors and extreme attitudes. It was just the era or something, I don't know, but there was just a certain something going on that was extreme and everybody was kind of excited. The conservatives and the liberals were excited about what they were working for and everybody meant well. Robert meant well. Haskell meant well. It was just great to be around them because I thought, 'Yes, I could see that conservative point of view,' and 'Yes, I can also see the liberal viewpoint as well,' because I'm apolitical. I don't understand any of that stuff. The best friend I ever had was this film producer. I was whining to him one day 'I don't want this guy to be President!' I was probably talking about Herbert Hoover (laugh), and my best friend said, 'Look, it doesn't matter who's President! </b></i><i><b>They're working to do this and that and there are whole things going on with the Senate and House and Congress doing this and that. The President is a figurehead! He's symbolic!' </b></i><i><b>After he said that, I had a different perspective on the Presidency. My best friend was the smartest person I've known in my whole life and what he said really resonated with me."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggixN76eq4gVCyDogplYXeaUSPVpvSKyXlVJowhsk_qyaoysWMHKziPAvAfjF9E7WCPgCEwNj80tfe4QiK4qh0cqMi1YFiH9Ik1XGMAV1921AiVQhTorgyf1gRLSiIiH8iKI-GD_oK0fU/s1600/34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggixN76eq4gVCyDogplYXeaUSPVpvSKyXlVJowhsk_qyaoysWMHKziPAvAfjF9E7WCPgCEwNj80tfe4QiK4qh0cqMi1YFiH9Ik1XGMAV1921AiVQhTorgyf1gRLSiIiH8iKI-GD_oK0fU/s400/34.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAwGc5J1oYmZtIYYscF8M1qUw2fPihWuJ3PnxPphaJX0UC4xQPXCBz7b-LdH64AUY8ASv8hFWOJ-0TIha5LkoOC_gyuoHjgyQ3kBdu2ATEWQ_IaETdwGrTGXpk1eDRqfcleLllUthoXI/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAwGc5J1oYmZtIYYscF8M1qUw2fPihWuJ3PnxPphaJX0UC4xQPXCBz7b-LdH64AUY8ASv8hFWOJ-0TIha5LkoOC_gyuoHjgyQ3kBdu2ATEWQ_IaETdwGrTGXpk1eDRqfcleLllUthoXI/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the most famous scenes in "Medium Cool" had Robert Forster chasing Marianna Hill around his loft apartment while both are nude. Shot with a hand-held camera, the scene avoids any shameless exploitation so that it stands out more as an intimate moment with two adults than as a raunchy or tasteless scene. Hill bravely did full-frontal nudity in the sequence and recalls the circumstances with which the scene came about, <i><b>"Well, here's the deal: It wasn't planned. But Haskell was such a lovely man and I knew he couldn't cause me any harm. I would never have done that for anybody else, but he was so interested in getting to the truth of a matter, and it was really his story. It was the story of him. He said, 'Marianna, I'm going to pull this sheet off you' and I said, 'For you, I'll do this. But that's it. Nobody else.' And I did a film later called 'El Condor' where they had this body double for me, running around supposedly starkers, and that wasn't me even though many people assumed it was me. But with 'Medium Cool,' when they pulled the sheet off or something, I didn't care because I was doing it for a cause. Like, 'Let's see the truth of this man's life. And let's see how this gal fits into his life, etc, etc.' so it was OK. It never bothered me to do the nudity in 'Medium Cool' but I would never do it before or after for anybody else."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwEsLWqCbnuLtDRGWXNfRr3sRtDXanJPr0MQ5TWaNVz_orwKdu2eLCCPqFIucivkkV2WbcDJrvtdOiQnySdWw5flbJUvin2pkAiv-G61qcP5KO938dNOYkkt0HugQ4ZTECh3SvdmbR438/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwEsLWqCbnuLtDRGWXNfRr3sRtDXanJPr0MQ5TWaNVz_orwKdu2eLCCPqFIucivkkV2WbcDJrvtdOiQnySdWw5flbJUvin2pkAiv-G61qcP5KO938dNOYkkt0HugQ4ZTECh3SvdmbR438/s400/1.JPG" width="326" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
When released in 1969, "Medium Cool" was not a hit with audiences. It would take decades before the film was finally recognized as a genuine cinematic masterpiece. Hill opines that, <i><b>"'Medium Cool' was, how do you say it?, subversive. A lot of people were afraid of it. They wouldn't go near it because it was really telling, 'This is how it is. The police are rioting, Mayor Daley unleashed the National Guards, and so on.' I saw the circumstances of what led to all of that happening because I was there, and I could see there was such civil unrest between everybody: protesters, conservatives, liberals, hippies. There was such a clash of ideals and cultures and perspectives and points of view that it resulted in all of that violence. The thing of it is, though, it was such a scandal with people getting gassed and all of this rumor and all of this controversy that nobody wanted to go near that film for a long time. So it was an underground favorite. It's now become a cult favorite and, of course, I knew it would be when I did it. I thought, 'This is going to be a legendary movie because this was telling the truth! This is going to show you what was happening during that Democratic National Convention of 1968 in Chicago!' It didn't really help my career at the time because it was considered a subversive movie. It was about issues that you wouldn't want to know about. Like who really wants to know stuff like that? We want to believe that everything's going to be OK, don't we?"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kEEDI0pdP2av1H8YqvDOEzU1CuEQrcc663U8jLQBKo8bA-IKvv2Ct8WXqdtIukJCDCzlTB_-z_4zbEWWwLUOlze_T3zidEDKDtc4Jp7m_sOfLwFpztOCpgJGSEC0g4L26fUzMdpjazE/s1600/27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kEEDI0pdP2av1H8YqvDOEzU1CuEQrcc663U8jLQBKo8bA-IKvv2Ct8WXqdtIukJCDCzlTB_-z_4zbEWWwLUOlze_T3zidEDKDtc4Jp7m_sOfLwFpztOCpgJGSEC0g4L26fUzMdpjazE/s400/27.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Medium Cool," Hill was next cast as the female lead in the big-budget Western "El Condor," (1970) starring Lee Van Cleef, Jim Brown, Patrick O'Neal and directed by John Guillerman. Hill played the sultry mistress of the officer in charge of El Condor, a Mexican fortress that Van Cleef and Brown's characters are planning to raid in order to steal its treasures. Even though the film was relatively successful, and remains a favorite of Western fans, Hill has mixed feelings about the experience. She recalls that she became involved with the film when, <i><b>"My agent Walter said, 'Oh, Marianna, they'll fly you over there to Spain!' I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'They cast a girl and she didn't work out.' Prior to 'El Condor,' there had been a film made over there with a similar cast. It was with Jim Brown and they had a different leading lady and there were *terrible* rumors coming out of Spain about that production. This was like a follow-up to the prior movie which was called 'Rifles' or '100 Rifles' and there was just cruel stuff coming out of Spain. So what happened is that the girl that had the lead in the new movie, the next leading lady, got in a *big* row with everybody. It was one of those knock-down things and she walked off the set. Anyway, Walter said, 'Oh, Marianna, you've got to go to Spain!' and I went, 'Well, no, I heard some bad stuff about that film, Walter, like people getting beat up and drunk. Are you sure about this?' So, despite my misgivings, I accepted the role and showed up in Spain. I was like a babe in the woods, with all of this stuff going on because of prior histories between the individuals due to their personality issues."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGvFHwGpbAbtFycjSt4XjRqxRhNEcC-FZUOobpC6O2DrLn8yuYZhyphenhyphenno4iZyoKNCi6ZCjfQJmPuwy4OZH2JqdcKNVA79RXnKrg_UJcWmE-OyYoJ4fy62PS5nvrebbwT9alujZnsXGbTxU/s1600/26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGvFHwGpbAbtFycjSt4XjRqxRhNEcC-FZUOobpC6O2DrLn8yuYZhyphenhyphenno4iZyoKNCi6ZCjfQJmPuwy4OZH2JqdcKNVA79RXnKrg_UJcWmE-OyYoJ4fy62PS5nvrebbwT9alujZnsXGbTxU/s400/26.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When asked to describe her experience of working with Lee Van Cleef, Jim Brown and director John Guillerman, Hill candidly opines, <b style="font-style: italic;">"They were highly disparate individuals. It was like oil and water. They were just very, very, very different kind of characters. I don't want to get into it because I cannot say stuff about people who are dead, but it was very chaotic because of everything that was going on. John Huston was working there on another picture right next door, and I think it was the times down there in Spain because there was a lot of--not on our picture--but there were fistfights going on with his picture. There was violence going on around us outside of our production and it was kind of like the same, sad people on our picture thought, 'Oh, what's going to happen to us here?' I don't want to say anything bad about Lee Van Cleef and any of those other people because they were just working to the best of their abilities, like we all were. There was just something strange in the atmosphere." </b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VTv1dI-9uvEOjz4ap5E9hfKe8avtKAaNai62rOLix6xO7ip0y0DsFNkbUTok0QtoSS9eIpOXJJm-ha8gGGL8EJBy9fgiJK3aiKDhw9Q70wQyG8UIH5ZpC4sx9YTzrPbNS3xdyo_g2x0/s1600/61.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VTv1dI-9uvEOjz4ap5E9hfKe8avtKAaNai62rOLix6xO7ip0y0DsFNkbUTok0QtoSS9eIpOXJJm-ha8gGGL8EJBy9fgiJK3aiKDhw9Q70wQyG8UIH5ZpC4sx9YTzrPbNS3xdyo_g2x0/s400/61.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7dP2svR8U_U5yqcK2ngLdFMZyCjai90WQYZ9-z0bA8i4i-CgzIAzhLk1R-3IWgQigbMzqN8FmXHUsiJHv_NwcFpKangEGlNtdPq1Sql80SmVKbsgquQm80xAwHNXyMY8DladJr9i_pGY/s1600/71.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7dP2svR8U_U5yqcK2ngLdFMZyCjai90WQYZ9-z0bA8i4i-CgzIAzhLk1R-3IWgQigbMzqN8FmXHUsiJHv_NwcFpKangEGlNtdPq1Sql80SmVKbsgquQm80xAwHNXyMY8DladJr9i_pGY/s400/71.JPG" width="352" /></a></div>
<br />
As Hill reflects further on the experience, she pauses, then continues, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">You know what? I'd really like to not talk anymore about 'El Condor.' I'm really sorry I don't want to be evasive, but the whole experience was so strange. All I can say is John Guillerman is dead, Lee Van Cleef is dead, who else?...so is Patrick O'Neal. These people are all gone and they were each completely different. They were so diverse in their characters and personalities that there's no way I can put words to the experience. They were all talented people, but when I left I thought 'I'm glad this one's done and I am out of here!' because there was something in the atmosphere down there. I just don't have the intelligence to put into words about that experience in Spain, not that it was terrible, but it was chaotic. I was confused all of the time, as everybody was. And I don't drink, I never touch the stuff, but there was a lot of drinking going on down there and so that affected the Karma on the set. I just couldn't figure out what was going on. I'd show up and ask, 'What's going on today? I don't know what's happening with the script, I don't know what to do with this character,' because it was changed constantly! So what can I say? That's all I can tell you."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgooFGr6C4F7Hqk_xY3-D5YB2ikPsxd9fthr7f_q15IO6_fc3vDzp15ceZNKeSnTSU-YxqKujMFCjvI5CvN5n1xfMNw7Y5ipaeK3cPY5YemaCHsILXchVugxJoXIs1WZcOL0zKX2_-qymI/s1600/28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgooFGr6C4F7Hqk_xY3-D5YB2ikPsxd9fthr7f_q15IO6_fc3vDzp15ceZNKeSnTSU-YxqKujMFCjvI5CvN5n1xfMNw7Y5ipaeK3cPY5YemaCHsILXchVugxJoXIs1WZcOL0zKX2_-qymI/s400/28.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill next appeared in the dark comedy "The Traveling Executioner" (1970) starring Stacy Keach and directed by Jack Smight. Set in 1918, Keach starred as a former carnival showman who travels throughout the South with his portable electric chair, going from prison to prison, charging one hundred dollars an execution. Hill played a seductive woman on death row who is able to convince Keach's character to spare her. As with "El Condor," Hill's casting on "The Traveling Executioner" turned out to be a rather complicated affair as she replaced another actress intended for the role. She recalls how, <i><b>"I landed that part because I was supposed to do another movie with somebody else, and then I met director Jack Smight because the girl who was originally supposed to be the lead dropped out. I don't know why she dropped out, but that's how a lot of people get parts. So, anyway, I got into that film because there was suddenly an opening, so to speak."</b></i> Hill has high praise for Stacy Keach and readily recalls how, <i><b>"He was wonderful, creative, caring, enthusiastic. He's another one like Shatner, or like even the guy on 'Batman,' Adam West, who was a very underrated actor. They *really* are enthusiastic, they just come on and go for broke! Just the chance to work with people like Stacy, Shatner, and Adam West is a miracle, because they infuse the whole company with their dynamic energy and movement. I loved working with Stacy Keach and I had a wonderful time making that film."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTKyVKwzGanMoLiEBc49wuBJI2OekVD290Et1uu6ltJCTuBtTbwSBIKjwCiEFsHUZUv6flSBvzumD5zQy2EUkPP24h8ZbVaeBjSLKmfhl0JbLgm6xaaD99ez07HmC0fXDVPSczits6Ag/s1600/29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTKyVKwzGanMoLiEBc49wuBJI2OekVD290Et1uu6ltJCTuBtTbwSBIKjwCiEFsHUZUv6flSBvzumD5zQy2EUkPP24h8ZbVaeBjSLKmfhl0JbLgm6xaaD99ez07HmC0fXDVPSczits6Ag/s400/29.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39q2a_58O32kZk8BWfIsRpr9ylvdu6mdquctPAhH_fbBw6KjDgwqTd-7rFe3B0QJ9sdG8pMz0Q242m0a5wH60Q4IERATGnxa6jKyOp8o4CVV0hHt8Uox9bwEJ6j1nscXjw96dP0AJhnE/s1600/31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39q2a_58O32kZk8BWfIsRpr9ylvdu6mdquctPAhH_fbBw6KjDgwqTd-7rFe3B0QJ9sdG8pMz0Q242m0a5wH60Q4IERATGnxa6jKyOp8o4CVV0hHt8Uox9bwEJ6j1nscXjw96dP0AJhnE/s400/31.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Despite Hill's positive experience making "The Traveling Executioner," the film was ultimately a failure both critically and financially at the time. Keach and Hill received good reviews, but the film somehow missed the mark despite the quirky premise and a changing film-going audience that should have been receptive to its off-beat virtues. Hill opines that the reason, <i><b>"why that film didn't work is because there was a change of administration at MGM. The original administration was run by Herbert Solow. He and Jack Smight, who directed the film, were just lovely, dear, gentle, kind people. Solow was very supportive of the picture, but then the administration changed and they gave the head of the picture department to someone else, and he didn't like it. He didn't understand it, and he cut the movie in half and stuck it back together like Humpty Dumpty and the edges were jagged. It didn't work. I remember being worried about it. I thought, 'Oh, it could be the best movie, we just floated together through the movie, we were always happy rehearsing together, we were the happiest cast in the world!' Judy Collins would come and visit the set with Stacy--she was a Goddess--and we just had an incredible, lovely, creative time because we're all from the Actors Studio and we all worked the same way. I remember it was one of the few films I really wanted to see because I loved the scenes, I loved the character because of how complicated she was...but when I saw it I thought, 'How could they do that?!' We had a long sequence in jail and they cut it in half and stuck it into two different parts of the movie and it made no sense. If they had put it together in the sequence of the script, according to what was originally written, it would've been a good film. I think it could've been a big cult movie."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fSzXFmr6BYmwsa_6nbdqkkC8DKj6YM8Tc_T8vC4HBLRVLiAqlbNQe2nFzvHDb2ndkZ5tSupkSkRPE197HTb8-ogM7e3hh9BvE2SEcBVTi5d7RBPCKoUpv3Boi7SSjJSz3i6QZkAYoLE/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fSzXFmr6BYmwsa_6nbdqkkC8DKj6YM8Tc_T8vC4HBLRVLiAqlbNQe2nFzvHDb2ndkZ5tSupkSkRPE197HTb8-ogM7e3hh9BvE2SEcBVTi5d7RBPCKoUpv3Boi7SSjJSz3i6QZkAYoLE/s400/11.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Starting with "El Condor" and "The Traveling Executioner," the spelling of Marianna Hill's screen name in the credits of her subsequent TV and film projects changed to the shorter, "Mariana Hill." Hill explains that it was not her decision to have her name spelled differently on-screen, <i><b>"The changing of the spelling of my name on-screen was made by others. The correct spelling of my name is 'Marianna.' I believe it was because in Spain and in certain countries, there is only one 'N' on that name and the name changed depending on where I was working or what country a film or show I appeared in was being shown. I'm still not sure which spelling looks best, 'Marianna' or 'Mariana,' but 'Marianna' is what my mother named me and it's an old name in my family that goes way back. It has origins in Alsatian, Russian, and even South American. I didn't get worked up over the spelling of my name. When they would spell it as 'Mariana,' I thought, 'Go ahead' because it didn't bother me at all, as long as they knew the name and knew who I was."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-d8BSEVsp5B9chMCFXI9jabFYSe0-sVrYkEY_D6_tuBqSGwyZA91XAYvmv_q3srh3gKJfxQ_6GyrsaamgtcbHhs01CxtwTd-UJGDqso4OVfgQPDapOJs2T8qNZfXDPbYw6fM3e2cjnqE/s1600/21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-d8BSEVsp5B9chMCFXI9jabFYSe0-sVrYkEY_D6_tuBqSGwyZA91XAYvmv_q3srh3gKJfxQ_6GyrsaamgtcbHhs01CxtwTd-UJGDqso4OVfgQPDapOJs2T8qNZfXDPbYw6fM3e2cjnqE/s400/21.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfmQkQQdK0HLx4NMQ1YBXnfgM8lxs3ESKVJstC7MpMIMI_S_URGpZxf3u7qrDqO8AnqYXwLLfNv4BB879Z2cUWzX0S476Q9rtOZGlP74pOjl_45Sk4dxFzElsbG54xPPQr7nWJDGZRY8/s1600/22.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfmQkQQdK0HLx4NMQ1YBXnfgM8lxs3ESKVJstC7MpMIMI_S_URGpZxf3u7qrDqO8AnqYXwLLfNv4BB879Z2cUWzX0S476Q9rtOZGlP74pOjl_45Sk4dxFzElsbG54xPPQr7nWJDGZRY8/s400/22.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As the 1970s progressed, Marianna Hill continued making frequent guest appearances on television. Notable among these was her appearance in the February 19, 1971 episode of NBC's "Name of the Game" titled "The Savage Eye." Hill and Peter Deuel played documentary filmmakers purporting to cover a protest between environmentalists and loggers. In actuality, their characters are cynically manipulating the action and creating a dramatic narrative for their film in order to build professional reputations for themselves in Hollywood. Magazine writers Dan Farrell (Robert Stack) and Peggy Maxwell (Susan Saint James) investigate the modus operandi of the filmmakers on behalf of the show's "Crime" magazine. A prescient and hard-hitting look at the sort of tactics that would later characterize reality television, Hill's "Name of the Game" episode resonates years later as an expose on documentary and journalistic ethics. Hill vividly recalls working on this "Name of the Game" and has high praise for star Robert Stack, <i><b>"Let me tell you about Robert Stack: OK, I told you about Barry Sullivan being an absolutely exquisitely behaved, wonderful, principled guy. Robert Stack was the exact same way. He was an absolute diamond of a person. These are the two men that I learned from on how to be a human being and not some jerk and not some little diva or something just by being around them. Later on I found out that Robert Stack was a good friend of JFK and that he was from a very upper-classy league family, but you would have never known it because he was the most decent guy, he and Barry, that I've ever met in the business. I had worked with Stack years earlier on 'The Untouchables' and I worked with him again on 'Name of the Game,' and I was very glad to work with him more than once."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_kVTk5JB6YzJrRf78jltb8zkF3QI0QeHewDz6tE7VjIK34f5Gs90VpM4ufp3LgnHnmFVebn8OaApC7C8AV7BtBUr5jF0o8oj2YsOc2GorUjHo6IwKd1-VcKiDdz83YuTtOnNzdABl5w/s1600/23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_kVTk5JB6YzJrRf78jltb8zkF3QI0QeHewDz6tE7VjIK34f5Gs90VpM4ufp3LgnHnmFVebn8OaApC7C8AV7BtBUr5jF0o8oj2YsOc2GorUjHo6IwKd1-VcKiDdz83YuTtOnNzdABl5w/s400/23.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD1M5fQDVnLmLRFylgp-8vLUZtseZ5z8ojkDyifwsvL37Es6sgvmd1Bo-j4jJOYAH1BfFjg8-mN3ZaZYYrdEACN4MpHX3G4c4R0uDIgIaOF9OQ620NSVae-nU8uthdK1UzO3_PpgBR2ao/s1600/24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD1M5fQDVnLmLRFylgp-8vLUZtseZ5z8ojkDyifwsvL37Es6sgvmd1Bo-j4jJOYAH1BfFjg8-mN3ZaZYYrdEACN4MpHX3G4c4R0uDIgIaOF9OQ620NSVae-nU8uthdK1UzO3_PpgBR2ao/s400/24.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Hill has very positive memories working with Robert Stack on "Name of the Game," she expresses concerns as to whether or not her performance is any good in that episode. When I mention having seen it recently, she pointedly asks, <i><b>"I want you to tell me the truth: Am I any good in that show? Tell me straight, I mean it."</b></i> When I express amazement at her uncertainty at what was clearly a solid performance, she explains, <i><b>"I never saw it because I always thought, when I finished that show, 'I really didn't do a very good job.' I don't know why I felt this strange feeling about it because there was this internal chaos on that show and I'm not sure why or how or what it was all about. There was something that was stuck, didn't fit together, about that show. The only thing that fit together was Robert Stack, who was just this incredible individual. I can't praise him enough as a human being. But, anyway, I think I was uncertain about my performance and I'll tell you why: I took a big chance and I played her as completely neurotic because I didn't know how or why this woman is behaving this way. I decided, 'Well, she's just got to be crazy! She's neurotic, she's so full of insecurity, she says stupid things' so I made this big acting choice but when I walked out of that company I thought, 'Oh my God! I made the wrong acting choice!' Actors always do that. They make choices and a lot of times the choices don't work. Even the greatest actors sometimes will do a performance and you think, 'What is he working on? What did she do there? Why didn't that work?' So I, as an actor, walked away and thought, 'That neurotic choice was stupid! Maybe you should have done something else instead, etc, etc.?'"</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsy3dJU8a7i6hM7BAHDOzYsstpdqqNIInhzDakGDx2ib6V6vq2jrXbP_HDZ-K4locDRbr0Ao1E83LuSm_bAd2LC2OnowZpvLmsga4rIuAq91B4AlMbqrUlRWOU9uNUqY2MB6bqD27CXxc/s1600/57.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsy3dJU8a7i6hM7BAHDOzYsstpdqqNIInhzDakGDx2ib6V6vq2jrXbP_HDZ-K4locDRbr0Ao1E83LuSm_bAd2LC2OnowZpvLmsga4rIuAq91B4AlMbqrUlRWOU9uNUqY2MB6bqD27CXxc/s400/57.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKB2Spqya409QpvEBo2-mKN30aDxdz0P0_SAXB4XajyWjqwItcyGyewdJDjGFnvojYKT6uw_Lg3gzCXEzV3sUCaDvGgWYRiJOjgB_BHWAgYZjvJUZtIiCGYowqxC6BUzpphOSlzCi8Sk/s1600/56.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKB2Spqya409QpvEBo2-mKN30aDxdz0P0_SAXB4XajyWjqwItcyGyewdJDjGFnvojYKT6uw_Lg3gzCXEzV3sUCaDvGgWYRiJOjgB_BHWAgYZjvJUZtIiCGYowqxC6BUzpphOSlzCi8Sk/s400/56.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill returned to the big screen with a co-starring role in the counter culture drama "Thumb Tripping" (1972), the story of a pair of hippie hitchhikers (played by Meg Foster and Michael Burns) and their adventures with the people who pick them up on the road. Hill and Burke Byrnes played a swinging married couple who Foster and Burns encounter on their journey. Even though it remains a little-seen and little-remembered film, Hill has positive and vivid memories about the experience, <i><b>"That was another time we had so much fun. It was shot in and around Northern California and one of my favorite scenes was improvised in a bar. Our characters were drunk all the time, and I don't drink, but I used an acting adjustment that Lee Strasberg showed us so we don't have to drink, a certain something we do for our energy in a drunk scene. I was happy acting face-down drunk all the time playing that role without actually having to drink. We had this scene where we landed in this little town somewhere up north, and I said to Quentin Masters, the director, who was a great guy, 'Let's just do some free-fall stuff' and he said, 'That's all I want! Go for it!' In the scene we ran across the highway into the bar, and I said to Quentin 'I'm going to go into that bar and raise hell!' and the people in that bar didn't know we were shooting. Quentin had brought all these hidden cameras into the bar. So I went into the bar and I had a bikini on, I wasn't naked or anything, and I got up onto the bar and started dancing wildly, which I wasn't supposed to do, but I did it anyway. And the local townspeople were thinking, 'Oh, look at these...who are these people?!' You could see by the look on these people's faces they were just about to chuck us out! And these were actual townspeople. They didn't realize we were doing a movie. And so I just kept dancing on the bar and suddenly these townspeople, you could see it in their faces, they had become like a crowd. And once you get a crowd together, anything can happen. So here's this crowd and they started moving towards me and I thought, 'Uh oh. There's going to be danger here! I better get off the bar!' So I jump off the bar and into this guy's arm and his wife was there and that started the whole thing. So what happened is, they all got into a fight! And we went out into the street and, in the movie, they beat my husband up but that's not what really happened when we actually shot it. What really happened is that they ejected us! You can't blame them! We were just bad! And Meg Foster was also behaving as if she had had too much to drink, which of course she didn't! We were acting. But I remember that scene because it was so much fun to do. And, in the movie, when we got back out in the street, I said to my husband a few pieces of dialogue I actually remember, 'They were nice people! They were happy to see me! Why did you take me out of there?!' It was just the most ridiculous dialogue, but I remembered that because it was just how people are in life."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFtI6MyrcF2WQbcm0bcUcLjLDiWlBz2NgoXSsaz0tOD1_jYbRqSxF7qtwAI322i_-IlDNKPfHMxjh0T1Pcpp1PMP6o63RdiRqfm9dYT7NVbML8sgIUqxpD_OlWas0_8NRVBHr-x3szKk/s1600/158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFtI6MyrcF2WQbcm0bcUcLjLDiWlBz2NgoXSsaz0tOD1_jYbRqSxF7qtwAI322i_-IlDNKPfHMxjh0T1Pcpp1PMP6o63RdiRqfm9dYT7NVbML8sgIUqxpD_OlWas0_8NRVBHr-x3szKk/s400/158.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill next appeared in one of the strangest films of her career, the psychological horror/suspense film "The Baby" (1972). Hill starred as Germanine, one of the daughters in a twisted, female dominated family where the embittered mother, played by Ruth Roman, has allowed her grown son, named Baby (played by David Manzy) to be raised in a perpetual state of infanthood. Complications arise when a social worker (Anjanette Comer) arrives to survey the family and takes an inordinate interest in Baby's well-being. With motives of her own, Comer's character challenges Ruth Roman and her daughters Hill and Suzanne Zenor for ultimate custody of Baby. This sets off a series of events that lead to mayhem and murder. One of the most bizarre commercial films ever made, "The Baby" is notable for Hill's sympathetic and scary performance as the older sister Germaine. At first cunning and intimidating, Germaine ultimately shows her vulnerable side once the family's control of baby becomes threatened. When asked what interested her in this project, Hill laughs as she recalls, <i><b>"What drew me to it? It's because Germaine was so weird, and the family was so kinky, and the storyline was a scream. (laugh) The director Ted Post and I had worked with each other on some show and I remember what a great guy he was. He's one of those people who is up there with Barry Sullivan and Robert Stack as being just a fabulous, terrific, heroic guy. I remember I said to him, when he offered it to me, 'Ted, what do you want me to do? You want me to read the telephone book? OK!' because I just loved working with him that I didn't even have to look at the script. He said, 'You're going to play this really nutty girl!' And I responded, '</b></i><i><b>All right! </b></i><i><b>Let's go!' So we went and did it and had a blast. All we did was laugh, laugh, laugh. It was absolutely nutty, but so enjoyable! Working with Ted Post was similar to working with Francis Ford Coppola. They inspire you to work hard to really make them happy. It's a great gift that some directors have because that's everything. Ted and Francis are not competing with the actors, and they're not putting them down. They love their actors and just want them to create something wonderful and, as a result, you just want to make them happy. I felt very inspired working with Ted in order to come up with unique and interesting ideas for the movie. That's not always true with every director because sometimes they have an agenda that has nothing to do with good work and it's not conducive to maintaining creativity. Certain people think 'The Baby' is great. I have no idea why, but if they're latching onto some special quality with that movie, it was because Ted inspired us to want to do the very best we could do for him."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgJkRQQX5I0_6J0xO3T18kX1y6i-2VMcFJbz4qiSD_RBATE_NKI7hCvmK27uDT2OqMWEZ2eXhHvkdVi4hyphenhyphenU2PGiQacCv81wbJZRx71WqKevgyVkhO_Izmo1rZCRMTGvkSTgFYZeU-kTY/s1600/159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgJkRQQX5I0_6J0xO3T18kX1y6i-2VMcFJbz4qiSD_RBATE_NKI7hCvmK27uDT2OqMWEZ2eXhHvkdVi4hyphenhyphenU2PGiQacCv81wbJZRx71WqKevgyVkhO_Izmo1rZCRMTGvkSTgFYZeU-kTY/s400/159.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill's positive memories of "The Baby" continues as she recalls the collaborative process of working with Anjanette Comer, <i><b>"Anjanette Comer is an absolutely beautiful girl. Where is she? Is she OK? I hope she's doing well because I really liked her. </b></i><i><b>She's a very committed actress and a lovely, lovely person. </b></i><i><b>I had a name for her. I used to call her 'Angelo,' which means Angel. I'd say to her, 'Hey, Angelo, what are we going to do with this script?' And she would say, 'I think we should play it this way.' We would talk like actors do: 'I'm doing this now for this scene...Yes, that's a good choice! Why don't you try that?' We would have this 'actor talk' on the set. It was very easy to have that sort of collaboration with Anjanette because she was so cozy and nice to be around. She would tell me, 'I'm going to create an inner life and this and that for my character.' I would listen to her and I would create these secret choices for my character that you normally don't reveal to other actors. I remember thinking, 'I'm glad she's telling me this because now I'm going to make a secret choice for this scene and she's not going to know about it!' (laugh) That sort of collaboration sets up a kind of tension, which is good for a movie like 'The Baby' because it was such a wacky storyline. The only thing you could possibly do in a film of that nature, which was so off-the-wall, is to only do surprising things and make choices for your character and scenes that are very unusual. That allows the audience to react, 'Oh! That's interesting! I wouldn't have thought of that!' So that's what Anjanette and I, and everyone else in the cast, were doing when we made that movie--we were trying to find somewhere to land which wasn't conventional because the material was so off and odd and frenetic."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCP_2XyD-hc-1F3QD5LF6xl2cMx63GbUTftSJ_wDmwUKoRs4bgZ3G_mPcMv6HB7DlG1g6RPj93HugFV5NDXPYabZwG3Y6hjf9G7O1KNvdnybnvJoiNtJC_sbVPJMdrsPpdDIk4-bsTPcg/s1600/172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCP_2XyD-hc-1F3QD5LF6xl2cMx63GbUTftSJ_wDmwUKoRs4bgZ3G_mPcMv6HB7DlG1g6RPj93HugFV5NDXPYabZwG3Y6hjf9G7O1KNvdnybnvJoiNtJC_sbVPJMdrsPpdDIk4-bsTPcg/s400/172.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Hill easily bonded with the cast members playing her family and recalls how, <i><b>"</b></i><b style="font-style: italic;">Suzanne Zenor was so cute and so sweet and I felt very protective of her. I actually felt, while we were making that film, as if she was my sister. I would call her 'Baby Suzanne' as a term of endearment because I felt as if she was really my sibling. It was something automatic between us because there was something very sweet and childlike and innocent about Suzanne as an individual. At the same time, I remember that there was something very private and mysterious about her. You couldn't easily read her, but there was something very vulnerable and also remote about her at the same time. Ruth Roman was great because I remember when I was a little girl, she would come over to our house. She did a movie right down the street from my dad's ranch. My dad had a ranch he inherited from his father, because my grandfather was in property. She was working nearby and she would come over and hang out with mommy and have girl talk and so I knew her from the time I was a kid."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ubMdJOejDRI_cCBVT1ScqVM12YX8jxegLijY5CHD02V_EMy4kLwHDz9Ou8mdD_rjWZAkSK-T-FAZ8yf2o-u_5b2_3Myyb4fb0jYsc5W8JdkCQHi-PljPKmwLU4RU-M_Pr9eOd874Jg0/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ubMdJOejDRI_cCBVT1ScqVM12YX8jxegLijY5CHD02V_EMy4kLwHDz9Ou8mdD_rjWZAkSK-T-FAZ8yf2o-u_5b2_3Myyb4fb0jYsc5W8JdkCQHi-PljPKmwLU4RU-M_Pr9eOd874Jg0/s400/17.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill next worked on one of her most well-remembered films, the surreal horror masterpiece "Messiah of Evil" (1973). Hill played Arletty, daughter of painter Joseph Lang (Royal Dano) who follows him to the remote California coastal town of Point Dune after he turns up missing. In the course of the film, Arletty becomes witness to strange events where it becomes apparent the town is cursed by a former minister--a surviving member of the Donner Party--who causes the townspeople to turn into flesh-eating cannibals. Directed by Willard Huyck, and written by both Huyck and his wife Gloria Katz right before they co-wrote "American Graffiti," "Messiah of Evil is characterized by a hypnotic, European sensibility that emphasizes mood and character over plot and logic. Hill gives a superb performance as the passive, yet sympathetic Arletty. With subtlety and sensitivity, Hill brings credibility to the film by portraying Arletty's responses to the strangeness swirling around her in an ethereal, yet straight-forward, manner. A film whose reputation has grown dramatically in recent years, "Messiah of Evil" ranks as one of the best films of Marianna Hill's career. Despite the acclaim accorded to the film, Hill has never seen "Messiah of Evil" and regards it as mostly a missed opportunity. As she candidly explains, <i><b>"Let me tell you something: We made an art film. We made the most beautiful, artistic, creative film and what happened is that the producer lost the business side of it and lost control of the movie. Someone else purchased the movie and they turned it into a zombie movie. Didn't they? I never saw it. What happened is that I asked Willard 'When are we going to finish the movie?' because we still had scenes left to film. He said, 'Marianna, it's over. I've lost control' because something happened to the production, the budget...I don't know the exact details but they lost the financial control of the film and they had to sell it to somebody who was a horror film person. My understanding is that the horror person put zombies into a refrigerator and I thought, 'I didn't make a zombies in a refrigerator movie. I made this really psychological thing about a daughter and her father having some sort of mythic, psychic, conscious decision to be connected to the moon or something. And then this haunted guy with blond hair shows up with these two mysterious women.' The story was originally about what happens when communication between people goes wrong. These were lost souls looking for something meaningful that they couldn't find and they were stymied and trapped where they were. It was a beautiful movie we made and it was elegant. It was very 'Twin Peaks.' We all had this wonderful experience really going for this deep, beautiful sort of ghostly, wispy, spiritual kind of elegance. We wanted to make our goal sort of an Antonioni movie because Willard Huyck and his wife Gloria Katz are just genius, creative people. When somebody told me there were scenes with zombies eating meat out of a refrigerator I said, 'No! Oh no! That wasn't the movie I made!' They changed the name to 'Messiah of Evil' and I remember it used to be called 'The Blood Moon' when we were filming it."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgrdoSBNer9fBfSUKHPrmyKaOFsc6JYXN1LNx4LYtnKUncYjT7hQ2tGeiWGtiC9Mmg5Zj2VIxRhkfiP1s3HWrstL5W4hmQBNp0rEaP2ZLpYoWfsQ7SbEinldjHTQNvA1Og9_Gho1VuaM/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgrdoSBNer9fBfSUKHPrmyKaOFsc6JYXN1LNx4LYtnKUncYjT7hQ2tGeiWGtiC9Mmg5Zj2VIxRhkfiP1s3HWrstL5W4hmQBNp0rEaP2ZLpYoWfsQ7SbEinldjHTQNvA1Og9_Gho1VuaM/s400/15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite her disappointment in the outcome of the film, Marianna Hill still has high praise for her colleagues, <i><b>"Willard Huyck and his wife created 'American Graffiti' and what great talents they are! But unfortunately these things happen where sometimes they run out of money for some reason or other. That's probably what happened. I never could figure it out, nobody ever told me. I didn't ask further because I didn't want to embarrass Willard and make him feel awkward. He and Gloria meant well and they were just so dedicated, but then that film just went to pieces. I had no idea that Willard directed any of those zombie sequences because it just wasn't in the script that I read. I imagine that, whoever purchased the film, must have said to Willard, 'You're the director, we've got to put this thing together, please come back and put some zombies in it.' And Willard probably went back because, naturally, he wanted to finish it. I'm sure the zombie sequences were effective if Willard had directed them because he's a gifted filmmaker and we were dedicated to making it a good film. I remember all night shooting and one incident where Willard wanted me to cry at one point. He kept blowing stuff in my eyes and it took three hours to get what he wanted, which was something very subtle and mysterious, because we kept doing take after take. I remember how difficult it was because my eyes were beginning to burn out. (laugh)"</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQjvg_2u-3uruNq48kPHxbS74bydnvRLCiKC6p0NkCAK0rys2MPn8SfefvBqUS_3rou97sIhy_GfLisOJ37LAy5fZ3l3heWWXAc-ws1zYUDBjbBe-f0buGx0jtSYThCedbyScfW396LQ/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvQjvg_2u-3uruNq48kPHxbS74bydnvRLCiKC6p0NkCAK0rys2MPn8SfefvBqUS_3rou97sIhy_GfLisOJ37LAy5fZ3l3heWWXAc-ws1zYUDBjbBe-f0buGx0jtSYThCedbyScfW396LQ/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill also has very fond memories of her on-screen co-stars in the film, <i><b>"I remember my father very well because he was played by Royal Dano. I was a big fan of Royal. He was a fabulous guy. What an old pro! We had a lot of scenes together and he was powerful. I also remember Anitra Ford was very beautiful and very kind. She had a lovely elegance and the presence of a snow maiden and I liked her a lot. I also recall how Joy Bang was a lot of fun to work with. I didn't work that much with those girls, but they were beautiful and good people. They were professional and prepared and worked with all of their hearts. Like every other person I ever worked with, they just went for broke. There were no problems with anyone on that film. </b></i><i><b>I even put my brother in it. He was a cop in the movie in a scene on the beach. Willard said, 'We need an actor to play a cop in this scene' and I said, 'My brother's here in town. Why don't we just put him to work?' because as a child he was an actor who worked on projects my father also acted in. </b></i><i><b>My feeling about that movie is that I can't face it when you go into something--and you really, really love the whole concept--and then it just falls to pieces. I'm sure the new people, who tried to salvage the movie, meant well and that they just wanted to make a good movie. But, in the end, there was no part of that movie that was what we intended because we didn't have a chance to finish it properly. </b></i><i><b>I have nothing against horror films, I've certainly made my share, I was just hurt by the changes made to the film because it's not the movie I signed up to do. But I'm really very happy to hear that there are people who are fond of the movie, because we worked very hard on it and Willard and Gloria were just so dedicated to creating something special with it. </b></i><i><b>Like I said, I actually rang Willard and asked, 'When are you going to finish it?' and he said, 'We can't. We lost it. Sorry.' And I thought, 'Well, I guess I'll have to move on to something else!' (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkRPVYSrN_cFqCjTuzZ2rqW10O1bTN3Z3es0lNrMsnfC4ddrj_X0pSUGCKtwFvQRvR2uKXCdveYqy-FfkIE26XMW5v3PvNU6elabeXNo9RiXAE0dfZx5D1_e13sSL9F4nBDOPUX4MnOI/s1600/143.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkRPVYSrN_cFqCjTuzZ2rqW10O1bTN3Z3es0lNrMsnfC4ddrj_X0pSUGCKtwFvQRvR2uKXCdveYqy-FfkIE26XMW5v3PvNU6elabeXNo9RiXAE0dfZx5D1_e13sSL9F4nBDOPUX4MnOI/s400/143.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill moved on to big things with the classic Universal Western "High Plains Drifter" (1973), starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. Eastwood played his iconic Stranger with No Name who rides into a corrupt town called Lago, whose residents are living in fear because of the impending return of three convicts sent to prison for murdering the town Marshal. Terrified about their fate at the hands of the convicts, the townspeople enlist Eastwood's help in defending them from the trio. In the process of preparing them for the attack, Eastwood's character dominates, degrades and humiliates the town in an act of punishment for their passive complicity in allowing the outlaws to murder the Marshal. One of Hill's best parts and best films, "High Plains Drifter" is now considered a Western masterpiece and one of the best films from Eastwood's early directing career. Co-starring her "Medium Cool" colleague Verna Bloom, Hill warmly recalls how she and Bloom were reunited for this film, <i><b>"Somehow or other, Clint Eastwood saw 'Medium Cool' and he loved it. I think he cast both Verna and I on the basis of our work in that film. I had to audition for 'High Plains Drifter' and Clint also asked my friend Cissy Wellman--who </b></i><i><b>had worked with me on 'Red Line 7000' and </b></i><i><b>whose dad had been a very major director, William Wellman--about me. He said, 'Now, tell me, how's this Marianna? Is she OK?' and Cissy said, 'Yeah, just put her to work!' So it's really because of Cissy, by providing him with some insight and information about me, that I landed the part. So thank you Cissy! She's a lovely girl! And thank you Clint for having the faith to hire me!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZqtPUMOinwaH7hxSBPeKZip5rq-1SvXV7HloredsJHhWkDGDyX3H5UI0AN-y2Qau_Cv1gVC7aQZi6DB94QwHaLsUdhOW1llu4rMnI4JOv7f3DLsYZPYcZofMlp69J9E5Kqzs-tkHXfw/s1600/65.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZqtPUMOinwaH7hxSBPeKZip5rq-1SvXV7HloredsJHhWkDGDyX3H5UI0AN-y2Qau_Cv1gVC7aQZi6DB94QwHaLsUdhOW1llu4rMnI4JOv7f3DLsYZPYcZofMlp69J9E5Kqzs-tkHXfw/s400/65.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill has positive memories about the making of 'High Plains Drifter' and is unreserved in her praise of her leading man and director, Clint Eastwood, <i><b>"Clint Eastwood is another great one, just like Barry Sullivan and Robert Stack. People don't understand that about him, but he's very quiet, he stands in line for lunch with all of the crew and cast, and anybody can come up to him. The guy who serves the craft services--the donuts and everything--in the morning and the guy who's the gaffer can come up to Clint and talk about what he needs to do his job and ask him for help. Clint will immediately take the time to work with and help them. He'll say to a crew member, 'Oh, you need this to do your job?' or 'You ran out of bacon this morning to serve the cast and crew?' and he will make sure to take care of them. He is just a decent, lovely, gentle man who really loves actors. He was like our dad on the set and so generous and considerate as an actor and a director. He was just one of the best people I've ever worked with."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcDUshUkuJUXNeXjCgfx8IiBjblyQWyiAXpXowIYJFWyodjaMP8NbaRyS6fX7suuK-X_SP2BDqivs3oRWMfCujdXiP6biKUIh6fWZtcfadMnnkyKAhZqDFex_R4tAEDZUu4K47b52fSg/s1600/66.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcDUshUkuJUXNeXjCgfx8IiBjblyQWyiAXpXowIYJFWyodjaMP8NbaRyS6fX7suuK-X_SP2BDqivs3oRWMfCujdXiP6biKUIh6fWZtcfadMnnkyKAhZqDFex_R4tAEDZUu4K47b52fSg/s400/66.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As she further discusses the experience, Hill also recalls other aspects of Clint Eastwood's shooting methods that helped make "High Plains Drifter" the classic that it is, <i><b>"He was just a genius. He used to have this little wagon with equipment following around right besides us as he would shoot a scene. It would usually be, maybe, five feet away or something. And then we'd do the scene and he'd ask, 'Do you want to see what we shot?' and I'd say, 'Yeah, I want to see it!' because usually you have to wait at night and look at the rushes. A lot of actors don't like to look at the rushes. They think it's something that messes up your head to look at your rushes. It's not true with me. I can look at myself and go, 'Oh, you really screwed up in that scene there!' I'm very straight down the line with myself, I can see what went wrong. But, for a lot of actors, looking at the rushes does something to them, it makes them self-conscious. Anyway, Clint would say, 'Go ahead and look at the footage playing back on the equipment in the small wagon and see what you've just done!' He had this wagon full of equipment that allowed him to see the footage right away. He did it so he would know if he had to shoot another take, or if the lighting was OK or that the sound was OK. This is why he's just this brilliant guy because, if the footage we just shot was OK, he would let it go. When we did 'High Plains Drifter,' I had to do the very first scene that was shot. I had to go out and slap him because he was smoking a cigar or something. I remember arriving there from L.A. and people said to me, 'Get into make-up!' Usually, you'd get settled first, but he'd say, 'No, we have to go right into work!' which was great because he likes to get people when they're in a kind of flux so that they're real. He likes for you to be real and he gets it out of people. What I thought was so fantastic about him, when you would look at him in real life, he was this really handsome man and he was lovely and graceful and gentle and kind. And when you look at the footage of him on the equipment in the little wagon, light shown out of him. Light shown out of him and it was like, 'Oh my God! Is this guy an Angel or what?'"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVzvCC8bCXI3baVPDa3twuxRRct_Q0Z5OWx-ird8fJxJqPnalwYb7Nd5Dfy55LlMNAheIJIkHuVODRHYtOiGxd11rwVD5_u9TDv82wM_tEqjXYNhkeyKP9y2ygv5PBe-Gws7hxJFzkO8c/s1600/149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVzvCC8bCXI3baVPDa3twuxRRct_Q0Z5OWx-ird8fJxJqPnalwYb7Nd5Dfy55LlMNAheIJIkHuVODRHYtOiGxd11rwVD5_u9TDv82wM_tEqjXYNhkeyKP9y2ygv5PBe-Gws7hxJFzkO8c/s400/149.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the most dramatic scenes in "High Plains Drifter" involves Eastwood's character dragging Marianna Hill's character, Callie Travers, into a barn and raping her. When asked about any challenge or difficulty filming that scene, Hill candidly responds, <i><b>"I can't remember anything about that scene because we did it so fast and it looked worse than it was. All I can remember is that I was lying around in the hay with Clint and then the scene was over. Nothing happened between us, but it looked like it was because of the way it was edited. But there was no nudity or anything like that. I don't remember any particular direction from him during that scene or any other scene on that film. All he would say when he would direct every scene is 'Let's do it again!' or 'Let's do it another way!' That's how he directs because he hires actors that he can trust and who are prepared. He's very careful about casting. He wants people that can come up with the goods so he doesn't have to spoon-feed them. This guy knows what he's doing, and why should he waste his time on some dingbat who says, 'What is my motivation?' and throw them off the set? He expects the actor to come in and know what they're doing. This is what a great director does: He has a sense and he has to know and be able to tell whether an actor can do that."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7xGVjIefWuzCAUdMGZMxTAJ3KPLC5efGtrj6BIlDNvN5BS2dLjmPC6kwYA_esFsCUpSKeOgdKtLzDVfzgVv6Sdv_aHnQRb0FbeQ9IE-eKFguMwbedvSeRFIj0kiN_geR9sVV43kN7Xlo/s1600/147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7xGVjIefWuzCAUdMGZMxTAJ3KPLC5efGtrj6BIlDNvN5BS2dLjmPC6kwYA_esFsCUpSKeOgdKtLzDVfzgVv6Sdv_aHnQRb0FbeQ9IE-eKFguMwbedvSeRFIj0kiN_geR9sVV43kN7Xlo/s400/147.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill also warmly recalls the camaraderie among the cast and crew of "High Plains Drifter" and loved working on location at Mono Lake, California for the duration of the shoot, <i><b>"We never had more fun in the whole world! We just laughed, we were like little children, and Clint was like our loving, protective dad. I had a Mercedes at that time. I bought one when I was very young and I was running around--I never should have been driving, but I was driving when I was 13 years old--but anyway I had my car up there and I'm driving around and everybody stayed at different hotels and motels during the shoot and I'd visit people all the time. I'd say, 'Oh, I'll come over and see you!' and they'd say, 'Hi! Come on over!' We were just like happy children. Everything was beautiful during the making of that movie. Mono Lake--what more could you want? And, also, the script was so fascinating: A pack of outlaws get out of jail, and he was the angel of vengeance, and we were a town of awful people! And I'd worked with everyone in the cast before because we were all members of the Actors Studio. Almost everybody in 'High Plains Drifter' came out of the Actors Studio. I think I got one of the actors a job, Stefan Gierasch, who played one of the townspeople. I actually told Clint, 'Use him!' We all kind of recommended each other, so to speak, so it was just a happy group to work with."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPy_BBJMwHSIR8ELZ87mKfZutuiCSkQozmpuFYRLTq0t2WRsv-Z0HdmXRh69giGCzpbLKlZ-bJWvOcu3AxtkU4xLMoHEvJDDKWIDoZDEV520ifWD4xbKKpCR3k-vRt2mouOk_jeT6mTE8/s1600/69.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPy_BBJMwHSIR8ELZ87mKfZutuiCSkQozmpuFYRLTq0t2WRsv-Z0HdmXRh69giGCzpbLKlZ-bJWvOcu3AxtkU4xLMoHEvJDDKWIDoZDEV520ifWD4xbKKpCR3k-vRt2mouOk_jeT6mTE8/s400/69.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkOx0ojsb6luRdXTwDLKyUlTw2jBAb5R0ZiFGnei2MwOMnPDsDIdiscgBoEFPOyyypYs_f5emdCbd0joKyeZVjb0McDZO4sbvfGbDn1jerSxTMG4EGeeEgB4p6qI96Hb5dB6FAxRTX1M/s1600/148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkOx0ojsb6luRdXTwDLKyUlTw2jBAb5R0ZiFGnei2MwOMnPDsDIdiscgBoEFPOyyypYs_f5emdCbd0joKyeZVjb0McDZO4sbvfGbDn1jerSxTMG4EGeeEgB4p6qI96Hb5dB6FAxRTX1M/s400/148.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Hill's character, Callie Travers, is not considered a sympathetic character, Hill manages to find aspects of the role to make her a compelling, at times even humorous and pathetic, presence on-screen. When asked to describe the process with which she prepared for her role in the film, Hill opines, <i><b>"Listen, I loved that girl. Because bad girls are complicated and they're full of humanity. They have different colors, they have good in them, they have bad in them, they're all mixed up and they're complex. It's much better than playing good girls. I've played good girls before, but the good girls are one-dimensional, which is fine, but what can you do with them? Not too much. You can't do a lot of different colors, you can't go do a range, you can't do what's called the arc of the character, which means 'Well, how does this character react to different circumstances in this particular story?' And that's important because it allows you to think, 'Oh, wait a minute: this happened and now she would do this and now she would do that' but a good girl will always react the same way, which is with innocence and vulnerability. It's like a one-track mind sort of thing. No human being is completely good. Every person, no matter how wonderful, and how good, always has ambiguity here and there. When you're a good girl in a film, nobody wants that. They just want you to be...I don't know, a victim. I don't want to put it that way, because it sounds terrible, but they want you to be a shining moral beacon of light in this particular story, which is also good because women hold the moral structure in society. So, yes, it's important to have a good girl, but it's also important to have a bad girl too."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6bEmHTrtzoVuZ8lo7JPwWMPJZJeW6hhVdOPAx-hPlvrLmxDhDsU6rpxG9uJwa-2qKhm7Iqdx9e8q3fF52WHILmEf1T3hHGm4rM3BScGTG_DJDQQ1NcbKVdTaKNDBu5ci29WMly80_v0/s1600/145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6bEmHTrtzoVuZ8lo7JPwWMPJZJeW6hhVdOPAx-hPlvrLmxDhDsU6rpxG9uJwa-2qKhm7Iqdx9e8q3fF52WHILmEf1T3hHGm4rM3BScGTG_DJDQQ1NcbKVdTaKNDBu5ci29WMly80_v0/s400/145.JPG" width="317" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92xNxVyNfvWszFNt6_IE6Cwk5zAv8ekm24tRbOF3V5sEhzDQ1kQ5EFsPS6FGwCorcj0u9LfHHNvJmCqDRkYODsnXOFpmh1KW1eKeXADh9z1uR21ytUwnlX21dwTPdSQiJRHAGWMoKv00/s1600/146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92xNxVyNfvWszFNt6_IE6Cwk5zAv8ekm24tRbOF3V5sEhzDQ1kQ5EFsPS6FGwCorcj0u9LfHHNvJmCqDRkYODsnXOFpmh1KW1eKeXADh9z1uR21ytUwnlX21dwTPdSQiJRHAGWMoKv00/s400/146.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Because of the changing socio-political climate that has brought greater attention and sensitivity to the subject of sexual assault, and how it is portrayed on film, the scene where Hill's character, Callie Travers, is dragged into a barn, and raped by Eastwood's character remains controversial due to the portrayal of her character as eventually enjoying the assault. When presented with this concern, Hill candidly addresses the need to view the film in its proper context, <i><b>"Well, if critics don't like that scene, that's their problem. That scene, and Callie Travers, is a reflection of the environment in that film's storyline and not necessarily the real world. That was what was in the script. He's a handsome, gorgeous, big strong man, and Callie Travers was the town naughty girl. She had many tawdry sexual encounters with these men and she just enjoyed herself. That's what she did, that's the character. Some women, not all, but I've known a few women who behave that way and attract that sort of trouble. Now, of course, I love women, I treasure them, I glory in them, I'm very much on the side of women. But I also understood how Callie was some sort of--not a nymphomaniac--but she attracted danger. She had a deep need for excitement. She is not meant to be a role model or representative of women in general. I still loved her and found her sympathetic because, whenever she got involved with any situation, she was sincere about it even though it was completely wrong-minded and wrong-headed. She did what she felt was right at the time. She was totally ruled by her impulse, which were not good. And, in the end, she's lying on the floor, begging what's-his-name Geoffrey Lewis to forgive her--look where and how she ended up. It wasn't good. She runs off at the end, and God-knows what happens to her? What does she do? She runs to the next town? I couldn't worry about her because it's out of my hands."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCSXWyQFtYPXe8KxWLByLrCZrPJy1k880iWF7v2zt53_KowE9PWNbUoSyKoKMP2l0CLLSiHvE2ODAwU-r5ekn1QX4p3rYA-FK9ewir3cUf039BCRU8cDsD0eyBWIvmoH5cqeUG7rAcsGk/s1600/118.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCSXWyQFtYPXe8KxWLByLrCZrPJy1k880iWF7v2zt53_KowE9PWNbUoSyKoKMP2l0CLLSiHvE2ODAwU-r5ekn1QX4p3rYA-FK9ewir3cUf039BCRU8cDsD0eyBWIvmoH5cqeUG7rAcsGk/s400/118.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFOehZoJZd0v1_Uu3_hsnHRnteu9WQ2E9i6HLDntG9CVcRXPs9oSssX2dEBXe8deSTtHEp620uubJlKJ99-7V6ioCYEPoT8mlkuMvoazl1F1B8AOsLg0cg2cOM6KMoKfp8jZcrBzvVN4/s1600/144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFOehZoJZd0v1_Uu3_hsnHRnteu9WQ2E9i6HLDntG9CVcRXPs9oSssX2dEBXe8deSTtHEp620uubJlKJ99-7V6ioCYEPoT8mlkuMvoazl1F1B8AOsLg0cg2cOM6KMoKfp8jZcrBzvVN4/s400/144.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>As she continues discussing her role in that film, Marianna Hill maintains that there was no sense of misogyny in "High Plains Drifter" because Eastwood was very critical in-general of the characters in that town, and was not singling out her character for criticism and abuse, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">If Clint ever wanted to make another movie called 'Whatever Happened to the Bad Group over there from That Town called Lago' we would've seen how everybody ended up. But I think they probably wound up pretty badly because they were awful! They were really bad, naughty people and they were cruel! They got their just desserts, whatever happened to them. And Clint probably didn't make a follow-up movie because what is he going to say: They all get shot or something, or they died of dehydration or turned to working in a cathouse? I don't know what happened to Callie Travers. Maybe she went straight. She could've gone straight. Like when everybody went 'Who are you?,' they could've gotten that shock of their lives when he turns up and whips everybody into shape. It could've been that he triggered off some kind of really deep, animal, atavistic streak where they woke up from their foolishness and created new lives for themselves. They could've gone off and gone straight! Or maybe not. (laugh) There are many possibilities."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8fTpENf85QfXndLicC2EIJzwX6NxyBsqqjc55ANpubOTGuacgnfo3OT47lghXIzj_9BYAnbSiJISVlZiRsghbGZijFvUF4kVmRo_XEMhfiA7Ov3X1kuP3fLMGk3-ySB8o92R2-mZXdwA/s1600/79.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8fTpENf85QfXndLicC2EIJzwX6NxyBsqqjc55ANpubOTGuacgnfo3OT47lghXIzj_9BYAnbSiJISVlZiRsghbGZijFvUF4kVmRo_XEMhfiA7Ov3X1kuP3fLMGk3-ySB8o92R2-mZXdwA/s400/79.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
Coming after her success with "High Plains Drifter," Marianna Hill's next film appearance was another high point in her career, where she was cast as Deanna Corleone, Fredo Corleone's (John Cazale) drunk, trashy wife in Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece "The Godfather, Part II" (1974). A vivid supporting character in a film made up of many of them, Hill manages to make Deanna funny, pathetic, and feisty. Despite her limited screen time in the film, Deanna remains one of Hill's most well-remembered roles. Hill recalls she landed the role because co-producer Fred Roos (a renowned casting director), had worked with her numerous times on television projects, <i><b>"He's my oldest friend. I've known Fred since I was 11 years old and he was *always* my champion. He and my agent Walter got me work all of the time. Fred cast me in 'The Godfather, Part II' because he knew what I could bring to the role </b></i><i><b>and recommended me to Francis</b></i><i><b>."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7JgVCYSNgjvNfblJTRTxGIAvCiHwkZQXowEtfw8De6lfegGPkFB1BkWPhAECx7Jiza517SXen53nmatqn2QZfbi4TN6_QBqFr9hRcYfiZXfDZjS96pMyNzYpQScTxYv5S0U8JSf_TZo/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7JgVCYSNgjvNfblJTRTxGIAvCiHwkZQXowEtfw8De6lfegGPkFB1BkWPhAECx7Jiza517SXen53nmatqn2QZfbi4TN6_QBqFr9hRcYfiZXfDZjS96pMyNzYpQScTxYv5S0U8JSf_TZo/s400/5.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQsVnm_0fDNr7OgswATDMDR-jKiP6yKQUaoYB4dkMaaJF6zEXp8gEoIzcjBzKO3W6BATVAptphw1apEqShhprWd5hCOXl8__ZQ_O8qYzL9OSrZtEsL9pqAK6oCCmGoZeRUXQZtBe6_PY/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQsVnm_0fDNr7OgswATDMDR-jKiP6yKQUaoYB4dkMaaJF6zEXp8gEoIzcjBzKO3W6BATVAptphw1apEqShhprWd5hCOXl8__ZQ_O8qYzL9OSrZtEsL9pqAK6oCCmGoZeRUXQZtBe6_PY/s400/10.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
When asked about making "The Godfather, Part II," Hill enthusiastically recalls, <i><b>"What a thrill to work on that movie! Look at that character and how brilliant the movie is! It was amazing! And Francis always humbly says, 'Well, I was improvising!' when he talks about making that film. The reason why working with Francis is such a memorable experience is that, when he sets up a group of people, he'll get you all to have dinner together--and set up all of this food and all of this stuff--and he creates an atmosphere where you all really become a family. We all had a great time filming out on Lake Tahoe together. It was so much fun! We just kept filming and filming and Francis would always experiment and do different things and say, 'Marianna, why don't you try doing this for the scene?' and I'd say, 'OK, Francis! Who's with us now in the scene, Francis?' And you'd be totally open to experimenting with him! There's just something about Francis where you just want to please him. You just want to do anything for him, so I'd come up with ideas and I'd say, 'Francis, what about this?' One time he said to me, 'I don't know what to do with Diane Keaton in this scene.' And I said, 'Put her next to a sewing machine. Have her work on her sewing.' And, you know what? He wrote that into the script and used it in the movie in the scene when Michael comes home and finds Kay working on the sewing machine. I just thought it was perfect for her because I had seen the first 'Godfather' so many times, because I just *love* that movie, it's like I knew who her character was."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLYbvjrWad3pBjFx53JUN_jbp0XerKxZA-EW2TY4GqthT6iPciihnwkOwdZMYujUf6KOYDh1GH7QtgUWbhWtTKSsnFVTTKkjzi9iMhDycHFqEoQBAfiIKkMevY6nDPq_r7ahmCtKFp7T0/s1600/84.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLYbvjrWad3pBjFx53JUN_jbp0XerKxZA-EW2TY4GqthT6iPciihnwkOwdZMYujUf6KOYDh1GH7QtgUWbhWtTKSsnFVTTKkjzi9iMhDycHFqEoQBAfiIKkMevY6nDPq_r7ahmCtKFp7T0/s400/84.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyu8wyv28bKIFu2GoFFRyYkysC7aCPueExPZSDCR7jLYkiwfIyJLLclq5ysg_YiTfTcwB_5-eY3hXlEVeWpvnOwj-ErF8Ar69MUuaAg91e6b-VVaNx4-I5kGe5h3kxY_nr0RmCyTFTMOE/s1600/83.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyu8wyv28bKIFu2GoFFRyYkysC7aCPueExPZSDCR7jLYkiwfIyJLLclq5ysg_YiTfTcwB_5-eY3hXlEVeWpvnOwj-ErF8Ar69MUuaAg91e6b-VVaNx4-I5kGe5h3kxY_nr0RmCyTFTMOE/s400/83.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxo5ZiPMQyxbUajOA4khhco83x9WJHtskHRO9zZYioDchreQIRYQSN-GiJaiHLvFHGuvzks8Wm-y0JxsVCEJmYODUIrHylHwenF0Erat9oEKGJDES2jZh5aW8N2aliJAZ0iR7qbYSXFg/s1600/85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxo5ZiPMQyxbUajOA4khhco83x9WJHtskHRO9zZYioDchreQIRYQSN-GiJaiHLvFHGuvzks8Wm-y0JxsVCEJmYODUIrHylHwenF0Erat9oEKGJDES2jZh5aW8N2aliJAZ0iR7qbYSXFg/s400/85.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>While describing the creative process that has resulted in multiple versions of the film, each with different additional scenes or vignettes, Hill recalls that, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">There were a lot more scenes that I shot for that movie than they used. We all had more scenes. Everybody filmed so many different scenes, and so many different takes, and so many different interpretations of a scene and this and that so that Francis had enough footage for 5,000 movies. That's how he shoots and that's why he's so smart, because he finds the jewels within all of these different takes and these different interpretations and these different situations. On the second 'Godfather,' he had enough money in the budget to take all those different shots and angles and points of views and choices to choose from them in the editing stage. That movie has been re-edited so many times, there are some versions where I see posters that make it look like I'm starring with Al Pacino, and versions where I'm not even mentioned on the poster, and versions where there are more scenes where I'm falling down drunk all over the place. Francis made so many different versions that sometimes I'm not in the film, and sometimes I am, but every version he made was always brilliant. And he would take hours collaborating with Gordon Willis, who is a master cinematographer and the nicest man in the world, to set up these exquisite shots that took a great deal of time to set up and light because the sun had to be just right. Gordon would always apologize to me, 'I'm really sorry, Marianna, it's taking so long to set up this shot,' and I said, 'What are you crazy?! You're going to make a masterpiece and a work of art and I know it! What do I care how long it takes? I don't care if you're here for a year!' (laugh) So they would just take forever to make everything glorious and magnificent. If you look at the first 'Godfather,' every scene is like a Botticelli painting, every scene and every frame. Francis is a master!"</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimpi7q1dNzShyphenhyphenw-oQe4W9sPKDQ6El8fNfKEeyc3y3RN3CBhf0VxQuCCpe-hq6_Ad5n7328T6ynOitshRzE01Pfs5wCieocEOQTOiOG78bY434sMZOY2Y0CNZbq1Hn6uJSecRoA7MFq0qo/s1600/114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimpi7q1dNzShyphenhyphenw-oQe4W9sPKDQ6El8fNfKEeyc3y3RN3CBhf0VxQuCCpe-hq6_Ad5n7328T6ynOitshRzE01Pfs5wCieocEOQTOiOG78bY434sMZOY2Y0CNZbq1Hn6uJSecRoA7MFq0qo/s400/114.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When asked about her acting colleagues in "The Godfather, Part II," Hill continues with her effusive praise, <i><b>"Because Francis and Gordon Willis were so meticulous lighting every shot, there was a lot of time for the cast and crew to get to know one another. John Cazale was a fabulous actor who died way too young. I'll tell you something: John Cazale was as good as Marlon. A *great* actor! You watch him very carefully. He's dynamite! Watch what happens in the first 'Godfather' where Al Pacino says 'Fredo get those girls out of here!' Just look what he does, the choices he makes. Look at his acting when he kicks those girls out. I don't know anybody who could've done that! But unfortunately he was a chain smoker and it's a great tragedy that he's gone. Robert Duvall is absolutely so amazingly down to earth. He is just who he is. He's another force of nature. He says what he wants, he speaks plainly, he has very unique and unusual ideas about life because that's who he is. He treats everybody--whether you're the director, co-star, crew member, or a regular person just passing by--with the same level of dignity and respect. He is so brilliant that it's unbelievable. Sometimes, people don't even realize how brilliant he is because he is so genuine and authentic in his choices. When you watch him work, it's like--Oh my God!--he's a master. I loved Robert Duvall and I have the greatest respect for him as an actor and a human being. There's just something about him: He's so humble and so genuine and so real. He was great. Al Pacino is another one who is a fantastic guy. I would sit around the dressing room with him and we would talk about acting and actors because he's also from the Actors Studio. And Al was Lee Strasberg's friend and we all adore Lee, just worship him. And Al said, 'Marianna, I'm thinking about getting Lee in this movie to play Hyman Roth.' I said, 'Oh, he's perfect for that gangster! Nobody else could play that part but him!' So then, of course, Al got Francis and Lee together and the rest is history! What a job he did! What a jewel! It was such a pleasure and honor watching Robert Duvall and Al Pacino work together because I don't think there are any better actors than them. They are Monarchs of the acting profession. Duvall and Pacino were just brilliant together. They just radiated off the film because they both had their own kind of energy and stuff going on, but when you put them together, whatever energy and quality that they had going on turned into magic. And I loved Diane Keaton! What a sweet person, and how complicated, vulnerable, and sensitive she was. Not everyone sees that in her, but I saw it while we were making that movie. She's lovely, just lovely, and such a great star. I really liked her a lot. I also remember what a lovely girl Talia Shire is. She was the most charming, beautiful, kind, old fashioned girl."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwTZNN9rW0YRbinLd1p9h2ZH_E3c6yM_sbXEiQ6tpQ3ZAp1nBzsVePKNLRPYsOVhE6PdgultD_pwXZ6FyN52TaCfhLTLmYQ-9V1eEFvsi_HkwgZnZncuiNhNyPHogvoiIwMQ_5IRtp-k/s1600/119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwTZNN9rW0YRbinLd1p9h2ZH_E3c6yM_sbXEiQ6tpQ3ZAp1nBzsVePKNLRPYsOVhE6PdgultD_pwXZ6FyN52TaCfhLTLmYQ-9V1eEFvsi_HkwgZnZncuiNhNyPHogvoiIwMQ_5IRtp-k/s400/119.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>Hill's praise for her on-screen colleagues in "The Godfather Part II" also extends to key supporting characters who, like her, played spouses and significant others of the Corleone family members, including Troy Donahue (who played Connie's playboy boyfriend, Merle Johnson) and Julie Gregg (returning from the first "Godfather" as Sonny's elegant widow Sandra). As Hill explains, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">I remember how Troy Donahue was very sweet. He was great to work with on 'The Godfather, Part II' because he's not at all what he seems to be from his screen image. He kind of looks like he's spoiled and insolent, but he's just very sweet, kind, and vulnerable. I didn't get to know Julie Gregg very well, but what I do know of her is that she was a lovely person. She had a beautiful singing voice. She was a wonderful singer who used to sing in Beverly Hills at this club called 'The Little Club' or something on North Canon Drive. Everybody would go see her because she was the most beautiful singer. She had a wonderful mature quality as an actress, it was not like a little sprightly, gamine kind of a gal because she was womanly. She had a depth and sensuality and I'm sorry to hear she recently passed away. My God rest her soul with Jesus and all the Saints."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcr7hXqe-_t7hY0rABvlF-RPVLkXqNWdN6UMH3MdgGdZa1iyM2j9Rg5Ec4S67McHeBAreKMBCxTa_l-YdhRaAXu9Ovk4ez1THKicclFZtXkBnhdMGVOJkMDsU-IkujuG51o8Y-Lg-RoI/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcr7hXqe-_t7hY0rABvlF-RPVLkXqNWdN6UMH3MdgGdZa1iyM2j9Rg5Ec4S67McHeBAreKMBCxTa_l-YdhRaAXu9Ovk4ez1THKicclFZtXkBnhdMGVOJkMDsU-IkujuG51o8Y-Lg-RoI/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMDjJ8oW7nxAtf0TSiDo0cZq5WvEVSWSRl_huG37EvWSqg78xZlcQgbEJbevC84yEeyeSpV9SVTcygrdPVz5B3LcDkyshedQLibDPBf9l6VlPdqs2hi07A0MGywsMdbvp0daXg2OfkZTw/s1600/123.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMDjJ8oW7nxAtf0TSiDo0cZq5WvEVSWSRl_huG37EvWSqg78xZlcQgbEJbevC84yEeyeSpV9SVTcygrdPVz5B3LcDkyshedQLibDPBf9l6VlPdqs2hi07A0MGywsMdbvp0daXg2OfkZTw/s400/123.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Because "The Godfather, Part II," was, at its essence, a story of a complex family, Francis Ford Coppola created a very familial atmosphere on the set of that allowed Hill to become acquainted with members of his own family,<b style="font-style: italic;"> "I remember Talia and Francis' parents were there--Carmine and Italia--the entire Coppola family were just very lovely people. Their mother, Italia, would say 'Marianna, you should marry my son Auggie.' She had a son, August Coppola, and she would say, 'You've got to meet him! You're a nice girl, Marianna, you should be married! You've got to get married, and I've got a son for you!' I thought that was adorable that she wanted me to marry her son. Italia was a lovely, old-fashioned Italian woman and she saw me and she thought I shouldn't be running around. I wasn't seeing anybody on that movie, there was nothing like that, but these were old fashioned Italians with very old fashioned values. I understood them because I went to school with a lot of Catholics and a lot of Italians, so I was very comfortable around them." </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5M2wOKVxnPJj0PFvuaZ9qMjBwxzZh32Dk8J0L4g85ERucnk4Bi1b_s6hV43_xm-vbn3d5B5PC6-MDkgnS5Nc_3qgdmCKLs6L-gAdSAWt5SWXxxXI83Pz1mE2tU1rhkxuFo_s_UBMwA0/s1600/124.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5M2wOKVxnPJj0PFvuaZ9qMjBwxzZh32Dk8J0L4g85ERucnk4Bi1b_s6hV43_xm-vbn3d5B5PC6-MDkgnS5Nc_3qgdmCKLs6L-gAdSAWt5SWXxxXI83Pz1mE2tU1rhkxuFo_s_UBMwA0/s400/124.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhMymI48EJOVRc39HaB9EQmOLCnt1BJbLj2_uhKSFpawWRZGhZ1GG18l_x_nyBOQhb1b49gyIMIeQwKqs-AwdxrA_0mkoNqmd5U53vF4l7_Lepw3kOJTleTKKK5DFKbIlUW3kyu7DfM8/s1600/74.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhMymI48EJOVRc39HaB9EQmOLCnt1BJbLj2_uhKSFpawWRZGhZ1GG18l_x_nyBOQhb1b49gyIMIeQwKqs-AwdxrA_0mkoNqmd5U53vF4l7_Lepw3kOJTleTKKK5DFKbIlUW3kyu7DfM8/s400/74.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As with Callie Travers in 'High Plains Drifter,' Hill has great insights into the character of Deanna Corleone, underscoring the vividness of her performance. With great enthusiasm, Hill opines, <i><b>"I loved Deanna because I had known a lot of people like her. In acting, you just know people like that. They just come on and they're all empty and they operate on a different level. They operate in a way where they're shrewd, but they're not intelligent. They're interested in the money, they go for the power and they don't care. They're on a different kind of a mindset then, let's say, somebody who's got different or more substantial instincts. I just loved playing her, because she was so venal and so stupid and she would say stupid things! She was so clueless, but yet so aggressive, it was like being a naughty cow or something! Amongst these people with thousands of years of tradition and history, here comes Deanna and she's like really empty and shallow, but yet driven! (laugh) What a great part! I loved it! Deanna was like some kind of an animal. I don't know what kind of animal I would put on her, but she was probably like a dragon. A lot of actors work that way: they create a character by applying some kind of animal to them. If I had to look back at it, I'd say, 'Yeah, she was a dragon' because she ultimately survived. You know, John Cazale got shot and drowned in the lake by Al Pacino! Marlon fell over with an orange peel in his mouth! Al winds up in a rest home. And Sonny Corleone--Jimmy Caan!--dies in a hail of bullets in a gun fight! Everybody else goes down, but what happens to her? She leaves Fredo and just goes on. She should've gone off and married some other gangster, because she doesn't care about where the money comes from and where the power comes from. Characters like Deanna, they're survivors in the worst sense! I can't compare her to anybody that lived in history. Who could you compare her to?"</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4SV8O7noXIP0VwMZVOQZ0vMIN9HhpKRyres8aMxrDJJb4i4B0ncBmnI2wSq7XxVMICMiYDEPNmzt67HcSpxu1tok8MbP0fN0tzy_6Ocqbs2DhPrQjyVvn1Se_qIRyX6lmJ_7xUafggw/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4SV8O7noXIP0VwMZVOQZ0vMIN9HhpKRyres8aMxrDJJb4i4B0ncBmnI2wSq7XxVMICMiYDEPNmzt67HcSpxu1tok8MbP0fN0tzy_6Ocqbs2DhPrQjyVvn1Se_qIRyX6lmJ_7xUafggw/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When I suggest Eva Peron, Hill thoughtfully responds, <i><b>"I was just thinking about that, but Eva Peron died. She had a terrible illness and her husband Juan Peron wouldn't even come in the room when she was dying! He didn't want to witness her illness, he just didn't like it. And she'd say 'Oh, Juan, come in!' and he'd say 'Oh, no, I'm not coming in there!' He used to say he could smell the odor of death, which is a kind of terrible thing to say about his wife! But they were tough people and she died! Her whole body was eaten alive. So Eva Peron--yeah, sort of, maybe. But I really think Eva Peron believed in what she was doing! She really believed she was saving the people. Look at the songs that Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote, 'The People! The People!' and she really believed that! But Deanna doesn't believe in that. Deanna doesn't care about anybody. She's heartless."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFU41W5DPrXRNTVkl96i-aHsOb_HwnL9DoNkXwDo_ymHGB2hMDeNNwdA_kFOTKSfMZoovoUWWlHc_Rqx9VasQgO7k42rjMR1xxVzy0hCj31vI3I20w325mT9ec4vYFj5H8aInWk8hcBpo/s1600/117.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFU41W5DPrXRNTVkl96i-aHsOb_HwnL9DoNkXwDo_ymHGB2hMDeNNwdA_kFOTKSfMZoovoUWWlHc_Rqx9VasQgO7k42rjMR1xxVzy0hCj31vI3I20w325mT9ec4vYFj5H8aInWk8hcBpo/s400/117.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "The Godfather, Part II," Marianna Hill starred in the satirical comedy "The Mad Movie-Makers" which was also known more bluntly as "The Last Porno Flick" (1974). The film featured Hill as an Italian-American housewife whose cabbie husband Tony (Frank Calcanini) and his best friend Ziggy (Michael Pataki) decide to produce a pornographic movie as a profit-making venture. In the course of their adventures, the mob tries to cut in on their action, while his mother-in-law and her elderly friends help to co-finance the production under the assumption that it is a religious film. Despite its title and racy subject matter, the film is relatively subdued in the sex and nudity department as it focuses more on farcical, slapstick comedy. Hill recalls that, <i><b>"my friend, Frank Calcanini, was in the movie, and he and I were in Lee Strasberg's acting class. I remember he was getting together with some friends of his and they were making this movie. We used to do all of this scene work in Lee's class. Everybody was in that class--Sally Field, Lesley Ann Warren--I mean, major people. And Frank said, 'Oh, Marianna, I've got to start my career now, so please be my wife in this movie!' I said, 'For you, Frank, of course!' because I loved him. He was the sweetest person in the world. He was like Elvis, he had the same charisma that Elvis had. So I thought, 'Gosh, that will translate onto the screen, and maybe we can do something special here!' I didn't even read the script. I said, 'Just give me my scenes and let's rehearse and we'll go!' So we did this movie and I don't think it ever even came out. Then I heard that the whole thing was a tax write-off for the producers. Throughout my career, I did whatever work that I did, and then I let it go. What can you do? I never thought of a film as helping or not helping my career. I just wanted to work. That's all I ever wanted to do. I didn't even know what I was doing sometimes. All I ever wanted to do was work and make a living because I was on my own. Mommy was dead, Daddy was in a wheelchair, I didn't think about furthering my status. I was a journeyman actress. The only thing I ever did was that I stopped playing Mexican characters after awhile. Somebody at Universal wanted me to do a Mexican character and offered me a huge amount of money and I said to my agent Walter, '</b></i><i><b>Let's let a Nosotros person--an actual Mexican--play a Mexican. </b></i><i><b>I'm not Mexican, I'm a mixed-up person of Alsatian and Dutch and Native American blood and whatever, but I'm not Mexican.' And Walter said, 'No! You have to work!' and I said, 'I just can't do it anymore.'"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7BU8LJbMPy3SoKc8eldziDcxti6MVzvOroGJxVZNL92q8EliWfxzLJsU8kIPtc8v8VdrViq1s3cJsz2Mzj9wTJ6qsLfAj-wzN_WmQ34Zdr6k_1AePRt1axKLWQGLLEFXX0GCJj7EbwwE/s1600/68.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7BU8LJbMPy3SoKc8eldziDcxti6MVzvOroGJxVZNL92q8EliWfxzLJsU8kIPtc8v8VdrViq1s3cJsz2Mzj9wTJ6qsLfAj-wzN_WmQ34Zdr6k_1AePRt1axKLWQGLLEFXX0GCJj7EbwwE/s400/68.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During this time, Hill continued guest-starring on numerous television series. Notable among them was the "Soldier on the Hill" episode of the Aaron Spelling ABC crime drama, "S.W.A.T." which aired March 16, 1976. Hill played a glamorous movie star held hostage by a mentally unstable Vietnam veteran who has reverted back to his wartime memories during on a studio tour. While watching a scene involving firearms being filmed, the military veteran believes he is back in combat in Vietnam as he takes Hill and her chauffeur (played by Hoke Howell) hostage on the studio backlot. A solid and suspenseful episode, Hill recalls how, <i><b>"I remember that one well, and that guy who held me hostage was a Vietnam veteran and that was a hairy and crazy show. I remember there were all these S.W.A.T. teams running up and down buildings and he was mentally ill from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That was really dramatic, I liked that one."</b></i> She also guest-starred as a jewel thief attempting to rob priceless treasures in the January 2, 1977 episode of the NBC mystery series "Quincy, M.E." Shot on Catalina Island, Hill recalls how, <i><b>"I was out on this boat and we were in the harbor and I remember working with Jack Klugman and liking him very much. What an earthy guy, just like Robert Duvall. And so we were on this boat, and I don't know what it was, and I can't explain it, but I just felt this spiritual force while we were out there on the water. I don't even know what it meant or anything, but it was something that happened, it was some sort of premonition about something. I still don't understand it, but it was like something came into my consciousness. I know I sound like a hippie, and it has never happened before or since while I was working, but that's what happened while we were filming on this boat."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaffmM4dbhqlMJ0pYyuCpXXlYQtrG10x_T0Bx_s0SbAvN8a9QAThB5p4QMV-_wc-RjBo71MlOI6BH-lOdIwL9xVp-qtB5kM7HowgwO9irANrDssH6f0Du4ag66OU0ML-vDPxNqm4PGKqo/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaffmM4dbhqlMJ0pYyuCpXXlYQtrG10x_T0Bx_s0SbAvN8a9QAThB5p4QMV-_wc-RjBo71MlOI6BH-lOdIwL9xVp-qtB5kM7HowgwO9irANrDssH6f0Du4ag66OU0ML-vDPxNqm4PGKqo/s400/18.JPG" width="375" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill returned to the horror genre when she played glamorous 1920s/1930s movie star Lorna Love in the ABC Movie of the Week "Death at Love House" (1976) which aired September 3, 1976. Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson played a young married couple, Joel and Donna Gregory, who move into Lorna's Hollywood mansion, 40 years after her sudden death, to do research for a book about her life. In the course of the movie, Joel, whose father had a passionate affair with Lorna, becomes obsessed with the image of the long-lost star. Living with them at the estate is the mysterious housekeeper, Mrs. Josephs (Sylvia Sidney), who tells Joel that Lorna and his father were destined to be together. Throughout the film, the spirit of Lorna hangs over the house, and causes several near-fatal incidents for Donna. At the end, Donna realizes that Lorna (who was badly disfigured in a fire) never died and staged her death in order to fool the public into believing that she had retained her beauty all of her life, and that Mrs. Josephs is really the disfigured Lorna in disguise. At the end, Lorna dies for real when she sets fire to the shrine on her estate that houses what had previously appeared to be the perfectly preserved body of Lorna. After Sylvia Sidney is unmasked at the end, Hill resumes the role of the aged, disfigured Lorna, her once proud figure now characterized by sadness and pathos. In the fire, the perfectly preserved body of Lorna encased in the tomb is revealed to be a wax figure melting in the heat. Hill enthusiastically describes her memories of making "Death at Love House," <i><b>"I remember that film very well. I was an old movie star and I was all mixed up in bad things. I put a spell on Robert Wagner throughout the movie by telling him, 'Love me! Love me!' My whole part was just saying [deep voice] 'Love me! Love me!' and I put some voodoo on him, which was so much fun on that show because I played such a freak on it. It was great. I also thought Sylvia Sidney, who was such a great actress in the 1930s and 1940s, was wonderful in that film."</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpra2Z03nwpPjFXPlY0actQs0_I-z767xHeZkBSSRzvvSWZB3NQP77ULx33D1umCiHAfimZjdDFfb5auzzDD9PAomiKwZsn5JSKLeQyVCLioj9ncpy3t__a6FqNJawXnh4wJLANmz7nBI/s1600/50.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpra2Z03nwpPjFXPlY0actQs0_I-z767xHeZkBSSRzvvSWZB3NQP77ULx33D1umCiHAfimZjdDFfb5auzzDD9PAomiKwZsn5JSKLeQyVCLioj9ncpy3t__a6FqNJawXnh4wJLANmz7nBI/s400/50.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill further recalls how an incident that occurred during the making of "Death at Love House" inadvertently had a positive, long-lasting impact on her life, <i><b>"That was me playing Lorna at the end with all of that elderly and burned make-up. What was interesting about it was that the crew couldn't look at me. I asked, 'What's the matter with you, guys? You've never seen a person in old and burned make-up?' They all said, 'I can't believe what's happened to you!' And I responded, 'Wait a minute! Nothing's happened to me! Get over it! We're in a movie here and I'm just playing this part!' It was such grotesque make-up, with everybody turning their faces away from me, that I thought, 'Oh, this is bad! This is what happens when you're old! You just look like this and everybody acts like idiots!' Can you imagine? I just remember the make-up and how the crew reacted to me, and that was such a shock to my system. At first they were liking me because I was kind of cute and everything, and then I had this old bag make-up on, which just made me look old--not bad, just old! So I took a big look at myself--somebody took a Polaroid of this make-up--and I thought, 'Y</b></i><i><b>ou're not ever going to look like this, baby! </b></i><i><b>This is not where I'm going!' (laugh) </b></i><i><b>I just didn't want to turn into this old bag where people averted their faces! It was so hurtful! </b></i><i><b>That movie changed my life because after that I got into health food and drinking juice and exercise because I've always had allergies, when I wasn't paying attention to my health. I thought, 'If I don't want to end up looking and becoming like that old bag, I've got to start paying attention to my allergies and my diet and my health.' That incident actually changed my life for the better because I became obsessed with healthy living. I never drank, never smoked, I didn't take drugs--although I did do silly things like eating sweets and stuff--but after that movie I thought, 'I saw how they looked at me and I am not going there!' (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSFULey3m51Cex2ETtggYnySvjIkOOSkoXpA9W5VtfbvWUGdm5nWDWDZ3Yrah-WarxwgLPTWk08sa5dSbazIlygN9BjOH84VwXeWeVp3FjIH9bWkCCOKPAwT_k_VA4TWSe64mfA8EoDI/s1600/113.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSFULey3m51Cex2ETtggYnySvjIkOOSkoXpA9W5VtfbvWUGdm5nWDWDZ3Yrah-WarxwgLPTWk08sa5dSbazIlygN9BjOH84VwXeWeVp3FjIH9bWkCCOKPAwT_k_VA4TWSe64mfA8EoDI/s400/113.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill continued with the horror genre with "The Astral Factor" (1976) also known as "The Invisible Strangler." Starring Robert Foxworth, Stefanie Powers, Elke Sommer, Sue Lyon, Leslie Parrish, and Cesare Danova, Hill played one of several women who are being stalked by a convicted murderer who they testified against at trial. The killer, through astral projection, is able to escape prison by turning himself invisible. Hill played a glamorous movie star who is murdered by the killer while staying on a yacht. After mentioning the film by referencing its alternate title "The Invisible Strangler," Hill responds, <i><b>"Listen, that was not supposed to be called that. That was supposed to be some show that my agent Walter sent me to do. He said, 'Go do this!' and I remember that I asked, 'What is it? Where's the script?' and he said, 'Just go over there!' So I said, 'OK, Walter!' </b></i><i><b>Walter would always tell me what to do. He was like an Uncle, he was like part of me. </b></i><i><b>And then they changed the title of it and it became something else. I remember some fan wrote me a letter where he asked 'Why did you do these bad movies like 'The Invisible Strangler'?' and I thought, 'How dare you! What's it to you, buddy? </b></i><i><b>You didn't have to make a living! Your mom didn't die! Your father wasn't in a wheelchair! Don't you ask me why did I do something inferior? I didn't mean it to be inferior. That was just a job where I wanted to do the best work that I could do! You have my life and try to make a living when you're just this dumb kid who doesn't know anything!' </b></i><i><b>I remember it had very good actors in it. Robert Foxworth is great. Sue Lyon was exquisite. She's like an early Britney Spears. I loved Cesare Danova, he was amazing. What a cast! You know what? You can get the greatest cast together, and if something is missing, if there's no element, there's nothing in the script or if the chemistry is not there, you've got nothing. You can have Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Jackie Kennedy--put them all together and it doesn't work because the chemistry just doesn't work for some reason. It could be the script, or it could be that it doesn't work with this group of people in this particular circumstance. You just never know, and I think 'The Astral Factor,' 'The Invisible Strangler,'--whatever you want to call it--is probably one of those circumstances."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8OecQL7R4TBARRJckbNgWNFFnaeRdHzSI0RTI_P2IlbmwIdcdmwbQy6vwJQh1i9m8hIke7VzlGpKd7Erk6rw-r3w5w8SJjL1Mp82PHX5Pv2Spk37n7_07GP6l5Wm8nxShHB8k0rJsHE/s1600/75.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8OecQL7R4TBARRJckbNgWNFFnaeRdHzSI0RTI_P2IlbmwIdcdmwbQy6vwJQh1i9m8hIke7VzlGpKd7Erk6rw-r3w5w8SJjL1Mp82PHX5Pv2Spk37n7_07GP6l5Wm8nxShHB8k0rJsHE/s400/75.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill next starred in the CBS TV movie "Relentless" (1977), which aired on September 14, 1977. Hill played a woman taken hostage by a paramilitary group who has robbed a local bank in Arizona. A Native American state trooper, whose uncle was killed by the bank robbers, follows them in hot pursuit. Based on a Brian Garfield novel, and shot on rugged locations in Arizona and Utah, "Relentless" is a surprisingly adult and intense suspense drama characterized by solid performances from the entire cast. After being cast in a series of unsympathetic and ambiguous characters, Hill excels as a sympathetic, feisty heroine of strong moral fiber so that the character rises above being a stereotypical "damsel in distress." When asked, Hill warmly recalls, <i><b>"We filmed that out in the desert and in the woods. I was a woman living out on the ranch and I ended up being kidnapped by these bank robbers and that wonderful Native American actor, Will Sampson, played the lead and led the search party for me. It was kind of a far-fetched story because it was never really explained why I was living by myself out on that ranch with my dog. It was a rather odd situation because most people living on a ranch have some sort of extended family. I often thought while filming it, 'What is my character doing out here all by myself?' but that was the character and that was the plot. I also remember that my character was tied up to a post in that film and I was freezing because we were filming in the snow. All of the actors were very good to work with on that film. Larry Wilcox was a very nice and very decent person. John Lawlor was also just a lovely person, so was Monte Markham. And Will Sampson had a whole different kind of sensibility and gravitas about him. He was very mysterious and you couldn't just sit around and have light weight small talk with him because he wasn't chatty. He was the sort of individual who would have something profound to talk about a variety of subjects. I admired his restraint on the set because he didn't feel as if he had to show off or tell jokes or try to entertain the crew. As with any good actor, Will Sampson would just focus on conserving his energy for his work."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1vfCbvwWVHtANtc4h_aBDmjcQflwWMqsWEg2691-021fWktBj2BHV6KpYfxlJEujgFikOv956p4Kzw8OM0LnV1aBlJFZwWMcS6OcXw-qjBk07FeQgvTIXlXbOxnvPtvrI84AItgCx6c/s1600/76.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1vfCbvwWVHtANtc4h_aBDmjcQflwWMqsWEg2691-021fWktBj2BHV6KpYfxlJEujgFikOv956p4Kzw8OM0LnV1aBlJFZwWMcS6OcXw-qjBk07FeQgvTIXlXbOxnvPtvrI84AItgCx6c/s400/76.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyFEzWZO7KXgGKmlen9KiyIYZJjNygG7Sav8AQ8j-snpUnY3JwBAJU4-2XJ8fnaMx_3Nd1aEvml4Hx37U7J_dJKXY4hS6Rnkkb0pex-zVYhuStMujJ2be85XeJMmU3rhUcFdz7jbwOZk/s1600/77.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEyFEzWZO7KXgGKmlen9KiyIYZJjNygG7Sav8AQ8j-snpUnY3JwBAJU4-2XJ8fnaMx_3Nd1aEvml4Hx37U7J_dJKXY4hS6Rnkkb0pex-zVYhuStMujJ2be85XeJMmU3rhUcFdz7jbwOZk/s400/77.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While discussing the making of "Relentless," Hill also recalls how the actors were so dedicated to their roles, and inspired by the ruggedness and remoteness of the filming locations, that they worked hard at bringing depth and nuance to the film that went beyond what was expected for a 1970s-era TV Movie of the Week, <i><b>"W</b></i><b style="font-style: italic;">hat made that film interesting to work on was that there was all of these men, and they had this contest between them where they would rewrite the script on the set. They were all kind of directing that film themselves. Because it was an almost all-male cast, they had this bond between them and John Hillerman became like their guru. It became like a men's club where they didn't want their wives there because they just wanted to be hanging out with the boys. I understood why they did it. It was because something happened where we formed a unit and John Hillerman became the leader and overseer of that unit. They had become this boy's club where no girls could get in. I didn't mind it because I just had to do what I was there for, which was to be kidnapped and get into the whole place where my character was. They made script changes and created all of this kind of choreography for the action scenes involving fights with the heroes and antagonists. In their own way, they took over the film by asserting their own point of view. There was a bit of a machismo attitude where one of them would say, 'I'm going to do it this way' and the other actor would say, 'No, I'm going to do it that way' because they had different concepts on how the movie should be. There were no rifts, but there was a lot of that kind of male competitiveness like in a football game where they were working on two different teams. It actually was very good for that film where it created a certain warrior-like energy and dynamic that I could feel when I was working with them. There was a camaraderie and family dynamic that formed on that set and it's in environments, such as the one on 'Relentless,' where you have a chance at doing good work.</b><i><b>"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ73AjZCeOi9ssCcwi7IFQeStauZhdDLriyjtcQS5M-OeCOuQga_z47J8rufyMqpDPVxxHqBlPzDucgcDZ2KpECyCcJtbEzWC8JuV98VLQxUofTBu0hi7rjm8hp5dK-vlDf0778BrCWQ/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ73AjZCeOi9ssCcwi7IFQeStauZhdDLriyjtcQS5M-OeCOuQga_z47J8rufyMqpDPVxxHqBlPzDucgcDZ2KpECyCcJtbEzWC8JuV98VLQxUofTBu0hi7rjm8hp5dK-vlDf0778BrCWQ/s400/19.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
Towards the beginning of the 1980s, Hill returned to the horror genre when she starred as the female lead in the Cannon slasher film "Schizoid" (1980). Hill played a newspaper advice columnist attending group therapy sessions while going through a divorce. She starts receiving threatening letters in the mail while her fellow therapy patients are being brutally murdered by a scissor wielding psychopath. At the top of the list of suspects are her psychiatrist (who she is also having an affair with) played by German film star Klaus Kinski, and her ex-husband (Craig Wasson). When asked, Hill candidly admits that "Schizoid" is <i><b>"another one that I don't want to talk about. It's too complicated. Klaus was having problems with the staff and production crew. He was under contract and he just didn't want to be in that movie, but they held him to the contract and so he was conflicted. But what a great talent he was! I liked working with him and the rest of the cast--including Christopher Lloyd, Richard Herd, Joe Regalbuto, and Craig Wasson--because we all just went for it. I remember my character worked in an office, and there were all these other characters who were working with me in a newspaper, and all these murders were going on around me. All actors, unless they can't act or unless they've not been trained, we all create a backstory for our characters: 'Why is he in this thing? How did she get this job? And who is this guy according to his own point of view?' And that's what you do as an actress. You get everything going and, because of that, then you get a structure, but after you've finished the job, the structure goes out the window because it's finished. But the character stays with you because that's all about you and your work. That's what I did to prepare for my character while filming that movie."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8woW0Q1Mtc7MCKX6mG9-IKMvzaqHO9gff2F4SojtyO7XSM8qKw_Y61Uex_q_-ULZMiGg1cPUyz9-O3GTvWbAaZmiYXUWkMey8nDijq0ckhQgoycxuA-5is6bWKhQN_AQ5wxbbdW3XW_0/s1600/37.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8woW0Q1Mtc7MCKX6mG9-IKMvzaqHO9gff2F4SojtyO7XSM8qKw_Y61Uex_q_-ULZMiGg1cPUyz9-O3GTvWbAaZmiYXUWkMey8nDijq0ckhQgoycxuA-5is6bWKhQN_AQ5wxbbdW3XW_0/s400/37.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQK_Qq7kkucYkZvxAIzDcIe0f72KuqOfV5SNMKaoHY_muNkAa5G2AGHGIuBhAx6Jv-S30R-s5PJ8ykW00d49fOoi1zOJG5Z1jYnyao6vM8WN5va9eFqTVXOy8eO4nm8ShSoudcS9wwo0/s1600/40.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQK_Qq7kkucYkZvxAIzDcIe0f72KuqOfV5SNMKaoHY_muNkAa5G2AGHGIuBhAx6Jv-S30R-s5PJ8ykW00d49fOoi1zOJG5Z1jYnyao6vM8WN5va9eFqTVXOy8eO4nm8ShSoudcS9wwo0/s400/40.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuNUElQalTVdPEwMoQ6ZyGZ9QVtvjA4W3Y4xn7T8cBDrQD5PneX2wn7m8fGVj4_IC53Ji45hIHsNktRuild6NItgboXQLuk8nhyphenhyphenwPtpWrCnlFkvHd3MoOXfwRhLJ4eSlXEb_xe2RVZ1s/s1600/41.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuNUElQalTVdPEwMoQ6ZyGZ9QVtvjA4W3Y4xn7T8cBDrQD5PneX2wn7m8fGVj4_IC53Ji45hIHsNktRuild6NItgboXQLuk8nhyphenhyphenwPtpWrCnlFkvHd3MoOXfwRhLJ4eSlXEb_xe2RVZ1s/s400/41.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>Hill also recalls that <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">the director of 'Schizoid' was very helpful during the movie. David Paulsen, what a nice and lovely guy. He had to deal with difficult circumstances. Producer Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus were these really hard-working Israeli guys and they were driven to just keep going and make movies. They insisted that Klaus do that movie and he wanted something else, you see, and that was the conflict on 'Schizoid.' David had to deal with that because you don't want to have an actor who doesn't want to be there. I don't blame Klaus! He didn't like the part or something, I don't know what was going on. You can't get involved in that, like when people have romances on the set, because it has nothing to do with you. But, as a talent, what a great talent Klaus was, and David Paulsen was the sweetest person and he just did a good job. Although these things sometimes happen, during the filming of one of the violent scenes, one of the actors accidentally stabbed another actor in the back with a knife. And that actor was wounded and had to go to the hospital, but it was an accident. I remember the other actor was contrite, 'I don't know how that happened!' Sometimes strange things happen on movies. I remember, because I was in every scene, I had to show up at 5:00 AM in the morning and I'd say, 'OK, what are we going to do now guys? I feel like the man around here keeping our family together.' It was a challenging production, but David kept it together, which is a very difficult thing to do. I remember he was so stressed, he would come running in every morning before I was ready and say, 'Are you ready Marianna?' and I'd respond 'I've only been here for half an hour. I still haven't done my eyelashes! Women need an hour in make-up, David!' because it's true! You can't run in and do it in half an hour because you've also got to do your hair then. He was hoping to get on with it and make this movie which I understood because that was his job. I remember I'd have to kick him out and say, 'Come on now: Do you really think I can get both my hair and make-up done in half an hour? Come on!' (laugh)"</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VwbPshn7qo85X2z9zul6Kp8AHdpUC8eEvUN8KPdfrR9QwgKvuxf1EkcI4Y_WzVtZaCLjZ1dUY3COrljl6LmhkYS-NUVTfPPO7tF8zAbLzjLfvCeL8ci5afACB3lYy_FUB-YlXbd-OIU/s1600/25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VwbPshn7qo85X2z9zul6Kp8AHdpUC8eEvUN8KPdfrR9QwgKvuxf1EkcI4Y_WzVtZaCLjZ1dUY3COrljl6LmhkYS-NUVTfPPO7tF8zAbLzjLfvCeL8ci5afACB3lYy_FUB-YlXbd-OIU/s400/25.JPG" width="243" /></a></div>
<br />
Hill next starred in "Blood Beach" (1981), a fanciful throwback to the science-fiction horror films of the 1950s. She starred as a divorcee who investigates the mysterious disappearance of her mother, who was sucked into the sand and eaten alive by a monster living under the beach in Santa Monica. David Huffman played her former boyfriend, a lifeguard who helps her investigate her mother's whereabouts. John Saxon and Burt Young played police detectives looking into the strange series of disappearances of people at the beach. What distinguishes "Blood Beach" is its emphasis on character so that its ensemble cast of people come off as real individuals at times, and not just mere plot devices. Both Hill and Huffman register sympathetically as a couple who grow close again as a result of her mother's disappearance. In the scene where Hill discusses her impending divorce from an airline pilot, you forget you're watching a monster movie because of how she plays the scene from a subtle and sympathetic perspective. Hill recalls that, <i><b>"'Blood Beach' was supposed to be with Tom Selleck. I never could figure this out about 'Blood Beach,' but he didn't end up doing it. It doesn't matter because, again, we just had so much fun and we just loved each other. Everybody in the cast got along like a house on fire. I remember that monster in the movie because I went to my acting teacher for help with a scene involving the monster--that's how hard I worked. If I ever thought I couldn't do a scene on my own, I'd go to a teacher. And I said to my teacher Johnny--who has now gone to heaven, may he rest in peace--I said, 'Johnny, what am I supposed to do? This dog gets stuck under the sand and gets eaten by the monster!' And Johnny went, 'OK, Marianna, here's your acting adjustment. Here's the deal when your dog goes under' and I remember doing that scene and I went 'Fifer? Fifer? Ahhh!' (Screams and then laughs) I remember the dog's name was Fifer. 'Oh Fifer!' (laugh) The cast was great on that movie. John Saxon was the nicest guy I ever met. He's so sweet and so vulnerable and so likable. He's just an angel. And poor David Huffman. David Huffman got murdered! He was working on something and he went to a park or walked to a park and he was murdered. It was the greatest tragedy, the most horrible thing! I can't tell you how terrible I felt when I heard that. What a dear and wonderful person. Just a lovely guy and gifted actor. And Burt Young was just such a pro! He'd show up and he had that wonderful presence and he would just go for it! And of course you know that he came from the Actors Studio and he was working like a dog to make it perfect!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJF_q63mEPf96q0z0szqDjQcHCcb90JPmpf2Hcuw3_XlB5wmGM-TcLJivefmMH_NC_II0EmKfwF-NV-c8LPFqFvpCZucg6jKmVpGnZvNAPnvI1P-phSMsDCjveZWs9TJtvluyY7OwefE8/s1600/67.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJF_q63mEPf96q0z0szqDjQcHCcb90JPmpf2Hcuw3_XlB5wmGM-TcLJivefmMH_NC_II0EmKfwF-NV-c8LPFqFvpCZucg6jKmVpGnZvNAPnvI1P-phSMsDCjveZWs9TJtvluyY7OwefE8/s400/67.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK6SdqfJ8t1ePMp_QEkeMAodNafJeReS-pIIopw9QQOY1NgIQlm9MeDrIao_UxjDN4qKuOyqxpxSKYT2x4l9uEOutDfNiTjyPTN5yD3Qe46bevnkK2h9Wr6lTviGCq9O91oMW4ToRM6KE/s1600/53.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK6SdqfJ8t1ePMp_QEkeMAodNafJeReS-pIIopw9QQOY1NgIQlm9MeDrIao_UxjDN4qKuOyqxpxSKYT2x4l9uEOutDfNiTjyPTN5yD3Qe46bevnkK2h9Wr6lTviGCq9O91oMW4ToRM6KE/s400/53.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKj4s4x9JTrUHGgeDV4xd4cahd4zYrIvw-gZb36vfCIEXz4Nbewyo5mlsiplO8BZ7fCVxYLP-2wwniaoGF3fV0WXb1hhjBHUghSe7jE1_-xws7vPF8xtQ3R4mpyyKh10L22g_DzWOQqg/s1600/54.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKj4s4x9JTrUHGgeDV4xd4cahd4zYrIvw-gZb36vfCIEXz4Nbewyo5mlsiplO8BZ7fCVxYLP-2wwniaoGF3fV0WXb1hhjBHUghSe7jE1_-xws7vPF8xtQ3R4mpyyKh10L22g_DzWOQqg/s400/54.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Hill also appreciated her experience on "Blood Beach" because it allowed her an opportunity to play a sympathetic character she deeply respected,<b style="font-style: italic;"> "I liked my character in 'Blood Beach' because she was an OK gal. S</b><b style="font-style: italic;">he was so sincere, you know? I thought, 'Well this is not bad to be sincere instead of a bad girl or Mexican or some other anti-type.' When you get to be a very sincere person, deeply caring about whatever it was that I was caring about, you end up remembering that character vividly. I can remember characters far more than dialogue or plot or anything. That probably sounds crazy, but that's what you work with when you're an actor. The arc of the character: what happens to her here, how did she react to this, where does she go from there? It's like a map through life for your character. That's what I used to create that character and make her as sincere as she was."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjaCNpSFcW2F55ePvYq0jNCNfuWFgm7pGwGR6pazYQfi0-wSIRKJJMHXYNgs3qOKt8YAeaIZQZZREqyECUlnejAH5qW5QywUF45NjGM-b9-ThIpzw1MMqMqHZhlKasTWcgR5nik64rLw/s1600/162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjaCNpSFcW2F55ePvYq0jNCNfuWFgm7pGwGR6pazYQfi0-wSIRKJJMHXYNgs3qOKt8YAeaIZQZZREqyECUlnejAH5qW5QywUF45NjGM-b9-ThIpzw1MMqMqHZhlKasTWcgR5nik64rLw/s400/162.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the 1980s, Marianna Hill's life and career went in a different direction. She still did the occasional TV guest role (like "Remington Steele") and theater appearance (including a production of "Spring at Marino," with David Groh, Judy Norton-Taylor and Tyrone Power, Jr. at the Ivoryton Playhouse in Connecticut in the summer of 1984 where the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/29/nyregion/theater-in-review-spring-at-marino-is-a-bold-move-for-ivoryton-playhouse.html" target="_blank">New York Times' theater critic wrote</a> that Hill's <i><b>"utter cool as Anna could inflame hearts as easily as her stunning demeanor obviously turns heads. To top it off, she has the style and subtlety to effect a transition from composure to real emotional revelation most effectively"</b></i>), but was focusing on other aspects of her life. She recalls that the change in careers occurred because, <i><b>"I was speaking with Baba, my guru, who everybody in those days turned to. I don't want to drop names, but everybody went to Baba and he would advise people and he was totally sincere. He's not a fake like a lot of them who are working and he never asked people for money. I remember I said to Baba, 'Oh, Baba! What do you think about me and my life and career? All I care about is my work.' And he said, 'Well, t</b></i><i><b>hat's your problem. You care too much. </b></i><i><b>You're too much into this and you need to get your feet planted to grow and nurture the other parts of your being, so to speak. I think you should go and teach acting. I want you to do this for your own good so you can achieve balance in your life because now you're all about being an actress. You can survive this way, but it's better for you to be a balanced individual to go and immerse yourself in working to teach other people. You can do this. All you do is teach. You're always advising people on how to put their make-up on and what health food to eat and what yoga to do and what color to wear, and making suggestions, and you have a need to do that. I'm thinking in your family you were like a mother.' He really knew me, and so I thought about it and decided to pursue his suggestion."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAwsTwIP3curQ66VXYgzSB9tLW7Zi1duGo_tO2IMR7lrKFqBVEAHYqghIVc3crFIFktmq06nefLi4F7svAZl31XOsEOxueRFYv0MbK0XWdRGN6p38bx5OY6FrEFtv9E2vW2UvaPjkLUI/s1600/161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAwsTwIP3curQ66VXYgzSB9tLW7Zi1duGo_tO2IMR7lrKFqBVEAHYqghIVc3crFIFktmq06nefLi4F7svAZl31XOsEOxueRFYv0MbK0XWdRGN6p38bx5OY6FrEFtv9E2vW2UvaPjkLUI/s400/161.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
After considering her Guru's advice, she moved to New York and started teaching acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute, where she taught Method acting and began developing a professional reputation as one of the foremost instructors of the craft. Hill recalls the challenge of going from being an actress to learning how to teach the craft to pupils, <i><b>"I had moved to New York and, when I was living there, I'd go over to the Actors Studio and observe all the wonderful work that was going on over there. And then I'd go over to Mr. Strasberg's school because there's a way of teaching acting which Mr. Strasberg taught us which is half of the class is doing technique, which I can't get into here. It's too complicated to explain, but the other half of the class is when they do scene work. There were a lot of good teachers there, like Al Pacino's teacher Charlie Laughton. I would go work in Charlie's class and Charlie would say, 'Well, Marianna, you forgot to do this and you forgot to do that.' So I was learning how to be a teacher. I'd do some scene and I'd think, 'Well, let's put this scene together and see what Charlie says' and he was brilliant! He'd say, 'Oh, Marianna, you didn't bring the weather with you! There's a third person in every scene and that's the weather!' So that's part of the process I went through to learn how to teach acting."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRUu3kMpUxUNBSO9a9Fe41e1cvWMpqKcZRYVID_c69B0zE5x-zItUBv0sL0YBuhujDq8jEPAwGByrf-CO7B6E-bv_luqrnXsrZl-kF4Fx7NyFx5shrNyecYVOnQQYwx6t52xpVkYqpf7U/s1600/135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRUu3kMpUxUNBSO9a9Fe41e1cvWMpqKcZRYVID_c69B0zE5x-zItUBv0sL0YBuhujDq8jEPAwGByrf-CO7B6E-bv_luqrnXsrZl-kF4Fx7NyFx5shrNyecYVOnQQYwx6t52xpVkYqpf7U/s400/135.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
In 1986, while living on the East Coast, Hill was approached about appearing in a low-budget satire about a New York real estate developer (Allen Garfield) who dabbles in politics. Written and directed by actor Zack Norman (who, as 'Howard Zuker,' co-financed and presented the 1974 Academy Award<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">®</span>-winning anti-war documentary "Hearts & Minds") and playwright, journalist, and former agent Neil Cohen, "Chief Zabu" was shot on a budget of $186,966 during a 15 day shooting schedule in the Spring of 1986 at Bard College in New York. As co-writer and co-director Neil Cohen recalls, <i><b>"Zack Norman and I were writing scripts together and he told me a story about an event he had gone to at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in New York. He had been brought there by a bunch of real estate, financial and business types to meet a man named Chief Clemons Kapuuo who was trying to get his homeland recognized by the United Nations. Chief Kapuuo was from Namibia and seemed like a decent guy but Zack knew that everybody in that suite was a hustler of one sort or another. Also there, for some reason, was Elizabeth Taylor and a bunch of other celebrities who knew nothing about Southwest Africa except that, on that afternoon, that hotel suite was the place they thought they should be. Zack thought that this event, crowded with hustlers and celebrities, was the most preposterous thing. Unfortunately, Chief Kapuuo did not meet a happy ending. But when Zack told me the story I thought that there was something we could make out of these sharks swimming around this sincere guy who was trying to do something for his country. We decided to set the opening of our story in Polynesia. At the time, the French colonies in the South Pacific were trying to win their independence while France was still testing nuclear weapons there. There was nothing funny about atom bombs, but people have a fantasy about Polynesia and we decided to write a satirical comedy where we made fun of the sharks who intended to capitalize on a new nation's efforts to be recognized by the UN, and not make fun of Chief Zabu himself. We wanted to recognize the irony that in our movie every white person who meets Chief Zabu, no matter how fleetingly, is going to profit from it, either personally or professionally, but that the Chief was going to get screwed in the end. So we wrote it and Zack raised a small amount of money and we found a way to make it."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkFElXwAPEd5FRgmxWJcXtcdlZUaClM1BO4PBwEBL6v7IEGN5ArPLuINeugITDF6sNztFabio2uQV6PNumElOIwLRA38VJJK7oV5fA8xxK-ZxxzXQe_a-39tq5wB4FRSaR_eXBXQoN4KM/s1600/115.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkFElXwAPEd5FRgmxWJcXtcdlZUaClM1BO4PBwEBL6v7IEGN5ArPLuINeugITDF6sNztFabio2uQV6PNumElOIwLRA38VJJK7oV5fA8xxK-ZxxzXQe_a-39tq5wB4FRSaR_eXBXQoN4KM/s400/115.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A key component in the casting of "Chief Zabu" was the participation of Neil Cohen's friend, the great character actor Allen Garfield. Cohen recalls his friendship with Garfield came about because<i><b> "My future wife and I were on a holiday walking around Rome on a hot day and we stopped to buy an ice cream and the guy coming out of the ice cream shop was Allen Garfield. I said hello and he was amazed I knew who he was and we spent the afternoon and evening wandering around Rome with Allen Garfield, who was there shooting 'The Black Stallion Returns' (1983). When we got back to New York, the next thing you know is that we had a new friend. Allen would knock on our door and join us and our friends for Thanksgiving and other events. When Zack and I were trying to figure out who we should have to play the lead, Ben Sydney, I said, 'What about Allen Garfield?' and Zack said, 'Great!' So I sent Allen the script and we met at Zack's office/apartment and Zack and Allen got along and we read some scenes aloud from the script and, in the end, Allen said, 'Yeah! Let's do it! I'm in!'"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzKguDbANtYDZAZAtfWBio-MOywrLVD2_PREVOTwp8_SeqrVPZoEUGVigwcp9D62JS6g9CJk4NdTPBsvZeOCGqSuZ5fG45LiW_ALLxejTdPFf0k6pUEeVCd4RJryC84t0H6OoX2GMxllk/s1600/126.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzKguDbANtYDZAZAtfWBio-MOywrLVD2_PREVOTwp8_SeqrVPZoEUGVigwcp9D62JS6g9CJk4NdTPBsvZeOCGqSuZ5fG45LiW_ALLxejTdPFf0k6pUEeVCd4RJryC84t0H6OoX2GMxllk/s400/126.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
With great enthusiasm for the project, Allen Garfield was able to convince some of his friends to participate in the film. Neil Cohen recalls that, during the casting process, <i><b>"We went through the Players Guide, which in those days it was the size of a phone book and had photographs of actors and their contact info. So Allen looked through it and said, 'I can bring in this person, let me call this one and that one.' The actors he brought in were from the Actors Studio like Manu Tupuo, who plays Chief Zabu, and Shirley Stoler. Allen said, 'This part here, Marianna Hill can probably make something out of it' and I said, 'Gee, I don't think she'll do it. It's just three lines of dialogue.' Allen said, 'Let's call her anyway and find out.' We didn't audition anyone else for the part. It was a sight-gag role--we needed someone who looked like a movie star type--and I think in the script the character was intended to be much younger. In the script, the part originally consisted of her appearing at the party for Chief Zabu and everybody murmuring, 'What's Jennifer Holding from 'The Deluded Chimp' doing here?' and Allen marches over and introduces himself and her line was, 'I'm not interested in talking about my career. I'm just here for Chief Zabu' and a couple of other lines and a punchline about her house in Beverly Hills. So there wasn't much of a part actually to cast. We figured we would just find somebody during the course of pre-production. So when Allen said, 'Let's call Marianna, I think she's in town,' we were like, 'We're kind of embarrassed to offer her such a small part. If you want to call her, you can call her!' And then Allen reported back, 'She wants to know when to show up! Who's going to meet her at the train station in Rhinebeck?' So that's how that casting happened. Who knew that we were going to get this excellent, beautiful, and brilliant actress who was going to re-envision the role for us?"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhof-VUuZElQ8c_iWfCBWDm1ay_hGYpsaXs81szG468BZ5HeH1xOqFtde5wsplWqueQmj83TTNF7xUI8GsSwlm-QgeNmTbg-I9X2JKLB5VIItEn0NmjSxgi9F0rRYRqismIkpbzSBby85U/s1600/121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhof-VUuZElQ8c_iWfCBWDm1ay_hGYpsaXs81szG468BZ5HeH1xOqFtde5wsplWqueQmj83TTNF7xUI8GsSwlm-QgeNmTbg-I9X2JKLB5VIItEn0NmjSxgi9F0rRYRqismIkpbzSBby85U/s400/121.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Marianna Hill played Jennifer Holding in "Chief Zabu" as a movie star dabbling in political causes in an attempt to bring some meaning to her existence. Hill confirms that Allen Garfield's participation in the film was a principal factor of her accepting the role, <i><b>"The reason I did 'Chief Zabu' is that Allen Garfield is from the Actors Studio, I'm from the Actors Studio and we worked together there on stuff. So he said, 'Oh, Marianna, please come help me with this movie.' And I said, 'I'd be glad to work with you,' because Allen Garfield happens to be a great actor. He's a really underrated actor. Allen was the hardest working actor, but nobody realizes that about him because he seems to be a natural. Well, forget it: he'd work on everything to get it right because I worked on plays with him. He's really extraordinary. We'd do this sort of 'Secret Service' kind of talk where we'd collaborate together on the characters and the scene and make choices on how to play it. Boy, Allen is really about getting into the detail and the minutiae and that's what acting's all about because that's what people are all about! So we did this movie, 'Chief Zabu,' and we shot it in upstate New York and it turned into this incredible, fun thing to do. I remember how Allen would say, 'Marianna, do you know what I'd like to see from you in this movie?' and I'd say, 'OK, give me the low-down!' He was just amazing to work with because of his inspired choices, and whatever choice he made really worked! And I loved working with Zack Norman and Neil Cohen. I love them. They're great guys and they're very warm and caring and creative. They're both very intelligent individuals and they had this whole concept for 'Chief Zabu' and I just trusted them because I felt that these guys knew what they were doing with this movie. I especially enjoyed working with Neil, who is like some kind of genius."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtP-azmrOrcDDLfyC6vXKUHU-TzQNF7AT1Er15P9im7lWsApo7JTrYKUPK-AbKbSiVc3ZA-xfmz2b-qbhyphenhyphenVuK5Mkjpk3npMppsem5KutwiGdE3jMc33dbVTkOP96uD1Qdtnahn04F6g0/s1600/127.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtP-azmrOrcDDLfyC6vXKUHU-TzQNF7AT1Er15P9im7lWsApo7JTrYKUPK-AbKbSiVc3ZA-xfmz2b-qbhyphenhyphenVuK5Mkjpk3npMppsem5KutwiGdE3jMc33dbVTkOP96uD1Qdtnahn04F6g0/s400/127.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Neil Cohen returns the whole-hearted compliment and sense of professional respect and recalls that, <i><b>"When the perfect person shows up, you're not going to have her come all this way and give her only three lines. We were all moving very, very quickly, but probably the night before, or the morning of shooting that reception scene, I said to her, 'What do you want to do with this part?' And she said, 'Well, we could try this and that and give me some lines to tell me who she is' and we very quickly gave her some lines about rage and 'Nobody can control my rage!' and I suggested, 'Your character could talk about her mother' and Marianna said, 'I get it! I know what this is. Let me think about it. We'll have some fun. I know Allen. We'll get each other crazy and it'll be funny.' I want to give her credit: We called 'Action!' and there she went. When you shoot something like that, you don't know what the actors are going to come up with. As long as we had the four or five lines that we needed for the plot and for some humor, we would've quit right then and there. But, all of a sudden, she's so fantastic that we thought, 'OK, let's go for a medium shot, let's go in for a close shot, let's do a reverse on Allen, let's just keep the camera running so they're just gazing at each other.' And the next thing we knew we were like, 'Man, this chemistry between them is so great, let's stick them in Central Park walking together and let's give her another speech in Beverly Hills.' Zack and I sat down and concocted a big moment for her at a party in Beverly Hills where she's married to Allen and he's running for Congress. We shot that Beverly Hills scene in a house in Great Neck that had a crazy, round indoor pool, which was hilarious. So much came about because of what she created in that one scene she originally had with Allen. Marianna and Allen really worked well together. Knowing the two of them, I'm sure they were getting each other's goat like brother and sister, you know? They had the same training about becoming characters and listening to the other person and reacting to what the other person would do. You stand those two people in front of the camera, and something's going to happen. I'll give you a perfect example: When they were walking in Central Park, and then all of a sudden she kisses Allen, that wasn't scripted and you can tell from Allen's reaction! He was stupefied and then he went for it. Her instinct was: 'Pow! This is nice, two people walking and chatting on a beautiful day. Let me take it up a notch, let me throw some jalapeno on that thing' and she gave us such a hilarious punchline to that scene. Allen's reaction, you can't premeditate that! When Marianna was in L.A. recently for the 'Chief Zabu' screening, we talked about her agreeing to take such a small part in the film. She said that she doesn't understand how actors don't take a part because it's too small. She said, 'It's not my training. Just go in and make something out of it! Maybe it'll get bigger, or maybe it'll be just a great small role or maybe it'll be just a great fun line?' She had no hesitation to do 'Chief Zabu' because of the size of the role. She said, 'Here was something involving people that I respected and it sounded like an unusual, experimental film being shot. Why wouldn't I do it?'"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-TlnOGaI5ckK2fK27qrvYM0bx18-FAQ8OBC286VViiwX5ddHFGmIjapYeNeTd96wkdycW8CTdn16AgrBO2LM67xfSgchdEaPmRwlE_J39SPDAkhc8P57eLuE58wdY79v6C79TK7gvA-Y/s1600/133.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-TlnOGaI5ckK2fK27qrvYM0bx18-FAQ8OBC286VViiwX5ddHFGmIjapYeNeTd96wkdycW8CTdn16AgrBO2LM67xfSgchdEaPmRwlE_J39SPDAkhc8P57eLuE58wdY79v6C79TK7gvA-Y/s400/133.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After filming wrapped on "Chief Zabu," the movie ended up not being released for 30 years. Neil Cohen explains, <i><b>"We did the movie and we cut it into the conventional 90 minutes and that version had problems. That's not surprising since we shot the thing so fast. In that longer version, the movie would sort of stop and start in terms of its energy level. There were more subplots and a bunch more setting up of the story stuff at the beginning. Even so, one distributor did love the movie and then he went bankrupt before it got distributed. Zack and I were tired at that point and Zack was getting jobs in Hollywood movies and I had just sold my first Hollywood script and we just decided that at some point we would get back to it. There were people chasing us to put it into their distribution packages and what-not but we weren't happy with how the movie played at the length it was. We just said, 'Let's just punt it. Let's not put out something that we're not proud of.' We had high hopes for it and we enjoyed the experience of making it and we just said, 'We'll get back to it!' and we just didn't for 30 years. Over the years, 'Chief Zabu' became this kind of mystery. People would discuss it on the internet as this 'lost film' and there was even all this crazy chatter that it was all some kind of hoax and that it never actually existed!"</b></i> As such, cast members like Marianna Hill were left wondering about the fate of "Chief Zabu."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cr6wupZumC3a8JJ8xoi_lFXp0q7gp37nXA1JdjBCPSZxM4asa8cVZPAcpMBSDrnmV-NwdC35idqgmzLtvLUl_wd6fvtbaEbtMy1Tk1tNt2EGv-5AUbHsFyc2BTVkUxBQOKJu3Rnj0_s/s1600/163.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cr6wupZumC3a8JJ8xoi_lFXp0q7gp37nXA1JdjBCPSZxM4asa8cVZPAcpMBSDrnmV-NwdC35idqgmzLtvLUl_wd6fvtbaEbtMy1Tk1tNt2EGv-5AUbHsFyc2BTVkUxBQOKJu3Rnj0_s/s400/163.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conway Hall in London, home of The Lee Strasberg Studio (1987-2001) and The Method Studio (2001-2009), where Marianna Hill taught for 22 years. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
After filming "Chief Zabu," Hill's life and career went further in different directions. She moved to London in 1987 to run The Lee Strasberg Studio in the United Kingdom. She taught at the school until 2001 when it was reconfigured and renamed The Method Studio. She continued teaching at and running the new school until it closed in 2009. Since then, Marianna Hill continues teaching her craft at acting workshops throughout London as well as privately coaching pupils who are making a name for themselves in films, theater and television in the United Kingdom. Hill recalls that the decision to move to England occurred, <i><b>"right after 'Chief Zabu,' which was such a great experience. </b></i><i><b>Anna Strasberg, Lee's widow, said "Oh, Marianna, I'd love for you to teach for me in England. I'm opening up a school in London.' So that's what happened. I ran The Lee Strasberg Studio for many years, and then I taught at The Method Studio for many more years. I don't like to keep track of time, but that's what I did for more than 20 years." </b></i>Even though Marianna Hill has found her role as an acting instructor both rewarding and challenging, she also acknowledges, <i><b>"To tell you the truth, teaching is the hardest job I've ever learned. You're dealing with people who are *so* different from one another and on such different levels of talent and enthusiasm and ability. That's what's tough about it, it's much different than acting."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhonO4Y71ZjhDzCLA45bFp4Dicr5k68tfrTIS_xHN4LlnZ4xse5CpV6PtlHNd8rIhXjIbv8sMdLZCWGRqkJk4YRP3K7q4M13KhM1xwD1s8Xp-daVUxJPgaoIJb7ItQuahhm2oyojnk0yo/s1600/155.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhonO4Y71ZjhDzCLA45bFp4Dicr5k68tfrTIS_xHN4LlnZ4xse5CpV6PtlHNd8rIhXjIbv8sMdLZCWGRqkJk4YRP3K7q4M13KhM1xwD1s8Xp-daVUxJPgaoIJb7ItQuahhm2oyojnk0yo/s400/155.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>
<br />
During this time, Marianna Hill's second cousin, United States Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. was making a name for himself as the leader of coalition forces in the Gulf War from August 2, 1990 to February 28, 1991. Hill enjoyed seeing her cousin lauded and recognized for his accomplishments. She recalls while watching news coverage of the Gulf War every night, <i><b>"I was thrilled to see the hard work he was doing. I thought, 'That's my family! God bless him! There's my blood out there fighting the good fight!' I was thrilled and proud that he was in charge of such a huge responsibility because he was such a great man. Wouldn't you be proud to be related to him? I admit I wasn't afraid for him because I knew he was going to be all right. He had some kind of power, and I can't explain it: Somebody is looking after this family because we're all excitable and dramatic and volatile in our natures, but nothing really bad happens to any of us. We don't have horrible accidents in cars, we don't die of horrible diseases. No matter what happens, we seem to survive. And I always believe that somehow or other, we're just very fortunate that God is protecting us. I really believe that, and I was never afraid for Norman as a result because he's this big guy and I just thought, 'He's just got so much gravitas and charisma and so much power that he would take care of himself.' And, by the way, Norman Schwarzkopf was a real intellectual. He didn't want to go to war. He talked against it. He said, 'That's just crazy! Why should we do that?' There are a lot of reasons why he was not what some people might refer to as a big 'warmonger,' so to speak, but he was sent there and he did his duty. He was a very interesting man. He was complicated and very intelligent. I'm very proud that I'm related to him and he's related to me. I'm totally proud of it."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpuQoXDlB5uHrPTH-Eps7xnwBd2Jy2Szho9yL6zWLAuNeT11dGOKqLuMBpexLuNKC1A-BBOoclu8McY6n0wYct70IGAk44yc9l6cnzguVVcqMMb-t4PXaIEQBCL_daZLC454bu0hthkQQ/s1600/154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpuQoXDlB5uHrPTH-Eps7xnwBd2Jy2Szho9yL6zWLAuNeT11dGOKqLuMBpexLuNKC1A-BBOoclu8McY6n0wYct70IGAk44yc9l6cnzguVVcqMMb-t4PXaIEQBCL_daZLC454bu0hthkQQ/s400/154.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While describing her utmost respect and affection for her renowned cousin, Hill further recalls, <i><b>"He was just the most outstanding person. I remember one time when I saw him I just fell over, I was just so thrilled. Oh my God! I just loved him. He radiated this incredible power and he was just warm and loving. I gave him a picture of our Great Granddad, Christian Schwarzkopf. He thanked me and said, 'I've never seen this before' and I said, 'Well, here it is. I didn't think you had' because he had never seen Christian. And, you know, we talked about the family. He knew all about my whole side of the family, he knew about Rudy and everybody. I didn't get to see him a lot because I lived here in England for a long time, and he lived there in Florida, but we kept in touch by exchanging Christmas cards."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYStgQWXM_s75WMERBY2UrrEzY1i9lUuVnyZJHbHnMhtX_qnVYlMrHDGB6JdEylvRIInezVNWCrQiB0JuDgW9OJUkDSaYElAiXN28IOwCfvFBhaafg1KZzOKS8Z5Z430ZqzPh-7LVsjwY/s1600/157.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYStgQWXM_s75WMERBY2UrrEzY1i9lUuVnyZJHbHnMhtX_qnVYlMrHDGB6JdEylvRIInezVNWCrQiB0JuDgW9OJUkDSaYElAiXN28IOwCfvFBhaafg1KZzOKS8Z5Z430ZqzPh-7LVsjwY/s400/157.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Marianna Hill didn't see her cousin often, she recalls that when he passed away in 2012, <b style="font-style: italic;">"I fell down when I was storming a mountain showing off. I was climbing this mountain in Wales and I said, 'Well, look at me, I'm 'Nature Boy'' because they would call Grampa Schwarzkopf 'Nature Boy.' He was Alsatian and hearty and loved to climb mountains. He was very strong. I started to show off while climbing a mountain and I rolled down the mountain and crushed my leg! (laugh) I had to be shipped back to England so they could put my leg back together. It's fine now, it's really nothing big, but I was in the hospital for a week. When I came home, there was a light in the ceiling in my house in London that hasn't worked for 20 years--never did work, ever!--and the light was on. No electrician would ever fix them because they're up too high. The light was on and I thought, 'What's this mean? Why is this light on? What's just happened?' because I know what that means. I know it means that somebody's passed over. I went to sleep and I thought, 'Who's gone?' And in the morning my pupil called and said, 'Oh, Marianna, did you hear? Norman Schwarzkopf died.' And I thought, 'Oh no!...It was the light! That was Norman saying goodbye.' That's the truth! He had put the lights on in my ceiling and they have never worked before and they never worked since. Norman must have turned the lights on to say goodbye. There's no other explanation for it. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend his funeral because my leg was in that cast and my doctors told me I couldn't travel. I would have definitely attended if I didn't have this fractured leg."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg148y5Aq7-Ll2QeOS1_CNUD38SFZwOr1_yid-WrGDjpi_-8qbr7VG8xsHxRyL_nPafo-ntvrD7gPKYF-8Apu3Si6WgK1RkSUOZq9CTWk2ZXyLbSFpwc00fcPvvyRf7DIxDTZH1l9I1kHE/s1600/156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg148y5Aq7-Ll2QeOS1_CNUD38SFZwOr1_yid-WrGDjpi_-8qbr7VG8xsHxRyL_nPafo-ntvrD7gPKYF-8Apu3Si6WgK1RkSUOZq9CTWk2ZXyLbSFpwc00fcPvvyRf7DIxDTZH1l9I1kHE/s400/156.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though relatives have passed away, Marianna Hill remains proud of the legacy that the members of her family have imparted to her, <i><b>"Sometimes, when I'm facing a challenging situation and in a bad mood I think 'What about Schwarzkopf?! You've got their genes! Schwarzkopf are good genes to have! You can survive this!' That's how I see life. I've got these wonderful people: Rudy my grandfather, cousin Norman, Daddy. They all persevered and survived and I think of them and that gives me strength and I'm OK. Wouldn't you be OK if you had these guys around you? I just want you to write good things about my Grampa and my Daddy and my cousin Norman. You don't have to say anything about me, but just my family, because that's more important to me than anything. I also want to mention that I was married to a wonderful man who died in an automobile accident. He was Argentinian with blond hair and blue eyes and he was a polo player and he was a lot of fun. But he cracked up his car and went off to Heaven and that's all I want to say about him because it's still a very painful, heartbreaking memory. I just want people to know that I had a substantial family and I'm proud of them. They're more important than I am or my acting career, and springing forth from them, and having them in my life, was a miracle from God."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVymHmqkXHLc7BNmay5-6c8t8Na34OmuLGBaMWXxc8eBbNQAuB6k1Hs1cq7eitZkoIejuiMnWkjA4kf-UleZmGSwVPQs5x-e3CH3eSTSCBqMX3j9qzIzmrgL_OqL8OGabfHm4XLSh7scY/s1600/86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVymHmqkXHLc7BNmay5-6c8t8Na34OmuLGBaMWXxc8eBbNQAuB6k1Hs1cq7eitZkoIejuiMnWkjA4kf-UleZmGSwVPQs5x-e3CH3eSTSCBqMX3j9qzIzmrgL_OqL8OGabfHm4XLSh7scY/s400/86.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the course of her teaching career, the subject of her own acting work has occasionally come up with pupils. However, Hill recognizes that her responsibility is to teach them the craft of acting and not self-indulgently drop names or boast about her accomplishments. As she explains, <i><b>"I never talk about my career in class even though I teach actors. Sometimes my pupils will say stuff like, 'I Googled your name and I read about this or that about you.' And I say, 'Well, don't believe what you see on Google. Half of my credits are given to somebody else, and then they give me someone else's credits, and some websites give me the wrong age and the wrong birthplace. And somebody online says he's my cousin and he writes all of this stuff about me! So why do you go on the internet to read about me? Just stop it!' I don't like to talk about my career unless there's something really, really important that I think could be useful to them. I might say, 'Listen, I'm going to tell you what director so-and-so once said about acting,' but I don't say that he said it to me because I don't want to show off. I just want to teach them that this technique will work, that technique won't work, acting is a craft, here is some information, etc. But when pupils say to me, 'I went on the internet and I read this about you and I saw you on YouTube,' I just say, 'Would you please run around the corner and get some air in your head?' (laugh) It's true what I say and a lot of times they actually do run around the corner and I think, 'Oh my God! Is this the millennial generation? Who are these people?!' (laugh) But, you know what? My pupils are very good people, I love them dearly, and they want to learn. God bless them, they're not sitting around moaning. They're serious about their craft and they're eager to learn and that's the most important thing to me, much more important than talking about myself or who I worked with."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIHbcde89RJG7_BoXayRC7kg-MAgfaCnq-xlpAQTw1YuhVPNHiZ0vCLRFNPz_VwsIdx7lCGPvIkF9ZceEN4uR0wbKYKl6hwAYuDcSJrhw_6gjSD1Eze_WQZGh8xlctU6LWncjYuJPXfSA/s1600/136.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIHbcde89RJG7_BoXayRC7kg-MAgfaCnq-xlpAQTw1YuhVPNHiZ0vCLRFNPz_VwsIdx7lCGPvIkF9ZceEN4uR0wbKYKl6hwAYuDcSJrhw_6gjSD1Eze_WQZGh8xlctU6LWncjYuJPXfSA/s400/136.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6U36jARv8qHxXWfrC2ibCUQExG6NMFi3E3kTYqQB73SV3iYnFxIv0aUnFY-VTTtN1V8j6aX7DXigMjRtNiOQElCwA-5780o523yWYvV95YN81FKGlXU-XE8KAbft5I5s3raBE6orG0E/s1600/122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6U36jARv8qHxXWfrC2ibCUQExG6NMFi3E3kTYqQB73SV3iYnFxIv0aUnFY-VTTtN1V8j6aX7DXigMjRtNiOQElCwA-5780o523yWYvV95YN81FKGlXU-XE8KAbft5I5s3raBE6orG0E/s400/122.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While working primarily as a Method Acting instructor in England, Hill continued to find time to practice her craft by appearing occasionally in plays. In 2005, Hill made a rare appearance in the British-made indie feature "Coma Girl: The State of Grace," (which won the <a href="http://www.cinequest.org/events/158640/cinequest-film-festival-17-special-presentations" target="_blank">Viewer's Voice Award</a> at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California in 2007). Written, directed by, and starring Dina Jacobsen, "Coma Girl" concerned the adventures of Grace Anderson (played by Jacobsen), a data processor who is wandering through life and attempting to find a sense of purpose. Through surreal, comedic, stream of consciousness vignettes, the film depicts Grace's efforts to deal with the people and world around her. Despite modest production values, "Coma Girl" distinguishes itself by offering good performances and humorous moments that make it a worthwhile venture. Hill appears briefly late in the film in a surreal flashback where she plays Grace's mother, who is in the process of humiliating and degrading her daughter. Hill recalls that she became involved with the film because, <i><b>"I had a pupil named Steve Froelich who wrote the most wonderful plays. He would come to class and say, 'Oh, Marianna, I want you to be in one of my plays.' And I said, 'Anything!' So we went up to Wales and we did this fabulous play called 'They Offered Bob and Wilma Cash.' Dina Jacobsen happened to be Steve's pal and Dina rang me and said, 'I'm Steve's buddy. Please be my mother in my movie, 'Coma Girl,'' I said, 'For you, I'll do it because I love Steve! Just tell me whatever it is you want me to do.' She said, 'I just want you to yell at your daughter in this scene!' The thing is, I never saw a script, I had no idea what it was about, but Dina Jacobsen is an adorable girl, very sincere, and I knew she was going to do some good work. Intuitively, I knew that because she's no airhead, she's a really creative gal, and how could I resist? So I turn up in her living room and I said, 'What do you want me to do here?' She said, 'I just want you to curse and chew your daughter out!' I said, 'I'll do it! I'll curse her out!' So I did an Actors Studio adjustment, which is about mothers and daughters. I just did somebody's mother that I knew and the mother was just not nice. </b></i><b style="font-style: italic;">I've never seen the film b</b><b style="font-style: italic;">ut, for Dina, I'll do anything. If she wants me to help her open up a toiletry shop in Leicester Square, sure, I'll do it because she's just a dear, talented person that you just want to support.</b><b style="font-style: italic;">"</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzV9SscrNKz1N__QN9XC4zF_Ssvz8yjdAt-XfXR7SCeHIs9sxdpflhVLNXAUwEw3FRNPF13R79LHbi9MmjpP3FTeQN14Q7BYf98r1nxQlHljBC8NdmyxpTIdOnyzQcsuCsbfTcrjatkQ/s1600/167.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzV9SscrNKz1N__QN9XC4zF_Ssvz8yjdAt-XfXR7SCeHIs9sxdpflhVLNXAUwEw3FRNPF13R79LHbi9MmjpP3FTeQN14Q7BYf98r1nxQlHljBC8NdmyxpTIdOnyzQcsuCsbfTcrjatkQ/s400/167.jpg" width="393" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Chief Zabu" co-director Neil Cohen and Marianna Hill</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
During the last year, the film Marianna Hill worked on before moving to England, "Chief Zabu," was finally being prepared for a theatrical release. After sitting on the shelf for three decades, filmmakers Neil Cohen and Zack Norman were inspired to complete their film about a New York real estate developer dabbling in politics because of Donald Trump's Presidential campaign. Cohen explains that, <i><b>"Last November 2015, Zack and I were having dinner and we said, 'Isn't this wild? This guy Trump, he reminds us of our main character Ben Sydney.' And so we looked at it again and we hadn't looked at the movie in at least 25 years. We were surprised at how close it was to the real life situation in many ways without being an obvious parody. The fact that it wasn't a parody, but a satire that was speaking to the same issues, and with a character in the same milieu of New York and real estate, sparked us to take another crack at editing the movie. What also made the difference was the development of technologies that made it possible to re-edit it. Back in those days, you'd have to find some guy who would charge you $200 an hour to cut it on his Moviola. Re-cutting the movie became a thing we talked about, but we knew how overwhelming it would be to do something we didn't feel that there was any market for. Well, cut to 30 years later and there's a different market and new technology and, in order to cut something, you just need a Mac and find somebody who knows how to use it. We thought we'd just cut it to 40 minutes and post it online. But as we were narrowing it down--we were working with an editor and a guy doing color correction and working with a projectionist and working with a sound person--each of them kept saying, 'This is a really good movie and there's nothing like it out there.' So we showed it to a couple of people--like director Matt Piedmont, and Bob Rosen of UCLA, and Peter Bogdanovich--and they liked it and so we dug deep to get a couple of extra bucks to finish it. What was different about the experience 30 years later is that everything we did now was fun. There was no stress, there was no pressure, there was no disagreements and, maybe most of all, we had no outtakes which means we didn't spend months trying to build a different movie from scratch. We had what it was, and let's just fine-tune the stuff that we like, and get rid of the stuff that we don't like, and move some things around structure-wise if it made sense to do that. It was a real puzzle that had its parameters and now, at 74 minutes, it's a movie that some people love and some people hate, but that's OK. I'd rather have a movie that some people love and some people hate than have them feel indifference to it. But I think at its now snappy 74 minutes, it's a time capsule of independent filmmaking that speaks to issues of today that doesn't wear out its welcome."</b></i> <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWL6uUIzjTH0qkz8XaTDAR5aNXxchZ-qTtbQr903ZtFebOZoSOsTHywQXI66Gwh9cMGvYGUbb11jvBUet-y1zav6po8CG7K5KcWVVwBJIgDVJyJsciw1m8dO9Hsuv_H_8fUVF1eKKDDpU/s1600/125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWL6uUIzjTH0qkz8XaTDAR5aNXxchZ-qTtbQr903ZtFebOZoSOsTHywQXI66Gwh9cMGvYGUbb11jvBUet-y1zav6po8CG7K5KcWVVwBJIgDVJyJsciw1m8dO9Hsuv_H_8fUVF1eKKDDpU/s400/125.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zack Norman, Marianna Hill, Neil Cohen and Lucianne Buchanan at the premiere of "Chief Zabu"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As he was completing the film and preparing it for release, Neil Cohen reached out to members of the cast and crew with the intention of inviting them all to the premiere in Santa Monica, California on October 28, 2016. One cast member Cohen hoped to reconnect with was Marianna Hill. As Cohen explains, <i><b>"I didn't recall how brilliant she was in the movie until we got back into it and really had a chance to study her performance. Just as a politeness I would have reached out to her anyway but now I really wanted to let Marianna know that this was happening because she's so great in the movie. As you know, she has no internet or online presence, there's no way to track her down, and when people don't have that online presence, it usually means they don't want to be found. They're living a different life now and you want to respect that, you know? But I found somebody who worked with her in London and that individual helped facilitate putting me in contact with her again. That person checked with Marianna and got her permission to share her contact information in London. So I wrote Marianna a personal note on actual stationery and put a DVD of 'Chief Zabu' in the package and sent her a bunch of pictures from the movie. Some weeks later the phone rings and it was Marianna Hill, full of humor and energy and sounding unchanged from the person I knew and worked with 30 years ago. She said she loved the movie and said, 'I have business in Los Angeles that I'm supposed to come in and attend to. I'll try to coordinate my trip so I can attend the premiere.' And I said, 'If you do we'll make every effort to make you feel at home here and take care of you and make it a fun trip for you.' It was as simple as that. We wouldn't have imposed on her if it was something she didn't want, we wouldn't have made her a part of any publicity if she didn't want to participate in it. But she was all in. She said, 'How can I help? I want everybody to know about this movie!' It was great to have her participate in Q&As at the screenings in L.A. She was so much fun! She was full of laughter and enjoying the experience. At the screenings, if she sat there and we didn't introduce her, I think she would've said, 'OK, let's go get a beer now!' There was no ego at all! But when we did introduce her, people gave her a standing ovation and everybody wanted to chat with her. It was such great fun for her and such great fun for me. One night, Zack and myself and Marianna and a few other people went out for drinks after the screening and she was so nice and generous with these budding actors and actresses and answering every question they had. She advised them to 'Have a beer with a difficult director or difficult actor to work things out' or 'If you make some money as an actor, this is what to do or what not to do to take care of your finances.' It was so much fun to have her around."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLYydoJh9SEgz0fP57k-iGa1VRu2GB07NqyWuk3JqIAIUkJlNxdjCU0BNR72_WVy34SLOy97wcWFk1t-sVZwSyzvYWJ9G4Pm5VglBGxl88q42nhmoPhMzzbuw7hoAcLQdv_eOeBcF8Xk/s1600/166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLYydoJh9SEgz0fP57k-iGa1VRu2GB07NqyWuk3JqIAIUkJlNxdjCU0BNR72_WVy34SLOy97wcWFk1t-sVZwSyzvYWJ9G4Pm5VglBGxl88q42nhmoPhMzzbuw7hoAcLQdv_eOeBcF8Xk/s400/166.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marianna Hill discussing "Chief Zabu" at the premiere.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Marianna Hill shares Neil Cohen's enthusiasm for "Chief Zabu" as she describes her reaction to attending the premiere screening for the film 30 years after completing her role in it, "<i><b>I really loved working on 'Chief Zabu,' but it never came out and I thought, 'OK, well, that happens!' </b></i><i><b>So finally, of course, it's now been put together. I saw it last night and I'll tell you something: This is a masterpiece and I'm not kidding! It reminded me of 'Pulp Fiction' and 'L.A. Confidential' and all of those kinds of movies where the creative team gets everyone together and they turn out this extraordinary work, and this is what 'Chief Zabu' is! The performances are just incredible because all of the actors are highly trained. Allen was there giving his all and working for very little money. And Betty Karlen is in it and she's a fabulous supporting gal! Shirley Stoler was amazing! Ed Lauter, who was a fantastic character actor! And Lucianne Buchanan--I didn't know anything about Lucianne before, but she stole the show! Look at her when she shows the picture of that car to Zack Norman, I almost fell over laughing! What great supporting actors! The supporting performances were impeccable because all of these people were old pros. Everybody in that cast has that spark, this latent ability to really be excellent, and that's why that movie works as well as it does. As for me, I thought, 'Well at least you were pretty!' I enjoyed looking at that person from another time. It was OK, it didn't upset me. I never used to like to watch myself, but I liked looking at myself because the movie was so funny. I was having a breathing attack because I was laughing so much. And to get me to laugh at anything is a challenge. So I see this movie I made 30 years ago, 'Chief Zabu,' and it was like opening up a jar of caviar and having a taste of it for the first time. It was extraordinary. You know what scene in it that I really like? I like the scene where I say to Allen Garfield, 'No man can deal with my anger! I can't find a man who can deal with my anger!' (laugh) Where does that come from? What a line! I loved saying it! I thought, 'Nobody's ever said that in a movie and now I'm going to say it! What a thing to say!' It was so funny! I'd never heard a leading woman say something like that in anything--no matter how bad girl or good girl they are--so for Neil and Zack to write that dialogue for me, these guys are geniuses. You have to be brilliant to write that dialogue. And yet everything is like that in the movie, like Lucianne and that sequence of the boys riding around in the car and talking and that dialogue that they did, and then Zack Norman showing that closet to these people looking for an apartment. Everything was just so fresh and alive in that picture. It was amazing!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpnePaqYjpiuk-q6H0hKbNkIllX_5aYYIcL-GaFPlsKMfrMfw7IQGWS4POVACUg_6MRd0zYyh0cgWlhY1B0JZMuux4yIdEB3hhhCGmItJ7obdxXLcCTrfygNtHlsnrpSbONliG9lJvOk/s1600/168.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpnePaqYjpiuk-q6H0hKbNkIllX_5aYYIcL-GaFPlsKMfrMfw7IQGWS4POVACUg_6MRd0zYyh0cgWlhY1B0JZMuux4yIdEB3hhhCGmItJ7obdxXLcCTrfygNtHlsnrpSbONliG9lJvOk/s400/168.jpg" width="371" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marianna Hill promoting "Chief Zabu"at the landmark Santa Monica video store Vidiots</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Neil Cohen is proud of the positive response he and Zack Norman have enjoyed with "Chief Zabu's" release and are working to ensure that the film continues to find an ever wider audience, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">We've now had screenings in LA and at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival that have been well-received. We also got a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/chief-zabu-940882" target="_blank">wonderful, very detailed review of the film</a> in the 'Hollywood Reporter,' and people have posted positive reviews of it on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. The biggest revelation from the screenings is we thought the only people who would possibly be interested in this were businessmen over 60 who knew who some of these actors were. We couldn't imagine that this movie would have any appeal to young people. But we found our best audience is young people and our highest ratings are from women. (laugh) I think it's because women find these guys funny, but the guys who are 50 and 60 think we're making fun of them--and we are! (laugh) Now we're working on a blue print for a sort of 'road show' engagement for the film in small markets that have an art house theater or are connected to a college that might have a film program, like Florida State, where we can take it and play it for a weekend and have a screening connected to the school and do a Q&A. There's been a lot of wonderful things that have happened with this movie, and reconnecting with Marianna Hill all these years later has truly been one of the high points of the experience of completing and releasing 'Chief Zabu.' Quite frankly, I knew her for all of three days back in 1986 when we worked on the film. And then we didn't see her for 30 years after that. I had a vague memory of working with someone who had a whole lot of energy, a lot of professionalism, had a real charisma and star quality. Who knew that bringing this film back would suddenly introduce me--introduce you and everyone else--to this wonderful person?"</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnEETn_uEI7gtjTttV2nxcOvBL82nxB9Y9O5bpWMWB1u_i0aCPJJlXu2uHThK3zXCzgLK_gdYPrSqNzpcBwDBN0mirZiLfdN9iSC-64mIrKnfH5dJMHRZ6JyZ0CvSDZM_cqqWLJ7bnh1Q/s1600/160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnEETn_uEI7gtjTttV2nxcOvBL82nxB9Y9O5bpWMWB1u_i0aCPJJlXu2uHThK3zXCzgLK_gdYPrSqNzpcBwDBN0mirZiLfdN9iSC-64mIrKnfH5dJMHRZ6JyZ0CvSDZM_cqqWLJ7bnh1Q/s400/160.JPG" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
Even after accomplishing much in the field of both acting and teaching in both the United States and England, Marianna Hill is not one to rest on her laurels, <b style="font-style: italic;">"I still privately coach pupils who are regularly working as actors here in England to help them with whatever it is they need to create for their roles. </b><b style="font-style: italic;">I'm also working with people who plan to create a new acting school and theater company in Australia. I plan to go there for a few months and work with them on getting all of that started and see what that offers. </b><b style="font-style: italic;">At this point in my life, I'm open to prospects for any kind of forward movement. Just like my grandfather said, I plan to just keep moving forward." </b>When asked if she would ever consider a return to acting, Hill thoughtfully replies, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">I loved acting and enjoyed my Hollywood career and, yet, I'm comfortable with who I am with my teaching career in London. All of that self-consciousness that comes with being an actress just isn't there, so </b><b style="font-style: italic;">I don't have to go around thinking, 'When will I ever work again?' or 'How do I look now?'</b><b style="font-style: italic;"> That's the strangely comforting side of not having that life of working in Hollywood. I don't have to ask myself, 'Marianna, do you really want to go back there and be beaten down by the competitiveness of it all?' I know this will sound like some Tennessee Williams heroine, always waiting to be rescued or something, but if there were an acting opportunity that I didn't have to break my fingers for, I'd absolutely be interested in it. It's like a line that Tennessee wrote for 'Orpheus Descending' that says, 'You've got to catch at whatever comes near you, with both of your hands, and hold onto it until your fingers are broken!' That's how the business is: You've got to hold on with this incredible strength and struggle to survive as an actress in Hollywood, and I wonder if I would really want to do that. Although it would be nice for someone to say, 'I saw you in some old movie or TV show and I wondered if you would like to come and play this part?,' I don't have any illusions that the world is waiting for me to return to acting, because why would they? I'm always open for any sort of opportunities--whether it's teaching or acting or selling used cars (laugh)--but I'm realistic enough to know what a daunting challenge it would be to return to acting. However, I would love to work with Zack Norman and Neil Cohen again if they ever want to collaborate on another picture. They were wonderful to work with on 'Chief Zabu,' and I would welcome another chance for that kind of experience with them again."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sv0XumMxOoVQxAHHCKiGRsRfkRwtKbdFQy87VTdMqYgJUqMGtUKEwqff_0FUPCDM1j9QhEySXHjF9SIK-4iGgEZBNvOeuaKs83wEHLq5sP71CIqR0eTsYRZ0hdQj0jzPwGxToLp6sn4/s1600/87.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sv0XumMxOoVQxAHHCKiGRsRfkRwtKbdFQy87VTdMqYgJUqMGtUKEwqff_0FUPCDM1j9QhEySXHjF9SIK-4iGgEZBNvOeuaKs83wEHLq5sP71CIqR0eTsYRZ0hdQj0jzPwGxToLp6sn4/s400/87.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
Whatever decision Marianna Hill makes about her future, she remains proud of her accomplishments and is grateful for the opportunity to have worked with the many distinguished performers, directors and crew members she worked with during her acting career. When asked what she considers to be her best work, Hill replies, <i><b>"I think it's moments in different things. I can't be objective about myself, but I am proud of my work in 'Red Line 7000,' 'Medium Cool,' 'High Plains Drifter,' 'The Godfather Part II,' and 'Chief Zabu.' I like moments from all of those. When I saw 'Chief Zabu' I thought, 'Well, look at her! She's got something. That really worked well there!' Usually, I can't look at myself because I get critical. With 'Chief Zabu,' I actually didn't mind looking at myself, which for me is a miracle. Usually, I think 'You need a nose job!' or 'Why didn't you get your teeth capped' or 'How come you didn't do this?' Anything I can do to criticize myself! But I think certain moments worked in different things, and I can say that I did good work on those films in particular."</b></i> Though she remains proud of her acting career, Hill readily acknowledges how teaching has proven to be the more rewarding vocation in her life, <i><b>"In teaching, a great deal of it is giving and the challenge is that sometimes what you give out--whether it's guidance about acting or about life in-general--is not acted upon or learned or absorbed by some of the pupils. The reason I think teaching is, ultimately, worthwhile and rewarding is because, at some point, it sinks in with them. It's just like my experience of going to school with the nuns at the convent when I was a young girl. All of us girls in the convent hated the nuns and we resisted what they were trying to teach us. But, years later, after leaving the convent, I looked back and I realized, 'What a lucky person I was. Those nuns devoted their lives to other people and to a love of a higher power and did whatever they could to instill some kind of substance into us.' We didn't get it at the time but, when I speak with my classmates about this, we all get it now. We are all so grateful that we had those gals who were so devoted and caring and taught us wisdom and discipline that was indefinable and invaluable. That's what I feel happens eventually with my pupils where they can look back and take everything that I have taught them and put it to work into their craft and into their lives. That's really the point of teaching, so that at someplace and somewhere in somebody's life, I will have made a difference. That's everything and that's more important than acting."</b></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-16558385588785893092016-02-28T21:09:00.000-08:002016-02-29T15:35:47.471-08:00Denise Matthews: The Actress Formerly Known as "Vanity"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPyec3JXVXUgvEtglHkoLTEGOc5m2UIhb7Gmo1MzS6OEICRnQI_XtGRoDg7Iuf1wGsneyoMGFod2Mph3pmEaxwTQGt73uoLceinvXix8W58w-bMH73rluldHgQt9TxUco4d7vvdH5hi4/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPyec3JXVXUgvEtglHkoLTEGOc5m2UIhb7Gmo1MzS6OEICRnQI_XtGRoDg7Iuf1wGsneyoMGFod2Mph3pmEaxwTQGt73uoLceinvXix8W58w-bMH73rluldHgQt9TxUco4d7vvdH5hi4/s400/2.JPG" width="325" /></a></div>
<br />
The 88th Annual Academy Awards<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">®</span> has just ended and I've already got a bone to pick with them in terms of their choices and exclusions for their annual "In Memoriam" section. The late singer/actress turned born-again Christian evangelist Denise Matthews (1959-2016), known in the 1980s and 1990s as "Vanity," was not included among the people whose contributions to the motion picture industry were being honored. (She was mentioned in the more comprehensive listing <a href="http://oscar.go.com/photos/2016/oscars-2016-in-memoriam-photos/vanity" target="_blank">on their official website</a> of people who passed away, but that was merely paying lip service to her and doesn't have the same impact as being included in the actual broadcast roll call.) While I don't have an issue with most of the people who <i>were</i> included, I do take umbrage to the presence of the hateful financier/businessman Kirk Kerkorian making the list. For the uninitiated, Kerkorian was famous for buying Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios in the 1960s and systematically selling off its assets in order to finance his hotel chain. He single-handedly destroyed the most famous movie studio in Hollywood with his greed and avarice. It's a shame that someone who was as destructive to the motion picture industry as Kerkorian was recognized in place of people who contributed to it in a more constructive manner like Joan Leslie, Abe Vigoda, Coleen Gray, Richard Johnson, Martin Milner, Bud Yorkin, or the subject of this blog, Denise Matthews, who was a very promising film actress during the 1980s and was particularly popular with young people. She first made a name for herself as the lead singer for the band Vanity 6. Matthews, then-girlfriend of burgeoning music legend Prince, was rechristened by him as Vanity and given her own band to front-line as part of Prince's efforts to lay the groundwork for his music empire.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYBwBiU7W-U2hHL1A-be-YYgslpK8qOT4THfpKbeKXdx3XLKcFPY3JwZdik4mO44pofIyQJo5VAGjIAtCsL0F19biSr8WCxiuhZeT77-JlvklQ7fTnx_LeOoIMpxLXyMNqMrrjuA8b7U/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYBwBiU7W-U2hHL1A-be-YYgslpK8qOT4THfpKbeKXdx3XLKcFPY3JwZdik4mO44pofIyQJo5VAGjIAtCsL0F19biSr8WCxiuhZeT77-JlvklQ7fTnx_LeOoIMpxLXyMNqMrrjuA8b7U/s400/1.JPG" width="380" /></a></div>
<br />
After breaking up with Prince--and forfeiting the lead role in his upcoming hit movie "Purple Rain" (1984) to the fun and appealing, but comparatively less edgy, Apollonia Kotero--Matthews forged a solo career on her own in music, producing records with Motown, as well as starring in 1980s action films that were successful with young people. But Matthews wasn't just a starlet with a pretty face and shapely figure. She had genuine charisma and screen presence and quickly proved to be a more than capable actress full of hope and promise. Critics such as Roger Ebert quickly warmed up to the young actress and she often earned good notices for her film performances. Matthews (born in Canada to an African American father and a German mother of Polish and Jewish descent) struck an edgy, ethnic contrast to the fresh-faced, WASPy starlets of the period, such as Molly Ringwald and Lea Thompson, and her appeal crossed ethnic and gender lines. So it's a shame that the Academy Board of Governors, <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2016/01/academy-awards-disintegration-dawn-hudson-cheryl-boone-isaacs.html" target="_blank">which made such a heavy-handed point</a> this year of wanting to acknowledge the contributions of women and people of color to the film industry, failed to mention Denise Matthews' brief but shining bid for movie stardom three decades ago. So much for their purported efforts to promote diversity.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglSs2tKrPJfsJ7ZPmx2VihqC_svRjVg3w5-u-WVlWkPx2EOD88xWV7Eo3DTA5Vao_R0eZ2-t8Fc48qyCWbYgGLFtmFNZKf0qa8jUFrj8SVTkDogS7XEVo_Ca-sGY2Uf7ejn8E3Okvs5hY/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglSs2tKrPJfsJ7ZPmx2VihqC_svRjVg3w5-u-WVlWkPx2EOD88xWV7Eo3DTA5Vao_R0eZ2-t8Fc48qyCWbYgGLFtmFNZKf0qa8jUFrj8SVTkDogS7XEVo_Ca-sGY2Uf7ejn8E3Okvs5hY/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I first became aware of Denise Matthews not from her Vanity persona or her association with Prince, but from her early screen appearance, billed as "D.D. Winters," in the horror movie "Terror Train" (1980), one of the key, seminal slasher films from the early 1980s. Jamie Lee Curtis starred as one of a group of college students targeted by a maniacal killer who has snuck aboard a train rented by senior year college students for a private costume party. Matthews played the sexy and sympathetic Merry, who is friends with the blonde and ditzy Pet (Joy Boushel), both of whom are not targeted by the killer because they were not involved with the prank that traumatized the killer years earlier. Throughout "Terror Train," however, the audience fully expects the characters of Merry and Pet to fall victim to the killer by being in the wrong place and the wrong time. However, "Terror Train" refreshingly avoids that cliche and allows both women to survive. As such, both Matthews and Boushel register well as appealing characters who add to the quirky, colorful milieu aboard the train because they are not merely plot devices meant to be killed off as a convenience. Matthews has a good moment later in the film where her character stands watch over Jamie Lee Curtis' sleeping Alana, after the latter has had a violent encounter with the killer and is recuperating from the experience. It allows Matthews to demonstrate that the character of Merry is a compassionate individual concerned with the well-being of her classmates and friends. "Terror Train" offered Matthews a decent, medium-sized part to launch her film career. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8l3tYmzhBz9xucTckuIDlTQp1suGSelTmjHf68MBOJAWHeeMdJZz-Vm9z6BWathXQH3P5gf2sC6ppPAGfnRh4CXaIjdh-gpKa2xpYxiwcKoVkmG44v7jFgEhvzW7Lh5wguUWvpAzl7ZY/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8l3tYmzhBz9xucTckuIDlTQp1suGSelTmjHf68MBOJAWHeeMdJZz-Vm9z6BWathXQH3P5gf2sC6ppPAGfnRh4CXaIjdh-gpKa2xpYxiwcKoVkmG44v7jFgEhvzW7Lh5wguUWvpAzl7ZY/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Terror Train," Matthews continued to use the screen name "D.D. Winters" for her next role, playing the title character in "Tanya's Island" (1980), an odd, fanciful adventure directed by Alfred Sole where Matthews plays a Toronto-based fashion model named Tanya trapped in an unhappy relationship with her painter boyfriend Lobo (Richard Sargent). Tanya ends up dreaming of being on a deserted island inhabited only by an ape she names "Blue," who she becomes close with. Her boyfriend Lobo also turns up on the island as Tanya finds herself trapped in the middle of a love-triangle between both Lobo and Blue. Despite the abundance of nudity displayed by Matthews throughout the movie, she makes Tanya a very likable and sympathetic character so that she never loses her dignity. Matthews never condescends to the material and projects a warmth and vulnerability that allows the audience to care about her character. Notwithstanding some silly and ludicrous scenes to play, Matthews gives a sincere and committed performance that goes a long way towards making the film watchable, particularly in the moments where Tanya communicates with the ape. Matthews carries what is undeniably a <i>very</i> weird movie with confidence and aplomb and demonstrates her early promise as a film star of considerable charisma. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitI9Y5gm3_YTZjFL6igH7auPTn2pLjm5n2JHEIC0CvCa33g2ejZJ_YQMkN0nn3SHL4Znvu71dCwVDAbeYp0El5sILjSXItSUNVLxxu7gBOLKsMWOHKf6Oh_WoTcscw78QrGuOjIEh6-zM/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitI9Y5gm3_YTZjFL6igH7auPTn2pLjm5n2JHEIC0CvCa33g2ejZJ_YQMkN0nn3SHL4Znvu71dCwVDAbeYp0El5sILjSXItSUNVLxxu7gBOLKsMWOHKf6Oh_WoTcscw78QrGuOjIEh6-zM/s400/6.JPG" width="387" /></a></div>
<br />
Matthews was off-screen for the next several years as she changed her professional name to Vanity and focused on establishing a recording career as the lead singer of the female pop trio Vanity 6, alongside colleagues Brenda Bennett and Susan Moonsie. Her band's biggest hit was the satirically raunchy "Nasty Girl," a song written and produced by Prince and which established her persona as an assertive, take-charge individual confident in her sexuality and appeal with men. In contrast to other so-called "dirty" songs that would follow, what distinguishes "Nasty Girl" from the rest of the pack is the playfully ironic edge that Prince, Matthews, Bennett, and Moonsie bring to the tune. It is as if its collaborators were consciously aware of the extreme and ludicrous nature of the song--which celebrates the uninhibited promiscuity of its central figure, the so-called "Nasty Girl" of its title--and are inviting listeners to simply laugh along with them. As mentioned earlier, when Matthews and Prince parted company both personally and professionally, she lost her chance to star as the female lead in "Purple Rain." While one might argue that appearing in that film would have had a negligible effect on her career because it did not quite catapult her replacement, Apollonia Kotero (an appealing entertainer in her own right who did solid work in "Purple Rain"), to major stardom, I think Matthews would have done much more with this opportunity by virtue of the fact that she was already well established and would have been playing a role that was originally tailor-made for her. I believe that Matthews arguably would have had more to gain from appearing in "Purple Rain."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip9qEa-OQWTB6SC31ibmjjfBALWGzRD2XAEeVRSfzPsFCy7yux56I6NryVIefUJJeOMUKPR89DP-haqfBbfXf7AG-_l42IhyphenhyphenTQeN-A8kiUHHk6VQTNdRQmBj1HcXQ_f-Nqwjz1gCrjJ_g/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip9qEa-OQWTB6SC31ibmjjfBALWGzRD2XAEeVRSfzPsFCy7yux56I6NryVIefUJJeOMUKPR89DP-haqfBbfXf7AG-_l42IhyphenhyphenTQeN-A8kiUHHk6VQTNdRQmBj1HcXQ_f-Nqwjz1gCrjJ_g/s400/9.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Nevertheless, on her own, Matthews still made a good impression in films throughout the rest of the 1980s. Matthews' most well-remembered movie role was her appearance in the martial-arts fantasy epic "The Last Dragon" (1985) playing music video show host Laura Charles, who is frequently kidnapped by a video arcade mogul who wants to force Laura into promoting his girlfriend's music career on her show. Along the way, Laura meets and falls in love with good-hearted martial artist Leroy Green (Taimak), who continually comes to her defense whenever she is in jeopardy. Matthews and Taimak enjoyed a genuinely warm screen chemistry, and made a very appealing couple. Throughout the film, Matthews demonstrated an earthy sincerity which ensured that her character rose above damsel-in-distress stereotypes. What makes Laura Charles the quintessential film role for Matthews is the manner in which she combined elements of beauty and genuine glamour along with an irresistibly shy innocence that has endeared the character to audiences. Produced by legendary music mogul Berry Gordy, and energetically directed by the underrated Michael Schultz, "The Last Dragon" still has a strong cult following today and established Matthews as a viable leading lady in action-adventure films.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9KGgUKB6liPhuNkBSY3Wtek2PUXOCPDuaX0fJJJaT5GN_InpiGFPpHXo_RZ79TD7J1oR-EJDUZpWm3g7t_qKJJTYvFUM5gpKMIaF2-jREnwsb4Uct-h9E5q3OtSY9KYRebpgL8ptq0M/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9KGgUKB6liPhuNkBSY3Wtek2PUXOCPDuaX0fJJJaT5GN_InpiGFPpHXo_RZ79TD7J1oR-EJDUZpWm3g7t_qKJJTYvFUM5gpKMIaF2-jREnwsb4Uct-h9E5q3OtSY9KYRebpgL8ptq0M/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Matthews followed up with the female lead role in the outlandish spy-adventure "Never Too Young to Die" (1986), playing a glamorous secret agent who teams up with a high-school gymnast (John Stamos) to defeat the arch villain Von Ragner (Gene Simmons) who has killed Stamos' secret agent father (played by one-time James Bond George Lazenby) and is planning to poison the water supply in Los Angeles. Confident in action scenes, and with a witty, glamorous, and assertively commanding presence, Matthews did creditable work in "Never Too Young to Die" (despite the outlandishness of its plot and production design) which makes one regret that she never had a chance to be an actual Bond Girl. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4qAsGCEOOryM_sXbob_mThodOKysEZGgzPcAgnKQah_vUBJ3q6OvrmPcxqSE9zr3lkw-YuY4TbLRzM62DRQjXWEjGl5uwIe3Eq1_M-I5NLWWNg6R_QJOrIFeMf971VXZiHIOwxFhhuA/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4qAsGCEOOryM_sXbob_mThodOKysEZGgzPcAgnKQah_vUBJ3q6OvrmPcxqSE9zr3lkw-YuY4TbLRzM62DRQjXWEjGl5uwIe3Eq1_M-I5NLWWNg6R_QJOrIFeMf971VXZiHIOwxFhhuA/s400/12.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Matthews then had the most acclaimed role of her career, as the stripper who provides helpful information to blackmail victim Roy Scheider in John Frankenheimer's "52 Pick-Up," (1986), a tough, gritty film noir based on Elmore Leonard's novel. As Doreen, Matthews effectively portrays a woman who is in over her head by associating with dangerous criminal types she is unable to extricate herself from. Despite her character's inherently seedy milieu, Matthews ensures that the audience still cares about Doreen. In her most effective scenes, Matthews portrays Doreen's sense of intimidation and terror with a palpable sense of dread. She's particularly good in the scene where her boyfriend Bobby Shy (Clarence Williams III) viciously wakes her up and attacks her in bed to discern what information, if any, she has shared with Roy Scheider's character. In another scene, Matthews vividly portrays Doreen's final terrifying moments as she tries to escape from an isolated warehouse by ramming her Ford Mustang into the barriers preventing her escape before being coldly gunned down by lead blackmailer Alan Raimy (John Glover). Matthews' performance in "52 Pick-Up" works because she continually reminds the audience of Doreen's humanity. The esteemed Roger Ebert <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/52-pick-up-1986" target="_blank">praised</a> Matthews' work in the film, noting how <i><b>"she does what all good character actors can do: She gives us the sense that she's fresh from intriguing offscreen action."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwYgAPno9HQiiug3eJE-i4GHIHUxJrItDFDJLxu3n5W8VPwKIxNKiUb3zj2Vt-flWjduqoXzi5h-tBs7xG67qPXJaDobitbD6XhGUuNRK1WqJS2p5fnc4TsS7OiWY43MWPA_QPWFp0FfY/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwYgAPno9HQiiug3eJE-i4GHIHUxJrItDFDJLxu3n5W8VPwKIxNKiUb3zj2Vt-flWjduqoXzi5h-tBs7xG67qPXJaDobitbD6XhGUuNRK1WqJS2p5fnc4TsS7OiWY43MWPA_QPWFp0FfY/s400/10.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<br />
By now, Matthews had established a viable screen image in action films, as an appealing female partner and sidekick who possesses qualities of strength and courage and always stays around when the bullets start flying. She demonstrated these traits in "Deadly Illusion" (1987) a film noir written and co-directed by Larry Cohen where she played the cab driver girlfriend of private detective Billy Dee Williams, who helps him try to prove his innocence after he is wrongfully accused of murder. She played a similar role, to even greater effect, in "Action Jackson" (1988), a lively, colorful action film where she plays Sydney Ash the heroin-addicted singer girlfriend of automobile mogul and crime lord Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). Sydney goes on the lam with police detective Jericho "Action" Jackson (Carl Weathers) after he has been framed for the murder of Dellaplane's wife Patrice (Sharon Stone). A dark and hard-edged character, Matthews ultimately makes Sydney a sympathetic character by allowing her to demonstrate qualities of decency when she assists Jackson in the latter-half of the film in proving his innocence and, in the process, also improbably kicks her drug habit by going cold turkey. She also gets to sing a couple of musical numbers in the picture, so that "Action Jackson" stands out as one of her more notable film appearances. Roger Ebert <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/action-jackson-1988" target="_blank">again praised</a> Matthews, noting that her performance was <i><b>"the movie's one redeeming merit...Again this time, as in "52 Pick-Up," she shows a natural screen presence, a grace and easiness under pressure. I had the feeling, watching Vanity in this unhappy movie, that she could play anyone in any movie and make it work. She has a couple of nice song numbers, too...If [the filmmakers are] going to make another ["Action Jackson"], I suggest they decide if it's supposed to be a violent movie, or a comedy. It might also pick things up if they put [Matthews] in the lead."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhphbBa4X5g9vtY9Hy831Dk2q1Q4E-UY2swAlQkBNH3i9uRtaT6-2D1reEH-LIXMY9_2JZABu-kflLTW3b-56ZK1FqUfgAMW1BhXhhUoCYWZLR7-joIcpgXYEXN1SAXsPZHUHlTkOGQ_Y8/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhphbBa4X5g9vtY9Hy831Dk2q1Q4E-UY2swAlQkBNH3i9uRtaT6-2D1reEH-LIXMY9_2JZABu-kflLTW3b-56ZK1FqUfgAMW1BhXhhUoCYWZLR7-joIcpgXYEXN1SAXsPZHUHlTkOGQ_Y8/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Action Jackson," Matthews continued her acting career in both films and television for about five more years before calling it quits in the mid-1990s. By then, she had renounced her stage name Vanity and returned to being known as Denise Matthews, as she embarked on an entirely new direction in her life as a born-again Christian evangelist minister. She surprised her fans by describing how years of drug abuse led to an overdose which caused her to lose both of her kidneys. This makes her performance as Sydney Ash in "Action Jackson" all the more poignant in retrospect as she must have identified with her character's substance addiction in that film, as well as her quest to redeem herself by straightening out her life. Matthews spent the next 20 years ministering about Christianity before passing away on February 15, 2016 at age 57 in Fremont, California from renal failure after years of increasingly deteriorating health. What was interesting, in the aftermath of her death, was how people who were fans of Matthews from her days as Vanity expressed skepticism online as to her religious faith after her death. It was as if people questioned her sincerity, and that she had merely traded one kind of extreme lifestyle for another. However, I always felt that Matthews was sincere and genuine about her religious faith because she was consistent about it for the last 20 years of her life, a longer span of time than her singing and acting career had lasted. I never believed that Matthews, who hoped people would not judge her negatively for her days as Vanity, ever needed to apologize for projecting glamour and sex appeal during her entertainment career. In contrast, I always considered the issue that was of genuine concern with regards to her well-being was really her prior substance abuse, and not her sexy public image. Nevertheless, I still found it rather ironic that she was instead being negatively judged by some of her fans regarding her motives for turning her back on her days as an entertainer and for choosing to focus on ministering her religious faith. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFfiKC2cSWQsyDm4hwZaZ6VlKoU-9fBbP2dUhsxydUhSCdseQHrJJ-3vgEBrCqFR77WL-bCl24o_vVEOMKXBnmUaer68tpeXMSNoMAj__na5vHsTuRGTbQv3kurhE2QUjpKKgtJrRlQjY/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFfiKC2cSWQsyDm4hwZaZ6VlKoU-9fBbP2dUhsxydUhSCdseQHrJJ-3vgEBrCqFR77WL-bCl24o_vVEOMKXBnmUaer68tpeXMSNoMAj__na5vHsTuRGTbQv3kurhE2QUjpKKgtJrRlQjY/s400/3.JPG" width="261" /></a></div>
<br />
While researching her work as an evangelist, I found that Denise Matthews never used her Christian faith in an effort to promote hateful sentiments or be exclusionary to any groups of people, which some (but not all) who purport to be followers of Christianity are unfortunately wont to do; nor did she ever fail to apply her own exacting standards and philosophies to herself, both of which would be legitimate reasons for anyone to take issue with her faith if she had. In contrast, even though it's quite clear that Matthews held fast to her religious convictions, I believe she tried to be as inclusive as possible with her faith. <a href="http://prince.org/msg/5/342530" target="_blank">Despite a discussion</a> that took place several years ago on the Prince.org fan message board, where some commenters accused her of being intolerant of gays and lesbians, <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dangerousleeradio/2010/08/17/denise-matthews-once-known-as-vanity" target="_blank">a closer examination</a> of the interview that was being referenced for purportedly expressing that sentiment demonstrates how Matthews was merely discussing the dangers of promiscuity in general with regards to <i>all</i> people--both straights and gays--and was not singling out any one group for exclusion or condemnation (a point which was made on that message board by several of her defenders). She continually expressed love and respect for all people--including both gay and straight people--and did not operate from the perspective of being perfect and never having made mistakes. In fact, she expressed the opposite sentiment--throughout that interview, Matthews discussed the hurt and pain she had experienced as a result of the choices she had made in her life, and acknowledged the things that she regretted most from her past. While acknowledging during that interview that people have free will with regards to making personal decisions about their lives, she also reminded individuals to make reasonable and responsible choices for themselves. I believe she simply wanted to share what she had learned with others who were similarly situated. As such, Matthews does not deserve to have anyone judge her motives concerning her religious faith any more than having the Academy Board of Governors neglect to acknowledge her accomplishments as a film actress during this year's Oscar<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">®</span> ceremony. Denise Matthews deserves to be remembered as an accomplished singer and actress whose star shined brightly for more than a decade, and who eventually left all of that behind and found peace and contentment sharing her religious faith in a sincere and compassionate effort to help others.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-82636867876710063562016-02-21T12:29:00.000-08:002016-02-24T05:20:36.182-08:00"Flat Top" to "The Great Escape" to "Midway": An Interview with Producer Walter Mirisch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXy09YF6uONG-O6SLZy34aWxUpqPi_e-40RH572dTjUEARciM97MN0BaDAFTRVQPaBoiX1KPPO3R9K1EAzQOlMHFEs3lu15IyrmxQIZCi8vnOWLLOGLnoYhsrPLyWxtb_ed05B2GrbLw/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiXy09YF6uONG-O6SLZy34aWxUpqPi_e-40RH572dTjUEARciM97MN0BaDAFTRVQPaBoiX1KPPO3R9K1EAzQOlMHFEs3lu15IyrmxQIZCi8vnOWLLOGLnoYhsrPLyWxtb_ed05B2GrbLw/s400/2.JPG" width="303" /></a></div>
<br />
Walter Mirisch's remarkable career as a film producer is characterized by three words: quality, humility, and integrity. Mirisch's work embodies the best aspects of Hollywood filmmaking by creating intelligent, entertaining, and daring motion pictures which reflect upon relevant subject matter affecting humankind without getting preachy or heavy-handed. Mirisch--and the independent production company he formed with his brothers Marvin and Harold, The Mirisch Company--has been involved with some of the finest motion pictures made in the latter half of the 20th Century. Whether he was producing Billy Wilder's brutally satirical comedies about the human condition or classic musicals such as "West Side Story" (1961) or "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971) or hard-hitting, provocative stories concerning racial tension such as "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), "Halls of Anger" (1970) and "The Landlord" (1970), the breadth and versatility of Mirisch's career remains impressive. He has won three Academy Awards<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">®</span> throughout his career. His first Oscar<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">® </span>was for winning Best Picture for "In the Heat of the Night" in 1968. He later received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Irving Thalberg Award in 1978, as well as its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1983, and served as President of the Academy from 1973 to 1977.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLstTfJDwPDX58puEjE6OUST756Lp43cnorn2vDFbzNgbLfe6Rd8eSkMFWH5RUbfNWhR327l3p51MfayvsWoF7pCUy1rCRAv3zZK_nD-GHZp66DXeacMFBWY6EXZE6fhcoXpUM09OLGAI/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLstTfJDwPDX58puEjE6OUST756Lp43cnorn2vDFbzNgbLfe6Rd8eSkMFWH5RUbfNWhR327l3p51MfayvsWoF7pCUy1rCRAv3zZK_nD-GHZp66DXeacMFBWY6EXZE6fhcoXpUM09OLGAI/s400/3.JPG" width="195" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though he is not normally considered a filmmaker who specialized in a particular genre or subject matter, throughout his career Mirisch has often produced films featuring military themes. This includes World War II stories, as well as films set during the Korean War or during peacetime or with milieu not often dramatized on-screen, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Despite his interest in the subject matter, Mirisch has never been pigeon-holed as a "war movie" filmmaker, perhaps because his movies have their own unique perspective different from that of others working in the genre. Mirisch's films acknowledge the importance and necessity of the military--even in satirical comedies like "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" (1966) and "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" (1966)--but are able to do so without any shallow or thoughtless jingoism. His World War II films "The Great Escape" (1965) and "Midway" (1976) are rousing adventures dedicated to honoring the sacrifice made by military personnel in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war, but are still mindful of the seriousness of the subject matter. Walter Mirisch graciously consented to a phone interview with Hill Place Blog to discuss the military-themed films of his career. While this interview is not intended as a comprehensive survey on that aspect of his career, Mirisch nevertheless shares warm memories and insights on those films, as well as reflects upon unrealized projects that he still has great affection for. I would like to thank Walter Mirisch for generously opening up his heart and memories for this interview. Additional thanks must go to his son Andrew Mirisch and his Executive Assistant Renee Carly for their efforts in arranging this interview. (Interested readers should check out Mirisch's excellent memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thought-Making-History-Wisconsin-Studies/dp/0299226409" target="_blank">"I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History"</a> for further information on his extraordinary life and career.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2qAddTJOrLuoU1aDqJqvh3GLfXdJrIjKHJqJgc18vWOz2eEV9O7ENJdpoJmjQVwGD5YSV7Ord2EQL0pUi7OstcjkLqMrolFTX97dimlb8IT4-ASn8AFzSFhK3kXTu_MsuUiEyi48APYM/s1600/BookCover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2qAddTJOrLuoU1aDqJqvh3GLfXdJrIjKHJqJgc18vWOz2eEV9O7ENJdpoJmjQVwGD5YSV7Ord2EQL0pUi7OstcjkLqMrolFTX97dimlb8IT4-ASn8AFzSFhK3kXTu_MsuUiEyi48APYM/s400/BookCover.JPG" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
As a young man during the 1940s, Bronx-native Walter Mirisch attended the University of Wisconsin and Harvard Business School and had hoped to serve in the Naval Supply Corps during World War II. However, he was unable to obtain a commission with the United States Navy and, instead, served his country as a civilian while working at a Lockheed plant in Burbank, California where he was responsible for developing a system of simplifying assembly-line procedures. While one assumes that not being able to serve in the Navy might have influenced Mirisch's interest in producing military pictures, he candidly maintains that, <i><b>"I couldn't pass the physical to get commissioned into the Navy during World War II, but I don't really know that that had any bearing on my continued interest in making films about the military. There's simply something marvelous about bravery and dedication of people in the armed services and their patriotism. I just liked the metier."</b></i></div>
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgtLtTe2cBQT6MLvDA-PXA4gZshS1xbCuTveYYiX7INmbpfAV05bsaLhQk0ZkunOpFc9uiHvq8QZuAUj_CWu4MwNhSrO75L_pWXcQRylfrhSchtcJKh6MlN740yrVRCldkEZI1EamgV3g/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgtLtTe2cBQT6MLvDA-PXA4gZshS1xbCuTveYYiX7INmbpfAV05bsaLhQk0ZkunOpFc9uiHvq8QZuAUj_CWu4MwNhSrO75L_pWXcQRylfrhSchtcJKh6MlN740yrVRCldkEZI1EamgV3g/s400/5.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
After the war, Mirisch remained in Southern California and fulfilled his dreams of becoming a filmmaker by landing a position at Monogram Pictures, one of the poverty row studios operating during the classic era of Hollywood. Mirisch quickly established himself as a talented and fiscally responsible filmmaker producing entertaining fare such as the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" series where he learned how to get the greatest amount of production values out of a minimal budget. As his career progressed, Mirisch was promoted to head of production at Allied Artists, Monogram's subsidiary that was dedicated to making higher-brow films at a fraction of the cost spent by the major studios. With greater creative freedom, Mirisch began producing films aimed at raising the prestige of the studio without undermining its financial bottom line.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZdbpZeFleMHzkzV9653Yl5xMbIe_LTlOkdnKeeG_Y9ZRr1XFrgiGIDwoeYl2a0r3SgE7InYB0RTpjYUSENdKpQRnI4UKXeHCSU9o552CkXXv3ys8lARI2-bjY2u_veR3L-udXpNOR2Tg/s1600/FlatTop.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZdbpZeFleMHzkzV9653Yl5xMbIe_LTlOkdnKeeG_Y9ZRr1XFrgiGIDwoeYl2a0r3SgE7InYB0RTpjYUSENdKpQRnI4UKXeHCSU9o552CkXXv3ys8lARI2-bjY2u_veR3L-udXpNOR2Tg/s400/FlatTop.JPG" width="262" /></a></div>
<br />
Among them was the first of the military-themed films of his career, "Flat Top" (1952), the story of Korean War-era Navy Commander Dan Collier (Sterling Hayden) and his remembrances of leading a squadron of pilots against the Japanese a decade earlier during World War II. For this modestly budgeted film shot in Cinecolor, Mirisch was able to arrange for assistance from the United States Navy, who allowed him to film scenes aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Princeton. While clearly fond of films set in the military, Mirisch readily acknowledges that <i><b>"there was no specific aspect of military life I was particularly interested in dramatizing in my movies. It was just sort of as it came along. I guess my first film in that genre was 'Flat Top.' I got the idea for it and how to do the film on the limited budget that I had available to me at that time. And I was able to put together what I felt was a really interesting cast for it--Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson--and it sort of developed from there. I was able to get enough of a budget from Monogram, the financier of the picture, to do it, well, half-way decently anyway. And so that was a lot of the motivation for making that film and I thought we had a quite good script for the time and that was about it. And (laugh) of course the best part of it was that it was an exceedingly successful picture at the box office! God, it was a long time ago! I haven't seen it in years myself, I'm sorry to admit. We tried very, very hard to get as much production values as we could and stretch our dollars and it did work well and, of course, it became the inspiration years later for my film 'Midway'."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4XSRkGRaO3wfXoRoQ8g3-BR3wPY9iy5ssi3mVblHhQXrZgjVtzHQ0jzbYlTgRNVDfBCLUpKsWcLUXTgBAE9fm21_lOo9KXnrWjCkNPMv7uHSW6bLBBBsnLlc0jF6WQGiNBg08NC3UMI/s1600/AnnapolisStory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4XSRkGRaO3wfXoRoQ8g3-BR3wPY9iy5ssi3mVblHhQXrZgjVtzHQ0jzbYlTgRNVDfBCLUpKsWcLUXTgBAE9fm21_lOo9KXnrWjCkNPMv7uHSW6bLBBBsnLlc0jF6WQGiNBg08NC3UMI/s400/AnnapolisStory.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While still at Allied Artists/Monogram, Mirisch produced more films with a military-theme that used the Korean War as the backdrop. Among them were "An Annapolis Story" (1955), directed by a young Don Siegel, a romantic adventure drama about two brothers who are midshipman at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland (played by Kevin McCarthy and John Derek) who become rivals for the affections of the same girl as they complete their education and attend Naval Flight School in Pensacola before being deployed to Korea. Shot in Technicolor, Mirisch was again able to arrange for assistance from the United States Navy for this production, who allowed him to shoot second unit footage at the Naval Academy as well as on an aircraft carrier for this picture. Mirisch next produced "Hold Back the Night" (1956) for Allied Artists, a low-key, almost existential black and white drama about a Marine Officer (John Payne), leading a company of Marines during the Korean War, who shares with them the story surrounding the bottle of scotch he has carried with him since World War II and has vowed to open on a special occasion. As Payne and his men are surrounded by Chinese Army troops, he encourages them to continue fighting by promising to share the bottle of scotch once they have reached their destination. Sensitively directed by Allan Dwan, "Hold Back the Night" is an underrated drama worthy of rediscovery.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZF-t0pdZgAoiFLAYAA-MSRNGWlROH-TD_zA7QvarYl3BBXrdR68L6d6PXfVMzO6PKh0KAo14yLPMg0Bg19INqZUenF45Fccv_nQRFoLnFfI2MYk-r8_DgaHuqdt3MuEiuvCR50fVwUQ/s1600/HoldBacktheNightPoster.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZF-t0pdZgAoiFLAYAA-MSRNGWlROH-TD_zA7QvarYl3BBXrdR68L6d6PXfVMzO6PKh0KAo14yLPMg0Bg19INqZUenF45Fccv_nQRFoLnFfI2MYk-r8_DgaHuqdt3MuEiuvCR50fVwUQ/s400/HoldBacktheNightPoster.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7k_lN7dO6Nay96obrRr2hjNuw6gVXIZt4EUTwYbJXHjIIRrux3XlgMQTG2y6jQzcYtvrNwq_Ixsx8Dwx3Hm2T8DnvzwgFrN0-udA3GB9mECrTmPb6dwqgDHM8JcY6Wv4p-nGjUVbbDUA/s1600/HoldBacktheNight2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7k_lN7dO6Nay96obrRr2hjNuw6gVXIZt4EUTwYbJXHjIIRrux3XlgMQTG2y6jQzcYtvrNwq_Ixsx8Dwx3Hm2T8DnvzwgFrN0-udA3GB9mECrTmPb6dwqgDHM8JcY6Wv4p-nGjUVbbDUA/s320/HoldBacktheNight2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Mirisch is amused and even a bit startled at being reminded of these lesser-known films from early in his career, <i><b>"Oh my God! 'Annapolis Story' and 'Hold Back the Night'? How the hell did you find those! (laugh) You dug deeply! Well, on 'Annapolis Story,' again, I had a limited budget. I had an opportunity to make a picture that was somewhat sizable using the Annapolis background and it was a very patriotic picture, which I felt was good in that period. The story, as I recall, was somewhat...well, it's not very fresh. Two brothers who are midshipman and in love with the same girl. There's a word for it...and the word that I'm reaching for is 'corny.' (laugh) 'Hold Back the Night' was a book by Pat Frank and I liked the book and I loved the gimmick in the story of the bottle of scotch, I think it was, and of course a lot of us do that sort of thing. We wait for an appropriate occasion to acknowledge something, and somehow or other when you are finally doing it you never think that you really reached the epitome you had hoped for because something else has come along. My recollection--and, my God, I can't remember the last time that I saw it--was that I liked it. I thought that it was a quite good picture. Allan Dwan did a very good job and he was quite an elderly man at the time. I thought he really did a wonderful job with directing that picture."</b></i><br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfJ0E3zMSwuEiFomScj9de5LomK74C74jgmgqBR1ECu7i-RgST4NbRg_CNdV3ODLySWkkBiVR_-Yqaz7ulZYzKrviCwxMLv7YSLe9kyPs6uiMEHL-XSUqWuXIiCwyEsdg2JqB_u-NvuxU/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfJ0E3zMSwuEiFomScj9de5LomK74C74jgmgqBR1ECu7i-RgST4NbRg_CNdV3ODLySWkkBiVR_-Yqaz7ulZYzKrviCwxMLv7YSLe9kyPs6uiMEHL-XSUqWuXIiCwyEsdg2JqB_u-NvuxU/s400/9.JPG" width="308" /></a></div>
<br />
Eventually, in the late 1950s, after establishing himself as a producer of quality films, Mirisch established The Mirisch Company with his brothers as an independent production company at United Artists. He was about to embark on the most acclaimed and productive period of his career during the 1960s and 1970s, with countless acclaimed and successful films. It would take awhile before Mirisch returned to making films set in the military with "The Great Escape" in 1963. By that time, however, the United States was already involved with the Vietnam War. Many of Mirisch's military-themed films were made in an environment where Vietnam had become a tangible reality in the lives of most Americans. What makes his films interesting is that they are neither explicitly pro- or anti-war, which would be the default position of most filmmakers at the time. Mirisch's films are unique because they acknowledge and respect the necessity for responsible military intervention under the appropriate circumstances. When queried, Mirisch acknowledges that <i><b>"I'm sure the Vietnam War had some bearing on the military films I made during the 1960s and 1970s. I'm sure it did. You know, you sort of had to be influenced by the environment you were living in and it certainly, I'm sure, influenced my work. I can't quite connect it with any particular film in terms of story or character that I could give you as an example, but I am sure Vietnam did influence my work."</b></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEituhdiDRTbQntJGeO8ddTX2LZqJVORJ0EcGmvzml3EkQ7bVuAgbV6z132qAF4LwthLVHhfZJaO4qAoTQtQo86Kw79-Y2QfDZVj6Gf3ulBslMNgslw6x5KLBPsRQPYBdTeUAMYzmPumHpY/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEituhdiDRTbQntJGeO8ddTX2LZqJVORJ0EcGmvzml3EkQ7bVuAgbV6z132qAF4LwthLVHhfZJaO4qAoTQtQo86Kw79-Y2QfDZVj6Gf3ulBslMNgslw6x5KLBPsRQPYBdTeUAMYzmPumHpY/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VeOD5_TOWzjqyCa0yquuX0mjGCQ0JgfEwnBZEeyoRhzQdbBhv-67mYmgiw4Nri4WtBr9HCHKpw_0FQIvdICkA4WaINiwM4iZEOTlcwvyyh76sMX47W1AtLqzZssFNefDTfseBS2bq0o/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VeOD5_TOWzjqyCa0yquuX0mjGCQ0JgfEwnBZEeyoRhzQdbBhv-67mYmgiw4Nri4WtBr9HCHKpw_0FQIvdICkA4WaINiwM4iZEOTlcwvyyh76sMX47W1AtLqzZssFNefDTfseBS2bq0o/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Perhaps one manner in which the controversial Vietnam War had bearing on Walter Mirisch's military films of the 1960s and 1970s was that they were not solely focused on dramatizing the United States armed forces. Throughout this period, his films represented military personnel of countries other than the United States, and not merely as villains or antagonists. "Midway" contains scenes showing the Japanese perspective on an equal basis as that of the American point-of-view. In films such as "The Great Escape," military personnel from numerous Allied nations, such as the POWs depicted in that film, are shown working together as a team towards a common purpose. In "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" the perspective of the Russian submariners are represented in a sympathetic manner so that they are not one-dimensional stereotypes. And in "Cast a Giant Shadow" (1965), Kirk Douglas's American Army officer works closely to train and lead the Israel Defense Forces during the Arab Israeli war in 1948. Because Vietnam was such a controversial conflict, with many arguing that perspectives other than that of the United States should be considered, it is possible that that may have inspired Mirisch to think outside the box as well with these films. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ws2mAGRR8cpHIIQr15HT_0WW4uWPQnff4Ry8NyKvjUkKmGjDalVJa3jAqcqiUhQunkv3zCWe1kORSvoDBNbJt073iM1JBFM4zo80YhA5HnFVZS3Is4PmyFnirU46TNzdV9BLYbMp9fY/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ws2mAGRR8cpHIIQr15HT_0WW4uWPQnff4Ry8NyKvjUkKmGjDalVJa3jAqcqiUhQunkv3zCWe1kORSvoDBNbJt073iM1JBFM4zo80YhA5HnFVZS3Is4PmyFnirU46TNzdV9BLYbMp9fY/s400/12.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
Mirisch acknowledges that, <i><b>"Of course I was conscious that the films I made represented the perspectives of the military personnel of other nations. I'll tell you what this is: It is what is inside the head and being of the filmmaker. It reflects who and what you are because that is what you are putting into your film, which is probably different from other people who are coming from somewhere else and bringing a different mentality to it. So, yes, I was conscious about wanting to see the perspective of other countries in these films. In 'Midway,' I had scenes in that film showing the Japanese perspective. I was trying to be egalitarian and show the other side as well. I also thought that it makes it more interesting for audiences. You know, if you have a fight scene, you want to know something about both of the antagonists. Your understanding of what's at stake becomes much stronger with that approach. That was the way I thought these stories should be told and that was what I tried to incorporate into my films. That's what makes the films of disparate filmmakers different from one another."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EGLrYBT6D2Cwa4ydZLZEuxWuDQxpOaSoo9JI5NIIluuGr-PfNEvalOI4qH4H40LOj7GbSFA-IcBP-JgLRB7wmkb-V62yNflZkphNqME-WFG4yOPwd8KijPHuXMTrXWz2KL43BjE0Rzg/s1600/MagnificentSeven.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EGLrYBT6D2Cwa4ydZLZEuxWuDQxpOaSoo9JI5NIIluuGr-PfNEvalOI4qH4H40LOj7GbSFA-IcBP-JgLRB7wmkb-V62yNflZkphNqME-WFG4yOPwd8KijPHuXMTrXWz2KL43BjE0Rzg/s400/MagnificentSeven.JPG" width="252" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
One film that demonstrates Mirisch's ability to make a film that represents his own perspective with an established premise or storyline is "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), his Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic epic "The Seven Samurai" (1954). With "The Magnificent Seven," Mirisch and director John Sturges transposed Kurosawa's story of 16th Century Japanese villagers who hire a half-dozen or so Samurai to protect them from bandits out to pillage their community to the Old West. In Mirisch's version, seven gunfighters are hired to protect a Mexican village from bandits out to rob their community. While the film does not appear to be a military picture, because the title characters are not organized or sanctioned by any formal government authority, a case could still be made that the film reflects some aspects of a military operation because it is about a group of people hired by the leaders of a community who come together to fight a common enemy. When presented with that suggestion, Mirisch is quick to point out that <b style="font-style: italic;">"that movie is really about Samurais! I never actually thought of it as a movie with military themes. We just thought that it was a great story. The Japanese picture that we based it on--Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai'--was a masterpiece. And it was such great fun to translate it into the Western genre. But, no, I never really looked at the characters in that film as a military operation. But, of course, that framework found its way into 'The Dirty Dozen,' so perhaps there are some military themes there. It's the same story translated into a military background so somebody else was smart enough to do it as a military picture! (laugh)" </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3N8UdCPPJN0RwTC2DtNhk4SFwDePNxc6AosaIlMOXqt5HJKOSzavIHaDnT6xA71_bELndZcVZEMulFgGPrErEGJkBrkLJLaB3AJ7GBddSEdFgyzzp_9fBSp_GlXke8ffsqSAUV-C2MPY/s1600/MagnificentSeven2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3N8UdCPPJN0RwTC2DtNhk4SFwDePNxc6AosaIlMOXqt5HJKOSzavIHaDnT6xA71_bELndZcVZEMulFgGPrErEGJkBrkLJLaB3AJ7GBddSEdFgyzzp_9fBSp_GlXke8ffsqSAUV-C2MPY/s400/MagnificentSeven2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In reflecting upon "The Magnificent Seven," Mirisch is quick to highlight the invaluable contribution made by actor Yul Brynner, who approached Mirisch with the idea of turning "The Seven Samurai" into a Western and starred as the de-facto leader of the titular gunfighters, Chris Adams. As Mirisch recalls, <i><b>"Yul Brynner was wonderful in it as Chris. You know, when the idea first came up of Yul playing that particular part, I had great misgivings about it. There was nothing in his career that would seem to have prepared him for that role. Except when I talked with him and he expressed his feelings about the period and the Western genre and how he felt about Chris, you know, my confidence soared and I was very happy with the casting. And, of course, that was one of those 'Golden Pictures' where all the casting seemed absolutely spot on!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9Imh4rsrug1uOkgqRzftmvQm909qaDd9PJddvoafSpGOkNpOaEmMC7rDpIpXIRRObAhus9QwpjT46E5F9blm1SnU6OUlE3pGi772dDbKGCkbZLIe0AmmO4QM_PxBTaEF7VL79lr61iE/s1600/GreatEscape.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9Imh4rsrug1uOkgqRzftmvQm909qaDd9PJddvoafSpGOkNpOaEmMC7rDpIpXIRRObAhus9QwpjT46E5F9blm1SnU6OUlE3pGi772dDbKGCkbZLIe0AmmO4QM_PxBTaEF7VL79lr61iE/s400/GreatEscape.JPG" width="261" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
When Mirisch reunited three years later with "Magnificent Seven" director John Sturges and co-stars Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson for "The Great Escape," he achieved another of his greatest successes, a rousing and moving action adventure depicting the efforts by Allied prisoners of war to escape from a German POW camp during World War II. Punctuated by iconic performances from its talented ensemble cast (which also includes James Garner, Richard Attenborough, David McCallum, and Donald Pleasance), with a finely tuned script and nuanced direction that never ignores the human element of the story, "The Great Escape" remains one of the most popular World War II epics ever made. In a genre of films that normally highlights the importance of protocol and cohesion among military personnel, what makes "The Great Escape" unique is how it also celebrates its protagonists' ability, when necessary, to be rebellious and think outside the box. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNT2I9sNWRjs-r6G9iScH6QiXAsmHrClcBNgVCxx9uxgTq7VlKkYhTOYZ5pPyDAX1GjG6r4EpXZGCNkX0Mo4PEkuiYDtIvF4VxVhmqUtuJN3ut938oRIOqg4mDhb5V-_ad9_K-ANtvxQ/s1600/GreatEscape2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNT2I9sNWRjs-r6G9iScH6QiXAsmHrClcBNgVCxx9uxgTq7VlKkYhTOYZ5pPyDAX1GjG6r4EpXZGCNkX0Mo4PEkuiYDtIvF4VxVhmqUtuJN3ut938oRIOqg4mDhb5V-_ad9_K-ANtvxQ/s400/GreatEscape2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Mirisch warmly recalls how, <i><b>"we tried to make 'The Great Escape' special. There'd been other films made about the subject matter and we wanted ours to be different and in addition to which it, again, it represented the mentality and the intellect or the intelligence or the whatever you want to call it of the particular picturemaker, and that was mine."</b></i> When asked which character or cast member from the large ensemble was his personal favorite, Mirisch candidly admits, <i><b>"Oh, I don't know. It's difficult to choose which character in 'The Great Escape' was my favorite. It's like asking which is your favorite child. You know, I just loved that film. Steve McQueen, of course, is the outstanding character in it and a great deal comes from his personality. And the same thing is true of Jim Garner and his contribution to the film. I thought Donald Pleasance had a very, very moving role and I loved the way he played it. But all of them were great. Dickie Attenborough and the whole English cast were marvelous. It was one of those pictures where everything was, as the British say, 'Spot on.'"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz-dXL6PMD25kTANluTx7zc3fj78nNi3qce-0ff3u3PrTt9Ywm5T75hRrQK1aZnK5jCtempD9I5pwZ3nJ52NJEVSMGnxfj0h_ZsBLZpIgsgkS_l0SWiyvoQq4z9sOMz9pX8xBdPdz2_O4/s1600/GreatEscape3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz-dXL6PMD25kTANluTx7zc3fj78nNi3qce-0ff3u3PrTt9Ywm5T75hRrQK1aZnK5jCtempD9I5pwZ3nJ52NJEVSMGnxfj0h_ZsBLZpIgsgkS_l0SWiyvoQq4z9sOMz9pX8xBdPdz2_O4/s400/GreatEscape3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite the film's rousing and often witty and upbeat tone, one manner in which "The Great Escape" is notable is that many of the protagonists are either recaptured and/or killed by the end. While many aspects of the real-life escape that the film depicted were altered for dramatic purposes, such as increasing the involvement of American military personnel in the story, the filmmakers still limited the number of actual prisoners who successfully escaped and were not recaptured to only three characters--Danny (Charles Bronson), Willie (John Leyton), and Sedgwick (James Coburn). Mirisch and director John Sturges made a conscious choice not to alter that aspect of the story and, in so doing, underscored the sacrifice and courage of the real-life men that the film was based on. Mirisch explains, <i><b>"Are you kidding? All those men--50 men--are murdered at the end of the film! You know, this is serious business! </b></i><i><b>We </b></i><i><b>wanted to keep that in the story, and not have a different ending by allowing more characters to escape, because we wanted people to know that the Germans weren't fooling. This wasn't for fun. In any case, the picture's very long as it is now. (laugh) Of course, you know, this is all a matter of selection and what you choose to put in the picture. The picture is, I don't know, 2 hours and 40 or 50 minutes. Or it was originally, I don't know what it may have been cut down to by now. (laugh) In any event, I don't think we could've made it longer with more men escaping."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEB5bJTs6hxyVtPLD3SZlJc8wfB9YN-VLze9klSTc9t6RshDOvenga7GtWPVPadyMC9q0TiVvioE2iewfuvwuoTTr_pxwlt9j36909KcievzvdZwOO5_Y9lFErs9-xX_xNQFrGZ8b8PU/s1600/CastaGiantShadow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEB5bJTs6hxyVtPLD3SZlJc8wfB9YN-VLze9klSTc9t6RshDOvenga7GtWPVPadyMC9q0TiVvioE2iewfuvwuoTTr_pxwlt9j36909KcievzvdZwOO5_Y9lFErs9-xX_xNQFrGZ8b8PU/s400/CastaGiantShadow.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Mirisch next tackled the 1948 Arab Israeli war with the production of "Cast a Giant Shadow" (1965) a bio-pic of American Army Colonel Mickey Marcus (Kirk Douglas) who trains Israeli troops in preparation for conflict with Arab forces. Co-produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions, "Cast a Giant Shadow" was partially shot on location in Israel. When asked if there were any particular challenges making this film, Mirisch recalls that <i><b>"I don't think we had any controversy making 'Cast a Giant Shadow' with regards to the subject matter. I just remember when we were in Israel, we had been promised the cooperation of the Israeli army. And one day we went out on location and they had a call to be someplace and they didn't show up when we had expected them. While talking to our liaison officer, they told me that 'Very sorry, but we have a problem on the frontier and we had to move our troops' out where they had to participate in some sort of incident of the period. It was challenging to film that on location because that was still a very politically charged area. We thought with a reasonable amount of luck we could get through with what we needed. But there were difficulties of this type that we sort of had to compensate for in one way or another."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MK9vjbm48JDhlhUYApiAv73GGOAz21I71at0ros_Xl6OuNJppSDXrvpS058NP_J_tQcrF0XwVxCYEnqzM17pktS3CtbrdtO9bKa4U0ydU_PtaDTdc0wc1c9ypXK-7R9CjjwXSJc7bCM/s1600/RussiansareComing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MK9vjbm48JDhlhUYApiAv73GGOAz21I71at0ros_Xl6OuNJppSDXrvpS058NP_J_tQcrF0XwVxCYEnqzM17pktS3CtbrdtO9bKa4U0ydU_PtaDTdc0wc1c9ypXK-7R9CjjwXSJc7bCM/s400/RussiansareComing.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Around this time, Mirisch humorously tackled the subject of Cold War anxiety with his upbeat comedy "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" (1966). A satirical farce depicting the hysteria that results when a Russian submarine is accidentally grounded off the coast of a New England village, the film humorously dramatizes the culture-clash that ensues when Russian sailors are confronted with American civilians who regard them as enemies on sight. The film was daring with how it portrayed the Russians in a sympathetic light, while at the same time satirizing the provincialism of the Americans they encounter. It was a major hit and garnered several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alan Arkin) and Best Screenplay. Even though the Russian sailors are shown in a better light than most of the Americans in the film, Mirisch recalls that <i><b>"There was no controversy at the time with portraying the Russian sailors sympathetically in 'The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!' No, as a matter of fact (laugh) we had difficulty securing a submarine for the filming. The United States Navy wouldn't give us a submarine to use in the picture (laugh) and so we asked the Russian Embassy if they would give us one of theirs. But they read the script and they decided not to cooperate as well. (laugh) So we had to create our own submarine for the film. There wasn't any real controversy, but nobody cooperated with the filming of 'The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!' And you might think we were sympathetic to the Russians in our storyline, but they didn't think so! (laugh) We tried to compensate that perspective with humor, and it apparently worked because it was nominated as one of the five Best Pictures of the Year by the Academy."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8p_nLp6I0obLu8dqOTXj2cq_YySFE6Ql-rg06trrmFmUbMqSwcJs-IVm-z_tkAOKZA17N1VIxqIO4JfLywmmm6m34dyMZKYp5iUOHrXVZsA4dbbhGXbkGMY-ZzUPJWcqD3FvydHOIQ_0/s1600/HellBoats.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8p_nLp6I0obLu8dqOTXj2cq_YySFE6Ql-rg06trrmFmUbMqSwcJs-IVm-z_tkAOKZA17N1VIxqIO4JfLywmmm6m34dyMZKYp5iUOHrXVZsA4dbbhGXbkGMY-ZzUPJWcqD3FvydHOIQ_0/s400/HellBoats.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nSwQYJFTfqgOjdT23Ha0f1-SGoV01KxpPvUWyoDL2mLpHyNdSYM2Cb_LuhtNLmdInHjPyKCcb1_9KvNmwY0U90X2ZUnF6TpZi2qswExw-AHclQEbFqjAwMq0RPwHpEnKTljp9yvfCiw/s1600/ThousandPlaneRaid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nSwQYJFTfqgOjdT23Ha0f1-SGoV01KxpPvUWyoDL2mLpHyNdSYM2Cb_LuhtNLmdInHjPyKCcb1_9KvNmwY0U90X2ZUnF6TpZi2qswExw-AHclQEbFqjAwMq0RPwHpEnKTljp9yvfCiw/s400/ThousandPlaneRaid.JPG" width="250" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrV27DVjlTY1BQfs8yBGBW4krNb6ox0Pc-TF5nmQVAuOCObh59x2KCwGbU2FD4drulDQjfj53SDtXPgy6_GhOFtFEa5aatOWWPoN61Fz2V0Q14qA4G5pt2K-xbGoyWbNK2o4TQfncRCU/s1600/AttackontheIronCoast.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrV27DVjlTY1BQfs8yBGBW4krNb6ox0Pc-TF5nmQVAuOCObh59x2KCwGbU2FD4drulDQjfj53SDtXPgy6_GhOFtFEa5aatOWWPoN61Fz2V0Q14qA4G5pt2K-xbGoyWbNK2o4TQfncRCU/s400/AttackontheIronCoast.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During the 1960s, Walter Mirisch embarked on a series of World War II movies shot mostly in England whose production costs would be underwritten by what was known as The Eady Plan: a British government subsidy funded by a tax on box office receipts that was intended to encourage an increase in film production in the United Kingdom. Many American producers were able to finance modestly budgeted films with higher production values by having the Eady Plan underwrite most of its costs so that the financial contribution made by the studio was minimal. To qualify, 85 percent of the film had to be shot in the United Kingdom and the cast and crew had to be mostly made up of British personnel. No more than three non-British personnel could be hired for these films in order to qualify for the Eady Plan subsidy. Usually starring an American actor, and with an American director on board guiding the production, these half-dozen or so modestly budgeted films--which commenced with "633 Squadron" (1964) starring Cliff Robertson and directed by Walter Grauman; and continued on with "Attack on the Iron Coast" (1968) starring Lloyd Bridges and directed by Paul Wendkos; "Submarine X-1" (1968) starring James Caan and directed by William Graham; "The Thousand Plane Raid" (1969) starring Christopher George and directed by Boris Sagal; "Mosquito Squadron" (1969) starring David McCallum (already popular in America for his role on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" TV series) and again directed by Boris Sagal; "Hell Boats" (1970) starring James Franciscus and again directed by Paul Wendkos; and "The Last Escape" (1970) starring Stuart Whitman and again directed by Walter Grauman--were all entertaining and colorful fare that proved successful at the box office. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOceWhhVEmbI2Ibxf_YQanBl41MzG9v4nhedMyqhX4ILmIImyXF8eNefTE2i5farpz8Y_CU27y1y_FdK5Y8PGMPpuDwNvmJFtNaInjyTQmIicwjF_F4KBtRQ1gJIzFXVw5m148UuP2_g/s1600/633Squadron.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOceWhhVEmbI2Ibxf_YQanBl41MzG9v4nhedMyqhX4ILmIImyXF8eNefTE2i5farpz8Y_CU27y1y_FdK5Y8PGMPpuDwNvmJFtNaInjyTQmIicwjF_F4KBtRQ1gJIzFXVw5m148UuP2_g/s400/633Squadron.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When asked about these films, Mirisch recalls that <i><b>"The movies I made in England in the late 60s under the Eady Plan came about this way: I had found a book, I don't know, early on in the 1960s called '633 Squadron.' It was about the Mosquito Bombers during WWII. And I thought it was all fascinating and that led me into making the film '633 Squadron' which was shot in England as an Eady Plan picture and it was hugely successful. And it actually recouped its whole cost out of the British Isles. And so I thought we had come upon what looked like a very interesting formula for some pictures that would cost in the same area as '633 Squadron' and delineate various other aspects of the war. And so that led to that program of pictures that we made over there. It was quite a successful venture. My participation in each of those films was all sort of different. It depended on what my involvement in other films was at the time. I was very involved in the preparation of the scripts for all of them. When it came time to execute each of them, depending on where I was with the rest of my career, affected my involvement in the actual production of each film. The formula for each of those films was to have an American leading man and a mostly British cast and crew. That was the formula. We wanted to have a picture that would hopefully have appeal with American audiences and yet we had to conform with all of the requirements of the Eady Plan."</b></i> When Mirisch is asked about <a href="http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071273954/" target="_blank">the interpretation</a> that some fans of the films have made regarding a recurring theme that appears in many of them--that the main character is haunted by some tragedy in the past that causes him to have difficulty winning over the confidence of the other military personnel he is working with--he good naturedly admits that <i><b>"I was not conscious of that aspect of the scripts while we were developing them (laugh) and if that is true--and I've never heard of that interpretation before!--but if that was true it's probably just a reflection of my having run out of inspiration. (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnK1Ss9oaqFxJsV1p6tsQG0QBegy6m69209FYxCn2nZ2ig7lEEedM82keXppdWJ1gmvoXnOM_X5OgfP0PMwOG2SPErMul41uSjKdUH2BJUKiSqJBk7eh_3if8mSz8II56rGgsvIOk1fTQ/s1600/Midway.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnK1Ss9oaqFxJsV1p6tsQG0QBegy6m69209FYxCn2nZ2ig7lEEedM82keXppdWJ1gmvoXnOM_X5OgfP0PMwOG2SPErMul41uSjKdUH2BJUKiSqJBk7eh_3if8mSz8II56rGgsvIOk1fTQ/s400/Midway.JPG" width="258" /></a></div>
<br />
Mirisch next returned to the genre of military-themed movies with his historical epic "Midway" (1976) starring Charlton Heston. An all-star ensemble picture dramatizing the decisive naval battle that took place at Midway Atoll in the Pacific in early June 1942, it was the first film Mirisch produced at Universal after parting company with United Artists. The film is remembered for its large cast of stars in cameo roles and with its use of the Sensurround sound process that highlighted the noise, sound effects and explosions during the battle sequences. It was a major box office hit at the time--earning more than $43,000,000 in its original release--and continues to be rerun on TV and cable since then. One aspect of "Midway" that still stands out today is the film's extensive use of actual library footage of the historical battle in order the dramatize the event. While some critics presumed that this was done in order to minimize the film's special effects budget, Mirisch is quick to point out that <i><b>"it was an aesthetic and creative choice to use library footage of actual aerial and battle scenes for 'Midway.' It was not done as a cost-cutting measure. And, as a matter of fact, at the front of the picture I acknowledge the use of the library footage because I wanted audiences to feel a certain amount of reality in what we were showing them, and that a lot of this stuff in the film was based on what actually happened in naval aerial combat."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbZoQcTH0yTtSezw2CR13qNkfz-_ph6fOioqKektaM-NYoqHozZiHMYguUgjqrCd6Tdy5sV4pfGPDyT1mk4EkC-Ip8bTCgNHjZuv537xntBi4n1M1cUqEP7wBA9zZQyuUOZBA5crOiwQ/s1600/Midway2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbZoQcTH0yTtSezw2CR13qNkfz-_ph6fOioqKektaM-NYoqHozZiHMYguUgjqrCd6Tdy5sV4pfGPDyT1mk4EkC-Ip8bTCgNHjZuv537xntBi4n1M1cUqEP7wBA9zZQyuUOZBA5crOiwQ/s400/Midway2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>Mirisch is quick to highlight how "Midway" was one of his favorite filmmaking experiences because he enjoyed working with the United States Navy while making the film, <i><b>"The assistance I received from the United States Navy to make 'Midway' was sine qua non! One invaluable contribution was that they made their library of actual filmed aerial and battle footage available to me. And they were very cooperative in helping us do blow-ups of all the 16mm film footage that they had, and the people in their archives were just wonderful to our editors. Another invaluable contribution is that they allowed us to film on board the U.S.S. Lexington while it was deployed on training exercises. We went to sea with a training mission in the Gulf of Mexico and we were at sea for about a week and we were permitted to use the facilities aboard the carrier for filming. It was a World War II-type carrier that was still being used for training and we were given access to all the spaces that they weren't employing in their training mission. They were great and it was a wonderful experience being aboard ship and being part of the company during that whole period."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3WOS5UDsM2_ETMuIpjIE5F8dTYAeavRArCpS2FtgLMF-oBekX7BkIQyEpwR98WTXmJFdxJwPZPHEVWweR6dg3AYFpm7d97Fcm0vpL6nVu6Lbn3ilP3w7HK5lWDB9wdkwOHZFm1yebXw/s1600/Midway3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3WOS5UDsM2_ETMuIpjIE5F8dTYAeavRArCpS2FtgLMF-oBekX7BkIQyEpwR98WTXmJFdxJwPZPHEVWweR6dg3AYFpm7d97Fcm0vpL6nVu6Lbn3ilP3w7HK5lWDB9wdkwOHZFm1yebXw/s400/Midway3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiilkphbnNsDbeZ8DuRNpf6rT-GzPADvNsv04iclT1De5tvl_kYGdLQ-H24g_WnXT7oJCcigr25oDGBXUiRyOm4soANN4wM8qEl-JpIwL69sHFdVenb9R1KdQNxWI00PaWS_5LzMqBbaYw/s1600/Midway4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiilkphbnNsDbeZ8DuRNpf6rT-GzPADvNsv04iclT1De5tvl_kYGdLQ-H24g_WnXT7oJCcigr25oDGBXUiRyOm4soANN4wM8qEl-JpIwL69sHFdVenb9R1KdQNxWI00PaWS_5LzMqBbaYw/s400/Midway4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZ3x5v3hvYtTAp40rvg6x1WkRCMltzfOyXl_DI65Roi5waFYhGf95MnTAP_SFuHl1bBQm5dzZ0Pdtx8At45s7p8vsJDw2apjziZuRkO0xAGp3Zbufm2zPfHhVW00aZ7wDzR-vmmkIWkg/s1600/Midway5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZ3x5v3hvYtTAp40rvg6x1WkRCMltzfOyXl_DI65Roi5waFYhGf95MnTAP_SFuHl1bBQm5dzZ0Pdtx8At45s7p8vsJDw2apjziZuRkO0xAGp3Zbufm2zPfHhVW00aZ7wDzR-vmmkIWkg/s400/Midway5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Through the years, Mirisch has received feedback from Naval personnel on the impact and influence that "Midway" has had on their understanding of the battle and on military protocol. After I shared with Mirisch an anecdote from a friend of mine, a retired Naval officer, that the battle staff course he attended early in his career screened "Midway" in order to demonstrate the kinds of events that might occur during an actual battle, his interest was piqued as he recalled a similar incident concerning that film, <i><b>"Oh really? I'll tell you a little story. Some years ago--I don't know, it must be 10, 15 years by now--the Navy had retired an aircraft carrier that they had named the U.S.S. Midway. And they kept it in San Diego harbor as a museum. Of course, the carrier itself, the Midway, was built later on and wasn't in the war, but it was given that name. And they invited me to come to the opening ceremony of this museum and I went down there and I'm sitting on the podium with all these Naval officers and I said 'You know, I'm very flattered that you invited me to come here. I wasn't myself in the Navy, nor was I at the Battle of Midway, and so I very much appreciate your inviting me.' And this three-star Naval Admiral said to me, 'Oh my God! What most of us know about the battle, we learned from your picture! (laugh) And so that's why we wanted you to be here!' It sort of was a bit gratifying for me to hear that because it was a reverse expectation on my part! I guess it was because it was a different generation and they'd seen the picture and they believed everything I said! (laugh) 'The Power of Film!'"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuxUE5kJRFSVRzTuS7jONkwigYTuGiBAb9DqJ1gS6QJiUahyrwhZuzSDzGrjL48eO60mMeixh6dJBpkBxaoSZoSl5xklnzRIkAlCAVBKOSosh0MOyQlqscxx3MrLX_en82PGu1YqzhV4/s1600/GrayLadyDown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuxUE5kJRFSVRzTuS7jONkwigYTuGiBAb9DqJ1gS6QJiUahyrwhZuzSDzGrjL48eO60mMeixh6dJBpkBxaoSZoSl5xklnzRIkAlCAVBKOSosh0MOyQlqscxx3MrLX_en82PGu1YqzhV4/s400/GrayLadyDown.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Midway," Mirisch produced the disaster/suspense melodrama "Gray Lady Down" (1978), a story depicting the efforts of the United States Navy to rescue the crew of a submarine that has been struck by a freighter amidst heavy fog and is trapped underwater on the ocean floor. "Midway" star Charlton Heston returned to play the commander of the imperiled submarine, with Stacy Keach and David Carradine playing Naval officers leading the rescue efforts. An entertaining thriller that highlights the United States Navy's deep-submergence rescue capabilities, Mirisch recalls how <i><b>"'Gray Lady Down' was after I did 'Midway' for Universal. It started out as a book, and it was a very interesting premise, I thought. And it also presented a very good starring role for my friend Charlton Heston who I just finished working with in 'Midway.' I just said to him, 'I think I found something else that we can do together' and the Navy again assisted in providing vessels we could use for filming, so that all contributed to the making of that picture. It's a pretty good picture, I think. What's interesting about 'Gray Lady Down' is that there's no opposing military force acting as the antagonist in that picture. It's a story of survival, so the sea is the antagonist! I still think it's sort of miraculous how the Navy accomplishes that sort of rescue operation, and I hoped it would be so to an audience."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ls3buFX2bOWmI259R-xCSbROVsICqwrBHGAAMZhRmJS7xQoquUXukzlxg_-sWxHBWarv7vqP01pPfMfF79OPXArMO-lID81d-ogQ3gU6HbKfXubw-xjPg8nMvOECraJzZG5uErFpetM/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ls3buFX2bOWmI259R-xCSbROVsICqwrBHGAAMZhRmJS7xQoquUXukzlxg_-sWxHBWarv7vqP01pPfMfF79OPXArMO-lID81d-ogQ3gU6HbKfXubw-xjPg8nMvOECraJzZG5uErFpetM/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBG7svEFA8PqmeZzoMODK5XNTRP2tpLBkMudkRtKlDNvjT6bDBKnfwtgiaL2zkUPObzp6u84-KnZx4MWAIS1DeHv3-MPH2mMosOFk869TQ_y_3IGtInk9H0b5xZQNOvB1CttbYBsG0Z4/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBG7svEFA8PqmeZzoMODK5XNTRP2tpLBkMudkRtKlDNvjT6bDBKnfwtgiaL2zkUPObzp6u84-KnZx4MWAIS1DeHv3-MPH2mMosOFk869TQ_y_3IGtInk9H0b5xZQNOvB1CttbYBsG0Z4/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the 1980s, Walter Mirisch worked on two military-related film projects that never came to fruition. One was another historical epic about a famous World War II naval battle in the Pacific with the working title of "Turkey Shoot," which would have been a dramatization of the Naval battle known informally as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" that took place in the Philippine Sea during June 1944 and adversely affected Japan's ability to conduct large-scale carrier operations. Mirisch spent years attempting to interest Universal in the project before moving his company back to United Artists for a brief period of time, where UA allowed Mirisch to develop the screenplay for it. After a change in management at United Artists necessitated a move back to Universal, Mirisch presented the script for "Turkey Shoot" to Universal studio head Ned Tanen, who felt that there was little interest in World War II-themed dramas at the time. The other unrealized project was a story about the development of the F-117 Stealth Bomber. The United States Air Force assisted Mirisch with researching the project by allowing him to visit Tonopah Air Force Base in Nevada, where the stealth had been developed and tested. He was allowed to meet with the personnel who worked on the bomber, as well as fly an F-117 simulator. Despite having a first draft script completed, that prospective film ultimately languished in the development process for so long that the timeliness of its storyline had passed and the project fell by the wayside.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZOWNcZtaC1xDlafXkXynWFJ3EBB4ldLSJmjH7LpeM2k_P0a9t5kaOH3QReZG9NEEMGvKJ2bpu13fWSvfZwLA-0pBfheVEL-6LS-WiWy0JL6D4Mctxt-l8VoSpqzFz4gjYa2OrLI3lBc/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZOWNcZtaC1xDlafXkXynWFJ3EBB4ldLSJmjH7LpeM2k_P0a9t5kaOH3QReZG9NEEMGvKJ2bpu13fWSvfZwLA-0pBfheVEL-6LS-WiWy0JL6D4Mctxt-l8VoSpqzFz4gjYa2OrLI3lBc/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When asked if there is still a chance for either "Turkey Shoot" or the stealth bomber film project to reach fruition, Mirisch candidly admits that <i><b>"Every once in awhile I think of digging 'Turkey Shoot' out again. It is the greatest military Naval victory in American history. And I thought it was an extraordinary story and would have made an extraordinary picture. The script for it was structured similarly to 'Midway,' with multiple characters and told from both sides. There were leading Japanese characters in it. I don't know...I think if I ever make another picture that that should be it. I think it's somewhat doubtful by now. Time sort of caught up with me. (laugh) And I remember that I got very excited when I heard about the stealth bomber. I became very enthused about the subject and I went to the training area and interviewed all of those marvelous pilots who flew those planes...but, of course, you know time has made that story rather obsolete by now. However, it's been very interesting letting my mind go back over those experiences again. It's nice to know that there are people who would still find that material relevant and intriguing."</b></i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrrbmV9bCG08kDa9IXbTbmvx1U8zSKLRJRBFJ9B4d_p3OIP9b9ukAfXWGxjwlBrzyrdFqMkRN-DVh3FziuQHpCxUD89zQPqo7bCU3sDS9PUOBXmP__R3yJhDos1i3qE0_WzBV-wSvd9w/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrrbmV9bCG08kDa9IXbTbmvx1U8zSKLRJRBFJ9B4d_p3OIP9b9ukAfXWGxjwlBrzyrdFqMkRN-DVh3FziuQHpCxUD89zQPqo7bCU3sDS9PUOBXmP__R3yJhDos1i3qE0_WzBV-wSvd9w/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter Mirisch surrounded by family at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art tribute to his career</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Well into the seventh decade of his career, Walter Mirisch remains active in filmmaking. He still works out of his offices at Universal, the studio he has been associated with since the 1970s. Mirisch was recently Executive Producer of the Hallmark television movie "Bridal Wave" (2015), and is developing a new "Pink Panther" feature film. An upcoming remake of "The Magnificent Seven" (2016), due out in theaters this September and starring Denzel Washington, will credit Mirisch as Executive Producer. Because he remains more active than industry professionals half his age, it is apparent that the final chapter of Walter Mirisch's career has yet to be written. When asked which of his military films is his favorite, Mirisch acknowledges <i><b>"I don't know...I think 'Midway.' I mean, there's nothing better than 'The Great Escape.' They're sort of different experiences for me, personally. The personal experiences on 'Midway' were wonderful--I just loved meeting those guys and living on the aircraft carrier and all of that. That was one of the greatest filmmaking experiences of my life. Clearly, though, 'The Great Escape' is the better picture. I think 'The Great Escape' is one of the great wartime pictures. I'm exceedingly proud of it. It was superbly cast and a truly great film that I think still does not show its age, or else it would not have been nearly so successful as it was. I am always grateful when a film I have made has been successful and has touched and reached an audience in some way. You know, that's really what a filmmaker hopes for and that is deeply touching to me when it does happen because that is the epitome of what a picturemaker really seeks to achieve. You hope to get to reach people in, well, as they say: 'Where they really live.'"</b></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-37458017139959272382016-01-30T19:41:00.002-08:002016-02-05T05:44:05.878-08:00The Unilateral Disintegration of the Academy Awards® by Dawn Hudson & Cheryl Boone Isaacs<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-V1ed5hHNiZPO3o2rTf07luVy5Q7biq5V-88q5yb4X5P69r8bsYiWElEHyks8G2ZRN39LcJG8vyVuYJNXRHT-6EqtYyneVAI2FrHG5bwXXtt8FpoJwCaFG3fP5dgiw_tdWY1Vo9pbSe4/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-V1ed5hHNiZPO3o2rTf07luVy5Q7biq5V-88q5yb4X5P69r8bsYiWElEHyks8G2ZRN39LcJG8vyVuYJNXRHT-6EqtYyneVAI2FrHG5bwXXtt8FpoJwCaFG3fP5dgiw_tdWY1Vo9pbSe4/s400/1.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Anyone with a vested, or even casual, interest in movies has heard by now of the controversy that has enveloped the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which annually awards the so-called Academy Awards<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">®</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> or "Oscars</span></span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">®"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> highlighting excellence in cinema. Because of the lack of African American nominees in the acting categories two years in a row, the membership of the Academy has been accused of racial bias because it has not been voting for films that are representative of the diverse demographics that reflects the population of the United States by focusing their attention solely on films featuring Caucasian principal characters. The trending hashtag #OscarsSoWhite symbolizes the level of attention the issue has been receiving in the media and public consciousness the last few weeks.</span><br />
</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZi0rTzhgCiHuDTPseYg3i0HThHohgFGtpTJJXBnvsfEJXVGOB8_ZHIEKi6Yijt6n7sKeEzPCTaL9WaBWrWjWu4xYqhKyfG2vZhrywwOaIwT2zpLQufucLNfBT18QaegF-6J6twC18_I/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZi0rTzhgCiHuDTPseYg3i0HThHohgFGtpTJJXBnvsfEJXVGOB8_ZHIEKi6Yijt6n7sKeEzPCTaL9WaBWrWjWu4xYqhKyfG2vZhrywwOaIwT2zpLQufucLNfBT18QaegF-6J6twC18_I/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In response, the Board of Governors of
the Academy, without consulting its
membership at large, unilaterally <a href="http://www.oscars.org/news/academy-takes-historic-action-increase-diversity" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">unveiled a new initiative</span></a> which would double
“the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020.” As part of this initiative, the Academy also
announced that voting privileges for new members are no longer lifetime. Instead, new members will be eligible to vote
for 10 year terms, to be renewed only if they remain active in motion pictures
during that decade. Members who have
been inactive for 10 years would lose their voting privileges (and be
categorized as “emeritus” members) unless they won or were nominated for an
Oscar, or were active in motion pictures for three ten-year terms after becoming
a member.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf4L-ZPmcyppS4UVCZP9ciikThza7-vH4b_2tGjqpMEX8qw4HoN4etFiQA6JmeXoTTc6TA3mdXsZsVL4UKhhCJkMde-dAWkU8ffC4HSvrGyy7x4JETis5Lvx4VkN1Q7XP4V3wruM7TRs/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf4L-ZPmcyppS4UVCZP9ciikThza7-vH4b_2tGjqpMEX8qw4HoN4etFiQA6JmeXoTTc6TA3mdXsZsVL4UKhhCJkMde-dAWkU8ffC4HSvrGyy7x4JETis5Lvx4VkN1Q7XP4V3wruM7TRs/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In appeasing critics of perceived
racial bias and discrimination, the Academy has created a situation where it is now accused of being discriminatory towards another protected class
of individuals--its older members. However,
in its </span><a href="https://www.oscars.org/about/becoming-new-member/frequently-asked-questions" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">FAQs</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> released in response to complaints by members who are potentially affected, the Academy denied it was practicing age discrimination. While the plain language of the new rules does not reference age as a disqualification for continued membership, its actual
and practical application is still arguably age discriminatory because it is
more likely to affect older members, who are retired or struggling to continue
to work, than younger members still in the midst of success.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI17J6dC1qVwzDt4RW4useImfhobAsPKE81kQrcg0IdCAYWhpR4AF6o9X9m1DrZYClkbWnjirsByCaNZGH_MoQtdeDAL-s3X9M39PZ8eKdSlgas222MsGqSyvkFzu539fs6nyUGfFODcM/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI17J6dC1qVwzDt4RW4useImfhobAsPKE81kQrcg0IdCAYWhpR4AF6o9X9m1DrZYClkbWnjirsByCaNZGH_MoQtdeDAL-s3X9M39PZ8eKdSlgas222MsGqSyvkFzu539fs6nyUGfFODcM/s320/5.JPG" width="310" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In this highly emotional atmosphere, few are willing to argue that the
Academy should not necessarily have an inherent responsibility to have its membership, and the way they vote, skewed towards reflecting the demographics
of the United States at-large. Those who have attempted to make that case have been silenced by being swiftly branded something akin to racist segregationists. One might argue that Academy members should not have to pay preferential
treatment towards films that reflect diverse demographics if they do not feel
those films are worthy of their interest or attention. The Academy ought to focus on welcoming individuals, who have accomplished enough at the time of their admission into
the organization to have warranted their inclusion, and to choose films that
its members legitimately feel have honored the artistry of cinema during a
given year. Its members ought
not be penalized for their personal tastes and to have those tastes dictated by
others. While I recognize how images
on-screen can have an influential impact on the world, and I would welcome studio
executives providing financial support behind films that would be responsive to
any market demand for those broader perspectives, the Academy Awards should not
be expected to reflect the demographics of the country because it is not the People’s
Choice Awards.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF04G2vgr5E9TLgOhEkHYEpT8VqkLuo1z3_5dRAdwSYeBPKTzAKhieGcG2x-uJJ-1j76SYx2SfbDK9h7gG1RbBQFcQNu1x5bKVeb2Z4oiYfbTONHX0MCfkobeihTnmfxVXTD-U1c8tnqU/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF04G2vgr5E9TLgOhEkHYEpT8VqkLuo1z3_5dRAdwSYeBPKTzAKhieGcG2x-uJJ-1j76SYx2SfbDK9h7gG1RbBQFcQNu1x5bKVeb2Z4oiYfbTONHX0MCfkobeihTnmfxVXTD-U1c8tnqU/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, if the Academy Board of Governors feels that
inviting more women or diverse individuals helps enrich their organization,
they by all means should pursue that endeavor.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with inviting women and people of color
into the Academy as long as their careers and accomplishments would have
warranted their inclusion no matter what demographic they reflect. I completely disagree with anyone who might
be contemptuous of the Academy’s new initiative solely because they do not want
to see women or people of color invited into the organization. I simply do not like the additional,
unnecessary provision concerning the disposition of “inactive” members as they call into question any efforts on the part of the Academy to be inclusive because of how those provisions affect older members.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzIX-NYyAp0fzv5XWrsRUSeFJNnBlHwAn5tHoOS6BR4dE6XzPWR6naicSShFxy2SvFI789EN5QnOk1TWkSbYHNgU_hHuQL57oFqi7FwUmkBPrvJ98OkHmdUuzhas11KfOqppREEp0Xog/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzIX-NYyAp0fzv5XWrsRUSeFJNnBlHwAn5tHoOS6BR4dE6XzPWR6naicSShFxy2SvFI789EN5QnOk1TWkSbYHNgU_hHuQL57oFqi7FwUmkBPrvJ98OkHmdUuzhas11KfOqppREEp0Xog/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Ironically, these rules are more likely
to harm the “working class” crew members, and character actors and actresses,
who form the backbone of the industry and have no power to effect change. The executives with the influence to green-light
films with more diverse perspectives will not be affected because they would be
considered “active.” As such, a screenwriter,
film editor or a costume designer who is either retired--or has been working in
television in the last decade--risks losing their voting privileges. Or a character actress who has been a member
for only 20 years, but made 25 films during the course of her career, could
also be at risk if during the last decade she was either teaching, or doing TV
guest shots, because of the limited opportunities for someone in her
demographic to land a one-line bit part in a feature film. In its myopic actions, the Academy fails to
recognize how these people do not have the luxury to dictate the trajectory of
their careers</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">.
</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">It also fails to acknowledge how movies and television have
become symbiotic and that artists are not always able to choose the medium they
work in.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJGEQz_5G5dko6-ncwX14UNwqBL6P4PB1r9GyDFxz1n92MfBKyO75ZZ5j5Iv6ZFKhAG65ShXZ8S7rdosxvfLwJWwjyWnpoSkQMikZrFanS5tKXLddyfP7iBYy8JdXdZCIcXNBHUGZePA/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJGEQz_5G5dko6-ncwX14UNwqBL6P4PB1r9GyDFxz1n92MfBKyO75ZZ5j5Iv6ZFKhAG65ShXZ8S7rdosxvfLwJWwjyWnpoSkQMikZrFanS5tKXLddyfP7iBYy8JdXdZCIcXNBHUGZePA/s400/15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Retaining voting privileges is vital
for Academy members because it confers upon that industry professional a level
of respect and accomplishment. The
vetting process for admission is intensive, with prospective members required
to demonstrate a level of expertise and accomplishment that allows them to effectively
judge excellence in filmmaking. Unlike
other industries or occupations requiring continued training or accreditation
(such as police, firefighters, the military, or working in medicine or the law),
there is no rational basis to discriminate against so-called “inactive” members
and require them to continue proving their qualifications. There is no reason to presume that the skill
sets that allowed them to be invited into the Academy are likely to be
adversely affected over time. Even
though the Academy claims they will not publicly announce who is a voting or
“emeritus” member, affected members who are below-the-line crew members, or character actors and actresses, would no longer be able to state on their
CVs that they are in the preferred class.
T<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">aking away their voting rights, and
forcing them into being secondary "emeritus" members, adversely
affects their professional stature, and potentially harms their future income.<span class="apple-converted-space"> Presidential candidates who have weighed in on the issue, like Ben Carson, </span></span></span><a href="http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/oscars-diversity-hillary-clinton-1201690256/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">might dismiss it</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">
as being irrelevant as far as he is concerned, but that myopic, elitist
perspective fails to recognize how the movie industry affects interstate commerce by keeping millions of
individuals, not just the top-paid stars, employed throughout the country and
that the actions of such a high-profile organization like the Academy towards
its own membership can have an adverse influence on other industries and
organizations that might have nothing to do with the movies.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpEto5jA6Pbq4xIevO2K6_Pgin1lg1HaDNJHXU5fhatQe0RJ5_m4Wi5oIirpFnkSZ8g-V5NwgYzbNpXsv_w4qPZtirTx-lGVPgjP-KP_U03ZZMt0OCRvMzXxeLKdiVgkXr3V4_mh1vN2E/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpEto5jA6Pbq4xIevO2K6_Pgin1lg1HaDNJHXU5fhatQe0RJ5_m4Wi5oIirpFnkSZ8g-V5NwgYzbNpXsv_w4qPZtirTx-lGVPgjP-KP_U03ZZMt0OCRvMzXxeLKdiVgkXr3V4_mh1vN2E/s400/12.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Several individuals have </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0126-goldstein-defending-academy-awards-20160126-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">called out</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">
the Academy for what they perceive to be a thinly veiled attempt to purge
“older, white, male” members from the voting roster, because the people supporting
these new initiatives are not content with just adding more women and people of
color. The Academy’s new provisions concerning
“inactive” members appear to be an attempt to narrowly define its membership
demographics, and how they might be inclined to vote, by eliminating individuals they presume,
without empirical evidence, will vote against films and artists reflecting a
multi-cultural perspective. It presumes
that older, white, male Academy members neglected to nominate actors and
actresses of color due to conscious or unconscious racial bias, and further presumes that adding women
and diverse members would skew future voting in favor of actors reflecting
those demographics. This mentality does not afford these individuals the proper respect to presume that they would have enough perspective to vote on the quality of a film no matter what demographic it represents. Rather than helping them, I believe t<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">hese shortsighted provisions could inadvertently backfire by also hurting
veteran women and minority members who might fall short of the new, arcane requirements. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQHyAjDX3Nfgeamm72MyUPVu96RsmNqI1TF1lDhDJ7aMSdWP4kP2hHJeYCjL1Cp02FBZvPl4XUVSNUDpYoiVaeldOeX3TrJkRAOaIfZt56cuYJu3tUhs3dSkoYSgx4v_ddAjPqA68eO0/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQHyAjDX3Nfgeamm72MyUPVu96RsmNqI1TF1lDhDJ7aMSdWP4kP2hHJeYCjL1Cp02FBZvPl4XUVSNUDpYoiVaeldOeX3TrJkRAOaIfZt56cuYJu3tUhs3dSkoYSgx4v_ddAjPqA68eO0/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It has been suggested by individuals supporting the new
measures that exceptions should be made for women and people of color, and that
the new rules concerning “inactive” members should only be applied to older,
white, male members of the Academy.
However, if one follows that logic and truly believes that such
exceptions should be made based on gender and race, then that proves the extent
to which the new rules are utterly useless and are merely a camouflage for reverse
discrimination if they are indeed going to be applied arbitrarily and
inconsistently. It has also been suggested that the new rules should be
affirmed because the Academy, back in the early 1970s when Gregory Peck was its
President, demoted its older members in a similar manner while it was trying to
attract a younger demographic to its organization. However, this argument is also weak because it is,
in essence, saying that the discrimination of a protected class of individuals should
continue to be tolerated because there exists historical precedent for such
policies and behavior. This should not have happened back then, and it should not be happening again now. It is likely that the earlier policies affecting older members implemented over 40 years ago during Peck's regime were not challenged because there was less awareness and concern over age discrimination back in the early 1970s than there is now. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2DEjgE8qltKHzx-JdcIjOY-pu5GY9JvjISX_IkD9MbG32ac_LP3Imke2tV77YE50m-VUfm1z3KKfsr3cxVMAUT6CcqglUxSw-PQ0SuQEfoz2MO4QJ7RyFRsdXzJKglW1HUQcJ9G6B2E/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2DEjgE8qltKHzx-JdcIjOY-pu5GY9JvjISX_IkD9MbG32ac_LP3Imke2tV77YE50m-VUfm1z3KKfsr3cxVMAUT6CcqglUxSw-PQ0SuQEfoz2MO4QJ7RyFRsdXzJKglW1HUQcJ9G6B2E/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In the time since the Academy
announced these new rules, artists and industry professionals as diverse as producer/screenwriter </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/gay-female-oscar-voter-academy-860236" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Patricia Resnick</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
actress </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-diversity-push-actors-859629" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Rutanya Alda</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
actors </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-dont-capitulate-a-860243"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Billy Mumy</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">
and </span><a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/awards/stephen-furst-animal-house-academy-rule-changes-1201689253/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Stephen Furst</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
animator </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-academy-im-no-859405" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Nancy Beiman</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
studio publicist </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/gay-latino-oscar-voter-pens-859044" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Mark Reina</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">, visual effects artist <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-calls-diversity-efforts-859265" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">John Van Vliet</span></a>, and director </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/older-white-male-oscar-voter-859571" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Sam Weisman</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
as well as former studio executive </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-who-once-ran-860095" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">David Kirkpatrick</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
have all publicly weighed in on how these new rules would adversely affect
them. The irony is that, from amongst
this group, several are women over 40, two publicly identified themselves as
gay, and one is Latino—all of whom one would expect to fall into the category
of so-called “diverse” individuals who the Academy purports to be including in
this initiative. Presidential candidate </span><a href="http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/oscars-diversity-hillary-clinton-1201690256/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Hillary Clinton</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"> has
even weighed in on the issue, with Secretary Clinton praising the Academy for
their plans to include more diverse individuals, but
neglecting to acknowledge how the implementation of these rules would affect
older members. One presumes that
Secretary Clinton might not be aware of those provisions and is merely providing
surface-level commentary. However, when
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/political-strategist-donna-brazile-i-860308" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Donna Brazile wrote glowingly</span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"> about these initiatives in the Hollywood Reporter, and
acknowledged her awareness of the provisions affecting “inactive” members, it underscored
the extent to which certain individuals are willing to sacrifice and accept the
discrimination of another protected class of citizens, who they otherwise might
have defended, so long as it helps perpetuate their primary personal and political agendas.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifukZxpBAGkWsF6HnxJKTLgl06tUFpFPP00x1VTJqjhkxcKjTBU-b8DwuqW0pasP1BGUUN1XSLmk7g7NdTGs4tedX6KVhtzcRtZXfhx2zcCIdnNy6cpYmaoi4NCHL31zCxgL0xx_6toMU/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifukZxpBAGkWsF6HnxJKTLgl06tUFpFPP00x1VTJqjhkxcKjTBU-b8DwuqW0pasP1BGUUN1XSLmk7g7NdTGs4tedX6KVhtzcRtZXfhx2zcCIdnNy6cpYmaoi4NCHL31zCxgL0xx_6toMU/s400/10.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">This initiative to invite more diverse members into the Academy, at the expense of older members, reflects
the continued agenda mandated by current Academy President </span><a href="https://www.oscars.org/news/statement-academy-president-cheryl-boone-isaacs" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Cheryl Boone Isaacs</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"> and CEO </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscarssowhite-academy-ceo-oscars-diversity-857417" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">Dawn Hudson</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">.
Because Isaacs and Hudson have accepted credit and responsibility in a </span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/oscarssowhite-academy-chiefs-reveal-behind-859693" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;">recent fawning and self-congratulatory Hollywood Reporter interview</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"> for persuading the Board of Governors, at a secret meeting
they held at Academy headquarters on January 21, to vote for the provisions
questioning the credentials of current members, it becomes relevant to consider their
individual qualifications. The short list
of credits on their IMDB pages requires one to, instead, refer to several other sources, including the Oscars.org website, to recognize that Isaacs’s
background is in marketing and public relations for the major studios, and that Hudson (a failed
actress with only 7 credits on IMDB) was the Executive Director of Film
Independent (formerly IFP-West), a non-profit supporting indie filmmakers. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4px;">(For the record, I am not attempting to question the credentials of other individuals working in the film industry, whose backgrounds are similar to Isaacs and Hudson, because those other industry professionals are not calling for the unilateral demotion of voting members defined as "inactive" the way they are.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipNhyRteM20Gk_mzeCW-xrO1w61bd_5fKtJtakFqq0yzWoT6PkCl-hf3JOoDXHzZjOTYTEsTjVpf-jxC96LB4Rh5jR73av2Wv2zoMc8a1xDPycNkCRP46DRhzcVh7nlUlxgW2OgnVbtt0/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipNhyRteM20Gk_mzeCW-xrO1w61bd_5fKtJtakFqq0yzWoT6PkCl-hf3JOoDXHzZjOTYTEsTjVpf-jxC96LB4Rh5jR73av2Wv2zoMc8a1xDPycNkCRP46DRhzcVh7nlUlxgW2OgnVbtt0/s400/9.JPG" width="258" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In the book </span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aIqdEw2VToUC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=dawn+hudson+harvard&source=bl&ots=k-JzfiZlWV&sig=B7UPzYWwe4PAcuVQCVW6zRe4okA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDtIuu8tLKAhVHpR4KHcUkDw84ChDoAQg9MAY#v=onepage&q=dawn%20hudson%20harvard&f=false" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">"Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream,"</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> Dawn Hudson is described as </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><b>"a young actress and aspiring dancer in Los Angeles who took a part-time job at the IFP-West office in 1990."</b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> It further mentions how </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><b>"Hudson describes herself as having been very radical in college: 'When I was majoring in government at Harvard it was because I wanted to overthrow the government and change the world.' She had tried working as an intern for various politicians and concluded that it was 'very tough to make an impact in politics, ...to change people's consciousness...so I became more interested in the arts...(I) had no ambition to be a filmmaker or to run an organization...I really wanted the life of the artist. I really felt that was where one would have an impact on the world. But I also found my skill set suited to running (IFP-West), because I think it has to do with not just skills but a real deep passionate belief that film can change the world."</b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> As such, one gets the impression that Hudson has no genuine appreciation or interest in the history of film as an entertainment and artistic medium on its own terms, but merely as a convenient vehicle with which she can project her views onto the world. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that Hudson harbors no respect for the accomplishments of so called "inactive" industry veterans that have spent decades of their lives devoted to working in films. Also, given her radical political views--which includes her previously avowed dreams of overthrowing the democracy of the United States--it should not be surprising how Hudson, collaborating with Isaacs, called for the secret meeting of the Academy Board of Governors on January 21st to insist on a unilateral vote that excluded any sense of transparency or suggestion of polling the Academy membership at-large to consider their views on their proposed changes. As with other political radicals of all spectrums and perspectives, it appears that Hudson effected progressive change not through open debate and consensus, but through underhanded coercion and manipulation.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkv1IBBKkKQr16U4JFDWEPLDO3duBVQGDaFfcMyxkfqg2EWnNCATtTcCDOdHqBDTFR7twq2XKvar8Qd2OQ2v1ihmJ_W4ZikmU2kIOzG-v4igF3xWiBf2XYzv9ty-OhQY05_7JCig-uwyQ/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkv1IBBKkKQr16U4JFDWEPLDO3duBVQGDaFfcMyxkfqg2EWnNCATtTcCDOdHqBDTFR7twq2XKvar8Qd2OQ2v1ihmJ_W4ZikmU2kIOzG-v4igF3xWiBf2XYzv9ty-OhQY05_7JCig-uwyQ/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In 2012, the </span><a href="http://www.laweekly.com/news/dawn-hudson-academy-ceo-thrashed-by-anonymous-old-white-men-in-la-times-roast-2387013" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">LA Weekly wrote a complimentary profile</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> on Dawn Hudson that attempted to refute a damning, earlier </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/06/entertainment/la-et-academy-hudson-20120107" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">LA Times article</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> that summarized reports of poor job performance, made against her after she became CEO of the Academy, that led to calls by
members of the Board of Governors that she should be replaced. While the LA Weekly article attempted to
defend Hudson by citing how most of the sources in the LA Times piece remained
anonymous, it nevertheless acknowledged how her reputation was <i><b>“</b></i></span><b style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">not about the films,
just about the profits; that she doesn't have enough of a background in
movie-making to know the art of it</span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><i>; that she's pushy and bossy and rash</i></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">.”</span></i></b><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> One can easily surmise how Hudson--the former campus radical who professed a desire to overthrow the government and later failed in acting, dancing and politics--is now using the Academy as her vehicle to unilaterally force her views on the world at-large, and the film industry in-particular, without any regard for the collateral damage she might cause, even towards people from groups she purports to have concern for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWM3RBUF78V7dCTREvVcDtYVlDwieA6x1DpesFu8pUxY1bCwJTPtwOFmfwg3DzZe7KQS8NXUwa-q20IFtFqPBpGAUYIo8vh8_Xa7KWX7BZuBtXk4EaI_mSv806DtlJLmZTXmC19wx5Q7E/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWM3RBUF78V7dCTREvVcDtYVlDwieA6x1DpesFu8pUxY1bCwJTPtwOFmfwg3DzZe7KQS8NXUwa-q20IFtFqPBpGAUYIo8vh8_Xa7KWX7BZuBtXk4EaI_mSv806DtlJLmZTXmC19wx5Q7E/s400/8.JPG" width="287" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">Unlike other Academy Presidents, or Members
serving on its Board of Governors (such as Bette Davis or
producer/screenwriter, Fay Kanin, among others), it becomes apparent that neither Isaacs nor Hudson are successful filmmaking artists with a genuine appreciation for film as simply an aesthetic, entertainment medium that remains separate from any heavy-handed message or political agenda. As such, because they have enjoyed continued employment in their careers in PR and running Film Independent, respectively, they also do not possess the empathy to understand the struggles faced by actual filmmaking personnel, who often experience brief periods of employment, coupled with extended periods of unemployment. While Isaacs at least acknowledges in
the aforementioned Hollywood Reporter interview that she recognizes why older
Academy members would be offended by the new rules, which makes me want to give
her the benefit of the doubt, Hudson demonstrates her callous obliviousness when she casually generalizes how the affected Members worked <i><b>“</b></i></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><b>in the film industry…at one point in
their careers, and they've moved on to a completely different field, completely
different careers, and yet, because we have lifetime membership and lifetime
voting rights, they are still voting on what is the best in contemporary film
culture…They will still be members, they just will lose the ability to vote on
a community that they are not really a part of.”</b></span></i></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbAakXSiJYPULZYCMBjtz4JVlXsFs7x7aN3y2TqsHA7RelwAgYyWJFlmrkQ_97u5Gkp0WGrcAg55-8fiG2-iiUmxLUNbvzf1RVFi0rU1Rpy8ofQj9lk4ge-5xaPmAqYqcHjoNP-wPuSU/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbAakXSiJYPULZYCMBjtz4JVlXsFs7x7aN3y2TqsHA7RelwAgYyWJFlmrkQ_97u5Gkp0WGrcAg55-8fiG2-iiUmxLUNbvzf1RVFi0rU1Rpy8ofQj9lk4ge-5xaPmAqYqcHjoNP-wPuSU/s400/16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Hudson’s quote
reflects the degree of arrogance and hubris from which she and Isaacs are operating. If these members are purportedly no longer part of the filmmaking community, why bother to allow them to remain so-called "emeritus" members, which is a thankless, token status? Hudson's quote also demonstrates how she is using the Academy to fulfill her dreams of overthrowing an established, venerated institution (like the United States government, which she--thankfully--never came close to destroying), as well as her apparent glee as a frustrated actress from sitting in judgment of actual filmmaking artists who all got into the Academy on merit and </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4px;">who all achieved far more than Hudson ever did in her failed acting career</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">. It is outrageous how two people who
have not accomplished much in terms of actual filmmaking are dictating the standards determining
whether so-called “inactive” members should retain their voting
privileges. They are not artists with a
love, understanding and expertise for the filmmaking process, but ideologues pushing
their agenda ahead of celebrating the excellence and grandeur of movies. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7YtqF_UDAjzfp3PkJdFDPaw1zR95nyl7gWi-XLevrdd7gt68kiliWuuzXMTCD0vmYvyBNsBGZoGeloacukfpHHGa1ucnaUqeoWajLzgRQEspGSMPWXq8VeCi4wbr2CW7GpaNEsjF99c/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7YtqF_UDAjzfp3PkJdFDPaw1zR95nyl7gWi-XLevrdd7gt68kiliWuuzXMTCD0vmYvyBNsBGZoGeloacukfpHHGa1ucnaUqeoWajLzgRQEspGSMPWXq8VeCi4wbr2CW7GpaNEsjF99c/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">During the aforementioned Hollywood Reporter interview, in
an attempt to demonstrate how the new rules were not developed in haste in
response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, both Isaacs and Hudson mention how
they had been developing the new Academy membership provisions for about three
or four years. However, that admission merely suggests the extent to which Isaacs and Hudson have capitalized on
this controversy to put forth an agenda</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4px;">, that they had ample time to concoct,</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> upon the Board of Governors under the guise of responding to a media crisis concerning purported racial bias. In its FAQs concerning its new
membership rules, the Academy heavy-handedly attempted to quash any criticism of its
initiatives by highlighting how <i><b>“</b></i></span><i style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"><b>Voting for the Oscars is a privilege of membership, not a right.”</b></span></i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><b> </b> Echoing
their own logic, the current leadership at the Academy--led by Dawn Hudson and Cheryl Boone Isaacs--ought to also recognize how receiving an Oscar nomination, the issue that started this whole
controversy, is not an inalienable right either. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-30902432807841301502015-12-19T10:59:00.001-08:002016-01-09T08:19:13.641-08:00Belated Obituary & Tribute to Phyllis Davis (1940-2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69oUbPk90exjOFv8koSD_ysblMAMMUmJbMwglCGgeZ7BcU7-25eexSayFR7nFIp4irBP3W48L3BpRA96fTvyjvthe8krLt7DozABNCp11AnQysCdrBuLGjGQRs7kqNQyLn_6C1ZeNv70/s1600/PhyllisDavis.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69oUbPk90exjOFv8koSD_ysblMAMMUmJbMwglCGgeZ7BcU7-25eexSayFR7nFIp4irBP3W48L3BpRA96fTvyjvthe8krLt7DozABNCp11AnQysCdrBuLGjGQRs7kqNQyLn_6C1ZeNv70/s400/PhyllisDavis.JPG" width="305" /></a></div>
<br />
Just over two years ago, I started reading things on the internet that indicated actress Phyllis Davis had passed away. The first inkling I learned about it was a posting on Davis's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0205295/board/thread/220432290" target="_blank">IMDB Message Board</a> from a family friend who had heard from her brother that she had passed. Later, I found a brief online <a href="http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Phyllis-Davis&lc=0993&pid=167554665&uuid=f955ff0d-c1c9-4fad-b109-50c77dc9b57c" target="_blank">funeral home obituary notice</a> for a Phyllis Davis with the same birth date as the one listed for her on IMDB, which would further confirm that she had died. However, the funeral home obituary made no mention of her as the Phyllis Davis who had acted in films and television from the 1960s into the early 1990s, so there remained a bit of doubt for awhile as to whether she had indeed passed away. This doubt was further compounded by the fact that neither major industry trade publications, Variety and Hollywood Reporter, have ever reported her death in the last two years, nor have any major or minor newspapers made mention of her passing as well. Her death <i>was</i> briefly noted in the <a href="http://www.sagaftra.org/files/sag/documents/saspring2014_public.pdf" target="_blank">obituary section</a> of a Spring 2014 Screen Actors Guild newsletter, but the mention merely consisted of her stage name Phyllis Elizabeth Davis being listed among dozens of other actors who had also died recently. In fact, it took awhile before Davis's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0205295/" target="_blank">actual IMDB page</a>, which lists her career accomplishments and credits, was updated to make mention that she had passed away, helping to remove any lingering doubt about the issue. Perhaps the lack of acknowledgment could be due to Davis and her family not wanting to prepare a public statement concerning her death, which is completely understandable given how emotional and complicated the aftermath of a family member's passing can be. However, an actress as accomplished as Phyllis Davis, who contributed many entertaining performances during her career, deserves some sort of acknowledgement. She was a good actress capable of both comedy and drama, as well as playing villains and sympathetic parts. Because I think it is unfortunate for Variety and Hollywood Reporter, the publications who purport to represent the industry that she worked in for over a quarter of a century, to have not paid her the proper respect after all this time, here's my belated tribute and obituary to Phyllis Davis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc58Jj8GKUge4OvwbNg0Z_pDwQKXCzo4z5ulqLsHbrIX3gjzr6yfwbrdkD3PoRWyPei4Sn86FxZubE_xytrUBY8VOQlFGCLxrKmMzMYXBJKZkZsjW3BbgpM26GXyMQ1__0fVbfF8tkc5M/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc58Jj8GKUge4OvwbNg0Z_pDwQKXCzo4z5ulqLsHbrIX3gjzr6yfwbrdkD3PoRWyPei4Sn86FxZubE_xytrUBY8VOQlFGCLxrKmMzMYXBJKZkZsjW3BbgpM26GXyMQ1__0fVbfF8tkc5M/s400/6.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
Film and television actress Phyllis Davis died of cancer on September 27, 2013 in Henderson, Nevada. She was 73 years old. She was born Phyllis Ann Davis on July 17, 1940 in Port Arthur, Texas. (She was purportedly billed as "Phyllis Elizabeth Davis" in some of her acting appearances as a tribute to her idol Elizabeth Taylor.) The oldest of three siblings, Davis's parents ran a mortuary business in Nederland, Texas where she grew up. While her two younger brothers reportedly followed in their parents' footsteps and also became morticians, Davis aspired to become an actress from an early age and studied acting at Lamar College in Beaumont, Texas for one semester before moving to Los Angeles to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. After a brief stint as a flight attendant for Continental Airlines, Davis's show business career began after her roommate, choreographer Toni Basil, helped her land appearances in theatrical variety shows as well as some small roles in feature films. By the time her career was underway, Davis was already in her mid-20s. Her deep voice and comparatively earthy maturity allowed Davis to standout from her conventionally youthful peers. Davis's big-screen appearances throughout the 1960s included parts in "Lord Love a Duck" (1966), "The Oscar" (1966), "The Last of the Secret Agents" (1966), "Spinout" (1966), "The Swinger" (1966), "Live a Little, Love a Little" (1968), and "The Big Bounce" (1968). She also appeared in numerous guest roles on popular television shows like "Petticoat Junction," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "The Wild, Wild West," "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." and "Adam-12."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ISyc1a7XJdfX2Zl3rhs_f9ktiBT56Dak2V7E0RqcsvTLrKmXQQ-8HPIjukOjwizun2WJC_LyMYB-KLPqmHSiETy1w9RpunH-5aiq4z_b0X7EyEif12QoDHZGqQeRERNLGg1pqnDAtrU/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ISyc1a7XJdfX2Zl3rhs_f9ktiBT56Dak2V7E0RqcsvTLrKmXQQ-8HPIjukOjwizun2WJC_LyMYB-KLPqmHSiETy1w9RpunH-5aiq4z_b0X7EyEif12QoDHZGqQeRERNLGg1pqnDAtrU/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kgaup5uUng1Yhgoz3FY4h0MTkAeUCnySkAGxXisVzUTrP4-ykIBJNhMqsTk0s-JgSlGh4iucAbBP8ZsC2TaHhxnb-aIQgWnwrwdpI9tg-xe8aJ3snt-2zimabGea3LHhjgspRfGBj6U/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kgaup5uUng1Yhgoz3FY4h0MTkAeUCnySkAGxXisVzUTrP4-ykIBJNhMqsTk0s-JgSlGh4iucAbBP8ZsC2TaHhxnb-aIQgWnwrwdpI9tg-xe8aJ3snt-2zimabGea3LHhjgspRfGBj6U/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuRCcg6vWDqkJ1avoDnUz8ZD-RUGYL2PxtJ-hYEpyhOj6zmCBb2m6gUU0HfS-S97BB1zqqk8JyHIPgELq4K0KWOUMzxQiR0-mEGel714sWXNy7x2KRaPcCHrdNDFEnrBJLkqrYcAp7bGE/s1600/20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuRCcg6vWDqkJ1avoDnUz8ZD-RUGYL2PxtJ-hYEpyhOj6zmCBb2m6gUU0HfS-S97BB1zqqk8JyHIPgELq4K0KWOUMzxQiR0-mEGel714sWXNy7x2KRaPcCHrdNDFEnrBJLkqrYcAp7bGE/s400/20.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNteysMTxzcHg1_I4cwrv-cRtvjGRbnsd_hd1kd9O4O4Px58ut2lKcik10bOSwXx06JhYXgWYdvd4aD2669Xg4FzuvvE311VfI20bsGWDatvLFCNZ65GQ0hLRXjHz0qtkyw9bsqqDuaU/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNteysMTxzcHg1_I4cwrv-cRtvjGRbnsd_hd1kd9O4O4Px58ut2lKcik10bOSwXx06JhYXgWYdvd4aD2669Xg4FzuvvE311VfI20bsGWDatvLFCNZ65GQ0hLRXjHz0qtkyw9bsqqDuaU/s400/16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswkPwWvehsd9zocnXw3YaOlfS-Z2QIva2S0EJQBROllDBxdlWUG8C3cQiMz3EZbgSjMTDs3qnxTznn1q_zJhHZFBF5HSnNAern1937CrbSTA6Ghkn1o55a81TbY1BfP6Sh5140x-Zwew/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswkPwWvehsd9zocnXw3YaOlfS-Z2QIva2S0EJQBROllDBxdlWUG8C3cQiMz3EZbgSjMTDs3qnxTznn1q_zJhHZFBF5HSnNAern1937CrbSTA6Ghkn1o55a81TbY1BfP6Sh5140x-Zwew/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Davis's career prospects took a turn for the better when she landed a major role in Russ Meyer's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), playing fashion editor Susan Lake, a role that was originally meant to be a continuation of the Anne Welles role played by Barbara Parkins in the original "Valley of the Dolls" (1967) back when the film was planned as a direct sequel to the earlier film. Despite Davis's disappointment that the role had been modified, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" allowed Davis an opportunity to play a mature, intelligent character that she was not always given an opportunity to essay in her earlier decorative parts in the 1960s. During this time, Davis also landed a recurring role as one of the repertory of actors used in the "blackout" sections of the popular "Love American Style" anthology sitcom. Davis appeared regularly on the show for about four seasons, and even landed featured roles in several of the actual scripted vignettes during her time on the series. Phyllis Davis's participation in "Love American Style" allowed her to demonstrate her talents in light comedy, which helped further distinguish her from her peers and contemporaries.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKdWk_lDn9n9gaXFJ2zngm96ySjnXgj8ut6Ak0v8v_cnB5L7EIUM_ALjMd4ZvVIOva0wfmVm4yxzIubldk_q1mrh_3mj6ednEFT7-FnhIPzGn4gPotchJRW0-WFTVVzLpxbEE6HspGUOY/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKdWk_lDn9n9gaXFJ2zngm96ySjnXgj8ut6Ak0v8v_cnB5L7EIUM_ALjMd4ZvVIOva0wfmVm4yxzIubldk_q1mrh_3mj6ednEFT7-FnhIPzGn4gPotchJRW0-WFTVVzLpxbEE6HspGUOY/s400/9.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoONXMfas4XWgCe09Xijg9Nx3a_qCEtNH9_jFKwYPeH808SsYROQ-xYqx0jOzALEcMRxOSYSnqvlgitM9nZBRRzTcqn8Iys7VFConFgZIqIEv_6aTgaathR24fUD6BLBoekz90an-_Brg/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoONXMfas4XWgCe09Xijg9Nx3a_qCEtNH9_jFKwYPeH808SsYROQ-xYqx0jOzALEcMRxOSYSnqvlgitM9nZBRRzTcqn8Iys7VFConFgZIqIEv_6aTgaathR24fUD6BLBoekz90an-_Brg/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8P3bQs2FPhVIDmgOlNqUstz05FqZnZjNd5AdUvMnIes6n92R3-Gi1XaPGILObvLkmEhciV9wZbSbB3EJ6AtRcVKSXiGkQLByKHS5exx1BuBKEDj5-eXvfDrqVlWtpcgn0S16-YeObVWY/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8P3bQs2FPhVIDmgOlNqUstz05FqZnZjNd5AdUvMnIes6n92R3-Gi1XaPGILObvLkmEhciV9wZbSbB3EJ6AtRcVKSXiGkQLByKHS5exx1BuBKEDj5-eXvfDrqVlWtpcgn0S16-YeObVWY/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Phyllis Davis reportedly was originally cast as Bond Girl Plenty O'Toole in "Diamonds are Forever" (1971). However, sometime after she had signed the contracts, but before she was to report for work in Las Vegas, she was replaced by Lana Wood. Davis mentioned in a 1992 interview for "Femme Fatales" magazine that she was deeply disappointed in missing out on the Bond movie, but maintained that she still received residual checks whenever the film airs on television or cable due to having signed the contracts before being replaced. Instead of appearing in the Bond movie, Davis made a memorable lead in the Costa Rica-shot women's prison film "Sweet Sugar" (1972), playing a sassy, quick witted prostitute named Sugar who has been railroaded into working on a corrupt banana republic sugar cane plantation prison run by a psychotic doctor. Despite the abundance of nudity required, Davis maintains her dignity throughout by projecting qualities of wit, intelligence and decency in the title role. Sugar continually stands up to the amoral, corrupt men running the prison plantation both for herself and for her fellow inmates. In one of Davis's most impressive scenes, she comes to the defense of a fellow inmate too sick to cut cane and volunteers to cover her workload while maintaining her own quota. The scene allows the audience to recognize that Sugar isn't out for herself. Davis's unusually deep voice, which always distinguished her from her contemporaries, allows her to project confidence and authority throughout the film, particularly in the finale where the machine gun-brandishing Sugar leads a revolt and breakout among her fellow inmates. As the trailer narrator memorably and accurately intones, Davis and her accomplices were <i>".38 caliber kittens spitting death as they claw their way to freedom!"</i> In fact, Davis's performance in "Sweet Sugar" is so good, it makes one sense that she should have been considered for the Tiffany Case, and not Plenty O'Toole, role in "Diamonds are Forever," which was ultimately played by the unimpressive Jill St. John.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEVCJU3lLY7ZXu9omTxZHLzxAFFNcNjIObG-2gfnV2KImibUrpbYRFyuIcGQIXMFKE8RcR1t3v2RIvKXhoiRKu7PvZoFVZWiLFOMbsxPvrvvF96VUhdflrdirWplctoowWqxx1Utzi_U/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEVCJU3lLY7ZXu9omTxZHLzxAFFNcNjIObG-2gfnV2KImibUrpbYRFyuIcGQIXMFKE8RcR1t3v2RIvKXhoiRKu7PvZoFVZWiLFOMbsxPvrvvF96VUhdflrdirWplctoowWqxx1Utzi_U/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHfpu96183K5xIJ5B384Q45lKXopwQMJTZfsSK6X4gh6Ge8H9QBRJBpavhhJxhb1WI2YX6NH80heIuFTXc-uajRfIgn1AL_FhoHrIWdwMUZ9xzRSQ94AJ6i7llb3pNoi_ecNyWipWXNng/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHfpu96183K5xIJ5B384Q45lKXopwQMJTZfsSK6X4gh6Ge8H9QBRJBpavhhJxhb1WI2YX6NH80heIuFTXc-uajRfIgn1AL_FhoHrIWdwMUZ9xzRSQ94AJ6i7llb3pNoi_ecNyWipWXNng/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Davis continued in the women-in-prison genre the next year with the futuristic drama "Terminal Island" (1973), directed by Stephanie Rothman. In "Terminal Island," Davis plays one of four female prisoners condemned to live out her existence on an island, after the death penalty has been abolished, along with other death row prisoners, both male and female, where there are no guards and no law and the prisoners are free to do as they wish except leave. As with "Sweet Sugar," Davis's character actively participates in a civil war revolt against the tyrannical prisoners who intimidate and enslave the more docile prisoners on the island. However, Davis was purportedly later forced to bring legal action against the producers of a compilation video, called "Famous T & A" (1982), comprised of well-known actresses' nude scenes. To her dismay, Davis learned that those producers had used, without obtaining her consent, unedited footage of Davis in her skinny dipping scene that was much more graphic than what ended up in the final cut of "Terminal Island." On a happier note, the other lasting legacy of "Terminal Island" was that it established a lifelong friendship with co-star Tom Selleck, who later cast her in a recurring role in "Magnum P.I." in the late 1980s.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ySYvB0zaQCtffifF42pB8vG8WEyrULbWQijncvl0jKDdwp_3vUqoj0__ENTZKfd0tIGJvPJpuBxoxcRvv4v9i1kAB61ZbXRLPEqXh2KaUJnm0tvaJ8AVOrxzYFZLtnE86hZX9D6JrhM/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ySYvB0zaQCtffifF42pB8vG8WEyrULbWQijncvl0jKDdwp_3vUqoj0__ENTZKfd0tIGJvPJpuBxoxcRvv4v9i1kAB61ZbXRLPEqXh2KaUJnm0tvaJ8AVOrxzYFZLtnE86hZX9D6JrhM/s320/1.JPG" width="238" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG0aIurr_e61ZZhUF6Mgjll4pzRUtlvjkFyZn1yDWYvuo-AQo-tbDRx-E9XYJzmKMGOoJnfciuGr1sttnsW1rh7yTWMRlWM0jWYSZhoxm9BA_ZElJywqhOOI6xv5jFOE1kP5dLdKUTDcA/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG0aIurr_e61ZZhUF6Mgjll4pzRUtlvjkFyZn1yDWYvuo-AQo-tbDRx-E9XYJzmKMGOoJnfciuGr1sttnsW1rh7yTWMRlWM0jWYSZhoxm9BA_ZElJywqhOOI6xv5jFOE1kP5dLdKUTDcA/s320/2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout the 1970s, Davis appeared in other feature films including "The Day of the Dolphin" (1973), the quirky period musical comedy "Train Ride to Hollywood (1975) where she humorously spoofed Vivien Leigh's role as Scarlett O'Hara, and Robert Aldrich's "The Choirboys" (1977), based on Joseph Wambaugh's novel. In the latter part of the decade, Davis landed her most notable role as Bea Travis, the assistant to Robert Urich's Dan Tanna, on the Aaron Spelling detective series "Vega$" (1978-81). A former showgirl and single mother, the character of Bea, Tanna's Girl Friday, allowed Davis an opportunity to demonstrate a maternal, sympathetic warmth, as well as qualities of loyalty and courage in the episodes that allowed Bea to get in on the action, that made her an appealing presence on the series. What was notable about Davis's work on "Vega$" was the seemingly effortless chemistry that underscored the platonic, caring friendship between Dan Tanna and Bea. Urich and Davis both did good work to sell that friendship with TV audiences and it became one of the human elements that made "Vega$" an entertaining series.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZMHCCnPSMus3UbbEa4_9TIrrUCjxUpEnGUieynA_2Ro40pvHW_umTctDd6JM_SqW-Zh8ShiaqMNvgdrhsiq8pzpCBsG0jcn2zLa_-tN7q7LxdqE9MNOvE8IWtI4F1mPiyJJuex0woTG0/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZMHCCnPSMus3UbbEa4_9TIrrUCjxUpEnGUieynA_2Ro40pvHW_umTctDd6JM_SqW-Zh8ShiaqMNvgdrhsiq8pzpCBsG0jcn2zLa_-tN7q7LxdqE9MNOvE8IWtI4F1mPiyJJuex0woTG0/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtmtPcAuV-vcwlEPRTQcwAwvv5Xv6FZyKO_tHbdR1jfUjx3JD9xSmngAxsbh1Nc7u0zunjOOf_4GaGvVpjyGztLGhKiO_jZ53fmicjKCvd8Mq0YVt5oyj7Ob9hVNJJW212icFFzpegNI/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtmtPcAuV-vcwlEPRTQcwAwvv5Xv6FZyKO_tHbdR1jfUjx3JD9xSmngAxsbh1Nc7u0zunjOOf_4GaGvVpjyGztLGhKiO_jZ53fmicjKCvd8Mq0YVt5oyj7Ob9hVNJJW212icFFzpegNI/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Vega$" was unexpectedly cancelled after three seasons, Davis continued working in prime time television throughout the 1980s. In addition to her aforementioned recurring role on "Magnum P.I.," she became a favorite of "Vega$" producer Aaron Spelling, for whom she appeared eight times on "Fantasy Island," four times on "The Love Boat," as well as the Spelling produced "Finders of Lost Loves," "Matt Houston," and "Hotel." "Fantasy Island" in particular allowed Davis an opportunity to essay a variety of different kinds of characters. In one episode, she played a plain-looking woman whose fantasy of becoming glamorous and attractive has unintended consequences. In another episode, her character has her fantasy fulfilled of becoming Mata Hari. In yet another episode, her character has an opportunity of becoming the singer/stage actress Lillian Russell. Davis also made a memorable guest appearance in the 2-hour pilot movie for "Knight Rider" (1982), playing the villainous Tanya Walker, an industrial spy whose wounding and disfigurement of police officer Michael Long leads to his new identity as crime fighter Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff). She appeared on the December 1980 "Battle of the Network Stars" special and became a staple on game shows throughout the decade including "The Hollywood Squares," "Match Game PM" and "Family Feud." She wrapped up her career in the early 1990s with appearances in the Andy Sidaris action film "Guns" (1990), as well as small roles in "Exit to Eden" (1994), "Beverly Hills Cop III" (1994), and "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" (1995) before calling it a day and retiring from acting for good.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mBsibkXjXtsJ2WDaeIP8u8jJsjIEEZDzz6avf7kTlxKQkwyphofkMBdyX0zfrWbEaLNRTNs9gHnsBunQYjz3ikPI1G_su3c4XgYRmJEjvkhGpmQ_V0koGJl5-jq6xbCln-zjD57qHqU/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mBsibkXjXtsJ2WDaeIP8u8jJsjIEEZDzz6avf7kTlxKQkwyphofkMBdyX0zfrWbEaLNRTNs9gHnsBunQYjz3ikPI1G_su3c4XgYRmJEjvkhGpmQ_V0koGJl5-jq6xbCln-zjD57qHqU/s400/3.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fVkJa9GQUww3y3JujKsldi8hoFNsjM5rwxa0M3QOtrFsglMxWg7VQvYRHZ3IYXE7VOkU9889FpcsOd0YaaL1MX18RzWoFtmsfwUgHFYIp1EOabB8h_GMOVMLVF5tGVZDp86kBoaXA5I/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_fVkJa9GQUww3y3JujKsldi8hoFNsjM5rwxa0M3QOtrFsglMxWg7VQvYRHZ3IYXE7VOkU9889FpcsOd0YaaL1MX18RzWoFtmsfwUgHFYIp1EOabB8h_GMOVMLVF5tGVZDp86kBoaXA5I/s400/15.JPG" width="271" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKYxjuYsZ_hDYOEycIe_qZEKNpeba6vszuqgdvqsHAseSB-3Gms4Sf6dEzddY1qMUfXT0Dx0EpVT8LgjlB9u4j1BU23xLrwuF4Ps1SKH8piB6b4QdOAd0wMGcMxUQSttob4-mxhORsqI/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKYxjuYsZ_hDYOEycIe_qZEKNpeba6vszuqgdvqsHAseSB-3Gms4Sf6dEzddY1qMUfXT0Dx0EpVT8LgjlB9u4j1BU23xLrwuF4Ps1SKH8piB6b4QdOAd0wMGcMxUQSttob4-mxhORsqI/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Phyllis Davis, who never married, was in a long term relationship with legendary actor/entertainer Dean Martin in the late 1970s. Martin's daughter Deana wrote warmly about Davis in her 2010 memoir "Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes." In the book, Ms. Martin recalled how the Martin family liked Davis very much and that she became good friends with the actress, who she described as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=h1K8HpuP1GAC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=deana+martin+phyllis+davis&source=bl&ots=N1YphF9heh&sig=nZeqyWCIGrZg1w0p3BMAs9RD46c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDzIbesejJAhWIaT4KHf_aD1oQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=phyllis&f=false" target="_blank">"funny, beautiful, and down to earth."</a> Years later, in the late 1980s, Davis was in another long term relationship with flat racing jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. While doing a rare radio interview on actor Larry Manetti's CRN network radio show on May 15, 2012, Davis shared that her retirement years in her post-acting life were filled with extensive travel where she lived in countries like Thailand for periods of time, as well as fostering and finding forever homes for animals. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mlq2koJTgM" target="_blank">As she explained on air</a>, <i>"I enjoyed my life being away from acting, I think, better than acting...Afterwards, I don't know, I think I grew as a person because I went to Asia by myself and went up into the jungle by myself and learned about other people, instead of just thinking about yourself."</i> Survivors include Davis's brother Weldon Davis of Austin, Texas.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-71134975073742488742015-09-24T15:22:00.000-07:002015-09-28T06:49:00.391-07:00Cameron Watson and Christina Pickles Explain How to "Break a Hip"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZOt6zZgrPNdf0AjL7_N8AEaU-A-SjZfqZrRdIFRyJd8DRbl4CbGgswei1fJWHZ1RXNDD-tt_2_BcUycTdVobJubN8Z6wYyv41Q8aACtn_S4GkRarfj6f-c7nfpKQRWv4DFtowg33tac/s1600/31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZOt6zZgrPNdf0AjL7_N8AEaU-A-SjZfqZrRdIFRyJd8DRbl4CbGgswei1fJWHZ1RXNDD-tt_2_BcUycTdVobJubN8Z6wYyv41Q8aACtn_S4GkRarfj6f-c7nfpKQRWv4DFtowg33tac/s400/31.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A few weeks ago <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2015/08/christina-pickles-break-a-hip-worth-attending.html" target="_blank">I blogged about</a> the very funny web series <a href="http://www.breakahip.com/" target="_blank">"Break a Hip,"</a> created by Cameron Watson and starring Christina Pickles. The series depicts the friendship between a lonely retired English actress transplanted in Hollywood, Elizabeth "Biz" Brantley (played by Pickles), and Wincy (Britt Hennemuth), the young aspiring actor she has hired to help her with errands and chores around her tiny studio apartment. I was very taken with the series because, underneath its occasionally zany and outrageous humor, there lies a very poignant story of two lonely souls who find solace and comfort with one another. Because the feelings and emotions in "Break a Hip" have a natural authenticity and spontaneity to it, I wanted to find out more about what went into creating and producing the show. Both Cameron Watson and Christina Pickles graciously consented to interviews where they discussed the making of the web series, as well as aspects of their lives and careers that provided the creative impetus for their collaboration on "Break a Hip." Not only did Watson and Pickles explain why they regard this series as a high point in both of their individual careers, they also discussed how the characters of Biz and Wincy reflect the personal experiences and sensibilities of its primary creative personnel. What ultimately makes "Break a Hip" so effective is how the series's depiction of Biz and the challenges in her life--as a mature actress struggling to survive in a Hollywood that has forgotten all about her--allows Watson and Pickles to express their feelings about the current state of the entertainment industry, as well as how that industry often takes for granted the creative personnel working in their midst. The show also demonstrates how new entertainment mediums, such as web series, are offering an opportunity for creative individuals to practice their craft without the limitations or impositions placed upon them by corporate entities, and yet still have the potential to reach the widest possible audience than ever before. I would like to thank Cameron Watson and Christina Pickles for their generosity in finding time to speak with me about "Break a Hip."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvC0WmYe2ASt3DzuB5B5krqlijlciaVfGGTCRxf3YSgOc5H4jWvooLD-LIWq8EOQqzjn-5xJs1atakEsov3kGWBGVzRKrGL-oskYchMBHhxC6g1BvstPIZX4bqOzoikGPN5ucZRlr2I8/s1600/28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvC0WmYe2ASt3DzuB5B5krqlijlciaVfGGTCRxf3YSgOc5H4jWvooLD-LIWq8EOQqzjn-5xJs1atakEsov3kGWBGVzRKrGL-oskYchMBHhxC6g1BvstPIZX4bqOzoikGPN5ucZRlr2I8/s400/28.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
The genesis for "Break a Hip" began in the mid-1980s when Cameron Watson arrived in Los Angeles after studying acting at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. As Watson recalls, <i><b>"I actually lived the story as a young actor. When I was first out in LA, I needed a job to earn money so I was a waiter and all kinds of things while I was auditioning. And, through another actor, I got hooked up with a woman who was an older, retired English actress. She lived alone in a studio apartment exactly like the character of Biz in 'Break a Hip.' She had posted an ad on the board at the SAG headquarters looking for an actor to help her with errands and chores part time. A friend of mine had responded to that and was doing it for quite awhile. He had to go out of town and he said to me 'Hey, I've got this little gig with this woman. You just have to take her to the grocery store and to the doctor and she pays you by the hour. It's not a horrible job, but just get ready, she's tough and she's a real character.' And I said, 'I'll take it. I don't care. What do you mean by tough?' And he said, 'She's just a character. You'll get frustrated and you'll laugh and you'll probably get a little mad at her at times.' And I said, 'Oh, I'll do it for a couple of months. I really could use the cash.' And I ended up forging a relationship with her over the course of almost three years, off and on, until she passed away. I stayed with her as her main person to help her. She had nobody in the world, she had nobody left."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy66Fi5w9EDBRuLV4Gsys7j4G-XSffGq6qwIpo0V-DKBZPgT2OG8_1htgJx-iTVqkg4hOVGbeT69zYg209aA_6dx5HqV5XhadcSDX82h4hor4zEzkrQDgauDlLE3IcwxqvcPMr7s93Qno/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy66Fi5w9EDBRuLV4Gsys7j4G-XSffGq6qwIpo0V-DKBZPgT2OG8_1htgJx-iTVqkg4hOVGbeT69zYg209aA_6dx5HqV5XhadcSDX82h4hor4zEzkrQDgauDlLE3IcwxqvcPMr7s93Qno/s400/15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
As Watson started working for this actress and got to know her on a personal level, he found that, <i><b>"She was still very elegant. It was kind of a funny dichotomy, I guess. She lived in this really sad, sad studio apartment that she and her husband had lived in since the 1940s when they first came over from England. He was a pretty successful character actor and came to Hollywood and did a lot of character work in movies, but she never really translated much to the Hollywood scene. She had this real elegance and sophistication but she was trapped in this sad life because her husband had died, and all of her pals--all of the actors that she knew, all of her old cronies--they were all dead. And she was angry. She was not happy that she was alone. She felt abandoned. She felt like she was stuck in this town, and it wasn't home, but there wasn't anybody at home for her to go home to. And at that time her health was so poor that she could not have traveled back to England anyway. It was interesting to me to observe this because I was young and hopeful, like the character of Wincy, and I was in Hollywood for the first time. It was such an interesting, complete opposite end of the spectrum to witness someone at the end of their life living with all this disappointment--and these choices not made and these opportunities not taken--and I was just fascinated by her. I found her very urbane and funny as hell and I was very attracted to--what's the word?--the finality of a life like that."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSMqfxl3cZ28ZBqj_Sxz3r4UGfgJZqpllgQEwIY7P30JMcqpFToDG5FY5vHxPGxOtPoZM8Uq5PtPOjHsBnMF2KKdiLvmIJJld3B6B85fKAxgy_OARUMrSmpXYxfd7A1H8tWjyI8gukBQ/s1600/27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSMqfxl3cZ28ZBqj_Sxz3r4UGfgJZqpllgQEwIY7P30JMcqpFToDG5FY5vHxPGxOtPoZM8Uq5PtPOjHsBnMF2KKdiLvmIJJld3B6B85fKAxgy_OARUMrSmpXYxfd7A1H8tWjyI8gukBQ/s400/27.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout his time running errands and working for this actress, Watson learned some survival skills and life lessons from her that he ultimately applied to his own life and career. Watson wistfully recalls how, <i><b>"She would never admit that she was unhappy, she would never admit that she had made these mistakes and that she had these missed opportunities. I do think she was being hard on herself, but I do think she was a woman whose talent and opportunity was never fully realized. I think that was the sadness of her, I think that's what kept her stuck in that kind of 'angry-at-the-world' perspective she had. I don't think she was completely hard on herself because I think there was a reality that she had a bunch of missed opportunities. She used to tell a story when she was a young actress studying in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. She said there was a dinner party once that took place after class or rehearsal and there was Vivien Leigh and Gielgud and that whole crowd. And they kept telling her, 'You need to go over and sit at that table with Noel Coward. Go sit with him, he will love you.' And she had such fear and self-doubt that she thought to herself, 'I won't be good enough to entertain him. He'll think I'm nuts. I'll be less than he expects and I'm not going to go.' She didn't go sit at his table and so this woman at 80 years old lived with this thought, 'If I had only gone and talked with Noel Coward, I might've become a star.' That's the sort of burden she lived with herself." </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgdwhNPqiNg7NA4ALRDxp9GLMR7mCowFuhlJRQ-RUsYGOF1h3z5xQ-H3PHtaSYZAcNTb2MVrLfjqIEAHk9HRqBZKuTEQEba7m9UNf_nEqW08X34afWIOkLPMVzEOszKL4e9s2Bkrw2xDw/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgdwhNPqiNg7NA4ALRDxp9GLMR7mCowFuhlJRQ-RUsYGOF1h3z5xQ-H3PHtaSYZAcNTb2MVrLfjqIEAHk9HRqBZKuTEQEba7m9UNf_nEqW08X34afWIOkLPMVzEOszKL4e9s2Bkrw2xDw/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though this actress remained haunted by the missed opportunities from her own life and career, she was still generous enough to mentor Watson about the realities of being a working actor so that he could avoid repeating the same mistakes she had made years earlier. Watson recalls how, <i><b>"</b></i><b style="font-style: italic;">She sort of skirted around and made fun of things and often would say 'nothing now is good, it was all better in my day.' But at the same time she would very subtly guide me down the right path and say things like, in that last episode, when Biz tells Wincy 'Oh, you've got to go do this play. Of course you do,' She would do things like that. I would say to her that I would have to go to Portland, Oregon to do a play for a couple of months, and I knew it was going to be a real problem because she didn't have any help and she said, 'You have to take this opportunity because this is what you're here to do. Don't miss these opportunities, don't miss out on fortune when it comes your way.' And I knew it was coming from a place from someone who had missed a lot of opportunities. I think the gift that she gave me was to have the perseverance and to buck up and she always used to say 'Get to it, get on with it' like when Christina does in that eighth episode where Wincy is rambling on about something and she would say 'Oh, come on, Wincy. Get to it.' I think I learned that more than anything it's just 'Get to it because life is short and it doesn't last forever.' I think she wanted me to not be her, to be really honest, I think that was the bottom line: To not wake up at 80 years old and go 'Oh, I missed everything. I missed it all.' I am glad that she had an opportunity to see some of my early work. When I started to work, she got to see a lot of the television work I did, and she actually came and saw me do a play before she died, which was wonderful. She was able to leave knowing that I would be OK, and that made me very happy."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfx3UQq80Urs6nVbe4yuU4RWZr-IXLgJ_pmJG0P99PGMAd142kyu2pgvw4MvLMAPbcgy9kbkf32TpacfLyp3U6Wk2j_MS_tcEtndzLxEa5n0vpGY3ksk2s2QEqMRS8SKKxTAO6g-1buDw/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfx3UQq80Urs6nVbe4yuU4RWZr-IXLgJ_pmJG0P99PGMAd142kyu2pgvw4MvLMAPbcgy9kbkf32TpacfLyp3U6Wk2j_MS_tcEtndzLxEa5n0vpGY3ksk2s2QEqMRS8SKKxTAO6g-1buDw/s400/16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
After her passing, Watson forged ahead and continued pursuing his career to where he ultimately established himself as a respected actor and stage director. During that time, he wrote a full-length feature film screenplay based on his experiences working for this actress. In 2005, he directed the well-regarded independent feature film "Our Very Own," a coming of age story about five small town teenagers growing up in Shelbyville, Tennessee in 1978, starring Allison Janney and Keith Carradine. In the wake of "Our Very Own," Watson recalled the screenplay based on his experiences in Hollywood working for this actress, and began considering what he could do to bring this script to fruition. As Watson recalls, <i><b>"I always wanted to write a story about her, and the full-length screenplay based on my experiences with her was called 'Lonely on the Moon.' My colleagues and I first made 'Our Very Own' and that took several years to get made. We sold it to Miramax and Allison Janney got an Independent Spirit Award nomination from it. After that film, there was a bit of buzz around me as a new and promising filmmaker and people were asking 'What's next? What's next?' and I took the 'Lonely on the Moon' script all over town, trying to get it set up. I couldn't get anyone interested in it because the leading woman was an older actress. At that time, nobody was interested in a story with an older actress carrying a film. It's a very different world than the one we live in now which is why we did what we did by turning that screenplay into a web series. Being old is sort of very groovy right now and very 'in.' But at that time I was meeting with all of these people who could very easily put this thing together and no one would bite because of the age of the lead character. I got the script into the hands of a couple of actresses who were that age and had a name, and they all wanted to do it, but I couldn't get anybody interested in financing the movie. So I put it away and it sat in the drawer for several years." </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIBbSQDo7RImISe_EUxo7gwhFBfJX7MixpR-9AOcIhJ1cQUi35SwV-TY6XqqOpfJIZyfED2O6bPoxELizB9NM_9D6gD0bWREmHg1gngyFIdZ89tid-MBv3DsZ-kZHg290XNsA2K6zqlg/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIBbSQDo7RImISe_EUxo7gwhFBfJX7MixpR-9AOcIhJ1cQUi35SwV-TY6XqqOpfJIZyfED2O6bPoxELizB9NM_9D6gD0bWREmHg1gngyFIdZ89tid-MBv3DsZ-kZHg290XNsA2K6zqlg/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
After several years of no activity concerning "Lonely on the Moon," it took prodding and encouragement from one of his colleagues to inspire Watson to revisit that script. As Watson recalls, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">Maggie Biggar, who was one of the producers on 'Our Very Own,' kept bringing it up and about three years ago she said, 'Why don't we pull out 'Lonely on the Moon' and do a reading of the screenplay just to see what it's like? It's been a long time since anybody's looked at it. It's still kind of a new property.' And I thought it was a great idea and so I called Christina Pickles. I'd worked with her and known her a long time. She didn't know the script at all. I said to Christina, 'I'm putting together a reading of this old screenplay I wrote. Would you read the character of Biz?' And so I cast Christina as Biz for this reading, and Carole Cook read the role of Pearl Goodfish at the reading. And they were the two actors from the reading who came along once we turned it into the web series. We rented a space in Hollywood and invited a handful of people for the reading. It was just for our own purposes. We weren't trying to raise money or anything. We read it and it just played beautifully. People who attended that reading fell in love with the characters of Biz and Wincy. The reaction was really positive. So we thought, 'What do we do with this? Do we try to make another independent movie? Aww, it takes too long, it takes so much money. We've done that even though we had some success with it.' And I just didn't want to do that again, to be really honest, because I just knew how much heavy lifting that that was. So I put it back in the drawer for maybe a year or so until Christina and I were having lunch one day in Brentwood just to say Hello and I'm looking at her eating lunch and, like a lightening bolt, I just said, 'I know what to do with the screenplay.' She said, 'What are you talking about?' And I said, 'I know what to do about 'Lonely on the Moon.' We're going to reinvent it as a web series. We're going to break it up into endless episodes. It can go on forever and ever and you're going to play Biz.' And she said, 'How are we going to do that?' and I said, 'I don't know, but we're going to do it.' So she said, 'I'm in. Let's go!" and we shook hands at the table and that's how the whole thing started."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi717oM5cJkY9_fQy7ooFz1MHoizIGfbF6wmvNi08laB65SgQDgVqarvlG93iOE50P1w_vPPdjN7kG6ACFDwWjZ7L7KLB600mRJSS5hZp0NUbUv3oZVUoYahRN2jMxz6Xu-ppylrZuTit4/s1600/30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi717oM5cJkY9_fQy7ooFz1MHoizIGfbF6wmvNi08laB65SgQDgVqarvlG93iOE50P1w_vPPdjN7kG6ACFDwWjZ7L7KLB600mRJSS5hZp0NUbUv3oZVUoYahRN2jMxz6Xu-ppylrZuTit4/s400/30.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Once Watson decided to turn his screenplay into a web series, he began reorganizing its characters and scenario into 8-episode segments running approximately ten minutes apiece. He found that the process of adapting the screenplay into a new format was actually <i><b>"very easy. In a screenplay, you have a self-contained amount of time to tell a story. There's no going on and on and on in an episodic sort of way. And the device in the screenplay is that Biz hires Wincy to get a list of things done and there were 12 things in the screenplay that she wanted to do before she died because her character knew that she was going to die pretty soon. So they go on this quest and one of the things was to go find Pearl Goodfish and tell her off and it built to a finale with her trying to get these things done before she died. But, for the web series, I wanted to leave it open so that they could continue these tasks and these adventures together without the pressure that there's an end in sight. I removed that from the equation and that really freed me up as a writer to just have fun and go 'Oh! All they have to do in this episode is go to the grocery store. And in this episode all they have to do is go to the acting class and experience that.' It actually made it easier to tell the story and it was more freeing than the screenplay format because it's almost like we get to do a 'day-in-the-life' of these characters over and over and over and that feels nice. To be perfectly honest about it, I think it makes for a better story in an episodic format than as a full-length screenplay."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtI7WN9XOwZxIbxj5V6Vmocc306IBcqNguyDc7RwjUChIJL0al4ojWXSMikC8rEoQqtM5GOnZ4T8ZCRExv8rK_ktovL8RtQSquFUfweQzL2X3rq4aPQ-6LPYmmLuw4UX9hF3gvfFXtzs/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtI7WN9XOwZxIbxj5V6Vmocc306IBcqNguyDc7RwjUChIJL0al4ojWXSMikC8rEoQqtM5GOnZ4T8ZCRExv8rK_ktovL8RtQSquFUfweQzL2X3rq4aPQ-6LPYmmLuw4UX9hF3gvfFXtzs/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>After Watson refashioned the story as a web series, he went about raising money to finance its production. With good humor, Watson recalls how, <i><b>"I didn't want to go through the process again of raising money for it like we did with the film. I wanted it to be so creatively free and not have any pressure and not have to owe anybody a lot of money and not have anybody looking over our shoulder going 'Well, what's going to happen with it?' I just wanted it to be as free as it could be for all of us. There could be a purity to it that I didn't have during the film because there was so much pressure, even though making the film was a very good experience. So we did a crowd-funding campaign. We set up a campaign on Indiegogo. At that time, Allison Janney agreed to do a part in it, and Carole Cook and Tom Troupe and Priscilla Barnes and Octavia Spencer--basically they all agreed to do the web series if we could get the money off the ground. For the campaign on Indiegogo, Christina, Britt and I did these funny little videos where we looked like we were chasing people down, knocking on people's doors, such as going up to Allison and saying 'We've got the money for the web series. Are you going to do it?' and she takes off down the street going 'No, Cam. Leave me alone. Don't ever ask me to do that again!' And then we did a video of me going to Carole and Tom's house and they slam the door in my face saying 'No! Don't ever come around here again!' We did another video where we approach Priscilla while she's seated in a restaurant having lunch with Joyce DeWitt, trying to get a commitment from her to do the series, and Priscilla and Joyce flee the restaurant. So we had this humorous campaign involving some of our stars. We knew that we could do it cheaply and people were generous enough to work for next to nothing. We didn't ask for a lot of money, we only asked for $12,000 to shoot all of Season One. Within 24 hours, we reached that goal, so we let it keep going until the 30 days are up for the campaign and we ended up raising, I think, about $22,000 and we knew we could do the whole thing for $12,000 or $15,000. So we shot the whole first season--eight episodes--for about $20,000 in 9 days. It was almost effortless because we put the campaign on Facebook and word-of-mouth took off and people just jumped on board. Of course, a lot of the people are your high school friends, and your aunt who wants to put a couple of hundred bucks in it. But we also had people that were strangers who we had no connection to whatsoever that jumped on board because they loved the concept of Christina Pickles and Allison Janney being in a series together. I am very grateful to everybody for their support."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2vtv4M0owJGDP-r4CVVxuJkHkuiIH3G3d_HK17T6i6Jts8AAB9GyTjlLAaFGwQeqCCZxpZ69O80BMVnM8Dk_EEGYwarD8WuvVuUVnZcUitvehvlGMhLkwf5YzuM934ONEIxT3VnI45k/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2vtv4M0owJGDP-r4CVVxuJkHkuiIH3G3d_HK17T6i6Jts8AAB9GyTjlLAaFGwQeqCCZxpZ69O80BMVnM8Dk_EEGYwarD8WuvVuUVnZcUitvehvlGMhLkwf5YzuM934ONEIxT3VnI45k/s400/2.JPG" width="301" /></a></div>
<br />
With the funding in place, Watson worked closely with his actors to ensure that they were properly prepared and rehearsed, and that they had fully developed their roles despite the short shooting schedule. He recalls that, <i><b>"We were prepared and we were really ready. We did a lot of rehearsing and a lot of improv work. Christina, Britt Hennmuth, and I spent probably 6 or 7 months prior to shooting just sitting around and working on the episodes and tweaking things and working on improv to come up with even better things than what was in the script so, by the time we got to shoot, their relationship was ready to go. That was a huge part of us being able to shoot as quickly and as economically as we did is that we did an incredible amount of preparation on it. We also had a table read with most of the cast at the outset, and it was such a smart thing to do and we did it at Christina's house. She has a wonderful studio space and we set it up like a network table read with a big long table. Almost the entire cast was able to be there, although I think Allison and Peri Gilpin couldn't be there, but everyone else was there. So we all sat down and read it straight through without taking a break. We read episode one through eight and it was so informative for all of the cast to see it as a full story because this season has an arc to it and it builds to a cliffhanger and it was really informative and helpful for everyone to see it as a complete piece, as opposed to it being fragmented 'Oh you're only here for the day, you're only in the acting class episode and you don't know what's going on in the other part of it.' It was important so everyone got to experience the whole world of this story, which was a smart move on our part." </b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGrZpFbl9mepgsV4ftcy6gtNbFy_OCTykrHGjW6IGgvqeuLK470h5w6XhtY9qsqjrHE5WzWM5yFZudDhuBVdnTQQVw0AlX3ssgshLS8zy6onePXnPoSi09fMkZVRIVRkArtR0TrD6B7I/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGrZpFbl9mepgsV4ftcy6gtNbFy_OCTykrHGjW6IGgvqeuLK470h5w6XhtY9qsqjrHE5WzWM5yFZudDhuBVdnTQQVw0AlX3ssgshLS8zy6onePXnPoSi09fMkZVRIVRkArtR0TrD6B7I/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While Watson is justifiably proud of every cast member on the series, he reserves particular praise for his lead actress, Christina Pickles, in her ability to create a character that transcends the normal stereotypes of a mature actress struggling to survive in Hollywood. With considerable pride, Watson explains how, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">Christina is just extraordinary in the role. We had a cast and crew premiere a couple of months ago before we launched it on the internet. Craig Zadan, who is a big producer, he was there. I didn't know him at the time, but he just showed up because a friend of a friend invited him and we were tickled and happy that Craig Zadan was at our screening. Afterwards, at the reception, he came up to me and wanted to meet me as the filmmaker and he said, 'If this was on network television, or a cable format, Christina Pickles would win Emmy Awards. I've never seen anything like it. She's at the top of her game and she will win awards for this.' And I humbly agree with him. I think she's at the top of her game. In the scene in the season finale episode where Biz tells him, 'Let's work on the play together. You'll be good because we'll work on it together and this will be your chance,' Christina has a selfless quality in that moment because she's allowing Biz to surrender her own needs for someone else's happiness which is ultimately what will make her happy." </b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjZyi_-17jr8dLANCeFjE6VgvxT0LQZDgC35RiPXtt30SiKgnBQUjCa6qtsGlh3BkbZIHAvqfA9NfNauda0rclPOxgRLXROkoTXWfLxvQj9yK5_3IbtlN96zwMaWBXTL-RrGP4EKLt-g/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjZyi_-17jr8dLANCeFjE6VgvxT0LQZDgC35RiPXtt30SiKgnBQUjCa6qtsGlh3BkbZIHAvqfA9NfNauda0rclPOxgRLXROkoTXWfLxvQj9yK5_3IbtlN96zwMaWBXTL-RrGP4EKLt-g/s400/9.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Watson also credits the success of the web series to the contributions of Britt Hennemuth, who plays Wincy. Hennemuth refreshingly avoids the youthful trend of young leading men playing their roles with a cruel, self-satisfied and snarky edge, and instead stands apart from his contemporaries by effectively going for the sincere and straight-forward in his interpretation of Wincy. Watson recalls how <b style="font-style: italic;">"I found Britt while I was teaching a master class at Pepperdine University. I work with Seniors working in their BFA program and it's a one-day, four-hour acting class which also has a Q&A and they get to ask questions about once you graduate, how do you get a good agent?, where do you get good pictures made?, and where do you study?, etc. And Britt was in the first class that I ever did it for Pepperdine. I just loved his work the minute I saw him. I just thought he had a quality that I had never seen before. He had a fresh, unique spin on being a young leading man that you just don't see very often. I thought he was incredibly watchable and he came to me after the class and he said, 'When I graduate, I'd love to talk with you about continuing to study with you.' Britt continued to study with me for quite awhile and through the whole process that was when we started to put the wheels together for the web series. It kind of came to me in a lightning bolt. One night I was in class watching him do a scene and I just thought, 'There he is: That's Wincy.' He didn't know Christina, he didn't know anything about the web series, but I just thought he was who we had to have for this role. I didn't audition anybody else, I didn't make him read with Christina. We all met for lunch so I could introduce them to each other and she just fell in love with him. And the rest is on the screen."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-zeKVYZwZeib7ZDd7M4D5Y3ywEuPhbAY6iu2RTla8q0qs-e9pMN9LzLbIvo5fsIGOSjQikKjp2pfRB2EAf9z2Z_fqB-ipA4Z70UbAv5XZ3Jdt_vxB4V7jEsjZH62zFq9NvN1BMSEKEw/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-zeKVYZwZeib7ZDd7M4D5Y3ywEuPhbAY6iu2RTla8q0qs-e9pMN9LzLbIvo5fsIGOSjQikKjp2pfRB2EAf9z2Z_fqB-ipA4Z70UbAv5XZ3Jdt_vxB4V7jEsjZH62zFq9NvN1BMSEKEw/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmzxCDSfxQv4vecRXWu-Gzk2QJppNg0SkYljABR8q5X2I1fz6zmrBwp_ZcVzdlT0tFashp4T6KixjMTssoyK9DfRXtPYuE26XiPRUWMV1Tz6pwE3cf8fbc2cPAepEUmeiqvPrBs9yQcE8/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmzxCDSfxQv4vecRXWu-Gzk2QJppNg0SkYljABR8q5X2I1fz6zmrBwp_ZcVzdlT0tFashp4T6KixjMTssoyK9DfRXtPYuE26XiPRUWMV1Tz6pwE3cf8fbc2cPAepEUmeiqvPrBs9yQcE8/s400/12.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_544966885"></span><span id="goog_544966886"></span><br />
"Break a Hip" leading lady Christina Pickles echoes Cameron Watson's enthusiasm for Britt Hennemuth as she explains how, <i><b>"We're very lucky. He's become one of my very best friends. I adore him. By the third time we met, we were at my house and I have this big room downstairs where we can rehearse and while we were rehearsing we were getting to know each other a little bit. We were talking and I said, 'I'm not quite sure yet what I'm doing with this character. I'm really not sure yet.' And he said, 'Well, I don't know if this helps you, but I know someone who is a very old star and who thinks she's being followed. She thinks she's being stalked. She lives her whole life in a sort of fantasy.' And I thought that that was terribly funny and we told Cameron about it and Cameron wrote it into the script. It helped me sort of get into this dramatic side of her and it became my favorite episode where we dress up and dance in front of the window trying to show my 'stalker' that this young man is present and he's protecting me. I just loved it when we danced because it was so much like going back in time to an old movie. And when we started doing the improv, it kind of began to click and I clicked with Britt and he with me. And we see each other a lot. He's just a very bright young man. Very, very, very smart and intelligent. And he's wise beyond his years, he tells very funny stories and he's just an amazing guy. So we really had that chemistry off-screen as well."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowW61wkvypYi1PXRcae6iFAsC6JjiAQW-8dHQp8vZJXCk4ZEnujAII_miVZHciF2JcvYGrs70fKoFlXE3UIakrDlP7Rn-v491bRl29J7uq7obeSm8Yz_7kCtwRnwZKMvKQXfG739La6k/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowW61wkvypYi1PXRcae6iFAsC6JjiAQW-8dHQp8vZJXCk4ZEnujAII_miVZHciF2JcvYGrs70fKoFlXE3UIakrDlP7Rn-v491bRl29J7uq7obeSm8Yz_7kCtwRnwZKMvKQXfG739La6k/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
For Christina Pickles, playing Biz on "Break a Hip" offered the veteran actress an opportunity to rekindle her passion for her craft. Originally from England, Pickles has enjoyed an acclaimed and prolific career on Broadway, in films such as Oliver Stone's directorial debut "Seizure" (1974) and for six seasons on the acclaimed dramatic series "St. Elsewhere" (1982-88) where she earned 5 Emmy nominations as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. More recent generations remember her for her recurring role as Monica (Courtney Cox) and Ross' (David Schwimmer) acerbic mother on the hit NBC sitcom "Friends" (1994-04). However, even though Pickles has remained prolific and active in recent years, she admits that, until "Break a Hip" came along, it had been awhile since she had been truly enthusiastic about her craft. Pickles recalls how, <i><b>"I've known Cameron for a very long time. We did a pilot together more than 20 years ago and we kept in touch and he has coached me and directed me and I totally trust him. And we were having lunch one day and we started discussing doing a web series. I had already done one called 'Children's Hospital' and I had a good time. And I have been cast by casting directors who watch web series and I thought that this new medium is a way of being in the present. We need to create our own work and we need to be where we can have some control over it. So we raised the money and shot 'Break a Hip.' It was marvelous because it was like the old days when you went into the business to be creative. And then you weren't allowed to be creative, particularly when you got into television, because all of the decisions were made by corporate people. The producers are always trying to please the network executives, who are always giving out these notes on how things should be done, and they may not be the best notes. It happens in the film world as well, where they have screenings and people write down their comments and then you're supposed to look at these comments and change the ending. So, on 'Break a Hip,' we were free of the corporate world and we had such freedom and it was a marvelous experience because we could go back to why we became actors in the first place, do you know what I mean? I didn't really realize that that's why I was having such a good time because I didn't really realize how much of a good time I had not been having for quite awhile. I'd been doing a lot of television, and I am very grateful for the work, but I didn't really think about how dissatisfied I had been for awhile until I started being happy doing the web series and I thought, 'So this is why I went into being an actor and a creative person!' And Cameron and I and everybody else were creating all around us. And it was wonderful!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1_OqCNK20wARWXqCDT1mBxlCXWfJbiKSiqMCzozi6sQboPDNRKYDGqQls8IhA6bXkUdfHiKOKvc3ayQi9y-GBBTB7Tzv5SjHLGCsNnrjm3fMl-XK_uMkzT1Thw1PvSST-TEb4rMNpRQ/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1_OqCNK20wARWXqCDT1mBxlCXWfJbiKSiqMCzozi6sQboPDNRKYDGqQls8IhA6bXkUdfHiKOKvc3ayQi9y-GBBTB7Tzv5SjHLGCsNnrjm3fMl-XK_uMkzT1Thw1PvSST-TEb4rMNpRQ/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As Pickles started developing the character of Biz, she soon learned that there were distinct aspects of the character that were similar to people she had known in real life and that she could easily identify with. As Pickles explains, <i><b>"She is very British, and I was born in England. And even though she'd lived in America for a long time, she retained that sort of haughty, impulsive, rude, kind, generous, 'mean-as-can-be' spirit. (laugh) I think as I grew into her, I became even more of what Cameron had originally written her to be. Cameron said that he loved the woman that he based Biz on, he was mad about her, he thought she was wonderful, even though she was so maddening. I didn't even realize until I looked at the finished product that I could be a person that somebody could also love...That it turned out that I had in fact created that sort of sympathetic character, where her angry and tough qualities were just a defense mechanism covering up her vulnerabilities. As I started working on the character, I did ask about the woman Biz was based on, I saw pictures of her. And I also knew somebody else who knew her. A guy who was my dresser on 'St. Elsewhere' who I became very close to, he had dressed a lot of theater people and he was very great friends with Coral Browne, who was also friends with this woman. So that was another connection I had with her and, actually, one of the first things I wanted to do after it was made was to show the web series to this gentleman, Eric Harrison, who was a dresser to the stars. He is extremely funny and has marvelous stories to tell and so I wanted him to see it because it was so much a part of his world and he loved it. After I learned all of this about that woman, I think I forgot about it, or maybe it went into the deep recesses of my creative brain. (laugh) I was not consciously trying to imitate her in my performance. But, to be perfectly honest, I had a mother who was very tough and a very difficult woman and would speak her mind without thinking and she had a very difficult childhood. She was a very North Country woman who never edited anything she ever said, which sometimes could be a little embarrassing. So I kind of know these women. I felt at home playing them, being them."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpTDsS3i1aHFGgafNz_snKvd3p22X09Dqo37YLMNqBTpJIGl_1YuvJtb1AigFvNXWF1QsOfGW6oHfEINY-BQW1R10eVNJSB00tcqx0Qu9yYMVB6uXm_0Hrowof9xlfzV07u2n9rdlg0LA/s1600/23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpTDsS3i1aHFGgafNz_snKvd3p22X09Dqo37YLMNqBTpJIGl_1YuvJtb1AigFvNXWF1QsOfGW6oHfEINY-BQW1R10eVNJSB00tcqx0Qu9yYMVB6uXm_0Hrowof9xlfzV07u2n9rdlg0LA/s400/23.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though there are aspects of Biz that Pickles drew from other people to help create the character, she also readily acknowledges, <b><i>"There's a lot of me in her as well. (laugh) Sure, everybody has experienced disappointment about their career and everybody has wished for other things and everybody has felt unnoticed and passed over in not getting the recognition you once had or feel you deserve. Every actor goes through that. That's obviously been my experience and also part of Biz's. So I could bring my life experience into what she felt, very much so, and I am old and I told Cameron the other day, because Biz is the same age, that I'm thinking about death and my mortality so much these days--not that I'm about to die yet. And he said, 'Well, don't die yet, because we've got a lot of seasons to do. We need you.' (laugh) What I like about playing Biz is that she has to face her vulnerability in the scene with Octavia Spencer playing her doctor and then she's very ill and she's left alone when Wincy goes off to do the play at the end. She has to face her mortality--we all have to face it sooner or later, and I have to face it as a person--and I can bring to her an understanding of having to face it as a lonely woman without support. I'm so lucky in real life because I have a great deal of support. I have children and grandchildren and family and friends and I have a busy, wonderful life, but Biz is alone! So I can certainly relate to what she must have gone through."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1G442KiK4fFy5CPUAv-VW92xOQcR-i9Sd9jpSeApDsqUPTQQiqjz41BwaixTyDmedY4ZDHgOGmuM89dI-Fk47WVb4c3zNseIeZ5DSsgk6rsRu1DLBP4whrR9pA88F6fhWm2ru94FWVM/s1600/35.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1G442KiK4fFy5CPUAv-VW92xOQcR-i9Sd9jpSeApDsqUPTQQiqjz41BwaixTyDmedY4ZDHgOGmuM89dI-Fk47WVb4c3zNseIeZ5DSsgk6rsRu1DLBP4whrR9pA88F6fhWm2ru94FWVM/s400/35.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Christina Pickles has such respect for the character of Biz, she was conscientious about ensuring that the character would not fall into the typical, "mature actress stereotype" exemplified by Gloria Swanson's role as faded silent screen star Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's classic "Sunset Boulevard" (1950). Pickles admits <i><b>"I wasn't trying to avoid that stereotype. I just hoped that I *was* avoiding it in my portrayal. But it did occur to me that people might compare Biz with Norma Desmond. Anytime somebody says 'This show reminds me of 'Sunset Boulevard,' I think, 'Oh Christ!' (laugh) That's not what we wanted at all. 'Sunset Boulevard' is a wonderful film, but our story is very different than that one. But it's funny: I was in a restaurant the other day and I asked for some water and the waitress was very irritated and said, 'Right, I'll bring your water in a moment.' And I heard myself say, 'Don't announce it. Just do it.' I didn't say it to the waitress, I said it to the person I was dining with. And I realized at that moment that, in some ways, I had become Biz because that's something she would have said. (laugh) When I played Monica and Ross's mother on 'Friends'--people always ask me what it was like to work on that show--well, it was very therapeutic because I got to say things that I am not allowed to say as a mother in real life. (laugh) I certainly would never say things to my daughter like my character would say to Monica, 'Darling, don't you think it's time you used a little eye cream around your eyes? Your eyes are wrinkling.' I would never say things like that to my daughter, but my character certainly would say it to Monica. Maybe all of us have certain comments and thoughts that you can't say out loud, but Biz would say it. My daughter, who is a grown up lawyer with two grown up children, attended the table read of 'Break a Hip' that was held at my house. She wanted to come hear it and she loved it and she said, 'You know, Mom, this isn't really a big stretch for you, so I wouldn't go overboard with it.' (laugh) I loved it, you know, because it kept me real as there is a side of me that is very much like Biz."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmcSP6Gulym2k_g8QyMhtsJzksL99dK9frJQW7dCPqL4KPmzOx5kEt7ar0L3NTVYVOG8onP1WNxO7qnEcS0wZVe5nVaMfPyWmvl8ulxdCH3i59SLHCzgb8NB6BTMx2bz0Z6FqHIkIIAI/s1600/32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmcSP6Gulym2k_g8QyMhtsJzksL99dK9frJQW7dCPqL4KPmzOx5kEt7ar0L3NTVYVOG8onP1WNxO7qnEcS0wZVe5nVaMfPyWmvl8ulxdCH3i59SLHCzgb8NB6BTMx2bz0Z6FqHIkIIAI/s400/32.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqxUlsiUR-o_XLcZZsUgM36r9nFiAORTNvXk4SNiP_QwjAtNPJt4ylUsDgkEcMLEFH8g6VnhkMuHC-CShD8XcJgrCSYNgblwE8SyJ7OIfbecO54OM39fXlB50qH3OAmkUG5Rg-Xoy_q4/s1600/33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqxUlsiUR-o_XLcZZsUgM36r9nFiAORTNvXk4SNiP_QwjAtNPJt4ylUsDgkEcMLEFH8g6VnhkMuHC-CShD8XcJgrCSYNgblwE8SyJ7OIfbecO54OM39fXlB50qH3OAmkUG5Rg-Xoy_q4/s400/33.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Despite the modest and low-budget nature of "Break a Hip," Pickles recalls how every member of the cast and crew stepped up to make this show a quality production. With gratitude and appreciation, she describes how, <i><b>"We were so lucky. We had the best cinematographer in Seth Saint Vincent. He's just amazing. He said, I think, during the first episode 'You are the heart and soul of this show.' And I went, 'Oh my God! Am I?' It made me feel that he really understood us and liked our work and that he was on our side. Everybody who read the script wanted to do it because everybody is so hungry for good projects--that they'll put the money thing to the side and hope that it eventually pays off--but they want to do it anyway because they want to be part of something good so we had marvelous people in all areas. One of Cameron's producers, Steve Cubine, is a wonderful producer. He knows how to get the right people for the right projects, he put together this amazing group of people and we shot it in just a few days and it looks so good. I was stunned by the quality of the production values. You know the studio apartment that Biz lives in? Well, our producer Maggie Biggar had somebody renting a studio apartment in the back of her house. And she asked the tenant if they could use that space as our set for Biz's apartment and they found another place for the tenant to live during the production. Cameron took that empty room and worked all night and he brought a bed and carpet and other things from his own home and I walked in on the first day of shooting and there was my home. He created it the night before and it was a marvelous set. He got one of the actors on the show--a friend of his who was in the acting class episode who is also a carpenter--to make something like a Murphy bed so that it looked like it went up into the wall. So he created the whole set by working all night long, and there it was! I thought it was astonishing. It helped illuminate the character so that, even though she lives in modest surroundings due to her financial situation, it's obvious that she takes care of her home and is not living in squalor."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgx3uQhghyphenhyphenKsJ6TIzLUTXZSzrHmAbfnE8hrc1p1zKzbGRWsmvDy6IGdpFOtYXnGAu2PMLuvWBLkYGalKhhaYh7DHsAuipfsVqnmffRJWnamdjt-nvsOPjoohzI5rLskvryoX_a520sjE/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgx3uQhghyphenhyphenKsJ6TIzLUTXZSzrHmAbfnE8hrc1p1zKzbGRWsmvDy6IGdpFOtYXnGAu2PMLuvWBLkYGalKhhaYh7DHsAuipfsVqnmffRJWnamdjt-nvsOPjoohzI5rLskvryoX_a520sjE/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As Pickles and the rest of the cast and crew started working on "Break a Hip," they soon learned to their delight that, even though this was a story based upon Cameron Watson's life, he was open to improvisation and allowing each of his participants enough freedom to bring their ideas to the table. Pickles enthusiastically recalls how, <b style="font-style: italic;">"We were all in on the creating and the writing of the piece. There was no doubt that Cameron wrote it, and this was his vision, but we would sometimes improvise from what he had written. It was marvelous because it was a very creative process and he was very much open to anything. I'd often say to him, 'What do you think about this?' and he'd say 'Yeah, let's do it!' That's why he was so marvelous to work with."</b> Watson acknowledges that he managed to remain objective while directing Pickles and Hennemuth, even though the series is based on aspects of his early life in Hollywood because <i><b>"I was able to maintain a separation between reality and fiction while directing them. They have become such Wincy and such Biz to me, that I don't really think of him as playing me, and Christina's Biz is so uniquely her that there's a real separation in a healthy way of what really happened between my real life experience with that English actress, and what went on in front of the camera. And I didn't expect that because I thought I would be 'Oh, no, no, no. It didn't happen like that, it happened like this' but the life of their own that Christina and Britt took on was so bright that they just created their own world without the shadow of my experiences overwhelming them at all, and I think that's really cool. I didn't go into it expecting that. I didn't think it would be that way and it's wonderful that it turned out that way."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpscHnl_Qv5tiNsWf1hnPG6J25wI-SvNAZhVMPccz0KL2K7ntJ3xA3qbFhvHOSiuAJWqB9WenmW9-vH_MmU1KY9fPWYe0lutVsZm5L_sBjlP3Ye-sIiYshSotoXLSJuVvqVskBL-p3M3Y/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpscHnl_Qv5tiNsWf1hnPG6J25wI-SvNAZhVMPccz0KL2K7ntJ3xA3qbFhvHOSiuAJWqB9WenmW9-vH_MmU1KY9fPWYe0lutVsZm5L_sBjlP3Ye-sIiYshSotoXLSJuVvqVskBL-p3M3Y/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Watson does not limit his praise to just the two lead actors and also credits the recurring and supporting performers with bringing even more to their roles than was on the page. In different episodes of the series, accomplished actresses such as Allison Janney (playing Biz's eccentric, banjo-playing landlord Niblett), Priscilla Barnes (as Wincy's outrageous acting coach Sabina Klinefelter), and Octavia Spencer (as Biz's sensible Dr. Trekman) have each created memorable characters in their individual segments. Like his lead actors, the supporting cast stepped up to the challenge and rewarded the opportunities that Watson provided them to create unique and memorable characters with standout performances. As Watson explains, <b style="font-style: italic;">"I gave Allison Janney what I call a 'free pass.' She was so busy working on her series 'Mom' and we had her locked in for one day and it was just a miracle that I was able to have Allison for one day and I had Octavia for one day and I had Priscilla for one day. The fact that we got all of that talent in a 9 day period was just unbelievable. And Allison kept going 'I know I'm on next week, I'm on next week...what do I gotta do?' and I just said, 'Just come. Just show up.' And she kept going, 'Well, what do I look like? What do you want her to look like?' and I go 'Hold on.' So I sent her and her makeup and hair artist a picture of Bobbie Gentry and I said, 'In my head, she looks like this. Go with it.' And they both said, 'Do we have free reign?' and I said, 'Yep. Go as far as you want to go.' So they show up on set and they worked with the costume designer and the hair stylist and they walked out and I went, 'There she is! That is Niblett' and then I said to Allison, 'Oh, by the way, here's the banjo that goes with her. Anything goes. You have free reign.' And so Allison--who is so brilliantly confident and professional and, yet, free--took this trip and took flight with it and added her own little frills and little quirks, like when her character says 'I got you now, uh huh, uh huh.' That was completely Allison being free and in the moment."</b><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKXqqtBcmDTQZB2WNklvtaWbY5XEXOtDPu8e8S8RiQwUum9tUcDsJKywSxKmlaP4v6Fk9gsCvZVnaMkO-vLq6SF4RuZ_b2WOtyee47J-jspw6Kq3etcou7wB3P5ahuC2U121-92Dmtb0/s1600/25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKXqqtBcmDTQZB2WNklvtaWbY5XEXOtDPu8e8S8RiQwUum9tUcDsJKywSxKmlaP4v6Fk9gsCvZVnaMkO-vLq6SF4RuZ_b2WOtyee47J-jspw6Kq3etcou7wB3P5ahuC2U121-92Dmtb0/s400/25.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
Watson also enjoyed the acting class episode with Priscilla Barnes because he felt the veteran actress went the extra mile to make her character sympathetic and sincere despite the outrageous approach with which she teaches acting to her students. With the same level of praise and enthusiasm, Watson recalls how, <b><i>"</i></b><b style="font-style: italic;">Priscilla was as free and in the moment as Allison because that is how she likes to work. She's a totally organic actress and did a totally cool thing when she played Sabina teaching her students in acting class. When we were shooting that day, the kids that played her acting students were all there in hair and makeup and she said to me, 'While you're all setting up, can I take them and just start class with them and give them some exercises? I want to take them through some of the things that my character would be teaching them in these acting classes.' I said, 'Go for it' and they were up on stage for an hour doing these crazy acting exercises that Priscilla really knew and they were things from her past. By the time we were ready to shoot, they were already under the spell of this acting teacher. There was a really organic feeling on that day of what was happening in that class and Priscilla made that happen. That's what I think is so beautiful about Priscilla's episode is that it would be very easy to play Sabina as this crazy acting teacher and ridicule the character, but you completely believe the sincerity of what this acting teacher believes."</b> Christina Pickles also enjoyed the authentic aspect of the acting class episode and recalls how <i><b>"Priscilla was so wonderful. I said to her that I thought she was so extraordinary because she believes in that approach to acting, you know. That is her warm-up to prepare for a scene. What's great is that it really works for her because she uses it for a practical purpose, but she's also able to make fun of it at the same time."</b></i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGgtrowBjEuVgnNthN11r4buk-IVNMsj2CBz2OUMtTzo1HeY2Rg0iLd6jXabX5MB9rqxxddH335n_jVIHjKp5gECaFQ4h_AlhBUQ5myiwt3q1xNLVAJB7CMk1gHjd3_kS16EC5CjNTNE/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGgtrowBjEuVgnNthN11r4buk-IVNMsj2CBz2OUMtTzo1HeY2Rg0iLd6jXabX5MB9rqxxddH335n_jVIHjKp5gECaFQ4h_AlhBUQ5myiwt3q1xNLVAJB7CMk1gHjd3_kS16EC5CjNTNE/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Not resting on his laurels, Watson is busy preparing for a Season 2 of "Break a Hip," which he expects to begin production on in October. While remaining understandably guarded about giving away details on it, he is willing to share that <b style="font-style: italic;">"The good news is that the characters we've fallen in love with in Season 1 will all be back. I'll say that. Hopefully we're going to have a lot of fun repeating appearances from all of the guests that have been part of the story line like Allison and Peri Gilpin and Priscilla and so everyone comes back in addition to a lot of new and exciting people who will join us. You know, we left the season with the possibility of Wincy being gone for a long period and her losing the apartment so when we come back to it, the living situation is in upheaval and Wincy goes through a pretty rough time. We also decided to expand Season 2 so that we'll do ten episodes as opposed to eight. We all felt like we wanted a little more content to the second season--there are endless things that we can do in depicting their lives day-after-day without painting yourself into a corner--and that's what we're going to do."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglBQ5UhmwykxveToU8zkZCEmFasI9QOAQ-046KcFlSDmt1hHJaEG1RSiElT4pNHw8hbWa8Zx47IYvQX618Zxiv1vIG3ZNo5uNaQ-0LLsWNgMW61idqR5KVQ2tlDJXoscqg8sAQflPqDs/s1600/36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglBQ5UhmwykxveToU8zkZCEmFasI9QOAQ-046KcFlSDmt1hHJaEG1RSiElT4pNHw8hbWa8Zx47IYvQX618Zxiv1vIG3ZNo5uNaQ-0LLsWNgMW61idqR5KVQ2tlDJXoscqg8sAQflPqDs/s400/36.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Like Cameron Watson, Christina Pickles remains grateful that "Break a Hip" has received a positive response from the public and that they are busy planning for a second season of the series. Because of the challenges and opportunities offered by the character of Biz, Pickles regards this web series as a high point in her lengthy, diverse, and accomplished career. With awe and wonder, Pickles observes with humility and appreciation how, <i><b>"So much has come together. It's almost like we feel blessed with this project. The casting is so wonderful and everybody was so happy to do it and it turned out well and we have plans for the future. We're so lucky that people like it and maybe we might find people who want to help us do something even more with it--like helping us make it a premium cable series or turn it into a Netflix or Amazon Prime streaming series, which would be a dream and would be so great--but who knows? We just feel very positive about it all. Of all the projects I have worked on through the years, this has probably been one of my very favorite because I am working with friends--working with people that I love--on wonderful material. So, yeah, I would say it's one of my favorite projects I've ever done. The other would be 'The Duchess of Malfi,' a play by Webster that I once did, so I run the gamut, don't I? (laugh)"</b></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-73465188522121889962015-08-25T17:03:00.000-07:002015-09-23T16:41:08.459-07:00Remembrances from a Ubiquitous "Law & Order" Guest Actor: An Interview with James Lloyd Reynolds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pj1S2CMWCW8mj3C2Ag5qkypc2Z7Lca3kR3kNELFPTiwCkYbwniukIx2YYWn4gS0FKGJCM-UushinkVdICuQo3RBHhK_zeMix_L9nXtTPltrhD9VzPl3YMfnU6gQ4eBdsvchMAoBAvUU/s1600/23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pj1S2CMWCW8mj3C2Ag5qkypc2Z7Lca3kR3kNELFPTiwCkYbwniukIx2YYWn4gS0FKGJCM-UushinkVdICuQo3RBHhK_zeMix_L9nXtTPltrhD9VzPl3YMfnU6gQ4eBdsvchMAoBAvUU/s400/23.JPG" width="278" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the best things about the epic "Law & Order" TV franchise is how often each series tapped into the reservoir of talented, New York-based actors who come from a strong theater background for guest roles. The format of each of the "Law & Order" shows--where the regular characters often interacted with potential witnesses, suspects, victims, and bystanders throughout the course of their work--frequently featured meaty one-scene parts for an actor to come in and make a strong impression within a short amount of screen time. In the last 25 years, the many guest actors who reappeared in different roles throughout the franchise created an unofficial stock company of the best acting talent that New York has to offer. One of the pleasures while watching all the different "Law & Order" shows is how it allows fans an opportunity to spot the reappearance of a guest actor who already appeared in a different role in an earlier episode from one of the multitude of series set in the universe of New York City's criminal justice system. In the course of his or her career, a single actor could end up playing a variety of different kinds of characters on one or more of these shows.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNTsiqHJulZep2LaWe3vfFaDw4Bb8Vjt_5A7VN-kZSCU_ulVKWvdlm-jidyJbY2vjdhTPc_yelYhBlkGOqprCxgBqwplvo0TLfHyjhzlxAo05kp6UcCxEyUMo23YM7pdBviFCTuOD-Uu0/s1600/25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNTsiqHJulZep2LaWe3vfFaDw4Bb8Vjt_5A7VN-kZSCU_ulVKWvdlm-jidyJbY2vjdhTPc_yelYhBlkGOqprCxgBqwplvo0TLfHyjhzlxAo05kp6UcCxEyUMo23YM7pdBviFCTuOD-Uu0/s400/25.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the many fine New York-based character actors who has appeared multiple times on different "Law & Order" shows is the gifted and talented James Lloyd Reynolds. A Masters of Fine Art graduate from the Yale University School of Drama, Reynolds has been steadily building a solid reputation over the last several years with numerous appearances in Off-Broadway and Regional Theater productions, as well as film and television. His recent stage appearances include critically acclaimed performances as Georges in the musical "La Cage Aux Folles" at the <a href="http://www.goodspeed.org/productions/2015/la-cage-aux-folles" target="_blank">Goodspeed Opera House</a> in East Haddam, Connecticut; as Cal in the Philadelphia Theatre Company's production of Terrence McNally's "Mothers and Sons" opposite Michael Learned; as Sidney in Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" at the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport, Long Island; and as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont. The New York Times recently noted, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/nyregion/review-of-la-cage-aux-folles-at-goodspeed-opera-house-in-east-haddam.html?_r=0" target="_blank">in its review of "La Cage,"</a> that <i><b>"Mr. Reynolds is a gift as Georges, infusing the ballad 'Song on the Sand' with the necessary romance. He moves from complication to complication with easy fluidity, active and engaged even at his most restrained. Charismatic, light with a joke and strong of voice, he anchors the evening."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTX4EPulwpdaqqil1BWZh3B4zjBx576A52BLd6QS3y2RjeV0s_QUMMTZOLk80DMWQBMyOdD61C5Ku3ER-sNisgwGYfyiOY-jMV0vUacNYeAH7BuCkwFgyNYIJVIRh5WH-pEem8SYUZ9A/s1600/28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTX4EPulwpdaqqil1BWZh3B4zjBx576A52BLd6QS3y2RjeV0s_QUMMTZOLk80DMWQBMyOdD61C5Ku3ER-sNisgwGYfyiOY-jMV0vUacNYeAH7BuCkwFgyNYIJVIRh5WH-pEem8SYUZ9A/s400/28.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
In his numerous television guest roles, Reynolds has distinguished himself by giving subtle and sensitive performances that have helped vividly illuminate the lives of the clean-cut, white collar business professionals he often portrays. He applied that same low-key and humane perspective to his nuanced supporting performances on the various "Law & Order" shows. To date, he has made two guest appearances apiece on the original "Law & Order," as well as "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." Reynolds graciously found time to speak with Hill Place Blog to share his memories of working on the "Law & Order" franchise. Even though the modest nature of his "Law & Order" roles caused Reynolds to humbly chuckle at the start of the interview, <i><b>"I don't know how much I can tell you about them, but I'll try and share whatever anecdotes and information I can think of,"</b></i> he ultimately had great insights and perspectives concerning both his own personal experiences on these shows, as well as how integral they were in the careers of countless New York actors who, like himself, are interested in remaining well-rounded and maintaining a strong presence in the theater while continuing to pursue opportunities in films and television. In our conversation, Mr. Reynolds comes across as intelligent, articulate and humble, with a sincerely kind and friendly demeanor. I'd like to thank Mr. Reynolds for opening up his heart and memories for this interview. (A special Thank You as well to Mr. Reynolds' agent, Peter Kaiser, at <a href="http://www.talenthouse.ca/index.php/nyo" target="_blank">The Talent House</a> in New York, as well as my good friend <a href="http://sixtiescinema.com/" target="_blank">Tom Lisanti</a>, for their efforts in helping to arrange this interview.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWSvMCqXTo6a8_nxtPMxrV2Z0AV85GsM5mGcjBqszFC66Aw2OeA1diHA5_SMlOksGbA2GDLxYFS_lVmLmqKDym4EJaVX-cFSmK4ufXuJ5vFU1wnin2H8wbFHgU9YHdrzYsfMMQIdsEmgc/s1600/24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWSvMCqXTo6a8_nxtPMxrV2Z0AV85GsM5mGcjBqszFC66Aw2OeA1diHA5_SMlOksGbA2GDLxYFS_lVmLmqKDym4EJaVX-cFSmK4ufXuJ5vFU1wnin2H8wbFHgU9YHdrzYsfMMQIdsEmgc/s400/24.JPG" width="286" /></a></div>
<br />
James Lloyd Reynolds made his debut in the "Law & Order" universe in the brief role of a TV news reporter covering the search for a missing young woman's body in a Long Island marsh area in the "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" episode titled "In the Wee Small Hours," which aired November 6, 2005. Reynolds recalls that he was cast in the role with the help of a classmate from Yale who was working as a casting associate on "Criminal Intent": <i><b>"Anne Davison called me in and she booked the first couple of different reporter roles that I played on 'Criminal Intent.' So that's how I got started on those shows. And, in fact, I had met a friend of hers who was, a few years later, the casting director for 'SVU' at a party one night with Anne and then a couple of weeks later was brought in on an audition for him and booked that one. That's often how these things work, honestly. I think the casting directors for all of those shows--well, all television shows that are cast in New York--are constantly going to theater across the city, even the smallest little Off-, Off-, Off-Broadway stuff, just to try and find new talent. Even in a pool of talent as big as New York City, or Los Angeles, trying to constantly find new faces or new talent is their eternal challenge."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHeWpaqjyw0YX6vDITeOcq4bqeAU_sk0VGCz0K_JWX9fia9cwc2V6MG4sWjP2EZKXDP-X8jrFLSX-LRgZGrJ8W7D69ZhupZGndWgFqQF9zukrCqTn570jTg20-GiFf1YGLQuGKVOiDLg/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHeWpaqjyw0YX6vDITeOcq4bqeAU_sk0VGCz0K_JWX9fia9cwc2V6MG4sWjP2EZKXDP-X8jrFLSX-LRgZGrJ8W7D69ZhupZGndWgFqQF9zukrCqTn570jTg20-GiFf1YGLQuGKVOiDLg/s400/11.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSmoxXtJA-PoNVc4xFiVPaUUN7sheQIhkgi2EIchLjPKfEEpHvImbkDHcoEtqeLTpmsbFqpMZ5byG9gPICeHzREYthnt4sM6jJD7Q65UH6Xmtp0Twsa5CSffKo9odZ2LOS7mRzj0DUuE/s1600/12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSmoxXtJA-PoNVc4xFiVPaUUN7sheQIhkgi2EIchLjPKfEEpHvImbkDHcoEtqeLTpmsbFqpMZ5byG9gPICeHzREYthnt4sM6jJD7Q65UH6Xmtp0Twsa5CSffKo9odZ2LOS7mRzj0DUuE/s400/12.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Reynolds' role as a TV reporter in his first "Criminal Intent" was not a huge acting challenge, it was still a memorable experience in terms of becoming acquainted with the responsibilities and nuances of working on a major location shoot involving multiple variables. Reynolds' vignette involves a continuous, almost unbroken shot that starts with the camera documenting the efforts of rescue workers and frogmen searching for the missing girl on land and in the water at the marsh location, panning from right to left as we follow a helicopter racing across the water to participate in the search, eventually coming upon Reynolds and other reporters who are standing on a bridge overlooking the water commenting on the search unfolding before them, as the camera rises up over the bridge to reveal the continued search for the girl on the other side of the marsh. Reynolds chuckles warmly as he recalls <i><b>"That was a huge, two-hour episode and I'd never been involved in a shoot as big as that before, because it had a helicopter and boats and scuba divers. It was just insane. The woman who is now on Broadway in 'Hand to God,' Geneva Carr, was playing that Nancy Grace-type character. She was hysterical in that role and we actually got to know each other that day on set. Anyway, we had a helicopter and the director comes to me and he's like 'Well, listen: Your lines HAVE to be coordinated with this helicopter shot. Now, I don't want to make you nervous, but every time that helicopter takes off and flies over, it costs $5,000. Let's try as hard as we can to get it right the first time! OK...Go!' (laugh) I think we ended up shooting it, like, three or four times, not because of anything that was going on with me, but just to get it all right. Here's an instance where you have a small role, but you get thrown into a position of potentially costing the company thousands and thousands of dollars if you don't know what you're doing. The one thing I would say--for any young actors who are starting out in the business, or just seasoned theater actors who are trying to break into doing more film and television roles who might be reading this--going in to do one day on one of these episodic shows is really, really challenging and difficult. It's because you don't know anybody, nobody knows you and, yet, the expectation is that you know what you're doing, you know your lines and you're not going to waste anybody's time. Nothing will upset a film crew faster than a day player coming in and not being prepared. So it can be nerve-wracking, but just do your work, pay attention, stay focused and it can be a really rewarding experience."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiTYSi3D7Y8I-AoL6cQT5BGO464GOLuqWlMx_WkVtJeu9yFFc6FDlm6hdlnlSAa5YortQ63v3L5ZbGQ-1Bro5qjjYH7alIbaxj2B5BLnC2pB9APfxJV595uYoWaJm6dxG1pbRxkuTuC1I/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiTYSi3D7Y8I-AoL6cQT5BGO464GOLuqWlMx_WkVtJeu9yFFc6FDlm6hdlnlSAa5YortQ63v3L5ZbGQ-1Bro5qjjYH7alIbaxj2B5BLnC2pB9APfxJV595uYoWaJm6dxG1pbRxkuTuC1I/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBVS4GRP4PifAfJk2l3xKsGNOvx9kFwZ0CgMrpj0xi88jeeP6YSEvLhEuSEsDRlXNwSE0b3BV5YG4G2waRfxqjxOrNRFKUqy61jOMckiFplbXuuS-crOOFxU3CYP_LmKVRAO1y9GjAu8M/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBVS4GRP4PifAfJk2l3xKsGNOvx9kFwZ0CgMrpj0xi88jeeP6YSEvLhEuSEsDRlXNwSE0b3BV5YG4G2waRfxqjxOrNRFKUqy61jOMckiFplbXuuS-crOOFxU3CYP_LmKVRAO1y9GjAu8M/s400/15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiF1tW-VYA50Qqyb-O9UsrlMDj9Rp6waeYRC7M9evLnL_ochsQg4d574LKm5jXWSsweYsTRkSGDBbMuLzpzwgIZ_EvefIckPXcXOmnri8ilK4UFV_xgiVC1mEUeVy7cVUYEOgEz3xVfhg/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiF1tW-VYA50Qqyb-O9UsrlMDj9Rp6waeYRC7M9evLnL_ochsQg4d574LKm5jXWSsweYsTRkSGDBbMuLzpzwgIZ_EvefIckPXcXOmnri8ilK4UFV_xgiVC1mEUeVy7cVUYEOgEz3xVfhg/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHB-Y2q6xlcqu9Jpg4-KMni98rpGf-qXsLo5afweltTV8FVvwGYk013sIbnKNKVkvbmO14qER7Imc9jy2hp1zko5eFLmT1_L6hBEpS6Oz-ClF06Fjb5X7d-HQ5DvUwhMTP0mCAryswdo/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHB-Y2q6xlcqu9Jpg4-KMni98rpGf-qXsLo5afweltTV8FVvwGYk013sIbnKNKVkvbmO14qER7Imc9jy2hp1zko5eFLmT1_L6hBEpS6Oz-ClF06Fjb5X7d-HQ5DvUwhMTP0mCAryswdo/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
For his next guest appearance a year later on "Criminal Intent," Reynolds returned to play another TV reporter in a scene where his character, along with other journalists, descend upon a murder suspect as he is getting out of his car right before he is arrested by Detective Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio). In the scene, Reynolds' character rushes up to Jason Raines (Joel Gretsch) and follows the suspect as he gets out of his car and walks onto the sidewalk where he is confronted by Goren. Reynolds' character is in the thick of the action as Raines and Goren throw punches and struggle with one another before Goren slaps the handcuffs on his suspect and whisks him away. Despite the brief nature of his role, Reynolds recalls how the staging and coordination of the actors and action in this scene was, again, a challenging experience: <i><b>"That was an interesting one because Vincent D'Onofrio just doesn't like to rehearse. He's just so organic as an actor. I know it's a cliched term, but it's appropriate because he just does not like to rehearse. And, in fact, I remember the director that night said to D'Onofrio and to Joel Gretsch--the guest actor from LA who had tons of episodic work under his belt and knew what he was doing--'We've got the fight choreographer here on set and let's plot this out.' And D'Onofrio was like 'No, no. Absolutely not. No, no, no. Let's just shoot it. We know what we're doing.' And so they did, and it was OK, but there was something off and they wanted to shoot it again and both these guys were going, I would say, full out. I mean, there was nothing pulled back in their fighting. In fact, at one point the director came over and said 'D'Onofrio, listen: You know, we gotta do this several more times. Let's back off, just give 50%' and D'Onofrio said 'Absolutely not. I do not do anything 50%.' And, in the very next take, I don't honestly know what happened, but I remember the actor from LA's ear ended up bleeding. And I think that was probably the take they ended up using. There was a little bit of a challenge for me and the other actors playing reporters to stay in the shot and not end up being caught up in the fight and injured. But, you know, they shoot it in a way where they edit it down and it looks like you're more in harm's way than you actually are. But D'Onofrio was something else. He was just wild to watch. He just had a very animal-like quality. 'Controlled chaos,' I suppose. He was great. His partner, Kathryn Erbe, was of course the calm, soothing force, as is her character, but even on the set her personality was the opposite of D'Onofrio's. They worked well together. It was really exciting to film that scene because you've got cars pulling up and doors slamming and people screaming and extras running by and it is kind of amazing how it ends up coming off so well."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXeInWUEYppNa3L4WlLrQ0pl3-SmoZt3A12pM6XWYAdgktCsQ4mVT9ZYuecNCc1GSrYff29CcVZxVIykDLml7nCDiw3XJCm8aRoOEO8ucVzjVj4AIxGPn-h59hvKb6lnz8_S1xcZrEQ8Q/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXeInWUEYppNa3L4WlLrQ0pl3-SmoZt3A12pM6XWYAdgktCsQ4mVT9ZYuecNCc1GSrYff29CcVZxVIykDLml7nCDiw3XJCm8aRoOEO8ucVzjVj4AIxGPn-h59hvKb6lnz8_S1xcZrEQ8Q/s400/9.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSk0jXj3STLBQ4E2Y0n-nGjoL90Q0OipQf3ZICGpmGwylNo0hAOzVEKaWPoUmwWVYA3nuxg7ZbC5iluLvA4AHAvWY_GUPqoO5AFhIbuRnG1lVcjS7AFMkl0N-fr3_pA7saGzqLyW64vcc/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSk0jXj3STLBQ4E2Y0n-nGjoL90Q0OipQf3ZICGpmGwylNo0hAOzVEKaWPoUmwWVYA3nuxg7ZbC5iluLvA4AHAvWY_GUPqoO5AFhIbuRnG1lVcjS7AFMkl0N-fr3_pA7saGzqLyW64vcc/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
The next time Reynolds appeared in the "Law & Order" universe was in the February 2, 2007 episode of the original "Law & Order" titled "Talking Points" as a TV interviewer speaking with Judith Barlow (Charlotte Ross), a right wing political pundit modeled after Ann Coulter, who Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) is watching on the television in his office. It was a very brief appearance where Reynolds' character is only shown from the back, and his face never appears on camera. Reynolds recalls that, <b><i>"They shot that whole exchange between me and Charlotte Ross over my shoulder and over her shoulder, not knowing what they were going to end up using. They ended up only using a tiny bit of it at best. But there wasn't much more. There was just two or three or four more questions that were asked."</i></b> Even though Reynolds remains appreciative and grateful with how these early appearances in the "Law & Order" franchise allowed him an opportunity to hone his skills working in film and television, he also acknowledges that <i><b>"Honestly, at first, the roles were not challenging even though they were all great experiences. On the 'Criminal Intent' appearances, it was a couple of lines here and there as a reporter and it was, you know, quick and flashy. But after, I guess, essentially proving myself, the casting director would bring me in for larger things. So I found that the more I went in and proved myself with the 'Law & Order' casting directors, the more I was given larger chunks of material where I got to sort of chew up some stuff and demonstrate what I could do."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAyD-FYupvTajpCPQ8g7X8lbHzRbRIqDZhgHWgIBq5VKLMCMGmZPsBxloWwO7kVQJcuU7tyIVW_Uy6sawK8DjbBXkl9_lMdL6kzP4opnB59sjSLRXLNCbayRH1kKSi_coR8fqK4virmI/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAyD-FYupvTajpCPQ8g7X8lbHzRbRIqDZhgHWgIBq5VKLMCMGmZPsBxloWwO7kVQJcuU7tyIVW_Uy6sawK8DjbBXkl9_lMdL6kzP4opnB59sjSLRXLNCbayRH1kKSi_coR8fqK4virmI/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismC83Q3wlvSEn9URm9BIv3rJhny3pbz0zj3HPYT2ZJe7NcNVEqj8C3Kxz-OgNTG6bvyYC1qUeNDz4kHkcIYZ1_TwB04eaQ44utSt6pMXq4l1vrOuZyHF3i3AjbLyaVxXyKvqYgYAH4gk/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismC83Q3wlvSEn9URm9BIv3rJhny3pbz0zj3HPYT2ZJe7NcNVEqj8C3Kxz-OgNTG6bvyYC1qUeNDz4kHkcIYZ1_TwB04eaQ44utSt6pMXq4l1vrOuZyHF3i3AjbLyaVxXyKvqYgYAH4gk/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
One of the notable guest roles that allowed Reynolds more of a challenge was on the original "Law & Order" in the January 23, 2008 episode titled "Driven." He played the father of a murder victim being questioned by Detectives Ed Green and Cyrus Lupo (Jesse Martin and Jeremy Sisto). Reynolds was subtle and excellent in underplaying the father's reaction while learning the news of his son's death, choosing to portray his character's stunned silence rather than going for the obvious over the top emotions that another actor might have brought to the scene. Reynolds fondly recalls how <i><b>"I had a good part as a grieving father. That was a really good experience. To try and cry on cue, you know, trying to do that kind of stuff is not easy. That was an interesting afternoon because Jesse Martin was winding down his role and was planning to leave the series. He had already been on there for years, and he was very assured in his role. He was very nice to work with. And I think it was Jeremy Sisto's fifth episode and so he was all new to it and still working on finding and developing his role and getting his bearings. So that contrast was interesting to observe. We shot that in somebody's apartment. Most of the 'Law & Order' stuff--unless it's a courtroom scene, or it's a police station scene--everything else is shot on location. So we were in somebody's apartment that they had rented on the Upper West Side and the family was there because I think they had a daughter who was in love with Jesse and wanted to meet him. There we were, with the family present, trying to film this really emotional scene. (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx02cDFUEQQchqlDF89kyhKcaORjAFs5nMyPcvIkAe2jodHS5hhbCRBXBgu9qZjPx2aUlEliiAy2i397XLezYvy6dgHhyphenhyphenBTNANlyuXh50b4FK3I9bTyQQYFowt2RPVHe78l_InVjoKUKo/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx02cDFUEQQchqlDF89kyhKcaORjAFs5nMyPcvIkAe2jodHS5hhbCRBXBgu9qZjPx2aUlEliiAy2i397XLezYvy6dgHhyphenhyphenBTNANlyuXh50b4FK3I9bTyQQYFowt2RPVHe78l_InVjoKUKo/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAqz5qyGIkBzFjqMVAOLu5KS0xP3ttdaA5BAMgjjZUOXDqyvjkYUNvRsnRCI_fgUio8BbxAzJPqRXfTCs_X_Wd1KlciP4nmZ-NjR5hb78yYc5heMmtQ9n79SI2dGQtmuSjQ9p5VXkVL4/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAqz5qyGIkBzFjqMVAOLu5KS0xP3ttdaA5BAMgjjZUOXDqyvjkYUNvRsnRCI_fgUio8BbxAzJPqRXfTCs_X_Wd1KlciP4nmZ-NjR5hb78yYc5heMmtQ9n79SI2dGQtmuSjQ9p5VXkVL4/s400/6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
After appearing multiple times on the original "Law & Order," as well as "Criminal Intent," Reynolds finally made his way to "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" where he played part of a team of security personnel investigating the disappearance of a woman in a posh commercial office building in the March 10, 2010 episode "Confidential." Reynolds enjoyed working on this episode because <i><b>"I loved Russell Jones, who played the building's head of security in that segment. Oh my God, he's so wonderful and he's such a nice man. I had previously met him through some other friends and I had actually seen him do something on stage so I was thrilled when I got there that day and realized I would be working with him. He's just a fantastic, fantastic actor. He's just terrific. That episode was also fun because that scene involved our characters working with a lot of technology, and you've got multiple people in the scene, and it was fun to do. You just kind of have to relax and just enjoy it and not try to get too much in your head about it."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qS04-8WO9TYfuZ6kpnL2X11gRRye9HquYIbf79e_tDzh3FG92J6Y1uWngqfrjcwsF5OIK7Gj0ywvd9K9tELXeindvfYxGvCmsAFx4ECtQCsqbiq3nTrFfRMFf9nZzgm2FsAW7Wc9CPg/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qS04-8WO9TYfuZ6kpnL2X11gRRye9HquYIbf79e_tDzh3FG92J6Y1uWngqfrjcwsF5OIK7Gj0ywvd9K9tELXeindvfYxGvCmsAFx4ECtQCsqbiq3nTrFfRMFf9nZzgm2FsAW7Wc9CPg/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In his most recent appearance on "SVU," the January 30, 2013 episode titled "Criminal Hatred," Reynolds had probably his most challenging role role in the franchise as one of a trio of closeted married businessmen who have been raped by sadistic and ruthless male prostitute Jeremy Jones (Max Carpenter). Reynolds was sympathetic and touching in the courtroom testimony scenes where his character, as well as ones played by actors Paul Fitzgerald and Jeff Talbott, not only recall the cruelty and brutality of the sexual assault perpetrated against them, but are put in the awkward position of publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation while on the stand. The testimony in the courtroom continually cuts back and forth between each witness, as the victims recall their sexual assault at the hands of the defendant. The net effect of the scene is to have each victim's testimony overlap and echo each another, so that it appears in the final version as if it is a single, continuous speech made by one individual instead of bits of testimony culled from three different witnesses.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgElOuEk3lRodiookRPgIauGUJ4AZdzUfOrNdBwG2Z43GsHcoAMxvy9Z9cSEul-PGlyApeETmBNfvpmcNQJAARLt1GIhIUJryXrPO4tfJq7KdEFjLDr4MbFT8O4k3TU9nM0uzpd7-gLgg/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgElOuEk3lRodiookRPgIauGUJ4AZdzUfOrNdBwG2Z43GsHcoAMxvy9Z9cSEul-PGlyApeETmBNfvpmcNQJAARLt1GIhIUJryXrPO4tfJq7KdEFjLDr4MbFT8O4k3TU9nM0uzpd7-gLgg/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Reynolds recalls how <i style="font-weight: bold;">"When we auditioned, we all had all of the testimony, as if it was just one person. I think I knew that there were going to be at least two people testifying, but none of us knew until later how they had split those lines up." </i> When asked whether each actor filmed the entire speech, allowing the editors flexibility during post production to choose the most effective moments from each individual, or whether they only filmed the individual lines of dialogue spoken by each of their characters in the final version, Reynolds says, <i><b>"</b></i><b><i>I think that Jeff and I both filmed all of the lines from that speech from beginning to end, and then they decided in the editing how to split those lines up between us. Because otherwise it would have been challenging to get the proper performances for those characters if we only filmed just those short snippets of dialogue that we have in the final version. We both would have had to film all of that speech to get the right performances from us."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZE54uqE8vhlagvPDBBdvLyZr-jMZHH_bzxHCvbOAff86unw9maAl3ekQeo3zSYSpBASacUuBITvHWjFWmn-m4PgPDY-oTkOA55mZt4j8-QmsbJw08F-y2H1aZfMXrxfRNzTH7AEDCN68/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZE54uqE8vhlagvPDBBdvLyZr-jMZHH_bzxHCvbOAff86unw9maAl3ekQeo3zSYSpBASacUuBITvHWjFWmn-m4PgPDY-oTkOA55mZt4j8-QmsbJw08F-y2H1aZfMXrxfRNzTH7AEDCN68/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br /></i></b>Reynolds also recalls how, <i><b>"We shot all of the stuff on the stand at 9:00 in the morning. So we got there and got into costume and got into makeup and there was three of us testifying. There was the main guest star for the week, Paul Fitzgerald, and then there was Jeff Talbott and myself. I honestly didn't get to know Paul Fitzgerald at all because he was working on what else was to be shot for his scenes, so he was really working on his lines and so he spent most of his time in his dressing room. And Jeff and I didn't know each other at all but, you know, you're sitting around and you get to know the people you're working with. And it turned out that Jeff and I knew a bunch of people in common. And so we sort of spent the morning laughing about that. And we also talked a little bit about the fact that we were playing rape victims and there was a little 'Do I want my mother to watch me in this episode?' kind of thing. And so we shoot all the stuff for the people that are testifying. And then we think 'Great! We're finished! Fantastic, we're done!' and it's like 11:00 in the morning, 11:30, something like that. 'We're going home!' And then they come and they say 'Well you can get out of costume and you can get out of makeup, but don't leave because Mariska Hargitay is scheduled to come in the afternoon to film her reaction shots to your testimony.' (laugh) So we hung out on the set that afternoon and Jeff and I really got to know each other well during those few hours. And then Mariska Hargitay arrives at 4:30 and they set it up to film her reaction shots. Jeff and I and Paul Fitzgerald have to do the whole thing again, except now we're not in costume because the camera is not on us. I remember at the very end that Mariska Hargitay was basically chuckling to herself about the testimony that we had to make because some of those lines unintentionally sounded funny when you hear them out of context. When you see it on film, it's really quite moving and powerful because it's such a serious subject matter but, when you're filming it, some of it sounded kind of humorous and incongruous at the time."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_hZsKxEqUl4aNtG2Ka5A2sTlW06P6vwnjf0G1rio_8SgNMKCZaaxGalCfGTFVNa3VM4rUpIOYP6nw0JRyKEXjxFx9ldmf6Zy-6Eso4S6OtIalWfnnWSrCOE-ypYVXRSqrVRVzrsRt3k/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_hZsKxEqUl4aNtG2Ka5A2sTlW06P6vwnjf0G1rio_8SgNMKCZaaxGalCfGTFVNa3VM4rUpIOYP6nw0JRyKEXjxFx9ldmf6Zy-6Eso4S6OtIalWfnnWSrCOE-ypYVXRSqrVRVzrsRt3k/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Even though his experience working on this episode was as positive as all of his other appearances in the "Law & Order" franchise, Reynolds admits that this was a particularly difficult role to play <i><b>"because as much as you want to prepare for a character, you did have to sort of put yourself in the situation of playing someone who had been raped. To me, rather than trying to generate some image in your mind of what that character experienced, if you really just listen to the words that you're saying...if you really are present with what is actually coming out of your mouth, it's really kind of enough. I don't use sense memory, I don't use those sorts of techniques that other actors might refer to by taking memories from the past and trying to put that on top of the scene that you are working on. I think it's really enough to just be present with what you are saying and let the language be the driving force of what you are performing."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUKchAFODwS44LrSB5GDe2cBdNIP4oxUUzOpwNZwLpVyUy17m93r6D5iTF8bariVf-rKGQNXXFGoGlgbFqp9u9nu1BYtQ7ZCZt_V1giFWMnxbrrsuJ9ngohevbkSxYSG_-hyW5ETPV5nE/s1600/26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUKchAFODwS44LrSB5GDe2cBdNIP4oxUUzOpwNZwLpVyUy17m93r6D5iTF8bariVf-rKGQNXXFGoGlgbFqp9u9nu1BYtQ7ZCZt_V1giFWMnxbrrsuJ9ngohevbkSxYSG_-hyW5ETPV5nE/s400/26.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While discussing his work in the multitude of shows in the "Law & Order" franchise, Reynolds recalls the differences that he noticed in the atmosphere and work environment of each series. Reynolds opines that <i><b>"the 'Criminal Intent' set was always a little high strung, at least the times I was on there. And maybe it appeared that way to me because of the type of scenes I was involved with on that show. And 'SVU' episodes just tend to be of a higher drama, higher stakes because the subject matter they cover is more intense. The original 'Law & Order' was also a different atmosphere because it was much more intellectual in general. I think each show definitely had its own feel and it showed itself on-screen. Sam Waterston, on the original one, he's just such a solid, stoic kind of force that it felt that that was kind of where that show got its central feel."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbttVXIVFnuxg6EB_LFjT5e4fAcbrMajoIHpAqH0X5cQ0cjJWwlKQNMDzRJYmmw3yOpsnfWQ89KqSNGEN5EjTxetXwF9MlP_ohW-jthhJ-YeS2dS1T0ZGZu770Wy2ZGPbD3MhVz53DSA/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbttVXIVFnuxg6EB_LFjT5e4fAcbrMajoIHpAqH0X5cQ0cjJWwlKQNMDzRJYmmw3yOpsnfWQ89KqSNGEN5EjTxetXwF9MlP_ohW-jthhJ-YeS2dS1T0ZGZu770Wy2ZGPbD3MhVz53DSA/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcxY0q0Cj1fFGTI1ZY-67hJvuDtxSn9PauHRA_VoziFNpVEamAzy6qoouC-93H_3Vkp37_UXSz6eFSYiCD816LITiVqIIMITjjmdxJNOogVGfTK_QR7HM564UMPrRu4IBDax7ceykSh3E/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcxY0q0Cj1fFGTI1ZY-67hJvuDtxSn9PauHRA_VoziFNpVEamAzy6qoouC-93H_3Vkp37_UXSz6eFSYiCD816LITiVqIIMITjjmdxJNOogVGfTK_QR7HM564UMPrRu4IBDax7ceykSh3E/s400/20.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFNkpYSlBNKCUWrxWgniopOO_U1F-J4tMNL9vMQtlw7c8IENU35iKejHwbSirFt9i-Q5LXj0tJRUPpqAtPxEP_UK52fpRJaHYj9zrrYWm2xPl4NNQVjZETo5TV4U0lhENhDDh3GFxRH4/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFNkpYSlBNKCUWrxWgniopOO_U1F-J4tMNL9vMQtlw7c8IENU35iKejHwbSirFt9i-Q5LXj0tJRUPpqAtPxEP_UK52fpRJaHYj9zrrYWm2xPl4NNQVjZETo5TV4U0lhENhDDh3GFxRH4/s400/21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Outside of his film and television work, Reynolds continues to successfully forge a solid and respected reputation in theater. With great enthusiasm, Reynolds shares how, <i><b>"I just recently did Terrence McNally's 'Mothers and Sons,' in Philadelphia this past Winter and Spring with Michael Learned from 'The Waltons.' It was just a joy to be onstage with her every night and spending nine weeks in Philly working with somebody like that who is such an icon and who brings so many layers to whatever she's doing. So that was a fantastic experience."</b></i> Reynolds also recently assumed the challenge of playing the iconic role of Atticus Finch in the Weston Playhouse's production of "To Kill a Mockingbird," for which he received rave reviews. Reynolds proudly recalls how that experience <i><b>"was a joy. Weston, Vermont couldn't have been more beautiful to work in and everybody at the Weston Playhouse are such genuinely good people. But, yeah, that was a little intimidating to take on a role that everybody knows. The challenge is to try and not do Gregory Peck. I remember the costume designer at the costume meeting said, 'Listen, I know, I get it. You don't want to imitate Gregory Peck. But you've got to have a white linen suit. You've just got to. There's nothing in the script that says he's got to have a white linen suit, but that's what people expect and that's what people want to see.' And so there it is. But I do think that the way the role is written, his dialogue is just out of the ordinary enough that if you say the lines, it almost feels like you're listening to Gregory Peck in the movie. It's really because of the way the dialogue is written. In the script he says things that are not part of our daily routine, so you have to give yourself over to it and just accept 'It's OK. This is Atticus' and then bring your own perspective to the role. That was a lovely, lovely, lovely production and I had a fantastic time doing that."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4klzCyFTFWrYeHBFo8b3qSYtIQSt7BvHMP71aK94tAgfRvlQ5k09MtqDtRxqSeBYAXnRPqa_hhTEMMurp3FU7RzB8vmpSPNoSQjuH1ADoQbGktlgvoidUEKI5QNtZ9uqOkOicXEFBdg/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4klzCyFTFWrYeHBFo8b3qSYtIQSt7BvHMP71aK94tAgfRvlQ5k09MtqDtRxqSeBYAXnRPqa_hhTEMMurp3FU7RzB8vmpSPNoSQjuH1ADoQbGktlgvoidUEKI5QNtZ9uqOkOicXEFBdg/s400/22.jpg" width="330" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg30Y7XD8yQ1-Yoq5tIm4-y7DtyZcfIWNrIVofsRg1lpd0NS7VjmRB86nGV4HM1zQDGAhydC59wxxy5yh-5BEwsorqPJ9LF1iMNyafXk23z9bQP7n0L_CR0taIX291zP3ijkK0cawH4Kwo/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg30Y7XD8yQ1-Yoq5tIm4-y7DtyZcfIWNrIVofsRg1lpd0NS7VjmRB86nGV4HM1zQDGAhydC59wxxy5yh-5BEwsorqPJ9LF1iMNyafXk23z9bQP7n0L_CR0taIX291zP3ijkK0cawH4Kwo/s400/19.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>This summer, Reynolds is playing the lead role of Georges in the Goodspeed Opera House's production of "La Cage Aux Folles," the landmark Harvey Fierstein/Jerry Herman musical depicting the loving relationship between a gay couple who manage a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment. When asked what performances from his career he is particularly proud of, Reynolds readily mentions how this show has been a particularly satisfying and rewarding experience, <i><b>"This has truly been a highlight of my career so far. I'm having a very good time playing this role. I'm doing things that I don't normally get to do. I'm singing a lot more than I've ever sang in a show before. There's a little dancing, there's a little soft shoe. And it's just a very, very funny script and I don't get to do comedy very much. It's a joy and for some reason this show is resonating with audiences in Connecticut this summer like I've never experienced before. People are coming up to us and just saying amazing things about this central relationship. There's just something about the relationship of Georges and Albin which is resonating very strongly with people. You think that we would sort of be beyond 'La Cage' at this point, but in fact the character of the conservative politician in the second act is ever present today, so it's resonating really well with a lot of people. As far as being challenged by something and feeling like for whatever reason the challenge was accepted and I'm happy with the results, I would say that I'm really proud of what I'm doing with 'La Cage.' It's because the three things I get to do in this show--the singing, the dancing, and the comedy--were so not in my wheelhouse. I'd never worked with this director Rob Ruggiero before, but I'd worked with the Goodspeed twice before, and I know that he was first and foremost looking for an actor, not necessarily a musical theater performer who is primarily a singer. He was looking for a person who could negotiate the dialogue scenes, as well as the singing and dancing, and so it was a challenge from the beginning. I've always sung, but I never have had to sing this much. And even learning how to negotiate eight shows a week vocally--because Georges does a lot of shouting and singing and he has to be the master of ceremonies at the La Cage nightclub--has been challenging as well. For all of these reasons, I'm having the time of my life right now."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBiWYzlkHz0IN4iyjbkqrhPBS0Eaz8NDLbKinoXTUHiS9jKMOVYRSBeN4h70nmgeiVABhZpEH0FS1MpK3p0LI4C3gIiA2alKdzgVJcQPYF1A5i_0_dfvOR9W9HVkuME-O8L29ltFhwHM/s1600/27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBiWYzlkHz0IN4iyjbkqrhPBS0Eaz8NDLbKinoXTUHiS9jKMOVYRSBeN4h70nmgeiVABhZpEH0FS1MpK3p0LI4C3gIiA2alKdzgVJcQPYF1A5i_0_dfvOR9W9HVkuME-O8L29ltFhwHM/s400/27.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While I am confident that Reynolds has great potential to continue to progress to where he will eventually be widely recognized as a preeminent film and television character actor, he intends to continue maintaining a strong presence in theater and does not plan to focus on one medium at the expense of another. As he explains, <i><b>"I enjoy working in all of the mediums. I don't have an emphasis on one over the other. I would be unhappy if I would have to decide, you know, that I was going to do one thing. But, listen, if I were fortunate enough to get offered a recurring or contract role on an episodic television series, that would be thrilling because I've never done that. I've never had that experience where I get to go back regularly on a series where it becomes my day job. There's just a confidence and ease that one would experience that would go along with that. The closest that I have had to that sort of experience is with the Showtime series 'The Affair.' A grad school friend of mine, Sarah Treem, is the showrunner on that series. I did a small part on that last season and I've been doing table reads for them on my day off here in New York. Last week I was out there because Dominic West was not able to be there for the table read, and so I sat in for him and read his part while they all sat around a table and that was really thrilling. You've got 50 people sitting around the table and all the main cast is there and you've got Showtime executives from LA on the speaker phone in the middle of the room and you've got wildly successful people all around you and there you are reading a script for the very first time so that everybody can hear it. So that's pretty exciting. That was the third table read that I had done for them this season and the two leads knew me from last season. They're all fantastic, they're all nice. There's not a person involved in that show who is not approachable and cool. So it's exciting. That's where I'm at in my career, still. I still get a little starstruck and I really appreciate these opportunities to work with these people. I'm not jaded about it and I don't take any of it for granted. So 'The Affair' is the closest I've had so far to the experience of being part of a series because I've been involved with working with those people several times. You walk in and they really take care of you. I would welcome more opportunities to have an actual role and really be part of a series like that."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYqWURt6eaXwVwaOKCTTQLOiws9MCWNoRtK3TXhHpfLJCbnmH6yeMYBW_awSmOVMXmDH7aaMX6zU5zynHlhmBwGjvGYRKgHvUoi4MXo0yfexbabFAh-BVAAbyvbl9H80pCJ5iyrmXvgs/s1600/29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYqWURt6eaXwVwaOKCTTQLOiws9MCWNoRtK3TXhHpfLJCbnmH6yeMYBW_awSmOVMXmDH7aaMX6zU5zynHlhmBwGjvGYRKgHvUoi4MXo0yfexbabFAh-BVAAbyvbl9H80pCJ5iyrmXvgs/s400/29.JPG" width="276" /></a></div>
<br />
James Lloyd Reynolds remains grateful for the opportunities he has enjoyed in his career thus far and looks forward to what lies in his future. He is appreciative of how his "Law & Order" roles allowed him to hone his craft while building a solid list of credits. Reynolds recognizes how the franchise was very important to New York actors like himself because <i><b>"Honestly, it kept people financially in a position where they could afford to take riskier parts in theater--sometimes out of town, or for less pay--because then they could come home and they could bank on the idea that they were going to do one or two 'Law & Order' episodes a year. They paid well enough, and the residuals continue, and so it allowed people to have a certain degree of stability, interestingly enough, so they could practice their craft. I think it's a constant struggle for theater actors to negotiate the difference between earning a living and pursuing their passions and the different 'Law & Order' shows allowed actors to do that. And I'm proud of the work I did on the shows, particularly the 'SVU' where I played the closeted rape victim. I think what I got to do on the witness stand was fulfilling because I was given something substantive where I was able to master that character's emotional journey. And I felt the same way about the grieving father role that I played on the original 'Law & Order.' I think both of those provided me good opportunities and challenges. I'm pleased to have worked in the 'Law & Order' franchise. I would be glad to work with those people and appear on their shows again anytime."</b></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-59551853746656823452015-08-09T11:18:00.001-07:002015-08-10T04:59:09.199-07:00The Unresolved Love Between Marshal Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty Russell on "Gunsmoke"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9AtPbrBXzIupfbGzNBgDj_UZBXYmW97efsHpFQ070ig3sjAplGWU4AcbpvEbFNVwlHeA2HZAOaCNvYxxxnPLEAcdBlhfr45VfVgOO1WM3z-rSBtmz66nZZ6ahEdBa1i9AOUk2mMArUd4/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9AtPbrBXzIupfbGzNBgDj_UZBXYmW97efsHpFQ070ig3sjAplGWU4AcbpvEbFNVwlHeA2HZAOaCNvYxxxnPLEAcdBlhfr45VfVgOO1WM3z-rSBtmz66nZZ6ahEdBa1i9AOUk2mMArUd4/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In order to understand how television has changed through the years, one would have to consider the on-screen relationship between Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) and saloon owner Miss Kitty Russell (Amanda Blake) on the classic Western series "Gunsmoke," which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1975. When the series began, "Gunsmoke" was a fairly straightforward, intelligently made Western, that ran 30 minutes and was shot in black and white. As the popularity of the show continued to grow through the years, the show's running time expanded to 60 minutes a week and was eventually filmed in color. But it wasn't just the appearance of the show that changed, as the format and perspective of the show continued to grow as well. While Matt Dillon remained the central protagonist, and Dodge City remained the main setting for the series, later episodes would allow other members of the ensemble, or a guest star who either lived in Dodge City or had some tangential relationship with the core cast or locale, to take center stage. This allowed later seasons of "Gunsmoke" to push the boundaries of the weekly Western format and become more like an anthology series at times. In so doing, the characters and situations on "Gunsmoke" continued to evolve as the series explored deeper, more psychological and emotional territory than it had at the beginning. There was always much more than met the eye with this series.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtCxLCL7l2woG7xONacxlZZ5qPek_VT015ABkHFGWTZeq_exFPoRfCo9LXhBjTAT8ZoEPfRnbsUJ7t0K0xNZu6q__KUaDvNZ0DRaP9Q9zaz9fP76s0UjuVuZ_hxGho-2Dlza7rrLkh8w/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtCxLCL7l2woG7xONacxlZZ5qPek_VT015ABkHFGWTZeq_exFPoRfCo9LXhBjTAT8ZoEPfRnbsUJ7t0K0xNZu6q__KUaDvNZ0DRaP9Q9zaz9fP76s0UjuVuZ_hxGho-2Dlza7rrLkh8w/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_kAv-K8Do3Hy_nHZSv2cyXJSRNuy3OlnakPcglCmBsvPm1TYeQpsVE3nvxa_FQeuGzjsw7xNJBzrN2DT4pgF3OiA_1dgpT8mmeDUSgN7L5XDDHEILm-v9NMohz92v6fqrw4jaLtls1w/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_kAv-K8Do3Hy_nHZSv2cyXJSRNuy3OlnakPcglCmBsvPm1TYeQpsVE3nvxa_FQeuGzjsw7xNJBzrN2DT4pgF3OiA_1dgpT8mmeDUSgN7L5XDDHEILm-v9NMohz92v6fqrw4jaLtls1w/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though the show continued to evolve, and the characterizations developed more resonance, one aspect of the show that remained enigmatic at times was the nature of the relationship between Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty. It's been argued that they were lovers the entire time of the series, while others view the relationship more as a platonic friendship. James Arness and Amanda Blake wisely played their scenes together with restraint and warmth, yet infused with genuine sexual chemistry, so that it worked on multiple levels as both a friendship and a romance. Arness himself acknowledged in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uue_lnTx9Sw" target="_blank">an interview</a> before his death that the series intentionally kept their relationship alternately vague and unresolved because the producers felt that allowing them to have a full-blown on-screen relationship would drastically change the nature of the show. In its decision to not further develop the Matt/Kitty relationship, I don't think "Gunsmoke" was afraid of allowing the show a level of complexity so much as not wanting to make the show focused solely on them. I believe the producers of "Gunsmoke" wisely decided to allow it to remain an ensemble piece about the characters that pass through Dodge City and the surrounding environs.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgTipeLB-QwSWt_w2iP5K1pYklq1S42FLifKcbdbWW1vUI7zLQw9hBZ8p38rfVpgH8fIYm3EkokVjvBPOguBsf5ljHM9Jqf6oltNU3JAqzxNhaAeildg43_x9460s90ZAJzbt6RyZ9nI/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgTipeLB-QwSWt_w2iP5K1pYklq1S42FLifKcbdbWW1vUI7zLQw9hBZ8p38rfVpgH8fIYm3EkokVjvBPOguBsf5ljHM9Jqf6oltNU3JAqzxNhaAeildg43_x9460s90ZAJzbt6RyZ9nI/s400/10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIRljaRtVA7OzTHTyS2VbvMSE7yOPsl6LcWG07fyqtoheI2obiZbgu4sbueLhBvtmzgPw-n_1MtMj7DuZpYZwYW7ZLBBQTjTjYjn7tGLWJRufPMPEo7-HWLRKKGPEBTY_9CqGS-eB4wXE/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIRljaRtVA7OzTHTyS2VbvMSE7yOPsl6LcWG07fyqtoheI2obiZbgu4sbueLhBvtmzgPw-n_1MtMj7DuZpYZwYW7ZLBBQTjTjYjn7tGLWJRufPMPEo7-HWLRKKGPEBTY_9CqGS-eB4wXE/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
However, if the show was made now, I have no doubt that the Matt/Kitty relationship would be the central thrust and focus of the entire series, at the expense of all the other elements that made it unique and successful. I think such a tactic would deprive the show of the air of mystery and wonderment that defines the relationship between Matt and Kitty. As fans of the show, we want to imagine that there is something deeper, more resonant going on underneath the surface that underscores the love and caring the exists between those characters. At the same time, I think "Gunsmoke" fans also appreciate how Matt and Kitty feel a genuine friendship and respect with one another that they wouldn't want to see ruined if they ended up having a full blown affair that brings with it all the complications that would entail such a relationship.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgre7UlpgzniOAO0bEr9gQPUFfe2eReEqiqD2W1T-F3hV8aP3RzZ33Jtx71DxZWNOlstHHD33B_WiKNXmmt3W5UW-V4gXBMqkyNlVE9yDGPpcEuPAJAXz8bgQLc1u0-I__UJiQjh9dn4Rw/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgre7UlpgzniOAO0bEr9gQPUFfe2eReEqiqD2W1T-F3hV8aP3RzZ33Jtx71DxZWNOlstHHD33B_WiKNXmmt3W5UW-V4gXBMqkyNlVE9yDGPpcEuPAJAXz8bgQLc1u0-I__UJiQjh9dn4Rw/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Through the years, the show gave us little glimpses and hints as to how Matt and Kitty feel for one another, but no other episode addresses it more directly than the epic, exciting three-part segment from 1971, "Gold Train: The Bullet." In it, Matt Dillon is shot in the back, with the bullet dangerously lodged near his spine. Doc (Milburn Stone) fears that he does not have the proper training to operate to remove the bullet, so he decides to have Matt transported by train to a surgeon in Denver, while lying face down in the freight car. Kitty, Festus (Ken Curtis) and Newly (Buck Taylor) also accompany Doc and Matt on their journey. During the trip. the train is hijacked by a band of outlaws determined to steal the U.S. Army gold shipment that is on board. The leader of the outlaws is Jack Sinclair (Eric Braeden) whose hand was wounded years earlier by Matt Dillon. In order to protect Matt from being killed by a vengeful Sinclair, Doc lies to the outlaws that Matt is a patient under his care who has died and that his name is Walters.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ4FEyjxUSQdr_VvRAZX25Kgv-d3RNWEuliyNr1T8ozu4TfjyCuDhBpv4hYaIDycQHGOotTDlIo5PKVHKO5pu6b7Rd8Fe6vJigTp2knI3XB01jHAUVWlaG3m-zH5sO26BzGi9YRItt61Q/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ4FEyjxUSQdr_VvRAZX25Kgv-d3RNWEuliyNr1T8ozu4TfjyCuDhBpv4hYaIDycQHGOotTDlIo5PKVHKO5pu6b7Rd8Fe6vJigTp2knI3XB01jHAUVWlaG3m-zH5sO26BzGi9YRItt61Q/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A shifty female prisoner being escorted by law enforcement officials back to Denver named Beth Tipton (Katherine Justice) correctly deduces Matt's identity and begins taunting Kitty that she'll reveal the truth to Sinclair if it will ensure that he will take her along with him once he is finished looting the train. At first, Kitty tries to play dumb and act as though she has nothing to do with the dead Mr. Walters in the freight car. Beth Tipton sees through Kitty's subterfuge and tells her that, when she saw the level of concern Kitty felt for Matt as he was being loaded onto the freight car, <i>"I could tell that he was your man....They just said his name was Walters. That's very strange. When I got on the train, I heard the conductor say his name was Dillon. Marshal Dillon...If the name isn't Walters, then maybe he isn't dead either."</i> Amanda Blake's low-key, poker faced reaction to this threat helps underscore Kitty's level of concern and love for Matt. By not overacting (and overreacting), Blake demonstrates the fear Kitty feels for Matt's safety, as well as her decisiveness in choosing to do what she can to prevent Beth Tipton from informing Sinclair as to his identity and presence on the train.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSJ-e8S3mmHbEKc0qmjFCqBeIsKgfozkPCoBVV_CMskY8FTcMq32PCW5jVf2j9PIwsXtgarJwrNKgcMFUejdpQuSOGGqsawCHPLrAvAseL3XFqmQq6RZrPdq8lMo5YIWVFxYwNPN5FuXI/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSJ-e8S3mmHbEKc0qmjFCqBeIsKgfozkPCoBVV_CMskY8FTcMq32PCW5jVf2j9PIwsXtgarJwrNKgcMFUejdpQuSOGGqsawCHPLrAvAseL3XFqmQq6RZrPdq8lMo5YIWVFxYwNPN5FuXI/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Later, when Kitty notices Beth chatting with Sinclair, the fiery redhead confronts the unscrupulous woman, in order to learn whether Beth has revealed what she knows, and finally admits her true feelings for Matt and the nature of her relationship with him. Kitty warns Beth that revealing Matt's identity and whereabouts on the train will cause him to get killed. Beth glibly replies, <i>"So what?"</i> An outraged Kitty strikes Beth across the face and says <i>"Don't you try buckin' me, honey. As tough as you think you are, I'm a lot tougher. You're right. He IS my man. And I'll do anything to keep him alive, even to killing the likes of you."</i> Again, Blake underplays what could have been a melodramatic moment by having Kitty issue her threat to Beth in a restrained, yet determined, manner. In so doing, Blake brings a sense of assurance and authority to the character that demonstrates Kitty's ability to hold her own against dangerous adversaries even in times of crisis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Vgpr8aHucqyJhNk9qhaVyEyzbQMR5nFUd_yKe7kBQ2FTfvw7q0MXAzWxLJ8BTyBAhQH11n-O-sa9T1fXS1rvU_47lK0kDTtT1EJckjVXb5pclYYERAfnLQ9OjoMyIHCRbl0sJspyrg4/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Vgpr8aHucqyJhNk9qhaVyEyzbQMR5nFUd_yKe7kBQ2FTfvw7q0MXAzWxLJ8BTyBAhQH11n-O-sa9T1fXS1rvU_47lK0kDTtT1EJckjVXb5pclYYERAfnLQ9OjoMyIHCRbl0sJspyrg4/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
But no other scene in this three-parter underscores Matt and Kitty's relationship better than a quiet, lengthy monologue and soliloquy that she has later on. Matt has started to lose feeling in his legs due to the bullet, and Kitty tries to convince Doc to operate immediately. Doc refuses to operate on Matt for fear that his lack of experience with spinal injuries will either cripple or kill Matt. A resigned and exhausted Kitty goes back inside the freight car, sits next to Matt's unconscious body and reminisces about the day she first met him. Blake's amazing monologue has always blown me away and I'm surprised it hasn't been acknowledged or written about more often by television fans and critics.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbCUtgzVjU3dCtPErFSQ8bnqxAOcJrOvH68zpgwGqBUb__CGkrnCzA63P_eSLW7MS-yZZWA40_5fGkPLvS1KnBNSHS8yQBLFIR4a7DRY91vNhnwciCWRoEMe1-hLop-VUDTyfneJ573Y/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbCUtgzVjU3dCtPErFSQ8bnqxAOcJrOvH68zpgwGqBUb__CGkrnCzA63P_eSLW7MS-yZZWA40_5fGkPLvS1KnBNSHS8yQBLFIR4a7DRY91vNhnwciCWRoEMe1-hLop-VUDTyfneJ573Y/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwnddCB_N3t_j-6q-o62IwZkdcH7TaapHXks_KbSZIizSY7fRwxajItUEvPNBATxJ2QmVO8rIW7sQsSTwzKV1Hf4-M_N-ERPnSAuZbSqAep0sRhYTVNZ36p9BvhmYy7WFzRhfTDhRi1M/s1600/15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwnddCB_N3t_j-6q-o62IwZkdcH7TaapHXks_KbSZIizSY7fRwxajItUEvPNBATxJ2QmVO8rIW7sQsSTwzKV1Hf4-M_N-ERPnSAuZbSqAep0sRhYTVNZ36p9BvhmYy7WFzRhfTDhRi1M/s400/15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Leaning back against the wall, while looking straight off into the distance, Kitty recalls her arrival in Dodge City: <i>"Seventeen years ago this month. I'll never forget that first day as long as I live. It was raining. And I was cold and hungry and miserable. When I stepped off that stagecoach, and saw those ugly buildings, all those muddy streets, I hated Dodge City. I was down to my last forty dollars and it couldn't have taken me much further. But you couldn't have paid me to stay in Dodge. I waded over to the cafe and was hurrying through breakfast so I could get back on the stage. Then a man came in and he sat down across the room from me. He was the biggest man I have ever seen in my life. And he also ate the biggest breakfast I've ever seen in my life. He was so busy polishing off all his eggs and ham and biscuits and he didn't even notice me. But I noticed him. I noticed him so much that I decided to stay for awhile. And stay I did, despite of the fact that I found out that the big man wore a big badge and he didn't think he had any right to get involved in any kind of permanent relationship. Oh, we REALLY fought some battles about that. Seems to me that I left three or four times, just swearin' up and down that, under any circumstances, was I gonna see him or his damn badge again. I always came back. And, once, he even came to get me. Now, here we are. After 17 years, and that's got to be the LONGEST, non-permanent relationship in history. But I wouldn't change one day of it...not one day."</i> In response to Kitty's heartfelt remembrance, Matt regains consciousness, struggles to raise his torso while wincing in pain, turns partway towards Kitty, and says (while not looking directly at her), <i>"I noticed that day, Kitty. I noticed."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTPUqcDZXCkkMKeCNybIhc9XSatT9blZG2hHu_IN3Iu1KQT6hdZ9TGkXHPFeaA5uyVAq5YXzj9MNvhVH00WBuWyYEcX_2zhVl8GRWI1QCPbb7VXzscOELlnhSk_05XZFGDcJ61LS3nEE/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTPUqcDZXCkkMKeCNybIhc9XSatT9blZG2hHu_IN3Iu1KQT6hdZ9TGkXHPFeaA5uyVAq5YXzj9MNvhVH00WBuWyYEcX_2zhVl8GRWI1QCPbb7VXzscOELlnhSk_05XZFGDcJ61LS3nEE/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy8rG-opBnkd-dfBxsdBAsZC696UfaDZyiHdw_GlDUrBCJvGBJyTLS7PDmyPOyPP0whzY1GuhwHtG4qLoh2AM97Ikc7I_CLHdAvycD4_nItZgulCQdhQWuq_OzCMyaOV5aAcFoQTVlQpM/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy8rG-opBnkd-dfBxsdBAsZC696UfaDZyiHdw_GlDUrBCJvGBJyTLS7PDmyPOyPP0whzY1GuhwHtG4qLoh2AM97Ikc7I_CLHdAvycD4_nItZgulCQdhQWuq_OzCMyaOV5aAcFoQTVlQpM/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
James Arness, in the aforementioned interview, indicated that fans frequently wrote to the show's producers complaining that the relationship between Matt and Miss Kitty remained low-key and unresolved. The fans wanted the producers to finally bring the relationship to fruition, perhaps to even allow them to get married on-screen. However, I think it's because the show hasn't beat viewers over the head with the romantic aspects of their relationship that Kitty's monologue in the "Gold Train: The Bullet" episode, and Matt's acknowledgement of it, carries such weight and resonance. We've already seen, in the 17 years leading up to this episode, the warmth and respect that these characters have for one another (while they are involved in story lines that aren't always, directly or indirectly, about their relationship) that we don't need to see or hear about it all the time. Even if the moments concerning their relationship mentioned by Kitty sometimes took place off-screen, Kitty's monologue still feels believable because we already sensed something was going on between them that her reminiscence simply helps to fill in the gaps as to what we know. As such, when it came time for "Gunsmoke" to really address Matt and Kitty's love for one another, it never feels forced or artificial, and the result is that it carries tremendous feeling and impact. The scene, and Kitty's genuine love and concern for Matt throughout this particular three-part episode, would not have worked as well if their relationship was a constant, heavy-handed element in the series.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboOuzdM1rYZNauMoRzPwpeZTN6QuUcymCwtWwI9kPZfzF-_G7EZt-r6NlPx3gRkc3N01gaHZmbCLi-Olk45bXZ8cXEnMX-U8V68tIyVlyCKe3paWyQGXeY2yuqYmxmOIXKVw3ASyxrWQ/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboOuzdM1rYZNauMoRzPwpeZTN6QuUcymCwtWwI9kPZfzF-_G7EZt-r6NlPx3gRkc3N01gaHZmbCLi-Olk45bXZ8cXEnMX-U8V68tIyVlyCKe3paWyQGXeY2yuqYmxmOIXKVw3ASyxrWQ/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLXSBJYFniLd-i5738cRbdday269nNOKA_30se3DG5Cgn0TX_PoeD9tM2xgXF6QIudPbLzCL4A_pUmY9f180-bjDpjS0bcIdVgVx-d0gdJLIw1R_EnU9GowGAobjhCUncu7gRpGGj_cnU/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLXSBJYFniLd-i5738cRbdday269nNOKA_30se3DG5Cgn0TX_PoeD9tM2xgXF6QIudPbLzCL4A_pUmY9f180-bjDpjS0bcIdVgVx-d0gdJLIw1R_EnU9GowGAobjhCUncu7gRpGGj_cnU/s400/6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What makes Kitty's monologue carry even more resonance is our knowledge that Matt and Kitty don't end up together in the long run. Amanda Blake left the series in 1974 when she decided not to appear in the 20th and final season of "Gunsmoke," and in the reunion movie "Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge" (1987), Matt and Kitty are reunited, but ultimately part for good at the end of that story. In subsequent "Gunsmoke" reunion movies that feature Matt Dillon (which were made after Blake died in 1989), Kitty is nowhere to be found. I think stories that involve an unresolved romantic longing between individuals always carry with it more impact than ones that end conventionally. (Look at "Gone with the Wind" if you doubt what I'm saying.) Even though I would have liked to have seen Matt and Kitty spend the rest of their lives together, I'm still satisfied knowing that they had a special friendship that lasted through the years, and that they had a positive impact on each other's lives that we were fortunate to have witnessed and experienced.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-17572353460935520702015-08-03T17:29:00.000-07:002015-08-04T07:23:24.867-07:00Christina Pickles & Priscilla Barnes Teach a "Class" Worth Attending<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwptjLZ1fkvN9T46InlEWqlWfsgZHgpPdvNc-Ptjo41IoWpJ82hzylfP5cZhZldKEgcZRRgs9w5qVxldBFyDleGma0ijGbtd7LZwSyuvhtah8VOk1tSMb6iK87hJYCgjEdwTZa32Zyxkg/s1600/BreakaHip3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwptjLZ1fkvN9T46InlEWqlWfsgZHgpPdvNc-Ptjo41IoWpJ82hzylfP5cZhZldKEgcZRRgs9w5qVxldBFyDleGma0ijGbtd7LZwSyuvhtah8VOk1tSMb6iK87hJYCgjEdwTZa32Zyxkg/s400/BreakaHip3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Last week, a good friend suggested I watch them in an episode of a web series they worked on called <a href="http://www.breakahip.com/" target="_blank">"Break a Hip.</a>" The series focuses on the burgeoning friendship between a young, aspiring actor struggling to survive in Hollywood named Wincy (Britt Hennemuth), and the reclusive English actress Elizabeth Bumstead "Biz" Brantley (<a href="http://www.christinapickles.com/" target="_blank">Christina Pickles</a>) who hires him to help with errands and chores around her tiny apartment. Over the course of each episode, which run no more than 10 minutes apiece (but which resonate with more depth, nuance, and humor than most TV sitcoms three times its length), Wincy and Biz grow close to one another as they help fill the void that exists in each others lives. What makes the show work is how writer/director <a href="http://www.cameron-watson.com/" target="_blank">Cameron Watson</a> (who based the premise and characters on his relationship with an actress who he helped run errands for when he first arrived in Hollywood) allows the situations to be as quirky and outrageous as they need to be without completely overdoing it. By not making fun of these characters, and by being consistently compassionate about them, he brings enough genuineness to the proceedings that allows the audience to be easily pulled in to the story. I was surprised at how taken I was with the series, particularly it's sixth episode entitled "The Class." I've been quoting its endlessly memorable lines to friends and colleagues ever since seeing it. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFinhBHIye34n1_3nxZnq4ujAzcFzJ4RFAgm1c-wJr5w2qn_qNv80RUPauQGDfwLezRxmtVyAUTWBB0Zg0-mv9nkYK9c6wIdVszB-kDxT5e3PT7DB7K9OZvLQLZbldMCTlS4b_XYVnyI/s1600/BreakaHip5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFinhBHIye34n1_3nxZnq4ujAzcFzJ4RFAgm1c-wJr5w2qn_qNv80RUPauQGDfwLezRxmtVyAUTWBB0Zg0-mv9nkYK9c6wIdVszB-kDxT5e3PT7DB7K9OZvLQLZbldMCTlS4b_XYVnyI/s400/BreakaHip5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrjM8ftwZg7IwMaZKTbFxTpasMr0PzLVhhRAMC3wda8BNciqdrnbsIT_GsH1jmI17Eih4hkB60_p__MpTV146MbozGFMblfy2Zl2LFnjhtQtWDqY50jBFjfYzCOoKqGkxzYSzsxvo3bA/s1600/BreakaHip6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrjM8ftwZg7IwMaZKTbFxTpasMr0PzLVhhRAMC3wda8BNciqdrnbsIT_GsH1jmI17Eih4hkB60_p__MpTV146MbozGFMblfy2Zl2LFnjhtQtWDqY50jBFjfYzCOoKqGkxzYSzsxvo3bA/s400/BreakaHip6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In "The Class," Biz insists on attending Wincy's acting class to see who he is training with. She is horrified to discover that the class is taught by crazy, eccentric Sabina Klinefelter (Priscilla Barnes), who is teaching her students acting techniques that would make even the Lee Strasberg cult from the Actors Studio roll their eyes. After witnessing Sabina's bizarre theories on acting, Biz confronts her and the two veteran actresses have it out with one another regarding their individual approaches to the craft. What I liked about the episode, besides the fact that it was incredibly honest and funny in its parody of the LA acting scene, was the fact that Watson plays fair with both Biz's and Sabina's perspectives and doesn't show favoritism with either. He allows both characters to represent the different kinds of actors, and acting styles, that make up the entertainment industry and lets them both have their say. Even though Biz is outraged at Sabina's teaching style, Sabina never comes across as a one-dimensional antagonist worthy of contempt. In her skillful hands, the underrated and fearless Barnes (who is also genuinely funny in her supporting role on the CW's critically acclaimed series <a href="http://www.cwtv.com/shows/jane-the-virgin" target="_blank">"Jane the Virgin"</a>) allows the audience to recognize how Sabina is sincere about her teaching methods and that she genuinely believes her students have talent. The scenes depicting Sabina's acting class are indeed outrageous, but Barnes plays the scenes with a level of conviction and sincerity that allows the character to come across sympathetically. She is particularly terrific when Sabina is incensed at how Biz has criticized her students and her teaching methods. Barnes ensures that Sabina's not a contemptible charlatan out to scam her students.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5jH0K5S_S0TzzLZX0a1Sbu1CI3vSctYtZxVFH7mzDA1kK_y1pKBrSApGSMRAwD021PqLFT4A7MAKzTLEyNNudMyKRH5-om6HDmTNwxqHBdFDqnhWO7w7gGjT-zIS7ni_nrPQEVDZLmw/s1600/BreakaHip1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5jH0K5S_S0TzzLZX0a1Sbu1CI3vSctYtZxVFH7mzDA1kK_y1pKBrSApGSMRAwD021PqLFT4A7MAKzTLEyNNudMyKRH5-om6HDmTNwxqHBdFDqnhWO7w7gGjT-zIS7ni_nrPQEVDZLmw/s400/BreakaHip1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkMKKndAIulDbnt6O4KH9NJP3xRiOmR7-0x7L0zgx5eeDmvN0OfG5hRwGMxDeEwAEJ9kFRozn4sT48cS7gLt8ToQ-E6-XQ0H_7ojLOzCYOEFmP3SQD0cWjhjgln8LvRP3eMkxaIOpwYE/s1600/BreakaHip8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkMKKndAIulDbnt6O4KH9NJP3xRiOmR7-0x7L0zgx5eeDmvN0OfG5hRwGMxDeEwAEJ9kFRozn4sT48cS7gLt8ToQ-E6-XQ0H_7ojLOzCYOEFmP3SQD0cWjhjgln8LvRP3eMkxaIOpwYE/s400/BreakaHip8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
At the same time, Watson also shows respect to Biz's more traditional approach to acting and allows her an opportunity to underscore the basic components of what makes a good actor when she tells Sabina, <i><b>"These beautiful young people want to learn how to act, and you are screwing around with them!...You should be teaching them how to listen, how to speak to one another, how to feel a real, true feeling, to tell the truth! Not rolling around on the floor like a dying otter!"</b></i> Watson avoids making Biz a sanctimonious character by reminding the audience, through Wincy's embarrassed reaction, that Biz is actually out of line by insulting both Sabina and her students with her unsolicited comments. We might personally agree with Biz when she admonishes Sabina to return to the basics of acting, but the way she goes about it is undiplomatic. Even though she's one of the lead characters, Watson doesn't completely excuse Biz for her blunt rudeness, even if what she's saying is true, by allowing a supporting character like Sabina her own perspective. Because Watson remains objective about his central character, doesn't try to make Biz always right about everything, and paints her as a multi-dimensional, flawed individual with both weaknesses and strengths, we find that we ultimately admire her forthright honesty and ability to get to the heart of the matter, despite the occasionally misanthropic way she goes about it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfAOUi0deE8CF9AxEcpFK5KfXYi_jN_sZxlU1clZ20DCKoeskufXiciR30lxBMmkGvEw43Mva6qvuDod-Pavq1NFgXKkc9S1dlfAxJOSRKOBMkkcYS8y7uPp-L1_KDYo4GhNsaq5FXvOM/s1600/BreakaHip7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfAOUi0deE8CF9AxEcpFK5KfXYi_jN_sZxlU1clZ20DCKoeskufXiciR30lxBMmkGvEw43Mva6qvuDod-Pavq1NFgXKkc9S1dlfAxJOSRKOBMkkcYS8y7uPp-L1_KDYo4GhNsaq5FXvOM/s400/BreakaHip7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What ultimately makes "Break a Hip" work as a series is the skillful lead performance by Christina Pickles. Particularly in "The Class" episode, Pickles underscores the delicate radiance and stubborn persistence that underscores her character's ability to survive the ups and downs of being a working actress in Hollywood. I particularly enjoyed the moment when Wincy introduces Biz to Sabina and the class by calling her <i><b>"a wonderful actress."</b></i> Pickles effectively conveys Biz's sincere and glowing vulnerability when she thanks Wincy for showering her with praise. You get the feeling that it's been a long time since anyone has given Biz the respect that she deserves and Pickles sells that moment without sentimentality that would have made the character come off as self-indulgent. When she tells the class that she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and that she worked with Gielgud, Olivier and Richardson on the West End of London, and that she guest-starred on "Rockford Files" and "Big Valley" in her youth, it could have been an overly self-aggrandizing moment, but Pickles's sincerity makes it come across more like an effort on her part to establish herself as a peer with the students in the class. I don't believe Biz is trying to impress the students so much as trying to say to them <i><b>"I know what you're going through, I've been there as well. Let's share our experiences so we can help one another."</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQufnGUZwHJTkQj758kz8J608XkRDHnAVoAAd7fhg836t9ScV98j4e1FfVJX5ivzMWSIfQo4URDrDvI44g8tJOxBVv-ol7W1M8fjDhX7Mac-2tpLGmUmnbayVfibxfLu6VBkWmIcJdTM/s1600/BreakaHip2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQufnGUZwHJTkQj758kz8J608XkRDHnAVoAAd7fhg836t9ScV98j4e1FfVJX5ivzMWSIfQo4URDrDvI44g8tJOxBVv-ol7W1M8fjDhX7Mac-2tpLGmUmnbayVfibxfLu6VBkWmIcJdTM/s400/BreakaHip2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Even though "Break a Hip" is a comedy, and a very funny one at that, I haven't emphasized or quoted the witty lines and quirky moments that comprise much of the series because I don't want to ruin it for people who haven't seen it yet. You have to see it for yourself to appreciate the humor and satire that distinguishes this from other shows, both on TV and the internet. In some ways, because it addresses the plight of mature actresses in Hollywood, "Break a Hip" could be considered a companion piece to HBO's brilliant "The Comeback" starring Lisa Kudrow. I think what makes "Break a Hip" so special is that it allows mature actresses like Christina Pickles, Allison Janney and Priscilla Barnes an opportunity to play meaty showcase roles that stands in contrast to our overly youth-obsessed media and industry. I also like how the show dramatizes the friendship and interaction that can exist between mature and young characters, which you rarely get to see in other programs. But even with its young characters, "Break a Hip" defies convention. Wincy is indeed a character still in his 20s, but Hennemuth's warm performance thankfully ensures that he never comes across as hip or trendy--and nor do the other young characters on "Break a Hip." The young people on this series all come across as nice, well-meaning, off-beat individuals who are refreshingly without irony or snark. They are the kinds of people I can relate to more than the people who populate most TV shows these days. Because of its unusual perspective, and its highlighting of mature, talented actresses who don't always get the attention they deserve, "Break a Hip" is a web series worth seeking out. I look forward to its Second Season and hope these characters get expanded to a weekly series or feature film in the near future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-33360644346842826742015-07-18T16:52:00.001-07:002015-07-20T05:13:29.721-07:00Robert Young Remains a Better Person (and Better TV Dad) than Bill Cosby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHp_Nd8WGidXBiFuHAg2w-9lgDBAVsTHzadGQ8RcIzCobYAO8Tva_YXul5i9jztgflBuvUIMJhz-gvZPPMv0TIhqLho5uGDrxQo1vk2yW3cNi4JCVf7xHFMkkGJsd6HSI0gaFR7A0QG9c/s1600/18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHp_Nd8WGidXBiFuHAg2w-9lgDBAVsTHzadGQ8RcIzCobYAO8Tva_YXul5i9jztgflBuvUIMJhz-gvZPPMv0TIhqLho5uGDrxQo1vk2yW3cNi4JCVf7xHFMkkGJsd6HSI0gaFR7A0QG9c/s400/18.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_1775734302"></span><span id="goog_1775734303"></span><br />
In TV History, there were two long-running sitcoms that presented an idealized version of the American family. One show aired during the Golden Age of Television of the 1950s. While it has continued to be a successful staple of reruns, it has become a show that has been denigrated by politically correct scholars who view it as the quintessential symbol of male dominance and repression, female submissiveness, and WASP complacency. That show was "Father Knows Best" (1954-60). The other popular sitcom depicted the trials and tribulations of an affluent and upwardly mobile African American family living in a lavish Brooklyn brownstone. Whereas "Father Knows Best" symbolized all that was purportedly repressive and regressive about Mid-Century American culture, "The Cosby Show" (1984-92) was once seen as a progressive symbol of ever-expanding opportunities and aspirations for African Americans. Similarly, whereas Margaret Anderson (Jane Wyatt) of "Father Knows Best," was perceived as the stereotypical TV homemaker, wearing perfectly tailored dresses and glistening pearls while staying home and doing housework, Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) of "The Cosby Show," whose character was an attorney, represented the modern, successful, attache case-carrying American woman who had supposedly broken free from that sort of stifling existence. Moreover, the father figures on both shows--Robert Young as insurance agent Jim Anderson, and Bill Cosby as obstetrician Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable--were both considered, in their respective eras, as the perfect American fathers. For decades, popular opinion would have you believe that Young's Jim Anderson exerted a gently repressive grip over his family, while Cosby's Cliff Huxtable was supposedly the more nurturing and encouraging figure with regards to his wife and children.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibInY7AMG9Mo2xVPTNIIFWbI74Rt9DkS7vtAu13Rj_GwOJAKuBtYH7CVpjAAVmbfNOz2u0RyNeCTw9f6F_61Yh_lz3PTKVUl3cNJLlN7zJV2DvSSppOdbUV2rLpHIvshGr2BnrKCFgWDs/s1600/13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibInY7AMG9Mo2xVPTNIIFWbI74Rt9DkS7vtAu13Rj_GwOJAKuBtYH7CVpjAAVmbfNOz2u0RyNeCTw9f6F_61Yh_lz3PTKVUl3cNJLlN7zJV2DvSSppOdbUV2rLpHIvshGr2BnrKCFgWDs/s400/13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What both shows had in common was that Young and Cosby produced, as well as starred, in their respective shows. As it turned out years later, what Young and Cosby also had in common was that neither of them turned out to be anything like the characters they portrayed. Whereas one actor, Cosby, has had disturbing and horrifying rape allegations made against him by dozens and dozens of women, the other, Young, turned out to be someone who suffered from severe insecurity, depression and alcoholism. However, it's ironic that the actor whose show was seen as a politically incorrect symbol of 1950s repression turned his personal problems into a mission to help others similarly situated seek help to deal with their demons, while the other (who was seen for years to be a politically correct and progressive activist) now appears to be a charlatan whose philanthropy has been negated and overshadowed with unsavory revelations about himself (which seem to have been largely confirmed with the recent release of a 2005 deposition where he has admitted obtaining drugs in order to have sex with women). As such, it's appropriate to take time to reevaluate their on-screen and off-screen images and reassess where they now stand in the context of television and American history.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTfVgSJb9aIQFxbF_fmxxBgjUgd6DfEW8DryLwiGyq3rPbwbxjAZavKu1y50mKPa3k46KsLNpvZLOIvyCw-0_fm-pHqi8m7SSE9b40gRdntwLDcYOoSvFxLJNRSSCXGtjiQXEDBMKvxg/s1600/28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTfVgSJb9aIQFxbF_fmxxBgjUgd6DfEW8DryLwiGyq3rPbwbxjAZavKu1y50mKPa3k46KsLNpvZLOIvyCw-0_fm-pHqi8m7SSE9b40gRdntwLDcYOoSvFxLJNRSSCXGtjiQXEDBMKvxg/s400/28.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Like others, I've been following with interest the controversy that has encompassed Bill Cosby's life ever since more and more women have come forward with rape accusations after the YouTube video of comedian Hannibal Buress's on-stage act referencing Cosby as an alleged rapist went viral back in October 2014. What's interested me is how the public and the media have had a tough time wrestling with these revelations about Cosby because they are unable to separate the real-life individual from his iconic, on-screen persona as the "perfect" American Dad, Dr. Cliff Huxtable on his blockbuster NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show." Some people have tried to defend Cosby by saying that we shouldn't be surprised that he isn't Cliff Huxtable in real life because he was playing a character, not himself, on that show. But I agree with those who say that highlighting the dichotomy between actor and character is on-point because he has built a public persona as a wizened, sensible father figure based on his role on that show. You really can't discuss Bill Cosby, and the accusations made against him of drugging and raping more than 40 women, without considering how it appears to contrast with his image as Cliff Huxtable.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgweHXBtZKOnaie99WCkVasNlsRLthgIwJN7NEIYHkbAmGBh3QsvLSwaFzjvc-e6HvKC1gq1nTShAbENKA6Gh5s4CYsUSYZg-ESE0BJ8wkgfK_8xHTDnFxIT8FhDsaK4S6QgUSbO5P0kWk/s1600/31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgweHXBtZKOnaie99WCkVasNlsRLthgIwJN7NEIYHkbAmGBh3QsvLSwaFzjvc-e6HvKC1gq1nTShAbENKA6Gh5s4CYsUSYZg-ESE0BJ8wkgfK_8xHTDnFxIT8FhDsaK4S6QgUSbO5P0kWk/s400/31.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In some ways, I'm not as surprised as others about the stories we're hearing about Cosby. I never liked him or his sitcom, and always found his personality on- and off-screen mannered and creepy. All of these anecdotes appear to describe an arrogant, manipulative, narcissistic individual bent on making the rest of the world conform to his wishes. The anecdotes that Cosby negotiated a story about his daughter's drug abuse with the National Enquirer, in exchange for the publication dropping their coverage of the rape allegations made against him, as well as the revelation made by a former NBC employee who shared evidence that Cosby used him as a messenger and conduit to pay off women through the years, makes it easy for one to perceive Cosby as a very selfish, self-centered person willing to throw the people around him under the bus out of self-preservation whenever it suits him. But, like I said earlier, I'm not as shocked as others appear to be because, almost from the beginning, I differed from other TV viewers back in the 1980s because I never liked "The Cosby Show." And my disdain for the show is almost entirely connected with Cosby's characterization and performance as Cliff Huxtable.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiC-eEnXAkHvBYoHssoB0poUtKH5jjizvJLwAHPILmk3nPv147nABcls0zi2kqHU02Fzp7KyVTHoLM13IgO1oqnQd5AfyOPi1Sg4E8i3LMmJzmsQOPhpoZN44nSpcXyogZabbER8irLQs/s1600/25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiC-eEnXAkHvBYoHssoB0poUtKH5jjizvJLwAHPILmk3nPv147nABcls0zi2kqHU02Fzp7KyVTHoLM13IgO1oqnQd5AfyOPi1Sg4E8i3LMmJzmsQOPhpoZN44nSpcXyogZabbER8irLQs/s400/25.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Unlike others, I never saw Cliff Huxtable as the ideal American father figure. In my opinion, Cosby always portrayed Huxtable as a smug, self-satisfied, condescending individual, especially in his interactions with his children. In later years, as the children grew older, Cosby portrayed Huxtable as someone who became increasingly disappointed and exasperated with the choices his children made in life. In the story lines where Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf) quit law school, Denise (Lisa Bonet) dropped out of college, Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) acting immature and getting into trouble while struggling academically in high school, Vanessa (Tempest Bledsoe) getting engaged while she was in college to an older maintenance man working at her University, and Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) becoming more and more of a brat, Cosby played Huxtable as if he had no respect whatsoever for his children. Some people found his quietly exasperated skepticism hilarious and appreciated that Cosby was playing Huxtable as someone who exercised "tough love" on his children. But I think "tough love" is appropriate and applicable if children are in serious trouble--such as getting involved with drugs, criminal activity, or gangs--none of which the privileged and entitled Huxtable children were ever in danger of. Despite professing to love his children, the character of Huxtable just seemed to treat them with contempt.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWkjiGDySwTROGoug6vNNKDH6FTjkiJbVpkuNZD7O8VPsFor0-5NamMDgAEgJ7G3oeYLEY5QihbxtMYQ-lciS__LBl7IkQaphslHRoQ2TWcNpN_vxuojQdUYdYsqwQnukPYNx2m_X6eU/s1600/30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWkjiGDySwTROGoug6vNNKDH6FTjkiJbVpkuNZD7O8VPsFor0-5NamMDgAEgJ7G3oeYLEY5QihbxtMYQ-lciS__LBl7IkQaphslHRoQ2TWcNpN_vxuojQdUYdYsqwQnukPYNx2m_X6eU/s400/30.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I recall the episode where Denise, after dropping out of college and spending a year traveling in Africa, returns home and shocks her parents with the news that she has married a divorced Naval officer with a four year old daughter she met overseas. Clair Huxtable is so angry that she can't even bring herself to calling Denise by her married name, while Cliff responds by calling his daughter <b><i>"Mrs. Stupid."</i></b> Some people may find it funny, but I have never found the anger and contempt they felt towards Denise in this situation even remotely amusing. It just felt misanthropic and self indulgent. I also disliked how superior and judgmental Huxtable felt towards his children, as if he had nothing to do with how they turned out. His character never seemed to acknowledge how these kids were ultimately reflections on him. Particularly noteworthy is the scene where Denise attempts to tell her parents that she has gotten married. When she finally articulates the information, Cliff is so focused on telling her that he has arranged for her to return to Hillman College that her announcement doesn't sink in with him at first. It establishes Cliff Huxtable as a character with such high expectations for his children that he was unwilling to consider how they might not live up to those expectations.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-BqzKdoiur5ST5Cfq9Hf1vFQCle0s4NSVyAb8W0f-hz_0OhGxXr8E_6W-O74hpYMNZ0eKsZgQbR_5GhlO_UWJq7NZoWqoWCMHMurJXzOYMIPRbONzSQgjPhdt6oT0MhLttjHgFDs9bTY/s1600/32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-BqzKdoiur5ST5Cfq9Hf1vFQCle0s4NSVyAb8W0f-hz_0OhGxXr8E_6W-O74hpYMNZ0eKsZgQbR_5GhlO_UWJq7NZoWqoWCMHMurJXzOYMIPRbONzSQgjPhdt6oT0MhLttjHgFDs9bTY/s400/32.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What also annoyed me was the way in which Cliff was always portrayed as being scared that his children would remain a burden on him and Clair forever. A lot of comedy mileage was derived from scenes where Cliff feared his children would become free-loaders and live with him even after they reached adulthood. Even though the Huxtable children were arguably spoiled, self-centered and entitled, they were portrayed as essentially good people. They were annoying, but they also didn't deserve the sort of cranky condescension they experienced from their father. If the kids turned out a bit spoiled and lazy and entitled, some of the blame for that has to lie with the parents, a responsibility that the character of Cliff never owns up to. That's why I always felt it was weird that Cliff Huxtable was being held up as the "perfect" American Dad. If he was so great, why did he turn out such flakey, yet well-meaning, kids?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMHZoEtrTg0iaz-azawK1eYVQoR9fR88kP1xTOO8LR87Y8Src_PR6CTX7jc4XWdGcXXpDbbBOd2dap7fiTkZ2IKC4pyeHfZZ7BSRaSfG1Rn3InrjgrxIfSXkJWkjVVir-WRLH-yB-clfI/s1600/33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMHZoEtrTg0iaz-azawK1eYVQoR9fR88kP1xTOO8LR87Y8Src_PR6CTX7jc4XWdGcXXpDbbBOd2dap7fiTkZ2IKC4pyeHfZZ7BSRaSfG1Rn3InrjgrxIfSXkJWkjVVir-WRLH-yB-clfI/s400/33.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
My main issue with the show, and its characters, is that the storylines never really challenge Huxtable in terms of whether his attitude towards his children is appropriate. In so doing, the show is giving tacit approval to Huxtable's passive-aggressive method of parenting. In contrast, Roseanne and Dan Connor (Roseanne Barr and John Goodman) on "Roseanne" could be harsh with their kids and make mistakes, but because they were portrayed as flawed, human individuals doing the best they could under difficult circumstances, it never felt as condescending. Some people view "The Cosby Show" as progressive in its portrayal of an affluent African American family living in Brooklyn, but I actually found the show regressive in terms of how heavy-handedly Cliff Huxtable regarded the children in his household. Moreover, the show may have allowed his wife Clair a career as an attorney, and included scenes where Clair appeared to successfully spar with her husband, but I think this was a token gesture to make Clair appear to be progressive when, in fact, the show was basically all surface-level politically correct subterfuge. Generally speaking, since this was not a workplace comedy, we rarely saw Clair working as an attorney, so she may as well have been like a homemaker in a traditional 1950s family sitcom. I also don't feel the storylines allowed Clair enough of a substantial opportunity to challenge her husband's disappointed and judgmental attitude towards their children. At the end of the day, it's the father-figure who still runs the household, that's why it's called "The Cosby Show," not "The Huxtables."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6h1QzoyKPzf6bxcAl4T50l9DTfC0POqAVy-Fs7qpUFtdRQRaIH76vHBfg7bHjmCbrYvD4YRhVReroz3zeXDtjIEN0wt0rPdpwdF2FqTUgi8GWtc5AlRAosWaWOsrRUiRDI5ylI9VzcnY/s1600/16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6h1QzoyKPzf6bxcAl4T50l9DTfC0POqAVy-Fs7qpUFtdRQRaIH76vHBfg7bHjmCbrYvD4YRhVReroz3zeXDtjIEN0wt0rPdpwdF2FqTUgi8GWtc5AlRAosWaWOsrRUiRDI5ylI9VzcnY/s400/16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Ironically, as mentioned earlier, "Father Knows Best" was often compared unfavorably to "The Cosby Show" by feminists who referenced it as the quintessential example of a 1950s American sitcom where the father figure heavy-handedly rules the roost with an outdated air of patriarchal dominance and condescension. For years, I avoided the show for this very reason. But, having caught up with the series recently in its Antenna TV network reruns, I've been pleasantly surprised at how the show doesn't always live up to its reputed image. It makes me wonder whether the most vocal critics of "Father Knows Best" have ever actually watched the series. In many episodes, Robert Young's Jim Anderson doesn't always know best and doesn't always have the answers for resolving issues in his family. Sometimes, matriarch Margaret knew best, and sometimes the children are left to their own devices to resolve their problems. I've heard that the radio show, also starring Robert Young, that "Father Knows Best" was based on, was much sharper in tone and that the father in that show was much more sarcastic and condescending towards his family than his TV incarnation. But it's the TV version, not the radio, that has become such an iconic symbol of American culture and the one that gets unfavorably compared to "The Cosby Show."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRX8Qj8QU0_8g3s-CgnoFmnIXaJXhVOT03tM1RFzFcO7bhYG1NrdGw9xCbzTVLNNijzaFRCvV8AB8HV8SRR_0gNXeVhyphenhyphenJz1gtWHoIcuk3DcEZwlwL3TEYahvoCYU9rTcDcEXu57G1Kfw/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRX8Qj8QU0_8g3s-CgnoFmnIXaJXhVOT03tM1RFzFcO7bhYG1NrdGw9xCbzTVLNNijzaFRCvV8AB8HV8SRR_0gNXeVhyphenhyphenJz1gtWHoIcuk3DcEZwlwL3TEYahvoCYU9rTcDcEXu57G1Kfw/s400/3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The irony is that "Father Knows Best" is actually much more complex and nuanced than it is given credit for. Throughout its years on the air, the show often critiques the sort of bourgeois Middle-American complacency and provincialism that people who have never seen the show presumes it celebrates. One such example is the third season episode, "Betty Goes to College," where the Andersons visit their alma mater on a college scouting trip with oldest daughter Betty (Elinor Donahue). Without actually discussing it with her, both Jim and Margaret automatically assume that Betty wants to follow in their footsteps and attend State College. Throughout the trip, the well meaning Jim and Margaret smother Betty with their expectations of what classes she will take, what extracurricular activities she will be involved in and, in the process, overwhelm Betty to the degree that she realizes she doesn't want to attend that school. At first, when Jim overhears Betty tell her brother Bud that she knows she doesn't want to go there, Jim is concerned and attempts to speak with Margaret about it. Their discussion is interrupted when they run into their beloved Dean, who invites them back to his home to discuss Betty's future. It's at the Dean's residence that Jim and Betty confront one another about her college plans. Betty summons up the courage to tell her parents that she doesn't want to attend the school they went to because she feels like she would simply be reliving their college experience, instead of creating one for herself. The Dean pulls out an old term paper Jim wrote decades ago when he was assigned the task of describing the real purpose of a college education. This humbles Jim and reminds him that he needs to allow Betty to make the right decisions for herself.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-9s0iyV4B1YoBl-y60hJf716r1ov0d22jzjCzuwXSsB3gK1CQZYTtFKKbu7UoJqHSTkaCpy5699hP81E5GLvFFOyVPNjfiHOIGNfs2zde-G3VgNtN2ZwFFf1vf5sWysE5YNAdY6dL0SA/s1600/39.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-9s0iyV4B1YoBl-y60hJf716r1ov0d22jzjCzuwXSsB3gK1CQZYTtFKKbu7UoJqHSTkaCpy5699hP81E5GLvFFOyVPNjfiHOIGNfs2zde-G3VgNtN2ZwFFf1vf5sWysE5YNAdY6dL0SA/s400/39.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
This episode stands in stark contrast to the storyline from "The Cosby Show" where Cliff and Clair made their daughter Denise feel like attending their alma mater was the only acceptable choice for her. As mentioned earlier, when Denise dropped out of Hillman College, and returned from visiting Africa, her parents were still determined to see her resume her education at their old school. They failed to acknowledge or accept the fact that Denise really didn't have a fulfilling experience when she attended Hillman College in the spinoff series "A Different World." By pressuring Denise to obey their wishes, as opposed to helping her find the right educational and professional career path, the Huxtables created the situation that caused their daughter to rebel and run off to Africa to get married. Unlike the Andersons in "Father Knows Best," the Huxtables never appear to have the epiphany that their daughter doesn't want to follow in their footsteps. I think acknowledging that children aren't meant to be carbon copies of their parents makes "Father Knows Best" look positively progressive and prescient compared to "The Cosby Show."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8tWFA9JSdKFIQlezNMDIv5oknFI7eI9woS2afWFbwc5zaXPqwLwdoXgwtGDH2b477Pd-DoZJ5epSCc0wiUMorIAtu4bDPSXgVy054BHZYzIblp_UmEWZP4F_O9qHJqDzdUGViMKbic60/s1600/19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8tWFA9JSdKFIQlezNMDIv5oknFI7eI9woS2afWFbwc5zaXPqwLwdoXgwtGDH2b477Pd-DoZJ5epSCc0wiUMorIAtu4bDPSXgVy054BHZYzIblp_UmEWZP4F_O9qHJqDzdUGViMKbic60/s400/19.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In another "Father Knows Best" episode (the fourth season segment "Mother Goes to School" that further develops this theme) family matriarch Margaret decides to take the same English class at the local college that her daughter Betty is attending. At first excited at having her mother in the class, over time Betty becomes annoyed with Margaret's presence in the classroom and her annoyance spills over into outright resentment. Both Margaret and Betty turn to family patriarch Jim to resolve the issue, but he is unable to offer any solution. When Margaret witnesses youngest daughter Kathy (Lauren Chapin) become annoyed with her older brother Bud (Billy Gray) when he innocently intrudes upon her play acting with dolls in the backyard, she realizes that the reason Betty is annoyed with her is because Margaret's presence in the class intrudes upon Betty's burgeoning sense of independence and confidence as a college co-ed. She realizes that her presence makes Betty still feel like she is still a child at home. Margaret decides to drop out of the class and enroll in another English course at night so that she can continue her education without intruding in on Betty's academic and social life in college.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyrwhyxQ7jeISO5n8-Q1wvpB1GclsU856GItA6LZ2gnSTvnUI9HGfLnIYMIEZv6fRTBcdHNOLHDRf39vAOY21Fce3R3aT-_r61ronjL-SOOt8BJOQP1LMyRpcO-Je5cX39oCuzlzScOu0/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyrwhyxQ7jeISO5n8-Q1wvpB1GclsU856GItA6LZ2gnSTvnUI9HGfLnIYMIEZv6fRTBcdHNOLHDRf39vAOY21Fce3R3aT-_r61ronjL-SOOt8BJOQP1LMyRpcO-Je5cX39oCuzlzScOu0/s400/4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The surprising complexity in characterization is not just limited to the children and often allows matriarch Margaret an opportunity to be challenged in unusual circumstances. In another episode, the fourth season segment "Margaret Learns to Drive," son Bud observes how his parents don't seem to argue the way the parents of other families do. The Anderson family puts this notion to the test when Jim decides to teach Margaret how to drive. The driving lessons bring to the surface tensions between Jim and Margaret that may have been simmering for some time. After a particularly tense driving lesson, where Margaret tries to give their friend Myrtle Davis a lift to the store and almost gets into an accident, Jim and Margaret return home, screaming at the top of their lungs, to the shock and horror of their own children. Jim follows Margaret back into the house, throws his jacket on the couch and begins tearing into his wife, <i><b>"I've seen some hare-brained performances in my time, but NOTHING like that!"</b></i> Margaret retorts, <i><b>"You kept screaming and shouting! Hare-brained performance? What did I do?!"</b></i> Jim responds, <i><b>"Picking up Myrtle Davis, when you were supposed to be taking a driving lesson! Getting that female public address system in the back seat. Yack! Yack! Yack! Paying no attention to where you were going...Myrtle Davis is a friend of mine too, but she's an instigating chatterbox. If I had an ounce of sense, I would've have told her to get out of the car! And what happens to you when you get behind the wheel of a car?! That's what I want to know! You turn into an absolute feather-brain!"</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMaFZFQQd5-EBR18j_qR82Ho2Tp8VKjpi5fSXneew-q1t-KPYCz4NB3nzatN-Wp9TEPte2pWCM-gQKfskEacqFjJSHGGtxvifPPFxH0Osda6s7Bkbdv1lk2Xqws9cL2hV4a_LEPEzf-sE/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMaFZFQQd5-EBR18j_qR82Ho2Tp8VKjpi5fSXneew-q1t-KPYCz4NB3nzatN-Wp9TEPte2pWCM-gQKfskEacqFjJSHGGtxvifPPFxH0Osda6s7Bkbdv1lk2Xqws9cL2hV4a_LEPEzf-sE/s400/6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Margaret doesn't back down from Jim's tirade and gives as good as she can get: <b><i>"Feather brain?! Just because I do everything you ask me to do?! Learning to drive wasn't my idea! I have other things to do! I don't care if I NEVER drive a car! Just because I don't do everything absolutely perfect!"</i></b> Jim responds, <i><b>"I don't expect you to be perfect! I only expect you to use your head! Think! Think! Not go plowing along willy-nilly! Paying no attention to where you're going! I have other things to do too, you know, besides taking my life in my hands! Sitting in that car while you steer with one finger, carrying on an idiotic conversation with that female in the backseat! Believe me, if that's the way you're going to drive a car you might as well quit right now!"</b></i> Margaret calls Jim out on his condescending tirade by telling him, <i><b>"I'd be happy if I never set foot in that car again. You with your superior 'I know it all and you know nothing' attitude!"</b></i> When Jim tries to mollify Margaret by pointing out that <i><b>"I was patient. I tried. I explained,"</b></i> Margaret retorts, <i><b>"Yes! Like you were teaching a child! 'Ignorant, simple-minded little Margaret!' You were just sitting there waiting for me to make a mistake, you were just waiting!"</b></i> Jim and Margaret continue shouting until they notice their children standing at the staircase, witnessing their tirade. After a moment of awkward silence, oldest daughter Betty breaks the tension by applauding, <i><b>"Bravo! Very convincing! You staged a very good imitation of a quarrel!"</b></i> To her siblings, Betty says, <i><b>"You didn't think they were really fighting, did you? They were just kidding!"</b></i> Betty continues to gently urge her parents to go along with her efforts to change the subject by rhetorically asking, <i><b>"Alright, admit it. You were only fooling, weren't you?"</b></i> Jim and Margaret play along with Betty's efforts to resolve the situation and realize how foolish their argument was.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEJDX-c2eYhQLdVF-junlv_sZ_EEEzvrqPCulFiOfIF2PhFaO1qYl-qWEafp2iKOCYVjz6S4BJ_I_2JG71mC7eQg-Ezr9JFdJH-1NYw645AWDhiqUYemQiVSOdEAqXIJIy9CFRM3EHCw/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEJDX-c2eYhQLdVF-junlv_sZ_EEEzvrqPCulFiOfIF2PhFaO1qYl-qWEafp2iKOCYVjz6S4BJ_I_2JG71mC7eQg-Ezr9JFdJH-1NYw645AWDhiqUYemQiVSOdEAqXIJIy9CFRM3EHCw/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAFCeKtsAKvRYEDAWwFeFTCJsIGyVQIT4Nj9vzUwcAqpmyvE4Xcq3ZHKGkpLlrBbu3qNT5kmWJXK3dVAWFBgNXLX9-KC0HjekQd47NgbGxIEehWwoM3lq1dLfCamrVPub6iBU13CASoY/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAFCeKtsAKvRYEDAWwFeFTCJsIGyVQIT4Nj9vzUwcAqpmyvE4Xcq3ZHKGkpLlrBbu3qNT5kmWJXK3dVAWFBgNXLX9-KC0HjekQd47NgbGxIEehWwoM3lq1dLfCamrVPub6iBU13CASoY/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The argument (which was alarmingly well-acted by Robert Young and Jane Wyatt) allows the audience to realize that there may be some underlying tension in the Anderson household that doesn't always get acknowledged by fans of the show. It demonstrates how Jim, despite being essentially considerate and thoughtful, inadvertently reveals how he ultimately considers himself the dominant leader of the household, with Margaret bristling at his dominance. Also notable is the fact that, for once, it's clear that neither Father, nor even Mother, always knows best and that it takes teenage daughter Betty to resolve the crisis. The fact that Margaret stands up to Jim in this scene is eye-opening. It demonstrates how Margaret is not unquestioningly complacent and doesn't always agree with Jim being the leader in the household. Moreover, Jim's response to Betty's efforts to resolve the fight indicates that, even though his first instinct is to be the leader of the household, he is willing to step back and defer to the other members of the household, notably one of his daughters, if it is for the best of the family. As such, this scene and this episode demonstrates how "Father Knows Best" is much more self-aware than it is ever given credit for in feminist discussions of the series. It shows that Jim's authority in the house is open to being questioned and that Margaret and the children are not following his lead blindly. Even though they are an idealized dramatization of an American family, I think there's more going on with the Andersons than is apparent at first glance.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAQcAptp8L86TeFMcRZVMk2u_Zdi35hJsVunWJlx3srCa2bjCvPucTuZyNTaJJBgxWMmNPgS67phnH5Zj4kAoEarPccAEkaABvE-RQcCdI_uiHOvzFc1ov2XiffA5tY76xdwa8yixnfg/s1600/9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAQcAptp8L86TeFMcRZVMk2u_Zdi35hJsVunWJlx3srCa2bjCvPucTuZyNTaJJBgxWMmNPgS67phnH5Zj4kAoEarPccAEkaABvE-RQcCdI_uiHOvzFc1ov2XiffA5tY76xdwa8yixnfg/s400/9.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_NSDcCZUx2IZeEt_Ds9OvelhA1D9xkZ8eYVYBYaHdVQy7he6ck2mQRFDDl42QaD1m9knALWoahysQ5bQLKFDbRBNDwf8NAB9mDrCCS3LNA17eQfxu88g5mOIxzYOh-WtA9remD2kQ1g/s1600/14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_NSDcCZUx2IZeEt_Ds9OvelhA1D9xkZ8eYVYBYaHdVQy7he6ck2mQRFDDl42QaD1m9knALWoahysQ5bQLKFDbRBNDwf8NAB9mDrCCS3LNA17eQfxu88g5mOIxzYOh-WtA9remD2kQ1g/s400/14.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In some episodes of "Father Knows Best" we see how Margaret Anderson isn't always the idealized housewife and mother that people presume her to be. Even though she is happily married and loves her family, a couple of episodes underscore how Margaret does not see herself solely as a wife, mother, and homemaker, and suggests she might have other ambitions and interests for herself. In the third season episode "Brief Holiday," Margaret gets fed up with the household chores that her husband and children have left for her to do. At the beginning of the episode, after Jim complains of how the children take Margaret for granted, he still leaves her with additional chores to do before he goes to work. Margaret wryly responds with <i><b>"Et tu Brute?"</b></i> to underscore how miffed she is that Jim has taken her for granted. Fed up with the housework, Margaret takes the day off by visiting Springfield's bohemian Orleans Street, where she has lunch, has her portrait drawn, and buys a hat. When she returns home, Jim wonders if Margaret is unhappy with her life and his questions regarding what motivated her to abandon her chores for an afternoon on the town only serve to annoy Margaret further. Margaret ultimately tells Jim that the reason why his sudden concern over her momentary unwillingness to do chores annoys her is because it suggests that being a homemaker is the sole thing that should define her as an individual. Margaret acknowledges she is basically happy with her life, she simply didn't want to only be known as the defacto servant in the house. At one point, she even sardonically and self-deprecatingly refers to her role as homemaker as <i><b>"my little trap, where I evidently belong."</b></i> Even though Margaret wasn't yearning to change her life and start a career, the episode is notable because it demonstrates that she doesn't only want to be a homemaker every single minute of the day, and is willing to challenge the complacent expectations people have of her.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRIAb9DalC-6mmlb0EvElPgmqiDunNvjni2j3dR090h2d0sFlic8EWziZZwFMMnr4s8JdzEvBWGxwTlJgv8UMCAMTRIWEjcmt8qOqy8aTKVpbwCREFCQ2IcxHI_6zbJpmPWXkHrPC3BYE/s1600/17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRIAb9DalC-6mmlb0EvElPgmqiDunNvjni2j3dR090h2d0sFlic8EWziZZwFMMnr4s8JdzEvBWGxwTlJgv8UMCAMTRIWEjcmt8qOqy8aTKVpbwCREFCQ2IcxHI_6zbJpmPWXkHrPC3BYE/s400/17.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAMyyhi1-vPY0T8ShM9rz4dpgl_LaW9f2jNvrW3tfPTHWRA-q9bTJ4TWyQUUgFbHvfDNVa62pOASN8RJh38UFQ04Kc_ry1D64hhIlsMiONN-GZmUVR3_2wcOLmnHkPSaJ04-OzmbnjaiM/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAMyyhi1-vPY0T8ShM9rz4dpgl_LaW9f2jNvrW3tfPTHWRA-q9bTJ4TWyQUUgFbHvfDNVa62pOASN8RJh38UFQ04Kc_ry1D64hhIlsMiONN-GZmUVR3_2wcOLmnHkPSaJ04-OzmbnjaiM/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
On the issue of racial diversity, "Father Knows Best" also proves to be ahead of its time and more complex than expected. Introduced into the series as a recurring character was the immigrant, Mexican-American gardener Frank Smith (Natividad Vacio), who becomes a close friend of the Anderson family. Frank's role in the series may have been designed as comedic, but his presence on the series helped challenge American notions of WASP complacency that existed at the time. In his most notable episode, the sixth season "The Gardener's Big Day," which aired October 19, 1959, Frank (who changed his name to "Frank Smith" when he emigrated from Mexico in an effort to embrace his new homeland), finds himself chosen at random by the city council of Springfield to act as a representative of all the citizens of the city at the dedication of a new park that will be attended by the governor of the state. The city council chose Frank believing, on the basis of his name, that he was Caucasian. Upon meeting him, they immediately begin efforts to try and get him to withdraw and replace him with another, less ethnic individual more to their liking. After hearing the Chairman of the city council refer to Frank as <i><b>"a broken down tramp,"</b></i> Jim Anderson admonishes the Chairman by pointing out, <i><b>"I know Frank very well. There's not a finer person in this town. He's completely honest...and his whole philosophy of life is built on trying to bring a little beauty into the world through his gardening and by trying to make people happy. How many other of your handpicked candidates can match that?...I'm not joking. As far as I'm concerned, you couldn't have made a better selection. He's not withdrawing...Frank Smith's name was drawn, and Frank Smith is going to be your man."</b></i> The Andersons later work to undermine the city council's efforts to manipulate Frank into leaving town during the ceremony to ensure that he will appear as originally intended. In its own modest way, this episode, and Frank's role in it, acknowledges how the face of America was ultimately changing and becoming more diverse, and that the Anderson's were ahead of their time because they recognized that this diversity was ultimately good for the country. Even though some aspects of the series, and the portrayal of Frank, might seem dated from a 2015 perspective, "Father Knows Best" should still be commended for being willing to produce an episode in 1959 that acknowledged the existence of racial prejudice and burgeoning ethnic diversity in the United States at a time when most movies and TV shows weren't willing to touch the subject. In this respect, I would argue that it was more courageous than anything in "The Cosby Show," which was produced in the 1980s and 1990s, decades after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s already helped to reshape the country.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdRstPvRXsO4b9YxUBoPjaOQHOwbvSqf3yWCx8Enem67YfxMdFVjzGj3HWaLZelKCaIaisx0ikQ1LkthKo37YaPaxHSAkX_XziYE7ZtX1RpK-oC0ZjuvGe3MVGkBnmPKAYcb_7KrovJc/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdRstPvRXsO4b9YxUBoPjaOQHOwbvSqf3yWCx8Enem67YfxMdFVjzGj3HWaLZelKCaIaisx0ikQ1LkthKo37YaPaxHSAkX_XziYE7ZtX1RpK-oC0ZjuvGe3MVGkBnmPKAYcb_7KrovJc/s400/2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One ironic aspect of "Father Knows Best," and Robert Young's portrayal of Jim Anderson, is the fact that it was never the intention of the creators of the show to depict an American family where the father dominated all aspects of his family's lives. According to the Washington Post's Tom Shales, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/robyoung.htm" target="_blank">when he wrote about Robert Young's death in 1998</a>, <i><b>"Young's original title for the series included a question mark. It was to be 'Father Knows Best?' because Young thought that amusingly ironic and said everyone knew mothers were the real heads of households anyway. But the sponsor, Kent Cigarettes, refused -- apparently finding the suggestion of doubt in the title to be potentially subversive -- and the deal would have fallen through if Young hadn't capitulated and agreed to drop the offending punctuation. Thus Jim Anderson was granted omniscience."</b></i> Despite Shales' assertion that the show characterized Jim Anderson as the leader of the family, I still maintain that it was still in name only. The examples I mentioned help to demonstrate that, despite Young's compromise, he still allowed other members of the family their own perspective so that the entire household was not always programmed to capitulate to Jim Anderson's whims. I think one aspect of why "Father Knows Best" proved to be more nuanced than expected was the differing political viewpoints of stars Robert Young and Jane Wyatt. In real life, Young was essentially conservative, and Wyatt was known as a staunch liberal Democrat. I suspect that Young and Wyatt's different perspectives eventually bled into the storyline and characters of their show, which is why "Father Knows Best" has a tendency to tread the line between affirming both traditional <i>and</i> progressive values, more so than other family sitcoms of the era.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJqxhaAYqjqcSTrXzDgjNu9aXZa5FPCP2wPlsa3JiX55MnMgEhSpr2vuwofOcIY0a7-c297csOQ9ew299mbNsFMtek5qle1yigCdXVRNA6BBE1hmCn1ZUhxXvl0hxqhG2Mys6APbxjAgI/s1600/38.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJqxhaAYqjqcSTrXzDgjNu9aXZa5FPCP2wPlsa3JiX55MnMgEhSpr2vuwofOcIY0a7-c297csOQ9ew299mbNsFMtek5qle1yigCdXVRNA6BBE1hmCn1ZUhxXvl0hxqhG2Mys6APbxjAgI/s400/38.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Another thing I find ironic about "Father Knows Best," and Robert Young himself, is that Young was very honest about himself, and the show, in several interviews he gave later on in life. He was also very open in discussing his battles with severe depression and alcoholism throughout his entire life and career. Young admitted that he always felt insecure even when he was a movie star at MGM in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly because the choicest roles went to other stars, and he always worried that he would be eventually dropped by the studio. It was even reported in the news in 1991 that Young attempted suicide at age 83. The suicide attempt was unsuccessful and Young lived until 1998. In his interviews, Robert Young always struck me as a sensitive, candid, and self-aware individual. I don't think he ever tried to make the world believe that he was Jim Anderson--or his later iconic TV character, Marcus Welby, M.D.--because of the humility and honesty he demonstrated while discussing his life and accomplishments. Young's humility also extends to his TV personas as well, where he made it clear that he did not intend for the idealized worlds of Jim Anderson, and Marcus Welby, to be role models for people to hold their own lives up for comparison. Young was just a highly skilled professional doing a job and trying to entertain people in an intelligent manner.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2Cc31lr4mljeEwK7CgIo-yw3lB10z1BL8HMzqk4WUefZAn34gWRra1iwHBokj_MDnP2fmPoAJYmadw8OjSWf9NUknZO7le8H1Ka_7dmZdIeOGDx8Rb3KvcK0tSb0cKL6RFp1ajMFjQc/s1600/36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2Cc31lr4mljeEwK7CgIo-yw3lB10z1BL8HMzqk4WUefZAn34gWRra1iwHBokj_MDnP2fmPoAJYmadw8OjSWf9NUknZO7le8H1Ka_7dmZdIeOGDx8Rb3KvcK0tSb0cKL6RFp1ajMFjQc/s400/36.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
However, because Young was so honest about what he perceived to be his own shortcomings--such as his depression, alcoholism, and suicide attempt--I think he did indeed help people. By allowing the public to know that he was a very fallible human being, I believe he helped encourage others to forgive themselves and seek help for the problems facing their lives. In later years, Young worked for the passage of 708 Illinois Tax Referndum, a property tax that supports mental health programs in his home state of Illinois. The Trinity Regional Health System in Rock Island, Illinois honored Young by naming the Robert Young Center for Community Mental Health after the actor. The Robert Young Center's <a href="https://www.unitypoint.org/quadcities/services-about-robert-young-center.aspx" target="_blank">website</a> states that in <i style="font-weight: bold;">"his later years, Young revealed that his public image was a direct contrast to his private life, which included a 30-year battle with alcoholism and depression. After he discovered that he was suffering from a chemical imbalance, Young began to speak publicly about the issues and problems related to alcohol and depression, and his personal struggles."</i> In so doing, by acknowledging his weaknesses and shortcomings, Robert Young proved to have genuine courage and strength. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2OByMZR0uVqTa9HUM7gbcE3G1fCLdnPIJJnlkNdm7ARGd4MqByN6YbIWedJOj9O46kkMfwPuXXsEHbNVy4prjF1FMYn30sPKNpv_eSwwU1ZylrOHanOoyiuuzkUXWksnT0Zmbm2Rnq_w/s1600/40.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2OByMZR0uVqTa9HUM7gbcE3G1fCLdnPIJJnlkNdm7ARGd4MqByN6YbIWedJOj9O46kkMfwPuXXsEHbNVy4prjF1FMYn30sPKNpv_eSwwU1ZylrOHanOoyiuuzkUXWksnT0Zmbm2Rnq_w/s400/40.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast to Robert Young's courage in facing his vulnerabilities in a public manner, Bill Cosby's personal shortcomings had to be dragged out in the open by the approximate 40 women accusing him. Especially in light of the details from his full deposition from 2005, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/arts/bill-cosby-deposition-reveals-calculated-pursuit-of-young-women-using-fame-drugs-and-deceit.html?_r=0" target="_blank">which the New York Times has obtained</a>, it's become apparent that Cosby has a history of shamelessly manipulating and exploiting women and has never been honest with the public about who he actually is. Even before the recent release of the deposition, I have always believed that the women who are accusing him were telling the truth because I do not see what they would have to gain by coming forward with their stories. As has been commented elsewhere, there is little chance that Cosby can face criminal prosecution and the likelihood that these women stand to gain financially from this matter looks slim. Moreover, I do not agree with people who allege that these women are looking for their 15 minutes of fame. We've become so desensitized by reality shows, where people are too willing to allow their private peccadilloes to be on display for personal gain, that we have come to believe that everyone is willing to put themselves on public display as long as it results in fame and fortune. I do not agree that the world is filled with people like the Kardashians, who are willing to allow their private issues to be broadcast publicly for the sake of entertainment. For months, I've been disgusted with how the public and the internet were filled with people too easily willing to call these women golddiggers, or worse. (I am grateful that someone with as high a profile as Judd Apatow continues to publicly support these women.) I never believed these women had ulterior motives for putting themselves out there because I do not believe anyone would subject themselves to having their lives scrutinized and judged by complete strangers if they did not feel a compelling purpose to do so.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJ-VCbNrFV2dqnAfAzjZ5IqK7o_AEG2lSfKW8GqktKRyOjlUiZdG9S8yCYf5TtVO4WBJhbUUAw3oOlzq8we09rLhJ7AMRaJNXEZ5Myh1PNzADYEkCnGrs45RIbfCzF1BZj3ePlFJ9vr0/s1600/46.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJ-VCbNrFV2dqnAfAzjZ5IqK7o_AEG2lSfKW8GqktKRyOjlUiZdG9S8yCYf5TtVO4WBJhbUUAw3oOlzq8we09rLhJ7AMRaJNXEZ5Myh1PNzADYEkCnGrs45RIbfCzF1BZj3ePlFJ9vr0/s400/46.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout these last few months, I have been disgusted by the news reports of Cosby receiving a standing ovation at his numerous stand-up comedy appearances. I have also been annoyed at how the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art refuses to take down their exhibit of Cosby-owned artwork (which I believe, despite their words otherwise, ultimately sends the message that they condone his behavior), that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce refuses to remove his Star from the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, and that there appears to be no recourse in rescinding the Presidential Medal of Freedom he received in 2002. By not making more of an effort to revoke the rewards Cosby has received that have been based on his pristine image, it creates an environment that could cause other victims of sex assault to assume that no one will believe them, that their attacker will continue to enjoy life, and is likely to discourage them from reporting the assaults perpetrated against them to authorities. I agree with those who feel that it's hypocritical of Cosby's defenders to urge the public not to pass judgment on him, when it's clear that his defenders have already passed judgment on the accusers. This whole incident has reminded me that, despite the advances society has made, misogyny is still alive and well in 2015.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicmKvMJMJDK_5rtFZ9JDX_CUiMX1kY3XANmLbLjn3Rs2c8vQn1EmMT-jvhVIqsxbFUmQydD4a47RaLkRM8ojvrKNChcAOg4TWHYLLc88MMy7Q44XC_f2xjb6p1RcqlD88JFGQ16DskzF8/s1600/42.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicmKvMJMJDK_5rtFZ9JDX_CUiMX1kY3XANmLbLjn3Rs2c8vQn1EmMT-jvhVIqsxbFUmQydD4a47RaLkRM8ojvrKNChcAOg4TWHYLLc88MMy7Q44XC_f2xjb6p1RcqlD88JFGQ16DskzF8/s400/42.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm also annoyed by how the issue of Cosby's guilt or innocence has been politicized, especially by conservatives like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who allege that Cosby is being targeted by the media due to allegedly being a conservative. The basis for this lies with Cosby's comments criticizing African Americans in his "pound cake" speech. As a result of such comments, some people assume Cosby to be a conservative, but I think such impressions are unfounded when you consider that Cosby has donated money to the political campaigns of President Barack Obama, as well as Sheila Jackson Lee and Jesse Jackson, Jr, and has even <a href="http://www.bet.com/news/politics/2013/03/06/bill-cosby-sounds-off-on-the-gop.html" target="_blank">recently given interviews</a> opining that members of the GOP are no better than segregationists. He is no conservative and I think the reason why that "pound cake" speech went over so poorly is that it was done from the perspective of someone speaking from their ivory tower, looking down by judging and condemning a large number of young African Americans, instead of being done from the perspective of a peer encouraging others similarly situated to strive for the best from one other. Whether Cosby's statements had any merit is not for me to decide, but I will say that no one likes having someone who is speaking from a comfortable position of privilege and success talk down to them condescendingly. In some ways, his "pound cake" speech is not much different in terms of being judgmental and critical towards young African Americans as his on-screen persona as Cliff Huxtable was towards his fictional family.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJKrD1hDGRMHeQF_l_2g_6PhT6FTFFBMuuEK8OZ2RNLGA8wtpjzg8a3HzTHL9KnVXSvLGIjwIjWwuLSKWJunuqhdugG4dUBDHlE6ebRj8hpKhFguiRTXVL2RqYWPizKr3aWTFeRRFtdw4/s1600/41.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJKrD1hDGRMHeQF_l_2g_6PhT6FTFFBMuuEK8OZ2RNLGA8wtpjzg8a3HzTHL9KnVXSvLGIjwIjWwuLSKWJunuqhdugG4dUBDHlE6ebRj8hpKhFguiRTXVL2RqYWPizKr3aWTFeRRFtdw4/s400/41.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As such, I think Beck and Limbaugh's defense of Cosby is completely misplaced, especially because Conservatives are the ones who are supposed to believe in justice, prosecuting offenders of violent crimes to the fullest extent of the law and ensuring the safety and well-being of victims of these offenses. Stereotypically, it's the Liberals who are the ones expected to make excuses and give criminals too much of the benefit of the doubt. In recent months, the baffling Conservative defense of both Cosby and the Duggar family have called such notions into question. For Beck and Limbaugh (and others like them) to politicize these rape allegations and ignore the stories of almost 40 women, because it conveniently conforms with their viewpoint that Conservatives are unfairly targeted by the media, undermines what ought to be the typically Conservative perspective on crime and punishment. But don't think I'm letting Liberals off the hook on this issue. I think Liberals, such as Whoopi Goldberg, who have defended Cosby were similarly misplaced. Judging from some Tweets and articles I've read online, I have the impression that more Liberal-thinking defenders believe that Cosby is being targeted because he is a prominent African American philanthropist, activist, and role model, and that the media's interest in this case is an attempt to divert attention away from incidents such as the Grand Jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri regarding the police shooting of Michael Brown.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV3OLj03XOTksxKc5zT2vOHI4lKWtJ3sk3hbDXaX0jpXk9m9INupGXMiY0nNnMbGSNi8w573hyphenhyphenwCmfSgB99Y2VASqG2gOm97RgXdK7xBIl7iHrCDhWx2JEJRfUspRRVWGurpLQYCVGFI/s1600/45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV3OLj03XOTksxKc5zT2vOHI4lKWtJ3sk3hbDXaX0jpXk9m9INupGXMiY0nNnMbGSNi8w573hyphenhyphenwCmfSgB99Y2VASqG2gOm97RgXdK7xBIl7iHrCDhWx2JEJRfUspRRVWGurpLQYCVGFI/s400/45.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I disagree with such perspectives because I believe the media's focus on Bill Cosby at the same time the Ferguson issue was percolating just happened to be a perfect storm where two unrelated incidents involving African Americans were coincidentally taking place at the same time. I tend to disbelieve that race is a factor in the media's attention with the Bill Cosby rape allegations because his celebrity status was what protected him from facing up to these claims for years. Because he was so beloved as the "perfect" American Dad, people didn't want to believe he could be capable of such heinous crimes. If he was indeed being singled-out due to his race, the scrutiny that is now being paid to these allegations would have happened a long time ago. In my opinion, neither Conservatives nor Liberals who are defending Cosby are on-point at all. In fact, if anything, the "pound cake" speech made people, who otherwise would have wanted to give Cosby the benefit of the doubt, see him as a hypocrite for condemning the criminal activity of a certain segment of the population, when he himself appears to have committed rape and sexual assault against dozens of women throughout the decades.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhgXMxrR3QGE0b2vsPv2psbB8cIyvzVx_GOKQ_IvSmhiDoWsqHIQQdvc3QilccSkZxbcYCWvp4XreFXIZGy7KZgHkO23TO1NKs5DNMzll_bTFAlsQwWpdhMTkMszRDEuVWVBztoWpx7g/s1600/21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhgXMxrR3QGE0b2vsPv2psbB8cIyvzVx_GOKQ_IvSmhiDoWsqHIQQdvc3QilccSkZxbcYCWvp4XreFXIZGy7KZgHkO23TO1NKs5DNMzll_bTFAlsQwWpdhMTkMszRDEuVWVBztoWpx7g/s400/21.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though it appears that I am making the case that Robert Young's Jim Anderson on "Father Knows Best" was a better "role model" than Bill Cosby's Cliff Huxtable character on "The Cosby Show," I actually don't believe in the notion that fictional characters, nor the actors who portray them, should serve as role models for the rest of society to emulate. While I acknowledge that art can be a reflection of our times, and provide commentary or shine light on a particular subject or situation, I have never felt that fictional characters in a TV show or movie should ever be regarded as role models. Similarly, we can like and respect a celebrity based on what we know of them, but we ultimately can't call them role models because we don't know them as well as the people around us. Sometimes a character in a show or movie, or the performer bringing them to life, may have positive qualities we admire and might like to emulate (as I have discussed and acknowledged numerous times in my blog) but it's foolish to put them on a pedestal and call them role models when it is the people in our actual lives, who make a positive contribution to the world around us, who should really be our role models. One reason I always despised "The Cosby Show" was due to the fact that, in the 1980s, I was a big fan of the 1980s prime time soaps. I was always told by people around me that the characters on those shows were morally bankrupt and set a bad example, and that an impressionable young person like myself should not be watching them. I was urged to watch "The Cosby Show" instead because that series purportedly reflected values that I ought to be emulating. I always resented being told what was "good" for me to watch, which is why I find it gratifyingly ironic that, decades later, the most prominent actors on "The Cosby Show" no longer reflect the positive image they once represented, and that the nighttime soap actors of the 1980s all appear to be more straightforward and solid in comparison. Never again will Bill Cosby be seen as a hero and, likewise, Phylicia Rashad deservedly lost the respect of countless people after she defended Cosby by calling into question the motives of the women accusing him. Despite the fact that I don't want to necessarily state that Robert Young or "Father Knows Best" were purportedly better role models than Bill Cosby or "The Cosby Show," I do think that both Young and "Father Knows Best" has proven to be more honest, consistent and straightforward with themselves than Cosby and his phony, presumptuous, and pretentious show ever was.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-66962631646747965602015-05-08T07:08:00.000-07:002015-05-08T07:16:21.910-07:00(Hopefully) Suggestions of a Feud Have Been Greatly Exaggerated by "The Rest" of Us...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK2IljuTzvDbpk-xWODYY_zQnO3DGcWZryOW35NeeK0df5LpuI57PrxRbvXtDJ5U8U57rtTlD0C4EG690yvCcFwaTU29oFMKGOpFrG2DmPkUlTU_CapaCvjaGKepl_0wiHhJLW2Z2cpu0/s1600/TinaDawnPhoto.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK2IljuTzvDbpk-xWODYY_zQnO3DGcWZryOW35NeeK0df5LpuI57PrxRbvXtDJ5U8U57rtTlD0C4EG690yvCcFwaTU29oFMKGOpFrG2DmPkUlTU_CapaCvjaGKepl_0wiHhJLW2Z2cpu0/s400/TinaDawnPhoto.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
Last night, <a href="http://www.capricecrane.com/" target="_blank">Caprice Crane</a>, the daughter of Tina Louise (and a witty racounteur in her own right on her Twitter feed <a href="https://twitter.com/capricecrane" target="_blank">@capricecrane</a>), emailed me that her mother had started an official Facebook page and encouraged me to share it with others. I Tweeted it last night and you can find it at this <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thetinalouise?pnref=story" target="_blank">link</a>. This morning, I noticed a heartening and touching exchange between Dawn Wells and Tina Louise on the page that hopefully dispels and undercuts any suggestion of a feud brewing between the ladies. See the screen capture below:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNx_oDquqGhR5PHAAgBhubpZlE1xaSO07zZkkhJJDEhfRUbVktriH5q3FOtDjXzrC9SWZCh30Dyo4cW_9Y9T8cdcErdKFIHarOqxGNXDCOtGiHoszlweQFNSKWRCCKXeJPl2_NQpI1XI/s1600/TinaDawnFacebook.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNx_oDquqGhR5PHAAgBhubpZlE1xaSO07zZkkhJJDEhfRUbVktriH5q3FOtDjXzrC9SWZCh30Dyo4cW_9Y9T8cdcErdKFIHarOqxGNXDCOtGiHoszlweQFNSKWRCCKXeJPl2_NQpI1XI/s400/TinaDawnFacebook.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I've already <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2014/02/i-still-pick-ginger-tina-louise-gilligans-island.html" target="_blank">blogged</a> in the past about my thoughts on the whole Ginger vs. Mary Ann debate. To my surprise, it's been one of my most controversial (for lack of a better word) pieces. It has evoked some genuinely passionate responses from defenders of both Dawn Wells and Tina Louise. In my personal opinion, I get the impression that neither Wells nor Louise is interested in having any sort bad blood brewing between them, and would prefer to focus on the positive aspects of their association with "Gilligan's Island." Sometimes, despite all the gossip you hear, I think all this talk about a feud has been at least partially fueled and perpetuated by "the rest" (pun intended) of us passionate fans who have taken a strong stance in the on-going "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" debate. As a fan of "Gilligan's Island" who hates the Ginger vs. Mary Ann debate (because I think they're both great, just in different ways), I look forward to seeing what Tina Louise shares on her Facebook page and, even more importantly, look forward to seeing further exchanges online between Louise and Dawn Wells. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-55603435428216517132014-10-26T12:55:00.001-07:002014-11-21T17:34:44.341-08:00Ludicrous Headline of the Week - "Morgan Fairchild: Badass Foreign Policy Wonk"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XqI45hlJtn3NVC2j1-PulDNCyljPlOxU5L2c-BybChTAUX-Sx2e0GoqKw1TwpeziV8YSojhf6bg_JDOaI84EMtDtbPnYrbc-q7s3aG6YD6ZGR630dmVjDcZKMbx16zNiTzC6EUeythw/s1600/MF5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XqI45hlJtn3NVC2j1-PulDNCyljPlOxU5L2c-BybChTAUX-Sx2e0GoqKw1TwpeziV8YSojhf6bg_JDOaI84EMtDtbPnYrbc-q7s3aG6YD6ZGR630dmVjDcZKMbx16zNiTzC6EUeythw/s1600/MF5.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I read with interest and amusement <i>The Daily Beast</i>'s piece earlier this week titled, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/20/morgan-fairchild-badass-foreign-policy-wonk.html" target="_blank">"Morgan Fairchild: Badass Foreign Policy Wonk."</a> (To borrow a phrase from the author of the piece, Asawin Suebsaeng, <i>"I sh-t you not."</i> That is indeed its title and thesis.) I have acknowledged <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/affected-acting-activism-morgan-fairchild.html" target="_blank">in the past</a> my general disdain of Fairchild's efforts to paint herself as an intellectual and political activist. Since Fairchild has never really projected warmth or humanity, onscreen or off, I have always questioned her sincerity on such matters. She's barely sincere or believable in her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiV9-ZjdjK4" target="_blank">recent TV commercials</a> trying to hawk pre-paid burial plans, so it's even less credible when she tries to sell herself as an authority on foreign policy. It strikes me as an effort to improve her public image because she knows she'll never be respected in her own, proper field of acting. Even though the piece makes a case for reevaluating Fairchild as some sort of foreign policy expert, it never does enough to establish what exactly are Fairchild's credentials to be considered as such.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9nfzzZyVwhjevQ_pmSSVidn7BcMB4AUG5qrB6mJftzItpHU6OYvHbxNBUrXuYuGj10zrwHJUT6L7zwhpQokF6gASCjZVgG6MeqmBtL_uKuHHlTzt3IkswqwSk5kZ4bOBsB3EJZYV2oM/s1600/MF2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9nfzzZyVwhjevQ_pmSSVidn7BcMB4AUG5qrB6mJftzItpHU6OYvHbxNBUrXuYuGj10zrwHJUT6L7zwhpQokF6gASCjZVgG6MeqmBtL_uKuHHlTzt3IkswqwSk5kZ4bOBsB3EJZYV2oM/s1600/MF2.JPG" height="400" width="271" /></a></div>
<br />
While I allow that Fairchild appears to have enough knowledge to have impressed the people quoted in the piece, who share their positive impressions of Fairchild, I am still curious to know what exactly are her qualifications to be called a "Badass Foreign Policy Wonk." Even though she has testified before Congress and participated in panel discussions with esteemed scholars and intellectuals, all of which she has lovingly documented on <a href="http://www.morganfairchild.com/political.htm" target="_blank">her own official website</a>, that sort of activity seems to be <i>de rigueur</i> with being a celebrity these days. What I want to know is, what degrees (Associates, Bachelors, Masters or Ph.D.?) does she have? If she has any degrees, what subjects are they for? What scholarly pieces has she written? What organized research studies has she spearheaded? What think tanks and foreign policy institutions is she formally affiliated with in an official capacity?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEior3G1hXhMQ4n0KgDvVttbX5128rgoCA-x1g2kKDecWSc35CFvnqzqwE0uqxtg17t20Dnl-mPrIS4GwJwr9BhNrb_sQziFGiI6VNqnmkv46d4blnJJUu69TJTSy9_JkpZ29HPC62rwyIk/s1600/MF7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEior3G1hXhMQ4n0KgDvVttbX5128rgoCA-x1g2kKDecWSc35CFvnqzqwE0uqxtg17t20Dnl-mPrIS4GwJwr9BhNrb_sQziFGiI6VNqnmkv46d4blnJJUu69TJTSy9_JkpZ29HPC62rwyIk/s1600/MF7.JPG" height="400" width="385" /></a></div>
<br />
Fairchild mentions having taken anthropology classes at UCLA in the early 1980s, during the time she was filming the night time soap "Flamingo Road," but she never discloses if she earned a degree for her studies, or whether the classes were taken for a degree program, or for UCLA Extension (where most classes allow for open enrollment so that virtually anyone can attend as long as they pay the requisite fee). The <i>Daily Beast</i> piece also overstates her celebrity credentials by touting her roles in the original CBS "Dallas" (where she guest starred in one episode in 1978), and "Mork and Mindy" (where she appeared in only three episodes in 1978-79). It's like referring to a temporary employee or consultant as if they were an executive of an organization.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcqoYNFkyVnRgsOv4sgDKNlHlL_TkQaFJhf2eQgw5z55n_uxibZPh9TNrc1MRQTbXFTci-eMhGanRZQnuKVsP9gc-xPdh6QJZNzfqSwnDX_Xo7zV6fk20bZ5p41tBm93zGw5s6YlR2BM/s1600/MF10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcqoYNFkyVnRgsOv4sgDKNlHlL_TkQaFJhf2eQgw5z55n_uxibZPh9TNrc1MRQTbXFTci-eMhGanRZQnuKVsP9gc-xPdh6QJZNzfqSwnDX_Xo7zV6fk20bZ5p41tBm93zGw5s6YlR2BM/s1600/MF10.JPG" height="400" width="255" /></a></div>
<br />
To establish her credibility, the author mentions her tour of war-torn Bosnia in the mid-1990s while she was there making a film. However, she wasn't in Bosnia, nor taken on a tour of the region, because she was working in an official capacity with any government or non-profit organizations. Her celebrity status as an actress starring on location in a film, not any official title or function, was what gave her access to scouting the area. While her curiosity appears to be genuine, what did Fairchild do with the knowledge she purportedly gained from this experience? Did she publish pieces in scholarly journals analyzing the situation, or use her celebrity status to help bring attention and perspective to the destruction and human suffering she was witness to? Did she ever return to Bosnia, to continue her study and understanding of the situation there, or was that her only trip to that region?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fyiL_OEAzXj6v9_oSDaON2wNsqXz3dIeNgiVSI2JE80hHArB8CBbTn1zVrMdCUzBjA41yRU6qQ7NvSlpBNPQ5GtjEU0R77zQyNCC6-fdSynhJfett5vsqkkoRQydLNpNvXwfJ9pSoeM/s1600/MF8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fyiL_OEAzXj6v9_oSDaON2wNsqXz3dIeNgiVSI2JE80hHArB8CBbTn1zVrMdCUzBjA41yRU6qQ7NvSlpBNPQ5GtjEU0R77zQyNCC6-fdSynhJfett5vsqkkoRQydLNpNvXwfJ9pSoeM/s1600/MF8.JPG" height="363" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The piece also mentions that Fairchild visited East Germany in the late 1980s before the Berlin Wall fell, and says the experience was <i><b>"very scary"</b></i> but I wonder if this trip occurred while she was in West Germany making the film "Midnight Cop" (1988)? Moreover, she mentions visiting Israel and Palestine around 1986 (most likely during the making of Cannon Films' low-budget "Sleeping Beauty," <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093993/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2" target="_blank">which was shot in Israel in May 1986</a> and briefly released in 1987) and makes the pat comment, <i><b>"It was interesting to me to watch the Palestinian movement with Arafat, because he didn't seem able to govern...He could be a good terrorist leader...but he couldn't govern."</b></i> Aside from these brief blips, Fairchild offers little in the way of substantive insight and analysis as to what she witnessed during these excursions. What did she base her opinion on Arafat's governing abilities upon? (And if her trips to East Germany, as well as Israel and Palestine, occurred because she happened to be on location making a movie, it affirms my point that her status as an actress and celebrity, and not any so-called foreign policy expertise, are her true calling cards.) If she is going to lay the foundation for her street credentials on these experiences, she has to give us more than that.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZJ6nSon2UwRthKpu6_OllaFNgk8inAU-k9sJSxrrbKpMpomHUIANAtfuE9dydiAjtAXma1d_m8GxDfot3MNiA3pi1mqYOiqPGKC8K7Z1Jw67Kx0e1FSy16qvjpC-7DmP75M5LQc1Tonc/s1600/MF14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZJ6nSon2UwRthKpu6_OllaFNgk8inAU-k9sJSxrrbKpMpomHUIANAtfuE9dydiAjtAXma1d_m8GxDfot3MNiA3pi1mqYOiqPGKC8K7Z1Jw67Kx0e1FSy16qvjpC-7DmP75M5LQc1Tonc/s1600/MF14.JPG" height="400" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
The <i>Daily Beast</i> piece links to a <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Zgu9QCTT_SwC&lpg=PA51&ots=L9-W-hhHMF&dq=croatian%20bodyguard%20morgan%20fairchild&pg=PA54#v=onepage&q=croatian%20bodyguard%20morgan%20fairchild&f=false" target="_blank">1995 <i>Spy Magazine</i> article</a> that covers the making of the movie Fairchild was working on in Bosnia. The author of the <i>Spy</i> piece glowingly describes Fairchild's <i><b>"admittedly impressive grasp of the conflict,"</b></i> but the piece contains little in the way of substantive quotes from Fairchild to underscore this assertion. Instead, the reader is inundated with nearly a dozen photos of Fairchild posed fetchingly with uniformed military personnel, as well as standing in front of the ruins of bombed structures and communities. In one photo, Fairchild appears to be solemnly praying while attending a Croatian funeral. Nevertheless, in these photos, Fairchild rarely appears to be substantively interacting with the people from the region she has come to observe. She seems totally disconnected with what is happening around her, so that she comes across as little more than a tourist, or a fashion model on a photo shoot, safely ensconced in her ivory tower. Her hair and makeup and attire in these photos are as glamorous and attractively manipulated as ever. Fairchild appears completely conscious of the camera in all of these photos, and makes herself the center of attention, not the people nor the situation swirling around her.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOxBfa2jCkakcwYU_FGNz9cA8CCmzAvld1JMDq04f0EIuMEzfbJnDBFGIi6B0-MbD8E5GzQ3So-6q2Dn4UM2uKSUdUvnAmxTUXBbxMKULhpdSCw9E7T1pLGs597v8MUviO39OyFEBmpg/s1600/MF11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOxBfa2jCkakcwYU_FGNz9cA8CCmzAvld1JMDq04f0EIuMEzfbJnDBFGIi6B0-MbD8E5GzQ3So-6q2Dn4UM2uKSUdUvnAmxTUXBbxMKULhpdSCw9E7T1pLGs597v8MUviO39OyFEBmpg/s1600/MF11.JPG" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In contrast, take a quick <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mia+farrow+africa&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pvtMVL6JEs7hsASx6YH4DQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ" target="_blank">Google search</a> of Mia Farrow from her extensive work as a humanitarian activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in Africa. Farrow appears totally unaware of her own looks and physical appearance (often wearing her hair in pigtails, with no makeup, wearing jeans and T-shirts) as she joyfully interacts with the people and children she is there to work with and help. The photos of Farrow seem natural and spontaneous, with Farrow seemingly unaware of the lens focused on her, in contrast to the photos of Fairchild in Bosnia. Mia Farrow is clearly taking a hands-on approach to try and bring attention to the suffering she is actively working to combat, while Morgan Fairchild appears to be a detached observer, overly impressed with having access to situations that the normal, average, every-day individual who isn't a celebrity would never be able to experience. I believe it when Farrow is engaged in this work in an effort to try to help improve the situation of people around the world with little in the way of power or influence, especially since she has put her money where her mouth is and adopted children from around the world and devoted her life to giving them a good home (the situation involving her adopted daughter Soon-Yi not withstanding). Even though Morgan Fairchild claims to <i>The Daily Beast</i> that <b><i>"I think it's important that people know what's going on in the rest of the world, and not become isolationist,"</i></b> she appears to be dabbling in activism and foreign policy as part of an elaborate publicity campaign to enhance her public image as a celebrity.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMK6UuFrRW6MdPfCOz45azeznbssM9cOSvyOaXIuc3hrm0G7fctia8emP2Oqc0ewGk-D1wHbDpGMppLB7FmPUt33Qo6GaGE9v1n9jZJ0lgRNJwNb4v3ZSNDclfFRnqFEvqnZNDHe5uWFk/s1600/MF4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMK6UuFrRW6MdPfCOz45azeznbssM9cOSvyOaXIuc3hrm0G7fctia8emP2Oqc0ewGk-D1wHbDpGMppLB7FmPUt33Qo6GaGE9v1n9jZJ0lgRNJwNb4v3ZSNDclfFRnqFEvqnZNDHe5uWFk/s1600/MF4.JPG" height="270" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/affected-acting-activism-morgan-fairchild.html" target="_blank">I've said before</a>, Fairchild sounds like a shallow, gushing starlet--demonstrating absolutely no insight or humility whatsoever--anytime she discusses her trip to Bosnia. As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36732-2005Feb18.html" target="_blank">she told the Washington Post</a> in 2005, Fairchild recalls how she <b><i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">"got to go into . . . Serb-held territory, and stuff like that, which is always kind of fun...And so one day I said, 'You know, if you're going anywhere that I would be allowed to go, a refugee camp or anything like that, I would love to go.' And (the American ambassador) was very sweet and called up and said, 'Well, you know, I'm going over into this no-man's land today, there's a big meeting of generals and stuff, and we can go to a refugee camp, and I can show you a couple of cities.'...And this Polish U.N. guy comes over, and he speaks English -- 'Oh, Morgan Fairchild, we have your series in our country -- what are you doing here?' And all these press people, because it was a meeting of generals -- 'Morgan, what are you doing here?'...</i><i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">a lot of the other actors, when we're in Zagreb, you know, they'll be at the casinos every night, and I'm hanging out with the war correspondents to find out what's <i>really </i>going on. </i></b><i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>So you may not have seen the movie. I had a good time making the movie because <i>I learned a lot.</i>"</b> </i>Anyone who can use terms such as "fun" and "good time" in the face of human suffering while describing her experiences visiting refugee camps in Bosnia should not be validated the way <i>The Daily Beast</i> has attempted to do.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOg5VvKhvQaFgZkRy32r45Vr4ZNPI3n6E1I6IhmNxHrvqLWq7Zkkn2CIpwwkCgcjHIq8llpSvvhrWSZRG3aEh6hozb_TpRu-nEVH6vbeVUt9Yz1y4Ibet1L47vwbQ2uUO5i41oJB3cK0A/s1600/MF6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOg5VvKhvQaFgZkRy32r45Vr4ZNPI3n6E1I6IhmNxHrvqLWq7Zkkn2CIpwwkCgcjHIq8llpSvvhrWSZRG3aEh6hozb_TpRu-nEVH6vbeVUt9Yz1y4Ibet1L47vwbQ2uUO5i41oJB3cK0A/s1600/MF6.JPG" height="400" width="261" /></a></div>
<br />
It's one thing to be characterized as an "activist" advocating for a cause and expressing one's opinions (which is certainly within her right), it's another to build a case that someone is a foreign policy expert or "wonk" on the basis of being well-read and continually Tweeting articles covering a wide range of issues. Anyone can Tweet articles that interest them. The Twitter feeds mentioned in the <i>Daily Beast</i> article simply demonstrates Fairchild's purportedly wide range of interests, but offers very little in terms of original thought or insight. As I've said before on this blog, I always feel that Fairchild has so many "interests," she doesn't have time to be genuinely sincere or serious about anything. I look at her Tweets and I go, "So what?" Social media is a great tool to work with, but it has to be accompanied with a sound strategy for it to be of any real substance. Throughout the <i>Daily Beast</i> piece, Fairchild discusses the issues she is interested in, but the impression you are left with has little to do with the subjects themselves, than with the novelty that Fairchild appears to be interested in them. There are a lot of knowledgeable, deserving, unheralded people in Washington, DC who have spent their education and careers devoted to studying foreign policy in a full time capacity, people who are much more accomplished in this field than Fairchild could ever hope to be. However, the chances of a long <i>Daily Beast</i> profile ever being written about them is probably slim unless they also happen to be glamorous blonde starlets.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjss1A772nBLbhRGyslNq_wKepZh8JC4Moo98o98K3xuJPzg9P1t_d6GHyjK0X0_fTYgslirz68jj-Mx7btWllXKx6poZEmAzQUFpFe7XfRGtbrXvGhP4d4XWEBCcrPWXn-T6rz2oqliq8/s1600/MF9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjss1A772nBLbhRGyslNq_wKepZh8JC4Moo98o98K3xuJPzg9P1t_d6GHyjK0X0_fTYgslirz68jj-Mx7btWllXKx6poZEmAzQUFpFe7XfRGtbrXvGhP4d4XWEBCcrPWXn-T6rz2oqliq8/s1600/MF9.JPG" height="400" width="308" /></a></div>
<br />
I think the reason why the <i>Daily Beast</i> writer who penned this piece, as well as the various people he quotes (such as David Corn of <i>Mother Jones</i>, Mark Hosenball of <i>Newsweek</i> and Ambassadors Peter Galbraith, who allowed her to tour Bosnia, and Samantha Power, who wrote the <i>Spy Magazine</i> piece) are impressed with Fairchild is because they are bowled over at the novelty of an actress who appears to be intelligent and well-read. The quotes attributed to each of them, and how they are blown away by Fairchild's knowledge, comes across as condescending to actresses in general, and Fairchild in particular. There are a lot of actresses who are indeed intelligent, well-educated people capable of doing more than playing characters other than themselves. However, many of them do not try to actively paint themselves as someone who is indispensable in the field of foreign policy. I'd be a lot more impressed with Fairchild if she stopped being a dabbler in these areas and really put her money where her mouth is and gave up her show business life to completely devote herself to the subject areas she claims to have a passion for. But she hasn't, probably because she'd lose whatever so-called "clout" she has.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVHg0XeaBlz4jDIw9pzW5agcAjwEj5yCfj1ABR2gp2FjNhd0EVz7p1SdoM_iPTgw8ysvZoxilNB7HC1m9L_x1pgunf0FauTcRRpEYqHJ1TV9T2bZY-iKXfNTDMVueKf1qE_V1sFr3PzI/s1600/MF13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVHg0XeaBlz4jDIw9pzW5agcAjwEj5yCfj1ABR2gp2FjNhd0EVz7p1SdoM_iPTgw8ysvZoxilNB7HC1m9L_x1pgunf0FauTcRRpEYqHJ1TV9T2bZY-iKXfNTDMVueKf1qE_V1sFr3PzI/s1600/MF13.JPG" height="315" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In my opinion, Fairchild wants to have it both ways--she wants to continue her glamorous acting career, while at the same time hob nob with the DC intelligentsia. Fairchild is particularly laughable about her motives when she expresses false humility and says <i><b>"I don't like to throw names around"</b></i> at being asked what elected officials in Washington she has associated with. She doesn't have to. She already dropped the names of Dianne Feinstein, as well as Al Gore and Alan Cranston, with the <i>Daily Beast</i>, and her <a href="http://www.morganfairchild.com/political.htm" target="_blank">own official website</a> shamelessly posts photos of her with political and news figures in a thinly-veiled attempt to have their esteem and luster rub off on her. Morgan Fairchild hasn't put her money where her mouth is and given up her acting career like other actresses who have found a higher calling, such as Dolores Hart (who became a nun); Constance McCashin (who became a psychologist); Shelley Hack (who worked as a media consultant in pre- and post-conflict countries and produced the first ever televised presidential debates in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as worked as a registration and polling station supervisor in that country--she did more than just tour Bosnia like Fairchild did); Chris Noel (who runs a shelter for homeless American veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq & Afghanistan Wars); Nancy Allen (who is now the Executive Director of <a href="http://www.wespark.org/" target="_blank">weSPARK Cancer Support Center</a>, a non-profit organization in Southern California dedicated to providing free-of-charge assistance and resources to cancer patients and their families); and Fairchild's former "Flamingo Road" colleague, <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2014/06/since-youve-gone-cristina-raines-interview.html" target="_blank">Cristina Raines</a>, (who is now a registered nurse caring for dialysis patients), to name a few. They walk the walk, while Morgan Fairchild continues to talk the talk.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFRn6lHQTHzewtE8M8ADyXGfBOY5ZFVDh61X1GC6Ko7gY7DwV728E8U5fXzHgHgiO-CFJ6dATa7dF20ybnd_kwmyCpCfOmmiRB1LbMYNZMfDwDHaFIqF4SEYkyPPzrblrx9AUOCA4RLs/s1600/MF12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFRn6lHQTHzewtE8M8ADyXGfBOY5ZFVDh61X1GC6Ko7gY7DwV728E8U5fXzHgHgiO-CFJ6dATa7dF20ybnd_kwmyCpCfOmmiRB1LbMYNZMfDwDHaFIqF4SEYkyPPzrblrx9AUOCA4RLs/s1600/MF12.JPG" height="227" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I think the <i>Daily Beast</i> piece is representative of the worst aspects of our celebrity obsessed culture, and reflects the privilege and entitlement of starlets like Morgan Fairchild, rather than a genuine demonstration of a unique and substantial human being. The quotes from the people testifying on her behalf only serve to prove that even intelligent men and women can become dazzled in the presence of a glamorous, blonde starlet. I'm the last person in the world to pooh-pooh the importance of actors, stars, and celebrities in our culture. They provide a certain escape and distraction from the mundane aspects of our daily lives that cannot be underestimated. I also acknowledge how a celebrity activist can bring attention to an issue that needs to be addressed, such as how Elizabeth Taylor's commendable activism helped raise money--and bring attention and understanding--to sufferers of AIDS and the efforts to fight the disease. However, in discussing her AIDS activism, Taylor never made herself the central protagonist, but merely spoke of herself as a conduit to help bring the appropriate parties and resources together. The less-than-humble Morgan Fairchild never fails to drop names nor overstate her importance on all the issues she dabbles in. Personally, I would rather get my news and information from a proven individual who has both the intelligence and, perhaps more relevantly, the credentials to be able to discuss and analyze an issue. It's dangerous to give credence to a shameless, self-promoting dilettante on issues of vital importance, especially when the article which attempts to give her validity provides no genuine analysis as to whether she has any business to be dabbling in these affairs. <i>The Daily Beast</i>'s "Morgan Fairchild: Badass Foreign Policy Wonk" isn't a piece of real journalism. It's a press release. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-43082224101982745342014-09-13T06:46:00.001-07:002014-09-13T06:46:56.122-07:00Lois Chiles remembers Richard Kiel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLvbI8bJgLVMY6QBqqZEWCO6_OMayCUkRB4fI9fIJynUUZ1gLeeHaM4_3TkotVc-9uie58PHisKQg0w4nERu0rz2v0TD8smaYt4iUwYqYIT2Y8NqCQXM5Vl6Vjk9Z4GA7WQ_YESh6YtvA/s1600/LoisChilesRichardKiel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLvbI8bJgLVMY6QBqqZEWCO6_OMayCUkRB4fI9fIJynUUZ1gLeeHaM4_3TkotVc-9uie58PHisKQg0w4nERu0rz2v0TD8smaYt4iUwYqYIT2Y8NqCQXM5Vl6Vjk9Z4GA7WQ_YESh6YtvA/s1600/LoisChilesRichardKiel.JPG" height="400" width="322" /></a></div>
<br />
In the wake of his passing earlier this week, actress Lois Chiles, a friend of this blog, asked me to share with the public her memories of her friend and colleague Richard Kiel, who she worked with on the James Bond film "Moonraker" (1979), where she played NASA Scientist & CIA Agent Dr. Holly Goodhead, and he played the classic Bond villain "Jaws": <br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><i><b>"Richard Kiel was wise, kind, and a true gentleman. He was a joy to work with and to know. Though I only worked with him on MOONRAKER, the Bond family often reunites for various events and therefore Richard Kiel remained a part of my life long after filming ended. He was a family man so the "Bond family" suited him perfectly and he took great care of us. He will be missed by all!!"</b></i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-32024251470058439412014-07-01T08:10:00.000-07:002014-07-02T05:41:37.733-07:00Rediscovering and Reuniting Veteran Los Angeles-area "News Geezers"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRur_UeKx7-gHWqyHeunTcKSKYFggPJ6fR81RbQW_t1gP_SkFJBfqmgqhYGnfKso_efnl1lrp0Xe00E6ix8a9G7f15h6bgzbpvPE1SL-RwGEmmQh6cpqXLBeJbP37g6zKBCo9eJUYIwM/s1600/29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRur_UeKx7-gHWqyHeunTcKSKYFggPJ6fR81RbQW_t1gP_SkFJBfqmgqhYGnfKso_efnl1lrp0Xe00E6ix8a9G7f15h6bgzbpvPE1SL-RwGEmmQh6cpqXLBeJbP37g6zKBCo9eJUYIwM/s1600/29.jpg" height="353" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, I loved almost all the local television news programs, particularly KTLA Channel 5's "News at Ten" and the ones on KNBC Channel 4. The various reporters and journalists who worked for the LA stations were, as I recall, very articulate and detailed-oriented individuals. They provided a level of intelligence and nuance to their news coverage which helped fuel an innate curiosity for the world that I still carry with me to this day. Whenever I am back in Los Angeles on vacation and watch the current local news programs, I am continually dismayed at what I see. While I think that there are still good journalists such as Gayle Anderson of KTLA Channel 5 (Anderson has that innate ability to effortlessly balance stories concerning community events with more serious, substantive fare and give each type of story their due), it's apparent to even a casual observer that the quality of broadcast journalism appears to have deteriorated in the decade since I have left my hometown.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB83jzajXMPthybUsoc4BtuNDMtpWeg6QHoNGBoRB6FYeevdVrvP9cGtv3-8XuDjagWfqvWphklSpzzRksfRzItynAhPoUCLjdhfkaW5yUNX3IypU4elgMq_4J3m0AFGwDDvHvplmDeVY/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB83jzajXMPthybUsoc4BtuNDMtpWeg6QHoNGBoRB6FYeevdVrvP9cGtv3-8XuDjagWfqvWphklSpzzRksfRzItynAhPoUCLjdhfkaW5yUNX3IypU4elgMq_4J3m0AFGwDDvHvplmDeVY/s1600/5.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
It would be easy to snicker and make glib comments that the news in Los Angeles is now reported by inexperienced fashion models getting by on looks and charm. However, that would be unfair because I am sure that the individual journalists and reporters currently covering Southern California are themselves intelligent people who are dedicated to doing good work. I think the problem lies in the fact that current news programs appear to focus on providing a superficial, thumbnail overview of the day's events, as opposed to trying to provide viewers with substantive coverage and analysis. In my opinion, the tone of the news is now so light-hearted that it comes to the point of trivializing what is being covered. I never get the impression that any story is given a sufficient amount of time to allow the story at hand to be given its due. This a very sad development because I always felt that the broadcast journalists covering Southern California in previous generations were superb professionals who set a high standard that the current generation should aspire to.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1EYbOXI1aWvk2E22hxM0aTJ0HqZxaVqJIlAKLp5lzVPZ0M4o11Iu0bdheKMwDp9K4v41BomswuR9umghk8XghnGPDuc1WDusL60Rxl5p-wOVSzKmVTBhRUny076ZGsc0JT70FqSfxllU/s1600/31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1EYbOXI1aWvk2E22hxM0aTJ0HqZxaVqJIlAKLp5lzVPZ0M4o11Iu0bdheKMwDp9K4v41BomswuR9umghk8XghnGPDuc1WDusL60Rxl5p-wOVSzKmVTBhRUny076ZGsc0JT70FqSfxllU/s1600/31.jpg" height="400" width="286" /></a></div>
<br />
When I was in high school, I spent one summer working on a political campaign for a ballot initiative that would be voted on that Fall. It was, as I recall, a school funding and accountability initiative. The campaign had the unique idea of hiring young high school students to help develop and produce TV campaign commercials promoting the ballot initiative. The commercial I worked on was made in a small studio in Burbank. A few days before filming the commercial, we sent out press releases to local news stations and newspapers across the Southland inviting them to attend the shoot. It was an opportunity to help publicize the ballot initiative's campaign and messaging. I remember, on the morning of the shoot, seeing a news van for KNBC Channel 4 pull up to our studio. To my amazement, KNBC's distinguished political editor Saul Halpert emerged from the van with his crew. He introduced himself, thanked us for notifying him with our press release, and went about covering the production of the campaign commercial and interviewing the personnel involved. For some reason, Mr. Halpert asked to interview me on camera.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv28k6nZ63vJnpMDmOVeX7n1n0uCFQqj6M5glpR5_QvpZxMHGkHI0edpqSEBEWO81O5PvF3oPeDXRpn6TRajYMOl92keq73y5a3-_YaIE6F7lrO0JWQpjKsxImKNkqVh7CL_y5iU-Pnps/s1600/28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv28k6nZ63vJnpMDmOVeX7n1n0uCFQqj6M5glpR5_QvpZxMHGkHI0edpqSEBEWO81O5PvF3oPeDXRpn6TRajYMOl92keq73y5a3-_YaIE6F7lrO0JWQpjKsxImKNkqVh7CL_y5iU-Pnps/s1600/28.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I still remember Mr. Halpert's kindness and graciousness, and how he put me at ease when he interviewed me on camera. He was polite and funny and immediately likeable. I think I made him laugh because I told him about his colleague at Channel 4 who did a story covering the diversity at my high school the year before. I explained that my fellow students and I intensely disliked his colleague because we felt her news story grossly misrepresented some of the people she had interviewed. I told Mr. Halpert that she was the rare KNBC reporter who I didn't like. I think my anecdote intrigued and amused him. Anyway, I never saw Mr. Halpert's news segment concerning our campaign commercial, but I heard from others that it turned out very well. It doesn't surprise me that it was a good story because Saul Halpert was one of the best reporters covering the Southland for decades. If it was good, it was due to his high standards of professionalism, it had nothing to do with me having appeared in the story!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihD9pGueSxSpLYswFGjD6XtBejeOaXClir0qbMIw1m7BDgQFEjgztGNGiZFd0C4mmd6ptx6-5WfBElIAA0GEfsrq4YywEZkzp-c7uegmjGv2AJ_URPNuGSwwwxOd1a4VGI5PoobABc8xs/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihD9pGueSxSpLYswFGjD6XtBejeOaXClir0qbMIw1m7BDgQFEjgztGNGiZFd0C4mmd6ptx6-5WfBElIAA0GEfsrq4YywEZkzp-c7uegmjGv2AJ_URPNuGSwwwxOd1a4VGI5PoobABc8xs/s1600/1.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQADWMG3fAZww6IDBU7xmD2KJ3Ek7SOyVi9VAREQaelV0fpHsd0lB8_D2OSbWIld2HnU5wgR6uvANubSyGa5L154yvTtPfcjkPgOD4Oq0LtV2dZR5iPY8MogrSjOzHBfRIImpn-s8Iogg/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQADWMG3fAZww6IDBU7xmD2KJ3Ek7SOyVi9VAREQaelV0fpHsd0lB8_D2OSbWIld2HnU5wgR6uvANubSyGa5L154yvTtPfcjkPgOD4Oq0LtV2dZR5iPY8MogrSjOzHBfRIImpn-s8Iogg/s1600/11.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Through the years, I wondered how Mr. Halpert was doing and what he was up to. As I understand it, he retired from KNBC in 1989 and became a freelance lecturer and media consultant. I always wanted to speak with him again so I could thank him for his kindness and graciousness to me, and how he made a great impression on me. A couple of months ago, when I was Googling his name, I stumbled upon videos and photos documenting a series of luncheons that have taken place in Southern California on a quarterly basis in the last three or four years entitled "News Geezers." Organized by retired TV news writer and producer Bob Tarlau, who has worked at KTLA Channel 5, KABC Channel 7, KNXT Channel 2, and KTTV Channel 11 at different stages of his career, the "News Geezers" luncheons reunites personnel who worked both in front of the camera, and behind the scenes, in local Los Angeles television news. The participants at these luncheons rekindle and reaffirm old friendships, share stories and anecdotes from their careers, and discuss the current state of both print and broadcast journalism in Los Angeles. The "News Geezers" luncheons are not simply limited to people working in TV news. As I understand it, newspaper and radio journalists also attend, as well as Producers, crew members, and other vital personnel who helped bring excellence to broadcast journalism in Los Angeles. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoN4SMOyJZZXUcUOJwUKMe4h1rbBXTIlu3SUD3ucH6l-nmCs02orwz_YUESC0TXnmEK0610C9UMTOosrWT1S4x4GR-NN_vYL3iMYd_AWugXm9iMyfSvnbIfJj9NIbxJO7j5ngeCAkB24/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoN4SMOyJZZXUcUOJwUKMe4h1rbBXTIlu3SUD3ucH6l-nmCs02orwz_YUESC0TXnmEK0610C9UMTOosrWT1S4x4GR-NN_vYL3iMYd_AWugXm9iMyfSvnbIfJj9NIbxJO7j5ngeCAkB24/s1600/24.jpg" height="327" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJsbLcxtaeV9l1fLTCwOrdNTcIPJfcdHGMiPzCOX0LApwvN1vP6YHwFd6QX4We5ThLl4BSqRrl5ZfFCn-Jqdflj-m0P-ZonE708ZPVLu0S5WS1C29MsK6ky-Nj64FdCP94y_7SRmfP-bE/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJsbLcxtaeV9l1fLTCwOrdNTcIPJfcdHGMiPzCOX0LApwvN1vP6YHwFd6QX4We5ThLl4BSqRrl5ZfFCn-Jqdflj-m0P-ZonE708ZPVLu0S5WS1C29MsK6ky-Nj64FdCP94y_7SRmfP-bE/s1600/22.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I have to admit, it was very emotional to watch some of these videos and see the photos taken at these luncheons. It was wonderful to see people like Stan Chambers, Kelly Lange, Warren Olney, Marcia Brandwynne, Marta Waller, Melody Rogers, Gene Gleeson, John Marshall, Dave Lopez, Linda Breakstone, Stephen Gendel, Doug Kriegel, Joe Ramirez, Warren Wilson, David Sheehan, Adrienne Alpert, and many, many others who I fondly remember covering Southern California news and events for decades looking great and looking happy to see one another. I was particularly moved to see Saul Halpert as a regular attendee at these luncheons in the videos and photos posted from the various gatherings. He looked as distinguished and dignified as ever, and in some of the videos still has the wry and discerning wit and perspective that underscored why he was one of the best in his field for decades. It was also great for me to see, in some of these videos, journalists such as John Marshall pick up the microphone and doing what they do best by interviewing many of the luncheon participants to ask them about their careers and accomplishments, their fondest memories working in broadcast journalism, and their thoughts as to the current state of the news. Many of these videos were produced and edited by Mr. Tarlau, and they help to demonstrate how the people involved in producing them still have what it takes to put together an insightful and thought-provoking segment that engages the viewer by telling a good, informative story as effectively as possible.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXGPFlhMTjdTs-lb0Ricosa8ZG7ZtEKSCx85vdEYenfs2dc5JVIvTNNVAP0_hOjGLIwGt7tlDyrYfQV1ANxqVApEOOswciXr8T0xFtMf8JCW25WmGTG0_SQWWfMxsdAU7Hyepv6oYWx8/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXGPFlhMTjdTs-lb0Ricosa8ZG7ZtEKSCx85vdEYenfs2dc5JVIvTNNVAP0_hOjGLIwGt7tlDyrYfQV1ANxqVApEOOswciXr8T0xFtMf8JCW25WmGTG0_SQWWfMxsdAU7Hyepv6oYWx8/s1600/6.jpg" height="400" width="395" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYJMJya1tOdXlk-mNJ2SxIUcGdGh6WXHS3PtomDnXr5ZlLpqspKe4juBFVrQB15jUqv8K9dzY1QjqQuHles6NKZwcxh5tQRf8dHTfa4mtIgI7IOCc0oIscvqAFrawH1Bp8OXnN2rudCY/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYJMJya1tOdXlk-mNJ2SxIUcGdGh6WXHS3PtomDnXr5ZlLpqspKe4juBFVrQB15jUqv8K9dzY1QjqQuHles6NKZwcxh5tQRf8dHTfa4mtIgI7IOCc0oIscvqAFrawH1Bp8OXnN2rudCY/s1600/8.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I guess what I liked the most about seeing the videos and photos of the "News Geezers" quarterly reunion luncheons was the unmistakable sense of friendship, happiness and camaraderie that comes through. It's clear that these people are really happy to see one another and share memories of their experiences covering news in the Southland. While there is some commentary on the current state of broadcast journalism, it's never done with an air of condescension or resentment or bitterness to the people currently working in the field. I feel that the commentary is done more in an encouraging manner in the hopes that it will remind people who are currently working what they should aspire to as opposed to putting anyone down. As such, these "News Geezers" luncheons feel to me to be a celebration of what was great about both broadcast and print journalism in Southern California, as opposed to being a rumination as to its current state of being.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagPcGbllJtYcbIrpabU9jn2jpNFBbt7AWQxHCFZ5pSoMdRKi3gl3BjL6nSqUX0VqH2EubT32mh2Nk5JKwJDyZ-kt1yVUoM_-RajZ-0IEt-4kYvG9meMkou6kWCgjgTH7Ytye37S1DHx0/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagPcGbllJtYcbIrpabU9jn2jpNFBbt7AWQxHCFZ5pSoMdRKi3gl3BjL6nSqUX0VqH2EubT32mh2Nk5JKwJDyZ-kt1yVUoM_-RajZ-0IEt-4kYvG9meMkou6kWCgjgTH7Ytye37S1DHx0/s1600/7.jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Bob Tarlau, who (along with his friend and former KTLA colleague Joel Tator) graciously consented to an interview with this blog to discuss these luncheons, recalls that the "News Geezers" luncheons began soon after he retired from KTTV as their Senior News Producer in 2010. Tarlau realized that, <i><b>"I'm already missing people that I worked with for 45, 46 years, and I kind of wondered whatever happened to a lot of these folks. What I did was I called four people that I had worked with back at KTLA in the 1960s. One of them is an absolutely brilliant director named Joel Tator. The second one is a former director as well named Mike Conley. Then there was Jack Terry. It was basically four of us originally and I hadn't seen these guys in quite awhile and it was a couple of months after I retired and we got together and we had dinner. And we had a great time and we had a lot of yucks and, you know, then we had another dinner so we could keep on talking. And it was either me or somebody who said 'You know, we should invite a producer who is very well known in town named Gerry Ruben.' So Gerry came along and then we thought, 'Well, jeez, there's a bunch of other people who it would be really fun to see' so we started calling and inviting them. It was originally, quite frankly, sort of built around me. I didn't want it that way but it had started out involving all these people that I had worked with at some time or other. And it got to about 30 people and we moved to lunches because it was more convenient for people. And there was a major turning point when it got to about 30 people, which must have been in late 2010. I got a call from somebody at ABC network news who said, 'Look, you don't know me. But I know of you and I used to work with such-and-such-and-such-and-such and I know you worked with all of those people. What do you say I come along to one of your lunches?' I said to him, 'I can't see any reason why not. The others would be really happy to meet you.' And I put down the phone and I realized 'OK, this thing's going in a different direction. Well, that's not a bad deal. I get to meet new people and this keeps getting bigger.' I originally thought, 'OK, this will top out at 50 people.' Well, at this point there's 230 people on the mailing list, and the most we've ever had at a lunch is 110 people!"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAVYyad0_zQfqQgO4k-1SutopVeo7AeAkHYJNZx93L6PyDSeLJro6DguH4OyFyXai2to6-PpC7pvpibzBFX88Gnj9JgGRZIB9-l1BMG9apVTqm0oqwf3BBF7aHZYLCBkcievYyF11R-c/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAVYyad0_zQfqQgO4k-1SutopVeo7AeAkHYJNZx93L6PyDSeLJro6DguH4OyFyXai2to6-PpC7pvpibzBFX88Gnj9JgGRZIB9-l1BMG9apVTqm0oqwf3BBF7aHZYLCBkcievYyF11R-c/s1600/12.jpg" height="323" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXD-SKoLHsJHpEggLd0XibFPP9WDOMGrh2RHPU6aFN4CWWOy2V4ybBeELIUtgO4bothHnKdbDfO4hkoecEJAxP1dEobOvhOtvuEd-JHYeu3iGAmkrArF2tIFdS2Zp47zDqd-a2EVUqj4/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXD-SKoLHsJHpEggLd0XibFPP9WDOMGrh2RHPU6aFN4CWWOy2V4ybBeELIUtgO4bothHnKdbDfO4hkoecEJAxP1dEobOvhOtvuEd-JHYeu3iGAmkrArF2tIFdS2Zp47zDqd-a2EVUqj4/s1600/10.jpg" height="400" width="296" /></a></div>
<br />
Tarlau recalls that the reason why the most well-attended luncheon of the "News Geezers," which took place in January 2014, topped out at 110 attendees is <b><i>"because one of our members died, a gentleman by the name of Vince Brosnan. He was one of those people that I never knew who just happened to join our group. He was a longtime, very beloved editor at KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles and also for NBC News. When he passed away, a couple of people called me and said 'You know, we really need to do something for Vinnie.' I agreed and so I called Kelly Lange, who was a very well known anchorwoman for decades at KNBC Channel 4 and has been retired for many years, and I suggested to her, 'Why don't you anchor a tribute to Vinnie? You can show pictures and show videos and call up people to participate with you, whatever you'd like to do.' She said, 'Perfect. I'll do it. How long do I have?' I said, 'Let's keep it around 15 minutes.' She said '15 minutes, you got it! You can count me down! You know me, Bob, you can time me off!' And she did 15 minutes of a tribute to Vinnie and it was terrific! But a whole lot of extra people came, as a result, some people were introduced to the group and they came subsequently to the next and most recent lunch that we had in late April 2014."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiunlTffUVQVX8uUMPzYM7BAJe7R2yoBfO1kb0n2sSzdJMhcwCpzDqzpNqZFVWIlpba2JTNwMQO8puggpI4EHduN3aq1nSYhhBQwpxSfsvPLt_r64_XZU4LnXHacPCnq_wC9ZhVeFClCnY/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiunlTffUVQVX8uUMPzYM7BAJe7R2yoBfO1kb0n2sSzdJMhcwCpzDqzpNqZFVWIlpba2JTNwMQO8puggpI4EHduN3aq1nSYhhBQwpxSfsvPLt_r64_XZU4LnXHacPCnq_wC9ZhVeFClCnY/s1600/21.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Tarlau has found that the "News Geezers" luncheons, which started out very informally, has taken a life of its own and grown in more ways than he could've imagined. As he explains, <i><b>"When I started these lunches, I didn't want to make any speeches. I never got up and spoke until the group got to about 25 people. And then people said, 'You know, you're gonna have to get up and say something.' So I started hosting it and I try to keep the program end of it really small. This last time, a couple of members wanted to do an electric car presentation, which has nothing to do with us, but I have an electric car and so I thought, 'This'll be fun.' So we got some dealers to come down and bring some electric cars and some individuals who brought Teslas and they gave the Geezers a chance to ride in them and drive in them and that was a lot of fun! But, generally speaking, the luncheons are filled with war stories and fun and sharing memories and keeping these friendships alive. That's the main agenda and, usually, I don't really want a formal program. You don't really need one. The people themselves are the program."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdwXghSZVfEvCMCM5JDt_5r1j5tdhu3VUL4l2BM1FSW8O8AuclGJAeTP3wOhXIvEqH0NM-_FSJX2x7-8kx9YpGfn0L_IhMvdkdF8Nu7Hg4VZIf9iYssK6SbxJRSXnVNhpZGkpeiJoKV0/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdwXghSZVfEvCMCM5JDt_5r1j5tdhu3VUL4l2BM1FSW8O8AuclGJAeTP3wOhXIvEqH0NM-_FSJX2x7-8kx9YpGfn0L_IhMvdkdF8Nu7Hg4VZIf9iYssK6SbxJRSXnVNhpZGkpeiJoKV0/s1600/15.jpg" height="311" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjji5dOEhSL7Q3EFiWb5BWBKMq1UrdQaaZJ_z2TrLAftqI1P8_6dg3NkRWDgn39PzfMfD2FHaxnsqLsWoNlghu2J9eHGOaWdlzB9pgZHNVPrh9K0bEUqAqPSOt8sK717BkoMFjpWtbl-Sk/s1600/27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjji5dOEhSL7Q3EFiWb5BWBKMq1UrdQaaZJ_z2TrLAftqI1P8_6dg3NkRWDgn39PzfMfD2FHaxnsqLsWoNlghu2J9eHGOaWdlzB9pgZHNVPrh9K0bEUqAqPSOt8sK717BkoMFjpWtbl-Sk/s1600/27.jpg" height="317" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Tarlau admits that some of his favorite moments at the "News Geezers" luncheons have involved the participation of both Saul Halpert and legendary Los Angeles-area reporter Stan Chambers, who reported for over 60 years for KTLA Channel 5. Tarlau says, <i><b>"I enjoy seeing everyone there and two people who do mean a lot to me when they attend these luncheons are Saul Halpert and Stan Chambers. There have been a couple of luncheons where they are there together. We celebrated Stan's 90th birthday at one of the luncheons. It's always great to hear their stories and to see their friendship up close."</b></i> Tarlau's friend and KTLA colleague Joel Tator echoes the sentiment and describes how <i><b>"It's always an honor when Stan Chambers comes in. You know he's retired and he's 92 years old and when he comes to those luncheons, it's really a big deal and he always gets a standing ovation, as does Saul. And those are just great moments because people love to spend time with Stan and Saul. I don't know if you read Stan Chambers' memoirs, but he's got a million stories. He's so real and so honest and been through so much. The only place he ever worked was KTLA for 65 years. There's never going to be another case where one person works for a television station for 65 years because every time there's new management or new ownership or a new news director, they clean house. He's been through, God knows, how many house cleanings but he managed to stay through all of it and never, ever worked anywhere else so when he comes into that room during these luncheons, it really is a special moment."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircATi2ckgeMvXdVjioiksmM7v_hPDc_jnHL9Nj0zD7ZcHLprq3w2BxmNgQ87-wxuhyJ7o6M29aMb63iKFiJBdjcx0cPJpUMHSII-fFK2R10gNK2vtujybm5MvThjhWEiz066J_xkfZcc/s1600/30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircATi2ckgeMvXdVjioiksmM7v_hPDc_jnHL9Nj0zD7ZcHLprq3w2BxmNgQ87-wxuhyJ7o6M29aMb63iKFiJBdjcx0cPJpUMHSII-fFK2R10gNK2vtujybm5MvThjhWEiz066J_xkfZcc/s1600/30.jpg" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While the on-air news personnel attending these luncheons are the ones that casual observers would recognize, Tarlau emphasizes that the gathering is not limited to them. People from a variety of different crafts and expertise who made valuable contributions to broadcast journalism in Los Angeles are welcome at these gatherings as well. Tarlau explains, <i><b>"Keep in mind that the gathering includes everyone from executives, former news directors, executive producers, assignment editors, even graphics people. I think I've even had some hair and makeup people attend. There's certainly been video editors and copy editors and managing editors, assistant news directors, line producers, writers, production assistants, as well as reporters and anchors. Basically, everybody you can think of who works in a TV news room has been at these luncheons, plus people who were ancillary to the news operation such as engineers who ran the transmitter or worked in master control and they are welcome at these gatherings because they had a bearing on the news as well."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoU7jX5qFT6MrvKaUv3slUtgD0zX5dfY44xsLovw9-yqGvgxUMHgm-4ptsyzjjwyyl1Q_yDRGApL9XY29xw4wmhyphenhyphenZnZzNL_6Ir_ErEkBhRxjL_oGapZzMjNPJ1baYaCjzPUSKqGlFXNA/s1600/33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoU7jX5qFT6MrvKaUv3slUtgD0zX5dfY44xsLovw9-yqGvgxUMHgm-4ptsyzjjwyyl1Q_yDRGApL9XY29xw4wmhyphenhyphenZnZzNL_6Ir_ErEkBhRxjL_oGapZzMjNPJ1baYaCjzPUSKqGlFXNA/s1600/33.jpg" height="312" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While Tarlau is clearly a very positive individual, the "News Geezers" luncheons do occasionally remind one of how the quality of local TV news reporting in Southern California has deteriorated, particularly in the last decade. Tarlau candidly opines that, <i><b>"Generally speaking, I think that the polish went out of it when the money went out of it. And, by and large, the investigative reporting level is poor compared to what it used to be, with a few exceptions. There are still talented people and still good work that gets done. But with rushing around, short staffs, and low budgets, it is really hard to turn out the quality stuff that we were doing as recently as, say, ten years ago. I think that's been a real disappointment for the audience. I've had people come up to me, when they learn that I used to be in the business, and they say 'You know, local TV news isn't very good anymore!' And, to be fair, a lot of it has to do with budget constraints and talented people who couldn't get raises moved on to other fields. But, I say again, there are exceptions and there are some stations that will still spend money and time and resources and hire good talent both behind the camera and in front of the lens that do good work. But, by and large, a lot of what I see is pretty mediocre."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoyZG4TthBg1aW6GWaJ8L6IhksJ-g6Id-l2oyy5HSYXUc0RHRDszZ8ruoqOLRhFxY9Um9E2gBFd-yG0K0Oi-ISugphYbB4s2_u37jQp2YM57NmmRo9utmk8MhncKpgB7lftAToUMycFbE/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoyZG4TthBg1aW6GWaJ8L6IhksJ-g6Id-l2oyy5HSYXUc0RHRDszZ8ruoqOLRhFxY9Um9E2gBFd-yG0K0Oi-ISugphYbB4s2_u37jQp2YM57NmmRo9utmk8MhncKpgB7lftAToUMycFbE/s1600/4.jpg" height="357" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Tarlau's friend and colleague at KTLA, director and producer Joel Tator, echoes Tarlau's opinion about the state of local news in Southern California. With the same level of polite, friendly candor, Joel Tator explains how <i><b>"the business has changed so much since we started back in the 1960s. Sadly, news, particularly local news, is much less important than it used to be. The ratings in this city are so low for newscasts. I'm kind of a student of ratings, they've always been interesting to me, and I've never seen numbers that are so low for newscasts. Of course, it's because nowadays people can get their news from so many other places that they don't do what they used to do, which was come home, turn on the set, and watch the local news. Those of us who attend these luncheons--I hate the phrase 'The Good Ole Days'--but they really were a lot more interesting than what we have now and I would go so far as to say it was a lot more newsworthy in the past than they are now."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBp2maBUkPOjpdhupNFDM6J-ijiC9i4Jtp0z9B_ez7Pm4RnnXqX6-vtkgzM56K0il2_MTfjCXxceNcID5k5d2BW5tM5hmDDT6DdavozpD9zuvPjepHuhRNoQTjPf-6-Zg-Tksb-n8UAvA/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBp2maBUkPOjpdhupNFDM6J-ijiC9i4Jtp0z9B_ez7Pm4RnnXqX6-vtkgzM56K0il2_MTfjCXxceNcID5k5d2BW5tM5hmDDT6DdavozpD9zuvPjepHuhRNoQTjPf-6-Zg-Tksb-n8UAvA/s1600/2.jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
As an example as to how local area TV news in Los Angeles has deteriorated in quality and is now much less newsworthy, Tator describes how <i><b>"We would never think back in those days to do a story like 'Oh, tonight on channel such-and-such, we've got an interesting miniseries and we're going to go tell you the background of the miniseries. And look who's here? The stars of the show are here!' We wouldn't even think to do that because news was, I hate to say it and excuse me for using certain terms, it was kind of a sacred responsibility. The interesting thing is that, if you go back, news was never meant to make money. It was there as a service. The newscasts were originally 5 minutes long, then 15 minutes long. The most they ever were was 30 minutes long. And then what happened was that when stations realized that they could expand their news to a longer time slot, all of a sudden they could make money on a newscast and that had never, ever been the case before. All local stations spent their money on local programming, such as entertainment and kids shows and game shows and documentaries. News was originally just an absolute after-thought to help you keep your broadcasting license, you know?"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDo5JWOQ5FMgGoAnGqOCsIcLaWflbEaKIR2uey17GbXKqfHr-XTI8WCbdV8FBW9yL0paYXNm09t9A1NhewDFJXDCsSCllj8UZJ6vGDbr3TnKCEUhYh4RsSa0MnthZQXXqjewgSCoNu23w/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDo5JWOQ5FMgGoAnGqOCsIcLaWflbEaKIR2uey17GbXKqfHr-XTI8WCbdV8FBW9yL0paYXNm09t9A1NhewDFJXDCsSCllj8UZJ6vGDbr3TnKCEUhYh4RsSa0MnthZQXXqjewgSCoNu23w/s1600/3.jpg" height="400" width="358" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Tator learned how profitable news programming could be when he was Executive Producer of the KTLA Morning News from 1992 to 1998. With both humor and awe, Tator recalls how, <i><b>"When I started with that show in 1992, it was two hours long. It went from 7:00 am to 9:00 am. And then somebody said, 'Well, you know the old saying? The best lead-in to news is news!' So we moved back our starting time to 6:00 am., so we were on from 6:00 am to 9:00 am. And then somebody said, 'You know, we have pretty good ratings, here it is at 9:00 am why are we kissing that audience goodbye? Let's extend it and go to 10:00 am! So we were on from 6:00 am to 10:00 am, four hours. And then somebody said, 'Well, jeez, why start at 6:00 am? Let's go on at 5:30 am! Well today, as of last year, the KTLA Morning News is on from 4:00 am to 10:00 am! (laughs) It's a 6-hour newscast and it's like printing money, you know? Everyone's there anyway. The writers are there, the anchors are there, let's just keep doing news shows and it won't cost us anything and we'll make nothing but profits! The whole business really has changed. Local stations don't do anything anymore except newscasts. All of the programs that we all used to work on no longer are produced."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibSH8-dYD7DOPWBhGO9sAAU-vNyVq-qnY0ORqC408N-48Rsw5DP9jCmVijoJ6VF9bSGIy1WkQyE3za0kGpt0WU4tMLZwwdTnL9Q60UJro97cLkDrnX_pVAQavDeJknZ89LsTh5WNFFAUs/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibSH8-dYD7DOPWBhGO9sAAU-vNyVq-qnY0ORqC408N-48Rsw5DP9jCmVijoJ6VF9bSGIy1WkQyE3za0kGpt0WU4tMLZwwdTnL9Q60UJro97cLkDrnX_pVAQavDeJknZ89LsTh5WNFFAUs/s1600/9.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Even though morning news programs such as the KTLA Morning News have gotten longer, the actual quality of reporting of individual stories has not necessarily improved in a commensurate manner. Tator opines that <i><b>"when this group of us--the so-called "Geezers"--get together, it's really to celebrate what newscasts were, which was a clean report of the day's events starting with the amount of time that is needed to tell a story. Nowadays, every story is a minute or less because they feel that the audience has no attention span. So everything moves along, there's nothing in-depth. I remember when I directed the Channel 4 news, as well as the Channel 5 news, if a story needed 8 or 9 minutes to tell because it was important, we would give them 8 or 9 minutes! All of the stations in Los Angeles have closed their Sacramento bureaus. They used to have Washington, DC bureaus because they felt it was important to gather and report the news. But now, it's almost really a headline service, you know? I think what happens when people sit around the table at these luncheons and they say 'Well, remember the time? And remember the time? And remember the time?' everybody remembers it because that kind of reporting--the time and the exactitude that we gave--doesn't happen anymore! I think the memories, and remembrances, of the quality of news reporting in the past is what keeps these luncheons going."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0sLG9NhQHnfYBTNfVox0cg7dH8KmcJ8XtesE6MSU2jjBKKIvAbVz4PnZ1DnPf7_brsWVwo9vO7gdFZ6BNOuVNx_FNoHDigscXUQwGpUDQg1jm19lu7TjcLJVY36LWG8sv29h5-gGtWo/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0sLG9NhQHnfYBTNfVox0cg7dH8KmcJ8XtesE6MSU2jjBKKIvAbVz4PnZ1DnPf7_brsWVwo9vO7gdFZ6BNOuVNx_FNoHDigscXUQwGpUDQg1jm19lu7TjcLJVY36LWG8sv29h5-gGtWo/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon5.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Tator fondly describes the high calibre of people he worked with in local news throughout his career and recalls how <i><b>"I was there for the Tom Brokaws and the Tom Snyders and the Jess Marlows. I directed all of their shows and I also directed for Clete Roberts and folks like that. News to them was Holy. We call them 'News Shows' now, but back then they were not 'News Shows.' They were 'News Programs.' You know what I'm saying? It wasn't a 'show.' Now it's a 'show' and you have to have commensurate ratings to the shows that are opposite you. Back then, it was more important that you do a responsible newscast than to get huge ratings. Just to illustrate the situation for you, they have what they call the Golden Mic Awards, which are given out by the Southern California Press Association every year for radio and television. The last few awards, in over 50 percent of the categories there was nothing deemed worthy of an award! Now think about that for a second. The actual categories that the Golden Mic people put out for 'Best Sports Story' or 'Best Investigation' or whatever other categories there are, out of 50 percent of those there was NOTHING deemed worthy of an award. That's what it's come down to and it's difficult to give an award to a 60-second story, you know what I'm saying? You want something that has a little more depth to it. The other thing that's kind of embarrassing is when you go to a local Emmy awards, it's really embarrassing to see the shows that get nominated. They have an award now for the Best 30-Second Promo. I mean, how you can do a bad 30-Second Promo? I don't see how you can do that, you know? (laugh) It's gotten to the point where it's almost laughable because, really, the content is down there with the ratings. They're both sinking quickly and I don't know if it's recoverable."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1o6WAFNVf8yCiQ1g9fC4Va-CyO9ugPV26w70rt3-1MBXfh8CoJ3Zt8iYOtcvQCSRHvmVqrs0BrzG8Z2avCTpHbWSay7mt0DNsAneLoOZef1004IPDume6QB8BQgXbBkiF3xgvbfsDibQ/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1o6WAFNVf8yCiQ1g9fC4Va-CyO9ugPV26w70rt3-1MBXfh8CoJ3Zt8iYOtcvQCSRHvmVqrs0BrzG8Z2avCTpHbWSay7mt0DNsAneLoOZef1004IPDume6QB8BQgXbBkiF3xgvbfsDibQ/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7efMHK8PzaE56uvIeDEPUE0Yrxie6v9-GfzQlBrmbzTmVZugd5UMht9SyNU0J14AqpYbqMbeheb_aWAezubv6KpQbzp4C_XM_TZfonc-BbJpP6zX1-N4GjmiWbnInywf8J76xvKJd2Vk/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7efMHK8PzaE56uvIeDEPUE0Yrxie6v9-GfzQlBrmbzTmVZugd5UMht9SyNU0J14AqpYbqMbeheb_aWAezubv6KpQbzp4C_XM_TZfonc-BbJpP6zX1-N4GjmiWbnInywf8J76xvKJd2Vk/s1600/NewsGeezersLuncheon6.jpg" height="365" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
While Tator mourns the declining substance and integrity of local news, he is also realistic enough to acknowledge that there has always a personality and entertainment-driven aspect to the medium. Nevertheless, Tator maintains that style never trumped substance in generations past and recalls how <i><b>"One of the best newsman in town, Tom Snyder, was a great personality who put on a little performance but he also had serious credentials and believability and took his work very seriously. I also worked with George Putnam and George was a little more showy, but you know what? He was very insistent on the accuracy of the newscasts and the importance of getting both sides of a story and, admittedly, his personality brought people into the tent. No show is going to succeed if the ratings aren't there and, believe me, we certainly tried to maintain good ratings, but we tried it in a--let's use the phrase--newsworthy way to get our audience."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6OkLnkSHKlGX5useOla_3w9CukzdBt4KWey3ulUJFUaz9ZKAkIVByzWR8yQDG19EG2C4hDvgnSFoT1fgGVzzQ4xVr1J0ookjZr2j0chHs-rOVegd01nV0KE57nA8OM4wDva_gkaJcUY/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6OkLnkSHKlGX5useOla_3w9CukzdBt4KWey3ulUJFUaz9ZKAkIVByzWR8yQDG19EG2C4hDvgnSFoT1fgGVzzQ4xVr1J0ookjZr2j0chHs-rOVegd01nV0KE57nA8OM4wDva_gkaJcUY/s1600/25.jpg" height="357" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
Even though the "News Geezers" luncheons celebrate the past greatness of Los Angeles broadcast journalism, and can't help but inadvertently evoke commentary as to its current state, both Bob Tarlau and Joel Tator emphasize that its ultimate purpose is to maintain continuity and friendship among the hundreds of individuals who have worked in the field throughout the decades. As Tarlau explains, <i><b>"It's all about reestablishing old friendships and making new ones and to prevent having a situation where somebody you worked with and cared about passes away and you think 'You know, I should've caught up with this guy over the years and I never did and I regret that because now he's gone.' And I'm sure we've all felt that about people. And this kind of takes away from that stigma. Now that we've reconnected, when somebody passes away, we've been able to let each other know about it. Not long after we started these luncheons, Mike Daniels, a longtime producer at Channel 2 during the glory days who went on to become a professor at USC, passed away. He was in his late 70s and still teaching at USC when he died. So I put the word out and they had the funeral at his favorite yacht club down at Marina Del Rey. I attended with my wife and a whole bunch of people came up to me and said 'If it wasn't for the News Geezers luncheons, we wouldn't have known that Mike had passed away. While this is not pleasant, the fact is that you reached out and told everybody and we really appreciate it because we were able to attend his memorial.' And it was the same thing when Vinnie Brosnan, who I spoke about earlier, passed away. People who otherwise wouldn't have known about his passing learned about it through the News Geezers and they were able to attend his memorial in San Diego. It's allowed us to be there for one another and I'm very grateful for that."</b></i><br />
<br />
(Photos courtesy of Bob Tarlau)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-70060837520811673382014-06-05T15:21:00.001-07:002014-12-31T10:09:16.478-08:00Since You've Gone: An Interview with Cristina Raines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnPloUln7YtkKV1ET-FWb8NBLxiexlUX0JsrrHEzEsINcD5JO9XR7ZdPUDKtyTEmCFXpNSu4COFjxPj0a2bxNUjHyMlWoUNi_GhVufi1LoegYwQ3Mf3-eaQ_ulbAV5m6sR71r_6D4ugI/s1600/Raines7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnPloUln7YtkKV1ET-FWb8NBLxiexlUX0JsrrHEzEsINcD5JO9XR7ZdPUDKtyTEmCFXpNSu4COFjxPj0a2bxNUjHyMlWoUNi_GhVufi1LoegYwQ3Mf3-eaQ_ulbAV5m6sR71r_6D4ugI/s1600/Raines7.JPG" height="400" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
Establishing and maintaining a successful acting career usually represents the pinnacle of an actress' life and accomplishments, which is understandable and to be expected given the competitiveness of the entertainment industry. Radiant, dark-haired actress Cristina Raines made an impact in the 1970s and 1980s with a career that entailed challenging and notable roles with major directors on the big screen, as well as accessible characterizations on television, that helped her establish a considerable following with the general public. Her career lasted 20 years, from the early 1970s until the 1990s, before quietly retreating from the public eye in order to focus on raising her daughter. When her daughter was older, instead of returning to acting, Raines chose a completely different career path for herself. After years of study and hard work, she is now a registered nurse, specializing in caring for patients who are undergoing dialysis. Even though Cristina Raines remains proud of her acting accomplishments, she does not miss show business because of her fulfillment and satisfaction in being a nurse. She now lives a low-key existence that is far from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. She graciously consented to an interview with Hill Place Blog to discuss her acting roles and about her current nursing career. In our discussions, Raines proves to be a very positive--as well as intelligent, candid, and self-aware--individual who is the first to compliment and share credit with her colleagues, yet does not mince words nor sugar coat the situation when it comes to discussing the challenging aspects of her acting career. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Cristina Raines for opening up her heart and memories for this interview.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMArhvW7-f7q_VqCgCpXXxl1JWQjswY4OJXGI600YZJvCyN-DvavjzMg9AE17X3WYnuGog8esecc-wmB7Rf3sv1XleEnaiP6gN9BQBNT63YXSUbRxFy7Rs0UoHW9QUwRozg7mKM2wdhc/s1600/Raines12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMArhvW7-f7q_VqCgCpXXxl1JWQjswY4OJXGI600YZJvCyN-DvavjzMg9AE17X3WYnuGog8esecc-wmB7Rf3sv1XleEnaiP6gN9BQBNT63YXSUbRxFy7Rs0UoHW9QUwRozg7mKM2wdhc/s1600/Raines12.JPG" height="400" width="258" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Cristina Raines was born Cristina Herazo in Manila, Philippines, the daughter of an American chemical engineer for Proctor and Gamble based in Manila, and his wife, a former Earl Carroll dancer. Because of Raines' dark, at times exotic, beauty and because of her place of birth, she has sometimes been assumed to be of Filipino descent. However, Raines, explains that <b><i>"My grandfather, on my father's side, was Colombian. We used to go visit him in Colombia all the time. He was a cattle rancher and a coffee bean plantation owner. He was educated at NYU, which is where he met my grandmother, who was half-Swedish and half-German, so that's my dad's side of the family. And my mother's side of the family was Irish-Scotch. My grandmother on my mother's side of the family was a Ziegfield Girl. So, I'm definitely a Heinz 57. (laugh) You should see my younger sister Victoria, who is an Olympian, and she's got blue eyes, freckles and auburn hair. And people think that my older sister is Asian because she's got really beautiful, straight black hair and very white skin. However, unlike me, she wasn't born in the Philippines, she was born in New York. (laugh) We go back centuries here, so who knows? You put us in a room together and you would not think we were sisters. We look so completely different. People say to me, 'Are you kidding me? This is your sister?'"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJueGRIVl0uiEYPPHEgWnpM0g5MKkx6-VlQZdQ1o-lIihhG8J8P7IGSiqBGouPDYwKteyTZX6bWhV6K5yq_D0_6NaHg2FQB43AvF6vSwzO6MMKh43ymfrzlVca0_hgJ2_K_IzGFVmKvX8/s1600/Raines13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJueGRIVl0uiEYPPHEgWnpM0g5MKkx6-VlQZdQ1o-lIihhG8J8P7IGSiqBGouPDYwKteyTZX6bWhV6K5yq_D0_6NaHg2FQB43AvF6vSwzO6MMKh43ymfrzlVca0_hgJ2_K_IzGFVmKvX8/s1600/Raines13.JPG" height="320" width="282" /></a></div>
<br />
Because of her father's work, Raines grew up around the world: <b><i>"In addition to the Philippines, we lived in Venezuela for a period of time, then all over Asia, and we'd come back to the States a couple of times a year. We lived in Florida for a period of time and then we ended up in Connecticut, where I finished High School, and then I went to college in Boston. The school I attended is now called Bay State College, but at the time it was called the Chandler School for Women. It was an all-girls business school. Back then, your parents would say to you 'You need to learn how to be a secretary, so you'll always have a job.' So I was a legal secretary. That lasted for about ten minutes!"</i></b> While in college, Raines started modeling to help pay for her tuition, <b><i>"I was going to college and then I went to visit my aunt and my uncle in Manhattan. My uncle just looked at me and asked 'Have you ever thought about modeling?' I said, 'No' and he said 'Well, I'm going to send you out to meet some people.' So I went and met a bunch of people in New York and Eileen Ford was one of them. There I was working in New York for the summer with every intention of going back to school."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE_VCGUWQ4MsYrABxcrN73Z7zJ3lpS5OGxa_EWGybwy886-xOWyEfPNKiSpG3vd6oTd1Ue7vmr3RNMoo30kPtKSuDF_KNl7JpqmGOc1kWR3V8S6zWiRHvjAjdQffzUEBXAq39OzS0IcE/s1600/Raines11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE_VCGUWQ4MsYrABxcrN73Z7zJ3lpS5OGxa_EWGybwy886-xOWyEfPNKiSpG3vd6oTd1Ue7vmr3RNMoo30kPtKSuDF_KNl7JpqmGOc1kWR3V8S6zWiRHvjAjdQffzUEBXAq39OzS0IcE/s1600/Raines11.JPG" height="222" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though she wasn't planning on a career in show business, Raines' work as a model in New York eventually led to her acting career: <b><i>"I was modeling for Eileen Ford and I got called in on an interview for a film. When I went there, I didn't know what it was for because, you know, the modeling agency just gave you a list of appointments that you had to go to. I didn't know it was an acting thing and what did I know about acting? I did plays in high school, big deal. So I went on the interview and I told them I wasn't an actress and that I didn't think that this was for me and that I was only there because Eileen Ford told me to be there! (laugh) And the director just glommed onto me! So I did some readings with him and I did a screen test with Keith Carradine and Gary Busey and Scott Glenn and that was the beginning of my acting career."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQYtEPk5Z5Qr_oiomyFlWHyMxFf1REwwF1XgBsKGVQAJf2r49LRQeFWujIU80FtwjTQ5pqGpsikf7mXhiFVUT7HC9_1po_NeGVmhIuXkz0aK_A-Qax2vHbfhQ88CaX9pog8uMu0MXcuw/s1600/Hex4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQYtEPk5Z5Qr_oiomyFlWHyMxFf1REwwF1XgBsKGVQAJf2r49LRQeFWujIU80FtwjTQ5pqGpsikf7mXhiFVUT7HC9_1po_NeGVmhIuXkz0aK_A-Qax2vHbfhQ88CaX9pog8uMu0MXcuw/s1600/Hex4.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_e1ZiXxidwEDf0JX8KcdfHgafUCS8-0ZV0HB6LlktoVnhhboO2Ip9RK6htqfAUcse2Dj9U03z_yhdZcwdK1ofRu4CTEvmLZaS3Fk-3rmKM5R-Lj0m80YIF7aHCkPxBmURqbFNeiMFRQM/s1600/Hex5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_e1ZiXxidwEDf0JX8KcdfHgafUCS8-0ZV0HB6LlktoVnhhboO2Ip9RK6htqfAUcse2Dj9U03z_yhdZcwdK1ofRu4CTEvmLZaS3Fk-3rmKM5R-Lj0m80YIF7aHCkPxBmURqbFNeiMFRQM/s1600/Hex5.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' film debut turned out to be the offbeat "Hex," originally filmed under the title "Grasslands" in South Dakota in 1971 by 20th Century-Fox, but which got a limited release in 1973. A bizarre period piece set in 1919 Nebraska, Raines played Oriole, a half-Native American woman living on a farm with her sister Acacia (Hilary Thompson). Their lives are turned upside down when a group made up mostly of World War I veterans traveling the country on motorcycles (played by Keith Carradine, Scott Glenn, Gary Busey, Robert Walker Jr., Mike Combs, and Doria Cook) take refuge on their property. When Busey's character attempts to rape her sister Acacia, Oriole uses her powers of the occult to devise horrible demises for the unruly bikers. An almost indescribable melding of horror, biker, and Western genres, "Hex" remains a quirky early-1970s curiosity piece notable for the early performances of Carradine, Raines, Busey, and Glenn, all of whom would find later success in films and television. Raines plays the lead role of Oriole with a subdued air of mystery and self-possession that stands in contrast to the unrestrained energy of her co-stars.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPgQ-5YC21WkmaIMuHNKPQzYQCO6Ey6_lO4UP94yhsc8ydi8eCBlIgeXiPT9kvWfR8P2VBIxiSnSGlu3mccRJEgD2YtYBp3gqMCetVGXzk8DpO9xC8hvM6VjrOr2_ZCrD_gFGRtlNM0k/s1600/Hex2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPgQ-5YC21WkmaIMuHNKPQzYQCO6Ey6_lO4UP94yhsc8ydi8eCBlIgeXiPT9kvWfR8P2VBIxiSnSGlu3mccRJEgD2YtYBp3gqMCetVGXzk8DpO9xC8hvM6VjrOr2_ZCrD_gFGRtlNM0k/s1600/Hex2.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUAoGlTnMTkKpizMbQe8HCSJOYfnG28X2yzsJmu9HtY35zAVySW_8njmHovSAFi-zpTm3miXX6bgi4QPuBTc9FQaj7K-SS8mxk2K2_T_OwYEev4UU2bZqmBH4rgx5svE4bLagj9RmD2M/s1600/Hex3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUAoGlTnMTkKpizMbQe8HCSJOYfnG28X2yzsJmu9HtY35zAVySW_8njmHovSAFi-zpTm3miXX6bgi4QPuBTc9FQaj7K-SS8mxk2K2_T_OwYEev4UU2bZqmBH4rgx5svE4bLagj9RmD2M/s1600/Hex3.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite the obscurity of "Hex" (which was released on VHS as "The Shrieking" and on DVD as "Charms"), Raines fondly recalls how, <b><i>"That's where I fell in love with acting. I was really lucky because all of those people--Keith, Scott, Gary, Hilary Thompson, Bobby Walker Jr., and everyone else in the film--they were just really good performers. They had a lot of passion for what they did, and it sort of lit my passion for acting and was a wonderful experience. Nothing happened with the movie, which is too bad because the director, Leo Garen, was a really interesting man and a really interesting director. I've never really seen the whole film. There's been so many different versions that they edited of it. Everybody got ahold of it and they were re-editing and re-editing it. I have no idea what it is now. (laugh) It was trying to encompass the biker and horror and western genres and you're talking about the 'Five Easy Pieces' era. You've got the guys on these little motorcycles, and I think my character was half-Native American and she has to get rid of these bikers, and so it's also got a witchcraft element involved. I think that description for the film sounds about right! For me, it was a life changing experience. I loved it, I loved South Dakota, and I loved Henry Crow Dog, who was a Sioux medicine man who Leo Garen had on the set and he was just an amazing human being. It really turned my life around--you're talking about a very conservative Southern girl--and all of a sudden I'm in this movie in the middle of nowhere with a Native American medicine man on the set and these crazy actors! It was wonderful, it was taking a real bite out of life and it was a great time for me."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxwoLMiSazPbVcngfUrmApbmJZGxF_1NYcyzkhlGYBDKUg_l_qQrbphY7RNMBMCIikc453OsXu4BRdiHdg8kxJZyl4maRxeLNslTaJAeJVN8IcKDHcRv__6z1sRniHyiC7VLEM8G9Zko/s1600/Carradine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxwoLMiSazPbVcngfUrmApbmJZGxF_1NYcyzkhlGYBDKUg_l_qQrbphY7RNMBMCIikc453OsXu4BRdiHdg8kxJZyl4maRxeLNslTaJAeJVN8IcKDHcRv__6z1sRniHyiC7VLEM8G9Zko/s1600/Carradine.JPG" height="400" width="297" /></a></div>
<br />
During the filming of "Hex," Raines began an almost 8-year relationship with Keith Carradine and moved to Los Angeles. (In the original, "making of" documentary that appears on the <a href="http://www.criterion.com/films/28427-nashville" target="_blank">Criterion Collection Blu-Ray</a> release of "Nashville," Keith Carradine reverently describes his relationship with Raines by stating <b><i>"Ours was a great love and a great passion. And she is, and was, exquisitely gifted."</i></b>) She signed with Nina Blanchard Modeling Agency, which led directly to Raines landing her first theatrical agent for acting work, <b><i>"Nina Blanchard was really a mentor and she kind of took me under her wing and said 'Look, do you really want to be a model or do you want to be an actress?' I said, 'I really want to be an actress.' And so she said, 'Let me get you some interviews with some agents.' So she sent me to meet Dick Clayton--who was Jane Fonda's agent and James Dean's agent--and he signed me. He was a really good man with an amazing reputation in this town as being someone with a lot of integrity and a lot of class. He became Burt Reynolds' personal manager when he wasn't my agent anymore. So I signed up with him and that's how I got my first agent in Hollywood."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHc4sHb5g4oyWyIU7GT-1-XAMufsBw5DW_cG9ZhVFzRjy8MUid8K-HU7meS-07iqze0APiXMmN1oRb4gw7FJZ-MoxV09GKJzEfayLlHnPlVbMgbWaa2uWbFmwZTFqzm2AqA1amX3a7NnU/s1600/Raines10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHc4sHb5g4oyWyIU7GT-1-XAMufsBw5DW_cG9ZhVFzRjy8MUid8K-HU7meS-07iqze0APiXMmN1oRb4gw7FJZ-MoxV09GKJzEfayLlHnPlVbMgbWaa2uWbFmwZTFqzm2AqA1amX3a7NnU/s1600/Raines10.JPG" height="400" width="268" /></a></div>
<br />
Dick Clayton also played a significant role in Raines' career by helping her come up with her screen name "Cristina Raines." After being billed as "Tina Herazo" in "Hex," she soon found it necessary to change names in order to improve her career prospects, <b><i>"I kept being sent out for Spanish-speaking soap operas, and I don't speak Spanish! But they would call Dick to ask me to come and interview for these roles and I said, 'Uh oh, this name isn't going to work.' So he said, 'Let's change your name.' I said, 'OK, what do I have to do?' He said, 'Just think about what you would like to be called.' And I had no clue! I really had no clue what to do--and I think I've told this story a thousand times--but it was raining one day. And I said to Dick, 'What about Rain?' (laugh) And so he said, 'OK, how about Raines?' I said, 'That'll work.' And it did. I remember I asked him, 'What do you think about that name?' And Dick said, 'That's not my decision.' So that's how I became 'Cristina Raines.'"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFeKosGNObRBVSS1VHG6EL8MrOzzTWUhNjYaTJeCpYDq9OjBpl_gaMgZ_nVTl5OjKjlmerPhpAapvIHggyfzZmZ7d3-3Xemcwm7qzMJ0cET4midbIKhbb7CcMMG2WvIZzzX7jyLUAAIA/s1600/Stacey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFeKosGNObRBVSS1VHG6EL8MrOzzTWUhNjYaTJeCpYDq9OjBpl_gaMgZ_nVTl5OjKjlmerPhpAapvIHggyfzZmZ7d3-3Xemcwm7qzMJ0cET4midbIKhbb7CcMMG2WvIZzzX7jyLUAAIA/s1600/Stacey.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ydaRs62xEqBe0IFbkBoBRUGrMYgHINE0Ym0w-YXOSpiAO8DMMd0ch6ZqZt0zCOSwycjMOh1biCCypgfZxUwQSUPvJflZULthyphenhyphenaP8ysA0fTG3Rzl1qpNK1pD__1-0ZSn6h_uXCZACeeU/s1600/Stacey3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ydaRs62xEqBe0IFbkBoBRUGrMYgHINE0Ym0w-YXOSpiAO8DMMd0ch6ZqZt0zCOSwycjMOh1biCCypgfZxUwQSUPvJflZULthyphenhyphenaP8ysA0fTG3Rzl1qpNK1pD__1-0ZSn6h_uXCZACeeU/s1600/Stacey3.JPG" height="293" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' first acting job with her new name was a co-starring role in director Andy Sidaris' feature film debut, the low-budget action film "Stacey" (1973). Former Playboy Playmate Anne Randall plays the title role, a private detective investigating the amoral activities of a wealthy matriarch's family. Her investigation uncovers a complex extortion plot and leads to the expected mayhem and violence. In the course of the story, Randall's Stacey becomes acquainted with Raines' character Pamela, a member of the matriarch's family. A fast-paced, entertaining movie released by New World, Raines admits that <b><i>"I've never seen it. I remember it was kind of a silly movie, but that's OK. I think I was just happy to have that job and to have that opportunity to work. I honestly had a good time on that film. I didn't work very many days on it. I think it was only three or four days. I remember I liked everybody, I liked Andy Sidaris. As a director, he was good. I had no problems with him. I remember that Anne Randall and Anitra Ford were nice. Andy Sidaris and the cast and crew of that film were actually very supportive. There was no negativity at all connected with that experience. It was really fun."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI44nhBtTYOz1xp8SanJqdgjYFev9HhlgezhuS9Ty7e6AdTrR7VlzMh1pyMWiwddGGhfjRQgV3PD5ZebqlG-9GV7nTD0tZ-Y5YJ6J4HIhfnFPMow5Ik3k1Nu0-a1j3OlQliECC0rAl_CQ/s1600/StoneKillerPoster.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI44nhBtTYOz1xp8SanJqdgjYFev9HhlgezhuS9Ty7e6AdTrR7VlzMh1pyMWiwddGGhfjRQgV3PD5ZebqlG-9GV7nTD0tZ-Y5YJ6J4HIhfnFPMow5Ik3k1Nu0-a1j3OlQliECC0rAl_CQ/s1600/StoneKillerPoster.JPG" height="400" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines also appeared in the Charles Bronson film "The Stone Killer" (1973), but her work was completely deleted from the final cut. It would be the first time she would work with director Michael Winner, who she would later collaborate with on "The Sentinel" (1977). As she recalls, <i><b>"It was like a one-day gig, and Charles Bronson was an absolute doll! He was just a sweetheart, but I was way taller than him and so I had to walk below him during our scenes. It was just one scene--it was sort of like a walk on--and I played his daughter, I think, but they cut me out of the film. It was the first time I worked with Michael Winner, and I had no idea about this dude! (laugh) I was literally only there one day. It was basically, 'Here it is, this is your mark, do your scene.' And then Mr. Bronson showed up on the set, we did the scene and he gave me a nod that that was good and that was it! And then I went home! (laugh) I don't remember having any contact with Michael, really. I think I worked mostly with the cinematographer. I had NO idea what was in store for me later on 'The Sentinel'!"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDxgsU4cnKrc4HJfJ6UDc8tXNZCHHkEgM5msQDYNqkdbeiXcKZb_g9TsHcHt2SvDMbT1aufBQsBQi2ZZ6JXumpyCYftxztevUJy0PBvmnE1b1deh73KeVoIrBt1mJeTn4nJ0sgvi1iXA/s1600/Sunshine2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDxgsU4cnKrc4HJfJ6UDc8tXNZCHHkEgM5msQDYNqkdbeiXcKZb_g9TsHcHt2SvDMbT1aufBQsBQi2ZZ6JXumpyCYftxztevUJy0PBvmnE1b1deh73KeVoIrBt1mJeTn4nJ0sgvi1iXA/s1600/Sunshine2.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Soon afterwards, Raines landed her first meaty dramatic role in the heartfelt, acclaimed TV movie "Sunshine" (1973) that aired November 9, 1973 on CBS. Raines played the leading role of Kate Hayden, a young mother of a newborn baby girl who learns she has terminal cancer. Married to struggling musician Sam Hayden (Cliff De Young), Kate wrestles with her rage and frustration at having her young life cut short as well as her sorrow that she will never live to see her daughter grow up. Kate courageously faces her battle with cancer with the support and friendship of her physician, Dr. Carol Gillman (Brenda Vaccaro). As Kate begins to deteriorate, she begins recording a series of audio tapes that she intends to leave with her daughter as a journal imparting her life lessons, dreams and aspirations to her daughter after she is gone. Intelligently written and acted, and directed with unflinching honesty and sensitivity by veteran director Joseph Sargent, "Sunshine" has developed a significant cult following among fans who remember it fondly and were emotionally affected by its storyline.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6ObedP96yrj4Gt8aKRA_9XNgbiXXMuedTW2CU1Ln9L73py8o-qPKppWcwAmTPS8SKh93mznKmVN55zXzHWqy2RJMAXxGES3IT6sEXJoqG1QHZsDotkmABMlfli9b_JUj5fu4xZvnCmM/s1600/Sunshine3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6ObedP96yrj4Gt8aKRA_9XNgbiXXMuedTW2CU1Ln9L73py8o-qPKppWcwAmTPS8SKh93mznKmVN55zXzHWqy2RJMAXxGES3IT6sEXJoqG1QHZsDotkmABMlfli9b_JUj5fu4xZvnCmM/s1600/Sunshine3.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The film refreshingly depicts its lead characters, who are counter-culture individuals living in poverty on the fringes of society, with humanity and intelligence and without succumbing to goofy hippie stereotypes as so many films and TV shows of its period are wont to do. Raines is excellent as Kate and gives one of the best performances of her career. She plays the lead role with an earthy directness, and a lack of sentimentality, that enables the film to avoid becoming maudlin or cloying. She is also fearless in allowing the audience to witness Kate's physical agony and deterioration. There is no sense of glamorizing or downplaying her battle with cancer the way Ali MacGraw did with "Love Story" (1970). Raines also has confidence and honesty in portraying Kate as a flawed individual who, despite her many positive attributes, is also capable of making mistakes and being headstrong and stubborn at times. In one scene, a stressed-out and angry Kate fights with Sam and almost spanks her daughter out of frustration. Kate is not in her right mind at that moment and, in so doing, Raines ensures that she remains a recognizable human being throughout the story and not a saint.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PIqR5QlK8Jopy0gT4DVJCa_e2VqrFr6Rzq44hai0FPdZ_oNIsvN1Df0DefRZYgHeAuJ9aO6wptnfOf01PizSOQ4cDFj8RRY2dVB6AK1VcFFpc7kBk9PDmA2OE_znvEwyPW4EPjBpWkw/s1600/Sunshine4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PIqR5QlK8Jopy0gT4DVJCa_e2VqrFr6Rzq44hai0FPdZ_oNIsvN1Df0DefRZYgHeAuJ9aO6wptnfOf01PizSOQ4cDFj8RRY2dVB6AK1VcFFpc7kBk9PDmA2OE_znvEwyPW4EPjBpWkw/s1600/Sunshine4.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines recalls being passionate about her role in "Sunshine" even before she actually landed it, <b><i>"Dick Clayton called and said he wanted to send me on an audition. This was in the day when actors got the script to read before they would go in. I don't think actors get that anymore. Now it's sort of like you show up and they give you sides to do cold readings. But, fortunately, I got to read the script for 'Sunshine' before I went in. I think that probably had a lot to do with Dick Clayton and his status as an agent. So I read the script and I absolutely LOVED it! And I just went in and did my audition for Joe Sargent and some of the big wigs from Universal and the producers for the show, including George Eckstein, and that was it and then I got it!" </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygru1Mo1d0Z6DW27k0nxMPa3ujIZcV59enTRxwdsAd1eOIJlivY1XK-HfZkn20Y0eqAWp5szVbq4oXn-8T79uleXt8212AI9UAExCMxvAGuY4JRL05uVk9cdHZkU-ArYqWQF2mygbaEA/s1600/Sunshine7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygru1Mo1d0Z6DW27k0nxMPa3ujIZcV59enTRxwdsAd1eOIJlivY1XK-HfZkn20Y0eqAWp5szVbq4oXn-8T79uleXt8212AI9UAExCMxvAGuY4JRL05uVk9cdHZkU-ArYqWQF2mygbaEA/s1600/Sunshine7.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Over 40 years later, a grateful Raines is quick to share the credit for landing the lead role in 'Sunshine' with the acting coach she was working with at that time, <b><i>"Before doing 'Sunshine,' I started studying with an acting coach who is still teaching and deserves the most accolades. He is just the most brilliant instructor, and his name is Vincent Chase. He really, really got me to learn how to fine tune my acting skills. At that time, his classes were literally six days a week. You had to show up at 6:00 PM and you usually were done at 12:00 midnight. He made sure that you were committed. It was like my whole world opened up with him in terms of performing. He's a brilliant instructor, just brilliant. And I've studied with a lot of other people but I always went back to him before I would have an audition so that we would work on things and he always had great perspectives. So the fact that I got that part in 'Sunshine,' after only reading with them once, has a lot to do with what I learned from Vincent Chase. I think it kind of stunned a lot of people. They had done auditions in New York for, like, six weeks and then they came out to California to do auditions. I just feel really blessed to have gotten that role and I am grateful to Vincent for teaching me the skills to help me land it."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitolhaQMcsynNnqw6WACreVkd2V8PTzAC6zWOJifggW0421czdlv3pCaa5Z2wF8_16o5yGvoV5_fO1PHAB1ir47dDenyIyMGYPfjmanoFDDTlpVNiezz33u9-jGpJasZ6EcY-FOyrvk8E/s1600/Sunshine6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitolhaQMcsynNnqw6WACreVkd2V8PTzAC6zWOJifggW0421czdlv3pCaa5Z2wF8_16o5yGvoV5_fO1PHAB1ir47dDenyIyMGYPfjmanoFDDTlpVNiezz33u9-jGpJasZ6EcY-FOyrvk8E/s1600/Sunshine6.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines was barely 20 years old at the time she made "Sunshine." She admits plumbing the emotional peaks and depths of her character was challenging but found assistance in understanding her character from the original audio tapes that the real-life character she was portraying recorded for her daughter. Raines recalls how, <b><i>"The story of 'Sunshine' was based on the recorded journals of Jacquelyn Helton. She was a very interesting girl who had a very close relationship with her oncologist. I was given some of the audio tapes she had recorded to prepare for this role and I really got a sense of who she was. She was such an old soul and was someone who had made some very sound decisions at a very young age. I think the biggest compliment that I got after the show aired was that the doctor had a very hard time watching it because she said I was like that girl. It was very hard for her to watch it, she was really affected by it. It was a hard performance for me. It really was. I really felt her, I really could feel her. A lot of people sort of look at that character as though she was the 'hippie chick.' With the time era, you could sort of understand that. But, really, she was on welfare and she was really struggling and she had, as I understand it, not a good relationship with her mother at all. She did not have a really happy childhood."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBUf9OZcsnt4zlaHfrwlJJnjAUBSfAXXT4XbD06ve5yt1QsACP3t3EJQliN6EU7_ur6-aaxr_MLoUecbmqplyf93PWuoqbzsMEfkM89PV0ttfXaMlEcOqqMTDDa8BmPq-zKdiZXnNLYS0/s1600/Sunshine5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBUf9OZcsnt4zlaHfrwlJJnjAUBSfAXXT4XbD06ve5yt1QsACP3t3EJQliN6EU7_ur6-aaxr_MLoUecbmqplyf93PWuoqbzsMEfkM89PV0ttfXaMlEcOqqMTDDa8BmPq-zKdiZXnNLYS0/s1600/Sunshine5.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_gCQL_fcwF1Y5bF8I0YvKxBsX-_KH_AP5jWYiEzddyJWuQCzDNXxCI5YVwV9B2HTsv216IDNTtIe-mpm3p-Q7ujSQ0rRXVNCfOMfVsQ2zFsOaphrYGlY2vDqOuroa7X3DvXQjEfpy9U/s1600/Sunshine8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_gCQL_fcwF1Y5bF8I0YvKxBsX-_KH_AP5jWYiEzddyJWuQCzDNXxCI5YVwV9B2HTsv216IDNTtIe-mpm3p-Q7ujSQ0rRXVNCfOMfVsQ2zFsOaphrYGlY2vDqOuroa7X3DvXQjEfpy9U/s1600/Sunshine8.JPG" height="293" width="400" /></a></i></b></div>
<br />
Despite the dark aspects of the storyline, Raines has very happy and positive memories of filming "Sunshine" and is filled with warm memories of her many colleagues on that film, <b><i>"Carol Sobieski was an amazing writer and she gave us a lot of freedom to change what we needed. It wasn't, 'OK, you have to stick to this dialogue.' She gave us room to move. And Joe Sargent is the epitome of a dream director. Everybody who works with Joe falls madly in love with him because he's such an incredible director. He's such a positive force and he's so full of life and energy and he's a great, great director. He really gave me room to find the character. Joe, I would say, was my favorite director ever. He never tried to dictate or control my performance, he let me find my way. Joe's got a heart the size of a barn. Plus, he was an actor himself, so he really tunes in to what you're doing. Sometimes, he would just say one word to me--it would be whatever had to do with the scene--and he paid such close attention to the performers that he would just look at me and he would just say something and I would get what he was saying. We had really good communication between one another. And he would come up to me and say 'Well, why don't you try this?...' and I would try it and it would work. Or it wouldn't work. It was a real process. He allowed the process of creating to just happen. And we got lots of surprises that way, which is great, and he would be all excited about it. And then you've got Bill Butler who's a brilliant cinematographer. Bill and his wife Iris are still my very good friends. He's just amazing. He did such low lighting, which nobody did back then--and he would say to me, 'I hope this comes out!' (laugh) And I said, 'Oh God, Bill, don't say that to me!' That film was a very, very happy experience for me. That was a really powerful, powerful piece. I worked with great actors. Cliff DeYoung, Meg Foster. I remember feeling very blessed. And Brenda Vaccaro was awesome. She was just awesome. I'm telling you, I just loved her. She was a great lady. Talk about an incredible sense of humor! Very earthy and fun. It was just your dream experience as a performer. I have had a couple of dream experiences in my acting career, but that was my #1."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mWnUeR-2Nk1ZUm3uOeBUaFSaAaZixyMmaWcfL5ka_-DK5ixAxJkhTIWYN1qw61NET4KPMrOABcujHdl-ZMl0vvFweopXdyhr_tKL0BYEckOJh7KOMDi6RpCwIfHaI-GBwBx5Di__Cs8/s1600/UniversalLogo2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mWnUeR-2Nk1ZUm3uOeBUaFSaAaZixyMmaWcfL5ka_-DK5ixAxJkhTIWYN1qw61NET4KPMrOABcujHdl-ZMl0vvFweopXdyhr_tKL0BYEckOJh7KOMDi6RpCwIfHaI-GBwBx5Di__Cs8/s1600/UniversalLogo2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As a result of working on "Sunshine," Raines was signed to a long-term, 7 year contract with Universal, the studio that produced the film. Raines recalls that, <i><b>"I wasn't allowed to accept the project without becoming a contract player. It was either, 'You become a contract player or we're not offering you the role.' I think that was the bottom line."</b></i> As I mentioned before, <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/07/universal-appeal-ana-alicia.html" target="_blank">in my interview with Ana Alicia</a>, Monique James, who ran the talent program at Universal, was known for having strong opinions about which actors she preferred who were under contract to the studio, and could be severe and unfair with those she disfavored. Unfortunately, through no fault of her own, Cristina Raines found being under contract with Universal to be a double-edged sword for precisely those reasons. Raines candidly acknowledges that <b><i>"Monique James did not like me because she didn't want me for that role in 'Sunshine.' She had her stable of favorite actresses and she apparently fought pretty hard to keep me from getting that role. She made life very difficult for me. I was completely prepared to cooperate and work with her, but she was not a nice person. Not to me anyway. She really, REALLY didn't like me. I was even warned by people to be very careful with her. The reason I got the contract was because the executives in the Black Tower at Universal wanted me under contract, and she didn't have the power to overrule them on that issue. At least that was my understanding. That's why I didn't work as much at Universal as the other contract players. She even fought to keep me from being loaned out to do 'The Duellists' (1977). She went out of her way to try to prevent that from happening. The director, Ridley Scott, called me and said, 'You know I'm getting a lot of pushback about borrowing you to do this film.' Much to her dismay, she also unsuccessfully tried to prevent Bob Altman from hiring me to do 'Nashville' (1975). That happened more than I can tell you. I don't want to volunteer what the other instances were, because it just sounds like sour grapes, but some of them were pretty major films. At this point, I really don't care, but I was warned very early on about Monique and they were right. That's all I can say. Every single role that I was able to get during that time was a challenge just to get it."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4j8zkcb0jeA7AXX8UGvHDTFvOOBytEOyWP28ykoQP82YN2m3PLLUUVKPVwB3yIDXsrWfEYUldMMLZijkURj4i5nt_wj0hkF1RD3xcHpOGP9O5H4BPlQ_oHyKdeLvm-_u-_Ix_Bwo-y7g/s1600/NashvilleAlbum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4j8zkcb0jeA7AXX8UGvHDTFvOOBytEOyWP28ykoQP82YN2m3PLLUUVKPVwB3yIDXsrWfEYUldMMLZijkURj4i5nt_wj0hkF1RD3xcHpOGP9O5H4BPlQ_oHyKdeLvm-_u-_Ix_Bwo-y7g/s1600/NashvilleAlbum.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite Monique James' efforts, Raines' next project proved to be one of the most acclaimed American films of the 1970s, and one of the best films of Raines' career, Robert Altman's controversial masterpiece, "Nashville" (1975), released by Paramount. A documentary-like, Country & Western musical satire of mid-1970s, post-Watergate and post-Vietnam America, "Nashville" told the intertwining story of 24 major characters who are in the country musical capital during one eventful week while a third-party Presidential candidate is organizing a rally to help further his campaign. Raines played Mary, the distaff member of the rock trio "Bill, Mary and Tom" who is unhappily to Bill (Allan Nicholls) while having an affair and hopelessly in love with the other member of the trio, the womanizing Tom Frank (Keith Carradine). Raines more than held her own in such a large ensemble cast and participated in some memorable scenes that continue to be dissected and analyzed by serious film critics and scholars.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG1nQIbxSPu3v2h85zo5SeFOEkD5DLdZugCkXNcE9eyRJBewmZPby8shmyX-XctKdfzfumuxGXDrr_SC7lJPQDPXPx4uCzokFDzDa19M4vyf7Eand_tH7y9Kqc6wQHVAxz0tsPrIxucIE/s1600/Nashville5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG1nQIbxSPu3v2h85zo5SeFOEkD5DLdZugCkXNcE9eyRJBewmZPby8shmyX-XctKdfzfumuxGXDrr_SC7lJPQDPXPx4uCzokFDzDa19M4vyf7Eand_tH7y9Kqc6wQHVAxz0tsPrIxucIE/s1600/Nashville5.JPG" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines is effectively subtle in the scene where she is lying in bed with Tom, repeatedly telling him <i>"I love you, I love you,"</i> only to look up and realize that he's asleep the entire time and hasn't absorbed anything she's told him. She is also particularly good in the scene where she argues with her husband Bill on Sunday morning about her infidelity in their cluttered hotel room as campaign organizer John Triplette (Michael Murphy) arrives to try and convince them to appear at the political rally for his candidate Hal Phillip Walker. Raines' Mary tells Triplette with deadpan bluntness <i>"We can't vote for him because we're registered Democrats and, besides, he's kind of crazy isn't he?"</i> all the while putting cold cream on her face and lighting a cigarette in front of Triplette to demonstrate her indifference and disdain to him. Later, Mary has a heartfelt musical moment when she sings, along with her husband Bill and paramour Tom, the bluesy "Since You've Gone," expressing her disappointment and frustration about her affair after having just learned moments earlier that Tom has recently spent the night with bubble-headed, blabber-mouthed BBC reporter Opal (Geraldine Chaplin). Later, Raines also has an effective moment as she watches Tom singing the Oscar winning, iconic "I'm Easy" to a room full of admiring women. Wiping back tears, Mary scans the room trying to figure out who among the audience Tom is actually singing the song to.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgMfP8-MRMoWr9hfMmyBgmBcjn6PO4fzYsVQL5NFFKOTkx8n61EvSeTfYnlaBUZgUGL0JPbmahmTgWFEYgIX_T0nhOwM10m72H6VtsrPimnajZwqAfc5FaWWVU3ywoo7PSH0ZWA27N_k/s1600/Nashville9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgMfP8-MRMoWr9hfMmyBgmBcjn6PO4fzYsVQL5NFFKOTkx8n61EvSeTfYnlaBUZgUGL0JPbmahmTgWFEYgIX_T0nhOwM10m72H6VtsrPimnajZwqAfc5FaWWVU3ywoo7PSH0ZWA27N_k/s1600/Nashville9.JPG" height="171" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines recalled that she landed the role in "Nashville" because <b><i>"I was involved with Keith Carradine at the time--we lived together--and Keith was someone that Bob Altman frequently used in his films. And so people would hang out at his office at Lion's Gate (Altman's production company at the time) and they'd be playing music. And everybody loved Bob, you couldn't not love Bob. And everybody loved Kathryn, his wife, who was just an amazing lady. I remember there was a screening for something he was shooting, and Paul Newman was there, and Keith was shooting a film somewhere. Bob had asked me to come to the screening, and that's when he asked me 'Do you want to be in this movie? Do you want to be in 'Nashville'?'' and so I said, 'Sure.' And that was it! That's how I got cast in 'Nashville'!"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DQl5TTAMQV8GvyWTjQLgpZ7VYRebdcIPrgUXdImk05ymdfra4r0BvWKNcblVBDxO5NF424ErAX4ks2rrDgMtE72s7TtJCypoP0rjxhdYp0iq0pAH5tk4ItpA7wqftshyphenhyphendjRZnk1Od6Q/s1600/Nashville4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DQl5TTAMQV8GvyWTjQLgpZ7VYRebdcIPrgUXdImk05ymdfra4r0BvWKNcblVBDxO5NF424ErAX4ks2rrDgMtE72s7TtJCypoP0rjxhdYp0iq0pAH5tk4ItpA7wqftshyphenhyphendjRZnk1Od6Q/s1600/Nashville4.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Once filming started, Raines completely embraced the democratic atmosphere of working on an Altman film and recalls that the experience <b><i>"was like a traveling troupe from the medieval ages. He had people that he liked to use over and over again. He really was good at casting. Everybody had very distinct personalities and everybody would meet at the end of the day to watch dailies, because Bob really liked to have everybody see their own work. And so we'd sit around and watch dailies and then afterwards people would have their cocktails and we'd talk about it and then we'd all go home. But that was nightly. It was like he wanted everybody to be involved in the entire process of making that film. Plus, there was always the dynamics between the actors and their characters on screen and Bob just sat back and watched what was transpiring before him. </i></b><b><i><b><i>So it was really an interesting film to work on. He was good at creating that kind of atmosphere. </i></b>Bob Altman and Joe Sargent were similar as directors. They just had that uncanny ability to just see what was going on and just give you a push in one direction or another without, you know, getting verbose and talking about it for two hours. (laugh) They were just very present and in the moment with you. They were wonderful that way. I had no idea at the time that it would turn out to be such a landmark movie, but I knew it was an Altman film and I knew that he had a particular following. But, you know, sometimes when you're on a set you can feel whether a movie will be good or not, and I just knew 'Nashville' was going to be really good. It's all due to the direction and the cinematography and the sound, which was something that had never been done before, with the multiple people talking all the time. Bob was innovative and creative and he allowed the people that he worked with to be as creative and innovative as they wanted to be and it was so powerful. It was a powerful experience."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqhRHU7oEw-JkiBv3LeqSiJiH-wcvxCvodFfZnf7fiOiHvg6KuCeAP-6OfV_yteP2BAK8YqmxioL8BFFnAiPuN-u84NDG6tbQi-EZAIkQyOGvv-4-VmUa6EWk0ClL_IAyltyITF9JQ0g/s1600/Nashville2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqhRHU7oEw-JkiBv3LeqSiJiH-wcvxCvodFfZnf7fiOiHvg6KuCeAP-6OfV_yteP2BAK8YqmxioL8BFFnAiPuN-u84NDG6tbQi-EZAIkQyOGvv-4-VmUa6EWk0ClL_IAyltyITF9JQ0g/s1600/Nashville2.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines has very fond memories of the other 23 principal cast members she worked with on "Nashville" and recalls how, during the ten weeks of filming on location in Nashville, Tennessee, that <b><i>"we spent so much time together as a group, if we weren't at the motel, where the production offices were located and where everybody was watching dailies and everything, we'd all be in each other's apartments, because we were all staying in the same place. Our doors were always open for each other. We would have dinner together, we would cook together, we got to know each other pretty well for the most part--some more than others--but at least we got a sense of everybody. We all knew we were there for one reason, there were no ulterior motives or agendas with anyone in the cast, and everybody was there to support each other. Working on 'Nashville' sort of became your life while you were there on location. It became kind of an obsession. It became an all-consuming experience. I don't know how else to explain it. Everybody's life became intertwined and it was just like the characters we were playing in the film."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvFCVBonhtx7327PROhzU6gI1dSCxA93MC-_c1wBRMYFzcJi6uLGx0N9zUqvFdSC6YvMn25-yXlUm-a7YefjWlogtHdQMLdALjaGcWl7GerRq5ZG5ecAcvzk201m1esC-Jo1aj5hHstA/s1600/Nashville7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvFCVBonhtx7327PROhzU6gI1dSCxA93MC-_c1wBRMYFzcJi6uLGx0N9zUqvFdSC6YvMn25-yXlUm-a7YefjWlogtHdQMLdALjaGcWl7GerRq5ZG5ecAcvzk201m1esC-Jo1aj5hHstA/s1600/Nashville7.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Going down the list alphabetically through the main cast, Raines recalls that <b><i>"David Arkin was hilarious and a real character. Barbara Baxley was wonderful, a great, earthy lady. She was very bright and would always talk politics, she was very interesting that way, just like her character! I love Ned Beatty, he's just a good guy, and he's very funny. Karen Black was one cast member I didn't know much about. I never really had much conversation with her. She wasn't really there for the whole shoot. She kind of came in and left. She was only really there, I don't know, maybe a week or so on the shoot. I got to know her a little better years later and I liked her. In contrast, I got to know Ronee Blakley really well. I love Ronee. She really was a fragile bird, and I really admired how talented she was. She was great. Timothy Brown I got to know a little bit, not a whole lot, but he was very congenial, comfortable to be around. Nice guy. As you already know, Keith and I were living together and he is a great person who is very passionate and conscientious about his work, and very giving and generous to his colleagues. Geraldine Chaplin was a real character, very interesting to observe and be around. Bob just loved her and I really liked her as well. I thought Geraldine was really cool. Robert DoQui was awesome and was like everybody's best friend on that film. Shelley Duvall was OK. I mean, I knew Shelley for a really long time. I don't know that she was really happy with her role on the film. She would kind of not really hang out. She would, but she wouldn't, you know what I mean? I didn't really spend much time with her on that film. I think she felt...well, she was really upset one night because of her role and I felt really bad for her. Allen Garfield was a cool guy. It's not like I got to know him really well, I didn't, but I remember he was very kind. I adored Henry Gibson! I got to know him very well. He was just the best ever! I loved him! He was hilarious to work with, he just never missed much, and I felt very safe around Henry! (laugh) Scott Glenn was a dear friend of both me and Keith--we worked with him on my first film--and we spent lots of time together. Scott's a great human being, he's a really good guy. He is not afraid of anything. He is the most fearless, fearless person I've ever met in my life. He is a unique human being." </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6cwk-NRXNasGmuE22BW4bZoUqqKF09ZiQkvMIS-NgqKzUZT2flwdJAgmh504iie1p5wyk7678-vs0XjnYC1MffAsT9FRlwOdxVy5aAPsqxZ5Ag-rXFaaWYoYA4uhUUP-VJMzwTAkZdQ/s1600/Nashville10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6cwk-NRXNasGmuE22BW4bZoUqqKF09ZiQkvMIS-NgqKzUZT2flwdJAgmh504iie1p5wyk7678-vs0XjnYC1MffAsT9FRlwOdxVy5aAPsqxZ5Ag-rXFaaWYoYA4uhUUP-VJMzwTAkZdQ/s1600/Nashville10.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></i></b></div>
<br />
As Raines continues describing the rest of the cast, she acknowledges that, <b><i>"I didn't really get to know Jeff Goldblum very well on 'Nashville,' though I worked with him again on 'The Sentinel.' I actually got to know more about Jeff at the 'Nashville' reunion screening at the Academy in 2000 than anything else. I never really had a conversation with Jeff on 'Nashville.' I loved Barbara Harris. She was, honestly, one of my favorite people. Absolutely, hilariously funny. She was always coming over and hanging out with us. She just had a great take on everything. She is funny, that lady is very funny. If I needed to laugh, I'd go find Barbara because she was great. I never got to know David Hayward very well at all, and I don't think we ever had a conversation even. Michael Murphy's a great guy, I've known him a long time. He's such an underrated actor. He's very subtle and very good at what he does. He's been doing good work for a long time and he was a dear friend of Bob Altman's and Kathryn. Michael's a really good man, a really good human being with a lot of integrity. He's a hard one to find, there's not a lot of people like him. Allan Nicholls, who played my husband, was an amazing guy, amazingly talented and what can you say about someone you just adore? I just loved him. Dave Peel, I did not get to know him, that's another one I didn't get to know very well, and I really don't know why. I have no excuse because we were often in each others' presence during the making of that film. I loved Bert Remsen. I met Bert Remsen back when Shelley and Keith did 'Thieves Like Us.' I just loved him, such a smart and gracious guy. Lily Tomlin is another one who is great. She's awesome, she's just awesome. Lily is Lily. Lily is unique and honest and funny and has a very good view of what's going on around her. Gwen Welles was a sweetheart. You just wanted to protect Gwen. I loved Gwen. She sadly passed away several years ago. And I adored Keenan Wynn. He was a challenge, at times, but he was brilliant in his role. Just brilliant."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpp0IQQFt-AeLcAb6rWo5VlujEHgvsS72076Y5dgFSS8HSttrteCikpzTYIZHFNJEgru4h0oYxTFE53F-PxBS-QwSAgz5yPFv_Qvt_S1IqdMkYg3oQbvcQFHYu1_ybE_HZvSu3VXZcBc/s1600/Nashville1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpp0IQQFt-AeLcAb6rWo5VlujEHgvsS72076Y5dgFSS8HSttrteCikpzTYIZHFNJEgru4h0oYxTFE53F-PxBS-QwSAgz5yPFv_Qvt_S1IqdMkYg3oQbvcQFHYu1_ybE_HZvSu3VXZcBc/s1600/Nashville1.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Raines thoroughly enjoyed working on "Nashville," she faced some challenges with incorporating Altman's famous improvisational direction of performers in his films with her own acting style. She admits that Altman directed her to put cold cream on her face during the scene when her character meets with Michael Murphy's John Triplette about appearing at Hal Phillip Walker's rally because <b><i>"that was Bob telling me what to do because I was telling him 'I don't know what to do here!' (laugh) It's true that I wanted to stick close to the dialogue that Joan Tewkesbury had written for the movie and I wasn't comfortable with doing improv. I don't know why. I just...it made me nervous. Look at all the people I was working with! They were SO good with improv, so great, and I would just freeze at the thought of doing improv in front of them. But that's all right. I got through it because I was working with a lot of good people who were very supportive."</i></b> Raines also admits that she struggled with singing the Gary Busey-penned song "Since You've Gone" along with her on-screen singing partners Keith Carradine and Allan Nicholls, <b><i>"I hate it. (laugh) I was just so terrified when I was singing. Bob used to make us all sing our songs when we'd get together and it would just terrify me. I think I've said it a million times, but I would have rather been naked running down the street than singing in front of people! But, you know, it turned out fine. I sang a little bit in 'Sunshine,' but that was different because you're sitting there with your significant other and singing. But, in 'Nashville,' I had to really sing and I was afraid I wasn't going to be any good. Richard Baskin, the music director, worked with all of us to prepare us for our musical numbers and he was good, he was helpful. Keith and Allan were also very supportive. But once you're up there doing it, there's nothing you can do about it, you've just gotta go for it! (laugh)"</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwt9NyJM5dcq7WcaPzud0WZe_fjlRc0JvrDmo_8fp-WcgQT4IDsBnK3EB-d4IlSjrY7ak_mNM92Xu2JZI2RbsgAP7MI4LxksDpc7OI6nWYUljWAIvyKfFZRAJoRCigN-HdJrDOjKUn9pY/s1600/NashvilleSinceYouveGone.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwt9NyJM5dcq7WcaPzud0WZe_fjlRc0JvrDmo_8fp-WcgQT4IDsBnK3EB-d4IlSjrY7ak_mNM92Xu2JZI2RbsgAP7MI4LxksDpc7OI6nWYUljWAIvyKfFZRAJoRCigN-HdJrDOjKUn9pY/s1600/NashvilleSinceYouveGone.JPG" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines recalls that, during the filming of "Since You've Gone," the backup musician playing the base guitar in the scene attempted to give her more confidence in herself, but only caused her to have even more concerns with filming the scene. As she explains, <b><i>"We were filming in a small club filled with a couple of dozen people and the guy playing the guitar was trying to reassure me and he said 'Remember, hundreds of thousands of people are going to see this scene!' and I froze! I just went, 'Oh my God!' You know what I mean? Because he reminded me that it wasn't just the people in the club who were going to watch this scene, it was also everybody who would see the film. I had to think outside the box when he pointed that out to me! It totally freaked me out, because I was just in the moment there."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8ihhKrAS8CSDY_vmtSU-TMv5zzKa2oGzQQI3jUbvOeVdIFXGGzFrBLG2V7RxL9eoFfmgAR0PZ6w0DTY2Fhg3O9H4wRBfl2PTdZ4fOr53fLIRXIhcttxWGByO_6DzsP69yH9OyxAYj90/s1600/Nashville6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8ihhKrAS8CSDY_vmtSU-TMv5zzKa2oGzQQI3jUbvOeVdIFXGGzFrBLG2V7RxL9eoFfmgAR0PZ6w0DTY2Fhg3O9H4wRBfl2PTdZ4fOr53fLIRXIhcttxWGByO_6DzsP69yH9OyxAYj90/s1600/Nashville6.JPG" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While Raines credits the excellence of "Nashville" to Robert Altman's direction, she is also quick to acknowledge the enormous contribution of screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury to the film. As she explains, <b><i>"Bob was the same way with writers as he was with actors and has given a lot of people opportunities to find their own voice</i></b><b><i><b><i>, which is a pretty darn nice gift to give somebody</i></b>. Bob gave Joan a carte blanche and basically told her to go to Nashville and she came up with the story and characters after visiting the city. Even though the actors were allowed room to improvise and provide input, Joan's job on the set was to coordinate all of their ideas and properly integrate them into the film. That woman worked 24/7 on that film. She was always on call for the actors and it was a very structured script and everyone worked within that structure. Even though there was a lot of improv, there was also a lot of dialogue in the script that was already there. It wasn't like people just went in and said 'Oh, I'm going to do this in this scene' without consideration of how it would work in the overall film. There was a definite structure to 'Nashville.' She worked all the time on that film because there was always somebody in there talking with her about what they wanted to say and do with their scenes."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFArYpRGx-K9eDDitZfG5TksKIuu1opMntNTW7eo3do60Ta3Yk8H0G-j2vtDO-jIX8o4xafqaaGyMM4lcsVuJUAMpb-Nqz48y0CbS-WgtuZFuvk5iNNB3h73rYqcmpaKAUA04EThsEQCQ/s1600/Nashville3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFArYpRGx-K9eDDitZfG5TksKIuu1opMntNTW7eo3do60Ta3Yk8H0G-j2vtDO-jIX8o4xafqaaGyMM4lcsVuJUAMpb-Nqz48y0CbS-WgtuZFuvk5iNNB3h73rYqcmpaKAUA04EThsEQCQ/s1600/Nashville3.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
"Nashville" was one of the most controversial and acclaimed movies of 1975. It was nominated for five Academy Awards<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0.$end:0:$0:0">®</span></span></span>, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress for Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin, and Best Song for Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy." It won only one Oscar<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0.$end:0:$0:0">®</span></span></span>, with Carradine winning for Best Song. The film became one of the most discussed and analyzed films of the decade. Even though the acclaim and publicity did wonders towards raising Cristina Raines' profile as a rising and promising young actress, she acknowledges she struggled a bit with the attention and was conscious about maintaining a healthy perspective with her sudden success, <b><i>"'Nashville' had a very positive effect on my career, but it was also a little scary. I had to back away a little bit from working. It just frightened me because there was so much going on. My thing was not about being a star, it was about being a good performer, so it was definitely interesting and overwhelming. I mean, I was only 20 years old at the time! Jeff Goldblum was not the youngest actor on that set! (laugh) I was still a raw person. I remember thinking, 'What, what am I supposed to do about all of this? How come they want me here? Why do they want me to come there and read for that?' I was really an idiot. (laugh) In contrast, Keith dove right into it. He was happy and really handled the success well, but it terrified me. But that's just the way it is. Those are two different ways of dealing with things and he won the Oscar as a result. Keith was a lot sharper than I am in that way."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02m_9THmOvLRxd-z44Ra4v5qEHt5dEM8mKNJ_70yEQNsJQK-AARq95dqsHnqx0cp1S6mkZjdr3EnL2B0yOJNhAVw-Bs4OHTGyVljc3XpHek1yJmXrYpE16p964Go_UzFnrkZgWbE1Sgo/s1600/Nashville8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02m_9THmOvLRxd-z44Ra4v5qEHt5dEM8mKNJ_70yEQNsJQK-AARq95dqsHnqx0cp1S6mkZjdr3EnL2B0yOJNhAVw-Bs4OHTGyVljc3XpHek1yJmXrYpE16p964Go_UzFnrkZgWbE1Sgo/s1600/Nashville8.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the major themes of "Nashville" was its examination of the increasingly symbiotic relationship of politics and entertainment. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, due to the climate of the period, more and more actors and entertainers became politically active than ever before. Raines was an exception and differed from most of her contemporaries because of her aversion to using her visibility to influence public opinion. Raines never
felt that being an actress and a celebrity gave her the
authority to lecture the public on what political views or opinions
they should take. She admits that she often turned down opportunities
to speak as a political activist because, <b><i>"When I used
to be a celebrity, I was never comfortable with people asking me to use
whatever visibility I had to take a political position and influence
public opinion. I do not feel that that's the right thing to do. I
feel that that's celebrity-worship and I always felt that actors are no
different than anybody else. They're just human beings with an
opinion. That's a
responsibility, trying to influence how people should vote, that's a BIG
responsibility. It should be done by people with the knowledge and credentials to speak intelligently on a subject. I just didn't feel right to take a public position on
an issue and expect people to follow it just because I was a celebrity.
I think it's presumptuous and irresponsible, especially when a celebrity takes a
position and it turns out they are not well-informed about it. I mean,
if you want to be involved in saving the environment--OK, be involved
with saving the environment. But get all of your facts and information
and do it as a private individual contributing your time to help. Don't
do it as a famous celebrity throwing your weight around. There's all sorts of ways of participating in our Democratic
system in America, which is SUCH a gift that we have. And one way of
participating is by simply voting in an intelligent and informed manner and being part of the political
process. When people don't vote, I get very upset. My daughter is very conscientious about politics, but she's like me: 'Don't throw it around.
Just go vote.'"</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKF9WqC2DeFG67uD0OKt5_a7spAegPXVkDeL8xxxksYqiVAsopgvutRwuAMV3pbgX5DdWMRpQ_9n3raJq72hT4f9Ng3gv_r2pmfqAGfgie-2czYqQb4eQNOF9bk7Zfph6ECd9UVR0Sdv0/s1600/RussianRoulette.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKF9WqC2DeFG67uD0OKt5_a7spAegPXVkDeL8xxxksYqiVAsopgvutRwuAMV3pbgX5DdWMRpQ_9n3raJq72hT4f9Ng3gv_r2pmfqAGfgie-2czYqQb4eQNOF9bk7Zfph6ECd9UVR0Sdv0/s1600/RussianRoulette.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' first role after "Nashville" was as the female lead in "Russian Roulette" (1975). George Segal, then in the midst of his 1970s popularity, plays a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who stumbles upon a plot hatched by rogue KGB agents to assassinate the Russian premier while he is visiting Vancouver. Raines plays Segal's love interest and colleague, a file clerk with the RCMP. In the course of the story, Segal and Raines get kidnapped by the conspirators, escape from their custody and work together to try to avert the assassination. Raines' association with Robert Altman helped land her this role because <b><i>"Louie Lombardo, the director, did editing for Altman. He called me in and I auditioned and got the role. That was a movie I don't remember a whole lot about. It was OK, it wasn't bad. I liked the experience because George Segal is a really good guy. He's actually very funny. I had to try and keep a straight face a lot of the time. He was always making me smile, and we were making a suspense thriller, so that was the challenge of working on that film. And I loved Canada, I loved Vancouver, I just loved working in that area. It was a fun experience. I have more memories of the locations than the actual film. (laugh) I hate to say it, but it's true!"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2H5VZwpS6jQa09WBQ9SnqtiHikvljtazCHhQ1oR6M4DSslSFGLozCeO-z-5YuJrVMOCvVJranUki9AqbS37zlL5vakQPn_F76ZdThDAtaeztRYnfKCgqHGQxzdPoeQq2OzDBE6WZ4u8/s1600/SentinelLobbyCard.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2H5VZwpS6jQa09WBQ9SnqtiHikvljtazCHhQ1oR6M4DSslSFGLozCeO-z-5YuJrVMOCvVJranUki9AqbS37zlL5vakQPn_F76ZdThDAtaeztRYnfKCgqHGQxzdPoeQq2OzDBE6WZ4u8/s1600/SentinelLobbyCard.JPG" height="313" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' next feature film was made under her Universal contract, the horror film "The Sentinel" (1977), directed by Michael Winner, coming after the success of "Death Wish" (1974) and based on Jeffrey Konvitz's best selling novel. Raines had earlier worked with director Winner on "The Stone Killer," but had very little contact with him on that film. Raines starred in the lead role of Allison Parker, an emotionally fragile New York fashion model who moves into an elegant Brooklyn brownstone apartment. She soon falls victim to strange visits from her neighbors (who include Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles and Beverly D'Angelo) and is terrified by strange noises and footsteps coming from the empty apartment right above her. She is told by the real estate agent who rented her the unit (Ava Gardner) that, aside from herself and a blind priest (John Carradine) who lives on the top floor, no one else has been living in that apartment for years. Allison eventually learns that the apartment is built over the gateway to Hell, that the Catholic Church owns the building and have selected her to be the next Sentinel to replace the blind priest who has been living there, guarding and standing watch for decades. She further learns that the neighbors she has met are emissaries from Hell who are trying to drive her crazy so that she will commit suicide and be unable to replace the blind priest. Preventing her from becoming the next Sentinel would allow the demons of Hell to escape and spread their evil and hatred through the world. At the end of the film, good triumphs over evil and Allison assumes her role as the next Sentinel, having turned into an elderly blind nun, now guarding the gateway to Hell for generations to come.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9mtGi-nnObCpS3PVtNpXA0T4p7lFxu0853aR0zVjScFT9eDeqhqVIyQ6tNJOYkAIicT9VMAtvCNIFbjN732WUUZSQORxzz6mjKeHscJeC3vStX3YUw5eZi6i1iTHFU73SBXu6TJEJKd0/s1600/Sentinel6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9mtGi-nnObCpS3PVtNpXA0T4p7lFxu0853aR0zVjScFT9eDeqhqVIyQ6tNJOYkAIicT9VMAtvCNIFbjN732WUUZSQORxzz6mjKeHscJeC3vStX3YUw5eZi6i1iTHFU73SBXu6TJEJKd0/s1600/Sentinel6.JPG" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
"The Sentinel" was arguably Raines' meatiest role since "Sunshine," yet the movie suffered from negative reviews and indifferent box office at the time. Most critics denounced director Michael Winner's use of people who were born with real life physical deformities and disabilities to play the demons from Hell terrorizing Allison in the finale of the movie. It was a tactic reminiscent of the casting in Tod Browning's classic morality tale "Freaks" (1934), but without the intelligence and sensitivity Browning imbued his film with. Raines candidly admits that she has unhappy memories about the film, a sentiment that becomes understandable when one learns about her negative experience working with director Winner during its production. Raines shudders as she candidly recalls, <i><b>"That was another one where Monique James told the director, Michael Winner, not to use me, and he told me that. He picked me anyway, but that was a terrible experience. All I can say is that the New York Teamsters, who worked on the crew of that film, saved my life. That's all I'm gonna say. They were a stellar group of guys and they protected me from Michael Winner. If any of them are reading this, I want to say 'Thank you' because they made a point of letting him know that he'd better not mess with me. And I've never been afraid of anyone before, but that man was scary. It was really a frightening experience working for him. </b></i><i><b><i><b>That man put me through hell. </b></i>You know...he used people with real disabilities for the finale of that film. They were lovely and kind people, and he was unkind to them. He would also try to shoot Ava Gardner making her look really awful. Ava was still a stunningly beautiful woman, but he would go out of his way to light her badly, on purpose, to try and make her look bad. I wasn't aware at first that Michael was doing that. The cinematographer came over to me and he said 'Look at the way Michael's lighting Ava. He's trying to make her look horrible.' So I said to him, 'OK, let me see what I can do to help out.' I would work with the cinematographer and we would be in cahoots together </b></i><i><b><i><b>so that we could figure out a way to give her better lighting </b></i>to make sure she didn't look bad. What we would do is that I would distract Michael long enough for the cinematographer to reset the camera, that sort of thing. NOBODY liked that man. He was just unkind."</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9dR0szlbxALZ1NlhseUMe6R3SylkZ30qOV-J3yRj6biVgzXz4UmJmZj3YLi_OapoRyq1RkTgMnrkPYB1lmwAFnJVKlNKfAedz8FpOZ1VNemM3JojD-58AtQ0g7tS7fz5QQFq0uuWAQ4/s1600/Sentinel1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9dR0szlbxALZ1NlhseUMe6R3SylkZ30qOV-J3yRj6biVgzXz4UmJmZj3YLi_OapoRyq1RkTgMnrkPYB1lmwAFnJVKlNKfAedz8FpOZ1VNemM3JojD-58AtQ0g7tS7fz5QQFq0uuWAQ4/s1600/Sentinel1.JPG" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglybwCuNqIekBbXyTW3EnA10irhvXyp9UMehZpG6u6HDFE3_VJJR_yXRuQRbN65U33UKEqrR45gbey5qR7WhMV8b_GY_knqpUWssJfCfndQXAqze_bKLJNXL6QJ-FHSIzKGvr-S2nDWU/s1600/Sentinel7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglybwCuNqIekBbXyTW3EnA10irhvXyp9UMehZpG6u6HDFE3_VJJR_yXRuQRbN65U33UKEqrR45gbey5qR7WhMV8b_GY_knqpUWssJfCfndQXAqze_bKLJNXL6QJ-FHSIzKGvr-S2nDWU/s1600/Sentinel7.JPG" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadpz6SYkko9hwzAlkzhqoUPxbB1nLXJdy1BfzAehC1lTb1Q8WlLBSN4oYhaU8HZbBqJKU3jwq6YwlUEyVRvVPG0JPoil6rz9_1bQL-yCdWhicgkCSj1d9Dtx7bgiBhNMJ91diiPH8VjQ/s1600/Sentinel8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadpz6SYkko9hwzAlkzhqoUPxbB1nLXJdy1BfzAehC1lTb1Q8WlLBSN4oYhaU8HZbBqJKU3jwq6YwlUEyVRvVPG0JPoil6rz9_1bQL-yCdWhicgkCSj1d9Dtx7bgiBhNMJ91diiPH8VjQ/s1600/Sentinel8.JPG" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast to working with Michael Winner, Raines remembers the rest of her colleagues from "The Sentinel" with great fondness and respect and acknowledges how working with them brought some balance and perspective to that film. She fondly recalls how <b><i>"Chris Sarandon is a doll! He is an absolute doll! He's a wonderful guy, he was a lot of fun. He's just a really good actor. Ava Gardner was...what's the word? She was such an icon, she was just this great lady who had a great sense of humor--a bawdy sense of humor--and she didn't miss much. You know, people would kind of try to pull things over on her, like the director, and she just would look at me to show me that she knew what was going on. That woman was savvy. She got very protective of me when she was on the set because he was so awful to me, and then she would step in and do her thing in her Ava Gardner way and he would back off. Yeah, she was real protective, she was amazing. Burgess Meredith was a very interesting man. He was very interested in the world. He had a very interesting history. </i></b><b><i><b><i>Burgess was WAY ahead of his time. </i></b>He was good friends with John Lilly and Carlos Castaneda, and he was interested in things that people are interested in now. He was a great thinker, a great philosopher, and he was wonderful to work with on that film. Arthur Kennedy was an absolute gentleman. Very sweet and very nice and just a powerful actor. Deborah Raffin was wonderful and she and I actually became very good friends on that film. I got very protective of her because Michael was just terrible to everybody. I became friendly with Deborah and her husband Michael Viner. We lost touch with each other after awhile and I was really sad when I learned that she passed away. Beverly D'Angelo was hilarious. She's really funny and Sylvia Miles is an iconic actress, a real pro, and she's been around forever. They just played their roles tongue-in-cheek, they just went for it, no holds barred. (laugh) I had a strange scene with Beverly [where D'Angelo's character casually performs an obscene act in front of an increasingly uncomfortable and appalled Raines] and she just had a wonderful sense of humor about it. It's like I said, she went for it tongue-in-cheek, you know, they both did. They made fun of it themselves. That's how they got through it, which is another thing that made Michael Winner really mad! (laugh) He didn't like anybody, he didn't like anybody having fun, he didn't like anybody liking anybody else! (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi401GlF5KZ3qRP6yXuW4ZHdbRT2CZHhCnTEPpMOrzwtpQqfmb__Qqg2Wto9eLJiTq26XOxIoOFD7cVe5USAJSAaO7EGfjFjSY6CGOd2wGHWC_uadb7ALLyAP0mneqdXfK4gAk4qz5wI0w/s1600/Sentinel5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi401GlF5KZ3qRP6yXuW4ZHdbRT2CZHhCnTEPpMOrzwtpQqfmb__Qqg2Wto9eLJiTq26XOxIoOFD7cVe5USAJSAaO7EGfjFjSY6CGOd2wGHWC_uadb7ALLyAP0mneqdXfK4gAk4qz5wI0w/s1600/Sentinel5.JPG" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines also has very fond memories of working with legendary makeup artist Dick Smith. Smith devised the makeup for Raines' final scene in the film, which shows how Allison has turned, from a youthful fashion model, into an aged, elderly, blind nun guarding the gateway to Hell. Raines recalls with genuine awe, <b><i>"What was a treat working on that movie, aside from the craziness of the director, was Dick Smith, the makeup artist. What an amazing man he is, what an amazing body of work he has. He's been a mentor to so many people in the special effects world. </i></b><b><i><b><i>He was so helpful to everybody in the business, so helpful to all of these new, young artists. </i>H</b>e had me come out to his house, where we had to do the contact lenses and the makeup and everything. That really was me at the end of the movie, in all that makeup, as the blind nun. I had to wear those false contact lenses in my eyes. I tell you what, that was pretty creepy. That was an odd experience and Dick was really sweet. He just said 'Don't worry. You're OK, you're OK. I'm right here' because I was really freaking out wearing that makeup and those contacts."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rJPP0AUY3g89tPgMwbhww1KGHJ1Y0pHFXTOtLEZqqQXP4_hZs4UzngWiEBowehgVhHLzvxLm8QkPL-8EcBbqov09ZTNQFcuviy5TKjijpoPAMHaXIVv7-yo7CWDj6tIMHFCkV1Z_R4c/s1600/Sentinel10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rJPP0AUY3g89tPgMwbhww1KGHJ1Y0pHFXTOtLEZqqQXP4_hZs4UzngWiEBowehgVhHLzvxLm8QkPL-8EcBbqov09ZTNQFcuviy5TKjijpoPAMHaXIVv7-yo7CWDj6tIMHFCkV1Z_R4c/s1600/Sentinel10.JPG" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
For many viewers, one of the most interesting aspects of "The Sentinel" is the apartment building that much of the film is set in. Raines recalls that the film was shot on location inside the Brooklyn brownstone apartment on 10 Montague Terrace that was the setting for the film, and not on a sound stage, and that the location helped set the tone for the movie, <i><b>"Everything was actually shot in that building. It was a pretty creepy location. And my dressing room in the building was actually the room of a priest. There was just some strange stuff that happened on that movie to everybody. It was just, you know, weird coincidences and we all kind of looked at each other and said 'Oh, I don't want to mess with this, this is bad news! (laugh)"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuWzmcz_CRjoWEXNRpTPls3Vqb18sKYJPoRiFflM6Ca-2AA9MoPMzYL-yyq2rL3Tfh6r7rMsfUTR-l9hsInRWmQTiiqvOsNKc_9F9kRNIr-b8RmZvxSNlhwsDLxCzVx6KVwx4AhWH3C5Q/s1600/Sentinel3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuWzmcz_CRjoWEXNRpTPls3Vqb18sKYJPoRiFflM6Ca-2AA9MoPMzYL-yyq2rL3Tfh6r7rMsfUTR-l9hsInRWmQTiiqvOsNKc_9F9kRNIr-b8RmZvxSNlhwsDLxCzVx6KVwx4AhWH3C5Q/s1600/Sentinel3.JPG" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As production on "The Sentinel" continued, it became apparent that the cast of the film were not the only individuals having a difficult time working with director Michael Winner. Winner also feuded with writer Jeffrey Konvitz, who wrote the original novel the film was based on, and with the studio, Universal, over creative decisions. Raines recalls that, <b><i>"The book was written by a very good author, Jeffrey Konvitz. Konvitz was on set and I think he was protective because Michael Winner was taking great license and changing what he wanted to change without authority. And it upset Konvitz because it was not what he wrote and the book was really very good. So there was a lot of drama and turmoil between Michael and the executives at Universal. Apparently, he wouldn't let anybody see the dailies and he hid them and he just did some weird things and he made everybody's life miserable. To tell you the truth, I've never seen it because it was such a bad experience. I cried every single day to work. It's too bad because I felt at the beginning that it would be a good part and would make a good film. Oh well, I tried! (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvy3Eci6zuOcRdiYoyFOIu10_30MkuI7hqeIuRvO6bmHLXLZBHf9Xcyj61x8qVtYZNhP5zxInDjDq8ROKR17FOkEct1pmfUKjhLoPC2dWaQcSZXcFagL2H0kZdOtwuaHV8gecmit-doXs/s1600/DuellistsPoster.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvy3Eci6zuOcRdiYoyFOIu10_30MkuI7hqeIuRvO6bmHLXLZBHf9Xcyj61x8qVtYZNhP5zxInDjDq8ROKR17FOkEct1pmfUKjhLoPC2dWaQcSZXcFagL2H0kZdOtwuaHV8gecmit-doXs/s1600/DuellistsPoster.JPG" height="400" width="261" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast to the negative experience, and lukewarm critical reception of "The Sentinel," Raines' next film, "The Duellists" (1977), turned out to be one of the happiest experiences and most acclaimed films of her career. Based on a Joseph Conrad story, the historical drama starred Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel as two French Army officers during the Napoleonic era whose rivalry and enmity with one another sets in motion a series of duels, spread over many years, where both men attempt to defend their honor and pride. An intelligent drama punctuated with beautiful period detail and exciting action, "The Duellists" was the auspicious feature film directorial debut of Ridley Scott, who had already made a name for himself in television commercials. Raines plays the love interest and eventual wife of Keith Carradine's character and has only praise for her colleagues and fond memories of this experience. As she recalls, <b><i>"Oh, it was the best! 'The Duellists' was a much happier experience for me. That was just a total magic time. Great crew, great director, great script, great cast, great everything. And it was so low-budget that we were working wardrobe, we were doing everything! (laugh) We were carrying equipment, we were all participating and had a hand in just about all aspects of the production! It made those of us in the cast feel even more passionate about the film because we were involved not just as actors but also as crew members. I remember Harvey Keitel is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He is great, he is hilarious. Albert Finney and Edward Fox were so wonderful, both of them. </i></b><b><i><b><i>Albert Finney, God, he just opens his mouth and he just commands the room and he is a really wonderful man. Edward Fox is pretty much like he comes across on screen, very serious, because he's a thinker, but he's also got a very wonderful dry sense of humor. </i></b>You know, if you're not paying attention to what he's saying, you'd miss it, because he's got that dry British humor. (laugh)" </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp_auvkaZlN3t-egLFLcx_-LRo_byjHY3AFqci9zJRVt9H4tsKY3G6c5iK87RjR3BD7FFwh4A3c2nPZ2nISNYGFxWg1R9IkU2DOtv_4VRw7YyzkPC1I8ZhqA1pn-xvXREl1A9u43nERPQ/s1600/Duellists3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp_auvkaZlN3t-egLFLcx_-LRo_byjHY3AFqci9zJRVt9H4tsKY3G6c5iK87RjR3BD7FFwh4A3c2nPZ2nISNYGFxWg1R9IkU2DOtv_4VRw7YyzkPC1I8ZhqA1pn-xvXREl1A9u43nERPQ/s1600/Duellists3.JPG" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNwtuihNODAIUHRZ0y7_ce7fI3tYOVxBcsilfwGusj7_EW_BOQ7RJcTlQYfdYDzhKaMfhOsdYle9lLUoFuZMgzodsspjP7s_ZVkQ2Rbrnv39ttWhcTFXcpfeWi2VoxqVIFLXa8lEwOAI/s1600/Duellists4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNwtuihNODAIUHRZ0y7_ce7fI3tYOVxBcsilfwGusj7_EW_BOQ7RJcTlQYfdYDzhKaMfhOsdYle9lLUoFuZMgzodsspjP7s_ZVkQ2Rbrnv39ttWhcTFXcpfeWi2VoxqVIFLXa8lEwOAI/s1600/Duellists4.JPG" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines thoroughly enjoyed working with Ridley Scott on his first film
and was impressed with the visual beauty that he and the cinematographer brought to "The Duellists." Raines recalls, <b><i>"As a director, Ridley Scott is
very quiet and very intense. He's very, very focused on what he does
and with creating his vision for the film. At the same time, he's very available to his
performers. I remember he worked very closely with his cinematographer
and he used a lot of natural light for that film. Let me tell you, a
lot of what you see in that film is a lot of natural light, including
scenes that have candles in them. We had a very low-budget, but we had a
brilliant cinematographer, Frank Tidy, who created brilliant images for
that film. I don't remember a whole lot of lights anywhere, I'll tell
you that right now! (laugh) We would shoot it at a certain
time during the day and then we'd have to get the shot really fast! (laugh)" </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><i> </i></b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6C3IusBd8mID62Pknbk0U6zZjn7Y_UM1G2ryuRBQQyk55G_Oo_aXk0Bm3c1z2OGhYkATZrJjvmb7bYnk98lkG3bTafXqYOg8IPS7Lbzma-_SEwusK_AlUgF_4MbxyIW94S1ZJKUyQ_g/s1600/Duellists2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6C3IusBd8mID62Pknbk0U6zZjn7Y_UM1G2ryuRBQQyk55G_Oo_aXk0Bm3c1z2OGhYkATZrJjvmb7bYnk98lkG3bTafXqYOg8IPS7Lbzma-_SEwusK_AlUgF_4MbxyIW94S1ZJKUyQ_g/s1600/Duellists2.JPG" height="282" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5M23UjkHJeBHf5x-Yro-pvPmdQiJwoTsACUONKlWxgyCy_XX_NQom2KfmaAQ1TAd4n5emSSaZ3ji2QlashDjDFaNy8Kp6MI2Cgxlqb3g_UjYkZZd-2iFTjKjrUiw5VWDaK_l1auaa3dk/s1600/Duellists5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5M23UjkHJeBHf5x-Yro-pvPmdQiJwoTsACUONKlWxgyCy_XX_NQom2KfmaAQ1TAd4n5emSSaZ3ji2QlashDjDFaNy8Kp6MI2Cgxlqb3g_UjYkZZd-2iFTjKjrUiw5VWDaK_l1auaa3dk/s1600/Duellists5.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqa1ApP03DZxFmdnLtlioJL4kuxGhP2J8a_50QXicwnEdaa0cz3BQdVomjjukD1A2_Fmwb062vP-WUzlFLDzWrnWLP4nsdkphyphenhyphenbJbh1BjYDEFJN_jSfv8OVBr3QuQ6u2J64idfL9TiwM/s1600/Duellists1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqa1ApP03DZxFmdnLtlioJL4kuxGhP2J8a_50QXicwnEdaa0cz3BQdVomjjukD1A2_Fmwb062vP-WUzlFLDzWrnWLP4nsdkphyphenhyphenbJbh1BjYDEFJN_jSfv8OVBr3QuQ6u2J64idfL9TiwM/s1600/Duellists1.JPG" height="317" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-ZBYJm-K-zoZkf-Yj4BiMAqIqcI33pqn6t25ydES8jY4HuS9BIRhTCaMztrl5iTUNEgUkFNSDrk-mFOWEDvCC5GIcJfQHYatjbDtBgBgmvtoT53MfeTeB8igmacuKKYzUBBmD2KghpA/s1600/Duellists1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
Another reason why "The Duellists" remains one of Cristina Raines' favorite films is due to her fond memories of the camaraderie that existed between the cast and crew and the people in the French village where the film was made. As she explains,<i><b> "</b></i><b><i>It was a very relaxed atmosphere and it was very familial among the cast and crew. </i></b><b><i><b><i>We all had dinner family style every night as a group. </i></b></i></b><b><i>We were in Sarlat-la-Caneda and stayed at this fabulous little place called <a href="http://www.lahoirie.com/" target="_blank">La Hotel la Hoirie</a> and it was run by Mr. and Mrs. Fasola and their daughter Toinette. We became friends and I said to them 'Have you ever had Thanksgiving dinner?' because we were there for Thanksgiving and they said 'No.' I described what Thanksgiving meant to Americans and they got all excited and decided that we were going to make a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire crew and cast! So they went out shopping and I remember that they came into the kitchen with two turkeys and they had to be plucked! (laugh) When I told them we also have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, Mr. Fasola said 'That's what we feed the pigs!' because he had his own little garden and everything. (laugh) I remember we cooked for two days. </i></b><b><i><b><i>I had my family send over some cranberries in a box and we made cranberry sauce. </i></b>We made pumpkin pie and apple pie and stuffing, and Mr. Fasola went down into the cellar and brought out some very special wine and we had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner. It was just one of those experiences that was really magical. Everybody really enjoyed the dinner and people played music, because Keith is a great guitarist. It was a moment of all of us sharing cultures and it was really, really wonderful. </i></b><b><i>'The Duellists' was
just one of the best experiences of my life and acting career."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8YVST2kptFanqF3aqCLwqhg2Iz2CI_f-cEc4cVXY3VF7DtSR8nkPEpJhBFvU9ARL-lreiznBVBnGTGdfcXppeK9QtwQ_JG1TO7avzkI8gvky0HBgjKEnGQAzC3MECogdeRzeLrLBk0w/s1600/LooseChange.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8YVST2kptFanqF3aqCLwqhg2Iz2CI_f-cEc4cVXY3VF7DtSR8nkPEpJhBFvU9ARL-lreiznBVBnGTGdfcXppeK9QtwQ_JG1TO7avzkI8gvky0HBgjKEnGQAzC3MECogdeRzeLrLBk0w/s1600/LooseChange.JPG" height="400" width="342" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ24ZvIgHFZhlqrRWNSZizTeaN0tTXi4jXK07D8ksbDwyGM7S5crNBNYyVUZReRehciTlQqsbaD13VrA-26ngXIw6NZPOvh-lazkfN_2fSnyu7Jgcaua51Bo-i4zINxoRevQmASvvrYFk/s1600/LooseChange2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ24ZvIgHFZhlqrRWNSZizTeaN0tTXi4jXK07D8ksbDwyGM7S5crNBNYyVUZReRehciTlQqsbaD13VrA-26ngXIw6NZPOvh-lazkfN_2fSnyu7Jgcaua51Bo-i4zINxoRevQmASvvrYFk/s1600/LooseChange2.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-75fY3ZHTlYzEw2gx-GiF1QoRxybf_VbmmyA1vSaaggLX8tQeAKRh6i7y3V1-Ketow2sVi2PWxGuuJTL3hF1kGegab69-rjnqY5DJaeCOOZqVcrzNRmYPUPpFmynrorxXoGvx5c98jU/s1600/LooseChange3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-75fY3ZHTlYzEw2gx-GiF1QoRxybf_VbmmyA1vSaaggLX8tQeAKRh6i7y3V1-Ketow2sVi2PWxGuuJTL3hF1kGegab69-rjnqY5DJaeCOOZqVcrzNRmYPUPpFmynrorxXoGvx5c98jU/s1600/LooseChange3.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' next several projects were leading roles in television miniseries based on best selling novels produced by Universal and aired on NBC. First up was the lead role in "Loose Change," the adaptation of Sara Davidson's best selling memoir of three women attending and graduating from Berkeley in the 1960s and experiencing the cultural and political upheaval of the time period. Raines played Kate Evans, a role based on Sara Davidson herself, and starred alongside Season Hubley and Laurie Heineman. A 6-hour miniseries that aired over three nights from February 26 thru 28, 1978, "Loose Change" is remembered for the technical error that occurred when NBC, on the show's second night, accidentally aired approximately 20 minutes of the third night's episode. Raines recalls that <b><i>"I really, really liked the people I worked with on that show. I loved working with Season Hubley and Laurie Heineman, and Gregg Henry, Ben Masters, and Stephen Macht were all great. Gregg was the one I worked with the most, but they were all great guys. Gregg Henry's a wonderful person, he's a really great guy, he was a lot of fun to work with. When I say that someone's fun to work with, it's not just that they're fun to work with. It's that they're generous performers. They're present in the scene and they want the scene to work. They come up with ideas. It's working with someone as a team to create something good. There's a joie de vivre, there's a joy in it. Whenever I have that experience with an actor like Gregg and I say 'He was a joy to work with,' I'm saying that it's someone who is professional, someone who is creative, someone who enjoys what they do, someone who enjoys working with other people and is not looking in the mirror. They're present and they're with you and what's important is the work. I also really liked Sara Davidson. She was awesome, a really interesting lady. She's a really good writer and her book was really good. However, it was fraught with problems because they had changed it significantly from the novel. But we made it, we survived it. I understand why Davidson wasn't happy with the miniseries. That was a battle that she had with the producers over the changes they made to her book, so there were some definite problems on that show."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpV709Sj1uoFqwU_sl_YCsob8dwGHIkKjw7fosENNNGKNIG5P3inWvmsFOkw1OBthSJ_4VEYGU_CukZ9O69x2v8gZzzN7imzN2qiOu5lSV6dTEjshnKzF7NNrhxx1VEm1rWlt3360Sc0/s1600/Centennial1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpV709Sj1uoFqwU_sl_YCsob8dwGHIkKjw7fosENNNGKNIG5P3inWvmsFOkw1OBthSJ_4VEYGU_CukZ9O69x2v8gZzzN7imzN2qiOu5lSV6dTEjshnKzF7NNrhxx1VEm1rWlt3360Sc0/s1600/Centennial1.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkyfneYlP1ufs3ANMiWqCvz7fKRMQk3aU00OPWGWsSJXYoV_FNScUKlT16scp4GANtEnjzzHp4jneA_vSCaSpdFyh12l0T7-yMw8NG0duYIacApMGgPfIM8J34RqpayPt4qwY_9Rn_P4/s1600/Centennial4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkyfneYlP1ufs3ANMiWqCvz7fKRMQk3aU00OPWGWsSJXYoV_FNScUKlT16scp4GANtEnjzzHp4jneA_vSCaSpdFyh12l0T7-yMw8NG0duYIacApMGgPfIM8J34RqpayPt4qwY_9Rn_P4/s1600/Centennial4.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr33zPkJWcZki5t9XaVF_w0E_FdjsEqwLXQxp5U0DY3ycrvLtuHg6QTM21YnKu4IFCenOy33KykQemaV93vLcvGVtMq2jc7uMefn0ieTtGPds1yof3fHJ4kCB-NPx7dqg2xlGwChjlNzk/s1600/Centennial2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr33zPkJWcZki5t9XaVF_w0E_FdjsEqwLXQxp5U0DY3ycrvLtuHg6QTM21YnKu4IFCenOy33KykQemaV93vLcvGVtMq2jc7uMefn0ieTtGPds1yof3fHJ4kCB-NPx7dqg2xlGwChjlNzk/s1600/Centennial2.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' next major project was another period piece, the epic 12 episode, 25 hour miniseries "Centennial," based on James Michener's novel, which aired on NBC from October 1, 1978 to February 4, 1979. A Western drama that recounted the nearly 200 year history of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, Raines played Lucinda McKeag Zendt. The daughter of French/Canadian fur trader Pasquinel (Robert Conrad) and his Native American wife Clay Baskett (Barbara Carrera), Lucinda is raised by Scottish trapper Alexander McKeag (Richard Chamberlain), who marries Lucinda's mother after the death of Pasquinel. Lucinda later marries Mennonite Levi Zendt (Gregory Harrison), has two children with him, and opens a general store in Centennial that becomes one of the community's central businesses. The role allowed Raines an opportunity to play Lucinda from her teenage years to an elderly woman. Produced by Universal, "Centennial" was both critically acclaimed and a ratings success, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2JAIdHURdaItie2K8xBQAj9R2JCqheL49DHUFlCQwlzVc16pP6nhdNPoMKZtQORgNC_ar2gR1LFWh9V2udraxfVWG8g-l7SWf9bIvgG2WksP0zvfnn2H9d2Byv1muoFbzgJQIDIjsEE/s1600/Centennial5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2JAIdHURdaItie2K8xBQAj9R2JCqheL49DHUFlCQwlzVc16pP6nhdNPoMKZtQORgNC_ar2gR1LFWh9V2udraxfVWG8g-l7SWf9bIvgG2WksP0zvfnn2H9d2Byv1muoFbzgJQIDIjsEE/s1600/Centennial5.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijK4AZyPc19YG4-eqWdBfLLxPxUNY82QetsIuPnF2pXMXx7CiyqHaSL6LSar8vbRpBJYVIBBCoUVBJ8MkvV5CkubWb-IrZujI2OAzxAHL_mo1AT_vDjlB6cd4bmB208hnjzaRHB_IziN8/s1600/Centennial6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijK4AZyPc19YG4-eqWdBfLLxPxUNY82QetsIuPnF2pXMXx7CiyqHaSL6LSar8vbRpBJYVIBBCoUVBJ8MkvV5CkubWb-IrZujI2OAzxAHL_mo1AT_vDjlB6cd4bmB208hnjzaRHB_IziN8/s1600/Centennial6.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpEIAd319aSVeCIHFeN6tCAzb1TUo8VSgoO1ZjPGJuRidYmwUBcu5UwTbNYp7Bs5MIG6JtJCbqvsa4P5DoI82h-SHQZ_o3c2KR6kYaVxkYhLsanNpn2NpS6GMEmJkAJ6-oTgWdb5STog/s1600/Centennial7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpEIAd319aSVeCIHFeN6tCAzb1TUo8VSgoO1ZjPGJuRidYmwUBcu5UwTbNYp7Bs5MIG6JtJCbqvsa4P5DoI82h-SHQZ_o3c2KR6kYaVxkYhLsanNpn2NpS6GMEmJkAJ6-oTgWdb5STog/s1600/Centennial7.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines has very fond memories of "Centennial" and readily recalls how she <b><i>"loved every minute of it. I took my grandmother with me on that shoot because my grandfather had just passed away. It was wonderful for her because she hung out with everybody and she was like everybody's mascot. I remember Kario Salem, who played my brother in it, came up to me at the airport because 'I have to meet the woman who's traveling with her grandmother and her dog!' And I said, 'Well, that's me!' (laugh) Yeah, that was an awesome piece to work on and I remember how James Michener came on the set--and my grandmother is a writer--and they became friendly. I got a very sweet letter from Mr. Michener when the show was over. I just loved everybody on it. It was another life changing experience for me on an internal level, because I learned a lot and matured during that time. And I just loved my character so I felt very much at peace and at one with that character. It was really nice to play Lucinda. Barbara Carrera used to call me 'Loose Linda' and I used to call her 'Basket Case.' (laugh) Richard Chamberlain was fine to work with, a little bit of a character. A couple of years ago, I ran into him and I said 'Hi, Mr. Chamberlain. Remember me? I played your daughter on 'Centennial' and he looked at me like 'Who the Hell are you?!' (laugh) I think what that was about is that Chamberlain was the kind of actor who showed up on the set completely in-character and he stayed in-character the entire time we worked together. On the set, he always spoke as his character, McKeag, and addressed me as my character, Lucinda. We never had a conversation as ourselves, as 'Richard Chamberlain' and 'Cristina Raines' on set. I never socialized or got to know him as 'Richard Chamberlain.' Because he is such a dedicated Method Actor, I think that's why he didn't recognize me after all these years because he probably associated me in his mind with my character. I was not offended that he didn't recognize me because I admire that dedication and he's still a lovely guy. Gregory Harrison, who played my husband, was wonderful to work with. He's just a great guy. Everybody was wonderful."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ahnJ-jgSbrfaqJbQDBw-XQf9Vw-bft6WAhcVWymMRvwcgFq22ckxtHqfe9zKkS8GgQ3SmsDGeEdKWdnqbu9HgMSD03E9_R5FgfwUMuY72x1VeTZscq1rmQ203sMF7d2eF7uIIzI_PNs/s1600/Centennial9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ahnJ-jgSbrfaqJbQDBw-XQf9Vw-bft6WAhcVWymMRvwcgFq22ckxtHqfe9zKkS8GgQ3SmsDGeEdKWdnqbu9HgMSD03E9_R5FgfwUMuY72x1VeTZscq1rmQ203sMF7d2eF7uIIzI_PNs/s1600/Centennial9.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9sgY_9W1l0LK7oRN4lGo5iR4Es2V_GFOUC2P0Pg9_aYgHocTg86H7IEf_KSVjBJDsTBDMDIOgDpjluHMcJNoWVADC7CakNAkJ4qwNa1ho8tHjd8tU02tOaTsnGoAz7VBSKXnsFsdL-o/s1600/Centennial8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9sgY_9W1l0LK7oRN4lGo5iR4Es2V_GFOUC2P0Pg9_aYgHocTg86H7IEf_KSVjBJDsTBDMDIOgDpjluHMcJNoWVADC7CakNAkJ4qwNa1ho8tHjd8tU02tOaTsnGoAz7VBSKXnsFsdL-o/s1600/Centennial8.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtLjwfXDgRTDKIMaoUxezZHE8qh9I7rp5MaurqPrUIgcTbY279y7fUPkOpz6s5EEFCGG-iEwNJbn7pK_MnT0Tby66lfDs6MSQAX_Bk30rbgN2KdRJIGq0v-VhqAnNYeIilSzNGrgcxnE/s1600/Centennial10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtLjwfXDgRTDKIMaoUxezZHE8qh9I7rp5MaurqPrUIgcTbY279y7fUPkOpz6s5EEFCGG-iEwNJbn7pK_MnT0Tby66lfDs6MSQAX_Bk30rbgN2KdRJIGq0v-VhqAnNYeIilSzNGrgcxnE/s1600/Centennial10.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Because Raines' character, Lucinda, experiences much in her lifetime and is allowed to age before the audience's eyes, the role offered much depth and range. Raines recalls that <b><i>"Of course, I liked the younger portion of the story, but I also liked the portion where her husband Levi leaves because he's going back East to see his family, and her character doesn't know if he's ever going to come back. I had them make me a fat suit for that age period because nobody at that age is still skinny. I wore a size two at that time and I was really thin. The fat suit looked great, and the old age makeup was great. You know, I liked all of the miniseries, really, and how it showed the passage of time and how the community and characters developed because time moves on. Thing's change. They shot it in the same chronological order as the book. They did Robert Conrad, Barbara Carrera and Richard Chamberlain first, and then they brought me in, and then the actors who came later in the story would join the show when it came time to film their scenes. It was not one of those shows where all the actors, spanning the different eras of the story, were there at the same time. They did shoot some of the scenes in Texas, the cattle scenes and all of that, while we were filming the rest of the show in Colorado at the same time. A lot of that was second-unit and then they brought them back and everybody ended up in Greeley, Colorado. That's where we all stayed, at the Holiday Inn where we'd get into the little bus every day and drive to the set. (laugh) It's funny, the things that you remember from a shoot."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPp_LEVBc9hPSoXpJkb6J9O290fUu1TOPgi2MkPImbQN3J6AQskYpY9V3G9IyHqy2tluMZHghfsTsauOyEohmylI2b1grknqQx3cEKEwh8ji-XaLmB7P4rER9-9O4CtWm-Y2RHEoORPzc/s1600/BlueKentuckyGirl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPp_LEVBc9hPSoXpJkb6J9O290fUu1TOPgi2MkPImbQN3J6AQskYpY9V3G9IyHqy2tluMZHghfsTsauOyEohmylI2b1grknqQx3cEKEwh8ji-XaLmB7P4rER9-9O4CtWm-Y2RHEoORPzc/s1600/BlueKentuckyGirl.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During this time, while Raines was still with Universal, she was in the running to play Loretta Lynn in the film adaptation of her memoir "Coal Miner's Daughter." The notion of casting Raines was mentioned in a May 13, 1979 Washington Post article about the making of the film. Even though Raines was reluctant to discuss what films during her Universal contract Monique James sabotaged her chances of appearing in, Raines acknowledges, when asked, that "Coal Miner's Daughter" was one of them. As she recalls, <b><i>"Joe Sargent, who directed me in 'Sunshine,' was going to direct it and he wanted me for it. And what happened there was more political than anything else, I think. Monique James had her hand in that, she tried to stop me from being cast in it. I screen-tested for it and, in the end, they went with Sissy Spacek. Joe Sargent ultimately walked away from the project because there were creative differences in general between him and the producers. Because he didn't want to direct it anymore, I said to him 'Joe, this is gonna make you a huge director. This is going to be a huge hit.' Well, was it? Yes! And Sissy Spacek was absolutely brilliant in it and deserved winning the Best Actress Oscar. Things happen for a reason. Sissy and I knew each other in New York because she was also a model for Eileen Ford. We weren't like best friends or anything, but we knew each other that way and we hung out together. She was always a great girl."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRHqPMHz3azF7zdEE4vKd5FxCcXaNSOxaSjFHEx2NF4Huj6WTQ3xdldW4ZBGwhzzgT_3Pt5Vbb3SlPv6xatJGbpkSOO1txSam8lMXspB58fDntfV9K3qTmbTixb1AoKzqQBORpNojOf9I/s1600/UniversalBlackTower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRHqPMHz3azF7zdEE4vKd5FxCcXaNSOxaSjFHEx2NF4Huj6WTQ3xdldW4ZBGwhzzgT_3Pt5Vbb3SlPv6xatJGbpkSOO1txSam8lMXspB58fDntfV9K3qTmbTixb1AoKzqQBORpNojOf9I/s1600/UniversalBlackTower.jpg" height="268" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
At this point, Raines had grown tired of Monique James' interference with her career. Rather than continuing to struggle with the situation, Raines took proactive measures and requested to be released from her contract with Universal. As she recalls, <b><i>"I think when I signed the contract it had to be for 7 years, but I actually requested to be released from it after 5 years. It's a long story, but I was released from it after I did 'Centennial.' I had a friend at Universal who had some influence and he made a phone call and that was that. It was a relief to be able to freelance and make my own decisions about my career, but I admit that I liked Universal overall, and I liked all the people I worked with at Universal except Monique James. The executives at Universal in the Black Tower actually were very supportive of me and my career there. I had no bad experiences at Universal with them. They were good guys. I didn't do as many TV guest roles at Universal as the other contract players because Monique didn't want me working at all. But, during my contract, I still guest starred on some of their shows--like 'Kojak' and a couple of other ones--basically because it was the producers of those shows that requested me."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcTxL3zOBgzpdiMBNTfOvy-OE3oSKvmkHGS5fgF6cEejHtsFLhvoKXwhw8duOgJPHFtXUCEkWLgnzTeabaeHh7h2xZPDgg5mBjpa_57M3sQ0H3GpyLnk0VCABFyUgEnqlhyphenhypheny_GoK7K7k/s1600/ChildStealer2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcTxL3zOBgzpdiMBNTfOvy-OE3oSKvmkHGS5fgF6cEejHtsFLhvoKXwhw8duOgJPHFtXUCEkWLgnzTeabaeHh7h2xZPDgg5mBjpa_57M3sQ0H3GpyLnk0VCABFyUgEnqlhyphenhypheny_GoK7K7k/s1600/ChildStealer2.JPG" height="400" width="273" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMjJ2OSaOzxHKO26Ebpvq8Ml8gKWyua30H1Ud0nDqj_6TyJMJvv6aPGKW_6tdkICit5NjpXEwdP9nwrKjUszyU7C7Inm2KFuNfHv3W6CrPZo4iXBgtoKjtxSHRNeAqLKuPhsOzWnpt2Y/s1600/ChildStealer1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMjJ2OSaOzxHKO26Ebpvq8Ml8gKWyua30H1Ud0nDqj_6TyJMJvv6aPGKW_6tdkICit5NjpXEwdP9nwrKjUszyU7C7Inm2KFuNfHv3W6CrPZo4iXBgtoKjtxSHRNeAqLKuPhsOzWnpt2Y/s1600/ChildStealer1.JPG" height="245" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Now working as a free agent, Raines co-starred in the TV movie "The
Child Stealer" (1979) starring Beau Bridges and Blair Brown, which aired
March 9, 1979 on ABC. Bridges plays a divorced father who kidnaps his
two daughters with whom he shares custody with his ex-wife, played by
Blair Brown. Raines played Bridges' well-meaning girlfriend, who
initially believes his stories and goes along with helping to raise his
daughters while they are on the run from the law. Eventually, she wises
up and leaves Bridges when she realizes that he does not have his
daughters' best interests at heart. Raines is proud of "The Child
Stealer" and describes the film <b><i>"as a really good experience.
'Child Stealer' was great because it was a very intense storyline and
Beau is great. I worked with him a couple of times and Beau's a good
Joe, a good guy. And I loved Blair Brown. She's another one of those
actresses who's just magic on-screen and she's an amazingly kind human
being."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBR1gzcW07iMhdN-uTMCNdqfMgMreltXqPZmePmB9OZ9BTyxD4V1zY12NqRhxi9WnlQrIEA6jiazDWF_Gt7Y_vmp6-r51tA7KfVkxUZews-IyLp1fK3jVrzR5mIfM_ngaFVC_Rr1V6mOY/s1600/TenthMonth1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBR1gzcW07iMhdN-uTMCNdqfMgMreltXqPZmePmB9OZ9BTyxD4V1zY12NqRhxi9WnlQrIEA6jiazDWF_Gt7Y_vmp6-r51tA7KfVkxUZews-IyLp1fK3jVrzR5mIfM_ngaFVC_Rr1V6mOY/s1600/TenthMonth1.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqo5UmHUjH81cIZNoGixJHlNMVU13mA1bNKfij13XQ6WiH2FRX1-4sOi_ofS1zaMhB9uOEExg1DqziRODJPUa23mhu1ym-SENvnQ-Xvwi1KlLPFDA2wNzUIYkPmIUXM57DFkcNAaARbkg/s1600/TenthMonth2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqo5UmHUjH81cIZNoGixJHlNMVU13mA1bNKfij13XQ6WiH2FRX1-4sOi_ofS1zaMhB9uOEExg1DqziRODJPUa23mhu1ym-SENvnQ-Xvwi1KlLPFDA2wNzUIYkPmIUXM57DFkcNAaARbkg/s1600/TenthMonth2.JPG" height="293" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines reunited with her "Nashville" colleague Joan Tewkesbury for the TV movie "The Tenth Month" (1979), which aired September 16, 1979 on CBS. An adaptation of Laura Z. Hobson's novel, "The Tenth Month" stars Carol Burnett as a middle-aged, single woman who learns that she is pregnant for the first time and decides to have the baby out of wedlock. Burnett's character moves out of her home and into an apartment across town so that her colleagues and neighbors are unaware of her pregnancy. She plans to make arrangements to adopt her own child so that the baby will never suffer the stigma of being born illegitimate. Raines played Burnett's close friend, Nancy, a young married woman expecting a baby who is supportive of Burnett's efforts. Intelligently written and directed by Joan Tewkesbury, "The Tenth Month," is an effective drama that touches upon numerous feminist issues without becoming preachy because Tewkesbury leaves the audience room to form their own opinions. Raines thoroughly enjoyed working with Tewkesbury again and recalls that "The Tenth Month" was <b><i>"a wonderful working experience. Joan was a friend for a long, long time. She's a wonderful writer and I thought she was also a good director. She kind of was a trailblazer for women because she was directing before a lot of women were directing. And because she was directing at a time when women still weren't directing, she's experienced a lot of harder bumps than a lot of people. I also enjoyed that film because Carol Burnett is a munchkin! She is everything you want her to be. She really is that woman in your living room that you watch on TV. She's got a wonderful sense of humor and she's very bright. She's great. She's a mensch, she's a real mensch."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJ4QJbQZilh6njfvCJqgWs5F7AkkoNRhRWuRZelvq8fYAeNK3lcdSRrMFswVONvx1lekRQ7e7Fw1gA_t3BG6-HMBY7vuxWhV7uNWyQvmWw7IWZpIdiSVm7XbQOozWcij1wWSNwUJRdpQ/s1600/SilverDreamRacer1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJ4QJbQZilh6njfvCJqgWs5F7AkkoNRhRWuRZelvq8fYAeNK3lcdSRrMFswVONvx1lekRQ7e7Fw1gA_t3BG6-HMBY7vuxWhV7uNWyQvmWw7IWZpIdiSVm7XbQOozWcij1wWSNwUJRdpQ/s1600/SilverDreamRacer1.JPG" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYiBUTYEfnPrlupTpV7fHIHbKq1c54SxyGmQZfOTkFpIkVqHa1GN9_0veEVlYpjbXo2a5DJUWB1wD3U5_m7RgCqONyChyphenhyphenm_5w-KBYEg_JIckR3rm-pN7yCqBYgnFXxBx0Obzp1ebbFr8M/s1600/SilverDreamRacer2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYiBUTYEfnPrlupTpV7fHIHbKq1c54SxyGmQZfOTkFpIkVqHa1GN9_0veEVlYpjbXo2a5DJUWB1wD3U5_m7RgCqONyChyphenhyphenm_5w-KBYEg_JIckR3rm-pN7yCqBYgnFXxBx0Obzp1ebbFr8M/s1600/SilverDreamRacer2.JPG" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Cristina Raines started off the 1980s by appearing in the British motorcycle racing drama "Silver Dream Racer" (1980), starring rock star David Essex. Essex plays a motorcyclist Nick Freeman who wants to compete in a race against ruthless American racer Bruce McBride (Beau Bridges) while riding an experimental, prototype motorcycle developed by his late brother. Raines played Julie Prince, Nick's love interest, who helps raise the financial backing needed to help Nick prepare for the competition. A "Rocky" type underdog drama set in the racing world, Raines fondly recalls that the film <b><i>"was really fun and awesome! That was a cool, cool movie to work on. I really didn't know much about the motorcycle racing world, and I learned a lot about it while working on that film. It was a really neat experience and I couldn't hear for a month because of all the motorcycles, but that was OK. (laugh) David Essex is an absolute dreamboat to work with. He is a gentleman and he's funny and he's smart and he's a really good actor. He was great, I really liked him."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39saOacN76YCtB64TmaCXiUOEtNo1yrcgZhwyD2nQ3AsWE0GSQuEPaIRYBq595lfUTWtLR9D3T8mwJIIe6j9INo3GF-37CIZt8zp9pdCFiBmQkTfeAt9j6fQ5AZ3o3kdekQvPAGx4Lvg/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39saOacN76YCtB64TmaCXiUOEtNo1yrcgZhwyD2nQ3AsWE0GSQuEPaIRYBq595lfUTWtLR9D3T8mwJIIe6j9INo3GF-37CIZt8zp9pdCFiBmQkTfeAt9j6fQ5AZ3o3kdekQvPAGx4Lvg/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding2.JPG" height="263" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOn6WNSgO2vAnGS1w0yOk-AMs_lkaIjGB8bF-RjyBmZ0rsC98CX8olNVLpJIeQbF4DiojdaMmAMxmYs66HN8-naguyStGDixsE8_8D3irY7dL5CWRqvtcd9k-W0nDpTM9cVVwYsnyzMwg/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOn6WNSgO2vAnGS1w0yOk-AMs_lkaIjGB8bF-RjyBmZ0rsC98CX8olNVLpJIeQbF4DiojdaMmAMxmYs66HN8-naguyStGDixsE8_8D3irY7dL5CWRqvtcd9k-W0nDpTM9cVVwYsnyzMwg/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding4.JPG" height="176" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBkcM4sL_V4v3dMJ0uo7wDtB-ky7ijEJ4-E3MOm-nTNvol9JRc2qs8xu-xDgNDzTeKzYdahGr5EfGyJmESGjQRaGA5Ocru3SnsRdb0DXcfj3g03JkIWCbDgi5GJ0nTcqpQucuqAzab-k/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBkcM4sL_V4v3dMJ0uo7wDtB-ky7ijEJ4-E3MOm-nTNvol9JRc2qs8xu-xDgNDzTeKzYdahGr5EfGyJmESGjQRaGA5Ocru3SnsRdb0DXcfj3g03JkIWCbDgi5GJ0nTcqpQucuqAzab-k/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding3.JPG" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr85S_sqOnpy3_8abtcfiJDBEunY3ORVrRJLjmTMGDPLDWeNDYO3rsKI-Bqqf2klDQc5bb7mPve9wfw5pajxhY6J7mFzbo5o3Z36WuIkSNpacofi7YMhp4fCAMd6DzBSAQ9csicOAC0k8/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr85S_sqOnpy3_8abtcfiJDBEunY3ORVrRJLjmTMGDPLDWeNDYO3rsKI-Bqqf2klDQc5bb7mPve9wfw5pajxhY6J7mFzbo5o3Z36WuIkSNpacofi7YMhp4fCAMd6DzBSAQ9csicOAC0k8/s1600/SilverDreamRacerEnding1.JPG" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While Raines has fond memories of "Silver Dream Racer," she admits she was not a fan of the original ending, where Essex's motorcycle spins out of control moments after he wins the race, and his character is killed. Raines was not alone in this matter, and the Rank Organisation, which produced and released the film in the UK, re-edited the film and deleted the crash from the ending after they received negative feedback from critics and the public, which allowed the film to have a more update finale. The censored ending was used when the film was released in the United States in 1983, and most fans of the movie remain unaware that the original released ending was grislier. Raines candidly admits that <b><i>"I felt the original ending, with David's character being killed, was a terrible ending. I wasn't aware that they cut that ending out later on. Finally they figured it out! I always disagreed with the director's decision to use that ending. I never liked the fact that he dies at the end. Who wants their hero to die at the end? Really? I mean, it's just bad moviemaking!"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazNRXO-hOGui7ynuaOccQSA-39yFCFm3rzB21Hy29MiRZZ5fGWmbdcjrrQ_6ksReD1bEXdvqy6Ji7idN947a0abstvuLxaFwbVWJeujHUm0gVQOhWCnYwlulgorL7vIWG-HmfMSxWPAQ/s1600/TouchedbyLove2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazNRXO-hOGui7ynuaOccQSA-39yFCFm3rzB21Hy29MiRZZ5fGWmbdcjrrQ_6ksReD1bEXdvqy6Ji7idN947a0abstvuLxaFwbVWJeujHUm0gVQOhWCnYwlulgorL7vIWG-HmfMSxWPAQ/s1600/TouchedbyLove2.JPG" height="283" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqELIGaqsvpNjx_O4qPPrvRD67YT2wuYVyIabVxPxLOjVeLzu4FE_z8LhQGK4I523dr6AfAIVX2SCWoTh1YcvQ6q1tMmHmfbBokZ5anJt2Q0QD9MpnkTzKrknQ3aTm-FZ-SBvAaI83ejI/s1600/TouchedbyLove1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqELIGaqsvpNjx_O4qPPrvRD67YT2wuYVyIabVxPxLOjVeLzu4FE_z8LhQGK4I523dr6AfAIVX2SCWoTh1YcvQ6q1tMmHmfbBokZ5anJt2Q0QD9MpnkTzKrknQ3aTm-FZ-SBvAaI83ejI/s1600/TouchedbyLove1.JPG" height="283" width="400" /></a></i></b></div>
<br />
Raines also appeared in a co-starring role in the feature film "Touched by Love" (1980) released by Columbia Pictures. Based on Lena Canada's memoir, the film starred Deborah Raffin as Canada, a physical therapist who helps facilitate a pen-pal relationship between a young girl with cerebral palsy (Diane Lane) and Elvis Presley that serves as a form of therapy for the girl. Raines played Raffin's sardonic roommate, a fellow therapist working at the institution for young people with disabilities. Raines fondly recalls how the making of the film, <b><i>"was a very nice experience. Deborah Raffin and her husband Michael Viner produced the film. As I mentioned before, Deborah and I became friends after we worked together on 'The Sentinel.' I remember Diane Lane was lovely and already a powerful actress. I looked at Deborah at one point and I said to her, 'That girl is going to be a HUGE star.' She is so talented and she was already such an amazing actress at the time we made that film. It was incredible how good she was at that age."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJXieMH8fOOEi-YXiUzCmY5eUx43JcQvtAHnKuN9l9YEozDtyFX3leeos6bu2Eqb_N07ImXyybPhp-4HAHRo2ouP7q37XhGjy1nEgxb3cnCenwxwQWdLLeHwkJ9trsSgRWB61HxKoSXo/s1600/FlamingoRoadCredits.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJXieMH8fOOEi-YXiUzCmY5eUx43JcQvtAHnKuN9l9YEozDtyFX3leeos6bu2Eqb_N07ImXyybPhp-4HAHRo2ouP7q37XhGjy1nEgxb3cnCenwxwQWdLLeHwkJ9trsSgRWB61HxKoSXo/s1600/FlamingoRoadCredits.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' next major project was the lead role in the prime time soap "Flamingo Road," which aired for two seasons on NBC. The 2-hour pilot movie aired on May 12, 1980, with the subsequent series of 37 episodes running from January 6, 1981 to May 4, 1982. Raines played the street-wise, yet sympathetic, Lane Ballou, who arrives in the corrupt Florida town of Truro as a dancer in a seedy carnival. Lane butts heads with evil Sheriff Titus Semple (Howard Duff) when she decides to leave the carnival and make a life for herself in Truro. Titus disapproves of Lane's burgeoning relationship with deputy sheriff Fielding Carlyle (Mark Harmon), whom he plans to groom for a career in the State Senate. The situation escalates when Lane is thrown into jail for a month-long prison term after spoiled heiress Constance Weldon (Morgan Fairchild), who is engaged to marry Field, complains to Titus about Field's relationship with the carnival girl. While Lane is in jail, Field (who believes that Lane ran out on him) marries Constance. When Lane returns to Truro, she gets a job singing at a roadhouse/bordello run by Lute-Mae Saunders (Stella Stevens), who is secretly Constance's natural mother. Lane and Lute-Mae become best friends and Lane begins dating successful and upstanding businessman Sam Curtis (John Beck) while still pining away for Field. Meanwhile, Constance's kind and decent adoptive mother Eudora Weldon (Barbara Rush) is compassionate towards Lane, while her husband, paper mill owner Claude Weldon (Kevin McCarthy) agrees with Constance and Titus that Lane is trash who should be driven out of Truro. Lane, meanwhile, is also befriended by Constance's good-natured brother Skipper (Woody Brown), who disapproves of his father and sister's shallow perspective on life, as well as ethical small town newspaper publisher/editor Elmo Tyson (Peter Donat). Various plot threads emerge over the course of the series based on this scenario.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4X6-0dODSJPoTRPIdESu2OH4n0zZeHVniP9kgHWvUPUA9F64tqnzyRc9I4t5dRElmZoyVnXdfAfP-meZNnJQR4qkdj6fIAKEnAlf3lJmZ9WfSRHDp6cSq6otGmfWqSR6xLepH0ahre4/s1600/FlamingoRoad3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4X6-0dODSJPoTRPIdESu2OH4n0zZeHVniP9kgHWvUPUA9F64tqnzyRc9I4t5dRElmZoyVnXdfAfP-meZNnJQR4qkdj6fIAKEnAlf3lJmZ9WfSRHDp6cSq6otGmfWqSR6xLepH0ahre4/s1600/FlamingoRoad3.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkuuYIE0v0P65xg5HmdDFTklXNNktgRDXvqdv4poRi8dEzWRMP217GsUsiK8NGej4nbCjpCmWFcR5a8zA5p50qgRgW6eP7JIQS1wmiEFErDORs-8gpbfdgd574paQk5Pzh8gW6OjUVSQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkuuYIE0v0P65xg5HmdDFTklXNNktgRDXvqdv4poRi8dEzWRMP217GsUsiK8NGej4nbCjpCmWFcR5a8zA5p50qgRgW6eP7JIQS1wmiEFErDORs-8gpbfdgd574paQk5Pzh8gW6OjUVSQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad2.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A juicy, thoroughly entertaining nighttime soap produced by Lorimar, the production company behind "Dallas," "Flamingo Road" started promisingly in the first season when it focused on Raines' character Lane and remained the story of a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks who challenges the corrupt politicos and businessmen who want to drive her out of Truro. In the second and final season, when the show focused more on Morgan Fairchild's Constance, and less on Raines' Lane, the qualities that distinguished it from other nighttime soaps became less apparent. Nevertheless, Raines was excellent as Lane Ballou, giving a natural, spontaneous and, at times, edgy performance in the role. She brought substance and earthy intelligence to the role that ensured Lane retained her independent, rebellious nature even as the character establishes herself in Truro society and stakes a claim to live on the wealthy, eponymous Flamingo Road. In one scene, in the second season, after Lane has been harassed by mobsters terrorizing her and her new husband Sam, Raines has an emotional scene expressing Lane's fears, anger, and frustration about the situation. Rather than giving a mannered performance, as some prime time soap actresses of the 1980s are wont to do, Raines digs deep and gives a raw, unaffected interpretation of the scene that demonstrates her ability to think outside the box while playing Lane.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhIuFhjkk7W1hn1VMPv-lY29R1oNar1okgVcwNjSMesm8kcXAW7ayx5WVyXxhHLYGNuEEbIQYBPh7iQ3cx-EJEFc9Cl3P-fSMVYyNjfmlUG-TCatr_StF2pczhA9Uz40vUkY9DPfiuEaQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhIuFhjkk7W1hn1VMPv-lY29R1oNar1okgVcwNjSMesm8kcXAW7ayx5WVyXxhHLYGNuEEbIQYBPh7iQ3cx-EJEFc9Cl3P-fSMVYyNjfmlUG-TCatr_StF2pczhA9Uz40vUkY9DPfiuEaQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad4.JPG" height="293" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJipX0_00lzP1J8nwmkEOb8oEBTfuFIfUjzejBRdoCMX9wieXxf3BCby24absdyb1GxGvhrDDgoLCxfZCrrA_7jxtXKzcMCy970jnKFBME9Ji3ZSB90s4PVpEyiFoJyb0WQQTcL0Zet6M/s1600/FlamingoRoad12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJipX0_00lzP1J8nwmkEOb8oEBTfuFIfUjzejBRdoCMX9wieXxf3BCby24absdyb1GxGvhrDDgoLCxfZCrrA_7jxtXKzcMCy970jnKFBME9Ji3ZSB90s4PVpEyiFoJyb0WQQTcL0Zet6M/s1600/FlamingoRoad12.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines humorously recalls how she landed "Flamingo Road" by simply going <i><b>"on an audition for it. And then I went on an audition again for it. And then I did an audition for it in front of the network! (laugh) It was one of those situations. Gus Trikonis, who I have worked with twice, was the director of the pilot. After auditioning all of those times, I got the role."</b></i> Coming from a background working in films, Raines found that appearing on a weekly series <b><i>"was a whole other animal. It was really long working hours for everybody, especially the crew, because the crew worked even longer hours than the actors did. For the cast and crew, doing a series is demanding work for everyone involved, and it's intense."</i></b> Despite the intense work schedule, Raines enjoyed "Flamingo Road" because <b><i>"I loved playing Lane Ballou. She was a great character. You know, she was the girl from the swamp, the underdog, trying to make a life for herself. I liked how she was complex and flawed, even though she was basically the good character on the show. That's what made her such a great character. Lane had a temper and she was a little scrappy! (laugh) I liked her friendship with Lute-Mae. I also liked the dilemma in the first season of Lane having to choose between Sam and Field--the drama of her needing to pick between one guy who was obviously not good for her, Field, and the other guy, Sam, who was. You always wanted that character to end up with the guy who would be good for Lane because she had such a rough time growing up. I always felt Field was not right for her and that Sam was better for her in the end. I liked 'Flamingo Road' because it was almost like a throwback to a 1940s movie, which it was! That's what was nice about it: it was a little different to what was being done at the time. I didn't know at first that it was based on a movie with Joan Crawford until I got the part and then I watched it and it was really good. Joan Crawford was an amazing actress, and her version of Lane was also a great character."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfreVD2c1llU4Ur3FTuMnKfh1IzFyMbVKd9Xqo-URNTS5A2w2wxBURphC639PqVQWAgAZ8W1bi9IQ82OcEMx50-gkSSgmwDshrarZEMBUj_yEAHkKF5LzraA-rk4OleI9805qlYPTNH-w/s1600/FlamingoRoad6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfreVD2c1llU4Ur3FTuMnKfh1IzFyMbVKd9Xqo-URNTS5A2w2wxBURphC639PqVQWAgAZ8W1bi9IQ82OcEMx50-gkSSgmwDshrarZEMBUj_yEAHkKF5LzraA-rk4OleI9805qlYPTNH-w/s1600/FlamingoRoad6.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRQlogdtiSKHK1o4blFwOYoP6CXqyD6JnZO79XReXKjMn758MRMXJTUSovn5FS-QA5CnJWq09Djs5JgujEuXJeW_uDBuCHezX1vFp09ei0CTMDQc_19lwZ_8Vzq53HHbCXWx_drXQK7M/s1600/FlamingoRoad1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRQlogdtiSKHK1o4blFwOYoP6CXqyD6JnZO79XReXKjMn758MRMXJTUSovn5FS-QA5CnJWq09Djs5JgujEuXJeW_uDBuCHezX1vFp09ei0CTMDQc_19lwZ_8Vzq53HHbCXWx_drXQK7M/s1600/FlamingoRoad1.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout the run of the series, Raines enjoyed working with the creative personnel working behind the scenes on "Flamingo Road" and recalls how, <b><i>"the writers were fun and they tried to help us and work with us. We would have read-throughs and, if something didn't work, they'd work to change it until it was right. I really loved Rita Lakin, who wrote and produced the show in the first season. She was wonderful. Rita Lakin had a tough job on that show. She had to deal with the network, NBC, because people were constantly trying to change her writing. But Rita was the heart of the show for me. She was the heart of the story because of the way she put it together. She was wonderful. I also liked all the directors on that show. There were some new and young directors who worked on it who brought some freshness to it. But I also remember that Fernando Lamas directed an episode and he was fantastic! He was wonderful and old school and he was just great. He brought an elegant quality to the show that was like something out of a 1940s movie. He just had great sensibilities as a director."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiE9i50_kJR_lxFG7TVK1uETZsa5wJVNIFUSd0eLAzdT1IdJn-vYeqh5srctQuytaUYDsfr6a-qF8KGcdGXktdgriWSg14Eu_cUsglg4YjveZRAGWnsZJozUtir1Q2HdaVo9vvD-bYBs/s1600/FlamingoRoad11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiE9i50_kJR_lxFG7TVK1uETZsa5wJVNIFUSd0eLAzdT1IdJn-vYeqh5srctQuytaUYDsfr6a-qF8KGcdGXktdgriWSg14Eu_cUsglg4YjveZRAGWnsZJozUtir1Q2HdaVo9vvD-bYBs/s1600/FlamingoRoad11.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwiqx1ot8ipfs7_lW-qyAmum4-kSaA8F7gKJqmOsaTW9jA0whVNM_KUubMksvg-DQUuODXvMkoxDgQy9juzdu6cBEH_j3mBOnGQxfMbzp6rUsUgeekbugtZ4y59xblC7wr6ATI3T5oyTI/s1600/FlamingoRoad7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwiqx1ot8ipfs7_lW-qyAmum4-kSaA8F7gKJqmOsaTW9jA0whVNM_KUubMksvg-DQUuODXvMkoxDgQy9juzdu6cBEH_j3mBOnGQxfMbzp6rUsUgeekbugtZ4y59xblC7wr6ATI3T5oyTI/s1600/FlamingoRoad7.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSl04mmSz0YHJukt7b3Kht-fI9fIQwpEjB2XAhdtCmLb-JIv3DURVYySCBOnFR5frXLH38iB4_zPnI_9lTivQduvxAprIpY4h84EoXh_7IPWVYNn4RpuYyAe_4omx7eazIvIu9E9RWNg/s1600/RainesStella.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSl04mmSz0YHJukt7b3Kht-fI9fIQwpEjB2XAhdtCmLb-JIv3DURVYySCBOnFR5frXLH38iB4_zPnI_9lTivQduvxAprIpY4h84EoXh_7IPWVYNn4RpuYyAe_4omx7eazIvIu9E9RWNg/s1600/RainesStella.JPG" height="400" width="326" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines has mostly positive memories of her on-screen colleagues on "Flamingo Road, and recalls how, despite the on-screen acrimony that existed between her character Lane and Howard Duff's Titus Semple on the show, <b><i>"Howard Duff was one of my favorite people in the world. He just didn't take any sh-t from anybody in any way, shape, or form! (laugh) He was AWESOME! Even though our characters, Lane and Titus, hated each other, we were buddies, we were very good friends. I really liked Howard Duff a lot."</i></b> Raines also liked many of the other cast members of "Flamingo Road" and readily adds that <b><i>"John Beck is great. He's just a real good Joe, he's a good dad. He's just a real solid guy, real solid. Easy to work with, great sense of humor. Good guy. I have a soft spot in my heart for Stella Stevens, and I have a huge soft spot for Barbara Rush. But I have soft spot for Stella, even though Stella could occasionally be a bit feisty on the set. But, you know what? She's a really good actress and I was always a little protective of her. Isn't that funny? I don't know what that was about--maybe it was a character thing because my character Lane always felt protective of her character--but she was great as Lute-Mae. And she's perfectly capable of handling herself, believe me, she's been around the block a few times! (laugh) As I just mentioned, I love Barbara Rush. She's a grand lady, she's really fantastic. Kevin McCarthy, who played her husband, was a real character and I liked him. He would do things on set like he would start to move a glass in front of Barbara Rush's face during a take, and she would move his hand back out of the way! (laugh) Barbara's so smart. She knows how to take care of herself and she doesn't miss anything. Peter Donat was a sweetheart! You mentioned his name and I saw his face and it made me remember what a good guy he is. Woody Brown's adorable. He and his wife and I were very close friends for a long time. We have lost touch with each other through the years, but Woody's great. He's really salt of the earth."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhREAtu4Mm0tvo7BDEAKM6VxHsspcdpIrfvg8NjvW3H1lpCZ6O9uPXk88Y4wEdMaJT6BcWlDiv4TzSzDRBAQK2CcmYmEkqLM70VPCtbap2pgJxPTi0kTDRYLTjMSjF0m_ee2gJV1Vp235M/s1600/Harmon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhREAtu4Mm0tvo7BDEAKM6VxHsspcdpIrfvg8NjvW3H1lpCZ6O9uPXk88Y4wEdMaJT6BcWlDiv4TzSzDRBAQK2CcmYmEkqLM70VPCtbap2pgJxPTi0kTDRYLTjMSjF0m_ee2gJV1Vp235M/s1600/Harmon.JPG" height="400" width="362" /></a></div>
<br />
During the run of "Flamingo Road," Raines (who was no longer with Keith
Carradine) began a relationship with her co-star Mark Harmon, who she
had already met and worked with in 1978 on "Centennial." Their relationship would last
for four years, from 1980 to 1984. In a <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20092820,00.html" target="_blank">1986 People Magazine cover story</a>, Harmon stated that <b><i>"Tina taught me how to stop and notice the oak trees and smell the flowers...She will always be a very special lady to me."</i></b> Today, Raines speaks of Harmon with respect and describes him as someone who is <b><i>"wonderful
to work with. He's present, he's there, he's very generous and he's
very giving as an actor. I also remember him as being a very detail-oriented and perceptive individual. Mark's a great actor and a great guy."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIbSCdaFEQELwKBxxYk_tCvlxaOvoQV-zlFI9sOSPTOCa0s_V0zG_ezTsSQk1MmBN6tIfdrkH7kR7-cUxhgJRIYpMz5CauLDZO84kNuq7lpIeWYqcUJ1kXFH6-HFhddFJaaMfyhQ3eyI/s1600/FlamingoRoad5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIbSCdaFEQELwKBxxYk_tCvlxaOvoQV-zlFI9sOSPTOCa0s_V0zG_ezTsSQk1MmBN6tIfdrkH7kR7-cUxhgJRIYpMz5CauLDZO84kNuq7lpIeWYqcUJ1kXFH6-HFhddFJaaMfyhQ3eyI/s1600/FlamingoRoad5.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIon8TCRIemGc-DZq0OZTZl72U391AFH7Ojdmdvd9jm64OVGz_8y9QaFTc_2mPVCY-7ZEhlD8eSDI0WZku56NDbpp_Fv3kr-7nVk3NUW2AxlOMEDfxGpP816vVRzF467YbZzScNs_NHZ0/s1600/FlamingoRoad10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIon8TCRIemGc-DZq0OZTZl72U391AFH7Ojdmdvd9jm64OVGz_8y9QaFTc_2mPVCY-7ZEhlD8eSDI0WZku56NDbpp_Fv3kr-7nVk3NUW2AxlOMEDfxGpP816vVRzF467YbZzScNs_NHZ0/s1600/FlamingoRoad10.JPG" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though she liked most of her colleagues on "Flamingo Road," Raines acknowledges that she and her on-screen rival Morgan Fairchild were not particularly close off-screen. Raines candidly admits that <b><i>"I really liked everybody in that cast, except for one person. (laugh) Morgan and I were not friends and we just didn't get along. I think we are just two very different individuals with two very different ways of viewing the world, two very different ways of going about things. You might say that the dynamics between us as individuals was not unlike the dynamics between our characters, Lane and Constance. Maybe that's why it worked so well on-screen? (laugh) So, what the hell, at least it made our scenes on the show work!"</i></b> Along with Fairchild, Raines also admits that she did not enjoy working with Executive Producer Michael Filerman on "Flamingo Road." With the same level of candor, Raines acknowledges that <b><i>"Michael Filerman is not one of my favorite people in the world. You know how I feel about Michael Winner? It's very close. Michael Filerman is a nasty man. He is the kind of person who goes out of his way to sabotage people. </i></b><b><i><b><i>Michael Filerman tried to blame Mark and me for supposedly destroying the show and that it was supposedly our fault that it got cancelled. I'm not quite sure how I found out, but I got wind that he had been saying that, and action was taken to make him stop it.
That's how awful he was. That's what I meant when I said he tried to sabotage people. It wasn't us who were the reason the show was cancelled. </i></b></i></b><b><i><b><i>That's about as far as I want to go on that subject. </i></b>Like I said, I really dislike Michael Winner and Michael Filerman is his bookend. (laugh)"</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIyAuV_W1OdYUlbc61IesGw39Yr7yqktJ79F-neLtfYtxhGT-EbPnK9O54SRpO1gflhdG24VamM9jHP6BP8hgZ0TQBY5DvCVhRVNAN8xQZ9X-JdGHbymXfnGJXb5NJVyUXl7dlr7gmUQ/s1600/FlamingoRoadSong.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIyAuV_W1OdYUlbc61IesGw39Yr7yqktJ79F-neLtfYtxhGT-EbPnK9O54SRpO1gflhdG24VamM9jHP6BP8hgZ0TQBY5DvCVhRVNAN8xQZ9X-JdGHbymXfnGJXb5NJVyUXl7dlr7gmUQ/s1600/FlamingoRoadSong.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One positive aspect of "Flamingo Road" was that it allowed Raines an opportunity to hone her singing abilities, which were first put to use in Robert Altman's "Nashville." Because Lane's character worked as a singer in Lute-Mae's roadhouse, Raines sang on an almost weekly basis on the series, performing standards such as Crystal Gayle's "Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue" or Loretta Lynn's "Blue Kentucky Girl." She also introduced new songs such as the Holly Dunn/Stewart Harris penned number "Could it Be Love," <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-cristina-raines-song.html" target="_blank">which I have blogged about before</a> and which Raines performed on the show three separate times. After being nervous about singing in "Nashville," Raines readily acknowledges <b><i>"Isn't that weird that I was singing on 'Flamingo Road' every week? Well, we prerecorded the songs I performed on the show. There was a friend of Mark's who was into music and who was a great guy and had a lot of creative people around him. He produced my music for the show, and we used a lot of new songs that were written by some of his talent. It kept the cost down for the producers to have him record songs for the show. We recorded the songs and then we shot it on camera with me lip-synching to the playback. I liked singing 'Could it Be Love,' I thought it was a good song. I
also remember that I sang a number called 'You Never Gave Up
On Me.' I believe it was written by one of the writers who worked for
Mark's friend. I sang it, and
then Crystal Gayle recorded it. It was weird because I had sung Crystal
Gayle's 'Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue' earlier on the show, which
was a standard. I don't know, maybe it's because I had to do it over and over and over again, I felt more comfortable about my singing. It wasn't as frightening anymore, it was OK."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_i40wciceyUP_Y0lO6u3zQI-WjIMbUWJmZ0jml4pQLfgGlJINuhUq8aINwYh9Y7w5bZOjey4nUjL3r95_iRGueW0ouKT7twAlqEF-2gB11zJrRU97kkk_-5mvdigL_ojWm-NFifKv_o8/s1600/BattleoftheNetworkStars2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_i40wciceyUP_Y0lO6u3zQI-WjIMbUWJmZ0jml4pQLfgGlJINuhUq8aINwYh9Y7w5bZOjey4nUjL3r95_iRGueW0ouKT7twAlqEF-2gB11zJrRU97kkk_-5mvdigL_ojWm-NFifKv_o8/s1600/BattleoftheNetworkStars2.JPG" height="272" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzs4xjsqPeCcWPrlPObNRZrNMfHH2vurmjR98Cu8wW4RnYl22VACAXuRy2ISeRCFyA-rbWEKEIRPiOOOv2zfTVo24RyLNyjMVNjinpuj_n58ORa-kDSiod4MO7Uu7DAXUzKhLKoIEESK4/s1600/BattleoftheNetworkStars1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzs4xjsqPeCcWPrlPObNRZrNMfHH2vurmjR98Cu8wW4RnYl22VACAXuRy2ISeRCFyA-rbWEKEIRPiOOOv2zfTVo24RyLNyjMVNjinpuj_n58ORa-kDSiod4MO7Uu7DAXUzKhLKoIEESK4/s1600/BattleoftheNetworkStars1.JPG" height="272" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During her time on "Flamingo Road," Raines competed three separate times on "Battle of the Network Stars," the now-legendary series of biannual ABC TV specials where the stars of shows from all three major networks competed with one another in a variety of athletic and sporting events. Held at the Pepperdine University campus in Malibu, Raines competed on the NBC team in the segment that aired December 5, 1980, alongside 'Flamingo Road' co-star John Beck, and also in the November 20, 1981 and May 5, 1982 segments with her other leading man from the series, Mark Harmon. Raines has fond memories of appearing multiple times on the show and recalls that <b><i>"I did it several times because it was a lot of fun and it was very athletic. It was competitive and it was challenging. I didn't have to prepare extensively for it because I studied ballet intensely and pretty seriously at the time and so I was in really good shape to begin with, though not anymore! (laugh) And Mark was a runner, and I was also a runner, and so we were both in good shape and it was fun for us to participate on that show. All the events were fun to participate in, but the one that made me laugh were the water events. They were kind of weird and challenging to do. I remember Maud Adams was on our team and I said to her, 'I don't do well in these water events.' And she said very confidently, 'I'm very good at unusual things.' (laugh). She said it with that wonderful European accent. I just laughed so hard and she was brilliant. She just whipped it up in that event. It was fun, it was like strategizing so we could figure out 'Who's good at this?' and 'Who's good at that?' or 'How do you feel about participating in this?' and 'Where do you want to line up?' You really had to work as a team to make it work. I think the teamwork aspect was one of the reasons I really enjoyed doing 'Battle of the Network Stars.'"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qVwve3Iar-3nJWlN-61GFBroc3_F7ya4CyQGmUDPnQLAo879ykIoHdkMw6defNjXv0yIFFcFDR_M0Ms4ZGRX0tm3FFcgCQjH4mIYEuQ81ljQSbcf_jGK-H42vV8mEo879Xi0vt2_9sQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qVwve3Iar-3nJWlN-61GFBroc3_F7ya4CyQGmUDPnQLAo879ykIoHdkMw6defNjXv0yIFFcFDR_M0Ms4ZGRX0tm3FFcgCQjH4mIYEuQ81ljQSbcf_jGK-H42vV8mEo879Xi0vt2_9sQ/s1600/FlamingoRoad8.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
"Flamingo Road" ended in 1982, as a result of losing in the ratings competition against ABC's "Hart to Hart." However, Raines did not regret the show's premature cancellation after only two seasons. Raines and Mark Harmon received word of the cancellation while they were in Canada doing a well-received tour of the stage play "Key Exchange." Raines recalls, <b><i>"I was in Canada doing 'Key Exchange' and I looked at Mark and I said 'I don't know how I'm going to go back and do another year of 'Flamingo Road.' I just didn't want to deal with Morgan or Michael Filerman anymore, and I also had concerns because the storyline in the second season was veering into strange directions with all of that voodoo stuff. I kept thinking 'What's going on with the show?' but then it was cancelled. Even though I didn't want to do the show anymore, I did miss working with Howard Duff and John Beck and Stella Stevens and Barbara Rush, and the rest of the cast and crew. They were wonderful and I am glad I had that opportunity to work with them for two years."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivzjS1NiEVIXMJh-1hkEJpTqE1DIc1pPPQrrRNDnlaLHrWmhUAA_SKXwT9qvkkr4H9kXQ4CatG9J7dF5VdnLt9Jr23-GHMi-4-eJi-QZ8CKiGFCFhSqyKWNRqVjCxOWhGLG9p5n4yQnfo/s1600/Nightmares2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivzjS1NiEVIXMJh-1hkEJpTqE1DIc1pPPQrrRNDnlaLHrWmhUAA_SKXwT9qvkkr4H9kXQ4CatG9J7dF5VdnLt9Jr23-GHMi-4-eJi-QZ8CKiGFCFhSqyKWNRqVjCxOWhGLG9p5n4yQnfo/s1600/Nightmares2.JPG" height="263" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbuSa9bmCMwyXEayDoBM25D0ITxNOArvRxBYxYkwPieoaKPjjtNxIyk8A-umC3rXe-RZR2JIQdqhisVFdXz_fjWM4k4ugMRmEIgSfviY31YuxSksigNEuhP3Iyr6B-EmYF_tCAylqWds/s1600/Nightmares1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbuSa9bmCMwyXEayDoBM25D0ITxNOArvRxBYxYkwPieoaKPjjtNxIyk8A-umC3rXe-RZR2JIQdqhisVFdXz_fjWM4k4ugMRmEIgSfviY31YuxSksigNEuhP3Iyr6B-EmYF_tCAylqWds/s1600/Nightmares1.JPG" height="260" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After "Flamingo Road," Raines appeared in the horror anthology film "Nightmares" (1983) released by Universal. Raines appeared in the opening segment of the film titled "Terror in Topanga," as a chain smoking housewife who sneaks out in the middle of the night to buy groceries and a pack of cigarettes, completely ignoring news bulletins of an escaped psychopathic killer on the loose in the area. As she drives home, her character notices that her car is running out of gas, causing her to pull into a dark, scary filling station where she and the killer come face-to-face. Raines recalls that <b><i>"it started as a movie of the week. It was kind of an anthology shot for television, with several different stories, and for some reason they decided to release it as a feature film. I don't know why they decided to do that, but that was a film that I never saw. I had no idea that it's developed a bit of a cult following. Joe Sargent directed me in that and so that was a good experience. I really trust Joe. He's one of the most trustworthy people in the world and whatever project he would ask me to do, I would have no problems about doing it. I liked that little vignette I appeared in and I enjoyed working on 'Nightmares.'" </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-p8k8eVHTsz6KtJZOhzQtSIyz73p-7e_NGpzWyiSqD6JLBNL2CfmuPPkfolD4GkiLsEhtdpFFT7v2sFpkv1AQ5I5U7Kw89DiYCgDTjNB8SUj9Kwgoa-ARgJbFw-J0buWHwv_S2z_GMo/s1600/LateNancyIrving.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-p8k8eVHTsz6KtJZOhzQtSIyz73p-7e_NGpzWyiSqD6JLBNL2CfmuPPkfolD4GkiLsEhtdpFFT7v2sFpkv1AQ5I5U7Kw89DiYCgDTjNB8SUj9Kwgoa-ARgJbFw-J0buWHwv_S2z_GMo/s1600/LateNancyIrving.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' next few projects found her working in England again. She played the title role in "The Late Nancy Irving," a 1984 segment of "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense." She played an American professional golfer in England who has been kidnapped by an ailing millionaire who shares her same rare blood type. A staged car accident allows the public to believe that she has been killed, while she is held hostage and has her blood transfused into the body of the millionaire. At the end, Nancy summons up enough resolve to turn the tables on the millionaire and free herself from this nightmare. Despite the intriguing premise, Raines candidly admits that <i><b>"'The Late Nancy Irving' was awful. I loved being in England. I made a bunch of really wonderful new friends while I was working on that, but the project itself was not great."</b></i> Much happier for Raines was her appearance in the British comedy "Real Life" (1984) opposite a young, unknown Rupert Everett. Everett plays an immature young man, who lives a Walter Mitty type of existence creating a false image and making up stories about himself. In the process, he becomes involved in an art heist and romances Laurel, an American divorcee played by Raines. Raines fondly recalls how <b><i>"Rupert was a very sweet guy. I knew Rupert was going to be a huge star. I just knew it. He was just a very interesting human being. Very smart and full of life. He made working on 'Real Life' a lot of fun."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlHEQnTKLW2n6wySfroZodK1vRpYGWoJ8Y03Nnk2VdYeRNYJkeTyfZkeWAuhfLL9e2SnRvsoEEocJqm_wn1V5JGu7LtV99Gwnv9wxz_zPXrVSf3cKZquxwxZKrq_RZFPKgFBIrXVtAhA/s1600/Generation.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlHEQnTKLW2n6wySfroZodK1vRpYGWoJ8Y03Nnk2VdYeRNYJkeTyfZkeWAuhfLL9e2SnRvsoEEocJqm_wn1V5JGu7LtV99Gwnv9wxz_zPXrVSf3cKZquxwxZKrq_RZFPKgFBIrXVtAhA/s1600/Generation.JPG" height="305" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines also appeared in several TV movies in the 1980s, including <i><b>"The Return of Marcus Welby, M.D."</b></i> (1984), which aired May 16, 1984 on ABC. Raines played a fashion model struggling with kidney disease. Raines has fond memories of making that film and that <b><i>"everybody on that set was great. Even though it wasn't a movie where I got to know the people on a very personal level, that was really a fun movie to work on because it was a very pleasant set to walk onto."</i></b> Raines also enjoyed working on the TV movie "Generation" (1985), which aired May 24, 1985 on ABC. A futuristic drama set in 1999 that dramatizes the intrigue surrounding a typical American family on the eve of the 21st Century, Raines played a doctor continually in conflict with the rest of her relatives. Raines recalls that <b><i>"I liked the story, it was set in the future, and I thought it was an interesting premise. It was another positive experience where the cast and crew worked well together. That's the movie where they asked me to dye my hair a lighter color, because everybody else in the film, who played my relatives, had very light colored hair and they wanted me to look like part of the family. (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiykeI2p6YsVIPaifMyX2eEzmDYB8i-0v98q_9mKwXvjumDs2bUgfMijDdRWbKA9c0p11CKnn0Fu5dahgcGAaMXKMqqp6KAQhNaJU14NXVNLhzLcQbWjVAGAT9h5Y51UDUCI4VjW3Qb9hw/s1600/StreetsofJustice.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiykeI2p6YsVIPaifMyX2eEzmDYB8i-0v98q_9mKwXvjumDs2bUgfMijDdRWbKA9c0p11CKnn0Fu5dahgcGAaMXKMqqp6KAQhNaJU14NXVNLhzLcQbWjVAGAT9h5Y51UDUCI4VjW3Qb9hw/s1600/StreetsofJustice.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
She also enjoyed playing a prosecutor in the TV movie "Streets of Justice" (1985) which aired November 10, 1985 on NBC. Raines recalls, <i><b>"I researched the role by visiting the Los Angeles Courts and observing several trials so I could get a feel for the setting. I really enjoyed researching the role. I found the legal issues that attorneys have to deal with to be very intense. I also remember that one of the crew members in the art department drew a sketch of my character in court, like the way they had sketch artists dramatize a trial on the TV news with drawings instead of airing it on TV. She gave it to me the day I finished my role on that movie and I have it framed in my house. It's a nice memento from that film."</b></i> "Streets of Justice" also proved significant in Raines' life because it reunited her with writer/producer Christopher Crowe, who she briefly encountered while working on the horror film, "Nightmares." Raines explains, <b><i>"The producer of 'Nightmares' was a man named Christopher Crowe,
but I didn't actually get to work with him on that. I didn't meet
Christopher until I did 'Streets of Justice,' which he was directing, when I
met him on the audition for that."</i></b> By this time, Raines was no longer involved with Mark Harmon. Raines and Crowe
started a relationship while working together on "Streets of Justice" and
were married in 1986. They were married for ten years, and have a
daughter together who recently received her Masters degree in Psychology.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJS0jHHTLjxwCbyPYCPP2ssgSd73aooWiQ8QuEI-ZGL0HfLfMt6jKv9lVNEfXVTSoR1cB_ZCZ-wotH9FjocOX3NKmTLgtINVDYT6qOHU6X4ejdKAJf9v5JrwJNPe-jnYxKtnkOENJK9k/s1600/TJHooker.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJS0jHHTLjxwCbyPYCPP2ssgSd73aooWiQ8QuEI-ZGL0HfLfMt6jKv9lVNEfXVTSoR1cB_ZCZ-wotH9FjocOX3NKmTLgtINVDYT6qOHU6X4ejdKAJf9v5JrwJNPe-jnYxKtnkOENJK9k/s1600/TJHooker.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUa5DLOMlCGNt-g8ilx81Rj0dQSSYT7uMVRtBSJH-uSYiKEfNi9Mxz2JqaSrZz1VuKjmRXk43pC-9YHV4wxJ8YlM8gtYNst50cauT9gVrgjjijHZnu7eu7ZYsPQW6WAvD36fD4yBA-rM/s1600/LoveBoat2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUa5DLOMlCGNt-g8ilx81Rj0dQSSYT7uMVRtBSJH-uSYiKEfNi9Mxz2JqaSrZz1VuKjmRXk43pC-9YHV4wxJ8YlM8gtYNst50cauT9gVrgjjijHZnu7eu7ZYsPQW6WAvD36fD4yBA-rM/s1600/LoveBoat2.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout the 1980s, Cristina Raines also made frequent guest appearances on hour-long dramatic series. She appeared on many Aaron Spelling produced shows like "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "Matt Houston," "Finders of Lost Loves," "T.J. Hooker," and "Hotel." Raines has vivid and warm memories of appearing on these shows and recalls that <b><i>"Herve Villechaize and I had previously done a play together that Joan Tewkesbury had written called 'Cowboy Jack Street,' so it was good to see him and work with him again. I actually had a lot of fun on 'Fantasy Island.' 'T.J. Hooker' was fun too and William Shatner is a riot, he's a real character. 'Love Boat' was another good show to work on. I have to say, Aaron Spelling ran his shows like a finely tuned machine. He was an excellent producer. He did not put up with people with a negative attitude or negative behavior at all. I liked working on his shows because they were so well run and people were so professional and kind. It was always a nice experience to be on a Spelling show. Always. I mean, if someone said 'Do you want to do an Aaron Spelling production?' I would say 'Absolutely,' because he was a genius at what he did. It was the same experience when I did 'Matt Houston,' 'Hotel' and 'Finders of Lost Loves' for him. You'd go to work, do your job, people were great to work with, and you'd go home. There was no drama." </i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMfF9X3P1cHOWkEFC1_NWQ7MoeGtk71Js9V7MLkltrE_zMOwrMlFxzWN5dSMCbvPzNVNEPy9_WJuNxgz9XdBrCGLxyaUVvWlnaiqgWkrgiQFeSw726mhRUYIpL6vucms2pxVvD5mzA2ag/s1600/Simon&Simon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMfF9X3P1cHOWkEFC1_NWQ7MoeGtk71Js9V7MLkltrE_zMOwrMlFxzWN5dSMCbvPzNVNEPy9_WJuNxgz9XdBrCGLxyaUVvWlnaiqgWkrgiQFeSw726mhRUYIpL6vucms2pxVvD5mzA2ag/s1600/Simon&Simon.JPG" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXUSDqPEAgga1vx-ShyphenhyphengGo7SWEWgaB_p4-xEM19eyXbW058BlzanQ_LCMRDV17p2eV_Egpv1VuLCqoF3pWbpjPGm_nb7OO4vlTv2WD_tU77WibUkiRgf-8NLJLrQNpOakg92_banZPPQ/s1600/Highwayman.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXUSDqPEAgga1vx-ShyphenhyphengGo7SWEWgaB_p4-xEM19eyXbW058BlzanQ_LCMRDV17p2eV_Egpv1VuLCqoF3pWbpjPGm_nb7OO4vlTv2WD_tU77WibUkiRgf-8NLJLrQNpOakg92_banZPPQ/s1600/Highwayman.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines also appeared on numerous action/adventure/detective shows in the 1980s such
as "Simon & Simon," "The Fall Guy," "Murder, She Wrote,"
"Moonlighting," "Riptide," "Hunter," and "The Highwayman." Raines enthusiastically recalls how, <i><b>"</b></i><b><i>'Simon & Simon' was one of my favorites. Jameson Parker and Gerald McRaney were a blast to work with. </i></b><b><i>I also remember I loved working with Lee Majors on 'The Fall Guy.' We were doing this one scene in a semi-truck--I can't even remember the whole story or what the show was about--but we were in a truck and they jumped from filming one scene to another scene to another scene, all of which were set in that truck, and neither he nor I knew the lines! (laugh) Lee ripped up the script and it was all over the dashboard and we were trying really hard to just get through the scene and be real and I just lost it at one point. I said to him 'I feel like I'm in a hamster cage!' (laugh) Lee was great to work with. He was a lot of fun and he was such a gentleman and he treated everybody so well. That's one of my favorite shows, because I really had a wonderful time, and I laughed a lot. I know people don't see Lee as funny, but he is hilarious. 'Murder, She Wrote' with Angela Lansbury was also great. She really, truly is the 'grand dame.' Just her body of work, she's just an incredible actress and she was wonderful. A lot of people would tell me, 'Don't approach her about this, don't approach her about that,' but I didn't find her that way at all. She was very, very kind and generous. Sam Jones on 'The Highwayman' was another one that had me laughing, because he's hysterical. The thing about Sam is that he's funny, but he doesn't know he's funny, but then again I have a pretty absurd sense of humor. (laugh) I really enjoyed working on 'The Highwayman.' On the other hand, 'Hunter' was not one of my favorite shows. I just didn't feel comfortable on the set. It was like 'OK, do your job and keep going.' 'Moonlighting' was a better experience. The producers were great and Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis were great. I remember that he was very protective of her. You know, the gossip at the time was that they didn't get along, blah, blah blah. I don't know how much of that was PR. But they actually got along very well on the show that I was on, and I just remember how he was very protective of her. So it was nice to see that. It just reminded me that you can't believe everything you hear. I never minded doing guest roles on television, I really enjoyed the shows that I was on."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9J6SqlQmUCr0qMee3UIJAs7hjXxX6UN3tdaQd2IsW8IgrMCHOLTs3pcuHwtXdiW6D3n0qemcL4zUYDQpsL5NlJw6bPXYKMtDVULwvM73JwzdQujVAyWEOFgsRxAHVmMckbG5BojPoRdg/s1600/AHP11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9J6SqlQmUCr0qMee3UIJAs7hjXxX6UN3tdaQd2IsW8IgrMCHOLTs3pcuHwtXdiW6D3n0qemcL4zUYDQpsL5NlJw6bPXYKMtDVULwvM73JwzdQujVAyWEOFgsRxAHVmMckbG5BojPoRdg/s1600/AHP11.JPG" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of Cristina Raines' best TV guest roles in the 1980s was in the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode titled "Prisoners," which aired December 8, 1985 on NBC. Written and directed by her future husband Christopher Crowe, Raines played Julie Nordstrom, an upper middle class housewife whose
husband Glen is continually absent on business trips. Julie's
sheltered existence is turned upside down when her home is invaded by
escaped convict Jack Royce (Yaphet Kotto). As Jack enjoys the luxuries of Julie's
house, the two become acquainted and find that they
actually have much in common with one another. They both enjoy the same
game shows and they both realize they are lonely individuals who each
feel stifled, isolated, and imprisoned in their own confined existence. A remake of the 1956 episode of the original "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" entitled "You Got to Have Luck" with John Cassavettes and Marisa Pavan, "Prisoners" is a poignant, well-acted two character piece that examines how these individuals from such disparate backgrounds are, in actuality, mirror images of one another. Raines has very warm and fond memories of working on that episode and recalls that <b><i>"Yaphet Kotto is a very spiritual man, and an amazing actor to work with. He was awesome and I really, really enjoyed working with him. He was such a spiritual guy and such a powerful, powerful actor. He was so powerful in our scenes together. He is an absolutely giving and generous actor and so creative and imaginative. It was wonderful to collaborate with him on that one. It was a wonderful experience, really an incredible experience for me to work with him."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUOf-jMJA6b7SwnWWN9jlcGpM2MnL5dLTMDKFCI4oEDQ4SjDNqyLkBwiMFDw5vFdoUXNV2kV5ZBOdaG9i1A9vjeBxcmtPTI20NN9Ryv0vsnjPgbg2m3B-SHM21a0p39zhuKLZbh5Xj9s/s1600/AHP12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUOf-jMJA6b7SwnWWN9jlcGpM2MnL5dLTMDKFCI4oEDQ4SjDNqyLkBwiMFDw5vFdoUXNV2kV5ZBOdaG9i1A9vjeBxcmtPTI20NN9Ryv0vsnjPgbg2m3B-SHM21a0p39zhuKLZbh5Xj9s/s1600/AHP12.JPG" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' association with the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" show ultimately went beyond appearing on camera, as she ended up working second unit on numerous episodes of the series. Raines recalls that she was at a crossroads in her life and career and looking for new challenges at the time, <b><i>"I had decided I wanted to get behind the camera and I wanted to learn about production. And so I worked second unit for awhile on 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.' After I acted on the show, I said to Christopher, 'You know, I would really like to get behind the scenes.' And Christopher agreed and he and Universal provided me that opportunity, which I was very grateful for. It was very exciting and I learned a lot and it was just great. I needed a change at that time in my life. Something needed to change for me. I was always an internal person, always trying to figure out what was going on inside. And I decided I wanted to get more involved in production so that's what I did."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYrdWUUk3sHYJOcOXXkwcwzSg6u4NhmhQsYRAtIVEmg-AEO81bxwV3J32ePSdZTo60iHSVqDegSmDcP8a0k-flPOHQ4nvHIPs7XlJH_BStZZMs9NYeFyNQ7Y_PAYaIKcncE36vNAo_q8/s1600/QuoVadis3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYrdWUUk3sHYJOcOXXkwcwzSg6u4NhmhQsYRAtIVEmg-AEO81bxwV3J32ePSdZTo60iHSVqDegSmDcP8a0k-flPOHQ4nvHIPs7XlJH_BStZZMs9NYeFyNQ7Y_PAYaIKcncE36vNAo_q8/s1600/QuoVadis3.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_UmbHMUUzTqv-CK_rn3pGFjZIk8KoVEIAbzUSIYnURSg7_KaWnXYtVMuFD_ai-Mjkj-Pxz2StDIXP0TDSRJhS-ogBSjpWvq4t_LVQMD2DE6bmp3g5OkXIClGgHDX1qt8YK4Q-xyFH2-k/s1600/QuoVadis6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_UmbHMUUzTqv-CK_rn3pGFjZIk8KoVEIAbzUSIYnURSg7_KaWnXYtVMuFD_ai-Mjkj-Pxz2StDIXP0TDSRJhS-ogBSjpWvq4t_LVQMD2DE6bmp3g5OkXIClGgHDX1qt8YK4Q-xyFH2-k/s1600/QuoVadis6.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of Cristina Raines' most unusual projects during this time was her starring role in the six-hour Italian TV miniseries "Quo Vadis?" (1985), directed by Franco Rossi and produced by RAI-TV in Italy and Channel 4 in the UK. An adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic novel, which had already been made into an epic MGM film in 1951, the miniseries dramatizes the personal drama and political intrigue taking place in Rome under the rule of Emperor Nero, in 64 A.D. Raines played Poppaea, the scheming and devious, yet tragic, wife of Emperor Nero (played by Klaus Maria Brandaeur). Possibly the most sinister role she had played since Oreole in her film debut "Hex," "Quo Vadis?" allowed Raines an opportunity to play the sort of scheming vamp and femme fatale that had become popular in 1980s television. Raines recalls that "Quo Vadis?" <b><i>"was kind of a weird project. I went over to Europe to film it and the director was very confused because he didn't get why I was laughing while we were filming it. He would say, 'Excuse me? Why are you laughing?' And I said, 'Well, because it was funny!' (laugh) We shot that in Yugoslavia and that was a very strange place to shoot it. I had my grandmother with me again on that shoot so that was nice.</i></b>" Because "Quo Vadis?" was an Italian production, the dialogue was not recorded live while scenes were shot and Raines ended up being dubbed in both the English and Italian language versions by another actress. As Raines explains, <b><i>"I think they completely dubbed me with somebody else in the final film. I remember that they wanted me to fly back to Italy and do all the dubbing and I said 'Just find somebody else to dub me' because I didn't want to go back. (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFBu-cx-ZHdv6lTTOCxpAZEibbWrygYY8OzOEFz7UsxdRxwpnqAbvm0W2hMtG1wBOaTjDB8Iar2kwryHXKy3OvzrKjM70ImRadOb5FQ0s5eEahvBf9MP_wqFqZe_9kqOhyphenhyphen2xNcSvAdzY/s1600/QuoVadis4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFBu-cx-ZHdv6lTTOCxpAZEibbWrygYY8OzOEFz7UsxdRxwpnqAbvm0W2hMtG1wBOaTjDB8Iar2kwryHXKy3OvzrKjM70ImRadOb5FQ0s5eEahvBf9MP_wqFqZe_9kqOhyphenhyphen2xNcSvAdzY/s1600/QuoVadis4.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW0a4DJCgSDPu5xkYZCoW2zDRjrSzozS8MOPyp0b-CpAho4Bz6XxJ7MSHLuthxtFHJsqLqmMRi1yEMg88XV5_S8b4YTDmNAYWVab3UA3l96r6bqguTKCYVhu6vuFdSzbUv1FIB4DiGcw0/s1600/QuoVadis5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW0a4DJCgSDPu5xkYZCoW2zDRjrSzozS8MOPyp0b-CpAho4Bz6XxJ7MSHLuthxtFHJsqLqmMRi1yEMg88XV5_S8b4YTDmNAYWVab3UA3l96r6bqguTKCYVhu6vuFdSzbUv1FIB4DiGcw0/s1600/QuoVadis5.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite the unusual pedigree of this production, Raines admits that, <b><i>"I had some fun on that show. Freddie Forrest was my saving grace on that piece. He's a great guy and he's hilarious and he had me laughing the whole time, which made the director crazy! Unfortunately, I didn't get to know Max Von Sydow at all on that shoot. I remember Klaus Maria Brandaeur was a very intense actor. Very intense. [mimicks Brandaeur] 'I'm going to be a big star!' [mimicks her response] 'OK, Maria! Whatever you say!' (laugh) He's very intense and he's a great actor, but he had his own way of doing things. At the same time, he's also a great guy and he has a wonderful sense of humor. 'Quo Vadis' was just one of those things where we'd look at each other and say 'We have five more days to go before we can get out of here!' (laugh)"</i></b> Another aspect that Raines enjoyed about working on "Quo Vadis?" was the sheer scale and spectacle of the project, as she found herself continually in awe of the production design of the miniseries, <b><i>"I will say that you have to give the Italians an awful lot of credit. They are brilliant at art direction and set design. They seem to magically make things happen. You walk onto a set and you go 'Oh my God!' You really felt like you were in a palace, but it's all entertainment. They are just magical craftsman and artisans. I don't know how they do it. They are just brilliant at creating those settings. So that's what I enjoyed more than anything on 'Quo Vadis.' Everyday, I couldn't wait to arrive at the studio so I could check out the sets. I also remember how they were great at costuming and makeup and all that. What can I say? They take a lot of pride in their work and they just love making movies!"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYZcdvYOMcPY-2KzaPhDPUaurAlVTD-qNSqYK0CL0ketWuY7OTcrFjtqGzDcpNr9gBtEmZ6XYMWi89-HlkMbsMItfTEkdZIBFzYdy_6x59X6dhrRigKpr4dvy3W9p1vyvVnjhUe9GL7SE/s1600/North+Shore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYZcdvYOMcPY-2KzaPhDPUaurAlVTD-qNSqYK0CL0ketWuY7OTcrFjtqGzDcpNr9gBtEmZ6XYMWi89-HlkMbsMItfTEkdZIBFzYdy_6x59X6dhrRigKpr4dvy3W9p1vyvVnjhUe9GL7SE/s1600/North+Shore.jpg" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Back in the States, Raines returned to the big screen in the Universal release "North Shore" (1987), a surfing drama set in Hawaii. Raines appeared briefly in a small role as the mother of the main character and recalls that <b><i>"they needed to make me look older for the role because I was playing the mother of a teenager. (laugh) The irony was that my baby had just been born and they were hitting me in the face with age makeup to make me look older. (laugh) Randal Kleiser was the producer of that film, and I remember that he was a very cool guy. I really liked him. He's the one who wanted me in 'North Shore,' he just called up and offered it and asked me if I would do it. I liked working with Randal, he's really a talented producer. I don't remember the director, I only remember Randal. All I remember is that it was just a short shoot, in and out, and that they felt I looked too young to play the mother, which is fine. I thought, 'OK, whatever!' (laugh)"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohA8pvzJNUIWP-EwOpMOjB5aXrha8vod2mIi3vwp7Z6glhUZd7ETDygBiJuAgvf2hudbBUnD4fdfSKL3rtB9IbynmkDF8Ed28q0hKuP5ymBMl3KZU91ZR3dlymWmJdJmjfyS9ZhhCJzg/s1600/HighwaytoHeaven.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohA8pvzJNUIWP-EwOpMOjB5aXrha8vod2mIi3vwp7Z6glhUZd7ETDygBiJuAgvf2hudbBUnD4fdfSKL3rtB9IbynmkDF8Ed28q0hKuP5ymBMl3KZU91ZR3dlymWmJdJmjfyS9ZhhCJzg/s1600/HighwaytoHeaven.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines' best role during this period came in 1988 when she was cast as Navy Commander Kimberly Michaels, a nurse who served in Vietnam and is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, on a two-hour episode of "Highway to Heaven" that aired December 7, 1988 on NBC. In the course of the story, Michael Landon's guardian angel Jonathan Smith, who is working as a counselor in the military hospital Commander Michaels is stationed at, helps her finally deal with her painful memories. Raines is particularly good in scenes with David Aykroyd, playing a Navy doctor she is dating, and with a very young Matthew Perry, the adopted son of a Marine Corps Sergeant Major, who she ultimately learns is the child she had with a Navy pilot who was shot down over Vietnam and gave up for adoption years earlier. Raines fondly recalls working with Michael Landon on this project, <i><b>"Oh my God! What a human being! I swear to God, that man took care of the people who worked for him. He, again, had sort of a troupe like Altman did, and his troupe was more his crew. He wrote all of those shows, and he directed them as well. The guy had more energy, he accomplished more than 10 people put together. Oh my God, that guy made me laugh so hard. I really was in tears. He was so hilarious. And I remember Matthew Perry from 'Friends' was in it and he played my son that I gave away. That was a wonderful experience and wonderful character. </b></i><i><b><i><b>I already knew a lot of Vietnam Veterans. That was my era, so I had a lot of passion for that story and that character. </b></i>I absolutely loved working with Michael Landon. I loved working on that project. The crew was great, the cast was great. It was one of those projects where I felt, 'OK, I feel really good about being an actress and going to work today.'"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4DHFciMoDMd2mxLfJD-fg1kGq3yNMtIyF0VD3d96ZfCEF8MxLdF38rmC1F159v38KKGkVQurFybjgyqVYwACfCmMWrC3gTQXg9lAxvqUyg74Mqnfo_me7w3D64pvmBT-90M1PljKwCpk/s1600/Raines3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4DHFciMoDMd2mxLfJD-fg1kGq3yNMtIyF0VD3d96ZfCEF8MxLdF38rmC1F159v38KKGkVQurFybjgyqVYwACfCmMWrC3gTQXg9lAxvqUyg74Mqnfo_me7w3D64pvmBT-90M1PljKwCpk/s1600/Raines3.JPG" height="400" width="321" /></a></div>
<br />
During the filming of her "Highway to Heaven" episode, Raines came to an epiphany that eventually led her to quietly end her acting career after almost 20 years. <b><i> "My daughter was about, I guess, six months old and I had her with me and I had my nanny there while we were shooting down at the Marine Corps base down in San Diego. And afterwards I said to myself 'I can't do this. I have to raise my own daughter. I don't want anybody else doing it.' Because, you know, there were long work hours, long days when you're working as an actress. And so that's when I kind of said, 'You know, I think I'm just gonna back off from that for awhile.' And then I backed off for a long time! (laugh)."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vY60O70YWxy_5tSoLsj6FUETb6DhYs6sOH9kkMgm6s4wjzuyfz4R5whbN77TU6kaqTi__o_j4RaQq49kRi3_mmlYpXdkcyyezuhiziEe728kvcZD-xYpW_gayU7fVU2ZylxCcHcrSlA/s1600/Altman.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vY60O70YWxy_5tSoLsj6FUETb6DhYs6sOH9kkMgm6s4wjzuyfz4R5whbN77TU6kaqTi__o_j4RaQq49kRi3_mmlYpXdkcyyezuhiziEe728kvcZD-xYpW_gayU7fVU2ZylxCcHcrSlA/s1600/Altman.JPG" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
While Raines was starting to slow down her work schedule, she received an offer from Robert Altman to reprise her role as Mary in a planned sequel to "Nashville." Initially titled "Nashville 12," and written by Robert Harders instead of Joan Tewkesbury, the proposed sequel would have caught up with the lives of virtually all of the principal characters from the original film 12 years later during a particularly contentious gubernatorial race in Tennessee. However, an inability to schedule the 20-plus actors from the original film at a time when they would have all been available, and the eventual decision by Lily Tomlin to not participate in the project, helped doom the prospects of "Nashville 12." The delays in getting the film off the ground, partly due to the threatened 1987 DGA Strike, as well as due to the studio's efforts to turn the film into a Lily Tomlin vehicle, caused the title of the project to be changed to "Nashville 13" and eventually "Nashville, Nashville" before it was eventually shelved. Raines recalls that, <b><i>"At that point, I was into being a mom. Unfortunately, it never came to fruition, nothing ever happened with it. However, if it had happened, I would have done it. I would have sat down and spent some time working out where Mary would have been, and what she would have been doing at that point in time. I think I just sort of let it go until I heard that it wasn't coming together. I remember Bob had me write some stuff down about my ideas for her character. God, I think I still have it somewhere and I can find it and show it to you. But, at the time, when he contacted me about it, even though I was focusing more on my family, I did agree to participate in the 'Nashville' sequel because I would've done anything for him."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggSaUp6WFdRYBkf5sOZJBuMfslAcwZ49YQTfHxdVoYH2kgrCBahJzMMWZ8WmqVKNqUMJw8wweiIPCUHMdpCIEJ42lKQBOYnlZegu5sE38ASd9c_KVLc8dCeoLmzPzNDMuplXXvGhkcgeU/s1600/Raines18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggSaUp6WFdRYBkf5sOZJBuMfslAcwZ49YQTfHxdVoYH2kgrCBahJzMMWZ8WmqVKNqUMJw8wweiIPCUHMdpCIEJ42lKQBOYnlZegu5sE38ASd9c_KVLc8dCeoLmzPzNDMuplXXvGhkcgeU/s1600/Raines18.JPG" height="400" width="326" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines continued working as an actress sporadically up until 1991 and then left acting in order to completely devote herself to being a full time mom. When her daughter was older, and Raines began examining her career prospects, she decided not to return to acting and, instead, decided to pursue nursing as her new vocation. In the late 1990s, she started studying to become a nurse and eventually graduated from a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) program and took the requisite licensing exam which allowed her to render basic nursing care under the direction of a physician or registered nurse. While working as an LVN, Raines continued her education and eventually earned her Associate's Degree in Nursing, which allowed her to take the national licensing exam to become a Registered Nurse.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGv6zexoepgb7jUW6c3DVi3TmIuY_-IywDBGRwTAAeWg-M8lHB4LJ3a4VfUXy8VJANfmOxfPh19cHdfYAhxaOisegxKZEiuGORcN5V-69HNY7R-RmSL0ZWBjPryKWS0Jp8oS-86Yoq3wk/s1600/Raines16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGv6zexoepgb7jUW6c3DVi3TmIuY_-IywDBGRwTAAeWg-M8lHB4LJ3a4VfUXy8VJANfmOxfPh19cHdfYAhxaOisegxKZEiuGORcN5V-69HNY7R-RmSL0ZWBjPryKWS0Jp8oS-86Yoq3wk/s1600/Raines16.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Even though Raines' acting roles have included playing nurses, doctors, and patients, it turns out that that had little influence upon her decision to pursue nursing. In describing her path to becoming a nurse, Raines explains that <b><i>"nursing sort of chose me. I went back to school and I started taking classes and there were so many things that I enjoyed doing. I took photography courses and I had a teacher who really wanted me to go into photography, and I loved it. But then I found myself taking more and more science classes and really enjoying them. The next thing I knew, I was being offered a position in the nursing program and I said 'Well, sometimes, the universe decides for us in certain ways, and this is where you're going now. OK! I'm in for the ride!' So I went into the program and it just fit for me. It's another aspect of who I am. There was just something about nursing that touched my soul. It felt like a calling to me. So nursing kind of chose me, and it was a good choice."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-41OnYrKf3bs2RpkaaIswan2jAqpV-upDVwHPgva171emGTsn-FwfJEobQJLESho4cge4to-FueopS2pwbWDYdRnc2_5HUM6U3nsiWz3PDVYJTjSV63OXfD_v_nSKk42tShyphenhyphentVBbPRCI/s1600/Raines17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-41OnYrKf3bs2RpkaaIswan2jAqpV-upDVwHPgva171emGTsn-FwfJEobQJLESho4cge4to-FueopS2pwbWDYdRnc2_5HUM6U3nsiWz3PDVYJTjSV63OXfD_v_nSKk42tShyphenhyphentVBbPRCI/s1600/Raines17.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines is extremely proud, enthusiastic, and passionate when she speaks about her work as a nurse and explains that her satisfaction from her current career stems from the fact that <b><i>"It's a heart-to-heart connection with people. Patients are in a very vulnerable place and there's no time for game playing when you're caring for them. Patients really need someone there who is going to be present for them. It's very real and I've always had kind of a caretaker quality anyway. I am a dialysis nurse. I work with people who are on dialysis and I specialize in peritoneal dialysis. I really like what I do. I find it very challenging and fulfilling work and I love it."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7NdDn62VoaD3-syTB8GsgBJfwSG4h_JCpowDT89qJwO7ysavE3AX9EOQuIJp_xtPNGbfetEVdPOpj_HlURhBugUHnSE7CPDIDMW6ayQvsyp6qfwG1W0oDzqIcdMADTfk2yryJf8q2Ws/s1600/Raines15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7NdDn62VoaD3-syTB8GsgBJfwSG4h_JCpowDT89qJwO7ysavE3AX9EOQuIJp_xtPNGbfetEVdPOpj_HlURhBugUHnSE7CPDIDMW6ayQvsyp6qfwG1W0oDzqIcdMADTfk2yryJf8q2Ws/s1600/Raines15.JPG" height="280" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Raines has made a point through the years to not mention her prior work as an actress to her colleagues in the medical profession. However, she acknowledges, <b><i>"Some of my colleagues have found out by accident! (laugh) And they were like 'What?! How come you never told me?!' I have some friends who have been friends of mine for 8 years now and they just found out recently. And the thing that's great about it is that we're already friends, so it doesn't change anything. </i></b><b><i>Sometimes people treat you differently because they have an image of what you're supposed to be, or what people in the entertainment industry are supposed to be like. It's a preconceived idea which usually, if they're not in the industry, they don't understand it. So it's better not to say anything at all because they attach all those preconceptions to you. And so the friends I have now, they now know, and they say 'OK' but they know me as a nurse. They don't know me as an actress. </i></b><b><i><b><i><b><i>I've been lucky enough to work with really wonderful people in the
nursing profession. </i></b></i></b>Another reason I don't mention to people my prior career as an actress is because I want to stay focused when I am at work tending to a patient. I don't want to be distracted with the possibility that someone may want to chat with me about it while I am at work. You have to stay focused while working as a nurse and not chit-chat. That's absolutely taboo. In the rare occasion if a patient recognizes me, or thinks they recognize me, I pretty much say 'Oh yeah, I hear that all the time. I've heard that before! I must look like your aunt!' (laugh) And then I get on with the work!"</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTp4xmbzHDXiIKOoz2SyBJuLP5PE509JlBL874v3UTZlEKAYGqm2egZBou_SIPNileCjTXW5s9qPvnkZgeGjIX57Bd6SiX5yS0Zz0vrs8uSDSY97I0S50QT-0jMv2Yq1BTSoGwY6dNxjs/s1600/Raines9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTp4xmbzHDXiIKOoz2SyBJuLP5PE509JlBL874v3UTZlEKAYGqm2egZBou_SIPNileCjTXW5s9qPvnkZgeGjIX57Bd6SiX5yS0Zz0vrs8uSDSY97I0S50QT-0jMv2Yq1BTSoGwY6dNxjs/s1600/Raines9.JPG" height="320" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
While most people would agree that Raines' work as a nurse demonstrates how she is a well-rounded individual, she does not believe that her current career somehow makes her better or more substantial than other actors who continue to earn their living in that profession. As she explains, <i><b>"I think we all have many aspects to ourselves that we need to explore. I don't think we need to have what we do for a living completely define who we are. You can be a writer and you can be a horse trainer. You can be a nurse and you can be an artist. One of the doctors that I work with is an amazing artist. I mean he blows me away. I say to him, 'Let me see what your last work is,' and he shows me and I'm 'Wow!' because he is truly talented. Even when I was working as an actress, there were other things that I did that fulfilled my spirit and were other aspects of who I am, such as studying ballet. </b></i><i><b>One of the things I enjoy doing in my personal time is writing. I think that's where my creativity is focused now.</b></i><i><b>"</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8lK_YhOudLMYpBBaOZAvapQZ6Yv-uCkvIrZweXQAR4yDuVKMgSrfZX1OqA4pepM9LXQgLmhiezETZwsFKvPhvESauDi1Ilrt0x4Z3GVt8vJNzQKtgTGJskctl5kTEZi2GNZ3JDMfFbw/s1600/NashvilleReunion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8lK_YhOudLMYpBBaOZAvapQZ6Yv-uCkvIrZweXQAR4yDuVKMgSrfZX1OqA4pepM9LXQgLmhiezETZwsFKvPhvESauDi1Ilrt0x4Z3GVt8vJNzQKtgTGJskctl5kTEZi2GNZ3JDMfFbw/s1600/NashvilleReunion.JPG" height="277" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In 2000, while she was studying to be a nurse, Raines reunited with the cast and crew of "Nashville" for a 25th Anniversary screening held at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills that was moderated by Charles Champlin. During that time, she also appeared with the cast for a photo shoot that appeared in "Premiere" magazine to commemorate the making of the film. Also appearing that evening for the "Nashville" screening were director Robert Altman, screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, music coordinator Richard Baskin, and cast members Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Keith Carradine, Robert DoQui, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Jeff Goldblum, David Hayward, Michael Murphy, Dave Peel, and Allan Nicholls. Raines fondly recalls, <b><i>"That was really nice to see everybody. It was such a good experience that it was kind of bittersweet. While watching 'Nashville' again that night, because I never liked watching myself sing 'Since You've Gone,' I realized more than ever how supportive Keith and Allan were when we filmed that scene. I was in abject fear doing that scene and watching it that night I could see how wonderful they were to me and how encouraging they were while we were filming it."</i></b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEIYOmKp2QXPH2wvSUW95tEQZHAytLBgL5BAtVMAfZrO9VJEqo75Mx2yVjG_L486Sscsz5dYr6Z9tPGFbnwxuJ4MfXK3xQZbPOQN4QJgEJANdsZuEWL3ocdsw_c3uQGXQrckJtBV87Do/s1600/MelindasWorld.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEIYOmKp2QXPH2wvSUW95tEQZHAytLBgL5BAtVMAfZrO9VJEqo75Mx2yVjG_L486Sscsz5dYr6Z9tPGFbnwxuJ4MfXK3xQZbPOQN4QJgEJANdsZuEWL3ocdsw_c3uQGXQrckJtBV87Do/s1600/MelindasWorld.JPG" height="400" width="293" /></a></div>
<br />
During the time she was transitioning to a new career, Raines briefly returned to acting with a co-starring role in the independently made feature film "Melinda's World" (2003). She played the strict, extremely religious mother of Melinda, a young girl searching for happiness and her own identity in 1950s mid-western America. The film is now notable as the debut for a young Zac Efron, playing the love interest of the main character. Raines remembers very little about "Melinda's World" and explains that, <b><i>"I think this was done sort of as a student film. The director, David Baumgarten, saw a picture of me and my daughter somewhere. I think he was interested in casting my daughter in the film, and then he found out what I had done as an actress in the past and he cast me. It was more like a student film than an actual feature. It was just a little five day thing that I did. I really kind of did it just for fun. David, the director, was a sweetheart and I think he's done a lot of theatre and he's very talented. I didn't even know it was made into an actual movie. No wonder Zac Efron always looks familiar to me. I had no clue it's a two-hour movie on DVD! And I don't think I was any good in it either. I think I was tired and worn out. I was going to nursing school and studying at the time. I didn't do it with the intention of thinking it would start my acting career again. I just sort of did it on a whim."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjedFJ5ZqCDG3G2bEa5bSOqkU55mIHzXM5wfAzWVtZBdoPh4OUDBzZFVJjyhRbzTbZ2YvSF0QxCqTUYDTRIixlq2dJO5Ttb1UVR4vrTbqqTsmj7wsKwVPRnWnt1s4GWGL8BDcrsO5NZp-Q/s1600/Raines1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjedFJ5ZqCDG3G2bEa5bSOqkU55mIHzXM5wfAzWVtZBdoPh4OUDBzZFVJjyhRbzTbZ2YvSF0QxCqTUYDTRIixlq2dJO5Ttb1UVR4vrTbqqTsmj7wsKwVPRnWnt1s4GWGL8BDcrsO5NZp-Q/s1600/Raines1.JPG" height="400" width="278" /></a></div>
<br />
While Raines continues to take satisfaction in her nursing career, she is also very proud of the accomplishments of her daughter. With beaming pride and enthusiasm, Raines describes how her daughter <b><i>"has her Masters in Psychology, she's getting her hours to become a Marriage and Family Therapist, she is working with foster children, and she's going to sit for her psychology boards. She's also a very accomplished competitive athlete. I'm really proud of my girl, she's a real go-getter. And she's planning to get married later this year! My little girl's all grown up! We're in the midst of the wedding planning now, getting things organized. She's just so happy, and so is he, and that's all you want for your kids is for them to be happy with their lives."</i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPMSFuLQ4BgEHuYV-Oy7pNJkX23S5hC4Y7JXxmSmD6mywUjsuhiVG8cTVEt9w8y60nTE7ty3YfifRb60E0-7HyCIrJ30zTfMb6Dp3VSl-H1uAf4BVT9g9U81UwY-SE1eC8T_1po1LelI/s1600/Raines6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPMSFuLQ4BgEHuYV-Oy7pNJkX23S5hC4Y7JXxmSmD6mywUjsuhiVG8cTVEt9w8y60nTE7ty3YfifRb60E0-7HyCIrJ30zTfMb6Dp3VSl-H1uAf4BVT9g9U81UwY-SE1eC8T_1po1LelI/s1600/Raines6.JPG" height="400" width="297" /></a></div>
<br />
Cristina Raines is unique among actresses because few people in show business have the intelligence and resolve to reinvent themselves and develop new skill sets for a second career in life. Even though her life is now focused on nursing, and she rarely allows herself an opportunity to look back at her prior career, she remains proud of her work as an actress. Raines is grateful for the opportunities and experiences that being a film and television actress afforded her in life. When asked to select what were her favorite acting projects, she readily admits that <b><i>"'Sunshine' was one of my dream experiences. 'Centennial' would be another one, it was an amazing experience. 'Nashville,' was an excellent experience too, but I was playing a pretty unhappy person in that one. (laugh) Mary was a character in a bad place in life, she was just p-ssed off! Mary was not a happy person, she was a mess, but it was a great film, great experience. (laugh) 'The Duellists' was another special experience, absolutely. And the first season of 'Flamingo Road' would be another one. The first year was great, and Lane Ballou was a great character to play. So those are the projects I'm probably the proudest of. I was very lucky as an actress. But I don't really live in Hollywood or interact around show business anymore. Sometimes, I might run into someone from my past career, or I might hear from them by email, and it's always nice to reconnect with them. But my world is nursing now and I'm very happy with what I'm doing."</i></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-65682626429338428852014-03-09T08:32:00.002-07:002014-03-09T16:34:48.564-07:00"Guest Starring Jess Walton..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdUJNuxRSbAOp5jizGscbPQfUZ6UmcZUmuTlrbqvMEH65trv5jznlmYhwm8HRmLDUgkQ0BWSbnoggPzJQflMULCif88bvzdm6VExCVxWECAv2fhTbLWyzcr-kkruxsHvjfS8xDugRrzk/s1600/Walton1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdUJNuxRSbAOp5jizGscbPQfUZ6UmcZUmuTlrbqvMEH65trv5jznlmYhwm8HRmLDUgkQ0BWSbnoggPzJQflMULCif88bvzdm6VExCVxWECAv2fhTbLWyzcr-kkruxsHvjfS8xDugRrzk/s1600/Walton1.JPG" height="400" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Actress Jess Walton is best known for her successful and continuing 27 year run as Jill Foster Abbott on the CBS daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless." However, before she hit her stride in daytime, Walton was already a promising, successful actress starting from the early 1970s when she was under contract to Universal and working under the auspices of Monique James and Eleanor Kilgallen, who ran the studio's New Talent program. As <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/07/universal-appeal-ana-alicia.html" target="_blank">I've written about before</a>, while interviewing actress Ana Alicia, the purpose of the Universal New Talent program was to discover young actors and actresses, and put them under contract, so that Universal could use them for their films and TV shows and groom them for stardom. Jess Walton was one of the best and brightest of the Universal contract players of the 1970s. Beautiful, with slightly unconventional features that only served to give her face depth and character, Walton was a welcome presence as a guest star on many of the major prime time television shows of that decade.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDV5mGup8Dhwd-qBszLJ65bHI_TF5yCniAHzXU4zglmpUqRAvyTSP7YaG1cnrxfg-bNS5whOtse-WN54WQLuOirkyogQkz7oLqEjT6UBQ5B2Jpu-a5gkqT-9HjCsJzWkMMlFk8A5RLwc/s1600/Walton2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDV5mGup8Dhwd-qBszLJ65bHI_TF5yCniAHzXU4zglmpUqRAvyTSP7YaG1cnrxfg-bNS5whOtse-WN54WQLuOirkyogQkz7oLqEjT6UBQ5B2Jpu-a5gkqT-9HjCsJzWkMMlFk8A5RLwc/s1600/Walton2.JPG" height="400" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
In many ways, she was a slightly younger version of the sort of intense, husky-voiced brunette that actresses like Suzanne Pleshette, the similarly named Jessica Walter, and Elizabeth Ashley exemplified. However, unlike those actresses, Walton was considerably less mannered, less severe and cold, and less self-indulgent than Pleshette, Walter, and Ashley could be at times. Walton rarely over-indulged or overacted as an actress. Universal should have promoted her into feature films throughout her tenure with the studio, but the 1970s being what they were, feature films were made up with leading ladies who were flaky (such as Diane Keaton) or weird (such as Karen Black). This is not to suggest in any way that Jess Walton was a "conventional" actress. Walton is a versatile actress capable of being eccentric and edgy in her own right. However, I think the reason she wasn't allowed a chance to do major feature films in the 1970s had more to do with the fact that she typically brought intelligence, strength, and integrity to her television roles as a young leading lady, qualities that were in short supply for women in feature films during that time. I believe, had she shown up a few years earlier, director Howard Hawks would have been intrigued with Walton, especially because she always projected maturity and never played "cute" (a quality Hawks hated in actresses) and cast her as one of his assertive, quick-witted heroines. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7nHHyzhm-sva4xOT27pPk4YgjwTsVQeY-VoY-lLLn0thOeg6Zfddp-nOQ1MXKZIpaVsdl5-TTq_M4nGtWEyiXhUtI7Mrncrfe-7G2u8ECMTGawF8srSEkdalhJ4IEQpNx1uUjgyB63oY/s1600/SixthSense.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7nHHyzhm-sva4xOT27pPk4YgjwTsVQeY-VoY-lLLn0thOeg6Zfddp-nOQ1MXKZIpaVsdl5-TTq_M4nGtWEyiXhUtI7Mrncrfe-7G2u8ECMTGawF8srSEkdalhJ4IEQpNx1uUjgyB63oY/s1600/SixthSense.JPG" height="258" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of Walton's earliest TV guest appearances was in the supernatural series "The Sixth Sense." In the episode "Coffin, Coffin in the Sky," which aired on ABC on September 23, 1972, she played Lily Warren an injured folk/rock singer injured in Mexico, while researching folk songs that she could use for her concerts, being transported back to San Diego in a small commercial aircraft for medical treatment. Throughout the flight, Lily goes in and out of consciousness, as she hallucinates and has horrible nightmares that the captain is the plane is driving a horse-drawn hearse and visualizes that the passengers on the plane are dead, lying in coffins. Dr. Michael Rhodes (Gary Collins), a parapsychologist who is a passenger on the flight, attempts to decipher Lily's visions to determine if her visions are a premonition of mechanical issues with the plane that would cause it to crash upon landing. Walton brings the right air of ethereal mystery to the role. Given the limited confines of the Lily Warren character, which required her to be strapped to a gurney throughout the episode with an oxygen mask on, the character could have been creepy, but Walton brings sympathetic and human qualities so that her character never comes across as off-putting or needlessly weird.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOKxY3HCz0vPfWJyhPspryLperGknUOKKestxp71HPazY_EI59xA4YVQ-U544iy3PAA7ciucGVyIWiFA2L9BzkwV3zG-22wAXdQQHc1HDb7L5l_R0LEzNQsQUMUC82G8Yb5ot4D3cD8uY/s1600/Welby.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOKxY3HCz0vPfWJyhPspryLperGknUOKKestxp71HPazY_EI59xA4YVQ-U544iy3PAA7ciucGVyIWiFA2L9BzkwV3zG-22wAXdQQHc1HDb7L5l_R0LEzNQsQUMUC82G8Yb5ot4D3cD8uY/s1600/Welby.JPG" height="270" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I also recall her touching performance on "Marcus Welby, M.D." in the episode "Unto the Next Generation," which ABC aired on December 5, 1972. Walton played Naomi Sobel, a young housewife and mother of an infant who dies from a rare genetic disorder called Tay-Sachs disease. After their child dies, Naomi and her husband both deal with their grief and also wrestle with their fear of having another child who may also be born with this disorder. An unusual episode of "Marcus Welby" in that the storyline spans a timeline of what must have been more than a year and a half, rather than like a week in the life of Welby and his patients, "Unto the Next Generation" is notable for its expression of grief over the death of the infant child expressed throughout. I recall feeling a level of discomfort watching this family wrestle with their loss and with making difficult decisions for their future. It just seemed surprisingly authentic for a vintage television series from that era. Walton gave a raw, emotional performance as the sympathetic Naomi. With subtlety and conviction, she allowed us to see Naomi's grief, vulnerability and strength in a way that felt completely valid and understandable.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBkYjA2md1nMDTSU2t8m2iRjGg6jC-8WYrPLBK4fLIyDwCvTsa-P8bqKFONYfw84W6W9RIVkco1RG5WQ62cbxrphBSQZJbDb737oY15uKneb9aetB2lBeWyxjOqAaw7fG8hmvvKi0lss/s1600/Gunsmoke1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBkYjA2md1nMDTSU2t8m2iRjGg6jC-8WYrPLBK4fLIyDwCvTsa-P8bqKFONYfw84W6W9RIVkco1RG5WQ62cbxrphBSQZJbDb737oY15uKneb9aetB2lBeWyxjOqAaw7fG8hmvvKi0lss/s1600/Gunsmoke1.JPG" height="216" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While on loan-out from Universal, Jess Walton made several guest appearances on CBS's classic western series "Gunsmoke." The more memorable appearance was in the January 22, 1973 episode entitled "Patricia." She played the title character, a woman with nursing experience from Boston, who is riding out West on a stagecoach when a tornado arrives just as she is traveling through Dodge City. Patricia courageously works along side Doc (Milburn Stone) and Newly (Buck Taylor) to tend to the injured and wounded, earning the affection and respect of Dodge City's residents. In the process, Patricia and Newly fall in love. They announce plans to get married and buy a horse ranch. However, Doc learns that Patricia is dying of leukemia. Nevertheless, news of her illness is kept from Patricia and the wedding proceeds. Newly and Patricia are happy for a period of time until she accidentally learns about her illness and her terminal prognosis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Co1kqAubvHRuhp5shwpfWmQ1ykPnM8NMNYY-NFLJ9xXcGDBgFAH41AjxCRpO4E74Ad785bydxGf4Ojz3bzCypyYavZeMymtMVGKYeZOIrwA_qh05Stpf0AFKVmDjyCNEqLnEMJbFXc4/s1600/Gunsmoke2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Co1kqAubvHRuhp5shwpfWmQ1ykPnM8NMNYY-NFLJ9xXcGDBgFAH41AjxCRpO4E74Ad785bydxGf4Ojz3bzCypyYavZeMymtMVGKYeZOIrwA_qh05Stpf0AFKVmDjyCNEqLnEMJbFXc4/s1600/Gunsmoke2.JPG" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Walton is excellent in the scene where Patricia stumbles upon the telegram that discusses her prognosis. As she rocks in her chair, after reading the telegram, the camera slowly zooms in on Walton's terrified and grief-stricken face as she recalls, in voice over, the seemingly innocuous advice and suggestions from other individuals, to rest and take it easy. She now realizes that others knew of her illness before she did as she puts the pieces together. She runs from the house, wraps her arms around a nearby tree, as she clenches her eyes shut and attempts to compute this information. She later flees into the hillside, with Newly giving chase. When he finally catches up with her, she talks about their future together, with the two still not openly acknowledging her illness, and dies peacefully in his arms. A character-driven episode of "Gunsmoke" that reflected the later years of the series, Walton gave a radiant performance as the sympathetic Patricia. Walton was able to project the character's innate decency and kindness without the character lapsing into cliches or sentimentality. I think Walton was able to avoid that by bringing elements of courage, integrity and intelligence to the character. She's particularly good in the sequence when Patricia learns about her illness. She hits the right notes of rage, fear, and frustration and knows just how far to take it without being arch or mannered.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdWW_Ovu2Y2QiBmxB9R3jsrzuLnmEz0eO1EXPOckAufD5JrXQlauC0NGx1U-s8KEEHoWzQ-tkOT87ucG_LRzB80AIn4gkR5woG1XHNd3mf5c-78diTltoD-QxwPuJiFXWeYCK0027xAfU/s1600/Kojak.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdWW_Ovu2Y2QiBmxB9R3jsrzuLnmEz0eO1EXPOckAufD5JrXQlauC0NGx1U-s8KEEHoWzQ-tkOT87ucG_LRzB80AIn4gkR5woG1XHNd3mf5c-78diTltoD-QxwPuJiFXWeYCK0027xAfU/s1600/Kojak.JPG" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of her best TV guest appearances during this era was in the "Kojak" episode "Die Before They Wake," which aired February 6, 1974 on CBS. Walton played Cheryl Pope, the much younger wife of crusading TV reporter Daniel Pope (Robert Burr). Daniel Pope is killed while investigating a criminal organization dealing in drugs and prostitution. Cheryl, a former addict who was able to overcome her addictions with the love and support of her husband, goes undercover to try and unmask the criminals behind her husband's murder. In so doing, Cheryl finds herself exposed to the world of narcotics again and must fight against giving into the temptation of dulling her pain with heroin. Throughout the episode, a concerned Kojak (Telly Savalas) attempts to keep tabs on Cheryl to ensure that her amateur sleuthing does not result in her death. The "Kojak" episode afforded Walton an opportunity to play a gritty, heroic character. Walton skillfully balances Cheryl Pope's qualities of courage and vulnerability so that her efforts to investigate her husband's death never comes across as contrived or silly. She's particularly good at the end of the episode when her cover has been blown and the criminals she's been investigating realize who she is. As the criminals discuss eliminating her like they did with her husband, Cheryl scornfully sneers, <i>"Little men make the biggest mistakes! What? Are you gonna use the same gun you used to kill my husband?"</i> She proceeds to needle both criminals in an effort to make them turn on each other. Walton's grit and determination in this performance should have afforded her more opportunities for feature films in the 1970s.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Q5JW6QFeJy8Z7c8PQcZHTpDO0FT4rq6ky2wqUaa24-rQoBsSpzpBdmfiQUAZR5QY62iitjtqJKfBxPnnkXWoZRepIoZsiGYWhza5aM5wlpTO-NyVZd5mk7FXlQpjZMzxcaZkNcMyVvQ/s1600/Cannon1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Q5JW6QFeJy8Z7c8PQcZHTpDO0FT4rq6ky2wqUaa24-rQoBsSpzpBdmfiQUAZR5QY62iitjtqJKfBxPnnkXWoZRepIoZsiGYWhza5aM5wlpTO-NyVZd5mk7FXlQpjZMzxcaZkNcMyVvQ/s1600/Cannon1.JPG" height="228" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Walton made several guest appearances while on loan out to Quinn Martin for the CBS TV show "Cannon." The most interesting of these appearances was in the episode entitled "The Victim," which aired October 8, 1975. Written by Jimmy Sangster, who wrote many classic horror films for Hammer Studios, the episode opens mysteriously as Walton's character, a struggling singer named Janice Elder, approaches an empty house where the window has been smashed on the front door, the living room is in tatters, and pop music is playing on the stereo. She finds her old friend--singing star Lena Michaels (Donna Mills)--locked in a room, cowering in fear and in tears. Lena called her old friend Janice to come rescue her from the house, where she claims she's been held captive. However, as they are about to make their exit, they are confronted by several men, one of whom knocks Janice unconscious. She is later found on the side of the road, alive but with drugs in her system. The police refuse to believe her story, except for a sympathetic detective, played by James Callahan, who calls in his friend Frank Cannon (William Conrad) to investigate Janice's story.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wRRTRinMb3zgsloXMlLw1Hzy0Pb8erTIX0mu6h5C3vhceyC3ImuNWvjeLJCqQX_vSjSnJeZcA3NzuXyj2ldaUeje4y37J4_leFHonAbG8Y1OUzhlEKszIgcRhAwWYosNiEXEXh3D9Hk/s1600/Cannon2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wRRTRinMb3zgsloXMlLw1Hzy0Pb8erTIX0mu6h5C3vhceyC3ImuNWvjeLJCqQX_vSjSnJeZcA3NzuXyj2ldaUeje4y37J4_leFHonAbG8Y1OUzhlEKszIgcRhAwWYosNiEXEXh3D9Hk/s1600/Cannon2.JPG" height="231" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Walton projects the right air of frustration and determination at trying to get people to believe her story. She's particularly good in the scene where Janice and Cannon return to the house and find that a married couple is purportedly living there, which appear to refute her allegations. I also like the sense of defiance that Walton projects in her initial scene with Cannon, as Janice is reluctant to reiterate her story to yet another person who might doubt her credibility. The slowly developing sense of friendship and trust between Cannon and Janice is one of the most interesting elements to this episode. At the end, it is revealed that Janice's friend, Lena Michaels, is actually an unbalanced psychopath, and that her agents and managers have developed an elaborate ruse to shield her murderous activities from the public to protect her and their investment. Lena attempts to kill Janice at the end of the episode, only to have Cannon rescue her in the nick of time. It's at that point you realize that the true "victim" of the episode's title wasn't Donna Mills' seemingly terrified and captive Lena Michaels, but her naively trusting friend Janice Elder, who was concerned about her well-being and attempted to help her. Walton makes Janice an admirable character so that the audience is concerned with her safety throughout the episode. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5Q6ki8EkaxZ4AStEHwkzOvQwjZK8P9j_CmUeuPgoEDH3QOc88XkjgImYX_XLLGjBRfc3cTIhZK-4M1VsZmlj9IM55JwMTyQB_MMqLIAt_HwcSobKz0SyRPfx7y-DFKFrayYEfCZLLPk/s1600/Walton3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5Q6ki8EkaxZ4AStEHwkzOvQwjZK8P9j_CmUeuPgoEDH3QOc88XkjgImYX_XLLGjBRfc3cTIhZK-4M1VsZmlj9IM55JwMTyQB_MMqLIAt_HwcSobKz0SyRPfx7y-DFKFrayYEfCZLLPk/s1600/Walton3.JPG" height="400" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
These are just a few examples that come to mind, but I think they help to demonstrate the fine work Jess Walton did in episodic TV guest appearances throughout the 1970s. The roles, at times, may not have been particularly challenging, but Walton brought layers of depth, nuance, and humanity to them that she never ended up being just "the girl" guest starring on a cop or detective series. She always managed to stand out so that viewers would sit up and notice her fine work. I still believe, as I mentioned before, that Universal should have given Walton more opportunities for big-screen stardom. She had the talent, beauty and presence to warrant feature film roles. Nevertheless, I'm glad that Walton kept working and eventually found her greatest success on daytime television with "The Young and the Restless." She brought layers of substance, intelligence, and credibility to the role of Jill Foster Abbott, and was able to allow the character to transcend the mannered campiness that her predecessor Brenda Dickson brought to the role. While Dickson was certainly entertaining, Walton did the seemingly impossible--she was able to make the role of Jill her own. As such, she's won two Emmys and been nominated five times. Prime time TV and feature films' loss has been daytime's gain. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-87662907273017847392014-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:002014-06-04T16:59:30.143-07:00I Still Pick Ginger<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQZ9WnsBCxDB9YaZGLVDWmLHpsqJFmx9EVAP9MtWcIypiVK1ej8CRyE-LzcKsTh9yZRaIBqAIEU-qWHmEoniS7QtKPolnyAk7C7Ito5Mmn2iX__81Iih1OSe6q21owaI8nVxdmcM0Lr0/s1600/Ginger17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQZ9WnsBCxDB9YaZGLVDWmLHpsqJFmx9EVAP9MtWcIypiVK1ej8CRyE-LzcKsTh9yZRaIBqAIEU-qWHmEoniS7QtKPolnyAk7C7Ito5Mmn2iX__81Iih1OSe6q21owaI8nVxdmcM0Lr0/s1600/Ginger17.JPG" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I've been on the losing side of a popular culture question for the last 20 or so years (and I don't care). Whenever people ask "Ginger or Mary Ann," in terms of who they prefer from the 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," the answer has usually been Mary Ann. The reasons given is that these people consider her more natural, more down-to-earth, more pleasant, less self-centered, and more accessible. It helps that Dawn Wells, the actress who plays Mary Ann, continually fuels the debate by discussing the series at more length than does the actress who played Ginger on the series, Tina Louise. Louise, <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-grudging-reassessment-of-jill-st-john.html" target="_blank">as I've written about before</a>, has sometimes been her worst enemy by her efforts to distance herself from the show, such as turning down the reunion TV movies that were made in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and by giving pat answers whenever she is asked about the show in interviews. Louise often says, in response to questions asking her what it was like working on the series, <i>"Oh, it was fun. I had a lot of fun."</i> Louise's inability to be more detailed and articulate about her memories of working on the show helps fuel the resentment people feel towards her because it comes across as condescending and elitist that she can't be more embracing and appreciative of the series she is still best known for. That being said, however, I still pick Ginger over Mary Ann.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHZTiU2BVKE0HAX2SZc8sFwh0BAOUSmwoKePdnQ4eoAhMD3gwzBI5d5SDGNN4QnEW5Gutv0wO0wLvyYNMTVTpi-DEniIrzX_JYUuquCJYlbOyYKpAKu_B8PCTz_u9B_ux0ttR9UU5OCrA/s1600/Ginger9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHZTiU2BVKE0HAX2SZc8sFwh0BAOUSmwoKePdnQ4eoAhMD3gwzBI5d5SDGNN4QnEW5Gutv0wO0wLvyYNMTVTpi-DEniIrzX_JYUuquCJYlbOyYKpAKu_B8PCTz_u9B_ux0ttR9UU5OCrA/s1600/Ginger9.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I've admitted in the past on this blog that Tina Louise is my favorite actress, that I appreciate her overall career and range as an actress, and that she has done enough interesting work in <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-tina-louise-quartet.html" target="_blank">films</a> and <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/special-guest-star-tina-louise.html" target="_blank">television</a> (and has worked with directors as diverse as Anthony Mann, Michael Curtiz, Andre de Toth, Roberto Rossellini, Richard Brooks, and Robert Altman) that "Gilligan's Island" should be considered the most high-profile credit out of a long and eclectic career, but it's <i>not</i> the <i>only</i> thing she has appeared in. That being said, I also recognize her shortcomings as an individual, especially having dealt with her several times back in the 1990s in the course of interviewing her about her career for a book project about 1960s-era actresses. Even though, overall, I liked her, Louise was a bit defensive at times, could objectively be described as "high maintenance," and didn't hesitate to let her perspectives and opinions be known. That being said, she was also exceedingly bright and witty and insightful about her career, her colleagues, and about issues and current events that interested and concerned her. (I recall how she spoke highly about Jim Backus, Alan Hale and Natalie Schafer, how she liked Dawn Wells and wouldn't allow any criticism to be made about her, how she wished Bob Denver would stop criticizing her but that she held no personal animosity towards him because she respected his talents, and how Russell Johnson was a loving and devoted parent and how devastated he was when his son died from AIDS.) She didn't make things easy, but she was ultimately cooperative in the end and she never intentionally messed with me or played games with me. She simply wants to be an active participant in the creative process of anything she's involved in.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkFePD18_oGEyWMeqEDJqmTH_e2CpQbCIIShQVmvyq8RwFb0lR2OcF5p_uwzVEzfuorHVUck5H3e6KRTuEYnNKPyQoHk7UhyphenhyphenwFb6YlZUfSrs-PFeIpfTrns8okXQHzlbN_-zf_yGF4KZM/s1600/Ginger22.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkFePD18_oGEyWMeqEDJqmTH_e2CpQbCIIShQVmvyq8RwFb0lR2OcF5p_uwzVEzfuorHVUck5H3e6KRTuEYnNKPyQoHk7UhyphenhyphenwFb6YlZUfSrs-PFeIpfTrns8okXQHzlbN_-zf_yGF4KZM/s1600/Ginger22.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The other thing I realized about Tina Louise is that it isn't that she necessarily dislikes talking about "Gilligan's Island," because I found that she wasn't exactly dying to talk about her other film and TV roles. I presumed incorrectly that she would brighten up at being asked about "God's Little Acre" or "The Stepford Wives" or "Dallas" and I found that she wasn't any more enthusiastic talking about those projects than she was talking about "Gilligan's Island." I ultimately concluded that she doesn't want to spend her entire life talking only about the past, because she prefers to focus on the present. I recall how she said that she believes that the best time of your life is right now, and not the past. As such, she doesn't want to spend her life dwelling on events from decades ago, which is one reason why, she admitted to me, she rarely grants interviews. I can see why this would turn people off to her, because there were times she frustrated me, but at the end of the day I do feel she's an intelligent and good person. I acknowledge that there are those whose experiences with Louise may have been different than mine, and who would beg to differ with my opinion, and I grant them that perspective. However, what makes me respect her in the end was that I found that she was a woman of her word. In my opinion, if she agrees to help you, she helps you all the way, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbyB0fHi1L1ajrZ6h8YlAdjDWAlO2rAevKm_kafvwxhqgBfMmVO2ZRRDFDQB1Ysuhw7LUspbzVYYpG9TXvmdCpEEL91XIBWrgbA2sBllW-OopFcd6mhWjPZZ1pBI_3sKTMTha0Ervxuo/s1600/Ginger15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbyB0fHi1L1ajrZ6h8YlAdjDWAlO2rAevKm_kafvwxhqgBfMmVO2ZRRDFDQB1Ysuhw7LUspbzVYYpG9TXvmdCpEEL91XIBWrgbA2sBllW-OopFcd6mhWjPZZ1pBI_3sKTMTha0Ervxuo/s1600/Ginger15.JPG" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUmLetMDL-7a91GIn__GRt3xgJSWD2bf8WOSOOWjb7cqj8hGP3JGrJHZueFKT2bodv8b9v6U_mE2UPilasn71hB9AoKdT_MIdUu6V8z8Ms6VWhxRn-2c3D0kV_WEaUtmdmYnEAjMtgXLk/s1600/Ginger19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUmLetMDL-7a91GIn__GRt3xgJSWD2bf8WOSOOWjb7cqj8hGP3JGrJHZueFKT2bodv8b9v6U_mE2UPilasn71hB9AoKdT_MIdUu6V8z8Ms6VWhxRn-2c3D0kV_WEaUtmdmYnEAjMtgXLk/s1600/Ginger19.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Having dealt with her made me realize the extent to which her iconic performance as movie star Ginger Grant was miles away from who Tina Louise actually is as an individual. There's an understandable assumption that Louise was simply "playing herself" when she played Ginger on the series. But I've found that anyone who has actually dealt with, or worked with, Tina Louise recognizes that that was a genuine acting performance and not just an instance of an actor phoning it in. Growing up as a kid, I always enjoyed Louise as Ginger. Ginger wasn't deep, was consumed with herself and her career, spent far too much time gazing in the mirror concerned about her appearance, and rarely expressed interest in anything besides show business. At the same time, she also turned out to be friendly and loyal to the other castaways, participated in the domestic chores around the island as much as Mary Ann did, and was willing to do whatever needed to be done to help get the castaways rescued, or to help save them from unfriendly visitors who were threatening her safety and the safety of her friends. The character of Ginger Grant had good and bad qualities of superficiality and self-absorption mixed with moments of kindness and sincerity. Despite the cartoonish framework of the series, Ginger Grant still comes across as a human being because the good and the bad, as I just mentioned, are all there, are all on display, and maybe it's because she isn't <i>all</i> good or <i>all</i> bad that the character evokes such a divisive reaction from people.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqB84ICZQn5jNrtcTDNR6Mh_OwU13hNUU_pqLdy6pNgbvr4DndeOkmf7wArlNTMnR3yPCK44Gin4i-8VJYcedS9v0O_XJQ9J6x4RtNne9-ZEWTEP8uRHE8AAVnhnM5ALm_tzh81BS9tU/s1600/Ginger8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqB84ICZQn5jNrtcTDNR6Mh_OwU13hNUU_pqLdy6pNgbvr4DndeOkmf7wArlNTMnR3yPCK44Gin4i-8VJYcedS9v0O_XJQ9J6x4RtNne9-ZEWTEP8uRHE8AAVnhnM5ALm_tzh81BS9tU/s1600/Ginger8.JPG" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSTcCYrwk46PAPbEcyKDOarcqvYIDLr1xCkvvwId29N07P8h_-bsAUP6-NNRjjxomd-iuAvwIlW9OVelvQCWdEw_eaLps0LTyl5RBqoRKJ8MoeTwpzgLWRtBYU6yHmonJN0BSsW0ueew/s1600/Ginger20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSTcCYrwk46PAPbEcyKDOarcqvYIDLr1xCkvvwId29N07P8h_-bsAUP6-NNRjjxomd-iuAvwIlW9OVelvQCWdEw_eaLps0LTyl5RBqoRKJ8MoeTwpzgLWRtBYU6yHmonJN0BSsW0ueew/s1600/Ginger20.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While I was growing up, even though I definitely preferred Ginger over Mary Ann because she was more colorful and vibrant, I never had anything against Dawn Wells or Mary Ann. In fact, upon viewing episodes of "Gilligan's Island" again in order to write this article, I was reminded of how appealing and radiant Wells was as Mary Ann. I really haven't watched the show much in the last 20 years--I had reached a saturation point where I was so familiar with it that I started feeling contemptuous towards it--but watching the series with fresh eyes allows me to appreciate how skillfully made the show was, and how good all the actors were on it. It's really too bad that there has to be a "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" debate because, on-screen, the whole cast worked well together as a cohesive whole. I think "Gilligan's Island" wouldn't have worked if only Tina Louise as
Ginger, or only Dawn Wells as Mary Ann, were on it to the exclusion of
the other individual because their combined presence complemented one
another beautifully. In fact, I never really liked the whole "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" debate because I thought it was dumb and divisive. Even though I preferred Ginger, having such a debate inherently suggests that you can't like both and that you have to pick one at the expense of the other. Just to be clear, if I say I pick Ginger, it doesn't mean to suggest that I don't like Mary Ann or Dawn Wells' effective performance as the character. I just find Ginger a more interesting personality.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNensWxU8S7b1hUm1PnrNRmhBCPDDMZMhQzhLXBH37uuFuWMKhEf7sJc5QMVJATnc6DB2pD_hTVdV0i0SmihNrXhe1Wj5jKlJUr1e4qRmMZlUgSFiSA36rL5QTYKnVuZKDWYfI9jvzpo0/s1600/Ginger10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNensWxU8S7b1hUm1PnrNRmhBCPDDMZMhQzhLXBH37uuFuWMKhEf7sJc5QMVJATnc6DB2pD_hTVdV0i0SmihNrXhe1Wj5jKlJUr1e4qRmMZlUgSFiSA36rL5QTYKnVuZKDWYfI9jvzpo0/s1600/Ginger10.JPG" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When I read articles written by men expressing why they prefer Mary Ann over Ginger, it's usually because they cite her domestic qualities, and her generally compliant and submissive nature. In fact, one recent article that compares Ginger vs. Mary Ann, written in the wake of Russell Johnson's death, really incensed me because of the underlying sexism and condescension of the writer, who can't distinguish between Tina Louise and the character of Ginger, and often writes dismissively of the two of them as if they were one and the same. (I'm not hyperlinking to that piece, as I normally would, because I don't want to direct more traffic to that guy's article.) In the provincial mentality of such passive and wimpy misogynists, Mary Ann doesn't threaten or challenge their sensibilities, whereas the character of Ginger does. I remember the first article I ever read written by a guy who preferred Mary Ann generally cited the notion that he felt Ginger was too self-absorbed to ever be concerned about his needs and wants. I got the distinct impression that he preferred Mary Ann because he felt she would be someone who would generally be at his beck and call. If anything, I would wager that the purportedly earthy Mary Ann is even
more of an unrealistic fantasy figure than the glamorous, mercurial
Ginger. Even if they tried, it's not likely that any man would be able
to find an individual who is as compliant, complacent, submissive, and
subservient as Mary Ann was. As such, I'm not sure why some people have such an extreme perspective on Ginger. I think her character is a kind of a Rorschach Test of people's perceptions and opinions about women. People react differently to her based on their own experiences and sensibilities. Even though she definitely is consumed with her career and physical appearance, as I mentioned before she participates equally in the domestic chores as Mary Ann does and, as I also highlighted, actively participates in any efforts to perpetuate a rescue, save her friends, or help maintain peace and status quo on the island. I think the men who don't like Ginger simply don't have the self-confidence or maturity to deal with a woman with complexity. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjmfpxopXYpsywry06a3Dn15SPDxhc44pinQ1ICzIhw853PmuHfG9v94YqayuplJargLbMLkGlwNUTMUbjWlRXEG8jFdoTzspneULiWmwvyM1b2VPE3msfSICQO6cJJTvJoiGFzdiAhE/s1600/Ginger6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjmfpxopXYpsywry06a3Dn15SPDxhc44pinQ1ICzIhw853PmuHfG9v94YqayuplJargLbMLkGlwNUTMUbjWlRXEG8jFdoTzspneULiWmwvyM1b2VPE3msfSICQO6cJJTvJoiGFzdiAhE/s1600/Ginger6.JPG" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the episode "Diamonds are an Ape's Best Friend," which aired February 27, 1965, after being persuaded by Mr. Howell with promises that he'll produce a movie with her as the star (and after Mary Ann flat out refused to help) Ginger tries to tempt a gorilla, who has been holding Mrs. Howell hostage, out of his cave so that the men can capture him. In the episode "The Matchmaker," which aired March 20, 1965, Ginger helps Gilligan and the Skipper develop a plan to reunite the bickering Howells by recreating the circumstances of the night Mr. Howell proposed marriage to Mrs. Howell. In "Quick Before it Sinks," which aired October 28, 1965, when the castaways are under the assumption that the island is sinking, Ginger suggests building an Ark like Noah did so that the castaways can survive. In "Erika Tiffany Smith to the Rescue," which aired December 30, 1965, Ginger gives both the Skipper and the Professor advice on how to woo and romance a wealthy heiress (Zsa Zsa Gabor) who has landed on the island. (In contrast, when the Professor expresses concern to Mary Ann, after Erika Tiffany Smith accepts his marriage proposal, as to whether they will end up living in his academic, or her high society, world all Mary Ann can do is patly remark, <i>"Gee, it would be nice if you both would live in the same one!"</i>) In "Ship Ahoax," which aired February 24, 1966, Ginger pretends to be a psychic predicting that a rescue is imminent in order to help prevent the castaways from going crazy and fighting with one another out of boredom and anxiety. In "The Postman Cometh," which aired January 20, 1966, after the castaways get word that a man they believe Mary Ann is in love with has gotten married to another woman, Ginger suggests that Gilligan, the Skipper and the Professor romance Mary Ann to help her forget her sweetheart and, as such, personally gives the Professor tips on how to woo Mary Ann by acting like Cary Grant. In "Love Me, Love My Skipper," which aired February 3, 1966, after the castaways inadvertently cause the Howells to bicker and break up by refusing invitations to attend their cotillion when they mistakenly believe the Howells refused to invite the Skipper, Ginger concocts a scheme using gentle manipulation and subterfuge to help reunite them. In "Forward March," which aired February 17, 1966, when the castaways are attacked by unseen aggressors using explosive weaponry, Ginger immediately volunteers to act as a spy by approaching the men and announcing <i>"Mata Hari reporting for duty."</i> When the Professor dismisses Ginger's offer of assistance by condescendingly informing her, <i>"This is neither the time nor the place for a woman,"</i> Ginger retorts, <i>"Forget that I'm a woman. I'm a secret agent trying to capture the enemy."</i> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-50pj02RROxIMBXY15e81usD-LzbTJXk7hKGq2NDP60tdV0W2RCcSv6zdygb5AxwRW9GTgIot2Mb3_CuNcFAiBEd1vS3trQd0zC4du2aRX44hY-z4S4w_laSeNL2XToYlZ4QPklxkBlo/s1600/Ginger7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-50pj02RROxIMBXY15e81usD-LzbTJXk7hKGq2NDP60tdV0W2RCcSv6zdygb5AxwRW9GTgIot2Mb3_CuNcFAiBEd1vS3trQd0zC4du2aRX44hY-z4S4w_laSeNL2XToYlZ4QPklxkBlo/s1600/Ginger7.JPG" height="253" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In "Mr. and Mrs. ???," which aired April 21, 1966, when the Howells
learn that their marriage may not have been legal, Ginger suggests that
the Skipper, being the de-facto legal authority on the island, should
remarry them. Later in the episode, when the Howells bicker and refuse
to reconcile, Ginger convinces Mr. Howell that the way to win back Mrs.
Howell's affections is to make her jealous. In "Voodoo," which aired October 10, 1966, Ginger offers to perform a native dance in the hope that it will lift the curse that a witch doctor has placed on the Professor that has turned him into a zombie. In "Court-Martial," which aired January 9, 1967, when the Skipper attempts to commit suicide after learning that the Maritime Board has ruled he is responsible for the shipwreck, both Ginger and, later, Mary Ann save the Skipper's life by preventing him from committing suicide by throwing himself off a cliff. Later, Ginger suggests reenacting the shipwreck in an effort to gather evidence to exonerate him. In "The Hunter," which aired January 16, 1967, Ginger attempts to seduce and drug big game hunter Jonathan Kincaid (Rory Calhoun) with a tranquilizer in order to try and steal his rifle so that he won't hunt Gilligan for sport. In "The Second Ginger Grant," which aired March 6, 1967, after Mary Ann has hit her head and wakes up believing she's Ginger, the real Ginger pretends she is Mary Ann for awhile in order to allow the real Mary Ann time to snap out of her delusional fantasy. In "Slave Girl," which aired March 20, 1967, Ginger performs an elaborate dance with veils in an attempt to buy Gilligan enough time to sleep off a drug which has left him in a death-like trance before natives can set fire to his body as part of their funeral rite. In "Bang! Bang! Bang!," which aired April 10, 1967, Ginger stands in as a dental assistant while the Professor fills Gilligan's teeth with a resin made of plastic explosives. Later, upon realizing the explosive nature of the plastics that Gilligan has found, she continues assisting the Professor in trying to extract the deadly material out of Gilligan's teeth.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXj4eKTRaq8Fzz3PkR3G9BqeFYSc3nn9mUB49owNDpv2JEPlzDPtMBIxN4KEenWaIv5x94KV8cluTUgVP98-V63uZ9hiVz0z8ob9RBFGSDVhwPunx7DE2q3avX83xnVIPzMN-BLUDlLo/s1600/Ginger5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXj4eKTRaq8Fzz3PkR3G9BqeFYSc3nn9mUB49owNDpv2JEPlzDPtMBIxN4KEenWaIv5x94KV8cluTUgVP98-V63uZ9hiVz0z8ob9RBFGSDVhwPunx7DE2q3avX83xnVIPzMN-BLUDlLo/s1600/Ginger5.JPG" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
These are just a few examples, but I think they demonstrate how Ginger was indeed a "team player" on the island and how she doesn't deserve her reputation as someone self-centered and uncooperative. She contributes to the well-being of herself and the other castaways on the island as much as Mary Ann does. There's a perception that Mary Ann does the chores on the island without ever complaining, but in the episode "Not Guilty," which aired January 6, 1966, Mary Ann openly complains about having to clean the Howell's hut. As she whines to Ginger, <i>"Oh Ginger, I don't see why we have to make up the Howell's hut everyday,"</i> Ginger responds, <i>"Oh, we don't have to, Mary Ann. But I like be helpful and thoughtful and considerate. I mean, after all when we get off the island, Mr. Howell owns a movie studio!"</i> Even though one might argue that Ginger is only selfishly doing chores because of what she might eventually get out of it, I prefer the fact that she isn't anyone's Trilby or slave and actually expects something in return for her efforts. Mary Ann's complacency and complaining over cleaning the Howell's hut is less appealing to me because it demonstrates her submissiveness and how she doesn't take proactive measures on the island to protect herself and the others, or even protect her own self interests. If she were more assertive, she'd complain to the Howells and refuse to clean their hut, instead of allowing herself to be a martyr. As much as I like Mary Ann, and think that Dawn Wells makes her a sympathetic character, Mary Ann is a character who rarely has the imagination to think outside the box or does much outside her domestic duties and chores on the island.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypyoHgQjbwNrVDHe5_NhTQ1Fcfiy7Ziisd9HhRbGd83C0DSoQUxAic1laFdV9JBc0bW338ZFlVq70mPSanPQb4lW2cr__DZRjWuvKtc7LDsmumX6nOUGOoCpDyvZBZ_EUibaFYFonG7Y/s1600/Ginger11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypyoHgQjbwNrVDHe5_NhTQ1Fcfiy7Ziisd9HhRbGd83C0DSoQUxAic1laFdV9JBc0bW338ZFlVq70mPSanPQb4lW2cr__DZRjWuvKtc7LDsmumX6nOUGOoCpDyvZBZ_EUibaFYFonG7Y/s1600/Ginger11.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbt6HMRqZKttM89ZxTbNwDpmNkMHsGcjG1eB3TIezycNQdI3cHVdg3VbCxr81oqq3kzHaac5_QkLwkTSxUMpuZSq6ecKXAAynvfb2P94KQJKLl6lAmpe_0KGUUHAOg3ftxIJ4d9CFyI0/s1600/Ginger31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbt6HMRqZKttM89ZxTbNwDpmNkMHsGcjG1eB3TIezycNQdI3cHVdg3VbCxr81oqq3kzHaac5_QkLwkTSxUMpuZSq6ecKXAAynvfb2P94KQJKLl6lAmpe_0KGUUHAOg3ftxIJ4d9CFyI0/s1600/Ginger31.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhain66E8qF-GHk3uCpklGs23uzfOG8BTlWMuBD0hWUv0G2-HVjEIgG1aySHKDagNoFh4gWfoaA4GDXXoIL_HGa0fooWZcUBGh-WPLcrXPFVA8suNoDog8jHN6nm9ZRCN-HKBWEgNItx0g/s1600/Ginger32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhain66E8qF-GHk3uCpklGs23uzfOG8BTlWMuBD0hWUv0G2-HVjEIgG1aySHKDagNoFh4gWfoaA4GDXXoIL_HGa0fooWZcUBGh-WPLcrXPFVA8suNoDog8jHN6nm9ZRCN-HKBWEgNItx0g/s1600/Ginger32.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast, I always felt that Ginger was someone who was willing and able to do what was necessary for the good of the others. The examples I just cited from various episodes help to affirm that. I also like the way Ginger often makes suggestions to the castaways on how to resolve the immediate crisis based on plots of movies she has starred in. It might seem a limited perspective for her to make suggestions based on her movies, but I think it demonstrates how Ginger is simply applying her own life experience and skills to help everyone surmount the challenges they are facing. The fact that she might occasionally act in a selfish or self-centered manner does not undermine her positive traits. Like the Howells, Ginger has her flaws, but her good qualities overshadow her shortcomings. Nevertheless, I like the fact that, in a show set in the 1960s, when the Women's Movement hadn't yet taken shape, Ginger has a strong sense of her own needs and desires as a worldly career woman, but is also still capable of executing practical duties and chores when necessary for the good of the whole community. Interestingly in Joey Green's excellent 1988 book "The Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook," co-star Jim Backus opines, in response to the question as to who was the leader on the island, that Ginger was the one who was really running the show. Backus refers to how a person like Ginger, who came from Hollywood and Broadway, would naturally have to develop survival instincts and figure a way out of difficult situations. Whether or not you agree with Backus, this demonstrates that at least one major participant in the series saw Ginger in a substantive light.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBI2N0ZPjjEj0YiCaLJgcHAAQL1a2qXUQCP2FdTzQOTC110hZSY-xk_dGNem0WcJkT2sRm7hsjO6N2tZltyRoYJBfLN9ktSkpFMeDyiJ0OygWcVNSt8Z528wEa4LA3Ijkm-Csp7eslBuM/s1600/Ginger12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBI2N0ZPjjEj0YiCaLJgcHAAQL1a2qXUQCP2FdTzQOTC110hZSY-xk_dGNem0WcJkT2sRm7hsjO6N2tZltyRoYJBfLN9ktSkpFMeDyiJ0OygWcVNSt8Z528wEa4LA3Ijkm-Csp7eslBuM/s1600/Ginger12.JPG" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
There are people who don't like Ginger and think of her as being promiscuous and a "bimbo," but I always disagreed with that because I don't think she gives herself away easily to just any man. There's a certain misogyny that suggests that any woman who is sexually confident, or is clearly a sexual individual, is inherently shallow and superficial and I have never bought into that theory. It's such a prudish and puritanical perspective. If Ginger is seen trying to seduce someone on the show, as I mentioned before, it's usually to help herself or her fellow castaways achieve their goals. Her sexual identity as a <i>femme fatale</i> affirms that she's not primarily concerned about sexually pleasing the men she seduces so much as pleasing herself, or gaining what she needs. Yet, at the same time, I get the impression that Ginger has had enough experience with men that she knows how to handle herself so that she never gets victimized, nor do I ever get the impression that she ever unwittingly puts herself in a situation where she could be taken advantage of. I always got the feeling that Ginger knew how to take care of herself. Having a worldly, sexually confident and arguably assertive female character on television in the 1960s was kind of daring and impressive for that time. I would make the argument that Ginger is the sort of glamorous and sexually confident woman that Camille Paglia would feel exemplifies her theory of "pro-sex feminism," a woman who doesn't feel she has to forgo her sex appeal in order to make an impact in the world. It's one of the reasons why Ginger has always intrigued me more than the complacent and compliant Mary Ann. I wish Mary Ann would have taken a more proactive role on the show and on the island. A telling moment from Mary Ann takes place during "The Hunter" episode. While Jonathan Kincaid is busy hunting Gilligan, the other castaways are held captive in a cave. As the others try to think of ways to help Gilligan, and after Ginger tried to drug Kincaid the night before, Mary Ann tellingly says <i>"Oh I can't just sit still! I've never felt so useless in my entire life!"</i> Mary Ann wants to help, but her imagination is rarely broad enough to allow her to proactively develop a solution to the situation.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiMycUg4a5b8SOGoZrCkU008DgPyma2fgGrSWwd3tMCogImszc6GII_zaRKvWygJ9CBnSL4dHN5GKvxkESY-aBPUaepkq80CapIsfOuQk1UzJ5pJ0cObBnwEsmYRPapMB_QUkd2ANcFq0/s1600/Ginger2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiMycUg4a5b8SOGoZrCkU008DgPyma2fgGrSWwd3tMCogImszc6GII_zaRKvWygJ9CBnSL4dHN5GKvxkESY-aBPUaepkq80CapIsfOuQk1UzJ5pJ0cObBnwEsmYRPapMB_QUkd2ANcFq0/s1600/Ginger2.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Another assumption that people have about Ginger is that they believe she isn't very bright and only has a limited knowledge of the world based on what she has experienced in show business. This is partly due to the fact that Tina Louise herself has said that the original concept of Ginger was as a sardonic, Eve Arden-ish character and that she helped influence the character to be more Marilyn Monroe/Lucille Ball-like in the end. As such, the perception is that Louise always played the role with a breathy, breathless diction and delivery, inspired by Marilyn Monroe, which demonstrated a lack of intelligence or substance on the part of the character. Creator and Producer Sherwood Schwartz himself said that he felt that Tina Louise <i>"couldn't"</i> play the original concept of Ginger in a wise and sardonic manner and I disagree. Watching the episodes again, it's only part of the time that Tina Louise truly resorts to playing Ginger in a breathy, Monroe-ish, sex-kittenish manner. The moments when she resorts to playing her as such include episodes like "All About Eva," which aired December 12, 1966, where a mousy woman comes on the island in order to get away from all men. The castaways perform a makeover on her and she turns out to be a Ginger look-alike. In this episode, Louise affects the Monroe-ish breathy delivery with more emphasis than usual in order to strike more of a contrast with the bitter, hardened Eva Grubb lookalike character. Otherwise, Louise, more often than I remembered, plays Ginger using a deeper than expected speaking voice that is closer to her regular speaking voice than people expect it to be, and proves how, at times, Ginger still had that Eve Arden-like wit and wisdom expressing a wry view of the circumstances surrounding her.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEQOXrNM4JkFozTD5PQtFPjkW7KdFZAhP1YP9hHYt8DIPCuzgtiscDzans19catEO9tPSD6dj02QpXF1baGkgOOs1rgmJK0uPZ8uo7A_h6p9A_CnJFTHPHmS4gRpb7rjXHeJtroZCNj2M/s1600/Ginger4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEQOXrNM4JkFozTD5PQtFPjkW7KdFZAhP1YP9hHYt8DIPCuzgtiscDzans19catEO9tPSD6dj02QpXF1baGkgOOs1rgmJK0uPZ8uo7A_h6p9A_CnJFTHPHmS4gRpb7rjXHeJtroZCNj2M/s1600/Ginger4.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In "Castaway Pictures Presents," which aired November 6, 1965, while the castaways are trying to make a silent movie that they hope to send on a raft to the mainland in the hope someone will see it and rescue them, Mr. Howell directs the Professor and Ginger in a love scene. When the Professor refuses to kiss Ginger because <i>"Kissing on the mouth is far from sanitary, it can lead to all sorts of bacterial transfer,"</i> an annoyed Ginger retorts, <i>"You certainly make a kiss sound romantic, like germ warfare!"</i> In "Don't Bug the Mosquitos," which aired December 9, 1965, when Gilligan asks Ginger how was the rock band he and the men put together, Ginger wryly remarks, <i>"Gilligan, that act couldn't get booked on Devil's Island."</i> In the aforementioned "Erica Tiffany Smith to the Rescue," when the Skipper seeks romantic advice from Ginger and prefaces by stating, <i>"Ginger, I've got a problem, I've got a real problem. I mean, you're a girl, right?,"</i> a non-plussed Ginger responds with <i>"Well, if you're not sure about that, you have got a problem."</i> When the Skipper tells Ginger that he's brought Erica a fan, some water, and a chair, as well as taken her for a walk, and asks Ginger, how he's doing so far to woo Mrs. Tiffany Smith, Ginger sagely comments, <i>"Perfect, if you want a job as her butler."</i> Later, in the same episode, when Ginger is offering romantic lessons to the Professor, and he gives her a passionless kiss on the lips, a deflated Ginger opines, <i>"That wouldn't have even satisfied your mother!"</i> In "The Postman Cometh," while Ginger gives the Professor tips on how to woo Mary Ann by pretending to be Cary Grant, after the Professor fails to muster up enough charm he self-deprecatingly remarks, <i>"Oh, that wasn't much like Cary Grant, was it?"</i> to which Ginger sardonically replies, <i>"That wasn't even much like General Grant!"</i> In the aforementioned "The Hunter" episode, while the tense castaways express concern for Gilligan's safety, Mary Ann reminds the others not to give up hope and to believe that Gilligan's still alive and will stay that way, a sanguine Ginger opines, <i>"You're not Mary Ann, you're Mary Poppins!"</i> In the aforementioned "Bang! Bang! Bang!," after the castaways learn that the plastic that the Professor used to fill Gilligan's teeth are explosive, Mary Ann tells Ginger that she's prepared a special meal for him to eat where he doesn't have to chew hard. Ginger reminds Mary Ann that, <i>"Yeah, but what you give him the simplest meal can mean a big blow-out!"</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-f5o9esjdnrQkdK5P3zujKeVBOssBYQpBJe4KJCTcg2aJGngJC2wstCNVuz_pYrg2d9dLGwb-yr3SQ8v5crzxo5V9f9-LK_IMg0wOigg5NmqHMpgYw3KbOcNb81GMz9iVLZlktJg_9_o/s1600/Ginger1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-f5o9esjdnrQkdK5P3zujKeVBOssBYQpBJe4KJCTcg2aJGngJC2wstCNVuz_pYrg2d9dLGwb-yr3SQ8v5crzxo5V9f9-LK_IMg0wOigg5NmqHMpgYw3KbOcNb81GMz9iVLZlktJg_9_o/s1600/Ginger1.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite suggestions to the contrary, I think Ginger does prove to be at times a sardonic, wry, and witty Eve Arden type of character and not just a vacuous Marilyn Monroe parody. Louise delivers these lines with almost the same aplomb as Arden herself. In the end, due to the contributions of both Tina Louise, as well as the writers, producers and directors of the show, Ginger Grant does indeed prove to be a combination of Eve Arden's wit, Marilyn Monroe's sex appeal, and Lucille Ball's comedic physical comedy and timing. The reason why the actresses who replaced Tina Louise in the various reunion TV movies often came off as a pale imitation is that they generally only focused on the Marilyn Monroe aspect of the character and disregarded the Arden and Ball qualities that Louise invested in the role. Because Ginger has more aspects to her personality than is often given credit, I think she is also more self-aware than people expect her to be. In the first season episode "X Marks the Spot," which aired January 30, 1965, the castaways face imminent danger after learning that the United States Air Force has targeted their island to test a new missile. As they await their presumed fate, the Professor stumbles across a self-reflective Ginger sitting by herself and contemplating the regrets she has about her life. In probably her most serious scene on the series, Ginger tells the Professor, <i>"I was just thinking what a waste my life's been. I mean, so I was an actress? So what? I never really did anything for anyone."</i> The Professor attempts to reassure Ginger by reminding her that <i>"you entertained people."</i> But Ginger dismisses that example by stating, <i>"Oh, that was just for the moment. I mean, really do something important. Like being a nurse. Although, I was a nurse. For one day, I was Ben Casey's nurse. And you know something, Professor? In that one hour, we saved six people! And if it hadn't been for the commercials, we would've saved eight!"</i> In this scene, Ginger acknowledges her short comings as an individual and recognizes places where she can improve. Over the course of the series, however, she does redeem herself by rising to the occasion when needed and helping her fellow castaways.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MNrHz3r0nTn_faSU7T8c7nuoClzRJP3NgszEtmLk6eP1SSmwdgEKjUTYk4tbV8Crs071zljfNQXChFnuEXBl9XekXq1-MpWDN8DC6Svbr27Dw5b9EHlD7_eZejEnIpApIvZYh5oVkgc/s1600/Ginger13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MNrHz3r0nTn_faSU7T8c7nuoClzRJP3NgszEtmLk6eP1SSmwdgEKjUTYk4tbV8Crs071zljfNQXChFnuEXBl9XekXq1-MpWDN8DC6Svbr27Dw5b9EHlD7_eZejEnIpApIvZYh5oVkgc/s1600/Ginger13.JPG" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In watching the show again, another misconception that people may have about the series is that the role of Ginger Grant rarely allowed Tina Louise an opportunity to challenge herself as an actress. Louise herself has perpetuated that notion due to her comments through the years about how the show, and the character, proved to be limiting and one-dimensional. In response, people who don't know about the diversity of Tina Louise's career, and who resent her complaining about the series, try to demean her by stating that the series was the sum and whole of her entire career. Anyone who has glanced at her credits on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001481/" target="_blank">IMDB</a> or her Broadway roles in <a href="http://ibdb.com/person.php?id=50189" target="_blank">IBDB</a> can clearly see that Tina Louise enjoyed a long and prolific career, with some bumps along the way, but that she nevertheless still had opportunities to play meaty and challenging roles. In fact, one of the things Louise told me that she feels people have gotten wrong about her is that she feels resentful that she didn't get to have a diverse career. When I spoke with her, she expressed the opinion that she did have a good career, one that she is proud of, and that as an actress she did indeed feel fulfilled even if she might have complained about the "Gilligan's Island" typecasting in interviews. However, watching the show again after all these years, I think the truth about Tina Louise with regards to the series is somewhere in the middle and somewhat more complex. It wasn't the only good part she ever got, despite what her detractors may claim, but it also wasn't the limiting role that Louise herself occasionally alleges. One would never know from just her work on-screen that Louise was ever
unhappy or dissatisfied with appearing on the series, because of the joy
and happiness she brought to the role in every episode. (As a point of contrast, check out Robert Foxworth's work on "Falcon Crest." I know it's apples and oranges comparing the two performances on the two shows but, even though Foxworth's Chase Gioberti is supposed to be the "hero" of "Falcon Crest," the audience rarely feels sympathy for him because it becomes apparent after awhile that Foxworth is unable to hide his contempt for both the character and the show in his performance. He always seems irritated on-screen, whereas Tina Louise's performance as Ginger on "Gilligan's Island" never betrays a hint of the mixed feelings she had for the show and the character.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgue9Qlt3P1DNUSojtt-cNb7l1GQuJDMSUKuxvGun-kdQaN2JRRyfLNaUCsGaX-2opPxesGsps0EpMieeHHeLhko87qc0TbW4N_-nMY4BpoXItkKHQ4f1AFMTYLnSE8zHQ_TwubK0YCpis/s1600/Ginger3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgue9Qlt3P1DNUSojtt-cNb7l1GQuJDMSUKuxvGun-kdQaN2JRRyfLNaUCsGaX-2opPxesGsps0EpMieeHHeLhko87qc0TbW4N_-nMY4BpoXItkKHQ4f1AFMTYLnSE8zHQ_TwubK0YCpis/s1600/Ginger3.JPG" height="251" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Actually, when viewing the 98 episodes of the series as a whole, the Ginger Grant role on "Gilligan's Island" allowed Tina Louise an opportunity to sing, dance and act in both comedic and occasionally dramatic vignettes. She got to play mousey, bitter characters like Eva Grubb, or the shrill, nasty, evil stepsister in Mrs. Howell's Cinderella dream fantasy in the "Lovey's Secret Admirer" episode from January 23, 1967. She got to play elderly, physically frail women in the dream sequences of both "V for Vitamins," which aired April 14, 1967, as well as "Meet the Meteor," which aired April 28, 1967. In the classic "The Producer" episode from October 6, 1966, Tina Louise got to play an Italian peasant woman, Marilyn Monroe, and Ophelia during the episode's famous musical version of "Hamlet." In "Up at Bat," which aired September 12, 1966, Louise got to play a sinister female vampire during Gilligan's dream sequence where he believes he has become a vampire. Even playing just plain Ginger Grant herself, Louise had opportunities to shine. She's particularly good in "Angel on the Island," which aired December 12, 1964, and the aforementioned "The Producer" episode, where she expresses Ginger's sadness and dismay at being marooned on the island while her life and career passes her by. In the latter episode, Ginger explains to Gilligan and the Skipper that she won't return to the mainland because she was insulted by producer Harold Hecuba (Phil Silvers) when she tried to impress him with her acting, <i>"I asked him for a part in his movie, and he laughed at me."</i> When the Skipper tries to persuade her that she doesn't need Hecuba and that she'll return to an adoring public who hasn't forgotten her, she responds, <i>"No, I'll return to find that I'm an unknown! A has-been! I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone on this island!"</i> In so doing, Ginger proves to be the one character who acknowledges the emotional toll that being shipwrecked on the island has had upon her. While it might not have been the type of role or project that Louise may have wanted at the time, in the end it actually allowed her to do more than people often realize or acknowledge. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidlnNXOM9ExL59XQ0W4yul3sSLPEHW78k_7HLLDs8wQ3Emrla0MPX4EeMDLCa8UM1VGqgqQGSg_AC8rhqA0kSlaAeYBUls0SMdxig5hSBWWN2NU2wQsjmnBJc8hikzw0nviWY1ytBFa1o/s1600/Ginger16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidlnNXOM9ExL59XQ0W4yul3sSLPEHW78k_7HLLDs8wQ3Emrla0MPX4EeMDLCa8UM1VGqgqQGSg_AC8rhqA0kSlaAeYBUls0SMdxig5hSBWWN2NU2wQsjmnBJc8hikzw0nviWY1ytBFa1o/s1600/Ginger16.JPG" height="258" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I think the reason why people seem to prefer Mary Ann over Ginger in recent years, and why there appears to be resentment towards Tina Louise, lies in large part with the TV movie "Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History" (2001), which Dawn Wells produced and appeared in along with Bob Denver and Russell Johnson. An admittedly entertaining docu-drama that purports to tell the "behind the scenes" drama on the set of "Gilligan's Island," "Surviving Gilligan's Island" is partly remembered for its dramatization of Tina Louise as a high-maintenance diva who accepted her role on the series because she had been misled to believe she would be the lead, was uncooperative and competitive, particularly with Dawn Wells, and wasn't friendly with the rest of the cast. Kristen Dalton, who played Tina Louise in the film, rarely attempts to scratch the surface with the character, and portrays Louise, in scenes where she is not in character as Ginger, with a light, breathy, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice that anyone who has done their research and seen her other film and TV roles would realize is not her natural speaking voice. The mediocre Dalton (who <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0198306/board/thread/74293693" target="_blank">gave the worst performance</a> in Martin Scorsese's 2006 film "The Departed") was clearly lazy and it shows in her shallow, one-dimensional performance. I spoke with Tina Louise on the phone around the time it originally aired. She was concerned about the movie, and said she was surprised that Dawn Wells portrayed her in a negative light and never asked her to participate in it, because she always liked Wells and considered her a friend. However, since the movie aired a few weeks after 9/11, and because she lives in Manhattan and volunteers as a literacy advocate at a local public school, she decided to put things into the larger perspective and ended up talking about a child she was working with who was traumatized because of what had happened in his hometown on 9/11 and how she and the other teachers and volunteers were working with the children to help comfort them and make them feel more secure. She was trying not to dwell on the past and was busy focusing on the present. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9cYc3-gNcfxUyo40dF7xUGvG57MZXoWLBHigdP-KhbUpOKVEw1Wdu2zOMcDsZEhFzSVOk3SChZav5ma5mkN3O5P0ZmKV3Fi2bBFc8aON7kkDW8AGMA5l8pRsgpUR19TM34MEZpFkkfE/s1600/TinaWedding.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9cYc3-gNcfxUyo40dF7xUGvG57MZXoWLBHigdP-KhbUpOKVEw1Wdu2zOMcDsZEhFzSVOk3SChZav5ma5mkN3O5P0ZmKV3Fi2bBFc8aON7kkDW8AGMA5l8pRsgpUR19TM34MEZpFkkfE/s1600/TinaWedding.JPG" height="322" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6LKMOv4Jz7KV28dBoUNj8LJgA92bHre2XxhsN1_PvfCWHT0ypbJd4hUBv4T0sr5loWh72V108ZNhu8Ax43p2WCiK63kI0wvSjQIwXBrSaLLtXo-lYXWeaFEwsk7nrJEy4avcw9nu44CQ/s1600/TVLand.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6LKMOv4Jz7KV28dBoUNj8LJgA92bHre2XxhsN1_PvfCWHT0ypbJd4hUBv4T0sr5loWh72V108ZNhu8Ax43p2WCiK63kI0wvSjQIwXBrSaLLtXo-lYXWeaFEwsk7nrJEy4avcw9nu44CQ/s1600/TVLand.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
While there's certainly enough evidence to suggest that Tina Louise may not have been easy to work with on "Gilligan's Island," I couldn't help but feel that the "Surviving Gilligan's Island" TV movie presented a one-sided perspective on Louise, particularly because of what it excluded in terms of depicting her relationships with the cast and crew members. Director Leslie H. Martinson, a personal friend of mine who directed Tina Louise in the film "For Those Who Think Young" (1964) and on "Dallas," told me how he often saw Louise at the annual holiday party that Jim Backus and his wife hosted, which suggests that Louise and Backus remained on good terms. In her "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook," Dawn Wells writes about the time Tina Louise asked for her assistance in learning how to cook a Thanksgiving meal for her family after she had gotten married to TV talk show host Les Crane in 1966. Wells and her mother took Louise shopping for groceries the week before Thanksgiving and prepared a full Thanksgiving meal, with Louise writing down the recipes on notecards. Wells mentions in her cookbook how, years later, Louise's daughter Caprice Crane told her how her mother kept her notes and recipes and continued referring to them in order to prepare Thanksgiving dinner every year. It's been years since I read it (and I don't have a copy of it handy for me to double-check), but I seem to recall that, in his memoir, "Forgive Us, Our Digressions," Jim Backus
discusses how, when Louise married Les Crane, she asked the "Gilligan's
Island" cast to walk her down the aisle and give her away in the
ceremony. When Backus' book was published in 1988, Louise appeared at his book signing to lend moral support. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lfSxbeET191PE04ko6Toe0aMGyri4odbBd4RdRDE6x3bnAoSlhcO8JPS_9f0ueP_V9FFaSTY8cgtGQeyeidf26eILeOB0a7bpT8pk8iJrJ5uyqfy23C_8bB4g5kGdu1ckclR2i-N0sc/s1600/Ginger23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lfSxbeET191PE04ko6Toe0aMGyri4odbBd4RdRDE6x3bnAoSlhcO8JPS_9f0ueP_V9FFaSTY8cgtGQeyeidf26eILeOB0a7bpT8pk8iJrJ5uyqfy23C_8bB4g5kGdu1ckclR2i-N0sc/s1600/Ginger23.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaHF01oxC6XGIaRKIp1X8AhDWmqEtThatMHnYJLAJFrhNICBtjfOh7P-weluoX2HoHBIGZzU-54WsxWRTDFVfVsdM2u3InpZBV3ZkaZmuVJNCf2_nstgf3-ABTTUKhFZjafo26OqSr3o/s1600/Ginger24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaHF01oxC6XGIaRKIp1X8AhDWmqEtThatMHnYJLAJFrhNICBtjfOh7P-weluoX2HoHBIGZzU-54WsxWRTDFVfVsdM2u3InpZBV3ZkaZmuVJNCf2_nstgf3-ABTTUKhFZjafo26OqSr3o/s1600/Ginger24.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
In his foreward to the book "Television Sitcoms: An Episode
Guide to 153 Sitcoms in Syndication," Alan Hale writes how he spent time
with Tina Louise and her daughter at the 1982 Macy's Thanksgiving
parade after they had appeared, along with other cast members, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YbUoZURZs4" target="_blank">on "Good Morning America" the day before</a> to salute the series. In his book "Inside Gilligan's Island," creator and executive producer Sherwood Schwartz discusses an anecdote Tina Louise shared with him about dining in a restaurant and having a woman approach her and tell her that her husband, who was dying of cancer, would watch taped episodes of her on "Gilligan's Island" and that that brought him comfort before he died. Schwartz explains how Louise realized, for the first time, the full extent of the impact the show had upon the public after she met that woman. Louise appeared with the entire cast of the show in 1988 on the Fox talk show "The Late Show" to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the creation of the show. That same week, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AfAh_VhXic" target="_blank">she also appeared</a> with her co-stars at the dedication of a "Gilligan's Island"-themed waiting room at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. In a podcast interview last year with Mark Thompson, Louise's daughter Caprice Crane recalls how her mother always invited Natalie Schafer whenever she was throwing a party at her house and, because Schafer didn't drive, Louise arranged for a car to pick her up and bring her back from these parties. These are just a few examples, but I think they help demonstrate the extent to which the "Surviving Gilligan's Island" TV movie may not have presented the full perspective with regards to Tina Louise and her relationship with the series and its personnel both during the series, and in the years afterwards.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuy4RRL_A23_kDSH9AmgcZquZt6PWXZMLYy3IaEoZd6PoQ8ufBmCpGrs8SLuel2-FBg0l7VyQbmhlMW-IVvrdDiouvA05nVLqicxDvGYduh0yVqMLcoSn8Gs9_b6x6VpnqEbjgkRrFl4/s1600/Ginger33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuy4RRL_A23_kDSH9AmgcZquZt6PWXZMLYy3IaEoZd6PoQ8ufBmCpGrs8SLuel2-FBg0l7VyQbmhlMW-IVvrdDiouvA05nVLqicxDvGYduh0yVqMLcoSn8Gs9_b6x6VpnqEbjgkRrFl4/s1600/Ginger33.JPG" height="400" width="331" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMfz5iISRlonJg_p2V1UjruaH5aW6T3WQ_xKN0IeeSFx8aqagpX35vD7sfN-2fC2i82Osv8SsnD82a4k1l8RSspyvmiDVsOygVc41gtJIi2GAtO__CrfSMLHwkJfYpmbdjEYsGCLrw9c/s1600/Ginger18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMfz5iISRlonJg_p2V1UjruaH5aW6T3WQ_xKN0IeeSFx8aqagpX35vD7sfN-2fC2i82Osv8SsnD82a4k1l8RSspyvmiDVsOygVc41gtJIi2GAtO__CrfSMLHwkJfYpmbdjEYsGCLrw9c/s1600/Ginger18.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It's too bad that Dawn Wells made these creative decisions, and chose to exclude Tina Louise from participating in "Surviving Gilligan's Island," because in so doing the movie missed an opportunity to present a broad and balanced perspective. While I agree that Tina Louise has often been her worst enemy because she turned down the reunion movies, and gets prickly when people try to interview her about the show, I also think she doesn't deserve being portrayed in a completely unsympathetic light. I actually believe that both Tina Louise and Dawn Wells are equally to blame for fanning the flames of any purported rivalry between them. Louise has given people plenty of ammunition to criticize her efforts to disassociate herself from the show. For instance, even though I don't necessarily think that she "owes" anybody anything and has the right to make her own decisions, I think she should have at least done the first reunion movie--1978's "Rescue from Gilligan's Island"--for old time's sake and also to prevent people from criticizing her. (I have no issues with her turning down 1979's "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" and 1981's "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" because they were indeed wretched and did little to foster any good will towards the original series.) Moreover, I do agree that Louise should have chosen her words more carefully in countless interviews discussing the series in order to avoid any appearances or perceptions of disparaging it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAQ8rvj417W-i59XYunS3Grs_UrCVKnAKts3NI1N6Xx5YQjyn9Kbf3mcIUutt35o92oUbN6zNGtuVBsGZfMqTjaXzbInxMgxmdBSx82mIt2DJIphzvZZjvpKR1_11xWnZ4t2trObK7aM/s1600/Ginger28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAQ8rvj417W-i59XYunS3Grs_UrCVKnAKts3NI1N6Xx5YQjyn9Kbf3mcIUutt35o92oUbN6zNGtuVBsGZfMqTjaXzbInxMgxmdBSx82mIt2DJIphzvZZjvpKR1_11xWnZ4t2trObK7aM/s1600/Ginger28.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBWUuhjWNwmzf9hkrUsj9d96XOWtj8JveGDsbiFIu4dOVvW9iFadz2K9CV1moWvX3_PmvVc_GA4cvtdtLVm-AnSsD4NUPKs14X3hvabKUQ7W-2u_W5ZQJ-3prBpFFWab9-tIRuwPwhos/s1600/Ginger27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBWUuhjWNwmzf9hkrUsj9d96XOWtj8JveGDsbiFIu4dOVvW9iFadz2K9CV1moWvX3_PmvVc_GA4cvtdtLVm-AnSsD4NUPKs14X3hvabKUQ7W-2u_W5ZQJ-3prBpFFWab9-tIRuwPwhos/s1600/Ginger27.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Meanwhile Wells herself deserves criticism for continuing to perpetuate the rivalry by producing "Surviving Gilligan's Island" and choosing to exclude Louise from participating and, thus, preventing her from offering her own perspective to that film; missing no opportunity in interviews to take shots at Tina Louise (after Dawn Wells' 2007 arrest in Idaho where she was charged with reckless driving and being found in possession of marijuana, she told "Entertainment Tonight" she had heard from Barbara Eden, who offered moral support, but that she hadn't <i>"heard from Ginger,"</i> which could be presumptuous of Wells to expect since this occurred after portraying Louise in a negative light in "Surviving Gilligan's Island"); as well as constantly reminding people that Mary Ann frequently wins the most votes in the "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" debate because Ginger is allegedly less substantial than Mary Ann due to her glamorous and, purportedly promiscuous, image (an assumption which I've attempted to refute in this discussion). <a href="http://mancave.cbslocal.com/2014/02/24/dawn-wells-why-its-always-mary-ann-on-gilligans-island/" target="_blank">In a recent interview</a>, Wells immodestly states that her character was <i>"the moral compass of the show"</i> (completely overlooking how Russell Johnson's Professor really filled that role) and that the reason why men prefer Mary Ann over Ginger is purportedly because <i>"Ginger is a one-night stand while Mary Ann is for a lifetime. Mary Ann is the one you would marry or be your best friend or go to the prom with you, while Ginger would be exciting but you'd have to take her to expensive places and buy her a martini...Mary Ann's for the long haul."</i> In so doing, I'm afraid Dawn Wells overrates her contribution to the show at the expense of undermining the importance of her colleagues, namely Tina Louise. I always feel like Wells demeans herself when she does it, and that it makes her come across as passive-aggressive. Whereas Louise doesn't seem particularly concerned about winning this popularity contest, Wells eagerly cultivates followers on Twitter and Facebook who tell her all the time what she wants to hear--that she's the better one. (The so-called "good girl" ought to know that she doesn't need to keep reminding the world that she's a "good girl" because, if she truly were, then she would understand that we would have already realized it.) For all of her complaining about being typecast by "Gilligan's Island" in interviews she has made since the late 1960s (which I agree she overdid to her detriment), Tina Louise never made it personal attack against the people she worked with, and often spoke positively about them, whereas Dawn Wells has indeed made it a personal issue in her negative characterization of Tina Louise, as well as the Ginger Grant character, through the years. As much as I like Dawn Wells' performance as Mary Ann and think she is a talented actress and a smart woman, I wish she would stop playing up the differences between her and Tina Louise, as well as stop giving interviews where she refers to Tina Louise as "Ginger" and Russell Johnson as "the Professor" because it seems to suggest that Wells is living so much in the past that she has lost the ability to distinguish between the characters on the show and the actors who portrayed them. In my opinion, Wells is behaving the same as someone who still criticizes an office co-worker decades after leaving a particular job.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1KFY7wbGUNlnlNc34cZjTjJD7xEOp-giUcd_Gz6v8rIjk5zM-hsH30VuRPCW3pk1bdtw3VCX57fzWtETzI0ZNXUd5sOgzmDpRP3FpTHr2i6PXH25o9ilAe8HijODDZSgRYN2obMEz80/s1600/Ginger14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1KFY7wbGUNlnlNc34cZjTjJD7xEOp-giUcd_Gz6v8rIjk5zM-hsH30VuRPCW3pk1bdtw3VCX57fzWtETzI0ZNXUd5sOgzmDpRP3FpTHr2i6PXH25o9ilAe8HijODDZSgRYN2obMEz80/s1600/Ginger14.JPG" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though it appears I have indeed taken sides in the "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" debate because of the case I have made that Ginger Grant, and the actress who portrayed her Tina Louise, are more substantial than they are usually given credit for, I still think it's a bad and stupid issue to debate because all it does is taint a charming and entertaining show from all of our childhoods with competitiveness, negativity and pettiness. It's clear that Tina Louise and Dawn Wells are both intelligent, accomplished, and substantial individuals who have each done a lot to contribute constructively to the world and that is what they, and we, should spend our times focusing on. In addition to her numerous film and TV credits, Louise has raised a daughter, Caprice Crane (who is an accomplished screenwriter and novelist who graduated NYU and who has risen above the stereotypes of children who were raised in Hollywood by staying out of trouble and by remaining a contributing member of society), and continues to volunteer in the New York public school system as an education and literacy advocate. Louise recently completed the horror film "Late Phases" (2014), set to premiere next month at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and is about to start filming the independently-made drama "Tapestry" (2014), starring Stephen Baldwin and Burt Young, this month. Wells, in the meantime, has built a long career for herself on the stage and runs a company making clothing for people of limited mobility and has run a film actors boot camp for aspiring actors to learn about the craft of working in the film industry. They both deserve to be commended and recognized for, not only their long and prolific careers, but also for having created such iconic TV characters who still resonate with us today. Hopefully, at some point, the debate between which one of them people prefer can be moot so that we can appreciate both Ginger <i>and</i> Mary Ann, and the fine work that Tina Louise and Dawn Wells did in portraying them, when discussing or watching "Gilligan's Island."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-67466064251572457532014-02-01T09:07:00.001-08:002014-02-05T08:48:07.539-08:00Taking Bruce Broughton's side in the "Alone Yet Not Alone" Song Nomination Controversy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4wsWBd7KO2jMi3OBPLTvQi1DyLOyOKDCsDs1GIN8s5EY6IBn8S0gPQTo4M1fyCgs2UlvLWYiteIX2MaAc4X9jtNTc3Dnt4AFMmyDdZyohcZ2efVp0XqcPmuAQXzx5qQorl3amG82VQMM/s1600/BB1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4wsWBd7KO2jMi3OBPLTvQi1DyLOyOKDCsDs1GIN8s5EY6IBn8S0gPQTo4M1fyCgs2UlvLWYiteIX2MaAc4X9jtNTc3Dnt4AFMmyDdZyohcZ2efVp0XqcPmuAQXzx5qQorl3amG82VQMM/s1600/BB1.JPG" height="326" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Undoubtedly my favorite entertainment news story of the week is the rescission of the Academy Award <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0"><span data-reactid=".l.1:3:1:$comment10152170494101113_30390846:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.0:3.0.$end:0:$0:0">® </span></span></span>song nomination for the independently produced, Christian-themed movie "Alone, Yet Not Alone" (2013) by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences due to the emails that its composer, the esteemed Bruce Broughton and a former member of the Academy's Board of Governors, sent to 70 out of the approximately 239 members of the Academy's music branch bringing the song to their attention and asking them to consider it. When the nominations came out on January 16th, I remember thinking <i>"Good for them, a small independent movie up against much bigger movies and songs,"</i> even though I haven't seen the film and I further admit the movie itself does not sound like my cup of tea. As the days followed after the nomination, I became more and more intrigued by the level of vitriol directed at the song's nomination, as well as <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/alone-not-alone-eligibility-oscar-673329" target="_blank">reports that an unnamed composer</a>, miffed that the song he or she had composed for another film was not nominated, hired a private investigator to look into the matter. When news came out this week that the Academy Board of Governors rescinded the nomination due to Broughton's email campaign, I figured it was due to the fact that he had violated a specific rule with the Academy. But thanks to Scott Feinberg's <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/was-academys-disqualification-song-contender-675582" target="_blank">excellent and articulate editorial</a> in the Hollywood Reporter, which affirms that Broughton didn't violate any specific rule that the Academy can cite, and that major studios are much more pushy and opportunistic about promoting its products during awards season, I have to side with Broughton's supporters who feel that the rescission was done in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner compared to other instances where the penalty issued was a comparative slap on the wrist--such as the one where a producer of "The Hurt Locker" (2009) emailed Academy voters urging them to vote for, as opposed to merely asking them to consider, his movie instead of "Avatar" (2009) and as a result got his tickets to the Award ceremony revoked.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Xx_7R5gncH7cYYY3A4ObLbA_CWi4EwktYk9zEdWnjeMQYzmXvRArR2rHl5m_6bwgIPXoe6leQ6AUb0wutUpRIFzBo-o_ljuoKM9rqxn2D1qFmLZrLqwY7tEwHOLLTopw1AdoJhOt28o/s1600/BB2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Xx_7R5gncH7cYYY3A4ObLbA_CWi4EwktYk9zEdWnjeMQYzmXvRArR2rHl5m_6bwgIPXoe6leQ6AUb0wutUpRIFzBo-o_ljuoKM9rqxn2D1qFmLZrLqwY7tEwHOLLTopw1AdoJhOt28o/s1600/BB2.JPG" height="400" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
What does concern me is how the rescission of this song nomination seems to be another issue fueling the religious vs. secular ideological culture war that continues to divide this country, with both sides using this issue to further their own agenda. The LA Times' esteemed Steven Zeitchik and Glenn Whipp <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/moviesnow/la-et-mn-oscar-song-alone-not-yet-alone-reaction-20140131,0,3214466.story#axzz2s5Q62wt6" target="_blank">have written effectively</a> on this aspect of the controversy. As mentioned earlier, there were people on the internet representing a secular perspective who appeared opposed to the nomination due to the Christian and Conservative pedigree of the filmmakers, and who appear to support the rescission of the nomination without any genuine insight or understanding of the inconsistency with which the Academy applies and enforces its rules just because they are biased against the film's religious content. Because the central storyline of the film concerns two young women kidnapped by Native Americans, there were even <a href="http://www.bestforfilm.com/film-blog/alone-yet-not-alone-is-racist-bigoted-proselytising-trash/" target="_blank">people who attacked the film as racist</a> based on what they have seen in the trailer even though it doesn't appear that these detractors have actually seen the entire movie, just the trailer. (Update 2/5/2014 EST; 10:37 AM: In one recent instance, <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/starexponent/opinion/reader-s-views-alone-isn-t-worthy-of-celebration/article_b39e072c-8e57-11e3-84df-0017a43b2370.html" target="_blank">a secular detractor</a>, who expresses a very shallow, one-dimensional understanding of the nuances of Bruce Broughton's actions and the Academy's inconsistent enforcement of its rules, and clearly has no understanding of how major studios shamelessly promote their films for awards, argues that the film is racist, and says that they have seen <i>"much of the movie",</i> but not necessarily <i>all</i> of it. The fact that this individual admits they have not seen the whole film calls into question how much of the film they actually have watched, and whether they are basing their opinion on the trailer or other excerpts taken out of context. In this example, it's apparent that the secular bias of this commentator has shaped their entire argument against the song and the movie.) If the secular detractors have seen the whole film, and still feel it's racist, then they are welcome to that opinion. I haven't seen the film, either, and it's entirely possible that I would think the movie is indeed racist and offensive after I see it. But basing a conclusion on watching a trailer, or portions of the actual film, makes about as much sense as drawing conclusions about a book based on looking at its book jacket, or reading a few excerpts out of context. What I don't like about this is that people have always argued for years, whenever a Christian or conservative group protests a movie they don't like despite never having seen it--such as Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988)--the logical and reasoned response is to always say <i>"Please see it first before drawing your conclusions."</i> Having self-respecting film writers or bloggers criticize or condemn a Christian Conservative movie sight unseen undermines our ability to defend movies like "The Last Temptation of Christ" from such reactionary opinion.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8Q-h5bN3OAxJHCaFEaNYMHDQV4z7YsfwAwK32ECSckENy8Nq0Jagi0Or3pPolR4dX1XSJa28X_2qq_zKJIknUXqxwsfyVJJfIU9JHXMCGMhe2YVRXKgm9rBaJoyaKAQTntgp0e-_EKE/s1600/BB3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8Q-h5bN3OAxJHCaFEaNYMHDQV4z7YsfwAwK32ECSckENy8Nq0Jagi0Or3pPolR4dX1XSJa28X_2qq_zKJIknUXqxwsfyVJJfIU9JHXMCGMhe2YVRXKgm9rBaJoyaKAQTntgp0e-_EKE/s1600/BB3.JPG" height="201" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Concurrently, I do not agree with some Christian Conservative supporters of the movie who feel that the rescission of the nomination is another sign of how Hollywood is filled with "Godless" people and that this shows how the entertainment industry is out to destroy their perspective and demean their way of life. I didn't particularly care for pastor Joni Eareckson Tada, who performed the song in-question, telling the LA Times, <i>"If it was for reasons connected with a faith-based message, it
shouldn’t surprise us that Hollywood would shun Jesus...Jesus
has been shunned by much weedier characters"</i> because the statement has such a condescendingly reductive, generalized tone to it. As I've mentioned on this blog before, I've interviewed actors and actresses and other entertainment industry personnel through the years. I know many people in show business who do believe in God and are
Conservative, just as I know people in show business who are liberal and
secular and fit the common assumption and stereotype. I've learned how people working in the industry reflect many different perspectives and points of view and I dislike it whenever I hear someone who has no contact with anyone in the industry making such generalizations, and generalized comments, about people they know nothing about. I feel that way whenever I meet people here in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding areas who express such opinions. If they are basing it on actual personally gained knowledge and facts, that's one thing, but it's not fair to dismiss an entire industry of people just because it fits with your own personal agenda and viewpoint. As such, I've bristled at the online comments left by people who have complained about the rescission of the "Alone Yet Not Alone" song nomination to the effect of <i>"Gays and lesbians get their point of view, but we don't"</i> or <i>"This would never have happened to a movie with a Muslim theme!"</i> Politically, I'm a centrist and I have a Protestant perspective, yet I admit I haven't been to church in years and I don't proselytize to others, because I think people deserve to come to their perspective on their own. I also admit I had my doubts about whether I still believed in God after witnessing my father suffer and pass away from lung cancer. At the end of the day, though, I still believe in God and I believe in the right to practice your beliefs (whether its atheism, agnosticism, or an organized faith) without criticism, but I also believe that having some (but not necessarily <i>all</i>) Christians espouse opinions demeaning gays or Muslims, in defense of this song and this film, only serve to further divide our country and help give secular detractors more fuel to their arguments.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwXZXVZFYEU2VMnKtWUl1A8jWaN2lKPMfI_vP9CCBwcLdhkAqJpvAh5fmTRqIpnN1UmrTQg7THzkFwx-I6F3AOD6zgbbN3v-O7Oj7CgC6fzbMVvi2ERQT5uGS3KyBeNrzUaoHmakNXm8/s1600/BB5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwXZXVZFYEU2VMnKtWUl1A8jWaN2lKPMfI_vP9CCBwcLdhkAqJpvAh5fmTRqIpnN1UmrTQg7THzkFwx-I6F3AOD6zgbbN3v-O7Oj7CgC6fzbMVvi2ERQT5uGS3KyBeNrzUaoHmakNXm8/s1600/BB5.JPG" height="400" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't think the movie should be defended or criticized on the basis of its Christian Conservative content or pedigree, but merely on the basis of whether or not Bruce Broughton's email violated a hard and fast rule of the Academy. Moreover, I do not believe there was a Christian Conservative conspiracy to help the song garner its unexpected, surprise nomination through shady means, any more than I believe that there's a liberal, secular conspiracy in Hollywood to rescind the nomination because of the movie's religious element. As such, the only persons or entities whose side I'm on in this controversy is Bruce Broughton and his collaborator Dennis Spiegel and that's it. I feel that their professional reputation and integrity have been sullied by the Academy's rescission and those who call Broughton a "cheater" should be prepared to cite what specific rule with the Academy he broke, and also be able to rationally and persuasively argue how it applies in this instance, especially in light of the millions of dollars and promotional activities that major studios undertake to promote their wares. The people accusing Broughton of underhandedness appear to have not thoroughly researched the matter, or have chosen to be willfully ignorant of what the Academy's rules are just because it fits with their argument and agenda. (One person attacking Broughton online even mocks him for having won 10 Emmy Awards, as if to imply that composing music for television was somehow a sign of inferiority!) Moreover, I don't believe that knowledge of Broughton's former position on the Academy Board of Governors could have given his song that much weight with voters in the Music Branch compared to the millions of dollars and overt campaigning that was spent on behalf of the other, more famous songs from the major studios, especially since Broughton doesn't even reference his former role with the Board of Governors in the email. I also believe Broughton when he says that the 70 individuals he emailed came from his personal rolodex of names and contacts he has accumulated throughout his career and did not come from some Academy database list. (If he did have a list of names from the Academy music branch database, why did he only email 70 individuals? Why not email all 239 Academy music branch members?) I also don't believe that Broughton's participation in this film necessarily demonstrates his political or religious ideologies, as his many detractors appear to have alleged in their criticism against him, because I am sure that he has worked many times for filmmakers throughout his career who represent a more secular, liberal perspective. I think Mr. Broughton as simply an artist who was hired to help compose the song and believed it was a good song and that was that. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3L-Ku3Zcevmv49z6J9FU0UCdOPfChZUvGtaKfjN7Xf_1d8ECrWtLKAcfbiRmioTh7BlpmlwcIR_zWSu0ziVYNUm5EcMN3rlBUpaa3325SZ05UJOFI82XRblIzYs1Vp-tSw_VC00gqhc/s1600/BB6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3L-Ku3Zcevmv49z6J9FU0UCdOPfChZUvGtaKfjN7Xf_1d8ECrWtLKAcfbiRmioTh7BlpmlwcIR_zWSu0ziVYNUm5EcMN3rlBUpaa3325SZ05UJOFI82XRblIzYs1Vp-tSw_VC00gqhc/s1600/BB6.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I've had a bad opinion about the Academy for years, ever since I started hearing anecdotes first-hand from "working class" actors and actresses I personally know who said that they had their membership with the Academy rescinded for weird reasons, such as not paying their dues on time (in one instance that I heard about, it was a day late). In another instance, one actor told me that they never received their renewal notice in the mail and, when they called the membership office to pay over the phone with their credit card, they were told that the Academy sent out a letter to its membership asking them to contact the Academy if they wanted to remain a member. Purportedly, because the Academy claimed that they never heard back from this performer, they dropped this individual from their roster, even though this actor swore to me that they never received such a "opt in" letter and would have responded immediately had they known. As a result, these people are no longer members of the Academy and will have to start from scratch in order to apply to try to get in again, which is going to be difficult because, based on what I've heard, the Academy's standards about who they are inviting in appears to have become, in my opinion, more stringent and elitist. Of course, I am only hearing this story from those who have alleged it has happened to them, and I have no proof about it other than what I was personally told. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe the individuals who told me these stories and it seems odd that the Academy would take such action when, in the legal profession, an attorney has several opportunities to pay their annual dues before their license to practice law would be suspended. I came away from hearing these stories with the impression that the Academy may be taking such action to try and get rid of its less "esteemed" or older members so that they can make room in their roster to open up its membership to the young and the hip. Of course, that's just my opinion and I have no inside knowledge as to how they develop and formulate their membership policy. It's just strange that the Academy would be much more stringent and arbitrary on such matters than the legal profession would be in terms of its dues paying policies. As such, after hearing these anecdotes, it didn't completely surprise me that the Academy took such inconsistent and arbitrary actions against Mr. Broughton, and didn't allow him to defend himself before issuing their decision. I have heard enough about the Academy to allow me to form an opinion that they seem to have a tendency, when it suits their purposes, to make things up as they go along and try to rationalize it later. I think it is interesting that the Academy leadership and organization holds its members to such a strict standard of review, but do not appear to hold themselves to the same exacting standards as well. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-znpf3Fc602uWE-dtWzAp_-kaxiVUARo2lIfRVsJobJnGbQ_hHG1zsWyXy6KyD34AF5ThgzNKxfFSXBVs6rTz8GS64nR6QfrAzhRWppAMQFleCEw8YSZGmbTLKUVRLlzVuM6Pmxxc94/s1600/BB7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-znpf3Fc602uWE-dtWzAp_-kaxiVUARo2lIfRVsJobJnGbQ_hHG1zsWyXy6KyD34AF5ThgzNKxfFSXBVs6rTz8GS64nR6QfrAzhRWppAMQFleCEw8YSZGmbTLKUVRLlzVuM6Pmxxc94/s1600/BB7.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Rather than basing any arguments in support or against the song nomination rescission on religious or ideological grounds, I think the best, most reasoned comments in support of Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel have come from their own colleagues in the industry. <a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/in-support-of-bruce-broughton-and-dennis-spiegel" target="_blank">In an online petition</a> asking the Academy to reconsider the rescission, Conrad Pope, an accomplished orchestrator working in the film industry wrote, <i>"</i><i>Bruce Broughton did nothing inappropriate in my opinion. I am a
member of the Music Branch, I received Bruce's email informing me that
he had written a song that was eligible for consideration. That was all.
When I consider the blandishments proffered by the major studios to 'consider' their submissions, I feel that the Board of Governors is over
reacting and committing a grave injustice."</i> Gael MacGregor, a film music coordinator further explained, <i>"</i><i>Blockbuster films and big studio productions hire PR mavens to
agressively (sic) lobby Academy members durnig (sic) the nominating and voting
processes, yet the Academy has chosen to sanction an individual who sent
some emails alerting members to the small indie film for which he
co-wrote the title song. Hypocrisy in action in this blatant double
standard."</i> Film composer Don Peake, who composed the score for the original "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977) wrote, <i>"</i><i>I am a member of the music branch. I have received several
invitations to elaborate lunches and screenings promoting songs for the
voting this year. Bruce has done nothing wrong."</i> Southern California attorney Randal Billington, who does not appear to be connected to the entertainment industry but is an interested observer, rationally proposed on the petition, <i>"</i><i>This is simply a request for fairness and openness. It is not a
demand that the nomination be reinstated, but simply a request for proof
that the other nominees did not promote their own songs in ways similar
to the song in question here. If no such proof is available, and this
song is on the same footing as the others, then the nomination should be
reinstated."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXdIZ7r3xNTozzsy9dmPmeZMkfkFMG3lnHHclTyYvqlyZmQRZ3ty6iE7m_ZYwxz9GQ6KWHasknZ4M_8u6yqeF9qaXmBQx3BCrSu-lQGDB_dCYRrPIlZHmXa2nDrPoVVqFEfOJLL3idHkc/s1600/BB8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXdIZ7r3xNTozzsy9dmPmeZMkfkFMG3lnHHclTyYvqlyZmQRZ3ty6iE7m_ZYwxz9GQ6KWHasknZ4M_8u6yqeF9qaXmBQx3BCrSu-lQGDB_dCYRrPIlZHmXa2nDrPoVVqFEfOJLL3idHkc/s1600/BB8.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
I recognize that there are bigger, more important, more relevant issues out there in the world than whether or not the song from "Alone Yet Not Alone" is competing for the Academy Awards. I also recognize that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is a non-governmental institution that has a right to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. However, because of the emotions and religious and ideological issues that this nomination rescission has stirred up, the Academy should at the very least have allowed Bruce Broughton an opportunity to publicly respond to the criticism lodged against him for having sent that email to 70 members of the music branch and be allowed to defend himself before the Board of Governors before they took such drastic actions. That way, Mr. Broughton would have had his "day in court" and the Board of Governors could have minimized the fallout from this controversy had they allowed him an opportunity to make his case as to why the nomination should not be rescinded. I hope, in the long run, Mr. Broughton will be able to look back and laugh at this incident and that he will continue to prosper as a film composer for years to come. The only thing I take comfort in knowing about all of this is that, whoever was the disgruntled, anonymous composer who hired a private investigator to look into this nomination, they won't have their song replace "Alone Yet Not Alone" as the fifth nominee because of the Board of Governor's decision to not put another song in its place. That disgruntled composer, who didn't even have the guts to publicly accuse Broughton of purportedly cheating, and who I feel helped add fuel to this controversy and helped to influence the Academy Board of Governor's decision, is still left empty-handed at the end of the day and I am glad that it's a Pyrrhic victory for them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3xSKXy0_RzTJP0QfGlicXy3H-P309Jcaulq488Kfwhy3larKHl3lpjvTaS17sxLbD6VvBack-tLjSCcqU_gz8NdLYXXHT0Nzc4xthDvWdLJJ_EmMks-MAmt9Te7DOLkFj7qM1Z6i53eI/s1600/BB4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3xSKXy0_RzTJP0QfGlicXy3H-P309Jcaulq488Kfwhy3larKHl3lpjvTaS17sxLbD6VvBack-tLjSCcqU_gz8NdLYXXHT0Nzc4xthDvWdLJJ_EmMks-MAmt9Te7DOLkFj7qM1Z6i53eI/s1600/BB4.JPG" height="263" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
(Update 4:12 PM EST, 2/1/14): Glenn Whipp of the LA Times just posted <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-oscars-song-nomination-academy-bruce-broughton,0,5534310.story#axzz2s6duo5HO" target="_blank">a very informative article</a> citing a statement released on Saturday by the Academy alleging
that Broughton violated the rules of the Academy because the voting
process is supposed to be <i>"anonymous"</i> in the interests of promoting
<i>"fairness"</i> and <i>"unbiased"</i> voting. They cited rule 5.3 of the 86th
Academy Award rules that states composer and lyricist credits should be
omitted from DVDs of songs sent to voters in the Music Branch. If this
was indeed the reasoning behind the rescission, why not cite it upfront
earlier this week? Moreover, trade paper ads for songs, as I recall, do
indeed have the composer and lyricist's names listed on them, not to mention the fact that one can easily look up the names of the composers and lyricists for a song on the internet or IMDB, so forget
about promoting anonymity and fairness. If rule 5.3 is all they can
cite to, then Broughton has done no wrong because a rule requiring no names on a DVD featuring songs for voters to review is
wholly different than sending an email to members asking them to
just consider a song. Offhand, this statement just sounds like an excuse made up after the fact to justify their actions because of the controversy that erupted and it doesn't change my mind on this issue at all. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-40249531230895303512014-01-20T12:48:00.001-08:002014-01-24T05:29:29.224-08:00Lisa Lu: An Authentically Asian Actress<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0N3PIaUKhFgZOabTE-htirbXh8qifIFiVJ8eIazpstpYvOwRehBlkfzMdLb65jKxIIUqqMteoAWbTSMdgzLxTgfmuMCbwyqLZRbgxF2CdHibm2HWfPOPXV38PJ5FU7YW7y8y07vM3Yw/s1600/LL3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0N3PIaUKhFgZOabTE-htirbXh8qifIFiVJ8eIazpstpYvOwRehBlkfzMdLb65jKxIIUqqMteoAWbTSMdgzLxTgfmuMCbwyqLZRbgxF2CdHibm2HWfPOPXV38PJ5FU7YW7y8y07vM3Yw/s1600/LL3.JPG" height="400" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
While I was growing up, I used to be intrigued by Nancy Kwan and France Nuyen because, being an American of Chinese descent, I thought that it was cool that two Asian actresses during the 1960s, a decade I was intrigued by, found success working in Hollywood. I enjoyed some of their movies and felt pleased that their success reflected how people of Asian background could indeed make headway in show business in the Western world. However, as I've gotten older, I have become less and less intrigued by Kwan and Nuyen and more and more irritated and annoyed with them. I think they found success in Hollywood because they represented what Hollywood felt Western cultures would consider acceptable and accessible about Asians, as I now realize that their screen images and off-screen personalities weren't necessarily representative of most Asians that I have known throughout my life. It was not endearing to read interviews only to learn that Nuyen, whose mother was French and whose father was Vietnamese, really sees herself more as a French woman (which she herself told me in-person when I once met her), because she was born and raised in France and seems uninterested in her Asian heritage (even though she's made a living as an actress based on it). Meanwhile Kwan, whose mother was English and whose father was Chinese and spent much of her childhood in English boarding schools, self-consciously sells herself as a representative of Chinese or Asian culture (remember her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaD_fvehAaU" target="_blank">"Pearl Cream"</a> TV ads?), even though most people I knew who paid more attention to Chinese-language films, than Hollywood films, really aren't that familiar with Kwan because she never made that much of an impact in the Chinese-language film industry. In my humble opinion, both Nuyen and Kwan are more accurately described as Hollywood starlets who helped perpetuate Asian stereotypes than actresses who are truly representative of Asian culture or cinema.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrIwe4hSi_vmdTvdhw_Vg8kaiz0seHbdRw0hpMjb1_GBLdZseOEYtvvgyFFORz_-ouYsYqkM86Rh-CjJyorkWBcAEuMhia_8YAUasjS_Ar_OyNiHRjC_qcHSitowozDFe-RfRd4ALdqc/s1600/LL4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrIwe4hSi_vmdTvdhw_Vg8kaiz0seHbdRw0hpMjb1_GBLdZseOEYtvvgyFFORz_-ouYsYqkM86Rh-CjJyorkWBcAEuMhia_8YAUasjS_Ar_OyNiHRjC_qcHSitowozDFe-RfRd4ALdqc/s1600/LL4.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The irony is that the one actress who found success in Hollywood, but who also has built a significant career for herself in Asian cinema and has been involved in other notable cultural activities, is someone I grew up personally knowing. I think of her more as a family friend than as the accomplished actress that she is, and that's Lisa Lu, or "Lu Yan"/盧燕, as my father, and other Chinese language speakers, called her. My late father was a Chinese Opera Musician, who passed away from lung cancer in November 2012, and he was friends with Lisa Lu and collaborated with her frequently on various Chinese Opera productions based in Los Angeles. I often saw her while I was growing up as a child and remember visiting her home several times when I was very young. (She was always very decent to my family, and I'll always appreciate how she attended my father's funeral at the last minute, even though she had just returned to the States right after traveling abroad, and helped me to understand that the reason why my father could sometimes be a tough man to deal with is because he had to fight and work hard to give his family better opportunities and to ensure that the respect remained the same from people he dealt with professionally.) I vaguely knew that she had worked in films and television, but I thought of her more as my father's friend and colleague than as a movie actress. I didn't realize as a child how extensive her career truly is. It's only been later in life, as a grown up adult, that I've been able to discover Lisa Lu's significant accomplishments in films and TV that I realized how underrated her career is, and how her work as an actress was really more representative of Chinese and Asian culture than the roles of Nuyen or Kwan, who mainly played in English-language productions playing attractive, decorative roles meant to pander to Western impressions of what they expect Asian women to be like. Don't misunderstand me: I realize that there are many Asian actresses successfully working in China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, but few of them have managed to maintain careers on both sides of the Pacific the way Lisa Lu has. I think this has to do with the fact that, no matter her Hollywood pedigree, filmmakers and directors in Asia still think of her as a viable actress who understands and accurately represents their culture and perspective. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7ChKKzDbIbC8DrQG7QjUx5Lan8PwNdzF7WuyG-Rjsx9GsUF-7e32m3uIRE5omZ6rGYlqLQ5rP7Yc5QhSPIZ-ZlTyRPQdS0iWQvnjH7aikVGggbvppiMhAilLewWvAvy_pPD_dBfT7bM/s1600/LL2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7ChKKzDbIbC8DrQG7QjUx5Lan8PwNdzF7WuyG-Rjsx9GsUF-7e32m3uIRE5omZ6rGYlqLQ5rP7Yc5QhSPIZ-ZlTyRPQdS0iWQvnjH7aikVGggbvppiMhAilLewWvAvy_pPD_dBfT7bM/s1600/LL2.JPG" height="400" width="323" /></a></div>
<br />
I think this is due to the fact that Lisa Lu had a more traditional Asian upbringing than either Nuyen or Kwan, whose upbringings were, as described earlier, comparatively more Westernized. Lu was born and raised in China, studied Chinese opera when she was young because her mother (who was also a great mentor to my father and his career) was a renowned Chinese Opera performer, and emigrated to the United States in the 1950s when she was in her 20s. She studied banking at the University of Hawaii and, as I understand it, even worked for a period of time as a Mandarin Chinese language instructor for U.S. military personnel, as she began formulating a strategy to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. She worked frequently in Hollywood guest-starring on various television programs, as well as playing the leads in a few feature films, most notably the World War II drama "The Mountain Road" (1960) opposite James Stewart. She and Stewart had great chemistry together in that film, and it should have led to more leading roles in feature films during the 1960s. Throughout this whole period, Lu got married and raised a family and I recall how my father liked and respected her husband very much. But she found opportunities to make headway in the industry few and far between, as most of the leading Asian female roles in the 1960s in Hollywood, or English language, productions were being confiscated by the aforementioned France Nuyen and Nancy Kwan. As such, starting in the late 1960s, Lu started branching out and appearing in Chinese language productions shot in either Hong Kong or Taiwan in order to demonstrate what she was truly capable of as an actress. In so doing, even though she still faced challenges to continue working due to the dearth of good parts for Asian actresses, she broadened her career by creating opportunities for herself on both sides of the Pacific--in both Asia and Hollywood--that have helped her to continue working in more recent decades as Nuyen and Kwan sat back and appeared at autograph conventions and began drawing their pensions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3IRcOhdEedZmMy4T-_21Vo9h39fSxIPtQXTBwygl0RYyjKIOHsSXc_a4g1fbhxHwval7O-5y1QwxT0ETWYC3QXp0r_rwacuaPoxrJYVEyxE_hjrEtZI1ynAkfGClgcfSFukHY-t97Ls/s1600/LL27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3IRcOhdEedZmMy4T-_21Vo9h39fSxIPtQXTBwygl0RYyjKIOHsSXc_a4g1fbhxHwval7O-5y1QwxT0ETWYC3QXp0r_rwacuaPoxrJYVEyxE_hjrEtZI1ynAkfGClgcfSFukHY-t97Ls/s1600/LL27.JPG" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The first of these Chinese language films was "The Arch"/"<span lang="zh">董夫人"</span> (1970) directed by Cecile Tang Shu Shuen. Lisa Lu played Madame Tung, a wealthy widow and schoolteacher in 17th Century China during the Qing Dynasty who is about to have an Arch at the entrance of her village erected by the emperor in honor of her good deeds and her continued loyalty to her late husband. Her life is turned upside down when she is asked to house a young military officer at her home who is assigned to her village to protect the crops from bandits, and finds herself more and more attracted to him, just as her daughter is attracted to him as well. Madame Tung is challenged as she wrestles with her own romantic longings and desires for the young officer while she attempts to live up to her public image as plans continue to proceed to erect the Arch in the village in her honor. Madame Tung is forced to abide by tradition to forego her own personal happiness in order to save face for herself and her family.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzmntqFhdlPA_pPIUqMdq_MWT8_4Pm5-OSKa0v2mR_dJ8RJFsTUIO_HCJ2Rdtta6RSJMtnLwA9kt4K9arVyhyphenhyphengW1q5qpsFro4JMghyphenhyphennLDf343Nk-rMqbFO9DAflF3sZ4CC5abUTPbR0g/s1600/LL1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzmntqFhdlPA_pPIUqMdq_MWT8_4Pm5-OSKa0v2mR_dJ8RJFsTUIO_HCJ2Rdtta6RSJMtnLwA9kt4K9arVyhyphenhyphengW1q5qpsFro4JMghyphenhyphennLDf343Nk-rMqbFO9DAflF3sZ4CC5abUTPbR0g/s1600/LL1.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A languid, lyrical, low-key art film, "The Arch" allows Lisa Lu an opportunity to play a role requiring nuance and complexity that she was never able to in Hollywood. Madame Tung is a good and decent woman deserving of romance and happiness in her life, but whose opportunities for it are constrained by societal expectations imposed upon her. She longs to be with the handsome young military officer, particularly since he reciprocates her feelings, but decides to save face and avoid scandal by arranging instead to marry her daughter off to the officer when she expresses romantic interest in him as well. Lu plays Madame Tung in a restrained, dignified manner that belies the passion she actively restrains from expressing. She silently conveys Madame Tung's feelings with expressive eyes that show her longing and loneliness more effectively than high-pitched emotions and pages and pages of dialogue. At the end of the film, as the village surrounds Madame Tung and celebrates the erection of the Arch, by lighting firecrackers in honor of the occasion, you sense the personal sacrifice and emotional loss that Madame Tung feels at what should have been her moment of greatest triumph. She has given up the man she loves and, as she is surrounded by people honoring her, is more alone than ever. Lu's moving performance won her her first Golden Horse Award in Taiwan for Best Actress. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE8vwaUU9nCZ86mm8jP90_5JExme8PrLxPFrjWlIScQov9BlQh2rgfZwv0q_Poh5vN1tXYJQKnZHzON4flBfXbCIcF-6BWVhCPoLUr6m0jQyK3t7R9nHP7I2PxjTWOvLfL6xOQPqa1_F0/s1600/LL17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE8vwaUU9nCZ86mm8jP90_5JExme8PrLxPFrjWlIScQov9BlQh2rgfZwv0q_Poh5vN1tXYJQKnZHzON4flBfXbCIcF-6BWVhCPoLUr6m0jQyK3t7R9nHP7I2PxjTWOvLfL6xOQPqa1_F0/s1600/LL17.JPG" height="171" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJA2r26WKigX5hh8m_ljPgAgNlyOD1bt_ywm2iEcE3fNoeiRiRArpEe2Ivs6RoDu93-Hd8tyrVa1BfoNqQuG8LAZCQfIQnT3SR6hA3tydtZr1xMyT1m4WX2lq8Zs-4qV0RFa-ShDQ_jvY/s1600/LL19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJA2r26WKigX5hh8m_ljPgAgNlyOD1bt_ywm2iEcE3fNoeiRiRArpEe2Ivs6RoDu93-Hd8tyrVa1BfoNqQuG8LAZCQfIQnT3SR6hA3tydtZr1xMyT1m4WX2lq8Zs-4qV0RFa-ShDQ_jvY/s1600/LL19.JPG" height="171" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Lisa Lu's next great Chinese language film role was in the epic Shaw Brothers production "The 14 Amazons"/"<big>十四女英豪"</big> (1972). She played Great Grandmother She Tai Chuan, the matriarch of the fabled Yang family, who must lead their female members into battle against an invasion by Northern Hsia Mongols after all the male members of the family have been killed while in action. With limited resources, without benefit of reinforcements from the government, and with political corruption hindering her efforts, She Tai Chuan, her female family members, and loyal male volunteers, eventually mount an effective strategy and utilize whatever means and tactics are necessary to defend their country and drive out the Hsias. A large-scale, big-budget, wide-screen color spectacular, "The 14 Amazons," provides fine entertainment and allows Lisa Lu to play the sort of assertive, heroic role that actresses of Asian descent such as herself were rarely given in Hollywood up to that time. Because of the advanced, elderly age of her character, She Tai Chuan is not as active in the large-scale battle scenes as her younger family members. Nevertheless, there's no question that Lu's character is the one in-charge, making strategic decisions and crossing verbal swords at numerous occasions with the opposition.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimckTcl8nqE7wx1BZa7OFQvKIo2gF3wO2GZHJ0qoKAldw6Es8zo3-b_mryRF_jdeNwcUJA5jtrl2T7azbkicVvGRZfEqodVT9PCh2hja9IwxX6_0J0OgOOZkzRLpDjQRhEDrSJh_HZ3xs/s1600/LL5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimckTcl8nqE7wx1BZa7OFQvKIo2gF3wO2GZHJ0qoKAldw6Es8zo3-b_mryRF_jdeNwcUJA5jtrl2T7azbkicVvGRZfEqodVT9PCh2hja9IwxX6_0J0OgOOZkzRLpDjQRhEDrSJh_HZ3xs/s1600/LL5.JPG" height="171" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQm5KDsvQkME6CFYXxouAit6XfEEI2GsjAWoO9Iq44nGKfD5G6R-6obyi5jUXvHMnRDnjLDNcS4EigBrOEAogRqezgSde4QXsokcrlTr7VAF_y_aQ6jfIv5mRobDT19cKUxIezOP56ow/s1600/LL18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQm5KDsvQkME6CFYXxouAit6XfEEI2GsjAWoO9Iq44nGKfD5G6R-6obyi5jUXvHMnRDnjLDNcS4EigBrOEAogRqezgSde4QXsokcrlTr7VAF_y_aQ6jfIv5mRobDT19cKUxIezOP56ow/s1600/LL18.JPG" height="171" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
If Lu's eyes were notable in "The Arch," what's notable about her performance in this film is how calm and controlled she has modulated her normally gentle speaking voice into being. As a trained and accomplished Chinese Opera singer, Lu deepens her speaking voice in "The 14 Amazons" to give She Tai Chuan gravitas, authority, and leadership qualities so that she can effectively command her troops. I particularly like the scenes where Lu's character has to confront the traitorous government Minister who betrayed her, her family and her country by agreeing to allow the Hsia invaders in. As her character verbally chastises the cowardly Minister, and reminds him of the contribution and sacrifice her family has made to their country, Lu is as heroic and cutting as her younger compatriots are throughout the film's many excitingly staged action scenes. Also great is the scene where her character threatens to publicly cane and humiliate the very same minister for, not only betraying their country to the Hsias, but also for refusing to order government reinforcements to help the Yangs defeat the Hsias. Lu projects the right air of rage and righteous anger throughout these sequences, and deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress award at Taiwan's Golden Horse Award that year.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEDR57MyvadACtj77O2tV91HMpnD9Dest6hR-bA3NUV8Buah3eBhqMm62EP7Eh2nOsmxrE2N4Pno17bC_NB5FA7DxmaDsyQfOU6jvh5AV65FdbTQsyDVMf1IFcU9NALb0WhyphenhyphenhDOgPPmE/s1600/LL20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEDR57MyvadACtj77O2tV91HMpnD9Dest6hR-bA3NUV8Buah3eBhqMm62EP7Eh2nOsmxrE2N4Pno17bC_NB5FA7DxmaDsyQfOU6jvh5AV65FdbTQsyDVMf1IFcU9NALb0WhyphenhyphenhDOgPPmE/s1600/LL20.JPG" height="167" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHfWEqIXsiy8GaymWE44ZqiMSxVRNhz7UAnspRGdQtLzaiNvCA5gYyktKJoviRUYYT83qDigchx8qg7B1zVbQ94wrLySz0gzUuSsHNL6tq5itPZDiPKMiR9D9bdmiaOxQDKRkbxnMB28/s1600/LL21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHfWEqIXsiy8GaymWE44ZqiMSxVRNhz7UAnspRGdQtLzaiNvCA5gYyktKJoviRUYYT83qDigchx8qg7B1zVbQ94wrLySz0gzUuSsHNL6tq5itPZDiPKMiR9D9bdmiaOxQDKRkbxnMB28/s1600/LL21.JPG" height="167" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Lisa Lu continued her Chinese language cinema winning streak when she played the title role in "The Empress Dowager"/<big>傾國傾城</big> (1975), another Shaw Brothers produced Hong Kong widescreen and color historical epic. The film dramatized the political intrigue surrounding the Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi, who presided over the Qing Dynasty throughout most of the 19th, and into 20th Century, China. The main thrust of the film concerned the internal power struggles the Empress Dowager has with her nephew, Emperor Kuang Hsu, for control of the country. In contrast to her previous Chinese language films, Lu plays a much less sympathetic character in this film than she normally does. Lu plays the Empress Dowager as ruthless, cold and calculating, with a decisively cruel streak that is positively chilling. As with "The 14 Amazons," Lu modulates her usually warm and humane speaking voice but this time she develops it into a haltingly cold and precise, sharp and clipped, delivery that underscores the extent to which her character is completely in charge of those around her and rules the country with an iron fist. As such the other characters in the film are both frightened and respectful of her.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSrlwbJPvVP0dfkvJAqW4a6BWudqjuaUxMFOKaBAykd5idEbJl7ljPzmAPbElpvOGRQWBVPCw2BbKqxlVF8aSQiqM3qN-cRdIuQi18Nh7FBLMLERWaSaQKJNH4q3AnQfoNErZVS7n2g0/s1600/LL6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSrlwbJPvVP0dfkvJAqW4a6BWudqjuaUxMFOKaBAykd5idEbJl7ljPzmAPbElpvOGRQWBVPCw2BbKqxlVF8aSQiqM3qN-cRdIuQi18Nh7FBLMLERWaSaQKJNH4q3AnQfoNErZVS7n2g0/s1600/LL6.JPG" height="167" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Oz4MmX6DewAutqVVoMaGDgcpTv8IG9O1RzgB3GZ93UTuBrcDSG6NzhqSM3nL96xaSfX68hb8lgh4n0L5FbmEtnYvvtiEYoBKZ2bhyphenhyphenwKKAGhChO-G9b9WoU6kQ_ToqoFj1-GWQdVsNK4/s1600/LL7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Oz4MmX6DewAutqVVoMaGDgcpTv8IG9O1RzgB3GZ93UTuBrcDSG6NzhqSM3nL96xaSfX68hb8lgh4n0L5FbmEtnYvvtiEYoBKZ2bhyphenhyphenwKKAGhChO-G9b9WoU6kQ_ToqoFj1-GWQdVsNK4/s1600/LL7.JPG" height="167" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What I like about Lisa Lu's interpretation of this character is the rigid precision with which she embodies the Empress Dowager. She rarely walks in the film, but when she does it's in a proud and erect manner, and when seated she presides over her followers with a steely confidence and self-assuredness that allows viewers to quickly grasp that this is not a woman to be messed with. I particularly like the breathtaking sequence early on in the film where the Empress Dowager is being carefully, and methodically, groomed and dressed for the day by all of her followers. Throughout that sequence, it becomes apparent that nothing the Empress Dowager does, even getting dressed, is done casually and without forethought and consideration. Lu's eyes, which normally project kindness and vulnerability, have hardened into an intense, cold gaze that look as if it can pierce into the heart and soul of those standing before her. Lu brings an acerbic wit to the character to further emphasize how she's not someone who suffers fools gladly, but she seems to know just how far to take the character without allowing her to turn into something campy or broad. Lisa Lu's obvious respect for the Empress Dowager helps to ensure that she never turns into a joke in the course of the story. She again won another Golden Horse Award in Taiwan for her performance in "The Empress Dowager" as Best Actress. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrsStz_i9OffAkYCiFIgsKlYxRwRMKzToK4GSTY0y9z76nk9gRa15ctqDUWdXDQc0EcDeqB0ftHDw8TLWV3E8154q2udQXX0hE7U1y-0x8FInSBpC-Ol07PbvrSILdfAPM9f5OIQ6PNw/s1600/LL9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrsStz_i9OffAkYCiFIgsKlYxRwRMKzToK4GSTY0y9z76nk9gRa15ctqDUWdXDQc0EcDeqB0ftHDw8TLWV3E8154q2udQXX0hE7U1y-0x8FInSBpC-Ol07PbvrSILdfAPM9f5OIQ6PNw/s1600/LL9.JPG" height="163" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPXcXFlwXfdtIK3sdEv_nalaEuUPMkO_PieppLusWzEQw038iZDlUPMZdnJH82cEQXVqHrjJAY72kbxCE8ACpjNGyA9kAybEicoL3WOn3jH7z2reHFZ9I2IUQlkvn71KzTQ3VgPMPnbw/s1600/LL11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPXcXFlwXfdtIK3sdEv_nalaEuUPMkO_PieppLusWzEQw038iZDlUPMZdnJH82cEQXVqHrjJAY72kbxCE8ACpjNGyA9kAybEicoL3WOn3jH7z2reHFZ9I2IUQlkvn71KzTQ3VgPMPnbw/s1600/LL11.JPG" height="165" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKsyGIdp0PmcwHvfYVQqaI4YynaJvhCiQU_FsVXRiY6d4dQNHAzokd7LAyWBJLd5m0PtBnbwAVIjgt8wmyxCruKEyc-TNIjVpdsHlKh3Z5zNpN5zJN5w-uUE55dtqPYE4ie8oYR1mWpQ/s1600/LL13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKsyGIdp0PmcwHvfYVQqaI4YynaJvhCiQU_FsVXRiY6d4dQNHAzokd7LAyWBJLd5m0PtBnbwAVIjgt8wmyxCruKEyc-TNIjVpdsHlKh3Z5zNpN5zJN5w-uUE55dtqPYE4ie8oYR1mWpQ/s1600/LL13.JPG" height="165" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
The saga of the Empress Dowager continued the next year when Lisa Lu reprised her role in the Shaw Brothers' equally impressive sequel, "The Last Tempest"/"<span lang="zh">瀛台泣血"</span> (1976). In "The Last Tempest," the struggle for power between the Empress Dowager and the young Emperor Kuang Hsu escalates to new heights as he attempts to implement progressive reforms throughout the country and thwart her power and influence. In so doing, Emperor Kuang Hsu's efforts are unsuccessful and lead to severe consequences for himself and those closest to him that he cares about. Lu is still as impressive as ever in this sequel, even though her screen time is comparatively more limited than it appeared to be in the earlier film. Nevertheless, she makes us understand and even, at times, admire and like the character even as she demonstrates little patience or understanding of those around her, particularly the naive and idealistic Emperor Kuang Hsu. My favorite scene in the movie occurs early on when, during an exhibition of the newly painted official portrait of the Empress Dowager, several naive western visitors from the United Kingdom thoughtlessly sit in the Empress's throne just as she enters the imperial courtyard with her entourage. Lisa Lu effectively projects the quietly seething rage and sense of indignancy at the thoughtless disrespect for her title and authority being shown by her visitors.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmn2hif-Lh69TMMhim2adhnWi2wj9l8_yxVxRV9jG0Kwz4jTp8HqTIOhusW4dSECNZeWnusCPYUnRFPyB4uQADy-qebMbvdL0EzxnbcJRpuK92gb6Gqdsr4l-M8AxEdeW_KMYLR4Mahdw/s1600/LL15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmn2hif-Lh69TMMhim2adhnWi2wj9l8_yxVxRV9jG0Kwz4jTp8HqTIOhusW4dSECNZeWnusCPYUnRFPyB4uQADy-qebMbvdL0EzxnbcJRpuK92gb6Gqdsr4l-M8AxEdeW_KMYLR4Mahdw/s1600/LL15.JPG" height="163" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggn9pLzd7COVol9OIzp9J_mOkGZGCvDZMyhpJ7PKzKvITRz7BmWrqMMk1pblIRTbPcmruvYW4E_c8PZou3gy6JBEhteU-sIay2PpoolSwq98Ga4DLReax32p3rSbcTmY36miLsgkw_zDk/s1600/LL16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggn9pLzd7COVol9OIzp9J_mOkGZGCvDZMyhpJ7PKzKvITRz7BmWrqMMk1pblIRTbPcmruvYW4E_c8PZou3gy6JBEhteU-sIay2PpoolSwq98Ga4DLReax32p3rSbcTmY36miLsgkw_zDk/s1600/LL16.JPG" height="165" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Lu plays the scene with the Empress Dowager smiling warmly as she arrives on the scene, and then projects a frightening slow burn as her smile eventually turns into a frown demonstrating her rage when she realizes that the arrogant and entitled Englishwomen have condescended to her title and authority with their actions. I love the fact that Lu's Empress Dowager smirks with disdain and indignation at the act, and then shows mercy to the stupid young women by not ordering them to be punished and executed, as she enters and has a whole courtyard of English people bowing before her--the older Asian woman--out of respect instead of it being the other way around as it would be in so many Hollywood movies. The sequence ends with all of the western visitors from the United Kingdom surrounding her as she sits proudly atop her throne for the honor of having their picture taken with her. That last moment perfectly sums up why it's so satisfying to see Lisa Lu in these Chinese language movies after years of toiling in thankless parts in Hollywood movies and TV shows. For once, she's the whole show and she isn't playing second fiddle to anyone (the way Nancy Kwan and France Nuyen often played the "submissive Asian female" falling for William Holden or John Kerr or Laurence Harvey or Pat Boone or Rod Taylor in <i>their</i> movies).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFacs2TqXDf9djcj1M9U-GPqtHk2mHUYGCOcrdo-EL9ybZy6SEcwqFzAH6PXoVFhhgZ3My7g_LZfovsXeT6w2m9Fm5koblnbbes2dI_Hjb39cdSIQ9rTbj0K30awXXnA-OfaeMDfJ5cpE/s1600/LL23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFacs2TqXDf9djcj1M9U-GPqtHk2mHUYGCOcrdo-EL9ybZy6SEcwqFzAH6PXoVFhhgZ3My7g_LZfovsXeT6w2m9Fm5koblnbbes2dI_Hjb39cdSIQ9rTbj0K30awXXnA-OfaeMDfJ5cpE/s1600/LL23.JPG" height="193" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYXuH4UIfdOH4KhEuw8ZNnF98WPFf_t_mXk9SSqoS-3j3mv50caQlITepCsf_tW3W33EBmAGgTOfiFQN2ubIwhNorjZMO219xBLm-aa5LHjqqJeq1xFJoX_GeLchbGR0zA9OV9RSrEhw/s1600/LL24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYXuH4UIfdOH4KhEuw8ZNnF98WPFf_t_mXk9SSqoS-3j3mv50caQlITepCsf_tW3W33EBmAGgTOfiFQN2ubIwhNorjZMO219xBLm-aa5LHjqqJeq1xFJoX_GeLchbGR0zA9OV9RSrEhw/s1600/LL24.JPG" height="182" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCO7_r2B-Zw42H8AeS_JyJ5oux4SmVkvmV85KtYmRWKoJP5-ETEdQvJeuPvEYZaVXpo9UOl2b9JvfY91bKDRITEOlcycZIrbiG4UWJiCixdnAt5VdihN7UiaXRDsCiuQMjLU6UrVFXuFs/s1600/LL25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCO7_r2B-Zw42H8AeS_JyJ5oux4SmVkvmV85KtYmRWKoJP5-ETEdQvJeuPvEYZaVXpo9UOl2b9JvfY91bKDRITEOlcycZIrbiG4UWJiCixdnAt5VdihN7UiaXRDsCiuQMjLU6UrVFXuFs/s1600/LL25.JPG" height="192" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
But I don't want to give the impression that Lisa Lu's career is just limited to acting in period costume dramas made 40 years ago. She continues to be a viable character actress in both Hollywood and Asian films. A few years ago, she had a good featured role in the big budget Hollywood disaster epic "2012" (2009), playing an elderly Tibetan woman who is trying to survive a worldwide geological and meteorological natural disaster, and helps save the lives of John Cusack and his family. She brought an earthy gravitas and presence to the movie so that her character didn't descend into typical silly stereotypes. She also appeared in Sofia Coppola's film "Somewhere" (2010), co-starred in a lavish Chinese language production of "Dangerous Liaisons" (2012), and recently enjoyed a recurring role on the daytime soap "General Hospital." In the recent "Apart Together"/"团圆" (2010), Lu played a contemporary elderly Chinese woman whose husband left her behind while she was pregnant in China in 1949 and fled to Taiwan when the Communists took over. Her life is torn asunder when her first husband, who she still deeply loves, returns one day and wants to take her back with him to Taiwan. Lu effectively conveys how age makes no difference where love is concerned and how one can still feel as deeply and hopefully and passionately for their first love as they did when they were young. There's a touching vulnerability and humanity in Lu's performance that resonates throughout the movie. She's a woman who has been deeply hurt, and who continues to hurt as her family pulls her in different directions and make it difficult for her to decide what would be best for her own happiness. Lu is very believable wrestling with feelings of familial obligation and personal hope and desire. What resonates the most with me about her performance is the look of sadness and resignation in her eyes throughout the movie. She knows happiness is within reach, but is both afraid and constrained to be able to reach out and grab it. It's an incredibly good part that any actress--no matter what age, ethnicity or nationality--would have been fortunate to have landed.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZQVm-S8pWClPfDtFwDmFc6SAYOYGdP4Avv7BZICFfHLD7vD4rzCfIQXJdCx06qPVqZr9z6eLJ-IfzSQATW9rs474PXsGbQHJ2QBy56OYwLgjFYhj9giPmqw2POAGvPlzJocx7Td00Pco/s1600/LL28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZQVm-S8pWClPfDtFwDmFc6SAYOYGdP4Avv7BZICFfHLD7vD4rzCfIQXJdCx06qPVqZr9z6eLJ-IfzSQATW9rs474PXsGbQHJ2QBy56OYwLgjFYhj9giPmqw2POAGvPlzJocx7Td00Pco/s1600/LL28.JPG" height="368" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Throughout Lisa Lu's career, she has continued appearing frequently in Chinese Opera productions, often ones that my father provided musical accompaniment to, and theater roles. If there might be gaps in her IMDB page, it should not suggest that she was inactive during those periods in between movie or TV roles. She was always working on something, whether it was producing a documentary or appearing in a Chinese language television miniseries or soap opera that isn't listed on IMDB. For example, in 2012, she appeared as Lady Bracknell in a Chinese language stage production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the National Theater in Taiwan. These days, she continues to have tributes paid to her on Chinese and Taiwanese television as a legendary actress who helped pave the way for other Asian actress to find success and visibility in the Western world. Even though there's no doubt that Lisa Lu is a proud and civic minded American, what makes her unique is how she stays in touch with her Chinese and Asian cultural heritage. It is the reason why, I think, she continues to work as an actress while her former competitors languish in obscurity. Now that casting directors are comparatively more precise and a little bit more conscientious about hiring actors who embody the culture in a much more genuine and legitimate manner, the work of Nancy Kwan and France Nuyen look more and more artificial and laughable through the years. In contrast, Lisa Lu's performances have always seemed heartfelt, vibrant
and realistic in terms of portraying real Asian women, with genuine and authentic feelings and emotions, instead of perpetuating stereotypes as was the norm in
Nuyen's or Kwan's performances. I've never seen a
performance by Nuyen or Kwan that reflected the kinds of Asian women I
grew up knowing, and have known, all my life. I completely acknowledge that Lisa Lu has, at times, played roles in Hollywood productions that could be considered stereotypical, but I always sensed that she tried to bring some depth, nuance, or intelligence to those performances to allow them to rise above stereotypes that Kwan or Nuyen often failed to do. For example, I recall an interview with Lu where she described her efforts to make suggestions to director Daniel Mann during the making of "The Mountain Road" on how he could bring subtle nuances to the Asian roles to make them more believable, only to have them fall on deaf ears. To me, it demonstrates how conscientious she was about trying to get it right. (I know it sounds like I am being overly critical of France Nuyen and Nancy Kwan, but I have become more and more impatient and fed up of hearing about how influential they supposedly were as Asian actresses in Hollywood, when I don't think they really were.) In my humble opinion, having grown up in the
Asian culture, Nuyen and Kwan played what Westerners
believe Asians to be, while Lisa Lu continues to play them as they truly are. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-10531235645389795222014-01-14T19:02:00.002-08:002014-02-07T05:58:30.552-08:00Positive Memories and Impressions of Jacqueline Bisset<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjRuH56IuqPgDrTytTZh3RukBMDPkWFAuCGYTUZI_1ZZe-hdjIfdewnvLXtlVZkEOV5oiEHoHPEssjUt515dOtwg2St_ZjugOFl3Lhci5iOLgPAQBkAnWVSUcZt_4MMMehzOcCkd350Y/s1600/Bisset9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjRuH56IuqPgDrTytTZh3RukBMDPkWFAuCGYTUZI_1ZZe-hdjIfdewnvLXtlVZkEOV5oiEHoHPEssjUt515dOtwg2St_ZjugOFl3Lhci5iOLgPAQBkAnWVSUcZt_4MMMehzOcCkd350Y/s1600/Bisset9.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I was dismayed to see all the negative comments and ridicule directed at Jacqueline Bisset ever since she gave her admittedly unfocused, slightly profane, and eccentric acceptance speech at Sunday's Golden Globe awards for winning Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for the BBC drama "Dancing on the Edge" (2013). A lot of people on the internet commented that they thought she was unintelligent, inebriated, haughty and crazy. And I'm not here to criticize people who might have reacted that way because I certainly have negative reactions to the way other celebrities have behaved when they rub me the wrong way. (But, usually, to evoke my ire, it takes more than just three minutes of rambling talk to get me to hate a celebrity.) It just saddened me that, to a lot of people, that may be their only impression of Jacqueline Bisset because I dealt with her personally several years ago when I was working on a book interviewing actresses of the 1960s. Because of the prolificacy of her career, having worked with some major directors and leading men, Bisset was probably the most successful of all the actresses I interviewed. I sincerely appreciated that she agreed to let me interview her. I also will never forget how she treated me with respect, always regarded me as a grown up adult, and never condescended to me the way other actresses did.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvf0GOFqMkRdRz-fCAB3NeqCOLlHOWW7eObsz9L20GzHbNGXNZmtRb85Qm5qRWQfo_JPoReNXY-xfZpF72ZBkQ9fxr8ooZtSSWNDbfM9Ez8TN4sqZuR7q2YCAQpBrJ_nl0mkDtSD2JVrI/s1600/Bisset7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvf0GOFqMkRdRz-fCAB3NeqCOLlHOWW7eObsz9L20GzHbNGXNZmtRb85Qm5qRWQfo_JPoReNXY-xfZpF72ZBkQ9fxr8ooZtSSWNDbfM9Ez8TN4sqZuR7q2YCAQpBrJ_nl0mkDtSD2JVrI/s400/Bisset7.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The thing about her, which I think the public may have forgotten or may have gotten the wrong impression of this week, is that she was one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, articulate individuals I have ever encountered in my life. It took awhile before we could actually set up the interview. She received my query letter in the mail and called me personally on the phone to chat about it. After a few minutes of allowing me to explain who I was, what I was trying to accomplish, and who else I had interviewed, she agreed to do the interview. I offered to send her some questions in advance, which other actresses had demanded so that they would know what I would be asking, but Bisset said that that was not necessary. The impression I came away with was that, if there was a question I might have asked that she didn't like, she felt confident enough to be able to handle it by being direct with me about it and decline answering it. It was a refreshing contrast to other actresses who seemed uptight with me about what subjects I might bring up that they gave the impression that they wouldn't be able to know how to deal with it and, as a result, they often acted in a weird, evasive manner with me concerning what topics I might pose to them. I am sincere when I say that I've dealt with actresses who are truly <i>weird</i>, crazy, self-centered, narcissistic, airheaded, delusional, and pretentious...and Jacqueline Bisset was not one of them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvH6rORYLbzxP35jJchP45ZPPEvrZRF1bhMcGNiDpMS0ZSQ427TEqtzchm_RBgsAgk1wzk8obtSAgen2LIYws2ZFicq2HUZtNLgbniMe_cJ9ns6w5YYvT91DDYEe9DTLBTaCzhXb8nwk/s1600/Bisset12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvH6rORYLbzxP35jJchP45ZPPEvrZRF1bhMcGNiDpMS0ZSQ427TEqtzchm_RBgsAgk1wzk8obtSAgen2LIYws2ZFicq2HUZtNLgbniMe_cJ9ns6w5YYvT91DDYEe9DTLBTaCzhXb8nwk/s400/Bisset12.JPG" height="400" width="296" /></a></div>
<br />
Over the next few months, she stayed in contact with me and let me know when she thought she would be in Los Angeles so we could try and schedule the interview. One time, I received a voice message from her when she was staying in London. She had finished a film in Europe, and thought she would be back in town by that point, but decided to stop over in London, if I remember correctly, to visit with her brother. She apologized she had not returned when she had originally said she would, gave me an approximate date as to when she thought she would be back in town, and asked me to follow-up with her then. This might not seem like much, but it was a stark contrast to some other actresses who would play games and not be forthcoming as to their intent and purpose with regards to trying to schedule time for me to interview them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinwD86zo1dIp8KFg8BIP8Fp9533mR7TMH-ZGFo3O7YJ-0mcCsqx126ciahVvbct4yPA77M5UCCuHvwMf9zVa0OUK80SPh6xOlXIvSk2V23y-jg5k2h1YMAuCYf_nwFk5YnAa6oZYWQ3_I/s1600/Bisset6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinwD86zo1dIp8KFg8BIP8Fp9533mR7TMH-ZGFo3O7YJ-0mcCsqx126ciahVvbct4yPA77M5UCCuHvwMf9zVa0OUK80SPh6xOlXIvSk2V23y-jg5k2h1YMAuCYf_nwFk5YnAa6oZYWQ3_I/s400/Bisset6.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
When I finally did schedule an interview with her, she called the day before we were to meet because she had come down with a cold and had laryngitis. She apologized sincerely and asked me to get in touch with her in a week to reschedule. Before we ended the call, I distinctly remember her barely being able to speak anymore, but she said, <i>"Thank you for understanding. Please forgive me."</i> I remember being surprised she even said that because other 1960s-era actresses I dealt with would never have bothered considering whether cancelling at the last minute might have caused an inconvenience. Eventually, weeks later, we did do the interview at her home one afternoon, where she served me tea and I spoke with her for almost three hours. What I remember most is the fact that she started the interview talking at length about her parents--her father was a Scottish doctor and her mother was a French attorney--and how she missed them and how they taught her strong values that have helped her hold onto the priorities that are important to her and not lose her identity while working in show business.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCK4Ytxg3ylvGBWFSaqYtCponzwxFMU-rtfk-M74Fpfy_CmWYDI9W85PpP_PJTmwwkUB46_lUoaENvrv_Y15zzJmanAkt352YYsoFCYS4RkBMZF8XWUacc6y-zsDBPeVFtOD815m19tQ8/s1600/Bisset14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCK4Ytxg3ylvGBWFSaqYtCponzwxFMU-rtfk-M74Fpfy_CmWYDI9W85PpP_PJTmwwkUB46_lUoaENvrv_Y15zzJmanAkt352YYsoFCYS4RkBMZF8XWUacc6y-zsDBPeVFtOD815m19tQ8/s400/Bisset14.JPG" height="400" width="253" /></a></div>
<br />
At one point, when we were discussing European film directors of the 1960s, she seemed surprised that someone my age had heard of them because I was so young. I told her that my father--who passed away a year and a half ago from battling lung cancer but who was a Chinese opera musician--was kind of a renaissance man who instilled in his kids an appreciation for the arts and for politics and history and current events. She asked me, <i>"Don't you miss being able to talk with him like that?"</i> At the time, he was still alive so I told her, <i>"I see him all the time!"</i> She responded by saying <i>"You're lucky, you really are"</i> and described to me how she misses her conversations with her father, how engaged he was about life and about other people, and she reminded me to always appreciate my parents and family. After my father passed away, her words resonated with me even more deeply than before. She was not narcissistic because she often talked about other people in her life who had made a great impression on her, in stark contrast to some other 1960s-era actresses who only talked with me about themselves. At one point, she even sort of turned the interview around on me and started asking me about more of my life and background, my experiences in college, and asking about how young people now behave in social settings because she was fascinated with how the dating and courtship rituals have changed since when she was a teenager and in her 20s. (I remember having to steer the conversation back to discussing her and her career, as I didn't want to use up my limited time with her by talking that much about myself!)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTP0ts6Z0BEissHzqmVcJgj5IF7-6qcO9SsaeBJDKNjHQtgP5TEB0FXhu52qRx3m-R4sFUWtpHZ71iIa7XoaP_8hzvJNIZuE3uYwgneXVTWPJ1_Om7kjOndNvB89M2zPt5Xub57rGJZ4/s1600/Bisset10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTP0ts6Z0BEissHzqmVcJgj5IF7-6qcO9SsaeBJDKNjHQtgP5TEB0FXhu52qRx3m-R4sFUWtpHZ71iIa7XoaP_8hzvJNIZuE3uYwgneXVTWPJ1_Om7kjOndNvB89M2zPt5Xub57rGJZ4/s400/Bisset10.JPG" height="400" width="275" /></a></div>
<br />
I found her to be a very substantial and thoughtful person, with no ego. It was interesting that some people, who saw the speech, interpreted from her mannerisms and gestures that she was egotistical, which surprised me, because she was one of the least self-aggrandizing actresses I ever dealt with. At one point, when I was telling her about dealing with other actresses who had a negative opinion about some of the actresses I already interviewed, and as a result didn't want to be associated with them by being in my book, she explained why she agreed to do the interview. She explained that, even if she hadn't heard of everyone I had interviewed, she reasoned that she didn't know, or work with, or watched the work of, everybody who was working back in the 1960s, and it wasn't up to her to judge the career accomplishments of others. Bisset fully acknowledged that, to a significant portion of the population, the other women I interviewed are indeed important and accomplished actresses. She agreed to do the interview because she thought the subject I was writing about had merit, and she didn't let the fact that she wasn't familiar with all the actresses I had interviewed deter her from speaking with me (which other actresses had or, at the very least, made a fuss over).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrfD0CkV-cMZY_Hm1jRsOTi3HLABay34BQ0zXSM_uLMvcCWt15GKoWa7jTlIQGlVxKZFOBZYXhEBoEG5Uc38vkXghEMTvexGMJLzhM2646fi9S22rwFs6A1p2ndvfsNWUAkffmx47rwg/s1600/Bisset11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrfD0CkV-cMZY_Hm1jRsOTi3HLABay34BQ0zXSM_uLMvcCWt15GKoWa7jTlIQGlVxKZFOBZYXhEBoEG5Uc38vkXghEMTvexGMJLzhM2646fi9S22rwFs6A1p2ndvfsNWUAkffmx47rwg/s400/Bisset11.JPG" height="400" width="395" /></a></div>
<br />
I do admit that I was surprised that Bisset wasn't more prepared on Sunday night when she gave her speech, because she was always so articulate and thoughtful and insightful about not only her career, but also about how Hollywood has changed during the course of her career. Bisset was someone who clearly understood the business aspect of show business, which I realized other actresses I dealt with rarely grasped because the others appeared flighty with regards to how they handled their careers and finances. I always found her one of the shrewdest and most media savvy of any actress I dealt with because she definitely was conscientious about how the media had changed over the last several decades. I also felt, based on my dealings with her, that Bisset is a realist who does not have any delusions about herself or her career. So I don't know what to make of the speech she gave. I think what happened on Sunday night could best be described as a "perfect storm" where, despite her best efforts, everything came together in a way that was less than ideal the moment her name was announced as the winner. That being said, my impression is that Jacqueline Bisset is a very genuine human being. There were no airs, calculation, or subterfuge about her and, whenever she spoke, it was always in a very sincere and honest and unaffected manner. I think, if her speech struck people as "strange," it's because she wasn't putting on airs at all, and she was being completely unfiltered. I think she was just surprised she had won and, according to her later statements, she hadn't expected her category to come up so soon in the program. That, combined with the fact that they seated her so far from the stage, contributed to the "deer in the headlights" quality that people seem to be responding to. I also believe that, the fact she didn't have a speech prepared, undermines the comments of some individuals who thought she was behaving like a diva. Having known other frustrated actresses who are still waiting for that moment to be called to the stage to win their award (and how they appear to have already rehearsed in their minds what they plan to say once they get there), I think Bisset's speech demonstrates how she <i>doesn't</i> spend her life waiting for that sort of affirmation or acclaim because, if she had, she would've already known what to say that night. (As a point of contrast, another actress I interviewed, in responding to my question regarding whether she was satisfied with all she had accomplished, said, <i>"No, I still need to win the Oscar, because I've already won everything else."</i> Bisset <i>never</i> said anything as presumptuous or self-aggrandizing as that with me.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6TqXi1cZ63SnG_9NXbIJrQqoKNNbHyzrEmU_gn71OxkgmBCSSvmr28Y9cMVx7795vWNU-6m4iBSfoc_w3fb4GwNY0Xo_0JtsiGmHK-o3_01qG2GmbLforpCqkAPF0O4KZc-u_08p0ZU8/s1600/Bisset8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6TqXi1cZ63SnG_9NXbIJrQqoKNNbHyzrEmU_gn71OxkgmBCSSvmr28Y9cMVx7795vWNU-6m4iBSfoc_w3fb4GwNY0Xo_0JtsiGmHK-o3_01qG2GmbLforpCqkAPF0O4KZc-u_08p0ZU8/s400/Bisset8.JPG" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I also remember how, with self-effacing candor and humor, Bisset recalled how she moved to
Hollywood in 1967 after she signed a picture deal with 20th Century-Fox
and that she worried for many years that she might end up <i>"going
Hollywood"</i> and losing all the values that her parents had raised her with. She said she used to wonder how it
would happen with other actors that they changed drastically and
negatively once they arrived in Hollywood. She used to ask herself
whether she had the strength of character to be able to live and work in
Hollywood, and not pick up any bad traits from the environment, and
have enough perspective to go back home to England if her career did not
work out and earn a living at a regular job back there. She
told me that for years she used to ask herself if she had <i>"gone Hollywood"</i> yet. She often
concluded that she didn't believe that she had, but sensed that it could
still happen, so she was always on guard about it in order to ensure
that she held onto her sense of identity. She acknowledged, while laughing good-naturedly about it, that she
finally allowed herself to relax about it around the time she turned 50
years old because she figured she had been in Hollywood nearly 30 years
by then, and that if she was going to "go Hollywood" it would have
already happened by that point.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-z-3pCCbo2z1D_VCR_ASlUzvucgRi2OObox4x6P6r5CNHhAGFGfSU_y1KfOsA-SEmnsPR_TjTvZXOScqc_vWmhJlZzNP7yx8fOfYKtK1Fe4wxQv2rHM7OdLEAyyZ1VCoFsOMrC_5nzg/s1600/Bisset4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-z-3pCCbo2z1D_VCR_ASlUzvucgRi2OObox4x6P6r5CNHhAGFGfSU_y1KfOsA-SEmnsPR_TjTvZXOScqc_vWmhJlZzNP7yx8fOfYKtK1Fe4wxQv2rHM7OdLEAyyZ1VCoFsOMrC_5nzg/s400/Bisset4.JPG" height="363" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The other thing I remember about Bisset was that she appeared to have a lot of integrity. Even though she had high standards with regards to what she considered a
good film, she was also a realist. She knew it was difficult to have
any sort of success as an actress in as competitive an industry as
Hollywood, and recognized how, despite best efforts, sometimes every
actor ends up in a film that isn't very good. There was no sense of
entitlement about herself that I sometimes encountered with other
actresses. Despite her frustrations at the limited opportunities for
mature actresses in Hollywood, I sensed that she knew she was fortunate
to still be working. She was one of the smartest actresses I ever met
with regards to understanding the business end of Hollywood. I learned a
lot from her about maintaining a decorum of maturity and
professionalism that I try to apply to my own life and career. In particular, I recall an anecdote she shared about a boyfriend she had when she was a teenager in London who used to call her an "ignoramus" all the time. She knew she wasn't an ignoramus, but when he called her that it really challenged her to prove to herself that she was not. She said to me, <i>"The odd insult, or criticism, really isn't so bad. It can be very motivating and it's good to continually be challenged. If people told you all your life that you're wonderful and brilliant, why would you ever bother improving yourself?"</i> I always remembered that statement. It really made an impression on me, which is why I always try to be receptive to constructive criticism in all aspects of my life, because it can only help you improve.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kFxv2RAqNW_jc16x_kOA_aD4SWeUX5J56Cl0o90ofxw6KwI2wvFbGMXw_mHnr_z63ZhenQOU526bSKSCFbc7iJ4y2z2thERTKVRPwcTnh2GQ_Za6rzF1Qv58VEwTShPbn27cX0kLRbQ/s1600/Bisset3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kFxv2RAqNW_jc16x_kOA_aD4SWeUX5J56Cl0o90ofxw6KwI2wvFbGMXw_mHnr_z63ZhenQOU526bSKSCFbc7iJ4y2z2thERTKVRPwcTnh2GQ_Za6rzF1Qv58VEwTShPbn27cX0kLRbQ/s400/Bisset3.JPG" height="400" width="283" /></a></div>
<br />
What I also appreciated about Bisset was the fact that she didn't self-indulgently criticize the "bad" movies in her career. She completely appreciated and recognized the acclaimed films she had appeared in, but concurrently didn't needlessly disparage the bad, or unsuccessful, ones because she felt that every professional experience--whether it was a TV movie or a flop feature film--was a worthwhile experience where she learned a valuable lesson, or made a lifelong friend, or was a particularly pleasurable working experience that was a happy time in her life. I admired how she didn't take a bad movie in her career as somehow being
a personal reflection upon herself, which other actresses
self-indulgently do, and found value in flops like "When Time Ran Out..." (1980) or "Inchon!" (1982). As I mentioned earlier, there was no sense of entitlement about herself and she often spoke about how lucky she was to have been in the films she has made, and worked with the directors and stars that she has throughout her career. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yg2_0bWq5qUhOgtiodfibA0WIzXYX5n9NYK6IgTgWRt7gGo3_i65vJf_7Su7g63MRP3hODUJ-rSH9ALNyG9-eRuiUj9HDyEcJNBQOh3pt1IX8clyJ4aJva6PvlJE8LRbxeqJgiXoxTs/s1600/BissetHome.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yg2_0bWq5qUhOgtiodfibA0WIzXYX5n9NYK6IgTgWRt7gGo3_i65vJf_7Su7g63MRP3hODUJ-rSH9ALNyG9-eRuiUj9HDyEcJNBQOh3pt1IX8clyJ4aJva6PvlJE8LRbxeqJgiXoxTs/s400/BissetHome.JPG" height="261" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Which is why I thought it strange that people appeared to get the wrong impression of Bisset when they reacted to the portion of her speech where she said <i>"I want to thank people who have given me joy, and there are many who have given me sh-t. I say like my mother. What did she say? She used to say, 'go to hell or don't come back!'"</i> because of the way they misinterpreted that remark to indicate she was someone who was bitter, had a chip on her shoulder, or had an axe to grind. Hank Stuever of the Washington Post summarized that perception and reaction when he wrote, "<i>At a loss for words, Bisset soon found some, reaching back across decades of apparent show-biz hurt and neglect, to the chagrin of the person at the control board tasked with muting out bad words."</i> The reason I interpreted that portion of her speech differently from others is that, in my experience, Bisset had the least-victimized mentality of any of the 1960s-era actresses I interviewed. In contrast to others--who openly shared with me their hurt, hate, and resentment over losing out on key movie roles that they thought would have catapulted them to greater stardom; how they were treated cruelly by co-stars, directors, or the property master; or were cheated out of their life savings by unscrupulous agents, managers, or ex-spouses--Bisset had none of that "woe is me" attitude when discussing her life and career with me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzgTobNFx3TcJjMm6Cx3138-7f2N8rv0wfJv9eeTU4WMQ_AqC1m4DCk_3xwF7q0twdNOHCP66BlrxYPokzsAPCu8D9OaoL9Ck5yc7uHy3pTbcTQxiNYFIm_9iufnG1vt8cxig5bP2OAE/s1600/Bisset17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzgTobNFx3TcJjMm6Cx3138-7f2N8rv0wfJv9eeTU4WMQ_AqC1m4DCk_3xwF7q0twdNOHCP66BlrxYPokzsAPCu8D9OaoL9Ck5yc7uHy3pTbcTQxiNYFIm_9iufnG1vt8cxig5bP2OAE/s1600/Bisset17.JPG" height="400" width="292" /></a></div>
<br />
In fact, Bisset shared with me how she felt she was well treated by 20th Century-Fox when she had a long-term picture deal with them in the 1960s, and that they never put her into any movies she didn't want to do and always allowed her to work with other studios. Bisset recalled how, many years later, a former Fox executive told her that the studio enjoyed working with her because she was always so polite with them that she brought out the best in people and, as such, they never wanted to force her into any movies she wasn't keen on appearing in. Having dealt with her first-hand, I understood why the Fox executives responded positively to her civility. This was in contrast to her contemporaries, who often complained to me about being under contract to the studios, and how they openly complained about it at the time, and how they resented being forced into films they didn't want to appear in, and not being allowed to work for other studios, as if it were some great tragedy. Bisset's anecdote taught me how being civil, yet assertive, with people can help go a long way towards building allies and accomplishing goals, rather than creating turmoil and conflict and alienating individuals. I got the impression that she's someone who knows how to take care of herself and hasn't done things to open herself up to being victimized. I admit I'm not a close confidante of hers, but based on my experience with her I'd be surprised if she perceived herself that way, especially because of how she described her and her brother were raised by their parents to be mature individuals who took responsibility for their lives. She did acknowledge one or two instances in her career where things did not go so well with specific people she worked with, but there was no hate or resentment on her part when she described them, and those anecdotes were nothing compared to the dozens and dozens of archenemies and perceived wrongs that other 1960s-era actresses shared with me. My impression is that Bisset knows she is fortunate and I think she was just trying to make a joke when she made that aforementioned statement during her acceptance speech and people are reading more into it than is actually there. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7WQq3fBJO3ESGcH-0kiS8YxDYJ3aPsHBlEQ7nT18VovUVAvrEVy0fzd36DgtZFj7wdCnCE9TnpxZorVuzZdMMD67S4AVTzMS4gp_ILxrMNb-xJ_YelYyT478JCTw_S0LOvPwSDKrmXw/s1600/Bisset15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7WQq3fBJO3ESGcH-0kiS8YxDYJ3aPsHBlEQ7nT18VovUVAvrEVy0fzd36DgtZFj7wdCnCE9TnpxZorVuzZdMMD67S4AVTzMS4gp_ILxrMNb-xJ_YelYyT478JCTw_S0LOvPwSDKrmXw/s400/Bisset15.JPG" height="400" width="317" /></a></div>
<br />
I think Bisset's sensible outlook on her life and career was the reason why my late friend, the acclaimed production designer and producer Polly Platt, spoke so highly about Bisset. Polly had big likes and big dislikes in terms of the people she worked with throughout her career. Bisset was one of the few people--along with Ben Johnson and Lois Chiles--that Polly without reservation praised as a collaborative working professional and as a human being. (Polly wasn't alone--almost every other 1960s actress I dealt with had only positive things to say about Bisset, which is amazing because so many of them were ready to criticize one another, but they appeared to reserve their criticism when it came to Bisset.) I remember Polly telling me a story about how she worked with Bisset on "The Thief Who Came to Dinner" (1973) and how Bisset had no comprehension of how beautiful she really is, and the effect she had on people. Polly felt that Bisset didn't have the narcissism or ego of other actors she worked with. I think this has to do with something that Bisset shared with me--that her idea of beauty and perfection was the French film star Jeanne Moreau. She really admires Moreau and how comfortable she is in her own skin. Bisset said to me that she doesn't want to have a facelift and look plastic because, even though she realizes that one's appearance is important in the profession she is working in, she also wants to retain a sense of being genuine so that the people important to her in her personal life still respect her as an individual.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4JR8TZSaANxifMVablgR8QQhvhMq2C7txahM_wCm_bY6DNxj8bluYmtx43K2Fbg4PpMZY4cfq3nJVWt3pmFjiCoXRIn4SPWSFNzPndrJfnYEGuZk2x-CsPGkmh6zJjMNz5v_0SnNsPAM/s1600/Bisset5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4JR8TZSaANxifMVablgR8QQhvhMq2C7txahM_wCm_bY6DNxj8bluYmtx43K2Fbg4PpMZY4cfq3nJVWt3pmFjiCoXRIn4SPWSFNzPndrJfnYEGuZk2x-CsPGkmh6zJjMNz5v_0SnNsPAM/s400/Bisset5.JPG" height="400" width="297" /></a></div>
<br />
When the interview wound down, Bisset thanked me for the time and research I put into preparing for it and for asking detailed questions. She said she enjoyed getting to know me and recognized that I had prepared at length for the interview and wasn't just asking her generalized questions. I guess I was surprised because other actresses rarely thanked me for having prepared or researched to get ready for the interview. It was as if they expected that I would have watched every film or TV appearance before I met with them--and they're correct to expect me to be ready--but few really took the time to make note of it as Bisset did. I got the impression that day that she's a very decent, conscientious human being. She didn't play games and never messed with me like some of the other 1960s actresses had, was always above board and direct, and was thoughtful and considerate. I guess one thing that surprises me about the reaction to her speech was the level of <i>schadenfreude</i> and vitriol directed at Bisset. Aside from saying the word <i>"sh-t"</i> in her speech, she wasn't cruel or offensive or really do anything to warrant the level of ridicule and derision expressed by columnists or people commenting online. I wanted as much as anyone to see her hit it out of the park, but I think the reaction to the speech was completely disproportionate to what actually occurred. I can sort of understand it if the vitriol was directed at someone who was consistently and vocally obnoxious, but that's not Bisset. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LjitqT3JEYskgRFdjwdmIl95rpwCsXnjmSKd39t5GZOj-wl4O9hfIaL88hYEVL89qszvQ8fPnqBNpajRzGe6CPwHQCa0D7t_ROK6Uf90pJKyAsWeE6kNcGigx9RzFR059kjfZEkdfjU/s1600/Bisset13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LjitqT3JEYskgRFdjwdmIl95rpwCsXnjmSKd39t5GZOj-wl4O9hfIaL88hYEVL89qszvQ8fPnqBNpajRzGe6CPwHQCa0D7t_ROK6Uf90pJKyAsWeE6kNcGigx9RzFR059kjfZEkdfjU/s400/Bisset13.JPG" height="400" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't want to give the impression that I am bosom buddies with Jacqueline Bisset because I haven't been in touch with her for years. I remember that, a week after I interviewed her, she called me at home to say that she had spoken with her friend Ursula Andress, who lived in Rome, and tried to persuade Ms. Andress to let me interview her. Bisset said that, she wasn't sure Andress had decided to do it, but wanted to give me her phone number and contact information and said I was welcome to contact her directly. (I did reach out to Andress, but was never able to connect with her.) Nevertheless, it was a thoughtful gesure on Bisset's part considering she had already given me quite a bit of her time. The last time I heard from her was several Christmases ago. She had sent me a Christmas card and hoped I was doing well and asked what I was up to, and commented on a few things that had happened in her life. Anyway, I'm not sharing this story to try and impress you that I was able to interview Jacqueline Bisset, or other 1960s actresses, when I was working on that book project, because I admit it sounds kind of obnoxious and self-aggrandizing. (And if I am opening myself up for ridicule for sharing my positive memories and impressions of her, well so be it.) I simply wanted to provide another perspective about her which appears to have gotten lost this week after her unforgettable acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. What I regret the most is the fact that Bisset's Golden Globe win, which was richly deserved both for that performance and for her lengthy career, has been overshadowed by a lot of nasty comments that really aren't warranted in the larger scheme of things. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_erSdjhyQl2yCGyKXhcywQjyeO8SU9JEb4q4snMJQ3bcrBcihNSAakCGCs30yFfL1Tb9_nHcToHtzmI8wHYB4yFFhnlLGle5jr_X9JICzuzPdWsxQyn8lUsXJev-c_caBpsScbZuS100/s1600/Bisset2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_erSdjhyQl2yCGyKXhcywQjyeO8SU9JEb4q4snMJQ3bcrBcihNSAakCGCs30yFfL1Tb9_nHcToHtzmI8wHYB4yFFhnlLGle5jr_X9JICzuzPdWsxQyn8lUsXJev-c_caBpsScbZuS100/s400/Bisset2.JPG" height="400" width="305" /></a></div>
<br />
If there is a bright side to this, it's that I got the impression in my dealings with her that Jacqueline Bisset is a strong, sensible person who is able to laugh at herself and I think she'll ride out this controversy in the long run. (It's been more than 2 days since her speech--and to date she hasn't rushed out any press release out of any fear or concern for damage control--so it's entirely possible she's unfazed by the attention and I hope that that's the case. But I also recognize that Bisset, like the rest of us, is a sensitive human being and I wouldn't blame her if some of the comments directed at her could be taken to heart.) More importantly, if there's anything positive to be gained from this, hopefully it'll allow a lot of people who may not be familiar with Bisset to become more acquainted with her and her work. I think one reason why the fallout from her speech appeared to be so negative is because, even though she remains a very prolific actress, especially in independent films and TV movies, she admittedly hasn't had a major hit movie in awhile. It's possible that a lot of younger people in their 20s probably haven't seen her in Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" (1973), or "Airport" (1970), or "Bullitt" (1968), or "Murder on the Orient Express (1974) or "Rich and Famous" (1981) or "Under the Volcano" (1984) and don't realize what a sophisticated, earthy, winning presence she is as an actress (and why so many of us who remember her heyday in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s have such a positive opinion about her). Hopefully, they will now. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-13244122158677612912014-01-12T14:13:00.006-08:002014-05-11T14:27:31.370-07:00Mark Harmon and Jo Ann Pflug Learn About Life While Patrolling in "Adam-12"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrs31eqxcz1MmvRH_-WXy-c6cdGwIu-KmH5lo-2VnJhYOihrk2E5pylR-Jv2t8L6IIHr73g6IxCJgj346fqYQayhv3FD7sGlQi2V7lJa5dgYCcmbDmo8TtqX2J0I2yZcCebAefld2P0c/s1600/AD21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrs31eqxcz1MmvRH_-WXy-c6cdGwIu-KmH5lo-2VnJhYOihrk2E5pylR-Jv2t8L6IIHr73g6IxCJgj346fqYQayhv3FD7sGlQi2V7lJa5dgYCcmbDmo8TtqX2J0I2yZcCebAefld2P0c/s1600/AD21.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Growing up as a kid, "Adam-12" was one of my favorite TV shows. It ran almost concurrently with my childhood years being raised in a Los Angeles that still had remnants of its past glories as it was about to embark in a new era marked by further urban development, mini malls, and ever expanding diversity. Los Angeles is a great city and it was a great place to grow up. I think growing up there taught me to respect and appreciate solid traditions while, at the same time, keeping my mind open to new and fresh perspectives. Watching "Adam-12" now reminds of me those days as a kid in the 1970s when the city was on the cusp of new, exciting, and controversial developments. In contrast to the equally great and iconic, but comparatively stage-bound and claustrophobic "Dragnet" (which was also produced by Jack Webb), what made "Adam-12" so great was how so much of it was shot on location on the streets of Los Angeles. The early years of "Adam-12" were clearly shot in the North Hollywood/Studio City/San Fernando Valley areas that surrounded Universal Studios, the company that made "Adam-12." But, as the show progressed, it seemed to gradually venture further and further beyond those locations so that other, notable areas of the city were also represented. Anyone who wants to study the history of Los Angeles locations should watch "Adam-12."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhds4FYQWxiwaKzHv_HDFrAu5ECp5zTUsC3Rna2Xcbk2IYg_3gfmT_-ta_iBYUvT-OdzfwN7u4wnFAT6jwHCzRD2MrHMjrEIRz1dCrDMNGywR7GJO-LciDm7EtFPaQ8kDU0Gfl3ppnMyZs/s1600/AD22.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhds4FYQWxiwaKzHv_HDFrAu5ECp5zTUsC3Rna2Xcbk2IYg_3gfmT_-ta_iBYUvT-OdzfwN7u4wnFAT6jwHCzRD2MrHMjrEIRz1dCrDMNGywR7GJO-LciDm7EtFPaQ8kDU0Gfl3ppnMyZs/s1600/AD22.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What also made me love the show was the easy camaraderie between Martin Milner, as Officer Pete Malloy, and Kent McCord, as Officer Jim Reed. Their friendship was simple and uncomplicated, but also completely genuine and believable throughout the seven years of this series. There was no backstory involving their characters that would create tension between them as so many police or crime dramas would insert nowadays. They just genuinely, and unquestioningly, liked and cared about each other and they completely understood each other on an instinctive level. But that doesn't mean the show didn't occasionally allow us a sense of who they were as individuals outside of their profession. Over the course of the series, we learn that Malloy is a confirmed, yet happy, bachelor who isn't looking to settle down in life. He usually bristles at the suggestion that he should get married and have a family someday. (Though by the end of the series he seems happily involved with a woman named Judy, played by Aneta Corsaut from "The Andy Griffith Show.") He's a solid, "old school," kind of guy who would be the first to admit that he isn't particularly complicated, but has a calm, rational way of viewing the world so that he is able to interact effectively with the diverse group of individuals he encounters throughout his career as a police officer.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs6lFcfbx86CCuq_N3WRJmA7uR_YztIQyfLB7ANfCPVTU_r43g-acgwk9I0q5J1GQY9BicoElLWcZr1b10iNxruxz6Hx9QdJ2bA-MmmYoiQOneck4XHkwWC6TAjvTh7dzW0mx3sTVt5A/s1600/AD23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs6lFcfbx86CCuq_N3WRJmA7uR_YztIQyfLB7ANfCPVTU_r43g-acgwk9I0q5J1GQY9BicoElLWcZr1b10iNxruxz6Hx9QdJ2bA-MmmYoiQOneck4XHkwWC6TAjvTh7dzW0mx3sTVt5A/s1600/AD23.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xjcO32J5RH-x0rMW1SVPyitboN2buK442PqeMP2GLFNML-jPN-z0fubeZF7q7agibNTkYG97WJo4I10FwutH_PaQdt73PldlKsb22uTRY5ZJoDgV_-XFvB3x3t7WNX2rQHeM2ru22wg/s1600/AD24.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xjcO32J5RH-x0rMW1SVPyitboN2buK442PqeMP2GLFNML-jPN-z0fubeZF7q7agibNTkYG97WJo4I10FwutH_PaQdt73PldlKsb22uTRY5ZJoDgV_-XFvB3x3t7WNX2rQHeM2ru22wg/s1600/AD24.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast, Reed is a happily married guy, with a young son, who was fresh out of the Army at the time he joined the LAPD. We learn that Reed's loving and devoted wife, Jean, dislikes hearing about police work because it continually reminds her of how her husband may be harmed in the line of duty. Nevertheless, Jean still rises to the occasion and is supportive of her husband, especially in a second season episode entitled "A Rare Occasion," when she learns that one of her husband's fellow patrol officers has died and she immediately offers to go to the hospital to help comfort his widow. Malloy and Reed become such close friends that Reed and his wife decide to make the acerbic Malloy their son's godfather, a gesture that clearly moves and touches Malloy. I remember an episode in the middle of the run of the series where Reed casually mentions to Malloy that his son Jimmy is ill, and Malloy demonstrates how concerned he is about the boy's health, commenting that <i>"There's nothing more important to me than my godson."</i> And that's about it in terms of "character development," but that's all right in the context of "Adam-12." We learn just enough about Malloy and Reed to know that we care about them without allowing the show to lose sight of what it's supposed to be about. (Don't misunderstand me. The show did occasionally step outside its comfort zone, especially in episodes like 1970's poignant <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/46081" target="_blank">"Elegy for a Pig,"</a>
a dialogue-less episode, told in flashback, as Malloy recalls his close
friendship with a fellow police officer killed in the line of duty. Such atypical episodes helped to heighten our appreciation of the series as a whole.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlv5ETTMOHR3q1om3vi31C4goytap3SeHmFvGRbwnjPRuuZ1SNQ4dUez1Q12s1iPwjmKl1HTHUhKDIpEwK7SMSUWiMLFDu12KqcwtAJdez6za2pQ2jl29VBk_XDSMEIdZvg4hFYGy66DM/s1600/AD25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlv5ETTMOHR3q1om3vi31C4goytap3SeHmFvGRbwnjPRuuZ1SNQ4dUez1Q12s1iPwjmKl1HTHUhKDIpEwK7SMSUWiMLFDu12KqcwtAJdez6za2pQ2jl29VBk_XDSMEIdZvg4hFYGy66DM/s1600/AD25.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JfRMzJmSic7jCxssNKl80bVe_zMHVGmP0b9mBvIFjyiPskPHentA6MDzycH-9arYWF4Sot4-E2vw2p3qQhnd_P3UzX8NefL9nUgxb7ovc9KtxMrYctMbma10oosA6x0xHB49ZBoQpqk/s1600/AD26.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JfRMzJmSic7jCxssNKl80bVe_zMHVGmP0b9mBvIFjyiPskPHentA6MDzycH-9arYWF4Sot4-E2vw2p3qQhnd_P3UzX8NefL9nUgxb7ovc9KtxMrYctMbma10oosA6x0xHB49ZBoQpqk/s1600/AD26.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSNA3jQzLlLzddu_g2CYt_Mopxnsh-3_dHC6_FAD7pjTdiQrqGJl5JF-3bZLDpRLoDRQa95-SCRrdjUs5zeXaFyoIabLiOtjpWxAYAveNGhUnJNjkgVW_lvL9BSBMYpf4i20hQkeQxVfA/s1600/AD28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSNA3jQzLlLzddu_g2CYt_Mopxnsh-3_dHC6_FAD7pjTdiQrqGJl5JF-3bZLDpRLoDRQa95-SCRrdjUs5zeXaFyoIabLiOtjpWxAYAveNGhUnJNjkgVW_lvL9BSBMYpf4i20hQkeQxVfA/s1600/AD28.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Unlike other, later police dramas, which try to "develop" its characters by creating contrived conflicts and focusing too much on the trials and tribulations at home of the regulars, "Adam-12" kept its eye on the ball and focused on the police work. It was kind of an unusual show in that most episodes were very loosely structured vignettes depicting a series of events in a day in the life of Malloy and Reed as they patrolled the streets of Los Angeles in their police unit with the radio call sign of "1-Adam-12." It wasn't a typical police drama in that few episodes introduced a villain or conflict at the start of the episode that the heroes had to resolve or capture by the end of the segment. Furthermore, unlike most other police dramas, "Adam-12" was a 30 minute television series, as opposed to a one-hour drama. The comparative brevity of the episodes allowed the writers and producers of the show to retain its loose, almost plot-less storytelling technique so that the show wouldn't have to be padded with needless exposition in order to fill out a one-hour time slot. I would argue that its short running time allowed the producers freedom to make most episodes as unstructured and relaxed as they were. It wasn't needlessly melodramatic in its content, and its scenes of action and violence also seemed credible because they were staged matter-of-factly and never seemed contrived or outrageous. In the course of a typical episode, Malloy and Reed could end up dealing with armed robbery suspects, but they might also become involved with attempting to locate a missing child, issue traffic citations, deal with quarreling neighbors, interact with individuals in the public that they have developed connections and friendships with, or whatever else might cross their paths during the course of their day. Even though some would argue "Adam-12" was a "formulaic" show, I would wager that its relaxed, free-form style was in itself daring and innovative. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXyIzAexR8os2fWvtqRcxiiXfD8BNvI3KO4Yc3VE5eYLrB7BHaRsS7TkVSjjShCSUgcT_KYjbPLuuIGVpO3kPOdLXrMLMIOcCq0nUuvkiKXBLiVnASu_caZ8px50m0kyuo5JH2r_ATh0/s1600/AD27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXyIzAexR8os2fWvtqRcxiiXfD8BNvI3KO4Yc3VE5eYLrB7BHaRsS7TkVSjjShCSUgcT_KYjbPLuuIGVpO3kPOdLXrMLMIOcCq0nUuvkiKXBLiVnASu_caZ8px50m0kyuo5JH2r_ATh0/s1600/AD27.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
When the show debuted, Malloy was already a seven year veteran patrol officer who was about to leave the force due to his guilt over his partner being killed several weeks earlier. When he meets the rookie Jim Reed on what was supposed to be his last day with the LAPD, he seems rather impatient and stern with the young, wide-eyed neophyte patrol officer. Malloy is wound so tight that, when he asks the rookie officer <i>"Do you know what this is?"</i> and Reed eagerly responds, <i>"Yes, sir. It's a police car,"</i> he gives Reed an admonishing description of their vehicle, and how he should learn to appreciate it, which is a brilliant monologue, that Milner delivers with <i>ratatat</i> precision, and has to be seen to be believed: <i>"This black and white patrol car has an overhead valve V-8 engine. It develops 325 horsepower at 4800 RPMs. It accelerates from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds and has a top speed of 120 miles an hour. It's equipped with a multi-channel DFE radio and electronic siren capable of emitting three variables: Wail, Yelp and Alert. It also serves as an outside radio speaker and a public address system. The automobile has two shotgun racks: One attached to the bottom portion of the front seat, one in the vehicle trunk. Attached to the middle of the dash, illuminated by a single bulb is a hot sheet desk, fastened to which you will always make sure is the latest one off the teletype before you ever roll. It's your life insurance. And mine. You take care it, it'll take care of you."</i> In so doing, Malloy has already started to impart to Reed that nothing associated with their work, even the tools and weaponry that they rely upon to accomplish it, should be taken for granted. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Q1Kzw2LyLSPRltVUeSej7PBTjKvoxXLsEHhiZTFJvWWD6IjO9wfMafxZup9EZ1H1tjTLUfMRM21gbIioBLaGrUUspz3oIcDUTeY9KWsXZaRp_b7PTmZzBnGXCwR8x0e71GQm9JqWVQw/s1600/AD30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Q1Kzw2LyLSPRltVUeSej7PBTjKvoxXLsEHhiZTFJvWWD6IjO9wfMafxZup9EZ1H1tjTLUfMRM21gbIioBLaGrUUspz3oIcDUTeY9KWsXZaRp_b7PTmZzBnGXCwR8x0e71GQm9JqWVQw/s400/AD30.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Over the course of their first day together, however, he recognizes both the skill, as well as the impetuousness, of the eager and brash young Reed. Malloy, who recognizes qualities in the young Reed not unlike himself when he was a rookie, decides to stay on the police force so that he can mentor Reed and offer the benefit of his wizened perspective and experience to his new friend and partner. As "Adam-12" progresses, you see how Malloy goes from being serious and uptight to becoming a more relaxed and warmer individual due to the enthusiastic presence of Reed in his life. Martin Milner does a great job at allowing us to see the warmth and humanity of Malloy so that he becomes a character we both admire and care about. Concurrently, you see how Reed goes from wide-eyed, naive, and eager, to becoming cool, controlled, and calm as he gains more experience on the streets. Kent McCord has never been praised as a brilliant actor, but he does fine work playing Jim Reed. What I notice as I watch "Adam-12" through the years is how McCord demonstrates to us how Reed continues to mature and develop confidence in his job as he recognizes the responsibilities that come with his position. I particularly like how McCord's eyes grow tougher and more assured by the time the series ends in 1975, seven years after his character joined the police force in 1968. As regular viewers of the show can attest, we've seen Reed grow up before our very eyes.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGzcMFg0PvXBY2mP_a7TBbZLyoEbMZ10ASxps5yMIeCRISbdtXCOG5GqkH7aiBIPUIlurkamWmZrjbuN1tRAkqAHeFsxl318LJJUFKzXJetk0hwTBMda66Avil1ksrK5LU9e5uIlQetg/s1600/AD14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGzcMFg0PvXBY2mP_a7TBbZLyoEbMZ10ASxps5yMIeCRISbdtXCOG5GqkH7aiBIPUIlurkamWmZrjbuN1tRAkqAHeFsxl318LJJUFKzXJetk0hwTBMda66Avil1ksrK5LU9e5uIlQetg/s1600/AD14.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg88TpQKBOh0Kp8GHl50V_hBWfqIWw6EYMZTtkZWL4-UyhJvJynh3Lqt97qHvmUbv2ukxCXVE9y7LvCZGSXo0pnzosZWtoy9YrA8h1-9paoujAAKhpLyFXjXv3oBrRafc00jlCH7D1k5s/s1600/AD15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg88TpQKBOh0Kp8GHl50V_hBWfqIWw6EYMZTtkZWL4-UyhJvJynh3Lqt97qHvmUbv2ukxCXVE9y7LvCZGSXo0pnzosZWtoy9YrA8h1-9paoujAAKhpLyFXjXv3oBrRafc00jlCH7D1k5s/s1600/AD15.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Towards the end of the show's run, the writers allowed "Adam-12" to step outside its regular format and produce two episodes that fully dramatized and demonstrated how Reed had come into his own and went from being the rookie trainee to becoming a training officer himself. In the 7th Season episode entitled "Gus Corbin," which aired April 1, 1975, Malloy is assigned duty as acting watch commander for a day. Reed is assigned to patrol with a young officer, Gus Corbin (Mark Harmon), who is already 9 months into his probationary period as a police officer. Corbin is a Marine Corps veteran and a talented and conscientious young man, but one who is also insecure about his youthful appearance and how that might cause the public to perceive him. When Malloy and Corbin pull over a mother and daughter who are driving recklessly in a green Chevrolet Vega Station Wagon, Corbin impetuously scolds the mother by telling her, <i>"What are you trying to do lady, get yourself killed?"</i> They learn that the mother and daughter were chasing after a thief who had snatched the mother's purse. When Corbin asks for a description of the suspect, the young daughter describes him as <i>"sorta young, around your age, 18, maybe 19 (years old). He has real long hair."</i> Later, back in their patrol car, Corbin sneers and whines as he mimics the young girl's description of the suspect as <i>"About your age, 18 or 19."</i> Recognizing that Corbin is taking the girl's comment too much to heart, he tries to reassure his partner that <i>"There's nothing wrong with being young. You know most adults wouldn't look past the uniform or the badge."</i> Corbin self-pityingly muses aloud, <i>"I'd rather grow a mustache."</i> Reed again tries to buck up his young colleague by sharing with him that <i>"When I was 21, I didn't look a day over 18 either."</i> Corbin continues whining as he responds to Reed, <i>"But I'm 24!"</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCbzJyZl8Lt10Fi0q-GoV6CzzddDO2NPTft5w-Y2hN-YELPvdJkyY0QedZ1UX3jni6dArR2tWaSHwLerS4ds7mOpgXEGkgBTj9LhQ09pg9qMUGtdX6JrPh1_etAR7wRD_J3Ax-PMh9P4/s1600/AD16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCbzJyZl8Lt10Fi0q-GoV6CzzddDO2NPTft5w-Y2hN-YELPvdJkyY0QedZ1UX3jni6dArR2tWaSHwLerS4ds7mOpgXEGkgBTj9LhQ09pg9qMUGtdX6JrPh1_etAR7wRD_J3Ax-PMh9P4/s1600/AD16.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Corbin's insecurity over his youthfulness, and how others might perceive him as a result of it, causes him to overcompensate for it later in the episode. When Corbin and Reed apprehend the purse snatching suspect, Corbin is overly brusque with the suspect, who surrenders peacefully to both officers, and locks the handcuffs too tightly on him. When the suspect complains about his handcuffs, Corbin coldly responds, <i>"You should've thought of that before you stole the lady's purse, Ace."</i> Reed notices how the cuffs are indeed too tight on the suspect and loosens them. Later on, after the suspect has been booked, Reed discusses with Corbin his overzealousness with the suspect. Corbin glibly remarks, <i>"He had it comin'."</i> Reed pointedly asks Corbin, <i>"You tryin' to prove something'?"</i> When Corbin defensively asks <i>"What have I got to prove?"</i> Reed responds by telling him <i>"Maybe it would be easier if you grew a mustache."</i> In so doing, Reed highlights to Corbin how his own insecurity, and need to overcompensate for it, is starting to affect his judgement and instincts in being able to make effective decisions with his job.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL3EYgem9SNrn-bLnssbmMzZ76XA0HkqYP9swMQlFAc2tMZiN-W8m5hbbsWYfW_6Vg5QNbU_ZS1_2G0-xxvF0JavtAa9HDexSB3yWjNogpjI0qUOJ9B9Q9JLw9Ov-y9fcDZ9LEN4R71FA/s1600/AD17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL3EYgem9SNrn-bLnssbmMzZ76XA0HkqYP9swMQlFAc2tMZiN-W8m5hbbsWYfW_6Vg5QNbU_ZS1_2G0-xxvF0JavtAa9HDexSB3yWjNogpjI0qUOJ9B9Q9JLw9Ov-y9fcDZ9LEN4R71FA/s1600/AD17.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Later, Reed and Corbin investigate a break-in at a pharmacy that is meant to allow the suspects to rob the pawn shop next door. While Reed is busy apprehending one of the suspects on the roof, Malloy and Corbin investigate the pharmacy and then the pawn shop. Corbin impetuously suggests using tear gas to ferret out the suspects, who are in hiding, but Malloy vetoes Corbin because it's too premature to resort to such procedures. As Malloy goes to call for backup, he orders Corbin to stay put and not search any further until he returns. Corbin defies Malloy's direct order and begins nosing around. Corbin is able to spot the remaining suspect, which leads to his arrest, but Corbin's defiance of Malloy's orders causes the senior officer to call the young rookie to the carpet. Malloy asks Reed, while Corbin is present, <i>"Jim how much do you figure it costs to put a man through the Academy?"</i> When Reed speculates it costs about $12,000 to $15,000, Malloy asks, <i>"Did you know that Corbin?...So if you get yourself killed, the Department's out of a lot of money. That would be quite a waste, wouldn't it?"</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw9V-2F7Zvz70K5L5IJltVrSD9EfKW-nNPTF12-TmVngNlnWNqBW4PpwL8v_b4IIjaXvRX2c9z2wpe_Iq1WqXF0q0_RXrHhmcXBfIVDmyUixy_fKiJ-oP5DB8RENjwKlas7_SDLmnxjws/s1600/AD18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw9V-2F7Zvz70K5L5IJltVrSD9EfKW-nNPTF12-TmVngNlnWNqBW4PpwL8v_b4IIjaXvRX2c9z2wpe_Iq1WqXF0q0_RXrHhmcXBfIVDmyUixy_fKiJ-oP5DB8RENjwKlas7_SDLmnxjws/s1600/AD18.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_eOtl8jzDneNA4yg8XbKzr7W9aAOLENxwlBh3KG_sPchZA5cf78R5KVmZbY5C-GRG4nTLOS3FpPuWOLuy6JAbXlqM5pGa8rIkiZ0-Yr5k8E87ABBLWaUc6HtJP6LDNGs8Xc0ggWYW3LM/s1600/AD19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_eOtl8jzDneNA4yg8XbKzr7W9aAOLENxwlBh3KG_sPchZA5cf78R5KVmZbY5C-GRG4nTLOS3FpPuWOLuy6JAbXlqM5pGa8rIkiZ0-Yr5k8E87ABBLWaUc6HtJP6LDNGs8Xc0ggWYW3LM/s1600/AD19.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When Corbin tries to explain that he didn't think it would hurt to look around, Malloy continues dressing down the rookie, <i>"I didn't tell you to go exploring."</i> Corbin makes the case that, if he hadn't been looking around, they wouldn't have found the suspects in hiding. Malloy contradicts him by pointing out, <i>"Yes we would, when SWAT got here."</i> Reed attempts to defend his young partner by arguing on his behalf, <i>"Look, Pete, I know what his problem is. He's just a little eager."</i> Malloy bluntly responds <i>"There's a difference between being eager and being stupid."</i> Reed offers to point that distinction out to Corbin only to have Malloy respond, <i>"So will I...Give me about 5 minutes"</i> before dressing down Corbin further off-screen. To his credit, Corbin acknowledges to Malloy later, <i>"Phew, that Malloy's really hard nosed, isn't he?...The heck of it is, he's right. Maybe I should grow a mustache."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIxSn3zWVsg09x-G6X0URv48UOIQPQfY3b5IJG7DCAeJTSJqFssIBD_Itd2AX7ywrhDezVYBTCh45H2ErFZvzVdAYv8ExOQrgAn6NsRr6LEvQUBWysEPax8NJ7oinL6VyR-DOqDSWyPA/s1600/AD20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIxSn3zWVsg09x-G6X0URv48UOIQPQfY3b5IJG7DCAeJTSJqFssIBD_Itd2AX7ywrhDezVYBTCh45H2ErFZvzVdAYv8ExOQrgAn6NsRr6LEvQUBWysEPax8NJ7oinL6VyR-DOqDSWyPA/s1600/AD20.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though Corbin acknowledges his immaturity, he soon demonstrates how he still has much to learn when he and Reed soon afterwards find themselves pursuing a robbery suspect. As Corbin leaps out of the car to pursue the suspect on foot, he loses his service revolver and is essentially walking into a dangerous situation unarmed. Using his wits and determination, Corbin is able to bluff the suspect into believing he still has his weapon and apprehends him single-handedly. A disapproving Reed soon comes upon the scene and returns the gun to Corbin in front of the suspect, who realizes he's been had. As they place the suspect in the patrol car, Reed reminds Corbin that he needs to be more careful while on duty than what he has demonstrated so far. A humbled Corbin acknowledges, <i>"This just hasn't been one of my better days,"</i> which Reed responds by acknowledging <i>"That's putting it mildly!"</i> Corbin continues by expressing how he realizes <i>"I've been playing with the Academy's money again. But I figured he wouldn't know I dropped my gun."</i> Reed points out to Corbin that <i>"You've got a lot of confidence, but you've also got a lot to learn."</i> Corbin nods and acknowledges, <i>"But I've got a great teacher."</i> What redeems Corbin in this storyline is that, despite his insecurity and immaturity and impetuousness, he's also intelligent and humble and self-aware enough to recognize his own faults and short-comings. He might make the wrong call, but he's quick to realize his mistakes and own up to them. Mark Harmon demonstrates his early promise and potential as an actor with this guest role on "Adam-12." Harmon's inherent strength as an actor is his courage and willingness to play characters who are flawed and human, but who also demonstrate tremendous integrity and bravery at the same time. He's not a one-dimensional hero as an actor and his performance as Gus Corbin prefigures the fine work that Harmon had to look forward to in decades to come.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtZDM-2AnpwnvF9IeZ6S9R5D3kfuRv-amfjBprSfXkxVw4M1WVRxACRQRfoq_nKO-PD0JIr2rZ1pHIlDj9nCwak3TqspMjxZ8MiMHLojjBZwUWzl7R8vUyRo3hPBmA7U9lgVGiJTe0yA/s1600/AD1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtZDM-2AnpwnvF9IeZ6S9R5D3kfuRv-amfjBprSfXkxVw4M1WVRxACRQRfoq_nKO-PD0JIr2rZ1pHIlDj9nCwak3TqspMjxZ8MiMHLojjBZwUWzl7R8vUyRo3hPBmA7U9lgVGiJTe0yA/s1600/AD1.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Soon after the "Gus Corbin" episode, "Adam-12" aired on April 29, 1975 a similarly-themed episode entitled "Dana Hall," with Jo Ann Pflug guest-starring as a female patrol officer who is being trained by Jim Reed while Malloy is still serving as the acting watch commander. In contrast to Gus Corbin, who had to deal with his own insecurities and immaturity while learning to become a good police officer, Dana Hall has to deal with condescension from male police officers who feel that she doesn't have what it takes to do the job. As arrogant Officer Ed Wells (Gary Crosby) says aloud, within Dana Hall's earshot, <i>"Well they better not put one in my car, that's all. It's the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Where is Super Chick anyway?"</i> An annoyed Malloy dresses Wells down by telling him, <i>"Look, she's pickin' up reports and why don't you knock that stuff off. You know, she's gonna have enough problems without you hasslin' her."</i> Wells condescendingly tells Reed, <i>"You just watch yourself out there today, buddy boy. Don't count on the Ladies Auxillary to back you up."</i> Reed ends the discussion by simply telling Wells, <i>"Look, Ed, you take care of your unit and I'll take care of Adam-12, OK?"</i> As they walk out, Wells holds the door open for Hall, to condescendingly highlight she isn't one of them as far as he's concerned, to which she drily responds <i>"You're sweet."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x9OxWvqhOK0nKlpv8p3tb2eUw_N83IuTYRmHtAmzKu2Y2ZXTVEyA4t6DtPr6yDThH8-FJggle13jOVMicxStxRyI3ZzW5CySMdKm7DFs7Uu73ewsRcOXeHDEBkCIt0RyD1vslZnMrj8/s1600/AD2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x9OxWvqhOK0nKlpv8p3tb2eUw_N83IuTYRmHtAmzKu2Y2ZXTVEyA4t6DtPr6yDThH8-FJggle13jOVMicxStxRyI3ZzW5CySMdKm7DFs7Uu73ewsRcOXeHDEBkCIt0RyD1vslZnMrj8/s1600/AD2.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What I rather like about the episode is how Malloy and Reed neither condescend nor show preferential treatment to Hall during her first day as a patrol officer. While they are both clearly getting used to the idea of working with a female patrol officer, they each handle the situation by dealing with it at face value and holding Hall to the same standards they would hold to themselves and other officers. When Hall defensively asks Reed while they are on patrol, <i>"Well...Shall we get those tired old questions out of the way, like 'What's a nice girl like me doing in a patrol car?,'"</i> Reed simply responds by saying, <i>"Well, I assume you like the job or the money."</i> Hall brightens up and says <i>"Well that's a refreshing attitude. You don't mind having a woman for a partner?"</i> Reed candidly responds, <i>"Not unless you're gonna harp upon it all day long."</i> In so doing, Reed treats Hall with the same level of respect as he treated Officer Gus Corbin in the previous episode. As with Corbin, he makes no assumptions about Hall and allows her an opportunity to prove herself while on the job. Later, Hall shares with Reed that <i>"When I finished college, I considered graduate school, even law. I couldn't decide, so I took a job. Do you know that I worked four years for my B.A. and the best job was as a secretary to a dirty old man? Talk about your boring! That's boring! I was so anxious to do something that was really useful that when this job came along I just took it."</i> In so doing, we understand that Hall became a police officer after careful consideration of the options presented to her in life, and that she doesn't have any agenda outside of doing a good job. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfTtSzlSc-l3Igostox2xFSx6ObHn52p_F7bYY_hp6-VS1QrAyJPpDpmVWJfmaAWpeDrNuR7tShXRB17cbZuSKrM-E_HIGPbZIJVsj2DrMJgB0GBSL4d5CvrVrq4WiRkz0LZyqALroWc/s1600/AD3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfTtSzlSc-l3Igostox2xFSx6ObHn52p_F7bYY_hp6-VS1QrAyJPpDpmVWJfmaAWpeDrNuR7tShXRB17cbZuSKrM-E_HIGPbZIJVsj2DrMJgB0GBSL4d5CvrVrq4WiRkz0LZyqALroWc/s1600/AD3.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
However, like Corbin, Hall has her own set of insecurities that occasionally mar her judgement as a police officer. Whereas Corbin was insecure because of his youthful appearance, and how that would affect the way he would be perceived, Hall's insecurities stem from how people might perceive her as a female police officer. After Reed and Hall arrest a teenage DUI suspect, they both speak with the young man's mother after she arrives at the police station to pick up her son. When the mother admits to being permissive and allowing her son to drink occasionally at home, thinking that that would be better for her son than experimenting with illegal drugs, Hall scolds the mother for enabling her son and being a bad influence on him. Hall bristles when the mother attempts to reason with her by making the case that <i>"Surely, as a woman, you..."</i> to which Hall cuts her off and reminds the mother <i>"I am a police officer, Mrs. Bell. I handle police problems. Your family problems are your own."</i> When Reed asks to speak to Hall privately over a cup of coffee, Hall asks <i>"Is this a conference...Man to Man?"</i> to which Reed shakes his head and replies, <i>"Cop to Cop."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcnKzhK4Ghpww2L9R0OAXeLfbyZGQx8c3SEAFvXDdjyUBRtC3n4t8cHfg_spTD2DJGxqgSOfayGwTSjIdVvpRE_ZoaWyZe9SLzBmLg0iHgYQ17u6Ml1naJj2GUMhkxh1_87JxM8x7n10/s1600/AD4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcnKzhK4Ghpww2L9R0OAXeLfbyZGQx8c3SEAFvXDdjyUBRtC3n4t8cHfg_spTD2DJGxqgSOfayGwTSjIdVvpRE_ZoaWyZe9SLzBmLg0iHgYQ17u6Ml1naJj2GUMhkxh1_87JxM8x7n10/s1600/AD4.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When Reed points out that Hall came on too strong with the mother of the DUI suspect, Hall defensively responds, <i>"Well, in another minute she would have had a crying towel on my shoulder."</i> Reed reminds her that <i>"Sometimes that's part of the uniform."</i> Hall scoffs and asks, <i>"For lady cops?"</i> to which Reed explains, <i>"No, for every cop. You know what I think? I think she was starting to get through to you and you were afraid of that so you started acting like you were tough. But believe me that's not a departmental requirement."</i> When Hall asks, <i>"You mean the other cops would have come in and listened to a sob story?"</i> Reed responds, <i>"Yes, most of them. Even Ed Wells. You don't like him, but at least he doesn't leave his feelings in the locker room when he puts on his uniform. Now you try to do that and you're gonna end up a basket case and you're not gonna be good as a cop either."</i> As with Gus Corbin in the earlier episode, despite her insecurities, Hall is able to recognize sage advice when it's being offered to her and acknowledges, <i>"You know the problem with you Jim is you're right."</i> In so doing, Reed underscores that Hall doesn't need to lose her humanity or sensitivity in order to prove to herself and others that she is a good police officer, and that those are assets that will come in handy in her line of work. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkK9IB8ijqDicQBe7oLdce_0OZ_EYL7tHg02ZSk1VTUnjouTsEqB9-ZxUKji3ww-BrdsuE86f9v2qkNfL0enVNsdAtdlUM9uZLp9W_3JVa8xjLIh1d6Qdu1ng364re7Iox_mmaiukHQC4/s1600/AD5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkK9IB8ijqDicQBe7oLdce_0OZ_EYL7tHg02ZSk1VTUnjouTsEqB9-ZxUKji3ww-BrdsuE86f9v2qkNfL0enVNsdAtdlUM9uZLp9W_3JVa8xjLIh1d6Qdu1ng364re7Iox_mmaiukHQC4/s1600/AD5.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GsINoViZOjwuHO5w9qpEL_OGGL038Ld-UfUAOFFKxVWMU6DK4eSKIEUNR-ruP3hjrPJrkbLETV0oXf_8xqJDH85mtWuA6k70iEVdZLFvupwk9K2bnv0FZM8UIRbaw1LglAFBgYtNnvU/s1600/AD6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GsINoViZOjwuHO5w9qpEL_OGGL038Ld-UfUAOFFKxVWMU6DK4eSKIEUNR-ruP3hjrPJrkbLETV0oXf_8xqJDH85mtWuA6k70iEVdZLFvupwk9K2bnv0FZM8UIRbaw1LglAFBgYtNnvU/s1600/AD6.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As with Gus Corbin, Dana Hall proves throughout her episode that she is a talented and capable police officer who has much to learn, but who also much to offer on the job. She relentlessly chases on foot a car stripping subject throughout a parking garage until he is out of breath and accidentally runs into a post and knocks himself out. As Hall explains to Reed, the suspect hurt himself because <i>"He was about ready to fall down anyway, he's not in good shape."</i> Hall further explains to Reed, <i>"I used to hit the Hill with gusto at the Academy, I still do a couple of miles every morning,"</i> to underscore how her physical stamina wore out the suspect to such a degree that she was able to take him into custody. Later, during a riot taking place at a rock concert, Hall single-handedly apprehends several suspects and is even able to save her nemesis, Ed Wells, from being clobbered by rioters. When Malloy asks Hall to stay with the Command Post and help him process the suspects, rather than returning to where the rioting is taking place, Hall responds <i>"But my partner's up there."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfuItYi7SUhSYz-YmVmE8x0txTiBxad64wApiUhYiupRtR7aYVIXKazS_vH29MpYUDJc3Lda4a7ZKA5fLvgFefKBwaaBTrV0hMLPLO8TOlifXmkGxMNM-b7DxgLlKfZFyq6XTE3vB9hz0/s1600/AD8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfuItYi7SUhSYz-YmVmE8x0txTiBxad64wApiUhYiupRtR7aYVIXKazS_vH29MpYUDJc3Lda4a7ZKA5fLvgFefKBwaaBTrV0hMLPLO8TOlifXmkGxMNM-b7DxgLlKfZFyq6XTE3vB9hz0/s1600/AD8.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUIeVBXoJgrKHCSHD47oTGoQ-FIdB2ej4irhKIv1d-_zBaSxvu-Bagc-LqCYR32ugMkozQXBvDIse-cCstA1zbSyv0VoMHFhTjcoWRd-bGKa8Ah9NpXADy8X0wbo_S47MvnpWh2Y3gzc/s1600/AD9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUIeVBXoJgrKHCSHD47oTGoQ-FIdB2ej4irhKIv1d-_zBaSxvu-Bagc-LqCYR32ugMkozQXBvDIse-cCstA1zbSyv0VoMHFhTjcoWRd-bGKa8Ah9NpXADy8X0wbo_S47MvnpWh2Y3gzc/s1600/AD9.JPG" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
At that point, the show draws a distinction between Dana Hall's character, and the Gus Corbin character played by Mark Harmon in the previous episode. In Gus Corbin's episode, when Malloy told Corbin to stay in place until reinforcements could arrive, Corbin disregards the order and searches the pawn shop without backup. In Dana Hall's similar situation at the riot, when Malloy asks Hall to stand down and help at the Command Post, Hall requests permission to continue working with Reed to subdue the rioters. In so doing, Hall demonstrates her comparative maturity to Corbin because of how she is able to see the bigger picture. She respects the chain of command and doesn't show herself to be foolish and foolhardy the way Corbin occasionally was in his episode, which is why she is treated with more respect and as a genuine equal by Malloy and Reed, compared to the way Corbin was treated at times in his episode by Reed and Malloy as an immature kid. I think this has to do with the fact that, even though Dana Hall demonstrates courage and assertiveness, she doesn't do anything to put herself, or others, in unnecessary danger the way Gus Corbin did in his episode.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAk-u7Da0FHShSf0oiulhlQ0WW7Cg1LMwu6aMhcC59hBxlvMhhHNq7xm54NLU39zSAdMJWirQeJfDvcH_ZvDttZwewGUg4ahhFj7uiGOv0K_PC277OFOfg0uRCYm2eHETYYTHzwrMnf0k/s1600/AD12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAk-u7Da0FHShSf0oiulhlQ0WW7Cg1LMwu6aMhcC59hBxlvMhhHNq7xm54NLU39zSAdMJWirQeJfDvcH_ZvDttZwewGUg4ahhFj7uiGOv0K_PC277OFOfg0uRCYm2eHETYYTHzwrMnf0k/s1600/AD12.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
People who might find some aspects of the "Dana Hall" episode dated should really watch it in the same context as the "Gus Corbin" episode. Both involve rookie police officers being trained by Reed. Hall has to deal with prejudice and condescension due to her gender, and some aspects of the episode might seem regressive such as when Hall files her finger nails in the patrol car and admits that she keeps her lipstick in her sock while in uniform, but compared to Gus Corbin, Dana Hall is portrayed much more competently and maturely. Though she isn't perfect, she still doesn't make as many mistakes during her patrol with Reed the way Corbin does. Jo Ann Pflug does a good job at demonstrating Dana Hall's intelligence and dedication to her job. She's attractive and appealing, but also convincingly brave and athletic when dealing with the more physical aspects of the role. Despite "Adam-12's" reputation as an old fashioned, conservative show, it is also in many ways a fair-minded program because it is willing to consider new ideas while at the same time upholding traditions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj74R0b3TZuYzkhVep-IMONTO7BTRnGdedkgHpNyP-uhP8UyzY9JYds0XNgQpA_jSsN4DvY1pUhEjLqL05RrFCwOLJfatO8dblmf-VoCKqcbWh4OErSjzKfTNZRKNpmM5HyFqWRNmRI0BE/s1600/AD13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj74R0b3TZuYzkhVep-IMONTO7BTRnGdedkgHpNyP-uhP8UyzY9JYds0XNgQpA_jSsN4DvY1pUhEjLqL05RrFCwOLJfatO8dblmf-VoCKqcbWh4OErSjzKfTNZRKNpmM5HyFqWRNmRI0BE/s1600/AD13.JPG" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyuhyFdqRHDLT4vp_KyFbG_sa_GOOZWDgFWxgC7oMGEfaeK-9cgMk17iRo1LfpdfQNphE_7P7PkL05lmX4TQChzFVshzSp1z9LZq1KI5LbYTWnA3ey78s2tPbWxZheFasdk-_65sflZpE/s1600/AD7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyuhyFdqRHDLT4vp_KyFbG_sa_GOOZWDgFWxgC7oMGEfaeK-9cgMk17iRo1LfpdfQNphE_7P7PkL05lmX4TQChzFVshzSp1z9LZq1KI5LbYTWnA3ey78s2tPbWxZheFasdk-_65sflZpE/s1600/AD7.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
By the end of the Dana Hall episode, even though Ed Wells still isn't completely convinced of the idea of women being police officers, the show demonstrates how she has started to prove herself to her other colleagues. In the epilogue, Officer Jerry Woods (Fred Stromsoe), who was also skeptical of Hall, tells Wells in the locker room, <i>"I'm telling you Buddy Boy, she saved your bacon. No kidding, you should've seen the way she cleared that rail without breaking stride. I'll bet you couldn't do it."</i> When Reed points out that Hall's 8 years of ballet training allowed her to develop athletic skills that helped her deal with the rioters, Woods continues ribbing Wells by telling him <i>"She study ballet too? See, that's your problem Wells! Not enough Ballet!"</i> Wells remains unconvinced and insists, <i>"Maybe Hall's an exception...Maybe she's one of those, what do you call 'em?, Amazons. Freak. All I know is this: no normal woman can handle this job and I don't care if you give her a gun, a baton, a whip and a chair. The whole idea stinks, you know. Because if you let one of them in, there goes the whole department."</i> Reed sensibly opines, <i>"You're a reactionary, you know that Ed?"</i> As they run into Hall out in the hallway, attractively dressed in civilian attire, she cheekily holds the door open for Wells, to demonstrate to him that she's no longer intimidated by what he, or anyone else, thinks of her as a police officer.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS2mUYcsvxrG5apSdPgZIg5E93Wsqulvo6X4OIh6kMe9rrI1YytbACHq9gZxEzmGgXB6gXu_gUocwoa7HyT8mQG7Tpv3chc-oSRTZ9AxH50gfn9Zc_ER0CKj-9CV8XYEDRnOrH-8C6H_o/s1600/AD29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS2mUYcsvxrG5apSdPgZIg5E93Wsqulvo6X4OIh6kMe9rrI1YytbACHq9gZxEzmGgXB6gXu_gUocwoa7HyT8mQG7Tpv3chc-oSRTZ9AxH50gfn9Zc_ER0CKj-9CV8XYEDRnOrH-8C6H_o/s1600/AD29.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though these two episodes are atypical in that Malloy and Reed are not patrolling together in "Adam-12," the episodes are satisfying because they help underscore the extent to which their working relationship has matured throughout the seven years we've been watching them. Malloy feels confident and assured that he has taught Reed everything he needs to know that he is able to start taking other leadership assignments that will allow him to continue progressing in the LAPD. Meanwhile, Reed has gone from being the wide-eyed neophyte to the wizened mentor, ready to dispense helpful insights to new police officers who are about to embark on a new, exciting phase in their lives. Even though they aren't working together in these episodes, I never get the feeling that Malloy and Reed are ever in danger of drifting apart and losing that friendship that is the hallmark of the series. This is because Reed continually confers with Malloy with regards to working with both Corbin and Hall, and Malloy continues to be present to help offer helpful insights to Reed as his partner has now become a mentor to others and begins to take on new roles and assignments on his own. "Adam-12" would continue for just two more episodes, when the series finally ended with an episode where Reed is awarded the LAPD Medal of Valor for saving Malloy's life. I always found these last episodes rather poignant because, even though it's not clearly stated, they do suggest that Malloy and Reed are on the brink of going in new directions in their careers that would, in essence, end their partnership patrolling together in Adam-12. Nevertheless, I always found the series finale of "Adam-12" extremely satisfying because I always feel like I have experienced something special watching the burgeoning friendship and partnership of two men who enriched their lives, and ours, by demonstrating qualities of courage, leadership and integrity week-after-week.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-23940547840745727082014-01-11T13:26:00.000-08:002014-01-11T19:35:41.532-08:00Bo Derek Outshines Morgan Fairchild and Redeems "Fashion House"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdD1vzfe2zOBimcdojswfRibjCUipcYVDUCIdtDtoW6C2gC5XYve2TVT1cMnXBipEuYCkYD4uo9MT6eMVuhEvmoGDrw6xjGJ8hTQmsgPMy0sA7hOuKCGH8ZjqxnWlTrEMPkKv1Vd-f5uk/s1600/FH13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdD1vzfe2zOBimcdojswfRibjCUipcYVDUCIdtDtoW6C2gC5XYve2TVT1cMnXBipEuYCkYD4uo9MT6eMVuhEvmoGDrw6xjGJ8hTQmsgPMy0sA7hOuKCGH8ZjqxnWlTrEMPkKv1Vd-f5uk/s1600/FH13.JPG" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A couple of years ago, during my last year of law school, I started noticing advertisements for a newly launched network called MyNetworkTV, which was comprised of former affiliates of the WB and UPN networks that did not join the successor network, The CW, that had consolidated the majority of affiliates from those two former television entities. MyNetworkTV was planning to launch a series of low-budget, scripted programming inspired by Spanish-language "telenovelas," which would air 5 nights a week for 13 weeks, produce approximately 65 episodes, and would wrap up its storylines for good before eventually introducing a brand new telenovela to replace it in its timeslot. In essence, even though these shows were directly inspired by the sort of programming Telemundo made popular, to American viewers these shows were essentially a melding of the 1980s prime time soap and miniseries genres.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJ7h6vPP1Z-p3Lowtdw1B0aMWDk7FNdvd35nAl7IBd2DqUMw9hLDPPq2RUcHtx5wt7qfzItcFjWj2i9qTwe80wKDUBNJcWgS0HSXwjZl1Hp81U4OkhSWfKfjlVzWCIyL41brbXWbvpvM/s1600/FH14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJ7h6vPP1Z-p3Lowtdw1B0aMWDk7FNdvd35nAl7IBd2DqUMw9hLDPPq2RUcHtx5wt7qfzItcFjWj2i9qTwe80wKDUBNJcWgS0HSXwjZl1Hp81U4OkhSWfKfjlVzWCIyL41brbXWbvpvM/s1600/FH14.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I was intrigued when I heard about these shows and was, secretly, rooting for them to be a success even though I instinctively sensed that they were likely destined to fail. With the short attention span of viewers who are now interested in reality television and personalities, it didn't seem likely that viewers would devote 5 nights a week to the same show even if it was only for 3 months. I still wanted them to be a success because, as trashy as these shows promised to be, at least they were going to be hour-long scripted dramas that would provide an alternative to reality show nonsense. Even though most of these shows hired actors, writers, and directors who, at that time, had limited experience, the success of the MyNetworkTV telenovelas still required a modicum of some talent, ability and creativity if they were to succeed. These shows still needed to create and develop what they hoped would be compelling stories and characters, as opposed to merely turning the camera on human side show acts, and letting them go at each other, the way reality shows appear to operate. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigAiSNWNz1oHbt1haOhKSYIhhLtcAIOcP1AKs-9f_RYFbaNufMMyqurx-fPQxMoqkek9YmDv83Aflne8oICYtO_jXxB3c47-9D1w6WLVwWG6B_4fMmwUbZGTP2bcTOxFXYbcN-oWouim4/s1600/FH12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigAiSNWNz1oHbt1haOhKSYIhhLtcAIOcP1AKs-9f_RYFbaNufMMyqurx-fPQxMoqkek9YmDv83Aflne8oICYtO_jXxB3c47-9D1w6WLVwWG6B_4fMmwUbZGTP2bcTOxFXYbcN-oWouim4/s1600/FH12.JPG" height="246" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The most interesting of all of the MyNetworkTV telenovelas was their flagship drama "Fashion House." Clearly inspired by the nighttime soap operas of the 1980s, "Fashion House" concerned itself with the intrigue and drama surrounding a beautiful and ruthless designer, her colleagues and associates who work for her renowned fashion design firm in Los Angeles, and her enemies who are out to destroy her and her empire. "Fashion House" was a flawed, yet entertaining, show that managed to look glamorous and glossy despite what must have been an extremely low-budget and fast shooting schedule in order to produce nearly 65 episodes within about 4 or 5 months. It was well photographed on Hi-Def and had some stylish sets and costumes which still look attractive today when watching clips of the show on YouTube. (Only occasionally do you look closer and sense that the sets are cheaper and chintzier than they initially appear.) The younger cast was comprised mostly of inexperienced, fledgling actors who were endearingly awkward, but whose acting ultimately improved over the course of the series. (Mini Anden was particularly memorable as the self-destructive fashion model Tania Ford, who ultimately takes the fall for a murder that was planned by others. Her final scene on the show, where she has completely lost her mind and begins to imagine she is in a fashion photo shoot while she's getting her mug shot taken by the police, was surprisingly poignant and effective, though still campy and ludicrous at the same time.) It even created some surprisingly interesting characters and situations despite the show's propensity for going for the cheap and sensational. Nevertheless, "Fashion House" turned out to be a ratings failure and a critical disaster even though it was arguably the most "successful" of all the MyNetworkTV" telenovelas that debuted during that time.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8f7mCtc49OKaLl25dnKcfY6Sckihr-czwreyoXl9j2FpvnOoWHVi34S_g587oXScCWh-7XS8v8QpFyCsf8Poo8XLG_uzdrDrdvFiOM6sxVtHIWCPM7BK3rRnsbSRw_vD2r3hSz31NtOM/s1600/FH11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8f7mCtc49OKaLl25dnKcfY6Sckihr-czwreyoXl9j2FpvnOoWHVi34S_g587oXScCWh-7XS8v8QpFyCsf8Poo8XLG_uzdrDrdvFiOM6sxVtHIWCPM7BK3rRnsbSRw_vD2r3hSz31NtOM/s1600/FH11.JPG" height="247" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
"Fashion House" will never be considered on the same level as other nighttime soaps like <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/legacy-jock-ewing-last-will-and-testament-dallas-knots-landing.html" target="_blank">"Dallas,"</a> <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/01/Favoring-Falcon-Crest.html" target="_blank">"Falcon Crest,"</a> <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-hypocrisy-and-elitism-of-knots.html" target="_blank">"Knots Landing,"</a> "Dynasty," "Peyton Place," or even <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2014/01/concurrent-love-squares-dallas-flamingo-road.html" target="_blank">"Flamingo Road"</a> because its purpose was clearly to provide low-cost programming to fill timeslots on MyNetworkTV affiliates and to fulfill the minimal requirements and expectations of its genre. For the most part, it rarely tried to subvert, elevate, or transcend the genre, nor did it often allow itself time to let the actors find nuances to their scenes so that their characters and stories could be more than met the eye. It also overindulged at times in a campy, cutesy, whimsical comedic tone at times that was annoying rather than endearing and detracted from its better storylines. At times, it felt as if the writers were merely fulfilling a checklist of cliches that were borrowed from previous nighttime serials: catfights, beautiful women, glamorous settings, scandal, hunky heroes and lotharios, occasional pathos and tragedy. It also needlessly overindulged in long flashback sequences of scenes from earlier episodes (either to pad out the running time or put things into context for viewers who didn't have time to devote themselves to the show 5 nights a week, or both), and also ended many scenes with an annoying visual device of an overexposed freeze frame shot that was supposed to emulate flashbulbs going off at a fashion photo shoot. And yet, despite all of its shortcomings, there were occasional moments of inspiration on the show that demonstrated the scrappy skill and intelligence of the creative personnel involved that underscored how hard they worked to produce as good a show as possible within the limited framework they were provided. I'm not arguing that "Fashion House" is an unheralded television masterpiece. I <i>am</i> suggesting that it's not as worthless or dispensable as its detractors have alleged.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsYO9WZhqBRRkEGVZ2Hl9_B3CQ_56387l40ZqfOyKAx89qA6QmZz6N7wCJlw-gIEsOR4qxGtn-G16xiaiXVBbH6BzQ_-289AYKjcVuHOOOGlxvYzm-MQmCrD9n5ruhN1RIVSwKh8bTZg/s1600/FH9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsYO9WZhqBRRkEGVZ2Hl9_B3CQ_56387l40ZqfOyKAx89qA6QmZz6N7wCJlw-gIEsOR4qxGtn-G16xiaiXVBbH6BzQ_-289AYKjcVuHOOOGlxvYzm-MQmCrD9n5ruhN1RIVSwKh8bTZg/s1600/FH9.JPG" height="241" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the my favorite characters on the series was Donna Feldman as the
initially trashy, but ultimately sympathetic Gloria Thompson. The
Gloria character starts off trying to break up a marriage and has close
ties to a small-time mobster Eddie Zarouvian (Jordi Vilasuso), who is
also her son's father. Eventually, we learn that Gloria is a loving
mother to her young son Alec and is a devoted daughter to her mother Doris
(Tippi Hedren) who is dying of cancer. Gloria asks her mobster
ex-boyfriend Eddie to arrange for a contract hit to eliminate her
romantic rival Michelle (Natalie Martinez) who is still married to Lance
(Mike Begovich), the man Gloria is infatuated with. After her mother dies
of cancer, Gloria realizes that she has to fulfill her mother's dying
wish that she conduct her life with integrity and decency, and races
against time to call off the hit, which causes her son Alec to be
wounded accidentally. Gloria stops being a bubble-headed idiot in life and later gets herself a decent job at the
hospital, finds herself in a romantic relationship with an upstanding
doctor, and again saves the life of her romantic rival, now
friend, Michelle, when mobster Eddie kidnaps Michelle because he
believes she has documents he is looking for that belonged to her
husband Lance. Despite the silliness of the storyline, I found the
Gloria character compelling because she resembled the sort of foolish femme
fatale bad girl from film noirs whose selfish and self-centered
exteriors hide a streak of decency that simply need the right
opportunity to mature and develop. Her character's story arc reminded me slightly of another Gloria--Grahame--who was compelling playing former gangster moll Debby Marsh in Fritz Lang's classic "The Big Heat" (1953). Over the course of the series you
witness Donna Feldman gain confidence as an actress (she's particularly effective in her scenes with Tippi Hedren as her mother) so that the character she is playing, Gloria, also develops integrity and decency as an individual to such a degree that you really grow to like this character. It's a genuine relief, at the end of "Fashion House,"
that the writers and producers show mercy to Gloria and
give her the happy ending that she deserves. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAnYyyTI5c1xkjqluJbl_PFQvVfg7jhzhacwcqopS8WLdjO7LWF2anhch2rQf01DG-15_IQOxStIsM-yTW17aSxVMPT2cxCPEj8I1ezdIbbauCDokOV7TKIXPIRY1MFPqVYWnrGKVJ61I/s1600/FH5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAnYyyTI5c1xkjqluJbl_PFQvVfg7jhzhacwcqopS8WLdjO7LWF2anhch2rQf01DG-15_IQOxStIsM-yTW17aSxVMPT2cxCPEj8I1ezdIbbauCDokOV7TKIXPIRY1MFPqVYWnrGKVJ61I/s1600/FH5.JPG" height="246" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0SUb7-Di0S7WKSjCog4n8v0c_XNRX4pw3QFsG8KSN_S1mZ7EniSZy5YhVnpuWZGi3WbRN8IvdQ0TgN-6OAa5Aem8YV9fQNpOShUKcicN0lZCI8dmGfJshbSBXTjyGdNL4lKKFguF1pV4/s1600/FH15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0SUb7-Di0S7WKSjCog4n8v0c_XNRX4pw3QFsG8KSN_S1mZ7EniSZy5YhVnpuWZGi3WbRN8IvdQ0TgN-6OAa5Aem8YV9fQNpOShUKcicN0lZCI8dmGfJshbSBXTjyGdNL4lKKFguF1pV4/s1600/FH15.JPG" height="246" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Nevertheless, the show's most important asset was undoubtedly the presence of Bo Derek in the lead role of ruthless fashion designer Maria Gianni. In a word, Derek was a revelation in this role. Even though I was a child of the 1980s, I was never particularly a fan of Derek's during her heyday when she was married to John Derek and known for her sexy roles in movies like "10" (1979) and "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1981), and "Bolero" (1984). I did sense that Derek started to come into her own in later years when she became an admirable and vocal advocate on behalf of Veterans issues and developed a charming sense of humor about her prior image as a sex symbol in various interviews. But none of these developments prepared me for how good she would be on this show. Maria Gianni is clearly meant to be pastiche combination of prior prime time soap villainesses, such as Alexis Colby (Joan Collins) on "Dynasty" or Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) on "Melrose Place." But Derek brings her own sense of ruthless determination, deadpan wit, and steely courage to the role that she never comes across as someone slavishly imitating someone else. She creates a memorable character that was all her own.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8Z6dxDo-MwTaLWLsmnTgcPNnA0iqZV4s4tmK_unOiDNjTVk3CHXey0lnIU3FrbTidncjsLAk7GeoOf_yX6_qzForLM83Lyn-As_qSlkwIToYKacb7fze3BUDrdTjvsiBElS45fowXzU/s1600/FH3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8Z6dxDo-MwTaLWLsmnTgcPNnA0iqZV4s4tmK_unOiDNjTVk3CHXey0lnIU3FrbTidncjsLAk7GeoOf_yX6_qzForLM83Lyn-As_qSlkwIToYKacb7fze3BUDrdTjvsiBElS45fowXzU/s1600/FH3.JPG" height="241" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The thing I like the most about Derek's work on this show is that she rarely succumbs to a cutesy-campy approach to her role. Derek plays Maria Gianni with a dangerous, take-no-prisoners attitude that underscores why most of the characters on the show are afraid of her. Derek still instills a sense of dry, dead pan wit to Maria to demonstrate to us that she's clearly relishing and enjoying this role, but it never undercuts or demeans Maria's sense of authority. Derek's sense of humor on the show never winks at the camera the way other actresses might have, which maximizes the effectiveness of her sharp and brutal barbs. Even though the Maria character is meant to be a shallow, one-dimensional antagonist on the series with little to recommend or redeem her, that doesn't mean Derek's performance is one note. Derek is particularly good in scenes where Maria is having sessions with her unscrupulous psychiatrist Dr. Woods (Mark Totty). In these sessions, Derek allows Maria moments of candor and vulnerability which suggest that Maria is completely aware of how destructive she really is, and that she has no conscience or ethics or hesitations about it. She's evil because she chooses to be. And, yet, we still like the Maria character better than almost everyone else on the series who earn our comparative contempt because they are too stupid or submissive to deal with Maria effectively.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRVnoycsm1if57Q06dXUBENAwZ84fEhUEwHe_u5Bas8x8AwZsQcBM01Rz4zbFe3CiHfhhMMXRHhM-UqqueKPL7U-_zTYakCRyZMvkMMUKSXYJ1BBQCRxF-RDlgXBNZz59KjMU88Rbj3Q/s1600/FH1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRVnoycsm1if57Q06dXUBENAwZ84fEhUEwHe_u5Bas8x8AwZsQcBM01Rz4zbFe3CiHfhhMMXRHhM-UqqueKPL7U-_zTYakCRyZMvkMMUKSXYJ1BBQCRxF-RDlgXBNZz59KjMU88Rbj3Q/s1600/FH1.JPG" height="241" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/PqbKpmi7St8?t=5m10s" target="_blank">One of Derek's best scenes</a> on the show is when she is commiserating with her son Luke Gianni (Taylor Kinney) after she has been humiliated at the altar during her aborted wedding to William Chandler (Joel Berti). At the wedding, William insults Maria and refuses to marry her, in front of her family and associates, and reveals that his seduction of her was part of an elaborate revenge plot between himself and his mother, Sophia Blakely (Morgan Fairchild), who still blame Maria for the death of William's father and Sophia's husband, Charles, after he left his family to be with Maria and later committed suicide when Maria left him to marry a rich man who could help set up her fashion empire. Maria asks Luke to pour her another drink and begins to express her feelings of grief and sadness as she feels sorry for herself. She hands her empty glass to her son and asks <i>"Would you get me another? They go down that fast they're medicinal. This one will be for enjoyment."</i> Derek effectively conveys Maria's rare sense of self-pity in this candid moment of vulnerability. As her son expresses his anger at what happened, and inadvertently reminds Maria that William Chandler and Sophia Blakley humiliated her publicly, Maria sardonically replies in a deadpan manner <i>"Thanks for the pep talk."</i> Maria goes on to explain how <i>"I don't think anybody can know how I feel. Luke, I allowed myself to fall in love with that man. I trusted him."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixYDEvFhQdOvSMdLnPnUT-Pk1EhToLjHWzWk9kYTxvM7Cl5mdN6OynkoEyL3fypADPdERLAVqOpcooeWiNzKrF1uj-is5RjHm-4na1o2bviD-oHH9oj3QSM81WXXOMcQZ_coXU7t3f_kY/s1600/FH2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixYDEvFhQdOvSMdLnPnUT-Pk1EhToLjHWzWk9kYTxvM7Cl5mdN6OynkoEyL3fypADPdERLAVqOpcooeWiNzKrF1uj-is5RjHm-4na1o2bviD-oHH9oj3QSM81WXXOMcQZ_coXU7t3f_kY/s1600/FH2.JPG" height="238" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When Luke expresses aloud how he wishes he could understand why William humiliated Maria, she bitterly brushes back tears and responds <i>"So do I. William wooed me at every opportunity. He showered me with expensive gifts. He understood things about me that no man ever has."</i> When Luke asks his mother if she still loves William Chandler, Maria angrily tosses a pearl necklace given to her by William across the room and shouts with rage, <i>"Damn him and that woman to Hell! I'm Maria Gianni! I've never been blindsided! That b-stard and that b-tch ruined me in front of the world and I still have these stupid feelings for him! I despise him for what he did to me. But most of all I feel like a fool. Like a very stupid fool."</i> I like how Derek effectively projects Maria's conflicted feelings over the situation, alternating between rage and hurt and frustration and confusion. She hates William for what he did, but can't forget how much she loved him, which means that she will stop at nothing to get even with him and his mother for what they did to her. She is able to demonstrate how, even though Maria has single-minded goals and purposes in life and has no empathy for others, she's not so coldblooded that she can't allow herself moments of vulnerability where she can easily be hurt.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNKFTVyuYLhLR5FPh3fM3PkNA9q054D4s94yx1dBzyTbMZ1qq3XPHwIJ2eTZzSDzOQ0D_y2m17fxGWf5USI7fAj7y-HAj8odoFuV594W2VG6n4yDQYYpCy9gkS0nqnnAnoh7yxdzf4acc/s1600/FH6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNKFTVyuYLhLR5FPh3fM3PkNA9q054D4s94yx1dBzyTbMZ1qq3XPHwIJ2eTZzSDzOQ0D_y2m17fxGWf5USI7fAj7y-HAj8odoFuV594W2VG6n4yDQYYpCy9gkS0nqnnAnoh7yxdzf4acc/s1600/FH6.JPG" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Derek easily steals the show away from Morgan Fairchild, who plays her arch-rival Sophia Blakely. Fairchild, who <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/affected-acting-activism-morgan-fairchild.html" target="_blank">I've never liked as an actress</a> despite doing effective work occasionally on "Flamingo Road," plays Sophia in much too light-hearted a tone, considering how she's supposed to be the woman out for revenge because her family and marriage were destroyed by Maria. Fairchild is not as effective as Derek simply because she condescends to the material by approaching it only as mere camp. At times, she looks like she is auditioning for a guest role on the risible "Desperate Housewives" by playing Sophia in a mannered cutesy-whimsical tone that was the narcissistic hallmark of that overrated and misogynist series. Fairchild is particularly bad and unconvincing during a scene later on in the series when she learns that the woman who is having an affair with her son William, and carrying her grandchild, has miscarried the baby. Despite guest-starring as various mothers on sitcoms through the years, Fairchild has not one ounce of maternal warmth in her body, which makes it difficult for her to convincingly convey Sophia's grief at losing her first grandchild. I know "Fashion House" is meant to be escapist entertainent, but since Fairchild doesn't take it seriously enough to bring the role some nuance or depth, we can't help but side with Bo Derek's obstensibly unsympathetic, but ultimately much more compelling and likeable, Maria Gianni. From an objective viewpoint, we ought to like Sophia better than Maria, but we don't because Fairchild does nothing to demonstrate there are different layers to her character, while Derek maximizes this opportunity to make the most of showing us what Maria Gianni is made of.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKAPY3fP5_bWDL55l9Rs2pD4biH4_Tj7lmPKMN9-V6kBZQWpNMykvZbnl4ts3Yohied_53h-tsEAlBys-0rlCCgPAwJRTnMkuWhhlU_V2euLaLIMuYJgGp2tLsMG5O2E1lEBONy8R1uI/s1600/FH7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKAPY3fP5_bWDL55l9Rs2pD4biH4_Tj7lmPKMN9-V6kBZQWpNMykvZbnl4ts3Yohied_53h-tsEAlBys-0rlCCgPAwJRTnMkuWhhlU_V2euLaLIMuYJgGp2tLsMG5O2E1lEBONy8R1uI/s1600/FH7.JPG" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfdjTnivAjsMTJKBctBIi4dZ4nCc_7s7_Pm3RDfbtmkLY1c6WRaDdfJcQDFZ_mJStqzSpO1GBPbZ3gRzMs4KyDVrBnjuAI0ZVkizkb2rg5i9NmxScn3OOiotXERKovo-Mwb7QE4mXoFN0/s1600/FH8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfdjTnivAjsMTJKBctBIi4dZ4nCc_7s7_Pm3RDfbtmkLY1c6WRaDdfJcQDFZ_mJStqzSpO1GBPbZ3gRzMs4KyDVrBnjuAI0ZVkizkb2rg5i9NmxScn3OOiotXERKovo-Mwb7QE4mXoFN0/s1600/FH8.JPG" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though the catfights and rivalry between Maria and Sophia are meant to evoke the Joan Collins/Linda Evans rivalry on "Dynasty," it really reminds me more of the Angela Channing (Jane Wyman)/Jacqueline Perrault (Lana Turner) competitive relationship from the early years of "Falcon Crest." Maria, similar to Angela Channing "Falcon Crest," is a despotic ruler of a business empire where she has her minions and colleagues cowering with fear. Both women have complex/contentious relationships with their own children. Both find themselves in situations where, suddenly out of the blue, they are faced with the arrival of a long-time romantic rival from decades ago who still resents them for being involved with the man that they loved. In Angela's instance on "Falcon Crest," she was the wronged woman married to Douglas Channing (Stephen Elliott), who was having an affair with Jacqueline Perrault, the wife of Angela's brother Jason. In Maria's instance on "Fashion House," she was the adulterer who stole Sophia's husband away from her and broke up her family. In both Maria and Angela's case, there is a son born from these relationships whose parentage is clouded under a veil of subterfuge and secrecy: Angela had her son Richard stolen from her at childbirth and falsely told by her doctors that he was stillborn, while Douglas and Jacqueline Perrault had him spirited away to Europe where he would be raised by others. Later on, Jacqueline falsely assumes responsibility for being Richard's mother before the truth eventually comes out years later that he is really Angela's son. In the backstory to "Fashion House," Maria lies to her future husband Antonio Gianni that she is carrying his baby when, in fact, Luke is the son that resulted from her affair with Charles Blakely, which makes Luke the half-brother of Maria's fiance William Chandler and the stepson of Sophia. Sophia is unexpectedly sympathetic to Luke, even though he is the son of her archenemy Maria, which establishes a maternal-son bond between them, which is comparable to the way Richard on "Falcon Crest" found himself in a mother-son situation with both Jacqueline and Angela at different stages of that series.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBT4fbW-N3j6Vkiw9j09M6rZvbK52SZAxu717DW_oGo2k8OtK7yNDPLvdOIg4YtfCwjPhZy2YZ61nSrSqFqYHBm9dg2Td5xS_joCwvy_5-ImsfPzT4a0BX5DhjN7phKbzYHWyAJlxQQ0/s1600/FH4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBT4fbW-N3j6Vkiw9j09M6rZvbK52SZAxu717DW_oGo2k8OtK7yNDPLvdOIg4YtfCwjPhZy2YZ61nSrSqFqYHBm9dg2Td5xS_joCwvy_5-ImsfPzT4a0BX5DhjN7phKbzYHWyAJlxQQ0/s1600/FH4.JPG" height="243" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
"Fashion House" may be a forgotten footnote in television history, but I still think it was the best of the MyNetworkTV telenovelas. It's certainly the one telenovela from that network that I would welcome seeing released on DVD, as I think people who missed it on its original run might find it entertaining if they give it a try. I think it's too bad that the show was introduced in that telenovela, 5 nights a week for 13 weeks format because I think it would have turned out better had it been a regular weekly prime time soap with a less strenuous shooting schedule, less redundancy in its scripts and storylines, fewer flashbacks, fewer characters (it's overloaded with too many people at times that tend to overshadow the Maria/Sophia rivalry at the heart of the show), and a bigger budget to hire more experienced actors in the supporting cast. Even with all of its flaws, the show is redeemed by Bo Derek's surprisingly compelling performance as ruthless Maria Gianni. I think one reason why Derek is so sympathetic as Maria is because the show stacks the deck against her so that she doesn't always win and, at times, Sophia gets the best of her. At one point in the series, Maria even ends up in jail and has to fend off brutal cellmates who are out to intimidate her. During that vignette, Derek does a good job at projecting Maria's sense of fear and determination while trying to survive in such a treacherous environment. Because Maria occasionally struggles, even with all her ruthlessness and prior success, we like her better than her adversaries because we have seen the extent to which she has to scratch and crawl to survive. If "Fashion House" is remembered for anything, it should be because it allowed Bo Derek an opportunity to create a multi-faceted character who was charming and devious, and also allowed her a rare chance to demonstrate her dedication and rarely tapped potential as an actress that helped to bring out the best in this show. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2675393718702467550.post-601494145145913452014-01-05T14:55:00.000-08:002014-01-06T10:49:26.193-08:00Concurrent Love Squares on "Dallas" and "Flamingo Road"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7_ba67iva5QO3-gE-eTdMrEYfUCLknTINiDiLyGDFr_yhWo5Ok32hw8bWJzJNehvrqLPbour9SCOa-FqnLw6MVtFZibNxJMgcR40NUiG1Wq3KrBagq12bZY0PixJNLRPNxXAOyohMKo/s1600/LS14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7_ba67iva5QO3-gE-eTdMrEYfUCLknTINiDiLyGDFr_yhWo5Ok32hw8bWJzJNehvrqLPbour9SCOa-FqnLw6MVtFZibNxJMgcR40NUiG1Wq3KrBagq12bZY0PixJNLRPNxXAOyohMKo/s400/LS14.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It's not unusual when a hit television series inspires a host of imitators containing elements that are similar to the show that preceded it. What <i>is</i> unusual is when the original hit show starts to emulate one of its imitators in both content, story, characterization, and casting. In 1980, NBC introduced the prime time soap "Flamingo Road" in the wake of the success of CBS' "Dallas." "Flamingo Road," like "Dallas" was produced by Lorimar and featured many of the same personnel working both behind the scenes and in front of the cameras. "Flamingo Road" originated from Robert Wilder's 1942 novel of the same name, which detailed political corruption and intrigue in a small Florida town, and later became a short-lived Broadway play in 1946, which only lasted 7 performances. In 1949, Warner Brothers bought the rights to "Flamingo Road" and turned it into a feature film starring Joan Crawford as Lane Bellamy, a tough, cynical carnival dancer who attempts to move up the social ladder in the corrupt Florida hamlet of Bolden City. While the feature film was designed to emulate the Crawford formula of films showing the rags-to-riches story arc of her characters, who are usually from the wrong side of the tracks, the TV version of "Flamingo Road" would take its inspiration from the burgeoning success of prime time soaps in the wake of "Dallas."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeD1jRkURjumgfSNb1bNyTn3HlvZpmXo8Cj04Q4MvWXCXfvOZ9cQ-jRrQuiVYWM5w181WoL80M0kKXqn9kFf_aJsr6sixT7joIvuFrf7Lm_v0P7rv4xNMRa3GgFxfSJX60L7kBsFF5h4/s1600/LS4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeD1jRkURjumgfSNb1bNyTn3HlvZpmXo8Cj04Q4MvWXCXfvOZ9cQ-jRrQuiVYWM5w181WoL80M0kKXqn9kFf_aJsr6sixT7joIvuFrf7Lm_v0P7rv4xNMRa3GgFxfSJX60L7kBsFF5h4/s400/LS4.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the 1980s NBC TV version of "Flamingo Road," Lane Ballou (now played by <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-cristina-raines-song.html" target="_blank">Cristina Raines</a>) was still a tough, cynical carnival dancer who decides to make a life for herself in a small Florida town (this time called Truro instead of Bolden City) after she has become burned out from traveling town to town. She started out in the 2-hour pilot movie, and in the first season of the show, as the central character of the entire series. The TV version of Lane still fell in love with deputy sheriff Fielding Carlyle (played in the 1949 movie by Zachary Scott, and in the TV version by Mark Harmon) and, like in the movie version, Field goes ahead and marries his shallow, wealthy blonde fiancee after Lane disappears from town when evil sheriff Titus Semple (Sydney Greenstreet in the feature film, Howard Duff in the TV version), who feels Lane isn't the proper romantic partner for his young protege he is grooming to run for the State Senate, has her arrested and sent to prison for one month on trumped up solicitation charges.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROV_OWA43Iobh5TM-U-nlbJAUKEh_SNqckPE5ps1W-4Rj6TfPgC04KvLhyphenhyphenhGgasu1d1-10q41jYClASgrxSTpvzjM8TCKjAqVs_qx-SII6S7UGrLP0R119HGpGLT5DtNC_96ooByR-dk/s1600/LS23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROV_OWA43Iobh5TM-U-nlbJAUKEh_SNqckPE5ps1W-4Rj6TfPgC04KvLhyphenhyphenhGgasu1d1-10q41jYClASgrxSTpvzjM8TCKjAqVs_qx-SII6S7UGrLP0R119HGpGLT5DtNC_96ooByR-dk/s400/LS23.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
However, the TV version differs from the feature film in that it expands the role of Field's wealthy, shallow, blonde fiancee (and later wife), who is a minor character in the film version named Annabelle Weldon, played by Virginia Huston. In the TV version, she is renamed Constance Weldon, and is played by Morgan Fairchild. Constance and her wealthy family are much more prominent characters in the TV version of "Flamingo Road" in an effort to emulate the wealthy and powerful Ewings of "Dallas." Moreover, the dynamics of the Lane/Field love affair that kicks off the story in the feature film version is given deeper resonance by having their TV counterparts, played by Raines and Harmon, emulate the star-crossed lovers whose relationship also kicked off the story over on "Dallas," Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal) and Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZw_OMljRGxnBFNMK4hoSctTdBU-my9jkwigbLqBJzvJPKZ620pYY4BZs-dUkMq8yKsJn-4aW57hn00AFisKshHo54vPe_w8E0npxkANCV7H01RbAHNcSUxUMa-n7uFkPodWThyphenhyphenSz8iI/s1600/LS3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZw_OMljRGxnBFNMK4hoSctTdBU-my9jkwigbLqBJzvJPKZ620pYY4BZs-dUkMq8yKsJn-4aW57hn00AFisKshHo54vPe_w8E0npxkANCV7H01RbAHNcSUxUMa-n7uFkPodWThyphenhyphenSz8iI/s400/LS3.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One element that remains the same in both the feature films and TV versions of "Flamingo Road" is Lane's later, more mature and deeper, relationship with a powerful, yet decent, local businessman who she becomes involved with after breaking up with Field. In the feature film version, the character is named Dan Reynolds and played by David Brian. In the TV version, the character is named Sam Curtis and played by John Beck. In the feature film version, the filmmakers quickly establish how Field is a much weaker character than Dan Reynolds and that Lane, who started out loving Field and marrying Dan out of convenience, soon realizes that Dan is the better man for her and her one genuine, true love in life. Field's wife Annabelle is nothing more than a cipher in that version of the story. In the TV version of "Flamingo Road," Lane, Field, Sam Curtis, and Constance form a complex "love square" whose relationships with one another drives much of the storylines in the TV movie pilot and the first season of the show.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJRMDG_S7YUkdF0ri88mOwUIWZ4iwuo7DD7h1gIi6gQICkX6i-bqGBwMEUNkuu_ephBh4eMnioGNGpWtDdPeyYK3_IrK8hVEoHgvl-Ff8rxJihKmvhTug91v3w1JUS2iUi4p_pHm0IlWU/s1600/LS7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJRMDG_S7YUkdF0ri88mOwUIWZ4iwuo7DD7h1gIi6gQICkX6i-bqGBwMEUNkuu_ephBh4eMnioGNGpWtDdPeyYK3_IrK8hVEoHgvl-Ff8rxJihKmvhTug91v3w1JUS2iUi4p_pHm0IlWU/s400/LS7.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In the TV version, it is not made as clear from the beginning that Sam is ultimately the better romantic match for Lane, and so Lane is truly torn between Sam and Field throughout the first season. Meanwhile, Constance becomes a formidable thorn at Field's side as she refuses to stand by quietly while she realizes her husband is in love with another woman. For much of the first season of the show, Lane and Field are the Pam and Bobby of "Flamingo Road" because they are the star-crossed lovers who fight against outside meddling and interference to try to be together, while at the same time each of them have separate romantic partners, Sam and Constance respectively, hovering in the wings whose presence serve to complicate things further. Over the course of the series, however, Lane realizes that Sam is the man she truly loves and is able to regard Field as only a friend, while Field and Constance's marriage of convenience degenerates into a business arrangement marked by bitterness and resentment.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUx2nb1ZSWjztyReaFwfChwtAV9TMaVxoN9YPbUfgzYb2wX3zjXbtLU5E6eK9gRTpvtgzfjLDppSXcYxdJ7gHyZ96frUqTWE8FjKlR6yOdDrxw05URowx5K6u1GAwpH1y9FwV7fkifVo/s1600/LS36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUx2nb1ZSWjztyReaFwfChwtAV9TMaVxoN9YPbUfgzYb2wX3zjXbtLU5E6eK9gRTpvtgzfjLDppSXcYxdJ7gHyZ96frUqTWE8FjKlR6yOdDrxw05URowx5K6u1GAwpH1y9FwV7fkifVo/s400/LS36.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1AP3MqW6MmyjKlq8E7x6m53xR1zCcf_ycFsUb0ZSXAKYy1f_WE57liXbS79LPChJoGfzsYfnqpmjlpFRTwHSE3WTMNEqhL6w89nVpGMiSA7U1Qa-K6XKOdecMVkbC-SRY01sYaf1Dlw/s1600/LS37.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1AP3MqW6MmyjKlq8E7x6m53xR1zCcf_ycFsUb0ZSXAKYy1f_WE57liXbS79LPChJoGfzsYfnqpmjlpFRTwHSE3WTMNEqhL6w89nVpGMiSA7U1Qa-K6XKOdecMVkbC-SRY01sYaf1Dlw/s400/LS37.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What's odd about the Lane/Field/Sam/Constance love square isn't so much that Lane and Field from the Joan Crawford "Flamingo Road" movie of 1949 were reconfigured to emulate Pam and Bobby on "Dallas" so much as the fact that, over on "Dallas" in the 1983-84 season of that series (which took place a year after "Flamingo Road" had been cancelled by NBC in 1982) another love square scenario was created that directly echoed the earlier one. (The parallels between the characters on both shows were first acknowledged by the insightful and witty commenter "James in London" <a href="http://soapchat.net/index.php?threads/a-soap-related-question-flamingo-roads.39922/#post-756288" target="_blank">on the Soapchat.net message boards</a> back in 2006.) By the 1983-84 season of "Dallas," starcrossed lovers Bobby and Pam had had their marriage broken up because of the meddling of Bobby's older brother JR Ewing (Larry Hagman) and Pam's conniving half-sister Katharine (Morgan Brittany), similar to the way Lane and Field were broken up in the "Flamingo Road" pilot when Sheriff Semple, at the urging of Constance and her father Claude Weldon (Kevin McCarthy) has Lane thrown in jail. Her disappearance causes Field to believe she didn't love him, so he goes ahead and marries Constance on the rebound while Lane is in jail. This chain of events foreshadows how Katharine on "Dallas" causes Bobby to believe that Pam doesn't love him anymore and wants a divorce by reading to him a phony letter that her sister purportedly wrote to her divorce attorney expressing how she wants a life separate from Bobby. While Bobby and Pam are apart from one another, they each become romantically involved with other individuals whose presence in the story also serve to muddle the situation and keep the star-crossed lovers from finally being together. Bobby starts dating his former childhood sweetheart Jenna Wade (Priscilla Presley), while Pam is courted by wealthy playboy Mark Graison.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9Q-tSRp1uCD3XdXKxDXWGbWq3wfE-CttXfkXGeswQPPmyoZQW_N5xtCjZg5adeFrPLw_kj0NNhhLPIojYAwMJJ1hYrQh2qG6GJZq8eQEag1JHIB0F-ckkIma5xITIZO4lPiTShSKgqk/s1600/LS11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9Q-tSRp1uCD3XdXKxDXWGbWq3wfE-CttXfkXGeswQPPmyoZQW_N5xtCjZg5adeFrPLw_kj0NNhhLPIojYAwMJJ1hYrQh2qG6GJZq8eQEag1JHIB0F-ckkIma5xITIZO4lPiTShSKgqk/s400/LS11.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6TLIVyyadUf8RNon3aRAZFg1aT3y_pGEwlYBjCdo-q-VmzPd6wpaVKgW28FNk4sjqOtNIHOTy-k_0GUJokpaQbG3Jh0oT3RiyZ3tqvQ-Fy_lOkbinUOnEzkLPQYbzMgEQ_iglJJZD0s/s1600/LS39.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6TLIVyyadUf8RNon3aRAZFg1aT3y_pGEwlYBjCdo-q-VmzPd6wpaVKgW28FNk4sjqOtNIHOTy-k_0GUJokpaQbG3Jh0oT3RiyZ3tqvQ-Fy_lOkbinUOnEzkLPQYbzMgEQ_iglJJZD0s/s400/LS39.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBHYQLvufqAP1Vy8q4vJCLbvGA4s7QZCjcgo2n9_LMDVgxPib2miKDKMNhcHizlysEEVA6ygtZPhEcJA3ssGRqxc1BhES1rDEr5qJ84vHM1eq6RDIcZzDQ1-EzdvXcq8uYdE58e178V4/s1600/LS12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBHYQLvufqAP1Vy8q4vJCLbvGA4s7QZCjcgo2n9_LMDVgxPib2miKDKMNhcHizlysEEVA6ygtZPhEcJA3ssGRqxc1BhES1rDEr5qJ84vHM1eq6RDIcZzDQ1-EzdvXcq8uYdE58e178V4/s400/LS12.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPUW16qgu4EZnHQfKDCtP8Dh_zk1q-tUPH7XETJMwatRasEsDgZyGMb8I2zKmamtSbrhEqntgXetTNx3fPtnWIiftU6AKIGWed50MWHiBpR1S5V0Ve2kGq585TEt853SUnUkfxCnBqXjQ/s1600/LS42.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPUW16qgu4EZnHQfKDCtP8Dh_zk1q-tUPH7XETJMwatRasEsDgZyGMb8I2zKmamtSbrhEqntgXetTNx3fPtnWIiftU6AKIGWed50MWHiBpR1S5V0Ve2kGq585TEt853SUnUkfxCnBqXjQ/s400/LS42.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
What's ironic about this situation is that Jenna on "Dallas," like Constance on "Flamingo Road," is a character that everyone thought would, and should, have married Bobby from the beginning (just like everyone on "Flamingo Road" naturally assumed Field and Constance were betrothed to marry one another from childhood). The irony is further deepened by the fact that Constance on "Flamingo Road" is played by Morgan Fairchild, the actress who originated the role of Jenna Wade in a one-shot guest star appearance on "Dallas" in 1978. Moreover, the wealthy Mark Graison, who dates and distracts Pam on "Dallas" while she pines for Bobby--the same way Sam Curtis dated and distracted Lane Ballou on "Flamingo Road" while she was pining for Field--is played by John Beck, the same actor who played Sam on "Flamingo Road." (Got all that? Good.) One wonders if the similarities between the Lane/Field/Sam/Constance love square on "Flamingo Road," and the Pam/Bobby/Mark/Jenna one on "Dallas," was simply mere coincidence or by design. In creating a pair of similar love squares on two separate shows sharing similar elements, both "Dallas" and "Flamingo Road" appear to be ironically commenting on one another.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgNV50HLtvE3q7ufhnlv239Z0AbKvr2kS4QKktbRKlOYz-a8jYvSaLL9Vq6-s7lzP6Z6NwPpJF4YMxaAHduejgd9rD46C1jhv7wDoAutX3O70xEypXJCcIeAbN6GUB0HEK42ltSpUq9C8/s1600/LS2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgNV50HLtvE3q7ufhnlv239Z0AbKvr2kS4QKktbRKlOYz-a8jYvSaLL9Vq6-s7lzP6Z6NwPpJF4YMxaAHduejgd9rD46C1jhv7wDoAutX3O70xEypXJCcIeAbN6GUB0HEK42ltSpUq9C8/s400/LS2.JPG" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjku0peZ6RSp8aotR5h7cqHfucq6fOh5_K74lBpIyJUohKMBGtnxcA8JOK82d2oIy17JUuqMPj_PEkYKAhiN0LqX_anmI9vo6-ppi4GZ8QZOWWYdNOCGLufiorQV8JDrFqG6XTZ-BVJWuk/s1600/LS34.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjku0peZ6RSp8aotR5h7cqHfucq6fOh5_K74lBpIyJUohKMBGtnxcA8JOK82d2oIy17JUuqMPj_PEkYKAhiN0LqX_anmI9vo6-ppi4GZ8QZOWWYdNOCGLufiorQV8JDrFqG6XTZ-BVJWuk/s400/LS34.JPG" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though the "Dallas" characters and storylines resonate with me on a much deeper level because it was such an iconic show and was such a large part of my television viewing growing up, I have to admit that there are aspects of the Lane/Field/Sam/Constance storyline on "Flamingo Road" that makes me admire those characters better. Lane on "Flamingo Road" and Pam on "Dallas" both jumpstarted their individual series when they made personal decisions that brought them into new and potentially treacherous territory--Lane leaves Coyne's traveling carnival and decides to live in Truro, Florida, while Pam marries the son of her family's archenemy Jock Ewing (Jim Davis) and moves onto Southfork. They both started their shows as feisty, independent, assertive and earthy women. In fact, Pam's character in the original five-episode miniseries that started the epic "Dallas" saga, was originally intended to be the main character of the show, telling the story of the Ewings from an outsider's perspective. However, by the Fall of 1978 when "Dallas" returned after the original five-episode miniseries, that had debuted earlier that Spring, and became a regular weekly show, Pam had already started to lose elements of her assertiveness and independence.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7z9vM2p5xL9-qgKyKyJ5ydIWkf3lz8UTHsqzpdtqBFLh3IFVkJkqI0zv5RP77a6z2C8D78bIDRThgTniqmsd_KjPu-p36xUqwSqlvp4OwfHbJm5D7ixUmk9QyL2cqyCTZue4zUFDmgHc/s1600/LS33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7z9vM2p5xL9-qgKyKyJ5ydIWkf3lz8UTHsqzpdtqBFLh3IFVkJkqI0zv5RP77a6z2C8D78bIDRThgTniqmsd_KjPu-p36xUqwSqlvp4OwfHbJm5D7ixUmk9QyL2cqyCTZue4zUFDmgHc/s400/LS33.JPG" height="283" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though she kept her job working at the department store, she soon takes to living on Southfork and becoming identified as an Ewing once she is able to find acceptance with most of the Ewing family, except for JR. She starts competing with Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) to establish herself as the lady of the house and, over time, Pam becomes wimpier and wimpier to the point where she no longer resembles the admirable character that she started out as. (Her emotional instability over being unable to bear a child of her own contributes greatly to Pam's deterioration as a force to be reckoned with on this show.) When Victoria Principal left "Dallas" in 1987, after Pam was badly burned and disfigured in a car accident, the producers explained her absence by having Pam run away from the hospital and abandoning her husband and child, due to her irrational concerns over how they would react to seeing her badly disfigured from the accident. The old Pam of the 1978 miniseries would have stood her ground and faced this crisis head-on with her family and loved ones providing moral support by her side. The Pam that she eventually turned into was someone who couldn't face a crisis when the chips were really down.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewUUz9Qhsa0x2XL9yL-YR8bqcRGMVk-bmP7ml324cTxO1pyN7D1MZKAjxyizSpCLwrYoSHltPMccINAVUVK2bxlwzsQM7mEEpVuZiEnGP7QiTsGAbt3fP-DATI6GnTBhj1LaYel0s2Sk/s1600/LS17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewUUz9Qhsa0x2XL9yL-YR8bqcRGMVk-bmP7ml324cTxO1pyN7D1MZKAjxyizSpCLwrYoSHltPMccINAVUVK2bxlwzsQM7mEEpVuZiEnGP7QiTsGAbt3fP-DATI6GnTBhj1LaYel0s2Sk/s400/LS17.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I acknowledge how it might be unfair to compare Pam's disintegration as a character with Lane Ballou's unwavering strength and integrity as an individual because "Flamingo Road" only lasted two seasons. Nevertheless, Lane never lost that sense of being an outsider, that grittiness and earthy assertiveness even after she marries Sam in Season Two and moves onto Flamingo Road and becomes a neighbor with all the people who tried to drive her out of Truro the year before. (At the very least, there was no suggestion that Lane was losing her sense of resolve as quickly as Pam did within the same amount of time on "Dallas.") When Lane comforts her best friend Lute-Mae Sanders (Stella Stevens), who runs the town roadhouse and brothel, after she has been humiliated by evil Michael Tyrone (David Selby) and has had her dreams shattered that she would marry Michael and eventually rise up in society by moving onto the elite Flamingo Road, Lane reassures her distraught friend, through gritted teeth, <i>"You belong there, same as anyone else in this lousy town!"</i> Lane's reassurance of Lute-Mae underscores the extent to which she still hasn't completely bought into, nor embraced, the rarefied environment that she has suddenly entered into, even though she is happy living on Flamingo Road, especially after she and Sam learned they were expecting a baby. In contrast, on "Dallas," I don't think Pam ever really reasserted her independent, outsider status as a member of a Barnes family unless it was at key moments where Bobby and Pam's marriage was at a crisis, or if she felt she needed to prove something to others. When Pam goes back to work at the department store after marrying Bobby, it's to demonstrate that she won't be a trophy wife like Sue Ellen. In contrast on "Flamingo Road," after Lane marries Sam, she continues singing at Lute Mae's roadhouse. Sam never suggests to her that she should give up her singing career just because she's married, and clearly supports her continuing to work, which strikes a refreshing contrast to how Bobby attempted to discourage Pam from continuing her own career. Lane demonstrates her healthy skepticism and strength of character when she underscore how she's still an outsider, and isn't willing to buy into the status quo, even as things are going well for her life.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPXscRX3w-fGQXiX6XZ38IBW_4Xgo5bS52p4vuUbD7r_5i4Oy2V8FLsNgAQM2LZa_7C1PDOAnnPRUxvSA8SnLQzEVP7NZuFa-NDS1uJq63O0TiFqwUVIFZDf0KGhQiq5dABgBhCl2Euo/s1600/LS18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPXscRX3w-fGQXiX6XZ38IBW_4Xgo5bS52p4vuUbD7r_5i4Oy2V8FLsNgAQM2LZa_7C1PDOAnnPRUxvSA8SnLQzEVP7NZuFa-NDS1uJq63O0TiFqwUVIFZDf0KGhQiq5dABgBhCl2Euo/s400/LS18.JPG" height="261" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHUWAVmR3uS6L_uDetyjCImfbrlKQWwea_WRC5dESpKXMRGiQEtkGdvMdBUti51BzzkquF74Xtma8IkTYCjWtuIBGoc7V_kc3st4gnElDs0tHqWNxOndipQYAe-SqvvbStbXuNmEyGVI/s1600/LS19.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHUWAVmR3uS6L_uDetyjCImfbrlKQWwea_WRC5dESpKXMRGiQEtkGdvMdBUti51BzzkquF74Xtma8IkTYCjWtuIBGoc7V_kc3st4gnElDs0tHqWNxOndipQYAe-SqvvbStbXuNmEyGVI/s400/LS19.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhusgdVrfZSF2-r4e5v193SBcel72Uj_p9iIL5l4UK2Flofo34EYwT0l4F8tcLw29oPzDReDVNZABN02loGsbzZ6UYIT0BGA3wU4Iiiy9_N6OCvNvTNJA64oYlDULGdRPGbAvdM2PQdavg/s1600/LS35.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhusgdVrfZSF2-r4e5v193SBcel72Uj_p9iIL5l4UK2Flofo34EYwT0l4F8tcLw29oPzDReDVNZABN02loGsbzZ6UYIT0BGA3wU4Iiiy9_N6OCvNvTNJA64oYlDULGdRPGbAvdM2PQdavg/s400/LS35.JPG" height="253" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Moreover, Pam on "Dallas" might have had moments sparring with JR, but Larry Hagman's confidence in all of those scenes merely underscored how JR was completely in control of the sitaution. Pam always becomes emotional in her confrontations with JR, which is why he almost always wins their sparring matches. On "Flamingo Road," Lane never hesitates to stand up to the people in Truro who want to drive her out of town--particularly Titus Semple, the de-facto JR of "Flamingo Road"--even when doing so potentially puts her in greater danger than Pam ever faced confronting JR on "Dallas." Lane even spits in Titus' face in the pilot episode and later develops a calm, controlled attitude around Titus so that he never gets the impression that he's got the upper hand on her. In one episode of "Flamingo Road" Titus shows up at Lute-Mae's roadhouse to intimidate Lane and begins to tell her a metaphoric story concerning how to handle a misbehaving fox who tried to steal chickens from the hen-house in order to intimidate her. When Titus senses Lane's disinterest in the story, Lane glibly and insolently comments, <i>"I never liked your stories, Titus. They usually get me in trouble."</i> Over the course of "Flamingo Road," Lane's role diminishes due to the fact that her final breakup with Field, coupled with the fact that she's no longer in love with him, means that dramatically, Lane's presence in Truro no longer poses a threat to Titus or anyone else. Nevertheless, Cristina Raines handles her individual scenes in Season Two with the same level of spontaneity and authenticity, and her chemistry with both Mark Harmon and John Beck, respectively, remained flawless. Raines effectively underscored how Lane's love for both Field and Sam had different qualities unique to each man. Her part may have grown smaller, but she still gave nuanced and vivid performances in each of her individual scenes. She never became as overwrought and mannered as Victoria Principal could be at times in her later seasons of "Dallas." This is due to the fact that, respectfully, Cristina Raines was a better, more interesting actress than Victoria Principal ever was. It's not for nothing that Raines' epic 1970s ensemble movie appearance was in Robert Altman's Oscar-nominated and influential "Nashville" (1975), considered one of the finest films of the decade, while Principal's comparable epic 1970s ensemble feature film was the melodramatic and artificial, yet entertaining, "Earthquake" (1974). <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZISAcjotTTT_zl_Cgle285QHhkAMC_qWvws8BXiazv9oYBWUCl9gXNl5rrzXNfiuLiAhtJdXXmYI7Qnf09D2iblbrMDw8mYc-y3oKPShi6EMKlQym_geFuu3CqBWchkKeLw8bq5l8-Q/s1600/LS21.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZISAcjotTTT_zl_Cgle285QHhkAMC_qWvws8BXiazv9oYBWUCl9gXNl5rrzXNfiuLiAhtJdXXmYI7Qnf09D2iblbrMDw8mYc-y3oKPShi6EMKlQym_geFuu3CqBWchkKeLw8bq5l8-Q/s400/LS21.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Raines was particularly good during Season One demonstrating her feelings of loneliness and sadness while Lane was separated from, and deeply missed, Field. Lane wasn't really at fault for the breakup of her relationship with Field in the pilot episode, because she was railroaded into jail by Titus. She fully intended to reunite with him once she was out of jail, and even courageously returns to Truro after her release, despite knowing that her presence would only provoke more harassment by Titus. We have more sympathy for Lane being separated from Field than we do for Pam being separated from Bobby on "Dallas," because it was Pam's own self-indulgence and stupidity that caused her marriage to Bobby to end. Pam blamed Bobby for the death of her mother Rebecca Wentworth (Priscilla Pointer), who was collateral damage during the contest between JR and Bobby to win Ewing Oil <a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/legacy-jock-ewing-last-will-and-testament-dallas-knots-landing.html" target="_blank">during the 1982-83 season</a>. She allowed herself to be wooed by an aggressive Mark Graison while she was separated from, but still married to, Bobby. And she continually sent out mixed signals to Bobby and Mark which caused both men to be frustrated with her indecision as to who she would ultimately choose to be with. Pam contributed to the dissolution of her relationship with Bobby by not making it clear to herself, and to others, what it was that she really wanted, in contrast to Lane who was much more transparent and straightforward about herself and her actions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixyjX54WAJjHkzm0mg9ekqcpLIz9KHUdPmULiR2w6YtPjPsvy0RPFmoSOxs5KL-Lr7K24a9l1N0YBKM4lyGmdW_MP4wWsRVsaep5XofeiOF0ehWamGNa-j_Xu49lE1W-L8Zpe9pWJOXZ8/s1600/LS28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixyjX54WAJjHkzm0mg9ekqcpLIz9KHUdPmULiR2w6YtPjPsvy0RPFmoSOxs5KL-Lr7K24a9l1N0YBKM4lyGmdW_MP4wWsRVsaep5XofeiOF0ehWamGNa-j_Xu49lE1W-L8Zpe9pWJOXZ8/s400/LS28.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Field on "Flamingo Road" and Bobby on "Dallas" are in some ways similar because both foolishly allowed the woman they loved to get away from them and then took up with another woman they really didn't want to be with out of convenience. Bobby lost Pam due to his own ruthless determination to beat JR in the contest to win Ewing Oil, while Field lost Lane because he was too weak and too manipulated to stand up to Titus and was too intimidated to reject the opportunity to have Titus help support his candidacy for the state Senate. One man loses the woman he loves because he came on too strong, while the other loses the woman he loves because he was too weak. Both are alike, however, in that their own ambitions for success fueled the decisions that affected their personal lives. However, Field comes across as a more sympathetic character in the end because he recognizes these flaws about himself and is more honest about who he is and what he wants from life. As the show progresses, Field's strength, integrity and backbone begins to emerge and develop over time as he realizes that he will never allow Titus or Constance or anyone else to manipulate him like that again. Because he knows he is flawed, Field never becomes as sanctimonious or hotheaded as Bobby Ewing on "Dallas," whose arrogance and hubris prevent him from realizing that his determination to beat his brother has caused him to lose much more than he bargained for.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpM-GFmCTO3OfXs_2gNJSIUNWx8hht_YmhDLLgCwHUD1h0bq4ySESJKKY05bOTFuUSZSU6kyjAAH328RpJP02FTirszrAKUFeP-NVikcsycbJVtGpDFrWji8Injw8xyyQXPybrTiXQNlQ/s1600/LS47.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpM-GFmCTO3OfXs_2gNJSIUNWx8hht_YmhDLLgCwHUD1h0bq4ySESJKKY05bOTFuUSZSU6kyjAAH328RpJP02FTirszrAKUFeP-NVikcsycbJVtGpDFrWji8Injw8xyyQXPybrTiXQNlQ/s400/LS47.JPG" height="253" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I've always sensed a self-satisfied smugness about Patrick Duffy ever since he left "Dallas" in 1985 to try and pursue what he thought would be a successful movie career, insisted to the producers that they had to kill Bobby off because his ego would not allow him to see someone else play his role, and then returned a year later and caused the whole 1985-86 season to turn out to be a dream. He rarely seemed to realize or acknowledge how his thoughtlessness might have cost actors who were introduced during the dream season their jobs when he decided to return to the series. (I also recall when he appeared on "Donahue" after he returned to "Dallas" and told an audience member that he, frankly, didn't care that he caused trouble over on "Knots Landing" because that show acknowledged Bobby's death and couldn't rewrite its history by dismissing it as a dream. Not that I particularly care about "Knots Landing," either, but Duffy's arrogance and hubris over the whole issue, and how he and the show handled it, was off-putting.) He never seemed to have the sense of professional integrity, strength of character, and conscientiousness that I sense from Mark Harmon, who always gives the impression, especially from his work on "NCIS," as being a good leader and team player both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, qualities that he must have learned from his father, college football player and Heisman trophy winner Tom Harmon, and later on his own when he was a star quarterback for the UCLA Bruins. I can't imagine Harmon ever thoughtlessly doing something on "NCIS," for instance, that might cost people their jobs. I think the contrasting individual qualities that I feel Duffy and Harmon appear to have off-screen were reflected in their own work on-screen in "Dallas" and "Flamingo Road," with Bobby coming across much less sympathetically than he was intended to be, and Field coming across much more admirable than originally conceived. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNj2zuPYiakM6m4qMyS8mX0Oa1x2u2wSZhfqO94ZLKYUmFXyJRMGdAR5hfOD9NKyEatRCVy9J2u-KzMDX1rxd17lRh-XPEkp7ARr3KlQfkia0cPXrVDu6MgjcqflB-8vPm0FtS2r9vRh4/s1600/LS16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNj2zuPYiakM6m4qMyS8mX0Oa1x2u2wSZhfqO94ZLKYUmFXyJRMGdAR5hfOD9NKyEatRCVy9J2u-KzMDX1rxd17lRh-XPEkp7ARr3KlQfkia0cPXrVDu6MgjcqflB-8vPm0FtS2r9vRh4/s400/LS16.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One might assume that the Sam Curtis character on "Flamingo Road" and Mark Graison on "Dallas" to be mere carbon copies of one another due to the roles they served on their respective shows, and particularly because they were both played by John Beck. However, Sam comes across as far and away the much more sympathetic and admirable character. Unlike Mark Graison, Sam is a self-made businessman, someone whose wealth and success was earned and not inherited. Sam has integrity and self-respect and will go out of his way to protect those that he cares about. Mark Graison might be considered a "nice guy" on his show, but fans of "Dallas" have never warmed up to his character. (My brother even refers to Mark Graison at times as an "ugly muppet.") There's a certain entitled, presumptuous cockiness and arrogance in Mark that the humble Sam Curtis simply does not possess. What also makes me respect Sam Curtis is the fact that he won't settle for mere crumbs or second-best from Lane the way Mark will from Pam. On "Dallas," Mark Graison might complain to Pam that she is still hung up on Bobby and that she should get on with her life, but he does nothing proactive to stand his ground with her. He's willing to go along to get along with Pam, and he doesn't seem to have enough self-respect to walk away from someone who has been stringing him along the way she has. Mark's lack of self-respect and inability to walk away from a woman who doesn't love him enough is probably one reason why "Dallas" fans have never admired him--as to be expected from someone who inherited his wealth, instead of earning it on his own, he's willing to settle for being second-best as long as he gets Pam in the end.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSk_e6TQnagK8h_ZhCvjDQ-2zDIlN_ONwBCXsy7vJOaqGw7zUP2Fk5NgZvKoQVRV7l-GzHpN7BdEhnn8HFMQzdRjhGO8__6ZFiDSQ4Fv-KNVMJSXcgVyJ9dJNLYPjuzn4NkJx4h2CqGQI/s1600/LS15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSk_e6TQnagK8h_ZhCvjDQ-2zDIlN_ONwBCXsy7vJOaqGw7zUP2Fk5NgZvKoQVRV7l-GzHpN7BdEhnn8HFMQzdRjhGO8__6ZFiDSQ4Fv-KNVMJSXcgVyJ9dJNLYPjuzn4NkJx4h2CqGQI/s400/LS15.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast, Sam on "Flamingo Road" won't accept being a convenient person to fill the empty void in Lane's life while she's on the rebound from Field. He continually challenges Lane to make proactive decisions with her life. In one episode, Constance and Field have been kidnapped for ransom while they are honeymooning. Sam offers to take his helicopter and fly over the large expanse of ocean in the Gulf of Mexico where the authorities believe that they are being held captive on a boat. Lane asks Sam why he's willing to go out of his way to try and rescue Field. Sam explains to Lane that, someday, she is going to have to choose between him and Field, and Sam doesn't want to win Lane by default. I always liked that line. It made me admire Sam much more than Mark, because it demonstrated the extent of Sam's self-respect for himself that he isn't willing to settle for second-best with Lane. Later in Season One, when Field and Lane have reunited, leaving Sam and Constance out in the cold, Sam leaves town for awhile and, when he returns, gives Lane the cold shoulder. Sam even has a one-night stand with Constance, which allows both rejected lovers to vent their frustrations, at being dumped by Lane and Field, with one another. (Mark Graison would never have the guts to do that with Jenna Wade, even if Pam dumped him for Bobby.) Even after Field returns to Constance, Sam maintains a distance from Lane for awhile until their relationship resumes in a natural, healthy manner. When Constance has been injured in a fall, which leaves her paralyzed and ensures that Field cannot leave her or else risk a political scandal, Sam tells Lane that she may as well leave Truro because she now has nothing left to keep her in town. While I like the intelligence and assertiveness of Lane's character, I also admire how Sam holds her to a high standard, doesn't accept any excuses from her, and isn't waiting around pining away for her when she's gone back to Field. Sam respects Lane as an equal and doesn't put her on a pedestal the way Mark Graison does with Pam over on "Dallas." I was never comfortable with the way Mark described how he wanted to show off Pam to all of his jet-setter friends while he was planning his lavish wedding to "debut" her to his associates. It made her seem more like a possession that he has won as opposed to a full-fledged partner who he has earned through love and respect. Whereas Mark Graison just came across as needy where Pam was concerned, Sam was a character who was needed by those around him over on "Flamingo Road."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAaun7N-IPZHzYzBzImCmeckhw-sbEIlttaiZkSp9YXfPqqOh6bkP69N5JSWZv7FymMlscgsR9Uw3v-CEUQpAYkO3oWVSQZHNGk3ufTxbvMdQBqY2OmkxniGSq7GMDQyCLnM5zQLc2NLo/s1600/LS27.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAaun7N-IPZHzYzBzImCmeckhw-sbEIlttaiZkSp9YXfPqqOh6bkP69N5JSWZv7FymMlscgsR9Uw3v-CEUQpAYkO3oWVSQZHNGk3ufTxbvMdQBqY2OmkxniGSq7GMDQyCLnM5zQLc2NLo/s400/LS27.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAMzlOzAyXGQm8WiqepIKTKc3ugnh9Rx1-zJgtUubTtqtwp1ZOUZ6JqwSVw8kcExq8tTAk0ALInkPQgAc1O3losBnXT_PasR5xHfwX4t3Q-MAASpCa_GTNZtlb3dT_D8264fgdgib1hxI/s1600/LS43.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAMzlOzAyXGQm8WiqepIKTKc3ugnh9Rx1-zJgtUubTtqtwp1ZOUZ6JqwSVw8kcExq8tTAk0ALInkPQgAc1O3losBnXT_PasR5xHfwX4t3Q-MAASpCa_GTNZtlb3dT_D8264fgdgib1hxI/s1600/LS43.JPG" height="260" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When Lane and Sam get married in Season Two of "Flamingo Road," it is because Lane has truly grown to love Sam and wants to be with him without reservations. She now regards Field as only a friend and is not in love with him anymore. As such, both Sam and Lane's future looks bright the last time we see them on "Flamingo Road" because they are together for all of the right reasons. They are not marrying each other out of a sense of desperation or obligation. In contrast, when Pam decides to marry Mark over on "Dallas" in the 1983-84 season it's only because she has learned that he is dying of a fatal disease. She had previously admitted to Sue Ellen that she was going to turn down Mark's marriage proposal because she still loved Bobby. Pam decides to play martyr and agrees to marry Mark, and even manipulates Mark's best friend and doctor Jerry Kenderson (Barry Jenner) to hold off telling him about his illness until after they are married, to ensure that Pam will be with Mark no matter what happens after he learns he is dying. As such, Pam demonstrates to extent to which she doesn't regard Mark as an equal partner who deserves to know what is happening to him. She treats him with condescension, disrespect, and pity when she agrees to marry him. In so doing, by announcing her engagement to Mark, she continues sending mixed signals to Bobby as to who she wants to be with, which causes him to decide to get on with his life and propose to Jenna Wade. Unlike Lane and Sam, who were always honest with each other about their feelings, Pam and Bobby continue to contribute to their own separation by failing to take the time to be honest with themselves and with others.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggphqehGwurECPd8gXAjCwLyYbbY3qM-5gma1pdEhhyQ4YWcD3yOOx2wwPfd-jh4HyTI5po9o9HWPHDyn_FFKb_SG2fWaNGyixb6cuKrUubrapE9VoPaYGQwHJH6HnGiqzJf-8pciNIMY/s1600/LS5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggphqehGwurECPd8gXAjCwLyYbbY3qM-5gma1pdEhhyQ4YWcD3yOOx2wwPfd-jh4HyTI5po9o9HWPHDyn_FFKb_SG2fWaNGyixb6cuKrUubrapE9VoPaYGQwHJH6HnGiqzJf-8pciNIMY/s400/LS5.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYT8UKWMBgbAUNoFnZTuGB8MtSaK9F54LWAJ8mOgo_6W8FE58iAHpDA_IFwktFOVkg2dudnH_24dZKVeG5_sj8Xklst97klERxLFDvb9aegfHck8-WhhEtVFPRMoBZ6uLy3JBq2Qtj5sg/s1600/LS6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYT8UKWMBgbAUNoFnZTuGB8MtSaK9F54LWAJ8mOgo_6W8FE58iAHpDA_IFwktFOVkg2dudnH_24dZKVeG5_sj8Xklst97klERxLFDvb9aegfHck8-WhhEtVFPRMoBZ6uLy3JBq2Qtj5sg/s400/LS6.JPG" height="302" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQUv7Zdqr3jvT7X7njNUe6c6VB3eVy31Kd1rQs4q2e-_BBWRQHkXau9g6ox7m6T8lRtnDkqVc42pVIMLk634h-ahUxsTjpKkGIC2K5ZKKPx_d7ULcNufmVp-gm7dZ9JqaxvaI9ft_-ag/s1600/LS10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQUv7Zdqr3jvT7X7njNUe6c6VB3eVy31Kd1rQs4q2e-_BBWRQHkXau9g6ox7m6T8lRtnDkqVc42pVIMLk634h-ahUxsTjpKkGIC2K5ZKKPx_d7ULcNufmVp-gm7dZ9JqaxvaI9ft_-ag/s400/LS10.JPG" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The relationship between Sam and Field on "Flamingo Road" is also much more complex and nuanced than is the comparable Mark and Bobby relationship on "Dallas." On "Flamingo Road," Sam is helping to back Field's candidacy for the State Senate during Season One. As such, Sam has to help strategize and groom Field for his future career in politics and becomes frustrated at times with what he perceives to be Field's passivity and weakness. His professional frustration with Field is further compounded by the fact that the woman he is in love with, Lane, is still in love with Field. Sam has to help the political career of a man who is also his romantic rival in his personal life. Even though there is tension throughout "Flamingo Road" between Sam and Field, in many ways they are similar in that they are essentially decent men and, in certain instances, have common goals in life. In the Season One finale of "Flamingo Road," when most of the characters are trapped at Lute-Mae's roadhouse during a hurricane, Sam and Field put aside their differences when they learn that Lane is being terrorized by mobsters who have come to Truro to take her back with them. Sam and Field conspire to help apprehend the mobsters, who have also taken refuge at Lute-Mae's during the storm, so that they woman they love no longer has to live in fear. Later, in Season Two, Sam and Field team up again to help topple Michael Tyrone's efforts to pass a bill in the state legislature to allow gambling in Truro. By that point, Sam and Field were on the path to becoming genuine friends now that Lane had finally chosen Sam as the one she wanted to be with.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhB775aRwE3fqIAENrtYUxKrsbeX4eEgJScq7aTO4TRqxrx54kHPFEYkzDdxHJQxSU7Wg-dKxYltdzP3tmac1v_MSaMCH7zPYxOvXsQPddBdYM2fldGb3mB8XlnPDWvIQwMuZp1z63zo/s1600/LS45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhB775aRwE3fqIAENrtYUxKrsbeX4eEgJScq7aTO4TRqxrx54kHPFEYkzDdxHJQxSU7Wg-dKxYltdzP3tmac1v_MSaMCH7zPYxOvXsQPddBdYM2fldGb3mB8XlnPDWvIQwMuZp1z63zo/s1600/LS45.JPG" height="260" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilBpilnPe_OEGSFkH0o5htKqugRDgZLDQNH2UzCKHNG6nSUJvVQ0HmfQkhAZcpJVwYXUNvyUZueEdENfrL0gOZkH9dY7msDxc69TIvA0WDMjYTN5LN-tO25qPKfXsnQu8WcCxmnSPLvCo/s1600/LS46.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilBpilnPe_OEGSFkH0o5htKqugRDgZLDQNH2UzCKHNG6nSUJvVQ0HmfQkhAZcpJVwYXUNvyUZueEdENfrL0gOZkH9dY7msDxc69TIvA0WDMjYTN5LN-tO25qPKfXsnQu8WcCxmnSPLvCo/s1600/LS46.JPG" height="258" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast, Bobby and Mark have no such nuanced relationship with each other on "Dallas." They only dealt with each other occasionally, as when Bobby comes to pick up Christopher from Pam's house for his weekend visits with his son, or when all of them ran into each other at the Oil Baron's Ball. They are only related to one another as being rivals for Pam, and nothing more. It might have been interesting if Mark Graison's business empire was somehow connected to Ewing Oil, but the fact that it isn't demonstrates how Mark is merely a figurehead in his own business empire, whereas Sam Curtis on "Flamingo Road" is a vital, vibrant civic leader in his own community. You sense that Bobby and Mark are mildly annoyed with each other, but nothing else is developed between them that was as interesting as the Field/Sam interactions on "Flamingo Road."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilpNtcecNM8myVyjtYH3S0mD6K87MolQrXNhG3ObF0ALtWKaXFAQKjlXyFGQezlzg9Bvb_4_9SsYvkKVQG_iTS1H3hv24_PevuvmzaKdGjJb1fdYuGl3rQegxA8S-d9sS_IAliByQRwrY/s1600/LS29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilpNtcecNM8myVyjtYH3S0mD6K87MolQrXNhG3ObF0ALtWKaXFAQKjlXyFGQezlzg9Bvb_4_9SsYvkKVQG_iTS1H3hv24_PevuvmzaKdGjJb1fdYuGl3rQegxA8S-d9sS_IAliByQRwrY/s400/LS29.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj-ngvScekPaGkhyphenhyphenHlztrQhVbQqXxrgUYHCES_l7JYA9BDp8f-rjCU5slawx5w_QA2NUVyMtI3K6LGDujJdKC5srDK8j7EI6UDzLmMlYnwaDlaNYkwX3F40tRNH67Y_d0J6LRlcx7su-k/s1600/LS32.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj-ngvScekPaGkhyphenhyphenHlztrQhVbQqXxrgUYHCES_l7JYA9BDp8f-rjCU5slawx5w_QA2NUVyMtI3K6LGDujJdKC5srDK8j7EI6UDzLmMlYnwaDlaNYkwX3F40tRNH67Y_d0J6LRlcx7su-k/s1600/LS32.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The final component in the love squares on both "Flamingo Road" and "Dallas"--respectively, Constance and Jenna Wade--are generally unsympathetic characters on their individual shows. Constance on "Flamingo Road" is spoiled, entitled, shallow, and petty. She treats Lane with condescension and disrespect, never realizing that she herself comes from a tawdry pedigree, being the biological daughter of the town's brothel owner, Lute-Mae. Constance effectively fills her role as the female antagonist on "Flamingo Road" without ever providing any suggestion that anything else is going on underneath that facade. Even when Field has an affair with Lane while he is married to
Constance, I never really think of Constance as being the "wronged
woman" as the esteemed James in London <a href="http://soapchat.net/index.php?threads/dallas-versus-knots-landing-versus-the-rest-of-them-week-by-week.105092/page-2#post-2509572" target="_blank">on the Soapchat.net message boards</a> has described her as in this scenario. Constance's whining, complaints and
urgings to Titus motivated him to railroad Lane into prison and caused
Field, on the rebound, to set a wedding date to marry Constance.
Constance knew when she was marrying Field that his heart belonged to
another woman and that she had caused her rival to be eliminated temporarily. Later, when Field and Lane reunite, Constance conspires with Titus to have the mobsters, who have been searching for Lane, find her in Truro and take her away, knowing full well that the mobsters might kill Lane. Constance sacrifices her humanity and loses our sympathy because she is willing to conspire to commit murder to eliminate her rival.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHq-l0XnEVDSpOYWDuI0E5vuqGqmWEHma0hOzyBel6DkKpSAjSrKzC36lSONuIOOAG1xrsj6nfjsgxFGFcw_mePnVN7wn24P9wPFx-BIaMIrP6pPSWyFCdLHEych580n0jGz8gGtrUoWA/s1600/LS31.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHq-l0XnEVDSpOYWDuI0E5vuqGqmWEHma0hOzyBel6DkKpSAjSrKzC36lSONuIOOAG1xrsj6nfjsgxFGFcw_mePnVN7wn24P9wPFx-BIaMIrP6pPSWyFCdLHEych580n0jGz8gGtrUoWA/s400/LS31.JPG" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Inywf_t9c6RN76VgCLH6t1F7RgxKwWXwoDl3rQotpruAN00VWK7kC1ewrCdMJgb6dLscSFFz8nAz-ffY9J52OALPknj-zVqcNHuLpP1YM__b31apHd9FhdFass-1A6hsNlCMJN-oqjw/s1600/LS30.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Inywf_t9c6RN76VgCLH6t1F7RgxKwWXwoDl3rQotpruAN00VWK7kC1ewrCdMJgb6dLscSFFz8nAz-ffY9J52OALPknj-zVqcNHuLpP1YM__b31apHd9FhdFass-1A6hsNlCMJN-oqjw/s400/LS30.JPG" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
If there is a redeeming quality to Constance, it's that she never comes across as a passive character the way Jenna, as played by Priscilla Presley by that point in the series, does. Jenna motivates the plot on the show by virtue of what she doesn't do. She doesn't come clean to Bobby about who is truly the father of her child, and she continually allows herself to be put-upon and victimized during her time on the series. She allows her ex-husband Renaldo Marchetta (Daniel Pilon) to blackmail her into marrying him again, she allows herself to be set up on trumped up murder charges, and all of these actions culminate in getting herself railroaded into prison. Later, she allows herself to play victim when Bobby decides to remarry Pam and passively pursues Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly) by allowing him to visit her frequently while he is breaking up with his wife Donna (Susan Howard). Like Constance on "Flamingo Road," however, the Priscilla Presley version of Jenna also appears to have a sense of entitlement about herself. While dating Bobby, she and Charlie make themselves at home on Southfork, continually helping themselves to the Ewing estate as if they have a divine right to be there. Later, when Jenna is making nice to Ray while he is estranged from Donna, both Jenna and Charlie stake a claim on Ray's residence as if they inherently belong there. Jenna irritates fans of "Dallas" because of how she inserts herself into estranged marriages and relationships and prevents the couples in-question from being able to resolve their differences without interference. She is a passive-aggressive character, whereas Constance, despite her inherent shallowness, at least motivates and drives the storylines on her show by virtue of taking action.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVH5mz7FAPREqv5n2t_lk1-FUgEVCbCxyzbBUp24Vvoir9mRstMtdT9kcWhHfGr6vX6gl7owFRAgZbHNMFwHdVOSUNWjjo4sEXdIPmPg5xxDPhI3r0EtW3DH2SV33mnXIP6r5NWHq94s/s1600/LS1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVH5mz7FAPREqv5n2t_lk1-FUgEVCbCxyzbBUp24Vvoir9mRstMtdT9kcWhHfGr6vX6gl7owFRAgZbHNMFwHdVOSUNWjjo4sEXdIPmPg5xxDPhI3r0EtW3DH2SV33mnXIP6r5NWHq94s/s400/LS1.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-4vz58bjwWh1c4DZjtYx4UByOsqVfo0Mw4S29mdM9oufsoxb6Z33M4MiVWEjEh0Qh4ZOoCzt8hEDpSXPr-qiQtT3d4iaz7EmAT8-elBCBvN-st7R19B6mHtyc60C0xbKWV9_9N5iDLs/s1600/LS8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-4vz58bjwWh1c4DZjtYx4UByOsqVfo0Mw4S29mdM9oufsoxb6Z33M4MiVWEjEh0Qh4ZOoCzt8hEDpSXPr-qiQtT3d4iaz7EmAT8-elBCBvN-st7R19B6mHtyc60C0xbKWV9_9N5iDLs/s400/LS8.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/affected-acting-activism-morgan-fairchild.html" target="_blank">While I'm no fan of Morgan Fairchild</a>, at least she proves to be a good sparring partner. Fairchild and Cristina Raines made the scenes between Constance and Lane crackle with fire and intensity, demonstrating how the antagonism between their characters were brewing close to the surface. Constance continually condescends to Lane throughout the series with an unjustifiably aristocratic air of superiority (which is ironic since we, the audience, knows that Constance was actually the illegitimate daughter of the town prostitute, Lute-Mae, and was later adopted by her own biological father, Claude Weldon without Claude's own wife Eudora knowing her true parentage). In a scene during Season One, Constance shows up at the beauty parlor while the effeminate hairdresser Mr. Eddie is about to wash Lane's hair. Constance insists that Mr. Eddie work on her hair first in order to conform with her busy schedule. In so doing, Constance demonstrates her sense of entitlement towards preferential treatment that she feels "common" people like Lane do not deserve. Lane only gives up her place in the queue not out of any sense of intimidation or inferiority, but in order to ensure that Mr. Eddie doesn't get caught up in Constance's petty class squabbles. Constance again tries to draw a line between the elite and the rest of society when she and her friends attempt to shun and humiliate Lane while she is playing tennis with Sam at their exclusive club. Constance further tries to humiliate her rival on a class-basis by attempting to exclude her from a formal reception that is being held in Field's honor. "Flamingo Road's" leading ladies Lane and Constance are more interesting than Pam and Jenna on "Dallas" simply by virtue of the fact that their show plays up the class distinction between their characters. Lane and Constance would have disliked one another whether or not they were both in love with Field.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOoKVHp_RW9kh_jo_1NmI_82wFWxaJw5QfU82mFtHu69Qdl_XZP_x1CGJ_6xjsL1sp49Qt6EVhGcyd4lCnVFUBPCYc3SlD-Q7tfxcPWZMXWxppoObuUlc5pEBmSOIOdl3GhhIDABNiXgM/s1600/LS38.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOoKVHp_RW9kh_jo_1NmI_82wFWxaJw5QfU82mFtHu69Qdl_XZP_x1CGJ_6xjsL1sp49Qt6EVhGcyd4lCnVFUBPCYc3SlD-Q7tfxcPWZMXWxppoObuUlc5pEBmSOIOdl3GhhIDABNiXgM/s400/LS38.JPG" height="258" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglNdgpI2beWfiXgHUKrSb7oVQMS2v6oIGSK0dwtIFfaj6I6YsMJF4Z8_uM4FI2Mk-hLyt9tKDlyFHvkwcYW3TJOudA2e4iP4dVFdFxcJcQGV7oFlUogvcJTme0jKMepbsErVRs21NPJEA/s1600/LS40.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglNdgpI2beWfiXgHUKrSb7oVQMS2v6oIGSK0dwtIFfaj6I6YsMJF4Z8_uM4FI2Mk-hLyt9tKDlyFHvkwcYW3TJOudA2e4iP4dVFdFxcJcQGV7oFlUogvcJTme0jKMepbsErVRs21NPJEA/s400/LS40.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In contrast, the Pam and Priscilla-Presley-as-Jenna scenes on "Dallas" are not nearly as interesting because both women are too lady-like to lay their cards on the table as much as we would like. The writers never take advantage of the tension that could have existed between their characters had they emphasized how Jenna started out in life the rich and spoiled daughter of an oilman, and ended up poor in her adulthood; while Pam started out poor and ended up becoming rich when she was older. On "Dallas," Pam and Jenna don't like each other only because they both want Bobby and nothing more. Jenna was actually much more interesting when Fairchild played her briefly in 1978. Fairchild was subtly scheming and manipulative, but brought some surprisingly sympathetic qualities to Jenna that would have made her later incarnation, when she returned in 1983, much more compelling than what Presley made of the character. In the scenes that Principal had with Fairchild in 1978, both actresses gave as good as they got and the scene where Pam confronts Jenna and demands that she admit whether Bobby is the father of Jenna's daughter, was much more engaging and thrilling than any scene Principal and Presley had later on in the series. Fairchild's work as Jenna in her single 1978 appearance on "Dallas" might have been some of her best work as an actress (which, admittedly, isn't saying much in the end).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ShM7l5-9rcyoYPI6yHmtibv2RSojq8GbQ0XrRSs3g9izq-2C46o40IPj_LXWOxc6QhGIcIv9gJINP3FnPCDmJMyuz69uOEQekijU2idceMUJr0SR2CETyxT7nS3GmYLuchJxuvHUNb8/s1600/LS13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ShM7l5-9rcyoYPI6yHmtibv2RSojq8GbQ0XrRSs3g9izq-2C46o40IPj_LXWOxc6QhGIcIv9gJINP3FnPCDmJMyuz69uOEQekijU2idceMUJr0SR2CETyxT7nS3GmYLuchJxuvHUNb8/s400/LS13.JPG" height="303" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Even though the Lane/Field/Sam/Constance love square on "Flamingo Road" has more interesting elements at times than the Pam/Bobby/Mark/Jenna love square on "Dallas," it's the latter one that emotionally engages us more by virtue of the fact that we have had the opportunity to become more involved in the "Dallas" love square than the one on "Flamingo Road." "Flamingo Road," unfortunately, only lasted two seasons and produced a 2-hour pilot movie and 38 regular episodes, whereas the "Dallas" love square had at least 5 seasons of backstory built up by that point to hold our attention. Bobby and Pam were the characters we had started out caring about since 1978, which is probably one reason why John Beck as Mark Graison was much more despised in my opinion than when he played Sam Curtis on "Flamingo Road." We despise Mark because he was interfering with the reconciliation of a couple who had been married for at least 5 years by the point he entered into the picture, whereas Sam was not being an interloper on a long-established relationship when he started dating Lane, who had only known Field for a few weeks by that point and hadn't even been married to him. Even though the "Dallas" love square has greater resonance due to its longevity and iconic influence, the concurrent love square on "Flamingo Road" shouldn't be dismissed outright just because it was comparatively abbreviated. Within a shorter period of time, "Flamingo Road" was able to create characters and situations and scenarios in its own love square that compared favorably in terms of intrigue and inspiration as the one that appeared on its more famous progenitor, "Dallas." Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4