Character is Everything

We have all been told to "do unto others" so good things will happen for us. We've also grown up hearing how it is important to have a great character, for character is really everything. Frankly, after observing so many films for so many years, I'd have to say, indeed, character is everything.

Some of the greatest films were great because of their character actors. Leading men and women come and go and have a short shelf life. Although leading men have a longer shelf life, I believe that both leading people worry constantly about how the ageing process will affect their appeal and their position in Hollywood.

But character actors never have to worry about that. Think James Cagney, Laird Cregar, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, Thelma Ritter, Diane Wiest, Danny DiVito, Jeffrey Jones, James Cromwell, Jon Favreau, Harry Dean Stanton, Agnes Moorehead, Seth Green, Gary Oldman, Edie McClurg, Zooey Deschanel, Miguel Ferrer and his father, Jose Ferrer and Kathy Bates – the list goes on and on with these phenomenal actors. Honorable mention should also be given to those wonderful actors on TV in "The Big Bang Theory", Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar.

Whether they add the spark of light like Thelma Ritter, or the spark of dark, like Edward G. Robinson, every movie these character actors have ever been in, they have made the films better by their sheer presence. Without these people, the movies they were in would have fallen flat; something would have been missing. Many times, these actors are the unsung heroes. The success of their films largely depends on their personalities filling the screen, whether we realize it or not. Character actors are also lucky, in that they never have to worry about ageing, so that ensures them many years of work where leading ladies, many times, find their careers going much more slowly in their 30s than in their teens and 20s.

So to all the actors out there who want to be successful, and I don't say "stars", never despair if you do not look like Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. It is a great joy to be able to know that you'll be able to work for your entire life and your work doesn't depend on your youth or your beauty. And many of these people are very attractive, like Celeste Holm or Kathy Bates and while many of these people can look very attractive, they are not hired for that. But more power to them. I just had the privilege of watching Edward G. Robinson in "Key Largo". With all due respect to gorgeous Lauren Bacall and magnificent Humphrey Bogart, where would the movie have been without Edward G. Robinson? And Humphrey? Frankly, you were a leading man and a character and we miss you!

Seeing and Hearing is Not Believing

Forget everything you've seen. Forget everything you believe. If it's based on what you've seen. If you've never seen "Wag the Dog", see it. It maybe one of the most important movies for this generation. The reason for this is that this generation is bombarded by news 24-hours a day. On many stations. How do we know anything we see is actually true? We're actually one giant movie.

When Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and the men and women merely players", I believe he was writing about our time.

When you turn on a news station and you see comedians telling you the news, you have to wonder, "Is this 'Saturday Night Live', or is it real?" Half the time we cannot tell anymore. Which brings me to the following story.

My coming-of-age years were when Marilyn Monroe was riding the crest and then falling into the crevasse of her life. In the 1950s, she set the standard for beauty and sexuality. And, as the public, despite the fact that they were divorced, we were always told how much Joe DiMaggio loved Marilyn. How he put flowers on her grave weekly for many years after her death. I recently read a book which disturbed me deeply about Marilyn. When Joe married Marilyn, she was at the peak of her fame, but yet he wanted her to quit the movies. He was jealous, not only of the attention she received, but also the fact that as "The Yankee Clipper", she really outshone him at every public event they attended. I had to ask myself, "Could Joe not imagine what it would be like to marry this woman before he did marry her?" What was really disturbing was that Joe was physically abusive to Marilyn. On the set of "There's No Business Like Show Business", they had to cover her bruises so that they would not be seen on-screen. When her skirt blew up in the scene from "Seven Year Itch", he got so mad, he was very violent, and this finally provoked their divorce.

Regarding the flowers, when they were married, Marilyn made Joe promise to put flowers on her grave weekly. This is what William Powell did for Jean Harlow after she died. Frankly, she deserved the flowers. Later in life, Joe did what he could to help Marilyn fight her demons, but to think that he could lift a hand to this beautiful creature, hurt me, as the reader and a fan.

So how much did Joe love Marilyn? How can any of us ever measure that kind of emotion or lack of it? But whenever I hear people tell me things, I always have to say to myself now, "Is it real, is it true, am I being played."

I think in the end, we all have to judge reality ourselves, and not just listen to the things we hear or the pictures we see. Remember, everything we see and hear can be doctored and fabricated. Edgar Cayce once said the best book is "self". Maybe we all better look inside to find the truth and reality.

You're Never Too Old!

Sometimes in life we get to a point where we think we have experienced it all, that we'll never see anything we haven't seen, or hear anything we haven't heard before. Not that that's a bad thing, but it closes us off to possibilities.

I recently had that experience. On December 31, 2009, my husband and I were watching "The Kennedy Center Honors". The honorees and the entertainment to honor them were fantastic. During the middle of the performance, my husband said to me, "Do you mind if I leave the room for a second?" We put the video recorder on "pause" and it went to PBS, which I had been recording. PBS had their usual New Year's Eve special. Apparently, every year the New York Philharmonic puts a show on. This year, they had a special guest who is an artist-in-residence named Thomas Hampson. I'd heard him sing, "In the Still of the Night" and immediately after that, he sang, "Begin the Beguine". I had never heard "Begin the Beguine" sung that way..with such impact.

Now you may think, "Well, she probably never heard 'Begin the Beguine'...big deal!" I'm an artist, and I currently have over 11,000 favorite songs and I have "Begin the Beguine" sung by the best singers in the last 70 years, from Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald. And they are all wonderful. You simply can't spoil "Begin the Beguine". However, when Thomas Hampson sang it, it was one of the most unforgettable moments I've ever experienced, and it taught me a lesson.

We're never too old. At 60, 70, 80, to experience those peak moments where we feel our life is altered by a performer who has touched our hearts and souls. I thank you Alan Gilbert, the conductor with the New York Philharmonic and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thomas Hampson. You began the Beguine for me!

Poster Power

We live in a world today where scandal is a common occurrence, and nobody really seems to care anymore. Despite all the talk shows and waxing eloquently constantly on peoples' indiscretions, we seem to value the reality that it's a "Get what you want – take what you can" world.

In the late '50s, there was a scandal to rival all of the ones happening today. And Elizabeth Taylor was made a pariah throughout the world. After Mike Todd's death, Elizabeth Taylor made the unwise choice of choosing Eddie Fisher as her lover and husband. In hindsight, I'm sure Elizabeth would have been happy to let Debbie keep him! But I'm not sure Debbie would have done that if "the scandal" hadn't happened. But happen it did.

Eddie Fisher was one of Mike Todd's friends, not his best friend, and certainly if Mike had seen what happened after his death, I don't think Eddie would have been his friend at all. Be all this as it may, the reality of the situation for all parties was this: Elizabeth Taylor made some of her finest movies during the '50s, "A Place in the Sun", "Giant", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", and "Suddenly, Last Summer". She had been nominated for an Academy Award many times during these years, but because of "the scandal", her chances were slim. She gave a remarkable performance in "Suddenly, Last Summer" and she should have definitely gotten the Academy Award for this movie, but at the time, the producers were seriously worried that no one would even go see the movie. To put it simply, the movie was about homosexuality and cannibalism, and remember, this was the '50s! So how do you sell a movie with such dire and heavy overtones, despite having the world's most beautiful woman as the lead? This is what the producers did.

They made a poster.

The poster was of Elizabeth Taylor in a very sheer, white bathing suit, looking extraordinarily sexy and provocative. The producers knew this was their key to getting people in the theatre and the poster worked. This was the poster from "Suddenly, Last Summer" that was the ticket to ride.

Elizabeth would later be nominated again for an Academy Award for this movie, and as a fan, I thought she more than deserved it. Her last scene was remarkable and startling. Naturally, as most people know who were around then, Elizabeth did not win for this movie, either. However, the following year on the set of "Cleopatra", Elizabeth fell ill and newspapers reported her near death. When "Butterfield 8" was released the following year, she was again nominated for the award. Because of her near-death experience, "the scandal" was forgiven and Elizabeth received the long-awaited Academy Award for a movie she truly did not like. What this proves is, posters are powerful tools. The right poster can make all the difference in the world. In this case, it sold a movie.

Say it Isn't So!

Pardon me if I repeat myself. But that's the whole point of this blog. I recently heard that they are doing another remake of "Robin Hood" and this one will star Russell Crowe.

With all due respect to the talented Mr. Crowe, do we really need another repeat of "Robin Hood"? When all is said and done, many actors have played this particular part, and who do we remember best? ERROL FLYNN.

He epitomized that part, he looked it, he sounded like it, his essence was "Robin Hood". So, that is why, 70 years later, Errol still wears the tights the best.

Do we really need to remake older classic movies? Should we not, instead, encourage this generation to watch the best of the previous generations, and to understand why they became classics.

Can you imagine a remake of "Gone With the Wind" or "Rebecca" or "The Ten Commandments" or "Ben Hur"? The producers, directors and actors of these films set the bar and excelled.

So perhaps, now and then, we do need a remake, although I don't know why. But maybe, with all the reality shows, all the great writers will have time to think of something new to film, and let the classics claim their moment in the sun forever, which they deserve.

Sir Richard Burton

I'll never forget the first time I saw Richard Burton. He was playing King Arthur to Julie Andrews' Guinevere on Broadway. "Camelot" was a play by Lerner and Lowe and, although "My Fair Lady" was a hit from the beginning, "Camelot" was somewhat struggling.

Ed Sullivan invited Richard and Julie to perform some songs from "Camelot" on his show. When I saw Richard Burton sing the title song of "Camelot", I, and thousands of others, fell in love with this glorious actor.

Through the years, after his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor, many criticized that he never became the true success that he might have become if he had not followed the Hollywood path. But when I look back at all of his movies and body of work, from "Cleopatra", "Taming of the Shrew", "The Rains of Ranchipur", and even "The V.I.P.s" and "The Sandpiper", I see an actor who could convey convincingly any part he was asked to portray.

Too often in life, we taint our own success with beliefs that we haven't achieved what we wanted or risen to other people's expectations. This particular notion has tainted many lives, including that of David O. Selznick, when he tried to repeat the success of "Gone with the Wind".

As someone who has reached a point in my life where I'm able to look back and reflect upon the good and the negative and the sweet and not so sweet, I truly believe that all the work we create should be evaluated at the end of our lives. We should never belittle any role or any contribution in a movie. In Hollywood, there have been many films that did not succeed at first, and later became cult classics. In art, there have been many artists who achieved nothing in their lifetime, only to find true and unbelievable immortality after they're gone. So, to all the people out there like Richard Burton, who didn't appreciate his contribution during his life, I want to say, enjoy whatever it is that you create. Time will tell you the whole story. Our opinions are only a facet.

Bell, Book and Candle in the Night

Was there any greater beauty than Kim Novak in the '50s and '60s? With her short blonde hair and "come hither" eyes, she embodied the beautiful, the strong and the mysterious all in one. If one were to examine her film career in great detail, one would see that her movies in the '50s and '60s were astonishingly successful and well-received. Take "Picnic", "Pal Joey", "Jeanne Eagles", "The Eddy Duchin Story", "The Man with the Golden Arm" and, of course, the extraordinary "Vertigo".

What a body of work to have left of a career. Kim decided Hollywood was not where she wanted to cast her entire life. So she wisely, after the '60s, semi-retired and came out for her good friend Alfred Hitchcock, and she appeared on "Falcon Crest" in her later years. Kim’s great love was for animals, and how lucky these animals were, to have someone as lovely as she is fight for them and protect them as she’s gone through life.

Whenever I think of actresses who’ve had great careers whom I admire, she’s always at the top of my list. She reached the pinnacle and she did it her way. Kim, wherever you are today, your fans out there still love you and appreciate your contribution to film history.