MFA Monday

by Lydia MFA Mondays

MFA right

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Monday Framers!

 

Enjoy this MFA Monday installment by

Dr. Alexis Weisbord!

 

 

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Part 2: Thinking Beyond

Five years is a long time and a lot can happen during that time. When I moved to California in August 2005, I didn’t know exactly where I was going to end up in June 2010, but I would have told you one definite thing: I would not be in Riverside County. Yet here we are in April 2013 and guess where I am… that’s right, Riverside County.

As I previously mentioned, I entered grad school with no attachments that I was obligated to attend to or return to, so I figured when it was all over and done with I could go wherever the wind took me. I envisioned applying for fellowships and visiting positions, and I was going to live my dream of traveling and moving. I did not have any interest in setting roots anywhere yet, and then the most amazing complication occurred: I met a wonderful partner. This was wonderful for all the reasons and benefits that make having a partner desirable: he was a tremendous support through the entirety of my exam and dissertation process, he happily pushed the cart at Trader Joes and didn’t judge me for the 12 bottles of wine I’d picked out, he calmly listened to me stress about the writing process, and he was never bothered by the odd hours I kept. But… and most people wouldn’t read this as a problem, he already had a job. Not just a job, a career. And one he really loves. He spends his days getting paid for something he would happily do for free most days. And if that wasn’t good enough, it is incredibly stable and has great benefits. Again, who would ever complain about such a wonderful fate?! Apparently me.

There I was, recently out of school, newly married, and tied down to a city (more like a town) where my degree was completely useless. In a desperate attempt to find some work that didn’t involve pouring coffee or serving food, I applied to teach at a local studio. They had a competitive team program that was good but not the best in town, they seemed to like the class I taught, and I thought I had a great interview. I was so willing to do this job I even offered the same (low) rate I was offering when I was first out of undergrad. Yet, the same day my degree was conferred I was notified that I didn’t get the job. I was beat out by a student in the community college program I was an adjunct in. As far as I can tell, this was because she probably offered a rate that was a fraction of what I offered. Two degrees in dance, a dissertation on competition dance, years of experience teaching in studios and colleges as well as almost a decade working for competitions and I was unable to get a job at a studio.

With the exception of a local community college program, I quickly realized that I lived in a wasteland for the arts, or at least for the kind I was trained and qualified for. I was, and still am, on faculty at the college; however, California’s badly damaged economy has limited the opportunities I will have at this program for years to come. I applied for both part and full time positions within a 100-mile radius, and after some time, I started to realize that taking a job with a 90+ minute commute (each way) was insane if I ever hoped to have a family and be a part of that family.

I began to conceptualize what kinds of options might be out there for me. I began to think about all the other career paths I could explore that would require the skills of my PhD, even if it didn’t require the degree itself. I realized that since the jobs I thought I wanted five years earlier were not only difficult to come by because of the plummeting economy, but were even more difficult to find because I was now geographically limited.  Since the community I lived in had no jobs for me, it was time for me to create my own work.

I have more or less taken every position that has been offered to me. Any day of the week you can find me donning four or five different hats. I once went to an event where I represented three different organizations simultaneously. Since completing graduate school, I have taught part time at three different collegiate institutions (including in a Global Studies program), began managing a small, but busy, professional dance company, became part of a collective of choreographers that produces events and workshops locally, found a local studio that I love teaching at, and I started my own local dance company.  Meanwhile, I find ways to collaborate with long distance colleagues on scholarly work.

On my worst days I feel like my brain is going to fracture and cause me to lose my mind. On my best days I am completely fulfilled, feeling like I am not missing out on a single part of the wonderful world of dance. I get to teach all ages, and I get to perform when I want. I’ve learned that I love managing productions, and I never feel pressured when I sit down to write or research because it is always by choice. My days can be exhausting and I am excruciatingly underpaid because many of these positions are with brand new organizations that I am helping to build, but I see potential for a future in this wasteland that I live in. I see a future that I not only like, but a future that might just need someone exactly like me to help it succeed. The way I see it, no one may think that I am valuable now, but if I help to show them what I can do and what they are missing, then maybe one day there will be a local need for me and my degree.

I’d like to acknowledge that none of what I am doing in this effort is done alone. I have a small network of local colleagues who not only provide me opportunities but also support my endeavors. Together, I see us building a community that will not only provide for us but also for our neighbors. I am fully aware of the fact that my unstable lifestyle is made feasible by the fact that I have a partner whose stable job gives us many benefits, including health insurance. Because of this, I am able to take career risks that might not be smart decisions otherwise, so I recognize that this path may not be for everyone.

What I do encourage anyone, regardless of their marital status, geographic location or financial stability, to consider, however, are the many possibilities for their skills and degree. In academia, it is not uncommon to be conditioned to follow a narrow career path. But, just imagine what our world would look like if more arts administrators were MFAs or Ph.D. Imagine what it would look like if those on grant panels were working artists and not reps from corporations. Imagine if the majority of teachers in dance studios had MFAs. As other bloggers have said, you won’t be rich, but none of us go this direction for the money. So get creative about what you could do, because the possibilities are endless!

 

 

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Dr. Alexis Weisbord received her BFA in Dance from University of Minnesota and her PhD in Critical Dance Studies from UC Riverside. Alexis was a competitive dancer in high school and later spent over ten years directing dance competitions throughout the US. Her dissertation was entitled “Redefining Dance: Competition Dance in the United States” and she has a chapter, “Defining Dance, Creating Commodity: The Rhetoric of So You Think You Can Dance,” in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Alexis has held positions as Lecturer in Global Studies at UC Riverside and Associate Faculty in Dance at Norco College. Currently she is an Associate Faculty member at Mt. San Jacinto College, Managing Director for The PGK Dance Project in San Diego, and founder/co-director of an emerging dance company, Alias Movement.

 

 

Tuesday Tunes: Gregory Hines

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

               Gregory Hines!

 

 

 

Born in New York City to Maurice Hines Sr. and Alma Hines, Gregory Hines began tapping when he was two years old, and began dancing semi-professionally at the age of five. Since then, he and his older brother Maurice performed together, studying with choreographer Henry LeTang. Gregory and Maurice also learned from veteran tap dancers such as Howard Sims and The Nicholas Brothers whenever they performed in the same venues. The two brothers were known as “The Hines Kids”, making nightclub appearances, and later as “The Hines Brothers”. When their father joined the act as a drummer,the name changed again in 1963 to “Hines, Hines, and Dad”.

Hines performed as the lead singer and musician in a rock band called Severance in the year of 1975-1976 based in Venice, California. Severance was one of the house bands at an original music club called Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout, otherwise known as the 4H Club. In 1986, he sang a duet with Luther Vandross, entitled “There’s Nothing Better Than Love”, which reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard R&B charts.

Hines made his movie debut in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part 1. Critics took note of Hines’s comedic charm, and he later appeared in such movies as The Cotton Club, White Nights alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, Running Scared, Tap and Waiting to Exhale. On television, he starred in his own series in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show on CBS, as well as in the recurring role of Ben Doucette on Will & Grace. In 1999, Hines made his return to television with Nick Jr.’s Little Bill, as the voice of Big Bill in which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program.

Hines made his Broadway debut with his brother in The Girl in Pink Tights in 1954. He earned Tony Award nominations for Eubie! (1979), Comin’ Uptown (1980) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) and the Theatre World Award for Eubie!. In 1989, Gregory Hines created “Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America,” which he also hosted. The PBS special featured seasoned tap dancers such as Savion Glover and Bunny Briggs. He also co-hosted the Tony Awards ceremony in 1995 and 2002.

In 1990, Hines visited with his idol, Sammy Davis, Jr., as he was dying of throat cancer, unable to speak. After Davis died, an emotional Hines spoke at Davis’s funeral of how Sammy had made a gesture to him, “as if passing a basketball … and I caught it.” Hines spoke of the honor that Sammy thought that Hines could carry on from where he left off.

Hines was an avid improviser. He did a lot of improvisation of tap steps, tap sounds, and tap rhythms alike. His improvisation was like that of a drummer, doing a solo and coming up with all sorts of rhythms. He also improvised the phrasing of a number of tap steps that he would come up with, mainly based on sound produced. A laid back dancer, he usually wore nice pants and a loose-fitting shirt. Although he inherited the roots and tradition of the black rhythmic tap, he also influenced the new black rhythmic tap, as a proponent. “‘He purposely obliterated the tempos,’ wrote tap historian Sally Sommer, ‘throwing down a cascade of taps like pebbles tossed across the floor. In that moment, he aligned tap with the latest free-form experiments in jazz and new music and postmodern dance.'”

Throughout his career, Hines wanted to and continued to be an advocate for tap in America. In 1988, he successfully petitioned the creation of National Tap Dance Day, which is now celebrated in 40 cities in the United States. It is also celebrated in eight other nations. Gregory Hines was on the Board of Directors of Manhattan Tap, he was a member of the Jazz Tap Ensemble, and a member of the American Tap Foundation (formerly the American Tap Dance Orchestra). He was a good teacher, influencing tap dance artists Savion Glover, Dianne Walker, Ted Levy, and Jane Goldberg.

In an interview with The New York Times in 1988, Hines said that everything he did was influenced by his dancing–“my singing, my acting, my lovemaking, my being a parent.

Hines died of liver cancer at 57, on August 9, 2003, en route to hospital from his home in Los Angeles. He had been diagnosed with the disease more than a year earlier but had informed only his closest friends. At the time of his death, he was engaged to Negrita Jayde. Hines is interred at Saint Volodymyr’s Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, the country in which he met Negrita. Negrita, who died in 2009, is buried next to him.

 

Gregory Hines Solo Tap Scene White Nights

 

Fit As A Fiddle: Steve Martin & Gregory Hines

 

Gregory and Maurice Hines in the Cotton Club

 

 

Fun Facts about Mr. Gregory Hines

 

He and Maurice Hines were cast as brothers in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984), set in the Harlem club where their grandmother had been one of the elite black entertainers performing for a whites-only audience in the twenties and thirties. Coppola encouraged the brothers to improvise so they based one scene on their real-life reunion in “Eubie!” and admitted the tears were real.

In the late ’60s he decided to try his hand at performing rock ‘n’ roll music, and writing his own songs.

Was aged six when he and brother Maurice Hines performed, as the Hines Kids, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

Had his professional debut when only 5 years old.

When he was in his twenties he worked on a farm.

Was considered for the part of “Winston Zeddemore” in Ghostbusters (1984).

Hines made his feature film debut in Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I (1981). He was a last minute replacement for Richard Pryor, who had to cancel his appearance in the movie due to his freebasing accident.

Won Broadway’s 1992 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for “Jelly’s Last Jam,” for which he also shared a Best Choreographer nomination with Hope Clarke and Ted L. Levy. He was also nominated for Tonys three other times: as Best Actor (Featured Role – Musical) in 1979 for “Eubie!”, which he recreated in the television version with the same title, Eubie! (1981); ; and as Best Actor (Musical), in 1980 for “Comin’ Uptown” and in 1981 for “Sophisticated Ladies.”

In 1954 he and brother Maurice Hines they were cast in the Broadway musical “The Girl in the Pink Tights”.

He had a reunion with brother Maurice Hines when they were both hired for the Broadway musical, “Eubie!” in 1978. It earned him a Tony nomination, as did his role in another musical, “Sophisticated Ladies”.

His own stage show took  him from New York’s Bottom Line to spots as far-flung as Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Japan and Monte Carlo.

Inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2004.

Tuesday Tunes

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

           Cyd Charisse

If I had to give up either acting or dancing, I’d choose to keep dancing.

Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname “Sid” was taken from a sibling trying to say “Sis”. (It was later spelled “Cyd” at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as “Felia Siderova”[5][6] and, later, “Maria Istomina”.

The outbreak of World War II led to the breakup of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff’s Something to Shout About. This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton – who had also discovered Gene Kelly – and soon she joined the Freed Unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer. In an early role, she had her first speaking part supporting Judy Garland in the 1946 film The Harvey Girls. Charisse was principally celebrated for her onscreen pairings with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as the lead female role in The Band Wagon (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed “Dancing in the Dark” and “Girl Hunt Ballet” routines.

As Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, Gene Kelly chose Charisse to partner with him in the celebrated “Broadway Melody” ballet finale from Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and she co-starred with Kelly in 1954’s Scottish-themed musical film Brigadoon. She again took the lead female role alongside Kelly in his penultimate MGM musical It’s Always Fair Weather (1956).

In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings, a musical remake of 1939’s Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo’s role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, calling her “beautiful dynamite” and writing: “That Cyd! When you’ve danced with her you stay danced with.” She had a slightly unusual serious acting role in Party Girl (1958), where she played a showgirl who became involved with gangsters and a crooked lawyer, although it did include two dance routines.

In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: “As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the more inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan’s help, creates fabulous numbers – for himself and his partner. But Kelly can create an entire number for somebody else … I think, however, that Astaire’s coordination is better than Kelly’s … his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, is the stronger of the two. When he lifts you, he lifts you! … To sum it up, I’d say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on-screen. But it’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re both delicious.”

After the decline of the Hollywood musical in the late 1950s, Charisse retired from dancing but continued to appear in film and TV productions from the 1960s through the 1990s. She had a supporting role in Something’s Got to Give (1962), the last, unfinished film of Marilyn Monroe. She made cameo appearances in Blue Mercedes’s “I Want to Be Your Property” (1987) and Janet Jackson’s “Alright” (1990) music videos. Her last film appearance was in 1994 in That’s Entertainment! III as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.

 

The Band Wagon

 

Silk Stockings

 

The Broadway Medley from Singing in the Rain

 

 

Facts About Miss Cyd Charisse 

 

Took her name Cyd from a nickname originated from her brother. Initially, he could not say sister and called her Sid. She took the nickname and convinced her agent to keep the name with the present spelling. He feared that Sid was too masculine.

Grew up in the Texas dust-bowl town of Amarillo. Her Baptist jeweler father, a closet balletomane, encouraged her to begin her ballet lessons for health reasons.

She danced with the Ballet Russe using the names Maria Istomina and Felia Sidorova.

Although one of the greatest female dancers in the history of the movie musical, her singing in films was almost always dubbed, most notably by Carol Richards in Brigadoon (1954) and a young Vikki Carr in The Silencers (1966).

In 1952, she had a $5-million insurance policy accepted on her legs.

Lost out on two of MGM’s biggest movie musical roles. She fell and injured her knee during a dance leap on a film which forced her out of the role of Nadina Hale in Easter Parade (1948). Ann Miller replaced her. She also had to relinquish the lead femme role in An American in Paris (1951) due to pregnancy. Leslie Caron took over the part and became a star.

Unlike many top female dancers in the era of movie musicals, she was trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition.

During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents enrolled her in ballet classes at a school in Hollywood. One of her teachers was Nico Charisse.

Said her husband could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.

Fred Astaire, in his 1959 memoir “Steps in Time”, referred to Cyd as “beautiful dynamite”.

Got her start in Hollywood when Ballet Russe star David Lichine was hired by Columbia for a ballet sequence in the musical film Something to Shout About (1943). Cyd, who was then billed as Lily Norwood, appeared in the scene and attracted attention. Movie offers, including a dancing role opposite Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), led to a seven-year contract offer by MGM.

She was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March 2002 in Austin, Texas.

One of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in the movies, other actresses that have also done this includes Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Caron.

One of the few, if not only, world-renowned prima ballerinas to be featured in a popular hip-hop music video. She had a cameo in “Alright” (1990) by Janet Jackson.

She was an honorary member of the National Federation of Republican Women along with Laraine Day, Rhonda Fleming and Coleen Gray.

Although she is interred in a niche at Hillside Memorial Park, a well-known Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, Charrise was in fact a practicing Methodist. Her funeral was even presided by Dr. Gary Allen Dicky, pastor of the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village.

Tuesday Tunes!

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes       

             Happy Tuesday Everyone!

        Jimmy Cagney!

 

Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.

 

James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film, though it is film where he has had his greatest impact. Known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal stylings and deadpan comic timing he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is best remembered for playing multi-faceted tough guys in movies like The Public Enemy and Angels With Dirty Faces and was even typecast or limited by this view earlier in his career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its 50 Greatest American Screen Legends. No less a student of drama than Orson Welles said of Cagney that he was “maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera.”

Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the actual location: either on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street or in a top floor apartment at 391 East Eighth. His father, James Francis Cagney, Sr., was of Irish descent. By the time of his son’s birth, he was a bartender and amateur boxer, though on Cagney’s birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist.  His mother was Carolyn (née Nelson); her father was a Norwegian ship captain while her mother was Irish. Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died within months of birth; he himself was very sick as a young child, so much so that his mother feared he would die before he could be baptized. He later attributed his sickness to the poverty in which they grew up. The family moved twice while he was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96th Street.

The red-haired, blue-eyed Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918, and attended Columbia College of Columbia University where he intended to major in art. He also took German and joined the Student Army Training Corps, but dropped out after one semester, returning home upon the death of his father during the 1918 flu pandemic.

He held a variety of jobs early in his life, giving all his earnings to his family: junior architect, copy boy for the New York Sun, book custodian at the New York Public Library, bellhop, draughtsman, and night doorman. It was while Cagney was working for the New York Public Library that he met Florence James, who would help him on his way to an acting career.[18] Cagney believed in hard work, later stating, “It was good for me. I feel sorry for the kid who has too cushy a time of it. Suddenly he has to come face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him.”

He started tap dancing as a boy (a skill that would eventually contribute to his Academy Award) and was nicknamed “Cellar-Door Cagney” after his habit of dancing on slanted cellar doors.

He was a good street fighter, defending his older brother Harry, a medical student, against all comers when necessary.[10][19] He engaged in amateur boxing, and was a runner-up for the New York State lightweight title. His coaches encouraged him to turn professional, but his mother would not allow it. He also played semi-professional baseball for a local team,[17] and entertained dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.

His introduction to films was unusual; when visiting an aunt in Brooklyn who lived opposite Vitagraph Studios, Cagney would climb over the fence to watch the filming of John Bunny movies. He became involved in amateur dramatics, starting as a scenery boy for a Chinese pantomime at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, one of the first settlement houses in the nation, where his brother Harry performed and his soon-to-be friend, Florence James, directed. He was initially content working behind the scenes and had no interest in performing. One night, however, Harry became ill, and although Cagney was not an understudy, his photographic memory of rehearsals enabled him to stand in for his brother without making a single mistake. Therefore, Florence James has the unique distinction of being the first director to put him on a stage.  Afterward, he joined a number of companies as a performer in a variety of roles.

In his first professional acting performance, Cagney danced costumed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a hoofer and comedian, until he got his first major acting part in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews, Warner Bros. signed him for an initial $500-a-week, three-week contract to reprise his role; this was quickly extended to a seven-year contract.

Cagney’s seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a famous scene that makes dramatic use of a grapefruit, the film thrust Cagney into the spotlight, making him one of Hollywood’s biggest stars as well as one of Warner Brothers’ biggest contracts. In 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan. In 1942 Cagney was awarded the Oscar for his energetic portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961, deciding to spend time on his farm with his family. He exited retirement, twenty years later, for a part in the 1981 movie Ragtime, mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.

Cagney walked out on Warners several times over the course of his career, each time returning upon much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warners for breach of contract and won; this marked one of the first times an actor had beaten a studio over a contract issue. He worked for an independent film company for a year while the suit was being settled, and also established his own production company, Cagney Productions, in 1942, before returning to Warners again four years later. Jack Warner called him “The Professional Againster”, in reference to Cagney’s refusal to be pushed around. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.

 

 James Cagney shows us how to dance down stairs

 

 

Great Dance Routine: James Cagney and Bob Hope

 

 

 Yankee Doodle Dandy


 

 

Fun Facts about Mr. Jimmy Cagney:

 

Famous for his gangster roles he played in the 1930s and 1940s (which made his only Oscar win as the musical composer/dancer/actor George M.Cohan most ironic).

Cagney’s first job as an entertainer was as a female dancer in a chorus line.

(1942-1944) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG)

Pictured on a 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 22 July 1999.

Was best friends with actors Pat O’Brien and Frank McHugh.

Earned a Black Belt in Judo.

He was voted the 14th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Extraordinarily (for Hollywood), he never cheated on his wife Frances, resulting in a marriage that lasted 64 years (ending with his death). The closest he came was nearly giving into a seduction attempt by Merle Oberon while the two stars were on tour to entertain WWII GIs.

His electric acting style was a huge influence on future generations of actors. Actors as diverse as Clint Eastwood and Malcolm McDowell point to him as their number one influence to become actors.

Lived in a Gramercy Park building in New York City that was also occupied by Margaret Hamilton and now boasts Jimmy Fallon as one of its tenants.

Though most Cagney imitators use the line “You dirty rat!”, Cagney never actually said it in any of his films.

His performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #6 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).

His performance as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931) is ranked #57 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #88 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.

Turned down Stanley Holloway’s role as Eliza’s father in My Fair Lady (1964).

Turned down the lead role in The Jolson Story (1946), which went to Larry Parks.

Broke a rib while filming the dance scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) but continued dancing until it was completed.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan at a ceremony at the White House on 26 March 1984.

Wrote that of the sixty-two films he made, he rated Love Me or Leave Me (1955) costarring Doris Day among his top five.

A studio changed his birth date from 1899 to 1904 to capitalize on his youthful appearance.

He refused payment for his cameo in The Seven Little Foys (1955) even though he spent ten days learning his complicated tap routine for the film.

My Review of the River Oaks School of Dancing by Emily Pau

by Lydia Links We Like

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The River Oaks School of Dancing. The name alone is intimidating. River Oaks. Anyone living in the Houston area understands the prestige behind the name. Older men and women dressed in Ralph Lauren and Ann Taylor practically floating around a ballroom was the image that burned in my brain. But I was so excited about writing an article on their dance studio. I always wanted to learn how to waltz! Then it hit me. I was going to learn ballroom dancing…in a room full of people…who have been taking lessons for a while….watching me mess up. Oh dear. What did I just do? I don’t have a dancing background! Sure I took ballet when I was five and swing dancing in high school, which I couldn’t remember, but those don’t count! I became so nervous that I couldn’t even figure out what to wear to the lessons.  I thought I needed a specific outfit or special shoes, like the dancers in their pictures.  All of a sudden I didn’t feel that excited anymore.

I realized there was no turning back and when the day came I drove to the dance studio. I secretly thought that since I’m just a writer I wouldn’t have to dance that much, I could simply hide somewhere and observe.  But when I got there, I realized it wasn’t a group class, it was actually a private session. Great! Now all I needed to worry about was the large probability of stepping on my instructor’s feet.

My instructor wasn’t even what I had imagined. I expected someone closer to my grandfather’s age or a strict Russian woman telling me I had the rhythm of a goose walking on a tightrope. I know it’s a stereotype but I couldn’t help it! However, none of the instructors were like that. They were all in their twenties and thirties and some of the nicest and funniest people I ever met. Their kindness and constant encouragements gave me confidence even when I messed up; which happened more than once.

Before we even started, my instructor John first asked me what dances I knew.  I told him my all about my dancing “experiences” and he decided to start off with something I had previously learned (forgotten) instead of immediately throwing me head-first into the deep end. It actually boosted my confidence and made me feel more comfortable about the actual dancing part of the job. After the review, we slowly worked on new material. The Foxtrot was at least similar to the swing dances, but The Cha-Cha…uh well…wasn’t.

At least with some of the dances a person can almost fake the moves. Even Mel, one of the instructors, said if you aren’t that great at swing dancing just look like you’re having a good time and people will think you know what you’re doing. Love it!  But when dancing The Cha-Cha, yeah I wasn’t very good at even faking that one. The nice thing was that after nearly colliding with John a couple of times, I finally got it. Yay! So, I ended up learning four dances in a 50 minute class!

Now before anyone gets too excited or too scared about taking one of their classes, let me explain. Since I was invited to write an article on their dance studio and get first-hand experience, I was given the opportunity to learn a lot more in a short amount of time. Otherwise the private classes are tailored to your own skill level, needs and goals. Since you work one-on-one with your instructor, you can learn at your own pace, ask as many questions as you’d like, and learn the dances that interest you.

I was actually disappointed the session was over so soon. I had more than fun than I had ever imagined. I was even trying to stop myself from dancing in the car on the way home. I also found myself practicing the dances around my house. That’s how much fun I had! The best part was being invited back for their Friday group class and their dance party along with one more dance lesson. That night was more fun than the previous one.

This time my instructor taught me the Waltz and the Rumba. I think I did better with the Rumba than the Waltz mainly because John gave me a little tip. When learning the Rumba, never pick up the balls of the feet when sliding from side-to-side. The best way to remember this is to imagine a mint conditioned vintage baseball card under each foot. The objective is to try to keep the cards in perfect condition under the feet and away from exposure. The other part of the dance focuses on the toes. He told me to pretend I was in a vineyard squishing grapes. Squish-Squish-Slide-Squish-Squish-Slide. Then I got it! Brilliant! Ok to me it was brilliant. I honestly had no idea how to Rumba, but when John gave me the visuals then it became easy.

The Waltzing part was fun; aside from stepping on John’s feet twice. He did make me feel a little better when he told me I would be surprised how many times it actually happens to him. I felt as if I had been initiated into some sort of club. But it really was great! I kept picturing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across a ballroom floor. It truly is the most elegant dance on the planet-in my opinion anyway.  All in all it was a great lesson.

The fun wasn’t over yet! The group session was next. Every Friday their group classes practice the spotlighted dance from 8:00-9:00 pm. Each month the River Oaks School of Dancing focuses on a specific dance in their group classes. This month they spotlighted the Waltz and in February they will be teaching the East Coast Swing! It was very convenient to have my dance lesson be the same dance that was being spotlighted in the group classes. I felt a lot more comfortable about performing with others by that point.  I thought I was going to have to perform in the middle of the room and have everyone watch me. Not even close. John and Pari basically break the steps down piece-by-piece and everyone copies the moves. The group classes aren’t intimidating at all and that part was what I was dreading the most.

But then the real fun began after the group session. Party Time!!! This is where the magic happens. The instructors and students show off their skills in a fun, social environment for an hour. To be honest, just watching everyone was just as much fun as the actual dancing. They played a variety of music and a “serve yourself” bar is provided. No, I did not try the bar because I was my own date who was driving herself home that night. The party is a great opportunity to mix and mingle with the wonderful students who are also interested in learning to dance!

If a song came on and I didn’t know the dance, an instructor would come up to me and ask me if I wanted to learn it. Pari was really sweet in teaching me how to tango. Thank you Pari! Yuri and Angele were my waltzing partners at one point too. It was so much fun! Every fear I had just melted away. I never felt out-of-place or intimidated. I loved every moment of it and was a little sad that it was over so soon.

I want to thank the wonderful staff at the River Oaks School of Dancing, Ina Darley and Miss Kim for their help and for inviting me to the dance studio. I also want to thank all of the amazing instructors for their patience, humor and kindness. Pari, Yuri, Angele, Mel and John thank you all so much!

 

So what is the takeaway for all of you readers?

Ladies, don’t be intimidated to give dancing a try

Gentlemen, real men ballroom dance 

 

Interested in signing up? You can schedule an online appointment at http://www.riveroaksdancing.com or call 713-529-0959 and start your complementary lesson now!

 

 

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Emily Pau graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in English and a minor in Communication. She is a native Houstonian and first-generation Cuban-American. She is fluent in American and French Sign Language and when she is not working as a lion tamer, she enjoys drag racing her red Volkswagen Beetle named “Harvey” on the weekends.

Emily Pau, Social Media and Blog Manager for Frame Dance Productions, can be contacted at emily.pau@framedance.org.

Tuesday Tunes

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

               Happy Tuesday Framers!

             I hope all of you stay warm today!   

              Bebe Neuwirth!

 

 

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In a really well-written musical, you talk until you just can’t talk anymore, you’re going to have to sing. And when you’re just so full you can’t sing anymore, then you have to dance. It’s a natural progression.

 

Beatrice “Bebe” Neuwirth was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, a painter, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a mathematician. She has an older brother Peter, an actuary. Neuwirth is Jewish, and attended Chapin School in New Jersey as well as Princeton Day School (New Jersey) of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976. She began to study ballet at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977, during which time she performed with the Princeton Ballet Company in Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, and Coppélia, also appearing in community theater musicals. Neuwirth always dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer; the only other career she reportedly seriously contemplated was being a veterinarian.

Neuwirth made her Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line in 1980. She later appeared in revivals of Little Me (1982) Sweet Charity (1986), for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Damn Yankees (1994). 1996 saw her play Velma Kelly in the Broadway revival of Chicago. That role brought her her greatest stage recognition to date, and several awards including the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Neuwirth would later return to the still-running revival of Chicago in 2006, this time as Roxie Hart.

She appeared in a musical revue Here Lies Jenny, that featured songs by Kurt Weill, sung and danced by Neuwirth and a four-person supporting cast, as part of an unspoken ambiguous story in an anonymous seedy bar possibly in Berlin in the 1930s. The show ran from May 7 through October 3, 2004, in the Zipper Theater in New York City. Here Lies Jenny was also presented by Neuwirth in San Francisco in 2005. In 2009, Neuwirth toured a one-woman cabaret show with pianist Scott Cady. The cabaret included music by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, John Kander and Fred Ebb amongst others. In 2010, she returned to Broadway to create the role of Morticia Addams in the original production of The Addams Family opposite Nathan Lane.

Her screen credits include Green Card, Bugsy, Say Anything…, Jumanji, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, Extreme Goofy Movie, Liberty Heights, Tadpole (for which the Seattle Film Critics named her Best Supporting Actress), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, La Divorce, Malice, The Big Bounce, The Faculty, Fame and Woody Allen’s Celebrity.

On television, from 1986 to 1993 Neuwirth played Dr. Lilith Sternin, who married Dr. Frasier Crane in the hit comedy series Cheers. From the fourth to the seventh season, Neuwirth portrayed Lilith in a regular recurring role, and she appeared on the show as a main star from season eight to the final season, season eleven. Like Kelsey Grammer when he started on the show as Frasier Crane, she was not immediately given star billing in the opening credits, but at the end for seasons eight and nine; she appeared in the opening credits with her own portrait in seasons ten and eleven. She auditioned for this role with her arm in a sling, following a fall a week earlier. She won two Emmy Awards for the role, in 1990 and 1991. The character also made an appearance in the series Wings and in 12 episodes of the Cheers spin-off Frasier, which earned her a 1995 Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Other small-screen credits include a guest appearance in the first season of NewsRadio, a small role on The Adventures of Pete and Pete (episode: “The Call”), Deadline (2000), Hack (2003), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 as a modeling agent/suspect; 2005 as A.D.A Tracey Kibre), and the miniseries Wild Palms and the fourth season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, First Contact, as Lanel. She appeared as herself in episodes of Will and Grace, Strangers with Candy and Celebrity Jeopardy!. In 2009, she co-starred as Ms. Kraft in the remake of Fame. She recently had a recurring role as Caroline, the literary editor of Jonathan Ames, on the HBO series Bored to Death. She’s also appeared in shows like Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch as well as provided voice overs for various cartoons.

 

 

All That Jazz and Hot Honey Rag

 

I’m A Brass Band

 

Nowadays

 

 

 

Fun Facts about Miss Bebe Neuwirth

 

As of mid-January 2014, Bebe Neuwirth will have played all three of the principle female roles in the long-running Broadway Revival of Chicago. She was in the revival’s original cast as Velma Kelly, and won the 1997 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2007, Neuwirth did a stint as Roxie Hart, and in 2014, she returned to the show again, this time playing Warden “Mama” Morton.

Her husband, Chris Calkins is is the founder of Destino vineyards in Napa Valley.

After Cheers (1982) went off the air, she got a lot of offers from TV and film essentially asking her to pretty much play the same character. She was offered a regular role as Lilith on the Cheers (1982) spin-off, Frasier (1993) but she turned it down so she could go back to Broadway. She did guests spots on the show instead.

She raises money to help stray cats and dogs.

She had hip replacement surgery in 2006.

She has played the same character (Dr. Lilith Sternin) in three different series: Cheers(1982), Wings (1990) and Frasier (1993).

Has won two Tony Awards: in 1986 as Best Actress (Featured Role – Musical) for playing Nicki in a revival of “Sweet Charity;” and in 1997 as Best Actress (Musical) for playing Velma Kelly in a revival of “Chicago.”

Tuesday Tunes

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

          Hello, Hello!

  This Tuesday we are spotlighting… 

 

              Mikhail Baryshnikov! 

 

No one is born a dancer.You have to want it more than anything.

Baryshnikov was born in Riga, Latvia, then occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union. His parents were Russian, Alexandra (a dressmaker; maiden name, Kisselova) and Nicholai Baryshnikov (an engineer). Baryshnikov began his ballet studies in Riga in 1960. In 1964, he entered the Vaganova School, in what was then Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Baryshnikov soon won the top prize in the junior division of the Varna International Ballet Competition. He joined the Kirov Ballet and Mariinsky Theater in 1967, dancing the “Peasant” pas de deux in Giselle.

Recognizing Baryshnikov’s talent, in particular the strength of his stage presence and purity of his classical technique, several Soviet choreographers, including Oleg Vinogradov, Konstantin Sergeyev, Igor Tchernichov, and Leonid Jakobson, choreographed ballets for him. Baryshnikov made signature roles of Jakobson’s 1969 Vestris along with an intensely emotional Albrecht in Giselle. While still in the Soviet Union, he was called by New York Times critic Clive Barnes “the most perfect dancer I have ever seen.”

On June 29, 1974, while on tour in Canada with the Kirov Ballet, Baryshnikov defected, requesting political asylum in Toronto, and joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He also announced to the dance world he would not go back to the U.S.S.R. He later stated that Christina Berlin, an American friend of his, helped engineer his defection during his 1970 tour of London. His first televised performance after coming out of temporary seclusion in Canada was with the National Ballet of Canada in La Sylphide. He then went on to the United States.

From 1974 to 1978, he was principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), where he partnered with Gelsey Kirkland. He also worked with the New York City Ballet, with George Balanchine and as a regular guest artist with the Royal Ballet. He also toured with ballet and modern dance companies around the world for fifteen months. Several roles were created for him, including roles Opus 19: The Dreamer (1979), by Jerome Robbins, Rhapsody (1980), by Frederick Ashton, and Other Dances with Natalia Makarova by Jerome Robbins.

He returned to ABT in 1980 as dancer and artistic director, a position he held for a decade. On July 3, 1986, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. From 1990 to 2002, Baryshnikov was artistic director of the White Oak Dance Project, a touring company he co-founded with Mark Morris. In 2003, he won the Prix Benois de la Danse for lifetime achievement. In 2005 he launched the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York.

Baryshnikov made his American television dancing debut in 1976, on the PBS program In Performance Live from Wolf Trap. During the Christmas season of 1977, CBS brought his highly acclaimed American Ballet Theatre production of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet The Nutcracker to television, and it has remained to this day the most popular and most often shown television production of the work, at least in the U.S. In addition to Baryshnikov in the title role, Gelsey Kirkland, Alexander Minz, and many members of the American Ballet Theatre also starred. The production is still shown by some PBS stations.  The Baryshnikov version of The Nutcracker is one of only two to be nominated for an Emmy Award. The other one was Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut, Morris’s intentionally exaggerated and satirical version of the ballet.

Baryshnikov also performed in two Emmy-winning television specials, one on ABC and one on CBS, in which he danced to music from Broadway and Hollywood, respectively. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, he appeared many times with American Ballet Theatre on Live from Lincoln Center and Great Performances. Over the years, he has also appeared on several telecasts of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Baryshnikov performed in his first film role soon after arriving in New York. He portrayed the character Yuri Kopeikine, a famous Russian womanizing ballet dancer, in the 1977 film The Turning Point, for which he received an Oscar nomination. He co-starred with Gregory Hines and Isabella Rossellini in the 1985 film White Nights, choreographed by Twyla Tharp; and he was featured in the 1987 film Dancers. On television, in the last season of Sex and the City, he played a Russian artist, Aleksandr Petrovsky, who woos Carrie Bradshaw relentlessly and takes her to Paris. He co-starred in Company Business (1991) with Gene Hackman.

On November 2, 2006, Baryshnikov and chef Alice Waters were featured on an episode of the Sundance Channel’s original series Iconoclasts. The two have a long friendship. They discussed their lifestyles, sources of inspiration, and social projects that make them unique. During the program, Alice Waters visited Baryshnikov’s Arts Center in New York City. The Hell’s Kitchen Dance tour brought him to Berkeley to visit Alice Waters’ restaurant Chez Panisse.

On July 17, 2007, the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer featured a profile of Baryshnikov and his Arts Center.

On April 11–21, 2012, Baryshnikov starred in a new play directed by Dmitry Krymov, titled In Paris. The play was presented in the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, at the Broad Stage. His co-star was Anna Sinyakina.

His next role was the stage adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Man in a Case.

 

Duo Dance from White Nights with Gregory Hines

 

 

Albrechts’ variation from Act II of Giselle in 1977.

 

 

Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights, dancing “Koni” (Horses) by Vysotsky (KGB spy and killer).

 

 

Fun Facts about Mr. Mikhail Baryshnikov

 

Danced with the Kirov Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet.

Was artistic director with ABT and even ran his own class outside of ABT – Mikhail Baryshnikov’s School of Classic Ballet.

Was romantically involved with legendary ballerinas Natalia Makarova and Gelsey Kirkland.

Frequently attended legendary New York disco Studio 54.

Was nominated for Broadway’s 1989 Tony Award as Best Actor (Play) for “Metamorphosis.”

Owner of ballet troupe, “White Oak Dance Project”.

Taught by ballet instructor Bella Kovarsky when he was a child.

Mikhail was a 2000 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Center Honors.

Tuesday Tunes!

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

                Happy Tuesday Framers!

 

        This Tuesday we are highlighting…..

             Ginger Rogers!

 

When you’re happy, you don’t count the years

 

Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911. Her mother, known as Lelee, went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped by her father several times until her mother took him to court. Ginger’s mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger. Lelee became a Marine in 1918 and was in the publicity department and Ginger went back to her grandparents in Missiouri. During this time her mother met John Rogers. After leaving the Marines they married in May, 1920 in Liberty, Missouri. He was transferred to Dallas and Ginger (who treated him as a father) went too.

Ginger won a Charleston contest in 1925 (age 14) and a 4 week contract on the Interstate circuit. She also appeared in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17 with her mother by her side to guide her. Now she had discovered true acting. She married in March, 1929, and after several months realized she had made a mistake. She acquired an agent and she did several short films. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of “Top Speed” which debuted Christmas Day, 1929.

Her first film was in 1929 in A Night in a Dormitory (1930). It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly in two more films, A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929) and Campus Sweethearts (1930). For awhile she did both movies and theatre. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as Office Blues (1930) and The Tip-Off (1931). But the movie that enamored her to the public was Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She did not have top billing but her beauty and voice was enough to have the public want more. She suggested using a monocle and this also set her apart. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, “We’re in the Money”. In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934).

It was a well received film about the popularity of radio. Ginger’s real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom. They were first paired in 1933’s Flying Down to Rio (1933) and later in 1935’s Roberta (1935) and Top Hat (1935). Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as Bachelor Mother (1939) and 5th Ave Girl (1939) both in 1939. Also that year she appeared with Astaire in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped. After that studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own. She starred in her final film with Fred Astaire in 1949 in The Barkelys of Broadway  replacing Judy Garland after Garland was suspended from MGM due to her tardiness.

She made several dramatic pictures but it was 1940’s Kitty Foyle (1940) that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal. Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, Tom Dick and Harry (1941) the following year. It’s a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II. After Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) in 1957, Ginger didn’t appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in Harlow (1965). Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, “Ginger, My Story” which is a very good book. On April 25, 1995, Ginger died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.

 

 

Fred and Ginger- Too Hot to Handle 

 

Ginger Rogers and Lucy Do The Charleston

 

Fred and Ginger- Bouncing the Blues from The Barkelys of Broadway

 

 

Facts about Miss Ginger Rogers

 

Was given the name “Ginger” by her little cousin who couldn’t pronounce “Virginia” correctly.

Sort-of cousin of Rita Hayworth. Ginger’s aunt married Rita’s uncle.

She didn’t drink: she had her very own ice cream soda fountain.

Was Hollywood’s highest paid star of 1942.

Her first teaming with Fred Astaire, Flying Down to Rio (1933), was her 20th film appearance but only Astaire’s second.

A distant cousin of Lucille Ball, according to Lucie Arnaz.

She and Fred Astaire acted in 10 movies together: The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Carefree (1938), Flying Down to Rio (1933), Follow the Fleet (1936), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Shall We Dance (1937), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Swing Time (1936) and Top Hat (1935)

Rogers holds the record for actresses at New York’s prestigious Radio City Music Hall with 23 films for a total of 55 weeks.

One of the celebrities whose picture Anne Frank placed on the wall of her bedroom in the “Secret Annex” while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Holland.

Interred at Oakwood Memorial Park, Chatsworth, California, USA, the same cemetery as long-time dancing/acting partner Fred Astaire is located.

 

 

Tuesday Tunes

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

Liza Minnelli

 

My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams

 

Liza Minnelli was born on March 12, 1946, the daughter of Judy Garland and movie director Vincente Minnelli. She was practically raised at MGM studios while her parents worked long hours there and she made her film debut at fourteen months of age in the movie In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Her parents divorced in 1951 and, in 1952, her mother married Sidney Luft, with sister Lorna Luft and brother Joey Luft subsequently being born. Her father, Vincente Minnelli, later married Georgette Magnani, mother of her half-sister Christiane Nina “Tina Nina” Minnelli.

At sixteen, Liza was on her own in New York City, struggling to begin her career in show business. Her first recognition came for the play “Best Foot Forward” which ran for seven months in 1963. A year later, Judy invited Liza to appear with her for a show at the London Paladium. This show sold out immediately and a second night was added to it. Liza’s performance in London was a huge turning point in both her career and her relationship with her mother. The audience absolutely loved Liza and Judy realized that Liza was now an adult with her own career. It was at the Paladium that Liza met her first husband, Peter Allen, a friend of Judy’s.

Liza won a Tony award at age nineteen and was nominated for her first Academy Award at age twenty-three for the role of Pookie Adams in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). Other dramatic roles followed and, in 1972, she won an Oscar for her performance as Sally Bowles in the movie Cabaret (1972). The seventies were a busy time for Liza. She worked steadily in film, stage and music. She and good friend Halston were regulars at Studio 54, the trendiest disco club in the world. Marriages to filmmaker Jack Haley Jr. and Mark Gero, a sculptor who earned his living in the theater followed. Each marriage ended in divorce.

Over the past years, her career has leaned more towards stage performances and she has a long list of musical albums which she continues to add to. She teamed with Frank Sinatra in his “Duets” CD and Sammy Davis Jr. joined them for a series of concerts and TV shows which were extremely well-received.

She has had to deal with tabloid stories of drug abuse and ill-health and has had a number of high profile stays at drug-rehabilitation clinics. Her hectic schedule may have slowed down in recent years, but she still has a large following of immensely loyal fans who continue to cheer her on.

 

Liza Minnelli on the Judy Garland Show

 

Baryshnikov and Minnelli

 

Stepping Out

 

 

Facts about Miss Liza Minnelli

 

Her parents named her after Ira Gershwin’s song “Liza (All the Clouds’ll Roll Away)”

Says her mother gave her a sense of humor

1990: She received the Grammy Legend Award, making her one of the few artists who have won entertainment’s top four awards – the Oscar, the Tony, The Emmy and the Grammy.

Was briefly managed by KISS lead singer/guitarist Gene Simmons in the 1980s.

When she was young she befriended Marilyn Monroe.

Her mother, Judy Garland, and former father-in-law, Jack Haley, starred together in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

She and her mother, Judy Garland, were the first Oscar-nominated mother and daughter.

Godparents were Ira Gershwin and Kay Thompson.

Because Liza constantly traveled with her mother, she spent most of her childhood in hotels. She was the inspiration for the character of “Eloise”, who grew up in the Plaza Hotel. The books were written by Liza’s godmother, Kay Thompson.

While Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” is played at Yankee Stadium after every Yankee home win, Liza Minnelli’s version is played after every Yankee home loss.

Her favorite modern-day singers are Adele, Michael Bublé, Pink and ‘Lady GaGa’.

 

Tuesday Tunes!

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Screen Shot 2013-07-09 at 12.05.42 PM

 

              HAPPY NEW YEAR!

               

Today for Tuesday Tunes we are featuring the works of…

        Donald O’Conner

 

I was born and raised to entertain other people. I’ve heard laughter and applause and known a lot of sorrow. Everything about me is based on show business – I think it will bring me happiness. I hope so.

 

 

Though he considered Danville, Illinois to be his home town, O’Connor was born in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago. His parents, Effie Irene (née Crane) and John Edward “Chuck” O’Connor, were vaudeville entertainers. His father’s family was from County Cork, Ireland.[3] When O’Connor was only a few years old, he and his sister Arlene were in a car crash outside a theater in Hartford, Connecticut; O’Connor survived, but his sister was killed. Several weeks later, his father died of a heart attack while dancing on stage in Brockton, Massachusetts.[4] O’Connor at the time was being held in the arms of the theater manager, Mr. Maurice Sims.

O’Connor began performing in movies in 1937. He appeared opposite Bing Crosby in Sing You Sinners at age 12. Paramount Pictures used him in both A and B films, including Tom Sawyer, Detective and Beau Geste. In 1940, when he had outgrown child roles, he returned to vaudeville. In 1942, O’Connor joined Universal Pictures where he played roles in four of the Gloria Jean musicals, and achieved stardom with Mister Big (1943).

In 1944, O’Connor was drafted into the Army. Before he reported for induction, Universal Pictures rushed him through production of three feature films simultaneously and released them when he was overseas. After his discharge, Universal (now reorganized as Universal-International) cast him in lightweight musicals and comedies.

In 1949, he played the lead role in Francis, the story of a soldier befriended by a talking mule. The film was a huge success. As a consequence, his musical career was constantly interrupted by production of one Francis film per year until 1955. It was because of the Francis series that O’Connor missed playing Bing Crosby’s partner in White Christmas. O’Connor was unavailable because he contracted an illness transmitted by the mule, and was replaced in the film by Danny Kaye.

O’Connor’s role as Cosmo the piano player in Singin’ in the Rain earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy or Musical. The film featured his memorable rendition of Make ‘Em Laugh. O’Connor was a regular host of NBC‘s Colgate Comedy Hour. He hosted a color television special on NBC in 1957, one of the earliest color programs to be preserved on a color kinescope; an excerpt of the telecast was included in NBC’s 50th anniversary special in 1976. In 1954, he starred in his own television series, The Donald O’Connor Show on NBC. In 1968, O’Connor hosted a syndicated talk show also called The Donald O’Connor Show.

O’Connor overcame alcoholism after being hospitalized in 1978. His career had a boost when he hosted the Academy Awards, which earned him two Primetime Emmy nominations. He appeared as a gaslight-era entertainer in the 1981 film Ragtime, notable for similar encore performances by James Cagney and Pat O’Brien. It was his first feature film role in 16 years.

O’Connor appeared in the short-lived Bring Back Birdie on Broadway in 1981, and continued to make film and television appearances into the 1990s, including the Robin Williams film Toys as the president of a toy-making company. He had guest roles in 1996 in a pair of popular TV comedy series, The Nanny and Frasier.

In 1998, he received a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars. O’Connor’s last feature film was the Jack Lemmon–Walter Matthau comedy Out to Sea, in which he played a dance host on a cruise ship. O’Connor was still making public appearances well into 2003.

The most distinctive characteristic of O’Connor’s dancing style was its athleticism, for which he had few rivals. Yet it was his boyish charm that audiences found most engaging, and which remained an appealing aspect of his personality throughout his career. In his early Universal films, O’Connor closely mimicked the smart alec, fast talking personality of Mickey Rooney of rival MGM Studio. For Singin’ in the Rain, however, MGM cultivated a much more sympathetic sidekick persona, and that remained O’Connor’s signature image.

O’Connor nearly died from pneumonia in January 1998. He died from complications of heart failure on September 27, 2003 at age 78 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, in Woodland Hills, California. His remains were cremated and buried at the Forest Lawn–Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. O’Connor was survived by his wife, Gloria, and four children. Gloria O’Connor died from natural causes on June 4, 2013, aged 84.

 

Incredible balloon dance!

 

Make ‘Em Laugh from Singin’ in the Rain

 

Walking My Baby Back Home

 

 

Fun Facts About Mr. Donald O’ Connor 

 

Judy Garland, whom he knew as a child, was one of his best friends.

Was suppose to co-star with Bing Crosby in the perennial film classic White Christmas(1954) in 1954 but was sidelined with pneumonia and replaced by Danny Kaye.

Allegedly didn’t enjoy working with Gene Kelly while filming Singin’ in the Rain (1952), because he found him to be a bit of a tyrant on set.

Made his film debut at age 12 in Melody for Two (1937) with his two brothers, Jack O’Connor and Billy O’Connor, doing a specialty routine. Billy died a year or two later after contracting scarlet fever.

Despite failing health in 2003, he made appearances at the Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival and the opening of the Judy Garland Museum.

While he’s hesitant to select a favorite film, he’s quick to single out his favorite performance: “Call Me Madam (1953) – my favorite number is in there with Vera-Ellen. It’s the number I do out in the garden with her to “It’s a Lovely Day Today”. It’s a beautiful lyrical number. I think she was the best dancer outside of Peggy Ryan I ever danced with”.