A trio of sailors, pounding the pavement, sings the praises of New York City. An average Joe, twirling an umbrella, splish-splashes joyfully in a rain gutter. An expatriate painter, standing in the basin of an ornate Parisian fountain, cradles his lady in his strong arms. These images, wrested respectively from On the Town, Singin’ in the Rain, and An American in Paris, burn in our cultural memory. All iconic, all Gene Kelly, all high Hollywood.

Before the program, a long queue of fans wrapped ’round the Academy’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. Once seated in the theater, located not three miles from the Culver City sound stage where Kelly cavorted in fake rain, they learned that his sunny smile was also faked; he was running a 103-degree temperature the day “Singin’ in the Rain” was filmed. A roster of today’s stars paid their respects to a man who would have turned 100 this year. Indeed when he died in 1996, Kelly was among Hollywood’s last old-school movie stars.

Patricia Ward Kelly, the dancer’s third and surviving wife, hosted the extensive, three-hour celebration.

Beamed in by video from the set of Les Miserables (now in production), the avowed Kelly fanatic Hugh Jackman said, “Gene Kelly, honestly, to me, is a hero. [When I was] growing up in the Sydney suburbs, my father brought me a copy of Singin’ in the Rain. [Kelly] was an extraordinary dancer; his athleticism, his grace, his ingenuity, his sense of fun whilst he did it all… It seemed effortless.”

Justin Timberlake called Kelly “a master poet in motion … pure magic, also masculine, earthy and true.” He then confessed to being “one of the millions who … stole a move or two or three or four from Gene Kelly. But I’m cool with that. It puts me in the company of Michael Jackson.”

“Glee” dancer Harry Shum, Jr. admitted to being “blown away” the first time he saw “Singin’.” Then he said he “dug deeper … for Kelly’s syncopation, precision and athleticism.”

Director-Choreographer Kenny Ortega, a veritable Kelly protégé, and the last to direct Kelly dancing in a movie (Xanadu, 1980) noted, “He showed me his movies, [explaining] why he chose shots.”

Ortega, who’s now in pre-production for his reprise of Dirty Dancing, continued with emotion: “He was a great man, my mentor, educator, supporter. He put a viewfinder around my neck that he used for Singin’ in the Rain and handed me stop watch and taught me how to design choreography for the frame. He changed my life. I am forever grateful.”

Said film critic Leonard Maltin in private conversation: “What can you say? He was a great performer and a great creative force. He stands on the top of a mountain of entertainment. He was a complete performer.”

Chit-chatting as well after the show were two of the great male dancers from Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story. Russ Tamblyn reminisced about holing up for a drink with Kelly in the booth of a New York City bar. George Chakiris, who won an Oscar winner for his role as Bernardo and one of the most silken dancers ever captured on film, co-starred with Kelly in Jacques Demy’s Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

Elated by the clips, Chakiris said, “Growing up as a kid, this was the thing that made me want to dance. He’s so committed, from the tip of his head right down, so precise and sharp. And Cyd [Charisse] in that green dress — good Lord!”

Ellen Harrington, the Academy’s Director of Exhibitions and Special Events said, “We were wanting to do something for Gene when he was still alive. Now, we’re doing the centennial. We want to show how vital and relevant he still is today, not just an old-time star.”

The statuesque Ward Kelly shared the story, with self-deprecating humor, of the couple’s first meeting. She had been hired, in 1985, to research a documentary about the Smithsonian Museum. Kelly was its narrator. The two fell in love reading poetry and playing word games. “He was a wonderful blend of erudite gentleman and Pittsburgh street kid,” she said. Kelly had prior marriages to actress Betsy Blair and dancer Jeanne Coyne, who also assisted him in choreography. He was the father of three children.

Friday evening’s “Gene Kelly Choreography and the Camera” dug deeper. The tech wonks of Academy’s Science and Technology Council moved in for analysis and dissection. Experts in animation, direction, lighting, and sound gave a huge thumbs up to Kelly’s contribution. The “Alter-Ego” sequence from Cover Girl and the Jerry the Mouse duet from Anchors Aweigh advanced not only the art of film making but also its craft.

The evening closed with spectacular “making of” footage showing Kelly directing the humongous parade sequence from Hello Dolly, choreographed by Michael Kidd. It more than demonstrated, in his widow’s words, that Gene Kelly was about “joy and celebrating life.”

Like this? Read more:

• Gene Kelly television broadcasts at the Hammer
• Say a dance prayer for Pittsburgh – no Gene Kelly statue

The din of art talk filled the Foundation’s sunlit third-floor loft. So did the industrious output of Herb Alpert creativity. No, not the trumpeter’s music nor his music producing, but rather his colorful paintings and outsized sculptures that decorate the space.

Chatting with choreographer Nora Chipaumire (on left in the photo) about her $75,000 Alpert Award stipend, the Zimbabwean expatriate (now Brooklyn-based) said with charming eloquence: “It’s a jump start on everything. It’s a rosy garden.”

Her flashing smile was equally rosy. The award is huge prestigious honor.

“It’s a promise, but it’s also scary … how to best move forward.”

Chipaumire, whose challenging solo dance-theater is charged with global and sexual politics, said: “I intend to wage relentless propaganda. And I’m not ashamed to use the cold war language.

“I come from the third world, so I’m willing to do more with less. But I’ve always been in want of a safety net. We work without a safety net — we’ve made an art of it.

“I’ve got no time to experiment — with what money? I say what I mean. I’m here to mess up peoples’ perceptions about African women.”

Winner slideshow here …

Herb Alpert speaking at his Foundation

2012 Alpert Award winner for dance Nora Chipaumire

2012 Alpert Award winner for music Myra Melford

2012 Alpert Award winner for theatre Eisa Davis

2012 Alpert Award winner for visual arts Michael Smith

2012 Alpert Award winner for film & video Kevin Everson

Chipaumire & Davis

arts·meme & the awardees

CalArts President Steven Lavine

Director, Alpert Award in the Arts, Irene Borger

Alpert Award honorees in dance constitute an interesting bunch. Over the years they have included

Like this? Read more:

• Herb Alpert, local hero
• Herb & Lani at Disney Hall [concert review]
• Back to school with Herb & Lani
• Rennie Harris discusses his Alpert Award in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

_{Photo credit: Scott Groller, CalArts, also Caroline Graham, C4 Global Communications}

The Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) have awarded the 18th annual Alpert Award in the Arts to five exceptional mid–career artists. The award, a prize of $75,000, recognizes past performance and future promise to artists working in Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. Herb Alpert, the legendary musician and artist who created the Herb Alpert Foundation with his wife Lani Hall and gave the first Alpert Award in the Arts in 1995, says, “All of this year’s winners represent the essence of the Alpert Award. They take aesthetic, intellectual and political risks, and challenge worn-out conventions. They’re unafraid of the unknown.”

The 2012 Alpert Awardees are: Kevin Everson, Film/Video; Nora Chipaumire, Dance; Myra Melford, Music; Eisa Davis, Theatre; Michael Smith, Visual Arts

A conversation with dance awardee Nora Chipaumire — straight outta Brooklyn — to follow!

Like this? Read more:

• Herb Alpert, local hero
• Herb & Lani at Disney Hall [concert review]
• Herb & Lani at Vibrato [performance review]
• Back to school with Herb & Lani

_{Photo credit: Scott Groller, CalArts}

Darryl Zanuck, the studio head of 20th Century Fox studio, did not engage Ms. Channing for the 1952 movie. The plum role went instead to you-know-who — a huge gamble for Zanuck. Jack Cole’s coaching of Monroe in her first beefy song-and-dance role brought it all home for the studio. [I wrote this story in the Los Angeles Times in 2009.]

On a television program in 1953 Channing struts her stuff in “A Little Girl from Little Rock” and “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

Next up, Marilyn and Jane Russell vamp in the film. You can find interesting borrowings by Jack Cole for the film version.  In Channing’s  “Diamonds” version, the men call out the jewelers’ names; in the film, this is transferred to Monroe. She delivers the words on a Jack Cole bump-and-grind. [Cole loved strippers.]

Thank you for pointing us to the historic Carol Channing video, Dancers Over 40!

Impressive. It’s located on Vine Street south of the ArcLight Cinema. Click the photo to view the build-out.

The “Oscars Outdoors” open-air theater is part of the organization’s nearly 7.5 acre Hollywood campus, already the site of the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, home to the Academy Film Archive, the Science and Technology Council and the Linwood Dunn Theater.

Friday night’s “Oscars Outdoors” will screen classics and contemporary favorites for adults to cuddle under cover-of-quilt in the cool night air. Saturdays are devoted to family-friendly kid flicks — an incredibly good idea.   

Said Academy President Tom Sherak: “The events we are planning are an ideal way to share our love of movies with a wider audience.”

Indeed. The space now features an expansive lawn and an adjacent 10,000-square foot plaza, and will include a permanent 40×20 foot screen.

That’s wild. The Academy un-paved a parking lot and reinstalled paradise.

“These are not just screenings, but events,” noted Randy Haberkamp, Managing Director, Programming, Education, and Preservation. “We’re bringing a diverse range of programs and experiences to audiences as only the Academy can.”

*     *     *

“Oscars Outdoors” screening schedule:

Fri June 15: CASABLANCA
Sat June 16: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

Fri June 22: RAISING ARIZONA
Sat  June 23: FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF

Fri June 29: A STAR IS BORN (1937)
Sat June 30: THE GOONIES

Fri July 6: SHANE
Sat July 7: THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1996)

Fri July 13: TO BE ANNOUNCED
Sat July 14: THE PRINCESS BRIDE

Fri  July 20: PILLOW TALK
Sat July 21: THE KARATE KID (1984)

Fri July 27: DREAMGIRLS
Sat July 28: THE DARK CRYSTAL

Fri Aug 3: NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Sat Aug 4: STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

Fri Aug 10: YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Sat Aug 11: BACK TO THE FUTURE

Fri Aug 17: Audience Choice (vote on www.oscars.org/outdoors)
Sat Aug 18: THE WIZARD OF OZ (Sing-Along)

_{Pictured: Judy Garland with, from left, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, and Frank Morgan during the production of THE WIZARD OF OZ, 1939.}

_{credit: Courtesy of AMPAS and Greg Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.}

Our story concerns the film director Preston Sturges, whose great legacy is his canon of laugh-out-loud, politically tinged screwball comedies: “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “The Lady Eve,” among them.

The former private home where Sturges’ bar/restaurant, The Players, once operated still stands at 8225 Sunset Boulevard. In the 1940s it formed a Triangle of Amazingness with neighbors Chateau Marmont (next door) and the Garden of Allah complex (caddy-corner).

With its innocent-looking checkerboard balcony beckoning both trouble and fun, this building just screams vintage Los Angeles.

[Click photo for detail.]

Reprinted from The Hollywood Reporter (04.06.12) 

Harry Morton— son of Hard Rock founder Peter Morton — soon will open the second L.A. outpost of his Mexican restaurant chain Pink Taco at 8225 Sunset Blvd. During the renovation of the property, which has been Miyagi’s, the Roxbury and Imperial Gardens, Morton, 30, peeled back enough layers to discover traces of the site’s original hotspot: Preston Sturges’ Players Club.

Run from 1940 to 1953, the multilevel supper club, frequented by Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles and Howard Hughes, was a nexus of the Hollywood scene. Morton dug out the entrance to the Players’ legendary VIP tryst tunnel — which connected to the adjacent Chateau Marmont and has long since been sealed by the city — as well as a revolving circular band stage buried beneath the dance floor that he hopes to restore in a later phase of the project.

“When I first got into this place, it had years of shit piled on top,” says Morton. “But when I stripped it all down, incredible things came to light.

The new club going in? “The Pink Taco.”  Ya’d think that a legendary watering hole frequented by Humphrey Bogart might inspire different treatment. Chasen’s, the Brown Derby, the Cocoanut Grove, Ciro’s — all gone. Musso’s on Hollywood Boulevard, imperturbable or so it seems, still operates.

Writer Martin Turnbull tells the story of The Players on his website. 

Sturges died at The Algonquin Hotel. That’s classy.

COL*COA (City of Lights*City of Angels), the annual French film festival in Los Angeles, just wrapped up at the Director’s Guild of America building on Sunset Boulevard. The festival, now in its 16th year and masterminded by the incredibly hard-working Francois Truffart, offered many small pleasures — and they all added up.

An insanely delicious opening-reception party got things off to an excellent start. There were any number of ways you could ramp up your cholesterol — here a quiche, there a paté, and then there were delicate wafers on which balanced heavenly little balls of vegetable mousse. This ne plus ultra of canapés would basically have sex with your mouth. To wash that down — although why would you want to? — champagne by Nicolas Feuillatte. Packed into the DGA lobby, speaking a mile a minute in their wonderful-sounding language, were legions of French visitors and expats.

Apropos, I loved the rapturous food doc, “Step up to the Plate,” a paean to French cuisine, culture, and family. The film concerns a legendary chef, Michel Bras, handing the keys of his two extraordinary restaurants (one in southwest France, the other in Japan) to his son. The film’s subtext — French refinement, precision, and quality. Loved it. Poetic.

“Michel Petrucciani,” which as a jazz devote I should gobble up, made me uneasy. Petrucciani, the dwarfed jazz pianist who died in 1999, was an unnatural artist. I found his voracious musical outpouring unsettling. Having said that I would not miss any jazz documentary, and there is a lot of great music footage in this film, especially the scenes with saxophonist Charles Lloyd with whom Petrucciani was associated.

I saw three films by female actor/directors. Both Melanie Laurent’s “The Adopted” and Julie Delpy’s “Le Skylab” had bits and pieces of interest. With “Adopted,” I didn’t really buy the bookstore romance and I can’t stand coma movies. It strikes me as lazy screenwriting. “Skylab” had insightful, well-acted sequences, in particular the director’s fine-tuned and amusing observations on adolescent love. But altogether, no one really needs this movie. Delpy perhaps should not have appeared in it. Maiwenn definitely should not have appeared in “Polisse.” Her presence as a nerdy photog snapping verité-style shots of a Paris police child-molestation unit tarnished her own ambitious movie. But at least “Polisse” attempts to depict the real world, whereas Delpy’s deeply conservative film, a flashback to a family reunion in Brittany, is not very useful. Who cares about her quirky family in 1979? I had my own quirky family in 1979.

“Americano,” directed by cinema prince Mathieu Demy proved that much more of a disappointment coming from the offspring of two great filmmakers, Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy. Demy, Jr.’s film, too, could have been better sans lui. “Americano” rests on clichés of south-of-the-border road-trip debauchery. Identity loss and nihilism in Tijuana. We in Los Angeles are over that. But Selma Hayak survives intact. She’s a good movie star.

“The Intouchables” (is that a word in English?) which won the festival audience award, yet another coma movie insofar as one of the lead characters, wheelchair-bound, is out of full action. Couched in comedy, the film sets race relations back a good half-century. Formulaic and subtly offensive, the film takes as its comic premise the audacity of a black man stepping foot into a tony arrondissement (hilarious right? no). He’s a caretaker for a wealthy quadriplegic and the stereotypes abound. High art (classical music, opera, art gallery world) versus the street art of the ‘hood provides low-hanging fruit. The film’s racism strikes me as France’s problem, not ours, but thanks to Harvey Weinstein picking it up for U.S. distribution, we get to partake in it. I would like to hear Spike Lee’s take on “Intouchables.” If it’s okay with him, it’s okay with me. I guess. Comedy is hard, and it’s cultural.

It was interesting to note the gap between films that dealt with reality (viz., that France is struggling with incorporating minorities into its mainstream) and those with their head in the sand. The best of the escapist fare was CLOCLO (“My Way” in English), an eye-popping, color-drenched biopic of the uber-blonde French songster from the seventies, Claude François.

I just loved it.

From its opening scenes depicting François’s expatriate-childhood in Egypt, the film cruised through unexpected set-ups and scenarios, in a tone unfamiliar to me in French cinema. That is to say, the film was tremendously open-hearted, accessible, and audience friendly. It didn’t hold back and I found CLOCLO’s joyous and transparent tone very appealing.

What was so fabulous about this film (it runs 20 minutes too long) is not that François wrote “Comme d’habitude” the footprint for Frank Sinatra’s anthem, “My Way.” It’s the kooky portrait of a control freak. I loved the brilliant way the lead actor Jérémie Renier worked this idea. I cannot recall a similar portrayal of an obsessive-compulsive (Citizen Kane comes to mind!); it felt extremely fresh. When the film wound down, the first thing I did was poof up my hair with a brush as Renier’s bouffant is so impeccable throughout. I found the film a huge fun ride and I enjoyed learning to not screw in a lightbulb while I’m taking a shower. That could come in handy! I hope you can soon enjoy “CLOCLO” in your local cinema.

*  *  *

Over the course of the Fest, I missed several key biggies, the Meliès “A Trip to the Moon” and the doc about it, “The Extraordinary Village.” I missed “Hotel du Nord,” the Marcel Carné classic from 1938. I left Benoit Jacquot’s “Farewell My Queen,” highly lauded as a masterpiece but the subtitles were out of sync with the soundtrack and my addled brain could not tolerate it. I heard that “Louise Wimmer,” about a homeless woman living in her car, was good, as was “The Well Diggers’ Daughter” directed by actor Daniel Auteuil, recco’ed as a top-notch French paysage movie.

A bientôt, COL*COA — et merci beaucoup!

Prancing horses, Ballets With A Twist, photo Nico Malvaldi

"Mint Julep," by Ballets With A Twist, photo Nico Malvaldi

On a recent visit to New York, it was my great pleasure to sit in on a rehearsal of a new work by choreographer Marilyn Klaus. She was preparing the latest addition to her roster of thirst-quenching ballets based on a cocktail menu. Thus the name of Klaus’s boutique troupe, “Ballets With A Twist.”

By serving up drinks right on the spot, Klaus preempts the mad dash to the bar after the show. The company’s standing-room-only showcase at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium, in August 2011, left a queue wrapped ’round the block. Now she’s adding a new beverage to a repertory line-up that already offers the Martini, Mai-Tai, Margarita, Manhattan, Shirley Temple, Gimlet, and Roy Rogers.

It’s the Mint Julep. A score by composer Stephen Gaboury spurs the horse race.

In the kind of film world/dance world mash-up that we like to see, “Mint Julep”‘s premiere will take place at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28, 2012.

Now, we all know that film geeks start drinking early, but this may be taking it to extremes. The show starts at 10:15 am!

Klaus’s horsey affair draws from all kinds of inspirations — the pony-tailed ballerinas of the 1950s and Greek centaurs come to mind. But primary motifs draw from the Kentucky Derby. That’s visualized with consummate chic by designer Catherine Zehr‘s green-and-brown costumes, with pink plaid accents. The men don stable-boy gear. Debonair little riding hats top off the ladies’ heads. The ballet’s duets illustrate a consummate love connection — the one between a horse and its trainer.

The refreshingly forthcoming Klaus chats during rehearsal without peeling an eye from her dancers. “I love to drink,” she admits, of course with a laugh. Combining this avocation with her vocation, she launched her highly marketable, themed company.

One of her lead fillies burbles by in an airy embôité jump-step. Seeing it, the choreographer’s face softens to a smile. “Yes,” she calls out, encouragingly, “So light!”

Instructing another mare to perch with pointe shoe in a forced arch, she says, “Stay there … like an old fashioned ballet.” Indeed, Klaus, who grew up in Los Angeles studying with top ballet teacher Carmelita Maracci, forges a sensibility that unites the retro, the chic, the feminine, and the Hollywood.

A set of junior prancers charges by. One of the two children hesitates, stumbles, then pouts. Klaus warns her sternly, “Just do it. I don’t want to hear about it.”  So ’round and ’round the racetrack the pony trots.

Ballets With a Twist “Mint Julep” premiere | Tribeca Film Festival Street Fair | Apr 28, 10:15 am

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• Ballets With a Twist serves drinks all around