Tutu Taylor

Dance · Fashion · Film
It was a hell of a week for ballet. Our most brilliant male ballet dancer, a true wunderkind, a homegrown wonder, David Hallberg, got a job offer from the Bolshoi Ballet, better, obviously, than his current gig with American Ballet Theatre. So off he goes. Hallberg’s young, 29, he doesn’t speak the language, and Russia ...

Malcolm McDowell memories: Lindsay Anderson & Stanley Kubrick 3

Film
On Lindsay Anderson, with whom he worked on “If” & “O Lucky Man” He was a great man. He was a genius. And I say that even though today you’re a genius if you can do a crossword puzzle. He was a real curmudgeon; for a young actor, to put in so much time, he ...

Malcolm McDowell: “I love Cagney.”

Film
Charming the knickers off his audience by telling witty tales of Stanley Kubrick and Lindsay Anderson, actor Malcolm McDowell earned extra points by showing respect to the great James Cagney. The occasion was the 40th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills, of Kubrick’s exuberant, brilliant, thought-provoking ...

Meow! Bette Davis discusses her dear colleague Joan Crawford 3

Film
Quotations from Chairman Bette: “I wouldn’t piss on her [Joan Crawford] if she was on fire.” “She [Joan Crawford] has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.” “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why [Joan Crawford] always plays ladies.” “[Joan Crawford] ...

Eyman hits a bull’s eye; his “Empire of Dreams” wins prestigious theater book award

Film · Ideas & Opinion
Not just because he’s a friend of arts•meme, and a fellow toiler in the bowels of Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library, the resting place of the massive Cecil B. DeMille archives… [… a humongous trove of cinema-memorabilia prodigiously overseen by archivist James d’Arc...] The well regarded film historian, Scott Eyman (Lion of Hollywood: ...

Rita’s dad

Dance · Film
Hurricane Irene, heading our direction in New York City, where we are visiting, can prove no match for Hurricane Rita. Lovely Rita’s dancing father, Eduardo Cansino, tangoes here, courtesy of the digital photo collection of the New York Public Library. I spent the last two days in the glorious Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, ...

Diaper changed, he’s ready for his close-up Mr. DeMille

Film
Foraging around the internet for information on Cecil B. DeMille’s great one, I was delighted to learn about Fraser Heston. A guy of my generation, Fraser, at the tender age of three months, made his film debut playing Baby Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” Now, Fraser mostly had to float around the bullrushes waiting for ...

Still the swingingest thing: West Side Story’s George Chakiris

Dance · Film
A lot of ladies — and quite a few gents including American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Marcelo Gomes and the just-retired Jose Manuel Carreno — gawked as West Side Story star George Chakiris entered the Founder’s Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center. It was the opening night reception following ...

Debbie Reynolds, costume connoisseur

Fashion · Film
Photographer/writer Iris Schneider contributes this to arts·meme: “Isn’t there some millionaire out there who can save all this?” The question hung in the air as hundreds of ordinary people, film buffs with their kids, designers and lookie-loos lined up to ogle the astounding array of costumes and props collected over the years by Debbie Reynolds ...

Wicked comedy by Lubitsch at LACMA 1

Film
It was pure pleasure, in the waning days of the LACMA weekend classic film series, as curator Ian Birnie trotted out yet another sublime film pairing, this time a comedy duo: the first film, Preston Sturges’ social commentary/classic, “Sullivan’s Travels,” topped by Ernst Lubitsch’s insane, zany, perfectly scripted, outrageous and brilliant “To Be or Not ...