Worldly woman shocks small-town America! Pola Negri, you go girl.
Jul
14
2016
“A Woman of the World” (1925) stars Pola Negri in a comedy about a sophisticated European countess (do they make ’em unsophisticated?) who encounters culture shock during her visit to small-town America. Her continental freedoms — she smokes in public, she wears flashy makeup — clash with local morals. A crusading District Attorney enters the ...
Gwen & Chita’s ‘Nowadays’ better than ours
In this yummilicious snippet from the Tony Award broadcast of 1984, Broadway goddesses Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon deliver a pastiche-pairing of numbers from Bob Fosse’s “Chicago.” Chita electrifies with her song-and-dance forcefulness in “All That Jazz.” But Verdon, joining for “Nowadays,” gives a lesson in subtle upstaging — no easy feat considering her dance ...
Jazz singer Jeri Southern, appreciated
There were other female jazz pianists who also sang in the 1950s, but none shared Jeri Southern’s formidable pianistic technique, vocal individuality, and unerring choice of good material. She sang the most bittersweet love songs in the most intimate manner. And few could inspire the nightclub reveries Southern conjured—of melancholy, infatuation, optimism, idolatry, disconsolation, and ...
Whaley Foundation grants to support Los Angeles visual artists
Jul
10
2016
In a community celebration on Saturday, the Davyd Whaley Foundation launched a program of grants targeted to directly support individual Los Angeles-area visual artists. The recently established foundation is one of the few private philanthropic organizations in L.A. to do so. Foundation founder/executive director Norman Buckley announced the program of two $10,000 grants, with planned ...
Kirk! UCLA Film Archive kicks off sweeping centenary celebration
Would not dream of missing Friday’s opening night — or viewing many of the 25 film titles featured therein — of UCLA Film & Television Archive’s centenary retrospective for actor Kirk Douglas (b. 1916). In his 60-year career he appeared in 90 movies, so claims Wikipedia. The massive movie star still lives among us. Kirk ...
Jets & Sharks rumble @ Laemmle Anniversary Classics WSS screening
A great evening on Wednesday when film critic Stephen Farber interviewed Russ Tamblyn (“Riff”) at a 55th anniversary screening of “West Side Story” before a very full house at the Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts Theatre. A slew of dance royalty attended the screening: Dancer Bobby Banas (“Joyboy” in the movie), Barrie Chase of Fred Astaire ...
Stella Abrera, ABT’s proud Firebird, soon in flight at the Chandler 3
She’s a woman of color in a white ballerina world. She began her training in Southern California, joined American Ballet Theatre, had a serious injury, recovered and was promoted to principal in 2015. Misty Copeland, right? No, it’s Stella Abrera. A Filipina American, her career trajectory is similar to Copeland’s but without all the hoopla. ...
Kathryn Altman memorialized as gracious, effervescent
Jun
29
2016
Barely a week after savoring Kathryn Altman’s crystalline memories of the filming of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), shared by the widow of director Robert Altman at an entrancing 45th anniversary screening of the precious movie, we learned that this elegant and classy woman had passed away. A shocker. So we’re very pleased to excerpt ...
Look at your neighbor, urges artist Alexey Steele in Carson exhibit
We just spoke to our good friend, Alexey Steele, the Russian born-and-trained neo-realist painter and the impresario of the hugely popular “Classical Underground,” music series which we attend and enjoy. Alexey has a new project opening this week in the city of Carson, California, the multicultural hotspot in Los Angeles where Alexey-and-family reside in a ...
Be the swingin’est thing. Be a Jet … @ Laemmle Anniversary Classics
The film version of the legendary, game-changing Broadway musical was released 55 years ago, in 1961. arts•meme’s Debra Levine will offer opening remarks to the the movie at this week’s Anniversary Classics screening in Beverly Hills. Levine will share her dance appreciation of the musical’s creator and movie co-director, choreographer Jerome Robbins. She will also ...