Sara Karloff, daughter of Frankenstein 33

Film
Boris Karloff’s only daughter doesn’t like frightening movies. “The Wizard of Oz” scared me when I was seven. Now I leave the room during “Murder, She Wrote,” said Sara Karloff, an elegant woman of a certain age, born when her father was 51. The dark-skinned beauty’s coal-black hair sports an amazing white streak, reminiscent of ...

Chasen murder, redux, on NBC’s Law & Order 1

Film
Mouse over the photos to learn the casting of a special episode of ‘Law & Order: LA.’ ♦  ♦  ♦ Says TV Guide: “They’ve been busy reading the Los Angeles newspapers at NBC’s revamped Law & Order: LA. On April 25, the show airs its episode based loosely on the mysterious murder of Hollywood power ...

Happy Birthday, Charlie Chaplin! 1

Architecture & Design · Film
Anyone who trolls mid-city Los Angeles will recognize the wonderful Tudor-style building at right (you can click on the photo). Creative dynamo Charles Chaplin, one of L.A.’s real go-getters, built it in 1917. And, there, leaning against the wall of his very own film factory stands the lovely Chaplin. It’s a pretty proud moment for ...

Bertrand Blier to Gérard Depardieu @ COLCOA: ‘trop gros pour moi’

Film
depardieu/farley, snl “I always think about Gérard Depardieu when I create a role,” said Bertrand Blier, who since 1974 has made eight films with France’s premier actor. “Even if it’s a woman. Even if it’s an animal. Sometimes there’s a big piece of furniture — it’s Depardieu.” Blier was free-associating at the daily afternoon ‘Happy ...

Jack Cole dancer George Martin dies 5

Dance · Film · Theater
by 
Sad news. One of the last living connections to Jack Cole and a key member of Cole’s great brigade of film and nightclub dancers, George Martin, died in Atlanta on April, 6, 2011, we learned yesterday from Dancers Over 40. I met the Martins, George and Ethel, at a symposium on Cole last summer at ...

Karloff’s got a monstrous hold on arts·meme

Film
Why did arts·meme blog on Boris Karloff yesterday? Only the god-of-blogs knows for certain. I don’t know a thing about Boris Karloff, really. I just liked the photo of the monster Frankenstein and little Maria from Location Filming in Los Angeles. You can join me in catching up, by attending “A Night for Boris Karloff” ...

Doing the monster mash at Malibou Lake 1

Fashion · Film
This lakeside fol-de-rol is featured in the fun new book, Location Filming in Los Angeles, by arts·meme pals Mark Wanamaker, Karie Bible and Harry Medved. The book describes how Universal shot the controversial scene on location at a lake in Malibu State Park eighty years ago this September. We learned this on Frankensteinia: On this ...

Michael Govan comments on LACMA’s new film program 1

Film
In a brief message sent to arts·meme at the end of his day in London, LACMA Director Michael Govan writes, “I think we have a real foundation for continued and sustainable growth of the program now.” The just-announced new film program notably lacks the kind of stable financial underpinning that an endowment provides, nor there ...

BREAKING NEWS: LACMA announces new film program

Film · Visual arts
This just in from the museum: “Los Angeles (April 6, 2011)—The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival. LACMA and Film Independent will inaugurate the new weekly Film ...

L.A.’s artistic and cultural heritage vs. a rock 2

Film · Visual arts
Los Angeles, megalopolis, hosts a cool, vibrant and progressive art scene, an expression of its unique history and inimitable cultural mix. Many Angelenos will derive pleasure and meaning from Michael Heizer‘s Levitated/Slot Mass, a pyramidal granite boulder suspended on concrete rails above a pit carved into the northwest corner of the L.A. County Museum of ...