Burlesque dancer Rosie Mitchell remembered
arts•meme‘s Kirk Silsbee published this obit/honoring of stripper Rosie Mitchell this week in the L.A. Weekly. In an excerpt of Silsbee’s story, Mitchell, also known as Novita, shared Los Angeles memories: Mitchell met Lenny Bruce and his stripper wife, Honey, on the burly circuit. With her first husband, drummer Buddy Greve, Mitchell doubled dated with ...
“Spartacus” meets its maker, Dalton Trumbo
Oct
26
2015
In honor of the film’s anniversary, Laemmle Theatres and Reel Talk with Stephen Farber are pleased to present SPARTACUS (1960) in a screening Friday, November 6 at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. On the same day that Trumbo opens in theaters, depicting the life of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, enjoy a tribute of his ...
Bicoastal Jack Cole cross-fertilizes crazy hair Broadway-to-Hollywood
Actress Joan Diener, featured on Broadway in Kismet (1953 – 1955) shares a crazy-hair & headress look with Betty Grable, pictured below in “Down Boy” from Three for the Show (1955, Columbia Pictures). Jack Cole, who choreographed (first) Kismet then Three for the Show, took great care with the appearance of the women with whom ...
Fred, seriously
Hollywood’s great dancing man, always jolly and carefree, here displays a different aspect. Fred Astaire in a somber mode, in Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH (1959). Photo credit: theroadshowversion.com
Girlz n the hood hang out with Misty Copeland
It was a real girl’s night out — a few righteous gents joined in — as Dance Camera West and The American Cinematheque joined forces, Tuesday evening, to host a sneak preview screening at the Aero Theatre of “A Ballerina’s Tale,” the new documentary about our first African-American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre, Misty ...
Musical happenings in Hanoi
Oct
21
2015
An exotic and fascinating announcement came across the transom: the inaugural concert of the Hanoi New Music Ensemble, which will focus on three generations of Vietnamese composers. The program will include works by Vietnamese composers Kim Ngoc Tran, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Dang Huu Phuc, Dang Hong Anh, Tay Nguyen, and Vu Nhat Tan. Dates and ...
Where they live: SoCal artists draw at Liz’s 2
Sixth and La Brea is populated with vintage clothing stores, trendy furniture outlets and hip boutique concerns. Liz’s Antique Hardware, at 453 South, isn’t much to look at from the outside. Inside it’s not much better. The store is filled with ancient doors, old light fixtures, bins of tarnished doorknobs, decorative heating grates. Liz Gordon ...
Thank you, Gene Allen
Saddened to learn today that the great Hollywood art director Gene Allen, the man who converted director George Cukor’s vision to rich mise-en-scene, died October 7 of natural causes in Newport Beach. Allen, who lived a long life, perished at 97. Yes, Gene Allen, the much hallowed Academy Award-winning art director of MY FAIR LADY ...
Sit down and clap! 4
Oct
18
2015
Is polite, even fervent, audience applause from a seated position a bygone social custom? This nicety has not completely disappeared; last month at the conclusion of “Raymonda,” at Segerstrom Hall, it was a joy to regard the massive Mariinsky Ballet’s elegant bows in full view. The audience, perhaps still enthralled by the enormity of the ...
Los Angeles talent highlighted in “A Ballerina’s Tale”
Misty Copeland grew up in Los Angeles. So did Robyn Gardenhire. Both are beautiful black ballerinas, Misty, of course, is the first African-American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre. And in the 1990s, Robyn danced in the company’s corps de ballet. Robyn, a very active, admired and even beloved member of the Los Angeles dance ...