New live-performance hall for music in downtown L.A. 1
Wonderful news, there’s a new — that is, refurbished — 500-seat auditorium for music performances downtown. It’s called AT&T Center Theatre, and it’s located in the mid-century-modern classic skyscraper designed and built in 1965 by William Pereira, the USC architecture professor and founding partner of Pereira & Luckman (designers of the LAX Theme Building, and ...
Anthony Slide on Hollywood fanzine cover art @ Hollywood Heritage
Feb
10
2012
We enjoyed the book talk by Anthony Slide on the occasion of the publishing of his 70th Hollywood book, “Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers.” Slide, a veteran Hollywood-focused author, gave his presentation at the vastly historic Lasky-DeMille Barn, also known as the Hollywood Heritage Museum, as ...
Pauline Wagner’s fateful Santa Monica beach encounter with Marion Davies
Feb
10
2012
Photos show Pauline Wagner, 101, celebrating the birthday of Marion Davies. William R. Hearst constructed the faux-Georgian mansion, with rooms numbering 100, precipitously near to the ocean. This unnatural structure was mercifully demolished in 1969. Remaining is the estate’s refurbished colonial guest house, now operating as the Annenberg Beach House, a community arts center. § ...
Cartoonist John Norment’s mid-century watercolors @ New Puppy Gallery
Feb
7
2012
Opening this coming Saturday night — the first gallery exhibition since 1980 of watercolor paintings by John Norment, a prominent cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine. Over 40 unseen watercolors by the cartoonist and joke book editor/illustrator will be on view in the show, which is co-produced by New Puppy Gallery and Planet Glass. Norment ...
Slurp spaghetti with “Lady and the Tramp”
Feb
7
2012
For February love that isn’t too syrupy, Hollywood’s legendary El Capitan Theatre presents Walt Disney’s animated classic, “Lady and the Tramp,” along with Disney’s all-new short, “Puppy Love” February 3-16, 2012. This special engagement is exclusively at the El Capitan Theatre, and features a live appearances by Mickey Mouse at every show. Speaking of ‘classic’ ...
Nick Nolte, beatific in “The Good Thief”
Feb
7
2012
We watched with pleasure “The Good Thief” — British director Neil Jordan‘s remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic gangster film “Bob le flambeur” (1956). Nick Nolte forms the gravitational center of this whirling movie as Bob, the art-heisting junkie-gambler who rambles the Riviera plagued by bad luck and heroin. A really good flick in all elements: ...
Kosloff stages Fokine’s “Les Sylphides” @ 80,000-seat L.A. Memorial Coliseum
You’re a young city, spreading your wings. You build a ginormous sports arena. What should you do to inaugurate it? What else? Stage “Les Sylphides”! Dateline, Los Angeles Herald Tribune, July 29, 1923 LOS ANGELES TERPSICHOREANS. Theodore Kosloff [standing, at middle], dancing professor extraordinary, surrounded by a score of his premier pupils in the new ...
Cleopatra, CEO, comes to rule Los Angeles
We chatted with Heidi Duckler, in the final creative phase for her upcoming dance work, “Cleopatra CEO,” which opens this Friday night on the 51st floor of Paul Hastings Tower in downtown Los Angeles, and runs for three subsequent weekends. The architecture-savvy choreographer, celebrating 30 years as a local dance maker, was last seen running ...
Santa Barbara bound
Feb
3
2012
Heading to Santa Barbara for a writer’s retreat, we are delighted that our visit to the Pearl on the Pacific coincides with the opening of a “golden oldies” show at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. I like gruesome cowboy art like the Frederick Remington canvas at left. [click on it for detail] The show, ...
Please do not mess with Golfo 2
Feb
2
2012
This dear man, his name is Andreas Fussel, comes to us courtesy of our good friends on Facebook, Richard Slaughter and Marcus Galante. Andreas is all dolled up to play the role of Golfo in the Bournonville ballet, “Napoli.” This he did from its premiere in 1842 until 1863. Golfo is a sea demon ruling ...