Before ‘Redhead’: ‘Gentlemen Chase Redheads’

Dance · Theater
gwen verdon, richard kiley, stars of ‘redhead‘ She starred, in a peak moment of her Broadway fame, in the Tony Award-winning musical, Redhead, which opened at the 46th Street Theater on February 5, 1959. Her director/choreographer was Mr. Fosse. courtesy of verdon-fosse legacy The show, a murder mystery in the vein of KNIVES OUT but ...

Be-thigh-ed themselves in India

Dance · Fashion · Film
What prudes! It’s just a little leg! Okay, it’s a lotta leg…The clipping at bottom is from the Los Angeles Times, Nov 9, 1954.

Ain’t there anyone here for love? Ladies, let’s do this! 1

Dance · Film
Okay, Messrs Weinstein, Schneiderman, R. Kelly, Richard Meier, Charlie Rose and the rest of you sexual predator power-guys! Formidable glamazon Marilyn Monroe, in Jack Cole’s “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) wants to share her version of gender politics. A big boomerang of woman power heading your way, back at ...

Meet Marilyn Meme•roe

Dance · Film · Ideas & Opinion
From Wikipedia: Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from the popularization of Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. The choreographer Jack Cole, a creative genius, had the ability to perpetuate the meme ...

At “Oscars Outdoors,” gentlemen still prefer blondes 1

Dance · Film
It was a super-special 60th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” summer series, of 20th Century-Fox’s comic classic from 1953, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” the movie that blasted off the career of Marilyn Monroe. And the flick’s funnier than ever. Lead actresses Monroe and Jane Russell zing out hilarious ...

George Chakiris to introduce GENTLEMEN at Academy; Debra Levine to discuss Jack Cole

Dance · Film
Sixty years after appearing as a chorus dancer behind Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” George Chakiris will host the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” screening of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES Saturday night, August 3, 2013. In the photo at right we see George, a young man with fake grey highlights spraypainted in his hair. ...

Matt (Harold Henry) Mattox, memorialized 1

Dance · Film · Theater
by 
MATT (Harold Henry) MATTOX b. Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, August 18, 1921 d. Perpignan, France, February 18, 2013 “I’ve never classified myself as a jazz teacher, I prefer to talk about ‘free-style dancing,’ which means I have a choice of movement for any piece of music,” said Mattox in a 1993 interview. To prepare for his ...

Jack Cole, Hollywood director 4

Dance · Film
On the camera crane works Jack Cole (in white sweater, click photo for detail), directing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” exactly as he did for all four GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) dance numbers (Two Little Girls From Little Rock, Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love, When Love Goes Wrong, Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best ...

Preparing our Letters of Transit for TCM Classic Cruise 1

Film
The moment arrives soon for the first-ever … er, the first annual Turner Classic Movies TCM Classic Cruise. We fly to Miami on Wednesday and set sail this Thursday for a fun long weekend of floating film geekdom!  Destinations: Key West and Cozumel. Getting our letters of transit in order is a huge challenge — ...

Please do not discriminate.

Film
Like “Gentlemen”? Read more: Girl power