When Sidney Poitier was honored as the first African American male to win a competitive acting Oscar in 1964 for his lead performance in “Lilies of the Field,” it had been 24 years since Hattie McDaniel became the Jackie Robinson of the Academy Awards with her breakthrough triumph in 1940 for “Gone With the Wind.” And it would be another 19 years before there was a third: Louis Gossett Jr.’s supporting actor victory in 1983 for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”
Wins for three performers of color in 43 years didn’t exactly represent a trend. But in the 39 years after that, there would be 19 more, including a pair of African American actors (Denzel Washington and Mahershala Ali) who won twice apiece. Poitier’s ’64 triumph proved as surprising as it was stirring, and undeniably political. Leading up to that historic event, his inscrutable countenance and the almost regal way he carried himself made Poitier a...
Wins for three performers of color in 43 years didn’t exactly represent a trend. But in the 39 years after that, there would be 19 more, including a pair of African American actors (Denzel Washington and Mahershala Ali) who won twice apiece. Poitier’s ’64 triumph proved as surprising as it was stirring, and undeniably political. Leading up to that historic event, his inscrutable countenance and the almost regal way he carried himself made Poitier a...
- 2/25/2023
- by Ray Richmond
- Gold Derby
In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald arrived in Hollywood, broke and alcoholic, but full of hope that the City of Stars would somehow revive his career and turn him into an important screenwriter.
Things didn’t quite work out that way. When he failed to master the screenplay form, a lucrative contract with MGM was allowed to expire, and Fitzgerald, just like many other writers, had to subsist on freelance work. To add insult to injury, at one low point he searched in vain for copies of his novels so that his lover, the gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, could read them, only...
Things didn’t quite work out that way. When he failed to master the screenplay form, a lucrative contract with MGM was allowed to expire, and Fitzgerald, just like many other writers, had to subsist on freelance work. To add insult to injury, at one low point he searched in vain for copies of his novels so that his lover, the gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, could read them, only...
- 1/31/2017
- by Stephen Galloway
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Washington -- "The Great Gatsby" movie may not be getting terrific reviews, but it has sparked big interest in F. Scott Fitzgerald -- including the writer's final resting spot.
Spoiler alert: the grave is inscribed with the book's last lines:
The Washington Post reports that since the film's opening sent "Gatsby" up Amazon's bestsellers list, it's also led to a surge in visitors coming by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's graves, in suburban Maryland.
“We usually see a handful of people visiting the cemetery in a given week,” Rev. Monsignor Robert Amey of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where the couple is buried, told the Post. “That number has tripled in the last week.”
The Post -- which details Fitzgerald's familial connections with Maryland -- notes that many visitors leave graveside offerings, including "flowers, spare change and liquor. Aspiring authors leave pens, and admirers occasionally write handwritten notes. A top hat,...
Spoiler alert: the grave is inscribed with the book's last lines:
The Washington Post reports that since the film's opening sent "Gatsby" up Amazon's bestsellers list, it's also led to a surge in visitors coming by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's graves, in suburban Maryland.
“We usually see a handful of people visiting the cemetery in a given week,” Rev. Monsignor Robert Amey of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where the couple is buried, told the Post. “That number has tripled in the last week.”
The Post -- which details Fitzgerald's familial connections with Maryland -- notes that many visitors leave graveside offerings, including "flowers, spare change and liquor. Aspiring authors leave pens, and admirers occasionally write handwritten notes. A top hat,...
- 5/11/2013
- by Arin Greenwood
- Huffington Post
Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress Olivia de Havilland vs. Warner Bros. Pt.2 "From the age of 18 when I began my career as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream," Olivia de Havilland would tell entertainment journalist Robert Osborne, "I always wanted to play difficult roles in films with significant themes. With the exception of that first Shakespearean film, no equivalent opportunities were given me at Warner Bros." (Actually, In This Our Life, for one, does have "significant themes." It also features black characters, not caricatures, something uncommon at that time.) De Havilland added that "absolutely no one in the industry thought I would win the case. When I at last succeeded, lots of flowers and telegrams began to arrive, which, of course, made me very happy." [Olivia de Havilland at 2008 Bette Davis tribute.] Following de Havilland’s legal victory, Warner Bros. made sure its remaining contract player Ida Lupino received top billing when the Curtis Bernhardt-directed 1943 drama Devotion,...
- 6/6/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The story of Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery was disgustingly decadent, absurd – and thrilling
I speak to you as one who has every biography of Elizabeth Taylor ever published neatly arrayed on her bookshelves and thoroughly read. They are in my Hollywood film section, which also comprises juicy, glittering hardbacks full of juicy, glittering facts – or, far more likely, factoids and outright, fabulous lies – about the lives of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and all the glorious rest of them, and the even-more-fabulously-ridiculous autobiographies of gossip-column queens Hedda Hopper and Sheilah Graham. Louella Parsons' is literally in the post.
So (apart from the fact that I will go to my grave regretting that I did not manage to buy one of the six-volume catalogues that accompanied the sale at Christie's last year) I'm afraid I couldn't have been happier last night, luxuriating in Elizabeth Taylor: The...
I speak to you as one who has every biography of Elizabeth Taylor ever published neatly arrayed on her bookshelves and thoroughly read. They are in my Hollywood film section, which also comprises juicy, glittering hardbacks full of juicy, glittering facts – or, far more likely, factoids and outright, fabulous lies – about the lives of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and all the glorious rest of them, and the even-more-fabulously-ridiculous autobiographies of gossip-column queens Hedda Hopper and Sheilah Graham. Louella Parsons' is literally in the post.
So (apart from the fact that I will go to my grave regretting that I did not manage to buy one of the six-volume catalogues that accompanied the sale at Christie's last year) I'm afraid I couldn't have been happier last night, luxuriating in Elizabeth Taylor: The...
- 4/18/2012
- by Lucy Mangan
- The Guardian - Film News
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