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Vespers – Page 3 – Ennis Smith

Vespers

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Film, Music, My back pages, Vespers

Dory Previn, Lyricist, 1925-2012

February 16, 2012

All ten year-old tragedians need a soundtrack. Mine was the Theme from Valley of the Dolls, that heartbreaking ballad from the film that starred Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate and Patty Duke. I had no idea that the song was meant to underscore the film heroine’s descent into pill addiction (I thought Parkins, Tate and…

Current Affairs, Film, Music, My back pages, Vespers, video

Where do broken hearts go: Whitney Houston 1963-2012

February 12, 2012

I heard the news last night before bed, and forgot about it. Then I woke up too early and, as I sat in front of the TV, the news scroll reminded me. Still it’s vague, I’m in denial until I walk down to my building’s lobby to pick up our Sunday Times. A tenant on…

Current Affairs, Dance, Film, Race, Television, Theater, Vespers

Firsts: Don Cornelius 1936-2012, Camilla Williams 1919-2012, Ben Gazzara 1930-2012

February 6, 2012

You turned on the TV on Saturday afternoon and there he was, the envy of every black boy on the block. It was his high style and aspirational exhortations that drew us each week, mirrored more youthfully by the Soul Train dancers, whose moves we copied for use on our own dance floors: street corners,…

Art, Film, Television, Theater, Vespers, video

James Farentino 1938-2012; Nicol Williamson 1936-2012; Eiko Ishioka 1938-2012

January 27, 2012

Farentino was lethal: a handsome actor whose performances ranged from Happy in Lee J. Cobb’s Death of a Salesman (later onstage as Biff to George C. Scott’s Willie) to Juan Peron in the Faye Dunaway telefilm “Evita Peron.” My favorite: his hotheaded lawyer in TV’s The Bold Ones. The Scotsman Williamson was a pretty decent…

Music, Vespers

Etta James, Singer 1938-2012

January 20, 2012

Film, My back pages, Television, Theater, Vespers

Alan Sues, Comic Actor 1926-2011

December 4, 2011

There was Liberace, Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly and on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, Alan Sues. What a quartet of flamboyant personalities who blazed on prime time when I was coming of age. In the 70s their very names were punchlines, code for every euphemism of that other f-word even as the longhaired hippies and…

Film, Gay, Literature, Music, Vespers

Ken Russell, Film Director 1927-2011

November 28, 2011

The Music Lovers. Women in Love. The Devils. The Boyfriend. Tommy. Altered States. Could anyone combine the prurient and the literary, the highbrow and low rent more effectively than Ken Russell? His best films actually look better now than when they were made; the worst (Lizstomania, Gothic, The Lair of the White Worm) remain loopy…

Current Affairs, Gay, History, Politics, Vespers

Suffering indignities in order to simply be

October 13, 2011

Here’s an interesting bit from Chapter 11 of The Gay and Lesbian Almanac: …in 1962, the president of the District of Columbia’s Mattachine Society, Dr. Franklin Kameny, appeared on local television for 90 seconds to talk about his organization. Such appearance was so rare and daring that the interview was preceded by a five-minute apology…

Current Affairs, Technology, Vespers

Steve Jobs, Apple Titan, 1955-2011

October 5, 2011

Film, Television, Theater, Vespers

Cliff Robertson 1923-2011

September 11, 2011

No, he wasn’t a big star. He was, however, a dependable leading man with a solid career in TV and films, nabbing an Oscar for his title portrayal in 1968’s Charly. The momentum from that win was hampered when he publicly took David Begelman to task, exposing the former head of MGM as an embezzler…