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AboutEnnis grew up in Cincinnati, the sixth of ten children. In his first life he was an actor and singer; embarking on his second, he completed his BA at Empire State College, where he was a Richard Porter Leach Fellow.
Read moreOn recent sleepless nights I’ve been haunted by an image of a person I’ve come to know well. The man has the face of a pugilist; tall and long-limbed, he stands with his hands behind his head wearing nothing but a pair of boots and a taunting, defiant stare. This portrait of Frank O’Hara, by…
Continue readingFarentino 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…
Continue readingWith Manhattan now plunged into tundra-nipping temps, no one could be blamed for falling into the contagious warmth that emanates from the Joyce Theater in Chelsea. Now through the 22nd, Parsons Dance is weaving its spell of virtuosic imagination that since 1985 has only deepened in its ingenuity and delights. Would that every company instilled…
Continue readingFrom Gayletter: Above: Charles Demuth (American, 1883–1935). Dancing Sailors, 1917 Slideshow: Keith Haring (American, 1958–1990). Unfinished Painting, 1989.
Continue readingFiennes, with Vanessa Redgrave Was it accidental, or did Ralph Fiennes anticipate the cries of the rabble? At the beginning of Coriolanus, Fiennes’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s parabolic tale of a war hero who, prodded by minions and his politic/duty-bound matriarch (Vanessa Redgrave, better than ever, if that’s possible) loses the courage of his convictions…
Continue readingThere 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…
Continue readingThe 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…
Continue readingA reason for the seasons was what I got when, in grade school, I was taught the myth of Demeter and Persephone; the idea that a spell could be cast to wither grass and leaves made a stronger impression than the myth’s true focus: a mother’s longing for a daughter she could only see six…
Continue readingAh, those pesky associations: as I walked the curves and alleys of Richard Serra’s Junction/Cycle now showing at the Gagosian Gallery, the déjà vu practically bit my butt. Those swerving surfaces reminded me of other Serras, sure, but they also resemble the vistas captured in the film 127 Hours, the biopic about hiker Aron Ralston’s…
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