HFPA ELECTS DR. AIDA TAKLA O’REILLY AS NEW PRESIDENT – Election Marks Doctor O’Reilly’s 2nd Term in Office
HOLLYWOOD, CA, June 9, 2011 – Dr. Aida Takla O’Reilly was elected President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for the 2011 – 2012 year at the organization’s annual election meeting, which was held June 7, 2011.
“I am thrilled and honored to serve as the HFPA’s president once again,” said Dr. O’Reilly. “I believe in the vitality of the membership and what we have to contribute to the future of the industry both here and abroad. Now let’s get to work!”
Dr. O’Reilly was born and raised in Egypt, where she was the youngest woman to become a pilot at the age of 16. A member of the HFPA since 1956, she represents Dubai and was previously the organization’s president from 1994-1996. Dr. O’Reilly received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from The Sorbonne-Paris University in 1969.
Jorge Camara, Serge Rakhlin, and Ali Sar were also elected vice president, executive secretary, and treasurer, respectively. The new Board of Directors is comprised of Philip Berk (Chairman), Yoram Kahana, Yukiko Nakajima, Ruben Nepales, Meher Tatna and Theo Kingma (alternate).
The annual HFPA Installation Luncheon to honor the officers and directors will be held later this summer, at which time the organization makes its annual donations to non-profit organizations and film schools. Last year’s star-studded luncheon presented a record $1,541,000 in financial grants to 41 film schools and non-profit organizations. Guests included Annette Bening, Ian Brennan, Bryan Cranston, Kaley Cuoco, Matthew Fox, Carla Gugino, Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria, Jane Lynch, Jim Parsons, Ryan Phillippe, John Slattery and Aaron Sorkin.
About the Hollywood Foreign Press Association:
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) was founded in the 1940s by Los Angeles based overseas journalists who sought to bridge the international community with Hollywood. Today, members of the HFPA represent 55 countries with a combined readership of 250 million in some of the world’s most respected publications. Each year, the organization holds the third most watched awards show on television, the Golden Globe Awards®, which have enabled the organization to donate more than $12 million thus far to entertainment related non-profits and scholarship programs. For more information, please visit www.goldenglobes.org, and follow us on Twitter (@goldenglobes) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/goldenglobes) for exclusive celebrity videos and up to the minute Golden Globes news!
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Press Contacts: Keleigh Thomas/Michael Samonte
Sunshine, Sachs & Associates
goldenglobes@sunshinesachs.com
323.822.9300
SUNSET BOULEVARD
By Jorge Camara
Many movies have attempted to explore the inner workings of Hollywood and the motion picture business, but “Sunset Boulevard,” winner of the Golden Globe for the Best Motion Picture Drama of 1950, was and continues to be one of the more daring, unconventional and poignant of them all. To begin with the movie opened with a corpse narrating the story while floating in a swimming pool.
With an original script written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr., and directed by Wilder, the film will always be remembered by the excellent performances of the stars who played the two main psychologically damaged characters: Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, the neurotic star of silent movies living in the past, and William Holden as Joe Gillis, the writer in debt who becomes her gigolo and exploits her.
However, neither Swanson nor Holden were the first choices for the production. Reportedly the part of Desmond was initially offered to Pola Negri (who was insulted), Mary Pickford (who wanted complete control), and Mae West (who wanted to rewrite it.) And even though the role of Gillis was written specifically for Montgomery Clift, the actor rejected it because he thought it would be bad for his image. Ironically, the following year, in “A Place in the Sun,” the actor played a man convicted of murder who dies in the electric chair.
Adding authenticity to the project were Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner and Ray Evans, playing themselves. And this story of murder and madness continues to fascinate. In 1993 Andrew Lloyd Webber (“Jesus Christ, Superstar”, “Evita”, “Phantom of the Opera”, “Cats”) presented a very successful musical adaptation, giving such diverse stars as Patty LuPone, Glenn Close and Betty Buckley the opportunity to sing Norma Desmond’s famous words: “We had faces then.”
The film version of the musical is currently in development, and Close, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Michelle Pfeiffer, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand have each been mentioned as possibilities to play the lead if and when the project ever comes to fruition. Who would be your choice to reprise the iconic role of Norma Desmond?
Read More »CHINATOWN VS. GODFATHER 2
By Philip Berk
In the recurring debate as to what influence the Golden Globes has on the Oscars, the better question might be, which group makes the better choice? In that regard, the one year that stands out is 1974 when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association chose Roman Polanki’s Chinatown over Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather 2 as Best Picture. Arguably a wise decision. Chinatown, the brainchild of screenwriter Robert Towne, was inspired by a real life scandal involving Los Angeles’s wealthiest families using City Hall to enrich themselves. It was all over water rights, which prompted a landgrab in Southern California during the 1920s. City Commissioner William Mulholland (the same of Mulholland Drive) had secured water rights to the (Northern Californian) Owens River Valley and envisioned an aqueduct to bring water to drought stricken Los Angeles.
That theme has become a staple of movies ever since, but Chinatown is not about water rights, it’s about personal corruption. Groundbreaking in terms of its theme, it also was the first American film to deal openly with the taboo subject of incest, and it provided Jack Nicholson with a role that seriously challenged Humphrey Bogart as the quintessential private eye (Sam Spade in John Huston’s Maltese Falcon.) In the film Jack spends half the film with a Band-Aid plastered over his nose (after it is sliced by a thug played by no less than Polanski himself.) Polanski has never topped his work on Chinatown, even though the set was fraught with arguments, not the least of which was over the shocking ending. (In later years Towne admitted Polanski was right.) The political overtones of the film reverberate even today. At the time, America was divided by the Vietnam War, and one of its victims was Jane Fonda. According to Jane, she was the director’s first choice to play Evelyn Mulwray, but because of her anti-Vietnam activism, Gulf Western which controlled the studio vetoed that idea. (Wasn’t it Woody Allen who characterized the company as Engulf and Destroy?) Ironically that was a smart corporate decision because no one but Faye Dunaway could have played that role.
And if you think you’ve already filled your basket with Nicholson, Towne, Polanski, and Dunaway, make room for John Huston as the infamous Noah Cross, surely one of the most evil characters in the history of film. Again an indelible performance. Ironically the aforementioned William Mulholland is often assumed to be Noah Cross, but he’s not. He’s Dunaway’s philandering husband. That year, 1974, the film colony might have been swept away by Godfather 2, but Chinatown became the most influential film of that decade, oft imitated but never equaled. And besides best picture honors, Golden Globes went to Polanski (as best director) , Nicholson (as best actor) and Towne (for best screenplay). In case you think that year was a tug of war between two great movies, you’d be surprised. The New York Critics went with Fellini’s Amarcord, the National Board of Review selected Coppola’s The Conversation, the National Society of Film Critics honored Ingmar Bergman‘s Scenes from a Marriage, and the British Academy honored Louis Malle’s Lacome, Lucien. So which would you put on your all time ten best list?
Read More »The state of 3-D according to James Cameron and Michael Bay
By Silvia Bizio
15 minutes of footage from the upcoming Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon were shown to a few members of the HFPA, along with some domestic journalists, film students and special effects experts.
Produced by Steven Spielberg, the third Transformers episode will be released on June 29th, 2011. Shia LaBeouf is back in the role of Sam Witwicky, while English super-model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, in her acting debut, replaces Megan Fox as Sam’s new love interest. Back in the futuristic action saga will also be Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro.
The preview of Trans 3 was held at Paramount Studios, in a fully packed screening room. The movie opens with archive images of Apollo 11 moon landing converted impressively in 3-D, providing us with a brand new look at an historic event.
The special presentation was followed by a talk about the state of 3-D in film, moderated by Hollywood Reporter’s Jay Fernandez, with technology pioneer James Cameron and Bay. The two directors explained the difficulties of filming in 3-D, and yet illustrated the “new toy” with contagious enthusiasm.
Bay said he was initially reluctant to jump on the 3-D bandwagon, considering himself an old-school director in love with 35mm. He likes to shoot fast, he said, and feared 3-D would slow his pace. He “converted” to tridimensional cameras after a visit on the set of Cameron’s Avatar. “I fell in love with 3-D very quickly”, he said. “As a director I always try to come up with something new to entertain the audience. I felt that 3-D was the natural next step for me. It gave me the opportunity to improve my urban action sequences and provide further thrill through the anamorphic glasses. Filming in 3-D comes inevitably with new challenges, like toning up and down the 3-D perspective depending on the speed of the images.”
The main problem of 3-D filming, Cameron said referring to his own Avatar, was the special cameras’ heaviness. “The 3-D cameras I used for Avatar weighed 28 pounds; considering that I was shooting every single scene with two or three of them at a time, it’s easy to understand the burden we all carried in that predicament,” Cameron explained. “But that was the past. Today we have the Alexa M 3-D camera, which weighs only 5 pounds and it’s way easier to handle than its predecessors.”
Bay talked at length about the ways 3-D gives film directors a chance to explore their most imaginative side, while also underlining the demand the new technology brings in “showing something that’s not there while filming, something you always have to keep in mind, if you want to lead the audience’s eyes,” Bay said.
This explains, he continued, why many film directors are throwing themselves headlong into this new challenge, from Martin Scorsese to Baz Luhrmann and, as recently announced, Bernardo Bertolucci, who will film his new movie in 3-D.
Cameron and Bay didn’t shy away from discussing the impact the increased cost of the 3D technology has on a film, an average of 30 million dollars more. “But how much more box office will it bring in?” Cameron quips. “With 3D you usually cash in a lot more! The danger, now that we found the way to bring audiences back to the cinema and the big screen, is the abuse of that technology, with little respect for the audience or the technology. 3D is here to stay, but you can turn people off from 3D with an epidemic of poor quality productions simply trying to monetize its novelty. Not all movies are meant to be in 3D.” But that’s not the only obstacle. “Many theaters also lack the technical support to project the films as they are meant to be projected, ruining the experience for the public,” Cameron declared. “We, as an audience and filmmaker community, have to put pressure on theaters,” he concluded, greeted by a huge applause.
Read More »PET STORIES OF THE STARS
Susan Sarandon came to meet the HFPA with her Pomeranian Maltese pooch, Penny, and put her on the table to show her off. “See, Penny cut her hair short so that her legs look longer. She was even in my movie Bernard and Doris, playing Doris Duke’s pet, and for that role she had to dye her hair brown to look like a wealthy pet. She enjoyed all of the attention. I even made her my escort to the Speed Racer junket and she stole the show.”
Scott Caan, star of Hawaii Five-O, brought his best pal, Dot, to our interview on the show’s set in Waikiki. Dot, a pointer mix was far poised than her master. ”She is part of our gang and she gives you a little talent show,” Scott said with huge pride. Dot sat quietly on the floor to give her master his show time, but occasionally she jumped on the table or nearby shelf very elegantly. “Dot is a born star and loves the camera.” He did not mind her stealing his show. “To tell you the truth, I even made a movie about a dog called The Dog Problem. It wasn’t very good. Don’t anyone see it!” At holiday time, Scott sent us his card which showed a joyous photo of Dot jumping and kissing him. “Dot and I can take you surfing the next time you come to Hawaii,” he said.
Emily Blunt had to deal with not only with her new honeymoon life with John Krasinski, but also with a puppy. “His name is Finn. John and I wanted to start our family with a baby puppy. Only a few weeks and [and he was] already 90 pounds, and he is very naughty! Jumps at me all the time. He is a chocolate lab and I just had to deal with his vomit and poop. It’s great training for us.” Since then we talked to John and he added, “Finn got his training, for a whole two weeks he was at the trainer’s and our house was deadly empty. Now he is more disciplined and well mannered. Do we sleep with him in our bed? No way! He has his own room with a king size bed and custom made bedding.”
Read More »AUNTIE MAME
By Jorge Camara
If ever an actor were indelibly associated with a character, Rosalind Russell as Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame would be at the top of that list.
Russell won the Golden Globe for her performance, and the movie was honored as Best Comedy in 1958. Curiously, that was the first of only five times in which the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s statuette for Best Comedy or Musical was awarded to both a comedy and a musical. (Best Musical went to Gigi.)
Mame Dennis, the irrepressible, eccentric and free-spirited New York socialite who teaches her nephew that “life is a banquet and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death” (the movie changed “sons-of-bitches” to “suckers” in order not to offend the 1950’s moviegoers’ sensibilities) started her li
fe in a 1955 best-selling book by Patrick Dennis, inspired by the madcap adventures of his real life aunt, Marion Tanner.
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee adapted the novel into a very successful Broadway play with Russell in the title
role, and for once, Hollywood wisely decided not to replace her when the movie was made two years later, under the direction of Morton DaCosta.
In 1966, the play was turned into a very good Broadway musical “Mame,” with Angela Lansbury, and as it sometimes happens, in 1974 the musical was turned into a not very good movie with Lucille Ball.
Rosalind Russell had a long and successful career of almost 40 years (from 1934 to 1972,) with movies like The Women, His Girl Friday, My Sister Eileen, and Picnic, just to mention a few, but the character of Mame Dennis will always be her crowning achievement.
Read More »FIRST ROUND LEGAL VICTORY FOR THE HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION IN THEIR LITIGATION WITH FORMER PUBLICIST MICHAEL RUSSELL
HOLLYWOOD, CA, May 16, 2011 – Judge Kevin Brazile of the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled Wednesday, May 11, 2011, in favor of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) in the action brought against it and President Philip Berk by their former outside publicist, Michael Russell (MRG-CINEPOINT/CASE #BC453017).
When the HFPA did not renew Russell’s contract, he sued the Golden Globes organization for defamation and interference with their ability to retain and recruit clients. These claims, the most critical of Mr. Berk personally, were stricken pursuant to the so-called anti-SLAPP law which protects the right to free speech.
According to the HFPA’s counsel, Joseph Campo of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith, “As most of the remaining claims concern employment issues, we are confident that we will remove them by demurrer or motion for summary judgment. This baseless complaint will not reach the jury.”
About the Hollywood Foreign Press Association:
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) was founded in the 1940s by Los Angeles based overseas journalists who sought to bridge the international community with Hollywood. Today, members of the HFPA represent 55 countries with a combined readership of 250 million in some of the world’s most respected publications. Each year, the organization holds the third most watched awards show on television, the Golden Globe Awards®, which have enabled the organization to donate more than $12 million thus far to entertainment related charities and scholarship programs. For more information, please visit www.goldenglobes.org, and follow us on Twitter (@goldenglobes) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/goldenglobes) for exclusive celebrity videos and up to the minute Golden Globes news!
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Press Contacts:
Ken Sunshine/Michael Samonte
Sunshine, Sachs & Associates
goldenglobes@sunshinesachs.com
323.822.9300
Read More »HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES ELECTION OF THREE NEW MEMBERS
Kirpi Uimonen Ballesteros, Barbara Gasser and Mirai Konishi Join the HFPA
HOLLYWOOD, CA, May 9, 2011 – Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) President, Philip Berk, announced today that three journalists have been elected as new members of the organization: Kirpi Uimonen Ballesteros, Barbara Gasser and Mirai Konishi.
Ballesteros, who writes for the Ilta-Sanomat, Kouluainen, and Suosikki (Finland), Gasser, who writes for M-Starmedia Verlag and Maxima (Austria), and Konishi, who writes for CUT and eiga.com (Japan), were voted in at the membership meeting on May 6, 2011. The three new members join the association’s current roster of 82 active members.
About the Hollywood Foreign Press Association:
Founded in the 1940s during World War II, the HFPA was originally comprised of a handful of LA based overseas journalists who sought to bridge the international community with Hollywood, and to provide distraction from the hardships of war through film. Sixty-eight years later, members of the HFPA represent 55 countries with a combined readership of 250 million in some of the world’s most respected publications. Each year, the organization holds the third most watched awards show on television, the Golden Globe Awards, which have enabled the organization to donate more than $12 million to entertainment related charities and scholarship programs. For more information, please visit www.goldenglobes.org, and follow us on Twitter (@goldenglobes) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/goldenglobes) for exclusive celebrity videos and up to the minute Golden Globes news!
# # #
Press Contacts:
Keleigh Thomas/Michael Samonte
Sunshine, Sachs & Associates
goldenglobes@sunshinesachs.com
323.822.9300
Read More »JERRY WEINTRAUB talks to Philip Berk about his storied career
By Philip Berk – photos by Armando Gallo
He managed Elvis and Sinatra. He produced films such as Cruising directed by William Friedkin, All Night Long with Barbra Streisand, Nashville directed by Robert Altman, Diner directed by Barry Levinson, and the Oceans films directed by Steven Soderbergh.
People assume that Hollywood moguls are only interested in money, but according to Orson Welles, what they really want is to win awards. So does Welles describe you?
I loved Orson Welles, he was a friend of mine. He was a brilliant filmmaker but that doesn’t mean he knows about producers! I want to make great films, films that interest me. And then if I can make money with them on top of that, it’s great. I wouldn’t have been around 53 years had I not made money.
You started out being more idealistic, but once you made Oh God! you became a producer of blockbuster movies. Do you think you changed your emphasis from that point on?
No. Oh God! was a character piece and Nashville was certainly a character piece and Cruising was a character piece, Diner was a character piece, even the Oceans trilogy were character pieces. Even though they were blockbusters, those movies were character pieces. We did $400 million on the last one. I never change my emphasis. I always looked for pictures that interested me. Things I wanted to go see.
Can I assume your success is based on integrity? You’re loved and respected by people like Soderbergh, Clooney, Pitt, obviously you have been dealing with them with total honesty and integrity.
For me because I can’t remember lies, it’s a very hard job. I can’t remember them. But yes, I’m a very loyal guy. If you look at my career and the people I work with, over and over again, so we must have a good relationship. I deal with everyone as an equal. When I deal with them I feel like I’m dealing with myself. I’m very careful.
Nashville and Diner were both nominated for Golden Globes. Do you have any specific memories of those two evenings? I know you didn’t win but did you have fun?
The Golden Globes are a lot of fun. And from when I started until today, they have come a long huge way and they are a very important precursor of the Oscars. They come right before the Oscars and I think it changes a lot of people’s minds and I think it has a lot to do with who they vote for. I think they’ve gained a certain importance over the years.
Nashville had nine nominations that year and walked away with none. That was a very tough year three great films in competition. Any specific memory of that?
I remember that we didn’t win. But truly, that has never been that important to me to win an award. I have a lot of awards, and I remember Colonel Tom Parker who was Elvis Presley’s manager gave me some advice one day. He said to me, “Let me tell you something,” he said, “Do good work because you’re a smart guy and you’re very creative, and you do things that other people don’t do, and you do events. Do your events but don’t forget your reward is at the box office, it’s not in somebody’s office, it’s when the box office is full and there’s money in there, you can pay the artists and you can pay everybody and do the next event.”
Have you had any huge disappointments?
Yes. My favorite film that I ever made, a film that you never heard of, called 9/30/55.
That’s the one where Gordon Willis was the cinematographer?
Gordy was a great cinematographer and the problem I had with Gordy Wilson on that film was that Gordy shot a scene, the first scene we shot was a séance, where they were trying to contact James Dean, and when I saw the rushes, it was black, you couldn’t see a damn thing-
Gordon’s trademark.
You could barely see a candle in the room, and I went to Gordy and I said “Gordy, what the hell are you doing? I can’t see anything, this is not radio, this is movies, I got to see the picture.” He said, “Jerry, this is going to work, I’m telling you this is going to work, leave it alone please, don’t make me reshoot this.” I said, “You’ve got to reshoot a little bit, I’ve got to see that the kids are in the room.” He said “Ok, ok, I’ll shoot a little bit.” I said “Ok fine.” And it was great.
Any good memories of Elvis?
Elvis was a very, very handsome man. I don’t know who in Hollywood was better looking than him, including Valentino and Tyrone Power. And he was a great guy, he had a wonderful smile, he was a nice man. Cared about his mother, cared about his father, he cared about family. And he wasn’t this crazy guy that everybody — I mean he did get caught up in a lot of nonsense as his career progressed, because of the temptations; and because he was so big he couldn’t go out, he was cloistered. So he got caught up in a lot of nonsense, but he was a great guy. I remember him that way, I remember him as a friend, and I remember him always trying to help me and always wanting me to smile.
What about his dark side?
He had a dark side, sure, and it came out with all this stuff that he did in his later years as a performer because there was too much going on around him. You can’t live the kind of life Elvis lived be as cloistered as he was, and live a normal life. It’s not normal. It’s not normal to have to go to the movies at 3 o’ clock in the morning with everybody out of the theatre to see a film. That’s how we took him to the movies in Memphis. He couldn’t go at 6 o’ clock. And he couldn’t go at 8 o’ clock. And he couldn’t go to the hamburger place and get a hamburger. And then go to the movies and get some popcorn, sit down and watch a film. We had to buy the theatre out and take him at 3 o’ clock in the morning.
What about Frank Sinatra?
Frank was different. We were together for 30-something years. The thing about Frank was that Frank was my idol, I loved Frank. And I could listen to him day and night and still do. He’s one of the only artists that I listen to today musically. And we had great times together, we travelled together and we lived together and we had a very, very close personal relationship. I miss him a lot. A lot.
The only Steven Soderbergh movies that make any money are Jerry Weintraub productions. A lot of people seem to think that he doesn’t have the magic touch unless he’s making a movie for you. What is your close relationship based on?
I idolize him. I think he’s the best filmmaker working today and it’s as simple as that. And he and I have a shorthand. And we never raise our voices to each other and we never have disagreements, and if there’s something I don’t like, we sit down and discuss it, and if there’s something he doesn’t like, we sit down and discuss it. And when we leave the room we both are happy, and it’s because I idolize the guy. I think the guy knows what he’s doing, I don’t think there’s a screw missing anywhere. I think he’s that good.
Is there going to be an Ocean’s Fourteen?
I hope not. I shouldn’t say I hope not. Because I can only say this about Ocean’s Fourteen. The same as I said about Karate Kid. And I was wrong about Karate Kid. So I say this, as we are sitting here right now, none of us have any interest in making Ocean’s Fourteen. None of the actors, and not Soderbergh and not myself. That’s right now, today. I have no interest in that, I have no story, I have no idea. It’s a lot of work to put those films together, and I don’t really want to go do that right now. But I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2 years or 3 years or 5 years. When Will Smith came to me last year or 2 years ago and said to me, I want to remake Karate Kid with my son, I said oh please come on, leave it alone it’s part of my legacy, I don’t want to screw around with it, I’m seventy-something years old, I really don’t need to mess around with my gems. And he said to me you’re wrong. I’m right and you’re wrong. And I said, I don’t agree with you. He said, no I’m telling you I know what I’m talking about. He brought me his producing partners and they all talked to me and talked to me and talked to me, and wouldn’t leave me alone and would not let it go, and I finally said to him one day, ok why don’t you get a script and then we’ll look at the script and we’ll go from there. And he did, and we made it, and he was right. I was wrong. And Jaden Smith is a big, big star. Big star, the kid’s great. And they have a machine out there, the Smith family. It’s got to be the best showbiz machine ever put– it’s better than the Jacksons. And I think that that proved to me I can’t say never again, no more this, no more that. You can’t say that. Because you just don’t know. You just don’t know.
Liberace?
I’m gonna do Liberace.
You didn’t represent him.
No. He was a friend, just a friend. And I’m going to do the movie. And I’m going to do the movie for four reasons. Because Richard LaGravenese wrote it. Because Steven Soderbergh is going to direct it, Michael Douglas is going to play Liberace, and the 4th reason is that Matt Damon is going to play the boyfriend.
Where does his Mother come in?
She doesn’t. But the fact is that Liberace led a tortured life because he couldn’t come out of the closet. It’s not like Elton John and David Furnish. He was in the closet and he couldn’t say he was a homosexual because he would have lost his audience. His audience was all blue-haired ladies in Las Vegas, he couldn’t do that. Therefore he was a tortured man, he led two lives. And I’m going to tell the story of both lives.
Talk about Las Vegas in the old days, before it became Disneyland, when the gangsters were there?
Yeah. I knew them all.
So what was Las Vegas like back then?
It was much different. You knew all the owners of each place. When you walked in the door, the places were small. It wasn’t these big monolithic– it wasn’t these big things that Steve’s [Wynn] built in Vegas there, they were like motels. It was a different atmosphere. You went to Las Vegas and you knew everybody, and everybody knew everybody else. It was a small town. I mean, there’s pictures in my movie, when I was a kid and went to Vegas for the first time, I was 9 years old when I came here for the first time, to Hollywood, and there’s pictures of that, and you see Vegas and you see there were three hotels!
And were all the owners connected? Were they all mobsters?
Yeah, each city had its own hotel. In other words, New York had a hotel. Florida had a hotel, Chicago had a hotel, Detroit had a hotel. And the gangsters from those cities owned hotels.
THE HEIRESS
By Jorge Camara
“Yes, I can be cruel; I have been taught by masters,” is one of those phrases that figure prominently in the lore of Hollywood dialogue. The words were uttered by Olivia de Havilland as Catherine Sloper, her role in The Heiress that won her the Golden Globe for the Best Leading Actress in a Drama of 1950.
Adapted from the successful play of the same title by Augustus Goetz, which in turn was adapted from Henry James’ 1881 novel “Washington Square,” and carefully and meticulously directed by William Wyler, The Heiress turned out to be one of the finest artistic achievements of Paramount Studios for that year.
De Havilland triumphed with her subtle portrayal of a plain and naïve woman controlled by her dominating father (Ralph Richardson,) who falls for a handsome suitor (Montgomery Clift,) only to be abandoned by him when her father threatens to disinherit her. She will assert her vengeance years later when, after her father’s death and her assumption of his wealth, the suitor returns to try to win her back.
The play is regularly reprised on Broadway; and in 1997 the film was remade, not as successfully, under the title Washington Square, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney and Ben Chaplin in the starring roles, under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.
Read More »
