Category: Hollywood

On my way to work in Hollywoood today, aboard the Red Line, I was reading in the Wall Street Journal about David Geffen.

The WSJ says that the 63-year-old Mr. Geffen “became a billionaire through the music industry, with record labels that backed acts from the Eagles to Guns n’ Roses.” He found and later sold Dreamworks and has “made a fortune in stocks, property and art”. His collection is estimated at $2 billion dollars. He recently sold $425 million dollars worth of paintings.

In regards to his eventual exit from the entertainment industry: “I don’t want to keep solving the same problems”. He plans to acquire the Los Angeles Times in hopes of turning it into a great paper.

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About three years ago, I worked for another Hollywood TV production company on an AMC documentary called “Women on Top” about powerful female filmmakers. Paula Wagner was one of those profiled, and I remember her coming into our offices on Hollywood and Cherokee, in a lovely vintage 1930 building, to review and clean-up her edited interview. She had glistening white teeth, and exceptionally smooth, well cut and shiny hair. When she looked at you it was a money shot.

She stared out the office window at the vast expanse of parking lots and old buildings that comprise the real Hollywood. “This is so special,” she said, as if she had just arrived in a place that she had never heard or seen before.

Photos by: <a href=””>Sterling Davis

What do all these hand signals and gestures mean? Anytime there is a photo taken with people under 30 years of age, they are inevitably doing something with their fingers. You almost never see “cool” people with their hands folded modestly behind their back, or just hanging by the sides. Instead, the yo-finga-in-da-lens is how all the dudes pose.

Was it once considered vulgar or obscene to do this? I remember a quaint time, not long ago, when young people walking down the street didn’t have half their ass crack showing, when they didn’t saunter with their hands on their crotch. Tongues were not stuck out, women walked in front of men when they entered or exited a restaurant, and drivers stopped at red lights.

In 1963, film audiences were shocked in “The Birds” when Tippi Hedren yelled at Rod Taylor “I think you’re a louse!”, acccording to author Camille Paglia. But we’ve “progressed” since then…

Kazakhstan Photos: Billy Crowley

The continuing uproar over Sacha Baron Cohen’s film “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” has reached new levels of emotionality. I found this ACTUAL email from a Kazak soldier at Ynet:

With all due respect to Mr. Cohen and all of you out there that find his antics funny i am ashamed for you.

I would have thought if anyone would be supportive of respecting anothers culture it would be the sons and daughters of abrahamm

There are some highly revered national shrines in the history of each people. Among those are the places which bore witness to great talents’ birth, formation, maturity. Such are Mikhailovskoe and Yasnaya Polyana for the Russians, Weimar for the Germans, Florence for the Italians, Stratford-on-Avon – for the Englishmen, the Dayan of Israel. With the Kazakh such a place of worship is Shyngystau, the birthplace of three geniuses of the Kazakh literature – Abai, Shakarim, Mukhtar Auezov.

The land of Shyngystau, spaciously outstretching over the steppe of Sary-Arka, has given us three men of letters of the world rank, which in itself is so rare a thing in the history of mankind, but not only them.

Prior to those three here lived and worked such notable people as Kengirbai, Oskenbai, Kunanbai, Nisan – biys, orators, sages, akyns, grieving over the people’s sufferings and sorrows; batyrs Aktanberdi, Mamai, Toktamysh, who sacrificed their glorious lives for the benefit of their homeland.

You might think we live like goats on the steppes but my people have been part of human history for thousands of years.

There is much too see outside your little country i suggest instead of seeking curried rice in india you try our world reknowned Uyz baked in Sut with helpings of Irimshik, Kurt and Sarysu…..and nothing in basle will hold a candle to our own Zhent, famous Kazakh chocolate

Long Live the Kazakh People and may we see peace in our time
Tarob Nazarbayev , Almaty, Kazakhstan (09.30.06)
tarob@www.kz

The clash of civilizations, between those who laugh and those who cannot, continues.

Old Hollywood keeps showing us up. We just don’t write, act, direct, or even shoot films the way they did back in the 1940’s.

I rented an old Bette Davis movie called “Old Acquaintance” the other day. I sort of expected it to be mildly amusing or maybe some b movie sob story. Instead, it was an expertly acted movie about two woman, both successful writers, one of whom chooses to write from her heart, while the other turns out books like sausages and makes a mint.

There is a great scene where Davis, frustrated by the blindness and arrogance of her lifelong friend Millie (played by Miriam Hopkins) grabs her by the shoulders and violently shakes her. The audience had been waiting for this superficial snob to get her comeuppance and this is it.

The drama, which is full of hilarity and theatricality and poignance, has a score written by Franz Waxman, and was directed by Vincent Sherman.

To think that it came out of that studio on Hollywood Way, surrounded by the banality of all that is Burbank, transporting us to places around the world.

How many times do we go to the movies nowadays and walk out not remembering a single moment of the past two or three hours?

The other night at the Emmy Awards, the actor (ess) named Swoosie Kurtz was nominated for something. I don’t remember what it was. All I know is that I don’t know who Swoosie Kurtz is, but her name has been hanging over me for many years, like a dull ringing in my ears.

I decided to explore and find out a little more about this Swoosie Kurtz. It turns out that she is in some show or movie or video called, “Huff” which is something I’ve never seen and cannot tell you about.

She also played Mrs. Mimi Jared in “The Rules of Attraction” and Valerie Wilkinson in “That’s Life”. She was Mummy Reed in “The White River Kid” and Rosalie in “Outside Ozona”. In “Party Girl” she was Judy Burkhard and in “The Magic School Bus” she was the voice of Dorothy Ann’s mother.

Twenty years ago, she played Verna McGrath in “Wildcats” and twenty-six years ago she was Roberta in “The Mating Season”. In the bi-centennial year of 1976, she guest starred on “Kojak” as Julie DiNata.

The IMDB has this quote: “In 1962, Swoosie and her father both appeared on the game show “To Tell The Truth”. Col. Kurtz was the contestant, and 18-year-old Swoosie came out at the end of the game to identify her father by handing him his uniform jacket.”

To be fair to Ms. Kurtz, I’m far less famous than her, and quite a bit less accomplished. But to be fair to myself, I haven’t annoyed the entire world by having a famous name and an unidentifiable face for the past three decades.