It’s been…a week. The good news is I got a new job with a great company (non-writing, non-teaching) that starts next week. Great pay and it has the benefits! The bad news is the interview was last-minute…as was another job interview that came out of nowhere…during the same days my parents arrived for a five-day visit…
My therapist has made a lot of extra money off of me. Well, it’s a good thing I got the new job!
So, here’s some links to articles and videos and things I’ve found recently or had in open tabs.
HORRIBLE BOSSES, BROADWAY EDITION:
Look, if I thought I was stressed last week, at least I never had to work for producer Scott Rudin! This profile about the temperamental bigwig is guaranteed to make you feel better about your own boss. It’s also a painful look at what comes up a lot in these Hollywood exposes — just how much behavior people were willing to ignore/tolerate because he was good at making money and winning awards. It’s crushing how much people talk themselves into enduring when their living is on the line.
BROADWAY, LESS DEPRESSING VERSION: I’ve found a TON of filmed plays from various PBS/network productions on YouTube. Attempting to share them all at once would make this post even longer, so figure I’ll parcel them out over various newsletters.
To start, here’s an Emmy-winning 1977 production of Thornton Wilder’s OUR TOWN that NBC broadcast in 1977. The production, directed by George Schaefer (an Emmy and Tony winner who handled many stage productions, TV movies, and TV movies of stage productions), has that darker, more melancholy look I prefer for productions of the show, and features a stacked cast headlined by Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager. There are plenty of other faces familiar to TV aficionados, including the recently-passed Ned Beatty, Barbara Bel Geddes, John Houseman, Charlotte Rae, Sada Thompson, and as George and Emily, Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor, who were also paired onscreen in JEREMY and ODE TO BILLY JOE. Perhaps one of the most ‘70s TV movies ever!
I’m open to suggestions for future plays to feature here!
DIARY OF AN IGNORED FEMALE FILMMAKER:
A profile from a few years back that a friend linked on Facebook introduced me to the history of Eleanor Perry, a prolific screenwriter who was often overshadowed by her husband and creative partner, director Frank Perry. The two did some groundbreaking films such as DAVID AND LISA, DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, and THE SWIMMER. Many of the films Frank made after their divorce, such as MOMMIE DEAREST, were…not as good (a few, like PLAY IT AS IT LAYS, were, not trying to be a jerk here). If you’ve never seen their work, you might have heard of their niece Katy Perry, who’s done pretty well for herself!
I don’t read a lot of stories from PEOPLE, but I liked this story about how Henry Winkler and his wife welcomed Marlee Matlin into her home after she got out of rehab at age 21. The Oscar winner’s now been sober for 34 years!
The story is special to me because Winkler gave my mom an award for teaching when I was in high school…which I didn’t see because Mom thought we’d find it boring and hadn’t seen HAPPY DAYS. I still respected him for producing MACGYVER, tho!
But years later I saw Winkler at an autograph show and was struck by how happy, energetic and grateful was compared to more “current” actors half his age! He stood in front of his booth, asked your name like he really wanted to know, put his arm around you, and always smiled. He made you feel welcome, not like this was a burden he was doing for extra money. He’s always been honest about his struggles with dyslexia, which he used as inspiration for the HANK ZIPZER children’s books he co-authored. I was too old for those when they came out, but Mom told me how he talked about his issues in his speech before he gave her the award, and that meant something to me as someone who grew up with motor skill problems that made handwriting difficult (and a bunch of other stuff diagnosed later!).
So yeah, it’s always meant something to me when I see Henry Winkler in the news, whether it’s how he’s helped out somebody, or how he’s getting the best reviews of his career (and an Emmy!) for his work on HBO’s BARRY. You were never just the Fonz to me, Henry.
And I don’t want to sell Marlee Matlin short. I didn’t grow up around many people who used sign language and seeing her onscreen in shows like PICKET FENCES and SEINFELD and THE WEST WING helped introduce me to the idea that deaf people could have all sorts of interesting lives and careers and personalities and also be so cool and interesting that you didn’t think of being deaf as the first thing about them. So, thanks Marlee!
She’s got a new movie out this week called CODA, about a young singer from a deaf family. I was not paid to endorse this.
Also also, writing up that reminded me of the first deaf person I ever encountered — Linda Bove on SESAME STREET! I’ll admit I didn’t pick up sign language from watching her as a kid, but it introduced the concept to me at the same time I was learning the alphabet and how to read.
LOOK, “THE OFFICE” TURNED OUT ALL RIGHT, RIGHT?:
CBS has a remake of the BBC sitcom GHOSTS coming out, which stars Rose McIver from iZOMBIE. I love her! I’m not sure on the show based on the trailer tho. The third season of the original just started in England this week, and I found previous seasons are on HBO Max. A new binge! To be followed by complaints about how the remake doesn’t hold up to the original!
IT TOOK A NUKE TO KILL THE DUKE:
Not to go dipping into PEOPLE too much, but I saw a movie with Dick Powell and was reminded that he directed THE CONQUEROR, a film with John Wayne as Genghis Khan…you read that correctly…that saw a significant number of its cast and crew, including Wayne and Powell, die from cancer. Various medical statistics about cancer, including Wayne’s own chainsmoking, have been used to argue it was just a coincidence, but the fact that the shooting site was downwind from nuclear testing grounds has helped persist the legend that it was a poisoned shoot. I couldn’t find confirmation one way or another, but here’s a 1980 story from PEOPLE that helped spread the legend:
A story that got shared around a lot this week was the following article from the Atlantic, which made me cry. A lot. I sent it to my neighbor. She cried. A lot. Be forewarned.
It’s the story of a family who lost their adult son in the 9/11 attacks, and how they grew and changed over 20 years. There’s a mystery involving a journal he left behind that his fiancee kept, but it’s more of a study of grief over the long term — the need to make sense of it, how it can shut you off or open you up, the different ways that we struggle to keep the people we’ve lost alive in our memories. I didn’t lose anyone in those attacks, but the article really made their experience relatable to anyone. Extraordinary. And it’d make a great movie if they don’t over-sentimentalize it!
I MIGHT HAVE STARTED WRITING THIS NEWSLETTER LAST WEEK AND FORGOTTEN A FEW THINGS I PASTED IN THE DRAFTS:
I’d never heard this story about a journalist whose involvement with her subject prompted a considerable reevaluation of journalistic ethics. It raised a lot of questions for me that I now need to remember by reading the piece again, but suffice to say, like the previous article it’d make a hell of a movie!
I like to share recipes from time to time, and here’s one for Rigatoni in a pesto-vodka-tomato-cream sauce that’s rich as AWL HAYIL but delicious, superior to many a fancy restaurant, and you can even make it vegan by using coconut milk instead of heavy cream! It WILL put you to sleep tho.
I hadn’t known about this until I saw it on Twitter, but just discovered one of the first dramatic comic strips with a Black female lead, TORCHY IN HEARTBEATS (not to be confused with artist Bill Ward’s “Good Girl” comic TORCHY). There are so many groundbreaking comics and creators who didn’t get their due!
Found through Twitter: Some fan art depicting what if there was a SUPER MARIO BROS. animated movie done by Don Bluth, who’s also well-known to ‘80s video game fans for the animated laser disc games DRAGON’S LAIR and SPACE ACE.
https://www.deviantart.com/kosperry/gallery
AND FINALLY: WHO NEEDS DONUTS WHEN YOU’VE GOT LOVE?
I found an epub version of one of my favorite oddball children’s books, which I discovered as an adult. WHO NEEDS DONUTS? by Mark Alan Stamaty is one of the first books to use that WHERE’S WALDO? style of filling EVERY LAST CENTIMETER of the page with surreal, amazing details. It’s a simple story whose lesson is based around an odd thing Stamaty heard someone shout. I recommend getting a hard copy version to truly appreciate the detail! I have a signed print of one of the scenes hanging over my fireplace thanks to Brooklyn’s Desert Island Comics, and it always makes guests smile and laugh.
YEW! Wrote too much as always. Already have links saved in draft for another newsletter. How about we wait a few days until after my new job’s started, hmm?
Hi Zack I'm really liking the newsletter so far. Your Eleanor Perry writeup made me curious to read her thrillers. But that's a bit of a rabbit hole, hard to find a bibliography. Looks like she and her ex husband wrote under the nom de plume Oliver Weld Bayer, so that has led me to the following titles at ABEbooks: "Paper Chase" (1940), "No Little Enemy" (1944?), "An Eye For An Eye" (1945?), "Brutal Question" (1947?). Not sure how complete this list is. Maybe you'll investigate further?
Hi Zack I'm really liking the newsletter so far. Your Eleanor Perry writeup made me curious to read her thrillers. But that's a bit of a rabbit hole, hard to find a bibliography. Looks like she and her ex husband wrote under the nom de plume Oliver Weld Bayer, so that has led me to the following titles at ABEbooks: "Paper Chase" (1940), "No Little Enemy" (1944?), "An Eye For An Eye" (1945?), "Brutal Question" (1947?). Not sure how complete this list is. Maybe you'll investigate further?