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All day Saturday there was an outpouring of love and nostalgia for Barbara Billingsley. The actress was 94, and will forever be remembered for her role as June Cleaver, America’s favorite mom, on “Leave it to Beaver.”
“Beaver” ran from 1957 to 1963. It still resonates a half century later.
Billingsley’s most famous repeated line: “Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver.”
And it was her cameo in “Airplane!” that solidified Billingsley’s place in American culture. She talked jive with two passengers, and made history all over again.
“Cut me some slack, Jack!”
I often thought Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward, were giving their delivery a little sarcasm. Their performances are so good you can read anything into them that you want.
Thanks for everything Barbara. You will never be forgotten.
Forget “The Social Network.” “Wall Street 2.” Even “Life as We Know It.”
The biggest hit of the fall belongs to Johnny Knoxville and Paramount.
“Jackass 3D” took in $21 million on Friday night. That’s almost three times the amount that any of those other movies did on their first nights.
If you build it, they will come. And in this case, the power of sheer stupidity won.
God Bless. I just hope this isn’t some omen politically. Now watch the Knoxville fans who’ll campaign for the movie to get an Oscar nomination!
On Yahoo!, “J3D” got an average rank of C+ from the critics. But you wait: Meryl Streep will be calling on Monday to get into Part 4.
Meanwhile, among the current, ahem. adult releases, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is bottoming out. Even with all the press, Oliver Stone’s film has fizzled badly. It’s too bad. If this movie had been released last spring as planned I think it might have done a lot better.
Again, as I say over and over: if Anchor Bay/Starz would launch a real Oscar campaign for Michael Douglas in “Solitary Man,” they’d have a real shot. Otherwise, Johnny Knoxville is going to come storming in.
I only have one good Johnny Knoxville story. Several years ago I was leaving the Soho Grand Hotel after a movie premiere party. He got on the elevator carrying a bunched up roll of sheets. When we got to the lobby, Knoxville sped out of the elevator and the front door of the hotel, turned north ino the darkness and disappeared.
I can’t really tell from Ben Brantley‘s review in the New York Times whether he liked “La Bete” or not. But the sizzling play opened on Broadway last night and Mark Rylance gave a tour de force performance. He is just sensational as Valere, and audiences will love David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley (famous from “Absolutely Fabulous”).
Early on in David Hirson‘s 1991 play, Rylance makes his appearance and gives what amounts to a 30 minute comic monologue. It only seems like a dialogue because Hyde Pierce, who is with him on the scene, manages to take his character’s stunned silence and turn it into conversation. By the time Lumley enters–and she has some spectacular entry–the audience is mesmerized and exhausted.
It’s the second time in a row for Rylance and director Matthew Warchus. Their last hit was “Boeing Boeing” in 2008.
In last night’s audience were Angela Lansbury, Marian Seldes, Matthew Broderick, Christine Baranski, Kathleen Marshall, and Cynthia Nixon at least. Not bad for a very rainy night on Broadway. And the set for this show is so compelling, there were lots of stragglers hanging around the stage after the curtain fell. I caughtVictor Garber(from “Alias” and so many other things) in deep conversation with Seldes.
“La Bete” only runs through February, so catch it as soon as possible. This is the kind of Broadway show where you’ll want to be able to say you saw it, and impress the people who missed it or couldn’t get in.
Bill O’Reilly–who really sounds completely nuts sometimes–got his due on “The View” today.
Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar got up and walked off the set during an interview that all the ladies were having with O’Reilly. He said that Muslims caused 9-11.
He didn’t say extremists. And he stuck to his guns. “Muslims killed us on 9-11.”
Whoopi said, “Bullshit.” And left. Joy went with her.
Barbara Walters then chastised O’Reilly and told him to apologize to the Muslim community. He did, but he didn’t mean it. He’s really an oaf and a boor. When I made occasional appearances on his show, he used to just yell questions that he didn’t really want the answers to. Roger Ailes has empowered him, despite all his scandals. Yikes.
One more thing, Bill: your assertion about “70 percent of Americans don’t want the Mosque”–is a tired, pointless, divisive argument. I live two miles from the Ground Zero and watched the events of 9-11 from my living room. Two of my friends were missing all day. The husband of a friend died in the collapse of the towers. Hundreds of grieving people wandered this neighborhood for two weeks passing out fliers and hoping to see their loved ones. This is not a national referendum. It’s up to New Yorkers, if anyone, to voice an opinion about the Mosque. All these other opinions are nice but they are irrelevant.
Anyway, Whoopi and Joy returned. But good for them. It’s enough already. Peace.
Just a day after celebrating Sam Moore‘s 75th birthday, and a few days after the passing of Solomon Burke, General Johnson has died.
He was the writer and often lead singer for a group called Chairmen of the Board. Their hits included “Pay to the Piper,” “Give Me Just a Little More Time,” “Finders Keepers,” and “You’ve Got Me Dangling on a String.”
Chairmen of the Board was really supposed to be what the Temptations were to Motown for Invictus Records circa 1970. That was the label started by legendary Motown/Four Tops writers Holland, Dozier, Holland after they split from Motown. Johnson wrote hits for other Invictus acts, notably “Bring the Boys Home” and a trio of hits for the Honey Cone: “Want Ads,” “Stick Up (Highway Robbery),” and the essential–my favorite– “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show.” He also had a hit on “Patches” for singer Clarence Carter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJT4GwWzKU
Johnson came from Raleigh, North Carolina, where he and the band were into what they called Beach Music. HDH lured them to Detroit, where they had their big success with those singles. Here’s what Johnson says on his website:
“In 1968, 1 moved to Detroit, Michigan to further my career with Invictus Records. As a member of The Chairmen of the Board, I experienced and enjoyed international success as a songwriter and an artist. My success in such a short period of time magnified the business dealings with my recording and management companies. Soon, business disagreements deteriorated our musical relationship and eventually terminated our successful venture. In 1974, 1 left Invictus.”
His singing was a little like that of my old favorite Billy Stewart. He used kind of a stutter and a staccato phrasing to make the songs stand out. It worked. Thanks, General, for leaving those little masterpieces behind.
The Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert rallies in Washington DC are starting to pick up musical artists.
I’m told that the rallies, set for October 30th, have already booked Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
More names are coming. But the organizers also have asked for Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam. The famed 70s pop singer is deciding whether or not to accept the invitation.
Toby Keith and the magnificent Mavis Staples are also said to be on the list for both rallies, which will be on the Mall in Washington DC and are semi serious send ups of the idiotic Sarah Palin-Glenn Beck rally of a few weeks ago.
Ozzy Osbourne turns out to be a rabid John Lennon fan. Who knew?
Last week, Ozzy recorded the less well known song “How?” for Amnesty International. Then, he and director Ernie Fritz made this video in four hours on the streets of Manhattan.
The project was shepherded of course by Martin Lewis, our reliable Beatles macher. Lewis picked up the phone and called Sharon Osbourne, who, he says, was “amazingly gracious and cooperative.”
Sharon, I see, is being used as the main draw for CBS’s likely to be awful rip off of “The View” coming next week. It’s a smart move. She’s the only one of those women I actually would tune in for. When the show is cancelled, Sharon should move over to “The View” and spice things up!
Katie Holmes’s ascent as a movie star isn’t going too well. Her latest wrapped film, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” is in limbo with the newest version of Miramax as they try to get organized under Neverland Ranch co-owner Tom Barrack.
It’s not like Barrack is in any rush to capitalize on Katie’s draw.
Holmes’ total box office take for this year comes to roughly $550,000–and that’s for two movies.
“The Extra Man,” released last summer, took in a total of $442,718.
“The Romantics,” which came out on September 10th, is even a worse saga: $106,524.
What makes “The Romantics” even more of a flop is that its cast had name brand recognition: Josh Duhamel, formerly of “Vegas” and “All My Children,” and now in the number 2 film of the week, “Life as We Know It,” was Katie’s costar. Elijah Wood and Anna Paquin are also in the film.
But “The Romantics” was a bust coming out of Sundance. No name distributors wanted it, so Ron Stein’s Four of a Kind Productions, which also made “The Kids Are All Right,” self-disributed. And that rarely works out well.
Before Holmes hooked up with Tom Cruise in their strange and sudden courtship of April 2005, she was on track for a movie career. Holmes appeared to good notices in “Pieces of April.” Then she had sizeable roles in “Batman Begins” and “Thank You for Smoking.” In early April 2005 I met her at a Broadway opening. She’d just moved to New York and was all set to become something.
Marrying Cruise was a great pr move, but hasn’t done much for her career. She mysteriously opted not to do the Batman sequel, which turned out to be “The Dark Knight.” She made the miserable “Mad Money,” a mostly unwatchable female heist film. On Broadway, she was stilted in a small role in a revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.” And now, 2010 has seen her in two releases that will go to DVD faster than “Dawson’s Creek.”
Her next big move: playing Jackie Kennedy in one episode of a series about the Kennedy family for…HBO? Showtime? No: the History Channel.
Mariah Carey‘s cat and mouse game–is she pregnant or just really enjoying lasagna?–may soon be over.
Invites have gone out for an October 20th listening session in New York for Carey’s new holiday album, “Merry Christmas II You.”
Island Def Jam chief L.A. Reid is hosting the event, and Carey will be there to meet and greet friends, family, and radio types.
Unless she’s hidden, or a hologram, or sits behind a large pocket book all night, there are undoubtedly going to be questions. And maybe an answer. Recent pictures indicate that our lovely Mariah looks very little like the photo on the invite itself right now.
Remember: Mariah told us through her rep a few weeks ago that she was very “superstitious” about discussing such matters.
Meantime, Mariah’s first single from the new album, “Oh Santa,” is pretty catchy. Expect to hear it four times a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Well, it’s a tough week. We lost Solomon Burke, one of the great R&B legends.
But on the other hand, today is Sam Moore‘s 75th birthday. He’s the only name check left from Arthur Conley’s famous song, “Sweet Soul Music.” When he sings now, he’s got the weight of pop music history on him and the legacy of his great friends like Billy Preston, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and Lou Rawls.
Happy Birthday, Sam!
Born in Miami, but closely identified with Memphis and Stax Records, Sam was the driving force in the famed duo Sam & Dave. Their hits of course include “Soul Man” and “Hold On! I’m Coming.” They had more than a dozen chart records with songs from Isaac Hayes and David Porter, produced by Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd on the Atlantic and Stax labels. Dave Prater died in 1988.
Sam has never been out of the public eye. A year ago he was featured with Bruce Springsteen and brought down the house in Madison Square Garden for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary. His most recent album, “Overnight Sensational,” was produced by Randy Jackson and featured a dozen or more superstar guests. Sam’s famous “lost” album, his 1972 solo recording, got 4 star4 ratings when it was finally released in 2005.
Next week, Sam is the featured performer at Denise Rich‘s star studded Angel Ball for Cancer Research. In December he’ll play a bunch of shows in Tokyo at the famed Blue Note.
This week, Sam will be feted in Washington DC where his wife of 28 years, Joyce, is planning a bunch of surprises. And next up: more projects, shows and a new album.
On Inauguration Day 2009, Sam headlined the Creative Coalition’s show with Sting and Elvis Costello.
Amazingly, Sam’s honey rich voice continues to get better with age. He recently sang the “Star Spangled Banner” at the final Yankees home game with the Red Sox acappella; the Yankees won, and I attribute that to Sam.
Sam, to quote one of your songs: You got us hummin’!
