Frank Beacham's Journal

Belleville romance, Paris, 1947

Photo by Willy Ronis

English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564 — 457 years ago today

According to tradition, English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564 — 457 years ago today.

It is impossible to be certain the exact day on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newborn.

Shakespeare's date of death is conclusively known, however. It was April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old and had retired to Stratford three years before.

Shakespeare left behind no personal papers, and it wasn’t until after his death that his collected works were published in print form. What we know about his life comes from contemporary documents.

To fill the gaps of knowledge, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington is attempting to digitize every known reference to Shakespeare and his family written during and around his lifetime.

The project, called Shakespeare Documented, has collected more than 500 references in about 400 documents so far. The papers are written in Elizabethan secretary hand, a style common in the 16th century but indecipherable to the inexpert eye today.

Shakespeare wrote two epic narrative poems, 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Yet, there are few surviving details about the playwright's life.

This dearth of biographical information is due primarily to his station in life. He was not a noble, but the son of John Shakespeare, a leather trader and the town bailiff. The events of William Shakespeare's early life can only be gleaned from official records, such as baptism and marriage records.

He probably attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have studied Latin and read classical literature. He did not go to university.

At age 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of the marriage. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months later, and in 1585 William and Anne had twins, Hamnet and Judith.

Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, died 11 years later, and Anne Shakespeare outlived her husband, dying in 1623.

Nothing is known of the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare's emergence as a playwright in London in the early 1590s, but unfounded stories have him stealing deer, joining a group of traveling players, becoming a schoolteacher or serving as a soldier in the Low Countries.

The first reference to Shakespeare as a London playwright came in 1592, when a fellow dramatist, Robert Greene, wrote derogatorily of him on his deathbed. It is believed that Shakespeare had written the three parts of Henry VI by that point.

In 1593, Venus and Adonis was Shakespeare's first published poem, and he dedicated it to the young Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd earl of Southampton. In 1594, having probably composed, among other plays, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew, he became an actor and playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which became the King's Men after James I's ascension in 1603.

The company grew into England's finest, in no small part because of Shakespeare, who was its principal dramatist. It also had the finest actor of the day, Richard Burbage, and the best theater, the Globe, which was located on the Thames' south bank. Shakespeare stayed with the King's Men until his retirement and often acted in small parts.

By 1596, the company had performed the classic Shakespeare plays Romeo and Juliet, Richard II and A Midsummer Night's Dream. That year, John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms, a testament to his son's growing wealth and fame. In 1597, William Shakespeare bought a large house in Stratford.

In 1599, after producing his great historical series, the first and second part of Henry IV and Henry V, he became a partner in the ownership of the Globe Theatre. The beginning of the 17th century saw the performance of the first of his great tragedies, Hamlet.

The next play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see another play that included the popular character Falstaff. During the next decade, Shakespeare produced such masterpieces as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and The Tempest.

In 1609, his sonnets, probably written during the 1590s, were published. The 154 sonnets are marked by the recurring themes of the mutability of beauty and the transcendent power of love and art. Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1616.

Today, nearly 400 years later, his plays are performed and read more often and in more nations than ever before. In a million words written over 20 years, he captured the full range of human emotions and conflicts with a precision that remains sharp and relevant today.

As his great contemporary the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson said, "He was not of an age, but for all time."

Thanks History.com and the New York Times

Michael Moore is 67 years old today

Michael Moore is 67 years old today.

A documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, author, journalist, actor and political activist, Moore is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terror, which is the highest-grossing documentary at the American boxoffice of all time and winner of the Palme d'Or.

His film, Bowling for Columbine (2002), which examines the causes of the Columbine High School massacre, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Both Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko (2007), which examines health care in the United States, are among the top ten highest-grossing documentaries.

In September, 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, which documented his personal quest to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the television shows, TV Nation, a satirical newsmagazine television series, and The Awful Truth, a satirical show.

Moore's written and cinematic works criticize topics such as globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system and capitalism.

In 2005, Time magazine named Moore one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Ronald Neame, British film cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director, was born 110 years ago today

Ronald Neame (on the right) joined by Simone Griffeth, the actress, and Frank Beacham during the Breckinridge, Colorado Film Festival, 1984

Ronald Neame, British film cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director, was born 110 years ago today.

Neame was hired as an assistant cameraman on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie, directed by a young Alfred Hitchcock.

Neame's own career as a cinematographer began with the musical comedy, Happy (1933), and he continued to develop his skills in various "quota quickies" films for several years. His credits as cinematographer include Major Barbara (1941), In Which We Serve (1942), This Happy Breed (1944) and Blithe Spirit (1945).

His camera work on One of Our Aircraft Is Missing got him an Academy Award nomination for Best Special Effects in 1943.

Neame formed a production company, Cineguild, with David Lean and Anthony Havelock-Allan. During this partnership, he produced Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). He shared Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay for Brief Encounter, in 1947, and Great Expectations, in 1948, with co-writers Lean and Havelock-Allan.

Neame produced The Magic Box, a screen biography directed by John Boulting about the life of British camera inventor, William Friese-Greene, which was the 1951 film project for the Festival of Britain.

In 1947, Neame made his directorial debut, Take My Life, for British producer J. Arthur Rank. He began a transition to the American film industry at the suggestion of Rank, who asked Neame to study the Hollywood production system.

He worked again with Alec Guinness (whom he had worked with on Great Expectations and Oliver Twist), this time as director, in three films: The Card (1952), The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). Neame has described Tunes of Glory as "the film I am proudest of." He received two BAFTA Award nominations for Tunes of Glory.

Neame and Guinness worked again in the 1970 musical, Scrooge, with Guinness playing the ghost of Jacob Marley to Albert Finney's Ebenezer Scrooge.

Neame also directed I Could Go On Singing in 1963. It was Judy Garland's last film, co-starring Dirk Bogarde, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), which won Maggie Smith her first Oscar.

Neame was recruited to direct The Poseidon Adventure (1972) after the contracted director left the production. He later characterized The Poseidon Adventure as "my favorite film" because it earned him enough money to retire comfortably.

He enjoyed a long friendship with Walter Matthau, whom he directed in two later films, Hopscotch (1980) and First Monday in October (1981).

Neame died on June 16, 2010 after suffering complications from a broken leg. The break required two surgical procedures from which Neame never recovered.

In an interview in 2006, he jokingly said, "When people ask me about the secret to my longevity, I say the honest answer is two large vodkas at lunchtime and three large scotches in the evening. All my doctors have said to me, 'Ronnie, if you would drink less, you'd live a lot longer.' But, they're all dead, and I'm still here at 95."

In the mid 1980s, Carol Dickman and I produced “Ronald Neame on the Director,” a full length video on film directing. Here, in a clip from that video, Neame tells the story of working with Judy Garland on her last film, “I Could Go On Singing.”

Judy Garland performed at Carnegie Hall 60 years ago in "the greatest night in showbiz history"

She was one of the biggest and most popular movie stars of all time, making her first film appearance at the age of seven and earning the first of three Oscar nominations at 17 for her starring role in what may well be the best-loved American movie of all time, The Wizard of Oz.

She was also a prolific recording star, selling millions of records nearly three decades after starting out as one of the youngest performers ever signed to a major record label.

These accomplishments alone would be enough to impress anyone who was somehow unfamiliar with her work, but "to experience Judy Garland's full power," as the PBS series American Masters put it, "one had to be in the auditorium when she brought her God-given gifts to bear on a suddenly unified collection of strangers."

Never did Judy Garland so unify a collection of strangers than on this day in 1961 — 60 years ago — during the famous Carnegie Hall performance often called "the greatest night in showbiz history." The raucous standing ovation that greeted Judy Garland when she took the stage that night at Carnegie Hall set the tone for the evening that followed.

"They were on their feet even before the goddess grabbed the microphone," wrote Lewis Funke for the New York Times. "And then she sang," wrote Judith Christ for the New York Herald, "And she sang, let it be reported, as she hasn't in years."

She sang 27 numbers in front of the rapturous crowd that night and was frequently interrupted by extended ovations. Was it merely the quality of Garland's performance that night that earned her such an incredible reception?

Perhaps it was, but it is also fair to note that the concert took place on the one night a week that Broadway performers have off — Sunday night — and that the audience was therefore, to say the least, a friendly one.

Judy Garland's performance on this night in 1961 was captured on a live recording that would go on to spend 95 weeks on the U.S. album charts (including 13 weeks at #1).

But the experience of seeing it live was clearly something else entirely.

"She'll be back in May," wrote Frank Aston for the New York World-Telegram. "Try to get tickets. Just try. This kid is still a killer."

Thanks History.com

Roy Orbison was born 85 years ago today

Roy Orbison was born 85 years ago today.

A singer-songwriter, Orbison was best known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions and dark emotional ballads. He grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis.

Orbison’s greatest success came with Monument Records between 1960 and 1964, when 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely," "Crying" and "Oh, Pretty Woman." His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of "In Dreams" in David Lynch's Blue Velvet revived his career in the 1980s.

In 1988, he joined the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. He also released a new solo album.

Orbison died of a heart attack in December that year at age 52, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and his two eldest sons in separate accidents.

Orbison was a natural baritone, but music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. The combination of his powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many critics to refer to his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet "the Caruso of Rock." Elvis Presley and Bono have stated his voice was, respectively, the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard.

While most men in rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability. He was known for performing while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses which lent an air of mystery to his persona.

Here, Orbison performs “Oh Pretty Woman” as the finale to his all star Black and White concert, 1987

Charles Mingus was born 99 years ago today

Charles Mingus was born 99 years ago today.

A highly influential jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader, Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third Stream, free jazz and classical music.

Mingus avoided categorization — forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz. He once cited Duke Ellington and the church as his main influences.

Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities.

Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus' often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz." His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many on-stage eruptions, exhortations to musicians and dismissals.

Because of his brilliant writing for mid-size ensembles, and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups, Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration.

Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke," citing their shared "organizational genius." Mingus' music was once believed to be too difficult to play without Mingus' leadership.

However, many musicians play Mingus compositions today, from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition.

Gunther Schuller has suggested that Mingus should be ranked among the most important American composers, jazz or otherwise. In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library for public use.

In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers — including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos — in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history.”

By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His once formidable bass technique suffered, until he could no longer play the instrument. He continued composing, however, and supervised a number of recordings before his death.

Mingus did not complete his final project of an album named after him with singer Joni Mitchell, which included lyrics added by Mitchell to Mingus compositions, including "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," among Mitchell originals and short, spoken word duets and home recordings of Mitchell and Mingus.

The album featured the talents of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and another influential bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius.

As respected as Mingus was for his musical talents, he was sometimes feared for his occasional violent onstage temper, which was at times directed at members of his band, and other times aimed at the audience.

He was physically large, prone to obesity (especially in his later years) and was by all accounts often intimidating and frightening when expressing anger or displeasure.

Mingus was prone to clinical depression. He tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity, intermixed with fairly long periods of greatly decreased output. When confronted with a nightclub audience talking and clinking ice in their glasses while he performed, Mingus stopped his band and loudly chastised the audience, stating "Isaac Stern doesn't have to put up with this shit."

Mingus reportedly destroyed a $20,000 bass in response to audience heckling at New York's Five Spot.

Guitarist and singer Jackie Paris was a first-hand witness to Mingus's irascibility. Paris recalls his time in the Jazz Workshop: "He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me... The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back."

On October 12, 1962, Mingus punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus's apartment on a score for his upcoming concert at New York Town Hall and Knepper refused to take on more work. The blow from Mingus broke off a crowned tooth and its underlying stub.

According to Knepper, this ruined his embouchure and resulted in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone — a significant handicap for any professional trombonist. This attack temporarily ended their working relationship and Knepper was unable to perform at the concert.

Charged with assault, Mingus appeared in court in January, 1963 and was given a suspended sentence. Knepper did again work with Mingus in 1977 and played extensively with the Mingus Dynasty — formed after Mingus's death in 1979.

Mingus was evicted from his apartment at 5 Great Jones Street in New York City for nonpayment of rent, captured in the film Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968, by Thomas Reichman, which also features Mingus performing in clubs and in the apartment, firing a shotgun, composing at the piano, playing with and taking care of his young daughter, Caroline, and discussing love, art, politics and the music school he had hoped to create.

Mingus died aged 56 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for treatment and convalescence. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.

Here, Mingus performs “Flowers For A Lady” in 1974

Charles Mingus leaves Marseille-Marignane's airport the day after a Mingus Quartet concert in Chateauvallon, 1976

Photo by Guy Le Querrec

The Blues Brothers debuted 43 years ago today

Blues legend John Lee Hooker, one of the biggest influences on The Blues Brothers, appeared in the Blues Brothers film as Street Slim and performed “Boom Boom”

It was Marshall Checker, of the legendary Checker brothers, who first discovered them in the gritty blues clubs of Chicago's South Side in 1969 and handed them their big break nine years later with an introduction to music-industry heavyweight and host of television's Rock Concert, Don Kirshner.

Actually, none of that is true, but it's the story that Saturday Night Live's Paul Shaffer told on April 22, 1978 — 43 years ago today — as he announced the worldwide television debut of that night's musical guest, the Blues Brothers — the not-quite-real, not-quite-fake musical creation of SNL cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

The characters and the band that Belushi and Aykroyd unveiled that night took more than two years to evolve. The first incarnation came during SNL's first season, in a January 17, 1976, appearance singing "I'm a King Bee" as "Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band."

There were no dark suits, skinny ties or Ray-Bans at that point, but the appearance did feature Aykroyd on the harmonica and Belushi on vocals belting out a blues classic very much in the style of the future Elwood and "Joliet" Jake Blues, albeit while wearing bee costumes.

The Blues Brothers' look — and much of their repertoire — would come together after Belushi's trip to Eugene, Oregon, during the hiatus between SNL seasons two and three to film Animal House.

It was there that Belushi, a committed rock-and-roll fan, met a 25-year-old bluesman named Curtis Salgado, future harmonica player for Robert Cray, frontman for Roomful of Blues and a major figure on the burgeoning Pacific Northwest blues scene of the 1970s.

Belushi became a regular visitor to the Eugene Hotel to catch Salgado's act during the filming of Animal House, and it was from that act and from Salgado himself that he picked up a passion for the blues as well as the inspiration for the Blues Brothers' sound and look.

Back in New York for the third season of SNL, Belushi and Aykroyd honed their concept for the Blues Brothers Band and recruited an incredible roster of backing instrumentalists drawn from among the finest blues and R&B session musicians in the country.

Even if their debut performance on this night in 1978 hadn't been a huge hit, the band was far too good to break up after a single gig. Indeed, the closing portion of Paul Shaffer's introduction that night: "Today they are no longer an authentic blues act, but have managed to become a viable commercial product."

That ended up being borne out in real life, with the Blues Brothers earning three Top 40 hits ("Soul Man," "Rubber Biscuit" and "Gimme Some Lovin'"), a #1 pop album (Briefcase Full of Blues) and a piece of screen immortality via their 1980 film, The Blues Brothers.

Thanks History.com

Here is the Blues Brothers in a full concert in 1978 at Winterland

Blues Brothers Dogs

Photo by Kathleen Fischer

Bettie Page was born 98 years ago today

Bettie Page was born 98 years ago today.

A model who gained a significant profile in the 1950s for her pin-up photos, Page is often referred to as the "Queen of Pinups.” Her jet black hair, blue eyes and trademark bangs have influenced artists for generations.

A native of Nashville, Page lived in California in her early adult years before moving to New York City to pursue work as an actress. There, she began to find work as a pin-up model and posed for dozens of photographers throughout the 1950s. Page was "Miss January, 1955," one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine.

"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," said Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, to the Associated Press in 2008.

In 1959, Page converted to evangelical Christianity and worked for Billy Graham, studying at Bible colleges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, with the intent of becoming a missionary. The latter part of Page's life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state psychiatric hospital suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

After years of obscurity, she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s. In 2006, Page and Halo Guitars collaborated to produce a limited edition of custom guitars, released at the 2007 Winter NAMM show in southern California.

The total run of one hundred guitars was handmade and designed by luthier Waylon Ford and the art was designed by Pamelina H. It was the only collector guitar series authorized by Bettie Page.

Page’s influence on popular culture was enormous.

Said MTV: "Katy Perry's rocker bangs and throwback skimpy jumpers. Madonna's Sex book and fascination with bondage gear. Rihanna's obsession with all things leather, lace and second-skin binding. Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. The SuicideGirls Web site. The Pussycat Dolls. The entire career of burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese and Bernie Dexter" would not have been possible without Page.”

In 2011, Page’s estate made the Forbes annual list of top-earning dead celebrities, earning $6 million and tied with the estates of George Harrison and Andy Warhol, at 13th on the list. In 2014, Forbes estimated that Page's estate earned $10 million in 2013.

Page died on December 11, 2008 at age 85.

Glen Campbell was born 85 years old today

Glen Campbell was born 85 years old today.

A country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor, Campbell was best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.

During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums and has sold 45 million records. Of the 74 trips up the country charts, 27 landed in the Top 10.

Campbell's hits include John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind," Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston," Larry Weiss's "Rhinestone Cowboy" and Allen Toussaint's "Southern Nights."

In 1969, Campbell was picked by actor John Wayne to play alongside him in the film, True Grit.

In June, 2011, Campbell announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease six months earlier. He had been suffering from short-term memory loss for years. He went on a final, "Goodbye Tour," with three of his children joining him in his backup band. His last show was on November 30, 2012 in Napa, California.

In April, 2014, the 78-year-old Campbell became a patient at an Alzheimer's long-term care and treatment facility in Nashville. Campbell died August 8, 2017 at the age of 81. He was buried in the Campbell family cemetery at Billstown, Arkansas.

Here, Campbell performs “Wichita Lineman”

The 1964 World’s Fair opened 57 years ago today

When the 1964 World’s Fair opened 57 years ago today, the architectural star of the show was Philip Johnson’s soaring, futuristic New York State Pavilion.

“A sophisticated frivolity,” The Times’s architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable raved, “seriously and beautifully constructed. This is ‘carnival’ with class.”

Standing inside the pavilion’s Tent of Tomorrow, a multicolored canopy supported by 100-foot concrete towers, was like looking up at a spacecraft taking off. For years, the pavilion has been shuttered and in disrepair, slowly crumbling. The pavilion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

In the fall of 2013, New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation announced plans to restore the pavilion with new landscaped paths and event spaces at an estimated cost of $73 million, as opposed to the $14 million cost to demolish the structure.

Renewed interest was shown in the pavilion's restoration in early 2014, the 50th anniversary of its opening.

In July, 2014, the pavilion received about $5.8 million for restoration. The New York Mets also donated some money for the preservation effort. However, the pavilion was damaged the same month by arsonists.

In May, 2015, the New York Structural Steel Painting Contractors Association, in conjunction with the New York City Parks department and members of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (District Council 9, Local 806), announced a project to repaint the rusty steel framework of the Tent of Tomorrow.

After testing paint chips, the color "American Cheese Yellow" was selected as the best match for the original color. The majority of the labor was done by union trainees, and materials were supplied by the contractors, constituting a $3 million donation. All work was completed by August 15th, 2015.

The Pavilion is the subject of a documentary film titled, Modern Ruin: A World's Fair Pavilion, produced by filmmaker and teacher Matthew Silva. The documentary premiered on May 22, 2015 in the Queens Theatre which was formerly the theaterama, the third component of the New York State Pavilion.

In March, 2016, People For the Pavilion and the National Trust for Historic preservation launched an international ideas competition to allow the public to reimagine possibilities for what is possible for the pavilion.

Two proposed designs for the New York State Pavilion's restoration won New York City's 2018 Annual Awards for Excellence in Design. As of June 2018, the New York City government planned to award contracts for the pavilion's restoration, set to be worth $14.25 million. The restoration was planned to take one and a half years but was delayed due to construction and pandemic issues. It is uncertain when it will be finished.

Below, Observatory Towers of the New York State Pavilion, 1964 World's Fair

Photo by Erik S. Lieber

Fifty-seven years ago today, folk singer Oscar Brand provided the music for this "film poem," a day in the life of the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York.

All major areas of the fair are represented — international, industrial, federal and states, transportation and amusements. The narration form gives the film its title — Oscar Brand sings the "Ballad." The song was specially written for the film.

Some of the construction leading up to opening day is contrasted to the finished appearance of the grounds later in the film. Many pavilions and the Unisphere are shown, but the Bell Pavilion is the main focus.

The "Floating Wing" pavilion of the Bell System is given a quick tour, as people ride the 17-minute moving, Disney-style slow ride through telecommunications history (with music by Morton Gould), and visit such exhibits as The Vocoder, Patterns of your Voice, Electronic Switching and the Picturephone.

The film closes with the fireworks and water show that was produced nightly in front of the Bell Pavilion at the Pool of Industry.

While the Unisphere still exists on the Queens fairgrounds (now the Flushing Meadows park), most buildings were torn down or removed following the Fair. The giant tire ferris wheel for Royal Tire is a landmark along I-94 west of Detroit, Michigan. The Skyway tower structures and gondolas were moved to Six Flags Great Adventure (at that time called Great Adventure) in New Jersey. "It's a Small World" was transferred to Disneyland.

Nothing remains of the Bell Pavilion. But many of the ideas in this pavilion about communications and the future were later transferred to the "Spaceship Earth" building at Epcot Center, which opened in 1982 sponsored by Bell, then sponsored by AT&T from 1984 to 2004.

Howie Wyeth was born 77 years ago today

Howie Wyeth on drums with Rob Stoner on bass backing Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Review tour in Gainesville, Florida on April 25, 1976

Photo by Frank Beacham

Howie Wyeth was born 77 years ago today.

Wyeth was a drummer and pianist, and is remembered for his work with Bob Dylan; the saxophonist, James Moody; the rockabilly singer, Robert Gordon; the electric guitarist, Link Wray; the rhythm and blues singer, Don Covay; and the folk singer, Christine Lavin.

Wyeth was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, his mother, Caroline Pyle, was interested in the Wyeth family, flirted with some of them and married Nathaniel C. Wyeth. He had four brothers, John, David, N. Convers and Andrew, and one sister, Melinda, who died very young. A fifth brother (the oldest), Newell died with his grandfather in 1945 when their car stalled on a railroad crossing near their home and they were struck by a milk train.

The Wyeths are a family of visual artists and, earlier, illustrators who lived and worked together in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Including the Hurds and the McCoys, at least eleven artists are among the family and in-laws.

Wyeth was the namesake of his great-uncle, Howard Pyle (1853–1911), the artist and illustrator for Harper's Weekly and the author of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and four volumes of children's stories about King Arthur.

His grandfather, N. C. Wyeth, was a student of Howard Pyle and a prominent illustrator of children's books for Charles Scribner's Sons. His grandmother Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an illustrator of children for The Saturday Evening Post who married Walter Pyle, Howard's younger brother. He was the nephew of the painters, Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth and Carolyn Wyeth.

Wyeth was the son of music lovers — his father enjoyed playing ragtime. He learned drums by age four and soon on a piano could repeat songs he had heard. He attended the Wilmington Friends School where his music teacher helped him decide to be a musician. Fats Waller was Wyeth's greatest influence, leading him to learn stride piano and music theory.

He studied percussion with Alan Abel of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and received a bachelor's in music at Syracuse University in 1966. While at Syracuse, Howie was the drummer with an R&B band called The Sidewinders that often played at frat parties.

Wyeth played at various times in the bands the Dogs and the Worms after moving to New York City in 1969. In 1972, on a solo album by John Herald, co-produced by Bob Neuwirth for Paramount, Wyeth played with Amos Garret, Steven Soles, Ned Albright and Rob Stoner.

Stoner brought Wyeth to drum on Desire in July, 1975, a decision that satisfied Dylan who said, "Your drummer sounds great, it sounds great." The songs were co-written with Jacques Levy, and the personnel were Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano), Vinnie Bell (bouzouki), Scarlet Rivera (violin), Dom Cortese (accordion), Stoner (bass, background vocals), Wyeth (drums), Luther Rix (congas), and Emmylou Harris, Ronee Blakley and Soles (background vocals).

In September, 1975, a few months before the album release in January, Dylan, with Rivera on violin, Stoner on bass and Wyeth on drums, performed Hurricane, Oh, Sister and Simple Twist of Fate for the PBS tribute to John Hammond recorded at the WTTW television studios in Chicago.

The group found themselves with a Billboard #1 pop album, the last Dylan effort to reach that mark for thirty years until 2006 when he released, Modern Times. The project is remembered for its "loose and swirling" sound and the songs "Isis,” "Sara,” "Hurricane,” "Black Diamond Bay" and "Oh, Sister.”

Sony credited Wyeth as an accompanist with an "uncannily sympathetic ear." Larry Sloman called his drumming "ethereal." Billboard wrote that Stoner and Wyeth were one of the strongest rhythm sections in music.

Dylan, Levy and Neuwirth conceived the Rolling Thunder Revue in New York in 1975. The revue toured the United States during the end of 1975 and first half of 1976, and at two of those shows recorded the live album, Hard Rain, released in 1976.

Wyeth died of cardiac arrest at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on March 27, 1996. He was 51 years old.

Jack Nicholson is 84 years old today

On this day in 1937 — 84 years ago — Jack Nicholson, who would become known as one of the greatest actors of his generation and famous for his roles in such movies as Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and As Good As it Gets, was born in Neptune, New Jersey.

Nicholson’s father left his mother before Jack was born, and he grew up believing that his grandmother was his mother and his mother was his older sister. Nicholson didn’t learn the truth until the early 1970s, long after they were both dead, when he found out from a reporter then working on a story about the now-famous actor.

After high school, Nicholson won a scholarship to the University of Delaware, but he decided to try acting instead. After moving to Los Angeles, he landed a job in the animation department of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He began studying acting at the Players Ring Theater and won a few small parts in television shows.

In 1958, Nicholson played a troubled teenager in his first film, a low-budget horror flick called The Cry Baby Killer. This was the first of many appearances in horror and biker films and other second-rate genre movies that Nicholson would make over the course of the next decade.

He also tried his hand at screenwriting, penning scripts for The Trip (1967), directed by B-movie king Roger Corman and Head (1968), which starred the musical group the Monkees.

Nicholson married the actress Sandra Knight in 1962, but the marriage lasted only five years.

Nicholson finally got his big acting break in 1967, when the actor Rip Torn dropped out of Easy Rider (1968) and Nicholson was able to step into his place. Playing an alcoholic lawyer opposite Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper’s drug-dealing bikers, Nicholson stole his scenes and picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

After the success of Easy Rider, Nicholson’s career was on the fast track. As a talented musician stuck working on an oil rig in Five Easy Pieces (1970), he turned in another Oscar-nominated performance, this time as Best Actor.

After two more nominations — for The Last Detail (1973) and Roman Polanski’s noir thriller Chinatown (1974) — Nicholson took home the Best Actor Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in which he played an inmate in a mental asylum. The film was the first to sweep all five major Oscar categories: Best Actor, Best Actress (Louise Fletcher as the sadistic Nurse Ratched), Best Screenplay, Best Director (Milos Forman) and Best Picture.

Now at the top of the A-list, Nicholson appeared sporadically in films over the rest of the 1970s. He emerged with a string of notable performances in the 1980s, including Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and Oscar-nominated turns in Reds (1981), Terms of Endearment (1983) and Ironweed (1987).

Showcasing his more campy side, he played Satan in The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and gave an outrageously over-the-top performance as the Joker in Batman (1989), both box-office hits. Playing a hard-line Marine colonel in A Few Good Men (1992), Nicholson racked up his tenth Oscar nomination, a record for a male actor.

In 1997, Nicholson and co-star Helen Hunt both won Oscars for their leading performances in the quirky comedy-drama, As Good as It Gets.

Still at the top of his game, Nicholson continued to appear frequently in leading roles in films throughout the next decade, earning praise (and a 12th Oscar nomination) for his uncharacteristically understated performance in About Schmidt (2002); indulging his softer side in the romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give (2004) opposite Diane Keaton; and headlining the stellar cast of Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Mob drama The Departed (2006).

Nicholson, an avid basketball fan, can frequently be found in courtside seats at Los Angeles Lakers games.

Thanks History.com

Peter Frampton is 71 years old today

Peter Frampton is 71 years old today.

An English musician, singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, Frampton was previously associated with the bands, Humble Pie and The Herd. His international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive! The album sold more than six million copies in the United States alone and spawned several hits.

Since then, Frampton has released several major albums. He has also worked with David Bowie and both Matt Cameron and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, among others. He is best known for such hits as "Breaking All The Rules," "Show Me the Way," "Baby, I Love Your Way," "Do You Feel Like We Do" and "I'm in You."

In 1980, Frampton’s album, Rise Up, was released to promote his tour in Brazil, although he suffered another serious setback that year when all his guitars were destroyed in a cargo plane crash that killed three people.

Among the instruments he lost was the treasured black Les Paul Custom (pictured on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive) given to him by Mark Mariana and first used on the night of the recording of the Humble Pie live album Performance, and which he had used all through his early solo career. The guitar was recovered and returned to him in December, 2011.

On February 22, 2019, Frampton announced his Peter Frampton Finale—The Farewell Tour commencing on June 18, 2019 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, running through October 12 ending in San Francisco California.

Frampton also revealed the reason for the farewell tour; he received a diagnosis that he has inclusion body myositis (IBM), a progressive muscle disorder characterized by muscle inflammation, weakness and atrophy (wasting).

Frampton's Memoir "Do You Feel Like I Do?" is scheduled to be published in October, 2020.

On April 21, Frampton cancelled the 2020 edition of his farewell tour of Europe and the U.K. due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Here, Frampton performs “Do You Feel Like We Do,” 1975

Horses in Iceland

Photo by Joe Capra

Iggy Pop is 74 years old today

Iggy Pop is 74 years old today.

A singer, songwriter, musician and actor, Pop is widely known as an innovator and "godfather" of punk rock. His music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, hard rock, jazz and blues.

Pop became known as “Iggy” in high school, during which time he served as drummer for the local blues band, The Iguanas. He is vocalist of the influential protopunk band, The Stooges. Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003, having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.

Though his popularity has fluctuated through the years, many of Pop's songs have become well-known, including "Lust for Life," "The Passenger," "Real Wild Child," "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's), "China Girl," "Nightclubbing," "Search and Destroy" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog."

The seeds of Iggy Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw The Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison. Morrison's extreme behavior, while performing in a popular band, inspired the young Pop to push the boundaries of stage performance.

Pop was the first performer to do a stage-dive, which he started at a concert in Detroit. Other exploits of Pop include rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd and vomiting on stage.

Here, Pop performs “Real Wild Child (Wild One)” in 1986

Elaine May is 89 years old today

Elaine May with Woody Allen in Small Time Crooks, 2000

Elaine May is 89 years old today.

A screenwriter, film director, actress and comedian, May made her initial impact in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, performing as Nichols and May. After her duo with Nichols ended, May subsequently developed a career as a screenwriter.

She has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Primary Colors (1998).

In 1996, she reunited with Nichols to write the screenplay for The Birdcage, directed by Nichols. She received the National Medal of Arts in 2012 for her unique contributions.

Nichols and May created a new "Age of Irony" for comedy, which includes actors "batting contemporary banalities back and forth" as a key part of their routine. That style of comedy was picked up and further developed by other comics including Steve Martin, Bill Murray and David Letterman.

Steve Martin notes that Nichols and May satirized "a new thing then, which was 'relationships.' The word came into being in the early sixties. Now we can’t get rid of the word, but it was the first time I ever heard it satirized.”

Martin recalls that soon after discovering their recorded acts, he “went to sleep at night listening to these records for weeks, for months. ... They influenced us all and changed the face of comedy.”

Lily Tomlin was also affected by their routines and considers May to be her inspiration as a comedian. "There was nothing like Elaine May, with her voice, her timing and her attitude," said Tomlin.

Here, Nichols and May do a “commercial” for GE refrigerators

Charlotte Bronte, the only one of three novelist Bronte sisters to live past age 31, was born 205 years ago today

Charlotte Bronte, the only one of three novelist Bronte sisters to live past age 31, was born 205 years ago today.

One of six siblings who grew up in a gloomy parsonage in the remote English village of Hawthorne, Bronte was surrounded by the marshy moors of Yorkshire.

Her mother died when she was five, and Charlotte, her two older sisters, and her younger sister Emily, were sent to Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. The cheap school featured unpalatable food, cold halls and harsh discipline.

Charlotte’s two older sisters died of illness while at school, and the grim institution found its way into her masterpiece, Jane Eyre (1847). After their sisters’ deaths, Charlotte and Emily were brought home, where they and their remaining siblings, Anne and Branwell, amused themselves by making up elaborate stories about fantastical worlds.

When the girls grew older, they all took governess positions in private homes, and from 1835 to 1838 Charlotte taught in a girls’ school. Meanwhile, she and Emily formed a plan to open their own school. In 1842, the sisters went to Brussels to study languages and school administration.

In Brussels, Charlotte fell in love with the married headmaster, an experience she used as the basis for her last novel, Villette (1853). Returning to the parsonage at Hawthorne, the sisters attempted to set up their own school but could not attract pupils.

Meanwhile, their adored brother, Branwell, had become a heavy drinker and opium user. When Emily got him a job teaching with her at a wealthy manor, he lost both their positions after a tryst with the mother of the house.

In 1846, Charlotte accidentally found some poems written by Emily. It turned out all three sisters had secretly been writing verse. They published their own book, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, adopting a pseudonym because they believed women writers were judged too softly. Only two copies sold.

However, publishers became interested in the sisters’ work. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was published in 1847 under the name Currer Bell. Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey were published later that year. Sadly, all three of Charlotte’s siblings died within the next two years.

Left alone, Charlotte cared for her ill father and married curate Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854.

Charlotte died during pregnancy shortly after the marriage. She was 38.

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 183 years ago today

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 183 years ago today.

A Scottish-born American naturalist, activist and author, Muir’s letters, essays and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas.

The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now a leading conservation organization in the United States. One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier.

In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing both Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Because of the spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings, he was able to inspire readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.

He is today referred to as the "Father of the National Parks," and the National Park Service produced a short documentary on his life.

Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, states that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of 20th century American environmental activity," both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted in books by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams.

"Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world," wrote Holmes.

Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals. His name is ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness.

According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth," while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism."

Thanks History.com

Here is part one of a documentary on John Muir

Ira Louvin was born 97 years ago today

The Louvin Brothers (Ira on the left)

Ira Louvin was born 97 years ago today.

Born in Section, Alabama, Louvin and played together with his brother, Charlie, in the close harmony tradition as the Louvin Brothers. They were heavily influenced by the Delmore Brothers and Monroe Brothers.

Ira played mandolin with Charlie Monroe, guitar player of the Monroe Brothers in the early 1940s. The Louvin Brothers' songs were heavily influenced by their Baptist faith and warned against sin.

The Louvin Brothers helped popularize close harmony, a genre of country music. The brothers are cousins to John D. Loudermilk, a noted Nashville songwriter.

Louvin was notorious for his drinking and short temper. He married four times, his third wife having shot him multiple times in the chest and hand after he allegedly beat her.

He died on June 20, 1965, when a drunken driver struck his car in Williamsburg, Missouri. At the time, a warrant for Louvin's arrest had been issued on a DUI charge. Louvin was 41.

Here, the Louvin Brothers perform “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby”

On this day in 1895 — 126 years ago — Woodville Latham and his sons demonstrated their “Panopticon,” the first movie projector developed in the United States

On this day in 1895 — 126 years ago — Woodville Latham and his sons, Otway and Gray, demonstrated their “Panopticon,” the first movie projector developed in the United States.

Although motion pictures had been shown in the United States for several years using Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, the films could only be viewed one at a time in a peep-show box — not projected to a large audience.

Brothers Grey and Otway Latham, the founders of a company that produced and exhibited films of prize fights using the Kinetoscope, called on their father, Woodville, and W.K.L. Dickson, an assistant in the Edison Laboratory, to help them develop a device that would project life-sized images onto a screen in order to attract larger audiences.

A former Confederate officer during the American Civil War, Woodville Latham was also a chemistry professor at the University of West Virginia for a time.

Together with Dickson and another former Edison employee, Eugene Lauste, Woodville came up with the so-called “Latham Loop” — a loop that was placed in the strip of film just before it entered the gate of the camera so that the projector could quickly pause to display the image and then advance the film, without pulling directly on the film strip and risking a tear.

That simple innovation allowed the Lathams to film long sequences, such as an entire prize fight, on one strip of film. This was a major improvement over the Kinetoscope, whose jerky motion had tended to tear any strip of film measuring over 100 feet.

“Pantopticon Rivals the Kinetoscope” read the headline over a small report in the New York Times on April 22, 1895.

“Prof. Woodville Latham yesterday gave a private exhibition of the workings of what he calls a Panopticon, which is a combination of the kinetoscope and stereopticon, at 35 Frankfort Street. The effect is precisely like that of a kinetoscope, only that the pictures are much larger, and can be seen by a large number of people assembled in the darkened room.”

That June, the elder Latham officially filed a request for a patent for his “Projecting-Kinetoscope.”

Inspired by a Kinetoscope exhibition in Paris, another pair of brothers, the Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumiere, would invent their own motion-picture projector, the cinematographe, by the end of 1895.

Projected movies were first shown to paying audiences starting the following year, usually as part of a vaudeville show. The first theater devoted solely to projected movies, the Electric Theater in Los Angeles, opened in 1902.

Less than a year after the Lathams’ demonstration, Thomas Armat used a method similar to the Latham Loop to develop a state-of-the art projector he would sell to Edison, who marketed the machine as the Vitascope.

Even in present day Hollywood, versions of the famous loop can be found in motion-picture film camera and projectors.

Thanks History.com

Patti LuPone is 72 years old today

Patti LuPone is 72 years old today.

LuPone is a singer and actress, known for her performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables. She is also known for her performance as Mama Rose in the 2008 revival of Gypsy: A Musical Fable.

Born in Northport, New York, on Long Island, LuPone is the daughter of Angela Louise, a college library administrator, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator. Her great-grand-aunt was the celebrated 19th century opera singer, Adelina Patti.

Her older brother, Robert LuPone, is an actor, dancer and director who originated the role of, Zach, the director in A Chorus Line. Her other brother, William LuPone, is a teacher. When they were young, they performed on Long Island as the LuPone Trio.

She is of Italian/Abruzzese descent and a graduate of Northport High School, where she studied under the musical direction of the voice coach, Esther Scott.

LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division (1968-1972: Group 1), which also included actors Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

In 1972, LuPone became one of the original members of The Acting Company, formed by John Houseman. The Acting Company is a national touring repertory theater company.

LuPone’s stint with the company lasted from 1972 to 1976, and she appeared in many of their productions, including The Cradle Will Rock, the play that Houseman had produced against government opposition.

The movie version was directed and written by Tim Robbins. I was executive producer of that film and brought the project to Robbins after being told the story by Orson Welles.

In May, 1983, founding alumni of The Acting Company reunited for an off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein’s landmark labor musical, The Cradle Will Rock, at the American Place Theater. It was narrated by John Houseman, with LuPone in the roles of Moll and Sister Mister.

The production premiered at The Acting Company's summer residence at Chautauqua Institution, toured the United States, including an engagement at the Highland Park, Illinois' Ravinia Festival in 1984 and played London's West End.

Since 1977, LuPone has been a frequent collaborator with David Mamet, appearing in his plays The Woods, All Men are Whores, The Blue Hour, The Water Engine (1978), Edmond and The Old Neighborhood (1997).

LuPone has performed in numerous New York concert productions of musicals including Pal Joey with Peter Gallagher and Bebe Neuwirth, Annie Get Your Gun with Peter Gallagher, Sweeney Todd with George Hearn in both New York and San Francisco, Anything Goes with Howard McGillin, Can-Can with Michael Nouri for City Center Encores!, Candide with Kristin Chenoweth, Passion with Michael Cerveris and Audra McDonald and Gypsy with Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti for City Center Encores!.

Since 2001, LuPone has been a regular performer at the Chicago Ravinia Festival. She starred in a six-year-long series of concert presentations of Stephen Sondheim musicals, which began in honor of his 70th birthday.

Her roles here have included Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Fosca in Passion, Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, Rose in Gypsy and two different roles in Sunday in the Park with George.

Here, LuPone performs “Nickel Under the Foot” from the play, The Cradle Will Rock

John Houseman tells the story of "The Cradle Will Rock," the introduction to the play in which Patti Lupone performed as Moll

Marcel Camus was born 109 years ago today

Marcel Camus was born 109 years ago today.

A French film director, Camus is best known for Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), which won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival and the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Born in Chappes, Ardennes, France, Camus studied art and intended to become an art teacher. However, World War II interrupted his plans. He spent part of the war in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Prior to directing films, Camus assisted filmmakers in France, including Jacques Feyder, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Becker.

Camus died in Paris at the age of 69 in 1982.

Joan Miró was born 128 years ago today

Joan Miró’s “Harlequin’s Carnival,” 1924

Joan Miró was born 128 years ago today

Miró was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona.

A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma de Mallorca in 1981.

Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike and a manifestation of Catalan pride.

In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and famously declared an "assassination of painting" in favor of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.

Joan Miró painting "The Reaper" for the Spanish Republican Pavilion at the Paris World Fair, 1937. The painting was a protest against Franco

Luther Vandross was born 70 years ago today

Luther Vandross was born 70 years ago today.

A singer-songwriter and record producer, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums. One of his major hits was "Dance with My Father," co-written with Richard Marx.

Vandross lived in the Lower East Side in the NYCHA Alfred E. Smith Houses public housing development. At three, he began playing the piano. He grew up in a musical family that moved to the Bronx when he was thirteen. Vandross's father died of diabetes when he was eight years old.

Vandross was in a high school group, Shades of Jade, that once played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He was also a member of a theater workshop, "Listen My Brother," who released the singles, "Only Love Can Make a Better World" and "Listen My Brother," and appeared on the second and fifth episodes of Sesame Street in November, 1969. His next hit credit was on an album by Roberta Flack in 1972.

He was the founder of the first-ever Patti LaBelle fan club. Vandross also sang on Delores Hall's Hall-Mark album from 1973. He sang with her on the song, "Who's Gonna Make It Easier for Me,” which he wrote. Having co-written, "Fascination," for David Bowie's Young Americans, he went on to tour with him as a back-up vocalist in September, 1974.

Vandross wrote "Everybody Rejoice" for the 1975 Broadway musical, The Wiz, and appeared as a choir member in the movie. He also sang backing vocals for Diana Ross, Roberta Flack, Gary Glitter, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Donna Summer, Bette Midler, Chic and Barbra Streisand.

Before his breakthrough, Vandross was part of a singing quintet in the late '70s named Luther, consisting of former Shades of Jade members Anthony Hinton and Diane Sumler, Theresa V. Reed and Christine Wiltshire.

Vandross finally made his long desired career breakthrough as a featured singer with the vaunted pop-dance act, Change, a studio concept created by the French-Italian businessman, Jacques Fred Petrus. Their 1980 hits, "The Glow of Love" (by Romani, Malavasi and Garfield) and "Searching" (by Malavasi), both featuring Vandross as lead singer, opened up a major career for Vandross.

During that hectic year, Vandross jump-started his second attempt at a solo career with his debut album, Never Too Much. In addition to the hit title track, it contained a version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song, "A House Is Not a Home."

The song, "Never Too Much," written by Vandross, reached #1 on the R&B charts. This period also marked the beginning of frequent songwriting collaboration with the bassist, Marcus Miller, who played on many of the tracks and would also produce or co-produce a number of tracks for Vandross. The Never Too Much album was arranged by high school classmate, Nat Adderley, Jr., a collaboration that would last through Vandross's career.

Vandross suffered from diabetes and hypertension, both of which ran in his family. On April 16, 2003, Vandross suffered a severe stroke at his home in New York City. The stroke left him in a coma for nearly two months, during which time he also had to fight both meningitis and pneumonia (which required a tracheotomy).

The stroke also left Vandross with noticeable difficulty speaking and singing, as well as being mostly confined to a wheelchair.

Vandross died on July 1, 2005 at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey at the age of 54. The apparent cause of his death was a heart attack.

Here, Vandross performs “Always and Forever” in 1994

On April 20, 1980 — 41 years ago today — Fidel Castro announced that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the United States were free to board boats at the port of Mariel west of Havana, launching the Mariel Boat Lift

The Mariel Boat Lift — A Personal Remembrance

On April 20, 1980 — 41 years ago today — Fidel Castro announced that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the United States were free to board boats at the port of Mariel west of Havana, launching the Mariel Boat Lift. The first of 125,000 Cuban refugees from Mariel reached Florida the next day.

The boat lift was precipitated by housing and job shortages caused by the ailing Cuban economy, leading to simmering internal tensions on the island. Castro proclaimed that the port of Mariel would be opened to anyone wishing to leave, as long as they had someone to pick them up. Cuban exiles in the United States rushed to hire boats in Miami and Key West and rescue their relatives.

In all, 125,000 Cubans fled to U.S. shores in about 1,700 boats, creating large waves of people that overwhelmed the U.S. Coast guard. Cuban guards had packed boat after boat, without considering safety, making some of the overcrowded boats barely seaworthy. Twenty-seven migrants died, including 14 on an overloaded boat that capsized on May 17.

During the extent of the boat lift, I was sent to Key West for NBC News and covered the arriving Cubans each day. Every helicopter in the South Florida area was rented for aerial shots of the boats. But during the boat lift, we found that many of the helicopters were without the required floatation material that allows them to land in water during an emergency.

Sure enough, I was on one of them when the engine began overheating and smoking while we were out to sea. Without flotation, a small chopper — like the one I was in — that goes down in the ocean means almost certain death to the passengers.

Our pilot raced to the shoreline as the smoke from the engine grew stronger. I was recording sound on this flight, but was gripped with fear. I will never forget looking over to see the camera operator still rolling on the boats below — as if nothing else was happening as the chopper raced to shore.

By some miracle, we made it to land in the knick of time. From that day on, we demanded to see the floatation on helicopters before flying over water again.

The boat lift finally ended by mutual agreement between the U.S. and Cuban governments in October, 1980.

Lionel Hampton was born 113 years ago today

Lionel Hampton was born 113 years ago today.

Hampton was a jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Along with Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players.

Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich to Charlie Parker and Quincy Jones.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky on this day in 1908, Hampton was raised by his grandmother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown, Birmingham. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin before he and his family moved to Chicago in 1916.

During the 1920s — while still a teenager — Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and started playing drums. He was raised Roman Catholic, and started out playing fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago.

Hampton began his professional career playing drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboys' Band (led by Major N. Clark Smith) while still a teenager in Chicago. He moved to California in 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers.

He made his recording debut with The Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard, then left for Culver City and drummed for the Les Hite band at Sebastian's Cotton Club. One of his trademarks as a drummer was his ability to do stunts with multiple pairs of sticks such as twirling and juggling without missing a beat. During this period, he began practicing on the vibraphone.

In 1930, Louis Armstrong came to California and hired the Les Hite band, asking Hampton if he would play vibes on two songs. So began his career as a vibraphonist, popularizing the use of the instrument ever since.

In 1934, Hampton led his own orchestra, and then appeared in the 1936 Bing Crosby film, Pennies From Heaven, alongside Louis Armstrong (wearing a mask in a scene while playing drums).

In November, 1936, the Benny Goodman Orchestra came to Los Angeles to play the Palomar Ballroom. When John Hammond brought Goodman to see Hampton perform, Goodman invited him to join his trio, which became the celebrated Benny Goodman Quartet with Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa completing the lineup.

The Trio and Quartet were among the first racially integrated jazz groups to record and play before wide audiences. They were a leading small-group in an era when jazz was dominated by big bands.

While Hampton worked for Goodman in New York, he recorded with several different small groups known as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, as well as assorted small groups within the Goodman band. In 1940, Hampton left the Goodman organization under amicable circumstances to form his own big band.

Hampton's orchestra became popular during the 1940s and early 1950s. His third recording with them in 1942 produced a classic version of "Flying Home," featuring a solo by Illinois Jacquet that anticipated rhythm & blues.

Although Hampton first recorded "Flying Home" under his own name with a small group in 1940 for Victor, the best and most famous version is the big band version recorded for Decca on May 26, 1942 in a new arrangement by Hampton's pianist, Milt Buckner.

From the mid-1940s until the early 1950s, Hampton led a lively rhythm & blues band whose Decca Records recordings included numerous young performers who later achieved fame. They included bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, guitarist Wes Montgomery, vocalist Dinah Washington and keyboardist Milt Buckner.

Other noteworthy band members were trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Cat Anderson, Kenny Dorham and Snooky Young; trombonist Jimmy Cleveland and saxophonists Illinois Jacquet and Jerome Richardson.

Lionel Hampton died from congestive heart failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, on August 31, 2002 at age 94.

Here, Hampton performs “Flying Home” in 1957

Harold Lloyd was born 128 years ago today

Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, 1923

Harold Lloyd was born 128 years ago today.

A film actor and producer who ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Lloyd was one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. He made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies," between 1914 and 1947.

Lloyd is best known for his "Glasses" character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with the 1920s era in the United States. His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today.

Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema. Her did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August, 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio.

An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go unnoticed).

Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Charlie Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million).

Here’s a clip from Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, 1923

On this day in 1926 — 95 years ago — Western Electric and the Warner Brothers film studio introduced Vitaphone, a new process that enabled the addition of sound to film

On this day in 1926 — 95 years ago — Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), and the Warner Brothers film studio introduced Vitaphone, a new process that enabled the addition of sound to film.

By the mid-1920s, several competing systems had been developed to add sound to motion pictures. In 1923, inventor Lee de Forest demonstrated Phonofilm, in which music was recorded on a narrow strip at the edge of the film.

When De Forest tried to sell Phonofilm to the major Hollywood movie studios, they rejected it, dismissing “talking pictures” as a novelty that was not worth the cost. De Forest’s sound-on-film system evolved into the Movietone sound process, introduced in 1927.

The major studios also turned away Western Electric, makers of Vitaphone, in 1925. The Vitaphone system logged sound on a record linked electronically to the projector, keeping sound synchronized with image. Because the precise alignment of projector and phonograph had to be set by hand, the system was prone to human error. Also outfitting a movie theater for a Vitaphone sound system was also extremely costly.

Warner Brothers, then a minor studio, decided to act aggressively. It sank $3 million into the promotion of Vitaphone, which the studio announced it would use to provide synchronized musical accompaniment for all its films.

Vitaphone debuted in August, 1926 with the costume drama, Don Juan, starring John Barrymore and featuring an orchestral score by the New York Philharmonic.

The following year, Warner Brothers released its second Vitaphone feature, The Jazz Singer, which included classical and popular music, as well as about 350 words of dialogue.

The success of these two films led directly to the motion-picture industry’s conversion to sound, as the major studios quickly lobbied to gain the rights to use Vitaphone as well.

Warner Brothers agreed to give up its exclusive rights to the system in exchange for a share of the royalties, and by the spring of 1928 virtually every Hollywood studio had jumped on the sound bandwagon.

The filming of Show Girl in Hollywood, an early talkie film, at the First National studio lot, now the KTLA Studios on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles.

The film features Alice White, then girlfriend of the film’s director, Mervyn LeRoy, in a part suited to her perky personality.

The film has many scenes on the First National studio lot. It features two big production numbers that were originally filmed in Technicolor.

Silent star Blanche Sweet turns in an outstanding and naturalistic performance as the star who is over the hill at 32.

And the Vitaphone recording process is on view prominently during the “I’ve Got My Eye On You” production number.

This film used Vitaphone disks being cut while filming. The three cameras are shown grinding away simultaneously from inside their large box-like soundproof kiosks. 

The film was released in April, 1930 and Warner Brothers had already started their switch from disks to sound-on-film like all the other studios.

The debut of the 1925 motion picture, Lost World, an adaptation by Arthur Conan Doyle, took place in Germany on an Imperial Airways airplane flying over Berlin.

Music for the film premiere was live on the ground and broadcast to the airplane via the new medium of radio over a loudspeaker on the plane supplied by the Berlin Broadcasting Station.

Since the flight was the daylight hours, the pilot of the plane flew through dense banks of clouds to darken the cabin so watching the motion picture was more effective.

The experiment was illustrated in the July, 1926 issue of Science and Invention magazine, with this diagram explaining how the landmark audio-visual feat was achieved.

Jessica Lange is 72 years old today.

Jessica Lange and John Goodman in Masked and Anonymous, the 2003 Bob Dylan film

Jessica Lange is 72 years old today.

As an actress, Lange has worked in film, theater and television. A two-time Oscar winner, she was discovered by the producer, Dino De Laurentiis, while modeling part-time for the Wilhelmina modeling agency.

Lange made her professional film debut in his 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic, King Kong.

In 1982, she became the first performer in forty years to receive two Oscar nominations within the same year. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a soap opera star in Tootsie and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the troubled actress Frances Farmer in the film, Frances.

Lange performed in Bob Dylan’s Masked and Anonymous (2003), Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985), Music Box (1989) and Blue Sky (1994). Her other films include All That Jazz (1979), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Cape Fear (1991), Rob Roy (1995), Big Fish (2003) and The Gambler (2014).

She made her Broadway debut playing Blanche DuBois in the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, and made her West End debut when reprising the role in 1996. Other stage roles include the 2000 West End revival of Long Day's Journey into Night and the 2005 Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie.

In addition to acting, Lange is a photographer with two published works.

She has also been a foster parent and currently holds a Goodwill Ambassador position for UNICEF, specializing in HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Russia.

Here is the trailer for Masked and Anonymous, 2003, which featured Lange

Rob Stoner is 73 years old today

Rob Stoner (in a red shirt) is playing bass to the right of Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Review in 1976 at the University of Florida Stadium in Gainesville

Photo by Frank Beacham

Rob Stoner is 73 years old today.

Stoner is a multi-instrumental musician who in 1975 was hired as bandleader, opening act and bass player in Bob Dylan's band. He played with Dylan during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour and on the Far East leg of Dylan's 1978 World Tour. His singing and playing is featured on many Bob Dylan recordings.

Stoner began his career backing up various artists in New York City. His work can be heard on Don McLean's classic, "American Pie."

In 1973, he began a solo career that would eventually land him a contract with Epic Records in Nashville and later with MCA Records, who released a critically acclaimed solo album, Patriotic Duty, in 1980. Stoner also recorded an album of his original songs for Sun Records in the early 1980s.

Stoner is still active and giving guitar lessons in Rockland County, New York. He has played with such diverse artists as Chris Spedding, Link Wray, Robert Gordon, Chuck Berry and Joni Mitchell.

Stoner is the son of the noted photographer, Arthur Rothstein, who died in 1985.

Tito Puente, bandleader and percussionist who helped popularize Latin dance music and jazz in America, was born on this day in 1923 — 98 years ago

Tito Puente, bandleader and percussionist who helped popularize Latin dance music and jazz in America, was born on this day in 1923 — 98 years ago.

During a career that spanned six decades, the dynamic showman, nicknamed “El Rey” (The King), recorded over 100 albums. The New York Times called him “the most important Latin musician of the last half century” upon his death in 2000.

Ernest “Tito” Puente, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, grew up in the Manhattan neighborhood then known as Spanish Harlem. As a child, he learned to play various instruments, including the timbales — a type of drum that would later become his signature.

During World War II (1939-45), Puente served in the Navy. Following the war, he studied music at the Juilliard School on the GI Bill. In the late 1940s, he formed his own musical group, which eventually became known as the Tito Puente Orchestra.

In the 1950s, Puente’s career took off as his blend of dance rhythms and jazz arrangements earned him a following at nightclubs and ballrooms across New York City and beyond. Puente, who performed a variety of Latin music styles, received the title “King of Mambo,” for his role in popularizing the fast-paced, rhythmic form of Cuban music.

Puente later played himself in the 1992 movie, “The Mambo Kings,” based on Oscar Hijuelos’ novel, “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.” In 1958, Puente released the album, Dance Mania, which went on to become an international bestseller.

In 1963, he recorded “Oye Como Va,” a song that would be a huge hit for rock guitarist Carlos Santana and his band in the 1970s. It was later covered by other musicians.

Puente, who during his career often gave several hundred performances each year, continued to perform until shortly before his death at age 77 on May 31, 2000, after undergoing heart surgery in New York City.

Crowds of fans waited in line for hours to attend his wake in Manhattan, and the Puerto Rican government declared three days of official mourning.

“What else have I got to sell?” he once said when asked about this style. “I'm not Ricky Martin, to wave my hips around and show my belly button. I don't have a girl in front of the band singing. I need the people to see I'm having a good time.”

Thanks History.com

Here, Puente and his band perform Umbria Jazz Festival

Edie Sedgwick, the woman who inspired some of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs, was born 78 years ago today

Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick

Edie Sedgwick, the woman who inspired some of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs, was born 78 years ago today.

An actress, socialite, fashion model and heiress, Sedgwick is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. She became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s. She was dubbed an "It Girl," while Vogue magazine also named her, "Youthquaker.”

Born in Santa Barbara, California, to Alice Delano de Forest (1908–1988) and Francis Minturn Sedgwick, (1904–1967), Sedgwick was named after her father's aunt, Edith Minturn, who was famously painted with her husband, Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes, by John Singer Sargent.

Sedgwick's family was long established in Massachusetts history. Her seventh-great grandfather, English-born Robert Sedgwick, was the first Major General of the Massachusetts Bay Colony settling in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1635. Her family later originated from Stockbridge, Massachusetts where her great-great-great grandfather, Judge Theodore Sedgwick, had settled after the American Revolution.

Sedgwick's mother was the daughter of Henry Wheeler de Forest (President and Chairman of the Board of the Southern Pacific Railroad and a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest whose Dutch West India Company helped to settle New Amsterdam).

In 1964, Sedgwick moved to New York City. She lived at first with her senile grandmother, who had an apartment on 75th Street, but in late fall 1964 she took an apartment in the East Sixties between Fifth and Madison, which her mother decorated lavishly. Sedgwick embarked on a constant round of partying and spent her trust fund at an astonishing rate.

According to a friend, Tom Goodwin, she went through eighty thousand dollars in just six months and bought huge amounts of clothing, jewelry and cosmetics.

After her chauffeur crashed the gray Mercedes she had been given by her father, she began using limousine services constantly, moving from company to company each time she had exhausted her credit.

She also began experimenting with drugs and was introduced to LSD by friends from Cambridge who knew Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (two prominent Harvard professors who advocated the spiritualistic value of LSD).

In March, 1965, Sedgwick met the artist and avant-garde filmmaker, Andy Warhol, at Lester Persky's apartment. She began going to The Factory regularly in March, 1965 with her friend, Chuck Wein. During one of those visits, Warhol was filming Vinyl, his interpretation of the novel, A Clockwork Orange.

Despite Vinyl's all-male cast, Warhol put Sedgwick in the movie. She also made a small cameo appearance in another Warhol film, Horse, when she entered towards the end of the film. Although Sedgwick's appearances in both films were brief, they generated so much interest that Warhol decided to create a vehicle in which she could star.

The first of those films, Poor Little Rich Girl, was originally conceived as part of a series featuring Sedgwick, called The Poor Little Rich Girl Saga. The series was to include Poor Little Rich Girl, Restaurant, Face and Afternoon. Filming of Poor Little Rich Girl started in March, 1965 in Sedgwick's apartment.

The first reel shows Sedgwick waking up, ordering coffee and orange juice, and putting on her makeup in silence with only an Everly Brothers record playing. Due to a problem with the camera lens, the footage on the first reel is completely out of focus. The second reel consists of Sedgwick smoking cigarettes, talking on the telephone, trying on clothes and describing how she had spent her entire inheritance in six months.

On April 30, 1965, Warhol took Sedgwick, Chuck Wein and Gerard Malanga to the opening of his exhibition at the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris. On returning to New York City, Warhol asked his scriptwriter, Ronald Tavel, to write a script for Sedgwick. “Something in a kitchen — something white and clean and plastic,” Warhol said, according to Ric Burns' Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film. The result was Kitchen, starring Sedgwick, Rene Ricard, Roger Trudeau, Donald Lyons and Elecktrah.

After Kitchen, Chuck Wein replaced Ron Tavel as writer and assistant director for the filming of Beauty No. 2, in which Sedgwick appeared with Gino Piserchio. Beauty No. 2 premiered at the Film-Makers' Cinematheque at the Astor Place Playhouse on July 17, 1965.

Warhol's films were not commercially successful and rarely seen outside The Factory circle, but as Sedgwick's notoriety grew, mainstream media outlets began reporting on her appearances in Warhol's underground films and her unusual fashion sense.

During this period, she developed her "trademark" look — black leotards, mini dresses and large chandelier earrings. She also cut her hair short and colored her naturally brown hair with silver spray, creating a similar look to the wigs Warhol wore.

Warhol christened her his "Superstar" and both were photographed together at various social outings. Throughout 1965, Sedgwick and Warhol continued making films together — Outer and Inner Space, Prison, Lupe and Chelsea Girls. However, by late 1965, Sedgwick and Warhol's relationship had deteriorated and Sedgwick requested that Warhol no longer show any of her films.

She asked that the footage she filmed for Chelsea Girls be removed and it was replaced with footage of Nico, with colored lights projected on her face and The Velvet Underground music playing in the background. The edited footage of Sedgwick in Chelsea Girls would eventually become the film, Afternoon.

Following her estrangement from Warhol's inner circle, Sedgwick began living at the Chelsea Hotel, where she became close to Bob Dylan. Dylan's friends eventually convinced Sedgwick to sign up with Albert Grossman, Dylan's manager.

Sedgwick and Dylan's relationship ended when Sedgwick learned Dylan had married Sara Lownds in a secret ceremony — something she apparently learned from Warhol during an argument at the Gingerman Restaurant in February, 1966.

Throughout most of 1966, Sedgwick was involved in an intensely private yet tumultuous relationship with Dylan's closest friend, Bob Neuwirth. During this period, she became increasingly dependent on barbiturates. Although she abused many drugs, there is no evidence that Sedgwick ever became a heroin addict. In early 1967, unable to cope with Sedgwick's drug abuse and erratic behavior, Neuwirth broke off their relationship.

Sedgwick married Michael Post on July 24, 1971, and under his influence she reportedly stopped abusing alcohol and other drugs for a short time. Her sobriety lasted until October, when pain medication was given to her to treat a physical illness.

She remained under the care of her physician, Dr. Wells, who prescribed her barbiturates. She would demand more pills or claim that she had lost them in order to get more, often combining the medications with alcohol.

Post was later put in charge of administering her medication. By his account, she took at least two 300 mg Quaalude tablets and two capsules of three-grain Tuinal every night, in addition to alcohol and whatever other drugs she may have been secretly consuming.

On the night of November 15, 1971, Sedgwick went to a fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum, a segment of which was filmed for the television show, An American Family. After the fashion show, she attended a party where (according to the accounts of her husband and brother-in-law) a drunken guest insulted her by calling her a heroin addict and repeatedly asserting that her marriage would fail.

Sedgwick phoned Post, who arrived at the party. Seeing her distress at the accusations, he took her back to their apartment around one in the morning. On the way home, Sedgwick expressed thoughts of uncertainty about their marriage. Before they both fell asleep, Post gave Sedgwick the medication that had been prescribed for her.

According to Post, Sedgwick started to fall asleep very quickly, and her breathing was, "bad — it sounded like there was a big hole in her lungs," but he attributed that to her heavy smoking habit and went to sleep. When Post awoke the following morning at 7.30 a.m., Sedgwick was dead.

The coroner ruled Sedgwick's death as "undetermined/accident/suicide." Her death certificate was signed at 9:20 a.m. and states the immediate cause was "probable acute barbiturate intoxication" due to ethanol intoxication. Sedgwick's alcohol level was registered at 0.17 percent and her barbiturate level was 0.48 mg percent.

She was 28 years old.

Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman" and "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" from his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde, are purportedly about Sedgwick. His 1965 #2 single, "Like a Rolling Stone," was also reportedly inspired by her.

Here, Sedgwick is interviewed about her lifestyle.

Painting by David Hockney

Levon Helm, drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band, died nine years ago today

Levon Helm, Beacon Theatre, New York City, Nov. 26, 2010

Photo by Frank Beacham

Levon Helm, drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band, died nine years ago today.

Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability and creative drumming style highlighted on many of The Band's recordings, such as "The Weight," "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

Helm also had a successful career as a film actor. He appeared as Loretta Lynn's father in the Coal Miner's Daughter, as Chuck Yeager's friend and colleague in The Right Stuff and as an iconic, Tennessee firearms expert in the Shooter.

In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer, which caused him to lose his singing voice. After treatment, his cancer eventually went into remission and he gradually regained the use of his voice.

On April 17, 2012, his wife and daughter announced on Helm's website that he was "in the final stages of his battle with cancer" and thanked fans while requesting prayers. Two days later, Helm died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Here, Levon Helm performs “The Weight” with John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, Sam Bush and Buddy Miller and his band at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville

Levon Helm's Drum Kit

Photo by Frank Beacham

Elinor Donahue, an actress that spans memory lane

Elinor Donahue, the actress baby boomers grew up with on Father Knows Best, The Andy Griffith Show, Dennie the Menace, Star Trek and numerous other early television shows, is 84 years old today.

The naturally red-headed Donahue played Robert Young's eldest/popular daughter, Betty Anderson, on the 1950s sitcom, Father Knows Best.

She was married for nearly thirty years to producer Harry Ackerman, whom she met on the set of that series. She and Ackerman had three children together: Peter, James and Christopher Ackerman.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Donahue was the daughter of Doris Genevieve and Thomas William Donahue. Her mother was a theatrical costumer, who moonlighted as a department store saleswoman in order to pay for her daughter's dancing lessons. Appearing in dancing-chorus film roles from the age of five, Donahue was at one point a ballet-school classmate of future Fred Astaire partner, Barrie Chase.

Donahue was a child actor working in vaudeville and had several bit parts in movies as a teenager, including Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), starring Elizabeth Taylor. She achieved stardom for her role as the elder daughter, Betty, on the television family series, Father Knows Best.

Her co-stars were Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Billy Gray, as her brother, James "Bud" Anderson, Jr., and Lauren Chapin, as the younger sister, Kathy or "Kitten."

Donahue has had roles on many television programs over the years and was featured in several episodes of CBS's The Andy Griffith Show as pharmacist, Ellie Walker.

In 1998, Donahue published a memoir, In the Kitchen with Elinor Donahue, in which she relived some of her memories of Hollywood along with providing more than 150 of her recipes.

Here, Donahue discusses her career

Elinor Donahue, fresh off of a six-year stint as Betty “Princess” Anderson on CBS’s Father Knows Best, came to the Andy Griffith Show in its first season in 1960.

She played Ellie Walker, the town’s pharmacist and Andy’s first love interest. She was the first actor outside of the core group to make the show’s opening credits.

Donahue signed a three-year contract, but lasted only 12 episodes before she asked to be released from her contract. She disappeared from the show without explanation.

So what happened? A lack of chemistry between Griffith and Donahue, both agreed in later interviews. Griffith said most of the fault was his own.

Some of Griffith’s unease likely came from the decade-long age gap between himself and Donahue, but the major issue was that he didn’t feel confident writing for Ellie. Donahue said that many of her lines were given to Don Knotts because she “wasn’t funny.”

At that early stage of the show, no one realized just how special the chemistry between Knotts and Griffith was going to become, but as they did the role of Ellie in the show began to diminish in favor of the buddy dynamic that existed between the sheriff and his bumbling deputy.

Even more than writing issues and a perceived lack of chemistry, there was one major flaw in the design of Ellie that likely doomed the character: she was just too challenging for a show that liked its conflicts to be mild at best.

She was a constant reminder of the turbulent changing world beyond Mayberry, which contradicted The Andy Griffith Show’s mission statement to provide viewers with an escape from the messy political and social climate of the time.

This is seen most clearly in episode ten, “Ellie Runs for Council.”

The episode doesn’t shy away from feminist themes — though it loses points for including a disturbing domestic abuse joke accompanied by jovial canned laughter — and it stands as one of television’s earliest attempts to address the burgeoning women’s movement without condescension.

Donahue asked to be let out of her contract for personal reasons that related to her divorce from her first husband and exhaustion — she had been more or less continuously working since she was a child. Griffith didn’t argue.

Donahue said in an interview that if Griffith had asked her to stay, she would have said yes because at the time she “needed to be needed.” But no one challenged her decision.

In her twelve episodes, Ellie challenged Andy and Mayberry more than any of the opportunistic criminals that would roll into town over the next seven seasons. She provided a source of internal, culturally current conflict that didn’t jive with the show tonally. The Andy Griffith Show was never designed to carry the weight of social commentary and the character of Ellie wasn’t designed to do anything else.

If they had taken away her integrity, her outspokenness and her feminist leanings, nothing would have been left. Donahue was right, she wasn’t funny.

But she still brought something valuable to the show. That first season of The Andy Griffith Show and Ellie Walker stand as curiosity pieces of the more complicated Mayberry that might have been.

Thanks “This Was Television”

Jayne Mansfield — sex symbol of the 1950s and early 60s — was born 88 years ago today

Jayne Mansfield — sex symbol of the 1950s and early 60s — was born 88 years ago today.

Mansfield was an actress in film, theatre and television and was a nightclub entertainer, a singer and one of the early Playboy Playmates. She was 20th Century Fox's alternative Marilyn Monroe and came to be known as the Working Man's Monroe. She was also known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts.

Mansfield became a major Broadway star in 1955, a major Hollywood star in 1956 and a leading celebrity in 1957. She was one of Hollywood's original blonde bombshells. Although many people have never seen her movies, Mansfield remains one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture.

With the decrease of the demand for big-breasted blonde bombshells and the increase in the negative backlash against her over-publicity, she became a box-office has-been by the early 1960s. While Mansfield's film career was short-lived, she had several box office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe.

She enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress, Rita Marlowe, in both the 1955–1956 Broadway version, and, in the 1957 Hollywood film, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She showcased her comedic skills in The Girl Can't Help It (1956), her dramatic assets in The Wayward Bus (1957) and her sizzling presence in Too Hot to Handle (1960).

She also sang for studio recordings, including the album Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me and the singles, Suey, and As the Clouds Drift by (with Jimi Hendrix).

By the early 1960s, Mansfield's box office popularity had declined and Hollywood studios lost interest in her. Some of the last attempts that Hollywood took to publicize her were in The George Raft Story (1961) and It Happened in Athens (1962).

But, towards the end of her career, Mansfield remained a popular celebrity, continuing to attract large crowds outside the United States and in lucrative and successful nightclub acts (including The Tropicana Holiday and The House of Love in Las Vegas) and summer-theater work.

Her film career continued with cheap independent films and European melodramas and comedies, with some of her later films being filmed in United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Greece. In the sexploitation film, Promises! Promises! (1963), she became the first major American actress to have a nude starring role in a Hollywood motion picture.

Mansfield had three marriages. In her marriage with Mickey Hargitay, a former Mr. Universe, Mansfield gave birth to Mariska Hargitay on January 23, 1964. Mariska later became an actress, best known for her role as Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

In 1967, Mansfield died in a car accident at the age of 34.

Here, Mansfield performs “Suey” with Jimi Hendrix on guitar

Sophia Loren on the famous photo of her taken with Jayne Mansfield in 1957…

"Paramount had organized a party for me," Loren, now 85, recollected about the event held more than 60 years ago. "All of cinema was there, it was incredible."

The star-studded party was supposed to be an official welcoming for Loren, the Italian bombshell, who was still relatively new to Hollywood at the time. But Loren's spotlight that evening was upstaged by Mansfield, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

"And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come. For me, that was when it got amazing…. She came right for my table. She knew everyone was watching. She sat down. And now, she was barely… Listen. Look at the picture. Where are my eyes?"

"I’m staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate. In my face you can see the fear. I’m so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow — BOOM! — and spill all over the table."

Though the two shared some laughs together that evening, Loren recalled how she was unable to pry her eyes way from Mansfield.

"There may be other photos, but this is the picture," she said. "This is the one that shows how it was. This is the only picture."

Above photo by Joe Shere

Remember Poez?

Poez, 2015

Photo by Frank Beacham

Remember Poez?

Only those of a certain age would know of him. He was a James Dean-esque Lord Byron of the poetry scene in 60s New York City. His career trajectory from the mid-70's to the mid-80's led Poez from the sidewalks of Harvard Square to concert engagements in Europe.

"A voice musician ... a young man with a flow of words like a river ... like a jazz instrument" is how The New York Daily News described the young poet in 1979.

Poez’s real name is Paul Mills.

In 1987, Mills attended Columbia University, graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1990, with a double major in Literature-Writing at the Columbia Writing Program, and in French Literature, winning the Lily Palmer French Prize and publishing in Quarto, the Writing Program literary magazine.

From 1992-1995, he attended UCLA Law School, interned with the ACLU and began a civil rights and criminal defense practice in Los Angeles, concentrating on police misconduct homicide and street artist and activist First Amendment cases.

In 2006, he contacted his ex-girlfriend, a songwriter, who still lived in New York, to find out if there might now be interest in his kind of spoken word poetry. Her name was Suzanne Vega. She and Mills were married on February 11, 2006.

 

Dar Williams is 54 years old today

Dar Williams, 2013

Photo by Frank Beacham

Dar Williams is 54 years old today.

A singer-songwriter specializing in popular folk, Williams is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez and Catie Curtis.

Hendrik Hertzberg of the The New Yorker has described Williams as "one of America’s very best singer-songwriters."

Born in Mount Kisco, New York, Williams grew up in Chappaqua with two older sisters, Meredith and Julie. Her nickname, "Dar," originated due to a mispronunciation of "Dorothy" by one of Williams's sisters.

Recently, in an interview with WUKY radio, Dar said her parents wanted to name her Darcy, after the character in Pride and Prejudice, and that they intentionally called her "Dar-Dar," which she shortened to "Dar" in school.

In interviews, she has described her parents as "liberal and loving" people who early on encouraged a career in songwriting. She began playing the guitar at age nine and wrote her first song two years later. However, she was more interested in drama at the time, and majored in theater and religion at Wesleyan University.

Williams moved to Boston in 1990 to further explore a career in theater. She worked for a year as stage manager of the Opera Company of Boston, but on the side began to write songs, record demo tapes and take voice lessons with Jeannie Deva, now a celebrity voice and performance coach.

Deva encouraged her to try performing at coffeehouses, but her early years performing were made difficult by the intimidating nature of the Boston folk music scene, as well as her own battle with stage fright.

In 1990, Williams recorded her first album, "I Have No History," produced by Jeannie Deva and engineered by Rob Lehmann at Oak Grove Studios in Malden, MA. A year later in 1991, she recorded her second album, "All My Heroes Are Dead," also produced by Jeannie Deva and engineered by Huck Bennert, most of which was recorded at Wellspring Sound in Newton, MA.

This album included William’s song, "Mark Rothko Song." The original recording production of this song was later included in her third album, "The Honesty Room."

In 1993, Williams moved to Northampton, Massachusetts. Early in her music career, she opened for Joan Baez, who would make her relatively well known by recording some of her songs (Williams also dueted with Baez on “Ring Them Bells”). Her growing popularity has since relied heavily on community coffeehouses, public radio and an extensive fan base on the Internet.

In 1998, Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky formed the group, Cry Cry Cry, as a way to pay homage to some of their favorite folk artists. The band released an album of covers and toured from 1998 to 2000.

Williams writes from personal experience, and many of her songs are based on people she grew up with. She doesn't force herself to write, which is an approach she learned in college when she decided that whatever she could do at any given time was enough. She prides herself on having songs that all came from some kind of inspiration.

Here, Williams performs “It’s Alright” in 2008

In the summer of 1959, photographer Bruce Davidson, then 25, read about the teenage gangs of New York City.

Connecting with a social worker to make initial contact with a gang, Davidson became a daily observer and photographer of this alienated youth culture.

At the time there were an estimated thousand gang members in New York City.

Above is one of his photos.