Being Huemann: Judy’s Story

On a spring day in April 1977, hundreds of disabled American demonstrators in Washington D.C., New York, Denver and San Francisco, demand new President Jimmy Carter’s administration implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, protecting the rights of all people with disabilities. Joseph Califano, the HEW (Health, Education, and Welfare) Secretary, promises to sign the regulations after further review, though his task force has no one representing the disabled on it. In response, San Francisco-based disability rights activist Judy Heumann (30) with help from San Francisco campaign organizer Kitty Cone, stages a spontaneous Sit-In with over 150 other disabled demonstrators on the fourth floor of the old Federal building. Judy demands Secretary Califano sign the regulations now and demonstrators across the nation take Judy’s cue and also stage Sit-Ins. The media begins 24 hour live coverage outside federal buildings in each city where “the occupation army of cripples has taken over.”

Judy, who has used a wheelchair for most of her life due to polio, is a beautiful, ballsy and vivacious, smart and sassy civil rights activist. She knows the 42 words of Section 504 are worth fighting for. Passed by Congress in the Civil Rights Act of 1974, the Ford Administration failed to ever implement the act. Judy knows before the law can become effective, regulations must be issued defining who is a disabled person, and what constitutes discrimination and nondiscrimination in the context of disability. The regulations would finally provide a consistent, coherent interpretation of 504’s legal intent rather than leaving it up to individual judges to interpret. Left intact, those 42 words would end centuries of pain and suffering of the disabled at the hands of those who would judge persons with disabilities less-than human beings.

After the second night of the San Francisco sit-in, HEW officials begin cracking down. Any demonstrators who leave the federal building are not allowed back in and all the phones are shut-down except for one emergency line. On the third day, the hot water is turned off. By the fifth day, federal authorities successfully force out all the demonstrators in D.C., Los Angeles, New York and Denver. But Judy and her group hold tight in San Francisco, even as greater pressure is applied to their living situation. But even under the tough conditions, the 150 demonstrators continue their swinging 70’s lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock and roll. They’re showing they’re no different than anybody else – and that’s the entire point. They want equal rights under the law, and they are willing to suffer to get what they deserve.

Judy becomes a lightning-rod for the cause, even getting the attention and support of San Francisco Mayor, George Moscone. But try as he might to get the demonstrators concessions of food, medicine and amenities, the Mayor soon finds out the limits of his own authority when up against the feds. Meanwhile, Brad Lomax, a black protestor with MS and confined to a wheelchair, takes action. He and his care giver, Chuck Jackson, are members of the Black Panther Party. The Panthers come to the aide of the 504 Protestors and begin bringing much needed supplies and one hot meal a day to everyone inside the building. Meanwhile, the Butterfly Brigade, a group of gay men activists, and the Mission Rebels, a Chicano group, help sneak walkie-talkies into Judy so she and her organizers can communicate with the outside world. The Feds begin to realize the 504 protestors are a force to be reckoned with and won’t easily be placated.

After two weeks and escalating tensions between the U.S. Government and Judy, her fellow demonstrators, and thousands of supporters across the nation – a special congressional hearing convenes inside the federal building in San Francisco. At first, the feds are not going to allow cameras in. But Judy and her coalition refuse to participate if the media is shut out, and they get there way. The testimony of activists Ed Roberts, Debby Kaplan, Phil Newmark and others galvanize moral support. After Judy makes an impassioned speech before the committee and news cameras, the HEW representative sent by Secretary Califano from Washington gets up and locks himself in an office. Congressman Phil Burton leaps up and runs after him, kicks the door in and insists he come back out. Seizing on the opportunity, Judy announces the coalition’s next plan of action: she and 14 other disabled demonstrators including Black Panthers Brad Lomax and Chuck Jackson will travel to Washington and demand to meet with HEW Secretary Califano in person, if not President Carter himself.

Judy and her contingent touch down at Dulles airport on a sweltering-hot, late-April day. They arrive in Washington, D.C. to much fanfare. They demonstrate outside HEW Headquarters as Secretary Califano watches from inside. The stand-off continues for days as Judy and her cohorts borrow a van and go to Califano’s neighborhood. She speaks to the neighborhood kids, telling them, “Mr. Califano doesn’t want disabled kids going to school with you.” She even stakes out President Carter’s church in the hopes of meeting him. But it is only after thousands of Americans, both disabled and able-bodied, march on Capitol Hill that the President finally acts. He orders Secretary Califano to sign the regulations – all 42 words – into law on April 28, 1977.

Judy continues to be a leader in the disability rights movement after the success of the 504 Sit-In. She is there to ensure the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into legislation. She goes on to become the Assistant Secretary of Education for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services under President Bill Clinton, and is currently the Special Advisor for International Disability Rights under President Barack Obama. Judy lives in Washington D.C. with her husband, Jorge Pineda.

Available at Amazon

A Mother’s Dedication

I’m sure dedicating your first novel to your Mother is probably not that unusual. My debut novel, LOOKING FOR GARBO (Amphorae Publishing Group) is no different. The fact my Mom will have been gone 35 years ago this June is maybe less common, I hope. I finally had the chance to begin scanning family photos that have been passed down to me. My favorites are of my Mom and Dad when they were first engaged, then married and on their honeymoon. What a stylish shirt my Mom had on in this shot. I think she’s either 23 or 24 years old here and I love her short haircut.

What a beautiful young couple my Mom and Dad are here. They are obviously in love. Dad is looking sharp in tie and suspenders, and Mom is effortlessly elegant in what I can only assume is a black dress. As the story goes, they met as teenagers at a party, then didn’t see each other again until their paths crossed years later on a New York City street corner. I always liked that story of serendipity – destined to find each other again.

Mom and Dad look even younger here, sitting in front of Mom’s parents, Howard and Alva, and my Dad’s Mom, a widower since my Dad was a young boy. It’s a great Christmas holiday portrait, and I smile every time I look at the young couple, all full of promise and at the very start of their journey together. I’m so glad this photo survived.

A truly great candid of my parents. I often wonder who took the picture. It seems to me to have been a good friend of theirs. Mom’s easy, relaxed smile and Dad’s boyish grin make me think they were having a night on the town with another couple. It’s also nice to pick out the details of the cars and the wrought iron city street lamp behind them.

Mom and Dad’s wedding reception: That’s my Uncle John on the left watching his brother and brand new sister-in-law cut the cake. I particularly like Mom’s grey (or is blue?) suit. It was a tiny affair but by the look on my Dad’s face – he’s as happy as can be married to his love. I love the bowtie Uncle John is sporting, and the table dressing is classic.

Here’s another shot of Mom and Dad entering (or leaving) the service where they were married. They look like a sophisticated, up and coming couple to me here. I love the veil Mom is wearing and the somewhat fuzzy-focused motion to them. It’s a great candid and so interesting to see the difference a black & white shot can make, compared to the technicolor of the one above.

Here they are on their honeymoon. They look like kids again, especially Mom in her shorts, white socks and red shoes. This was after a sport fishing trip in which Dad caught a marlin that he had stuffed and hung on the wall above our living room couch for years. It’s a great, casual shot of them in the prime of their lives. I also love the sign telling you where they are.

This is one of my all-time favorite shots of my parents. They always had great fashion sense, and I remember my Mom in this dress, going out for a night on the town while us kids stayed home and watched Star Trek reruns. We lived on Mayflower Court, which had a cul-de-sac and all the neighbor’s parents got together a couple times a year and gallivanted from house to house eating and drinking. The social group was called the Good Timers, and I can remember all the great food Mom prepared for the event.

This last one is of Mom before she got sick. Mom, my older brother Tom and I are touring something akin to Colonial Williamsburgh, though I can’t remember exactly now. Mom was fiercely intelligent (having skipped several grades) and was a voracious reader. But I’ll remember her laugh and sense of humor the most. I’ll also never forget the fact that she wanted the best for all her four boys (easier than having daughters, she’d say) and wanted us to pursue our dreams no matter how impossible they might seem.

One of my dreams just came true this past Tuesday, when my debut novel was published. I finally got to publicly thank my Mom for all the love and support she gave me during her short life. I think she would have liked the story, too. The one she inspired a long time ago.

Looking For Garbo: My Debut Novel Finally Has Its Release Day!

I’m happy to share that my debut novel, LOOKING FOR GARBO is being released today by Amphorae Publishing Group. It’s been a long time in coming and I have to thank my agent, Jill Marr at Sandra Dijkstra Literary for sticking by me the last 8+ years.

The idea for a story based on Garbo’s famous quote first came to me back in 1995. I saw something in her earnest desire to save the world by sacrificing her own life – something that could have been a typical Garbo vehicle that MGM Studios might have put out at the height of her power and fame, circa 1939:

“If the war didn’t start when it did,” Garbo said, “I would have gone and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him, because I would not have been searched.”

Garbo was talking about her biggest fan at the time – Adolf Hitler. Hitler was obsessed with Garbo, and watched his own private print of her CAMILLE every night. Hitler sent Garbo numerous fan letters, inviting her to come to Nazi Germany. The novel takes Garbo’s quote at face value, and follows her on her journey via ocean liner to assassinate Hitler, and preempt WWII. Of course, war erupts while she is en route – and like any thriller the real action begins with her stuck on the open seas surrounded by Nazis.

My agent Jill found several buyers over the years for the novel. One went out of business, another was a bad fit to say the least: I actually bought the rights back to my work in 2014 and had to wait another 5 years for my novel to see bookshelves. But all said and done it was totally worth the wait. I just hope everyone enjoys the final product as much as I did writing it.

Looking For Garbo is available May 7th at all major bookstores, and online at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Bokus and IndieBound,

Garbo’s Salary: Her Mega-Star Millions

In one of the few verifiable documents from the time of her peak fame and power, a 26-year old Greta Garbo was already a millionairess many times over. One record dated April 1931, Miss Garbo had $1,074,552.70 in just one Beverly Hills First National checking and savings account. Adjusted for inflation, that amount is $27,591,257.20 in 2019 US dollars. She was the undisputed Queen of the silver screen – and she was miserable.

Amid the bank closings, bread and unemployment lines and an ever worsening Great Depression, Garbo was as rich and famous as you can get. Her legendary beauty radiated youthful energy from a lithe, athletic physique, topped with a face that was rumored to have stopped traffic more than once on Wilshire Boulevard (or was that Sunset Boulevard?) in the young Hollywood colony thick with stars and starlets who would give anything to be her. The naturally reclusive Garbo found Hollywood cold (isolated) from the rest of the world. Especially her native Sweden, where she was anxious to get home.

Her MGM contract was about to expire, and she really didn’t care if she ever made another movie. Of course, this utterly-terrified L.B. Mayer and his minions at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. They weren’t about to let the golden goose fly the coup until they had her under a new contract. Come hell or high water, she was going to re-sign no matter what her demands might be.

Garbo had come to America under contract to MGM during the silent movie era. She quickly became a mega-silent movie star, with such hits as Woman of Affairs, The Single Standard, The Temptress, The Torrent, Flesh and The Devil and a slew of other vehicles that elevated her star into the stratosphere. L.B. Mayer wasn’t about to let his investment in her just walk onto an ocean liner, never to be seen again. The movie mogul began negotiations personally with his young actress, full well knowing he wasn’t going to be able to bluff or strong-arm her like he did all his other stars, whether male or female. Garbo had one thing none of the other stars at MGM or at any other studio had: the power of indifference.

Garbo’s MGM contract was due to expire on June 1932. Director Eric von Stroheim was ripping his non-existent hair out to complete production of As You Desire Me before his young star boarded The Gripsholm to set sail for her homeland. von Stroheim knew his star had more power than him, or the studio they both worked for. When it came to her iron will and determination when she wanted something, Garbo was an excellent negotiator with a mind for money and a strategy. She’d get more out of old Mayer than any other star, before or since. Garbo simply let the clock run out, and then demand a two-picture deal controlled under a special production company set up within the studio especially for her. An island unto itself where Garbo was free to pick her projects, as well as her director and co-stars. What star today wouldn’t want a deal like that!

Garbo had many faces…and many millions more in her Hollywood bank account!

Garbo’s 1932, two-picture deal would bind her to MGM at the tidy sum of $250,000 per picture, or $500,000 plus profit participation = $9.3 million + change today. Per her contract, L.B. Mayer cut Garbo a studio check on the spot. Standing before his desk, Garbo took the check for over $125,000 ($2.3 million) and didn’t have anywhere to put it. According to the star herself, her outfit had no pockets so she “took the biggest check I had ever seen…and stuffed it in my open shirt.”  

It turns out Garbo could make an entrance better than any movie star in history. But it was the threat of her exiting on her own terms that made her one of the most powerful women in Hollywood history.

The Black Dahlia’s Final Resting Place

On January 15, 1947, in the early morning hours of a chilly Wednesday in Los Angeles Betty Bersinger took a stroll with her daughter and spotted what they thought was a mannequin tossed onto the ground. Dumped in an abandoned lot in Leimert Park, the mannequin turned out to be the body of a murdered young woman: 22-year old Elizabeth Short aka The Black Dahlia.

The LA press chose the name Black Dahlia after a film noir released shortly before the murder starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd called The Blue Dahlia. I was shocked to find that Elizabeth Short is one of the most famous people buried in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery, near to where I live. But how did the Black Dahlia’s final resting place end up being a sprawling, Oakland cemetery instead of Los Angeles where she was killed?

Short’s mother, Phoebe M. Short, arrived at San Francisco Airport on Jan. 18, 1947 – three days after her daughter’s body was found in the Los Angeles lot. Phoebe had flown from her home in Medford, Massachusetts  to see two of her five daughters. Virginia West, who lived in Berkeley, greeted her at the airport. But Elizabeth had never shown for the family reunion and nobody in her family knew why.

Elizabeth Short, with blue-green eyes and raven hair – wanted to be a movie star. And like hundreds of thousands of young women before and after her, she came to Los Angeles with stars in her eyes and very little else. No family or friends, the Medford woman would often date men to get a meal – not an uncommon occurrence for a struggling actress who had more ambition than connections in the City of Angels.

The gruesome murder generated several weeks of newspaper headlines in LA’s four major dailies. Reporters started referring to Short as the Black Dahlia, and would do anything to get a scoop on the crime of the century. An ambitious young rewrite man from the LA Examiner named Wain Sutton tracked down Phoebe Short while in San Francisco Bay Area. Sutton told Mrs. Short that Elizabeth had won a contest and wanted background information on her for the public prize announcement. But after squeezing as much information out of the mom about her dead daughter, the city editor told the brash reporter to inform Phoebe of her daughter’s ghastly demise.

The LA Examiner flew Phoebe Short down to Los Angeles in exchange for an exclusive. But the distraught Mother refused to identify her daughter’s remains for two days, preferring to remember Elizabeth as she had been. Phoebe appeared at the Los Angeles District Attorney Inquest on Jan. 22, 1947. The Black Dahlia’s body arrived in Oakland a day later. The LAPD conducted house-to-house searches for the next month to find her murderer but never did. The case is still unsolved.

Elizabeth Short was laid to rest in Mountain View Cemetery on January 25, 1947, ten days after her mutilated body had been found by a mother and her young daughter. In attendance were her mother, sister, brother-in-law, and a pair of reporters. Over 70 years after her death, a Black Dahlia cocktail is served at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where Short was last seen alive, and a new TNT miniseries called I Am The Night sheds light on her murder case.

Whoever Elizabeth Short’s killer was, they were someone looking for publicity. Over the ensuing months after her murder – the killer sent letters to the press signed mockingly as the “Black Dahlia Avenger,” and distributed packages containing her clothes to media outlets. This lasted throughout the investigations and made Elizabeth Short more famous than any Hollywood starlet for the rest of 1947.

Today, Elizabeth is best remembered for the horrific details of her death. But her modest gravemarker in the Oakland Hills gives no indication of her infamous murder case, or her ambition to be famous one day. It simply reads, “Elizabeth Short, Daughter July 29, 1924 – January 15, 1947.” But her fans know better and have been coming to Oakland to give their respects more and more over the years. They pass by the Ghirardelli Chocolate family crypt, turn a sharp left and climb the tall stack of steep cement stairs to get to Elizabeth’s final resting place. For them, she’s the reason they came to East Bay, to reflect on her abbreviated, short life and  place their Black Dahlias.

Nancy Allen: I Want To Hold Her Hand

Anyone who is a fanatical film fan will instantly recognize Nancy Allen from one of several iconic roles she portrayed in over 40 years in the business. What amazes me, however, is so many of those roles I had forgotten about over the years. It’s kind of like growing up with someone you went to school with and then losing touch when you graduate. There are so many memories you share that are triggered when you see each other again that come back in a flood. That’s what happened to me recently when I caught sight of Nancy in Carrie (1976).

Nancy played Chris Hargensen, the most popular girl in high school opposite the least popular, Carrie, played by Sissy Spacek. Nancy did a phenomenal mean girl, defining the archetype for decades to come. It was a monumentous movie for many reasons – Stephen King’s beloved book was successfully translated to film by director Brian DePalma (who would end up marrying Nancy!), it was John Travolta’s breakout movie role, and, the film would usher in the teenage horror genre like none before it.

The film owes much to Nancy’s role as antagonist. She is such a bitch in the film that sympathy is consistently thrown to Carrie, making the climactic ending all the more satisfying. Nancy played the role to perfection and it would launch her A-List status in Hollywood for the next two decades. But it is the film Nancy made two years later that would really cement her status in film actress history: director Robert Zemeckis’s film debut “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”

I Want To Hold Your Hand is a wonderful movie, full of nostalgia for Beatlemania told on a human scale in the form of Beatles maniacs who will stop at nothing to meet their idols. Nancy is luminous in her obsessive-determined fan role and her performance is worth renting the often-overlooked film.

As far as music-themed fan-based films, I Want To Hold Your Hand is right up there with That Thing You Do, Starstruck and Backbeat. And if you haven’t heard of those films, you need to stop reading this blog and immediately rent them now.

Nancy’s next big role was in the thwarted comedy by Steven Spielberg called “1941” (Speilberg had produced I Want To Hold Your Hand). By any standard, 1941 is a hot mess of a movie but it does have it’s moments – one of them being to watch Nancy Allen. It’s almost impossible for me to recommend this movie for any other reason – maybe to watch John Belushi – then again, just stick with watching Nancy and turn it off immediately after.

Nancy would go on to shine in several movies in 1980, the greatest among them being husband Brian DePalma’s “Dressed To Kill.” This movie is a hot mess too but in a very different and much more entertaining way. For me, Nancy is the emotional center of this movie, scenery-eating portrayals by Micheal Caine and Angie Dickinson notwithstanding. Maybe even because of the camp factor in this splashy, glamour-lit murder/horror show, Nancy looms largest in her portrayal of a call girl who dabbles in the stock market. Also, it is one of the few times in film history when an audience can tell that a director is totally in-love with an actress. Just compare it with any Hitchcock movie and you’ll see what I mean.

A particularly saucy shot of Nancy seducing the audience from Dressed To Kill.

At this point in the movie, we don’t know Micheal Caine is a killer. All we know is that Nancy slays in black lingerie.

After Dressed To Kill, Nancy followed her director-husband’s lead and did “Blow Out” a 1980 thriller starring John Travolta at the height of his initial fame. It bears mentioning that DePalma is the biggest Hitchcock fan on the planet and really took what old Alfred did best and kind of bastardized it in his own films. Please don’t get me wrong, DePalma is a gifted director and made one of my all-time favorite films – The Untouchables. That said, the single-biggest reason to watch Blow Out today is Nancy Allen. She’s smart, she’s sassy and she’s a hell of a lot better actress that young Travolta is in this cross between The Conversation and Blow Up. I’ll let you Google those titles, but they are yet more cinema classics that deserve your attention.

And now we come to Nancy’s most iconic role: Police Officer Anne Lewis in the seminal sci-fi classic “RoboCop.” The 1987 film was the Hollywood debut of Dutch directorPaul Verhoeven, and did extremely well at the box office. This is by far one of the most intelligent, violent and flat-out balls-to-the wall crowd-pleasers that came out of the 1980s. It would spawn two sequels and become a highly-lucrative franchise for fanboys who couldn’t get enough of Peter Weller’s RoboCop and his sexy, loyal partner, Anne. Again, I think Nancy brings so much heart to the proceedings that it keeps the otherwise over the top movie grounded in an almost romantic realism. I just love everything about her here and believe Nancy was at the at the top of her game.

Nancy’s evolution from starlet to movie star is one worth revisiting. From her early 1970’s work…

…to her breakout in Carrie…

…how much fun does this look like! To her marriage to DePalma and rubbing shoulders with Hollywood heavyweights…

You know DePalma is in heaven here nestled between two gorgeous and famous blondes…

To her sexy, smart turn in Dressed To Kill…

To her cameo in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” (1998) opposite George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez…

Nancy Allen held her own and portrayed sensitive, often vulnerable no less formidable females on the silver screen.

Maybe that’s what prepared her for her biggest roles later on in life…

As an advocate for the environment and activist for breast cancer. Now retired from film, Nancy spends all her time as the executive director of WeSPARK Cancer Support Center. Founded by her longtime friend and I Wanna Hold Your Hand co-star, actress Wendie Jo Sperber, Nancy is an inspiration for breast cancer survivors everywhere. It’s the perfect role for an actress who has made an indelible mark through her beauty, poise and intelligence. Check out http://www.wespark.org/nancy-allen/ and let Nancy know how much you appreciate everything she’s done. It’s one way a fan can give back to a beloved actress whose not only touched there lives through art, but continues to move people through her devotion to a truly-important cause!

Thanks for all the movie memories and everything you do, Nancy!!

 

Blondie: Rock Goddess with a Heart of Glass

Debbie Harry was one of my first crushes. A beautiful and talented rock goddess who was essentially a supermodel when she hit the stateside music scene in 1977 with her band, Blondie.

My older brother had a poster of Debbie up in his room but I never made the connection of who she was until I heard “Hearts Of Glass”, the band’s first hit single in 1977. Debbie was not just a pretty face, but a full-throated lead singer about to explode.

I wasn’t old enough to go to any of her concerts over the next several years as she dominated the airwaves with singles “Call Me”, “Atomic”, and the aforementioned “Hearts of Glass.” But thanks to MTV, I got to marvel at how beautiful and artistic she was live on stage, in music videos and movie cameos.

Debbie had a raw, fearless sexuality on stage. She wasn’t afraid to do anything her creative urges told her to do. She was about as glamorous as it got back in the early 80’s before big hair, stone-washed jeans and shoulder-pads began to cover the landscape.

Debbie had a style all her own. Of course, she would eventually succumb to the big hair phenomenon like everyone else. But she did it while retaining her own style. One that no one else could quite pull off.

Blondie broke up in 1982 (they would get back together off and on over the years) and Debbie would pursue a solo career with success. I always found her fascinating to watch and would now and again check in with her career over the years.

What I find fascinating now that I’m older, is how you become so nostalgic for the interests of your youth. Some fade and become idle curiosities – namely, why did I ever like so-and-so in the first place. But that has never been the case with Debbie. I’m still as fascinated by her today as I was way back when. A true sign of a class act if ever there was one.

I think the reason Debbie Harry has retained her mystic over the years is because she never followed trends. She was a true original back when that not only was tolerated in the music industry, but lauded. Her fan base was broad and she had fans young and old, not just because of her music but also her beauty and screen presence.

And like every other aging fanboy, the older I get I inevitably delve deeper into the past looking for connections to it. Debbie is no exception. I’ve only recently found out that before her musical career, she was a model and, incredibly, a playboy bunny at one point. Interesting how her photos are so tame compared to today. I love their artistic aesthetic, in addition to Debbie’s raw beauty.

Debbie is still fearless today, posing topless. She is still a very hot momma, in my humble opinion.

It’s a testament to Debbie’s artistic leanings that none of these images are gratuitous. They all have some intrinsic value in addition to capturing Debbie’s physical beauty back when she was truly in her rock goddess prime.

Debbie has always been a flirt both on and off stage, as evidenced by this great candid below. Proving that blondes do have more fun.

I’ll always love this Blonde bombshell. The Rock Goddess with a Heart of Glass captured mine a long, long time ago.

She survived disco, after all, coming through it unscathed. No easy task for a time when so many lost their artistic souls.

This is how I’ll always remember Blondie when I first met her, up on my brother’s wall…

And this is how the Rock Goddess looks today: formidable while still beautiful, and ready to kick some ass!

Kelly Reilly: Best Thing About True Detective, Season 2

Kelly Reilly is the most amazing actress you’ve never heard of. And she is easily the best thing out of the second season of True Detective. Don’t get me wrong, Rachel McAdams did an amazing star-turn and turned her acting career around as a result. But the true star turn for me was bringing Kelly to a broader audience.

Kelly has been around for years now, lighting up the screen in such films as FLIGHT (2012) playing opposite drug-addled commercial pilot Denzel Washington. Kelly’s portrayal of a vulnerable and fragile recovering drug-addict-cum-love interest is the best thing about that film as well.

Kelly is an English Rose, having begun her career in the theater. Her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2003.

Kelly’s gutsy on-screen performances are matched by her tenacity off-screen. As a young actress in England, Kelly wrote the producers of the television drama Prime Suspect to ask for work, and 6 months later she auditioned for a role in an episode Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circle which aired in 1995. Six years later, she appeared alongside Helen Mirren in the film Last Orders. 

Kelly continued doing legitimate theater in England honing her acting chops for her big shot at the screen. That came in the guise of an Englishman, rather one of the most famous fictional Englishman ever, as Mary Watson opposite Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. in Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).

Kelly has a unique on screen chemistry with the camera. She is a gorgeous red-head with freckles from head-to-toe and a smoldering stare. But I think it’s the Irish ancestry in her that gives my heart a twitter. She is one of those actresses who looks like she could break but is tough as nails. I think that the buzz coming off True Detective will give her even more opportunities to spread her wings on the silver screen and for that I’m thankful.

I think Kelly is so talented, in fact, that she could be her own lead in a drama or thriller. One that would give her center-stage and let her totally captivate the audience without having to split their attentions with other, lesser actors. I’m hoping she gets a shot at a lead role in the near future. I think she could be big if only given the chance. And according to her rep in Hollywood, many directors and producers want to work with the gifted actress.

Here’s to Kelly’s tenacity and guts paying off very soon in a theater or tv screen near you. Look for her in True Detective, Season 2. I know the second installment was laughably bad in parts but seeing Kelly will make your day as it did mine when I watched the 6-part series on HBO. I only hope she’ll pop up again soon.

To the English Rose with Irish Eyes. May she entrance Hollywood as much as she has this writer and give her the shot at the big-time she richly deserves!

Cybill Shepherd: Taxi Driver Confessions

There is no denying Cybill Shepherd’s attractiveness. She is an absolutely beautiful blonde with a smoldering intelligence that makes her gaze unavoidable, especially to men.

When she came onto the Hollywood scene in the early 1970’s that was basically all it took to at least get a shot in Hollywood. And Cybill took it.

Different generations will remember Cybill for different indelible roles she embodied.

Her first big blush with fame was as Jacy Farrow in Peter Bogdanovich’s LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971).

Jacy is a femme fatale of the highest order and Cybill portrayed her like an irresistible wrecking ball, both onscreen and on the set.

The comely actress not only had affairs with the director as well as her young co-star, Jeff Bridges – but almost everyone else associated with this classic movie.

She was accused of wrecking the director’s marriage. Her and Peter would go on to make two more movies together – both critical box office failures.

 

And it isn’t hard to believe why every man that came in her path would end up seduced by her.

Next up for Cybill was THE HEARTBREAK KID (1972) with Charles Grodin and directed by Elaine May.

The film was another critical hit and Cybill was on her way to becoming Hollywood’s next big “it” girl.

Of course, I’m part of the generation that remembers Cybill most for her role as Betsy opposite Robert DeNiro in Martin Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER (1976).

I was too young to see the movie in theaters but over a decade later after it’s release I caught it on cable (as did an entire generation) and Cybill certainly made an impression as Travis Bickle’s obsession.

Cybill is amazing in this role and a critical part of the storyline. Travis’s obsession with her is what drives him to do more and more desperate acts to gain her favor.

Instead, it turns him into more of a psychopath – and this is what sets up one of the most amazing endings in modern film history.

Legend has it that Scorsese asked his casting agent for a “Cybill Shepherd” type. The young director had no idea that he would be able to get the real thing.

 

I’m a believer that if this role wasn’t as compelling as Cybill was able to make it, then the cognitive leap for DeNiro’s character to go full-on psycho at the end would not have been as believable.

But it was believable and TAXI DRIVER became a highly influential film for many screenwriters and filmmakers. Now, you would think that Cybill would have Hollywood by the tail after this movie and her previous hits but you would be wrong.

While a critical hit, Taxi Driver made relatively little money on its initial theatrical release. And two short years later in 1978, Cybill would leave Hollywood, returning to her hometown of Memphis, TN to do regional theater.

Cybill would return to Hollywood in 1983 just in time to land MOONLIGHTING after a couple successful turns in smaller films. This was back in the days when a film star who turned to TV was still a risky endeavor.

But the producers wanted Cybill so much that they allowed her final say on her male co-star. She ultimately decided on Bruce Willis because of their on-screen chemistry.

The chemistry was so good, in fact, that Cybill and Bruce almost ended up in bed together off the set. But instead, they refrained from their baser instincts in favor of keeping it smoldering on the small screen and the show was a huge, Emmy-winning hit for several years.

Cybill went on to have her own TV show as well as write a best-selling autobiography in which she spilled the beans on all the famous men she slept with on the way up, down, and back up the Hollywood ladder.

It’s refreshing to know such a successful actress can tell it like it is when such candid confessions could end a career. But then, Cybill was never one to go along with the pack.

I’ll always love Cybill Shepherd for her beauty and intelligence and the way she was able to live her life on her own terms in an industry that usually only affords such privilege on men.

Cybill beat the boys at their own game, however, and took her lumps to boot. It’s a great career and one that any actress working today should aspire to. With or without the Taxi Driver credentials, Cybill will always be one of my absolute biggest Hollywood crushes.

 

The Maltese Falcon: The Flitcraft Parable

If the stars suddenly aligned on an especially dark night and I was given the chance to remake the film of my choice, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell the movie gods I will do The Maltese Falcon. And if such a cinematic fate befell me, my adaptation would include one special passage in Dashiell Hammet’s novel that has never been translated to film even though at least three film Falcons have soared into movie theaters since the novel debuted in 1930.

Noir fans call it the “Flitcraft Parable” found in Chapter 7: G in the Air — a short digression completely unrelated to the novel’s plot in which Sam Spade, tells Brigitte O’Shaunessy a little story about a man named Flitcraft.

In the story, Spade explains how Flitcraft, a real estate agent and family man living in Tacoma goes to lunch one day never to return.  Five years go by and his wife comes to the detective agency where Spade is working with news: someone in Spokane has seen a man resembling her husband. She retains Spade to track him down only to discover that it is indeed Flitcraft.

Flitcraft tells Spade the day he went to lunch, he had walked by an office building under construction and a huge beam fell from eight to ten stories up, impaling itself into the sidewalk right beside him. The experience of nearly being killed had a profound effect on Flitcraft, jarring him out of his very existence for a moment. As Spade explains:

“He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works,” says Spade. “The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things.”

Flitcraft had left for Seattle that day without any provisions or extra cash. To his family, it was as if he had simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Flitcraft moved around a little bit before eventually coming back to Washington State where he married again – to a woman very much in appearance and temperament as his first wife – and started a new family. Spade concludes the story with a final thought:

“I don’t think he even knew he had settled back naturally in the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma,” says Spade. “But that’s the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.”

I know why no filmmaker before me has ever seen the need to keep this digression in their movie version of The Maltese Falcon. It’s because on the surface of it, the Flitcraft Parable has nothing specifically to do with the larger plot of The Maltese Falcon. But if you think about it in terms of Spade’s character and, by extrapolation, author Hammett – you see that it has everything to do with how Spade is able to prevail in almost any situation put before him.

Sam Spade is a master of observation.  A student of human behavior with the uncanny ability to boil life down to its barest and most basic essentials at any given moment. He’s able to see a situation by any given angle and point of view from whichever character he finds in the room. He knows that once you strip away love, desire, greed, lust, rage and romanticism from any equation – you are left with the truth: what we do with our lives is largely insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

Who we love or hate, who we back and who we resist, will be most certainly be forgotten soon after we shed this mortal coil. That thought, whether delivered by steel beam from the heavens or a loved one’s untimely departure, whether by ugly divorce, chronic illness or natural catastrophe – is coming for each and every human who has ever lived. And when faced with our own mortality, we humans tend to react with varying forms of panic, fear, terror and desperation.

What is less common, however, and what is so magical and I believe cinematic about Hammett’s Flitcraft Parable is not so much what the character of Flitcraft does – but how and why Sam Spade is telling the story in the first place. Spade is telling Brigitte that he (Spade) perceives life to be a game at best, a cosmic joke at worst. We’re lucky to even be alive, walking the earth so why take things so seriously? And at the same time, Spade plays the game well, better than anyone else and that includes her. And because of this high-powered perception, he knows that she is bad, playing him for a sap, a chump. He’ll play along as long as it amuses him, to see how it all ends up. Because what’s love when there’s a steel beam 30 stories up just waiting to fall with your number on it. Might as well enjoy life before it falls and that includes playing chess with the likes of a beautiful femme fatale.

THE MALTESE FALCON, Elisha Cook, Jr., Sydney Greenstreet, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, 1941

In the end of The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade’s greatest fear is not death but being made a fool. And he’ll resist being her fool because as he tells her, “all of me wants to.” Spade could give Gandhi a run for his money when it comes to resisting an urge. He’s a professional, after all, with a job to do. And when death does come for him as it will all of us , you better believe he’ll stare into the Grim Reaper’s eye-sockets and grin back at him. Now that’s dark, people. It’s why I love Noir because it doesn’t hold back on the reality of the human condition – but pushes it kicking and screaming into the center of the spotlight.

We’re all going to die, so we might as well enjoy ourselves and have a little fun. That’s why Noir as a genre is more than alive as well. Why Hammett’s Flitcraft Parable would be right at home in recent existential fare such as TRUE DETECTIVE (can’t you see Matthew McConaughey’s character regaling The Flitcraft Parable to an annoyed Woody Harrelson?) or even THE DARK KNIGHT’s JOKER character played by the late, great Heath ledger.  That’s the power of classic Noir, to strike a chord in every human’s fibrous, meaty core and question why each one of us are here and why the hell we take everything so damn seriously.

Take Hammett and Spade’s word for it. Life is a game so enjoy it for what it’s worth and remember to play the game well while you have the time. Because you better believe the competition are playing for keeps – and no one likes to be made a fool of.