Friday Dance Party: Easy Street

The star of this week's Dance Party was well-known in musical theatre circles, but the public at large would be hard-pressed to pick her out of a line-up. Dorothy Loudon spent her career onstage, with only two film appearances ( Garbo Talks and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) to her credit. The early years of her career were littered with flop after flop, though she usually emerged from each disaster with good reviews for her own performance. Nowhere To Go But Up, Fig Leaves Are For Falling, and Lolita, My Love are all shows of which you have never heard, but they all starred our Miss Loudon. Her breakout performance came when she was solidly middle aged, and it was a doozy. I saw her in this performance, as Miss Hannigan in the original production of Annie, and she lifted a very mediocre piece to musical theatre legend.

After Annie, she headlined one of the biggest flops in history, Ballroom, which I also saw and loved, and starred in a short-lived TV series called Dorothy. She appeared opposite Katherine Hepburn in her final stage play (West Side Waltz) and was in the original cast of Noises Off. I saw only one more live Loudon performance, in a new musical called Over and Over at Signature Theatre in 1999 (the piece is still floating around under the title All About Us). She clearly felt a bit trapped in the project, which, despite a book by Tony winner Joseph Stein (based on Pulitzer-Prize winning material by Thornton Wilder), music by Tony winners Kander and Ebb, and a cast which included Broadway vet David Garrison, upcoming star Sherie Renee Scott (only a year or so before her breakout role in Aida) and funnyman Mario Cantone, the thing just didn't work. Loudon, I understand, was hired to play a role which was cut during rehearsal, and ended up playing several smaller roles, each to hilarious effect. But her parting shot onstage was an ad-lib she has used many times in her career: "I'm too good for this show."

She was also too good for Annie, but she made it work for herself, and us. Here is a bit of one of her showstoppers from the Tony Awards, in which she displays her superb comic timing as well as her throaty pipes; she gave this performance just a few minutes after winning the Tony over her co-star. After the four minute mark, you can also catch a snippet of Andrea McArdle's tremendous voice and lousy stage presence:

Dorothy Loudon died six years ago this week, at the age of 70.

A Day in the Life: Security Clearance

I've returned to DC after an all-too-brief sojourn in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and will be here until the holidays set in for real.

I registered to attend a SAG-sponsored workshop regarding security clearances. DC is a big town for industrial training films, many of which require their actors to have such clearances. Sadly, it's very difficult to get one, and often takes years. Most actors who have a security clearance got it only because they work (or worked) full time in a government job which required one. It was interesting to hear about the process, though there seems little likelihood I would ever get a clearance myself, considering my extensive criminal background.

I've been stealing shows for years. Ba-da-bum.

The moderator was a highly qualified attorney who had also worked as an investigator for the department of defense, and she had lots of tidbits to tell. While I enjoyed her seminar, I was reminded why I never attend these workshops (SAG offers them all the time, on all sorts of topics).

I cannot stand the type of people who attend these things. Without fail, there is at least one jackass in the crowd(today there was more than one) who wants everyone in the room to listen to him and, in the guise of asking a question (usually a stupid one), tells the story of his life. I remember this kind of fool from the several times I took traffic school in L.A.; there again, there was always some guy who loved the sound of his voice and was sure everyone else would, too. Drives me right up the wall.

After the seminar, I felt I deserved a reward for not throwing something at this blowhard, so I hopped the metro to Maryland, and landed at The Cheesecake Factory. They have the best fire-roasted artichoke on the planet, which goes down well with a glass (or two) of savignon blanc. I steam artichokes at home regularly, but have never been able to figure out how to fire-roast one. (At the Cheesecake Factory, you actually get an artichoke and a half, so it's worth the money.)

I indulge in this luxury maybe every month or so, always sitting in the bar area, so as not to take up a better table in the restaurant proper. I was a waiter too long to hog a table in someone's station by myself, when that waiter could instead make more money on a party of four. Anyway, as I was revelling in this artichokial delight, I noticed three women come into the bar. They were not together; they arrived separately and sat separately. They were older women with gray hair and weathered faces, and as the bartender knew which glass of wine to pour for each, they were clearly regulars there. As I was alone, I was able to observe these ladies for a while. One read a book, one watched the television, and one simply sat and sipped.


There is something very sad about an older woman sitting alone in a bar in the middle of the afternoon. For some reason a man sitting alone in a bar does not look at all odd, but I cannot get used to seeing women doing the same thing. What have they done with the rest of their day? What do they do until it's time to come into the bar and drink?

So, so sad, don't you think? Of course, there is absolutely nothing sad about ME being in a bar alone in the middle of the afternoon. Right?

Biting the Dust

You heard this guy died last week, right? It was all over the news:

JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD

1961-2009

In 2002, he was one of the snipers who randomly shot at people in the DC area while they walked across parking lots or filled their gas tanks. The region was paralyzed for several weeks while the police seemed completely incompetent, unable to catch the guys. For several days, they were stopping each and every white truck in the area, bottling up freeway traffic for hours, all due to a lead which was completely bogus. It was a tip from a bystander which finally brought Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Malvo, to the attention of the keystone cops.

Muhammad was executed the day before Veteran's Day, which may have been ironic, as some reports indicated he suffered from post traumatic stress after his tour of duty during the first Gulf War. Who knew this monster had a family? He had several children by two ex-wives, one of whom was summoned to jail by our hero with this missive, "I don't want to be missed the day that these devils murder my innocent black ass." Yes, Muhammad never acknowledged his guilt, despite the evidence against him and the testimony of his cohort Malvo, who is currently serving life without parole.

I remember those frantic days in 2002. It was only a year after the 9/11 attacks, and these random killings were a pretty graphic reminder of that terrible day. While the snipers were enjoying their rampage, suburban DC was pretty terrorized. You would see people ducking toward the ground as they scurried across the parking lot from the Walmart to their car.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on Muhammad's behalf, and VA governor Tim Caine refused to offer a stay of execution, so he was lethally injected last Tuesday.


This guy died recently, too:

EDWARD WOODWARD

1930-2009

In the states, he was known primarily for his role as The Equalizer, a crime drama which ran from 1985-89. In it, he played a former intelligence agent who offered his services to those who could not get help from the police. He was a bigger star in England, performing in several hit TV series and maintaining a stage career as well. He trained at RADA, and made his American stage debut in Rattle of a Simple Man, which had transferred from London, in 1964. The role led Noel Coward to cast him as the male lead in the musical adaptation of his play, Blythe Spirit. High Spirits, which co-starred Tammy Grimes and Bea Lillie, had a healthy run on Broadway and established Woodward as a leading man for both musicals and straight plays. On film he appeared in The Wicker Man and Breaker Morant:

The long hours required to film The Equalizer damaged his health, and he developed heart and weight problems which affected him the rest of his life. He died Monday from pneumonia, at the age of 79.


If you live in LA or NY, you already know this guy died last week; those of us in the hinterlands did not get the word right away:

DAVID LLOYD

1934-2009

He was one of the most prolific sitcom writers in the business, furnishing dozens of scripts for series during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. He was a schoolteacher, if you can believe it, before entering television by writing monologue material for Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Dick Cavett, with whom he went to Yale. In the early 70s, he was enticed to Hollywood, where he wrote an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on spec, and sold it immediately. He was added to their writing team, and his career took off. His 1975 episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust" won him an Emmy, and is commonly named as one of the top episodes of any TV series in history.

He worked on all the offspring of the Moore show (Rhoda, Phyllis, Lou Grant) as well as on The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Cheers, Wings, Frasier and more. He was often hired as a script consultant (in the theatre, we would call him a script doctor), and was well-respected for his ability to flesh out comic situations and furnish jokes with equal ease.

Lloyd deserves recognition for the only series he himself created, a sitcom called Brothers. The show concerned three brothers in working-class Philadelphia, one of whom bolts from the altar and announces he's gay. The networks shunned the premise, and the program ended up on Showtime for a healthy run. Years before Will and Grace, Brothers provided the first leading gay character on a sitcom who was not tortured by his sexuality.

David Lloyd is survived by several children including two sons who followed him into the business. Christopher Lloyd was a producer/writer for Frasier and currently helms Modern Family, while Stephen Lloyd produces How I Met Your Mother.

David Lloyd died last week at the age of 75, after a long battle with prostate cancer.

s'Newz

...an occasional series of stories which recently caught my eye...

Jeremy Piven claims he was having a bit of fun with the interviewer the other week. Did you hear the story? He claimed he was developing breasts due to his intake of soy milk, and the interviewer swallowed the story. Piven's comment, "It was a very confusing time" seems to me to be the give-away that indeed, he was making a joke. But after all this guy went through in the past year, blaming his desertion of his Broadway show on all the sushi he had been eating, he ought to know better. Just shut up about your diet, dude. But I guess you can't fault the guy for wanting to blame some outside force for his current doughy appearance:
Elaine Stritch is coming back to the Cafe Carlyle with a new cabaret show in January. She's calling it Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim…One Song at a Time. Not quite sure what the "one song at a time" signifies...how do you sing two songs at a time? Anyway, Stritch is one of my favorites, as I've written previously, and at the grand age of 84, she's tackling a new project. As she puts it, “I perform the best when I do something that scares the shit out of me. And what could be more scary than learning nine or ten Steve Sondheim songs? ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ almost put me in intensive care, for God’s sake.”
Stritch is not everyone's cup of tea (or more appropriately, snifter of brandy), and it's difficult to explain her appeal, particularly when she is singing. No one can claim she's a slave to the notes; she's more likely to slide off the melody than hold it for its entirety. But she's received acclaim for her musical performances in Sail Away, Company, Show Boat, and her Tony-winning one-woman show. The Emmy crowd loves her; she won for a guest shot in the early years of Law and Order and again recently, as Alec Baldwin's mother on 30 Rock. At her age, most legends would be avoiding the stress of performing onstage. If the show is successful, I wonder if we may be treated to another evening of our Elaine on Broadway...

I got a kick out of this picture that was making the rounds last week. Here is what lawmakers are concerned with during important debates in the Connecticut legislature:

Catholic Guilt

It was quite a while after I moved into my condo in DC that I started to notice them. I was so used to seeing them on the streets of Capitol Hill that, for many months, I simply drove past. It doesn't put me in a very complimentary light, I know, but after 20 years in L.A. (where they would pounce on you at the bottom of every freeway off-ramp) and 4 years living in a basement apt off Pennsylvania Avenue (where they would actually trot down the stairs and knock on the front door), I was pretty much immune to the sight of those poor souls, the homeless.

Once I moved to the condo, I started passing a group of homeless folks gathered across the street from the 3rd Street tunnel, where I would escape the Hill for points south. Well, "gathered" isn't the right word; these people were in line. During the day, there may be only a handful, but late in the afternoon, the line would usually stretch all the way down the block and around the corner. It was on one of those days when I suddenly realized that all of the homeless people in this line were women.

They were waiting for 7 PM, when the doors would open at the John Young Homeless Shelter, which provides a bed for the night to homeless, single women. No men or children allowed. During the colder winter months, not everyone gets in, but for the lucky ladies who do, they have a safe bed in which to sleep. 12 hours later, at 7 AM, they are ejected from the building and the door is locked. Most of the women wander off for the day, to return to the line that afternoon, but there are always a handful who simply get back in line and start the 12 hour wait until the building opens again at 7 PM.

The John Young Homeless Shelter is one of several in DC run by the Catholic Church.

You know the Catholic Church, right? Those are the paragons of morality who perpetrated decades of child molestation by simply moving their pedophilic priests from parish to parish. They are also the gargantuan organization which owns acres of property in DC, and conducts all their business, and owns all their property, tax-free:

These virtuous souls have once again ignored the constitutional separation of church and state, and have taken issue with the upcoming vote to legalize same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. The DC council will be voting shortly, and the measure looks likely to pass, which has the Catholics all hot, bothered, and ready to crusade.

The Church, you see, provides many social services for the city, like the homeless shelter in my neighborhood. For a fee. They receive, under contract, close to 20 million dollars a year to provide these services. They have announced they will no longer do so, if they are forced to offer marriage benefits to any gays on their staff. No, they will not be forced to perform marriages, or even be forced to provide space for marriages to take place. But they will be required, by law, to offer the same marriage benefits to all their secular employees. The janitor who sweeps the cathedral and the secretary who works in the office might be gay, and if so, their spouses must receive the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

The Church has issued, in effect, an ultimatum to the city government, in an attempt to derail the bill. Don't you love it when Organized Religion dabbles in Politics? Their claim that their beliefs will not allow them to offer gay couples the rights granted to them by law, rings a bit false, considering the Catholic Church continues to offer such services in Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts, even after those states have begun allowing gay marriage. They have discontinued certain adoption programs in those states due to the new laws, but have not cut off other services.

It seems that in DC, they are attempting to affect political policy by extortion. The council plans a meeting with the Church to try to work out a compromise, though there seems little hope of one. Either the law is the law, or it isn't; certain organizations, whether religious or not, cannot be exempted simply because they disagree with it.

The contracts to provide these social services, as I stated, are worth millions and millions of dollars, and council members seem confident that other organizations would welcome the opportunity to get them. I bet they're right. And nobody has been able to explain why this guy should be allowed to influence the laws governing our country's capital city:

Meanwhile, those ladies who line up at the John Young Homeless Shelter, to get a safe bed for the night, are being used as pawns by the Catholic Church to further its religious agenda, an agenda which has no place in the city councilroom.

Friday Dance Party: Happy Anniversary

I can't believe it myself, but this silly Friday segment will be turning One tomorrow. It was 11/14/08 when I began presenting a weekly clip featuring some sort of dance. I swiped the idea from my buddy Larry, who presented dance clips on his personal blog for several months before giving up the ghost. I, however, can never let go of anything, so the Friday Dance Party continues in these pages.

The segment evolved rapidly into a place where I could showcase my favorite musical styles. While I have tried to always present a clip with some form of dance involved, I don't really keep to those parameters anymore. So, there are many clips from the past year which had very little, or even NO, dance in them. Whatever, it's my site. One of the most moving of those clips featuring no dance was this one, performed by the winner of that smash hit series, "Ukraine's Got Talent."

That clip is one of my favorites, as is the one featuring Kristin Chenoweth at the Boston Pops (that one has no dance in it, either, but lots of hilarious staging, and man, can that gal belt!). Probably my favorite clip of the year, though, features quite a bit of dancing: it's the sequence from the Tony Awards featuring Grand Hotel, and the late, great Michael Jeter stopping the show cold.

A lot of the clips from the past year have been from the musical stage, as I've grabbed clips from the Tony Awards or various film adaptations or the occasional TV version. Yes, back in the day, musicals were sometimes transplanted to TV with their original stars. Thus, we got a glimpse of Lauren Bacall's triumph in Applause, and Joel Grey's hoofing in George M!, as well as a TV adaptation of J.C.Superstar, just in time for Easter. There were some television stars represented, including a Designing Woman, a Disney cutie, and of course, The Monkees. Even a bubble-headed booby showed up. Not all the clips were meant as tribute; there were a couple which were so dreadful they had to be included. Whoever thought The Brady Bunch should morph into a variety show should have lost his job, and putting a disco number on The Lawrence Welk Show was just plain wrong (but you can't look away). There was even a TV commercial on the Dance Party, a very famous item starring Ann Miller (it's a real hoot, you should watch it).



But as I mentioned, most of the year's clips were from the Broadway stage. We saw everything from A to Z (or rather, A to X: Ain't Misbehavin' to Xanadu). The film versions of West Side Story and 1776 showed up, while the death of Natasha Richardson inspired this grainy clip from the Cabaret revival. When David Carradine went a little too far in that closet and died, I was reminded of his brother's performance in Will Rogers' Follies, and when Jonathan Pryce's birthday coincided with the big GM bailout, Miss Saigon landed. Though they were a bit grainy, I was excited by the clips from Pirates of Penzance and from the original A Chorus Line, because they were clearly filmed LIVE, in front of living, breathing audiences.



As I've spent the week reviewing the past year of Dance Parties, I'm dismayed to discover that several clips have been removed from YouTube due to copyright issues. So, clips from Gypsyand Gilligan's Island, among others, can no longer be accessed. When I have a few hours, I'll go on the hunt to replace them. (You can still click on those links to read what I had to say about those clips, you just can't actually watch them. sigh.)



The remainder of the clips were from the usual suspects, that is, from stars or programs where dancing is not unexpected. Gene Kelly partnered with Julie Andrews, and Fred Astaire partnered with Betty Hutton. There was no surprise when Judy Garland, Vera Ellen, Shirley Temple, Martha Raye, and Baryshnikov showed up, though the Steve Martin tap duet with Gregory Hines was pretty unexpected.

If you want to waste the weekend, you can find all 51 Dance Parties here, including the very first entry, which is quite cute. A year ago, I thought the clips would always feature unknown folks dancing, and while I quickly moved away from that concept, in honor of that first week, here is another amateur Dance Party. Aren't they adorable?

TV Droppings: thirtysomething, twentysomething years later

I'm currently slogging my way through season one of thirtysomething, which was released on DVD a few months ago. Well, maybe "slogging" is too tough a word, but I have to admit, I can watch only one episode at a time. This surprises me, as I remember the show very fondly, and have been awaiting its release with some eagerness.

This show is no Mad Men, which can be ripped through in a single weekend (I have written about that show before), and it is certainly no Slings and Arrows, which can be devoured in a single sitting. With thirtysomething, I'm not all that anxious to discover what happens next. The show was appointment television for me during its initial run, and now I am wondering if that was due to the fact that I was myself "thirtysomething" at the time. It was a bit of a groundbreaker, as it was a family drama without the family; it centered around 7 youngish adults who, in essence, became each other's family. Perhaps that was the aspect of the series which appealed to me the most, as I have done exactly that (choose my own family) throughout my life.

I'm having trouble finding any other reasons I was so enamored of the show. I certainly did not see myself in any of the core characters; my recollection is that it would be well into the show's run that David Marshall Grant would show up, as shy, offbeat artist Russell, who happens to be gay. More on him anon.

First seasons of shows are often the least cohesive, and thirtysomething is no exception. Though the performances are as I remember them, the writing has an archness which is not attractive to me today. I see now why, during its run, it was so often criticized as being "whiny," as the characters seem to be experts at making mundane problems life-threatening. The leading lady, Hope (Mel Harris), is almost unbearable in these episodes, as she complains about just about everything. When her mother (played by the spectacular Shirley Knight) comes to visit, and does nothing but attempt to help her daughter, she spins out of control.

I admit one of my favorite episodes of the whole series was one of these early ones, in which Hope and Michael attempt to have their first date night since their baby was born; cabaret artist Michael Feinstein provided the musical motif for this episode, which creatively used two actors (Lucy Webb and Timothy Stack) to portray a series of characters who spoil the evening. This was also the first appearance of therapist Dr. Nestle, played by Earl Boen in a recurring role, who shows up in a fantasy sequence dreamed up by Melanie Mayron's Melissa.

Those fantasy sequences were pretty unique back then, and provided the thirtysomething writers with some fun playthings. The Thanksgiving episode, for example, included a fine sequence when photo proofs of the gang came to life and commented on the action. I'm also enjoying the work of actor Terry Kinney, who has a recurring arc as the boss and boyfriend of career girl Ellyn (Polly Draper). I remember loving his work back then, and it was after his character was gone before I learned he was one of the Steppenwolf gang (I have been surprised that he did not achieve the fame his cohorts John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Laurie Metcalf did...I hope he's not bitter).

Well, I'm barely through the first half of the first season, and I know things will pick up. The show never really took off in the ratings, but became one of the first shows to survive due to its demographics, rather than its overall viewership. In future seasons, there will be some dark turns, including a nasty divorce, and a long story arc concerning breast cancer (from personal experience I can report that it is handled realistically). Those storylines will be anchored by Patricia Wettig as Nancy; she was the most Emmy'd of the cast, winning awards for her work three of the four years the series ran. When Michael and Elliot (Ken Olin and Timothy Busfield) abandon their own ad agency and sign on with a larger firm, we will meet one of the most memorable characters of the series, Miles Drentell (David Clennon), who makes Don Draper look like a pussycat.

The future will also include the single most controversial episode of the series. It may be the single most controversial episode of any series of the 1980s. It was in season three that David Marshall Grant's character, Russell, hooked up with Peter, played by Peter Frechette. They have a "morning after" scene in bed, which was apparently a television first. I remember the scene distinctly: the two guys are sitting up, side by side, not touching, barely even looking at each other. It was that awkward "where do we go from here" moment, one we have seen thousands of times played by straight couples. But because it was two men, the world exploded. Boycotts were threatened, and sponsors yanked commercials. ABC lost over a million dollars by broadcasting the episode, so it's little wonder they declined to rerun it, for fear of further controversy.

All that fun is in the future, though. For now, I will slowly make my way through season one of thirtysomething, and appreciate the fact that the show created a whole new word to describe people of a certain age.