Friday Dance Party: Happy Easter!

Well, there can be only one possible choice for this week's dance party, right?

Easter Parade!

Everybody knows it's one the those classic movie musicals which everybody loves. I'm sure I would love it too, if I could ever sit through the thing. I admitted quite a while ago in these pages that I had only seen two Judy Garland movies from start to finish: The Wizard of Oz, and Judgement at Nuremberg. Since that first confession, I have seen one more: A Star is Born.



But you can catch enough of Easter Parade on Youtube to see that it's a stylish musical with plenty of swell numbers. And with stars like Garland, Fred Astaire, and Ann Miller, there are many musical treats from which to choose an Easter-themed Dance Party. (And Peter Lawford looks all suave and debonair... I wonder if he sings in the movie...)









So many possibilities from Easter Parade, it's been hard to pick just one! So watch this:

I guess there are TWO Easter movies out there...

Jack Wrangler

1946-2009

One of the few adult film stars to achieve general celebrity, Wrangler's unabashed homosexuality and his masculine self-confidence made him an icon of the early gay liberation movement. He was born into a Hollywood family (his father was producer/director Robert Stillman, his mother was a dancer in Busby Berkeley musicals) and he made his professional debut as a child on the Sunday morning program The Faith of Our Children, a religious drama series of the early 1950s starring Eleanor Powell (go here for Powell's Dance Party in these pages). He studied theatre at Northwestern University, considered at the time to be the top drama school in the country, and performed a few bit parts in The Mod Squad and Medical Center under his real name, John Stillman. He worked as a bartender and go-go boy in West Hollywood before joining the adult film world (he took his porn name from the label of his work shirt), and eventually achieved cult status. In the 80s, he crossed over into heterosexual pornography, but publicly maintained his homosexuality (he claimed his first sexual experience with a woman was onscreen).

Wrangler's celebrity might have remained in the gay subculture if not for his startling relationship with aging pop singer Margaret Whiting. The singer, whose hits included "That Old Black Magic" and "Moonlight in Vermont," was 22 years older than Wrangler, and their unusual pairing kept them in the limelight for decades. Though he never claimed to be straight, Wrangler said that he and Whiting saw things the same way, "comically, professionally, and romantically," and they eventually married. (Go here for my obit for Whiting.)

Anyone who saw a Wrangler film knew he was never padding his pants, though he may have padded his resume a bit. He certainly appeared in Robert Patrick's early stage classic T-Shirts, and he claimed to have appeared in Doric Wilson's gay play Forever After; the playwright himself disputes that claim. He has also said Wilson wrote A Perfect Relationship with him in mind. (Wilson replied, "I never even jacked off with him in mind.")

Wrangler moved out of the adult film industry soon after meeting Whiting, and began a career producing musical theatre and cabaret. He co-produced several revues celebrating the music of Johnny Mercer starring his wife, who was one of Mercer's favorite singers.

Since the 80s, Wrangler and Whiting have remained visible parts of the Manhattan theatre scene, and have been active in HIV/AIDS charities. Here they are with female impersonator Charles Pierce:

Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, a full-length (no pun intended) documentary about Jack's life and career, was released last year.

Jack Wrangler died from complications of emphysema and lung cancer this week at the age of 62.

'sNewz

...an occasional series mentioning current events which lately held my interest...

As the economy continues its free-fall, 3M, the company responsible for Scotch Tape and Post-Its, has joined the growing ranks of companies laying off hundreds and hundreds of workers. The employees in the Paris branch, however, did not take the pink slips lightly. They kidnapped their boss and held him hostage for days, attempting to force 3M to increase severance packages. The astonishing aspect of this story is this: apparently, this kind of thing is not all that unusual in France. Executives are often "non-violently detained" as hostages during labor disputes. As a member of several labor unions myself, I applaud this negotiating tool.

Did you hear they are planning a new Three Stooges movie? It's not a biography of the comedy team, but an actual film starring the Three Stooges, recast with current movie stars. Get a load of this dream team:

Apparently, Benicio Del Toro will be playing the VERBOSE one. Does anybody think this is a good idea? I am not, repeat NOT, a fan of the Three Stooges, whose comedy consisted of whacking each other over the head and making stupid noises. They were no Marx Brothers, that's for sure. Still, this casting seems...um...odd. Of course, the casting of Steve Martin to play Inspector Clouseau sounded right, and look how that turned out...

I'm not sure what to think here: Broadway giants Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber (did you know they have the same birthday?) are both considering adapting well-known films into musicals. Sondheim's done this before, turning Swedish film Smiles of a Summer Night into A Little Night Music; this time, he's chosen Groundhog Day. Really? Groundhog Day? Well, if it's Sondheim, there must be something in the original piece that's, you know, original. I confess I've never seen it. I don't think I've ever seen a Bill Murray movie all the way through, except Tootsie. Is Groundhog Day the one with the Baby Ruth candy bar floating in the swimming pool? Wait, maybe that's Caddyshack...

(Can't leave this topic without a quick kudo to the late Lois Kibbee, pictured above, who was one of the grande dames of daytime drama, but who will forever be remembered for this reaction to that wayward candy bar...)

Lloyd Webber has chosen a more iconic film to screw up. Even as his Phantom of the Opera sequel, The Phantom Goes to Coney Island, seems to be heading down the tracks directly toward us, he has picked up the rights to, get this, The Wizard of Oz. There have been a dozen or more different stage treatments of that flick, including attempts to simply put the movie onstage. But Webber thinks they have all been bunk. He believes the film must be restructured to more adequately fulfill the requirements of a stage musical. It has no opening number, for example (I guess we should look forward to a big hootenanny with the Gale farmhands), or big numbers for the Wizard or the Witch. Webber plans to keep several of the film's Harold Arlen classics, and rewrite the rest. There are rumors that the role of Dorothy will be cast via a reality show (the Brits have used that technique for West End revivals of Sound of Music and Joseph's Dreamcoat, and Broadway saw its own version when the leads for the recent Grease were cast in a reality show format). There are even rumors that one of the judges for this one will be Liza Minnelli.

What, Lorna Luft refused to participate? I think I'm melting.

Hey, this guy passed away last week:

TOM BRADEN

1917-2009
Don't recognize him? He started his career as a CIA agent, but then morphed into a journalist, a failed politician (he lost a bid for California Lieutenant Governor in 1966), and, as the first co-host of Crossfire opposite Pat Buchanan, is credited with creating the now-common routine of pairing a liberal and a conservative on a talk show and letting them scream at each other.

Still don't recognize him? You probably know him better as this guy:

Braden's syndicated newspaper column regarding his home life, which became a memoir, was sold to television in the 70s and became Eight is Enough. At age 92, he had led a full life, but perhaps he was pushed over the edge at the news that former teen idol and Eight is Enough star Willie Aames went so broke he held a garage sale in Kansas City last month.

I've got some sympathy for Aames, who was a fairly big star in his heyday (he was also a regular on Charles in Charge). He has apparently struggled with substance abuse, and after his wife of 22 years threw him out of the house, he attempted suicide. Perhaps he's trying his best to get his act together (the fact that there was a film crew on hand to film the garage sale tells us he knows a little something about publicity).

But here's a guy for whom I am having trouble feeling much sympathy. Redmond O'Neal was busted over the weekend, yet again, for felony drug possession. He's been in rehab a dozen times, and I am deeply sorry that his mother, Farrah Fawcett, is apparently losing her battle with cancer. At this moment, with his mother back in the hospital, you would think the family's energy should all be focused there. But Redmond is a guy whose brother Griffin was once arrested for chaining him to the banister to keep him from leaving the house to buy drugs. And of course, sister Tatum's struggles with addiction are well-known, as are those of patriarch Ryan. So maybe there is something to that theory that there is an "addiction gene." But is there one for simple stupidity? Redmond (who admittedly has one of the perkier mugshots of the O'Neal clan) was arrested for heroin possession on Sunday, as he was going INTO the LA County Jail to visit an inmate.

Really, how stupid do you have to be, to walk into a police station carrying heroin?

TV Droppings: An embarrassing secret

Ever hear of a television series called Sports Night? Not me. I don't think I was ever aware of the thing during its very short run. Why the hell would I watch something called Sports Night?

Somehow, I have now stumbled upon it, and am loving it. The two season series from a decade ago is now available on DVD, and all six discs are at the top of my Netflix Queue. At the time, Robert Guillaume was the biggest star involved, but since then, Peter Krause went on to Six Feet Under, Joshua Malina went on to The West Wing, and the fabulous Felicity Huffman went on to Desperate Housewives. Oh, and the creator and head honcho of the series was Aaron Sorkin.

Yes, I'm reserving the top spots at Netflix, the rental company devoted to movies, for a TV program. Of course, I never saw Sports Night in its initial run, so I can be forgiven, right? But here's a dirty little secret: I also waste time watching episodes of television shows which I already saw. St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues clutter up my queue, as I wait impatiently for LA Law, thirtysomething, and the third season of Family to be released on DVD.

Hey, if you think that's strange, get a load of this. I'm also slogging my way through the entire run of...hold on. You're really going to think I'm a loser with this one. Don't tell anybody, but I'm watching, episode by episode, all four years of this little-known series:

I wonder if I have too much time on my hands...

Friday Dance Party: Let's Raise a Glass Together

It's no secret I have a huge respect for those actors who spend their professional lives "in support." Michael Jeter, the star of this week's Dance Party, had such a career. He made a splash in more than a few movies, including a memorable scene as a homeless transvestite in The Fisher King, and had finished several films before his untimely death (both Open Range and Polar Express are dedicated to his memory). But he's surely best remembered for two television roles. Years after guesting in a very small role on Designing Women, the same producers invited him to join the cast of the Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade; playing the shrimpy but enthusiastic math teacher / football coach, he was nominated for three Emmys, winning the award in 1992. (He received subsequent Emmy nominations for guest shots on Chicago Hope and Picket Fences.) Generations of kids recognize him from Sesame Street, playing "Mr. Noodle's Brother, Mr. Noodle." But Jeter had a difficult life, and his struggle with drug and alcohol addiction led him to give up acting for a time. He was working as a legal secretary when the producers of Designing Women hunted him down. His stage career included appearing in the original Off-Broadway production of Caryl Churchill's gender-bending Cloud Nine, directed by Tommy Tune. It was Tune, in fact, who cast Jeter in his most memorable stage role, the impish accountant in Grand Hotel. The following clip features a tremendously exuberant performance which had underlying irony: Jeter's character in Grand Hotel was dying, and Jeter himself was diagnosed with HIV, about which he was bravely public. So, in this clip, a dying man is playing a dying man. But you'd never know it, as Jeter is a fireball. I remember seeing this number on the Tony Awards, and it persuaded me to see Grand Hotel on my next New York visit (in fact, I saw it THREE times; I wrote about seeing the Broadway version here).

Michael Jeter died six years ago this week. His dynamic stage presence is on view in this clip; the audience is clearly responding to his superb physicality (they interrupt the proceedings several times with spontaneous applause); watch as the character swills unaccustomed champagne and gets delightfully tipsy, all in the course of this showstopper: 

Two minutes after performing this heartstopping number live, Michael Jeter was awarded the Tony.

Guiding Light

1937-2009

My buddy Larry Dahlke has mentioned on his blog the passing of ER, after 15 years. He makes an evocative point that, sometimes, the long-time presence of certain things, like TV shows, creates a bit of stability in lives which are otherwise full of change. I couldn't agree more, and echo his sentiment with my own bit of wistfulness regarding the announced passing of the longest running scripted program in television history (it's even in the Guinness Book of World Records), Guiding Light.

This show is so old, it predates television. The soap (by the way, any idea why they're called soap operas? Anyone? It's because, in their infancy, these programs were all sponsored, and even produced, by companies which sold soap. In fact, Guiding Light has always been produced by Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Ivory and Camay, as well as Cheer, Prell, Crest, and Pampers) began life as a 15 minute radio drama in 1937, and remained merely audio for 15 years. The initial premise concerned a paternal reverend who placed a light in his window to let everyone know he was available to guide them. When the show made the jump to television in 1952, the "Guiding Light" became a lighthouse, guiding rudderless characters to safety. The motif of the lighthouse must have been dreamed up by someone who failed geography, as the show takes place in Springfield, Illinois, which is landlocked.

Like every other soap opera, Guiding Light has been a training ground for scores of folks who went on to more high-profile careers, such as Calista Flockhart, Cicely Tyson, Taye Diggs, and Hayden Panettiere. Allison Janey, Kevin Bacon, and James Earl Jones all spent time on the show, which was also home to the actress whom TVGuide claims to be the best actress ever to work in daytime, Beverlee McKinsey. I would not dispute that claim, and reinforced it when I wrote of McKinsey's death last year.

But I have two personal reasons for keeping Guiding Light on my radar. My old college cohort Bob Newman joined the soap right out of school, cast most certainly for his hunky good looks more than his talent, which was pretty raw back then. (Bob played Conrad Birdie to my Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie during our college days. Here he is in a group shot from the show; he's lying in my lap.)

When the show paired Bob with actress Kim Zimmer, who has won multiple Emmy awards for her work, his self-centered young hunk matured into the show's leading man, which he has remained ever since.

For several years, the executive producer of Guiding Light has been a woman named Ellen Wheeler, who is another with whom I have a bit of history. Ellen won a couple of Emmys for her acting on All My Children (playing twins) and Another World (also playing twins), but when I met her, she was in a career slump. There is no other explanation for her being in Los Angeles, directing a stage production of Damn Yankees at Glendale Centre Theatre. She cast me as Applegate in the show, and provided me with the opportunity to play one of my dream roles, after which she moved back to New York and resumed her higher profile career. She became Guiding Light's head honcho several years ago, and was responsible for the decision to film the show digitally. It was a spectacular cost-saving move, but the technique of using hand-held cameras was quite foreign to daytime audiences, and they deserted the show in droves. That decision was the last nail in the coffin for the show, which will be ending its historic 72 year run in September.

When a Working Actor Isn't

It's been less than a month since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern closed, and I am sure I will never work again. This is the ongoing neurosis of the working actor when he is not working. That may seem like an oxymoron, but I do in fact consider myself a working actor, even when I am not working. For you see, when I am not working, I'm still working. I'm working on finding some work. Which, let me assure you, is work. When a working actor is actually working (that is, when a paycheck or other remuneration is involved), the day is pretty straightforward. You wake up, you prepare to go to work, then you go to work. But when a working actor is out of work, he is working very hard to find work. And I have always found that finding work is hard work.

The family has been traveling for a while, and I took the opportunity to return to DC for a bit, just in time for several local EPAs. That's a union acronym for Equity Principle Audition, which is the audition almost all union theatres are required to provide to the local union membership. Some theatres use these auditions to scout out new talent with which they may be unaware (it was, in fact, my attendance at an EPA at the North Carolina Stage Company which led to my recent gig), but many more theatre companies simply slog through the motions in order to fulfill their contractual obligation to the actors' union.

This time of year, the world is lousy with EPAs. Instead of returning immediately to the more sane environs of Asheville, I've decided to hang around DC for a little while and attend some of these general audition calls. On Monday I popped round to the Folger Shakespeare Library to wow them with my speech from Richard III. As usual with these kinds of big calls, the lobby was filled with non-union actors hoping for some no-shows in order to slip into the audition. I had an appointment, so waited only a few minutes before entering the audition chamber. The Folger's casting department, a lovely woman named Beth, has seen my auditions several times over the years, so there was no need for any upfront pleasantries. By coincidence, the gent right before me had also performed a speech from Richard III, playing the hunchback himself, in his most famous soliloquy ("Now is the winter of our discontent...blah blah blah"). My audition was a piece pulled from the Duke of Buckingham, a co-conspirator of R3's, and a role I played quite a while ago in South Carolina.

I have finally become accustomed to the habit most auditors who watch these auditions have, which is to spend more time looking down at your resume, or writing notes, or what-have-you, than actually watching your performance. The habit no longer throws me. This particular audition, however, introduced something new into the mix: a laptop. Instead of writing her notes in longhand, Beth was tapping them out into her computer. tap tap tap. Throughout my audition, tap tap tap. A pause for dramatic effect, tap tap tap. A slow build to the climax of the speech, tap tap tap. I can only hope she was tapping notes. Who knows, perhaps she was twittering...

My EPA last week, for the Granddaddy of Regional Theatres, Arena Stage, was a bit different. Arena has a relatively new caster, a terrifically enthusiastic young guy named Daniel, and he greeted me warmly (I think, but am not sure, that he has seen me in performance somewhere). These were musical auditions, and Arena has surprised everyone by placing The Fantasticks in their upcoming season. (I appeared in a college production Way Back When, and now I'm ripe to play one of those fathers.) I had a fun time singing a little snippet of a comic song, and had a nice chat with the accompanist, who is married to a buddy. This was a nice and pain-free audition.

There are several more EPAs currently scheduled in the DC area in the next week or two, so I'm hanging around to catch them. I'm even learning a new Shakespeare speech for an audition I don't yet have. How's that for optimism? When I'm in DC, popping up to New York is quite easy, and I've submitted myself to be seen by a regional theatre doing A Midsummer Night's Dream next season. I won't hear if I have the audition until right before the day, but I am forging ahead, learning a neat little speech by Peter Quince. Don't remember Peter Quince in Midsummer? It's definitely a supporting role, but I caught Kenneth Branagh playing the part years ago in Los Angeles and saw the potential in the role. I've never seen an actor playing Peter Quince swipe those mechanicals scenes from Bottom, but in that case, it happened. (Branagh's wife at the time, Emma Thompson, was a hoot as Helena.)

It never hurts to have plenty of Shakespeare at one's command, so I don't think learning a new piece will be in vain, even if this NY audition does not come through. I consider it part of my work, to try to be prepared for all contingencies. Sadly, this work, learning new pieces and attending general auditions, is unpaid. So I was pleased to learn that a film I appeared in several years ago had been sold to broadcast television, which has generated some unexpected income for all the actors involved. Today, I received this residual in the mail from Warner Brothers:

Thanks to John Waters's Pecker, I'm four dollars richer than yesterday.