dirac

I've never seen this show, so I appreciate the reviews. Thanks for posting the topic, perky. Any other thoughts?

Thanks for posting that, Lynette. That might indeed be a challenging production to film.

As miliosr said, in this area Martins really is between a rock and a hard place. Flack’s criticisms seemed a bit confused, to say the least. That is right. Despite what Flack seems to regard as heartless treatment, had she been working for Edward Villella, who runs a smaller organization, she would have been biting her nails for days while waiting for a letter in the mail. Thousands of people have been laid off from their jobs recently. Not only is it usually a brutally impersonal process but often as not, security guards are involved. It also seems, as abatt observes, that the writing was already on the wall and Flack was unable or unwilling to read it. At least she’s young enough to put her life back together. Many are not so fortunate. That said, it’s unusual and very interesting to read such a candid interview from any current or former dancer, from NYCB or any other company. It’s too bad the grapes are so obviously sour, from what appears to be a combination of anger and naivete, but I know several people who’ve been laid off recently and Flack’s emotions and tone are familiar.

You are right about the music videos, and in addition to his crossover power in other departments Jackson was the first African American to gain a crossover audience on MTV – in fact, given his innovations in video, MTV probably owes its success as much to Jackson as any other performer. Without Elvis, it's possible rock wouldn't exist. It is certainly true that the fragmentation of the pop scene had accelerated by the Eighties. MTV was actually reluctant to run Jackson's videos because he wasn't perceived as a "rock" star.

I'll have to take a look, they don't rerun the last seasons on cable. I could very well be too hard on Shelley Hack (although she didn't do much for Night Court, either) and you are right that she was scapegoated - the series was heading downhill anyway. Don't forget Streep as the Southern lawyer who leads Alan Alda astray in The Seduction of Joe Tynan, SimonG. I really liked her rabbi in Angels in America, too. Jackson had bad luck. I also liked Lindsay Wagner aka the Bionic Woman and thought she could have made it bigger than she did.

Right. Ballet is perceived as unmanly not because it is seen as non-athletic or easy but because it is commonly identified with women, the inferior sex. It is something girls do. The qualities of ballet in the popular mind (in the US, anyway) – grace, beauty, delicacy, – are traditionally associated with femininity.

This isn’t a review of an ordinary performance, though. Isherwood was reporting as much on the broadcast itself as the play, which makes sense considering that this is the National’s first try at transmission. If people have trouble getting in to the point where ticketholders got mad, it's worth telling readers about. (Isherwood also notes that the play was reviewed previously in the NYT by Brantley.) Thanks for the link, kfw.

You can’t say for certain in such situations, but although I like Jackson a lot I don’t think the role would necessarily have done for her what it did for Streep. Jackson did get another shot with Making Love, which sank like a stone, along with any future Jackson might have had in feature films. (ML also featured two other actors who did better in television, Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean. We have an existing thread on the movie here, if anyone is interested.) It was certainly shortsighted of the CA producers not to be more flexible -- Jackson had no choice except to leave the show or spend the rest of her career wondering what if. Probably Spelling miscalculated, figuring that if the show could do well without Fawcett-Majors it could survive the loss of Jackson, too.

In view of what appears to be widespread confusion I have altered the title of the thread. Yes, why not. It's summertime. I think Hack and Roberts just weren't up to the established Angels standard in looks and general appeal, which in retrospect was reasonably high.

sidwich wasn’t saying that Jackson was the first black performer with real crossover appeal, just as Jordan was not the first black athlete with crossover appeal. It’s a matter of scale, reach, and how a star is perceived in the eyes of the public, all of which do make a difference when you’re talking about stardom at this level. Thanks, cygnet. I never saw him live. Would be interested to hear more from anyone who did.

Kind of like Chevy Chase leaving SNL. Sabrina's really the heart of the show - it just wasn't as obvious at the time. I loved looking at Jaclyn Smith, not much of an actress but so gorgeous! and a more refined presence than Fawcett or Ladd, as perky says. And of course, we have a new trio of big screen Angels today.

They never achieved stardom on Jackson’s scale. Like Michael Jordan in sports he appealed to whites and blacks in equal measure, achieving a mass audience reach not previously accomplished by an African American, as sidwich notes. Elvis’ influence goes well beyond that, though. The landscape of the pop scene would look different without Jackson, but he never dominated it to the degree Presley did. Elvis didn’t have to be a songwriter (and it was hardly necessary with Leiber-Stoller around). As badly off as Elvis was he never seems to have quite reached Jackson’s depths. I suspect there was something wrong with Jackson apart from death by superstardom.

Well put, Ray.

This is great, volcanohunter. Thanks for the heads up.

My impression is that he was primarily a singer and dancer. I liked his singles and bought copies of Off the Wall and Thriller back in the day but was not otherwise a big fan so my knowledge is not deep. Perhaps someone who knows more will have something to add. He spent the rest of his life trying to duplicate the success of Thriller to no avail and started repeating himself. He was an exceptionally gifted mover but I'd be hard put to call him a great dancer. He has been compared to Elvis but he didn't have as comprehensive an influence. Eventually his fame turned to notoriety and possibly criminal behavior and that's how matters ended. A canny businessman, though, cleverly buying up song catalogues like those of The Beatles at bargain prices, and only ran into debt because of his extravagance.

Terry Teachout writes on Cunningham's decision and dance preservation issues in The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405...3609302846.html

Her “serious” work was okay but nothing to write home about. A lot of actors could do a better job of playing battered wives and rape victims, but probably none of them have the beauty and dazzle to send a great nation bananas by posing in a swimsuit. The backstory of The Poster here, from the photographer. Nice article:

Thanks, Farrell Fan. I hope he's still working on it, too.

I guess I don't see any area of 'disagreement' here. :blush: I was not, in fact, disagreeing initially. I didn't say that a memoir was the same as a bio, or that the two fulfill the same purpose. The two do share in common, as I said, the shaping of a narrative out of a life, which requires the writer(s) to make decisions about what gets in and what stays out. A biographer takes a different view and presumably a more objective one (not always the case; some biographers take the role of advocate -or prosecutor). Nowhere did I say that Tallchief's memoir rendered a biography unnecessary, only that hers was more forthcoming than others I've read. I trust this clarifies things. You should try Alexandra's bio of Kronstam, if you haven't already, leonid. I think you'd really like her approach.

Agreed on all counts, miliosr.

I don't think we can hold all of the bad things against him, sandik. I've read some really ghastly stories about the way Jackson was treated by his family as a child. A marvelous talent. I hope all goes well for his children.

I get a kick out of you, Simon.

Well, it is about her in a way. Balanchine’s last ballerina and a keystone of the company is taking her leave of the stage, and that’s a significant event in ballet as well as for Kistler personally. She looked very good in that broadcast, I thought. When it’s very late in the game dancers have major ups and downs, of course – there’ll be encouraging nights when everything seems okay and others that come apart at the seams.

Wow--what a Freudian slip---- In a sense, the poor girl did marry Tudor (it was Hugh Laing she married). Thank you, atm711. What a slip! It does appear that the whole business was some kind of strange menage a trois. I understand, Ray. A bio is always welcome alongside a memoir. I just thought that Tallchief's was actually more forthright than many others. I would suggest, though, that the fact of a book's being ghostwritten is less important than whether or not the ghostwriter has done his job. The goal of a ghostwriter is to make the voice of the memoirist more clear, not less so, and to help the person produce a well structured and publishable narrative, which most non-writers cannot do for themselves in the same way most people can't argue for themselves in court -- it's a different skill altogether.

Thanks for commenting, all. It's true that back when the Academy used to nominate many more movies, but that was under very different circumstances. 1939 was a banner year in a time when Hollywood made more pictures than they do now, in terms of sheer numbers, and it's atypical. As the article notes, the impetus behind the decision was the fact that a big comic book hit with serious pretensions, The Dark Knight, got left out. It has been a big studio beef that big moneymaking pictures don't get nominated. The motive is not necessarily to include better movies, in other words, but more successful ones, and to increase marketing opportunities and expand the Oscar audience. We'll see how it turns out. I agree, the Golden Globes show is a good one but as rewards for merit they're not considered to be worth much, because everyone and his brother gets a nomination and votes are more or less bought and sold. I'm inclined to agree with Helene, the voters are unlikely to watch all ten, especially if they already have an idea of whether they'll like the picture or not. More clips to sit through on Oscar night. Oh, dear.