July 31, 2013

Literary Pick (***)

Middlesex
-by Jeffrey Eugenides

July 30, 2013

RIP

Eileen Brennan, Who Played Flinty Captain in ‘Private Benjamin,’ Dies at 80

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

Eileen Brennan, a smoky-voiced actress who had worked in show business for more than 20 years before gaining her widest attention as a gleefully tough Army captain in both the film and television versions of “Private Benjamin,” died on Sunday at her home in Burbank, Calif. She was 80. 

Her manager, Kim Vasilakis, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying the cause was bladder cancer.
Ms. Brennan had had a solid career on the New York stage and in films like “The Last Picture Show” and “The Sting” when she was cast for the film “Private Benjamin,” a 1980 box-office hit starring Goldie Hawn in the title role.
Ms. Brennan played Capt. Doreen Lewis, the slow-burning commanding officer of a pampered, privileged young woman who joins the Army and finds that she isn’t anybody’s little princess anymore. The performance brought Ms. Brennan an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She reprised the role in 1981 in a CBS sitcom based on the film, with Lorna Patterson in the Goldie Hawn role. The TV performance brought Ms. Brennan the Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a comedy, variety or music series. She was nominated for a total of seven Emmys in her career.
But she was forced to leave “Private Benjamin” the following October, when she was hit by a car and critically injured in Venice, Calif. Without her, the series died.
While recovering Ms. Brennan became addicted to pain medication and underwent treatment and later developed breast cancer.
She returned to television in 1985 in a new sitcom, “Off the Rack,” with Edward Asner, but the show lasted only six weeks. Afterward she made guest appearances on other shows. But she never recaptured the attention she had known in the past — as the toast of Off Broadway in “Little Mary Sunshine,” as a film actress in the 1970s, and as an honored comedy star just before her accident.
Verla Eileen Regina Brennan was born on Sept. 3, 1932, and grew up in Los Angeles, the daughter of a newspaper reporter who also worked in sales and a former actress. Later in life, dealing with her own alcohol dependency, she talked about the alcoholism in her family when she was a child.
After attending Georgetown University in Washington, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, did summer stock and worked as a singing waitress.
Her first big role was the title character in Rick Besoyan’s “Little Mary Sunshine,” a 1959 operetta parody that played at the Orpheum Theater in lower Manhattan. She won an Obie Award for her portrayal of the show’s spunky, fluttery-eyed heroine. A year later she complained to The New York Times that she had been “hopelessly typecast as that kookie girl.”
Perhaps to prove otherwise, she promptly starred in the national tour of “The Miracle Worker,” as Helen Keller’s gravely serious teacher, Annie Sullivan.
Ms. Brennan made her Broadway debut in 1963 playing, to positive reviews, Anna in a City Center revival of “The King and I.” In 1964 she was cast as Irene Molloy, the young widow, in the original Broadway production of “Hello, Dolly!,” with Carol Channing.
Among later stage performances, she appeared in John Ford Noonan’s “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking,” a critically praised 1980 two-woman show with Susan Sarandon, and Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Cripple of Inishmaan” (1998), in which she played an alcoholic Irishwoman.
Ms. Brennan made her television debut in “The Star Wagon,” a 1966 PBS special, based on Maxwell Anderson’s play about a man who invented a time machine. Her film debut came a year later, in “Divorce American Style,” a comedy about suburban marriage, starring Debbie Reynolds and Dick Van Dyke.
After a brief stint as an original cast member, along with Ms. Hawn, of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” the 1960s sketch-comedy series, she did her first picture for the director Peter Bogdanovich playing a world-weary Texas waitress in “The Last Picture Show” (1971).
Mr. Bogdanovich cast her again in “Daisy Miller” (1974), as a society hostess, and in “At Long Last Love” (1975), as a singing maid.
Ms. Brennan played a madam with a heart of gold in the Oscar-winning 1973 film “The Sting” and appeared in two comedy-noir films written by Neil Simon, “Murder by Death” (1976) and “The Cheap Detective” (1978).
In later years, she appeared in “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” (2005), as William Shatner’s mother (despite being a year younger than Mr. Shatner). But she was most visible on television, doing guest appearances on a variety of series.
In addition to her Emmy, she received six Emmy nominations. Two were for “Private Benjamin.” The others were for her work in “Taxi,” “Newhart,” “Thirtysomething” and “Will & Grace,” in which she had a recurring role as Sean Hayes’s formidable acting teacher.
Throughout her career she talked openly about addiction. “It’s so horrible and it can be so disastrous, yet there’s something about the sensitivity of the human being that has to face it,” she said in a 1996 interview. “We’re very sensitive people with a lot of introspection, and you get saved or you don’t get saved.”
Ms. Brennan was married from 1968 to 1974 to David John Lampson, an aspiring actor at the time. They had two sons, Patrick and Sam, who survive her, along with a sister, Kathleen Howard, and two grandchildren.

 -NYT

July 26, 2013

News

Royal Baby: Duchess of Cambridge Gives Birth to a Son 

 












LONDON—Britain's likely future king—and a certified instant celebrity—arrived here on Monday when the Duchess of Cambridge, better known as the former Kate Middleton, gave birth to a boy.
The birth culminates a royal-baby frenzy that began with the announcement of the pregnancy last year by the Duchess and her husband, Prince William, both 31 years old and the standard-bearers for a younger generation of British royals.
The new arrival immediately changes the line of succession to the British throne, which has been occupied by the new arrival's 87-year-old great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, for six decades.
As the first child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge the new royal begins life third in line to the throne—behind only Prince William, who is second in line, and his father, Prince Charles, who is first. 
The pregnancy has drawn massive global interest focused on everything from the size of the duchess's baby bump—meticulously chronicled by Britain's paparazzi—to the mother-to-be's fashion choices.
The fevered anticipation intensified as the birth neared; in recent days, media crews camped outside the London hospital where the baby was expected to be delivered.
The most intense speculation focused on the baby's sex—which the parents chose not to learn—and possible names, on which betting parlors have been taking wagers.
The favorite on Monday evening was at betting parlor Paddy Power PLS.DB -1.99% PLC was Alexandra, at 11-to-4, followed by George at 6-to1.
Some questions were answered on Monday, when the royal family announced the couple had greeted an 8 lb., 6 oz. boy. No name was announced, but the new arrival will be formally known as His Royal Highness the Prince of Cambridge.
The Duchess chose to have her baby at central London's St. Mary's Hospital, where Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William and his brother, Prince Harry.
She had arrived there, in the early stages of labor, shortly before 6 a.m. on Monday.
The hubbub around the royal baby turned St. Mary's into London's newest tourist attraction, as sightseers joined the multiplying media pack on what weather forecasters said was the hottest day of the year in London.
"We are here in London for fun, visiting friends, going to a wedding and we were training it out of Paddington this morning, which is just around the corner, said Allison Witt, a tourist from Texas. "So we thought we'd get a few pictures and witness it firsthand."
Some of the gawkers have been at the site for days, camped out alongside the reporters.
Maria Scott, who has been staying in a tent near the hospital with her 13-year-old daughter since Saturday, said the atmosphere Monday morning was "electric" when word arrived that the Duchess was in labor.
Security at the hospital increased in recent days as the media pack grew. Hospital officials on Monday beseeched the throng to keep a pathway clear for nonroyal patients to enter the hospital, and some workers grumbled about the difficulty of getting to their jobs.
In the past, the line of succession would have been different for a royal baby girl. Previously, any daughter born to the couple wouldn't have enjoyed an equal right to inherit the British throne. The crown would have passed to the eldest son, only going to a daughter if there were no boys.
But under a new law, which applies to any baby born after October 2011, the first-born child is the heir apparent regardless of gender.
The huge attention focused on the photogenic Duke and Duchess and their new child reflects a transition to a younger generation of Britain's royal family. Still, it will likely be quite a while before the new addition to the family takes up the crown.
Sixty-four-year-old Prince Charles has waited decades for a chance to be king, parked in line behind his mother and her historic 61-year reign, which has weathered sweeping social transformation in the U.K., big swings in the family's popularity and the end of Britain's global empire.
Unlike in the Netherlands, where 75-year-old Queen Beatrix recently abdicated in favor of her son, there has been no suggestion that the British monarch will step down.
But the Queen has recently begun scaling back her vigorous public duties and limiting her long-haul travel, which leaves a potentially greater role for her son and grandchildren.
The royal family is currently enjoying a high degree of public support, boosted by the feel-good factor of the Duke and Duchess's wedding in 2011 and the arrival of their first child.
The Queen had a 90% approval rating around the time of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June 2012, according to a survey by pollsters Ipsos Mori. That marked the highest levels of satisfaction with the monarch since 1992, when Ipsos Mori started asking the question.
The Jubilee reminded people that the Queen has dedicated her life to public service, said Vernon Bogdanor, a leading expert on the British constitution and a research professor at Kings College London.
"Not that she hasn't put a foot wrong,…but she reflects what [British] people would like to be: good humored, good natured, doing what she has to do without complaint." 

The public hasn't always been so positive about the royal family.
The House of Windsor's brand suffered damage in the late 1990s following the bitter divorce of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer and the subsequent car crash that killed the Princess of Wales. The couple's public bickering had revealed the royal family's inner turmoil.
And, the Queen's seemingly chilly initial response to Diana's death, along with the scandal-ridden divorce of another son, Prince Andrew, from Sarah Ferguson, compounded the problems.
But royals have managed to largely recover, thanks to a carefully crafted public-relations plan, some judicious trims to its spending and the help of the popular Duke and Duchess, who has been frequently photographed throughout her pregnancy sporting an array of elegant outfits spanning high-street retailers and designer outlets.
But the family continues to find itself embroiled in scandal from time to time. And, it still finds itself the subject of seedier tabloid interest, from Prince Harry's naked romp in Las Vegas to the publication of topless photos of the duchess. 
One area that continues to rankle the public is cost. Amid national austerity, the royals must balance the demands for frugality from the British taxpayer while also maintaining the pomp and ceremony expected of a 300-year old dynasty, which also serves as a tourism attraction for the U.K. The royal household's income comes mainly from a government grant, which was £33.3 million ($50.8 million) for 2012-13.
The new prince is expected to be christened; as future king, he would be the head of the Church of England.
There is a long tradition of using the royal christening gown, the Lily Font—which is a 19th century silver vessel—and consecrated water from the Jordan River. While royal christening venues can vary, Prince William was christened in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

WSJ

July 21, 2013

Art of the Day

Kiki de Montparnasse  
-by Pablo Gargallo (1881-1934) 
















July 19, 2013

Honor Spotlight

Kathrine Switzer


































In 1967, five years before women were officially allowed to compete,
Kathrine Switzerwas the first woman to enter and complete the Boston
Marathon as a numbered entry.  She registered under the gender-neutral
name of “K.V. Switzer”.

After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” however, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire Marathon.
These photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and in
1974 Kathrine later went on to win the NYC marathon with a time of
3:07:29.


-Republic Of You

July 15, 2013

Art of the Day

Rembrandt van Rijn - Self-Portrait (1659) detail





















Born: July 15, 1606
Died: October 4, 1669