actor61

Yes, but - they MEANT at the end of the day. If was a song about their work ending at the end of the day. So, I give them a pass. Gotcha! Another phrase that should be buried - "give them a pass". Like.

Phrases I just never want to hear again: At the end of the day In terms of How did this impact you? and finally, Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families and friends.

Why remake it? The original was superb, and we all know whodunnit.

I had the great good fortune to be directed by the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly in the 1980s, and the even greater good fortune to count him as a friend. He told us (the cast of the show he was directing) many wonderful stories of the original Hello Dolly and how surprised he, Channing and Eileen Brennan were when they were cast in the leading roles, as they were considered such "quirky" performers. But that was the ultimate charm of the show as originally staged. Charles and Brennan were not your "normal" ingenues, and Channing was eccentric in her performance style to say the least, but their idiosyncracies, personalities, professionalism and talent made what is a rather ordinary musical into something very special. But the ultimate success and enduring popularity of Hello Dolly lies in Gower Champion's ingenious direction and choreography. Even fully "reconceived" productions of the show cannot escape his legacy.

Oh how I wish I had the nerve to do that!!

Yossi and Jagger is one of the most moving films I've seen in a long, long time. It stayed with me for a long time, just like Moonlight did.

I ride the Chicago "L" every day and witness non sexual man and woman spreading on every trip. Women tend to sit in one seat, put their purse on the one next to them and if they have a shopping bag and a third seat is free, then they deposit it there. Then, they pull out their cell phones and plug in their headsets so that they can ignore any comments or looks they might receive. And it's usually younger woman who do this. I have been on trains so crowded that you can barely move and still they won't relinquish the 2 seats occupied by their bags. Man spreading is usually a sprawl. The guy slumps down in his seat, spreads his legs, then drapes his arm(s) over adjoining seats. If he has a backpack, that gets deposited on the empty seat next to him but for the most part, it's the full body sprawl that prevents you from taking the seat next to him. I like the signs posted on the trains that say, "Did your purse buy a ticket?" that everybody ignores.

My Beautiful Laundrette is wonderful. It was the first gay film I ever saw in which the gay people were not stereotypes or objects of derision and that made me cry in the dark. When Daniel Day Lewis pushed the Indian guy (can't remember his name - sorry) up against the wall and started making out with him, I almost fainted. What a moment. No one has mentioned In and Out. It's a horrible movie with some truly funny bits. Matt Dillon and Joan Cusack are wonderfully funny, and Debbie Reynolds is a precious hoot. Kline and Selleck are fine, I guess, but I just didn't buy either one of them.

The Boathouse Scene. Sigh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p0wzNZTa6g

The last scene of Maurice when he and Rupert Graves finally find each other in the boathouse is one of the most erotic and romantic gay scenes ever filmed and has become my happy place! I go there whenever I think romance has died.

When I was a kid, the old Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies were shown on t.v. every Saturday night. He was the most perfect man I'd ever seen until Johnny Sheffield as Boy grew up and got his own series of films. Holy shit! That boy had it all - deep voice, amazing body, and the most beautiful thighs I've ever seen on a man.

W We actually had a party when she left!! Not a nice lady.

Oh the stories I could tell about Betty Bacall!!!!!!

Yes. She was. There were quite a few up and comers in that company who later became stalwarts of British musical theatre, Paul Nicholas being one of them. Jeremy Irons and David Essex were doing Godspell around that time too, both of them unknown but not for long.

Iwas in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at the Palace in London. So glad it's on your list! Magical professional experience.

I love this thread! I moved to Los Angeles from London in 1977 and saw some of the productions quoted above. I had seen The Beaux Stratagem at the Old Vic in London but thought the L.A. production was somehow better; maybe because Maggie Smith by then was world famous and people were so happy to see her being so funny, and she seemed very relaxed. The Crucible with Heston was horrendous. I also saw him do A Man for All Seasons and Long Day's Journey Into Night. I just always thought he was terrible in everything he did. Streetcar with Dunaway and Voight was very odd. She was so over-the-top that I lost interest, and he was far too cerebral. You mentioned seeing musicals in their pre-Broadway tryouts and I saw a lot of those too. They're Playing Our Song was at the Ahmanson prior to moving to New York and it was delightful with Lucie Arnaz and Robert Klein. Evita at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was thrilling and everybody knew it was going to be a huge hit. Raul Esparza and Brooke Shields did a musical version of a Steve Martin film about a huckster preacher that was so horrible I can't remember the name. They replaced her and took the show to New York but it still flopped - deservedly. I also saw the pre Broadway tryout of Nine to Five at the Ahmanson with Alison Janney in the Jane Fonda role. The night I was there, Dolly Parton was in the audience taking notes. I mentioned seeing the musical version of Gone With the Wind in London and there was a production of it at the Dorothy Chandler with Leslie Ann Warren as Scarlett that closed in L.A. It was as dreadful as the London production had been. I liked Night of the Iguana quite a bit and think Chamberlain can be quite splendid in the right roles. I have also seen him in Cyrano, The Sound of Music, and he was excellent as the malevolent father in a production of The Heiress at the Pasadena Playhouse a few years ago. The Geffen Theatre used to be called the Westwood Playhouse and they did some very interesting things. I worked there when it was still the Westwood and it was a jewel box of a theatre. I saw David Hyde Pierce and Uta Hagen in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks there (did I get that right?). Lousy play but they were magnificent together. Streamers had Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, Pat Hingle and Ralph Meeker and was chilling and powerful. Annette Benning did Hedda Gabler there and was lovely but badly directed. One of the best performances I have ever seen on a stage was given by Laurie Metcalfe as the mother in All My Sons at the Geffen with Len Cariou and Neil Patrick Harris. Speaking of Richard Chamberlain, he and Brooke Shields did a stage version of The Exorcist at the Geffen that was pretty awful. While the Westwood was undergoing its transformation into the Geffen Playhouse, they used a theatre near the Veterans Hospital and that's where I saw a superb production of Take Me Out with Jeremy Sisto. The Pasadena Playhouse can be interesting but it's hit or miss. They tend do do "star casting" and some of the stars just shouldn't have been offered contracts. Chamberlain was good in the aforementioned production of The Heiress but the soap opera star, Heather Toms, who played Catherine was really bad. They did a terrible production of The Glass Menagerie with Susan Sullivan as Amanda. The apartment looked like it had been done by Design on a Dime - all shabby chic - and Sullivan didn't have a hair out of place. They did a revival of Camelot as a sort of chamber production; no ensemble, and 3 major characters - King Pellinore, Merlin and Morgan Le Fey - were cut. Guinevere and Lancelot had a nude scene at the end of Act One. I'm still shuddering. I quite liked 110 In the Shade there with Marin Mazzie. She was far too pretty for the role but she sang the hell out of it. There was a superb performance by the man who played her oldest brother, and the rain at the end of the show was very moving in an odd way. Los Angeles is a bit of a theatrical wasteland. Apart from the major Equity houses, which don't hire many local actors, there is the dreaded Equity waiver scene, which is undergoing a major overhaul of its policies by the union at the moment. A lot of the theatres are hole-in-the-wall venues that seat under 100 (which means salaries and union conditions are waived) and a lot of them are dues paying companies. I made the mistake of joining one of them out of a desire to do anything in between Equity paying gigs and paid $85 a month for the privilege of maybe being cast in something. That being said, I have seen some really wonderful stuff in Equity waiver houses but usually they were wonderful because of the acting and not any production values. For example, I saw a production of Shakespeare's Henry IV at the Banshee that was done on a tiny stage without sets and was stunning and the Colony in Burbank (before it went Equity) did some very good stuff too but the majority of the non-Union, actor subsidized productions was crap.

I would love to read whatever you can recall of TAKE ME ALONG. Jackie Gleason got a Tony for it and I've heard the score but have never seen a production. Also, was Elizabeth Ashley as special as everyone claims when she became a star in TAKE HER SHE'S MINE?

My young niece who is in drama school is coming for a visit, and so I'm getting out old programs and playbills to share with her as one of her subjects is Theatre History and she wants to do some research. I'm 64 and trained for the theatre in London from 1970 to 1972, then embarked on a long and really fascinating career all over the world. The theatre in London was cheap in those days and on nights when I didn't have rehearsals at school, I bolted for the West End to see anything and everything. You could sit in the second balcony (Upper Circle) for 50 pence and with a good pair of opera glasses or binoculars, you didn't miss a thing. The National Theatre was still at the Old Vic as their new facility on the South Bank hadn't yet opened, and the Young Vic was at a smaller theatre also in Waterloo, as I remember. The Royal Shakespare Company played fall and winter seasons at the Aldwych, and they also did performances at a converted train station called the Roundhouse. A lot of the National's and RSC's productions transferred to the West End, so I saw various things by them at the New and Wyndham's. Here's a list of some of the remarkable things I saw. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT at the New Theatre with Laurence Olivier, Constance Cumming, Ronald Pickup and Dennis Quilly. Unforgettable THE BEAUX STRATAGEM at the Old Vic with Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens. TWELFTH NIGHT at the Aldwych with Judi Dench, Donald Sinden and Michael Williams Peter Brook's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at the Aldwych with, among others, Ben Kingsley ROMEO & JULIET at the Young Vic TAMING OF THE SHREW at the Young Vic with Jim Dale THE MAIDS at the Young Vic with an all male cast including Nicki Henson JUMPERS at the Old Vic with Michael Hordern and Diana Rigg COMPANY at Her Majesty's with the B'way cast, including Larry Kert and Elaine Stritch FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at Her Majesty's with Alfie Bass and then Lex Gouldsmit VIVAT, VIVAT REGINA with Eileen Atkins and Sarah Miles CHARLEY'S AUNT with Tom Courtenay SHOWBOAT with Cleo Laine as Julie WHEN THOU ART KING - Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V in one evening at the Roundhouse with Michael Williams PETER PAN with Dorothy Tutin at the Coliseum TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, Bejart ballet with Jorge Donn and Suzanne Farrell at Sadlers Wells A BEQUEST TO THE NATION at the Haymarket with Zoe Caldwell A VOYAGE AROUND MY FATHER at the Haymarket with Alec Guiness and then Michael Redgrave MAN IS MAN at the Royal Court with Georgia Brown PROMISES, PROMISES at the Prince of Wales with Tony Roberts and Betty Buckley HOME with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud LLOYD GEORGE KNEW MY FATHER at the Savoy with Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft CHILD'S PLAY at the Globe (now the Gielgud, I think) HEDDA GABLER with Maggie Smith directed by Ingmar Bergman at the Old Vic BUTLEY with Richard Briers HAIR at the Shafstbury JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at the Palace ABELARD AND HELOISE with Keith Michell and Diana Rigg at the New GONE WITH THE WIND, the Musical (I'm not kidding!) at the Drury Lane with Harve Presnell as Rhett, June Ritchie as Scarlett and Bessie Love as Aunt Pittypat I'd love to hear from others on their theatregoing experiences, especially Broadway, as I spent so much of my career in Europe and didn't see a lot of the very famous B'way shows unless they transferred overseas.

As I wrote earlier, I was also a big fan of Ina's but she just got way too precious for me. Her lifestyle is so out of reach for most of us watching the show that it became somewhat surreal. As for Tyler Florence - yikes! So annoying. He talks way too fast, and looks like he has sipped too much coffee while getting his mis en place in order. But Ann Burrell wins the trophy for most annoying. When she tastes something and then puts on that growly voice to say how good it is, I grab the remote. I adored the Two Fat Ladies. I went to college in London in the 1970s and their recipes and way of doing things just brought back so many wonderful memories when I watched them. I'm a sucker for any stewed fruit dessert with custard on top, and they did a lot of those. I love steak and kidney pies, mashed potatoes with leeks, Bubble and Squeak, fish pies, Yorkshire pudding, and pastry made with lard. I can't eat any of it anymore but it still makes my mouth water when I see old episodes of the Two Fat Ladies, and there's one of them crumbling fat into flour or the other separating eggs through her fingers for a vanilla custard. I'm a fan of Nigella Lawson too. She's a bit of a buxom glamour puss but she's all about the food and really knows her stuff. But most of the American "chefs" on the food shows are about personalities and not recipes. I've never understood Guy Fiere's popularity. The Deen brothers are competent but nothing extraordinary. One of them had a show based in New York where he made healthy versions of his mother's drek but it was still drek, just with less calories. "Chopped", "Iron Chef", and the rest of the competition shows leave me cold. Bobby Flay reminds me of Howdy Doody, and Giada (with whom he is purportedly having an affair) also looks like a puppet - Bride of Chuckie. I have to say that some of her stuff is pretty good but her presentation is smug and irritating. But I'm a fussy curmudgeon and horribly hard to please, so nobody should go by my opinions!

As always, something good gets commercialized and becomes something bad. I'm dreading what Chanel 4 will do with it.

You're absolutely right. I got carried away and became way too vitriolic. My sentiments haven't changed but my choice of words is very poor. Thanks for pointing it out. I'm usually much classier than that! But she just had me hopping mad!!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/playboy-playmate-may-face-jail-time-for-body-shaming-snapchat-post/

Here! Here! I'm mad at myself for allowing the negative comments about my age affect me so. You're absolutely right that we shouldn't apologize for being old and I'm going to embroider that on a pillow! Thank you for the wise words.

A former Playboy Playmate could possibly face jail time for posting a picture of an older naked woman in a gym locker room on Snapchat with a caption to the effect, "I can't unsee this!". Per the news, she has been banned from all L.A. Fitness gyms and charges against her are being considered. This is all so sad. When are we, both gay and straight people, going to stop entitling the very young and super attractive? Ryan Lochte perpetrates a criminal hoax in Rio but is now a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. It's a dubious honor, of course, but he's getting a pass for a shameful act. This bleached blond, silicone breasted bimbo at the gym takes a secret shot of an older lady changing in the locker room and then sends it out as though it were shameful to be old and at the gym, and she's going to get a huge chunk of free publicity even though it's pretty much negative. She thinks being old is shameful. I kind of think hanging your twat out for all to see in the pages of a men's magazine, as she has done, is kind of shameful too, but that's just me. I'm a 64 year old professional dancer, still working. In fact, I open in a major revival of a musical tomorrow night. I take 4 to 5 classes a week. I'm 5'10", 155 pounds and in excellent shape. But I'm still 64 years old. My hair is very gray, I have lines around my mouth, a couple of bags under the eyes, and age spots on my arms and legs. For about the last 10 years, I've stopped taking showers or changing clothes in public locker or dressing rooms because I've seen the looks from the younger dancers, and heard the remarks, most of them along the lines of "People should know when to retire." Or "They should have classes just for the old guys." What I want to say to them is "Are you in a show at the moment? I am." or "Have you danced on Broadway? I've done 6 musicals in new York." or "Got your union card? I've had mine since 1959." But that's pompous, arrogant and mean and I don't want to go there, as tempting as it is! What I would like to say to them and to the bitch who shuddered at the sight of an older woman at the gym is this: You'll be that age someday and no facelift, boob job, botox injection or hair dye will stop the process of time. And it feels like it happens in an instant. One day you're 34, and the next day you're 64. It happens, God willing, to everybody and you should be very grateful that you get the chance to age. And when you do, I hope you can drag your droopy ass and pendulous tits to the gym the way that lady you victimized did. I have an 82 year old friend who hasn't been to a pool or a beach in 20 years because he's ashamed of his aging body. That's what cunts like the Playmate this morning do to people by being so callous about a normal process - they make people feel that they no longer have any right to exist after 40. That somehow a body that is no longer young but that has done its duty - given life, given love, worked, played, been sexual - is now past its sell by date and doesn't have the right to be seen in public. I am irate about this incident. This young woman's face is all over t.v. and the internet at the moment and I want to smack her into Tuesday, as my ancient father used to say. We HAVE to stop this ageism. We were all young once and we'll all be old someday and there is NO SHAME in any of it. I hope that old lady goes to the gym every day, just as I go to dance class, and I hope she continues to change in the locker room. I might even give up my misplaced shame now and start doing the same. I have a fantasy of standing naked in the changing room and saying to the young guys who think I should be invisible, 'Here's your future, fellas. Enjoy."