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Paul Newman health situation… updated

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

Very sad news…one of the English papers is reporting that Paul Newman may be near death, from lung cancer.

I have known for about a year that he was ill, as his wife Joanne Woodward began curtailing various activities to stay close to his side. He has been treated for cancer here in NYC.

Joanne Woodward, as you may know, is a die-hard Nelson Eddy fan. She saw Naughty Marietta about 15-17 times and loves to tell the story about how she met Nelson at a restaurant after she won her Best Actress Oscar for Three Faces of Eve. She went over to him and gushed how much she enjoyed his films, how many times she’d seen Naughty Marietta, etc. – to Nelson’s amazement. Woodward said her hubby was amused and tolerant of “the other man” in her life.

When I first met her a few years back, I gave her one of our Nelson Eddy Centennial tote bags … filled with a few items I thought she might like. She was giving one of her wonderful film screening afternoons – a tribute to Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. She spoke to the audience and with tears in her eyes, said it was one of the most wonderful gifts she had ever gotten. And that when she got home with the tote bag Paul Newman had taken it from her and looked at its contents, laughing at how she still adored Nelson Eddy after all these years.

Like many of you women whose long-suffering husbands have been tolerant of your “addiction” to Nelson Eddy – well, it was amazing to know that Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman had a similar scene at home! (Movie stars…they’re just like us!)

I have always found Ms. Woodward to be a gracious and kind lady, with a sense of humor, honesty and courage in speaking out about the Jeanette MacDonald–Nelson Eddy romance even when it wasn’t the politically correct topic of discussion. I have met several people who know the Newmans, or have worked with them, and they only have laudatory things to say about them – especially how they’ve used their fame and money to help others.

My heart goes out to them.

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Update: Martha Stewart posted several pictures of herself taken with Paul Newman at one of his charity events last weekend.

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“Star Trek” composer based TV show’s theme song on Jeanette MacDonald’s “Beyond the Blue Horizon”

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Alexander “Sandy” Courage, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated arranger, orchestrator and composer who created the otherworldly theme for the classic “Star Trek” TV show, has died. He was 88.

Courage died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, his stepdaughter Renata Pompelli of Los Angeles, said Thursday. He had been in poor health for three years.

Over a decades-long career, Courage collaborated on dozens of movies and orchestrated some of the greatest musicals of the 1950s and 1960s, including “My Fair Lady,” “Hello, Dolly!” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Gigi,” “Porgy and Bess” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

But his most famous work is undoubtedly the “Star Trek” theme, which he composed, arranged and conducted in a week in 1965.

“I have to confess to the world that I am not a science fiction fan,” Courage said in an interview for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation’s Archive of American Television in 2000. “Never have been. I think it’s just marvelous malarkey. … So you write some, you hope, marvelous malarkey music that goes with it.”

Courage said the tune, with its ringing fanfare, eerie soprano part and swooping orchestration, was inspired by an arrangement of the song “Beyond the Blue Horizon” he heard as a youngster. [Note: Jeanette MacDonald introduced it in “Monte Carlo” (1930) and sang it again in “Follow the Boys” (1943).]

“Little did I know when I wrote that first A-flat for the flute that it was going to go down in history, somehow,” Courage said. “It’s a very strange feeling.”

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A 21-year old movie fan in Estonia writes about Ernst Lubitsch

…I was shocked to learn yesterday,that in association with the German embassy in Estonia, there is a huge tribute to Ernst Lubitsch’s films in the middle of the Pöff film festival in Tallinn…

I don’t know whether I was more shocked about the fact that I was missing it,because it was into  it’s third day, so it was too,too late for me to even comprehend the event-after all,I’m a devotee of the master with ‘the touch’ and would kill to see his works on the big screen-,or because of the fact somebody actually had the guts to come out with classic films in the middle of that god-forsaken hipster event!

And not only that,but Estonia is probably the last place on earth they show classic films anyway. Anything produced before the late 60’s is a taboo around here. I say,thank god for cable TV with it’s shabby European TCM schedule and the Internet,because these are the only sources for classic movies around here.

Even getting DVDs  is a pain-unless you’re willing to pay about 769860886780 crowns to buy off Amazon or Ebay and don’t forget to add the shipping prices!

Not to mention-people couldn’t care less.There isn’t even a small fan-base for those movies.Whereas in Russia or Latvia,or probably every other ex-soviet country, there are large vintage communities of all sorts,delighting in the movies and music of the past.

Anyway,the Lubitsch retrospective is a big break.I’m sad I will miss it,and wish I would have found out earlier,because I haven’t seen more than a few of the movies that are scheduled, but I’ll live through it.

….I love Lubitsch,really I do.There was this man who had the divine ability to mix rather low-brow humor with sparkling sophistication,and he did it ever so effortlessly.His ‘Trouble In Paradise’ and ‘Design for  Living’  are amongst my ALL TIME favourite comedies and I quite enjoy the insane opperettas and Weimar silents he directed.In fact,I love every single movie of his, I’ve seen so far. And he was also a fascinating man in other ways-one of the few ‘darling ‘ directors in Hollywood and genuinely good-natured and witty.

In conclusion: it’s good that his work gets attention around here, but  I doubt many people will care and…ah…who are we kidding…I’m actually damn mad at myself, I didn’t hear about the event about two weeks ago or so.

…Lubitsch seized upon the advent of talkies to direct musicals. With his first sound film, The Love Parade (1929), starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, Lubitsch hit his stride as a maker of worldly musical comedies (and earned himself another Oscar nomination). The Love Parade (1929), Monte Carlo (1930), and The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) were hailed by critics as masterpieces of the newly emerging musical genre…. Whether with music, as in MGM’s opulent The Merry Widow (1934) and Paramount’s One Hour with You (1932), or without, as in Design for Living (1933) Lubitsch continued to specialize in comedy. He made only one other dramatic film, the antiwar Broken Lullaby (also known as The Man I Killed, 1932)….

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Nice mention of “Naughty Marietta”

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by Steven Uhles, Augusta Chronicle

It’s rare that there isn’t some princess action happening at my house. I am the father of a 4-year-old, and, like so many children of her gender and age, she has a thing for princesses. For the most part, this manifests itself in the expected Disney ways, with a well-worn copy of Cinderella getting a lot of DVD play. It’s also a current career choice, although in all fairness, it receives stiff competition from dentistry and rock star.

Still, give the girl a tiara, flouncy gown and a ball to wear them to, and she’ll be happy.

So, in honor of the little Princess Uhles, I’d like to present the following list of princess films, nary a one produced by the Mouse House. That would be too easy.

ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953): Although it might be argued that Gregory Peck is playing Cary Grant in this film, there are charm and chemistry between him as an American newsman in Rome and Audrey Hepburn as a princess on the lam.

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940): This special effects spectacular has aged much better than the later Disney version. Sabu stars as the thief; Conrad Veidt chews scenery as the villain Jaffar; and, in the all-important princess role, the rarely seen June Duprez, who retired from film in the late 1940s.

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937): Part swashbuckler, part romantic comedy and part Prince and the Pauper rehash, this immensely enjoyable movie about a prince pretender and the royal to whom he is falsely engaged is the very lightest sort of Saturday matinee treat. Ronald Colman stars as both the real and pretender prince, and the lovely Madeleine Carroll stars as Princess Flavia, who begins to uncover the truth behind the deception.

THE SWAN (1956): MGM celebrated the engagement of Grace Kelly to Monaco’s Prince Rainier by resurrecting an old script about a young princess in love for the soon-to-be-royal actress to star in. This is neither Ms. Kelly’s finest role nor film, but given the historical perspective that surrounds it, it’s a lot of fun.

NAUGHTY MARIETTA (1935): In this Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy vehicle, the princess in question hops a slow boat to New Orleans to escape an undesired marriage. In the Big Easy, she finds herself falling for the mercenary who saved her from pirates. Awkward. In true MacDonald/Eddy fashion, all problems are resolved with the aid of a heartfelt ballad, in this case the classic Sweet Mystery of Life .

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Nelson Eddy mentioned as one of 18 famous people who died onstage…

Would you  die for your career? Many entertainers passed away while doing what they do best. Some died on stage, some on the screen, they ensured their legacy will live on.

“Dimebag” Darryl Abbot – Murdered December 9, 2004 when an overzealous Pantera fan shot him onstage while he was  performing with his new band, Damageplan.
Guiseppe Sinopoli – Died of a heart attack in Berlin while conducting an orchestra in 2001.
Grover Washington, Jr. – Died on the set of “The Saturday Early Show” of a heart attack in 1999.
Mark Sandman – The lead  singer of Morphine had a heart attack and died onstage on July 5, 1999.
Johnny “Guitar” Watson – Had a  heart attack onstage in Yokohama in 1996.
Redd Foxx – Suffered a heart attack while  filming for his sitcom in 1991.
Steve Irwin – “Crocodile  Hunter” who died after getting too close to a stingray while filming in 2006.
Owen Hart – Professional Wrestler who died in a stunt gone wrong in 1999.
Tiny Tim – Had a heart attack and died onstage in Minneapolis in 1996.
Brandon Lee – Died after after a prop gun misfired while filming “The Crow” in 1993.
Jon- Erik Hexum – Died while clowning around on the set of “Cover Up” when he put a prop gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Vic Morrow – Killed along with two children while filming “The Twilight Zone” move in 1982.
Irene Ryan – The former star of the “Beverly Hillbillies” died of a stroke while giving a theater performance in 1973.
Nelson Eddy – Died of a stroke while on stage in Miami in 1967.
Leonard Warren – Died onstage at the Metroplitan Opera House in 1960.
Tyrone Powers – Died while fencing on the set of his movie “Solomon and Sheba” in 1958.
Johnny Ace – A blues singer who lost a game of Russian Roulette onstage in 1954.
Moliere – The  famed French playwright died onstage while performing

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Oh, dear! “Entertainment Weekly” mag mentions Nelson Eddy…in an Adam Sandler movie review!

While I’m usually glad to see the names of Nelson Eddy or Jeanette MacDonald mentioned in the current press, the mention in the movie review for Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” pokes fun at the Mountie image:

(Entertainment Weekly) — Back in his Monty Python days, Michael Palin triumphed as a violence-prone barber who hates cutting hair and dreams of becoming a lumberjack — a lumberjack who dresses in women’s clothing.

Zohan

In “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” Adam Sandler plays an Israeli commando who becomes a New York hairstylist.


The constantly surprising sketch brimmed with anarchic references to “Psycho,” mother-and-son psychology, cross-dressing, 1930s movie musicals featuring manly Nelson Eddy as a crooning Royal Canadian Mountie, British on-the-surface propriety and conservatism, British beneath-the-surface kinkiness, and the increasing presence of sexual content on television in the swinging 1960s — all in a fluid seven minutes…

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Excellent Comparison Between the movies “Maytime” and “Titanic”

Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in Maytime Titanic with Leo and Kate

The Comparisons Between ”MAYTIME” and ”TITANIC”

While watching the 1937 operetta that starred Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy – ”MAYTIME”, I noticed that the story and main characters bore a strong resemblance in story structure to a movie that was released sixty years later . . . namely ”TITANIC”, which starred Leonardo diCaprio and Kate Winslet. Note the following:

Down Memory Lane
*”MAYTIME” starts with the elderly heroine recounting her experiences as an opera singer in Paris of the 1860s to a young couple.

*”TITANIC” starts with the elderly heroine recounting her experiences as a bride-to-be aboard the S.S. Titanic to her granddaughter and a group of treasure seekers.

Box Office
*”MAYTIME” was the box office champ of 1937.

*”TITANIC” was the box office champ of 1997/1998.

The Villain
*The flashback for ”MAYTIME” begins with the heroine – American opera singer Marcia Mornay (Jeanette MacDonald) – in Paris, being accompanied by a possessive mentor Nicolai (John Barrymore).

*The flashback for ”TITANIC” begins with the heroine – American aristocrat Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) – about to board the S.S. Titanic with her possessive fiancé Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) and manipulative mother Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Frances Fisher).

Meeting the Hero
*In ”MAYTIME”, after escaping her mentor’s company, Marcia meets a penniless American singer named Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy) on the streets of Paris. He had been living in Paris for a few years.

*In ”TITANIC”, after escaping her fiancé and mother’s company, Rose tries to commit suicide and eventually meets a penniless American artist named Jack Dawson (Leonardo diCaprio) on one of Titanic’s decks. He had been living in Paris and London for a few years.

The Pleasure of Each Other’s Company
*Marcia and Paul spend an evening singing and dancing at a Paris café with lower-class citizens in ”MAYTIME”.

*Rose and Jack enjoy a night drinking and dancing with the steerage passengers, following a formal dinner in ”TITANIC”.

Jealousy
*Marcia’s mentor, Nicolai, grows increasingly jealous toward Paul in ”MAYTIME”.

*Rose’s finace, Cal, grows increasingly angry and jealous of Rose’s time with Jack in ”TITANIC”

Intimate Bond
*Marcia and Paul share an intimate bond, while performing together on the opera stage, under the jealous eye of Nicolai in ”MAYTIME”

*Rose and Jack share an intimate bond together, while he draws a nude sketch of her. They later make love. A jealous Cal later finds the drawing in ”TITANIC”.

Death of Hero
*Insane with jealousy, Nicolai later shoots and kills Paul in ”MAYTIME”

*A jealous Cal goes beserk and tries to kill both Rose and Jack. The latter eventually freezes to death in the cold North Atlantic Ocean, after the ship’s sinking in ”TITANIC”.

Death of Heroine
*After the elderly Marcia finishes her story, she dies in ”MAYTIME”. The ghost of her younger self meets with Paul’s ghost and they sing together in the afterlife.

*After the elderly Rose finishes her story, she dies in ”TITANIC”. The ghost of her younger self meets with Jack’s ghost, and the ghosts of Titanic’s dead passengers in the afterlife.

Mind you, the plots of both ”MAYTIME” are not exactly like that of ”TITANIC”. But there are some strong similarities in both characterizations and in story structure that makes me wonder if James Cameron had watched the 1937 musical one too many times.

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1940: a 12-year old’s diary excerpt about Nelson Eddy

…”Mr. Tomlinson, our choirmaster at Saint Alban’s, gave me a solo last Sunday. I sang Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze. I don’t like doing solos. I find them embarrassing.

“Mum said I should be proud to have been chosen and wouldn’t I like to be a singer when I grow up, like Nelson Eddy. I told her, “No fear. I want to be a footballer, like Stanley Matthews or Dixie Dean.”

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