Post by dreamer on Apr 12, 2009 15:12:01 GMT -5
Have wanted to add the following articles for some time and kept forgetting them Here goes
Katharine Hepburn - Chanel No.1 by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 1, 1971)
Katharine Hepburn will be in Cleveland for two weeks beginning Jan. 11 at the Music Hall in the musical "Coco." In it it she plays Gabrielle 'COCO' Chanel, the most famous of French designers.
Playing no-nonsense business women is he sort of role that has happened frequently in her career. There is a touch of the no-nonsense about her personally as well.
When the program book for "Coco" was being prepared she wanted no part of sugary prose describing each thing she had ever done as a major hit.
APPENDED TO a chronological list of almost 60 plays and movies in which she has appeared were some very frank marginal notes. If the production received raves she said so. But she also said other things.
"Fired out of town, mixed reviews," she notes for "Art and Mrs. Bottle."
"Lead . . . fired after first night she states for ''The Big Pond."
SOME OF THE OTHER productions and her comments:
"A Bill of Divorcement"-raves.
"Christopher Strong"-mixed.
"The Lake"-Roasted by all . . . bottom of the heap in two and a half hours.
"Sylvia Scarlet"-total disaster.
"Break of Hearts"-bore.
"Mary of Scotland"-roasted.
"Holiday"-mediocre, box office poison, couldn't get job.
"Philadelphia Story"-raves; on tour, raves. And of the movie-raves, nominated.
IN FAIRNESS to Miss Hepburn it should be noted that there were abundant raves, that she is the only actress ever to have won three Academy Awards.
Two of them came in successive years for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Lion in Winter."
Recently completed but not yet released is another film, "The Trojan Women" which was filmed in Spain. Also in that movie-Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold and Irene Papas.
But right now she is on the road in "Coco," the first time since "As You Like It" which was 20 years ago.
Caption under headshot of Hepburn: Miss Hepburn won her third Oscar two years ago as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter."
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm046.shtml
-----------------------
Unfashionable Hepburn here for fashion play by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 8, 1971)
It was less an interview than a conversation and less a conversation than a monologue.
And when you are with Katherine Hepburn, a lady noted for her desire for privacy and for her disinterest in granting interviews, one would be fool to want to do more than listen.
She comes on like a small whirlwind, eyes sparkling, hands moving quickly. She's not a person, she's a vent.
YOU EXPECT someone tall and immense but in spite of her height (5 ft., 7 in.) she appears tiny and slight. She dresses in the outfit that has become her trademark -- tan trousers, black shirt with a white, knit shirt beneath it, black socks and sturdy, no nonsense low-heel brown loafers.
"When you've lived a long time you get one thing you find comfortable and stick to it," she explained. "I guess I had lived a long time at the age of 25," she added.
"I'm not terribly interested in clothes and finery," she went on. "I just try to do the best with what I have. The older I get the less I have to work with," she said clutching at her collar momentarily and touching her hair.
THERE ARE DUPLICATES of that outfit, she explains, with broadcloth shirts for summer, flannel for winter and a plentiful supply of white shirts.
"I'm very clean."
It is rather odd that Miss Hepburn is here to star in "Coco," a musical based on the life of Coco Chanel, that most famous of fashion designers.
"SHE WEARS either a black suit or a white suit and a little rattle-bang hat. She's skinny and never stops talking and only in French. My French is about 50% so I struggled and suffered.
"She gave me a look like this" -- and Kate Hepburn's eyes went up and down -- "and then she held out her arms and gave me a big hug.
"You have the feeling she has no age at all. She's 88 so you have to say she's an old lady but you can see clearly the little girl she must have been.
"No, she has not seen the show, and I don't blame her. She wouldn't like it . I think she is very tactful not to come. I'm glad she hasn't. I would not like to see her disappointed."
DOES PLAYING a living person put an extra strain on her?
"No, as long as the living person doesn't see me, it's okay," she answered candidly.
"Coco" will open Monday at the Music Hall under Hanna auspices for two weeks, the beginning of a six month tour.
Miss Hepburn has a reputation for physical fitness workouts -- daily tennis, long walks, running in Central Park -- ("The police asked me to stop"). But she says that the show is strenuous enough that she will need no workouts, just plenty of sleep.
"I go up a long flight of stairs about 30 times in the show and that keeps me in trim. I sleep a lot. That's why I survive."
SHE EXPRESSES no preference for theater or movies, says she likes to do both. "At my age I can't do anything unless it interests me and is stimulating.
"My mother told me that if you please yourself you can be sure someone is pleased.
"I don't read the critics," she continued, "not until long after. I just do my best. One is tempted to believe flattery and the other just niggles at your brain."
IT WAS ABOUT Miss Hepburn that Dorothy Parker wrote the famous line --"She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B."
"Yes, I remember that but Miss Parker has been misquoted. She spelled the word 'gamutt' several t's; she coined a word.
"She was right, but I'm not sure I ever got to B."
MISS HEPBURN admits that during her long career, particularly in the beginning, she copied from other actresses. But now the Hepburn style -- brittle, brilliant, witty -- is clearly her own. How does she react to actresses who copy Hepburn?
"We'll, I'm flattered.But I think they miss the essence."
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm047.shtml
-----------------------
"Coco"-Hepburn is unforgettable by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 12, 1971)
"Coco" which opened last night at the Music Hall, is a Katharine Hepburn special.
It pretends to be a musical, but we know better, we fans of the great Miss Hepburn. Other motives not withstanding, we know the show exists only so that we may come to pay homage; to watch a bravura performance without equal.
And good Kate Hepburn - bless her growling. biting, exuberant voice- never lets us down.
UP AND DOWN that mirrored staircase she goes and we love it because one grand entrance is enough , for the ordinary actress but she rates more and gets them. She marches, waltzes, slides and stumbles in happiness, sadness and drunkenness and each time is greater than the last.
When now and then she stops it is to plant both feet firmly on the stage while her arms are extended longingly for a memory, or to thrust her hands in her pockets as she faces the world squarely.
SHE LAUGHS a big, happy laugh. She gives a funny line more bite and polish than it deserves and you are glad she did.
Suddenly she is recalling an eight-year-old girl longing for her father and she becomes that girl and with tears running down her face she becomes every child who has ever been disappointed.
In short this is an unforgettable performance in an otherwise forgettable show.
"Coco" is about Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, the great French fashion designer who died this past Sunday; and whose name is best known because it adorns a perfume bottle. The time is 1953 and Coco Chanel is attempting a comeback in the fashion world after an absence of 15 years.
WILL SHE MAKE it or won't she? The question lacks even a tiny amount of suspense. The villain of the piece is a fag dress designer and much of the humor is of the limp wrist variety. There is a boy-girl romance as Coco takes an interest in a young woman who comes to her and who recalls her own past. But the romance is shunted off to one side.
Coco's own past past lovers enter via projected images on large screens and recorded voices that talk and sing to her.
ASIDE FROM the presence of the star the show has a couple of other asserts. Alan Jay Lerner's book is weak on plot but strong on epigrams which tend to pass as dialog. Fortunately most of them were given to the star to utter and good line come out superbly. Some of the targets are slaves of fashion, doctors and the Hilton hotels.
"The wages of sin don't compare with what you can make in the dress business," Coco advises a girl. And women's lib groups will find little comfort in: A woman needs independence, not equality. In most cases equality is a step down."
WHEN THE PLOT goes nowhere which is most of the time, another fashion show is dragged in -the kind that have women sighing and men watching the models. The staging is about as elaborate as any musical comedy has boasted, with three sets on a revolving stage and a second staircase that materializes for a finale that is the biggest fashion show of all. Cecil Beaton designed the dresses and the sets but it is Michael Bennett who staged the sequences.
FOR THOSE who are interested in such things, the only Chanel creation in the show is the suit Miss Hepburn wears at the end.
As a musical "Coco" is really a fashion show set to music and the clothes are prettier than the tunes. Composer Andre Previn has provided a nothing score, a sort of synthetic music that now and then sounds as though it may be the real thing but which quickly proves to be artificial.
From the original New York production this touring company uses not only the star but George Rose, a durable and wonderful actor as Coco's lawyer; Jeanne Arnold as her assistant and Charlene Ryan as a tall and silent model who is featured in one dance number, "Fiasco."
AT THE END of the show and after a standing ovation Miss Hepburn spoke a few words in tribute to the late Coco Chanel. She called her "a remarkable creature who lived an extraordinary life."
"It is peculiar to feel she isn't somewhere listening," she continued.
Whether the character in "Coco" is really Coco is for others to say. It is difficult to separate Miss Hepburn from the role and I suspect the audience wouldn't want it any other way.
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm024.shtml
-----------------------
All-star cast carries "A Delicate Balance" by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, November 10, 1973 )
"A Delicate Balance" is the second in the series of filmed plays to be presented here in the American Film Theater series. And like the first one, "The Homecoming," filmed play remains the best way to describe the production
With "Delicate Balance" it becomes more and more apparent that this is about the only way to do these things. Both of the works are plays that wouldn't and couldn't be touched by conventional movie makers.
"Homecoming" reassembled most of the original stage cast under its original director. "A Delicate Balance" puts together a new cast under a different director and it is truly a dream cast
Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield are ideally co-starred as Agnes and Tobias, a married couple whose household is disrupted by the continuous presence of Agnes' alcoholic sister Claire (Kate Reid) and the occasional return of their daughter Julia (Lee Remick), escaping from broken marriages. This time it's her fourth.
Upsetting the delicate balance in their handsome Connecticut home is the arrival of best friends Harry and Edna (Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair).
They arrive not to visit, but to stay. In their own home there is a nameless terror.
An already strained situation is pushed to the breaking point by the presence of the intruders. Their presence is likened to that of plague carriers in medieval times — does one bar the door, turn them out? Or are they to be admitted with the risk that they will bring the infection with them?
Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play is less powerful and shocking than his "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" But it is gentle only in relative terms (relative to "Virginia Woolf"), Albee continues to write about the stresses of married life, the hurt that close people inflict upon one another.
It's not a funny play but it has a lacerating wit about it and a cast that can bring out that wit.
Paul Scofield's performance is perfect. He is an actor who understands the nuances of a role, who can be restrained without being dull, emotional without being hammy.
Albee's men are put-upon men, put upon by women, and it takes a strong actor to play the role understandably. Scofield's Tobias is a character who vacillates in an effort to keep peace, to maintain a balance. Agnes, on the other hand, maintains the delicate balance by being always in charge.
When Tobias must finally make a decision, must decide about whether their friends may stay, it is a painful, exhausting moment as Scofield plays him.
Miss Hepburn is an Agnes who dominates in a variety of ways—sometimes willfully, sometimes gently. It is a grand performance marred only by an occasional mannerism.
Kate Reid handles the role of the alcoholic sister with great skill, without slobbering, always reminding one of the human being within the character.
The rest of the cast plays in the same league with the play's stars. Tony Richardson's direction is unobtrusive and pure cinematic techniques are used sparingly. As in "Homecoming" there is no background music, no fancy tricks of cutting or dissolving.
"A Delicate Balance" remains a movie not for moviegoers but for theater buffs. Although there is movement through a realistic set and occasional closeup, the techniques remain principally theatrical.
One such is the long speech, too often in movies done in a series of short takes, often broken up to the point of destroying it. The speeches here are done in what seems to be single takes, a practice that would put a strain upon the average movie-trained performer but strains these particular performers not at all.
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm175.shtml
Katharine Hepburn - Chanel No.1 by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 1, 1971)
Katharine Hepburn will be in Cleveland for two weeks beginning Jan. 11 at the Music Hall in the musical "Coco." In it it she plays Gabrielle 'COCO' Chanel, the most famous of French designers.
Playing no-nonsense business women is he sort of role that has happened frequently in her career. There is a touch of the no-nonsense about her personally as well.
When the program book for "Coco" was being prepared she wanted no part of sugary prose describing each thing she had ever done as a major hit.
APPENDED TO a chronological list of almost 60 plays and movies in which she has appeared were some very frank marginal notes. If the production received raves she said so. But she also said other things.
"Fired out of town, mixed reviews," she notes for "Art and Mrs. Bottle."
"Lead . . . fired after first night she states for ''The Big Pond."
SOME OF THE OTHER productions and her comments:
"A Bill of Divorcement"-raves.
"Christopher Strong"-mixed.
"The Lake"-Roasted by all . . . bottom of the heap in two and a half hours.
"Sylvia Scarlet"-total disaster.
"Break of Hearts"-bore.
"Mary of Scotland"-roasted.
"Holiday"-mediocre, box office poison, couldn't get job.
"Philadelphia Story"-raves; on tour, raves. And of the movie-raves, nominated.
IN FAIRNESS to Miss Hepburn it should be noted that there were abundant raves, that she is the only actress ever to have won three Academy Awards.
Two of them came in successive years for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Lion in Winter."
Recently completed but not yet released is another film, "The Trojan Women" which was filmed in Spain. Also in that movie-Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold and Irene Papas.
But right now she is on the road in "Coco," the first time since "As You Like It" which was 20 years ago.
Caption under headshot of Hepburn: Miss Hepburn won her third Oscar two years ago as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter."
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm046.shtml
-----------------------
Unfashionable Hepburn here for fashion play by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 8, 1971)
It was less an interview than a conversation and less a conversation than a monologue.
And when you are with Katherine Hepburn, a lady noted for her desire for privacy and for her disinterest in granting interviews, one would be fool to want to do more than listen.
She comes on like a small whirlwind, eyes sparkling, hands moving quickly. She's not a person, she's a vent.
YOU EXPECT someone tall and immense but in spite of her height (5 ft., 7 in.) she appears tiny and slight. She dresses in the outfit that has become her trademark -- tan trousers, black shirt with a white, knit shirt beneath it, black socks and sturdy, no nonsense low-heel brown loafers.
"When you've lived a long time you get one thing you find comfortable and stick to it," she explained. "I guess I had lived a long time at the age of 25," she added.
"I'm not terribly interested in clothes and finery," she went on. "I just try to do the best with what I have. The older I get the less I have to work with," she said clutching at her collar momentarily and touching her hair.
THERE ARE DUPLICATES of that outfit, she explains, with broadcloth shirts for summer, flannel for winter and a plentiful supply of white shirts.
"I'm very clean."
It is rather odd that Miss Hepburn is here to star in "Coco," a musical based on the life of Coco Chanel, that most famous of fashion designers.
"SHE WEARS either a black suit or a white suit and a little rattle-bang hat. She's skinny and never stops talking and only in French. My French is about 50% so I struggled and suffered.
"She gave me a look like this" -- and Kate Hepburn's eyes went up and down -- "and then she held out her arms and gave me a big hug.
"You have the feeling she has no age at all. She's 88 so you have to say she's an old lady but you can see clearly the little girl she must have been.
"No, she has not seen the show, and I don't blame her. She wouldn't like it . I think she is very tactful not to come. I'm glad she hasn't. I would not like to see her disappointed."
DOES PLAYING a living person put an extra strain on her?
"No, as long as the living person doesn't see me, it's okay," she answered candidly.
"Coco" will open Monday at the Music Hall under Hanna auspices for two weeks, the beginning of a six month tour.
Miss Hepburn has a reputation for physical fitness workouts -- daily tennis, long walks, running in Central Park -- ("The police asked me to stop"). But she says that the show is strenuous enough that she will need no workouts, just plenty of sleep.
"I go up a long flight of stairs about 30 times in the show and that keeps me in trim. I sleep a lot. That's why I survive."
SHE EXPRESSES no preference for theater or movies, says she likes to do both. "At my age I can't do anything unless it interests me and is stimulating.
"My mother told me that if you please yourself you can be sure someone is pleased.
"I don't read the critics," she continued, "not until long after. I just do my best. One is tempted to believe flattery and the other just niggles at your brain."
IT WAS ABOUT Miss Hepburn that Dorothy Parker wrote the famous line --"She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B."
"Yes, I remember that but Miss Parker has been misquoted. She spelled the word 'gamutt' several t's; she coined a word.
"She was right, but I'm not sure I ever got to B."
MISS HEPBURN admits that during her long career, particularly in the beginning, she copied from other actresses. But now the Hepburn style -- brittle, brilliant, witty -- is clearly her own. How does she react to actresses who copy Hepburn?
"We'll, I'm flattered.But I think they miss the essence."
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm047.shtml
-----------------------
"Coco"-Hepburn is unforgettable by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, January 12, 1971)
"Coco" which opened last night at the Music Hall, is a Katharine Hepburn special.
It pretends to be a musical, but we know better, we fans of the great Miss Hepburn. Other motives not withstanding, we know the show exists only so that we may come to pay homage; to watch a bravura performance without equal.
And good Kate Hepburn - bless her growling. biting, exuberant voice- never lets us down.
UP AND DOWN that mirrored staircase she goes and we love it because one grand entrance is enough , for the ordinary actress but she rates more and gets them. She marches, waltzes, slides and stumbles in happiness, sadness and drunkenness and each time is greater than the last.
When now and then she stops it is to plant both feet firmly on the stage while her arms are extended longingly for a memory, or to thrust her hands in her pockets as she faces the world squarely.
SHE LAUGHS a big, happy laugh. She gives a funny line more bite and polish than it deserves and you are glad she did.
Suddenly she is recalling an eight-year-old girl longing for her father and she becomes that girl and with tears running down her face she becomes every child who has ever been disappointed.
In short this is an unforgettable performance in an otherwise forgettable show.
"Coco" is about Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, the great French fashion designer who died this past Sunday; and whose name is best known because it adorns a perfume bottle. The time is 1953 and Coco Chanel is attempting a comeback in the fashion world after an absence of 15 years.
WILL SHE MAKE it or won't she? The question lacks even a tiny amount of suspense. The villain of the piece is a fag dress designer and much of the humor is of the limp wrist variety. There is a boy-girl romance as Coco takes an interest in a young woman who comes to her and who recalls her own past. But the romance is shunted off to one side.
Coco's own past past lovers enter via projected images on large screens and recorded voices that talk and sing to her.
ASIDE FROM the presence of the star the show has a couple of other asserts. Alan Jay Lerner's book is weak on plot but strong on epigrams which tend to pass as dialog. Fortunately most of them were given to the star to utter and good line come out superbly. Some of the targets are slaves of fashion, doctors and the Hilton hotels.
"The wages of sin don't compare with what you can make in the dress business," Coco advises a girl. And women's lib groups will find little comfort in: A woman needs independence, not equality. In most cases equality is a step down."
WHEN THE PLOT goes nowhere which is most of the time, another fashion show is dragged in -the kind that have women sighing and men watching the models. The staging is about as elaborate as any musical comedy has boasted, with three sets on a revolving stage and a second staircase that materializes for a finale that is the biggest fashion show of all. Cecil Beaton designed the dresses and the sets but it is Michael Bennett who staged the sequences.
FOR THOSE who are interested in such things, the only Chanel creation in the show is the suit Miss Hepburn wears at the end.
As a musical "Coco" is really a fashion show set to music and the clothes are prettier than the tunes. Composer Andre Previn has provided a nothing score, a sort of synthetic music that now and then sounds as though it may be the real thing but which quickly proves to be artificial.
From the original New York production this touring company uses not only the star but George Rose, a durable and wonderful actor as Coco's lawyer; Jeanne Arnold as her assistant and Charlene Ryan as a tall and silent model who is featured in one dance number, "Fiasco."
AT THE END of the show and after a standing ovation Miss Hepburn spoke a few words in tribute to the late Coco Chanel. She called her "a remarkable creature who lived an extraordinary life."
"It is peculiar to feel she isn't somewhere listening," she continued.
Whether the character in "Coco" is really Coco is for others to say. It is difficult to separate Miss Hepburn from the role and I suspect the audience wouldn't want it any other way.
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm024.shtml
-----------------------
All-star cast carries "A Delicate Balance" by Tony Mastroianni (Cleveland Press, November 10, 1973 )
"A Delicate Balance" is the second in the series of filmed plays to be presented here in the American Film Theater series. And like the first one, "The Homecoming," filmed play remains the best way to describe the production
With "Delicate Balance" it becomes more and more apparent that this is about the only way to do these things. Both of the works are plays that wouldn't and couldn't be touched by conventional movie makers.
"Homecoming" reassembled most of the original stage cast under its original director. "A Delicate Balance" puts together a new cast under a different director and it is truly a dream cast
Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield are ideally co-starred as Agnes and Tobias, a married couple whose household is disrupted by the continuous presence of Agnes' alcoholic sister Claire (Kate Reid) and the occasional return of their daughter Julia (Lee Remick), escaping from broken marriages. This time it's her fourth.
Upsetting the delicate balance in their handsome Connecticut home is the arrival of best friends Harry and Edna (Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair).
They arrive not to visit, but to stay. In their own home there is a nameless terror.
An already strained situation is pushed to the breaking point by the presence of the intruders. Their presence is likened to that of plague carriers in medieval times — does one bar the door, turn them out? Or are they to be admitted with the risk that they will bring the infection with them?
Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play is less powerful and shocking than his "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" But it is gentle only in relative terms (relative to "Virginia Woolf"), Albee continues to write about the stresses of married life, the hurt that close people inflict upon one another.
It's not a funny play but it has a lacerating wit about it and a cast that can bring out that wit.
Paul Scofield's performance is perfect. He is an actor who understands the nuances of a role, who can be restrained without being dull, emotional without being hammy.
Albee's men are put-upon men, put upon by women, and it takes a strong actor to play the role understandably. Scofield's Tobias is a character who vacillates in an effort to keep peace, to maintain a balance. Agnes, on the other hand, maintains the delicate balance by being always in charge.
When Tobias must finally make a decision, must decide about whether their friends may stay, it is a painful, exhausting moment as Scofield plays him.
Miss Hepburn is an Agnes who dominates in a variety of ways—sometimes willfully, sometimes gently. It is a grand performance marred only by an occasional mannerism.
Kate Reid handles the role of the alcoholic sister with great skill, without slobbering, always reminding one of the human being within the character.
The rest of the cast plays in the same league with the play's stars. Tony Richardson's direction is unobtrusive and pure cinematic techniques are used sparingly. As in "Homecoming" there is no background music, no fancy tricks of cutting or dissolving.
"A Delicate Balance" remains a movie not for moviegoers but for theater buffs. Although there is movement through a realistic set and occasional closeup, the techniques remain principally theatrical.
One such is the long speech, too often in movies done in a series of short takes, often broken up to the point of destroying it. The speeches here are done in what seems to be single takes, a practice that would put a strain upon the average movie-trained performer but strains these particular performers not at all.
www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm175.shtml