The fabulash Ms. Eartha Kitt was born on this day in 1927.
Watch Eartha perform the song “I Love Men” on the German WWF-Club.
I will say one thing for the 4 male back-up dancers. Its hard to out camp Kitt, but these boys give it the old bathhouse try.
Must be seen to be believed.
TRIVIA: Eartha Kitt was blacklisted after she publicly criticized the Vietnam War at a 1968 White House luncheon in the presence of the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson. Her career in the U.S. went into a severe decline. In the 1970s it began to recover after news surfaced that she had been subjected to U.S. Secret Service surveillance.
Live at Last was Bette Midler’s first live album released in 1977.
This live video show later released in 1977 on the album “Live at Last” a full-length live performance at the Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, Ohio and sees Midler, her backing group The Staggering Harlettes and her band Betsy and the Blowboys covering material from her three first albums as well as The Supremes’ “Up the Ladder to the Roof”, Neil Young’s “Birds”, Ringo Starr’s “Oh My My”, the mock lounge act The Vicky Eydie Show doing a “global revue” and the song cycle The Story of Nanette. The show also captures Midler’s rapport with – or loving heckling of – the Cleveland audience, a monologue about fried eggs and a part that since has become a staple of her live performances: the raunchy Sophie Tucker jokes.
Singer, actress and filmmaker. Oscar winner, Tony recipient, great at the Grammys and excellent at the Emmys, there is no doubt that Barbra Streisand is the epitome of a Hollywood legend. The legendary entertainer turns 80 today on April 24 and to celebrate lets take a look at her most best performances and songs that truly makes Babs’ a gay icon.
If a singular aspect alone can propel a film to greatness, than perhaps writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1950 black and white Oscar winning best film, All About Eve, is that film and Bette Davis performance as Margo Channing is its launcher.
All About Eve is blessed with dialogue that still sparkles with wit nearly six decades on, and, even more so than the films of Billy Wilder (whose Sunset Boulevard, released in the same year, is often compared to All About Eve) there simply was no Hollywood screenwriter that came as close to the great stage comedies of Oscar Wilde than Mankiewicz.
Wilde tends to have characters that are not as smart as Mankiewicz’s, but usually more obviously comic. Granted, there is a dopey harlot-cum-starlet, Miss Caswell, played by Marilyn Monroe (in the most ‘realistic’ performance of Monroe’s career- itself a testament to great writing), but even there she is used to set up peerless wittiness..
All About Eve won six Academy Awards® and received the most nominations in film history but the legend of All About Eve didn’t end with the Oscars®. Not only did it remain popular in theatrical re-issues and later on television, but it eventually became a cult film, particularly among gay fans who identified with Davis’ Margo Channing’s larger-than-life personality. Her warning “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” became the most quoted of the film’s many famous lines in history.
The story of an understudy scheming to replace the star has been referenced in everything from the hilariously excessive Showgirls (1995) to Pedro Almodovar’s Oscar®-winner All About My Mother (1999), while the entire plot was recycled, with an all-male cast, for the 1995 gay porn video All About Steve.
The script itself was set to music for the hit 1970 Broadway musical Applause, starring Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing. Eve finally got to take over for Margo when Anne Baxter who played Eve in the original movie stepped into the leading role after Bacall left the show.
Starring: Bette Davis (Margo Channing), Anne Baxter (Eve Harrington), George Sanders (Addison De Witt), Celeste Holm (Karen Richards), Gary Merrill (Bill Sampson), Hugh Marlowe (Lloyd Richards), Thelma Ritter (Birdie Coonan), Marilyn Monroe (Miss Caswell) and Gregory Ratoff (Max Fabian)
All About Eve Trivia:
*Co-star Celeste Holm spoke about her experience with Bette Davis on the first day of shooting: “I walked onto the set . . . on the first day and said, ‘Good morning,’ and do you know her reply? She said, ‘Oh shit, good manners.’ I never spoke to her again – ever.”
*Years later, Bette Davis said in an interview “Filming All About Eve was a very happy experience….the only bitch in the cast was Celeste Holm.”
*Zsa Zsa Gabor kept arriving on the set because she was jealous of her husband George Sanders in his scenes with the young blonde ingénue Marilyn Monroe.
*Donna Reed was also considered for the part of Eve Harrington.
All About Eve Famous Lines:
Margo: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!
Margo: Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn’t worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.
Margo: Birdie, you don’t like Eve, do you? Birdie: You looking for an answer or an argument? Margo: An answer. Birdie: No. Margo: Why not? Birdie: Now you want an argument.
Miss Casswell: Oh, waiter! Addison DeWitt: That is not a waiter, my dear, that is a butler. Miss Casswell: Well, I can’t yell “Oh butler!” can I? Maybe somebody’s name is Butler. Addison DeWitt: You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point
Birdie: What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.
Margo: I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.
Addison DeWitt: You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent!
Posted below we have the original screen tests for James Dean’s first movie in 1955, East of Eden.
The screen test featuring Dean and Richard Davalos rassling around in a bedroom, shirtless and as a bonus it also includes a crotch grab.
Since this is just a screen test, it was taken a bit out of context. In the scene that ended up being recorded for the actual movie, it is much more intense and much less homoerotic
*TRIVIA: James Dean and Paul Newman both competed against each other for the role of Cal Trask in the 1955 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s epic novel.
Jennifer Holliday explained her decision to perform at Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration during an interview with the New York Times on Friday. The gay icon performer, known for her starring turn in the original Broadway run of “Dreamgirls,” said that she’ll be performing at the Jan. 19 concert “for the people.”
“I’m singing on the mall for the people,” she explained to the Times. “I don’t have a dog in this fight — I’m just a singer, and it’s a welcome concert for the people on the mall.”
“It brought a lot of threats from people already saying I’ll never work again. If that’s what America has come to, where we all hate and bully people, there’s no more freedom of speech,” she said. “I know everybody hates me now, but that shows we are all just hateful people now — we don’t even want to work together.”
Holiday tried to do some damage control by stating that she didn’t support president-elect Trump during his campaign. In fact, she actually voted for his biggest competitor.
“I voted for Mrs. Clinton, and they knew that,” she proclaimed.
The gay community itself is in an uproar and wondering why Ms. Holiday would turn her back on the majority of fans who supported her thoughout the year and are the only loyal fans she has left.
Said one gay fan: You can be a gay icon until you piss us off, then we’ll snatch that icon title away faster than that ugly weave off your head. Ask Donna Summer.
