by Vince Chiarelli | Jun 1, 2021 | Blog, Musicians
Sergio Franci Galli was one of three children born to a Neapolitan father and Ligurian (Genoa) mother. Sergio, Mirella, and Fausta were all born in the Lombardy District. This includes Milan, Cremona, and the smaller village of Codogno – where he was born.
As a child, Franchi sang for the family with his father, who played the piano and guitar. At age ten, he sang a comic role as a hunchback in a school play. Young Franchi formed a three-piece band at age sixteen to earn pocket money, and then later sang with a male vocal group in local jazz clubs. But, in spite of his musical talents, he soon followed his father’s wishes that he pursue a career in engineering. Franchi pursued, but did not finish this training. The senior Galli had been a successful businessman who owned several shops, but lost all of his assets during World War II and the German occupation. After the war, he became friendly with a Captain in the South African medical corps who was stationed nearby. He soon followed the officer’s suggestion that South Africa would be a land of more opportunity, and he immigrated to Johannesburg. The family followed in 1947 when Franchi completed his compulsory military service at age twenty-one.
When the family arrived in Johannesburg, they found that the senior Galli, a skilled wood craftsman, had established a successful furniture factory. Young Franchi began using his skills as an architectural draftsman and worked for his father as a designer of commercial and industrial interiors. He also began singing in informal concerts of Italian music. His voice attracted growing attention. Hearing him sing, one of the principals of the Johannesburg Operatic and Dramatic Society (JODS) tracked him down and offered him the leading role in The Gypsy Baron. (Franchi’s sister Dana Valery played one of the children.) Speaking little English at the time, he learned the role phonetically. Franchi’s debut was well-received, and was soon followed by leading roles in Pink Champagne (Die Fledermaus in English)(1953), The New Moon (1954), and The Vagabond King (1955). Johannesburg’s once-thriving local opera season had collapsed after WWII, and it was not possible at this time to earn a full-time wage as a singer.
Alessandro Rota, a successful operatic tenor in the Southern Hemisphere, came from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 1955 and helped form The National Opera Association. Rota began making a difference by producing operatic concerts, full acts from operas, and then full opera productions. Under Rota’s tutelage, Franchi’s voice matured, and he expanded his vocal range and technique. About his first experience with the fledgling opera company in a production of Carmen, Franchi later stated this initial experience was a disaster: He sang the tenor part in Italian, the baritone sang in Russian, and the soprano sang her role in French. The company quickly matured and Rota placed Franchi in leading tenor roles in at least two successful full opera productions – Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in 1957, and then Verdi’s La traviata in 1959. Some references also list Franchi singing lead performances in Verdi’s Rigoletto and Puccini’s La boheme.
With these experiences, Franchi returned to Italy, aspiring for more opportunities to become an opera singer. While on a performing tour of South Africa, Beniamino Gigli had heard Franchi sing and had encouraged him and his family in this regard. In 1959 Franchi made an important contact with an English agent, James Gilmore, who encouraged Franchi to meet with him if he came to London.
Franchi had some success when he was leaving Italy in 1959, such as being among the 10 finalists in a La Scala competition with 250 other singers. He was also offered the role of Cavaradossi in Tosca, which he played in a minor opera house. Looking back in 1983 about hoping to make it in Italian opera, Franchi stated that he didn’t think he was in his right mind: “I was a dreamer.” At the time he believed he was doing well, so he sent for his wife and children. However employment opportunities ceased, and within a year Franchi was broke.
Franchi then looked for work in Italy while his wife and children remained in South Africa. He began recording with Durium Records for the popular market, having hits with “more mio” and “I tuoi occhi verde.” An album of Italian songs and several EPs and singles in Italy, London, and Canada followed (these recordings were eventually released for American audiences.) As a result of his personal appearances and recordings, Franchi began drawing enough attention to become tracked on Billboard. In early 1960, Franchi played the role of Janni in the short-lived London production of The Golden Touch. His singing performance received favorable reviews. His London agent, James Gilmore, arranged several TV appearances for Franchi, and that work (and political changes in South Africa) allowed him to return to his family in London.
Franchi arrived in New York on September 25, 1962. RCA Victor had begun a heavy promotional campaign to launch his American career, concurrent with the release of his debut album. Franchi made his American television debut with an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on October 14, 1962; and his Sol Hurok concert debut at Carnegie Hall on October 21, 1962. Singing the full length of the concert without a microphone, a New York reviewer commented on Franchi’s “big, healthy voice”, his penchant for ad-libbing, and his ability to establish instant rapport with his audience.
Ed Sullivan was in the audience that night and soon contracted for future Franchi appearances—including a second TV appearance on his show the following week (October 28, 1962). Franchi would later become one of Sullivan’s “two or three most favorite guests,”, and appeared 24 times. Sales for the debut record did well, peaking on the Billboard 200 at number 17 at the end of December. The year was concluded with successful concert appearances in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall and in Boston’s Music Hall
He soon made his Las Vegas debut at the Sahara Hotel as the opening act for Bob Newhart. These successful performances were interspersed with multiple European events. Franchi recorded three more albums for RCA Victor (see discography), all three of which peaked on the Billboard 200 pop charts in 1963. His debut album, Romantic Italian Songs continued on the Billboard 200; He completed the year as the opening act for Juliet Prowse at the Cocoanut Grove.
1964 was a significant year for Franchi for professional and personal reasons. In a move to attract more mainstream pop audiences, RCA Victor switched Franchi from the Red Seal label to their standard black pop label. He also changed his professional representation to the William Morris Agency. Although he had already received offers to star in several films, Franchi did not find a role he wished to play for a few more years. Franchi then moved his family from London to a Park Avenue apartment in New York City. He also filed the first papers in declaration of his intent to become an American citizen, among other endeavors.
Franchi was always attracted to the arts, and could play multiple instruments, including piano and guitar. Franchi also always carried a sketch book with him on all of his travels, and in later life, devoted himself to watercolor painting in his private studio.
His last of more than 130 television appearances was on Live! with Regis & Kathie Lee on July 4, 1989 and Franchi’s last concert was at the Warwick Musical Theater on Saturday, July 29, 1989. On August 3, 1989, while rehearsing for a South Shore Music Circus concert the next day (with Pat Cooper), Franchi collapsed, was hospitalized, and the rest of his summer concerts were cancelled. Tests revealed a brain tumor and, despite radiation therapy, Franchi succumbed to the illness. He died less than one month after his 64th birthday.
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by Vince Chiarelli | May 2, 2021 | Musicians
Ronald James “Dio” Padavona was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Italian-American parents from Cortland, New York. Padavona listened to a great deal of opera while growing up, and was influenced vocally by tenor Mario Lanza. His first formal musical training began at age 5, learning to play the trumpet. During high school Padavona formed his first rock-n-roll group, The Vegas Kings, which would later be named Ronnie and the Rumblers and then Ronnie and the Red Caps.
Padavona graduated from Cortland High School in 1960. He was allegedly offered a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School of Music but did not take up the offer due to his interest in rock music. He instead attended the University at Buffalo to major in pharmacology. There he played trumpet in the university’s concert band; however, he only attended the university from 1960 to 1961 and did not graduate.
Despite being known for his powerful singing voice, Padavona claimed to have never received any vocal training. He instead attributed his singing ability to the use of breathing techniques he learned while playing trumpet.
Dio’s musical career began in 1957, when several Cortland, New York musicians formed the band, The Vegas Kings. The group’s lineup consisted of Dio on bass guitar, Billy DeWolfe on lead vocals, Nick Pantas on guitar, Tom Rogers on drums, and Jack Musci on saxophone. The band changed its name to Ronnie and the Rumblers. In 1958, the band again changed their name to Ronnie and the Redcaps. Musci left the band in 1960, and a new guitarist, Dick Botoff, joined the lineup. The Redcaps released two singles: The first single was “Conquest”/”Lover” with the A-side being an instrumental reminiscent of The Ventures and the B-side featuring DeWolfe on lead vocals. The second single was “An Angel Is Missing”/”What’d I Say” featuring Dio on lead vocals for both tracks.
Explanations vary for how Padavona adopted the stage name “Dio”. One story is that Dio was a reference to mafia member Johnny Dio. Another has it that Padavona’s grandmother said he had a gift from God and should be called “Dio” (“God” in Italian), although this was debunked by Padavona’s widow, Wendy, in a February 2017 interview. Padavona first used the name on a recording in 1960, when he added it to the band’s second release on Seneca. Soon after that the band modified their name to “Ronnie Dio and the Prophets”. The Prophets lineup lasted for several years, touring throughout the New York region and playing college fraternity parties. They produced one single for Atlantic Records and one album. Some of the singles (such as “Mr. Misery”, released on Swan) were labeled as being by Ronnie Dio as a solo artist even if the rest of the Prophets contributed to the recording. The group released several singles during the following years until early 1967. Dio continued to use his birth name on any songwriting credits on those releases.
In late 1967, Ronnie Dio and the Prophets transformed into a new band called The Electric Elves and added a keyboard player. After recovering from a deadly car accident in February 1968, which killed guitarist Nick Pantas and put Dio and the other band members briefly in the hospital, the group shortened its name to The Elves and used that name until mid-1972, when it released its first proper album under the name Elf. Over the next few years, the group went on to become a regular opening act for Deep Purple. Elf recorded three albums until the members’ involvement recording the first Rainbow album in early 1975 resulted in Elf disbanding.
In the mid-1970s Dio’s vocals caught the ear of Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who was planning on leaving Deep Purple due to creative differences over the band’s new direction. Blackmore invited Dio along with Gary Driscoll to record two songs in Tampa, Florida on December 12, 1974. Blackmore stated in 1983, “I left Deep Purple because I’d met up with Ronnie Dio, and he was so easy to work with. He was originally just going to do one track of a solo LP, but we ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks, which I was very excited about.”[20] Being satisfied with the results, Blackmore decided to recruit more of Elf’s musicians and form his own band, initially known as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. They released the self-titled debut album Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow in early 1975. After that, Dio recorded two more studio albums (Rising and Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll), the live album On Stage, and two archival live albums (Live in Munich 1977 and Live in Germany 1976) with Blackmore. During his tenure with Rainbow, Dio and Blackmore were the only constant members. Dio is credited on those albums for all lyrical authorship as well as collaboration with Blackmore on musical arrangement. Dio and Blackmore split, with Blackmore taking the band in a more commercial direction, with Graham Bonnet on vocals and the album Down to Earth.
Following his departure from Rainbow in 1979, Dio joined Black Sabbath, replacing the fired Ozzy Osbourne. Dio met Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi by chance at The Rainbow on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1979. Both men were in similar situations, as Dio was seeking a new project and Iommi needed a vocalist. Dio said of the encounter, “It must have been fate, because we connected so instantly.” The pair kept in touch until Dio arrived at Iommi’s Los Angeles house for a relaxed, getting-to-know-you jam session. On that first day the duo wrote the song, “Children of the Sea”, which appeared on the Heaven and Hell album, the first the band recorded with Dio as vocalist, released in 1980.
The follow-up album, Mob Rules, featured new drummer Vinny Appice. Personality conflicts began emerging within the band. “Ronnie came into the band and he was doing whatever we told him, basically because he wanted the gig. The next album was a little different,” Iommi recalled. In 1982, conflict arose over the mixing of the Live Evil album. Iommi asserted that the album’s engineer began complaining to him that he would work all day long on a mix, only to have Dio return to the studio at night to “do his own mix” in which his vocals were more prominent. This was denied by Dio. The conflict led to Dio and Appice ultimately quitting the band later that year.
In 1991, Dio returned to Black Sabbath to record the Dehumanizer album. The album was a minor hit, reaching the Top 40 in the United Kingdom and #44 on the Billboard 200. The single “Time Machine” was featured in the movie Wayne’s World, the tenth highest-grossing film of 1992. Close to the end of 1992 Dio and Appice again left the band, citing an inability to work with Iommi and Butler.
Wanting to continue together as a band, Dio and Appice formed Dio, the band, in 1982. Vivian Campbell played guitar and Jimmy Bain was on bass; the latter of whom Dio had known since the old Rainbow days. Their debut album, Holy Diver, included the hit singles “Rainbow in the Dark” and “Holy Diver”.
The band added keyboardist Claude Schnell and recorded two more full-length studio albums, The Last in Line and Sacred Heart. A notable live recording, A Special From The Spectrum, was filmed during the band’s second world tour and released in VHS format only. The band changed members over the years, eventually leaving Dio as the only original member in 1990. Except for a few breaks, Dio, the band, was always touring or recording. They released ten albums, with Master of the Moon being the last one, recorded in 2004.
In October 2006, Dio joined Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and former Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice to tour under the moniker Heaven & Hell, the title of the first Dio era Black Sabbath album. They chose the name Heaven & Hell as Iommi and Butler were still in Black Sabbath with Osbourne and felt it was best to use a different moniker for the Dio version of the band. Original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward was to be involved in this project, but later withdrew.
In 2007, the band recorded three new songs under the Black Sabbath name for the compilation album Black Sabbath: The Dio Years.
In 2008, the band completed a 98-date world tour. The band released one album under the Heaven & Hell name, The Devil You Know, to critical and commercial acclaim. They also had planned to release a follow-up in 2010.
Dio and his first wife, Loretta Berardi, adopted a son, novelist Dan Padavona. After divorcing Berardi, in 1978 he married Wendy Gaxiola who also served as his manager. In the 1980s, she managed the Los Angeles rock bands Rough Cutt, NuHaven, Cold Sweat and Hellion. They divorced around 1985, although Wendy remained his manager as well as his friend during all of Dio’s career. Some time later, they reconciled and entered a unofficial marriage, but did not formally marry again.
In September 2003, he accidentally severed his thumb during a gardening accident when a heavy garden gnome fell onto it. Dio was concerned he would no longer be able to do his signature metal horns hand gesture, but a doctor managed to re-attach it.
On November 25 2009, Dio announced that he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and underwent treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
On May 4, 2010, Heaven & Hell announced they were canceling all summer dates as a result of Dio’s health condition. His last live performance was with Heaven & Hell on August 29, 2009, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Dio died of the illness on May 16, 2010.
Dio’s career spanned more than 50 years. During this period, and particularly in the 21st century, he received a number of distinctions and awards. He was inducted into the Cortland City Hall of Fame in 2004 and has a street named after him there called Dio Way. Classic Rock Magazine awarded Dio the “Metal Guru Award” at their yearly “Roll of Honour” awards ceremony in 2006. On January 17, 2007, Dio was inducted into Guitar Center’s Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood. Dio was named “Best Metal Singer” at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in April 2010 for his work on The Devil You Know, making him the oldest recipient of this award at age 67. He accepted the award in person at what was to be his final public appearance, just one month before his death.
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by Vince Chiarelli | Apr 26, 2021 | Film, Television
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, the son of Giovanni “John” C. Esposito, an Italian stagehand and carpenter from Naples, and Elizabeth “Leesa” Foster, an African-American opera and nightclub singer from Alabama.
When Esposito was six, his family moved from Copenhagen to Manhattan. He attended Elizabeth Seton College in New York and earned a two-year degree in radio and television communications.
Esposito made his Broadway debut in 1968, playing an enslaved child opposite Shirley Jones in the short-lived musical Maggie Flynn (1968), set during the New York Draft Riots of 1863. He was also a member of the youthful cast of the Stephen Sondheim-Harold Prince collaboration Merrily We Roll Along, which closed with 16 performances and 56 previews in 1981.
During the 1980s, Esposito appeared in films such as Maximum Overdrive, King of New York, and Trading Places. He also performed in TV shows such as Miami Vice and Spenser: For Hire. He played J. C. Pierce, a cadet in the 1981 movie Taps.
In 1988 he landed his breakout role as the leader (“Dean Big Brother Almighty”) of the black fraternity “Gamma Phi Gamma” in director Spike Lee’s film School Daze, exploring color relations at black colleges. Over the next four years, Esposito and Lee collaborated on three other movies: Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, and Malcolm X. During the 1990s Esposito appeared in the acclaimed indie films Night on Earth, Fresh and Smoke, as well as its sequel Blue in the Face. He also appeared in the mainstream films Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man with Mickey Rourke, Reckless with Mia Farrow, and Waiting to Exhale starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett. In 1995 Esposito was featured in a music video “California” by French superstar Mylene Farmer, directed by Abel Ferrara.
Esposito played FBI agent Mike Giardello on the TV crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street. That role drew from both his African American and Italian ancestry. He played this character during the show’s seventh and final season, and reprised the role for its 2000 made-for-TV movie. Mike’s estranged father, shift lieutenant Al Giardello, is portrayed as subject to racism, something Esposito’s character practiced in School Daze. Another multiracial role was as Sergeant Paul Gigante in the television comedy, Bakersfield P.D.
In 1997 Esposito played the film roles of Darryl in Trouble on the Corner and Charlie Dunt in Nothing to Lose. Other TV credits include NYPD Blue, Law & Order, The Practice, New York Undercover, and Fallen Angels: Fearless.
Esposito has portrayed drug dealers (Fresh, Breaking Bad, King of New York, Better Call Saul), policemen (The Usual Suspects, Derailed), political radicals (Bob Roberts, Do the Right Thing), and a demonic version of the Greek God of Sleep Hypnos from another dimension (Monkeybone). In 2001, he played Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr. in Ali, and Miguel Algarín, friend and collaborator of Nuyorican poet Miguel Piñero, in Piñero.
In 2002 Esposito was cast as a legal eagle in the David E. Kelley television drama Girls Club. Although the series only lasted one season, and did not garner generally positive reviews, it represented a personal turning point for Esposito, who related to The Washington Post, “I started to play bosses. And I realized, ‘Oh, okay, this is an opportunity.’ It was really a great opening for me to show who I really was. And it’s kept going like that.”
In 2005 Esposito played an unsympathetic detective named Esposito in the film Hate Crime, which centers upon homophobia as a theme.
In 2006 Esposito starred in Last Holiday as Senator Dillings, alongside Queen Latifah and Timothy Hutton. Esposito played Robert Fuentes, a Miami businessman with shady connections, on the UPN television series South Beach. He appeared in New Amsterdam and CSI: Miami. In Feel the Noise (2007), he played ex-musician Roberto, the Puerto Rican father of Omarion Grandberry’s character, aspiring rap star “Rob”.
From 2009 to 2011, Esposito appeared in seasons 2 through 4 of the AMC drama Breaking Bad, as Gus Fring, the head of a New Mexico-based methamphetamine drug ring. In the fourth season, he was the show’s primary antagonist, and won critical acclaim for this role. He won the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama award at the 2012 Critics’ Choice Television Awards and was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series award at the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards, but lost to co-star Aaron Paul.
Esposito appeared in the first season of the ABC program Once Upon a Time, which debuted in October 2011. He portrayed the split role of Sidney, a reporter for The Daily Mirror in the town of Storybrooke, Maine, who is the Magic Mirror, possessed by The Evil Queen in a parallel fairy tale world.
Esposito appeared in Revolution as Major Tom Neville, a central character who kills Ben Matheson in the pilot. He escorts a captured Danny to the capital Philadelphia of the Monroe Republic.
He has joined the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. He played Ra’s al Ghul in Son of Batman and Black Spider in Batman: Assault on Arkham. He had a recurring role in the first season of The Get Down on Netflix. In 2017, Esposito reprised his role as Gus Fring in the Breaking Bad prequel series, Better Call Saul. In 2019, he appeared in the first season finale of The Boys as Stan Edgar, and reprises the role in the second season.
In 2016, Esposito voiced Akela in the film The Jungle Book, which was directed by Jon Favreau. Esposito and Favreau would work together once again in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian in which Esposito appears in a starring role, while Favreau acts as an executive producer for the series and as its writer. He plays the role of New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the 2019 Epix series Godfather of Harlem.
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by Vince Chiarelli | Apr 22, 2021 | Film, Television
Ida Lupino was born in Herne Hill, London, to actress Connie O’Shea (also known as Connie Emerald) and music hall comedian Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family, which included Lupino Lane, a song-and-dance man. Her father, a top name in musical comedy in the UK and a member of a centuries-old theatrical dynasty dating back to Renaissance Italy, encouraged her to perform at an early age. He built a backyard theatre for Lupino and her sister Rita (1920–2016), who also became an actress and dancer. Lupino wrote her first play at age seven and toured with a travelling theatre company as a child. By the age of ten, Lupino had memorised the leading female roles in each of Shakespeare’s plays. After her intense childhood training for stage plays, Ida’s uncle Lupino Lane assisted her in moving towards film acting by getting her work as a background actress at British International Studios.
She wanted to be a writer, but in order to please her father, Lupino enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She excelled in a number of “bad girl” film roles, often playing prostitutes. Lupino did not enjoy being an actress and felt uncomfortable with many of the early roles she was given. She felt that she was pushed into the profession due to her family history.
Lupino worked as both a stage and screen actress. She first took to the stage in 1934 as the lead in The Pursuit of Happiness at the Paramount Studio Theatre. Lupino made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931) and the following year, aged 14, she worked under director Allan Dwan in Her First Affaire, in a role for which her mother had previously tested. She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.’ Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello.
Dubbed “the English Jean Harlow”, she was discovered by Paramount in the 1933 film Money for Speed, playing a good girl/bad girl dual role. Lupino claimed the talent scouts saw her play only the sweet girl in the film and not the part of the prostitute, so she was asked to try out for the lead role in Alice in Wonderland (1933). When she arrived in Hollywood, the Paramount producers did not know what to make of their sultry potential leading lady, but she did get a five-year contract.[3]
Lupino starred in over a dozen films in the mid-1930s, working with Columbia in a two-film deal, one of which, The Light That Failed (1939), was a role she acquired after running into the director’s office unannounced, demanding an audition.[11] After this breakthrough performance as a spiteful cockney model who torments Ronald Colman, she began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s, and she jokingly referred to herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis”, taking the roles that Davis refused.
Mark Hellinger, associate producer at Warner Bros., was impressed by Lupino’s performance in The Light That Failed, and hired her for the femme-fatale role in the Raoul Walsh-directed They Drive by Night (1940), opposite stars George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart. The film did well and the critical consensus was that Lupino stole the movie, particularly in her unhinged courtroom scene. Warner Bros. offered her a contract which she negotiated to include some freelance rights. She worked with Walsh and Bogart again in High Sierra (1941), where she impressed critic Bosley Crowther in her role as an “adoring moll”.
Her performance in The Hard Way (1943) won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She starred in Pillow to Post (1945), which was her only comedic leading role. After the drama Deep Valley (1947) finished shooting, neither Warner Bros. nor Lupino moved to renew her contract and she left the studio in 1947. Although in demand throughout the 1940s, she arguably never became a major star although she often had top billing in her pictures, above actors such as Humphrey Bogart, and was repeatedly critically lauded for her realistic, direct acting style.
She often incurred the ire of studio boss Jack Warner by objecting to her casting, refusing poorly written roles that she felt were beneath her dignity as an actress, and making script revisions deemed unacceptable by the studio. As a result, she spent a great deal of her time at Warner Bros. suspended. In 1942, she rejected an offer to star with Ronald Reagan in Kings Row, and was immediately put on suspension at the studio. Eventually, a tentative rapprochement was brokered, but her relationship with the studio remained strained. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers and appeared for 20th Century Fox as a nightclub singer in the film noir Road House, performing her musical numbers in the film. She starred in On Dangerous Ground in 1951, and may have taken on some of the directing tasks of the film while director Nicholas Ray was ill.
While on suspension, Lupino had ample time to observe filming and editing processes, and she became interested in directing. She described how bored she was on set while “someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work”.
She and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmakers, to produce, direct, and write low-budget, issue-oriented films. Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when director Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and was unable to finish Not Wanted, a film Lupino co-produced and co-wrote. Lupino stepped in to finish the film without taking directorial credit out of respect for Clifton. Although the film’s subject of out-of-wedlock pregnancy was controversial, it received a vast amount of publicity, and she was invited to discuss the film with Eleanor Roosevelt on a national radio program.
Never Fear (1949), a film about polio (which she had personally experienced replete with paralysis at age 16), was her first director’s credit. After producing four more films about social issues, including Outrage (1950), a film about rape (while this word is never used in the movie), Lupino directed her first hard-paced, all-male-cast film, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir. The Filmakers went on to produce 12 feature films, six of which Lupino directed or co-directed, five of which she wrote or co-wrote, three of which she acted in, and one of which she co-produced.
Lupino once called herself a “bulldozer” to secure financing for her production company, but she referred to herself as “mother” while on set. On set, the back of her director’s chair was labeled “Mother of Us All”. Her studio emphasized her femininity, often at the urging of Lupino herself. She credited her refusal to renew her contract with Warner Bros. under the pretenses of domesticity, claiming “I had decided that nothing lay ahead of me but the life of the neurotic star with no family and no home.” She made a point to seem nonthreatening in a male-dominated environment, stating, “That’s where being a man makes a great deal of difference. I don’t suppose the men particularly care about leaving their wives and children. During the vacation period, the wife can always fly over and be with him. It’s difficult for a wife to say to her husband, come sit on the set and watch.”
Although directing became Lupino’s passion, the drive for money kept her on camera, so she could acquire the funds to make her own productions. She became a wily low-budget filmmaker, reusing sets from other studio productions and talking her physician into appearing as a doctor in the delivery scene of Not Wanted. She used what is now called product placement, placing Coke, Cadillac, and other brands in her films, such as The Bigamist. She shot in public places to avoid set-rental costs and planned scenes in pre-production to avoid technical mistakes and retakes.[8] She joked that if she had been the “poor man’s Bette Davis” as an actress, she had now become the “poor man’s Don Siegel” as a director.
The Filmakers production company closed shop in 1955, and Lupino turned almost immediately to television, directing episodes of more than thirty US TV series from 1956 through 1968. She also helmed a feature film in 1965 for the Catholic schoolgirl comedy The Trouble With Angels, starring Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell; this was Lupino’s last theatrical film as a director. She continued acting as well, going on to a successful television career throughout the 1960s and ’70s.
Lupino’s career as a director continued through 1968. Her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively for television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun – Will Travel, Honey West, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan’s Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Rifleman, The Virginian, Sam Benedict, The Untouchables, Hong Kong, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.
After the demise of The Filmakers, Lupino continued working as an actress until the end of the 1970s, mainly in television. Lupino appeared in 19 episodes of Four Star Playhouse from 1952 to 1956, an endeavor involving partners Charles Boyer, Dick Powell and David Niven. From January 1957 to September 1958, Lupino starred with her then-husband Howard Duff in the sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, in which the duo played husband-and-wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake, living in Beverly Hills, California. Duff and Lupino also co-starred as themselves in 1959 in one of the 13 one-hour installments of The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour and an episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show in 1960. Lupino guest-starred in numerous television shows, including The Ford Television Theatre (1954), Bonanza (1959), Burke’s Law (1963–64), The Virginian (1963–65), Batman (1968), The Mod Squad (1969), Family Affair (1969–70), The Wild, Wild West (1969), Nanny and the Professor (1971), Columbo: Short Fuse (1972), Columbo: Swan Song (1974) in which she plays Johnny Cash’s character’s zealous wife, Barnaby Jones (1974), The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen (1975), Police Woman (1975), and Charlie’s Angels (1977). Her final acting appearance was in the 1979 film My Boys Are Good Boys.
Lupino has two distinctions with The Twilight Zone series, as the only woman to have directed an episode (“The Masks”) and the only person to have worked as both actor for one episode (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine”), and director for another.
Lupino’s Filmakers movies deal with unconventional and controversial subject matter that studio producers would not touch, including out-of-wedlock pregnancy, bigamy, and rape. She described her independent work as “films that had social significance and yet were entertainment … based on true stories, things the public could understand because they had happened or been of news value.” She focused on women’s issues for many of her films and she liked strong characters, “[Not] women who have masculine qualities about them, but [a role] that has intestinal fortitude, some guts to it.”
In the film The Bigamist, the two women characters represent the career woman and the homemaker. The title character is married to a woman (Joan Fontaine) who, unable to have children, has devoted her energy to her career. While on one of many business trips, he meets a waitress (Lupino) with whom he has a child, and then marries her. Marsha Orgeron, in her book Hollywood Ambitions, describes these characters as “struggling to figure out their place in environments that mirror the social constraints that Lupino faced”. However, Donati, in his biography of Lupino, said “The solutions to the character’s problems within the films were often conventional, even conservative, more reinforcing the 1950s’ ideology than undercutting it.”
Ahead of her time within the studio system, Lupino was intent on creating films that were rooted in reality. On Never Fear, Lupino said, “People are tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes. They pay out good money for their theatre tickets and they want something in return. They want realism. And you can’t be realistic with the same glamorous mugs on the screen all the time.”
Lupino’s films are critical of many traditional social institutions, which reflect her contempt for the patriarchal structure that existed in Hollywood. Lupino rejected the commodification of female stars and as an actress, she resisted becoming an object of desire. She said in 1949, “Hollywood careers are perishable commodities”, and sought to avoid such a fate for herself.
Ida Lupino was diagnosed with polio in 1934. The New York Times reported that the outbreak of polio within the Hollywood community was due to contaminated swimming pools. The disease severely affected her ability to work, and her contract with Paramount fell apart shortly after her diagnosis. Lupino recovered and eventually directed, produced, and wrote many films, including a film loosely based upon her travails with polio titled Never Fear in 1949, the first film that she was credited for directing (she had earlier stepped in for an ill director on Not Wanted and refused directorial credit out of respect for her colleague). Her experience with the disease gave Lupino the courage to focus on her intellectual abilities over simply her physical appearance. In an interview with Hollywood, Lupino said, “I realized that my life and my courage and my hopes did not lie in my body. If that body was paralyzed, my brain could still work industriously…If I weren’t able to act, I would be able to write. Even if I weren’t able to use a pencil or typewriter, I could dictate.” Film magazines from the 1930s and 1940s, such as The Hollywood Reporter and Motion Picture Daily, frequently published updates on her condition. Lupino worked for various non-profit organizations to help raise funds for polio research.
Lupino’s interests outside the entertainment industry included writing short stories and children’s books, and composing music. Her composition “Aladdin’s Suite” was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937. She composed this piece while on bedrest due to polio in 1935.
She became an American citizen in June 1948.
Lupino was married and divorced three times. She married actor Louis Hayward in November 1938. They separated in May 1944 and divorced in May 1945.
Her second marriage was to producer Collier Young on 5 August 1948. They divorced in 1951. When Lupino filed for divorce in September that year, she was already pregnant from an affair with future husband Howard Duff. The child was born seven months after she filed for divorce from Young.
Lupino’s third and final marriage was to actor Howard Duff, whom she married on 21 October 1951. Six months later, the couple had a daughter, Bridget, on 23 April 1952. Lupino and Duff divorced in 1983.
Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles on 3 August 1995, at the age of 77.Her memoirs, Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, were edited after her death and published by Mary Ann Anderson.
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by Vince Chiarelli | Apr 5, 2021 | Film, Television
Kate Walsh was born in San Jose, California. Her mother, Angela Bocchetto is of Italian descent, with roots from Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata.
Walsh graduated from Catalina Magnet High School and studied acting at the University of Arizona before dropping out. Walsh moved to New York City and joined a comedy troupe, Burn Manhattan, supporting herself by waitressing.
Before modeling, Walsh worked at Burger King and Dairy Queen. She began as a model in Japan in the 1980s where she also taught English. Later, she moved to Chicago and worked with the Piven Theatre Workshop. She performed on National Public Radio in the production of the radio play Born Guilty.
After playing Cathy Buxton in the Homicide: Life on the Street episode “Stakeout” in 1996 and Navy Lieutenant Kirstin Blair in the Law & Order episode “Navy Blues”, Walsh’s first major television appearance was in 1997, when she appeared on The Drew Carey Show as Drew Carey’s love interest, Nicki Fifer. She wore a fatsuit in some episodes of the show, as the Nicki character was a formerly obese woman who lost weight and slowly started to gain it back.
Walsh went on to portray Carol Nelson in HBO’s The Mind of the Married Man television series, and played Norm Macdonald’s romantic interest in the sitcom The Norm Show. She made a guest appearance on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Mimosa, a transgender woman. She sometimes appeared in sketches on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Walsh had a recurring role on Karen Sisco as Detective Marley Novak in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, she was cast in her breakout role in the ABC series Grey’s Anatomy, as Dr. Addison Montgomery, the estranged spouse of Derek Shepherd (“Dr. McDreamy”, played by Patrick Dempsey).
In February 2007, Walsh’s Grey’s Anatomy character received a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy that began airing in September 2007. Taye Diggs, Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Chris Lowell, and Audra McDonald were cast in the spin-off, Private Practice. Walsh would return for six episodes across the fourth through eighth seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, including the musical episode “Song Beneath the Song”.
In 2013, Walsh appeared in Full Circle, a 10-episode ensemble drama series created by Neil LaBute and airing on DirecTV’s Audience Network channel.
In 2014, Walsh had a supporting role in the first season of FX’s television series Fargo. She had a guest starring role in Hulu’s original series The Hotwives of Orlando and later starred in the NBC series Bad Judge, which aired for one season. As of 2017, Walsh stars in the Netflix drama series 13 Reasons Why, as the mother of a child who commits suicide. Her performance was met with critical acclaim, having been dubbed the “best work” of her career.
In 2019 and 2020, Walsh had a significant recurring role as “the Handler” in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy. Her most recent role has been on Netflix Original, Emily in Paris, where she plays Emily’s boss who gets pregnant and can no longer move to Paris for their marketing job, so she sends Emily instead.
In 1995, Walsh starred in her first film. Normal Life, a crime drama, was her film debut; she played the sister of a bank robber played by Luke Perry. In Peppermills, she portrayed a kleptomaniac. Walsh appeared in the cult film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part II. She gained attention in a major Hollywood production as Will Ferrell’s character’s wife in the family comedy, Kicking & Screaming. Walsh has appeared in several other films with Ferrell, including Bewitched and in Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, an “alternate film” to Anchorman.
Walsh founded Boyfriend LLC, a beauty and lifestyle company in 2010. The company launched its first product in November 2010: a perfume called “Boyfriend”. HSN, a leading multichannel retailer, and Walsh partnered to launch the “Boyfriend” fragrance with live appearances by the actress/entrepreneur on HSN, November 11 and 12. Walsh’s fragrance train case, including Boyfriend eau de perfume, pulse point oil and votive candles, sold out on day one exceeding sales expectations.
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by Vince Chiarelli | Mar 15, 2021 | Film, Musicians, Television
Jason Francesco Schwartzman was born in Los Angeles on June 26, 1980, the son of actress Talia Shire (Coppola) and film producer Jack Schwartzman. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jews, while his mother is an Italian-American Catholic. His younger brother, Robert Schwartzman, is also an actor and musician. His paternal half-siblings are Stephanie and cinematographer John Schwartzman. As a member of the Coppola family, many of his relatives are also involved in the entertainment industry—he is the nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and opera conductor Anton Coppola; the cousin of actor Nicolas Cage and filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola, and Christopher Coppola; and the grandson of Coppola family matriarch Italia Coppola (Pennino) and composer Carmine Coppola. He attended Windward School in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Schwartzman’s acting career began in 1998, at which point he was 17 years old, when he starred in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Shortly after in 2000, Jason had a guest role in the short-lived series Freaks and Geeks. In 2001, he starred in CQ, a film by his cousin Roman Coppola. In 2002, he starred in the comedy film Slackers, and in 2003 headlined the drama Spun. In 2004, he starred in I Heart Huckabees, and Shopgirl in 2005. He also appeared in various television shows, such as Cracking Up. In 2006, he starred in Marie Antoinette under the direction of his cousin, Sofia Coppola, in which he appeared as King Louis XVI.
Schwartzman made a cameo appearance as Ringo Starr in the biopic spoof Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. In 2009, he appeared as C-list television star Mark in Funny People. He also voiced Ash Fox in Wes Anderson’s animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, which he described as “the best movie [he’s] ever been a part of”. He starred in the HBO show Bored to Death, in which he played a writer who moonlights as a private detective and puts himself up for hire on Craigslist. In 2009, he starred in The Marc Pease Experience. In 2010, he played Gideon Graves in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the movie adaptation of the comics by Bryan Lee O’Malley.
In 2011, Schwartzman made a cameo appearance as Vincent van Gogh in the Beastie Boys short film Fight for Your Right Revisited. In 2013, he made a cameo appearance as himself in an episode of the television show Key & Peele. In 2014, he played himself in the Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories episode “The Endorsement”. In 2020, he began starring as Italian crime boss Josto Fadda in the fourth season of the FX anthology series Fargo.
Prior to acting, Schwartzman was the drummer and a songwriter for the band Phantom Planet. He appeared in the music video for the rock remix of “It’s All About the Benjamins” by Puff Daddy, and contributed to Ben Lee’s 2005 album Awake Is the New Sleep. In 2007, he created the indie rock solo act Coconut Records. The first album, entitled Nighttiming, was produced by Michael Einziger and features a cover photo from Roman Coppola. The album was first released on iTunes on March 20, 2007. It had musical contributions by members of Incubus, as well as appearances by actresses Zooey Deschanel and Kirsten Dunst and Schwartzman’s brother Robert. His second album, Davy, was released on iTunes on January 20, 2009. Schwartzman performed the musical score for Funny People and the theme song for Bored to Death. He has also written tracks for Smallville and Slackers. Schwartzman also played the drums on Phoenix’s rendition of The Beach Boys’ song “Alone on Christmas Day” in 2015. The song was featured in Bill Murray’s Netflix special, A Very Murray Christmas.
Schwartzman’s work has also been featured in many films and television programs. In 2009, he composed the theme song to his HBO series Bored to Death, in which he also starred, under his Coconut Records title. That same year, he also contributed to the film score to the film Funny People with composer Michael Andrews. The original soundtrack is downloadable, as well as available in vinyl LP, on Coconut Records’ official Cinder Block store. His song, “Microphone” was featured in the 2012 coming of age comedy, LOL.
Schwartzman married his long-time girlfriend, art and design director Brady Cunningham, at their home in the San Fernando Valley on July 11, 2009. Cunningham is the co-owner of TENOVERSIX in Los Angeles.
In 2009, he was named one of the “Top 10 Most Stylish Men in America” by GQ magazine. In 2011, he narrated a video called What to Eat: The Environmental Impacts of Our Food for Farm Sanctuary.
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