Beck/Smith Hollywood

Burton & Taylor

RIP Elizabeth Taylor, the last great Hollywood film goddess…As the world says farewell to the actress-philanthropist, who died today at age 79, we also say goodbye to a kind of glamor that simply does not exist today.  Here is a glimpse of Elizabeth Taylor’s world when she was at her very peak, and Marilyn Beck shared an adventure.

November 11, 1963

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton Find Paradise On ‘Night of the Iguana’ Shoot

By Marilyn Beck

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO — Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have discovered paradise – and they freely admit it.

In this tiny, tropical village they have found their heaven on earth, where they can openly display their love for each other, freer than they have ever been from notoriety and criticism.

In an exclusive interview with this reporter, Burton explained that he and his Elizabeth are now in process of buying a home in Puerto Vallarta, that they have found contentment here that has  thus far eluded them in the other places they have traveled.

“Half the people here,” he explained, “have never heard of Elizabeth. The other half might have heard of her, but couldn’t care less about her behavior.  The natives allow us to live our lives, to act ourselves.”

He grinned disarmingly, as if unaware his statements were newsworthy, and explained, “Elizabeth and I have already put in an offer on one home.  It was on the market for $40,000.  Unfortunately, when the owner discovered we were the bidders he jacked  up his price to $60,000 and we backed out.  I am sure of this, however,  If we keep looking we will find another home here that pleases us.  “This much we’ve decided:  we do want to live in Puerto Vallarta.  It’s paradise.”

It is understandable that both he and Miss Taylor should have fallen so in love with this tropical village.  For here they have been able to act much like honeymooners blissfully in love.

Local cab drivers point out to tourists “Casa Kimberley,” the luxurious villa nestled high on a rocky hillside where the famous couple live together

Each morning a candy-striped jeep, boldly inscribed on its side with the words “Casa Kimberley” calls for Burton at the entranceway of the house.   The actor jumps in beside the driver and, as the jeep makes its perilous way down the cobblestone streets, narrowly avoiding pigs, burros, and half-naked children, Burton will turn to wave a last goodbye to Elizabeth, standing smiling down at him from the balcony of their home.

Around noon, the jeep will return for Miss Taylor and drive her to the beach where she will board their boat, “The Taffy,” to make the 6-7 [corrected] mile trip down coast to Mismaloya, the location site of Burton’s film, “Night of the Iguana.”

After spending the afternoon with him, on the set, they will board the boat together shortly before dusk to return to Casa Kimberley.

During the evenings, the couple will dine alone at home or will join friends in one of the six restaurant-bars in town.

Even to one spending just a few days in Puerto Vallarta, it becomes obvious that the charm of this tropical land has had its magical effect on Liz and Burton.  Where they tried deliberately not to be seen in public in both Rome and London, here in Mexico they make almost a show out of publicly acting like a couple in love.  Their attitude seems to say:  “We adore each other and are proud of it.  We want the whole world to know how we feel.”  There is not a soul in Puerto Vallarta who could remain oblivious to that fact.

I first became a witness to their love while standing on my hotel balcony one evening, mesmerized by the glories that nature was unfolding before me.  The heavens seemed to be on fire.  The sky, grey with the promise of night, had been touched by unseen fingers of fire and turned shades of gilded red and gold.  The sun, resting briefly atop a low hanging cloud before its final descent, spilled a trail of liquid amber along the tropical waters, then slid silently into the sea.

It was twilight in Puerto Vallarta, one of the most thrilling spectacles offered anywhere in the world.  The coconut trees lining the shore were now bathed in partial darkness and swayed to the rhythm of the surf as a mild tropical breeze arose.

Unexpectedly, from the horizon, a ship approached, killed its motors about a hundred feet from shore, and drifted silently, lifted gently and unprotestingly by the gentle push of the waves.  The ship was the “Taffy” and from its cabin Elizabeth Taylor emerged, climbed to the bow where she poised for a moment, then disappeared into the sea, cutting the water with an expert and graceful dive.  A moment later she surfaced and waved to Burton who stood at the stern of the craft.  He called, “I’ll see you on shore, luv,” and made a motion to the native captain to resume the progress of the boat.

It seemed but moments later when the actress’ powerful stroke had carried her to the beach.  There, like a child confident she is safe from unseen eyes, she  pranced upon the sand, shaking her head to free the sea water held captive in her hair.  She stood for a moment, her arms outstretched in a gesture of abandoned happiness, then skipped back into the surf, laughing with delight as the waves playfully slapped at her legs.

“Elizabeth,” Burton’s voice broke the stillness as he came trotting down the beach to meet her.  They embraced, clung to each other for a moment, then walked arm in arm to an awaiting jeep.  They were going home.

“Elizabeth is very happy here,” Burton confessed to me the following day.  “We both feel we’ve found heaven.”

He proceeded to explain why.  “Here in Puerto Vallarta we can be ourselves.  Last Sunday, for instance, we decided to take the boat and spend the day with Lisa on a deserted beach along the coast.  At least we thought it was deserted.  After dropping our gear on the sand and spreading out our towels, we looked up and noticed several families of natives watching us from halfway up the mountain.  I waved and they immediately began to approach, friendly and unafraid.  They paid almost no attention to Elizabeth and myself.  It was apparent that they didn’t have the vaguest notion who we were.  But Lisa, they fell in love with her.  Even with my limited knowledge of Spanish, I could understand that they were telling us how beautiful she was, saying that she looked, with her deep copper tan, like a Mexican Niña.

When lunchtime came, I asked our visitors if they’d  care to share our sandwiches.  They were delighted, even happier to sample our tequila.  Then it was time for them to treat us.  They invited us up to their hut, to share their tortillas and beans – and their local brew.  Elizabeth and I sat on the dirt floor of the thatched hut, sharing the simple food that the women prepared for us over an open fire.  And, while Elizabeth and I basked in those golden moments of anonymity, Lisa enjoyed herself playing tag in the jungle outside the hut with our host’s children.”

For over two hours Burton talked of the life he and Elizabeth have found in Mexico.  Never did he say “I”.  His statements always began with “we.”  Charming and suave and very much a man of the world, he none-the-less gave the impression of a person as overwhelmingly in love as a teenager smitten with his first affair of the heart.

Sitting with him in the thatched roofed bar at Mismaloya, little more than a clearing out of a lush forest overgrown with wild banana and coconut trees, he pointed in the direction of the Taffy, at anchor in the breakwater.  “You know, of course,” he offered, “that Elizabeth named the boat after me.  Remember the rhyme, ‘Taffy was a Welshman.  Taffy was a thief? …’”  His blue eyes shone with pride and he seemed all at once like a boastful small boy, proud of his mischievous behavior.

This impression remained as Burton continued to speak.  Charming, a marvelous story teller, he seemed bent on disclosing the intimate little details of his affair with Elizabeth Taylor.  “She is my woman,” his attitude proclaimed.

Yet, though Elizabeth Taylor might be a woman in love, a woman who is now acting like an ecstatic bride, she proved a few hours later that, like women everywhere, she has her moments of annoyance with her man, when anger and possessiveness can erase all other feelings.

On that particular day, because only a half days shooting was scheduled, she had decided not to make the trip to Mismaloya.  Instead, she waited for Burton at “Casa Kimberly, expecting him to arrive home by two o’clock in the afternoon.

He, however, chose that day to rebel.  A terribly gregarious person who seems complete only when he is surrounded by people, he sat talking with me for several hours, though he knew Elizabeth was waiting at home.  Then, urged y his secretary who warned in whispers, “Miss Taylor will be upset,” he reluctantly arose and offered me a ride back to the mainland on his boat.  We had begun to leave the bar when he spied Director John Huston and Ava Gardner at a corner table and made his way over, “Just to say hello.”  It was more than an hour later when the frantic secretary finally persuaded him to board the boat and it was past 6 p.m. when we finally docked at Puerto Vallarta.  Elizabeth’s houseboy, sent down to the water’s edge to try to locate Burton, rushed up to him and explained nervously in Spanish that Miss Taylor was very upset, had sent him to the beach three times earlier that afternoon to find him.

If Burton was worried over Elizabeth’s apparent wrath he gave no indication, just smiled, bestowed a kiss upon my cheek as he bid me farewell and said  he’d probably see me later in town.

As it turned out, we did see each other again.  That evening he and Elizabeth appeared together at the Hotel Rio, in the center of town.  Whatever disagreement they may have had over Burton’s tardiness obviously resulted  in no more than a lover’s quarrel for she sat beside him now, her face glowing with adoration as they sipped their cocktails and made love with their eyes.  When they left a short time later, it was arm and arm, walking to the jeep that would take them down the cobblestone streets to their home.

Neither Richard Burton nor Elizabeth Taylor will discuss the possibility of their securing divorces from their present mates, yet there in Mexico such complications seem something that bothers them little.  They are honeymooning.  They have found their Shangri-la and if there is an Eddie Fisher and a Sybil Burton giving statements to the press in the United States – well, such things belong to another world, cannot penetrate the blissful state that has enveloped them.

Honeymooners are not uncommon in Puerto Vallarta.  Its beauty and picturesque setting make it a lover’s paradise.  Perhaps this is why the local citizens seem to be able to take Liz and Burton’s actions in stride.  They point with pride to ‘Liz’s house, the Casa Kimberley.’  They comment on Lisa’s beauty.  Yet they seem highly unconcerned with the notoriety that has surrounded Liz and Burton in other parts of the globe.

In a blue negligee she stands, waving to her lover as he leaves for a day’s work.  In the neighborhood grocery shop she will wander, seeking some delicacy to delight her man when he returns home at night.  In a picturesque cantina she sits, her eyes never leaving the face of the man with whom she is sharing paradise.  Her hand reaches out to find his and she smiles, her violet eyes alight with rapture.  Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have found their heaven on earth.  It’s possible that they feel they can cling to it forever here in this Eden-like village.  They will buy a home high in the hills overlooking the sea where few will see and no one will are about their behavior.  And if they must return to civilization – to a curious press, to demands from estranged mates, to a society shocked that they won’t conform to acceptable behavior — their return will only be a temporary one.  And they will be able to tolerate it, knowing that they will return to the heaven they have found on earth where they can openly acknowledge their love.  And where no one will judge them.

Madonna photo by David Shankbone

By Emily-Fortune Feimster

They may be making the big bucks now — but it wasn’t that long ago that these super stars were at the bottom of the barrel.

P.  Diddy, one of the most well-known money makers of his time, started his career working for free. That’s right!  He was an intern for the now-defunct Uptown Records and did everything from washing cars to fetching coffee. This bad boy worked his way up to being a dancer in Father MC’s video “Treat Them Like They Want to be Treated” while attending the prestigious Howard University, majoring in Business.  He now owns his own record label and is worth over $300 million.   Guess working for free really pays off!

The Material Girl Madonna worked at a Dunkin Donuts in New York City’s Times Square before becoming an international pop icon.  Donuts anyone? Having a whopping IQ of 140, Madonna also won a scholarship to the University of Michigan for excellent grades and studied modern dance and drama for 3 semesters.

Singer Elvis Costello was another closet smarty pants and wears his trademark glasses because in a former incarnation he strained his eyes working as a computer programmer.

But no lowly beginner is as surprising as Tom Cruise, who at the age of 14 attended a Franciscan seminary for one year  while thinking of becoming a priest.  Katie Holmes must be glad that didn’t work out.   In high school, he also had a brief stint as a paper boy for the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Funny lady Ellen DeGeneres had a variety of jobs as a house painter, an oyster shucker in New Orleans, a vacuum cleaner saleswoman, and a paralegal.

Whoopi Goldberg also worked hard for the money. Before her stardom, she applied makeup to corpses in a funeral parlor, and worked as a bricklayer and a bank teller.

Suave secret agent 007 Sean Connery can relate — having earned a living polishing coffins.  Kind of creepy!

Danny DeVito preferred to work with the living and was a qualified hairdresser (or stylist as they like to say).  He was trained at the Wilfred Academy of Hair and Beauty in NYC before snagging a role in “Taxi.”

Mariah Carey tried her hand at beauty school but didn’t make the cut and dropped out after only one day on the job.  She claims to have held several waitressing jobs and said she got fired from them all. Is anyone surprised? I didn’t think so.

Another actor claiming to have been let go is former “Cheers” star Woody Harrelson who said he had 17 odd jobs in one year and was fired from all of them.  Maybe legalizing pot is not as good of an idea as he thought?

Hottie tottie Brad Pitt has no doubt had his fair share of odd jobs — his most infamous being a limousine driver in which he chauffeured strippers between bachelor parties, but only when he wasn’t delivering refrigerators.  He also dressed up as a chicken on the street corner to advertise for the fast food chain “El Pollo Loco.”

His former wife Jennifer Aniston worked as a waitress in New York but that’s not as exciting.

“Titanic” megastar Kate Winslet used to work in a north London deli.

Ok, that’s not exciting either, but off-the-wall Rob Schneider washed dishes in an ice cream parlor before making it onto “Saturday Night Live.”

And get this — before getting his own TV show, comedian Jerry Seinfeld sold light bulbs over the telephone. Kind of crazy, huh?

That’s not all.   Esteemed actress Helen Mirren worked at an amusement park in Southend as a “blagger” – employed to attract punters to the rides — and Sylvester Stallone earned his rent by tending the lion cages at the Central Park Zoo.

Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu made some extra dough by getting physical as aerobics instructors while director Steven Spielberg earned some money whitewashing fruit trees.

Hawaii native Bette Midler is all too familiar with fruit as well having once worked at a pineapple processing plant.

So don’t feel bad about your day job.  You never know where life will lead you!

(In her July 23-opening “Salt,”  Angelina Jolie’s spy character may be good, but may be bad.  In real life, Jolie mastered this duality long ago, as evidenced by the following…)

Originally Published July 2005

Separated at Birth?
Good Angelina vs. Bad Angelina
by Steve Ryfle

Angelina Jolie is a hard one to figure out. Is she a freewheeling free spirit, a hyper-tattooed, oversexed, uninhibited superstar who wears her peccadilloes in plain sight, or a single mother and activist who devotes her free time to the plight of refugees in war-torn countries? Is she a shameless femme fatale, who would swipe an A-list husband away from a fellow actress, or a devoted parent raising her two kids?

The truth is there are two Angelinas, Good Angelina and Bad Angelina. Both were born in 1975, both are Jon Voight’s daughter, and both are big-time tabloid fodder. But while Bad Angelina is giving candid interviews about her sex life, Good Angelina is representin’ for the United Nations around the globe. Will Good eventually triumph over Bad, or will these two contradictory celebrity halves learn to coexist? Here’s how the yin and yang of Jolie measure up.

Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, 1981 American Music Awards

…Her choices for guest stars began with long-time buddy Michael Jackson.  “To me, he’s like a child of mine. ..”

February 25, 1981

Diana Ross In the Driver’s Seat

By Stacy Jenel Smith

HOLLYWOOD – As the song says, “I’m Comin’ Out.”

For the first time in her professional life, Diana Ross is sitting in the driver’s seat – and she makes it clear, “I really like that position.”

Her hotel bungalow has the look of a command post: table tops littered with coffee cups, stacks of papers and slides taken at her recent Los Angeles Forum concert, recording and video equipment, a projector and screen dominate the living room.

After a late night of watching the editing of her CBS March 2 “Diana” special – the first of her TV outings that Diana has produced herself – she walks through the morning light into the room looking wide awake and full of bubbling energy, smartly attired in an electric purple blouse and jacket with black pants tucked into studded black suede boots.

Asked about her new executive producer title, she looks toward the ceiling with a wide grin and chuckles, “Ohhh yes.  A – it’s real exciting.

“It just means I’m the one who make the decisions, that I’m responsible for whatever happens.  I feel like I’m learning a lot about TV this way.  It’s an important position.  For the last 15 years, I haven’t been in that position.  I haven’t taken the responsibility.  I felt there was a reason for this – that I’m starting to be more responsible.

“I think if you’re going to hand over control of something to someone else, you should be willing to hand it over completely.  If you’re going to complain about how they’re handling it, maybe you should be doing it yourself.”

As for Diana, “I’m taking my life and handling it.”

For the last 15 years, the singing superstar’s name has seemed inextricably linked with those of the Motown record company and of its founder – her “Henry Higgins” – Berry Gordy.  From the days when she and her fellow Supremes became the No. 2 record-selling group of the ’60s (behind The Beatles), through her first solo successes, her acclaimed acting debut in “Lady Sings the Blues,” her marriage to and divorce from Bob Silberstein, Diana has been protected, cared for and – to an ever decreasing degree – had her decisions made by Gordy’s Motown.

Now, “I’m not under contract with anyone,” she says.  And as to whether she’s re-sign with the company, she shrugs and smiles.  A beat passes.  “I don’t know.”

Diana spent her Christmas vacation working on preparations for her special.  “I went to Aspen with the kids (daughters Rhonda, 9, Tracee, 8, and Chudney, 5).  While they were skiing, I was staying in making  a lot of notes and calls.  You see, this time I had to worry about making the business deals too.”

Her new managerial outlook extended into the production of the show.  “When we were going overtime, a part of me was thinking in terms of, ‘How much is this costing?’  The executive producer was thinking in numbers.  The other part of me was thinking, ‘Isn’t it wonderful to be in a position where I can help employ all these people?’

“I took a lot of time deciding on the people I wanted to work with,” she continues, quickly ebulliently.  “See that stack of tapes over there?  I watched them all to help me decide.  I called a lot of people to ask who they thought a good director would be and Steve Binder’s name came up a lot.  He sent me a tape with some of his things and in the middle of it I saw this FACE and these TEETH coming at me.  I said, ‘Hey!  Those are my teeth!’  I hadn’t realized it, but we’d worked together years ago on the ‘Tammy’ show.  He put that on the tape to see if I’d remember.  Do you remember that show?  It was the start of rock ‘n’ roll.  The Beach Boys were on, the Rolling Stones when Mick Jagger was just starting his…(she does a silent imitation of Jagger jiggle)…thing.”

Her choices for guest stars began with long-time buddy Michael Jackson.  “To me, he’s like a child of mine.  I feel the same way about Stevie Wonder.  As soon as I found out about the special I asked Michael if he’d be on and he said yes.  He just sent me six platinum records of his, with a note that says, ‘To my inspiration.’

“I’d like the young kids in the TV audience to understand that we really do have a close relationship.  The young kids don’t know how I started them (The Jackson 5) in the business, brought them out here and that they lived with me for awhile.

“Michael and Quincy (Jones, who’s also featured on the special) and I did ‘The Wiz’ together.  Quincy also produced Michael’s latest album which is such a success.  We’re trying to figure out how Michael, Quincy and I could do an album together.  I think that’s a very good idea.  I want to push that one through.”

She’d also like to push through a film project.  “I’d love to do a movie right away.  I have three or four things in the air, but have no idea at all what I’ll be doing next.  I feel I can take the time to pick and choose something I really care about, because I have my career of recording, concerts and TV, but I’d like to do a movie soon.  ‘Tough Customers’ (in which she’d play the girlfriend of gangster Dutch Schultz) is in the works and the idea of my doing a movie about Josephine Baker is still very much alive. But you can’t just zap out a movie like in the old days.  It costs too much.”

Discussing plans of a more personal sort, Diana laughs at reports of her marriage plans to KISS singer Gene Simmons.  “No, no.  It’s not that kind of relationship between Gene and I.  He’s a very special person, but – no.

“I realized about five years ago,” she adds, “that you have to give up a lot in order to be in this business.  One of the things is privacy.  You find yourself fighting that, but it’s something people expect – to know what’s happening in your life.  I don’t mind talking about myself.  I have nothing to hide.  It’s when people will take something that’s very important and treat it without regard for its importance that I mind.  I think it’s the responsibility of the press and others to consider how important what they’re writing about really is.”

She’s thinking of her children especially, she says.  “You see so many stories about performers’ children getting so messed up by being exposed to the press, to the world.  I try to shield mine from that.  It was easier when they were younger.  Now that they’re getting bigger, they can see what’s going on – see me on TV, see the people I work with , see what it all means.  I’ve decided to send them to boarding school when they’re a little older, where they’ll have lives apart from all this.

“We have a lot of honesty – no lies.  Now and then they’ll ask me, ‘Mommy, why can’t you stay home?’  And I tell them, ‘Because I don’t want to stay home.  I love what I do and I’m not going to feel guilty about it.’

“I do know my girls will all probably go into show business.  That’s O.K.  I think it’s the best game in town.  I mean, what would I have done if I hadn’t gone into show business?”

She starts enumerating the possibilities, counting on her fingers as she goes.  “Well, I took design, so I might have designed clothes.  I went to beauty school, so I might have done your hair.  I bussed dishes for awhile.  Did you know that?  Back in Detroit I was a bus girl.  We wore little green and white dresses and nets on our hair and we couldn’t lean against the wall.”  The room chimes with her laughter at the recollection.

She continues, more seriously, that her childhood didn’t offer much exposure to showbiz, with the exception of music.  “My mother did have a job in a theater – cleaning,” she smiles.  “I remember listening to radio shows.  I was five or six when we got our first TV.  I know when TV started, the rich people got it first and it came to the ghetto a while later.”  She smiles and leans back.  “The only star I knew of to look up to was Lena Horne, and I didn’t look up to her as a movie star.  I knew her as a singing star.”

Now, countless little girls are looking up to Diana Ross, who seems to have done it all.  What’s left to conquer?

“Oh, God!  What’s so amazing is – that’s life out there!  There’s so much more for me to learn.  I’m always learning new things through my kids.  I feel my move to New York has taught me so much.  I discovered so much.  I met doctors, lawyers.  I now have girlfriends who are NOT involved with show business.

“I don’t want to get into making comparisons between New York and Los Angeles.  I love California and I’d never give it up.  But I’d gone through my divorce and I wanted to be in a place where I could be busy all the time and I moved.  I go to the theater now, and I take the kids to museums and galleries.  I met a guy who knows all about modern art.  I didn’t know anything about modern art.  I’ve known people who bought it as an investment, that’s all.  But now I’ve found out about it.”

She nods emphatically that the divorce and the move have “opened me up.”  And that they’re partly responsible for her new feelings of responsibility.

“If something’s successful, then it’s wonderful.  If not, well … Do you know the poem, ‘If’?  I always like to remember a line from that: ‘If you can treat those two imposters, success and failure, the same …’  I do the best I can, and whatever happens, try to treat it the same.  This business can sweep you away.  Look at this.”  She holds up a slide of the masses of people engulfing the Forum, with herself in the center of it all bathed in the spotlight.

“But what helps me to keep it in perspective is the fact I left that and went home to bed alone.”

Patrick Swayze in "Letters from a Killer"

8-12-1997

Patrick Swayze Feels Near-Death Experience Makes  Him Live Life to the Full

By Stacy Jenel Smith

Hollywood-”This has turned into one of the most wonderful periods of my life. I feel like Mary Poppins, singing to the birds and trees, lucky to by alive,” says Patrick Swayze. He feels he’s a changed man after his brush with death last May, when he was thrown off a galloping bareback horse into an oak tree during filming of “Letters from a Killer.”

Swayze credits a lifetime of dancing and gymnastics with saving him. “It would have killed me, I would have gone head first into this oak tree, if instinct hadn’t kicked in and I hadn’t grabbed two handfuls of that horse’s mane and been able to flip my body so I’d break my legs on the tree instead of crushing my skull,” says the actor. He suffered breaks in both legs (a broken femur and fibula, plus four detached tendons in his shoulder, in the accident.

Swayze, who gets his star on Hollywood Boulevard on his birthday, Aug. 18 – days before the 10^th anniversary re-release of “Dirty Dancing” – reveals he’s now set for a Sept. 3 return to “Letters from a Killer.”

The script’s been rewritten to include a scene that makes his injury part of the storyline. He also acknowledges that he must not perform any more of his own stunts in the picture; that’s part of the agreement made in order to get the film’s insurance company to let him go back to work.

Meanwhile, “I lucked out that the bones broke clean, they’re going to heal perfectly, and they were able to reattach all the tendons in my shoulder. … Doctors have been blown away by my progress,” adds Swayze, who is already walking without even a cane.

Swayze also says he’s overcome a recurring nightmare in which he gets killed in the accident -by viewing the footage of it. (He still loves horses and considers the fall his own fault, not the animal’s.)

Now, “One of the things I’ve come away from this experience with is an unwillingness to put off the things that are important to me. We’re only here so long. Let’s get on with it!” he says. Swayze’s been working in supercharged fashion to make some long-awaited dreams reality. Among other things, he says he now has financing for the dance movie he and wife Lisa Niemi have been wanting to make for years.

December 30, 1999

Walter Cronkite

Cronkite picks Best Presidents – and Worst

By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith

Walter Cronkite and wife Betsy are spending the week in Vienna, Austria, where, he reports, he’s been working from dawn to dusk preparing “The New Year’s Celebration 2000” that will be beamed from the famed Musikverein Concert Hall via satellite on PBS.

Included on the WNET Great Performances show that Cronkite will host – in addition to a concert of Strauss waltzes, polkas and marches – will be footage of Vienna as it was and as it has become.

One gets the feeling that the 83-year-old newsman will be relieved when the emphasis fades on the last century and the new millennium.

“As the world’s oldest living reporter, it seems I’m looked upon as the sage. I’ve probably been interviewed for more New Year’s Eve programs than anyone.”

Tired of the subject as he might be, one can’t resist asking him just a few questions about his many years of covering American affairs of state.

He still feels, he says, that “Jimmy Carter might not have been the smartest politician, but was the best brain in the White House. And Clinton comes close. It’s just regrettable Clinton got himself involved in such a scandalous affair, which will always serve as an asterisk to his name in history.”

His opinion of Gerald Ford? “The weakest president, though it wasn’t his fault. He never had a chance. He was only in power a couple of years.”

Is he sorry that Richard Nixon was pardoned? “Not anymore. It helped us put things behind and move on.”

The greatest president of the 20^th century? “No doubt about it – Franklin Roosevelt. But then, Congress usually gives wartime presidents powers that enable them to do exceptional things.” Among the things Roosevelt did: “Centralizing power in Washington that changed the entire face of government in America.”

Meryl Streep in "Kramer vs. Kramer"

10-03-1981

Meryl Streep: The Woman Behind the Mystique

By: Marilyn Beck

Hollywood – The media has made Meryl Streep a legend before her time – and it doesn’t please her.

The nation’s news magazines have heralded her coming in “French Lieutenant’s Women” with the sort of superlatives that have been heaped upon few actresses since Sarah Bernhart. And she’s scared.

Newsweek has hailed her as the actress of the ’80s.

Time Magazine, in its recent cover story, was so blinded by adoration it reported there had been “an astonishing public clamor” for her even prior to the “Kramer vs. Kramer” portrayal which earned her a Best Supporting actress Oscar.

She refers to it all as excessive – and unsought – hype. And she makes the point, “I am not the actress of the ’80s. Someone said it to sell magazines – and it sets up expectations it’s impossible for anyone to meet.”

Her talent is undeniable; her track record remarkable, her achievements particularly stunning when you consider that she is only six years removed from the Yale School of Drama. And her performance in United Artists’ brilliant adaptation of the John Fowles novel is truly magnificent. But she feels she still has much growing to do as a woman and as an actress – and she’s afraid she’s not being given the chance to fail.

Thus far, she has been a stranger to failure, having been swept almost immediately from Yale to leading roles in six major Broadway and off-Broadway productions, and then on to films, where she made indelible impressions in TV’s “Holocaust” and the big-screen’s “The Deer Hunter,” “Manhattan,” “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” – and “Kramer vs. Kramer.”

But she is well aware, “Everyone has to fail, And I’m scared of being robbed of that opportunity.”

She sits in her New York hotel suite, resting before she submits to television promotional activities for the “French Lieutenant’s Woman,” which marks her first starring role. She is prettier on screen, where she has the benefit of lighting and theatrical makeup, which soften the sharpness of her features, minimize the angular line of her nose, and heighten the importance of her small, expressive eyes. But in person, a directness and warmth radiates from her. There is a candidness, too.

She talks about the growth she has witnessed in herself since the days she starred in college productions and says, “I came off with much more energy then, but I didn’t have what I have now.”

She smiles as she repeats the cliché about acting, “you don’t have to be a murderer to play one.” But she adds that growth does come from “all the incredible life experiences one has, as well as the drudgery we all experience – doing the laundry, getting painters back to complete a job.”

Her life has been touched by stark tragedy (the death of her lover, actor John Cazale, of bone cancer in 1978) and great joy (her marriage to sculptor Don Gummer and the birth of their son in 1979). She is, like all of us, the sum of her past experiences. But she remains, to a degree, inscrutable. “I think all of us are. Even our analysts don’t know who we are.”

She doesn’t mind telling us, “I am not self-confident – as people assume I am. I am filled with insecurities.” And she carries a bag of fear.

Returning to the subject of the superlatives that are being heaped upon her, she says, “I can’t take any pleasure in it. I feel very paranoid about it. When I think of what the press did to a marvelous man like John Travolta. They raved about him in ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ then tore him apart when he made his next movie. And I must tell you I have this terrible fear they’re sharpening their knives for me now.”

She has certainly not gone out of her way to become the media’s darling. And being singled out for the attention she’s receiving makes her fear, “It will damage the way I walk into a rehearsal hall. An actor is only as effective as what he or she gets and gives from other actors. It is a collaborative effort.”

Director Karel Reisz reveals that Meryl’s reputation did cause some trepidations on the part of her “French Lieutenant’s Woman” co-star Jeremy Irons when production on the picture first began. “But within a week she managed to get it out of the way. She is an ensemble performer. She doesn’t behave like a star.”

And Irons, the English actor who makes her big-screen debut as the 19^th century aristocrat who is obsessed with love for the French Lieutenant’s woman, describes Meryl as “strong, opinionated – and nearly always right. She gnaws at a problem until she finds its solution.”

Filming the movie in England was good for her, he says, because, “Unlike America, stars are not to be revered over there. We don’t have the machinery to produce them ourselves – so we hold them a little in suspect. And while she was there, she could go shopping and not be mobbed, and not have to worry about security and all that.”

Security – for herself and her family – does preoccupy Meryl over here. It’s one of the prices she finds she has to pay for stardom And she doesn’t like it. Stardom, she’s also finding, means “having to change your phone number every five minutes, it seems, and having people look at you differently.”

Her ability to adapt speech patterns and mannerisms for her various characterizations was born, she says, of her talent for mimicry. “I would observe people on the street and imitate them But I can’t do that any longer. You can’t watch someone who is watching you, and that is what happens when you become famous.”

If fame causes her anxiety, her love her craft seems to make it all worthwhile – and more.

“It is fun, it is fakery,” she says with an easy smile. “It is very liberating to be an actress. And probably the only thing I could ever do, because I get bored very easily. I have a very short attention span. I have never been in a long run of a play and would probably die if I were. Film acting is the perfect profession for me.”

Even if it has brought with it the pressures she abhors.

Robert Redford in "The Sting"

March 10-11, 1973

Robert Redford Finds Hope

In Looking Back to Yesterday

By Marilyn Beck

Robert Redford was in a somber mood.

“I feel our future lies in the past,” he said.

“We’ve loused up our tomorrows with today’s greed, with the technological monster we created that has backfired on us.

“Our yesterdays are what it’s good to look back upon, to be reminded of the time when there was integrity about the people, while there was a pureness about the land.

“Remind yourself of things like that, and you’ll realize that as Americans we have much to be proud of.” He sat behind the desk of the Universal office suite reserved for use during production of the Redford-Paul Newman starrer, “The Sting.”

Dressed in pleated pants and stiff-collared white dress shirt for his role as a Chicago con man of the 30′s, he seemed somehow to fit in more properly as part of the earlier era when beautiful men made up the bulk of Hollywood’s top-actor stable.

Old-Fashioned Values

As he talked on, it became obvious that Robert Redford is a throwback to an earlier time in his attitudes and philosophies, too; a man who has learned to survive with the pressures of modern society by escaping from them as frequently as he is able.

Shoes propped upon the desk top, shoulders forcing his chair back to a precarious tilt, he flashed that 300-watt Redford smile that ignites a room and said, “Was there a ring of patriotism in my speech? I apologize for that. Because as God knows I’m as much as anarchist as anyone in terms of growing alarm about the direction this country is taking.”

The smile was gone suddenly, replaced by a pensive expression as he said, “We’ve become the victims of one deceit after another – and all we can do is look back at that point in time when America still had a clean, pure image, and Americans still had the work ethic of the pioneer.”

Usually Redford manages to keep his conversations breezy, using his smile as punctuation to lighten his conversation.

I’m not sure what set off his serious mood the day of our most recent chat. Perhaps it was the ominous clouds that darkened the sky outside the window. Perhaps it was being someplace – and knowing he’d have to be there for quite some time – when he would have preferred being somewhere else.

He persisted in the subject that preoccupied him, revealing, “That’s the reason I made ‘Jeremiah Johnson.’ It wasn’t just a film experience to me. It was a statement I wanted to make, a message I wanted to deliver to the American people.”

The film, which portrays a man who goes off into the mountains to survive among the elements and Indians in the year 184, is perhaps Bob’s strongest screen portrayal thus far. Certainly it’s one he seems proud of.

Utah’s His Home

Among other things, it gave him the opportunity to show filmgoers his beloved Utah, where he and his family reside part-time (they also own a New York City condominium) in a chalet high up in the Wasatch mountains.

At the food of the hill as the Sundance Lodge he owns, and some 15 miles away is the community of Provo, reachable only by snowmobile when the deep winter snows fall.

It’s a point of great pride to him that he constructed the eight-grabbled A-frame house himself, with only the help of a local resident, “A half-Indian who brought his son around to help out once in a while – but most of the time it was just the two of us.

“Later, we called in professionals to install the plumbing and electricity. But all the rough work – including hauling the 40 tons of rock we used – was done without outside help. Of course, my wife did an awful lot on the inside of the house.”

His wife is the former Lola Van Wangenen, whom he married when he was 21, she 17.

They have a son and two daughters ranging in age from 12 to 2. And life for the Redfords in Utah, as Bob describes it, represents “a time when we can just be together without the world crashing in.

“We have no household help to get between us. The kids take care of their own horses – and when they want to get down to the lodge to go skiing, they walk! I don’t believe in making life too easy for children.”

Surfing When Young

He had a comparatively easy time of it himself in his formative years. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1955 and remembers his youth as a time of surfing along California shores, hiking among Los Angeles orange groves – at a time when there were still orange groves in Los Angeles, and the air was still pure.

Then he left California to attend the University of Colorado, where he discovered mountain climbing and skiing – and an area of America still as unspoiled by development as it was when pioneers like “Jeremiah Johnson” roamed the land.

In this past year and a half he’s been working much more than he cares to, away from his Utah home more than he likes.

He’s gone from production of “Jeremiah” to “Hot Rock” to the “Candidate” to the still-to-be-released “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand. And now as soon as Universal’s “The Sting” filming is completed in April, he moves directly into production for “The Great Gatsby” with Mia Farrow.

After “Gatsby” is concluded, he hopes to make another retreat from acting, as he has in the past – as he once did almost permanently.

On the wall of his office is a framed cope of the papers he signed for his first film commitment. The year was 1961, the picture was ‘Warhunt,” and his salary was $500-per-week for a five-week minimum.

After that movie, “I decided I didn’t know if I really wanted to be an actor. If I shouldn’t devote my life to painting – which had been an earlier love.”

Scores On Stage

Later, realizing “I’m better at acting than anything else,” he moved back to Manhattan and achieved his first big score in the stage version of “Barefoot in the Park.”

Then a return to Hollywood for “Situation Hopeless – But Not Serious,” “Inside Daisy Clover” and “The Chase.”

And in between those films there were moments of doubt and dissatisfaction, periods when he pushed career aside and took time off to rediscover himself.

After one of his exiles, he returned to make “Blue,” balked at the much re-written project, and promptly picked up his family and left town again – this time with a law suit on his record.

“After that I didn’t work for two years,” he said as the day grew darker outside the Universal Office Window.

“I was disillusioned and hurt. I had been involved with people who hadn’t lived up to their promises. And I determined that after that I would only work when I wanted to. The respites from acting had become a way of life. I had discovered that I was happier with myself when I was away from the business.”

When he returned again, it was the star in “Tell Them Willie Boy Is here.”

Next came the film that hoisted him to real stardom, as Paul Newman’s co-star in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Since then it’s been harder for him to break away to lead the good life away from the cameras.

Box Office Appeal

For since then Robert Redford has become one of the few personalities considered hot by box office standards, in terms of audience appeal.

Suddenly he became the guy banks let money on, the film personality ho could take his choice of projects, who could indulge in making personal cinema statements.

“Jeremiah Johnson” was not his first of that league.

“The Downhill Racer” was his project from the start. He picked the scriptwriter for the story about the pressures exerted on a man to be a winner, was involved in editing, location selection, and, of course, was the star.

“The Candidate” was all Redford, too, taking a year of his life as he developed the cinema statement about eh compromises of a political candidate, and rushing it out this past year in time to cash in on election interest – and to prove that Hollywood was wrong when they said political movies couldn’t make money.

It’s been 12 years since he signed on for his first movie commitment. And he is now undoubtedly one of Hollywood’s most powerful stars.

That’s a label, however, he detests, and he prays his position won’t trap him into becoming something he doesn’t care to become.

He wants to keep it all in perspective, to remember there’ a life out there to return to.

One gets the feeling he might be returning there soon for another of his periodic acting retreats when he says, “My advisors keep saying you’ve got to take advantage of the momentum when you’re hot. But I keep telling them that if I’m any good, people will remember me.

“If I’m not, I guess I don’t belong, anyway.”

One gets the impression Robert Redford wouldn’t be shattered if he discovered the latter situation were true.

Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski's CHINATOWN (1974). Photo courtesy of Film Forum.

“If we merely responded to the cynicism within us, the world would be in rubble…”

August 10-11, 1974

For Jack Nicholson, It’s Up, Up, Up

Ever Since His Part in “Easy Rider”

By Marilyn Beck

He slouched in an easy chair, blue jean-clad legs a bridge onto an ottoman, belly pressed against white T-shirt to form a miniature snow drift.

Jack Nicholson: The Now actor’s Now actor; the recipient of three Academy Award nominations (“Easy Rider,” “Five Easy Pieces,” “The Last Detail“) within the last four years.

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda would enjoy just a brief burst of spectacular success following release of “Easy Rider,” the low-budget “bike” picture that was to spawn a tidal wave of social rebellion cinema statements.

For Nicholson, it has been up, up, up ever since “Rider” audiences viewed him as the Southern lawyer who takes up with two stoned hippies.

He doesn’t give many interviews these days, but when he talks he comes on strong – articulate and direct and often painfully introspective.

“I’ve been around this business a long time,” he reminded, “And I’ve seen the damage success can create. I’m glad I didn’t make it big when I was young, because no one can ever handle it flawlessly. I’ve been no exception.”

He shrugged. He rubbed a hand along a receding hairline. He commented, “Success represents too big a change to take on without problems. For me, there were over 12 years of trying to support myself and my family, worrying about bills. Then suddenly there were movie offers than I could possibly handle. And more attention than I might have been ready to handle.”

During those years of waiting, he grabbed television bit parts, became a regular on such daytime shows as “Divorce Court” and “Matinee Theatre” and made such forgettable films as “The Cry Baby Killer,” “Too Young to Love” and “Hell’s Angels On Wheels.”

“I’m not a very nostalgic person,” he said of the no-so-good-old days. “That period of my life was just bad.”

He had been on the verge of retiring from acting and limiting his attentions to filmmaking when “Easy Rider” came along. He made “Five Easy Pieces” to prove his performance in “Rider” wasn’t a fluke, and followed that up with a critically-acclaimed portrayal in “Carnal Knowledge,” “Because Mike Nichols asked me to do the picture – and who would ever turn Nichols down?”

The 37-year old actor can currently be seen in Bob Evans’ Paramount production, “Chinatown,” a stunning story of crime and corruption in the Los Angeles of the ’30′s. It’s Nicholson’s first detective movie, but he says he did not make it for the chance to play a private investigator.

“I developed the original concept of the film with Writer Robert Towne. What interested me was the chance to say something to people my age who have walked different paths of hopelessness and hope.

“My character in ‘Chinatown’ has had bad experiences listening to his heart. His mind tells him not to do the same thing again, to remain uninvolved. But he listens to his heart.”

Nicholson’s personal path has been littered since childhood with roadblocks marked Hopelessness. He was born and raised in Neptune, N.J., the son of an alcoholic father who drifted into the household for periodic, brief visits. “Home” was that portion of the house Jack’s mother hadn’t converted into the beauty shop she ran to support her two children.

In his background is one brief marriage to actress Sandra Knight, who bore him his 10-year-old daughter, Jennifer. There is also the memory of the two-year relationship she shared with actress/singer Michelle Phillips. For the last 12 months, he has been sharing his life – and his benedict Canyon home – with Anjelica Huston, daughter of Director John Huston.

“Will I marry again? One policy I’ve established,” he grinned, “Is not to set policies. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow. I’m just trying to cope with today.”

Marriage or no, Nicholson says that, like his “Chinatown” character, he still listens to his heart.

‘If we merely responded to the cynicism within us, the world would be in rubble. We all know that our most beautiful gestures often go totally unappreciated, our best work frequently unrewarded – but some feeling of inner-self still inspires us to have standards of excellence.”

Nicholson is a member of the outspoken Hollywood community which has been vocal on beliefs ranging from politics to drugs.

Of the former, he told me, “I have become so disillusioned that I have lost heart. The men I support always seem to lose. The public knew they were voting for corruption when they elected Nixon President – and I must say the punishment they’re receiving is no more than their just reward.

He is convinced that Nixon’s “Operation Intercept” which closed the border to the flow of marijuana has been responsible for the upsurge in usage of cocaine.

“A fortune of cocaine can be smuggled in someone’s pocket – and that’s what’s been happening, while the supply of marijuana dries up and what’s available becomes more and more expensive.

Nicholson has admitted to using marijuana every day for one 15-year period of his life. He defended such usage to this reporter by comparing its effects to tobacco and alcohol and rationalizing, “Those are the two leading drugs Americans are hung up on, that are really harmful!”

He straightened himself out from near-reclining position and said “Look, I’m no authority on the situation, but I’ve observed the drug traffic in this town – and it makes me sick to see that cocaine is now used so commonly. It’s a bad drug. I don’t dig it. It brings on a burst of energy, then irritability. And it keeps getting used more and more.

“I still get uptight when I walk into a room and realize there are people there I’m supposed to recognize. I still get uptight when I’m late for an appointment, when I’m criticized or praised, and when I’m the victim of an unwarranted attack.

“And more than ever, I don’t like being confined. Now that I’ve finally learned not to set down rigid policies and positions for myself – I don’t like people trying to set them down for me.

“What do I want for the future? I suppose to understand myself and the frustrating realities of the moment better – and to be able to cope with those realities.”