#mary pickford candid

[internatlvelvet]

Mary Pickford, Myrna Loy, Grace Moore, Buddy Rogers, Quon Tai, Loretta Young, Arthur Hornblow, Jr., Eddie Sutherland (next to Loretta), director Harry Lachman (behind Pickford) - all dressed to the nines!

[adrian-paul-botta]

Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford at a reception (1950's)

[flynnfan-downunder]

Mary Pickford and Errol Flynn. From the 1936 radio show PARTIES AT PICKFAIR.

[radianttruthsii]

Mary Pickford

[fuckyeahbarbarastanwyck]

[ask-mobster-matsu]

((Hope it’s ok to submit this; it had been bouncing around in my mind and I felt like I needed to get it written out. It’s exceptionally self-indulgent, but isn’t that what we’re here for? Hope ya like! —mod Nette))

“A Mary Pickford, please!”

JC slid onto a stool at the bar, smiling at Iyayo. The blonde slips her a wink and gets started mixing up her drink. “Nice set tonight, JC. Loved the song about the long lost lover coming home on the train.”

“‘My Cutie’s Due at Two to Two’?” JC takes her drink from the other woman, and takes a long sip. “Oh, nectar of the gods, that is good. Yeah, I heard it on the radio, thought it’d make a good addition. I was thinkin’ about ‘She’s the Sweetheart of Six Other Guys’, too, but I was a lil’ afraid the family might take offense. Not that I’ve seen ‘em since I got here.”

Iyayo raises one perfect eyebrow. “You don’t say? And I thought they had you living on-site now, too.” She starts to run a rag across the bar, wiping up some drips from patrons’ drinks.

“I am. But I don’t think I’ve seen a hair of any of them since the Mrs. gave me my key. Last one I spoke with was Todomatsu when he set me up to perform here. The Mrs. said the fellas would be happy to have an entertainer around, but I don’t think any of them have come ‘round to see me work, and it’s been a couple weeks already.”

Iyayo shakes her head. “That doesn’t sound like them. Those boys are generally more, um. Direct. They wouldn’t leave a potential fianceé hanging like that.”

“Guess there’s better candidates, then. Must be low-priority.” JC pouts into her glass, taking another long pull. “Least I got some sweet digs; sure beats that flophouse back in Menlo Park…”

“What, are you some kinda idjit?” A brusque but friendly voice made both women jump, and they turned to see Chibita in his kitchen apron, standing with his hands on his hips. “Damn it. You think they’d be obvious about assessing ya?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” JC snickered as Iyayo busied herself cleaning some glasses. “I mean, after the interview and all? I thought it’d be—“

He holds up a hand to cut her off. “You ain’t realized they’ve been watching all along?” Chibita shook his head and took a seat next to JC. “Tonic water and lemon, Iyayo, please? Hell, kid. It ain’t often a candidate goes and lists half the heirs on their request form, kekekeke!! The boys don’t wanna compete that much, so they’re kind of privately sussing you out!”

JC’s face goes white, then red. “They, they have? Oh, lordy momma. So, they’ve been here?!”

Chibita cackles as Iyayo slides him his glass. “Only every night! There’s been at least one of the boys on your little wishlist here to see your set ever since you started here. Even before you sent in your request form.”

“Hell,” she muttered. “If I’d’ve known, I’d’ve worn somethin’ lower-cut. So you’ve seen ‘em here, then. Do, ah. Do they seem ta…” JC swallows hard, trying to find the words. “You think they like me so far?”

“Lemme put it to ya this way: they been here more’n once, right?” Chibita smirks as he squeezes the lemon wedge into his drink. “That’s gen’rally a good sign. ‘Specially in a couple of these cases.”

“Now I’m curious.” Iyayo leans onto the bar, and nudges JC with her elbow. “Tell us the dirt, boss!” JC nods expectantly towards him.

“Aw, all right, ya buzzards. Now, I know you’ve been hearin’ the crowd laughin’ every night, yeah? You know those nights when folks’re a lil more boisterous than usual? That’s ‘cause Jyushimatsu’s out in the audience. No one wants to upset him, so if he’s laughin’, they all are. Know what I’m sayin’? And when you’re up there?” He looks at her levelly. “He laughs a LOT. So I can already tell he likes ya.”

“Now, the big boss’s been sniffin’ around here too. Osomatsu’s got a private booth, so it ain’t surprisin’ that you ain’t seen that idjit. I’ve had the pleasure of servin’ him a couple times durin’ yer shows, and more than once, he’s been ignorin’ his arm candy to watch ya.” A slick grin made its way across Chibita’s face. “Gonna be the death of him, takin’ a date to go see someone his ma’s linin’ up as a potential bride. Bet his face is gonna get slapped. And damn it, I hope I’m there to see it…”

JC stifled a giggle. “I had no idea all this was going on! What else can you tell me?”

“I’ve been servin’ Choromatsu a lot more often than usual, and that boy’s usually chained to his desk. Not literally, damn it, but it’s real hard to get him outta the office for anything, unlike the rest of ‘em. But three times a week, two Midori cocktails and a small cheese plate go over to the table by the wall, and I swear I almost heard a lil’ chuckle come outta him. So yeah, kid. You got noticed.”

“Oooh, lucky girl!” Iyayo swats playfully at JC’s sleeve. “So, now what’re ya gonna do?”

She shakes her head. “I… I don’t know! I mean, I guess I’ll just have to wait for one of them to approach me, at this point? Because as far as I know, they don’t think I know they’re here, right? So it’d be unbecoming of me to approach any of ‘em.” She swallows the rest of her drink. “But at least there’s hope, right? Thanks for the refreshment, Iyayo. And the news, Chibita! I’ll haveta go get ready for the next set.”

Suddenly, she feels a hand on her shoulder, and a vaguely familiar voice. “Excuse me, miss? I was hopin’ we could talk…”

(Mod  A: ALKJDS:KDGJS(PUWEHJRFNKDCTHIS IS SO GOOD? I LOVE YOU. YOUR WRITING IS ALWAYS A++!)

[hageny]

Rare color candid of Norma with her friend Mary Pickford.

[nicholerestrada]

Poliwood: The ups and downs of combining celebrities and politics

(CNN)Poliwood — the intersection of politics and Hollywood — can be a powerful combination, capable of elevating policy debates and inspiring broad audiences. Unfortunately, it can also dumb us down to a nation of slack-jawed spectators.

On Sunday night, Taylor Swift told her million-plus Instagram followers to register to vote while endorsing the Democratic candidate for Senate in her native Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, a popular former Governor and Nashville Mayor. According to the director of communications for Vote.org, an estimated 65,000 people registered to vote within 24 hours.

On Thursday, Kanye West entered the Oval Office for a meeting with President Trump, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters. Wearing a MAGA hat, the rapper delivered an enthusiastic if rambling monologue feet from the Resolute desk.

In rough chronological order, Kanye called for prison reform, pitched hard for Adidas, called for abolishing the 13th amendment (which ended slavery), talked about living in the moment and his now-revoked diagnosis of bipolar disorder, proposed replacing Air Force One with a hydrogen plane, took a contrarian view on police violence, slammed liberals for their obsession with racism, supported inner-city manufacturing, endorsed teaching math and basketball at the same time to combat ADD, and mused about running for president himself, but only after Trump is finished.

If Kanye’s comments had been coherent, they would have made great copy. Instead, it was a surreal and sad spectacle — one of the world’s biggest celebrities on an ego bender at best and on the edge of a breakdown at worst.

But Trump seemed to eat up every odd moment. After all, Kayne is the probably most prominent African-American to endorse his presidency since Omarosa left the White House.

Poliwood can make strange bedfellows. Conservatives embrace a rapper while liberals rally around a one-time country music star. And the Kanye-Trump meeting is just the latest example of how celebrities have been used for good and ill by presidents on both sides of the aisle.

One hundred years ago, the first truly national celebrities from the silent movie era — Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks — were dispatched on a national tour to sell war bonds on behalf of the Wilson administration during World War I. (For those of you tempted to Google “war bonds,” I’ll save you a click: it’s how we used to pay for wars before we passed the buck to the next generation).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned how to harness the power of someone else’s celebrity in the age of radio and summoned two of the biggest stars of the time– Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles — to perform at political rallies carried over the airwaves. The multifaceted genius of Welles even found time to praise Roosevelt in syndicated newspaper columns and serve as a ghostwriter for his campaign.

Years later the young and telegenic Senator John F. Kennedy drew on pop culture for his campaign, commissioning Sinatra to sing “High Hopes” during the 1960 election. But while JFK’s celebrity friends added to the glamorous aura of Camelot, they were rarely deployed for policy purposes. Kennedy was more focused on the personal benefits that came from hanging out with Marilyn Monroe.

Richard Nixon tried to flip the script for Republicans. He was brilliant but awkward; cold rather than cool. But he agreed to appear on the popular comedy variety show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” to help cut the ice, gamely repeating the show’s catch phrase “Sock it to me!” He knew that while long-haired, baby-boom celebrities were protesting, he could count on older, establishment figures like Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr. to back him.

Then there was the time that Nixon met the King. Elvis Presley wore a purple velvet suit, a massive gold belt and a handgun to the Oval office. He asked to receive, without evident irony, a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It has been, as of 2015, the most requested photo from the National Archives.

President Jimmy Carter’s rise was aided by early positive profiles by Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and the evangelical candidate’s surprising admiration for Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. Willie Nelson even famously smoked a joint on the roof of the White House after playing a concert for Carter.

But the big daddy of celebrity politics was Ronald Reagan. For all the right-wing fundraising off stereotypes about liberal Hollywood’s hostile takeover of our politics, the only denizen of Hollywood who actually reached the Oval Office was Reagan. His White House attracted old celebrity friends, ranging from Sinatra (again) to Jimmy Stewart. First lady Nancy Reagan even publicized her “Just Say No” to drugs campaign with Mr. T.

And in Reagan’s wake a host of celebrities ran for office as Republicans, from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson to congressman Sonny Bono.

More recently, President George W. Bush developed a lasting friendship with U2 frontman Bono, who played a pivotal role lobbying Congress for the international AIDS drug program known as Pep-Far. It’s often cited as one of that administration’s proudest legacies, saving millions of lives. And President Barack Obama was criticized by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for hobnobbing with Jay-Z.

At its best, Poliwood makes it cool to care, leveraging celebrity to galvanize support for something more important than celebrity. As George Clooney said during his work to bring international attention to the genocide in Darfur and the need to end decades of civil war in South Sudan, “Celebrity can help focus news media where they have abdicated their responsibility. We can’t make policy, but we can ‘encourage’ politicians more than ever before.”

But at its worst, Poliwood can help politicians deflect attention from their own unpopular policies, dumbing down the electorate in the process.

In some ways, President Trump represents the culmination of Poliwood to date. After multiple corporate bankruptcies, the publicity-loving real estate mogul reinvented himself as a reality TV star with “The Apprentice.” In the process, he solidified his place in the American imagination as a decisive executive, eager to say “you’re fired” at the end of every show.

Trump earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and reoriented his business around marketing. He then parlayed his no-nonsense, politically incorrect profile into a successful pitch for the presidency.

But the rush to emulate Trump’s cannonball into the political pool has its limits. “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon was trounced in her energetic attempt to run to the left of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last month.

Whether Poliwood is a force for good or simply a glittering distraction depends on this question: What’s actually accomplished?

If a celebrity endorsement just benefits a politician looking to boost their profile and prove their cool, then it’s a lame effort to manipulate fans with short attention spans.

Join us on Twitter and Facebook

But if Poliwood draws sustained attention to a real public policy problem, it can serve as a gateway to civic engagement and spur political action.

By that standard, Taylor Swift’s Instagram call to arms ended up having a measurable impact by encouraging voter registration. But the Kayne-Trump summit was a lost opportunity — an attention bath for two boundless egos rather than a serious attempt to raise awareness about prison reform.

The comic-book-loving Kanye and his Presidential pal would do well do recall this bit of advice from Spiderman: With great power comes great responsibility.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/14/opinions/hollywood-and-politics-collide-opinion-avlon/index.html

Source: https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/18/poliwood-the-ups-and-downs-of-combining-celebrities-and-politics/

from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/poliwood-the-ups-and-downs-of-combining-celebrities-and-politics/

[michaeljtraylor]

Poliwood: The ups and downs of combining celebrities and politics

(CNN)Poliwood — the intersection of politics and Hollywood — can be a powerful combination, capable of elevating policy debates and inspiring broad audiences. Unfortunately, it can also dumb us down to a nation of slack-jawed spectators.

On Sunday night, Taylor Swift told her million-plus Instagram followers to register to vote while endorsing the Democratic candidate for Senate in her native Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, a popular former Governor and Nashville Mayor. According to the director of communications for Vote.org, an estimated 65,000 people registered to vote within 24 hours.

On Thursday, Kanye West entered the Oval Office for a meeting with President Trump, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters. Wearing a MAGA hat, the rapper delivered an enthusiastic if rambling monologue feet from the Resolute desk.

In rough chronological order, Kanye called for prison reform, pitched hard for Adidas, called for abolishing the 13th amendment (which ended slavery), talked about living in the moment and his now-revoked diagnosis of bipolar disorder, proposed replacing Air Force One with a hydrogen plane, took a contrarian view on police violence, slammed liberals for their obsession with racism, supported inner-city manufacturing, endorsed teaching math and basketball at the same time to combat ADD, and mused about running for president himself, but only after Trump is finished.

If Kanye’s comments had been coherent, they would have made great copy. Instead, it was a surreal and sad spectacle — one of the world’s biggest celebrities on an ego bender at best and on the edge of a breakdown at worst.

But Trump seemed to eat up every odd moment. After all, Kayne is the probably most prominent African-American to endorse his presidency since Omarosa left the White House.

Poliwood can make strange bedfellows. Conservatives embrace a rapper while liberals rally around a one-time country music star. And the Kanye-Trump meeting is just the latest example of how celebrities have been used for good and ill by presidents on both sides of the aisle.

One hundred years ago, the first truly national celebrities from the silent movie era — Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks — were dispatched on a national tour to sell war bonds on behalf of the Wilson administration during World War I. (For those of you tempted to Google “war bonds,” I’ll save you a click: it’s how we used to pay for wars before we passed the buck to the next generation).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned how to harness the power of someone else’s celebrity in the age of radio and summoned two of the biggest stars of the time– Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles — to perform at political rallies carried over the airwaves. The multifaceted genius of Welles even found time to praise Roosevelt in syndicated newspaper columns and serve as a ghostwriter for his campaign.

Years later the young and telegenic Senator John F. Kennedy drew on pop culture for his campaign, commissioning Sinatra to sing “High Hopes” during the 1960 election. But while JFK’s celebrity friends added to the glamorous aura of Camelot, they were rarely deployed for policy purposes. Kennedy was more focused on the personal benefits that came from hanging out with Marilyn Monroe.

Richard Nixon tried to flip the script for Republicans. He was brilliant but awkward; cold rather than cool. But he agreed to appear on the popular comedy variety show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” to help cut the ice, gamely repeating the show’s catch phrase “Sock it to me!” He knew that while long-haired, baby-boom celebrities were protesting, he could count on older, establishment figures like Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr. to back him.

Then there was the time that Nixon met the King. Elvis Presley wore a purple velvet suit, a massive gold belt and a handgun to the Oval office. He asked to receive, without evident irony, a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It has been, as of 2015, the most requested photo from the National Archives.

President Jimmy Carter’s rise was aided by early positive profiles by Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and the evangelical candidate’s surprising admiration for Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. Willie Nelson even famously smoked a joint on the roof of the White House after playing a concert for Carter.

But the big daddy of celebrity politics was Ronald Reagan. For all the right-wing fundraising off stereotypes about liberal Hollywood’s hostile takeover of our politics, the only denizen of Hollywood who actually reached the Oval Office was Reagan. His White House attracted old celebrity friends, ranging from Sinatra (again) to Jimmy Stewart. First lady Nancy Reagan even publicized her “Just Say No” to drugs campaign with Mr. T.

And in Reagan’s wake a host of celebrities ran for office as Republicans, from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson to congressman Sonny Bono.

More recently, President George W. Bush developed a lasting friendship with U2 frontman Bono, who played a pivotal role lobbying Congress for the international AIDS drug program known as Pep-Far. It’s often cited as one of that administration’s proudest legacies, saving millions of lives. And President Barack Obama was criticized by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for hobnobbing with Jay-Z.

At its best, Poliwood makes it cool to care, leveraging celebrity to galvanize support for something more important than celebrity. As George Clooney said during his work to bring international attention to the genocide in Darfur and the need to end decades of civil war in South Sudan, “Celebrity can help focus news media where they have abdicated their responsibility. We can’t make policy, but we can ‘encourage’ politicians more than ever before.”

But at its worst, Poliwood can help politicians deflect attention from their own unpopular policies, dumbing down the electorate in the process.

In some ways, President Trump represents the culmination of Poliwood to date. After multiple corporate bankruptcies, the publicity-loving real estate mogul reinvented himself as a reality TV star with “The Apprentice.” In the process, he solidified his place in the American imagination as a decisive executive, eager to say “you’re fired” at the end of every show.

Trump earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and reoriented his business around marketing. He then parlayed his no-nonsense, politically incorrect profile into a successful pitch for the presidency.

But the rush to emulate Trump’s cannonball into the political pool has its limits. “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon was trounced in her energetic attempt to run to the left of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last month.

Whether Poliwood is a force for good or simply a glittering distraction depends on this question: What’s actually accomplished?

If a celebrity endorsement just benefits a politician looking to boost their profile and prove their cool, then it’s a lame effort to manipulate fans with short attention spans.

Join us on Twitter and Facebook

But if Poliwood draws sustained attention to a real public policy problem, it can serve as a gateway to civic engagement and spur political action.

By that standard, Taylor Swift’s Instagram call to arms ended up having a measurable impact by encouraging voter registration. But the Kayne-Trump summit was a lost opportunity — an attention bath for two boundless egos rather than a serious attempt to raise awareness about prison reform.

The comic-book-loving Kanye and his Presidential pal would do well do recall this bit of advice from Spiderman: With great power comes great responsibility.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/14/opinions/hollywood-and-politics-collide-opinion-avlon/index.html

from RSSUnify feed https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/18/poliwood-the-ups-and-downs-of-combining-celebrities-and-politics/ from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.tumblr.com/post/179169727384

[dannyreviews]

Celebrities From Whitestone Queens

If you look at a map of New York City, you can easily miss the town of Whitestone in Queens County. Sometimes, the name not even shown, obstructed by the much bigger Flushing and Bayside. Why am I mentioning this particular place? There are two very specific reasons. First, it was a place where some of the top movie and stage stars of the 1910s or 20s were known to live or congregate as well as the birthplace and home of other stars. Second, it is my hometown. I take great pride in coming from Whitestone, because of its suburban ambiance, as well as its seldom spoken place in the annals of entertainment. This post is devoted to those legends who at one time lived in this small, yet bustling place in The Big Apple.

The most famous of the early residents was Walt Whitman. During his time in Whitestone, he taught English in a one room schoolhouse. One of his famous poems had the passage “every morning, I am kissed by the sun coming through my window by the bay of Whitestone.” His house still stands on 150th Street and 6th Avenue. Interestingly, many years later, famous comic book illustrator Tex Blaisdell lived across the street.

Even going back to the late 19th Century, many prominent entertainers were drawn to the serene waterfront beauty of Whitestone; especially the upper class enclave known as Beechhurst towards the northeast. There are two particular names that come to mind. The first is Gussie Davis, the first successful African American involved in the Tin Pan Alley circle of songwriters. His songs such as “Down On Poverty Row” and  “We Sat Beneath the Maple on the Hill” were tearjerking ballads about being down and out of luck. His influence would be felt on future performers such as Leadbelly and Josh White. His time in the Whitestone area was during the last 6 months of his life as he succumbed to a longtime illness at the age of 35. 

The second name is Alexander Herrmann, a French born magician. who was a pioneer in the art of daredevilry and illusionary slight of hand tricks. He lived with his wife in a mansion dubbed “Herrmann Manor where he performed for his guests and operated his yacht. Unfortunately, Herrmann died of a sudden heart attack in 1896 and his wife would continue the legacy as a performer in her own right. “Herrmann Manor” is shown below.

The next wave of residents are definitely household names. Mary Pickford, one of the legends of silent films lived on Powells Cove Boulevard which is one of the top addresses in the area. One of her next door neighbors was legendary magician Harry Houdini (I guess magicians were drawn to the area as well). Her home still stands today, but its hidden away from view. Luckily there is a good photo made available to me. Houdini’s house was demolished in 1995, and replaced with other estates. His house is also seen here.

Rudolph Valentino’s house originally had a birds eye view of Little Neck Bay. With the construction of the Cross Island Parkway, that view is obstructed. He was not the only celebrity to own that house. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (the namesake for the famous airport) would use the home as his summer residence. After his death, the house remained abandoned until it was turned into a restaurant (below) that has changed names so many times in the last 30 years. One of those names appropriately was “Valentino’s” . Some sources have it as Bayside, but if one looks at a map, the home is right on the border of the two communities, but more towards the Whitestone side. The view of the house from the shore is seen in the second photo. Notice how in the present state, the building was expanded in both directions to accompany restaurant seating.

Arthur Hammerstein may not be as famous as his nephew Oscar II today, but he was one of the most successful Broadway producers of his day. His house which he shared with his actress wife Dorothy Dalton, was called “Wildflower” after his most famous show. The mansion would later be a catering hall called “Ripples on the Water" where many a wedding would take place. After a period of abandonment, the estate was turned into condominiums that still retain the name “Wildflower”.

Harry Richman was a stage legend who wore many hats as an actor, director, musician and comedian to name a few occupations. His claim of fame was being the first performer to sing Irving Berlin’s “Puttin' On The Ritz”, made famous by its use in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” and as a Top 10 hit by Dutch performer “Taco”. His house still stands right by the shore, a stone’s throw away from Little Neck Bay. Richman’s then fiancee Clara Bow also lived with him in that house.

Finally, there’s “Beechhurst Towers” located across the street from the Pickford and Houdini estates. This was a lodging place for actors who were filming movies in the area. Legends such as W.C. Fields and Buster Keaton were frequent guests. The most notable resident who lived there for some time was Charlie Chaplin (by coincidence Chaplin’s future wife Paulette Goddard was born in Whitestone). Other people who lived in Beechhurst Towers in later years included philosopher Nicholas Rescher and sci-fi author Murray Leinster. On a side note, during Prohibition, Beechhurst Towers had an underground tunnel used to smuggle alcohol discreetly. 

Other people who lived in Whitestone during this heyday included silent film legends Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle, singer Helen Kane who was the inspiration for Betty Boop, film producer Joseph M. Schenck, magician Howard Thurston (yes, another magician) and actress Clara Morris.

As time progressed and these celebrities made their way out west to Hollywood, there was the newer generations and some throwbacks to the old era that were either born in Whitestone or made it their home. Constance Binney was a silent film actress from New York, who after three failed marriages including one to a British war hero, moved to the Beechhurst area where she lived till her death at age 93 in 1989.

According to one of the people on the Whitestone Facebook page, Irish born actress Angela Greene, lived on 16th Road, most likely by the Cross Island Parkway, due to the age of the houses in that area.

Gia Scala who is known for her roles in “The Guns Of Navarone”, “The Angry Hills” and various appearances on “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, moved to Whitestone from her birthplace of Liverpool England as a teenager.

Brooklyn born Sully Boyar, best known for his role as the bank manager in “Dog Day Afternoon”, lived not far where I grew up. He was a regular at Utopia Bagels, which has been a neighborhood institution for years. He died like a true Whitestonian; waiting for the bus on Utopia Parkway.

Eddie Eagan, a retired Narcotics detective was the inspiration for the character of Popeye Doyle played by Gene Hackman in “The French Connection”. He even had a role in the film and went on to a second career as an actor.

Legendary filmmaker John Frankenheimer whose most famous films included “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) and “Seven Days In May” (1964) was born and raised in the affluent subsection known as Malba.

Andy Kindler is best known to television viewers as Mort the mortician on the FOX animated series “Bob’s Burgers”.

Drea de Matteo has had several famous roles on television such as Adriana on “The Sopranos”, Angie on “Desperate Housewives” and Wendy on “Sons Of Anarchy”

The Vidal sisters, Lisa, Christina and Tanya, all successful in the entertainment field.

So there you go. Whitestone, a suburban town in the middle of the Big Apple, as the center of entertainment. Who knows the up and coming performers currently living in the area who will go on to successful careers in the industry.

[garkomedia1]

Poliwood: The ups and downs of combining celebrities and politics

(CNN)Poliwood — the intersection of politics and Hollywood — can be a powerful combination, capable of elevating policy debates and inspiring broad audiences. Unfortunately, it can also dumb us down to a nation of slack-jawed spectators.

On Sunday night, Taylor Swift told her million-plus Instagram followers to register to vote while endorsing the Democratic candidate for Senate in her native Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, a popular former Governor and Nashville Mayor. According to the director of communications for Vote.org, an estimated 65,000 people registered to vote within 24 hours.

On Thursday, Kanye West entered the Oval Office for a meeting with President Trump, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters. Wearing a MAGA hat, the rapper delivered an enthusiastic if rambling monologue feet from the Resolute desk.

In rough chronological order, Kanye called for prison reform, pitched hard for Adidas, called for abolishing the 13th amendment (which ended slavery), talked about living in the moment and his now-revoked diagnosis of bipolar disorder, proposed replacing Air Force One with a hydrogen plane, took a contrarian view on police violence, slammed liberals for their obsession with racism, supported inner-city manufacturing, endorsed teaching math and basketball at the same time to combat ADD, and mused about running for president himself, but only after Trump is finished.

If Kanye’s comments had been coherent, they would have made great copy. Instead, it was a surreal and sad spectacle — one of the world’s biggest celebrities on an ego bender at best and on the edge of a breakdown at worst.

But Trump seemed to eat up every odd moment. After all, Kayne is the probably most prominent African-American to endorse his presidency since Omarosa left the White House.

Poliwood can make strange bedfellows. Conservatives embrace a rapper while liberals rally around a one-time country music star. And the Kanye-Trump meeting is just the latest example of how celebrities have been used for good and ill by presidents on both sides of the aisle.

One hundred years ago, the first truly national celebrities from the silent movie era — Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks — were dispatched on a national tour to sell war bonds on behalf of the Wilson administration during World War I. (For those of you tempted to Google “war bonds,” I’ll save you a click: it’s how we used to pay for wars before we passed the buck to the next generation).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned how to harness the power of someone else’s celebrity in the age of radio and summoned two of the biggest stars of the time– Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles — to perform at political rallies carried over the airwaves. The multifaceted genius of Welles even found time to praise Roosevelt in syndicated newspaper columns and serve as a ghostwriter for his campaign.

Years later the young and telegenic Senator John F. Kennedy drew on pop culture for his campaign, commissioning Sinatra to sing “High Hopes” during the 1960 election. But while JFK’s celebrity friends added to the glamorous aura of Camelot, they were rarely deployed for policy purposes. Kennedy was more focused on the personal benefits that came from hanging out with Marilyn Monroe.

Richard Nixon tried to flip the script for Republicans. He was brilliant but awkward; cold rather than cool. But he agreed to appear on the popular comedy variety show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” to help cut the ice, gamely repeating the show’s catch phrase “Sock it to me!” He knew that while long-haired, baby-boom celebrities were protesting, he could count on older, establishment figures like Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr. to back him.

Then there was the time that Nixon met the King. Elvis Presley wore a purple velvet suit, a massive gold belt and a handgun to the Oval office. He asked to receive, without evident irony, a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It has been, as of 2015, the most requested photo from the National Archives.

President Jimmy Carter’s rise was aided by early positive profiles by Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and the evangelical candidate’s surprising admiration for Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. Willie Nelson even famously smoked a joint on the roof of the White House after playing a concert for Carter.

But the big daddy of celebrity politics was Ronald Reagan. For all the right-wing fundraising off stereotypes about liberal Hollywood’s hostile takeover of our politics, the only denizen of Hollywood who actually reached the Oval Office was Reagan. His White House attracted old celebrity friends, ranging from Sinatra (again) to Jimmy Stewart. First lady Nancy Reagan even publicized her “Just Say No” to drugs campaign with Mr. T.

And in Reagan’s wake a host of celebrities ran for office as Republicans, from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson to congressman Sonny Bono.

More recently, President George W. Bush developed a lasting friendship with U2 frontman Bono, who played a pivotal role lobbying Congress for the international AIDS drug program known as Pep-Far. It’s often cited as one of that administration’s proudest legacies, saving millions of lives. And President Barack Obama was criticized by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for hobnobbing with Jay-Z.

At its best, Poliwood makes it cool to care, leveraging celebrity to galvanize support for something more important than celebrity. As George Clooney said during his work to bring international attention to the genocide in Darfur and the need to end decades of civil war in South Sudan, “Celebrity can help focus news media where they have abdicated their responsibility. We can’t make policy, but we can ‘encourage’ politicians more than ever before.”

But at its worst, Poliwood can help politicians deflect attention from their own unpopular policies, dumbing down the electorate in the process.

In some ways, President Trump represents the culmination of Poliwood to date. After multiple corporate bankruptcies, the publicity-loving real estate mogul reinvented himself as a reality TV star with “The Apprentice.” In the process, he solidified his place in the American imagination as a decisive executive, eager to say “you’re fired” at the end of every show.

Trump earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and reoriented his business around marketing. He then parlayed his no-nonsense, politically incorrect profile into a successful pitch for the presidency.

But the rush to emulate Trump’s cannonball into the political pool has its limits. “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon was trounced in her energetic attempt to run to the left of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last month.

Whether Poliwood is a force for good or simply a glittering distraction depends on this question: What’s actually accomplished?

If a celebrity endorsement just benefits a politician looking to boost their profile and prove their cool, then it’s a lame effort to manipulate fans with short attention spans.

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But if Poliwood draws sustained attention to a real public policy problem, it can serve as a gateway to civic engagement and spur political action.

By that standard, Taylor Swift’s Instagram call to arms ended up having a measurable impact by encouraging voter registration. But the Kayne-Trump summit was a lost opportunity — an attention bath for two boundless egos rather than a serious attempt to raise awareness about prison reform.

The comic-book-loving Kanye and his Presidential pal would do well do recall this bit of advice from Spiderman: With great power comes great responsibility.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/14/opinions/hollywood-and-politics-collide-opinion-avlon/index.html

from RSSUnify feed https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/18/poliwood-the-ups-and-downs-of-combining-celebrities-and-politics/

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Lillian Gish, Mrs Evelyn Balwin Griffith, Mary Pickford and Richard Barthelmess - candid Newark Airport 1950 - photo George Van

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Mary Pickford and Errol Flynn, from the 1936 radio show PARTIES AT PICKFAIR.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: K.O. Rahmn, Mary Pickford’s Photographer

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: K.O. Rahmn, Mary Pickford’s Photographer

  Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in “The Taming of the Shrew,” photo by K.O. Rahmn, from Close Up. Probably the only actor/stills photographer in early Hollywood, K. O. (Knute Olaf) Rahmn worked for Kalem Co. at its Glendale studio for several years before becoming Mary Pickford’s personal photographer in 1918. A jack-of-all-trades for Pickford, Rahmn shot portraits, candids, scene stills,…

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Jon Cryer 52 years old He made his debut in 1984 in the romantic comedy No Small Affair, starring alongside Demi Moore, shortly afterwards for his role as "Duckie" in John Hughes Pretty in Pink. 2003 when Cryer made the leap to international fame, for his role as Alan Harper in CBS comedy Two and a Half Men, alongside Charlie Sheen (Charlie Harper) and Angus T. Jones (Jake Harper). Nominated seven times, he has received two Emmys for this role, one for best supporting actor in 2009 and one for best actor in comedy series in 2012. Cryer had previously worked with Charlie Sheen in the 1991 movie Hot Shots! Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977) Acquired popularity in silent films thanks to the multiple films he made with his character Charlot. From then on, it is considered a symbol of humor and mute cinema. By the end of World War I, he was one of the most recognized men in world cinema. His parents were also related to the world of the show, especially with the music-hall genre. Chaplin debuted at the age of five, when he replaced his mother in a performance. By 1912, he had already performed with the theater company of Fred Karno, with whom he toured various countries. His character Charlot made his debut in 1914, in the movie Winning the Bread, and during that year he shot thirty-five short films, including All for an Umbrella, Charlot on Dancing and Charlot and Fire. However, Chaplin's most notable films were The Gold Chimera (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). His techniques at the time of filming included slapstick, mime and other routines of visual comedy. Since the mid-1910's he directed most of his films, by 1916 he was also in charge of production, and since 1918 he composed music for his productions. In 1919, in collaboration with Douglas Fairbanks, David Wark Griffith and Mary Pickford, founded the United Artists. Throughout his life, Chaplin received multiple recognitions and nominations. He received the Honorary Oscar in 1928 and 1972, was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948, was knighted commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1975 and was placed a star with his name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1970. In 1952, after a series of political problems involving him in communism and anti-American activities, he had to go into exile in Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life. Although the amount of productions that realized for that time had diminished, filmed A king in New York and the countess of Hong Kong, its last works. He passed away on Christmas Day 1977. Chaplin was married four times - with Mildred Harris, Lita Gray, Paulette Goddard, and Oona O'Neill - and was credited with engaging eight other actresses of his day. Three of her sons, Josephine, Sydney and Geraldine, also devoted themselves to the show. To date it is the only "comic actor" that has been able to win the Oscar, maximum award that can receive an actor during his entire film career; And marks the 15th anniversary of the death of actor Robert Urich (1946 - 2002).