Category: Movie Industry

My Life So Far

The Book of the Week is “My Life So Far” by Jane Fonda, published in 2005. This insightful autobiography describes an actress, activist and exercise instructor whose childhood family life was psychologically challenged. Throughout her life, she has been continually working through various emotional, moral and gender issues.

Born in the Santa Monica Mountains in December 1937, Fonda was lavishly raised alternately by a nanny and her parents, who were absent on and off. Her father was a famous actor on Broadway and in movies; her mother, until she suicided, was in and out of mental hospitals. Fonda was close with her younger brother, Peter. She became a bulimic and developed an “appeaser” personality.

Although Fonda had a leg up in her career due to her famous father, she chose to engage in activities that she felt were societally beneficial. The media and the U.S. government, however, treated her like a criminal. She was put under surveillance by the FBI, CIA, State Department, IRS and Treasury Department, which created dossiers of thousands upon thousands of pages just about her. In 1979, she settled a lawsuit against them in which the government admitted its guilt.

In 1972, Fonda visited Hanoi to gather information and inform the American people about Nixon’s evil Vietnam-War schemes, a few of which were already in progress. Later that same year at the Academy Awards ceremony when she won a Best Actress Oscar for “Klute,” she maturely did NOT make a political statement, having been told it was the inappropriate place for doing so.

Fonda believed that presidents made war due to their feeling pressure from society to prove their masculinity. She herself was a product of this same environment, judging from her taste in men. Her third husband– media billionaire Ted Turner– “…was unable to experience intimacy because there just wasn’t room in his brain for words other than his own.” He was an emotionally needy narcissist.

Read the book to learn how Jane overcame her eating disorder, achieved success in acting, exercise-business enterprises and political activism, and how she improved her relationships with family and friends.

Jim Henson, The Biography

The Book of the Week is “Jim Henson, the Biography” by Brian Jay Jones, published in 2013. This large volume describes the life of a super-successful puppeteer who brought innovation to the genre of puppetry.

Born in September 1936, Henson grew up alternately Mississippi and Maryland. He was best known for creating “Muppets”– a cross between puppets and marionettes. Henson took his time about finishing college at the University of Maryland studying set design. Initially, he thought he wanted to develop a behind-the-scenes career in theater. But he was an early adopter of the new medium of television and wanted to do puppet shows on it. In 1955, he made his Muppets TV debut with Jane, the woman who would later become his wife and bear his five children. He fell into a brilliant puppetry career instead.

Henson’s performances extended to the talk-show circuit, during which the early Muppet characters he created, lip-synched to songs and mimed comedic storylines. The skits would usually end with an explosion or one character’s eating another. Very quickly, he became a highly paid entertainer. In the summer of 1958, he went on a research expedition to Europe, where puppetry was much more popular than in the United States. Americans thought of puppet shows as appropriate mostly for children.

Despite Henson’s desire to become known as a respected puppeteer for audiences of all ages, he became famous for creating some major characters that appeared on a groundbreaking children’s TV show– Sesame Street. Nevertheless, the Muppets appeared in some forgettable skits for Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its first season. True story. Union rules required that SNL writers rather than Henson’s, compose said skits. The SNL people didn’t know the Muppets like Henson’s did. After several false starts and many rejections, Henson finally achieved one of his goals. In autumn 1976, a CBS affiliate in England finally gave the Muppets their first weekly TV series.

Read the book to learn of Henson’s cinematic successes and failures, his management style (or lack thereof), the key people in his organization, other major highlights of his career, his marital infidelity, and what transpired just as he was in the thick of difficult negotiations to sell his company to Disney. The reason for the difficulty was that “In show business in particular, where so much depends on the ruthless art of the deal, Jim’s generosity and genuine respect for talent… made for an unconventional way of doing business.”

Home

The Book of the Week is “Home” by Julie Andrews, published in 2008. This memoir tells of Andrews’ life until just after she turned 27 years old.

The author found her talent and passion as a singer with her parents when she was ten. They traveled around England performing, and even got to sing for the royal family. It was not all fun and games, however, as her parents split, and found new lovers. Her stepfather and mother devolved into alcoholism. As a teenager, she was under pressure to financially support them, plus care for her younger half-siblings. Her education fell by the wayside as a consequence.

Read the book to learn the series of events that led to Andrews’ starring in various hit shows through the decades, and about her experiences in show business.

Life Itself

The Book of the Week is “Life Itself” by Roger Ebert, published in 2011. This is the autobiography of an American movie critic.

Born in the autumn of 1942, Ebert grew up in Urbana, Illinois. He started his journalism career while still in high school. He attended graduate school in the mid-1960’s to avoid the Vietnam draft. It was by chance that he was assigned to write movie reviews, and later on, team up with Gene Siskel.

Ebert inherited a self-destructive tendency from his parents. “After my father was told he had lung cancer, he switched to filter-tip Winstons… She [Ebert’s mother] continued to smoke, and when she was on oxygen would remove the tube to have a cigarette.” Ebert himself became an alcoholic. In 1979, he stopped drinking and joined AA.

The author writes of the culture of his generation. During elementary school summers, “The lives of kids were not fast-tracked…” They would ride their bicycles, mow lawns, open a Kool-Aid stand, or listen to the radio. Movie theaters were one of the few places that had air conditioning.

The author’s take on today’s movie dialogue is: “…the characters have grown stupid… get their laughs by their delivery of four-letter words.”

Read the book to learn the details of Ebert’s life and times.

So Anyway… – Bonus Post

This blogger read “So, Anyway…” by John Cleese. The author initially thought he was going to be an attorney, actually acquiring a legal education. But he changed his mind and became a comedy writer.

Cleese is a rare bird, in that he possesses capacity for analytical thinking and comedic absurdity in equal measure– the former has kept him sane, and the latter has made him funny.

The author had the luck of entering the field of British television comedy around 1960 when it was in its infancy. He worked with David Frost– a TV executive who undeservedly grabbed writing credits by listing his name first in large letters on his own show, while there were tens of other writers, contributors of original material, whose names appeared in small type thereafter. Cleese comments that people harbored little or no jealousy over this because Frost had a hands-off management style, never said a mean word about anyone, ignored his immature critics, and sincerely believed people were cheering for him rather than trying to cut him down.

The author, a major contributor to the BBC TV show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and some funny movies, also writes, “I regarded swearing as a form of cheating, a lazy way of getting a laugh out of material that wasn’t intrinsically funny enough.”

Read the book to see Cleese’s other words of wisdom on comedy writing, and how he has been able to continuously contribute creative content to various shows through the decades– a major feat for someone with a career such as his.

I Stooged to Conquer

The Book of the Week is “I Stooged to Conquer” by Moe Howard, published in 2013. This is the autobiography of the longest-time member of the comedy-movie troupe “The Three Stooges.”

“When I was a teenager, everyone interested in fairs, circuses, Broadway theater, vaudeville, and the stock companies read Billboard magazine.” In March 1914, the fourteen-year old Moe (full name Moses), living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn with his family, answered a help-wanted ad for a movie actor in Jackson, Mississippi. He got the job through deception and fast-talking.

With persistence and talent for comedy, Moe broke into vaudeville. He assembled a blackface act with his brother Shemp and others through the years. On one occasion, as a prank, he grew a bushy beard on the right side of his face while shaving the other, and his brother, the left.  They horrified strangers on the street and embarrassed their mother.

In 1917, Moe and Shemp were able to work on vaudeville for both RKO and Loew’s simultaneously by appearing in blackface for the former, and whiteface for the latter. The very first version of the Three Stooges was called “Ted Healy and His Three Southern Gentlemen” and included Moe, Shemp and Larry– unrelated to the Howard brothers. They picked up Curly– another Howard brother– to replace Shemp, when they started making movies in 1930. Healy, the leader, swindled the group for years, receiving more than ten times the salary he paid the group.

Read the book to learn how Moe and his comedy partners also got swindled by Columbia Pictures; of their adventures in movies that continued into the early 1950’s; the sudden deaths of three of them; and what their pay had risen to by the late 1950’s.

I Am Jackie Chan

The Book of the Week is “I Am Jackie Chan” by Jackie Chan, published in 1998. This is the autobiography of Jackie Chan, a kung fu movie stuntman.

Born in April 1954 to parents who worked as household help in a foreign embassy in Hong Kong, Chan was frequently subjected to cruel physical punishment by his father. When he was about seven years old, unable to sit still in a formal classroom, he was sent to China Drama Academy, a boarding school. There, approximately fifty kids of all ages were taught kung fu, and for a fleeting time, basic academic subjects by a series of tutors. When Chan left the school after ten years, the kids numbered about thirty, due to attrition. Discipline was meted out with the painful striking of a cane on the hands by the master for even minor infractions. The master’s senior underlings were into bullying.

After leaving the Academy, Chan had difficult periods in his life as a young adult, involving a romantic subplot, poverty, more bullying, and dangerous physical work, among other adventures. He spoke no English. He could take jobs that required minimal literacy, but those were all menial, with no chance for growth. Formal education was not for him. He came to the realization that his career options were extremely limited because the only marketable skill he possessed was as a stuntman.

Much later, during the making of the movie, “Rush Hour” Chan writes, “Three insurance guys were standing around the director… It took several hours for them to rig padded mats so that they’d catch me if I fell… ” It took a while for Chan to get used to the hassles associated with litigious American culture.

The making of Hollywood’s movies cost many times more than Chan’s Hong Kong movies. Many American producers spared no expense whenever they needed props or equipment but stuck to a strict shooting schedule, which meant reluctance to re-shoot scenes that weren’t perfect. Chan’s culture in Hong Kong was the opposite. He would resourcefully use whatever props or equipment were on hand and re-shoot a scene innumerable times to get it perfect with no insurance, no… “private jets, no mansions, no luxurious trailers, no fancy food.”

Read the book to learn how Chan separated his identity from that of Bruce Lee, and became a director, producer, film editor and stuntman in his own movies.

A Funny Thing Happened… – Bonus Post

The short ebook “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future” by Michael J. Fox, published in 2010 is an inspiring commencement speech.  The author answers the question, “What constitutes an education?”

As a teenager, Fox himself sacrificed his formal education for his career. It was an alternate route that was not necessarily inferior to his staying in school. He had found his passion early in life and circumstances allowed him to pursue it. He does not necessarily recommend the method he fell into, but tells the reader to be on the lookout for and respect mentors, opportunities and lessons in life. Read the book to learn the details of the education Fox did receive.

My Extraordinary Ordinary Life

The Book of the Week is “My Extraordinary Ordinary Life” by Sissy Spacek with Maryanne Vollers, published in 2012. This is the ebook autobiography of an actor and filmmaker who grew up in a small town in Texas.

Everyone knew everyone else. They were church-going folk, farmers and merchants, Methodists and Baptists. The mayor of the town was also its fire chief, owner of the local insurance company and funeral home. His brother was an undertaker, hardware store owner and co-owner of a motel. The brother’s wife was room attendant at the motel and a chinchilla breeder.

Spacek’s immediate family included her parents and two much older brothers, and many pets through the years, including horses. She writes, “I learned to drive a car when I was still a little kid, seven or eight years old.” At thirteen, she was driving with a thirteen-and-a-half year old passenger who had an official driver’s license. This is because in rural areas, people learn to drive farm equipment at an early age.

In high school, Spacek took up baton twirling as a majorette with a marching band that performed at halftime at high school football games– one of three major values in Texas; the others being family and Christianity.

In 1971, the author acted in her first movie, Prime Cut, with Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, that required her to do a scene in the nude. She is probably best known for playing Carrie in the eponymous movie.

Read the book to learn about her adventures as a young adult in 1960’s New York City, and as an actor, wife and mother in various states in later decades.

Here Comes Trouble

The Book of the Week is “Here Comes Trouble” by Michael Moore, published in 2011. This is a collection of stories from the life of a passionate political activist. The author has used various ways to inform the public of injustices, including running a newspaper, producing a TV show and movies, and writing books and articles.

At the end of Moore’s freshman year at a Catholic seminary, he was asked not to return. It was an academically challenging environment, but he was a good student. He committed no serious infractions.

However, Moore was a frequent questioner of authority, as he had been from a very young age. He grew up in a generation of Americans whose early childhood was still innocent, having been born in the mid-1950’s.  He asked his religious instructors pointed questions such as “Why don’t we let women be priests?” and “Do you think Jesus would send soldiers to Vietnam if he were here right now?” and “In the Bible, there’s no mention of Jesus from age twelve to age thirty. Where do you think he went?”

Moore had changed his mind about becoming a priest, anyway. Read the book to find out about some of the more entertaining episodes in his life, religious and otherwise.