RIP Tim Curry

Rough week - first Dolly Parton, then we find out Tim Curry also died Tuesday, and like Parton, also at the age of 80. 

 

Probably most famous as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry made his mark not only in film but also on stage and television, and in music, voice over work, and books on tape. He received three Tony nominations and two Olivier and Drama Desk nominations, as well as single nominations for the Grammy and Primetime Emmys. He was nominated for two Daytime Emmys, winning in 1991 for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series for his voice work as Captain Hook in Peter Pan and the Pirates. 

 

Curry was an amazingly versatile actor. Take a look at his credits - not only the sheer volume of them, but the variety. He did comedy (including a classic appearance on Psych as Nigel St. Nigel, at parody of Simon Cowell type talent show hosts), drama (including an episode of Poirot), horror (Pennywise in IT), and numerous children's shows. And this list doesn't even include his vast body of theater work. Just mind-boggling how talented he was.

 

Curry suffered a stroke in 2012 and was confined to a wheelchair thereafter. However he was able to continue with voice work and even made an appearance in a 2016 TV remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show as the Narrator/Criminologist.

 

Tough loss, especially for those of us who headed to Hollywood in the 80's for midnight showings of Rocky Horror. We would dash down in front of the screen to do The Time Warp, and knew exactly what to yell at the screen during the film. For that alone Curry was a huge part of life in that most wonderful decade. 

 

RIP Tim and congratulations on an amazing life well lived.

 

RIP Dolly Parton

Just saw the news that singer/songwriter/actress Dolly Parton has passed away at the age of 80. She'd been vocal about her health issues very recently, but made it sound like a temporary setback. And now this news.

 

One of the best things I've found on YouTube was this slowed down version of "Jolene". They took a 45 rpm recording and slowed it down to 33 rpm, deepening Dolly's voice and giving the song an even more haunting quality than it already had. I actually prefer this version.

  

I've literally never heard a negative word about Dolly. She seemed to be a genuinely wonderful person and from what I've seen online, people are just gutted by the news. 

 

RIP Dolly, and congratulations on a life well-lived.

 

Updated (12:03pm): President Trump has announced that flags in America will be lowered for the next week in Dolly's honor. Very fitting. Not just a great artist, but representative of the best of America.

 

Elementary, my dear taxman...

Snicked from here.

Well that was quick: Cinerama Dome and Arclight to be restored and reopened

Sony didn't waste any time. They've just made it official: they will restore and reopen the Cinerama Dome and the Hollywood Arclight.

 

As I suspected, the Dome needs some work and because of that it will not open until 2028. Alamo Drafthouse, owned by Sony, will turn the now former Arclight into an Alamo Drafthouse.

 

I have to say, it's so good to see a piece of Hollywood/Los Angeles history being preserved instead of razed and replaced by soulless modern construction, which is what usually happens. I may even need to mosey over to Hollywood in 2028. It's been years since I was in either of these theaters.

 

Well done, Sony. 

 

Sony to save the Cinerama Dome and Arclight Hollywood?

Given Los Angeles's propensity for destroying its historic buildings, this is wonderful news: Sony Pictures Looking to Bring Cinerama Dome and Arclight Back to Life. 

 

A few points to consider before I get too excited:

• According to some of the comments, Sony also recently bought the Alamo Drafthouse chain and the commenters didn't seem impressed with what they've done with it, so there's some concern they would do the same thing with the Dome and Arclight.
• Speaking of Arclight, due to its current owners filing for bankruptcy, the name cannot be used in the future, so the Arclight would get a new name (although locals would probably continue to refer to it as the Arclight, at least for a while. I know I would.)
• The theaters have been closed since the COVID shutdown in 2020, so we're probably looking at a lot of work needing to be done, not just a simple reopening. Depending on what it will cost to get them up and running, this could be a deterrent. 

But for now I'm choosing to stay hopeful. Both L.A. and Hollywood could use some good news for a change.

 

Hollyweird and how to survive it

The other day I posted about The God of the Woods and looking at the casting for the upcoming Netflix series. Because it takes place at a kid's summer camp, there are by necessity child actors involved and as always I wondered why people put their kids in show biz. It's a tough business for adults; I wonder how many kids have to be ruined by it for people to keep theirs out of it. And it's not just children, apparently.

 

Billy Bob Thornton was discussing life in LaLa Land and what got me was the last sentence in this conversation (bold mine):

 

Billy Bob Thornton says a Hollywood party conversation made him realize he was truly an outsider in Los Angeles. A woman found out he was from Arkansas and asked...

 

But she said it was fascinating to me, and she goes, "And you came out here from, what is it, Alabama or something like that?" And I said, "Arkansas." She goes, "Arkansas." And with a straight face, said to me, "What do you people do down there?" 

 

"Well..." (Joe Rogan continues laughing) ...and I said, thinking she would get the joke, I said, "Uh, we mostly lay around on the porch with our hound dog and swat flies." She goes, "Oh, interesting, interesting."

 

"...but that was one of the moments where I realized that I really was an outsider out there, you know? And people ask me about my longevity in this business, and I always say it's because I stay out of it.”

 

Fascinating indeed. The difference between working in Hollywood and surviving Hollywood is not living in it.

June Words of Wisdom

To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words. (Abigail Adams) 

 

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. (Frederick Douglass)

 

Being hated by idiots is the price you pay for not being one of them. (Jean Cocteau) 

 

Nothing but this gaunt quiet. (H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds)

 

I like being at home. My life is very simple. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of movies, listen to a lot of music, walk the dog. Cook with my family. I am boring. (Cillian Murphy) (Note: Sounds like a good time to me!) 

 

 

The Daveigh Chase story just got worse. Again.

Per the Los Angeles Coroner's Office, Daveigh Chase's offical cause of death was AIDS, with "chronic polysubstance use" listed as a secondary cause. This story just gets more and more tragic. According to the linked article, her father stated that, "...she had been homeless and struggled with drugs since the age of 13." 

 

I had no idea she'd fallen into such a downward spiral and for so long. If I'd thought about it, I would have assumed she was still working even if I wasn't personally seeing her pop up in anything, but her last credits were in 2016, ten years ago.

I know I keep saying this, but every time I read something new about this story it just gets more and more tragic. Daveigh had such a unique look and was such a talented actress, she should have had an amazing career and life. I wish someone could have helped her. She deserved so much better.

 

Image snicked from her imdb entry. 

 

RIP Ann Blyth

Ann Blyth, who had a great career but is probably best known for playing Joan Crawford's snobbish monster of a daughter Veda in the classic film Mildred Pierce, died Wednesday at the age of 98. 

 

One of my favorite childhood memories was when I was about ten years old, and my Mom (who, like me, loved classic films) let me stay up late on a school night because a late night movie program was showing Mildred Pierce and she thought it was important for me to see it. To this day it's one of my all-time favorite films. 

 

In spite of how horribly her character behaved toward Mildred in the film, per Blyth she and Crawford got on well.

 

RIP Ann, and thanks for the great performances.

 

RIP Daveigh Chase

Today brought some totally unexpected news: Actress Daveigh Chase, who as a child star had a very eclectic career, has died at the age of 35 due to complications of meningitis.

 

Chase had a number of notable roles, including voicing the young Hawaiian girl Lilo who adopts an alien as a pet in Lilo & Stitch. But for me, her performances in The Ring (one of the all-time great horror films IMO) and Donnie Darko were what put her on the map. She was also in a Season 4 episode of CSI.

 

As Samara Morgan in The Ring, Chase's acting chops and offbeat appearance served her well as a child inhabited by an evil that perpetuates itself long after her death. In Donnie Darko she was Donnie's stone-faced baby sister Samantha, whose participation in the dance act Sparkle Motion was partially a catalyst for Donnie's bizarre death by airplane engine, not to mention it made great use of the Duran Duran song "Notorious". 

 

Daveigh's last acting credit was in 2016 and I don't know what she'd been doing since or what led to her illness, but her premature death is just tragic. It reminds me of when I learned that Jessica Campbell, whose performance as Tammy Metzler in Election should have led to a solid career, but whose last acting credit was in 2002, died in 2020 at the age of 38 (cause undisclosed). 

 

RIP Daveigh, and thanks for the fantastic performances. You deserved better, or at least longer.

 

Crazy talented kid. Godspeed, Daveigh.

Update 6/18/26: This story just got sadder. "...had long struggled with drug addiction and homelessness." "Daveigh was the sweetest girl who mixed up with the wrong crowd." People, keep your kids out of showbiz.

 

Update #2 6/18/26: This story just keeps getting worse. I had no idea she'd fallen so low. What a waste of someone who had so much going for her.  

 

Recent reading: "The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy"

 

The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy

by Paul Myers

 

This is a terrific biography of the legendary Canadian comedy troupe of Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. It goes back to their early comedy roots (McCulloch and McKinney in Calgary, Foley, McDonald, and Thompson in Toronto) and traces their hard-fought rise through the ranks, culminating in their popular sketch comedy TV show and beyond. It also looks at their often traumatic childhoods and how these experiences shaped them personally and in how they used comedy to move beyond these upbringings.

 

There were two major things I took away from this book: One, these guys worked incredibly hard to become successful. They never waited around for fate to choose them. They were constantly writing, performing, and hustling. They earned everything they eventually achieved, and even after the show, when their tours easily brought out adoring hordes who would have been happy to just revel in classic sketches and characters, they continued to write new material and mixed it with the old. Two, I was impressed by the absolute admiration with which their comedic peers express for the Kids. They are uniformly held in high regard by other comedians as well as generations that came after them and viewed them as inspirational.

 

Author Myers takes us through their rise in clubs, through the five seasons of the Lorne Michaels-produced TV show that made them famous, the brutal Brain Candy days (when the troupe was at its most fractured), and through the touring years that served not only to promote them, but also to heal the rifts that had formed. He also looks at their non-KITH projects, including NewsRadio (Foley), McKinney's Slings & Arrows (an absolutely hilarious look at theatre people and a personal favorite), and Thompson's ground-breaking role (described as openly gay and openly Canadian) on Garry Shandling's The Larry Sanders Show. We also get a look at the production of Death Comes to Town (which I loved), a difficult period as this is when Thompson was receiving treatment for lymphoma. 

 

Myers also devotes a lot of time to the behind-the-scenes crew that helped propel the Kids to immortality. When staffing their show, the guys enlisted a number of people they had come up through the ranks with and many of those excelled beyond the Kids in the Hall - Norm Hiscock in particular - as well as the band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, whose instrumental "Having an Average Weekend" became the show's theme music. We also get to learn how many of the popular sketches and characters were developed. 

 

Because the book was published in 2018, it doesn't include their 2022 "sixth season", but it is still the definitive history of the Kids in the Hall. Required reading if you're a fan. 

 

The book's subtitle comes from McDonald's comment, "I always say that individually, we're all smart guys, but collectively, we're really just one dumb guy."

 

A quick look at some KITH sketches: 

 

 

And now I'm off to just watch a bunch of videos.

 

Recent reading: "Victorian Psycho"

Victorian Psycho: A Novel

by Virginia Feito 

 

I'd heard great things about this book, so when I was trying to kill time during a car repair and this was featured at the Barnes & Noble in the shopping center I was killing time at, I picked it up and proceeded to almost finish it by the time they were done with my car. Then I got home and finished it. 

 

At only 193 pages, Victorian Psycho is a quick read. And I wanted to love it, I really did. It has received slavish praise, in fact the book opens with four pages of raves. But although I liked it a lot, I didn't love it the way I 'd hoped to. It just isn't going to haunt me the way I expected it to based on what I'd heard about it.

 

We open to Winifred Notty arriving at Ensor House in early autumn, where she is to be governess to the two unimpressive Pounds children. She first meets their equally unimpressive parents, but not before informing us, in quite the setup, just as she's about to enter the house for the first time, "...in three months everyone in this house will be dead." Not quite, but by the time the promised graphic mayhem descends on the Pounds, their Christmas guests, and their staff, we have learned not only how profoundly disturbed Miss Notty is, but that she targeted this house, this family, and Mr. Pounds in particular for a reason.

 

I wouldn't say that Feito created a Dexter Morgan-level of anti-hero/heroine, as I wasn't rooting for Miss Notty so much as I was just curious as to what her plans - which promised to be horrific - were. So for me this was a good, but not a great, read. It's also heading to the big screen and given the slimness of this volume, I was instantly curious as to how it will be expanded. I think part of the answer comes in the film's poster, in which Thomasin McKenzie (who has made some amazing career choices with Jojo Rabbit and Fackham Hall) as the maid Miss Lamb, an important but ultimately minor character in the novel, is second billed. And it does need to be expanded, and I'm guessing this being Hollywood it will have a heavy-handed feminist message. Because we're supposed to empathize with Miss Notty, in spite of the fact that she makes it clear she is evil and always has been. How better to try to make her sympathetic by blaming her father for making her a bastard child, then abandoning her and her mother, rather than her own resident evil.

 

Speaking of the film adaptation, I don't know anything about the actress cast as Winifred Notty (that name!), but according to her imdb page Maika Monroe doesn't fit the description of Miss Notty being fat and ugly. They could have cast a fat, unattractive actress, but...I guess we'll see how it all turns out later this year when the film is released. But I'm not expecting much.

 

So the good news: I didn't spend too much time on this book. The bad news: I wanted to love it so much more, but I'm glad I didn't pay for the hardcover version.

 

Happy Easter!

 

But seriously...

Even Hollywood is abandoning Hollywood

Hollywood is following the exodus out of Hollywood, although they aren't going as far as others: The Oscars are leaving the Dolby Theatre for the Peacock Theater.

 

What this means is that the Academy Awards will depart its Hollywood Boulevard location of over twenty years for the L.A. Live complex in Downtown L.A. This will put them near the Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center).

 

The problem with this, in my opinion, is two-fold. All of Los Angeles has gone downhill in the past 5-10 years, overrun with drug-addled homeless, increasing crime, and rising cost of living that hugely outpaces the rest of the country (in fact, this pretty much applies to all if not most of California). So Hollywood the town loses one of the few things left that gives it shine and prestige, but the event moves to an area (DTLA) that has even worse problems than Hollywood. I haven't been to DTLA in years, not even to see a Kings game, partly because I no longer feel safe on Metro or the area, and only partly due to the team's lackluster play. So neither location is particularly desirable, but at least Hollywood Boulevard put the ceremony in the heart where it all started for Tinseltown.

 

I lived in Hollywood for fifteen years (1997-2012) and watched it bloom after years of deterioration with the addition of the Kodak Theatre, the return of the Oscars, and the installation of the Red Line subway. You couldn't pay me to live there now. And I remember when the Oscars moved to the Kodak/Dolby - after years at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in DTLA - bringing the ceremony to the industry's namesake town was presented as a big, meaningful deal. I think it's a real hit for Hollywood and Hollywood Boulevard as a destination (albeit one that needs to be cleaned up big time).

 

And it's not just Hollywood the town that's lost much of its luster - the film industry has been dying, especially in the past few years after the 2023 writers and actors strikes. Viewership for the Oscars has plummeted over the years. It's no longer appointment television. What was once a yearly event now barely registers with a huge portion of the public.

 

This isn't the only recent move made by the Academy. They recently announced the broadcast was leaving its long-time home on ABC to YouTube. While this may be a statement about the power of tech over broadcast television, I think it also says something about the drop in viewership. This may make it easier for more people to watch, giving them a chance to claim increased interest and restored importance. Both moves take effect with the 2029 ceremony.

 

Updated 4/3/26: The exodus continues to hollow out the home of the entertainment industry: J.J. Abrams is closing the Los Angeles location of Bad Robot, his production company. 

 

This one hurts: RIP Robert Duvall

Prolific Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall has died at the age of 95. 

 

The man's resume is just staggering. Here's just a few:

• To Kill a Mockingbird (as Boo Radley) 
• M*A*S*H (as Frank Burns)
• THX 1138 (pre-American Graffiti and pre-Star Wars George Lucas film)
• The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (as Tom Hagen)
• The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (as Dr. Watson)
• Network (as ruthless executive Frank Hackett)
• Apocalypse Now (as Lt. Colonel Kilgore, who brought us the famous line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.")
• The Great Santini (Oscar nominated)
• Tender Mercies (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar)
• Lonesome Dove (miniseries, as aging Texas Ranger Gus McCrae) 
• Sling Blade (Karl's father)
• The Apostle (Oscar nominated for the title role)
• A number of television guest spots early in his career, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City (4 episodes), The Untouchables, Route 66, The Outer Limits (3 episodes), The Wild Wild West, Mod Squad, and one of the more popular episodes of The Twilight Zone ("Miniature")  

To Kill a Mockingbird

Duvall was nominated for the Academy Award seven times (winning once), three BAFTA's (winning once), five Emmys (winning twice) and seven Golden Globes (winning four times).  

 

The Twilight Zone

One one hand when someone has had such full life and lives to such a ripe old age passes, it's hard to feel like we should ask for more. But Duvall was gifted and unique, and both the entertainment industry and the world has suffered a great loss. A great life and a great body of work. RIP, sir.

 

Lonesome Dove

RIP Bud Cort, and a rough couple of weeks for Hollywood

Bud Cort, immortalized as the death-obsessed Harold Chasen in the classic Harold and Maude, passed away today at the age of 77. This longtime cult classic has been a favorite of mine forever. Cort wasn't the last remaining of the three main stars: the wonderful Ruth Gordon (Maude) passed away in 1985, but the hilarious Vivian Pickles (Harold's deadpan mother) is still with us at 94.

 

 

According to imdb's trivia page, Cort ad-libbed both this fourth wall-breaking side eye, as well as the ferocious middle finger he gave his mother after her reaction to his hybrid Jaguar/hearse.

 

Earlier today the death of Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek was announced. Van Der Beek, only 48, had been battling colorectal cancer.

 

In addition, beloved comedy star Catherine O'Hara passed away on January 30. She had also been suffering from rectal cancer, although the primary cause of death was a pulmonary embolism.

 

There's the idea that in Hollywood they die in threes, and after O'Hara, I wondered who was going to be numbers two and three. Today brought that sad answer.

 

RIP everyone. 

 

Not gonna lie, this sounds tempting

 

I remember reading something where the question of why not convert abandoned malls into housing, and a lot of it had to do with plumbing not being in place, because the places were set up as stores, not homes with sinks, showers, and toilets.

 

Having said that, I still think this is a cool idea, especially with the classic films and food courts. I'd consider it.

 

Via Remembering the Goold Ole Days on FB.

 

Recent reading: "Future Boy"

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum

by Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry

 

This slim (150 pages) volume is a brief but exciting memoir of how Michael J. Fox famously juggled two full-time acting jobs and ended up as the star of one of the most beloved films of all time. By day he portrayed Alex P. Keaton on the hit TV show Family Ties, while by night he was Marty McFly, the time-traveling teen of Back to the Future. 

 

Fox goes briefly into how his early Canadian acting success led him to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen and how a few years later, when he was on the verge of having to give up on Hollywood and return to Canada, he scored the role that made him famous. Family Ties was filming its third season when his boss, the show's creator, Gary David Goldberg, refused to make him available for BTTF because Fox couldn't be spared...without informing Fox of the offer. Some months later the film's producers tried again when Eric Stoltz as Marty wasn't working out. This time Goldberg was ready to work with them and a crazy plan to replace Stoltz and reshoot the film with Fox while he continued his work on Family Ties was hatched.

 

Fox was twenty-three at the time, so a lot of what got him through the punishing schedule was both youthful energy and an intense dedication to both projects. A driver would pick him up in the morning and deliver him to Paramount for Family Ties. Once he was done for the day, another driver would pick him up at Paramount and deliver him to Universal Studios (or filming locations, including the Puente Hills Mall) where he would work through most of the night. His driver would then drop him off at home for a few hours sleep, then it was rinse and repeat. 

 

Some interesting points:

• Per Lea Thompson, Stoltz viewed Marty's return to 1985 as having a tragic quality - although things had turned out so much better for his family, there was now an entire, revised family history that Marty had no memory of. Interesting take, but the Bobs (writer Bob Gale and writer/director Bob Zemeckis) wanted a comedy, not a tragedy. Fox had high praise for Thompson in their first scene together, the one where Marty wakes up in 1955 and meets his mother as a teenager, especially because of how well she adjusted to the difference between how he played the role compared to Stoltz.
• Crispin Glover had made a guest appearance in an earlier episode of Family Ties. He played one of two friends who take Alex out to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. Fox has high praise for Glover's comedic ability.
• Because of how he was thrown into production without any rehearsal time with his castmates, Fox says he didn't really get to know Christopher Lloyd until the sequel, making the onscreen bond between Marty and Doc Brown all the more impressive. 
• The story of how Fox's stunt double got his job on the film is insane. It sounds like something out of a movie. Just read the book.
• The guitar Fox played in the "Johnny B. Good" performance at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance went missing and hasn't been seen since. Fox estimates that if it were to resurface, it "...could easily fetch in excess of seven figures."
• In preparation for the book Fox contacted Eric Stoltz, who has always maintained complete silence on the subject of his tenure as Marty McFly. The two got together and seem to have bonded, although at Stoltz's request whatever was discussed about the film stays private. I would love for Stoltz to someday write a book about his BTTF experience - I don't know if it's a sore spot he won't revisit, but if he did I would buy that book.

This was a quick, energetic read but if you want an extremely comprehensive look at the making of BTTF, I highly recommend We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines. 

 

From the book:

Any awkwardness in this meeting was immediately dispelled by Eric's grace. He entered with a smile, and we quickly acknowledged that neither of us had an issue with the other. What transpired on Back to the Future had not made us enemies or fated rivals; we were just two dedicated actors who had poured equal amounts of energy into the same role.  

 

Happy Inception Day, Roy Batty!!!

The eloquent replicant turns 10 years old today.

 

FYI, "Metropolis" was set in 2026

I wasn't previously aware of this, but now that we're in 2026 it keeps popping up on my social media: The dystopian future portrayed in Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece Metropolis was set in 2026.

 

You can read whatever you want into that.

 

Amazing film, BTW. Lang was a genius. The script was by his then-wife, Thea von Harbou.

 

Poster from the Wikipedia link, other photos from the film's imdb page.