BEFORE: Well, I've fallen behind with posting again, because two jobs. I'm not complaining, because it's good to be busy, being busy means I might make a little more money this month, and I've just GOT to make a credit card payment mid-month. There are shifts to be had in April, because the theater is down a few house managers and the NY Liberty is in town, but September is a bit of a question mark - the Liberty will be on the road but also at the college there will be orientation shifts, all the various departments use the theater for welcome lectures for incoming students, oddly this means there could be a giant ostrich statue in my future. It's a long story that I can't tell here. But I love it when orientation rolls around, it means I get more shifts. Last night I worked a meeting of Manhattan Democrats voting to nominate candidates for state Supreme Court - no film, no presentation except they needed the large theater to hold a big public crowd, plus candidates, plus delegates, plus organizers and such. I was in charge of maintaining order during check-in, and trying to keep a crowd from rushing in once the rain started, that was NOT easy.
After tonight, just 12 documentaries left, and 13 states to profile, because one day my "Get to Know a State" feature was devoted to Washington, DC which is, it turns out, not a state. So I've got to deal with having an extra state left over, but I think I have a plan. Tonight's state is NOT where Elizabeth Taylor is from, because she was born in the U.K., but her parents were an art dealer and an actress, originally from Arkansas City in KANSAS. So sure, it's a bit of a stretch, she's got dual US + UK citizenship, but her roots go back to KANSAS, there you go.
Date admitted to the U.S.: January 29, 1961
Claim to fame: as my t-shirt map says, it's "Where Dorothy's Not Anymore"
Nickname: "The Sunflower State" or "The Wheat State" or "America's Heartland"
State Motto: Ad astra per Aspera, which is Latin for "We couldn't choose just one Nickname"
State Flower: wild native sunflower
State Bird: Western meadowlark
State Fish: Channel catfish
State Animal: American buffalo
State Reptile: Ornate box turtle
State Amphibian: Barred tiger salamander
State Mineral: Galena
State Fruit: Sandhill plum
State Tree: Cottonwood
Notable Sports Teams: This is where I always get confused, because there are two Kansas Citys, and one is in Missouri. Really, if Kansas City is in Missouri, then Missouri City should be in Kansas. So yeah, there are the Chiefs in the NFL and the Royals in the MLB, but I think they both play in Missouri, they just have fans in Kansas. There are mens and womens soccer teams that play in Kansas, but who cares about soccer? At the college level there are the Jayhawks and the Wildcats, but I'm not familiar.
Fun Facts: Most of modern Kansas came to the U.S. via the Louisiana Purchase, but there's a small part in the Southwest that was part of Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas at different times. The Santa Fe Trail ran right through it for years, but in 1827 Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of Americans who didn't want to travel any further, and said, "You know what, I'm tired, this is fine." Kansas banned all alcoholic beverages in 1881, well in advance of Prohibition, and then suffered the damage of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's and I have to believe there's a connection there. Karma's a bitch, so if you wanted a "dry state", you'd better be ready for one.
I have NOT been to Kansas, but perhaps if I can wrangle a BBQ Crawl through Missouri, maybe we can take a pass through Kansas as well. Because why not, and I don't want to have to wait until I'm retired to get the RV and drive through all the states I haven't been to yet, God willing. So I'm holding again at 24 states visited, out of 38 profiled.
I'm also sending out another posthumous Birthday SHOUT-out to Eddie Fisher, born August 10, 1928. He died in 2010, and of course he was married to both Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens at different times, he was the father of Eddie Fisher and Todd Fisher with Reynolds, and then Joely Fisher and her sister with Stevens. Carrie Fisher once explained her very complicated family of step-siblings, but she needed a whiteboard to do it.
Elizabeth Taylor and I think 10 other people carry over from "Film Geek", including Debbie Reynolds.
THE PLOT: Newly discovered interviews with Elizabeth Taylor and access to the star's personal archive reveal the complex inner life and vulnerability of the groundbreaking icon.
AFTER: There are connections all over my chain this year, "Film Geek" just might have been the epicenter - like I only needed ONE person to carry over from "Film Geek", and I got 10. Thank God that film used archive footage from 1970's films, with stars who were seen in the Roger Corman films, and also footage from classic films, allowing me to transition to a few films about older Hollywood people, stars from the 1950's and 1960's, of course some people had very long careers, and Dennis Hopper has managed to be in the last THREE films, since he was in "Giant" and "Easy Rider" and of course "Apocalypse Now", and also the David Lynch film "Blue Velvet", with a clip seen in "Roy Orbison Forever". I mean, it's hardly a record and he's not going to win the year, but six appearances for a man who died in 2010 is a darn good showing. John Belushi has 8 so far, though, and Johnny Carson has 9, just saying.
So I see connections to a lot of films I watched in the last 40 or so days - some of these people were last seen in the Bob Mackie doc or the Paul Anka one, or the one about Eddie Murphy. But thematically, I'm seeing the connection to the doc about Pamela Anderson, another person who seems to get married at the drop of a hat, and really, wasn't she, in her own way, kind of like the Elizabeth Taylor of the 1990's? Sure, Liz Taylor never put on a skimpy red bathing suit and went running in slow motion down a beach, but they're both really the marrying kind, eternal optimists who must have convinced themselves each time that it's really going to stick this kind, THIS is the one that's going to last. Look, I know I haven't had much luck with actors/rock musicians, but something's different about THIS actor/rock musician. Why are they all such duds? I know it simply can't be ME who's the problematic one, that would be un-possible.
I don't want to oversimplify things, for sure, because there are perhaps other complex issues at work, starting of course with fame and living in the public eye - the word "paparazzi" was allegedly first used as the name for groups of photographers trying to get photos of Liz Taylor cheating on her current husband - and then there are parenting or co-parenting stress problems, substance abuse and tales of domestic violence, as well as disillusionment caused by finding out the person you married has faults themself, or they're not really the person you thought they were. Or, you know, you've changed, you've both changed, and you want different things now than you did three years ago, that's bound to happen, so sure, don't work on the problems or try to fix them, it's best to just wipe the slate clean and try again for the fourth, fifth or sixth time. Hope springs eternal, after all.
Since Liz Taylor started out as a child star, like following in Judy Garland's footsteps, I see a lot of similarities in their backstories, Judy had "The Wizard of Oz" and Liz had a "Lassie" movie and "National Velvet", but they both became part of the studio system and the studio controlled what they wore, when they went to school and ultimately who they dated, or at least who they got photographed with and pretended to date. And they both preferred the company of gay men, either consciously or unconsciously. Judy married a few gay men, and of course whether they were gay all along or she drove them to it is a topic for some debate. Liz Taylor hung out with Roddy McDowall and Montgomery Clift because she felt safer around them, and I think we probably all know why. So here in these "lost" tapes she claims to have been a virgin when she got married the first time, to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton at the age of 18. They went on a honeymoon cruise and while we don't have all the details, apparently she was extremely terrified about sleeping with him. Sure, men all say they want to marry virgins, but they don't really consider the logistics of all that. Anyway, she claimed he was a heavy drinker, abusive and caused her to have a miscarriage, so thank you, NEXT!
Next she married an older actor, Michael Wilding, and she was looking more for friendship, while he was looking to advance his career by marrying her. They had two sons, so I guess they worked something out, for a while anyway. His career was on the skids, though, and gossip magazines said he had strippers come to their home while she was away. NEXT! She married Mike Todd, the producer of the blockbuster hit "Around the World in 80 Days", and here she called him the love of her life, but he died in a plane crash just a year after they wed, and in her grief she turned to Eddie Fisher, the husband of her friend, Debbie Reynolds. Well, we know how all THAT turned out, Eddie left Debbie for Liz and eventually Liz left Eddie for Richard Burton. When you spend three years-plus filming "Cleopatra" with someone, you run the risk of falling for them, because you're away from home and spending more time with your co-stars than with your spouse. It's understandable, I guess.
Liz and Dick made 11 films together while married, and co-parenting their kids and other people's kids and whatnot, and sure, it seemed like they had it all worked out, they even got divorced in 1974 and re-married in 1975, but then that second marriage only lasted a year. At that point I'm guessing they didn't know which way was up, like was the divorce a mistake or was the whole relationship a mistake, or were they just not the same people they were 11 years before? It's all too complicated to try and unravel, so this doc just presents us with the dates and hopes that we can all figure it out from what Liz said during these reel-to-reel recorded interviews.
Her sixth husband was Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia. They were together five years, but Taylor found she didn't really enjoy the life of a politician's wife, spending time in Washington, DC instead of Hollywood. Yeah, who could have seen THAT one coming? And then her seventh husband isn't mentioned here at all, that construction worker she met in rehab. Well, he was sort of semi-famous for a while, but he had OCD and she had hip operations and back problems, and I don't know, I guess there was a lot to unpack, maybe it was just a co-dependency thing, they only made it five years. After some bouts with pneumonia and skin cancer and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure in 2004, she kind of devoted the rest of her time to AIDS charities and AIDS research, due to her friendship with Rock Hudson. That was a really positive way for her to spend her last few years, it seems she finally learned that she didn't need to be married to be complete, and she could accomplish great things on her own.
Directed by Nanette Burnstein (director of "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and "Going the Distance")
Also starring Elizabeth Cuzzupoli, Rob Gill,
with archive footage of Don Adams (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Carroll Baker (last seen in "Giant"), Yul Brynner (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Richard Burton (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Cantinflas (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Cher (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Marilyn Monroe (ditto), Montgomery Clift (last seen in "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road"), Perry Como (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Doris Day (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Rock Hudson (ditto), James Dean (last seen in "Landscape with Invisible Hand"), Dominick Dunne (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Eddie Fisher (last seen in "The Automat"), George Hamilton (also carrying over from "Film Geek"), Charlton Heston (ditto), Dennis Hopper (ditto), Gene Kelly (ditto), Roddy McDowall (ditto), Ricardo Montalban (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), David Niven (ditto), Donald O'Connor (ditto), Debbie Reynolds (ditto), Rex Harrison (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Laurence Harvey (last seen in "F for Fake"), Katharine Hepburn (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Mickey Rooney (ditto), Conrad Hilton Jr., Bob Hope (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Burl Ives (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Angela Lansbury (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Peter Lawford (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Rouben Mamoulian, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Tim Mendelson, Edward R. Murrow (last seen in "Rather"), George Segal (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Jane Seymour (last seen in "Austenland"), Simone Signoret (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Tom Snyder (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Mike Wallace (ditto), George Stevens, Francis Taylor, Robert Taylor (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin"), Sara Taylor, Michael Todd Jr., John Warner (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Michael Wilding (last seen in "Stage Fright"), Stevie Wonder (also last seen in "Being Eddie"),
and the voices of Doris Brynner, John Heyman, Samuel Marx, Tim Mendelson, Marion Rosenberg
RATING: 6 out of 10 unnecessary shots of a reel-to-reel tape recorder (I mean, jeesh, we GET IT already!)
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