James Spada's Blog, page 14
March 4, 2012
The Year of MarilynWhen I was a twelve-year-old Marilyn M...
The Year of Marilyn
When I was a twelve-year-old Marilyn Monroe fan on Staten Island, I was pretty lonely in my love for her. None of my friends shared my enthusiasm. Some of the boys I went to school with enjoyed looking at the cheesecake in my MM scrapbook, but mostly all I heard was "She's old enough to be your mother." In 1962 the biggest female star was Sandra Dee—who, were it not for Grease, would now be almost completely forgotten. Which is the long way of saying that if you had told me that there would be so much interest in Marilyn a half century later, I wouldn't have believed it. August 5 is the fiftieth anniversary of Marilyn's shocking and untimely death, and the interest in Marilyn is stronger than ever. "The Year of Marilyn" could be said to have begun last fall, when the film My Week with Marilyn and David Wills' gorgeous coffee-table book Marilyn Monroe Metamorphosis were released. By February, Michelle Williams had received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her role as Marilyn. Fans seemed to be split down the middle—some disliked the movie and some refused to see it at all, feeling that no one, and especially not Michelle Williams, could do Marilyn justice on film. The other side, of which I am one, loved the movie and felt that Williams captured MM's essence even if she didn't look much like her. I found myself tickled that a major motion picture had been made about one week in Marilyn's life. It was further proof that her legend is just as compelling as ever. For the same reason, I enjoy the TV series Smash, which is about the making of a Broadway musical based on Marilyn's life. The girls vying for the lead look nothing like her, and their impersonations are uncomfortably close to caricature, but it's fun to have a TV series that revolves, at least peripherally, around Marilyn. On February 2, the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood premiered the one-hour documentary With Her. Directed by Laurent Morier, it's a fascinating and respectful film about the members of Marilyn Remembered. The official poster for this year's Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 16, will feature a photo of Marilyn blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first Cannes Festival. From June through January 2013, part of the collections of Greg Schreiner, Scott Fortner, and others will be on display at the Ferragamo Museum in Florence, Italy. It will likely be the largest exhibit of Monroe memorabilia ever assembled. The fan club is also hoping to have an exhibit of other Marilyn items at the Hollywood Museum in June. For the twentieth anniversary of Marilyn's death in 1982 George Zeno and I produced the photo book Monroe: Her Life in Pictures. On several interview shows, I said I was amazed that Marilyn was still so popular. Now it's thirty years later, and there are at least eight books coming out this year. The first of these, to be published on April 1 by Applause books, is Dressing Marilyn Monroe: How a Hollywood Icon Was Styled by William Travilla, by Andrew Hansford and Karen Homer. It's available now on Amazon at $19.79. Six weeks later, Vanguard Press publishes Marilyn Monroe: Murder on Fifth Helena Drive by Keya Morgan. ($17.81 on Amazon.) It's hard to imagine what new could be written about this subject, but the publisher says it is based on 300 interviews, so who knows? The same might be said about Jay Margolis's book, Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder, out August 3 from iUniverse. I can say it appears Margolis has been very thorough, even examining the interviews I did for my Peter Lawford biography with people involved with Marilyn, which are a part of the Special Collections at the Library of Arizona State University at Tempe. On May 26 comes Marilyn by Magnum, a collection of photos taken by the agency's photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwin, Philippe Halsman, and Inge Morath, among others. Pretel Publishing's description doesn't say anything about never-before published photos, but let's hope there are some. The book is priced at $19.77 on Amazon.June will bring the release, from the Nan A. Talese imprint, of Marilyn and Me: A Photographer's Memories, by Lawrence Schiller, the man who took most of the famous Something's Got To Give poolside nudes. There's no description of the book on Amazon or on the Nan A. Talese website, but hopefully there will be soon. (Amazon: $13.60) There are also reports that Taschen is doing a book with Schiller, but there isn't anything about it on their website. Two books will be released in July. The first, Marilyn in Fashion, is by my longtime friends Christopher Nickens and George Zeno., from Running Press. It's the first book to examine Marilyn's enduring influence on fashion, illustrated with many never-before-published photos from George's world-renowned collection. It's available for pre-order on Amazon for $19.60. Last but definitely not least is Lois W. Banner's biography Revelations: The Passion and Paradox of Marilyn Monroe from the Bloomsbury Group (July 17). Lois is the co-author of MM:Personal, that fascinating book about the contents of Marilyn's file cabinets. According to the publisher's description, Banner "gained access to Marilyn intimates who hadn't spoken to other biographers, and to private material unseen, ignored, or misinterpreted by her predecessors." It's priced at $17.16 on Amazon. Every August 5 the Marilyn Remembered Fan Club, headed up so well by Greg Schreiner, holds a memorial service for Marilyn at her crypt in the Westwood Village Memorial Park. This anniversary will be commemorated with a week of activities beginning August 1 hosted by the group Immortal Marilyn, including a day trip to the Del Coronado Hotel, where Some Like it Hot was filmed, and a tour of the places Marilyn lived and frequented in Los Angeles. The week culminates on the fifth with a service in the chapel in which Lee Strasberg eulogized Marilyn so movingly, followed by a reception. Visit the club's website for more information: www.marilynremembered.org. Also visit www.immortalmarilyn.com.
Next week: Some thoughts on the TV season.
When I was a twelve-year-old Marilyn Monroe fan on Staten Island, I was pretty lonely in my love for her. None of my friends shared my enthusiasm. Some of the boys I went to school with enjoyed looking at the cheesecake in my MM scrapbook, but mostly all I heard was "She's old enough to be your mother." In 1962 the biggest female star was Sandra Dee—who, were it not for Grease, would now be almost completely forgotten. Which is the long way of saying that if you had told me that there would be so much interest in Marilyn a half century later, I wouldn't have believed it. August 5 is the fiftieth anniversary of Marilyn's shocking and untimely death, and the interest in Marilyn is stronger than ever. "The Year of Marilyn" could be said to have begun last fall, when the film My Week with Marilyn and David Wills' gorgeous coffee-table book Marilyn Monroe Metamorphosis were released. By February, Michelle Williams had received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her role as Marilyn. Fans seemed to be split down the middle—some disliked the movie and some refused to see it at all, feeling that no one, and especially not Michelle Williams, could do Marilyn justice on film. The other side, of which I am one, loved the movie and felt that Williams captured MM's essence even if she didn't look much like her. I found myself tickled that a major motion picture had been made about one week in Marilyn's life. It was further proof that her legend is just as compelling as ever. For the same reason, I enjoy the TV series Smash, which is about the making of a Broadway musical based on Marilyn's life. The girls vying for the lead look nothing like her, and their impersonations are uncomfortably close to caricature, but it's fun to have a TV series that revolves, at least peripherally, around Marilyn. On February 2, the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood premiered the one-hour documentary With Her. Directed by Laurent Morier, it's a fascinating and respectful film about the members of Marilyn Remembered. The official poster for this year's Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 16, will feature a photo of Marilyn blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first Cannes Festival. From June through January 2013, part of the collections of Greg Schreiner, Scott Fortner, and others will be on display at the Ferragamo Museum in Florence, Italy. It will likely be the largest exhibit of Monroe memorabilia ever assembled. The fan club is also hoping to have an exhibit of other Marilyn items at the Hollywood Museum in June. For the twentieth anniversary of Marilyn's death in 1982 George Zeno and I produced the photo book Monroe: Her Life in Pictures. On several interview shows, I said I was amazed that Marilyn was still so popular. Now it's thirty years later, and there are at least eight books coming out this year. The first of these, to be published on April 1 by Applause books, is Dressing Marilyn Monroe: How a Hollywood Icon Was Styled by William Travilla, by Andrew Hansford and Karen Homer. It's available now on Amazon at $19.79. Six weeks later, Vanguard Press publishes Marilyn Monroe: Murder on Fifth Helena Drive by Keya Morgan. ($17.81 on Amazon.) It's hard to imagine what new could be written about this subject, but the publisher says it is based on 300 interviews, so who knows? The same might be said about Jay Margolis's book, Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder, out August 3 from iUniverse. I can say it appears Margolis has been very thorough, even examining the interviews I did for my Peter Lawford biography with people involved with Marilyn, which are a part of the Special Collections at the Library of Arizona State University at Tempe. On May 26 comes Marilyn by Magnum, a collection of photos taken by the agency's photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwin, Philippe Halsman, and Inge Morath, among others. Pretel Publishing's description doesn't say anything about never-before published photos, but let's hope there are some. The book is priced at $19.77 on Amazon.June will bring the release, from the Nan A. Talese imprint, of Marilyn and Me: A Photographer's Memories, by Lawrence Schiller, the man who took most of the famous Something's Got To Give poolside nudes. There's no description of the book on Amazon or on the Nan A. Talese website, but hopefully there will be soon. (Amazon: $13.60) There are also reports that Taschen is doing a book with Schiller, but there isn't anything about it on their website. Two books will be released in July. The first, Marilyn in Fashion, is by my longtime friends Christopher Nickens and George Zeno., from Running Press. It's the first book to examine Marilyn's enduring influence on fashion, illustrated with many never-before-published photos from George's world-renowned collection. It's available for pre-order on Amazon for $19.60. Last but definitely not least is Lois W. Banner's biography Revelations: The Passion and Paradox of Marilyn Monroe from the Bloomsbury Group (July 17). Lois is the co-author of MM:Personal, that fascinating book about the contents of Marilyn's file cabinets. According to the publisher's description, Banner "gained access to Marilyn intimates who hadn't spoken to other biographers, and to private material unseen, ignored, or misinterpreted by her predecessors." It's priced at $17.16 on Amazon. Every August 5 the Marilyn Remembered Fan Club, headed up so well by Greg Schreiner, holds a memorial service for Marilyn at her crypt in the Westwood Village Memorial Park. This anniversary will be commemorated with a week of activities beginning August 1 hosted by the group Immortal Marilyn, including a day trip to the Del Coronado Hotel, where Some Like it Hot was filmed, and a tour of the places Marilyn lived and frequented in Los Angeles. The week culminates on the fifth with a service in the chapel in which Lee Strasberg eulogized Marilyn so movingly, followed by a reception. Visit the club's website for more information: www.marilynremembered.org. Also visit www.immortalmarilyn.com.
Next week: Some thoughts on the TV season.
February 27, 2012
Monday morning, February 27, 2012.One of the best things ...
Monday morning, February 27, 2012.
One of the best things about living in Los Angeles, for a movie fan, is that you don't have to stay up until midnight to watch the Oscars. The show was over at 8:30 here last night, leaving time to watch Family Guy and CSI: Miami and still be in bed by a reasonable time. The highlight of the show last night, for me, was Meryl Streep's win. Sunday morning she awoke to a churlish L.A. Times piece by Charles McNulty, the Times' theater (not movie) critic, entitled "My Streep Problem." He called her recent portrayals (in Mamma Mia!, Julie and Julia, The Devil Wears Prada and It's Complicated) "cartoonish," "superficial," and, to top it off, "artful drag burlesques." And then there are his friends, he wrote, whom he found to not only be indifferent to Streep's "greatness" but "actually put off by it." Who is this guy, and who are these friends of his? We should celebrate greatness, in every arena, not be "put off" by it. I never heard anyone express similar attitudes about her, although there did seem to be a lot of people who just assumed Streep had won an Oscar just about every year. Nominations, yes--Oscars, no. She's been nominated seventeen times, a record, but before last night had won only twice (once for Best Supporting Actress) and had lost fourteen times in a row as Best Actress. (Almost Susan Lucci territory!) Toward the end of their ad campaign, her studio wisely ran print ads featuring only one review quote—a critic marveling that it had been 29 years since Meryl Streep last won an Oscar. This may very well have tipped the scales in her favor, because most people were surprised by that. She had given so many Oscar-worthy performances during that spell that it came as a shock to realize that she'd been overlooked so many times.
* * *The show, as happens depressingly often, was poorly produced. The best supporting actress award wasn't given until 45 minutes into the show. As important as technical achievement are, it's inherently less interesting to see them rewarded than it is to see glamorous stars accepting the Oscar. The retrospective of great Hollywood movies went back only as far as the eighties—why bother if you're not going to include Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, or a hundred other great films? Billy Crystal was fine but a bit of a throwback as host—he reminded me most of Bob Hope, who used to be Mr. Oscar and could be relied on for stale jokes and self-deprecation. As so often happens, the attempt to do something different than last year's unsuccessful double-hosting by James Franco and Anne Hathaway led the Academy to go too far in the opposite direction. If the academy wants to seem hipper they should hire Ellen to host next year.
Next week: 2012—The Year of Marilyn Mania
One of the best things about living in Los Angeles, for a movie fan, is that you don't have to stay up until midnight to watch the Oscars. The show was over at 8:30 here last night, leaving time to watch Family Guy and CSI: Miami and still be in bed by a reasonable time. The highlight of the show last night, for me, was Meryl Streep's win. Sunday morning she awoke to a churlish L.A. Times piece by Charles McNulty, the Times' theater (not movie) critic, entitled "My Streep Problem." He called her recent portrayals (in Mamma Mia!, Julie and Julia, The Devil Wears Prada and It's Complicated) "cartoonish," "superficial," and, to top it off, "artful drag burlesques." And then there are his friends, he wrote, whom he found to not only be indifferent to Streep's "greatness" but "actually put off by it." Who is this guy, and who are these friends of his? We should celebrate greatness, in every arena, not be "put off" by it. I never heard anyone express similar attitudes about her, although there did seem to be a lot of people who just assumed Streep had won an Oscar just about every year. Nominations, yes--Oscars, no. She's been nominated seventeen times, a record, but before last night had won only twice (once for Best Supporting Actress) and had lost fourteen times in a row as Best Actress. (Almost Susan Lucci territory!) Toward the end of their ad campaign, her studio wisely ran print ads featuring only one review quote—a critic marveling that it had been 29 years since Meryl Streep last won an Oscar. This may very well have tipped the scales in her favor, because most people were surprised by that. She had given so many Oscar-worthy performances during that spell that it came as a shock to realize that she'd been overlooked so many times.
* * *The show, as happens depressingly often, was poorly produced. The best supporting actress award wasn't given until 45 minutes into the show. As important as technical achievement are, it's inherently less interesting to see them rewarded than it is to see glamorous stars accepting the Oscar. The retrospective of great Hollywood movies went back only as far as the eighties—why bother if you're not going to include Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, or a hundred other great films? Billy Crystal was fine but a bit of a throwback as host—he reminded me most of Bob Hope, who used to be Mr. Oscar and could be relied on for stale jokes and self-deprecation. As so often happens, the attempt to do something different than last year's unsuccessful double-hosting by James Franco and Anne Hathaway led the Academy to go too far in the opposite direction. If the academy wants to seem hipper they should hire Ellen to host next year.
Next week: 2012—The Year of Marilyn Mania
February 21, 2012
A welcome from James Spada
Thank you for helping me celebrate my brand-new website (www.jamesspadashollywood.com) and my first-ever blog! I'm excited to let everyone know that many of my out-of-print books are being re-issued as eBooks, beginning with Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets.
Many people have asked me why I chose Peter Lawford to write a biography of. After all, he wasn't as big a movie star as my other subjects. I explain that for me as a Marilyn Monroe fan, Peter's name kept coming up. I also have followed the Kennedy family, and there was Peter again. Sinatra's Rat Pack—Peter again! So I thought, Who is this guy, and why was he close to so many powerful people? I started researching his life, and to my delight I found that his life was a great story, above and beyond his associations.
This is one of my books that I'm most proud of. It was the first full-length, exhaustively researched book on Lawford (and remains so to this day). It was such a joy to research and do interviews for, especially since there had not been any books on Lawford previously, so I was uncovering new information wherever I went. I spent a month in London researching his childhood, then Palm Beach for his teen years and then, of course, Los Angeles for the bulk of his life. I did hundreds of interviews, most notably with Peter's long-time manager and best friend, Milt Ebbins. Ebbins was there for everything in Peter's life after 1954, and Peter told him many stories about the years prior.
Milt generously gave me hours of his time to be interviewed, and he opened many doors to me. Milt has passed now, but I will always be indebted to him and I will always remember his gentlemanly demeanor and warmth.
Lawford's life story is fascinating—"more Dickensian than Dickens," as the Los Angeles Times put it in reviewing the book. He inhabited so many worlds—London in the twenties, Palm Beach in the late thirties (where he parked old Joe Kennedy's car!), the MGM factory in the forties, television in its early years, life as a Kennedy in-law and Sinatra confidante in the fifties, and close friend of Marilyn Monroe in the early sixties. Las Vegas, France and Hawaii also figure prominently in Peter's life. Much of it couldn't have been invented by the most imaginative novelist or screenwriter—truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
In the next year my Grace Kelly, Barbra Streisand and Marilyn Monroe books will be available as eBooks, and I'll be doing blogs about them as well. I'll also be writing occasionally about people and events in show business, beginning with the Oscars next week.
I hope you'll continue checking out my blogs, and I welcome hearing from you with your thoughts and reactions.
--James Spada, February 22, 2012
Many people have asked me why I chose Peter Lawford to write a biography of. After all, he wasn't as big a movie star as my other subjects. I explain that for me as a Marilyn Monroe fan, Peter's name kept coming up. I also have followed the Kennedy family, and there was Peter again. Sinatra's Rat Pack—Peter again! So I thought, Who is this guy, and why was he close to so many powerful people? I started researching his life, and to my delight I found that his life was a great story, above and beyond his associations.
This is one of my books that I'm most proud of. It was the first full-length, exhaustively researched book on Lawford (and remains so to this day). It was such a joy to research and do interviews for, especially since there had not been any books on Lawford previously, so I was uncovering new information wherever I went. I spent a month in London researching his childhood, then Palm Beach for his teen years and then, of course, Los Angeles for the bulk of his life. I did hundreds of interviews, most notably with Peter's long-time manager and best friend, Milt Ebbins. Ebbins was there for everything in Peter's life after 1954, and Peter told him many stories about the years prior.
Milt generously gave me hours of his time to be interviewed, and he opened many doors to me. Milt has passed now, but I will always be indebted to him and I will always remember his gentlemanly demeanor and warmth.
Lawford's life story is fascinating—"more Dickensian than Dickens," as the Los Angeles Times put it in reviewing the book. He inhabited so many worlds—London in the twenties, Palm Beach in the late thirties (where he parked old Joe Kennedy's car!), the MGM factory in the forties, television in its early years, life as a Kennedy in-law and Sinatra confidante in the fifties, and close friend of Marilyn Monroe in the early sixties. Las Vegas, France and Hawaii also figure prominently in Peter's life. Much of it couldn't have been invented by the most imaginative novelist or screenwriter—truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
In the next year my Grace Kelly, Barbra Streisand and Marilyn Monroe books will be available as eBooks, and I'll be doing blogs about them as well. I'll also be writing occasionally about people and events in show business, beginning with the Oscars next week.
I hope you'll continue checking out my blogs, and I welcome hearing from you with your thoughts and reactions.
--James Spada, February 22, 2012
January 17, 2012
James Spada's Blog
- James Spada's profile
- 29 followers
James Spada isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
