How I Came to Write Musicals

IT'S A SPECIAL GUEST STAR DAY!

We are thrilled to turn The Film Experience over today to Tom Mizer, one half of the songwriting team Mizer & Moore (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel). In addition to his many career accomplishments, he happens to be a longtime TFE reader! Please give him a warm welcome - Nathaniel R.

by Tom Mizer

It’s a little disturbing to discover that the best way to introduce myself to you, good readers, is by having you meet 10 year-old me. During a lockdown cleaning binge, I found a stack of “scrapbooks” I made as a kid out of construction paper and newspaper clippings. The extreme Tom-ness of who I was and who I’d become is all there. I mean, look at just this one page.

First, note the slipshod but intense workmanship. I have not a crafty bone in my body and clearly needed to avoid the visual arts...

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Showbiz History: John Wayne's Oscar, Altman's Nashville, JLaw's Record

by Nathaniel R

John Wayne in "The Big Trail (1930)" and in "True Grit (1969)"

This day in history is a big one of Hollywood's most popular stars, John Wayne. His career began, as most did in the early days of Hollywood, with uncredited parts in silent films but he became a leading man once the talkies hit. Perhaps he needed that distinctive slow-crawl dirt road voice to stand out? He had his first leading role at just 23 years of age with The Big Trail. True stardom didn't hit, though, until Stage Coach (1939) after which, he was top-billed for the remainder of his career. On this very day in 1969 True Grit premiered in Los Angeles. The role of Rooster Cogburn would net him his third Oscar nomination and prove to be something of a career capper when he took home the Best Actor Oscar. (Jeff Bridges would later be Oscar-nominated for the same role in the 2010 Coen brothers remake). Not one to rest -- Wayne holds the record of most leading roles for an American movie star with *gasp* 142 of them -- the western icon kept right on working through The Shootist in 1976. On this same day in history in 1979, ten years after people first met Rooster Cogburn, Wayne died of stomach cancer. He remains one of the most iconic stars in Hollywood history.

What else was happening on this day in showbiz history? Find out after the jump...

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Thoughts I Had... While Rewatching "Grease 2"

Grease 2 gave me such writer's block in the Pfandom series because what to even focus on with such an event? I finally powered through but the focus naturally had to be on LaPfeiff's career. So, herewith a random collections of thoughts and observations from this viewing which I think was my 6th or 7th? The movie is terrible but I'm addicted to early Pfeiffer's lusty bravado in it, hence the multiple revisits.

(This is gif heavy so be warned...)

Dody Goodman & Eve Arden reprising their Grease roles as "Blanche & Miss McGee"

↑ But these are the faces you'll find me making every time I find myself watching it. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS AGAIN?!?!?

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Pfandom: Cool Rider and a Pink (Leading) Lady

on the set of Grease 2, her first lead roleP F A N D O M  
Michelle Pfeiffer Retrospective. Episode 8 
by Nathaniel R 

We've mostly focused on Michelle Pfeiffer's acting in our Pfandom retrospective. We're sure the star who has described herself as "extremely private" would like it that way, but this would be the appropriate time for a brief bit of personal context.

Though the young actress had been working nonstop since the late 70s in television roles and a few features, she'd been struggling offscreen. She was impatient with the way her career was developing. She'd also become involved with a cult, an experience she's always been cagey about in interviews. She had given them too much of her money and was eating strangely at their insistence. In 1981, she took back control of her life.

At the Grease 2 premiere in NYC with her new husband Peter Horton and producer Allan Carr

Two marriages and two divorces (of sorts): in her personal life she fell in love with fellow up-and-coming actor Peter Horton (who would later become a TV star on thirtysomething), and broke free from the cult; in her professional life she dumped her first agent to sign with the much more powerful William Morris Agency. The shakeup had an immediate effect on her career...

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Beauty Break: Women's March

can we please have a duet?!?

A shout out to all the brave souls that marched today... er yesterday now. Before we return to movie loving with more awardage in the morning, let's look at fun movie-themed signs (including Grease, Star Wars, and even less expected choices like Dazed and Confused and  Carol!) and lots of celebrities marching with civilians.

Women's rights are human rights. Inspiring people and funny signs after the jump...

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