Remember Gandhi? Baby Jake? Harlow?

On this day in movie related history...

1893 Mahatma Gandhi committed his first act of civil disobedience refusing to move from a whites only first class section of a train. He had a valid ticket, after all. He was forcibly ejected in South Africa's Pietermaritzburg Railway Station. This event and many others from his nonviolent revolution were reenacted by Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, Oscar's Best Picture of 1982. (You can cover a lot with a running time of 191 minutes.)
1909 Jessica Tandy is born. Steals Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar 80 years, 9 months, and 19 days later.
1917 Rat Pack royalty Dean Martin is born. Centennial next year.
1928 Perpetually underappreciated and totally awesome director James Ivory is born. Later makes masterpieces like A Room With a View and Howards End. Where's his Honorary Oscar, AMPAS? He's 87 people get on that immediately. 

1937 The original Bombshell, Jean Harlow dies suddenly at the peak of her fame at the age of 26. Where's her biopic?
1952 Liam Neeson is born.
1958 Prince is born. *sniffle*
1966 Tom McCarthy, the director of last year's Best Picture Spotlight (2015) is born
1972 One of the world's most handsome actors, Karl Urban, is born in New Zealand. Later goes to both Middle Earth and Space, the final frontier. Next up: Pete's Dragon and Thor: Ragnarok. Meanwhile in New York Grease opens on Broadway. It becomes a movie phenomenon six years later. It is never leaving us.
1985 Goonies and Perfect both open. "What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect?"
1974 Bear Grylls is born so we might one day see pampered A list actors try to look tough in survival mode in the wild... albeit with a film crew around them so how Wild are they really Running? 
1976 ”The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” by journalist Nik Cohn is published in New York magazine. It becomes a movie very quickly, a classic too, Saturday Night Fever (1977)
1990 Universal Studios Florida opens. Original rides based on Jaws, Earthquake, and King Kong all experience technical problems.

Baby Gyllenhaal

1991 City Slickers opens, turning into a surprise hit. Jack Palance wins the Oscar and little boy Jake Gyllenhaal makes his film debut 
1998 The Lion King, the Broadway sensation based on Disney's mega-hit movie, wins six Tony Awards
2015 Helen Mirren wins her Tony for playing Queen Elizabeth on Broadway, a role that also won her an Oscar (The Queen). She also won an Emmy for playing a different Queen Elizabeth. She's just an audiobook about royalty away from her EGOT.

On Jean Harlow, "Beauty", Screen Presence & Short Lives

75 years ago today Jean Harlow died. The Platinum Blonde superstar, arguably the ur blonde bombshell that Marilyn Monroe gets the bulk of the credit for being, was only 26 years old. She'd been a sensation since the age of 19 when Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930) premiered. I loved the Scorsese-directed Hughes bio The Aviator (2004) when it premiered because of its handsome snapshot of Old Hollywood Glamour but I never quite understood what Gwen Stefani was doing playing Harlow. I couldn't see the resemblance beyond hair color and anyone can have that; Platinum Blonde does not normally occur through natural means!

When I was a baby cinephile and more familiar with Old Hollywood giants from their still photos than their actual work, Jean Harlow's huge fame and legendary sex appeal confused me. I thought she looked... odd and weirdly masculine (maybe it was the nose and chin? or maybe just my youth). Definitely not "beautiful". But I learned quickly that traditional beauty, both the male and female variety, is often flat onscreen. Screen presence always trumps beauty. Even the most famously beautiful movie stars are famously beautiful because their screen presence augmented their beauty, permanently burning it into the collective consciousness.

Leo & Gwen as Hughes & Harlow in THE AVIATOR (2004)

That's a lesson that unfortunately many casting directors and studio executives have never learned. This is especially true on television where entire shows are populated with "beauties" but you can instantly forget what everyone looks like by the time the credits are rolling in the sidebar as commercials for the next whatever play. It's especially true on networks like the CW and for whatever reason it always reminds me of those legendary stories about the casting of X-Files. Many executives didn't want Gillian Anderson because she wasn't "hot" enough but an interchangeable pretty blonde that would be easy to imagine doing photoshoots for men's interest mags, would never have seized the public imagination like Gillian did as Agent Scully. But I digress!

Seeing the pre-code movie Red Dust (1932) cured me of all Harlow doubts, since her carnality still reads as so immediate, unwithered by the passage of time.

Doesn't it feel sometimes as if being a Movie Star was more of an Occupational Health Hazard in earlier cinematic decades. So many film stars died young: James Dean (24), Jean Harlow (26), Rudolph Valentino (31), Carole Lombard (33),  Marilyn Monroe (36), John Gilbert (38), Natalie Wood (43), Monty Clift (45), Stephen Boyd (45), Judy Garland (47), etcetera. Or is it merely that those who die young stick in the memory, filed under What Could Have Been.

Rose McGowan Has No Interest in "Real". Do you?

I have no interest in 'real.' I find real people boring."

Those telling words were spoken by the actress Rose McGowan on the penultimate episode of the latest season of RuPaul's Drag Race. I suddenly appreciate Rose more. It's true that reality is not exactly her forte. She's best known as a television witch and when popular culture eventually forgets her, isn't it entirely likely that the single enduring image from her career will be that Grindhouse chick with a machine gun for a leg. It doesn't get more much unreal than that. 

The final four drag contestants were the acclaimed Cher-loving Chad Michaels, the large glamourous Latrice Royale, "busted show queen" Phi Phi O'Hara and funny spooky Sharon Needles. I knew that hateful Phi Phi would make the final three because someone despicable always makes it to reality tv finales. But never mind that. Let's talk movie references! (We'll get back to movies soon but we're clearly having a 24 hour television binge)

Sharon Needles won much movie-movie praise from Rose McGowan...

If somehow Liza Minnelli in Cabaret and Jean Harlow had a baby and threw it in white puffy boots with the perfect poodle, it would be you.❞
-Rose McGowan to Sharon Needles. 

I'm not sure how she gets Sally Bowles and Jean Harlow (other than the hair color) out of Sharon's severe chic poodle look but it's wonderful to hear actressy icons referenced in contemporary contexts. Which is part of the reason RuPaul's Drag Race is so great --  there are always a couple of actressexuals in the cast who can't help but reference the movie and music divas.

Meanwhile Chad Michaels went for a Cruella de Vil inspired look (and was shamed for it -- "too old") but when she took off the furry wrap, she looked like a superhero. A retired superhero maybe but still...

Do you find reality boring?

How do you like your Rose McGowan?

Who are you rooting for to win RuPaul's Drag Race?