Emily Blunt Covers UK Harper's Bazaar January 2011

British actress Emily Blunt looks stunning wearing some exclusive pieces from Tom Ford's upcoming women's collection in UK's Harper's Baazar January 2011 issue.

James Franco & Natalie Portman Cover EW

The Oscar Race Is On!!

Both James Franco and Natalie Portman are considered to be early favorites at 2011's Oscars, co-host James Franco for 127 Hours as Best Actor In A Leading Role and in the Best Actress In A Leading Role category Black Swan's Natalie Portman, who recently announced she is both engaged to and expecting a baby with her Black Swan choreographer/boyfriend Benjamin Millepied.

A quote for New Year's Eve

"The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends.or in a brothel.  Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair offsomeone is bound to be left in tears"
W. H. Auden(1907-1973)

Friday quotes will resume next week
I shall be taking Auden's advice and having some drinks at home with The Actor, Mrs Jones and Giles.  We might pop to a friend's party two doors down.  Gone are

Thank you to Little Augury

A huge thank you to Patricia Gaye Tapp who has wonderful blog called Little Augury.  PGT has picked some of my posts amongst her favourites of 2010.  I'm extremely flattered and very happy to be included.

Little Augury is a daily read of mine and has taught me a great deal over the past year.  It's one of the most interesting and aesthetically beautiful blogs around.  PGT has an amazing eye

2010 Top-Ten Classic Movie Man Blog Posts

What were the most popular blog posts for 2010? Here’s a countdown of the top-ten. Some got a remarkable number of reads, while others not as much. It’s hard to know why one post gets more reads than another, but that’s what makes life interesting. Here we go; we’ll start with number 10 and then work up (or down) to number one. 

Dana Andrews (left) and Gene Tierney in Laura

Number 10—The Remarkable Andrews—This was the only holdover from 2009. It was the very first post I wrote for CMM in August 2009. I’m a huge Dana Andrews fan and this post is a tribute to him. With this year’s recent “Meet Me at the Movies” presentation of Laura, interest in Andrews and his work found new readers in 2010. 

Claudette Colbert

Number 9—Claudette Colbert film class starts next Wednesday at Facets Film School—Toward the end of July, I taught a class on Colbert at Facets. The Academy Award-winning actress’s work was featured from her early days as a featured performer to her eventual superstar status. Colbert is the only actress to have been in three films nominated for Best Picture in a single year: Imitation of Life, Cleopatra, and It Happened One Night. Night was the Best Picture of 1935, and Colbert was that year’s Best Actress for her role as Ellie Andrews in the same picture. 

Number 8—Classic Movie Man’s Favorite Christmas Movies—This is the most recent post on the list. I posted this piece on December 20, 2010, but the timing was right to get the attention of fans of Christmas movies. It was far from an exhaustive list, but it did contain some of the most popular holiday movies of all time. 

French President Nicolas Sarkozy congratulates De Havilland

Number 7—Olivia De Havilland Awarded Legion of Honor—Fans obviously have a soft spot in their hearts for the 94-year-old film legend. The photos released in September showed that De Havilland is still beautiful and a class act. 

Irene Dunne

Number 6—Been There Dunne That—This post on Irene Dunne was a labor of love for me. Dunne, in my opinion, was one of the most talented performers to ever grace the silver screen. She was adept at comedy, drama, musicals, you name it and she could do it. One of the most popular film actresses of all time, it’s practically criminal that she never won an Academy Award (she was nominated five times).  

Loretta Young

Number 5—Loretta or Cary: Who is More Beautiful—Another recent post (November 27, 2010), this offered some background on Loretta Young and Cary Grant, two of the most glamorous movie stars that ever lived. A bit tongue-in-cheek, the post was a companion piece to earlier posts on the December “Meet Me at the Movies” presentation of The Bishop’s Wife. 

Deanna Durbin

Number 4—Deanna Durbin: The Reluctant Movie Star—Released on December 4, 2010, Durbin’s 89th birthday, this post was an instant hit, garnering over 150 reads almost immediately. One of the biggest stars of all time, Durbin chucked it all two years before her 30th birthday to live a quiet domestic life in France. 

Irene Dunne and William Powell head the cast of Life With Father

Number 3—Classic Film of the Week: “Life With Father”—The post was partly due to my interest and research on Irene Dunne (see above) for a screening of her Oscar-nominated role in Theodora Goes Wild. Life With Father was always a favorite film of mine and I was curious about its history. I discovered that stars Dunne and William Powell shared top billing on 50% of the film prints and all collateral marketing materials including movie posters. For the premier, they flipped a coin to see which print would be screened!

Grace Kelly

Number 2—Becoming Grace Kelly—Another post to compliment a “Meet Me at the Movies” event, this mini biography of Kelly has so far garnered 461 reads and still counting! First posted in April 2010, this post continues to interest readers from all over the world. 

Gene Tierney as Laura

Number 1—“Laura” Starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews…”—This is one for the go figure category. This announcement for the November 19, 2010 “Meet Me at the Movies” event has so far received a staggering 806 reads! Not sure why it still remains so popular, but perhaps an odd coincidence helped drive readership. The screening of “Laura” coincided with Tierney’s birthday. There are often posts about movie stars on their birthdays, but this one really takes the prize.

Thank you for visiting the Classic Movie Man blog and supporting my efforts. I’m a movie fan just like a lot of my readers, so it gives me a big boost when you stop by for a read and I’m especially flattered when you take the time to leave a comment.

Here’s to a wonderful new year of blog posts featuring the best stories about classic movies, stars, and directors.

Thank you to Liberty xxx

When I did my post on our Christmas the other day I mentioned that my two favourite scents are Must de Cartier and a new one I discovered last year AnOther 13 by Le Labo.  A collaboration with AnOther magazine.  I was given a sample of Le Labo in a goody bag at one of Liberty's events last year, and I fell in love with it immediately.  I've worn Cartier for about twenty years and haven't found

Where we finally go out

Photography by Dean Mouhtaropolous/GettyThe gates of Victoria Park in the snow - what a gorgeous picture
After nearly four days staying in watching films and stuffing our faces The Actor and I decided we'd better get out and go for a morning walk.  I've loved staying in but we're beginning to feel a bit unhealthy and rather fat - me not him - he never puts on a pound.

After having baths, me

Our Christmas

I have been in bed with The Actor for the last two days watching movies and lots of Christmas stuff I've recorded.  We haven't left the house since Boxing Day apart from to pop to the corner shop.  
The Actor arrived on the 23rd and we had a totally chilled out Christmas Eve.  We opened our presents at midnight which we've done for the last few years as we've been going to his sister's on

Karen Abbott Talks About Her New Book "American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee"

Bestselling author Karen Abbott

Several months ago, I had the good fortune to be part of a book club that was discussing Karen Abbott's first nonfiction book, Sin in the Second City. That book chronicled the rise and fall of Chicago's notorious Levee District. During that book club discussion, Abbott spoke to us via telephone. The phone was passed around so everyone would have an opportunity to ask Abbott a question about her book. Toward the end of the conversation with Abbott, she revealed that she was working on a new biography of Gyspy Rose Lee, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee. After the meeting, I contacted Abbott and asked her if I could send her some questions about her new biography. She graciously agreed and what follows are the questions I asked with her answers.


Q: Why a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee?

It’s her 100th birthday this January, so the timing is fortuitous. Her story is classic Americana with plenty of surprising detours and sordid drama along the way; I like to call it “Horatio Alger meets Tim Burton.” Here’s an awkward kid who is born into nothing, receives very little formal education, spends her entire childhood on the road, and is marginally cared for by an erratic, volatile, homicidal mother, who grows up to become a novelist, a playwright, a contributor to The New Yorker, an actress, a member of New York’s literati, and the most famous entertainer of her time. It’s really the story of America itself: the dream, the struggle, the setbacks, the ferocious drive and relentless self-invention, the ultimate triumph—and at what cost? Gypsy was a true original, as fascinating as she is timeless, and I hope American Rose does her justice. I also hope an entirely new generation of people can appreciate how unique and genuine she was, especially in this age of manufactured celebrity. Who else but Gypsy Rose Lee would receive a telegram from Eleanor Roosevelt—Eleanor Roosevelt!—that said, “May your bare ass always be shining”?

Q: How did you first become aware of this entertainment legend?

My grandmother used to tell me stories about growing up during the Great Depression, and she once relayed a tale about a cousin who saw Gypsy Rose Lee perform (I believe in Chicago) in 1935. The cousin said, “She took a full fifteen minutes to peel off a single glove, and she was so damn good at it I would’ve gladly given her fifteen more.” So that got me thinking: who is this Gypsy Rose Lee? I spent three years researching that answer, research that involved connecting with Gypsy’s late sister, the actress June Havoc. I was the last person to interview her, and talking to her about vaudeville and Gypsy and their mother was like time traveling back to the 1920s and 1930s. I have a few audio excerpts of my interviews with June on my website and I plan to add more audio and video soon.

Q: You had a huge success with Sin in the Second City; what are your expectations for the Lee biography?

Thanks for the kind words… I think every author hopes each successive book does better than the last. I found the habitués of Gypsy’s world—the Prohibition-era gangsters, the shady politicians, the members of the Algonquin Round Table, the Broadway entrepreneurs, the odd vaudevillians (my favorite being a guy named “The Amazing Regurgitator”), the jealous and competitive stripteasers, Abbott and Costello, H.L. Mencken, FDR, the list goes on—just as intriguing as the characters in Sin in the Second City. I tried to capture a really rich and singular time in American history, and I hope people respond to that.

Q: What surprised you most when researching Lee’s life?

Good question. I’d have to say how incredibly private she was. Here’s someone who was once declared “the most popular woman in the world” and who achieved lasting and worldwide renown without letting a single person truly know her—again, what a quaint and novel concept in this day and age, when even the most private moments are packaged and peddled for public consumption. Her mystique, of course, was also literal; she became known as the stripper who kept on more than she took off, who mastered the art of the tease. Her privacy eventually became a key component of her fame. Life magazine once noted that she was “the only woman in the world with a public body and a private mind, both equally exciting.” Gypsy was a masterful magician, and her greatest trick was to belong to everyone and no one, to show everything and nothing—all at the same time. On another note entirely, I couldn’t believe what I learned about Gypsy’s mother. Anyone who’s familiar with “Mama Rose” as portrayed in Gypsy’s memoir or on Broadway will be in for a few surprises. There’s one line in American Rose that sums up their relationship perfectly:  “Theirs is a primal connection that Gypsy is incapable of severing, parallel to love and just as deep but rotten at its root. It is a swooning, funhouse version of love, love concerned with appearances rather than intent, love both deprived and depraved, love that has to glimpse its distorted reflection in the mirror in order to exist at all.”

Q: Hollywood has always been interested in Lee’s life and career; have you had any interest from Hollywood regarding your biography?

From your keyboard to Hollywood’s ears! My agent is waiting for the book to be published to take any action on that front. But as I said, the real story of Gypsy’s life is much stranger, darker, and more interesting than the one that’s been portrayed on Broadway and in the movies, so I hope someone thinks it’s time for a remake.

Q: When I was a kid, I remember seeing Gypsy Rose Lee on the “Mike Douglas Show.” In her later years, she seemed to make a career out of being Gypsy Rose Lee. Was this a calculated decision on her part?

Gypsy was nothing if not calculating, and I think she made this decision much earlier than her time on the “Mike Douglas Show.” There’s another section in American Rose that portrays the moment Louise Hovick (Gypsy’s birth name) becomes Gypsy Rose Lee:

“In that moment Louise Hovick traded in the last piece of herself, and when she opened her mouth it was Gypsy Rose Lee who spoke. She told the manager that she could fill in for his missing lead, strip scenes and all, and then she sat before her dressing room mirror and met her creation for the very first time.”

Gypsy the person had a conflicted, tortured relationship with Gypsy Rose Lee the creation. For all of Gypsy’s mental fortitude and steely nerve, she was physically weak and oddly susceptible to illness. “The body reacted,” June Havoc told me, “because the soul protested.” Taking just one aspirin could upset her stomach, and she suffered from severe ulcers that made her vomit blood. She adored her creation because it gave her the things she’d always wanted—fame, money, security—but she loathed its limitations, either real or perceived. She lived in an exquisite trap she herself had set.

Q: I read that she and her sister June Havoc were estranged, but reconciled before Lee died of lung cancer. Did they reconcile? What was their relationship like?

When they were kids, the girls’ mother manipulated their relationship. She raised her daughters as if they were two grizzled generals preparing for war—with men, with her, with each other. They were competitive and jealous and conditioned to distrust one another, and there was some lasting damaged inflicted, I think, on both sides. June told me of one incident in particular that she never forgot. She was poor and desperate and dancing on the marathon circuit—which was a particularly grueling, brutal way to earn a living during the Depression—and asked Gypsy to introduce her to people in New York City who might help her find a legitimate acting job. Well, Gypsy sent her somewhere completely unexpected… I have a clip on my website where June talks about this a bit. But I do think they admired and cared for each other a great deal. When Gypsy was sick, June moved in with her and tended to her, and that time together went a long way toward healing any old wounds. They also bounded over how to handle their mother in her later years, which was no easy feat!

Q: What is Gypsy Rose Lee’s legacy? Does she have one?

Gypsy perfected the art of blending sex and comedy—people laughed at her routines as much as they were titillated by them. She was, by and large, an asexual person; she used sex if it suited her purposes, and those purposes seldom had to do with the expression of genuine feeling. But I think that distance from sex was necessary in order for her to find the humor in it; she was a brilliant comedian and storyteller, and happened to tell her best stories while she was taking off her clothes—or at least tricking you into thinking she would. Decades before Madonna or Lady Gaga or anyone our culture considers (or once considered) provocative, Gypsy understood how to transform desire into performance, how to capitalize on the idea that people always want most what they’ll never have.


Karen Abbott was born and raised in Philadelphia. She worked as a journalist in the city of brotherly love for several years, burned out, and moved to Atlanta to pursue writing book-length narrative nonfiction. A search for an ancestor who went missing in 1905 led her to write her New York Times bestseller Sin in the Second City, which tells the true story of two sisters who ran the world’s most famous brothel and the nationwide battle to shut them down. Her interest in Gypsy Rose Lee stems from stories her grandmother shared about the ecdysiast’s performances in the 1930s and 40s. She now lives in New York City with her husband and two African Grey parrots who do mean Ethel Merman impressions, and is at work on her next book.

Asin Desktop Calendar 2011 - Bollywood Actress Desktop Calendar

Desktop Calendar 2011: Asin Calendar 2011, Bollywood Actress Desktop Calendar 2011,Sexiest Bollywood Actress Calendar 2011

Having a wonderful time

I'm still in holiday mode, I expect I shall be all week.  The Actor and I had a lovely day on Christmas Eve just relaxing, watching Christmas films - my favourite one was The Bishop's Wife which I thoroughly recommend and eating.  I cooked honey roast gammon with parsley sauce, roast potatoes and lots of vegetables.  Very English.  We opened our presents at midnight over some M&S pink Prosecco,

My Songs O' the Year (2010)

This is the Top 10 of my favorite songs from the year 2010

First and foremost the number 1 song of the year is the amazing cover by Cee Lo Green of Band Of Horse's "No One's Gonna Love You" from his album The Lady Killer, is epic, haunting, beautiful, dark, lovely...



The number 2 song is Kanye West's "Power" featuring Dwele from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, hubris never sounded more outrageous



The 3rd best song of the year comes from one of the best voices out there right now
Adele's "Rolling In The Deep", from her upcoming album 21



Numbers 4, 5, 6 & 7 are:

Shadow Shadow Shade's "Is This A Tempest In The Shape Of A Bell" (Shadow Shadow Shade)



Dawes' "When My time Comes" (Dawes)



Rihanna's "Only Girl (In The World)" from her 4th album Loud



Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" (Teenage Dream)



Number 8 is Lykke Li's "Get Some" from her 2011's album Wounded Rhymes



Number 9 song is Kings Of Leon's "Radioactive" (Come Around Sundown)



And the 10th best song o' the year is....

Both "XXXO" & "Born Free" from M.I.A.'s album /\/\ /\ Y /\

And some of my other favorite songs from 2010 are...

Sia's "Clap Your Hands" & "You've Changed" (We Are Born)





Metric "Eclipse (All Yours)" (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Soundtrack)



April Smith & The Great Picture Show "Terrible Things" (Songs For A Sinking Ship)



Robyn "Dancing On My Own" (Body Talk Pt 1)



Hole "Skinny Little Bitch" (Nobody's Daughter)



N.E.R.D. featuring Nelly Furtado "Hot N' Fun" (Nothing)



The Ting Tings "Hands" (Kunst)



Massive Attack "Paradise Circus" (Heligoland)



Little And Ashley "Stole Your Heart" (Stole My Heart EP)



Goldfrapp "Alive" (Head First)



We Have Band "Honeytrap" (WHB)



Kylie Minogue "Get Out Of My Way" & "All The Lovers" (Aphrodite)





Brandon Flowers “Crossfire" (Flamingo)



Lady Gaga Alejandro (The Fame Monster)



Interpol "Barricade" & "Lights" (Interpol)





Coconut Records "Saint Jerome" (Davy)



Tiësto featuring Nelly Furtado "Who Wants to Be Alone" (Kaleidoscope)



Enrique Bunbury "Frente A Frente" (Las Consecuencias)



Johnny Cash's cover of Sheryl Crow's "Redemption Day" from his sixth Rick Rubin produced American Recordings, this one titled American VI: Ain't No Grave



Finally, 2011 will get the gift that is a new Fiona Apple album, meanwhile in 2010 there were a couple of collaborations Fiona was involved in, the first one was with Margaret Cho "Hey Big Dog" featuring Fiona Apple & Ben Lee (Cho Dependent)

And the second one was So Sleepy featuring Jon Brion and the Punch Brothers from the charity album Chickens In Love

Glee: The Year In Music

In a year full of amazing Glee performances I decided to make a little list of my favorites performances from the show



Gwyneth Paltrow
"Forget You"
The Substitute

Also from the same episode, comes an amazing mash up featuring Gwyneth Paltrow
" Singing In The Rain/Umbrella"



Newcomer Darren Criss performing Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" from the episode Never Been Kissed



Season 2's third episode Grilled Cheesus had 2 of the best performances from the show so far, number 2 is Rachel Berry aka Lea Michele's great Barbra Streisand's cover "Papa, Can You Hear Me?"

And the number one song from Glee in 2010 is....

From Grilled Cheesus, Chris Colfer aka Kurt Hummel performance of the Beatles classic
"I Want To Hold Your Hand"

Kings Of Leon Pyro Video

Kings Of Leon
Pyro
Come Around Sundown
2010

Natalie Portman Vogue January 2011

Classy, talented, smart and beautiful Natalie Portman in dance-inspired looks drawn from her much-talked-about performance in the new film Black Swan for January 2011's US Vogue.







And here's a behind the scenes look at the photoshoot:



And since there's soo much Oscar buzz around Natalie's Black Swan's performance, here's the amazing trailer: