Bette Davis’ 100th bday -- postage stamp released
The stamp will be unveiled at Boston University on Thursday afternoon.
The school hosts an extensive Bette Davis archive.
And Davis has one more local connection: she was born in Lowell 100 years ago this year.
Bette was born in my own hometown of Lowell Mass 4/5/08. Her first home was modest, at 22 Chester Street in the "Highlands" section of the mill city.
After her parents divorced in 1916, she and her sister Barbara moved frequently throughout New England while their mother pursued a photography career.
Both girls attended boarding school in the Berkshires and high school in Newton, Massachusetts.
Davis graduated in 1926 from Cushing Academy, with an idea that she might try acting.
Not the so-called conventional beauty of the day, she received little encouragement, but in what would become typical Davis style, she made up her own mind and headed for New York City.
Moving to New York, she enrolled at the John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School. For the next four years, she did summer stock in upstate NY and moved between New York City and the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts, where she worked as an usherette in between playing bit parts.
She made her professional stage debut in the play The Earth Between on March 5, 1929, at the Provincetown Playhouse.
Her Broadway debut came in the play Broken Dishes, which opened on November 5, 1929, for a successful run of 178 performances. In 1930, she was signed to a movie contract by Universal Pictures, and she moved to Los Angeles that December.
Here is my favorite Bette Davis interview-- from Cavett
and here is the BEST imitator - the late great drag comic Charles Pierce as Bette Davis in '82.
"I'd like to do a scene...from ALL my films. We might be here until Angie Dickinson combs her hair."
(It makes me sad to think of the hundreds and hundreds of brilliant men in this audience laughing at this humor who are most likely no longer alive.)
We took in 9 to 5: The Musical at Ahmanson this weekend with our friends Stuart and Sal and it was a gay ol' time.
The premiere musical based on the film is in previews and is still working out technical kinks and finding its comic rhythms before it "opens" in a few weeks, then regroups for its Broadway premiere in 2009.
The set design and LCD screen projections are impressive and when the office unfolds onstage for the first scene you really get pumped.
The cast is solid - Allison Janney makes a great Violet - feisty and savvy and the 2 Wicked alums Stephanie J Block and Megan Hilty bring their charms to the roles of Judy and Doralee. Megan, in particular, brings all the well-loved Dolly-isms to the stage and sings her heart out.
A few songs will have to be cut in the next 6 mos - but some are already winners: such as Around Here (the office intro song), Tattletales (about office gossip), Backwoods Barbie and Hart's lustful lament: Here For You.
The actors playing Mr Hart, Roz the snoop, Margaret the lush, Maria Delgado and Mr. Tinsworthy will make hardcore fans quite happy.
In fact, so much attention has been paid to recreate the fabrics/decor of Mr. Hart's 1980 office that you cannot help but giggle when it first appears.
The busy swiveling sets and elevator trapdoors are really cool, and once the production runs like clockwork then the show will really "shine like the sun" (act 1's hopeful closing tune).
This was the first Musical that I have seen where I knew almost every joke coming up (which is what critics disliked about Broadway's Young Frankenstein) so I was more responsive to the new material that was interjected into the familiar screenplay stuff.
For me, being able to revisit the world of 9 to 5 was a lot of fun - and I think that if they can shoe-horn a few more new jokes along with the fan-favorite dialogue then the show will really deliver the goods.
William Ivey Long who brought Edie Beale's "Grey Gardens" style to the stage is incredible and when you see the iconic 9 to 5 office frocks appear on stage- you want to applaud. The Tony goes to Doralee's blue vinyl raincoat with white trim! atta girl.
Years before 24-hour CNN, Fox News, blogs and walmart mom editorials, one housewife and mother lost her mind from the media's mixed messages and pressure.
