Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

“`Sidney Poitier was a trailblazing actor with a dignified career that redefined the Black experience on screen. His career highlights were plentiful, including performances in The Blackboard Jungle, The Defiant Ones, Raisin in the Sun,  Porgy and Bess, The Bedford Incident, In the Heat of the Night, A Patch of Blue, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir with Love, For the Love of Ivy, Sneakers and an Oscar-winning turn in Lilies of the Field (the initial Black male actor to earn this honor). Poitier has been compared to Jackie Robinson for his groundbreaking work in film.    SIDNEY POITIER –>

“`Born in Miami, Poitier grew up in the Bahamas before he moved to New York at sixteen. He fibbed about his age to sign up for a stint in the Army  and then he worked at odd jobs while taking acting lessons. The young actor got his first break when he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater and was hired as the understudy for Harry Belafonte in Days of Our Youth. A minor sensation on Broadway, his first movie role was in 1950 in the acclaimed No Way Out.  He portrayed a doctor.

“`For the next two decades, he began working in a string of intelligent dramas. Poitier picked his parts with care,  burying the tired Hollywood notion that Black actors could appear only in demeaning contexts as shoeshine boys, train conductors and maids. After his success with In the Heat of the Night, he played Virgil Tibbs in a couple of crime films. Poitier later directed Buck and the Preacher, Uptown Saturday Night and Stir Crazy.

“`He influenced many colleagues, such as Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Brock Peters, Woody Strode, and Ruby Dee.  Plus, his A-List co-stars included Clark Gable, Glenn Ford, Tony Curtis, Richard Widmark, Shelley Winters, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Redford and Rod Steiger. Great directors collaborated and they include William Wellman (his personal favorite), Raoul Walsh, Joseph Mankiewicz, Richard Brooks, Norman Jewison, and Stanley Kramer. Over the years,  Poitier earned honored comparisons to Belafonte, Marion Anderson, Paul Robeson, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison.

“`Assignments and accolades took up most of his later life. From 1995 to 2003, Poitier served as a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company.  In April, 1997, Poitier was appointed ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, a position he held until 2007. He was concurrently the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. Along with his many acting awards, Poitier received a Kennedy Center Honor and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. He was also named an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences just last year dedicated within the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles — the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby in his honor.

“`His life-long friend was Belafonte. Belafonte always lamented that he craved to be a serious actor like Poitier;  while Sidney secretly want a career as a crooner, something Harry enjoyed. And so it goes…

“`Sir Sidney Poitier was ninety-four.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Peter Bogdanovich  was an Oscar-nominated writer and director and he dabbled as a film critic and cinematic historian in his spare time. His many credits included The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc? and Paper Moon.  He turned down iconic assignments, such as The Godfather, The Exorcist and Chinatown.

“`An obsessive cinephile and seeing up to four hundred movies a year in his youth,  Bogdanovich kept a paper file of every flick he watched between 1952 and 1970, with complete reviews of each movie. He was influenced by the French critics of the 1950s who penned for Cahiers du Cinéma, especially critic-turned-director François Truffaut.

“`Bogdanovich started his career as a critic, writing articles for Esquire. In the early 1960s, Bogdanovich was known as a motion picture programmer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Bogdanovich showcased works of American directors such as Howard Hawks. After moving to Los Angeles and becoming buddys with director Roger Corman, Bogdanovich secured directing gigs in small productions. In 1970, he was commissioned by the American Film Institute to direct a documentary about John Ford for their tribute, Directed by John Ford.  This resulting piece included candid interviews with John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda, and was narrated by close-friend Orson Welles.

“`Following his success with period pieces, The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, and a homage to screwball comedy, What’s Up Doc?, Bogdanovich solidified his status as one of a new breed of A-list directors that included Academy Award winners Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, with whom he formed The Directors Company.  They received a production deal with Paramount Pictures that essentially gave the directors carte blanche if they kept within budget limitations.

PETER BOGDANOVICH

“`Later assignments never measured up to his initial triumphs. They included Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Nickelodean, They All Laughed, and his sequel to The Last Picture Show, Texasville. His one success during this period was Mask. He had a recurring part in The Sopranos and had a small role in both Kill Bill films after living in Quentin Tarantino’s guesthouse for a year.

“`In 2010, Bogdanovich was invited to join the directing faculty at the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Most recently, Peter collaborated with Turner Classic Movies, and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, to create a podcast about his life and career, which premiered in 2020.  His works have been cited as influences by such filmmakers as Tarantino, David Fincher, David O. Russell, Sofia Coppola, and Wes Anderson.

“`Peter Bogdanovich was eighty-two.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Let us begin 2022 with an engaging comparison of actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age and movie stars of the 21st century. I present a conversation with John Coleman and Art Kirsch on Celebrating Act 2. Agree or disagree!

“`Enjoy!

Until next time>                               “never forget”