Inside Whitney's Drug Den [National Enquirer]
Earlier: Looking for Whitney Houston's Crack Pipe
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Inside Whitney's Drug Den [National Enquirer]
Earlier: Looking for Whitney Houston's Crack Pipe

Sir Sean Connery has been selected by the American Film
Institute's Board of Trustees to receive the 34th AFI Life Achievement
Award, the highest honor for a career in film.
"Sir Sean Connery is an international film icon. Though best
remembered for creating one of the great film heroes of all time, his
talents transcend typecasting, and his body of work not only stands the
test of time, but illuminates a career more extraordinary than James
Bond himself. Sir Sean is an artist of the highest order, and AFI is
honored to present him with its 34th Life Achievement Award."
Sir Howard Stringer, chair, AFI Board of Trustees
The award will be presented to Connery at a gala tribute in Los
Angeles on June 8, 2006. USA Network will broadcast the 34th AFI Life
Achievement Award tribute later in June.

His most important works, among them The Postman Always Rings Twice (originally entitled Bar-B-Que), were adapted for the screen by other writers.... The story depicted a California drifter, Frank Chambers, who falls in love with Cora Papadakis, the fatal wife of a diner owner.... Except for the shape, she really wasn't any ravaging beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips struck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her." Frank and Cora murder the husband and make his death look like accident.
Double Indemnity, a tale of an adulterous couple who try to commit the perfect insurance murder, appeared in abridged form as an eight-part serial in Liberty (1936) magazine.... It was a curious observation, putting into words - vivid, rememberable words - a principle that when a character is too smart, convenient to the author's purposes, everything begins getting awfully slack in the story, and slick.
Cain's novel Mildred Pierce was also filmed, and won an Oscar for Joan Crawford in her role as a career woman. Cain's book centered on a ambitious woman, who loses her wealth through the intrigues of her ex-husband, her partner, and selfish daughter. The story is told in a third-person narration, but Cain later confessed that it did not suit him - his book did not have the right bite. The protagonist is portrayed mostly in sympathetic light in spite of her hard character. The movie adaptation from 1945, directed by Michael Curtiz, is considered essentially a film noire piece "where it's a woman, Crawford, rather than a man, who is led by a greedy, manipulative, evil femme fatale - in this case, the woman's daughter, Blyth - down a fatalistic path of deception, money for greedy people, murder, and doom (only here an optimistic ending is added)." (Danny Peary in Guide for the Film Fanatic, 1986)

Sean's much briefer biography suffers by comparison. Only in intermittent contact with his father, Sean grew up to be a B-movie star in Europe in the early 1960s (including a stint as the "Son of Captain Blood") before becoming a freelance photographer in Europe and Vietnam. Both men came to sad, gruesome ends: Errol wasted away from substance abuse; Sean was captured at a Vietcong checkpoint and later executed.




Preferring the stage, she did not appear in many films, and in Hollywood she was considered a character actress who was difficult to cast because of her striking features. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). As the housekeeper "Mrs. Danvers", Anderson was required to mentally torment the young bride played by Joan Fontaine, even encouraging her to commit suicide, and the character is widely considered to be one of the screen's most memorable and sexually ambiguous female villains.
This led to several film appearances during the 40s in such films as Kings Row (1943), Laura (1944), The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). She continued returning to the New York stage, playing the role of Lady Macbeth twice and winning a Tony Award in 1948 for her historically acclaimed bravura performance in the title role of Medea (play).
In her later years she played two more prominent roles in productions that took her as far away from her Shakespearean origins as possible. In 1984 she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the Vulcan High Priestess (at the age of 87), and the same year commenced a three year stint as matriarch Minx Lockridge on the popular soap opera Santa Barbara of which she had professed to be a fan, but bitterly complained about her lack of screen time after signing the contract. She was succeeded in the role by the American actress, Janis Paige, who was a quarter of a century younger.
Bette Davis plays a particularly nasty bitch in this one, a self centered social path. First, she dumps her fiancé (George Brent) in order to steal the husband (Dennis Morgan) of her sister, played by Olivia de Havilland. De Havilland’s character, and their mother (Billie Burke) constantly make excuses or apologize for their sister's, or daughter's respectively, behavior because, among other things, Davis's uncle (Charles Coburn) has spoiled her rotten. Hattie McDaniel plays the family maid, Ernest Anderson her son who's given an opportunity to work that few of his race at the time were by de Havilland’s character,This is truly a wicked pleasure, and there's more if you want to read in lieu of just watching this film in which Davis's character goes from evil to insane! After tiring of her forgiving sister's ex-husband Morgan, she drives him (her new husband) crazy with her selfish behavior et al, causing him to drink and to reach the brink of suicide. Meanwhile, de Havilland and Davis's ex-fiancé Brent become closer. SPOILER - Davis kills someone in an automobile accident and blames Anderson. Eventually feeling trapped, she runs to her "sugar daddy" uncle Coburn to "come clean". He's just found out he's got 6 months to live, and she wonders (incredibly) how that could possibly take precedence over him helping her!
http://www.classicfilmguide.com/


became like a house pet to Hango Dennison (niece of Carl Spitz). Terry died around 1945 (11 yrs. old). She was buried on their kennel property in the San Fernando Valley.
dog in The Wizard of Oz.
After The Wizard of Oz (1939) her name was officially changed to Toto.
She spent two weeks at Judy Garland's house while training to play Toto in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Her salary for The Wizard of Oz (1939) was $125 a week, more than many of the human actors in the film.
She attended the premiere of The Wizard of Oz (1939) at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

| In later years, he always claimed his role in Father Goose was most like his real personality. He claimed he kept in touch with most of the girls as they grew up and had families of their own. | |||||||||||||
| - | Cary Grant was offered the role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964) but turned it down to star in this movie. He wanted Audrey Hepburn to play Catherine, but she was already committed to "My Fair Lady". So Leslie Caron got the job. Watch Father Goose trailer HERE | ||||||||||||


"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."
"Men are my hobby, if I ever got married I'd have to give it up."



..."She was ahead of her time, but not in a self-conscious way," Foner told the AP. "She was one of those people who told the truth, almost naively talked about it, and got vilified for talking about it.
"It's wonderful, it smarvelous", but it's also an average musical, though it does feature 44 (!) elaborate sets and did win six Oscars. It probably won Best Picture by benefiting from a split vote between A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and A Place in the Sun (1951). It does have a great, if long, dance sequence with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. And, Oscar Levant and Nina Foch do provide excellent support. Director Vincente Minnelli received his first nomination (he later won for Gigi (1958), another questionable Best Picture winner). Added to the National Film Registry in 1993. #68 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list. #39 on AFI's 100 Greatest Love Stories list. "I Got Rhythm" is #32 on AFI's 100 Top Movie Songs of All Time.
Kelly is a struggling American artist, working in Paris, until he finds a "sugar daddy" (er, "sugar mommy"?) in Foch. He pals around with his piano playing friend (Levant), dancing & singing "I Got Rhythm" with street kids. His friend knows a singer (Georges Guétary) that's engaged to a pretty young thing (Caron). When Kelly meets her, he naturally falls in love. He then chases her, trying to "win" her away from her unawares fiance, much to the dismay of Foch and his friend Levant. But, when the two dance, "c'est la vie"!

