In Memoriam: Eva Marie Saint, 1924-2026

Academy-Award-winning actress Eva Marie Saint died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles.  She was 102.  For me, her most memorable role was that of the glamorous spy lady in Hitchcock's 1959 thriller North by Northwest.

The late Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies, interviewed her in 2014:

 

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Mike Wallace Interviews Oscar Hammerstein, 1958

I came across this video by accident yesterday, and I'm glad I did.  What Hammerstein says about his religion is quite touching.  He also talks a bit about politics.  Very interesting, even inspiring.

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Growing Up Gay: Ken from Kentucky

"An Endless Tune":  from Kentucky to Florida to Hollywood and beyond.

Bonus:  Jane Pauley interviews Jeanne and Jules Manford, founders of PFLAG, on the Today show, July 6, 1978:

This was about the time I came out to my own mom, while I was in college.  Mama was great, she was immediately supportive, but it took her a while to process it all.  I brought her to a meeting of the gay rap group at school, where a lady who had started a chapter of PFLAG gave a talk, and that helped my mom a lot.  

Times were changing, but in 1978 it was still quite a scary thing to come out to anyone.  There were as yet no openly gay celebrities on TV or in public life, certainly not in the Deep South.  Only Anita Bryant running her mouth about the "homosexual threat" . . .

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"I Loved Lucy": An Interview with Author Lee Tannen

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Lee Tannen about his friendship with Lucille Ball: 

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I just want a reality check here: is everybody in the world turning gay? Or has the YouTube algorithm finally got my number?   I'm like, WTF man?  Lately, it's been throwing lots of homo-centric videos my way, so I figure I should share them with my truckbuddies. 

Intervewer Harvey Brownstone is a most unusual person. After 25 years as a family court judge in Toronto, he retired and has made a second career for himself as a celebrity interviewer. And most of the people he interviews are people I would like to hear from. Gay minds think alike, I guess. There's lots more interviews and commentary to be found on his blog.

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Pete on Politics in 2024

An interview with Ezra Klein of the New York Times. Gosh, how nice it is to hear an intelligent man talking on the internet. 

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The Outspoken Fran Lebowitz

Though she probably wouldn't care, there's a soft spot in my heart for sardonic New Yorker Fran Lebowitz, writer, speaker, and curmudgeonly humorist.  I suppose I admire first of all her razor-sharp mind and her deft hand at a well-turned phrase; and then I have to smile at her undaunted individualism that does not yield to passing fashions of thought and behavior (she owns no typewriter, cellphone, or computer).

You can look up her books and essays online, but you really have to hear her speaking her mind to appreciate her piquant wit and insight.  I might not agree with everything she says, but the way she says it is entertaining.  This interview for Salon magazine was filmed a few days ago:

 

 CBS Sunday Morning interviewed Lebowitz last year:

 

In this interview from 2010, Lebowitz discusses the continuing appeal of Jane Austen:

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Zelensky: The 60 Minutes Interview

Zelensky observing the horrors of Bucha on April 4.

We are defending the ability of a person to live in the modern world. We are defending the right to live. I never thought this right was so costly. These are human values. So that Russia doesn't choose what we should do and how I'm exercising my rights. That right was given to me by God and my parents.

Ukrainian President Zelensky spoke last Wednesday with CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley at Zelensky's fortified headquarters in Kyiv:

 

Full text of the interview in English is here. 

The interview in Ukrainian without English subtitles is here.

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God Save Ukraine

President Zelensky made a moving address to the European Parliament by video link today:

 

Just a few thoughts at bedtime, after a day of listening to many fine speeches praising the courage of the Ukrainian people and their government:

A Russian convoy of heavily armed troops and tanks, 40 miles long, is just twenty miles from Kiev.  The brave Ukrainian people and their dauntless President Zelensky are fighting tooth and nail to defend their country, and begging the West for help - and plenty of aid is already on the way, meaning military equipment and humanitarian supplies - but not boots on the ground or or planes in the sky, without which, it seems to me, they can only delay, not prevent, their defeat.

I know and fully agree, mentally, with all the very good reasons why the West simply cannot send their troops or planes into Ukraine.  But it makes my blood boil to think of these beleaguered people, fighting against the odds for their freedom, their homes, and their families in a mortal struggle with the most evil man to darken the earth since Hitler.  And no one dares lift one finger to help them.

Where have we seen this scenario before in history?  

The odds against Ukraine are very great, indeed:  just look at this comparison chart, a screen capture tonight from DW television (Germany):

Click to enlarge.

Despite their bravery and bravado, the Ukrainians are clearly outmanned and outgunned.  Beyond that, supplies of food, fuel, and medicine are already running short.  What real hope does Ukraine have of defeating a ruthless invader all alone?  What comfort will it be to have the admiration of all the Western democracies when the last defender lies dead in a pool of blood?  Of what use will be our praise of the fighting Ukrainians then?

I wrote Sunday of this terrible moral dilemma - nothing can be done; but by all that is holy, something ought to be done to help them, and deliver them from the maw of the ravening Bear.

I have no answers.  I am just praying God to save Ukraine - someway, somehow.  And give peace to all the world.  Amen.

Update, 3/2/22, 6 p.m.:  Yesterday, neither Prime Minister Johnson nor President Biden made any reference at all to Putin's nuclear threat when they had opportunities to do so.  But for a military man's perspective, DW (a German TV network) presents this chilling interview with General Sir Richard Shirreff, retired Deputy Allied Supreme Commander of NATO, who tells plainly just how dangerous Putin is, and what could happen in Ukraine.  Very informative.

God save us all.

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Falwell's Rise and Fall

Falwell and friend at Liberty University commencement, 2017.

The putrid truth comes out:  Vanity Fair has just published an in-depth interview with Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his wife, whose scandalous fall from grace was headline news a couple of years ago.  In it, the former Liberty University president admits candidly that he was not "a religious person" but certainly enjoyed the power and prestige that came with pretending to be one.  Of course, this is an old story among wealthy American evangelists.  Excerpt:

On August 24, 2020, Falwell resigned from Liberty in the wake of a sensational tabloid scandal that could have been dreamed up in the writers’ room of The Righteous Gemstones. A former Miami pool boy named Giancarlo Granda claimed he had a nearly seven-year affair with Falwell’s wife, Becki—and that Falwell often liked to watch them have sex. Granda went on a national media tour—he gave interviews to ABC News, CNN, Reuters, Politico, and The Washington Post—and said the Falwells began “grooming” him when he was 20 and bought his silence with luxury vacations, rides on Liberty’s private jet, and an ownership stake managing a Miami Beach hostel. To bolster his claims, Granda released screenshots of Facetime calls and text conversations with Becki (“I’m not wearing any panties,” she allegedly wrote Granda in one message). Falwell released a statement that acknowledged Becki and Granda’s relationship, but he vehemently denied watching the trysts. Instead, Falwell said he was the real victim of a “Fatal Attraction–type” extortion plot after Granda demanded $2 million to keep the affair secret.

Viewed in hindsight, the scandal was the combustion of a self-immolating fire that Falwell had been stoking for months, if not years. Liberty had spent the better part of 2020 lurching from one PR crisis to the next brought on by Falwell’s boorish and reckless behavior, his race baiting, COVID-19 denials, and slavish devotion to Donald Trump. Two days after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, Falwell tweeted a picture of a COVID mask that showed a man in blackface posing with a man in a KKK hood. In early August 2020, Falwell posted a photo on Instagram of himself aboard a yacht with his pants unzipped, a drink in one hand, and his other arm wrapped around a pregnant Liberty employee with her belly exposed. The controversies turned Falwell into an avatar of the rank hypocrisy, know-nothingism, and toxic masculinity that explained why 81 percent of white evangelical Christians voted in 2016 for Trump, a thrice-married reality TV star who literally boasted of grabbing women by the pussy.

Read the full interview here.  Falwell and his wife are very candid about their mistakes and misdeeds - but it seems to me that the one thing lacking is any sense of remorse.  The multi-millionaires, having plied a lucrative racket of misleading the gullible for years, are now living in very comfortable retirement on their scenic estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It is not stated whether there is a pool on the property or not.

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Prince Charles on the Climate Crisis

The Prince of Wales, who has championed protection of the environment since long before it was hip to do so, expresses himself in a thoughtful interview about the problems now facing the world, marred by a somewhat hysterical interviewer and a completely misleading video title.  Well, listen to what he says, and see what you think.  

The interview takes place in the garden at Birkhall, the Prince's Scottish country house, part of the Balmoral Castle estate.

 

And here's the scoop on that "wine and cheese" fuel - it's ethanol, people, which all of Brazil and several other countries already run on.  Grow up.

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What I'm Watching: Noel Coward on Acting

 A fascinating conversation between British director Michael MacOwan and his friend, the incomparable actor, director, composer, and playwright Noel Coward, circa 1965:

 

As it happens, the other night I came across a 1956 live television production of Coward's classic celestial fantasy, Blithe Spirit, starring Coward himself, Claudette Colbert, Lauren Bacall, Mildred Natwick (who played Madame Arcati in the first Broadway production, 1941), and Marion Ross (of later Happy Days fame) as the frenetic maid.  Unlike the luscious 1945 Technicolor version starring Rex Harrison, this one is in black and white, but a real treat for drama queens lovers, anyway.

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What Do Americans Really Want?

 And what is the American character?  Renowned historian David McCullough answers those questions in this six-minute interview from 2017, which is highly pertinent to the present moment.

   

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What I'm Watching: Interview with Dame Olivia de Havilland

Miss de Havilland in 2001.

This long, juicy 2016 interview with one of the last survivors of the Golden Age of Hollywood is a real treat.  In case you didn't know, Miss de Havilland is still very much alive today at age 104 - yes, that's right - and living in Paris, full of fascinating memories and joie de vivre.  Bon appetit!