Syndicated liberal radio talk show host Ed Schultz recently discussed the spate of cop shows on television and lamented the absence of westerns like Bonanza. Like Schultz, I watch and like some crime dramas, but I too miss westerns, one of my favorite genres. (The closest thing to the genre was Deadwood, set in 19th-century South Dakota, which I watched on DVD and thoroughly enjoyed.)
According to novelist/screenwriter Larry McMurtry (author of Lonesome Dove and other western novels), in his slim book, Hollywood: A Third Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2010), "The expense of using livestock, horses mostly, has risen so disastrously in the last twenty years as to have--for a while--virtually killed off a once popular and very profitable genre: the Western."
Let's hope that the film and TV industries will find a way or ways to resume making westerns, a genre whose stories are inextricably linked to the western expansion of the United States.
Showing posts with label American Television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Television. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Pigeon Sisters Are Flying High To Success
The young and extremely attractive actresses Ronalda Douglas and Sheila Anderson portray the Pigeon Sisters, the upstairs neighbors of Felix Unger and Oscar Madison in The New Odd Couple which premieres at 8:30 p.m. Friday, October 29 [1982] on ABC. (This time out the famous mismatched pair are two black men: Ron Glass as [neatnik] Felix and Demond Wilson as [slob] Oscar. The new version, said Sheila Anderson, contains "a lot of silliness but always with a degree of intelligence." For one thing, she explained further, Wilson and Glass would refuse to take part in the show if it followed an "Amos 'n Andy concept" (which is how she described TV's image of blacks). And for another, "We have very intelligent writers. We have several black writers on the show and they don't think very highly of that kind of method."
Both Sheila Anderson and Ronalda Douglas come to the series with a varied background in theatre, commercials, and modeling. "This [The New Odd Couple] is actually my biggest opportunity thus far aside from working with Mr. [Bob] Fosse," said Anderson. (She appeared in All That Jazz and was edited out but got the chance to work with Fosse again in the upcoming film Star 80, the story of the murdered Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratton. Anderson plays a dancer named Shay.)
Anderson, a native of New York City, began her acting career in commercials while working as a model. And despite her newfound success as a television actress, she remains a "very basic" person. "I try to keep myself as close to the ground as possible. My friends tell me since I've been home that they didn't see any changes, thank God."
Anderson is one of three children born to Sheila Guyse, an actress who appeared in many black circuit films in the 1930s and '40s, and Kenneth Davis, a dancer. Her parents (now divorced) did not encourage her as a child to pursue a show business career. "It was rough, especially in those days and they didn't want to see me suffer and go through a lot of the changes that they went through. But it's a lot different now. Not too different but it's different. Now my mother's thrilled, she's ecstatic."
But Anderson's talent does not stop with acting. Her interest in metaphysics in which she meditates in order to seek answers to personal and career problems led her to write a metaphysical children's book, The Land of Happy. She also has written a book of poetry called Walking Against the World. Both books are yet to be published.
One other passion of hers is music. "You can shut me up with a stereo," she said, "and I'll be fine."
The other Pigeon Sister, Ronalda Douglas was born in a small town in Louisiana to parents who were educators. Like Sheila Anderson, she was a good student--straight "A"s--because her parents, especially her father, who has degrees in math and philosophy, stressed academic excellence. She began singing at the age of three in a talent show and later in church choirs. And although they encouraged her and her siblings to do whatever they wanted in life, "there was a point though when my father got a little worried that I would tend to be one-sided. In other words, only have music, only have theatre and he, I don't think, really believed in that. He wanted me to take other things just in case I didn't make it." She laughed. Part of the regimen was athletics, i.e. basketball, volleyball, swimming, et cetera. She is still very athletically-inclined.
At one point in her life, Douglas studied opera but was afraid "it would take away my soul." At that time she was the lead singer with an integrated rock band which did only live performances. "I enjoy performing and I thought the opera would take that away from me. I was afraid to be trained. But someone gave me a scholarship and so I started training with great fear and then I started liking it." Six months after taking her first lesson she started giving recitals. Douglas later won a scholarship to study operatic singing in Verona, Italy.
On the subject of opportunities for black actresses in Hollywood, Douglas said, "The opportunities are kind of few and far between" but all in all, "I feel very fortunate, lucky I got this part because the competition is rough for black women." In spite of the poor opportunities and the constant competition, Douglas dreams of the day when she can switch from comedy, in which she has had a spate of roles (Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening!, et cetera), to drama. And because she takes "everything as a lesson," there is no doubt that this healthy attitude will help her grow artistically and financially as her star and that of her colleague, Sheila Anderson, ascends and lights up the Hollywood sky.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News in 1982.
Note: The New Odd Couple only lasted one season (1982-1983). According to the IMDB website, the last episode aired on May 26, 1983.
Both Sheila Anderson and Ronalda Douglas come to the series with a varied background in theatre, commercials, and modeling. "This [The New Odd Couple] is actually my biggest opportunity thus far aside from working with Mr. [Bob] Fosse," said Anderson. (She appeared in All That Jazz and was edited out but got the chance to work with Fosse again in the upcoming film Star 80, the story of the murdered Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratton. Anderson plays a dancer named Shay.)
Anderson, a native of New York City, began her acting career in commercials while working as a model. And despite her newfound success as a television actress, she remains a "very basic" person. "I try to keep myself as close to the ground as possible. My friends tell me since I've been home that they didn't see any changes, thank God."
Anderson is one of three children born to Sheila Guyse, an actress who appeared in many black circuit films in the 1930s and '40s, and Kenneth Davis, a dancer. Her parents (now divorced) did not encourage her as a child to pursue a show business career. "It was rough, especially in those days and they didn't want to see me suffer and go through a lot of the changes that they went through. But it's a lot different now. Not too different but it's different. Now my mother's thrilled, she's ecstatic."
But Anderson's talent does not stop with acting. Her interest in metaphysics in which she meditates in order to seek answers to personal and career problems led her to write a metaphysical children's book, The Land of Happy. She also has written a book of poetry called Walking Against the World. Both books are yet to be published.
One other passion of hers is music. "You can shut me up with a stereo," she said, "and I'll be fine."
The other Pigeon Sister, Ronalda Douglas was born in a small town in Louisiana to parents who were educators. Like Sheila Anderson, she was a good student--straight "A"s--because her parents, especially her father, who has degrees in math and philosophy, stressed academic excellence. She began singing at the age of three in a talent show and later in church choirs. And although they encouraged her and her siblings to do whatever they wanted in life, "there was a point though when my father got a little worried that I would tend to be one-sided. In other words, only have music, only have theatre and he, I don't think, really believed in that. He wanted me to take other things just in case I didn't make it." She laughed. Part of the regimen was athletics, i.e. basketball, volleyball, swimming, et cetera. She is still very athletically-inclined.
At one point in her life, Douglas studied opera but was afraid "it would take away my soul." At that time she was the lead singer with an integrated rock band which did only live performances. "I enjoy performing and I thought the opera would take that away from me. I was afraid to be trained. But someone gave me a scholarship and so I started training with great fear and then I started liking it." Six months after taking her first lesson she started giving recitals. Douglas later won a scholarship to study operatic singing in Verona, Italy.
On the subject of opportunities for black actresses in Hollywood, Douglas said, "The opportunities are kind of few and far between" but all in all, "I feel very fortunate, lucky I got this part because the competition is rough for black women." In spite of the poor opportunities and the constant competition, Douglas dreams of the day when she can switch from comedy, in which she has had a spate of roles (Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening!, et cetera), to drama. And because she takes "everything as a lesson," there is no doubt that this healthy attitude will help her grow artistically and financially as her star and that of her colleague, Sheila Anderson, ascends and lights up the Hollywood sky.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News in 1982.
Note: The New Odd Couple only lasted one season (1982-1983). According to the IMDB website, the last episode aired on May 26, 1983.
Friday, March 30, 2012
A Lone Wolf Turned TV Actor
"When I first got to Stanford University," says Wolfe Perry, the talented and handsome 25-year-old black actor of Up and Coming and The White Shadow fame, "I had no idea what career I would take. So I took general studies and just took a bunch of classes and was hoping that one would strike my fancy. Fortunately, drama did."
Wolfe came to Stanford in 1975 by courtesy of a four-year basketball scholarship but the future actor became disenchanted with the sport. "I was miserable the whole time," says the former star of the Stanford Cardinals in a telephone interview from his father's house in Oakland, California, "because I think I'm too selfish a person to play basketball. I was ready to quit when I was at Stanford because I had found something else to turn onto and that was drama. I was forced to play basketball in order to keep the scholarship. I liked basketball but I didn't like to play it every day. I had a lot of trouble with teammates. I felt that the best person should shoot the ball and I always thought I was the best person."
Wolfe now regards his choice of basketball as a career goal as "another dumb choice I made in my life." (In 1979 he had been drafted by the Utah Jazz and while in their training camp, he had decided to drop out in order to pursue an acting career.) "It [basketball] was at one time fun but the higher up you go, the fun diminishes. It just wrecks your body," explains Perry.
As it turned out, the National Basketball Association's loss became--with some disappointment to his family--television's gain. "I'm sure they would much prefer to see me as a professional athlete but I'm the one who has to wrap the bandages and set the ice packs," says the six-foot-two, 170-pound actor.
During his "four rather studious years" (when he wasn't on the basketball court), Wolfe appeared in some 25 campus productions. The plays ranged from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller. Does he plan to pursue further dramatic training? "I think I [have] enough knowledge," says Perry, "to put some of it to work." (He has a B.A. in drama.)
His dramatic knowledge must have been quite impressive because when he auditioned at Stanford for the part of Kevin Wilson, the 17-year-old high school basketball star in Up and Coming, the casting director hired him on the spot. What's more, Wolfe was the last one to be auditioned that day. (Up and Coming is a half-hour public television dramatic series about Frank and Joyce Wilson and their three children who through hard work and sacrifice move from a low-income black neighborhood to a middle-class, integrated one in San Francisco. The show, which premiered in the fall of 1980, lasted only two seasons.)
When Up and Coming was on hiatus, Wolfe went to Los Angeles in search of an agent. When he found one, he was sent that same day to a White Shadow audition. He landed the part of Teddy Rutherford, a scholar-athlete from a black middle class family who decide to send him to a ghetto school in South-Central Los Angeles to raise his black consciousness. Wolfe considers his work on The White Shadow to be "a pretty good learning experience in that I got to work with some really professional people on their level and also learned how to work very, very fast because that's what's necessary in television production."
To some degree, Wolfe Perry is similar to the Rutherford character. He has always been a straight A student and he has "always been intrigued and fascinated by the whole schooling process."
Perry, like Rutherford, loves to read. His reading consists of biographies and love stories. His other leisure time activities are watching old movies on television ( Humphrey Bogart is his favorite actor), playing dominoes, and going to the racetrack.
Wolfe is such a loner that if you try to get him to go out and do a bit of socializing, you've got a major task on your hands. "I hate going out," he says. "I go out to try to socialize and end up having a horrible time. Usually, I go out with one of my buddies. I just camp out at a table somewhere and try to get as drunk as possible. My life is almost a disaster socially. Most of my spare time I spend either looking at television or dreaming about girls. And that's about it [he laughs]. That's the excitement. That's the flavoring in my life."
His shy, quiet manner causes people to ask him if he's OK. "I've always been like that. Off to myself and not bothering anyone. That's why it's kind of strange to have [fans] approach me because I'm not use to that type thing at all." (A recent fan magazine article in which he spoke of being lonely brought 15,000 letters from adoring female readers.)
Wolfe is presently seeking financial backing for a production company he wants to start. It's not that he's tired of acting--"I plan to continue acting with the projects that I produce"--it's just that he is "dissatisfied with the way things are done in L. A." TV and movies, says Wolfe, "are wasting a lot of money with bad scripts, bad projects. So I want to do something with some quality. Something good." He has already written two feature film scripts. "I've talked to some people who know what writing is, whose opinion I respect highly and they said, 'very good'."
"My desire," says Wolfe, "is to get as much work as possible as an actor. I'm really in love with the whole art of it. I'd like to get as much experience as possible." If Wolfe's past efforts are any indication, it's a sure bet we'll be hearing as well as seeing much more of this talented and ambitious young actor.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (January 15, 1983).
Wolfe came to Stanford in 1975 by courtesy of a four-year basketball scholarship but the future actor became disenchanted with the sport. "I was miserable the whole time," says the former star of the Stanford Cardinals in a telephone interview from his father's house in Oakland, California, "because I think I'm too selfish a person to play basketball. I was ready to quit when I was at Stanford because I had found something else to turn onto and that was drama. I was forced to play basketball in order to keep the scholarship. I liked basketball but I didn't like to play it every day. I had a lot of trouble with teammates. I felt that the best person should shoot the ball and I always thought I was the best person."
Wolfe now regards his choice of basketball as a career goal as "another dumb choice I made in my life." (In 1979 he had been drafted by the Utah Jazz and while in their training camp, he had decided to drop out in order to pursue an acting career.) "It [basketball] was at one time fun but the higher up you go, the fun diminishes. It just wrecks your body," explains Perry.
As it turned out, the National Basketball Association's loss became--with some disappointment to his family--television's gain. "I'm sure they would much prefer to see me as a professional athlete but I'm the one who has to wrap the bandages and set the ice packs," says the six-foot-two, 170-pound actor.
During his "four rather studious years" (when he wasn't on the basketball court), Wolfe appeared in some 25 campus productions. The plays ranged from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller. Does he plan to pursue further dramatic training? "I think I [have] enough knowledge," says Perry, "to put some of it to work." (He has a B.A. in drama.)
His dramatic knowledge must have been quite impressive because when he auditioned at Stanford for the part of Kevin Wilson, the 17-year-old high school basketball star in Up and Coming, the casting director hired him on the spot. What's more, Wolfe was the last one to be auditioned that day. (Up and Coming is a half-hour public television dramatic series about Frank and Joyce Wilson and their three children who through hard work and sacrifice move from a low-income black neighborhood to a middle-class, integrated one in San Francisco. The show, which premiered in the fall of 1980, lasted only two seasons.)
When Up and Coming was on hiatus, Wolfe went to Los Angeles in search of an agent. When he found one, he was sent that same day to a White Shadow audition. He landed the part of Teddy Rutherford, a scholar-athlete from a black middle class family who decide to send him to a ghetto school in South-Central Los Angeles to raise his black consciousness. Wolfe considers his work on The White Shadow to be "a pretty good learning experience in that I got to work with some really professional people on their level and also learned how to work very, very fast because that's what's necessary in television production."
To some degree, Wolfe Perry is similar to the Rutherford character. He has always been a straight A student and he has "always been intrigued and fascinated by the whole schooling process."
Perry, like Rutherford, loves to read. His reading consists of biographies and love stories. His other leisure time activities are watching old movies on television ( Humphrey Bogart is his favorite actor), playing dominoes, and going to the racetrack.
Wolfe is such a loner that if you try to get him to go out and do a bit of socializing, you've got a major task on your hands. "I hate going out," he says. "I go out to try to socialize and end up having a horrible time. Usually, I go out with one of my buddies. I just camp out at a table somewhere and try to get as drunk as possible. My life is almost a disaster socially. Most of my spare time I spend either looking at television or dreaming about girls. And that's about it [he laughs]. That's the excitement. That's the flavoring in my life."
His shy, quiet manner causes people to ask him if he's OK. "I've always been like that. Off to myself and not bothering anyone. That's why it's kind of strange to have [fans] approach me because I'm not use to that type thing at all." (A recent fan magazine article in which he spoke of being lonely brought 15,000 letters from adoring female readers.)
Wolfe is presently seeking financial backing for a production company he wants to start. It's not that he's tired of acting--"I plan to continue acting with the projects that I produce"--it's just that he is "dissatisfied with the way things are done in L. A." TV and movies, says Wolfe, "are wasting a lot of money with bad scripts, bad projects. So I want to do something with some quality. Something good." He has already written two feature film scripts. "I've talked to some people who know what writing is, whose opinion I respect highly and they said, 'very good'."
"My desire," says Wolfe, "is to get as much work as possible as an actor. I'm really in love with the whole art of it. I'd like to get as much experience as possible." If Wolfe's past efforts are any indication, it's a sure bet we'll be hearing as well as seeing much more of this talented and ambitious young actor.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (January 15, 1983).
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Multi-Talented Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino (1918-1995), British-born American actress/director/screenwriter.
"She just loved that horror stuff. I'm amused by all these so-called feminine pioneer directors who toot their own horns today. They couldn't carry her script case. We used to call her the Great Orsini sometimes. She was the packaged [Orson] Welles. She could act, she could direct, she could write, she could drink. She was so serious about it. She really was. When she acted, she was serious. When she was producing, she was serious. When she was directing, she was most serious because that's what she enjoyed more than anything else."--Doug Benton, associate producer, Thriller (NBC-TV). [Benton died in 2000. The quote is from Fangoria magazine, Issues 155 & 156 (1996). The interviewer was Tom Weaver, who reprinted it in Monsters, Mutants, and Heavenly Creatures. The interview was read on the audio commentary track of "The Weird Tailor" episode, Thriller, Season Two. (Thriller was broadcast from 1960-1962).]
"She just loved that horror stuff. I'm amused by all these so-called feminine pioneer directors who toot their own horns today. They couldn't carry her script case. We used to call her the Great Orsini sometimes. She was the packaged [Orson] Welles. She could act, she could direct, she could write, she could drink. She was so serious about it. She really was. When she acted, she was serious. When she was producing, she was serious. When she was directing, she was most serious because that's what she enjoyed more than anything else."--Doug Benton, associate producer, Thriller (NBC-TV). [Benton died in 2000. The quote is from Fangoria magazine, Issues 155 & 156 (1996). The interviewer was Tom Weaver, who reprinted it in Monsters, Mutants, and Heavenly Creatures. The interview was read on the audio commentary track of "The Weird Tailor" episode, Thriller, Season Two. (Thriller was broadcast from 1960-1962).]
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