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dzmoot · 9 months

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WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE WONDER WARRIORS?

They were Namasis' most beloved and respected superheroes, a true honest force to be reckoned with. No good doer Tuuns be damned if they ran into these fearless enforcers in a dark alley and whenever evil reared it's ugly head, the Wonder Warriors, also known as the Justice Tuunvengers were there to snuff it out. But then, they mysteriously vanished, into the night without a trace leaving only one elusive member behind. I'm Lotty the Axolotl, hovering investigative journalist for the Daily Meteor and it's my mission to find out everything I can on the whereabouts of these missing heroes.

It's unknown when this team of heroes was formed, but I guess it's formation can trace back to the birth of PB&J Man (Peebee for short) himself. Once known as Grape Jelly Face, Peebee had an encounter with some radioactive peanut butter and now, half his body is fuzed with it. He made quite a name for himself fighting alongside his old enemy turned ally Major Isadore Kroshwit and even got his hands on the whip of the legendary archaeologist, Illinois Bones. All that changed one fateful day.

Peebee and Kroshwit encountered the malevolent Malevo, an enemy so hideous, showing a picture of him would probably cause you to go blind. The two heroes fought for what seemed like hours, Kroshwit using his laser pitchfork to stab Malevo in the heart but in a last ditch effort to win the day, Malevo destroyed Kroshwit's life support suit. With his vitals shutting down, Kroshwit crumbled to his knees and had a tearful heart to heart with Peebee before passing on. Peebee took off Kroshwit's helmet revealing his true form underneath.

Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes!

Enraged over the death of his comrade, Peebee went on a spree of vengeance across Namasis. Although Malevo was defeated, he was hellbent on wiping out all those who were affiliated with him in one form or another. This led him to an underground nightclub, the Bamboo Showman where he first met Bobby Blackeyes aka POW! Panda. The two caught on quick, talking over several drinks and hors d'oeuvres and eventually getting to the topic of Malevo. Pow revealed that he and Malevo were once partners and were on the payroll of infamous Tuun gangster, Pawsta the Hoard. This immediately turned Peebee off of Pow, believing him to be a wolf in sheep's clothes, but before they could engage in a fight, the Bamboo Showman was infiltrated by Pawsta's enforcers, the Mobster Lobsters. As innocent bystanders fled the scene, Pow took out his fateful blasters, ignited his jetpack and made thermidor out of them.

CHOCOLATE COVERED PICKLED PIGSFEET!

Peebee was willing to work with Pow after he saved his life and the two formed a plan to take out Pawsta, or at least put him behind bars. In the deep recesses of his palace, Pawsta and his majordomo Cappellinistache stood, unaware of what would take place the following morning.

Hohohohoho!!!!

Peebee disguised himself as a repairman as he pretended to make repairs to the parmesan cheese shaker above Pawsta's throne. In actuality, he was taking out the cheese and replacing it with sleeping powder. When Pawsta went to take his cheesy shower that evening, he and Cappellinistache passed right out. When they awoke, they found themselves in a top security jail cell, for the authorities had come and taken them away when they were asleep. Peebee and Pow were the new crime fighting partners in town and before they knew it, their team was getting bigger and bigger.

The next to join their team were the Frog Brothers, 3 frogs that couldn't be more different than one another. Incredifrog, the pompous yet headstrong leader with gizmos galore was always butting heads with the drug addicted, alcoholic Amphibislash who had metal claws coming out of his flippers. And the brutish Froggenstein, a former dissected frog who only grunted and growled had a spring in his head and shot his brain at his two brothers whenever they bickered. They met up with Peebee one evening when two evil Cake Demons lured a bunch of little girl Tuuns into a giant oven to make a giant pie. Incredifrog was sure to get a few good licks in. His tongue worked incredibly well alongside Peebee's whip.

Next to join the team was Reggie Fastshell, the Snail Speedster, a Tuunlympic decathlete and famous boxer who moved so fast, he looked like a flash of pink light. His speed with his feet and hands came in handy when giving all sorts of no good doers a real beating.

Last of the mainstays was Roger Steves, the super soldier Patriomoth who wielded a round shield he named Lyla and fought many battles in Tuun history. His ability to fly and his insect strength came in handy when carrying his comrades to great heights. Sometimes, he could carry all of them with one hand while flying and wielding his shield in the other.

The Wonder Warriors fought many of foe in their days, the average villains you'd probably find on any Saturday morning action show. They found themselves at odds with these enemies and with themselves, but through it all, prevailed like no other team of heroes on this side of the universe.

When the evil Lord Foreheadray was resurrected, Peebee and his comrades were quick to take him out in the name of the fallen Kroshwit whom once served the dark lord. It was during this time when an extremis group of Toons started making their mark on Namasis, the Confectoon Order, led by Maaze the Popcorn Menace. The Warriors had many encounters with the order who fought for Confectoon equality on the moon, but just as the Warriors were making great strides to get rid of Maaze and his gang, a group of new heroes made their way onto the scene.

Yes, the Resisters ultimately dethroned the Wonder Warriors as Namasis' top heroes, taking down the Confectoons and becoming the glimmer of hope Tuunkind needed at that point in time. The Warriors became extremely jealous of the Resisters, especially since one of the members, Zappy was once a short lived member of their team called Zap Man. Every time the Wonder Warriors tried to stop a Confectoon conflict, Zappy and his friends would swoop in and save the day first. Not even Snail Speedster's wicked speed or the might of the Frog Trio could put the Wonder Warriors back on the pedestal they once stood on. Eventually, the team became disillusioned, especially Peebee who lost all optimism about fighting crime. The only crimes they could bring themselves to stop were things like shoplifting and getting swiped purses back from thieves. Amphibislash, who was sober for several months, relapsed on drugs and alcohol and cut all cords with his brothers. Even after all this, Incredifrog and to a certain extent Patriomoth remained optimistic and tried to glue the team back together. But one day, Zappy and the others set off on a spaceship and weren't seen or heard again for 5 years.

The time was right! Incredifrog, with the exception of his estranged brother got the gang back together to take out Maaze in the Resisters' absence and then.....nothing. Just like that, Peebee, Incredifrog, Froggenstein, Patriomoth, Snail Speedster and POW! Panda vanished. The only thing left behind was a crumb of bread, presumably from Peebee. Without the Wonder Warriors or even the Resisters, Maaze and his cohorts took over Namasis.

Of course, everything is back to normal now, but the great question still remains. Where are the Wonder Warriors? I have to get to the bottom of it, even if I have to dig in the dirt for evidence. I know they're still out there somewhere and it's time for them to make their grand return. There's only one Tuun who might know the whereabouts of our heroes. The Tuun in question is of course Amphibislash but unfortunately, he's been off the radar for some time now. Luckily, I have connections. It's time to visit an old friend and learn where this missing frog is hiding.

To be continued....

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chiseler · 3 years

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The Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Director

This is the tale of a very famous Hollywood mogul and a not-so-famous movie director. In May of 1933 they embarked together on a hunting trip to Canada, but only one of them came back alive. It’s an unusual tale with an uncertain ending, and to the best of my knowledge it’s never been told before.

I. The Mogul

When we consider the factors that enabled the Hollywood studio system to work as well as it did during its peak years, circa 1920 to 1950, we begin with the moguls, those larger-than-life studio chieftains who were the true stars on their respective lots. They were tough, shrewd, vital, and hard working men. Most were Jewish, first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe or Russia; physically on the small side but nonetheless formidable and – no small thing – adaptable. Despite constant evolution in popular culture, technology, and political and economic conditions in their industry and the outside world, most of the moguls who made their way to the top during the silent era held onto their power and wielded it for decades. Their names are still familiar: Zukor, Goldwyn, Mayer, Jack Warner and his brothers, and a few more. And of course, Darryl F. Zanuck. In many ways Zanuck personified the common image of the Hollywood mogul. He was an energetic, cigar-chewing, polo mallet-swinging bantam of a man, largely self-educated, with a keen aptitude for screen storytelling and a well-honed sense of what the public wanted to see. Like Charlie Chaplin he was widely assumed to be Jewish, and also like Chaplin he was not, but in every other respect Zanuck was the very embodiment of the dynamic, supremely confident Hollywood showman.

In the mid-1920s he got a job as a screenwriter at Warner Brothers, at a time when that studio was still something of a podunk operation. The young man succeeded on a grand scale, and was head of production before he was 30 years old. Ironically, the classic Warners house style, i.e. clipped, topical, and earthy, often dark and sometimes grimly funny, as in such iconic films as The Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, and 42nd Street, was established not by Jack, Harry, Sam, or Albert Warner, but by Darryl Zanuck, who was the driving force behind those hits and many others from the crucial early talkie period. He played a key role in launching the gangster cycle and a new wave of sassy show biz musicals. At some point during 1932-33, however, Zanuck realized he would never rise above his status as Jack Warner’s right-hand man and run the studio, no matter how successful his projects proved to be, because of two insurmountable obstacles: 1) his name was not Warner, and 2) he was a Gentile. Therefore, in order to achieve complete autonomy, Zanuck concluded that he would have to start his own company.

In mid-April of 1933 he picked a public fight with Jack Warner over a staff salary issue, then abruptly resigned. Next, he turned his attention to setting up a company in partnership with veteran producer Joseph Schenck, who was able to raise sufficient funds to launch the new concern. And then, Zanuck invited several associates from Warner Brothers to accompany him on an extended hunting trip in Canada.

Going into the wilderness and killing wild game, a pastime many Americans still regard as a routine, unremarkable form of recreation, is also of course a conspicuous show of machismo. But in this realm, as with his legendary libido, Zanuck was in a class by himself. He had been an enthusiastic hunter most of his life, dating back to his boyhood in Nebraska. Once he became a big wheel at Warners in the late ’20s he took to organizing high-style duck-hunting expeditions: the young executive and his fellow sportsmen would travel to the appointed location in private railroad cars, staffed by uniformed servants. Heavy drinking on these occasions was not uncommon. (Inevitably, film buffs will recall The Ale & Quail Club from Preston Sturges’ classic comedy The Palm Beach Story, but DFZ and his pals were not cute old character actors, and their bullets were quite real.) Members of Zanuck’s studio entourage were given to understand that participation in these outings was de rigueur if they valued their positions, and expected desirable assignments in the future. Director Michael Curtiz, who had no fondness for hunting, remembered the trips with distaste, and recalled that on one occasion he was nearly shot by a casting director who had no idea how to properly handle a gun.

But ducks were just the beginning. In 1927 Zanuck took his wife Virginia on an African safari. In Kenya Darryl bagged a rhinoceros and posed for a photo with his wife, crouched beside the rhino’s carcass. Virginia, an erstwhile Mack Sennett bathing beauty and former leading lady to Buster Keaton, appears shaken. Her husband looks exhilarated. During this safari Zanuck also killed an elephant. He kept the animal’s four feet in his office on the Warners lot, and used them as ashtrays. If any animal lover dared to express dismay, the Hollywood sportsman would retort: “It was him or me, wasn’t it?” Zanuck made several forays to Canada with his coterie in this period, gunning for grizzly bears. Director William “Wild Bill” Wellman, who was more of an outdoorsman than Curtiz, once went along, but soon became irritated with Zanuck’s bullying. The two men got into a drunken fistfight the night before the hunting had even begun. In the course of the ensuing trip the hunting party was snowbound for three days; Zanuck sprained his ankle while trailing a grizzly; the horse carrying medical supplies vanished; and Wellman got food poisoning. “It was the damnedest trip I’ve ever seen,” the director said later, “but Zanuck loved it.”

Now that Zanuck had severed his ties with the Warner clan and was on the verge of a new professional adventure, a trip to Canada with a few trusted associates would be just the ticket. This time the destination would be a hunting ground on the banks of the Canoe River, a tributary of the Columbia River, 102 miles north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, a city about 400 miles east of Vancouver. There, in a remote scenic area far from any paved roads, telephones, or other niceties of modern life, the men could discuss Zanuck’s new production company and, presumably, their own potential roles in it. Present on the expedition were screenwriter Sam Engel, director Ray Enright, 42nd Street director Lloyd Bacon, producer (and former silent film comedian) Raymond Griffith, and director John G. Adolfi, best known at the time for his work with English actor George Arliss. Adolfi, who was around 50 years old and seemingly in good health, would not return.

II. The Director

Even dedicated film buffs may draw a blank when the name John Adolfi is mentioned. Although he directed more than eighty films over a twenty-year period beginning in 1913, most of those films are now lost. He worked in every genre, with top stars, and made a successful transition from silent cinema to talkies. He seems to have been a well-respected but self-effacing man, seldom profiled in the press.

According to his tombstone Adolfi was born in New York City in 1881, but the exact date of his birth is one of several mysteries about his life. His father, Gustav Adolfi, was a popular stage comedian and singer who emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1879. Gustav performed primarily in New York and Philadelphia, and was known for such roles as Frosch the Jailer in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. But he was a troubled man, said to be a compulsive gambler, and after his wife Jennie died (possibly of scarlet fever) it appears his life fell apart. Gustav’s singing voice gave out, and then he died suddenly in Philadelphia in October 1890, leaving John and his siblings orphaned. (An obituary in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reported that Gustav suffered a stroke, but family legend suggests he may have committed suicide.) After a difficult period John followed in his father’s footsteps and launched a stage career, and was soon working opposite such luminaries of the day as Ethel Barrymore and Dustin Farnum. Early in the new century the young actor wed Pennsylvania native Florence Crawford; the marriage would last until his death.

When the cinema was still in its infancy stage performers tended to regard movie work as slumming, but for whatever reason John Adolfi took the plunge. He made his debut before the cameras around 1907, probably at the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn. There he appeared as Tybalt in J. Stuart Blackton’s 1908 Romeo and Juliet , with Paul Panzer and Florence Lawrence in the title roles. He worked at the Edison Studio for director Edwin S. Porter, and at Biograph in a 1908 short called The Kentuckian which also featured two other stage veterans, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. Most of Adolfi’s work as a screen actor was for the Éclair Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first film capital. The bulk of this company’s output was destroyed in a vault fire, but a 1912 adaptation of Robin Hood in which Adolfi appeared survives. That same year he also appeared in a famous docu-drama, as we would call it, Saved from the Titanic. This ten-minute short premiered less than a month after the Titanic disaster, and featured actress Dorothy Gibson, who actually survived the voyage, re-enacting her experience while wearing the same clothes she wore in the lifeboat. (This film, unfortunately, is among the missing.) After appearing in dozens of movies Adolfi moved behind the camera.

Much of his early work as a director was for a Los Angeles-based studio called Majestic, where he made crime dramas, Westerns, and comedies, films with titles like Texas Bill’s Last Ride and The Stolen Radium. In 1914 the company had a new supervisor: D. W. Griffith, now the top director in the business, who had just departed Biograph. Adolfi was one of the few Majestic staff directors who kept his job under the new regime. A profile in the February 1915 issue of Photoplay describes him as “a tallish, good-looking man, well-knit and vigorous, dark-haired and determined; his mouth and chin suggest that their owner expects (and intends) to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better.” It was also reported that Adolfi had developed something of a following as an actor, but that he dropped out of the public eye when he became a director. Presumably, that’s what he wanted.

Adolfi left Majestic after three years, worked at Fox Films for a time as a staff director, then freelanced. During the remainder of the silent era he guided some of the screen’s legendary leading ladies: Annette Kellerman (Queen of the Sea, 1918), Marion Davies (The Burden of Proof, 1918), Mae Marsh (The Little ‘Fraid Lady, 1920), Betty Blythe (The Darling of the Rich, 1922), and Clara Bow (The Scarlet West, 1925). Not one of these films survives. A profile published in the New York World-Telegram during his stint at Fox reported that Adolfi was well-liked by his employees. He was “reticent when the conversation turned toward himself, but frank and outspoken when it concerned his work. Mr. Adolfi is not only a director who is skilled in the technique of his craft; he is also a deep student of human nature.” Asked how he felt about the cinema’s potential, he replied, with unconscious irony, “it is bound to live forever.”

III. The Talkies

In spring of 1927 Adolfi was offered a job at Warner Brothers. His debut feature for the studio What Happened to Father? (now lost) was a success, or enough of one anyway to secure him a professional foothold, and he worked primarily at WB thereafter. Thus he was fortuitously well-positioned for the talkie revolution, for although talking pictures were not invented at the studio it was Sam Warner and his brothers, more than anyone else, who sold an initially skeptical public on the new medium. After Adolfi had proven himself with three talkie features Darryl Zanuck handed him an expensive, prestige assignment, a lavish all-star revue entitled The Show of Shows which featured every Warners star from John Barrymore to Rin-Tin-Tin.

Other important assignments followed. In March of 1930 a crime melodrama called Penny Arcade opened on Broadway. It was not a success, but when Al Jolson saw it he sensed that the story had screen potential. He purchased the film rights at a bargain rate and then re-sold the property to his home studio, Warner Brothers. Adolfi was chosen to direct, but was doubtless surprised to learn that Jolson had insisted that two of the actors from the Broadway production repeat their performances before the cameras. One of the pair, Joan Blondell, had already appeared in three Vitaphone shorts to good effect, but the other, James Cagney, had never acted in a movie. Any doubts about Jolson’s instincts were quickly dispelled. Rushes of the first scenes featuring the newcomers so impressed studio brass that both were signed to five-year contracts. While Adolfi can’t be credited with discovering the duo, the film itself, re-christened Sinners’ Holiday,remains his strongest surviving claim to fame: he guided Jimmy Cagney’s screen debut.

At this point the director formed a professional relationship that would shape the rest of his career. George Arliss was a veteran stage actor who went into the movies and unexpectedly became a top box office draw. He was, frankly, an unlikely candidate for screen stardom. Already past sixty when talkies arrived, Arliss was a short, dignified man who resembled a benevolent gargoyle. But he was also a journeyman actor, a seasoned professional who knew how to command attention with a sudden sharp word or a raised eyebrow. Like Helen Hayes he was valued in Hollywood as a performer of unblemished reputation who lent the raffish film industry a touch of Class, in every sense of the word.

In 1929 Arliss appeared in a talkie version of Disraeli, a role he had played many times on stage, and became the first Englishman to take home an Academy Award for Best Actor. Thereafter he was known for stately portrayals of History’s Great Men, such as Voltaire and Alexander Hamilton, as well as fictional kings, cardinals, and other official personages. The old gentleman formed a close alliance with Darryl Zanuck, whom he admired, and was in turn granted privileges highly unusual for any actor at the time. Arliss had final approval of his scripts and authority over casting. He was also granted the right to rehearse his selected actors for two weeks before filming began. All that was left for the film’s director to do, it would seem, would be to faithfully record what his star wanted. Not many directors would accept this arrangement, but John Adolfi, who according to Photoplay “was determined to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better,” clearly had no problem with it. His first film with Arliss was The Millionaire, released in May 1931; and in the two years that followed Adolfi directed eight more features, six of which were Arliss vehicles. He had found his niche in Hollywood.

One of Adolfi’s last jobs sans Arliss was a B-picture called Central Park, which reunited the director with Joan Blondell. It’s a snappy, topical, crazy quilt of a movie that packs a lot of incident into a 58-minute running time. Central Park was something of a sleeper that earned its director positive critical notices, and must have afforded him a lively holiday from those polite period pieces for the exacting Mr. Arliss.

In spring of 1933, after completing work on the Arliss vehicle Voltaire, Adolfi accompanied Darryl Zanuck and his entourage to British Columbia to hunt bears. Arliss intended to follow Zanuck to his new company, while Adolfi in turn surely expected to follow the star and continue their collaboration. Things didn’t work out that way.

IV. The Hunting Trip

It’s unclear how long the men were hunting before tragedy struck. On Sunday, May 14th, newspapers reported that film director John G. Adolfi had died the previous week – either on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which paper one consults – at a hunting camp near the Canoe River. All accounts give the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage. According to the New York Herald-Tribune the news was conveyed in a long-distance phone call from Darryl Zanuck to screenwriter Lucien Hubbard in Los Angeles. Hubbard subsequently informed the press. The N.Y. Times reported that the entire hunting party (Zanuck, Engel, Enright, Bacon, and Griffith) accompanied Adolfi’s remains in a motorboat down the Columbia River to Revelstoke. From there the body was sent to Vancouver, B.C., where it was cremated. Write-ups of Adolfi’s career were brief, and tended to emphasize his work with George Arliss, though his recent success Central Park was widely noted. John’s widow Florence was mentioned in the Philadelphia City News obituary but otherwise seems to have been ignored; the couple had no children.

V. The Aftermath

Darryl F. Zanuck went on to found Twentieth Century Pictures, a name suggested by his hunting companion Sam Engel. One of the company’s biggest hits in its first year of operation was The House of Rothschild, starring George Arliss and directed by Alfred Werker. The venerable actor returned to England not long afterwards and retired from filmmaking in 1937. In his second book of memoirs, published three years later, Arliss devotes several pages of warm praise to Zanuck, but refers only fleetingly to the man who directed seven of his films, John Adolfi, and misspells his name.

In 1935 Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with Fox Films, and created one of the most successful companies in Hollywood history. He would go on to produce many award-winning classics, including The Grapes of Wrath, Laura, and All About Eve. Zanuck’s trusted associates at Twentieth-Century Fox in the company’s best years included Sam Engel, Raymond Griffith, and Lloyd Bacon, all survivors of the Revelstoke trip. Personal difficulties and vast changes in the film industry began to affect Zanuck’s career in the 1950s. He left the U.S. for Europe but continued to make films, and sporadically managed to exercise control over the company he founded. He died in 1979.

In 1984 a onetime screenwriter and film critic named Leonard Mosley, who had known Zanuck slightly, published a biography entitled Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon. Aside from his movie reviews most of Mosley’s published work concerned military matters, specifically pertaining to the Second War World. His Zanuck bio reveals a grasp of film history that is shaky at times, for the book has a number of obvious errors. Nevertheless, it was written with the cooperation of Darryl’s son Richard, his widow Virginia, and many of the mogul’s close associates, so whatever its errors in chronology or studio data the anecdotes concerning Zanuck’s personal and professional activities are unquestionably well-sourced.

When Mosley’s narrative reaches May 1933, the point when Zanuck is on the verge of founding his new company, we’re told that he and several associates decided to go on a hunting trip to Alaska. The location is not correct, but chronologically – and in one other, unmistakable respect – there can be no doubt that this refers to the Revelstoke trip. From Mosley’s book:

“There is a mystery about this trip, and no perusal of Zanuck’s papers or those of his former associates seems to elucidate it,” he writes. “Something happened that changed his whole attitude towards hunting. All that can be gathered from the thin stories that are still gossiped around was that the hunting party went on the track of a polar bear somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness [sic], and when the vital moment came it was Zanuck who stepped out to shoot down the charging, furious animal. His bullet, it is said, found its mark all right, but it did not kill. The polar bear came on, and Zanuck stood his ground, pumping away with his rifle. Only this time it was not ‘him or me,’ but ‘him’ and someone else. The wounded and enraged bear, still alive and still charging, swerved around Zanuck and swiped with his great paw at one of the men standing behind him – and only after it had killed this other man did it fall at last into the snow, and die itself. That’s the story, and no one seems to be able to confirm it nor remember the name of the man who died. The only certain thing is that when Zanuck came back, he announced to Virginia that he had given up hunting. And he never went out and shot a wild animal again, not even a jackrabbit for his supper.”

VI. The Coda

Was John Adolfi killed by a bear? It certainly seems possible, but if so, why didn’t the men in the hunting party simply report the truth? Even if their boss was indirectly responsible, having fired the shots that caused the bear to charge, he couldn’t be blamed for the actions of a dying animal. But it’s also possible the event unfolded like a recent tragedy on the Montana-Idaho border. There, in September 2011, two men named Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a hunting trip. Bell shot what he believed was a black bear. When the bear, a grizzly, attacked Stevenson, Bell fired again – and killed both the bear and his friend.

That seems to be the more likely scenario. If Zanuck fired at the wounded bear, in an attempt to save Adolfi, and killed both bear and man instead, it would perhaps explain a hastily contrived false story. It would most definitely explain the prompt cremation of Adolfi’s body in Vancouver. Back in Hollywood Joe Schenck was busy raising money, and lots of it, to launch Zanuck’s new company. Any unpleasant information about the new company’s chief – certainly anything suggestive of manslaughter – could jeopardize the deal. A man hit with a cerebral hemorrhage in the prime of life is a tragedy of natural causes, but a man sprayed with bullets in a shooting, accidental or not, is something else again. That goes double if alcohol was involved, as it reportedly was on Zanuck’s earlier hunting trips.

Of course, it’s also possible that Adolfi did indeed suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Like his father.

John G. Adolfi is a Hollywood ghost. Most of his works are lost, and his name is forgotten. (Even George Arliss couldn’t be bothered to spell it correctly.) Every now and then TCM will program one of the Arliss vehicles, or Sinners’ Holiday. Not long ago they showed Adolfi’s fascinating B-picture Central Park, that slam-bang souvenir of the early Depression years in which several plot strands are deftly inter-twined. One of the subplots involves a mentally ill man, a former zoo-keeper who escapes from an asylum and returns to the place where he used to work, the Central Park Zoo. He has a score to settle with an old nemesis, an ex-colleague who tends the big cats. As the story approaches its climax, the escaped lunatic deliberately drags his enemy into the cage of a dangerous lion and leaves him there. In the subsequent, harrowing scene, difficult to watch, the lion attacks and practically kills the poor bastard.

by William Charles Morrow

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My sources for this article, in addition to the Mosley biography cited in the text, include Stephen M. Silverman’s The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth-Century Fox (1988), and Marlys J. Harris’s The Zanucks of Hollywood: The Dark Legacy of an American Dynasty (1989). For material on John Adolfi I made extensive use of the files of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Special thanks to James Bigwood for his prodigious research on the Adolfi family genealogy, and to Mary Maler, John Adolfi’s great-niece, for information she provided on her family.

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sideburndanny · 3 years

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Batman Movie Villains Ranked from Worst to Best

Recently, a YouTuber I follow by the name of Mr. Rogues released a list of Batman villains ranked from worst to best. I have nothing but the utmost of respect for Mr. Rogues as a content creator, but I took issue with his list because his long-standing biases were often the deciding factor in many of his rankings. So, I decided to do a list of my own.

I’ll be going over every Batman villain to appear in the movies, briefly analyzing their portrayals and ranking them on a scale of 1 to 5. To prevent the list from being too cluttered, I’ll be separating the villains by which movie series they’re part of. Here we go!

Burton/Schumacher Tetralogy

Bane: Perhaps the only villain in this series I’d call “bad.” The calculating tactician of the comics is nowhere to be found here; instead, he’s reduced to a monosyllabic, brain-dead stooge for the other villains. Overall, he does nothing that couldn’t be done by a random henchman. 1/5

Two-Face: A deeply layered villain in the comics, Two-Face sadly gets upstaged by the other major rogue in the movie, but that’s not to say he doesn’t leave an impression. Tommy Lee Jones gives him a manic and mercurial demeanor that, combined with his colorful design, wouldn’t be out of place in the Adam West series. The size and scope of his criminal organization make him a genuine threat, and there’s something darkly fitting about Batman’s former ally being responsible for the creation of Robin. 3/5

Poison Ivy: Mr. Rogues for some reason ranked her as the worst Batman movie villain of all time, and frankly, I don’t see why. Like Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Uma Thurman gives this character a delightfully over-the-top demeanor that combines with a colorful, comic-booky ensemble to make for another great “what-if-this-character-appeared-in-the-Adam-West-series” take. She does a good job juggling the differing facets of Ivy’s character: she’s the put-upon cynic, the craven opportunist, the radical eco-terrorist, and the suave seductress all in one package. 3.5/5

The Penguin: Fuck the Razzies. Danny DeVito made this role his own and set the stage for the character for years to come. He’s a bit of a departure, but a welcome one: far from the refined gentleman of crime Burgess Meredith portrayed, this Penguin is an animalistic thug warped by a lifetime of anger and hatred of the society who rejected him due to his deformities. His signature wardrobe, trick umbrellas, and Penguin gimmick are all there, but DeVito sells the role by showing amazing versatility: he can go from a comical and pitiable weirdo to a terrifying sociopath at the drop of a stovepipe hat. 4/5

Mr. Freeze: I honestly can’t say much about this character that my mutual @wonderfulworldofmichaelford hasn’t already. Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly encapsulates both popular versions of this character: the flamboyant, pun-loving criminal genius from the Adam West series and the Animated Series’ traumatized scientist desperate to cure his loving wife of her terminal illness. Sure, the puns and hammy one-liners are what this version character is known for, but Ahnold definitely knows when to apply the brakes and give a greatly emotional performance as he tries desperately to cure his wife. 4.5/5

Max Shreck: Probably the only time you’ll see a movie-exclusive character on this list, and deservedly so. Corrupt businessmen are dime-a-dozen in Batman stories, and most of them have little personality outside of being greedy scumbags who either get defeated by the hero or betrayed by the other villains. Shreck, however, is different. Not only does he have an eye-catching fashion sense on par with any of Batman’s famous rogues, but Christopher Walken brings his signature manic intensity to the role, creating a character that’s as wicked and sinister as he is cool and stylish. You totally buy that the general public sees him as the good guy. His warm relationship with his son is also a delight to watch. 4.5/5

Catwoman: Michelle Pfeiffer does a lot to really make the character her own. She gets a lot of genuinely badass moments, but underneath all of her coolness lies the undercurrent that she’s a broken, traumatized character lashing out at the people who abused her and took her for granted. Even when she takes these ideals to unreasonable extremes, you never stop feeling like the retribution she brings on her enemies is at least a little warranted. Also, she has amazing romantic chemistry with Batman and her costume is fucking metal. 5/5

The Ridder: It’s Jim Carrey. 5/5

The Joker: This role is perhaps the one that set the standard for future Jokers to follow: Jack Nicholson’s humorous yet unnerving performance signaled to audiences early on that this would not be the goofy trickster of the Silver Age, but a different beast entirely. This Joker is a film noir gangster on crack: a disfigured mob hitman who quickly takes the entire criminal underworld by storm and unleashes his special brand of chaos and destruction across Gotham. He’s an artist, a showman, a charismatic leader, and the man responsible for ruining Bruce Wayne’s life. 5/5

Christopher Nolan Trilogy

Talia al Ghul: You know that recent trend in Disney movies where a side character we thought was harmless and inconsequential turned out to have been the villain all along in a twist with no buildup or foreshadowing with the reveal happening too late in the movie for this character to really do anything cool or impressive before being unceremoniously defeated? That’s Talia. DKR is the weakest of the three Nolan films, and I feel like it would’ve been much better received without this twist villain contrivedly shoehorned in. Also, while I could kinda forgive the trilogy’s whitewashing of other villains like Ra’s al Ghul and Bane due to the talent their actors display, Marion Cotillard doesn’t get a pass because she just doesn’t have the charisma or screen presence needed to pull it off. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: While the idea of redefining Zsasz as an over enthusiastic mob hitman instead of a serial killer is very interesting, it’s ruined by the fact that he barely even appears in the movie and doesn’t really do or say much of anything despite the buildup he gets. 1.5/5

Two-Face: Aaron Eckhart portrays Harvey Dent as a character of tragedy in a slightly different way than other tragic villains in superhero movies: he’s lashing out at a society he feels wronged him, but instead of being a lifelong outcast or put-upon loser, he was a handsome, successful crusader for the common good who lost everything he once held dear all in one fell swoop. You really feel for him even as he does horrible things. If I had to nitpick, though, I am slightly bothered by the fact that he plays some comic book movie cliches straight (i.e. they never call him by his alias and he dies at the end,) but it’s a solid performance overall. 3/5

Scarecrow: I’ll be upfront and admit that I’m more than a little annoyed that certain facets of the character had been changed in the name of “realism” — once again, they never call him by his villain name and he never wears a comic-accurate costume — but other than that, I can’t complain. Cillian Murphy plays the character with a smarmy, eerie charm that really makes his scenes stand out, his willingness to ally himself with other villains suits his character well, and the fact that he appears in three consecutive films with a different evil scheme in each really helps tie the movies together. 3.5/5

Catwoman: Much like other secondary villains in this trilogy, she really doesn’t get a chance to shine compared to the main antagonist — and, once again, it pisses me off a little that they do the whole “never refer to her as Catwoman but vaguely hint at it” thing — but she’s everything a modern Catwoman should be. She’s sly, manipulative, really holds her own in a fight, has great chemistry with Bruce Wayne... it’s all there. It’s also great to see Anne Hathaway break away from her usual type casting to play a role this dynamic. 4/5

Ra’s al Ghul: He’s a character that was in desperate need of mainstream exposure, and by God that’s what he got. Making him Bruce Wayne’s mentor adds a layer of personal tragedy to the climax where our hero has to stop the man who made him who he is from destroying Gotham with his admittedly brilliant plan. Add in a strong, captivating performance from Liam Neeson before we found out he was a racist asshole, and we’ve got one hell of an overarching villain. 4.5/5

The Joker: Everybody’s already discussed this version of the character to hell and back and likely will for years to come, so I’ll keep it very brief. He’s funny, he’s badass, he’s terrifying, he has great dialogue, it sucks that Heath Ledger didn’t live to see his performance reach the audience it got, and he basically makes the entire film. 5/5

Bane: Mr. Rogues actually ranked Bane higher than Joker on his list, and keeping it 100, I actually agree with him here. Finally, after decades of being dumbed down and misrepresented outside of comics, Bane is finally portrayed as the tactical genius from the comics. Tom Hardy plays Bane to perfection, being very believable as the peak of human physical and mental achievement, the man who broke Batman physically and emotionally. His design is iconic, his every line is quotable, his voice is weirdly fitting, and the memes are funny. 5/5

DC Extended Universe

KGBeast: Another point where I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Rogues. He is absolutely wasted in BVS, being nothing but a generic henchman for Lex Luthor. He doesn’t wear his costume from the comics, he’s never referred to by his alias, he doesn’t have his signature cybernetic enhancements, and he never does or says anything noteworthy. 1/5

The Joker: Ugh. I don’t know what’s worst: the tacky clothes, the stupid tattoos, the weird Richard Nixon impression that passes as his voice, the fact that promotional material hyped him up as a “beautiful tragedy” of a character even though he’s only in the movie for like 10 minutes and barely does anything, Jared Leto’s toxic edgelord behavior on set done with the flimsy pretense of “getting into character,” or the fact that he’s just trying to copy Heath Ledger instead of making the role his own. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: Chris Messina proves undoubtedly that Zsasz CAN work as a secondary villain in a Batman movie. He’s once again a mob assassin who enjoys his job a little too much, but unlike Batman Begins, he really gets time to shine. He’s just as sadistic and depraved as in the comics, but he also has this disarming, casual demeanor about him like he’s just indulging a hobby instead of slicing innocent people’s faces off. His close friendship with his boss Black Mask adds some depth to the character as well. 3/5

Killer Croc: Sadly, he doesn’t get much time in the spotlight, but he’s pretty cool nonetheless. The makeup and prosthetics used to create him look amazing, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s deep voice and imposing body language make him really stand out as an intimidating presence. He’s often in the background, which fits his role as an outcast by choice and a man of few words, but whenever he does get focus, he has everyone’s attention. It really would be a shame if this character’s only appearance was in a mediocre schlock action movie, but he makes the most of what he has. 3.5/5

Deadshot: Another highlight of what would otherwise be a forgettable film, Deadshot is just as cool and competent as he’s always been in other media, but this portrayal stands out for one simple reason. Will Smith was a very odd choice to play the role, but it worked out for the best here because you get the sense he truly understands the characters. He’s ruthless and pragmatic, but has just as enough charm and depth to make him likable. 4/5

Black Mask: I, like many, was skeptical when I saw early trailers depicting Roman Sionis as a foppish weirdo who doesn’t wear his signature mask, but upon seeing the final movie, I really feel like he has the high ground over other DCEU villains. Ewan McGregor is endlessly captivating in the role, portraying him as a swaggering dandy who is nevertheless dangerous due to his boundless narcissism and explosive temper. Sure, those who deal in absolutes would be put off from the differences with his comic counterpart — who is far more cold and humorless — but from a certain point of view, this flamboyant take on the character isn’t so much a departure as it is an addition to make him stand out while keeping his role the same. Black Mask has always been a middleman between the traditional mobsters of yesteryear and the colorful rogues that plague Gotham today, and this portrayal perfectly encapsulates that. He works in the shadows, but isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty; he flies off the handle and gets reckless at times, but there’s no question that the whole operation was his idea. 5/5

Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie owns this role. She’s unbelievably dazzling as a badass, funny, sexy antihero who deals greatly with tragedy and proves that there’s always been more to her than her initial role as the Joker’s sidekick. Again, not much to say, but she’s almost perfect. 5/5

#dc villains #batman #batman villains #dark knight #dc extended universe #batman movie

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paprikaries · 6 months

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_Two Dice in a Casinò_ rough sketch _ wip -"What about you, handsome?" -"I'd say everything is going great, but the boss never seems satisfied. I don't understand, he wasn't like that 100 years ago.. (lol) It's hard to think about it, but...maybe I'm doing something wrong?"

I'm doing a comics on these two because they're cool and funny and I like to imagine their interaction and how they would talk about personal experiences.

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1962dude420-blog · 3 years

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Today we remember the passing of Johnny "Guitar" Watson who Died: May 17, 1996 in Yokohama, Japan

John Watson Jr., known professionally as Johnny "Guitar" Watson, was an American blues, soul, and funk musician and singer-songwriter. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, Watson recorded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with some success. His creative reinvention in the 1970s with funk overtones, saw Watson have hits with "Ain't That a Bitch" and "Superman Lover". His successful recording career spanned forty years, with his highest chart appearance being the 1977 song "A Real Mother for Ya".

Watson was born in Houston, Texas. His father John Sr. was a pianist, and taught his son the instrument. But young Watson was immediately attracted to the sound of the guitar, in particular the electric guitar as played by T-Bone Walker and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

His parents separated in 1950, when he was 15. His mother moved to Los Angeles, and took Watson with her. In his new city, Watson won several local talent shows. This led to his employment, while still a teenager, with jump blues-style bands such as Chuck Higgins's Mellotones and Amos Milburn. He worked as a vocalist, pianist, and guitarist. He quickly made a name for himself in the African-American juke joints of the West Coast, where he first recorded for Federal Records in 1952. He was billed as Young John Watson until 1954. That year, he saw the Joan Crawford film Johnny Guitar, and a new stage name was born.

In 1953, Shorty Rogers had Watson as part of his Orchestra perform for the famed ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 7. Also featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, Nat "King" Cole, and Louis Armstrong and his All Stars with Velma Middleton.

Watson affected a swaggering, yet humorous personality, indulging a taste for flashy clothes and wild showmanship on stage. His "attacking" style of playing, without a plectrum, resulted in him often needing to change the strings on his guitar once or twice a show, because he "stressified on them" so much, as he put it. Watson's ferocious "Space Guitar" single of 1954 pioneered guitar feedback and reverb. Watson would later influence a subsequent generation of guitarists. His song "Gangster of Love" was first released on Keen Records in 1957. It did not appear in the charts at the time, but was later re-recorded and became a hit in 1978, becoming Watson's "most famous song".

He toured and recorded with his friend Larry Williams, as well as Little Richard, Don and Dewey, The Olympics, Johnny Otis and, in the mid-1970s with David Axelrod. In 1975 he was a guest performer on two tracks (flambe vocals on the out-choruses of "San Ber'dino" and "Andy") on the Frank Zappa album One Size Fits All. He also played with Herb Alpert and George Duke. But as the popularity of blues declined and the era of soul music dawned in the 1960s, Watson transformed himself from southern blues singer with pompadour into urban soul singer in a pimp hat. His new style was emphatic – wearing the gold teeth, broad-brimmed hats, flashy suits, fashionable outsized sunglasses and ostentatious jewelry.

He modified his music accordingly. His albums Ain't That a Bitch (included funk blues singles "Superman Lover" and "I Need It") and Real Mother For Ya (1977) fused funk and blues. Watson had album Love Jones in 1980. Reviewing Watson's 1977 LP A Real Mother for Ya, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "Watson has been perfecting his own brand of easy-listening funk for years, and this time he's finally gone into the studio with his guitar Freddie and his drummer Emry and a bunch of electric keyboards and come up with a whole album of good stuff. The riff-based tracks go on too long but go down easy and the lyrics have an edge. Granted, Watson can't match George Benson's chops, but this is dance music, chops would just get in the way. And I prefer his Lou-Rawls-without-pipes to Benson's Stevie-Wonder-ditto."

The shooting death of his friend Larry Williams in 1980 and other personal setbacks led to Watson briefly withdrawing from the spotlight in the 1980s. "I got caught up with the wrong people doing the wrong things", he was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

The release of his album Bow Wow in 1994 brought Watson more visibility and chart success than he had ever known. The album received a Grammy Award nomination. In a 1994 interview with David Ritz for liner notes to The Funk Anthology, Watson was asked if his 1980 song "Telephone Bill" anticipated rap music. "Anticipated?" Watson replied. "I damn well invented it! ... And I wasn't the only one. Talking rhyming lyrics to a groove is something you'd hear in the clubs everywhere from Macon to Memphis. Man, talking has always been the name of the game. When I sing, I'm talking in melody. When I play, I'm talking with my guitar. I may be talking trash, baby, but I'm talking".

In 1995, he was given a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in a presentation and performance ceremony at the Hollywood Palladium. In February 1995, Watson was interviewed by Tomcat Mahoney for his Brooklyn, New York-based blues radio show The Other Half. Watson discussed at length his influences and those he had influenced, referencing Guitar Slim, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He made a special guest appearance on Bo Diddley's 1996 album A Man Amongst Men, playing vocoder on the track "I Can't Stand It" and singing on the track "Bo Diddley Is Crazy".

Watson died of a heart attack on May 17, 1996, collapsing on stage while on tour in Yokohama, Japan. His remains were brought home for interment at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California and buried in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Enduring Honor, Holly Terrace entrance.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Johnny "Guitar" Watson among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

#May 17 #1996 #R.I.P.#Johnny Guitar Watson

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ofcacthuxandkylosaur · 3 years

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Modern Setting Kylux AUs Tag List (part 1)

Every AU that takes place in our modern world.

ABOUT

Go here to find an INDEX of every lists (including all thematic lists)

Other Modern AU (all non featured below yet specific Modern AUs)

Actors [both] AU {combines:}

Actor Hux AU

Actor Kylo AU

Agents [both] AU {combines:}

Agent Hux AU

Agent Kylo AU

Airline AU

Amnesia AU

Animal Shelter AU [see Animal Welfare AU]

Animal Welfare AU

Anime Club AU

Archeology AU {except for Indiana Jones AU}

Art School AU (also see Artist Hux AU, Artist Kylo AU and Uni AU)

Artists [both] AU {combines:}

Artist Hux AU {except for Tattoo Artist Hux AU} (also see Art School AU)

Artist Kylo AU {except for Tattoo Artist Kylo AU} (also see Art School AU)

Assassins [both] AU {combines:}

Assassin Hux AU

Assassin Kylo AU

Astronauts AU

Bakery AU {includes Great British Bake Off (the) AU}

Ballet AU {part of Dancers AU}

Band AU {includes Black Metal AU} {part of Musicians AU}

Bartender Hux AU

Bartender Kylo AU

Baseball AU

Basketball AU

Belly Dancer Kylo AU {part of Dancers AU}

Big Brothers AU

Biker AU

Black Metal AU {part of Band AU}

Bloggers AU

Bodyguard Hux AU

Bodyguard Kylo AU

Book Shop AU

Boxer Hux AU

Boxer Kylo AU

Boyscout AU {includes Moonrise Kingdom AU}

Breakfast Club AU {part of High school AU}

Businessmen AU [see Office AU or Suit Porn AU]

Butler Hux AU

Camping AU (also see Summer Camp AU)

Canadian AU (also see Hockey AU)

Caving AU

Chef AU

Circus AU {includes Greatest Showman (the) AU}

Classical Music AU [see Orchestra AU]

Coffee Shop AU

College AU [see Uni AU]

Cruise AU {except for Titanic AU}

Cryptids AU

Dancers AU {includes Ballet AU, Belly Dancer Kylo AU and Pole Dancer Hux AU)

Deaf Kylo AU

Delinquant Kylo (and Rich Hux) AU

Dentist AU {part of Medical AU}

Detective AU [see Police AU]

Disneyworld AU

Divers AU (also see Pool AU)

Doctors [both] AU {combines:} (part of Medical AU}

Doctor Kylo (physician) AU

Doctor Hux (physician) AU

East Slavic AU [see Slavic (modern setting) AU]

Elementary School AU

Eurovision AU {part of Musicians AU}

Exes AU

Fake Relationship AU

Farm AU

Fashion AU (also see Model Hux AU and Model Kylo AU)

Fast Food AU

Figure Skating AU [see Ice Skating AU]

Firefighter AU

Flower Shop AU

Formula 1 AU [see F1 AU]

Frank AU

Friends with Benefits AU

F1 AU

Game Show AU [see TV Show (game) AU]

Gamers/Vloggers AU [see Bloggers AU]

Gangsters AU [see Mafia AU]

Garage AU

Ghost Hunters AU {includes Ghost Busters AU}

Good Omens AU

Gothic Style AU [or see Southern Gothic AU]

Great British Bake Off (the) AU {part of Bakery AU and TV Show (game) AU}

Grunge Style AU

Gym AU

Hacker Hux AU

Hacker Kylo AU

Hair Salon AU

High school AU {includes Breakfast Club AU} (also see Grease AU)

Hippie Style AU

Hitmen AU [see Assassins [both] AU]

Hockey AU (also see Canadian AU) [or see Ice skating AU]

Horse Riding AU

–> I - Z + # (part 2)

#tag list #thematic tag list #my tag lists #my modern au tag list #kylux #kylux tag list #kylux au

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 3 years

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Ruth Etting (November 23, 1896 – September 24, 1978) was an American singing star, vaudevillian and actress of the 1920s and 1930s, who had over 60 hit recordings and worked in stage, radio, and film. Known as "America's sweetheart of song", her signature tunes were "Shine On, Harvest Moon", "Ten Cents a Dance" and "Love Me or Leave Me".

Her other popular recordings included "Button Up Your Overcoat", "Mean to Me", "Exactly Like You" and "Shaking the Blues Away".

As a young girl in Nebraska, Etting had wanted to be an artist; she drew and sketched everywhere she was able. At sixteen, her grandparents decided to send her to art school in Chicago. While Etting attended class, she found a job at the Marigold Gardens nightclub; after a short time there, Etting gave up art classes in favor of a career in show business. Etting, who enjoyed singing in school and church, never took voice lessons. She quickly became a featured vocalist at the club. Etting was then managed by Moe Snyder, whom she married in 1922. Snyder made arrangements for Etting's recording and film contracts as well as her personal and radio appearances. She became nationally known when she appeared in Flo Ziegfeld's Follies of 1927.

Etting intended to retire from performing in 1935, but this did not happen until after her divorce from Snyder in 1937. Harry Myrl Alderman, Etting's pianist, was separated from his wife when he and Etting began a relationship. Snyder did not like seeing his former wife in the company of other men and began making telephone threats to Etting in January 1938. By October, Snyder traveled to Los Angeles and detained Alderman after he left a local radio station; he forced the pianist to take him to the home of his ex-wife at gunpoint. Saying he intended to kill Etting, Alderman, and his own daughter, Edith, who worked for Etting, Snyder shot Alderman. Three days after Alderman was shot, his wife filed suit against Etting for alienation of affections.

While Alderman and Etting claimed to have been married in Mexico in July 1938, Alderman's divorce would not be final until December of that year. The couple was married during Moe Snyder's trial for attempted murder in December 1938. Etting and Alderman relocated to a farm outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where they were primarily out of the spotlight for most of their lives. Her fictionalized story was told in the 1955 musical film Love Me Or Leave Me with Doris Day as Ruth Etting and James Cagney as Snyder.

Etting was born on November 23, 1896, in David City, Nebraska, to Alfred Etting, a banker, and Winifred (Kleinhan). Her mother died when she was five years old and she then went to live with her paternal grandparents, George and Hannah Etting. Her father remarried and moved away from David City and was no longer a part of his daughter's life. Etting's grandfather, George, owned the Etting Roller Mills; to the delight of his granddaughter, George Etting allowed traveling circuses and shows to use the lot behind the mills for performances.

Etting was interested in drawing at an early age; she drew and sketched anywhere she was able. Her grandparents were asked to buy the textbooks she had used at the end of a school term because Etting had filled them with her drawings. She left David City at the age of sixteen to attend art school in Chicago. Etting got a job designing costumes at the Marigold Gardens nightclub, which led to employment singing and dancing in the chorus there. She gave up art school soon after going to work at Marigold Gardens. Before turning exclusively to performing, Etting worked as a designer for the owner of a costume shop in Chicago's Loop; she was successful enough to earn a partnership in the shop through her work.

While she enjoyed singing at school and in church, Etting never took voice lessons. She said that she had patterned her song styling after Marion Harris, but created her own unique style by alternating tempos and by varying some notes and phrases. Describing herself as a "high, squeaky soprano" during her days in David City, Etting developed a lower range singing voice after her arrival in Chicago which led to her success. Her big moment came when a featured vocalist suddenly became ill and was unable to perform. With no other replacement available, Etting was asked to fill in. She quickly changed into the costume and scanned the music arrangements; the performer was male, so Etting tried to adjust by singing in a lower register. She became a featured vocalist at the nightclub.

Etting described herself as a young, naive girl when she arrived in Chicago. Due to her inexperience in the ways of the big city, she became reliant on Snyder after their meeting. Etting met gangster Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder in 1922, when she was performing at the Marigold Gardens. Snyder, who divorced his first wife to marry Etting, was well-acquainted with Chicago's nightclubs and the entertainers who worked in them; he once served as a bodyguard to Al Jolson. Snyder also used his political connections to get bookings for Etting, who was called "Miss City Hall" because of Snyder's influence in Chicago. Etting married Snyder on July 17, 1922 in Crown Point, Indiana. She later said she married him "nine-tenths out of fear and one-tenth out of pity." Etting later told her friends, "If I leave him, he'll kill me." He managed her career, booking radio appearances and eventually had her signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Records.

The couple moved to New York in 1927, where Etting made her Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. Irving Berlin had recommended her to showman Florenz Ziegfeld. Etting nervously prepared to sing for Ziegfeld at the audition. However, he did not ask her to sing at all; only to walk up and down the room. She was hired on that basis because Ziegfeld did not hire women with big ankles. While the original plan for the show was for Etting to do a tap dance after singing "Shaking the Blues Away", she later remembered she was not a very good dancer. At the show's final rehearsal, Flo Ziegfeld told her, "Ruth, when you get through singing, just walk off the stage". Etting also appeared in Ziegfeld's last "Follies" in 1931.

She went on to appear in a number of other hit shows in rapid succession, including Ziegfeld's Simple Simon and Whoopee!. Etting was not originally signed to perform in Simple Simon; she became part of the cast at the last minute when vocalist Lee Morse was too intoxicated to perform. Ziegfeld asked Etting to replace Morse; she hurried to Boston, where the show was being tried out prior to Broadway. When Etting arrived, songwriters Rodgers and Hart discovered that the song "Ten Cents a Dance" was not written for Etting's voice range. The three spent the night rewriting the song so Etting could perform it.

Toward the end of Simple Simon's Broadway run, Etting persuaded Ziegfeld to add "Love Me Or Leave Me" to the show though the song was originally written for Whoopee!. She had recorded the song in 1928, but Etting's new version of it was impressive enough to earn her a Vitaphone contract to make film shorts.

In Hollywood, Etting made a long series of movie shorts between 1929 and 1936, and three feature movies in 1933 and 1934. She described the short films as either having a simple plot to allow for her to sing two songs or with no plot at all. The idea was to have Etting sing at least two songs in the film. While she received a marquee billing for Roman Scandals, Etting had only two lines in the film and sang just one song. Etting believed she might have had more success in full-length films if she had been given some acting lessons. Her perception was that the studios viewed her only as a vocalist. She later recalled, "I was no actress, and I knew it. But I could sell a song". In 1936, she appeared in London in Ray Henderson's Transatlantic Rhythm. Etting quit the show because she and the other performers had not been paid.

Etting was first heard on radio station WLS when she was living in Chicago. Her appearance drew so much fan mail the station signed her to a year's contract for twice weekly performances. She had her own twice weekly 15 minute radio show on CBS in the 1930s. By 1934, she was on NBC with sports announcer Ted Husing doing the announcing and Oldsmobile sponsoring her program.

After an unissued test made by Victor on April 4, 1924, Etting was signed to Columbia Records in February 1926. She remained at Columbia through June 1931, when she split her recording between ARC (Banner, Perfect, Romeo, Oriole, etc.) and Columbia through March 1933. She signed with Brunswick and remained there until May 1934, when she re-signed with Columbia through July 1935. After a solitary Brunswick session in March 1936, she signed with the British label Rex and recorded two sessions in August and September, 1936. Etting returned to the US and signed with Decca in December 1936 and recorded until April 1937, when she basically retired from recording.

Etting saved some of her paycheck each week, regardless of the amount she was making at the time. Her friends said she invested in California real estate rather than the stock market. Etting, who made many of her own clothes, did her own housekeeping and lived frugally, initially announced her retirement in 1935. It is not clear why she did not go through with her announced plans, but she issued a second statement regarding retirement after filing for divorce from Snyder in November 1937.

Snyder's aggressive and controlling management style began to cause problems for Etting; during her work with Whoopee! on Broadway, Snyder was a constant presence. He was never without a gun and enjoyed poking people with it while saying "Put your hands up!" then laughing when their fright was evident. Snyder also persisted in cornering Ziegfeld because he believed Etting's role in the musical could be improved. Ziegfeld had a different opinion and indicated nothing would be changed. Snyder would then mumble that it was not a suggestion but a demand.

By 1934 she was having difficulty getting engagements. Snyder's arguing and fighting at venues where Etting was employed caused her to be passed by for jobs in the United States. In 1936, she thought taking work in England might be the answer, but Snyder created problems while she was working there also. Soon after the couple arrived in England, Snyder became involved in a street fight which created adverse publicity for Etting. She divorced Moe Snyder on the grounds of cruelty and abandonment on November 30, 1937. Snyder did not contest the divorce and received a settlement from his former wife. Etting gave her ex-husband half of her earnings at the time, $50,000, some securities and a half interest in a home in Beverly Hills, California. She deducted the gambling debts of Snyder she had paid and the costs she had paid for a home for Snyder's mother.

Etting fell in love with her pianist, Myrl Alderman, who was separated from his wife. In January 1938, she began receiving threatening telephone calls from Snyder, who initially claimed Etting withheld assets from him when the divorce settlement was made. Though the couple was divorced, Snyder was also upset because of reports that she was seeing another man. Snyder told Etting that he would come to California and kill her. When Snyder telephoned and found Etting unavailable, he told his daughter Edith that he "would fix her ticket, too". He called again that evening; this time Etting took the call with her cousin, Arthur Etting, listening on an extension. Etting requested police protection after the telephone call and arranged for private protection. Apparently believing the danger was over when Snyder did not appear soon after his telephone call, Etting released her bodyguards a few days later.

On October 15, 1938, Snyder detained Myrl Alderman at a local radio station and forced the pianist to take him to his former wife at gunpoint. In the house at the time were Etting and Edith Snyder. Edith, Snyder's daughter by a previous marriage, worked for Etting and remained living with her after the divorce. Snyder held Etting and Alderman at gunpoint; when told his daughter was in another part of the house, he made Etting call her into the room. Snyder said he intended to kill all three, and told them to be quiet. When Myrl Alderman attempted to speak, Snyder shot him. Snyder then told his ex-wife, "I've had my revenge, so you can call the police."

Snyder claimed Myrl Alderman pulled a gun and shot at him first and that his ex-wife would not file charges against him because she still loved him. He also claimed he was drunk when he made the telephone threats to Etting in January 1938, saying that at the time his intentions were to kill both his ex-wife and himself. Ruth Etting said that the only gun in the home belonged to her, and after the shooting of Alderman, she was able to go into her bedroom and get it. Upon seeing Etting's gun, Moe Snyder wrested it away from her; it landed on the floor. Snyder's daughter, Edith, picked it up and held it on her father, shooting at him but hitting the floor instead. During a police reenactment of the shooting three days later, Edith Snyder said that she fired at her father to save Ruth Etting, weeping as she continued, "I don't yet know whether I am sorry I missed my Dad or whether I am glad". Snyder was accused of attempting to murder his ex-wife, his daughter, and Etting's accompanist, Myrl Alderman, the kidnapping of Alderman, as well as California state gun law violations.

Three days after the shooting of Myrl Alderman, the pianist's second wife, Alma, sued Etting for alienation of her husband's affections. Though Etting and Alderman claimed to have been married in Tijuana, Mexico in July 1938, Alma Alderman said any marriage was invalid, because her divorce from Myrl Alderman would not be final until December 1938. Police investigators could find no record of the couple's Mexican marriage. Etting publicly invited Alma Alderman to visit her husband in the hospital, in an effort to see if the couple could reconcile.

Ruth Etting testified that she was not married to Alderman. During the course of the trial, there was also a question of the validity of Alderman's marriage to Alma. Alderman's first wife, Helen, obtained an interlocutory decree on January 7, 1935; the divorce became final one year later. On January 9, 1935, Alderman married Alma in Mexico. The second Mrs. Alderman called Moe Snyder to the stand as a witness regarding an attraction between her husband and Etting. Helen Alderman Warne also appeared in court, claiming that Alma Alderman had spirited Myrl away from her. Warne added that she had married and divorced the pianist twice. Alma Alderman's lawsuit ended in December 1939, with the court finding that she was not entitled to damages from Ruth Etting.

The testimony in both trials brought much personal information into the public eye. Snyder, who claimed to still be in love with his ex-wife, gave Etting a diamond and platinum bracelet which she accepted after Snyder's telephone threat in January 1938. Etting testified that she agreed with her ex-husband's statement to police that Snyder was either drunk or out of his mind when he threatened her by phone. Snyder's attorney initially tried to prevent Etting from testifying against Snyder with a charge that the divorce she obtained in Illinois was invalid because she was a resident of California at that time.

During the trial, Snyder's attorney portrayed Ruth Etting as a calculating woman who had married Moe Snyder strictly for the benefit of her career, and that she divorced him in favor of being with another, younger man (Alderman). Snyder's attorney echoed his client's claim of self-defense and said his client never intended to kill Etting, his daughter, and Myrl Alderman. The attorney further claimed that if Snyder intended to kill the pianist, he had ample time to do so while he held a gun on Alderman during the drive from the radio station to the home where the shooting took place.

Etting married Alderman, who was almost a decade her junior, on December 14, 1938 in Las Vegas, during Moe Snyder's trial for attempted murder. Snyder was convicted of attempted murder, but released on appeal after one year in jail. Snyder won a new trial but returned to jail in January 1940 in lieu of bail. In August 1940, Myrl Alderman asked the district attorney to drop further prosecution attempts against Snyder for the 1938 shooting.

Etting, who had retired from performing prior to the shooting and subsequent trials, briefly had a radio show on WHN in 1947. She also accepted an engagement at New York's Copacabana in March 1947. Etting traveled alone to New York and during a newspaper interview, was asked if she had ever seen Moe Snyder again. She replied, "No, I hope I never do." and said that her husband never went to bed without a gun.

The couple relocated to an eight-acre farm outside of Colorado Springs in 1938. Alderman, who was raised in Colorado Springs, operated a restaurant there for a time. Etting and Alderman remained married until his death in Denver on November 28, 1966; he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs. Etting died in Colorado Springs in 1978, aged 81. She was survived by a stepson, John Alderman, and four grandchildren. Alderman and Etting are now interred at the Shrine of Remembrance Mausoleum in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Her life was the basis for the fictionalized 1955 film, Love Me or Leave Me, which starred Doris Day (as Etting), James Cagney (as Snyder) and Cameron Mitchell (as Alderman). Etting, Myrl Alderman and Moe Snyder all sold their rights to the story to MGM; Snyder was living in Chicago in 1955. Etting expressed sadness that "the real highlight of my life", her marriage to Alderman, was omitted from the film. Shortly before her death, Etting said she thought the screen portrayal of her was too tough and that Jane Powell would have been a better choice for the lead.

Etting has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in films, located on the north side of the 6500 block of Hollywood Boulevard. Her recordings of Love Me Or Leave Me (2005) and Ten Cents a Dance (1999) are part of the Grammy Hall of Fame.

#ruth etting #classic hollywood #classic stars #golden age of hollywood #singer #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood

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zombiesheartwaffles · 4 years

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Your turn. What are your favorite musicals?

I was going to try to narrow this down but then I didn’t 😅

Favorite Stage Musicals

Next to Normal - a rock musical about the family of a woman with bipolar disorder that I saw a really incredible performance of at my college.

Come from Away - on 9/11, 38 of the planes in the American air space were rerouted to Newfoundland, Canada and the community had to come together to take care of the passengers. This is based on the true accounts of the community members and passengers interviewed by the writers. I was both laughing and crying the entire time.

Hamilton - I have listened to Hamilton probably a million times. My inner Liberty’s Kids fan was beside herself the first time I listened to it

Beauty and the Beast - We put this on in high school and it was such a blast. I love all the music and the characters and their big personalities.

Guys and Dolls - The city set, the accents, the gangsters and nuns. I’m here for all of it.

Anastasia - This is the most recent musical I’ve seen and it was gorgeous, (basically an adaptation of the kid’s movie with Communists instead of wizards)

The Addam’s Family - I am a huge Addam’s Family fan, and saw the Broadway version of this and it was so so much fun

Phantom of the Opera - of course

Once - About an Irish musician trying to catch his big break who falls in love with a Czech immigrant with a beautiful voice. This list is just getting long now, but the music in this one is just so pretty. I wanted a happy ending, but apparently that is not the point.

Into the Woods - This is just such a fascinating, dark take on fairy tales and the music is super catchy. I sing it regularly to irritate my sister.

Movie Musicals: (I haven’t seen the stage versions)

Mamma Mia 1 + 2, Les Mis (Do I just like anything that makes me cry, maybe?), The Greatest Showman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, White Christmas, there are more but I should stop

Musicals I most want to see: Hadestown, Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice

@snowflake-of-destruction

#musicals #asks #i love musicals

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Johnny Guitar Watson

John Watson Jr. (February 3, 1935 – May 17, 1996), known professionally as Johnny "Guitar" Watson, was an American blues, soul, and funk musician and singer-songwriter. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, Watson recorded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with some success. His creative reinvention in the 1970s with funk overtones, saw Watson have hits with "Ain't That a Bitch" and "Superman Lover". His successful recording career spanned forty years, with his highest chart appearance being the 1977 song "A Real Mother For Ya".

Early life

His grandfather, a preacher, was also musical. "My grandfather used to sing while he'd play guitar in church, man," Watson reflected many years later. When Johnny was 11, his grandfather offered to give him a guitar if, and only if, the boy didn't play any of the "devil's music". His parents separated in 1950, when he was 15. His mother moved to Los Angeles, and took Watson with her.

Early career

In his new city, Watson won several local talent shows. This led to his employment, while still a teenager, with jump blues-style bands such as Chuck Higgins's Mellotones and Amos Milburn. He worked as a vocalist, pianist, and guitarist. He quickly made a name for himself in the African-American juke joints of the West Coast, where he first recorded for Federal Records in 1952. He was billed as Young John Watson until 1954. That year, he saw the Joan Crawford film Johnny Guitar, and a new stage name was born.

Watson affected a swaggering, yet humorous personality, indulging a taste for flashy clothes and wild showmanship on stage. His "attacking" style of playing, without a plectrum, resulted in him often needing to change the strings on his guitar once or twice a show, because he "stressified on them" so much, as he put it.Watson's ferocious "Space Guitar" single of 1954 pioneered guitar feedback and reverb. Watson would later influence a subsequent generation of guitarists. His song "Gangster of Love" was first released on Keen Records in 1957. It did not appear in the charts at the time, but was later re-recorded and became a hit in 1978, becoming Watson's "most famous song".

He modified his music accordingly. His albums Ain't That a Bitch (included funk blues singles "Superman Lover") and Real Mother For Ya(1977) fused funk and blues. Watson had album Love Jones in 1980. Reviewing Watson's 1977 LP A Real Mother for Ya, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "Watson has been perfecting his own brand of easy-listening funk for years, and this time he's finally gone into the studio with his guitar Freddie and his drummer Emry and a bunch of electric keyboards and come up with a whole album of good stuff. The riff-based tracks go on too long but go down easy and the lyrics have an edge. Granted, Watson can't match George Benson's chops, but this is dance music, chops would just get in the way. And I prefer his Lou-Rawls-without-pipes to Benson's Stevie-Wonder-ditto."

Later career

The release of his album Bow Wow in 1994 brought Watson more visibility and chart success than he had ever known. The album received a Grammy Award nomination.

In a 1994 interview with David Ritz for liner notes to The Funk Anthology, Watson was asked if his 1980 song "Telephone Bill" anticipated rap music. "Anticipated?" Watson replied. "I damn well invented it!... And I wasn't the only one. Talking rhyming lyrics to a groove is something you'd hear in the clubs everywhere from Macon to Memphis. Man, talking has always been the name of the game. When I sing, I'm talking in melody. When I play, I'm talking with my guitar. I may be talking trash, baby, but I'm talking".

His music was sampled by Redman (who based his "Sooperman Luva" saga on Watson's "Superman Lover" song), Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Mary J. Blige. Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre borrowed P-Funk's adaptation of Watson's catchphrase "Bow wow wow yippi-yo yippi-yay" for Snoop's hit Who Am I? (What's My Name?). Johnny also played the guitar on the G-Funk remix of Dr. Dre's Grammy award winning single Let Me Ride in 1993.

"Johnny was always aware of what was going on around him", recalled Susan Maier Watson (later to become the musician's wife) in an interview printed in the liner notes to the album The Very Best of Johnny 'Guitar' Watson. "He was proud that he could change with the times and not get stuck in the past".

Death and material loss

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Johnny "Guitar" Watson among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Influence

Watson, a recognized master of the Fender Stratocaster guitar, has been compared to Jimi Hendrix and allegedly became irritated when asked about this comparison, supposedly stating: "I used to play the guitar standing on my hands. I had a 150-foot cord and I could get on top of the auditorium – those things Jimi Hendrix was doing, I started that shit."

Frank Zappa stated that "Watson's 1956 song 'Three Hours Past Midnight' inspired me to become a guitarist". Watson contributed to Zappa's albums One Size Fits All (1975), Them or Us (1984), Thing-Fish (1984) and Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention (1985). Zappa also named "Three Hours Past Midnight" his favorite record in a 1979 interview.

Steve Miller not only did a cover of "Gangster of Love" on his 1968 album Sailor (substituting "Is your name "Stevie 'Guitar' Miller?" for the same line with Watson's name), he made a reference to it in his 1969 song "Space Cowboy" ("And you know that I'm a gangster of love") as well as in his 1973 hit song "The Joker" ("Some call me the gangster of love"). Miller had also borrowed the sobriquet for his own "The Gangster Is Back", on his 1971 album Rock Love.

Jimmie Vaughan, brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, is quoted as saying: "When my brother Stevie and I were growing up in Dallas, we idolized very few guitarists. We were highly selective and highly critical. Johnny 'Guitar' Watson was at the top of the list, along with Freddie, Albert and B.B. King. Watson influenced Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Etta James, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Bobby Womack said: "Music-wise, he (Watson) was the most dangerous gunslinger out there, even when others made a lot of noise in the charts ～　I'm thinking of Sly Stone or George Clinton".

Etta James stated, in an interview at the 2006 Rochester International Jazz Festival: "Johnny 'Guitar' Watson... Just one of my favorite singers of all time. I first met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s, when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together so I would hear him sing every night. His singing style was the one I took on when I was 17 – people used to call me the female Johnny 'Guitar' Watson and him the male Etta James... He knew what the blues was all about...".

James is also quoted as saying: "I got everything from Johnny... He was my main model... My whole ballad style comes from my imitating Johnny's style... He was the baddest and the best... Johnny Guitar Watson was not just a guitarist: the man was a master musician. He could call out charts; he could write a beautiful melody or a nasty groove at the drop of a hat; he could lay on the harmonies and he could come up with a whole sound." Pearl Jam recorded a song entitled "Johnny Guitar", about Watson, for their 2009 album Backspacer.

Watson's 1976 song "Superman Lover" features on the soundtrack of the video game Grand Theft Auto V.

#02/03 #05/17

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