Excerpts from An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman

This year I celebrate Jill Clayburgh's birthday a little more lightheartedly than last year with some sketches that commemorate what was arguably her best screen role as Erica Benton in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman. Collectively, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek,  I call them An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman.

I just remembered something sort of funny that happened the first two times I watched this movie. I was around sixteen when An Unmarried Woman came on network television. I was really enjoying the film, but I was tired and I fell asleep before the last scene. I was disappointed to have missed the end, but of course there were no VCRs or DVRs and so I had no choice but to wait until it came on TV again.

Several months later, in the middle of the summer, it was the Sunday night movie on ABC. I was sitting on my orange bean bag chair watching it with my mom in our living room. It was getting close to the end of the movie, and my mom kept pestering me to go get the laundry out of  the basement. I waited for the last commercial break before the final scene, and then I sprang up out of my vinyl covered tangerine atrocity and ran down the basement stairs as fast as I could. I scooped the load of laundry out of the dryer and into a basket, then bolted back up the stairs into the living room, dropping the basket on the floor. I made it back in plenty of time to finally see the end of the movie.

And I would have too,  I really would have, if only I hadn't passed out, knocking over my mother's Fresca and hitting my head on the floor. I thought I was bleeding from the back of my head, but of course my gushing wound turned out to be Fresca. Even so, my mom was so freaked out she made my dad get out of bed and take me to the emergency room.

We were in the emergency room until nearly 3AM just so they could tell me there was nothing wrong with me (well, that's subjective) and that I simply had had a vasovagal reaction from jumping up too fast. But what really mattered is that I missed the end of the movie again.

Since that night I've seen An Unmarried Woman many times, including the last scene (finally!) in which Jill Clayburgh lugs an enormous painting (a parting gift from her lover Alan Bates) through the streets of lower Manhattan. It's a funny, poignant story specifically about a woman who has to find her confidence and independence after the marriage she thought would last a lifetime crumbles at her feet, but really it speaks to anyone who is tentatively trying to rejoin the world after great heartache.

It's how viscerally Jill makes me feel that heartache, and ultimately the sense of hope she basks in that keeps me coming back to this American classic again and again.

#jillclayburgh

Tiskets & Taskets

I've been listening to Ella Fitzgerald music all day long. Not that I need an excuse to do that, but today is April 25, which is her birthday.

I've mentioned before that I was lucky enough to attend her last performance in New York City in 1992. Now, twenty-two years later, and nearly two decades after her death, having seen her just once makes me feel connected to an era that was gone long before I was even born.

I would love to have been a regular at Birdland, seen Billie at Storyville,  swung with Ella and Dinah at Newport. On the other hand, I enjoy being able to survey their careers in retrospect and get to hear all kinds of treasures unearthed from the vaults of their record labels. It appeals to the pack rat/archivist in me. Why, just a few years ago Verve released four hours of previously unissued Ella club dates from '61 and '62. If I'd been born one of her contemporaries, I would never have had the chance to hear them.

One of the smartest people I know, with pretty exquisite taste, dismisses Ella because she "ran around singing about her little yellow basket" while Billie was running a cold chill down the spine with songs like Strange Fruit and Black and Blue. Fair enough, but on the other hand Billie didn't lead her own orchestra at the age of twenty-two like Ella did, she didn't have perfect pitch, she didn't scat, and she didn't swing nearly as brightly as Ella, in my opinion. Perhaps the most important distinction (and this is not a recrimination of Billie) is that Ella managed to stay alive and performing well into her seventies. In the world of mid century jazz, awash in drug abuse, racism, and sketchy contracts, that's no small accomplishment.

High Holy Days

On every calendar in the world there are a handful of days that are special, unique, holy. And among those holy days there's always one...one day that is so extraordinary, so festive, stupendously soul rejuvenating that it turns all of the other days into jealous little bitches.

On my calendar, that day has arrived. For today we commemorate that seismic shift in the cosmos that occurred on April 24, 1942. The day the world begat one Barbara (with three a's) Joan Streisand, just a few short miles from where I sit as I write this.

I have celebrated the day since I was about 14. Long before everybody could find out whatever they wanted to know from the internet, I used to tare through the almanac in my high school library and memorize the birthdays of people I admired. I can still see the tiny little print as I poured through dozens of entries looking for the ones I wanted: Ann Bancroft, September 17; Jill Clayburh, April 30; Eileen Brennan, September 3, and of course Barbra (now with only two a's) Streisand, April 24.

I suppose it was an odd pastime, but it's not like Topps made a series called Character Actress Trading Cards. Oh sweet Jesus, can you imagine!  

"I'll trade you a Sandy Dennis for that Thelma Ritter."

"No way! Can't you see this is a Thelma Ritter ROOKIE CARD! It's worth at least two Sandy Dennises and a Butterfly McQueen. At least."

But I digress...

I was very disappointed in the drawing I did to mark the occasion last year (it was a cute idea--Barbra wearing a Barbra t-shirt, but honestly I didn't put enough effort into it) so I wanted to try to do something special this year. I thought I'd try to capture Barbra in Yentl, which I'd never done before. But that didn't seem quite enough, so I tried to imagine her as Modigliani might have seen her. With his propensity for exaggerated features and elongated necks, Modigliani would have found a natural model in Streisand.

I'm not the first person to think of Barbra as a Modigliani. In the liner notes of her very first album in 1962, composer Harold Arlen (Over The Rainbow, Stormy Weather, Come Rain or Come Shine, and dozens of other classics) asked:

"...Have you ever heard our top vocalists 'belt,' 'whisper' or sing with that steady and urgent beat behind them?...Have you ever seen a painting by Modigliani?...If you have, do not think the above has been ballooned out of proportion. I advise you to watch Barbra Streisand's career. This young lady (a mere twenty) has a stunning future."

"Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale"

I discovered early this morning that it's not only Judy Davis's birthday, but also the anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth. So I did what any sane person would do and went to work on another piece. I should note that it's also Blair Brown's birthday, and I did once have an amazing dream about her while I was in Costa Rica, but that will have to wait for another day.

The quote from Judy Davis reads,

"When I first started acting, and we would all sit down and talk about Shakespeare and how great it was, I thought, 'Well, I suppose it is. It is if you get to play Macbeth or Hamlet. But who wants to play bloody Lady Macbeth or Ophelia?' And it struck me that most women seem to be required to pit themselves against men in dramatic situations, and the men got to pit themselves against ideas or God."

Judy Davis: A Prickly Banksia

It is once again Australian actress Judy Davis's birthday. As I said last year, "her alabaster skin and that pink/orange hue around her eyes that seems to suggest a terminal case of conjunctivitis may not be every man's idea of beauty, but I find her stunning."

Last year I also mentioned that I think most movies would be better if Judy Davis were in them. I stand by that remark, and never did I feel it more than when I recently watched August: Osage County. I am not bashing Meryl Streep, I think she's great, and somehow she's managed to remain a box office draw well into her sixties, which is no small trick for an actress. But rarely does she capture my imagination the way Judy Davis does.

And so on her birthday, as I salute this porcelain skinned Prickly Banksia* with a mixed media portrait, I hope her coming year is filled with great roles, and maybe some day soon an American stage appearance.

Last year I used part of this same image, but it was severely cropped and drained of color. This year I present her in all her alabaster glory.

*Prickly Banksia is an Australian shrub with serrated leaves. I think that describes Judy Davis pretty well. I love her but I would not want to be on the business end of her serrated leaves. 

Remembering Doris Pilkington

I was saddened to read in the Irish sports pages this morning of the passing of Doris Pilkington from ovarian cancer. Literally passing myself off as a journalist, I had a chance to interview her in 2002 at a press junket for the film version of her book about the horrors of the Australian government's policy of removing Aboriginal children from their homes to train them to become part of the country's workforce.

I was inspired when my friend Virginia, who used to review movies for the Washington City Paper, brought me to a press screening of the film. We were so moved, we literally sat in our seats for a good ten minutes after the lights went up. You might say we were moved to stillness.

There were publicists for the film miling about trying to drum up interest. I handed them my business card from Gloria Steinem's office, deceitfully indicating that I contributed to Ms. Magazine. I didn't actually say that, but I let them believe it. "I work for Gloria Steinem down at Ms. Magazine." This was technically true, as I did work for Gloria Steinem, and her office was down at Ms. Magazine.

As it turns out, no one at the magazine was interested in the interview, so it was published on line at Filmbitch.com. But no matter. I spent an insightful 45 minutes with Doris Pilkington, who couldn't have been more charming. Below is the original interview from Filmbitch.

A Talk With Doris Pilkington

The Author of Rabbit-Proof Fence Talks About Her Family's Struggle

Imagine you're eighty-five years old, living in a small Australian town, and you're about to see a movie on the giant screen for the very first time. Now imagine that the film you're about to see is based on your own life story.

That's what happened earlier this year to Molly Craig, and to Molly's seventy-eight year old sister Daisy at the Australian premiere of director Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence.

Based on a bestselling book by Molly's daughter Doris Pilkington, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of Molly, Daisy, and their young cousin Gracie, who, like thousands of children before and after them, were taken forcibly from their homes by the Australian government and relocated to settlements to be trained as domestics and sent out into the Australian workforce.

The children were handpicked because of their racial heritage; they were half Aboriginal, half white, or as they're known in Australia, half-castes. With the aid of Christian missionaries, the Australian government continued this practice from 1907 until 1971.

Molly, Daisy, and Gracie were taken from the village of Jigalong in 1931 and transported to the Moore River settlement, some 1,500 miles away. Away from everyone and everything they'd ever known, the three girls were extremely unhappy in their new surroundings. Led by a defiant fourteen- year old Molly, they ran away from the settlement after only a few days.

Actually, they walked away. Following the rabbit-proof fence which dissected the country from North to South, they walked for more than nine weeks through an ever-changing landscape of desert, farmlands, and forests. Fighting hunger, rain, heat and cold, Molly and Daisy managed to stay ahead of the Australian government, which was anxiously pursuing them, for the entire journey.

Twelve-year old Gracie was recaptured and returned to Moore River just a few days sort of her destination. She died in 1983 without ever returning to Jigalong.

Talking with Pilkington, a light skinned grandmother who wore a blue house dress, matching sweater, and rain boots when I met with her recently, you can hear the hurt of an entire family in her soft but deliberate voice.

Herself a survivor of the "Stolen Generation," Pilkington says the goal of the government's program was to "breed out the Aboriginality," and the first thing to go was their traditional language.

"Every time you said a word in your [native] language, somebody would come behind you and smack you so hard that it really forced you to speak English," says Pilkington.

The film, already out on video in Australia, has had a palpable impact down under. "It's been happening all over Australia, " says Pilkington. "The journey of healing has begun for most members of the Stolen Generation. The memories, the pain, the feelings that were suppressed for decades have just come to the surface now."

"Two women came up to me at the Perth premiere and said, ‘now that we've seen that movie, we're going to find our other two sisters.'"

Pilkington was lucky to find her own mother after several decades, but knows first hand that many of the Stolen Generation may choose not to locate their lost relatives after years of being brainwashed by the Christian missionaries to hate and fear all things Aboriginal.

"We were taught that Aboriginal culture was evil, and the people who practiced it were devil worshipers and evil pagans," she says.

It was a shock for Pilkington to learn at age twenty-four that her own father was not white, as the missionaries had led her to believe, but was in fact Aboriginal. She was bitter for many years, feeling that the Christians had not only robbed her of a childhood spent with her family, but also of the ten years it took to purge herself of their teachings, time she could have spent getting to know her father instead of fearing his Aboriginal roots.

Painfully, her own sister Anabelle, whom Pilkington located after years of searching, has rejected her Aboriginal heritage and refused contact with the family, including their mother Molly who hasn't laid eyes on her since 1944, when Anabelle was just four and a half years old. Still, Pilkington has been in touch with Anabelle's children since the film opened and remains hopeful that a reunion with her sister may come about.

As proud as she is of the emotional impact the film has had on her country, Pilkington also hopes the Australian government will pay attention and make some sort of restitution to the Stolen Generation, and not necessarily a cash settlement. In Pilkington's case, the mission where she grew up still exists.

"Yes, a little bit would help, but we want compensation not in monetary terms, but we'd like to have the use of the dining room and a couple of cottages, and the mission itself, or some share in the profits now. We were child laborers there. Four year olds, five year olds. It didn't matter how heavy the task was, we did it."

For now, Pilkington is enjoying the buzz and good reviews Rabbit-Proof Fence has been gathering as it approaches its November 29th release in the United States.

As for that screening last winter in Jigalong, Doris Pilkington isn't sure Molly and Daisy fully comprehended the idea of actresses portraying them as youngsters, but they did appreciate the gifts director Phillip Noyce brought for them.

"Phillip brought Mom and Aunt Daisy frocks to wear to the film–their first time ever in long frocks," says Pilkington.

"He also gave them a bottle of Calvin Klein perfume called Escape."

Queen for a Day

Super quick birthday doodle of Queen Elizabeth II. Being of Irish descent I'm conflicted about drawing her, but I ask you, who can resist those hats??

On Wednesdays We Wear Black

NOTE: Below is a re-post of last year's birthday salute to Jessica Lange, accompanied by new artwork courtesy of my special guest artist Jackie Joyce, aka Jacqueline Patricia.

I love Jessica Lange but she scares the shit out of me. And it's not just because she recently played the sensual and sadistic Sister Jude on American Horror Story. No, she terrifies me for reasons far beyond the small screen.

Back in 1992 when I was living in Hell's Kitchen, I had two encounters with her. Well, not really encounters, more like we briefly orbited the same atmosphere.

 The first time I was walking along 47th street near 8th Avenue and I spied her on the sidewalk  with Amy Madigan, who at the time was her co-star in A Streetcar Named Desire. They seemed deeply engaged in conversation. Jessica was wearing dark sunglasses, and even though I could not see her eyes, even though  her head barely turned in my direction as we passed, I felt a shiver up and down my spine.   It was like crossing a black cat. She just sort of exuded a vibe that said, "don't fuck with me."

I did not fuck with her.

A few weeks later I went to see the play and sat in the second row. She got crappy reviews for this show, her Broadway debut. Mostly the critics felt her performance was too small to carry to the balcony of a nearly 1,100 seat theatre.

I can't argue with what people saw from the balcony, or even the fifth row, but what I saw from the second row was devastating. It was like a tiny, delicate, raunchy carving; a portrait in miniature of a lost soul.

I couldn't get it out of my mind, the horror of Blanche's betrayal by Stella, her final delusion  and her ultimate disappointment. About a week later I started having anxiety attacks for the first time in my life. The kind where your heart beats out of your chest, you feel like you're on fire, and you can't catch your breath.

God damn you, Jessical Lange! You made it impossible for me to keep my own disappointments and betrayals buried. You forced me to tare away the gauze of my own happy delusions and confront very ugly truths. Jessica Lange, you made me go to  therapy, and I fucking hate you for it.

That last part's not really true--I still love her. But she scares the shit out of me.

*************
Note: Today is Jessica Lange's birthday. It's the start of a 10 period of birthdays for some of my favorite people, including Barbra Streisand, Judy Davis, Blair Brown, Carol Burnett, Sandy Dennis, Ella Fitzgerald, Jill Clayburgh, and my identical twin aunts on my mother's side.

Lady In Blue

Lady In Blue
Billie Holiday

Last Monday, April 7th, marked the 99th birthday of Eleanora Fagan. Never heard of her you say? Well, you might know her better as Lady Day, or even Billie Holiday.

I bought my first Billie Holiday record when I was 21 years old. I hated it. I thought she had none of the clarity or dexterity of my favorite jazz and blues singers Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald. But people whose opinions I respected thought the world of her, and of course she'd been greatly celebrated by critics for many decades. Still, I felt like the child who yells out in The Emperor's New Clothes, as I just could not see her greatness.

Ah, but this is how Billie Holiday taught me persistence, or at least to keep an open mind. For nearly a decade, I would buy another of her albums (cds eventually) every year or so to see if my feelings had changed. I tried early Billie, later Billie, mid-period Billie, big band Billie, small combo Billie, in concert Billie, and in studio Billie. And year after year, album after album, I was left baffled, still not understanding why she was so revered.

Then one year I bought a compilation CD called First Issue: The Great American Songbook, which was released in conjunction with a US postage stamp honoring Billie. It had great tunes like Blue Moon, Stormy Weather, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and about 30 more. Suddenly I heard the click, to borrow a phrase from second wave feminists. Something went off in my head and I just got it. I just finally got Billie Holiday and, not forgetting their differences, was able to enjoy her just as much as I enjoyed Dinah & Ella.

I'm not sure what it was about this album that opened Billie up for me. Maybe because the songs were all so familiar already, or because the arrangements were relatively light and pop flavored. Whatever it was, First Issue became a key that let me in and allowed me to go back and enjoy all the other recordings I had shunned.

Maybe you shouldn't have to work that hard to enjoy an artist's work. On the other hand, art can challenge us as well as entertain us if we're willing to put in a little effort. Ten years of listening to albums I genuinely disliked was a bit of an effort, but it's one I'm glad I made.

#billieholiday

'Cause Sometimes I Just Feel Like Doodling

Easter Sunday April 9 1939

Marian Anderson, April 9 1939

Philadelphia born African American contralto Marian Anderson gave a celebrated open air recital on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939.

The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused to allow Anderson a chance to sing at Constitution Hall because of her race. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in by very publicly resigning her membership from the DAR with a letter that read in part "I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist...You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed."

Behind the scenes Roosevelt worked with Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to secure the Lincoln Memorial as an alternate venue for Anderson. The late afternoon concert was a tremendous success, attended by over 75,000 people and heard by millions more as the bevy of microphones laid before Anderson broadcast her voice live throughout the nation.

The newsreels of the day show Anderson treating the crowd to Schubert's Ave Maria, and a particularly stirring version of America (My Country Tis of Thee) among other selections.

Despite the success of the concert and her heightened profile, it would be another four years before Anderson was finally invited to sing at Constitution Hall, and not until 1955 that she became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera.

I added the graphics from the concert's original program; It's a little hard to read, but that's Lincoln's fourscore and seven years quote on the left.

Oh Happy Day

 

My very good friends Danny and Greg got married today, exactly ten years after their first date, and I was honored to be their witness. In my one and only act of matchmaking, I nudged them together after befriending them both separately while we were all taking a class together. I guess there's a little Dolly Levi in all of us.

I have tremendous affection for these guys, and I was absolutely kveling with joy/pride/love during the brief ceremony at City Hall, which was followed by a celebratory dim-sum lunch in Chinatown (I kept hearing Melanie Griffith and Sigouney Weaver chatting about these Chinese dumplings in my head all day, but that's another story.)

Anyway, congratulations Danny and Greg, and thank you for allowing me to be part of your very special day.

A Birthday Remembrance

Laurie Hope Beechman in her Tony nominated role as the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat  

I can't believe it's been a year since I wrote here about my friend Laurie and posted my portrait of her as Grizabella in Cats. Even harder to believe she's been gone for 16 years now. Luckily, her music and her memory live on.

This year I decided to depict her in the role that really brought her to prominence in the thratre world, the narrator in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I think this captures the spirit of her work in that show, although I've somehow managed to make her look a little bit like a Muppet.

As Grizabella in Cats; the piece I made last year along with the original sketch