“Dumbkomf”,”stupido”bellowed Dave Chasen, that famous
Hollywood insider turned restauranteur, not unlike Toots Show, who graced the
hard liquor with Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio,(“the Yankee Clipper”) Jimmy
Cannon the sports columnist, but 3000 miles away on Beverly Boulevard Chasen’s
opened,”Dave’s cheese cake ,”once a delicacy became the toast of the
town almost in the same status symbol as Nathan’s hot dog, spilling over with
sauerkraut
II
On what better note, to defer to
one of his famous patrons, a n actor from Pasadena, several miles toward the
Glendale, LaCrescenda, San Gabriel Mountains...out toward Flintrridge,
Altadena, the Santa Anita race track.... Arcadia, Sierra Madre.
Here Bill Holden grew up and he
wooed a budding actress Brenda Marshall
.
Before our blog goes astray with the Holden “I wanted
wings” with Veronica Lake of the long blonde peekaboo covering her left
eye, its interior moral stance, the
heart&soul of our genre, swishing her tresses to the Big Apple’s right eye.
.
III
The Belasco theater opens on Broadway...1937, a Group theater drama “The Golden Boy”, authored by a
playwright named Clifford Odets of the Group theater, directed by Harold
Clurman.
Who but Luther Adler has the
starring role. Nepotism being the name of the game. Stella Adler, his older
sister, and subsequently Marlon Brando’s coach.
Joe Bonaparte leaps off the
page, coming to life almost in the same breathe as Julie Garfinkle aka John
Garfield exhorteed in “Awake and sing” Odets play coming to grips at the
Las Palms theater in post World War2
Hollywood.
The karma is not the 75 years of suspended time but restoring to the
digital cosmos and the Hurricane Sandys blitzkrieg, Odets dramatization of post
Obama life, can be fathomed by 21st
century souls, relevant to their
moral life, mirrored by the Group’s
ensemble.
IV
The publicity for the 21st century Joe Bonaparte
has Joe Louis standing over Max Schmeling in their return bout, J.L going to
his corner, for M.S. walloping him in their first canvas setting.
What does that tell us about Joe Bonaparte identifying with
the Detroit black bomber. A Max Jacobs discovery, he brought his chops to the
Heavyweight Championship of the World..1937
Could Luther Adler, Sylvia Sidney’s spouse her brother,
Harold Clurman, the director, the forgave his toning sounding violin for the
clamor of the prize fighting ring and its ballyhooed. sadism, betting odds from
the Las Vegas sharks...
Falling in love with Frances Farmer in the role of an
afficionado, Odets shaking the dice for Luther Adler’s embracing the new reality. Odets wooing Frances Famer, Bonaparte
rethinking
the bow and strings for the blustering ....
Requiem for a
heavyweight.
V
For Bill Holden identifying with Joe Bonaparte, the “Golden boy’” , seems an anachronism,
a From Pasadena to the studio stages,
playing out Luther Adler’s Joe Bonaparte, Barbara Stanwyck, the Frances Farmer
role.
Ringside, Dan Dunphy, Bill Corum.
Falling in love with Frances Farmer gives an ambiance to his reality. To transcend
his yearning to be somebody, with its instant gratification. (on the boxing
circuit)
Frances Farmer
walking off with his soul in a sling, her heart broken.
An allegory, indeed pops..
Whether or not William Holden made the role for himself, he
was forever cast in the myth of Joe Bonaparte, selling out the real Joe, his
father’s son..
Watching the air traffic thru the Palm Springs airport
fences. Passing time at Chasens, getting gassed up at Shangri-la in Santa
Monica, he seemed to be “Born Yesterday”. A prisoner of “Stalag 17" and
director Billy Wilder, he patronized his Kenya trips like it was an extension
of his Pasadena-Hollywood sound stages..
A captive of his youthful Joe Bonaparte soul, abandoning his
bow and violin for the animalistic
hungers and dreams n all of us,
we dare say....the two lovers redefining themselves into life.
75 years after the
1937 Group Theater’s Belasco opening
*******
“Have a good day, “Golden Boy”
The City that never sleeps, November 7, 2012
