Ziggy Elman into his Van Nuys

Ziggy  Elman  into his Van Nuys, California teaching gig, on Victory Boulevard.…”The horn blows at midnight”  taps for the passing of “The little Princess” Shirley Temple (85), from the Santa Monica reality scene,(Palm Trees, slapping  Pacific Oceanwaves) dimpled dream de amour with America’s depression likeaudiences of  FDR’s New Deal.

Those  20th Century “30’s’, ””Tthe Little Princess” de amore with the ticket stub public, hungered  down for hope in 85 minutes of  vicarious optimism.

And  then the double feature…..second banana Carl Reiner “Sid Caesar was the greatest monologist television’s “ Your Show of Shows”(91) ,the audiences at home, have ever seen or heard. A persona out of his immigrant parents restaurant in Yonkers,Isaac Sid waiting& busing the plates from the Polish Russian,Ukrainian, Lithuanian clientele, schlepping their soups..

All in sight of the Statute of Liberty, arriving at Ellis Island..Picking up their accents, mimicking them , only a Jack Oakie“Mussolini” could do in double talk.

                                                                          II

“An obsequious wench,” said Piper Laurie. Her own stance of acting to the camera, the fatuous kiss up, constantly seeking approval and support.. But the talent coaches like Stella Adler (Brando’s mentor), Elia Kazan,(Group Theater) Paul Newman, Shelly Winters (the Stanislavsky method) went into their memory voodoo to find the persona’s roots…what makes the alter ego tick. The motivation for the persona’s modus operandi.(their  classroom  teacher’s annotations, sociograms)

A Lee Strasberg Holy Grail, in the actor’s quest to justify his or her existence in our galaxy..

Daryl Zanuck may not have been able to speak Yiddish but Jimmy Cagney learned ,  metamorphosing  on the Warner’s lot. Zanuck scripting those “Angels with dirty faces” flicks, plottinghis own career.

Thus hence therefore the Mexican War pro morphed into 20thCentury Fox, marrying Matty  Fox’s sister (Skiatron ) putting 20th Century studio on the dollar bill  turf.

When the toothy singing dancing “Little Princess” broke the ice, Zanuck was there to promote that dimply bit of sunshine intoGrauman’s  Chinese foot and hand prints in thes cementedlobby.

The Little Princess had arrived.

                                                                                     IV     !

Meanwhile at the Universal studio school of dramatic acting, the Sheik of Araby presiding, a video appears of “Your Show of Shows” monologist. 

The gaucho dictator of the Pampas… Isaac Sid Caesar, in the trappings of his uniformed honcho.

                                                                                     Generalismo Caser

“Fer vat is dis?. To expel y uniform to the Buenos Aires tailor for detecting pecker tracks. Central America   El Salvador ( like a captivating but obsequious waif , “Your Show of Shows”, mimicking a corn pipe smoking suave honcho.

Flailing his arms, dusting off his epaulettes: a mucho grandhoncho and they want to deport me to the gringo’s bottom line.Ellis Island!.”

The pulsating lush tempos of Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” circulatetheir sensuousness  thru the drama school’s space.

“Awesome!  Medals weigh down my conflicting tempos. CentralAmerica El Salvador….. Do the  thing I’m Jack Oakie’s “Benito Mussolini”. An enemy of the people.. ( Henrik Ibsen)

The humans projecting emotions are my Amigos: Caesar Romero Gilbert Roland Lupe Velez Katy Jurado Leo CarilloTony Quinn Margo Delores del Rio?  

The Cisco Kid Zorro emoting... Central America, El Salvadorhonchos..” 

Taking a yoyo out of his uniformed khaki pockets…. ”Around the world, Filipino... slumber in the swing. Dondo my sweater….( sobbing) I want my sweater….

“ Sil vous plais Amigos.”  Spinning the yoyo in an around theworld . Like a gyro into cyber space. A “Gravity”   shot into our galaxy.

(Imogine Coco, the  mesmerizing coloratura ballerina to Caesar’s  other self .. Carl Reiner, Howie  Morris, Mel Brooks,Neil Simon, Woody Allen (*Midwood High School, the Kent movie theater on Coney Island Ave and ‘H’)  

Larry Gelbert (“not to trivialize human suffering”) the barber’s son (“Mash”), out of Gower Gulch’s 12 chairs…  the honcho, his pops..

“Tip?, merci beaucoup, “Mr. Ed”, (Alan Young, the 1944Argus,* Midwood High,) sweeping the straight man’s cuts,morphing as a treading smock

Onto Gower Gulch and Columbia Pictures Studio,   the smockof hair, streaming thru the semitropical air. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....

Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2014, the City that never sleeps

In the” mouth” of the Universal Studio acting confessional

In the” mouth” of the Universal Studio acting confessional, Archie Leach(Cary Grant) Tony Curtis (Bernie Schwartz) Piper Laurie, her dream of being a journalist still viable, Gia Scala, a blue eyed starlet from Italy, living with her chaperone  motheron Bluffside Drive (the studio’s back lot in North Hollywood),Dorothy Dandridge,( on loan from M GM) and theSheik of Araby,  Bernie Madoff, shedding his moneyedmarketplace skin, for a place in the sun.

                                                                     II

The lights go dim for a minute, 60 ticks in the life of 46 year old Philip Seymour Hoffman, a larger than life actor, who in losing himself to find himself, passed  way three days ago in the Big Apple’s West Village ……as though the Universal  Studioschool of dramatic acting was tuned in…

The melodies from a once Hebrew Cantor’s son,  whoconverted, was like a   recapture of “The tales of Hoffman”, hismost famous the’ Barcarole’, a touching score, full of melody and genius” wrote Olin Downs, the NY Times critic.

“It is a Venetian boat song, sung by the gondoliers in thosesurreal canals. Beneath its surface, the Barcarolle playing out….a “symbol of man’s dreams fears frustrations and tragedies”: apilgrimage in the search for love.”

                                                                                                 III

The actors into their séance, sitting in their yogi positions. Theircomputer model tone, taking its toll.

John Barrymore, alcohol (“The Great Profile”), Spencer Tracy (liquor).The angst includes the Aussie  Heath  Ledge… …morphing, shedding their skins.

“How can you beat it,” said Tony Curtis, his own soul generating that kind of fever that only a grown up fan of 90’ish old Mickey Rooney could relish.

“Aren’t we all motivated, grasping for the heroic? A “Duke” Wayne John Ford heroism,” chimed in Piper Laurie, her own“Let’s Pretend” struggle, identifying with the likes of Claire Trevor, hard boiled Ida Lupino, who lived down the Vinelandpike into Burbank.

.                                                                           IV

Meanwhile the harmonies and melodies of Jacques Offenbachcontinued,    the Italian gondoliers, driving the Barcarole…..

Whence the Academy at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland,announced that Oscar winning night for the late Philip (“Phil”) Seymour Hoffman . He becoming “Capote”.

The former New Yorker magazine office boy, who sought notoriety, becoming a novelist , settling in   penthouse digs: thepipeline into the rich and famous… dueling tongues with Norman Mailer on television’s talk shows.(Jack Parr).

                                                                         V 

“Look ma, I’m at the party,” said “Phil”, holding up the Oscar for his morphing as “Capote”

To the pulsating rhythms from the surreal gondoliers at the Universal Studio school for actors and role players , searching for a mantra that justifies their existence. The growing up puttyto Reality: those role playing pretensions .. “Let’s Pretend”.

Cary Grant, Gia Scala, Dorothy Dandridge, into their LSDcocaine mescaline peyote high…he losing his Cockney( Hove waterfront ) twang, avoiding  the Hoffman heroin overdose, the actor’s high, the needle into his arm’s vein.

Gia Scala sobbing as she stood up. “Archie, cease and desist.”.

“We can’t strive for status  in our drug culture.. I tried rehab. But in the parking lot, the attend ant talked me into a high on “coke”

“I couldn’t resist. The high arrests, handcuffs your free will.”

“To lose yourself, to find yourself. Yes mum, I hear,” said Archie Leach becoming himself after all those 100 or moreroles.”I’m ready for my close up, Mister De Mille,” mimicking Gloria Swanson.

The Barcarole waves savoring the confessional, on this day across the Continent, the private funeral for Philip SeymourHoffman, a star storied life, failing to dominate his demons.

“For you, Ma. We’re at the party”, said Phil, holding up the Oscar for viewers around our planet.

“For you, Ma”

The funeral , Loyola Church. The City that never sleeps. February 7, 2014.

Grauman’s Chinese theater (Sid Grauman) on Hollywood Boulevard

Grauman’s  Chinese theater (Sid Grauman) on Hollywood Boulevard, welcoming The Sheik of Araby (Bernie Madoff) into Universal Studios Acting School , the Shiek playing out his role as a stand in for Joyce Selznick, who took a matrimonial flyer to the Vegas strip for an  exchange of vows into the unknown, guided by the North star of North Hollywood, off BluffsideDrive…..into  Vineland’s” forren and essen” to Ventura Boulevard’s Studio City and Nate’s delicatessen  in Van Nuysand the immortal UCLA basketball coach.. John Wooden’scondo in Encino.                                                                                          

                                                                                            II                                                                                

Unlike Orestes sailing the Aegean Sea into Crete , the Islandbrutalized  by the minotaur in and out of the  cave. Could Orestes subdue that murderous rage? The fire crackling out of the bullish man’s nostrils as though Orestes destiny… his doom and death were intertwined and inevitable?.

 Cracking human skulls was but a cannibalistic rite, a tribute to the bull man’s tormented craving in his murderous animalistic neurons.  Orestes hadn’t read Freud’s Civilization and the Discontents. But he heard the torturous screams,  his  odyssey of a smart phone I phone tablet reality aeons  away.…..

In and out of cyber space, Orestes captured the human criesfrom of a chain of causation , on an Atlanta Georgia midboggling turnpike bumper to bumper pileup.

” Moses part the waters. Save us “shouted one of the traffic officers, coordinating the 400 interstate  car snarl, the snow icysleet wind drifts, propelling the temperature into 15 20 below, the Super Bowl hoopla  48 hours into Met Life Stadium.

                                                     III

Meanwhile the minotaur defies his bully cruelty from his Cretecave, the waves flapping against his killer instinct, while thosethunderous snores permeated the menacing air, waiting for another distraught victim, disturbing his  ruthless wrath..    

                                                                                                    IV

Back at Universal Studio’s acting school, the Sheik of Araby akaBernie Madoff’: the man  in the iron mask….warming up his 5 actors with suishi…Asian  fusion out of the Grauman’s Chinese Theater lobby….foot and handprints of box office draws, embalmed in the concrete of movie peer plaudits.... box officeticket stubs per se!

The gang of six, setzing on their named cushions…Cary  Grant  Tony Curtis    Gia Scala  Dorothy Dandridge  Piper Laurie and their venerated   Ponzi conniver of all time… the Sheik of Araby  into his element, holding up his ad lib “It’s never too late to take a chance on love”.

Archie Leach raises his hand and in his Cockney Hove Englishaccent, tells it like it is. .”If I had a chance to play my Cockney life over, I’d want to be remembered as “Gunga Din . And ofcourse my daughter. The Ucla LSD experiments that brought me back to the bloke you see . Departing  the Hove waterfront forBrooklyn’s Coney Island, acting out the salesman on stilts, shilling Hebrew National frankfurters, knishes.” A keg of beer, mates?”

“My pops committed by his sisters… my aunts, when there was nothing wrong with him. “All he needed was emotional support,” said the witch doctor. 50 years committed to a insaneasylum stretch….his sisters visiting once a month, theircollective penis envy in ”Arsenic and old lace”, playing out.”

“Once I got my top billing in New York…Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” my Archie Leach metamorphosing as Cary Grant in “Gunga Din The Awful Truth. Mister Lucky Frank Capra’s“Arsenic and old lace” ..typed as a suave debonair David Niven, on my wedding day, no less..And he a Pisces, March first.  Can you believe it, mates?”      

                                                                                         V

Tony Curtis (Bernie Schwartz) hunkered down on his mat like a Swami, taking a fresh look at himself and  fantasy makingsyndrome. “Interpreting our planet’s moral providence,depending on how one looks at our galaxy. Ne se pas?”

“A kid coming out of the South Bronx, I‘ll be honest with you, I couldn’t get a break. Not a “sympatico”. Depressed like a frozen tootsie roll in an anti freeze zone, the sidewalk matinee profiles on Hollywood Boulevard, suspending time..

“And one of those heroes was my own. Burt Lancaster from the Bronx.”..Burt made all of us better,” said Tony Curtis, handing the Sheik of Araby, the Lancaster dossier of star power,( to be posted.).. He caste me with an ‘e’,” he said, emotionally,. “He brokered the caste, by casting me as Tony Curtis in “The sweet smell of success” and “Trapeze”.

“I met my future wife. An actor named Janet Leigh. Not that we lived happily ever after like we were embedded with sensors. But together we fought it out wherever. Bel Air estates near Burt. North Hamilton Drive near “Swifty” Lazar, playingcroquet on Bogy’s lawn..

“Look at this way.  As a Bronx “cheese cake”, Burt made anmenchr out of a delivery boy from a South Bronx kosher butcher store. He was like a surrogate father to me.”, said the Schwartzbefore becoming a Curtis.. (the Name Detective Curtis A. out of36 years of solitary confinement in the Surrogates Court, Montague and Court Streets in downtown Brooklyn)

January 31, 2014…. time suspended before the Super Bowl… Denver and Seattle fates playing out at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey.

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