Last Tango in Los Angeles: Television.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Television.: "We probably watch too much television in this house. To be fair, I do spend a good deal of time reading, but usually that comes toward the ..."

Television.

We probably watch too much television in this house. To be fair, I do spend a good deal of time reading, but usually that comes toward the end of the evening. I also spend a hefty amount of time writing, but that's tough to do sometimes because there are often distractions around here keeping me from it. But true to our latter day, twentieth century roots, Angie and I tend to equate television after dinner, sitting together on the couch with the dogs around us, our 'family time.'

We always watch the news, of course. I've discovered since being here, however, that local news in the LA area is laughable. For whatever reason, Angie alwyas turns it to channel 4, which is NBC, for the local news. I don't know why this is because there is an anchor guy on that NBC affiliate named Chuck Henry who may be the single most incompetent news announcer I've ever seen or heard. He announces everything as though he's just spotted a new float in a parade coming around the corner, be it the Japan disaster or the most recent murder in East LA. There's always a subdued smile playing around his delighted lips as he reports in his carnival barker voice the latest horror of humanity. But most annoying and unnerving is his 'between stories banter.' It takes innanity to a whole different level. His comments are not only sort of stop-in-your-tracks stupid, they're unbelievably insensitive. And of course the fact that he clearly thinks he's the height of wit makes it even more unbearable. And yet, we watch him. Sometimes, when Angie isn't around, I flip it over to The Fox network for the local news. Unlike the national Fox folk who are unabashedly conservative and anti-Obama, that doesn't seem to be the case with the local guys. Plus, apparently Fox can't afford nice chairs because they make them stand up, awkardly so, to do the news.

In any event, once the news, both local and national, is over, the real battle for the TV begins. Angie prefers 'Dancing with the Stars' and 'American Idol.' I don't hold this against her because having seen both a few times, I admit it IS easy to get involved with that nonsense. The other night I found myself in an embarrassing conversation about whether the dance we'd just seen was indeed a 'quick step.' I had to disengage in the middle of it because I suddenly heard myself saying something like, "I really think it was too modern for a quick step. It bordered on jive. And although they did it well, I felt they didn't have the clean arm movements and step precision they had last week. And Ralph Macchio's line wasn't right. He needs to work on his posture a bit for next week." It was at this point I realized what I was saying and threw up in my mouth just a little a bit. I had to step out back and take some deep breaths and think of Eugene O'Neill and Sergio Eisenstein.

If left to my own devices I will always choose either The History Channel or The Military Channel. Last week there was a fascinating piece called 'Third Reich, the fall.' Pretty gritty stuff. Filmed by Germans, about Germans between the years 1939 and 1945. I was mesmerized. Angie tends to call all of these programs, 'The Hitler show.' She thinks they're all the same program. Whether it be WWII in Color or World at War or Iwo Jima or U-Boats in the North Sea or America at War...she thinks it's all the same show, The Hitler Show. So she always says, "We've seen this already. It's the Hitler Show. You watched it last night." To which I reply, "It is NOT the Hitler Show. There is no such program called The Hitler Show. This is about comparing and contrasting the Sherman tank and the Panzer tank in the Battle of the Bulge." To which she replies, "Yes. Exactly. The Hitler Show. We've seen that one." It's a no-win situation.

Fortunately, we mostly agree on our Netflix selections. Except every now and then when I start ordering a bunch of boxing documentaries. She doesn't care for that and will protest by standing in the kitchen for hours at a time silently weeping.

Bravo used to show episodes of The West Wing everyday. They've stopped doing that, which is too bad, because Angie and I could watch West Wing episodes until the cows come home. I've made no secret about the fact that I sincerely believe it to be the finest network television show in the history of broadcasting. At least the first five seasons until Sorkin bailed out. I never get tired of them simply for the writing. It's like going to school every time I see one. Sorkin is a master storyteller and I steal from him relentlessly. I don't know if the likes of it will ever come around again. And the parallels to the current administration are absolutely startling sometimes.

Angie is also a big fan of something called 'The Dog Whisperer,' which is about a Mexican obsessed with being 'The Pack Leader." I don't pay much attention to it, but now and then I look at it for a few minutes. This guy (I think, not surprisingly, his name is 'Cesar') likes to kicks dogs (gently, to be fair) and push them to the ground and demand allegiance from them. He is forever prattling on about being 'The Pack Leader.' These poor dogs, most of them small ones that couldn't hurt a tit-mouse, are bullied into following his every command. Now and then, in his insatiable pursuit of being 'The Pack Leader' he'll stare them down until they're so uncomfortable they roll over and pretend to die. This Cesar guy likes it when they do that and subsequently swaggers around for awhile afterwards touting himself as 'the true and undisputed champion of all Pack Leaders' in broken English. Sounds like a little overcompensating to me. Nonetheless, Angie is convinced this guy is Dr. Doolittle. Frankly, I don't know why he calls himself a 'whisperer,' because he always shouts. His claim, apparently, is that the dog is never wrong but the owners need training. I think his show should be called 'The Dog Bullier.'

Another beautiful day in So Cal. My buddy Jeff and his family came to visit us from Colorado last week and the entire time turned out to be rainy and cold. He'll probably never believe now that Southern California is almost never like that.

See you tomorrow.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Grocery Shopping in Burbank...or, The Battle of Th...

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Grocery Shopping in Burbank...or, The Battle of Th...: "Yesterday was our designated grocery shopping day. To the outsider this may sound fairly innocuous. Not so. We go to about a half dozen d..."

Grocery Shopping in Burbank...or, The Battle of The Armenian Women.

Yesterday was our designated grocery shopping day. To the outsider this may sound fairly innocuous. Not so. We go to about a half dozen different stores for various items. This is complicated enough by itself, but when you add the fact that we usually have a short debate over every purchase, it becomes a day-long ordeal. By the end of the day Angie is at her wit's end and cursing the pre-nup I made her sign.

First we travel over to the actual grocery store, the one that features actual groceries. It has several names; Von's, Pavillions, or Paladium, which is what I call it because I can't remember the first two. I have come to know Paladium like the back of my hand. I know where all the 'naughty' aisles are and where all the 'boring' aisles are. For example, the frozen pizza aisle, which is roughly the length of the autobon, is a 'naughty' aisle. Often times I'll dash off in a frenzied trot as soon as we enter the store and a half hour later Angie has to call me on my cell to find me. It has all the earmarks of a black-ops procedure because at this point it becomes about getting stuff into the cart without Angie seeing it. Fairly easy if I'm clandestine enough. She tends to leave the cart unattended for periods of time while she gropes produce. At this juncture my mission is to get the frozen pizza or handful of frozen burritos or pint of chocolate chip cookie dough into the cart and make a quick retreat without being spotted. I've discovered that she is unwilling to make a scene at the check out counter if the item is already in the cart. If she discovers the item beforehand she can simply toss it aside and plead ignorance. The whole operation demands stealth and strategy on my part.

Next, we drive over to the 'Armenian Market.' Which is code for 'Combat.' The Armenian Market is a hodge-podge of unpronounceable foodstuffs and jams and jellies containing pomegranate and olives. It is also a terrifying experience in that I usually have to grapple middle-aged Armenian women with mustaches. They're a tough and saavy lot, these women. The trick is, I've found over the months, not to let them get you on the ground. Best to use my reach and speed of hand. Just flicker light jabs at them and then wait for an opening when I can really let fly a haymaker. Once they've got you on the ground, they're tenacious. They bite and throw short hooks to the kidneys. And they use their weight advantage to keep you pinned. Plus there's that constant jabbering in their mother tongue, which I'm sure is trash talk, but I can't understand it so it's fairly wasted on me. Now and then another hefty, European, bearded woman will pause in her shopping to deliver a quick, pointed-boot kick to the ribs if I'm already down. They stick together, those Armenians. But, alas, The Armenian Market has 'cheap chicken,' according to Angie, so we have to go. You can't show any fear as you enter The Armenian Market, otherwise they'll swarm you like early morning hungry pigs in the Ozarks. So usually as soon as we enter I bellow at the top of my lungs, "Who wants a piece of me!?" Like timber wolves surprised in their den, they scatter and assess the situation before attacking. This gives Angie, usually, just enough time to get some 'cheap chicken' and make a getaway. Sometimes I take a broom handle with me and start banging it on the wall creating a distraction while she bolts for the chicken. It's all pretty unnerving. I sort of see myself as Charlton Heston in The Omega Man during these trips. Taking on the Armenian women full-on is futile. One has to outsmart them.

After that we drive over to Trader Joe's for the fun stuff. Trader Joe's has stuff never before seen inside the known solar system. It is the Wonka Factory of grocery stores. Plus I've noticed people tend to dress up to go to Trader Joe's. So Angie and I make a quick dash home and change into our hippest clothing before going. It would simply not do to shop in Trader Joe's unless you're properly attired. I also discovered early on that I have to pretend to read the ingedient labels in Trader Joe's. It's part of the experience. I used to just go in and get stuff and throw it in the cart. But as time wore on, I started hearing the whispers, seeing the disapproving stares. Not reading the ingredient labels on the food there is considered unbelievably crass. So now I pick up a jar of peanut butter, pretend to pour over the back label for a few minutes, deep in concentration, occasionally clucking and tisking, and then finally, with a deep sigh, decide to purchase it. Apparently the people that shop at Trader Joe's have a history of accidentally purchasing food laced with cyanide.

After Trader Joe's we go back home and change back into our normal clothes and then drive over to Target, which, according to Angie, has the best deals on paper towels and deoderant. The Target store, here in Burbank, is the best place to spot a celebrity, oddly enough. So I always take my autograph book with me. While Angie scours the shelves in search of an opportunity to save somewhere between 3 and 9 cents, I run up and down the aisles in search of a B-list celebrity. I've been rewarded handsomely a few times and I now have autographs from Michael J. Pollard and Bonnie Franklin, which, of course, I treasure.

When we get home, I have to first treat the cuts and abrasions I've received at the hands of the Armenian women and then help Angie put away the groceries. It is often at this point she discovers the goodies I've managed to slip into the cart throughout the day. Yesterday, in a completely unselfish moment, I managed to get some doggie treats in the cart made entirely of retired mailman parts, ground up. Our dogs, Franny and Zooey are, generally speaking, pacifists, but will viciously attack anything resembling a mailman. I can only guess they've been unfairly treated by the U.S. Postal Service at some point. They hold a grudge.

So, having started our grocery shopping at nine in the morning, we finish, exhausted and exalted, at six in the evening. Both of us, tired yet relatively unscathed, fell onto the couch with a new appreciation of life, of our god-given health, of our good fortune to have survived another day. Next monday it starts all over again; the fear, the anticipation, the planning, the night sweats.

Until then, I'll try and put it out of my mind. I'll try and live each moment as it comes. I'll try and be grateful for every second I have left. I'll try and appreciate the here and now and not obsess over the coming mondays, the looming possibilities of bodily harm, the supressed anxiety of physical combat with cunning and strong Armenian women.

See you tomorrow.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Groucho Marx and Memories of Dead Friends.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Groucho Marx and Memories of Dead Friends.: "Because I was in serious need of distraction last night I watched The Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers on TCM. I hadn't seen it in thirty y..."

Groucho Marx and Memories of Dead Friends.

Because I was in serious need of distraction last night I watched The Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers on TCM. I hadn't seen it in thirty years, maybe longer. It is the film that contains Groucho's famous line, "I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was doing in my panjamas, I'll never know."

The old film (1930) was made right after the advent of sound and it certainly looks it. One can see Groucho looking off to the crew or director for approval at times. The camera is essentially stationary and they simply do a play in front of it. Clearly, no one has any idea what to do with this new medium called motion pictures. And yet, there's Groucho, right in the middle of it all, being ridiculously funny. Eighty one years after it was made there I am, sitting on my couch giggling uncontrollably while my wife looked at me as though I were daft. Everything about the movie is just horribly dated, even Harpo (although he has his moments of absurdity). But Groucho still holds up. He's still funny. He's still Groucho.

There's a wonderful book out there, out of print now I think, called 'The Groucho Letters.' It is exactly that. Letters from and to Groucho Marx. It is a really fun, surprisingly thought-provoking book. Groucho Marx, oddly, kept a running dialogue with the likes of Einstein, John Kennedy, Winston Churchill and Jack Benny. The letters, some absurd, others shockingly serious and intelligent, are a pleasure to read. Groucho was self-educated but unbelievably bright. And one can never predict which subject he will choose to take seriously. I recommend the book highly. It's easy to understand why the likes of Dick Cavett and Woody Allen have always worshipped at the Groucho altar.

There are hundreds of Groucho stories out there amongst old timers like myself. When I was doing Praying Small over in NoHo last year, there was a show right next to mine, a new musical, based on The Marx Brothers and I would stand by the stage door chatting with a couple of the actors from that show sharing Groucho stories. My favorite has always been one from his television show in the fifties called 'You Bet Your Life.' It was a simple premise, designed to let Groucho adlib and talk about whatever was on his mind. The guest would come out, usually an everyman in an everyday job, and Groucho would try and get him to say 'the secret word' during conversation at which point a duck would drop from the ceiling and he would win a few hundred bucks. Not the duck, the guest. This is the one I saw many years ago on a 'blooper reel.' The man came out and sat and the conversation went like this:

Groucho: So. Do you have any children?

Man: Why, yes, Groucho, I do.

Groucho: Good, good. How many do you have?

Man: We have 13 children.

Groucho: Really? Hm. Why so many?

Man: Well, Groucho, I love my wife.

Groucho: Uh huh. Well, I love my cigar but I take it out now and then.

Pure Groucho and still funny. Naturally, it was edited out seeing how it was 1955 or something.

So, my buddy Jeff Wood and his delightful family came to stay with us last week while they made a couple of trips to Disneyland. It was a great joy to hang out with Jeff again after some twenty years or so. Like most old friends it was as though we'd been together only the day before. Our friendship was instantly rekindled and I realized why I had chosen him as a friend to begin with. Now if I could just get him to drop everything and move out here and get back into directing. Probably not gonna happen. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all and I think, I hope anyway, his little girls had a great time. Disneyland is something every little girl should experience at least once.

On Thursday night we played a concentrated yet fun game of Trival Pursuit. Afterwards, as another old friend, John Bader, was leaving to go home, someone brought up the fact that it would be perfect if our late friend, Robert Fiedler, could have been here. Robert died about a year and half ago from an overdose. But the four of us were together often back in our NY days and all three of us, John, Jeff and myself, were somehow acutely aware that he wasn't with us. Robert, in and out of a terrifying lifestyle of drugs and booze, was nonetheless part of who we were, what we stood for, where we were going, how we lived. His absence, strangely, was felt that night. His name was mentioned and we all stood there, by my front door, momentarily silent and giving him an instant of tribute in an entirely unpremeditated way. No one really had anything to say about it. Death and unfairness has intruded upon all of our lives all too often over the past two decades and, like the older men we are now, we didn't drag the pain out, simply acknowledged it and moved on. Robert, in all his predictable insanity, was still a chunk of that time for us. His memory is a bit of an unhealed scab that none of us like to itch. There but for the grace of God...and so on and so forth.

Big audition tomorrow, more shooting on the new film on Thursday, rewrites on the new play, a leisurely yet pleasantly examined day planned. The dogs need a walk, I have to take my diabetes medicine, Angie is making her list of things to do. Beautiful, exquisite, sensible, magical mundanity. Life is good.

See you tomorrow.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Labcoats and Workshops.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Labcoats and Workshops.: "I finished my first day of shooting on this new film yesterday. It was a relatively smooth shoot, well organized, pre-planned to the smalle..."

Labcoats and Workshops.

I finished my first day of shooting on this new film yesterday. It was a relatively smooth shoot, well organized, pre-planned to the smallest detail, just like I like shoots to go. But I was reminded again how important that first shot is before we move on to coverage and single shots and close-ups. If the actor doesn't make a choice in that first shot, he can't go back and add something later, because, obviously they all have to match. I'm still very much a newbie when it comes to this stuff, so it can be frustrating. Although yesterday the entire day of shooting had me in bed so there wasn't a lot of room for play anyway. Nonetheless, it was a valuable lesson. Again.

I have written, in this blog in fact, that I considered film work to be by far the easier of the two types of acting - stage and film. That's a sweeping and unecessarily bombastic statement and I made it for the sake of argument. Nonetheless, I still believe it to hold a kernel of truth. A friend of mine, a guy that works continuously in film and tv out here, took me to task for that statement when I wrote it. He's right, of course, but I wrote it not to denigrate film acting, but to amplify the difficulty of stage acting, the difficulty of sustained, concentrated work. No do overs, no second takes, no 'oops, I made a mistake.'

I've finished, at least the first draft, of a play I've been tinkering with for about six months now, tentatively titled THE PROMISE. I rather like it so far. Not to say I'll feel the same in about ten minutes. But I think it's got some possibilities. Ideally, I'd like to mount it as a staged reading sometime in April or May. As I did with Bachelor's Graveyard, another play of mine, just throw it out there and see what happens. Not a workshop or a 'talkback,' I hate those. What's more, I don't believe in them. I've never understood why playwrights feel the need to 'workshop' something they've written. When was the last time you heard of a novel being 'workshopped?' Writing by committe holds no allure for me. And I have no interest whatsoever of changing a single word of a play simply because an audience member suggests I do so, an audience member with absolutely no vested interest in the play to begin with. Workshopping a play is one of the silliest things about theatre I've ever run across and I'm a bit appalled at playwrights who allow it. Again, I'm reminded of that wonderful quote from George S. Kauffman, "Every human being has four needs in life: the need for shelter, the need for food, the need to procreate and the need to rewrite someone else's play."

Now reading a play out loud sitting around a table with a core group of trusted friends, that's another thing. I've done that. It hardly qualifies as 'workshopping,' however.

I have another big audition this Tuesday. An out of town gig that I'd kinda like to do. We'll see.

I had a long conversation recently with one of my agents about my hair...or to be more precise, my lack of hair. I've grown it long for ADDING MACHINE. Long on the sides, that is. It tends to magnify the fact that I'm balding to begin with. He would like me to 'rinse' it (dye it) and have some photos taken with it like that. He (and for that matter, nearly every actor I've talked to out here in Los Angeles) thinks it would behoove me to do so because casting directors apparently have no imagination whatsoever and can't conceive of an actor changing his or her appearance for a role. When I first heard of this particular line of thought I simply didn't believe it. And frankly, I tried hard not to believe it for months and months. Now, I'm not so sure. I have personally run across this sort of thing several times now, much to my genuine surprise, and I think there may be something to it. It's not only silly, it's demeaning. Yet, I have to make a decision about it this week because clearly there is some truth to it.

Two actors are in a room auditioning for the part of a doctor. The best actor doesn't get the role because the other actor is wearing a white lab coat. Casting directors, at least most of the ones I've met, seem to be unable to imagine the better of the two actors wearing a lab coat. Now, I know this sounds preposterous, even to the layman, but it's true. It's a decided truism in Los Angeles. I can only imagine the conversation following the audition, "Well, Bob is the much better actor. He's really good. But I just don't see him playing a doctor. But Gunther, although really not very good, was wearing that doctor's coat. He really looked like a doctor. Let's go with him."

This is the part of being an actor I despise. It's no wonder actors out here obsess over their head shots.

Anyway, that's all kvetching. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about it. A fairly famous actor, one you'd recognize immediately, and he said to me, "You know, they're either going to 'get' you or not. The ones that don't aren't going to play a big part in your career one way or another anyway. Eventually, simply by the law of averages, you're going to run across a casting director that 'gets' you. And then everything will change." I hope he's right. He told me he was out here for nearly five years before someone 'got' him. Shortly after he was playing the lead in a very successful television series.

Ah, the life of an actor. The heights of absurdity. And yet, and yet, we keep going back for more. Geez.

See you tomorrow.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Burton, Taylor and Virginia Woolf.

Last Tango in Los Angeles: Burton, Taylor and Virginia Woolf.: "I take particular joy in introducing my wife to old films she's never gotten around to watching. On the Waterfront, Come Back, Little Sheba..."

Burton, Taylor and Virginia Woolf.

I take particular joy in introducing my wife to old films she's never gotten around to watching. On the Waterfront, Come Back, Little Sheba, and last night, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in homage to the recent passing of Elizabeth Taylor. She loved it.

Taylor won an Oscar for the role, as well as a number of other awards, and there's no getting around that she's especially good in this film, arguably her finest screen performance. But it is Burton that dazzles me. This guy had some chops. I mean, I've always known that. Most don't remember or realize that in the late fifties and early sixties he was generally considered the guy that would succeed Olivier as THE English actor of his generation. Olivier thought so. Gielgud thought so. His contemporaries (O'Toole, Guiness, Redgrave, Finney, Courtney, Harris, Bates, Hopkins, Scofield) thought so. And then two remarkable stage performances, nearly back to back, Camelot and Hamlet on the NY stage, and he was set to claim the mantle from the aging Olivier. Alas, it was not to be.

Two things happened to Burton around this time. Booze and Elizabeth Taylor. But neither can be seriously blamed for Burton's drift away from the stage. For one thing Burton had always been a hard drinker and, according to his diaries, it wasn't until the late sixties that drinking really started to intrude upon his work. And by all accounts Taylor always encouraged him to return to the stage. But Burton, like Anthony Hopkins, chose film as his medium. He didn't settle for it, as is often thought, he chose it. He wanted to be rich. He wanted to be a movie stah. He chose film. And by the time Virginia Woolf rolled around, he was, indeed, a full-fledged movie star. And, in my opinion anyway, he gives one of the five or ten finest performances ever captured on film in it.

His diaires, published in the eighties after his death, are fascinating. If you're an actor and haven't read them, I highly recommend them. He was entirely cognizant of his choices. Peter O'Toole, another actor that chose the screen over the stage, was probably his best 'actor' friend and Burton never stopped comparing himself to O'Toole. They were the British equivalent to Brando and Clift a decade earlier in America. They competed on a very high level. Not overtly so, perhaps, but they did. O'Toole always admired Burton's ability to be 'absolutely still' and, in his diaries, Burton admired O'Toole's 'vocal prowess.'

In fact, there is an oft-repeated story of the two, legendary drinkers both, having a long snort in the early sixties and deciding to do separate versions of Hamlet. One would do it in London and one would do it in NY. They actually flipped a coin (according to Burton they did this in the fabled Lion's Pub in New York - O'Toole, oddly, claims it never happened). Burton won the toss and chose New York. Then they flipped again for director. O'Toole is said to have won the second toss and chose Olivier to direct, Burton settled for Gielgud. Subsequently Laurence Olivier directed Peter O'Toole in the inaugural production of The National Theater in London and Burton was directed by John Gielgud and opened on Broadway. The Burton Hamlet was a smash, famous even today among Shakespeare-philes. O'Toole's Hamlet is equally famous for all the opposite reasons. It was apparently terrible. Olivier chose to do the full, four-hour text and stage a labourious and ultimately nearly unwatchable version. Gielgud cut the text to the bare bones, did it on a blank stage in rehearsal clothing and Burton's Hamlet still holds the record today as the longest running Hamlet on Broadway.

But I digress. All of this brings us to Edward Albee's remarkable piece of writing, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It was a surprise stage hit and Taylor and Burton actually saw it there as members of the audience. Taylor very much wanted the film to be made and back then, Liz Taylor had a considerable amount of clout in the Hollywood community. What Liz wanted, she usually got. She not only got the project green-lighted, she also demanded it be directed by a young nobody with no film credits named Mike Nichols. I have had the great privilege to sit and talk with Mike Nichols about that film. Some years back I picked his brain for several hours about that film and a few others he directed. He has mostly fond memories of it. For one thing, he told me, he was very clearly under the protective umbrella of Elizabeth Taylor so the studio didn't mess with him too much. They were too afraid of Dame Liz. He also claims Burton was beyond good. He showed up on day one letter-perfect, the entire script memorized and ready to go. He said Burton told him on the first day of shooting he had 'given up the drink' for the duration of the shoot. Burton, even then, was acutely aware of his own alcoholism. He also said the 'bergen and water' speech Burton gives halfway through the movie, sitting on the tree swing with a very young George Segal, is perhaps the best piece of film acting he's ever seen. He said Burton, being a trained stage actor, nailed it all on the first take and simply walked off set as though nothing had happened immediately following it, leaving Nichols and dozens of crew members standing there in awe. He also said that at one point a few 'suits' from Warner Brothers were standing around on set, generally getting in everyone's way, occasionally offering unsolicited advice, suddenly found themselves in the path of Liz Taylor's legendary temper. She told them she would not say one more word in front of a camera unless they immediately vacated the set to never return. She also, according to Nichols, told them she would personally see to it they never 'got near a movie studio again' if they sent one more 'memo' to Mike Nichols suggesting ways to direct the film. It apparently worked because Nichols said he never saw them again and never recieved another 'memo' from the studio.

Taylor, generally regarded as not so much a great actress as a great movie star, had the amazing ability to notch up her game when working opposite an actor of greater natural ability. She did it with Clift in A Place in the Sun, she did it with Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she did it with Brando in Reflections in a Golden Eye and she, most famously, does it with Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. She matches his work every step of the way. And that ain't no small thing. There are moments in this film in which Richard Burton is so good it's sort of paralyzing to watch him (if you're an actor and really 'get' what he's doing). And there, right along side him, is Liz Taylor, blowing the roof off. Taylor, despite a whole plethora of laughable performances later in her career, could stand toe to toe with the best in the business back in those days.

Buton and Taylor, booze fueled and overexposed, eventually self-destructed in an all-too-public way as nearly everyone now knows. They divorced, remarried, divorced again and eventually collapsed from their own self-indulgence. Burton never again gave the kind of performance he gives in Virginia Woolf. It was Taylor's swan song, too, I think. She was and always will remain "Elizabeth Taylor" but I really think that was her last great effort as an bonafide actress. Burton returned to the stage in the late seventies in Equus and recieved one of my favorite reviews for that play from a very famous and legendarily caustic NY critic: "Richard Burton may be the most promising middle-aged actor on the planet." That always made me chuckle.

It's hard to comprehend they are both now gone. Burton died way too young from drink and incomprehensibly hard living. Taylor, the ultimate survivor, finally succumbed a few days ago. I read an interview with her a few years ago, can't remember the magazine, but one of the quotes made me smile. She said, when asked about her many marriages, 'There was Richard. And then there were all the others."

I just love that.

See you tomorrow.