When Hollywood Was Nice: Annette, Mother Dolores Honored This Week

In a summer where internal studio battles are exploding, talent agencies are attacking each other, gun violence is rampant in real life and on screen, football teams are spawning accused murderers, teen idols are out of control, and people don’t talk — they just text — it’s nice to reflect on this Sunday before Independence Day that there once was what, at least in retrospect, seemed to be a kinder, more innocent Hollywood. At least that was the feeling I got this week at two events celebrating two uniquely inspiring past stars, both very much off the radar of the industry that eats its young today. They are worth noting.
Many people today who worship the likes of the Kardashians may not know who Dolores Hart is. Or was. But in the late 1950s and early ’60s she was a genuine film star who gave Elvis Presley his first screen kiss in Loving You (1957) and again in King Creole (1958); searched for men in Where The Boys Are (1960); and co-starred opposite the likes of Montgomery Clift, Karl Malden, Anthony Quinn, Myrna Loy and many others until she suddenly gave it all up after attending the New York premiere of her last film (1963′s Come Fly With Me). She told the studio’s limo driver to drop her off at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CT, and became a nun. That was exactly 50 years ago, and Mother Dolores, as she is now known, is still there and still doing great things with her life — even if it isn’t as the movie star she once was.
Mother Delores, now 74, has been in Los Angeles all week, and a few days ago I attended a reception thrown in her honor upon the publication of her autobiography, The Ear Of The Heart. It is the latest project to put the spotlight back on a remarkable life and story. In 2012, the HBO documentary God Is The Bigger Elvis, which also detailed her unusual journey “from Hollywood to Holy Vows”, earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short and brought Mother Dolores back to the Oscar red carpet for the first time since 1961. By the way, she is still a voting member of the actors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sometimes she even wears a jacket with the AMPAS logo over her Habit — it was sent to her by one-time Academy president (and Come Fly With Me co-star) Karl Malden, who was also instrumental in re-instating her Academy membership in the early ’90s. The book is so compelling it could make a movie itself. Last week’s event, at which Mother Dolores and co-author Richard DeNeut read excerpts, drew some of her old Hollywood friends and co-stars like Tab Hunter and Earl Holliman, who both went on studio-set dates with her in the ’50s. Holliman told me they were getting very close to making out when she whispered in his ear, “Earl, I am in love with Jesus Christ”. He said there was not much he could do to match that kind of competition. Even then she seemed to know the path her life might take.

EMMYS: Branding

When Homeland took home the three biggest drama series honors at last year’s Emmy Awards—for top drama as well as lead actor (Damian Lewis) and actress (Claire Danes)—it proved a watershed moment for Showtime after a couple of decades spent laboring in the awards-night shadow of HBO. “It meant that we had a claim on excellence,” confirms David Nevins, Showtime’s president of entertainment. “I mean, it’s always nice to be invited to the party. And for one night, it’s also nice to be king.”
But what does being king really mean in the Emmy context? It’s a question that has often been asked and perhaps never definitively answered. In the eight months since the Homeland gold rush, Nevins says that Showtime’s subscriber base has continued to grow, and the network’s credibility with the Hollywood creative community continues to soar. The win also helped raise Homeland’s profile during its second season, with Nevins noting that its viewership rose 25% year over year and grew to become Showtime’s highest-rated series ever. “It’s made us a place to bring your best projects and best actors,” he finds. “It’s told the acting community that Showtime is where you can go to win awards and augment your career—even if you’re an established film actor.”
But in truth, the tangible impact of the Emmy triumphs is best measured over the long haul, Nevins believes. “It’s more of a slow-and-steady, building-of-the-brand thing rather than overnight,” he says. “We’re still hoping that the momentum halo from the wins spreads through the rest of our schedule.”
To a film or individual, the value of winning an Oscar, or even just earning an Oscar nomination, is generally undisputed. More often than not, it’s a career-maker that elevates one into rarefied air that typically translates into money at the box office and beyond. The value of an Emmy Award? Not quite so clear. It affixes a seal of quality onto a person or project, to be sure. But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a bounce beyond Emmy Night itself.
Consider the case of Arrested Development, which returned May 26 with 15 brand new episodes on Netflix, but enjoyed a woefully short life on Fox in the decade before. It was the toast of the industry in winning five Emmys in 2004, including for outstanding comedy series. But the honors did little to boost the show’s ratings, and it was gone by 2006.

James Gandolfini Has Died

Farewell, Tony Soprano. James Gandolfini - the man who was utterly unforgettable as one of the great screen gangsters - has died suddenly, at the age of 51.Variety reports that Gandolfini was on holiday in Italy, where he suffered a suspected heart attack. The actor's tragic and untimely death was confirmed by HBO, for whom he worked on The Sopranos and Criminal Justice, a limited series that had just been given the green light.In a statement, the network said, "He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect."He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth and his humility. "In another statement, his managers said, "Our hearts are shattered and we will miss him deeply. He and his family were part of our family for many years and we are all grieving."Gandolfini, who was born in New Jersey in 1961, will always be remembered as Tony Soprano, the ruthless and tortured mob boss who was head of the eponymous family at the heart of the legendary HBO series. His nuanced and complex turn turned him into a huge star, and Tony into a cult hero. He won three Emmy awards for the role.But Gandolfini was also a film actor of rare range and class, as equally at home as a politician, a soldier and a father as he was a gangster.He gave indelible - and vastly different - turns for Tony Scott (with whom he worked on a number of occasions) in True Romance, Armando Iannucci in In The Loop, and Spike Jonze in Where The Wild Things Are, to name but three. 2012 also brought small, but memorable, roles in the likes of Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty and Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly, and a reunion with Sopranos creator David Chase on Not Fade Away.Gandolfini was last seen on the big screen in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, while he had just completed work on Animal Rescue, which will be his final film.He was seen, quite simply, as one of the best and most versatile actors working today, and his death has already been greeted with stunned disbelief by his peers. "A lovely man and a huge talent," said Donnie Darko director, Richard Kelly. Prometheus and Star Trek Into Darkness writer Damon Lindelof, echoing the last shot of the final episode of The Sopranos, said, "You created an icon. And you cut to black way too soon." And Ron Perlman said, "Sweet journey home, James Gandolfini. The brightest stars burn the fastest..."He is survived by his wife, Deborah Lin, and two children - a son, and a baby daughter. Our thoughts are with them at this time.

No Crossover Between Guardians & Avengers

Avengers Assemble may have ended with Thanos leering at us, but that may be as far as the Avengers / Guardians of the Galaxy crossover is going to extend. Out doing the rounds for his classy new Much Ado About Nothing, Joss Whedon has let slip that, while Guardians and Avengers 2 will share a cinematic universe, they won't be sharing any screen time."We're following Guardians at Shepperton," says Whedon, meaning that he and his Avengers team are next into the studio after James Gunn's crew has departed. "But we won't be swapping cast members," he continues. "Every movie is its own thing, and has to be." The twain never shall meet, "unless I take a lot of peyote and write a very different draft... and I'm not ruling that out!"So while The Avengers will be inheriting a broader narrative recently vacated by the Guardians, it doesn't sound as if Michael Rooker, Zoe Saldana, John C. Reilly or any of the other Guardians will be hanging around to switch teams.Do Whedon's words preclude cameos and / or script adjustment further down the line? Not at all. But they do give a hint of the extent to which The Guardians Of The Galaxy will stand alone in the Marvel movie canon. We'll find out exactly where and how they fit when Gunn's film is released on August 1 next year.

Christoph Waltz Uncovers True Crimes

The last time it popped up on our cine-radar, True Crimes was being mentioned as a possible directorial gig for Roman Polanski. He no longer seems to be involved, but the project at least has a star, with Django Unchained’s Christoph Waltz lining up a lead role in the real-life murder story.True Crimes is drawn from David Grann’s 2008 New Yorker article about the slaying of advertising company manager Dariusz Janiszewski, whose body washed up in Poland’s Oder River in December 2000. The crime baffled the authorities until detective Jacek Wroblewski tracked Janiszewski's missing cell phone to an eBay auction. The seller was Krystian Bala, a Polish intellectual whose sado-sexual novel Amok had been published after Janiszewski's death, and featured a plot that seemed eerily similar the real-life killing.Waltz is set to play Wroblewski, the man who reopened the cold case and dug deep into Poland’s dark underbelly of prostitution and drugs. With Polanski seemingly out of the picture, producers David Gerson, Brett Ratner and John Cheng are now on the hunt for someone to hoist the megaphone. As for the actor, he’s most recently worked on Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem and will appear in The Muppets… Again! and Tim Burton’s true-life art world scandal drama Big Eyes.

New Red Band Trailer For The To Do List

Though Aubrey Plaza is definitely the star of Maggie Carey’s directorial debut The To Do List, Bill Hader – AKA Carey’s other half – is the MVP of this new Red Band trailer. Expect bad language and bad behaviour throughout, but also a lot of laughs. The To Do List focuses on Brandy (Plaza), who has gone through high school as a good student who focused on causes and grades over partying and boys.Yet as college looms on the horizon after the summer, she realizes, largely thanks to older sister Amber (Rachel Bilson) that she’s singularly unprepared for the wilder life of grown-up education. So she decides to tick off as many sexual acts as she can in one summer. There’s just one small problem: she has no idea about any of it.Plaza’s playing a more straight-ahead character than her usual scathing cynics here, but it’s Hader (and Bilson) who get to steal scenes, especially their energetic sex fest that is suddenly interrupted by Amber and Brandy’s father, Judge Clark (the ever-reliable Clark Gregg).Boasting a funny ensemble that also includes Alia Shawkat, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Andy Samberg, Connie Britton and Donald Glover, The To Do List arrives in the US on July 26 and hits here on October 4.