I don’t care how many homeless gay youths he’s meeting with. This hapless idiot who, even when not spouting the vilest homophobic hatred, has done nothing but perpetuate the worst, most negative, stupid and embarassing stereotype of his own race for years.

Now say bye-bye.

COPYRIGHT: davidnoh2011

Yeah, I finally saw it and even got to talk to T.V. Carpio, the actress who plays the controversial role of Spider Goddess, Arachne.

Read it (and also my fun encounter with delightful Ana Gasteyer) here

Nikki M. James is the Cinderella story of the Broadway season, especially after winning the Tony Award. It was wonderful to witness her lightning trajectory to triumph this entire awards season. At early events, like the Drama Critics Circle Awards and New Dramatists lunch, she was just hangin’, completely accessible and utterly delightful in her realness and voluble enthusiasm. And didn’t you love her Tony speech-despite being a newbie to all this, there was no way girlfriend was going to be cut short by any pesky orchestral interruption. She handled it with a a graceful aplomb and fierce attitude even a veteran like Elaine Stritch (who could forget ‘PLEASE DON’T INTERRUPT ME???”) could well learn from.

I copped an interview with her in GAY CITY NEWS, to read it click here

In Pierre Thoretton’s mesmerizing film, L’AMOUR FOU, the 52 year love story between fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and industrialist Pierre Berge is recounted with poetic beauty and tragic power. In its uncompromising depiction of the pressures which tortured Saint Laurent, as well as the glamour which fatally drew him in, it is also one of the best fashion films ever made.

Read my interview with Thoretton in FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL here

and to read my review of the film, also in the latest issue of FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, click here

Integral to Saint Laurent’s personal happiness as well as his professional success was Loulou de la Falaise, with whom he worked for decades, producing line after line of garments which forever changed the way women dressed. de la Falaise, one of the chicest women in the world, is also that rarity in fashion: a genuinely nice, very real and incredibly intelligent person.

In the late 1970s, particularly, there simply was not a more glamorous woman alive. Here’s why:

photo by Helmut Newton

with Yves and Betty Catroux, his other female BFF, who, as stated in the film, represented his “naughty, dark” side, as opposed to de la Falaise’s professionalism

with Marina Schiano, Yves and Steve Rubell at Stduio 54 on the night of the launch of the perfume Opium

with Yves

at her marriage to Thadee Klosowski

with lifelong friend and fellow immortal fashion icon, Marisa Berenson. In those halcyon 1970s fashion days, women like them, Marina Schiano, Elsa Peretti, Paloma Picasso, and the bevy of thrilling models Saint Laurent used – Grace Jones, Kirat, Mounia, et al. – possessed the kind of glamour and chic few so-called stars possess today, with their armies of stylists, who hold utter, often quite boring sway over them, turning the red carpet into one big yawn. Those ’70s girls didn’t need a red carpet – wherever they went simply BECAME a major event by virtue of their utter individuality and bold sartorial creativity.

with Yves

with Olivier Theyskens

with Stefano Pilati, now designing for Saint Laurent

with Catroux and Yves

with Catroux and Berge

with Catroux and Kate Moss. one of the rare women today who are in their exalted league, style-wise

with Amy Fine Collins and Somers Farkas

with her daughter Lucie

with Yves

with Catroux

photo by Gerard Malanga

“You have to count your blessings,” Geri Jewell told me when I recently interviewed her about her life and new autobiography, I’M WALKING AS FAST AS I CAN. If someone like Jewell, who has had to deal with cerebral palsy from birth and managed to overcome physical, career and personal challenges with rare brilliance and soul-inspiring humor, can say that, who are any of us to question?

To read my interview with this really extraordinary lady, click here

The gorgeous, gorgeously talented Lonette McKee just wrapped up an engagement at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel in New York. I had the chance to sit down with this woman I have always admired, ever since seeing her make her epochal film debut in SPARKLE in 1975. She continued to give me so much pleasure throuh the years, in her exquisite but frustratingly brief appearance in THE COTTON CLUB (1984), and then her unforgettable stage appearances, as Billie Holliday in LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR and as Julie LaVerne in SHOW BOAT.

Over tea (me) and coffee (her) in the cosy Algonquin lobby, she proved as beautiful both inside and out, super-intelligent, warm and completely real as you always imagine your idols be to.

To read my interview, click here

One question I had that didn’t make it into the article was my asking her if she’d ever encountered that other great mulatto beauty of the 1970s and beyond, Diahnne Abbott. These women both represented to me the kind of ultimate stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks looks and intelligent sensuality which comes along a few times every generation.

Here is Lonette’s answer: “I loved her! What a sweet girl she was. When I first met her, she was with Robert DeNiro and I was just starting. I was running in that group after SPARKLE and I was the toast of Hollywood. That group would invite me to their little parties and Diahnne would talk to me privately and say, ‘You know, you have your sister and I was like, ‘Yeah, you don’t know…’ but she said, ‘I’m out here by myself and I don’t fit in with these people and I’m the only black girl among all these white people. So let’s be friends.’

Diahnne Abbott

“She was so sweet and real and honest. She was very gifted in her own right, but I don’t think she pursued it. It must have been hard to have a career in his [DeNiro's] shadow, the way he took off…”

and please, enjoy her McKee’s talent here

and feast your eyes on beauty most rare

The perfect loveliness of Elizabeth Taylor’s astonishing face remains unquestioned, of course. But did she really receive a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 1998 for her fashion sense? In the days following her death, there has been heated, interesting debate about her merits as an actress but, honestly, when it came to being well-dressed, she was rarely a winner. Even Liz herself admitted and revelled in her own unquenchable, glorious life-loving vulgarity, which she said, like Dolly Parton, was what people loved about her.

She was fabulous living proof that neither fabulous beauty or wealth could buy good taste.

with Demi Moore at the 1998 CFDA Awards

We must not forget, however, that she did have some influential style moments onscreen, when certain of her costumes were avidly copied all over the world by women of all ages.

her 1950 wedding gown designed by Helen Rose for FATHER OF THE BRIDE

her very similar 1950 real-life wedding gown for her wedding to Nicky Hilton

her A PLACE IN THE SUN evening gown with its white velvet violet-trimmed bodice, designed by Edith Head, that was THE prom dress of 1951. White really was her go-to color onscreen. Almost her entire, beautiful wardrobe for ELEPHANT WALK (1954), in which she replaced an ailing Vivien Leigh was in that virginal shade.

Helen Rose design for Elephant Walk

her Helen Rose-designed gown in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958) which inspired 100s of rip-offs, and was so similar to Marilyn Monroe’s most famous movie gown from THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH the year before, designed by William Travilla

and, when it came to working a simple white slip, Liz reigned supreme

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

BUTTERFIELD 8, Helen Rose

then there was that infamous Jean Louis white bathing suit in SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER

and, of course, for better or worse, there was CLEOPATRA, with its BHBC (Beverly Hills Before Christ) “Ancient Egyptian” garb by Irene Sharaff, which also had every woman (and drag queen) in the world making with fishtail eye pencil effects

But oh! when left to her own devices, in private life, la Taylor rarely seemed to get it elegantly right. She was fond of satorial sore spots like ponchos which hideously foreshortened her, caftans which made her look heavier, feathers and spangled effects over which she would layer her mythic jewelry collection. And then there was the HAIR, which devolved from the butch pixie cut of 1950s, which only she, Ava Gardner and Audrey Hepburn could really pull off, to the sculpted and beehive architecture of the 1960s, and ending in those insane rat’s nest confections of her final decades which made you really wonder how (or if) she actually paid top dollar for them.

For pure, enduring vulgarity Taylor’s only real rival was Ginger Rogers, who looked so divine on screen mainly because costume designers used to keep her under locky and key, practically, to avoid her adding beads, fringe or corsages to their confections before going before the camera.

Rogers’ wedding dress, for her marriage to Lew Ayres, was self-designed, and GREEN

with Grace Kelly and Laraine Day at NY International Airport in 1955. Grace and Laraine are simply if somewhat boringly attired for travel, but there She is, sporting the Dior New Look she so favored, which never really favored her short legs and, by the mid-1950s, already burgeoning, once wasp waist

with third husband Mike Todd and soon-to-be romantic rival Debbie Reynolds in a Mafia Widow look

with Mike Todd at 1957 Golden Globe Awards, Coconut Grove. When in doubt, wear ALL your jewelry with a PRINT gown (and this was well before the Richard Burton spending spree days)

working me love you long time Chinoiserie with Todd and Eddie Fisher

with Eddie Fisher in Moscow

accompanied by her children and Mr. Cameltoe

the look that launched a thousand bar mitzvahs

1960, staging her own Golden Globes show

and God, how she loved a big hair helmet! Oscar night, 1961, wearing Dior

her wedding dress for Richard Burton nuptials, 1964. That face helps her carry this off, barely…

I much prefer what she wore, perhaps inspired by the gravity of the occasion, when she converted to Judaism and married Eddie Fisher a few years before. She looks like an ancient sculpture of a Roman matron.

What? This lil ole thing of 33.19 carats?? (1968)

when it came to costume balls, she didn’t fool around!

with Burton at 1967 BAFTA Awards, as if she’d shopped the MOVIE STAR 101 CATALOGUE

fighting the crowds to see Burton in HAMLET on Broadway

dog walking ensemble

at the Rothschild Proust Ball, Paris. Although Cecil Beaton took this portrait, in his diary he wrote the most vicious eyeball-scalding description of her ever penned, proving that when it came to bitchiness he simply had no peer

with Ringo Starr

even her attempts at going “classic” had a certain blowsiness

1970 -clueless when it came to accessorizing

of course you wear hot pants at Heathrow Airport in 1970

with Burton at her 40th birthday party

at Grace Kelly’s 40th birthday party, 1969. Grace was a Scorpio, so…

at the Celtic Fans party

her version of the counter-culture look

with post-Burton escort, car dealer Victor Luna

with Burton and his last wife, Susan

her politico period, with senator husband John Warner

with Liza Minnelli in the 1970s, when Halston did manage to drape her, as he did all the prominent women of the day. As long as he was around, Taylor, even at her heaviest, was never better garbed

well, sometimes even Halston faltered

She and the over-the-top 1980s got along just fine, thank you! Dressed by Arnold Scaasi for her 1986 Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute and looking like she just stepped off the set of DYNASTY

Her final marriage to Larry Fortensky was her final apotheosis of youth-clinging glamour girl which found its taste-challenged match in Fortensky, whose mullet rivalled his spouse’s legendary gallery of hair-don’ts

It’s sad when divas have no one around brave enough to say “That’s way too young on you!” (But I’m sure she wouldn’t have listened, anyway.)

at Malcolm Forbes legendary, lavish 70th birthday party

at Cannes

She and good friend Michael Jackson rarely brought out the best in each other

at Liza Minnelli’s wedding to David Gest. And the marriage was indeed a horror show!

But let’s end this orgy of bad taste on a nice note. In all my memory, I recall her getting it perfectly right at one 1970s Oscar show.

And here she is, on the set of GIANT in 1955, in an ensemble thrown together to obviously beat the heat, which, ironically, has almost become everyday streetwear for women the world over.

COPYRIGHT: davidnoh2011

CEREMONY is an amusing trifle, a winsome wannabe F. Scott Fitzgerald update, most notable for a very appealing performance by 23-year-old Michael Angarano, who blithely dominates the film which also features Uma Thurman, Lee Pace and Reece Thompson. One-time boyfriend to TWILIGHT’s Kristen Stewart, his family owns the REFLECTIONS IN DANCE dance studios in New York and L.A.

To read my review of it in FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL

click
here

All these hot topics and more, starting with my exclusive interview with Renee Fleming, currently illuminating the stage of the Met Opera in Richard Strauss’ CAPRICCIO are in the latest GAY CITY NEWS

http://www.chelseanow.com/articles/2011/04/01/gay_city_news/arts/doc4d94a9248f344541124936.txt

Spring is afoot and with it the warm weather, so why not celebrate it with a Nathan Gunn Gallery? After all, he is that rare opera singer who looks every bit as good as he sounds.

in BILLY BUDD

in THE PEARL FISHERS

LA MCKAY

Read my exclusive interviews with these two bright young seriously divas striving to make this crazy, scary world a better place

http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/04/01/gay_city_news/arts/nightlife/doc4d814e51535b3101847155.txt

McKay’s show at Feinstein’s at Loew’s Regency, I WANT TO LIVE, in which she impersonates ultimate B-girl Barbara Graham who ended up in the gas chamber and was earlier immortalized by Susan Hayward in a memorably trashy Oscar winning performance, is one wild, quirky ride. McKay is both fearless and joyously off-the-wall, prowling through the audience, strumming a ukelele, pounding the piano and simulating Graham’s final, odiferous earthly moments in which she truly discovers the sweet mystery of life. For pure genius gone totally wrong (in the right way), I doubt that any onstage moment will match her sweetly warbling Irving Berlin’s ISN’T THIS A LOVELY DAY, while remaining blithely oblivious to her drummer shooting up on the stage (surely the first time THAT’S been done in this particular, posh venue!).

I can think of no better way to pay tribute to the brainy, committed and utterly winning Kebede than lettiing you feast your eyes on her. With her exquisitely perfect features and seemingly endless, elegant lank of a body you could throw any bolt of cloth at and come up sartorially triumphant, she is gloriously in the great tradition of stunning black models which have beneficently blessed runways and editorial pages for decades: Naomi Sims, Pat Cleveland, Bethann Hardison, Grace Jones, Alva Chin, Iman, Gloria Burgess, Peggy Dillard, Mounia, Ramona Saunders, Billie Blair, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Chanel Iman, and those two sadly tragic muses, the sculptural Donyale Luna

and the blindingly exotic Katoucha.

But here’s Liya!