Chris Van Allsburg: Imagination that Inspires the Impossible

        If you grew up in the 1990s, like me, you probably read all kinds of different children’s books. You may have read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond in 1985, or The Rainbow Fish written and illustrated by Marcus Pfister in 1992, or even Stellaluna written and illustrated by Janell Cannon in 1993. But do you remember Chris Van Allsburg’s work? Chris Van Allsburg won two Caldecott Medals (award for Most Distinguished American Picture Book for children) for writing Jumanji in 1981 and The Polar Express in 1985. Both these and others by him have been turned into movies, and he contributed artistic talent to one of Disney’s most beloved films, as well.

Chris Van Allsburg was born in East Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 18th, 1949. His parents initially raised him and his older sister on a farmhouse, but the family moved to an actual home in Grand Rapids when he was three so that he could walk to school. After graduating High School in East Grand Rapids, he went to the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Michigan, which included an art school at the time. There, he majored in sculpture, learning all kinds of techniques including bronze casting, wood carving, and resin molding. After graduating the University of Michigan in 1972, he continued studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned his Master’s Degree in Sculpture in 1975. After graduating there, he built his own sculpture studio at home.

Although Van Allsburg struggled with ideas of what to sculpt at first, he began sketching some ideas that his wife, Lisa (whom he married in 1974), thought would be good in children’s books. She showed the work to an editor, who agreed to contract his first book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1979. The book was a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal. Van Allsburg’s second children’s book, Jumanji, was published two years later. He also created illustrations for a series of books called “The Enchanted World,” which were published between 1984 and 1987 and were written by various authors.

Soon after, Chris hatched a new idea. As an adult, he always loved to reminisce about childhood visits to Herpolsheimer’s and Wurzburg’s department stores in Grand Rapids. To him, being at those stores to him, always felt like visiting Santa Claus at the North Pole. This conjured up the idea of a young boy meandering around on a cold, wintry night becoming curious when he sees a train, only to discover that the train was headed to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus. This became the story line for “Polar Express,” and Van Allsburg based the train itself off of the Pere Marquette 1225 locomotive, which is a restored train that he played on as a child. The book was officially published in ’85, and Van Allsburg won his second Caldecott medal for it the following year. 

After writing Two Bad Ants in 1988, Chris Van Allsburg was very fortunate enough to be hired by Walt Disney Animation to work as a Visual Development Artist for The Little Mermaid (1989). He published his first novel, The Widow’s Broom in 1992. Following that, Columbia/TriStar Pictures hired Van Allsburg to write the screen story for the movie version of Jumanji (1995) starring Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt. He continued writing and illustrating books, including Bad Day at Riverbend, which was published that same year and he illustrated A City in Winter which was written by Mark Helprin in 1996. He wrote and illustrated Zathura in 2002, which was a sequel to “Jumanji,” that took place in space instead of the jungle, though the books featured different leading characters. He also served as executive producer on the romantic comedy-drama How to Deal (2003).

Around the time of working on both “Zathura,” and “How to Deal,” Van Allsburg received word that Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis were interested in making a movie of “Polar Express.” Hanks himself had optioned for the movie version as early as 1999, but at the time, the film was to be live-action. Zemeckis, however, later ruled that a live-action movie “would look awful and would be impossible” Zemeckis also felt that the book’s artistic style “was so much a part of the emotion of the story,” and would be completely lost in a live-action movie. 

That being the case, the process known as “performance-capture technology” was invented exclusively for the movie. It involved all the actors wearing camera dots on their faces used to detect all their movements and the filmmakers then connected the animation to their actions via computer. Zemeckis co-wrote, co-produced and directed the film, though he invited Chris Van Allsburg to executive produce so that the film would be true to the original vision of his book. The film received three Oscar Nominations, for Best Original Song “Believe,” Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Sound Editing. It was recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the very first film produced on “Performance Capture.”

The following year, Columbia/Tri-Star produced the film version of Chris Van Allsburg’s other book, “Zathura.” Zathura: A Space Adventure was directed by Jon Favreau and starred Josh Hutcherson as the older brother, Walter. Hutcherson had previously shared the voice-over role of the Hero Boy in “Polar Express,” with Daryl Sabara while Tom Hanks provided the performance-capture movement for the part. He published the books Probuditi in 2006 as well as the novel Queen of the Falls in 2011. When Columbia rebooted the “Jumanji,” films with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and it’s sequel Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), they did not involve Van Allsburg, though he was given screen credit in both movies for having written both the book as well as the original film’s screenplay.

Chris Van Allsburg is a remarkable children’s book author. He will always be remembered for “Jumanji,” and “Polar Express,” as well as the films that those books inspired, but more importantly, he will be remembered for writing creative stories that inspire children to believe in the value of imagination and the impossible. And “The Little Mermaid,” certainly wouldn’t be the classic that it’s considered today had it not been for his visual development skills.

Mae Questel: Boop-Oop-Da-Bethany

    Comedy is a favorite in Holiday Movies. And while the main characters tend to get most of the laughs, there are also on occasion supporting characters that bring the house down. It’s hard to imagine Elf (2003) without Bob Newhart as the timid but lovable Papa Elf who narrates the story and raises Buddy, or Home Alone (1990) without Devin Ratray as Kevin’s older brother, Buzz McCallister, who purposefully treats his little brother as though he were beneath him. In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about someone else who brought big laughs to the beloved holiday classic, “Christmas Vacation,” even while appearing in just a few scenes. And that wasn’t even the most interesting part of her career! 

Mae Questel was born on September 13th, 1908 in The Bronx, New York. She knew from the time she was a child that she wanted to be an actor, and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing and with The Theatre Guild. Tragically, her parents forced her to drop out and pursue another career. Despite that, young Mae Questel refused to give up on her dream and at age 17, she won a talent contest at RKO Fordham Theatre for impersonating a singer named Helen Kane (known as the “Boop-Oop-A-Doop Queen”). Mae found herself an agent and began regularly performing as a vaudevillian, impersonating celebrities like Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Eddie Cantor, and various others. Her impressions ultimately caught the attention of Max Fleischer, who at the time was looking for an actress who’d be willing to voice his cartoon character, Betty Boop. Questel was hired and wound up voicing Betty Boop for seven years and in more than 150 cartoon shorts.

Two years into voicing Betty Boop, Questel landed the voice-over role of Popeye the Sailorman’s girlfriend, Olive Oyl. She also made an uncredited appearance in The Great Ziegfeld, released in 1936. She retired both the characters of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl in 1938, though she returned to Olive Oyl in 1944 and continued to voice her until 1962. Questel made her Broadway debut in 1948 in Doctor Social, opposite Dean Jagger, and her first credited film appearance wasn’t until 1961 in the drama-comedy A Majority of One (1961), which starred Rosalind Russell and Sir Alec Guinness. Questel was later cast as Mrs. Strakosh in Funny Girl (1968), the biopic based on the life of Fanny Brice which starred Barbara Streisand. It is ironic that Questel would appear in this movie because when she performed as a vaudevillian, Fanny Brice happened to be one of the many celebrities that she impersonated.

She later appeared with Streisand’s former husband Elliot Gould in Move (1970). She appeared in episodes of Somerset (1970-1976) and All My Children (1970-2011) as well. 

In 1989, Mae Questel was cast in her final film role as Great Aunt Bethany in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. During the Christmas Eve Dinner scene, the Griswold’s acknowledge that it’s Bethany’s 80th birthday, despite the fact that in reality, Questel turned 81 while the film was being made. She was also 19 years older than William Hickey, who played her husband Great Uncle Lewis in the film. (Just the year prior to “Christmas Vacation,” Questel made her final voice-over appearance as Betty Boop in Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).) She died due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease on January 4th, 1998 at the age of 89. 

Mae Questel is best-known for lending her voices to both Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, though her legacy also lives on in the role of the feeble-minded Great Aunt Bethany. Her role in “Christmas Vacation,” helped popularize the iconic film, though her distinctively high-pitched voice helped make every role she played enduring and timeless. It is truly unforgettable when Aunt Bethany is asked to say “Grace” (or the blessing) at the dinner table scene of “Christmas Vacation.” Bethany replies “Grace, she passed away 30 years ago,” then proceeds to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance.” Families all over America will laugh at that scene all week long! 

Peggy Lee: The Lady in Lady & The Tramp

        What qualities does one typically look for in a singer? A melodious voice, exceptional pitch or range, and a resonating tone are all examples, and it depends on the music genre as well. In today’s blog I want to tell you about someone who who has given us all that and more, in the style of both jazz and popular music, throughout her 60 year career. In addition to a remarkable career in the music industry, she became an Oscar-nominated actress, and of course she gave both her acting and music talents to one of the most beloved Disney films produced in the 1950s.

Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom on May 26th, 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota. As a child, she worked as a milkmaid, and started getting paid for singing as a teenager. She landed her first professional singing job performing on KOVC Radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She later performed on WDAY in Fargo, where Radio Personality Ken Kennedy gave her a new stage name, Peggy Lee. As a result, she left North Dakota to try her luck as a singer in Los Angeles at age 17. However, it was while working at the Doll House in Palm Springs that she received an offer to perform regularly at a nightclub in Chicago called “The Buttery Room,” and while performing there she was noticed by Benny Goodman, who at the time was looking to replace his band’s lead singer, Helen Forrest. He gave her an offer to perform in his band in 1941, which she did for two years.

Lee’s first two number-one hit songs were “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place,” in 1942 and “Why Don’t You Do Right?” in 1943, performing with Goodman’s orchestra. She also appeared as her herself with the orchestra in both the movies Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl in ’43. She was fired by Goodman when she married the orchestra’s guitarist, Dave Barbour. Together, Lee and Barbour had a daughter, Nicki Lee Foster, and they wrote several songs together, including “I Don’t Know Enough About You,” “Golden Earings,” and “It’s a Good Day.” Sadly, Lee and Barbour’s marriage ended in divorce after eight years, though she later reconciled with Goodman and made record with him, Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee, released by Columbia records in 1949.

In 1948, Lee teamed up with Perry Como and Jo Stafford for the NBC Radio Program The Chesterfield Supper Club (1944-1950). She made her debut as an actress, co-starring with Danny Thomas in The Jazz Singer (1952) a remake of the Al Jolson 1927 film of the same name. That same year, she recorded the album Road to Bali: Selections From the Paramount Picture, released by Decca Records. It was in this film that she sang the song “Lover,” which was another hit single for Capitol Records. 1955 was one of the busiest years of her entire career, because in addition to receiving a Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination for playing an alcoholic Blues singer in Pete Kelly’s Blues , she was hired by the Walt Disney Studios as a primary contributor to the animated classic Lady and the Tramp.

Hiring Lee to work on “Lady and the Tramp,” was a groundbreaking decision. It was the very first time throughout in the studio’s history that a well-known celebrity was hired to be in one of their movies. Even more importantly, Lee wrote the lyrics to the majority of the film’s soundtrack, including the lullaby “La La Lu,” and classics “Bella Notte,” and “He’s a Tramp.” In addition to writing the lyrics, she provided the voices of Lady’s human owner, Darling, and Peg the pekingese as well as Aunt Sarah’s mischievous cats, Si and Am. The film wasn’t very well-reviewed in its initial release, but it is considered a classic today. (“Lady and the Tramp” film was remade for Disney+ in 2019.)

Lee released her very first solo Christmas album in 1960, entitled Christmas Carousel, which featured “Winter Wonderland,” “The Christmas Song,” “I Like a Sleighride,” and other classics. She was nominated for 12 Grammys throughout her career and finally won for the song “Is That All There Is?” which was released by Capitol in 1969 and also featured arrangements by Randy Newman. Lee’s final album for Capitol Records, “Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota,” was released in 1972. And in 1983 she made her Broadway debut at the age of 62 in autobiographical play that she wrote entitled “Peg,” which sadly was not a success. 

Due to an unfortunate heart attack, as well as complications from diabetes, Peggy Lee died in Los Angeles on January 21st, 2002 at the age of 81. In 2003 there was a concert tribute to her at Carnegie Hall in New York called “There’ll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee,” which featured performances by Petula Clark, Rita Moreno, Nancy Sinatra, and many others. She undoubtedly was a performer of many talents and will forever be remembered for having a smooth yet sophisticated singing voice and bringing it to “Lady and the Tramp.” (It’s hard to imagine the iconic “spaghetti-dining sequence” from “Lady and the Tramp” without Lee’s beautiful lyrics.)

Santa Fun for the Whole Family

        Long before Tim Burton produced Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and before Nick Park and Peter Lord directed Chicken Run (2000) for Dreamworks, there was Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Do either of those names ring a bell? These two men founded Rankin/Bass Productions Inc. on September 14th, 1960, remaining in busyness together for 27 years. If you’re like me, and look forward every year to watching “Rudolph,” you have these two men to thank.

Rankin/Bass produced a variety of feature films and television specials, unitizing stop-motion animation. Several of the television specials they produced were holiday-themed and the very first special was the beloved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) starring Burl Ives—a huge hit. Ten years later, they produced The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), based on the book of the same name by Phyllis McGinley. “Year Without a Santa Claus,” was also a success, and while it didn’t quite outdo the success of “Rudolph,” it ultimately resulted in more modern versions: a live-action remake released in 2006 and a sequel, A Miser Brothers’ Christmas, released in 2008. And it’s no slouch either, rating 7.8 on IMDB’s 10-point scale.

This story is heartwarming: Santa Claus comes down with a cold at Christmas time and decides to take the year off when his doctor tells him that fewer kids are believing in Santa Claus. Mrs. Claus takes matters into her own hands by sending two elves named Jingle and Jangle down to the city to find people who still believe in Santa Claus. On their way the elves encounter a friendly boy named Iggy who says believing in Santa Claus is for little kids, but when Santa himself shows up, Iggy soon changes his mind. A fight over the town ensues between “Snow Miser” and his brother, “Heat Miser” but, Mother nature helps her sons learn to compromise, and the first snowfall in ages help Santa realize how much he means to children.

 

The “Year Without a Santa Claus,” includes a very talented voice cast, some of whom reprised their characters for other Rankin/Bass specials and who appeared together in other projects:

• The film starred Mickey Rooney as the voice of Santa Claus. Rooney had previously voiced Santa Claus in the Rankin/Bass special Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (1970) and he reprised the role for Rankin/Bass’s Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979) and in A Miser Brothers’ Christmas (2008) which was produced by Warner Brothers Animation and directed by Dave Thomas.
• Dick Shawn voiced the frosty Snow Miser, and he and Mickey Rooney appeared together in the film It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963).
• George S. Irving provided the voice of the hot-headed Heat Miser and he reprised that role in “Miser Brothers’ Christmas,” as well.
• Shirley Booth, who won a Best Actress Oscar in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) lent her voice to the spunky Mrs. Claus and this was her last acting credit before she retired from acting permanently.

Why does a film like this continue to hold up today? First of all, it’s a beautiful reminder how one is “never too old to believe.” It’s also full of amusing tidbits: Mother Nature having two sons (Makes you wonder who the father could have been too?), and the chuckles that from watching Jingle and Jangle resemble their namesake bells.

Christmas is a time for fun, and this film brings loads of it—it’s definitely a kid film first, but adults will enjoy the great animation, and the silliness of Snow Miser and Heat Miser fighting over control of the city’s weather. In any case, it’s become a family tradition for many, and is one of those movies, like “Rudolph,” that helps us usher in the wonderful Holiday season!

Elf: Oh My Gosh, we know that movie!

    Watching holiday movies throughout the yuletide season has become a tradition in many households throughout the world—some beloved because of their holiday themes, and others simply taking place during December. One that takes advantage of a full-on Christmas focus, however, is Elf (2003). An instant classic now beloved for 17 years, “Elf,” was released on November 7th, 2003, and grossed more than $220 million dollars worldwide. It played to critical and public acclaim, with hilarity, romance, and of course a story that speaks of family to all ages. 

First, a quick synopsis: “Elf,” is the tale of a baby who stowed away in Santa’s bag one Christmas Eve from the children’s home where he was given up by his mother. Adopted by Santa’s elves, and now groun up, Buddy the man has trouble fitting in (all 6 ft. 3 in. of him), and sets off to find his biological father Walter. Walter is a stressed out workaholic with no interest in a potential son he never even knew about. Among hi jinx at his father’s publishing company and a department store where he gets a job, and a new girlfriend. 

As I mentioned, this is a hilarious movie. Buddy the Elf, played by Will Ferrell has lots interactions with the New York City culture…including chaos at the department store where he gets a job as an elf, he unmasks who they hired as a Santa which leads to a chaotic mess, he rounds around a turnaround door tell he throws up, and he even accidentally walks in on Jovie in the shower singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” to which it becomes a duet between the two of them. Buddy also causes a dancing riot between the other coworkers when he briefly becomes drunk in the mailroom of Greenway Press, his father’s publishing business. And he unintentionally offends his father’s collaborator, Miles Finch by calling him a “south pole elf.” 

The movie is also a true family movie, demonstrating how beautiful forgiveness is. Buddy’s Christmas spirit gives him the strength to forgive his father because he knows that his father does care about him. Buddy also enjoys being in his life and having a relationship with him, along with his wife, Emily and son Michael. Buddy’s forgiveness in turn inspires Walter to be confident in himself that he is a good, hard worker and he doesn’t need to keep a job that his distracting him from his family. And at the end of the movie, he starts his own book publishing business “Walter Hobbs & Son,” a business that becomes all about family, with he and Buddy running the business together.   

“Elf,” is also an endearing romantic comedy. When Buddy first meets Jovie, he is completely blown away by her beautiful singing voice. Jovie isn’t too sure what she thinks of Buddy and thinks his holiday spirit is quite awkward. And it originally looks like they’ll be enemies because Jovie doesn’t like it when Buddy inadvertently happens into the women’s locker room. However, she learns to forgive and later accepts an invitation to go out with him. Though the date gets off to an awkward start, they really begin to connect and share their first kiss and realize that they are meant to be. (Spoiler alert: a baby elf is in their future!)

All in all, “Elf,” is a movie that shows that we can all become preoccupied with worthless things during the holidays and that we need to find valuable things that truthfully bring the true Christmas spirit. To quote the movie “The bet way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear”—we can get in the spirit from Christmas songs, but what’s an even better gift during the holidays is family and spending time with them. While it is true that families wrong one another in complicated ways, we can and should learn to forgive them, and always value time with them no matter what. 

The Snow That Saved Radio City

        Disney has a remarkable history of shows that have been produced on Broadway, including several beloved movie adaptations. The first Disney show produced on Broadway was Beauty and the Beast, which opened at the Palace Theatre on April 18th, 1994, and played a total of 5,461 performances. The most recent Disney show to hit the Great White Way was Frozen which opened at the St. James Theatre on March 22nd, 2018 and played a total of 825 performances prior to the pandemic shutdown. But did you know that long before Disney started producing shows on Broadway, they produced a live stage version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Live on Stage at Radio City Music Hall? In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about how that production came about, and it’s success left an impactful legacy.

Robert Jani (Yan-e) was first employed by the Walt Disney Company when he was 21 years old, working as the head of the Guest Relations Department at Disneyland. His many responsibilities included coordinating the staging of Disneyland’s Grand Opening in July of 1955. In 1967, he was promoted to Director of Entertainment and not long after, to Creative Director of Walt Disney Productions. Throughout his time at Disney, he was the brains behind the “Main Street Electrical Parade,” which continues to run at both Disneyland and Disney World. While at Disney, his unique skills earned him the nickname “P.T. Barnum for the Modern Age,” and in 1978, Jani left Disney to form his own company, Robert Jani Productions, in New York City. 

Throughout the 1970s, regular theater-goers had chosen to either stay home and watch television or attend multiplex movie houses for entertainment, so in New York, Radio City Music Hall experiences a major recession. Business was so poor that the Rockefeller Center Board of Directors even chose to permanently close the doors of Radio City and fired the Rockettes. There was consideration of turning the hall into a shopping center, tennis courts or even a new location for the American Stock Exchange. There were some loyal Radio City patrons who were infuriated by this, they didn’t want to see it happen. Since Robert Jani had his own production company, he became in charge of all of Radio City’s live stage productions, determined to revitalize the historical New York landmark. At this point, the country was preoccupied with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and even a lewd oil crisis, but Bob wanted to make the country believe that no matter how much trouble there is in the world, there is always some good in it somewhere. He decided to do so by convincing Disney to let him adapt Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a stage production to be performed at Radio City.

After Disney agreed to green-light Snow White Live! (1979), Frank Wagner was hired to direct the show. Wagner was known for directing shows on Broadway such as “Ziegfeld Follies of 1957,” and “New of Faces of 1968,” though he also was best known for founding the International School of Dance at Carnegie Hall. The creative team knew that the most important casting choice for the show would be Snow White, and after a very strenuous search, in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, they found Mary Jo Salerno, who at the time was working as a singing cocktail waitress at Chicago’s The Gaslight Club. Salerno auditioned for the part in both Chicago and New York. She, herself, thought the idea that she would be cast was very far-fetched, but was ecstatic when she learned she got the part. The rest of the cast featured Richard Bowne as Prince Charming and Anne Francine as the Evil Queen. While the show included all of the original film’s beloved characters, it also included new characters created exclusively for the show, including Snow White’s father, The King (played by Thomas Ruisinger) and the Evil Queen’s right-hand-lady, Luna (played by Yolande Bavan). Charles Hall doubled the roles of the Magic Mirror’s voice and the Evil Queen’s “old hag” alter-ego.

Robert Jani was determined to see that the show was as faithful to the film as possible. Although stressful for the rest of the crew, they were granted unlimited access to the Walt Disney Archives in Burbank and made sure no detail was overlooked. In addition to using the original film’s music by Composer Frank Churchill and Lyricist Larry Morey, Jay Blackton and Joe Cook collaborated together on new music for the stage version. Rehearsals were stressful for the actors as well because they required a lot of physical moving around the stage and most of the actors weren’t regular exercisers. Despite these challenges, the show opened at Radio City on October 18th, 1979, and the performance was a smash. The audience applauded Snow White and the Dwarfs, hissed at the evil queen, and even sang along with the songs throughout the show. The kids in the audience even shouted out to Snow White, warning her not to eat the apple given to her by the witch at the very end. The show became a sell-out hit, and closed on November 18th, 1979 after a total of 38 performances. It was thanks to the success of this show that the Radio City Christmas Spectacular was finally able to come back on November 25th.

“Snow White,” however, embarked on a national tour, performing in Chicago and Washington D.C. The tour ended in New York City, with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular closing on January 6th, 1980, and due to popular demand, “Snow White,” returned. It reopened on January 11th, 1980 and played a total of 68 additional performances, closing on March 9th. When Walt Disney released his film version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December of 1937, the film made over $400 million dollars and paved the way for to Disney to produce Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and all the other films that followed. Who would have thought that more than 40 years later, a stage production of Snow White would have saved Radio City Music Hall in New York City?

The Name's Sir Connery...Sir Sean Connery

    On October 31st, 2020 we lost another legend in the entertainment industry. This Scotland-native legend was known primarily for originating the character of James Bond, otherwise known as Agent 007, in the James Bond franchise (1962-present). But in addition to his “Bond” role this legend had a wonderfully versatile career. With roles ranging from an anti-heroic submarine captain, to Indiana Jones’s disgruntled but caring father, to Eliot Ness’s crime fighting mentor, he always portrayed tough guys that could easily take care of themselves. His name? Sir Sean Connery.

Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25th, 1930 in Fountainbridge, an area just west of Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother, Euphemia “Effie” McBain McLean worked as a cleaning woman while his father, Joseph, was a factory worker and lorry (motor truck) driver. Young Thomas was named after his grandfather, though he later started going by his middle name, Sean, because as a child he had a friend named Seamus, and others who knew both boys liked the idea of saying the names of Sean and Seamus together whenever both were present, and the name stuck with him the rest of his life. When he achieved his fully grown height of 6’2’’ at the age of 18, he also earned the nickname “Big Tam.”

In his adolescence, he worked a great deal of jobs: as a milkman, a lorry driver (just like his father), and even an artist’s model for the Edinburgh College of Art. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 and trained at the naval gunnery school and an anti-aircraft crew in Portsmouth and later served as an Able Seaman on the HMS Formidable. He was discharged from the Royal Navy at age 19 due to a duodenal ulcer, and as a result decided to begin bodybuilding and playing football/Soccer as new hobbies. He excelled at both and showed a great deal of potential to even make a career as football player. When he entered a bodybuilding competition in London at 1953, he heard from another competitor that there were auditions for a production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. He decided to audition for that and was cast a bit role as one of the Seabees chorus boys. 

The production of South Pacific toured throughout the United Kingdom, and while on tour, Connery continued to play in football matches whenever he could. He played in match where he was spotted by football scout Matt Busby, who was impressed by his “ball” skills and even offered Connery a 25-pound-a-week contract. Connery was later quoted as having said “I realized that a top-class footballer could be over the hill by the age of 30 and I was already 23, so I decided to become an actor and it turned out to be one of my more intelligent moves.” Connery ultimately worked his way up to playing the role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams in South Pacific and he had an uncredited role in the British-produced film Lilacs in the Spring released in 1954. He landed several roles as extras in plays and movies, but those didn’t pay enough so he took another job as a babysitter, which earned him 10 shillings a night. It wasn’t long though, before he befriended American actor Robert Henderson who later helped him get cast in a production of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution at London’s Q Theatre. This also led to playing major roles in productions produced by the Oxford Theatre, including Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie.

Sean Connery made his American film debut when he was cast in Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). Playing the role was challenging for him because it required him to talk in an Irish twang instead of his natural Scottish accent. He also wasn’t terribly fond of singing the duet “My Pretty Irish Girl,” with co-star Janet Munro. In spite of the challenges, the film was a hit, but little did Connery know that the film would catch the attention of producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli who at the time was working on a film series adaptation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He was searching for someone to play the suave spy, and when he saw “Darby O’Gill,” he knew his quest had ended. When he offered the role to Connery, however, Connery initially was skeptical at the idea of portraying the same character in a film series. He relented however when he realized how his career would progress if the films were successes, and made his very first appearance in Dr. No (1962).

Connery portrayed James Bond in seven films: “Dr. No,” From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Never Say Never Again (1983), all of which were successes. In between those films, he also starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) and Sidney Lumet’s The Hill (1965) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He later grew tired of the Bond character and was very eager to prove his versatility, also saying “I am fed up to here with the whole Bond bit,” and “I’ve always hated that d***** James Bond. I’d like to kill him.” His close pal, Sir Michael Caine, with whom he appeared inThe Man Who Would Be King (1975) and A Bridge To Far (1977), said “If you were his friend in those early days you didn't raise the subject of Bond. He was, and is, a much better actor than just playing James Bond, but he became synonymous with Bond. He'd be walking down the street and people would say, ‘Look, there's James Bond’ That was particularly upsetting to him.”

Connery did succeeded in proving his versatility throughout the ‘80s, starring in films such as Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1984) and The Name of the Rose (1986), which garnered him a BAFTA award. And at 1988 Oscars, he was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987). To this day, Connery and David Niven remain the only actors to have played James Bond ever to win an Oscar (Niven won for Separate Tables (1958)). Connery received the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for “Untouchables,” as well. Shortly after this triumph, Steven Spielberg cast Connery as Henry Jones Sr., father of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the third installment in the “Indiana Jones” franchise. The film featured John Rhys-Davies and Alison Doody both of whom had roles in the “Bond,” franchise.

Connery starred in The Hunt for Red October in 1990 and 1991 he briefly reunited with “Untouchables,” co-star Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) in which Costner played Robin Hood or Robin of Locksley and Connery made a cameo as King Richard the Lionheart. In 1995, he was awarded the Cecil B. Demille Award for a lifetime of achievement in film. In 1996 he starred in Hollywood Pictures’ The Rock (1996) and also made his debut as a voice-over artist, voicing the character of Draco the Dragon in DragonHeart (1996). He made his last theatrical film appearance in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

Sean Connery will forever be remembered by those who watched him build the James Bond character. But an overview of his accomplished career, however, proves that he was much more than Bond…he was a gifted and versatile actor. And the legacy of that versatility and talent lives on!  

Dame Helen Mirren "HRH"

    Queen Elizabeth II is undoubtedly Helen Mirren’s best-known role. But she has portrayed several queens throughout her career, some real and some fictional. And besides her “regal” roles she has portrayed characters that range from an uptight, child-hating CEO of a modeling agency to a murderous household servant, to even the voice of a huge computer. In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about Dame Helen Mirren’s fascinating career that spans for more than half a century.

Helen Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith London on July 26th, 1945. (Helen Mirren would later play Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III in the movie The Madness of King George (1994)). Her father, Vasily Petrovich Mironoff worked as a London cab driver and a viola player in the London Philharmonic Orchestra right before WW2 and her mother was a working-class Englishwoman whose father had been the butcher for Queen Victoria. Her father later changed his name to Basil, as well as his family’s surname to Mirren. She attended Hamlet Court Primary School in Westcliff-on-Sea and there she landed the leading role in a school production of Hansel & Gretel. She also attended St. Bernard’s High School for Girls in Southend-on-Sea where she acted in more school productions and at just 18 years of age, she auditioned and was accepted at the NYT (National Youth Theatre)

During her time at NYT she played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic at age 20. It wasn’t long after that that the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) came knocking on her door and invited her to join, where she played roles like Castizia in The Revenger’s Tragedy and Diana in All’s Well That End’s Well. Her time with the RSC was documented in the film Doing Her Own Thing which was produced and directed by John Goldsmith and aired on the British television network ATV in 1970.

Mirren’s very first venture as a queen was in 1977 when she portrayed Queen Margaret in Terry Hand’s three-part production of Henry VI. She played Empress Caesonia in the film Caligula (1979), and that same year she starred as Isabella in Peter Gill’s production of Measure for Measure at Riverside Studios which earned her a great deal of acclaim, including a review that said she was “bursting with grace.” She revived the role of Cleopatra for the second time in 1983 for the Pit Theatre’s production of Antony and Cleopatra. 

Her American film debut came when she starred in 2010 (1984) opposite Roy Schieder and John Lithgow. Officially earning her her Screen Actor’s Guild Card, she continued acting in movies such as Heavenly Pursuits, Coming Through, and White Knights, all of which were released in 1985. She also appeared in the Young Vic Theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s Two Way Mirror in 1989. 1994 was a remarkable year for her career because in addition to receiving her very first Oscar nomination, Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Charlotte in “Madness of King George,” she also made her Broadway debut when she was cast as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev’s production of A Month in the Country which earned her first Tony Nomination for Best Actress in a Play.

In 1996, Mirren starred opposite Beau Bridges and Kyra Sedgwick in the television film Losing Chase and in 1998 portrayed Cleopatra for the third time to Alan Rickman’s Antony in the Royal National Theatre’s revival of Antony and Cleopatra. 1998 was also the year Helen Mirren provided the voice of Queen Tuya, Moses’s adopted mother in Dreamworks’s The Prince of Egypt. 2001 was also a big year for Helen Mirren because she made her directorial debut with Happy Birthday, a film that she directed and starred in. She made four other films that year, including Gosford Park in which she played Mrs. Wilson, a role that earned her a second Oscar Nomination. She earned her second Tony nomination starring in August Strindberg’s Dance of Death in 2002 opposite Sir Ian McKellen, and also made Touchstone’s Raising Helen in 2004, under the direction of Garry Marshall. 

In 2005, Helen Mirren voiced Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and she portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in the mini-series Elizabeth I starring opposite Jeremy Irons, Hugh Dancy, Ian McDiarmid, and Eddie Redmayne. She specifically chose Tom Hooper to direct this mini-series, having previously worked under his guidance on the mini-series Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (2003). (Hooper later won the Best Director Oscar for directing The King’s Speech (2010) which was about Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI.) Mirren and Irons won both Golden Globes and Emmys for their performances as Elizabeth and Earl of Leicester. When she was later cast as Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” she took the role extremely seriously, interviewing people who knew Elizabeth II personally and making sure the rest of the cast had time to get to know one another so that they’d feel like family. 

Her performance received a five-minute standing ovation when it first premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won her a total of 29 awards, including the Best Actress Oscar, and the Best Actress in a Drama Golden Globe. Her performance in the film impressed even the real Queen Elizabeth II who invited her to dinner at Buckingham Palace, but she sadly had to decline due to other filming commitments. She later won her first Tony Award when she recreated the role of The Queen for the play The Audience which opened on Broadway in 2015.

Mirren starred in Disney’s sequel to National Treasure (2004), National Treasure: Book of Secrets in 2007 and returned to her Shakespearean roots when she starred in Touchstone’s/Mirimax’s The Tempest (2010) based on the play of the same name. In that film, she played Prospera, a role that is typically played by a man and is also called Prospero. She also made RED in 2010 and later received a huge surprise when she found out the Pixar Animation Studios wanted her to voice Dean Abigail Hardscrabble in Monsters University (2013), the prequel to Monsters, Inc. (2001). Mirren made Touchstone’s The Hundred-Foot Journey in 2014. And most recently, she made Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) and The Good Liar (2019) which reunited her with Ian McKellen. She lent her voice to The One and Only Ivan which began streaming on Disney+ on August 21, 2020. 

Helen Mirren will always be remembered for her performance as Elizabeth II, but throughout her incredibly career she has always played the strong-willed character: determined, fierce and intimidating, but usually kind, and a dry sense of humor.

A Villain to Hate

    During the Halloween season, monster is a term that frequently comes to mind. Have you ever realized though that monster is an extremely ambiguous term? There are monstrous creatures: Goblins, Ogres, and Lake Monsters (like Gozilla), though there also humanoid monsters: Werewolves, Zombies, and Vampires. On occasion, normal humans can also be considered monsters due to having cruel/ignorant personalities, being abusive to others, and becoming drunk with power. Today I wanted to tell you about an actress who did a brilliant job at bringing to life a villain that I love to hate, Imelda Staunton.

Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton was born in Archway, North London on January 9th, 1956. As a student at La Sainte Union Catholic School, Staunton took drama classes with an elocution teacher who noticed that she had potential to be an actress. Her teacher inspired her to try out for drama schools and Staunton was fortunate enough to be accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at just 18 years of age. She graduated RADA in 1976 and spent the next six years in English repertory theatre.

Her first major role (also the title role) was in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan in 1979. She later moved on to roles in the Royal National Theatre where she starred in The Beggar’s Opera in 1982. Her role as Lucy Lockit earned her Olivier Award Nominations for Best Actress in a Musical as well as Most Promising Newcomer. That same year she also had a small part as Mimi the Hotbox girl in the National Theatre’s revival of Guys and Dolls, where she met her future husband, actor Jim Carter. (Carter played the role of gangster, Big Julie in the show.) The married the following year, and in ’85 Staunton won the Olivier for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her performances in the plays The Corn is Green and A Chorus of Disapproval. She made her film debut in the British historical drama Comrades in ’86 and received the Best Actress in a Musical Olivier for portraying the Baker’s Wife in London’s first original production of Into the Woods in 1990.

In 1993, she appeared on the BBC1 original sit-com If You See God, Tell Him (1993) and she and her husband welcomed their only child that year, daughter Bessie Carter. And in 1995, she played the role of Charlotte Jennings Palmer in Sense and Sensibility (1995), which also starred Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet. The film starred Hugh Laurie as Mr. Palmer, who had previously played Staunton’s husband in Peter’s Friends (1992), which also starred Emma Thompson and was directed by Thompson’s former husband, Kenneth Branagh. Though they shared no scenes together Staunton later appeared with her husband in the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) which was that year’s Best Picture Oscar Winner. She voiced Bunty the Chicken in Dreamwork Animation’s Chicken Run in 2000.

In 2004, Staunton received her very first Academy Award Nomination, Best Actress for playing the title role of Vera Drake. She reunited with Emma Thompson, playing Mrs. Joan Blatherwick, the family cook, in Nanny McPhee (2005). 

Finally came that villain I love to hate, as 2007, Imelda Staunton was cast as Delores Umbridge in in 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She was the producers’ only choice for the part, and she, along with the film’s costume designer, Jany Temime even came up with the idea of making Umbridge’s dress look more “soft,” darkening the shades of pink, throughout the film’s progression as an indication of how Umbridge gains power through flattery. Staunton, herself, even described Umbridge as a “Bloody Monster.” The film was a major “Sense and Sensibility,” reunion as it also featured Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney, Alan Rickman as Professor Snape, and Robert Hardy as Cornelius Fudge. Staunton received a London Film Critics Circle Award for “British Actress in a Supporting Role,” and she played a character very similar to Umbridge that same year in Freedom Writers (2007) starring opposite Hilary Swank. (It was Swank who had beaten Staunton for the ’04 Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Million Dollar Baby.)

In 2010, Staunton reprised the role of Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and voiced the Tall Flower Faces in Disney’s live-action remake of Alice in Wonderland (2010). “Wonderland,” also featured “Potter,” co-stars Helena Bonham Carter, Frances de la Tour and the voices of Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and her husband, Jim Carter. Rickman, Staunton, and Carter all recorded their lines in one day. In 2012, Staunton received another Olivier Award for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in the Adelphi Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. While continuing her run in “Sweeney Todd,” she concurrently played the role of Knotgrass the Fairy Godmother in Disney’s Maleficent (2014). 

Staunton earned yet another Olivier award for her performance as Mama Rose in the Savoy Theatre’s revival of Gypsy in 2015. She continued voicing parts in the Paddington movies and a sequel to Maleficent. In 2019, she appeared with her husband and “Potter,” co-star Dame Maggie Smith in the film of Downton Abbey. She is currently set to portray Queen Elizabeth II in the 5th and 6th season of the Netfilx series The Crown (2016-2020).

There’s no denying that Imelda Staunton is a wickedly talented actress. She can play someone loving like the Nurse in “Shakespeare in Love,” or Paddington Bear’s Aunt Lucy, and then turn on a dime and play someone ferociously malevolent like Delores Umbridge. Umbridge will continue to be one of Imelda Staunton’s best-known roles, but fans are looking forward to her as the “next queen” in The Crown. 

John Lee Hancock: The Founding Father of Biopics

        If you like stories about real people that bring their experiences to life, then screenwriter and director John Lee Hancock has likely created some of your favorite movies. With a range from biopic to historical drama, to unique interpersonal relationships, Hancock has established himself as an award-winning teller of true stories. It wasn’t necessarily what he set out to do, but watching many of his films, I’m glad he did. Let’s take a look at his life and accomplishments… 

John Lee Hancock was born on December 15th, 1956 in Longview, TX. Growing up in Texas, he attended Baylor University in Waco which was the alma mater of both his father, John Hancock Sr. and his brother, Kevin, both of whom played on Baylor’s Football team. While attending Baylor, he wrote for The Phoenix, which is a publication produced by Baylor’s English department. He earned a B.A. in English, but also a J.D. from Baylor Law School, and after his graduation, worked as an attorney for the Houston-based law firm Sowell & Ogg. It was his writing, however, that became a career.

His passion for movies made him pursue screenwriting, with the hopes of becoming a director. He relocated to Los Angeles where he became a member of the Fountainhead Theatre Company and co-founded another company called Legal Aliens Theatre where he began writing and directing plays. In 1991, Hancock directed his very first film, the romantic comedy Hard Time Romance. Unfortunately, the film was not well-received, but that same year he also wrote screenplay that caught the attention of Clint Eastwood, and Eastwood’s production company, Malpaso Productions, green-lit A Perfect World (1993), which was released in November of 1993 under the Warner Bros. label and was huge hit. Eastwood and Hancock teamed up together again to adapt Hancock’s next screenplay Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) which was also produced by Malpaso and released under Warner Bros.

Hancock briefly tried working for television, creating the drama series L.A. Doctors (1998-1999) though the show sadly didn’t last beyond its first season. He returned to movies, producing My Dog Skip in 2000, and Disney later hired him to direct The Rookie (2002) starring Dennis Quaid and written by Mike Rich. Hancock was excited at the idea of directing a film that he didn’t write the script for, explaining in an interview with Script Magazine, “It forced me to wear the director’s hat and fully embrace the idea that a script is a blueprint and that pragmatic decisions must be made every day during prep, shoot and post that enhance or even alter the locations, the scenes, the dialogue, the specific casting decisions, etc. When I direct something I’ve written, I try to look at the script as though it were written by someone else, lest I stay too deeply in love with something I’ve written just because I wrote it.” Thanks to Hancock’s guidance, “The Rookie,” received the ESPY Award for Best Movie (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award). 

Two years after “Rookie,” Hancock directed Touchstone Pictures’ remake of The Alamo (2004) which reunited him with Dennis Quaid and also starred Billy Bob Thorton and Patrick Wilson. Making this film, sadly was not a good experience for Hancock because he was advised by Disney to clothe images of Liberty on the Texas drums, which wasn’t historically accurate, because real-life pictures from that era always showed liberty with one or both breasts exposed. Not only did the film not do terribly well, but it became one of the biggest box-office bombs in movie history, according to IMDB. On a more positive note though, John Lee Hancock later wrote and directed Warner Bros.’ The Blind Side (2009) starring Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron, and Tim McGraw. This film was a huge hit, and like “Rookie,” it also won the ESPY Award for Best Movie, and Hancock’s guidance also helped Sandra Bullock win both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film received a Best Picture Oscar Nomination too.

Despite a bad experience directing “The Alamo,” Hancock agreed to work with Disney again, when his agent sent him the script for Saving Mr. Banks (2013), the film that depicted the controversial relationship between Mary Poppins author Pamela Lyndon “P.L.” Travers and Walt Disney at the time when Disney pursued Travers to convince her to sell him the rights to the film adaptation of Mary Poppins (1964). This film was also well-received, and reunited Hancock with actor, Rachel Griffiths who had previously played Dennis Quaid’s wife in “The Rookie.” In “Saving Mr. Banks,” Griffiths portrayed P.L. Travers' “Aunt Ellie” who is the real-life person who inspired the character of Mary Poppins. When this film was released, there were a number of former Walt Disney Imagineers who got to attend a sneak preview of the film and they were all emotionally moved by how John Lee Hancock and screenwriter Kelly Marcel brought Walt Disney back to life again. John Lee Hancock directed The Founder in 2016 and The Highwayman in 2019. In April of this year, he directed the pilot episode of the series Paradise Lost (2020-present). His next film, The Little Things, which he wrote, produced and directed will be released in January of next year and will star Denzel Washington and Jared Leto. 

John Lee Hancock is a remarkable director. Although he hasn’t directed movies quite as a Spielberg or an Eastwood, his movies are entertaining as they are fascinating. They are always well-acted, and tell inspiring, usually real-life stories.   

Linda Woolverton: The First Real Disney Heroine

After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December of 1937, Walt Disney began hiring more and more screenwriters to write the scripts for the movies that followed: Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), et al. The screenwriters he hired  were male, a trend that continued long after his death in December 1966. However, when the Disney Renaissance began in 90’s after the studio had wrapped The Little Mermaid in 1989, Disney hired novelist Linda Woolverton to write the screenplay for the film to follow, Beauty and the Beast (1991). Walt Disney himself had unsuccessfully attempted to adapt it for the screen twice, and Linda Woolverton was the very first female writer every to write a Disney animated screenplay.  In today’s blog I’d like to tell you about how she found her career path, the other things she’s done for Disney, and why her work is inspiring.

Linda Woolverton was born on December 19th, 1952 in Long Beach, California. She started acting in a local children’s theater to escape what she described as a “traumatic childhood.” She graduated High School in 1969 with Honors from the school’s theatre program and attended California State University, Long Beach, where she graduated with a BFA in Theater Arts in 1973. She completed a Master’s Degree in Theater for Children from California State Fullerton in 1976 and ultimately started her own children’s theater company, where she wrote, directed and performed in plays that toured all throughout California. 

In 1980, she landed a job as a secretary for the CBS Network. On her lunch breaks, she wrote her first novel for young adults, Star Wind. She left her secretary job after four years, taking a job as a substitute teacher in ’84 and also writing her second young adult novel Running Before the Wind. From ’86-’89, she was hired to write scripts for children’s television shows such as Dennis the Menace (1986-1988) and The Real Ghostbusters (1986-1991). She later got bored writing for children’s television shows and told her agent that she would like to try writing for Disney Animated Movies, but her agent told her she wasn’t ready. Woolverton disagreed, and dropped off a copy of Running Before the Wind to a Disney secretary and asked her to “give it to somebody to read.” Two days after that, she received a phone call from former Disney chairman, Jeffrey Katzenberg for an interview which led to her being hired to write the screenplay for “Beauty and the Beast.” 

While one might remember “Beauty and the Beast,” for it’s beautiful visuals, or for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s songs, but the movie also has very quotable lines, with powerful banter between Belle and the Beast and clever comebacks by Belle toward Gaston. Woolverton worked closely with the film’s directors and story artists in establishing a relationship between Belle and the Beast built on stubbornness and arrogance when they first meet, but later connection when the Beast risks his life to save Belle and Belle inspires the Beast to open up to the beauty of treating all of those around him with tenderness. Woolverton herself, is credited, with the idea of making Bella a bookworm, and yet establishing her as a strongest character in the film.

“Beauty,” became an incredibly huge success thanks to Woolverton’s efforts when it was released in November 22nd, 1991. It was the very first animated feature—along with being the first Disney animated movie—to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. Sadly, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences overlooked Woolverton’s efforts for the Screenplay Award Categories, though later on Disney Theatrical Productions asked her to readapt her movie screenplay for Disney’s Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast, which opened at the Palace Theater on April 18th, 1994 and received Nine Tony Nominations, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. 

Prior to “Beauty,” on Broadway though, Woolverton was also hired by the Disney studios to write the screenplay for Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), upon which she collaborated with Caroline Thompson. Together they created the characters of Chance the Bulldog, Shadow the Golden Retriever and Sassy the Himalayan Cat. Woolverton and Thompson established another beautiful relationship between the three animals in which Shadow and Chance both have their own way of wanting to find their way home, but Sassy bosses them around and make sure that they always stay together no matter what.

The same year as “Beauty” on Broadway, Woolverton also co-wrote the screenplay for The Lion King (1994). She is credited in that film for the idea for the dramatic scene where Mufasa is murdered halfway through the movie. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Woolverton was asked about writing that scene and said “Basically, I said we have to make Mufasa the greatest father who ever lived, and then we have to kill him,” which was said with a laugh. She explained “That was the mandate…So that, during the process, got built upon.” Throughout the rest of the Disney Renaissance, Woolverton also helped with early story development for Aladdin (1992) and she is credited with writing additional story development for Mulan (1998). She co-wrote the book for Sir Elton John’s and Sir Tim Rice’s Aida, which opened at the Palace Theater, on March 23rd, 2000 and was also critically acclaimed. (“Aida,” replaced “Beauty,” who then transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre where it continued its Broadway run.) In 2007, Linda Woolverton wrote narration for the documentary film Arctic Tale, which was performed by Queen Latifah, and she also wrote the screenplay for an original idea that she had had in her head for a very long time. 

The idea was a reinvention of the classic Lewis Carroll novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in which Alice is a young adult who is being forced into marriage but who actually wants to build a career path for herself instead. She is suddenly summoned into Wonderland to defeat the creature known as the Jabberwocky along with the Evil Red Queen and that journey inspires her to not be afraid, to think for herself, have her own voice, and do precisely what she wants with her life, despite hints of romance between herself and the Mad Hatter. She shared this idea with producers Suzanne and Jennifer Todd, and Joe Roth who brought the project to Disney. Disney instantly agreed to finance and distribute the new Alice in Wonderland (2010) and also hired Tim Burton to direct. When it was released, the movie grossed over $1 billion dollars, making Linda Woolverton the first and so far only female screenwriter ever to having a solo writing credit on a film that made over $1 billion dollars. The movie won the Oscars for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction and also spawned a sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) for which Woolverton also wrote the screenplay. 

The success of “Alice in Wonderland,” also led to Disney hiring Woolverton to write the screenplay for Maleficent (2014). It was also groundbreaking because it not only reinvented a classic fairy tale, but it told the story from the perspective of the villain. The film acknowledged that the villain, Maleficent, wasn’t born evil, but turned to evil when she was betrayed, but she finds compassion in her heart to save the leading lady’s life. According to Disney, the script for the movie was in “development hell,” which means an idea that takes an unnecessarily long to time to fully develop, until Woolverton came on board to write it. This film grossed total of $758.5 million, received a Best Costume Design Oscar Nomination, and just like “Alice,” spawned a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019). 

To say that Linda Woolverton is an exceptional screenwriter is understatement. For nearly 30 years, she has written screenplays for Disney about strong women such as Belle, Alice, Maleficent, and others. They are courageous, and vigorous and never afraid to use their own voice. She is currently writing the screenplay for a new animated feature, Spellbound, to be released in 2022 under the labels of Paramount Pictures and Skydance Animation. It will also feature songs by Disney songwriting legend, Alan Menken.

Woolverton’s legacy at Disney is extraordinary and it will continue to be remembered simply for the quality and achievements of the work. But the fact that she was also a ground-breaking woman creating creating groundbreaking movies with strong female characters makes her someone to admire.

Steve Martin: A Man of Many Talents

    Very few comedians possess a talent range that includes writing and performing live onstage, acting in television shows and movies, writing and producing them, and even playing the banjo professionally. Steve Martin, however, is an exception. He has been making the world laugh for more than 50 years, in movies, television, live stand-up tours, and even in plays and novelizations. He has starred in comedies about romance like The Jerk (1979) and Roxanne (1987), though he’s also made several films about families where he portrays the father like Touchstone’s remake of Father of the Bride (1991) and Fox’s Cheaper by the Dozen (2003). Did you also know he’s some very fascinating Disney connections?   

  Steve Martin was born on August 14th, 1945 in Waco, Texas, though he was raised in Inglewood, California. His father, Glen Vernon Martin, was a real estate salesman and an aspiring actor, and Steve Martin has said that he first became interested in performing when he saw his father work as an extra serving drinks onstage at the Call Board Theatre on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. Martin attended Garden Grove High School where he was a cheerleader, but while his high school was on summer break, he landed his very first job, at Disneyland, selling guidebooks and working at the Main Street Magic Shop where he became the master of several magic tricks. While working for Disneyland, he made his first film appearance, appearing in the home movie Disneyland Dream, and it was also around this time he became interested in performing comedy. There he met Wally Boag, the star performer of Disney’s Golden Horseshoe Revue, who became Martin’s comedy mentor. 

    After graduating High School, Martin attended Santa Ana College where he studied drama and poetry. He briefly considered becoming a college professor instead of a comedian, which led to him studying philosophy at California State University, Long Beach. He later decided to major in theater at UCLA and it was there that he began performing stand-up at local night clubs. When was 21 years old, he decided to quit college and devoted himself to performing stand-up comedy. He landed his first official job as a writer on the The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967-1969) and the job won him an Emmy Award. Besides that show, he wrote for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969-1972) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971-1974). Around this time, he appeared as the opening act for groups like The Carpenters and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John McEuen, who was a member of the latter, taught Martin how to play the banjo, which later became the trademark of Martin’s stand-up career.

In 1972, Steve Martin made his very first theatrical film appearance in Another Nice Mess (1972). He received another Emmy Nomination for writing material for the show Van Dyke and Company, and made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1976. His career really began to skyrocket in the following years, when he released comedy albums that went platinum, including Let’s Get Small in 1977 which featured the track “Excuse Me,” which became national catch phrase and A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978) which reached #2 spot on the U.S. sales chart and sold over a million copies. This album featured the song “King Tut,” which was also released as a single and reached #17 on the U.S. charts that year. He guest-starred on The Muppet Show in 1977 and made a cameo in The Muppet Movie, released in 1979. ’79 was also the year Steve Martin published his first book, Cruel Shoes, appeared as himself in the “rockumentary” The Kids Are Alright, and starred in and wrote The Jerk, a film that was directed by Carl Reiner and was a success. 

The success of “Jerk,” led to Martin collaborating with Carl Reiner on three other movies: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) and The Man With Two Brains (1983), both of which Martin wrote with Reiner and Reiner also directed. Reiner directed Martin again in All of Me (1984). In 1986, he teamed up with Chevy Chase and Martin Short in Three Amigos! and he made the movie-musical version of Little Shop of Horrors in ’86 as well, starring opposite Rick Moranis, John Candy, and Ellen Greene. Steve Martin became great friends with several of his co-stars in both these films, particularly with Short and Candy, and he collaborated with them in later films. In 1987, he starred in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles opposite Candy and the film was written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. Both Martin and Candy later went on to say that “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” was their favorite film of all the films they made. Martin also wrote, executive produced, and starred in Roxanne in ’87, a romantic comedy that modernized the story of Cyrano de Bergerac a play written by Edmond Rostand in 1897. 

In 1988, Steve Martin starred opposite Sir Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a film that was directed by former “Muppet” performer Frank Oz. Although his character was married with children “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” the first film he made that truly explored the relationship of parents and children happened the following year in Parenthood (1989). This movie reunited him with Rick Moranis and also starred Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, and Dianne Wiest. He made Touchstone’s remake of Father of the Bride two years later starring opposite Diane Keaton and Martin Short. (The film also featured a cameo by Eugene Levy.) In 1993, Steve Martin became a playwright for the first time when he wrote a play called Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which opened as an Off-Broadway production in New York in 1995. In ’95, Martin again reunited with Keaton, Short, and Levy in Father of the Bride part 2. Short and Martin also lent their voices to Dreamworks Animation’s The Prince of Egypt (1998) and in 1999 Martin wrote the film Bowfinger starring Eddie Murphy and appeared as one of the introductory hosts for one of the segments in Disney’s Fantasia 2000.

Steve Martin opened the 2000s writing the novella Shopgirl in 2000. He later starred in and wrote the screenplay for the film version of the novella in 2005. Prior to that, in 2003, he wrote a novel called The Pleasure of My Company and played the father of a dozen children in Fox’s remake of Cheaper By the Dozen starring alongside Bonnie Hunt as his wife. He and Hunt re-teamed with their kids in Cheaper By the Dozen 2 which was also released in 2005. He was only too happy to do so when Disney asked him to co-host with Donald Duck the Disneyland attraction Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years when Disneyland turned 50 in ’05. He starred in MGM’s/Columbia’s remake of The Pink Panther in 2006, which spawned a sequel in 2009. He married former New Yorker magazine writer Anne Stringfield in 2007, and he became a father for the very first time in his real life, at the age of 67, when his wife gave birth to a daughter in 2012. In late 2016, he returned to stand-up comedy nationally with Martin Short in a production called Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, which was adapted for Netfilx in 2018. 

Steve Martin is undoubtedly one of the most hilarious guys in comedy. He’s written it, he he’s performed it, he’s produced it, and he’s even written songs, books, and plays about it. He’s an extraordinary multi-talent, period! And whether he plays the romantic male lead or the crazy but tender-hearted father in a movie, the hilarity never ceases.    

Chadwick Boseman: Wakanda Forever

     On August 28th, 2020, we lost superstar Chadwick Boseman due to colon cancer at the age of 43. He was best-known for portraying one of the Marvel’s greatest superheroes, but throughout just a little over a decade in the entertainment industry, he played revolutionary figures of American history and was also a talented producer and playwright. I thought we would explore what makes his life inspiring today. 

     Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born in Anderson, South Carolina on November 29th, 1976. His mother, Carolyn, was a nurse and his father, Leroy, was a textile factory worker and managed an upholstery business. Boseman developed an interest in acting while attending T.L. Hanna High School and wrote his first play his junior year. The play was titled Crossroads, and Boseman staged it at school as a result of a classmate tragically being shot and killed. He later attended Howard University in Washington D.C. where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Directing. Directing was his main career ambition, though he also studied acting to relate to actors, attending the Oxford Mid-Summer Program of the British American Drama Academy in England. He worked as a drama instructor at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York, and also wrote some other plays that he took on tour, one of which was called Rhyme Deferred which he wrote with Howard classmate, Kamilah Forbes. They took the show on tour throughout the United States, and afterward Boseman relocated to Los Angeles. 

     He landed his very first acting role on the ABC Soap Opera All My Children (1970-2011), but during 2008 he also wrote and directed a short film called Blood Over a Broken Pawn (2008), and starred in his very first movie The Express: The Ernie Davis Story. (He played American football halfback, Floyd Little, starring opposite Dennis Quaid and Rob Brown). After making this film, he appeared in episodes of Castle (2009-2016) and Justified (2010-2015). In 2012, he starred in The Kill Hole opposite Billy Zane and and Peter Greene and directed another short film Heaven (2012). This short film was a special project for Boseman having been raised a Baptist and grown up a member of his church’s choir and youth group. 

    After wrapping each of these projects, Chadwick Boseman landed the role of a lifetime when he was cast as Jackie Robinson in 42 (2013), co-starring Harrison Ford and Alan Tudyk. Boseman performed the majority of his own stunts in the film while some were performed by Jasha Balcom, who in real life was a former minor league player. Boseman and Tudyk didn’t purposefully didn’t socialize with one other off screen so that the rivalry between their characters, Jackie Robinson and Ben Chapman, would look more believable on screen. The film was well-received, as were each of the actors. The Hollywood Reporter even said that he “has the necessary appeal, proves convincing as an athlete and is expressive in spite of the fact that the man he's playing must mostly keep his true feelings bottled up.” 

     In 2014, Boseman made the film Get on Up, where he impersonated the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown. Not long after wrapping this film, Boseman heard that Marvel was looking for an actor to portray T’Challa, otherwise known as the Black Panther, in Captain America: Civil War (2016). “Civil War” would be the Black Panther’s first appearance in the long line of Marvel films distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Although Boseman didn’t read comic books growing up, he immediately began researching the character and learned everything he could about him. He ultimately he met with Marvel and shared his vision of the character with them instead of actually auditioning for it. Fortunately, his vision was identical to their vision and he was cast. This led to him signing a five-picture deal with Marvel. 

     The same year as “Civil War,” Boseman starred in Message From the King (2016), a film that he also executive produced. He made his debut as a head producer the following year in Marshall (2017) starring as Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and co-producing with Lauren Friedman, Reginuld Hudlin, Jonathan Sanger, and Paula Wagner. In 2018, he reprised his signature role in Black Panther (2018) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). The Black Panther catchphrase “Wakanda Forever,” became a trademark from the first film that continues to today, being said a total of four times throughout the movie. He reprised the “Panther,” a third time in Avengers: Endgame (2019) and made 21 Bridges (2019) that year as well which he co-produced with Anthony and Joe Russo. The Russo brothers also directed Boseman in “Civil War,” “Infinity War,” and “Endgame.” He completed Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods (2020) and George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) before his unfortunate death. 

     Chadwick Boseman’s legacy in movies is incredibly remarkable. Although he will forever be remembered for portraying the Black Panther and saying “Wakanda Forever,” in just a short time (shorter than it should have been) he managed to live his dream of working in nearly every aspect of the entertainment industry. Not many others possess those kinds of capabilities. It’s also unfortunate that his plays never saw the lights of Broadway, but movie watchers will continue to benefit from his talents for “forever.”

Of Mice and Mice

“I hope we can never lose sight of one thing…it was all started by a mouse.” This was spoken by Walt Disney, and of course, he’s referring to Mickey Mouse. When Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse in May of 1928, along with Minnie Mouse in November of 1928, he created the first two of what is known today as the “Sensational Six,” which is the group of Disney characters that include Mickey and Minnie, along with Donald and Daisy Duck, plus Goofy and Pluto. Mickey and Minnie both continue with great fans today, and so do the rest of the “Six,” but since then Disney has created many other mice characters who are also fun and entertaining which don’t get quite as much attention. In today’s blog, I’d like to share with you about some of those characters and why they are special too.

“Timothy Q. Mouse,” from Dumbo (1941) is one great example. When Dumbo becomes separated from his mother in the movie, Timothy meets Dumbo and becomes his one and only friend. The rest of the circus teases and mocks him for having big ears, but when it is discovered that Dumbo can use his huge ears to fly, Timothy helps Dumbo work his way into being the signature act of the circus. Although they originally rely on a feather given to them for good luck (which they call “the magic feather”) Timothy also inspires Dumbo not to rely on the feather and to have confidence in himself, simply trying to do the very best he can. It is because of Timothy’s encouragement that Dumbo takes the best flight of his whole career—finally reuniting him with his mother.

“Gus and Jaq,” from Cinderella (1950) always have Cinderella’s back, much like how Timothy always has Dumbo’s back. Because Cinderella takes the time to rescue them—along with several other mice—from the cat, Lucifer, dressing them and treating them as her friends, in return they help her. Gus and Jaq feel a great deal of compassion for Cinderella and for the trouble she goes to on a daily basis to please her stepmother (Lady Tremaine) and stepsisters (Anastasia and Drizella Tremaine). They help design Cinderella’s pink ball gown, and although the gown is destroyed by Anastasia and Drizella, when the Fairy Godmother comes to help out, Gus and Jaq are turned into white horses that pull Cinderella’s carriage to the ball! Later on, when Cinderella has been locked in her bedroom by her stepmother, preventing her from trying on the glass slipper and ever seeing Prince Charming again, Gus and Jaq successfully retrieve they bedroom key from Lady Tremaine and give it to Cinderella who frees herself and is saved. Fans love that Gus and Jaq are the heroes of the story!

Just like “Gus and Jaq,” Bernard and Miss Bianca from The Rescuers (1977) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990) are also very devoted to protecting humans. In the first “Rescuers,” Miss Bianca reads a letter to the Rescue Aid Society that was sent in a bottle from Penny, who was kidnapped by greedy diamond collector, Madame Medusa, to retrieve a huge and popular diamond. Miss Bianca is a courageous mouse who wants to rescue Penny, which the society agrees to, on the condition that she chooses a partner. Bianca chooses Bernard, the janitor mouse, having developed a crush on him. Ultimately, thanks to the help of friends they make in the swamp, where Medusa’s hideout is, Bernard and Bianca overcome insecurities and fears to succeed in saving Penny from the swamp, and restoring her to the New York City orphanage—where she finally meets a new adoptive mother and father, fulfilling her lifelong dream.

In “Rescuers Down Under,” Bernard and Bianca are again summoned to Australia to rescue a boy named Cody kidnapped by a man named McLeach, a poacher/hunter of all animals. Although Miss Bianca is preoccupied with Cody’s well-being in the film, Bernard is preoccupied with the idea of proposing marriage to Bianca and they meet a new friend along with the way, another Disney-mouse—this one named Jake. Jake teaches them about Australia, though Bernard unfortunately feels that Jake will be a competitor against him for Bianca’s affection. They all three work together, saving Cody and setting Marahute free, but it turns out that Jake is in no position to marry and settle down, so Bernard finally proposes to Bianca, and she happily accepts.

In The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Disney parodies the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in the form of anthropomorphized mice: the detective Basil of Baker Street and Dr. David Dawson. Dr. Dawson meets a mouse girl named Olivia whose father has been kidnapped by the conniving Professor Ratigan (a rat-but he doesn’t like to talk about it :)) and he brings her to Basil’s house in the cellar of 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes himself lives. Dawson is very kind and compassionate toward Olivia, and though Basil is at first cynical and insensitive to the idea of working with children, he finds compassion in his heart too, and they begin an epic quest. It takes a great deal of searching and clue-finding, but ultimately they find Olivia’s father and learn that he was kidnapped to create a “toy” in the shape of the Mouse Queen of England. Together, Basil and Dawson bravely thwart Ratigan’s schemes (including an epic chase scene in the interiors of “Big Ben”) and Olivia is restored to her father. The two partners are honored by the Mouse Queen and they decide to continue their partnership.

Throughout Disney’s history, there have been great mice characters: some goofy but good-hearted sidekicks, some lovestruck main characters, and others who struggle with bravery, but find it. Whether or not we will ever see a new mouse character (perhaps an unfriendly/evil one?) from Disney is unknown, though for now, their “family tree” of mice characters will continue to be full of great fun and all things Disney.