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.

Pete Docter: Pixar's Soul Man

Pete Docter: Pixar’s Soul Man

A director is an extremely pivotal job when it comes to making movies. Once they read the screenplay for the film, they have to visualize the story and share their vision with the rest of the film crew, as well as the cast. They also have to make sure the cast and crew has a clear enough understanding of that vision, guide them every step of the way as they make it, and make doubly sure that their vision comes together and looks believable on screen. They are also heavily involved with hiring: both actors to be in their movies and a crew to make it happen. In today’s blog, I’d like to tell you about someone who has been an employee at Pixar for several years. He has directed three of Pixar’s best movies, has a fourth film set to come out this December, and is the current Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, Pete Docter!

Pete Docter was born in October 9th, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota. His father, Dave, was a choral director at Normandale Community College and his mother was a music teacher, and ironically they both had doctorates in education so they were both known as Dr. Docter! Growing up with two sisters, young Pete Docter was shy and didn’t have many friends. He usually preferred working by himself, and taught himself how to make flip books and homemade animated shorts with his family’s movie camera. Although his sisters, Kristen and Kari, were professional string musicians,, Pete felt that animation was his true calling (though he did go on to be an exceptional double bass player).

After graduating John F. Kennedy High School, he transferred to the University of Minnesota where he studied philosophy, though created art in his spare time. He spent close to a year there before he transferred to CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), where he produced a short film called “Next Door,” which won a Student Academy Award. He graduated CalArts in 1990, and had hoped to work for the Walt Disney Company, but instead received a good offer from a relatively new company called Pixar. He was the company’s tenth employee, and his very first assignment was as a screenwriter and head animator on Toy Story (1995). The character of Buzz Lightyear is actually partially based on Pete Docter. In developing the character, he made facial gestures with a mirror he had at his desk at Pixar to create Buzz.

Docter was also an Additional Storyboard Artist on A Bug’s Life (1998) and wrote the Story for Toy Story 2 (1999). These two films led to his first directing assignment, when he was assigned to direct Monsters, Inc. (2001). The idea for the film was actually hatched over lunch among Docter, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and the late Joe Ranft while “Toy Story,” was still in production. He also co-wrote the film with five other writers, and played double bass on the film’s original score soundtrack. The film was a huge hit and received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Animated Feature Film—the first year the Best Animated Feature Film Category was awarded at the Oscars. Although “Monsters, Inc.,” lost to Dreamworks’s Shrek (2001), “Monsters, Inc.,” did win the Oscar for Best Original Song: “If I Didn’t Have You.”

After “Monsters, Inc.,” Docter wrote and directed the short film Mike’s New Car (2002) featuring the characters from the film. He also directed the English dub version of the Disney/Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle (2005). His next writing/directing assignment at Pixar was Up (2009). In addition to writing and directing that film, Docter also provided the voices of Kevin the bird and Campmaster Strauch, as well as double bass on the film’s original soundtrack. The character of Carl Fredricksen’s wife Ellie, as a child, is both based on and voiced by Pete Docter’s real-life daughter, Elizabeth “Elie” Docter. “Up,” was a huge hit, winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar while also becoming the very first Disney/Pixar film ever to receive an Oscar Nomination for Best Motion Picture.

After “Up,” Docter served as a creative consultant for The Muppets (2011) which was his very first official assignment only for Disney. This assignment was special for him because he had grown up on “The Muppets,” as a child. It was also around this time, that he began noticing changes in his daughter Elie. Elie had grown up a very kind, tender-hearted girl who would go as far as to say “Hi, I’m Elie! What’s your name?” to a complete stranger. When Elie turned 11 years old, however, Pete explained in an interview that “Elie’s childhood joy took a vacation,” as she was developing into a teenager at the time. Ultimately, it was the basis for his third directorial project at Pixar, Inside Out (2015). When he wrote the story for this film, he combined Ellie’s development along with sad memories of his own childhood, and he provided the voice of Riley’s father, Bill’s Anger. It was his second Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Pete Docter’s next directorial film for Disney and Pixar is Soul to available to stream on Disney+ on December 25th, 2020. He co-wrote the film with Kemp Powers and Mike Jones. The film will tell the story of an African-American musician named Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who has lost his passion for music and loses his soul as a result. His soul has to find its way back, and help Joe learn about himself along the way. Tina Fey will also be lending her voice to the film, and she contributed to the film’s script as well. In a recent interview with IGN, Docter, Powers, and producer Dana Murray, all explained the inspiring themes about the movie. Docter explained how it acknowledges “Where do we come from? Why are we here? We (at Pixar) are totally passionate people,” “We get to pour our everything into what we do and yet is that really the best use of what we have? I mean, what are we here for. It gets into some deep stuff.” Powers said that “We’re trying to tell a story where a character quite literally gets to explore that, what he was put on this Earth to do.” Murray also explained “The idea started when Pete’s son was born and seconds after he was in the world, he looked at him and he was already there, like who he was, his personality. And I think the ultimate question was like, how does that happen?”

Pete Docter is a genius when it comes to making animated movies. He has an incredibly unique understanding of human emotion and behavior. His films continue to endure today because they are about cartoon characters who look after/protect children in parental ways: Mike and Sulley protecting Boo in “Monsters, Inc.,” Carl protecting Russell in “Up,” and the five emotions (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger) guiding Riley in “Inside Out.” His next offering looks to be another in a long line of Pete Docter successes.