Timur PANKOV
ALMATY, April 1 (THE GLOBE)
The only reason I�m in Hollywood is that I don�t have the moral courage to refuse the money.
Marlon Brando
HIS oldest son killed a man, his daughter, Cheyenne, committed suicide, and his last few movies flopped�but Brando is still a legend. Because of him, method acting, �Stella!!!,� torn T-shirts, �I coulda been a contender,� motorcycle jackets, and �I made him an offer he couldn�t refuse� are engraved on the global psyche.
Inconceivably handsome, his notable 1944 stage debut in I Remember Mama preceded a 1947 performance in Tennessee Williams� A Streetcar Named Desire that was so riveting in its naturalism and charisma that the acting profession has never been the same. Astounding movie roles rapidly followed in The Men, the movie version of Streetcar, Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar, The Wild One, and On the Waterfront, for which he won every possible award. Brando was the perfect icon for the beat generation. Remarkably, his rebellious posturing, feverish womanizing, and disastrous marriage to Anna Kashfi never interfered with his sublime characterizations. A decade of losers followed and then ended, in 1972, with another Academy Award, for The Godfather, and raves for the steamy Last Tango in Paris. Brando�s political activism peaked when he sent a Native American to refuse his Godfather Oscar.
Though nominated in 1989 for a supporting part in A Dry White Season, Brando gave his last significant performance in Apocalypse Now (1979). Over the years, his physical stature has grown to match his legend. He�s that big. Inflated grocery bills and the high costs of owning a Tahitian atoll battered his finances, as did legal fees when his son, Christian, murdered his pregnant half-sister Cheyenne�s fianc�. To recoup, Brando published a tell-nothing $5-million autobiography in 1994, and in 1995 he turned in a pleasant performance in Don Juan DeMarco. Less pleasant was his mad scientist turn in the 1996 remake of The Island of Doctor Moreau.
The New York Post reported in September of 1995 that Brando was seeking Irish citizenship because Tahitian gangsters have placed a contract on his life; they supposedly blame him for the 1990 murder of islander Dag Drollet and the tragic 1994 suicide of Brando�s half-Tahitian daughter, Cheyenne (her death sent him into seclusion and a deep depression). Brando�s statements about his belief that Hollywood is �run by Jews� led to charges of anti-semitism, and his star on Hollywood�s Walk of Fame was defaced with a swastika. He later apologized for the remarks.
Marlon Brando � American actor, icon of sixties. Among the most of his famous movies are �GodFather� and �Apocalypse Now�.
Director Kazan Was Black-listed From Awards For Anti-communist Stand
By Wallace Kaufman
Pittsboro, NC, March 31
(The GLOBE)
Hollywood celebrities for 40 years made heroes and heroines of people in their ranks who refused to talk to Congress in the 1950s about communist activities in the film industry. Many writers, actors, and directors were �black-listed� by big studios who refused to give them work.
At the same time a few who felt morally obliged to cooperate in exposing the efforts of Stalin and the Party to influence public opinion through Hollywood were called �traitors� and �rats� by their colleagues. Last week in the 71st annual Academy Awards a talented director who felt obliged to speak against supporters of the Stalin regime, gulags, and the NKVD finally emerged triumphant from the shame and ridicule heaped on him by Hollywood�s elite. Director Elia Kazan, 89 years old and sick, received an honorary Oscar.
Kazan is best known for his films of the 1950s and 60s, �On the Waterfront,� �A Streetcar Named Desire,� �Viva Zapata!� and �East of Eden.� Ironically these films focused on the very social problems that many of Kazan�s critics felt America was ignoring�corruption in labor and migrant laborers, for instance.
Kazan became an anathema to the liberal and left wing professionals in Hollywood because in 1952 testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee he named eight friends who had been active in the Communist Party in the 1930s. As recently as two years ago the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the American Film Institute refused to grant Kazan awards for lifetime achievement.
This year�s decision to award Kazan a rare honorary Oscar came from a unanimous vote of the Academy�s 39 members. Academy president Robert Rehme said, �I�m proud we�re doing this.� When the Academy voted Rehme said, �There was no debate, no discussion; it was overwhelmingly approved with enthusiasm. Elia Kazan is one of the most extraordinary directors of this century.�
Thanks to Kazan and the Actors Studio he founded in 1947 actors like Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, and Julie Harris became famous. Twenty-one actors were nominated for Oscars for work in his films.
Kazan and a few other Hollywood figures, including Ronald Reagan felt strongly that the Soviet Union and the Stalin regime should not be allowed to use the enormously influential film industry and its stars to influence American popular opinion. The colleagues they worried about had produced several films that celebrated the Red Army and equated the cause of communism with freedom.
Ironically these same Hollywood figures and many of today�s famous actors and directors blacklisted people like Kazan and were among Reagan�s strongest critics. In the audience as the 89 year old director received his honorary Oscar several well known stars sat scowling and refused to clap. They included Nick Nolte (�A Thin Red Line�), Ed Harris (�The Truman Show� and �The Right Stuff�), and Amy Madigan (�Field of Dreams�).
The history of Hollywood�s black list of left wing professionals, and the left wing�s black listing of people like Kazan demonstrates that in America even censorship can be privatized.
The Americans and Russians at the height of the arms race realized that if they continued in the usual manner they were going to blow up the whole world. One day they sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with one dog fight. They would have five years to breed the best fighting dog in the world and which ever side�s dog won would be entitled to dominate the world.The Russians found the biggest meanest Doberman and Rottweiler female dogs in the world and bred them with the biggest meanest Siberian wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter, removed his siblings which gave him all the milk. After five years came up with the biggest meanest dog the world had ever seen.Its cage needed steel bars that were five inches thick and nobody could get near it. When the day came for the dog fight, the Americans showed up with a strange animal. It was a nine foot long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for the Americans because they knew there was no way that this dog could possibly last ten seconds with the Russian dog.When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out of it�s cage and slowly waddled over towards the Russian dog. The Russian dog snarled and leaped out of it�s cage and charged the American dachshund. But, when it got close enough to bite the Dachshund�s neck, the Dachshund opened it�s mouth and consumed the Russian
dog in one bite. There was nothing left at all of the Russian dog.The Russians came up to the Americans shaking their heads in disbelief. �We don�t understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working for five years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler female dogs in the world and the biggest meanest Siberian wolves.�
�That�s nothing�, an American replied. �We had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a Dachshund.�
02/04/1872 - G.B. Brayton of Boston, Mass. received a patent for the gas-powered street car.
02/04/1889 - Charles Hall patented aluminum on this day.
02/04/1805 - Hans Christian Andersen was born (author of fairy tales: The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor�s New Clothes)
02/04/1875 - Walter Chrysler was born (auto manufacturer: Chrysler Corporation)
03/04/1866 - Rudolph Eickemeyer and G. Osterheld of Yonkers, New York, patented a blocking and shaping machine for hats.
03/04/1924 - Marlon Brando was born (Academy Award-winning actor: On the Waterfront [1954], The Godfather [1972]; Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris, One-eyed Jacks; Emmy Award: Roots: Next Generation)
03/04/1958 - Alec Baldwin was born (actor: The Hunt for Red October, Beetlejuice, The Getaway, Married to the Mob, Talk Radio, Working Girl)
03/04/1961 - Eddie Murphy was born (comedian: Saturday Night Live; actor: 48HRS; Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Coming to America)
04/04/1949 - 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
05/04/1920 - Arthur Hailey (author: Airport, The Final Diagnosis)
April, 2
The State Philharmonic sosiety. The State Orchestra �Academy of Soloists�. 6.00. p.m.
April, 3
The Kazakh Concert Hall. �The Sivilia barber� opera by Rossini.
April, 4
The Kazakh Concert Hall. A solo concert by Nurzhamal Usenbayeva, the Peoples actress of Kazakstan and Akhmed Agadi, the soloist of the Moscow Big Theatre. 6.00 p.m.
From 4 th of March
Gallery of Modern Art �Orkhon�. Bouquet of Flowers Exhibition.
From 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.
From 25st of March to 14 of April
The Kosteyev State National Museum. �Modern drawing of 80th�. Rhine artists.
The Kosteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of the works of S. Kalmykov, I. Itkind, V. Eifert, and Rudolf Nuriev�s painting.
From 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Closed on Monday.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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