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Thursday, February 13, 2014 by Liz Smith "IF the soundtrack of America's love affair with the Beatles began with 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ its first, indelible visual backdrop was New York City. From the 4,000 fans who greeted them on February 7th at JFK airport — newly named in memory of the dead president — to the photos that Harry Benson and others shot of them at the Plaza Hotel and in Central Park, New York City is sacred into our collective memory of the Beatles. |
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| "My office (today) is only blocks from the Plaza Hotel. I walk each day through Central Park to my home on CPW, next door to the Dakota. There's a whole arc of the Beatles' story along that short journey. Of Joy. Of sorrow. "But to paraphrase John Lennon's 'In My Life,' I've loved them all." |
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He was working selling records in England when he landed in The Beatles orbit and worked at their early successes. Peter Brown went on tobecome a New Yorker and an international mover and shaker, friend to many of the famous, longtime resident in the summer Hamptons and the representative for, among others, Andrew Lloyd Webber the world over. Literacy Partners wants to give Peter its ridiculously named "Lizzie Award" on June 17th at Cipriani on 42nd Street. If he refuses to accept the award, you'll find me running down 42nd Street waving it right behind him. Peter — open letter — please accept our salute to you for all the thousands of people you have helped us teach to read and write. (And if you missed reading Peter's Beatles story, read it up right now!) |
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But that’s just the beginning. We’ll also get Russell Crowe in “Noah” and Christian Bale as Moses in “Exodus.” And also “Mary” starring Odeya Rush as the Mother of Christ. This one will tell us about aspects of the personal life of Mary and Joseph previously unknown and never shown in a movie. I’d love to know where the inside Mary/Joseph dish came from, but Biblical scholars hate to gossip. So, no whining from conservatives that religion isn’t getting its fair share in the Babylon that is Hollywood. And never mind that recently evolutionary-minded scientists have concluded that camels had not yet evolved into tamed beasts of burden at the time of the Old and New Testaments’ ubiquitous descriptions of them. |
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IN CASE you missed it, Frank Bruni of the New York Times tells of New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma asking NFL’s Networks Andrea Kremer how he should act if he finds admittedly gay player Michael Sam near him?
Reporter Bruno answers for Andrea: “Well, a squeal would be unmanly. Mace might not be enough and NFL players tend to use their firearms away from the stadium, so ... do what countless females of our species have done with leering males through history. Step away. Move on. Dare I say woman up?” And dare Liz ask — isn’t it true that the openly gay player in a team shower is probably going to be the guy that showers fastest and stares determinedly at the closest wall. What silliness. These are grown men afraid of somebody looking at them? Straight men look at other straight men all the time — checking out, sizing up, comparing. And if they deny it, they’re liars. (Women look at other women too, for the same non-sexual reasons.) |
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| ONE MORE sports note. Not to make fun of Bob Costas’ eye-infection, which forced him to withdraw from covering the Winter Olympics. But after his recent, startling paean of praise for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, how odd that Costas was side-lined by “red eye.” Why, one might imagine Vladimir himself popping over to the NBC tent in Sochi, with a sturdy Russian medication for Costas. Vlad’s that kind of a guy — a real mensch. |
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| HERE’S an amusing P.S. about Shirley Temple. She was, as noted here yesterday, one of 20th Century Fox Studios’ most popular blondes. (The legendary “Fox Blonde” tradition actually began with little Miss Temple — although her hair darkened as she grew into adolescence.) When Marilyn Monroe first arrived at Fox in 1947, fresh from a successful modeling career, she was dropped after a year of doing nothing but posing for photos. Head man Darryl Zanuck claimed he saw no future in MM. But he added this: “She reminds me too much of Temple!” |
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| One would think this was an asset, but Darryl was perhaps not as fond of Shirley as her box-office indicted he should have been. After Shirley departed the studio, her bungalow was dismantled and evidence of her reign there was erased. Indeed, when one compares photos of the curly-haired model Norma Jeane and young movie star Shirley Temple, there is more than a passing resemblance. Of course, Monroe would return to Fox, and in time become the bane of Zanuck’s existence, and vice versa. |
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Contact Liz Smith here. | Click here for NYSD contents. |