John Gielgud appeared in hundreds of theatrical productions and films as well. He was a gifted actor in both drama and comedy. He was one of few people who had won an Emmy, a Grammy an Oscar and a Tony Award. He was knighted in 1953. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1964 for Becket and in 1981 was an Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor in Arthur and the winner of BAFTA awards as Best British Actor….
I’m slowly reading Sheridan Morley’s John Gielgud. The book discusses the 1957 Otto Premiger’s screen version of Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. The movie cast included Richard Widmark (who just recently died) and Gielgud. Premiger cast an eighteen year old unknown & inexperienced girl from Iowa, Joan Seberg after a publicized search for the right actress for the part. Some 18,000 actresses were supposedly considered before she was selected by the director. However, shortly after starting the filming, Premiger decided he…
Renee Dudley has written (Islandpacket.com) about an incredible story involving two men, one heart and one wife. Dudley writes that in 1995, thirty three year old Terry Cottle shot himself, in a suicide attempt twelve years ago in the South Carolina home he occupied with his wife Cheryl. Cottle was put on life support in a Charleston hospital. At the of his suicide shooting, Sonny Graham, in Georgia, was suffering from congestive heart failure problems and was on a heart…
I’ve subscribed to Dr. Julian Whitaker’s Health & Healing newsletter for a number of years. While I don’t agree with everything he recommends, I find his ideas, research and recommendations about alternative medicine remedies reliable. Over the years I’ve followed, in his newsletter, the events involving Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski M.D. In the 1960’s Dr. Burzynski, found new and successful way of treating cancer. His treatment was based upon his discovery that peptides or protein fragments were absent in the blood…
Ted Williams has always been a sports hero I’ve admired since childhood. Not for his personality, as he was certainly lacking in social skills, but for his determined discipline to be the best he could be. He didn’t just play baseball, he made it a science. He studied every pitcher as scientist might study something through a microscope. He practiced swinging the bat with great discipline. He set the example of striving for excellence through hard work. Leigh Montville has…
Today’s news reports that Somalia pirates have captured the French pleasure yacht LePonant off the coast of Somalia. The 288 foot cruise ship was stormed by the pirates who are holding the 30 crew members captive. It was returning from the Seychelles, without passengers, on it’s way for a voyage with passengers from Alexandria, Egypt to Malta. This is an area Lita and I have cruised in. We have gone on a cruise ship from Alexandria through Turkey, Greece and…
Russell Miller has written a book Bare-Faced Messiah, The true story of L. Ron Hubbard. As we all know, Hubbard was the founder of Scientology – think Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Hubbard began as a writer of science fiction stories. Then he claimed he had made a discovery that would change the world – Dianetics. In 1950 he published a book Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health. In his book Hubbard claimed memories were a "time track" where…
P.I. Columnist Chi-Dooh Li recently wrote about "arrogance and infallibility" referring to New York former governor Eliot Spitzer and others. In discussing hypocrisy, Li referred to Shake speare’s measure for Measure. The play involves a character, Angelo, who rigidly enforces morality laws while secretly carrying on in an immoral way. It does have some wonderful lines about hypocrisy: "O, what may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!" Again, in Act III Shakespeare writes: "The jury, passing…
The German battleship Tirpitz was launched in 1939. In World War II she was sent to Norway to be used to attack naval commerce of allied shipping in the North Atlantic. She was regarded as a serious threat by the British and their allies to supply shipping which was vital to the British in particular. The Germans moored the ship in a narrow fjord where underwater nets were rigged to prevent submarines from entering and anti aircraft guns protected her…
Today’s Seattle PI editorial comment on Iran is on point regarding the increasing drum beat regarding Iran. As it points out, on Sunday Face the Nation Sen. Lindsey Graham called Iran "The cancer of the Mideast" and Republican hopeful Sen. John McCain, has repeatedly blurred the lines between al-Qaida in Iraq with Iran. We forget the history of America’s role in that region. As the comment notes, we orchestrated the coup in Iran overthrowing an elected leader and re-installed the…
