Category: people

“It was Hitchcock, with his penchant for ‘cool blondes, who brought Fontaine to the forefront when he cast her as the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940), the director’s American debut. Her performance as the new wife of Laurence Olivier in a household haunted by the death of his first wife earned her an Academy Award nomination.”

“Ms. Waldman and Mr. Becker transformed the former German Exchange Bank building, a cast-iron landmark in Manhattan, into the Bouwerie Lane Theater, a 140-seat Off Off Broadway stage at the Bowery and Bond Street that kept the Dutch spelling.”

“Doctors analysing the Ian Fleming novels show James Bond polishes off the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day. They say he is not the man to trust to deactivate a nuclear bomb.”

“Ask John Cage in 1956, as the sculptor Richard Lippold did, to make a film and you take your chances.” (Pun intended.)

“The great French director, who died recently, took some persuading to do a play in London – and was seriously ill when he did. But the experience was life-changing, recalls the Young Vic’s artistic director.”

“The author of well over 100 volumes of fiction and nonfiction, Mr. Wilson became a sensation at 24, when The Outsider was published and instantly touched a deep nerve in postwar Britain.”

“There’s the Lenny problem: Is he for real or is he an act? Do we love him or do we want to kick him in the ass? Is his heart only on his sleeve, or is there another one inside him? And do those of us who grew up with him in all his avatars respond to him the same way as those coming to him for the first time, with no history and perhaps no expectations?”

While he had an operatic repertoire of over 50 roles in eight languages, he was known even more for lieder and concert music, and he made more than 100 recordings.

“I think we both have the ability to unsettle the other’s opinions. That’s what happens. It’s just kind of going back and forth, back and forth. If we really disagree, I tend to think, I’ve got to reconsider this. And sometimes I don’t think that.”

“His career began in the ’50s as part of the West Coast jazz scene with Jimmy Giuffre and Chico Hamilton, recorded with wealth of jazz royalty over his career, including Ben Webster, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans and Sonny Rollins.” Despite his relatively quiet profile, he was considered one of his instrument’s most influential players in all of jazz.