News
Celluoid Vs History, Take 261
Today's London Independent features another article about Frost/Nixon with some notable quotes from Sir David Frost, including his reflections on the pivotal moment in his videotaped interviews with RN: Under constant probing from Frost, the former president, giving...
John Mortimer 1923-2009
He was not a very nice man; but he was a very brilliant one. Creator of Rumpole; author; playwright; adapter of classics; not to mention one of the greatest lawyers of his generation. The BBC supplies a sampling of his bon mots. And the Daily Telegraph's drama...
Little Things Mean A Lot
Noted by Tom Shales in his critique of President Bush's farewell address: Although noting Bush has five more days in office before Obama is sworn in, CBS News anchor Katie Couric even prematurely deprived Bush of the traditional introduction afforded America's chief...
Ricardo Montalban, 1920-2009
Yesterday, a man left us who, for most Americans and many around the world, will always conjure up a host of treasured images - black-clad and dancing sensually with Cyd Charisse; slyly warbling "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Esther Williams; expansively telling us of...
Of Mice, Pumpkins, And Former Presidents
Sometime after the transition in January of 1969, President Richard Nixon asked his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, how it felt the moment he knew he wasn’t president anymore. LBJ replied: I don’t know whether you’ll understand this now or not, but you certainly will...
Be Seeing You: Patrick McGoohan 1928-2009
Actor Patrick McGoohan died in Los Angeles on Tuesday after a brief illness; he was 80. Beginning in the summer of 1968, the seventeen episodes of The Prisoner ---the British spy-science fiction series he helped to create and starred in--- were broadcast on American...
RN Right Both From And About The Start
You can almost feel the frisson that must have gone through what's left of the newsroom at the Los Angeles Times when an anomaly in a fifty year old story seemed to hold out the possibility that RN was lying in the very first line of his 1978 memoirs where he writes...
The Sun Sets On Another Part Of The British Empire
As reported in today's (London) Times: The classic British bulldog, a symbol of defiance and pugnacity, is to disappear. A shake-up of breeding standards by the Kennel Club has signalled the end of the dog’s Churchillian jowl. Instead, the dog will have a shrunken...
We’ll Always Have Oscar….Maybe
Last night the Golden Globe Awards were handed out, with the sleeper Slumdog Millionaire sweeping every category in which it was nominated. Ron Howard's acclaimed Frost/Nixon was completely shut out. Not even Frank Langella got the award for Best Actor - that went to...
Nixon Was The Architect Of The GOP’s 1966 Recovery
As President George W. Bush conducted the final press conference of his tenure in the White House today, he was relaxed and reflective. He is clearly looking forward to riding off into the Texas sunset to enjoy life as a member of the former-presidents-club. He...