Heat, Treat and Googie!

Our glorious Rosa Veilchenblau rather likes this weather! (Not bad for a cutting, eh?) [click to embiggen]

It's official! The UK is in the middle of a heatwave - and I love it.

Talking the edge off it a little, however, there was some sad news yesterday - the very lovely Treat Williams was killed in a motorbike accident in the US.

Mr Williams may not have been a household name, and certainly his on-screen career was somewhat patchy - although he did have starring roles in Hair, Prince of the City and Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, among others - but for us at Dolores Delargo Towers, it is for his part as "Michael Brick" in one of my favourite films ever The Ritz that we will forever remember him.

An excuse (as if I needed one) to revisit once again [see here for my original paean to this movie] a succession of highlights...

Simply faboo!

RIP, Richard Treat Williams (1st December 1951 – 12th June 2023)

Mere class on a higher plane

It's the age-old story - society only starts to realise it's serious when famous people begin getting affected...

Prince Charles has apparently tested positive for Covid-19.

Dear old Terrence McNally - read my tribute to the man on his 75th - the playwright behind some of our fave films and shows here at Dolores Delargo Towers, such as The Ritz, Kiss of the Spider Woman - the musical and Master Class, has been carted off to Fabulon as a result of catching it [he was seriously ill beforehand, but...].

Others whose cause of death has also been attributed to it include Manu Debango (of Soul Makossa fame, one of the seminal songs that was pioneered by the legendary David Mancuso, founding father of Disco), Lucia Bosè (actress, and mother of the lovely Miguel), and Nashom Wooden (drag queen and founder member of possibly the campest House/Dance combo of the '90s, The Ones).

RIP, all.

There is some good news among all this gloom, of course. The weather is gorgeous, and even with those annoying interruptions of work, getting outside into our garden gives us great joy. And now the government has declared that off-licences and wine emporia are "essential shops", so can stay open during the crisis. Yay!

It is indeed very sad news indeed about Mr/Ms Wooden, but - heavens! - what a legacy. Trust a drag queen to get the last word:

The Ones - Flawless

Ah, memories

Heeeere's Googie!

"I was born with this voice."

"So was Yma Sumac!"

What better way to lift the spirits on this miserable wet Sunday than with a trip back to 1976, and an interview (on the BBC's Arena Cinema) with the lovely Rita Moreno ("Googie Gomez") and Richard Lester (the director) about one of my fave films of all time, The Ritz?

Here's Doug! Here's Tiger! And heeeere's Googie!"

Gavin Millar interviews Rita Moreno and Adrian Lester

I feel better already...

The Ritz

"Direct from her record-breaking bus and truck tour"

Terrence McNally, Angela Lansbury, Terry's husband John Kirdahy, Alan Cumming

Happy birthday today to out-gay playwright Terrence McNally, one of America's greatest living powerhouses of the theatre. From camp to deadly serious, from repertory to musicals, he's tried his hand at them all.

As David Ng recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

Unlike some of his contemporaries, McNally hasn't developed a signature writing style or set of thematic obsessions. His plays are remarkably diverse, from the working-class romance Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune to his controversial gay take on the Gospel Corpus Christi to Master Class, his highly honoured drama about a session for aspiring opera singers taught by Maria Callas.

"I don't think I have a style. I have an aesthetic. I believe in a simplicity and fluidity of emotion — from tears to laughter," he said.

And [regular readers may well guess what's next, but I make no apologies for featuring this again] there is one particular production amongst Mr McNally's body of work which, even after all these years and many repeat viewings, can still bring those "tears and laughter" (generally "tears of laughter", actually) to us here at Dolores Delargo Towers.

It is, of course, one of my favourite films of all time - The Ritz!

Buy your copy of The Ritz from Amazon

Terrence McNally (born 3rd November 1928)

La Divina in London

Madam Arcati and I went to a see a real treat last night - the marvellous Tyne Daly (of Cagney and Lacey fame) portraying Maria Callas in Master Class.

"Class" is most definitely the word! In a truly awe-inspiring performance, Miss Daly managed the "suspension of disbelief" and transformed herself into "La Divina" before our eyes, strutting and preening about the stage, in most definite charge of the operatic masterclass of the title, berating and praising her victims - sorry, students [an able supporting cast of young talent including Jeremy Cohen, Naomi O'Connell, Diane Pilkington and Garrett Sorenson] - in turn.

Quite rightly, Miss Daly has received rave reviews and accolades galore for this astounding achievement. Her monologues, as she recalls her stormy (and ultimately doomed) relationship with the brutish Aristotle Onassis, her dreadful younger days in wartime Greece and her estrangement from her mother, and of course her operatic triumphs at La Scala, Covent Garden and the New York Met, were truly breathtaking - to the point that we, the audience, did not know whether to applaud or cry. Madame Callas's constant exhortations to the audience not to applaud - "this is not about me", she kept (un)subtlely reminding us - made that struggle all the more difficult. For this performance is more than worthy of the highest applause.

In ninety minutes, we felt we knew every foible of this extraordinary woman - hard as nails, yet fragile inside; pompous and insufferable, yet a woman driven by her inner demons to become the best; cruel on occasions, yet the survivor of many cruel indignities herself.

Astonishing.

Here's just a brief taster:

Tyne Daly in Masterclass

Master Class was a smash hit on Broadway, and was written by one of the best - the fabulous out-gay playwright Terrence McNally, who not only wrote one of my all-time fave films The Ritz, but also the "books" for such modern hit shows/films as The Full Monty, Kiss Of the Spiderwoman, Ragtime, and the forthcoming Catch Me If You Can.


Edward Albee, Terrence McNally, Larry Kramer

Apart from Master Class, Mr McNally has won awards for his plays Corpus Christi and Love! Valour! Compassion!. He remains a staunch gay rights advocate and married his partner Tom Kirdahy in 2010.

It is showing for a strictly limited season until 28th April 2012 at The Vaudeville Theatre. Miss this at your peril!

Visit the official Master Class website for more information and tickets.

And to conclude, let us enjoy a sample of the genius that was La Divina herself. I would have posted her sublime version of Vissi d'Arte, but that would invoke unfair comparisons with the interpretation by Miss Leontyne Pryce that I featured on Saturday. Thus, it is to Bellini's Norma we turn, for her glorious Casta Diva:

Maria Callas - Casta Diva (Bellini - Norma)

Maria Callas on Wikipedia

I know what's going on in here

"I know what's going on in here, with all of you men going "Hee hee hee, boo boo boo, hah hah ha!"

We went to the BFI (British Film Institute) again last night, for a not-to-be-missed occasion - a rare showing of one of my all-time favourite films, The Ritz!

Adapted by Oscar-winning director Richard Lester from a 1970s theatrical production by the out-gay playwright Terrence McNally (who famously collaborated with Kander and Ebb on The Rink and Kiss of the Spiderwoman, received huge critical acclaim in the 90s with Love! Valour! Compassion! and in the noughties for his adaptation of The Full Monty for the stage), this is an extraordinary comedy indeed!

For those who have never seen this magnificent movie, the plot revolves around heterosexual Cleveland businessman Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston) taking refuge from his homicidal Mafia brother-in-law Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller) in "the one place no-one would think to look for him", a gay bath house! In this fabulously tacky place, he gets pursued by chubby-chaser Claude Perkins (Paul B Price), befriended by the wise-cracking slut Chris (F Murray Abraham), and ineptly followed by private dick Michael Brick (Treat Williams). Farce follows farce, as the characters try to dodge the hit-men, the goings-on in the steamroom, and of course, the wrath of resident "diva" Googie Gomez (played to absolute perfection by the fantabulosa Rita Moreno)...

I won't go on, just watch some of the clips for yourself. I can highly recommend it as a real uplifting tonic - we were crying with laughter (despite having seen it many times), and the audience was hooting! Enjoy...

Buy your copy of The Ritz from Amazon

Puttin’ on The Ritz

Wow! Just discovered the fact that a production of Terrence McNally's fabulous comedy The Ritz has been revived on Broadway...

A camp classic (and the movie is one of my favourite films), The Ritz is the story of Carmine, a member of a mob family who, on the run from hitmen ordered by his own dying father-in-law, takes refuge in the one place he thinks the killers will never find him - a New York gay bath house!

Inside, the interplay between the characters is one long farcical (and hilarious) romp of innuendo and mistaken identities. The lead gay character is the uber-camp Chris, whose one-liners I still quote today:

• (Bumping into a big butch queen in the lift) "Margaret Dumont, we thought you were dead!"
• "Well, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a queen without a sense of humour. You can die with your secrets, honey!"
• "There will be an orgy in Room 340 in approximately four minutes! Orgy in 340, four minutes!"

But among the eccentric mix of characters in The Ritz , the star of them all has to be that epitome of all dire cabaret acts, Miss Googie Gomez! Played in the movie by the supremely talented Rita Moreno, Googie Gomez is anything but... Her hilarious "tribute" to Cole Porter, her violence when someone thinks she is "tacky drag", her pursuit of Carmine when she thinks he is a music producer - all priceless!



And so Terrence McNally's play returns to the stage, and hope one day the producers will have the good sense to bring it over here - I will be first in the queue for tickets!

Read all about the Broadway production at Studio 54

Footnote: And for any of you bizarre people out there who have never even seen The Ritz there is the perfect opportunity coming up, as the DVD is (finally) released in the US in January! No sign of a UK release as yet, but I wait with bated breath...

Order your copy from Amazon