One of the most talented people who ever lived

The much missed Madeline Kahn would have been 65 today. Her long-time collaborator and friend Mel Brooks summed her up thus "one of the most talented people that ever lived. I mean, either in stand-up comedy, or acting, or whatever you want, you can't beat Madeline Kahn".

I loved Miss Kahn. She was a key player in so many of my favourite films, including the classic role of "Eunice Burns" in What's Up Doc with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neil. But by far the most memorable were her appearances in a succession of Mel Brooks' best comedies: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety and History of the World Part I.

Madeline Kahn as "Empress Nympho"

For two decades Madeline was a hugely popular regular on the US hit TV show Saturday Night Live, a show that made little impact elsewhere in the world but was responsible for launching the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, the late Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey and Billy Crystal, and had a myriad of big-name hosts over the years including Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Candice Bergen, Alec Baldwin, Christopher Walken and Danny DeVito - whew!! And even at the very end she was still appearing at the top of the TV ratings, with a regular part in The Cosby Show.

Madeline Kahn was diagnosed in early 1999 with ovarian cancer, and sadly died on December 3rd that same year. A huge loss to the entertainment industry, and we shall never see her like again!

Madeline Kahn on Wikipedia

Something for Everyone indeed

Remarkably, it is thirty-five years since the multi-Oscar winning musical Cabaret arrived on the big screen! Definitely my favourite film ever, it made a legendary star of our own Liza Minelli, for which we are eternally grateful... The brilliant Joel Grey as "Emcee" is forever etched on our musical psyche too.

Joel Grey- Wilkommen

But as a young gay lad growing up in closeted Welsh society, for me it was the glowing screen presence of the superbly sexy Michael York that made the film as a whole that bit more special. I was truly, madly, deeply in love with him, and to this day even as a veteran of more than 130 screen appearances he still makes me quite weak at the knees...



And it was not just Michael's appearance in Cabaret that made me realise my true destiny was to be with him, but also a little-known film of his that I vividly remember seeing on TV in the 80s called Something for Everyone, in which he starred alongside the marvellous Angela Lansbury.

The plot of the film - one of only two directed by theatre impresario Hal (Harold) Prince - is an extremely camp and very twisted melodrama about a Machiavellian pretty-boy (played by Michael) who literally "turns the screws" on an aristocratic German household. A stunning movie that (scandalously) has never been released on DVD, I would dearly love to see it again after all these years, and just drool...



Something for Everyone on IMDB

The Best Of Times Is Now...

Coinciding with the announcement that the Menier Chocolate Factory's showpiece musical this November will be a revival of La Cage Aux Folles, we went to a special BBC Friday Night Is Music Night gala celebration of the life and work of Jerry Herman on Sunday.

The gorgeously flamboyant Mr Herman is almost single-handedly responsible for some of the most brilliant and memorable musicals to hit Broadway and the West End (and in many cases the big screen too): Hello Dolly, Mame, Mack & Mabel and La Cage among them...

For anyone who loves musical theatre, Sunday's show (recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 2 this Xmas) was a real treat. The beautiful John Barrowman was both Master of Ceremonies and performer, singing the gay anthem I Am What I Am among others, and was joined by stalwarts of the stage Maria Friedman, Debbie Gravitte, Clarke Peters and Don Pippin, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the chorus Capital Voices. Whew! Even Jerry himself joined us live (by phone, unfortunately being too unwell to travel to appear in person, as had been advertised).



Jerry Herman is a phenomenal writer of big showtunes as well as pithy torch songs, and provided a career boost to luminaries like Barbra Streisand, Angela Lansbury, Louis Armstrong, Carol Channing, Barbara Cook, George Hearn, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford among many others. All our favourite hits were here, including Put On Your Sunday Clothes, Before The Parade Passes By, I Won't Send Roses, Tap Your Troubles Away, and of course my all-time favourite The Best of Times is Now.

A brilliant night (needless to say)!

Jerry Herman on Wikipedia

Menier Chocolate Factory

Lacroix, sweetie...

A really jaw-dropping televisual feast tonight - BBC4's documentary The Secret World of Haute Couture...

Probably screened to coincide with the opening of the V&A exhibition The Golden Age of Couture, which opened on Saturday, and the London Fashion Week, this insight into the world of those face-lifted sunglasses-wearing ladies who form the "inner circle" of the high fashion world is amazing.

Ateliers, Baronesses, rare feathers, Parisienne salons, sequins, Mitfords, dodgy hairpieces, Wallis Simpson, former air hostesses who married rather well, a plethora of old queens - this programme has it all!

Catch it on replay if you can! It's worth it.

BBC4

Victoria & Albert Museum

Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti

"You have to be born a sex symbol. You don't become one. If you're born with it, you'll have it even when you're 100 years old."

"Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti."
Sophia Loren

Happy Birthday Sophia Loren! Widely considered to be the most popular Italian actress, the diva was 73 this week.

Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome. Her father Riccardo Scicolone was an engineer and her mother Romilda Villani was an aspiring actress and piano teacher. Loren grew up in poverty in wartime Pozzuoli near Naples, sharing a small flat with her sister Maria, her grandparents and her uncles and aunts.

Loren was discovered by her future husband, the much older and already-married film producer Carlo Ponti, and they wed on September 17, 1957, three days before her 23rd birthday. Their first marriage had to be annulled in order to keep Ponti from being charged with bigamy. The couple remarried on April 9, 1966, but only after Sophia, Ponti, and Ponti's first wife all obtained French citizenship, thus enabling Carlo to divorce his first wife and marry Sophia in France, where at the time Catholic doctrines regarding divorce did not prevent legal civil marriage. The couple remained together until Ponti's death on January 9, 2007.

Sophia has made more than 90 films, and won the Best Actress Oscar for Two Women in 1960 - the first awarded for a foreign film. With her voluptuous figure, she became one of the major sex symbols of the 1960s, competing with Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. Even in her sixties she was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history, and in 2006 at the age of 72 she became the oldest woman to pose seductively for the Pirelli calendar! She was a very close friend of major stars such as Cary Grant and Peter Sellers, with whom she performed two duets, Goodness Gracious Me and Bangers and Mash which were major hits in the UK pop chart.

In 1991, Loren received an honorary Academy Award for her contribution to world cinema and was declared "one of the world cinema's treasures". Long may she reign, and continue to delight her many many fans!

Sophia Loren on IMDB

The little girl with the powerful voice

Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 2 tonight is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the musical West Side Story.

Leonard Bernstein's masterpiece, based upon the Shakespeare love story Romeo & Juliet, was a ground-breaking "modern" interpretation, radical in its day and remains an all-time classic. With lyrics by a young Stephen Sondheim, everyone still loves such timeless songs as Tonight Tonight, Maria and America.

On Monday we went to the Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars to see the BBC live recording. Wow! What an experience. I have not been quite so close to an orchestra before, which was fascinating in itself, as they seemingly effortlessly battled through the incredible complexities of Bernstein's music. A whirl of violin bows, brass, flutes and cymbals.



But the real surprise was the singers. The chorus was fab (the sassy ensemble Capital Voices), and soloists such as Jacinta Whyte and Jon-Paul Hevey were great. But the true stars were gorgeous tenor Michael Xavier, playing Tony, and as Maria the New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra.

Looking about twelve years old, this teeny tiny figure has an incredibly deceptive voice. And when the two leads duetted together on the lovely ballads from the show like Tonight and One Hand, One Heart, the theatre audience was completely stunned by the emotion conveyed. Could such a small person sing so powerfully?

Who would have thought I would suddenly become a Hayley Westenra fan?

Don't miss the show on Radio 2 tonight at 7.30pm, or you can listen again after tonight's broadcast for one week: Friday Night is Music Night page.

You might even hear me cough...

Hayley Westenra on MySpace

All that to advertise a phone

The fact that David Beckham, who apparently is supposed to play football or something, has done a series of poster ads for the new Motorola razor phone provides me with the perfect opportunity to show one of the shots. All in the interest of "news", of course...