 |
| Your marriage is not like this |
SHOW PEOPLE
with FREDA BRUCE LOCKHART and JONAH BARRINGTON
MAN with a MISSION
A NEW picture called Odds Against Tomorrow, which has Harry Belafonte in the leading role, will introduce this star's own production company to audiences all over the world. When Harry talked about his venture at a small private showing of the picture, his low, soft voice held, to most profound pride.
“This, you see, is the first active production company to be formed with a Negro, myself, as chief director, and the first to make a picture in which Negroes are in charge of the screenplay and the camera work."
There is no doubt that Harry is a man with a mission. He earnestly wants to do something towards breaking down all barriers between races
Sensible enough to recognize that you cannot make good propaganda with bad films, he is a very serious artist indeed, deeply concerned about all aspects of his job.
The first film in which he made a world success was Carmen Jones, although his own lovely singing voice was not the one heard on the screen.
I hated being 'dubbed' with somebody else's voice," he emphasized.
“But at that time I was quite unknown and couldn't be as choosy as perhaps I might be now. Still, I think Carmen Jones was a rather special film, which it was good to be in."
Harry doesn't pretend that the artist in him was satisfied with his second big international film, Island In the Sun. Even so, he said: “I would do it again now. Although it was disappointing, it was the first big Hollywood picture to show any sort of love relationship between black and white."
Many coloured artists have, of course, devoted their great talents to the cause of friendship between black and white. Harry believes that he has come before the public at a time when the world is getting ready to put aside racial prejudices, and that he may have a specially great opportunity.
He certainly didn't start off with any exceptional advantages or show business connections; son of a seaman-cook, he once ran a restaurant and worked in the clothing trade.
Now, he is a disarmingly persuasive and charming advocate for his mission. His beautiful wife Julie, a dancer before her marriage, is an essential partner in it. Although she appears Mexican or Spanish, she is a Jewess half Russian, half Lithuanian.
The Belafontes are a most handsome couple. They have one little son. David, and Harry has two children of a former marriage.
His mission's peak, as far as present plans will be concerned, will be when he plays Pushkin, Russia's great poet, who was part Negro.
For this project, Harry hopes to be allowed to visit Russia; the whole idea sounds like making the most of his and Julie's ancestors.
HARRY BELAFONTE with his wife Julie and small son David
---------------------------------------------------------
SUCCESS! - but Millicent keeps calm
MILLICENT MARTIN... now theatre-land's most sought-after girl.
MY opinion of Britain's latest musical comedy star, red-head Millicent Martin, is that she is an enigma with endless variations. Is she flushed with triumph after her stage success in The Boy Friend, Expresso Bongo and currently in The Crooked Mile? No: I have seldom encountered anyone more cool and casual. Is she all agog at so much praise from the, critics? She keeps calm.
She is that rare character, a girl risen from the ranks with the speed of a rocket, who steadfastly refuses to have her head turned in transit. Take this remark, for example: You ask me how I regard myself as a singer. I don't. I'm a comedian who sings and manages to get by."
All the same, she made one of this year's more charming LPs,"Millicent" (Columbia 33SX 1145).
Recently married to that nice young pop singer, Ronnie Carroll, Millicent's plan for happiness is: "When" the day's work is over we put our feet up and talk about something different from show business."
Having been a chorus girl, she has learned to regard stars with a sense of proportion, she told me.
So much for the enigma now for the variations. She can wring your heart-strings in 'a song like "When The World Was Young," or torture your eardrums in one such as "Spoil The Child."
At the drop of a hat she can be all woman or all cat, according to the role. She will drivel and sniffle, as in a song called "Seriously," or delight your ears in the soft sensuousness of "Dream." Her personality is as elusive as Peter Pan's shadow, yet it dominates a stage. She can stand up to an actor of Paul Scofield's calibre.
She is, in fact, the girl with something, I don't pretend to know what it is, the others haven't got.
And that something, I predict, is going to carry this Essex girl to even dizzier heights in the future.
-----------------------------------------------------------
with FREDA BRUCE LOCKHART and JONAH BARRINGTON
MAN with a MISSION
A NEW picture called Odds Against Tomorrow, which has Harry Belafonte in the leading role, will introduce this star's own production company to audiences all over the world. When Harry talked about his venture at a small private showing of the picture, his low, soft voice held, to most profound pride.
“This, you see, is the first active production company to be formed with a Negro, myself, as chief director, and the first to make a picture in which Negroes are in charge of the screenplay and the camera work."
There is no doubt that Harry is a man with a mission. He earnestly wants to do something towards breaking down all barriers between races
Sensible enough to recognize that you cannot make good propaganda with bad films, he is a very serious artist indeed, deeply concerned about all aspects of his job.
The first film in which he made a world success was Carmen Jones, although his own lovely singing voice was not the one heard on the screen.
I hated being 'dubbed' with somebody else's voice," he emphasized.
“But at that time I was quite unknown and couldn't be as choosy as perhaps I might be now. Still, I think Carmen Jones was a rather special film, which it was good to be in."
Harry doesn't pretend that the artist in him was satisfied with his second big international film, Island In the Sun. Even so, he said: “I would do it again now. Although it was disappointing, it was the first big Hollywood picture to show any sort of love relationship between black and white."
Many coloured artists have, of course, devoted their great talents to the cause of friendship between black and white. Harry believes that he has come before the public at a time when the world is getting ready to put aside racial prejudices, and that he may have a specially great opportunity.
He certainly didn't start off with any exceptional advantages or show business connections; son of a seaman-cook, he once ran a restaurant and worked in the clothing trade.
Now, he is a disarmingly persuasive and charming advocate for his mission. His beautiful wife Julie, a dancer before her marriage, is an essential partner in it. Although she appears Mexican or Spanish, she is a Jewess half Russian, half Lithuanian.
The Belafontes are a most handsome couple. They have one little son. David, and Harry has two children of a former marriage.
His mission's peak, as far as present plans will be concerned, will be when he plays Pushkin, Russia's great poet, who was part Negro.
For this project, Harry hopes to be allowed to visit Russia; the whole idea sounds like making the most of his and Julie's ancestors.
HARRY BELAFONTE with his wife Julie and small son David
---------------------------------------------------------
SUCCESS! - but Millicent keeps calm
MILLICENT MARTIN... now theatre-land's most sought-after girl.
MY opinion of Britain's latest musical comedy star, red-head Millicent Martin, is that she is an enigma with endless variations. Is she flushed with triumph after her stage success in The Boy Friend, Expresso Bongo and currently in The Crooked Mile? No: I have seldom encountered anyone more cool and casual. Is she all agog at so much praise from the, critics? She keeps calm.
She is that rare character, a girl risen from the ranks with the speed of a rocket, who steadfastly refuses to have her head turned in transit. Take this remark, for example: You ask me how I regard myself as a singer. I don't. I'm a comedian who sings and manages to get by."
All the same, she made one of this year's more charming LPs,"Millicent" (Columbia 33SX 1145).
Recently married to that nice young pop singer, Ronnie Carroll, Millicent's plan for happiness is: "When" the day's work is over we put our feet up and talk about something different from show business."
Having been a chorus girl, she has learned to regard stars with a sense of proportion, she told me.
So much for the enigma now for the variations. She can wring your heart-strings in 'a song like "When The World Was Young," or torture your eardrums in one such as "Spoil The Child."
At the drop of a hat she can be all woman or all cat, according to the role. She will drivel and sniffle, as in a song called "Seriously," or delight your ears in the soft sensuousness of "Dream." Her personality is as elusive as Peter Pan's shadow, yet it dominates a stage. She can stand up to an actor of Paul Scofield's calibre.
She is, in fact, the girl with something, I don't pretend to know what it is, the others haven't got.
And that something, I predict, is going to carry this Essex girl to even dizzier heights in the future.
-----------------------------------------------------------
FOR THE RECORD
CALLING all bachelors! Singer Dean Martin is magnificent on the miseries of that state in "Ain't Gonna Lead This Life" (Capitol CL15064).
If you're in love with a handsome man, Terri Stevens may suit your mood in "Adonis" (Felsted AF126),
"Partners" with Jim Reeves (pictured there), is a grim and gritty epic of murder on the gold rush trail (R.C.A. 1144)
*LP for fun: The same brilliant treatment he gave to Geoffrey Beaumont's "Twentieth Century Folk Mass" arranger Peter Knit now brings to the music of Edward German in .. "A Knight In Merrie England" (Pye NPL l8036). This is music redolent of maypoles, village, greens, bubbling brooks and men and maidens living in those happy times when rock 'n' roll was mercifully a thing of the future; it's a disc to lift the heart, cleanse the palate and make the world seem a better place.
*LP for keeps: Pastoral delights of a very different nature are vividly portrayed in Maurice Ravel's shimmering, simmering and savage "Daphnis And Chloe Suite No.2" (Columbia 33CX 1663), which is played with white hot devotion by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Alceo Galliera. Also on this inspired LP are the '' Carmen Suite No.1" and Respighi’s "The Pines Of Rome." * * J.B.
No comments:
Post a Comment