The Polanski Hypocrisy

Amid the many reactions to director Roman Polanski's arrest last weekend in Switzerland more than 30 years after he fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, none have been as strong as those of the international film community. A petition demanding his release has attracted over 100 film-world signatories, including luminaries from Martin Scorsese and Costa-Gavras to David Lynch and Wong Kar Wai.

Reading the petition, you could be forgiven for thinking that the dispute was over some obscure diplomatic codicil. Its principal focus is on the mechanics of the arrest, namely Switzerland's detention of Mr. Polanski on a U.S. request as he was traveling to the Zurich Film Festival. It cites Switzerland's status as a "neutral country" and the "extraterritorial nature" of film festivals. The substance of his guilty plea and the circumstances of the crime receive only glancing mention, in a single line: "His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals."

One would never know that those easily brushed off "morals"—rape and pedophilia—have actually been a central concern of some of the petition's signatories.

I'm baffled by people defending him.

In their depictions of these acts, the directors and actors in question seem keenly aware of the extreme violence of rape and the terrible psychological consequences that follow its victims for years afterward. But for them, apparently, life doesn't imitate art. Still, some film-world names were notable for their absence from the petition. Director Luc Besson refrained from signing it, noting, in an interview with RTL Soir, "I don't have any opinion on this, but I have a daughter, 13 years old. And if she was violated, nothing would be the same, even 30 years later."

Not have an opinion? He does, and it is the right one. Mr. Paletta is an editor at the Manhattan Institute, which is a conservative think tank.

Soviet agent moved among Hollywood elite

SVR (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) - Elizaveta Mukasei posed for decades as a housewife while pursuing her real job as a Soviet spy. She died Sept. 19 at age 97.





With a radio transmitter hidden in her vacuum cleaner and a homey fire burning in the living room to destroy incriminating documents, Elizaveta Mukasei posed for decades as a housewife while pursuing her real job as a Soviet spy.

Known by code names of Zephyr and Elza, the couple did undercover work that has been trumpeted in recent years by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. While the Mukaseis described their spying exploits in a memoir published in 2004, many details about her life are difficult to verify independently. From 1939 to 1943, the couple were posted to Los Angeles, where Mikhail was vice consul at the Soviet Consulate. From their diplomatic perch, the couple gained access to elite Hollywood circles, aided in part by sympathy for America's wartime ally.

The Mukaseis befriended celebrities in the movie industry, Ms. Mukasei wrote in the memoir, though it isn't clear how the couple used these relationships in their intelligence-gathering. Charlie Chaplin became close to the Mukaseis, she wrote, and they plied him with vodka and presented him with a Russian bear cub on behalf of the Soviet state. Ms. Mukasei also claimed the couple befriended such luminaries as the conductor Leopold Stokowski, the writer Theodore Dreiser and others who they believed were politically connected in Washington.

A pair

Steichen

The Man Child, Yucatán, 1938



















Found image at Sotheby's website by Googling "steichen man child." Saw photograph in Steichen's legacy: photographs, 1895-1973. edited and with text by Joanna Steichen. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.




Breadline on Sixth Avenue, New York, circa, 1930

In the picture in the book details are clearer; it looks as if the park, or lot, in the lower right-hand corner is between 42nd and 43rd Streets, on 6th Avenue.

Garbo, Hollywood, 1928






















Delphiniums

Do they get it?

Cause Célèbre is the designation of a column in the LA Times entitled: Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead prayer dismays Hollywood liberals.

Cause Célèbre is defined as an incident that attracts great public attention. Great must be taken in context in this case: these are Hollywood liberals who are upset about the passage of Proposition 8 in California this past Election Day. Prop 8 bans gay marriage, and Rev. Rick Warren supported it openly and strongly.

From Hollywood's perspective, there's a cloud over Barack Obama's inaugural. Now the question is whether the weather that day will simply be overcast or stormy.

He has disappointed, even enraged, Hollywood types by selecting Warren to say the lead prayer at the Inaugural.

"Barack Obama is a very smart student of history," said longtime celebrity publicist and gay activist Howard Bragman. "He saw that Bill Clinton did damage to his early presidency by appearing to pander to the gay and lesbian community. Obama has chosen a different tack.

I'd say that analysis is spot on, to a degree. Obama is a great student of history, indeed, and I'd say his studies go beyond 1993.

"What he didn't realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8," said Bragman. "Obama didn't realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now."

Actually, I'd say that Obama took a calculated step in inviting Warren: he is appealing, even pandering, to evangelicals, reaching out to them in a concrete way. Perhaps what gay Hollywood types fails to understand is that Obama will say and do things without checking with them or assessing how they will react to it.

Democratic political consultant Chad Griffin, who this week was named by the Advocate, America's leading gay publication, as one of its People of the Year, thinks that it's up to Warren to let Obama off the hook and withdraw.

That assumes that Obama is on the hook with others than activist gays and Hollywood liberals. There are many other constituencies in the country beyond those two groups.

"Rick Warren needs to realize that he is further dividing us at a time when the country needs to come together," said Griffin, whose Hollywood clientele includes Rob Reiner, Michael King and Steve Bing. "I think he needs to gracefully step aside."

Nonsense. Griffin needs to accept that his agenda is not the most important agenda.

As for Obama, Griffin said: "He has a long history of standing up for and defending equal rights. I believe and hope that calling on Warren was just a innocent mistake by the transition team."

Innocent mistake? More a calculated step. And by inviting Warren he has scored points with a constituency, evangelicals, that did not support him greatly in the election. That's being inclusive, rather than divisive.

Warren has his own history with liberal Hollywood. He was instrumental in encouraging support among evangelicals for the Al Gore-inspired, Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

I have never heard of an evangelical doing such a thing.

'Mr. Blackwell' dies at 86

I remember seeing him on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show; he was always hilarious.

Actresses Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor made his list in the early 1960s. Taylor's "plump" figure and revealing clothes reminded him of "the rebirth of the zeppelin," he wrote in 1963. Loren, he wrote, dressed like "the Italian shop girls she portrays in movies."

Never afraid to criticize even the icons.

More recently, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, whom he called the "Screamgirls" and compared to "two peas in an overexposed pod," made the list. So did Camilla Parker-Bowles, "The Duchess of Dowdy," in Blackwell's opinion.

Some of Camilla's hats are amazing, and not in a good sense.

Brigitte Bardot, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton and Madonna took heat from Blackwell more than once. So did Queen Elizabeth. "From her majesty to her travesty," he wrote of her.

Even the Queen wasn't spared; she shouldn't be.

"The list has whimsy," he insisted. "It's camp."

He made his own star.

Some of Blackwell's targets fired back. When he took aim at country singer Barbara Mandrell in 1981 ("Yukon Sally playing the Alamo"), she sent him a jeweled lapel pin that spelled out "Big Mouth." He wore it proudly.

Photos: Richard Blackwell | 1922-...

Photos: Blackwell's worst-dressed...

Slow political season

How slow is it? Check out this sizzling piece of journalism: Malia Obama Teases Her Dad. While that piece is from the Hollywood video rag, Access, the original piece ran in the Washington Post. Oy.

Oh, and the video link

Cyd Charisse, Dancer, Dies at 86

Perhaps the most gorgeous pair of legs ever.

Bubba and Angelina

Todd Purdum's article appears in the same magazine issue that has this cover of Angelina Jolie. The magazine has it this way on its website: This isn’t the first time everybody’s favorite humanitarian, mother, and sex goddess has posed for Vanity Fair. Here are the covers and spreads from all three of Angelina Jolie’s appearances, together with a sampling of her trademark edgy insights.

Everybody's (well, not mine) favorite humanitarian has much to show, too: the red of the lipstick and the silicon of the implants are eye-catching, certainly, and (pun intended) rather revealing.