When I was a young’un growing up in LA in the mid-seventies I was a serious radio-head. I loved all forms of audio entertainment–live radio talk shows, old vintage comedy shows, KJOI (elevator music non-stop) and even the stray TV channel that you could accidentally find on an obscure frequency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/v-A2EH0vyd4 Sometimes it’s nice to give a blog a month off. Unfortunately, the silence of the past month was an inadvertent one–I’ve been directing the Bernie Madoff mini-series for ABC, an event that normally I would have blogged to death. For reasons that are a bit murky and not really
I am currently working on two documentary films in addition to my feature projects. For the past two years I’ve been shooting interviews of great performers who came out of cabaret and nightclub backgrounds for a documentary on the history of cabaret. The film–titled “Intimate Nights; The Golden Age of
Sorry for the serious lag in updates, posts, entries, what have you. I’ve been on a major writing roll with my new screenplay and have, literally, been too wrung out from writing every day to post. I took today off so here I am. Plus which I have a story
I wish I hadn’t eaten that hat. The Festival du Cinema a la Rio, or whatever the hell they’re called, blew us off. Not the movie–they’re showing that. But it appears that my presence and (Steven Strait’s) wasn’t quite ringing the same bell for them that Andy Garcia’s was. His
Right, then. Salt Lake City. Sundance 2000. The story of selling “Two Family House”. Anybody still care? Anybody reading this? HELLO!!! The guys from USA films were very enthused about the movie and naturally this alerted the other distributors, who showed en masse to our second screening the following night,
All right, so I got busy and have only posted intermittently. And what the hell of it? Heres a nice link to a nice review of “Tis Autumn” (available now on Amazon!). And here’s another one. And now we’ll wrap up this mini-history of “Two Family House” which all began due to the stage
Okay. So I skipped a week. Would you like to know what I’ve been doing all this time? If only I could remember… But I digress. And whatnot. When was Columbine? April 20, 1999. Why do I care? Simple. Because that dates when the pre-production phase of “Two Family House”
So it’s late 1998 and I’ve heard from Al Klingenstein and Jim Kohlberg (via Anne Harrison, my producing partner) that they want to make the film. This is the problem with show business. The least likely things happen and the most obvious ones don’t. Which leads you to keep putting
The main character in the film “Two Family House” (and our new musical “Buddy’s Tavern”) is a kind of mid-century, outerborough everyman named Buddy Visalo. Oddly, ever since I made the film, people have asked me if I “knew the real Buddy”–as if there was something about him and his
Take a ride down the Sunset Strip in 1963 and enjoy the cool cars and the already sickening smog. My favorite liquor store, Gil Turner's, was already in business. #HollywoodHills #LosAngeles https://raymonddefelitta.org/historical-footage/drive-west-on-sunset/
Take a trip down the Sunset Strip, heading east and facing south, in 1967. I can smell the rib joint that was on the SE corner of Crescent Heights. Anyone know what I'm referring too? #SunsetStrip317 #Hollywood #LosAngeles #60s https://raymonddefelitta.org/uncategorized/drive-east-on-sunset/
What do Duke Ellington and Cinerama have in common? Find out in this quite fascinating (if I do say so myself) blog entry that I wrote in--yikes--2007. It includes the incredibly strange and beautiful short 'Symphony In Black'. #Jazz #TCM #Cinema https://raymonddefelitta.org/music-jazz/duke-ellington-meets-cinerama/
Dig Rick Moranis doing his wicked Merv Griffin impression in this sketch from the immortal SCTV NBC late night show of the early 80s. Guest appearances by Liberace, Loni Anderson and Yasser Arafat. #television #comedy #Mimicry https://raymonddefelitta.org/film-history/rick-moranis-impersonates-merv-griffin/
I had no idea that Merv Griffin interviewed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his show in 1967? Did you? A must-watch clip. #television #ClassicTV #MLKDay #MLK #BlackLivesMatter https://raymonddefelitta.org/historical-footage/merv-meets-martin/
