Robin Leach had the best line and pretty much goes to my point about Lana Turner and her lifestyle. Which is that she lived the life of a lot of the characters that she played. Or as Leach put it, she lived the life that couldn’t have been dreamed up by Hollywood. I’m paraphrasing, but that is pretty close. Because that is exactly the way she lived and she lived her own life and set her own course for better or worst for all seventy-five years of it. And you consider the way she did live with all sorts of different men the heavy drinking and everything else, she lived a long life and perhaps a great life ads well. Having accomplished a lot and going down as one of the best actress’s and Hollywood stars as well as goddess’ of all-time. Lana Turner, what a life.
Lana Turner, I believe 61-62 at this point and still looking and sounding great. Perhaps she sobered up in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Perhaps started dating men who weren’t criminals threatening to beat the hell out of her, or even kill her and that is what got her off the sauce. I don’t really want to make fun of her, but she literally lived the life of a Hollywood character, more than the life of the great Hollywood actress and goddess that she actually was. When she wasn’t drinking and not playing the role of one of the characters she played in her movies. Like the women she played in The Bad and The Beautiful, to use as an example.
This Lana Turner seemed was a graceful, intelligent, charming, intentionally funny women. Who seemed very happy with things and happy to be back in the spotlight, which is what CBS and Falcon Crest did for her in the 1980s. A prime time soap opera, that I wish I was old enough to watch, that I’ll look up and check out on demand or dvd. If for no other reason than to watch Lana Turner on it. I doubt it was as good as Dallas, but Dallas is still king of the soap operas, afternoon or in prime time. But again for no other reason, seeing Lana in that show, would be enough motivation for me to watch it.
“A look at the love affair of film legends, superstars Tyrone Power and Lana Turner’s short lived love affair in the late 1940s. At the height of both of their legendary beauty,, they were considered one of Hollywood’s all time most gorgeous couples, both possessing strong sexual appetites which doomed their romance, since they were incapable of being faithful.”
“When Power found out about Turner;s liasion with another man in New York, he decided to end the relationship with Lana, who was pregnant and brokenhearted, and considered Tyrone the love of her life, and the one who broke her heart(according to her autobiography).”
“Ironcially, Tyrone then married starlet Linda Christian, who played Lana’s maid in the 1947 blockbuster Green Dolphin Street. Judy Garland,who sings The Man that Got Away on the soundtrack was also deeply in love with Tyrone, who also left her pregnant and broken hearted in 1942. There are some shots of Lana and Judy, and also Lana and Tyrone with best friends, respectfully, Ava Gardner and Caeser Romero.”
I don’t know much about Tyrone Power at all and I’m just starting to learn about Lana Turner from her movies and a little documentary footage I’ve seen from her. But from what I’ve seen in this video and what the documentary footage I’ve seen of her so far, this doesn’t seem that surprising to me. Because Lana lived the life of a lot of the characters that she played. A very talented person professionally, but someone with serious issues at home. Some who lived a wild life, with not a lot of discipline and someone prone to controversy and getting into trouble.
So to see why someone as important and successful as Tyrone Power not wanting to marry someone as hot, adorable, sexy and talented as Lana Turner, is not that surprising to me. Especially if Power was a man of discipline and self-worth and someone who knew what was best for him and rational. But again other than knowing that Tyrone Power was a successful person in Hollywood, I don’t know much about how he lived his life and what he did for Hollywood.
"One of the most enjoyable movies Hollywood made about itself, this warts-and-all portrait of a ruthlessly ambitious producer is also, one suspects, among the most truthful."
I’ve seen The Bad and The Beautiful I guess five times now and it is a very good look inside the lives of Hollywood workers. The life of the star actress Lana Turner, who has a very complicated life and is a very complicated person in general. Just like in real life and you have the up-incoming producer played by Kirk Douglas. The up-incoming director played by Barry Sullivan and the studio boss played by Walter Pidgeon. As well as a successful author played by Dick Powell, who is brought in to write for movies and becomes a screenwriter.
What all of these characters have in common, including Kirk Douglas, character Jonathan Shields is that they all get screwed by Jon Shields. Or used to put it in a lighter way, but they are all taken advantage of to the point that it puts Shields out-of-business and he has to start over. Shields jacks Fred’s movie script ( played by Barry Sullivan ) which obviously breaks up their partnership. Shields makes a big star out of the Lana Turner character and makes her believe he’s in love with her. When he’s actually involved with another woman, who I guess is next on his list for stardom.
The Jon Shields character (played by Kirk Douglas) is basically a charming prick who is talented, but is lacking character, experience and perhaps even judgement to be a big star. At least he’s not ready yet and ends up using talented people to further advance his career. And you see that the people he use are able to bounce back and do better without Shields, while Shields at the end is just struggling to work his way back to where he was before. It is a very good movie about how movies are made in Hollywood
Bill Maher had me almost all the way, until he put the entire focus on the defense budget, which represents about twenty-percent of the budget. Gutting defense and corporate welfare alone won’t eliminate the debt and deficit. We are not going to eliminate the debt anyway at any point and don’t need to. What we need to do is get it down to a point where it isn’t draining so much out of the economy and is at an affordable level. Good thing Bill Maher is not a member of the National Security Council or has no background in foreign policy or national security policy. Because cutting the defense budget in half would be a horrible idea.
Maher makes a good point about the Tea Party and perhaps American voters in general when it comes to the debt and deficit. That Americans have a tendency to say that the debt and deficit are problems and that Congress and the President should address those issues. “Oh by the way, don’t cut spending, at least something I want and need. And don’t raise my taxes either, or I’ll fire your ass!”. The ultimate case of the person trying to lose weight by eating nothing but junk food and never exercising. And then wondering why they just put on ten pounds.
But here’s where I agree with Maher on the defense budget, but perhaps would phrase it differently. Europe! Time to tell those pacifist Socialists that it is time for them to defend themselves, by paying for their own damn national defense. Instead of charging American taxpayers for their own defense. Same thing goes to Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Korea! Bring our troops home and use that money to rebuild our own national infrastructure and deal with terrorists in this country and secure our borders the best we can. That is where the waste in the defense budget truly is.
The problem with American politics is not so much our politician’s, but the people who elect and reelect them. American voters have this wild idea, perhaps drunken or marijuana fantasy that these people can give them everything that they want at no cost to the taxpayers. When the fact is everyone who is familiar with government, knows that is well, bullshit! That of course we as taxpayers pay for all the government services that they give us. So if you want government to give you something, tell your politician what you’ll pay for it. And they’ll tell you what you can get in return for your investment.
I don’t know the answer to this question what is the stupidest state in America. There are plenty of candidates for that title, including at least one in the Northeast in New York, one in the Midwest in Illinois and one in the Mid-Atlantic in West Virginia and could go down to the Southwest to Texas as well. And if you want to talk about ignorant non-educated people, how you not look at Michigan. I mean is there is another big city with worst public schools than Detroit and has a higher dropout rate than Detroit and with more ignorant and poor people than Detroit. And keep in mind, about half of the State of Michigan lives in the Detroit area.
But I would say this about Alabama and other Southern rural states that do not have a big city and big metro area in them, like Mississippi, South Carolina and Arkansas, to use as examples. Any state like that with a high concentration of poverty that is so underdeveloped as far as its infrastructure, perhaps especially as it relates to education, where you have so many people who do not finish school or even if they did finish school, didn’t get the education they needed to do well in life and puts so much faith, well into their faith, even over things like education and progress, you’re going to have a high concentration of ignorant people in it.
The reason why Alabama is seen as a joke, to even people who are from that state and even in that region of the country, like Georgia and Florida, is because of their high concentration of poverty and ignorance. And then thrown in their redneck country lifestyle with the high-pitch accent, with all the country sayings and how they pronounce certain American-English words, you’re going to look, well less than bright and educated to put it nice, to the rest of the country, which just happens to be most of the country. That is why Alabama gets made fun of so much. “Hey, we might be last in almost everything that’s positive. But at least we’re first in Jesus, guns and football”. Which is sort of another Alabama joke.
I’m going to be careful here, because there some actual Christians who I actually respect, including Protestants and Evangelicals and who are also still living. And when I think of Christianity and Christians as someone who isn’t, I think of these people and I think of their groups. And all of those charities that they run. That house the homeless, feed the hungry, some groups even go as far as educating the ignorant so they can get themselves a good job. All things that the so-called Christian-Right and a certain segment of the Tea Party views as socialism or communism.
When I think of Christians, I don’t think of Michelle Bachmann, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, all these so-called leaders of the Christian-Right. Who go out of their of putting people down and hating and saying so many horrible things about people who don’t live exactly the way they do, or look at the world exactly as they do. You know, I’m happy to look at those people as fascists, statists, theocrats, hypocrites, especially when they are preaching against big government. Liars, crooks, assholes, bullshit artists, con-people, all of those labels would fit them perfectly. But calling them Christians would be an insult to Christians.
There are people who are truly religious and actually believe in the religion that they say they follow. Those people I respect, even if I disagree with their religion. Christianity especially as it relates to lifestyle, is simply too conservative for me, but so is Islam. But I can respect people who truly believe in and follow the values of those religions. But what I can’t respect are people who use a great religion like Christianity to put down other people simply because they disagree with them. Those people are assholes and make Americans look as stupid as we get stereotyped as.
