Saturday, June 10, 2006

I love pirates

Anne Brennan
(1697-?)

Anne Brennan and Mary Read
When a young man makes a crude pass at 14-year-old Anne Brennan on the streets of Charleston, South Carolina, Brennan beats him so badly that his jaw is broken and he must be hospitalized for months. The strong, quick-tempered girl would later become a notorious pirate who terrorized the Caribbean for several years. At the age of 16, Brennan married James Bonny, and the two settled in the Bahamas. While Bonny tried to make his living informing on the local pirates, Anne decided she would rather join the bad guys. She left Bonny and took up with Albert Backhouse, killing his mistress and taking her place in the business of laundering stolen goods for the pirates.
Brennan then became friendly with pirates such as Blackbeard and Calico Jack. She followed Jack on a voyage aboard Pierre Bousquet's pirate ship and quickly convinced the crew to dump Bousquet for Calico Jack. Around this time, Anne met Mary Read, a woman who was trying to pass as a male pirate, and the two became fast friends.
Stopping in the Bahamas again, Anne found that James Bonny had filed adultery charges against her. In an act of revenge, she set fire to Bonny's new home on the island.


In 1720, a bounty was placed on Calico Jack's ship, and armed troops were sent out to capture the pirates. They caught up with Jack, Anne, and Mary Read in October of that year. Jack stayed below in his cabin drinking rum while most of the other men meekly surrendered. However, Anne and Mary fought valiantly until their eventual capture, and they were sentenced to walk the plank to their deaths. Fortunately for them, English law did not allow for the execution of pregnant women-as both Anne and Mary were.
Despite her brief good fortune, Mary Read didn't last much longer. She came down with a fatal disease and died in December. Brennan, on the other hand, escaped before her execution, after giving birth the following year. Purportedly, she returned to America and joined the pioneers settling the West.

Once when I was young, my mother after hours of pleading from me allowed me to visit a psychic medium with my Aunt Yvonne. The psychic told me that in a "other" life I was a very mean male pirate, I had my own ship, and buried my own crew with my treasure somewhere in the Bahamas. Now, I am not sure that I am a believer however since that day I have had a life long love of pirates. =}


N Posted by Rain at 6/10/2006 12:23:00 AM

Friday, June 09, 2006

Art and Madness~Actors

April 15,1900~June 10, 1967



"This mug of mine is as plain as a barn door. Why should people pay thirty-five cents to look at it?"

"Spencer Tracy, you're the best damn actor there is!" -- George M. Cohen

Spencer Tracy and Ernest Borgnine

"I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality."

On drinking: "Hell, I used to take two-week lunch hours!"

Spencer Tracy and Vivien Leigh


"It is up to us to give ourselves recognition. If we wait for it to come from others, we feel resentful when it doesn't, and when it does, we may well reject it."

"The kids keep telling me I should try this new "Method Acting" but I'm too old, I'm too tired and I'm too talented to care."


Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner

"I couldn't be a director because I couldn't put up with the actors. I don't have the patience. Why, I'd probably kill the actors. Not to mention some of the beautiful actresses."

On acting: "Come to work on time, know your lines and don't bump into the furniture."

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn


Mayer, upon finding out that Irving Thalberg had hired Tracy to join MGM
On being asked why he was always billed above Katharine Hepburn in their films together, when politeness dictated the other way around: "Because this is a movie, you chowderhead, not a lifeboat!"

As the Daily Telegraph observed in Hepburn's obituary, "Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were at their most seductive when their verbal fencing was sharpest: it was hard to say whether they delighted more in the battle or in each other."

On why he never left his wife for Katherine Hepburn: "I can get a divorce whenever I want to. But my wife and Kate like things just as they are."

Spencer Tracy was born April 15, 1900 to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy. At Ripon College he did well in the lead of "The Truth" and decided on acting as a career. In 1923 he married Louise Treadwell. They had two children, John and Louise (Susie).

In stock he supported himself with jobs as bellhop, janitor and salesman. John Ford saw his critically acclaimed performance in the lead role in in The Last Mile (1932) and signed him to Up the River (1930) for Fox. His family moved to Hollywood in 1931, and Tracy made 16 films in three years. In 1935 he signed with MGM. He became the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars for Captains Courageous(1937) and Boys Town (1938).

He was also nominated for San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). He and Laurence Olivier share the record for the most best actor Oscar nominations (9).

He had a brief romantic relationship with Loretta Young in the 1930s and a lifelong one with Katharine Hepburn beginning in 1942. Because he was a Catholic he never divorced his wife Louise, though they lived apart, some of his friends and biographers have speculated that it had nothing to do with his Catholic upbringing, but was more that he would have felt too guilty about abandoning his son John, who was born deaf.

A few weeks after completion of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), during which he suffered from lung congestion, he died of a heart attack.

Want to know more? I recommend these books

Spencer Tracy; a Biography by Larry Swindell, New York, World Pub. Co. 1969
Tracy and Hepburn by Garson Kanin, New York, Viking 1971
Spencer Tracy : a Bio-bibliography by James Fisher. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1994


N Posted by Rain at 6/09/2006 01:16:00 AM

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Grateful Thursday


Today I am grateful for...

  • The fact that it is raining in the month of June.
  • Rainman and I are going to take class in Art History together over the summer.
  • I have signed up for a belly dance class, that starts on Monday.
  • I've lost sixteen pounds....Whoohoo!
  • I have my blood sugar under control.
  • My new tennis shoes because they make me run faster and jump higher.
  • My new garden hose. It really doesn't take much to make me happy!
  • The fact that failure is not a excuse.
  • I am NOT addicted to therapy or counseling.If you have ever met anyone that has had years and years of therapy or counseling you know exactly what I am saying.

What are you grateful for?


N Posted by Rain at 6/08/2006 12:11:00 AM

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Schools Out for Summer!

An open card for my son
Rainman,

You have overcome so much diversity in your life,
Approaching the tasks given to you
with determination and energy.
You're reading levels have increased by two grades!
Math skills have shown improvement also,
and your social skills have grown by leaps and bounds!
Don't forget that you attended two "regular" classes this year,
a computer class without an aide (overall grade of B) and
a science class which you won the award for building a rocket
that went higher and farther than anyone else's! YAY!
Congratulations on passing all your classes this year!
I am so proud of you.
Remember you are special and I love you,
Mom

N Posted by Rain at 6/07/2006 12:20:00 AM

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Art and Madness Series 4 Actors

Robert Young Feb.22,1907-July 21,1998


Robert Young

Quiet soft spoken Robert grew up in California and had some stage experience with the Pasadena Playhouse before entering films in 1931. His movie career consisted of characters who were charming, good looking and bland as ever. In fact, his screen image was such that he usually never got the girl. Louis B. Mayer would say "He has no sex appeal", but he had a work ethic that prepared him for every role that he played. And he did play in as many as eleven films per year for a decade starting with 'The Black Camel' in 1931. He had some note as the spy in Hitchcock's 'Secret Agent' in 1936, but it would be in the forties before he would have some of his best roles. Some of them were 'Northwest Passage (1940)'; 'Western Union (1941)'; and 'H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)'. Good roles followed from the husband of Dorothy McGuire in 'Claudia (1943)' to the detective in 'Crossfire (1947), but the good roles were few.

"All those years at MGM I hid a black terror behind a cheerful face."


In 1949, Robert started a radio show called "Father Knows Best" where he played Jim Anderson, an average father with average situations - which was tailor made for him. Basically retiring from films, this program ran for five years on Radio before it went to Television in 1954. After a slight falter in the ratings and a switch from CBS to NBC, it would be a mainstay of television until it was cancelled in 1960. He would continue making guest appearances on various television shows and work in television movies. In 1969, he starred as Dr. Marcus Welby in the TV movie "Marcus Welby, M.D.". This show would become his new series and run from 1969 through 1976 and also feature James Brolin as his assistant, Dr. Steven Kiley - the doc with the bike. Originating his "Father Knows Best" role on radio, he was the only member of the radio cast to transfer his role to TV. After that, Robert, who by now was in his seventies, would finally lick the 30 year battle that he had with alcohol. He would occasionally appear in television movies through the eighties. In 1991, Robert Young, attempted suicide due to alcoholism and depression.

"All those years at MGM I hid a black terror behind a cheerful face."~Robert Young


Robert Young met his wife, Elizabeth Louise Henderson (1933-1994) when he was 17 and she was 14. They met in high school and had four daughters.



Lillian Roth 1910-1980

Tragic songstress Lillian Roth, born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 13, 1910, was given her first name in honor of singer Lillian Russell. She was the daughter of daunting stage parents who groomed her and younger sister Anne for stardom at an early age. The girls did not disappoint. In 1916, Lillian moved with her family to New York City where the youngsters found work as extras in films. Lillian's precocious talent was picked up on quickly and at age six made her Broadway Debut in "The Inner Man." All the while the girls trained at the Professional Children's School. They became billed as Broadways "Youngest Stars" after putting together a successful vadeville tour billed as "The Roth Kids."In this act Lillian did serious dramatic impersonations of famous stars of the day with Anna delivering amusing satires of Lillian's readings. Lillian's vocal talents also impressed and she was cast in the show "Artists and Models" at age 15. Shy by nature, the ever-increasing thrust into the limelight caused Lillian to develop severe nervous disorders, but somehow she persevered.

Lillian and Anna

"My life was never my own. It was charted before I was born."~ Lillian Roth

The sudden death of her fiancé in the early 30s drove Lillian over the brink. She found liquor to be a calming sensation, which led to a full-scale addiction. Marriages, one to renown Municipal Court Justice Benjamin Shalleck, came and went at a steady pace. There would be eight in all. Her career self-destructed as she spiraled further and further into alcoholic oblivion and delirium. Decades would be spent in and out of mental institutions until she met and married T. Burt McGuire, Jr., a former alcoholic in the late 40s. With his support, Lillian slowly revived her career with club work. She became a singing sensation again and toured throughout the world, receiving ecstatic reviews wherever she went.

Lillian's daring autobiography, "I'll Cry Tomorrow" was published in 1954 and topped The New York Times Best Sellers List. She left out few details of her sordid past and battle with substance abuse. She would become the first celebrity to associate her name with Alcoholics Anonymous, putting a well-known face on the disease (as Rock Hudson would later do for AIDS, albeit less willingly) while doing her part in helping to remove the social stigma.

A bold, no-holds-barred film adaptation of Lillian's book followed. Susan Hayward's gutsy portrayal of Lillian won her a fourth Oscar nomination. Lillian herself would return to films in her twilight years but only in small roles and to minor fanfare. A beautiful and touching vocalist and actress, she put her own wonderful spin on such vintage songs as "When the Red, Red Robin," "I Wish I Had My Old Gal Back Again" and "Eadie Was a Lady." Lillian overcame unimaginable odds and somehow lived to tell about it. She passed away in 1980 at 69 of a stroke.

I have a question...Anyone out there beside me having difficulties with Blogger? Or is it just me? This post has taken me two hours to post..grr!

Also I would like to thank everyone that stops by! This site is part of my treatment to help me control my Bipolar illness. It truly does help me, and if it helps anyone else then it's all the better!


N Posted by Rain at 6/06/2006 12:24:00 AM

Monday, June 05, 2006

Hunky Monday


A friend of mine sent me this in a email.
Thank you Benita!

N Posted by Rain at 6/05/2006 01:00:00 AM