Archive for the ‘Actors’ Category
December 19, 2019
By William Haefeli in the 12/2/19 New Yorker, this entry in his chronicles of fashionable urban upper middle class gay men, especially in couples, especially in New York City:
(#1) “Someday I’ll buy a little place in the country and take my finger off the Zeitgeist.”
Meanwhile, both men are on the cutting edge of the Zeitgeist in fashion for men. Black guy with dreads and a neck tattoo on the left, white guy with a short ponytail and an ornate curly beard on the right. (I won’t even go into the clothes and accessories.)
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Posted in Actors, Homosexuality, Language and society, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »
December 13, 2019
It’s Eva Marie Saint Lucy’s Day and, in today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro combo, a Kurt Russell terrier bounds in:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s just one in this strip — see this Page.)
First, Kurt Russell and the Russell terrier. Then Eva Marie Saint and St. Lucy’s Day. In both cases, a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps (see the Page on this blog), with a name in a POP (a phrasal overlap portmanteau; see the Page on this blog).
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Posted in Actors, Holidays, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Shirtlessness, Understanding comics | 2 Comments »
December 3, 2019
… the actor, who recently popped up twice on my vintage tv, first in a 1981 episode of The Greatest American Hero and then in a 1985 episode of Cagney & Lacey — where I instantly recognized him from his recurring character Colonel Flagg on M*A*S*H, from 1973-79. I was of course interested in him as a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps (actors who get regular work and so pop up in movies or on tv, notably or inconspicuously, in various roles; also in him as a man with a conventionally good-looking face, a leading-man style of face (rather than a character-actor face); and also in him as someone with a strong and recognizable actorial persona, which runs through a number of his performances.
A standard p.r. head shot of Winter from the 1970s/80s:
(#1)
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Gay porn, Identities, Movies and tv | 1 Comment »
November 25, 2019
A return to the subject of my 3/10/16 posting “Male beauty”, on cultural categorizations of attractiveness and masculinity, primarily as evidenced in facial characteristics. Adding to the mix (a) yesterday’s posting on my man Jacques Transue as a young “dreamboat” (“Him, 55 years ago”); and (b) repeated passing references here to the Clint Eastwood of the tv series Rawhide (1959-66) as “young and beautiful, but ruggedly handsome”.
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Posted in Actors, Categorization and Labeling, Facial expressions, Masculinity, Movies and tv, Photography, Shirtlessness | 1 Comment »
July 23, 2019
A prospective comment for posting on my blog, following up on my 6/12/15 posting “Morning: Vic Hitler (and Terry Kiser)” (the narcoleptic comic Vic Hitler is one of Kiser’s most famous roles):
Please give Terry a message from his past. “After about seventy years, I am still following your career. On the island of Tobago, you were “getting away” after your show in NY. I just celebrated my 92nd b.day and still have happy memories of my time spent with you and your friend wandering the island. You are a credit to your profession. Thanks for sharing your talent.”
A fan letter from an old friend (of Kiser’s), whose identity I will steadfastly conceal here (actually, his name is sufficiently common that I’m not sure who he is). A fan who assumes that since I wrote about Kiser and his career in some detail and with appreciation, I know the man myself, or at least know how to get in touch with him. Alas no, though what I’ve found out about him suggests that he’s someone I’d like to get to know.
(He’s living in Austin TX, still acting — see below — and teaching. He’s a year old than I am, and he still has that great actor’s face, which in repose tends to convey subtle warmth together with sharp intelligence.)
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Posted in Actors, Movies and tv, This blogging life | 1 Comment »
February 18, 2019
As furors break out here and there over same-sex kisses in the media (especially in ads) and also in real life (in public places) — disgusting! THINK OF THE CHILDREN! get that out of my sight! — I move to celebrate them. Especially men kissing men, an act that enrages a fair number of people, apparently because they have been conditioned to view it as the functional equivalent of two sweaty naked men fucking. I view it as the functional equivalent of a man and woman kissing: an act of romantic connection with a spicy tang of sexual attraction (but no more)
And so I come to two recent British films viewed on Netflix: The Pass (Russell Tovey and Arinzé Kene as footballers) and God’s Own Country (Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu as Yorkshire sheep farmers). Both are fraught love stories set in intensely masculine working-class social worlds. With wonderful performances. And man-on-man kissing, both touching and moving.
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Posted in Actors, Gender and sexuality, Language and race, Language of sex, Movies and tv, Race and ethnicity | 1 Comment »
February 11, 2019
Today’s Zippy has Griffy and Zippy marveling, once again, that almost all cartoon characters, themselves included, never seem to age. In particular, Nancy and Sluggo are always and forever 8 years old — in Cartoonland, where age cannot wither them (nor custom stale their infinite variety). But in Ivan Albright’s art world, even Nancy, sturdy Nancy, grows old:
(#1)
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Posted in Actors, Art, Comic conventions, Language and animals, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Mishearings | 1 Comment »
September 29, 2018
From the American tv show Gunsmoke, in the episode “Fandango” (S12 E21, first aired 2/11/67), Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) to a man he’s taken into his custody for trial:
Mister, you’re going back pig or pork, now make up your mind!
The colorful alliterative figure pig or pork, a version of the formula alive or dead (more often encountered in the version dead or alive, with the monosyllable before the disyllable). And an excellent version it is.
(It appears to have been a creation of the Gunsmoke writers: I can find no occurrences that aren’t quotations of, comments on, or allusions to the “Fandango” cite.)
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Posted in Actors, Figurative language, Formulaic language, Language play, Movies and tv, Race and ethnicity | Leave a Comment »
September 3, 2018
… with a note on the pronunciation of botanical names.
The crucial moment came in a re-run showing of the Rizzoli & Isles episode “Love the Way You Lie” (S3 E12, first aired 12/4/12), when the Boston detective (Rizzoli, played by Angie Harmon) and medical examiner (Isles, played by Sasha Alexander) pondered the significance of the fact that they had identified some pollen as coming from Solidago macrophylla, with the species name macrophylla pronounced /ˌmækroˈfɪlǝ/ (with primary accent on the third syllable). I was startled by the pronunciation: it’s Greek ‘big leaf’, so surely it should have the accent on the second syllable (as in thermometer, Hippocrates, etc.), something on the order of /mǝˈkrafǝlǝ/, and the writers had just gotten it wrong.
But no. The writers did their homework, and I was the one who was wrong.
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Posted in Actors, Gender and sexuality, Language and plants, Movies and tv, Pronunciation, Technical and ordinary language | 2 Comments »
