Donald O'Connor
Sep. 28th, 2003 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseThere've been so many famous deaths recently. John Ritter saddened me. Johnny Cash felt surprisingly close because he used to pester my Mom for a date back in Mom's stewardess days. She apparently convinced him to stop asking by saying, "But you play milking music." It feels right to me; it's about Mom's level of tact.
The only George Plimpton that I ever read was for school. I've never been much of a conservative. Robert Palmer -- well, I like the song Addicted to Love, but, like so much of the music that came out while I was living in Belgium, it doesn't feel like my music.
Donald O'Connor is different.
My record for movies on the big screen is 57 in 21 days. Many people know that about me and know that I love old movies. Very few know how I came to old movies in the first place.
In 1974, my father was in Viet Nam for his third tour. We all missed him, but certain things that had become traditional for my mother (weekly movies, monthly dinner dates, opera week at Wolf Trap) were very difficult for her to give up. So the movies and the opera week, she did with my sister and me instead. Movies were usually right after church on Sunday.
In the early 70s we were at the peak of adult cinema. By that I don't mean porn films, although that was also the peak for them, but movies made for grown-ups. In this day of PG-13 on demand, many people don't realize how near to impossible it was to find a children's movie or even a well-made PG film in the early 70s. The theaters were also much stricter about checking ages. So, the Sunday afternoon films were not the easiest to find.
One afternoon, we finally broke down and saw That's Entertainment. Everyone preferred films with a plot to something that sounded like a TV special. Instead Mom walked out with two dancing daughters wearing huge grins. I remember asking her about the man with the smile. She told me it was Gene Kelly; to my eternal embarrassment, I said "No the MAN, not the girl."
None of us was really prepared for our reactions to it. I know that the next payday (Sis and I had a paper route), I bought the Soundtrack. I listened to it every morning while I was getting dressed for school.
The following Saturday I found the Gene Kelly Three Musketeers on a local station and confirmed a deep-seated crush. I also read the book for the first time and began a life-long love of adventure novels that now includes a French first edition of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.
About a fortnight after that, there was a new release of Singin' in the Rain. Nothing about That's Entertainment had prepared me for seeing a whole musical on the big screen. We saw it on its first night in release -- a real rarity for us while Dad was away.
That's where I first saw Donald O'Connor. He was still in his early twenties, and yet he held his own against Gene Kelly. His comic timing was exquisite whether verbal or physical. The Make 'Em Laugh number can still produce helpless giggles from both me and my sister.
Donald O'Connor was a child star in Vaudeville and supported his family with his movie work in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He played the child who grew up to be Gary Cooper's character in Beau Geste. In the horribly totalitarian movie Toys, he made the head of the toy factory genuinely sweet. O'Connor was the only redeeming feature.
Between those two extremes, Donald O'Connor did a little bit of everything. Had the musical not died in the late 1950s, I think he'd have been a top movie star. Yet he still had a tremendous career with character roles and a night club act.
It seems odd to think about the impact that Singin' in the Rain had on me. Anyone can see it on video or DVD. My housemate's nieces and nephews are growing up with being able to see musicals on a small screen anytime. That wasn't possible for me.
I found the Biograph, Circle, and AFI theaters in D.C. Sis and I saw every musical that they showed. We began with the Freed unit at MGM and worked our way through the oeuvres of Kelly, Garland, and Charisse. I even got my hair cut like Cyd Charisse wore hers in the green dress in Singin' in the Rain. After seeing the musicals, we started on the adventure movies.
By the time I went to boarding school two years later, I was hooked on old movies. I tested the school rules by going to see Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre as a double feature all by myself in an area of town that wasn't considered salubrious.
When we moved to Belgium, I was 17. Before we'd been there a week, I'd been to the Musee du Cinema. They showed three films a night at a dollar a movie -- hence 57 films in 21 days. I saw movies by obscure actors linked together by weird and wonderful themes -- films in French and English, silents and sound movies.
I learned so much about who I am and what I like from these old films, and Donald O'Connor was a big part of it. I still remember my piano teacher asking me what was different about me the week after I saw Singin' in the Rain. Just before I left, she put her finger on it. In the three years she'd been teaching me, she'd never before seen me happy.
The only George Plimpton that I ever read was for school. I've never been much of a conservative. Robert Palmer -- well, I like the song Addicted to Love, but, like so much of the music that came out while I was living in Belgium, it doesn't feel like my music.
Donald O'Connor is different.
My record for movies on the big screen is 57 in 21 days. Many people know that about me and know that I love old movies. Very few know how I came to old movies in the first place.
In 1974, my father was in Viet Nam for his third tour. We all missed him, but certain things that had become traditional for my mother (weekly movies, monthly dinner dates, opera week at Wolf Trap) were very difficult for her to give up. So the movies and the opera week, she did with my sister and me instead. Movies were usually right after church on Sunday.
In the early 70s we were at the peak of adult cinema. By that I don't mean porn films, although that was also the peak for them, but movies made for grown-ups. In this day of PG-13 on demand, many people don't realize how near to impossible it was to find a children's movie or even a well-made PG film in the early 70s. The theaters were also much stricter about checking ages. So, the Sunday afternoon films were not the easiest to find.
One afternoon, we finally broke down and saw That's Entertainment. Everyone preferred films with a plot to something that sounded like a TV special. Instead Mom walked out with two dancing daughters wearing huge grins. I remember asking her about the man with the smile. She told me it was Gene Kelly; to my eternal embarrassment, I said "No the MAN, not the girl."
None of us was really prepared for our reactions to it. I know that the next payday (Sis and I had a paper route), I bought the Soundtrack. I listened to it every morning while I was getting dressed for school.
The following Saturday I found the Gene Kelly Three Musketeers on a local station and confirmed a deep-seated crush. I also read the book for the first time and began a life-long love of adventure novels that now includes a French first edition of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.
About a fortnight after that, there was a new release of Singin' in the Rain. Nothing about That's Entertainment had prepared me for seeing a whole musical on the big screen. We saw it on its first night in release -- a real rarity for us while Dad was away.
That's where I first saw Donald O'Connor. He was still in his early twenties, and yet he held his own against Gene Kelly. His comic timing was exquisite whether verbal or physical. The Make 'Em Laugh number can still produce helpless giggles from both me and my sister.
Donald O'Connor was a child star in Vaudeville and supported his family with his movie work in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He played the child who grew up to be Gary Cooper's character in Beau Geste. In the horribly totalitarian movie Toys, he made the head of the toy factory genuinely sweet. O'Connor was the only redeeming feature.
Between those two extremes, Donald O'Connor did a little bit of everything. Had the musical not died in the late 1950s, I think he'd have been a top movie star. Yet he still had a tremendous career with character roles and a night club act.
It seems odd to think about the impact that Singin' in the Rain had on me. Anyone can see it on video or DVD. My housemate's nieces and nephews are growing up with being able to see musicals on a small screen anytime. That wasn't possible for me.
I found the Biograph, Circle, and AFI theaters in D.C. Sis and I saw every musical that they showed. We began with the Freed unit at MGM and worked our way through the oeuvres of Kelly, Garland, and Charisse. I even got my hair cut like Cyd Charisse wore hers in the green dress in Singin' in the Rain. After seeing the musicals, we started on the adventure movies.
By the time I went to boarding school two years later, I was hooked on old movies. I tested the school rules by going to see Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre as a double feature all by myself in an area of town that wasn't considered salubrious.
When we moved to Belgium, I was 17. Before we'd been there a week, I'd been to the Musee du Cinema. They showed three films a night at a dollar a movie -- hence 57 films in 21 days. I saw movies by obscure actors linked together by weird and wonderful themes -- films in French and English, silents and sound movies.
I learned so much about who I am and what I like from these old films, and Donald O'Connor was a big part of it. I still remember my piano teacher asking me what was different about me the week after I saw Singin' in the Rain. Just before I left, she put her finger on it. In the three years she'd been teaching me, she'd never before seen me happy.
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Perfection itself
Date: 2003-09-29 11:12 am (UTC)Re: Perfection itself
Date: 2003-09-29 12:18 pm (UTC)