2024: A Year in Music
26 Thursday Dec 2024
Posted in Books, Lana Del Rey, Music, Non-Fiction
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26 Thursday Dec 2024
Posted in Books, Lana Del Rey, Music, Non-Fiction
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10 Tuesday Sep 2024
Posted in Film, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Television, Theatre
≈ Comments Off on Rosalina Neri: From ‘La Marilyn Italiana’ to Milanese Diva
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Arthur Miller, Diana Dors, Italy, ITV, Jack Hylton, John F. Kennedy, Lookalikes, Marilyn Monroe, Milan, Opera, Rosalina Neri, The Misfits

Rosalina Neri, the singer and actress known as ‘la Marilyn Italiana’ (or ‘Marilina’) has died aged 96 after a short illness. Continue reading
18 Thursday Jan 2024
Posted in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes
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42nd Street, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Alice Faye, Bernard F. Dick, Betty Grable, Broadway, Carousel, Darryl F. Zanuck, Down Boy, Fred Karger, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, George Cukor, How to Be Very Very Popular, How to Marry a Millionaire, Howard Hawks, Irving Berlin, Jane Russell, Jayne Mansfield, June Haver, Ladies of the Chorus, Let's Make Love, Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Gaynor, Musicals, Orson Welles, Richard Zanuck, River of No Return, Sheree North, Shirley Temple, Something's Got To Give, Sonja Henie, The Girl Can't Help It, The Jazz Singer, There's No Business Like Show Business, Twentieth Century Fox, Vivian Blaine, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter

Bernard F. Dick, a professor of English and communication at Fairleigh-Dickson University in New Jersey, has published many titles on the classical era of Hollywood film-making, covering a wide range of figures like producers Harry Cohn and Hal B. Wallis; directors Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder; actresses Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell; and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. In his 2018 book, That Was Entertainment, Dick hailed the MGM musical as the genre’s ‘Gold Standard,’ reeling off a list of the studio’s all-time greats from The Wizard of Oz to Singin’ in the Rain. Continue reading
28 Thursday Dec 2023
Posted in Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Updates
≈ Comments Off on 2023: A Year in Music
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A Certain Ratio, A Year in Music, A&W, Alma Mater, Avalanche of Love, Bleachers, Burt Bacharach, Candy Necklace, Celebration Tour, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Elvis Presley, God Games, Holly MacVe, Hollywood Bowl, Ireland, John Denver, Jon Batiste, LA Hex, Lana Del Rey, Life Lesson, Lost at Sea, Madonna, Mitski, My Love Mine All Mine, Nothing Really Matters, People Say, Rob Grant, Samo, Say Yes to Heaven, Shane McGowan, Sinead O’Connor, Steve Mason, Suburban House, The Kills, The Pogues, Tina Turner, W.I.T.C.H.

Lana Del Rey’s ‘diarist era’ has surely reached its apogee with Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard. Sprawling, eccentric, and soul-baring, it has more in common with her poetry than previous albums. In a female-dominated race, her five Grammy nominations include the supremely dark A&W, hailed by many as song of the year; while the jazz-inflected Candy Necklace has already nabbed two MTV awards. Continue reading
13 Monday Nov 2023
Posted in Anniversaries, Art and Photography, Books, Fashion and Beauty, Film, History, Music, Periodicals, Poetry, Politics, Profumo Affair
≈ Comments Off on Sixty Years Later: Scandal ’63 Revisited
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A Kind of Loving, Amanda Coe, Barry Fantoni, Calder Waldon, Caroline Coon, Catherine Edmunds, Cathy Lomax, Christine Keeler, Christine Noonan, Dameon Priestly, David Kynaston, De Montfort University, Divergência Socialista, Eugene Ivanov, Fanny Hill, Fionn Wilson, Geoffrey Robertson, Gerald Scarfe, Graphic Novel, Harold Macmillan, If ...., Introducing Mandy, John Profumo, Keeler, Leicester, Leicester Gallery, Lewis Morley, Libby Crowley, Mandy Rice-Davies, Marguerite Horner, Mariella Novotny, Melanie Williams, Michael Bronze, Murray's Cabaret Club, Natalie d'Arbeloff, Peggy Davies Ceramics, Private Eye, Profumo Affair, Richard Farmer, Sadie Hennessy, Sadie Lee, Sal Jones, Scandal, Scandal '63 Revisited, Senseless Things, Seymour Platt, Stella Vine, Stephen Ward, Stephen Ward: The Musical, Steve Chibnall, Sue Lloyd, Terence Donovan, That Affair, That Was the Week That Was, The Christine Keeler Colouring Book, The Keeler Affair, The Mandy Report, The Trial Of Christine Keeler, Timothy Birdsall, Town Magazine, Tuli Kupferberg, Une Romance Anglaise, Vanessa Holburn, Vice Girls Ltd., Wendy Nelson, Wes Streeting, Yours Retro

“In Britain at the start of the 1960s, Victorian values are still mainstream. There is a rich ruling class who are better than everybody else, women are mostly thought of as the property of the men around them and if you are Black, discrimination, IS the culture. I believe the Profumo scandal shone a light on all of that poison and was another step on the road that we are still very much on, to a more equal society. So, I think in some ways the Profumo scandal was a good thing. But for my mother, I am sure she would say, ‘What a price I had to pay!’”– Seymour Platt, ‘My Mother, Christine Keeler’ Continue reading
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