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On the Scene: âSpring Awakeningâ Returns ïżœïżœ Matt StevensïżœïżœReporting from BroadwayMatt Stevens for The New York TimesTickets for the benefit, ranging from $50 to $5,000, sold out quickly. The line to enter the theater, on 45th Street near Eighth Avenue, would eventually stretch down the block.Because of delays seating attendees, the show started over an hour late. More
The actress, who stars in the gritty British crime drama âRagdoll,â also has a soft spot for âGreaseâ and âI Love Lucyâ reruns.When most kids try to swipe something while their parents arenât looking, itâs a cookie or a bar of chocolate.For Lucy Hale, it was her momâs nursing books.âEven as a little kid, I gravitated toward the darker things in life,â said Hale, 32, who stars in the gritty new British crime drama âRagdoll,â which premieres on AMC+ on Nov. 11. âMy mom was in nursing school, and I would steal her nursing books because I wanted to know about diseases and ailments. I was a very strange child.âThough sheâs best known for teen dramas like âPretty Little Liarsâ and the short-lived âRiverdaleâ spinoff, âKaty Keene,â her new venture into the macabre sees her starring as a recently recruited American detective â Lake Edmunds â tasked with tracking down a serial killer in London who sews parts of his victimsâ dismembered bodies together into a grotesque creation referred to as âthe Ragdoll.â The six-part series is based on Daniel Coleâs 2017 novel.âIâve never played a detective,â she said. âBut I had written in journals that I had wanted to play a character like this, so it definitely felt natural.âIn a Zoom audio call from her home in Los Angeles earlier this month, Hale shared her admiration for Lucille Ball and âForensic Files,â and explained why Graceland is her happy place. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. âGreaseâEveryone always asks me, âWhere did you get the bug for performing?â And it goes back to sitting on my grandmotherâs living room table. She put on âGreaseâ for the first time when I was 6 or 7, and I was hypnotized. Iâve probably seen the movie 100 times, and even as an adult, I still enjoy it the way I did when I was a little kid â the music, the chemistry between John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, the hair and the makeup. I heard a rumor that theyâre remaking it â Iâll keep an open mind, but itâs so classic.2. The Pattern AppI first heard about it a couple of years ago when Channing Tatum posted about it on Instagram, and itâs now the most-used app on my phone. You type in the city where you were born, your name, your birth date, your birth year and the time of day. Then it calculates a birth chart for you, which is almost like a personality reading. Itâs the most accurate one Iâve ever read. If youâre dating someone new, you can plug in their information and then compare how you guys are similar or different. It also gives you reminders; I checked mine first thing this morning, and it says I identify with being the giver in my relationships, and I derive my self-worth and identity from being the provider. And so today, my reminder is that I need to be sure to check in with myself.3. The Rose Bowl Flea MarketImagine the Rose Bowl, but with thousands and thousands and thousands of people with suitcases ready to buy vintage items. Itâs incredible. It happens the second Sunday of every month at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, and you have to get there at like 6 or 7 a.m. to find parking. There are hundreds of vendors; they have a clothing section categorized by era, and thereâs an amazing vendor who has the most beautiful turquoise jewelry Iâve ever seen. You definitely have to devote a day to it, and you have to be willing to dig and be patient.4. âJagged Little Pillâ by Alanis MorissetteThis was the first album that I bought with my own money. I remember seeing the cover for the first time when I was really young, in vivid red and green and blue with her hair blowing everywhere. I would have been around 7, so I was too young to understand the angst. But I would put her CD in my boombox, and I just loved the tone of her voice â the honesty and the passion.5. âI Love Lucyâ RerunsThere will never be anyone like Lucille Ball. She was big and bold and not afraid to make crazy faces and be physical, be wild and wacky. During that time, that just wasnât what a lot of women entertainers were doing â sheâs truly a comedic genius. And her and Ethel are one of my favorite duos of all time, so much so that I named my puppy for her. So weâre Lucy and Ethel. (Iâm actually named after a grandmother of mine.)6. IkoyiThis is an African-inspired restaurant in London that was rated one of the top 50 restaurants in the world last year. I know about it because a friendâs brother, Jeremy [Chan], is the chef. I went there for the first time about a month ago, and it is, without a doubt, the most extraordinary culinary experience of my life. Iâm just blown away by how people can think, like, âOh, this would taste great with this.â For instance, there was a really nice white fish with vanilla bean foam. And another dish with a paste on the side that he said was inspired by Warheads candy. All these out-there flavors, but it all seamlessly works together, and the presentation is truly art.7. Frances BerryFrances Berry is this extraordinary painter out of Memphis, where Iâm from. A lot of her paintings are these gorgeous female bodies with wacky colors and stripes and different textures. But she also does these cool Pop Art paintings â I have a custom Elvis Presley one here. A lot of her work is very feminist and supportive of women. She does sayings, like âSmokinâ Naked,â and then she has a female form with a cigarette. Sheâs just very cool â she wears roller skates to do her art in.8. GracelandMy grandmother was a huge Elvis Presley fan, as am I, and you definitely get a feel for the type of person he was walking through this home. Thereâs a room with like 10 TVs in it because he liked to watch different things at the same time, and thereâs the animal room, which is all animal prints â floor, ceiling, furniture. Itâs just very â70s, very tacky in the best way.9. âForensic FilesâIt was nighttime over 10 years ago, and Iâm flicking through the channels, and I hear that creepy intro music â the âForensic Filesâ theme song. I love the show because itâs not scripted â itâs purely about how detectives find the people who do horrible things to people. Thereâs hundreds of episodes, and you can always find âForensic Filesâ on any given channel at nighttime. In a weird way, itâs like a comfort show for me.10. Yosemite National ParkThis is the place I go to when I feel like I need a break from everything. Itâs five or six hours north of L.A., and for the last couple of years, Iâve taken these solo hiking trips there. You look at these waterfalls, and these mountains, and these cliffs, and it truly looks like a painting. More
With a Black-led production of Shakespeareâs play, an Austrian theater hopes to jump-start a conversation about racism and the need for diversity on the countryâs stages.ST. PĂLTEN, Austria â âSpeak of me as I am,â Othello urges in the wrenching final scene of Shakespeareâs tragedy. Yet for centuries, those words â a plea for accurate representation â were spoken, by and large, by white actors.Nicholas Monu, who stars in a new production of âOthello,â running through Dec. 4 at the Landestheater Niederösterreich here, is pretty sure that he is only the second Black performer to play the role in Austrian theater history. The last time was nearly 170 years ago, in 1853, when the pioneering African-American actor Ira Aldridge held Viennese audiences spellbound as the Moor of Venice.As directed by the young Black British director Rikki Henry, this new âOthelloâ breaks ground in a country where artists of color remain a rarity onstage.The majority of Austriaâs population of around nine million is white and was born here, although the percentage of foreigners and people with migration backgrounds has been rising steadily in recent years. Like its larger and more ethnically varied neighbor Germany, Austria has a robust system of state-funded theaters that employ full-time acting ensembles; these, like the country at large, are overwhelmingly white.From left: Michael Scherff, Tim Breyvogel, Laura Laufenberg, Nicholas Monu, Marthe Lola Deutschmann, and Tilman Rose in âOthelloâ at the Landestheater Niederösterreich.Alexi PelekanosWith its new âOthello,â the Landestheater is jump-starting a conversation about racism in Austrian society and the need for diversity on the countryâs stages. According to the theater, there has never been a German-language production of âOthelloâ with both a Black director and star before, and it seems significant that the first is taking place not in a major cultural metropolis, but in St. Pölten, a small city 40 miles outside Vienna.âItâs often said that innovation comes from the provinces,â Marie Rötzer, the Landestheaterâs artistic director since 2016, said in an interview. Recently, her playhouse has been punching above its weight, with productions including a stellar 2019 staging of the Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinekâs allegory of the Trump presidency, âAm Königsweg,â and a 2020 âHamletâ that was Henryâs house debut, and which won a Netroy, the prestigious Austrian theater award.âWith this âOthello,â weâre addressing wounds,â said the Landestheaterâs director, Marie Rötzer. âThe wounds of racism, hostility towards refugees, xenophobia and the isolationism that you often find in Austria.â David Payr for The New York TimesAlthough Shakespeare has long been venerated in the German-speaking world, âOthelloâ is a comparative rarity on its theater programs.âNormally, nobody here wants to touch it,â said Tim Breyvogel, the German actor who plays Iago, in an interview after a recent matinee performance. In the wrong hands, he said, an âOthelloâ production can legitimize stereotypes about Black men. And then thereâs the issue of casting, he added: Even in Austria, most theaters now realize that presenting the title role in blackface was unacceptable.Rötzer said she knew her theaterâs âOthelloâ must have a Black actor in the title role. After Henryâs success with âHamlet,â she approached him about directing the show. Henry and Monuâs experiences as Black men helped the theater to âdevelop an awareness about how to treat topics that are part of the Black community,â she said.âWith this âOthello,â weâre addressing wounds: the wounds of racism, hostility towards refugees, xenophobia and the isolationism that you often find in Austria,â Rötzer said.Henry, 33, said in an interview that it was âa challenge to try to work out what the story would now tell in Austria â because, of course, race relations are different in Austria than they are in England.âMonu, left, and Tim Breyvogel, playing Iago. The production is set in the world of professional boxing.Alexi PelekanosHis strikingly contemporary production is set in the world of professional boxing, where Othello is a heavyweight prizefighter. âMy idea was of someone who was incredibly lonely and someone who was isolated,â Henry said.That sense of exclusion and alienation, the director said, was something that everyone, regardless of their skin color, could relate to. The boxing frame also helped to motivate Iagoâs machinations and reveal the characterâs racism, he added. âIagoâs manipulations and reasonings became more alive, because boxing is so competitive and relies on intrigue,â Henry said.The Black Lives Matter movement was heating up as he worked on the show last year, but Henry said he was careful not to take the production in an overtly political direction. âWe didnât want to say to the audience, âYouâre racist!ââ Henry said. âTheater isnât supposed to be accusing anyone. Itâs supposed to be supporting and maybe ennobling them in some way.âRikki Henry, the productionâs British director, said it was âa challenge to try to work out what the story would now tell in Austria,â adding, ârace relations are different in Austria than they are in England.âMichael ObexâMaybe it just sparks some interesting questions that you havenât asked before, like, âHow do I treat that brown person who delivers my mail every morning?ââ he added.Monu, 56, who was born in Nigeria but lives in Salzburg, Austria, said that racism in Austrian society largely lay beneath the surface. âPeople donât give it a lot of thought. There hasnât been that journey that America has been forced to make, because of slavery, Jim Crow, etc. â or that Germany has been forced to make, because of the Second World War,â he said.âItâs not an aggressive form of racism,â he added. âYouâre just not taken seriously or not seen as on quite the same level as a human being.âMonu, who began his acting career in England, is a former ensemble member of two of the most significant theaters in the German-speaking world: the SchaubĂŒhne in Berlin and the Burgtheater in Vienna. Yet despite having benefited from the ensemble system, he said it would need updating if it hoped to reflect the increasingly multiethnic reality of Europe today.Europeâs ensemble system, in which theaters have a troupe of permanent actors, was âa fantastic system, designed for brothers like this,â said Monu, right, referring to Breyvogel, left.David Payr for The New York TimesâItâs a fantastic system, designed for brothers like this,â he said, gesturing toward Breyvogel, who sat next to him during the interview, âto be able to go from here to Berlin to Vienna, and be able to fit straight in, because the system is pretty much the same everywhere.âIn order for things to change, Austrian theater administrators and audiences will need to become more familiar with seeing actors of color and hearing different accents onstage, Monu said. He saw some encouraging signs, he added: When he joined the Burgtheater in the early 2000s, he was the only Black actor in the ensemble; today, there are three.âIf youâre going to be truly diverse, then youâve got to open up your doors towards people who donât sound like you, look like you,â Monu said. âSometimes the journeyâs going to be unpleasant or uncomfortable.âMonu said he hoped that this âOthelloâ might inspire local audiences take that journey. âI can try my best to touch as many people as I can, just by saying, âHey, you know what, Iâm the first Black guy youâve ever seen onstage â and speaking German.ââ More
His plays tended to parody American institutions. His food writing tended to be full of humor.Jonathan Reynolds, who in a wide-ranging career wrote successful plays, helped write a famously bad movie, turned out lively articles on how to cook the perfect turkey and all manner of other food-related subjects, and combined his love of food and his way with words in an unusual stage show, died on Oct. 27 in Englewood, N.J. He was 79.His family said in a statement that the cause of death, at the Actors Fund Home, was organ failure.After Mr. Reynolds tried â but disliked â acting (âI had less influence than the stage manager and most of the stagehands,â he once complained), he turned to playwriting and had quick success. A pair of his one-act comedies â âRubbers,â satirizing the New York State legislative process, and âYanks 3, Detroit 0, Top of the Seventh,â about an over-the-hill pitcher â ran for months in 1975 when they were staged at the American Place Theater in New York, directed by Alan Arkin.Demand was high enough that the theater, a subscription-only house, opened sales up to single-ticket buyers for the first time in its 11-year history.Mr. Reynoldsâs plays tended to lampoon American institutions, whether government or the national pastime or, as in âTunnel Feverâ in 1979, academia.âI donât think of my plays as comedies,â he told The New York Times when that play was about to open at American Place. âI think about what characters would do in a situation, and I donât try to make it funny. It just comes out that way.âHis biggest success as a playwright may have been âGeniuses,â a satire on the movie business that was staged at Playwrights Horizons in 1982. It was inspired by the three months he spent on location in the Philippines with the director Francis Ford Coppola while Mr. Coppola was shooting âApocalypse Now.â Mr. Reynolds was there taking notes for a possible book about the making of the movie, and possibly to contribute to the script. The book never came about, and his contribution to the script ended up being a single line of dialogue. But the play, riding rave reviews, was a hit.âThe author speaks with an authority to match his acerbity,â Mel Gussow wrote in his review in The New York Times, comparing him to the humorist S.J. Perelman.âAmong other things,â Mr. Gussow added, ââGeniusesâ is an insidious act of movie criticism. Make no mistake: Beneath the japery, there is a warning: Movies can be injurious to your health; keep them out of the reach of children-directors.âMr. Reynolds would soon have his first film credit, for writing âMicki + Maude,â a 1984 comedy directed by Blake Edwards and starring Dudley Moore as a man with two wives, played by Amy Irving and Ann Reinking. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film in The Times, said that it was ânever less than a delightâ and that Mr. Reynolds âhas an ear for ultra-high-frequency lunacies that escape the rest of us.âHis next Hollywood experience, though, was not received so warmly. He was the screenwriter who adapted a story by Bill Cosby into a secret-agent comedy called âLeonard Part 6.â The movie, which starred Mr. Cosby and was released in 1987, came out so poorly that Mr. Cosby himself denounced it. In The Chicago Tribune, Gene Siskel called it âthe yearâs worst film involving a major star.â Others have put it on lists of the worst movies ever made.His screenplay for the comedy âSwitching Channelsâ (1988) also drew less-than-rave reviews. But Mr. Reynolds, who would earn only two more writing credits for movies (âMy Stepmother Is an Alienâ in 1988 and âThe Distinguished Gentlemanâ in 1992), shrugged off the criticism, considering himself more playwright than screenwriter anyway.âIt hurt for about a day,â he told Newsday in 1988. âAnd then I thought, âWell, Iâm not really part of it so it doesnât really bother me.ââMr. Reynolds in 1997Â at the American Place Theater on the set of his play âStonewall Jacksonâs House,â which took on the liberal biases of the theater world.James Estrin/The New York TimesMr. Reynolds continued to write plays, several of which, like âStonewall Jacksonâs Houseâ (1997) and âGirls in Troubleâ (2010), took on the liberal biases of the theater world and much of the theater audience. But at one point he tried something completely different: He began writing a column on food for The New York Times Magazine.His column first appeared in 2000, and he continued to write it for about five years. It was a job that, as he put it, just âfell from the skyâ (aided by a recommendation from his friend Frank Rich, the newspaperâs drama critic at the time).âI didnât go to any cooking school,â he told The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2002, âand I didnât spend time with a great chef in his kitchen for years in France.âBut he did enjoy cooking, and for years he had been making diary entries about meals he had prepared or eaten and menus he had perused. He filled his columns not just with recipes and cooking tips but with anecdotes and humor. For instance, in March 2000 he offered a solution of sorts to the age-old problem with turkeys: that cooking the birdâs drumsticks and thighs thoroughly enough tended to leave the white meat dry.âFor those with successful Nasdaq portfolios,â he wrote, âitâs simple: Buy two turkeys and cook one for the white meat and the other for the dark, then discard the overcooked white of one and the undercooked dark of the other.âFor everyone else, he offered a solution that involved basting and assorted dos and donâts. In 2006 he collected his cooking observations in a book, âWrestling With Gravy: A Life, With Food.âJonathan Randolph Reynolds was born on Feb. 13, 1942, in Fort Smith, Ark., to Donald Worthington Reynolds, founder of the Donrey Media Group, and Edith (Remick) Reynolds.He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Denison University in Ohio in 1965 and studied for a time at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. Back in New York, he was the understudy for the Rosencrantz role in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppardâs âRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadâ in 1967 before embarking on his writing career. Before his 1975 playwriting breakthrough, he was on the staffs of David Frostâs and Dick Cavettâs television shows.At his death Mr. Reynolds lived in Manhattan and in Garrison, N.Y.His marriage in 1978 to Charlotte Kirk ended in divorce in 1998. In 2004 he married the Tony Award-winning set designer Heidi Ettinger, who survives him, along with two sons from his marriage to Ms. Kirk, Edward and Frank Reynolds; three stepsons, North, Nash and Dodge Landesman; and two grandchildren.In 2003 Ms. Ettinger had the challenge of creating the set for a one-man show that marked Mr. Reynoldsâs return to acting after a long layoff. It was called âDinner With Demons,â and in it Mr. Reynolds cooked a full dinner, including deep-frying a turkey, while relating assorted anecdotes. That required putting a functioning kitchen onstage at the Second Stage Theater in Midtown.Legal restrictions meant the audience did not get to eat the meal; the backstage crew was the beneficiary. Mr. Reynolds told The Times that the hardest part of executing the show was making sure the dialogue and the cooking ended at the same time.âIt was a lot of trial and error,â he said. âIn rehearsals, the apple pancake got burned every other time.â More
Two decades after the filmâs release, Daniel Radcliffe and the director, Chris Columbus, take us inside four key scenes.âHarry Potter and the Sorcererâs Stoneâ ruined Daniel Radcliffeâs expectations for what is normal on a film set.The Great Hall, where he shot many of the scenes from the first of eight films based on the J.K. Rowling series, was a phantasmagoria of detail. Platters of real lamb chops, roasted potatoes and puddings sat alongside 400 hand-lettered menus and â for at least one scene â hundreds of real, glowing candles. The hall set took 30 people a little over four months to construct.âI can count on the fingers of one hand the number of sets Iâve been on since in my career that are of that scale,â Radcliffe said in a video interview from his New York apartment in October.Directed by Chris Columbus, the story of a boy who, upon turning 11, discovers heâs a wizard and goes off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry opened Nov. 16, 2001, and went on to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.When Radcliffe and the young actors who played his friends, Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), were making the film, they werenât just pretending to have the time of their lives â they were, Columbus said.âThatâs why we shot with three or four cameras â if one of the kids looked into the camera or smiled like they couldnât believe their good fortune, I had something else to cut to,â he said in a phone conversation on a walk near his home in Malibu in September.That joy was in large part thanks, Radcliffe said, to Columbusâs infectious passion for his work.âChris approaches set in the correct way, in my opinion, which is the attitude that we are the luckiest people in the world to get to do this for a living,â he said.Columbus wasnât initially sure he wanted to do a film about wizards, but after his daughter Eleanor (who has a cameo as Susan Bones) kept bugging him to read the books, he finally cracked open the first installment and read all 223 pages in a day.âI thought, âI have to make a movie out of this,ââ he said.But when he called his agent to set up a meeting with Warner Bros., âShe said, âYeah, you and about 30 other directors,ââ Columbus said.So he came up with a strategy: He asked for the last meeting slot with studio executives and spent about 10 days writing a script from the directorâs point of view.âI think the most impressive thing about that to them was that I did something for free,â he said, laughing. âNo one in Hollywood does anything for free.âSome six weeks later, he learned the job was his â with one condition: He had to fly to Scotland to meet Rowling.âI sat there for two and a half hours, talking nonstop, explaining my vision for the movie,â he said. âAnd she said, âThatâs exactly the same way I see it.ââHe also got her to go to bat for him on one major casting decision: his Harry. He loved Radcliffe from the moment the actor read for the part â âHe was phenomenal,â Columbus said â but the studio wasnât so sure.âFinally, I called Jo, and I said, âWill you look at this kid?ââ he said. When she pronounced him âthe perfect Harry Potter,â Columbus recalled, the studio went along.Radcliffe, now 32, said that while he does not consider his performance in the film brilliant acting, heâs no longer embarrassed by some of the scenes the way he was in his late teens.âNow Iâm able to look back and go, âOK, you were a kid, itâs fine,ââ he said, laughing. âItâs still a lovely memory.âIn separate interviews, Radcliffe and Columbus recalled what it took to shoot four key scenes. Here are edited excerpts from our conversations.The Great HallThe children in this Great Hall scene are distracted from their food, which turned out to be a good thing.Warner Bros.Creating the main gathering place at Hogwarts, where the students eat all their meals at House tables, was a mammoth undertaking.COLUMBUS When the actors walk into the Great Hall for the first time, what you see on their faces is the genuine reaction to seeing this incredible set for the first time.RADCLIFFE It never really lost that power.COLUMBUS The production designer Stuart Craig and [the set decorator] Stephenie McMillan had such an incredible eye for detail. I opened up one of the menus, and realized theyâd handwritten all 400 on parchment paper. I thought, âOh my God, this is the real deal.â Iâve since never had such extraordinary production design.But there were a few hiccups.COLUMBUS The food came in â an American Thanksgiving feast â and it was meant to last for eight to 10 hours. I came back the next day, and it was still the same food! By Day 3, I can only say the scent of the Great Hall was getting a little funky.There was also a mishap.COLUMBUS When all the kids file into the Great Hall for the first time, we see hundreds of floating candles in the air. And then something horrible happened â the flames of the candles started to burn through the clear string holding them and started to drop! We had to get everybody out of the set â and then we shot it two more times, telling ourselves, âWeâre just going to add C.G.I. candles.âRADCLIFFE We scattered! Iâm sure Chris was more stressed out by it, but as a kid, youâre like, âThis is really funny.âFive Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. âThe Power of the Dogâ: More
He appeared alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly when he was not yet 10. He later had signature roles in movies like âMarried to the Mobâ and âBlue Velvet.âDean Stockwell, who began his seven-decade acting career as a child in the 1940s and later had key roles in films including âA Long Dayâs Journey Into Nightâ in 1962 and âBlue Velvetâ in 1986, while also making his mark in television, most notably as the cigar-smoking Al Calavicci on the hit science fiction series âQuantum Leap,â died on Sunday. He was 85.His death was confirmed by Jay Schwartz, a family spokesman, who did not say where Mr. Stockwell died or specify a cause.Mr. Stockwell had a hot-and-cold relationship with acting that caused him to leave show business for years at a time. But he nonetheless amassed more than 200 film and television acting credits from 1945 to 2015, as well as occasional stage roles.As a child he appeared alongside some of the biggest stars of the day, including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in âAnchors Aweighâ in 1945, when he was not yet 10. But while many child stars donât make the transition to adult careers, Mr. Stockwell was blessed with angular, rugged good looks as a young man and a distinguished maturity later, attributes that made him suitable for all sorts of roles.Several times Mr. Stockwell lost interest in the profession that he had been all but born into, escaping to work on railroads and in real estate and, in the 1960s, to immerse himself in the counterculture. He also enjoyed several career revivals, notably in the 1980s, when he was cast in career-defining roles in movies like Wim Wendersâs âParis, Texas,â David Lynchâs âDuneâ and âBlue Velvetâ (as the menacing and eccentric henchman of a drug dealer played by Dennis Hopper), and Jonathan Demmeâs âMarried to the Mob,â in which his performance as a mob boss earned him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.Mr. Stockwell as an eccentric criminal in David Lynchâs film âBlue Velvet,â from 1986.De Laurentiis Entertainment GroupAs the son of actors â his father, Harry Stockwell, and his mother, Elizabeth Veronica, appeared onstage and in films together, and Harry Stockwell provided the voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disneyâs âSnow White and the Seven Dwarfsâ â Mr. Stockwell had little semblance of a typical childhood before he began acting.He first appeared on Broadway in 1943, at age 7, in âThe Innocent Voyage.â (His older brother, the actor Guy Stockwell, who died in 2002, was also in the cast.) He was recruited by a Hollywood talent scout, and his movie career began in 1945, when he appeared in âThe Valley of Decision,â with Gregory Peck and Greer Garson, and in âAnchors Aweigh.âMr. Stockwell was immediately praised for his skill, winning a special award at the Golden Globes for âGentlemanâs Agreementâ in 1947. Reviewing the movie âKimâ in 1950, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised his performance as âdelightfully sturdy and sound,â adding, âLittle Dean shows a real tenderness.â Other Times reviews of his performances as a child called his work âtouching,â âcommendableâ and âcozy.âRobert Dean Stockwell was born on March 5, 1936, in Los Angeles. His parents divorced when he was 6, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother and brother. He would later say that he looked up to directors and leading actors on the set as father figures.He would appear in 19 films before he turned 16, at which point he quit acting for the first time. Withdrawn as a child, he took little pleasure in acting, seeing it as an obligation foisted upon him by others, he said in an interview with Turner Classic Movies in 1995.âIf it had been up to me, I would have been out of it by the time I was 10,â he said.After graduating from high school at 16 â as a child actor, he received three hours of schooling while working â Mr. Stockwell realized he had little training to do anything else. He flitted from one odd job to the next before reluctantly returning to acting in 1956, when he was 20.Mr. Stockwell, left, with Scott Bakula on the set of âQuantum Leapâ in 1989.Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesOne of his biggest roles in his 20s was alongside Jason Robards, Katharine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson in the 1962 film version of Eugene OâNeillâs âLong Dayâs Journey Into Night,â in which he played the younger son, Edmund Tyrone. He, Mr. Robards and Mr. Richardson shared an acting award at the Cannes Film Festival.Other notable roles in that period included âCompulsionâ (1959), a fictionalized version of a well-known murder case, in which he and Bradford Dillman played the killers of a young boy; and âSons and Loversâ (1960), based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence.Later in the 1960s, Mr. Stockwell found comfort in the counterculture movement and the hippie ethos.âMy career was doing well, but I wasnât getting anything out of it personally,â he told The Times in 1988. âWhat I was looking for I was finding in another place, which was in that revolution. The â60s allowed me to live my childhood as an adult. That kind of freedom, imagination and creativity that arose all around was like a childhood to me.âAfter a few years off, he returned to acting, only to learn that his time away had led Hollywood casting agents to forget him. For about a dozen frustrating years, he struggled to land roles, appearing in fringe films and performing in dinner theater.âI even heard about a casting meeting where the producer said, âWe need a Dean Stockwell type,ââ he told The Times in 1988. âMeanwhile, I couldnât even get arrested.âHe quit acting again in the early 1980s, moving to New Mexico to sell real estate. His next comeback would be his most successful, beginning a decade of his most critically acclaimed work.In 1988, he was acclaimed, and Oscar-nominated, for his performance in âMarried to the Mob.â The next year, he was cast in âQuantum Leap.âThat show, seen on NBC from 1989 to 1993, starred Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett, a scientist who, because of a botched time-travel experiment, spends his days and nights being thrown back in time to assume other peopleâs identities. Mr. Stockwell portrayed Adm. Al Calavicci, described by John J. OâConnor of The Times in a 1989 review as âSamâs wiseguy colleague, who hangs around the edges of each episode, setting the scene and commenting on the action.â Mr. Stockwell, Mr. OâConnor wrote, was âMr. Bakulaâs indispensable co-star.âMr. Stockwell was nominated four times for an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in a drama series for his work on âQuantum Leap.â He never won an Emmy, but he did win a Golden Globe in 1990.He is survived by his wife, Joy Stockwell, and two children, Austin and Sophie Stockwell.In a 1987 interview with The Times, Mr. Stockwell said that his approach as an actor hadnât changed since he was a child.âI havenât changed in the least,â he said. âMy way of working is still the same as it was in the beginning: totally intuitive and instinctive.âBut as you live your life,â he added, âyou compile so many millions of experiences and bits of information that you become a richer vessel as a person. You draw on more experience.âNeil Genzlinger contributed reporting. More
An advocacy group has created a worker database with help from Disney to bring more Muslims into the filmmaking process.A new initiative to promote the inclusion of Muslims in filmmaking has been created by an advocacy group with the support of the Walt Disney Company â following a report issued this year that found that Muslims are rarely depicted in popular films and that many Muslim characters are linked to violence.The project, the Pillars Muslim Artist Database, was announced on Tuesday by the Pillars Fund, an advocacy group in Chicago. It produced the earlier report on depiction along with the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and others.Kashif Shaikh, a co-founder of Pillars and its president, said that when the group discussed the findings, those in the industry often said they did not know where to find Muslim writers or actors.The database, Shaikh said, aims to give Muslim actors, directors, cinematographers, sound technicians and others, who could help create more nuanced portrayals, the chance to compose online profiles that can be reviewed by those hiring for film, television and streaming productions.That way, âMuslims around the country would be able to opt in and talk about their talents, talk about their expertise,â Shaikh said. âIt was really meant to be a resource for studios, for the film industry.âThe report on depiction, âMissing & Maligned,â was issued in June and analyzed 200 top-grossing movies released between 2017 and 2019 across the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.Of 8,965 speaking characters, 1.6 percent were Muslim, the report said. It added that just over 60 percent of primary and secondary Muslim characters appeared in movies set in the historical or recent past. Just under 40 percent appeared in three movies which took place in present-day Australia, the report said, and most of those characters â including âthe only present-day Muslim leadâ â appeared in one movie, âAliâs Wedding,â released in 2017.Pillars, along with the Inclusion Initiative and the British actor Riz Ahmed and his production company, Left Handed Films, also released a companion report titled âThe Blueprint for Muslim Inclusionâ that was intended to âfundamentally change the way Muslims are portrayed on screen.âBefore the reports were issued, Shaikh said, Pillars had begun conversations with Disney, which supported the creation of the database with a $20,000 grant.Latondra Newton, senior vice president and chief diversity officer of Disney, said in a statement that the support was part of an ongoing effort âto amplify underrepresented voices and untold stories,â adding: âWe are honored to support the new Pillars Muslim Artist Database.âThis follows the announcement last week of a guide, âThe Time Is Now: The Power of Native Representation in Entertainment,â that was the result of a partnership between Disney and IllumiNative, a nonprofit group that works to raise the visibility of âNative Nations and peoples in American Society.âThat guide was created âto help move beyond the outdated, inaccurate and often offensive depictions of Native peoples in pop culture,â the group said in a statement. It includes sections on âCombating Negative Stereotypes,â âAvoiding Cultural Appropriationâ and âSupporting Native Storytellers.âFive Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. âThe Power of the Dogâ: More
In the Netflix western, the two actresses, playing members of rival cowboy gangs, engage in an epic fight. Here, they break down the scene.âTrudyâs mine,â hisses Stagecoach Mary Fields (played by Zazie Beetz), her eyes blazing.Trudy Smith (Regina King) ducks into a dye barn, its rafters hung with swatches of color.Their eyes lock, Mary empties her shotgun onto the floor. Trudy tosses her pistol to the side.âLetâs go,â Mary spits out. A wild fight scene ensues between the two members of rival cowboy gangs: bodies hit windows, teeth crunch into hands and horseshoes hurl toward heads.Toward the end of the new Netflix western âThe Harder They Fallâ â a reminder that Black cowboys should be as much a part of the genre as anyone else â Mary and Trudy duke it out in an epic fight that nearly ends in death.Although the director, Jeymes Samuel, is a singer-songwriter known as the Bullitts, he has dabbled in filmmaking, and âThe Harder They Fallâ is his first feature. In a video interview, he clarified that he wasnât reimagining the western â he was âreplacingâ it.âWhat I was doing with that fight, Iâve done it the whole film,â he said. âThe whole film is reverse psychology on what we know as the western and puts up a mirror.âHistorians estimate that one in four cowboys were Black, a fact that was hardly reflected in the conventional westerns popular in the 20th century, which were largely devoid of people of color.In creating the film, his aim was to counter two tropes of traditional westerns: people of color shown as less than human; and women appearing subservient and less than men. âWesterns have never given light to women and their power in that period,â he said. Thatâs why Samuel, who wrote the screenplay with Boaz Yakin, inverted gender roles in the Mary-Trudy battle.âAll the men in the film, when they have conflict, they pick up guns,â Samuel said, adding, âIt takes the two women to literally throw away their guns and duke it out.âRegina King as Trudy Smith. She, Beetz and their stunt doubles practiced the fight in their off hours.David Lee/NetflixAlthough the actresses, part of a star-studded cast, worked closely with their stunt doubles, Nikkilette Wright and Sadiqua Bynum, most of the final cut features the actresses themselves â because the stunt doubles were simply too good at their jobs. The stand-insâ work âwas too clean,â Samuel said. âIn that particular scene, it was perfect and neat, whereas I needed the urgency. When you put Zazie and Regina together, neat went out the window.âBeetz, King, Wright and Bynum practiced the fight on their own time in a hotel conference room in Santa Fe, N.M., where much of the movie was shot. As rough and tumble as the scene may look onscreen, Beetz said in a phone interview that it was all very carefully choreographed.âWe also wanted the fight to look scrappy, because we wanted it to look real and intense and how people really would potentially fight,â she said. âI think itâs just a testament in general to the shift in film and the shift in how we see women and their physical abilities.âAs part of her preparation, the actress read about Stagecoach Mary Fields, the first African American woman in the United States to be a mail carrier on star routes â routes handled by contractors who were not employed by the Postal Service. (Many of the main characters are based on real historical figures, but Samuel fictionalized the vast majority of the plot.) Fields was enslaved until she was around 30 years old, when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Then she went on to live a whole new life.âThere was a lot of formerly enslaved people who moved to the West, and the culture of the United States wasnât as established in the West,â Beetz said. âSo there was more mobility for Black people. And there really were towns that were all Black, and they were self-sustaining, and it was an interesting place where Black people could thrive.âFive Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. âThe Power of the Dogâ: More
