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      in Movies

      Dorothy Steel, Whose Big-Screen Career Had a Late Start, Dies at 95

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      She was cast in “Black Panther” at 90, not long after she began acting professionally. “As soon as we saw her,” the movie’s casting director said, “we wanted her.”Dorothy Steel was 90 and had been acting professionally for little more than a year when her agent asked her, in late 2016, if she wanted to audition for a role in “Black Panther,” the Marvel Studios film set in the fantastical African nation of Wakanda.She was uncertain. So she said no.“I said, ‘There is no way I’m going to be in no comic strip at my age,’” she recalled telling her agent, Cindy Butler, when she appeared on Steve Harvey’s television show in 2018. “But she’s very persistent. I have to give her credit. She said, ‘Miss Dorothy, you can do this.’”She relented after getting an extra push from her grandson, Niles Wardell.“She was on the fence about it,” Mr. Wardell said in a phone interview, “and when she brought it to my attention, I said: ‘Grandma, you always talk about stepping out on faith and doing the things you love. This is your opportunity.’”He added, “She wasn’t so much concerned that it was a comic-strip movie, but that the role was too big for her.”Before she auditioned, Ms. Steel studied videos of Nelson Mandela on YouTube to help her develop a credible accent. She then auditioned on video for the role of a tribe leader, reading lines from the script. Ms. Butler emailed the video to Sarah Finn, the film’s casting director, who quickly agreed to hire her.“We found her late in the process,” Ms. Finn said by phone. “She was extraordinary. As soon as we saw her, we wanted her. She had an incredible spirit, warmth, humor and intelligence. We were thrilled to cast her.”She was in a few scenes but said only one line, to T’Challa, the king of Wakanda and the movie’s title character, played by Chadwick Boseman: “Wakanda does not need a warrior right now. We need a king.”Ms. Steel died on Oct. 14 in a hospital in Detroit at 95. She had completed most of her filming for the “Black Panther” sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” when she got sick. She was flown home by Marvel to Detroit, where she had been living for the last year.Her grandson, her only immediate survivor, confirmed the death.Dorothy May Steel was born on Feb. 23, 1926, in Flint, Mich. She worked for many years as a senior revenue officer for the Internal Revenue Service in Detroit. Her marriage to Warren Wardell ended with his death.After retiring in 1984, she lived for 20 years in the Caribbean, on St. Croix, before moving to Atlanta to be near her grandson and her son, Scott, who died in 2018.Ms. Steel began acting in her 80s in the annual plays staged at the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. She had never acted before “and wanted to try something new to see if she could do it,” said Elaine Jackson, the former manager of the center, who wrote the plays, including one in which Ms. Steel played a teenager.Ms. Butler said that while Ms. Steel was playing the voice of God in one of the plays, Greg Alan Williams, an actor and drama teacher, happened to be there and was impressed enough to offer her free lessons. Another student, a client of Ms. Butler’s, suggested that Ms. Steel sign with Ms. Butler.“So she came in one day and I said, ‘Spend a day with me,’” Ms. Butler said. “After that meeting I had to sign her. She was going to work.”Within weeks, Ms. Butler had found work for Ms. Steel. It was her presence, Ms. Butler said, that brought her jobs.“When she spoke, she spoke with authority,” she said. “Her voice was strong. And at her age she was memorizing lines without a problem.”Ms. Steel’s credits also include “Merry Christmas, Baby” (2016), a television movie; “Daisy Winters” (2017), a feature film; and four episodes of the prime-time soap opera “Saints & Sinners” in 2016, as well as a commercial for the South Carolina Lottery and a public service announcement for the DeKalb County Board of Health.Acting provided her with a “protective cubicle,” Ms. Steel told The Washington Post in 2018. “You’re protected from the world,” she said. “And that’s the first time in my life I felt absolutely secure.”On the set of “Black Panther,” she recalled, she became a grandmotherly presence to the cast, and each day she would get a hug and kiss from Mr. Boseman, who died in 2020.“We were one big melting pot of Black people, and we knew we were doing something special that had never been done before,” Ms. Steel told WSB-TV in Atlanta in 2018. “You know?” More

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      in Music

      It’s Never Too Late to Play the Cello

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      “It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.In 1940, at age 12, Vera Jiji found her first passion: the cello. She learned to love playing the orchestra instrument at the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. “I didn’t pick the cello. They assigned it to me because I had a good ear and long fingers,” said the Bronx native, now 93. “I loved it. It’s a beautiful instrument that can sound like a human voice. It looked like a female body, with hips, breasts and a waist. Holding it and playing it was a very intimate experience.”As an adult, though, she stopped playing the instrument. She became a professor and a fixture at Brooklyn College teaching English classes. She married twice and had four children. Her beloved cello, her mother’s high school graduation present, sat tucked away in the back of her clothing closet. It remained untouched, almost forgotten, for about 40 years. She picked up her cello again only after retiring at 62.“I revived the passion I always felt when I started playing again,” she said. Since then, it has been like a second life.Today Dr. Jiji, who lives with her 93-year-old husband in an Upper East Side townhouse, can be found playing most Fridays with other amateurs and friends in two musical groups, a trio and a string quartet, at the 92nd Street Y. She’s also a part of the Y’s annual musical performance. In 2007 she self-published her first book, “Cello Playing for Music Lovers,” which is sold on Amazon in more than 20 countries. (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)What made you return to music after all these years?Brooklyn College gave me companions and socialization with other teachers and students. I felt important socially. When I retired, I lost that. I felt empty and needed to replace that loss and community. I wanted to meet people in the neighborhood.How did you feel about retiring?I thought my life was over; it wasn’t. I had to find a different road. I thought about the road I took when I was younger, and the one I didn’t take because I was a wife and a mother of four and had a career. I thought about the road I didn’t travel — one filled with music — and realized I should take that road now. I couldn’t take both at the same time. The one I took became my life. I went back to the fork and took the other road to see where it would take me.How did you know where to start?I’m a half a block away from the 92nd Street Y. I walked in and asked about classes; they had a creative music class for people over 60 and told me to just show up. I thought I would have to take a test, but I didn’t. I was at the piano, seated next to an instructor who said, “Let’s see how you play,” when someone walked in carrying a cello. I couldn’t believe it. I asked if I could play it and I fell in love with the instrument instantly.What did that feel like?Like coming home. It all came flooding back, and it was wonderful. I felt like I was reconnecting with a best friend. I needed the opportunity to play music and have these other musicians in my life. This was a return to a prized passion.What have you gained by returning to this passion?Music is a perfect language; it’s like a conversation between people who never misunderstand each other and never get bored. When you play music with people, it’s a kind of friendship. Music is a world of pleasure. It has given me a way to communicate without using words. It gave me a next step in life.What made you write your book, “Cello Playing for Music Lovers”?I looked for other books I could turn to, and didn’t find anything helpful. So I decided to write one. As an English professor, I knew how to do this. I’m good at articulating ideas, being able to put things down in a way people can follow, and I’m disciplined enough to sit down everyday and write. I made it a practice to stop at a specific point where I knew what I wanted to say going forward. I never stopped when I was at a loss. That way I could continue the next day knowing I had direction and wouldn’t get overwhelmed. And I wanted to help others.What did it feel like for Dr. Jiji to return to the cello? “Like coming home,” she said. “It all came flooding back, and it was wonderful.”Justin J Wee for The New York TimesHow do you feel about this stage in your life?I’m 93. People view age incorrectly: Getting older doesn’t mean you can’t have something, you can. And getting older isn’t getting worse. I’m about enjoying the moment. You have to get up each morning and do something you love. That’s how you move forward.What is your best advice for people looking to make a change?Do not be afraid to go back to something you loved. People say no to things too quickly. We aren’t always our best friends. Your passion or skills are still there. You will remember more than you think. All the information about music I thought I’d lost was in a part of my brain that wasn’t talking to me until I tapped back into it.What have you learned during this new act in your life?Even though I was aging I learned I could still re-enter this wonderful world of creating music. And the community I lost I found again. Music gave me a new group of people. It gave me support. It gave me a new home.In this second act, what are you most proud of accomplishing?Writing and publishing “Cello Playing for Music Lovers.” I lived, I died; what did I give the world? This book, which will outlast me. When I’m gone, this will still be here, helping people learn the cello.What lesson can people learn from your experience?Don’t say no to yourself.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More

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      in Theater

      Dench, Smith, McKellen, Jacobi: On a Vanishing Era of Theater Greats

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookDench, Smith, McKellen, Jacobi: On a Vanishing Era of Theater GreatsWith British venues closed and years advancing, there’s even less time to see some of the finest actors in their 80s onstage.From left: Maggie Smith attending the 65th Evening Standard Theater Awards at the London Coliseum in November 2019; Derek Jacobi and Judi Dench at the world premiere of “Murder on the Orient Express” in London in November 2017; and Ian McKellen at the Evening Standard awards in 2018.Credit…Ian West/Press Association, via AP Images; Rune Hellestad/Corbis, via Getty Images; Associated PressMarch 11, 2021, 3:53 a.m. ETLONDON — I’ll say this for the pandemic: It’s brought acting talent together — and into your living room — in ways that might not have seemed possible previously. That sense was probably shared by many on a Sunday night in November when Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench participated in a Zoom event titled “One Knight Only,” which was facilitated by another, younger member of Britain’s acting nobility, Kenneth Branagh.There, sharing a single screen, were four octogenarians — each a knight or a dame and a winner of Tony and Olivier Awards and heaven knows how many other accolades. Gathered for an online conversation in aid of charity, the quartet embodied a lifelong devotion to the theater that has found time for screen renown as well. The realization that the pandemic and advancing age have significantly reduced the already scarce opportunities to see these actors onstage again gave the occasion an underlying piquancy.How glorious, then, to clock their interplay, McKellen taking the reins as a raconteur, with a puckish Jacobi, nattily dressed, not far behind. Dench leaned into the screen as if Zoom were some inconvenience keeping her from sharing an actual space with friends, while Smith, notably more reticent, seemed to pull back from her screen. The conversation ranged from life during lockdown (McKellen has been painting) to their attitude toward critics and on to embarrassing onstage moments and roles they might like to play now. “Anything,” Dench said. “I would be pleased to be cast in anything.”All four belong to a tradition in British acting where theater was what you did and anything else was a happy add-on. Smith, alone among them, won the first of two Oscars (for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”) when still in her 30s, while the others took far longer to become known overseas the way they had long been at home. Whether in college and drama school or covering the expanse of Britain’s once-storied network of regional theaters, these players cut their teeth on theater and waited for the screen to recognize the gifts already well known to live audiences. (More than once I have taken a seat aboard a trans-Atlantic flight only to find a smiling McKellen on video, advising me on in-flight protocol.)Whether as Gandalf, the stammering Roman ruler Claudius or the tart-tongued Dowager Countess in “Downton Abbey,” McKellen, Jacobi and Smith, respectively, boast screen roles with which they will forever be associated, especially for those who haven’t seen them chart a course across the classics, and many a new play as well, onstage. (Smith’s Professor McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movies found her a following among preteens, too.) More people probably saw Dench’s inimitably brisk M during just one of the weekends her seven Bond films were in cinemas (she also made a cameo in an eighth) than saw her onstage during a theater career spanning 60 years and counting.Judi Dench, left, and Maggie Smith in the 1985 film “A Room With a View.”Credit…Cinecon, via Everett CollectionDench and Smith in David Hare’s play “The Breath of Life” in 2002.Credit…Geraint Lewis, via AlamyIan McKellen as Freddie and Derek Jacobi as Stuart in the British television series “Vicious” in 2018.Credit…via ShutterstockThe joy of hearing their reminiscences came with an appreciation of how often these actors’ lives and work have overlapped: Think of them as a continuing Venn diagram from the start. McKellen and Jacobi acted together as students at Cambridge, where McKellen has spoken of harboring a crush on his classmate. The pair reunited a half-century later as the waspish elderly couple in the British sitcom “Vicious.” Jacobi and Smith were integral to the early glory days of the National Theater under Laurence Olivier, and McKellen and Dench played the Macbeths for the Royal Shakespeare Company in a 1976 production that exists on disc and is still spoken of in reverential tones.Dench and Smith, longtime friends, have appeared several times together onscreen, in “Tea With Mussolini” and “A Room with a View” among other titles, and in 2002 made up the entire cast of the David Hare play “The Breath of Life.”Surely, there are plenty of younger actors who are no less committed to the stage, and as we saw at this year’s Golden Globe awards, there’s a direct path in Britain from theater training to screen acclaim. Jude Law is a star who loves the theater, as are Benedict Cumberbatch (TV’s “Sherlock”) and George Mackay (the fast-ascending leading man from “1917”).The difference has to do with career paths that no longer require, or even suggest, the lengthy apprenticeship in Britain’s flagship subsidized theaters — the RSC and the National — that gave these senior practitioners an established perch early on. An actor nowadays may do a play or two only to be siphoned away to TV and film. Some return a fair amount (Matt Smith, a former and popular Doctor Who, is one example), whereas others vanish from in-person view: When’s the last time you could see Colin Firth in a play? Not since 1999, when he starred in Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” at the Donmar Warehouse here.From left, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins and Judi Dench in “Tea With the Dames,” a 2018 documentary directed by Roger Michell.Credit…Mark Johnson/IFC FilmsIan McKellen in his one-man show “Ian McKellen on Stage: With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others … and You” in New York in 2019.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesBy contrast, McKellen even now is visibly rejuvenated whenever he takes to the boards. In 2019, he toured a physically demanding one-man show the length and breadth of Britain (and for one night in New York) to mark his 80th birthday, and he has begun work on an age-inappropriate stage production of “Hamlet” that was put on hold by the coronavirus. Attending a Sunday matinee of the solo show, I was especially moved by his presence directly afterward in the lobby of the theater. Energy undimmed, he seemed ready to engage his public in chat well into the night.That same year found Smith onstage for the first time in 12 years not in the more-anticipated realms, perhaps, of Wilde or Coward but going it alone as Goebbels’s secretary, Brunhilde Pomsel, in “A German Life,” a bravura solo performance that by rights should travel to New York. (The plan now is to adapt the play into a film.) Dench has spoken candidly of her waning eyesight due to macular degeneration and her desire to nonetheless carry on acting. How exciting it would be to see her once again on a London stage, perhaps as the agelessly witty and worldly grandmother in “A Little Night Music,” a musical in which she once played that same character’s daughter, Desiree.Dench and Smith were part of a separate, scarcely less distinguished quartet when they joined Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright in “Tea With the Dames” (called “Nothing Like a Dame” in Britain), a lovely documentary that was aired in the United States in 2018 and lets the camera roll as the four great ladies of the stage take stock, gossip and reflect. To see this generation of talent in any iteration is to applaud their longevity while pausing to note the inevitable passing of a collective kinship with the stage that will live on well after it’s no longer possible to enjoy their talents in person.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More