'Scrapbooks' pieces together Americans' history Nov 16, 2008
Past scrapbookers include Lillian Hellman, Zelda Fitzgerald, Saul Steinberg, and Anne Sexton, who included in her scrapbook not just her first efforts at verse but the key from the motel room where she and her husband spent their wedding night. "Scrapbook-making volunteers" put together memory books for military personnel serving overseas during both world wars. (Boston Globe)
• Family scrapbooks valued as history Nov 9, 2008
Scrapbooks from un-knowns are interspersed with those of poet Anne Sexton, playwright Lillian Hellman, and Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Helfand sought scrapbooks of notable Americans before they became famous to get a more human glimpse of them. (Burley South Idaho Press, ID)
Christopher Plummer: scenes from a life Oct 11, 2008
A t a run-through of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth , Geraldine Page wows Helen Hayes, Lillian Hellman and Ruth Gordon but not the playwright himself ... Also in attendance that afternoon were most of theatre's top brass the usual suspects Josh Logan, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Lillian Hellman, Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin, etc. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
Susan Cheever closes the door on sex addiction Oct 3, 2008
"Once Lillian Hellman called Dashiell Hammett and a woman answered, and she got on a plane and went to his apartment to find out who it was," Cheever says. "Women's currency is their looks. Like it or not, the most powerful woman is an 18-year-old woman.". (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
What's On: Stage Oct 3, 2008
by Lillian Hellman; and Shaw's own Mrs. Warren's Profession. . (Toronto Star)
Shaw Festival urged to diversify lineup Aug 14, 2008
" Supporting diversity, he added, "is not about taking a financial loss to do something good," and he cited the box-office success Toronto's CanStage and Mirvish Productions had recently with, respectively, with Cookin' at the Cookery and Da Kink in My Hair. Five years ago, Moodie brought one of his plays, The Language of the Heart, to the Shaw for its consideration - a play it subsequently turned down. Set in the 1920s with dialogue evocative of the kind Lillian Hellman used in The Little Foxes... (Globe and Mail)
Memoir tells incredible tales from an incredible source Aug 3, 2008
During an improbable crime spree lasting approximately 18 months, Israel impersonated not just Coward but also Fanny Brice, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Louise Brooks, Humphrey Bogart and a host of other major and minor celebrities (all long dead) in over 400 phony letters sold to autograph and memorabilia dealers across the country. Israel made only a modest living through her misdeeds, but she fooled a lot of people, experts and scholars among them. (Helena Independent Record, MT)
IT'LL SELL FOR MORE THAN A SONG Aug 3, 2008
IT'LL SELL FOR MORE THAN A SONG - New York Post. Sunday, August 03, 2008 Last Update: 07:00 AM EDT. (New York Post -- Gossip)
Pacifism: The Last Refuge of Hypocrites Aug 1, 2008
As that icon of the left, Lillian Hellman, was reputed to have announced to a group of fellow Communists on that fateful day, Weve been attacked. . (Townhall.com)
From a forger, an unapologetic memoir Jul 25, 2008
l Coward, Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker. (Andrew Henderson/The New York Times). (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Eleanor O'Leary, 92; was biographer, book reviewer Jul 20, 2008
In the 1960s and '70s, Mrs. O'Leary wrote a number of book reviews for The Boston Globe, mainly on biographies and autobiographies, among them the memoirs of playwright Lillian Hellman and "Reflection: An Autobiography," by the iconic actress Helen Hayes. "Life on the stage always fascinates us daylight people," Mrs. O'Leary wrote. (Boston Globe)
The flame of satire burns on in controversial Candide Jun 30, 2008
In 1953, Lillian Hellman wrote to Leonard Bernstein, suggesting that as they'd both been singed by the McCarthy hearings in the United States, they should write a musical adaptation of Candide. Bernstein accepted, a decision he might have later regretted, for after a failed Broadway run, he continued to tinker with Candide until his death in 1990. (Globe and Mail)
Somalia: Beleaguered Journalists Recognized for Courage [press release] Jun 3, 2008
The grant program began in 1989 when the American playwright Lillian Hellman willed that her estate be used to assist writers in financial need as a result of difficulties stemming from their public expression of their views. Somalia has been plagued with violence since the collapse of its central government in 1991. (allAfrica.com)
It was meant to shock, so why tone it down? May 27, 2008
Written by Lillian Hellman ... Following on the excellent premiere of Githa Sowerby's The Stepmother, we have a revival of Lillian Hellman's unforgotten classic, The Little Foxes. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
An ebay seller's memoir. About handbags. May 17, 2008
Even his "friends," his first-edition Lillian Hellman and Truman Capote books, are put on the virtual block. Tonello breezes through a paragraph of advice for potential sellers, then barrels toward his fateful sale, a silk Herm. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Broadway looks to Odets Apr 19, 2008
"Once you work through the canon of Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams, you find a whole canon of great playwrights like Odets and Lillian Hellman," says Jon Robin Baitz, the playwright who, as a friend of the Odets estate, is working with Nichols to tweak "Country Girl" for the new production. Prior to the 2006 "Awake" revival, the work of Odets had been seen on Broadway only about once a decade since his death in 1963. (Variety)
A prime number: URI stages "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" Apr 18, 2008
"Jean is a romantic in the best sense," says Wortman, "and she may not see the ramifications of some of the things she applauds and believes in and talks about to her students. "I think this play is like Arthur Miller writing The Crucible, or Lillian Hellman writing The Children s Hour, a play about a lie. It s one of those plays where they were trying to warn people about jumping on a bully pulpit, accusing someone of being a witch, or a liar, or a bad person. (Westerly Sun, RI)
'Vain, querulous and a genius' Mar 8, 2008
" Truman Capote remembered "the first time I saw her - a tall slender wand of a girl, slightly stooped and with a fascinating face that was simultaneously merry and melancholy". Klaus Mann, too, noted this clash of temperaments, "a strange mixture of refinement and wildness, 'morbidezza' and 'naivety'".She was capable of reading so deeply that she wouldn't notice her own house go up in flames around her, as once happened when she was lost in Dostoevsky. Unable as a child to stop reading... (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Farewell, New Line Feb 29, 2008
On Wednesday, Farrow told us that she's happy Spielberg had what she called "a Lillian Hellman moment." (Farrow has a knack for allusions to famous ladies of stage and screen, it seems. In this case, she was referencing Hellman's refusal in 1952 to name names before Joseph McCarthy's infamous House committee. (Slate)
Weinberger On Buckley Feb 28, 2008
I have noticed an odd phenomenon: There is a great deal being written now about the 1950s and the American Communists--the Stalinists (like the dreadful Lillian Hellman) who would never admit the Soviets had done anything wrong and those who had been Communists and then realized what false gods they followed. Whittaker Chambers is the prime example of the latter group. (Forbes -- Business)
Children's Theatre fans ask council, 'Why?!' Jan 31, 2008
Or, you have been seduced by the mindless commercialization of sports like football and baseball (both of which II have played at fairly high amateur levels) into some kind of sideshow, featuring the "best looking, hardest hitting, fastest-car-driving, most-sex-appeal, players? The ability of a student to participate in a play, or some other art form is something that we should not do away with lightly. Here's a speech, given at this year's commencement, at Stanford. Anyone who thinks the arts... (Palo Alto Online, CA)
Historians Embrace Schlesinger Papers Dec 10, 2007
Between former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and historian C. Vann Woodward, it includes Bacall, Truman Capote, Bill Clinton, Walter Cronkite, Marlene Dietrich, John Kenneth Galbraith, Allen Ginsburg, Albert Gore Sr. and Jr., Lillian Hellman, Hubert Humphrey, Alfred Kazin, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, George McGovern, Ralph Nader, Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut. While only a sampling of the letters was available to examine, a fleeting look revealed how Schlesinger freely offered opinions and... (Guardian Unlimited -- World)
• Justice, Not Mercy, For A Priest Dec 5, 2007
Fay opened with a reference to Lillian Hellman, suggesting that in her book, "Pentimento," she aptly described his multi-layered character apparently larceny painted over religious good works. "People have painted me," Fay said. (FOX61, CT)
Rethinking the edgy filmmaker who made Warhol look tame Nov 29, 2007
The soundtrack is alive with his recorded musings and disembodied audio rants (his breakup letter to mom would make Lillian Hellman blush). The screen is gloriously awash in snippets and condensed interludes from his films and the films he appeared in for other people. (Boston Globe)
Review: 'Next' tells the story of those who write the stories Nov 20, 2007
He allows his political sympathies to get the best of his story, turning the blacklisted writers of the Hollywood Ten into tragic heroes, describing communists such as screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson as "the most patriotic, idealistic [Americans] in a revolutionary, Jeffersonian sense, and nave." Seeing the scoundrel time (as Lillian Hellman referred to the era) as the beginning of Hollywood's downfall, Norman paints a portrait of the 1950s as film's nadir, with the talent... (San Francisco Chronicle)
Accomplished actors to perform in Demopolis Nov 3, 2007
She also won the first Tony award ever given to an actor for her performance in Another Part of the Forest written by Demopolis descendant Lillian Hellman. Like The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest was based upon Hellman s Demopolis family and involved the same characters, the Hubbards. (Demopolis Times, AL)
Robert Lantz, 93, veteran talent agent Oct 23, 2007
His constellation included the writers James Baldwin, Lillian Hellman and Carson McCullers; the actors Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Yul Brynner, Montgomery Clift, Myrna Loy and Liv Ullmann; the photographer Arnold Newman, the film director Milos Forman, the playwright Peter Shaffer and the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Clients begat clients: Taylor introduced him to Burton, her fifth husband, and Justice William O. Douglas introduced him to Rehnquist. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Read on... Oct 2, 2007
Five pople whom Id like to see answer this survey: Bob Dylan, Nora Ephron, Christopher Guest, Mary Queen of Scots, Lillian Hellman. Swoosie Kurtz, who stars as Lily in ABCs 'Pushing Daisies. (Variety)
Columbus could become part of tri-state literary trail project Sep 15, 2007
who was project coordinator for this year's Lillian Hellman celebration. othing like this has been done before as far as I can tell, he continued. (Columbus Commercial Dispatch, MS)
Down the Nile Aug 28, 2007
In "A Likely Story: One Summer with Lillian Hellman," she also tells how, at the age of 17 she offered herself as a housekeeper to Lillian Hellman, the heroine she had never met an impulse that proved both supremely brave and surpassingly foolish. But even more essential to the success of "Down the Nile" are Mahoney's quick-silver intelligence, her sharp eyes, and her slightly astringent voice. (Christian Science Monitor)
The Autumn Garden Aug 20, 2007
A Williamstown Theater Festival presentation of a play in three acts by Lillian Hellman. Directed by David Jones. (Variety)
Lillian Hellman's 'Autumn Garden' is in full bloom -- once again Aug 18, 2007
WILLIAMSTOWN -- Lillian Hellman's "The Autumn Garden" is the kind of drawing-room drama that ought to creak with old age ... Play in three acts by Lillian Hellman. (Boston Globe -- Living)
Regional theaters take on old, new stories Aug 16, 2007
Still, the lineup for the Massachusetts festival is particularly rich in high-profile female talent, including prominent stage and screen actresses Allison Janney and Kate Burton and noted playwrights Lillian Hellman and Beth Henley and the directorial debut of Kathleen Turner, guiding Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe in Henley's Crimes of the Heart through Sunday. Rees and Turner became friends a decade ago while co-starring in Indiscretions on Broadway. (USA Today -- Life)
Reworked Candide opening at La Scala Jun 20, 2007
Candide - the Bernstein version, written in association with playwright/memoirist Lillian Hellman - made its debut in New York in 1956 where its content was interpreted as a thinly veiled satire of McCarthyite America and the country's paranoia over communist infiltration. That production ran for only two months, and over the years Bernstein continued to work with one librettist after another on revising it. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
It's Hot On Stage Jun 14, 2007
Allison Janney movies from up "The West Wing" to Hellman Country, as Lillian Hellman. Janney stars in the rarely produced "The Autumm Garden" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival Aug. 15 to 26. (CTNow.com)
» Theater schedule Jun 14, 2007
Aug. 15 - 26 - Main stage: "The Autumn Garden." By Lillian Hellman; directed by David Jones. Starring Allison Janney. (CTNow.com)
Friends of Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso, Gerald and Sara Murphy were muses of Modernism Jun 9, 2007
Two 15-minute documentaries, created for the exhibition, feature excerpts from 1962 audio interviews with the Murphys by the writer Calvin Tomkins, as well as reminiscences by the playwright Lillian Hellman, the poet Archibald MacLeish and the couple's late daughter, Honoria Murphy Donnelly. The show demonstrates "that art does not happen in a vacuum,' " said Lisa Corrin, director of the Williams College museum. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Lovely, little, and lively Truro Jun 4, 2007
One of this year's highlights is "Lillian," a new play about Lillian Hellman by William Luce , author of "The Belle of Amherst .". For its first several years, Payomet took place under a large tent set up just off Route 6. (Boston Globe)
After 31 years, proof of a literary feud between Garca Mrquez and Vargas Llosa Mar 30, 2007
a Mrquez ranks with some of the most famous feuds, including Lillian Hellman vs. Mary McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov vs. Edmund Wilson, and Norman Mailer vs. Gore Vidal. (When the encounter between Mailer and Vidal turned physical, if not bloody, Vidal is said to have responded from the floor, "Words fail Norman Mailer yet again."). (International Herald Tribune)
Hollywood gets fact-checked Mar 4, 2007
It's hard to imagine a movie like the 1977 "Julia" -- based on a disputed Lillian Hellman tome -- going into release these days without an uproar from Internet watchdogs. Pileggi and producer Irwin Winkler are borrowing chunks of the Dades story for a fictional tale for Columbia. (Variety)
UPI NewsTrack Entertainment News Feb 7, 2007
The program began in 1989 when U.S. playwright Lillian Hellman willed that her estate be used to help writers experiencing financial troubles because of their views. "The Hellman/Hammett grants aim to help writers confront and survive persecution," said Marcia Allina, who coordinates the program. (Washington Times, DC)
A Family Affair Jan 16, 2007
Lillian Hellman s penultimate play, Toys in the Attic (now in revival at the Pearl Theatre Company), first produced in 1960, is as creaky as an old four-poster bed. Though it can be pleasant to rest for a moment in its carefully embroidered sheets if only to be reminded of the familiar scents with which Hellman sprinkled her most autobiographical work: incest, miscegenation, and camellias the play s charm is musty and, in the end, tiresome. (New Yorker)
Poet Wilbur can review a life well-lived Jan 14, 2007
Around the time of "Things of This World," he was asked to help on a planned musical version of Voltaire's "Candide." Numerous writers, including Dorothy Parker and James Agee, had been unable to get along with the demanding team of Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. So Wilbur was brought in, because, the poet recalls, it was assumed that having translated one French satirist, Moliere, he could handle another. (The Standard-Times, MA)
A can-do Candide attitude Jan 6, 2007
This has been a work in progress ever since Lillian Hellman burned by her grilling by the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington about alleged Communist ties decided to collaborate with Bernstein on a work that would update Voltaire and ridicule the witchhunt of the Senator Joseph McCarthy era. The original Broadway production was a flop, but many new versions followed, some for the opera house, some for the musical-comedy stage. (Toronto Star)
