Swithin

I wouldn't be surprised if she were. She represented alot of firsts when she won her Oscars. Maybe there was the occasional supporting player who lived longer -- Charles Lane was 102 when he died. If Olivia and Joan hang on, perhaps they could surpass her.

There is a scene in Stanley and Livingstone related to albinos. Stanley (Spencer Tracy) and his sidekick (Walter Brennan) are searching for Dr. Livingstone. They hear there's a white man in some remote village. They eagerly rush there, finding, not Dr. Livingstone, but an albino, who is then referred to a "black white man." Someone says no, "he's a white black man." Of course Brennan himself was one of the biggest racists in Hollywood!

In any case, I assume you are, based on earlier posts, "of a certain age," so yes, it was used condescendingly, particularly by the working classes, whereas the other NY communities which predominated (Irish, Italian, etc.), would have used the "n" word. At least "schwartzer" never took on the horrible connotations of the "n" word in the wider community. And, to my knowledge, you wouldn't find a teenage Jewish boy using it today! Related to discrimination in NYC, I was thinking recently about Bill O'Reilly's awful remarks after the election about how "they're taking our America away from us." Coming from him, that's particularly outrageous, since no group was ever as discrimated against and reviled as Bill's own ethnic group, in earlier days. You'd think that kind of memory/knowledge would encourage a little tolerance on his part!

Well, maybe Jim Schwartz is one of the exceptions that proves the rule! But it's possible the derivation of his name comes from a Jewish ancestor. I agree with you about the Chinese reference, though there is another term related to Chinese people that I would think is even closer, and that used to be used not pejoratively. Remember what Chinese restaurants in New York used to be called! The Shirley Maclaine character on Downton Abbey is Martha Levinson, which would make Lady Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) part Jewish. Levinson is almost always a Jewish surname. Maclaine's husband -- who is not a character on the series -- was named Isadore Levinson and was in dry goods. He may have converted before he died, but in any case it makes Lady Cora half-Jewish.

The Hooper omission was even more noticeable in the BAFTA (British "Oscars") nominations. The Brits tend to bend over backwards to honour their own, so not to nominate him really says something. Although people I know tend to like Les Mis to varying degrees, it has been carried more by pre-opening hype than by uniformly great reviews, which it did not receive. Some people really hate it: http://themattwalshblog.com/2012/12/28/les-miserables-taught-me-how-to-hate-again/ The film I have heard spoken most glowingly about by friends is Amour. That stands a chance to win some awards, but Lincoln will probably (and deservedly) be the big winner.

Let me weigh in on the schvarz controversy, as a Jewish New Yorker. The Mel Brooks line refers not to the color, but to pun related to "May the force be with you." Brooks always throws Jewish associations into his films. The name Schwartz is ALWAYS a Jewish surname (as opposed to a German variant, which would be Schwarz); that's what Brooks was playing on, not anything to do with black. The other term in question ("schwartzer" or sometimes pronounced "shvatsa") has indeed become derogatory. Yes, it means black in Yiddish/German (I don't speak Yiddish, but I did study German). In itself, it is an innocent term. But it became the word used by first generation Jewish housewives who were able to afford "maids." Those women (the maids) were invariably black. In an earlier age, they might have been Irish, Jewish, Scandinavian, etc.). Because in the early-mid 20th century the Jewish housewives were immigrants or the children of immigrants, they still spoke Yiddish to a degree, hence "schwartzer" for the maid. Because doing someone else's housework came to be considered menial; and because the position of blacks in society at large is a question of discussion, the word came to be seen as pejorative, as it is today. If they had just used the Yiddish word for "maid," rather than a word referring to race, it would have been better. People doing those tasks today, at least in NY, tend to be Polish, Russian, Asian -- from the Philippines, etc., although new immigration from Africa has again brought blacks into that workforce. But the word in question as it refers to a person is definitely not nice. But it was NEVER used in the way the "N" word has been used around the country, with hatred and scorn, etc. It just became insulting to identify (and dehumanize) a person's existence by a word solely denoting their race, particularly when they performed the function of menial labor. No Jewish housewife as far as I know would use that word today. And even the word "housewife" has become charged!

Sadly, that kind of attitude has been all to common. I had a friend from Louisiana who was on the debating team of his university down there, which toured and debated at universities around the country. He was told to lose his Southern accent because "nobody believes anything you say in a Southern accent." He was a lovely man and a great musician, and I would have preferred to hear him speak with a Southern accent!

*Luise Rainer,* who won two Best Actress Oscars in a row (1936 and 1937) will be 103 years old on Saturday, January 12, 2013. I met her once, when she was around 73. Lovely, caring person. In the small context our our meeting, she encouraged Maureen Stapleton (who was squiffy, as was I) to be sure to put her boots on before going out into the cold January night. I have a photo of the three of us; it's one of the oddest photos I possess. Happy Birthday Luise!

Now THAT, Dargo, is actually the ONE funny post on this rapidly deteriorating thread!

Crazy, smart doctor in Yorkville.

I had a DNA test (Genome Project). A friend of mine did it, she suggested that I do it since it's easier for a man -- the Y chromosome thing gives more information than the Mitochondrial. It was fascinating, and I was deeply moved by the results.

*Waltz of the Toreadors* ?

Oy vay, Finance. Might you consider deleting that post?

OT (slightly): I've just listened to a progam about the great English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was part of that wealthy and progressive family which included the Wedgwoods, the Darwins, etc. Ralph allegedly came home from school one day and asked his mother why the fuss about his uncle's book. His mother responded, "Most people think God created the world in six days. Great uncle Charles just thought it took a bit longer."

Anachronisms are sometimes used that way. We don't know the motivation of the filmmaker, this is after all not documentary filmmaking, so I would not make any assumptions. It may have been carelessnesses, it may have been just that it would set the mood for the contemporary audience. I don't think I would call it "stupid," but I don't know the film! It used to bother me with hairstyles. I love the film The Subject Was Roses. It's so evocative of New York just after World War II. The apartment, the streets, etc. But not Patricia Neal's hairstyle, which reeks of the mid 1960s!

Anachronisms are not uncommon in any artform. Shakespeare used them, presumably not out of carelessness but to make a point of reference to his contemporary audiences. Famously, there are no clocks in ancient Rome or ancient Denmark, yet he uses them in Julius Caesar and Hamlet.

Thanks Val, that reflects what I am experiencing. I wish I knew how to post photos, I would take pictures of the various images and post them. But how come, if I have a commercial DVD of an old movie, it fills up my screen by default? I rarely use the options on my TV remote -- (Wide Zoon, H Stretch, Full, Zoom) because they distort the image (Full is the default and presents the images as it's being transmitted).

I guess you know (apologies if it has already been mentioned) that one of Josephine Baker's children runs a restaurant on 42nd St. in NYC called Chez Josephine. It's pretty good, I haven't been there in years, though: http://www.chezjosephine.com/ One of the saddest stories I ever heard, related to this thread, concerns Marian Anderson, one of the great operatic voices of all time. When she was on tour, they wouldn't iron her dress, nor would they allow her to iron it in the hotel. So, Marian Anderson, who had a voice that Toscanini said came along once in 100 years, had to iron her own dress, in the ALLEY!

The Redgraves weren't forgotten -- see below in this thread. And don't forget Michael Redgrave's parents, who were actors.

The *Kemble* family extends from actor Roger Kemble (1721-1802), several of whose children, including Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), became actors, to Violet and Lillian Kemble-Cooper (children of actor Frank Kemble-Cooper), who appeared in Hollywood films. Violet makes an appearance in Our Betters this week and memorably played Mother Rukh, Boris Karloff's mother, in The Invisible Ray. Lillian appeared in GWTW and My Fair Lady. Anthony Kemble-Cooper (1904-2000), their brother, appeared in films and television, and often on Broadway.

Yet in the SW of England (Cornwall and environs), they would pronounce the final r. So, as one of my neighbors might say, "Go Figga!"

Well, I may not totally pronounce the final "r," but I come close. As I said, Prof. Higgins would be happy here, because NYC is not any ten accents, but hundreds. Also I spend a lot of time in London, and if I really started pronouncing final "r's," it would take me down a notch in Kensington, where they don't fully pronounce their final r's either. I love the way my New England friends say "oysta!"

Are you sure he didn't say THIS:

But Dargo, if you said "heighth," then you could never be mistaken for certain New Yorkers, primarily of an earlier Irish-American generation, who, referring to a certain intersection, would say "Toid Avenue and Toidy-Toid Street," largely because they didn't or couldn't pronounce "th." I think Barry Fitzgerald had that lovely affectation. I miss it. When I was growing up, there were alot of people who talked like that; there are still some, but everything is being homogenized. On the other hand, there used to be something in the UK called "BBC British," when newsreaders, etc., were encouraged to spout a kind of posh English/Mid-Atlantic accent. That's changed, and now UK radio and television encourages regional accents. And if it weren't for all these variations in speech, we might not love Kay Fwancis as much as we do!

Good point, db. Henry Higgins would have as much fun in New York City as he had in London. Accents and usages vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. I'm a native New Yorker. I went to a Jesuit college locally. I remember a college housekeeper named Betty -- a lovely woman of Irish or Italian New York working-class background -- saying to me and my roommate, concerning some housekeeping issue: "Yizzle have to do that yourself." My roommate, who was not a local, had never heard our local expression "Yizzle" for "You'll," or "You all." Language lives, and changes. I wouldn't get my panties in a wad (as a Southern friend of mine likes to say) about a few issues of pronounciation or usage. Or at least don't assume that these variations are more prominent in one group than they are in another.