Showbiz History: Rasputin, Kiss Me Kate, and Way of the Dragon
Wednesday, December 30, 2020 at 10:00AM 7 random things that happened on this day, December 30th, in history
Veidt, Lee, and Rickman as "Rasputin" in various projects
1916 Russian mystic Raputin, who had great influence with the Romanov family, is assassinated in his sleep. He's been portrayed dozens of times onscreen. Some famous actors who have played him include Conradt Veidt (Rasputin, Dämon der Frauen), Lionel Barrymore (Rasputin and the Empress), Christopher Lee (Rasputin the Mad Monk), Alan Rickman (Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny - Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe wins for Best Actor in TV Movie or Miniseries), and the voice of Christopher Lloyd (Anastasia). The next actors to play him will be Rhys Ifans (The King's Man, 2021), and maybe Leonardo DiCaprio in a biopic though Leo doesn't even make a fifth of the projects he's attached to. He's currently attached to 45 titles (!!!) according to IMDb Pro... though most are only "optioned" or in some unknown stage of development.
Miley Cyrus, Daniel Sunjata, Kiss Me Kate, Way of the Dragon, "My Way" and more after the jump...
1932 Pre-code drama Back Street starring Irene Dunne as a mistress who must keep her love secret hits theaters. Two remakes followed, one in 1941 with Margaret Sullavan and the other in 1961 featuring Susan Hayward in Oscar-nominated "gowns by Jean-Louis".
1948 Cole Porter's most successful show "Kiss Me Kate", a meta-musical about a stage musical production of Taming of the Shrew, opens on Broadway where it runs for almost two years. A film version in 3-D, a big fad at the time, arrives in 1953. The musical had a very successful Broadway revival in 1999 which ran almost as long as the original production.
1968 Frank Sinatra records "My Way" adapted from the the French song "Comme d'habitude" with entirely unrelated lyrics by Paul Anka. It becomes one of his signature songs and a karaoke standard.
1972 Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon opens in Hong Kong movie theaters. It takes a couple of years to make it around the world, arriving in most countries in 1974 after Lee's tragic death in 1973, but the film proves an immediate hit and eventually a blockbuster grossing over a thousand times its budget. Have you seen Be Water, the new ESPN doc on Bruce Lee? I learned so much about Bruce Lee's road to stardom.
2014 Luise Rainer dies at just a month shy of her 105th birthday. We believe she's the Oscar winner who lived the longest life. Olivia de Havilland also died when she was 104 (though she died less than a month after her birthday). The oldest living Oscar winner currently is 99 year-old producer Walter Mirisch (In the Heat of the Night) who has also received the Thalberg and the Hersholt so the Academy really loves him.
2018 Singer Miley Cyrus marries actor Liam Hemsworth. The marriage lasts 13 months.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 49th today to the Tony-nominated star of Take Me Out, Daniel Sunjata. He was so wonderful in that show and of course breathtakingly handsome in general. We shout him out today because we've never understood why his career didn't get bigger though he works alot on television (Rescue Me, The Stand, and more) and this is a good a time as any to say, yet again, how much we miss Broadway. The revival of the 2003 Tony winning play (which features an infamously lengthy plot-crucial scene where almost the entire cast is naked and showering together), was set to premiere on Broadway this past April (with Grey's Anatomy's Jesse Williams taking over Sunjata's showcased role of the mixed-race baseball player who comes out as gay) but Broadway shut down in March and will not reopen until.... well, the jury is still out but the next dream date is allegedly May 30th, 2021.
Other showbiz birthdays today: Eliza Dushku (Bring It On, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Tyrese Gibson (Baby Boy), Emmy winner Tracey Ullman (The Prom, Bullets Over Broadway, Tracey Takes On...), Lucy Punch (Being Julia, How to Build a Girl), Sheryl Lee Ralph (Moesha, To Sleep With Anger), Jason Behr (Roswell, The Shipping News), Athlete LeBron James, Davey Jones from the band The Monkees, V from the band BTS, Oscar nominated director Bennett Miller (Casino, Moneyball), Oscar-winning director Carol Reed (Oliver!, The Third Man), Portugal's auteeur Pedro Costa (Vitalina Varela, Horse Money), Philippines auteur Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left, Norte End of History), TV personality Meredith Vieira, composer/singer Patti Smith who we interviewed a handful of years ago, Comedy directing legend James Burrows (Cheers, Taxi, Frasier), Brazilian French actress Véra Clouzot (Les Diaboloques, Wages of Fear), cinematographer Marcell Rév (Euphoria, Jupiter's Moon), and Oscar nominated Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place, West Side Story, The Haunting, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)
Reader Comments (20)
Love the man but saying that 9/11 was an inside job sure didn't help.
peggy sue -- i dont remember this? or who you're talking about? sunjata?
Yes! https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/media/02fx.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1394268/
My Way will always remind me of Don Draper and Mad Men now.
You can't be black and outspoken.
I liked all three versions of Back Street, even if the Susan Hayward one squeezed all the pathos out of the thing in return for a VERY high gloss sheen. It does a deliciously venal performance by Vera Miles as John Gavin's harridan of a wife. However my favorite is the '41 version with Maggie Sullavan. Both she and Charles Boyer give very textured performances making what could be bathetic into something lovely and delicate.
LOVE Kiss Me Kate!! So much energy and talent in that film. Kathryn Grayson has a lot of fun in her atypical role of a temperamental diva but I do wish MGM had been able to induce original choice Deanna Durbin out of her retirement to play the role. It seems so perfect for her.
In the much-maligned TV series The Romanoffs, episode 3 is called 'House of Special Purpose' where Jack Huston played an actor who portrayed Rasputin in the movie devoted to the Romanovs -- essentially a meta-narrative. Huston shared the bill with Christina Hendricks (as an actress) and Isabelle Huppert (as a director). Of the 8 episodes in The Romanoffs, 'House of Special Purpose', 'End of the Line' and 'The One That Holds Everything' were, for me, the standout episodes.
KISS ME KATE is so much fun, especially if you watch it in 3D. It's one of those films I put on while I'm cleaning the living room or folding laundry. Makes me happy.
I planned an entire trip to NYC around the "Take Me Out" revival. Ah well... Kiss Me Kate is a ton of fun, especially the sight of a young Fosse hoofing it up. And bless anything with a song called "Tom, Dick, or Harry" and the repeated line, "I'll take a Dick!".
"We're your Dreamgirls..."
Sheryl Lee Ralph will be always be the original, Tony-nominated Deena Jones to me.
Kiss Me Kate is a delightful musical and the film version is a mostly good translation of it. It's also probably the best 3D I've seen? So many high kicks in your face!
Howard Keel in tights shaped my adolescence in so so many ways.
The Way of the Dragon... classic film and the fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris... if you haven't seen that fight. WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING? SEE IT NOW!!!!!
Alan Rickman as Rasputin is just incredible. I know people talk about him for his work in the Harry Potter films, his work playing the villain, or in movies where he's the romantic but he fucking kills it as Rasputin. He made me like that guy and Rasputin was a bad-ass motherfucker.
Kiss me Kate is so fun! Ann Miller should have had an oscar nomination for her performance.
'Kiss Me Kate" has fabulous eye popping dancing love to see in 3 -D...sometimes what ever magic makes an actor a star on stage doesn't translate to the big screen...I love the 1961 version of "Bacl Street" which works as woman's picture and pure camp.
"and this is a good a time as any to say, yet again, how much we miss Broadway"
What privilege!
Gia -- being able to see Broadway shows is indeed a privilege. I know you're trying to shame me but why i couldn't say. I'm not your therapist. So I'll just say that I think everyone should seek out the privilege of seeing live theaters as often as possible. It's a great art form and most cities that have live theaters in abundance also have some opportunities to see it free or at discounted rates (which Is what i try to take advantage of as i rarely have money since i chose to be a writer for a living). For those who don't live in places that have live theater, I suggests Broadway HD subscription ($9 a month) or YouTube searches to enjoy it that way. I'm not sure how many libraries have taped recordings but that's another way to enjoy it for free.
J -- my favourite what if nomination for Miller is EASTER PARADE which i think she is fabulous in.
thevoid -- out of curiousiy i looked this up as I dont remember it at all but i couldn't find it online to rent or stream anywhere. people dont talk about this in regards to tv films and miniseries but they're even harder to find once they're not "new" than movies are! it's a real shame how easy it is to lose art.
Ken -- lucky you!
Rasputin is available for free on YouTube.
In that tv show where he played a fireman, beautiful Sunjata says after a woman passes by, “qué rabo.” Rabo indeed means tail but the tube-like ones and it is used to refer to the penis. For a woman’s “tail” the word is cola, another word for it in Spanish. Anyway, the Spanish in the published version of that play is atrocious. I literally ripped the pages off. It’s incredible that in a country where Spanish is a second language it is used horrendously in Hollywood product. There is a Law and Order episode where a character supposed to be Cuban “scats” when he speaks his language. I hope my English is good enough so that this complaint is not a total irony. By the way even some Spanish-speaking actors speak google Spanish as characters. I guess if they are not being paid for a translation they won’t do the work. Good for them!