IT'S A SPECIAL GUEST STAR DAY!
We are thrilled to turn The Film Experience over today to Tom Mizer, one half of the songwriting team Mizer & Moore (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel). In addition to his many career accomplishments, he happens to be a longtime TFE reader! Please give him a warm welcome - Nathaniel R.
by Tom Mizer
It’s a little disturbing to discover that the best way to introduce myself to you, good readers, is by having you meet 10 year-old me. During a lockdown cleaning binge, I found a stack of “scrapbooks” I made as a kid out of construction paper and newspaper clippings. The extreme Tom-ness of who I was and who I’d become is all there. I mean, look at just this one page.
First, note the slipshod but intense workmanship. I have not a crafty bone in my body and clearly needed to avoid the visual arts...
An architect friend once plopped me down at their drafting table to prove even I could draw a straight with the right tools; when I lifted up his t-square, the line I had made was still somehow crooked. And so it goes. But I was always telling stories, so I channeled my interests into acting and, ultimately, writing.
But back to the scrapbook. Note that I have devoted a two spread page to the summer movies of 1982.
I have always loved movies, all kinds of movies from Star Wars to Hitchcock to British repression-fests. I have been a regular reader of this site for quite some time thanks to a particular fondness for actresses and awards. There’s a later page in the scrapbook titled “Movies Up for Academy Awards” because what 10-year-old isn’t cutting out ads for The French Lieutenant's Woman ?
Nathaniel recently invited me to join as a panelist for the 1947 smackdown and it was one of the proudest moments of my career.
Finally, hone in on the fact on the fact that in the first image up top, I’ve given pride of place to THREE musicals--three musicals in a time when movie musicals were not cool. (My Mom, god love her, took me to see Grease 2. This led to a lifelong love of Ms. Pfeiffer and, more immediately, an important discussion of what the song “Reproduction” was about.)
Mizer & Moore, photographed by Xanthe Elbrick
I write musicals now. Alongside my writing partner Curtis Moore, we’ve mainly written for theater but recently we had the joy of writing five original songs for the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. You can listen to some of our stuff at our official site www.mizerandmoore.com
This is me. And hopefully you’ll enjoy some of what this determined, film-obsessed kid with bad eye-hand coordination has to share about music and movies and behind the scenes on Maisel and such today… ALL DAY!
Oh, one thing you couldn’t know about me from the scrapbook: my husband and I recently adopted a pandemic dog. Her name is Barrett (“Bear”). During her first few weeks with us, the naughty minx tore up a pile of last year’s film and tv screeners. But she pulled out Parasite to sleep with. Seriously. I think she’s gonna fit right in.
also from Tom Mizer today
Oscar winners for Best Original Song
Filming Mrs Maisel's Musical Numbers
Movies to Stage -Musical Adaptations
Meeting Barbra Streisand