Showbiz History: La Traviata, plus Sandra Bullock "Best" and "Worst" simultaneously
Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 11:02AM 4 random things that happened on this day, March 6th, in showbiz history...
1853 La Traviata, Verdi's popular opera premieres in Venice. Have you ever seen the 1982 film version by Franco Zeffirelli? My parents took us, if I recall correctly. I wasn't sure what was going on but I remember it being quite beautiful. Oscar voters thought so too nominating in 'the Moulin Rouge! categories' (Costume Design + Art Direction)
1959 The 11th Emmy Awards were held. This was the first year where it took the modern form of splitting all awards including acting between comedy & drama. Though it didn't win Best Comedy Series Father Knows Best set a new record, becoming the first show to be nominated in all the top categories (Series, writing, directing, all four acting categories)
1964 Elizabeth Taylor divorces Eddie Fisher five years after their infamous love affair creates an enormous scandal and leaves Debbie Reynolds a single mom with two toddlers.
2010 The 30th Razzies are held with Transformers Revenge of The Fallen "winning". It was also nominated for the Sound Mixing Oscar but here is a rare example of the Razzies being smarter than the Oscars since Oscar kept honoring that franchise for one more installment. This was another year where the Razzie winner showed up to accept her prize (after Halle Berry got great press for doing so): Sandra Bullock showed up for her Worst Actress dishonor All About Steve. The very next day (!!!) she would win the Oscar for Best Actress, albeit for a different movie (The Blind Side).
Today's Birthday Suit: Happy 35th birthday to the extremely talented international actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (he speaks five languages) who was born in Argentina but is based in Paris and best known for French language films like Oscar submission BPM Beats Per Minute (César and Lumiere acting wins) and international co-productions like the current Oscar-rejected Belarussian submission Persian Lessons. He won Best Actor at Karlovy for the extremely racy All Yours (2014) where he plays an Argentinian hustler (pictured below)
Other showbiz birthdays today: Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, Promising Young Woman), Oscar nominated producer/director/actor Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally), Martin Kove (Cagney & Lacy, The Karate Kid), César winner Leïla Bekhti (All That Glitters, Un Prophete), Tom Arnold (True Lies), Jacob Bertrand (Cobra Kai, Ready Player One), Moira Kelly (The Cutting Edge, One Tree Hill), Shaun Evans (Being Julia, Endeavour), Rosie Day (Prime Suspect 1973, Outlander), James Saito (Dash & Lily, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Millienct Simmons (Wonderstruck, A Quiet Place), Yael Stone (Orange is the New Black, Picnic at Hanging Rock), Milo Mannheim (Dancing with the Stars, The Conners), Dylan Schmid (Snowpiercer, Once Upon a Time), Shane Brolly (Underworld, Spread), Alisha Boe (Ray Donovan, 13 Reasons Why), Tony winner Shuler Hensley (Oklahoma!), Cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak (Speed, The Verdict), Tyler the Creator, and basketball star turned actor Shaquille O'Neal.
Bonus birthday suit: B movie pinup girl Allison Hayes
And late greats like Poland's Andrzej Wajda (Man of Iron, Ashes and Diamonds), legendary stuntman Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit, Have Gun - Will Travel), tv personality Ed McMahon, Director Lewis Gilbert (Alfie, Educating Rita), and novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Lisa Gaye (Hawaiian Eye, Zorro)... and B-movie "giant" Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Undead) pictured above.
Reader Comments (7)
Teresa Stratas is a breathtakingly exquisite Violetta in Zeffirelli's La Traviata. She deserved to be nominated for Best Actress (over Andrews or Winger).
Count me among those who think the Zeffirelli production of La Traviata is a marvelous FILM. People who are put off by filmed stage-productions, have no fear: this version of La Traviata is a cinematic spectacle. And Teresa Stratas is, like Callas and Streisand, an actress who sings. She IS Violetta. The New York Times review of her performance was a rave: "It's an acting performance of breathtaking intensity. It's so good that it eclipses, for the moment anyway, the memory of Greta Garbo in ''Camille[.]'' Like Callas, in Pasolini's Medea, and William Shimmel, the well-regarded baritone who starred opposite Juliette Binoche in Kiarostami's Certified Copy, Stratas has always struck me as an opera singer who could command the screen even without uttering a single musical note.
I love Sandra Bullock but she deserved that Razzie for All About Steve! What a terrible movie and awful performance. She was much better in The Blind Side even if the Oscar win was ridiculous.
All About Steve is unwatchable from start to finish. I hate The Blind Side but All About Steve is even worse. Yet, I give Bullock props for not just accepting the Razzie but also take it with great humility. She is a national treasure.
Like the others, I didn't care for the tepid "Blind Side" either or for Sandra Bullock's ludicrous Oscar win. Connie Britton was unforgettable in her one scene for "Promising Young Woman." I remember Lisa Gaye, lots of TV, like "Perry Mason", and pretty sister of actress Debra Paget. Allison Hayes, what a knockout! - Miss Washington D.C. 1950, a concert pianist, statuesque (5' 8"), a dazzler, voluptuous, and good actress, gone too soon at 46.
The Zeffirelli Traviata is IMO a joke, obsessed with decor and huge sets above all else. Given that the opera is among the most intimate operas in the standard rep, I think it’s a fundamentally tacky and dishonest interpretation of the work, bizarrely edited and cut together in a way that makes no sense. And anyone who can read a score can hear how bad the musical performance is (Stratas was on record as hating the way she sounded there, and was not a fan of the film itself). I guess if you think opera is about period sets, grandeur, and famous “names”, then this is the film for you. Not everyone sees a famous name and goes into a trance. Stratas, who I respect and enjoyed in some things while not being a “fan” as such, was not a famous Violetta outside of this film and could barely get thru it live. And whatever talent Zeffirelli had brought to opera was long gone by the time of this movie, in place of decor.
Loved Britton in her one scene in PYW but was blown away by Allison Brie . Tis a pity she didn't get any BSA traction.