The last time I saw Hamlet was also on Broadway, with Richard Burton in the mid-1960s. He was at the height of his fame, which was his fame with Elizabeth Taylor. The show was at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre. Burton had a most compelling voice. I cannot remember the performance but I can still catch the voice in my mind’s ear. He was a deeply sympathetic character as indeed his public image seemed to be also.
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| Richard Burton in a limited run of "Hamlet" in 1964. |
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During that limited performance (as is Jude Law who is only appearing only thru December 6), every night about ten o’clock thousands of people would gather on the block between Broadway and 8th, waiting for that moment around 11 or so when Burton and Taylor would emerge from the stage door (she went to pick him up every night). By the final curtain, the entire block, pavement and roadway was jammed with thousands of fans waiting for a glimpse.
One night I happened to be in Sardi’s when word came over that Burton and Taylor were coming in after the show. By the time they arrived thousands (and I’m not exaggerating) of fans filled the block on 44th Street that I was on today, waiting for the couple to arrive at Sardis. And when they did, when they walked through the door, the entire restaurant -- customers, waiters, kitchen staff, everyone stood up to see the world’s most famous lovers, she with the violet eyes, he with the baby blues. They stood, just inside the entrance to the restaurant, unable to move in any direction, but seemingly at ease.
I recall reading a Burton diary entry years later about such a crowd happening to him and her outside the Ritz in Paris where the entire Place Vendome was chock-a-block masses of fans waiting to gawk and gape. It blew his mind that they were waiting for a glimpse of him and Elizabeth. He knew about the fame, but still, it was more than astounding to the little Welsh boy with the golden voice.
Jude Law yesterday seemed much younger and neurasthenic a Hamlet than Richard Burton. We had very good seats about eighth row center. Law is the star on the stage. He just has it. And he’s very angry. I am not an apt critic for Shakespeare, let alone Hamlet. I am in awe of the actors and most specifically the lead. The audience loved Jude Law. His youthfulness and contemporariness makes him very relatable. There were a lot of twenty- and thirty-somethings in the audience and taking their places in Standing Room.
Shakespeare’s not getting old more than four centuries later, because of actors like Jude Law. And Richard Burton.
While we're on the subject of recalling the stupendous, Late last week, a woman who was a contemporary of Jack Kennedy and probably knew him at some point, Frances Brody, died last Thursday in Los Angeles at her home in Holmby Hills.
Under the radar, publicity-wise, Mrs. Brody was a well known and popular figure in Los Angeles and the world of her era.
Frances, always known as Francie, was a formidable presence in that exotic society out by the Pacific. She was a good example of the Southern California version of a grande dame. She had wit, certainty, taste, curiosity, hauteur (when necessary) and the ambition to make herself known and heard on her terms. That stern countenance would also transform into a merry face with amusement. She liked people, and they liked her.
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| Frances Brody. Photo: LA Times. |
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She was born in Chicago, the daughter of Albert Lasker who is now largely unknown but was to advertising in the 20th Century what Henry Ford was to automobiles. Mr. Lasker was famous for having created the idea of what we now call Brands. It made him a tycoon and a shaman of American popular culture. Later on in life he married a second wife, Mary Lasker, who became a major figure of society and philanthropy in New York. Our gentrified islands that run up the middle of Park Avenue are beauteous thanks to the vision and philanthropy of Mary Lasker.
Francie Brody and her husband Sidney – a tall, outgoing fellow with a kind and jolly personality, were major forces in the art scene. During the mid-20th century, from the 1930s on, some of the most important private art collections in America were being built in Los Angeles. Many were movie people, many others were business people. The Brodys socialized in both crowds comfortably and often brought them together.
In the 1950s they hired the Los Angeles architect Quincy Jones to design what the LA Times has called a white stucco “modernist masterpiece.” Billie Haines did the interior. The house had a courtyard atrium which was visible just inside the entrance hall. In it there were outdoor chairs and couches with end tables and lamps, and on one wall, discreetly dominating the entire space was a large Matisse mural, 12x11 ceramic tile. The Brodys had commissioned it from the painter in 1953. Aside from the brilliance of the piece, its presence in an environment where there were Matisses hanging in several houses in the general area spoke volumes about its proud possessor. A Matisse painted especially for you and your house and to be hung outside!. Francie Brody and her husband Sidney were clever collectors. And they enjoyed it.
The story around Los Angeles always was that Francie Brody turned down the original Matisse maquette, a paper cut-out. This turned out to be true. She knew what she wanted and the artist provided it.
Another story that was popularly repeated about her was that when she was a young girl her mother told her that she’d never be a beauty so she’d better make sure she looked good.
She was, what the French would call, a belle laide. Always smartly dressed with an austere chic that Los Angeles women of that era could do glamorously. Because of her background, she had interest in and access to culture and society on both coasts all her life. She was a contemporary of JFK but of that era that will be defined in terms of the political career of Ronald Reagan. Many people around the Brodys were major supporters of Ronald Reagan. Many of those women defined the style that was “worldly” Los Angeles of that era.
Women of her set in Los Angeles lived by a certain standard. It was a style set by the second generation of the movie colony – wives and daughters of the studio moguls – who imitated the style that was New York in the 1930s through the 1950s.
Betsy Bloomingdale, a friend and neighbor of Francie Brody, is now the popular example of that standard in a Los Angeleno, but it was de rigueur for many. A big house, well-managed, a staff, a good garden (for flowers) or greenhouse, often important art collections, an excellent chef, a beautifully set table, interesting dinner guests (including almost always, major movie stars and/or industry executives, directors, producers).
Easterners were always treated to the best of Lotusland. On the night he was nominated for the Presidency, Jack Kennedy went to an after party at Jean Howard’s hacienda style house on Coldwater, where Judy Garland sang and Roger Edens played and all kinds of glamour girls and boys of this ilk partied the night away.
Mrs. Brody didn’t look like the kind of woman you might see at a party of movie stars. But she was. She was also at home in the more tycoonish crowds of the great industrialists and real estate magnates who owned Southern California.
The collection she and her husband acquired included Braque, Henry Moore, Degas, Dufy, Renoir, Rodin, Calder, Chagall and of course Matisse. Their house had the space for everything to be displayed while not depriving a homeliness. It was large but not uncozy. Rather like its mistress’ personality.
She looked stern, and she could be stern-ish. She was knowledgeable and exacting. She also loved wit and amusing people. She and her husband were major movers in the launch of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in the mid-60s. She was a force, as well as a trustee of the Huntington Library.
About ten years ago, in an interview in Town & Country, she told her version of that “belle laide” anecdote about her looks. “When I was fourteen, I had bushy black hair and I said to myself, ‘Well, you’re not going to be any beauty, so you’d better just be yourself and have a good time.’ And I did.”
Friday night down at Indochine, they were celebrating their 25th anniversary as the laid back chic and casual go-to destination for the rich, the chic and the shameless not to mention the hip, the pips, the art crowd, the rockers and the movie stars.
They all go there because they love the place.
And they love the place because they love the food and all that comes with it in terms of atmosphere, great drinks, a flashy passing scene, and The Food.
So, co-owners Jean-Marc Houmard, Michael Callahan and Huy Chi Le staged a “1920s Shanghai” bash. It started at 9 pm and like the invitation read, it ran til “late.” And they were all there, taking it all in, the passing parade and the trays of the Indochine gourmet celebration. |
