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Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow took visual effects to new heights 20 years ago. Starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, writer-director Kerry Conran’s sci-fi feature is set in 1939 and focuses on a pilot (Law) and a reporter (Paltrow) teaming up to save the world amid attacks from flying robots. First-time […]
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Lexy Perez
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Twenty-five years ago, The Matrix’s prescient AI-centric narrative, groundbreaking visuals and oodles of leather were enough to make any viewer say, “Whoa.” Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s journey with the sci-fi epic began in 1994, when Warner Bros. exec Lorenzo di Bonaventura, impressed with their script for the thriller Assassins, signed the duo to a three-feature […]
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Lexy Perez
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By the time Will Rogers was roped into serving as emcee for the sixth Academy Awards, he was a celebrated performer who had appeared in more than 30 features and was on his way to becoming the No. 1 box office star of 1934, topping the likes of Clark Gable and Shirley Temple. Having honed his wit as a lariat-twirling vaudeville humorist (and as a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist), Rogers exuded charm at the March 16, 1934, ceremony at L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel. Offering his thoughts on the prized gold statuettes, he told the room, “It represents the triumph of nothingness over the stupendousness of zero.” THR reported that “Rogers, as toastmaster, was in ‘ribbing’ form and, while he had his serious moments, gave everyone a lot of laughs.”
Critics for decades have lamented the lack of Native Americans in Hollywood, but few recall that Rogers was the first — and arguably, so far, the only — Native American to achieve bona fide movie-star status. He’s also the lone Native American to host the Oscars. Though he did not fit into America’s stereotypical image of a Plains Indian donning a feathered war bonnet and leather moccasins, “He was born in [Oklahoma] Indian Territory,” explains his great-granddaughter Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry. “He would often say he never forgot where he came from.”
Rogers grew up the youngest of eight children to Clement V. Rogers, a Cherokee politician and judge, and Mary Schrimsher, both of Cherokee descent. He left home at 22, got his first showbiz gig as a trick roper in South Africa and eventually made his way to New York City to become a vaudeville star in the 1910s. The “Cherokee Kid” moved west shortly after Samuel Goldwyn offered him a film contract; he made 71 features and more than a dozen shorts and often referenced his heritage in his movies and writing.
The year after his Oscar gig, Rogers, 55, died in a plane crash in Alaska. In 1960, the Hollywood Walk of Fame dedicated two stars to him, a fitting if belated tribute to one of the industry’s most beloved celebrities. Rogers never won an Oscar — but at this year’s ceremony March 10, Killers of the Flower Moon nominee Lily Gladstone could become the first Native American to receive one for acting.
This story first appeared in the March 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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Lexy Perez
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More than 30 years ago, Married to the Mob was a bona fide hit, well before making its mark as a TikTok trend.
Jonathan Demme’s comedy stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela de Marco, who is fed up with her Long Island Mafia-adjacent lifestyle and eyes a new path after her husband, Frank (Alec Baldwin), is killed by his crime boss (Dean Stockwell).
Edward Saxon, a producer on the film, tells THR that Demme encouraged the crew — including costume designer Colleen Atwood, who has since won four Oscars — to embrace the outlandish nature of the project. “Jonathan didn’t say to anybody, ‘Tamp it down,’ ” Saxon recalls. “It was, ‘Let’s have fun with this.’ And that describes the mob wife costumes.”
Before its release from Orion Pictures on Aug. 19, 1988, the distributor’s president, Joel H. Resnick, was feeling bullish, telling THR at the time that there was “good audience response to the film, and exhibitors responded very strongly to it.” Married to the Mob collected $21 million ($55 million today), along with an Oscar nomination for Stockwell. THR’s review praised the movie as “both smart and silly, a fractured look into modern-day suburbia.”
This year, Married to the Mob has returned to the zeitgeist — as did The Sopranos and Goodfellas — when TikTok users started sharing videos of themselves done up in the mob wife aesthetic, which includes fur coats, animal prints and gaudy jewelry. The trend even caught the notice of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, who posted to social media last month about the fashion style making a comeback. As for what might have spurred the trend, Saxon sees a link to former President Donald Trump, who is running again for the Oval Office despite facing federal charges.
“Trump’s first big moment was the ’80s, and we’ve never had somebody who seems so much like a Mafia boss, along with his wife, Melania,” Saxon says. “If you look at pictures from the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve celebration, they’re right out of Married to the Mob.”
This story first appeared in the Feb. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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Lexy Perez
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The opening synthesizer lines of the song “Flashdance… What a Feeling” offer a sense of promise — something big is about to happen. And the tune, performed by actress and singer Irene Cara for the soundtrack of 1983’s Flashdance, delivered, becoming a hit single and winning the Oscar for best original song in 1984. In fact, it was the only award that the film won, though the drama was also nominated for cinematography, editing and again in the original song category, for another synth-pop hit, “Maniac.”
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer enlisted composer and producer Giorgio Moroder, with whom he had worked on the 1980 film American Gigolo, to write the music for Flashdance, about an aspiring ballet dancer, played by Jennifer Beals, who works by day as a welder and by night as a cabaret performer. Moroder, an electronic music pioneer who had won an Academy Award for his score for 1978’s Midnight Express, brought on Keith Forsey and Cara to write the lyrics for “What a Feeling.” The song was released in March 1983 as a single before Flashdance’s April debut, and would spend six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (The film went on to become a surprise box office hit, grossing $92.9 million domestically, making it the third-highest-earning film of the year.)
A year later, Cara took the stage at the 56th Academy Awards, singing “What a Feeling” and dancing alongside 46 New York City student dancers. Later that evening, Beals and Matthew Broderick presented Cara and Forsey with the award for best original song (Moroder did not attend). In her acceptance speech, Cara said, “It’s so wonderful to be receiving this most precious honor from Jennifer Beals, whose performance in the film made it that much more special for us.” Cara also thanked Alan Parker, who had directed her in Fame, in which she played aspiring star Coco Hernandez and for which she had also performed the theme song, “Fame,” the winner of the best original song Oscar in 1981.
This story first appeared in a January standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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Lexy Perez
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Nearly four decades ago, NBC brought Babes in Toyland back to life with an all-star cast. The holiday project was based on the 1903 operetta, which features Victor Herbert’s score — including Christmas staple “Toyland” — and a libretto from Glen MacDonough that draws together numerous Mother Goose characters. It followed such previous adaptations as a 1934 Laurel and Hardy film, a 1960 Shirley Temple-led TV version and a 1961 Disney movie starring Annette Funicello.
Filmmaker Clive Donner — whose 1965 comedy What’s New Pussycat? marked Woody Allen’s first produced screenplay — directed Babes in Toyland from a script by Paul Zindel (Mame). Shot in Munich, it starred 11-year-old Drew Barrymore as Lisa, who has no interest in toys until she gets magically transported to Toyland on Christmas Eve, where she teams up with the Toymaster (Pat Morita, fresh off The Karate Kid Part II) to stop the villainous Barnaby Barnicle (Richard Mulligan) from taking over the realm. Rounding out the cast were Eileen Brennan as Mother Hubbard and an early-career Keanu Reeves playing Jack Be Nimble. NBC’s take featured new music from Oscar-winning composer Leslie Bricusse, who would visit the production from his home in France to help the cast nail the tunes. Mulligan — in his first role as a villain and his first musical — enjoyed everything that the locale had to offer and quipped to THR at the time, “If my wife doesn’t drag me away from German cheese and noodles very soon, they’ll have to widen the TV screen for a new and plump Richard Mulligan.”
Babes in Toyland aired Dec. 19, 1986, and developed a cult following — but had been tough to track down until recently. Among those celebrating November’s Blu-ray release of a shortened version was actress Jill Schoelen, who played Reeves’ love interest and also dated him in real life. “My memories of working with Drew is how sweet and joyful she is,” Schoelen shared on Instagram. “I was so happy to shoot a Christmas film and with a wonderful cast.”
This story first appeared in the Dec. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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Kimberly Nordyke
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