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September 1, 2001

I MENTIONED Edward Everett Horton in this space the other day and a couple of e-mails arrived asking who he was, or why I didn't mention that he was the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales for Jay Ward.  Guess I figured that anyone who would waste even a second on this website would already know the latter fact.  As for who he was, he was a distinguished thespian, and here's a link to a website with a good bio of the man.  And if you want to look him up in the highly-fallible Internet Movie Database — which you can do by clicking here — you'll see that he had a pretty impressive list of films to his credit when he passed away.  Since then, a number of voiceover artists have done subtle rip-offs of his voice and style.

By the way: Amid Amidi reminds me that there's actually a street named for Mr. Horton.  Somewhere out in Encino — and only a block or so long — lies Edward Everett Horton Lane.  You can see it on Mapquest by clicking here.  (And while you're surfing: Amid is the publisher-editor of the splendid publication, Animation Blast, which you can sample and order over at www.AnimationBlast.com.)

I ALSO MENTIONED that, with the announced closing of its Shubert Theatre in September of 2002, Los Angeles will really have a shortage of venues to house large theatrical productions, especially musicals.  As several e-mails reminded me, the muses have a way of balancing these things: We will soon have the Kodak Theatre, which is part of the huge complex currently being erected at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.  (They apparently said, "Hey, let's pick an intersection that's already impossible to get through and put a huge attraction there!")

The theatre is said to be adjustable and in one configuration will seat 2100 people, which is what the Shubert holds.  The Kodak can also, they say, be expanded to 3500 seats for special events, such as the Academy Awards.  (Construction is supposed to be completed in time to house a production of Nutcracker Suite in November but theatrical events are also anticipated.  The Oscars will be there in April of next year.)

Actually, there's another reason why we might not be seeing a lot of big theatre in Los Angeles in the future.  That reason is Las Vegas.  As more and more mega-resorts are being announced for Vegas, one hears more and more talk of trying to bring theatre — live and legit — to the town.

Broadway-style shows are not unknown in Nevada but, in the past, they've usually been lower-class touring companies and/or stripped-down "tab" versions.  They reduce the size of the cast, cut a few numbers and skip the intermission...all to get the budget down and to get patrons back out into the casino quicker.  That is changing.  The recent run of Chicago at Mandalay Bay was a star-cast clone of what was playing on Broadway, and Forever Plaid ran several years at the Flamingo Hilton without a moment cut.  As Vegas goes increasingly upscale, and with $100+ ticket prices becoming more common, it's only a matter of time before we see more of this.  Almost all the new, large hotels (and those being planned) have showrooms that could accommodate almost any show currently playing the Great White Way and most were built with something of the sort in mind.

The moguls who control Vegas all fantasize about it becoming the most important place in the world for every conceivable kind of entertainment.  A few harbor fantasies of making the town as important for theatre as New York, if not surpassing it.  In the past, this has been mostly talk but, one of these days, it won't be.  Some show is going to be a smash hit on Broadway and then, instead of announcing its next production for L.A., Chicago or London, they'll accept some mega-offer — as only Vegas can generate when it wants to — to assemble a company to play Sin City.  Right now, if Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (or even any other two big names) wanted to commit to a year of The Producers in another city, I'd bet some Vegas hotel could and maybe would offer twice as much as any other facility on this planet.

At the same time, we'll see a few hotels arranging deals to get shows heading for Broadway to try-out in Las Vegas.  The math makes too much sense for this not to happen and, in a way, it already has.  (A musical based on Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus recently shuttered, apparently unsuccessfully, at the Flamingo Hilton...and Jerry Herman is said to be writing his next show to debut in Vegas.)  At some point in the not-too-far-off future, this kind of thing will be made to work and, when it does, a lot of productions that might have played Los Angeles will instead detour to The Strip.  I predict.

THE LATE Bob Greenberg was a movie buff and wanna-be filmmaker, but he was also an expert cooker of barbecued ribs.  After a drunken moron took Bob's life in a car crash, his friend Bill Warren circulated an article that Bob had written about how he prepared ribs.  We have decided to add it to the repository of knowledge that is POVonline, so you can read Bob's thesis by clicking here.

I've also added another raccoon photo to My Backyard.

I'VE BEEN KINDA disappointed in myself for having any interest at all in the big Gary Condit brouhaha but I do, and I've recently decided why...

About Mr. Condit's sex life, I could care less and I wouldn't know Chandra Levy from Sandra Dee.  But I've grown increasingly disgusted with how this nation forms its opinions on public issues, and the role the media plays in that bizarre, tabloid ritual.  A large chunk of the U.S. has decided that Mr. Condit is a sleaze.  Some think he may be a murderer; others have decided he definitely is, and no further unfolding of facts is likely to convince them otherwise.  At the very least, they've decided, he lied to the Levy family about the affair and was not forthcoming to the police with information that might have helped locate the missing girl friend.

Now, some or all of the charges may be true.  And if it turns out he offed her, don't claim I ever thought he was innocent.  But given how many of the press reports have proven faulty, and how ambiguous or fourth-hand some of the "facts" are, I think it's too soon to be as sure as some people seem to be.  It's like: Condit comes across like a putz and he cheated on his wife...so any negative info about him must be true, no matter how flimsy its origin.  I'm also uncomfortable with how many of those denouncing Condit on TV seem to be saying, "Bill Clinton slipped away from us but this one won't!"  They seem to feel that proving you can drive someone from public life, without even waiting for a charge to be filed, is vital to some preservation of "values" in America.  I suspect that some of those demanding Condit's immediate resignation are, deep down, afraid that he future revelations might swing his way, so they have to get him out before that happens.

Here's a link to an article that Andrew Sullivan published in The New Republic.  Now, I rarely agree with much of what Mr. Sullivan has written and I think, in this piece, he goes too far in defending Condit and ignores a couple of key points.  But read it, not as a suggestion that Condit may be a total innocent, but as an argument that a lot of what's been said and printed about him is too shaky for anyone to have already handed down a final or near-final verdict...

...which, of course, doesn't mean that he didn't break some law.

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