I am just finding out that actor Adrian Schiller has suddenly passed away at the age of 60.
I will never forget his portrayal of Reverend John Hale in the 2014 stage production of The Crucible at The Old Vic. He was so very good in it. That whole production, Adrian included, blew me away and made me start following him on social media.
My heart goes out to his family and especially his young son. May his memory be a blessing.
Some years ago, I posted about a signed Gregory Peck photo that I had lost …
I had once written him [Gregory Peck] a fan letter (the one and only one I have ever written) and requested an autograph from him. I never heard back, gave up on it, until two or so years later I finally received a response! I got an autographed picture, along with a note of apology. Apparently a bag of fan mail had been misplaced, which is why it had taken so long for me to get a response!
With all the clearing out and packing up we are doing in our house, Mr E found a little plastic brown box filled with old letters and in that box, look what I found: my signed Gregory Peck card!
Alas the letter that came with it was not in that box. The card is a picture of a signed card but it truly came from Peck’s office and I’m really stoked to have found it! I still hope to find the note that came with it so that I can put it all in a frame together. For now, I will cherish this little find.
My mother’s house is almost empty now and we needed to store some things in my aunt’s storage in her apartment building. In order to do that, some other things needs to be cleared from my aunt’s storage and there we found a box of old pictures. The most fun find were childhood pictures of my mother, most of which I had never seen before. My mother was the oldest of 3 siblings, followed by her sister who has only 13 months younger and a baby brother. Look at some gorgeous examples here (click on images to enlarge):
The first picture is the only baby picture I have ever seen of her. It must be her, her name is written on the back, albeit in the endearment form of Elly. In the picture beneath the baby picture it looks like my mother (on the right) is sporting a Princess Leia hairstyle with hair buns on each side of her head. I like seeing the picture of the three kids with their father (who died before my parents were even engaged). In the picture beside that with the women, the woman standing beside my mother is my grandmother. I don’t know who the lady is who is threading her arm through my mother’s in the other picture, I’ll have to ask my aunt about it.
I’m glad that all this clearing out and packing up has also lead to finding these little treasures.
Despite grief, existential angst, exhaustion and feeling low I do try to find the little highlights in a day. I have been following Richard E. Grant on social media for some years now and he wrote a book called A Pocketful of Happiness, remembering his late wife and on trying to find these happy moments in each day while also grieving his beloved Joan. I have yet to read the book but last year I did see a talk he gave on his book and his memories.
Anyway, I do love that expression, “a pocketful of happiness”. It feels attainable and, despite not being able to focus on anything much today, I have had those moments too and try to be conscious of them as well.
There is the dinner that Mr E made for us (mini me is out for dinner today), which also included a glass of wine…
Mr E is the best life partner ever, especially considering that he also bought me some chocolate! 😉
There is also the enjoyment of the Richard Armitage e-mail message that graced my inbox yesterday and that I read today…
I assume all Richard fans are subscribed to his newsletter but in case not, here is the PDF print of that e-mail. He touched on his own grief for his father, which of course made me feel extra connected, but the greatest pocketful of happiness in that message is that there may be a return to the West End stage for him!
I love love love seeing Richard on stage, so keeping everything crossed that this will indeed be happening!
Other little pocketfuls of happiness: my cat snuggled up against me on the couch this evening as I type this and looking at my bare feet this evening and feeling so grateful that mama herself got to see the ultimate fangirling for her art: the tattoo I got on my foot two years ago of the tree of life she once painted for Mr E and myself.
Maybe that’s how you find true meaning in life – through pocketfuls of happiness.
This week’s meet cute Monday is dedicated to Jean Simmons and Paul Newman in the 1957 film Until They Sail. I came across this film during the first Covid lockdown in April of 2020 and fell in love with it.
Until They Sail is about four sisters in New Zealand during the Second World War and the relationships they have with Americans stationed there. The Leslie sisters, i.e. Barbara (Jean Simmons), Anne (Joan Fontaine), Delia (Piper Laurie) and Evelyn (Sandra Dee), each handle the same situation very differently.
Barbara, whose husband is fighting overseas, is dragged by her sister Delia to meet the cynical American Major Jack Harding (Paul Newman)…
After their initial meeting it is unlikely they will ever meet again and yet they do, a long while later after Barbara is widowed, and a friendship ensues.
Simmons and Newman have such great chemistry in this, from that very first scene together onwards, and I keep going back to their joint scenes over and over again. It was a pleasure doing so again for this post.
This week it’s Danny Kaye’s turn to feature in a meet cute Monday. I have only ever seen a handful of Danny Kaye movies but there was always such a joy and warmth to him that I always loved him. I think my first memory of seeing Danny Kaye is from the early 1980’s when he directed the New York Philharmonic, despite him reportedly not being able to read music (I believe it was for Unicef, correct me if I’m wrong as I don’t really have time to research this now). My parents loved this and so did we kids. We must have watched this at every repeat on TV at the time.
Anyway, one of the Danny Kaye films that really touched me was his 1959 film The Five Pennies, about jazz cornet player and bandleader Loring “Red” Nichols. The movie follows Red through his career as a great jazz musician who gives up music for his family as his daughter faces medical challenges. In this clip he meets singer Willa Stutsman, a.k.a. “Bobbie Meredith” (Barbara Bel Geddes, later well known as Miss Ellie from the TV series Dallas).
Those two really play such a beautifully loving couple and parents to their daughter Dorothy (Susan Gordon as little Dorothy and Tuesday Weld as the teenage Dorothy). Danny Kaye is always so good with kids too.
Kaye also plays with Louis Armstrong in this, and those scenes are just magic. Here’s one, where he even imitates Satchmo’s singing style at one point…
This movie is well worth a watch, should you ever come across it.
The Book of Esther 