Andy Gill was a British musician famous for his work with Gang of Four.
Compositions of note are “I Love A Man In A Uniform” (1982) featured on the compilation Various – 80’s Underground Clubbing and “Damaged Goods” (1978) featured on the compilation How to Kill the DJ part 2.
Needless to say, these compilations are more interesting than the full albums of Gang of Four.
Trivia: the opening sequence of the track “What We All Want” (1981) is reminiscent of “Play That Funky Music (1976).”
Yesterday, as I was reading up on the recently deceased Monique van Vooren, I searched for Fearless Frank (1967) on YouTube and stumbled upon Fearless Frank, or Tit-bits from the Life of an Adventurer (1978). This is a BBC television film directed by Colin Bucksey, an adaptation of Frank Harris’s autobiography My Life and Loves (1922-27) starring Leonard Rossiter as Frank.
There is an amusing scene at 56:29 at the Cafe Royal with Ernest Dowson, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Lord Alfred Douglas and Whistler which gives an idea of the boasting of Harris.
And at 35:20 one hears Carlyle say to Frank:
“I did not consummate my marriage Frank … my poor Jane died a virgin.”
A quick search finds that the phrase “Jane Welsh Carlyle died a virgin” is featured in David Markson’s ‘novel’ The Last Novel.
Part of the fun of the writings of Frank Harris is not only the sex bits, but the self-aggrandizing demeanor of Frank.
This is a very enjoyable play, I imagine it to be the best quick introduction to the person and writings of Frank Harris.
Monique van Vooren was a Belgian-born American actress and dancer, perhaps best-known for her part in Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973), also known as Flesh for Frankenstein.
In that film she is baroness Frankenstein, wife and sister of baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier). The film’s pretty awful but the gore is marked by high production values and it features Van Vooren nude in a duo with Joe Dallesandro with some ridiculously loud armpit slurping.
The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing ‘The French Connection’ (2000)
Sonny Grosso was a New York City police detective turned movie and television producer, noted for his role in the “French Connection” heroin bust immortalized in the The French Connection (1971), directed by William Friedkin.
The BBC documentary The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing ‘The French Connection’ (2000) [above] features him extensively.
After being an adviser on The French Connection, Grosso went on to play a part in the film Cruising (1980), also directed by William Friedkin.
This film is also the subject of a documentary (above).
John Karlen was an American actor. Outside of the United States, he was primarily known for his lead in the Belgian film Daughters of Darkness (1971), a lesbian vampire exploitation chic vehicle.
Jimmy Heath was an American jazz saxophonist, part of the Heath Brothers.
Like most Gen X melomaniacs who grew up with vinyl but switched to CDs (the musical fraud of the century), I discovered Mr. Heath on the Soul Jazz Love Strata-East (1994) compilation.
On that album is “Smiling Billy Suite Pt.II” (1975) from the album Marchin’ On (1975) by the Heath Brothers.
Here is that whole album:
Joe Shishido was a Japanese actor known for his eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He also played in Japanese exploitation exercises such as Gate of Flesh (1964).
The clip above is a tribute to Joe Shishido, a montage of clips from A Colt Is My Passport (1967). It is, as is usual with this kind of endeavors, more interesting than the product it is based upon.
Adolfo Natalini was an Italian architect, known for his involvement in the radical architecture collective Superstudio.
Here is the short film Supersurface: an Alternative Model for Life on the Earth (1972), Superstudio’s contribution to the MoMA exhibition: Italy. The New Domestic Landscape.
At the same time as reporting Natalini’s death, we need to report the death of co-founder Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (1941 – 2019) who apparently died over the summer.
Terry Jones will be best-remembered for playing Maria in Life of Brian (1979) in which she proclaims indignantly that her son is “not the messiah, but a very naughty boy.”
Every death being an encounter, I was surprised to learn that Jones was also a popular historian.
In ‘The Knight’ episode of Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives (2004) Jones explains how the English word knight stems from the Germanic word knecht, two words which have since then have become to denote opposite things. In Dutch, the ‘knecht’ (also the name for a farmhand now) is the one who helps the knight, a page boy really.
Steve Martin Caro was an American rock musician best known for his rendition of the songs “Walk Away Renée” (1966) and “Pretty Ballerina” (1966) for the 1960s baroque pop band The Left Banke.