Before I sat down to write this story, I called my 28 year-old son Charlie in LA, film grad, aspiring screenwriter, and standup comic.
“Not to put you on the spot,” I said, “or to, God forbid, make you feel ignorant, but do you know who James Cagney was?”
“I’ve . . . heard of him,” he said doubtfully, then he added, “Don’t think I could pick him out of a lineup.”
That happened to be an unintentional pun since James Cagney (1899-1986) was known for being a gangster. A movie gangster, that is. The Irish lad from the mean streets of Yorkville in New York grew up to be a three-time Academy Award nominee, and winner of the 1942 Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy (I’ll bet you Charlie’s never heard of that picture either; excuse me, Boston University College of Communications, could you have ponied up for one lousy movie classics course?).
What Jimmy Cagney’s mostly famous for on Martha’s Vineyard is for being famous on Martha’s Vineyard, and living in his 1728 farmhouse off Tea Lane in Chilmark without cadres of paparazzi camped out in his yard; the yard, in fact, that wrapped around the chicken coops.
Can we even imagine this scenario today – an actor of Cagney’s magnitude, and this would be a George Clooney or a Brad Pitt -- buying land up island, without shutterbugs planted in surrounding woods, draped with telephoto lenses longer than Casey’s bat, with an occasional drone swooping low with heat-seeking video cams?
On Cagney’s first visit to the Island in 1936, he really did need to get seriously lost, to truly disappear. He had staged his own private actor’s strike against Warner Brothers over a classic wage dispute: A Cagney picture enriched the studio with millions of dollars, while the studio doled out to Cagney, and indeed to all its top money-makers, a few thousand a pop.
Until the dust had settled, and the lawyers had their day in court, Cagney preferred to play hooky. Major hooky.
Where better to achieve this than off this dirt road, then this smaller dirt road, then this mere donkey trail in the wilds of Chilmark? While there, he fell in love with an antique, admittedly dumpy farmhouse on a hundred acres. When his wife, Willie (Frances Willard Vernon), a diminutive chorus girl, saw the place (after James had plunked down the full $7,500 for it), she too found it beyond dumpy, actually at first, depressingly dumpy. But she soon fell under that old black magic of the Vineyard spell, just as Jimmy had.
An initial bit of movie star nonsense occurred.
Nothing like today, not with the National Inquirer shelling out forty thousand dollars for a photo of Katie Holmes leaving the gym. But one morning, in the summer of ’36, when Mrs. Cagney was alone at home, some kind of misguided gaggle of fans knocked on the door demanding to see the star of black-and-white movies himself in living color.
Mrs. Cagney pretended to be the cook and shooed the folks away, but later when her husband learned about the episode, he went as ballistic as he ever had in Little Caesar or Public Enemy. He spread the word that trespassers would be shot. He’d played enough gunnies for people to find this threat wholly believable. One taxi driver, in fact, refused to convey his customer up the winding Cagney driveway. Spenser Tracy had to shuffle along the dusty road on foot to the front door.
No one shot him.
Hang on a sec: I need to call Charlie and see if he’s ever heard of Spenser Tracy. My call went straight to voice mail. Guess he’s avoiding me: Wonder why?
Funnily enough, it took some time in the late 1930s for Chilmarkers to warm to Mr. Cagney. This was long ago when your neighbor was not some random billionaire, but instead an actual sheep farmer or fisherman whose single trip off island had consisted of a weekend in New Bedford when he and the little woman had scraped together enough money. And they hadn’t truly enjoyed themselves, thank you very much.
To these islanders, a movie star dropped in their midst was about as welcome as a spaceship. Still, these crusty Chilmarkers eventually took a shine to the actor, known far and wide to be genuinely nice and quietly, unpretentiously charming. “I’m not a movie star, I’m a hoofer,” he liked to tell folks.
Oh, and this will kill you! It killed me when I read it! Back in the 1930s and 1940s, James Cagney paid $39 a year in property taxes for his hundred acres in Chilmark! Is it possible to die of a case of Vintage Prices Envy? There must be just such a psychological disorder written up in the DSM, because I myself am feeling it acutely at this very moment! Thirty-freaking-nine dollars! The movie star thought that if the bottom fell out of his high octane Hollywood career, he could always come and manage his horses and vegetables on his Chilmark patch of ground. He confided to friends that he would actually prefer to do that, but show biz never obliged him: He enjoyed a last big bang-up role in Milos Forman’s 1980 movie, Ragtime.
So the story goes that James Cagney sold his Island farm a few years before his death because he was demoralized by the paving of the streets. Please. Dirt Roads R Us in Chilmark, and the Cagney property, now whittled down to a mere 69 acres, is still picturesque, albeit much less of the shambles that had first dismayed Cagney’s bride.
But this amazing actor and hoofer set the tone for a Very Vineyard way of being famous here, which today’s TV stars, and rappers, and sitting presidents have more or less adopted, most of them trying to find ways to be barefoot, and fancy-free, and even, at times, invisible.
And now I have a bone to pick with my son who presumably doesn’t know Barbara Stanwyck from Bette Davis! I intend to call him up, and put this question to him: How will he feel when, in forty or fifty years, he asks a young person if he has ever heard of Tupac Shakur?
I’m thinking the guy will mumble, “I’ve, um, heard of him, vaguely. Wasn’t he . . . someone in some . . . business?”
Bloodyrue Andrue
6:00 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
I remember seeing James Cagney at the Homeport one time when I was a kid. I also was sitting in my mom's car in front of Vineyard Drygoods when Ruth Gordon strolled by. Two giggly young women were pestering her to verify she was Ruth Gordon. I was thinking "how rude."
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
7:17 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
"Let's say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could." Now I have to watch "Angels with Dirty Faces."
Jason Peringer
7:39 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
If you are speaking of the "horse farm" property, it is actually directly across from Tea Lane, off North Road. I was in the house several years ago and it was adorable; personal family photos of the Cagney family covered the walls. No McMansions there!
Holly Nadler
8:21 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
Yeah, Jason, by all accounts, although Cagney bought a lot of properties, including one on Lake Tashmoo, another on South Water Street, and many in other parts of the country, he liked his roooms small and cozy and charming.
William Waterway
7:08 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Yes, Holly - what you say is correct. When I visited Jimmy and Billy Cagney at their horse farm in New York State, their house was small, as were the rooms. In their kitchen was a soapstone sink they relocated from their Martha's Vineyard home in Chilmark.
Michael West
8:46 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
To be fair to Charlie, we are talking ancient Hollywood history with Cagney. The only scene of his I remember was the horrifying scene in Public Enemy when, as the gangster Tom Powers, he shoved half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face at the breakfast table because she didn't have any booze for breakfast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmZfJuS4sVc
I saw that classic clip dozens of times over the years in various retrospectives, but I never saw a Cagney movie. He was more my father's generation (and I'm 64).
Wonderful reminiscence, Holly. It was great to get to know the human side of Cagney, since I only saw the monster he played in Public Enemy...
William Waterway
7:05 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
I personally knew Jimmy Cagney, and spent time with him on his Morgan horse farm in New York State. The scene that you refer to, Michael, was not scripted. Cagney and Mae Clarke often argued on the set while acting in Public Enemy. Jimmy and Mae were having a real argument when Jimmy grabbed a grapefruit and shoved it in Mae's ear. This was after many takes of the same scene - and Cagney was truly angry with Mae. The camera's just happened to be rolling when Cagney lost his temper, grabbed the grapefruit, and let Mae have it.
Martha Magee
11:07 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Cagney is a classic.
A classic is timeless, immortal, lasting, ageless. Never goes out of fashion.
( I bet his angel ears are burning with all these accolades..;-))
Carolyn O'Daly
10:11 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
Mr. Cagney also had a home in Pauling, New York (ever hear of it?) It would seem he had a gene or two of hermit. As far as vintage movies taught in film school...seems to me some of them must because most movies these days are downright derivative...nothing new under the sun, Holly.
Martha Magee
5:55 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Cagney and his wife ( who he called Bill ) lived on a farm in Stanfordville, NY in beautiful Dutchess County a few miles from Millbrook, where I lived from 1970-73. My good friend Dr Charles "The Good Doctor" Hoyt played a party at Cagneys house once with his jazz band. Cagney was " a true gentleman".
John H Bunker Sr.
11:31 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
To set the record straight, James Cagney's charming home was off North road, but not across from or near Tea Lane. The home was across from Tabor House Rd. I know, I had the pleasure of delivering Mr. Cagney's "Pistol permit" to him. Another time I found his lost dog and he went out of his way to thank me. Another little known fact is that he had a stairway to nowhere in his barn, he had it built to practice tap dancing up and down stairs..wonderful, friendly man.
Cynthia Mascott
12:28 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
I think celebrities know when to be lost and when to be found then and now. He sounded like he was the kind of discrete. But that comes with his gangster roots as well.
William Waterway
10:20 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Jimmy was never a "gangster." However, he and his older brother were part of an Irish gang in the Lower East Side of Manahattan. Even though Jimmy was sickly as a child, he learned to be a street fighter to survive the gangs in his neighborhood. Once while having dinner with Jimmy and his wife, Billy, he proudly showed me his hands with all the scars from his street fights. Cagney said, "My brother and I were the two toughest street fighters in our neighborhood. Nobody messed with the Cagney brothers." On a gangster reality note: Cagney didn't like the way the movie industry treated actors, who had no rights. So, Cagney started the an actors union, which evolved into today's Screen Actors Guild (SAG.) One of the movie industry moguls didn't like the problems Cagney's actors union created, so, he put out a mob hit on Cagney. The hit man was supposed to make it look like an accident by dropping a big stage spotlight on top of Cagney. However, another movie industry mogul, with whom Cagney was friends, heard of the hit and used his own mob connections to intervene.
Ellen OBrien
12:30 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Denys Wortman captained Cagney's sail boat and has great stories about him avoiding the likes of Frank Sinatra in the harbor.
Holly Nadler
12:36 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Ellen, thanks for the reminder! Apparently Sinatra was looking high and low, with maximum publicity, for Cagney, and Cagney told Denys W. Jr. to sail anywhere where Frank was not.
Jean McCarthy
12:56 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of George M. Cohan, is a true classic! Look for the tap dancing down the staircase in this film. You can probably skip asking your son if he knows Cohan!
Holly Nadler
4:58 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
I'm wondering if the younger generation even knows that Sean Connery was the original James Bond?
Martha Magee
5:40 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
I LOVE James Cagney. He's tops in my book. A complete original. Havemseenall his movies many times over. My two standouts - "Angels with Dirty Faces" and " Yankee Doodle Dandy".
I attended Mr Cagney's funeral in the old neighborhood, where I also grew up. It was characteristically low key. No big fanfare. Humble. Genuine. Like the man himself.
Cagney had something that is a rare quality in our crazy internet speed world. Its called Character, with a capital "C".
I shudder to think there are people who have never heard of him.
They don't know what they're missing!
I love the visual of Spencer Tracy himself trudging down that dirt road.
Thanks, Mr Cagney.
You're a Grand Old Flag.
Long May You Wave!
William Waterway
10:22 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
On that note, Martha - in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Jimmy Cagney as eighth among its 50 Greatest American Screen Legends.
Michael West
5:48 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Margaret, Isn't it wonderful how songs live on. I think even more so than movies and movie stars, songs have legs to carry them along..."I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair..." "Oh Susannah" "I've been Workin on the Railroad" all date to the nineteenth century and all are widely known today. How many movies of the thirties and forties can we say that about?
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
5:58 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Of course, you are right! It is unfair to compare songs to movies!
Martha Magee
6:18 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Answer: PLENTY!!
Answer: PLENTY!
The Wizard of Oz
Gone with the Wind
Meet Me In St Louis
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
King Kong
Captains Courageous
Holiday
Duck Soup
Of Mice and Men
Bringing up Baby
Hunchback of Notre Dame
42nd Street
Top Hat
The Great Ziegfeld
The Invisible Man
A Star is Born
and Snow,Whaite and the Seven Dwarves, for starters!
William Waterway
10:24 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Yeah, I how what you mean - how about that song, "Occupied" by Michael West - that's a keeper.
Martha Magee
6:27 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
That's Snow "White".......danged IPAD !
Martha Magee
7:56 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
1940's:
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Casablanca
Best Years of our Lives
Adams Rib
And many other classics!
(The Golden Age of Hollywood)
I mean,,Come ON!!
Holly Nadler
8:17 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Old movies are fine but styles change so much, we need to be free to admit that some of them annoy us. For instance, I watch old Katherine Hepburn flicks and, as much as I love the IDEA of her, her acting method seems to be: Lean close to that leading man, and keep drilling him with bickering questions. Must be how high-born Yankee women used to flirt.
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
9:13 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Holly! You've taken the gloves off to insult Kate! The Philadelphia Story! Adam and Eve! I would give anything to see modern day movies driven by character and snappy dialogue; rather than pendulous breasts and cars being blown up! Also, I am exhausted from suspending disbelief that a 20 year old woman would really be romantically captivated by a 60 year old man. Come on! Plus, the characters are simply dull and boring. At least Kate and Spencer could hold one's attention without hopping into bed for what is now the obligatory sex scene. Give me a Yankee woman flirting any day, even if she has half the wit of Kate, she would be twice as entertaining as what is served up as romantic comedy in the 21stcentury.
William Waterway
10:28 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Holly, were you here when Audrey Hepburn gave a solos one act performance at the Vineyard Play House in the 1980s? Audrey was dying of cancer at the time. One line she spoke touched me deeply, "Money! You struggle all your life to have money! You work long hours, you scrimp and save and do your best to survive. But, in the end, all you can do is think about giving it away."
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
9:19 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
* Adam's Rib
Martha Magee
1:32 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
You GO, Margaret!
Holly Nadler
11:03 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Margaret, I know it was adversarial of me to broach this Kate issue at all, but next time you see a clip of Kate & Spenser Tracy or whomever, you might wonder why she's hectoring that poor guy! I've known some older Yankee women like that . . . on the other hand, I can't agree with you more that snappy dialogue is the best!
Martha Magee
3:43 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Spencer!
Martha Magee
12:29 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Katharine Hepburn was a Hollywood icon. As an actress of the Star System she was in a class by herself.
Rooted strongly within her own being, Kate was an independent force of nature. Not only are her films with Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant (Holiday is my all time favorite) some of the most delightful ever to light up the silver screen, but because of her fierce will and character, she managed to circumvent being destroyed by the system (read Judy Garland) or a slave to it like so many others.
Kate strutted her stuff magnificently. I think the characters she portrayed were a great boon to the self esteem of women. She wore trousers when nobody did and she lived life on her own terms, both personally and professionally. As far as her acting style goes, how refreshing she must have appeared standing up to a man to generations of women still playing the subservient wife, secretary, mother.
In this way Kate was clearly an early feminist and a great role model for women.
She could fall in love spectacularly and surrender to a man without losing her independence.
I met her once back in the 80's when she was starring in " A Matter of Gravity" on Broadway with a young Christopher Reeve. She was completely herself.
I think my favorite thing about Katharine Hepburn is that she liked to swim year round in the Connecticut Sound in front of her house in Old Saybrook.
She was a bit of a kook..and I LIKE that in a person!
Like Jimmy Cagney, Katharine Hepburn is a true original.
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
2:32 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
I just hope that Lillian Hellman and Katharine Cornell are still held sacred on the Vineyard! Oh, and I agree with Martha!
Martha Magee
3:44 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Who are Lillian Hellman and Katherine Cornell?
hee hee
Trina Mascott
1:14 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Waitaminute! You are all implying that actors make up the words they are saying. It's the WRITERS who put those words into their mouths. In the 11930's we kids saw every movie made, thanks to double features. Cagney wasn't my favorite, but I never missed any of his films.
Martha Magee
1:29 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Good point, ( Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin were geniuses on "Adam's Rib" and "Pat and Mike") but that's irrelevant to the topic.
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
2:35 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
How did I ever forget African Queen and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Maybe these [leading] men needed to be peppered with questions?
Bloodyrue Andrue
6:37 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
African Queen, one of my most favorite movies. I wonder if they left that boat rotting on some side beach like Jaws left one of the Orcas over on the Lobsterville side for years. Film companies are just wasteful to their on locations.
Martha Magee
10:42 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Poor Charlie Allnut didn't know what hit him!
Martha Magee
3:05 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Quite often the writers scripted the story line and character as a vehicle for a specific actor in order to showcase that actor's talents. I imagine this was much the case with Hepburn and Tracy, among others. Songwriters also did this.
Martha Magee
3:28 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
And let's not forget these other classic greats from the 1940's:
It's Wonderful Life
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
The Grapes of Wrath
Miracle on 34th Street
Pinocchio
Dumbo
Bambi
Fantasia
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Mrs Miniver
The Maltese Falcon
Notorious
Brief Encounter
The Great Dictator
Hamlet
to name just a few!
Bloodyrue Andrue
6:42 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
"The-Time-of-Their-Lives" - Abbott and Costello
Martha Magee
3:41 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Well, Holly - thanks for the swell article about Cagney. It has certainly made for a lively discussion!
One thing to make note of:
Miss Hepburn spelled her name Katharine, with an "a" and she made no bones about correcting you if you got it wrong.
So here's to you, Kate!
Mathea Morais
6:41 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Bloodyrue Andrue, I was just telling Margaret that African Queen is one of my favorite movies. She said I restored her faith in "the younger generation!"
Bloodyrue Andrue
6:43 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Katherine Cornell is focused on every time I video a Tisbury Selectman Meeting. I use the wall just above her bust to white balance the camera.
Martha Magee
8:16 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
"The Time of Their Lives" - Abbott and Costello - OH my God.
I LOVE that movie!
.................." MELLLLLODEEEEEEEEEEE.............."
Wow! Thanks for that!
Holly Nadler
9:10 pm on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
A'ight, guys, but if I had to pick one Hepburn, it would be Audrey!
Michael West
7:48 am on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Martha, I will give you Citizen Kane (maybe) and Casablanca (definitely), but that's it. Nobody gives a hoot about all those other classics.
gg
6:09 pm on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
I see James Cagney and Ingrid Bergman everytime I go on "The Great Movie Ride" at Disneyworld. I love it, especially Casablanca. My father is buried there. He was pilot, shot down in WWII, before I was born. A HERO.
Martha Magee
6:59 pm on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Wow, gg.. That's amazing!
My uncle's spitfire went down in WWII also over England when he was only 19.
My heart goes out to you losing your father before you were born. How beautiful that he died a HERO.
Martha Magee
6:43 pm on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
A classic is a classic.
"Nobody gives a hoot about":
It's a Wonderful Life?
Miracle on 34th Street?
The Wizard of Oz?
Gone with the Wind?
Yankee Doodle Dandy?
Tracy and Hepburn?
Cary Grant?
What planet do you live on?
Unless you've recently been elected the official spokesman for all the citizens of Earth, I would stick to saying how you feel about things rather than speaking for everyone else.
Mathea Morais
8:53 pm on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
I'm going to have to weigh in with Martha here. My three year old (and 10 year old and 13 year old) knows all the words to Wizard of Oz!
Holly Nadler
8:15 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
You know what this back-and-forth reminds me of? The time on Sex And The City when Carrie admits to this cute new guy she's dating that she doesn't like jazz. Jazz, old movies . . . we may actually love them, and it's also hip to love them, but make way for people who are honest enough to admit they personally happen to be not so delighted.
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
10:52 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Holly, you are an agent provocateur! What about old radio? Do you like Jack Benny and Fred Allen?
Martha Magee
9:44 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
I agree with you Holly.
And I LOVE Sex and The City! Have just been doing a marathon. (It helps me..;-))
I remember that episode. Totally great. When Carrie admitted she didn't like jazz, I found it liberating. But she was speaking for herself, not everybody else.
This is the planet of free will.
Everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and feelings and I celebrate that.
I draw the line when someone tries to throw the baby out with the bathwater (in this case, Michael) with a global statement about how "nobody cares about that" etc. I found it shaming at worst, short sighted at best.
Life is an abundant smorgasbord. There's enough wonderfulness that we can each pick what we like. You know, you go through the line. I like rice pudding, I take the rice pudding, somebody else doesn't. They go for the chocolate pudding. If I don't like chocolate pudding, what would happen if I said, " Why is this chocolate pudding even here?? I hate chocolate pudding...it's old fashioned...nobody else likes it either...."
Do you see?
Daring to knock an icon takes guts, I'll grant you that. And your personal opinion is of course valid because it's how you feel. You weren't speaking for anybody else.
But be prepared for those of us who love her to rush to her defense!
Same goes for classic movies.
The good news is a classic is a classic because it's earned that status by its own earned merit. And like it or not, that is unassailable.
Martha Magee
10:29 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Hey William,
I remember when he received the AFI Life Achievment Award in 1974:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXxZCrM04uI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
How remarkable you got to spend time with him!
Did you arrive on horseback?
xoxo
Michael West
3:08 pm on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Ok, Gone with the Wind? When was the last time you rented that? I do agree about the Wizard, tho, and you do realize I am being a little bit teasing about all of this...?
Martha Magee
3:39 pm on Thursday, August 23, 2012
I'm all for teasing..as long as no one gets hurt.
"Gone with the Wind", also directed by the great Victor Fleming ("The Wizard of Oz, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Captain's Courageous") won 8 Oscars and is considered to be the most enduring well loved historical epic film of all time.
And believe it or not, I just watched it a few months ago, along with a friend (in his 50's) who had never seen it!
So, put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Holly Nadler
8:20 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
Okay, have we all said our piece? Can I put up the chairs on the tables and turn off the lights?
Margaret Carroll-Bergman
8:30 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
No!
Michael West
8:40 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
Martha is right about the venerable (not to say over-the-hill) movie classic GWTW. In face according to this website, GWTW is the 3rd most watched movie on the planet. Which planet he doesn't say.
http://www.squidoo.com/mostwatchedmovies
William Waterway
8:40 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
Hey - that fat lady has yet to sing.
Martha Magee
11:10 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
That's right...Look....here she comes now!
Martha Magee
11:25 am on Friday, August 24, 2012
Well, Michael, I give you credit for coming around.
Truth be told, "Gone with the Wind" is not my cup of tea. But it is what it is.
I don't dare reveal here what my favorite movie of all time is, because for me it is sacred ground.
My element is music. To me movies are magical. And I love magic, from any era, from any genre, that takes me out of time and into possibility. I love creation that inspires, and uplifts. Like music, movies move me! I am an appreciator of greatness in any form.