Elvis and Ginger: An extraordinary life behind Graceland

The New York Daily News has revealed in an article that Ginger, Elvis’ last lover before his death in 1977, will release a memoir on her extraordinary life with the King and how he spent his time behind the public’s eye in his beloved Graceland.

In the tell-all book, “Elvis & Ginger: Elvis Presley’s Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story”, recollections of a poignant side of Elvis are revealed as well as a man who cherished spoiling her with extravagant jewelry and outrages gifts.

‘Elvis & Ginger’ goes on sale September 2. Source: NYDailyNews

As the sister of Miss Tennessee, Terry Alden, Ginger recalls the day Elvis rang her family home to invite her and her two sisters to Graceland. However in the presence of public beauty, Elvis was completely taken by none other than Ginger. And so a famous romance would begin.

In the memoir, due to release September 2, Ginger recalls life with Elvis behind the stage as one spent strictly in the Vegas suite and the showroom. Similar rules applied at Graceland where he would spend countless days upstairs in his bedroom lounging in pajamas, rarely ever lavishly dressed. On the odd occasion however when he really needed to leave the house, he would throw on a jumpsuit over his pajamas with a belt that would accommodate his gun.

Among many of his firearm collections, magnums drew a liking to the King. Revealing a side that was engulfed in temper, one night when Elvis requested some yoghurt that was not immediately attended to, he fired his pistol over the headboard and explained, “It was an attention-getter.”

Guns and the King were a terrifying mix. Ginger even admitted that he once shot the television several times simply because he didn’t like the program.

But throughout the saga of his extravagantly spent life, the moment that secured his immortality was the day he died. She recollects what she discovered that afternoon in the bathroom.

“Elvis looked as if his entire body had completely frozen in a seated position while using the commode and then had fallen forward, in that fixed position directly in front of it.

“His legs were bent, the upper part of his chest and shoulders touched the ground, and his head was slightly turned to the left.”

As a victim of cardiac arrhythmia, Elvis was pronounced dead on August 16, 1977 at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis.

Elvis would spoil Ginger with lavish gifts like mink coats. Source: BOBKLEINMEDIA.COM

The memoir ‘Elvis & Ginger’ by Ginger Alden is set for release September 2.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s life in watercolour: The Pilot and The Little Prince

Religiously read by James Dean and renowned as one of the greatest pieces of literacy is finally being illustrated through the eyes of its author (so to speak).

Children’s book illustrator and writer, Peter Sis, best known for his works on Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin, is now focusing his tools on another man of great adventure, french writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The last page of The Pilot and The Little Prince shows the star, the planet where Little Prince may live – watercolour illustrations by Peter Sis source: npr.org

After he disappeared during a reconnaissance mission, as a pioneering aviator who wrote several adult novels on flight, it was not this which made Saint-Exupéry immortal, it was The Little Prince.

In The Pilot and the Little Prince Peter Sis perfectly represents Saint-Exupéry life through his magically illustrated watercolours. In an interview with NPR’s Melissa Block he recalls the first time his father gave him The Little Prince as a young boy in Czechoslovakia. “I was very impressed. I thought, it’s a beautiful book which is about how beautiful life will be.”

In the interview with NPR, Sis also talks of Saint-Exupéry’s early life as a child with a passions to fly,

“There is a story that he was so obsessed with flying that he put these wicker rods with sheaths on his bicycle and was trying to fly — that he asked the local carpenter to build him like, a ramp. … And nobody says how badly he crashed, they just say he didn’t take off.”

Sis also reveals the passion Saint-Exupéry had for literacy was so intense that even while he was flying he would continuously read and write as much as he can,

“This is amazing, because he was continuing doing that even when the airplanes were getting more sophisticated. So he was amazingly obsessed with his writing and reading, which I think was easy, early when the planes were flying very slowly, and then it got more difficult towards the war.”

A story with hidden messages throughout its entirety, Peter Sis says The Little Prince has evolved as he has grown,

“[As a child] I read it as something which is about a beautiful place I can go, about a world which I might discover, about things which are impossible, and I might be able to accomplish them. It was this book full of promise. And then, just in the time when I came to America and I was asked to go back, or should I stay, I read The Little Prince again, and I realized it’s a book about courage, because the pilot’s surviving in the desert, so it gave me lots of hope.”

The cover of The Pilot and the Little Prince by Peter Sis

 The Pilot and the Little Prince is available for purchase at Amazon.com

 

 

Marilyn Monroe’s Some like It Hot set for Cinema Re Release

Classic ’50’s comedy, Some Like It Hot, directed by Billy Wilder, is hitting cinemas July 15 for an exclusive theatrical re release. Empireonline.com has an exclusive preview of the fresh poster released for the comedy they claim to be pretty close to perfect.

 

Official theatrical poster for Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot|credit: empire online.com

 

Marylin Monroe stars alongside Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the film that oozes comedy, demands romance, and contains a heartwarming level of bromance. It follows the journey of two jazz singers Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) who give their best effort to escape the clutches of the mafia. The journey takes them to Florida where they meet Marylin Monroe’s stunningly beautiful character Sugar ‘Kane’ Kowalczyk. Sugar is a singer whom Joel’s character falls helplessly in love with. The twist in the story however, is that Joe and Jerry are passing as Josephine and Daphne, two female musicians who join an all girls choir.

Empireonline.com has released the official trailer in anticipation of  the re release. Click on the link and check it out below.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=41180

 

Why Jimmy Fallon is bringing the magic back to The Tonight Show

Credit: NBC

 

Since Johnny Carson’s retirement from the talk show he slayed for almost 3 decades no other host has quite kept his magic alive since. Sure there were the Jay’s and the Dave’s and even briefly the Conan’s, but none of them ever performed the way Johnny did, that’s until now.

Jimmy Fallon is still the new kid on the block but his ratings are killing! They’re so good that in his premiere week of The Tonight Show he managed to rack similar ratings than when Johnny finally decided to sign off in 1992! The week that was drew an audience of 10.42 million, one of NBC’s largest viewership. That’s the biggest audience The Tonight Show has seen in almost 50 years. But what’s causing Jimmy this fierce number of followers? Well, here’s a list of reasons why Jimmy Fallon is bringing it all back!

Timberweek 

Although this occurred when Jimmy was hosting Late Night, it’s still a valid reason why we love him. The week that was filled with snippets of segments Jimmy did with his ‘best friend’ Justin Timberlake drew a large amount of media attention. The duo also managed to make a mark on YouTube that week when their History of Rap went viral. Jimmy managed to make a further second and third version whenever Justin appeared as a guess on the show.

Celeb games/Segments 

Who else could get David Beckham to smash a raw egg on his head for fun? or get Channing Tatum to dress up and act like a fourteen year old teenage girl? or make Kevin Spacey sing Talk Dirty by Jason Derulo? Well, Jimmy Fallon could. His various skits have made his show what it is, and his YouTube channel with all the recorded fun has over 3 million subscribers!

LIP SYNC BATTLE 

I don’t know about you but the lip sync battle with Paul Rudd seriously gets me every time. Jimmy invites celebs (who are game enough) to compete with him in a series of songs that they must lip sync to. Last month when Emma Stone was on the show she proved she is a woman with many talents and destroyed Jimmy at his own game. The video soon after went viral on YouTube and now has over 20 million views.

His dance moves

To be a good host you have to be willing to make a fool of yourself. Just as Johnny Carson used to do by dressing up as a Jeannie and even dressing down for a skit, Jimmy is also willing to act a fool to play the part. He proved his “macho-ness” when we challenged Terry Crews to a Nip Sync Battle in which he appeared to be wearing no clothes, and made his nipples move to the beat of a song. (obviously this was a green screen body)

Jimmy dancing with Will Smith in his first episode of The Tonight Show Credit: NBC

 When he bombs during the monologue

I remember watching a re run of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where he bombed in the monologue. But funnily enough that didn’t impact his performance immensely. In fact, it made his monologue even more hysterical. It’s definitely safe to say he knew how to work the audience to his advantage. The other night during the fresh face of Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy made a remark to Hilary Clinton which the audience did not find too amusing. But, just as Johnny did when he bombed, Jimmy used this to his advantage and replied with a smart remark and all was forgiven.

The King of Late Night – Johnny Carson as Carnac the Magnificent Credit: Larry Wall

 

 

Following in Johnny Carson’s footsteps is a difficult job but I’m sure not even Carnac the magnificent would predict Jimmy’s astonishing success on the show Johnny had been labelled as King, but after the debut week of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, dare I say we have another one on the horizon.

What do you think? Is Jimmy the new Johnny?

James Franco goes one on one with Dane Dehaan

 

If you don’t already know, James franco and Dane Dehaan share a strikingly similar resume. The two contrasting actors have both played Harry Osborne in their own respected versions of the movie adaption of the comic book superhero, Spider-Man. They’ve both been involved in an Allen Ginsberg movie, and now Dane is tackling the role of the ultimate rebel, James Dean in the upcoming film Life. A role that James franco played in the TNT autobiography of the legend that aired in 2001. It’s clear to assume Dane and James had quite a bit to discuss.

During an article Franco wrote for Interview Magazine, James discussed with Dane the part of James Dean amongst their many other resembling roles. They even discovered they also played The Wiz from The Wizard of Oz! They’re just two peas in a pod.

Check out the interview below!

A portrait of Dane Dehaan by James Franco Source:jamesfrancotv Instagram

INTERVIEW

JAMES FRANCO: Hello, Dane. What were you doing in Toronto?

DANE DEHAAN: I was doing the film Life, in which I play James Dean.

FRANCO: That’s about the period that James Dean hung out with the photographer who did a photo series of him, right?

DEHAAN: Dennis Stock, yeah. Two weeks before East of Eden [1955] came out, Dean and Stock traveled from L.A. to New York, spent some time in New York, and then they went back to Dean’s home in Indiana. The movie is about those two weeks of their lives.

FRANCO: So, while they were in New York, did Dennis Stock shoot the photo of Dean in Times Square that provided the model for that painting called Boulevard of Broken Dreams?

DEHAAN: Yeah, that’s his.

FRANCO: And then they went to Indiana and did all these cool shots of Dean on the farm?

DEHAAN: Yeah, like, with the cows, and playing the bongos and that kind of thing.

FRANCO: [laughs] Did you do all that stuff?

DEHAAN: Well, not all of it—there are a ton of photos. We took the most well-known ones, and told the story through the photos. So, you’re following them and see how the pictures happened.

FRANCO: Oh, cool. Because your director is also a photographer, right?

DEHAAN: Yeah, Anton Corbijn is a photographer. But he’s made four feature films now.

FRANCO: So the drive of the movie is just about how they made those photos, or is there something else going on?

DEHAAN: It’s the story of how James Dean is the catalyst and muse for the photographer. In the beginning of the story, Stock is an artist who’s worried about his future. From his experience with Dean, he learns to live in the present and what it means to be an artist.

FRANCO: If I remember it right, James Dean almost got in a motorcycle accident at Laurel Canyon and Sunset, and that’s how he met him? Was that Stock?

DEHAAN: No, he met Stock at the Chateau [Marmont] at a party that Nick Ray was throwing in 1954. Nick Ray introduced him and said, “You should get to know this kid—he’s got a movie coming out.”

FRANCO: Was that Rebel Without a Cause [1955]?

DEHAAN: He hadn’t even been quite cast in Rebel yet. He was probably going to get it, and then Nick Ray threw this party and he showed up. He went to the party to keep hope alive, I suppose. Dennis went and saw East of Eden the next day, and was like, “Holy shit, who is this guy? I have to do a photo essay on him.” And that’s how it all kind of began.

FRANCO: And when they went back to Indiana, Dean went back to his high school—

DEHAAN: He went to the high school dance. There are photos of him signing autographs and playing the bongos with the four-piece band. There’s also a really beautiful photo, one of my favorites, with him sitting on an empty stage in the high school auditorium.

FRANCO: Did you act in high school?

DEHAAN: Yeah, big time. I was a total theater kid.

FRANCO: What were some of the highlights?

DEHAAN: Well, it’s funny because I went to a predominantly white school, but for some reason they always picked the musicals that were supposed to be done by totally black casts. We did The Wiz, and it was a bunch of white kids doing The Wiz. I played the Wiz.

FRANCO: Is that Michael Jackson’s role?

DEHAAN: I think he was the Scarecrow. I don’t remember who the Wiz was.

FRANCO: Wait, so you played the Wiz? Like, the wizard?

DEHAAN: Oh, wait, you were the wizard! [both laugh]

FRANCO: We’ve played so many similar roles. What the hell, man! I guess we could say that you played the wizard first, though. I read that James Dean is one of your favorite actors. Is that true?

DEHAAN: He is.

FRANCO: As an actor looking at another actor, what do you think you could learn from him? Or what do you think made you like his work?

DEHAAN: I think what makes me like his work is how real he was—he’s emotional and open, but living in the moment and so impulsive. It seems like he followed his impulses better than anyone I can think of. Watching the old movies and seeing him be amazing even by modern standards of acting, everyone else just pales in comparison. It’s a really impressive thing. And it’s been an interesting process, getting to know more about him for the role. I always thought he was really into learning how to act and the craft of acting, but it seems as though he was self-obsessed with his own process. He didn’t want to be taught anything. He only went to, like, a very few acting classes, even though he fought so hard to get into the Actors Studio. As soon as he went, he got torn apart by Lee Strasberg and then basically never went up again.

FRANCO: Exactly.

DEHAAN: I always thought he was this acting nerd like I am. He was just born with the talent to act and this vivid imagination. But the way he went about getting there was actually kind of annoying. He’d trap himself in his trailer for hours before he would do a take and everyone was just kind of waiting around for him.

(excerpt from Interviewmagazine.com)
Dane is set to feature as James Dean in Life with the release date set early 2015. The film, directed by Anton Corbijn, follows photographer, Dennis Stock, as he is assigned to take photos of Dean for a feature article for Life magazine. As James Franco mentioned in the interview, it’s a sort of autobiography of that time and is modelled off of the famous photograph of James Dean walking in Times Square.

The film takes Dane back to Deans roots where he grew up in Indiana on a farm with his aunt and uncle. He’s seen amidst the farmyard animals and playing with his little cousin Markie. From the easy farmyard life to the busy streets of New York, Dean is also photographed walking through Times Square in a long black trench coat, which later become one of his famous pictures and serves as the foundation for the film. Dennis made it also a priority to take photos of Dean during his leisure time. He’s captured playing his beloved banjos and even dancing in the studio with friend Eartha Kitt.

Anton Corbijn’s Life also features Robert Pattinson as photographer Dennis Stock, Ben Kingsley as Jack Warner, Alessandra Mastronardi as Pier Angeli (James Deans love interest), and Kristen Hager as Veronica.

Official still from Life the film directed by Anton Corbijn