Andy Warhol
Adrianne Curry
Asia Carrera
Barbara Windsor
Catherine Hicks
Ever Carradine
Faith Prince
Geri Halliwell
M. Night Shyamalan
Marisa Miller
Melissa George
Merrin Dungey
Michelle Yeoh
Romola Garai
Soleil Moon Frye
Travis McCoy
Vera Farmiga
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Warhol with Archie, Photograph by Jack Mitchell
August 6, 1928– Andy Warhol:
“I think everybody should be nice to everybody.”
I remember quite well, my parents shaking their heads and exclaiming: “That is not art… it is a painting of a soup can!” when I expressed my appreciation for the work of Andy Warhol. The point of the matter was, I really “got him” even at eight years old, or especially at eight years old. Warhol was the subject of much scorn & derision from the critics, the public and my parents, but he is probably the most important artist of the 20th century. Warhol:
“Campbell’s Soup were really upset about my paintings and they were going to do something about it, and then it went by so quickly I guess there really wasn’t anything they could do. But actually, when I lived in Pittsburgh, the Heinz factory was there, and I used to go visit the Heinz factory a lot. They used to give pickle pins. I should have done Heinz soup. I did the Heinz ketchup box instead.”
Andrew Warhola, was born to Polish parents in Pittsburgh. He grew up to be the “Pope Of Pop,” and at a young age he was fascinated with the commercialism of pop icons in advertising and in everyday life.
Warhol helped to shape pop culture and was able to portend society’s fascination with the media and a world where everything is accessible on your phone at the touch of the button, 24/7. Warhol famously claimed that each individual would have his or her “15 minutes of fame,” and he certainly wouldn’t be surprised by the popularity of YouTube, MP3s, Twitter, America’s Got Talent, The Facebook, The Duggars, The Trumps or The Kardashians.
A master of multiple creative forms of expression, Warhol was a painter, writer, music producer, avant-garde filmmaker, magazine creator, sculptor, and photographer. Focusing on diverse and contrasting interests all at once, he was fascinated with all forms of media, blurring of gender identities, and the contrast between a sense of celebrity and privacy.
He was a groundbreaker in the notion of self as product. He even set up his studio as “The Factory”, overseeing a staff that turned out prints, silkscreens and products based on his work. He was also a remarkable, transcendent artist and a commanding craftsman.
Warhol was an ardent, practicing Catholic of the Eastern Byzantine strain, going to mass every day. But, he was also a secular artist, a champion of gay culture and an advocate of all things hip. Warhol was openly and undeniably gay, amazing for his era. Yet, he never actually spoke openly about his gayness or his private life even though being a public figure was the essence of who he was.
He painted, filmed, and photographed the obscene, the homoerotic, the trashy and the lewd, but never really engaged in it. Warhol:
“After 25 you should look but never touch.”
“The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it’s much more exciting.”
Warhol always seemed to me to be other worldly, amazingly untainted by the druggies, leather boys, and drag queens that moved in his circle. He projected a kind of naiveté and humility. The Factory was a center for the NYC avant-garde eager to engage in debauchery, staying up all night, but Warhol was noted for leaving by 10 pm to go home and go to bed. His longtime boyfriend was the remarkable interior designer Jed Johnson who kept his own place.
“Everybody winds up kissing the wrong person good night.”
In 1973, Johnson persuaded Warhol to get a dog. They chose a brown, short-haired dachshund puppy that they named Archie, but Warhol insisted: “his stage name is Amos”. Warhol was totally in love. He took Archie to The Factory and art openings. At restaurants, Archie was always on Warhol’s lap, eating bits of food that he was slipped, always carefully hidden under Warhol’s napkin. He even used to take Archie to press conferences as his “alter ego”, deflecting questions to the dachshund that he did not want to answer.
I would certainly place Warhol as an ultimate Gay Icon although there is still plenty of speculation about his sex life. His legendary friend, poet, editor, artist Charles Henri Ford wrote:
“Everything is sexual to Andy without the sex act actually taking place.”
Warhol documented the newly blossoming LGBTQ community of NYC in those pioneering 1970s, chronicling the cultural underground, including nights at the discos, parties at Fire Island and the tragic beginnings of the plague. Much of his most famous works like portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor; films such as Blow Job (1964), My Hustler (1965) and Lonesome Cowboys (1968), were all inspired by gay underground culture, and they openly looked at the complexity of gay male desire. His films often had their premieres in gay porn theaters.
In NYC in the mid-1990s, I saw an enchanting exhibit of his commercial drawings from the early 1950s, mostly ladies shoes and flowers, produced for advertising. These works predated his huge fame, but the essence of what he was about to bring was already there. I have a lot of material by and about him, including the very readable Andy Warhol’s Diaries (1989) where he writes about some of his relationships with guys.
I saw him several times at Studio 54 in the summer of 1976. I didn’t dare approach him, even as I was fortified by Quaaludes, but I slipped him a mash note written on a cocktail napkin via a bartender. Around that time, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life: correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, used plane tickets and food which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed “Time Capsules”. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600 individually dated capsules. The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. I would like to think my note is included in a box marked September 1976.
“When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.”
Warhol has been portrayed on screen by Crispen Glover, Jared Harris, Guy Pearce, and most effetely, by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel‘s film Basquiat (1996). My friend Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhol’s life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenix’s untimely death in 1993.
Warhol unexpectedly expired after successful gall bladder surgery in 1987. Johnson died in the TWA flight 800 explosion off the coast of Long Island in 1996. Neither of them left me anything in their estates, even though they were both, like me, world-class collectors of American Art Pottery. Still, Warhol remains one of my favorite people of all time.
“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”
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My old friend, author (and former magazine colleague) Kevin Sessums, went to see Barbra Streisand‘s San Francisco concert the other night. He knows his subject a bit after interviewing her for Vanity Fair in 1991. He’s profiled scores of the rich, talented and famous, but none more notoriously difficult, temperamental or “profoundly talented” than La Streisand. Here’s his account of the road-ready Babs in concert.
She accidentally knocked over her microphone stand. She fumbled with her left shoe when her first-act pants leg got caught in it and the shoe fell off her foot while she was sitting regally atop her stool center stage.
“First the mic. Now my shoe,” she said, laughing at herself. She even laughed at forgetting a lyric of a song she had even told us she’d forgotten she’d ever sung in ‘Funny Lady‘ after Liza Minnelli had sung it for her in a tribute to her at Lincoln Center.
‘I loved the song,‘ she told us and Liza afterward.
‘But what did it have to do with me?’ I asked Liza afterward. ‘Barbra, You sang that song in Funny Lady.’ I had no memory of it,” she said, shrugging and yes, laughing at herself once more.
‘So you see – it has nothing to do with age, this gorgeous 74-year-old force of nature acknowledged.
‘I’ve always been like that.‘
And then she forgot those lyrics even though they were hanging above her on the giant teleprompter.
This was a looser – yes, more likable – Barbra Streisand than she has usually presented to her adoring public. It is the one that her friends and family and coworkers always tell you about. It is the one I met 25 years ago when I did a cover story on her for Vanity Fair when her film ‘Prince of Tides‘ was about to be released. (It was a thrill to see that Vanity Cover [cover] in the montage of images of her that opens the second act of her triumphant return to touring this year.)
The scripted badinage was batted about expertly as if she were thinking about it off the top of her head – which just reminded me of what a great actress she is and how, for all her flair for the dramatic, there is an underlying naturalism and truthfulness that has always buttressed the bounty of her talent, kept it from being too overwhelming both for her and for us. She joked about being accused of being a control freak and told us about examples in her professional life when she’d given up control – and laughed that off too. She bashed Trump repeatedly.
She looks amazing, as if the Streisand of our mem’ry – to use the spelling the tour uses in its title ‘The Music … The Mem’ries … The Magic!‘ – is set in amber. No other 74-year-old woman could get away with reminding us of what she looked like at 40 but this too proves that she is a creature set apart from the rest of us. I marveled at the stamina it would have indeed taken a 40 year old to get through the almost three-hour show she so generously performed for us last night that was co-directed with a keen eye and deft theatrical hand by Richard Jay-Alexander. (Streisand also gets a co-director credit and they co-wrote it together.) The voice can waver a bit from time to time when she perhaps momentarily tires but that is to be expected.
By the very next number, however, she and that voice rally and raise the roof or move the heart. Its tones are richer now, that voice. Huskier, some say. But I find the voice – and the woman – even more moving for owning those imperfections and folding them into her sound and her presence, each more soulful because of them. The voice was often so perfect in the past that it perched all alone there before us preening itself for both our devotion and diversion. Now a flock of emotions overtakes us as the preening has fallen away.
We fans of hers are still devoted but this is no longer a diversion for us. The talent was always profound but now what we are feeling, profoundly so, is spurred by a talent that is not waning exactly but becoming more meaningful to us as it has, at this stage of her career and life, become more welcoming and, yes, more vulnerable.
There were a couple of rough patches last night which was to be expected since it was only the second performance of the tour. The disco/rock-like medley with her back-up singers joining her down on the stage from their own perch stage left, still needs to find its legs – especially rhythmically with the orchestra-like band that sounded better in the slower songs that called for more lushness. Her Mama Rose-like performance of the Funny Girl/Funny Lady segment was also a bit rough in parts but the sheer rawness with which she built it kind of knocked the audience back on its heels even as she was knocked back on hers.
“That was almost awful but finally brilliant,” I told the friend sitting next to me.
Her finest moments to me were the quietest ones. The way she interpreted ‘Everything Must Change‘, ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers‘, and ‘Losing My Mind‘ turned them into rich one-act plays. Her rendition of ‘Being Alive‘ from Company brought the arena to its feet and I think the note I will remember most from the whole evening is not the one brilliantly blared at the end of ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade‘, the show’s finale, but the low, lovely one she reached when she sang “someone to hurt me too deep,” that “deep” so heart-rending I felt it resoundingly come to rest inside my chest where my own heart resides. It was the kind of emotion conjured by a true artist, one that can cause a physical reaction in that moment it is conjured.
And then after her two encores – a passable ‘People‘ and a rousing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again‘ – she came back out and surprised us with a third one. It was Rodgers and Hart‘s ‘I Didn’t Know What Time It Was‘ from the musical ‘Too Many Girls‘. It is on her new album. To me, this was the highlight of the whole show. The voice took on a timbre of intimacy and transported us not only back to a small night club on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village in New York City but also Streisand herself back to her younger self, yet one steeped in all the life she has lived since. It was in that moment that the woman onstage last night melded with the girl who longed long ago to be who she had, yes, become before our eyes during the last six decades. The genius of Streisand is that she is still longing and still evolving and still becoming newer versions of herself before our eyes. She sang,
“Once I was young, but never was naive. I thought I had a trick or two up my imaginary sleeve …”
Then left us with this last sung line,
“I’m wise, and I know what time it is now.“
The post #QuoteUnquote: Kevin Sessums on the “Looser, More Likable” Barbra Streisand In Concert appeared first on The WOW Report.
YES. Yes, it is.
This post is approved by the OG ‘Suicide Squad’:
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The opening ceremonies of the 31st Olympiad reminded me of a Diana Vreeland story. The editor of Vogue was on the phone with a friend who asked,
“How was the party?”
To which DV replied,
“It was fabulous –if you’ve never been to a party before.”
If you don’t compare it to London or Beijing, then it was spectacular. And if you think a fashion anecdote is inappropriate in this instance, remember a supermodel was really the biggest star of the night.
The games and prep, of course, leading up to last night were not without controversy on top on controversy –from poop infested waters, a missing President (absent due to impeachment proceedings) the Russian team’s doping allegations and an on-going Zika-induced scare, among other things, it’s been a sh*tshow –literally. Last night ceremony reportedly cost one-tenth of London’s and as inspiring as they were, it looked kinda like a budget affair. There were few OMG! moments, unless you were Brazilian, in which case you PARTIED!
But who in the world knows how to throw a better party than Brazilians… just what you’ve come to expect from this part of the globe, amazing costumes, danceable beats and gorgeous people. Hey, it’s free, so who’s complaining? Here are some highlights… and that Olympic flame is pretty fab.
The post #Rio2016: The Opening Ceremonies Were Spectacular! (If You Don’t Compare Then To London & Beijing) appeared first on The WOW Report.
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio will have a record number of 43 out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex athletes. There are 11 publicly out male athletes (though none are from the U.S.) and there is one married couple, Helen Richardson-Walsh and Kate Richardson-Walsh, British field hockey players.
Inspired by British diver Tom Daley telling him that he was dating a man (Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) champion Brazilian diver Ian Matos has just come out publicly as gay in an interview with the newspaper Correio. Matos, 24, now living in Rio de Janiero says,
“From a young age, I knew I was gay, but it was here that I got to live my sexuality.“
A friend advised Matos to stay closeted until after this summer’s games, but the pressure of hiding boyfriends, avoiding gay parties and not being himself proved too much. He said he hoped that coming out would not impact his ability to be a successful diver and not cost him any potential sponsorship. Matos was the Brazilian 3-meter champion in 2013 and won a bronze medal in 2012 during an event in the U.S.
The list is expected to grow, as more athletes are revealed to be out. This often occurs on team sports in Europe or in lesser-know sports where athletes are out but haven’t gotten much publicity.
The 2012 Summer Games in London featured 23 out LGBTI athletes. Others have come out publicly since they competed in London.
Nicola Adams
According to Out Sports, here are the out LGBTI athletes that are in Rio:
Nicola Adams (Great Britain, boxing)
Seimone Augustus (USA, basketball)
Tom Bosworth (Great Britain, race walk)
Dutee Chand (India, track & field)
Tom Daly
Tom Daley (Great Britain, diving)
Carlien Dirkse van den Heuvel (Netherlands, field hockey)
Lisa Dahlkvist (Sweden, soccer)
Elena Delle Donne (USA, basketball)
Katie Duncan (New Zealand, soccer)
Nilla Fisher (Sweden, soccer)
Amini Fonua
Amini Fonua (Tonga, swimming)
Larissa França (Brazil, beach volleyball)
Edward Gal (Netherlands, equestrian)
Kelly Griffin (USA, rugby)
Brittney Griner
Brittney Griner (USA, basketball)
Carl Hester (Great Britain, equestrian)
Michelle Heyman (Australia, soccer)
Mélanie Henique (France, swimming)
Stephanie Labbe (Canada, soccer)
Alexandra Lacrabère (France, handball)
Hedvig Lindahl
Hedvig Lindahl (Sweden, soccer)
Ari-Pekka Liukkonen (Finland, swimming)
Robbie Manson (New Zealand, rowing)
Hans Peter Minderhoud (Netherlands, equestrian)
Ian Matos
Ian Matos (Brazil, diving)
Angel McCoughtry (USA, basketball)
Nadine Müller (Germany, discus)
Marie-Eve Nault (Canada, soccer)
Ashley Nee
Ashley Nee (USA, kayak whitewater slalom)
Maartje Paumen (Netherlands, field hockey)
Mayssa Pessoa (Brazil, handball)
Jillion Potter (USA, rugby)
Megan Rapinoe (USA, soccer)
Helen Richardson-Walsh & Kate Richardson-Walsh
Helen Richardson-Walsh (Great Britain, field hockey)
Kate Richardson-Walsh (Great Britain, field hockey)
Carolina Seger (Sweden, soccer)
Caster Semenya (South Africa, track & field)
Martina Strutz (Germany, pole vault)
Susannah Townsend
Susannah Townsend (Great Britian, field hockey)
Sunette Stella Viljoen (South Africa, javelin)
Julia Vasconcelos (Brazil, taekowndo)
Jeffrey Wammes (Netherlands, gymnastics)
Spencer Wilton (Great Britain, equestrian)
Spencer Wilton
(via Out Sports)
The post #Rio2016: A Record 43 Out Olympic Athletes Are Competing at This Year’s Games appeared first on The WOW Report.
Andy Warhol
Abbie Cornish
Brit Marling
Bruce Dickinson
Caetano Veloso
Charlize Theron
Charlotte Ronson
David Duchovny
Francesca Eastwood
Garrison Keillor
Harold Perrineau
Helen Flanagan
Jacquie O’Sullivan
Jimmy Wales
Megan Gale
Michael Shannon
Rachel York
Ray Prososki
Samantha Ronson
Sydney Penny
Tobin Bell
Wayne Knight
The post August 7th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 7, 1884– Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke used the stage-name Billie Burke when she was a Broadway star back when the 20th century was new. Appearing in Broadway musicals, she stole the hearts of audiences, and also famed tenor Enrico Caruso, Mark Twain, and, most notably, Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld, who became her husband.
Burke’s addlepated, scatterbrained, twittery, jittery, skittish personality was smartly used in comedies on stage and screen in a style that was a knowing combination of naiveté and wit. Burke:
“I never was the greatest actress. I generally did light, gay things. I appeared in cute plays but never a fine one.”
In 1922, the year she won first place in the Motion Picture Popularity Contest, she was described in the press:
“Her eyes are a lovely blue, her eyebrows fair and skin soft, smooth and well nourished, a cameo-like delicacy of feature and a youthful figure.”
Burke was born in the USA to a show business family. She toured Europe with her father who was clown for the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Her family settled in London where she began acting on stage, adopting her distinctive English accent.
On her return, Burke found tremendous success in the USA. As a star, when she toured with a play her press agent traveled ahead and leased a house or apartment in every city along the way. Her theatre dressing rooms always had to be completely refurbished, no matter how short the engagement. She ordered that the walls be painted baby blue, “the true ingénue color”.
She was so famous that pajamas, cigars, perfumes and soaps were named for her. In the early 1900’s, women’s fashions were usually heavy and dark, but “Billie Burke” dresses had lots of ruffles and ribbons, and “Billie Burke” wigs, full of bouncing curls, became all the rage. Her maid brushed her hair every morning and again at night; Ziegfeld would pour Champagne over her hair after every shampoo, a method considered appropriate for a redhead. She exercised with a bar bell and walked five miles every day. Burke spoke French and Italian, played piano, and she was skilled at fencing and ballet.
Caruso threw a bouquet of American Beauty Roses on to the stage every night during the run of Love Watches in 1908. Burke recalled:
“Caruso made love and ate spaghetti with equal skill and with no inhibitions. He would propose marriage several times each evening.”
Gay writer W. Somerset Maugham escorted Burke to a 1913 New Year’s Eve to a party at the Astor Hotel, arriving after midnight. She descended the staircase to the ballroom and at the foot of the stairs stood Ziegfeld. Burke:
“He had a Mephistopheliar look, his eyebrows and his eye lids lifting, curved upward, in the middle. Slim and tall and immaculate in full evening dress, he was in black and white contrast to the rest of the costumed party, and so – and for who knows what other reasons, I noticed him at once.”
He noticed her too.
When they began their affair, her manager threatened to drop her because Ziegfeld was married to his big discovery, soprano Anna Held. But, Burke never had any intention of ending the affair. After Held divorced Ziggy in 1914, the couple eloped to Hoboken. Burke:
“The minister was as confused as we were. ‘And now, Flo,’ he would say to me, ‘you stand here.’ ‘He’s Flo, I’m Billie’, I would say. ‘Oh, all right, then, you stand here, Bill,’ he would say to Flo. And Flo would correct him. ‘I’m Flo, she’s Bill – I mean Billie’. But he married us and I am quite sure it was legal.”
Burke’s manager had her under contract and as punishment for having married against his wishes; he refused to let her embark on the film career she desired so desperately.
The Ziegfelds lived on a 22-acre estate near Hastings-on-Hudson, with a 20 room main house, plus cottages, stables, a swimming pool and tennis court. The couple maintained a menagerie including a herd of deer, two bears, two lions, partridge, pheasants, cockatoos, parrots, an elephant, two buffaloes, geese, lambs, ducks, chickens and dogs.
Film pioneer Thomas H. Ince offered her $300,000 (the equivalent of $2 million today) for her first film and Burke happily left the stage for the screen. Ziegfeld bought that manager’s contract and became his wife’s new manager. She made her screen debut in Peggy (1915) playing the part of a girl from Scotland who dressed as a boy. She made 12 more silent films in her first year.
In 1917, Burke returned to the Broadway stage under her husband’s management. Between 1917 and 1944, Burke starred in 12 plays on Broadway, including three by her pal Maugham, and one by Noël Coward.
By 1930, she was already being cast in character roles. Burke:
“Oh, that sad and bewildering moment when you are no longer the cherished darling but must turn the corner and try to be funny!”
The 1929 Wall Street Crash ruined Ziegfeld, and Burke had to try harder than ever to be funny. The Ziegfeld’s mortgaged the mansion and Burke needed to keep working. In 1931, she went to Hollywood while Ziegfeld stayed in NYC.
In 1932, Burke was cast in A Bill Of Divorcement, directed by George Cukor. She played Katharine Hepburn‘s mother in the film, which was Hepburn’s debut. Ziegfeld died during the film’s production, but she resumed filming hours after his funeral.
Cukor used her again in Dinner At Eight (1933), with Lionel and John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery. Burke began to be typecast as a flutter-brained upper-class matron with a high-pitched voice.
In 1936, MGM filmed The Great Ziegfeld, a highly fictionalized version of the life of Florenz Ziegfeld, It won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress for Luise Rainer as Anna Held. William Powell played Ziegfeld and Myrna Loy played Burke, which infuriated Burke because she was under contract to MGM and could have played herself, but the studio considered her too old for the role despite her obviously having the look and mannerisms down perfectly.
She played the daffy Clara Topper in Topper (1937), about a man haunted by two socialite ghosts played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. She repeated her role in two Topper sequels. Her comic performance in Merrily We Live (1938) brought Burke her single Academy Award nomination.
Despite a long, varied career, Burke is best remembered today as Glinda The Good Witch Of The North, in a little flick we call The Wizard Of Oz (1939), making her an ultimate Gay icon. She had already worked with Judy Garland in Everybody Sing (1938), playing Garland’s histrionic, hysterical mother. Her other hits include Father Of The Bride (1950) and Father’s Little Dividend (1951), both directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Burke continued to work in the 1950s, often in radio and the new medium of television. She was one the first female talk show hosts with At Home With Billie Burke (1952-54). Burke’s last film was in the Western Sergeant Rutledge (1960), directed by John Ford.
Her final credits rolled in 1970, taken by ennui, at her home in Beverly Hills. She was 85 years old. Like any solid gay man of my age, I do an outstanding imitation of Billie Burke.
The post #BornThisDay: Actor, Billie Burke appeared first on The WOW Report.
Jacobs with former fiancé, Lorenzo Martone, on the beach in St. Barths. (See sofa tattoo, bottom left)
Marc Jacobs lives around the corner from me in the far West Village in a new four-floor townhouse. I’ve been curious to see inside but as yet, have not been invited. Although I AM going to a party a few doors down this next week, but now I won’t need to try to peer into the windows or into Marc’s backyard from an upper floor, as these pics allow us to ogle the luxury and high style of Casa Jacobs.
He bought the newly built home (designed by architect Robert A. M. Stern) in 2009 to share and his then-fiancé, Lorenzo Martone. It was just raw space, and interior designer Thad Hayes was hired to to oversee its construction and decoration. According to Mayer Russ‘s article in the new Architectural Digest, Hayes recalls a moment when he and Jacobs were discussing upholstery options.
“We were looking at a classic boxy Jean-Michel Frank sofa and Marc said, offhandedly, ‘Of course I love it—it’s tattooed on my torso.’ Then he lifted up his shirt and showed me the couch.”
Jacobs and Martone separated before the house was completed, and the fashion designer finished the project with John Gachot and Paul Fortune, Jacobs’s longtime friend and collaborator. Fortune says,
“I’d worked with Marc on his Paris apartment, so there was a certain comfort level. He had his ideas about the New York place, and I was there to see if those ideas would work.
One day Marc announced that he’d bought a giant sculpture of Dopey from artist Paul McCarthy’s White Snow series. The only place we could park it was in the television room, which was basically finished at that point. So we closed the street and craned the thing in through the back. You do what you have to do.”
Jacobs’s master bedroom boasts six paintings by painter John Currin and he has more Currin’s scattered throughout the house, maybe more than anyone else on the planet, besides the artist himself. A pair of bronze monkeys by sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne, also grace the master. Jacob’s said,
“I saw [the monkeys] in a picture in Vogue, and I became fixated. I had to have them. I called Paul Kasmin Gallery, I called Sotheby’s, and eventually I called [art collector and Warhol superstar] Jane Holzer. She introduced me to the Lalannes in Paris, and she found me the monkeys.”
Similar stories surround the acquisition of other important pieces in Jacobs’s burgeoning collection —Diego Giacometti bronze stools, a Pierre Chareau table and sconces, a mammoth Eugène Printz chandelier, a Samuel Marx secretary —as well as furnishings commissioned for the house.
It’s all pretty fab, if you ask me. Have a look. You can read the full story here.
(Photos, Francois Halard, via Architectural Digest)
The post #RealEstatePorn: A Peek Inside My Neighbor Marc Jacobs’ Art-Filled Townhouse appeared first on The WOW Report.
Dali & Disney
Dalí split his time between Pebble Beach, California, and Disney Studios in Burbank, California, working side-by-side with the studios’ John Hench on the collaboration. But over time it was clear there were big differences in the two men’s approach of storytelling. Dalí described the story in an article in the Los Angeles Times on April 7, 1946,
“A magical exposition of life in the labyrinth of time…”
Disney described it as,
“A simple love story—boy meets girl.”
Character and personalities were the most important elements of Disney’s traditional stories, while Dalí saw them unfold like dreams, with characters wrapped in symbolism. Less than a year after they started, work stopped on their collaboration.
Despite its disappointing end, Disney and Dalí remained friends. The walls of Disney’s Palm Springs home were hung with Dalí’s paintings. After welcoming Dalí and his wife Gala into his home, Disney and his wife Lillian traveled to Spain to visit them in 1957.
More than fifty years after Destino‘s inception, it was completed from existing drawings and story boards. Here’s the incredible result.
Plug in your speakers or headphones, go full-screen and watch.
The post #Flashback1946: Watch Disney’s & Dali’s Incredible Surrealist Animation, “Destino” appeared first on The WOW Report.
The replacement statue for the “Scary Lucy” bronze work of art in the town of Celoron, New York, that made a menacing figure out the iconic comedian Lucille Ball was revealed to the public yesterday. The new statue, created by sculptor Carolyn Palmer replaced the original work of art which features Ball in a polka dot dress, looks more like Lucy and now resembles a human person. She’s is standing 6 feet tall on her Hollywood star with a string of pearls around her neck – purse second.
(via EW)
The post #WeLoveLucy: New Ball Statue Unveiled Replacing “Scary Lucy” appeared first on The WOW Report.
There’s a rich history of chic, even sometimes kooky, flight attendant uniforms. Nearly every designer you can think of has created looks for major airlines; Dior, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, even Vivienne Westwood have all designed flight attendant uniforms. John Hill, of the SFO Museum, a museum operated out of the San Francisco Airport,
“It’s a great paradox. Can a uniform be couture?“
In the 50s and 60 airlines wanted the prestige of big-names designer attached to their brand –designers wanted the publicity.
The SFO Museum’s Fashion in Flight: A History of Airline Uniform Design exhibit, which you can find in the International Terminal of the SFO airport, traces the arc of the flight attendant uniform. From its pre-WWII beginnings to its glam midcentury glory days. Flying was SEXY! Says Hill,
“The stewardess had this vicarious role associated with jet-setting and a cosmopolitan lifestyle. People projected onto them these feelings and cultural manifestations. At the same time, stewardesses projected out this prestige and mystique.“
As airlines evolved so too did the stewardess uniforms. Before commercial airlines, flight attendants had to be registered nurses, believe it or not, so the first uniforms in the early ’30s were basically nurse’s attire, complete with the cape and cap.
After the war, airlines felt the need to differentiate themselves. They hired big-name designers and dressed their flight attendants in flashy, colorful uniforms that alluded to the exotic lifestyle they represented. Says Hill,
“For designers, it was a new movement that was exciting and ultra-modern. For airlines, the competitive nature was so they could be sustainable. Once you pull away the wrapping, they all used the same equipment…“
Like travel posters and company branding, stewardess uniforms became part of an airline’s identity—and each was always trying to one-up the others.
But besides Vivienne Westwood, the days glamorous designer uniforms seem to have gone the way of smoking on planes. But designers like Kate Spade, who created the Delta uniform in 2003, there’s also Italian designer Ettore Bilotta‘s uniforms for Etihad Airways. Hill says,
“It’s there, you have to look a little bit. They’re in this quasi-world between fashion industry and airlines. That’s the kind of crossover we wanted to emphasize [with the exhibition]. It permeates so many different parts of culture.“
You cee more flight attendant uniform designs in Fashion in Flight: A History of Airline Uniform Design which is on view in the international terminal of the San Francisco International Airport through January 8, 2017.
Here’s a brief tour of flight attendant uniform design…
Boing Air Transport, 1930
Transcontinental and Western Air, 1939
Pan Am uniforms by Don Loper, 1959
Balmain for TWA, 1965
Emilio Pucci for Braniff, 1965
Braniff International Airways hostess uniform by Emilio Pucci, 1966
United Air Lines, Jean Louis, 1968
Pierre Cardin for UTA, 1968
Air France, Balenciaga, 1968
Pan American World Airways stewardess uniform by Frank Smith for Evan-Picone, 1971
United Air Lines, Jean Louis, 1970
Courréges, 1973
Courréges, 1973
United Airlines female flight attendant uniform by Stan Herman, 1976
Stan Herman for United, 1976
Ralph Lauren for TWA, 1978
Qantas Airways female flight attendant uniform by Yves Saint Laurent, 1986
Vivienne Westwood for Virgin Atlantic, 2014
(via FastCo Design)
The post #FlyMe: Decades of Designer Flight Attendant Looks –From Go-Go Boots To Power Suits appeared first on The WOW Report.
The kitchen can be in the front of the jet or in the rear, where the crew is more visible
Start saving your money, kids! Gulfstream Aerospace has just announced its plans for two new jets to be released in 2018 and 2019. The G500 and G600 are getting pretty fancy both in aerodynamics and interiors. The G600 can fly, nonstop, from New York to Beijing. Tray Crow, Gulfstream’s director of interior design, says,
“We can only push the bar on travel distances so far before you’re simply circumnavigating the globe. As a result, the focus has shifted from distance flown to more opulent interiors.”
Clients can visit Gulfstream showrooms in London, Savannah, Long Beach, and Dallas, to select china, carpeting, leather, and veneers; the company’s engineers worked with a supplier to devised a lightweight stone tiling for the aircraft, perfect for spill-prone areas like the kitchen. The design team also works with each client to figure out such specifications like bathroom size and whether the kitchen is at the front or rear of the plane (meals and drinks being prepared in the back means the crew is more visible; the cabin is also louder, an issue since most of the lounging or sleeping units are also at the rear of an airplane).
Clients can preview their choices in a 3-D rendering of the plane’s interior scheme.
Gulfstream scientists have also engineered a way to flow in fresh air every 90 seconds, making passengers significantly less lethargic after a flight. The G600 team at Gulfstream also includes many former pilots. This means they understand the demands of flying airplanes, and have an ear tuned to the interests of their former colleagues, listening to their concerns in concert with the demands of their customers.
Passengers can enjoy watching television too during their flights and the new G600 can comfortably fit up to 19 passengers. The G600 starts at around $56 million.
(via Architectural Digest)
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Season 3 RuPaul’s Drag Race queen Delta Work went to the Adele concert at the Staples Center last night and was pulled up on stage by the superstar for a selfie!!! Check out the pics and what Delta had to say about the experience!
Posted to Delta’s Facebook:
I really, truly, am so thankful. I would say last night was seredipitous but it was intentional. This was the work of many friends and supporters who shared, tweeted, hashtagged and simply commented emojis on an #ADeltacampaign spearheaded, on her own, by my champion Laurie Blitz. I am so thankful for her friendship. I am grateful to all who believed something so special could happen. Last night the show was magical!!! So beautiful, funny, elegant. The imagery supporting the stories. I thank all of you friends for your words of encouragement and happiness. These mean the world to me.
Extra special thank you to Matthew Sanderson, who rarely gets a moment home to herself came out, and banged down the security doors to get me through, wrangled meet and greets with supporters then jumped on a plane this morning, blew my mind. Roz Bishop Work who maneuvered the mean streets to facilitate this. Thairin Smothers for getting the word out. My David Allen Thatcher, who was recovering from oral surgery this week, sat at sewing machine with a mouthful of cotton and tried to make a dress inspired by Adele’s concert look…listening to me complain about the inadequacies of no less than 6 wigs while loaded with narcotics!!! I am so lucky for you…privileged.
I apologize for missing the posts and not getting back to all of you. Please know I see them and they make me feel great. Thank you Adele at the Staples CenterAdele for the special evening. Everyone in attendance was so supportive, encouraging, loving, gracious, excited. They love drag. Adele loves drag queens from Seattle to Los Angeles, Columbus, New York, Orlando and EVERYWHERE in between. We are all Adele!!!
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This past weekend in DTLA, the Millennium Biltmore’s ornate banquet halls and lobby were transformed into a magickal faerie realm, as the 19th annual Labyrinth of Jareth masquerade ball took over the space. The event is named after David Bowie’s iconic character from the classic 1986 film Labyrinth, and there were more than a few Jareths roaming the halls. But going far beyond the imagery of the source material, attendees really let their imaginations soar in bringing a bounty of fantastical creatures and characters to life with impressively intricate and masterfully crafted costumes. The sheer opulence and glimmering, glittery beauty was relentless, with show-stopping fantasy fashions on display in every direction. Here’s a glimpse of all the mystical, magickal fun, which included eye-popping costumed performances, three dance floors, an outdoor starlit tea party, a formal ballroom where guests could partake in centuries-old dances, and a grand hall where the partygoers paraded through in all their finery. The grand spectacle far surpassed this first-time guest’s expectations; it’s truly not to be missed. Be sure to check the Labyrinth of Jareth website for event and ticket info for next Summer’s 20th anniversary.
The post The Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball: A Treasure Trove of Beauty and Magick appeared first on The WOW Report.
On Friday, the famous fashion sisters, Rodarte instagrammed the above picture of future Emmy Winner and doesn’t-need-a-stylist-because-she-dresses-herself-effortlessly, Kirsten Dunst (donning their new Poppy Embroidered Silk Jacket). The caption reads “Sorry Kiki” with the two ballerinas dancing emoji.
The question on everyone’s mind is: What Happened To Kirsten Dunst?
Yesterday, Kiki posted this cute gram with the caption: #cindysherman, which means, even in a wheelchair, our baby girl (not only looks chic AF), but that she’s still partaking in cultural wealth – namely, at the LACMA’s Cindy Sherman exhibit.
Was she going to walk the runway for Rodarte? Or possibly it hasn’t something to do with her upcoming role in the Rodarte sisters directoral debut “Woodshock” starring Dunst? MAYBE, she is just getting into method directing for her upcoming project “The Bell Jar” with Dakota Fanning? So many questions, yet, between her and the Rodarte sisters instagrams, not much has been said about how Kirsten hurt her leg.
Kirsten is known for being elusive online. It’s rare to find a leading lady, that although she’s starred in over thirty five movies (she’s 32), we don’t know much about her personal life and that her take on social media is refreshing and funny. For example:
She did post this photo with the heart eye cat emoji so all seems well in the world of fashion and friendship:
A photo posted by Kirsten Dunst (@kirstendunst) on
We hope you have a speedy recovery Kiki! You’ll need both those legs when you walk up to claim your Emmy this September.
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Hard-drinking, pill-popping, bong-ripping Lou (Natasha Lyonne) and her best friend Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) spend their days adrift in a druggy haze. But one wild night out becomes a bad trip that never ends when Lou wakes up with symptoms of an unexplained, highly abnormal pregnancy. Who—or what—is growing inside her? As her due date approaches with alarming swiftness, the fear, paranoia, and conspiracy theories begin to pile up. Spiked with blasts of hallucinatory color, surreal shocks, and subversive comedy, the audacious feature debut from Danny Perez is a no-holds-barred descent into delirium.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
This post is approved by the OG Rosemary’s Baby:
The post You’ve Gotta Watch The “Antibirth” Trailer: Chloë Sevigny and Natasha Lyonne’s New Gross, Punk, Horror Movie appeared first on The WOW Report.
Would you trust me if I told you those two people…are the same person!? Well you better start believing! Arabia Felix, Youtuber and WOWPresents partner, is a magician when it comes to makeup and transformations. From Aladdin to Jasmine to a Bollywood glamazon, there just seems to be no limit to his craft. Checkout some of his jaw dropping transformations below and don’t forget to subscribe to his channel here!
Genie Vs. Jafar:
Aladdin Vs. Jasmine:
Jeffree Star’s BeautyKiller Transformation:
The post Gender Bending Makeup Artist: Meet Arabia Felix! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Daniel Franzese from HBO‘s Looking has an Italian mother with a no-nonsense attitude. Denise serves up an extra helping of motherly advice, bada bing! In this week’s episode, Denise spills the T on their family’s (mostly at Daniel’s expense) embarrassing stories. You’ve got to check it out!
The post Daniel Franzese’s Italian Mom Spills Their Family’s Embarrassing Stories appeared first on The WOW Report.
A couple of weeks ago, Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan posted a pic (below) to his Instagram of a large group of congressional interns. The pic quickly went viral when the comments section of the selfie went off, pointing out that a HUGE majority of the mostly Republican interns were white.
But it seems that the Republicans aren’t the only community lacking diversity. A recent pic (above) from a party in the NYC area has surfaced that echoes the same disturbing sentiment. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurrence in gay bars and clubs, where inclusion is only for those who look like each other… or even worse, people of color and their sexuality are fetishized, only useful in some aggressive sex fantasy, which only reinforces the fear-based prejudices that white supremacy thrives on.
I, myself, have had the embarrassing experience of being asked to leave a certain, mostly white, NYC bar (more than once), after someone’s wallet went missing. Apparently, I fit the profile of a thief…so, it gave all the other patrons a false sense of safety, if I were no longer there.
FS Magazine– the gay men’s health magazine, published by GMFA, the gay men’s health branch of the Health Equality and Rights Organisation (HERO) which works to reduce health inequalities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* communities, did a recent poll. They found that 80% of black guys and 79% of Asian guys said that they have personally experienced racism on the gay scene.
“When I look at queer programs, both local and national, there tends to be a social disconnect between the reality that is being portrayed publicly and what is happening privately”, says Huffington Post columnist Ernest Owens. People of color are often the voyeurism that shapes white queer spaces — a feeling that has become more exploitative and problematic than embracing.”
It’s time to look at our own “communities” blatant bigotry, and understand that if you are mythologizing POC’s sexuality, or contributing to our continued segregation by way of your apathy, you ARE also the problem!
The post If The Republicans Have a Problem with Diversity, So Does The Gay “Community” appeared first on The WOW Report.
@Rodarte
