Matthew Lombardo’s hilarious Broadway Comedy Looped at the Cutler Majestic on Thursday, May 2 at 8 pm.
Tickets are $45.00. Special discount price for Club Cafe members. Use discount code bourbon for May 2nd tickets.
Personal meet and greet with Stefanie Powers and the cast at Club Cafe after the show!
http://www.clubcafe.com/come-get-looped-with-stefanie-powers/
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Stefanie Powers Channels Tallulah in ‘Looped’
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| Stefanie Powers as Tallulah Bankhead in Looped |
The current production of playwright Matthew Lombardi’s Looped, which runs through March 17 at the Hippodrome in Baltimore, is a bittersweet affair. Although it’s a wildly entertaining show, an ailing Valerie Harper, who has acknowledged a cancer diagnosis, had to pull out shortly before it opened.
In her place and starring as Tallulah Bankhead is Hart to Hart actress Stefanie Powers. The sweet part is that she succeeds so triumphantly in the role — she’s equally as good as Harper, who played the part in Washington nearly four years ago, and produces an uncanny portrayal of Bankhead that’s so accomplished, after a few minutes one forgets one is watching Powers on stage. And it’s easier said than done — this is the kind of part that is easy enough to master on a drag queen or sketch comedy level, but to imbibe Bankhead with humanity, is a bit trickier. Powers succeeds in spades. Even more astounding, she learned the dialogue-heavy part in just two weeks.
It helps, perhaps, that she was Bankhead’s costar in the 1965 film Die Die My Darling. The setting of Looped is Bankhead — pretty looped herself at this point — attempting to dub a line from the film in post-production. She has trouble getting it. Hilarity and unexpected poignance ensue. Her foil is Danny, solidly played by Brian Hutchinson, and, in the sound booth, a deadpan Steve (Matthew Montelongo). Rob Ruggiero directs.
Go here for tickets and show times.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
An eccentric Tallulah Bankhead is back in ‘Looped’
Tallulah Bankhead was a character. Playwright Matthew Lombardo calls her “the original celebrity bad girl,” an actress who became more famous for her offstage, off-screen antics than for her performances — which, in a few instances, were magnificent.
How bad was Bankhead?
The Alabama-born daughter of U.S. Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead had a thing about clothes: She didn’t like them. On more than one occasion — including her run as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at the Coconut Grove Playhouse — she would answer a knock at her dressing room door wearing nothing but a string of pearls. She famously did cartwheels while wearing a dress and no underwear. She was bisexually voracious, a heavy smoker and enthusiastic bourbon drinker who swore that cocaine — another of her enduring enthusiasms — wasn’t habit-forming.
“She was far more talented than Bette Davis or Joan Crawford,” Lombardo argues. “But they played by the rules.”
So Lombardo, the author of Tea at Five (about Katharine Hepburn) and High (a play featuring Kathleen Turner as an unorthodox, potty-mouthed nun), wrote Looped.
The play, which lasted for 27 previews and 33 performances on Broadway in 2010, earned a best actress Tony Award nomination for its original star, Valerie Harper. She was slated to star as Bankhead in the Looped national tour, which kicks off at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Fort Lauderdale’s Parker Playhouse. But unspecified health problems caused Harper, who became a famous television face as Mary Tyler Moore’s pal Rhoda, to bow out. In her just-released memoir I, Rhoda, Harper revealed she was treated for lung cancer when Looped was on its way to Broadway, something she had never discussed with Lombardo or director Rob Ruggiero.
So now another familiar TV star, Stefanie Powers of Hart to Hart, will be the woman sporting Bankhead’s wavy hairdo and swearing up a storm in Lombardo’s raucous, funny play.
Though Looped was written with Harper in mind and shaped with her playing Bankhead at three theaters (including the former Cuillo Centre in West Palm Beach) on its road to Broadway, Powers brings a special insider’s perspective to the play, one that Lombardo, Harper and Ruggiero simply didn’t have.
The play’s title refers not to Bankhead’s inebriated state — though in Looped, she’s pretty well pickled — but to a 1965 session in which she had to re-record a line of dialogue for the movie Die, Die, My Darling. In the British thriller Fanatic, Bankhead played a religious zealot who goes off the deep end, trying to kill the young woman who had been engaged to her late son. That almost daughter-in-law was played by a young actress in her first big movie role: Stefanie Powers.
“I wouldn’t call this a comedy,” Powers says of Looped. “She was intrinsically a very daring and funny woman. If the dialogue is funny, it comes out of this extraordinary wit. She was always a bit shocking...I want to channel her as much as I possibly can. It has to resonate in my head.”
“Val’s Tony-nominated Tallulah was wonderful. But we had to craft it and work at the rhythms of how she speaks,” says Ruggiero. “With Stefanie, it’s second nature. She was there.”
Lombardo, who splits his time between New York and Fort Lauderdale, has an affinity for plays centered around strong female characters. He had never had a special interest in Bankhead, an actress whose most notable stage work was in The Little Foxes and The Skin of Our Teeth, and who won a New York Film Critics Circle best actress award for the 1944 Alfred Hitchcock movie Lifeboat. But a chance remark at a party launched Lombardo on the journey to Looped.
A partygoer asked if he had ever heard the story about Bankhead showing up less than sober to re-record this tongue twister of a line from Die, Die, My Darling: “And so Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me.”
The original mistake wasn’t Bankhead’s. A sound guy hit some shrubbery with a microphone, obscuring most of her line. But because of Bankhead’s condition on the day revisited in the play, what should have been a few minutes’ work in a recording studio turned into hours.
“She had these ‘caddies,’ gay men who followed her around and helped her out, and one of them had recorded the session, unbeknownst to her,” Lombardo says. “The tape is 30 minutes long, and she cannot get the line. I listened to it over and over, and it went from a hysterical, laugh-out-loud experience to something else. The drinking, drugs and promiscuity all caught up with her, and she became a caricature of herself.”
Looped is a mixture of fact and creative license. To give Bankhead an opponent, Lombardo created the character of Danny Miller, a film editor who grows increasingly exasperated with the misbehaving star.
“I threw her in a room with someone who was her complete opposite,” the playwright says, “a very conservative, quiet, meek film editor. A sheep.”
Ruggiero says of Bankhead: “She was a woman who lived her life fully, without apology. She was vivid and unedited. The gay community felt a connection to her because of her sense of humor and camp ...We all care what people think of us, but she pretended she didn’t.”
He adds that having Powers as the larger-than-life woman in that room has been enlightening.
“Stefanie shares stories from the movie set. They pop in and out, like an oral history,” Ruggiero says.
Powers was a 23-year-old ingénue when she made Die, Die, My Darling. She’s 70 now, a woman who can look back on a multifaceted career in movies, TV and on stage; and on a life fully lived, including a romance with William Holden and her own successful battle with lung cancer.
Her assessment of Bankhead, her onetime costar?
“This self-destructive engine that moved her and her personal lifestyle choices were extremely damaging to her artistry. They engulfed her at the end. But the world she came from tolerated great eccentricity in successful people. It was encouraged and enjoyed. It can’t be reproduced in this homogeneous society we have now.”
How bad was Bankhead?
The Alabama-born daughter of U.S. Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead had a thing about clothes: She didn’t like them. On more than one occasion — including her run as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at the Coconut Grove Playhouse — she would answer a knock at her dressing room door wearing nothing but a string of pearls. She famously did cartwheels while wearing a dress and no underwear. She was bisexually voracious, a heavy smoker and enthusiastic bourbon drinker who swore that cocaine — another of her enduring enthusiasms — wasn’t habit-forming.
“She was far more talented than Bette Davis or Joan Crawford,” Lombardo argues. “But they played by the rules.”
So Lombardo, the author of Tea at Five (about Katharine Hepburn) and High (a play featuring Kathleen Turner as an unorthodox, potty-mouthed nun), wrote Looped.
The play, which lasted for 27 previews and 33 performances on Broadway in 2010, earned a best actress Tony Award nomination for its original star, Valerie Harper. She was slated to star as Bankhead in the Looped national tour, which kicks off at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Fort Lauderdale’s Parker Playhouse. But unspecified health problems caused Harper, who became a famous television face as Mary Tyler Moore’s pal Rhoda, to bow out. In her just-released memoir I, Rhoda, Harper revealed she was treated for lung cancer when Looped was on its way to Broadway, something she had never discussed with Lombardo or director Rob Ruggiero.
So now another familiar TV star, Stefanie Powers of Hart to Hart, will be the woman sporting Bankhead’s wavy hairdo and swearing up a storm in Lombardo’s raucous, funny play.
Though Looped was written with Harper in mind and shaped with her playing Bankhead at three theaters (including the former Cuillo Centre in West Palm Beach) on its road to Broadway, Powers brings a special insider’s perspective to the play, one that Lombardo, Harper and Ruggiero simply didn’t have.
The play’s title refers not to Bankhead’s inebriated state — though in Looped, she’s pretty well pickled — but to a 1965 session in which she had to re-record a line of dialogue for the movie Die, Die, My Darling. In the British thriller Fanatic, Bankhead played a religious zealot who goes off the deep end, trying to kill the young woman who had been engaged to her late son. That almost daughter-in-law was played by a young actress in her first big movie role: Stefanie Powers.
“I wouldn’t call this a comedy,” Powers says of Looped. “She was intrinsically a very daring and funny woman. If the dialogue is funny, it comes out of this extraordinary wit. She was always a bit shocking...I want to channel her as much as I possibly can. It has to resonate in my head.”
“Val’s Tony-nominated Tallulah was wonderful. But we had to craft it and work at the rhythms of how she speaks,” says Ruggiero. “With Stefanie, it’s second nature. She was there.”
Lombardo, who splits his time between New York and Fort Lauderdale, has an affinity for plays centered around strong female characters. He had never had a special interest in Bankhead, an actress whose most notable stage work was in The Little Foxes and The Skin of Our Teeth, and who won a New York Film Critics Circle best actress award for the 1944 Alfred Hitchcock movie Lifeboat. But a chance remark at a party launched Lombardo on the journey to Looped.
A partygoer asked if he had ever heard the story about Bankhead showing up less than sober to re-record this tongue twister of a line from Die, Die, My Darling: “And so Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me.”
The original mistake wasn’t Bankhead’s. A sound guy hit some shrubbery with a microphone, obscuring most of her line. But because of Bankhead’s condition on the day revisited in the play, what should have been a few minutes’ work in a recording studio turned into hours.
“She had these ‘caddies,’ gay men who followed her around and helped her out, and one of them had recorded the session, unbeknownst to her,” Lombardo says. “The tape is 30 minutes long, and she cannot get the line. I listened to it over and over, and it went from a hysterical, laugh-out-loud experience to something else. The drinking, drugs and promiscuity all caught up with her, and she became a caricature of herself.”
Looped is a mixture of fact and creative license. To give Bankhead an opponent, Lombardo created the character of Danny Miller, a film editor who grows increasingly exasperated with the misbehaving star.
“I threw her in a room with someone who was her complete opposite,” the playwright says, “a very conservative, quiet, meek film editor. A sheep.”
Ruggiero says of Bankhead: “She was a woman who lived her life fully, without apology. She was vivid and unedited. The gay community felt a connection to her because of her sense of humor and camp ...We all care what people think of us, but she pretended she didn’t.”
He adds that having Powers as the larger-than-life woman in that room has been enlightening.
“Stefanie shares stories from the movie set. They pop in and out, like an oral history,” Ruggiero says.
Powers was a 23-year-old ingénue when she made Die, Die, My Darling. She’s 70 now, a woman who can look back on a multifaceted career in movies, TV and on stage; and on a life fully lived, including a romance with William Holden and her own successful battle with lung cancer.
Her assessment of Bankhead, her onetime costar?
“This self-destructive engine that moved her and her personal lifestyle choices were extremely damaging to her artistry. They engulfed her at the end. But the world she came from tolerated great eccentricity in successful people. It was encouraged and enjoyed. It can’t be reproduced in this homogeneous society we have now.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Stefanie Powers Talks Tallulah As She Gets Ready for Looped
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| Stefanie Powers |
When Stefanie Powers received the call to ask her if she'd replace an ailing Valerie Harper in the play Looped, Powers was rehearsing another play. She was co-starring with former television actor David Soul in Love Letters in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
With only two weeks to prepare for Looped, she's steeped in learning her lines and ready for her close up to star as Tallulah Bankhead in playwright Matthew Lombardo's diva vehicle based on a slice of life taken from a real story about the legendary actress.
"I'm brand new into the rehearsal process for Looped," Powers says during a telephone interview — her melodic voice chiming in, so familiar as Jennifer Hart from the television series, Hart to Hart. "I'm most anxious to get started and spend as much time as I possibly can preparing."
It was the end of January when it was announced that Valerie Harper would have to bow out of the national tour of the play, which gets its kick off at Fort Lauderdale's Parker Playhouse on Feb. 26.
Harper was hospitalized during rehearsals for the tour, a role which she originated on Broadway in 2010 and for which she received a Tony Award nomination. When the actress was advised to take a medical leave from the show, Powers was tapped as her replacement and she couldn't be a more likely choice. In the play, Bankhead is called into a sound studio in 1965 to re-record (or "loop") one line of dialogue for what would be her last film, the campy horror classic Die! Die! My Darling, which also co-starred Powers and what would be Bankhead's last film.
"You could say I have an unusual connection to the role. I can hear her somewhere in the recesses of my medulla oblongata. I keep hearing her because I did have that intimate contact with her. But, I still have to approach the role with me as the actor and she as the character," says Powers.
There are other connections including Harper and Powers both having the same oncologist after their diagnoses of lung cancer. It was during preparation for Looped's New York premiere in 2009 that Harper, a lifelong non-smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer, a revelation that she discusses for the first time in her memoir, I, Rhoda. Harper had the cancer removed along with a piece of her lung. Powers has become an outspoken advocate for early cancer detection. After a friend died of late-diagnosed lung cancer, she ordered herself an X-ray, which showed pre-cancerous cells in her lung. When she was diagnosed in 2009 with malignant cancer, she then had surgery to remove a lobe of her right lung. Power chronicles the cancer battle in her book, One From the Hart.
"Valerie has been such a cheerleader for me taking over this role," says Powers. In a statement released by her publicist, Harper praises the actress. "In my opinion, Stefanie is the perfect choice to take over this role. She is extraordinarily talented and will make one terrific Tallulah."
Powers goes on to describe how she is approaching the role of Tallulah. "My chore is to not just portray someone who is famous for their personality or for the way in which they behaved — she was very much a gay icon and every drag queen at one time or another had her in their repertoire. I want to bring the truth of the character to the role and not the parody of it, and do her justice in trying to capture the real person rather than the exaggeration."
And what does Powers have to say to fans who will be disappointed that Harper is not in the starring role? "I'd tell them that whether they are seeing Valerie's version or my version, they are actually going to see Tallulah, and this wonderful play that Matthew has written. Hopefully that's what Valerie would say, too."
Much of Powers' professional career was spent on television — her first series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. marked a milestone in U.S. television history in 1966 as the first hour-long series to feature a female in a leading role. And then, of course, there was her most recognized role, which gained her international fame as Robert Wagner's co-star in the long-running Hart to Hart. She's one of those stars, however, that can do just about everything — she's written screenplays, a memoir, and a one woman show, Hart of my Heart, which also spotlights her singing talents in a tribute she wrote about the life and lyrics of Lorenz Hart. In 1991, she performed in the original London musical, Matador. It ran for only three months, but it launched a career for her in musicals. Her portrayal of Anna in The King and I played for nearly two years in London's West End.
The actress has also remounted the musical Sunset Boulevard with a U.S. revival in the works, mining much of what she had learned of the movie from her longtime love William Holden, who starred in the classic opposite Gloria Swanson.
For now, however, her attention is to Tallulah and to bringing a character to the stage that she says she's enjoying exploring and that she believes the audience will appreciate, too.
"There's a lot of humor in this piece, but there's a lot of insight, too, of an extraordinary eccentric, the likes of which will never been seen again. The world today would not tolerate her kind of eccentricity. We've all become so homogenized. So this is a treat for me and for the audience. To step inside this world and to spend a few hours with an extraordinary eccentric such as Tallulah is nothing less than sheer delight."
Looped runs from Feb. 26 through March 3 at The Parker Playhouse, 707 NE 8th St., Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 954-522-5334 or www.browardcenter.org or www.parkerplayhouse.com.
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| Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers in Die! Die! My Darling |
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Stefanie Powers comes to Fort Lauderdale this month in 'Looped'
Stefanie Powers stars as the venerable actress Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped," which opens at the Parker Playhouse on Feb. 26 for a six-day run.
"Looped," which tells the store of Bankhead through a real life incident that occurred in 1965, when the inebriated actress, who was known for her flamboyance, needed eight hours to redub (or 'loop') one line of dialogue for her last movie, "Die! Die! My Darling!"
Though Bankhead dominates the play, the sub-story involves her battle of wills with a film editor named Danny Miller, who was selected to work on that particular sound editing session.
Valerie Harper originated the role in "Looped" received a Tony nomination for it. However, she was forced to step aside following a recent health scare, and gave her blessing to Powers, who actually co-starred with Bankhead film upon which the incident in "Looped" is based.
"In my opinion, Stefanie is the perfect choice to take over this role. She is extraordinarily talented and will make one terrific Tallulah!," said Harper in a statement. "I urge everyone to go out and see this hysterically funny plan and support Stefanie's participation," Harper added.
Powers is best known for starring in the popular television series "Hart to Hart" with Robert Wagner. However, she is also an Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominated actress with a long career in stage and film.
More info: Parker Playhouse
"Looped," which tells the store of Bankhead through a real life incident that occurred in 1965, when the inebriated actress, who was known for her flamboyance, needed eight hours to redub (or 'loop') one line of dialogue for her last movie, "Die! Die! My Darling!"
Though Bankhead dominates the play, the sub-story involves her battle of wills with a film editor named Danny Miller, who was selected to work on that particular sound editing session.
Valerie Harper originated the role in "Looped" received a Tony nomination for it. However, she was forced to step aside following a recent health scare, and gave her blessing to Powers, who actually co-starred with Bankhead film upon which the incident in "Looped" is based.
"In my opinion, Stefanie is the perfect choice to take over this role. She is extraordinarily talented and will make one terrific Tallulah!," said Harper in a statement. "I urge everyone to go out and see this hysterically funny plan and support Stefanie's participation," Harper added.
Powers is best known for starring in the popular television series "Hart to Hart" with Robert Wagner. However, she is also an Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominated actress with a long career in stage and film.
More info: Parker Playhouse
Monday, January 28, 2013
Stefanie Powers to Replace Ailing Valerie Harper in National Tour of Looped
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I will be unable to honor my commitment to the tour of Looped,” Harper said in statement. “This play has been such a gift and it was my hope and intention to play this role again in the upcoming tour. But given my doctor's recent recommendations, I must now put all my energy into getting well and renewing my strength.”
Harper endorsed Powers as her replacement, stating, “Stefanie is the perfect choice to take over this role. She is extraordinarily talented and will make one terrific Tallulah! I have called to give her my blessing and I urge everyone to go out and see this hysterically funny play and support Stefanie's participation.”
Set in the summer of 1965, Looped follows an aging and intoxicated Tallulah Bankhead as she attempts to re-record one line of dialogue for her final film, Die! Die! My Darling! The ordeal takes eight hours as Bankhead spars with Danny Miller (Brian Hutchison), a no-nonsense film editor, during the dubbing session. The tour also features Matthew Montelongo as Steve.
Looped originally premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, starring Harper. The show opened at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre on March 14, 2010, where it played 25 performances before closing on April 11.
Powers is an Emmy-nominated actress, best known for her role as Jennifer Hart in the TV series Hart to Hart. She has appeared in London’s West End in Matador, The King and I and Love Letters. Harper earned four Emmy awards for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on TV’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda and Mary and Rhoda. On Broadway, Harper has appeared in Take Me Along, Wildcat, Subways Are For Sleeping, Something Different, Paul Sills’ Story Theatre, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Hutchison’s Broadway credits include The Invention of Love, Exit the King and Proof. His film and TV credits include Ghost Town, Love and Other Drugs, Sudden Death and Do No Harm.
The Looped national tour will play Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre from March 5 through 17. The tour will also stop in Hartford, where it was originally scheduled to launch before Harper’s hospitalization, from May 7 through 12.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Love Letters at the Madinat Theatre
Art For All is proud to present this romantic stage show at Madinat Theatre.
Date: Thursday, 31st January - Saturday, 2nd February 2013
Duration: 3 days
Timings: 10:00 PM
Audience: Art Lovers, Family, General Public
Category: Entertainment
Venue: Madinat Theatre, Souk Madinat Jumeirah
Admission: AED 200 - 275
Telephone: +971 4 366 8888
This play, considered one of Gurney's best and a classic of the American stage, tells the story of two people who grew up together in the 1930s and continue to stay in touch through letters. Directed by Ian Talbot, it stars the American actress Stefanie Powers ("Hart to Hart") and the American-British actor David Soul ("Starsky and Hutch").
Tickets available from the Madinat Theatre Box Office and online at TimeOut Tickets, Groupon and Virgin Megastore.
Date: Thursday, 31st January - Saturday, 2nd February 2013
Duration: 3 days
Timings: 10:00 PM
Audience: Art Lovers, Family, General Public
Category: Entertainment
Venue: Madinat Theatre, Souk Madinat Jumeirah
Admission: AED 200 - 275
Telephone: +971 4 366 8888
This play, considered one of Gurney's best and a classic of the American stage, tells the story of two people who grew up together in the 1930s and continue to stay in touch through letters. Directed by Ian Talbot, it stars the American actress Stefanie Powers ("Hart to Hart") and the American-British actor David Soul ("Starsky and Hutch").
Tickets available from the Madinat Theatre Box Office and online at TimeOut Tickets, Groupon and Virgin Megastore.
Love Letters comes to the UAE
First performed in 1988 in Connecticut, Love Letters, which features two main characters, has become a favourite for many celebrities to tackle, including Elizabeth Taylor, Christopher Reeve, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels and James Earl Jones.
It is being brought to Dubai by the UAE-based Art for All and the London-based Jamie Wilson Productions (When Harry Met Sally, The Night Before Christmas).
The universal story is pertinent to any nationality, according to Talbot, the artistic director of the Regent Park open-air theatre in the UK. “We have worked on the premise that Andy has discovered the letters in his attic after many years. He reads them and memories come flooding back. Both sit in rooms that represent their personalities.”
The play aims to illustrate how “inept” we sometimes are when trying to express true feelings.
While Melissa talks about the merits of the telephone above letter writing, the character of Andy finds the phone inhibiting and can only relay his true feelings on paper. With the constant advancements in technology, Talbot says he can sympathise. The director recounts a recent experience at a restaurant where six people sitting at the same table focused on their mobile phones rather than each other.
“We are losing the ability to communicate and I mourn the lack of letter writing,” says Talbot.
Writing with the stars
Having seen the results of the successful partnership between Powers and Soul when they previously acted in the play, the producer Jamie Wilson decided to reunite the pair for the Dubai performance.
A R Gurney was once quoted as saying the play “needs no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorisation of lines and no commitment from its two actors beyond the night of the performance.”
Both Soul and Powers say the “unusual” play is a “gift” and a “joy” for any actor to do. The actors describe the story as an insight into two people’s lives through letters that show how they become who they are and in what ways they both deal with life. They encourage UAE residents to come and watch how they made each character their own, and also to witness their on-screen chemistry.
“It’s a study of the human condition that audiences will be able to relate to,” said Powers and Soul in a joint statement.
They were both “very moved” by the play from the first read as it stirred different emotions.
A challenging play
Opening with a “beautiful rendition” of Love Letters, Love Letters asks the audience to be true to themselves and avoid allowing others to suppress what they believe, says Talbot.
“Everyone experiences strong emotions that sometimes are hard to relate. The play is a challenge but it is so well written that if you cast it with two talented and experienced actors, it will take care of itself,” he adds. “Everyone can ask themselves if they have always followed their hearts.”
The story also explores how the characters come from comfortable backgrounds materially, but find it hard to express themselves emotionally.
“These are two wonderful parts that don’t come along all that often. No wonder it attracts star names,” says Talbot, who advises the audience to “bring a handkerchief.”
Following the production, Powers is set to go on location in Hungary for a new film, while Soul is working on a documentary in Cuba about the restoration of Ernest Hemingway’s car.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Reviews of Hart of My Heart at The Hippodrome Casino
Stefanie Powers is currently performing her cabaret show Hart of My Heart - A Tribute to Lorenz Hart in the Matcham Room of The Hippodrome Casino in London.
Click here to read the West End Whingers review.
Click here to read The Public Reviews review.
Click here to read the West End Whingers review.
Click here to read The Public Reviews review.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Stefanie Powers - Live at The Hippodrome Casino in London
Stefanie Powers - Hart of My Heart - A Tribute to Lorenz Hart
October 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
The Hippodrome Casino
Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, WC2H 7JH London, United Kingdom
Phone Number: 0207 769 8888
Created by David Galligan
Music arranged and conducted by Mary Ekler
The songs of Rodgers and Hart are at the very core of the Great American Song Book and it is no surprise that Lorenz Hart's remarkable lyrics earned him the well-deserved right to be called "the Poet of Broadway." Stefanie Powers celebrates those lyrics in an evening of song and anecdotal stories that work to frame the music in a context that gives new meaning to those familiar songs. Hart of My Heart is an intimate tribute to a man whose tortured personal life was overshadowed by his legacy of words to music that ranks him among the greatest. This one-woman show earned New York critics acclaim when she performed it at Feinstein's at the Regency Hotel.
Stefanie began her career at age 15, dancing briefly for famed choreographer Jerome Robbins. While under contract to Columbia pictures she appeared in 15 motion pictures before landing her first television role in the The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Later she played opposite Robert Wagner in the long running series Hart to Hart. Stefanie has also continued playing roles in musical theater in both the West End and on Broadway, including appearances in The King and I and Sunset Boulevard.
Buy tickets.
October 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
The Hippodrome Casino
Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, WC2H 7JH London, United Kingdom
Phone Number: 0207 769 8888
Created by David Galligan
Music arranged and conducted by Mary Ekler
The songs of Rodgers and Hart are at the very core of the Great American Song Book and it is no surprise that Lorenz Hart's remarkable lyrics earned him the well-deserved right to be called "the Poet of Broadway." Stefanie Powers celebrates those lyrics in an evening of song and anecdotal stories that work to frame the music in a context that gives new meaning to those familiar songs. Hart of My Heart is an intimate tribute to a man whose tortured personal life was overshadowed by his legacy of words to music that ranks him among the greatest. This one-woman show earned New York critics acclaim when she performed it at Feinstein's at the Regency Hotel.
Stefanie began her career at age 15, dancing briefly for famed choreographer Jerome Robbins. While under contract to Columbia pictures she appeared in 15 motion pictures before landing her first television role in the The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Later she played opposite Robert Wagner in the long running series Hart to Hart. Stefanie has also continued playing roles in musical theater in both the West End and on Broadway, including appearances in The King and I and Sunset Boulevard.
Buy tickets.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Hart to Hart Movies Available on DVD
Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers return after a successful series run as Jonathan and Jennifer Hart for four feature-length mysteries that will entertain and thrill you. See everyone's favorite crime-solving couple - along with their loyal butler Max (Lionel Stander) and their dog Freeway - in these four whodunits. In HART TO HART RETURNS the Harts deal with shady government contractors. In HART TO HART: HOME IS WHERE THE HART IS the two return to the town where Jennifer worked as a reporter to deal with her old mentor's mysterious death. In HART TO HART: CRIMES OF THE HART the Harts go to New York to see a play Jennifer wrote but find themselves investigating the murder of a stagehand - and Jonathan is a suspect! Finally in HART TO HART: OLD FRIENDS NEVER DIE the Harts attend a publisher's murder mystery party but begin to wonder if it is real. With stars such as Maureen O'Sullivan Roddy McDowall Richard Belzer Mike Farrell and Fred Willard these four HART TO HART movies are a must for any mystery lover's collection! Newly remastered.
Click to purchase Hart to Hart: Vol. 1
Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers reprise their beloved characters Jonathan and Jennifer Hart as they return to the small screen in these four feature-length mysteries. In HART TO HART: SECRETS OF THE HART Jonathan is told that he has a long-lost sister only to be led into a potential trap (this is also the last appearance by Lionel Stander as Max the Harts' beloved butler). In HART TO HART: TWO HARTS IN THREE-QUARTER TIME the Harts go to Montreal for the reading of Max's will but the gift being left to them leads to a tale of kidnapping and murder. In HART TO HART: HARTS IN HIGH SEASON the Harts go to Sydney Australia where there is more than meets the eye when an old flame of Jennifer's seems to have ulterior motives. And in HART TO HART: TILL DEATH DO US HART the Harts travel to Munich Germany for their anniversary and help a sick boy but run into trouble when they meet a woman who is the spitting image of Jennifer! With stars such as Marion Ross Jason Bateman James Brolin Joan Collins and George Hamilton these four HART TO HART movies are an exciting and star-filled collection! Newly remastered.
Click to purchase Hart to Hart: Vol. 2
Buy movies individually by clicking on the links below:
Hart to Hart Returns
Hart to Hart: Home is Where the Hart Is
Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart
Hart to Hart: Old Friends Never Die
Hart to Hart: Secrets of the Hart
Hart To Hart: Two Harts in Three-Quarter Time
Hart To Hart: Harts In High Season
Hart To Hart: Til Death Do Us Hart
Click to purchase Hart to Hart: Vol. 1
Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers reprise their beloved characters Jonathan and Jennifer Hart as they return to the small screen in these four feature-length mysteries. In HART TO HART: SECRETS OF THE HART Jonathan is told that he has a long-lost sister only to be led into a potential trap (this is also the last appearance by Lionel Stander as Max the Harts' beloved butler). In HART TO HART: TWO HARTS IN THREE-QUARTER TIME the Harts go to Montreal for the reading of Max's will but the gift being left to them leads to a tale of kidnapping and murder. In HART TO HART: HARTS IN HIGH SEASON the Harts go to Sydney Australia where there is more than meets the eye when an old flame of Jennifer's seems to have ulterior motives. And in HART TO HART: TILL DEATH DO US HART the Harts travel to Munich Germany for their anniversary and help a sick boy but run into trouble when they meet a woman who is the spitting image of Jennifer! With stars such as Marion Ross Jason Bateman James Brolin Joan Collins and George Hamilton these four HART TO HART movies are an exciting and star-filled collection! Newly remastered.
Click to purchase Hart to Hart: Vol. 2
Buy movies individually by clicking on the links below:
Hart to Hart Returns
Hart to Hart: Home is Where the Hart Is
Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart
Hart to Hart: Old Friends Never Die
Hart to Hart: Secrets of the Hart
Hart To Hart: Two Harts in Three-Quarter Time
Hart To Hart: Harts In High Season
Hart To Hart: Til Death Do Us Hart
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Stefanie Powers on the struggles that have shaped her life
Stefanie Powers is a woman who relishes a challenge. She’s having to surmount the difficulties faced by a flaky mobile phone line as she speaks to me from a car being driven out of Worcester where she’s been signing copies of her autobiography One From The Hart.
As confessionals go it’s a stark overview of a life that has not been without its struggles in recent times for the actress who starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
“The book came out in hardback and we sold out, so it was decided to publish it in paperback version with the addition of the final chapter which was written after I was participated in your very popular television show in the jungle,” she explains.
“The book was more or less a cathartic experience for me after two life-changing events. One was the death of my mother with whom I was extremely close. We had shared a home for the past 27 years of her life. We had many adventures and travels together. We were great friends as well as being mother and daughter.
“That was followed by my own trial with and surgery for lung cancer,” she adds. “While recovering both physically and mentally from both of those events, I was asked to put some of that experience into a memoir form. I started writing and eventually it became a book.”
The 69-year-old star famed for her TV series Hart To Hart, in which she starred alongside Robert Wager as a crime-fighting husband and wife, tells me she had her own deeply personal reasons for adding a touch of Hollywood glamour to I’m A Celebrity.
“I guess the last piece of the puzzle was when I had fully recovered physically from my surgery,” she reveals. “I had lived all of my life out of doors, on expeditions and adventure travel. I’ve filmed documentaries in different places and in uncomfortable situations. I have spent a long time sleeping under the stars and continue to do so and enjoy it very much.
“So the idea of going into a jungle environment and doing some trials, well it was an opportunity to earn some money for the William Holden Wildlife Foundation (the late Hollywood actor’s organisation of which Powers is a patron) and create some additional visibility for it.
“I also wanted to be a poster child for survivors or people who are in the process of surviving cancer, as I am. I wanted to show that it is possible to resume all of your activities after beating cancer.”
Although one of the first to be voted off the show. Powers is resolute that she achieved all of her aims.
“I think I very quickly accomplished everything I wanted to,” she states. “It was as demanding as some of my personal experiences have been, especially those physical challenges, so I was quite happy to have done it and gotten out of that environment as quickly as possible.”
Ask the woman who has intimate knowledge of the Hollywood star system – having been signed up by Universal Studios in her younger days – about the cult of celebrity and you are met with a stinging response. It’s clear she’s certainly no fan of reality TV despite her jungle exploits.
“It is a different world,” she sighs. “I think there are people who curry celebrity as it’s become based on no particular talent whatsoever or no particular accomplishment whatsoever.
“When I see something like the Kardashians (US reality TV stars) who are very attractive girls promoted by their mother into a multi-million business and I think about Kim Kardashian being paid $15m so that they could photograph her wedding, and then I contrast that with raising money for breast cancer or research for deadly diseases, if you tried to raise $15m for research into deadly diseases it would take you quite a lot of time to do that.
“So I think by comparison the amount of money that is generated by this cult of celebrity over nothing whatsoever is almost an obscenity. When compared to worthwhile and terribly important causes and tragedies the world is experiencing, I find it not only frivolous but tragic. It’s so out of proportion with anything meaningful.”
It’s apparent Powers won’t be setting foot in the world of reality TV anytime soon. Nevertheless she is back in the limelight and treading the boards for British audiences in a national tour of On Golden Pond.
“It’s a wonderful play and a play on which the Oscar-winning movie is based,” she elaborates. “The movie was quite an event because not only was it beautifully made but it was a major event in movie history because it was Jane Fonda’s and Henry Fonda’s first and only appearance together in a film. It also won an academy award for both Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda. It was very much of a sentimental, emotional piece as a film,” she continues. But the play is very much a comedy. Our audiences are extremely delighted and surprised by how enjoyable the play is, because if they see the film they are pre-programmed to consider it as a tear-jerker and it’s far from that. We’re bringing it back in its original form and so far it’s been very well received.”
As confessionals go it’s a stark overview of a life that has not been without its struggles in recent times for the actress who starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
“The book came out in hardback and we sold out, so it was decided to publish it in paperback version with the addition of the final chapter which was written after I was participated in your very popular television show in the jungle,” she explains.
“The book was more or less a cathartic experience for me after two life-changing events. One was the death of my mother with whom I was extremely close. We had shared a home for the past 27 years of her life. We had many adventures and travels together. We were great friends as well as being mother and daughter.
“That was followed by my own trial with and surgery for lung cancer,” she adds. “While recovering both physically and mentally from both of those events, I was asked to put some of that experience into a memoir form. I started writing and eventually it became a book.”
The 69-year-old star famed for her TV series Hart To Hart, in which she starred alongside Robert Wager as a crime-fighting husband and wife, tells me she had her own deeply personal reasons for adding a touch of Hollywood glamour to I’m A Celebrity.
“I guess the last piece of the puzzle was when I had fully recovered physically from my surgery,” she reveals. “I had lived all of my life out of doors, on expeditions and adventure travel. I’ve filmed documentaries in different places and in uncomfortable situations. I have spent a long time sleeping under the stars and continue to do so and enjoy it very much.
“So the idea of going into a jungle environment and doing some trials, well it was an opportunity to earn some money for the William Holden Wildlife Foundation (the late Hollywood actor’s organisation of which Powers is a patron) and create some additional visibility for it.
“I also wanted to be a poster child for survivors or people who are in the process of surviving cancer, as I am. I wanted to show that it is possible to resume all of your activities after beating cancer.”
Although one of the first to be voted off the show. Powers is resolute that she achieved all of her aims.
“I think I very quickly accomplished everything I wanted to,” she states. “It was as demanding as some of my personal experiences have been, especially those physical challenges, so I was quite happy to have done it and gotten out of that environment as quickly as possible.”
Ask the woman who has intimate knowledge of the Hollywood star system – having been signed up by Universal Studios in her younger days – about the cult of celebrity and you are met with a stinging response. It’s clear she’s certainly no fan of reality TV despite her jungle exploits.
“It is a different world,” she sighs. “I think there are people who curry celebrity as it’s become based on no particular talent whatsoever or no particular accomplishment whatsoever.
“When I see something like the Kardashians (US reality TV stars) who are very attractive girls promoted by their mother into a multi-million business and I think about Kim Kardashian being paid $15m so that they could photograph her wedding, and then I contrast that with raising money for breast cancer or research for deadly diseases, if you tried to raise $15m for research into deadly diseases it would take you quite a lot of time to do that.
“So I think by comparison the amount of money that is generated by this cult of celebrity over nothing whatsoever is almost an obscenity. When compared to worthwhile and terribly important causes and tragedies the world is experiencing, I find it not only frivolous but tragic. It’s so out of proportion with anything meaningful.”
It’s apparent Powers won’t be setting foot in the world of reality TV anytime soon. Nevertheless she is back in the limelight and treading the boards for British audiences in a national tour of On Golden Pond.
“It’s a wonderful play and a play on which the Oscar-winning movie is based,” she elaborates. “The movie was quite an event because not only was it beautifully made but it was a major event in movie history because it was Jane Fonda’s and Henry Fonda’s first and only appearance together in a film. It also won an academy award for both Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda. It was very much of a sentimental, emotional piece as a film,” she continues. But the play is very much a comedy. Our audiences are extremely delighted and surprised by how enjoyable the play is, because if they see the film they are pre-programmed to consider it as a tear-jerker and it’s far from that. We’re bringing it back in its original form and so far it’s been very well received.”
Friday, February 10, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Review: On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson at Colchester Mercury until Saturday
Norman and Ethel Thayer have spent the last 48 summers of their lives at their holiday home by the lake known as Golden Pond in the New England State of Maine. They’ve never wanted to go anywhere else, like abroad.
Not very adventurous for a noted professor emeritus of English you might think, very old-fashioned, but this is an old-fashioned play and a complete delight, relying entirely on the wit of the words and the ability of the cast to tell what amounts to a very simple story.
It is also something of an occasion because a big star of films and TV, Stefanie Powers, has the role of Ethel and she’s very good indeed. But Norman is the mainspring of the piece and Richard Johnson has got him completely nailed, a curmudgeon and stirrer of the first order who knowingly misunderstands and misleads. And he’s got some cracking lines in a script that bubbles and sometimes crackles with good humour.
Norman is a man who thinks he is getting his own way in all things but Ethel manages him without his really knowing it and they seem set for another summer of fishing, berry-picking and a quiet celebration of Norman’s 80th birthday when Chelsea, their daughter and only child, arrives with her new boyfriend Bill and his 14-year-old son Billy.
Chelsea and her dad have not been close for a long time and she is anxious to heal what is wrong between them. But first she and Bill are off to Europe to have some time together and they want to leave Billy with Norman and Ethel.
Norman’s not very keen but agrees and eventually his relationship with the youngster becomes good and important. “Billy’s been the best thing that’s happened for Norman since Roosevelt,” says Ethel. We perhaps wonder if it wasn’t a boy that he had really always wanted and this sparks new resentments when Chelsea returns. But it’s never too heavy and the laughs keep coming.
Stefanie Powers is a gentle Ethel who plays Norman a bit like the fish he’s so fond of catching in what is a very assured performance and she has some great lines of her own. Elizabeth Carling is a winning worried Chelsea, Tom Roberts does a nice job as Bill trying to create a good impression and Graeme Dalling is the boy who amusingly teaches Norman the cool language of youth.
As a movie the reshaped On Golden Pond won three Oscars. I much prefer this original version.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Stefanie Powers Heads Down Under for I'm A Celebrity
In a surprising move, ITV producers have gone for an older batch of celebrities to throw into the jungle this year.
Rather than the usual batch of buxom, bikini-clad D-listers, a host of over-60s have been recruited.
At least four of the celebrities who will be thrown into the Australian bush are in their 60s.
Former jockey Willie Carson, 69, has also arrived in town, according to the Sun, and comedian Freddie Starr, 68, was spotted leaving Heathrow.
Starr is famous for the Sun newspaper headline 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster.'
The story, in 1986, was untrue, but remains one of the best-known front pages in history.
U.S actress Stefanie Powers, 69, is also understood to be joining the line-up.
Stefanie, best known for 1980s TV drama Hart To Hart, is said to be jetting into the Gold Coast from Los Angeles.
Rather than the usual batch of buxom, bikini-clad D-listers, a host of over-60s have been recruited.
At least four of the celebrities who will be thrown into the Australian bush are in their 60s.
Former jockey Willie Carson, 69, has also arrived in town, according to the Sun, and comedian Freddie Starr, 68, was spotted leaving Heathrow.
Starr is famous for the Sun newspaper headline 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster.'
The story, in 1986, was untrue, but remains one of the best-known front pages in history.
U.S actress Stefanie Powers, 69, is also understood to be joining the line-up.
Stefanie, best known for 1980s TV drama Hart To Hart, is said to be jetting into the Gold Coast from Los Angeles.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Stefanie Powers still gets around like The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.
Stefanie Powers was never really a globe-trotting spy, she just played one on TV.
But if she ever decided to become a secret agent for real, she certainly has a lot of the right qualifications. The actress lives in three different countries, speaks seven languages fluently, is a cultural scholar, world traveler, expert horsewoman and talented singer and dancer — all of which add up to a promising resume for any aspiring undercover sleuth. She could blend in almost anywhere.
And some of those attributes were actually incorporated into storylines for “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,” the 1966-67 television series in which she played intelligence operative April Dancer, the sexy and resourceful nemesis of THRUSH, an international organization of criminals bent on world domination.
This spinoff of the popular '60s spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is available in its entirety for the first time on two four-disc sets manufactured on demand by Warner Archive, wbshop.com.
Time to reminisce
Powers — perhaps best known for her role opposite Robert Wagner on TV's popular “Hart to Hart” (1979-84) — had not yet had a chance to revisit the “U.N.C.L.E.” episodes when she talked to The Oklahoman.
“I live in Africa as well, East Africa, and I've just returned from there, and I'm looking forward to seeing and reminiscing about these shows,” she said in a recent phone interview from her California home.
Powers' Dancer masqueraded as a high-fashion model while co-star Noel Harrison — son of Rex — posed as her Carnaby Street styling partner Mark Slate in a show that was more of a campy spoof of the then-popular spy genre than its parent program, which starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin.
“We were almost polar opposites,” Powers recalled of the two series. “We were sending up all this espionage in a humorous way, hopefully, or a satirical way. And of course they were very serious about it, and NBC was concerned about that. I remember the remark was that they thought that it looked as if we were having too much fun. We were.”
Her most vivid memories of doing the series were of the people she got to work with on “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.”
“Certainly I remember being shot out of a giant toaster; I do remember that one,” Powers said. “Stan Freberg, as a matter of fact, was the other piece of toast. And I remember working with Peggy Lee. Can you imagine? Peggy Lee, who was the pistol-packin' mama in a bizarre storyline where we wound up in a Western town fully equipped with cowboys and Indians, and she ran the saloon. I mean, what a privilege it was to work with those people.”
Despite the differences in tone between the “Man” and the “Girl” series, there were several crossover episodes.
“Noel went to play on ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' with David McCallum for ‘The Mother Muffin Affair,' starring Boris Karloff in drag,” Powers remembered.
Meanwhile, Vaughn guest-starred once on Powers' show. “Yes. Wearing tights,” she recalled.
Many talents, causes
Powers' linguistic skills (she speaks Polish, being of Polish descent, French, Italian, Spanish, Swahili and “smatterings” of Mandarin and Cantonese), dance training and an early interest in bullfighting were written into episodes of the series. She also learned how to fence for a five-minute fight sequence with sabers.
But she doesn't like to talk about the bullfighting period of her youth, since a relationship with the late actor William Holden taught her the importance of animal rights and conservation. To this day, she still serves as president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, a public charity dedicated to the preservation of wild animals, which she helped to found in honor of Holden.
“An ongoing pursuit,” Powers said. “One that has its moments of tragedy, which we're now all experiencing with the advent of the Chinese market demanding rhinoceros horn and ivory. And I don't think enough can be said in the press to encourage people to write letters, complain to their congressmen, to make their complaints known about the increase in poaching of these World Heritage animals, solely and utterly to fulfill the desires of the Chinese market.”
Aside from her philanthropic endeavors, Powers remains active on the stage and is mounting a production of the musical adaptation of “Sunset Boulevard,” in which she plays the role of eccentric ex-silent screen star Norma Desmond. It's a role Gloria Swanson immortalized in the 1950 film version, opposite Holden as down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis.
“So my Bill Holden is a wonderful actor called Todd Gearhart,” Powers said. “... There's no one else who could do this (Norma Desmond) role that has that connection (with Holden). So it's really quite a remarkable marriage of circumstance and events.”
But if she ever decided to become a secret agent for real, she certainly has a lot of the right qualifications. The actress lives in three different countries, speaks seven languages fluently, is a cultural scholar, world traveler, expert horsewoman and talented singer and dancer — all of which add up to a promising resume for any aspiring undercover sleuth. She could blend in almost anywhere.
And some of those attributes were actually incorporated into storylines for “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,” the 1966-67 television series in which she played intelligence operative April Dancer, the sexy and resourceful nemesis of THRUSH, an international organization of criminals bent on world domination.
This spinoff of the popular '60s spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is available in its entirety for the first time on two four-disc sets manufactured on demand by Warner Archive, wbshop.com.
Time to reminisce
Powers — perhaps best known for her role opposite Robert Wagner on TV's popular “Hart to Hart” (1979-84) — had not yet had a chance to revisit the “U.N.C.L.E.” episodes when she talked to The Oklahoman.
“I live in Africa as well, East Africa, and I've just returned from there, and I'm looking forward to seeing and reminiscing about these shows,” she said in a recent phone interview from her California home.
Powers' Dancer masqueraded as a high-fashion model while co-star Noel Harrison — son of Rex — posed as her Carnaby Street styling partner Mark Slate in a show that was more of a campy spoof of the then-popular spy genre than its parent program, which starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin.
“We were almost polar opposites,” Powers recalled of the two series. “We were sending up all this espionage in a humorous way, hopefully, or a satirical way. And of course they were very serious about it, and NBC was concerned about that. I remember the remark was that they thought that it looked as if we were having too much fun. We were.”
Her most vivid memories of doing the series were of the people she got to work with on “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.”
“Certainly I remember being shot out of a giant toaster; I do remember that one,” Powers said. “Stan Freberg, as a matter of fact, was the other piece of toast. And I remember working with Peggy Lee. Can you imagine? Peggy Lee, who was the pistol-packin' mama in a bizarre storyline where we wound up in a Western town fully equipped with cowboys and Indians, and she ran the saloon. I mean, what a privilege it was to work with those people.”
Despite the differences in tone between the “Man” and the “Girl” series, there were several crossover episodes.
“Noel went to play on ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' with David McCallum for ‘The Mother Muffin Affair,' starring Boris Karloff in drag,” Powers remembered.
Meanwhile, Vaughn guest-starred once on Powers' show. “Yes. Wearing tights,” she recalled.
Many talents, causes
Powers' linguistic skills (she speaks Polish, being of Polish descent, French, Italian, Spanish, Swahili and “smatterings” of Mandarin and Cantonese), dance training and an early interest in bullfighting were written into episodes of the series. She also learned how to fence for a five-minute fight sequence with sabers.
But she doesn't like to talk about the bullfighting period of her youth, since a relationship with the late actor William Holden taught her the importance of animal rights and conservation. To this day, she still serves as president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, a public charity dedicated to the preservation of wild animals, which she helped to found in honor of Holden.
“An ongoing pursuit,” Powers said. “One that has its moments of tragedy, which we're now all experiencing with the advent of the Chinese market demanding rhinoceros horn and ivory. And I don't think enough can be said in the press to encourage people to write letters, complain to their congressmen, to make their complaints known about the increase in poaching of these World Heritage animals, solely and utterly to fulfill the desires of the Chinese market.”
Aside from her philanthropic endeavors, Powers remains active on the stage and is mounting a production of the musical adaptation of “Sunset Boulevard,” in which she plays the role of eccentric ex-silent screen star Norma Desmond. It's a role Gloria Swanson immortalized in the 1950 film version, opposite Holden as down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis.
“So my Bill Holden is a wonderful actor called Todd Gearhart,” Powers said. “... There's no one else who could do this (Norma Desmond) role that has that connection (with Holden). So it's really quite a remarkable marriage of circumstance and events.”
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Hart to Hart: Stefanie Powers on the TV Series, Reunion Possibility
Stefanie Powers has had a long and impressive career that has included starring in numerous stage plays and musicals, television shows, and movies. She’s also written books on fitness, authored an autobiography, and released a CD.
While speaking with Powers about the Warner Archive’s release of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. on DVD, I had a chance to ask her about her most beloved TV role, playing opposite Robert Wagner on Hart to Hart. The series ran for five seasons on ABC before being cancelled in 1984. The characters found new life some nine years later in a series of eight TV reunion movies on NBC. The final movie was broadcast exactly 17 years after the first episode of the series.
Before we get to Hart to Hart, I’d like to ask you briefly about The Feather & Father Gang, a TV series you did with Harold Gould.
Stefanie Powers: Ah yes, my dear Harold. Harold just died last year. What a loss, what a great actor. What was so great about The Feather & Father Gang was that, here were all these wonderful comedians. It employed the most fabulous assortment of comics that were all those… comedians, and oh God, they were sensational. Nothing short of wonderful.
Hart to Hart ran for five seasons, 110 episodes. Anything that immediately comes to mind about your working with, your partnership, with Robert Wagner?
Powers: Oh yes, lots of thoughts, of course. We are still friends — thank God. Unfortunately, we see each other a lot at funerals these days. We’ve lost a lot of our pals from that period, which is very sad and lamentable.
But it was a fantastic privilege and great period of time for all of us. One of those rare things — if you’re lucky it happens once in a lifetime.
Did you actors know, when you filmed the last episode, that that was going to be the series finale?
Powers: No, we had no idea. I was in Paris filming Minstrel’s Daughter which was a mini-series. It was Sunday night. We had been in discussions about starting the next season of Hart to Hart in Paris and doing a couple of shows where Freeway [the dog] falls in love with a French poodle and runs off and something surrounding the fashion world. And those were actively on-going discussions. And that Sunday night, I got a telephone call from Robert Wagner and Leonard Goldberg and Tom Mankowitz, saying that we were not on the fall schedule. And that’s how it happened.
So we felt very much nipped in the bud. And when it was possible, four years later, we began discussions about doing a reunion of Hart to Hart. It came in many forms, it was going to be a movie for television, and then it was going to be a miniseries, and then it was going to be a series… so many different things. And then, finally NBC came up with the idea of doing a mystery “wheel”. Do you remember those things called wheels?
Oh absolutely.
Powers: About four people do remember them. Unfortunately. Not enough people understood what the rotating wheel was all about. And I don’t think that NBC really understood that in order to make something like that happen, you really do have to commit. You can’t just sort of see how it goes. You have to educate the audience that they’re going to see one of four alternating shows each week. When the wheel was invented, it was MacMillan & Wife, Columbo, McCloud, and The Name of the Game. And they all committed to making eight shows a piece. So, for a full year, you could see your favorite shows at least once a month.
But if you’re producing that, you have to commit, you can’t drop shows, you know, and say we didn’t get a rating on that one, so we’re going to drop it and next time we’ll have a new show. They never did really commit to it.
And we were a remake, we were revisiting Hart to Hart so we already had an audience. The other shows were brand new. So, it really was badly conceived unfortunately, but for us it accomplished one thing. We were able to put a period at an end of the sentence a little more gracefully than we were allowed to do when it was cancelled.
In closing, do you have any thoughts about where Jennifer and Jonathan might be today?
Powers: You mean, if we were to revisit them? I have no idea. They didn’t have children so they wouldn’t be grandparents… You know people have frequently asked if we’d want to go back and do another reunion. And, I think we’ve said good night to it. I think it’s had its day and had its moment. I don’t know where we could recapture it or how. It just wouldn’t play the same.
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. is currently available from the Warner Archive on DVD.
What do you think? Are you a fan of Hart to Hart? Do you have any favorite memories? Would you like to see the Harts reunited once more?
While speaking with Powers about the Warner Archive’s release of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. on DVD, I had a chance to ask her about her most beloved TV role, playing opposite Robert Wagner on Hart to Hart. The series ran for five seasons on ABC before being cancelled in 1984. The characters found new life some nine years later in a series of eight TV reunion movies on NBC. The final movie was broadcast exactly 17 years after the first episode of the series.
Before we get to Hart to Hart, I’d like to ask you briefly about The Feather & Father Gang, a TV series you did with Harold Gould.
Stefanie Powers: Ah yes, my dear Harold. Harold just died last year. What a loss, what a great actor. What was so great about The Feather & Father Gang was that, here were all these wonderful comedians. It employed the most fabulous assortment of comics that were all those… comedians, and oh God, they were sensational. Nothing short of wonderful.
Hart to Hart ran for five seasons, 110 episodes. Anything that immediately comes to mind about your working with, your partnership, with Robert Wagner?
Powers: Oh yes, lots of thoughts, of course. We are still friends — thank God. Unfortunately, we see each other a lot at funerals these days. We’ve lost a lot of our pals from that period, which is very sad and lamentable.
But it was a fantastic privilege and great period of time for all of us. One of those rare things — if you’re lucky it happens once in a lifetime.
Did you actors know, when you filmed the last episode, that that was going to be the series finale?
Powers: No, we had no idea. I was in Paris filming Minstrel’s Daughter which was a mini-series. It was Sunday night. We had been in discussions about starting the next season of Hart to Hart in Paris and doing a couple of shows where Freeway [the dog] falls in love with a French poodle and runs off and something surrounding the fashion world. And those were actively on-going discussions. And that Sunday night, I got a telephone call from Robert Wagner and Leonard Goldberg and Tom Mankowitz, saying that we were not on the fall schedule. And that’s how it happened.
So we felt very much nipped in the bud. And when it was possible, four years later, we began discussions about doing a reunion of Hart to Hart. It came in many forms, it was going to be a movie for television, and then it was going to be a miniseries, and then it was going to be a series… so many different things. And then, finally NBC came up with the idea of doing a mystery “wheel”. Do you remember those things called wheels?
Oh absolutely.
Powers: About four people do remember them. Unfortunately. Not enough people understood what the rotating wheel was all about. And I don’t think that NBC really understood that in order to make something like that happen, you really do have to commit. You can’t just sort of see how it goes. You have to educate the audience that they’re going to see one of four alternating shows each week. When the wheel was invented, it was MacMillan & Wife, Columbo, McCloud, and The Name of the Game. And they all committed to making eight shows a piece. So, for a full year, you could see your favorite shows at least once a month.
But if you’re producing that, you have to commit, you can’t drop shows, you know, and say we didn’t get a rating on that one, so we’re going to drop it and next time we’ll have a new show. They never did really commit to it.
And we were a remake, we were revisiting Hart to Hart so we already had an audience. The other shows were brand new. So, it really was badly conceived unfortunately, but for us it accomplished one thing. We were able to put a period at an end of the sentence a little more gracefully than we were allowed to do when it was cancelled.
In closing, do you have any thoughts about where Jennifer and Jonathan might be today?
Powers: You mean, if we were to revisit them? I have no idea. They didn’t have children so they wouldn’t be grandparents… You know people have frequently asked if we’d want to go back and do another reunion. And, I think we’ve said good night to it. I think it’s had its day and had its moment. I don’t know where we could recapture it or how. It just wouldn’t play the same.
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. is currently available from the Warner Archive on DVD.
What do you think? Are you a fan of Hart to Hart? Do you have any favorite memories? Would you like to see the Harts reunited once more?
Monday, September 26, 2011
Stefanie Powers interview: 'Girl From U.N.C.L.E.' star on the environment
Mad dictators, enemy agents, death rays — these are things the girl from U.N.C.L.E. could protect us from. But the '60s TV superspy would have been no match for the wrath of Mother Nature — nor man's role in exacerbating it — according to the actress who played her: Stefanie Powers.
owers lives in England, but happened to be in New York one recent, fateful weekend.
"I was there for the hurricane, which was a 'non-starter' in New York," the actress says in a call from England.
"That (Mayor) Bloomberg went berserk, closing down the theater. You had a lot of flooding in New Jersey. When a 150-year-old bridge goes down, it makes you wonder," Powers adds, referring to a 156-year-old bridge in Blenheim, N.Y., destroyed in the storm. "You think, well, surely there must have been floods during the 150 years that bridge existed.
"So it's all man-made. It's all human beings developing land that shouldn't be developed. It's all our fault."
Wildlife preservation is a cause dear to Powers — more on that later — who is on the line to talk about her 1966-67 series "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.," which is available in two DVD sets from the Warner Archive Collection.
Los Angeles native Powers, 68, has many career milestones. She worked with Helen Hayes, Tallulah Bankhead and John Wayne; she was a Disney heroine ("Herbie Rides Again," "The Boatniks"); and co-starred with Robert Wagner in the long-running series "Hart to Hart." Powers feels fortunate to have been in the last wave of actors signed to a studio at the tail end of Hollywood's "star system." Powers was young but, she maintains, experienced.
Recalls the actress: "I had been in a ballet company; I worked for (choreographer) Jerome Robbins. I had worked in a couple of movies when I was put under contract to Columbia. But I was a teenager. And I was a real teenager, not an overly sophisticated teenager, and certainly not a teenager the likes of which we have today.
"So you might say I was wide-eyed by comparison to the teenagers today, who are exposed to so much more, and who begin a 'physical' life — even though they're not emotionally stimulated — much earlier than we did in those days."
Powers is asked if she learned anything from Hayes and Bankhead, who are considered two of the greatest actresses of the theater.
"I learned something from everyone, because I had the privilege of working with so many extraordinary people," Powers says.
"I think one of the most important things I realized was their humanity — that while these people were consummate professionals, they were also human beings. Most of them were extremely generous as actors. Not one of them ever refused to be off-camera, if I was on the other side (of the camera). That's not only when I was the star of the show — that's even when I was the supporting player.
"Back then, even the movie stars were actors, and everybody was a human being. Today, everybody's got a phalanx of bodyguards just to walk around the corner, you know? It's really quite such a hype, that it's very difficult to understand that you could actually walk up to John Wayne in a restaurant, as people frequently did, right in the middle of his meal and say, 'Oh, excuse me, Mr. Wayne, but I think you're wonderful.' And he'd stand up and say, 'Well, that's really kind of you.' "
Powers played the daughter of Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the 1963 Western comedy "McClintock!" Was the "Duke" a teddy bear to Powers?
"I would never call him a teddy bear," she says with a laugh.
"Everybody on that set was part of the John Ford/John Wayne extended family. It was very much a familial feeling on that set."
Three years later, Powers was sought to play April Dancer, the title secret agent in "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.," a spinoff of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
"I was under contract at Columbia at the time," she recalls. "They had done a pilot of the show with Mary Ann Mobley playing the girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Norman Fell, the comedian, playing her assistant. But they (the studio) didn't like the chemistry.
"I was in England working when I got the message that my contract had been sold; MGM bought me out of my contract to do 'The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.' Because I was in England — with the 'mods' and 'rockers' and Carnaby Street and all of that 'swinging '60s' stuff happening — I thought it would be interesting to bring that into it."
Powers was behind the casting of a British actor to play April's partner-in-spying.
She recalls: "I'd read an article about Noel Harrison, Rex Harrison's son. I thought it would be interesting if we could have a kind of mid-Atlantic couple, in keeping with the fashion that was going to hit America full-swing, and did, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all of that stuff that came from England in the 1960s. Fortunately, we were able to get Noel. That's how it started."
In contrast to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." — the acronym stood for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, by the way — "Girl" had a decidedly comedic tone.
"That was one of the points of it," Powers says.
"Our producer (Douglas Benton) was also a writer. He loved kind of crazy comedy. He was a great devotee of the great comedians. He's the one who set of the tone of the show. It was markedly different from 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' It was satire. Because that half-hour series with the cartoonesque characters — 'Batman' and 'The Green Hornet' — had already been on. He loved that. He incorporated a bit of that into our show, which was adorable, I always thought.
"But it irritated NBC, who thought we looked as if we were having too much fun. That was their big criticism."
As April, Powers wore the latest fashions ("I brought a lot of them from England") and drew on her experience as a dancer to perform her own stunts.
"I did most of them," she says, "until I got hurt. There I was, jumping off of things and explosions and all. But I was injured during one, and we had to shut down for a few days. So I was not allowed to do some of the hairier stuff after that.
"I have really fond memories of some of the episodes, although it was my first experience in television. Unbeknownst to me at the time — because it was never made an issue — it was groundbreaking in its way because it was, in fact, the very first hourlong television series starring a woman. Isn't that something?"
(Powers' information may be correct. Barbara Stanwyck received special star billing in "The Big Valley," but Richard Long was top-billed.)
"Girl" lasted for one season; "Man" was canceled the following year. Powers appeared in the Disney films and much episodic television before being cast in "Hart to Hart" alongside her old friend Wagner (whom friends call "R.J."). Powers says she remembers the 1979-84 series "with great affection and nostalgia," and credits its success to producer Tom Mankiewicz, who died last year.
"Today, unfortunately, of the nucleus that created the show, R.J. and I are the only ones left standing," Powers says.
"Unfortunately, we just lost Tom Mankiewicz, who was our director, writer, creator. Although the idea of the show was to have the couple mimicking a bit of 'The Thin Man' series of films, which was (series creator) Sidney Sheldon's idea, 'Mank' changed a great deal of it and brought it into the characters that they became. He introduced the dog, he introduced the butler, he introduced this repartee that R.J. and I, I suppose, became so successful with. That show is still loved and talked about all over the world."
Powers first became interested in wildlife conservation when she became the girlfriend of actor William Holden; Powers established the William Holden Wildlife Foundation after the actor's death in 1981. In Powers' opinion, you need look no further than the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Irene to see that rampant development needs to be curbed.
"We are losing our environment so rapidly," Powers says.
"The world that our children will inherit is going to look substantially different, very quickly, than the world we have today. It's alarming. I was reading the Royal Geographical Society's report on the loss of the ice fields in Antarctica, where species of shrimp and other marine life have appeared that have never appeared in those waters before, because of the change in temperature. That's not a joke.
"We have to stop thinking about ourselves so much and start thinking about the environment. We have to change."
"The Girl From Uncle: The Complete Series, Part One" and "Part Two" are $39.99 for each four-disc set, manufactured on demand. To order, visit warnerarchive.com.
owers lives in England, but happened to be in New York one recent, fateful weekend.
"I was there for the hurricane, which was a 'non-starter' in New York," the actress says in a call from England.
"That (Mayor) Bloomberg went berserk, closing down the theater. You had a lot of flooding in New Jersey. When a 150-year-old bridge goes down, it makes you wonder," Powers adds, referring to a 156-year-old bridge in Blenheim, N.Y., destroyed in the storm. "You think, well, surely there must have been floods during the 150 years that bridge existed.
"So it's all man-made. It's all human beings developing land that shouldn't be developed. It's all our fault."
Wildlife preservation is a cause dear to Powers — more on that later — who is on the line to talk about her 1966-67 series "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.," which is available in two DVD sets from the Warner Archive Collection.
Los Angeles native Powers, 68, has many career milestones. She worked with Helen Hayes, Tallulah Bankhead and John Wayne; she was a Disney heroine ("Herbie Rides Again," "The Boatniks"); and co-starred with Robert Wagner in the long-running series "Hart to Hart." Powers feels fortunate to have been in the last wave of actors signed to a studio at the tail end of Hollywood's "star system." Powers was young but, she maintains, experienced.
Recalls the actress: "I had been in a ballet company; I worked for (choreographer) Jerome Robbins. I had worked in a couple of movies when I was put under contract to Columbia. But I was a teenager. And I was a real teenager, not an overly sophisticated teenager, and certainly not a teenager the likes of which we have today.
"So you might say I was wide-eyed by comparison to the teenagers today, who are exposed to so much more, and who begin a 'physical' life — even though they're not emotionally stimulated — much earlier than we did in those days."
Powers is asked if she learned anything from Hayes and Bankhead, who are considered two of the greatest actresses of the theater.
"I learned something from everyone, because I had the privilege of working with so many extraordinary people," Powers says.
"I think one of the most important things I realized was their humanity — that while these people were consummate professionals, they were also human beings. Most of them were extremely generous as actors. Not one of them ever refused to be off-camera, if I was on the other side (of the camera). That's not only when I was the star of the show — that's even when I was the supporting player.
"Back then, even the movie stars were actors, and everybody was a human being. Today, everybody's got a phalanx of bodyguards just to walk around the corner, you know? It's really quite such a hype, that it's very difficult to understand that you could actually walk up to John Wayne in a restaurant, as people frequently did, right in the middle of his meal and say, 'Oh, excuse me, Mr. Wayne, but I think you're wonderful.' And he'd stand up and say, 'Well, that's really kind of you.' "
Powers played the daughter of Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the 1963 Western comedy "McClintock!" Was the "Duke" a teddy bear to Powers?
"I would never call him a teddy bear," she says with a laugh.
"Everybody on that set was part of the John Ford/John Wayne extended family. It was very much a familial feeling on that set."
Three years later, Powers was sought to play April Dancer, the title secret agent in "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.," a spinoff of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
"I was under contract at Columbia at the time," she recalls. "They had done a pilot of the show with Mary Ann Mobley playing the girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Norman Fell, the comedian, playing her assistant. But they (the studio) didn't like the chemistry.
"I was in England working when I got the message that my contract had been sold; MGM bought me out of my contract to do 'The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.' Because I was in England — with the 'mods' and 'rockers' and Carnaby Street and all of that 'swinging '60s' stuff happening — I thought it would be interesting to bring that into it."
Powers was behind the casting of a British actor to play April's partner-in-spying.
She recalls: "I'd read an article about Noel Harrison, Rex Harrison's son. I thought it would be interesting if we could have a kind of mid-Atlantic couple, in keeping with the fashion that was going to hit America full-swing, and did, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all of that stuff that came from England in the 1960s. Fortunately, we were able to get Noel. That's how it started."
In contrast to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." — the acronym stood for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, by the way — "Girl" had a decidedly comedic tone.
"That was one of the points of it," Powers says.
"Our producer (Douglas Benton) was also a writer. He loved kind of crazy comedy. He was a great devotee of the great comedians. He's the one who set of the tone of the show. It was markedly different from 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' It was satire. Because that half-hour series with the cartoonesque characters — 'Batman' and 'The Green Hornet' — had already been on. He loved that. He incorporated a bit of that into our show, which was adorable, I always thought.
"But it irritated NBC, who thought we looked as if we were having too much fun. That was their big criticism."
As April, Powers wore the latest fashions ("I brought a lot of them from England") and drew on her experience as a dancer to perform her own stunts.
"I did most of them," she says, "until I got hurt. There I was, jumping off of things and explosions and all. But I was injured during one, and we had to shut down for a few days. So I was not allowed to do some of the hairier stuff after that.
"I have really fond memories of some of the episodes, although it was my first experience in television. Unbeknownst to me at the time — because it was never made an issue — it was groundbreaking in its way because it was, in fact, the very first hourlong television series starring a woman. Isn't that something?"
(Powers' information may be correct. Barbara Stanwyck received special star billing in "The Big Valley," but Richard Long was top-billed.)
"Girl" lasted for one season; "Man" was canceled the following year. Powers appeared in the Disney films and much episodic television before being cast in "Hart to Hart" alongside her old friend Wagner (whom friends call "R.J."). Powers says she remembers the 1979-84 series "with great affection and nostalgia," and credits its success to producer Tom Mankiewicz, who died last year.
"Today, unfortunately, of the nucleus that created the show, R.J. and I are the only ones left standing," Powers says.
"Unfortunately, we just lost Tom Mankiewicz, who was our director, writer, creator. Although the idea of the show was to have the couple mimicking a bit of 'The Thin Man' series of films, which was (series creator) Sidney Sheldon's idea, 'Mank' changed a great deal of it and brought it into the characters that they became. He introduced the dog, he introduced the butler, he introduced this repartee that R.J. and I, I suppose, became so successful with. That show is still loved and talked about all over the world."
Powers first became interested in wildlife conservation when she became the girlfriend of actor William Holden; Powers established the William Holden Wildlife Foundation after the actor's death in 1981. In Powers' opinion, you need look no further than the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Irene to see that rampant development needs to be curbed.
"We are losing our environment so rapidly," Powers says.
"The world that our children will inherit is going to look substantially different, very quickly, than the world we have today. It's alarming. I was reading the Royal Geographical Society's report on the loss of the ice fields in Antarctica, where species of shrimp and other marine life have appeared that have never appeared in those waters before, because of the change in temperature. That's not a joke.
"We have to stop thinking about ourselves so much and start thinking about the environment. We have to change."
"The Girl From Uncle: The Complete Series, Part One" and "Part Two" are $39.99 for each four-disc set, manufactured on demand. To order, visit warnerarchive.com.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. available on DVD
The Complete Series: Part One
The Complete Series: Part Two
The Complete Series: Part Two
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