Read this article on Marriage:
Marriage weathers icy blasts
"Regardless of Hollywood pessimism, a generation that has felt first-hand the effects of marriage breakdown and instability is embracing the institution afresh.
"Instinctively they know the truth of what C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:
''If you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned person for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them.''
Miranda Devine
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
"Scout's honour: to salute a literary masterpiece" SMH
Scout's honour: to salute a literary masterpiece
April 3, 2010
’’I got back and it was like, ‘Oh, Lord only knows what that child has learnt out there in Hollywood’’ ... Mary Badham as Scout, with Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.
After 50 years the Mockingbird still sings, writes Warwick McFadyen.
'Darling, I'm so sorry, you probably got up at the crack of dawn. We're dealing with major snow here and today was my last day before I fly out, and so I was trying to get everything taken care of. I've been digging for two days, busted up my knee and my shoulders, but anyway ..."
The voice on the line is apologetic, having missed the agreed interview time by four hours. The voice is from Richmond, Virginia, deep in snow and ice, frozen over by winter storms. It belongs to Mary Badham, who, as Jean Louise Finch, better known and loved as Scout, has to many become frozen in time for her role in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Badham grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Fifty years ago, the city was a synonym for racial injustice, its streets battlegrounds for riots. An image of a police dog attacking an African-American circled the world and became a de facto portrait of the city.
One book she didn't read was Mockingbird. That came many years later, and only then because a professor asked her to do an English literature class on the novel. "I had not wanted to go there. I had everything I wanted right up there in my little memory, which was fine," she says.
But when she did open the covers, the little world of Maycomb that had been defined by the film grew bigger, the characters and their relationships deeper and wider. "It was so interesting," she says. "It expanded the knowledge of everybody so much, it was fascinating. There were all these characters I didn't know anything about; the whole friendship with Calpurnia [the African-American housekeeper] – going to church with her."
Badham could identify with this. The Badhams had an African-American helper to raise six generations of family. Of the episode in the book of going to Calpurnia's church: "Well, we did that when we were kids."
What they wouldn't have been allowed to do was share a seat on a bus with an African-American. "When I grew up in Birmingham," she says, "black people still rode at the back of the bus. They still had to drink out of the coloureds-only water fountains and use their own rest-rooms."
Badham says the filmmakers were doing a "cattle call across the south" and wanted "children of the south who could speak with a true southern accent". They were taken to Hollywood and Maycomb was created on the studio backlots.
The west coast was an eye-opener for an Alabama schoolgirl. People lived in mixed-race relationships and Badham learnt that "there was a whole different world out there and not everybody thinks the way they do down there [the south]". When she returned to Birmingham, she couldn't fit in.
"The Badhams were founding fathers of Birmingham. My dad was a general in the air force, and really well thought of; I had been welcomed into the best homes in Birmingham. Well, then I got back and it was like, 'Oh, Lord only knows what that child has learnt out there in Hollywood."'
What she did find in Hollywood were friendships that endured, most notably with the film's biggest star, Gregory Peck. "He was a wonderful, wonderful human being," she recalls. What people saw on the screen is what they got off-screen.
Too familiar to call him Mr Peck and too young to call him Greg, Badham says, "Atticus it was for him and Scout it was for me, and that's how it stayed. We were really, really close."
Through the years that bond stayed strong. "It was like a family," she says, "and I don't know of any other film where you can say that the people kept up with each other and would take the time to call one another or if they were in the same town to see one another.
"It was nothing for me to pick up the phone and it would be Atticus on the other end of the line, saying 'Watcha doin', kiddo?' And that meant a lot to me."
Memorising screenwriter Horton Foote's lines hadn't been a problem for Badham until she realised the adventure was about to end. There was one scene to go, the pivotal moment outside the jail where Atticus was guarding his client Tom Robinson against a lynch mob. Scout and her film brother Jem (Phillip Alford) were there to see what all the fuss was about. It was Scout who turned the crowd around with her wide-eyed innocence in speaking to one of them. But Badham faltered.
"That was the last scene that we shot and I knew that after that I would have to say goodbye to all these people that I had fallen in love with, and I didn't want to say goodbye," she says.
"I hadn't had any trouble up to that point, and then all of a sudden I started stumbling and bumbling. Finally Mr Mulligan [the director] called 'cut'. My mum took me back to the trailer and she's like, 'Young lady, you better get your lines right and you better do this scene because you know what the freeways are like at five o'clock and these people want to go home,' and I'm like, 'OK,' and I go out and do the scene."
While time has not dented her love for all things Mockingbird, it has taken its toll. "I can't watch it any more, I just can't. It's so upsetting because nearly everyone is gone," she says.
Source: watoday.com.au
April 3, 2010
’’I got back and it was like, ‘Oh, Lord only knows what that child has learnt out there in Hollywood’’ ... Mary Badham as Scout, with Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. After 50 years the Mockingbird still sings, writes Warwick McFadyen.
'Darling, I'm so sorry, you probably got up at the crack of dawn. We're dealing with major snow here and today was my last day before I fly out, and so I was trying to get everything taken care of. I've been digging for two days, busted up my knee and my shoulders, but anyway ..."
The voice on the line is apologetic, having missed the agreed interview time by four hours. The voice is from Richmond, Virginia, deep in snow and ice, frozen over by winter storms. It belongs to Mary Badham, who, as Jean Louise Finch, better known and loved as Scout, has to many become frozen in time for her role in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Badham grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Fifty years ago, the city was a synonym for racial injustice, its streets battlegrounds for riots. An image of a police dog attacking an African-American circled the world and became a de facto portrait of the city.
In her youthful innocence, Badham played a part in confronting the racism with her role in Mockingbird. Her portrayal of Scout resonated with millions.
It still does. And she still responds to it as strongly as she did as a 10-year-old in 1962 when, for three months, she became Jean Louise Finch, daughter of Atticus.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The novel is one of publishing's global phenomenons, selling an estimated 30 million copies. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and is one of the best-loved works in literature.
Lee said in 1964: "I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers."
And with that, Lee all but vanished from public view, becoming, with the recently departed J.D.Salinger, one of the most famous intensely private people in the literary world.
If Lee is the reclusive keeper of the flame, then Badham is the enthusiastic torchbearer, albeit through film. To Kill a Mockingbird was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three: best actor to Gregory Peck as Atticus, best screenplay to Horton Foote, and best cinematography/art direction. Badham was nominated for best supporting actress; she lost to Patty Duke but it didn't faze her. She wasn't into movies and was more like Scout. "We read books on rainy days, we went outside and played when it wasn't."
One book she didn't read was Mockingbird. That came many years later, and only then because a professor asked her to do an English literature class on the novel. "I had not wanted to go there. I had everything I wanted right up there in my little memory, which was fine," she says.
But when she did open the covers, the little world of Maycomb that had been defined by the film grew bigger, the characters and their relationships deeper and wider. "It was so interesting," she says. "It expanded the knowledge of everybody so much, it was fascinating. There were all these characters I didn't know anything about; the whole friendship with Calpurnia [the African-American housekeeper] – going to church with her."
Badham could identify with this. The Badhams had an African-American helper to raise six generations of family. Of the episode in the book of going to Calpurnia's church: "Well, we did that when we were kids."
What they wouldn't have been allowed to do was share a seat on a bus with an African-American. "When I grew up in Birmingham," she says, "black people still rode at the back of the bus. They still had to drink out of the coloureds-only water fountains and use their own rest-rooms."
Badham says the filmmakers were doing a "cattle call across the south" and wanted "children of the south who could speak with a true southern accent". They were taken to Hollywood and Maycomb was created on the studio backlots.
The west coast was an eye-opener for an Alabama schoolgirl. People lived in mixed-race relationships and Badham learnt that "there was a whole different world out there and not everybody thinks the way they do down there [the south]". When she returned to Birmingham, she couldn't fit in.
"The Badhams were founding fathers of Birmingham. My dad was a general in the air force, and really well thought of; I had been welcomed into the best homes in Birmingham. Well, then I got back and it was like, 'Oh, Lord only knows what that child has learnt out there in Hollywood."'
What she did find in Hollywood were friendships that endured, most notably with the film's biggest star, Gregory Peck. "He was a wonderful, wonderful human being," she recalls. What people saw on the screen is what they got off-screen.
Too familiar to call him Mr Peck and too young to call him Greg, Badham says, "Atticus it was for him and Scout it was for me, and that's how it stayed. We were really, really close."
Through the years that bond stayed strong. "It was like a family," she says, "and I don't know of any other film where you can say that the people kept up with each other and would take the time to call one another or if they were in the same town to see one another.
"It was nothing for me to pick up the phone and it would be Atticus on the other end of the line, saying 'Watcha doin', kiddo?' And that meant a lot to me."
Memorising screenwriter Horton Foote's lines hadn't been a problem for Badham until she realised the adventure was about to end. There was one scene to go, the pivotal moment outside the jail where Atticus was guarding his client Tom Robinson against a lynch mob. Scout and her film brother Jem (Phillip Alford) were there to see what all the fuss was about. It was Scout who turned the crowd around with her wide-eyed innocence in speaking to one of them. But Badham faltered.
"That was the last scene that we shot and I knew that after that I would have to say goodbye to all these people that I had fallen in love with, and I didn't want to say goodbye," she says.
"I hadn't had any trouble up to that point, and then all of a sudden I started stumbling and bumbling. Finally Mr Mulligan [the director] called 'cut'. My mum took me back to the trailer and she's like, 'Young lady, you better get your lines right and you better do this scene because you know what the freeways are like at five o'clock and these people want to go home,' and I'm like, 'OK,' and I go out and do the scene."
While time has not dented her love for all things Mockingbird, it has taken its toll. "I can't watch it any more, I just can't. It's so upsetting because nearly everyone is gone," she says.
Source: watoday.com.au
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