Years ago, I had a dream job with Gannett Inc. as senior cultural writer. One of my beats was to cover the big arts stories of the day and so it was that I found myself on one occasion interviewing Richard Cragun the American-born star of the Stuttgart Ballet and one of the finest male dancers of the 20th century.
In those days, Gannett recycled our stories in its many publications, and my Cragun piece found its way into one of the tabloids overseen by a favorite editor who was fond of the Daily News and New York Post. It was with some sheepishness then that I handed the publicist a copy of the publication with the words “Ballet Hunk” in the headlines. I needn’t have worried. He was thrilled.
I covered most of the great “ballet hunks” of the 20th and early-21st centuries ...
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Read MoreNetflix’s “The Crown” – the Brits’ most addictive-as-potato-chips offering since “Downton Abbey” – tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) from her days as a happy wife of a dashing naval lieutenant on the isle of Malta through her ascendance to the British throne on the death of her father, George VI.
Like many good narratives, its absorbing juiciness derives from familial tensions – between husbands and wives, mothers and daughters and, especially, siblings. But its real subject is one that plagues the contemporary world and whose misunderstanding, I fear, will cost the world dearly as it veers toward demagoguery – the nature of leadership. ...
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Read MoreWith the recent death of Fidel Castro – and the return of “The Hollow Crown” series to PBS, based on Shakespeare’s Henry and Richard histories – my thoughts turn to Vergina, the highlight of My Big Fat Greek Odyssey and a place were leaders were made and unmade.
It was here in the ancient capital of Aigai that Philip II was assassinated on his daughter Cleopatra’s wedding day in a kind of “Godfather” moment. It was here that his son and Cleopatra’s full brother, Alexander, became king. And it was here that the ancient burial mounds of kings of Macedon were unearthed by archaeologist Manolis Andronokis in 1977.
Today, a museum sits on the site, with another coming. We arrived on a rainy morning and were immediately delivered into a world that is overwhelming. This is a dark space that throws the treasures it protects into dramatic relief. Crowns of gold leaves. ...
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Read More"Behind every great man is a great woman”: It’s an adage that’s been brought home to in our postfeminist age. Witness the apotheosis of Michelle Obama on the cover of the current Vogue and the new “Jackie,” with Natalie Portman transcendent as the tragic former first lady.
Indeed, her Jacqueline B. Kennedy and Jackie herself are better than director Pablo Larrain’s “Jackie.” For one thing, the movie’s music, no doubt intended to strike a discordant note, is merely jarring. It underscores other false notes. Why is the boy who plays John F. Kennedy Jr. a blond? And why does Peter Sarsgaard’s Robert F. Kennedy fail to speak with his distinctive broad Boston cadence, particularly when Portman’s Jackie speaks in her signature breathy New Yorkese? And why do we see her not once but twice in a red gown when she mainly favored white and pastel formal wear?
Perhaps this is quibbling. What “Jackie” and Portman’s Jackie do very well is locate her grief and then show us how she cycles through it, reinventing her husband, his presidency – and, thus, herself – in what remains in some ways a pyrrhic victory. ...
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Read MoreThe Bookends column of The New York Times Book Review – which each week poses a provocative question that two writers then answer in essay form, often offering diametrically opposed viewpoints – had a goodie for Thanksgiving weekend: “Are domestic responsibilities at odds with becoming a great artist?”
It’s a question I’ve wrestled with periodically but particularly at holiday time when gathering with married family members makes me acutely aware of my singleton status. I often suspect that the invitations are accompanied by a tacit, “Poor thing, what else would she do, where else would she go?” as much as by a genuine desire to see me. And, indeed, if this were the 19th-century such a woman would be an object of pity, Jane Austen notwithstanding. ...
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