Hollywood by Ryan Murphy

[Buddy2]

I was surprised Mary Martin (speaking of fairy dust) was so tiny when I saw her in local department store in the 1980s.

[RockHardNYC]

1 hour ago, Buddy2 said:

I was surprised Mary Martin...was so tiny

At 4' 9'', Stephanie Mills is the shortest singer/actress I've ever worked with. Mary Martin was 5' 4". Patti LuPone is 5' 2".

Short women (and men) have to be very careful about their weight, especially as they approach middle-age. Outside of show business, no one cares. But inside, almost everyone cares (even though many will not admit to it).

[Buddy2]

2 hours ago, RockHardNYC said:

At 4' 9'', Stephanie Mills is the shortest singer/actress I've ever worked with. Mary Martin was 5' 4". Patti LuPone is 5' 2".

Short women (and men) have to be very careful about their weight, especially as they approach middle-age. Outside of show business, no one cares. But inside, almost everyone cares (even though many will not admit to it).

Wow  if Mary Martin was taller than Patti LuPone, LuPone's producers must have huge problems casting others in Broadway shows, especially men.

[RockHardNYC]

13 hours ago, Buddy2 said:

LuPone's producers must have huge problems casting others in Broadway shows, especially men.

There are plenty of short men in show business, especially if you think 5' 9" is short for a guy. I could easily argue that the Sigourney Weavers and Allison Janneys are in a very small minority group.

I'm sure the production team of "Hollywood" had height discussions. David Corenswet is 6'4", so he towers over Patti. But it appears to me they did not prop her up on a box when they shot side by side, at least not when standing. I think the sex scene took place on stairs, which may have been planned precisely because of their difference in height.

[Buddy2]

Judy Garland was quite tiny too, shorter than Patti LuPone for sure.

[Lucky]

George Cukor's pool parties actually happened...

https://screenrant.com/netflixs-hollywood-george-cukors-gay-pool-parties-really-happened/

...and, no, I don't know how tall he was.

[RockHardNYC]

George Cukor was 5'8". He was Hungarian-Jewish, born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He supposedly was very smart, talented, stylish and charismatic, but he wasn't particularly handsome. I doubt there is a gay man in Hollywood, working in show business then and now, who didn't/doesn't know about George's pool parties.

While watching this Ryan Murphy dud, I did not realize that the simulated Academy Awards portion of the story was near the end of the series. So I painfully watched to the finish, just to be fair. Even though Ryan Murphy got some facts correct, his timeline is so bizarre, it made absolutely no sense to me.

For instance, Henry Willson signed Rock Hudson in 1947. They did not part ways until 1966, and the well-known break up was not pretty. Ryan Murphy completely bulldozed over their long and complicated relationship, a time when Rock Hudson became one of Hollywood's most famous movie stars. Perhaps that was the story Murphy should have told.

I cannot forgive the miscasting of Jake Picking as Rock Hudson. In the 50's, Rock Hudson was marketed as a major leading man movie star, and he rose to the occasion. Rock had eyes and a smile that could melt any onlooker. Jake Picking looks like a dweeb alien.

I fully accept it is very difficult to find actors to play Hollywood icons. But if you can't get it almost perfect, then don't do it. I also thought the actress playing Vivien Leigh was miscast.

     

I've spoken to a few showbiz friends in the past week about "Hollywood." They tell me "the critics" panned the series, saying it was Ryan Murphy's "worst." I didn't know what to say about that, since I've seen some pretty bad Ryan Murphy productions through the years. Nonetheless, he's a gay man in Hollywood with a lot of clout. On occasion, I think he shows genius. I'll keep looking for that.

Edited May 12, 2020 by RockHardNYC

[Lucky]

I think that Jake Picking has the cutest nipples.

He is 6 feet tall, and Hudson was 6"4! How could they use such a short actor for such a towering role?

Oh well, it worked for me.

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Lucky

[lopesv2]

If you liked Hollywood or if you didn't like it because it is not real you should try to read "Full Service" by Scotty Bowers.

 

Scotty was the inspiration behind Ernie in the show. The book is nice, a bit shocking, but a interesting view of the sexuality and "trick" market of the 50's.

 

 

[nycman]

On 5/6/2020 at 8:26 PM, RockHardNYC said:

I had to stop watching after the utterly fake Academy Awards scene, with Rock Hudson kissing his Black lover, Archie, for all to see.

My interest in the show crashed at exactly the same moment. The cracks started to show before that though. Queen Latifah’s fanciful, and not completely accurate, retelling of the Hattie McDaniels Oscar story was the beginning. If you’re going to reference such specific and important moments in history, I think you have to stay as close to the truth as you can. Otherwise, it becomes a pathetic Disney version of history, that will in time be mistaken for the truth. In matters such as these the real truth is 1000 times more interesting and much too important to lie about. 
 

I understand what they were trying to to do. For me it failed miserably.

[Lucky]

Gosh, you got through six episodes only to "crash" during the last one, the 7th.

Is it so hard to imagine an Oscars that treated gays equally, even if only part of a fantasy on Netflix? What's so wrong about that? The show was never advertised as an historical documentary. Can we never broadcast a "what might have been" version? I thought fiction did that all of the time.

[Buddy2]

The story and acting wasn't as interesting as the clothes and set design.

 

Major problem, I believe, when the clothes bombed also.

[nycman]

14 hours ago, Lucky said:

What's so wrong about that?

I understand your point. I just wish they had made it more clear that the entire series was a fanciful farce. 
Once you start including real historical people and real historical events, truth and fiction can get easily confused. 
History is important as is historical accuracy. For me, the lines were too blurred and it felt like revisionist infotainment. 
 

 

[Lucky]