Remembering Robert (PHIBES) Fuest on his birthday

This Sunday, September 30th would have been director/designer Robert Fuest's 85th birthday. Bob was a childhood idol of mine and became a dear friend. We were in touch literally until the last day of his life. His best films-- The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, The Final Programme, and Wuthering Heights-- are shot through with Bob's painterly compositions, pathos, stylishness, wit, and delicious black humor. They all hold up beautifully, even after countless viewings. "Unique" is a grossly overused word, but Bob was absolutely, positively that. The film world is vastly poorer for his absence.

What saddens me most about Bob's absence is that my love letter to The Abominable Dr. Phibes, an exhaustive 40-page article on it, will be appearing in issue #29 of Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine, which he will never see. The article is dedicated to him. (For more information, visit www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com.)

I think of Bob somewhat like Cathy said of Heathcliff in Bob's Wuthering Heights: "I shall carry him with me. He's in my soul."

I pity the fool who got ragged-ass claws scuttling along in them funky-ass seas!

I Photoshopped this image. Now, it's Mr. T. S. Eliot.

BLACK NARCISSUS- Rare behind-the-scenes photos

Since I'm not going to be writing about Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's extraordinary BLACK NARCISSUS anytime soon, I thought that I would share these two behind-the-scenes photos from it. I found these in a German annual unrelated to film. I'm not sure how rare these are, but I've never seen them elsewhere. If anyone wants to use these in articles or anything else, feel free to use them on the condition that you say "From the Justin Humphreys collection" when you do. Fair enough?
That's Michael Powell in the dark suit in the top photo, arms akimbo and shoulders slightly bowed.

Come to the Gala Benefit for The Bob Baker Marionette Theater! Preserve L.A.'s history!!!!

 If you are in Los Angeles on July 29th, be sure to attend the gala benefit for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Bob's puppet shows have been going on for over 50 years-- generations of L.A. kids have spent their birthdays there, watching Bob's puppets dance to his amazing collection of 78 records. Bob's theater has hit tough times financially and can use every penny that you can give them. They are just the kind of venerable L.A. institution to get wiped out by the historically-illiterate powers-that-be in that town. They need your help!

http://www.charlesphoenix.com/events/charles-hosts-the-bob-baker-celebration-and-preservation-extravaganza/

R.I.P. Susan Tyrrell, aka ShuShu.

It seems that all of my old movie buddies are dying this year. I just got the news that Susu Tyrrell has died.When I was in my late teens, I helped out on a play that Susu was in and we became very close for several years. She had been my favorite actress when I was 13 or so, and I adored her siren's song of a voice, which I had first discovered in Ralph Bakshi's WIZARDS. Susu leaves behind some wonderful performances which win her new fans all the time: as the broken-down lush Oma in FAT CITY (which won her an Academy Award nomination), as Ramona Rickett, Johnny Depp's hillbilly grandma in CRY-BABY, in Andy Warhol's BAD as virtually the only good person in it, as Queen Doris in Rick Elfman's FORBIDDEN ZONE, as Tim McIntyre's sister in FAST WALKING, and many, many others.

Susu was a bizarre combination of tenderness and foulness. She could be extremely sweet or vicious enough to curdle Blackbeard's blood. I loved her very much, all the same. She was a heavy drinker and abused her body horribly when she was younger, which led to her losing her legs around 2000. She seemed hell-bent on destroying herself, in all honesty, and I'm surprised that she lived as long as she did. I don't say that with an ounce of malice, but in total honesty.

I have so many unforgettable memories of Susu: singing Howlin' Wolf's "Wang Dang Doodle" with her at her East LA home (which looked like a deranged Mexican wax museum-- it was amazing); cruising around L.A. with her in her station wagon with her surfboard screwed on top of it, with Tupac's "California Lovin'" blasting on the radio; watching her get her poodle, Catshit Willie Einstein, to do tricks; or quietly watching TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and SECONDS with her. She liked my cartooning as much as I liked her acting and she always very vocally (as was her way) encouraged me to keep at it.

When Susu was growing up in Connecticut, there was a graveyard near her house where she used to play. In it, there was the gravestone of a baby girl who had died during an epidemic, maybe typhoid. The girl's epitaph read "This poor child was so soon done for/We often wonder what she was begun for." Susu said that she felt that way about her own life, at the time. I'm glad that she even lived past 65.

There's a story that Susu told me that I think a lot of people haven't heard. Susu was living in a bad barrio in L.A. for a while and a gang girl named Nica who was her upstairs neighbor. Nica knocked a couple of Susu's front teeth out, among other things. One day, Susu heard a terrible wailing from upstairs and went to investigate. Susu found Nica there-- she had OD'ed and died, and there was Nica's little baby boy, crying and crying. Susu saw to it that that little boy was adopted and raised well, and she didn't advertise that fact or make herself out to be a big heroine for having done it. That's real character.

RIP, ShuShu. 

Notes about L.A.

American Apparel. It's porn... on a billboard.

There is actually a two-block stretch of Hollywood where there isn't a SINGLE image of Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, or Marilyn Monroe plainly visible. Maybe.

Live forever! R.I.P. Ray Bradbury.

One of my most beloved childhood heroes has died-- Ray Bradbury. A knight of free speech. A prolific writer, even after his body crumbled. A warm, funny, encouraging man who ALWAYS spoke his mind while others mumbled and kept silent. A perfect example of the American dream at work-- of how a poor Illinois boy, child of the Depression, can become a Great American Man of Letters. An incredibly imaginative writer who brought poetry and humanity to science fiction and fantasy like no other author. A man whose "Ray Bradbury Theater" gave me hints of how exciting being a writer can be, when I was a boy. If there is somehow a God, then bless Ray Bradbury and his memory eternally.

When Bradbury was a boy, a defrocked minister performing in a carnival under the name of Electrico told Ray to "Live forever!" And Ray will.