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Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

(L-r) Michael York, Liza Minelli, Joel Grey, Robert Osborne and Marisa Berenson attend the 

"Cabaret" 40th Anniversary New York Screening at Ziegfeld Theatre on January 31, 2013. 

(Photo by Roger Kisby/Getty Images)

Last Thursday I was planning on spending a quiet evening at home curled up with some reading or knitting, or possibly sweeping my kitchen. After all, the arctic temperatures and gale force winds in NYC were not exactly enticement to leave one's home or pajamas. But when I got the invite to attend the 40th(-ish) anniversary screening of Cabaret at the historic Ziegfield Theater and to chat with some of its legendary cast on the red carpet, I put down the knitting, the book And the broom - for life is, after all these years, still a cabaret.

If anything was reason enough for me to freeze my tail feathers off on a Thursday night, it was the chance to meet Liza Minnelli,...

Several shorts directed by film pioneer Georges Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley in Martin Scorsese's well-received Hugo, will be featured throughout January 2012 at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's Edison Theater in Fremont, Calif. The Méliès screenings will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, 21, and 28. On Jan. 7, the Edison Theater will show Méliès' 1910 short The Doctor's Secret prior to the main feature, the William S. Hart 1916 classic Western Hell's Hinges, which also features Clara Williams (excellent in the highly recommended The Italian) and Louise Glaum, a film vamp who four years later would star in Sex. Musical accompaniment by Frederick Hodges. On Jan. 21, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum will celebrate "seven years of showing great films" with a screening of future two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestone's 1928 The Garden of Eden. The romantic comedy stars one of the great beauties of the silent era, Corinne Griffith,...