Featuring Cedric Smith And Others
8th August 2023 – On Sunday Dec. 10th, Juno Award-winning Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt will be bringing her Under A Winter’s Moon concert to Toronto’s Koerner Hall in a seasonal miscellany of music and spoken word that features Gemini Award-winning actor Cedric Smith performing A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
Held in one of North America’s premiere concert venues known for its exceptional acoustics, the concert is a unique mixture of carols and tales and the oral traditions found in many cultures, interwoven with strands of the natural world revealed through Indigenous stories.
There will be a matinee at 2 p.m. and an evening performance at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 11 at 10 a.m.
“It’s really a love letter to the season,” says McKennitt. “We’re delighted to be bringing our eclectic blend of Christmas, nature, Indigenous and Celtic culture to...
8th August 2023 – On Sunday Dec. 10th, Juno Award-winning Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt will be bringing her Under A Winter’s Moon concert to Toronto’s Koerner Hall in a seasonal miscellany of music and spoken word that features Gemini Award-winning actor Cedric Smith performing A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
Held in one of North America’s premiere concert venues known for its exceptional acoustics, the concert is a unique mixture of carols and tales and the oral traditions found in many cultures, interwoven with strands of the natural world revealed through Indigenous stories.
There will be a matinee at 2 p.m. and an evening performance at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 11 at 10 a.m.
“It’s really a love letter to the season,” says McKennitt. “We’re delighted to be bringing our eclectic blend of Christmas, nature, Indigenous and Celtic culture to...
- 8/8/2023
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
Tony Sokol Dec 24, 2018
Crimble comes at the end of every year and The Beatles made it maybe. George Martin biographer chimes in.
The Beatles Christmas messages began as a personal show of holiday gratitude to the band’s fan club, but grew into an annual tradition as important as any evergreen chestnut for a generation. Growing up, the silly off-key carols meant Christmas. They were exciting. They were fun. They were funny. I never in my life worried about offending someone by saying Merry or Happy Christmas because, due to these recordings, I would forever mangle greetings like “Hare Kringle” and “very new jeers.” Inviting Krishna devotees and insult comics into the happy proceedings.
Christmas was never a religious holiday at our house. It rocked. And it all started when radio stations started playing the crimbly greetings. Long after the Beatles broke up, prog and oldies stations alike would keep up the tradition.
Crimble comes at the end of every year and The Beatles made it maybe. George Martin biographer chimes in.
The Beatles Christmas messages began as a personal show of holiday gratitude to the band’s fan club, but grew into an annual tradition as important as any evergreen chestnut for a generation. Growing up, the silly off-key carols meant Christmas. They were exciting. They were fun. They were funny. I never in my life worried about offending someone by saying Merry or Happy Christmas because, due to these recordings, I would forever mangle greetings like “Hare Kringle” and “very new jeers.” Inviting Krishna devotees and insult comics into the happy proceedings.
Christmas was never a religious holiday at our house. It rocked. And it all started when radio stations started playing the crimbly greetings. Long after the Beatles broke up, prog and oldies stations alike would keep up the tradition.
- 12/20/2017
- Den of Geek
Oscar-winning actor who played threatened heroines for Alfred Hitchcock in Rebecca and Suspicion
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
- 12/16/2013
- by Veronica Horwell
- The Guardian - Film News
Joan Fontaine, the legendary Oscar-winning actress, died on Sunday at her home in Carmel, Calif. She was 96.
Joan Fontaine Dies
Fontaine rose to fame during Hollywood’s Golden Era in the 1930s and ‘40s, starting off in supporting roles before landing the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The part earned the actress her first Academy Award nod. Her second time teaming up with Hitchcock, for 1941 film Suspicion in which she starred opposite Cary Grant, saw her take home the statuette for best actress in a leading role.
Following the pair of Hitchcock films, Fontaine’s career maintained its steam with The Constant Nymph, earning her third Oscar nomination. The actress went on to receive praise for her turns in the titular role in Jane Eyre (1944), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), September Affair (1950), Ivanhoe (1952) and Island in the Sun (1957).
Throughout the ‘60s, Fontaine made a number of TV appearances and...
Joan Fontaine Dies
Fontaine rose to fame during Hollywood’s Golden Era in the 1930s and ‘40s, starting off in supporting roles before landing the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The part earned the actress her first Academy Award nod. Her second time teaming up with Hitchcock, for 1941 film Suspicion in which she starred opposite Cary Grant, saw her take home the statuette for best actress in a leading role.
Following the pair of Hitchcock films, Fontaine’s career maintained its steam with The Constant Nymph, earning her third Oscar nomination. The actress went on to receive praise for her turns in the titular role in Jane Eyre (1944), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), September Affair (1950), Ivanhoe (1952) and Island in the Sun (1957).
Throughout the ‘60s, Fontaine made a number of TV appearances and...
- 12/16/2013
- Uinterview
Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine, the leading lady known for her string of roles as demure, well-mannered and often well-bred heroines in the 1940s, and the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died today at her home in Carmel, California; she was 96.
Known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the ony actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award -- she and her sister were enshrined in Hollywood lore as intense rivals, and their rivalry reached a peak of sorts when Fontaine beat de Havilland for the 1941 Best Actress Oscar.
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, Fontaine suffered from recurring ailments throughout her childhood, resulting in her mother moving both her and Olivia to California. While her mother, stage actress Lillian Fontaine, desired for both her daughters to be actresses, it was only Olivia who initially pursued an acting career, as Fontaine returned to Japan for two years when she was 15 years old to live with her father, who divorced Lillian in 1919. Upon returning to the states, Fontaine found that Olivia was already becoming an established actress, and began to embark on her own career. Starting out in theater, Joan initially changed her name to Joan Burfield, then Joan Fontaine (so as to avoid confusion with her sister), and soon found herself in moderately noteworthy parts in such films as You Can't Beat Love (1937), A Damsel in Distress (1937, opposite Fred Astaire) and Gunga Din (1939, alongside Cary Grant, her future leading man in Suspicion). Though she garnered more notice in 1939 in the supporting part of naive newlywed Peggy Day in the classic comedy The Women, she was far eclipsed in fame and reputation by her sister, who had already starred along Errol Flynn in a number of romance adventures, and who received her first Oscar nomination for the blockbuster Gone With the Wind.
It was the same man who cast de Havilland in Gone With the Wind who would make Fontaine into a major star. Looking to follow up the monstrous success of Gone With the Wind with another noteworthy literary adapation, producer David O. Selnick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine -- known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter" -- is taunted by the memory of her husband's first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinee idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O'Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier's wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine's insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier's sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, includine ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.
Selznick, pleased with the combination of Hitchcock and Fontaine, signed the two on for a follow-up about a demure heiress who begins to suspect that her playboy husband is out to murder her for her money. Initially titled Before the Fact, it would later be retitled Suspicion, and Cary Grant was cast as the charming but caddish husband. Though the final ending of the film was tinkered with -- studio heads thought making Grant guilty would be bad for box office, and insisted on a twist to make him actually heroic -- it was another success, earning three Oscar nominations, including Fontaine's second Best Actress nod. It was at the 1941 Academy Awards that Fontaine, once considered the also-ran to her movie star sister, beat Olivia de Havilland for the Best Actress Oscar (de Havilland had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn). In what became part of Hollywood and Academy Award legend, Fontaine coolly rejected her sister's efforts at congratulations, and What had always been a fractious relationship since childhood became officially estranged. Hollywood wags often reported that because de Havilland lost to her sister, she would retaliate by winning two Oscars -- in 1946 for To Each His Own and 1949 for The Heiress -- in order to top Fontaine. The two would officially stop speaking to one another in 1975.
Fontaine received a third Oscar nomination in 1943, for the music melodrama The Constant Nymph, and that same year essayed the title role in the commercially successful if moderately well-regarded version of Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles. She remained a star throughout the 1940s, appearing in the comedy The Affairs of Susan (1945), the thriller Ivy (1947), and opposite Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Fontaine also gave what many consider to be her best performance in 1948's Letters from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' romantic drama opposite Louis Jourdan. In 1945 she divorced her first husband, actor Brian Aherne, and in 1946 married producer William Dozier, whom she would divorce in 1951. Two years later, she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with him over their daughter, Debbie, and the ongoing lawsuit would prevent Fontaine from accepting the role of frustrated military wife Karen Holmes in the Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity -- Deborah Kerr was instead cast, and received an Oscar nomination for the part.
Though she continued to work throughout the 1950s, most notably in the lavish Technicolor adaptation of Ivanhoe (1952), Ida Lupino's film noir The Bigamist (1953), and in the pioneering if often campy racial drama Island in the Sun (1957), her work in both film and television lessened, and her last film appearance was in Hammer Films horror movie The Devil's Own (1966). Television work followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fontaine received a Daytime Emmy nomination for the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and after the television film Good King Wenceslas (1994), retired officially to her home in Carmel, California.
Fontaine is survived by her daughter, Debbie Dozier.
Known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the ony actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award -- she and her sister were enshrined in Hollywood lore as intense rivals, and their rivalry reached a peak of sorts when Fontaine beat de Havilland for the 1941 Best Actress Oscar.
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, Fontaine suffered from recurring ailments throughout her childhood, resulting in her mother moving both her and Olivia to California. While her mother, stage actress Lillian Fontaine, desired for both her daughters to be actresses, it was only Olivia who initially pursued an acting career, as Fontaine returned to Japan for two years when she was 15 years old to live with her father, who divorced Lillian in 1919. Upon returning to the states, Fontaine found that Olivia was already becoming an established actress, and began to embark on her own career. Starting out in theater, Joan initially changed her name to Joan Burfield, then Joan Fontaine (so as to avoid confusion with her sister), and soon found herself in moderately noteworthy parts in such films as You Can't Beat Love (1937), A Damsel in Distress (1937, opposite Fred Astaire) and Gunga Din (1939, alongside Cary Grant, her future leading man in Suspicion). Though she garnered more notice in 1939 in the supporting part of naive newlywed Peggy Day in the classic comedy The Women, she was far eclipsed in fame and reputation by her sister, who had already starred along Errol Flynn in a number of romance adventures, and who received her first Oscar nomination for the blockbuster Gone With the Wind.
It was the same man who cast de Havilland in Gone With the Wind who would make Fontaine into a major star. Looking to follow up the monstrous success of Gone With the Wind with another noteworthy literary adapation, producer David O. Selnick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine -- known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter" -- is taunted by the memory of her husband's first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinee idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O'Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier's wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine's insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier's sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, includine ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.
Selznick, pleased with the combination of Hitchcock and Fontaine, signed the two on for a follow-up about a demure heiress who begins to suspect that her playboy husband is out to murder her for her money. Initially titled Before the Fact, it would later be retitled Suspicion, and Cary Grant was cast as the charming but caddish husband. Though the final ending of the film was tinkered with -- studio heads thought making Grant guilty would be bad for box office, and insisted on a twist to make him actually heroic -- it was another success, earning three Oscar nominations, including Fontaine's second Best Actress nod. It was at the 1941 Academy Awards that Fontaine, once considered the also-ran to her movie star sister, beat Olivia de Havilland for the Best Actress Oscar (de Havilland had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn). In what became part of Hollywood and Academy Award legend, Fontaine coolly rejected her sister's efforts at congratulations, and What had always been a fractious relationship since childhood became officially estranged. Hollywood wags often reported that because de Havilland lost to her sister, she would retaliate by winning two Oscars -- in 1946 for To Each His Own and 1949 for The Heiress -- in order to top Fontaine. The two would officially stop speaking to one another in 1975.
Fontaine received a third Oscar nomination in 1943, for the music melodrama The Constant Nymph, and that same year essayed the title role in the commercially successful if moderately well-regarded version of Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles. She remained a star throughout the 1940s, appearing in the comedy The Affairs of Susan (1945), the thriller Ivy (1947), and opposite Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Fontaine also gave what many consider to be her best performance in 1948's Letters from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' romantic drama opposite Louis Jourdan. In 1945 she divorced her first husband, actor Brian Aherne, and in 1946 married producer William Dozier, whom she would divorce in 1951. Two years later, she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with him over their daughter, Debbie, and the ongoing lawsuit would prevent Fontaine from accepting the role of frustrated military wife Karen Holmes in the Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity -- Deborah Kerr was instead cast, and received an Oscar nomination for the part.
Though she continued to work throughout the 1950s, most notably in the lavish Technicolor adaptation of Ivanhoe (1952), Ida Lupino's film noir The Bigamist (1953), and in the pioneering if often campy racial drama Island in the Sun (1957), her work in both film and television lessened, and her last film appearance was in Hammer Films horror movie The Devil's Own (1966). Television work followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fontaine received a Daytime Emmy nomination for the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and after the television film Good King Wenceslas (1994), retired officially to her home in Carmel, California.
Fontaine is survived by her daughter, Debbie Dozier.
- 12/16/2013
- by Mark Englehart
- IMDb News
Admired actress Joan Fontaine, best known for her roles in the Hitchcock films Suspicion and Rebecca, has passed away, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She was 96.
Fontaine, who was born "Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland" to British parents—her father: a patent attorney; her mother: a stage actress, whose stage name was Lillian Fontaine— in Tokyo, Japan in 1917.
After her parents divorced, Fontaine, her mother, and her older sister, Olivia, moved to California. She made her acting debut in a stage production of Call It a Day at 18 and soon after made her film debut with a small role in the 1935 comedy No More Ladies.
Six years later, Fontaine was nominated for her first Oscar for starring opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock-directed mystery thriller Rebecca. She didn't have to wait long to take home her first Oscar, as she was granted the award for Best Actress the following year at the 1942 Oscars for [link...
Fontaine, who was born "Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland" to British parents—her father: a patent attorney; her mother: a stage actress, whose stage name was Lillian Fontaine— in Tokyo, Japan in 1917.
After her parents divorced, Fontaine, her mother, and her older sister, Olivia, moved to California. She made her acting debut in a stage production of Call It a Day at 18 and soon after made her film debut with a small role in the 1935 comedy No More Ladies.
Six years later, Fontaine was nominated for her first Oscar for starring opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock-directed mystery thriller Rebecca. She didn't have to wait long to take home her first Oscar, as she was granted the award for Best Actress the following year at the 1942 Oscars for [link...
- 12/16/2013
- Entertainment Tonight
Austin -- At the top of the film "Good Ol' Freda," Beatles fans get hit in the face with one of the rarer, frequently bootlegged pieces of the Fab Four's history. It's the sound of the first Beatles Christmas recording, from 1963, of John, Paul, George and Ringo singing bits of "Good King Wenceslas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," with scripted and improvised bits on wishing fans a happy holiday. It and all the following years' records were sent only to members of the Beatles fan club. "Good Ol' Freda's" namesake Freda Kelly was the president and leader of the Beatles...
- 3/11/2013
- Hitfix
Michael Stipe and Mandy Patinkin helped Stephen Colbert continue his "Christmas Carol Week" last night on The Colbert Report, as the former R.E.M. singer and the Homeland star traded verses on "Good King Wenceslas" with stately gravitas. Well, almost: just try not to crack up when Colbert, who has strategically positioned himself in front of a photo of Mt. Rushmore (that seeks like it already includes his head) turns and looks directly into the camera on his verse.
- 12/13/2012
- Rollingstone.com
Written by Raul Sanchez Inglis, Matt Kelly
Directed by Raul Sanchez Inglis
Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Estella Warren, and Deborah Kara Unger
Five years ago, David’s daughter was raped when he was late picking her up, causing his wife to leave him, and his life to spiral down to him being a 3rd shift security guard in a large warehouse. He’s not the most sympathetic character when we first get to meet him; he’s trying to get a one night stand to leave in a most ungentlemanly manner.
He goes to work, and he and his partner Reg find a truck that hadn’t been properly logged out on their forms. They go to investigate, and David encounters a young girl, scared and speaking Serbian. He finds out her name is Anja, and deduces that she came from the truck. Here’s where things take off.
David opens the truck,...
Directed by Raul Sanchez Inglis
Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Estella Warren, and Deborah Kara Unger
Five years ago, David’s daughter was raped when he was late picking her up, causing his wife to leave him, and his life to spiral down to him being a 3rd shift security guard in a large warehouse. He’s not the most sympathetic character when we first get to meet him; he’s trying to get a one night stand to leave in a most ungentlemanly manner.
He goes to work, and he and his partner Reg find a truck that hadn’t been properly logged out on their forms. They go to investigate, and David encounters a young girl, scared and speaking Serbian. He finds out her name is Anja, and deduces that she came from the truck. Here’s where things take off.
David opens the truck,...
- 6/28/2011
- by VoodooEyedTreatDemon
- Planet Fury
This Muppet cover of "Stand By Me" is reminiscent of Muppet Show-era puppety weirdness, when the characters were still geared more towards adults. "Hi! I'm a bunny!" Excuse me while I go laugh for 900 years. The best part of this is the bunnies, who remind me of Bean Bunny, the little dude who sings "Good King Wenceslas" in Muppet Christmas Carol, which I basically want to be buried with because I love it so much. It's no "Turn the World Around," but what is, PopWatchers? I still love this. Previously Beaker's ballad The Muppets cover "Bohemian Rhapsody"...
- 4/1/2010
- by Margaret Lyons
- EW.com - PopWatch
Press release:
Orange County, CA—Make the most of the holidays throughout the month of December, when Pacific Symphony offers a diverse assortment of concerts—beginning with Beethoven's brilliant Fifth Symphony—just right for those seeking a message of joy and triumph of the human spirit. If younger children are the priority, consider "Nutcracker for Kids," featuring Tchaikovsky's delightful Christmas ballet—performed in a condensed version created just for children. Or, for those who find it hard to imagine a holiday season without Handel's "Messiah," the Pacific Chorale joins the orchestra to present the most famous oratorio in the world. If it's just good old-fashioned holiday cheer that fills the bill, who better to capture the heartwarming essence of the holidays than America's showbiz family—the Osmond brothers—in "An Osmond Family Christmas." Or...for a delightful mix of sacred and secular holiday music, there's the brand-new "Holiday Organ Spectacular.
Orange County, CA—Make the most of the holidays throughout the month of December, when Pacific Symphony offers a diverse assortment of concerts—beginning with Beethoven's brilliant Fifth Symphony—just right for those seeking a message of joy and triumph of the human spirit. If younger children are the priority, consider "Nutcracker for Kids," featuring Tchaikovsky's delightful Christmas ballet—performed in a condensed version created just for children. Or, for those who find it hard to imagine a holiday season without Handel's "Messiah," the Pacific Chorale joins the orchestra to present the most famous oratorio in the world. If it's just good old-fashioned holiday cheer that fills the bill, who better to capture the heartwarming essence of the holidays than America's showbiz family—the Osmond brothers—in "An Osmond Family Christmas." Or...for a delightful mix of sacred and secular holiday music, there's the brand-new "Holiday Organ Spectacular.
- 10/29/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
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