The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (95 page)

As a child, she reenacted television commercials, and as a teenager she was a veteran of music videos as well as a ballet student. There was more work for television before she made her debut in
Jamón, Jamón
(92, José Juan Bigas Luna), and was nominated for a Goya award. She followed this with
Belle Epoque
(92, Fernando Trueba);
Per Amore, Solo per Amore
(93, Giovanni Veronesi);
El Laberinto Griego
(93, Rafael Alcázar);
La Ribelle
(93, Aurelio Grimaldi);
Alegre ma non Troppo
(94, Fernando Colomo);
Todo Es Mentira
(94, Álvaro Fernández Armero);
Entre Rojas
(95, Azucena Rodríguez);
El Efecto Mariposa
(95, Colomo);
La Celestina
(96, Gerardo Vera);
Brujas
(96, Armero);
El Amor Perjudica Seriamente la Salud
(97, Manuel Gómez Preira).

She then had a major hit in
Abre los Ojos
(97, Alejandro Amenábar), and made her debut with Pedro Almodóvar in
Live Flesh
(97). She picked up a Spanish Actors Union Award for
La Niña de Tus Ojos
(98, Trueba); her first English-speaking role in
The Hi-Lo Country
(98, Stephen Frears);
Don Juan
(98, Jacques Weber);
All About My Mother
(99, Almodóvar); nominated for a Blockbuster Award in
All the Pretty Horses
(00, Billy Bob Thornton);
Woman on Top
(00, Fina Torres); with—and awarded—Johnny Depp in
Blow
(01, Ted Demme);
Don’t Tempt Me
(01, Agustín Díaz Yanes);
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
(01, John Madden); nominated for an ALMA Award for
Vanilla Sky
(01, Cameron Crowe)—the remake of
Abre los Ojos
.

She got nothing at all for
Waking Up in Reno
(02, Jordan Brady)—though she may have been paid; nominated for an Audience Award for
Fanfan la Tulipe
(03, Gérard Krawczyk);
Gothika
(03, Mathieu Kassovitz); in bed with Charlize Theron in
Head in the Clouds
(04, John Duigan)—the work is its own reward; a David di Donatello Award and a European Film Award for
Don’t Move
(04, Sergio Castellitto);
Noel
(04, Chazz Palminteri);
Sahara
(05, Breck Eisner);
Chromophobia
(05, Martha Fiennes);
Bandidas
(05, Joachim Ronning).

She won at Cannes for best actress for
Volver
(06, Almódovar);
The Good Night
(07, Jake Paltrow);
Manolete
(07, Menno Meyjes);
Elegy
(07, Isabel Coixet)—for which she won the Santa Barbara Award—I’d have given her San Luis Obispo, too, without a word of argument;
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
(08, Woody Allen) for which she got an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Goya, a Gaudi, a Gotham, and a Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award;
Broken Embraces
(09, Almódovar)—over which Almódovar in his fractured English tried to explain that she is his muse—we get it, Pedro! She’s our muse, too! And then
Nine
(09, Rob Marshall), on which she is likely to get awards you’ve never heard of, including one for staying in her costume, all of which entail carpentry in her home.

This is far from over.

James Cruze
(Jens Cruz Bosen) (1884–1942), b. Five Points, Utah
1919:
Valley of the Giants; Roaring Road; The Dub; Alias Mike Moran; Too Many Millions; You’re Fired; Love Burglar
. 1920:
Hawthorne of the U.S.A.; The Lottery Man; Mrs. Temple’s Telegram; An Adventure in Hearts; Terror Island; What Happened to Jones
. 1921:
The Charm School; The Dollar-a-Year Man; Crazy to Marry; Gasoline Gus
. 1922:
One Glorious Day; Is Matrimony a Failure?; The Dictator; The Old Homestead; Thirty Days
. 1923:
The Covered Wagon; Hollywood; Ruggles of Red Gap; To the Ladies
. 1924:
The Fighting Coward; The Enemy Sex; The City That Never Sleeps; The Garden of Weeds; Merton of the Movies
. 1925:
The Goose Hangs High; Waking Up the Town; Welcome Home; Marry Me; Beggar on Horseback; The Pony Express
. 1926:
Mannequin; Old Ironsides
. 1927:
We’re All Gamblers; The City Gone Wild
. 1928:
On to Reno; The Mating Call; The Red Mark; Excess Baggage
. 1929:
The Duke Steps Out; A Man’s Man; The Great Gabbo
. 1930:
Once a Gentleman; She Got What She Wanted
. 1931:
Salvation Nell
. 1932:
Washington Merry-Go-Round; If I Had a Million
(codirected). 1933:
Sailor Be Good; Racetrack; I Cover the Waterfront; Mr. Skitch
. 1934:
David Harum; Their Big Moment
. 1935:
Helldorado; Two Fisted
. 1936:
Sutter’s Gold
. 1937:
The Wrong Road
. 1938:
Prison Nurse; Gangs of New York; Come On, Leathernecks
.

Cruze was of Danish parentage and married once to actress Betty Compson. He began as an actor and became a director in 1915—the above list is deficient for those first years. Very little of his work is known today. But as well as such ponderous Westerns as
The Covered Wagon
, which is of historical interest in the way it initiated the pioneering theme, he made some Fatty Arbuckle comedies. By the mid-1920s, James Cruze, Inc. or Productions was formed, and he mixed direction with the vague “supervision.”
The Great Gabbo
starred von Stroheim, but Cruze still seems that sort of nonentity to contrast with the more vital figures of the 1920s. Few people can have seen enough of his films to be sure.

Billy Crystal
, b. Long Beach, New York, 1947
The movie business likes Billy Crystal. He’s naturally funny, and especially good at show-business jokes—as befits a kid who grew up in “entertainment.” He’s not threatening; he has charm; and he’s a decent actor, even if he’s never as relaxed then as when he’s “on,” doing stand-up. Above all, in recent times, he is acknowledged to be by far the best, and most ingratiating, host to the Academy Awards show on television. But Crystal was over fifty, and he had never had a movie hit that stood to him alone. Does he try too hard (
Mr. Saturday Night
, which he directed, was emblematic enough to be pretentious)? Or is it that his ease sometimes simply cannot translate itself to real life? There’s something in the cock of his head and the tightness of his eyes that cannot hide the knowledge that a laugh line is coming.

From his stand-up comedy, he went to play a gay character on
Soap
(77–81) on TV, and then doing
Saturday Night Live
. He made his movie debut in
Rabbit Test
(78, Joan Rivers); he had a bit in
This Is Spinal Tap
(84, Rob Reiner); with Gregory Hines in
Running Scared
(86, Peter Hyams); a cameo in
The Princess Bride
(87, Reiner);
Throw Momma from the Train
(87, Danny DeVito); helping to write and produce the maudlin
Memories of Me
(88, Henry Winkler); in his best movie, yet overshadowed by Meg Ryan,
When Harry Met Sally …
(89, Reiner); executive producer on
City Slickers
(91, Ron Underwood)—and superb support to Jack Palance at the subsequent Oscars;
City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold
(94, Paul Weisland), which he coproduced and cowrote; directing, cowriting, and acting in
Forget Paris
(95), where he simply seemed too feeble for Debra Winger; the gravedigger in
Hamlet
(96, Kenneth Branagh); with Robin Williams in
Father’s Day
(97, Ivan Reitman);
Deconstructing Harry
(97, Woody Allen); with Gheorghe Muresan in
My Giant
(98, Michael Lehmann).

At last, in 1999, with Robert De Niro as his patient, he had a hit in
Analyze This
(Harold Ramis). That teaming promises sequels, and Crystal also appeared in
America’s Sweethearts
(01, Joe Roth), which he helped write. Among his other chores, he did the voice of Mike in
Monsters, Inc
. (01, Peter Docter and David Silverman). But his best work, the warmest, the most likable, was directing 61* (01) for HBO, a fond account of the home-run struggle between Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. He also acted in
Analyze That
(02, Ramis). He does voices still—
Howl’s Moving Castle
and
Cars
—and he can hardly appear in person without getting laughs.

Alfonso Cuarón
, b. Mexico City, Mexico, 1961
1983:
Cuarteto para el Fin del Tiempo
. 1989: “No Estoy Jugando,” an episode from
Cita con la Muerte
. 1991:
Sólo con Tu Pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria
. 1993: “Murder, Obliquely,” an episode from
Fallen Angels
. 1995:
A Little Princess
. 1998:
Great Expectations
. 2001:
Y Tu Mamá También
. 2004:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
. 2006: “Parc Monceau,” an episode from
Paris Je T’Aime; Children of Men
. 2007:
The Shock Doctrine
(d).

This is a very tricky career to judge, for
A Little Princess
was as good and intriguing as
Great Expectations
was portentous and hollow. How can this be? How can the former stir up immense atmosphere, while the latter (a sitting duck) has none?
Love in the Time of Hysteria
was a very promising comedy about confusion over AIDS, and
Y Tu Mamá También
deserves its high crowd-pleasing reputation. More than that, it’s a thoroughly adult film in a career that is clearly ready to lean towards kids’ material. Does that mean that Cuarón’s talent is much more comfortable in Mexico? That would hardly come as a shock. Yet now that he is drafted into
Harry Potter
(with the charge to give it a shot of magical realism?) who knows where he’s headed? But if he is successful with
Potter
, it is unlikely that Hollywood will let him go home again. That could be our loss in an age when we need to know so much more about modern Mexico.

Children of Men
, adapted from P. D. James and set in England, turned out to be a very exciting apocalyptic adventure.

George Cukor
(1899–1983), b. New York
1930:
Grumpy
(codirected with Cyril Gardner);
The Virtuous Sin
(codirected with Louis Gasnier). 1931:
The Royal Family of Broadway
(codirected with Gardner);
Tarnished Lady; Girls About Town
. 1932:
One Hour With You
(directed by Cukor but planned by and credited to Ernst Lubitsch);
What Price Hollywood?; A Bill of Divorcement; Rockabye; Our Betters
. 1933:
Dinner at Eight; Little Women
. 1934:
David Copperfield
. 1935:
Sylvia Scarlett
. 1936:
Romeo and Juliet; Camille
. 1938:
Holiday; Zaza
. 1939:
Gone With the Wind
(uncredited, Cukor prepared the film and was its first director, replaced by Victor Fleming and Sam Wood);
The Women
. 1940:
Susan and God; The Philadelphia Story
. 1941:
A Woman’s Face; Two-Faced Woman
. 1942:
Her Cardboard Lover; Keeper of the Flame
. 1943:
Resistance and Ohm’s Law
(d). 1944:
Gaslight; Winged Victory
. 1947:
Desire Me
(codirected with Jack Conway). 1948:
A Double Life; Edward, My Son
. 1949:
Adam’s Rib
. 1950:
A Life of Her Own; Born Yesterday
. 1951:
The Model and the Marriage Broker
. 1952:
The Marrying Kind; Pat and Mike
. 1953:
The Actress
. 1954:
It Should Happen to You; A Star Is Born
. 1956:
Bhowani Junction
. 1957:
Les Girls; Wild Is the Wind
. 1959:
Heller in Pink Tights; Song Without End
(completed by Cukor after the death of Charles Vidor). 1960:
Let’s Make Love
. 1962:
The Chapman Report
. 1963:
Something’s Got to Give
(uncompleted). 1964:
My Fair Lady
. 1969:
Justine
. 1972:
Travels With My Aunt
. 1975:
Love Among the Ruins
(TV). 1976:
The Blue Bird
. 1979:
The Corn Is Green
(TV). 1981:
Rich and Famous
.

George Cukor is now taken for granted as a test case of the embattled homosexual in Hollywood. Patrick McGilligan’s biography of him made a hinge in Cukor’s life of the way the director was fired by his old friend David Selznick a few days into the shooting of
Gone With the Wind
. Hearsay evidence and crusty legend were invoked to claim that Cukor was victimized because he was gay, and because he troubled Clark Gable. There is better evidence to suggest that Cukor had grown tired of
Gone With the Wind
, overfamiliar with scenes he had screen-tested for years, and deadly slow in pacing on a project that desperately needed drive and energy if it was to avoid turning to stone.

Cukor and Selznick remained friends. Cukor was reassigned to
The Women
at MGM. He thrived, as did other gay directors such as Mitchell Leisen and Vincente Minnelli. Cukor was a fine director of women; he was also the director of some of the screen’s most complex and mature heterosexual relationships—I’m thinking of the Tracy-Hepburn pictures.
GWTW
was a blow to Cukor, and I suspect that he was someone who went in dread of not being found pleasing (but that anxiety is known to heterosexuals, too). More than that, these Hollywood rules should be remembered: stars did not have the power attributed to Gable; people who did the job effectively were hired; gays no more dreamed of forcing their lifestyle on their movies than radicals thought to promote Red messages; and gay sensibility was, and is, so central to movies that there was never any need for promotion.