Re: Resurfacing from the void with a petty question
Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Tue, 08 Jun 1999 12:03:19 -0400 (EDT)
>Paul, you're absolutely kidding - how on *earth* did you ever know about
>Zoe Caldwell? This is `a story for another day' that I've gotta hear about
>NOW! (:
>
>>
Ahem.... The Story of a Young Man and The Actress....
Zoe Caudwell played Cleopatra opposite Christopher Plummer's Antony in a
1967 Stratford Ontario production of A & C.... I was sixteen years old. I
fell in love. (That same summer, she played Lady Anne opposite Alan Bates
as Richard III on the same stage.... He wooed her well enough, but I was
still head over heels in love with the woman with the asp....
The following summer, in New York, I got to see her again in The Prime of
Miss Jean Brodie.... I think she won the Tony that year for that
performance, and I've never forgiven folks for casting Maggie Smith in the
movie.... Anyway, Ms. Caudwell was the toast of Broadway that summer. And
she'd just married Robert Whitehead, so that she was totally avoiding press
and public appearances....
At the end of the play, after clapping my hands virtually raw, I walked down
a dark alley to the stage door. Who should be guarding the top of the
stairs but Robert Whitehead? I assumed that he'd tell me to fuck off, but
instead he proclaimed that Zoe would be DELIGHTED to meet me.... He
escorted me into a sort of anti-chamber beside the star's dressing room....
He went through a door into a flower-filled room of mirrors and lights.
Moments later, out came Caudwell wearing one of the same robes that she'd
worn as Cleopatra.
I fell in love all over again!
There aren't many actresses (or actors for that matter--and I've actually
got no intention to be sexist, but I think that there's an important
distinction to be drawn between actors and actresses.... It's not a
hierarchical distinction.... No one, for example, ever called Paul Robeson
a soprano.... Or Maria Callas a baritone.... I think of Zoe Caudwell as an
actress....) are a smart as Zoe Caudwell.... And in her case, "smart" is
automatically translated into "sexy".... Judy Dench is very similar....
Such actresses make me confess to carnal cravings.....
Now, WHAT the HECK's a "billobong"? (sp?) Confirm or deny that it has
>> something to do with illicit drugs....
>
>No, not at all (unless you take into account the fact that it's the name of
>a famous surfing brand over here (: ). A Billabong is like a creek or a
>little lake. I'm assuming you heard it in Waltzing Matilda (`Once a jolly
>swagman camped by a billabong') And, as any good Aussie school kid (and
>practically no one else) knows - to `waltz matilda' meant `to take someone
>to jail'. It's a real shame these distinctly Australian words are beginning
>to fade out under all the cools and awesomes and suchlike.
>
Thanks for the antipodean insight (as always)..... Supplementary Question:
What the name of the sixties or seventies Aussie singer who used "Waltzing
Mathilda" in the refrain to a VERY POWERFUL anti-war song? The chorus
started with the words: "And the band played Waltzing Mathilda..."
I'm hoping I can chase down a copy in Canada, but I need to know the
singer/songwriter's name first....
Cheers,
Paul