It is Haruo Nakajima, the Japanese actor who donned a 200-pound rubber suit to play Godzilla in a dozen films. He passed away Monday at 88. He has 57 titles listed under his name at IMDb, including a bit part in the Akiro Kurasowa classic Seven Samurai (1954), which was released the same year as the first Godzilla flick. Arigatou, sir. Here he is as a young man:
In order to bolster ticket sales of the critically acclaimed Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, the producers wanted Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin to take over the lead role, which had previously been played by blacks. Of course, in this age of hypersensitivity, the ploy aroused a nasty social media backlash. Accusations of racism flew. Patinkin backed out. Ticket sales continued to flounder. Now it has been announced that the show will close September 3rd. Backers will lose all but 20 percent of their $14 million investment. For more details, check out Michael Riedel's article in today's NY Post: http://nypost.com/2017/08/08/its-official-great-comet-will-close-sept-3/
And from the Post's Weird But True there comes this hilarious tidbit once again proving that truth is often stranger than fiction. In my own words: A guy who had broken into a California home paused his thievery to go to the bathroom. He failed to flush. His DNA was on file in a national database, allowing authorities to track him down through his feces.
Here's hoping President Trump doesn't give in to Kim Jong-Un's threats and pony up a bribe for him to behave, as his predecessors did, kicking the problem down the road to his successor. No one knows where this will lead, and the leader of the free world is in an unenviable position, but that's one of the requisites of the office. Unless North Korea has the capability of launching scores of missiles at once, I doubt any would breach our defense system, as there would be ample time to intercept. Its neighbors, however, face great peril.
My thanks to the woman who bought two thrillers in Russian, and to the gentleman who purchased Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie; and to Stu and Janet, who bought Carrie by Stephen King; and to Shelley, who showed as I was closing shop and stocked up, buying four Nora Roberts novels. My thanks also to the elderly Russian gentleman whose wife dispatched him with a couple of bags of books in both his native language and English. There was a bit of a sticky situation during the session. Three young girls stopped to browse. One was interested in Killing. I assumed she was 15. She was twelve. I explained that I couldn't sell it to her, as her parents might object to some of the content. She then asked if I had anything appropriate for someone her age. For a change, I didn't. I asked if she were Jewish. When she said yes I asked if she knew what the Holocaust was. She seemed not to, although she was perhaps a little nervous speaking to an "author." I handed her Elie Wiesel's Night. She read the back blurb and decided to buy it. My thanks. I hope her parents don't object, as the book, one of the most famous of the 20th century, is intense.
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