Hollywood

There have always been bullies in Hollywood; it’s institutionalised, like a form of hazing, but the key difference between the film business and the Marine Corps is that bullying in Hollywood is not meant to inculcate esprit de corps; its purpose, for the bully, anyway, is to provide confirmation that the hierarchy is working in his favour.  I was one of the last generation of studio executives at Universal that reported to the old mogul, Lew Wasserman.  Wasserman was a physically imposing screamer who had parlayed with gangsters, bootleggers and union enforcers as a supplier of dance bands to illicit nightclubs during Prohibition, so he could terrorise white-collar employees without breaking

Is Bill Murray fit for sainthood? Certainly his fans have him figure as some sort of lesser divinity, maybe one of the more saturnalian Greeks or pagans, with a taste for crashing karaoke parties with a pretty Dutch girl on their arm. How else to explain his mysterious deus-ex-machina drop-ins at random points around the globe — driving golf carts around Stockholm, reading poetry to construction workers in New York, acting as roadie at a rock festival in Texas? Where else does Murray’s power of deadpan derive if not the omniscience of a melancholic and slightly bored God, trying his best to wile away eternity? That’s why his best role

As so often, no one put it better than Papa. Here is Ernest Hemingway talking of all the movies made from his novels and short stories: ‘The only two I could sit through were The Killers and To Have and Have Not — I guess Ava Gardner and Lauren Bacall had a lot to do with it.’ Mr S can’t say fairer than that of Lauren Bacall, who has died at the age of 89. Bacall was, however, rather more than a husky voice and a sultry look. In 1981 she starred in The Fan, in which she played a middle-aged film star idolised by a demented fan (played by

The Oscars dispenses its wisdom tonight. By tradition the award for the past year’s best film won’t go to the past year’s best film. This means 12 Years a Slave will probably win. Here’s a quick recap of the movies in contention and what our film critic Deborah Ross thought of them.   Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese) ‘It’s … three hours of the same events, over and over. Make a ton of money, get totally whacked on drugs, have sex with hookers. Make a ton of money, get totally whacked on drugs, have sex with hookers. And sometimes, for variety: make a ton of money, get totally whacked on

There is, we all know, only one anniversary that matters this year: 20 March 2014, 50 years since The Twilight Zone episode ‘The Masks’ was first beamed into America’s cathode-ray tubes. Bunting will be stretched from television screen to television screen in celebration. Champagne will be spilt over remote controls. After all, ‘The Masks’ isn’t just a particularly fine episode of a particularly fine show. It is also the only episode — of 156, if we don’t count the two revival series made in later decades — to be directed by a woman. Ida Lupino. Lupino, who died almost 20 years ago, was a Hollywood pioneer — and not just

The art world has descended on the almost attractive city of Basel in Switzerland this week, for the annual art fair. And where the art world goes, glamorous collectors follow. Leonardo di Caprio appeared to be in the mood for some serious shopping when I glimpsed him, casting his eye over a Warhol or two. He may have looked at the Alexander Calder, or perhaps he saw the Edmund de Waal or the exquisite pair of Peter Doig etchings. And there’s this chap called Picasso; mark my words, dear readers, he’s going to be big. Di Caprio had competition from one Roman Abramovitch, who sloped by a few Edvard Munchs,