Sidney Lumet's Oscar

Ordinarily gossip is best avoided, right? For one thing The Gossip usually knows only a little, not the full story.  I know only a little bit.

The poignancy of his getting an Oscar is that he made his movies in NY not Hollywood. His whole life he badmouthed Hollywood: the place, and the mindset. He did weird thigs. He made a movie, in color yet, suggesting he had a budget, of Chekhov's The Seagull.  When it opened, in NY, even acting teacher Lee Strasberg couldn't resist pointing out the impossibility of the task. Lumet hit his stride with Pawnbroker,  and even more so with Dog Day Afternoon.   He flopped with The Group because that was a bad novel to begin with. It's almost as if he couldn't read.  A New York Jew, he married Lena Horne's daughter Gail Jones. The scoop there was she saved his life from suicide. They divorced.

I think Hollywood gave him an Oscar 'cause they felt sorry for him.

Still angry with Hollywood, on Sunday night he managed only to thank "The Movies." I believe the man was crude, violent, selfish, and semi-literate. A typical product of "the movies."

Barry