James Agee

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Katharine Hepburn’s temperance nearly killed her during the filming of The African Queen.

The African Queen is a wonderful adventure film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, written by James Agee (adapted from the C. S. Forester novel of the same name) and directed by John Huston.

It involves a missionary (Hepburn) caught up in an adventure with a river boat captain (Bogart) in Africa during World War I.

The film was made on location in Uganda and the Congo.

During the filming, Hepburn came down with a severe case of dysentery. She ended up losing nearly 20 pounds! It got to the point where she would do a scene and then have to go vomit (or the other variety of expulsion) right afterwards. She actually ended up suffering from the disease for months AFTER the filming ended! She did a whole other movie, the romantic comedy, Pat and Mike, while still suffering from the disease!

What was particularly amazing, though, was HOW she caught it.
Continue reading “How Did Katharine Hepburn’s Temperance Nearly Kill Her?”

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to opera and operettas and whether they are true or false.

OPERA URBAN LEGEND: Richard Wilbur, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry and the second United States Poet Laureate, actually wrote the lyrics to a number of songs from Candide, including “Glitter and Be Gay.”

Richard Wilbur (born in New York City in 1921) is one of the very best poets of the second half of the 20th Century, and even in the 21st Century he has continued his same, steady delivery of excellent poetry.

Wilbur, like most of the men in his generation, fought in World War Two. Wilbur served in the Army during the war and saw quite a bit of action in Europe from 1943 until the end of the war. His war experiences clearly influenced his poetry dramatically, as much of his most celebrated early work concerned itself with putting order to a chaotic post-War world.

Wilbur’s work, while beautiful, is written in a traditional style, similar to the work of Robert Frost. During the second half of the 20th Century, however, a more non-formalist style became the more celebrated style of poetry among critics, like the confessional poets Slyvia Plath, Robert Lowell and John Berryman (all peers of Wilbur, but all three killed themselves decades ago while Wilbur is still alive today).

Because of this, Wilbur sometimes almost seems to be overlooked in poetry history, as his work does not leap out as much stylistically, but he has significant amounts of accolades. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1957 and 1989 and he was named the second Poet Laureate of the United States in 1987 (the position existed for many years before 1987, it just wasn’t CALLED that until 1986).

However, one facet of his career that really has been overlooked is he actually did song lyrics for an operetta!!
Continue reading “Did Richard Wilbur Write the Lyrics to “Glitter and Be Gay”?”