Tod Slaughter was a British character actor of stage and screen. Born Norman Carter Slaughter in Newcastle upon Tyne, in 19 March, 1885, Slaughter began his career in theater in 1905, at twenty years old, briefly interrupting it to serve in the army, to fight in the First World War. 

Primarily a stage actor, Slaughter also served as general manager of several theaters, first in the Theatre Royal, in Chatham, Kent, then in the Elephant and Castle Theatre, in London. Slaughter remained active in the theater — his greatest passion — for all of his life. An enthusiastic actor that engaged audiences in his eclectic and outstanding performances, Slaughter soon acquired great popularity, doing work for mass consumption, as well as more sophisticated dramas for a quality demanding public. He only started appearing in movies in 1934, at forty-nine years old. His first movie was Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn, released the following year. In total, he appeared in eighteen films.    

His next feature, 1936 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street — on which he would play the title character — would become his most successful and celebrated movie. As it was the case with this movie, as well as its predecessor, Slaughter had also played the theater versions of these stories.  

Based on a character that was first featured on a weekly serial of the Victorian era — The String of Pearls —, Sweeney Todd rapidly developed into an urban legend, similar to that of Spring-heeled Jack. The movie tells the story of a professional barber, that kills his customers with the assistance of Mrs. Lovatt (played by Stella Rho), the owner of a nearby pie store.  

Tod Slaughter would reprise the role in two less successful sequels, 1945 Bothered by a Beard, and 1954 Puzzle Corner No. 14, his last movie. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street won a remake in 2007, directed by Tim Burton, with his long time collaborator Johnny Depp in the title role. 

Another relatively remarkable movie in Tod Slaughter's career was 1939 The Face at the Window, where he plays Chevalier Lucio del Gardo. On this movie — set in Paris in 1880 — several people are killed by what appears to be a wolf, something that is corroborated according to the sound heard in each attack. Before every murder, though, the victims saw the killer's face by the window. Chevalier Lucio del Gardo is a very obscure, malignant and evasive character, who tries to seduce people and gain their confidence with his evil charm. Eventually, he makes a deal with a nearly bankrupt banker, to marry his beautiful daughter, Cecile de Brisson (played by Marjorie Taylor). When he knows that she is in love with another man, Lucien Cortier (played by John Warwick), he does everything in his power to incriminate him as the responsible for the murders that has been taking place.   

In this movie, Tod Slaughter played the villain, something that was a recurring fact in his film career, which created a curious contrast with his theater career, where he usually played the hero or the benevolent prototype of altruistic romanticism. 

As theater remained his greatest passion, Tod Slaughter appeared to have seen movies just as a means to supplement his financial income. Always busy, he ran theater companies, went on tour regularly even in his old age, and was exceedingly versatile, playing all kinds of spectacles, from conventional melodramas to more complex one act monologues. In the early fifties, however, his fortunes changed for the worst, as the theater companies that he led were no longer in demand, having gradually falling out of favor in the public's general taste. By this time, Tod Slaughter went broke. Nevertheless, with no better prospects, he continued performing and touring, and accepting work-related performing jobs.  

He still did some feature films in the fifties. King of the Underworld and Murder at Scotland Yard were both released in 1952. As they worked together as a single story, in these movies, Slaughter played the same character, a criminal mastermind named Terence Reilly. 

Tod Slaughter also had done some work on television, on the TV Series Inspector Morley. Nevertheless, the episodes on which he participated were combined in two movies for theatrical release. A version of the legendary British entity known as Spring-Heeled Jack adapted for the theater, starring Slaughter, was filmed and later exhibited in television. 

After fifty years completely dedicated to the performing arts, Tod Slaughter died of coronary thrombosis, in Derby, in 19 February, 1956, one month before completing seventy-one years. After his death, his work was entirely forgotten. More recently, his movie work has been properly appreciated by critics and evaluated by film scholars, generating interest from classic movies' enthusiasts.


Wagner

Nigel Bruce was a British actor of theatre and film, that became better known as Dr. Watson, the adventure partner of Sherlock Holmes, in a series of  fourteen films made between 1939 and 1946. He also voiced the character in a radio series titled The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, from 1939 to 1947. 

Born William Nigel Ernle Bruce in 4 February, 1895, in Ensenada, Mexico, to British parents, he was formally educated in England. In school, he excelled at sports, and became part of the cricket team
at Abingdon School. In 1912, he begun a career in the stock market in the City of London. 

In 1914, before the first World War, he enlisted as a voluntary in the auxiliary Territorial Force of the British Army. When the conflict broke out, he was sent with his regiment to the Western Front. Despite the fact that eventually he suffered severe injuries in both legs, being as a result discharged as an invalid — having to spend most of the following year recovering —, he re-enlisted in 1916, being recruited again; however, this time to attend more bureaucratic demands. 

When the war was over, Nigel Bruce had decided not to return to work in the stock market, as now he was completely passionate about acting. Determined to dedicate himself to his new found vocation, he rapidly started a career in the performing arts. Nigel Bruce made his stage debut in 1920 as a character in the play Why Marry?. Two years later, he would make his film debut in the silent Flames of Passion — now a lost film —, in a minor uncredited role. In 1930, at thirty-five years old, he would start a solid career in the movie industry, that would last until his death, in 1953. In 1934, Nigel Bruce relocated to Hollywood, where he would live for the rest of his life. 

In the late thirties, Bruce was cast as Dr. John Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, a film adaptation of the eponymous mystery novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his most celebrated literary creation, the detective Sherlock Holmes, portrayed in the movie by Basil Rathbone. This would be the first in a series of fourteen films to be shot until 1946. These characters would define the careers of both Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, though they were already established talents in the acting business. 

The first and the second movie — the following was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes —, were both released in 1939. They were produced by 20th Century Fox, that dropped the Sherlock Holmes series project soon thereafter. Nevertheless, Universal Studios acquired the rights for the screen to shoot the entire series, but resumed production with substantial differences. While the Fox films were big budget efforts, inspired by the original works of Conan Doyle, the Universal movies were usually low budget productions, with contemporary setting, rather than the Victorian era, where the Holmes universe is situated. Because of the period, Second World War, some features in the series saw Holmes and Watson fighting the nazis. 

These movies were usually hour long features, rarely exceeding this time. The last feature in the series was Dressed to Kill, also known as Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Code, released in 1946, that was one of the least successful. Regardless of the reception of the movies — some were enthusiastically received, while others failed to captivate critics and audicences alike —, both Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were widely praised by their performances as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, respectively. Nevertheless, despite his competent acting skills, ardorous enthusiasts and avid readers of the Sherlock Holmes adventures written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle labeled Nigel Bruce's interpretation of Watson as too humorous, condesceding and caricaturesque, arguing that he gave the character an exaggerated comic atmosphere, incompatible with the Watson described by Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes works. 

There's no denying the fact that Nigel Bruce really gave the Watson character a more laid back, friendly and fun aspect. Nevertheless, his interpretation of Watson was crystallized as definitive in the minds of generations of viewers, and certainly can be seen as one of the best in the history of Sherlock Holmes feature film adaptations. 

Despite the brief stint as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes film series, Nigel Bruce enjoyed his career when the series was over, being in demand afterwards. He also had roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films, 1940 Rebecca and 1941 Suspicion. In total, he had roles in almost eighty movies, in a twenty-three years feature films career. 

If he remains best remembered as the character Dr. Watson, this is because his remarkable acting skills went generally underappreciated, as he was never given the opportunity to fully demonstrate his versatility. During all the time he spent in the United States, Nigel Bruce never sought American citizenship, and remained a British subject for all his life. Well-liked and appreciated among the community of English expatriates in Hollywood, Nigel Bruce was an avid cricket player throughout his life. For some time, he was the captain of the Hollywood Cricket Club, whose members were mostly British. The actor died of a heart attack, in 8 October, 1953, at fifty-eight years old. His last film, the drama World for Ransom — directed by Robert Aldrich —, was released posthumously. 


Wagner

Gösta Ekman was a notorious and legendary Swedish actor, known as the first theater star in his home country. Born Frans Gösta Viktor Ekman in Stockholm, in 28 December, 1890, he was active in the capital's theatrical community from 1907, until his premature death in 12 January, 1938, from drug-related causes, two weeks after turning forty-seven years.

Beginning in 1907 as an extra, Gösta Ekman officialy started his acting career four years later, in 1911. From the onset, the actor gained a remarkable reputation for his capacity of being skilfully versatile; besides acting in dramas, comedies and tragedies, he could play all kinds of characters, becoming unrecognizable with makeup. He was also amazingly prolific, working in several productions and in different positions at the same time. While he was constantly working on the stage, he was also the administrative director of several private theaters in different periods of his life, like the Konserthusteatern and the Oscarsteatern. From 1931 to 1935, he was the director of the Vasateatern, where he directed plays, and played the lead in several stage productions. During this time, he was also the director of the Gothenburg City Theatre. All his professional life was punctuated by a busy schedule, that for his part was firstly moved by an unconditional love for the theatre and the dramatic arts. Being so busy meant that the actor didn't had any time to enjoy a personal life. 

Gösta Ekman also became a famous and renowned movie actor. He begun his career precisely the same time as the emerging world cinema, and the actor was instrumental in the development of the movie industry in his country. One of his first movies was the 1912 silent drama Trädgårdsmästaren, a thirty-four minutes short directed by Victor Sjöström. In the following decade, the actor would achieve international recognition with the 1926 movie Faust — where he played the title character —, directed by legendary German filmmaker F. W. Murnau, an adaptation of the literary epic poem authored by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, based on an ancient German legend about a man that does a deal with the Devil in exchange for endless power and knowledge. The role of Mephisto was played by notorious German actor Emil Jannings, that later would have his career permanently ruined as a consequence of his association with the nazis. 

In 1936, Gösta Ekman played the lead in the Swedish drama film Intermezzo, directed by Gustaf Molander. On this movie, he worked with Ingrid Bergman, that would later become one of the most iconic and legendary movie stars of all time.  

During production for Faust, the actor — that by this time was also feeling the weight of his workload on his shoulders — was introduced to cocaine, that he began to use regularly, to help him in the execution of all his professional activities. Unfortunately, the drug and the addiction he would later develop would be the primary reason for his  untimely demise. Sadly, fame came at a high cost for the actor; as his reputation grew, his workload increased proportionally, progressively becoming more and more unbearable for him to fulfill all his obligations, which gradually increased his necessity of drug use. 

After a glorious and overwhelmingly busy thirty years career in theatre and cinema, Gösta Ekman died at forty-seven years old, in 12 January, 1938, as the result of a severe work schedule, exacerbated by substance abuse. Despite a brief existence, he enjoyed a prominently successful career, that made him — thanks to a brutal workload, that paradoxically helped to project him as the primary talent of his generation, as well as being responsible for all the distresses that would eventually made him dependent on cocaine, the primary factor for his precocious death — one of the most memorable and legendary acting stars of his country. In total, he appeared in forty-five movies, and was involved in more than one hundred theatre productions.

Very much like the American Barrymore family — of which the most prominent members probably are Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore and Drew Barrymore — Gösta Ekman became the progenitor of a long-standing and successful dynasty of actors and actresses. His son Hasse Ekman became a sucessful director, screenwriter and actor, active from the thirties to the sixties. His sons — Gösta Ekman's grandchildren — are director Mikael Ekman, actor Stefan Ekman and the late namesake Gösta Ekman, probably the most famous of the third generation, who died at seventy-seven, in 2017. Hasse Ekman was also the father of the children's book author Fam Ekman. Swedish actress Sanna Ekman is Gösta Ekman's granddaughter.

Generally, to distinguish the two actors with the same name, Gösta Ekman, the elder, is referred as Gösta Ekman senior, while his grandson is referred as Gösta Ekman junior. Nevertheless, their full names are entirely different. While Gösta Ekman senior's complete name is Frans Gösta Viktor Ekman, his grandson's full name was Hans Gösta Gustaf Ekman. 


Wagner

Marian Gold — whose real name is Hartwig Schierbaum — is a German singer-songwriter, who has gained  prominence in the eighties as frontman of the synth-pop group Alphaville, that achieved worldwide fame for spectacularly successful hits like Forever Young and Big in Japan. 

Alphaville was formed in early 1982, as a trio consisting of Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd (whose real name was Bernhard Gössling) and Frank Mertens (whose real name was Frank Sorgatz). The band was initially named Forever Young. 

After changing the name to Alphaville — by influence of the 1965 Jean-Luc Godard film —, the band released in 1984 its first album, Forever Young. With ten tracks, the record has the group's two biggest hits, Big in the Japan, and the eponymous Forever Young. Marian Gold wrote Big in Japan after listening to a namesake English punk band, that was active in the late seventies. One of the band members was Holly Johnson, that would achieve greater fame as the lead singer of the British pop group Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

It is needless to explain about the extraordinary success that Alphaville's two biggest hits had in the worldwide music scene back then. Forever Young was covered by a great variety of different musicians and artists. One of the best known versions was made by American singer Laura Branigan.  

Unconfortable with the new found fame, soon after Forever Young was released,  Frank Mertens left the band. He was replaced by Ricky Echolette (whose real name was Wolfgang Neuhaus).  Alphaville released another two albums in the eighties, Afternoons in Utopia, in 1986, and The Breathtaking Blue, in 1989. These albuns spanned successful singles, like Jerusalem, Dance With Me and Romeos. 

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After the eighties was gone, though, the band's popularity begin to decline. Nevertheless, by this time, Gold successfully transformed Alphaville from a primarily studio-based project into a solid live act. From then on, Alphaville would become primordially known as a live concert band.  

In 1992, the band released one of their most acclaimed compilations, First Harvest 1984–92. In 1994, they released their most experimental, eclectic, original and audacious album to date, Prostitute. This album was widely praised by critics for its versatility and creativity, and was also a relative commercial success, despite the fact that — by this time — the band was no longer under the spotlight. Its global fan base was reduced to a compact, but substantial cult following. 

In 1997, now as a duo — Ricky Echolette has left during production —, Alphaville released Salvation, one of the most formidable and gracious albums of the band's discography; despite a formal return to their common musical background, after the more venturesome predecessor, this album displayed an expressive and cohesive maturity towards their colorful resounding style of sensible and dynamic synth-pop. 

From this point onwards, Alphaville would become almost exclusively a live concert band. Although several compilations, collections and remixes would be released over the years, for more than a decade, Alphaville would not release another album. 

In 2003, Bernhard Lloyd left Alphaville, leaving Marian Gold as the only original remaining member. For live shows, Gold is backed by a cohesive and competent team of musicians. 

In 2010, Gold released the album Catching Rays on Giant, and in 2017, Strange Attractor, both under the Alphaville moniker; nevertheless, for a long time now the band, in practice, doesn't exist anymore, and has become merely a solo project of Gold. 

In the nineties, Gold has tried his hand at a solo career; in 1992, he released the album So Long Celeste. 

With ten tracks — 1) And I Wonder; 2) The Shape Of Things To Come; 3) Heart Of The Flower; 4) One Step Behind You; 5) Sirens (Excerpt From Elegy); 6) What Is Love?;
7) Today; 8) Peace On Earth; 9) Sweet Needles Of Success; 10) Roll Away The Stone; —, this album is an interesting musical experiment. Initially conceived as a purely rock album, the final version was modified to sound more like Alphaville, though some songs retained a very rock 'n' roll atmosphere, with the track Peace On Earth displaying a very Billy Idol type of vibe, resembling songs like Mony Mony and Trouble With the Sweet Stuff.

In a general evaluation, So Long Celeste is a magnificient work, though most of the time effectively sounds like an Alphaville album. With exceedingly marvelous songs like And I Wonder, One Step Behind You and Sirens, this album can be classified as a relevant, gracious and wonderfully versatile work of art, though ocasionally falls in a more generic direction. 

Four years later, in 1996, Gold released the album United. Like its predecessor, its has ten tracks: 1) Danger In Your Paradise; 2) Caroline; 3) Feathers & Tar; 4) Missionary; 5) For The Sake Of Love; 6) Say It Ain't So, Joe; 7) Five Years; 8) Change The World; 9) Cosmopolitician; 10) Soulman. With the first song being the most amazingly beautiful, United is a much more conventional and homogeneous album, with songs mainly crafted by an exceedingly sentimental atmosphere. Unfortunately, the album doesn't display the energy, vigor and enthusiasm of its predecessor. Nevertheless, it remains a curiosity item for Alphaville enthusiasts. 

With hardly any memorable songs, United manages to be satisfying, but its stylistic limitations are too afflictive, even for the excessively simple synth-pop standards of Alphaville. After the first song, the album manages to be tolerable. Songs like Say It Ain't So, Joe, Change The World and Cosmopolitician are graciously conceived melancholic anthems of depressive splendor, though these tracks eventually fall in severely predictable sonorous territory. 

While some passage are indeed very beautiful, Gold exaggerates on the emotional density crafted into each one of these songs. Suffering from a severe lack of versatility, in the end, United is a reasonable, but almost completely forgettable album, that doesn't manage to achieve the moderate greatness of its predecessor.

Marian Gold apparently has ceased to release albums under his own name, because it doesn't attract so much attention as the Alphaville alias. Since for a long time now Alphaville has been mostly a live band — that lives off almost exclusively exploiting its old hits, and for this reason is seen by many as a nostalgia act —, the need to release new material in the market has practically ceased, since it has almost no demand. For this reason, Gold releases new material only sporadically, and always under the Alphaville name.  

Although it does not seem, Marian Gold is sixty-five years old now, but keeps rocking as Alphaville's frontman and main driving force. We certainly expect him to continue, for many more years to come. 


​Wagner

Charles Bukowski is and always will be one of my favorite writers. Although I haven’t liked everything that I read by this author – Post Office is a good example of an exceedingly ordinary novel, though even so has its superficial qualities – his captivating and realistic depictions of life, mainly autobiographic in nature, and his abilities to portray everything in a relatively softer context, even delivering creatively sensible, incisive and organic lines of black humor, certainly makes the “dirty old man” a singular and incomparable literary icon of his generation, like no one else could be.

The first book that I read by Bukowski, I think more than sixteen years ago, was a very concise one, the non-fiction The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, that was originally published four years after his death, in 1998. This book is very simple in content – even more than his short stories and novels, that are mostly personal, biographical recounts of his existence –, composed mainly of excerpts and journal entries that Bukowski wrote in his last years, about ordinary events in his daily life. Although there is nothing exceptional about this book, it is so well written, and Bukowski is so frank, direct and sincere with his reader, that it became impossible, at least for me, not to immediately love this book. Of course, I understand perfectly that literary preferences are an entirely personal matter; Bukowski works very well in what concerns my taste. 

One of the greatest achievements of Bukowski – in my personal evaluation – is impregnating his literature with the basic characteristics of his personality, cynicism and skepticism, while at the same time, whether this would be a conscious decision or not, his literary art never became something dense, profound, tragic or dramatic, as opposed to more “serious” authors, like Phillip Roth. With the fewer exceptions of some short stories and some passages in his novels, the aforementioned black humor that he masterly displays, as well as his natural, spontaneous and habitual reactions to everything concerning life around him – from ordinary occurrences to more extraordinary situations – makes his literary art a very unique achievement, while concomitantly the author displays a rude simplicity, in vocabulary and expression, that certainly makes him practically an unofficial, but quintessential spokesperson for the ordinary everyday man.        

Bukowski endured great pain, suffering and misery throughout his life, especially during his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. His father was a profoundly intolerant and authoritarian figure, that imposed cruel punishments to the young Charles for literally everything he had done wrong, or wasn’t in accordance with this father’s strict demands. To make matters worse, when he was an adolescent, Bukowski had a terrible and severe case of acne that disfigured him greatly, for which he had to sought a painful and distressing medical treatment, that involved needles, ointment and bandages. By then, Bukowski was a shy, isolated and introverted individual, that had severe problems getting close to the opposite sex. This fact turned him into a more solitary and introspective individual, as his beautiful female classmates seemed distant and unreachable.   

By this time, though, he has discovered alcohol – something that would serve to anesthetize the pain and drudgery of life –, and the habit of drinking would become recurrent throughout his life, with drastic health issues as posterior consequences. The references to alcohol consumption would be constant and deeply celebrated in his literature.

These terrible occurrences of his life – which traumatized him to a degree – are abundantly narrated throughout his literature. Probably they are best retreated in his seminal novel Ham on Rye, published in 1982, which several fans and enthusiasts consider to be his masterpiece. The autobiographical work covers a large part of his life, from the beginning, in infancy, to later adulthood.     

Another book that I loved very much was Factotum, Bukowski’s second novel, published in 1975. In this book, we follow Henry Chinaski – Bukowski’s alter ego, a recurrent character throughout his works – from job to job (hence the book’s title; factotum is a Latin word that literally means “do everything”, a “do it all” person, someone who accepts wherever job is available) – wandering by several cities and locations throughout the United States, destitute of a solid and decent perspective of future, in a permanent search for employment opportunities. The book was adapted into a relatively watchable film in 2005, starring Matt Dillon. Unfortunately, the movie simplified too much the novel – that has its subtle textures and densities –, and unfavorably unveils the story as a contemporary narrative, as opposed to the forties and fifties USA, that serves as the period upon which the events took place. 

Another marvelous Bukowski book that I loved greatly was Hollywood. Originally published in 1989, the novel deals with a period in the life of Bukowski where movie director Barbet Schroeder asked him to write a script. Bukowski wrote – exclusively for a paycheck – and the result was the movie Barfly, starred by Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. On this book, Bukowski narrates his relationship and eventual friendship with Schroeder, as well as with lead star Mickey Rourke, to a lesser extent, his attendance to the movie shootings, the problems with budget constraints and production, and his overall views about Hollywood and the movie industry in general. Bukowski had a cameo in the movie, appearing during a scene in a bar. The real characters depicted in the novel have all fictitious names. Nevertheless, Hollywood is a fantastic literary adventure into the underground terrains of moviemaking, with an incredibly captured outlook by Bukowski’s lucid, acute and uncompromised sensibility.       

To read Charles Bukowski is almost an act of redemption. Besides his natural ability to tell an interesting and involving story – and the veracity behind it, because, being majorly autobiographical, he has experienced firsthand everything that he is telling to the reader – you perceive a very humane and solidary person. Behind all that apparent frivolity and rudeness, that were basically his personal defense on dealing with the hardships of life and the brutality of the world around him, there was a sensible individual, with a profound empathy for human beings, and a clear insight about the precariousness of existence. All this sensibility has definitely produced one of the best and most elemental literary iconoclasts that the world has ever known. (Want to know more about this author? Read another Bukowski article that I wrote here).


​Wagner

Maxwell Bodenheim – whose birth name was Maxwell Bodenheimer – is now a relatively forgotten American poet and novelist, who achieved great fame in the jazz era of the 1920’s. His mother and father were German-speaking European immigrants who settled in the United States by the 1880’s, and Maxwell Bodenheim was born in May, 1892, in Hermanville, Mississippi. It was in Chicago, however, that Bodenheim had started his literary activities.

There, with the now legendary writer Ben Hecht, Bodenheim founded a periodical, where several individuals that would become major icons of American literature have collaborated, like Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson and Carl Sandburg, amongst others. Nevertheless, it was in New York City that Bodenheim would become a more renowned man of letters.  
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Sadly, fortunes drastically changed after Bodenheim found fame in New York City. Only in the twenties and in the beginning of the thirties he remained regularly productive, after that he wrote and published only sporadically. Since there is absolutely no reliable biographies or documentaries about Bodenheim, everything that concerns his life, in overall, is largely obscure, and only a few facts about the writer are positively known with veracity. 

What can be said of Bodenheim for sure is that he was married three times. First, to Minna Schein, then to Grace Finan – to whom he became a widower – and last, to Ruth Fagin, a woman twenty-eight years younger than him. A little after the mid-thirties – for reasons that are largely unclear – Bodenheim’s condition and personal circumstances severely deteriorated. He even became a miserable beggar, asking for money in the streets. Despite the fact that by this time he was a published and moderately successful writer, he resorted to mendicancy for a living, and he was generally unrecognized by the people who gave him change. He was arrested by authorities several times for vagrancy, and even arbitrarily committed to mental institutions. By this time, Bodenheim had also become a chronic alcoholic. 

The death of Maxwell Bodenheim – which took place on February, 1954 –, was a particularly tragic one, and the main reason why his fame somewhat expanded; the incident supplanted his notoriety as a writer. In 1952, Bodenheim had married a woman – his third wife – named Ruth Fagin, that shared her husband’s degenerated, miserable and completely destitute lifestyle. Bodenheim did everything he could to survive, including marginal activities, treacherous, though innocent scams, mendicancy and he also wrote poems for changes. Most of the scarce money he made, though, were spent with alcoholic beverages, that Bodenheim somewhat used extensively to alleviate and anesthetize his suffering. His wife Ruth sometimes prostituted herself, to have an income, a degraded activity that frequently enraged Bodenheim. They were homeless people, used to sleep and live outdoors. 

On February 6, 1954, an acquaintance of the couple, a man named Harold "Charlie" Weinberg, offered to Max and Ruth the opportunity to spend the night in his apartment, to which the couple agreed. Once they were there, apparently – the veracity of the story is debatable – Weinberg tried to have sex with Ruth, and she was indeed predisposed to have an intercourse with him. Bodenheim was drunk, and appearing to be sleeping in the couch. Nevertheless, he was seeing everything, and suddenly stood up, enraged, and challenged Weinberg for a fight. Weinberg then killed Bodenheim with two gunshots, and stabbed Ruth to death. Weinberg shortly thereafter confessed the crime to the police, and tried to minimize his evil deed, by justifying that he had killed two “communists”, despite the fact that there is no factual evidence implying that Bodenheim or Ruth were communist sympathizers. Weinberg was arrested, considered insane, and locked for life in a psychiatric facility. The writer Ben Hecht – his friend and former literary colleague – paid for Bodenheim’s funeral expenses.     

Six months after Bodenheim’s murder, his biography, My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, was published. Bodenheim himself, though, was barely involved in the project, whose work was commissioned by a publisher named Samuel Roth, and was ghostwritten by a professional writer named George Plotkin. Apparently, Roth had requested and paid in advance for Bodenheim’s account of his life as a Greenwich Village bohemian and respected literary icon, an assignment that Bodenheim – in this period of his life, mostly depressed and despondent – was barely willing to commit.  

Unfortunately, by the time of his death, Bodenheim was already a largely forgotten writer, and since then, his work has never been properly revived, analyzed, studied, republished or appreciated. Bodenheim remains scarcely read and debated in literary circles today. His poetry, in particular, has a peculiar charm, a picaresque and sometimes quasi-surrealist beauty, that explored in the density of ephemeral and frugal moments the most obscure and fatalist resentments of life. Never really compromised or preoccupied with form or metric, his poetry was prominently modernist, and celebrated the arbitrary agonies of existence, in a constantly candid and moderately vibrant melancholy, that, it is suspected, were typical of his behavior.  

If you want to know better the work of this marvelous – though unconventional and undisciplined, but mordacious and genuine – literary icon, the website Black Cat Poems is the perfect place to start. There, you can read more than one hundred poems by Bodenheim, for free. I hope you enjoy, as much as I do. 


Wagner

Raizō Ichikawa was one of the most famous and talented Japanese actors of all time. Despite having died very young – at 37 years old –,  he was an exceedingly prolific actor. In a career that has spanned only fifteen years, beginning in 1954 and lasting until his death, in 1969, Ichikawa appeared in 158 films. A versatile and amazingly profound actor, Ichikawa left an enormous legacy, that can also be noted in the perception and tenderness of the Japanese audiences towards him. 

Born in 1931, Ichikawa had a somewhat turbulent youth, that drove him distant of his biological family. He was first adopted by a distant relative, and then by an aristocratic theater enthusiast, with connections that would help Ichikawa to launch his career, after he was already drove to theater acting. For this reason, his legal name changed several times during the course of his youth.  

From a young age determined to become an actor, in late 1946, only fifteen years old, Raizō Ichikawa made his debut in kabuki theatre. Learning and perfecting his acting skills with easiness – despite his young age – he rapidly became a consecrated actor, recognized by the vividness, grace and intensity of his style, impressing everyone who went to see his performances. Thus, in the beginning of the fifties, he endured a successful transition to film, that would definitely establish his reputation across Japan as one of the most talented actors of his generation.  In 1954, Ichikawa made his film debut. 

Like everything in his life – especially related to his acting career – Ichikawa rapidly became an established icon in the Japanese motion picture industry, making one film after another.  By the end of the decade, he was practically a national celebrity. He could do as much as fourteen movies in a single year, and in his brief life, participated in a total of 158 films. He remained working in a very constant and rigid schedule, until cancer would provoke his untimely demise, at the age of thirty-seven years old.

In 1968, Ichikawa begin suffering severe health problems, and then consulted a doctor. The exams soon demonstrated that he had rectal cancer, but the doctor, his friends, family and closest associates decided not to tell him about the disease. He had to perform surgery, but apparently, it was too late for him to be cured. Doctors advised his family members that the cancer would eventually return. Having always suffered from precarious health, the disease could have been properly treated when Ichikawa consulted a doctor for the same problem several years earlier, but was misdiagnosed. 

As his physical condition deteriorated, soon he wasn’t able to do films properly, and in the movies he was still cast, doubles had to be used for elaborate or more intricate scenes. In the beginning of 1969, after a second surgery, he was too weak and excessively debilitated to do anything. His health had practically vanished. After learning that a substitute actor was cast in a movie for a role he desperately wanted to portray, he became too disappointed, and apparently became apathetic towards work prospects. He died some months later. A promising and brilliant career – that was, indeed, very fruitful and prolific – was cut short at the dawn of its rise.   

 Nonetheless, Ichikawa managed to leave behind a wonderful legacy, that consolidated his reputation as one of the most formidable, versatile and significant actors of his generation. He made the skill of acting to appear spontaneous – somewhat easy to execute –, because it was natural for him, despite the fact that all of his characters were profound and intense. 

On Young Boy Takechi, Ichikawa plays a young naval officer that abandons his position, to assume the leadership of a Yakuza ring after his father – the actual leader –, dies. On a lustful man, Ichikawa plays a very eccentric womanizer, that thinks that his “mission” in the world is to make women happy. 

A splendid talent that was lost too soon, fortunately, the actor had enough time to consolidate and leave behind a consistent and robust legacy, that not only is filled with some marvelous movies, but also have his deeply graceful and vivacious interpretations of exceedingly peculiar and dense characters, that engraves in a very colorful scenario the poetic beauty of Japanese cinema.   

 
Wagner

Phillip Roth, the famous and celebrated American novelist, died more than a month ago, in Manhattan, on May 22, 85 years old. Literature loses one of its greatest exponents, but certainly, his work is more than enough to certify his ubiquitous grandiosity, that manages to be concomitantly solemn and disillusioned, as Roth dives profoundly into the most depressive and collateral elements of human nature, exposing reality for what it really is, with all of its difficulties, voracious disappointments and sordid emptiness.  

One of the most revered, talented and awarded writers of his generation, Roth leaves a legacy of approximately thirty-five books, mostly novels, that reveals the arbitrary sidelines of American society by the eyes of peculiar, but inherently pessimistic characters; usually, very cynic men, that doesn’t hold any type of morality, religious beliefs or faith in life. On the contrary, his characters – upon which the more well-known certainly would be Nathan Zuckerman and David Kepesh, the first, usually considered an alter ego for Roth –, had lost completely their grip on life, and deal with a lot of sentimental affliction, emotional pain and solitary isolation, as well as the consequences of life-long sufferings. 

I have read only three Phillip Roth’s books, but they were enough for me to consider him one of my favorite writers: Goodbye, Columbus, his first, published in 1959, Exit Ghost, published in 2007, which has Nathan Zuckerman as a central character, and more recently, The Dying Animal, originally published in 2001, which has literature professor David Kepesh as the protagonist. Undoubtedly, the one that I liked the most was Exit Ghost, although I have read this book several years ago. The Dying Animal, on the other hand, I have read recently, just about a few months ago. 

Roth’s work is full of delicate nuances, although at the same time his work can be direct, incisive, explicit, arbitrarily afflictive and discreetly dilacerating on its sincere exposition of the painful hostilities of human existence.  

Sexual desire is prominent in Roth’s fiction, and the fact that sexual lust doesn’t decrease – on the contrary, it’s always latent as an individual gets old –, is one of the many literary predicaments that his characters face and are obliged to endure. Being forced to deal with all the difficulties inherent to old age, like health issues and physical precariousness and deterioration, as well as the inability to have a sex life, nor to execute satisfactorily sexual fantasies with a woman, and how people are generally obtuse to these facts about old people, are some of the personal challenges that fluctuates at the epicenter of the universe of Roth’s characters. 

Roth was a chronic cynic, derided religion, and was at least partially hateful of his Jewish upbringing – he expressively prohibited Jewish rites to be performed at his funeral – something that is reflected throughout his work, which is mostly autobiographical. His characters dive further into an inherent existential bitterness, that discreetly reflects at least a little some of his personal life experiences. Nevertheless, Roth was an exceptionally creative writer, and not everything found in his literary works must be directly related to him. On this regard, it is crucial to separate the writer and the individual from his fictional personae and situations described. The writer himself clearly has stressed the importance of this in many occasions, in several interviews he conceded to television, journalists and literature broadcasts across America.

The pain in his work is very latent, although manages to be mostly discreet, homogenously diffuse, throughout the narratives. The reading of his books are pleasurable experiences, and a great intellectual exercise. The characters are generally fascinating, but sad at the same time, as they deal with generally arbitrary circumstances, that display personal grievances upon which a darkness within the conscious personality subtlety emerges. Roth has explored in his fiction several moments crucial to United States history – like the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the communist paranoia – and how he dealt with it personally, how directly and indirectly this affected him as an individual, and how it held accountable for the ones around him concerning these situations, everything filtered by the sensible realities of his complex and tormented characters.     

Roth ceased writing and retired in 2010. I will probably never forget how I came to know about his retirement. I was ready to embark in a plane in Europe, and I had bought an exemplar of the International Herald Tribune, to read while on the flight. On the front page of the newspaper – which I have to this day –, there was this article, titled “Why Phillip Roth decided to retire his pen (in 2010)”, which continued on page 8. The article said that “To his friends, the notion of Mr. Roth not writing is like Mr. Roth not breathing”. But the article states that the motives to quit were quite clear. The beginning of the article read: ‘On the computer in Phillip Roth’s Manhattan apartment these days is a Post-it note that reads, “The struggle with writing is over.” (…) “I look at that note every morning”, he said the other day, “and it gives me such strength”’. On it, Roth confesses how difficult writing could be, since competent writing requires to completely undress the soul to the reader. Remarkably, as the article also mentions, Roth’s output increased significantly in the last decade of his writing career, and in this period he produced some of his finest works, which is uncommon among the vast majority of novelists, who usually slow down their pace. The writer was well-known as a reclusive person, was reserved towards the media and rarely was seen outside his cottage in Connecticut. He was a native of Newark, New Jersey, but also spent time in New York. Unfortunately, the individual is gone, but his legacy remains more alive than ever. 


Wagner

Article by Wagner Hertzog 

Susan Sontag was an American essayist, playwright and political activist, who achieved notoriety in the mid-sixties, through an essay published in the now defunct Partisan Review. She consolidated her publishing career with well-acclaimed books, especially her work in the field of non-fiction. 

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Nevertheless, what can be considered marvelous and uncommon for Sontag is the fact that she, as a left-wing activist, considered the possibilities of at least some items of the left ideals and political agenda to be incorrect, mistaken, or even completely wrong. Considering how belligerent, intransigent and arrogant left-wing activists can be, this attitude of Susan Sontag can be seen as a phenomenal gesture of humility, altruism and true benevolence.

She famously said the phrase “Communism is fascism”, while in a rally in New York City in 1982, while trying to explain more profoundly the true nature of communism, and comparing to fascism, alluding to the totalitarian nature of both. At that same speech, she also suggested the possibility of anticommunist activists to be right, and that they were good-natured and well-intentioned in their efforts to prevent communism of becoming a reality, correctly implying that there is a great effort of communist sympathizers to deny and to conceal the horrendous crimes perpetrated by communist regimes all over the world. This is proven right by the fact that – to this day – although communist governments has killed far more than the Nazi regime, communism is not as hated or shunned as Nazism, with only a handful of countries in Europe – like Ukraine, Georgia, Romania and Moldova – having forbidden communist parties and activities definitely, whereas Nazism is forbidden mostly everywhere.  

Susan Sontag was widely reproved by her peers, in consequence of her criticism of communism and left-wing politics, with people criticizing her for betraying her own ideals. Which I think is a superficial overlook, and doesn’t take into an analytical specter the depth of her thoughts, political perceptions and human considerations.      

A brave person with a greatly analytic mind, predisposed to investigate profoundly the main reasons for social problems, Susan Sontag clearly had no fear of confronting what could disturb her. If by any chance she felt the need to deconstruct and analyze profoundly her own political beliefs, she would do that without any regret, knowing beforehand, of course, about the possible implications, since she knew how people on the left usually reacts, always hostile, contemptuous and aggressive towards criticism. Regardless of this, Susan Sontag had no fear of admitting to herself when something she deeply believed was wrong, and was permanently analyzing her own worldview, expanding her horizons and reevaluating her own group of beliefs, in order to evolve, and to explore different perspectives on art, literature and politics, as well as in another fields of life. 

A cohesive and sensitive thinker, without fear of exploring new possibilities, nor questioning or confronting preconceived values, Susan Sontag was a different leftist. A leftist with solidarity, perspicacity and strength to admit that she was a human, that she could be wrong at certain times, that she was constantly seeking the betterment and the improvement of her own nature and character, and that the left is not always right; she surely knew how to be and make a difference in the political scene, as a true courageous activist. There is no doubt that this was a formidable attitude of her, indicative of a benevolent personality and a profoundly humanistic character, with an heterogeneous openness that only a handful of people are able to achieve. 


Wagner

Pupil of the legendary poet Masaoka Shiki, Kyoshi Takahama, born 22 February 1874, in Matsuyama, is considered one of the most important Japanese literary figures of his generation.    

An intellectual with profoundly creative vicissitudes, the literary arts soon were established in Takahama’s heart as a deeply rooted passion. In his early adulthood, Takahama, through an acquaintance, met the Japanese literary giant Masaoka Shiki, who would become his friend and literary mentor. Seemingly heated by the ardent objective of a career in letters, in a fit of audacity and restlessness, Takahama – dutifully ignoring Shiki’s advice – quit school in 1894, to pursue his dream to study Edo period Japanese literature in Tokyo.

The following year, Takahama took a seat at Waseda University – then called Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō – but soon, as his prestige and pursuits prospered, he abandoned it to take up a position as editor and literary critic in Nihonjin magazine. In 1898, at the age of only 24, he took over the board of the literary magazine Hototogisu, previously edited by Shiki, and moved the office from Matsuyama to Tokyo, establishing a new chapter to the enterprise. 

At first, he took a modernist approach to haiku, developing a brave and fearless trend of experimentalism, whose main characteristic was the irregular number of syllables. Unexpectedly, in taking over the editorial command of the literary magazine Hototogisu, he curiously adopted a more conservative approach to haiku, rejecting the form established by a literary school known as Hekigo, which did not follow the pattern of seventeen syllables. In addition, he began to emphasize "kigo" (a word referring to some season of the year), and did his best to completely exclude the more modern tendency of non-seasonal haiku.

The death of his great friend and literary mentor Masaoka Shiki – whom, suffering from tuberculosis and Pott's disease, always had to deal with a tremendously precarious health –, in Tokyo in 1902, at the young age of 34, was a great blow to Takahama, who nurtured profound admiration, deep affection and great respect for this colossal champion of the Japanese literary arts. Takahama was informed of the sad news by Shiki’s mother. 

Bearing an exceedingly creative and restless mind, Takahama had a rich and eventful life, as well as an extraordinary career in letters and a lasting impact on his country’s literary scene. It is speculated that Takahama wrote between 40,000 and 50,000 haiku in the course of his long, fruitful and productive career (although some sources openly say this number is vastly underrated). He also deeply encouraged his daughter – who had inherited her father’s literary talent – to start her own poetry magazine. In 1954, Takahama received the award of the Order of Culture from the Japanese government, in recognition of his distinguished work and contribution to Japanese literature. Posthumously, Takahama was bestowed by the Japanese government with the Order of the Sacred Treasury, 1st Class.

Extremely versatile as a writer, Takahama wrote in a number of genres: a prolific writer of haiku and short stories, he also wrote novels, dramas and essays. Envisioning some sort of artistic evolution in the literary field ahead of him, Takahama ambitioned the excellence of creativity perfectly combined with a strict and disciplined adherence to form, something he masterly accomplished during the course of his literary journey. 

Takahama died 85 years old, in 8 April 1959, in Kamakura. Unfortunately, like most Japanese writers, he is little known in the western world.  



Wagner