 We're so pleased to have you here tonight. You know, we had two months on-site at Mechanics Institute, but we're really pleased to welcome you back virtually. And it's just great to see so many of you have returned. We've missed you. I'm Laura Shepard, Director of Events at Mechanics Institute. Just for those of you who are new, tonight we have so much going on. We have a very special guest, author and film critic, formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle, Ruth Stein, who Matthew Kennedy will be introducing. We're going to have a conversation with Ruth, and also about the film, a single man, and also have time for you to ask questions of Ruth and also ask questions about the film and putting your comments as well. Also, great thanks to our cinema lit coordinator, Pam Troy, who's been working behind the scenes to quickly move us from on-site back to a Zoom format. And we'll stay on Zoom this month to be safe. We want everyone to be in good health. And so once again, welcome back to Cinema Lit, and take it away, Matthew Kennedy, our host and curator. Thank you, Laura. And it's just delightful to see so many friends and familiar faces in little Zoom boxes again. We have missed you. And we have a very full evening tonight because this is not just a movie discussion. As Laura mentioned, we have a special guest star who will be talking about her book in connection with the film you saw this week. And I also wanted to give you a heads up a little bit about our programming this month back on Zoom, that starting next week, we will go in a very different direction from tonight and have a three-film, three-week tribute to the great Barbara Stanwyck. And you might recall that we started a pre-code Barbara Stanwyck series just before lockdown number one. And we couldn't complete that. We're not doing her early films, however. We're doing sort of her three films from her mid-career. And so on next Friday, we will be discussing, they're all on canopy, of course. Next week we will be discussing Stella Dallas. And on January 21st, we'll be featuring Meet John Doe, interesting Frank Capra populist comedy drama. And then the last film we'll be seeing is the really interesting twisted film noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. So all of the information and signing up and so forth is available on the website, including, you know, further information on the films themselves and so forth. So please come back while you, you know, while we're in this format. And so I will move now into our, the main point of this evening, which is to welcome our guest Ruth Stein, who as Laura mentioned, was a film columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. She didn't mention, however, the time span, which is truly extraordinary, 1970 to 2020. And in that period, Ruth interviewed a fantastic array of movie people. And that is really the basis, I believe, of her book. And actually Ruth would be much better at just, the backstory about that than I am. So what we're going to do tonight is, Ruth and I are going to have a brief questions and answers about the book and so forth. And then we're going and the film and, and the section on the book devoted to Colin Firth. And then we're going to open up, open it up to the group. And I want to mention that we want to, we need to sort of think of this in two parts. And one would be questions specifically for Ruth about the book, which I'd like to sort of address with the group first. And then we would follow into questions about, with Ruth and or me about, or anyone about the film itself. So we've got a lot to cover, right? We have Ruth the guest, Ruth the author, the film itself. And so with all of that, I would like to again, welcome Ruth, who I believe wants to open, you'd like to open your comments with a special tribute. Thank you. On top of everything else, as you all probably know by now, Sydney Poitier died today at age 94. I was very struck by these people who have these incredible careers and then they retire or they stop making movies. And sadly, you don't hear about them again until they die. But I did have the great pleasure in 1980 of interviewing Mr. Poitier. And I thought it might be nice as a tribute to an elegant, lovely man for me to read you at least part of what I wrote in my book. Just, you know, just briefly, the essays in the book are a lot more than just my interviews from the chronicle. I basically went back and remember what all these people were like and told all the stuff that I hadn't told for various reasons in my interviews. Sometimes because it wasn't very flattering. Sometimes because it just didn't fit in. It was too much about me. So this book is very much more of a memoir. My memoir, remembering these people, then it is just the interviews that some of you may have read in the chronicle over the years. So this is this interview took place in San Francisco. Sydney Poitier speaks slowly and deliberately parsing each word. So it's hard to tell whether he's paused for effect or has answered my question, meaning I should jump in with another one transcribing our interview. I went during each long silence recording my indecision, but Poitier has an amazing story to tell, and I make the right decision to let him tell it at his own speed. It's the story of growing up indigent, the son of an impoverished tomato farmer on Cat Island, a remote part of the Bahamas, and going on to become in 1964, the first African-American to win a best actor Oscar for his performance in Lilies of the Field. In his early 50s, Poitier decides to write an autobiography, This Life. The book is raw and honest, traits not usually found in memoirs. I asked if he feels exposed, revealing his tumultuous love affair with Diane Carroll broke up his first marriage, and the emotional conflicts that led him to nine years of psychoanalysis. What I reveal about myself is quite acceptable to me. In fact, I think it's terrific that people know me better, I like the me they will get to know, he replies. The person is far more complex than any of the parts assigned to Poitier. He arrived in the United States as a teenager with nothing except a burning desire to succeed. I'm just thoroughly charming. That's why I made it, he says, flashing one of his many mischievous smiles during our hour-long interview. He might have added thoroughly handsome as well, with intense deep-set eyes, and a wide-sheep bones and a perfectly sculpted face. There are many other black actors, but none of them are nearly as interesting as I am. Sure, I was in the right place at the right time, but without my kind of personality, those other forces wouldn't have mattered. Poitier credits his mother, a very sensitive, remarkable woman, with teaching him survival skills in an early age. For instance, he used to make pants for me out of flower sacks. And on my butt was written, New England flower, 98 pounds, milled in Cheshire, England. It was a mark of poverty, but she always would insist that it was only a negative mark if I didn't keep my pants clean. He learned to survive not just poverty, but success as well. In the late 1960s, after being chosen the number one box office star, Poitier suffered a backlash from black people in the film industry who dismissed him as an Uncle Tom, and he used a highly pejorative phrase of black men on the payroll of whites. I felt awful about it, and there was a tendency to want to lash out at my critics, he recalled, instead I laid open my life and my career to myself, and I said, what's there not to like? What's there to be ashamed of? I had to keep reinforcing me in order that I could stand strong against this tide. It didn't seem to have any ending. And it's probably one of the reasons why he did retire relatively young from acting. He was still in his 50s, and he was in films after that. So I've had the most privileged career, I think, of almost anyone, well, maybe not as president or something, but certainly anyone in the entertainment world. Because, as Matt mentioned, I was able for 50 years to do these interviews. So I go back in my interviews to Faye Ray and Josephine Baker, and I'm not that old. So I talked to those people towards the end of their careers. But it's still sort of spectacular. My colleague, Mick LaSalle, whom you all know said, what about D.W. Griffin? Didn't you interview D.W. Griffin? No, I missed him. But I did talk to an incredible range of people, including Princess Grace and Liz Manelli and Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant and Robin Williams, who was one of my favorites, and just really this huge range and so many interviews that, to tell you the truth, I had a hard time picking 100 out of them. As you mentioned, this book came about, and people have been telling me for years because I tell all my stories about my wonderful Al Pacino story. I'll just tell that one. But I've used many people at dinner parties with these stories. When I walk into the room and Al Pacino is like, he's opening up the shades and he's turning off the lights and he's like all over the room. He says, well, next I'm going to paint. And then he pays his attention to me and those wonderful brown eyes. And he looks at me and says, have we met before? You look familiar. And you know how you sometimes think of the right thing to say an hour later? Well, I thought of the right thing to say right then and there. And I look back into those brown eyes and I said, really, you look familiar too. So I've been dining out on the stories and people said, put them in a book, make a book. I couldn't figure out what the book would be. I didn't want to just repeat my interviews. But then COVID came. And I have to think that this is the only good thing in my life that came out of COVID. I teach at the Fromm Institute. And as some of you may know, I run the most British film festival, which I created about 14 years ago. So I'm a very busy girl year round, but suddenly I didn't want to do the Fromm thing on Zoom. So I decided to delay it. We had to cancel our festival. And I was suddenly faced with, really, for the first time in my life, nothing to do. And I'm not a good person with nothing to do. I get very antsy, you know? And so there seemed like the right time to think about the book. And what I did is every night, I wrote one person a day, 100. So it was 100 days. And so the night before I would decide who I was going to write the next day. And I would try to sleep and think in my dreams and try to imagine things. And I'd wake up in the morning and I found, I had the most incredible memory about things that had happened 40 or 50 years ago. Again, things that were not in my stories, but that were back in my memory bank. And it just came pouring out. I really spent maybe just took me a couple of hours to write each one of the pieces that, of course, they were edited and other things were added. I put in some PSs for things that really weren't part of my, my interview, but which were amusing to add to the story. And I had, I had the most fun. And that's why I think of it in a way as my memoir, because I'm not going to write my memoir. I haven't had that outside of my career. I've had a pretty normal, very nice life, but not enough for a memoir. Although I don't know some of the people writing the memoirs these days, I'm not sure that's true. So I think of this as a memoir because I was remembering my past, remembering things that had happened to me, remembering people. And, and we got this book together in record time, between the time I made a deal with a publisher, it was published, I think, nine months later, which for those of you who know anything about the publishing businesses is very, very fast. And I have to say, I hope some of you will be interested enough to get the book, which is available on Amazon. It's very easy. Just type in sitting down with the stars, Ruth Stein, and it pops right up. But they did a beautiful job of putting, you hold it up. They did a beautiful job of bringing it together. Somebody asked me, why did I pick that picture of Pierce Brosnan? Because I have, I have several photos in there of me and Jerry Lewis and Janet Lee and Kim Novak and Robin, and Robin Williams. And, but I picked this picture because it's really the only one where I can hold it up again, man. So it's really the only one that looks like I'm working. The others are, you know, sort of more or less staged photos. And I also look like I just asked Pierce Brosnan a very piercing question. And then he's contemplating. He's contemplating the answer. And of course, he's unbelievably handsome at this point in his life. And he's also a really nice man. So I was, I was very happy to make the decision to put him on the cover. And, and then they have on the side and all the people that I interviewed. And just to look at this quickly, Ginger Rogers, Faith Dennerway, Sophia Lauren, and Margaret Oprah showing McLean, Daniel Craig, Matt Damon, and Omar Sharif, No Gibson, John Woodward, Sid Sharif, Paul Newman, and on and on, all the math out on and on and on and on. And as I say, these are the ones that I picked out of the many, many more that I had interviewed. So I think the book has been selling well. People tell me they're really enjoying it. One of my friends said it's sort of like having a box of raisins and you don't know what you should just eat the whole box that wants to pick out raisins and do it a little more slowly. So I had some friends and said that they sat down and she's sitting and they read the whole book, which is great. And other people, I obviously are just handpicking the people that they want to read about. And that's what's so good about the book because you, you can do that. And you can just sort of keep it around as a good book if I may, if I may mention that, because you can just, you can just sort of dip into it. If you will. And I have, I haven't organized according to, to different like how it would royalty and what becomes the legend most. And I have couples and exes as one. And then I have the saddest chapter is the last one where I have people who died too young and that includes Sylvain Hoffman and Wendy Houston. And as I mentioned, Robin Williams earlier and Heath Ledger and that was looking back on those interviews was very bittersweet for me. I have to say it because I saw them being really alive and it's hard to think that they died so young. So I think that pretty much is an introduction for you. I know you have a lot of questions you want to ask me. So go, go for it. Ruth, thank you very much. And, and honestly, this, I want to vouch for the, I know this maybe isn't a positive word, but the addictive quality of this book, because the chapters are very brief and, but they're enough to give you a sense of whatever it was that actor was working on at the time and some sense of their personality and the, the, you know, the context of your interview. And I started by looking in the table of contents and saying, Oh, I'll read this one. And then I'll read that one, you know, and going back and forth. And I realized that ultimately they, I wanted to read them all. So then I just started going page by page and they go so quickly. And yet each one is this, it's own little world that it, it makes for, well, as I say, addicting. So find a comfy chair and a cup of tea and, you know, plan to spend some time with this, this really fun read. And I wanted to ask just a few questions before we, we open it up to the group and they're, they're kind of maybe somewhat predictable, but, you know, things like, like certain things about certain interviews that really stand out to you, like, um, well, like the, the, if you, what was the most outstanding interview for one reason or another? This one, but there were moments in one that comes to mind, particularly now is the day I knew Chris Rock was the day of President Obama was inaugurated for the first time as president. And we were both at Sundance and we both realized that we really wanted to see Obama being inaugurated. We were going to talk to each other later and everything, but we were looking at each other. So we found a room that had a television set. And what was really dear is he called his mother. So I ended up watching President Obama being inaugurated with Chris Rock and his mother. And it was very, very touching. Yeah. And here's, here's a story that's not so sweet. One of the things you try to avoid as a journalist is to be interviewed a person who's been slammed for whatever reason in your newspaper. And I had the unfortunate bad timing of talking to Kirk Douglas, who after he stopped acting, thought he was a writer and he wrote a novel. It was a very sort of sexy novel about a romance between these two actors, an actress and actress. And it had just gotten the worst review in the chronicle. And I thought, well, maybe he didn't see it. I mean, after all he's a busy man, he's not reading the chronicle, but no such walk. He saw it and he was really angry at me. And I, you know, I, and I had to say, you know, I had nothing to do with that. And he said, well, I'm going to tell you something. He said, I know you're not going to answer me, but I know that review was written by a lesbian because she clearly did not understand what sexual relationship was like between a man and a woman. And I said, well, you're right. I'm not going to answer you, but also he was right. So that, that was a very awkward moment, but he did sort of calm down. Another hothead was Tony Curtis who seemed, he seemed to talk to people at the end of their career. You get unexpected things out of them. He was very unhappy with his career. He mentioned that he started out with my own and look at the parts that Brando got and the parts that I got. And he was often made fun of, there was that line. Yandere was the palace of my father. My father? Yeah. Right. Well, she claims he never said, but that he was made fun of for his accent and made fun of, and he sort of hinted maybe there was some anti-Semitism involved in this. And so I had to listen to him kind of unreal. And then to add, to make it even worse, the photographer was also a hothead. And right in the middle of him taking pictures, Tony Curtis decided he didn't like the angle he was being shot from. And the two of them almost got into fist fight. And I had a break in a... There were odd moments. Mickey Rooney was, he had also written his memoir. That's how I got to talk to some of these fantastic people, was that they were at the station of life where they were writing, you know, their autobiographies and everything. So Mickey Rooney kept me waiting for about 45 minutes. And those of you who remember, Mickey Rooney was a big star, might remember that he was married seven or eight times. That was the other thing he was known for. So he walked in and he looks at me and he said, hello, have we been married? And that kind of broke the ice. So there are things I, there are things I remember, they don't know a story. She has a reputation for being very difficult. And I was warned before I went in to talk to her, that she doesn't like noise. And I didn't know what that meant. I mean, okay, I won't tap my foot, but can I speak? I wasn't quite sure how to handle that. She actually turned out to be not that horrible when I talked to her, but there was a very funny story, which was one of these PSs that I have at the end of some of the stories where Roman Polanski says that he got along with all of his actresses, except for Faye Dunaway. And he said, when he was shooting Chinatown, he noticed that she had a collar and she couldn't, he wouldn't like go down, you know? So he walked over and pulled her hair out. And he said, she wanted to have a fight. Well, now she had a reason to have a fight. So there were, there were, there were those sort of, there were just sort of moments that, that really make me laugh when I think about them. Well, it's, it's delightful to hear you sort of free associate from one to another. I feel like I really don't need to ask you any questions. No, no, no, I mean, I mean, this reminds me of another story, okay? Right. When I interviewed Oprah, who I loved, she was just exactly as wonderful as you think that she would be. And she wanted, I mean, I think she wanted to sort of level the playing ground by letting me know that she used to do the same job that I did. She started out in television doing interviews for a local TV station. So she was, she was sent, she remembered when, when she interviewed Priscilla Presley, they told her that not to ask questions about Elvis. And she said, when she interviewed Elizabeth Taylor, they told her not to ask questions about any of her husbands. So Oprah said, I want you to know, you can ask me anything. So I want you to know, Matt, that you can ask me anything. Oh wow. Okay. So just to finish the Oprah story out, because this is not, this isn't just a memory, but I actually have it on tape. I said to her at the end, I said, you know, I don't get nervous because I've interviewed a lot of celebrities, but you're Oprah. And I have to admit before I walked in here, I was feeling a little few butterflies and she took my tape recorder and she went like this. She said, Ruth, you did great. You did great. And so I have that on tape too. So, you know, there, there's so many, and there's so many ways to approach this. Why don't we move into the Colin first section? Absolutely. Which is relevant to everyone who saw the film this week. Yes. Part of it. And we wanted to specifically, by the way, we chose the film based on the fact that it got a fair amount of attention in your section. Some of your sections really aren't about the opening of a film or I try not to as a writer because I always feel, I mean, this is just a journalistic thing, but our stories were always when the Sunday before the movie opened. And I thought people weren't that interested in the film until they seen it, you know, so I tried to find other things to get people to talk about. So they weren't, I mean, they're there to plug their film, but I didn't always find that to be very interesting, but that wasn't true with Colin first because he had a very interesting take on the movie. And that's why I quoted him as much as I did about a single man. And I also have to say I did watch the last part of it last night and he talks in here. You'll hear about how Tom Ford wanted to make sure he was really buff and in shape because he had Tom Ford had a certain image of what this guy was supposed to look like. And the truth is Colin first is he's really good looking, but he's a little soft, you know, I mean, if you think about him with, with Vinay Zellweger and some of the other parts, he's not, he's not someone who you imagine is at the gym every day, but he really did get himself in shape for that movie. And he was an unbelievable shape for that film. I mean, you took his clothes off and probably thought, well, I never looked like this again. So let's hear a little bit from Mr. Firth here. Colin Firth is unquestionably good looking, but his features are slightly off. His eyes set a tad too far apart, a prominent nose. He's no pretty boy. His imperfections afford flexibility in the kind of roles he can play. Firth was a heartthrob, of course, in Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, where his emergence from a swim in a wet shirt sent female and probably some male hearts of water. Again, he plays a contemporary, but no less sexy character named Darcy and Bridget Jones' diary. But Firth also takes roles in which his sexuality is irrelevant, including a lonely paranoid cinema owner and M16 double agent. The artist, the mirror of whom he says, I knew I couldn't capture the great man's genius. You can't play genius. I catch up with the English actor at the point where his career is about to deliver a one-two punch. He recently been nominated for his first Oscar for a single man portraying a gay professor contemplating suicide after the death of his longtime companion. He lives this time, but wins the following year for a sympathetic portrayal of King George VI, the monarch with an unfortunate stutter in the King's speech, of course. Firth confides to me that when he was a fledgling actor in his early 20s, he had nothing but disdain for the Oscars. I thought they were unhealthy and bad for this profession. Acting to me is not a sport where we are put in competition with each other, but rather we should be more collaborative. But that was then. Now dressed in jeans and a casual sweater in a Los Angeles hotel room, he's luxuriating in his single man nomination. I'm just not as earnest about things like that anymore. The 49-year-old actress says it was change of heart. It's not like I made some great U-turn. I didn't, but I'm now a compromised middle-aged man. Firth laughs rocking forward in an easy chair. He's easy to talk to now, but admits it took years to get used to the press sniffing around him. In his first brush with fame after Prime and Prejudice, Paparazzi filed him home after he bought a vacuum cleaner. A headline in a British tab light screened, Mr. Darcy does the household chores. Prior to the Academy Awards, his director Tom Ford, the clothes designer of a luxury brand, debuting as a filmmaker, presented Firth with vintage gold cufflinks and matching studs so he'd be sure to bring home something gold on Oscar night. Around the time I spoke to Firth, Ford was quoted saying he told his star he was fat and then he needed to do something about it. I laughed when I read that because I didn't hear Tom say that. If he said it, I blocked it out for three calls. What I remember was pure honey. Tom bathed me in charm saying you were looking great. Absolutely. But you would look better if you were in better shape. I'll get you a trainer and I'll pay for it. A team consisting of Ford and his trainer, he was made over Firth to resemble the trim meticulously turned out designer. Firth is never a veteran screen is new body is such an improvement that he's attempting to adhere to his pygmalion Strig exercise regiment. Although Ford kept a tight reign on his actors. Firth felt he had enough freedom to build his character George. It was a leap of faith for all of us that we could bring off the nuances. That George is gay was never a stumbling block. I was in the first row. I ever played with a gay man and it started my career. I played one of my mania and somewhere else I've forgotten. I'll play anything if the character is interesting. I'm not going to base it on what his sexuality is. So I thought I'm watching the movie yet let yesterday I was just so struck again by him talking about how Tom Ford wanted him to get in great shape and really in what great shape he is. And if any of you know what Tom Ford looks like. I'm really interested in fashion. So I've read stories about him and seen photos. He really did make him make first look like him and his body type and everything. So I found the movie. It's when you go back on a film that you haven't seen for years, you sort of see things that you didn't see before. And I found the movie very exacting. I mean the way he honed in on Julianne Moore when she was putting on her eyelashes and trying to make herself look, you know, more beautiful. And the things with the guns, which were almost hard to watch. I mean, they were so, they just felt so real, you know, when he put a gun in his mouth and then the telephone rang and all these things were trying to stop him. And it was a, it's kind of a jarring film. And sort of hard to watch in some ways, but then also very life fulfilling, you know, when he does meet someone else, but the scenes, the back scenes when he was talking, looking back and how he met his lover, the guy who's just set up the whole film. And then when he meets this young man again, and it almost seems like he's going to be able to start his life all over again with someone who was probably pretty close to the same age that Matthew Good was when he met him initially. So those are my thoughts on the second viewing of a single man. Well, there's why don't we thank you. And I think we can bring out more of that with the crowd here. And why don't we open up the evening to questions and answers from everyone and or anyone who wishes to. And also if we could maybe focus on the book first, and then, and then the film, see if that, if we can do that, let's see how that goes. But Pam, you wanted to review the protocol for. Okay, for everybody. Some people may be new here, but I know that there are people who already know how we do this. But what you do is you raise your hand. If you look down in the lower, if you look down into the lower part of your screen, you click on participants, a list of everybody who's here will come on and you'll see there is one of the one of the possibilities. One of the options is for you to raise your hand when you do that. A blue hand appears in your upper left corner of your zoom. As you can see, Trisha's already done it. She's got a blue hand up. And Matthew will call on you in the order you raise your hand. Now, just I want to remind everybody. We have a whole lot of people. We have a, we have more people than usual here. So try to keep all of your comments to the point. And we're going to try and give everybody a two wants to a chance to talk. So if you have, if you, if you spoken and then something, you think of something and you raise your hand, we will wait until everybody else, you know, everybody who's not spoken to spoken before we'll call on you again. So does it, I hope this is clear. If anybody has any questions, go into chat and send me a private email. Send me a private chat and I'll answer any questions you have. So. All right, thank you, Pam. And we are first up is Trisha. Hello, Trisha. Hi, hi. So good to see everyone. I used to be a journalist and a review and interviewed people through my life. And I was thinking as you were speaking that generally, I think I'm probably you seem like the person I share this characteristic of just curiosity about people, which is a great thing because I mean, you can set me down in a bus station and I'll be somebody will be talking to me and I find out the whole life story, you know, and I just love to find out about people, but it occurred to me working for the crown as you did with that assignment. Did you ever, I mean, I was trying to think, I think in one time, one time in my life, I interviewed somebody and it just, it was, no matter where I came at the person from, it was just so, it was kind of this boredom. There was this person, you know, and I was thinking in the terms of movie stars, they're so interesting. We tend to think that maybe they're like, they're not also interesting. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're screen character could be so intriguing. Right. Helena Bonham Carter struck me that way when she's been interviewed as herself. Anyway, I just wondered for yourself. Oh, is she, because when she was on Slederman or whatever, she never, you know, she was, she was great because, you know, you see so many actually taking their clothes off and it's a somewhat difficult question to ask, but I have a feeling that she would be up for it. Yeah. That's a great question. And she was, she had this absolute wonderful answer. She said, I felt totally silly. I couldn't stop laughing. And I just love that. No, no, she's, I thought she was, I thought I found it to be pretty interesting. She's in the book, by the way. So my question is there's somebody that you look back on who, you know, you were so excited to meet because they seem so vital on the screen, but when you met them, they weren't quite, they didn't. Yeah. I think I've seen my husband, who I've actually, he's been twice. I found him, he seemed to be putting me down about my questions. He didn't, if one thing, I hate doing interviews over lunch, but he was, he had just flown me from somewhere and he's somebody who ate a lot, I think. And so he insisted on having breakfast and he was he, I mean, he has so much food in front of him and he was spitting out food when he was talking. But, but he, he thought my questions about the, it was a very weird movie called Spinectity, New York or something that he made. And I don't know if anybody knows it anymore. It was a very odd movie. And I said that I thought it was somewhat typical movie. And he attacked me over that. It was, it was just a very unpleasant interview. And I did go through this twice because I talked to him a couple of years earlier when he was doing some television interviewing for politics, where he sort of made me feel like I didn't, like he knew all about politics and I didn't, and I found him to be a difficult man. And then I thought, well, he had this really crazy light and because he was doing so many things. He was, he had a theater company in New York and he was directing for the theater in London. And at the same time, he was making a movie in Los Angeles. And I wondered if all the drug use was in part just to be able to keep going and maybe even being so hungry and eating so much was just, I mean, I didn't, I didn't know I'm a fairly energetic person, but looking at all the things that he did exhausted me. So I didn't wonder if that, if that was part of them, but, but I, it was, it was not a pleasant time. And I was very happy when the interview was over. And of course, sad when, when he died. And now his son is in a movie and look at his pizzas. It's sort of interesting to see the ways in which he's like his father in the way, the unscreen. I mean, so yeah, he was difficult. Whitney Houston also was not an easy interview to say the very least. You know, sometimes when you interview someone of color, that there's a, there can be a, that make you feel like you don't really understand what you're saying because you're not. As it happened, I have had a somewhat unusual background in journalism because my first job was with ebony and jet. And I worked in an all black environment for a couple of years where I was not only the only white person, but also I was the only woman. So, and I interviewed a lot of black stars who were coming through came to Johnson publishing company. So it wasn't even true, you know, that, that I didn't understand. I mean, I'm not, I'm not claiming that I understand what black people go through. I would never say that, but I have had some experience interviewing a lot, lots and lots of black people in my lifetime. But, but she was just treating and I didn't, I didn't throw that out there. But she was just treating me like, you know, what are you, what are you a white girl? What, you know, what do you know about me? And, and turns out nobody really knew much about her because, you know, look at the horrible way that she died. She was supposed to be at the Grammy awards and, and, and, you know, and then she just accidentally killed herself with drugs and, and, and all that. So those, those two who coincidentally both died young. I didn't mean to do with that. That's good to know. Yeah. He led you was lovely. And he also died young. He was just a total sweetheart. So it wasn't, it wasn't all, not all those people in that chapter in my book were down. Thank you. Ruth, Ruth, I appreciate that you're not reticent. I mean, I know that you're not in the book, but also in, in talking with us tonight, because I mean, often when people talk about well-known people, they, there's a, there can be a tendency to put on the brakes. Like I'm not going to say what I really, you know, think, whatever. And I, I feel like, you know, you're, you're being a true journalist and sharing what, what they shared with you. So I, I thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I wrote about it too. And I didn't, I didn't want, I mean, it wasn't just because those people were dead. I mean, that I would have wrote them the same thing. Yeah. And Robin Williams went in several times and I just loved, I mean, I was so sad when he died and he's just was, he just was such a, a sweetheart and so funny. I mean, he would grab your tape recorder and just start telling a whole bunch of jokes, you know, those are the tapes all my friends wanted to hear afterwards. So no, I mean, I really felt with this book that I had to be honest about the people that I talked to and, you know, how I felt about them. And, and, you know, they weren't, they weren't all piece of cake. Right. Right. But we wouldn't expect them to be. But I'm pretty bored. Thank you. If they, if they at all. So Paul, let's, you're up. Hello, Paul. Okay. Could you tell us something about the interviews that you did that you decided not to include in the book? Yeah. That's a very interesting question. First of all, I had to remember everyone that I interviewed. It was easier after 1995 because the clinical started digitalizing everything. So I could just say real Stein and so on and so on. They would come up, you know, but the people before that I had to remember who I, I mean, it's not like I forgot that I interviewed Princess Grace or Kerry Grant, but, but they, but those things had someone become like dreams. And I really wondered if it was even true. And so I saw the story that I would write. I wasn't Kerry Grant's dressing room and I was in the palace of Princess Grace. But some of the people that I left out, okay, I left out Sandra Bullock was actually very funny, but she talks a mile a minute. And I had the hardest time transcribing that tape. And I didn't feel that in my story, I had enough really coherent quotes from her because I, I couldn't keep up with her. I think she was doing it, but she wanted to give me more stuff. But, but I'm a very cast typist, but not nowhere near as cast as she was a talker. So that was one person who didn't get in there because of that. Some people, I, they just faded from memory. So I, so even when I looked up the story, I joined more who's just very, very sweet girl. I remember we were stuck in this hotel room and she offered me a piece of gum, which is probably the only thing I've ever been offered by any star ever in my 15 years. And she was very, very nice, but she just kind of, I don't know if she just kind of blanked out when I tried to remember things about her besides the offer him the stick of gum. And I've had other things. This is, this is someone I did include in my book, but I've had other really funny things happen. Like one actress actually blew on me and wanted to know whether she had bad breath. I had it, I had her sure that she was. I'll leave her name out, although it's mentioned in the book, if you, if you, if you read it. So who else did I, did I not do, I mean, some, some people I literally forgot because they didn't make that much of an impression on me. Oh God, I mean, I talked to some, some of the younger people in the business, they didn't really stick out much when I was, when I was thinking about who to tell stories. I had to include Timothy shell and maybe because he's so hot right now, but, but there were others. What was to Toby McGuire, he was kind of a zero when I interviewed him and some of the, some of those other people, the huge happen was not very, I mean, he was, you know, he was fine. He answered my questions and everything, but he didn't, he didn't really stick in my memory so that this process I was talking about where I sleep on. And then I remember all these things that went on. I couldn't remember what much that went on beyond what was in my interview with, with, with Jackman. I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not criticizing these people. I'm just saying, you know, Gwyneth Paul show was, was kind of like that too. She just wasn't, you know, she just wasn't, I didn't know if she was going to become this huge mogul on the internet. I never would have thought it even because she didn't seem to me like she was put to sort of figured all that stuff out. Well, is there, is there something, I mean, this is, this is sort of unrelated to the book in the, you know, the choices that you didn't include, but is there some sort of through line in interviews that don't seem very inspired? I mean, when I've interviewed folks, I've always, the interviews that aren't exciting are the ones in which I feel every answer is canned. Where I'm not really learning anything. They're very guarded. Right. Yeah. This is why you have to do a lot of research when, when I'm not really talking about new techniques like I would to a journals and classes or something, but it is true that the more research you do, the better off you are in terms of talking to them. First of all, they're flatter. But when I was interviewing Charlton Heston, I realized that he was giving me the answers that I have already read in 10 different articles we had given. I actually said to him, okay, tell me something you haven't told anybody else. I didn't include him in the book and it wasn't really political, but I think people sort of forgotten him. I mean, that's the other thing. I tried to, I tried to make people, even, even those who have been gone for a long time, but you know, like everyone remembers Ginger Rogers and, and of course, Princess Grace and all these people, but there are a lot of people who, who I talked to over the years who sort of been forgotten. And I didn't think that they would be that interesting in, in the book because I don't think people would really want to, there was a reason they were sort of forgotten. I mean, it's shocking when you think about all the actors that I've interviewed who, you know, who never really, maybe one of the movie after that, they were like, Heather Graham was one of them and, and Neville Wood's daughter and Natasha Gregson. I mean, they, so they just didn't, you know, I just didn't think people would be interested in knowing about them. And so they, I tried to include people that, even though Gibson is awful, he turned out to be, I think people are interested in him. They want to know what he was like. And, and I pretty much, he's pretty much exactly what you think he is, would be, you know, he had, he had his mates with him all on the table and they were kind of booing and hissing at some of the questions that I was asking. So, but I wanted to include him, you know, for, you know, for that reason, because I think people are interested in him. So I did a very, very long interview with, when he was first starting out, and I actually had a lot of time to talk to him, but I don't think people really think that much about him anymore either or, or that interested in reading about, I mean, these were all judgment calls that I was making, but, but, but I think, you know, I think I picked the best 100, I do. I, I, there's no one in the, and the only reason I told any of you, Lani Anderson is because she badmouth Bert Reynolds so much. I would never have included her otherwise, but she had nothing good to say about Bert Reynolds. So that makes it a spicy story. I only interviewed Joanne Woodward. I only included her because in a couple of things I'd interviewed Paul Newman and it was sort of interesting to how each one of them viewed their role as being a star. But she kind of faded away and I guess she stayed home and raised her kids and she has made a whole lot of movies. So on her own I wouldn't have included her, but it's part of my couple chapter. I did, yeah. Well, it's fascinating. I mean, the list of people that you've interviewed in general and the ones that are included in the book become a kind of interesting consideration of the nature of fame and why fame endures for some and not for others once their careers are over and or they've died. Yeah, they're no ready answers, but I find it. I find the elusiveness of fame or the difficulty of maintaining fame and how a legacy endures interesting. Paul Newman was such a huge star in our generation. I had some pictures that I needed to have digitalized when I brought them down to some place out the market and the guy said to me, who's that? I mean, really Paul Newman is honestly better known for his spaghetti sauce these days among younger people. I never would have figured that. With somebody like that, you can just say go to IL-12 and Safeway and there's your answer. Yeah, but so we have we have a couple of hands. Let's up Michelle and Judy. Hi. Hi Ruth. Hi. I used to work with you as a chronicle. Your book sounds great and you look fabulous. Oh, thank you. I'm 76. I always tell people that. I'm 76. I'm proud and my husband's 90 and he looks fantastic. You know, my husband is... Yeah, planning to act under three different mayors. Yeah, he seems like your best looking 90 year old. So we're okay here. And this is my friend Judy. Hi Ruth. I appreciate your work for the English film festival every year. I really do. Thank you. It's been really tough this year. You know, we're supposed to have a February 10th through the 17th and last week I moved I pushed it back to March. Yeah. It's an incredible amount of work and rearranging things. Just keep my fingers crossed that by March people will be wanting to go to the movies. I don't want to do a digital one because it's not our audience and it's not me and it's not what we're all about. So I didn't do it last year at all. And we were one of the last film festivals two years ago to be able to go on. But thank you for saying that it's really a labor of love. And we have a great program this year. You all have to look on mostlybritish.org. We're starting with a Helen Mirren movie called The Duke which is and Jim Broadbent which is sort of like a frame capper almost kind of fantasy film. And it's just it's just brilliant and we're closing with a Beatles documentary The Beatles in India all about their time in India. And we've got a great program for everybody. This is I wasn't going to plug this but since you brought it up mostlybritish.org. Okay. I do have a question. In your many years of interviewing and many people that you've interviewed. What was probably or do you have somebody that has been most surprising in your interview even coming in there with some type of preconception of that person and then interviewing them and then oh my god and saying you know I didn't well I'm going to answer try to answer a question but let me let me first just tweak it a little bit to tell a funny story. When I interviewed Princess Grace I was invited to a concert at the palace and I actually did the interview standing up at the party that she had in a private apartment you know. And she spent so much time talking to me and all these people were all around and I thought my god she must just really enjoy talking to me and I found out later that the people in Monaco think her French is awful and they make fun of her make fun of her all the time and so anybody was talking English that would be the person that she would glom on to and spend all their time with. So that was a little bit of a deflation for me. So who did who just totally surprised me? Hmm. Think about that. I don't know that you know I had been so you know once again going back to this to the research and to being paying attention to these people's films and knowing a lot of these stars coming up. Oh well I know here was somebody who I didn't like very much but I don't know that I thought I would like her. I'm not sure but I thought Sophia Lauren to be sort of full of herself and she she was going around the country she had a perfume this is when Elizabeth Taylor had started it started with with the perfumes named name for them and everything. So she so I you know I said to her logical question I said she was getting up at four o'clock in the morning to fly here and she was in the Emporium. Sophia Lauren is in Emporium. So I said why are you doing this? You must be paying a lot and she got very excited that she was on got on her high horse and she said I would never do anything just for the money. I'm doing this for the challenge the challenge of bringing together the fragrance that most the most that most smells like me. I mean I was having to start not to start laughing but anyways I didn't find her to be very pleasant at all and so that that was but I don't know I don't know that I was surprised by that. I mean I was mostly I mean mostly you know there's a lot the people that do what I do we talk to each other a lot. I mean sometimes we go in junkets and so there's an advanced word about everybody. I mean everyone knows that Robinson Newell was a terrible interview. He's gotten better in recent years because he spoke out against Trump and he had something he wanted to say and he went on television but for years he was the most bland interview you can imagine and he would even make fun of himself. I think it was because he didn't want to review anything about himself so people knew that and they knew they know that Daniel Day-Lewis and may find a wonderful people to interview and so I haven't sort of told these things and when I went into those interviews they both were wonderful to interview. Both very very interested in you or appearing to at least the good enough actors to appear to be interested in you. I remember I was talking about the hippie world with Daniel Day-Lewis because he'd made a movie directed by his wife Rebecca Miller you know his wife is Arthur Miller's daughter. Those kids must have incredible genes oh I could think of but he was really interested because I was in San Francisco for the whole hippie thing. He wanted to know you know what was it really like and all that but he was just so engaging and Ray finds it in the same way. I mean there's something about the British they always sound so smart you know and I found that I was I found that the Irish that I really liked a lot of I was actually as I mentioned Pierce Brosnan also also Colin Farrell who was just totally uninhibited and he swore like you wouldn't believe it and he talks about all the bullshit and how he would and you know I was going to deal with it his publicist was like dying because I loved it because he was just he was really himself you know and and so I found that the Irish the Irish actors a lot of them tend to be more humble and the the Brits just always sound like they said smart they may not they're not all smart but they sound like they sound smart right. We have another hand and then we're getting close to seven o'clock believe it or not. So we wanted to talk more about the film right. Yeah and if there's any comments we want to make about about the film particular but let's let's hear from Richard. Good evening Richard. Good evening Richard. Oh yeah I want to ask a question one of my favorite actors was Tony Curtis he had a huge career he made a sex in the single girl yeah and then he made the great race one of my favorite movies with Jack Lemmon and then I don't know what happened I my parents took me to the Joey Bishop show in Hollywood he was interviewed and he said I'm going to play Albert de Salvio in Boston Strangler and then after that you hardly ever saw Tony Curtis did something happen to him or well I didn't mention him earlier maybe maybe you weren't weren't here yet but he was he was a very difficult interview and as I mentioned he was very bitter about his career he felt that he wasn't awful he's great and some luck and hot too we have to be sure to mention yeah that was a really good he was imitating Kerry Grant and he was fantastic but he felt that the good parts didn't really didn't come to him and but part of it was just you know I really have come to believe the more I got involved more about Hollywood is that when actors are unpleasant and their box office isn't so great people don't want to work with them I mean Demi Moore was her bigger star 15 years ago than Demi Moore but she was awful she was a bitch she was mean to everyone and suddenly she stopped making movies because people weren't going to her films and so they they didn't want to cast her I mean it's a very intense situation to be on a movie set and you're you're with these people for several weeks you know really if it's if it's somewhere else in the world you're sort of you know with them all day and eating all their milk so why would you want to be around someone who was unpleasant and I think time Tony Curtis was kind of an unpleasant person and he he had like six marriages and his wives kept getting younger and younger and and I genuinely who who I interviewed and who I really were like and I have a nice there's a very nice photo of me and her in there I actually did an interview with her on the ACT stage for a film series that I did when I was at the Chronicle and so I got to know her a little bit but she would never say anything nasty about him because he was fathered for children so she she would always talk to us and just say you know we were there for this such a wonderful time and in Hollywood and it was the golden years and with the golden couple and she she just wouldn't knock him but but but I will knock him I thought he yeah I didn't enjoy interviewing him and I mentioned he almost got into a fight during the interview too so I think I think that's why some people's careers dry out and there are there are interests that just literally disappear as I said you don't remember them until they die oh my god whatever happened to you know so and so but it's a tough business too I mean you have to you have to not only be good but I think you also have to be somebody that people want to work I mean everyone no one has bad things to say about middle street and she's done she's made so many movies and you know people just love working with her because she's really easy to work a Kate Winslet who is not in my book and I did interview her and she was sort of on the cusp but then then I had too many Brits in there and so she she got caught but people love Kate Winslet they just think she's fantastic to work with and you know just just really helpful and you know so those people tend to have longer careers um that's that's what I think I've heard other people say similar things about that I mean when they're hot and people going to see their movies and yeah of course they're getting cast and things it's afterwards when they start to go on this slide down that that that people um you know that they don't get hired as much and and and you I think it betrays quite a number of people's careers like that that happened to so uh on that uh shall we open up any questions uh to a more sort of traditional format here is to discuss the film and to in which I moderate comments and questions about it uh since many of you saw it this week I think most of you did probably uh it's kind of like you know cinema lit homework um are there are there comments people want to make about the film I I will I will start by saying I was I was struck by its um its style you know and this is a first time uh fashion designer first first time as director and I I was noting his interesting use of color for one thing that he would intensify or desaturate the color in interesting ways I thought that sort of reflected the um protagonist state of being at the time uh that's that was certainly one thing also just the sheer stylishness of it seemed very consistent with what I would expect a fashion designer turned director to do uh you know this was like the height of 1962 architecture and and clothing and so forth um but uh other other comments about the film including color first performance also by the way which was seemed to me deeply committed emotionally and um um for that reason magnificent um I was wondering I was gonna add that I meant to say earlier about the film and then I'll be quiet because I'll talk quite a bit but it also had a very realistic portrayal of a friend friendship between a gay man and a straight woman these relationships exist in San Francisco we know I mean I know so many people I've had really close gay friends and and um it's just a very special kind of relationship because it's not sexual so that part of it um can sometimes cause problems in relationships so that factor is not there um and I thought I thought Julianne Moore although I her accent was starting to disturb me because of course Colin first was speaking to King's English and hers sometimes didn't sound like she was really doing right but apart from that I thought the way they loved each other was really beautifully captured and uh in the dancing between the two of them was just knocked me out that was great I wondered if that was improvised um yeah and their their ability to speak some rather hard truths to each other I thought was a a sign of a a very deep abiding friendship yeah it's a very difficult stuff right I mean especially when she's basically admitting that she loves him and was trying to sort of minimize his relationship with Jim right right but yeah Sheila you're you're up nothing nothing particularly trenchant to say other than the fact that um I'm wondering whether Tom uh what's his name Tom Ford has a future I thought it was I'm with you Matt on the stylishness but the styledness it was almost predictable right yeah and um and for that reason it was kind of a little flat I it was there um there were a lot of sort of those not tropes but the things that that are like textbook um for instance the gun the gun comes out at the beginning and we're all tense of course we're waiting for the gun to show up and that that bothered me I don't like guns I thought that Julianne Moore and I have to disagree a little bit I think they she looked really on the down the downhill slope I think it was showing something very pathetic I like Julianne Moore by the way and I agree with Ruth I didn't care for her accent um but uh it I it was very sad it just everybody around them was very sad even the next door neighbor um the colorful little girl it's kind of fakey I guess I was a gay brother before a little boy it was like two or three and he was already labeled gay oh was he but the little girl was kind of sinister in a way so there are a few things that I don't know whether he intended her to be sinister but she'd look at him in this very odd way and I thought is this going to turn out to be a horror flick um I so I think what I want to say is I I wouldn't see it again if I were given the opportunity I love Colin Firth which is what drew me to it um but as I said I thought it was like overly mannered uh became overly predictable and in the end was kind of sad in a pathetic way I and I think that that's not I'm not sure that that's what was intended and so then my final question is do you think Tom Ford has a as a future well he made one of the movies as far as I know he's made only one other movie and I'm blocking on the name of all I saw um because I don't remember the name of Tom Ford's second film he made it about three years after after did anybody see it it was also sort of spooky nobody saw Tom Ford and is that nocturnal he's gotta look at nocturnal and let me have to look it up and I'm running to your little phones there and tell me what is it nocturnal nocturnal animals yeah yes yeah yeah nocturnal animals yeah and that was really strange I didn't like that one I liked a single man but I didn't like nocturnal animals as much as I like and then he hasn't made anything I just went back to to he makes beautiful clothes by the way if you ever see them on any of these these discount websites and stuff he's really great designer so that was bad I don't know a single man wasn't a single man didn't get great reviews as a film it was really mostly lauded for Colin Firth um and I think for some of the reasons that you're talking about Sheila that it's just it's just a little too mannered right I mean the style sometimes seems to take over to the point where it misleads us to think that for example the the little girl is creepy and she's gonna figure in the plot later or whatever when that's not really what's going on at all and Matthew was something else that I noticed last night that I didn't pay attention to I think the first time that I watched it if he was really suicidal he was that depressed he was gonna kill himself he wouldn't be snapping out of dancing with Julianne Moore and talking to these students and being really clever in his class and I mean people who are that depressed that they're going to kill themselves usually have a hard time getting out of bed so I that that didn't strike me as being very very realistic I mean he had the gun in his mouth and then suddenly she calls and he's like you know making jokes on the phone um now maybe this this is just a very issue with novel I don't know maybe that maybe that was the way he portrayed him but certainly doesn't fit with with my with the people I've met who have been going through suicidal kind of things they're they they don't bounce back the way he did you know he did the class you know and I didn't I didn't notice that the first time but I definitely did last night I wonder if that's just a concession that he felt he had to make in order to make the movie right that that if it was an accurate portrayal of depression I'm pretty depressed he never got out of bed right I mean no I know but but then maybe the gun scene should have been not so many of them it was almost got silly yeah he's got the gun in his and then he goes to the gun shop and he buys the ammunition and then guy doesn't say what what are you going to do with this gun you know it's two hours and 50 cents for you to kill yourself did any I felt a little bit I don't know if cheated is the right word but I really wasn't very happy with the ending I thought we're put through all of this um he he uh doesn't kill himself he's he's saved by the you know the attentions of this young man who's sort of I'm I'm who is his students that's another way he gives him but he gives him a reason to live and a reason to sort of you know hope for the future perhaps and then he just happens to have a heart attack that night I mean it's just like oh I mean I just had I had a narratively I just had a little problem with that I think that was maybe Isherwood's point about you know the past and the present and the future um which he constantly references right he's also also always referencing past present and future until George has no future but that heart attack by the way was foreshadowed from the very outset people invariably were saying you don't look so good oh yeah you're great and by the way he was looking great Matthew you already alluded to the fact that that went went from washed out color to very bright color but um no my husband sat down next to me and he said from the outset he's very good at this stuff saying he's going to die by the heart attack don't worry about the gun and he was dead right right and and he didn't know the story he didn't know it at all no that's amazing well I see I went I went in the wrong direction when people say you don't look so good I thought well that's because he's suicidal I mean you know that's what that was what I thought too um Nicholas Sal all the he says anytime you hear anyone cough that's it they're gonna be gone right it's the Nazca syndrome or something oh and cough and cough is never just a cough it's almost ominous the other thing that I thought was really dopey was when he opened the back door this just before he had the heart attack he opened the back door and there was an owl I mean that's like classic mythology do remember the owl fights right and it was in the full moon it was like this is really cheesy well maybe that's part of the sort of artiness of this movie that that is doesn't doesn't set well with with a lot of folks or I mean I think the film absolutely rests on Colin Firth right I mean without him and without the the the intensity and and commitment of that performance it would be a I don't know pretty pretty hard to watch I think as a very pretty film but not necessarily an emotionally engaging one um yeah I I definitely liked it better the first time I saw it you should see things in films when you watch them the second I mostly don't see films the second time but now given given all this time I had been going back and watching a lot of the classics that I saw many many years ago and it's really interesting to get a different perspective on I mean me being older and having seen a lot more films since the first time I saw I can remember movies that I saw in the 1950s seeing them with my mother and and then seeing them I just watched the monkey business with with Carrie Grant I remember seeing that with her so yeah I mean that actually I know when we think about the good and bad things about having to stay home there's been a lot of road-tripping television and there's an opportunity now with streaming you could there's almost no movie as obscure as it could be the other night I watched because I somebody mentioned it and and I found it on youtube Ben Hecht actually wrote and directed a film in 1945 called The Specter of the Rose and it is kind of a film noir it's set in the world of ballet it it starts Judith Anderson and gets this check-offs nephew the real check-off is nephew Michael check-off um you should watch it sometimes we we showed it we showed it many years ago and it was one of the weirdest films we have ever shown but we're in a really interesting way I thought didn't you I loved all that ballet stuff and all the hands I mean he was very visual filmmaker was in there was another thing that that caught my attention because I know who's being a Chicago journalist that's where you got to start and when this ballet company is traveling around the country the very first thing you see written on the trunk is Chicago I thought oh that's right keep with it just to to show his Chicago roots um yeah there are a lot of old movies out there I watched I find myself um watching things people that I admire when they die I'll watch one of their movies in their honor I haven't decided on my Poitiers movie yet um but I watched the last picture show last night in honor of the passing of Peter Boncovich which is I watched it a couple weeks ago just because it was on TCM it's a wonderful movie it's absolutely brilliant it has got it's thoughtful of more great performances than just about any you know it was amazing it was the second film and then we're just kind of it he the Clarice Leachman characters just oh I mean just she made me cry you know she and um maybe because I'm closer to her age now than I was when I saw it the first time I just wanted to see that young boy you know and yeah so folks oh Trisha and then we're gonna have I guess we'll need to wind up for the evening yeah I just wanted to give a minority report difference to the what the general consensus has emerged that he a suicide person suicidal person wouldn't act that way you know I've lived in Britain twice and I have noticed a lot of um witty cynical remarks sometimes where an American will um go just quiet down and a British person will I mean this is such a gross generalization but I'm just thinking back to people I knew when I lived in London there'll be a kind of a cynical remark and you have to delve to find out what the what's going on and I actually felt that the weirdness of the little girl and the little boy and all that other weird stuff it's like if you're if you're knowing you're going to die that you're going to shoot yourself that day everything gets so heightened and it's so something that like the way the camera came up from the little girl's feet up her body it seems so weird but I think that I mean I I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm not suicidal I never have been but it just seems like you would become hyper focused on every little detail of life that would occur that day because you know that it's going to end so I I guess I accepted the fiction the the world of the story in that regard that's an interesting point yeah yeah I I think that you know that I was also noting I think that is an interesting point noting that Firth didn't the character of George didn't seem to be afraid of scaring children and being a little creepy himself right almost like he's embodying this premonition of doom or something so yeah I think I think all of that it's very yeah good point good point um and so folks um I think this wraps up our wonderful reunion of the of the zoom Ruth thank you so much for coming this evening hearing us all your your many wonderful stories and why I appreciate your intelligent questions that we had to get I had to stop and think about some of them the questions I haven't been asked and asked a lot of questions over the last the last six weeks but um got me thinking again about Sophia Lauren and her perfume yeah and um Ruth I want to thank you as well and we'd love to have you come back and also we'll put in a plug for the mostly British film festival for March right please be a talk about and we'll we'll spread the word you know and I would be happy to come back especially with so on zoom or have or have one of my the two women one who's actually British who work with me uh and I don't know Maxine so thought this is I don't know Maxine's actually listening because she said she might she might tune in but I don't know I don't hear her maybe not but but maybe great Maxine could come and talk about some of the British films that she chose and stuff so so why why don't we try to work that out yeah I'm doing me just be like 10 minutes at the beginning of the because I know you guys have a program things that you that you can't do for there but um well how about everybody unmute themselves for sign of just to kind of wave goodbye