Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Bridget Holloman, R.I.P.

A lovely human being named Bridget Holloman was found dead in her apartment this afternoon, having apparently died in her sleep a day or two ago. The cause of death is not yet known but she had been complaining to friends of headaches for a week or so.

Bridget was an actress, a model, a dancer, a choreographer, a make-up expert, a magician's assistant, a teacher of dance and exercise, and a businesswoman. In this last profession, she opened and operated an antique clothing business, exhibiting at Los Angeles fashion expos. She had also costumed and done make-up for hundreds of films, commercials and print campaigns.

Bridget hailed from Albuquerque, New Mexico where her mother — the acclaimed choreographer, Suzanne Moore Johnston — is the known center of the dance world. Bridget moved to Los Angeles in 1975 where she was immediately cast in Slumber Party '57, a dreadful teen comedy that is remembered only because its cast also included a then-unknown Debra Winger. She worked often as a dancer, often on the variety shows of Sid and Marty Krofft, which is where I met her, and racked up dozens of TV and movie roles and commercials. She had recurring roles on Days of Our Lives and a short-lived Tim Conway sitcom called Ace Crawford, Private Eye, and was seen in The Goodbye Girl, Stoogemania, Evils of the Night and about a half-dozen other films. For about two years, she had to dye her lovely blonde hair to red as she appeared in a series of print ads and commercials for Nexxus Hair Care products.

She was an industrious, talented lady who, in all the years I knew her, never had a mean or selfish thought about anyone or anything. Tonight, everyone who knew her is stunned and shocked and wondering aloud why someone like that has to die so young. Especially when so many more deserving candidates walk the planet.

• Posted at 7:42 PM · LINK

This Year's Final Oscar Posting (I Think)

A friend of mine who attended the Academy Awards sent the following note and asked me to post it here...

Right on that one difference between Ebert's review of Jon Stewart and Tom Shales', beyond the fact that Shales has never known what he's talking about, is that Ebert was there. Most people who were there loved Stewart. He got plenty of laughs, certainly more than Steve Martin the last time he hosted. If it didn't sound that way at home, that's not his fault. I watched a little of it on TiVo when I got home and the audience didn't seem as loud as it did if you were sitting there.

Also wrong to judge how a host is doing by the expressions of the stars sitting in the first ten rows. Those are people who are sitting there with cameras in their faces and they're nervous about being singled out and distracted because they have a lot riding on the evening. Where I sat, we were all howling at Stewart. They liked the monologues. They really liked the lines he did later in the show that seemed improvised because they were mostly commenting on things that had just happened and you should have heard some of the things that went on during the commercial breaks.

After reading some of the reviews that said no one was laughing, I went back and — also through the miracle of TiVo — watched Stewart's monologue again. People were laughing just fine at all but a joke or two, which is all you could ask for. But you're right that the audio on the audience could have been increased a bit.

I get the impression there was a slow bounceback on the laughter in the Kodak Theater. That's when the nature of the room, in part but not wholly due to its size, adds a fraction of a second delay to the time it takes the audience to hear the funny line and also to the time it takes the comedian to hear them laughing. When Victor Borge used to play large amphitheaters, he'd explain the problem to the audience — especially the folks way in the back — and ask them to please laugh a second or two before he said anything funny or it would throw off his timing.

My guess here is that when they sit down in a few months to discuss who'll host the 2007 Oscars, Jon Stewart will be among those considered. Steve Martin and Billy Crystal, if they'll do it, might be ahead of him but he'll be on the list. Unless some promising new contender emerges, we may well see Stewart again next year. Maybe they can crank up the audio on the audience for him.

• Posted at 1:32 AM · LINK