Brad Pitt
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By John Stokes |
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Old Time Radio ProgramsRemember the days before television, when all you had was the radio programs' Maybe, maybe not. Old time radio programs peaked during the 1950’s, nearly sixty years ago. What ..... I sat alone that year in the theatre, watching the much touted chick flick, Thelma and Louise. So when he appeared on screen in the hotel room scene—sans shirt, cum dimpled Robert Redford golden boy beauty, no one heard me comment that he would be our next star. No one was there to witness my brilliant foresight that Brad Pitt was going to ascend the Hollywood ladder of box office superiority. No one else, either, it seemed, was as audibly expressive, as viscerally changed by the likes of a quasi-drawling, teeth-talking demi-god named Brad Pitt.
But I found, within weeks of the screening of the trailblazing 1991film that was one for the women, with Susan Sarandon (my idol) and Gena Davis (a doll of a star), that I was wrong. People (er, women and girls) had indeed caught on to the young Brad Pitt’s beauty, and if they wore buttons with cutouts of the nasty little vagrant J.D. or waved banners with his likeness they would not have been more vociferous about his sex-appeal. And producers and directors, too, long before I did, knew they had a marketable star.
Okay, so Brad Pitt had actually appeared in eleven films previous to the now cult classic Thelma and Louise: he had been a waiter, a party-goer, and a marginal character named Chris, respectively, in No Man’s Land, Brett Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero (with the brilliant Robert Downey Jr. eclipsing him, likely), and on “Another World.” He had done TV gigs as Theodore “Teddy” Johnson in “A Stoning in Fulham County” (which I still have not seen); as Billy Canton in “Too Young to Die'”; as Steve Black in “Glory Days;” and as bad boy Billy in the segment of the Two-fisted Tales anthology titled “King of the Road” (which should be a cult classic by now if it’s not). And he played characters in Happy Together, Cutting Class, and the now re-run on TV movie, Across the Tracks (wherein we get to see a lot of body—of the track runner who is a role model for his younger brother [played by Ricky Schroeder]).
Judith JackThe Judith Jack jewelry line is a stunning line featured almost exclusively at the finer department stores ..... How I missed him in those works, most of which I had seen, is less important than how Brad took off after (and because of') his performance in Thelma and Louise. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was synchronicity, or maybe he had just paid his dues with the lower-budget films. Whatever it was, the college drop out who hightailed it to Hollywood was launched into mainstream films, in thinker(') pieces, or just odd, quirky works such as Johnny Suede, unconventional animated films (Cool World), and thereby making it to co-star billing and finally top-billing—giving us a good, convincing cry in MacLean’s A River Runs through It; griping our guts with a slimy thug-boy in Kalifornia; making us swoon in the dark and dusty homo-erotica of Interview with the Vampire; and kicking our adrenalin levels into overdrive with Fight Club.
I don’t need to continue the list from here, though I risk omission of your favorite Brad Pitt films and do by no means intend to slight, for instance, his stellar looney bin appearance in 12 Monkeys, his remarkable realism in Seven, his understated stoicism in Meet Joe Black, or his heart-breaking broken boy grown up into broken man performance in Sleepers.
I don’t need to remind you of the cover stories (on issues I have copies of, still) of which he has been at the center—Rolling Stone, People, Vanity Fair….
Alec BaldwinAlec Baldwin is a famous America actor, producer, and director. He is the oldest and most famous of the ‘Baldwin brothers’, his younger .....
And I don’t need to be the one who decided Brad Pitt to Gwynth Paltrow would be our next Robert Redford to Barbara Streisand or Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie would be our next Paul Newman to Joanne Woodward. In terms of acting, of course. All I can do is remind you of that first breaking scene when, in true player fashion, J.D., played by Brad Pitt, utters, “I may be an outlaw, darlin’, but you’re the one stealing my heart.” No, Brad. You are the one stealing ours…among other things.
Blockbuster Video RentalsHey did you see that one movie with that one guy who had that gun' If I had a nickel for every time I heard that spiel while .....
Blockbuster MovieWhen was the last time you saw a good movie' Now, I'm not talking about some cheesy .....
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