Category Archives: celebrities

have you noticed…

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The new (biracial) guy on Grey’s Anatomy?  As soon as he first hit the screen I was like, “I think he’s one of us!”  But I wasn’t 100% sure until I saw Jesse Williams on the Bonnie Hunt Show.  He showed pictures of himself as a child with his (Black) dad.  So cute!  Then and now!!  My friend google led me to some more info about him….

Williams is the son of an African American father and a Swedish mother, and as a teenager, he moved from urban Chicago to ‘lily-white’ suburban Massachusetts.  His interest in acting was sparked, in part, when a film he was writing about this uneasy transition was chosen as a finalist in the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab.  “It was a big part of my life.  I really rejected that move.  It was a complete cultural shock.”  Williams recalls, “It wasn’t good.  My friends were sh***y, the people were sh***y, the parents were sh***y.  A lot of parents closed the door in my face, so I was like, I don’t need to be here.  I’m not going to try and change you, which, I guess I did try for a while.”- via

This is from an off-broadway play that Williams did last year.  So wish I had seen it.

Jesse Williams isn’t embarrassed to admit he wasn’t fully aware of who Edward Albee was when he auditioned for him to play the scantily-clad Angel of Death in the revival of The Sandbox that the 80-year-old playwright is now directing (in tandem with The American Dream) at The Cherry Lane. “Actually, I think it helped me, not being so intimidated,” says Williams. “He was so funny, cracking jokes with me even from the beginning. And I didn’t even fully process that he had offered me the job. But it’s all been an amazing experience, getting this immediate response from the audience, and working with this cast. And honestly, I don’t even really know what I look like on stage. I said I was going to go to the gym more often, but I end up just doing push-ups in the basement of the theater and trying to keep quiet.”

Williams’ enthusiasm is understandable, since he has only been acting professionally for a couple of years. While studying filmmaking at Philadelphia’s Temple University, he did some commercial and modeling work, with the occasional acting audition — even turning down a prime soap opera role. “I am a biracial man, and I was supposed to play this tragic mulatto character lusting after a white girl, and I didn’t want to leave school to do that kind of part.” Instead, after graduation, he took a job as a public school teacher in Philadelphia, and then a high-level law firm job in New York — “I was supervising 60 attorneys, even though I’m not a lawyer” — before deciding to focus on acting.- via

Oh, Jesse Williams.  I can’t wait to interview you!

speaking of candle on the water

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I never should have brought that up because now I cannot stop thinking about Pete’s Dragon.  After Annie, this was my favorite movie as a child.  I think I’ve tried to block it out.  I loved it so much!  I was terrified of Shelley Winters.  This movie is all I know of the work of Mickey Rooney.  It’s just so darn good.  I need to rent it asap.

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My record looked like the above.  I remember playing it over and over on my grandparent’s record player that was one of those huge cabinet type things with a record player in it.  I would try to act the whole thing out by myself in the living room.  I probably only did that once, but the memory is so very vivid that it seems like I did it every day or something.

A few fun facts from the movie:
– It was the first Disney film to be released on VHS
– The song “Candle on the Water” received an academy award nomination
– The movie was actually filmed in California and the crew had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to use the lighthouse so it wouldn’t confuse passing ships.
– There’s an episode of Family Guy with a parody of the movie (involving Ben Stiller)

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One last thing…

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Women working on Pete’s Dragon in Walt Disney’s Ink and Paint Department which was off limits to male artists.

recently in tvland

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I have become totally slightly addicted to television since the start of the fall season.  Of course I can’t help but notice every time biracial, mixed, or interracial coupling comes up, which isn’t very often.  So far, I’ve only been satisfied by one show.  And it should come as no surprise to anyone that Jennifer Beals was involved in that one.

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What you need to know:  Attorney Zoe (Jennifer Beals) enlists the help of her “human lie detector” ex-husband Cal (Tim Roth) in proving the innocence of a black college football star accused of statutory rape by a white high school girl.

Zoe to Cal: (The) ADA is a pompous a** who isn’t beyond charging just based on race. That is why Cabe McNeil is facing trumped up sex charges.”

Cal: “Do you really want to defend this guy, or are you just taking this personally because of the black and white leaves on the family tree?”

Zoe: “Both.”

several scenes later….

Zoe to afore mentioned Pompous ADA: “Because he’s black and slept with a white girl he belongs in jail?…Come on I know your track record and I know how you treat black defendants. And I know how you treated me in law school. I had one white parent and one black parent. I was the only brown student there, and you just looked down your nose at me all three years”

Toward the end of the episode he tells her the reason he had a problem with her in school was because she made law review and he didn’t.  She apologizes.

It was perfect!  Because it’s not always about race, but when you’re the brown person that could easily and justifiably (based on prior experience) be your first assumption.  Way to go Lie to Me.  And Jennifer Beals.  My assumption here is that she contributed to the way that story was told.

Next up:

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What you need to know:  Main character Veronica walks into her parent’s home after work and is startled loudly by her brother.  She notices that their parents are asleep in the living room, prompting her to “shush” him.  He laughs it off and demonstrates how sound asleep they are by yelling shockingly dangerous things like, “Fire!” and even worse…

“Dad! Veronica’s got a new boyfriend and he’s black!”


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What you need to know:  In an attempt to save her failing marriage, the wife of Glee Club director Mr. Schuester fakes a pregnancy.

The couple take a private lamaze class during which Mr. Schuester is asked to leave the room for minute.  Mrs. Schuster reveals to the lamaze teacher that she has a troubling secret.  The lamaze teacher’s first guess seems to be the worst thing she could possibly imagine: “Is the baby black!?“

Lastly,

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Here is an example of a missed opportunity.  Wentworth Miller guest starred as a cop helping the SVU team with one of it’s victims.  After discussing the results of a line-up, Wentworth Miller says something that prompts Ice T to tell him that “Not all black people look alike.”  I really wish Miller had said “I know.  I am black people.”  Jennifer Beals would have.  I think.

None of this is earth shattering or anything.  But I think it’s important to note the ways in which “we” are discussed or alluded to.  I am usually disappointed.  It’s that “is the baby black!?” kind of mentality that that guy in Louisiana who will let black people use his bathroom but will not allow interracial couples to wed is plagued by.  I believe that the majority of people think that way.  I’m trying to change that.

sophie okonedo- that can’t possibly be your mum

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Jewish Actress Sophie Okonedo Explores Biracial Identity

BY NAOMI PFEFFERMAN

“I’m a North London, working-class, black, Jewish girl,” actress Sophie Okonedo said. “I love my upbringing because it had so many different colors; it’s given me the equipment to play lots of diverse roles.”

In 2005, the tall, striking actress burst into the international spotlight when she was nominated for an Oscar for her harrowing turn as the wife of a hotel manager who hid more than 1,200 refugees from genocidal militias in “Hotel Rwanda.” As the unexpected new toast of Hollywood — Newsweek described her performance as a “revelation” — she went on to portray an emotionally disturbed young woman in civil rights-era South Carolina in “The Secret Life of Bees.”

Now she has tackled her first leading role in “Skin,” based on the true story of Sandra Laing, a biracial girl born to white parents — unaware of a black ancestor in their family tree — in 1950s South Africa. The film chronicles the parents’ battle for Sandra to be classified as “white,” her rebellion and marriage to a black man and subsequent struggle to be reclassified as “colored” to keep her children. At one point in the film, Laing’s parents learn the 10-year-old Sandra cannot continue to live in their home unless she is documented as a household servant.

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The script stunned Okonedo when it arrived at her North London home not long after her Oscar nomination. “The story was so extraordinary I almost couldn’t believe it was true,” she said from the flat she shares with her 12-year-old daughter.

And then there was the personal connection for Okonedo, 40, who was raised by her Ashkenazi mother and Yiddish-speaking grandparents after her father, a Nigerian civil servant, abandoned the family when Sophie was 5.

“I could relate to being black and brought up in a white family,” she said. “Of course being raised in North London in the 1970s was much kinder than South Africa in the ’50s. But it was helpful to understand what it is like to have a family that is a different color than you — and to question your heritage when people say, ‘That can’t possibly be your mum.’”

…Okonedo was the only black congregant at the liberal synagogue she attended with her grandparents, although she refuses to discuss previous remarks she reportedly made about encountering discrimination from both blacks and Jews.

…“My grandparents kept a fairly Jewish household,” Okonedo said. “They celebrated all the holidays, and they spoke Yiddish when they didn’t want me to understand the conversation. I feel sad I didn’t learn Yiddish as a child,” she added. “It’s such a fantastic language, so expressive. And now my grandparents are too old to teach me.”

Now that her grandparents are in their 90s, the family holiday celebrations have ceased. “But culturally I’m still very Jewish,” Okonedo said. “It’s all in my blood.”

Over the years, her mother has remained Okonedo’s staunchest champion — encouraging her to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art after she dropped out of school at 16, and later traveling with her to theater and movie sets to attend to her hair. “I’m not very good at the whole dressing-up thing,” Okonedo said.

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Read the entire article here.

yay, corbin bleu

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and his dad!

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Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith – Oct 12th, 2009

via

Twenty-year-old “High School Musical” cutie Corbin Bleu is more than glad that his character’s family in his new “Free Style” movie is biracial, just like his own family. He made a point of seeing to it that casting was done that way.

He tells us that, with himself and his father two of the producers on the feature, opening tomorrow (10/9), “It was one thing we definitely wanted to play to. So many times in films, you’ll have interracial kids, but they’ll still have two black parents. At this time, right now, where we are now, you’re seeing many more interracial families. So many people are mixing and it’s wonderful and that needs to be portrayed more in our films.”

Corbin notes that, being a producer, “This is the first time I got to take hold of some of the reins and I’d like to do more. I was involved in locations and casting and wardrobe and all that.”

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Synopsis: (via)

In the film, Bleu takes center stage as Cale Bryant, a biracial, Pacific Northwest teen whose father left his mom, Jeanette (Penelope Ann Miller), years ago when Cale’s young sister Bailey (Madison Pettis) was born. Regardless, Cale’s a polite, well-raised young man who, when not busy at the electronics store, delivers pizzas, takes care of sis while Mom waitresses, and races alongside his bud Justin (Jesse Moss), dreaming of turning pro.

Cale briefly gets angry with his mom, who turns out to have known the whereabouts of the kids’ deserter dad (David Reivers, Bleu’s real-life father and a producer of this film), and suffers taunts from rich-boy rider Derek (Matt Bellefleur).

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re: heidi and seal

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Congratulations!!

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Supermodel Heidi Klum and husband Seal have welcomed a new addition to their family.

According to a report from RadarOnline.com, Klum gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Lou Samuel, early Friday morning.

Labor was induced shortly after midnight and by 1 a.m., the baby was born.

Klum, who recently filed a petition to change her last name to her married name Samuel, has a daughter, Leni, and two sons, Henry, 3, and Johan, 2, with Seal.

via

barack like me

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David Alan Grier: Is beige the new black?

Comedian writes about how Obama has made being multiracial cool

excerpt from chapter 2

Every pundit from Larry King to Atlantic magazine agrees: black is in. All shades of black. Which is good for most people, because so many of us are of mixed race. Myself included. It’s mind-boggling that we have ended up here, at this point in our history. There was a time, only a few generations ago, that being of mixed race was not so cool. In fact, it was illegal to try to pass yourself off as a different race. If the authorities found out, you lost everything — your position, your home, and all your possessions. You’d be separated from your family and often lynched.

President Barack Obama has changed all that. People now want to be mixed. Bi-racial, tri- racial, quad- and quinti-racial, how many you got? The more the better. Multiracial is the hot new facial, the best look in the book. Mixed race is the new superrace. If you look too black, people seem disappointed. They look at you and say, “You’re just black. Oh. That’s too bad. Are you sure? Anything else in there?”

They’re looking for the Obama mix. It’s like a new kind of coffee. “We just came up with it. Try this. The new Obama roast. It’s the perfect blend. Strong, but not sharp. Seductive. Bold. Sweet. Smooth. And not too dark. Not like that Dikembe Mutombo roast they’re brewing across the street.”

And why not be black like Barack? He’s the coolest guy on the planet right now. He’s bigger than any rapper, more popular than any rock star. He’s huge. We admire him and kids aspire to be like him.

…It’s still hard to get my head around this, though, the idea of acceptance that comes with the Barack Obama presidency. There is a part of me that acknowledges — and remembers, historically — that people of color who tried to deny any part of themselves were suspect. They would have to make a decision and stick with it. If it was found out that they were denying a part of themselves, they would be accused of running away from themselves and be rejected by their own. We’re looking at a whole new playing field as of right now. You can embrace all the parts of you. You can say, forthrightly, “I am who I am. I am all my parts,” or even, “I am all my parts, but I am embracing this particular one. This is who I am.” And we, as a people, will embrace it as well.

Excerpted from “Barack Like Me” by David Alan Grier with Alan Eisenstock. Copyright (c) by David Alan Grier.

i like my coffee like my presidents'

speaking of ben harper

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He’s so cute… but anyway,  I found this little piece on The Insider website…

Ben Harper & Family In Sardinia

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Ben Harper and Laura Dern vacation with their children, Ellery, 7, and Jaya, 3 1/2, and friends in Porto Cervo (Sardinia).

Source : Bauer Griffin

Thank God “anonymous” posted this comment:

Those two other children are *NOT* friends they are Ben’s kids from his first marriage. His son is named after Ben’s grandfather Charles Chase who owned a folk music store and instrument museum who exposed him and fueled his love for music.

It may seem trivial, but as the only brown person traveling with my white family I was often mistaken for a “friend,” and that just doesn’t feel good.  I don’t know exactly how to describe how it feels, but it’s not good.  Especially when that’s your dad and the circumstances lead you to think, “I was his family before these other people.”  So, thank you Anonymous for clearing that up.