“Improbable as it may seem, Michael Douglas currently commands a per-picture salary of some $15 million just to play That Evil White Guy You’re Always Complaining About.”
“White men are no longer the whole against which we measure all the parts, but one more angry special interest group. Once they were 'mankind,' now they're just another niche in the endless segmentation markers and identities.”
“Put him in a raincoat and trademark fedora and have him walk the streets of metropolitan America, and he comes alive on screen. His cockiness and swagger make sense on a street”
“Nobody who played jazz was considered able to walk in and do a studio call. They were convinced you couldn't read, or you wouldn't show up, or you'd fall down drunk”
“Many jazz musicians don’t like singers, and some will go to great lengths to avoid playing for them. Not without reason. Frank Sinatra is a rare exception.”
“Like Garbo or Chaplin, he looms over the cultural life of the century, defying analysis, because every generation has to figure him out from scratch.”
