Word: besse
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When Producer Sam Goldwyn decided to make a big cinemusical out of Porgy and Bess, the Negro folk opera (music by George Gershwin), the one trouble he did not foresee was a shortage of candidates for the leading roles. Since its first performance in 1935. the tuneful story of sorrow and joy along Catfish Row has been one of the theater's few durable meal tickets for Negro entertainers. It has enjoyed successful revivals on Broadway, innumerable road companies and a State Department-blessed international tour that included Russia and the satellites...
...creative artist, I just do not have enough interest in the piece." Goldwyn's version of the incident: Poitier quit after his demand to approve the script had been refused. Said Goldwyn: "If Poitier had seen a script and the way we are treating Porgy and Bess, he would be excited to do it." Goldwyn would name no names of other entertainers who had turned down roles, but called the boycott "an underground movement by radicals...
...look for Negro stars, Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, acknowledged that "among Negro Americans there is a division of opinion as to the value of this play." But, said Wilkins, "the N.A.A.C.P. has taken no position on Porgy and Bess...
...Omaha newsmen Grandpa Harry Truman confided that he dasn't lug around a picture of little Clifton Truman Daniel, 4 months. Reason: "The boss [Bess] won't let me. She's afraid I'd bore everyone." At week's end Harry and Bess dropped in at a Southern California kiddies' mecca, Disneyland, which their grandson is too young to enjoy yet. Among the diversions enjoyed by the young-in-heart Trumans: a ride on a Mark Twain riverboat, a rocket trip to the moon...
...Smith won Poetry's Bess Hokin prize...