Word: clowning
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...happy to see such a great article about Jim Carrey [CINEMA, June 1]. I have been a Carrey fan from the beginning and am excited by his new movie, The Truman Show. I know he is actually a great actor, not just a clown. This movie will change his career and will prove to the world that he is not merely a one-joke man but is one of the best actors Hollywood has to offer! ERIC SNYDER Gilbert, Ariz...
Looking back, though, it seems likely that the Beatles--with their buoyant spirits, their bottomless charm, their unaccustomed and irrepressible wit--could probably have boosted the mirth quotient at a clown convention. Their overflowing gifts for songcraft, harmony and instrumental excitement, their spiffy suits and nifty haircuts, their bright quips and ready smiles, made them appear almost otherworldly, as if they had just beamed down from some distant and far happier planet...
Buster Keaton, the great silent clown working as a consultant at MGM, recognized her comic gifts and worked with her on stunts. She got a few chances to show off her talent in films like DuBarry Was a Lady (with Red Skelton) and Fancy Pants (with Bob Hope) but never broke through to the top. By the end of the 1940s, with Ball approaching 40, her movie career was all but finished...
Ball was a lithe and inventive physical comedian, and her famous slapstick bits--trying to keep up with a candy assembly line, stomping grapes in an Italian wine vat--were justly celebrated. But she was far more than a clown. Her mobile face could register a whole dictionary of emotions; her comic timing was unmatched; her devotion to the truth of her character never flagged. She was a tireless perfectionist. For one scene in which she needed to pop a paper bag, she spent three hours testing bags to make sure she got the right size and sound...
...this young Sprinfieldianite has staying power: staying in the fourth grade, to the endless vexation of his teacher and his principal; staying glued to the living-room tube to watch his idol, Krusty the Clown; staying for years in the hearts and humors of a fickle, worldwide TV audience. This young scamp--with his paper bag-shaped head, his body's jagged, modernist silhouette, his brat-propelled skateboard--may be "yellow trash" to the town gentry, but to his mother and everyone else, he's our special little...