Word: singer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...stage, John Dexter's sumptuously stylized production transformed tabloid headlines into a potent truism: that the heart sees what it sees. Onscreen, the opera singer's gender is never in question; his 5 o'clock shadow gives him away to everyone but the diplomat. Jeremy Irons tries manfully, and John Lone womanfully, to give real life to the characters, but the close-ups defeat them. So do some unlikely plot points: the defendant and his accuser are put alone to undress and wrestle in a police wagon; the diplomat daubs himself as Madama Butterfly before a rapt audience -- of French...
...only Leslie Cheung, the beautifully androgynous star of Farewell My Concubine, had been cast as the singer in M. Butterfly; in his delicacy and passion, he is enough woman for any man to fall for. But then Cheung, a Hong Kong actor living in Vancouver, might not have been available for the role of his career. As Cheng Dieyi, a homosexual star of the Peking Opera who is riven by jealousy when his "stage brother" Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) marries a call girl (Gong Li), Cheung is both steely and vulnerable, with a sexuality that transcends gender -- a Mandarin Michael...
After 25 years as a singer, comedian, actress and a heavenly blend of all three, the lady has earned her halo. It may be mild hyperbole to call Midler the greatest entertainer in the universe -- there are, after all, other galaxies yet to be explored -- but who can doubt she's the hardest-working woman in show biz? In New York City, where she stars until Oct. 23 in the longest stop of her first tour in a decade, Bette is poetry in perpetual motion, from her prompt entrance at 8:10 (royalty is always punctual) to her exhausted departure...
...ticket prices are preposterously high -- $100 for a seat up front -- and the evening is worth every precious penny. Say, if you will, that it's five $20 shows in one, and count the ways. Bette the incendiary torch singer, in fine voice at 47; her '70s classic Stay with Me is still a rhythm-and-blues catharsis. Bette the jaunty favorite of the dear departed bathhouse set, making Long Island jokes ("Hell's little theme park") and addressing her earlier fans: "I see we have our quorum of leather queens here tonight." Bette the Broadway star, fronting campy production...
SERENADE (1956). James M. Cain's baroque novel featured an opera singer consumed by an obsessive relationship with a gay impresario. In the movie Mario Lanza is consumed by ... Joan Fontaine...