Author/journalist Beverly Gray and Grammy nominee Geoffrey Mark will join us this weekend, Airing March 2-5
Hour 1
Beverly Gray
With the Oscars airing on Sunday, March 4, this week’s show will also take a look at each of this year’s nine Best Picture nominations. Joining us for that will be our friend Beverly Gray. Beverly spent nearly a decade in the film industry, where she was Roger Corman’s story editor at both New World Pictures and Concorde-New Horizons Pictures. She’s also covered the entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter and other trade publications, as well as her blog, Beverly in Movieland.
Beverly Gray is also the author of several books, including Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of…, everything you wanted to know about the making of The Graduate—the most unexpected cinematic blockbuster of the sixties, and a movie that has burned itself indelibly on American popular culture. Beverly’s book includes interviews with such key personnel as director Mike Nichols and producer Lawrence Turman, plus a look at the Academy Awards broadcast of April 1968—a ceremony that was postponed because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. We’ll remember the 1968 Oscarcast, too, when Beverly Gray joins us in our first hour.
Hour 2
Grammy Award-nominated singer, author, comedian, radio host and show business raconteur Geoffrey Mark will join us this week for an in-depth look at the life and career and Ella Fitzgerald, the legendary First Lady of Song whose name evokes thoughts of the Savoy Ballroom, Jazz at the Philharmonic, the bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Chick Webb, and more than 2,300 recordings of approximately 1,100 songs. The ultimate rags to riches embodiment of the American Dream, Ella Fitzgerald sold more than 40 million albums, appeared countless times on radio, television and stage, dedicated her life to philanthropy and entertained audiences in venues all over the world, virtually nonstop, in an astonishing career that rivaled and, in many ways, surpassed those of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
Yet very little is known about Ella Fitzgerald, the woman, partly because, despite living almost her entire life in the spotlight, she was never comfortable giving interviews and almost never revealed anything about herself—but also because the truth about Ella’s upbringing was considered too difficult and painful for the public to know. All of that changes now with the publication of Geoffrey’s latest book, Ella: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald: Centennial Birt…, a comprehensive biography that includes 275 photographs (many of which are in color), plus a complete discography, videography and more. Geoffrey Mark will join us in our second hour
Ella: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald: Centennial Edition is available in hardcover through Ultimate Symbol. There is also a deluxe edition of the book that includes a bonus two-CD set with more than forty studio/live tracks of Ella in her prime. All forty tracks in the CD set were personally selected by Geoffrey Mark himself from all four of Ella’s major recording labels, Decca, Verve, Capital Records and Pablo. The bonus two-CD set is exclusive to the book and can only be purchased directly at UltimateSymbol.com/ella. Proceeds from the sale of the deluxe edition will be donated to the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation to further Ella’s desire to help people of all races, cultures and beliefs.
Bonus
Plus: We’ll remember the legacy of M*A*S*H and the thirty-fifth anniversary of “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” the final episode of M*A*S*H, as part of This Week in TV History.
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