"Time, the great healer," says Paul McCartney to Rolling Stone about his current relationship with the much-maligned Yoko Ono.
Paul continued: "I thought, if John loved her, there's got to be something....it's like what are you going to do? Are you going to hold a grudge you never really had? We were just pissed that the Beatles were breaking up, that something was different, that there was a girl in the studio. John wanted Yoko there, and the three of us just bristled. So I had to, in the end, say, 'Let's just see how I get on with her,' and we got on fine the minute I decided there was no grudge."
However, McCartney, who has a splendid new album out, told RS writer Jonah Weiner, that forgiveness only goes so far. When Weiner asked if he could ever forgive John Lennon's killer, Paul replies, "The answer's no....that was much more, whether it was evil or just deranged--it was unforgivable...this is a guy who did something so crazy and terminal. Why should I bless him with forgiveness?"
McCartney is 71 and has absolutely, positively no plans to ever slow down or retire.
And neither does the remarkable Yoko Ono, age 80, who has remade herself as a dance club icon.
Retire if you want to. (And can afford it.) But never because anybody says you should.
• Hurry up and get Anjelica Huston's new book from Scribner, titled "A Story Lately Told," or you won't be ready for the next version, titled "Watch Me," coming next year.
You may know this actress from her recent starring role on TV's "Smash" but hers has already been an amazing life onstage and screen in a dynastic growing up as the daughter of cinema's great director John Huston and a beautiful ballet dancer who was killed in a car crash when Anjelica was only 17.
"A Story Lately Told" has a subtitle -- "Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York" and is peopled by names like Carson McCullers, John Steinbeck, Peter O'Toole, Marlon Brando, Monty Clift and the succession of gorgeous, interesting women who made up her father's peripatetic life.
Anjelica can really write. The prologue alone to her memoir is worthy: "I found that I could make myself cry, very easily...But for me, it was always about feeling. People often think that looking in the mirror is about narcissism. Children look at their reflection to see who they are."
I love all the Irish horse country naturalism that is described here in Anjelica's story. The on-going duel with her brother Tony...the pets, nurse maids, and the gone glamour. This book ends in a London gone mad over the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and the encroaching rock 'n' roll world.
Since then Anjelica Huston has been honored by Oscar, the Globes, BAFTA, Emmy, and the National Society of Film Critics. She seems to be personally loved and respected coast to coast.
I just can't wait to read the rest of her story, which begins in a 1973 Los Angeles and whoa! There's just no telling what this truly amazing actress will reveal in her understated, intelligent style.
• And so Lady Gaga appeared nude onstage at a gay club in London. She sang, too.
I'd say she finally did Madonna one better, but I hardly think this stunt is "better." I always thought The Big M had too much talent and too much heart (really!) to pull some of the stuff she did. (And still does, on occasion.) I don't know much about Lady Gaga's heart, but she is sure talented, and one wonders if such antics simply degrade that talent.
Does anybody remember, say -- Judy Garland? This tiny woman stood alone on a stage with a microphone and drove her audiences into a frenzy. Somebody today should try it.
(Well, Elton John actually still does it!)
• "Hubbel...it's me. Katie."
What movie maven doesn't know that famous scene from the Barbra Streisand/Robert Redford 1973 classic, "The Way We Were?" (Barbra allows a drunken Redford to bed her, but she is painfully unsure he even recalls her from their college days.)
So, anyway, there I was reading a very nice profile in Details magazine about Chris Hemsworth, star of the soon due "Thor," and made famous by his role in the Marvel Comics movie franchise "The Avengers." And I learned, once again that everything old can be made new again.
His co-star Natalie Portman popped in during the interview to say that she and Hemsworth are always talking about doing a re-make of "The Way We Were."
Portman told writer Adam Sachs: "Little Jewish girl. A smoking hot Gentile. If we work together again, that's clearly our project!" Miss Portman was kind of kidding but probably semi-serious.
Why not? For years, fans of the original were teased with the idea of a sequel, picking up the adventures of Katie and Hubbel. But too much time passed. Both Streisand and Redford are in their 70s. Still charismatic, attractive and active, but the parade passed by on that particular project.
Remakes are rarely as good, and often quite awful. On the other hand, interesting material always begs a new interpretation. It's not like the original is going to be destroyed. Usually people run back to see the first effort and say, "Why did they bother?
This was perfect!"
It's time for Chris Hemsworth to do something romantic and lighter anyway. You can't be an Avenger forever!
Oh, he'll be in the sequel to "Snow White and the Huntsman." Not exactly a madcap romp.