Watched West Side Story, the 1961 film version, for the first time in an age. It holds up remarkably well even as my brain informs me that nearly egeryone is dubbed, that Natalie Wood, George Chakiris were made up to such an extent that they needed to make up Rita Moreno. It's remarkable how dark it is even if it had to make some changes to the lyrics.
In a year or so Natalie Wood will have been dead longer than she was alive. Sonething seems a bit out of kilter in the time space continuum. She's a had actress to place as a successful child star, appearing every Christmas in Miracle on 34th Street, which was filmed at the same time as she was in The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
She went on from WSS to immediately be in Gypsy, another epic American musical with lyrics by Sondheim. I saw it once memorably described as America's answer to King Lear. She later went on to make a fortune off of Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice - does that ever get shown any more?
And tweaking Fitzgerald's maxim, that was her 2nd Act but there was to be no 3rd one except in endless speculation about her death.
