Of composers and film studios
Sep. 15th, 2007 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMore pictures, as I visited the home of Arnold Schönberg, aka He Who Invented Atonal Music, and the Universal Studios.
The former is due to having met Barbara Schönberg over a decade ago when I lived here for three months and was interviewing people who had to do with the emigrés left and right. Barbara is a lovely lady, now around 60, daughter of composer Erich Zeisl, which meant that when she married Ronnie Schönberg, son of Arnold, it was a union of musical dynasties in exile, so to speak. Even if she's a translator and her husband is a judge (retired). On a tangentially "small world" note, back over a decade ago they had just had some minor problem with reporters because Ronnie S. was on the periphery of the OJ Simpson craziness - he had been the judge a couple of years earlier when Nicole Simpson was still alive and OJ was at court for wife beating. Most crazy question: "Mr. Schönberg, your father came into this country as a refugee from Hitler - wouldn't he be ashamed of you?"
Anyway. My two favourite Arnold Schönberg anecdotes are probably
a) The one where George Gershwin, whom he was friends with, gets him an interview with MGM and the producer - Barbara thinks it was Thalberg, but it might have been too late for Thalberg - opens the conversation with "Mr. Schönberg, I heard some lovely tunes of yours on the radio and..." Quoth the genius, icily and with his strongest Austrian accent: "I. Don't. Write. Lovely. Music." Yeah, no kidding.
b) The one where, after hearing from Alma Mahler-Werfel that Thomas Mann had the syphilitic hero of his novel Dr. Faustus invent the atonal music, he meets Marta Feuchtwanger at Brentwood and yells at her across the market: "Frau Feuchtwanger, I do not have syphilis!"
His home, where Barbara and Ronnie live to this day, captures something unique to homes of emigrés - at least I've found this to be the case - a mixture of Europe and America, but not the Europe of today, the Europe of 60 years ago. Very beautiful. Look:
Note the "Arnold is back" poster at the wall of the next one. This cracks me up, I must admit. Though I don't think the other Arnold is a blip on the radar of most Schönberg fanatics...
Today, I couldn't resist and visited the Universal Studios again. Expensive as ever, but it does spell Hollywood and Los Angeles for me, so....
The backlot:
And while driving through said backlot on the tour, I could not resist catering my fannish obsessions again:
This is a Mexican street of many a movie which also used to be a Roman one in Spartacus:
Western street:
Amity, of Jaws fame:
I would have gotten a perfectly good shot of the, well, jaws of the bloody shark, but no, the guy next to me had to interfere:
Where they shot the Grinch movie:
The Bates motel, with Bates residence in the background, for the Hitchcock fans:
And this is especially for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
likeadeuce and harmonyangel:
Farewell, studios!
The former is due to having met Barbara Schönberg over a decade ago when I lived here for three months and was interviewing people who had to do with the emigrés left and right. Barbara is a lovely lady, now around 60, daughter of composer Erich Zeisl, which meant that when she married Ronnie Schönberg, son of Arnold, it was a union of musical dynasties in exile, so to speak. Even if she's a translator and her husband is a judge (retired). On a tangentially "small world" note, back over a decade ago they had just had some minor problem with reporters because Ronnie S. was on the periphery of the OJ Simpson craziness - he had been the judge a couple of years earlier when Nicole Simpson was still alive and OJ was at court for wife beating. Most crazy question: "Mr. Schönberg, your father came into this country as a refugee from Hitler - wouldn't he be ashamed of you?"
Anyway. My two favourite Arnold Schönberg anecdotes are probably
a) The one where George Gershwin, whom he was friends with, gets him an interview with MGM and the producer - Barbara thinks it was Thalberg, but it might have been too late for Thalberg - opens the conversation with "Mr. Schönberg, I heard some lovely tunes of yours on the radio and..." Quoth the genius, icily and with his strongest Austrian accent: "I. Don't. Write. Lovely. Music." Yeah, no kidding.
b) The one where, after hearing from Alma Mahler-Werfel that Thomas Mann had the syphilitic hero of his novel Dr. Faustus invent the atonal music, he meets Marta Feuchtwanger at Brentwood and yells at her across the market: "Frau Feuchtwanger, I do not have syphilis!"
His home, where Barbara and Ronnie live to this day, captures something unique to homes of emigrés - at least I've found this to be the case - a mixture of Europe and America, but not the Europe of today, the Europe of 60 years ago. Very beautiful. Look:
Note the "Arnold is back" poster at the wall of the next one. This cracks me up, I must admit. Though I don't think the other Arnold is a blip on the radar of most Schönberg fanatics...
Today, I couldn't resist and visited the Universal Studios again. Expensive as ever, but it does spell Hollywood and Los Angeles for me, so....
The backlot:
And while driving through said backlot on the tour, I could not resist catering my fannish obsessions again:
This is a Mexican street of many a movie which also used to be a Roman one in Spartacus:
Western street:
Amity, of Jaws fame:
I would have gotten a perfectly good shot of the, well, jaws of the bloody shark, but no, the guy next to me had to interfere:
Where they shot the Grinch movie:
The Bates motel, with Bates residence in the background, for the Hitchcock fans:
And this is especially for
likeadeuce and harmonyangel: Farewell, studios!
