Nellie McKay Likes Orson Welles, a Heavenly Match!

[Glenn Anders]

Years ago, I taught (briefly) a young woman, Robin Pappas, who eventually graduated from RADA, and appeared in the cast list (but not the eventual release version) of Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING. She went on to have a varied career. Recently, I re-established contact with her, when my old colleague, BAMBO-BAMBO Christianson (also a former teacher of Robin), discovered that she was the mother of the singing phenom, Nellie McKay.

Nellie "burst on the scene," as they say, at 19, and she has been doing everything at once, in a Wellsian way. First of all, she is highly intelligent, very talented, full of energy mixed with some doubt, and she writes and performs in several mediums. Nellie is said to be a distant cousin of the poet, Dylan Thomas, and if so her work shows some evidence of that. Now 23, she is also redheaded and beautiful.

She writes and orchestrates songs at great rate, singing and playing a number of instruments on each track. She has toured all over America and Europe. And now she is getting into Movies and the Theater.

She has released one CD (Get Away from Me) with Sony Columbia; is releasing a second herself (Pretty Little Redhead) because of what she considers censorship on Columbia's part (who dropped her over it); has provided songs and incidental music for Jennifer Aniston latest movie (RUMOR HAS IT). She will appear late this year in an Indie, SAFETY GLASS. But soon, in April, she takes the Broadway Stage in Wallace Shawn's revival of Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weil's The Three Penny Opera. She is playing Polly Peachum opposite Alan Cumming and a number of name players.

I bring this seemingly off topic up because Nellie is evidently an admirer of Orson Welles. She did a stage interview with Eartha Kitt, with whom she has performed, in Chicago, last year. You can skip most of the interview, if you choose, but note that Nellie's first question to Miss Kitt, now over 80 and still going strong, is about Orson Welles. Eartha, surprisingly, perhaps the voice of experience, urges caution in making didactic political statements in artistic work (a habit of Nellie's). Here is the URL:

http://harpmagazine.com/articles/detail ... le_id=3988

Glenn

[Michael]

Thanks for this posting! I've just spent the last hour plus catching up on Nellie and doing some downloads. What an amazing performer. I so loved her first CD. Can't wait to get the new one. Interesting tie in to Orson - thanks for the link to the Eartha/Nellie article. Interesting stuff.

[Glenn Anders]

Glad to have been of help, Michael.

Looks as if you and I are the only ones who see an interesting, ironic, even hopeful connection with Welles. Nellie's course, so far, suggests to me a kind of modest Wellsian ambition. I did not know until I read this piece (but might have guessed) that she is interested in Welles. She has all that talent, a fecundity of artistic directions, a passionate social conscience, and a possibly not wise need to stick it in the eye of authority.

Wellsian!

We shall have to see how she does in Wallace Shawn's new production of The Three Penny Opera, and in her annulment with Columbia Sony Records.

Ms. Kitt was obviously trying to say to her: "Whoa, Nellie! You're 23. You have the World for the asking, if you do it right. I didn't sell out, but I'm still here after over sixty years. You can do it, too."

I'm certainly pulling for her. As should any Wellsian.

Glenn

[mteal]

Just in case the link disappears-

McKay: What was Orson Welles like?

Kitt: Scary. A great interpreter of words. We used to go to lunch in Paris. It would be Micheal MacLiammoir, Hilton Edwards, Orson, and me. [MacLiammoir played Iago in Welles' Othello. He and Edwards, his longtime companion, founded Dublin's Gate Theater in 1928.] Orson would start with a cordial, and then they would all have a seven-course meal. After each sip of whatever they were drinking, they'd get up and recite Shakespeare or Plato or Camus. And I never said a word. That was one reason why he thought I was the most exciting woman in the world: I kept my mouth shut, and so he thought I was very intelligent. But everything they said stimulated another part of the brain and brought on another side of the conversation. We're not doing that today. We watch television and think about what somebody said a hundred years ago, but not what somebody said yesterday.

Harp: You could deal with that by doing a more topical act.

Kitt: I don't believe in doing political philosophy onstage. If you want to entertain in a political way, then do it away from the legitimate stage.

[Glenn Anders]

Good idea, mteal. Thank you.

Glenn

[Kevin Loy]

Glenn,

I'm not sure that I see quite the Wellesian dispositions in McKay that you do...I'd have to say that, in my mind, somebody like Charles Mingus seems far more Wellesian to me than McKay. But, there is something to be said about her audaciousness (which certainly recalls Welles in a way). Most musicians aren't self-respecting enough to turn their backs on a company like Columbia, regardless of whether it is in their best interest to do so (part of this is perhaps because Columbia sports quite a legacy, but like the name Columbia itself, that legacy has very little to do with present "business" tactics nowadays). If I had to take a guess, given that she is nowhere near the level of popularity that Welles had by that age, it might turn out to be a more fatal move for her than Welles' tiff with RKO was for him. But the fact that she was willing to walk away from something like that while other sad souls needlessly cheapen and degrade their art to appeal to ingrates says quite a bit.

[Glenn Anders]

Hi, Kevin: I doubt there have been, or will be, many careers like the one Orson Welles' managed. We forget, too, that Welles had been around for nearly ten years, recognized in the rarefied circles of American Theater, but not among the general public, when a single night made him actually a household name. Charlie Mingus was a giant in Jazz, you are right, but he was over 30 before he was fully recognized, in the 1955 Brandeis Concerts.

When I say Nellie may be Wellsian, that comes from discovering that she has an interest in Orson Welles -- rather rare for someone her age, these days. A young woman of no great formal education who writes songs, sings, plays, acts, must have recognized a possible connection, a model there. And she certainly knows, by starts and fits, what she wants, and what she doesn't want in her career, and she is not afraid to take her fights to the public, as Welles sometimes did.

That's all I meant.

Meanwhile, she goes from strength to mercurial strength: writing songs for movies, acting in plays.

She opens as Polly Peachum, opposite Alan Cumming, next week in New York at Studio 54 in Wallace Shawn's new production of Brecht/Weil's The Threepenny Opera. A glance at her credits will show that she already has considerable experience in classic theater for her twenty-three years:

http://www.3pennyonbroadway.com/

It would be much harder for a woman to produce and direct plays on Broadway than it was for Welles, especially at today's expenses. And Welles' accomplishments were extraordinary.

For story of how I came across Nellie through her mother and an old colleague of mine, I refer you to a piece Kubrick's THE SHINING (with references to Welles) I've posted here before:

http://www.epinions.com/content_107498016388

She may be tempting the theater fates, but still, let's wish her well.

Glenn

[Kevin Loy]

Glenn,

Keep in mind that Mingus was incredibly ambitious too, much like Welles. Before he had even made much of a name for himself, he formed (along with Max Roach) Debut Records in the early 50s, which released many well-regarded albums (including, of course, the Massey Hall show from 1953 which marked the final recorded reunion of Bird and Dizzy, with Mingus on bass [well, two basses, if you count the fact that you can still hear his original bass parts in a few spots]), and would later form another independent label in the mid-60s, after becoming fed up with the way that the business treated him. There was also "Beneath The Underdog", a massive autobiography that came in (if I remember correctly) at well over 2,000 pages in length, yet was brutally cut down to a little over 200 when it was finally published years later (though there are plans to release the full-length Beneath The Underdog someday, which I'd like to see because he was a fascinating writer). Like Welles, much of Mingus' modern-day reputation with casual listeners probably rests upon one or two works (Mingus Ah Um, mostly), which tends to overlook a very rich musical output. Also like Welles, his battles with the "business" almost derailed his career in the mid-60s (though, like Welles, you could argue that Mingus' tendency to veer between sullen and violent moods also ushered in some of his problems) And, of course, Mingus is arguably more famous and better-appreciated since his death than he ever was in life, much like Welles (especially now that things like the 1964 recording of "Haitian Fight Song" are appearing in automobile commercials).

But, he also had a real appreciation for what a talented performer could add to his work, as Welles did, though he perhaps trusted performers a bit more than Welles. On the other hand, he loved chopping up performances if they didn't suit him.

Though he never fulfilled his extra ambition of becoming an actor, outside of a few cameos, I'd say that Mingus is pretty Wellesian

As for McKay, well, I'm slightly younger than she is and I appreciate Welles You are right, though: there are very few people our age who seem to appreciate Welles. In fact, I know of four people my age who have seen Citizen Kane (I played it for two of them, actually), and all four of them had varying degrees of ambivalence towards the film (though none of them seemed to hate it). I apologize for reading too far into it, though. It really isn't fair for me to judge just how Wellesian she really is until she completes her life cycle.

Of course, I could only hope that McKay, as well as other young artists, start to look more often to mercurial artists like Welles as a role model of sorts. I certainly think that Welles' story can teach an artist more than, say, Stephen Spielberg's story can.

As for re-establishing contact with Nellie's mother...I'm always amused to find that it really is quite a small world after all.

[Glenn Anders]

"It really isn't fair for me to judge just how Wellesian she really is until she completes her life cycle."

You touch, Kevin, what would be my reply to your essay on Mingus. No one should denigrate his accomplishments, but we are looking back at his life and career, as we are those of Welles. Miss McKay has whatever further triumphs and failures in front of her. Possibly, she will just disappear from the scene, like so many others, but I'm pulling for her, both from critical and sentimental standpoints.

I find particularly significant (and germane) your experience with peers in regard to Welles and CITIZEN KANE. The money men would very much like to mold future generations of the World's young into a group that would rather experience life as a video game where they always win (as long as they buy the product) than as a documentary in which all the money, power and gadgets in existence are shown to be superfluous. For people reared to believe "history is bunk," "it's old news," "let's move on," it must stir infantile fears to watch a black and white film that has no happy ending (not even a happy beginning), and that says that history is really all we've got, and which most critics call the finest American Sound Film.

Keep up the good work, Kevin.

Glenn