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The Silent Musician by Mark Wigglesworth, Richard Wagner, Cosmic Sex, and My Beloved Conductor John Wilson

From 2021: In an earlier post I mentioned that, since May a couple years ago, I’ve been reading books by orchestra conductors on conducting, in order to better glimpse into the unfamiliar heart and mind of my beloved John Wilson. That classic tome written by Richard Wagner was far out, of course, and going back to some of Leonard Bernstein‘s early writings was deeply nostalgic.

But it was my treatment of a book my bonny conductor had on his public Facebook Likes list that done me in—a thin, and thinly humorous, volume written by a coeval of John’s who let out his dirigental insecurities in a tirade of snark that I answered in kind in a long, 4-star Amazon review that I thought was hilarious, which it was, although apparently only to me. I did this to get John’s attention. I got it. John did not like what I wrote. Hence, he learned how to spell my name ab-so-lute-ly correctly.

Now, Mark Wigglesworth has a 30-year career conducting a number of the great operas and a number of the great symphony cycles, to much acclaim. If there is one thing that John’s friend’s book made evident, in its perverted way, it’s the importance of a conductor being holistically grounded, and Wigglesworth is, as we used to say in the 70s, a grounded guy. Not surprising for someone who has Alan Watts on his bookshelf; and since the English-born psychedelic Zen guru of San Francisco is one of my guiding lights too, it was a deep pleasure to read The Silent Musician, Wigglesworth’s musings on his inner/outer artistic journey as a conductor. Wigglesworth, from Sussex, is an acclaimed interpreter of Gustav Mahler as well as Wagner, two creative heavyweights who positively require those who would approach their work to have had a fair look first into their own personal psychological-spiritual makeup. Consider Daniel Barenboim—one artist on the world stage I respect the hell out of—and his own moral / philosophical / logistical grapplings with the Architect of Bayreuth (download his “Wagner and Ideology” here) and let me just say, if Barenboim figured it out I’m satisfied).

Speaking of Wagner, a few years ago Wigglesworth conducted the overture to a Wagner opera I’ll bet you’ve never heard of: Das Liebesverbot, or, The Ban on Love. I only know about this one because I took the mandatory survey course at music school at the university and never ran into it again till now. So this is the first and only thing I’ve ever heard from this opera:

Overture to Das Liebesverbot (1836)
Richard Wagner
Mark Wigglesworth, conductor
BBC Orchestra Wales

Or will ever hear, ever again. Just a bit…Mediterranean, wouldn’t you say?

But what amazes me more is the libretto, because Wagner—get this—chose for his source material the scuzziest, meanest sex comedy ever written, which is, of course, Measure by Measure by William Shakespeare. Yes, at the end hypocrisy is vanquished and everyone gets laid, but eeeeuuwww…

Now, think on the twenty-three year psychological-spiritual journey from Das Liebesverbot to this:

“Mild und leise” from Tristan and Isolde (1859)
Richard Wagner
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Waltraud Meier, soprano
Beyreuth, 1995

I’m sorry, but when I hear that tune I want to see John’s dear face.

The rest of you, behold Hedy Lamarr and Aribert Mog in Ecstasy (Elektafilm, 1933).

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John Wilson and Orchestra at the Royal Albert and Holly Does Hollywood in Body Double, Written and Directed by Brian De Palma (Columbia, 1984)

From 2021: The flick Holly Does Hollywood is fictional, of course, a fictional movie in the world of a real movie called Body Double, which was conceived and executed by the man who in an ideal world would be king of Hollywood, Brian De Palma.

De Palma’s affectionately knowing, utterly non-patronizing visit to pornland is a bit of a fantasy, of course. No flick I ever did or saw had a budget big enough to afford a mirror ball, let alone an MGM-size dance floor (though Damiano’s later movies came close). But scale aside, De Palma understood the thing that kept nearly all of us, cast and crew, jazzed while we were being pushed to get out product, and that is: When you are making a porn movie, you are making a movie.

Now, every so often I’d remember this. I’d be in the middle of a take, and like a klieg wash switching on I’d suddenly become very aware of everything around me: the lights, the mikes, the crew, the director, the luxuriously gorgeous surroundings (half my films were done in those sumptuous private homes in Marin County), the smooth-skinned, sweet-smelling people touching me, the amused audience (most of the homeowners would hang around watching us film)—and the realization would thrill me so perceptibly I would be open to the moment and I’d like to think it showed up in my performance.

Which is the same jazzed-up open-to-the-momentness I thought I saw in John Wilson one evening when I was trawling online for classic show tunes and stumbled onto my bonny in a 2012 BBC-TV clip, commanding the podium in the middle of the Royal Albert, surrounded by an orchestra of eighty and an audience of 6,000, conducting a hot piece of Jule Styne and shimmying like a brazen hussy. And when I say shimmying like a brazen hussy, understand: I’m the brazen hussy he was shimmying like. I fell in love with him on sight—just like the songs and movies go, an arrow went straight to my heart—because I recognized him. I got his number, so to speak.

Brian De PalmaAbove Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson: The Liverpool group Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who made their initial splash in 1984 (dig it) with the best stroke song ever written, “Relax”. Of course it was banned by the BBC.

And so for over three years I’ve been following my Tyneside lad’s career and person, not as a fan, really, but as an…interested party. So you know I’m going to sit up and take notice like I did when John, conducting in 2019 possibly the last John Wilson Orchestra concert ever at the Royal Albert for the BBC Proms, looked deadly serious, almost toothache-grim, at first when he commanded the stage. Especially when you compare him to that cocky whippersnapper who took the podium back in 2011…

I don’t mean to read a lot into this, maybe he did start out with a migraine or a toothache. More probably, I think he’s thinking differently (that is, more “seriously”) about things nowadays. Eight years have passed between those two appearances, after all, and I’m sure he’s gone through a number of internal changes during that time and made some interesting decisions which we will all, in time, learn about. It would be a sad thing if it’s John himself who thinks it now “unseemly” for him to shimmy in public anymore (I’m not the only one to have noticed his gorgeous limey shimmy), but it would be a sadder thing if John might be taking the nudge-nudge hints and advice of others to heart.

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Pre-Code Thrillers and The First Porn Movie I Ever Did, 2

I booked my first acting gig as a result of getting into a bondage game with that producer from England with the hot tub. Pau—sorry, think I’ll call him Basingstoke* from now on—and I were fooling around in his sex dungeon when he asked me if the place was giving me any story ideas. This is how movies are born.

I told him it reminded me of one of my favorite flicks from the golden pre-Code days, The Mask of Fu Manchu (MGM, 1932), starring Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu and Myrna Loy as his “ugly and insignificant” daughter, Fah Lo See. With Karen Morley, Charles Starrett, etc etc and a cast of literally hundreds of male extras of various types. Was especially partial to the oiled and muscular mamelukes.

“Torturing Terence” from THE MASK OF FU MANCHU is available on my YT channel here / The entire film is available to watch here

mask of fu manchuFah Lo See watches with lust-crazed eyes as her dad turns the handsome English adventurer into her zombie love slave. She promises to be gentle, John.

Part 1 “Full Dress” here.
Part 3 “Sausalito Hot Tub” here.
Part 4 “Lovelace” here.

*All in affection, Paul.

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Cantara Christopher in Sadie (Bob Chinn director, Mitam Productions, 1980) as Indexed in the Database of the British Film Institute; and “Pictures of Lily” by Pete Townshend

This isn’t the picture of me at the BFI Database. It was sent to me by “John Fairfax”, who saw my posting on Twitter about my last feature film and my irritated comment about how I thought the British Film Institute had mixed me up with another (probably Asian) actress. And the dear chap actually went through the grueling task (in the name of research, of course) to find proof positive that the girl in the sarong in the other screenshot is not me, mostly because of the arms, hair, and height. And he sent it to me! So here I am in Sadie, a softcore version of Maugham’s story “Rain”, entertaining two men on the island, presumably Borneo. The bloke in the cap is my husband Doc, the only one on the island allowed to touch my goodies.

Above: The Who and Pete Townshend’s love song to sex workers everywhere, “Pictures of Lily”.

This was not only my last feature, but the last film of any length (including loops, shorts etc) I did during my screen days in San Francisco, before I got pregnant and eloped with the father of my child to New York’s East Village.

For years I’ve talked about my porn career like it was a lark—a daredevil stunt I pulled and lived to tell the tale. I certainly was never more physically beautiful than when I was in my early 20s, and really, I’ve got to tell you, it is a kick in the first flowering of old age to know that somewhere, somehow, even now yet still, someone is probably doing the stroke dance with one of your pictures. Because as long as a buck can be made from it, porn will never disappear.

Now here comes the freakin’ British Film Institute to spoil my fun. Now I have to consider myself a lousy but legitimate actress rather than a pretty good porn one? Do you Brits have to put a damper on everything?

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Cantara Christopher as Simona Wing in the Porn Classic, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (1981, Gerard Damiano director), Just for the Man I Love, BBC Conductor John Wilson

From 2020. Yesterday, Thanksgiving, a fan (thanks, Brian!) sent me a screenshot from one of my later movies, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.

I’m looking at you, John Wilson.

Beyond Your Wildest Dreams 940x512For Dream Girl #1: Carlos Santana’s hit “Oye como va” which I danced topless to in the 70s.

Lead in this feature was a fascinating woman named Juliet Anderson (here’s her interview in The Rialto Report), a classroom teacher who, in early middle age (39), started in porn and quickly became a star due to her talent in enthusiastic penilingism, plus she photographed well doing it. I was a little more delicate going about it but I think no less effective as an Oriental love doll. Fan Brian likens this pose to the one in “Cantara, 1973” except in 1973 I was 18 and this flick was shot 8 years later on a proper set.

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For the Fourth: “What could be more American than Santana closing the live lesbian love act at the Screening Room in San Francisco, circa 1979?” ~Simona Wing

Just like—oh, say—my beloved John Wilson conducting “Knightsbridge” in Salford being the most English thing in the world…

Screening Room, SF 1979Above my old workplace, “Evil Ways” from the album Santana, 1969. Find Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va?” played by Santana (from the album Abraxas, 1971) in my posting “Cantara Christopher as Simona Wing in the Porn Classic, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (1981, Gerard Damiano director), Just for the Man I Love, BBC Conductor John Wilson” here.

Here’re my two connections to musician-composer Carlos Santana and his music. One, The Kid attended Santana’s alma mater, Mission High, in our neighborhood the Mission across from gorgeous Dolores Park, where he used to cut classes and take his girlfriend of the moment, wouldn’t you? And two, Santana’s “Evil Ways” was the last number in the live lesbian love act I used to do years earlier with the other girls employed by Katherine (wife of “History of the Blue Movie” Alex) de Renzy, bless her rapacious little heart. Eight shows a day. Tickets ten dollars, and this was 1979. We got visitors from everywhere, sailors and Japanese businessmen and tourists from the hotels. Katherine pushed the Screening Room as a classy joint, classier even than the better-known O’Farrell Theatre up the street, but apples and oranges. I guess naked pillow fights are better suited to some tastes.

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My Own Favorite Porn Movies: He May Have Been English, But He Knew What He Was Doing

Before I did porn movies, I actually went to porn movies in the 1970s a lot, on 42nd Street usually, and always with a (male) date. Chic porn made for great dates in those days. Below is a still from The Naughty Victorians (1975), which is based on the enormously influential 1908(?)  novel, The Way of a Man with a Maid, which I’d already read as a teenager; by Anonymous, who I’m convinced was a woman.

The Naughty Victorians

Never worked with star Beerbohn Tree—he filmed on the East Coast and I filmed exclusively in California—but after reading his thoughtful interview in The Rialto Report I’m sure I would have enjoyed working with him. Once again thanks, Ashley!

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Carol Doda’s Condor Club on Broadway and Columbus, San Francisco, Circa 1979

Carol Doda’s Condor Club on Broadway and Columbus. I used to work the live hetero sex act at Adam and Eve’s (upstairs from Spec’s on Broadway) on this street in the late 70s, around when this picture was taken. Yes, Carol’s tits lit up at night.

Carol Doda's.jpgAbove: Donna Summer sings “Hot Stuff”. Would you download it if I told you I danced naked to it?

In November 1983, I heard, bouncer Jimmy Ferrozzo and his girlfriend, exotic dancer Theresa Hill, decided after hours to do the deed atop the famous white piano upon which, after being lowered from the ceiling by cables, Carol would make her nightly entrance. They accidentally hit the On switch, and the piano rapidly rose to the ceiling, trapping the couple. Ferrozzo was asphyxiated. Hill survived, only because she was thinner than Ferrozo.

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“Autumn” by Robert Chesley (1943-1990), Chosen by John Corigliano and Played by Members of the NY Philharmonic

I knew Chesley in San Francisco when I was working (when not working in a porn movie) as second electrics at the old Eureka Theatre (the good one, the one that produced David Rabe, Trevor Griffiths, Caryl Churchill etc) and he was a stage critic, composer and nascent playwright. He had been a fan of a show Mister Grumble and I were lighting at the time called The Rosy Black Life, and eventually we ended up following him to New York and lighting some of his own shows there at venues like the Three Dollar Bill Theatre in Chelsea. He was The Kid’s godfather.

Portrait by Rick Gerharter

Chesley.jpg

In tonight’s (1 June 2019) music series called Nightcap curated by composer John Corigliano members of the New York Philharmonic will perform Bob Chesley’s art song, “Autumn”, in their program Music of Conscience, which focuses on young composers who died of AIDS.

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Cantara, 1980

The producer of my first movie took this on his patio near the hot tub. Sorry, but he kept the nude shots.

Cantara, 1980.jpgMy youthful attempt to emulate Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus

PS – If you’re looking for my id, here it is.

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Give a Girl a Break (MGM, 1952): The Movie That Clinches My 3-Degrees Connection to English Conductor John Wilson

From Simona Wing to Gerard Damiano to Helen Wood to Andre Previn to John Wilson—Cantara’s three degrees from her beloved conductor.

Give a Girl a Break (trailer here) is a US 1953 musical comedy film starring Debbie Reynolds and the dance team of Marge and Gower Champion. Helen Wood, Richard Anderson, Kurt Kaszner and a young Bob Fosse have featured roles. At only 88 minutes, Give a Girl a Break shows residual elements of the big project it started out to be, with a passable score by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin, direction by Stanley Donen, and musical direction by Andre Previn.

Degree rule: You have to’ve personally worked with the person in the next degree. I worked with Damiano in his 1981 porn classic Beyond Your Wildest Dreams as Simona Wing; Damiano wrote and directed 1972’s Deep Throat, which Helen Wood (as Dolly Sharp) was in; Helen Wood co-starred in the musical Give a Girl a Break, on which the musical director was Andre Previn; Previn worked on the 2012 Proms My Fair Lady with my beloved John Wilson.

Above Marge, Debbie and Helen: The overture to the 2012 Proms My Fair Lady, with John conducting The John Wilson Orchestra in his own arrangement of Andre Previn’s orchestration of the film score.

GIVE A GIRL A BREAK is available in its entirety here

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