Funny Lady first time

Here's a newspaper ad promoting Funny Lady from a San Antonio newpaper- now in it's record 3rd week! I got it from my friend Larry who clipped it out of an old newspaper way back when, since I didn't become a Barbra fan until 1976. It's odd that the ad shows Barbra from the right profile. By that time it was well established she preferred being photographed on the left side. Pretty sure the images of both of them are flipped from the actual shot.

I did end up seeing it at this theater during the fall of '76 though. Before A Star is Born came out, this theater had a 3 week run of 3 of Barbra's movies. Best I recall the other two were Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! At this time I hadn't seen Funny Lady, but I had the soundtrack album, so I just had to see the movie. Since I had just gotten my driver's license I was not allowed to drive into the big city yet, so I pleaded and begged with my parent's to drive me into San Antonio to see it. By the fall of '76 Funny Lady had played out all it's screenings, so my only choice was to see it now or wait a couple of more years before it would most probably air on network TV. My parents weren't the type to make a special drive to the next county over to see a movie. It almost took an act of Congress, but I got them to take me there.

The Northstar Cinema was a nice theater back then. I believe Funny Lady was an exclusive screening at this theater until moving over into the neightborhood and second-run theaters. Notice in the warning in the box: Management does not recommend PG films for younger children! Yep folks, that's how conservative San Antonio was back then! Needless to say, this theater doesn't exist anymore.

Streis-hound

This is a rather amusing (or odd, depending on your perspective) greeting card I found back in the late '90s. The artist, Marty Ruiz, did a series of celebrity-animal cards. It's hard to tell in the scan, but the card has glitter glued to it. According to the note enclosed with the card, it is a one-of-kind miniature piece of art! With the Daisy Gamble look-alike wig and imitation Arnold Scassi outfit and the doggie Academy Award, was obviously inspired from Barbra's first Oscar.

More A Star is Born - Sun Devil Stadium

Another shot of location shooting at Sun Devil Stadium for A Star is Born. Gary Busey is to the left. Don't know who the bearded men are, but considering they are on both sides of Barbra, I'd say they are important.

[one of the readers has informed me that the gentleman with the white beard and the white hat is the director, Frank Pierson]

September 27, 2000 VIP

V.I.P. ticketholders for the September 27, 2000 concert at Madison Square Garden (one of the "final four" concerts) were given this information sheet.

On Location with Hello, Dolly!

Yes Virginia, there really is a Vandergelder's Hay and Feed.

Garrison, New York stood in for a turn of the century Yonkers in Hello, Dolly! The town was gussied up for the movie, but a few remnants remain to this day (or at least until 2004 when this photo was taken). The etched glass in the doors for Vandergelder's still exist. The building has seen better days.

On the Hello, Dolly! backlot 1976

Part of the backlot at 20th Century Fox caught fire around 1976+/- burning part of the Hello, Dolly! set. The burned area in this shot appears to be around Irene Malloy's hat shop. Hope she had insurance.

I did a little more research and found the following in The Great Movie Musical Trivia Book:

On June 21, 1977, fire broke out on the still-standing Manhattan exterior set, wrapped around the studio buildings of the Twentieth Century-Fox lot. Reported to the Los Angeles County Fire Department at 4:51 p.m., the blaze consumed a three-building section of the set in about eighteen minutes. Nine Los Angeles County fire units and one Beverly Hills Fire Department unit quickly contained the flames, which were visible from the streets outside the studio gate at Pico Boulevard and Motor Avenue. There were no injuries.

"It looked worse than it was," said the Fox Vice President of Operations, Bernie Barron, to The Hollywood Reporter. "The bulk of the 'Dolly' street, a city landmark, remains intact." There were no companies shooting on the sets, or scheduled to do so, at the time of the fire.

On the Hello, Dolly! backlot 1971

This screen capture is from a featurette about the making of The Poseidon Adventure. That's Irwin Allen in the Rolls. The Hello, Dolly! set was close to it's original condition then.