A Fan's Notes

1972

Julie Robinson was a luminously beautiful actress who appeared in three films in the 1971-72 era:

• A Safe Place (1971)
  
• The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
  
• A Fan's Notes (1972)
  

She is so dimly remembered that IMDb has her filmography completely screwed up. Those three films are attributed to three different actresses: Julie Robinson (II), Julia Robinson (II), and Julia Anne Robinson. She is credited here as Julia Anne Robinson, although IMDb scores it in the Julie (II) column. She was an interesting, complicated person whose wholesome, glamorous appearance belied her background as a semi-famous hippie with some serious addiction problems. She had actually traveled with Ken Kesey on the legendary magic bus, and apparently had developed some serious drug issues along the way. Peter Biskind discussed her at some length in "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," because producer/director Bob Rafelson was obsessed with her and thought he could make her a star. Ms. Robinson certainly had the looks for stardom, but there was one thing that prevented her from being the next Julie Christie in the glammed-up hippie department: she had absolutely no acting talent. She delivered every line with an awkward stiffness that sounded like a 5th grader reading aloud in a remedial class.

Actually, I guess there was another thing that cut her career short. The other major factor is that she died in a fire, an event which is generally not conducive to prolonging any career, possibly excepting Larry King's.

Up until today, I thought her only screen nudity was in The King of Marvin Gardens, but that's because I had never seen A Fan's Notes, despite the fact that the source novel is one of my ten favorite books, and is often considered to be among the very best "first novels" ever written. It's not just me who missed this film. Nobody has seen it, even though the lead role was played by a future star, Jerry Orbach. It's an obscure, poorly paced Canadian film filled with the typical self-indulgence of the early 1970s, absent any of the quirky counter-culturalism, fiery passion and gritty realism that made some of the films of that era memorable. I'm not certain of this, but I don't think it has ever been issued on any home media, not even on VHS. The only reason I have seen it now is that Warner, which owns it, has put it up on their YouTube catalogue channel, where you can watch it for two bucks, as I did. Unlike, say, Amazon's VOD program, Warner's channel doesn't have an "own it" option, and they protect their files with all kids of encryption, so I wasn't able to capture the substantial nudity in the film, because my only option was to "screen grab" video in real time, which is a tedious process that leads to generally unsatisfactory results. I made an exception for Julie even though she didn't show very much, just because of her extraordinary beauty and the fact that we were not previously aware of this modest nude scene.

Let all of that serve as a preamble, warning you that the following clip manages to combine minimal nudity with poor quality, and is of interest mostly for historical reasons, making it simultaneously a great find and a great disappointment.

Julie (aka Julia Anne) Robinson

My Week With Marilyn

2011

I don't really have much to say about the film itself, which is little more than a fond personal remembrance of one young man's brush with two famous and powerful screen icons, the future Lord Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. Watching this film is a very pleasant way to pass the time, but nothing about it is especially earth-shattering or memorable.

Except Michelle Williams.

Michelle Williams doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe; she isn't built like her; she doesn't sound like her; and yet there is really never a moment in the film when you doubt that you're watching the complicated private person who was really inside the public figure we are familiar with. Michelle managed to capture the combination of vulnerability, insecurity, playfulness and sexiness that made Marilyn one of the greatest screen icons in history. Her performance makes you want to protect her from the outside world and her own demons, just as men wanted to protect the real MM. I have seen all of the other Oscar candidates for the best actress award, and if I had a ballot, it would go to Michelle.

My Week With Marilyn is about the making of a film called The Prince and the Showgirl, and the story was interesting enough to get me to watch the original, which I had never seen.

And she has a cute butt as well.

TV Round-Up

More great nudity from Kaboul Kitchen. This time it's Caroline Bal in episode four.