Hasta La Gadget!

The deathbed can lead a person to mutter some pretty profound stuff — or not. Here’s a list of 13 alleged last words from 13 famous people.

“I should never have switched from Scotch to martinis.”

Said by Humphrey Bogart just before dying from cancer of the esophagus in 1957. Perhaps best known for his performance in “Casablanca,” Bogart was a heavy smoker much of his life. He won his only Oscar for his role in the 1951 film “The African Queen.”

“I finally get to see Marilyn.”

Said by Joe DiMaggio, speaking of his former love Marilyn Monroe. DiMaggio died in 1999 following a battle with lung cancer. At his bedside was his attorney, Morris Engelberg, who told Vanity Fair magazine that the Yankee great never got over Monroe’s death from an apparent drug overdose in 1962.

“Don’t you dare ask God to help me.”

Said by Joan Crawford when her housekeeper started praying after Crawford suffered a heart attack in 1977. She appeared in more than 80 movies, including “Mildred Pierce,” for which she won an Oscar for best actress.

“Surprise me.”

Said by Bob Hope after his wife Dolores asked him where he wanted to be buried. Hope, who entertained American troops around the world, died in 2003 at the age of 100. His death had been prematurely reported in 1998 when the Associated Press accidentally released a prepared obituary.

“I believe that a life lived for music is an existence spent wonderfully, and this is what I’ve dedicated my life to.”

Said by Luciano Pavarotti to his manager Terri Robson just before the Italian tenor died in 2007 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Pavarotti — considered by some critics to have been the greatest tenor since Enrico Caruso — was 71.

“I’m going to be with Gloria now.”

Said by Jimmy Stewart to his family just before dying in 1997, referring to his wife, Gloria, who had passed away three years earlier. The actor, 89 when he died, apparently never got over his wife’s death. The two were married 44 years.

“I’m going away tonight.”

Said by James Brown to his longtime manager Charles Bobbit just before dying of congestive heart failure. Considered “the Godfather of Soul,” Brown passed away on Christmas morning in 2006 at the age of 73.

“Oh, I am so bored with it all.”

Said by Winston Churchill shortly before slipping into a coma. The British Prime Minister died nine days later, on Jan. 24, 1965, at the age of 90. Churchill had suffered a stroke 15 days earlier.

“I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

Said Errol Flynn just before dying from a massive heart attack in 1959. The swashbuckling actor, dead at 50, was buried with six bottles of whiskey.

“Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I’m happy.”

Said Ethel Barrymore to her housekeeper Anna Albert just before dying in 1959 at the age of 79. The actress had been ill for some time from rheumatism and heart troubles. She took interest in all aspects of show business; a popular theater in New York City is named after her.

“I’ve had 18 straight whiskies… I think that’s the record.”

Said Dylan Thomas as he returned to the Hotel Chelsea in New York. Thomas died in 1953 at the age of 39, after succumbing to pneumonia. Although always a heavy drinker, his final words remain the subject of debate.

“Why not? After all, it belongs to him.”

Said Charlie Chaplin after a priest told him, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” The major star of the silent film era died in 1977 of natural causes. In a bizarre twist, Chaplin’s body was stolen from a cemetery in Switzerland by men who demanded a $600,000 ransom from Chaplin’s widow. The men were arrested and the body was recovered.

AND ONE MORE:

“Kurt Russell.”

Written by Walt Disney on a piece of paper just before he died of lung cancer. To this day, no one knows why he wrote Russell’s name. At the time, Russell was a child star working for the Disney studio. Disney died in 1966 at the age of 65.

New York Times editor Dean Baquet has spoken out at length for the first time about his role in the firing of his predecessor, Jill Abramson.

In an in-depth interview with NPR’s David Folkenflik, Baquet addressed several of the controversies that have surrounded Abramson’s ouster from the Times.

Abramson’s allies have said that she suffered from the sexism that seems to greet a great number of female bosses. The Times brass <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/05/arthur-sulzberger-interview-jill-abramson-firing
” target=”_hplink”>has insisted that she had dug her own grave through a series of bad managerial decisions.

What does not seem to be in dispute is that, at one point, Baquet, who was Abramson’s deputy, complained to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. about Abramson—and about her decision to pursue Guardian editor Janine Gibson for a managing editor role at the paper. (Whether or not she kept Baquet in the loop about Gibson is another matter of contention.)

In the NPR interview, Baquet dismissed the idea that Abramson’s gender played a role in her ouster, but he did admit that he had complained about her.

“Obviously, there was a significant disagreement between Jill and the publisher, and Jill and me,” he said, adding later, “I don’t think there’s any question that I made it known that I was a little unhappy.”

Seemingly referring to Abramson’s famously brusque managerial style, Baquet said he thought it was “nuts” to presume that top editors had to be “rough” on their staff. However, after Folkenflik pointed out that Baquet was known to have punched several holes in the walls of the Times’ Washington bureau, he acknowledged that he has a “temper,” though he added, “in each case I was mad at somebody above me in rank.” (One of the people above him in rank? Abramson.)

That admission could possibly fuel some of the criticism over Abramson’s ouster, as many have previously wondered why she was so often condemned for her style while Baquet maintained his beloved status even though he was sometimes angry enough to punch holes in walls.

Listen to the interview here:

As the sky dimmed to periwinkle on Wednesday evening, the bright pink Beverly Hills Hotel, normally resplendent around sunset, looked deeply melancholy. The American flag out front still flew at half-mast two days after Memorial Day. The earth in front of the entrance sign was torn up for spring landscaping and ringed with ominous caution tape.

The exterior of the hotel, deserted because of a boycott.

Most of all, the century-old hotel felt empty. Though the parking lot brimmed, as ever, with Bentleys, Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes, few guests could be seen sitting on their balconies or walking down the red carpet at the front entrance. Silence reigned.

Clearly, the celebrity-endorsed boycott of the hotel, over its owner the sultan of Brunei’s implementation of harsh Sharia law, which punishes homosexuality and adultery with death, in his small island nation, was a success. Large organizations have canceled major events at the hotel, bookings have plummeted and the management has gone into crisis mode. Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres and Anna Wintour told people to stay away, and most have fallen in line.

But not everyone. A few devoted supporters of both gay rights and the Beverly Hills Hotel, convinced that the boycott was counterproductive, decided to host a party on the balcony of the hotel’s Bar 1912 to show support for the hotel staff and to thumb their noses at the sultan of Brunei.

The party’s ringleader was the actress Rose McGowan, who once lived at the Beverly Hills Hotel for five months. She invited dozens of friends and acquaintances to the event in an email on Tuesday, explaining that she thinks the boycott is unlikely to succeed in changing the sultan’s mind, but is guaranteed to hurt the livelihoods of hardworking hotel employees.

“I want to assemble a group of men and women (and hopefully some adulteresses,) that would be stoned in Brunei but that will be welcome at the BH,” she wrote.

Attendees at the party included actors, producers and fashion designers.

At 7:30 p.m., when the event was scheduled to start, McGowan was nowhere to be found, but her friend Amanda Goodwin — like her, an actress and director — was welcoming people to the party.

“Rose and I came up with the idea for this whole thing together,” Goodwin said. “We were talking on Facebook about what was going on here, and we just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we got together some fabulous people, gay and straight, and responded to this hate with love instead of ignoring it?'”

“Listen,” Goodwin continued, “I’m gay. I’m married to a woman. I hate what the sultan is doing to people in Brunei. But I don’t think that responding to what he’s doing with more hate is the answer. I really feel that way. I think it’s great that we’re here, being gay, sitting on his sofa. I really want to gay this place up.

“A lot of people have asked me whether I’d go if it were Hitler,” she said.

Well, would she?

“Probably. I think I would. I’d go, and I’d say, ‘I’m a Jew.'”

A group of nattily-dressed men arrived and started handing out multicolored beads and miniature rainbow flags. “Protest!,” one yelled, to laughter.

One of the newcomers, Brian Wolk, a designer and co-owner of the fashion label Ruffian, compared the party with demonstrations in the civil rights movement.

“Would you have told Rosa Parks not to get on that bus?” Wolk asked. “That she should just boycott because they didn’t like her?”

When McGowan arrived a few minutes later, the party had swelled to about 25 people. McGowan ordered a glass of rose and started explaining the idea behind the party. She emphasized her loathing of the sultan’s enforcement of Sharia, noting that she had been walking in gay pride parades and advocating for marriage rights for decades. But she said she felt that the boycott was misguided.

“Boycotts only work when they hurt the target’s bottom line,” McGowan argued. “We are never going to affect the sultan’s bottom line. He’s worth $20 billion! This is a vanity project for him. It could sit empty for 100 years and he wouldn’t even notice. But meanwhile, we’re hurting all the wonderful, struggling people who work in the hotel.”

McGowan, the host of the gathering.

McGowan said that the hotel management had agreed to pick up the tab for the night’s drinks, so their gathering wouldn’t be lining the coffers of the sultan. But she said they would tip the staff handsomely to help make up for gratuities lost due to the boycott. The hotel has committed to not laying off any employees, and to paying them above and beyond their salaries to compensate for lost business. But many have said they’re still making far less than normal.

“Trust me — the person who’s suffering right now is not the sultan,” McGowan said. “It’s my friend Ruth, who’s been working in the diner downstairs for years, and can barely pay her rent.”

At one point, photographer Andrew McLeod approached McGowan with his iPhone open, and showed her a photo of the party he’d just posted to Instagram. “The hashtag we decided on was #takebackthebhh. Do you like it?” he asked.

McGowan shrugged. “I was hoping for #9021gay,” she said.

“Or what about #CampBeverlyHills,” Goodwin suggested with a laugh.

“Too subtle,” McGowan said. “I don’t think people would get it. And not everyone here is camp …”

Goodwin nodded, chastened. “True,” she said. “I’m glad about that. I was worried a bunch of people would come dressed up in latex knee-highs, or assless chaps or something — the type of thing people are always wearing in photos of Gay Pride …”

“I didn’t want that,” McGowan said, “I specifically asked people not to do that.”

“This is much better. It shows we’re people, not freaks. We come in all shapes and sizes,” Goodwin said.

“I think that’s the message I’d like to get across to the sultan with this event,” McGowan responded. “I’d like him to see that gays are real people. I think that’s the only thing that would change his mind — not a boycott.”

McGowan admitted, though, that the chances of getting the sultan to capitulate on Sharia were slim.

“I think the sultan of Brunei would ideally evaporate. And that the Beverly Hills Hotel would return to the city,” she said. “But I don’t think a boycott is going to make that happen. And there’s just too much collateral damage.”

“That’s why we’re doing this; to support the staff,” Goodwin said. “This has nothing to do with the sultan.”

McGowan nodded enthusiastically in agreement. “That’s true,” she said. “Really, it’s about the opposite of everything he stands for. It’s about love, not hate. Given the choice between boycotting and helping people, I’m always going to choose the latter.”

Attendees of the party, with several employees of the hotel.

I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of disaster, end-of-the-world movies. Perhaps because such films typically focus on an event and not the human consequences. I’m all about the human story.

So, for the first twenty odd minutes, Zak Hilditch’s These Final Hours, which screened in Cannes in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, appeared to me like a really well shot, fantastically acted B movie. There was a buff, handsome leading man fighting, testosterone oozing, a hammer, nails embedded in flesh and even a machete wielding lunatic. All in your face, loud and vivid. But then a little girl took over the screen, Rose, an intricately written, important, wise girl who changed everything. And the movie became, suddenly, my kind of movie.

These Final Hours has a wisdom beyond its apocalyptic theme, just as Rose is a girl wise beyond her years. The message of the film comes across perfectly because of Hilditch’s great script, Bonnie Elliott’s wondrous cinematography, Emma Bortignon’s epic sound design, but also, most importantly, the two leading performances by Nathan Phillips as James and Angourie Rice as Rose. Their chemistry on screen is the stuff cinematic dreams are made of, and their relationship hints at the best of humanity. While they await together the end of the world, quickly approaching Perth, Australia after having rolled through the rest of the earth for the past twelve hours, we find within their characters our fears, our hopes and our best intentions. It’s a brilliant premise.

I sat down with the filmmaker and his stars on a beach in Cannes. The result was insightful, interesting but also super fun, thanks to the give and take between Rice and Phillips, which carries on beyond the film.

This feeling of humanity redeeming itself has been a thread for this festival. So what made you want to make a film like These Final Hours?

Zak Hilditch: I’m just a lover of genre films that do more than you’d expect. Films that focus on how people react to a fantastical situation. The human condition during that and not the other way around, films that focus on the event and the people are kind of in the way of the explosions. Which is usually what you get. I love movies, smart science fiction like 12 Monkeys, 28 Days Later. They’ve got heart, they’ve got soul, they make you think. This was my attempt to make a film that I would hope would be in that vein. I just think that looking at the ultimate question, what would you do in the last seconds on earth, it’s actually a universal question and one thing I love about it is that everyone has their own answer. And I just happened to have made one film about one character’s journey. Everyone will have their own answer and everyone will have a completely different answer from the next person, about what they would do, what they would be feeling, where they feel they would truly belong. You think about these natural disasters that happened to people and their lives are taken away in an instant, they don’t see it coming and it’s all over. But I thought, what if you turn that on its head, you could see it coming, you still couldn’t stop it, what would you do? You would be forced to act. Instantly act, where should I go, who should I see and again, ultimately, how should I behave. Will I hold on to my moral fiber, or will I just throw it away to go the party to end all parties? It’s such a loaded question.

Another thread at this festival has been about strong, independent women. So how do you play a role like Rose, so wise beyond her years?

Angourie Rice: I was 11 when I did the film and I think Rose is one of those characters who knows everything and she knows how things have to be and that some things are best left unspoken, and I think she’s just really wise, because she really believes in God and she’s been teased before. I think her dad definitely influenced her strength, because her mother died so she would have needed so much strength to get through that. I think that powers her through the journey to get to her dad.

But a lot of those really strong choices, you’ve made as an actress. What place did you go to, in order to find that?

Rice: I really like to make strong choices and I don’t mind my opinions to be heard. But I think it comes from my parents, they are very artistic people, they love showing their work. My mother is a playwright, and my father is a theater director. They’ve really influenced me about what I say, and that helped me with Rose.

So it’s the end of the earth…

Nathan Phillips: Is it??

In the film, I mean. You find your humanity, or has James always had that humanity but just needed to reconnect to it though Rose?

Phillips: I think, we all have it. James represents the human condition, that we all get lost and we all forget how simple life really is and how important it is just to be connected with each other… And James has that opportunity through Rose, she’s the protagonist for change, for growth. It’s cool that the characters are inspired by this.

How did you cast your actors and did you have to try them out together a lot, to make sure Rose and James worked onscreen as a duo?

Hilditch: I was just really lucky. I didn’t really know who I wanted to cast so we auditioned everybody. There was no person attached to the script. We auditioned a lot of people for each role and especially James, we saw a lot of people. When I saw Nathan’s self test, that he sent through from Los Angeles, it blew me away. When you see something and someone is bringing your words to life for the first time. He was given nothing, he was given the scene and filmed himself. Did his own interpretation and he just was James. He could handle himself in a fight and handle any man but he also needed sensitivity, and vulnerability. He needed that tenuous mix and Nathan had it in spades! With the two of them, they’d never met each other but they were both cast and so it was all really in the rehearsals before we shot.

You didn’t test them out?

Hilditch: No, not together, I just knew. Sometimes you just know and then we had a lot of lunches in the lead-up, the weeks before we shot, to meet each other. We got to hang out a lot, more than overcook the script. We didn’t want to make it stale, we wanted to keep it fresh. So we’d do the scene and then do it again and then we’d talk about it and move on to the next one. Just for me to hear it aloud. I like to work like that. I like to keep things as fresh as possible on set, and if you’ve got the right cast, you’ve got the right players, you can throw them into the game and play with it. You don’t have to rely on a tedious rehearsal period.

And what drew you to the role of James, Nathan?

Phillips: The premise, the story, so surreal yet it’s believable, not that far from a reality that could happen now.

Were you ever afraid that it could be unbelievable?

Phillips: No, because I saw his short film so I already knew that the proof was in the pudding, as a filmmaker. I saw Transmission, and I knew the producer and Zak already had something special, and I saw her [Rice] already and there she was a year younger, I imagined her a year later. I was really lucky because I trusted it. But I knew filmmaking and I knew how important it was to have Rose, as part of the film. People would follow and believe her, for a young girl to take on that role.

And Zak, how has your experience in Cannes been?

Hilditch: Mind-blowing. First time in Europe, first time in Cannes and I don’t think it’s really going to sink in until I’m home, and I get to process it. When you are here, you don’t have time to stop and process, when I go home I’ll look back at all of this, this blur and I’ll go “Wow! I was actually there?!” I keep looking out at this view and wondering if I’m here, really here. It’s been an amazing festival, the Olympics of film festivals. I’ll never forget this experience.

This may be a bit cliché. What would you, Nathan and Angourie do on your last day on earth?

Phillips: It’s not cliche at all, that’s why we made the film.

Maybe a bit cliché now because you’ve made the film…

Phillips: But we’ve thought about it every day. We talked about it every day. It’s always fundamentally the same. Be around people you love and do something special. What we should do every day.

What would your last meal be?

Phillips: I would cook some beautiful asparagus, with garlic, and salmon on the barbecue.

And you Angourie, last day on earth?

Rice: I would go somewhere I’ve always wanted to go…

Phillips: Which is?

You make a great journalist, Nathan!

Rice: I’m not sure…

Phillips: Oh but you must know, what if the world was ending tomorrow…

Rice: I’ve never been to Asia, I’ve never been to China, Thailand, Japan.

Phillips: OK, now pick one now.

Rice: I don’t know… Egypt! I’ve never been to Egypt before and I loved it, when I was a kid, I always wanted to go there. See the Pyramids.

Phillips: That was clarity!

And your last meal?

Rice: Raisin toast with Nutella.

Images courtesy of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, used with permission

Everyone knows how rainbows appear—they just need water, sunlight and you—but have you ever wondered how double rainbows form? In this video, LeVar Burton explains how they form.

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