Remembering Houdini

[Steadmund Brand]

Steady, crossover to one of your other great loves, did you see the 70s movie Lisztimania?

OHHHHHH YOU ARE MY TWIN!!!!!! That is one of my favorite films...everything I love... Franz Liszt, Roger Daltry and KEN RUSSELL!! I wrote to Ken Russell years ago because of my love of his work, especially Lisztomania....and surprisingly he wrote back... quite a long letter...and from then on, until he passed away we kept a consistent correspondence.. he even sent me as a gift an original press kit and Poster of Lisztomania (or as he called it...the film that killed my studio life...) Ken was an amazing man, brilliant, charming and absolutely hilarious (his letters had me laughing out loud much of the time)... oh the stories he told me about Oliver Reed, working for the BBC and sneaking things past censors (in his one G rated film, The Boyfriend.. he managed to sneak 10 foot penises in the film by hiding them as curtain poles...I re-watched the film after he told me and damned if he didn't.. there they are clear as day!!)

GUT I really should talk to my mother and ask her why she never told me she visited Australia!!!!!

Steadmund Brand