Urban Cowboy

Spending the long weekend with son, daughter-in-law, daughter and Aussie, we did a lot of talking about lots of stuff. Being family we agree and disagree, but one thing we all gave a big nod to was that Urban Cowboy was one of the best movies ever. John Travolta was the perfect Bud; Debra Winger was the perfect Sissy; and we all know someone like Scott Glenn's Wes Hightower. Also Looking for Love is the perfect country/western song. If you're too young or too old to remember this movie, rent it on DVD and enjoy a real Texas story with a universal theme.

Think about this: The role of Bud was written for Dennis Quaid and Michelle Pfeiffer was originally cast as Sissy.

Spielberg Joins 2008 Olympics

Film-maker Steven Spielberg is joining the design team for the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a consultant to Zhang Yimou who will lead the team.

Spielberg, whose last film, Munich, concentrated on the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, said: "Our one goal is to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding. Through the visual arts, the art of celebration of life, we are dedicated to making this the most emotional opening ceremony ever."

Zhang, 54, said: "I'm very honoured. I make a solemn promise to the Chinese people I will complete the task beautifully and successfully."

The opening ceremony is scheduled to take place in the Chinese capital on 8 August 2008.

It's Springtime in the Hill Country!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Kiss Those Pounds Good-bye

This is the sandwich which will make you shed 85 pounds! (English currency, not weight) The McDonald sandwich - named after its creator Scott McDonald, the chef at London department store Selfridges - is said to be the world's most expensive. Its cost is down to the Wagyu beef that makes up most of the filling, packed in a 24-hour fermented sour dough bread. Wagyu cattle are one of the most expensive breeds in the world. The Japanese cows are raised on a special diet, including beer and grain. They are supposed to be regularly massaged with sake, the Japanese rice wine, to tenderize the flesh. The ingredients of the sandwich are Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit and English plum tomatoes.

Here's Our Mary in Portrait

Danish Royal Watchers is a terrific blog for everything that's "Danish royalty news". Go there to see photos of the unveiling and a photo of the entire portrait. Pictured on left is the center portion of the work.

This is an excerpt from the press release concerning the portrait:

It was the expressed wish of the museum that the portrait was not to be a typical official portrait, but a more personal characterization of the new member of the Danish Royal Family.

Since his first sitting with the Crown Princess in May 2005, Heimans has been working intensively on the portrait and has repeatedly visited Denmark. The result is a resounding success: a work that fuses the Crown Princess’ present day situation with her Australian heritage.

The Princess is seen in the Garden Room of Fredensborg Palace, where Lauritz Tuxen more than 100 years ago painted King Christian IX Danish and his extensive Pan-European family. She is getting ready to leave the palace - her coat lies at the ready over a chair, and she is putting on her gloves. She gazes pensively at something we cannot see. The room around her is multifaceted and labyrinthine: It is reflected outwards and inwards in the great mirrors that Heimans has replaced the room’s actual landscape paintings with. In the mirror behind Mary, a glimpse of Hobart can be seen, and in another mirror, a reflection of the Danish flag can be detected in the ceiling. In this way, the painting represents the Crown Princess on the brink between the old life and the new, the known territory and the unknown. At first glance, it is difficult to find one’s bearing, but the Crown Princess seems calm and confident, ready for her challenge.

Canberra Portrait of CP Mary

Chinese-born Australian Jiawei Shen made this portrait of Crown Princess for Canberra. It is currently on display in the Australian capital, but will be a temporary part of the exhibit in Denmark when the first official portrait of the Crown Princess is unveiled tomorrow.

Crown Princess Mary's Portrait

Tomorrow at the National History Museum at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark's first official portrait of Crown Princess Mary is unveiled. It has been executed by the Australian artist Ralph Heimans, who makes links between Mary's old and new homelands in a way which accentuates her particular background. The Danish magazine, Billed-Bladet, reports that Ralph Heimans has found Mary to be a wonderful subject since they met 10 months ago (last May). During that time he has made five visits to The Chancellery House at Fredensborg, where Crown Prince Frederik dropped in on proceedings to check out how things were going. Heimans says he was nervous to begin with because he hadn't painted a royal before, but Mary was so down-to-earth and charming that she put him at ease and made him feel welcome straight away. So far nothing has been revealed about the painting except that it is painted in oil and is 1.7 metres high and 2.5 metres wide.

To view some of Ralph Heimans's work, visit his website.

Judy Collins

Aussie and I saw Judy Collins at the Kerrville Folk Festival a few years ago. Her voice is still amazing! She sang Someday Soon, Both Sides Now, Amazing Grace and lots of other songs, accompanying herself on guitar and piano. (That's Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary accompanying Judy in the photo.) She's appearing now in Australia on the east coast. Here is a poignant excerpt from an interview she did for Australian Broadcasting, the ABC.
MARK BANNERMAN: The 1960s were kind to Judy Collins, the next two decades would show her that other side of life. First there was the battle with alcoholism. What drew you into that?

JUDY COLLINS: I was born with the Irish virus. That's easy. I came by it honestly through centuries and centuries of ancestors, I am sure. I even know some of them - who some of them were.

MARK BANNERMAN: Was it tough to give it up?

JUDY COLLINS: I had a very dark about four years where I was drinking around the clock. I thought, well, it is all over. What will I do if I can't sing. So I started to think about what will I do if I can't sing? Then I thought I don't have a choice. I think I 'm going to have to give it up and I went into treatment.

MARK BANNERMAN: Alcoholism may have been hard to deal with, but the death of her son by suicide was much tougher again. You said something that in a sense is very brave, that you said "That decision ultimately to commit suicide must be respected".

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely. If you don't have that right, then you don't have any rights. A human being.

MARK BANNERMAN: You really feel that?

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely.

MARK BANNERMAN: Despite the pain it's brought you?

JUDY COLLINS: Well, if you've had a suicide in your life, then you have no right to take your life because you know too much.

MARK BANNERMAN: A decade on, though, Judy Collins, it seems, is back, aligned with old friends she's found a new lease on life. And all of it because of live music.

JUDY COLLINS: It's a shared understanding of the meaning of art and the meaning of music in people's lives and live music in people's lives is deeply important. It's deeply healing and it's deeply spiritual.

Counting Time

Set your alarm for 1:02 a.m. tonight, and three seconds later, you can revel in the fact that it's 01:02:03 04/05/06. Won't happen again for exactly a century.

Paul Simon's New Release

After several years of work, Paul Simon is ready to release Surprise, his first album since 2000. Simon latest effort is a collabration with U2's producer Brian Eno, the avant-garde artist best known for his musical work with Robert Fripp, Talking Heads, David Bowie and U2.

Simon insists that their working together is not as strange as it (or the resulting album) sounds.

"We're both 'sounds' people," Simon explained. "We're both about soundscapes. I thought he would bring an element that I hadn't ever encountered before, electronics, into a guitar record. Theoretically, it seemed to be a good idea. And when we actually did it, you could tell right away it was a good idea."

Simon was a fan of Eno's eclectic work, and they met at a London dinner party. They decided to "throw it together, see what the mix of sounds were, see what we produced," Simon recalled.
The results are evident from the opening track, "How Can You Live in the Northeast?," where Simon's songwriting meets Eno's wall of sounds to almost hypnotic effect. "Outrageous" is the hilarious tale of a middle-aged man doing 900 sit-ups a day while "painting my hair the color of mud."

And there's the autobiographical "Sure Don't Feel Like Love," with its lyric about a man who remembers how "once in August 1993 I was wrong/And I could be wrong again."

"That's pretty much me," Simon confessed with a soft chuckle. "You think of it. It's hilariously arrogant."

Back to Texas for the Summer!

Well, I just got back to Texas and here is what was there to greet me.....

But she is Fabulous!

Gone To Texas!

We start our semi-annual trek to Texas today, flying to Sydney, then LA, then San Antonio. The beauty pictured here will be on our doorstep less than 24 hours after our arrival. We. Can't. Wait.

New Star in Royal Box

Kate Middleton, the girlfriend of Prince William, appeared with Prince Charles in the Royal Box at the Cheltenham Festival Gold Cup raceday. The popular 24 year-old is the odds-on favorite to be engaged to the second-in-line by raceday next year. Prince William was unable to attend the event as he is busy with military training at Sandhurst. Kate even managed a little controversy as she appeared to be wearing a fur hat with her biege coat. She looked wonderful!

Crowe and Washington: AMERICAN GANGSTER

Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington will co-star in Ridley Scott's new film American Gangster which will begin filming in the mid to late part of this year. The film is set in the 1970s and based on the true story of how drug lord Frank Lucas smuggled heroin into the US in the coffins of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. "It's about one of the biggest and most notorious drug dealers in the history of America, Frank Lucas, and a New York detective, Richie Roberts, who tracks him down," said Washington who will play drug dealer Lucas while Crowe takes the part of detective Richie Roberts. Washington, 51,who won the best actor Oscar in 2002 for Training Day, beating fellow nominee Crowe ( A Beautiful Mind), says he relishes the challenge of working with Hollywood's best.

Cyclone Damage to Reef

Northeastern Queensland experienced a Category 5 hurricane earlier in the week. The damage to property and crops has been tremendous. Now scientists are alarmed about the damage which has likely occurred to parts of the Great Barrier Reef which were in the cyclone's path. Coral bleaching experts aboard the Pelican One are going to the reef today to inspect and report on the damage. They expect to see broken coral and patches of missing reef.

Aussie and I love the reef and have snorkeled there several times. It's heartbreaking to think of the possibility of damage to that fragile environment, but cyclones are a natural occurrence at least. Better than a supertanker plowing through the reef which has happened also.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
a full moon on a dark night,
and the road downhill all the way to your door.

Touring Egypt's Great Sphinx: Be Warned!

The ancient builders of the Great Sphinx trenched out a deep, U-shaped ditch that isolated a huge rectangular bedrock block for carving the Sphinx. This enclosure is deepest immediately around the body, with shelf at the rear of the monument where it was left unfinished and a shallower extension to the north where important archaeological finds have been made.

When Aussie and I were visiting the Great Sphinx last November, we exited the temple ruin (at the red arrow) into the area where many people were crowded in having their photos taken with the sphinx as a background (at the green arrow). With Aussie aiming the camera at me, I backed up, never seeing the sheer drop of 50 feet behind me. I was standing on the very edge of the drop-off; one tiny step back and I would have fallen into that pit! Coming out of the shade into the sun and the optical effect of the sphinx being on the same level as the top of the embankment completely fooled my eye. I didn't see my mistake until I took the camera and Aussie turned to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't backing over the edge!

Facelift for Egypt's Sphinx

The Great Sphinx of Giza, one of the most famous monuments of pharaonic Egypt, is to get a facelift, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture says. Restoration work is to focus on the half-man half-lion statue's neck and chest, rendered fragile by the erosion of desert winds. The 73-metre long and 20-metre high Sphinx, believed to have been built 5,000 years ago, is situated close to the Great Pyramids of Giza just outside Cairo. The Sphinx will remain accessible to the public during the restoration work.

Kidman in FUR

Nicole Kidman has completed work on her new film, Fur, the life of photographer Diane Arbus (far lt) whose images of transvestites, dwarfs, twins, and other unusual persons - she called them freaks - were popular in the 1960s. After her suicide in 1971, Arbus was the first American photographer to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale. It was announced in Feb 2006 that Fur would be a contender at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is due for release in October 2006.

It's A Boy!

Russell Crowe has announced that the child he and his wife Danielle Spencer are expecting is a boy. Their first son Charlie (pictured) wants to name him Pumpkinhead or Stinky. Crowe also said he would be in the delivery room with a video camera when his second son is born.

Terri Hendrix

Terri Hendrix is a San Antonio-born, San Marcos-based singer, songwriter who appears in venues and at festivals throughout Texas and the US. Her music is a mix of folk, roots-pop, country and scat-jazz. Aussie and I subscribe to her monthly email newsletter Goat Notes which arrived late this month, but with this explanation: My newly adopted dog, Buddy — long story — snatched a pair of my underwear from my laundry basket, bolted out the doggie door, and before I could catch him, swallowed them whole. Needless to say, when I was supposed to be writing my GoatNotes, I was on the phone with Pet Emergency services attempting to understand the damages that consuming a pair of Hanes Her Way could inflict on a mutt's digestive system. The next day, I dropped Buddy off at the vet, and a few hours
later got word that everything was going to be OK, as he'd just regurgitated my undies in front of the entire veterinary staff. A few days later, when I picked Buddy up from the vet (I'd been on the road), I was greeted by a chorus of giggles. That's when I learned that, during his ordeal, my mutt's cage had proudly displayed a sign that read, "Please monitor Buddy for a large pair of Terri Hendrix's underwear." Friends, I know this sounds like "the dog ate my
homework" and that's why my assignment's not in. Butt (pun intended), it's definitely a true story.

Here is Terri's website.

More Water in Space

The Cassini space probe has found evidence of geysers erupting from underground pools of liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Huge plumes of ice gushing from the moon's south pole region were seen in high-definition photos beamed back from the Cassini probe. Being at MacDonald Observatory when the Cassini sent back its first pictures, I can tell you that astronomers there were beside themselves with excitement. Many said that these photos would move space exploration in our galaxy forward by huge leaps, and it looks as if their enthusiasm was warranted. Mars and Europa, which is one of Jupiter's moons, are the other two sources of water discovered so far in our galaxy. Read more about water geysers on Enceladus here.

Overlooked Film: "Millions"

Millions is a delightful film which tells the story of two brothers who are thrilled to find a stash of bank robbery money but are faced with the daunting task of spending it in a week before the UK pound is converted to the euro. Damien, the seven year old, is determined to give all the money to the poor; Anthony, the nine year old, is thinking more about property investment. The one thing they agree on is that they can't just walk into a bank with a note from dad and deposit it! While the disposal of the windfall is the device, what the film actually explores is how the two children and their father deal with the recent loss of the children's mother. Damien knows all the saints and their stories and he sees them, recognizes them, and gets their advice. The story is whimsical, imaginative, and full of joy. Set around the Christmas season, but not really a Christmas story, it would be great for family viewing during the holidays.

Hot Time in Perth

Long weekend weather was hot and it continues today. Over 36C for the last week and little relief for the rest of the week. Sunset fishermen love the heat for night fishing. Sunsets are spectacular!

My Favorite Oscar Moment(s)

Looking back over the Academy Awards tv show, this was my favorite Oscar moment. Nick Park and his co-director Steve Box stole the show when they came on stage for winning Best Animated Feature for Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the WereRabbit and fastened tiny, striped bowties on their Oscars which matched their own huge, striped bowties. Appropriate and harmless fun! (OK, I liked the penguins too.)

Salute to Best Book

On World Book Day 2006 a survey of librarians named Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird the one book every adult should read before they die. Since this is my all-time favorite book, I had to let you know that librarians across the world agree with me! In brief this is the story of a poor black man of the Depression Era South who is accused of raping a white girl and the consequences for everyone in the small town who become involved. In depth it is the compassionate story of rural southern America, its people, its poverty, and its pride.

Aussies at the Oscars

So far three Aussies have appeared on the Red Carpet: Naomi Watts, Eric Bana, and Heath Ledger. More Aussies are expected.

Oscar Blog

For those of us who will not get the Academy Award ceremony live, there's a live blog available online from Pink Armadillo here.

Remember that you must reload or refresh your browser to receive new posts to a live blog.

Religion or Cult?

Read this interesting article "Inside Scientology" written by Janet Reitman for Rolling Stone magazine. Then ask: Is it a religion or is it a cult? The answer will be clear.

Overlooked Film: "A Perfect World"

Double Academy Award winners Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood confront each other from opposite sides of the law in A Perfect World, an acclaimed, multi-layered manhunt saga (directed by Eastwood) that rumbles down Texas backroads toward a harrowing collision with fate.

Costner plays Butch Haynes, a hardened prison escapee on the lam with a young hostage (T J Lowther in a remarkable film debut) who sees in Butch the father figure he never had. Eastwood is wily Texas Ranger Red Garnett, leading deputies and a criminologist (Laura Dern) in a statewide pursuit. Red knows every road and pothole in the Panhandle. What's more, he knows the elusive Haynes — because their paths have crossed before.

Ella Update

Our precious little Miss Ella Grace is 7 months old! Here she is in her nursery with her bear. In the photo next to her is her "hours old" photo. Ella has a delightful personality. She laughs and smiles, puts herself to sleep at night, and lights up when her parents appear in the room with her. Here's a close-up!

Commonwealth Games without Thorpe?

Australian champion swimmer Ian Thorpe is in doubt for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. His fitness team announced that he has been tested for whooping cough, glandular fever, and chronic fatigue syndrome after his condition worsened from the bronchitis he was suffering from. His recovery has also been hampered because the medicines which could help him recover are on the banned substances list.

Blanchett on Stage in New York

Cate Blanchett opened tonight in a 4-week season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the Sydney production of Hedda Gabler. The first show was a benefit show; the critics are in tomorrow night. However, seats are 90% sold out so the critics won't have much influence on the success of this offering. Cate is reprising her sublime 2004 depiction of Ibsen's slippery, fiendish heroine for the Sydney Theater Company. The role has become a stage tradition, the many actresses playing Hedda always gaining attention, both positive and negative.

Oscars: Best Picture Nominees

Munich
Brokeback Mountain
Crash
Goodnight, and Good Luck
Capote

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Crash

Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you're absolutely...right!

(Thanks to Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street neighbors.)

Chris Cooper's Big Year

Chris Cooper's filmography includes three of the hottest films of 2005: Syriana, Capote, and Jarhead. In 2003 he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of John Larouche in Adaptation. Though his first big role was Joe Kenehan in John Sayles's Matewan, his more memorable introduction was as July Johnson, the clueless sheriff with a heart of gold in the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove. Many moviegoers thought his character in American Beauty Col. Frank Fitts, a homophobic ex-Marine who was hiding the fact that he was gay, was really his first Oscar role, but he failed to receive an Oscar nomination that year. His filmography also includes these unforgettable movies: Silver City, Seabiscuit, My House in Umbria, The Bourne Identity, The Patriot, October Sky, A Time to Kill, and Lone Star.

Wild Greens Tossed with Maple-Glazed Nuts

Here's a delicious salad that's quick and easy. Toss a cup of pecans (or walnuts) into a skillet and heat until fragrant. Pour a tablespoon of maple syrup over the nuts and stir to coat. Cool on parchment paper and separate. Toss the clean greens with 1 part red wine and 2 part olive oil dressing. Put onto plates and add the nuts and an ounce of shaved asiago cheese. Pecorino cheese is a good substitute if asiago is difficult to find.

Satellite Spotting

Aussie and I love lying on the beach looking up at the sky and counting the satellites we see. At left is a photo of the iridium flare which is one of a network of communication satellites which crisscross the sky. Sighting a flare is a thrill! At this site you can find the times of night (and day) when flares and other satellites will be in your skies. Many of the iridium flares are of a magnitude bright enough to spot during the daylight. You'll need a user name and password to get your location information. The site has lots of helpful information about your night sky.

Foxes Breeding in Tassy

Worrisome news has come from Tasmanian environment officials who have identified a fox carcass in the supposedly "fox-free" state. The carcass was a juvenile fox which means the foxes are breeding in the state. "If foxes were to get a permanent foothold in Tasmania, the cost to agriculture would run to many millions of dollars," he said. "It would be catastrophic for our unique biodiversity. It's the one thing that we never, ever wanted to find."

Capote on Capote

Would Truman Capote have liked the way he was portrayed in the film Capote?

Read an excellent article by Gerald Clarke, Capote's official biographer, which explores that possibility here.

Hoffman Deserves Oscar

I saw Capote yesterday and Philip Seymour Hoffman was terrific. He deserves the Oscar for this role. (This statement pains me because I loved Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.) Hoffman's performance explored his character and extracted every ounce of Capote's personality. It was a revelation, not because of the impersonation which was excellent in itself, but more because of the extent to which we knew Truman Capote by the end of the film. We knew his shallowness, cunning, conceit, self-deception and self-betrayal, and still we felt sorry for him and the person he became during the time he spent writing In Cold Blood. It was a magnificent interpretation of a character. The script was wonderful and Clifton Collins Jr should have gotten a nomination for best supporting actor. He struck all the right notes in his portrayal of the psychopath, Perry Smith. Catherine Keener was wonderful as Harper Lee. It was a great film, all around.

New Treatment for Bluebottle Jellyfish

Until now the cold pack has been the treatment for bluebottle jellyfish stings, but now researchers in Australia have found that hot packs are much more effective. Bluebottles are not a huge problem for Perth beaches, but on the east coast they are so prevalent in the summer that beaches on the northern half of the east coast are closed to swimmers. In Perth they get washed in in the autumn and winter. The bluebottle in Perth waters is a small one. It still has a blue float which is above the surface of the water, a number of tentacles below which are bright blue and generally one long feeding tentacle with rings of stinging cells around it. Bluebottles are a species of the genus Physalia (Physalia utriculus) – the big Atlantic ones are called the Portuguese Man-O-War which has a dangerous sting. Anyone for a swim?

Cricket's Holy Grail Comes to Perth WA

The Ashes urn will be exhibited in Perth next summer when the English cricket team comes to the WACA for the 2006/2007 Ashes Series. According to Tourism Minister, Sheila McHale, "This is only the second time in the history of the Ashes that the urn has visited Australia - the first time was during the 1988 bicentennial celebrations. Legions of WA cricket fans will have what is possibly a once in a life-time chance to see cricket's holy grail. The urn will go on display from 10 - 20 December when Australia and England play the third Ashes Test at the WACA between 14 -18 December. Cricket Australia and the MCC have organized to exhibit the urn in major Australian museums during the Ashes Test series as part of a small travelling exhibition which includes other MCC memorabilia. The exhibition will also reflect the willingness of West Australians to play cricket anywhere at anytime - in our back yards, at the beach, in the bush, at picnics and at schools." If you are wondering what the heck this is all about, read here.

Oscar Night Live Blog

Pink Armadillo will post a live blog on Oscar night here. A live blog is especially essential for Oscar night watchers who live in time zones that do not get the live broadcast of the Oscars, ie Western Australia. Remember while reading a live posting, you must refresh or reload your browser occassionally to get the live posts.

The new Oscars set has been unveiled, created by Roy Christopher who has designed sets for the show since 1979.This year marks Mr Christopher's 17th assignment as the Academy Awards production designer. Over the years he has won six Emmy awards for his work on Oscars sets. Following a miserable year at the US box office, Oscars organisers are hoping to reinvigorate the movie-going public by harking back to the golden days of cinema.

Ella Update

Our precious Ella Grace looking too cute in her animal print outfit bought for her by Aunt Kelly

Overlooked Film: LONE STAR

Lone Star is a wonderful film which got little notice when it came out in 1996. Even though Matthew McConaughey is featured on the cover of the DVD (lt), it was Chris Cooper's and Kris Kristofferson's film. The plot follows a 40-year-old murder and uncovers the racial and interpersonal tensions which exist in a border town in Texas. John Sayles, the director, pulls together the threads of the plots to a dramatic close which reveals unsuspected relationships and complexities. This film is often listed on "overlooked films" list and it deserves viewing.

Houston's Loo with a View

From the outside,
one-way glass.
From the inside,
no one can see you
in there, but it looks
like you are sitting in
a clear glass box.


Would you use it?

Could This Be True?

Read carefully. Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain, will follow up that success by making a biopic of Dusty Springfield's life, starring Charlize Theron as Dusty and Kate Moss as Dusty's lesbian socialite lover. For all of you born too late to remember her, Dusty Springfield was a British music goddess of soul, pop, rock, blues, and everything in between, known as the White Lady of Soul. She had her greatest success in the 1960's. Her album Dusty in Memphis is still considered today to be one the best soul albums ever recorded. Among her most remembered songs are "Son of a Preacher Man," "I Only Want to Be with You," "Wishin' and Hopin'" and "You Don't Have to Say You Love". After reading some articles about her life, it does seem that it would make a greatly interesting film.