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lifestyle MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017 FEATURES Michael Douglas on Kirk’s dismay over ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ snub heir once rocky relationship is closer than Ratched, before Louise Fletcher was hired. It was ever, but Michael Douglas has revealed the first movie since “It Happened One Night” Tdad Kirk still harbors one grudge-being (1934) to sweep the “big five” Oscars-a feat that snubbed for his son’s Oscar-winning “One Flew has only been matched once since, by “Silence of Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The younger Douglas the Lambs” (1991). “I like to tease my father was just 29 when he earned his place among because I gave him half of our producing deal Hollywood’s elite as the producer behind the and he made more money off that movie than first movie in 40 years to sweep the “big five” any movie he ever made,” Douglas laughed. Oscars for best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. ‘You were terrible’ Kirk, now 100, had starred in the Broadway Now a Hollywood icon, Michael Douglas was version and even handed the movie rights for a TV actor-a job considered very much less illus- the iconic 1975 drama to his son, but was trious than big screen acting at the time-on The Jano band-a rare rock band in Ethiopia-has been playing locally and touring shocked when he was passed over for the role of crime series “The Streets of San Francisco” when in Europe for the past five years. —AFP photos convict Randle McMurphy in favor of the he took on his debut producing role. He went younger Jack Nicholson. Michael Douglas on to win another Oscar-this time for best actor Michael, 72, told a Q&A in Hollywood on ing he wasn’t to blame for his dad’s rejection. “It in “Wall Street” (1987) — and became one of the Saturday how his father’s plans to adapt the was about 20 years since Dad did the play on most bankable stars in the world through a moderately successful 1963 play based on Ken Broadway, his career’s changed a little bit, and series of roles in cinematic hits including Kesey’s novel had foundered after a number of our director Milos Forman was like, ‘Kirk’s a little “Romancing the Stone,” “Fatal Attraction” and years and he was about to sell on the rights. “I old for the part.’ I said ‘Yeah,’” Douglas said. “Dad’s “Basic Instinct.” Douglas described speaking to say, ‘Please, Dad, don’t sell the project. It’s a great version is that I rejected him. I said, ‘Since when his father, ever the taskmaster, after his very first project. So let me take it and run with it and I’ll did the producer have casting control? That was performance, as a messenger in a college pro- try to get it set up as a production and for you to the director.’ It was my first time out.” duction of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado play the part,’ and Dad said, ‘Okay great,’” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” tells the About Nothing,” and being told: “Michael, you Douglas recalled. “Here’s where Kirk’s and my story of a felon who fakes insanity to avoid a jail were terrible.” t a hotel in Addis Ababa well-known story digress. On his version, yeah sure, Michael term and finds himself in a psychiatric hospital “He was so relieved. He said, ‘Thank God I for hosting jazz greats, thousands of gets the project, takes a year, sets it all up and in Oregon where the patients live in fear of the don’t have to worry about my son going into Afans lined up on a Saturday night to doesn’t cast me in the part. If he were here right malevolent ward supervisor, Nurse Ratched. this business,’” Douglas remembered. The actor headbang along with what is still a rarity in now, it’s the first thing he’d want to tell you.” McMurphy is considered to be 79-year-old said he suffered crippling stage fright in his early Ethiopia’s diverse music scene-a rock band. Nicholson’s career-defining role, although years and would keep a waste basket at the side Jano, named after a popular item of tradi- Too old Forman only considered him after trying unsuc- of the stage in case he needed to throw up. tional clothing, has made a name for itself Douglas told Turner Classic Movies presenter cessfully to secure Gene Hackman, Marlon “Finally, a couple years later, Dad came back and in Africa’s second most populous country, Ben Mankiewicz, who was hosting a discussion Brando and Burt Reynolds. Several actresses- he was wonderful. He was busy in his career but as well as abroad, by blending local styles on the actor’s glittering career, that he remem- including Anne Bancroft, Geraldine Page and he saw most of my shows and he said, ‘You were of music with Western rock and roll. “We’re bers one key part of the story differently, insist- Angela Lansbury-were considered for Nurse okay-you were good.’” — AFP trying to make something very, very differ- ent,” said Hailu Amerga, one of four vocalists in the eight-piece, mixed ensemble, that also features a drummer, keyboard Faberge egg reunited with its player, guitarist and bassist. “Rock, it was really far away from our country, and it’s not our tradition,” he said. missing ‘surprise’ in Texas Ethiopian music is generally known for its distinctly non-Western scales and instru- Faberge egg and the jeweled elephant mentation, and is a staple of the nightlife in designed to fit inside it are being reunited the Ethiopian capital. At open-air beer gar- Afor the first time in almost a century dens, young people dance shoulder-shak- ing jigs to playlists that alternate between thanks to a loan from Queen Elizabeth II to a The Jano band-a rare rock band in Ethiopian singers and hip-hop hits by west Texas museum. A gallery that opens Monday at Ethiopia-has been playing locally African artists like Sarkodie and Davido. the Houston Museum of Natural Science fea- and touring in Europe for the past Perhaps no style of Ethiopian music is bet- tures the elephant, which only recently was dis- five years. covered to be the egg’s missing “surprise.” “It’s a ter known outside the country than its really good opportunity to see the two together unique kind of jazz, pioneered by musi- thought the younger audience would be... and marvel at Faberge’s workmanship,” said cians such as Mulatu Astatke and ready for what they were doing,” Laswell Caroline de Guitaut, a curator at the Royal Mahmoud Ahmed, and known worldwide told AFP in a telephone interview. When Collection Trust. De Guitaut announced in 2015 as Ethio-jazz. The longstanding jazz culture Jano began performing after two years of that she’d discovered that the small elephant in evolved from a brass band movement that rehearsals, audiences were sometimes tak- the queen’s collection was created by famed was begun by an Armenian band brought en aback by their unconventional style. Russian artisan Peter Carl Faberge. to the country by Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s “Usually in our country, most bands per- “It had been sitting there in many ways in last emperor, after he saw it perform in form standing still,” said Dibekulu. Not plain sight, minding its own business in a display Jerusalem during a visit in the 1920s. Jano, which prides itself on its energetic case,” she said. The Imperial Diamond Trellis Egg, stage presence. “People usually think we originally an Easter gift from Russian czar ‘People are so confused’ are high..., but we’re not,” he added. Alexander III to his wife in 1892, belongs to a This undated photo provided by the Houston Museum of “When... you give them that traditional ‘Everything is from here’ Houston couple whose private collection of Natural Sciences shows a Faberge egg and a jeweled elephant jazz, the satisfaction never (finishes),” said While the guitar riffs in Jano’s songs items created by Faberge is housed at the designed to fit inside it. —AP Melaku Belay, owner of Fendika, a club Houston Museum of Natural Science. where crowds gather for Friday night show- would not be out of place on an Aerosmith The reunited pieces will be displayed in a new seemed to match the published description of last been together when the Russian govern- cases of traditional music by the dozens of or Guns N’ Roses record, much of the song- gallery showcasing more than 600 Faberge the missing elephant. Upon careful examination, ment sold them around 1922. De Guitaut said ethnic groups in the country. Ethiopia’s writing is distinct to the Horn of Africa. The items from Dorothy and Artie McFerrin that have she eventually figured out that the tower on the the elephant, which walks and moves its head music scene was not always so free. During vocalists sing in Amharic, Ethiopia’s main been part of the museum for several years. Joel elephant’s back had a lid and found the Faberge when wound, was purchased in 1935 by King the 14-year communist regime of Mengistu language; the keyboardist sometimes Bartsch, president of the Houston museum, said mark on the inside rim. “I did feel quite sort of George V, apparently with no knowledge that it Haile Mariam, jazz was suppressed and emulates the sound of a masinko, a string the elephant will remain on display there for a giddy, kind of dizzy and a little bit faint,” de was Faberge.

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