The cello in Hollywood: a compilation
main‘I thought you weren’t interested in me…’
‘That’s before I saw that wonderful piece of wood between your legs.’
Name the movies.
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A rehearsal is going badly. Everything section is off, and everyone is getting testy. Then it got to the cello section, lead by a woman. After the 5th correction in a passage, the conductor explodes, “dahling, you’ve got somesing between your legs that can cause joy to millions, and all you do is scratch it.”
Bad old joke.
Versions of that joke have been told as a supposedly true story, with various conductors’ names (and cellists) names utilized. The most common name I have heard is Fritz Reiner and the cellist Raya Garbousova, but sometimes it is Beecham and May Mukle. The harsh rudeness of it is believable for both conductors, but the surviving recordings suggest it is a slander on the cellists.
I always heard that the joke was Tommy Beecham’s.
I love them all!!!
It was my first year of college when Witches of Eastwick came out. I went to see it with a cello major, the cello prof, and a couple of other music majors. We were all quite shocked by THE cello scene. The cello prof quietly exclaimed, “I will never think of Dvorak the same way again.” LOL and neither have I! Fun compilation.
The cellist who played the Dvorak on the soundtrack was the wonderful Ronald Leonard, then principal cello of the LA Philharmonic.
The cellist on the soundtrack of Paul Henried’s movie was Hollywood Quartet’s Eleanor Slatkin.
My all-time favorite movie featuring classical music is “A Night at the Opera” with the Marx Brothers.
Classic!
That’s a fine and entertaining montage but, really, how can you title a post “The Cello in Hollywood” and not feature the excellent Eleanor Aller (Slatkin) of the Hollywood Quartet? Great musician in a memorable ensemble.
Thank you, Reed. AMEN.
Who can name all the movies?
This cellist played over the character in a number of films and was known in NYC as the go-to for cello film history. As far as I know, he’s still alive at 90…
https://www.amazon.com/Cellist-Christopher-Lukas/dp/B006VA3ZS2
The principal conductor of a small chamber orchestra in 1970s liked to criticize its all-female cello section by saying: “Do you think the wider you spread your legs the better it sounds?!”. Awfully tasteless, but surprisingly (or not), it did improve their playing sometimes.