Ruth Brown Movies
Born Ruth Weston in Portsmouth, NA, on January 12, 1928, the legendary R&B belter Ruth Brown cultivated her vocal skills during church services as a tyke, then established herself as a commercial vocalist in the early '50s, under contract to Atlantic Records. As an Atlantic artist, Brown churned out such rhythm & blues staples as "5-10-15 Hours," "So Long," and "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean," almost single-handedly laying the foundation for contemporary blues-rock and for rock & roll per se (and imparting to that label the moniker "The House that Ruth Built").Brown's string of Atlantic hits dried up by 1960, but the occasional Brown LPs continued to appear, including 1962's Gospel Time, 1964's Ruth Brown '65, 1968's Fine Brown Frame, and 1969's Black Is Brown and Brown Is Beautiful. Brown more or less disappeared for the duration of the '70s (with a 9-to-5 job outside of the entertainment industry and a growing family) but rebounded with great vitality at the tail end of that decade, when she turned to television and film acting. She began with a recurring role as Leona Wilson, a schoolteacher and neighbor of McLean Stevenson's Larry Alder, on the short-lived NBC sitcom Hello, Larry (1979-1980) and landed a bit part as a cleaning woman in Steve Rash's ugly and lackluster farce Under the Rainbow (1981), starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher, but found her greatest success -- and broadest appeal -- eight years later, as Motormouth Maybelle in John Waters' Hairspray (1988), and as Martha in Charles Lane's True Identity (1991), starring Lenny Henry.
Brown's musical presence also graced such live performance films as 1993's B.B. King: Blues Summit Concert and 2004's Lightning in a Bottle, and such documentaries as Tom Jenz's 1989 The Ladies Sing the Blues. Meanwhile, Brown hit her second wind as a recording artist, with albums released on the prestigious Fantasy, as well as Jazz House, Bullseye Blues, and Indigo, up through 1999's Good Day for the Blues (on Bullseye).
After about seven years of inactivity, Ruth Brown died in Las Vegas, NV, after suffering a heart attack and stroke that followed surgery, on November 17, 2006. At the time of her death at 78 years old, she was slated to act in John Sayles' 2007 feature film Honeydripper. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
The United States Congress named 2003 the "Year of the Blues" as part of an initiative by several musical education groups to make more Americans aware of the history and heritage of blues music, one of America's most important homegrown art forms. To kick off this celebration of the blues, a special concert was held at New York City's historic Radio City Music Hall, and Lightning in a Bottle documents a memorable evening of music from a star-studded roster of artists. Offering a glimpse at the rehearsals and preparations that went into putting the show together as well as the evening's best performances, Lightning in a Bottle includes appearances by B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Macy Gray, Buddy Guy, Chuck D., Solomon Burke, David Johansen, Jimmie Vaughan and Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Alison Krauss, and many more. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Ruth Brown, (more)
- 2001
In the early days of rock & roll in the '50s, while the public knew the voices and faces of the folks who snag the tunes, it was often the people behind the scenes who truly held the talent that made a song a hit, and as the sounds of "teenage music" took over the charts, a new breed of young songwriters and producers became giants in the industry. Hit Makers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music tells the story of the kids (mostly Jewish, mostly from Brooklyn) who wrote the tunes and brainstormed the sessions for some of the biggest hits of the era out of offices in New York City's Brill Building, where music publishing mogul Don Kirschner had the likes of Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Neil Sedaka under contract. Beginning with the start of the rock era and ending with the rise of hard rock and singer/songwriters at the dawn of the '70s, Hit Makers tells the story of some of the truly unsung heroes of American popular music, complete with interviews from the songwriters and producers, as well as the performers who helped bring their great songs to life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1993
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One of the great guitarists of postwar blues, B.B. King teams up with an impressive roster of fellow blues legends in this concert video. B.B. King: Blues Summit Concert includes guest appearances by Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Irma Thomas, Albert Collins, Ruth Brown, and Joe Louis Walker as they perform "The Thrill Is Gone," "T-Bone Shuffle," "I Can't Quit You Baby," "Hey Hey, the Blues Is Alright," "Playing With My Friends," "Call It Stormy Monday," and many more. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- B.B. King
- 1991
- R
Charles Lane directed Andy Breckman's script, based on an old "Saturday Night Live" sketch of Breckman's that featured Eddie Murphy. Comic Lenny Henry takes Murphy's place in True Identity as a black man forced to don white face in order to save his life. Henry plays Miles Pope, an agreeable British actor whose luck sours when he finds out that businessman Leland Carver (Frank Langella) is actually a notorious underworld mobster. Carver now wants to rub Miles out and the only way that Miles can escape Carver's retribution is to disguise himself as a man named Frank LaMotta, the Italian-American killer that Carver has hired to kill him. During the story, Miles finds that he has to assume a variety of roles to keep from getting shot --a gay real estate agent, a British lord, James Brown's brother Val, and even Othello. But the biggest shock for Miles comes when he plays the white man and discovers that he is given preferential treatment --not only by whites, but also by blacks and Hispanics. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lenny Henry, Frank Langella, (more)
Forever interested in the kitsch built into past eras, director John Waters chooses the TV dance show craze of the early '60s for his playful focus in Hairspray. Ricki Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, just one of several alliteratively named characters coming of age in 1962 Baltimore, where "The Corny Collins Show" is the most popular American Bandstand-type program, watched by hundreds of young dreamers each day after school. Being chosen to dance on it is the ultimate status symbol and every young girl's dream, and Tracy improbably wins a featured spot when she infiltrates a dance contest and makes a better impression than her favored rival, the catty Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick). Always able to have fun, even when she's being mocked by the jealous popular girls, Tracy wins the affections of Amber's boyfriend and soon begins leading a movement to integrate the dance show, which has previously featured blacks only in a once-weekly theme night. She is arrested following a demonstration at a local theme park owned by Amber's father (Sonny Bono), who subscribes to the same theory of race relations as "The Corny Collins Show." Tracy's adventures are also filtered through her loving but eccentric parents (Divine and Jerry Stiller) and involve a humorous cultural clash with pot-smoking beatniks (Ric Ocasek and Pia Zadora). ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricki Lake, Michael St. Gerard, (more)
- 1981
- PG
In this comedy, a hotel becomes a chaotic place during the 1938 filming of The Wizard of Oz, when it is inundated with groups of midgets, secret agents, and Nazi and Japanese spies. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, (more)
