adventurous English theater and film producer Michael White is a movie long overdue. Despite his enormous contribution in a prolific career that spanned three decades he is as Anna Wintour succinctly put it, ‘the most famous person that you’ve never heard’. Ms Wintour also so accurately summed up his rich and tumultuous career by describing him as ‘a true Renaissance man’.
From Switzerland he went to study at the Sorbonne which was followed by a stint as a Wall Street runner in the 1950’s. Somewhere along the line this well-travelled young man discovered a passion for the theater and landed himself a job with the impresario Peter Daubney in London producing international theatre seasons. At the ripe age of 25 White produced his first play in the West End. It was not a conventional drama but a production of Jack Gelber’s Living Theatre group called ‘The Connection’ and it depicted the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. It had a mixed reception with its detractors up in arms about the debauchery on stage which showed men shooting up, something totally unheard of back in 1959 when every play was still censored by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.
Otto starts her movie almost at the end when after casually meeting White at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 she is intrigued about this charming septuagenarian who literally knows everybody worth knowing. And what’s more, they all totally adore him. From British royalty to the Hollywood A list via mega-rock stars to model superstars, White has hung out with them all, and many of them, including ex-wives and girlfriends, eagerly line up to give witness to althe joyous times they have spent together. Even Wintour the Ice Queen cracks a rare smile on her face when she talks about her times with White.
Now after a couple of strokes, although White refuses to acknowledge the aging process, he is obviously not in a good shape physically or financially. Whilst he is happy to talk about his life (with the rare exception such as losing the lucrative rights to The Rocky Horror Show) he adamantly refuses to let Otto in to find out much about him as a man. Several colleagues drop very broad hints that part of his present demise is due to not just the excessive partying but the use of recreational drugs, but Otto chooses not to pursue any of this.
Labels: 2014, biography, documentary
