Olympic Marginalia

Let's begin with the sad news. We have to report two deaths in the family of Brontë actors:

The Daily Mail reports the death of the actress Angharad Rees (1949-2012) (right) best know for her work in Poldark. She played a (very) small part as Louise Ashton in Jane Eyre 1970. EDIT: The Independent publishes another obituary.

The Sunday Times informs of the death of the stage and film actor Simon Ward (1941-2012) who, among many other roles, was Mr Linton in Wuthering Heights 1992. He shared his apperance
 in the film with his daughter, Sophie Ward who played Isabelle (both in the left hand side picture).
EDIT: More obituaries in The Telegraph, The Scotsman, The Independent, The Guardian or  Daily Mail.

Julie Morrow in Metro replies to the recent comments by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian about the lack of culture in the London Cultural Olympiad:

The post also suggested that nothing in the Cultural Olympiad is worthy of being described as ‘culture’ unless it is, apparently, Wuthering Heights. I’m not sure that such a narrow opinion of culture is held by many others but I’m glad the author of this blog wasn’t given any say in the programming of the Cultural Olympiad, as otherwise we’d all have been subjected to four years of Brontë festivals. Not that I have anything against Wuthering Heights, but it might get a bit dull after a while.

The Sacramento Bee wonders what will become of our society without proper fundings on public education:

Would we know who we are without knowing our common history and culture; without knowing Madison and Jefferson and Melville and Dickinson and Hawthorne; without Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer; without Dante and Cervantes; without Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen; without Goethe and Moliere; without Confucius, Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.; without Mozart, Rembrandt and Michelangelo; without the Old Testament; without the Gospels; without Plato and Aristotle, without Homer and Sophocles and Euripides, without Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky; without Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison? (Peter Schrag)

Katy Guest in The Independent voices her discontent with the absence of women "experts" in the media:

On Tuesday, Channel 4 News held a discussion about the sexing up of classic novels to appeal to a market addicted to literary smut. The presenter Jon Snow called on the writer Zoe Margolis in support of mucky books, and Professor John Sutherland to voice his disquiet. I bow to no woman in my admiration for Professor Sutherland, who was as intelligent, thoughtful and entertaining as always. But these books are not aimed at him. Could Channel 4 not have found another literate woman to talk about books aimed primarily at female readers? Hint to Channel 4: this paper's literary editor can be contacted through its switchboard and has also read Jane Eyre.

By the way you can watch the Channel 4 discussion here.

AA Gill in The Sunday Times discusses gastronomy in New York and talks about his favourite place to breakfast where he is afraid of, as other customers do,

Inscribing the minutiae of alien proctology in the library’s copy of Wuthering Heights, it’s only two synaptic booths away.

New Jersey Star-Ledger reviews A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 1945 and remembers that Peggy Lee Garner

And terrific as she is here (and was as the pubescent "Jane Eyre," in that movie’s early orphanage scenes) little Peggy Ann Garner never found success as an adult actress.  (Stephen Whitty)

Televisión Cubana (Cuba) traces a profile of Osvaldo Doimeadios, humorist and actor:

Muy pronto comenzó a trabajar en la radio de esa ciudad, según le confesó a Amaury Pérez Vidal en una entrevista en que afirmó: “me vinculé a la radio en Holguín desde que tenía, creo que siete años, siete años y medio y mi primera experiencia fue en una versión para la radio, de la novela Cumbres Borrascosas.”  (Paquita Armas Fonseca) (Translation)

Romantic Crush Junkies interviews the author Laurel McKee:

You’re in the thick of your new Scandalous St. Claires series; can you tell us more about it?
A: I'm so excited about this series! Ever since I read “Jane Eyre” when I was about 10 years old I've loved the Victorian period.

Albi Here posts a poem inspired by Emily Brontë;  Książki u Izabell (in Polish) and Beverly Farr posts about Jane Eyre;  Wyspa Książek (in Polish) reviews Agnes Grey; Remnants and Footnotes discusses physiognomy and phrenology, quoting from Jane Eyre; Made Alive by Grace has seen three Wuthering Heights adaptations (1970, 1998 and 2009); I Like (Good) Movies reviews Jane Eyre 2011; PaulaSHx and lebourlingueurdu (in French) does the same with Wuthering Heights 2011.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/22/4646301/are-the-humanities-in-jeopardy.html#storylink=cpy