Dear Shaded Viewers,
I was just reading in Variety that Melvin Van Peebles would have been 90 years old today. I wanted to meet him and ask him to be my President of ASVOFF, th was 10 years ago. It just so happened that my artist/musician friend was performing outside of Paris and Melvin Van Peebles was the opening act. He was already 80. My friend Satch Hoyt
was playing with Burnt Sugar and took me back stage after the concert to meet Melvin Van Peebles. Melvin had his shirt off as he was changing and at 80 years old the man had a six pack. He gave me his phone number and said to call. I did. He answered the phone but he said he wasn’t really into fashion and that he was a bastard so I’d be better off he did not make any promises. I said that fashion played a key role in his films so he could not really say he was not into fashion but since my mantra is ‘where there is harmony let it flow, where there is not, let it go.’ Anyway we had a great chat. I never spoke with him again. We left it if he was in Paris he would show up, ASVOFF was at Centre Pompidou at the time. I knew better than to expect him to attend, none the less it was great getting to meet him. He was quite an impressive man.
Read the article below for a list of his films and enjoy the clips above.
Later,
Diane
