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datura-ad · 2 years

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The Careless Planets, digital, 6000 x 6000

#darkwave #dark side #horror art #dark art society #lowbrow wolf pack #lovecraft #horror #blackened crust #macabre art #datura ad

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bloodmoonart · 2 years

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She Wolf, Acrylic on canvas

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chiseler · 3 years

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The Silva Screen

Howard Da Silva

Am I the only one who constantly gets character actors Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva confused?

Howard Da Silva was born in Cleveland in 1909 and was working as a steelworker when he decided to go to drama school. He first appeared on Broadway at age 20, and made a name for himself playing Jud in the original production of Oklahoma!.

Da Silva (born Silvablatt) was a burly, jowly man with a boxer’s face, thinning hair and an unmistakable voice, half-midwest, half Lower East Side. He made the move to Hollywood in the mid-thirties and, over the next decade and a half established himself as a familiar screen presence playing gruff but ultimately understanding characters. He was the tough but fatherly criminal mentor in They Drive By Night, and Nat, Ray Milland’s wise but increasingly frustrated bartender in The Lost Weekend. He played opposite Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield in The Sea Wolf, and portrayed Wilson in the 1949 adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

After actor and fink Robert Taylor, while testifying as a friendly witness before HUAC in 1947, described Da Silva as a troublemaker “who always has something to say at the wrong time,” Da Silva himself was called to testify about his supposed communist sympathies. When brought before the committee in 1951, Da Silva became the first of over three hundred writers, actors and directors to refuse to answer questions, citing the Fifth Amendment. He was promptly blacklisted and for much of the next decade vanished from movie and television screens, though he continued to work in theater.

When he reappeared in the early Sixties, older, balder, and jowlier, he found himself playing an array of historical figures from Ben Franklin to Franklin Roosevelt to Boss Tweed to, ironically, Nikita Kruschev in The Missiles of October and Louis B. Mayer in Mommy Dearest. He also appeared in the 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, this time around playing Meyer Wolfsheim. He made his final screen appearance in 1984’s Garbo Talks, and died of cancer two years later.

Henry Silva

Henry Silva, meanwhile, was born in Brooklyn in 1928. Although often accused of being Puerto Rican, he insisted his mother was Spanish and his father Sicilian. His father walked out on the family when Henry was three months old, at which point he and his mother moved to Harlem.

Silva, who had decided early on to become an actor, dropped out of public school at age 13 and enrolled in acting classes, taking a dishwashing job in a local hotel restaurant to help support him and his mother. Fourteen years later, he’d finally worked his way up the ranks to become a waiter in that same hotel.

Then twenty-seven, Silva, having grown into a darkly handsome young man standing six-foot-two, decided to apply to the Actor’s Studio, and was accepted. He soon made his Broadway debut in in 1956 in A Hatful of Rain, with classmates Shelley Winters and Ben Gazzara. The play became such a hit it soon landed Silva in Hollywood, where he co-starred in the 1957 film adaptation.

His commanding stature and sharp, angular, swarthy good looks not only made Silva an easy choice for producers looking for a suave but sinister villain, they also allowed him to play everything from Mexicans to Russians to Italians to Middle Easterners to Asians to Native Americans with very little extra makeup. He was a chameleon without even trying.

In the Fifties and early Sixties he played a string of suave and sinister gangsters, killers and thieves on TV series like The Untouchables, Climax and The Outer Limits and in films ranging from Green Mansions to Ride a Crooked Trail. He became a regular Rat Pack satellite, appearing in Ocean’s 11, Sergeants 3, and making guest spots on The Joey Bishop Show, as well as playing one of the evil stepbrothers in Jerry Lewis’ Cinderfella. In what may have been his breakthrough role, he again co-starred with Sinatra in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate as the double-crossing Korean guide who delivers Sinatra’s company into the hands of those dirty commies.

He earned his first starring role the next year as the titular Mob assassin Johnny Cool (co-starring fellow Rat Pack alumni Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr.), after which he accepted an invitation from an Italian producer and moved his family to Rome. Over the next decade he would become a star throughout Europe, appearing in dozens of Spaghetti Westerns, occasionally even playing the hero.

He returned to the States in the mid-Seventies to once again co-star with Sinatra in 1977’s Contract on Cherry Street. Following that, he would spend much of the Eighties playing cartoon villains in comic strip movies (Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy) and and endless string of cheap jingoistic action films (Megaforce, Code of Silence), as well as a few sub-lowbrow comedies (Cannonball Run II, Lust in the Dust). He was admittedly spectacular in his brief turn as Brock, the would-be Great White hunter out to kill a monstrous alligator roaming the Chicago sewer system in Lewis Teague’s 1980 darkly comic monster movie Alligator.

After co-starring in Jim Jarmusch’s 1999 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and a quick cameo in the 2001 remake of Ocean’s 11, Silva retired from acting at age 73.

But back to where all this started—namely, am I the only one who gets Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva confused?

Yes, Howard Da Silva was some twenty years older than Henry Silva. And yes, Howard was born in Cleveland to Jewish parents while Henry was a Spanish-Italian kid from Brooklyn. And yes, Howard was a steel woorker while Henry washed dishes in a hotel restaurant. And yes, Henry was some four inches taller than Howard, and had thick black hair to boot. Yes, Henry tended to play suave and sinister villains while Howard tended to play gruff but lovable types. Yes, Henry played everything from Italians to Mexicans to Asians while Howard was as decidedly American as they come, and yes, Henry is still alive while Howard died in 1986. But if you’re going to say “Yes, you dunce, you’re the only one who gets them confused, because you’re stupid,” consider the following.

First, Henry Silva’s official biography is suspiciously inconsistent. Despite repeated claims about his heritage, a 1930 U.S. Census entry states that both of Silva’s parents were from Puerto Rico. But I guess being half Spanish and half Sicillian is much more Romantic than being just another Puerto Rican kid from Brooklyn. That same form also lists Henry’s given name as “Harry.” What’s more, after supposedly working at the same hotel for fourteen years, shouldn’t he have worked his way up to something more than waiter? You’d think he’d at least be night manager or something, right? And despite his claims he made his film debut only after the 1956 Broadway premiere of A Hatful of Rain, his first screen appearance was actually in 1952’s Viva Zapata!.

Now, given we can clearly not trust a thing Henry Silva says, or has ever said, about himself, ask yourself the following questions:

Is it mere coincidence that Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva, as prolific as both were, never appeared onscreen together? Their careers overlapped for some thirty years! What are the odds of that? I mean, Sinatra co-starred with Groucho Marx, for godsakes!

And is it sheer coincidence that Henry Silva’s film debut in Viva Zapata! occurred at the precise moment Howard Da Silva had been blacklisted? Think about it—Howard vanishes and Henry steps in. Hmm, right? Plenty of other blacklisted artists worked under the radar by using pseudonyms. Maybe Howard, given his troublemaking reputation, decided to take the idea of thumbing his nose at HUAC a few steps further. I mean, take a look at the two of them side by side. Give Howard some lifts, a little swarthy makeup and a black toupee and BOOM! He’s Henry Silva.

And what better way to throw off the scent than to play a completely opposite character type from the one you were known for? And how better to flip the bird, just for fun, than by playing a bunch of evil communists and revolutionaries?

After the blacklist ended, Howard was faced with a dilemma. He could work again, which was great, but what to do about Henry? Kill him off? Retire him? His career had just taken off and was going great guns in the early Sixties. Then it struck him—with Henry still around, he had two solid income streams flowing. Why give that up? Both Howard and his alter-ego Henry were character actors, after all, meaning they were rarely needed on set for more than a couple days on each picture. Easy as pie to do a Howard role one day, then a Henry role at the end of the week.

My god, it’s all so perfect! What an ingenious scheme! And what better way to throw everyone off the scent for good than to have Howard “die” in 1986? At that point, after all, Henry was awfully busy with those stupid action movies that paid so well, while Howard’s own jobs were becoming more sporadic and low-profile.

So there you have it, and remember you read it here first—Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva WERE THE SAME PERSON! I likely never would have figured it out for myself had Howard just put another minute’s worth of work into choosing a name for his alter ego back in 1952.

By Jim Knipfel

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uncouthbarbarian · 5 years

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Thank you to everyone who stopped by my booth this at the Columbus @odditiesandcuriositiesexpo this weekend! I truly appreciate every one of you who stopped by and supported my art through buying, kind words, and social media follows. It was an amazing show and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year! Thank you all! In the meantime, my wife and I are getting ready to move to a new house so I’ll be running a bit silent for the next few weeks during the transition. I’ll keep updating my story and maybe sharing some doodles and old paintings until sometime in early June when I’ll start back up again. But moving is expensive! If anyone would like to grab some original paintings, prints, blind packs or zines, please head over to my online store! Thank you again! 🖤🖤🖤 . . #creepy #monster #horror #horrorart #macabre #creepyart #macabreart #surreal #surrealism #drawing #skull #creature #horrordrawing #darkart #melting #drippy #wolf #lowbrow #lowbrowart #wolves #gouache #gouachepainting #death #colorful #sketching #painting #ink #inkdrawing #tentacles #thetruemayhem https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxar6WnJM-t/?igshid=kogshk5e36ze

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titleleaf · 7 years

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best shit I read in 2016

(aka, Some Shit I Read This Year – ~inspired by~ @forthegothicheroine‘s list with accompanying musical selections and that of @maddie-grove but… overall, just plain less good)

psycho-sexual: male desire in hitchcock, de palma, scorsese, and friedkin - david greven

Some of the only tolerable essays I found in my pre-Yuletide Hitchcock plunge – a really really really fun text if you, like me, tend to faceplant into Films About Dudes.

columbine - dave cullen

Read this if you want to feel fucking awful; it contains at least one pretty nervy assertion that is contentious among Columbine survivors and worth examining no matter what your stance is, but it’s good and hard to quit reading.

leopold and loeb: the crime of the century - hal higdon

Idk how a true crime book released in 1975 by that guy who wrote all your mom’s favorite marathon running books is this decent, but it is.

born to run - bruce springsteen

Sweet sweet memoir action about family, generational patterns of trauma and mental illness, writing, music, and unraveling your many many influences. Also, I’m gay for Bruce Springsteen, I’m sorry. I only got gayer.

angels in america: a gay fantasia on national themes - tony kushner

This one’s a play! No! It’s two plays! It’s fucking funny and bitter and intense and you should go read it.

the long goodbye - raymond chandler

I read a bunch of hardboiled-adjacent stuff this year and watched a lot of weird noir, but this was THE TOPS. It’s weird and fucked up in a very circa-1953 way but I think I need to reread it.

the secret of drearcliff grange school - kim newman

This… is going to be even more of a fucking downer to reread than ever (YA girl’s school adventure novel dealing in part with the rise of fascism in miniature, goody, what the fuck) but I found it remarkably good-hearted and sincere and also JAM-PACKED WITH GIRLS. There is exactly one male character I can even remember existing in this novel and he is of no importance whatsoever.

we were liars - e. lockhart

This one was just fun and it walloped me despite being PURE distilled tropes, and also YA – I guess YA Martha’s Vineyard psychodrama with fucked-up twists beneath its sunbaked surface? But oh dude I dug it, and it had shades of VC Andrews in a way I like.

wolf in white van - john darnielle

I wasn’t really sure what to expect out of this – it’s a different kind of unreliable narrator than in We Were Liars, in that he’s not trying to lie to you or fuck with you, but it's a good twisty serious book about trauma and surviving stuff people assume you cannot possibly have survived and feathering your nest with stuff that means something to you, no matter how lowbrow people might say that stuff is.

silence - shusaku endo

READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO FEEL BAD and also to get fucked up about faith (and confused about Catholicism)

#ska reads a thing #books

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datura-ad · 3 years

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Dragonfly, digital, 24″ x 24″ IG: datura_ad

#dark artwork #dark art society podcast #lowbrow wolf pack #macabre art #dark surrealism #horror art #blackened crust #blackened death #underground metal #cosmic horror #art brut

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datura-ad · 3 years

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D a y d r e a m, digital, 24″ x 18″

#dark art #digital art #dark artwork #dark fantasy #dark wave #cold wave #Dark Aesthetic #lowbrow wolf pack #macabre horror #art macabre #lovecraftian #underground artists #cosmic horror #horror artist

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datura-ad · 3 years

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Closed Hands, digital, 20″ x 20″ On demand prints at etsy.com/shop/daturaad

IG: datura_ad

#dark aesthetic #doomer #doom aesthetic #sludge doom #blackened crust #blackened art #lowbrow wolf pack #horror artwork #outsider art

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datura-ad · 3 years

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The Undertow, digital, 24″ x 24″ artstation.com/datura_ad/prints

Instagram.com/datura_ad teespring.com/stores/datura-ad

#blackened crust #lowbrow wolf pack #macabre art #dark surrealism #beautiful bizarre #oddities and curiosities #horror artwork #indigenous artists #lovecraft

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datura-ad · 3 years

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2 8 7, acrylic, 8" x 10" 115 usd at daturaad.bigcartel.com

#dark artist #macabre art #fantasy art #dark fantasy #lovecraftian #indigenous artist #lowbrow wolf pack #evil art #dark expressionism

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datura-ad · 4 years

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Feral, acrylic, 14″ x 11″ Electric Cross, acrylic, 20″ x 16″ Falling Fast, acrylic, 20″ x 16″ Last Call, acrylic, 20″ x 16″ All available. Dm me if interested in purchasing any.

#dark surrealism #macabre art #evil art #morbid art #horror fanatic #body horror #underground artists #indigenous artists #lowbrow wolf pack #blackened crust #blackened art #cosmic horror\#lovecraftian

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datura-ad · 3 years

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