New York Giants quarterback Jameis Winston’s candidate for play of the year and a spectacular catch from Dallas Cowboys receiver George Pickens top the best of the plays from week 12 of the NFL season.
“PAUL will say to me, ‘There’s only four of us – now sadly two of us – who know what it’s like to be in The Beatles’.”
So says Giles Martin, producer son of late producer, Sir George Martin, who some call “The Fifth Beatle”.
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Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon in artwork for Anthology CollectionThe newly expanded The Beatles Anthology music collection will bring more insight into the lives of the Fab FourRingo, Paul and George with producer George Martin in 1995Credit: AP:Associated Press
For the past 20 years, Giles has been one of the chief keepers of The Beatles flame, involved in myriad releases from the band’s archive.
The latest project to summon his skills is the one which, arguably, gets to the beating heart of The Fab Four more than any other — The Beatles Anthology.
We’ll hear much more from Giles later but, to set the scene, let’s wind back to 1995 and catch what drummer Ringo has to say with his usual cheery charm.
“Now you can hear it from us,” he affirms. “Paul, George and myself — and old footage of John, of course — telling what it felt like to be a Beatle.”
In 1995, it is 25 years after The Beatles split and 15 since the shocking assassination of John Lennon, and it is time for the world’s most famous band to tell their story.
Over the previous four years, Macca, Ringo and George Harrison have been busy masterminding Anthology, a wildly ambitious, groundbreaking (you wouldn’t expect anything less) multimedia project.
By using their own words, film and, of course, their immortal songs, they are in a unique position to reveal all — from the horse’s mouth.
Here’s their chance to revisit their humble origins in Liverpool, cutting their teeth at the city’s Cavern Club and in the music dives of Hamburg.
They can relive having a first hit single, Love Me Do, Beatlemania, leading the British Invasion of the US, making madcap films like Help! and their eventual retreat from the live arena.
They can share views on creating their psychedelic masterpiece, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the spiritual quest which leads them to India, their final studio hurrah, Abbey Road, and the various reasons behind them going their separate ways in 1970.
This all results in an eight-episode documentary series filled with archive footage and candid interviews, three double albums of demos, alternate takes and snatches of spoken word and, later, an illuminating book.
Now, in 2025 to mark the project’s 30th anniversary, we are being treated to an additional ninth episode of the series and a fourth volume of music.
For his part, Giles Martin has created new audio mixes for most of the music featured on film, remastered the original LPs and curated the new album of 36 songs (13 previously unreleased).
Episode 9 presents unseen glimpses of Paul, George and Ringo coming together in 1994 and ’95 to reflect on life as members of the Fab Four.
Time, they say, is a great healer and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, the three clearly enjoying each other’s company with some of the old banter returning.
We’ve heard from Ringo but what does Macca have to say about it?
“We decided we might try to do the definitive story of The Beatles, seeing as other people had had a go at it.
“We thought it might be good from the inside out rather than from the outside in.”
The good thing about Anthology is that it’s four of us, even though John’s not here, he is here. He’s represented, he talks — it’s old interviews and stuff.
Paul McCartney
“I think it’s been nice for us and the public just to forget about The Beatles for a while, let the dust settle, and now come back to it with a fresh point of view.”
And it’s up to the “quiet” Beatle, not so quiet in this setting, to sum up the band’s immortality.
“We’ll go on and on,” continues Harrison, “on those records and films and videos and books and in people’s memories and minds.
“The Beatles have just become their own thing now. The Beatles, I think, exist without us.”
Of course it was all done with a gaping Lennon-shaped hole but Paul, George and Ringo are hugely mindful of their fallen comrade who they clearly miss very much.
“The good thing about Anthology is that it’s four of us,” says McCartney. “Even though John’s not here, he is here. He’s represented, he talks — it’s old interviews and stuff.”
Harrison adds: “I feel sorry for John because the Beatles went through a lot of good times but also went through some turbulent times.
“And, as everybody knows, when we split up, everybody was a bit fed up with each other.
“But for Ringo, Paul and I, we’ve had the opportunity to have all that go down the river and under the bridge and to get together again in a new light. I feel sorry that John wasn’t able to do that.”
‘Unfinished business’
One of the key elements of Episode 9 is how the three Beatles make new music together under the watchful eye of the Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne, a fellow member of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with Harrison.
Using Lennon demos from the 1970s, given to them by his partner Yoko Ono, they finish Free As A Bird and Real Love, employing John’s vocals backed by their vibrant new arrangements.
Quite simply, it’s the nearest thing we’ll ever get to a full Beatles reunion.
Watching Paul, George and Ringo playing and singing along to John’s vocals is captivating, some of the old spark clearly etched on their faces.
The affable Giles Martin, who I meet in Leicester Square this week and not at his usual stomping ground, Abbey Road Studios, has this take on the Anthology footage.
“From talking to Paul and knowing him as much as I do, and from talking to Ringo, I know that the other Beatles were the favourite musicians that they ever played with.
George Martin’s son Giles, above, reveals intimate details of his father’s relationship with members of the iconic bandCredit: GettyThe Beatles Anthology CollectionCredit: Refer to source
“Forget personalities, it was purely about being in a band — the best band they’d ever been in.
“After they broke up, and I include my dad in this, they were looking for each other the whole time.
“That’s the truth of the matter. I know that Paul misses my dad, and I know that Paul misses John.”
So, in approaching Anthology, he clearly wanted to show how songs evolved. A bit of studio banter, all that kind of stuff
Giles Martin on his father George
This brings Giles to a significant moment during the completion of Now And Then, The Beatles’ final single.
“I remember doing the string parts, and being with Paul,” he recalls. “He said, ‘That’s George playing the guitar again. Let’s listen to that because I want to respect what he’s doing, because he’s got great ideas’.”
The original Anthology project wasn’t just a reunion for three Beatles but also for George Martin who came back into the fold to curate the double albums released on three separate dates between late ’95 and late ’96.
Giles says: “My dad loved The Beatles — and he loved spending more time with them.
“What I find interesting is the vulnerability on display, my dad included. Because no one else talked to them like that.”
Being a Beatle or even The Beatles’ revered producer means that, out of respect, us mere mortals are not given to taking the p*ss. Seeing Harrison’s quip to McCartney, “Hello mate, vegetarian leather jacket?”, is a laugh-out-loud moment.
Paul, with his famously meat-free diet, replies: “Yes it is. And my boots are vegetarian leather boots!”
There’s a great scene where the band describe putting “uppers” in a teapot to get George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick to keep going and stay late into the evening for a session at Abbey Road.
“My dad always denied it but he wouldn’t have known,” says Giles. “It was probably some sort of amphetamine or caffeine.
“He used to say that, with each passing year, The Beatles started work an hour later.”
You might imagine that the producer, with his schoolmasterly image and close attention to detail, was a perfectionist.
But Giles says: “I don’t think he was a perfectionist — although he was upset at me once for not measuring out Pimm’s properly!
“The music wouldn’t have sounded like it did, fresh and alive, if he had been one.
“So, in approaching Anthology, he clearly wanted to show how songs evolved. A bit of studio banter, all that kind of stuff.”
Giles adds that The Beatles were on board with this, seeing it rather like “a trawl through the photographs that don’t make it into the family album”.
‘Close to John’
“A good example is [the early version of] Yellow Submarine with John originally coming up with the idea and singing, ‘In the town where I was born, no one cared, no one cared’.
“Obviously, that was not right for Ringo to sing so Paul got involved and they changed it, developing it into the Yellow Submarine that children sang in schoolyards.”
I ask Giles to describe his father’s relationship with each of the four Beatles and he begins with Lennon.
“He was very close to John to begin with, because John was perceived as leader of the band.
My dad and Ringo always loved each other. Ringo was an ardent fan and he was also the glue which kept things together.
Giles on his father’s relationship with Ringo Starr
“He was the older one out of Lennon and McCartney and they were like the two favourite children which George felt rather bitter about.”
On Anthology Vol. 4, you hear the producer calmly encouraging Lennon to sing rehearsals of the White Album song Julia, about his mother who died when he was just 17. Both agree that it’s a “very hard” song to sing.
Giles maintains that, as The Beatles’ journey progressed, his dad’s dealings with Lennon changed.
“John wanted things to be immediate, to be rock and roll, but my dad’s process was different. Then it annoyed him when John went with Phil Spector [for Let It Be] and all that multi-layered stuff.”
If Lennon made wayward comments after the band split up, an encounter just before he died helped heal the wounds.
Giles says: “In 1980, John contacted my dad, who went to see him at the Dakota Building in New York.
“Yoko went out, and John admitted he’d said loose-tongued things in the past, when he ‘was high’.
“John told my dad, ‘I wish we could record everything again, properly this time’. Dad goes, ‘How about Strawberry Fields?’. And he replies, ‘Especially Strawberry Fields!’.
But they talked about working together again. Then my dad flew back to England and John was shot, yet there was a weird kind of redemption to the whole thing.”
As for McCartney and George Martin, Giles says: “Paul always maintained a very close relationship with my dad.
“Towards the end of The Beatles, Paul was the one trying to keep the band going, but with his vision. Then, as we know, he went off to Scotland and decided to make it on his own.
“But he got back with my dad for Live And Let Die [in 1973] and they had an ongoing friendship.”
And what about Starr? “My dad and Ringo always loved each other. Ringo was an ardent fan and he was also the glue which kept things together.”
There’s a wonderful scene in Anthology’s Episode 9 when McCartney and Harrison joke about doing a stadium “mud-wrestling” contest and Ringo interjects with, “I’ll be the ref!”.
And finally, we arrive at George Martin’s association with George Harrison.
Giles says: “My dad always felt guilty that he didn’t give George the attention he deserved — but he couldn’t do it all.
“So George would go off and do his own thing, like Savoy Truffle. He could be quite stubborn and driven, like they all were.”
But Giles remembers the abiding affection Harrison had for his father, first encountering him at a Simon & Garfunkel concert in 1982 at Wembley Stadium “when I was very young”.
“I went to the loo and this man said, ‘Are you all right?’. I was a bit embarrassed but I said, ‘Yeah’.
“When I went back out, he was standing with my parents. It was George.
“My dad said, ‘This is my son, Giles’. And he said, ‘We just met having a p*ss’. I remember thinking that he was really nice.
“When my father became ill the first time around, with prostate cancer, George was the one who went to see him and sat by his bed.”
The band pictured in 1967Giles says: ‘Paul always maintained a very close relationship with my dad’Credit: Getty – Contributor
As we prepare to go our separate ways on this cold November day, I can’t help thinking how Giles Martin has inherited a deep affection for The Beatles from his illustrious father.
Hooker Jamie George, wing Tom Roebuck and centre Ollie Lawrence have been ruled out of Sunday’s match against Argentina as England’s tough autumn stretches the squad.
All three started the 33-19 win over New Zealand last weekend, but George and Lawrence picked up hamstring injuries while Roebuck has a foot problem.
Two other regulars, lock Ollie Chessum and centre Tommy Freeman, are again unavailable after missing the victory over the All Blacks.
Hooker Jamie Blamire, second row Charlie Ewels and uncapped teenage wing Noah Caluori come into the squad as Steve Borthwick’s side target an unbeaten autumn.
Caluori, who was named in England’s initial autumn internationals squad, scored in England A’s win over Spain on Saturday.
Argentina are in London this week after cruising past Wales and then coming back from a big deficit to stun Scotland in Edinburgh last Sunday.
Fly-half George Ford, who masterminded a 2-0 series win in Argentina in the summer, says England will be expecting a tough time against the Pumas.
“I know first-hand from being there in the summer how good a team Argentina are,” Ford told BBC Sport.
“They are an incredible, emotional and passionate team and we will have to make sure we get our prep right for that.”
Meanwhile, full-back Freddie Steward is available for selection despite failing a head injury assessment in the first half against the All Blacks.
The Rugby Football Union says Steward passed both his second and third HIAs, so is cleared to play this weekend.
HE may be growing old very, very gracefully, but George Clooney is worried about ageing too fast – and forgetting his lines.
The Hollywood heartthrob, 64, was taken on a surprise walk down memory lane after shooting his latest film Jay Kelly, in which he plays a fictional famous actor.
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George Clooney, pictured in Italy last year, had to face getting olderCredit: GettyGeorge and wife Amal at the Venice Film Festival in AugustCredit: GettyGeorge as superhero in 2017’s Batman & Robin
Unknown to him, director Noah Baumbach had added snippets of George’s previous movies at the end of the Netflix release.
And watching the years roll by on screen was an eye-opener for the silver fox, not least when he was met with milestones he would rather forget.
His dodgy Eighties haircut in sitcom The Facts Of Life was one, as well as just how young he was when he starred in hospital drama ER in the Nineties.
George, whose hits include Ocean’s Eleven and Gravity, says: “It was really fascinating, because you go through all the things we all go through, which is you watch yourself age, which you have to make peace with.
“You also look at some f***ing horrible mullets. And you have to kind of get through all that.
“And you do get this thing of, ‘God, that was just yesterday, wasn’t it?’. That I was on ER or something. It really does go by fast. And the older you get, the faster it seems to go.”
Having dropped out of university, where he was studying journalism, he sold insurance and shoes while also trying his luck as an extra on TV.
Sequels cancelled George recalls: “I came from Augusta, Kentucky, where I was a tobacco farmer. And you go on all these auditions and you go, ‘Well, I took a shot’. And if it doesn’t work out, it’s easy when you get older to go, ‘Yeah, I gave it a shot. It didn’t work out’, which happens.
“But you can’t do it when you’re old and you didn’t try. That’s regret.”
Back when opportunities were thin on the ground, George did take some roles he now recalls ruefully.
That includes the first movie he was cast in, called Grizzly II: Revenge, which suffered financial problems.
Backers pulled out of the 1983 low-budget horror flick, which also featured Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern, so the cast were stuck in Hungary for weeks while the funding was sorted out.
George reveals: “It was funded by these Hungarians. And then they lost the money.
“And so we got stuck there for, like, two months. And it was Laura, Charlie Sheen and me. It was all our first films.
“And we’re stuck there for two months. And we can’t get home. We don’t know what to do.
In Grizzly II, we get eaten by a bear in the first scene. It never comes out, thank Christ. Then some schmuck finds it. Now it’s ‘starring George Clooney’ and I get worst reviews of my life
George Clooney
“And literally, we get eaten by a bear in the first scene and so it never comes out. Thank Christ.”
Although the movie was not completed at the time, it was finally finished and released in 2020, with George given a top billing, even though he only appeared briefly.
He continues: “Some schmuck finds it and he gets a bunch of old footage of s**. And he puts it together.
“And now it’s like, ‘Starring George Clooney’. And it comes out. And after 40 years, I’m getting the worst reviews of my life.”
George’s screen breakthrough came in 1994 when he began playing paediatric doctor Doug Ross in ER, which was a global success.
It led to major movies including From Dusk Till Dawn two years later, and Batman & Robin in 1997.
George as Jay Kelly and Adam Sandler as Ron Sukenick in Jay KellyCredit: Peter Mountain/NetflixGeorge and Laura Dern in Grizzly IICredit: Alamy
The star is able to laugh off his much-panned version of the caped crusader, which was such a flop that the sequels were cancelled.
And he jokes that his eight-year-old twins Alexander and Ella will be left traumatised by the Batman outfit he wore.
The actor says: “We know they’re going to be in therapy no matter what, just from Batman & Robin. ‘My dad had rubber f***ing nipples’. Disaster.”
George, who was married to actress Talia Balsam, 66, for four years until 1993, dated a string of beautiful women, including Renee Zellweger and British TV presenter Lisa Snowdon, before settling down with lawyer Amal Alamuddin.
She is the mother of his children and the couple have been married for 11 years.
They have homes near Reading, Berks and in Kentucky, US.
It is clear that George is very content, unlike his latest character.
He says of the fictional Jay Kelly: “He regrets his relationship with his father. He regrets the relationship with his kids. “He regrets the relationship with the women in his life and not spending enough time with people you love. I don’t have much of that. I mean, I have kids that still like me.”
Even so, fans might have some difficulty separating fiction from reality when they see George in his latest role.
He is, after all, playing a Hollywood star who has experienced plenty of ups and downs.
When Noah Baumbach, who is married to Barbie director Greta Gerwig, wrote the script, he thought George was the natural choice for the lead role.
But the actor hopes he did not see any of Kelly’s nasty streak in him.
People will be like, ‘Oh, you’re just playing yourself in this’. And I go, ‘Well, I hope not, because the guy’s a d***’
George Clooney
He jokes: “People will be like, ‘Oh, you’re just playing yourself in this’. And I go, ‘Well, I hope not, because the guy’s a d***’.
‘I was scared’
“But, you know, maybe they’re telling me something. When he said, ‘I wrote this with you in mind,’ I was like, ‘F*** you’.”
This will only be George’s seventh movie in the past ten years. He has not received many scripts that interested him — and some of the roles he did take failed to “challenge” him.
That includes the 2024 Apple+ action comedy Wolfs that he made with Brad Pitt and the romcom Ticket To Paradise with Julia Roberts in 2022.
George says: “For the last ten years or so, for the most part, I was directing because I was more interested in telling stories and I wanted to continue to be a storyteller. But the parts I was getting offered weren’t all that interesting.
“And so I hadn’t really been in a film. I did a couple of movies. I did a movie with Julia Roberts and I did a movie with Brad, which were fun and they’re fun to work with and people that I know. But it’s not challenging yourself.
“We know what the audience wants delivered for those films.”
Neither of those movies were well received by reviewers and George hasn’t had a critically-acclaimed film since 2016’s Hail, Caesar!
Out of the nine movies he has directed, Good Night, And Good Luck was the biggest success, picking up Best Picture and Best Director Oscar nominations at the 2006 awards.
And while 2014’s The Monuments Men was a box-office hit, other offerings such as Leatherheads in 2008 lost money.
George is sanguine about any setbacks he has faced. “I was friends with Gregory Peck and I was friends with Paul Newman. Even those guys, and they were the biggest movie stars in the world, even their careers don’t just go like that,” he explains pointing upwards.
Making a rollercoaster motion, he continues: “Their careers do this, that’s how they ride. And my career has had many of those, many failures and many things that I wish I’d done better.”
I was friends with Gregory Peck and Paul Newman. Even those guys, and they were the biggest movie stars in the world, even their careers don’t just go upwards. My career has had many failures
George has taken risks by getting up on stage on Broadway, recreating Good Night, And Good Luck as a play earlier this year.
It received five Tony nominations, including best actor for the star himself.
Not bad for a man who struggled to remember the script.
He admits: “I hadn’t done a play in 40 years. And so I was nervous. And every night, you know, I was worried because as you get older, it’s hard to remember your lines.
George Clarke has admitted that his upcoming routine on Strictly Come Dancing means ‘so much more’ than just the routine because it will be dedicated to his family
Strictly’s George Clarke admitted he was struggling with pressure ahead of this week’s dance (Image: BBC)
George Clarke has admitted that his upcoming routine on Strictly Come Dancing means “so much more” than just the routine. The YouTube star, 25, is gearing up to perform a Rumba on Saturday’s edition of the BBC competition alongside professional partner Alexis Warr.
He said: “It definitely will be. Especially considering the past few weeks have been much much more ‘ok I can do the steps but can I perform?’ I feel like the steps are very important but the performance is everything to me because it’s a song that means a lot to me and my family. And yeah it is hard this week to not put the pressure on myself because it is a dance that I want to get right even more so.”
But, It Takes Two presenter Janette Manrara instantly stepped in to comfort George, and she reminded him: “You have got to let that go so you can enjoy it because it is about enjoyment. Like we was this past week!”
Just days ago, George admitted: “So my sister sang the song Somewhere Only We Know at my grandad’s funeral and it’s a song that means a lot to my whole family.
“My mum has had a lot of trouble in the last 10 years so I thought it’d be nice to use this platform to devote something to her and the rest of the family. Hopefully they’ll be less on the edge of their seat wondering if it’s going to go wrong.”
George has consistently been at the higher end of the leader board throughout his time in the competition so far, but admitted ahead of his next challenge that it can all feel ‘really strange’ to him because performing isn’t something he’s necessarily used to.
He said: “It’s really strange, the whole sort of performing side of it because that’s not something I do.”
Celebrity and PR expert Kayley Cornelius has speculated that George’s social media savviness is giving him is giving him an advantage in the competition. “As we see most years with Strictly stars, the type of content he’s now pushing out, he’s featuring Alexis in a lot of his videos, so he’s really trying to captivate the fans that may not have been familiar with him before,” she said on behalf of Online Slots provider Spin Genie.
He’s posting a lot more consistently and this new type of content seems to really be working with him, it seems to be pushing him on the algorithm more than usual. Strictly’s really bringing a whole new audience for him in that sense.”
She added that George’s large following – over 2.4m followers on TikTok – is also helping the BBC. “To be honest, I think George is doing Strictly more of a favour than Strictly is doing George,” she said.
“He’s bringing in a lot more of the viewers this year. I think there’ll be a conscious effort from the Strictly social team to make sure that he is featured more in the content going forward. They’ll know that a lot of George’s audience lands online. He has a large following, a really engaging, impressionable audience as well.”
She added: “George has had such an advantage point going into the competition. This year, the voting system has changed where they’ve moved votes online – that’s his bread and butter.
“He’s worked really hard, he’s performing well, and he’s just an all-round lovely person. So I think a combination of all three of those things will take him right to the finish line. And you know, with the betting markets at the minute, it is just looking like his competition to win now.”
Tom Rosenstiel, formerly a Washington correspondent for The Times, now covers Congress for Newsweek
In January, 1991, as America stood on the edge of its first war in a generation, a quiet, bespectacled man stood in the well of the U.S. Senate and forced the nation to hesitate and think. George J. Mitchell, a former federal judge who was then Senate majority leader, had successfully pressed the Bush Administration into something Presidents had ignored for half a century: allowing Congress its constitutional authority to vote on making war.
Mitchell’s maneuver was politically perilous. Anyone who opposed the Gulf War risked appearing disloyal to the country and its then enormously popular President. Yet what followed, people in both parties now recall, was one of the finest moments in Senate history, a high-minded and highly emotional debate of conscience by a nation about to send its young people to war.
During George Bush’s four years as President, it was only one of many incidents when Mitchell, an intellectual politician in the era of three-second attack politics, drew sharp lines between Congress and the Republican Administration. For a time, the stoic New Englander, who avoided flashy TV sound bites and had a strong commitment to lighthouses and waterfowl, was the most important Democrat in the country.
Mitchell had risen to majority leader with historic speed. He was in only his eighth year when the Senate picked him as its leader. The former political protege of legendary Maine Democrat Edmund S. Muskie, Mitchell had spent much of his time in the Senate fighting to pass two liberal bills, a Clean Air Act and a law to clean up oil spills. He struck colleagues as uniquely decent and fair, disciplined, unemotional and deeply intellectual.
Early in 1994, he stunned Washington by announcing he would not seek almost certain reelection for a third term. He then turned down a seat on the Supreme Court in the spring of 1994. Some speculated that he was holding out to become commissioner of baseball. Still others linked his court demurrer to the fact that the 61-year-old divorce would marry 37-year-old Heather MacLachlan, a manager of professional athletes.
He dedicated the rest of his Senate career to passing health-care reform, but by October, that effort had collapsed. Then, on Election Day, his chosen successor for the Senate lost, the seat going to Republican Olympia Snowe. His party had lost the Senate after six years in the majority and the House after 40. On election night, Mitchell says, he never saw it coming.
During his last week in Washington, Mitchell sat down a t the polished conference table in his elegant Senate office to reflect on his leaving. He was still busy, juggling plans for his marriage in December and managing the passage of GATT , always dressed in crisp white shirt and dark suit, even on Saturday. But over the course of three long sessions, his reserve began to ease and his hands to wave as he reflected on what is right and wrong with the U.S Congress, on President Clinton, the Republican and Democratic parties, and about why so many Americans feel the nation is in political crisis.
*
I was taken by surprise. I’d hoped that we would retain control of both the Senate and House, although I knew that we would suffer some losses. In off-year elections, the party of the President usually loses about four seats in the Senate. We lost eight.
In retrospect, if the Administration and the congressional leadership had decided to forgo health care for this year and concentrated on welfare reform, it might have produced a different result.
But I think the Democrats are also suffering the effects of larger cultural, political and economic upheaval. Whenever a society is in transition, there’s uncertainty, anxiety, even fear. Clearly, we are a society undergoing major transition now. For most American families, incomes have either declined or remained stagnant. People see now that it is not inevitable or likely that incomes will continue to rise. Whenever there is a major transition, there is a natural desire, even a longing, for a simple, easy answer–Why is this so? How can it be corrected? There is a nostalgia for the past, often an inaccurate glorification of the past. We’ve had in our history times when seemingly simplistic answers have been offered, which in retrospect look ridiculous. The Know-Nothing movement flourished in the mid-19th Century; the Ku Klux Klan flourished early in this century; we’ve had a lot of Red scares; we’ve had a lot of things we look back on and wonder now how they happened. But at the time, given the state of anxiety and fear, it’s understandable.
I want to make very clear that I do not equate what happened this year with the Ku Klux Klan or the Know-Nothings. I’m simply describing a phenomenon of a society in transition being (susceptible).
What the Republicans did was very skillful. They developed a clear and simple message–that if we can somehow stop this expansion of government authority, then family values will be restored. It has an appeal. It’s simple, it’s comprehensible, it appears to be logical. Of course, it isn’t going to restore those values. It certainly isn’t going to do the really essential thing of promoting economic growth. Indeed, they also labeled the Democrats as the party of high taxes. In fact, the President’s economic plan passed in 1993 raised income-tax rates only on the highest-earning 1.2% of all Americans and cut taxes for most lower- and middle-income families. Polls show people don’t know that. But the Republicans didn’t make up their argument out of whole cloth. Democrats helped them.
For too many in our party, government became a first resort rather than a last. There was an inability to distinguish between principle and programs–we became committed to programs. Democrats have succeeded when we have seen the difference and when we have been perceived as the party of economic growth. But in recent years, we’ve become increasingly perceived not as the party trying to make the economic pie grow but as the party trying to make sure that every single person gets an absolutely equal slice of the pie. That has coincided with a polarization of income concurrent with the polarization by race.
In Congress, meanwhile, the Republicans have been very skillful, cynical but skillful, in creating a gridlock from which they have benefited.
Perhaps the best example is the first item in the House Republicans’ contract with America, which would require that all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? It’s so good, in fact, that we Democrats have promoted this legislation even longer than Republicans. That bill passed the House of Representatives when it was controlled by Democrats.
When I tried to bring it up in the Senate, Republican senators objected. They prevented the Senate from considering the legislation that their party said was No. 1 on its contract. That’s cynicism and, I’m sorry to say, successful cynicism. Now next year they’ll pass the legislation, and they’ll say, “Look here, we’re honoring our contract.”
*
Though they barely knew each other before Election Day in 1992, Mitchell was one of President Clinton’s closest allies during the past two years. He fought for Clinton’s deficit-cutting budget in 1993 and battled for health care reform in 1994 even when most Democrats thought the battle was lost. Since the Democratic defeat in November, many in Mitchell’s party have laid most of the blame on Clinton.
*
I think the problems the President has encountered are largely the result of too ambitious an agenda. If we had had just a few items, I think we’d have been a lot better off.
In retrospect, moreover, if I had known that health care would not be enacted, it would have made sense to discontinue the effort and to go on to welfare reform. But nine months ago, (passing health care) looked pretty good.
I didn’t know then-Gov. Clinton very well prior to the election, but I came to consider him extremely intelligent, very knowledgeable on issues, hard working, and the policy positions he has taken are mostly, not always, consistent with my own.
I recall one meeting last year, when he had a group of us to the White House for dinner to talk on health care, bipartisan, maybe 10 or 12 senators. Usually at these meetings, the members of Congress know all the details because the President speaks in general terms. It became evident quickly that the President knew much more about the details than did any of the members. It was a complete reversal in terms of knowledge of the subject.
I also disagree that the President is vacillating and indecisive. Historian Garry Wills has compared Clinton to Lincoln and said that the difference is Clinton does it all publicly in advance, and Lincoln did it all privately, behind the walls of the White House. I think one of the problems that has depicted this White House as vacillating is that they do their thinking out loud.
It is unfair, too, to have suggested that President Clinton has no bedrock principles on which he will not compromise. Look at the things he’s taken on. Why does he have political problems? In the South, they say it’s because of the policy on gays in the military. Is this a man without conviction? I don’t see how critics can have it both ways. On the one hand they say he pursued unpopular policies, on the other he doesn’t have convictions.
I have a theory, though it’s entirely subjective and personal, that economic matters are more important to the electorate in presidential elections than they are in off-term elections. I think if the economy stays strong, he’ll be in a much better position to gain reelection than he is now. Right now he’s being measured not against another person, but against each citizen’s individual subjective idealization of the presidency. When he runs, he’s going to be running against a person, (who will) have a personal life and a business background that will be relentlessly scrutinized. I’m convinced that Ross Perot will be running, and that will help President Clinton–even more than in ‘92, because the Perot supporters are much more Republican now. I think Bill Clinton will be reelected.
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Mitchell said he began thinking about retiring the day of the 1994 State of the Union speech in January. There were many factors, but important among them was the realization that if he didn’t leave now, at 61, he would become too old to take up anything else–such as, for instance, baseball commissioner.
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In 1993, when I turned 60, I decided to celebrate by climbing the highest mountain in my home state of Maine, Mt. Kitahdin. It’s one of the toughest non-technical climbs in the East, a mile high and about a 4,000-foot vertical climb.
There are two peaks on Mt. Kitahdin: Pamola Peak and the summit. The distance between them is a narrow ledge that stretches more than a mile, called the Knife’s Edge; I have a fear of heights.
Late that night, after we finished, I told my friends that the climb reminded me of Charles Darwin’s trip around the world, during which he first conceived the theory of evolution. It was a physically rough trip for him; he was sick for a large part of the time. He never made another such trip, and he spent the rest of his life talking about that one. That’s the way I felt about climbing Mt. Kitahdin.
That is also how I feel when I reflect on what it took to pass major legislation in the U.S. Senate, including one of my highest priorities, the Clean Air Act.
I had run for majority leader in 1988, in significant part so that we could pass some of the legislation that I had tried for six or seven years to make into law and failed. After I was majority leader, and we finally got the clean air bill onto the floor, it became obvious it couldn’t pass. I didn’t want it to die, so I decided we should negotiate. We spent over a month in my conference room–members of the Bush Administration and senators, groups of 10 or 12, sometimes 50 or 60. There were many 16- to 18-hour days. We went over every provision, negotiating in good faith, and we finally reached a consensus.
That’s what it takes to enact major legislation. And that is one of the few tools available now to the Senate majority leader: the ability to get people together, to get them to listen to each other. No longer can a leader order senators to follow. Lyndon B. Johnson centralized power in the majority leader. He was able to exert influence on his colleagues for three reasons. One was his personality. Second, he had the power to appoint all senators to committees and to remove them from committees. That can make or break a senator’s career. The other was that if you wanted a roll call vote, you had to get his approval. He used those powers very effectively, but in the minds of many of his colleagues, he abused them. When he left, those powers were taken away from the majority leader, so majority leaders since have had very little in the way of institutional tools to impose discipline (over their party or the institution).
I have advocated that some of these powers be restored. Bob Dole, the new majority leader, disagreed. I expect he may change his mind now. Of course, the Senate could make these changes simply by operating with a resumption of the self-restraint that existed among its members for most of our history but no longer does.
In the entire 19th Century there were 16 filibusters in the U.S. Senate–an average of one every 6 1/2 years. For most of this century, filibusters occurred fewer than once a year. In the 103rd Congress just concluded, there were 20 filibusters attempted and 72 motions to end them.
It is harder to govern now, I think, because of the tone in politics today, which debases public discussion. Distrust of Congress and elected officials is not new in our society, but I think several factors have contributed to the increase in negativism in politics.
First, the press has abandoned many of the traditional restraints it imposed on itself with regard to reporting on the personal life of public officials. Second, television. The viewer, the voter, hears candidate Tom say that his opponent Diane is a bum; Diane responds that Tom is a crook, and so the voters come to believe that they have a choice between a bum and a crook. A third factor, I believe, is partisan. Until Bill Clinton was elected, there seemed a nearly permanent state of affairs in which the presidency was held by Republicans and the Congress by Democrats. So for nearly two decades, Republicans bashed the Congress.
All of those things have combined to create a highly negative discussion in which issues are oversimplified and reduced to slogans.
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In his own career, Mitchell was unusually fair and bipartisan when it came to dispensing the rules of the Senate. Among his first acts as majority leader was ending the practice of tactical surprise . Before that, both sides had to keep one senator on the floor at all times . But Mitchell could also be scorchingly partisan when it came to policy differences.
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We Democrats bear responsibility for the failure to deal more effectively with the nation’s problems. But so do Republicans. Their policy in the Senate in 1994 was one of total obstruction. Let me give you an example.
We passed earlier this year in both houses the gift- and lobbying-disclosure legislation. The Republicans really didn’t want it, so when the bill came up for final passage in the House, Newt Gingrich concocted this argument that it will have some effect on grass-roots lobbying, and they got Christian organizations to come out against it. That same excuse was used in the Senate. So I offered to take that provision out and vote on the same bill that we had passed by a vote of 95 to 2 a few months earlier. Which, of course, all the Republicans had voted for. But they refused. When you prevent legislation that you’ve actually voted for, you’re engaged in a policy of total obstruction. But it worked. The Republican (complaint) was, well the darned place isn’t functioning. The Democrats are in charge, so let’s change the people in charge, and maybe we’ll get some action.
Now they are in a different position. I think the Republicans will soon learn that it’s easier to campaign against something than to govern. You actually are responsible for acting. I think we Democrats suffer the burden more because we believe that government can produce beneficial results and conditions in our society. But we didn’t do a very good job of making that case this year.
I don’t know Newt Gingrich very well. Most of my dealings have been with Bob Michel, who was the Republican leader in the House for all of the time that I was majority leader. Newt sort of took over during the latter stages of this Congress. My impression is that he’s very smart and appears to be committed to an ideology. But I wonder if he is smart enough to recognize that in order to be a successful Speaker, he will have to use an approach different from that which got him to be Speaker–basically the difference between campaigning and governing.
I believe people can change. In general terms, I think people grow in office. I think people become more responsible with increased responsibility, become more active with increased demands on them. But I have no way of knowing in his particular case.
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For all his frustration, even anger, Mitchell wanted to assert that he does not feel jaundiced about politics and the future. He also remains, in the parlance of Washington, an unreconstructed liberal, though not without complaints .
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For all this, the problems of the party and the historical forces the Republicans have capitalized on, I don’t share the view that the country is shifting ideologically. Nor do I fear that the Democratic Party is somehow marginalizing itself. I am, on the contrary, very optimistic.
I’ve written a lot of bills that have become law, and many of them are meaningful to me. I’m the author of something called the Lighthouse Preservation Program. It’s a very small bill, but I regard it as a great accomplishment.
It’s ironic that at this moment, when American ideals and culture are ascendant in the world, when the American economy is the most productive and efficient in the world, when unemployment in America is less than that in virtually every other developed industrial democracy of the world, that Americans should be so anxious and fearful, such easy prey for demagoguery and scapegoatism. I think the Democrats still are the party of opportunity and economic growth.
What we have to do is to narrow our focus to economic-growth policies as opposed to trying to solve every other problem. I can sum up my philosophy in a sentence: In America, no one shouldbe guaranteed success, but everyone should have a fair chance to go as far as talent, education and will can take them.
When Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan first stepped up to the podium at the museum’s star-packed 14th annual Art + Film Gala, the Dodgers were down one point to the Toronto Blue Jays in the eighth inning of the final game of the World Series.
There was no giant screen in the massive tent where a decadent dinner was being served Saturday night in celebration of honorees artist Mary Corse and director Ryan Coogler. Instead guests in elaborate gowns and tuxedos discreetly glanced at their phones propped on tables and at the base of flower vases across the star-packed venue. This became apparent when Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run at the top of the ninth inning and the whole room erupted in cheers.
Michael Govan, CEO of LACMA, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
When Govan returned to the stageto begin the well-deserved tributes to the artist and filmmaker of the hour, the game had been won, the effusive cheering had died down, and the phones had been respectfully put away.
“Go Dodgers!” Govan said, before joking that LACMA had engineered the win for this special evening. The room was juiced.
It made Los Angeles feel like the center of the universe for a few hours and was fitting for an event that famously brings together the city’s twin cultural bedrocks of art and cinema, creating a rarefied space where the two worlds mix and mingle in support of a shared vision of recognizing L.A.’s immeasurable contributions to the global cultural conversation.
“This is a celebration that can only happen in L.A. — where art, film and creativity are deeply intertwined,” Govan said. “I always say this is the most creative place on Earth.”
The event raised a record $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs. Co-chairs Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow hosted a cocktail party and dinner that drew celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Cynthia Erivo, Cindy Crawford, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett, Lorde, Demi Moore, Hannah Einbinder, Charlie Hunnam and Elle Fanning alongside local elected officials and appointees including U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles); L.A. County Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath; L.A. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky; West Hollywood Councilmember John M. Erickson, and Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.
Sakoda said she thoroughly enjoyed the festivities “as representative of the incredibly diverse culture of Los Angeles and how that speaks to our entire nation.”
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1.George Lucas arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)2.Elle Fanning arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)3.Angela Bassett arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)
A special nod of gratitude went to previous gala honorees in attendance including artists Mark Bradford, James Turrell, Catherine Opie, Betye Saar, Judy Baca, George Lucas and Park Chan-Wook. Leaders from many other local arts institutions also showed up including the Hammer Museum’s director, Zoe Ryan; California African American Museum Director Cameron Shaw; and MOCA’s interim Director Ann Goldstein.
Rising in the background was LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor-designed building scheduled to open in April as the new home for the museum’s 150,000-object permanent collection.
“Every day I’m in that little building behind installing thousands of artworks,” Govan said to cheers. “I can’t wait for people to rediscover our permanent collection, from old favorites to new acquisitions. It’s a monumental gift to L.A., and in addition to L.A. County and the public, I would like to thank the person whose generosity brought us to this landmark moment, Mr. David Geffen.”
Geffen sat in a sea of black ties and glittering gowns, near Disney CEO Bob Iger and DiCaprio — who had been filmed earlier in the week in attendance at Game 5 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium.
Govan also gave a special acknowledgment to former LACMA board co-chair, Elaine Wynn, who died earlier this year and was one of the museum’s most steadfast champions. Wynn contributed $50 million to the new building — one of the first major gifts in support of the effort. Govan noted that the northern half of the building will be named the Elaine Wynn wing.
Honoree Ryan Coogler, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
Left unmentioned was the fact that earlier in the week LACMA’s employees announced they are forming a union, LACMA United, representing more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, guest relations associates and others. One worker told The Times there were no plans to demonstrate at the gala, which raises much-needed funds for the museum.
The crowd sat rapt as the night’s guests of honor, Corse and Coogler, humbly spoke of their journeys in their respective art forms, with Govan introducing them as “artists whose brilliant groundbreaking work challenges us to see the world differently.”
The night concluded with an enthusiastic performance by Doja Cat on an outdoor stage in the shadow of the David Geffen Galleries, the lights girding its massive concrete underbelly like stars in the sky.
“It was a beautiful evening of community coming together around something that reminds us of our shared humanity at a time when we need it,” said Yaroslavsky with a smile as the evening wound down.
