Breezy

All Music Guide:

R&B singer/songwriter and producer Terius Youngdell Nash, better known as the-Dream, was born in Rockingham, NC, but moved down to Atlanta, GA, with his mother at the age of three. He first learned to play trumpet in elementary school, later picking up the drums and guitar. Nash's singing career got off to a slow start once he graduated from high school, but he found success in selling song lyrics after he met R&B producer Laney Stewart in 2001. Stewart helped the-Dream land his first publishing contract in 2003 in light of his penning "Everything" for B2K's platinum 2002 album Pandemonium! Paired with producer Chris "Tricky" Stewart (Laney's brother), he continued to write songs for various artists over the next four years, such as the Britney Spears/Madonna duet "Me Against the Music." His watershed moment came when he and Tricky created Rihanna's 2007 international smash hit "Umbrella."

Several labels began approaching him so he could churn out more hits for their artists, particularly Def Jam, Rihanna's label, which was reluctant to sign the singer/songwriter at first. Def Jam finally stopped dancing around the issue of signing the-Dream after he sold number one R&B single "Bed" to Capitol Records newcomer J. Holiday. In fall 2007, the-Dream released his first single, "Shawty Is da Sh*!" (known on radio as "Shawty Is a 10"), on Def Jam, following up with his solo debut album, Love/Hate, at the end of the year. The album peaked at number five on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, while its three singles -- including "Shawty" -- reached the Top Five of the R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart. A second album, Love vs Money, followed in March 2009; though it did top the R&B chart and narrowly missed the top spot of the Billboard 200, only one song -- "Rockin' That Thang" -- received significant airplay. The-Dream declared that Love King would be his final solo album, but he retracted the statement prior to the disc's June 2010 release. Even while recording his own material, he managed to dish out songs for a wide range of popular artists, including Mary J. Blige ("Just Fine"), Mariah Carey ("Touch My Body"), Beyoncé ("Single Ladies [Put a Ring on It]"), Electrik Red (the entirety of How to Be a Lady, Vol. 1), Justin Bieber ("Baby"), onetime wife Nivea (whom he divorced in 2007), and Christina Milian (whom he married in 2009).

Wikipedia:

Breezy is a 1973 American romantic drama film, starring William Holden and Kay Lenz. It was written by Jo Heims, and was the third film directed by Clint Eastwood, who appears uncredited as a man in crowd on a pier.

Plot

Edith Alice "Breezy" Breezerman (Kay Lenz) is a carefree, 17-year-old hippie. Frank Harmon (William Holden) is a divorced, burnt-out, middle-aged real estate agent. During the film they fall in love, and each teaches the other about life.

Cast

Production

Jo Heims wrote the script about a love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. Heims had originally intended Eastwood to play the starring role of the realtor Frank Harmon, a bitter divorced man who falls in love with the young Breezy. Whilst Eastwood confessed to "understanding the Frank Harmon character" he believed he was too young at that stage to play Harmon. That part would go to William Holden, 12 years Eastwood's senior, and Eastwood then decided to direct the picture. Eastwood initially wanted to cast Jo Ann Harris who he had worked with in The Beguiled. During casting for the film, Eastwood met Sondra Locke for the first time, an actress who would play a major role in many of his films for the next ten years and an important figure in his life. Locke, who was 26 at this time, was considered too old for the Breezy part and after much auditioning, a young dark-haired actress named Kay Lenz, who had recently appeared in American Graffiti, was cast. According to friends of Clint, he became infatuated with Lenz during this period.

Filming for Breezy began in the November of 1972 in Los Angeles and finished five weeks later. With Surtees occupied elsewhere, Frank Stanley was brought in the shoot the picture, the first of four films he would shoot for Malpaso. The film was shot very quickly and efficiently and in the end went $1 million under budget and finished three days before schedule.

Reception

Early reviews were unfavorable, which caused the studio to shelve it for a year. It was then released with little marketing. It was not a commercial success, barely reaching the Top 50 before disappearing. Eastwood thought Universal had decided the film was going to fail long before it was released. He said "the public stayed away from it because it wasn't promoted enough, and it was sold in an uninteresting fashion". Some critics, including Eastwood's biographer Richard Schnickel, believed that the sexual content of the film and love scenes were too soft to be memorable for such a potentially scandalous relationship between Harmon and Breezy, commenting that, "it is not a sexy movie. Once again, Eastwood was too polite in his eroticism."

Lenz and Breezy figure into the storyline of Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS.

Home media release

Breezy did not reach home video until 1998. Universal Pictures released the film to DVD in 2004 with a running time of 106 minutes (NTSC). The film is in widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.

Bibliography