a curriculum vitae of some sorts...

Having glimpsed over his shoulder last night at the computer, here is the cv i saw my husband posting:

Academic CV’s can be pretty deadening, and sometimes obscure as much about a person as they illuminate. Here are a few relatively random career events that don’t quite fit the model resume:

• Had breakfast with Bette Davis. 

• Shook hands with Ingmar Bergman. 

• Became a principal character in a novel about the invention of cinema, Das Leben als auch (2013),  by Diedrich zur Nedden. 

• Chatted with Mick Jagger around 1am the night he married Bianca. 

• Moderated public meetings with Gloria Steinem, Madeline Albright, Maya Angelou, Studs Terkel, Jimmy Breslin, etc. 

• Was yelled at by Otto Preminger in front of his entire crew. 

• Helped Sam Fuller repack his suitcase with cigars in Miami. 

• Met a cat at Logan Airport, Boston, shipped in as a gift from Karen Black. 

• Organized John Wayne’s invasion of Harvard Square in an armored personnel carrier, a front-page story for over 70 American newspapers. 

• Played poker with Gordon McLendon, and lost. 

• Wrote Page 1 story for The Boston Globe on Sen. Howard Baker during Watergate hearings. 

• Visited backstage with Louis Armstrong, Clifton Chenier, Charlie Seeger, Lena Horne, others. 

• Testified as an expert witness at the pornography trial of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls. 

• Made TV pilot with Pauline Kael.
• On meeting Henri Langois, had the offer to “start a little cinémathèque in Boston. I will send you some films....” 

• MC for Garrison Keillor broadcast on WGBH-FM before live audience of 2900. 

• Moderator of nine public lectures of author Ayn Rand. 

• Nearly dropped the Best Picture Oscar for Rocky when handed it by studio chief Mike Medavoy.
• Tutor for Roger Manvell at Boston University. 

• Passed up an invitation to meet Paul Robeson (Damn!!). 

• Talked Zanussi films with Stephen Sondheim. 

• Shared a pizza with Illinois Jacquet. 

Deac Rossell has held posts as Film Critic and Film Editor, Boston After Dark / Boston Phoenix; Film Coordinator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Photography Critic, The Boston Globe; National Special Projects Officer, Directors Guild of America, Hollywood; Guest Programmer, UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles; Head of Programme Planning, National Film Theatre, London; Associate Editor, Early Popular Visual Culture; Visiting Lecturer, The European Film School, Ebeltoft, Denmark; and is currently Lecturer in European Studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmith’s College, University of London. He is the author of Living Pictures, the Origins of the Movies (SUNY Press), Faszination der Bewegung - Ottomar Anschütz zwischen Photographie und Kino (Stroemfeld/Roter Stern), The Magic Lantern: a History (Fuesslin Verlag), and is an active contributor to journals, encyclopaedias and conferences on photography, early cinema and pre-cinematic topics, with work published in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and the United States.

pretty cool, eh?