Gardner Mckay — Toyer — Videos
Gardner Mckay
VANITY FAIR, DOMINICK DUNNE – “GARDNER MCKAY’S BRILLIANTLY INTRICATE NOVEL,TOYER, IS FRIGHTENING, FASCINATING, AND WONDERFULLY WELL WRITTEN.
THERE WERE TIMES READING IT WHEN I HAD TO PUT IT DOWN TO COLLECT MYSELF BEFORE PICKING IT UP AGAIN.”
JIMMY BUFFETT – “THE MOST EFFECTIVE, EXCITING, BIZARRE TALE POSSIBLE. IN TOYER,MCKAY HAS GIVEN US AN ARRAY OF VICTIMS WHO FALL INTO THE VENUS FLYTRAP OF A VILLAIN AS CUNNING AS RICHARD III AND A MANIACAL AS HANNIBAL LECTER.”
JAMES CAMERON – “TOYER IS A NOVEL WHERE LOS ANGELES STARS AS ITSELF, THE CITY OF MASKS, WHERE RELATIONSHIPS PEEL THE ONION OF DARK REVELATION, AS TWO ADVERSARIES COUPLE IN A SEDUCTIVE DEATH-LOCK. GARDNER MCKAY HAS WOVEN A CHILLING AND DISTURBING DESCENT INTO THE CATACOMBS OF THE MIND.”
LEON BING – “WHOEVER PICKS UP GARDNER MCKAY’S NOVEL, TOYER, WILL KNOW, EARLY ON, THAT A MASTER HAS LAID HANDS ON THEM. THIS IS A BOOK OF SUCH SHEER, BRUTAL BRILLIANCE THAT THE READER OFTEN FEELS LIKE A PASSENGER TRAPPED ON A RUNAWAY TRAIN RACKETING ALONG A DOWNHILL TRACK.
MR. MCKAY IS A SUPERBLY ACCOMPLISHED WRITER; NOT SINCE HANNIBAL LECTER HAS THERE BEEN A LITERARY CHARACTER OF SUCH SILKEN AND ABSOLUTE MENACE AS TOYER.” –
THE NEW YORK TIMES – ”Connoisseurs – will appreciate the gorgeous imagery of McKay’s novel – the bizarre beauty of his writing.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES – “Anyone should make a beeline for McKay’s novel.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICAL – “FIRST RATE.”
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN, JOHN BERGER – “Almost impossible to put down. Read it once for the story. Read it at least twice more for the writing.”
LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE – BOOK PICK OF THE MONTH – ”Reminiscent of the best of classical L.A.noir – chilling.”
BOSTON GLOBE – “As bad as this title is as good as this book is. Slick, sensitive, brilliant.”
HONOLULU ADVERTISER, WANDA ADAMS – “ Insightful writing, unexpected plot, arresting asides, delicious evocations, and its unique take on a very much tried formula. [ I will ] read it again.”
HONOLULU WEEKLY, STUART COLEMAN – “ I couldn’t put it down.”
REDBOOK MAGAZINE – PICK OF THE MONTH
JANE MAGAZINE – “ * * * * * – Perfect.”
HONOLULU ADVERTISER – # 1 BEST SELLER
WILLIAM SPEAR (JUNEAU) – “A classy brain- clearing thriller.”
KATE JACKSON – “A stunning success. A wonderful book – brilliantly twisted.”
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER – “A true psychological thriller that will leave the reader mentally drained.”
Gardner McKay – Actor, Writer, Icon
Adventures in Paradise a Tribute to Gardner Mckay in photos
TOYER – Annabel & Andrew scene
“Toyer” by Gardner McKay
“Toyer” by Gardner McKay. Directed by Jon Gonzalez. Here’s a short play I directed. Starring Laya Hernandez and Zebastian Duchene.
Gardner McKay
Adventures in Paradise – Isle of Eden
An extract of the episode “Isle of Eden” of the “Adventures of Paradise” TV series, broadcasted on ABC TV in the USA on February 22nd 1960. Starring Gardner McKay, as Adam Troy, captain of the “Tiki, and as guest stars Yvonne De Carlo and Hugo Haas.
Sea Marks by Gardner McKay at The Irish Repertory Theatre
Adventures In Paradise Somewhere South of Suva part 2 Gardner Mckay 1960
Biography
George Cadogan Gardner McKay was born in Manhattan, New York City, his early years were spent in France, Connecticut and Kentucky. He attended Cornell University where he edited the humor magazine, wrote a film review column for the paper, was briefly president of his class and rowed on their crew.
At age fifteen, he published his first story. His novel Toyer won critical acclaim upon its release in 1998 and is currently in pre-production for a major motion film.
He has been awarded several prizes for his writing:- The Drama Critics Award for playwriting, The Sydney Carrington Prize. He won three National Endowment for the Arts grants for playwriting. Five of his play have been published by Samuel French Publishing Company, New York, Los Angeles, London: Sea Marks, Masters of the Sea, Toyer, Me, In Order of Appearance. His plays have been, and continue to be, produced in every state in the union and internationally.
Sea Marks won the National Regional Theatre Award in Canada. The Drama Critics Circle Award, best play of the year. And has been produced in NYC in six Off-Broadway productions; the Players Theatre (“Best Off- Broadway Play, Walter Kerr, New York Times) the Manhattan Theatre Club, and other theatres. It has been presented at the Eisenhower Theatre, The Kennedy Center in Washington D. C. The Edinburgh Festival and The Pitlochry Festival, Scotland. It has also been broadcast on B.B.C. Radio Theatre, London.
McKay’s play Toyer was first staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. – starring Kathleen Turner and Brad Davis, directed by, Tony Richardson. It has also been produced by Michael White in England – starring Rupert Graves, and later in London’s West End.
Other plays of his – in random order- of various lengths that have been produced are: – Untold Damage (PBS) Written and directed by Mr. McKay for PBS starring Richard Dreyfuss, Geraldine Fitzgerald, tracy Swope, Josh Bryant. It was cited as the best television production by the Television Theatre. Narcissa-Narcissus, Tapes, The Girl Next Door is Screaming, The Suit, The Visitor, Meeting, Silver Eyes, The Honeyman, Yeats/Millay, Becker, The People we Kill, Alligators Have no Choice.
He was Drama critic and Drama editor for the Los Angeles Herald Tribune. During the time he was with the Herald he invented a method of review called the “Triple Review” three brief reviews of the same play by three writers. The lone newspaper’s “Voice of the Critic” was hushed for these reviews and, instead, the review became an argument of the play’s worth on the forum of its pages.
He has taught playwriting at U.C.L.A at his Playwriting Roundtable. Later he taught playwriting and screenwriting at University of Southern California, Juneau Alaska, and the University of Hawaii.
During the ’70 and ‘80s he started a small professional group called the Playwrights’ Exchange. He personally constructed a 50-seat theatre off the kitchen of his L.A. house and every Tuesday playwrights gathered to see new work being read in whole or in fragments by professional actors. The theatre was named The Free Theatre, mainly because no money changed hands; emblematic of playwriting.
From 1995 – until his death in November 2001, Gardner wrote and recorded stories for his weekly radio show “Stories on the Wind” which aired each Sunday.
McKay has also been a sculptor ( several of his works are in the Museum of Modern Art, NYC and the Whitney Museum.) He has been a professional skipper, photographer, actor (Adventures in Paradise, Boots and Saddles), and has raised African lions.
http://gardnermckay.net/biography
Gardner McKay
George Cadogan Gardner McKay (June 10, 1932 – November 21, 2001) was an American actor, artist, and author.
Biography
Born in New York City, McKay was the great-grandson[1] of the shipbuilder Donald McKay. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for two years,[2] where he majored in art. He became a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1950s and 1960s. He landed the lead role in Adventures in Paradise, based loosely on the writings of James Michener. His character, Adam Troy, is a Korean War veteran who purchased the two-masted 82-foot (25 m) schooner Tiki III, and sailed the South Pacific.
McKay was under contract to MGM when he was spotted by Dominick Dunne, then a television producer for Twentieth Century Fox, who was searching for an actor to star in his planned Adventures in Paradise. Dunne put his business card on the table and said, “If you’re interested in discussing a television series, call me.” McKay competed in screen tests with nine other candidates, and won it because of his good looks and ability to sail. An accomplished sailor, he had made eight Atlantic crossings by the age of seventeen. Although previously unknown to the public, McKay appeared on the July 6, 1959, cover of Life Magazine just two months before the series premiered.
In the 1957–1958 season, McKay played United States Army Lieutenant Dan Kelly in the 38-episode syndicatedwestern series, Boots and Saddles, with co-stars Jack Pickard and Patrick McVey.[3] Thereafter, he was cast in the episode “Showdown” of the NBC western, Jefferson Drum, with Jeff Richards.
McKay’s final film was the 1968 I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew written and directed by Richard L. Bare.
McKay left Hollywood to pursue his interest in photography, sculpture, and writing. He turned down the opportunity to star opposite Marilyn Monroe in Something’s Got to Give, a film which was never completed. He exhibited his sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, besides holding individual exhibitions. His lifeboat rescue photographs of the Andrea Doria were published internationally. McKay wrote many plays and novels, and was a literary critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner between 1977 and 1982. He taught writing classes at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Alaska, and the University of Hawaii. In 2014 his play Sea Marks was produced Off-Broadway at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
McKay’s awards included three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for playwriting, the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and Sidney Carrington Prize. He was a winner in Canadian Regional Drama Festival, and runner-up in the Hemingway Short Story Contest.
Last years
McKay settled in Hawaii, where he died from prostate cancer in 2001, at the age of sixty-nine. He was survived by his wife, Madeleine Madigan, a painter, and two children.
References
- Jump up^ Video on YouTube
- Jump up^ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/24/arts/gardner-mckay-69-tv-heartthrob-who-turned-to-writing.html
- Jump up^ “Boots and Saddles“. Classic TV Archivers. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
External links
Gardner McKay at the Internet Movie Database
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardner_McKay
Brian De Palma Toys With Toyer Again
Six years ago, reports surfaced that Brian De Palma would next be directing the diabolical Gardner McKay novel and stage play Toyer, which follows a “serial lunatic.” The Toyer doesn’t murder or rape his beautiful female victims, he “toys” with them, torturing them psychologically, then puttting them into a medically induced coma. (Sort of like what De Palma did to audiences in Snake Eyes … We kid, Brian!)
Anyway, without a capital crime to prosecute, the police and D.A. can only charge the Toyer with “mayhem,” and as they’re overwhelmed with hundreds of uncleared murder cases, the Toyer case becomes a lower priority. So a female neurologist who treats Toyer’s victims teams up with a newspaper editor to draw him out and bring him to justice.
This time, we’re told, Toyer really is happening, but as an indie financed via producers Tarak Ben Ammar, (who most famously produced Franco Zefferilli’s La Traviata) and the L.A.-based Scott Steindorff. Steindorff has brought heavyweight literature like Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera to the screen, and tells Vulture that the film will be shooting in Venice, Italy, late this fall and into the early winter.
That’s a switch from the Gardner version, which is set in L.A., but should be far creepier: De Palma plans to set the mayhem against Venice’s famous Carnevale di Venezia, for which elaborate masks disguising one’s identity are traditionally worn on the street from St. Stephen’s Day (the day after Christmas) until the start of the Venitian Carnival (two weeks before Ash Wednesday). Steindorff says shooting during the actual Carnival (during February and March) would be logistically impossible. They plan to re-create their own Carnival on location.
“It has all the elements of suspense that Brian does so well in films likeBlow Out and Carrie,” Steindorff says, adding, “And by that I mean, it’s really frickin’ scary: I read the script on a plane, and I was still terrified.”
http://www.vulture.com/2010/08/vulture_exclusive_writer-direc.html
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