Who better to have as an ICON than Diana Vreeland? If it weren’t for her, we would be missing a lot of flavor in the world of entertainment.  You see she was a pioneer in her day using the first black models, kicking off the ‘Youthquake’, putting the first fully nude woman in Vogue (Marissa Berenson at that) and launching the careers of countless designers not to mention creating fashion exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that are still inspiring curators. So who knows, without her vision others may not have followed.

Her ‘Why don’t you’ column at Harpers Bazaar and then editor position at Vogue were mind blowing moments in fashion. She ruled the fashion roost with her quick quips, in depth fashion history knowledge and outrageous thought process not to mention her famous blue-black hair, kabuki inspired makeup and massive statement jewelry. Lipstick Queen founder Poppy King considers Vreeland as “the Dorothy Parker of fashion. She brought wit, intellect and cachet to what can be a frivolous activity but in her hands was magical.”

But one part of her work people don’t give her credit for was her empowering of women. She told women during WWII to work with what they had and add a little pizzazz. In the 60’s she showed Twiggy as not a silly young girl but as someone powerful and worth watching and she made the eccentric the coveted look at Verushka, Penelope Tree and Cher. Hardly conventional beauties but they captured the zeitgeist of their time.

Diana (Dee-ana as she pronounced it) and her dashing husband Reed were great social figures in New York as well. They would entertain everyone from Noel Coward to Truman Capote and Jack Nicholson in their Park Avenue apartment swathed in red, which Vreeland used to call her ‘Garden in Hell.’ Set designer Anne Koch has a great fondness of DV’s interior esthetic, “More is more! Ms. Vreeland created her own interior dreamscapes, we would have been great friends I suspect.”

She was also a friend to everyone from Josephine Baker to Chanel and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But don’t think she was all high society, Joey Ramone was so excited by her he wore leopard bracelets in her honor (she had her office atVogue carpeted in leopard).

Luckily for us she is back in the fashion fold this month with the recently published book, The Eye Has to Travel, compiled by her grandson’s wife, Lisa Immordino Vreeland. Lisa also has produced a movie about DV making the rounds at the film festivals. We are painfully waiting to see the full flick but will be content with the preview provided to a private audience.  (The YouTube link has since been made private, so you’ll have to wait a little longer if you didn’t already catch it.)

We thank Ms. Vreeland for being so forward thinking, for supporting new talent and for simply being totally bonkers. We need more editors like that in the world.

We have all learned at a young age that eating fruits and vegetables is good for you. Over the years, our nutrition experts keep refining their knowledge and add new prefixes to our fruits. For example, we now have superfruits, healing fruits, and anti-aging fruits. If you are wondering if all of the hype is true – if fruits can benefit you more than just with their nutrients – the answer is, yes.

There is such a thing as superfruits, and they do help protect the body from certain cancers and infections, and they can help lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Not only do these fruits have healing powers, but they are delicious and do not always have to be found at specialty markets.

The fruits of choice for my house are usually bananas, oranges, watermelon, and the more conventional fruits. I was at the market a few weeks ago and saw fruits I have never heard of, like dragon fruit and mangosteen, and there was an entire display in the center of the fruit section of pomegranates. I decided to change it up and buy these new exotic fruits, not knowing anything about their benefits. I came home and Googled the health benefits of these fruits along with those of the more conventional fruits, and I was amazed.

I learned that mangosteen (which looks nothing like a mango) is a fruit from Thailand. It is a small ball with a hard purple rind that is inedible and the inside is light in color and has a creamy texture. It tastes delicious and has a light flavor similar to a pear. The health benefits range from slowing down cancer growths to boosting the immune system, and they also serve as a skincare remedy for acne.

Dragon fruit is a fruit that is grown in Central America and Vietnam. It is a little pricey but worth the treat. It looks as exotic as its name, with an inedible rind bright in color usually pink or bright red. The inside is sweet and juicy but lower in sugar than most other fruits so it is a good choice for someone with elevated blood sugars or diabetes. It is packed with vitamin C, helps build collagen for the skin, and is loaded with fiber.

Pomegranate is a fruit I have had before, but my interest was piqued because the media has given it so much attention over the last few years. The outside is hard in texture and inedible but the inside is gem-like, full of small seeds that are sweet and tart. You can cut into it or just eat the small seeds that are bursting with flavor. This fruit is loaded with anti-oxidants and has a high polyphenol levels which fight cancer and other diseases.

The superfruit list also includes some more common fruits, like cranberries, avocados, kiwis, apples, papayas, and blackberries. So, the next time you are at the market, give one of these superfruits a try. See if you think the superfruits are as tasty as they are healthful.

Jeana Lynn has over 22 years of experience in the fitness industry, with a passion for keeping the mind and body healthy. Jeana Lynn is the author of “Bliss,” a self-help guide to peace, harmony, and physical strength through yoga. She also wrote and starred in HGTV broadband show “Everyday Yoga,” and developed and taught “Yoga for KIDS,” an exercise program in Miami, Florida, with the goal of helping children with problems that often inhibit their self-image. In addition, Jeana Lynn specializes in teen workshops focusing on mindful eating, body image and self esteem. Jeana Lynn’s private yoga studio is in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.

Now three years later, that show — Parks and Recreation, staring Ansari as Tom Haverford — is a hit.

Born in Columbia, S.C., Ansari is one of only a few Indian comedians on the Hollywood scene. Yet the actor’s humor is not solely based on his identity. In fact, characters like Haverford and Chet, whom Ansari plays in the new film 30 Minutes or Less, could be played by almost anyone. Almost. But with his comedic talent, Ansari was a shoo-in for the roles.

“I’m very happy when I’m able to take roles from white actors,” Ansari says jokingly to weekends on All Things Consideredguest host David Greene. “If a part is written for a white guy and then I get cast, I’m very proud of myself. It’s like a victory for all minorities,” he says.

In all seriousness, Ansari says his comedy is about life and personal anecdotes like friends getting married and having babies — events that he says he couldn’t begin to deal with in his life right now.

“That kind of stuff seems so far away for me and seems like such a crazy amount of responsibility,” he says. “So I talk about the fear of those kinds of things.”

In a strange twist, Ansari started his comedic career while attending New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“I just started doing stand-up while I was in college,” Ansari tells Greene. “I didn’t have any aspirations to be in movies or TV or anything like that. I just liked doing stand-up and wanted to get better at it the same way someone would like to get better at playing guitar,” he says.

And get better he did. From the comedy clubs in New York, Ansari began to make short films that eventually led to the MTV sketch-comedy show, Human Giant.

“You have a lot better odds if you develop stuff yourself,” he says.

Soon even bigger offers came rolling in. Ansari’s resume includes acting roles in Funny People; I Love You, Man; andObserve and Report. Now the stand-up comedian, who still tours from time to time, stars alongside Jesse Eisenberg in the new release 30 Minutes or Less.

“Yep, my brown-bearded face is on that screen the whole time,” Ansari says.

What’s next? Some sources say he’s working on an R&B album …

Scouting can mean days and weeks on the road, so your car becomes a home away from home. Location manager Doug Dresser keeps his trunk loaded up: a toolkit, safety goggles and a dust mask — you never know when a wind storm is going to come up — an extra pair of socks, bright orange safety cones, tent stakes and poles, duct tape, an umbrella, a poncho.

But the most important item in his trunk is a camera.

“When you’re scouting, when you have to get the shot — dust mask, goggles, I’m in! I’ll do anything for the shot,” Dresser says.

Today he’s checking out six L.A. sites, and as always he’ll take tons of photos to show the director and production designer. One location has a big open space: “You can build sets in here,” Dresser notes. “We could pull our movie trucks right up here”

But the smell is just too much — the building is a defunct dairy near L.A.’s Chinatown, now a huge warehouse with the distinct aroma of sour milk. It’s not right for the project Dresser is scouting: a Screen Gems fantasy adventure that’s in its very early stages, and whose title he’s not at liberty to share. (The outline, though: teenagers, abandoned buildings, creepy situations.)

Done with the dairy, Dresser moves on.

“We read the script, we break it down and it’s a blank canvas,” he says. “You’re always on a hunt for that perfect location.”

Perfect is the next place Doug scouts: Linda Vista Community Hospital. It’s been rented out to filmmakers for more than 20 years, and it always looks different. (Witness its various guises in movies from Pearl Harbor to Outbreak to L.A. Confidential to Conspiracy Theory.)

He takes me to the basement, into the hospital’s former morgue. It’s cold and dark, with paint peeling off the walls — a pretty dreadful place.

“It’s a glamorous profession,” Dresser says.

Half-true enough. On any given day, Dresser could spend time in multimillion-dollar mansions and then in the dirtiest, most flea-ridden alley you’ve ever seen in your life.

“To do our job, to be a location scout, you have to love both equally,” he says.

That same day, Dresser scouted an abandoned, boarded-up library filled with cobwebs; the old Alexandria Hotel, built in the early 1900s and once home to big Oscar-night dinner parties; and an outdoor expanse underneath the Sixth Street Bridge. That last one is among the most-filmed locations in Los Angeles.

“It looks like any industrial downtown,” Dresser says. “It’s graphic; you got parking and trucks underneath it. It’s kind of beautiful architecturally, and it fills in for Any City, USA.”

‘Like Throwing A Full-Blown Wedding Every Day’

After a location has been scouted and approved, the location manager has to deal with other filming preparations: permits, extra police, tents for hair and makeup, food — everything.

“The recurring dream any location manager has,” Dresser says — and by “dream” he clearly means “nightmare” — “is that you show up and the gates are locked and no one’s there.”

Movie folk — including actor Matt Damon and director Cameron Crowe, who were filming inside — swarmed a corner restaurant in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz in late January. They were working on the movie We Bought a Zoo, based on a true story by Benjamin Mee.

Cindy Carpien/NPR

At a small corner restaurant back in Los Feliz, shooting has begun for the Matt Damon movie We Bought a Zoo. Location manager Chris Baugh, who was working before on the zoo construction at the ranch, comes to Los Feliz to solve a few problems on the neighborhood set. One question comes from the best boy grip, who wants to know where on the location he can park his car.

It’s little things like that that fill up a location manager’s day. Baugh says it’s like throwing a full-blown wedding for 200 people — in a different place every day for 50 days. Except that at these weddings, commandos drop onto the roof some days, or a machine gun fight begins. And then there’s a tidal wave.

When problems crop up, Baugh says, the cry goes up: ” ‘Get me location, get me locations, where the hell is locations?’ And you have to solve everything.”

Director Cameron Crowe says it’s all worth it, if it helps an actor like Damon.

“What was great was being able to bring him to these places and say, ‘This is what we found.’ And he immediately said, ‘I feel the movie here. I can play this character,’ ” Crowe says.

For Crowe, the long, hard work of location scouting — and set designing, lighting, cinematography, performing, directing, all of it — is most successful when it disappears.

“The movie should make it all feel invisible,” he says. “The movie should make it feel like you’re just viewing somebody living a life. To be living a life on screen, they have to feel like that’s their house, this is where they were born. [They have to be] comfortable enough to make you believe it.”

And so location, location, location: It’s the first step in getting us to suspend disbelief for a few hours, and enter other lives.

Panzarella also scouted and managed The Italian Job, starring Mark Wahlberg and Donald Sutherland.

“It was about as ambitious a location film for action as has ever been shot in L.A.,” he says. “We closed Hollywood Boulevard for six days. We had traffic jams with hundreds of cars lining the streets. We had helicopters flying 500 feet over our heads.”

 For the Justin Timberlake film Now, it was location manager John Panzarella who made the arrangements to close the Sixth Street Bridge in Los Angeles. (The Fourth Street bridge, too, for another scene). Don’t be too hard on him, though: It’s just part of the job.

Cindy Carpien/NPR

Chaos like that means one more thing for location managers to manage: the enmity of non-movie-makers. For the Timberlake film, two bridges were shut down for a recent day of shooting. Imagine how unhappy that made L.A. drivers.

Near Hollywood, some other streets have been closed in recent weeks for a film called We Bought a Zoo. Director Cameron Crowe was filming in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.

“Yesterday I came in angry,” says local resident Kerry Sutkin. But it didn’t last. “Matt Damon kept walking by.”

Four-legged neighbors? Gotta think of them, too. Miles from Los Feliz, on a 450-acre ranch in Thousand Oaks, location manager Chris Baugh is overseeing the creation of that same film’s zoo — made from scratch just for the movie. There are horses pastured nearby, and while everything seems bucolic and calm at the moment, that could change: Tigers will eventually populate the zoo set.

“Wait till we bring in the big cats,” Baugh says.

Plus, there will be a lot of other creatures on the film — flamingos, llamas, monkeys and the bear. For a six-week shoot, Baugh will also have to provide facilities for the care, feeding and safety of a tamer group (one hopes): the cast and crew.

It must be tempting to throw up your hands, say it’s too difficult, opt to build the zoo on a sound stage instead. But that’s not an option for a location scout.

“We’re not allowed to say no; we have to make it work. So we find a way,” Baugh says.

Following The Director’s Orders

Location scout Lori Balton steered filmmakers to the ranch for Zoo’s makeshift zoo. She first discovered it for the filmSeabiscuit.

“We leave no stone unturned,” Balton says. “And you have to show [a director] lots of possibilities, but in my heart I felt this was the right one.”

Balton says a big part of scouting is getting inside a director’s head to find sites that match his or her mental images. She says working with director Michael Bay on Pearl Harbor was a challenge.

“He said, ‘I want something white. It’s gotta be white, it’s gotta be white, it’s gotta be white.’ Oh, week after week, into months, we’re looking for white, white, white. And finally I see something black, and I go, ‘You know what? This kind of works. I’m going to show it to him.’ And he looks at it. And he looks at me. And he goes, ‘This is exactly what I asked you to find — why did it take so long?’ ”

Ah, all in a days work!

In the old days, movies — even the big epics — were shot on studio back lots. Tara, that iconic Gone With the Windplantation, was made of plywood and papier maché.

These days, movie locations are mostly real, though. And they’re found by location scouts, who are often the first people hired for a film.

Should be easy work, right? You drive around town, spot a house you think could work for a film, drive back home? Not quite.

In downtown Los Angeles one recent afternoon, location manager John Panzarella was working on a bridge he’d found, staging a car chase for the Justin Timberlake movie Now. It’s one of a long list of locales he had scouted for the film.

“In many scripts you get about 40 locations,” Panzarella says. “In this picture, there are over 100 locations.”

And he has to find them all — bridges, tunnels, office buildings, apartments, beaches. Then, once shooting starts, he has to manage every aspect of every location.

His job includes “setting up parking, making arrangements with all the neighbors, making the deals with the places we’re going to be filming, and then sort of babysitting the whole crew and make sure everybody plays nice together,” he explains.

A period film presents particular challenges. On 1997′s L.A. Confidential — set in the 1950s — Panzarella was responsible for what’s called “anachronism removal.”

Take the stripes on the road: Today’s are yellow. In ’50s L.A., Panzarella says, “there were no double yellow stripes.

“So everywhere we went, we had to get permission to change the yellows to double whites.”

They took down satellite dishes everywhere they went, took garbage cans off the streets, crime bars off the windows.

“Everywhere we went, we had to make it perfect period ’50s,” Panzarella says.

The full story can be read on NPR’s website (http://www.npr.org/2011/02/25/134032333/for-location-scouts-its-all-about-making-the-scene).

by Bonnie Katz, MFT

Creating Unshakable Confidence

You don’t have to win beauty contests or medals to acquire self-confidence. Jack Nicholson possesses neither flawless skin nor the body of an Adonis, yet self-confidence oozes out of him. Confidence has absolutely nothing to do with what you look like on the outside and everything to do with how you feel on the inside– the antithesis of what we are brainwashed into thinking by savvy marketing mavens. They bombard us with veiled messages that whiter teeth, silkier hair, smoother skin and a leaner body will boost our confidence and guarantee that Mr. or Ms. Right will be knocking on the front door. You can perfect yourself into looking Lady Kate or Prince William, but that will neither guarantee self-confidence nor the perfect royal life. Sadly, just look at what happened to Princess Diana. So, if perfecting ourselves doesn’t guarantee confidence, what will?

In my professional opinion, confidence is merely a by-product of self-acceptance. And that doesn’t mean when you lose the extra 20 pounds, it means accepting yourself right now , just as you are sitting here reading this article. I know how hard this is for many people. In fact, chewing on glass might sound easier.

Let’s take a look at how Cheryl struggled with her feelings of limited confidence. When I started working with her, she was battling with circumstantial depression. Originally from a small Midwestern town, she came to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of being an actress. She had been riding a wave of success in her hometown from being cast in all the leads in college to landing a local agent after graduation and steadily booking commercials and modeling jobs. But when she moved to Los Angeles last year, her success came to a screeching halt and the wave suddenly crashed. She found herself competing for parts with hundreds of other actresses who looked like her and in her words, “had more experience and talent.” But something had taken hold of Cheryl and her struggles to be successful were crushing her enthusiastic spirit. Her confidence was nowhere to be found because it was intrinsically tied to her accomplishments, and at this point they were nil.

As a child she was always told to “Be the best and nothing less.” There’s nothing wrong with striving for excellence, but effort above achievement was not appreciated in her family. She grew up with three older siblings who were all trained to compete with each other for their Father’s attention. If you happened to be the unlucky one with a grade less than A, you were barely noticed that evening at the dinner table. Consistently tying her Father’s love to her achievements solidified in her mind that she had to achieve perfection in order to be worthy enough to love. Her confidence in feeling good enough was based on a lot of conditions needing to be satisfied first. Cheryl never knew what it felt like to be unconditionally loved. This is where the beginning of her difficulties began. It was hard to accept herself if she wasn’t perfect. The upside to this glitch in childhood development is that it can create excellence, just look at Barbra Streisand. Part of what motivated her towards excellence and success was having a very critical mother. The down side is that her perfectionism is relentless even after an enormous amount of well deserved success. The inner critic cannot let go of the need to control the outside circumstances and rest in complete self-acceptance.

And so Cheryl and I began to work each week, getting to know and understand where the seeds of her perfectionism started. She learned to allow herself to grieve for the little girl who had to work so hard to be loved, and realized how a belief formed many years ago was no longer true today. Through Cheryl’s courage and determination she was able to get to know these powerful feelings that were influencing her actions and learned to make new choices for herself. Her sense of worth and self-confidence were no longer tied to her achievements, but to an appreciation and acceptance of herself. Cheryl’s confidence flowed in abundance from a bottomless well because she was able to be open and available for all the parts of herself, not just the ones that looked perfect. She learned that it’s not about cultivating one part of yourself and rejecting another, but looking open heartedly at the whole. The openness Cheryl experienced now allowed her to fall in love with acting again. She learned how to enjoy and be present for the whole process of it, not just when she landed a part. She knew that she was entitled to be loved for who she was not for what she did.

To jump start your journey towards confidence remember :

• Lighten up and have a sense of humor, staying open and present to whatever arises.
• When you’re feeling down on yourself, notice your storyline and question it. For example. “I can’t do anything right.” Really? I challenge that. I’m sure you could write a list of 10 accomplishments you have achieved in the past 5 months.
• Instead of trying to run away from or numb your feelings of self – loathing, get to know and honor them.
• Remember that all feelings are impermanent, they arise, they dwell and then they fade away.
• Confidence will only grow when you have unconditional kindness towards yourself.
• Don’t give away your power. You don’t have to be a victim of other people’s opinions. “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. “ – Eleanor Roosevelt.
• Don’t compare yourself to others. Overestimating others leads to underestimating yourself.
• Invest your energy into being yourself not into being perfect.
• Be okay with everybody that doesn’t fall in love with you and still think that you are worthy.
• Remember we are all in this together. You are not the only one experiencing difficulty accepting
  yourself.
• “To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.” – Pema Chodron
• Stick with yourself through thick and then and never, never, never give up.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness
Comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!…
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
- Rumi

I wish you strength and courage on your journey.

Warmly,
Bonnie

The names and circumstances have been altered to respect confidentiality.

Bonnie Katz is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice.  She understands the unique demands and challenges of the acting profession because along with her experience as a psychotherapist, she has been a part of the acting community for the past 39 years.  This unique combination enables her to have a deeper understanding of the struggles of actors. “Just as a musician must fine tune his instrument before a performance, to tap into their creativity, actors must learn to fine tune themselves through the process of self-awareness and self-understanding.”  Her skills and training as a psychotherapist and mindful meditator enable her to work with clients in an atmosphere of warmth and understanding. For more information on Bonnie’s psychotherapy practice, visit her website. I invite you to Twitter with her. Click here for a free brochure on mindful meditation.

GOSSIP on This American Life

Have you ever been horrified by someone’s actions on a reality show?  What do you think of the situation after knowing the inside scoop?

(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0291684/ )

Randall Franks (In the Heat of the Night) recently starred in the role of “Marv Headly” for director Damian Fulton for the feature film “Broken.” Los Angeles casting director Gabrielle Evans-Fields cast Franks, who plays an investigator working to recover Soren Fulton’s (Thunderbirds, Justice League) character, a kidnap victim, from Joe Steven‘s (True Grit) character.
While working since April to raise $1 million to rebuild homes for tornado victims in his hometown of Ringgold, Ga., Randall has fulfilled requests from four directors to join their films.
To support the effort to help Randall’s neighbors, visit http://randallfranks.com/ or www.CatoosaCOAD.com.

Congrats Randall!!