Question: Can you tell me who played Mr. Hall (the flying man) on Ally McBeal and what show he used to be on?
Answer: You mean the Mr. Hall who winged it across the river and collapsed of a heart attack so that narcissist Ally (Calista Flockhart) could once again make someone else's tragedy all about her? (No doubt it was only the belief that a better script lay across the river that kept the poor man aloft, and the disappointment at finding it wasn't there laid him low.) And did I mention that whole flying plot was ripped off from William Wharton's far superior book Birdy (though since no one in Hollywood reads, Kelley and Co. probably cribbed it from Alan Parker's movie version, which definitely had its moments, too)?
Oh, yeah — your question. Well,
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Question: I remember watching the show Fame as a kid and really liking it. I know it was based on a movie, but was that movie based on a real school? Thanks.
Answer: That it was, Alma, but exactly how much the movie and, to an even greater extent, the show, were "real" certainly depended on whom you asked. The basics aren't in dispute: The 1980 film and series, which lived on NBC from January 1982 to August 1983 before jumping to first-run syndication for another four years, were set in New York City's real-life School of Performing Arts, better known to its students, faculty and such alumni as Al Pacino and Liza Minnelli as "P.A." (In 1984 the school moved with the High School of Music & Art into a new facility and the two merged to become the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.) But according to
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