BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Web <link> from RSS feed:
Database link:
RSS Feed:
https://vickielester.com/feed/
Creator: Susannah Corwin
Synopsis:
Tales from Tinseltown...recording them now...I'll let you know when it's story time.
Not tagged: [Format] [Continuity] [Voices] [Genre] [Maturity] [Creator demographics] [Character demographics] [Country of origin] [Transcript] [Completion status] [Content warnings]
Click here to update these tags.
Episodes:
Episode 35. You made it! The last chapter of Hollywood & Mine
Sat, 16 Jan 2021 16:00:05 +0000
I’ve been tossing about as much stardust as I can muster right now. That’s it, this novel is done. I think the podcast of the book runs a bit over 10 hours in its entirety. Let me know if you’d like to hear another Hollywood novel podcast — remember it…
Fri, 15 Jan 2021 16:58:52 +0000
Honey, you’re looking great. What an ordeal this has been. Four years culminating in… Hold on. We’ve made it this far. Let’s step into the light. In a few short days things will start to change. My aim in podcasting my novel has been to entertain until that change comes.…
Episode 34. Life is the past, the present, and the perhaps.
Sun, 10 Jan 2021 16:00:50 +0000
“Do you know the Mayo Clinic lists menopause under diseases and conditions? What do you think of that?” “Well, I know it’s not contagious.” He sat down beside me. “Jesus, this is hard on my knees.” “Sorry about that, old-timer. Cooper, I am not pissed off.” “Then what’s with the…
Knitting is supposed to be soothing?
Sat, 09 Jan 2021 19:14:32 +0000
My angels I’ve been clacking those needles so much since Wednesday that I’ve strained the muscle that runs along my collar bone. Seriously, I started with a sweater and as the news rolled in I was on track to complete a three piece suit. Apologies for not posting today’s chapter.…
Episode 33. Hollywood is very pretty, but people grow old here — not outside, but inside.
Sat, 02 Jan 2021 16:00:28 +0000
There were heaps — accumulated reminders of a life — all around. Everything that served as an archival asset, or a teaching aid for future filmmakers, I boxed and hauled over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clothes, I donated. Books, I culled down to the essentials…
Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:09:19 +0000
I’m not going to enter into the year that was conversation. I think it’s too early. I will say one thing that kept me going this year was being able to read to you in a podcast. In my isolation it was one way I could contribute, if only to…
Sun, 27 Dec 2020 16:00:39 +0000
All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie…
Episode 31. I always say that if a woman will tell you her age, she will tell you anything.
Sat, 26 Dec 2020 16:00:28 +0000
Life is a series of metamorphoses. Some of them get more airtime than others. I remember once waiting in a gynecologist’s office to see the doctor. There was his desk, on the walls family pictures, on the shelves, some weighty texts. I was curious about hot flashes, so I pulled…
I will not be looking for Santa in my lingerie this Christmas Eve, though, knowing me…
Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:47:00 +0000
Tonight I may be wearing something similar to pajamas when the sun sets. I’m thinking some polar fleece when I climb on the roof — there’s a flat bit, don’t worry — to behold the Christmas Star on the winter solstice. The heavens will be putting on a show last…
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 20:00:41 +0000
For a few short days after Antoine’s crisis I was more aware of the rhythms and mechanisms of filmmaking and its twitchy straitlaced cousin finance than I had ever been. Much like how time can seem to slow when you fall, leaving you able to see everything around you with…
Episode 29. Never admit anything to anybody. Honesty is not the best policy.
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 17:00:49 +0000
Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in…
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 14:00:59 +0000
Clara Bow wasn’t the only one who found Hollywood depressing. On a chilly, unusually clouded over, February afternoon in 2009 when I was 48, after the fourth week of shooting on the revived franchise, I received a call. It was Antoine. He told me he couldn’t make it to set…
Sun, 13 Dec 2020 14:00:22 +0000
Gifted with a glib tongue he moved quickly from never-featured actor, to production assistant, to assistant director, and rapidly ascended the dating scale (as he saw it) from the cute craft service gal who brought cucumber sushi snacks to camera at four in the afternoon, to the daughter of a…
All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year. Episode 26
Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:00:14 +0000
In the words of Dorothy Gale, there’s no place like home. The light here is what made filmmakers move to California. It shines here most of the time, and there are certain places, certain times of year that take your breath away with sheer wonder. It’s a crying shame that…
Even in the dark there are roses…and orchids…and lilies
Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:48:01 +0000
A friend of mine who lives far away told me she was having a hard time, and then reaching out (beautiful heart) she said she was worried about me in lockdown Los Angeles. I was about to tell her not to worry and then I changed my mind and said…
Old gal reads own novel online!
Sun, 06 Dec 2020 16:28:24 +0000
Hi everybody, Some of my friends and readers have been asking me, “What gives?” Especially in regard to the blog, which is a direct result of the pandemic. I explain all in the video here and I would like to add by recording this book I had a blast. I…
Sun, 06 Dec 2020 14:00:09 +0000
The streets of Beverly Hills, unlike the streets of the Hollywood Hills, were nearly empty. One morning I saw a woman of about seventy, with the poise and stance of a dancer, shining long silver hair side-parted like Veronica Lake — probably just as it had been when she was…
Episode 24. People with nerves should never go into the movies, and people without nerve can’t.
Sat, 05 Dec 2020 14:00:08 +0000
I loved recording this chapter, it’s got Hollywood history, everlasting friendship, and of course some very strange goings-on… There we sat, the mogul’s daughter turned academic, the copywriter turned designer, the semi-profane raconteur turned show runner, the pragmatist turned legal advocate, and me; the nanny turned studio executive. It was…
Sat, 28 Nov 2020 17:00:06 +0000
We are all the lead character in our personal narrative yet this bothered me. Behind the scenes was my forté, I wasn’t ready for a starring role, never had been. Why was that? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about myself in relation to Cooper? What also bothered me…
Sat, 28 Nov 2020 14:00:23 +0000
That smiling young person is yours truly, on a rather dingy cold movie set right after The Mister and I decided to get married. We met two years earlier on a movie set in baking hot Palms Springs, and our wedding took place in our backyard in Hollywood right after…
Favorite search term for this website? Hollywood old smooch (!)
Thu, 26 Nov 2020 16:00:42 +0000
Listen my angels, it’s been a hell of a year. On this Thanksgiving I wish you happiness and peace and hope. And most of all — I wish you love.
Episode 22. If you’re gonna to be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.
Sun, 22 Nov 2020 16:00:24 +0000
Chapter 20, in which Billie travels to Vegas and comes to a seismic realization. I tended to think of sleep as something healing, freshening, and cleansing. I traced this somewhat peculiar notion to parental influence. I distinctly remembered – though I couldn’t have been more than four at the time…
Episode 21. Hollywood is like a one-night stand, unless one is careful.
Sat, 21 Nov 2020 16:00:42 +0000
Merle Oberon said that thing about Hollywood and one night stands. We’ll talk about her joy ride with David Niven later. Now we’re back to the story of Billie and chapter 19 — A film set is a constantly shifting sea. It’s usually crowded concentrated controlled chaos — until it’s…
Sun, 15 Nov 2020 16:00:24 +0000
Chapter 18 begins with a quote from Bette Davis: I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year. On a Saturday following the first week of shooting, I woke, and for…
Sat, 14 Nov 2020 16:00:32 +0000
There’s nothing a man can do, that I can’t do better and in heels. So said Ginger Rogers, and thus begins chapter 17. There are so many myths on which the reality of Hollywood is based. Some are funny and fun, some are sad, and some are desperate. I…
Fri, 13 Nov 2020 16:00:22 +0000
I’m feeling celebratory, so there will be three chapters of Hollywood & Mine going up this weekend. This is episode 18 (chapter 16, for those of you keeping track) and it starts with a quote from good old Greta Garbo: If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult…
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 17:18:36 +0000
Usually I put up chapters on the weekend but today I thought I’d give it a rest. A friend wrote last night and asked how I was feeling. This is my reply. I feel like we escaped a fate my father, uncle, and aunt in the Woman’s Army Corps fought…
17. “If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.” Joan Crawford
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 16:00:49 +0000
And thus, Anne Brown and her roommate, Tatiana Schneider were dispatched to a TV star’s mountain top domicile. They felt charged with responsibility and a certain kind of contempt for their elders’ unmanageable peccadilloes, “God, how gross,” was a phrase they bandied about between them. The star’s property…
16. “Don’t be afraid to be as angry or as loving as you can…” Lena Horne
Sat, 31 Oct 2020 18:00:32 +0000
“I recorded that section about the riots of ’92 one week before the May-June protests in 2020. Pandemic, economic collapse, police brutality… Three horsemen of the apocalypse are quite enough, thank you.” *** That’s a quote from the novel I’m podcasting, you can listen at the end of post. Lena…
15. Sometimes a map is a map, and other times it’s a state of mind.
Sat, 31 Oct 2020 15:00:20 +0000
At the moment I’m looking at an old menu from a restaurant called the Brown Derby. On its cover is an imaginary map of Los Angeles with Hollywood at its center. It’s scattered with cartoon depictions of movie cameras, musical notes winging out of the Hollywood Bowl, crooners broadcasting from…
A reminder from Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman as Halloween approaches
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 18:00:07 +0000
…no more mail in ballots, it’s time to put on your masks and deliver your vote in person.
Sun, 25 Oct 2020 15:00:09 +0000
At the onset of our thirties we, the former nannies, while ascending the career ladder, found our personal lives lagging. Polly found her male peers juvenile – emotionally immature and adolescent in their delight at attaining useless things. Darla made a three year, nine million dollar TV development deal and…
13. “You’re only as good as your last picture.”
Sat, 24 Oct 2020 18:00:58 +0000
Unlike Mr. Booker, Bob Brown was not a man who, he liked to say, “Waded through god damn minutia,” especially the finer points of male versus female behavior. Bob Brown tended to set goals and chart practical points to achieve them. He thought of himself as an integral, fundamental, part…
Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:00:02 +0000
There is a kind of courtship that goes on between producer and director, a kind of wooing. The producer holds the means of movie making (money) and the director, if they’re any good, provides the vision. There’s a honeymoon period, and often an inevitable falling out. It was a form…
Episode 11. “Behind every cloud there’s another cloud.”
Sat, 17 Oct 2020 13:00:37 +0000
There are definitely seasons in California, whatever anyone says to the contrary. In the winter the smog lifts. The daytime skies are a blue that delights my New England soul. At night the lights that sprawl from the San Gabriel Mountains to the sea glow against a heavenly dome of…
My English teacher looked like Queen Elizabeth…the first
Thu, 15 Oct 2020 13:00:26 +0000
Instead of brocade and a ruff she favored cardigan twin sets and a short strand of pearls. She was bird-boned and regal. She powdered her face Elizabeth 1 white. She had no eyebrows to speak of, and above her high forehead her tight-permed curls were red. As you can…
Sun, 11 Oct 2020 20:30:51 +0000
“You know my mom and dad came out to visit me when I was on that first movie. I took them to set, Grauman’s Chinese, Max Factor’s. We looked at every little bitty star on Hollywood Boulevard and had hot fudge sundaes at C.C. Brown’s. The day they came to…
Episode 9. “All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.”
Sat, 10 Oct 2020 15:00:54 +0000
Shooting began. Patsy Morris, checking in one afternoon as the crew broke for lunch cautioned me. “Remember, movies are like high school with a paycheck. The same juvenile behavior and more cliques than you can keep track of.”
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 15:00:57 +0000
We were in pre-production for months, which is otherwise known as “development.” It’s mostly an accounting trick, cinema semantics as some impressive dollar deals are tied to certain points in the film schedule, like the huge fees that are handed out the first day of principal photography.
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 15:00:10 +0000
Some people apply battle strategy to film making. Many directors are able to extemporize on Sun Tzu’s thirteen principals of war. I wasn’t very familiar with eastern philosophy, even though Cooper Daniels had sent me to the Bodhi Tree bookstore on Melrose for a stack of treatises in vogue with…
Sun, 20 Sep 2020 15:00:40 +0000
I scanned the editing room to see if there was a physical tell for an epiphany moment. Two young men in their early twenties, my classmates, were hunched down in a darkened cubicle, stubble across their chins, staring at the projection screen. The only thing on their horizon was their…
Sat, 19 Sep 2020 15:00:25 +0000
I called my mom. Mother Lydia was the antithesis of everyone I knew in Hollywood. If I couldn’t get absolution I knew calling her would result in a strong dose of disapproval, an advised course correction, and a grudging glimmer of hope. First of all, as a school superintendent, she…
Sat, 12 Sep 2020 15:00:48 +0000
It’s amazing in L.A., how often the very early morning brings clarity. It’s true. The low angle of the sun, the freshly brewed coffee, the smell of moist earth and eucalyptus after the sprinklers had gone off. In my gullible twenties — after the birth of my son — it…
Mon, 07 Sep 2020 15:00:05 +0000
It’s not common knowledge, but most leading men are short. They have big heads in relation to their slight bodies, large symmetrical features, especially eyes, and straight expertly manscaped brows. They photograph well. The camera loves them and in order to make them appear tall in the frame they often…
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 15:00:37 +0000
Late in the summer following my sophomore year, I was living in the Beverly Hills home of a blonde former figure skater. This photogenic darling of Orange County had risen from championship skating to spokesperson at Knudsen’s Dairy to management. She married an actor (of sorts) and from there…
Sat, 05 Sep 2020 15:00:00 +0000
Hello, now we start our story, all about a Hollywood babysitter who rises to movie mogul. Comfy? Let’s begin… “Some one I love lives in Manhattan. I told him at the outset of the pandemic that what seemed most precious to Californians was toilet paper. He told me, once his…
I wrote a book, and then I recorded it…
Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:10:08 +0000
The idea occurred to me while reading aloud that I could keep in touch with my podcast listening loved ones far from home if I’d buy a microphone and get off my duff. This, by the way, is the view from my window. To the north are the hills, to…
Coronavirus distance from DTLA
Tue, 24 Mar 2020 22:11:13 +0000
The film industry started to shut down on March 12th, and for the week prior, while my husband was on set I was climbing up and down ladders, doing a deep cleaning on the house the likes of which this place has never seen. When he called during the afternoon…
Oh, my! I feel—yes, definitely—it’s irritable vowel syndrome.
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 15:00:28 +0000
Don’t worry. It’s not contagious. I am increasingly persnickety; about the state of the world, modern discourse, and, hell’s bells, my favorite bakery is closed for renovation. Translation, I’m in a mood. To combat my discomposure I walk, write, read—generally in that order—and in between all have many cups of…
Mr. Lester’s great aunt Hazel, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy and gossip…
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 15:30:00 +0000
The exquisitely patrician Connecticut lady pictured above had quite a career – and split her time between the East Coast and the West. Very busy. I don’t know that she really cooked more than brownies and put together hot fudge sundaes – but she did eat and appreciate food. The…
What my feet looked like when I decided to walk from my house to Cecil B. DeMille’s
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 03:00:10 +0000
Once upon a time, in the nineteen eighties, Cecil B.’s house still stood atop a hill in a neighborhood called Los Feliz, not far from our place in Beachwood Canyon. It was a beautiful spring day, the neighborhood where many luminaries live now, was not gated, and I decided to…
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 01:10:13 +0000
WALLACE: Let’s go back to the Hollywood that you knew. I would like your opinion….. SWANSON: Oh, it was a fabulous….fabulous …fabulous… WALLACE: Well…… SWANSON: But we were all young then…..everybody….. WALLACE: Well now wait….here is a description of Hollywood during the 1920’s published in Reporter Magazine February 21st this…
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 15:51:46 +0000
And it’s not only people that make my heart flutter…so can a beautiful building, or the angle of light on a linen pillow case… That said, I have been taking a long break from blogging, working on the new novel and refining my 1924 Spanish Revival home. Household maintenance…
“What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage.” Edith Head
Mon, 01 Jul 2019 19:00:00 +0000
From left to right – Model, Orry Kelly, Bernard Newman, Travis Banton, Edith Head, Adrian, and Irene. With model showing evening gown, 1955: Edith at bat 1957: A fashion show from the “Think Pink” sequence at the premiere of “Funny Face” – model Ginni Adams with Edith Head: Dressing Debbie…
A holiday kiss from grandmother to mother to daughter to you – our recipe for Pavlova…
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 19:47:06 +0000
Or as we gals call it — Schaum Torte. That’s my mom. She made a show stopping dessert and here’s the recipe: First of all preheat your oven to 275 degrees, then cut up a large brown paper bag and line a baking sheet. Now separate 6 six eggs. (Put…
“Fruitcake is my kryptonite,” an admission from a friend…
Sun, 18 Nov 2018 14:34:27 +0000
“He left Hollywood and renounced the pursuit of fame, joining a brotherhood of Franciscans who supported their monastery by refilling ink cartridges and baking fruitcake, available at Amazon.com.” That’s a line from my first novel, summing up the future for an actor in dire need of redemption. Obviously fruitcake means…
A postcard in a New York minute…
Sun, 04 Nov 2018 12:00:37 +0000
Visiting the city was fantastic. Loved that nobody is stumbling around the Frick taking phone photos like they do at the Met. Loved walking through Central Park every day. Loved staying with an old friend who I am now going to model a character in the novel on, who demanded…
Frank Lloyd Wright in Hollywood
Sat, 20 Oct 2018 19:01:17 +0000
This is a small aspect of an architect’s life lived large — below is the exterior of another of the textile block houses that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the Los Angeles area — there are four; the Millard House – otherwise known as La Miniatura, the Ennis House, the…
Cecil Beaton and Greta Garbo after she retreated from fame
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 19:15:33 +0000
She arrived somewhat out of breath, dressed entirely in darkest blue, looking pale but even more incandescent than before. A crowd of bobbysox autograph-hunters had run after her on her way to my hotel, and they were cruel and ruthless and upset her very much. But now she would enjoy…
Strangers on the internet — Exchanging glances
Sat, 08 Sep 2018 17:47:31 +0000
Wondering on the internet What were the chances… Hello, Mercury! Sorry, got distracted there for a minute. Shall we get reacquainted? I used to post here all the damn time about things that struck my fancy, like Hollywood history, cool architecture, and fabulous books. Then I self-published a novel, and…
Sat, 11 Aug 2018 15:48:06 +0000
The heatwave broke yesterday and I finished the first draft of the manuscript. I was expecting some kind of elation, but instead I took a nap. Recharging for the revisions to come? Perhaps. I’ve sent it off to he who gives notes for a first impression, to be followed by…
So Alive…an excerpt from It’s in His Kiss by Vickie Lester
Sat, 21 Jul 2018 17:00:00 +0000
SO ALIVE In 1996 Keir Bloomfield got his first sole screen credit as a writer. Granted, it was on a low-budget, a very low-budget, movie that the producers guaranteed would be seen on oil platforms and tuna boats the world over. But it was a credit and it was his.…
Sat, 21 Jul 2018 13:00:27 +0000
Cameron Crow: Having created Norma Desmond, what did it feel like making the movie? Was she a living, breathing person to you? Billy Wilder: Yes she was, yes she was. Yes, absolutely. Suddenly there is a person there, not just on paper. She was a real character, who had lived,…
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 15:30:06 +0000
Jean Marais and Josette Day behind the scenes in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast
Thu, 05 Jul 2018 18:00:39 +0000
“Whether you like it or not, you’re an actress.” Charlie Chaplin to Aimee Semple McPherson
Sun, 24 Jun 2018 17:23:10 +0000
I’ve only witnessed speaking in tongues once – what struck me about it was the ardent wish of the people gathered to experience the spirit – they all seemed to be riding the same euphoric wave. It was kind of uplifting, what was odd was when it was over they…
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 15:00:35 +0000
There’s a lot of things having a fever will do to you, and now that it’s past I can say one of the benefits was an extremely strong remembrance — like a sense memory. It goes like this: I was home from college on a break, I was sleeping in…
Dear one, what are you reading?
Wed, 06 Jun 2018 01:00:03 +0000
I found a copy of Paraic O’Donnell‘s “The Maker of Swans” while I was in Seattle, it seems the perfect thing to distract me from the news this evening and take me into some kind of sorcery, that I’m more than intrigued by, and have no clear concept of, as…
Memorial Day, most of what he did in the war was classified…
Mon, 28 May 2018 19:00:00 +0000
I know my father served from almost the start of World War II until 1946 when it was all over. He was nineteen and studying pre-med when he enlisted. He told me that the carnage he witnessed during the war caused him to study something else, entirely, when he came…
“She surrounded herself with a hot plate, telephone, scotch—and books.”
Mon, 30 Apr 2018 21:47:55 +0000
Oasis: The bookshop on Fifty-second Street and Fifth Avenue in New York which stays open till midnight. Dietrich: In the German language: the name for a key that opens all locks. Not a magic key. A very real object, necessitating great skill in the making. The actress Marlene Dietrich spent…
Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:20:13 +0000
I have a thing about how Los Angeles is portrayed on film and in books. An author who makes me laugh, perhaps because of his dour satiric streak, is Evelyn Waugh. He visited Hollywood in 1947 to discuss a film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, loathed the place, and ended up…
Tell me, don’t you think there’s a difference between calling someone a Dragon Lady or a bitch?
Sun, 04 Mar 2018 21:20:38 +0000
I do. There’s a question of degree, certainly, and while the term Dragon Lady implies an implacable force, the bitch epithet contains a big splash of disrespect and venom. One term was used by Olivia de Havilland in real life, the other came from the pen of a screenwriter. There’s…
Who designed the wardrobe on Some Like it Hot? Orry-Kelly. Did he win an Academy Award for it? Yes!
Sat, 03 Mar 2018 20:30:11 +0000
Sat, 03 Mar 2018 17:30:34 +0000
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 18:57:23 +0000
INTERVIEWER There’s a passage in one of your books in which you and Auden are on a train, and you’re savagely attacking religion, and he says: “Be careful, my dear, if you carry on like that, one day you’ll have such a conversion.” Do you think of it in those…
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 14:00:22 +0000
The world was interconnected, even before the Internet. Nicky Haslam worked with Diana Vreeland (peanut butter and Jello?), who was a dear friend of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, seen here reading Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD. Just this morning I was walking when I saw a neighbor sitting on his front…
Okay, I lied about last night. I didn’t watch “All the President’s Men”
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:31:21 +0000
I had a Preston Sturges film fest instead, and went to bed blissfully happy…movie magic…binge watching of the best kind 😉 . The Lady Eve… In which card shark Barbara Stanwyck tries to swindle bashful scientist (and heir to a fortune) Henry Fonda, and loses her heart. and The Palm…
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 22:00:43 +0000
I just completed a very big task in terms of the book I wrote, and I thought I’d reward myself, by reading a childhood favorite of mine; a novel I read—enchanted, immersed—compulsively one week during a hot summer vacation many, many years ago. A book written over a period of…
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 14:12:25 +0000
Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers. Ida Lupino Is it any wonder she turned to directing? In an era, I might add, when that was a nearly impossible career choice for a woman. Have times changed? Not much. The…
Martin Luther King, “I have a dream.” When Hollywood attended the March on Washington (1963)
Mon, 15 Jan 2018 16:00:23 +0000
Martin Luther King I Have a Dream Speech – American Rhetoric.
“I speak of peace because of the new face of war…” JFK
Thu, 04 Jan 2018 01:12:03 +0000
“I speak of peace because of the new face of war…in an age when a singular nuclear weapon contains ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied forces in the Second World War … an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried…
Mon, 01 Jan 2018 17:00:20 +0000
I’m greeting the New Year with the cold that spans the world right now, so thanks to Mr. Benny and Ms. Crawford we have some comfort food for cold weather. And by “cold weather” I mean something like this: Now, in my house meatloaf is variously known as “oh, that!”…
As the old year greets the still slumbering new…
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 16:00:00 +0000
It seems we must be reawakened to the challenges of living civilly. The 1920s, when this picture of Myrna Loy was taken, was a time similar in many ways to our own. It was an era of startling innovation, ushering in the dawn of a youth culture dubbed The…
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 17:50:07 +0000
Something has been troubling me recently, and as the New Year is approaching I decided to clear my mind. Little did I know that when I thinly disguised two (secondary) characters in my first novel that the people the characters were partially based on would be drummed out of the…
Sat, 23 Dec 2017 16:00:28 +0000
Come the holidays and breakfast seems more of an event than dinner. I love the scent of coffee brewing on a chilly morning, the look of sliced bright red strawberries, the bright blue glow of the gas burner beneath a sizzling skillet of bacon. And I love the unguarded moments…
“Madame is the greatest chef pâtissier of them all.”
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 19:09:59 +0000
“The difference between me and [Ernst Lubitsch] is that he shows you the king on the throne and then he shows you the king in his bedroom. I show you the king in his bedroom first. Then when you see him on the throne you have no illusions about him.”…
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 15:00:49 +0000
Joan Crawford looking very festive. Her recipe for Broiled Steak with Roquefort Cheese — a-okay for a carnivore’s Christmas — is below. Serve with crispy roast potatoes and a green salad and you’ve got a meal to celebrate. The way you get quartered potatoes to crisp up when you roast…
one hell of a start to the holiday season
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:03:05 +0000
The morning commute to a location shoot in L.A. on December 6th — and it gets worse. By the end of the day the city of L.A. had pulled the movie’s filming permit because it was unsafe to work at the edge of a firestorm. Meanwhile, the new GOP tax…
Sun, 19 Nov 2017 16:00:12 +0000
Mama Gabriella’s Sicilian Christmas Pie (Lemon Ricotta Torte) Lighter than a cannoli, kind of like a Southern Chess Pie but more delicious… You can use your favorite flaky pie dough recipe, or make a sweet dough that’s more like a cookie under a custard ricotta filling (sweet dough recipe will…
Over the L.A. river and through the wood to Grandmother’s house we go…
Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:00:43 +0000
I look at images like this and I remember my grandmother’s house. The teenagers in my life get the same glazed look they exhibit whenever I turn the channel to TCM. “It’s old-timey!” Which, of course, is why we (the Royal We) love it. And then they wander off to…
Thanksgiving pumpkin pie – from the kitchen of Fred MacMurray and June Haver
Thu, 16 Nov 2017 16:00:15 +0000
After his beloved Lillian died Mr. MacMurray was fortunate to find June Haver, with whom he had a wonderful marriage and adopted two more children. I don’t know who did the cooking at home, but this pie is a traditional favorite with my family because it is a pumpkin chiffon,…
“Acting’s just waiting for a custard pie. That’s all.” Katharine Hepburn
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 19:00:27 +0000
I love pie, stand by for a few recipes for holiday baking.
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 19:25:31 +0000
I think a lot of us have mothers that once upon a time could be referred to as “forces of nature.” I think Judy Garland was one such force. Perhaps a loving whirlwind? I wouldn’t know, she died when I was very tiny. But, I can sense that aspect of…
Sun, 15 Oct 2017 19:15:28 +0000
NCE upon a time, many years ago—when our grandfathers were little children—there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle—John Dolittle, M.D. “M.D.” means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot. . He lived in a little town called, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks, young and…
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 14:00:02 +0000
For ten days author William Kuhn and I have been talking about writing, reading, screenplays, books, black and white photography, Los Angeles, the dream factory, and what and who we love. A tall order and today we wrap it all up. But I wanted you, dear readers, to know some…
She lies beautifully and to maximum effect…
Fri, 29 Sep 2017 18:00:33 +0000
I’ve been reading the fascinating memoirs of Carmel Snow, and I’ve noticed she does what every good writer does — she takes a core truth and fiddles with the details so they enhance the point like a smile lights up a face. In other words, she lies beautifully and to…
Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, on set and off, yes, they certainly did…
Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:00:09 +0000
Words to live by, especially if you’re a writer, with pizzazz from Diana Vreeland
Fri, 29 Sep 2017 08:00:28 +0000
There’s another marvelous memoir, from the amazing Diana Vreeland, you might be interested in reading. Her autobiography reads like a novel. This extract resonates with me because of its delicious contradiction: “Truth is a hell of a big point with me. Now I exaggerate—always.” DV Do I? But of course.…
Wed, 27 Sep 2017 13:00:05 +0000
“Egotism – usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.” Barbara Stankwyck
Wed, 27 Sep 2017 07:00:53 +0000
Tue, 26 Sep 2017 18:00:55 +0000
Face it, women have a peculiar affinity for a certain room in the house. And, I’m here to tell you why: sanctuary. Imagine, if you will, a bustling household on a typical morning. People teeming with questions and definitive statements, such as, “Is there any granola left? Where are my…
The Oliver House — glass and sunshine and all those angles — designed by Rudolph Schindler
Tue, 12 Sep 2017 15:00:12 +0000
Completed in 1934, The Oliver House: Another view: The living room:
Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:51:21 +0000
On this overcast day in Southern California I wasn’t going to post anything in reference to 9/11 — more eloquent voices than mine have noted the passage of 16 years. I will just say this, a friend of mine was piloting one of the American Airlines flights up in the…
Sun, 10 Sep 2017 19:32:44 +0000
What has this to do with baking? Let me back up a little bit and we’ll get to that. Josh Marshall is a journalist who writes about the political scene. He is astute, insightful, and sometimes he cracks me the-hell-up. So in the midst of one of his essays on…
Wed, 06 Sep 2017 15:00:02 +0000
M.B. What inspired you to write a story with Prince Harry as your main character? W.K. I saw a production of Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays. I was surprised to find how much Shakespeare’s Prince Hal resembles the modern Prince Harry. Isn’t it great when someone from today suddenly illuminates…
Free! On Kindle! You won’t be able to put it down…
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 17:45:25 +0000
“It’s about a lazy prince. Nobody thinks he’s got a brain. All he does is drink and joke around and hang out with lowlifes in the bar. Even his father thinks he’s a zero. Then all of a sudden, he has to go to war. Nobody thinks he can hack…
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 15:00:37 +0000
“If you want a thing well done, get a couple of old broads to do it.” Bette Davis
Mon, 04 Sep 2017 15:00:43 +0000
Sat, 02 Sep 2017 15:00:51 +0000
“What in the world would we do without our libraries?” Katharine Hepburn
Fri, 01 Sep 2017 15:00:00 +0000
Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:00:21 +0000
Oh my heavens, did I screw up or what? And thanks to an astute comment the author of this quote is revealed: Here’s the complete quote from Irene: “Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep…
She was absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen…
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 15:16:07 +0000
Myrna Loy grew up in Los Angeles and when she was a teenager she posed for this statue outside the old Venice High School. Around the same age she was taking dance lessons with the famed Natacha Rambova, wife of Valentino. Myrna said of her, She was absolutely beautiful, the…
How to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:35:22 +0000
I write these posts all too often as catastrophe strikes, and it’s heart breaking. Here’s how you can help those in need. Donate to the Red Cross. Mission Statement The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and…
“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?” Double Idemnity
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 13:31:09 +0000
Definition of film noir plural film noirs \-ˈnwär(z)\ or films noir or films noirs \-ˈnwär\ : a type of crime film featuring cynical malevolent characters in a sleazy setting and an ominous atmosphere that is conveyed by shadowy photography and foreboding background music; also : a film of this type…
“To show the knee is ordinaire…vulgaire…!” Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975)
Sat, 26 Aug 2017 20:37:24 +0000
Madeleine Vionnet is an alert and mischievous old lady of ninety-six with eighty-six years of practical experience in the art of dressmaking. Her couture house on the Avenue Montaigne shut its doors in 1939, but at the mention of her name her former clients will sigh as if recalling the…
Tue, 15 Aug 2017 18:22:03 +0000
“Before the days of auto-advance motor drives and today’s high-sensitivity digital chips, the motion-picture unit photographer had to plan his or her photographs with the discipline of a painter. Some of them still work that way. In any case, most memorable still photographs from motion pictures are created, not captured.…
Mon, 14 Aug 2017 19:22:44 +0000
More than a year has passed since I wrote the post below, and if anything, things have only gotten worse. The Republican candidate is now president. The ideals my father fought for, and a generation of young people risked and lost their lives for, have been desecrated. A man with…
“Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them.” Aldous Huxley
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 15:00:44 +0000
The erudite Mr. Huxley made his home in the Hollywood Hills. Besides writing a number of seminal works, he wrote screenplays. He also really loved Los Angeles, unlike a lot of writers who made a tremendous amount of money here (working for the film industry) but couldn’t help harping on…
Two rarely seen stories by Lillian Hellman
Sat, 29 Jul 2017 14:00:22 +0000
Ms. Hellman wrote these when she was 23-24ish. I think at that time she was divorced, working at MGM as a reader, and had just met the love of her life, Dashiell Hammett. The stories are the first flexing of her literary muscle. They were published once, in a magazine…
Fri, 28 Jul 2017 15:00:32 +0000
“By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split…
“A little laughter in grim times is better than Xanax.” an interview with author, William Kuhn
Sun, 23 Jul 2017 15:00:10 +0000
I had the happy chance to meet William Kuhn through his bookshelves before I met him in person. In 2015 my husband was working on a film in Boston, and after subletting the author’s apartment, he wrote to me, “Come here and stay, you will love it.” On a humid…
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:00:24 +0000
There are some people whose soul you can see in an instant. You can see it captured in an image or in a passage from a book. After I read this description of a former nanny to two princes in William Kuhn’s novel, Prince Harry Boy to Man, I asked…
“All men dream: but not equally.” T. E. Lawrence
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:00:33 +0000
I was reading the other day about Englishmen on secret missions in Afghanistan, and to my surprise, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) may have been there in the late 1920s, possibly working behind the scenes to bring down King Amanullah. Where did I find this intriguing bit of history?…
Thu, 20 Jul 2017 15:00:42 +0000
Ellen Terry (1847-1928) appeared on stage for seventy years. During that time she married twice, managed a theater, toured the United States, taught and lectured, corresponded with George Bernard Shaw, was painted by John Singer Sargent, and wrote a very interesting memoir. Most of the letters written to me I…
“Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.” Marilyn Monroe
Wed, 19 Jul 2017 15:00:34 +0000
Marilyn Monroe — seen here being presented to Queen Elizabeth II — was very savvy about appearances; about what made people tick, and how fame blurred the picture. She struggled to balance her inner life against a manufactured persona. Everyone’s childhood plays itself out… I think to love bravely is…
“At the best of times gender is difficult to determine.” Marlene Dietrich
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 15:00:09 +0000
In language gender is particularly peculiar. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? French children, for instance, are male even if they are girls, in English there seems to be considerable doubt, in German they are definitely neuter. Even more startling…
London is an even worse town to find a man in than Hollywood…
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 15:00:08 +0000
“Danny La Rue…the most professional, the most witty and the most utterly charming man in the business.” Noel Coward. “London is a man’s town… London is an even worse town to find a man in than Hollywood…A couple of weeks ago I was in London and I was out to…
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 03:00:21 +0000
This photo was taken in 1922 at the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital, as a young polio victim received physical therapy in warm spring waters… This is the kind of tender care that will be impossible, for so very many, if “repeal and replace” goes through, and often it will be…
“The world cannot wait — and neither will we.” Mayor Garcetti, Los Angeles
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 22:26:04 +0000
I just received a beacon from the past. Last night I opened a trove of photos and came across a letter to my grandmother, from her best friend, dated October 13, 1944…when the world was at war…and her children and her friends’ children were fighting overseas. It seems…
An “oh, snap” with éclat from Olivia de Havilland
Wed, 19 Apr 2017 22:35:10 +0000
When asked by the Hollywood Reporter about the relationship portrayed in Feud, Olivia de Havilland replied: “I have received your email with its two questions, I would like to reply first to the second of these, which inquires of me the accuracy of a current television series entitled Feud, which…
Once upon an Easter in London and Paris…
Sat, 15 Apr 2017 16:00:20 +0000
This is what Spring looks like at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. I love-love-love this time of year here, but… When I was little girl my father had business in London for a time, so I lived there with my parents and went to a girl’s school…
Sat, 08 Apr 2017 16:30:50 +0000
I have a friend I met when we were nine. This picture of Mary Pickford reminds me of her, the solid gaze, the bold spirit, and the curls. She’s the only person I’ve ever known whose hair fell into perfect ringlets. Recently, she called out of the blue and we…
Sun, 02 Apr 2017 14:00:24 +0000
In the living room, sitting side-by-side with the Mister, I noticed he was enraptured by his smart phone. I remarked that studies had shown infants (whose parents were always checking in digitally) weren’t developing language skills, emotional recognition, or social bonds as quickly as previous generations; because their parents weren’t…
Wed, 29 Mar 2017 21:00:34 +0000
“She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift. Believe me, in the last fifteen years there were ten projects that came to me, and I’d start working on them and I’d think, ‘It’s not going to work,…
Jack Lemmon talks about Marilyn Monroe — Some Like it Hot
Wed, 29 Mar 2017 18:00:00 +0000
On Marilyn Monroe: Jack Lemmon — I liked her very much and I got along great with her. She had a lot of problems, she was basically an unhappy girl. She drove Billy and Tony crazy, she drove me a little crazy too but I didn’t let on and it…
Thu, 23 Mar 2017 18:58:45 +0000
ooo ooo ooo Lucky Son, in which sleight of hand meets soul… This is the story of an innocent, with an innate gift of picking the numbers, caught up in a maelstrom of violence and manipulation. Paul Hughen’s debut novel is gritty and cinematic — conjuring both the brutality and…
Sat, 11 Mar 2017 16:00:17 +0000
Fri, 10 Mar 2017 20:00:25 +0000
Thu, 09 Mar 2017 16:00:22 +0000
“Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star.” Bette Davis
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 22:30:43 +0000
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 22:00:17 +0000
Crawford, for example, could be her unabashedly eccentric self when telling readers to entertain while wearing a lovely gown (she often had her dressmaker fashion a matching turban and shoes). Or that hard chairs were perfectly fine for guests (“soft ones spread the hips”). Or that one should not serve…
The Shop Around the Corner…at Christmas
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 16:00:15 +0000
A.O. Scott of the New York Times makes a glowing Christmas pick: . In a second I’ll tell you why this particular film fills me with a sense of Christmas well being… It is near the close of the film, Christmas Eve, as the stage is set for the wonderful…
‘Twas the night before Christmas…
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 00:00:57 +0000
A Visit from St. Nicholas ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their…
imagine getting into these costumes…
Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:00:15 +0000
Norman Rockwell, 1965, Oil on canvas Astronauts John Young and Gus Grissom are suited for the first flight of the Gemini program in March 1965. NASA loaned Norman Rockwell a Gemini spacesuit in order to make this painting as accurate as possible. Credit: Courtesy Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.…
Trick or treat! Thou sanctimonious long-tongued odiferous stench!
Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:00:43 +0000
You know, I’m not usually ill-behaved (or quiet) or unmindful of comments but, I have the most…percolating cold…tonight I should probably wear gloves while I give out the candy. At any rate, here’s to so many, so very many, wonderful peeps that I haven’t responded to in days — I…
Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:05:51 +0000
Hello! This excerpt from my novel in progress is for my friend in Seattle, Scott Parker-Anderson. I’m in a helluva good mood, because after months of being forbidden from typing (separated my shoulder joint, long story, tell ya later) I am back at the keyboard. For those of you who…
Tempus fugit for us all, even erstwhile denizens of Hollywood…
Sat, 10 Sep 2016 14:00:15 +0000
Impressions from September of last year… Back to Boston after spending a few days on Cape Cod. Most of the time there I spent walking, buttoned up in a wool blazer, wind full in my face — and I have rarely been so happy. I spent a lot of time…
“Bake the hall in the candle of her brain…” Vickie Lester’s literary antecedents revealed
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:00:21 +0000
I know, I know… You were probably thinking with the L.A. influence coupled with a long spell in an English girl’s school that my literary inspirations would be a cross between Joan Didion and Evelyn Waugh. Far from it, my angels! My writerly consciousness was largely shaped by the Muppets.
The Not So Secret Origin of my first novel, or, It’s in His Kiss by Vickie Lester
Thu, 08 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000
That’s me in a grungy corner of a set sometime in the late eighties. You can tell by the garish knitwear and the helmet of curls… I’ve been rattling around this part of the world for a long time, probably longer than some of you (dear readers) have been alive.…
Where I get my ideas for Hollywood novels…
Thu, 01 Sep 2016 16:55:11 +0000
September 1st! Where has the time gone? I spent the spring doing a remodel on my house, and the ensuing months recovering from a shoulder injury. I was warned off sitting for hours on the computer, and thus I have been barely a presence here, and I haven’t worked on…
Tony Curtis on cross-dressing… Some Like it Hot
Tue, 16 Aug 2016 20:00:30 +0000
Tony Curtis — Orry-Kelly did the dresses for Marilyn Monroe, and Jack and I were going to wear clothes out of Western Costumes. So I went to Western Costumes and they fitted us out in these dresses that belonged to Loretta Young and Kate Smith and Debbie Reynolds and Lola…
It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright! And bring an umbrella…
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 16:00:19 +0000
Hello kittens, I thought I’d show you this – La Miniatura – draped off in tarps against the weather. Talk about maintenance! The house was originally commissioned by a rare book dealer… Paper… Water… Paper… Anything wrong here? As a follow up to the previous post (in a round about…
Cedric Gibbons – design genius – husband of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood – philanderer
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 14:00:08 +0000
My uncle – when he still drove – used to take me on architectural tours of Los Angeles. We saw Frank Lloyd Wright’s leaky La Miniatura in a rain storm. We checked out a Neutra belonging to a friend of his that was perched in the Hollywood Hills and had…
Thu, 28 Jul 2016 18:20:42 +0000
Dear Nat, …The weather here seems to be brightening and at long last we may get Taylor up on that Sphinx, if we can ever get her out of Burton’s arms. During one of the love scenes the other day, Mankiewicz said, “Cut, then louder, “Cut.” Then he said to…
L. Frank Baum, wizard behind Oz, once wrote under a woman’s pseudonym: Edith van Dyne
Thu, 28 Jul 2016 18:00:39 +0000
In fact, Mr. Watson, it’s a queer world, and the longer I live in it the queerer I find it. Once I thought it would be a good idea to regulate things myself and run the world as it ought to be run; but I gave it up long ago.…
“The American dream is something no wall will ever contain.” President Obama
Thu, 28 Jul 2016 04:32:13 +0000
President Obama, July 27, 2016 Twelve years ago tonight, I addressed this convention for the very first time. You met my two little girls, Malia and Sasha – now two amazing young women who just fill me with pride. You fell for my brilliant wife and partner Michelle, who’s…
Tue, 26 Jul 2016 16:19:04 +0000
Thank you all. Thank you so much. You know, it’s hard to believe that it has been eight years since I first came to this convention to talk with you about why I thought my husband should be president. (CHEERS, APPLAUSE) Remember how I told you about his character and…
“Katharine Hepburn creates a bad first impression.” Cecil Beaton
Sat, 23 Jul 2016 15:00:51 +0000
“Her personality is so forceful that she appears to be ill-mannered and high-handed, and, for this, she is apt to be unpopular. But her honest frankness cannot be hidden and her intensity and extreme youthfulness are utterly disarming.” “Her heroines are Bernhardt, Duse, and Garbo; she lives for acting, adores…
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 19:51:07 +0000
“If, oddly enough, he has chosen California for his home, the products of his pen are still respectfully and enthusiastically received on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, he is an acknowledged dean of contemporary literature, and we his admiring pupils.” Cecil Beaton, 1957
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 19:00:24 +0000
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 17:00:48 +0000
“Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession.” Ava Gardner on acting
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:00:29 +0000
“Hollywood is wonderful. Anyone who doesn’t like it is either crazy or sober.” Raymond Chandler
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 19:00:07 +0000
“Come to work on time, know your lines and don’t bump into the other actors.” Spencer Tracy
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 17:00:31 +0000
“I don’t take the movies seriously, and anybody who does is in for a headache,” Bette Davis
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 15:00:11 +0000
Hm… She worked consistently for 58 years in film, radio, and TV (from 1931 to the year of her death in 1989). I think she took it very seriously.
“Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.” Voltaire
Fri, 15 Jul 2016 17:51:22 +0000
“In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that…
Sun, 10 Jul 2016 19:00:57 +0000
“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong
Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:50 +0000
Sun, 10 Jul 2016 15:00:07 +0000
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 20:25:51 +0000
The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide…
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:00:53 +0000
I love the fourth of July, but this year I am obsessed with what’s going on in the country that we got our independence from… “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see….” “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time…
Diana Vreeland got her start working for Carmel Snow at Harper’s Bazaar…
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 18:00:07 +0000
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 16:00:18 +0000
Snow’s genius came from cultivating the best people. Her first big find was art director Alexey Brodovitch, who innovated Bazaar‘s iconic Didot logo. Brodovitch is perhaps best known for his work with Richard Avedon, who, as a young photographer, was so determined to work at Bazaar that he endured the…
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 14:00:42 +0000
In 1933, editor in chief Carmel Snow (who’d been a fashion editor at Vogue) brought photojournalist Martin Munkacsi to a windswept beach to shoot a swimwear spread. As the model ran toward the camera, Munkacsi took the picture that made fashion-magazine history. Until that moment, nearly all fashion was carefully…
Fri, 01 Jul 2016 15:00:48 +0000
…”By golly, I’m alive, all right. and I do live in France, and not under but on top of solid Parisian limestone. Furthermore, I speak First Class Foreign French, and if I’ve stunned you into immobility by all this startling information, you just keep seated and keep quiet, and I’ll…
Fri, 01 Jul 2016 11:00:35 +0000
A little unsolicited advice on love… with Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn
Fri, 01 Jul 2016 07:00:59 +0000
Even if you’re fighting with your beloved, the point is never to lose connection. Sometimes, even in heated debate, the Mr. and I find we’re still touching, and there’s not a damn thing make-believe about that. No matter what is said, it helps…
…Cruising Just as Fast as She Can Now… #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Thu, 30 Jun 2016 18:00:51 +0000
* Chapter 20 Anne headed back to Los Angeles. Fifteen minutes out from the basin she slipped her earpiece in and called her uncle, who complained when he answered the phone that it sounded as if she were addressing him from the bottom of the ocean. Anne kept her eyes…
Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:00:06 +0000
The Hollywood Bowl – another reason I love L.A.
Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:00:57 +0000
A natural amphitheater – 1923 – progress – 1925 – 1927 – Rebuilt, again – 1928 – Twilight at the bowl in the 1930s – note the more pronounced arch – Distinctive – always –
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 23:10:20 +0000
What’s the world coming to when two men with improbable hair (?) — one born to the elite, one shockingly elitist — both having deeply dysfunctional relationships with the truth, manipulate their way to power by fomenting fear among the very people they’ve brazenly exploited? Well, we get Britain trampling…
It’s a neighborly day for this beauty wood… Or not.
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:49:08 +0000
Still walking in the mornings, always before the sun gets too high. It’s not just the cooler temperatures I like, it’s the company. For example, nearly every morning I see a very old man, who doesn’t use his cane, but carries it under his arm. In greeting he raises his…
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 22:00:39 +0000
I’ve started taking walks just after six a.m. Yesterday, when I turned the corner were my street starts to climb into the foothills, I saw the windows of a Spanish Colonial had all been flung open to catch the (relative) chill. My neighbor was seated at her kick-ass Steinway playing…
“I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.” Judy Garland
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 19:48:28 +0000
What Would Katharine Hepburn Do? Or, As Nature Intended… by Vickie Lester
Sun, 19 Jun 2016 21:07:00 +0000
I like religious people, conditionally. I like them if they live according to their creed and keep quiet about it. Nothing is more tedious than someone spouting off about “doing unto others” while their voice escalates and their eyes glaze. Not too long ago I had the occasion to interview…
Sun, 19 Jun 2016 17:30:56 +0000
That’s my father, he died many years ago on a business trip to London. And being my father’s daughter, this is the deal—this portrait of him is a link to my Hollywood novel, click and it’ll take you to Amazon. Hold onto your hats for a rare “non-fiction” moment, I…
Aldous Huxley on writing, and the doors of perception…
Sat, 18 Jun 2016 15:00:57 +0000
Aldous Huxley, The Art of Fiction No. 24, Paris Review Interviewed by Raymond Fraser, George Wickes It is rather odd to find Aldous Huxley in a suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood. He lives in an unpretentious hilltop house that suggests the Tudor period of American real-estate history. On a…
Elijah Schali — Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Fashion — 2016
Fri, 17 Jun 2016 16:40:46 +0000
I know I’ve been scarce around these parts, yet I’m coming out of hiding for a moment because I couldn’t be prouder of my nephew, who, I used to refer to on this blog as, the Kid… Direct from the coolest catwalk, join me in congratulations and feast your eyes…
London, June 4th, 1940… We shall fight on the beaches…
Sat, 04 Jun 2016 07:00:01 +0000
…Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we…
“Cary Grant is the only actor I ever loved in my whole life.” Alfred Hitchcock
Thu, 02 Jun 2016 23:00:01 +0000
The lighter side of Alfred Hitchcock
Thu, 02 Jun 2016 21:00:47 +0000
There are so many stories in Hollywood of his wit and humor – and there’s one mythic tale (and I’ve never seen the footage, so I’d have to say it was a myth) of Hitch dancing in a hula skirt for a home camera at a party with an idol…
Thu, 02 Jun 2016 19:05:20 +0000
Mon, 30 May 2016 19:00:21 +0000
Mon, 30 May 2016 17:00:14 +0000
Sat, 21 May 2016 17:01:13 +0000
Tue, 17 May 2016 19:01:46 +0000
Tue, 17 May 2016 17:01:09 +0000
“Marilyn was always my first choice to play the girl, Holly Golightly.” Truman Capote
Tue, 17 May 2016 15:01:21 +0000
“When a horse learns to buy martinis, I’ll learn to like horses.” Steve McQueen
Thu, 12 May 2016 21:00:04 +0000
Thu, 12 May 2016 19:00:52 +0000
For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by maps. From when I was a little boy maps, atlases, and globes offered a window onto the wider world out there, and, more than that, made it understandable. They represented mystery and the solution to mystery all at…
Thu, 12 May 2016 17:00:46 +0000
Wed, 11 May 2016 17:00:06 +0000
Wed, 11 May 2016 15:01:54 +0000
Wed, 11 May 2016 13:00:54 +0000
Tue, 10 May 2016 16:57:01 +0000
I just put my feet in the air and move them around. Fred Astaire
Tue, 10 May 2016 15:07:33 +0000
Tue, 10 May 2016 13:07:17 +0000
Parenting, and why I’m no Irene Dunne
Sun, 08 May 2016 21:00:59 +0000
What got me started on this train of thought, was, of course, the Kid. He has a habit of referring to his elders as, “Boss,” however it all started with me and my very special name, “Crime Boss.” Irene Dunne was a nice upstanding gal who did right by her…
Bette Davis and a legacy in fur
Sun, 08 May 2016 19:00:50 +0000
Picture two willowy ladies of indeterminate age, although judging from their carefully dyed hair, and the fact they are wearing calf length mink coats we could probably safely say they were between the ages of 75 and 85. An age when you can unrepentantly rock any look you like. I…
Marlene Dietrich and Mother’s Day…
Sun, 08 May 2016 15:00:50 +0000
Here, poppets, is a photo of Miss Dietrich in a mouton coat and hat – just in case you were wondering what mouton is… Mother: More solid than the ground under your feet when you are little, more solid than a rock when you need to lean, and harder than…
A. Quincy Jones builds a house for Gary Cooper…
Sat, 07 May 2016 17:50:23 +0000
Yes, that tall Montanan played an architect in one of the most humorless bombastic pieces of drivel ever put on the screen—and by that I mean “The Fountainhead”—but he knew where to go when he wanted to find a real architect and build a home for his family just north…
Fri, 06 May 2016 14:00:00 +0000
I often wonder about the lost art of conversation. In a way social media binds us together, but I can’t help thinking the Internet might be leading to the automation of humanity. Walk down any street and see heads bent to devices, ignoring the world for a digital sampling. And…
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet
Wed, 04 May 2016 20:33:23 +0000
The Amateur Cloud Society That (Sort Of) Rattled the Scientific Community An improbable tale of how a British maverick harnessed crowd sourced meteorological discoveries to reveal the poetic wonders of the sky. By JON MOOALLEMMAY 4, 2016 …A cloud is only water, but arranged like no other water on earth.…
Wed, 04 May 2016 16:15:58 +0000
True story, how my screenwriting career was launched…
Mon, 02 May 2016 16:42:11 +0000
You know I have to put a qualifier in here… My screenwriting career, such as it was… Anyway, once upon a time a big Hollywood producer had a bored overnight guest and after a sweet interlude in bed this young lady wandered through his house looking for something to read.…
This author’s favorite pick-me-up, courtesy of The Philadelphia Story
Thu, 28 Apr 2016 17:23:27 +0000
Dexter: Orange juice, certainly. Tracy: Don’t tell me you’ve forsaken your beloved whiskey and whiskeys. Dexter: No, no, no, no. I’ve just changed their color, that’s all. I’m going for the pale pastel shades now. They’re more becoming to me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don’t you? Alcohol,…
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 14:30:52 +0000
“There is no such thing as a person that nothing has happened to, and each person’s story is as different as his fingerprints.”
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 13:00:53 +0000
Anne’s mother emerged from the kitchen carrying two mismatched mugs. The one she handed to Anne was emblazoned with The Rolling Stones’ lips and lolling tongue logo; it reminded Anne of her mother’s infrequent drunken hints that she had once had a “thing” with one of the Stones back…
Behind the scenes in Hollywood with #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Sun, 24 Apr 2016 16:21:38 +0000
toobeguiling It’s amazing to wake to sunrise on roses, it really is a dream — but you know about dreams — they dissipate with coffee. I’m writing another novel, the one that comes after #itsinhiskissbyvickielester –> There’s a hardware store on Santa Monica Boulevard, just over the border from Beverly…
“You have to live a life to understand it. Tourists just pass through.” Prince, Resquiesat in Pace
Thu, 21 Apr 2016 22:26:26 +0000
“Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent. As one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time, Prince did it all. Funk. R&B. Rock and roll. He was a virtuoso instrumentalist, a brilliant…
Portrait of royalty, and not the Hollywood variety
Thu, 21 Apr 2016 18:00:24 +0000
Portrait of Princess Margaret in front of the portrait by Annigoni, by Cecil Beaton Last year Viscount Linley surprised everyone by buying back an Annigoni portrait of his mother, Princess Margaret, from a sale of family heirlooms… While the painting was being copied, various sections were magnified, revealing previously…
Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:00:13 +0000
. BBC – Radio 3 – Eve Arnold Interview.
Tue, 19 Apr 2016 15:00:10 +0000
Tell me about your cinematic chocolates…
Sat, 16 Apr 2016 21:00:08 +0000
You know. The movies that make you curl up on the couch and purr. I’ll get it rolling. Trouble in Paradise Senses of Cinema calls it a Lost Treasure, and I have to agree. A man in a tuxedo stands poised upon a stone balcony, robed in silvery moonlight. A…
Sat, 16 Apr 2016 18:00:51 +0000
Sat, 16 Apr 2016 16:00:44 +0000
Fri, 15 Apr 2016 14:50:08 +0000
5.0 out of 5 stars Art Director By Bob Schulenberg on August 16, 2014 Format: Paperback “Ms. Lester” certainly knows the ins of Hollywood! Let doubters doubt no more, she takes you there, shows you around and shares the secrets! As a native Angeleno and privy to some of this…
“You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.” Goldie Hawn
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:00:17 +0000
“Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it.” Brigitte Bardot
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:00:07 +0000
Tue, 12 Apr 2016 18:50:43 +0000
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 21:46:15 +0000
Ruth Chatterton, at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Ennis House during the shooting of “Female.” When she retired from the screen she started writing. I found this copy of her book, “Homeward Borne” along with several others I had salvaged from the parental attic. Unlike the rest of the old…
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 15:30:47 +0000
The light that made filmmakers move to California…
Sat, 09 Apr 2016 19:00:19 +0000
It shines here most of the time, and there are certain places, certain times of year that take your breath away with sheer beauty. Pity that with generations of talent based here so much production is going elsewhere. The migration has to do with tax incentives in some places, and…
Fri, 08 Apr 2016 14:30:26 +0000
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 19:30:10 +0000
A defining role: Reading sides on a leaning board. Jean Harlow chats with visiting director Edmund Goulding. To her left is cast member Edmund Lowe and director George Cukor. Photograph by George Hurrell of Jean Harlow in a gown by Adrian designed for “Dinner at Eight”.
“A girl can’t read that sort of thing without her lipstick.” Holly Golightly
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:53:49 +0000
For those with lipstick, click here. #itsinhiskissbyvickielester Her book reads like “The Jet Set” episode of Mad Men, when Don finds himself immersed in the desert, in a world of modern glass, pools and morals, peopled by lovely, languid denizens whose talents lie in false conversation and relationships. Yes, the…
Cecil Beaton as the Easter Bunny, photographed by Gordon Anthony (1937)
Sun, 27 Mar 2016 16:00:00 +0000
“Impropriety is the soul of wit,” so says old Somerset Maugham…
Wed, 24 Feb 2016 19:00:57 +0000
That quote is a guiding light, but then again, this one is nearly perfect: “I wasn’t kissing her, I was just whispering in her mouth,” uttered by Chico Marx when caught in flagrante. Now, you all know where I come from and about my ties to Hollywood. You also may…
Tue, 23 Feb 2016 16:04:56 +0000
Now don’t argue, if you’re looking at this on a phone, tablet, or computer; the point about teeny-tiny images is made. Here we have a GIF from Sunset Blvd., and another excuse to jump from a film image to a discourse on—me! Let’s start with a little background on how…
“Let’s do lunch? Over my dead body.” #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:27:55 +0000
Get the skinny on a Hollywood origin story… When Becky invited Steve to accompany her on the adventure, she put it like this, “Steve, I got a gig at a big firm out in California; you wanna come?” Steve, employed at the time drafting prefab cubicle-based office interior schemes in…
“Love isn’t something you find. Love is something that finds you.” Loretta Young
Fri, 12 Feb 2016 16:30:51 +0000
Look at that, Loretta Young in 1931, in a movie called “Too Young to Marry.” You have to indulge me today because it’s my birthday, and, love found me thirty-one years ago. Since it’s nearly Valentine’s day I thought I’d share a few memories of my and The Mister’s courtship.…
“A sex club?” #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:30:25 +0000
Dive into a romantic Hollywood mystery for Valentine’s: “Did they know about The Buccaneers?” “It’s a sex club, Ms. Brown.” “You said it was an after-hours club.” “Good, you’re paying attention.” He made a pyramid of his hands, tapped his fingertips against his lips, thought for a moment, then pushed…
Tue, 09 Feb 2016 12:30:47 +0000
Mon, 08 Feb 2016 17:51:30 +0000
A little pedantic information, “disinterested” is not the word you sought. It is “uninterested.” The two words don’t have the same meaning; “uninterested means you have no interest in something or you have lost interest in it. “Disinterested,” on the other hand, means that you have no vested interest in…
Thu, 04 Feb 2016 19:00:24 +0000
Feel like dancing? James Johnson loved Manhattan. He loved Juilliard. Most of all he loved shedding all the tiresome, uncool parental pressure, but not his monthly allowance, which he supplemented with a hefty income dealing pot and coke to his like-minded artistic classmates. His best customers tended to be kids…
A Wintery Dinner Inspired by Lucy and Desi
Thu, 04 Feb 2016 16:00:40 +0000
Butter lettuce, pickled shallots, pistachios, and cherry tomato salad Parisian pot roast, or Daube, or Étouffée, anyway it involves a chuck roast or a brisket and a lot of braising A crusty baguette A champagne coupe filled with berries and a splash of liquor – Chantilly creme optional Salad: the…
The inestimable Lena Horne finds a home in Manhattan
Tue, 02 Feb 2016 18:17:34 +0000
For Lena Horne, a Home at Last She was one of the most famous performers in the country, a recording star, a Hollywood actress and a nightclub sensation. But in the late 1950s, Lena Horne still struggled to find property owners in Manhattan who were willing to sell co-ops or…
““What’s not hot after a fifth of Jagermeister and six lap dances?” #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Sun, 31 Jan 2016 19:03:59 +0000
I ONLY WANT TO BE WITH YOU an excerpt from “It’s in His Kiss” by Vickie Lester Dawn White turned seventeen in August of 1966. It was a propitious year. Instead of driving her VW Bug from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada to Montreal and matriculating at McGill University, as she ought,…
“Lipstick as panacea…” It always works in the movies. #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 19:01:39 +0000
“Just take a breath,” said Shamari, dipping a hand into her Prada bag, her entire arm like a dowser’s wand dragged toward a source of water. There appeared an expression of almost religious fervor as she found what she sought in its capacious depths. After a moment she withdrew her…
Charlie Chaplin’s studios during a very rare Los Angeles snow storm in 1921…
Sun, 24 Jan 2016 00:00:26 +0000
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 20:00:15 +0000
The storm — blustery in some places, blinding in others — was a swirling, sprawling mass with a reach of nearly 1,000 miles. It had already largely immobilized Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia on its way to New York. It all but stopped airline and railroad travel, flooded low-lying beaches and…
“This book has reignited my passion for 21st century fiction.” Scott Parker-Anderson
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 17:46:29 +0000
Okay, my angels. It doesn’t get any better than this, this is the heart and soul of the Internet, the thing that keeps us online; connection. When we post or tweet or Instagram — or write a novel — we are starting a conversation and hoping that somebody will reply.…
Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:48:26 +0000
Friends and family to the east, stay warm, stay safe, and let us entertain you with a Hollywood novel, served up weird, witty, and with a twist…
#SecondChancesLondonBoundManhattanMagic — sorcery with a sardonic twist from Sophia Stuart
Fri, 22 Jan 2016 16:30:29 +0000
Oh, it’s so lovely to have an excerpt from a fresh new novel just about to be submitted to a select few publishers. SECOND CHANCES: London Bound. Manhattan Magic. a novel by sophia stuart. Chapter 1. Marion peered out of the window as the taxi swung into Church Row, Hampstead.…
Mon, 18 Jan 2016 15:30:11 +0000
You really should read the entire piece… Louis Auchincloss, The Art of Fiction No. 138 Interviewed by George Plimpton click anywhere below. INTERVIEWER Have you seen the movie The Age of Innocence? AUCHINCLOSS I reviewed it. I loved it. It’s a great movie. It reflects the book absolutely and entirely; it…
Sun, 17 Jan 2016 18:49:24 +0000
Agnes de Mille, daughter of William de Mille, was an American choreographer most well know for three works, Rodeo, Fall River Legend, and Oklahoma! As a youngster she lived here, in a Hollywood that consisted of orange groves and dirt roads. This house and property, made way for all the…
Sat, 16 Jan 2016 20:08:54 +0000
It’s always lovely to visit NoelCoward.com
Fri, 15 Jan 2016 16:44:00 +0000
“Is what a big deal?” he countered, chewing on his pipe stem. “An agent being on set.” “Let’s just say there’s always a natural antagonism between management types and creative types. Your father would call it something else, but we’ll call it a natural antagonism.”
Tue, 12 Jan 2016 17:38:29 +0000
If you want to know the truth, just about every novel written — on some level — is a roman à clef. You may think you’re writing noir fiction, or something picaresque, but in the end everything you type is informed by your perception of the world. In the broadest…
#Amwriting #HollywoodFiction. Hop in, I’ll take you for a short spin…
Tue, 12 Jan 2016 03:50:55 +0000
PREFACE I am a woman of a certain age. An age at which I have gained, if not wisdom, then at least the experience and discernment to intuit that when an old friend I haven’t heard a squeak from in three years texts me, “S’up?” late at night that what’s…
David Bowie (1947-2016) — to hear the angels sing
Mon, 11 Jan 2016 09:52:46 +0000
It’s a god-awful small affair To the girl with the mousy hair But her mummy is yelling “No” And her daddy has told her to go But her friend is nowhere to be seen Now she walks through her sunken dream To the seat with the clearest view And…
“Attention embarrasses me. I don’t like to be on display.” Barbara Stanwyck
Sun, 10 Jan 2016 16:30:00 +0000
That’s the irony of creative expression, isn’t it? Attention is vital, yet it’s a double-edged. Too much and it cuts into your psyche, too little and the artist withers into obscurity. No wonder people develop a public face and a private. And yet…no matter how hard we try… This is…
“Higher than a kite at his own son’s funeral.” #itsinhiskissbyvickielester
Sat, 09 Jan 2016 16:30:41 +0000
“Regarding his dilated pupils, and distraught expression with apprehension, she realized he had asked ‘Why?’ in tones so deeply afflicted, so heart-torn, so wounded, she couldn’t, at first, discern the meaning.” “Above it all, she is, a veritable hermit now, up in the canyons. Never goes out. Won’t speak to…
“They say that bundling is a New England custom both reverenced and honored.” Charlotte Vale
Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:00:01 +0000
Thu, 07 Jan 2016 15:30:08 +0000
Grieving Jean Harlow at the funeral of Paul Bern, her husband, 1932. Things take a turn for the sad in chapter 3, You Only Live Once…
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 15:30:44 +0000
I dream of toast. My favorite beverage is tea. The Mister gave me this photo in the beginning of our relationship, and I have loved him ever since. If you want the nitty-gritty details of my background click here: About Want to hear the glorious Pippa Rathborne read my novel…
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 20:17:28 +0000
Evelyn Waugh based “Brideshead Revisited” on family friends, the Lygons, children of Lord Beauchamp — a man who was driven into exile from his stately home (and country) by his Catholic wife for a series of dalliances with his butler, valet, etc. — but his children stayed forever true. We’re…
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 17:56:34 +0000
Wed, 30 Dec 2015 15:30:20 +0000
Time to get swept up, chapter 1 of #itsinhiskissbyvickielester, read to you by Pippa Rathborne
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 16:30:27 +0000
* HAPPY HOLLYWOOD, BEGUILERS! AND A MERRY NEW YEAR! Compliments of the Season, from Pippa of London & Vickie of Los Angeles! Look for Chapter 2 (the slightly saucy one) on New Year’s Eve… .
‘Twas the night before Christmas in Vickie Lester’s Hollywood…
Tue, 22 Dec 2015 20:00:29 +0000
(a holiday excerpt from my Hollywood novel in progress) …He looked up from The Wall Street Journal. Since the days of white-hot celebrity were behind him he had become increasingly interested in managing his money. The television in the library was always on a channel with a constant scroll across…
Mon, 21 Dec 2015 14:30:18 +0000
Sun, 20 Dec 2015 16:45:44 +0000
If these Mount Everests of the financial world are going to labor and bring forth still more pictures with people being blown to bits with bazookas and automatic assault rifles with no gory detail left unexploited, if they are going to encourage anxious, ambitious actors, directors, writers and producers to…
“There were giants in the industry. Now it is an era of midgets and conglomerates.” Otto Preminger
Sat, 19 Dec 2015 20:05:26 +0000
Sat, 19 Dec 2015 18:05:51 +0000
Vickie Lester, and a moment of penance for a film that opens Christmas Day
Sat, 19 Dec 2015 16:05:00 +0000
“The Hateful Eight” The glory of 70 mm filmmaking resurrected in the service of a vapid one-note narrative, that devolves into a prolonged finale of exploding meat bags. That said, I’ve seen a number of films this year that were excellent — this just wasn’t one of them — and…
Thu, 17 Dec 2015 20:00:05 +0000
London based actor Pippa Rathborne and I would like to present our Christmas gift, a chapter a week of “It’s in His Kiss” a Hollywood Noir — perfect to curl up in bed with. Look for us same time, same day, until the last page is turned. Today it’s the…
Feeling as blissful as Bette for what’s to come, Christmas and a very creative New Year!
Wed, 16 Dec 2015 21:39:39 +0000
Hello, my angels! If you’ve been reading along on Beguiling you know I reverence Ms. Davis. She was bold and brilliant and always laid it on the line. In that spirit I am about to make some changes here on the blog which I hope you will enjoy, and which…
Reprise: When you think you’re going to live forever…
Wed, 16 Dec 2015 20:45:00 +0000
When I was in college, that’s exactly what I thought. Then I finished school and started working, and people around me kept reinforcing the idea of prolonged youth. Do you babysit? You look like such a conscientious teenager! I’m actually a really inattentive adult—got a liquor cabinet?… I’m in! And…
“A novel is made up of words and characters…” Grahame Greene
Sun, 13 Dec 2015 16:30:50 +0000
“Are the words well chosen and do the characters live? All the rest belongs to literary gossip. You are not in this class to learn how to be gossip-writers.” A Visit to Morin, a short story by Graham Greene The prolific Mr. Greene had over a dozen of his novels…
Errol Flynn wrote a memoir called, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”
Sun, 13 Dec 2015 14:30:59 +0000
“I designed the house myself. I would make of it a playhouse, a spot for rest, recreation, good living, romping, roistering, and cultured living too… The interior of the house wasn’t ornate, but it was beautiful and practical and there was plenty of room… I think I liked my den…
Isn’t Cary Grant angelic? Decorating the Christmas tree for the bishop’s wife…
Sat, 12 Dec 2015 17:30:16 +0000