Birthday Girl: The Pre-Teased Superstar

Well, it's deepest gray and pouring rain here in Our Nation's Capital, and I have to admit that my seasonal funk continues. If anything, though, were to drive away the clouds, I think it would be spending some time, as I've done this afternoon, in the very personable company of today's Birthday Girl.

Meanwhile, at Work...

Well - the title is close. No hussies this week, but more than enough hissy fits at the office.  We moved, you see, and believe me, there is something about an office move that does not bring out the best in one's colleagues.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dame Helen Mirren

Here to brighten up what is, at least in Our Nation's Capital, a gray and dreary day, one of the United Kingdom's most distinguished thespians.  And I bet you thought her appearance in Caligula was as far a cry as one could imagine from The Queen.

She May Have 99 Problems...

...but at least this year Joan Fontaine isn't one of them.  Many happy returns on her 99th to the one and only Miss Olivia de Havilland.  I hope that she's up for a little celebration; Paris, after all, is lovely this time of year.  As, I'm sure, is she.

Whatever Happened to Finnan Haddie?

Here to celebrate this festive day we have an old familiar number in what I imagine is a rather unfamiliar setting.  As Mr. Cole Porter rolls in his grave, the one and only Miss Violetta Villas and her Double-Knit Dancers give us their interpretation of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

Sprung

I'm just going to let dear Miss Durbin (looking uncharacteristically sultry - she is rocking that Vera West gown) sing us into the new season.  Which started, this morning, with snow.  Bother.

Goodnight, Lady

I'm in transit, but when the plane touched down in Tokyo and my phone whirred back to life, I was faced with a downpour of sorrow from Cairo, for Egyptian film lovers have lost "The Lady of the Arab Screen," the incomparable Faten Hamama.  This really is going to be a tough year for movie lovers, isn't it?

What's My Wednesdays? #12: Fair Lady

This delightful (if, as captured in the screen cap above, rather intent-looking) creature brightened up a dreary February Sunday evening for television watchers nationwide - 54 years ago.  Today, Dame Julie Andrews turns a still-sprightly 79.

Madame D

I realize that I'm probably boring you with my sudden infatuation with all things MerriweatherPostian, but when life is as vexing as is ours at the moment, one does find consolation in the contemplation of beautiful things.

Shameless Sunday Camp Explosion: Streetwise

Some days you wake up knowing that what you need is a good dose of Constance Bennett singing and dancing.

A Date That Will Live in Infamy

To paraphrase dear Mr. Yeats - "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last/Slouches towards Brentwood to be born"?

There Comes a Time...

When all you really want...

Self/Image

One actress, two takes.  Funny how we can think of ourselves so differently from how we may seem to others...

Brooklyn Orchid, Hard-Boiled

I love the Internet, and the random things it lets you discover.  This afternoon, for no good reason except procrastination (I know, at a rational level, that those cupboards aren't going to clean themselves out.  But I live in hope.), I was aimlessly surfing and somehow ended up doing an image search on the phrase "hard-boiled gal."  As one does.

And this was one of the first pictures that popped up, and I thought, well she fits the bill.  And, as it turns out, she did in spades.She is in fact one of my favorite things: a working actress of the Hollywood golden age of whom I'd never heard.  She's Grace Bradley.  Ring a bell?  Didn't think so.

She had a fairly typical fourth-or-so tier career, starting on the New York stage, in nightclubs and revues.  Like hundreds of other hopefuls, she was picked up by Paramount, and by 1933 she was a contract player out West.  She made 30-odd films before retiring a decade later, happily married to William Boyd, a fixture of low-budget Westerns as Hopalong Cassidy.  She was his fifth wife, but it stuck, until his death in 1972.  She herself went on until just three years ago, when she went to join Hopalong out at Forest Lawn at the fine age of 97 (she died on her birthday).

The still above is from the appropriately titled 1941 opus The Hard-Boiled Canary.  She played Madie Duvalie, which certainly fits.  Most of Bradley's characters have a charmingly other-side-of-the-tracks ring; during her ten years in the spotlight, she played JoJo La Verne, Flossie, Bonnie LeTour, Trixie La Brey, Lily Lamont, and Sadie McGuerin, among others, all of whom sound like they could fend perfectly well for themselves, thank you very much.  Most of her films are, like most of the programmers of the day,  virtually forgotten.  The only really familiar title is Anything Goes.  Beyond that, it's a string of intriguing mysteries on the order of Girl Without a Room, Wharf Angel, Come on, Marines!, Rose of the Rancho,  Brooklyn Orchid, and Taxi, Mister! (her last feature).

So that's what I learned today.  How about you?

At the Spotlight's Edge

So, during a quiet moment in the midst of a distinctly trying day this afternoon, I was calming my ruffled nerves by idly perusing, as one does, the website of The British Monarchy (what?  Don't judge me.  At least it wasn't illicit office porn, as it is for more than a few of my colleagues, far more often than they think I know about).  I found myself considering the rather interesting position of the gracious lady seen here, in a fetching Norman Parkinson snap.  She is the Queen's elegant (and reputedly favorite) cousin, the Princess Alexandra, more formally HRH The Princess Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel (!), the Honourable Lady Ogilvy.

The daughter of the rakish Duke of Kent (the Queen's uncle) and his elegant wife Marina, originally (like the Duke of Edinburgh) a Greek royal and therefore essentially Danish (don't you just love the oddities of European history?), Alexandra has long toiled in the second ranks of the royal business.  Although she was sixth in line for the throne at birth, these days she languishes somewhere down in the mid-forties.  Nonetheless, hers has been a life of perfect public poise and what seems like entirely natural grace.

Still, at times, she must find herself wondering.  How fair is the twist of fate that let her flibbertigibbet cousin Margaret take on all sorts of glamorous duties and patronages - off attending fancy foreign royal weddings and presiding over the Royal Ballet - while all the while flouting every basic expectation of a well-behaved British princess?  Alexandra has been far more diligent, infinitely less flighty, yet her public roles are generally a shade less soignée.  She did for a long while do some foreign touring, attending the independence of Nigeria in 1960, it's true, and she does have an interest in various arts, cultural,and charitable works, but then...

She is also patron of the British Goat Society, a doubtless wholly worthy concern,* but one - one must admit - with a somewhat different cachet than Sadler's Wells.  In the oddly angled snap above, it would appear that one of her patron-ees is contemplating taking a bite out of her hat.

Her page on the Royal site indicates that she maintains a residence at Buckingham Palace.  That's a pleasing thought, as to me it conjures up the cosy image of two elderly ladies, feet up after another tiring day of opening bazaars and congratulating lady-mayoresses, having a refreshing glass of something warming and recollecting the good old days.  It's nice to think that the Queen, who occupies such an odd and in many ways isolating position, has at least one person who Knew Her When and probably still, in the odd unguarded moment, calls her Lillibet.

* Its chief aim, the Society proclaims, is "to circulate knowledge and general information upon goats," which sounds oddly as if they're attempting to tutor the poor creatures.  That seems unlikely, but I suppose when it comes to British animal lovers, one never knows...

Dream Weaver

Oh, I know, other people's dreams really are dull, and mine are no exception.  Even so, I'm going to beg your indulgence and hope that you gentle readers might help me parse out one I've been having lately.

Maybe it's just a delayed reaction to reading her obituaries last summer, or maybe it's just the effects of reading too many show-biz bios, but she keeps popping up.  Usually, I'm in some random situation from everyday life, albeit one that has, for no good reason, become peppered with the great names of cinema. For example, in one I was a waiter (which I was, once upon a time, by the bye, and a damn good one), at a smart urban joint waiting on a very chummy Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (BD circa 1943 and JC 'round about 1970, it seemed, but it didn't faze me at the time) having a girls' lunch out.  As I hand them the check, I say, "Boy, that Celeste Holm sure was a bitch, wasn't she?"  Surprised expressions all around, a couple of raised eyebrows of agreement, and curtain.

In another, I am playing bridge with Gloria Swanson and a couple of Waxworks, and apropos of nothing, during a lull in a conversation about real estate (the consensus: sell), ask the same question.  Miss Swanson looks disapproving, as if she believing that if someone were to make such observations, it should be she.

Then there's the one where I'm rehearsing a dance number with Charlotte Greenwood and Kay Thompson (and there's an unpicturesque trio - with me standing between them, we'd look like the number 101) and I stop the piano player to demand of my partners, "Tell the truth - was Celeste Holm the biggest bitch you ever worked with or was she not?"

Finally, and most chillingly, there's the one in which I don't remember of whom I ask the fateful question (Margaret Rutherford? Theda Bara? Nancy Kulp?), but after doing so I turn and realize that standing behind me is... Celeste Holm.  And in that moment I know, in a flash of shock and fear, that "bitch" doesn't begin to describe it.

Sometimes I think I need to drink more before bedtime.  What do you think?

Birthday Girls: Stars Wavishing and Less So

Caught up in that little shopping frenzy yesterday, I missed a landmark birthday, that of longtime Café patroness and mascot, the magnificent Miss Kay Francis.  We see her here at the height of her glory, superb in all the trappings of stardom in the Golden Age: turban, stole, plunging décolletage, and an expression both mocking and enigmatic.

She was a not a happy lady, nor, from all accounts, a particularly sensible one when it came to most aspects of her private life.  Still, she accomplished one thing that in these intrusive, media-saturated days seems almost impossible:  when she was done with it all, when it no longer seemed worth it to keep up the pretense of being Kay! Francis! - and for a woman in her fifties, whose reputation always rested as much on her glossy appearance as her (underestimated) talent, and one given to excesses that can be distressingly aging, that must have been a lot of work indeed - she simply disappeared.

Try and find a photograph of her in retirement; with the exception of a couple of blurry personal snaps in one of the biographies that came out a few years ago, they would seem simply not to exist.  Not for Kay Francis the indignities of being trailed through the streets of Manhattan like Garbo or of being ambushed outside the doctor's office or worse that is the fate of too many stars today.  Of course, her determination to disappear (one of those biographies uses one of her own quotes: I Can't Wait to be Forgotten) was made easier by the complete collapse of her career and, for far too long (and for long after her early death, in 1968, at 63 or so) of her reputation.  It's only since TCM and other outlets have made more of her movies available to wider audiences that Francis's work has been restored to something like its proper place; like Marion Davies, she has benefited greatly from direct exposure to the actual films, which has allowed people to see for themselves that there is more to Kay Francis than overdressing and histrionics (although she certainly indulged in both).

Still, she resisted any and all temptations that came along and lived out her life entirely on her own terms, and when she died - alone, as apparently she wanted it - she died a rich woman who had if nothing else the satisfaction that she made her own decisions, however they turned out.

Today, by chance, is the birthday of another troubled, troubling Hollywood great, Miss Faye Dunaway.  The two make an interesting contrast.  Like Francis, Dunaway had a period of enormous success (it can be easy, now, to forget what a very topmost star she was for 15 years or so after her triumph in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967), followed by an ever greater period of near-total eclipse.  Unlike Francis, though, Dunaway for a long time seemed unable to give up the illusion - which must, in truth, be enormously intoxicating - of Great Stardom.  For years (turning into decades, since at least, with few exceptions, 1987 or so) she has appeared in almost nothing but trash, and great quantities of it - 16 films since 2005 alone, plus a couple of TV appearances.  Few stars have had as direct and seemingly enthusiastic a hand in the trashing of their own fame as Dunaway - yes, Francis made a trio of films at Monogram, but Dunaway did a thriller of sorts distributed by Troma and (a phrase I regularly recycle, as it so precisely defines her parlous situation) has consented to appearing fourth-billed in a Bai Ling picture.  It's a long way from Chinatown, Jake.

Lately, of course, she's been much taken by the idea of what looks to be a spectacularly misguided film version of Terrence McNally's Maria Callas stage hit Master Class.  Callas was another one who walked away; perhaps Dunaway should look a little more into the example set by her and Kay Francis, if only for the sake of her own, now so tarnished, legacy.

In any case, Happy Birthday, wherever you are, Kay Francis, and many happy returns, Miss D.  It may be cold comfort now, but as the years pass, you can at least know that your more dismal outings (Say it in Russian, anybody? Cougar Club?) will fade in the glow of Network and The Thomas Crown Affair, just we as now appreciate the glory of Kay in Trouble in Paradise and One Way Passage and don't pay all that much heed to Wife Wanted or Women in the Wind.

Steel yourself, though - there will never, ever be any piece of journalism on your life and work that doesn't mention (if it doesn't base itself around) Mommie Dearest.  Maybe you should have considered a Kay Francis biopic instead...

For Felix: Movie-Time Mash Up!

"Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night!"*

One film still; one film line - but different films.  See the original madness here.  Give it a try!

* typo corrected - thanks, Vera!

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: My, My, My Delilah

Camp is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers.

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Or, perhaps even more so, lolling around in one.  Just ask Miss Hedy Lamarr, who appears to be having a Maria Montez moment on the set of Samson and Delilah...

Heavage

I can't think what could have put poor dear Upen Patel into such a pensive mood - unless it's the prospect of doing up all those buttons. Or the sudden realization - having been reading Peenee again - that what with International Male more or less folding, he'll never be able to replace that shirt with any other garment as utterly tawdry.