Hundred-year-old Broads

I'll have whatever Judy's having...

Monday again - and it's Midsummer's Day, to boot! Not that we've had much of a summer for it to be the "Mid" of, mind you. Typical Britain - a week of blazing sunshine followed by a storm. But I digress...

We have not one, but two centenaries to to celebrate today, dear reader!

Miss Judy Holliday was something of a "contradiction in terms" - she made her name portraying molls and ditzy blondes, yet had an IQ of 172. On screen, she was the "arm candy"; in real life she fought against the system (and fought off Daryl F. Zanuck's advances), to her detriment when she was blacklisted for alleged "communism". Notorious as the actress whose Oscar win in 1951 beat off competition from both Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard and Bette Davis in All About Eve, had she not died tragically young (at 42) of cancer, who knows what more success she might have had?

This being a Tacky Music Monday, of course, here's a double-bill of the lady's song-and-dance and comedic talents:

Judy Holliday - Razzamatazz

Judy Holliday spoofs Caterina Valente

Sharing the occasion is a far more familiar diva, Miss Jane Russell! As famous for captivating Howard Hughes with her impressive décolletage as she was for her numerous, usually humorous and sassy roles in films such as Bob Hope's The Paleface or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she inevitably ended up a gay icon, landing camp roles in Westerns and TV soaps, and even taking over from Elaine Stritch as "Joanne" in Sondheim's Company on Broadway. 

Of course, throughout her career she always was admired as a singer and dancer as well, so let's have another double-bill featuring the great lady herself [NB I have, of course, featured her many times before - see here and here for more]...

Jane Russell - Big Bad Jane

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe - Two Little Girls from Little Rock

Class.

Have a good week, folks.

Jane and her men

Miss Jane Russell, who would have been 95 years old today, was a bit of a conundrum. Unlike many of her compatriots in Hollywood - not least her friend and co-star Marilyn Monroe - she was a staunch religious Republican; yet she made her name as a "sweater girl" (largely thanks to Howard Hughes' obsession with her breasts), and campaigned on social justice issues such as adoption all her life - and to my knowledge was never on record saying anything discriminatory about race or sexuality issues.

Commenting on one of her ever-popular "in conversation" appearances in front of her adoring fans, Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller wrote:

...Russell was certainly no homophobe. She spent a lot of time in the Q&A waxing nostalgic over her openly gay choreographer in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Jack Cole. She repeatedly called him a genius and said he was largely responsible for the success of the film since neither she nor Marilyn Monroe could dance a step when they started shooting.

Jane always seemed to enjoy her status as a gay icon, and she commented on the bizarre bit of homoerotica in the film when she sings Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love in the middle of a training session for the Olympic team. As dozens of beefy studs go through their work-out moves, Jane darts in and out of their routines singing lines like “I like big muscles, and red corpuscles, I like a beautiful hunk of man.” The men ignore her completely and seem far more interested in each other as they gyrate in suggestive positions. How that bizarre scene ever got past the censors is beyond me.

I have featured this clip here several times before, no doubt, but, in this countdown week to London's Gay Pride on Saturday we always have time to squeeze in a "beautiful hunk of man". Or several!

Jane Russell - Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?

Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (21st June 1921 – 28th February 2011)

I just adore conversation, don't you?

"This movie is all about two girls on the make, who are on a ship full of homosexuals who have no interest in them whatosever."

It's Tired Old Queen At The Movies (aka Steve Hayes) again, drooling over what is, in fact, one of the gayest mainstream movies of all time...

...Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

A perfect way to fill a rain break from tarting up the gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, methinks.

The band singer

Last week we said a sad farewell to one of the last survivors of the Big Band era, Plymouth-born Miss Beryl Davis, who sang with Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Ted Heath, George Shearing and even Frank Sinatra during the 1940s (and up until recently was still singing).

I have saved my little tribute to this fine-voiced lady till the proper home of "light music", Sunday.

Here's Beryl singing one of those typically innuendo-filled wartime numbers Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet with the Squadronnaires:

The Squadronnaires with Beryl Davis - Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet

Here she is in 1939 singing with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli:

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli with Beryl Davis - Undecided

Bizarrely, Beryl joined the already established screen stars Rhonda Fleming [the only one now still with us] and Jane Russell and fellow Big Band vocalist Connie Haines to form "The Four Girls" in the 1950s to sing close-harmony gospel songs. An odd career move for all concerned, but it just goes to show that the Fifties was indeed a schizophrenic decade in America - on one hand, the liberated, consumerist "anything goes" decade of teen beach movies and rock'n'roll, and on the other it was the most prudish decade since the Hays Code was introduced in the 30s. Here are the girls, looking stunning yet singing religious nonsense:

Connie Haines - Beryl Davis - Rhonda Fleming - Jane Russell

I prefer to leave religion out of Sundays, thank you very much! So let's end with the lady herself at the ripe old age of 85, doing what she did best...

Beryl Davis at the Glenn Miller Festival, 2003

RIP, Beryl Davis (16th March 1924 – 28th October 2011)

Two ladies

Today would have been ninetieth birthday celebrations of two greats of the classic era of Hollywood, one who lived to the ripe old age of 90 - Miss Jane Russell (who I have blogged about several times before)...



...and one who, with her "ditzy blonde" ingenue personality and photogenic good looks, probably could have been every bit the star her contemporaries such as Betty Hutton and Doris Day became, had she not been taken away from us too soon. Miss Judy Holliday died of cancer in 1965, aged just 42.



So as a little tribute to the fabulous Miss Holliday, here's a great audio-clip from her appearance on Tallulah Bankhead's radio show:

Tallulah Bankhead & Judy Holliday after the 1951 Academy Awards

Judy Holliday on IMDB

Two great ladies, dearly remembered.

I'll drink to that!

A fabulous discovery, and another fitting tribute to Miss Jane Russell, who died yesterday...

Dinah Shore and Jane Russell - The Ladies Who Lunch

And, of course, any tribute to Jane Russell would be incomplete without her classic number Ain't There Anyone Here For Love? - find it in my blog for her birthday in 2008.

"She brought new meaning to the word cleavage"

One of the greatest and most eye-catching of the Hollywood divas is dead, and I am upset.

Rest in peace, Miss Jane Russell...





Here she is in one of her most smouldering routines - typically, Lookin' for Trouble...

Jane Russell - Lookin' for Trouble

Jane Russell obituary

I need no excuses...

...to post Happy Birthday greetings to Miss Jane Russell. One of the few Hollywood greats still with us, we salute you!

Jane Russell - Looking for Trouble

Jane Russell on IMDB

For The Love Of Opera Gloves

For the lovely blackeyedblonde...





In the Victorian era, it was not exactly proper, as you might imagine, for a lady just to walk up to a gentleman and tell him that she'd like to get to know him better! "Flirtation codes" were developed using a wide variety of objects. The "fan code" is the best-known, but gloves were also used as flirtation signals.

Here are some of the better-known glove signals:

• Twirling one's gloves around her fingers - We are being watched
• Holding the tips of the gloves downward - I wish to be acquainted
• Gently smoothing the gloves - I wish I were with you; I would like to talk with you
• Holding one's gloves loosely in her right hand - Be contented
• Holding one's gloves loosely in her left hand - I am satisfied
• Striking one's gloves over her hands - I am displeased
• Tossing one's gloves up gently - I am engaged
• Tapping one's chin with her gloves - I love another
• Dropping one of her gloves - Yes
• Dropping both gloves - I love you
• Turning the wrong side of one's gloves outward - I hate you

Of course, many of the above signals involved having to remove at least one glove, which was not considered proper.

For The Love Of Opera Gloves website

"The melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you..."

Here at Dolores Delargo Towers we adore and avidly collect a category of entertainment that comes under the heading of "Sunday Music". And today, on the 110th anniversary of his birth it is time to celebrate one of the great masters of that genre Mr Hoagy Carmichael!

In his eight-decade career as a songwriter Mr Carmichael collaborated with just about everyone who was anyone in the music industry, including his best friend Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, George Gershwin, Fred Astaire, Yip Harburg, Frank Loesser and long-term musical partner Johnny Mercer.

Hoagy the actor appeared in a number of top Hollywood films, including Topper (with Cary Grant), To Have and Have Not (with Bogart and Bacall) and Young Man With A Horn, the bio-pic of his friend Bix.

By the time of his death in 1981, he was lauded by generations of fans as one of the greatest composers in American history. An incredible career indeed!

Facts about Hoagy Carmichael:

• He was christened with that peculiar first name because his mother was friendly with a circus troupe called "The Hoaglands".
• His 1943 song I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the song with the longest title.
• He composed a song for the original Flintstones cartoon - Yabba-Dabba-Dabba-Dabba-Doo.
• John Lennon cited Hoagy Carmichael as his favourite songwriter.

Here's the beautifully-crafted tonsils of Nat King Cole crooning Hoagy's classic Stardust:

Nat King Cole - Stardust

With another take on the tune, Glenn Miller adds his own inimitable panache with his big band version:

Glenn Miller - Stardust

Next we turn to another Carmichael standard Georgia On My Mind, and this lovely version by the incomparable Ray Charles, who made the song his own:

Ray Charles - Georgia on my Mind

And here Aretha Franklin gives us a brilliant version of Hoagy's torch song Skylark:

Aretha Franklin - Skylark

Back in 1991, Bette Midler paid tribute to his song Billy-a-Dick in the wonderful film For the Boys (here being used as a soundtrack for some amateur tap-dancers - the only video out there!):

Bette Midler - Billy-a-Dick

Most remarkably of all, in addition to his jazz/swing/blues standards Hoagy Carmichael also wrote this camp classic for the Marilyn Monroe movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Take it away, Miss Jane Russell!

Jane Russell - Ain't There Anyone Here For Love?

Hoagy Carmichael biography

Is there anyone here for love?

Miss Jane Russell - one of those rare creatures, a survivor from the golden age of Hollywood - celebrates her 87th birthday today!

One of the most celebrated "sweater girls" of the 40s, and "discovered" by Howard Hughes, Jane starred with many of the great stars of the era - Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Victor Mature, and of course Marilyn Monroe. It was for her wonderful performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes that she is best remembered, and for which I salute her most of all...



Jane Russell on Wikipedia