Lip(s) Smacking Good

I've been enjoying Moguls & Movie Stars every Monday night on TCM. Personally, I'm
always a sucker for any kind of documentary about Hollywood, new or old. So, this past week's episode taught me something that I may have known once (and forgot) but will surely never forget it again.

We all know how much trouble Orson Welles went through making Citizen Kane. How Mr. Hearst did everything he could do squash the picture. Well, that magical word 'Rosebud', the word that yoked the whole picture together, did you know where this word came from? Did you know that 'Rosebud' was Mr. Hearst's pet name for Marion Davies' honey pot? Welles never admitted this, but Roger Ebert claims that Herman Mankiewicz, the films writer knew exactly what Rosebud was. Isn't that delicious? Oh, pardon me, bad choice of words.

So, did everybody know this but me?

"I rest my case," said Christina Crawford.

Her 93rd Thanksgiving

Somebody's got to get combed out and wheeled
to the dining room table! Extra stuffing please!

That poor, defenseless pig.

Chemists at the Max Factor lab in Hollywood test a new lipstick on the shaved stomach of a guinea pig. “The under skin of the baby pigs is ten times as sensitive as that of the human being and is used to test all [of] Factor’s makeups.” January 1939.

Fran Lebowitz

Hope y'all will get to see the new HBO/Scorcese documentary that premiered tonight. Pearls' swan dived from those lips. I went to a bookstore signing years ago in Harvard Square where I found Fran sitting at a small desk, alone, with no one else around. I was so shocked to find her this way, I barely said anything, which in retrospect was a good thing. I'm no Fran Lebowitz. Of course, I easily could've ended up being named Fran Lebowitz. And I did wear my hair just like this once.

Tisha Sterling!

Tisha Sterling, daughter of Ann Sothern and Robert Sterling was all over the small screen in the 60s and 70s. It seems she guested on just about every television series that aired. The Donna Reed Show, Batman, Charlie's Angels, Bonanza, Run For Your Life, McMillan & Wife and Get Smart are just a few of the many. Though not as plentiful, her film credits were building and she got good notices for her "hippie" Linny Raven in Coogan's Bluff. It seemed a forgone conclusion that she would have a long and fruitful career, just like her mother, but it wasn't meant to be. She said she'd been living a hard, fast life and left it to follow her mother to Idaho in 1986. She did play a younger version of Sothern's character in The Whales of August (Ann's last film) and Tisha's last film appearance came in Breakfast of Champions (1999).
















Now a florist, Sterling lives in a small condominium south of Ketchum , Idaho. Tisha purchased her home in 2002 for $105,000 which was the legally restricted price. Seems most real estate in that area was/is quite high; too high for average working stiffs like Tisha. The local government stepped in and subsidized some housing so working stiffs could have a shot at a home. Of course, it's hard to think of the daughter of two Hollywood stars as an "Average Joe," but as she said, "My mother made millions and lost millions, and when she died, there was nothing left." Tisha's dad, actor Robert Sterling, was known most notably for his role on the television series Topper playing along side his second wife, Anne Jeffreys.



















Ann Sothern, daughter Tisha
and granddaughter Heidi.



Thank you everyone for your terrific guesses!

Know who she is?

The Life of Reilly

Here's the opening....




Then go here. This site wouldn't allow me to embed the opening, but has the entire film. You'll see how you can easily make your way through the segments. It's way worth it. Way.

Oh Mae!

I guess it's Zsa Zsa watch once more.

Betty Bacall Needs Help.

Michael Musto is reporting that Lauren has moved into a nursing home. One of his commenters wrote, "Lauren Bacall can't afford 24 hour home care? We're all doomed." Ain't it the truth.

Hampton Fancher III

Though busy hawking his memoir and doing interviews, George W. took time out of his busy schedule and correctly guessed my latest mystery guest. Bravo George! According to Wikipedia, Hampton Fancher III, 72 is a former actor who became a producer and screenwriter in the late 1970s. Fancher was born to a Mexican mother and an American father in East Los Angeles, California, US. At 15, he ran away to Spain to become a flamenco dancer(!) and renamed himself Mario Montejo. Here he's pictured with Sue Lyon, of "Lolita" fame, who he was briefly married to. Mr. Fancher wrote the original screenplay for "Blade Runner," as well as executive producing the film.

A Loose Lana

Anyone know who this is?

Jill Clayburgh

I just found out that she is gone, how awful for us all.

Vintage Souvenir from London

Which Twin Has the Toni?

A Perched Totie.

Sorry.....

....I forgot to mail this postcard to YOU while I was away.

Petrol is so different back east.

I Had a Ball.

This video kind of captures my nine days away. The first five were just wonderful, a couple days with friends in Bucks County, then up to Boston. Old friends, family, old neighbors and a reunion of my family with a woman that we hadn't seen since she left our house, age 10 in 1963. She'd been fostering with us back then and I'd recently found her. I had kept my discovery of her from my family and choreographed a brunch as a surprise for them. Surprise indeed. I love surprises....except shitty ones. That's what I got. I got sick and spent four days trapped in my mother's loo. When my four hour delayed plane trip finally got me home, I walked into the house with a migraine aura. Consider the last four days the unsynched part.