Carole Lombard

What can I say? I thought that photo of Carole was unrecognizable, but what do I know? Once again, bravo Flowerbell! (and Felix for having such a marvelous eye in his mind).

Barely out of Larchmont.

Thank you lisanti quarterly.

From the glorious coffee table book...

..."LOL at the Cemetery"

Anyone know who this is?

Mac was right!

Of course that was Moms Mabley. I just loved that shot of her sans hat with the cigarette holder. (As Edith Massey uttered in Polyester) "Au Courant."

Name the star.

Just another Friday night....

...just another premiere.

Remember her?

brotherfrancis didn't Foch this one up! Yes, dear Nina Foch, who graced mitten drinnen a few weeks ago managed to steal the headlines once again. Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot....it means a lot.

Mystery Gal

Anyone know who this is? It isn't too tough, considering the brains that passes through this joint. BTW, this lovely photo (and a catalog full of a zillion others) came to me via Stu@Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights and we thank him, profusely.

Familiar faces from old television.

I found these (among many others) at The Digital Deli Too. It's their homage to long forgotten radio stars who filled the ranks of many episodes of Perry Mason. I chose just some of the ladies I grew up knowing because their faces were always on this or that TV show.

Did we ever think of Andy Hardy as hot?

He did finagle eight wives....maybe there's something we can't see.

Yahrtzeit! Gloria Swanson 1983

Happy 104th Birthday, Bea Benaderet!

Shown here with the lovely Eva Gabor, Bea had quite the career. Though she started in radio, my first recollections of her are as Blanche Morton on The Burns and Allen Show (in reruns, I'm not that old). Her double takes with Gracie were perfect. Seems Lucy Ball & Desi wanted Bea to play Ethel Mertz on a certain show you may have seen, but because of her commitment to George & Gracie, well, we know who nabbed that role (Bea did do a guest spot I Love Lucy). I guess she was also considered to play Granny Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies, but got the part of Jethro's mother, Pearl instead. Then she landed the lead on Petticoat Junction, which led to the spin-off, Green Acres, which she guested on. In between all of this, Bea also voiced adorable Betty Rubble on The Flintstones.

Wikipedia just enlightened me to the fact that Bea's second husband died the day of Bea's funeral, four days after the death of his wife. He was interred next to Bea in North Hollywood.



And I never knew that Jack Bannon who played Art Donovan on Lou Grant was Bea's son. Live and learn.

Yahrtzeit! Johnny Stompanato

Yup. Fifty-two years ago today, Cheryl Crane swapped roles with Lana, playing the role of concerned parent to her clueless child.









I think the flag is a nice touch, don't you?

Yahrtzeit! Helena Rubinstein

Since the subject of face creams and products of beauty, applied and adhered have been floating around mitten drinnen, an homage is surely fitting.










Madame Helena Rubinstein died on this day, 1965. The following is taken from Andrew Tobias' Fire and Ice. If you've never read this book, find it....it's great.






















Madame Rubinstein thought the nail man (Charles Revson) "heartless." She was anguished by the way he would copy her products ("only better!"). But he fascinated her. She couldn't help admiring him. She even bought Revlon stock.

They were not so dissimilar, Madame and the nail man. She, too, was an earthy, idiosyncratic, impossible, tyrannical Jewish founder/one-man-show. She hired people, milked them, and fired them. She played one off the other. She burped unabashedly and blew her nose in her bed sheets. She felt surrounded by ingratitude. She complained bitterly about having to close the office after John Kennedy's assassination. Unlike Revson, however, she was not out to prove herself to anyone, she did not live in fear of being embarrassed, and she was thoroughly-ludicrously-cheap. Yet far better liked than Charles, for all his lavish entertaining. Her quirks were seen as amusing rather than gauche or offensive. No one called her ruthless, although she did have much the same obsession with her business that Charles did.

For many years it was not he but "the other one"-(Elizabeth) Arden- whose competition most irked Madame Rubinstein. Arden once raided virtually the entire Rubinstein sales staff. Madame retaliated by hiring Arden's ex-husband as her sales manager. At least the nail man and she were in largely separate fields. He had the lipstick and nails markets, yes, but Madame was the queen of treatment creams. It was only in 1962, when Revson launched Eterna 27, the remarkable skin cream, that Madame felt really threatened. A Rubinstein executive walked into her office that day to find the window open wide and Madame leaning out, screaming and shaking her fist. Her third-floor office was directly opposite 666 Fifth Avenue, where Revson ruled the twenty-seventh floor (hence the name- Eterna 27). This tiny ninety-year-old woman was screaming up at him in a very heavy Polish accent, "What are you doing? You're killing me, you rat! What's the matter with you?" It looked as though she might fall out of the window. "Don't worry about it, Madame," the Rubinstein executive said, pulling her back in and hoping to cheer her up, "it's not going to sell. In fact, I think they're going to change the name to Returna." She looked at him blankly. Like Charles (Revson), she had very little sense of humor about her business. "Why would they want to do that?" she said. "It's a good name, Eterna."

Later that year Madame met Revson briefly at a fashion gathering. Her comment afterward: "He has an awful skin."