enoughcats

We've seen a little here about Hedda Hopper's costumes and hats. Reading Hedda and Louella, there are some things about Hedda that explain what we've been seeing. When she went to Hollywood with her husband DeWitt Hopper and their young son, she didn't think she had any hope of being in the movies. All the successful actresses were short, around five feet tall, and Hedda was 5'8" or so. Then she said she met Lillian Russell, who was Famous, and who had enjoyed the good life and good food. When she met Miss Russell, she decided never to gain weight. (Page 70) "Elda admired Miss Russell, but cast a cool appraising eye on the star's too ample proportions and resolved never to indulge her appetite until she lost her figure. Indeed, she began then a series of exercises which she continued until the end of her life" Which may be a connection she had with Joan Crawford. Or just a coincidence. Miss Hopper heard of a roll the needed a taller person, and she got it and a $5000 advance which she spent on designer clothing. And all of a sudden, she looked great and her Silent Movie career began. Clothing and style mattered to her and defined who she was.

Nope, it was obviously modeled after my next-door-neighbors miserable dog who earned the name "Trouble" and was adopted by him because nobody else wanted it. Blessed with the underbite of the century and ears that flattened for some genetic reason, and a short taupe coat that was never clean, it was good to see that miserable hound immortalized, however briefly.

I thought I counted five rolls of paper at the beginning. If I did, then I wonder what the un-chosen architectural style was?

So, I now know what the spoiled rich kids who live in uptown and garden district grow up to be. We did live in New Orleans in the Quarter and this happened. Sitting on the park bench backing up to ours were four female children of money. All with lunches they had brought from home. They decided, loudly, not to eat lunch because children were starving in Africa. So they tossed their untouched lunches in the trash receptacles. And flounced away, having made one feel bad because she had eaten her lunch.

WHAT? Back in the day, on the site that preceeded this one, as I remember it, there was one raucous night when this was, er, discussed and some images shared. Memorable images. No pixels. But plenty that pixels might have covered.

Especially with Crawford looking that drop dead gorgeous. Oh, wait, they seemed to have a problem letting Crawford look great at any time. /snark

Not so. It was about a month later that Ms. Bancroft received her Oscar. Thank you for the correction. I couldn't find a date with the picture and I had read somewhere it was a year later.

The Ladies of Feud at Lincoln Center for a viewing of the last episode. Air kisses, ?clothes choices, and no quotes from them http://tomandlorenzo.com/2017/04/feud-bette-joan-new-york-event-red-carpet-rundown/

removed

Among those JC chose to remember: Betty Barker had a most interesting life Florence Walsh Reading parts of The Essential Joan Crawford, there're comments worth sharing: Cesar Romero her lifelong friend, Anne Bancroft turning down the lead in Mommy Dearest after reading the script, and on and on.

See Rain. If ever an actress in her prime was saddled with ghastly makeup, Joan Crawford was in that tarted up version. Even her posture.

Taking one for the cause: I have Hedda and Louella from the library. So far, I'm still awake and through a chapter about Louella and how she reported her early life, and how the author's fact checking showed her misrepresenting her age by 20 years and by forgetting her second husband. The index in the back has very few references to Bette Davis and even fewer to Joan Crawford.

Even in NOLA, Boko Haram would stand out like eskimos. Maybe they had custom fit tuxedos and were passing as waiters. No? Ever waiter in NOLA has at least one Tux. Much less learning to speak a local dialect of English. Heck, just carrying that many guns around through the marshes of NOLA. But the lacks of logic really sank this episode.

Come on, now. How many people on that stage have ever watched even a little part of a race (NASCAR or Indie or otherwise) much less the end of the race?

A year later, on stage in NYC, while wearing her dowdy stage makeup

I cooked dinner through the first twenty minutes. Had the TV on up above the dining room door. Maybe saw 30% of it. Watched the rest. It's turning out to be not the NCIS I used to love. Too many one page scripts bringing in each of the cast for a couple of sentences....is that even an intelligent economic move...to pay for an hours participation? Did I miss Tim and Brit guy tonight. I even want more Abby, doing Abby analyses in sensible, educated ways. And, while I'm at this, I'm tired of Gibbs' all-knowing smiles at the end of episodes.

When George's ultramodern with the big ear o'corn/big ear o'horn appeared, Mr. Ecats and I said the judges would love it, because they'd go through the "WTH would I do if I had to do an ultramodern gargoyle?" And then Glenn said he would have run away, if he had been given that assignment. (And for the Flying Nun reference for George's wings!) That's when we figured George would be advanced. The golden gargoyle was obvious. Beautiful. Art deco, even. Figured Emily for the win. Cig....oh, Cig. First time I haven't liked what he's done. In my youth I spent time around churches with onion domes and he may have gone too much with the domes and too little with the rest of the architecture. His interpretation was too literal. Glen grasped the nose bridge as bringing it together. Really? Just say it was a great colorful explosion. But I like Cig well enough not to wish him gone. All the Victorians I know from three or four historic districts in different states.....would be almost as difficult as the deconstructed. The problem with 'young'ish competitors may be that they've never been faced with painting a true Victorian, which could have been as colorful as onion domes.

Yes, I was looking too. I didn't see it on the schedule. Maybe not TCM? Directv sat there and looked at me as if it had never heard of Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Directv didn't limit its search to TCM

He could approach it from the gay contingent in both their households. Probably won't. But could.

In the words of my Grandmother, speaking of some local pretentious folks, "None of them are Mrs. Astor-bilt" , an homage to both the Astors and the Vanderbilts. Very few of the names of Hollywood were in the social registers of their home towns. With phenomenal irony, Franchot Tone came close. And he chose to marry Joan Crawford. And there are the stories that he was loved by Bette Davis who he didn't chose to marry although she thought with her background, she would be a better Mrs. Tone.

Nor did it do that much for Joseph Cotten. His last film was Heaven's Gate. The following year he had a stroke and worked through it with his long time good friend Orson Wells.

I'm not sure where a discussion of other folks in the cast goes, so here's hoping. Newyak wrote And I think I agree (having just seen VB in the original.) VB in the original was almost too over the top, I didn't recognize him at first as VB. At least he and Agnes Morehead weren't fighting for the center stage. But here comes the problem. I remember Victor Buono from his many appearances on the Johnny Carson Show. I f'luved VB and when he read his poetry out of his little book (as I remember it), I was simply delighted. He was one of the Carson guests I made major efforts to watch (and stay awake for). VB defined his roll. It was only slightly redefined Sunday night and that's good for our mental continuity. I'm not sure how to measure how well an actor fills a roll, especially a roll that has been worked on by other actors-directors-producers. We just watched Rain with Joan Crawford and John Huston. Miss Sadie Thompson certainly was different after 'code' kicked in. And Huston was almost scarey in his assuredness. How do their performances rank versus other versions? I don't know, and I'm not sure we can retroactively judge them because they were for their time.

I'm not sure a child seeing Charlotte would remember much beside the Agnes Morehead character who was so over the top. And the falling pots. If you identified with Charlotte, then when she was scared, you'd be scared. But if you identified with her beautiful, more perfect cousin, the scares were less. (IMO) This was more subtle than This is who we are where there were no nuances. This has hints throughout, that I would have overlooked as a child. This is a more complexly woven web. Until close to the end, the story really doesn't come together, and I'm not sure I'd call it a horror movie, more of a revenge movie. Irony, take a deep bow.

A search for images of Joan Crawford and Joseph Cotton yields photos from Sweet Charlotte before she left the set. Here she's with the daughters of the Governor of Louisiana, John McKeithen, who were in the movie. (You can tell it's Houmas House by the width of the columns.) To me, she looks in good control....you don't mess with the governors children anywhere.)

Lest we think that Joan Crawford had achieved hag status at the start of Sweet Charlotte. Even if she was depending on wigs, they were great wigs, not the Halloween-ish choices used in Feud.