Rosalind Russell wrote an autobiography called, “Life is a Banquet”. It used to sit on my grandmother’s bookshelf and I remember picking it up when I was around twelve and sitting down one afternoon and becoming completely engrossed. The book, like the author; is candid, genteel, and witty. Buy it, or find it at your library, it’s out of print — but search it out. Oh, and if you can’t read the print on the pages included just click on them, I scanned them big.
Thanks for sharing that. I must get the book. So much fun!
My pleasure, enjoy the book!
oh wow.
RR had us right from the moment she stepped out of the Elizabeth Arden Salon on Wilshire (where was that? near Bullocks?) and into a turn around the dance floor with Norma Shearer.
thank you for re-printing this!
*wavingfromthewest*
_tg xx
oh wow.
found it – it sounds DIVINE.
On June 21, 1933, Elizabeth Arden opened her Los Angeles Salon, at 3933 Wilshire Blvd. The semi-circular building, with its black and white marble façade and signature Chinese red lacquered door, was modeled after her Fifth Avenue salon on the exterior. The interior, however, had been designed by the great MGM stylist Adrian. Under Adrian’s direction, the circular main salon had walls of jade gray, with silvery gray curtains, black and white floor (with a “symbolic star” in black), silver-gray satin corduroy covered chairs, colonial-empire style sofas, and crystal chandeliers. The third floor contained the exercise rooms as well as the “Garden of Arden,” which Adrian designed, through copious plants, vines and painted metal awnings, to look like an outdoor room. Miss Arden greeted her new customers personally on opening day.
take a look…..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozfan22/6906683407/in/set-72157615009129135
Sister Woman! I was just about to send you this link:
http://vickielester.com/2014/11/16/on-the-level-with-vickie-lester-a-k-a-the-vile-harpy-spa-days-and-implants/
And it’s gone now, just another modern building on the edge of Korea Town.
Only you could weave (most elegantly) the concept of an icy Rack and Hollywood and spa and (once hopeful) Bachelors 😉
One of the most moving parts of RR’s book is the introduction written by her husband. She had a double mastectomy (I think in the 1950s) NOBODY, but nobody knew. Her clothes were all made by Mainbocher. He personally came with his fitter and tailored her entire wardrobe, and never told a soul. The first time after the surgery he came to fit her he walked out of her dressing room with tears streaming down his face.
I have it and have read it and can’t remember it. I think my brain is on the wrong side of the mountain climb . . . .
It’s the holidays, sometimes (always around this time of year) I can be talking to one of my dearest friends and suddenly my mind will go blank and for a split second I will forget their name. Really. Forgetting a book you read YEARS ago is completely justifiable.
Thanks for the comfort, but I still think my brain used up its paltry portion a long time ago.
Hm. Color me skeptical regarding the paltry portion, Ms. I Turn Out 3 Blogs Regularly… xox! V
Oh god.
Dressmakers and coverage.
The lives of the Women.
Still today…..knew several women who had to keep such things secret not too long ago…..so s a d.
Great stories here. Thanks for scanning & posting!
She sounds like an utterly fascinating person.
The next chapter is titled, Back Door to The Front Page, or How I Was Everybody’s Fifteenth Choice — it’s a wonderful book!
You find the BEST material!
You can’t go wrong with Rosalind Russell 😉 !
Amazing!!!! I need this book!!!!!
Tell me if you can’t get your hands on a copy and I’ll send you one from the States. xo, V
Ah that is lovely of you! But I found it on Amazon and as I can have a copy for 6€, shipping included I will be ordering it as a treat in January or February. You remember what I said about saving things? 😉
Buuut, as Remi wanted to watch “Jurassic Park 3” last night (ah French television, always on the avant garde), I whisked myself away to the bedroom and watched “The Women”! A film that is impossible to see too many times…Just wonderful. And I was quite young when I saw it for the first time so let’s just say that there are a few things that I understood “differently” this go ’round…
Clare Booth Luce:
“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.”
Acidic, but FUNNY. I think I’ll have to watch The Women this holiday too!
Dearest V
Delicious.
‘My Life is a Banquette’ would be the name of my biography.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
But which? Inquiring minds want to know!
In fortification, a banquette is a small foot path or elevated step along the inside of a rampart or parapet, by which the musketeers get up to view the counterscarp, or to fire on the enemies in the moat. These are generally a foot and a half (approximately half a metre) high, and almost three feet (approximately 90 cm) wide.
A banquette may also be an upholstered bench or a footbridge.
you are picking the most amazing rare jewels, miss v!
speechless and in awe.
Thank you, love. So many rare jewels out there to be gathered.
and not enough experts to do so. I’m so glad I found your beautfiul b/w corner of the immense internet universe 🙂
[…] Rosalind Russell writes about The Women […]
I have a copy of that book too. Love her.
They were very different kinds of personalities but you might also like “Swanson on Swanson” and “Mary Astor, My Story.”
Love, love RR – I have that book. She was marvelous. On the wall of my computer room hangs a photo of her, dancing with Jimmy Stewart. Also an old LIFE magazine with her on the cover.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXKE9HDqnOg&w=560&h=315%5D
[…] Pages from Rosalind Russell’s book on her 108th birthday…what she had to say about ̶… […]