September 1st!

Where has the time gone?

I spent the spring doing a remodel on my house, and the ensuing months recovering from a shoulder injury. I was warned off sitting for hours on the computer, and thus I have been barely a presence here, and I haven’t worked on my second novel at all, but once in a while I post a picture on Instagram…

toobeguiling (click here to follow me on Insta)

#itsinhiskissbyvickielester…

“He had wooed the unwary with cocktails at Yamashiro’s, an old bar in the  Hollywood Hills with killer views that was walking distance to his once glamorous home. The house itself was kind of famous, having been the aerie of silent film star — before his appendix exploded — and then had passed through two generations more of male offspring: from moviestar, to the movie star’s son, to the head of production (who was then answering phones for the higher and mightier, and sleeping on a futon in a room half chewed away by termites)”…

And then I dig through the archive to see what tantalizing images I can pull from Hollywood’s past, like these old photos of the Hollywood Hotel.

In its era the Hollywood Hotel was the place to stay. Valentino brought his new bride there in 1921. This is the hotel register:

Just months before it was torn down to make way for an office tower – what once stood on Hollywood Blvd. between Highland and Orchid – the last of the Hollywood Hotel (1956):