Category Archives: Fiction

Feeling as sensuous and sophisticated as the woman who romped with Louis XV…

September 2, 2019 by Vickie Lester

HOLLYWOOD & MINE By Susannah Corwin “People in the East pretend to be interested in how pictures are made, but if you actually tell them anything, you find they are only interested in Colbert’s clothes or Gable’s private life. They never see the ventriloquist for the doll.” Scott Fitzgerald 1. There’s a hardware store on Santa Monica Boulevard, just over the border from Beverly Hills in West Hollywood, which sells thick orange rubber gloves named after a famous French courtesan, […]

Categories: Advertising, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #hollywood&mine, a novel in which real people or events appear with invented names, book preview, Hollywood, Madame du Barry, novel, read, roman à clef

long time no see…

August 31, 2019 by Vickie Lester

You know how I am about word derivations, I find them fascinating. Long time no see may be something coined from a clumsy 1930s Hollywood attempt to mimic the English of Native Americans, or it could be a direct translation from a Mandarin Chinese phrase 好久不见: (Pinyin) hǎojiǔ bù jiàn. It doesn’t take the abilities of Sherlock Holmes to detect I’ve been absent from social media. Instead of carrying on a conversation here I have been writing a novel, and […]

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I’m a hopeless romantic…

July 2, 2019 by Vickie Lester

And it’s not only people that make my heart flutter…so can a beautiful building, or the angle of light on a linen pillow case… That said, I have been taking a long break from blogging, working on the new novel and refining my 1924 Spanish Revival home. Household maintenance is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, you finish and start over again — throw in much needed restoration projects — and months and money disappear. Unlike the marvelous Marilyn […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Marriage, Memoir, Movies, Palm Springs, Photography, Romance, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, #evearnold, #hopelessromantic, #itsinhiskissbyvickielester, #lovestory, #spanishrevival, Hollywood, MarilynMonroe, novel, Vickie Lester is writing a new novel

“Fruitcake is my kryptonite,” an admission from a friend…

November 18, 2018 by Vickie Lester

“He left Hollywood and renounced the pursuit of fame, joining a brotherhood of Franciscans who supported their monastery by refilling ink cartridges and baking fruitcake, available at Amazon.com.” That’s a line from my first novel, summing up the future for an actor in dire need of redemption. Obviously fruitcake means something to me too, and I wouldn’t be stretching it to say it has to do with the transformative act of baking. Every November I stir this batter together and […]

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Strangers on the internet — Exchanging glances

September 8, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Wondering on the internet What were the chances… Hello, Mercury! Sorry, got distracted there for a minute. Shall we get reacquainted? I used to post here all the damn time about things that struck my fancy, like Hollywood history, cool architecture, and fabulous books. Then I self-published a novel, and poppets, I did go on and on. Then a couple of things happened, I was in the midst of writing another book when the political scene went cockeyed, and I […]

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Clifford Coffin took this photograph in an age when sitting on a California sand dune was a beneficial, or at least benign, experience. Stay cool.

August 11, 2018 by Vickie Lester

The heatwave broke yesterday and I finished the first draft of the manuscript. I was expecting some kind of elation, but instead I took a nap. Recharging for the revisions to come? Perhaps. I’ve sent it off to he who gives notes for a first impression, to be followed by much discussion and a lot of work. The novel is about a college-aged kid from the East Coast who goes to Hollywood to be a nanny, and ends up a […]

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So Alive…an excerpt from It’s in His Kiss by Vickie Lester

July 21, 2018 by Vickie Lester

SO ALIVE In 1996 Keir Bloomfield got his first sole screen credit as a writer. Granted, it was on a low-budget, a very low-budget, movie that the producers guaranteed would be seen on oil platforms and tuna boats the world over. But it was a credit and it was his. Toni Todd, the film legend, had nothing to do with it; contrary to the advice of her facialist, she crinkled her nose at the whole project as if it had […]

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