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BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

If you want a little historical perspective you're home.

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How I shake-off the headlines…

April 7, 2018 by Vickie Lester

*** *** Love the shimmy-sway, but a vodka martini for breakfast would be so befuddling. Instead I dance till I calm in the kitchen, or, after I’ve read the Washington Post or the New York Times I have been known to take a very long walk. Who knew the news would be the spur for a ten pound weight loss? Mostly I try to focus on writing, but even then current events find their way in. A PAUSE FOR HISTORY […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, Chateau Marmont, dance, Hollywood novel, martini, Movie Mogul, writers in Hollywood

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This is a purely fanciful tale, a little nightmare produced by the unaccustomed high living of a brief visit to Hollywood.

March 28, 2018 by Vickie Lester

I have a thing about how Los Angeles is portrayed on film and in books. An author who makes me laugh, perhaps because of his dour satiric streak, is Evelyn Waugh. He visited Hollywood in 1947 to discuss a film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, loathed the place, and ended up with a luxurious trip abroad for he and his wife in the California sun, an un-produced film, and the setting for a scathing book about Los Angeles. Let me digress […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting another novel about Hollywood, Evelyn Waugh, I used to write screenplays, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, The Loved One, writers in Hollywood

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Where a lack of punctuation can lead…

March 21, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Funny thing about blogging, sometimes your posts pop back into circulation and you find, because you wrote in haste, and didn’t check, there might be a sentence lacking commas that would lead one to believe you were inciting violence in a recipe, instead of what you intended, which was to use a term of endearment for your readers. Behold! (And by the way, if you click below you will *fund* oops! correction! *find* a wonderful dessert recipe most suitable for […]

Categories: Blogging, Books, Cooking, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Recipes, Uncategorized • Tags: comedic timing, dessert, I am thankful for editors, Lucille Ball, Pavlova, recipe, Technicolor, Ziegfeld Follies

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“It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.” P.G. Wodehouse

March 21, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Spring — snow flurries in New York, and drizzle in L. A. — if I were a drinking woman, I would, to paraphrase Wodehouse, get my shimmer on. Right now it seems the world is suffering from the aftereffects of being bamboozled. Do you know what a Prairie Oyster is? They drink it in the movies to cure a hangover, or, to brace you for what lies ahead. Does it work? I seriously doubt it. Here’s the recipe: Put one […]

Categories: Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Movies, News, Story, Uncategorized • Tags: bamboozled, Carmen Miranda, Cary Grant, chicanery, definition, P.G. Wodehouse, Penelope Lively, prairie oyster, recipe

I sound like the unholy offspring of Suzanne Pleshette and Elmer Fudd…

March 19, 2018 by Vickie Lester

I have a cold. I have been wearing the same hoodie for three days and have sipped innumerable cups of warm honey lemon water. I know there are more pressing matters going on in the world right now, yet, I am wondering how to get rid of the goo that has settled around my vocal chords. So, it’ll be quiet around here for a bit. I plan on napping a great deal… …and to continue writing from page 221 in […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Audio, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, #amwriting another novel about Hollywood, #HollywoodFiction, actress Pippa Rathborne reads, author William Kuhn, I am a woman of a certain age, novel excerpt, roman à clef

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“I finished the thing; but I think I sprained my soul.” Katherine Anne Porter

March 11, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Katherine Anne Porter, renowned political activist, beloved professor, and author of numerous short stories said of her only novel, Ship of Fools, “I finished the damn thing; but I think I sprained my soul.” George Orwell also mentioned something similar, that writing a book was like enduring a painful illness. Joyce Carol Oates says that writing, to her, is something essential, like dreaming. I like that statement, I like it immensely. For me writing is a voyage, as is reading, […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, #amwriting another novel about Hollywood, George Orwell, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Anne Porter, on writing, Vivien Leigh

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Tell me, don’t you think there’s a difference between calling someone a Dragon Lady or a bitch?

March 4, 2018 by Vickie Lester

I do. There’s a question of degree, certainly, and while the term Dragon Lady implies an implacable force, the bitch epithet contains a big splash of disrespect and venom. One term was used by Olivia de Havilland in real life, the other came from the pen of a screenwriter. There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times about Olivia de Havilland’s suit against FOX that I recommend you read, it centers around the right of publicity, or the ability […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: Academy Awards, Gary Cooper, Joan Fontaine, labor laws, Olivia de Havilland, oscars, Peter Stackpole, right of publicity, wartime austerity

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“Get a director and a writer and leave them alone. That’s how the best pictures get made.” William A. Wellman, director of the first film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards

March 3, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Clara Bow, “Wings is a man’s picture and I’m just the whipped cream on top of the pie.” “I once directed Clara Bow. She was mad and crazy but what a personality!” William A. Wellman

Categories: Art, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: #ClaraBow, Academy Awards, Get a director and a writer and leave them alone. That's how the best pictures get made., I once directed Clara Bow. She was mad and crazy but what a personality!, William A. Wellman, Wings is a man’s picture and I’m just the whipped cream on top of the pie, Wings won Best Picture directed by William Wellman