Category Archives: Los Angeles

Wanna read an excerpt of “Prince Harry Boy to Man”? It’s an eye opener…

July 21, 2017 by Vickie Lester

Drop by the blog at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, Saturday, to see what I’m talking about! And if you visit us on Sunday we’ll be talking to the author himself!

Categories: Advertising, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Literature, London, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #readingbythepool, #summerreads, coming of age novel, glare of publicty, novel excerpt, Prince Harry Boy to Man, William Kuhn

“Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family — this bill will do you harm.” Barack Obama

June 22, 2017 by Vickie Lester

This photo was taken in 1922 at the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital, as a young polio victim received physical therapy in warm spring waters… This is the kind of tender care that will be impossible, for so very many, if “repeal and replace” goes through, and often it will be a matter of life and death. “The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the […]

Categories: Children, Culture, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Life, Los Angeles, Memoir, Photography, Uncategorized • Tags: action, childhood diseases, Congress, disibilities, faith, health care, hope, medicaid cuts, preexisting conditions

“The world cannot wait — and neither will we.” Mayor Garcetti, Los Angeles

June 2, 2017 by Vickie Lester

I just received a beacon from the past. Last night I opened a trove of photos and came across a letter to my grandmother, from her best friend, dated October 13, 1944…when the world was at war…and her children and her friends’ children were fighting overseas. It seems each new day now we must be conditioned for the unpredictable challenges thrust upon us – and as long as the abnormal remains the norm for now, we must bravely […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Culture, Design, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: climate change, concrete solutions to the environmental crisis, make our planet great again

An “oh, snap” with éclat from Olivia de Havilland

April 19, 2017 by Vickie Lester

When asked by the Hollywood Reporter about the relationship portrayed in Feud, Olivia de Havilland replied: “I have received your email with its two questions, I would like to reply first to the second of these, which inquires of me the accuracy of a current television series entitled Feud, which concerns Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and their supposed animosity toward each other. Having not seen the show, I cannot make a valid comment about it. However, in principle, I […]

Categories: Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Olivia de Havilland Bette Davis friends, Olivia de Havilland lives in Paris, Olivia de Havilland quote

Once upon an Easter in London and Paris…

April 15, 2017 by Vickie Lester

This is what Spring looks like at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. I love-love-love this time of year here, but… When I was little girl my father had business in London for a time, so I lived there with my parents and went to a girl’s school that was a tube and a bus ride away from Hampstead to Mill Hill. Now, London is an exciting place to live and I loved my school, but in March […]

Categories: Architecture, Books, Culture, Design, Easter, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, London, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Parenting, Paris, Photography, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #itsinhiskissbyvickielester, #MickJagger, #Parisinthespring, #springbreak, #ToulouseLautrec, Baron Haussmann, Church Row, dignitaries, Du Maurier, Easter, greetings from the swamp, Hampstead, London, our caboose, Paris, President Pompidou

Friends

April 8, 2017 by Vickie Lester

I have a friend I met when we were nine. This picture of Mary Pickford reminds me of her, the solid gaze, the bold spirit, and the curls. She’s the only person I’ve ever known whose hair fell into perfect ringlets. Recently, she called out of the blue and we were chattering instantly as if almost thirty years hadn’t passed since we last talked, but merely a couple of hours. I was worried about some health issue, she instantly set […]

Categories: Architecture, Blogging, Books, Children, Choreography, Culture, Design, Dogs, Entertainment, Film, Friendship, Gastronomy, History, Hollywood, Humor, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Music, Parenting, Pets, Photography, Relationships, Short Stories, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: actress, altruism, behind the scenes, bonds of affection, childhood development, constancy, dogs, education, family, friendship, history, Hollywood, home, Mary Pickford, medicine, Memoir, Old Hollywood, parenting, photography, school, security, spirit, surgery

formative years…

April 2, 2017 by Vickie Lester

In the living room, sitting side-by-side with the Mister, I noticed he was enraptured by his smart phone. I remarked that studies had shown infants (whose parents were always checking in digitally) weren’t developing language skills, emotional recognition, or social bonds as quickly as previous generations; because their parents weren’t looking them in the face. If you are thinking that was an extremely subtle (cough) nudge or shove for some realtime attention you’d be right. And this is why he’s […]

Categories: Art, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Marriage, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Relationships, Romance, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: Charles Dickens, Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that., formative, future, lost art of conversation, marriage, Martin Luther King Jr., the Mister, There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.

“My God, I think there have been more books on Marilyn Monroe than on World War 2, and there’s a great similarity. It was not easy. It was hell. But it was well worth it once you got it on the screen.” Billy Wilder

March 29, 2017 by Vickie Lester

“She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift. Believe me, in the last fifteen years there were ten projects that came to me, and I’d start working on them and I’d think, ‘It’s not going to work, it needs Marilyn Monroe.’ Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.” Billy Wilder

Categories: Architecture, Art, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: #itsinhiskissbyvickielester, behind the scenes, Billy Wilder, Billy WIlder quote, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, Orry-Kelly, some like it hot premiere march 29 1959, the making of Some Like it Hot, Tony Curtis

Jack Lemmon talks about Marilyn Monroe — Some Like it Hot

March 29, 2017 by Vickie Lester

On Marilyn Monroe: Jack Lemmon — I liked her very much and I got along great with her. She had a lot of problems, she was basically an unhappy girl. She drove Billy and Tony crazy, she drove me a little crazy too but I didn’t let on and it didn’t bother me as much as it bothered them, and it was almost always the same thing: the lateness. She had a problem, God knows what it was. (She just […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Humor, Life, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Music, Photography, Relationships, Story, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Writing • Tags: actor, actress, alcohol, Barbara Diamond, behind the scenes, Billy Wilder, celebrities, Classic Movies, dancing, director, dressing room, drugs, edited by Alison Castle, fashion, film, history, Hollywood, humor, I.A.L. Diamond, interviews by Dan Auiler, Jack Lemmon, Los Angeles, make-up, Marilyn Monroe, Movie Star, Old Hollywood, on set, Orry-Kelly, photography, SOME LIKE IT HOT, Taschen, Tony Curtis, Walter Mirisch, wardrobe