Category Archives: Los Angeles

For on the page you will find that your greatest virtue can lead to your gravest sin…

October 20, 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 26. In the 1800s the world came up with the idea of bestowing personhood on companies. At the time it meant that corporations had to follow the same laws as people, […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, #hollywood&mine, a novel in which real people or events appear with invented names, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Hollywood novel, read, roman à clef, Vivien Leigh

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I went to the weirdest Oscar party at her house

October 19, 2019 by Vickie Lester

A text from an old friend after an evening spent reminiscing about the 1980s: Thanks ever so to the both of you for a lovely dinner and wonderful visit. So very appreciated. Lou somebody I think was the accountant, married to [famous musician] of [famous band]. I went to the weirdest Oscar party at her house in Hollywood where she was sobbing in the kitchen about how she made so much money but had nothing to show for it. Then […]

Categories: Art, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: Cecil Beaton, cocaine, coke, dinner party, oscar party, roman à clef, Tallulah Bankhead, Tallulah Bankhead photographed by Cecil Beaton, Tallulah Bankhead quote

“So you’d give birth to Yoda—” I said.

October 13, 2019 by Vickie Lester

During the Depression a little over 60 million people in America went to see movies every week — that translates to over 3 billion pairs of eyes in front of a screen over the course of a year. When you think about how many Google searches there are in a second (63,000) and in a single day (over 5 billion) and how many people are parked in front of their devices — all the time — it’s a little unsettling. […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, aging gracefully, Hollywood novel, hot flash, metamorphoses, movie attendance 1930s, novel excerpt, roman à clef, sunset tower

Let’s talk about aging in Hollywood…

October 12, 2019 by Vickie Lester

Women in Hollywood aren’t encouraged to reflect life experience in their faces… Which is rather ironic considering their faces become “faces” because they’re expected to do just that; inhabit a role, transform, emote, reflect, take us on life’s journey… You get the picture. Here’s “the journey” depicted in the work of John Singer Sargent. I see beauty in every phase. There is a lushness to youth; big features, skin plump, life pliable and ready to be written in the eyes… […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Children, Cosmetic Surgery, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, News, Relationships, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: aging gracefully, Countess of Airlie, Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Ethel Smyth, facelifts, Hollywood, John Singer Sargent, looking your age, Mabell Ogilvy

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I had become a suit…

October 5, 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 21. I had become a suit, and I vowed to myself, if not anyone else, I would never forget movies were made on cavernous stages and dusty streets all over […]

Categories: Art, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Humor, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #hollywood&mine, altered states, book preview, Cecil Beaton, Greta Garbo, Hollywood, novel, read, roman à clef

“All I ever wanted to do was sing. What happened was more.” Diahann Carroll

October 4, 2019 by Vickie Lester

“In the beginning, I found myself dealing with a show business dictated by male white supremacists and chauvinists. As a black female, I had to learn how to tap dance around the situation. I had to … find a way to present my point of view without being pushy or aggressive. In the old days, the only women I saw in this business were in makeup, hairdressing, and wardrobe departments. Now I’m surrounded by women executives, writers, directors, […]

Categories: Art, Audio, Blogging, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: career broke barriers, civil rights, Diahann Carroll, Diahann Carroll obituary, Diahann Carroll Paris, glamour, Hollywood, March on Washington 1963, style

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I’d prefer it if life were a beach…

September 30, 2019 by Vickie Lester

“I couldn’t possibly write a novel if I had to work it all out first. I’m writing into darkness, as it were, not knowing where the story is going or what the characters are going to discover. It’s more exciting like that.” Philip Pullman via The New Yorker Like the esteemed Mr. Pullman I write spontaneously. Yes. It keeps the process fresh and exciting. However, sometimes I could do with a little less excitement. Recently I went north for a […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, beach, behind the scenes in Hollywood, Etonian, mobster, on writing, pacific north west, Philip Pullman quote, roman à clef

She read too much…

September 15, 2019 by Vickie Lester

Bette Davis was divorced from her first husband in 1938 because, according to his testimony as reported in The New York Times, she read too much. Or as he said, “She even insisted on reading books or manuscripts when I had guests. It was all very upsetting.” I don’t often speak ill of the dead, but really? There are lots of reasons to divorce in an unhappy marriage, reading isn’t one of them. Something that first attracted me to my […]

Categories: Art, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Marriage, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: #bibliophile, behind the scenes in Hollywood, Bette Davis, Bette Davis blonde, Bette Davis divorce, book, read out loud, window to another world, you can never read too much

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Their peach-down flesh and cotton-poly clothing were scented, faintly, and at all times with Ivory Soap and horse manure…

September 15, 2019 by Vickie Lester

The moon makes me feel like such a creature, ruled by tides and sleepless when full. So many tides throughout life, don’t you think? Today’s excerpt from the book deals with the tug of some very particular teenage years… 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 […]

Categories: Advertising, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Parenting, Photography, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #hollywood&mine, bocca al lupo, Elizabeth Taylor, equestrian, full moon, John Adams Whipple, over medicated, portrait of the moon, stepchildren, teenager

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BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

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

Category Archives: Los Angeles

For on the page you will find that your greatest virtue can lead to your gravest sin…

I went to the weirdest Oscar party at her house

“So you’d give birth to Yoda—” I said.

Let’s talk about aging in Hollywood…

I had become a suit…

“All I ever wanted to do was sing. What happened was more.” Diahann Carroll

I’d prefer it if life were a beach…

She read too much…

Their peach-down flesh and cotton-poly clothing were scented, faintly, and at all times with Ivory Soap and horse manure…