Category Archives: Los Angeles

“I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.” Lucille Ball

October 14, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Well my dears, I don’t know what to make of the story Ms. Lucy relates in the clip below. I will say that it is possible, I looked it up. Your body acts as an antennae, the fillings act as semiconductors, your mouth is the radio receiver, and when it vibrates you hear the signals where you always do, in your ears. Even so… At the time Lucille Ball told some her friends about it, and thereafter the opportunity arose […]

Categories: Art, Culture, Design, Early Television, Entertainment, fashion, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Uncategorized • Tags: #ILoveLucy, dental filling radio, Lucille Ball quote, Lucille Ball started her career as a model, Lucille Ball television pioneer, luck is hard work, luck quotes, mother of the sitcom, urban legend

Don’t fiddle while our home burns, #vote

October 9, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Sometimes I think the discord and spectacle of current politics is blinding. But on examination there is a clear through-line — like a fuse to dynamite. I have been thinking about fires that lead to catclysm, in particular the Reichstag Fire — that catapulted a psychotic with authoritarian tendencies, who had just been sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, a preposterous leader that many thought could just be voted out in the next election and the damage he would inflict […]

Categories: Blogging, Culture, Film, History, Los Angeles, Photography, Politics, Uncategorized, Weather • Tags: climate change, global warming, register to vote, registration deadlines state by state, reichstag fire, vote

“Cooking is an act of love, a gift, a way of sharing with others the little secrets — ‘piccoli segreti’ — that are simmering on the burners.” Sophia Loren

October 7, 2018 by Vickie Lester

All my ‘piccoli segreti” have to do with Hollywood, that’s the fertile, fabulous, funny source of my novels. These last few months I’ve made a concerted effort to tune out the digital and focus on people and the page, however, it’s been a nerve wracking time, to put it mildly. Yet, wonderful things occur amid the apprehension. On Saturday I got hugs from two women I didn’t know, one I gave directions to, the other was a Girl Scout leader […]

Categories: Art, Books, Cooking, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, Gastronomy, History, Hollywood, London, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Recipes, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #hollywoodnovel, #SophiaLoren, cooking is an act of love, elevenses, forever friends and Hollywood, London, piccoli segreti, Sophia Loren quote, spaghetti bolognese recipe

Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It. via The New York Times

October 7, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Solving climate change presents humanity with the opportunity to save civilization from collapse and create aspects of what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community.” The work would endow our lives with some of the oldest and most numinous aspirations of humankind: leading a good life; treating our neighbors well; imbuing our short existence with timeless ideas like grace, dignity, respect, tolerance and love. The climate struggle embodies the essence of what it means to be […]

Categories: Art, Culture, Design, Film, History, Life, Los Angeles, Photography, Uncategorized, Weather • Tags: climate change, climate crisis, climate interactive, protect our winters, what you can do about climate change

How a political activist taught me about the importance of pajamas, and treating yourself well…

October 6, 2018 by Vickie Lester

There’s the big canvas of history, and then there’s a small person’s perspective. What am I trying to say? I was very young when my parents were involved in the civil rights movement. So, I’ll do what I normally do, which is tell a little story about a woman I knew was important to the struggle, but who I recall as my parents’ friend. Remember, it’s personal, at the time I knew almost nothing of what she had been through […]

Categories: Art, Audio, Blogging, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: dance moves, fairy princess, high powered woman, Hollywood, James Brown, Los Angeles, Nina Simone, politcal activitst, treat yourself well

caterwaul, caterwauling, caterwauled…

October 1, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Especially as it applies to people of extreme privilege making appalling noises about how put upon they are. Now that we’re done with the truly creepy, let’s turn our attention to the lighter side of October. The decorating has begun… Stay cool, cats.

Categories: Architecture, Blogging, Culture, Design, Entertainment, Halloween, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Photography, Uncategorized • Tags: caterwaul, definition, Halloween, October

Cecil Beaton and Greta Garbo after she retreated from fame

September 18, 2018 by Vickie Lester

She arrived somewhat out of breath, dressed entirely in darkest blue, looking pale but even more incandescent than before. A crowd of bobbysox autograph-hunters had run after her on her way to my hotel, and they were cruel and ruthless and upset her very much. But now she would enjoy a cigarette – calmly. We sat side by side on a long red sofa. She had not telephoned before because she had been ill: she had caught cold – doubtless […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertaining, fashion, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, London, Los Angeles, Marriage, Memoir, Movies, New York, Photography, Relationships, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: attraction, behind the scenes, Beverly Hills, Cecil Beaton, Costume Designer, crush, design, fashion, flirting, Greta Garbo, history, Hollywood, humor, in the pursuit of love, infatuation, Los Angeles, love, New York, Old Hollywood, photography, proposal, the games people play

Filming began…I found there were an infinite number of ways to cop a feel.

September 15, 2018 by Vickie Lester

This is Lucille Ball, onetime fashion model, mother of the sit-com, actor-comedian, studio exec, TV pioneer. She had her ups and downs, everybody does. What I find fascinating is that she nurtured friendships that lasted a lifetime with women in film and television. I must have been carrying that thought in my mind when I started my recent novel. Just how defining those friendships are, and how nobody in Hollywood really talks about them. What also was clanging around in […]

Categories: Advertising, Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Publishing, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, forever friends and Hollywood, Hollywood novel, light comedy, Lucille Ball, nanny to a movie star's kids

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

September 14, 2018 by Vickie Lester

Well, my darlings, the only jab I’ve received recently was a flu shot. But still… I think the immortal words of Mohammad Ali were etched into my mind in the old times of black and white TV, when parents were worried the tube would gobble up their children’s souls, just as they worry about those little handheld devices now. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee — it’s so evocative. It conjures both grace and piercing aim. Which brings […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Short Stories, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: #amwriting, Hollywood novel, merry pranksters, satire, satiric novel

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