writer – BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

September 25, 2015 / Vickie Lester

“Let each person tell the truth from his own experience.” Florence Nightingale

August 5, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Double Indemnity | Brick Wahl

I love the blog Beguiling Hollywood. Vickie Lester posts these great pictures of stars of yore–publicity shots, movie shots–and describes them with a quick caption or a little essay and they’re always good. Today’s was a still from the film noir classic Double Indemnity. Barbara Stanwyck in shades Fred McMurray…

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May 18, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Lost in Arles or lounging with Goldens, this is how it should be when reading: “It’s In His Kiss” by Vickie Lester

I think we’ve talked before about how the Internet can be a glowing place full of friendship, creative frisson, a community. It was a pleasure to hear from Heather; actress, photographer, writer, now in Arles with her beloved—and two very happy Retrievers. …I had no idea what I was…

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April 16, 2014 / Vickie Lester

Writers in Hollywood, Faulkner, Huxley, Odets…and Grandma (a repost from 2012)

The day after Christmas, early 1930s: William Faulkner (yes, he was married and significantly older) pictured with Meta Carpenter Wilde (secretary to Howard Hawks and later a Script Supervisor). Meta Carpenter Wilde wrote a book in 1976 about her eighteen year relationship – “A Loving Gentleman” – with the storied…

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January 26, 2014 / Vickie Lester

A favorite character, Lord Jim, psychologically suspect: Chang-rae Lee: By the Book – NYTimes.com

What kinds of characters draw you in as a reader? And as a writer? Like most people, I’m fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect. Wait a minute — basically that’s everybody, isn’t it, in life and on the page?…

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January 7, 2014 / Vickie Lester

An Aid to Concentration | Read, Seen, Heard

An Aid to Concentration | Read, Seen, Heard. I want to highlight this fabulous gentleman (not the guy pictured above) and one of my favorite sites — visual puns, beauty, history — he’s got it all. Kihm Winship lives, works, walks and writes in Skaneateles, N.Y. An unfocused generalist, his…

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November 5, 2013 / Vickie Lester

George Orwell: Why I Write – Vickie Lester: Isn’t that fascinating?

I, Vickie Lester, am writing this semi-confessional in a place whose inhabitants are often thought to exist in bubble; living in a state of dreamy incomprehension brought about by mild weather and consistently brilliant blue skies, denizens of La-La Land… If this is a bubble, it’s clearly made of titanium.…

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July 8, 2013 / Vickie Lester

THE INMATES ARE TAKING OVER THE ASYLUM – THE NEW WORLD OF PUBLISHING

UA was incorporated as a joint venture on February 5, 1919, by four of the leading figures in early Hollywood: Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith… Already veterans of Hollywood, the four film stars began to talk of forming their own company to better control their…

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July 6, 2013 / Vickie Lester

BEN HECHT ON THE MOVIE BUSINESS

I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer. Ben Hecht Ben Hecht – Wikipedia, the free…

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June 21, 2013 / Vickie Lester

WHY AUTHORS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SNAP THEIR OWN BOOK JACKET PORTRAITS

Hm… I thought the glasses gave me that intellectual je ne sais quoi, however…

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