Maria Cole and Nat King Cole (1922-2012;1919-1965)

Good morning!

Hope you guys had a good weekend! I'll tell you, there are some weird and wacky turns on which a simple internet search will take the casual pop culture historian like me. Source of today's post: I was looking at 1920's gowns on ebay last week (you caught me, redhanded) when the auction title "Mrs Nat King Cole's 1920s VINTAGE NET Sheer BLACK BEADED FLAPPER Dress" piqued my interest. How old could Mrs. Nat King Cole be, she shouldn't have been around in the twenties'! Turns out, this was part of three listings for clothes from Maria Cole's personal wardrobe (they were technically "vintage" when she wore them in the forties', how strange is that to think about?). The crooner's widow passed away July of last year, and there was recently an estate sale (!!) of her effects in Florida, which I traced back to this listing. Here are the dresses that sent me on this Google journey:

(source and source)

I realized I knew very little about Nat King Cole, outside of a few songs, and even less about his wife of seventeen years. Let us educate ourselves, here's the scoop on both:

Ooooh WHEE I want that head piece, Mrs. Cole!

This New York Times obit shed a lot of light on Maria Cole's life before her marriage to the famous singer. An interesting assortment of names color her family history-- her father, Mingo Hawkins, mother, Caro Saunders, and first husband, Spurgeon Ellington, all have first names that make her second husband's stage name, "Nat 'King' Cole", seem tame by comparison. She performed with Duke Ellington and Count Basie for club dates up and down the east coast before opening for the Mills Brothers at the Zanzibar Club in 1946. It was on this gig that she met Cole, who was taken with her stately beauty. Married at the time they met, Cole subsequently divorced his first wife in 1948, and married Maria six days later in a service held at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem:

According to this 20/20 profile from the year 2000, Nat and Maria had wanted to get married at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. Two of their (white) friends tried to rent the ballroom for the couple, but were denied a reservation when it was discovered that Nat King Cole was to be the groom. Understand that in 1948, "Nature Boy" (which you might remember from Bowie's version of the song on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack...ok, fine, that's how I remember the song) was a major top 10 hit, on the charts, with a bullet. And still, the man that made that disc famous, and had plenty of loot to show for it, was denied a booking for his wedding at the Astoria due to his race. The 20/20 profile goes on to say that the same friend who was turned down on the wedding reservation hit the roof on their way out as he saw a Middle Eastern man walking a goat on a leash through the lobby of the hotel. Yes, the same hotel that was "too good" to host the marriage of two, however famous, black people. 

Cole faced similar discrimination as he bought a fine house in a Hancock Park, a prominent white subdivision outside of Los Angeles. And again in 1956 when his top rated tv show, The Nat King Cole Hour, failed to find a national sponsor, due to corporate fears that Southerners might boycott products in protest of the first African-American to host a prime-time variety program. "Madison Avenue [home to major ad agencies at the time] is afraid of the dark," Cole morosely quipped when his show was cancelled after only a year on the air.

In spite of the adversity, Cole did have a distinguished career in the field of jazz and vocal pop. Midcentury hits like "Unforgettable", "Mona Lisa", and "Too Young" were all number one on the charts at one point or another, not to mention the definitive version of that Mel Tormé penned holiday single, "The Christmas Song". If you don't hear that at least fifty times through the post-Thanksgiving, pre-actual-Christmas time frame, I don't know what rock you're living under. His smooth, nuanced performance on that record would be enough to keep his career alive well into the twenty-fifth century, if you're asking me.

He and Maria went on to have a child together, singer Natalie Cole, and adopted four more. While he maintained numerous dalliances during their marriage, and fell into a serious affair with future Petticoat Junction star Gunilla Hutton, Nat Cole reconciled with Maria after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 1964. She was with him when he passed at the age of 46.

Other than some interviews on her life with Cole and a notice or two from public appearances, the most substantial amount of information I was able to find of Maria-post-Nat was in this 1966 cover story from Ebony magazine:

CAN deep freeze conquer death? I would like to know!

She discusses, in the text, returning to the stage after her husband's untimely death. In spite of their estrangements, I still can't imagine how hard it must have been to continue raising one's five kids and trying to resurrect one's career in the shadow of this huge loss. Some photos from the article...could she look more elegant and swinging at the same time? I think she looks prettier in some of these candids than she does in her professional photos:

You can read the whole article, in first person no less, from Maria Cole's lips to your ear, here. And guess what! There's still a number of Maria Cole owned items up on Ebay! That Poucette painting is way out of my price range, but what a neat print. 

So! Did you know much about Nat King Cole outside of his singles before reading this post? What are your memories of him? As said, I sure didn't know much before I saw those dresses on ebay. I think the first I knew of him as a person rather than a voice on the radio was his appearance in Cat Ballou, which I saw on AMC sometime in high school and adored. I'd like to catch some of his Nat King Cole Show performances, and living as we do in the information age, I'm sure that's something I can try and pull up later on Youtube.

That's all for today! I have to get back to work, but I will see you back here tomorrow with some of my weekend finds. Have a great Monday! See you later.

Photo Friday: Lake Wentworth Edition (1929-1933)

Good morning!

Boy, have I got a lovely Photo Friday for you today, kids. I was rummaging through this flickr account for photos of a very patrician looking family from the 30's and 40's when I came across a whole set which were labelled "Lake Wentworth". Now, someone had a good camera, and good-looking relatives, and took LOADS of photos summering on this lake in the state of New Hampshire, circa year of our Lord 1929-1933. And aren't I just the girl to take you on a tour of some of the best ones? It's Friday...you know you want to go on a mini vicarious vacation!

Wolfeboro is located between Lake Wentworth and the larger Lake Winniepesaukee in inland New Hampshire. The Roome family built a "camp", as it's referred to in the captions, there in 1929. Through the succession of photos contemporary to that time, you can see the land being cleared and the main house, garage, and boat deck being built, along with two generations of Roome family members enjoying the grounds. The family member who digitized all these images has a coffeetable book you can preview online of the history of this camp, and another album on Flickr shows that it's still standing, much as it was in the early thirties', today. How cool is that?!

I was taken by these photos primarily for how grave and interesting the sepia tones of the late twenties' lens and development process makes everything and everyone look. One commenter mentioned that this kind of coloring looks almost 3D in its precision sharpness in real life, and scans can only get close to what the real-deal conveys in one's own hand. I tend to agree, but if these shots were any more vivid in real life, you can probably hear the lake lapping against the shore!

Some children showing you how to canoe:

And how not to canoe:

Grown ups doing the same on a smaller conveyance. Can you imagine how pristine a place like this must have been in 1929?

This shot of two grown men arm's deep into a brand new twenties' car is so unusual to a 21st century viewer! I wonder if by the 22nd century people will look back on these photos and add to my remarks of "Wow, look at them working under sideways-opening hood of an old Ford?" with "What is that car doing on the ground?" Note the younger man's saddle shoes and striped cardigan, and that neither man has removed even his hat to start down to business on the motor.

All the bathing suits in this group shot are fantastic, especially the striped maillot on the guy to the right, but I love the bob-headed girl in the center eschewing swimwear altogether for either a union suit of khaki or a shirt tucked neatly into shorts. Doesn't she look like a little junior miss camper, 1929? And those high tops! I wonder what this must have looked like in color! Side note: gentleman to the far left looks exactly like F Scott Fitz, I'malie if I say he don't. That Irish knit brow! That thin lipped mouth!

This shot is neat for how in media res it is. "Hey! Knock it off with the camera and come get in this boat I was kind enough to wade out for!" Is he raking the shore? Is he putting rocks or some kind of clams in that bucket? I am so landlocked in Tennessee and ignorant of Yankee maritime (or whatever the equivalent of lakes are to maritime) doings that I couldn't tell you.

HOW. ABOUT. THIS GUY. Whoooo! Giving Rudolph Valentino a run for his money in dreaminess. I love his full length fur coat, solemnly good looks, and the fact that he's standing in front of one of those old open carriage twenties' cars so I can see how they winterize them! I don't think I've ever seen one with the flaps down like this!! (PS: Call me, 1920's beau brummel)

One thing I really like to look for in old photos in groups like these are family resemblances, and this woman has the same deep set, dramatic brow'd eyes as some of the children, and later grown ups in these shots. A shade of Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote, and my very own husband in these pictures! Side note: I once posted a photo from the book jacket of a super young Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms and actually got more than four comments from friends initially thinking it was Matthew! True story. I really wonder how his prominent features will mix with mine in our children.

Here's a gaggle of the Buster Brown youths running around tan and adorable in a lot of the snapshots. See that three out of the four children feature those brow bones, especially the handsome little devil on the right? Later, as the photos continue on into the 60's (at which point the property was sold, waaah), you can see that boy grew into a movie-star looking young man! Photo progression in the form of old scrapbooks is even more exciting than those 365 days, 365 photos that were so popular on Youtube a few years ago to me...you have the honest surprise, in looking at these stranger's photos, of realizing someone who was baby in one photo is a decorated Marine in another, and then a middle aged dad, and then a grandpa! Really gives you a perspective on the "ages of man", etc, etc. (I'm obviously a goon for being so fascinated by these I know, but bear with me)

You know they ate well that night! How about the American flag flapping patriotically in the back ground? I really love all these photos.

The one man obscured by the shadow of his own hat looks like something that would be a MacGuffin  or at least red herring in a current horror movie.

What a boat! Can you imagine eating a picnic lunch on this in the middle of Lake Wentworth? I wonder how easy/difficult that would be based on the rockiness of the water...

Last but not least, a shot of the house that looks like a picture postcard. Could it be more beautiful? I wish I had somewhere like this to "retreat" to in the summer!

How about you? What do you think about sepia versus black and white in old photographs? Which photo of antiquity is your favorite? Do you know anyone with a spare boathouse on a lake they could let me use? I come with my own bathing suit and swimming fins, honest! :)

That's all for this week. Have a FANTASTIC weekend and I'll see you back here on Monday. Wish me luck at the sales! Til then.

Simplicity Fashion Inspiration (Sewing Patterns ads 1947-1948)

Good morning!

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like I've been in a slump! Work days, after all the magic of special event and vacation planning, are feeling a little more grey and gloomy than they've been pre-wedding, and I have got to haul myself out of these doldrums in the best way I know how-- overdressing! I was thinking, the other morning, that when I started working here at the library, I had a certain drawer of my chifferobe that was set aside for "work clothes". You know, a black pair of Express Editors pants, two or three skirts, and a succession of those stretch knit wrap shirts and dresses that make up what most people in my age group consider "business casual" attire. Geometric patterns, polka dots, solids, but all in very simple, boring shapes. No shade meant to those wearing the self same as they read this-- it's just that clothes are such a major part of my self-expression that it didn't make good sense to mask that creative outlet with "I want to look like everybody else" work staples, especially when I'm at work more than I'm at home or out with friends!

I'm ready for work! Is work ready for me?

Since sometime in the first year of my tenure here, when I realized the dress code technically only forbade hats, blue jeans, and t-shirts, I've since become a die-hard advocate of wearing everything-you-would-wear-anywhere-else to work. Minus all-over sequins. Even though they're my favorite, they're actually not daytime-appropriate (RuPaul Drag Race alum Willem had the definitive word to say on this, it's in one of these videos). Anything else, though-- wild seventies' op art collar shirts in eyeblinding polyester, flirty black headwraps, forties' day dresses, bolo ties...life is too blamed short to spend it in stretch knit nothingness or boring sweaters. So when I came across these late forties' illustration for must-have-fall clothes, you bet my little heart skipped a tiny, welcome beat! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for to sprinkle a dash of inspiration over my closet. Let's take a look:

Now, remember that I just found that brown coat the other day with the fur trimming? I've been thinking about the difficulty of wearing brown when 90% of my accessories are a grounding-black (need to tone down an all-over pattern of neon paisley flower power? Add a black belt, black necklace, black bolero, and black tights. Voilà, instant fix), but here the issue is solved with all-black accessories. What really gets me about the look on the left is the black kerchief at the neck. I always worry about looking like my (dear, but not necessarily fashion forward) grandma in her plastic rain bonnet when I don any kind of accessories to a pre-existing full-length coat, but look how chic this is! Also, I have a slew of hats that are not getting proper attention being displayed in my home rather than on my egg-shaped head, and both of these looks make me think twice about that. I might not be able to wear a full on feather topper at the desk at work, but nothing's stopping me from coming and going in one! Look at that huge brooch, too.

Both these outfits are stellar for the little peplum on the jacket and the full skirt. I've noticed throughout the resurrection of this "new look" fifties' detail in modern times that the peplum is often paired with a skin tight, almost tube-skirt...this is whatever the opposite of flattering is on me with my pear shaped self (Hideous? Horrific? Something else starting with an "h"? Ain't no call for it!). I love grabbing a jacket or a top with this little flared detail and wearing them over circle skirts, because doesn't it add that dash of femininity to it! Also, we need to bring back, once and for all, the "classy" leopard print. Look at the little leopard print muff and collar on the lady in red! The sidebar offered more tips for wearing this look with different neck accessories and a different skirt:

One of the things that always amazes me in old home ec texts or sewing texts are the "take three basic outfits, use them interchangeably to create dozens of outfits"! While I have serious wardrobe staples (a black pencil skirt and this slim black, be-shoulderpadded bolero are my favorite-favorites right now), I have trouble wearing the same thing more than once in a week. Personally, I'd rather have fifty $3-$15 vintage dresses and accessorize them however than three, $100 really good pieces, but I know that just makes me less classy than I should be (hoarder materialism, I bow at your feet). A lot of that mindset comes from the quality of clothes I can get for practically nothing in estate sale and flea market transactions. My $5 dress may actually be of higher quality than a $50 garment I could get at a department store, and since I am nowhere near being able to afford actual luxury good clothing, it makes better sense for my to stick with my cheap-but-good-quality second hand clothes. What're your thoughts on that front?

Notice how the model on the left wears a red and white polka dot print dress, white gloves, white hat, and black shoes! The black shoes are brought in by the black flower detail on her hat. Ah! The little touches! I'm a big fan of that green gown at top, too, especially with the leafy little fascinator.

This dress may be my favorite simply based on the little squiggly print. Doesn't it look fresh as paint. And those red accessories, from the tiny waist cinching belt to the little basket-buckety purse! According to the sidebar, this ensemble has a secret...the skirt and bolero fall away to reveal a playsuit! I am way too long torso'd to think about a playsuit, but as a dress, I am a huge supporter of this look.

Last but not least, a set of co-ed like clothing ideas. How exciting is the dramatic, matador-waisted skirt and the western-y ruffled yoke of the black and white model at left? Of the color ensembles, I'm most impressed by the matching shawl to the green and yellow skirt and turtleneck outfit. That or the red white and black of the girl second from the right. I can't choose, I love 'em all!

What do you think? Do you wear "different" clothes to work than you do in your everyday life? What kind of clothes do you favor in your on-or-off day wardrobe? Any current inspiration for fall looks? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you tomorrow for Photo Friday! Have a great Thursday. Til then!

Tony Duquette AND MY BRAND NEW COACH BRACELET (1947, 2012)

Good morning!

Folks, have you heard the good word about Tony Duquette? He was a Hollywood set designer, furniture crafter, jewelry maker, interior decorator, figural sculptor, and all around VISIONARY artist working out of California from the forties' up until a few years before his death in 1999. I was completely ignorant of his existence until I stumbled across the Life magazine article I'm about to tell you about....but first! Breaking news! Check out the Tony Duquette inspired Coach bracelet that I totally own now:

Could you beeee....the most beautiful bracelet in the woorrrrrld....

I was ebaying Tony Duquette items week before last in preparation for this blog post... when I found several listings for a Coach charm bracelet that was part of a Duquette inspired line. Long time collaborator and partner of the designer, Hutton Wilkinson, in tandem with Coach idea man Reed Krakoff (can I please have a name like any of these some day?) created a series of Coach jewelry inspired by some of the fine costume pieces Duquette created during his lifetime. What really "bought" my eye? This brass link bracelet features alexandrite and opal stones, and was winking at me like we had prior history. Matthew and I decided, out of our wedding loot, that everything but a hundred dollars, split two ways, would be put in our joint savings account. MY fifty dollars was burning a hole in my pocket...and when pounce came to pounce, I did! It came in the mail yesterday from Oregon and looks like this:

Yep, that $248 MSRP tag was still attached in the little package I opened from ebay. The box and the little cloth Coach bag were in there, too! The auction was a buy it now for $69.99 with free shipping, and for once in my tiny, thrifty little life, I was like "Ah, just get it!" Scientific findings: a) you can't find another like it on ebay for less than $109 PLUS shipping, b) it's GORGEOUS in person and c) I couldn't give a hoot. I wanted a piece of jewelry other than my wedding ring to remember my wedding by, and here it is! I'm honestly almost too afraid to wear it out in case of a piece of it goes missing. But I'll get up my gumption and wear it first non-work day I get, mark my word!

Now, here is Tony Duquette, from the magazine article that brought me this far:

This Sept 1947 issue of Life magazine was, I think, the result of me looking up something on 7UP ads, but I was way more interested in the bent wire sculptures and home decor items described in this article. Discovered by major interior design icon Elsie de Wolfe in the 1940's, Duquette worked on costumes, stage sets, home interiors, jewelry, random objets d'art....from A to Z, really, and ALL. AMAZING.

Ann Blyth, who memorably played daughter Veda to Joan's title role in Mildred Pierce (remember the slap scene? Ay yi yi!), models a $3,000 amethyst wreath, in front of a fish sculpture with "removable topaz eye". Doesn't Blyth look just like a fairy princess? PS, $3000 is $30,427.26 in now money. 

Life really missed an opportunity in not photographing these pieces in color-- as stunning as they are form-wise, the colors Duquette uses, rich golds and brass and jewel tones, are what really make his pieces magical. Look at the scans on this blog from the Duquette coffeetable book More is More...aren't the color tones just jaw-droppingly gorgeous? The living limit of luxe!

Neat as the jewelry is, I had my socks knocked right off by the "large plaster figures" that "hold flowers and candles", to be put in "private entrance halls". Can you imagine these in the pink, green, and red color scheme described in the caption? Marvelous, human-sized statues standing in the foyer of some Hollywood eccentric's Holmby Hills mansion just like a suit of armor, but as-done-by-Dorothy-Draper....I die! 2012 cost for this trio is around ten grand. Yeesh. For the less fortunate of us dreamers, you could have the Frog Prince or Madonna pieces in your chi-chi forties' living room for only $1,500 USD (maybe that's still a little steep, but I do wonder how much these pieces would sell to a museum nowadays!).

Here's the artist himself, looking very butch and Jackson Pollock like in splatter denim and a plaid workshirt...but just look at all the magical things happening in his workshop! A Marie Antoinette like doll, next to a gingham unicorn, with a full size alligator hanging vertically....the caption reveals that he's going to decorate the alligator with jewels. WHY. WHY WON'T YOU SHOW US THE AFTER AS WELL AS THE BEFORE OF THIS DECADENT REPTILE. Oh, my imagination and heart are just bursting with love for the kind of design aesthetic at play here. Whimsy meets regency meets...I don't even know, it's just too cool.

For color examples of TD's work, I looked over Google images and found a couple pretty neat things:

1) James Coburn's house:

Aaaaah! Are you kidding me? If I'd known lanky movie villan/action guy James Coburn (Charade, In Like Flint, The Great Escape) lived in such fanciful digs...I don't even know! I think it says something about his personality that in spite being a laconic, Western kind of screen presence, he lives in this totally GORGEOUS, wild-and-out house. Do you see the red wrought iron railing detail? The teal sofa? The drums-as-side-tables? THE ZEBRA PELT RUG? And topped off with a chandelier like a cherry on an ice cream sundae. I love it!

2) This bird:

I didn't find any other information on this piece other than its creator was Duquette, but let's look. Taxidermied speckled bird, to which has been added an outrageous feather turban of similar stones and feathers to the ones he's perching on and wearing, respectively, and placed in this six sided glass-and-brass rectangle of a box. The children's book elegance of TD's vision for these kinds of things...it's just stunning.

3) Cobina Wright's living room:

source

A columnist for Hearst Newspapers, Cobina Wright is draped languidly amongst her new Tony Duquette living room in this photo, and doesn't she look just like a jewel in a velvet box. Her surroundings! So quirky-perfect. Everything in this room looks just as modern as it did in the early 1950's. The low lying purple couch piped in a lighter fuscia. The panel of drapes. The mirrors. The sunburst room divider. The 3D collage of instruments over the fireplace. The lamps-with-bases-that-are-eighteen-inch-Louis-XVI-people. AAAAAH. See more of the space here.

I can't lie, I was so bowled over by these and other interiors that in spite of its natural "charm" (haha, haha), I treasure my new bracelet all the more for having a connection with the amazing history of Duquette as a designer. Next thing you know, I'm going to redesign my whole house to fit an eccentric view of late forties', early fifties' chic! Don't think I won't! In the meantime, I'm waiting for my copy of More is More to come through interlibrary loan, and enjoying my bracelet.

How about you? What do you think? Which of these pieces sparks your imagination and interior design lust? Is there a decorator or a school of design that's really inspired you of late? What's the last thing you threw caution to the wind and just bought, price be hanged? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but you can see tons more Duquette designs via this link, as well as on the official site, here. I'm off to get some work done, but will see you back here tomorrow! Til then.

Bette Davis: A Basically Benevolent Volcano (Documentary, 1983)

Good morning!

I've been watching the best documentary on Bette Davis, and the whole thing's on Youtube, what's more! Produced by the BBC in 1983, the program gets its title and one of its best quotes from Davis co-star and personal friend, Olivia de Havilland, who says to the camera, "Bette Davis is a basically...benevolent...volcano. In constant eruption." What a zinger!

I love this almost early SNL looking title card from the beginning of the doc.

Still as sharp as a tack at 73 (and looking strangely unchanged but for age from that exclamation point eyed ingenue she was at 23 in Cabin in the Cotton; compare below),  Bette Davis sat down with the documentary makers to comment on highs and lows in her life and career on film. The Bette in this documentary is a lot like the Bette in her autobiography, Mother Goddam (no joke! Named after the Chinese madam played by Ona Munson in movie version of The Shanghai Gesture)...which is not always the case. Compare the Ava in Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations to the Ava in her self-title memoir, and you have a lynx in one and a tabby cat in the other. One thing I love about the sixties', seventies', and eighties' for old film stars? After the studio system broke down and publicity agents weren't around to groom and coax the career of a film star, you started to see "the real deal" of some of the screen brightest personalities. 

I'm givin' a party, too. A big one! Saturday night. I got a jazz band comin' up from Memphis! I want you to come...and be my boyfriend!...I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair. Bye! - Cabin in the Cotton, 1932

I really AM too much. My enthusiasm is exhausting. - Bette Davis, 1983

Twelve years prior to this interview, Davis showed up on Dick Cavett in a black fur cape, sunglasses, black patent knee boots and beret, looking like a million bucks, telling it like it was about her home studio, Warner Brothers, and what it was like to be an actress rather than a glamazon in the classic age of Hollywood cinema. It's seeing the outsize personality behind the outsized on-screen persona that makes me glad we live in an age where I can pull these videos up at a keystroke! Bette Davis, in these interviews, always seems so less on-guard than other celebrities of her stature and era-- while my beloved Joan Crawford is ultra guarded though gracious (unless she's,um, drunk...), and Olivia de Havilland (in this and other interview sessions) looks like she's playing a colonial British, Deborah Kerr role offscreen, Bette is as tough, outspoken, and crackingly funny as you'd expect her to be, and more!

Go get it, Bette! You go and get it!

Bette Davis was my first big classic Hollywood celebrity crush. Oh! How I pored over books on her life and career, under a large poster of her smoking in this Hurrell shot that hung in my high school bedroom. I like my movie stars as movie. STARS., not just actors but personalities. If there's not a decent drag queen following of whatever forties' film star, then by Godfrey, they weren't doing it right. While method actors of the fifties' would push for realism and total immersion into characters on screen, what I like about old Hollywood is how you can really see people "acting". It's so stylized! It's an imitable inimitableness! Bette Davis never looked like she wasn't acting, but I think this chewing-through-the-scenery ferocity was part of how she made as big a name for herself as she did in her heyday. Davis herself on figurative versus realistic acting:

I think that one should know one is acting. I think we can sit on the street corner and see the real people. A terrible thing has happened today, it's all getting so real. Very little makeup, no hair, nothing-- and I always believed that acting is larger than life.

Ha! "We can sit on a street corner and see real people." How true! And how that encapsulates a lot of what I like about old movies-- they're not realistically instructional in how to conduct a love affair, how to smoke a cigarette, how to wear an Adrian evening gown-- they're part of an aspirational fantasy between viewer and viewed. "Maybe no shop girl in the world would wear a $4,000 set of furs to dinner at the Ritz with Ronald Colman...but if they did! And if it was me!"

Davis and an impossibly young Ronald Reagan
 in one of her best tear jerkers, Dark Victory (1939)

I was noticing, while they ran through clip after clip of classic onscreen Davis, how memorable some of her lines from some of her movies are. My favorite, included in the doc, probably being from the 1940 film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's The Letter. The play and movie both open with a literal bang, as Bette Davis stridently crosses the Malyasian rubber plant plantation's front steps and shoots an offscreen person something like six times, her face wrath itself. Later, as her character stands trial for the man's murder, her husband Herbert Marshall pleads with Davis to reassure him of her love. She capitulates, briefly, before breaking from his embrace with a thunderous, "I caaaan't, I caaaan't....with all my heart, I still love the man I killed!" Ugh! I get little chills thinking about it right now!

Gorgeous direction with William Wyler (with whom she also did The Little Foxes and Jezebel) at the helm... they almost married! (source)

The documentary also features the clip from In This Our Life, an improbable enough soap opera of two sisters directed by man's-man-director John Huston. Bette Davis's character, Stanley, is the selfish, flouncy, vain type to Olivia de Havilland's Roy, the steady, kind, and unassuming sister (both have boy's names for some explained reason like their father expected sons, or something similarly cutesy). When Stanley's involved in a hit-and-run accident and is in danger of being implicated for the crime (though she's already schemed to have the kind, going-places son of domestic Hattie McDaniel take the fall for her), she runs to character actor Charles Coburn, hoping to play on the old man's avuncular affection. Those "Bette Davis Eyes" are in full effect as she pleads for pity and sanctuary in the old man's house, then turns a hundred and eighty degrees as she realizes she won't get it. The change in demeanor is physical, and that one scene defines an otherwise run-of-the-mill melodrama into something grazing high art (or camp, depending on how callous you view 1940's movies, but I say art!).

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Geraldine Fitzgerald, Anne Baxter, and other costars round out the interviewed subjects, and couldn't be more vivid nor kind in their reminisces of Davis on and off screen. Probably the best anecdote comes from Fitzgerald, who costarred in the four-handkerchief drama Dark Victory. In Davis's grand exit at the end of the movie, as she plays a high spirited heiress whose life is cut short by a brain tumor, she blindly ascends a staircase in the weepiest part of a true weeper of a movie. While shooting the scene, Davis casually asks "Is [schmaltzy, though beloved-of-me studio composer] Max Steiner going to score this?" knowing she hated "having her big scenes under scored", as Fitzgerald recounts. As the producer lies a tiny bit and answers in the negative re: Steiner's involvement, Davis makes her reply: "Well, I'll tell you one thing, either Max Steiner's going up those stairs, or I'm going up those stairs, but we're goddamn well not going up together." She lost out in post production, as the scene was scored by Steiner, but what a line. See the clip here.

It's a great documentary! I highly recommend it (see the whole thing in pieces on Youtube), as well as the Bette Davis films mentioned here. One thing you're NOT in for, watching Miss Davis's career through the thirties' and forties', is a dull film!

So! What's your story? Is there a particular old Hollywood star that resonates with you on a personal level? If you had to pick a handful of actors who you'd watch in A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G, who would they be? Are you a Davis fan? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a great Tuesday! Til then.

Weekend Finds: A Trio of Deals! (Vintage Clothes, that is)

Good morning!

Here, for my first post-wedding weekend finds (yes! I can go to estate sales again! I needn't worry about nailing down wedding planning details in all of my free time!), I present you with three very cute things I picked up at a sale in Donelson on Saturday morning. Let me take you through a recap of the scores!

This estate sale was right off Lebanon Pike, down the street from the one I went to last year where I found the framed baby picture with actual human hair (you never forget your first framed picture with actual human hair, I've heard it said). The house was pretty time-capsule-y, with a pink and perwinkle tiled bathroom (the sink and the commode were both perwinkle!) and a Brady-Bunch style room divider built into the wall to the galley kitchen, where you could both see through to the kitchen cabinet or display knick knacks (your choice). In one bedroom closet, where I've been used to seeing eighties' sweater after eighties' sweater at recent sales...I always seem to get there five minutes after the etsy dealers, who just take everything of a certain age and bolt...eureka! There were only three pieces of clothing (maybe a few more, but nothing that was as interesting), and I took each to the hall mirror to try them on in front. 

This dress, in spite of a weird shoulder pad configuration that makes me look neckless (I have to rethink that part of the garment...they might just need replacing), had me at the elegant, pinwheel lace detail on the decorative cuffs. Reminds me of a photo of Marlene Dietrich in a black dress with lace cuffs in the thirties' that I can't find now, but imagine very early career, like this. It's weird, because I would think cuffs like this would warrant some kind of tiny peter pan or at least some kind of collar at the neck (or lack thereof), but instead they're these stark white pops on an otherwise plain (though handsomely cut) black dress. I didn't find any tags on the inside, so the dress may be handmade...I'm thinking early fifties'? Late forties'? Price tag (which you can still see attached because I was lazy and had no scissors with me in this impromptu morning photo shoot)? $8. And half off Saturday! So $4.

Next was this little early-to-mid fifties' jacket, which, in spite of a color that is within spitting distance of denim, is actually a wool blend of shades you can see better in this close up:

I couldn't find anything on this company, but a few other examples of wool suits, 1940's-1960's, popped up on ebay. I love the non-contrasting buttons and the little flaps for pockets at the waist of this jacket. $6, half off, so $3! THREE. DOLLARS. I couldn't pass on it if I wanted to. I would like to wear this with a pencil skirt and a little topper of a hat, á la Gene Tierney or these girls on a sewing pattern, with a great big old brooch on one label (because of the limited time I had this morning, i just put it on over the lace cuff dress for a quick snap). Wouldn't it look cute all dolled up like that!

Last but not least, the true winner of this series of steals:

I know I'm wrong for buying another coat, but how could I pass on this gratuitous fur cuffs-and-collar combination? Plus buttery caramel color? I couldn't help myself. It's Forstmann wool with only the one button missing, and this "Tinsley's, Nashville" label on the inside:

I had never heard of Tinsley's (versus more familiar Nashville department stores like Cain Sloan or Castner Knott), but I found this online, which identifies its former location "at Church Street and 7th Avenue". Oh, you mean where I'm sitting typing this right now? ((cue theremin music))  You can read more about the old Tinsley's department store in Nashville in this preview from George Zepp's book on hidden Nashville history.  The only disappointment of the coat was that the third button on the left was missing. I looked under the over sized flaps, but there were no pockets. I looked in the lining for an extra button...no such luck. Probably stashed in someone's "button jar" somewhere where it would never be reunited with its intended purpose. Le sigh. The cashier lady and I considered the option of moving the top button down and just using it that, and with heavy heart, I agreed that was a possibility. I hate cloth covered buttons and their irreplacability!

When I got home and tried on the coat a second time, I realized that the flaps were on the outside of the pockets, not over them as I had originally thought. Inside the secret pocket? The missing button. Hallelu! I will be reaffixing this to its rightful place sometime this week, and then I've got a seriously cute vintage coat with no flaws instead of a seriously cute vintage coat with a somewhat glaring flaw. Price? $20, so $10 Saturday price. Score, score, score!

I got some other stuff (including one thing I needed even less than I needed another winter coat to be hung in the already-overflowing-coat-closet), but that's the goods for today! What do you think? Did you pick up anything spectacular this weekend? Find any great finds? Go to any good sales? What's the best vintage item you've picked up lately? Let's talk!

I gotta get back to the grind, but I will see you back here tomorrow! Have a good Monday (even though it is Monday), and we'll catch you on the flipside. Til then!