“I used to think that looking across a pillow into the fabulous face of Buster Keaton would be a more thrilling destiny than any screen career.” ― from her memoir, Cast of Thousands
“One might feel that, at my age, I should look on life with more gravity. After all, I've been privileged to ...
My lady parts are like an iceberg; what one can see is only a fraction of what’s down there. (And there’s a whole climate change aspect to this analogy but let’s skip that for now.) Like most women, most of my life I inaccurately referred to the whole shebang as my vagina. Actually, vaginas ...
Janice Radway, one of my professors in college, was studying the behavior and meaning behind romance novels’ readership for her book, Reading the Romance. Her research found that many of the women in her study read multiple romance novels a day, sometimes 3 or 4! She told me that ...
Most vintage films tend to end with uncovering the murderer, two people we assume are going to get married – or they’re about cowboys. I have zero interest in westerns (except, of course, for the clothes) and usually marriage isn’t all that exciting. (Including my own. I ...
When you find yourself alone with a feeling of hopelessness and nothing but a pint (okay, a tub) of ice cream to assuage you, perhaps a classic movie that shines a spotlight on the unexpected but radiant possibility of love – with a minimum of treacle – will hit the spot. (As will the ...
(This piece was written several years ago, when I frequently wore Hawaiian dresses to dinner, to work, to vote, etc. Sadly, my sarong days are pretty much over, and I've sold almost all of them to people who can enjoy them like I did.)
Nothing says “I live in a fantasy world of my own ...
Take my advice, make sure your husband doesn’t murder you. I’m not saying this because when a wife is killed the husband is usually the first suspect they suspect. I may be saying this because I watched, roughly, 2 million hours of Law & Order. But I’m probably saying it because I’ve ...
Some are born blonde, while others have blondness thrust upon them. For the last 70 years, the moviegoing public has had a parade of foxy actresses’ blondness thrust upon them. (Not to mention the thrusting of their other attributes.) Whether they were born fair-haired or ...
Why hasn’t Diane Von Furstenberg won a Nobel Prize? If ever there was someone who has made significant contribution to mankind it is she. The impact of this ingenious invention cannot be underestimated. Forget diamonds being a girl’s best friend; a jersey wrap dress is a BFF that always has ...
For someone like me, who’s spent most of her life obsessed with the stars, stories and minutiae of Old Hollywood, something like You Must Remember This is a godsend. Like other popular well-researched podcasts that engage listeners in fascinating true life tales over the course of multiple ...
Like the Internet, podcasts do the great service of connecting all kinds of people to all kinds of people. It can connect us to people and content we’d otherwise never access. It can also hook us up with avocational soulmates who are into the same nutty, weird, hard-to-find stuff you’re into. ...
The 21st century has seen an explosion of famous hot Jewish guys.
I noticed this because I’m Jewish, but was never really attracted to Jewish guys. Maybe that’s because growing up in a Jewish family gave Irish Catholic mesomorphs a certain exotic lure. Now I have a wider, more ...