09 Friday Oct 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Books, Brighton, Music, Poetry, Profumo Affair
≈ Comments Off on Violets, Flamingos and Heroes in Autumn
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Brighton, Christine Keeler, David Bowie, Dreadzone, Emily Capell, Flamingo, Flamingo Club, Geoff McCormack, Lana Del Rey, Mercy for Christine, NHS Heroes, Rosie the Riveter, Roxana Halls, Seymour Platt, The Skatalites, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
On New Year’s Eve, I wrote here of my fears over where the world is heading. Little did I know that only a few weeks later we would be facing up to a pandemic. 2020 has been a strange, lonesome year for many of us. Continue reading
31 Friday Jul 2020
Posted in Books, Film, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy and Legacy
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Alfred Hitchcock, Alva Johnston, Ben Hecht, Bosley Crowther, Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Cecelia Ager, Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, David L. Selznick, Ernst Lubitsch, Fan Magazines, Feminism, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fredric March, Garson Kanin, George Stevens, Howard Hawks, In Name Only, Jack Benny, John Barrymore, John Cromwell, Love Before Breakfast, Mack Sennett, Made for Each Other, Mr and Mrs Smith, My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred, Olympia Kiriakou, Protofeminism, Rebecca, Rhea Langham, Screwball Comedy, Silent Movies, They Knew What They Wanted, To Be Or Not to Be, Twentieth Century, Vigil in the Night, William Powell, William Wellman, Woman of the Year, World War II
“When Carole Lombard talks, her conversation, often brilliant, is punctuated by screeches, laughs, growls, gesticulations, and the expletives of a sailor’s parrot,” Noel F. Busch wrote in a 1938 cover story for LIFE magazine, headlined ‘A Loud Cheer for the Screwball Girl.’ The actress he described was seemingly not unlike the madcap heroines she often played. At thirty, she had appeared in a diverse range of films over thirteen years, and exerted a degree of control in her career unusual for a star in the studio era. However, more than eighty years later, Lombard is still perceived as a kooky comedienne, her life’s arc defined by subsequent events including her marriage to Clark Gable, and her untimely death in 1942. Continue reading
15 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in Books, Fiction, History, Marilyn Monroe
≈ Comments Off on Marilyn and Me: The Starlet and the Spy
Ji-min Lee is a Korean novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel published in English is set in the aftermath of the Korean War. “This book was inspired by two photographs,” Lee explains. “One was of a female interpreter at work, standing between a UN soldier and a North Korean POW.” The other, printed in the end-pages, was of Marilyn Monroe performing in Korea for the American military. “I had the same question when I saw those two pictures,” Lee continues. “Where did all the beautiful and hopeful young women go?” Continue reading
01 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in Anniversaries, Books, Marilyn Monroe, Updates, Websites
≈ Comments Off on A Birthday Wish for Marilyn
Today marks what would be Marilyn Monroe’s 94th birthday. It’s also ten years since I started my sister blog, ES Updates (affiliated to Everlasting Star, the longest-running online forum about Monroe.) Whereas on this website I cover a range of subjects in mostly long-form pieces, ES Updates is dedicated solely to Marilyn with shorter, more frequent posts relating to all aspects of her life and legacy. So if you’re looking for ways to celebrate her birthday, please head over to ES Updates and subscribe to the daily email bulletin; and for a deeper dive, read my novel, The Mmm Girl. (The photo shown above was taken by László Willinger in 1950 to promote one of Marilyn’s first important roles in All About Eve, which turns 70 this year.)
26 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Books, Fashion and Beauty, Marilyn Monroe, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on The Little Book of Marilyn
“I first truly discovered Marilyn Monroe on a postcard stand in Devon, England, during a seaside holiday in 1985 … the postcard of Marilyn in a gold lamé dress, blowing a kiss to the camera, triggered something inside of me. At a time when I felt like the most unglamorous person in the world, Marilyn’s beauty, style and sophistication spoke to my teenage heart.”
Michelle Morgan, author of The Little Book of Marilyn, has written several other books about Monroe, including Marilyn’s Addresses, Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed, Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modelling Years, and The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist. A compact softback, The Little Book of Marilyn is part of a series from U.S. publisher Running Press. Previous subjects include Bettie Page and Audrey Hepburn, whose fame has endured like Marilyn’s, and whose appeal surpasses that of other pin-models and actresses, including some still living. Continue reading
