Tag Archives: Hollywood

Life Lessons from Charlotte Vale

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Think about it: Charlotte Vale is such an inspiring character.  It doesn’t matter if your male or female – her journey seen in Now, Voyager (1942) can inspire us all to take care of ourselves and be aware of our physical and emotional well-being.

When you’re at rock-bottom, the only place to go is up (how cliche, but true).

When we first meet Charlotte in the film, she is the epitome of what an “old maid” of thirty should be.  She is “frumpy” because she is not allowed to diet, sports some furry eyebrows behind a pair of glasses, and can only wear “sensible shoes.”  Her spirit has been broken by her battle ax of a mother.  Her escape comes in the form of a meltdown from being dominated for so long.  When there was no hope in having a happy life of her own, Charlotte was given the gift of confidence by Dr. Jacquith.  Too bad we can’t all go to a rest home every time we slam down a tea kettle and cry.

Sensible shoes

Learning to walk in new shoes

The ones who help you along the healing journey may be a surprise.

We all lay at night creating scripts for our life to follow.  It never follows the stage instructions, but we keep internally writing our lives anyway.  I bet Charlotte never imagined she would meet a dashing, married man on a cruise ship who would be the inspiration to help her pick up the pieces of her shattered self-esteem.  Maybe she thought of adopting a dog during one of these nights of self-reflection in the rest home, but no, the moon and stars would not have that (and her mother probably would hate the dirt a dog would track in the house).

We often don’t give children the credit they deserve.  Their presence reaches a place within us that company with a peer cannot caress.  Charlotte found a chance to correct her past through Jerry’s daughter, Christina.  Karma is real…in the movies.  By consoling a sad, unwanted little girl, Charlotte mended the pain of her own childhood.

Go with you gut. Do what feels right.

If you like an article of clothing, WEAR IT!  Don’t listen to one person’s negative opinion.  Charlotte realized her mother controlled her life through her wardrobe.  Clothing is a form of self-expression, so use this medium to tell people who you are…not who someone else wants you to be.

You can’t have everything.

As much as you can help yourself, there are some thing that cannot be conquered. Personal prejudices may keep you from someone you love.  Finances may prevent you from shaking the dust of your hometown off your boots to pursue education or adventure.  Due to Charlotte’s social situation, she could not totally embrace Jerry as her own partner because his wife refused to divorce him, but she learned to survive with what she had which was better than what she began with at the film’s commencement. We can’t have everything that makes us feel whole along our experience in life, but how those elements shaped us can influence our perspective of life. Let me close with the famous last line of the film: Oh, Jerry.  Don’t let’s ask for the moon.  We have the stars.

Lost in the Garden: An Interview with Martin Turnbull

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We had the privilege of discussing the historical fiction novel Garden on Sunset with the author, Martin Turnbull. The novel focuses on three up-and-comers trying to gain success in Hollywood during a time where technological advances bring forth new opportunity for some while others fade in the shadows. If you like Old Hollywood and Australian accents, you’re going to love Martin! Find out more about the Garden of Allah series in this very special podcast and on his website www.MartinTurnbull.com.

An Evening at the Hollywood Canteen

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Historic fictional piece Hilary wrote for her World War II course. 
 

Privates Jim Clarke and Joe Bean guffawed as they read over their buddy’s shoulder.  Jim jested, “Sweetie, huh?  I thought you shook that busted Valentine months ago.”

Joe carried on, “Sweetie’s sweet on you, Bill!”

“Can it!” barked Sergeant William Jefferson as he crumpled the telegram in the palm of his hand. Handling women the morning after his arrival to the States was not on his agenda and Sweetie, whose name personified her behavior, caused a sickening pang in the pit of his stomach. “Not now,” he thought, “… not ever.”

Since Sweetie moved from their hometown in Childress, Texas to succeed as an actress in Tinsel Town, their relationship had been as prosperous as her career in acting. Currently, she was a server at the Cocoanut Grove, a popular nightclub at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and the closest she had been to playing opposite Clark Gable was when she spilled gin and tonic all over his wing tip shoes.

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Book Review: “The Garden on Sunset” by Martin Turnbull

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I recently had the pleasure of reading the first installment of Martin Turnbull’s Garden of Allah series, “The Garden on Sunset.”  The novel follows the three main characters – Marcus Adler, Kathryn Massey, and Gwendolyn Brick – as they arrive in Hollywood, and together as friends, try their luck in Tinseltown.  Hollywood is a closed club, and it’s a hard social circle to gain access to as we witness them try to succeed in their area of interests: Marcus’ screenwriting, Kathryn’s journalism, and Gwendolyn’s acting.

“The Garden on Sunset” begins in the height of silent cinema.  It places the reader in a very different Hollywood than what we are used to reading about.  The novel is well-researched, and Tunbull’s effort to be historically accurate shows in the quality of the novel.  Did you know Sunset Boulevard was once a dirt road?  Imagine that!

Turnbull’s inclusion of the descriptive details of Hollywood, the Garden of Allah hotel where the characters live, and alcohol-soaked parties at locations such as the Coconut Grove place the reader in the midst of the glamour Old Hollywood is remembered for.  Turnbull also has the slang of the Prohibition and Depression eras down pat.  It wasn’t always sequins and curly ‘dos in those days though.  ”The Garden of Sunset” reveals the tarnish that lay under Tinseltown’s sparkling facade.  Not all trade-offs with scummy businessmen led starlets or aspiring writers and journalists to big breaks.  The reader sees appearances of major stars such as Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and George Cukor, but Hollywood’s dirty underbelly of bootleggers and shady businessmen is never far away.

The plot of “The Garden on Sunset” is charming and enrapturing as you come to care for the characters and root for them to achieve their goals.  Meanwhile, you wonder with suspense which movie star they will meet next and whether they will help our main characters.  Marcus, Kathryn and Gwendolyn are the agents who take the reader through Hollywood history while enjoying sprinkles of Turnbull’s intelligently goofy sense of humour along the way.  ”The Garden on Sunset” is a light, entertaining read targeted for anyone who has an interest in Old Hollywood.  Even aficionados such as myself can learn a lot about Hollywood history from this book.  The next novel in the series promises to be entertaining and exciting as it is based around Hollywood’s most talked about production: Gone with the Wind.

If you would like to learn more about the Garden of Allah series, check out Martin Turnbull’s website: www.martinturnbull.com.  Be sure to “like” him on Facebook.  He posts historical facts about Hollywood, L.A., along with pictures of the era.  He is also a really swell guy and a fun person to talk to!

Jean Harlow: Blonde, Brains, Boldness, Beauty.

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As a part of the CMBA’s Classic Comedy blogathon, this entry will be about the platinum blonde bombshell who made blonde hair what it is today: Harlean Harlow Carpenter AKA Jean Harlow.  In short, she is one of the best blonde comediennes in film history and we are going to tell you why.  Hold on to your hair, Monroe and Aguilera….

Jean Harlow was a woman and comedienne who could only exist in the pre-Code era (although she was still successful in the early Code era).  She was a dirty flirt, a temperamental mistress, and sometimes downright untrustworthy.  She could be rotten to the core, but also sprinkled with sugar and dressed in shimmering dresses to distract the moral compass.  What redeems her, though, is the fact she is also vulnerable underneath her spoiled facade.  Although the Production Code banned filmmakers to let audiences sympathise with immoral characters, she made immoral playfulness fun to watch and we always rooted for her to get her own way because she had a piece of her heart at stake.

Being emotionally involved with her onscreen ordeals causes Harlow’s character(s) to be hot-headed in order to get what she wants.  This allows Harlow to stand up against the force known to literally sweep women off their feet: Clark Gable.

What makes Harlow stand out from the rest of Gable’s leading ladies is her ability to stand on her own against him.  The power was equal between them.  She could seduce him just as easily as he could seduce her, and they were both mutually willing.  When she swoons, she swoons on her terms.  When he treats her rough, she’s swinging her fist or cussing right back at him.  They can throw and catch each other’s punches without a flinch.  They are both each other’s matches.  Powerhouses.  Dynamos.  It’s entrancing to watch them in the six films they starred together: The Secret Six (1931), Red Dust (1932), Hold Your Man (1933), China Seas (1935), Wife vs. Secretary (1936), and Saratoga (1937).

"Red Dust" (1932). Pre-Code...

One downfall of playing these types of roles was having the audience believe she was like her characters offscreen.  Harlow was neither promiscuous nor ditzy.  Clark Gable considered her “one of the boys.”  She was known among her peers to be full of self-respect and a great actress whose onscreen persona was sadly mistaken for her real self.  Here is an excerpt from classichollywoodbios.com:

In her book Being and Becoming, Myrna Loy remembered a weekend trip she, William Powell and Jean Harlow took together. A San Francisco hotel manager, confusing fantasy with reality, registered “William and Myrna Powell” in one room when it was actually Harlow and Powell who were to stay together. In the 1930s, with the press looking over their shoulders, they couldn’t be obvious with their affair. Powell had to move to a tiny downstairs room while Myrna and Jean shared the more luxurious upstairs room. “Bill complained bitterly, let me tell you., angling to get upstairs,” remembered Loy. “The mix-up brought me one of my most cherished friendships. You would have thought Jean and I were in boarding school we had so much fun. We’d stay up half the night talking and sipping gin, sometimes laughing, sometimes discussing more serious things. Jean was always cheerful, full of fun, but she also happened to be a sensitive woman with a great deal of self-respect. All that other stuff –that was put on. She just happened to be a good actress who created a lively characterization that exuded sex appeal.”

Not only was she a great actress, she was intelligent and loved to read.  One would have to be smart to deliver lines the way she does!  Before dropping out of high school to be married at age sixteen, Harlow was educated in private schools and came from a well to-do family.

Jean Harlow left a memorable legacy after her early, unexpected death of a kidney infection in 1937 at the age of twenty-six.  Without Jean Harlow, blonde hair would not have the popularity is still enjoys today.  She was the first star to dye her hair to platinum blonde.  A young Norma Jean Baker idolised Jean Harlow and followed in her footsteps by dying her hair to platinum blonde.  In contemporary times, Christina Aguilera’s hair is inspired by Monroe, but does she know the origin and history behind her own hair colour?

Another impact on popular culture she left behind is the quote, “Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?” from her breakout film, Hell’s Angels (1930).  Most people have heard the idiom but don’t know where it came from.  Now it is a common trope in popular culture.  Here is an index of some of the ways the phrase has been used in popular culture.

Although Jean Harlow isn’t talked about as much as other comediennes such as Lucille Ball or Carole Lombard, she has nonetheless left an indelible mark on popular culture.  She has also left behind an image of a tough, promiscuous woman who can also stand on her own and fight back yet can win the sympathy of the audience.  She can be cute, sexy, and drink all the boys under the table…