"Don't despair, even over the fact that you don't despair."

Born on this day:




"The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform."



"The good thing about flying solo is that it's never boring."

With humble apologies to Mr. Arthur Jacob Arshawsky, whom because of my great affection for him, I call Artie Shaw, I'm offering slightly belated 100th birthday wishes.  Artie's big day was actually the 23rd.

He swung onstage and he swung offstage, racking up an impressive 8 wives.  He said of himself that he was 'a very difficult man', but when your matrimonial role call includes, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes, you've obviously got something goin' on!

I can't imagine any of those dames would've gotten him too mad at them considering that (amongst his other accomplishments) in 1962 he was the 4th ranked marksman in the United States.

I'm about to have to offer another apology here in a minute.  In a 1994 New York Times interview, he summed up his anguished musical frustrations from so many years before:  "I thought that because I was Artie Shaw I could do what I wanted, but all they wanted was 'Begin the Beguine.' "

Well Artie, for your birthday, that's all I want too.  You wanna know why, I'll tell you.  Because you took, musically speaking, one of the best damn popular songs ever written, stripped off it's inane, substandard lyrics, and let your clarinet do the singing. You turned it into something so special that swings, but also has notes of melancholy and is certainly an anthem of the big band era.

"I am one of those people who just can't help getting a kick out of life—even when it's a kick in the teeth." - Polly Adler, US Madam


 "Two members of the acting profession who are not needed by that profession, Mr. Ronald Regan and Mr. George Murphy, entered politics, and they've done extremely well. Since there has been no reciprocal tendency in the other direction, it suggests to me that an actor's job is still more difficult than their new ones." - Peter Ustinov


 "I wouldn't know how to handle serenity if somebody handed it to me on a plate." - Dusty Springfield

If you're are more than a casual fan of Billie Holiday then you know the clip below very well and you probably know the story behind it too.  If not.....






...this clip is from the 1957 ABC television special, "The Sound Of Jazz".  Billie is singing "Billies Blues" and collaborating with her are the best of the best; you'll hear the roll call at the top of the clip.

Billie and Lester Young (who takes the second solo) had a relationship that endured a quarter century.  Some think they were lovers, others say, that while they may have had physical relations in the beginning, theirs was more of a best friend-sole mate-brother-sister thing.  He's the one who first came up with the name "Lady Day" (for her mother and Billie, being Billie, quickly co-opted it).  She is the one who coined his nickname "The Prez".  The had a spiritual and psychic connection that produced some of the finest jazz recordings ever made.  And like all sensitive, artistic and addicted geniuses, they had had a bombastic falling out.  This show was the first time they had seen or spoken to each other in years.

They were both sick (she, heroin and he, alcohol) and would both be dead within two years.  It is almost embarrassing, and most certainly humbling to be privy to the intimate secrets, regrets, apologies and pledges that are exchanged between them over the course of his short solo. 
Everyone in the control room (who of course knew their story) was in tears by the end of it.

"I have great respect for someone from a strict Catholic upbringing who can climax without reservation. "  --  Robert Downey, Jr.



"I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life."  --  Anthony Perkins

 
 "Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I am with you kid. Let's go!'"  --  Maya Angelou

"Music is one of the closest link-ups with God that we can probably experience. I think it's a common vibrating tone of the musical notes that holds all life together."  --  Marvin Gaye










"Mediocrity is gonna kill the world before Armageddon ever does."  --  Emmylou Harris





"Ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts."  --  Serge Gainsbourg

"Well, television is what it is. Let's face it. I had done 25 motion pictures prior to The Partridge Family and nobody knew my name."  --  Shirley Jones


 "I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same."  --  Angus Young, Guitarist, AC-DC 

"All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year."  --  Gloria Swanson








"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."  --  Billy Wilder

Cranberry was William Haines' nickname for his lifelong friend Joan Crawford, and today is Joan's special day.  (I'm goin' with 105)

They can say what they want.  That bitter, money grubbing adopted orphan of  hers can write whatever she wants (I don't care how many anniversary editions she puts out), I ain't buyin' it.  Sure Joan was tough and at times could be prickly, and it's true that in later years she was a tad liquor addled, but over all, she was a swell dame and a damn fine actress.


This is my all time favorite picture of her.  Here I see a young woman who is beautiful, rich, talented and absolutely in love with her experience.

Raise your glasses people, it's Joan Crawfords Birthday!

One of my favorite voices from 80's pop and one of my favorite songs, the lyrics of which I wish I'd thought of first!  The Motels' Martha Davis is 59 today!
Okay can't talk about The Motels and not include this:

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Phyllis Virgina Daniels was born 109 years ago today in Dallas Texas. Soon after the family moved to Los Angeles. Little Bebe, as she was nicknamed, was recruited into the family business of Show and at age four was touring in a production of Shakespeare's Richard III. That same year, she also appeared in a stage touring production of  "The Squaw Man". In 1910, she originated the character of  Dorothy Gale for film audiences, in the first version of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", a mere dozen years before the birth of Judy Garland!

In addition to entries as a Singer, Writer and Producer, she has 240 Acting entries on IMDB. Well over 150 of those occur before 1920! This number was possible because of being tapped by Hal Roach (with whom she shares a birthday) at 14 years old to be teamed with Harold Lloyd who was then doing his Lonesome Luke series. The Luke character was little more than a take off of Chaplin's character, only in tight clothes instead of baggy ones. It is said that, while in a movie theater, Lloyd overheard a boy say, "Oh here's that fellow who makes like Chaplin", and that this caused the creation of his legendary 'Glasses Character". Bebe was with him for the transition, benefitting from more involved characterizations herself. She and Lloyd also became romantic, a natural progression given their constant work schedule and genuine fondness for one another. In their social life they won many trophies for dancing as was the rage amongst the Hollywood set at the time. During their years starring together, Daniels not only did all her own stunts, she learned all phases of 'on the fly' film making. Their onscreen personas were The Boy and The Girl.

When her contract came due in 1919, DeMille scooped her up and brought her to Paramount where she would become a star. In 1921 at 20 years old, our quintisential Flapper was famous, beautiful and rich. She enjoyed all the trappings afforded her including a brand new racy Marmon automobile that she loved to drive.....really fast.

This was no problem as she had an uncle 'with connections' who was able to fix her weekly stack of speeding tickets with LA County. However it was on a hellbent drive to San Diego with her mother and Boxing Champ Jack Dempsey in the car (whom she was dating) that she was stopped in sleepy Tustin for going (get ready) 56 mph!

Daniels cried, "Uncle!" but dear Uncle had no pull in Orange County. Thus commenced a happy little scandal that made the Paramount publicity men wet their pants with glee. Believing that her stardom would win her local public favor (yeah, that always works) her lawyers demanded a jury trial. Didn't work.  Judge John Cox, a bit of a publicity whore himself, dramatically announced, "10 days in jail!" Bebe was now the first starlett to be in the pokey.  Bebe's comment to the papers:  “I bet 56 miles per hour sounds awfully fast if you’ve never driven anything faster than a plow.”


It was hardly what you would call 'hard time'. A local furniture store backed a truck up the the Santa Ana jailhouse and her cell was kitted out with a persian carpet and a bedroom suite complete with bed linens to match the curtains mounted over those crass bars. Both florists in town made daily deliveries, and the local eateries entered into something of a contest to provide the most delectible meals to the star, her mother (who was allowed to stay with her) and the rafts of Hollywood luminaries who came each day to visit. Abe Lyman and his Cocoanut Grove Orchestra came to serenade our poor inmate.