score to his Moonlight Sonata . Her enormous face glowing, blindingly bright, from the silver-nitrate film stock. Her eyes flashing. Her teeth blazing white.
In the audience, every face is cast in chiaroscuro, half lost in the darkness, half lost in the glare of that distant light. Forgetting themselves outside of this moment, the audience sits aware only of the man onstage and his voice. Over all, we hear the rolling thunder of the senator’s voice boosted through microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers; this booming voice says, “She serves as our brilliant light, forever guiding forward the rest of us mortals.…”
Across the surface of the screen, we see my Miss Kathie in the role of Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell , elbowing her husband, James Stewart , aside so she can listen covertly to Mickey Rooney on their party line, wasp-waisted in a high-collar dress. Her Gibson-girl hair crowned with a picture hat of drooping egret plumes.
This, the year when every other song on the radio was Doris Day singing “Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe” backed by the Bunny Berigan Orchestra . In the audience, no single face draws our focus. Despite their pearls and bow ties, everyone looks plain as old character players, dress extras, happy to shoot a scene sitting down.
At the microphone, the senator continues, “Her sense of noble purpose and steadfast course of action sets the pattern for our highest aspirations.…” His voice sounds deep and steady as a Harry Houdini or a Franz Anton Mesmer .
This prattle, further example of what Walter Winchell means by the term “toast-masturbating.” Or “laud mouthing,” according to Hedda Hopper . According to Louella Parsons , “implying gilt.”
Turning his head to one side, the senator looks off stage right, saying, “She visits our drab world like an angel from some future age, where fear and stupidity have been vanquished.…”
The camera follows his eye line to reveal Miss Kathie and myself standing in the wings, her violet eyes fixed on the senator’s spotlighted figure. Him in his black tuxedo. Her in a white gown, one elbow bent to crush a pale hand to her heart. Cue the lighting change, bring down the key light, boost the fill light to isolate Miss Kathie in the wings. Block the scene with the senator as a groom, standing before a congregation, taking his vows prior to giving her some tin trophy painted gold in lieu of a wedding ring.
It’s no wonder such bright lights seem invariably surrounded by the dried husks of so many suicidal insects.
“As a woman, she radiates charm and compassion,” says the senator, his voice echoing about the hall. “As a person, she proves an eternal marvel.” With each word, he climbs to her status, fusing himself to her name recognition and laying claim to the enormous dowry of her fame in his upcoming bid for reelection.
Upstage, the vast luminous face of my Miss Kathie hovers on-screen in the role of Mrs. Claude Monet , painting his famous water lilies. Her perfect complexion care of Lilly Daché . Her lips, Pierre Phillipe .
“She is the mother we wish we’d had. The wife we dream of finding. The woman whom all others measure themselves against,” the senator says, shining and polishing Miss Kathie’simage before the moment of her appearance. Before he presents her to this audience of the faithful. This stranger she’s never met, coaxing her fans to a low-key frenzy of anticipation before she joins him in the spotlight.
More “projectile praise” and “force fawning” or “compliment vomit,” in the eyes of Cholly Knickerbocker .
Everything sounds so much better when it comes out of a man’s mouth.
Clasped in my hands, a screenplay rolled tight, here is the only prospect for work my Miss Kathie has been offered in months. A horror flick about an aged voodoo priestess creating an army of zombies to take over the world. At the finale, the female lead is dismembered, screaming, and eaten by wild monkeys. Lynn
In the audience, every face is cast in chiaroscuro, half lost in the darkness, half lost in the glare of that distant light. Forgetting themselves outside of this moment, the audience sits aware only of the man onstage and his voice. Over all, we hear the rolling thunder of the senator’s voice boosted through microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers; this booming voice says, “She serves as our brilliant light, forever guiding forward the rest of us mortals.…”
Across the surface of the screen, we see my Miss Kathie in the role of Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell , elbowing her husband, James Stewart , aside so she can listen covertly to Mickey Rooney on their party line, wasp-waisted in a high-collar dress. Her Gibson-girl hair crowned with a picture hat of drooping egret plumes.
This, the year when every other song on the radio was Doris Day singing “Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe” backed by the Bunny Berigan Orchestra . In the audience, no single face draws our focus. Despite their pearls and bow ties, everyone looks plain as old character players, dress extras, happy to shoot a scene sitting down.
At the microphone, the senator continues, “Her sense of noble purpose and steadfast course of action sets the pattern for our highest aspirations.…” His voice sounds deep and steady as a Harry Houdini or a Franz Anton Mesmer .
This prattle, further example of what Walter Winchell means by the term “toast-masturbating.” Or “laud mouthing,” according to Hedda Hopper . According to Louella Parsons , “implying gilt.”
Turning his head to one side, the senator looks off stage right, saying, “She visits our drab world like an angel from some future age, where fear and stupidity have been vanquished.…”
The camera follows his eye line to reveal Miss Kathie and myself standing in the wings, her violet eyes fixed on the senator’s spotlighted figure. Him in his black tuxedo. Her in a white gown, one elbow bent to crush a pale hand to her heart. Cue the lighting change, bring down the key light, boost the fill light to isolate Miss Kathie in the wings. Block the scene with the senator as a groom, standing before a congregation, taking his vows prior to giving her some tin trophy painted gold in lieu of a wedding ring.
It’s no wonder such bright lights seem invariably surrounded by the dried husks of so many suicidal insects.
“As a woman, she radiates charm and compassion,” says the senator, his voice echoing about the hall. “As a person, she proves an eternal marvel.” With each word, he climbs to her status, fusing himself to her name recognition and laying claim to the enormous dowry of her fame in his upcoming bid for reelection.
Upstage, the vast luminous face of my Miss Kathie hovers on-screen in the role of Mrs. Claude Monet , painting his famous water lilies. Her perfect complexion care of Lilly Daché . Her lips, Pierre Phillipe .
“She is the mother we wish we’d had. The wife we dream of finding. The woman whom all others measure themselves against,” the senator says, shining and polishing Miss Kathie’simage before the moment of her appearance. Before he presents her to this audience of the faithful. This stranger she’s never met, coaxing her fans to a low-key frenzy of anticipation before she joins him in the spotlight.
More “projectile praise” and “force fawning” or “compliment vomit,” in the eyes of Cholly Knickerbocker .
Everything sounds so much better when it comes out of a man’s mouth.
Clasped in my hands, a screenplay rolled tight, here is the only prospect for work my Miss Kathie has been offered in months. A horror flick about an aged voodoo priestess creating an army of zombies to take over the world. At the finale, the female lead is dismembered, screaming, and eaten by wild monkeys. Lynn
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