Miss Gladys Cooper

I was drawn to these sumptuous photos of early-20th-century actress Gladys Cooper because of her unconventional looks - not exactly pretty, not classically beautiful, and almost never smiling, but nonetheless captivating. Straddling the line between Edwardian primness and roaring '20s excess, she alternates between a buttoned-down formality and a certain smoky wildness, her long hair unexpectedly bursting out of its combs in a tumbling waterfall. The rest of the time she is just plain elegant, though her face is composed to the point of being unreadable. But where have I seen that face before? Where have I heard that name?

OF COURSE!

THIS Gladys Cooper, the one who played Bette Davis's domineering, repressive mother in one of my all-time favorite movies, Now, Voyager.

But there was so much more to her than that.

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.

Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War. She also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. 

From the early 1920s, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others. In the 1930s, she was starring steadily both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles; she was nominated for three Academy Awards, the last one as Mrs. Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year. 

Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in Home and Beauty, writing "she is too impassive, too statuesque, playing all the time as if she were Galatea, newly unpetrified and still unused to the ways of the living world." Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for "turning herself from an indifferent actress to an extremely competent one" through her common sense and industriousness. - Wikipedia

THE HAIR!

A woman's hair was particularly important to her appearance in that era. Even a relatively-plain face like Gladys's came to life when framed by a tumble of chestnut curls. The provocative nature of these photos reveals the drastic change between the demure and even repressive attitudes of the Edwardian era and the wild times to come. She lets her hair down here, quite literally, and the combination of the sensually rippling hair and the austere, almost jaded facial expression is quite compelling. During that dramatic transition from tightlaced maiden to fringed flapper, Gladys Cooper found her place on the stage, and in the world.

  

KITTEN KONG: the whole story, AT LAST!

 

Is there hope in bad times?

 

I found this compelling quote a few years ago, and thought to myself: things are so bad right now, how can anyone believe this? Now, several years later, in many or most ways, things seem far worse.

I am heartened only by my grandkids, teenagers with exuberant, productive lives. I don't see apathy. I don't see drugs. I don't see phone addiction or online danger. Am I blind here? I don't think so. It's so refreshing to see them grow and change, and at the same time, so utterly heartbreaking as their childhood slips away.

They have been my "hope in bad times", but what will be next? I once wrote a piece and posted it here, and immediately lost several long-term subscribers. Since then, I have been leery of posting anything too honest. And yet, others receive hundreds of thousands of views for the very same kind of thing. There is something about MY honesty that, for reasons unknown, people just don't want to see.

I don't want to contemplate my life, what went right or wrong, and when I look back and see "wrong", much of it is things I couldn't help. But it's hard to see that. When I look back on bounty and joy, I am sad, even crushed that those days are all over.

And yet, I have hope, or at least on good days, days when a glossy, sassy red-winged blackbird flies down to eat out of my hand, days when I see my beautiful granddaughters dance exquisitely and move me to tears, days when I perceive true and undiscouraged purpose in the next generation (when I asked Caitlin what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, "A forensic criminologist," and so she will be, if she so desires).

Quotes like these - and I don't know when this was written, or even who Howard Zinn is or was -  seem almost naive now, but they're needed. I don't know what is going to happen politically - a second Trump term seems almost inevitable, as the cult is obviously now in charge of the free world. Even Australia just voted in an extreme conservative, and it won't be long until Justin Trudeau will be routed for someone with a mind snapped shut.

So I try to get on with my day, wondering what will happen when this round of blessings runs its course, as they always do. More has always been given to me up to now, but will those blessed things very soon run dry? I don't know. I'm no good at the future, which doesn't exist anyway. "If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something." Cults stop human growth, and attract those who are afraid of growth and change and want someone to stop it, or even reverse the clock. Somehow, some way, can we get out from under the forces that are pressing down on true freedom like a giant thumb? We may not have to wait for some grand utopian future - but the clock is ticking, and time is running short.

Branded (in color)

Though I almost never watched them, I always loved the theme songs of Westerns in the '60s - The Virginian, Maverick, Death Valley Days, the incomparable Have Gun Will Travel, and this one - a novel in itself, an epic tale acted out every week which was usually better than the episode itself. Chuck Connors stood there, face as craggy and inscrutable as an Easter Island statue, while his medals and stripes and everything that comprised his identity as a soldier and a man was literally ripped off his body. It was a savage ritual which carried an awful whiff of ceremony, of celebrating failure and betrayal, or at least holding it up as an example to scare the others into obedience and submission. The aggressiveness, the casual brutality of it stays with you - and oh, the injustice! "All but one man died, down at Bitter Creek/And they say he ran away." It comes out in the fullness of time that he was protecting an officer and only pretended to run, or something, but that doesn't matter now.  It's one of the best  TV openings ever, and watching it again after all these years did not disappoint. 

And a couple more for good measure. 

Soviet Soul

Monumentally cheesy record album covers from 1980s Soviet Union.

Don't buy this car

Just don't. 

Gabrielle Ray in the 1900s

I know almost nothing about Edwardian actress Gabrielle Ray. But these hand-tinted photos are lovely, if highly stylized. They reveal nothing about the person, since in most of them she stares vaguely and dreamily into the middle distance. This particular stylized gaze was typical of the objectified photography of the day, particular in women.

The gowns, as usual, are to die for. I never cared about any kind of vintage clothing, at all, until I had access to the internet. Now they're like old automobiles (which I never cared about either!), a passion and an obsession. Sadly, I have read that Gabrielle Ray was "put away" in a mental institution in later years -  which was what they called it then when you had a "nervous breakdown" (a so-called diagnosis which in fact does not exist, and from which you did not recover). Generally, when this appears in a famous person's biography, it means it's over, even if the person lives another 50 years. It just stops. Unspoken is the fact that no one ever comes to visit. That person is dead to them. It is the end of the trail, and to a frightening degree, everyone seems to accept it as inevitable. I don't want to think too much about what life was like for this glorious woman after she was taken as a permanent captive.

Famous movie scene re-enacted by cats

"Hold on, and suck in!"

"MEOW!"

Dancers on the edge of reality

I've been re-editing some of my old gifs, and since there are several thousand of them - yes, that's right - this could  take quite a long time. I edited four gifs together in this one, and I have no idea what the source material is or where I got it. It looks like a negative of a black-and-white film, and I don't think I created that effect myself. If I did, I don't remember how I did it.

This was a very small gif originally, and making it any bigger affects resolution. So I left it this size. Who ARE these people, I wonder - when did they perform this? On early TV, as I suspect? How did they achieve these camera effects? They almost seem to be dancing underwater.

Christopher Walken: bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it's free
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love)

I want your drama
The touch of your hand
I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love)

You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
I want it bad, your bad romance

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
(Oh-oh-oh--oh-oh!)
I want your love and
All your lover's revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

I want your horror
I want your design
‘Cause you're a criminal
As long as you're mine
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love-uuhh)

I want your psycho
Your vertigo shtick
Want you in my rear window
Baby you're sick
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love)

You know that I want you
('Cause I'm a free bitch baby!)
And you know that I need you
I want it bad, bad romance

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!)
I want your love and
All your lover's revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it
Move that bitch crazy

Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it
Move that bitch crazy

Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it
Move that bitch crazy

Walk, walk passion baby
Work it
I'm a free bitch, baby

I want your love and
I want your revenge
I want your love
I don't wanna be friends

Je veux ton amour
Et je veux ta revanche
Je veux ton amour
I don't wanna be friends
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
I don't wanna be friends
(Caught in a bad romance)
I don't wanna be friends
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Want your bad romance
(Caught in a bad romance)
Want your bad romance!

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
I want your love and
All your lover's revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Want your bad romance
(Caught in a bad romance)
Want your bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oh!
Want your bad romance
(Caught in a bad romance)

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Birth of Prince Archie: Harry's Happy Dance!

Madame de Pompadour

Another amazing creation by Marina Bychkova. This doll of Madame de Pompadour has the most elaborate headpiece (you can hardly call it a  "hat") of any of her creations. It has three SHIPS on it, not to mention rolls upon rolls of creamy pink fabric. She seems to be devoid of costume, as is true of many of Bychkova's dolls, though heavily tattooed. The pink chair alone is a work of art. When I see things like this, sometimes I just want to go home and not even try to do anything creative again, but I can still appreciate her doll genius as unique. (By the way, this doll sold on eBay for at least $90,000.00, perhaps over $100,000.00.) 

Christopher Walken's FIRST movie role!

I found this little oddity through a strange podcast called Walken 101, which purports to discuss each and every film/TV role Christopher Walken ever did in his (long, long) lifetime to date. He's been in over 150 of such, so obviously I can't get through too many of them. The podcast consists of an hour of two millennial stoners rambling on and on about their lives, and other inane subjects, sniggering and snorting at people they mention by name and asking for money. But once in a while, something on-topic and even intriguing comes up.

I'm going through a "thing" about Walken, even though I have very mixed feelings about him. I usually go through these things for a while, then come out the other side. I don't consciously choose them. Walken is a strange bird indeed: a blonde Dennis-the Menace-style child actor practically from birth, an androgynous-looking young dancer who was good enough to be in the first touring company of West Side Story, an androgynous-looking young actor who showed up in artsy films and TV shows, then. . . his "breakout" role in the Vietnam horror-drama The Deer Hunter, for which he won an  Oscar. Then a slow maturing into something less and less androgynous, until reaching the somewhat macabre, leathery, Galapagos-like appearance he exhibits today. At 76, this man isn't old, folks, he is OLD-old. 

The rest has been. . . I don't know. There has only been a handful of really memorable performances. The guys in the podcast generally suffer through his stuff, in which Walken appears for 5 minutes or less. When interviewed, he says (robotically, almost)  the same things over and over and over again. He never leaves the house. He's afraid of airports (and a long list of other things: elevators, horses, etc.). He was a lion tamer in his teens (though in other versions, he merely PLAYS a lion tamer in a play). He has no hobbies and no children, though he has been married 50 years to a woman who seems more like a mother to him.  But above all, he "likes to work" (i. e. takes everything that is offered to him with no apparent filtering/discernment process at all). He has an ENORMOUS fan base, but has become a sort of caricature of himself, and he knows it, but keeps on working. He has even said he'd like to drop in harness on a movie set. His last role, shot in Winnipeg, was as a beleaguered Saskatchewan canola farmer up against Monsanto (Big Pharma for agriculture). A FARMER?? Mr. Urban Dialect, Mr. Astorian Bugs Bunny, Mr. Gangster/Hit Man/file-toothed Supernatural Being? 

This just seems like too much of a stretch, but who knows. He will have to somehow-or-other lose his often-quite-prominent Queens accent, which, when out of character is (as the British say) "broad". His mother was Scottish, and he will likely try to summon up  some version of that, and he's right in that some Canadians (SOME Canadians) have a bit of Scots-Irish inflection in their vowel sounds, but if it's overdone it sounds ridiculous. "Doing voices" has never been his strong suit, and when he recites Poe's The Raven (even though he does a good job of it), Astoria somehow seems to get in the way.

Meantime, this short little thing, this obscure film shot by a woman animator experimenting with live action for the first time, is THE FIRST time little Ronnie appeared on-screen, and admittedly he's good, not overplaying the role. He's tall, too, taller than most of the women, and just on the other side of puberty. The voice he does is channeling Roddy McDowell, though I think it works in a film where everyone speaks in an artificial, pretentious manner. The very best part is the last few seconds, which I've captured in another video:

I will admit I'm the one who posted the short movie. It wasn't anywhere on YouTube, and the podcast guys insisted it was terribly obscure and not available anywhere, though I found it in about 2 seconds. So far YouTube hasn't killed me for doing this, maybe because no one cares very much. It has only received a handful of views, but if I start getting concerned with views, I get very depressed. The internet is just a horse race, where more lose than win, and the winners are often qualitatively the worst of the lot.

So here it is, and you can judge for yourself.  Little Ronnie's first appearance - but it wouldn't be his last. 

Four takes on a head shake

Playing with the speed on a nanosecond-long clip of Christopher Walken doing an incredibly sexy head-shake.

Dolls in distress

The astoundingly beautiful and powerful Enchanted Dolls made by Russian artist Marina Bychkova come up again and again in this blog as a source of inspiration. Part of it is the fact that the photography keeps improving, and the rest of it is that I can now make slideshows out of dozens and dozens of photos and don't have to try to squeeze them into and around the text (though as usual, I'll insert at least a few images here and there to break up the monotony of blocks of text). 

I actually appreciate the visceral discomfort these dolls can stir up, invoking as they do the childhood fairy tales which always turn out to be much darker and more violent than we remembered. It seems pretentious to say the dolls display non-verbal messages about power, control, sexuality, gender - all that stuff that we still fight over. But they do just that, and more. There is a mute masochism about some of them, such as this newest doll called Lady Amalthea, the main character in a story called The Last Unicorn.

Eyes swimming with unshed tears, lips unnaturally shiny and pouty, these creatures sometimes remind us of abused children, a connotation we don't want to see. We want to look away, we even think we should look away, but we can't - or, at least, we don't. Their costumes are gorgeous prisons, often with heavy, elaborate headgear made up of gleaming metal and thousands of tiny and individually hand-sewn crystals, flowers and pearls. Some dolls are heavily tattooed, and most have realistic genitalia which has caused a ridiculous amount of controversy at exhibits. Pictures of Bychkova at work evoke fairy tale heroines under enchantment, forced to work at some endlessly repetitive task until their fingers are worn to the bone.  

Here is her description of her latest masterpiece, Lady Amalthea:

"I’ve worked on this piece for over three years, dismantling and reassembling it multiple times as the image of the Unicorn slowly shaped itself. The 24k gold-plated bronze head piece was inspired by Hans Holbein’s 1539 portrait of Anne of Cleves, who was the 4th wife of King Henry the 8th. It is very light for its size, weighing only 82.3g (2.9oz). The costume is constructed with gold appliqué embroidery on fine tulle, 2,435 gold-lined glass beads (24k), 1,880 seed beads, 635 Swarovski crystals, 148 Mother of Pearl flowers, 46 fresh water Pearls and 21 Amethyst gemstones."

I found the following comments on a doll forum, and it's plain Bychkova's eerie humaniform/bodyworks of art still have the power to awe, inspire, and creep people right out. As usually happens on the internet, differing opinions or emotional responses are quickly judged as inadequate, unenlightened or just plain wrong. In the meantime, if I could be a witch (or, in my case, a "which"), I'd want to be the glam old person below. 

These are absolutely slaying me. They look so real that it is triggering my stupid empathy and my brain just can't handle it. I just start tearing up. Damn she's good

I don't even like dolls, but I would proudly display these in my home. That's insane.

Utterly stunning - the beauty of design and the soul of each doll is beyond amazing. I'm not a doll collector, but these would add magic to my home.

The fact that these dolls made all these people feel all these things prove that it is actual art.

Hideous. A selection of abused little girls. Maybe I'm a weirdo but I don't think a child (or adult for that matter) naked and crying is beautiful.

i wouldnt call yourself a weirdo. but id say you do have a problem with knowing a difference between fantasy and reality. probably one of those bland people with no imagination whos mind is too small to understand the reason behind art. when people like you see art that depicts the truth of your very own society you get offended. mostly because you choose to ignore the sadness of the world and pretend that everything is ok.

My gut instinct was not 'wow these are beautiful' but 'wow these look so realistically scared and how amazingly detailed is that girl's pubic region.' Are they more attractive to you because they're crying? I have enough imagination to know how these characters would feel and can see the sadness of the world reflected in it. I get it. Beautiful is not the adjective I'd use to describe it though. I'd like to see the artist make a strong woman. But I bet that wouldn't sell as well.

You're projecting the age, since the intended age of the dolls is not actually listed in the article....I assumed them to be in their 20's, some look perhaps in their 30's, and yea...a few look to be teenagers, but they all look like older teens in my eyes at that.

There's nothing wrong with nudity...so being naked while crying isn't inherently a problem. A person depicting a beautiful human being in a vulnerable state shouldn't be offensive or disturbing, but apparently it is to you and while that isn't "wrong"...you really do seem to be projecting your personal angst onto others.

The artist probably does not suffer from the same mental anguishes you do, they have their own, so calling this hideous for the reasons you are is not only callous....it also shows you don't really understand the intention behind art in general. 

Also, some of these show nothing other than emotion. Some of them are simply still poses that are unsmiling. Not nearly all of them are "sad", not nearly all of them are crying, being naked is not weakness because vulnerability does not equate to weakness (which you don't seem to understand, hence your reaction), being made out of porcelain does not inherently make something weak either...the way you personally interpret symbols is not necessarily the way the artist intended for them to be interpreted. It's not that you're "wrong", but you are definitely projecting and making it seem as though your personal judgment of these dolls is finite.

You're making it sound like everyone is literally crazy for thinking these are beautiful because of your personal issues....without stopping to realize just how those issues make YOU sound to others who don't have them.

I honestly don't think the implied age is a projection. The whole concept of a doll is capturing a youthful appearance. The large eyes, slim frame, and barley developed 'bodies' all appeal to the vulnerability of youth. Let's not pretend that wasn't the intent. And let's not pretend that something can't be beautiful and disturbing at the same time. These dolls are beautiful, but it's also okay to not be comfortable with the tearful sexualization of young bodies. And that's not to say what the artist did was wrong-- it's just an acknowledgement.

I don't find them all too appealing to be honest. The dolls could be pretty without sexualizing little girls. You may not find what the artist did "wrong" per say, but I definatly don't think anyone is incorrect to find "the tearful sexualization of young bodies" totally creepy. Especially the girl put on the bed.

Understanding what a human body looks like at different ages does not mean that you're projecting, it means you understand what you're looking at. These dolls are indeed modeled after very young girls. No one that looks at a baby doll is being accused of "projecting ages" onto a doll modeled to look like an infant. Humans have very distinct growth phases, and the phase they are modeling here is very much adolescence, from breast position, pelvic structure, and face shape. It's adolescence. Just because you never took basic anatomy and physiology, or any human reproductive biology classes and don't understand how that works, doesn't mean it's wrong.

I agree that it's creepy. All of those features together are identifying traits of a 11-15 year old girl, and if you don't find that creepy, then that's your issue. You can say that it's fine that they're naked and crying, but I find it less so being that they chose to make dolls that look like girls going through puberty, then make them look like they're crying, and then photograph them nude. On top of that, pose them on a bed while crying. It's creepy. It's creepy to sexualize the form of young girls, it's even creepier to sexualize the image of young girls crying. But hey, that's just me. Maybe you're a ok with people making virtual child porn too, because you think it's "just a projection of age".

I guess the big question to ask yourself, here, is this: Why do you find depictions of female nudity to be inherently sexual? These aren't sexualized poses or situations.

So you don't think that the doll made to look like a girl between 11-15 laying on the bed crying in a very reveling outfit is sexual at all? You don't find it sexualized one bit? Remember, that doll doesn't have any agency what so ever. An adult person made the choice to construct dolls to resemble all traits characteristic with adolescent girls going through puberty into one doll. Spend hours painting their genitals, and then photograph them nude. This adult chose to then make it so that they were crying. Chose to put these dolls that they intentionally modeled to look like little girls physically, who they chose to depict crying, and looking afraid, onto a bed.

Yeah... I don't think they're projecting. I think that's pretty straight forward in creepiness. This reminds me of all those creepy 3D renditions of virtual child porn that people always get busted for. Except this isn't 3D renderings of naked kids, they're dolls. But hey, "art".

The Glass of Fashion and the Mould of Form

"THE GRIP": or, How We Can Keep Ourselves Ethereal

This appeared in “The Grip” (a Toronto publication) on 5th April 1884: 

WOMAN'S BUGBEAR or 

HOW CAN WE KEEP OURSELVES ETHEREAL 

One mystic, miserable night, 

I felt myself expanding; 

My corset, gloves and boots grew tight, 

And I was left demanding 

What can it mean?

I slowly swelled like leavened dough 

'Twas surely barely human 

In one brief night that I should grow 

Into a side-show woman, 

So very stout.

My gloves flew from each swelling hand, 

My ripped boots left their places, 

My corset vainly made a stand, 

But, pop! bang! went the laces, 

And it was gone. 

And still I grew with fearful haste: 

My gloves were twenty seven, 

The tape around my swollen waist 

Proclaimed me Five-eleven 

Feet and inches!

I shuddering woke; it was a dream! 

My waist still graceful tapers; 

In "twos" my feet still glance and gleam, 

And carry on their capers, 

My gloves are fives. 

I warning take; my tiny waist 

Shall smaller grow in smaller corset; 

Here, Mary Jane, I must be laced 

Until it meets: there, force it 

Tighter and tighter!

There, fifteen inches, that will do. 

I scarce can breathe without a doubt, or 

Brag, the pain is fierce, but whew! 

Far better pain than growing stouter 

Any day!

Victorian Bicycle Humour

Gertrude: "My dear Jessie, what on earth is that Bicycle Suit for!"

Jessie: "Why, to wear, of course."

Gertrude: "But you haven't got a Bicycle!"

Jessie: "No: but I've got a Sewing Machine!"

The cat's in the corn