Sunday, March 31, 2024
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Need a dog bowl padded ruff? You've come to the right place.
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Bring on Meghan's candle of grievance with sobbing crystal petals. Whatever she's selling, I'm buying!
By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail
The Duchess of Sussex has launched a lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard and I am here for it.
Quince bark coffee, tomato leaf soap, taster pack of salmon sperm injections, hand-embossed make-your-own voodoo doll kits, moonbeam gummies — whatever the heck Meghan is selling, the first merch drop can't come quickly enough for me.
And the only question to ask is this: what took her so long?
The Duchess is one of those women who was born to tell other women what to buy and think and do. She walks among mere mortals simply itching to enlighten us all on how to be, where to shop, who to adore and why greige is the new taupe — whether invited to or not.
Since Meghan's influencer days on The Tig, where she posted recipes, beauty tips and style hints from her Toronto base, it was clear that sooner or later she'd return to this lucrative world of clicks and likes; that she would be back among her merchant-class kinfolk quicker than you can say 'add to basket'.
The Duchess of Sussex has launched a lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard which sells items including: Quince bark coffee, tomato leaf soap, taster pack of salmon sperm injections, hand-embossed make-your-own voodoo doll kits and moonbeam gummies
All she had to do to maximise her online profile and boost any future profits was to somehow — somehow! — elevate herself from B-list television actress to becoming a significant figure on the global stage; a somebody that everybody had heard of, a person who went from not knowing Oprah Winfrey neither personally nor professionally, to inviting the all-powerful media star to her wedding. Anybody got any ideas?
Whatever you might think about the former Miss Markle, you must agree that it was mission accomplished on that front at least.
And how! From first date to locking the Frogmore door for the last time took just over three years, less time than the gestation period of a salamander or certain kinds of shark.
Of course, Meghan didn't marry Harry purely to winkle him out of the Royal Family, like extracting a sulky whelk from a pearly shell, just so that she could go on to use her royal title to launch a commercial lifestyle website selling cosmetics, jams, nut butters and organic birdseed in California.
Be serious! No wacky conspiracy theories on this page if you don't mind.
Yet one still must admire the clarity of thought, the audacity, the sheer drive and twin peaks of mutual ambition it took the Sussexes to get where they are today. I admire the energy, if not the approach, simply because far too many people were kicked to the kerb on their fast lane to liberty.
However, surely even Harry and Meghan must be exhausted by the industrial grievance complex that has funded their own lifestyle thus far?
That's one reason why I hope that this American Riviera Orchard venture will usher in brighter times for them both.
So, bring on the five-wick candles and the youth-dew elixirs, make haste with the seven-ply cashmere lounge pants and the overpriced jars of honey.
Let's all dig deep and online shop till we drop to keep this young couple in the luxury to which they have become accustomed and feel that they deserve.
To this end, here is Meghan; back in California arranging white roses in a vase, cooking something virtuous for lunch, launching herself as a tastemaker and a mompreneur who leads by example.
Someone who imposes her terrifying sense of style upon the dreary, civilian she-turnips in the real world by wearing £1,500 Roland Mouret day dresses and no end of delicious designer gowns to pick up her latest humanitarian award. So inspirational!
Yet, just like all those other lifestyle gurus — including Martha Stewart and, of course, Gwyneth and her mighty Goop — one can't help but feel that sometimes their online sisterly solidarity is as manufactured as their signature scents.
And — whisper it — also that it is avarice rather than the giving of advice that really floats their boats. Out there in brand-land there are certainly millions of dollars to be made, but it is difficult to see where American Riviera Orchard fits into this crowded marketplace.
In the U.S., brands such as The Pioneer Woman started off as a farm-girl blog and turned into a multi-million-pound business, today boasting a hotel, a pizzeria, a cooking-utensil range and a TV cooking show that's run for 37 seasons and made founder Ree Drummond a very rich woman.
This week, Ree is raving about a new milk frother and wondering if you can feed carrots to dogs, while her wildly glamorous rival, Hannah from Ballerina Farm, is selling sourdough kits and 'mountain raised meat' on the Utah ranch where she lives with her husband and eight children.
Closer to home, even Kate Moss is giving e-commerce a whirl with her Cosmoss company, a new line of beauty and self-care products sold online and in-store. The range features a facial oil made from something called Mythical Tears of Chios — a resin native to the Greek island of the same name — that sells for around £105 for 30ml, making it almost as expensive as scorpion anti-venom. Has everyone gone completely mad?
Cowgirl, party girl, Goop girl — but what is Meghan's USP going to be? Surely she wouldn't dare to play on her royal connections? She promised not to, after all.
The Duchess has said that she wants her brand to be more 'accessible' than Goop, but is impressed by the polished elitism of Flamingo Estate, another California brand that sells organic soaps and an exclusive lifestyle.
Apparently Martha Stewart is her main inspiration; solid, dependable Martha who is known for her practical advice on everything from skimming gravy to running a home and keeping it clean. Recent Martha posts included 'how to grow a tapestry lawn' and how to 'clean a broom' — indicative of her attention to detail.
I'd listen to Martha's advice on anything, but what does Meghan know about brooms, except perhaps — as her enemies naughtily claim — how to fly one?
'I am flattered,' said Martha, when told that she inspired the Duchess of Sussex. She advised her to 'produce good products that work and will help the homemaker have a nice life. That's what it's all about.'
American Riviera Orchard seems to be rooted in a sense of place rather than a person. Meghan is selling the California dream, one jar of jam at a time. It is Montecito that is the major sell, but even still, there is the faint air of unearned emplacement; the feeling that she wouldn't be living in this upmarket millionaire's paradise were she not married to a prince of the British realm.
Indeed, some are convinced that American Riviera Orchard will taint the monarchy with an unsavoury strain of commercialism, but not anyone who has perused the Highgrove website recently.
You won't believe the stuff that King Charles is flogging under the auspices of his beloved country home in Gloucestershire.
I'd listen to Martha's advice on anything, but what does Meghan know about brooms, except perhaps — as her enemies naughtily claim — how to fly one?
'I am flattered,' said Martha, when told that she inspired the Duchess of Sussex. She advised her to 'produce good products that work and will help the homemaker have a nice life. That's what it's all about.'
American Riviera Orchard seems to be rooted in a sense of place rather than a person. Meghan is selling the California dream, one jar of jam at a time. It is Montecito that is the major sell, but even still, there is the faint air of unearned emplacement; the feeling that she wouldn't be living in this upmarket millionaire's paradise were she not married to a prince of the British realm.
Indeed, some are convinced that American Riviera Orchard will taint the monarchy with an unsavoury strain of commercialism, but not anyone who has perused the Highgrove website recently.
You won't believe the stuff that King Charles is flogging under the auspices of his beloved country home in Gloucestershire.
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Everything from £375 corduroy gilets for country gents to £150 silk scarves, triple-milled soaps, Prince of Wales check washbags and a £9 teabag tidy. Yes, you might not be surprised to hear that a member of the Windsor family is selling Yakhak Milky Rock Crystal Quartz Charms for £39 apiece — but it is Charles and not Meghan who is the culprit here.
If Gwyneth's Goop famously 'nourishes the inner aspect', what will Meghan's Orchard do? Give everyone the pip?
To launch a brand such as this, you must be popular and admired, you need a roaring army of fans to build your brand, you need to have the pulling power of someone like Jeremy Clarkson.
I've seen with my own eyes how hundreds of people will queue for two hours just to buy a bag of Jeremy's potatoes from Jeremy's farm because Jeremy grew them.
Can Meghan inspire the same devotion in her public? We will find our next month when the site launches at last. In the meantime, here's what I imagine we are in for …
The Candle of Grievance (£86)
Beautifully housed in a reclaimed jar, this soy wax candle is impregnated with crystal petals which make a sobbing sound when they burn. Light it for a frenemy, light it for yourself, lighten up for God's sake.
With top notes of prickly thorn and a dry down of sour grapes, this will fill your space with a keen sense of injustice that lingers long. Burn time: three years and counting.
This soy wax candle is impregnated with crystal petals which make a sobbing sound when they burn
Shearling Noise Cancellation Headphones (£256)
A sophisticated solution to plugging your fingers in your ears and shouting, 'la la la, not listening'. Instead, pop on these fluffy beauties and marinate longer in your own thoughts, be they petty or ever so grand. Lined with hand-milked muskrat silk to keep your lobes toasty. Accessorised with opals for emotional amplification.
Dog Bowl Padded Ruff (£99.99)
Have you ever worried that someone might burst into your kitchen and throw you on the dog bowl without a by-your-leave? If so, this is the gadget for you. Simply clip this velvet padded ruff around your dog bowl, ready to cushion your fall in any emergency. Made from a repurposed ceremonial robe no longer needed. Available with sustainably farmed ermine trim, apply for details.
Mood Bracelet (£799)
Multi-strand quartz bracelet that will help align your chakras and promote calm. Featuring rose quartz for unconditional love, malachite for pure odium, cellulite for self-acceptance and compassion and cherry quartz for cherry picking fights.
The mood bracelet - rose quartz for unconditional love, malachite for pure odium, cellulite for self-acceptance and compassion and cherry quartz for cherry picking fights
Ohm Alert Portable Meditation Set (small £55, med £75, large £95)
Featuring a pre-loved cardboard box inscribed with the words Meditation In Progress, Do Not Disturb. Using her formidable calligraphy skills, the Duchess of Sussex personally inscribed each box herself, turning this practical aid to meditation on the move into a valuable collector's item.
Wherever you are, simply pop the box on your head to create a safe space for chanting personal development mantras, manifesting, lucid dreaming and grounding the ego. (Limited edition autographed version, £100 extra.)
Silent Not Silenced Revenge Diaries (£125 each)
Set of thick-lined diary notebooks for journalling, collecting evidence, settling scores and keeping secret lists of potential royal racists. Each volume comes with a special 'unconscious bias' section and an enemy index.
A set of thick-lined diary notebooks for journalling, collecting evidence, settling scores and keeping secret lists of potential royal racists
Hummingbird Sage Dishwash Soap (£38)
In honour of the moment when 11-year-old Meghan changed the world by writing to Procter & Gamble about a sexist dishwashing liquid ad. Has she mentioned this before? 5p off orders of 12 bottles or more. Discounts for the unwaged.
Merrie Olde England Gourmet Section
The Duchess of Sussex is thrilled to introduce her own recipes and culinary ideas to entertain and delight. Included is Marry Me Roast Chicken, featuring the exact roast chicken and sacred herbs Meghan was cooking when Harry proposed.
Look out, too, for a family favourite called the Frozen Wieners Supper and a spectacular Japanese Puffer Fish dish that Meghan liked to serve to her in-laws, followed by Hard Cheese and Simply Crackers.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Meghan Markle Merch: artisanal lavender dog soap, anyone?
Kate Middleton news derails Meghan Markle’s
big plan
The global outpouring of
goodwill for the Princess of Wales as she fights cancer may leave Meghan Markle
in a very difficult position.
Are you in need of a new dog lead or
meditation cushion or wine carrier or drawer organisers or marmalade or a bird
feeder? How are you doing for pet shampoo, lanterns and tisanes?
If you are then, boy, do I have some good
news for you. Meghan the Duchess of Sussex has heard your cries and
soon you could be able to buy all this and much, much more from her new
American Riviera Orchard (ARO) lifestyle brand.
Those industrious sorts over at the Daily
Mail have somehow gotten their hands on ARO’s trademark application which
for the first time reveals the scope and ambition of the duchess’ first major
solo commercial project and golly gosh it’s a big ‘un.
To which I say, amen. Build it and they will
hopefully come and spend money. Dream big and then embroider it on a pillow you
can sell at a massive mark-up. I am all in on the return of Business Meghan seven years after she shuttered her blog The
Tig, even if that was blandly derivative.
Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle
brand American Riviera Orchard will have quite the array of goods.
However, in the ten days since ARO’s Instagram
debut, the world tilted on its axis with Kate the Princess of Wales’ announcement that she has cancer.
How could the incredible global deluge of
support and sudden lovey-dovey messages of goodwill for the princess affect the
public reception of ARO?
Basically, will discerning shoppers fork over
large wodges of hard-earned cash for artisanal lavender dog soap to a woman who
is not on speaking with Kate? And who has spent the last few years chipping
away at Kate’s image?
No launch date has yet been revealed for ARO
but it mustn’t be far off.
For the better part of the last year reports
have circulated that Meghan was beavering away at some entrepreneurial online
turn with the only oblique hints being that it would be authentic and whatnot.
Meghan Markle's new lifestyle
brand, seen in a promotional video posted to Instagram. Picture: American
No matter what best laid plans might have
been drawn up, just over a week later, on March 22, Kate released her video – the internet reeled and the
Church of England sat down to write a special prayer (truly) to wish the
princess a speedy recovery.
The worldwide reaction to the video has been
truly incredible to witness.
It has been viewed 197.5 million times on the
Then came the hand-wringing and the
self-flagellating with millions worrying about the consequence of their gleeful
reposting of bonkers Kate theories and speculation.
The end result of all this sympathy and
suddenly caring bleating is that Kate has basically been deified in only a few
days.
The Princess of Wales
revealing she is undergoing treatment for cancer. Picture:
So where does this leave Meghan and ARO? Could this dramatic volte face of
feeling towards Kate have an impact on her business’ debut?
Join me as we really get into the weeds here.
The
Whatever is happening back in Blighty has
nothing to do with whatever the duke and duchess are doing.
Kate, William, Harry and
Meghan reunited briefly after the Queen died in September 2022 but relations
have remained strained since. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
However, the other argument goes, get real.
That’s a wilfully naive interpretation.
For years, the
While Crown Inc. and Harry’s relatives were
unconsciously biased, frigidly cold in the face of personal suffering and
emotionally constipated, the
Harry and Meghan with their Oprah interview,
Netflix series and the duke’s memoir Spare, offered a deeply
unflattering portrayal of William and Kate claiming that they had encouraged
Harry to dress up as a Nazi, William had attacked Harry, Kate had made Meghan
cry and in one shocking incident currently under investigation by the European
Commission, Kate was reluctant to share her lip gloss with Meghan. (
In November last year, the Dutch version of
highly sympathetic Sussex biographer Omid Scobie’s Endgame named King
Charles and Kate as having commented about the Sussexes’ son Prince Archie’s
skin colour. The duke and duchess did not comment on the claim push back in any
way.
The
Given this history, this story, the image
that Meghan has cultivated post-Megxit is the yin to Kate’s yang, what could
this mean for ARO’s launch?
In this climate, will Meghan pitching herself
as a cosy domestic goddess with perfect taste land with shoppers and see the
orders stream in? Or could there be some sort of shopping protest vote, so to
speak, with people staying away from ARO out of sympathy for the Princess of
Wales?
Will support for Kate see the credit-card toting
masses boycott or avoid ARO? Or is Meghan’s
(I have said it before and I will say it
again for anyone who needs to hear it – the Duchess of Sussex has sublime
style.)
It’s interesting to note that to date, ARO
has attracted 570,000 Instagram followers, despite no content aside from that
first video. That’s a truly impressive figure until you realise that in 2019
when Harry and Meghan launched @SussexRoyal, they set a Guinness world record
for reaching one million followers in five hours and 45 minutes, then the
shortest time ever. (Jennifer Aniston later broke that record.)
And William and Kate? They have gained just
shy of one million new followers this year alone.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a
royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of
Beware the Helping Hand (or: How to Make a Crazy Quilt)
I just had one of those godawful internet experiences of losing a few thousand words I labored over for the entire evening – because I forgot to hit “update”. I was adding it to a previously-published post, so it wouldn’t automatically save as a draft. So it didn’t. But I will make an attempt at piecing it back together. The gifs are random and just a way to break up the block of text.
Have you ever had a relative you tolerated, even tried to be nice to, strictly because they were kin and you didn’t feel you had a choice? I had one of those, but no more. I had to unload this person for the sake of my – excuse me – “mental health”.
And the whole thing is so ironic, in light of what went down, and why.
My sister-in-law, my husband’s brother’s wife, whom I will call Janie, is what used to be called a “ busybody” – happily probing into everyone else’s business, then passing along the most sensitive bleeding chunks of information with relish, especially if it would serve her in some way. And this did.
She would phone me. For the past 30+ years, at least three or four times a year, she’d phone me, and talk, and talk, and talk, in her rattling-on, self-involved way – which was irritating enough – but it was worse than that. I don’t know how some people do this, but she was adept at extracting information from people – me in particular. When I’d finally get off the phone with her, which always took a lot of effort, I’d always have the feeling that I never should have told her any of that stuff. But somehow it came out. Like a robin pulling a worm out of the ground, she somehow got things out of me, largely from asking questions so none-of-her-business that you somehow answered her because you couldn’t quite believe what she just said.
This has taken a turn just lately because she started to follow my Facebook posts, and leave likes and comments on the majority of them. Some of them were nice, but mostly they gave me that cloying feeling. She was fastening on. Coat-tailing, they used to call it. Even reading her comments made me feel drained. After she read my Facebook post on “Why I Hate Mental Health” (because it has become a shallow, meaningless buzzword), she phoned me (of course! She always phones me!), and began to talk. Oh yes, I was so right! Oh yes, the mental health care system is terrible! And as it turned out, she has taken it upon herself to become a Mental Health Crusader, and has joined some sort of board of directors and gets up at board meetings and tells Tales of Terror from the Crypt of Mental Illness.
I should have been clued in when she said she told them all about her close friend, a woman with schizophrenia whose doctor changed her meds, leading her to attempt suicide so she had to be hospitalized. She told this in colorful detail, which I am sure must have really impressed her pals at the board meeting, but while she was rattling on, my guts began to squirm.
Did Janie, um, like, ask permission to say these things? Did her close friend want those painful episode brought up and trotted out as an example of How the System Fails the Mentally Ill? I had no idea, but my stomach-squirm turned out to be prescient.
That’s the thing, Janie remembers stuff. God, does she remember. This was the kind of thing I would tell her, oh, maybe 30 years ago, but she filed it all away. But there it was again, dredged up, fresh as paint, raw and red and glistening. She then said she told this psychiatric horror story at her board meeting, in an attempt to raise funds for one of her pet projects, Feed the Criminally Insane or something. No kidding, she told my story to impress the board.
But there was just one problem. More than one, really, but the main one is this: it never happened. She took several different stories I wish I had never told her and conflated them, stitched them together, “curated” them into the ultimate horror story, when in reality the hospital corridor thing (which was only one night) happened in 1982, and the crisis line thing happened in an entirely different setting (NOT a hospital) in 2004. And never did I ever crawl on my hands and knees. I walked, until some nurse shouted at me “GET BACK INTO BED!” (which was bad enough, but still not crawling). So the most RECENT story, told in very garbled form, happened 20 years ago. Out of these rags and tatters, she stitched together a crazy quilt of horror that was much more colorful and impressive than anything that actually happened.
But this time it was different. I had had it with Janie. Forever. I just couldn’t pretend to be nice to her any more and just told her to STOP dragging up stuff from the past that I’m trying to forget about! And I tell you, she was very upset. I was raining on her social worker/self-righteous-charity-lady parade, thwarting her shining quest to Speak for Those who Cannot Speak for Themselves, the powerless, the stigmatized, the crawling dregs of society!
I don’t remember yelling at her any time before in all those dozens or hundreds of annoying one-sided phone calls, but I did it this time, and she was not only astonished but actually quite offended. What?? I’m not grateful for her selfless service to The Cause? I didn’t want to help her save every mental patient who ever crawled along the floor in a psych ward? Well, no, Janie. I don't. She finally said, “QUIT SHOUTING AT ME! I heard you the first time, so you can just stop ranting at me!”
At that point, I hung up. I immediately blocked her on Facebook, then deleted her furious email response unread, though the first line gave the impression of a tiny little person jumping up and down and screaming. The exclamation points were practically flying off the page. So that’s the end of Janie, and I now realize I never DID have to have any sort of relationship with her. I just felt like a captive audience. I never wanted to talk to her on the phone, yet for years and years I let it happen, and she went right on studying and extracting and collating her crystalline memories of fuckups that happened to me forty years ago. (Or maybe they didn't, but it sure sounded good that way.) I’m fascinating, you see. I’m a live one. Right there in the jar, on the end of the assembly line. So her scientific little busybody mind could poke, prod, and finally present the results of her laboratory experiment to the Board of Directors, with the final goal of getting a cash grant for all her psychiatric charity work.
I've left out a few bits and pieces, but because it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to, I'll add this. On the phone, Janie recounted how she was gathering funds for her Mental Health Event (bake sale, rodeo, nude swim), and someone dared to joke at her, saying "so are you crazy too?" or something equally devastating. Janie told him to FUCK OFF, turned on her heel and walked away. (This was in public.) She recounted this proudly, as if to elicit oohs and ahhs from me, exclamations of how brave, how gutsy, oh my, you go girl, etc. Ohhhh, thank you so much for standing up for me, speaking for those incapable of speaking for themselves! (At the same time, do you notice anything here? ANY implication AT ALL that she herself has a mental health condition is outrageous and abusive and causes her to fly into a public fury.)
Janie has never been popular in my family. No one says it out loud, because we’re not that sort of family, but everyone has had a “story” at some point. Bill’s sister Judy once told me in a sort of muttering voice that she saw Janie in her kitchen, opening each kitchen cupboard and each kitchen drawer and snooping around in the contents. She said it was like an inspection. Mostly the muttered complaints were about the fact that they never saw her husband (was he being held hostage somewhere?), and her busy-body-ness and general obliviousness to other people’s feelings. Then I heard the incredible story from Bill’s brother that Janie had once been in a cult, complete with shaved head, mantras, sexually-abusive gurus, and whatever else they have in cults. It struck me as strange, as she doesn’t strike me as someone who would take orders from anyone – or was it a sort of School for Cult Leaders, and she was studying for a degree?
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Friday, March 22, 2024
Predators hiding in plain sight: subtle exploitation on social media
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(I wrote this post after I had to block someone who was following my Facebook page very closely. I was later to discover she had used much of my most sensitive material for her own gain. That's not allowed. But it got me to thinking.)
Maybe I should title this "things you shouldn't share on social media". It's a timely subject, particularly in light of the fact that we're now realizing that "delete" doesn't really mean "delete", that people can screenshot and save anything you post and use it for whatever purpose they choose, even years and years later - and in whatever distorted form they want to.
I have no complaint with sharing stuff that's sensitive, and I've done quite a bit of it myself over the years. This has led some people to believe that because I brought up certain subjects, I am quite willing to share EVERYTHING that has EVER happened to me in that area, including things that I went through literally decades ago.
But treating someone's most sensitive reflections as if they are in the public domain is - what shall I say? - quite hazardous, and I am learning that the hard way. This is particularly true if the person unearthing these archival incidents is not sharing ANY of their own personal struggles, but is hiding behind a sort of social worker position. When that happens, I feel "studied", and it's not sharing on any meaningful level. It is not identification, and it is the farthest thing from empathy that I can imagine.
We talk about boundaries, but in the Wild West of social media, it seems like boundaries are beginning to dissolve. I have shared some things on my blog that I honestly thought were OK to repost here (it's easy and can be done with the click of a button) - but my blog is personal, my following small, and generally speaking the content won't be held up for scrutiny in the same way.
Another issue that comes up a lot is the value of going public. It used to be seen as really admirable, but it's a whole new ballgame now. Back when I wrote columns for community newspapers, one or two people might appreciate what I wrote or how much of myself I shared. Now it's simply "out there", or up there, where people can either misinterpret it, or just assume I am willing to reveal more (and more and more!) about myself and be comfortable having others use it for their own gain.
Several years ago I dumped Facebook because it had become a drag that wasn't adding anything to my life. Now I honestly wonder how much it might be taking away. I know a lot of people who have stopped posting, perhaps wisely. If I do partake of this, I won't assume things I wrote five or ten years ago will have the same impact. Things have changed radically, and we must watch out for people who are, in a subtle way. predators.
Maybe cat videos and the odd family photo might be safer for me here, as I realizes now I don't want to be public property, even in the most minor way. I'll also make an effort to pay more attention to my own discomfort, and not allow even the most subtle form of exploitation to take place.
For that is what it is.
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Love Walked In. . . and it never left.
It shouldn’t surprise me too much that I’ve fallen down the Gershwin
rabbit hole once again. It was a full nine years ago I became fascinated,
devouring every book I could find on the boy genius’s life and art (including
Oscar Levant’s fanboy adulation), and of course immersed myself in his astoundingly powerful music.
So here he is again, all because of the comment I just received from a woman who is related to Alan Schneider, the man who for decades posed as George’s illegitimate son. Wow. DNA doesn’t lie, does it? And for all the criticism of the internet, all the ranting about the evils of social media, this could not have happened without Blogger, a nearly-obsolete program (or maybe it’s an app, whatever THAT is) and my 12+ of posting on it nearly every day.
Through this magic portal, I once received an email from a woman in
Then after my usual bloodhound effort, I found SOMETHING in a very old
newspaper archive from 60 years ago. Yes. They had published the winner of a
poetry contest, and the thing was written by two people (can’t remember their
names), and there it was – the elephant poem, in a newspaper archive in
Getting back to Gershwin. I won’t repeat all the ins and outs of it,
except to say I felt – believed – I had some sort of mystical connection to
him. I felt his presence, shy at first, then gradually coming closer, a sort of warmth, and a kind of yearning to be heard, believed, understood. After his untimely and gruesome death of an inoperable brain tumour in
1938, people began to “see” him about town, hurrying along a busy street,
hanging about at music festivals dedicated to his songs, and even – I swear –
playing a piano that was NOT a player piano. Several people saw it, and they
knew it was him.
My own connection with Gershwin’s ghost deepened and broadened, and it was exceptionally beautiful and mysterious - until I made the mistake of sharing it with someone I knew, a university prof (I had taken his anthropology course) and self-styled spiritualist medium. What he said was a slap in the face. It was a fantasy, a dream, I was imagining the whole thing to try to gain credence as a spiritualist. (I wasn’t.) Then he pulled rank, as he often did, citing his superior education (two Masters degrees and a PhD) and the fact that I had a psychiatric condition (and he didn’t) that made me prone to fantasy.
So George went away for a while. But where he is now, there is no time,
which is extremely convenient for me (I’m still in my fleshly form, after all).
So is he here again?
Why not? Paul Biscop isn’t. Paul died suddenly about eight years ago, dropped
in his tracks with a stroke and was dead before he hit the ground, His partner
of 20 years, also called Paul, emailed me with the news, so I must have still
been on file somewhere (in case he needed someone to harass). Paul had died
suddenly, he said, and we should pray for his soul. But then I saw something on
Facebook that shocked me: a page for a spiritualist church that Paul Biscop had
actually founded, and from which he stomped away years ago because people
weren’t doing it right, were listening to their own hearts rather than slavishly
following what he told them to do (and when and where),.
Paul was dead, and I wasn’t sorry, but there was more to it than that,
and it was awful. The posts from the spiritualist church (and very few had
posted their condolences, likely still feeling burned by his narcissistic
bullying) sent out an urgent call for financial help for his long-time partner.
Paul Biscop had left him with a massive debt that he had known nothing about,
and the other Paul was now literally homeless and left with nothing.
So the church set up a GoFundMe page which only garnered a few hundred dollars. The church did not host his memorial - that was held in a Masonic lodge, and the lady on the Facebook page stated that there would be a table set up in the back selling Paul’s books (no doubt on anthropology and other dry topics) to try to earn some funds for his now-destitute partner.
OK, this is very long, but I’m on a roll here The thing is, I of course
never abandoned Gershwin’s music (my two favorite pieces are the Cuban Overture
and the stunningly beautiful Love Walked In), but his presence had faded as if
he too had been stung and had to retreat. But it’s OK now, George, I still love
you and feel you and know you are immortal. You ring in those songs, songs that
will never die. Like a latter-day Mozart, he would sit at the piano composing,
then play the piece that same night in a concert hall. His improvisations were
heard only once in human history, because they were different each time. This
is what I was originally going to write about, but now – hell, I am exhausted
already from visiting the past, something I try not to do these days.
Past-tripping can be counterproductive and even traumatic, and the reason it’s called the past is because it has PASSED. So I will try to get on with my day, such as it is (plunged back into the rabbit hole), and of course I will revisit the music I never quite walked away from.
Love walked in, and it is apparent to me now that it never left.
LOST AND FOUND: The Mystery of Alan Gershwin (update: NINE YEARS later!)
Late to the thread. I had my dna done a few years back and the closest dna relative to me was a fellow named Alan Gershwin (never heard of him) Did some research and learned Alan was born Albert Schneider, and was either my great uncle, or my mother’s first cousin. Mom’s maiden name is Schneider. Albert, my mom and her siblings were all born in Brooklyn. I found and spoke to “Alan Gershwin’s’ son (we matched dna and he is my first cousin) He wasn’t close with his dad and said he only got in touch to borrow money. Kind of a con man. Alan/Albert was never the same after the war, dishonorably discharged and returned convinced he was GGs son. Mom’s turning 100 and has Alzheimer’s and her sibling are dead, so I might never find out why he was never spoken about in our family… he was kept secret.
What an amazing story! Thank you so much for sharing it with me. I've been blogging for 12 years or so (and I know blogs have gone out of style, but so have I) and never got so many responses to a single post. When I get comments on posts I wrote NINE years ago, it truly amazes me. This one is still an unsolved mystery, though it surprises me how many people weighed in on it, each from a different angle and some with an eerily close connection to the enigma. I do wonder if he truly believed he WAS George's son, particularly towards the end of his life, and had been abandoned by his famous father. Or was it indeed just an elaborate con? Surely the myth would gain powerful sympathy from some quarters, and he DID compose one piece of music that we know of. Someone else told me he played the piano, but badly. I have come to the conclusion his story likely wasn't true, but he obviously put great energy into maintaining the narrative. At any rate, wow. This is truly incredible, and to learn all this after nine years has just lit up my morning.
This might be categorized as a Separated at Birth of a very different stripe.
I love a mystery, but this mystery has pushed me back time and time again, leading to more frustration than information.
I've been chopping my way through several of the multitude of George Gershwin biographies. Surely no American composer has ever been more sliced, diced, hashed and rehashed than GG. I finally found my way to the really smutty one (The Memory of All That, 1998) by Joan Peyser, the one that reviewers vilified for being inaccurate and making "outrageous claims", including the insistence that GG sired an illegitimate son with a chorus girl in 1926.
One indignant review of the Peyser book sniffily claims that "the family has never recognized Alan Gershwin's claim to their", etc., etc., blah blah blah, but why would they? The stigma of an illegitimate child could ruin a career back then. No doubt the woods were full of opportunists and pretenders, not to mention gold-diggers. After his death, GG's affairs (literally) were hermetically sealed by Ira and Lee Gershwin, his brother and sister-in-law, who lived a long time and were bound and determined to show only the more brilliant facets of this enigmatic jewel to the public.
That restriction remained in place long after both of them were dead.
Strangely enough, in subsequent reviews and commentaries on Peyser's book, critics have become more forgiving. Over time, her formerly sleazy tell-all has found its way into the Gershwin canon (not the boom-boom kind: I keep telling you!). A three-inch-thick Gershwin tome by Howard Pollack, the "definitive" bio until the next one comes along, admits Peyser's scholarship is a bit wonky, but nevertheless cites her work three or four times in a fairly straightforward manner. It's included, which in itself lends her work validity. By some mysterious process that I don't understand, her controversial, vilified, preposterous and completely discounted biography now "counts".
Could it be that she got it right?
But here's the thing. When I try to dig up some hard, plausible evidence that Alan Gershwin exists, or ever did exist, I can't find anything. There is a glorious photo gallery of "someone" - the photographer claims it's AG - taken when he would have been 88 years old. The fine facial bone structure that has kept him photogenic all these years is a trait he shares with George (who never had the misfortune of growing old). But I can't post these, they're protected by the web site, and there's no text with them that I can find. Nothing to explain the photos. Nothing at all.
The few sites I found that even mention Alan Gershwin now identify him as "son of George", not "supposed" or "alleged" or any of that. No one seems to question it any more. But except for a claim to be a composer in his own right, this man of nearly 90 left very little trace. I found a YouTube video of just one piece he wrote called The Gettysburg Anthem, performed a few years ago at a small church for a commemorative Lincoln event. But the piece was composed FIFTY years ago - a bit longer than the time it took for GG to snatch his notation paper off the piano and perform it in public the same night. In his case, the smoke was still rising, the ink was still wet.
And that is all. No more videos. No more compositions. Nothing. I modestly have to tell you that there is a hell of a lot more of MY stuff on the internet, maybe because I don't know when to keep my mouth shut.
Tantalyzingly, there is a Facebook page that had me racing to find it, but in essence there's nothing on it except a link to a review from the late 1990s of the Peyser bio, one of the very few positive ones that thought her claims of an illegitimate son were valid.
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There's also a cropped photo of AG's mouth, the feature that most resembles GG's. Hmmmmm.
If you're to believe this strange and ultimately unproven story, people would see the young Alan Gershwin and nearly fall over backwards because they thought they were seeing a mini-George. Imagine what a shock it must have been after GG's untimely death in 1937. Alan Gershwin was a walking stigma, or else just an oddity with a chance resemblance. But it wasn't just the way he wore his hat, the way he sipped his tea. His gait, his way of inhabiting his lanky body, his nervous energy and the smile that made you hear bells and the intoxicating rattledy-bang of trains - they really did seem to match up.
Or did they?
AG has never submitted to a DNA test. And of course, there are lots of examples of the Separated at Birth phenomenon (many of which I've posted here) that are almost creepy in their similarity.
Might AG be one of these? Now that he has aged, the resemblance isn't quite so startling, except at certain angles. The photo most widely circulated plays that up.
And yet, and yet.
One of the tidbits I found, deep in the archives of a website called The Blacklisted Journalist, was this piece of information, true or not:
Alan Gershwin was born in Brooklyn on May 18th, 1926, his birth certificate recorded in the name of Albert Schneider, with Mollie Schneider, Alan's mother's sister, listed as his mother.
In Alan's early years and during his occasional visits with his famous father, Gershwin could never find the courage to acknowledge Alan as his son and introduced Alan as a "son of a friend".
For what appears to be endless years, Alan waged a futile battle for full acknowledgement. And while the evidence is overwhelming, denials rage on.
After a sad childhood, lacking even a shred of his father's musical genius, Alan approaches the waning segment of his life still hoping the world will, at the very least, announce him as "the son of George Gershwin," not Gershwin's "son of a friend."
Now that the world is paying at least a scrap of attention, at least enough to take his picture and set up an empty Facebook page, perhaps Alan Gershwin (IF he's Alan Gershwin) feels vindicated. Believe me when I say that I am a bloodhound, and if there is any more information to be found, I will find it. But I haven't found it yet.
Some people coat-tail all their lives, and it's sad. Meanwhile, a weird thing has happened: Alan Gershwin has morphed into someone who looks sort of like George's grandfather, if grandsons bore that much resemblance (which they don't).
In fact, in a rare photo of George's father, we see no resemblance at all.
Just when I am ready to write this off as a strange posthumous form of stalking, I think of Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh was a bona fide American hero, an aviator who flew solo from New York to Paris in 1927. Tickertape parade, picture on the cover of Time, the whole works. (Except Time probably didn't exist then.) Though he was supposedly happily married to the longsuffering Anne Morrow Lindbergh, rumors dogged him throughout his life that he in fact had several families scattered all over Europe, and that he had fathered, according to the garbled information I found, either four, five or nine illegitimate children (along with the six he had with Anne). These rumors seemed as preposterous as the murmurings that he was a Nazi sympathizer, until the surviving children took DNA tests in the mid-2000s and proved to the world that it was all true.
This one is truly bizarre, one of the strangest photographs I have ever seen. I have no idea where it came from, who took it, and why. Like all the other shreds I found, there's no explanation for it. It appears to be a shot of Alan Gershwin's face in profile, directly behind that of his father, perhaps made as a deliberate comparison. This would have been hard to accomplish, I mean technically, back in the day, so it may be a sophisticated form of photoshopping. The scribbles all over it are somewhat similar to the scrawling George liked to do when he gave someone a photo. He was even known to write little musical phrases, like-a so:
Or were the scribbles by George himself? Unlikely - they're big and sloppy and nothing like George's small, neat, upright hand. (Sidebar note: apparently George's original manuscripts were as immaculate as Mozart's, often without a single correction.) They also obscure the photo, which would have driven him crazy. In spite of the dash and verve of his music, his vibe suggests to me obsessive attention to detail and an insistence on order. On top of that, like most geniuses he was an inherently narcissistic personality who needed the world to see that incredibly beautiful face.
So we are left to compare basic features: the flattish face, the aristocratic high-bridged nose with its handsome Jewishness, the long clean jaw reminiscent of a movie star's. The sloping forehead with its receding hairline. The sweet, sad, expressive eyes that one jilted girl friend described as "heavenly". But most of all, and perhaps this is why it is on the FB banner, the "Hapsburg lip", pouty, sensual and a little sardonic. George had a killer mouth, with the kind of insolently brilliant smile that would light up a foggy day in London Town, or anywhere else.
What do you think? Are you with me here? Am *I* even with me here? Due to the frustrating lack of information, I don't think I will ever know for sure.
Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
BONUS! Just found an incredible version of the "superimposed" GG with Alan Gershwin. It was for sale on Etsy, of all things, for five bucks, an "original", and that's all it said. The mystery deepens. . .
THIS IS HUGE! Recently I sadly learned of the passing of Alan Gershwin. But with his death, yet more mystery is emerging. Anyone who is interested in this strange case should read the article by David Margolick from the New York Times. The mystery may be solved - or is AA more enigmatic than ever?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html
comments:
Mathew PaustApril 9, 2015 at 1:22 PM
HmmmmmmmReplyDelete
Margaret GunningApril 9, 2015 at 2:02 PM
Double-hmmmmm!ReplyDelete
MarcJanuary 9, 2016 at 2:02 PM
I met AG at a Bar Mitzvah at which I was performing with my band in 1999. I talked to him for a while, and he sent me an autographed photo of himself at an age when he looked remarkably like GG. The inscription reads, "For Marc Sherman, on behalf of my illustrious father, I am musically yours, Alan C. Gershwin. 10/22/99" I've read the Peyser book, and have always wondered why AG never submitted to a DNA test, unless it was the GG family that refused to cooperate.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningJanuary 9, 2016 at 4:19 PM
Fascinating! I have mixed feelings about this whole subject. The man seems to live through Gershwin, as if being his (perhaps) son has been his whole life. And yet, there is a guy going around who looks more like Obama than Obama. Lookalikes can make a very good living at it. So I am not sure, especially since he balks at the DNA test. I am re-reading the Peyser right now. I have seen some reviews of it (which are still on the internet, a lot of them for some reason) from when it first came out, and everyone blasted it as heresy. The level of fury tended to say there was some denial going on. The critics protested too much, not wanting "their" George sullied by such possibilities as being hung from the ceiling and whipped by Kay Swift. But more recent Gershwin bios are citing/quoting Peyser as if her ideas have gained more credence in the interim. I get the impression GG has been hermetically sealed by the family for a very long time, adding to his mystery. There is so much we still don't know. He seems to have had the x-factor that makes a genius, whereas Berlin, Arlen, et al. aren't much known to the younger generation. I mean: White Christmas, versus I Got Rhythm/Rhapsody in Blue? Anyway, I am deep in another George phase right now and back on the fox hunt, posting like mad. Tally-ho! (Oh, and - did AG ever really write any music? There is one YouTube vid which purports to have a performance of a very old choral piece, but I am not sure about it.)Delete
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MarcJanuary 9, 2016 at 9:59 PM
I don't know if AG has/had any musical talent or not. There is that Gettysburg Anthem that he composed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INFRrUopSIU.
I did see a video of him banging (and I do mean banging) on a piano once.
He declined to sing with my band, and doesn't play any musical instrument as far as I know.
BTW, I performed my mini version of Rhapsody in Blue at 2 concerts today.ReplyDelete
Margaret GunningJanuary 9, 2016 at 11:05 PM
Where do you play? Piano? RiB is immortal, I think.
I am starting to wonder if AG is a pretender. He seems like a sad figure, living only through his "father", and the stories in the Peyser book seem a bit contrived.
She doesn't get into the "was he gay or wasn't he?", to which I answer, WHO CARES?ReplyDelete
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MarcJanuary 10, 2016 at 8:42 AM
I perform in the Philadelphia area and surrounding counties (Bucks and Montgomery), plus South Jersey.Delete
MarcJanuary 10, 2016 at 8:45 AM
You can hear samples of my piano playing here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/MarcShermanDelete
Margaret GunningJanuary 10, 2016 at 10:48 AM
This comment has been removed by the author.Delete
Margaret GunningJanuary 10, 2016 at 10:52 AM
That's OK, I found the CD site! Enjoying it. My piano teacher told my mother I was "unteachable", so to hear this kind of expertise is wonderful!Delete
Margaret GunningJanuary 10, 2016 at 11:00 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgApJUs7DA4 Don't know if this will work - a YouTube video of Love Walked In, my current fave GG, sung in Russian. Wonderful arrangement, beautifully sung.Delete
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UnknownApril 1, 2016 at 12:28 AM
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningApril 1, 2016 at 12:46 AM
Then again, AG refuses to take a DNA test, as does William Shatner's "son" who is suing him for x-million dollars. It may be one of the hazards of fame. Another "thing" that comes up with Gershwin is "was he or wasn't he gay?" Personally I don't care, and the answer may be "yes" (both ways), but does it really matter now? We have the music.Delete
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UnknownApril 16, 2016 at 8:19 AM
He is not gay. George or Alan Gershwin. So before you speak stupidly get your facts straight. Alan is a very difficult man but he is very lovely. It is amazing to know him and k would never change that. If you only had the privilege and be as blessed as I am.ReplyDelete
UnknownJanuary 29, 2017 at 10:14 PM
YOU NOT ONLY RESEMBLE HIM PERFECTLY , BUT YOU HAVE THE TOTALITY OF ALL HIS MUSICAL TALENTS .= MARZZY-' the lady's with me 'ReplyDelete
KATHARINE WEBERApril 22, 2017 at 5:28 AM
Alan Gershwin is a living person who has had a very hard life. The nonsense here about his "refusal to submit" to DNA testing gets it exactly wrong. The Gershwin family have never been willing to provide anything for him to be tested against. It has been his lifelong hope to be able to prove his heritage. Joan Peyser searched desperately for a way to get this testing done while she was writing her problematic book (for which the superimposed double profile photo was created). Peyser asked me repeatedly if I possessed anything of my grandmother Kay Swift's that might have George's DNA. She was particularly hopeful for any envelope or postcard that might have a stamp George himself had licked. I had nothing for her, as my grandmother destroyed all letters and photos after George's death in order to preserve privacy. There is no certainty about Alan's claim, but there is much to suggest he is indeed George's son. Kay Swift, who met him when he was a child at least twice, would never make a public statement about this but she certainly never denied his claim.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningApril 22, 2017 at 10:47 AM
Thank you for your comments. I especially value your perspective as Kay Swift's granddaughter. She in some ways reminds me of Mozart's sister Nannerl, who never achieved her rightful place in musical history. Would I be correct in saying the Gershwin family are still trying to negate AG's existence, or at least keep him a secret? Even in the age of Google it is difficult to find any information about his life. At any rate, I found Peyser's book a mixed experience, with some claims that seemed over the top or even downright gossipy. But other bios were almost too reverent, gingerly tiptoeing around anything that would disturb the legend. Others hyperfocused on the music, brushing past problematic areas in GG's personal life. Peyser waded right in there fearlessly, and from what I can dig up, the critics absolutely clobbered her. Now, she is being cautiously reconsidered as a valid biographer, perhaps because of that lack of intimidation (and - just maybe - validation of some of her more outrageous claims). GG's early death must be a factor, and the fact that he was so quintessentially American, reflecting the lavish blooming of musical culture in the '20s-'30s. I also wrote many (many!) posts about Oscar Levant, who in many ways couldn't have existed without GG. But in finding out more about Levant, I couldn't help but gain deeper insight into GG. "Upper berth, lower berth - the difference between talent and genius", indeed.Delete
Gregory MooreMay 17, 2017 at 5:51 PM
Alan is alive and well, having just turned 91 years old this week. He's been a friend of mine for several years. He lives with his long-time 'lady-friend," Blossom Tracy (who's 96--and the last wife of Arthur "The Street Singer" Tracy) in NYC. They're certainly one of New York's most colorful couples. I'm a musical scholar...and do you know what? I believe him! When I look at his face, there is no denying there is a strong physical resemblance. I choose to believe him and give him the benefit of the doubt--as I would hate to have it someday be proven that he IS George Gershwin's son--and I was one of the people who didn't believe him. He keeps a pretty sunny outlook, most times...though he does have sort of a cloud of sadness about him. What an awful thing it would be, to have the world deny you your own birthright, wouldn't it? Incidentally, that photo superimposition was originally run in CONFIDENTIAL MAGAZINE in the mid-1950's--they ran an entire article about him, which I could send you if you're interested. In any case, thank you for shining the light on this under-reported musical mystery. I believe you, Alan!Delete
Margaret GunningMay 17, 2017 at 9:14 PM
Please do! I would love to see it. I find this whole subject fascinating. I wasn't expecting this many intriguing comments, including a recent one from Katharine Weber, Kay Swift's granddaughter. I went through a real GG phase in my writing and tried to see him through various lenses, especially the people around him.http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2015/04/stalking-gershwin-julias-story.html I do appreciate your comments and believe you're fortunate to know Alan Gershwin. I'm becoming more convinced all the time! Your description of "a pretty sunny outlook, most times. . . though he does have a sort of cloud of sadness about him" reminds me a lot of people's descriptions of George Gershwin. No matter how many biographies you read, it's very hard to get close to a sense of how he really was. To my surprise, I learned that he appeared to many people (including Ira, who was terrified) as a ghost after he died, no doubt due to all that unfinished business. Anyway, thanks!Delete
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JennyMay 23, 2017 at 12:24 PM
Just saw this page. I knew Alan Gershwin when I lived in NY. When I knew him he was selling copies of that double profile portrait ... autograph extra.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMay 23, 2017 at 12:57 PM
I've received so many comments on this post from people who know/knew Alan Gershwin. He remains a mysterious figure to me. Thank you for your contribution to the enigma.Delete
UnknownAugust 23, 2017 at 1:01 AM
ALAN GERSHWIN IS NOT AN ' E N I G M A ' ; BUT RATHER IS A REAL ' L I V E ' FLESH AND BLOOD INDIVIDUAL , WHOM NOT ONLY LOOKS LIKE HIS FATHER ; ' GEORGE GERSHWIN ' BUT ALSO HAS THE SAME MUSICAL TALENTS OF HIS FATHER ! I KNOW THIS , BECAUSE I'VE HEARD HIS MUSIC . DID YOU KNOW THAT , HE EVEN HAS HIS OWN PUBLISHING CO. ! I FIRST MET HIM IN 1985 AT A LECTURE IN NEW YORK CITY , ON A TOPIC OF MUTUAL INTEREST , AND WE INSTANTLY BECAME ACQUAINTANCES AND LATER , VERY GOOD FRIENDS . YOU JUST COULDN'T HELP BUT LIKE THIS MAN INTENSELY . ONE OF THE THINGS I WOULD SAY TO HIM OVER THE YEARS THAT I KNEW HIM , WAS THAT IN ADDITION TO ALL THE WONDERFUL MUSIC HE WROTE , THAT HE MISSED OUT ON HIS OTHER SECOND CALLING IN LIFE ! THAT WAS THAT HE ' ALAN GERSHWIN ' IS A GREAT COMEDIAN ! I OFTEN SUGGESTED HIM TO ALSO TRY DOING THAT FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT , AS A SECOND POSSIBILITY . I'M CERTAIN HE WOULD HAVE BEEN QUITE SUPERB AT IT . I CAN SEE THIS IS BECOMING A LONG ABSTRACT SO THINK OF HIM AS A WONDERFUL ' HUMAN BEING ' FIRST AND THEN TRY TO UNDERSTAND THE NIGHTMARE HE WENT THROUGH IN LIFE , IN JUST TRYING TO ' PROVE HIMSELF ' FIRST , AND THEN WHOM HE REALLY IS AND IN ALL OF HIS 80 + YEARS HAS RAISED CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN , I'D SAY ". . .YOUR A BETTER MAN , FOR HAVING DONE IT ALL. . ." ! PLEASE EXCUSE ANY TYPOS OR GRAMMA MISTAKES , AS IVE ' SLOSHED ALL THIS TOGETHER AT 4AM ! ALSO PLEASE EXCUSE MY USING ' CAP-LOCKS ' AS I TYPE MUCH FASTER AND MORE ACCURATELY WITH THEM ON ! THANK YOU !Delete
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Josh Max's Smash and Grab ComicsJuly 15, 2017 at 5:01 PM
Met and spoke with Alan Gershwin in 2003 at the annual International Al Jolson festival on Long Island. Nice guy, looked exactly like his pa, if his pa was in his 80s.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningJuly 15, 2017 at 9:26 PM
I find that fascinating. So many people have left comments about how they met him or know him, and most are convinced he is indeed GG's son.Delete
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UnknownAugust 23, 2017 at 1:01 AM
ALAN GERSHWIN IS NOT AN ' E N I G M A ' ; BUT RATHER IS A REAL ' L I V E ' FLESH AND BLOOD INDIVIDUAL , WHOM NOT ONLY LOOKS LIKE HIS FATHER ; ' GEORGE GERSHWIN ' BUT ALSO HAS THE SAME MUSICAL TALENTS OF HIS FATHER ! I KNOW THIS , BECAUSE I'VE HEARD HIS MUSIC . DID YOU KNOW THAT , HE EVEN HAS HIS OWN PUBLISHING CO. ! I FIRST MET HIM IN 1985 AT A LECTURE IN NEW YORK CITY , ON A TOPIC OF MUTUAL INTEREST , AND WE INSTANTLY BECAME ACQUAINTANCES AND LATER , VERY GOOD FRIENDS . YOU JUST COULDN'T HELP BUT LIKE THIS MAN INTENSELY . ONE OF THE THINGS I WOULD SAY TO HIM OVER THE YEARS THAT I KNEW HIM , WAS THAT IN ADDITION TO ALL THE WONDERFUL MUSIC HE WROTE , THAT HE MISSED OUT ON HIS OTHER SECOND CALLING IN LIFE ! THAT WAS THAT HE ' ALAN GERSHWIN ' IS A GREAT COMEDIAN ! I OFTEN SUGGESTED HIM TO ALSO TRY DOING THAT FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT , AS A SECOND POSSIBILITY . I'M CERTAIN HE WOULD HAVE BEEN QUITE SUPERB AT IT . I CAN SEE THIS IS BECOMING A LONG ABSTRACT SO THINK OF HIM AS A WONDERFUL ' HUMAN BEING ' FIRST AND THEN TRY TO UNDERSTAND THE NIGHTMARE HE WENT THROUGH IN LIFE , IN JUST TRYING TO ' PROVE HIMSELF ' FIRST , AND THEN WHOM HE REALLY IS AND IN ALL OF HIS 80 + YEARS HAS RAISED CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN , I'D SAY ". . .YOUR A BETTER MAN , FOR HAVING DONE IT ALL. . ." ! PLEASE EXCUSE ANY TYPOS OR GRAMMA MISTAKES , AS IVE ' SLOSHED ALL THIS TOGETHER AT 4AM ! ALSO PLEASE EXCUSE MY USING ' CAP-LOCKS ' AS I TYPE MUCH FASTER AND MORE ACCURATELY WITH THEM ON ! THANK YOU !ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningAugust 23, 2017 at 9:52 AM
I'm amazed at the comments I still get on this subject after more than two years. It seems that many people have met him, know him, and love him. I can believe he has had a very hard life living in this shadow, though it must be a source of pride. Thank you for your comments, I appreciate them. I don't usually make it to 4:00, but I've been known to be up til 2:00. I find I can't type slowly as I make too many errors. My fingers have to forget what they're doing.Delete
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UnknownDecember 5, 2017 at 4:46 AM
Alan gave me one if those superimposed Alan/George pictures once. I also have a cassette tape of Alan's songs. He'd come into a Greenwich Village bar I played at and immediately start requesting that I play one of his songs. The only one that wasn't utter hack work was called "This Is Only The Beginning." I must have been the only person playing any of his songs in the entire decade.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningDecember 5, 2017 at 10:50 AM
I'm beginning to get a very complicated picture here. Some have echoed your thoughts about AG as an untalented wanna-be, but others insist he's the real thing. At this point I don't know what to think, but I do appreciate all the comments, including yours.Delete
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Pam JonesMarch 1, 2018 at 6:25 AM
I know a girl that claims to be the granddaughter of Alan Gershwin. I see no mention of his having married or if he had children. I would like to be able to speak to someone who would really be able to tell me if this girl is correct. She also told us that he had passed away on 2/22/18. Can anyone speak to the validity of any of this information?ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMarch 1, 2018 at 10:39 AM
Thank you for your comments. This mystery is far from solved! So far this is all I’ve found:
http://www.shalomjewish.com/Services.html
https://www.facebook.com/alancgershwin/
This seems to indicate that he passed fairly recently. Information on GG is very, very scant. The Facebook page hadn’t been updated in four years and had almost no information, but the comments were intriguing. I do recall trying to contact Marty Freedman and being told it was the wrong person, though I don’t remember any more details. But there is some actual contact information here that you might want to follow up on. I can’t believe the number of comments I’m still getting on this, so I will keep looking and post whatever I find. So many people are interested in this man! My gut feeling now is that he wasn’t Gershwin’s son, but that’s just from what I’ve read and seen.Delete
Pam JonesMarch 1, 2018 at 1:04 PM
Super interesting. Not surprised that every aspect of Allen Gershwin's life is shrouded in some sort of mystery. it does make it feel a bit fabricated but who really knows. I hope that someone can eventually speak knowledgeably about AG's death and the possibility of his having children of his own.Delete
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Katharine WeberMarch 6, 2018 at 9:49 AM
NYT obituary by David Mrgolick should be running tomorrow.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMarch 6, 2018 at 10:47 AM
Could you send a link, please? You can email me at magunning@telus.net. Thanks.Delete
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UnknownMarch 6, 2018 at 3:47 PM
In the mid-1970's, I met Alan Gershwin in "Pam Pams" a former Greenwich Village eatery on Sheridan Sq. After that, we would meet there occasionally,have coffee and talk and speak on the phone. His address,The Parc Vendome on W.57th St., and ph.# are still in my old address book. He was a nice, gentle man who talked about who he was and his attempts at getting the Gershwin family to recognize him. He was a big fan of Nicholas Tesla and was writing a book on him. I had no reason to doubt his claim at the time.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMarch 6, 2018 at 4:36 PM
I think this subject has drawn a record number of comments (since my blog usually doesn't get comments!). This especially surprises me in light of the fact that the original post ran three years ago. I had a thought that, though he believed he was Gershwin's son, someone may have convinced him of it for reasons unknown. That's not the same thing as being an impostor. So many people who commented here say they met AG him or knew him, and all of them mention his deep attachment to GG. Some have very flattering things to say about him, some not so flattering. Now that he is gone, we may never have conclusive evidence either way. Emotionally and spiritually, I think he was GG's son, but I am not sure about literally. It does seem to have been the central concern and pursuit of his life. GG's life was strange enough, and had he lived a normal span, perhaps this mystery would have been closer to resolution. Thanks for commenting!Delete
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Margaret GunningMarch 6, 2018 at 4:51 PM
An excerpt from a recent obituary/article in the NY Times. Since I can't post a live link here, I'll post it at the end of my piece: "Ms. Peyser’s case for Mr. Gershwin was also skewered, and with a redemptive paperback edition in mind, she set out to buttress it with irrefutable DNA.
There were setbacks: Blood tests revealed that the cousin with whom Mr. Gershwin claimed to have been reared was his brother after all. (He then argued that George Gershwin must have fathered the brother, too.) Meantime, assisted by a Yale medical school professor, Ms. Peyser tried procuring slides of George Gershwin’s brain, from which genetic material might be extracted. An investigator paid nearly $3,000 for a postcard that George Gershwin had sent from Atlantic City in 1918, propelled by a stamp he had presumably licked.
Most dramatically, in January 1999, moments before the place closed for the day and her body was removed, a former F.B.I. agent who had been enlisted in the cause yanked a small tuft of hair from the head of George Gershwin’s sister, Frances Gershwin Godowsky, as she lay at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue. The hair, paired with a swab taken from the reluctant Mr. Gershwin’s mouth, was sent to a lab in Boston.
Mr. Gershwin’s lawyer had devised a sliding scale to calculate his take once he had proved Mr. Gershwin’s case, running from 40 percent of the first $5 million Mr. Gershwin collected to 35 percent of the next $5 million, down to a quarter of anything over $25 million. But the lab dashed all such dreams: Ms. Godowsky and Alan Gershwin, it found, were not related."
You can't make this stuff up!ReplyDelete
Margaret GunningMarch 6, 2018 at 5:05 PM
Obituaries New York Times
Alan Gershwin, Who Claimed a Famous Father, Is Dead at 91
By DAVID MARGOLICK MARCH 6, 2018
You may be able to find the piece by googling this information. It's a fascinating piece.
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MJMarch 7, 2018 at 9:42 AM
I can't understand why Alan never put the story to rest in his later years. I guess everyone likes a good hoax. My favorites are the Cardiff Giant and the girls from Cottingly with their fairy photos. In those cases and in most really GOOD hoaxes, eventually the people behind them admit it.
Often, it doesn't matter, since some people will continue believing. I wonder if Alan figured it wouldn't matter if HE admitted that it was just a story. The fact that he refused to allow a DNA test for so long should have been the end of it, it seems, but it wasn't. People still believed and, no doubt, continue to believe now that the evidence is in.
The only thing I can figure is that he had to keep it up because it was pretty much his whole life. It sounds like he dedicated nearly his entire run as a living person to the hoax. It also sounds like he will continue the tale as a non-living person. Just another example of if you say something enough times, people will think it's true.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMarch 7, 2018 at 11:17 AM
And then there's Piltdown Man, who wasn't even a person! Scientists believed it was an authentic human fossil for - how long? How many years? It's like the painting hanging upside-down in the Louvre. People see what they are convinced is real. From the comments I've received, those who knew AG claimed he talked almost exclusively about being GG's son. He made it into his 90s exuding that sense of exiled royalty (the stuff of fairy tales), which was his raison d'etre. A sorry figure, except now that he's gone I can say that I found him obnoxious. I have a photo of the "exclusive" magazine spread from the '50s and I'm going to try to blow it up and get some text off it. What a weird case, but great writing material! Thank you for your comments.Delete
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UnknownMay 28, 2021 at 2:26 PM
Goodness, could Alan LOOK more like his father? Who cares what the NYT and The Gershwin Estate and Google try (Why, I don't really know?) to de-tract. Its Biology 101 and Human History. God Bless Alan Gershwin for having the courage to speak up and identify himself against all odds. Kind of disappointed that the Gershwins would be so shady. Tried to find photos of Alan's 4 children and grand children...or George's great-grandchildren, but could not locate on Google. Why...why?ReplyDelete
Tracey SternMarch 20, 2024 at 10:35 PM
Late to the thread. I had my dna done a few years back and the closest dna relative to me was a fellow named Alan Gershwin (never heard of him) Did some research and learned Alan was born Albert Schneider, and was either my great uncle, or my mother’s first cousin. Mom’s maiden name is Schneider. Albert, my mom and her siblings were all born in Brooklyn. I found and spoke to “Alan Gershwin’s’ son (we matched dna and he is my first cousin) He wasn’t close with his dad and said he only got in touch to borrow money. Kind of a con man. Alan/Albert was never the same after the war, dishonorably discharged and returned convinced he was GGs son. Mom’s turning 100 and has Alzheimer’s and her sibling are dead, so I might never find out why he was never spoken about in our family… he was kept secret.ReplyDelete
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Margaret GunningMarch 21, 2024 at 11:23 AM
What an amazing story! Thank you so much for sharing it with me. I've been blogging for 12 years or so (and I know blogs have gone out of style, but so have I) and never got so many responses to a single post. When I get comments on posts I wrote NINE years ago, it truly amazes me. This one is still an unsolved mystery, though it surprises me how many people weighed in on it, each from a different angle and some with an eerily close connection to the enigma. I do wonder if he truly believed he WAS George's son, particularly towards the end of his life, and had been abandoned by his famous father. Or was it indeed just an elaborate con? Surely the myth would gain powerful sympathy from some quarters, and he DID compose one piece of music that we know of. Someone else told me he played the piano, but badly. I have come to the conclusion his story likely wasn't true, but he obviously put great energy into maintaining the narrative. At any rate, wow. This is truly incredible, and to learn all this after nine years has just lit up my morning.Delete
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