Today is the 107th birthday of the actress Vivian Vance.  She didn’t make Lucy funny, she made her funnier.  She was the point of reference, the voice of reason, the control group with which we were able to judge just how crazy Lucy was.  She was doing what we would be doing if we were in the scene:  questioning and cautioning, but eventually being persuaded to join in the scheme.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Vivian Vance
OCCUPATION: Television Actress, Film Actor/Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: July 26, 1909
DEATH DATE: August 17, 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cherryvale, Kansas
PLACE OF DEATH: Belvedere, California
ORIGINALLY: Vivian Roberta Jones
EMMY 1954 Best Supporting Actress, for I Love Lucy
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 7000 Hollywood Blvd (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Vivian Vance was an actress chiefly known as Ethel Murtz on the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy.

Actress. Born Vivian Roberta Jones on July 26, 1909, in Cherryvale, Kansas. Vivian Vance is best known as Ethel Mertz, the neighbor, friend, and partner in crime, to Lucy Ricardo (played by Lucille Ball) on the long-running comedy series I Love Lucy. She took to acting at an early age, studying in her native Kansas and later New Mexico.

Moving to New York City in the early 1930s, Vance found work in the theater, landing her first Broadway role in the musical comedy Music in the Air in 1932. Several more musical comedies followed, including Anything Goes with Ethel Merman and Let’s Face It with Danny Kaye and Eve Arden.

In the late 1940s, Vance had a nervous breakdown and went back to New Mexico for a time. After taking a break from working, she moved to California and returned to the stage there. Little did she know that her performance in The Voice of the Turtle at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, would lead to her most famous role. A friend of hers, director Marc Daniels, had recommended her for the part of Ethel Mertz on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s new television show. Accompanied by Daniels, Arnez went to see Vance in the show and decided that she was a perfect fit for the role.

Initially, Vance was not sure she wanted the part. In the early 1950s, television was an emerging media, and she was working on a film career, with roles in The Secret Fury (1950) with Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan and The Blue Veil (1951) with Jane Wyman and Charles Laughton. Eventually she decided to pursue the role and wore unflattering clothes and make-up to better fit the character of Ethel.

I Love Lucy premiered in the fall of 1951, and soon the show was a huge hit. It focused on Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, a Cuban bandleader and his wife, played by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Their best friends, neighbors, and landlords were Fred and Ethel Mertz. William Frawley was Vance’s on-screen husband despite a substantial age difference – Vance was 39 years old and Frawley was 64 years old when the two were first cast in their roles. That fact reportedly irritated Vance, having said once that he should play her father, not her husband.

Often focused Lucy’s wacky misadventures, some of the show’s most memorable moments featured Ball and Vance entangled in some type of scheme gone wrong, such as trying to make money or fool their husbands. Her considerable talents as a comedic sidekick did not go unnoticed. She received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once for best supporting actress in 1954.

After the show ended in 1957, Vance appeared on several specials featuring the characters of I Love Lucy. When Lucille Ball returned to series television without Desi Arnaz in 1962, she convinced Vance to join the cast. This time Vance again played best friend to Ball, but with some notable differences. Vance co-starred as Vivian who had a slimmer figure and more glamorous look than the frumpy Ethel. In the series, The Lucy Show, Ball was a widow with two children who shared her home with Vance, a divorcee, and her son. At the time, Vance was living on the East Coast so she commuted to California to film the show. Eventually, she tired of all the travel and became an occasional guest star instead of a series regular in 1965. The Lucy Show ended in 1972.

Vance returned to California in the mid-1970s. She died on August 17, 1979, in Belvedere, California. At the time of her death, she was married to literary agent John Dodds.

TELEVISION
I Love Lucy Ethel Mertz (1951-57)
The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Ethel Mertz (1957-60)
The Lucy Show Vivian Bagley (1962-65)
Here’s Lucy Vivian Jones (1968-72)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Great Race (1-Jul-1965) · Hester Goodbody
The Blue Veil (26-Oct-1951)
The Secret Fury (21-Feb-1950) · Leah

Is the subject of books:
The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance, 1998, BY: Frank Castelluccio and Alvin Walker

Source: Vivian Vance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Vivian Vance – Film Actress, Television Actress – Biography.com

Source: Vivian Vance

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Today is the 119th birthday of the woman who made more influence on mid-century fashion than all the fashion designers of the time combined:  Edith Head.  If you are a fan of classic movies and pay attention to scenery and costuming, you already know her. She had THE influence on American style before clothing designers were known. A quick search for her on IMDB will soon have you realizing that her touch was added to most of the films that you know and love.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Edith Head
OCCUPATION: Fashion Designer
BIRTH DATE: October 28, 1897
DEATH DATE: October 24, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH: San Bernardino, California
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
REMAINS: Buried, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, CA
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1950 (Black & White) for The Heiress
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1951 (Black & White) for All About Eve
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1951 (Color) for Samson and Delilah
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1952 (Black & White) for A Place in the Sun
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1954 (Black & White) for Roman Holiday
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1955 (Black & White) for Sabrina
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1961 (Black & White) for The Facts of Life
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1973 for The Sting
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6504 Hollywood Blvd (motion pictures)

BEST KNOWN FOR:  Edith Head was one of the most prolific costume designers in 20th century film, winning a record eight Academy Awards.

Edith Head became chief designer at Paramount Pictures in 1933 and later worked at Universal. Hollywood’s best-known designer, her costumes ranged from the elegantly simple to the elaborately flamboyant. She won a record eight Academy Awards for her work in films such as All About Eve (1950), Roman Holiday (1953), and The Sting (1973).

“Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” – Edith Head

As part of a series of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in February 2003, commemorating the behind-the-camera personnel who make movies, Head was featured on one to honor costume design.

The band They Might Be Giants recorded the song “She Thinks She’s Edith Head,” which was included in the 1999 album Long Tall Weekend and the 2001 album Mink Car. The song is about a girl from the singer’s past, who had changed her persona to be more sophisticated, and compares her new attitude to Head and longtime Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown.

“You can have whatever you want if you dress for it.” ― Edith Head

To many viewers of the 2004 Pixar/Disney computer-animated film The Incredibles, the personality and mannerisms of the film’s fictional superhero costume designer Edna Mode suggest a colorful caricature of Edith Head. Edna Mode’s sense of style, round glasses, and assertive no-nonsense character are very likely a direct homage to Head’s legendary accomplishments and personal traits. But the film’s director, Brad Bird, has not yet confirmed or denied this.

Among the actresses Edith Head designed for were:

Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, 1933; Myra Breckinridge, 1970; Sextette, 1978
Frances Farmer in Rhythm on the Range, 1936, and Ebb Tide, 1937
Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane, 1937; in most of “The Road” movies.
Paulette Goddard in The Cat and the Canary, 1939
Veronica Lake in Sullivan’s Travels, 1941; I Married a Witch, 1942
Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, both 1941; Double Indemnity, 1944
Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark, 1944
Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell in The Uninvited, 1944
Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, 1946
Betty Hutton in Incendiary Blonde, 1945; The Perils of Pauline, 1947
Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter, 1947
Bette Davis in June Bride (1948); All About Eve, 1950
Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress, 1949
Hedy Lamarr and Angela Lansbury in Samson and Delilah, 1949
Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, 1950
Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun, 1951; Elephant Walk, 1954
Joan Fontaine in Something to Live For, 1952
Carmen Miranda in Scared Stiff 1953
Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, 1953; Sabrina, 1954; Funny Face, 1957
Ann Robinson in The War of the Worlds, 1953
Grace Kelly in Rear Window, 1954; To Catch a Thief, 1955
Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas, 1954
Jane Wyman in Lucy Gallant, 1955
Shirley MacLaine in Artists and Models, 1955; The Matchmaker, 1958; What a Way to Go!, 1964
Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956
Anne Baxter in The Ten Commandments, 1956
Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, 1957
Rita Hayworth in Separate Tables, 1958
Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958
Sophia Loren in That Kind of Woman, 1959
Rhonda Fleming in Alias Jesse James, 1959
Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger, 1963; Sex and the Single Girl, 1964; Inside Daisy Clover, 1965; The Great Race, 1965; Penelope, 1966; This Property Is Condemned, 1966; The Last Married Couple in America, 1980
Tippi Hedren in The Birds, 1963; Marnie, 1964
Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park, 1967
Claude Jade in Topaz, 1969
Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn, 1975
Jill Clayburgh in Gable and Lombard, 1976
Valerie Perrine in W.C. Fields and Me, 1976
Among the actors Edith Head designed for were:

Danny Kaye in White Christmas, 1954
Steve Martin in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, 1982

Source: Edith Head

Source: Edith Head – Wikipedia

Source: 30 Fantastic Movie Costumes by Edith Head — The Cut

Source: Edith Head – Fashion Designer – Biography.com

Source: Edith Head’s Most Iconic Looks – Edith Head Old Hollywood Style

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Today is Veronica Lake’s 94th birthday.  Have you seen The Blue Dahlia?  It is amazing.  Her live story is as heartbreaking as she is beautiful.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Veronica Lake
DATE OF BIRTH: November 14, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, NY
DATE OF DEATH: JULY 7, 1973
PLACE OF DEATH: Burlington, VT
CAUSE OF DEATH: Hepatitis
REMAINS: Cremated (ashes scattered at sea)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6918 Hollywood Blvd.

Veronica Lake  was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. She was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. Lake had a string of broken marriages and, after her career declined, had long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism.

Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of Danish-Irish descent, worked for an oil company aboard a ship. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble (1902–1992), (listed as “Veronica F.” on the 1920 census), married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Lake began using his last name.

Lake was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami Senior High School in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother.

In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced, while still a teenager, to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes.

RKO subsequently dropped her contract. She married art director John S. Detlie, 14 years her senior, in 1940. A small role in the comedy, Forty Little Mothers, brought unexpected attention. In 1941 she was signed to a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. On August 21, 1941, she gave birth to her first child, Elaine Detlie.

Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings in 1941, a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead and was said to have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. This success was followed by Hold Back the Dawn later that year. She had starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan’s Travels, This Gun for Hire, I Married a Witch, The Glass Key, and So Proudly We Hail!. René Clair, the director of I Married a Witch, said of Lake “She was a very gifted girl, but she didn’t believe she was gifted.”

For a short time during the early 1940s Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just 4 feet 11¹⁄₂ inches (1.511 m). They made four films together.

A stray lock of her shoulder-length, blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic “peekaboo” hairstyle, which was widely imitated. During World War II, Lake changed her trademark image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles, although doing so may have damaged her career.

Although popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in Star Spangled Rhythm, was quoted as saying, “She was known as ‘The Bitch’ and she deserved the title.”  In that movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, “A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang”, performed with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour.   Joel McCrea, her co-star in Sullivan’s Travels, reputedly turned down the co-starring role in I Married a Witch, saying, “Life’s too short for two films with Veronica Lake.”

Lake’s career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944’s The Hour Before the Dawn. During filming, she tripped on a lighting cable while pregnant and began hemorrhaging. She recovered, but her second child, William, was born prematurely on July 8, 1943, dying a week later from uremic poisoning.  By the end of 1943 her first marriage ended in divorce. Meanwhile, scathing reviews of The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent.

Nonetheless, Lake was earning $4,500 per week under her contract with Paramount. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her.  Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The Blue Dahlia (1946), in which she again co-starred with Ladd. During filming, screenplay writer Raymond Chandler referred to her as “Moronica Lake”.  Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.

Looking back at her career years later, Lake remarked, “I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair.”

She married film director Andre De Toth in 1944 and had a son, Andre Anthony Michael De Toth, known as Michael De Toth (October 25, 1945 – February 24, 1991), and a daughter, Diana De Toth (born October 16, 1948). Lake was sued by her mother for support payments in 1948.

Lake earned her pilot’s license in 1946 and was able to fly solo between Los Angeles and New York.

Lake died on July 7, 1973, of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Burlington, Vermont, where her death was certified by Dr. Wareen Beeken at the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and where she was seen by many staff members during her nearly two-week stay. A rumor persists that she died in Montreal and was smuggled across the border to Vermont. Vermont state death records, however, confirm that she died in Burlington, Vermont.

As she requested, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. A memorial service was held in Manhattan, but only her son and a handful of strangers attended. In 2004 some of Lake’s ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store. Her son, Michael, died on February 24, 1991, at age 45 in Olympia, Washington.

Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the motion picture industry. She remains a legendary star today and her autographs and other memorabilia continue to draw high prices on eBay and other popular outlets.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Flesh Feast (1970)
Slattery’s Hurricane (11-Aug-1949)
Isn’t It Romantic? (6-Oct-1948)
The Sainted Sisters (30-Apr-1948)
Saigon (31-Mar-1948)
Variety Girl (29-Aug-1947) · Herself
Ramrod (21-Feb-1947)
The Blue Dahlia (19-Apr-1946) · Joyce Harwood
Miss Susie Slagle’s (6-Feb-1946)
Hold That Blonde (7-Nov-1945)
Duffy’s Tavern (28-Sep-1945) · Herself
Out of This World (13-Jul-1945)
Bring on the Girls (23-Feb-1945)
The Hour Before the Dawn (10-May-1944)
So Proudly We Hail! (22-Jun-1943) · Lt. Olivia D’Arcy
Star Spangled Rhythm (18-Dec-1942) · Herself
I Married a Witch (30-Oct-1942) · Jennifer
The Glass Key (15-Oct-1942) · Janet Henry
This Gun For Hire (13-May-1942) · Ellen Graham
Sullivan’s Travels (Dec-1941) · The Girl
I Wanted Wings (26-Mar-1941)

Source: Veronica Lake – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: The Victoria Advocate – Google News Archive Search

Source: USATODAY.com – Veronica Lake’s remains resurface

Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal – Google News Archive Search

Source: Lodi News-Sentinel – Google News Archive Search

Source: The Age – Google News Archive Search

Source: Overview for Veronica Lake

Source: Reading Eagle – Google News Archive Search

Source: Veronica Lake – Hollywood Star Walk – Los Angeles Times

Source: Veronica Lake’s Ashes For Sale? – CBS News

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UPDATE:  Recently, a woman claiming to be Amanda Lake, the undocumented daughter of Veronica Lake, has requested that I remove all mention of her “mother” from this site.  Her threats are completely unfounded. Claiming ownership of photographs and the words “Veronica” and “Lake,” she continues to sent lawsuit threats from fake lawyers (emails sent on Sundays from hotmail addresses) and has never once explained exactly what she wants. As far as I can tell, she would like all mention of her “mother” removed from the entire internet.

Today is the 105th birthday of the musician and composer Louis Prima.

NAME: Louis Prima
OCCUPATION: Actor, Songwriter, Trumpet Player, Singer
BIRTH DATE: December 7, 1911
DEATH DATE: August 24, 1978
PLACE OF BIRTH: New Orleans, Louisiana
PLACE OF DEATH: New Orleans, Louisiana
REMAINS: Buried, Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, LA
BIG BAND AND JAZZ HALL OF FAME (1993)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME: 1617 Vine St

BEST KNOWN FOR: Louis Prima was an influential jazz trumpeter, singer and composer known for songs like “Sing, Sing, Sing,” “Angelina,” “Buona Sera” and “Jump, Jive an’ Wail.”

Louis Prima was born on December 7, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Though initially taking up the violin, Prima switched to the trumpet and began playing in city venues as a teen. By the mid-1930s, at the behest of bandleader Guy Lombardo, Prima had moved to New York City and formed his own band, the New Orleans Gang. By the end of the decade, Prima had switched to leading a big band known as the Gleeby Rhythm Orchestra with which he recorded.

Prima would come to be known not only for his trumpet playing and strong songwriting but also for his emotive, textured baritone, and as such invited comparison to iconic trumpet player and singer Louis Armstrong. In the mid-1930s Prima also composed one of the most well-known songs in popular jazz history–the pulsating, primal “Sing, Sing, Sing,” which would become a major hit for Benny Goodman. Prima appeared in films like You Can’t Have Everything (1937) and Rose of Washington Square (1939) as well.

After World War II, Prima scored a number of hits that played up his Italian heritage with a humorous bent, including “Angelina,” “Felicia No Capicia” and “Josephina, No Leana on the Bell.” In 1947, Prima met Dorothy Keely, a young jazz singer from Virginia. She eventually joined Prima’s band and was given the stage name Keely Smith. The two married, with Smith becoming Prima’s fourth spouse. The witty husband and wife team were known for their disarming onstage juxtaposition, as Smith exhibited a cool, calm presence in counterpoint to Prima’s hustle and bustle antics.

After a period of limited activity, the duo became one of the biggest acts in Las Vegas in the mid-1950s with a tour-de-force, electrifying act known as The Wildest. The rebirth came partially as a result of the influence of Sam Butera, a saxophonist who also hailed from New Orleans. Butera created a sonic palette for Prima’s new accompanying band The Witnesses that was a fusion of sounds with an emphasis on a shuffle beat.

Prima made his Capitol Records debut in 1956 with The Wildest!, which contained major hits like “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “The Lip,” “Buona Sera” and “Jump Jive an’ Wail.” (“Gigolo” would be covered by long-haired rocker David Lee Roth in the ’80s.) Prima recorded several albums under Capitol, with he and Smith winning a Grammy in 1958, costarring in the film Hey Boy! Hey Girl! the following year and singing for President John F. Kennedy‘s inauguration. Despite the successes, the two divorced in 1961.

Prima and Butera’s act were soon joined by vocalist Gia Maione, who wed Prima in 1963. Prima recorded for his own imprint Prima One Magnagroove before starring in Walt Disney’s 1967 animated film The Jungle Book. Providing the voice of the swinging king of the apes, Louie, Prima recorded the classic “I Wan’na Be Like You,” with the movements of he and his band serving as inspiration for Disney animators. Prima later recorded songs for the Disney film The Rescuers (1977) that remained unreleased until the 2000s.

Prima continued to play together in Vegas for a time and by the ’70s had returned to New Orleans. In 1975, he underwent surgery to have a brain tumor removed and lapsed into a coma, in which he remained until his death in 1978. He was survived by Maione and their children Louis Jr. and Lena, both of whom have pursued musical careers as well.

Maione has worked to maintain the Prima estate and helped to keep his legacy alive in the pop culture canon, including overseeing his music’s usage in a number of films that have included Analyze This and Swingers. A 1999 documentary appeared on the musician’s life as well–Louis Prima: The Wildest.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (2-Feb-1975)
The Jungle Book (18-Oct-1967) [VOICE]
Twist All Night (12-Dec-1961)
Hey Boy! Hey Girl! (5-Aug-1959) · Himself
Senior Prom (Dec-1958) · Himself
Rose of Washington Square (5-May-1939) · Band Leader
Start Cheering (3-Mar-1938) · Himself
You Can’t Have Everything (3-Aug-1937)

Source: Louis Prima

Source: Louis Prima – Actor, Songwriter, Trumpet Player, Singer – Biography.com

Source: Louis Prima – Wikipedia

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It’s been a while since I have done a week in review, there is no reason as to why I stopped. There may be a reason, this particular post format is the one and only time I voice any opinion and I have purposefully crafted Waldina to focus on people that I find inspiring. If I have learned one thing from reading about successful social media accounts and blogs it is the importance of sticking to your ‘brand’ and not inputting any wild cards. Meaning, I post about lives that inspire me and people expect that when they visit here. I wouldn’t mind posting a rant every now and then. I need an amnesty post or something. Until then, I will keep to my own lane.

This week on Waldina, I celebrated the birthdays of a lot of people. Since I haven’t done a week in review in six months, it would be excessive. But I do have a new exciting stat for the website: sometime last week, it had it’s half-millionth visitor! That very much impresses me. To think that I started this blog as an exercise in focusing on something positive every day, not really trying to find the audience or anything. Fast forward three or so years and thousands of people have found something to like here also. I have long-professed the unofficial tag line of Waldina is “Something For Everyone and Everything For No One”.

The Stats:

Visits This Week: 2,345
Total Visits: 500,673
Total Subscribers: 854
Total Posts: 2,176
Most Popular Post Last Quarter: Happy 80th Birthday Dyan Cannon

There are a lot of tumblr blogs that I manage because there are a lot of different interests that I have and I feel that more specific blogs seem more organized. One blog splintered into 11 total. I’ll sum up the combined totals. If you follow @TheRealSPA, they all get filtered through there.

The Stats:

Posts This Week: 559
Total Posts: 39,570
Total Subscribers: 14,121

This week at @TheRealSPA on Instagram, I posted a few photos of the profiles I posted on Waldina.

The Stats:

Total Posts: 85
Total Followers: 809
Total Following: 312

This week at @SenorScraps on Instagram, Scraps posted a photo of himself sun bathing on the dock at the lake house. Also, notice how many followers he has.

The Stats:

Total Posts: 106
Total Followers: 1,116
Total Following: 791

**Today, I deleted my twitter. It’s for garbage people and they do not address cyber bullying. Think about all the people that have tweeted crazy stuff that has gotten them fired and/or universally hated. This includes our current president. I see no need to be apart of that group.**

This week at @TheRealSPA on twitter, I blocked our President, his family and representatives, our Vice President and his family, various other Republican representatives and Fox News personalities. I also reported our President for abusive hate speech. If Twitter does not block him, I am quitting it. I know my number of followers are low and will mean nothing, I also know I do not need to be part of something that supports cyber bullying

Total Tweets: 1,492
Following: 422
Followers: 151

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Today is the 108th birthday of the actress Vivian Vance.  She didn’t make Lucy funny, she made her funnier.  She was the point of reference, the voice of reason, the control group with which we were able to judge just how crazy Lucy was.  She was doing what we would be doing if we were in the scene:  questioning and cautioning, but eventually being persuaded to join in the scheme.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Vivian Vance
OCCUPATION: Television Actress, Film Actor/Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: July 26, 1909
DEATH DATE: August 17, 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cherryvale, Kansas
PLACE OF DEATH: Belvedere, California
ORIGINALLY: Vivian Roberta Jones
EMMY 1954 Best Supporting Actress, for I Love Lucy
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 7000 Hollywood Blvd (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Vivian Vance was an actress chiefly known as Ethel Murtz on the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy.

Actress. Born Vivian Roberta Jones on July 26, 1909, in Cherryvale, Kansas. Vivian Vance is best known as Ethel Mertz, the neighbor, friend, and partner in crime, to Lucy Ricardo (played by Lucille Ball) on the long-running comedy series I Love Lucy. She took to acting at an early age, studying in her native Kansas and later New Mexico.

Moving to New York City in the early 1930s, Vance found work in the theater, landing her first Broadway role in the musical comedy Music in the Air in 1932. Several more musical comedies followed, including Anything Goes with Ethel Merman and Let’s Face It with Danny Kaye and Eve Arden.

In the late 1940s, Vance had a nervous breakdown and went back to New Mexico for a time. After taking a break from working, she moved to California and returned to the stage there. Little did she know that her performance in The Voice of the Turtle at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, would lead to her most famous role. A friend of hers, director Marc Daniels, had recommended her for the part of Ethel Mertz on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s new television show. Accompanied by Daniels, Arnez went to see Vance in the show and decided that she was a perfect fit for the role.

Initially, Vance was not sure she wanted the part. In the early 1950s, television was an emerging media, and she was working on a film career, with roles in The Secret Fury (1950) with Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan and The Blue Veil (1951) with Jane Wyman and Charles Laughton. Eventually she decided to pursue the role and wore unflattering clothes and make-up to better fit the character of Ethel.

I Love Lucy premiered in the fall of 1951, and soon the show was a huge hit. It focused on Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, a Cuban bandleader and his wife, played by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Their best friends, neighbors, and landlords were Fred and Ethel Mertz. William Frawley was Vance’s on-screen husband despite a substantial age difference – Vance was 39 years old and Frawley was 64 years old when the two were first cast in their roles. That fact reportedly irritated Vance, having said once that he should play her father, not her husband.

Often focused Lucy’s wacky misadventures, some of the show’s most memorable moments featured Ball and Vance entangled in some type of scheme gone wrong, such as trying to make money or fool their husbands. Her considerable talents as a comedic sidekick did not go unnoticed. She received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once for best supporting actress in 1954.

After the show ended in 1957, Vance appeared on several specials featuring the characters of I Love Lucy. When Lucille Ball returned to series television without Desi Arnaz in 1962, she convinced Vance to join the cast. This time Vance again played best friend to Ball, but with some notable differences. Vance co-starred as Vivian who had a slimmer figure and more glamorous look than the frumpy Ethel. In the series, The Lucy Show, Ball was a widow with two children who shared her home with Vance, a divorcee, and her son. At the time, Vance was living on the East Coast so she commuted to California to film the show. Eventually, she tired of all the travel and became an occasional guest star instead of a series regular in 1965. The Lucy Show ended in 1972.

Vance returned to California in the mid-1970s. She died on August 17, 1979, in Belvedere, California. At the time of her death, she was married to literary agent John Dodds.

TELEVISION
I Love Lucy Ethel Mertz (1951-57)
The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Ethel Mertz (1957-60)
The Lucy Show Vivian Bagley (1962-65)
Here’s Lucy Vivian Jones (1968-72)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Great Race (1-Jul-1965) · Hester Goodbody
The Blue Veil (26-Oct-1951)
The Secret Fury (21-Feb-1950) · Leah

Is the subject of books:
The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance, 1998, BY: Frank Castelluccio and Alvin Walker

Source: Vivian Vance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Vivian Vance – Film Actress, Television Actress – Biography.com

Source: Vivian Vance

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Today is the 136th birthday of the film director and movie mogul Cecil B. DeMille. That quote by Gloria Swanson’s character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard “I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMille” is recited daily by people preparing for a photo. His contribution to the film industry as a business and an art form is monumental. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Cecil B. DeMille
OCCUPATION: Screenwriter, Actor, Filmmaker
BIRTH DATE: August 12, 1881
DEATH DATE: January 21, 1959
EDUCATION: American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Pennsylvania Military College
PLACE OF BIRTH: Ashfield, Massachusetts
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
REMAINS: Buried, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, CA
OSCAR (honorary) 1950
OSCAR (honorary) 1953 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
OSCAR for Best Picture 1953 for The Greatest Show on Earth
GOLDEN GLOBE 1952 Cecil B. DeMille Award
GOLDEN GLOBE 1953 for The Greatest Show on Earth
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 1725 Vine Street (motion pictures)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6240 Vine Street (radio)
ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURES ARTS AND SCIENCES Founding Member (1927)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Cecil B. DeMille was an actor, director and producer who became a giant of the 20th century film industry, known for epics like The Ten Commandments.

Cecil Blount DeMille was born on August 12, 1881, in Ashfield, Massachusetts, to a family involved in the theatrical arts. His father, Henry DeMille, was a playwright who passed away when DeMille was 11; his mother, Matilda, after the death of her husband, opened up an acting workshop space for girls in her home, and later worked with Broadway.

DeMille attended Pennsylvania Military College, graduating in 1898, and then entered the world of acting himself, attending New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He began doing stage work as a teen, and made his debut in Hearts Are Trumps. He later starred in productions like Alice of Old Vincennes, Lord Chumley, and The Prince Chap.

On August 16, 1902, DeMille wed his Hearts Are Trumps co-star, Constance Adams. The two would go on to have four children, three of whom were adopted.

Having cultivated directing, playwriting and management experience during the first decade of the 1900s, DeMille decided to become a force behind the camera for silent films. He partnered with Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn to form a movie company originally called The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, later renamed Paramount Pictures.

DeMille’s first picture, The Squaw Man, filmed in a Hollywood barn and co-directed with Oscar Apfel, was released in 1914, and is billed as the first feature-length film. From 1914 to 1915, DeMille directed more than 20 movies, including The Only Son (1914) and The Girl of the Golden West (1915). The 1915 film The Cheat was particularly seen as a trailblazer in terms of its innovative editing, lighting and storytelling techniques, establishing a cinematic style that would become the norm.

In 1923, with The Ten Commandments, DeMille created the first movie to have a budget of more than $1 million, paving the way for his continued dalliance with lavish epics. He would be credited with other filmic innovations as well, including the concept of remakes.

Finding the Paramount studio system too rigid, DeMille went off to found his own studio in the mid-1920s, under which he released The King of Kings (1927), a film telling the story of Jesus Christ. His studio venture was ultimately unsuccessful, and DeMille did work for MGM before returning to Paramount in 1932. He also helped to found the Screen Directors Guild around this time.

With the era of talking pictures underway, DeMille helmed more biblical and ancient history films, as seen with The Sign of the Cross (1932), featuring Fredric March and Claudette Colbert, and Cleopatra (1934), also starring Colbert and nominated for a slew of Oscars. Westerns and adventure films were to follow over the ensuing years, including The Buccaneer (1938) and the Gary Cooper vehicle Northwest Mounted Police (1940), noted as the first film DeMille directed in Technicolor.

DeMille directed several notable features during the 1940s, including Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and Unconquered (1947). In 1949—a banner year—he was awarded a special Academy Award for 37 years of showmanship in the movie industry, appointed chair of the Motion Picture Industry Council, and saw the release of the biblical epic Samson and Delilah, starring Victor Mature, Hedy Lamarr and Angela Lansbury. The film was a hit, and won an Oscar for art direction.

DeMille was notorious for his ego and dictatorial tendencies on sets while his populist movie vision resulted in great financial windfalls, helping to establish Paramount as a reigning studio. The last decade of DeMille’s filmic output would continue to be fruitful. In 1952, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association—the organization that stages the Golden Globes—named a special award after the filmmaker that would annually honor a major figure in the entertainment industry.

The following year, DeMille’s circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth was released, starring Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton and James Stewart in a colorful multi-plot circus extravaganza. The film was nominated in five Oscar categories, including best director, and won awards for writing and best picture, with DeMille receiving his first non-honorary Oscar in his role as a producer.

DeMille’s last film—his second incarnation of The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, and Anne Baxter—would be regarded as a landmark achievement. The film, released in 1956, took liberties with scripture to become an iconic film, with thousands of actors inhabiting a desert setting and grand visual moments that included the parting of the Red Sea. The movie earned seven Oscar nods, winning for its special effects.

In real-world affairs, DeMille helped to propagate the Red Scare of the 1950s, where well-known entertainers were blacklisted for alleged communist ties. Nonetheless, he hired two blacklisted figures for The Ten Commandments, actor Edward G. Robinson and composer Elmer Bernstein, with speculation that the film still served as a vehicle for the director’s politically conservative beliefs.

DeMille died on January 21, 1959 in Hollywood, California, at the age of 77, from a heart ailment. DeMille produced and directed dozens upon dozens of movies throughout his career, and his legacy has continued to be written about and scrutinized as film evolves.

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
The Ten Commandments (5-Oct-1956)
The Greatest Show on Earth (10-Jan-1952)
Samson and Delilah (31-Oct-1949)
Unconquered (24-Sep-1947)
The Story of Dr. Wassell (26-Apr-1944)
Reap the Wild Wind (19-Mar-1942)
North West Mounted Police (21-Oct-1940)
Union Pacific (27-Apr-1939)
The Buccaneer (7-Jan-1938)
The Plainsman (1-Jan-1937)
The Crusades (22-Aug-1935)
Cleopatra (5-Oct-1934)
Four Frightened People (26-Jan-1934)
This Day and Age (25-Aug-1933)
The Sign of the Cross (3-Dec-1932)
The Squaw Man (5-Sep-1931)
Madame Satan (20-Sep-1930)
Dynamite (13-Dec-1929)
The Godless Girl (31-Mar-1929)
The King of Kings (19-Apr-1927)
The Road to Yesterday (15-Nov-1925)
The Ten Commandments (23-Nov-1923)
Why Change Your Wife? (21-May-1920)
Male and Female (23-Nov-1919)
A Romance of the Redwoods (14-May-1917)
Carmen (31-Oct-1915)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Buster Keaton Story (May-1957) · Himself
Sunset Blvd. (4-Aug-1950) · Himself
Variety Girl (29-Aug-1947) · Himself
Star Spangled Rhythm (18-Dec-1942) · Himself

Author of books:
The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille (1959, memoir)

Source: Cecil B. DeMille

Source: Cecil B. DeMille – Wikipedia

Source: Cecil B. DeMille – Screenwriter, Actor, Filmmaker – Biography.com

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Today is the 120th birthday of the woman who made more influence on mid-century fashion than all the fashion designers of the time combined:  Edith Head.  If you are a fan of classic movies and pay attention to scenery and costuming, you already know her. She had THE influence on American style before clothing designers were known. A quick search for her on IMDB will soon have you realizing that her touch was added to most of the films that you know and love.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Edith Head
OCCUPATION: Fashion Designer
BIRTH DATE: October 28, 1897
DEATH DATE: October 24, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH: San Bernardino, California
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
REMAINS: Buried, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, CA
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1950 (Black & White) for The Heiress
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1951 (Black & White) for All About Eve
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1951 (Color) for Samson and Delilah
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1952 (Black & White) for A Place in the Sun
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1954 (Black & White) for Roman Holiday
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1955 (Black & White) for Sabrina
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1961 (Black & White) for The Facts of Life
OSCAR for Best Costume Design 1973 for The Sting
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6504 Hollywood Blvd (motion pictures)

BEST KNOWN FOR:  Edith Head was one of the most prolific costume designers in 20th century film, winning a record eight Academy Awards.

Edith Head became chief designer at Paramount Pictures in 1933 and later worked at Universal. Hollywood’s best-known designer, her costumes ranged from the elegantly simple to the elaborately flamboyant. She won a record eight Academy Awards for her work in films such as All About Eve (1950), Roman Holiday (1953), and The Sting (1973).

“Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” – Edith Head

As part of a series of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in February 2003, commemorating the behind-the-camera personnel who make movies, Head was featured on one to honor costume design.

The band They Might Be Giants recorded the song “She Thinks She’s Edith Head,” which was included in the 1999 album Long Tall Weekend and the 2001 album Mink Car. The song is about a girl from the singer’s past, who had changed her persona to be more sophisticated, and compares her new attitude to Head and longtime Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown.

“You can have whatever you want if you dress for it.” ― Edith Head

To many viewers of the 2004 Pixar/Disney computer-animated film The Incredibles, the personality and mannerisms of the film’s fictional superhero costume designer Edna Mode suggest a colorful caricature of Edith Head. Edna Mode’s sense of style, round glasses, and assertive no-nonsense character are very likely a direct homage to Head’s legendary accomplishments and personal traits. But the film’s director, Brad Bird, has not yet confirmed or denied this.

Among the actresses Edith Head designed for were:

Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, 1933; Myra Breckinridge, 1970; Sextette, 1978
Frances Farmer in Rhythm on the Range, 1936, and Ebb Tide, 1937
Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane, 1937; in most of “The Road” movies.
Paulette Goddard in The Cat and the Canary, 1939
Veronica Lake in Sullivan’s Travels, 1941; I Married a Witch, 1942
Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, both 1941; Double Indemnity, 1944
Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark, 1944
Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell in The Uninvited, 1944
Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, 1946
Betty Hutton in Incendiary Blonde, 1945; The Perils of Pauline, 1947
Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter, 1947
Bette Davis in June Bride (1948); All About Eve, 1950
Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress, 1949
Hedy Lamarr and Angela Lansbury in Samson and Delilah, 1949
Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, 1950
Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun, 1951; Elephant Walk, 1954
Joan Fontaine in Something to Live For, 1952
Carmen Miranda in Scared Stiff 1953
Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, 1953; Sabrina, 1954; Funny Face, 1957
Ann Robinson in The War of the Worlds, 1953
Grace Kelly in Rear Window, 1954; To Catch a Thief, 1955
Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas, 1954
Jane Wyman in Lucy Gallant, 1955
Shirley MacLaine in Artists and Models, 1955; The Matchmaker, 1958; What a Way to Go!, 1964
Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956
Anne Baxter in The Ten Commandments, 1956
Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, 1957
Rita Hayworth in Separate Tables, 1958
Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958
Sophia Loren in That Kind of Woman, 1959
Rhonda Fleming in Alias Jesse James, 1959
Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger, 1963; Sex and the Single Girl, 1964; Inside Daisy Clover, 1965; The Great Race, 1965; Penelope, 1966; This Property Is Condemned, 1966; The Last Married Couple in America, 1980
Tippi Hedren in The Birds, 1963; Marnie, 1964
Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park, 1967
Claude Jade in Topaz, 1969
Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn, 1975
Jill Clayburgh in Gable and Lombard, 1976
Valerie Perrine in W.C. Fields and Me, 1976
Among the actors Edith Head designed for were:

Danny Kaye in White Christmas, 1954
Steve Martin in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, 1982

Source: Edith Head

Source: Edith Head – Wikipedia

Source: 30 Fantastic Movie Costumes by Edith Head — The Cut

Source: Edith Head – Fashion Designer – Biography.com

Source: Edith Head’s Most Iconic Looks – Edith Head Old Hollywood Style

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Today is Veronica Lake’s 95th birthday.  Have you seen The Blue Dahlia?  It is amazing.  Her live story is as heartbreaking as she is beautiful.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Veronica Lake
DATE OF BIRTH: November 14, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, NY
DATE OF DEATH: JULY 7, 1973
PLACE OF DEATH: Burlington, VT
CAUSE OF DEATH: Hepatitis
REMAINS: Cremated (ashes scattered at sea)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6918 Hollywood Blvd.

Veronica Lake  was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. She was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. Lake had a string of broken marriages and, after her career declined, had long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism.

Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of Danish-Irish descent, worked for an oil company aboard a ship. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble (1902–1992), (listed as “Veronica F.” on the 1920 census), married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Lake began using his last name.

Lake was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami Senior High School in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother.

In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced, while still a teenager, to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes.

RKO subsequently dropped her contract. She married art director John S. Detlie, 14 years her senior, in 1940. A small role in the comedy, Forty Little Mothers, brought unexpected attention. In 1941 she was signed to a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. On August 21, 1941, she gave birth to her first child, Elaine Detlie.

Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings in 1941, a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead and was said to have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. This success was followed by Hold Back the Dawn later that year. She had starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan’s Travels, This Gun for Hire, I Married a Witch, The Glass Key, and So Proudly We Hail!. René Clair, the director of I Married a Witch, said of Lake “She was a very gifted girl, but she didn’t believe she was gifted.”

For a short time during the early 1940s Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just 4 feet 11¹⁄₂ inches (1.511 m). They made four films together.

A stray lock of her shoulder-length, blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic “peekaboo” hairstyle, which was widely imitated. During World War II, Lake changed her trademark image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles, although doing so may have damaged her career.

Although popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in Star Spangled Rhythm, was quoted as saying, “She was known as ‘The Bitch’ and she deserved the title.”  In that movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, “A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang”, performed with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour.   Joel McCrea, her co-star in Sullivan’s Travels, reputedly turned down the co-starring role in I Married a Witch, saying, “Life’s too short for two films with Veronica Lake.”

Lake’s career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944’s The Hour Before the Dawn. During filming, she tripped on a lighting cable while pregnant and began hemorrhaging. She recovered, but her second child, William, was born prematurely on July 8, 1943, dying a week later from uremic poisoning.  By the end of 1943 her first marriage ended in divorce. Meanwhile, scathing reviews of The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent.

Nonetheless, Lake was earning $4,500 per week under her contract with Paramount. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her.  Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The Blue Dahlia (1946), in which she again co-starred with Ladd. During filming, screenplay writer Raymond Chandler referred to her as “Moronica Lake”.  Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.

Looking back at her career years later, Lake remarked, “I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair.”

She married film director Andre De Toth in 1944 and had a son, Andre Anthony Michael De Toth, known as Michael De Toth (October 25, 1945 – February 24, 1991), and a daughter, Diana De Toth (born October 16, 1948). Lake was sued by her mother for support payments in 1948.

Lake earned her pilot’s license in 1946 and was able to fly solo between Los Angeles and New York.

Lake died on July 7, 1973, of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Burlington, Vermont, where her death was certified by Dr. Wareen Beeken at the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and where she was seen by many staff members during her nearly two-week stay. A rumor persists that she died in Montreal and was smuggled across the border to Vermont. Vermont state death records, however, confirm that she died in Burlington, Vermont.

As she requested, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. A memorial service was held in Manhattan, but only her son and a handful of strangers attended. In 2004 some of Lake’s ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store. Her son, Michael, died on February 24, 1991, at age 45 in Olympia, Washington.

Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the motion picture industry. She remains a legendary star today and her autographs and other memorabilia continue to draw high prices on eBay and other popular outlets.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Flesh Feast (1970)
Slattery’s Hurricane (11-Aug-1949)
Isn’t It Romantic? (6-Oct-1948)
The Sainted Sisters (30-Apr-1948)
Saigon (31-Mar-1948)
Variety Girl (29-Aug-1947) · Herself
Ramrod (21-Feb-1947)
The Blue Dahlia (19-Apr-1946) · Joyce Harwood
Miss Susie Slagle’s (6-Feb-1946)
Hold That Blonde (7-Nov-1945)
Duffy’s Tavern (28-Sep-1945) · Herself
Out of This World (13-Jul-1945)
Bring on the Girls (23-Feb-1945)
The Hour Before the Dawn (10-May-1944)
So Proudly We Hail! (22-Jun-1943) · Lt. Olivia D’Arcy
Star Spangled Rhythm (18-Dec-1942) · Herself
I Married a Witch (30-Oct-1942) · Jennifer
The Glass Key (15-Oct-1942) · Janet Henry
This Gun For Hire (13-May-1942) · Ellen Graham
Sullivan’s Travels (Dec-1941) · The Girl
I Wanted Wings (26-Mar-1941)

Source: Veronica Lake – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: The Victoria Advocate – Google News Archive Search

Source: USATODAY.com – Veronica Lake’s remains resurface

Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal – Google News Archive Search

Source: Lodi News-Sentinel – Google News Archive Search

Source: The Age – Google News Archive Search

Source: Overview for Veronica Lake

Source: Reading Eagle – Google News Archive Search

Source: Veronica Lake – Hollywood Star Walk – Los Angeles Times

Source: Veronica Lake’s Ashes For Sale? – CBS News

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UPDATE:  Recently, a woman claiming to be Amanda Lake, the undocumented daughter of Veronica Lake, has requested that I remove all mention of her “mother” from this site.  Her threats are completely unfounded. Claiming ownership of photographs and the words “Veronica” and “Lake,” she continues to sent lawsuit threats from fake lawyers (emails sent on Sundays from hotmail addresses) and has never once explained exactly what she wants. As far as I can tell, she would like all mention of her “mother” removed from the entire internet.

Today is the 108th birthday of the actress Vivian Vance.  She didn’t make Lucy funny, she made her funnier.  She was the point of reference, the voice of reason, the control group with which we were able to judge just how crazy Lucy was.  She was doing what we would be doing if we were in the scene:  questioning and cautioning, but eventually being persuaded to join in the scheme.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Vivian Vance
OCCUPATION: Television Actress, Film Actor/Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: July 26, 1909
DEATH DATE: August 17, 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cherryvale, Kansas
PLACE OF DEATH: Belvedere, California
ORIGINALLY: Vivian Roberta Jones
EMMY 1954 Best Supporting Actress, for I Love Lucy
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 7000 Hollywood Blvd (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Vivian Vance was an actress chiefly known as Ethel Murtz on the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy.

Actress. Born Vivian Roberta Jones on July 26, 1909, in Cherryvale, Kansas. Vivian Vance is best known as Ethel Mertz, the neighbor, friend, and partner in crime, to Lucy Ricardo (played by Lucille Ball) on the long-running comedy series I Love Lucy. She took to acting at an early age, studying in her native Kansas and later New Mexico.

Moving to New York City in the early 1930s, Vance found work in the theater, landing her first Broadway role in the musical comedy Music in the Air in 1932. Several more musical comedies followed, including Anything Goes with Ethel Merman and Let’s Face It with Danny Kaye and Eve Arden.

In the late 1940s, Vance had a nervous breakdown and went back to New Mexico for a time. After taking a break from working, she moved to California and returned to the stage there. Little did she know that her performance in The Voice of the Turtle at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, would lead to her most famous role. A friend of hers, director Marc Daniels, had recommended her for the part of Ethel Mertz on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s new television show. Accompanied by Daniels, Arnez went to see Vance in the show and decided that she was a perfect fit for the role.

Initially, Vance was not sure she wanted the part. In the early 1950s, television was an emerging media, and she was working on a film career, with roles in The Secret Fury (1950) with Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan and The Blue Veil (1951) with Jane Wyman and Charles Laughton. Eventually she decided to pursue the role and wore unflattering clothes and make-up to better fit the character of Ethel.

I Love Lucy premiered in the fall of 1951, and soon the show was a huge hit. It focused on Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, a Cuban bandleader and his wife, played by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Their best friends, neighbors, and landlords were Fred and Ethel Mertz. William Frawley was Vance’s on-screen husband despite a substantial age difference – Vance was 39 years old and Frawley was 64 years old when the two were first cast in their roles. That fact reportedly irritated Vance, having said once that he should play her father, not her husband.

Often focused Lucy’s wacky misadventures, some of the show’s most memorable moments featured Ball and Vance entangled in some type of scheme gone wrong, such as trying to make money or fool their husbands. Her considerable talents as a comedic sidekick did not go unnoticed. She received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once for best supporting actress in 1954.

After the show ended in 1957, Vance appeared on several specials featuring the characters of I Love Lucy. When Lucille Ball returned to series television without Desi Arnaz in 1962, she convinced Vance to join the cast. This time Vance again played best friend to Ball, but with some notable differences. Vance co-starred as Vivian who had a slimmer figure and more glamorous look than the frumpy Ethel. In the series, The Lucy Show, Ball was a widow with two children who shared her home with Vance, a divorcee, and her son. At the time, Vance was living on the East Coast so she commuted to California to film the show. Eventually, she tired of all the travel and became an occasional guest star instead of a series regular in 1965. The Lucy Show ended in 1972.

Vance returned to California in the mid-1970s. She died on August 17, 1979, in Belvedere, California. At the time of her death, she was married to literary agent John Dodds.

TELEVISION
I Love Lucy Ethel Mertz (1951-57)
The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Ethel Mertz (1957-60)
The Lucy Show Vivian Bagley (1962-65)
Here’s Lucy Vivian Jones (1968-72)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Great Race (1-Jul-1965) · Hester Goodbody
The Blue Veil (26-Oct-1951)
The Secret Fury (21-Feb-1950) · Leah

Is the subject of books:
The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance, 1998, BY: Frank Castelluccio and Alvin Walker

Source: Vivian Vance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Vivian Vance – Film Actress, Television Actress – Biography.com

Source: Vivian Vance

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Today is the 118th birthday of the woman who made more influence on mid-century fashion than all the fashion designers of the time combined:  Edith Head.  If you are a fan of classic movies and pay attention to scenery and costuming, you already know her. She had THE influence on American style before clothing designers were known. A quick search for her on IMDB will soon have you realizing that her touch was added to most of the films that you know and love.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Edith Head
OCCUPATION: Fashion Designer
BIRTH DATE: October 28, 1897
DEATH DATE: October 24, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH: San Bernardino, California
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California

Best Known For:  Edith Head was one of the most prolific costume designers in 20th century film, winning a record eight Academy Awards.

Edith Head became chief designer at Paramount Pictures in 1933 and later worked at Universal. Hollywood’s best-known designer, her costumes ranged from the elegantly simple to the elaborately flamboyant. She won a record eight Academy Awards for her work in films such as All About Eve (1950), Roman Holiday (1953), and The Sting (1973).

“Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” – Edith Head

As part of a series of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in February 2003, commemorating the behind-the-camera personnel who make movies, Head was featured on one to honor costume design.

The band They Might Be Giants recorded the song “She Thinks She’s Edith Head,” which was included in the 1999 album Long Tall Weekend and the 2001 album Mink Car. The song is about a girl from the singer’s past, who had changed her persona to be more sophisticated, and compares her new attitude to Head and longtime Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown.

“You can have whatever you want if you dress for it.” ― Edith Head

To many viewers of the 2004 Pixar/Disney computer-animated film The Incredibles, the personality and mannerisms of the film’s fictional superhero costume designer Edna Mode suggest a colorful caricature of Edith Head. Edna Mode’s sense of style, round glasses, and assertive no-nonsense character are very likely a direct homage to Head’s legendary accomplishments and personal traits. But the film’s director, Brad Bird, has not yet confirmed or denied this.

• Edith Head – Style Icon
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Today is Veronica Lake’s 93rd birthday.  Have you seen The Blue Dahlia?  It is amazing.  Her live story is as heartbreaking as she is beautiful.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

UPDATE:  Recently, a woman claiming to be Amanda Lake, the undocumented daughter of Veronica Lake, has requested that I remove all mention of her “mother” from this site.  Her threats are completely unfounded. Claiming ownership of photographs and the words “Veronica” and “Lake,” she continues to sent lawsuit threats from fake lawyers (emails sent on Sundays from hotmail addresses) and has never once explained exactly what she wants. As far as I can tell, she would like all mention of her “mother” removed from the internet.

Born: November 14, 1922 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died: July 7, 1973 (aged 50) Burlington, Vermont, U.S.
Cause of death: hepatitis and acute renal failure
Other names:Constance Frances Marie Ockleman
Occupation: Actress

Father: Harry Ockleman (d. 1932 ship explosion)
Mother: Constance Charlotta Trimble
Husband: John S. Detlie (m. 25-Sep-1940, div. 2-Dec-1943, one daughter, one son)
Daughter: Elaine Detlie (b. 21-Aug-1941)
Son: William Detlie (b. 8-Jul-1943, d. 15-Jul-1943)
Husband: André de Toth (film director, m. 13-Dec-1944, div. 2-Jun-1952, one son, one daughter)
Son: Andre Michael De Toth III (b. 25-Oct-1945)
Daughter: Diane De Toth (b. 16-Oct-1948)
Husband: Joseph A. McCarthy (m. 28-Aug-1955, div. 1959)
Boyfriend: Jorge Guinle (d. 2004)
Husband: Robert Carleton-Munro (m. 1972, until her death)

Hollywood Walk of Fame:  6918 Hollywood Blvd.
Appendectomy (8-Jan-1943)
Bankruptcy 1951
Risk Factors: Schizophrenia, Alcoholism, Smoking, Appendicitis

Veronica Lake  was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. She was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. Lake had a string of broken marriages and, after her career declined, had long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism.

Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of Danish-Irish descent, worked for an oil company aboard a ship. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble (1902–1992), (listed as “Veronica F.” on the 1920 census), married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Lake began using his last name.

Lake was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami Senior High School in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother.

In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced, while still a teenager, to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes.

RKO subsequently dropped her contract. She married art director John S. Detlie, 14 years her senior, in 1940. A small role in the comedy, Forty Little Mothers, brought unexpected attention. In 1941 she was signed to a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. On August 21, 1941, she gave birth to her first child, Elaine Detlie.

Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings in 1941, a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead and was said to have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. This success was followed by Hold Back the Dawn later that year. She had starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan’s Travels, This Gun for Hire, I Married a Witch, The Glass Key, and So Proudly We Hail!. René Clair, the director of I Married a Witch, said of Lake “She was a very gifted girl, but she didn’t believe she was gifted.”

For a short time during the early 1940s Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just 4 feet 11¹⁄₂ inches (1.511 m). They made four films together.

A stray lock of her shoulder-length, blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic “peekaboo” hairstyle, which was widely imitated. During World War II, Lake changed her trademark image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles, although doing so may have damaged her career.

Although popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in Star Spangled Rhythm, was quoted as saying, “She was known as ‘The Bitch’ and she deserved the title.”  In that movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, “A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang”, performed with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour.   Joel McCrea, her co-star in Sullivan’s Travels, reputedly turned down the co-starring role in I Married a Witch, saying, “Life’s too short for two films with Veronica Lake.”

Lake’s career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944’s The Hour Before the Dawn. During filming, she tripped on a lighting cable while pregnant and began hemorrhaging. She recovered, but her second child, William, was born prematurely on July 8, 1943, dying a week later from uremic poisoning.  By the end of 1943 her first marriage ended in divorce. Meanwhile, scathing reviews of The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent.

Nonetheless, Lake was earning $4,500 per week under her contract with Paramount. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her.  Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The Blue Dahlia (1946), in which she again co-starred with Ladd. During filming, screenplay writer Raymond Chandler referred to her as “Moronica Lake”.  Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.

Looking back at her career years later, Lake remarked, “I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair.”

She married film director Andre De Toth in 1944 and had a son, Andre Anthony Michael De Toth, known as Michael De Toth (October 25, 1945 – February 24, 1991), and a daughter, Diana De Toth (born October 16, 1948). Lake was sued by her mother for support payments in 1948.

Lake earned her pilot’s license in 1946 and was able to fly solo between Los Angeles and New York.

Lake died on July 7, 1973, of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Burlington, Vermont, where her death was certified by Dr. Wareen Beeken at the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and where she was seen by many staff members during her nearly two-week stay. A rumor persists that she died in Montreal and was smuggled across the border to Vermont. Vermont state death records, however, confirm that she died in Burlington, Vermont.

As she requested, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. A memorial service was held in Manhattan, but only her son and a handful of strangers attended. In 2004 some of Lake’s ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store. Her son, Michael, died on February 24, 1991, at age 45 in Olympia, Washington.

Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the motion picture industry. She remains a legendary star today and her autographs and other memorabilia continue to draw high prices on eBay and other popular outlets.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Flesh Feast (1970)
Slattery’s Hurricane (11-Aug-1949)
Isn’t It Romantic? (6-Oct-1948)
The Sainted Sisters (30-Apr-1948)
Saigon (31-Mar-1948)
Variety Girl (29-Aug-1947) · Herself
Ramrod (21-Feb-1947)
The Blue Dahlia (19-Apr-1946) · Joyce Harwood
Miss Susie Slagle’s (6-Feb-1946)
Hold That Blonde (7-Nov-1945)
Duffy’s Tavern (28-Sep-1945) · Herself
Out of This World (13-Jul-1945)
Bring on the Girls (23-Feb-1945)
The Hour Before the Dawn (10-May-1944)
So Proudly We Hail! (22-Jun-1943) · Lt. Olivia D’Arcy
Star Spangled Rhythm (18-Dec-1942) · Herself
I Married a Witch (30-Oct-1942) · Jennifer
The Glass Key (15-Oct-1942) · Janet Henry
This Gun For Hire (13-May-1942) · Ellen Graham
Sullivan’s Travels (Dec-1941) · The Girl
I Wanted Wings (26-Mar-1941)

Source: Veronica Lake – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: The Victoria Advocate – Google News Archive Search

Source: USATODAY.com – Veronica Lake’s remains resurface

Source: Daytona Beach Morning Journal – Google News Archive Search

Source: Lodi News-Sentinel – Google News Archive Search

Source: The Age – Google News Archive Search

Source: Overview for Veronica Lake

Source: Reading Eagle – Google News Archive Search

Source: Veronica Lake – Hollywood Star Walk – Los Angeles Times

Source: Veronica Lake’s Ashes For Sale? – CBS News

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