“Das Lied ist aus/The Song is Over” - 20 Years Ago Marlene Dietrich died
The song might be over, but the melody is still lingering.
[K] Marlene Dietrich, 1901-1992, film star, fashion icon, sex symbol, singer, soldier and so much more…
When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it. (Marlene Dietrich)
… unless your legacy is as long-lasting as Marlene Dietrich’s, whose image and allure seems to be as enthralling as ever.
I suggest you brighten your Sunday night by watching a Dietrich movie (I sure did).
Barbara Stanwyck
[B] Axel Madsen about Barbara Stanwyck in his 1994 published book “Stanwyck”
![Barbara Stanwyck
[B] Axel Madsen about Barbara Stanwyck in his 1994 published book “Stanwyck”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0skhxgIo11qddduoo1_500.jpg)
George Cukor, director of Camille, on Greta Garbo’s unique style of acting
(Source: garboforever.com)
01.31.12 ♥ 5I was the Marlon Brando of my Generation - Bette Davis
(Image Source: Old Acquaintance @ Dr. Macro’s)
Why we should all be aware of/in love with Christine Vachon
[K] What do Poison, Go, Fish, Boys Don’t Cry and Hedwig and the Angry Inch have in common? They’re defining points of LGBT representation in cinema, milestones in US indepenent film, mandatory viewing items for “Queer Film Studies 101” and they have all been produced by the same woman: Christine Vachon. If we had a Favorite Contemporary, instead of Favorite Vintage Butch-category, Christine Vachon would be in it. But since we don’t have it (yet?), she is her own category for now - which is probably only appropriate anyway.
[K] From: Alexander Doty “My beautiful Wickedness”: The Wizard of Oz as lesbian Fantasy (in: Hop on Pop) in which Doty argues for a reading of Dorothy’s dilemma as the decision between a butch and femme identity.
This big bad butch witch, who is loud, aggressive, violent, and wears an obvious “uniform,” had been developed by the time of the final script to function on one level as a contrast to good witch Glinda. However Glinda presents complications for lesbian readings of The Wizard of Oz that have someething to do with Rushdie’s complaint that she is a “trilling pain in the neck [in] frilly pink”. For Glinda seems to be one of those images of femmes in popular culture that are coded to be able to pass as heterosexually feminine in the eyes of certain beholders.
But look at Glinda again: there’s more than a touch of camp excess here that finally seems expressive oflesbian femmeness rather than of the straight feminine. And let’s not forget that while Glinda may look like a fairy godmother, she is a witch, and is therefore connected to the Wicked Witch and to centuries-long Western cultural associations between witchcraft and lesbianism. So what we have set before us in The Wizard of Oz is the division of lesbianism into the good femmeinine and the bad butch, or the model potentially “invisible” femme and the threateningly obvious butch.
Vintage Queer Subtext Moment
[K] What Sunday afternoon TV programs are good for: campy fun and hilariously queer movie scenes! (If you’re lucky)
Swagger to spare: Mauren O’Hara as a tough piratess
In this case, I stumbled upon a little gem from 1952: Against All Flags, in which Maureen O’ Hara plays swashbuckling Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stevens - owner of her own pirate ship - opposite a rather sissy Errol Flynn who at one point teaches her how to behave more feminine (=less butch), while she answers his attempt to kiss her by drawing her gun. In an interesting turn of events, Stevens finds herself bidding for a Indian princess who is sold as a sex sklave /wife … and liking her price more than she expected. Enjoy!
Marlene Dietrich re-invented as Street Art
For more amazing street art photography by Ulrich Blanchet go to his flickr photostream.
Treasures from Mercedes de Acosta’s Bequest - Greta Garbo
[K] After portraits of Mercedes de Acosta herself - most envy-worthy butch ever - and pictures she took of one of her most famous lovers, Marlene Dietrich, part three of the “Treasures from Mercedes de Acosta’s Bequest”-series shows intimate snapshots of Mercedes’ other famous lover, Greta Garbo.
Enjoy these rare glimpses into the private (and sporty) life of one of Hollywood’s most elusive - and yet biggest - stars.
(All pictures courtesy of the Rosenbach Museum and Libary.)
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!
From Butch in Progress via (the very subtextual) Thelma Todd - enjoy whatever you do to celebrate/not celebrate these days.
Maybe this is also a good opportunity to say: Thanks For Following!
Hats! Vests! Uniforms!
[K] Random pictures of vintage actresses in drag.
Why? Because I can, because they look damn fine, and because I think today’s movie landscape could use some more gender-bending/cross-dressing/girls in suits, and because I am sure I would have collected those postcards with avid devotion. Consider it a pre-holiday-gift for your eyes.
Sources: Flicker - Truus, Bob and Jan, too!
Have you ever met Garbo?
[K] Screen legend Joan Crawford questioned by an interviewer about her stories of being over-awed when she met stars like Greta Garbo… even 30 years later she still seems quite smitten with the Swedish Sphinx:
“Oh, you’d be breathless.”
Marlene Dietrich, photographed at the home of Dorothy Arzner and her partner Marion Morgan
[K] This just made my day: a rare picture of Marlene Dietrich sitting on Dorothy Arzner’s porch (the two once planned to shoot a movie together), which was discovered by Directed by Dorothy Arzner-author and film scholar Judith Mayne during her research at the Arzner-Collection at UCLA.
Hollywood (or rather its infamous ‘sewing circle’) was a small world indeed…
Mayne writes about her discovery:
There were a number of snapshots of various individuals in one of the boxes at UCLA. […] One snapshot promised truly exciting possibilities: Marlene Dietrich, sitting (I assumed) in Arzner and Morgan’s yard […]
I have yet to find a single acknowledgement of a friendship, an acquaintanceship or an attachment between the two [in the several detailed biographies that have appeared since Dietrich’s death]. I freely admit my disappointment, but at the same time I think it is a good thing to have this photograph of Dietrich so situate next to the one of the entrance to Dorothy and Marion’s home;
it reminds me that no indivicual life is completely knowable by anyone else.
For more info on the home director Dorothy Arzner and choreographer Marion Morgan had shared for several decades, go to HollywoodLand.
ps.: further evidence of the above stated “small world of Hollywood’s ‘sewing circle’”… the UCLA retrospective of Arzner’s work in 2003 was partially funded by *drumroll* Jodie Foster.
![Marlene Dietrich, photographed at the home of Dorothy Arzner and her partner Marion Morgan
[K] This just made my day: a rare picture of Marlene Dietrich sitting on Dorothy Arzner’s porch (the two once planned to shoot a movie together), which was discovered by Directed by Dorothy Arzner-author and film scholar Judith Mayne during her research at the Arzner-Collection at UCLA.
Hollywood (or rather its infamous ‘sewing circle’) was a small world indeed…
Mayne writes about her discovery:
There were a number of snapshots of various individuals in one of the boxes at UCLA. […] One snapshot promised truly exciting possibilities: Marlene Dietrich, sitting (I assumed) in Arzner and Morgan’s yard […]
I have yet to find a single acknowledgement of a friendship, an acquaintanceship or an attachment between the two [in the several detailed biographies that have appeared since Dietrich’s death]. I freely admit my disappointment, but at the same time I think it is a good thing to have this photograph of Dietrich so situate next to the one of the entrance to Dorothy and Marion’s home;
it reminds me that no indivicual life is completely knowable by anyone else.
For more info on the home director Dorothy Arzner and choreographer Marion Morgan had shared for several decades, go to HollywoodLand.
ps.: further evidence of the above stated “small world of Hollywood’s ‘sewing circle’”… the UCLA retrospective of Arzner’s work in 2003 was partially funded by *drumroll* Jodie Foster.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv0ijzAWWj1qddduoo1_500.jpg)
Dorothy Arzner, “Hollywood’s Only Woman Director”
[K] From the trailer for The Bride Wore Red (starring Joan Crawford): A rare ‘moving image’ of one of our favorite Vintage Butches, director Dorothy Arzner.
(Source: youtube.com)
