Author Archives: susanjustwrites

SusanLindaBarbaraCarolJudyNancy

Posted on March 25, 2024 | 1 comment

When I was growing up, about 80 percent of the girls I knew shared one of these six names:

Susan

Linda

Barbara

Carol(e)

Judy

Nancy

I was one of the perhaps hundreds of thousands of women in my generation named Susan.  In 1945, it ranked as the #10 girls’ name in the U.S.  By 1957, it was even more popular, ranking #2.

Why did so many of us share the same names?

I trace their popularity to something that seemed to permeate the consciousness of our parents:  The bright lights of Hollywood.

When we were born, many of our parents were still emerging from the shadows cast by World War II and the financial setbacks of the Great Depression.  Our parents may have already become financially successful or they may have been continuing their attempt to achieve financial success.  Either way, they hoped for a bright future for their darling daughters.  Hollywood seemed like a glittering site where they could find names to bestow on them.

In my own case (and that of the throngs of other Susans), I blame Susan Hayward.  By 1940, Susan Hayward had begun to earn a place for herself in Hollywood.  She went on to star in a series of box-office hits during the 1940s and ‘50s.  In most of her roles, she was a notable standout among the film actresses of her day—courageous, smart, and fiercely independent, frequently paired with some of Hollywood’s top male stars.  Her flaming red hair and other appealing features helped bolster her status as a Hollywood star.

What about the other names?  The reliance on Hollywood’s women stars is equally clear when we consider at least four of the other names.

Linda:  Hollywood was fascinated with Linda Darnell, and she was featured in a wide range of films during the 1940s and ‘50s.  The Mark of Zorro (1940) was her first opportunity to star with leading man Tyrone Power, with whom she was paired in a number of films.  Coincidentally, Tyrone Power later married Linda Christian, another Hollywood star during the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Barbara:  One of Hollywood’s megastars, Barbara Stanwyck, starred in 85 films, including many during the 1940s and ‘50s.  She was admired for her roles as a strong leading woman in films like Double Indemnity (1944).   Incidentally, Ruth Handler created the Barbie doll in 1959, probably influenced by the popularity of the name Barbara during the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Carol(e):  Carole Lombard, a huge star in the 1930s, was originally named Carol but was once mistakenly credited as Carole, and she adopted that spelling because she decided she liked it.  Her popularity zoomed until a plane crash in 1942 ended her life as well as her radiant career.  Her husband, Hollywood leading man Clark Gable, remarried twice but reportedly never got over Carole’s death.

Judy:  The name Judy was undoubtedly inspired by Hollywood legend Judy Garland.  Need I say more?

Nancy:  It’s harder to track any film stars named Nancy.  Nancy Davis, who married Ronald Reagan, didn’t begin making movies until the late ‘40s and she never became a big star.  Other Nancys in Hollywood films during the ‘40s and ‘50s were fairly unknown actresses who never achieved box-office success.  Maybe they were among the countless women who rejected the Hollywood casting couch and fell into oblivion as a result.  Parents may have chosen the name Nancy simply because they liked the good vibe the name Nancy offered, in part due to the popularity of the Nancy Drew books.  As a teenage sleuth, Nancy Drew gave off a great vibe.  A total of 175 books featuring her began publishing in 1930 and continued for decades.

Among my cohorts, many other girls’ names had their moment in the sun:  Karen, Julie, Natalie, Ann/Anne, Janice, Marcia/Marsha, Elizabeth (in one form or another), and Katherine (ditto).  But they couldn’t compete with the six favorites.

Boys’ names pretty much stuck to more traditional favorites. Most popular from the 1940s through the 1960s were James, Robert, John, William, and Richard, with Michael and David gaining strength in the ‘60s.

Both boys’ and girls’ names had changed radically by 2000.  Boys were most often named Jacob, Joshua, and Matthew.  Girls’ favored names were Emily, Hannah, and Madison.

Some parents began using names derived from pop culture, especially TV series (supplanting Hollywood films)–names like Phoebe in “Friends.”

As for Susan, it’s plunged in popularity since its heyday, when it ranked #2.  By 2023, it had fallen to #1708.  

Nobody seems to name a daughter Susan anymore. 

But with the recent revival of venerable names like Amelia, Evelyn, Charlotte, and Olivia, who knows?  Maybe Susan will live again! 

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Posted in 1940s, 1950s, Hollywood, movie stars, movies

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Gender-bias revisited

Posted on February 16, 2024 | 3 comments

I’ve encountered gender-bias of varying degrees throughout my life.  I want to relate an example of gender-bias I encountered decades ago, during my first year of law school.  Looking back on it, I find it almost laughable. When you read this story, you may agree.

My story exemplifies gender-bias by a fellow law student. I was one of a small number of women law students in my class—we made up just over four percent of the total.  Although most of my male classmates treated me with respect, there were exceptions, and this classmate represents the worst of them.

To set the scene, I was an enthusiastic participant in the law school’s moot court program, the Ames Moot Court competition.  My participation ended in the middle of my second year of law school only because the program’s absurd “team” structure eliminated my team—not me. I did well enough to move on, but my team as a whole did not. I wasn’t happy about it because I truly enjoyed participating in Ames.

During our first year of law school, all students were required to take part in the Ames program.  Here‘s how it worked:  In the fall semester, students were randomly assigned to participate in a fictitious lawsuit and had to play the part of either the plaintiff’s attorney or the defendant’s attorney.  We were expected to research the most important issues, write a brief on behalf of our client, and then show up in person before a panel of three judges to argue our case.

In the fall semester, I was assigned to a thorny contracts issue, and I spent a lot of time doing research in the large law school library.  In this pre-internet era, I would read case law in the bound reporters on the shelves of the library.  I would then transcribe relevant case law onto index cards and yellow legal pads, planning to use helpful precedents in my argument. 

My opponent that fall was a wisecracking student from the Cleveland area.  He was apparently distraught that his opponent was a “girl.” I was told that he was overheard complaining that it worked to his disadvantage whether he won or lost.  His complaint went like this: “If you win, you’ve only beaten a girl.  And if you lose, you’ve lost to a girl!”  When I learned that this concept dominated his thinking, I was furious and even more determined to beat him if I could.

I did a lot of my research in the library at night, after dinner.  One night, I was transcribing a helpful precedent from a court that followed Anglo-American law.  It was just fine to use case law from any jurisdiction that followed Anglo-American law.  The court reporter I had come across was not in a jurisdiction in the U.S. or the U.K.  It was in Alberta, Canada, which followed Anglo-American law.  My opponent caught a glimpse of me and meandered over to where I was sitting.  He took a look at the court reporter I’d found and commented, “Scraping the bottom of the barrel, huh?”  I coolly answered him, pointing out that this court’s holding was perfectly acceptable, a great one supporting my case, and I planned to use it.  He smirked and wandered off. 

What was the outcome of our argument, held in November, just before Thanksgiving weekend?  We appeared in a small room at the law school to argue our case in front of a panel of three judges. The judges for each case varied.  Our panel was made up of three third-year students who had earned an excellent law-school record. 

How did I do?  I won more points on both the written brief and the oral argument, thereby defeating my opponent.  Too bad his father, a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, had made a special trip to witness our oral argument, probably assuming that his son would triumph over a “girl.” 

What happened next?  During the spring semester, I was required to pair up with my fall opponent, and together we opposed a pair of other students in a new case.  My Cleveland classmate suddenly had a brand-new attitude, quite happy to work with a “girl” to produce a winning brief.  Which we did.

I like to think that this triumph over gender-bias led to my classmate’s permanently rethinking his previous attitude.  I wonder whether it really did.  But it certainly left me even more determined to fight gender-bias—and win—for the rest of my life.

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Posted in gender equality, gender roles and stereotypes, gender-equity, law, law school, lawyers

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Should we “dress our age”?

Posted on January 24, 2024 | 1 comment

 Every morning, if we’re not staying in our pajamas all day (which we may well choose to do), we need to decide:  Which items of clothing do I want to wear that day?

Last month, the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman, asked “What does it mean to ‘dress your age’?”

This question strikes me as pretty silly. Friedman used it to fill up space in her newspaper, space that deserved a less trivial topic. But I’ve decided to focus on it for a moment.

Here’s my question:  When we decide what to wear each morning, are we supposed to focus on the number of years we’ve lived so far?

Balderdash!

My answer:  Forget about your age!  Who cares?  “Age” is a number, but each person has an individual relationship with that number.  Joe Biden at 81 handles domestic and global issues with considerable aplomb, and film director Martin Scorsese at 81 continues to direct outstanding films, while much younger people struggle with their grocery lists.

Your decision should mostly depend not on your age but on how you spend your day.  Do you spend your day in a workplace?  Workplaces vary tremendously, and your clothing should conform to where you work.  A desk job in an office is very different from a job in a farm or factory setting.

Perhaps you work from home.  Your choices will probably depend on whether you never see another human being or you do see others when you appear in a meeting on Zoom.  And if you spend your day at home with no work commitment, you’ll want to satisfy your own goals.

Your decision will also depend on how your clothes fit and whether you like the way you look in them.

But dressing your age?

Let’s not forget that Friedman’s perspective is that of a working NYC journalist with an undoubtedly healthy income. While she mentions that “strict social or cultural rules about what to wear as you age don’t really exist anymore,” she agrees with me that “how you dress is a statement about who you are and how you want to be perceived.”  She thinks “that changes as we grow up.”  So she has “said goodbye to clothes I generally associate with my youth,” like hemlines above the knee.  She’s now “gravitating toward long skirts…and wider trousers,” which give her “a swishy feeling” when she walks. 

Exactly where is Friedman walking? Maybe that works for her, but I can’t imagine seeking out “a swishy feeling” when I walk. Negotiating city streets as I stroll through my neighborhood, I need clothes I can move in quickly, zooming through crosswalks without getting hit by careless drivers. [Please see my blog post, “Thank you for not killing me,” https://susanjustwrites.com/2021/08/.%5D  

Even a New York Times fashion expert should get real.  How many women want to get that “swishy feeling” when they walk?  How many can afford to or even want to when they have far more important things to worry about?

From my point of view, it’s simple: You should wear what you think is comfortable and, if you like, clothes you think look good on you.

I never consider my age when I get dressed.  I tend to choose clothes I find comfortable, eschewing anything that’s so tight that buttons gap and waistbands pinch.  My go-to clothes are black t-shirts and black pants, which are both comfy and make me feel OK about how I look.  Because I primarily work from home, sitting in front of my desktop computer, I usually don’t worry about how I look to others.  When I do leave home, my attire depends on where I’m going and who will be there. 

I generally try to “outsmart the bad guys” by wearing fairly worn-out and dumpy garb. [Please see my blog post, https://susanjustwrites.com/2021/08/06/outsmarting-the-bad-guys/.%5D These are just fine when I walk around my neighborhood.  But if I’m going to be seen by people I know, I’ll make other choices.  Still comfy but not quite so dumpy.

Women in my daughters’ age-range make choices that work for them.  My older daughter has a hybrid working environment, part-time working from home, often appearing in meetings on Zoom, and sometimes showing up at her office.  So she wears whatever suits the occasion. Her taste is impeccable.  But she also chooses comfort as much as possible.  My younger daughter works almost exclusively from home and invariably chooses comfort.  But when she has an occasional meeting on Zoom, she aims at looking a bit more spiffy.

My teenage granddaughters, members of Gen Z, may be the only people in my life who “dress their age.”  They’re dazzling in whatever they wear, but they tend to choose clothes their contemporaries are wearing. (Didn’t we do that when we were teenagers?)  They also express their own style by wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts featuring a favored university, a city they’ve traveled to, or a popular band.  On occasion, they’ll wear semi-glamorous dresses for major social events, but basically you’ll find them in jeans and a t-shirt.

Friedman concludes by applauding the choices of women of a certain age “who look as if they know who they are and are comfortable telegraphing that to the world.”  She lists five or six Hollywood actresses, privileged women who can spend gobs of money on what they wear.  Maybe they’re good examples of “dressing their age.”  (At that level of privilege, I’d add.) This, Friedman says, means “making your own decisions about what makes you feel good, wide pants and all.” 

Pretty much what I said, right?  Except for the wide pants.

I’ll conclude with my favorite mantra.  It appears on a button I wear and a plaque I display in my living room:  “She could see no good reason to act her age.”

That goes for clothing-choices, too.

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Posted in aging, clothes, clothing, clothing-choices, fashion, films, getting older, Joe Biden, Martin Scorsese, movie stars, walking, women's clothing, workplace

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Fighting for a legal abortion in March 1970–and winning

Posted on December 19, 2023 | 2 comments

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s dismantling of Roe v. Wade, we’ve all witnessed one anti-women’s rights assault after another.  There was, last week, a glimmer of hope in the abysmal state that is current-day Texas when a trial court judge issued a TRO allowing a pregnant woman to obtain a medically-needed abortion.

A TRO is a temporary restraining order, issued by a court, upholding the right of a plaintiff to obtain the remedy she needs right away to avoid irreparable injury to her. In the Texas case, the plaintiff was an expectant mother who very much wanted to give birth to a healthy child, but medical professionals had sadly concluded that her fetus would not survive and her own health and future fertility could be irreparably damaged.

In my view, the TRO was justified and the trial court reached the right decision.  But the Texas state attorney general intervened to stand in the way, and the Texas Supreme Court supported his position.  The result:  The plaintiff left the state of Texas to obtain the abortion she needed.

This appalling state of affairs reminded me of what happened in Chicago over 50 years ago.  I was working as a young Legal Aid lawyer in Chicago, co-counsel in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on February 20,1970, that challenged the constitutionality of the Illinois abortion statute,

I suddenly acquired a new client in March 1970 when I got a phone call from one of our Legal Aid branch offices.  The mother of a teenage rape victim had come into that office to report that her daughter had been raped and was now pregnant.  The mother asked whether we could do anything to help her daughter get a legal abortion.

This Black teenage girl, whom I dubbed Mary Poe, had been beaten and raped by two boys in her neighborhood, and her resulting pregnancy had been confirmed by a local physician.  I was already representing two other women, adult women we called Jane Doe and Sally Roe, but this young woman was different. She was a brutalized 16-year-old victim of rape, and her mother didn’t want her to be forced to bear the result of the rape.

I immediately began preparing documents to allow this Black teenager to intervene as a plaintiff in our case. On March 19, I filed these documents on behalf of Mary Poe, seeking to obtain “a legal, medically safe abortion,” denied at this time because her doctor had “advised her that under the language of the challenged statute” he could not “perform such an operation upon her without fear of prosecution.” 

The new Complaint joined the original plaintiffs’ prayer for relief and added the request that the court “enter a temporary restraining order [TRO] enjoining the defendants from prosecuting [one of our plaintiff physicians, Dr. Charles Fields] under the challenged statute if he terminates her current pregnancy on or before March 27,1970.  Unless this relief is granted by the court, this plaintiff will suffer irreparable injury.”  Dr. Fields had examined Mary Poe and concluded that her pregnancy could be safely terminated until on or about March 27.

The district judge presiding over our case, William J. Campbell, was on vacation, and we turned to another district judge, Edwin Robson, who was reviewing documents in Campbell’s absence.  So on March 23, I filed a motion for leave to intervene on behalf of Mary Poe and for a TRO allowing her to receive a legal abortion.  Robson ordered the defendants to file briefs by March 26 and set our motion for ruling on March 27.  On that date, the last day Dr. Fields said the pregnancy could be safely terminated, Robson finally granted the motion for leave to intervene, but he denied our motion for a TRO.  He continued that motion until Campbell’s return in April.

Back in my office, I prepared Mary Poe’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which sat in a courtroom several floors above the district court courtrooms.  As soon as the appellate court allowed me to, I argued before Judge Luther Swygert, chief judge of the appellate court, appealing the Robson ruling that denied Mary Poe a legal abortion.

Judge Swygert ruled on March 30:  “[T]his matter comes before the court on the emergency motion of [Mary Poe].  Upon consideration of the motion…IT IS ORDERED that a temporary restraining order be entered enjoining defendants…from prosecuting plaintiff [Dr. Fields] under [the Illinois statute we were challenging], if he terminates the current pregnancy of [Mary Poe].”

I remember standing in the courtroom to hear this order spoken out loud by Judge Swygert, a brilliant and fair-minded judge.  He became my enduring judicial hero ten months later, when he issued the ruling upholding our constitutional challenge, in January 1971.

We’d won a TRO allowing Mary Poe to get a legal abortion!

When Judge Campbell returned to his courtroom in April, he was confronted with the appellate court’s decision, and there was no way he could change it.  But he went on to oppose us at every possible turn as we proceeded with our lawsuit.  I describe everything that happened in my forthcoming book, which I’m hoping will appear in print in 2024.

In the meantime, I’ll state my unwavering belief that Campbell was an early version of the “robed zealots, driven by religious doctrine, with no accountability,” described by Maureen Dowd in her opinion column in The New York Times on December 16th.  In this column, “Supreme Contempt for Women,” Dowd clearly indicts “the Savonarola wing of the Supreme Court,” who couldn’t wait “to throw [Roe v. Wade] in the constitutional rights rubbish bin.”  Judge Campbell would have fit right in.

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“The Battle of the Sexes”: An anniversary

Posted on November 13, 2023 | 1 comment

 

September 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of “The Battle of the Sexes,” the memorable tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

In November 2017, when a film based on this story appeared, I wrote about it.  https://susanjustwrites.com/2017/11/ .  Much of what I wrote still holds true, and an edited version appears below.  Thanks to Billie Jean King’s autobiographical memoir, All In, published in 2021, I can add a brief update.

Edited version of what I wrote in 2017

When Billie Jean King met Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973, I was miles away in San Diego.  I’d just finished teaching a class of law school students about Poverty Law, and I was blissfully pregnant with my first child.  I was watching the clock, trying to judge the time it would take to drive from the beautiful campus of the University of San Diego to our recently-rented apartment in seaside La Jolla.  Waiting at home was my handsome and super-smart husband (I’ll call him Marv), finished for the day with teaching math students at UCSD, the University of California at San Diego.  We were both Professors Alexander that year, and it was fun to answer our phone and hear a student ask for ‘Professor Alexander.’  My silly response:  ‘Which one?’

Marv had snacks and drinks ready to munch on and imbibe during the televised tennis match.  The drinks included nothing alcoholic for me.  Not because the medical profession had decided that alcohol harmed growing fetuses.  That came a few years later.  I avoided alcohol simply because I had no desire to drink while I was pregnant.  Was it instinct or just dumb luck?  When we later that year saw the film “Cinderella Liberty,” in which an often-drunk woman’s pregnancy ends in tragedy, it was clear that my choice to avoid alcohol was the right one.

I drove home from USD as fast as I could, arriving just in time to watch the much-hyped tennis match dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes.”  In the 2017 film about the match, Emma Stone captured the Billie Jean King role perfectly.  She portrayed not only King’s triumph over Riggs in that match but also her initial uncertainty over her decision to compete against him and her continuing struggle to ensure that women’s tennis be given equal status with men’s.

Steve Carell carried off his role as Bobby Riggs equally well, depicting the outrageous antics of the 55-year-old Riggs.  But the focus had to be on Billie Jean, the Wonder-Woman-like heroine of her day.  By accepting Riggs’s challenge, and then defeating him, she became the twentieth-century symbol of women’s strength and perseverance, advancing the cause of women in sports (and in American culture at large) as much as she advanced her own. 

Marv and I were two of the estimated 50 million Americans who watched the match on ABC television that night. Watching it with my adored husband, my hoped-for child growing inside me, I was ecstatic when Billie Jean defeated Riggs before 90 million viewers worldwide.

As my pregnancy advanced, complete strangers would ask me, “Do you want a boy or a girl?”  I liked to answer ‘a girl’ just to see the reaction on the faces of nosey parkers who clearly expected another response.  I was in fact hoping I would give birth to a healthy child of either sex, but I knew I’d treasure having a daughter.  When my darling daughter was born about seven months after the Battle of the Sexes, and when her equally wonderful sister arrived three years later, Marv and I were both on top of the world.

Maybe watching Billie Jean King in September 1973 sealed our fate.  We really wanted her to win that battle. Did the endorphins circulating inside me as we watched her triumph produce a feeling of euphoria?  Euphoria that later led us to produce two Wonder-Woman-like heroines of our own?  Maybe.

Tennis, anyone?

2023 update

Fifty years later, I’m in awe of what Billie Jean King has been able to achieve in the field of tennis and in our culture overall.  Throughout her career, she has faced all sorts of challenges.  Significantly, in the preface to her book, All In, she recounts the gender-bias she confronted as a child.  This was not only the gender-bias that permeated the overall culture that she and I both grew up with, but also the specific bias she dealt with in the tennis world. 

In my forthcoming book, I plan to quote King’s description of what she was up against.  “I didn’t start out with grievances against the world, but the world certainly seemed to have grievances against girls and women like me.”  As she writes, “Pursuing your goals as a girl or woman then often meant being pricked and dogged by slights… It made no sense to me.  Why would anyone set arbitrary limits on another human being? … Why were we constantly told, Can’t do this. Don’t do that. Temper your ambitions, lower your voice, stay in your place, act less competent than you are. Do as you’re told?  Why weren’t a female’s striving and individual differences seen as life-enriching, a source of pride, rather than a problem?” 

King points out that the famous Riggs tennis match “remains cast in the public imagination as the defining moment for me where everything coalesced and some fuse was lit.  But in truth, that drive had been smoldering in me since I was a child.”  What the match and “its fevered buildup proved was that millions of others were locked in the same tug-of-war over gender roles and equal opportunities.”  She adds, “I wanted to show that women deserve equality, and we can perform under pressure and entertain just as well as men.”

King has gone on to achieve exactly what she aimed to do:  Achieve equality for women in tennis, and push for equality in every other sphere of our lives. 

When we look back at the “Battle of the Sexes,” let’s place that event firmly within the context of the lives American women like King have lived, beginning with her childhood and continuing up until today.

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Posted in 1970s, American culture, American history, anniversaries, Battle of the Sexes film, Billie Jean King, blog, Bobby Riggs, California, daughters, films, gender equality, gender roles and stereotypes, gender-equity, law school, memories, movies, Pacific Beach, pregnancy, San Diego, tennis, UCSD, University of San Diego, women, women"s interests, Wonder Woman

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Easy to Love

Posted on October 21, 2023 | 3 comments

 For a total departure from the horrific TV news that continues to unfold, I escaped by watching a 1953 Hollywood film, Easy to Love.

This film, starring three 1950s Hollywood favorites, offered just the kind of escape I needed.  The stars were three of my own favorites when I was growing up:  Esther Williams, Van Johnson, and Tony Martin.

Set in the lush backdrop of Cypress Gardens, Florida (as it existed in the mid-fifties), the story transports us to a Technicolorful world where people faced the kind of simple problems we all wished we had right now.

Esther provides the dominant star power, charmingly swimming, diving, and singing her way through the silly plot.  As an astonishing athletic female star during that era (for which she deserves far more attention and praise), she headlined a number of MGM films.  Some of them frequently appear on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and when I recently watched Easy to Love, the TCM host noted that Hollywood legend Busby Berkeley had choreographed Esther’s escapades in this film. The film opens, in fact, with a stunning example of just what Esther and Busby could do together. Berkeley later revealed that he loved being free of “the confines of the pool” in this film, here able to marshal 100 “troops” of water-skiers and swimmers, along with Esther, to perform astounding spectacles on water.  What’s remarkable is that, before making this film, swimmer Esther had never water-skied and had to learn how.

Esther’s MGM films included Neptune’s Daughter (1949), in which she and Ricardo Montalban sing the Frank Loesser Oscar-winning song that decades later has been viewed by some as offensive:  “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”  You probably know that the male singer tries to persuade the woman to stay with him despite her desire to leave.  Truthfully, the sexual innuendo it splashes on the screen was pretty typical of many Hollywood films in that era.

Montalban, by the way, later became famous for his roles in StarTrek and Planet of the Apes films, as well as his role on TV’s Fantasy Island.

Esther’s co-star, Van Johnson, who usually played the quintessential good-guy, has a different role here.  He ruthlessly runs the resort at Cypress Gardens, where he’s a tyrannical boss, ordering his employee Esther to work long hours while he ignores her romantic interest in him.  He’s constantly surrounded in his domain by a bevy of countless other “girls” (no one’s a woman in this film).  Esther frequently rages against his awful treatment, which he keeps on doing…. Until the very end.

Midway, along comes Tony Martin, the handsome singer I focused on in a post last year [https://susanjustwrites.com/2022/10/26/marlon-tony-and-cyd/].  He meets Esther during her brief stay in NYC, and romance ensues.  As the film moves along, successful cabaret-headliner Tony sings a number of mostly forgettable numbers, with the notable exception of Cole Porter’s “Easy to Love.”  Tony charmingly serenades Esther with that American-songbook standard at a pivotal point in the story.

[As I noted in my earlier post, my father wangled tickets for our family to watch Tony Martin perform at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas one year after the film Easy to Love appeared.  In addition to singing “Luck Be a Lady” from the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls (the song that forever left a powerful memory for me), he must have sung a wide range of other songs that I don’t remember.  But I’ll bet that “Easy to Love” was one of them.]

Back to the film:  What’s most escapist in this film today is its colorful portrayal of flower-filled Cypress Gardens, Florida, and the astounding swimming and water-skiing that it highlights.  This made me wonder:  Whatever became of Cypress Gardens?

I did a bit of research into the fascinating history of Cypress Gardens.  During the 1930s, a couple named Pope created this new resort, opening in 1936 with 8,000 varieties of flowers and the first electric boats “gliding through” the canals they’d constructed. It became Central Florida’s major tourist attraction, especially the water ski show that evolved.  Numerous movies were filmed there, including Easy to Love.  Over the years, it’s been bought and sold many times. Today it’s the site of the theme park LEGOLAND Florida Resort.

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Posted in 1950s, American culture, Broadway musicals, films, Hollywood, memories, movie stars, movies, New York City

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A party at the Playboy Mansion

Posted on September 20, 2023 | 2 comments

Here’s a bit of history for you.  This story will appear in my book-in-progress, which focuses on the lawsuit filed by my co-counsel and me in Chicago in February 1970.  Our lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of the regressive Illinois abortion statute, and we won a 2-to-1 decision in our favor from a three-judge court on January 29, 1971.  The ruling, Doe v. Scott, 321 F.Supp. 1385 (N.D. Ill. 1971), can be read online.

When my granddaughters learned that I had once attended a party at the notorious Playboy Mansion in Chicago, they were astounded and wanted to know how and why it happened.  This is what I can tell them, and you:

On a chilly evening in late December 1969, the Chicago ACLU sponsored a fund-raiser, including a lavish party for donors at the Playboy Mansion on North State Parkway.  The event was promoted as a celebration of the Bill of Rights.  Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine, was not surprisingly an avid supporter of those rights, which enabled him to keep publishing his often lurid magazine largely without restrictions.  At that time, Hefner was living in his opulent Chicago mansion, and he opened its doors to partygoers that December night.

My co-counsel, Sybille Fritzsche, was an ACLU lawyer and my colleague in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Illinois abortion statute. As a lawyer with the Appellate and Test Case Division of the Chicago Legal Aid Bureau, I was representing low-income and minority women.

Sybille somehow wangled a non-donor invitation to the event for me.  I was delighted to be included, hoping to encounter some interesting people and get a good look inside the famed mansion.  I wore a glamorous new pantsuit in a beautiful indigo blue with rhinestone buttons, and I walked to the mansion from my nearby studio apartment. 

The atmosphere was raucous, featuring a large crowd of partygoers and extremely loud rock music.  I caught a glimpse of lavish furnishings and stunning artwork, but the crowds kept getting in the way.  I remember seeing celebrities like Peter Lawford acting inappropriately, and I also witnessed something a bit more startling.  I watched people (mostly young women) swimming in the nude in the mansion’s somewhat notorious pool. I descended to a lower level and sat facing the underwater window along one of the pool’s walls, allowing me and anyone else to watch the nude swimmers.

I soon ran into Sybille and her husband Hellmut, but we were barely able to communicate over the din. Sybille herself complained about the loud music that drowned out any conversation.  She was nearing the end of her fourth pregnancy.  (Her child was born the following February.)  But she didn’t let that stop her from having a great time at the party, where she undoubtedly recognized a lot of her colleagues and friends.

As for me, I chatted with some other partygoers, but I didn’t readily recognize any friends besides the Fritzsches, and the noise finally got to me.  So after roaming around the mansion a bit more, munching on food and imbibing liquid refreshment, I decided to walk home.  I lived only a few blocks away, and I distinctly recall running down those dark city blocks, attempting to avoid the many treacherous patches of ice on the sidewalk. 

I safely arrived at my studio apartment, certain that I would remember the event forever.  But, in truth, it was buried in the far corners of my mind until 2022, when it popped back into my consciousness while I was trying to recall any and all lawsuit-related events that took place from late 1969 through January 1973. 

I went on to wear my glamorous pantsuit on a host of other occasions. I later attempted to add it to my clothing collection from that era, a collection I donated to the Chicago History Museum just before I moved to San Francisco.  But the museum staff ultimately chose to reject it because the fragile fabric was too worn—proof of just how much wear I had given it.  It remains hanging in my closet as an artifact dating from that long-ago era–and a reminder of partying at Chicago’s Playboy Mansion in December 1969.

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Posted in 1960s, American history, Chicago, Chicago History Museum, clothes, clothing, Illinois, law, lawyers, legal assistance to the poor, U.S. federal courts

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Quote: “Congratulations on your life!”

Posted on August 8, 2023 | 2 comments

       

Are you a fan of Broadway musicals?  I cheerfully admit that I am. Thanks to my parents, I’ve been an enthusiastic fan since my early childhood.  I must have been only 5 or 6 when our family began heading to “summer stock” in the suburbs north of Chicago.  Where a shopping mall now sits, musical productions introduced me to the excitement of live performances combining music, lyrics, and dialogue.  The most memorable was a production of “Song of Norway,” a musical that opened on Broadway in 1944. It features songs with lyrics set to the haunting music of Edvard Grieg.  Those songs have stayed with me my whole life, and as a bonus, I became a great admirer of Grieg’s music.

My parents first introduced me to a genuine theater experience when we watched “South Pacific” at the Shubert Theater in downtown Chicago when I was only 9.  In the leading role of Nellie Forbush, starring Mary Martin on Broadway, was Janet Blair, an American actress and singer who played this part for three years in a touring production that popped up in venues all across the country.  Chicago was one of the first.  We bought the album and played the songs over and over.  Rodgers and Hammerstein won my heart right then and there.

Around the time I turned 12, while my family was still living in Chicago, my parents treated us to a production of “Oklahoma!” that I’ve never forgotten.  Guess who played Laurey?  Relative unknown Florence Henderson, later of TV fame, who was so good that I made a point of remembering her name. We also saw a memorable performance by the revered D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, featuring energetic Brits in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “Trial by Jury.”

When our family moved to LA, and my father died later that year, my attendance at musicals stopped short.  But after I returned to Chicago as a teenager, my fascination with Broadway shows revived. Touring companies kept coming to Chicago, and I discovered that I could either attend them with a paid ticket or attend free by becoming an usher. 

At that time, ushering was a very casual affair.  I could just show up, usually with a friend, and volunteer to usher.  I’d be directed to the woman in charge, who would always say “Yes” and find a spot for me somewhere in the theater, where I would check tickets and seat patrons before finding a seat for myself.  In this way I saw a lot of Broadway shows, both musical and purely dramatic, during the late 1950s and throughout the ‘60s. 

I could of course sometimes pay my own way with my babysitting earnings, and buying tickets became a gift sometimes bestowed by my mother.  In this way, I saw “West Side Story” on stage at the Erlanger Theater (later demolished to make way for the Daley Center), and, to use current parlance, I was blown away by its drama, music, and choreography.  I’d already attended quite a few Broadway shows by that time, but I’d never seen anything like it.

Other memorable musicals I saw during those years included “My Fair Lady,” “The Pajama Game,” “The Music Man,” and “The Most Happy Fella.”  Film actor Forrest Tucker was formidable as music man Professor Harold Hill in his touring production (it ran for 58 weeks at the Shubert Theater).  I bought the LP recordings of all of them and played them over and over on my small Webcor phonograph, trying to learn the lyrics.  (I saw many dramas during these years as well, but those aren’t within the scope of this post.)

During a brief visit to New York City in 1967, my mother and I saw an exciting performance of the original production of “Mame,” starring Angela Lansbury as Mame and Bea Arthur as Vera Charles.  I’ll never forget watching these two phenomenal women dancing together, arm in arm, while they sang “Bosom Buddies.”

Before I changed my life and moved to LA in 1970, I saw a few more Broadway hits in Chicago, including “Man of La Mancha,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Camelot,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”

I met and married my marvelous husband (I’ll call him Marv) in LA in 1971.  We shared a great deal, including a love of the theater. During the year we lived in LA, we saw a lot (including a play featuring screen-legend Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln).  Remarkable productions of Broadway musicals were, notably, “Company” with an exciting cast and “Knickerbocker Holiday” starring Burt Lancaster.  Lancaster, not known for his singing, wrote in his playbill blurb that he’d learned how to sing from his friend Frank Sinatra.  

Fast-forward 15 years. Marv and I saw countless plays and musicals while we lived in Ann Arbor, La Jolla, and Chicago.  (We also saw the original production of “Grease” during a brief stay in NYC in 1973. That’s a story for another day.)  

But I’ll zoom ahead to London in March 1986.  My sister had visited London shortly before Marv and I decided to travel there that March.  Although I didn’t always take my sister’s advice, this telephone call was different. She enthusiastically praised a new musical production in London called “Les Misérables.”  Based on the Victor Hugo novel, the story is set in 19th-century France, where Jean Valjean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. It follows him after he’s released from prison and goes on to lead an admirable life while at the same time he’s relentlessly pursued by a ruthless police inspector, Javert. 

Sis had seen this new musical, and she couldn’t praise it enough. “I know it’s expensive,” she said, “but it’s worth it!”  Marv was earning peanuts as a math professor, I was “between [my poorly-paid part-time] jobs,” and when I checked, the tickets were $75 each, a real stretch for us.  But because of our love of the theater, and because we’d already seen many plays and musicals in London (beginning in 1972) and never been disappointed, we plunged ahead and ordered those pricey tickets.

You’ve probably guessed what happened next.  We witnessed the original production of “Les Misérables,” transplanted from a smaller theater to the enormous Palace Theatre because of its gigantic success.  Once we heard the very first notes of the overture, introducing the astounding performance we were about to watch, we were enthralled by the phenomenon that has become “Les Mis.”

We were especially enthralled by the astonishing performance of one man:  Colm Wilkinson, inhabiting the leading role of Jean Valjean. Wilkinson, a 42-year-old Irish tenor and actor, gained worldwide fame when he originated this powerful role, first in London and later in New York.  His rendering of the song “Bring Him Home” made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  I’d never heard a performance like his in any Broadway musical I’d seen. 

The entire production, including songs like “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” and “Master of the House,” was memorable enough to last a lifetime, and it still thrills me today.  My love affair with “Les Mis” led me to see it twice more back in Chicago, taking my young daughters to witness it with me.

Fast-forward one more time:  San Francisco in 2023.  After moving to SF in 2005, I saw great Broadway hits like “Wicked,” ‘In the Heights,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Something Rotten!” and “Hamilton.”  My younger daughter (another theater-lover) and I joyously went to most of these together.  A year before the pandemic hit, my older daughter (M) asked me to join her to see “Cats” in San Jose in 2019.  Please don’t laugh.  It was incredibly good!  (It’s unfortunate that the ill-conceived film version has besmirched a great musical that, if done well, should be seen and heard live.) 

But the pandemic sadly put a halt to my attending live theater performances.

M has a love of “Les Mis” much like mine, and she knows the history embedded in it (she earned a summa cum laude in French literature and history at Harvard).  When a touring company announced that it would appear in San Francisco this year, M knew she wanted to see it again. 

Soon I was invited to join M, her husband, and her daughters at a performance in late July, and I jumped at the chance.  The pandemic had lessened its grip, and I promised my younger daughter I’d wear a mask throughout the performance.

So I was thrilled last month to see “Les Mis” for the fourth time, about two decades after the second time in Chicago.  The production was exciting, and all five of us loved it.  Midway through, I began thinking about the man who had inhabited the role of Jean Valjean in my first go-round and searched my memory for his name. “Colm,” was it?  During intermission, I glanced at my phone and searched for both Colm and “Les Misérables” in 1986, and I came up with it: Colm Wilkinson.

As we left the theater, I began to tell my family how I’d seen the original Jean Valjean in London, Colm Wilkinson, and just how wonderful he was.  As we approached our parking structure, a woman walking near me must have overheard and looked at me in disbelief.  Clearly a knowledgeable fan of “Les Mis,” she skeptically asked, “You saw Colm Wilkinson in London?”  “Yes,” I replied, nodding.  “My husband and I saw Colm Wilkinson in London in 1986.”  This woman (I’ll call her W) repeated, with emphasis, “You saw Colm Wilkinson in London in 1986?”  I nodded again.  Startled and amazed, W felt the need to say something.  She blurted out:  “Congratulations on your life!”  I smiled and nodded again, thanking her for her stunning turn of phrase.

I was indeed stunned by this phrase, one spoken by a complete stranger.  On reflection, I want to thank W for saying that I should be congratulated for my life.  In many ways, I have indeed had a remarkable life.  Watching Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean in London in 1986 constitutes just a tiny part of it.  It was an astounding performance, and I’ll always remember it.  I was extremely lucky to see him that night.  But all that Marv and I did was buy our tickets and sit in the audience, thrilled by his performance.

I honestly hope that the whole scope of my life—what I’ve done to effect positive change for our planet, to sponsor worthy political outcomes, to help people in need, to work for equal rights for all Americans, to be a good wife, mother, and grandmother–in short, to live the kind of life I’ve always tried to live–is what truly deserves, on balance, a small measure of congratulations. 

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Declare your independence: Those high heels are killers

Posted on July 1, 2023 | 1 comment

Following a tradition I began several years ago, I’m once again encouraging women to declare their independence this July 4th and abandon wearing high-heeled shoes. I’ve revised this post in light of changes that have taken place during the past year and a couple of new ideas I want to pass along.

My newly revised post follows:

I’ve long maintained that high heels are killers.  I never used that term literally, of course.  I merely viewed high-heeled shoes as distinctly uncomfortable and an outrageous concession to the dictates of fashion that can lead to both pain and permanent damage to a woman’s body. 

Several years ago, however, high heels proved to be actual killers.  The Associated Press reported that two women, ages 18 and 23, were killed in Riverside, California, as they struggled in high heels to get away from a train.  With their car stuck on the tracks, the women attempted to flee as the train approached.  A police spokesman later said, “It appears they were in high heels and [had] a hard time getting away quickly.” 

During the past few years, largely dominated by the global pandemic, many women and men adopted different ways to clothe themselves.  Sweatpants and other comfortable clothing became popular.  [Please see my post, “Two Words,” published three years ago, focusing on wearing pants with elastic waists:  https://susanjustwrites.com/2020/07/15/two-words/].

Many women also abandoned wearing high heels.  Staying close to home, wearing comfortable clothes, they saw no need to push their feet into high heels.  Venues requiring professional clothes or footwear almost disappeared, and few women sought out venues requiring any sort of fancy clothes or footwear.  

But when the pandemic began to loosen its grip, some women were tempted to return to their previous choice of footwear.  The prospect of a renaissance in high-heeled shoe-wearing was noted in publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.   In a story in the Times, one woman “flicked the dust off her…high-heeled lavender pumps” that she’d put away for months and got ready to wear them to a birthday gathering.  According to the Times, some were seeking “the joy of dressing up…itching…to step up their style game in towering heels.”

Okay.  I get it.  “Dressing up” may be your thing after a few years of relying on sweatpants.  But “towering heels”?  They may look beautiful, they may be alluring….

BUT don’t do it!  Please take my advice and don’t return to wearing the kind of shoes that will hobble you once again.

Like the unfortunate young women in Riverside, I was sucked into wearing high heels when I was a teenager.  It was de rigueur for girls at my high school to seek out the trendy shoe stores on State Street in downtown Chicago and purchase whichever high-heeled offerings our wallets could afford.  On my first visit, I was entranced by the three-inch-heeled numbers that pushed my toes into a too-narrow space and revealed them in what I thought was a highly provocative position.  If feet can have cleavage, those shoes gave me cleavage.

Never mind that my feet were encased in a vise-like grip.  Never mind that I walked unsteadily on the stilts beneath my soles.  And never mind that my whole body was pitched forward in an ungainly manner as I propelled myself around the store.  I liked the way my legs looked in those shoes, and I had just enough baby-sitting money to pay for them.  Now I could stride with pride to the next Sweet Sixteen luncheon on my calendar, wearing footwear like all the other girls’.

That luncheon revealed what an unwise purchase I’d made.  Leaving the event, I found myself stranded in a distant location with no ride home.  I started walking to the nearest bus stop, but after a few steps, it was clear that my shoes were killers.  I could barely put one foot in front of the other, and the pain became so great that I removed my shoes and walked in stocking feet the rest of the way.

After that painful lesson, I abandoned three-inch high-heeled shoes and resorted to wearing lower ones.   Sure, I couldn’t flaunt my shapely legs quite as effectively, but I nevertheless managed to secure ample male attention.  Instead of conforming to the modern-day equivalent of Chinese foot-binding, I successfully and happily fended off the back pain, foot pain, bunions, and corns that my fashion-victim sisters often suffer in spades.

Until the pandemic changed our lives, I observed a troubling trend toward higher and higher heels.  I was baffled by women, especially young women, who bought into the mindset that they had to follow the dictates of fashion and the need to look “sexy” by wearing extremely high heels.  

Watching TV, I’d see too many women wearing stilettos that forced them into the ungainly walk I briefly sported so long ago.  Women on late-night TV shows who were otherwise smartly attired and often very smart (in the other sense of the word) often wore ridiculously high heels that forced them to greet their hosts with that same ungainly walk.  Some appeared to be almost on the verge of toppling over. 

Sadly, this phenomenon has reappeared.  Otherwise enlightened women are once again appearing on TV wearing absurdly high heels.  Even one of my favorite TV journalists, Stephanie Ruhle, has appeared on her “11th Hour” program on MSNBC in stilettos.  C’mon, Steph!  Don’t chip away at my respect for you.  Dump those stilettos!

What about the women, like me, who adopted lower-heeled shoes instead of following fashion?  I think we’re much smarter and much less likely to fall on our faces.  One very smart woman who’s still a fashion icon agreed with us long ago: the late Hollywood film star Audrey Hepburn. Audrey dressed smartly, in both senses of the word.

I recently watched her 1963 smash film Charade for the tenth or twelfth time. I once again noted how elegant she appeared in her Givenchy wardrobe and her–yes–low heels. Audrey was well known for wearing comfortable low heels in her private life as well as in her films. [Please see my post: https://susanjustwrites.com/2013/08/08/audrey-hepburn-and-me/.]  In Charade, paired with Cary Grant, another ultra-classy human being, she’s seen running up and down countless stairs in Paris Metro stations, chased by Cary Grant not only on those stairs but also through the streets of Paris. She couldn’t have possibly done all that frantic running in high heels!

Foot-care professionals have soundly supported my view.   According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, a heel that’s more than 2 or 3 inches makes comfort just about impossible.  Why?  Because a 3-inch heel creates seven times more stress than a 1-inch heel.

A few years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle questioned a podiatrist and foot and ankle surgeon who practiced in Palo Alto (and assisted Nike’s running team).  He explained that after 1.5 inches, the pressure increases on the ball of the foot and can lead to “ball-of-the-foot numbness.”  (Yikes!)  He advised against wearing 3-inch heels and pointed out that celebrities wear them for only a short time, not all day.  To ensure a truly comfortable shoe, he added, no one should go above a 1.5-inch heel.  If you insist on wearing higher heels, you should at least limit how much time you spend in them.

More recently, another source chimed in.  A blog post by Associated Podiatrists, PC, outlined all of the foot problems that develop from wearing high heels, including stress fractures, bunions, and metatarsalgia (overuse of the fat pad in your forefoot leads to its becoming thinner over time, causing severe pain).  These podiatrists recommended the following:

  • Avoid heels higher than two inches.
  • Because a high stiletto with a pointy closed toe is the worst type of shoe for your feet, choose heels with a generous toe box area and extra cushioning at the front of the shoe.
  • Consider wearing supportive shoes en route and changing into high heels only after you arrive at your destination, minimizing the time you spend in heels.
  • “Kitten heels” are a foot-friendly option for heel wearers. With a heel-height typically less than one inch, they deliver a bit of height without the pressure that higher heels can cause.
  • Be extra-careful when wearing platforms or wedges; they can compromise your balance and stability. Very high heels may lead to ankle-rolls and falls. Choose only lower platforms and wedges that have ankle straps.

Before the pandemic, some encouraging changes were afoot.  Nordstrom, one of America’s major shoe-sellers, began to promote lower-heeled styles along with higher-heeled numbers. Although stilettos hadn’t disappeared from its promotions, they weren’t the only choices.  I was encouraged because Nordstrom is a bellwether in the fashion world, and its choices can influence shoe-seekers. 

Then the pandemic arrived and changed the dynamics of shoe-purchasing.  During the first year, sales of high heels languished, “teetering on the edge of extinction,” according to the Times.  But because the pandemic has dissipated in most of our lives, there are undoubtedly women who have resurrected the high heels already in their closets.  They may even be inspired to buy new ones.  I hope they don’t.

Now there is heartening news from bellwether Nordstrom.  In its catalog for its 2023 Anniversary Sale, two pages feature nothing but sneakers by brands like Adidas, Nike, and Cole Haan.  Another page displays nothing but flat-heeled shoes.  (It’s titled “Flat-Out Fabulous.”)  Another page features “modern loafers” in a wide range of prices.  And stilettos are nowhere to be seen.  This is a notable shift by a major retailer.

Let’s not forget the Gen Z generation.  Most Gen Z shoppers don’t follow the dictates of fashion. They largely eschew high heels, choosing pricey and often glamorous sneakers instead–even with dressy prom dresses.

Forgive me, but I can’t help mentioning some retrograde news:  An item in The New York Times on June 29th:  In a new episode on a “popular” TV series, the stars have returned to wearing outrageous shoes.  The Times highlighted a pair of “balloon heels,” so I looked them up online.  They are leather sandals, selling for $1,200, that feature “playful balloons floating on delicately buckled straps.”  I could barely believe that the photo accompanying the sales pitch for these sandals was genuine.  Small red balloons are attached to the shoes and presumably burst while the fashion-victim is wearing them!  Who is wacky enough to purchase and wear these absurdities?  I sincerely hope that this kind of footwear is viewed, even by high-heel lovers, as ridiculous, and it simply dies on the vine.

My own current faves: I wear black Skechers almost everywhere (I own more than one pair). I occasionally choose my old standby, Reeboks, for serious walking. (In my novel Red Diana, protagonist Karen Clark laces on her Reeboks for a lengthy jaunt, just as I do.) And when warm temperatures dominate, I wear walking sandals, like those sold by Clarks, Teva, and Ecco.

Any women who are pondering buying high-heeled shoes should hesitate.  Beyond the issue of comfort and damage to your feet, please remember that high heels present a far more serious problem.  As the deaths in Riverside demonstrate, women who wear high heels may be putting their lives at risk.  When they need to flee a dangerous situation, high heels can handicap their ability to escape. How many needless deaths have resulted from hobbled feet?

The Fourth of July is fast approaching.  As we celebrate the holiday this year, I once again urge the women of America to declare their independence from high-heeled shoes. 

So, if you’re thinking about returning to painful footwear, think again.  You’d be wise to reconsider.

Instead, I urge you to bravely gather any high heels you’ve been clinging to and throw those shoes away.  At the very least, keep them out of sight in the back of your closet.  And don’t even think about buying new ones.  Shod yourself instead in shoes that allow you to walk in comfort—and if need be, to run.

Your wretched appendages, yearning to be free, will be forever grateful.

[Earlier versions of this commentary appeared on Susan Just Writes and the San Francisco Chronicle.]

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On “thin ice”?

Posted on June 29, 2023 | 2 comments

                    

When the events in our world become too unpleasant, I retreat to a comforting place:  old movies.

I’ve been a movie buff my entire life, and I’ve previously written about some of my favorite films.  

An invaluable source of old movies has been the TV channel TCM, Turner Classic Movies.  A recent threat to the status of TCM arose when a new CEO assumed a degree of power over it.  Maureen Dowd described the situation perfectly in her column in The New York Times on June 24, “Save Turner Classic Movies.”  In her column, Dowd proclaimed that TCM is “a public good, like libraries,” adding that “It enshrines our cinematic past.” She relates that she has spoken with David Zaslav, the new CEO in charge, and he promised to preserve it.  Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have just announced that they will work for free to help TCM survive.

Watching old films is illuminating:  They almost never feature extreme violence and the supernatural, two features prominent in current films.  Although I’m frequently disturbed by the depiction of women as either frivolous or annoying (also apparent when I rewatched on DVD the first season of TV’s Twilight Zone), there’s almost no graphic depictions of the worst kinds of aggressive sexual violence toward women.  Women didn’t have the role in society that we (for the most part) play today, and that’s reflected in the films from earlier eras.  Still, women frequently played strong characters in many of the classic films I’ve watched.  As Dowd noted, film noir femmes fatales “taught me that women could be tough and play the game better than any man.”

I fervently hope that the threat to TCM does in fact vanish because I rely on TCM to find films featuring absorbing plots, excellent dialogue, and highly regarded film stars of the past.  Male stars like Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift, John Garfield, and Humphrey Bogart. I’ll add Tyrone Power, William Holden, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Fred McMurray, Stewart Granger, Orson Welles, Ray Milland, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, Charleton Heston, and Edward G. Robinson. And if Robert Redford has truly left making feature films, I’d add him also.

Unfortunately, many women stars haven’t survived nearly as well.  Some may have been cast aside because they wouldn’t comply with the bedroom demands of certain Hollywood moguls.  But women like Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, Ida Lupino, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Judy Holliday, Susan Hayward, Vivien Leigh, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Anne Baxter, Deborah Kerr, Audrey Hepburn, Geraldine Page, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Myrna Loy, Claire Trevor, even Marilyn Monroe survived and played strong female characters in a variety of classic films.  (I’m probably forgetting a few of your favorite stars of the past, both male and female.  Sorry.)

I’m currently obsessed with Tyrone Power, a great actor who starred in 48 feature films during his short lifetime. His handsome face and endearing persona simply beam from my TV screen.  Although I was already aware of some of Tyrone Power’s (hereinafter “TP”) best films, TCM has helped me discover a great number of movies I’d never encountered.

In my quest to find more of TP’s films, I’ve found many on Netflix DVDs (sadly ending in September).  I also learned that the San Francisco Public Library houses some of them on DVD, and I can request that these show up at my local branch. The result is that, thanks to TCM and the two other sources, I’ve recently been immersed in TP’s films.  Some of the DVDs also include wonderful special features, while TCM hosts like Ben Mankiewicz sometimes add “inside Hollywood” stories.

I’ll list just a few of TP’s films that you’re probably never heard of.  (I didn’t.)  I recommend that you seek them out if you can.  In chronological order, they are:

In Old Chicago (1938): A fictionalized story of brothers who become political leaders in Chicago, ending with an amazing depiction of the Chicago Fire of 1871

Rose of Washington Square (1939): A music-filled film that centers on the same life-story of Fanny Brice as that told in “Funny Girl,” with Alice Faye as Rose (Fanny) and TP in the Nick Arnstein role.  By the way, when Fanny Brice sued Fox for $750,000, the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed amount

The Rains Came (1939): TP plays a handsome MD in India, and a haughty Myrna Loy falls hard for him; it features astounding special effects of flooding rains and an earthquake that earned the very first special-effects Oscar

The Mark of Zorro (1940): An exciting updated version of the story that starred Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in the 1920 silent version; Basil Rathbone, who sparred with TP in a fierce sword-duel, said that “Power was the most agile man with a sword I’ve ever faced…. He could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat.”

Blood and Sand (1941): TP is a wholly believable matador in glorious Technicolor

And now for a unique film I was surprised to come across:  Thin Ice (1937).  Here TP is paired with Olympics gold-medal-winning Norwegian ice skater, Sonja Henie.  Henie set records as a three-time Olympic champion in women’s singles, and Hollywood welcomed her as a star from 1936 to 1943. Thin Ice is set at a resort in the Alps, where Sonja arrives to teach ice skating.  While skiing, she encounters TP, a prince from somewhere in Europe.  Clothed in casual skiing garb, he introduces himself as Rudy, and he charmingly proceeds to keep his real identity as Prince Rudolph a secret.  

During the film, Henie performs as the star of several ice shows at the resort, skating to music by Borodin (before “Stranger in Paradise” used the same melody in the Broadway musical “Kismet”) and other classical composers. TP sits in the audience disguised in absurd Groucho Marx-type outfits, but of course the two finally meet up as prince and skating star and fall in love.

I find this film of special interest because Sonja Henie played a small but memorable part in my life. When I was very young, my parents took me to see one of the skating extravaganzas she starred in when her life as a movie star was over.  My father remarkably saved the souvenir program from the extravaganza, the “Hollywood Ice Revue,” and I found it years later in a scrapbook he kept for our family.  I’ve preserved this program, perfectly intact, ever since.  And although I’ve forgotten almost the entire show, I retain a vivid memory of one thin slice of it when Henie came out onto the ice.  She was perched at the top of an enormous ice-cream soda glass, sitting on the whipped cream at the very top, before somehow getting to the ice in order to skate. 

Tyrone Power left Hollywood to serve in the Marines during World War II.  His distinguished service record led to a bunch of medals.  In 1946, he returned to Hollywood and resumed a successful career in films.  But he also left on occasion to work as an actor in several notable stage productions.

Memorable films during this period include these:

Nightmare Alley (1947): TP’s favorite role, and one he had to fight to make. Darryl Zanuck, who ran Fox, viewed TP as his “darling boy” and tried to confine his roles to the lightweight ones in his early films.  But TP was determined to play more challenging roles, and he finally succeeded in making Nightmare Alley.  The studio didn’t promote it and, as a result, it wasn’t a box office hit, but it has gained acclaim and is now recognized as a film noir classic. The recent remake, starring Bradley Cooper, lacks the exciting flavor of the original.

Rawhide (1951): A wonderful pairing of TP and Susan Hayward (another of my favorites) in an unconventional Western setting; they’re hostages held by a murderous gang seeking to steal a shipment of gold (BTW, it has no connection to the TV series sharing its title)

TP’s last completed film, Witness for the Prosecution (1957), is an exciting drama ending with a riveting courtroom scene. In the story, based on a play by Agatha Christie, TP is the lead, playing a criminal defendant accused of murder.  Although Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich, in starring roles, have probably garnered more attention for this film than TP, he plays his part brilliantly, directed by the esteemed Billy Wilder.

Tyrone Power tragically died at the age of 44 while making a film in Spain in 1958.  I’ll skip the harrowing details of his death; you can read about them online.

I’ll simply state that watching him in one or more of his movies will probably lead you to admire him as a brilliant and accomplished actor who illuminated every film he was in. 

And if you want to fall in love with Tyrone Power, as I have, please watch one more film:  The Eddy Duchin Story (1956).  In this film, TP assumes the role of the real-life pianist who achieved fame as a bandleader and musician in NYC in the 1930s.  Co-starring with Kim Novak as his wife, TP is bound to win you over.

In my view, Tyrone Power’s reputation is secure.

On “thin ice”?  Not the way I see it.   

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