A Fine Day for Singing

Over in another corner of the cyberverse, dear TJB has noted that today would have been the 102nd birthday of a now nearly forgotten lady who was once one of the great éminences grises of Broadway and Hollywood, Sylvia Fine Kaye.

Birthday Boy: Rock, Star

It hardly seems possible, but it seems I've never seen Lover, Come Back...

Life's Little Joys

The weather in Our Nation's Capital has turned - decisively - toward fall, even as the mood of the city has soured in light of the parlous state of current politics.  The gray, chilly rain, steady and unrelenting, seems entirely apropos.  All the more reason, then, to take a moment and appreciate a sight as pretty as Rock Hudson resplendent in a pale pink bathroom with matching princess phone.  Isn't it sad that things like coordinating telephones are no more?

They're No Angels

In 1958, this was Oscar night in Hollywood, and the hit of the evening was a duet between this somewhat singular couple, Miss Mae West and Mr. Rock Hudson.  We catch them here in rehearsal, and I think it's as close to an actual candid of Mae as ever I've seen.

The resulting number, a shambolic but highly entertaining rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," is arguably the gayest moment in television history at least until Paul Lynde's Hollywood Squares debut and possibly the biggest camp in-joke since the last performance of Florence Foster Jenkins.  I love the final performance, Rock dapper in his evening suit and Mae in her uniform of feathers and armorlike sequins, but here, a few hours earlier, doesn't it look like they're having fun?  It makes me wish they hadn't both had to put on such limiting public faces, ones that kept them from ever seeming quite so carefree and spontaneous.

Here, though, it's clear they've got each other's number - Mae, remember, had already been through Cary Grant, after all.  It's like the reverse of the end of She Done Him Wrong, really: "You bad girl," she thinks, and he replies, "Mmmm, you'll find out..."

Diva Paraphernalia

Only the most extreme of divas should attempt a scenario involving so many key accessories: fur, feathers, chaise, and hunky stud. For most, any two at most is enough of a challenge.

For Mae, of course, it's just another day at the office. And baby, it's hot inside...

Reminder: Dainty Does It

Rule Number One of Faux-Dating: the Beard should never be butcher than the Boy.

All the ermine jackets in the world couldn't turn Mavis there into anything but a linebacker...

Birthday....Boys: Gender Play

I love nature's little cosmic jokes when it comes to shared birthdays. Today we have a pair of performers, both rather Great Stars in their own right, who also happen to represent perhaps the two outer ends of the male self-dpresentation scale.


Winnetka's own Roy Scherer, Jr., was born today in 1925. He grew up to be a mechanic and truck driver who fled to Dreamland and transformed himself into America's favorite side of beef, Rock Hudson.


Onscreen, Hudson was able to mock the conventions of Hollywood masculinity even as he embodied them, his air of Never Quite Taking It Seriously helping to leaven his perfect beauty, making it approachable and nonthreatening.

It also deflected too much curiosity about the star's private life, which belied his macho image even more than did his occasional forays into onscreen bubble baths. Hudson's tragedy was the way his image trapped him in the closet, believing as he did (and was likely right for his times) that his public preferred the myth to the (gay) man.

But, oh, he was lovely.

Equally lovely - and infinitely more fierce - is today's second birthday, a man for whom the closet has never been anything more than a place to hang his fabulous gowns:


RuPaul burst out of Atlanta onto New York's club scene in the late 80s, a breath of fresh air who shared with Rock a lightness of touch and lack of seriousness that was a joy to behold next to some of Manhattan's more Solemn Evil Queens.

He's since parlayed the RuPaul persona - saucy, sweetly acerbic, and upbeat - into a surprisingly durable career, taking in comedy cameos in mainstream pictures, stints as a spokesmodel, a talk show, and - inevitably, I suppose - an upcoming reality show.

Through it all he's kept up a level of glamour not seen since the glory days of Cher and a level of energy that almost approaches the Charoesque.

And - fun fact I honestly did not know until today - RuPaul is even his real name.

Happy birthday!

Tiny name-droppy brag of the day: back in my glory days, I actually met both of these heavenly creatures: Hudson when he was touring (surprisingly creditably) in a revival of Camelot and I was an usher, and RuPaul when we were both young and staying out all night on the Lower East Side. Both were darling, but only Rock made me weak in the knees...

Mr. Hudson Ponders

I don't know about you, but I always sit around the rec room in my trunks, ogling Burl Ives records. What I don't understand is what part of that wholesome activity requires licking ones fingers as if turning a page...

But no matter. Wasn't he lovely?