New Year's, Baby

Just look at the red cheeks on that bellboy...

Women of Distinction - and an Aesthetic Opportunity

As another blessed week limps to a close, and in the face of bad news from all over, today more than ever I needed a lift...

In Her Easter Bonnet

A very happy Easter to all, from me and from this week's birthday girl, the original Star Lady herself, the inimitable and much-missed Miss Ann Miller. Who else would have gone along with this gag, let alone carried it off?

So This Happened

Three staunch ladies, lunching at the Russian Tea Room. What one would have given to be a fly on the wall...

He is Risible, Indeed

Just in case your Easter isn't shaping up to be oleaginous enough, darlings, herewith a treasurable moment in vintage television.

'Tis the Season

Well, it's time to kick off the festive season, and with that comes traditions - few dearer to me than starting off each year with this little gem as the first Christmas song I listen to on purpose (as opposed to all the elevator music that's been being pumped out hither and yon since something like the week after Labor Day).

Witchy Women

We're having a quiet Hallowe'en this year, but if we were to head to some theoretical costume party, I think I'd like to go as Aunts Enchantra and Hagatha.

Come to Me...

...My melancholy Barbie...

Hat Check

For no good reason other than it's a dull Tuesday, let's look in on Sra. Peron as she picks a chapeau from her imposing collection.  The year is 1950, and Life is there, in the person of the excellent photographer Gisele Freund (whom I most know from her photographs of Virginia Woolf, which are disconcertingly in color - if only the same were true of these hats!).

Shameless Sunday Camp Explosion: A Happy Song

Sometimes the depth of what I don't know really startles me.  How, for example, could I never have heard of Folies Bergère de Paris, a nifty little confection from 1935 that ends with this remarkable number?

Siamese If You Don't Please

I suppose it's churlish to complain, but you see, once again my implacable overlords in the executive corridors of Golden Handcuffs Consulting Amalgamated International have spoken.  As a result, I'll be spending the upcoming festive holiday weekend trapped in the not-very-pleasant sections of a series of airplanes (not one of them BOAC, either), only to emerge sometime Monday on the far side of the earth.

What's My Wednesdays? #11: It Must Be!

Ah, it's another antic Sunday night out there in TVland (whatever day of the week it is here in these lower realms), and I thought it might be fun to look in on an encounter with today's birthday girl, 103 today.

Chica-Boom

Well, I thought there ought to be something cheerful and Brazilian today...

Two, Two, Two Posts in One!

Well, yesterday's mystery was no puzzle at all to the Café's discerning readership, and while I truly wish I could triumphantly announce that she was in fact Mary Ann Mobley - or even Gloria Huddle (thank you, George!) - she was, of course...

Out to Lunch

Last night I dreamed I went (no, not to Manderley)...

The Shutterbug and the Underworld Empress

The entirely New York phenomenon that was Weegee was born on this day in 1899.  Just to be clear, this is not he.

Lady in Red

This charming woman, whose roguish expression greatly caught my fancy this afternoon while I was visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum, is Emilia, Princess of Saxony, and I don't know about you, but I'm just mad for her snood-hat combination.

Oscars, Schmoscars

Unless and until we see something as fabulously demented as this, I'm not going to get too excited about all this Oscars red-carpet brouhaha.

Time for Some Fun in the Sun

Enough with the cold.  Enough with the rain.  Enough...

Shopping Daze

Well, I'm glad to see that Alice Faye, at least has finished her Christmas shopping...