Why Don't You...

... Spend a few hours on this lovely Independence Day learning at the feet of that unlikely domestic goddess, Miss Joan Crawford? Here she is, reading from her 1971 magnum opus, My Way of Life. She's a complicated lady, Joan, and the book is alternately great fun and totally bonkers - sometimes in the course of a single sentence.

Stars on their Days Off

On a fine summer afternoon, here we see Spangler Brugh, Ruby Stevens, and William Gable, taking a break from their golf game in a snapshot by Jane Peters.

Such Devoted Sisters

It doesn't surprise me a bit that they were terrier gals...

Birthday King: Dear Mr. Gable

The King of Hollywood would have been 109 today. We catch him here in a domestic moment with the third Mrs. Gable, aka Carole Lombard, and a couple of small friends.

It's always seemed to me that the light went out in Gable after Lombard's death, and except for the rare spark here and there (and some deeply touching moments in his last film, The Misfits - Monroe's influence?), something about losing her (and the War, I suppose, and just passing time) quenched what it was that had made him such a Total Star.

Sharing the day? Well, it's a mixed bunch - the great Victor Herbert alongside Saturday Night Live also-ran Garrett Morris; the inimitable Incomparable Hildegarde and byproduct-of-fame Lisa Marie Presley; two Very Different Divas, the superlative Renata Tebaldi and subculture superstar Exene Cervenka; and two of the more mordant talents of the Anglophone world, Miss Muriel "Jean Brodie" Spark and Terry "the Pepperpot Python" Jones.

Oh, and another lady who will shortly merit a post all her own. Don't say you haven't been warned...

Into the Shade, Please, Jeeves...

In this remarkable 1939 snap, a be-chaised Miss Bette Davis (with Peke) is being wheeled across her patio by her butler. All that stuff I said about feeling odd about having help? Scratch it - and Ermilia, fetch the jitney!

Why Don't You...

...Stay limber by lounging in the lotus position on your bearskin rug? It works like a charm for Mexican superstar María Félix!

Actually, I'm rather entranced by La Félix's taste in decorating - her fetching drawing room would appear to be a unique blend of Louis Something, Pre-Columbiana, and Self Worship, all brought together as one by the bearskin. That's a style I can identify with.

Clutterama

This intriguing snap of the onetime First Lady of the American Theatre at home raises an intriguing question: what exactly would Helen Hayes have defined as too much Victoriana?

Boggles the mind, really...

Why Don't You...

Reconsider shag? Jayne certainly did. Real stars don't worry about mildew.

Why Don't You...

...dress for dinner? The Lunts always did, and they lived in a place called Genesee Depot! What's your excuse not to?

Ladies and their Tigers (and Spots, and Fluffies...)

What accessory is more versatile, offstage or on, than the right animal? Generations of stars have known it, from Josephine Baker, who heightened her exoticism in Parisian eyes by walking in the Bois with her pet cheetah...


To Kim Novak, whose innate chilliness was only enhanced by the presence of a minatory Siamese..

Joan Crawford's pack of poodles, by contrast, were carefully marshalled to warm up her image (and at least poodles can't inadvertently use wire hangers).

Today, stars still clutch their four-legged friends, although one senses it's in many cases as much for comfort as promotion. Elizabeth Taylor, for heaven's sake, has no need to raise her profile any further, but remains devoted:

It's hard to imagine some stars romping with animals. Nonetheless, most do, at least on film, as in this touching exchange between Miss Golightly and her pet cat, Cat.

I believe there are lessons in each of these images; what they are, I'm not so sure.

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?