Laini Giles's Blog, page 8

Viola and Ormer

In Kevin Brownlow’s documentary on Hollywood from about 1979, one of the elderly stars interviewed warmed my heart and charmed me completely. Her name was Viola Dana.

Viola in Brownlow’s documentary

Viola’s real name was Virginia Flugrath. Her sister Leonie was also an actress– stage name Shirley Mason. While a major actress of the silent period, Viola also had very sad luck with love.

Her first husband was a director named John Hancock Collins. He passed away from pneumonia during the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918.

Fast forward to 1920, and Viola was swept off her feet by a handsome, dashing aviator (and Texan! w00t!) named Ormer Locklear. Locklear became the model for Robert Redford’s movie character The Great Waldo Pepper. He was a war hero and a barnstormer, performing feats of airborne derring-do. Hollywood beckoned, so he and his pal Milton “Skeets” Elliott headed for California and began doing aerial stunts for the movies.

Actress Leatrice Joy described his eagerness to take up the stars when he came around the set, and how she always managed to make herself scarce, until one day he cornered her and convinced her to go up with him. He then proceeded to perform any number of stomach-rolling stunts until she was overjoyed to get back on the ground.

          Ormer Locklear

Viola didn’t have that problem. When he asked her to go up in his little Jenny plane, she blushed and answered “of course!” She thought he was big and handsome, and in her words, “he had green eyes too.” You could see her wizened face light up when she talked about him. They soon became engaged.

Locklear was scheduled to perform in The Skywayman, a documentary on stunt flying. One scene was to be filmed at night at the DeMille Airfield, near the oilfields in Los Angeles. Elliott, as usual, was his co-pilot. It was to be a 5000-foot dive, and the wings were supposed to look like they were on fire.

Pretty young Viola

“Okay, ” he told the fellows setting up the stunt. “Make sure to kill the searchlights. That way I can see where I am and I can pull out of it.”

Locklear and Elliott did the dive, but no one cut the searchlights. Unable to see how close to the ground they were, they crashed into an oil derrick and the plane burst into flames. They were both killed instantly.

Poor Viola was in the audience that night, and began to ran toward the disaster. She remembered someone saying “Somebody grab her!” and then she figured she must have passed out.

“When you’re young,” she said, “those kinds of things are very shocking.” Those big green eyes filled with tears, and you could hear the knot in her throat. “I don’t really like to talk about it,” she said, almost in a whisper . My heart broke for her.

Viola married several times, but none really successful love matches. The last one ended in 1945. Viola herself passed away in 1987. I hope that she’s been able to find some peace in her afterlife, and that she and Ormer are reunited once again.

 

The Eye of the Beholder…

What is the fascination behind humankind’s need to continually rip down old and replace it with new? Especially when the old is beautiful, majestic, and culturally important?

Joni Mitchell had it right when she talked about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. Being from a state with much new architecture, but also a great deal of the old stuff (mostly old courthouses and town squares), it was hard moving to a place with SO MUCH hideous early 60s architecture. I’m not talking about the cool fifties mid-century stuff with the clerestory windows and Jetsons furniture. I’m talking about those godawful houses with the horizontal windows built up high you can barely even look out of, and the ugly siding.

It’s probably no wonder that I’ve gravitated to the oldest neighborhood in town, despite its seedy reputation. The houses are old, but they have more character, and this is a neighborhood in transition. It’s turning around.

But it instinctively burns me up to see beautiful places torn down for “progress.” Case in point? Pickfair. Damn you, Pia Zadora. A piece of Hollywood history is done because of you and your selfish spouse. I heard someone had said there were problems with termites. Yeah? That’s when you hire something called an exterminator. Think of the people who could have visited it as a museum.

The one that pisses me off the most has to be The Garden of Allah. What an amazing piece of architecture. Supposedly, Alla Nazimova had this place built with a swimming pool shaped like the Black Sea. It was a mecca for 20s stars. Joan Crawford and friends hung out by that pool, and other famous folks like F. Scott Fitzgerald came by to socialize or even to live for a time.

Know what’s there now? You guessed it– a strip mall and a parking lot. Think of all that history. Just GONE.

Whose short-sighted decisions are these? I once had a talk with an ex co-worker (and I thank God every day that she’s ex) who bemoaned the traffic situation on Mockingbird Lane in Dallas. If you know anything about Dallas, you’ll know that Mockingbird goes directly through Highland Park, a neighborhood of incredibly lovely, pricey homes from the 1920s and 1930s. This person wanted to just tear down all those houses because it was inconvenient for her. I had to stop myself from punching her. The trees are old and established, the houses have features that can only be found in houses from that era, but yeah. Get her to Love Field faster, dammit. And others have the same attitude. Don’t bother to renovate if your closets are too small. Just tear it down and start from scratch.  

Think of all the history that has been sacrificed to selfishness and greed. Grrrr…

 

 

Anyone heard of Karl Brown?

I stumbled across him accidentally in my research. Initially, I was referred to him from Kevin Brownlow’s first book on Hollywood, one of my early acquisitions, which mentioned his Adventures with D.W. Griffith as a source. And in my first few months in Canada, completely broke and with way too much time to kill, I was tickled to run across a copy of this wonderful book in the books section of a local Edmonton Goodwill.

                Can you imagine, starting off as a young local boy in California, and getting a job with D.W. Griffith during the heady early days of film? He studied cameras and lighting, and special effects under the tutelage of Billy Bitzer, Griffith’s main camera man. The book is an inside look at Griffith’s personality, how staging worked, and numerous other invaluable details.

                Brown, completely forgotten by the 1960s, was rediscovered by Brownlow, and (among others) appeared in his 1979 Thames documentary on old Hollywood. His insights are amazing. When he described the work D.W. Griffith put into Intolerance as an anti-war picture, only to have public opinion turn against it in the 18 months it took to make, it really helped me to see the interaction between politics and film. Sharp old fellow—how I wish I’d been born a few years earlier so I could have interviewed him before he died!  

Karl Brown in a scene from Brownlow’s documentary, circa 1979

Lost Films

In my quest to learn everything I possibly can about the silent and early sound film eras, I’ve bought every old Hollywood biography I can find. Plus many other research books. I can’t even fit them all in a bookshelf any more. They’re clustered around the foot of it. One of the facts I keep running across that fills me with sorrow is the loss of hundreds (possibly thousands) of silent films.

I hadn’t realized until now that over 90% of silent films have been lost. 90%! That’s a lotta film. Not celluloid, mind you, but nitrate, which was the material they used back then. Unfortunately, the film stock itself was flammable. So with the constant threat of fire in the bad old days, one studio fire could eradicate an entire inventory of a company’s films, like the one in 1937 which wiped out all of Fox’s films from before 1935.

But as history progresses, copies of films are unearthed from the most unlikely sources. In the late 1970s, workers excavating for a new recreation center found that over 500 reels of film that had previously been considered lost. They were made from 1903 to 1929, and had been used as fill to cover up an old outdoor swimming pool! They now call it “The Dawson City find.”

Once in a while, an archive from someplace as remote as Australia or as close as Rochester, New York can unearth a film they weren’t aware they had. Someone cleaning out a grandfather’s attic might find a copy, or a widow finds out her spouse had old film canisters down in the basement she didn’t know about.

Just last month, a guy tearing down an old barn in New Hampshire (that evidently had been part of a boy’s camp that must have shown the films to its campers) found a copy of Mary Pickford’s lost Their First Misunderstanding. In it, she starred with her first husband Owen Moore. How cool is that?

Theda Bara is one of the main casualties of the period. Because she was on the Fox roster, hers were among those in the 1937 fire. I would so love to have seen what made her the Lady Gaga of her day– her outrageously revealing costumes for the period, her vamp persona– all of it.

Theda in Cleopatra

Because I’ve written a book about Olive Thomas, I was sad how few of her films I was able to view to get a feel for her. I would love to have seen Upstairs and Down, where she played bitchy Alice Chesterton. It was that role that I consider the first flapper. From it, she became more popular, and was shaped into the Baby Vamp that became her main screen persona.

Olive Thomas

In researching Marie Prevost, I’ve discovered how few of her films exist. The stills from her time at the Sennett studios are so fun and breezy, and being an animal lover, I’d have enjoyed seeing Teddy the Dog co-starring with the Bathing Beauties.

Marie and Teddy the Wonder Dog

But one of the wonders of the film world that I’m bereft we’re still missing is London After Midnight. Lon Chaney was a genius. No one watching Phantom of the Opera or The Hunchback of Notre Dame can deny it. I’m hoping that there is an archive somewhere with a dusty corner closet they’ve been meaning to clean out, but haven’t had the time yet.

Lon in costume for London After Midnight

Clean out your attics, people. We’ve got more movies to watch!

An ode to Olive…

It all began when I was about 12.

I innocently checked a book out of the library that looked juicy and full of history. Even at a young age, I was fascinated by history. It was called Hollywood Babylon. Nowadays, this book has fallen out of favor, since much of the information in it, at the time assumed to be relatively accurate, has now been accepted as completely made up.

One of the stories contained in it was that of Olive Thomas, one of Hollywood’s early celebrities.

Olive

Her story was not a happy one, although she began from the humblest of origins, and worked her way up from nothing to become a Ziegfeld Girl, and the toast of Broadway.

She then went on to marry Mary Pickford’s brother Jack, a wastrel, alcoholic, drug-addicted womanizer. Helluva guy. Their relationship was full of drinking, fighting, and expensive makeup gifts. And her ignominious end came in Paris, when she consumed a mercury solution prescribed for Jack’s syphilis. No one is quite sure if it was an accident or suicide.

Olive and Jack

Real life got in the way for me for quite a while, until I was led back to writing. When my husband and I moved to Canada in 2009, I had 18 months to twiddle my thumbs before I was able to work legally.

In the depths of utter helpless boredom, I turned to the writing I’d always enjoyed but never concentrated my full energies on. Having recently finished Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, one of the most amazing books I’d ever read, I knew where my future lay. I wanted to be able to combine meticulous research with my passion for bringing history to life through writing. Now I merely needed to find the right subject for my interest. I found it in Olive.

My book began taking shape in the winter of 2010, and it came to fruition over the course of two years, being written and rewritten religiously. I found Kevin Brownlow’s old PBS documentary on youtube.com and watched the episodes religiously to learn everything I could about old Hollywood. I found a huge stash of old Hollywood books at the Mennonite Thrift Store here in Edmonton. I listened to scratchy old 1920s jazz, I studied my Cassell’s Slang Dictionary with a microscope, and Olive found her voice. The first time I set it aside and came back to it, I realized that it needed to be Olive telling her own story, and I have recently finished my twenty-first rewrite.

I fell in love with Olive– with writing from her perspective, with thinking like her, with speaking like her, and with being her. Now, it is my goal to find an agent who will fall in love with Olive like I did.

I won’t lie to ya…

MS sucks, plain and simple.

Yes, I have it, and I’ve been dealing with it for well nigh eight years now. Usually, it’s a mere inconvenience, but sometimes it does go a little further.

Last week I saw my 2nd relapse after all this time, and it crept up so suddenly I barely noticed it was there until I was drying off after the shower, and a very important area of my anatomy was completely numb. That had been a while. But all I could think of was, “Thank GOD I have a new neurologist.”

The first neurologist I had in Edmonton was a moronic jerkoff with a giant stick up his ass. My wonderful MS drugs had kept me stable and healthy for 5 years, but upon our arrival in Alberta, I had to be re-diagnosed for the healthcare system. And because my MRI came back completely clean, he was convinced I was lying or stupid. Even though my old MRI films showed lesions popping up all over the place, circa 2005. He yanked me off the drugs, told me I’d been misdiagnosed, and then the fun began. I had a wonderful 20 months with a new lease on life, convinced of this, until the first relapse hit me like a Mack truck back in 2011. I wanted the asshole’s head on a platter. Albertans looking for a neurological reference? Talk to me first before you get in to see this guy. You’ll thank me later. Avoid a fellow with the last name R-O-B-E-R-T-S.

I’ve been dealing with my 2nd ever bout of IV steroids this week, making me basically bitchy, aggressive, unfocused, and loopy. I can’t concentrate on anything. I told a friend of mine I could till up my garden using my teeth. I’m so ready to have this damned thing out of my arm. I haven’t been able to wash my hair for three days.

But the feeling is coming back. To my feet, to my thighs, and most importantly, to my nether parts, which was the most terrifying. Yay for Solumedrol.

My Arm, soon to be sans IV

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got a Sunshine Award! :D

Thanks to Natasha Deen for the Sunshine Award:

The Sunshine Award is a lovely sunny flower that bloggers give to other “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”.

And like any award, there are rules….

(1) Thank the person who gave you the award in your blog post.

(2) Do the Q&A below

(3) Pass on the award to deserving and inspiring bloggers, inform them and link to their blogs.

Favorite Color: Sky blue or periwinkle blue

Favorite Animal: Cats and dogs for different reasons. I love them both. 

Favorite Number: 23 is my lucky number. So, 23.

Favorite Non-alcoholic Drink: Blood Orange Pellegrino or plain old Coke (I know, they supported the war effort and it rots the enzymes in your stomach). I’m horribly addicted to it. 

Facebook or Twitter: Facebook usually, but Twitter is great for finding small publishers I didn’t know existed!

Your Passion: Writing about intriguing historical topics, real or imagined. Alternately, doing genealogy on the couch while any flavor of Law and Order is on. I LIVE for my donk-donk.

Giving or getting presents: I love getting, but I’m also the Martha Stewart of giving– pretty packages and lots of thought behind it, so both have their appeal. Did that cover my selfish butt enough?

Favorite Day: IS there a different choice than Saturday? Just curious.

Favorite Flowers: Pink and orange tulips, blue hydrangeas, delphiniums

And who shall I tag? Why, how about two of my other Hollywood-head writers?

Michelle Vogel – My muse on Olive Thomas; I owe her so much for her book on Ollie!

Michael Ankerich – A man I definitely need to buy a drink for someday. He’s enlightened us on so many forgotten stars!

 

That Sucky First Draft

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m a lousy writer, but a great re-writer.

Which is why I finally got inspired enough to power through this first draft of my newest WIP. Nope, not there yet. But I’m much farther along than I was last month. At the risk of alienating my co-workers (who like to go to lunch as a group), I’ve begun grabbing lunch and sitting in my favorite little meeting breakout area. I can get in a half hour in the morning, and if it doesn’t take the cafeteria folk long to prepare my lunch, I can get close to an hour in then.

The research, as usual, is hellish, but I think that’s kind of why I write what I write. Actually, now that I think of it, that’s definitely it. I get off on it. You heard me. I’m a big ole show-off. So there ya go.

My husband, a wonder of a fellow with a goofy sense of humor, and an identical love of books and coffee as me, discovered a wonderful new coffeehouse near our place, and we’ve been going there on Sundays so I can write, and he can draw on his computer tablet. Yes, the salted caramel lattes are also a draw.

So it appears that I’ve finally gotten beyond the winter doldrums that hit me like a Mack truck in November every year. Spring takes far longer to get here to Edmonton, but I feel like that light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. And I don’t hear any train whistles.

Apologies for my enforced absence…

So the new job, as all new jobs do, had a bit of a learning curve. Throw in the hellish commute and the nasty winter weather, and you’ll see why I haven’t been doing much over the last three months but working and coming home to collapse.

Pre-Christmas brought a case of the creeping crud cold/flu that everyone has been fighting. And just when I’d gotten over it and finally felt better, I suffered a relapse, and feared I had pneumonia (again).

Fear not! It’s not pneumonia, just really wussy lungs, evidently. I don’t even smoke. How unfair is that? In the meantime, I’ve received two batches of edits for Love Lies Bleeding. The first have been turned in. The second I’m still trying to finish.

I got a very excited reply from an agent several weeks back who was interested in reading more of The Forgotten Flapper, and requested the full. I’ve never had an agent respond with so many exclamation points. So that really got my juices pumping. It would be nice to see something besides a rejection for a change. Her “I love Olive and want to read more! Your story intrigues!” gave me enough encouragement to devote more time to my current WIP, which is still tiny, undeveloped, and needing more research.

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before. I’m a terrible writer. That may cause you to stop reading this blog right now, but I just wanted to get it out there. I’m a terrible writer, but I’m a kickass REWRITER.

You’ve probably heard the old saying that first drafts are shit. In my case, its quadruply true. For me, a first draft is a couple suggestions of scenes, with utterly horrible dialogue and the merest suggestion of what I want to happen there.

Then, once my research has kicked into high gear, I have to tweak timeline issues and re-arrange things. When I know more about my (real) characters, I develop their voices more. If I’m having problems with things I need them to say, I watch 20s/30s movies or movies relating to the time period, and I listen closely for speech patterns, expressions, and slang. I read my Cassell’s Slang Dictionary, and I finally begin carving David out of that block of marble.

It’s awful, but it takes me a super long time to get going on a story just because the first draft is so freaking painful to write. It’s bad, and I know it’s bad, but I can see some potential there. Now I just have to work up my speed. Agents and editors won’t let you take two or three years to finish a book.

I’m back, with a wheeze only slight less annoying than Darth Vader. Stand over there if you’re nervous about me still being contagious.

A hell of a week!

For those of you following along at home, I started a new job this week, which has made blogging, tweeting, facebooking, or pretty much any other leisure activity something I can squeeze in only when I have time.

In addition, E’Town was pummeled this week with the worst that Mother Nature could throw at it. I was one of the lucky ones–an hour and a half commute in the evenings, and we haven’t had to write off the car like many of our friends and neighbors are now doing.

I’ve been handwriting something new, not necessarily calling it a Nano entry, but I won’t cease crowing about it if I DO happen to come up with 50,000 words by the end of the month either. I’ve been squeezing into either Fife n Dekel, Timmy’s, or a breakout space or cafeteria at work to do my scribbling, and it seems to be working so far.

We’ll see how long this will last. I’m hoping I’ll  be able to get it down to a routine here pretty soon. Right now, it’s still too new. But the fantastic co-workers, great bennies, and fun work environment are proving to be a balm for my soul after plodding along in Edmonton wondering if I’d ever find something beyond unglamorous contracts.