CAMP: "A cornucopia of frivolity, incongruity, theatricality, and humour." "A deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love." "The lie that tells the truth." "Ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals."
Friday, 17 June 2022
Saturday, 11 June 2022
Judy, Judy, Judy!
Oh, wow - a very special centenary indeed almost passed us by - that of Miss Frances Ethel Gumm, better known, of course, as the immortal Judy Garland!
I'll have what she's having...
From an article by Christina Newland in I news:
Frances Ethel Gumm was born, 100 years ago, to a pair of entertainer-musicians in Minnesota, with an unprepossessing name that did not deter her from the stage. By the time she was 12, she had changed that name to Judy Garland. By the time she was 17, she had changed the world......Nicknamed “Baby”, the youngest of the three Gumm sisters sang and danced with her siblings constantly, and her showbiz-savvy parents moved to Los Angeles when she was just shy of four years old.
Enrolled in children’s talent schools from a young age (her ambitious mama embodied the stereotypical stage mother, even feeding her girls “pep” pills to keep them dancing and auditioning when they were tired), Judy auditioned in front of studio execs in Hollywood to little effect, until she was coached to sing a sentimental old Yiddish tune to the head of MGM himself, mogul Louis B Mayer. He hired the adolescent to a then-standard seven-year studio contract on the spot.
In a series of standout roles over the next decade, Garland would distinguish herself not only with that unmistakable voice, but with her ability to transmit a wholesome girl-next-door persona so believably: real innocence and wide-eyed vulnerability. She would later prove that her dramatic abilities were up to the task of less lighthearted fare, as she did with her comeback film A Star is Born (1954) – George Cukor’s classic tale of one rising and one falling star, locked in a doomed romance...
Humble, Midwestern and perhaps not unlike the sweet 16-year-old girl in plaits and pastoral gingham who sang Over the Rainbow in that lush, tremulous voice, Garland would strike deep into the vein of small-town yearning. The Wizard of Oz – which of course sees sepia give way to a Technicolor fantasyland – must have only transmitted that yearning more in 1939, an era when technology had not yet spanned vast distances in the way it now can. The film would become one of the greatest box-office hits of all time.
She was, for very many reasons, probably "The Greatest Star" - and she certainly ascended the pantheon of "Patron Saints" to be the original, the most famous "gay icon" of them all...
We adored her.
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm, 10th June 1922 – 22nd June 1969)
More Judy here and loads more here
Wednesday, 1 June 2022
Life is a cabaret, old chum
My all-time favourite film Cabaret - which, had it not been for The Godfather, would have swept the board at The Oscars; as it is it won eight (including Best Director for Bob Fosse, Best Actress for Liza Minnelli and Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey), and holds the record for most awards won by a film which did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture - received its UK premiere FIFTY YEARS AGO today...
Tuesday, 17 May 2022
To Bea or not to Bea
Speaking of Gay Days - how on earth could I have missed the fact that it was the centenary of one of the greatest "honorary gayers", and our Patron Saint Miss Bea Arthur last Friday?!!
All hail!
Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel, 13th May 1922 – 25th April 2009)
Tuesday, 10 May 2022
A right Nancy
We have another centenary to celebrate today, dear reader - that of Anna Myrtle Swoyer, better known, of course as...
...the incomparable Miss Nancy Walker!
In the interestes of recycling, here's what I said about the great lady way back in 2009:
Although most people remember her for her 70s TV roles as the domineering mother in the Mary Tyler-Moore spin-off series Rhoda and as the housekeeper in MacMillan and Wife, she was in fact a ground-breaking artiste in the history of American musical theatre, working with luminaries such as Lucille Ball, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Phil Silvers, Jule Styne, Bert Lahr, Jackie Gleason, Jerome Robbins and Dick Van Dyke. Leonard Bernstein was an early fan. He created the role of Hildy in On The Town with Nancy in mind, and it is her version of I Can Cook Too! that all subsequent actresses in that role aspire to emulate.Her chutzpah and comic timing led her to appear in numerous TV variety shows, with among others Carol Burnett and Tab Hunter, and eventually to her own (unsuccessful) show.
One of her last screen appearances was as the hilarious deaf mute maid in one of my favourite movies Murder By Death, with its all-star cast including Truman Capote, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Sellers, Eileen Brennan and Elsa Lanchester. And a little-known fact is that Miss Walker directed the kitsch cult classic Village People film Can't Stop The Music...
A whirlwind, a firebrand and a truly talented all-rounder, I loved her.
Needless to say, her "Broadway Bombshell" LP I Hate Men holds pride of place in our collection here at Dolores Delargo Towers...
...and you can listen to it, in full, for free, over at the fantabulosa WMFU "Beware of the Blog" site!
All hail!
Nancy Walker (10 May 1922 - 25 May 1992)
Friday, 6 May 2022
Sunday, 1 May 2022
Closing time at the club
Very sad news. The doyenne of the nightclub scene, gay icon, "Queen of the Night", inventor of the term "discothèque", one of our Patron Saints - the legendary Régine has traversed the velvet rope and the glitter curtain and departed for Fabulon.
One of those "famous Belgians", she rose from hat-check girl at Paris' famous Whisky à Gogo club in the 1950s, to club hostess, to "disc jockey" (although that term didn't exist at the time), to running her own nightclub empire. At its height in the 1970s, she had Chez Régine clubs in 23 locations across the globe, from Kuala Lumpur to Rio, including top-drawer venues in New York, Paris and London, and attracted all the best names; from royalty to Hollywood to musical divas.
I have featured her many, many times over the years; here and over at my regular blog Give'em the old Razzle Dazzle, but on this sombre occasion I make no excuses for repeating some of her fantabulosa numbers:
She left us with one of the wisest mottos for life: "If you can't dance, you can't make love."
RIP, Régine Zylberberg (born Regina Zylberberg, 26th December 1929 – 1st May 2022)
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