1960’s

Not One, Not Two, But Three Starlet Birthdays

Three award-winning female entertainers of Old Hollywood share a birthday today, June 30th, as well as a common experience of initial career struggle followed by tremendous success later in life.

Lena Horne (1917-2010), who would have been 98 this year, is easily the most recognizable African-American female performer of the Hollywood Studio era. A great beauty and a gorgeous voice with tremendous range, Horne sang in such musicals as Cabin In the Sky (1943) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946), but failed to secure top billings because of her race. After her film work in the 1940’s, Horne made frequent television appearances in the 50’s and 60’s. In 1981, Horne starred in the Broadway revue Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music for which she won a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy. Throughout her long singing and acting career, Horne promoted civil rights and took an active role in the NAACP.

SusanHayward

Susan Hayward (1917-1975) started out as a fashion model and began her acting career in small parts for B-grade films. It wasn’t until she began playing alcoholics, seductresses, and other anti-heroine roles that her career gained momentum. Natural and believable in intense dramas, Hayward earned five Academy Award nominations for Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947), My Foolish Heart (1949), With a Song in My Heart (1952), I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955) and the film that finally earned her the win, I Want to Live! (1958). Hayward also replaced Judy Garland in the powerhouse role of Helen Lawson for Valley of the Dolls (1967). Hayward’s life was cut short by brain cancer, though she performed until she was too ill to be able.

DorothyMalone

Dorothy Malone (1925) began her acting career in the early 40’s. As a brunette, Malone got off to a slow start in minor roles, albeit in films as famous as The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart (1946), Night and Day with Cary Grant (1946) and Artists and Models with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (1955). In 1956, Malone went blonde and won an Academy Award for her sex-charged bad girl performance in Written on the Wind with Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall. After a handful of impressive film roles, Malone began a successful television career in the 60’s, and she is perhaps best known for playing Constance MacKenzie on Peyton Place from 1964-1968.

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Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac

On March 12, 1922, Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts (which is home to a surprising number of famous figures). Kerouac had a tough start; his older brother Gerard died when little Jack was just 4, his father was an alcoholic and his parents struggled financially amidst the Great Depression. Focusing on the positives in his life, reading and sports, Kerouac earned a football scholarship to Columbia University. Football didn’t pay off when Kerouac broke his leg early in his freshman year, but gaining exposure to the life and culture of New York as a 17 year old proved to be the catharsis for his free-spirited literary career. Kerouac dropped out of Columbia and spent the next 17 years travelling and writing under the influence of sex, drugs and jazz. He came into fame in 1957 when his novel On the Road, a somewhat fictionalized account of his travels supposedly written on a single 120-foot scroll in three weeks, fell into the hands of eager readers.

Historically, Kerouac is credited as one of the fathers of the Beat Generation along with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. The culture of the day is a subject in and of itself, but it’s his ideas on writing that I’m interested in. (more…)

Having a Moment with Sylvia Plath

I’m working on a feminine drama with portions set in the mid 1960’s and decided to do some supplemental reading, which brought me to The Bell Jar and works of poetry by Sylvia Plath. I remember Mad Girl’s Love Song being the first example of modern formal poetry that was both accessible and captivating for me. The more I read, though, the more fascinated I become with the author. This latest read caught my eye, because the title was borrowed for an episode of “Mad Men” (which I am also having a moment with).

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day. (more…)