A book smorgasboard

There's a new-ish (well, new to me anyway) Marie Dressler bio out that I'm dying to read. I find there aren't nearly enough book on my girls Marie and Mabel so I'm super stoked about this one. I wish there was a major occasion coming up so somebody could buy it for me! (As well as a few other things on my wish list, including The Suspicions of Mister Whicher.) For now, though, I am content to work my way through a re-reading of Ray Bradbury's Long After Midnight; I've also just picked up Switch Bitch (Roald Dahl) and The Yellow Dog (by Georges Simenon) at the ever-fabulous NYPL, so I'm pretty much set for the next couple of weeks. I feel summer dwindling to a close and all I can think about is how much there is still to read. Subconsciously, I'll always feel like late August/early September means back to school, though those days are long gone for me ...

Perhaps that's what inspired this particularly bookish post?

Also, I've been reading about Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland ... I sincerely hope he doesn't screw it up the way he did Sleepy Hollow. I loved the design of that movie, and I loved the casting (Depp, Walken and Ricci were all awesome) but I hated the tacked on story about Ichabod's mother being a witch (and a new agey Wiccan type at that)! Burton always gets to film my sacred texts, and while I clearly envy him for it, I'm also holding my breath over this one (I suppose Helena Bonham Carter will have to play the Red Queen, sigh)...

Novemberites

This is a very special time of year for someone like me, namely someone obsessed with silent films stars. Three extraordinary women who worked in Hollywood during the silent era have their birthdays within days of one another, so I want to celebrate them here. Mabel Normand, variously cited as being born Nov. 9, 10 or 16th, Marie Dressler, born November 9, and Frances Marion, born November 18th. (I know this is not actually on any of their actual confirmed birthdays, but you get the general idea.)

Here’s why I love these women: they were smart, funny, and worked hard to make motion pictures that would go down in history. They worked in Hollywood at a time when women’s contributions as writers and comediennes were valued (hurray! We need that back … I’m looking at you Reese Witherspoon and Tina Fey. Bring back Katharine Hepburns and Carole Lombards while you’re at it too).

Frances Marion has a special place in my heart because she’s a trailblazing writer, the first woman to win an Academy Award, and her friendship with actress Mary Pickford (who we’ll celebrate in April) was one of the most fruitful professional unions of the day.

I love Mabel Normand because she was just nuts. She acted in some hilarious movies with Fatty Arbuckle, then later got hooked on booze, coke and morphine-laced cough syrup and then reputedly ate nothing but ice cream (after she contracted TB). Not only did she live it up and get involved in one scandal after another, she was even involved in not one but two murder scandals, including the William Desmond Taylor murder in 1922. Plus, she’s from Staten Island, a borough I once called home.

Finally, Marie Dressler is another incredible comedienne, who actually worked with Normand. She was a great big girl with what they used to call a "raw-boned" face, who was a breakout Vaudeville star before she got into pictures. I love her for being big and funny, and for being born in Ontario, Canada, the very province where I was born and raised (you can see I get around, for an old spinster).

To learn more about these great women, read American Silent Film by William K. Everson, Silent Stars by Jeanine Basinger, and Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp. Without Lying Down is also available on DVD as a documentary, but first watch the stars in action – The Love Light and Stella Maris, both written by Frances Marion, are available on DVD via Amazon, as is Tillie’s Punctured Romance, which features Mabel and Marie in action (with Charlie Chaplin).