The Profane Angel

"I live by a man's code, designed to fit a man's world, yet at the same time I never forget that a woman's first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick."

We celebrate the centenary this week of the birth of the lovely Carole Lombard. A woman of supreme beauty, she was also a multi-talented actress who could turn her hand to romantic leads and comedy romps with equal vigour.

She was famed for her glamour, and was the talk of the tabloids for her marriage to screen idol Clark Gable. Indeed, he referred to her as "the love of his life".

But she was also known for her foul mouth - her language was allegedly "so bawdy it could make a sailor blush". She apparently learned this little trick from her brothers, to provide her with a defence against aggressive boys. This is how she earned her nickname "The Profane Angel".

Tragically, not long after the US entered World War II in 1941, Carole Lombard was travelling home with her mother from a war bond fundraising event when the small plane in which they were passengers crashed in the mountains close to Las Vegas. All 22 passengers were killed. A grief-stricken Clark Gable apparently wore a piece of her brooch that was recovered from the scene of the crash until the day he died.

It seems strange that we often idolise stars from the classic days of Hollywood such as Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Betty Grable or Lauren Bacall, yet Carole Lombard is little remembered today - and her centenary seems destined to pass without a mention in the media.

Movie Legends - The Young Carole Lombard

George Raft and Carole Lombard - Bailando Bolero!

Carole Lombard website

Shaved her legs and then he was a she

Once again the Warhol circus is in town, as the "triumph of art over nature" Holly Woodlawn arrives to speak at an exhibition of the bewigged one's artworks this week.

Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms

Holly, the legendary drag queen who hitch-hiked from Miami to New York City in the 60's to become one of Andy Warhol's Factory-era protégés, was immortalised in Lou Reed's famous song Walk on the Wild Side. She was one of Warhol's major muses, and is indeed a survivor - the last man/woman standing from the original Factory crowd.



As good an excuse as any to replay that magnificently decadent tribute song to a lost era:

Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side

Holly Woodlawn is in conversation with actress and writer Mary Woronov and Bibbe Hansen, the youngest Warhol Superstar and mother of musician Beck, at the Purcell Room on the South Bank this Thursday (9th October).

Holly Woodlawn biography

Never wear nylon bought for you by a blind person

"I wasn't always a slightly fey window dresser in glamorous New York; I was a slightly fey schoolboy in humdrum Reading."

And so begins the new BBC comedy Beautiful People, based on the memoirs of New York window dresser (sorry- Creative Director for Barneys store) Simon Doonan, as told through a series of flashbacks to his teenage years in the 90s.

We watched the first episode last night, and I am hooked! As one would expect from a piece that is steered by the supremely talented Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Gimme Gimme Gimme), this is a whirlwind of weird and wonderful characters, fantasy sequences, camp, dysfunctional family life, grim working class estates, tarts, and did I mention - camp?!

As Hermione Eyre, writing in the Independent on Sunday, says, "It's like the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, except camp. Screamingly, thrashingly, life-threateningly camp."

Simon and his best friend "Kylie"/Kyle escape their boring surroundings by "doing everything that normal lads do - pretending to be Canadian in public places, working out complicated dance routines to 80s floorfillers and doling out unwanted fashion advice to the proletariat of Reading ('Ditch the fringe love, it ain't working')."

Family life is eccentric to say the least - sassy Mum and (quite cute) Dad are drinkers and generally bonkers, sister Ashlene is a wannabe slut, and blind Auntie Hayley (Meera Syal) is a sort of hippy with a guide dog that is more blind than she is. Their sheer joy at drinking, brawling, bitching and theatricality - look out for their brilliant rendition of the "Egoiste" perfume advert - is hilarious. It's like The Royle Family with show tunes.

But it is the experiences of the two boys and their exuberant gayness that makes for the best comic moments. When young Simon is caught out stealing the local slag's dress and wearing it "to see what I'd look like", his parents are understandably concerned. "What did you say to him?" says Dad. "I said what any mother would", says Mum - "What's wrong with my bloody dresses?!"

In the words of this wise teenager: "Two fashion pointers: never wear nylon, and never wear nylon bought for you by a blind person".

Unmissable! - and the opening episode is on BBC iPlayer for the next week or so.

Here's a taster of a future programme in the series:

Beautiful People - Something Better Than This

Review in The Stage

Vamos indeed!

Sitting here watching Wild China all about the frozen wastes of north east Manchuria - all frozen rivers and hairy animals - and looking out on a bleak October day in London, it is hard to feel warm.

But one week away from our holiday in Spain, I find this helps...

Loona - Vamos a la Playa

Righeira - Vamos a la Playa

We need to be "vamos-ing" to that playa!

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn

Happy 82nd birthday to the wonderful Gore Vidal, man of letters, ardent critic of the Reagan and Bush administrations of America, and elegant wit.

Born into a socialite family, Gore Vidal was destined to mix in the most erudite of circles, his early relationships included Anais Nin, and he was good friends with the Kennedy family. His ground-breaking homosexual-themed novel The City and the Pillar caused controversy in late 1940s America, and his later Myra Breckenridge (a transgender satire) was later made into a cult film starring Raquel Welch and Mae West.

His TV clash with right-wing writer William Buckley was notorious for its evident hatred between the debaters, and on Buckley's death Vidal said "hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred". Ouch!

Some more examples of this deadly waspish wit:

• A good deed never goes unpunished.
• A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
• Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60.
• Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
• Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
• As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
• By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.
• Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
• Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
• I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.
• I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
• It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
• Never have children, only grandchildren.
• Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.
• Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.
• Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
• Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
• The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
• Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
• We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
• What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
• Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.

Happy birthday to the original classy bitch!

Gore Vidal biography

C’mon Barbie let’s go party

Today we celebrate the 35th birthday of Lene Nystrom, the mad, bad and dangerous to know lead singer of the wonderfully camp Danish popsters Aqua.

I recall the first time I ever heard Barbie Girl - I was in a car in Brittany with two French friends (one of them my ex), and we spent a good time on the journey doing all the actions to the song, to the bemusement of the Breton locals as we passed!

Although Aqua were one of those bands you either loved or hated (I was obviously in the former camp), they had remarkable success in the late 90s and early 2000s - where many other EuroPop acts had failed they conquered the lucrative US and Japanese markets, and sold more than 30 million records worldwide. Indeed they remain the most successful Danish act ever!

Enjoy...

Aqua - Barbie Girl

Aqua - Doctor Jones

Aqua feat. Safri Duo at Eurovision 2001

Aqua official website

In Cuba they called me crazy

Having recently bought the CD I Like It Like That, a compilation of music and remixes by artists from the famous superb Latin American record company Fania [I was in HMV, it was playing, I had to get a copy - a familar story...], I was enthralled to read an article in The Guardian today about one of the featured artists on the CD, the legendary La Lupe. As is my wont I was determined to find more about this fascinating Queen of Salsa (whose career began before Celia Cruz claimed the title).

Widely impersonated by drag queens across the Americas, La Lupe was cited by Susan Sontag as one of the 17 entries that defined "camp" in her brilliant Notes on Camp.

She was neither pure "Latin" nor pure "Salsa", having defined by her ultra-dramatic performances a niche all to herself. Ditched at an early stage by Tito Puente - who was quite probably, and quite rightly, scared of her - she became a cult figure not just amongst the Latin community but also the underground gay society of New York and beyond for her bizarre covers of popular songs including Yesterday, Dominique (originally by The Singing Nun), Twist & Shout, Unchained Melody, Fever and America (from West Side Story).

She unfortunately ended up turning to religion, and died in 1992.

Here are a couple of examples of the exuberance of the lovely lady herself...

La Lupe - El Carbonero

La Lupe - Fever

A documentary of her life is doing the rounds, and I really need to get hold of a copy!

Read the article in The Guardian

La Lupe on Wikipedia