Laura, Book Club Edition
Ad Gal, Fortune Teller, Scriptwriter, Producer, Hit Novelist, Commie sympathizer Vera Caspary lived one hell of a roller coaster life — on her own terms.
Caspary was a natural storyteller and was driven to write, write, write!. At 17 Caspary dropped out of school and was soon writing ad copy and editing magazines. She even “created” mail order correspondence courses, such as the Sergei Marinoff School of Classic Dancing –and other topics she knew zilch about.
In the mid-1920′s she moved to Greenwich Village, quit her job, and began writing a “meaningful” novel. The White Girl in 1929 was about a southern black girl who moves north and passes as white (another expert topic for a nice Jewish girl from NYC). After this surprising hit, a stint editing an entertainment guide provided Caspary with an entree to the theater world and celebrities. Dazzled, Caspary set her sights on plays and short stories that could be sold to Hollywood.
While The City Sleeps, Window Card
While The City Sleeps is based on a 1952 novel by Charles Einstein, The Bloody Spur. Charles Einstein is a famous “Einstein”. Not the smart Einsteins. Not the bagel Einsteins. The secret Hollywood Einsteins. One half-brother, Bob Einstein, is Super Dave Osborn, and the other half-brother, Albert Einstein, is Albert Brooks. Pretty Cool. Charles Einstein (no secret identity) was a Chicago sports writer that specialized in writing about gambling and baseball. But in 1952, he took a leap and wrote a book about the lurid Chicago Lipstick murders. At one murder scene the killer left a message scrawled in red lipstick:
For heavens
sake catch me
before I kill more
I cannot control myself.
The book was a mega- hit.
Hollywood came knocking. Fritz Lang signed a 2-picture deal with Einstein. However, by the time he and his screen writer were done in 1956, changes were made. Less emphasis on the murderer (John Barrymore, Jr.*), more on the rakish news crews.
Lang skewers the media mercilessly with his accomplished cast of newsy narcissists. By the end of the film most feel more sympathy for the wacko sex crazed killer than the line-up of back-stabbing reporters in a killer finding contest. So TMZ!
Fallen Angel, Half Sheet
You’d never know it from the mousey part she plays in this picture, but Alice Faye was one tough cookie. The cop’s daughter from Hell’s kitchen was barely a teen when she scored her first job as a chorus girl in 1929. Two years later she hooked up with notorious letch Rudy Vallee and became his jailbait protégée. Adultry scandals followed, but sheer talent won out –she well on her way to stardom. During her years as a musical superstar, Alice Faye managed to introduce twenty-three songs to the hit parade, more than any other female Hollywood movie star. During her peak years, she was often considered the female equivalent to Bing Crosby. During this time she made numerous musicals which were pretty light on the plot, but were successful moneymakers for the studio. By 1938 she was Fox’s top female star.
