Uncategorized – Page 74 – My World With Words

July 1, 2017July 1, 2017

Happy Birthday, Dame Olivia

If I live to see 100, make that 101, let me live it like Olivia de Havilland, with class, humor…and in Paris.

Just last week, days before her birthday, she was given a damehood by Queen Elizabeth II for her services to drama. She is the oldest woman to receive this honor.

Dame Olivia was one of the top actresses of her time, with a career that spanned decades. She gained the respect of audiences and colleagues alike. But she represented more than just glamour and success. Through the influence gained by her talent, she fought for others, those without a voice, and changed lives as a result.

Olivia de Havilland 1945 — Publicity photo, circa 1945

A working woman in a sexist environment, she held her own against those who would pull her down and managed one of the most successful long-term careers in Hollywood history.

I’m far from the only one to take note of Dame Olivia’s qualities, now and then. In February 2016, The Oldie magazine, a satirical publication from London fighting ageism, named her “Oldie of the Year.”

Her response to that honor was delight and delightful. Over the years, her wit has shown in so many of her personal appearances, with a smile and a wink at life.

My fascination with and appreciation of Dame Olivia de Havilland began when I was high school, at the same school she had graduated from in 1934, Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, Calif.

The summer between my junior and senior years I had a job working in the school library, and my tasks included repairing older books. One of those was the school’s 1934 yearbook, and the librarians turned a blind eye as I spent a little too much time looking for all mention of her. Even then, she stood out from her peers in her poise and class in front of a camera.

Classic movie fans, indeed anybody familiar with her work,

will know her best for two roles, as Melanie in Gone With the Wind and as the dashing Errol Flynn’s most frequent leading lady.

Olivia de Havilland as Melanie — As Melanie in “Gone With the Wind”

She was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her work in Gone With the Wind in 1939, but it wasn’t until she starred in the phenomenal film To Each His Own in 1946 that she won her first Oscar, for Best Actress in a Leading Role. That was followed three years later by the same award for one of my favorite of her films, The Heiress.

In between those two wins, she received a Best Actress nomination for The Snake Pit, a ground-breaking film about the treatment of the mentally ill. Bringing those images to the screen created public awareness of the plight of millions, and those who suffer from mental illness today can be thankful for her work in what I hope & pray is now a long-outdated portrayal of institutionalization.

She had one sister, the late Joan Fontaine. Miss Fontaine was a year younger, and the two are the only sisters in Academy Award history to each win an Oscar for Best Actress.

For those who aren’t aware,

in Hollywood’s early years what was known as the studio system reigned, in which actors and actresses were under contract and controlled by the strict standards and seeming whims of the studio executives. Dame Olivia took her studio, Columbia Pictures, to court in 1943 and won, and the resulting decision changed labor laws, greatly reduced studio power and began the decline of the contract system.

As a result it was almost impossible for her to find work for a couple of years, but at the end of that time she began a comeback that reduced that gap in her work to a non-entity in her overall career.

Perhaps there were times in those years when she wondered if she should have been the one to take that stand. Even if she never wavered in her pride in her decision, she likely cried or otherwise railed over the blacklisting of her talent. I don’t know enough about her to know what her reaction may have been, except it would have been human.

She has stood her ground again, and filed a lawsuit against the FX network, suing for infringement of common law right of publicity, invasion of privacy and unjust enrichment. Her claim is based on the “inherently untrue” portrayal of her as a bitchy gossip-monger, something records readily available to producers would show to be false.

She was, rather, known to be gracious and kind, a woman who refrained from gossip and treated all with respect and dignity.

Olivia de Havilland, National Medal of the Arts 2008 — With President George W. Bush, receiving the National Medal of Arts

Although she is an American citizen, Dame Olivia has lived in Paris since 1960. She continued to act until the 1980s, and her last major public event was in 2008 when she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.

Our high school has an annual award, “The De Havilland Cup,” given to a student for a monologue performance. That tradition has lasted more than 70 years, and I expect it will continue for many more to come. It is a fine tribute to her talent and dedication to her craft, for it takes both those qualities to win this award.

Dame Olivia de Havilland was a force in Hollywood, and remains a strong & gracious woman. She is one of the last living stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, that wonderful era from the 30s to 40s.*

Happy 101st birthday, Dame Olivia, and congratulations for a long and marvelous career, for your dignity and poise, for representing the best for working women everywhere.

*Those familiar with the “Golden Age of Hollywood” know that much of the work created during that time was a product of the studio system. It was a wonderful era for film, but not so much, perhaps, for many of the actors and actresses.

Header Image Credits, clockwise from top left: 1) With Errol Flynn in Captain Blood; 2) With Bette Davis in In This Our Life; 3) With George Brent in In This Our Life; 4) With Montgomery Clift in The Heiress; 5) With Jack Carson in The Male Animal; 6) In Princess O’Rourke. Reviews for these films can be found on Classic for a Reason.

June 28, 2017

The Gift

Last summer I received an adoption announcement from a friend of mine, Brock. He and his partner, Dan, had a new little girl. Her name was Allison, but they called her Sunny.

I hadn’t heard from Brock in several years. We’d worked together ages ago, before he and Dan had met, but at a time when Brock was anxious to start his own family. It was a challenge, since he’s gay, and at the time, decidedly single.

The picture that came with the notice showed Brock standing next to a beaming Dan, cradling a baby I guessed to be about six months old. While Brock was smiling, there was a sadness in his eyes. Ever curious, I decided to call my one-time close friend. After all, he’d included his phone number in the announcement.

“HELLO!” He cried out when he heard my name. “I was hoping you’d call! I found your address, but couldn’t track down your phone number.”

In the background a baby was crying. “I hear sounds of a family,” I said. “I’ll keep this short.”

That call, however, was destined to be longer. While Dan comforted Sunny, Brock told me how she came into their lives.

Brock, you see, had an identical twin brother, Calvin. Calvin was straight, and like his twin, took his time settling down. Four years earlier he’d married a woman Brock was thrilled with, Anna.

Calvin and Anna had wanted children right away, but it took them several years to finally carry a baby to full-term. That baby was Allison, which, it turns out, is Anna’s middle name. As soon as she was born, Brock flew out to meet her, and he was the one who started calling her Sunny.

Sunny, however, was anything but a happy baby. She cried constantly, and while doctors initially dismissed it as first-time parental concern, a nurse finally took note and convinced Sunny’s pediatrician to run some tests. They discovered a heart defect and immediately took her in for surgery.

The surgery was successful and Sunny’s recovery was complete, but Calvin and Anna had a hard time leaving her side. Finally, when she was four months old (and by this time, a truly sunny baby), they left her in the care of Anna’s sister, who herself has four children.

It was a terribly windy night, and Calvin and Anna cut their evening short, concerned the weather was going to get worse. Three miles from their home, their sporty little Miata swerved or was blown across the median, and was hit by a semi. Both Calvin and Anna were dead at the scene.

Brock got the call, and flew out immediately. He desperately wanted to adopt Sunny, and after all, he was the godfather, but Anna’s sister was the godmother, and he was certain if there were a legal battle, he would lose.

Anna’s sister, however, liked Brock, and told him while she would happily adopt Sunny, she felt strongly he was meant to be her father. Sunny, you see, looks just like Calvin and Brock did at that age.

More than that, Anna’s sister knew this was perhaps the best opportunity for Brock and Dan to become parents. She only asked that she remain Sunny’s godmother. Brock eagerly agreed, and adoption proceedings were nearly immediate.

But there remains sadness in Brock’s eyes. He lost his brother, his closest friend, his twin. He is overjoyed at having a baby, and one who carries his DNA, no less, but is working through the pain.

I told him Sunny is a lucky little girl to have so many people who love her. I told him I was sorry for his loss, and I knew his emotions would be complicated.

Every day is a gift, Brock told me. Growing up, he had Calvin.

Today his gift is Sunny.

Sunny

Image Credit: Header © Bigstock; Baby Feet © Zbyszek Nowak – Fotolia

June 27, 2017June 27, 2017

The Ideal(istic) Adult

Being thirty was about the best thing that ever happened to me.

I’d set goals and achieved them, and the world seemed like a welcome place, with manifold glorious destinations. My mind was likely at its sharpest (although admittedly, I still had much to learn), I’ve probably never looked better, before or since, and I’d started to make some money. Not a lot, but more than ever before, and it seemed like a fortune.

If I could live forever in that magical world, that’s where I’d be. Has my life gone downhill since? No, not really. I’ve had ups and downs — that’s the way life is — but I’ve never regained that sense of optimism, my belief in the future and my own potential.

That glory must have been more than reaching my goals, because I’ve set goals and achieved them since that time, goals that were further out of reach and potentially more rewarding.

The problem with that sort of idealism is the world is more complex and more ordinary than our dreams. Jobs don’t deliver, people disappoint us, relationships fail. Of course then we find better work, more rewarding and lasting, we discover friends who stand beside us through thick & thin, and new relationships begin, with all the hope they hold at the start. But it’s the first time the world looks good that we’re happiest, because we don’t have the cynicism of experience.

Yet the wisdom we gain over the years benefits us, too. We see that hard times end, and impossible situations are resolved through perseverance and yes, some luck. Pain beats at us persistently, but in the end we overcome it, newly girded with the wisdom of survival.

Looking in the mirror can be discouraging. Our looks fade. It costs more money to maintain a lesser appearance. It’s hard sometimes to remember you’re 55 and not 35, who your peers actually are and what you can & can’t do anymore.

Given the choice, I’d always prefer to be an adult, but can I specify a few things? I’d like to have the physical and physiological benefits of being 30, with the wisdom and maturity that comes from living.

Of course we’re not given any such choice, or anything like it, and I’m aware many have the same thoughts as they get older. Makes me wonder what I need to appreciate about being the age I am now, and what I’ll miss about it 20 or 30 years from now.

Image Credit: © justdd — Bigstock

June 21, 2017June 21, 2017

Knit one, then knit another…

Nearly 40 years ago, I was watching television with my dad and getting a little agitated.

It had nothing to do with my dad, who clearly saw the source of my problem, even if I didn’t yet. “This is such a waste of time,” I moaned. “I feel like I should be doing something productive.”

My dad suggested doing something creative. “Like what??” I wailed. “I need to relax. I just don’t want to waste time while I’m winding down.”

His suggestion stayed with me, however, and somehow, I landed on knitting. I found a yarn store with an owner who would teach you to knit if you bought yarn and supplies from her, and my journey began.

I still have that first sweater, one of the few I made from acrylic yarn. After that I decided if I was going to spend the time knitting a project, it was going to be with quality yarn. The highest quality I could afford.

Over the years I’ve made some close friends through my knitting, many of them the owners of the yarn stores I frequent. Eventually I began to knit store samples — for store credit — to supplement my yarn budget.

the-kids-first-sweater-ii — My niece at nine months wearing that special sweater. She’s almost (gulp!) 18 now!

When my niece and nephew were little, I made them dozens of sweaters. In fact, I had just finished what turned out to be everyone’s favorite baby sweater when we learned my niece was on the way. I’d started that project months earlier because I thought it was special, knowing the right baby for it would come along someday.

I don’t typically make anything on spec, although I usually have a few things lying around for gifts. Last year, a young friend of mine moved from Little Rock to Appleton, Wisc., and obviously she was going to need a hat. I had the perfect toque for her, just calling her name.

Kim's Slippers CF blue — The slippers I designed for my mom — when one pair wears out, I make her another…and another…

My mom has so many hand knit pieces in her tiny apartment she doesn’t know what to do with all of them. That includes a half dozen pairs of slippers made from a pattern I designed and named for her. (You can purchase the pattern for Kim’s Slippers at Ravelry.com.)

The only drawback to all of us? Ironically, the creative endeavor I started so I’d be productive while watching television has resulted in me watching more TV than before. If I’m knitting — and I’m always working on something — that damn set is on.

Loop

June 18, 2017June 18, 2017

I’ll Still Accept Gifts…

I wouldn’t want to win the lottery.

Managing all the money would be a burden, a task I’m not prepared to handle. Okay, one million dollars I might figure out. Even two. But start getting higher than that, and I’m out of my depth.

I expressed this thought once to a group of co-workers, and the response was immediate and forceful.

“Oh, I could figure out how to handle it!!”

“I have an uncle who works in a bank. He could help me.”

And there was the woman who agreed with me, but for a slightly different reason. “I am totally the kind of person someone could take advantage of,” she said.

Winning the lottery is as realistic for me as getting three wishes from a genie, another gift I don’t think I would want to be burdened with in this lifetime. The tales of those who are granted those wishes always end badly, a moralistic story of greed and the perils of getting what you dream will make your life worth living.

After all, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

I find the greatest pleasure in those items I’ve saved toward buying and perhaps purchased at some sacrifice. Nothing foolish, mind you, but choosing what I really want at the cost of something else.

The day I buy my sofa, I will treasure it. No, I won’t keep it covered in plastic. But my futon, with its lumpy mattress, has served its purpose and then some, and I’ve wanted a new sofa for a very long time. Last year I came this close to getting one. The opportunity to move to a much nicer place came along, and that ate up all my savings.

A genie in a bottle is a nice thought, but that genie doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

My life doesn’t need a free ride to make it better.

Special thanks to my family, all of those who have helped me get back on my feet at a time when I couldn’t do it by myself. Your ongoing support means the world to me. I won the lottery when it came to family.

Bottle