BEWARE THE BRIDES OF MARCH

March 15 being THE IDES OF MARCH (but still winter), I thought I’d work on a post I’d call THE BRRRR-IDES OF MARCH — however, it hasn’t been very winter-like where I live, so it’s no weather for snow jobs. Thus I’ll settle for a post about The Brides of March, of whom there have been some blushing ones, some gushing ones, some rushing ones, and a mother lode of if-at-first-you-don’t-succeed-try-try-again ones….such as singing star Peggy Lee, whose marriage to jazz guitarist Dave Barbour was her first of four such gigs.

Here are twenty March brides who gave it the old collage (French for to stick together) try, listed by March wedding day (along with the names of the grooms, just for the wreck of it):

March 1, 1968   JUNE CARTER / Johnny Cash
March 8, 1952   NANCY DAVIS / Ronald Reagan
March 8, 1943   PEGGY LEE / Dave Barbour
March 9, 1796   JOSÉPHINE de BEAUHARNAIS / Napoléon Bonaparte
March 13, 1946 MARY WELSH / Ernest Hemingway

March 15, 1964 ELIZABETH TAYLOR / Richard Burton (again)
March 16, 2002 LIZA MINNELLI / David Gest
March 17, 1905 ELEANOR ROOSEVELT / Franklin D. Roosevelt
March 18, 1869 HARRIET TUBMAN / Nelson Davis
March 19, 1918 DAISY PARKER / Louis Armstrong (who recorded this song 3/2/1932):

March 20, 1969 YOKO ONO / John Lennon
March 21, 1945 LAUREN BACALL / Humphrey Bogart
March 21, 1963 BARBRA STREISAND / Elliott Gould
March 21, 1984 SARAH BRIGHTMAN / Andrew Lloyd Webber
March 23, 1985 CHRISTIE BRINKLEY / Billy Joel

March 24, 1950 INGRID BERGMAN / Roberto Rossellini
March 27, 1916 GLORIA SWANSON / Wallace Beery
March 28, 1920 MARY PICKFORD / Douglas Fairbanks
March 28, 1939 CAROLE LOMBARD / Clark Gable
March 28, 1957 BILLIE HOLIDAY (LADY DAY) / Louis McKay

All but three of those ladies married multiple times, and one of the three (Daisy Parker) died soon after her divorce from Louis Armstrong. Lost passion being the fashion, this quote seems a fitting way to call it a day:

“I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.” –Will Rogers

So ladies, this be your day to be given away. Gents, beware the BRIDES OF MARCH (apologies to Shakespeare) — not to mention, pity your poor (after the divorce) befuddled comrades-in-arms who married them.

 

 

 

 

MAY AULD ACQUAINTANCE NOT BE FORGOT

On August 30, I did a post (titled “MAC”) about the late great actor Fred MacMurray. In recent comments to the MAC post, faithful reader Thom Hickey and I opined that I should publish more posts on actors and actresses from Hollywood’s Golden Age, even though most of them are now little remembered, long forgotten, or unheard of. To the point, how many of these once-upon-a-time familiar film faces and names are familiar to you?

I know not who you know not (above), but I’ve spent some of my happiest hours being entertained (and often drawn in) by such silver screen sorcerers/sorceresses working their magic on my imagination. Watching that clip, it seemed almost unfathomable that nearly all those ‘reel-life’ characters I knew almost as well as I knew real-life family and friends, have gone over THE END. Rapt in their world, how was I to know immortals were mortal?

So, you can take this as a preview of coming attractions featuring close-ups of some of my favorite stars and character actors from the days when the likes of Charlie Chaplin was The Little Tramp….

….and Gloria Swanson was Norma Desmond….

Are you ready for your close-ups?

 

 

 

 

MONEY: THE LOOT OF ALL EVIL

I rob banks because that’s where the money is. –Willie Sutton (though he denied saying it in his autobiography WHERE THE MONEY WAS)

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It occured to me, as I was thinking about this, my 253rd post, that few (if any) of my previous 252 posts were about money….in fact, I can recall mentioning money in only one post, in the opening line of a 24-line poem titled A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TOO CHASTE:

Money may talk,
Though I can’t hear it —
It takes a walk
When I come near it.

So a mistermusing on the subject seems long overdue….not unlike many of the bills I owe. Just kidding. I don’t not owe nothing to no one — no one that I owe of, anyway.

Anyway, what I want to say, as is my wont to say when I can think of nothing more to say, is that I hope you enjoy the following quotes. I trust you will find them on the money:

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. –Bob Hope

The lack of money is the root of all evil. –Mark Twain

Money was fun only until you ran out of things to buy. –Gloria Swanson, actress (silent films, Sunset Boulevard, other movies)

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and thought of other things if you did. –James Baldwin

Money and women are the most sought after and the least understood of any two things we have. –Will Rogers

Where I was brought up, we never talked about money because there was never enough to furnish a topic of conversation. –Mark Twain

What this country needs is not more money, but more people who have some of it. –Evan Esar

I am having an out of money experience. –Anonymous

We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules. –Buzzie Bavasi

If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it. –Anonymous

Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money. –Robin Williams