hall of dames # 24 - anjelica huston

Anjelica Huston was born in Santa Monica, California in 1951 to actor/director John Huston and prima ballerina Enrica Soma. her father was in Africa shooting the African Queen with Katherine Hepburn when Anjelica was born. she was named for her Sicilian maternal grandmother, Angelica Soma, who died when Anjelica's mother Enrica was still a child. most of Anjelica's childhood was spent living in Galway, Ireland.



Huston's parents separated when she was 10 years old, though they never divorced. in 1969, when Anjelica was 18, she began taking small acting roles in her father's films. that same year Anjelica's mother was killed in a car accident at the age of 39. following her mother's death, Anjelica moved to New York and became a model for several years, working with the likes of Richard Avedon and Bob Richardson. she and Richardson, 23 years her senior, were romantically involved.




in the late 1970's Anjelica began studying acting in hope of moving away from modeling and into the world of cinema. Huston's first notable role was in the Postman Always Rings Twice(1981) starring Jack Nicholson, with whom Anjelica had been living since 1973. four years later, she was cast by her father with Nicholson again in Prizzi's Honor(1985), for which Anjelica won a best supporting actress Oscar, making her a third generation oscar winner- the first in academy award history.




Anjelica has had a prolific acting career, highlights including The Grifters (1990), for which she was nominated for another academy award, her iconic portrayal of Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), and her work with director Wes Anderson in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic (2004). she was also awesome in Lonesome Dove (1989), and has directed two feature films and a television movie.

in 1992, Huston married sculptor Robert Graham Jr.. Anjelica and Robert lived together in Venice, California until his death in 2007.



i am inducting Anjelica Huston to the Loose Leaf Tigers Hall of Dames for her extraordinary talent, character and intelligence, matched only by unmatchable beauty. dame Anjelica will grace the small screen in the TV series Smash, which debuts tonight.

hall of dames # 23 - tilly losch

Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine "Tilly" Losch, Countess of Carnarvon, was born in Vienna, Austria on the 15th of November, 1903. Tilly began studying ballet at the Vienna Opera as a child, later becoming an accomplished dancer and choreographer and eventually expanding her repertoire to include dramatic stage work.



Losch's stage success led to supporting roles in several Hollywood films, including The Garden of Allah (1936) with Marlene Dietrich. Tilly was best known for a composition entitled "The Hand Dance", which was featured in a short dance film by Norman Bel Geddes.




Losch was married twice, the first time to millionaire Edward James, a patron of the surrealist arts. Edward founded a ballet company specifically for Tilly which made performances in London and Paris. he would later file for divorce on the grounds that Losch had committed adultery with american hotel executive Prince Serge Obelensky, to which Losch launched a failed countersuit stating that Edward was a homosexual. at James' former estate, a permanent reminder of ms. Losch can be found woven into the carpet of his spiral staircase. as a token of his love for her, James had Tilly's wet footprints (left on the stairs after emerging from her bath) woven directly into the fibres of the rug. in the years following their divorce, Edward made a similar carpet from the footprints of his dog.



battling severe clinical depression, Tilly eventually abandoned dance entirely and spent time in a Swiss sanitarium. she married second husband Henry Herbert, 6th Earl of Carnarvon and began painting, first in water colours and then in oils. out of concern for her health and fear of the escalating danger of war era Europe, Herbet sent Tilly back to New York. there she had her first painting exhibition in 1944, which was well received. her work now hangs in London's Tate gallery, among others. Losch and Herbert divorced in 1947.


Tilly died of cancer in New York at the age of 72.

hall of dames #22 - malvina reynolds

singer, songwriter and activist Malvina Reynolds' most famous song, Little Boxes (made famous by the great Pete Seeger), recently enjoyed renewed popularity as the theme song for the showtime TV series Weeds - and thank goodness for that, 'cause that's how i first came across her music.

Malvina was born in San Francisco in 1900. she married a carpenter and labor organizer in 1934 -William "Bud" Reynolds- and the two had a child, Nancy Reynolds Schimmel, now a songwriter and performer herself. though refused her highschool diploma because of her parents' vocal opposition to World War I, Malvina went on to earn a doctorate in Romance Philology from Berkley in 1939, long before it was considered proper for women her age to return to school. it wasn't until her late 40s, after meeting Pete Seeger and other folk singers, that Malvina began writing songs in earnest. Malvina's songs have since been recorded by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, the Seekers, Harry Belafonte and Elvis Costello, among others.

Malvina wrote songs for Women for Peace, the Nestle Boycott, the sit-ins in San Francisco on auto row and at the Sheraton-Palace, the fight against putting a freeway through Golden Gate Park and other causes. she wrote songs for children and contributed material to PBS's Sesame Street, on which she made occasional appearances as a character named Kate. when Malvina passed away in 1978, the world lost an extraordinary and inspirational human being, who lived as an example that it's never too late to discover and pursue your passions, that it's cool to be smart and to express your opinions and that blindly conforming to the status quo will only prevent you from truly becoming yourself. thank you Malvina!

if you'd like to know more about Malvina, check out her daughter's blog about writing her mother's biography.

this last one is a short song that you must listen to all the way to the end. the last verse makes me want to cry.

hall of dames #21 - jane russell

it saddens me that this must be a posthumous induction to the hall of dames, as miss Russell passed away yesterday in her Santa Maria home, at the age of 89. let's take a moment to remember the extraordinary contributions of this breathtaking beauty and consummate comedienne.



Jane was born Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell on June 21, 1921 in Bemidji, Minnesota. three of Jane's four grandparents were Canadian, so we have the great white north to thank! she had originally wanted to be a designer, but took a job as a receptionist after her father passed away, which helped her save the necessary funds to study drama - something she had been interested in since highschool. Howard Hughes would discover her while she was working as a secretary at his dentist's office, and cast her in her first film: The Outlaw (1943). the film was made to highlight Jane's sex appeal more than her acting abilities, thus beginning her rise as a prominent sex symbol of the 40s and 50s.




Hughes signed Russell to a seven year contract, during which most of the films she would star in concentrated more on her genetic assetts than her talent. it wasn't until 1953 that Jane had a chance to display her natural comedic flare, opposite Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. during the 1950s, films like Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) finally allowed Jane to show the world what a fine actress she indeed was.




Russell, who made over 20 films in her career, made fewer and fewer throughout the 1960s, and the 1970s found her not as a movie star, but as a spokeswoman for Playtex bras. Jane's ample breasts are actually the namesake for 'The Jane Russell Peaks' in Alaska, and the troops in Korea named two embattled hills in Russell's honour. Howard Hughes, designer of airplanes, once designed a bra for Jane and is reported to have said of her stardom: "There are two good reasons why men go to see her. Those are enough." what a pig. :)




Jane was thrice married. first, to highschool sweetheart and football hall-o-famer Bob Waterfield from 1943 to 1968. the couple adopted three children over the course of their marriage - Tracy, Thomas and John. Russell, who was unable to have children due to a botched abortion at the age of 18, founded World Adoption International Fund (WAIF) in 1955, an organization that pioneered adoption from foreign countries by Americans.




after divorcing Waterfield in 1968, Jane married actor Roger Barrett in August of that same year. the two remained married until his death just 3 months later. Jane's third husband was real-estate broker John Calvin Peoples. they were married from January, 1974 until his death in April, 1999.





Jane has long been an outspoken republican, pro-life activist and born again Christian - but hey, nobody's perfect. [just kiddin around folks. please don't leave me nasty comments. i got nothin but love for Jane, despite our political differences.] you can read all about her in her autobiography, published in 1985: Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours. and just because it exists, here's a picture of the great Jane Russell as she appears next to the king...