Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Dishing Douchebag Divas



Most Vile Show Biz Mom

“Nobody is born a show-biz Mom;
unless they happen to be in show-biz.”
—Madame Madupont

http://forums.escapefromelba.com/index.php/topic,30.msg143749.html#msg143749


Speaking of double-bagger douchebags, my dearest Maude and Harriett, I simply must share with you a teensy-weensy little bit of Hollywood Confidential gossip about something tremendously important and germane to the Academy Awards with both of you lovely cinematic cognoscente queen bees.

Well, last night I just happened to be schmoozing with the daughter of one of my several West Coast nieces who just happen to be prominent Hollywood actresses known for their connections with the usual Palm Springs Rich and Famous People whom of course I’m sure you already know.

I’m especially fond of my youngest niece who was wonderful friends with Billy Wilder back in the Fifties. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but she appears in that infamous risque “cut” party scene with William Holden in Sunset Boulevard—you know the one? It caused quite a scandal but naturally Billy had it covered up rather quickly and discretely.

Naturally, I have a rare and extremely valuable copy of the unexpurgated version of Sunset Boulevard. This “uncut” version—the movie that is, not handsome William Holden, of course—takes place in a dingy dark dirty rather ill-lit depressing men’s room during one of Holden’s rare getaways from the greedy gigolo-starved douchebag clutches of Norma Desmond.

Norma is waiting impatiently outside in her sleek but somewhat dated limo driven by what’s his name. Naturally she’s jealous and suicidal again—playing the poor distraught douchebag diva on the way back to fame and fortune with Holden rewriting her salacious suggestive inept Salome film script.

“So you’re Norma Desmond?” asks Holden when he meets the Old Bag Gloria Swanson for the first time. With the loving help and guidance of Cecil B. De Mille, Swanson had turned her ambition into the usual Tinsel Town Reality. By the time Gloria was 24, working for Paramount, she was known by the public as the “Queen of the Scream” and was receiving 10,000 fan letters a week.

Meanwhile, the cinema bosses called Swanson the “Mortgage Lifter”—all they had to do was put her name on the billing outside, they said, and the money would roll in. She was the “Queen of Hollywood”—for a century or two.

Forgive my dears, but I simply couldn’t help myself tonight—ever so briefly and discretely taking this tiny little detour into Hollywood Naughty Nostalgiaville and sharing with you the simply fascinating comparisons I find between these two lovely Douchebag Divas: Joan “Dearest Mommy” Crawford and Gloria “Sunset Boulevard” Swanson.

How lucky we are to get to know the Real Dirt about these Show Biz Moms in all their inspiring and problematic cinematic complexity.

Who else but these poor innocent wayward Hollywood Children of the Living Dead—would be able to share with us all the charming yet sometimes terrifying first-hand retrospective accounts of such Mommy Dearest ogling-Eyeball Narratives?

Who else but the Bad Seed offspring of these two Douchebag Divas could opine so eloquently with their shameless Tell-All Autobiographies—the Truth, the Tacky Truth, the obscene obsequious “Magic Realist” Truth of Hollywood Babylon then and now?


Surely, my dears, we need to cherish these precious Douchebag Divas from decades past—to prepare us for even better Divas yet to come? Douchebag Divas who will stalk the Campy Crypt of Bijou Wonder—through the Magic of Netflix Netherworld Naughty Evenings in front of our comfy Flat Screen Home Entertainment Centers all across America Movie Land?

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