tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68087381223019793112024-03-13T21:22:21.536-07:00Heroine AddictA modern day Plutarch's Lives.Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-37310798620256717612014-03-07T04:06:00.001-08:002014-03-07T04:58:03.805-08:00Zandra Rhodes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bL_CaIvtato/Uxm0oOX5GNI/AAAAAAAABLI/_gRi3sSImtc/s1600/26-Zandra-Rhodes-1983_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bL_CaIvtato/Uxm0oOX5GNI/AAAAAAAABLI/_gRi3sSImtc/s1600/26-Zandra-Rhodes-1983_web.jpg" height="319" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Around
the age of twelve, I became interested in fashion and it started with
a pair of yellow dungarees.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Of
course, being twelve in 1986 ensured I didn't </span><span style="color: #222222;">have
to seek out fashion, because fashion sought out me. Rather,</span><span style="color: #222222;">
I was positively clobbered over the head with it, a bit like Timmy's
mallet flying towards my head at lightening speed. </span><span style="color: #222222;">Because
in the Eighties, fashion was hard to ignore.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">My
opportunity to step out into the world of patent plastic and clashing
neons happened when Mum handed me The Catalogue and for the first
time. This time I was allowed to choose for myself. So, like my
heroine Keren Woodward, I chose banana-yellow dungarees, and </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
complimented this with banana eye-shadow. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">B</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">efore
I knew it I </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">was
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">hot-foot</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">ing</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
it down to Chelsea Girl in High Wycombe</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">'s
Frogmore</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">. And t</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">hanks
to that now defunct shop</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">became
the proud owner</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">of
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">a
cerise shirt dress, matching </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">cerise
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">tights
and patent-pointed ballet pumps. To complete the look, </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
lazily and predictably selected </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">a
cluster of </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">cerise
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">bangles.
Needless to say I looked exotic that Christmas, in the same way a
giant </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">morello</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
cherry would look if it were invited to sit on my Nan's sofa in Ebbw
Vale, cautiously sipping a glass of sherry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">I
remember the Madonna-inspired lace gloves, </span><span style="color: #222222;">my
first purchase from </span><span style="color: #222222;">the
newly opened centre in Milton Keynes, </span><span style="color: #222222;">(imaginatively labelled the Milton Keynes Shopping Centre). </span><span style="color: #222222;">And
who was responsible for this unique, unmistakable </span><span style="color: #222222;">explosion
of madness?</span><span style="color: #222222;">
One woman </span><span style="color: #222222;">only.</span><span style="color: #222222;">
Zandra Rhodes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #222222;">Starting
out in the Sixties, Zandra only really came into her own in the Eighties. Designing demented fairy gowns for Diana like<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2043820/One-Princess-Dianas-glamorous-gowns-saved-Royal-Palaces.html"> this one</a>, she was unparalleled in visually marking a decade. And who better to showcase her bat-wing designs? Freddy Mercury will do.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vPtfUB1BvGk/Uxm0fLK0i2I/AAAAAAAABLA/_pSH6ag5ww8/s1600/1312471950_bat_wing_freddie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vPtfUB1BvGk/Uxm0fLK0i2I/AAAAAAAABLA/_pSH6ag5ww8/s1600/1312471950_bat_wing_freddie.jpg" height="308" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">Zandra
Rhodes, CBE, RDI, </span><span style="color: #222222;">born
S</span><span style="color: #222222;">eptember
19, 1940, </span><span style="color: #222222;">Chatham</span></b></span></span></div>
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Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-84352523417689515682012-08-01T01:38:00.000-07:002012-08-02T20:32:25.962-07:00Maeve Binchy<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oLqwW_SAQcs/UBjqs4KaEKI/AAAAAAAABF8/oqnFvJKtOfc/s1600/maeve1n-1-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oLqwW_SAQcs/UBjqs4KaEKI/AAAAAAAABF8/oqnFvJKtOfc/s320/maeve1n-1-web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I once read an
anthology of Christmas stories while recuperating on the hottest day
of the year. Such is the power of Maeve Binchy.</div>
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Taking time out from
editing my own novel to dust off this blog takes a fair splattering
of motivation and the surprising news of Binchy's death after a quick
illness resulted in a genuine swallow hard moment. I was a fan and
with two books of hers yet to read on my shelves (on a beach
somewhere hopefully), I still am.
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I first stumbled across
her work ten years ago. I picked up Tara Road in a car boot sale in
the early noughties, so I'm a bit of a late-comer but sadly for her
estate she hasn't profited from my fandom. I've never bought a book
of hers from a bookshop but I would like it to be known I was hooked
by her Dublin streets.</div>
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I wonder, if like all
those homeless northeners lured here to London in the eighties by the
promise of an Eastenders community spirit, whether the same happened
in Ireland. With intertwined characters in neighbouring streets all
falling in love but perhaps more importantly, looking out for each
other, she sold Ireland to the feckless. We know this sweet and
increasingly outmoded image is fallacy but that's the job of the
exceptional dramatist, to lure us into a world and make us buy the
dream. She managed this.</div>
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Accessible and simply
written, I wonder if Binchy's books would fit under the 'intelligent
women's fiction' umbrella (as adopted by The Bookseller recently,
before swiftly disappearing again) because as former Irish Times
columnist and London editor, they rarely come smarter
than her. Sure, she's no tense experimenter like Maggie O'Farrell or
sculptor of the forgotten word like Rachel Cusk, but unlike these
two she wrote books I couldn't put down. As an emerging writer
myself, I have some idea of how phenomenally difficult this is to
achieve.
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<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Maeve Binchy (born
County Dublin, 28 May 1940)</div>
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<br /></div>Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-57504700495258729152011-12-31T04:29:00.000-08:002012-02-11T14:06:23.572-08:00Jan Francis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gpj6Ry7qdVI/Tv74JdMgorI/AAAAAAAAAPY/fck8wqIX-44/s1600/jan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gpj6Ry7qdVI/Tv74JdMgorI/AAAAAAAAAPY/fck8wqIX-44/s320/jan.JPG" width="242" /></a></div>
My introduction to Jan Francis, was like most people, as Vince Pinner's straight and elegant girlfriend in Just Good Friends.<br />
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From the off, it's clear Penny is from another world. Blessed with sprouting from a better class of family than Vince, she had opportunities Vince hadn't. He had the temerity to jilt her, yet she remains convinced he's the missing piece of the puzzle. In many ways she's right. Vince represents daring, risk, spontaneity, simplicity and relaxation. These are all elements missing from her own safe, neurotic upbringing and ghoulish first marriage. Through him she needs to experience opportunities for growth. Vince offers her an irresistible package, and the viewer a universal truth: opposites attract. What's less clear is how this mutual arrangement - when both have flirted with the other side - will shape-up long-term.<br />
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It's this unease which forms the spine of the comedy, and what Jan Francis brought to the role of Penny was an engaging balance between naivity and shrewdness. Francis is confident and self-possessed as Penny. With wit Penny would bat away the superbity of her mother. Penny is confused and frightened, yet to take pot shots at her own mother while living under her rules, is brave. Francis adds dimension and plausibility to the role.<br />
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The pairing with Paul Nicholas resulted in many corporate opportunities, including adverts for Schreiber kitchens, <a href="http://youtu.be/zP8KIP11VH0">Cadbury's Wispa</a> and Lloyds bank.
Francis's first TV appearance is widely reported to have been in 1971, but actually it was in 1969 for The Ken Dodd Show - Doddy's Christmas Bizarre (aired on Boxing Day) - now missing, believed wiped. An archive trawl reveals her looking suitably foxy in this newspaper teaser...<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3F_bLdPRJto/Tv76j18bLJI/AAAAAAAAAPk/XRVQ0Yj6uZI/s1600/j%2Bfrancis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3F_bLdPRJto/Tv76j18bLJI/AAAAAAAAAPk/XRVQ0Yj6uZI/s320/j%2Bfrancis.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
Before a long career in television she was a rep actress and dancer. Salvaged from her successful, but occasionally erring career are highlights which include playing a TV Producer in the 70s thriller Casting The Runes, a worthy addition to a notable decade of television suspense. She appeared in some best-forgotten telly too, of course and lest we not neglect 1975's Churchill's People (as yet not reissued). Most recently, Francis appeared on TV in May 2011, in an interview for The Comedy Genius of John Sullivan.<br />
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Trivia Fact: Jan Francis wasn't the only actress to play a Penny Warrender on TV. There was a Penny Warrender (played by Sandra Dickinson) in the 1983 series TRIANGLE.<br />
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Jan Francis (born 5 August, 1947, Westminster, London)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-29706254300131755282011-09-19T12:50:00.001-07:002012-01-22T05:20:11.006-08:00Andrea Arnold<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tywwk0HmtuM/Tned1IENcuI/AAAAAAAABAg/zWeoOWLw7OY/s1600/aa.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5654161393210716898" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tywwk0HmtuM/Tned1IENcuI/AAAAAAAABAg/zWeoOWLw7OY/s320/aa.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
Andrea Arnold is a rare specimen. She's a female director who takes her inspiration from the underclass, but not the glamorous kind - the ill, the infirm, or the gangland heroes - just the invisible people. The type of struggling souls dismissed as 'chavs' and 'hoodies' are sucked up off the rain-soaked streets, the flash bulb is aimed straight at their souls and we see them for the first time.<br />
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Arnold's an artist. She knows how to shoot in an interesting way, with stimulating effect. Just as important as the subject matter, is her wish to captivate us - with music, with sound, with silence, with strident candour and divested humanity.<br />
<br />
Red Road (2006), a feature length film about a voyeuristic but isolated woman, secured her a Bafta for Best Newcomer. Before this, in 2005, for Wasp, she won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Wasp is less than half an hour long but already her future career is evident in a tale of a disenfranchised single mother hoping for a fulfilling future. In Wasp, Arnold's ability to put ordinary lives austerely under the microscope is an indicator of where her film-making wings will span. <br />
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Further awards surfaced for 2009's Fish Tank. Cemented by now is the fact we have a director to watch and enthuse about. A surface tale of teen abuse, Fish Tank is layered. There are complex forces at work in protagonist Mia's life. She's used by her mother's boyfriend, but she invites him in. She's vulnerable but she makes choices at every turn. Nothing's straight-forward in her life, and it's the kind of life that's dexterously brushed away by most.<br />
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A proud moment at this stage was when Arnold fought off competition for another BAFTA (in 2010 for Best British Film). Yet another accolade, but once again one still felt compelled to punch the air with pride. As glib as it sounds, she is, after all, doing something remarkable. She's not alone. Samantha Morton proved with her TV movie The Unloved, she's a talented film-maker. Arnold's not the only British woman making stylish and exceptional inroads into British celluloid history, but she's a woman in a man's field and she's mowing down the competition at every opportunity.Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-64858356849810957572011-07-18T07:05:00.000-07:002012-01-22T05:22:56.111-08:00Caryl Churchill<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r4k_7_DTEjs/TiQ_waGTbxI/AAAAAAAABAI/3K0sqiVAjNQ/s1600/caryl_sillitoe_1991460.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630695534991994642" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r4k_7_DTEjs/TiQ_waGTbxI/AAAAAAAABAI/3K0sqiVAjNQ/s200/caryl_sillitoe_1991460.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 120px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
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Churchill is an incredibly adventurous talent from the glut of ambitious playwrights known as the modern socialist dramatists. David Hare, David Edgar and Howard Brenton - among others comprised the MSDs. All had a social conscience and an impressive flair for experimental theatre, but Churchill undoubtedly wears the crown for the female vanguard of innovation.<br />
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Churchill is considered so because she's lyrical and historically erudite as well as deconstructing. She can mould characters from one act into another, crossing centuries and gender as she does so, (as in Cloud 9 from 1978) and she expects the audience to work hard at keeping up - or fail to grasp the message of the play. Churchill doesn't pander to or placate the lazy audience. You pay your money and then you start work.<br />
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Top Girls collates women from different centuries, religions and ethical bases and puts them at the dinner table - with one thing in common: they're all miserable. Written in the early 80s, this is clearly a wafer-thin smokescreen for the dawn of Thatcher's Britain, and is the era in which the second half is set.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x-V2Z8Cvl0o/TiQ_5zxPjqI/AAAAAAAABAQ/XyQLlMclzas/s1600/topgirlsbroadway460.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630695696501804706" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x-V2Z8Cvl0o/TiQ_5zxPjqI/AAAAAAAABAQ/XyQLlMclzas/s200/topgirlsbroadway460.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 120px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
The play opened in 1982 at the Royal Court in London, and Churchill was annoyed by a certain female journalist's write-up. The assumption by Julie Burchill that the play discouraged women from working because, frankly, it's all too miserable, annoyed Churchill. She responded by saying the work was a comment on the failure of capitalism to fulfill basic needs in general, gender notwithstanding.<br />
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Churchill is known for her non-naturalistic writing, feminist themes and the questioning of personal and political power. Under the loomingly dark and earnest subjects of her plays, there shimmers inventive prose.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pMhSvCvqs8o/TiRAooCmlbI/AAAAAAAABAY/7vEAYr4lmdw/s1600/Far-Away-by-Caryl-Churchi-006.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630696500807243186" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pMhSvCvqs8o/TiRAooCmlbI/AAAAAAAABAY/7vEAYr4lmdw/s200/Far-Away-by-Caryl-Churchi-006.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 120px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
In Far Away - a play oft-collaborative director Max Stafford-Clark described as 'an elliptical, political fable, surreal and powerful', the character Joan asserts:<br />
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And I know it's not all about excitement. I've done boring jobs. I've worked in abbatoirs stunning pigs and musicians and by the end of the day your back aches and all you can see when you shut your eyes is people hanging upside down by their feet.<br />
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Her imagery is powerful and lingers long after a scene change.<br />
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Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938, London)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-78407023758244897302011-06-08T11:37:00.000-07:002012-01-22T05:25:28.416-08:00Suze Rotolo<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UM8ZuxZsf_E/Te_CNSGi_6I/AAAAAAAABAA/7pqv5r3pt4E/s1600/Suze_Rotolo_.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615920793807683490" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UM8ZuxZsf_E/Te_CNSGi_6I/AAAAAAAABAA/7pqv5r3pt4E/s200/Suze_Rotolo_.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 160px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
Dylan's girlfriend for three years during the early 60s, Rotolo was the daughter of American Communists, and it was this unusual upbringing that shaped her values. She had an innate wish to explore and question American cultural and civil matters.<br />
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With this background, it's not surprising she wouldn't lose her identity to Dylan during their close and mutually beneficial relationship.<br />
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Her creativity and interests continued to develop during their time together. In fact, she introduced Dylan to the work of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and it was during her time as a theatre lover and set designer that she pointed him to Brecht. They were both writers that were to be forceful influences on his own work.<br />
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Rotolo, increasingly worn down by a need for individuality in the midst of an escalating and claustrophobic fame package, moved further into an interest in civil rights, and ultimately away from Dylan. Torn, she chose further study over loyalty to him and eventually, unsure of a future with a dreamy and evasive man, she left to study in Italy for six months. During this time, Dylan wrote 'don't think twice, it's alright' about her.<br />
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In her excellent autobiography A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties she accounts for their break-up gracefully. When Dylan began spending more time with Baez - professionally at first, and then casually but totally, she covers the events without bitterness; this being only a small part of her story.<br />
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Rotolo had a talent for writing and she wrote about her life easily and lucidly. In terms of her career, her book art sold until the end of her life. <br />
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A New Yorker and the girlfriend of a legend, she was foremost a child of immigrants – those who had had it tough, and consequently she never lost that feeling of being on the periphery. She said of her difficult childhood: 'But it's not until adulthood that you realise how cruel life is', and here her sadness is shown in her choice of words - not 'can be' but 'is'. She always felt she needed to work that little bit harder and not forget how to be in control of her own future. <br />
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Suze Rotolo (born November 20th, 1943)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-58875757285486653602011-05-20T07:58:00.000-07:002012-01-23T12:09:51.916-08:00Hazel O'Connor<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e-Qm4xfMpUM/TdaDjRpGm-I/AAAAAAAAA_0/KLy3qtfN3uk/s1600/gr_3.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608815027990993890" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e-Qm4xfMpUM/TdaDjRpGm-I/AAAAAAAAA_0/KLy3qtfN3uk/s200/gr_3.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 182px;" /></a><br />
<br />
As a kid, Toyah and Hazel O'Connor were my role models. <br />
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In my defence, there are reasons why I sometimes conflated the two in my young brain. Both Toyah and O'Connor were ex-art students and singers with a commercially diluted punk bent, and both were influenced by Bowie.<br />
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With hindsight we know Toyah's presence on our screens has been longer lasting - having enjoyed better luck than O'Connor, and Toyah has revelled in a successful stage career (the highlight being to star alongside Laurence Olivier).<br />
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But O'Connor has the edge as a recording artist. <br />
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A big break in the form of a lead part in Breaking Glass (1981) propelled O'Connor to almost instant stardom – but only for a while. In fact, O'Connor was set against Toyah for a role in the film. Toyah wasn't selected, and after some internal rearranging, O'Connor was chosen to be the lead. Toyah - already established as a result of appearing in Jubilee and Quadrophenia, wasn't the appropriate choice for a rock star on the rise. <br />
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It was O'Connor's time to shine.<br />
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The film charts a young punk star - Kate's rise to fame, and ponders the theme of fortune being a poisoned chalice. Kate - a young woman coming up against a formidable and manipulative record industry – was a plot that was to strangely mirror O'Connor's own career.<br />
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As a result of her uncommonly brutal and protracted disputes with her record company Albion, O'Connor didn't fully have the chance to develop artistically. Her legal grievances escalated over the years, and as they did so - in an age-conscious world, she grew older and less marketable. <br />
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The tedium of legal dealings - invariably and understandably ate into her creative fervour, and this is a shame because we'll never know how good she could have become.<br />
<br />
She was persecuted. Signing her record contract when stressed and upset, she made a wrong move that was to have diminishing consequences. Having first taken legal advice (and she was sternly told the contract wasn't worth the paper it was written on) she made the mistake of ignoring this advice. Protracted skintness and a subsequent low moment, meant she signed along the dotted line. <br />
<br />
In the ensuing years, what happened to O'Connor would have been enough to send anyone bitter. Whatever she earned was greedily taken back from her. Her label justified their behaviour by saying money should be clawed back to cover recording and touring expenses. This meant O'Connor worked extremely hard – almost to breaking point, and was left with nothing:<br />
<br />
'I haven't got any money still. I'm not going to have any money for years, if ever. There were times when I thought if I wasn't naturally strong I might have done myself in...At one point I had writs arriving every week. Such bastards! How dare they treat me like this.'<br />
O'Connor 1985<br />
<br />
Will You is one of the best tracks of 1981 - which is praise indeed, because it was a particularly strong year for unusual and brave chart music. In a short space of time, and musically at least, she eclipsed Toyah. She was capable of innovation - producing lasting songs that were richer and texturally denser than Toyah's forgettable ditties. <br />
<br />
But on the back of most of her singles - industry crimes against her aside, it remains questionable whether she had the raw talent to go the distance. She did though, have moments of undoubted accomplishment. <br />
<br />
On balance, Will You is partly a stand-out song from her short career because it's unlike most of her others: it is very good indeed.<br />
<br />
Will You has more than a smudge of Patti Smith in the vocals. As with If Only, this Patti Smith emulation is a credulous style choice, and perhaps she could have further developed this tonal quality. But just how good she could have been – or not - we shall never know.<br />
<br />
Hazel O'Connor (born 16 May 1955, Coventry, England)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-10747030137166393142011-05-16T11:27:00.000-07:002012-01-22T05:33:26.168-08:00Judy Blume<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4BGrBbmSFlI/TdFvSGJZCpI/AAAAAAAAA_k/zXCx7L13YCg/s1600/judy.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607385367731309202" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4BGrBbmSFlI/TdFvSGJZCpI/AAAAAAAAA_k/zXCx7L13YCg/s200/judy.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 119px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXMHJT1TtyI/TdFvKKINBqI/AAAAAAAAA_c/IVlp95_7bQY/s1600/juddy.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607385231361115810" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXMHJT1TtyI/TdFvKKINBqI/AAAAAAAAA_c/IVlp95_7bQY/s400/juddy.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 201px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 180px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Judy Blume is an American author for the teen market.<br />
<br />
Judy Blume was someone who spoke on your adolescent level, and she understood what you couldn't bring yourself to chat to your nearest and dearest about. Even your own mother didn't seem to know what was happening to you. Compared with the daring, empathetic scribblings of Blume, your own mother was a veritable stranger.<br />
<br />
And this is why she was both special and popular. Children aren't Disney characters - they're real, making sense of a confusing world. She was the first to realise this; she knew your mind and she spoke to you accordingly. Her books for children and young adults have exceeded sales of 80 million, and been translated into 31 languages.<br />
<br />
Blume's novels for teenagers were among the first to tackle matters such as racism (Iggie's House), menstruation (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.), divorce (It's Not the End of the World, Just As Long As We're Together), bullying (Blubber), masturbation (Deenie; Then Again, Maybe I Won't) and teen sex (Forever), and as such have been the source of controversy over the appropriateness of such topics for the audience they reached.<br />
<br />
But before Jacqueline Wilson took over the teen lit crown, she was your friend in need and a lovely pal indeed.<br />
<br />
You didn't want to talk to your sister about breasts and sex, did you? And I know I'm not the only one to have Margaret's mantra, 'I must, I must, I must increase my bust' etched in my brain for evermore. Bust? How quaint.<br />
<br />
Judy Blume (née Sussman; born February 12, 1938).Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-76448045509631003062008-08-04T04:56:00.001-07:002012-01-22T05:35:52.319-08:00Vashti Bunyan<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SJbu6Mm89ZI/AAAAAAAAAbg/okhpFQf44-4/s1600-h/vashti.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230630700821837202" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SJbu6Mm89ZI/AAAAAAAAAbg/okhpFQf44-4/s320/vashti.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<br />
"Why should you say I could love any man, have his children and still be free? Go on voting, striking and fighting. Go on searching, fighting and loving."<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">How Do I Know.</span><br />
<br />
As a lyric in isolation, this sums up everything that draws me and concerns me about feminism. Men and women both work these days, and earn roughly the same, but while being born female is fate, motherhood is made the destiny of a lot of women. It's a privilege to have somebody to care for, but motherhood also seems the ultimate prison. All mothers are single mothers at the end of the day. Once that decision to be a mother has been made, there's no turning back. It's nothing less than traumatic. Yet, we're still pretty much expected to make that transition of freedom to non-freedom.<br />
<br />
Vashti Bunyan wanted most of all in life to be a pop singer - something she still upholds as being the dream she had for herself. What she did instead was release some folk tunes, then turn her back on what she saw as her ambition failure, to take two years to head to Donovan's commune in the Isle of Skye. It took two years for her to get there, and by the time her and her boyfriend Robert arrived, it had closed down. Still, some spiritual wisdom: it's all about the journey, not the destination - and this inspired an album.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, her and Robert set up home and raised children together, but Vashti didn't sing again for 35 years. The reasons aren't completely clear. Perhaps she didn't feel like it. Arguably she was just content with family life. She busied herself in domesticity - which she enjoyed, but there was still a renunciation in place. Her children knew snippets of their mother's past, but she never so much as sang to them. <br />
<br />
Still, it was wanting to share her past with her children, and the advent of the Internet (which made clear to her how much she had grown into cult status in the meantime, and also just how many of those scratchy old tapes were issued in compilations) that prompted her to make a new album, entitled Lookaftering. Making this album was an experience she enjoyed returning to.<br />
<br />
And, yes, in her own words, she felt like a flower unfolding after all that time.<br />
<br />
Listen to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2005_45_mon_03.shtml">this</a>. Buy <a href="http://www.sweetslyrics.com/poze/38478.somethingsjuststick.jpg">this</a>. <br />
<br />
Vashti Bunyan, born in London in 1945Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-78881035896812396002008-07-18T04:35:00.000-07:002012-01-22T05:38:09.627-08:00Ruth Madoc<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SIMdIY3WvnI/AAAAAAAAAZc/oyTOxVvaHG4/s1600-h/ruth.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225052022630694514" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SIMdIY3WvnI/AAAAAAAAAZc/oyTOxVvaHG4/s400/ruth.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<br />
Did you know Ruth Madoc went to RADA? <br />
<br />
Did you know she played Fruma Sarah in the film Fiddler on the Roof? Did you know she looks and sounds spookily like my Mum (especially in the 80s when Mum had her trademark short, straight hair, and her accent was at her strongest)?<br />
<br />
We remember her as the 'vamp from the valleys' in Hi de Hi, of course, and the Wispa ad - with her longed for love object, Jeffrey. Actually looking again at that ad, she's hot - what was Jeffrey thinking? Jeffrey, the gauche, bumbling Hugh Grant of his time - with all the passion of a wet Pontins' tea towel, was an unworthy longed-for suitor. Was he really worth hanging around in a banana coloured uniform for?<br />
<br />
On stage, Ruth has done everything from Shakespeare to musicals - co-starring with the late Harry Secombe in Pickwick, and even portrayed an 80-year-old Jewish mother in Gypsy. <br />
<br />
She played the daughter's role in the stage version of A Taste of Honey, and while no Tush, I bet she was great, and was less of a mousy victim than Tushingham's foray. It would have been interesting to see.<br />
<br />
In 2000 she played the role of Mrs. Ifans in Very Annie Mary alongside fellow Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce. <br />
<br />
But life was not always smooth for Ruth. She was brought up by her Grandparents in a small Welsh town near Swansea because her parents were nomadic and couldn't settle to a life of child-rearing.<br />
<br />
She was, and still is, greatly loved as a symbol of Welsh freshness with anyone old enough to remember balancing a French Fancy on their knee, while tuning into Hi-de-Hi. <br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
Ruth Madoc, born 16 April 1943 in Norwich but brought up in Llansamlet, near Swansea.Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-18788084696292609982008-06-19T00:11:00.000-07:002012-01-22T05:40:34.482-08:00Floella Benjamin<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SFoKhC3a4RI/AAAAAAAAAVU/5YSboTu04t8/s1600-h/floella.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213491081456050450" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SFoKhC3a4RI/AAAAAAAAAVU/5YSboTu04t8/s320/floella.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
Did you know Floella was the first to appear fully pregnant on British TV (in Play School)?<br />
<br />
For a woman whose ambition was to be Britain's first black bank manager, her life took a totally different course. There just weren't black bank managers back then, but ethnic minorities were accepted into the theatre, and so that's the way she went.<br />
<br />
There weren't many black people on TV during the 70s and 80s. The TV channels were becoming more senstive to the fact - especially in representing children - firstly in the 60s and later on with Derek Griffiths, but in the main, they were vastly outnumbered. Notwithstanding, she thrived on television. The main allure of her was that she genuinely loved being around children. She wasn't merely adorning the shop floor for the career bump-up. <br />
<br />
Sourcing pics for this post, there were hundreds of her, and not one without her beaming.<br />
<br />
Floella starred in two of the upper echelons of Play for Todays, from one of its golden eras (the late 70s). In 1979, she starred in A Hole in Babylon, about a seige in an Italian restaurant that goes wrong. Waterloo Sunset, (also 1979, the year that brought us the dazzling <br />
performance of Jonathan Pryce in Trevor Griffith's 'The Comedians') is a play about racial disharmony in a poky London flat. A young man and his elderly relative live on a mostly West Indian London housing estate and the pivotal scene involves the naive old woman dusting her face with cocoa in order to fit in, but they take it the wrong way.<br />
<br />
A few years prior, in 1975, she starred in another Play for Today, The Floater - where she was lucky enough to appear alongside Richard Beckinsale (who played a solicitor's clerk acting for his sick wife). <br />
<br />
She also appeared in many films (mainly playing a nurse) but 'Black Joy' is a film of note about a naive African immigrant arriving in Brixton - with Norman Beaton as the wise-arse, no-good rude boy she falls in with. Floella plays Beaton's non shit-taking wife. Vivian Stanshall's in it<br />
too, as a pervy vicar.<br />
<br />
In more recent years, she was cast in Doctor Who and there's the Floella Benjamin Award at Exeter University (which also gave her an honoury doctorate), where up to £1,000 is given to promising students to help improve their future job prospects.<br />
<br />
Predictably, but admirably, she runs a lot for charity these days.<br />
<br />
Floella Benjamin OBE (born in Trinidad, 1949)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-24684240561213763122008-05-26T09:41:00.000-07:002011-07-15T15:23:26.337-07:00Pam Ayres<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SDw91PMCCfI/AAAAAAAAATc/t6SEMaFqhU4/s1600-h/pam_ayres.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SDw91PMCCfI/AAAAAAAAATc/t6SEMaFqhU4/s320/pam_ayres.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205103254152808946" /></a><br /><br />Pam Ayres was born at Stanford in the Vale in Oxfordshire. <br /><br />She went to same school as my younger brother in Faringdon, and to this day lives down the road from where my family live.<br /><br />As kids, my older sister was mad about her poems, and being a younger sibling, whatever tickled my sister's fancy, piqued my interest. 'I wish I'd looked after my teeth' prompted me to brush regularly, morning and night. This poem was also voted into the Top 10 of a BBC poll to find the Nation's 100 Favourite Comic Poems.<br /><br /> I discovered poetry at around the age of eight, thanks to her, and I learned to write poetry by reading her, basically. I used to write volumes of the stuff.<br /><br /><br /> Her feeling for rhythm and wit was inspired by Lonnie Donegan.<br /><br /><br /><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="335" height="28" id="divplaylist"><param name="movie" value="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=4589822-74e" /><embed src="http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=4589822-74e" width="335" height="28" name="divplaylist" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Pam Ayres MBE (born 14 March 1947)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-48610268782011749462008-05-16T07:51:00.000-07:002012-01-23T05:18:19.266-08:00Claire Grogan<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SC2hGKhhJNI/AAAAAAAAASU/5QzaQhMjFVM/s1600-h/claregrogan.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200990271959016658" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/SC2hGKhhJNI/AAAAAAAAASU/5QzaQhMjFVM/s400/claregrogan.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
Some personally related facts about Claire Grogan:<br />
<br />
1. I have her name as a middle name.<br />
<br />
2. I once wrote to Jim'll Fix It to meet her and perform on stage with her. I wrote in my best handwriting and got my Dad to proof-read it, but two weeks after depositing in a shiny red letter box, another little girl from the Bristol area was selected instead of me. Watching TV that night, I think that was my first, heart-sink, kick-in-the-teeth moment. But of course, that's life, and so thanks to Ms Grogan for giving me the first tangible taste of NOT FAIR.<br />
<br />
3. Gregory's Girl is one of my favourite British films. Grogan's also starred in Irish favourite Father Ted, of course, as the Sinead O'Connor pastiche - and not a bad Dublin accent too - could even rival mine at a push.<br />
<br />
4. And what's this I hear about a story of a marriage between her and David Hepworth? Somebody please clear this story up for me. <br />
<br />
<br />
Claire Grogan (born, 17 March 1962)<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R_u7Ey2SiZI/AAAAAAAAANg/L_3LM-cGGtM/s1600-h/berlinalex.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186945086890609042" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R_u7Ey2SiZI/AAAAAAAAANg/L_3LM-cGGtM/s400/berlinalex.gif" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
The first of my German heroines here. Fassbinder is of course, a genius, and I couldn't imagine any other actress being cast in these films - and making them come alive in the way she did<br />
<br />
Hanna Schygulla met Rainer Werner Fassbinder while taking an acting class in Munich, and began working with him at the Munich Action Theatre. <br />
<br />
Fassbinder casted her in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) - as an insolent working-class girl, confident in her ability to break hearts of either sex - using her looks to get ahead while refusing to surrender her independence. <br />
<br />
But it was her role in The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) which finally brought Fassbinder the acceptance he sought -confirming Schygulla as his ideal actress.<br />
<br />
She's in other Fassbinder films too, and she's in Wenders' Falsche Bewegung (Wrong Movement) but it's her role in The Marriage of Maria <br />
Braun which resonates (first picture above). She was perfectly, ever-so-slightly wooden and fitted Fassbinder's haughty, vaguely grotesque role amazingly well. She is so synonymous with Fassbinder for me, it's as if they were meant to meet. <br />
<br />
Despite Fassbinder's amazing talent, these films would have been a lot poorer without her, and no doubt her strong character was an asset. He was a spoiled, tempestuous drama queen to work for, by all accounts. <br />
<br />
Hanna Schygulla (born 25 December 1943)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-76542629706872979822008-03-30T06:24:00.000-07:002012-01-23T05:21:07.044-08:00Margaret Lockwood<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R--VTi2SiKI/AAAAAAAAALI/6q4pkf78y9Q/s1600-h/margaret.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183525859131295906" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R--VTi2SiKI/AAAAAAAAALI/6q4pkf78y9Q/s400/margaret.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<br />
The first time I saw Margaret Lockwood in film, I was around 15, staying at home with flu from school, and miserably tucked up on the sofa watching <a href="http://tv.cream.org/extras/top100films/topfilms8091.htm">The Wicked Lady</a>. <br />
<br />
As a young girl, not only did I think she was beautiful, but I loved the typecast roles of a gold-digging minx she played in this film and others. They suited her, but they were a disappointment to her own acting ambitions.<br />
<br />
Recently there has been a Lockwood season at the BFI and I have indulged in a couple of afternoons watching The Man in Grey and Jassy. The former is actually a hugely enjoyable film - with a script amusingly identical to The Wicked Lady, but that's okay, because if she had been in twenty films that are a variation of The Wicked Lady, I'd be happy. The second film, Jassy, is a bit daft and unfortunately shot in colour and this doesn't detract from her beauty, but she seems less mysteriously mischevious somehow.<br />
<br />
The woman should always have played a gun-toting social climber. In her acting career and in her personal life she was uncompromising. As <a href="http://letslooksideways.blogspot.com/">Phil Norman</a> notes in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/TV-Creams-Anatomy-Cinema-Criticism/dp/190554846X">'TV Cream's Anatomy of Cinema'</a>, 'at RADA,<br />
she refused to kowtow to the strangulated 'how verreh verreh love-lay' diction drilled into the other pupils'. Apparently too, she had a filthy, kitchen hand's laugh and a crude tongue that would make a naval officer blush. Less of a wicked lady, more of a minx, in my opinion.<br />
<br />
And so...until our next merry meeting 'heroine addicts'...<br />
<br />
Margaret Lockwood (born 15 September, 1916 )Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-78774817051025093012008-03-18T02:11:00.000-07:002012-01-23T05:23:10.134-08:00Jilly Cooper<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9-Jb5VOVlI/AAAAAAAAAJo/8hOWTo7xWqw/s1600-h/jilly.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179009208838674002" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9-Jb5VOVlI/AAAAAAAAAJo/8hOWTo7xWqw/s320/jilly.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
In the 70s, there was only one Queen of the columnists . and this was Jilly Cooper, and what a sexy young filly she was too. <br />
<br />
I've recently read three of her books from the 70s/80s - not those nonsense novels about being horsehipped by a man in a tuxedo, but whimsical guides. These self-survival offerings cover topics ranging from the secrets of a long marriage (and believe me, there are some real pearls of wisdom in there), to how to survive being a step-mum (very candid, rivalling anything being published now), to how to have an 'affaire' and get away with it. Classy.<br />
<br />
Jilly on men: ' I find I resent the fact that I can't live without them, that they hurt me emotionally, that I hate yet secretly enjoy being bullied by them, that they can do tasks domestic far better than I can, that they enjoy the company of other men so much, and on the whole prefer a bat to a bit on the side'. (Super Men and Super Women, Magnum Books, 1977). <br />
<br />
She is for some part, at least, a woman after my own heart. Before landing a job as a writer, she undertook umpteen office jobs - a bit like myself, and she writes with clever wit about the horrors and benalities of office life. <br />
<br />
A full list of her non-fiction, which I've read and enjoyed hugely, is <a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/jilly-cooper/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Jilly Cooper (born 21 February, 1937)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-53751464091408128192008-03-13T13:42:00.000-07:002012-01-23T05:24:31.794-08:00Paula Yates<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9mR8JVOVfI/AAAAAAAAAI4/bf-rJ7670No/s1600-h/paula.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177329709122213362" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9mR8JVOVfI/AAAAAAAAAI4/bf-rJ7670No/s400/paula.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div>
I love Paula Yates - always have done. <br />
<br />
The other night I ploughed through hours and hours of Tube footage, and some good tracks were unlocked from the memory, but what really held me aghast were those dresses. I want every single one of them.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
Well documented is the confusion over her origin. Until May 1997, she believed that her father was her mother's husband, Jess Yates. However, a DNA test proved that her biological father was Hughie Green, presenter of Opportunity Knocks.<br />
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She'll always be an epitome of girly randomness but she was also the near-perfect madonna (she took her children absolutely everywhere with her), and her death was a sharp intake of breath 'WHAT?' moment. What a shame she died so young; a heroine of the first order.<br />
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Who else would have persuaded rock stars to pose in their underpants?</div>
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Here she is getting down and flirty with Simon Le Bon.</div>
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Paula Yates (born 24 April 1959)</div>
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ixE7OthJZfc&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-11938159403181338002008-03-12T23:58:00.000-07:002012-01-23T05:25:57.111-08:00Toyah<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9jRJJVOVdI/AAAAAAAAAIo/AU9OMtzexeI/s1600-h/toyah.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177117726716351954" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9jRJJVOVdI/AAAAAAAAAIo/AU9OMtzexeI/s320/toyah.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
I've always been a punk sympathiser - liked people who are a bit different from the rest. I've always admired strong women with multi-coloured, back-combed barnets (well, I did when I was 7). <br />
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The first album I bought with my own money was Anthem. This was Toyah's most successful album - with hit singles "It's A Mystery" and "I Want To Be Free" within. The other songs are mindfully awful, but that's okay; what 7 year-old girl was really listening anyway?<br />
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I just lay belly-down, gazing admiringly at her, determinedly peering into the future - dreaming of a day when I could get away with hair like that. I never bothered of course. Toyah was the woman I dared never be, but there were to be plenty of others ...<br />
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Toyah Ann Willcox (born May 18, 1958)Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-48720257028526826942008-03-09T04:50:00.001-07:002012-01-23T05:26:53.520-08:00Joanne Catherall<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9PPo5VOVSI/AAAAAAAAAGo/sCSAKfCjKfY/s1600-h/joanne_catherall.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175708698270389538" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R9PPo5VOVSI/AAAAAAAAAGo/sCSAKfCjKfY/s320/joanne_catherall.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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There are two Human League women, so I have to be ruthless.<br />
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I have chosen Joanne over Suzanne - which is odd because my name is Suzanne, but Joanne is a brunette like me and this wins hands-down every time in the role model stakes. Now there's a female thing! Do men like other men because of their hair colour?<br />
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Joanne was a teen singer. Plucked from the streets of Sheffield by father-figure Phil Oakey, the girls rose to fame by smearing on the blusher to nuclear effect, and by, well, merely looking so bored. This was ultimately their appeal because their singing was flatter than a clubbed slice of Hovis, but still, maybe this was their appeal too. <br />
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Here is a wonderful clip of the Human League in the first episode of OTT singing Do or Die. Look out for Joanne's Siouxsie Sioux type eye make-up under that uncompromising fringe. <br />
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Joanne Catherall (born 18 September 1962)<br />
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TxrSTQnYI6Y" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808738122301979311.post-80259560000268860302008-03-06T04:12:00.000-08:002012-01-23T05:28:07.733-08:00Long Distance Clara<a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R8_kBVEp32I/AAAAAAAAAGg/37QaIplOv74/s1600-h/clara.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174605208359657314" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_nEMGVgtYiEA/R8_kBVEp32I/AAAAAAAAAGg/37QaIplOv74/s320/clara.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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As a kid of around 6 or 7, I used to really look forward to Pigeon Street - not for Mr Macadoo and his pals, mind you - no, for Long Distance Clara. Long Distance Clara was a woman on a mission. In a strictly male dominated world of trucking, she was a red-haired, no-nonsense, can-do kinda girl - punctually 'picking up and dropping off' her wares. <br />
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'She can drive across the Sahara - nothing's too far away'. Well, exactly.<br />
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'Always on time, she's never late'. A tip-top feminist role model. <br />
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Long distance Clara appears between 06.12 and 07.52 in the clip below. <br />
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/plXS73zxEl0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Suzy Normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01274429936276235291noreply@blogger.com0