I never shoulda cut my hair.
Jun. 20th, 2005 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chenanceouI came across this letter from Ruth Gordon to the Times critic Vincent Canby and I thought I'd share. I'm aware not everybody shares my fascination with the curse of the Follies, but it's an amusing letter in its own right.
244 Ladera Drive
Beverly Hills
California 90210
22 December 1971
Dear Mr. Canby,
What a disappointment to read your review. I know people aren't supposed to write a critic and the last time I did was fifty-six years ago today. I got a good review in the Demember 22, 1915 Times and wrote the critic. It was my first time on the stage and I didn't know you shouldn't. Today I know, but I'm doing it. I wish you'd liked Harold and Maude. They said you saw it in a screening room with a dozen other critics. I you could have seen it with an audience. Maybe you wouldn't have liked it then, but then I'd feel it you saw it the way it was meant to be seen. Shoulder to shoulder with people is how a play or film is written to be seen and I wish you'd seen it that way.
Maybe you think this is about as important as what Lillian Lorraine said was wrong with her life when the lady reporter came to interview her. Lillian Lorraine was old and broke and living up Broadway at 96th. Some paper sent the lady interviewer up to do a piece. 'What do you think happened, Miss Lorraine? Ziegfeld said you were the greatest beauty he ever had in the Follies. What went wrong?'
'He was right. And he was crazy about me. He had me in a tower suite at the Hotel Ansonia and he and his wife [Anna Held] lived in the tower suite above. And I cheated on him, like he cheated on Billie Burke. I had a whirl! I blew a lot of everybody's money, I got loaded, I was on the stuff, I got the syphilis, I tore around, stopped at nothing, if I wanted to do it I did it and didn't give a damn. I got knocked up, I had abortions, I broke up homes, I gave fellers the clap. So that's what happened.'
'Well, Miss Lorraine,' gasped the lady reporter, 'if you had it to do over would you do anything different?'
'Yes,' said Lillian Lorraine. 'I never shoulda cut my hair.'
Well, seeing Harold and Maude in a projection room may strike you as no more relevant than she shouldn't have cut her hair. Forgive the letter. Maybe it's all right to do if you only do it every fifty-six years.
Ruth Gordon
=#=
Trying to catch up on LJ [and will eventually] and I thought to say hello [*waves*]. My eyes have been bothering me, so my limited seeing time has been taken by working on a couple of old things. Luckily, I've managed to write this one entirely in Portuguese - so it will save me the labour of translation. It's [very] slowly coming along.
When I can't write I build things and it made me think of something Mr.Gaiman [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
officialgaiman] said about how he writes well, but isn't really good about putting up shelves. I built a closet these last days. Maybe that's what's wrong with my writing: too much shelving.
I haven't dared watch the last episode of Doctor Who. It's sitting here, but I'm not ready for parting of ways [sad & lame pun not actually intended]. I'm willy-nilly and quite silly, I know. I just can't. Not yet. The young'un is with me on this one... I'm teaching her the power of denial. Mercifully, our attention has been somewhat diverted by the start of Batman here. I'll be taking her & co. to see it during the week.
Anything else? No, I don't think so [I'll whine privately]. I hope you had a good weekend and that Sunday, the day I dread the most, has been like a soft & warm kiss to all of you.
And so, like another diarist with poor eyesight, to bed.
244 Ladera Drive
Beverly Hills
California 90210
22 December 1971
Dear Mr. Canby,
What a disappointment to read your review. I know people aren't supposed to write a critic and the last time I did was fifty-six years ago today. I got a good review in the Demember 22, 1915 Times and wrote the critic. It was my first time on the stage and I didn't know you shouldn't. Today I know, but I'm doing it. I wish you'd liked Harold and Maude. They said you saw it in a screening room with a dozen other critics. I you could have seen it with an audience. Maybe you wouldn't have liked it then, but then I'd feel it you saw it the way it was meant to be seen. Shoulder to shoulder with people is how a play or film is written to be seen and I wish you'd seen it that way.
Maybe you think this is about as important as what Lillian Lorraine said was wrong with her life when the lady reporter came to interview her. Lillian Lorraine was old and broke and living up Broadway at 96th. Some paper sent the lady interviewer up to do a piece. 'What do you think happened, Miss Lorraine? Ziegfeld said you were the greatest beauty he ever had in the Follies. What went wrong?'
'He was right. And he was crazy about me. He had me in a tower suite at the Hotel Ansonia and he and his wife [Anna Held] lived in the tower suite above. And I cheated on him, like he cheated on Billie Burke. I had a whirl! I blew a lot of everybody's money, I got loaded, I was on the stuff, I got the syphilis, I tore around, stopped at nothing, if I wanted to do it I did it and didn't give a damn. I got knocked up, I had abortions, I broke up homes, I gave fellers the clap. So that's what happened.'
'Well, Miss Lorraine,' gasped the lady reporter, 'if you had it to do over would you do anything different?'
'Yes,' said Lillian Lorraine. 'I never shoulda cut my hair.'
Well, seeing Harold and Maude in a projection room may strike you as no more relevant than she shouldn't have cut her hair. Forgive the letter. Maybe it's all right to do if you only do it every fifty-six years.
Ruth Gordon
=#=
Trying to catch up on LJ [and will eventually] and I thought to say hello [*waves*]. My eyes have been bothering me, so my limited seeing time has been taken by working on a couple of old things. Luckily, I've managed to write this one entirely in Portuguese - so it will save me the labour of translation. It's [very] slowly coming along.
When I can't write I build things and it made me think of something Mr.Gaiman [
officialgaiman] said about how he writes well, but isn't really good about putting up shelves. I built a closet these last days. Maybe that's what's wrong with my writing: too much shelving.I haven't dared watch the last episode of Doctor Who. It's sitting here, but I'm not ready for parting of ways [sad & lame pun not actually intended]. I'm willy-nilly and quite silly, I know. I just can't. Not yet. The young'un is with me on this one... I'm teaching her the power of denial. Mercifully, our attention has been somewhat diverted by the start of Batman here. I'll be taking her & co. to see it during the week.
Anything else? No, I don't think so [I'll whine privately]. I hope you had a good weekend and that Sunday, the day I dread the most, has been like a soft & warm kiss to all of you.
And so, like another diarist with poor eyesight, to bed.
