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Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television/Belle Poitrine - Softcover

Dennis, Patrick

 
9780767913478: Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television/Belle Poitrine
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0767913477 ISBN 13: 9780767913478
Verlag: Crown, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

Back in print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: the bawdy, bestselling, bountifully illustrated autobiography of an imaginary diva whose life is one hilarious mishap after another.

For Belle Poitrine, née Mayble Schlumpfert, all the world's a stage and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, with a name that means "beautiful bosom" in French, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's career, which ranged from portraying Anne Boleyn in Oh, Henry to roles in both Sodom and its sequel Gomorrah (not to mention the classic Papaya Paradise), Little Me serves up copious quanitites of husbands, couture, and Pink Lady cocktails, with international adventures and a murder trial to boot.

A runaway bestseller that made its way to Broadway, starring Sid Caesar in 1962 and Martin Short in 1998, Little Me is now reprinted--with all of the 150 historic, hysterical photographs depicting the funniest scenes from Belle's sordid life, including cameo appearances by the author and Rosalind Russell. Considered a collector's item, the first edition of Little Me was like a performance in book form. Now this glittering spoof of celebrity is gloriously reincarnated for connoisseurs of all things chick and cheeky.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PATRICK DENNIS, the author of Auntie Mame, was the pen name of Edward Everett Tanner III, (1921-1976). One of the most eccentric, celebrated, and widely read writers of the 1950's and '60's, Tanner wrote sixteen novels, a majority of which were national bestsellers.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

n print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: the bawdy, bestselling, bountifully illustrated autobiography of an imaginary diva whose life is one hilarious mishap after another.

For Belle Poitrine, née Mayble Schlumpfert, all the world's a stage and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, with a name that means "beautiful bosom" in French, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's career, which ranged from portraying Anne Boleyn in Oh, Henry to roles in both Sodom and its sequel Gomorrah (not to mention the classic Papaya Paradise), Little Me serves up copious quanitites of husbands, couture, and Pink Lady cocktails, with international adventures and a murder trial to boot.

A runaway bestseller that made its way to Broadway, starring Sid Caesar in 1962 and Martin Short in 1998, Little Me is now reprint

Aus dem Klappentext

n print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: the bawdy, bestselling, bountifully illustrated autobiography of an imaginary diva whose life is one hilarious mishap after another.

For Belle Poitrine, née Mayble Schlumpfert, all the world's a stage and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, with a name that means "beautiful bosom" in French, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's career, which ranged from portraying Anne Boleyn in Oh, Henry to roles in both Sodom and its sequel Gomorrah (not to mention the classic Papaya Paradise), Little Me serves up copious quanitites of husbands, couture, and Pink Lady cocktails, with international adventures and a murder trial to boot.

A runaway bestseller that made its way to Broadway, starring Sid Caesar in 1962 and Martin Short in 1998, Little Me is now reprint

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chapter one -- A STAR IS BORN

1900-1914

Early days in Venezuela, Illinois * The father I never knew * Momma's genealogy * Momma's business career * School days * Momma's friend, the Professor, introduces me to music * My flair for the arts * The nickelodeon * My patron * Lessons in dramatical attitudes

The sun was just smiling its first shy gleam over the Illinois River when I made my debut into the world--a red, wrinkled, writhing baby girl.

"What day is it?" Momma murmured.

"Why, it's May Day, Miss Schlumpfert," the midwife said. "The first of May."

"Then we'll call her Maybelle," Momma said and drifted off to sleep.

I was a rosy, happy, healthy little thing with bobbing curls and an insatiable curiosity. Everyone who saw me toddling along the dusty streets of Venezuela, Illinois (population--then--9,000) stopped to admire me and it was evident to even the most obtuse that I was going to be a great beauty. But beauty wasn't enough in a hidebound little provincial backwash like Venezuela. "Family" mattered a great deal in the town and, alas, of family I had only dear Momma. I never knew my father. When I was old enough to ask about him, Momma would become very vague and, looking off in the distance, she would answer simply, "He was a traveling man, Belle." Perhaps it was from him that I inherited my lifelong wanderlust.

And, oh! how I longed to wander away from narrow-minded little Venezuela, never to return again. Or--even better--to return as a rich and famous woman, to buy the biggest, finest house on "The Bluff," overlooking the river, and to snub the haute bourgeoisie of Venezuela just as they had once snubbed little Belle Schlumpfert. For tiny Venezuela was divided into three classes. First there were the rich old families who lived in big, beautiful houses with stained-glass windows, portes cochtres, turrets and towers and ornamental iron statues up on "The Bluff." They were the rulers of the town--the Hobans, the Kerrs, the Hollisters, the Williamses with their seven talented daughters. They were the families with "hired girls" and their own buggies, the cream of Venezuela who thought nothing of going to Peoria, or even to Chicago, to do their shopping! Mary Elizabeth Hoban had even visited New York and travelled to Staten Island! Little Belle Schlumpfert was beneath their haughty gaze!

In the lower town were the businessmen and shopkeepers--the clannish middle classes of the community who formed the second stratum of society. They noticed me, all right, but always with contempt. For I lived beyond the Rock Island tracks in Drifters' Row and, even worse, Momma was a career woman--something unheard of in those days.

Drifters' Row was the "shanty town" of Venezuela, peopled by railway men, by the foreign element, by the poor, by those whom life had treated more harshly than the denizens of "The Bluff." Those who lived there had not been in Venezuela for long and presumably did not intend to stay. Hence the name. All of us were looked down upon by the older families of Venezuela. We were the "dregs."

I resented this. I wanted to say "My family is as good as yours--even better. Come and see how we live! Although our house is humble from without, the interior is a thing of beauty." And it was. Momma had exquisite taste and a natural knack for making any place homey, attractive and inviting. In fact, it is from her side of the family that I inherit my own taste--often remarked upon--and my artistic flair. Although our tiny little house had but two small rooms, Momma had made the most of them. She had turned the sitting room into a veritable conversation piece by bringing together her large collection of seashells, the gay Kewpie dolls and souvenirs from her many travels. Almost every inch of wall space was hung with artistic reproductions, pictures of her lovely southern friends and of the distinguished-looking gentlemen she had received. On the center table stood a huge bouquet of bead flowers which Momma had fashioned herself during slow periods at her place of business. A lovely bead and bamboo curtain separated this room from Momma's bedroom. A lamp with a big red silk shade in the front window cast its rosy glow over the entire room.

Nor would Momma ever allow herself to be seen in house dress and apron like the other women of Venezuela. True, in the mornings Momma lolled about in the Morris chair in deshabille--a Japanese kimono, a pink velveteen wrapper trimmed with maribou or her lovely mauve satin with bead fringe (another product of Momma's busy needle). But every day at noon Momma put on one of her beautiful evening gowns and went off to pursue her career as breadwinner for herself and little me. "It's a tradition in our family, Belle," she used to say proudly.

True, Momma was a newcomer to Venezuela, but she had come from something far finer. Momma was a southern aristocrat whose family had been ruined by the Civil War and the depredations of the "carpetbaggers." She never liked to talk much about the past. She told me only that she had come to Venezuela from the finest house in New Orleans. When I asked her why, she said simply, "New Orleans was unhealthy for me. Now run along." Although Momma always seemed a pillar of strength to me, I guess she was just a delicate southern flower underneath.

Although it was on Drifters' Row, Momma's place of employment was one of the most beautiful establishments in Venezuela. Momma had accepted a position with Madam Louise, another New Orleans belle, who had opened a sort of gentlemen's hotel and social club near the depot. Madam Louise catered mostly to lonely travelling salesmen who needed cheering up in a strange town, and even a few gentlemen from the families on "The Bluff" would drop in for a glass of wine, a bit of music and some stimulating conversation after their tasks of the day were done. Evenings, Saturday afternoons and Sundays were especially busy. In order to keep her thriving establishment going, Madam Louise employed Momma and three or four of the better conversationalists among the ladies of Drifters' Row. Although Madam Louise did not often permit me to enter her place of business, the few times I was permitted into the parlor were to little me like visits to a veritable fairy land. It was an intimate room with red damask walls, deep red sofas, potted palms, a statue of Venus and a magnificent gas chandelier with rose shades. On a draped table were plush-bound albums containing photographs of Madam Louise's hostesses, which Momma never permitted me to see. In an alcove there was a "Turkish corner" with a divan covered by a red Oriental rug and many "whatnots" filled with the most amazing collection of curios. Against some exquisite Spanish shawls stood a lovely black and gold upright piano where Madam Louise's distinguished friend the Professor played such grand old songs as "In the Good Old Summertime," "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" and "There's No Place Like Home." If it was from Momma and Madam Louise that I first learned about visual beauty, it was from the Professor--that kindly old gentleman strumming the keyboard in Madam Louise's stunning parlor--that I acquired my lifelong appreciation of music.

I am told that the bedrooms upstairs were every bit as tasteful and luxuriously furnished, but I was never privileged to see them.

Because she was French and not of Venezuela, Madam Louise was not "received" by the grandes dames who lived up on "The Bluff," nor by the housewives in the lower town. But you could easily tell that the women of the town felt a great respect for her as she was the only woman in Venezeula to be called...

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Verlag
Crown
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0767913477
ISBN 13 
9780767913478
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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