Born On This Day- April 29th... Celeste Holme

I met her once. It was really rather a thrill because I am true fan, & at the time, a musical queen. I was over the moon to meet the original Ado Annie from Oklahoma!. As a film smart, savvy young gay man my head was simply spinning to be meeting Karen, Margo Channing’s best friend in All About Eve, one of my very favorite films.

The occasion was being received back stage by Betty Garrett, after her one-woman show- Betty Garrett & Other Songs at the Westwood Playhouse in Spring 1976. Betty Garrett had been my acquaintance for a year, & we had recently been at a very informal outdoor dinner thrown by mutual friends. Betty & I had a very special conversation that evening that ended with Betty offering me the house seats to her show the next evening. I took her up on the offer, & the show was splendid, sparkling & sentimental. After her big finish, but before the curtain call, Betty looked into the house with her hands shielding her eyes & announced while pointing : "My dead friend Celeste & Stephen… I want to see you both in my dressing room in a few minutes.” I turned to the person next to me & nudged & whispered- “That’s me… I'm Stephen, I’m not Celeste.”

So, Oscar winner & consummate character actor Celeste Home, & little curly-haired redheaded Stephen hung out in the dressing room while Betty Garrett got out of costume & make up. Celeste Holm & our hero made small talk & loudly praised Ms. Garrett’s show. I heaped praise on Holme's stage performance in Mame, which I had adored in 1968.

I declined an offer from the 2 amazing stars of Hollywood’s golden era to move on to the next party as a team. Instead, I would opt for Studio One in West Hollywood, hoping that some hot man would shove that little brown bottle under my nose, the one that makes me feel so sexy & really connected with the thumping music. I did meet a beefy redhead that took me to his place in Venice Beach, used me for my considerable talents & then made me breakfast. I came to the fork in the road, & I made the wrong decision. I could have partied away the evening with the woman who introduced the world to the showstopper- I Can't Say No (by coincidence, the title of a chapter in my memoir- Jockstraps & Vicodin), instead I took the fork that might have gotten me forked.

Celeste, I was dense, I was callow, I was young. I was thinking with my dick. I apologize. Ask me again, I will devote a date to you & we can remember our friend Betty. Take me up on my offer. Happy 94th birthday! You out lived the entire cast of All About Eve. You are still one hot number!

Celeste Holm tells this story: She was nominated for an Oscar for a film she made with Loretta Young- Come To The Stable, in which they both played nuns! Loretta had become quite pious after having given birth to Clark Gable's love child (talk about virgin birth... she then adopts her own daughter) & Loretta Young announced to the cast & crew that there would no swearing or strong language on the set. Miss Young had set up a penalty box; if someone should slip up & use a Goddamn, fuck or shit, they would need to put a nickle in the box, with the proceeds going to a Vatican charity at the end of the shoot. Holme's good friend Ethel Merman stopped by the set to visit. Ethel took a 10 dollar bill out of her purse & slipped it into the Curse Box & loudly proclaimed- "There you go Loretta. Now you can go fuck yourself". I told this story to a group of 20-35 year olds that I supervise at my job. Not a single one knew of Celeste Holm, Loretta Young, Ethel Merman, or All About Eve, even the gay ones. I hate getting old.

Holmes also relates: "I walked onto the set of All About Eve on the first day & said, 'Good Morning,' to Miss Bette Davis, & do you know her reply? She said, 'Oh shit, good manners'. I never spoke to her again ... ever."

Celeste Holm lives in her native NYC. She married 5 times; she married her current husband, opera singer Frank Basile, on April 29, 2004, her 87th birthday. Celeste turns an astonishing 94 today.

Born On This Day- April 5th... Ruth Elizabeth Davis

"Everybody has a heart. Except some people."

Bette Davis

I believe All About Eve to be a perfect film, with not a wasted piece of dialogue or an unnecessary scene. It is one of the greatest films about theatre of all time. For me, Margo Channing is the finest & bravest Bette Davis creation (she lost the Oscar to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday).

Davis was a movie star, but also the most fearless & the least vain actresses of the Golden Age. I am fan of all her 6 decades of work on stage, & on film with Of Human Bondage, The Petrified Forest, Jezebel, The Old Maid, Elizabeth & Essex, The Letter, All This & Heaven Too, The Little Foxes, Old Acquaintance, Pocket Full Of Miracles, & What Ever Happened To Baby Jane among my favorites.

Besides Margo Channing, my favorite would have to be Bette’s work in 1987’s The Whales of August, featuring an understated Vincent Price, a rare & delicate late career performance by the great Lillian Gish, whose career stretched back to the films of D.W. Griffith, & Ann Sothern in her only Oscar nominated performance. But for me the true enjoyment of this film came from seeing Bette Davis do again what Bette Davis always could do: create an indelible, complex character & command every scene in which she appears.

When she was filming Whales of August, the cast & crew were having dinner when Davis started complaining about Joan Crawford. Cast member Harry Carey Jr, became unhappy & told Davis that Crawford had been his friend & that he didn't want to hear anything negative about her. Davis, without missing a beat, responded, "Just because a person's dead doesn't mean they changed."

Davis bickered with her directors over the smallest details, & had a reputation for being difficult to work with. Still, she was so beloved by audiences that she was in great demand, & is one of the few actors in history who worked until the very end of her life, making well over a 100 films. She would dare us to hate her, & we often did, which is why we loved her.

Warner Brothers treated Davis badly for many years, & they paid her far less than other stars. She sued the company & lost, but the court case gave her much valuable publicity. She was able to create a new persona for herself on her own terms, as a strong-willed independent thinker, as strong as any man.

Bette Davis has been an icon for generations of gay men. She helped them learn that with wit, style & camp, it is possible to transcend the hard, unhappy, hateful & often humiliating world that was given to us.