Abandoned orphan. Cocotte (kept woman) and Couturière. Nazi-lover? Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel did not live an easy nor uncontroversial life. Her parents: mother Jeanne, a landrywoman, and father Albert Chanel, a traveling street vendor, were unmarried at the time of her birth, though persuaded (shotgun marriage?) to formally wed, several children later. When Gabrielle was 12,…
Brazen. Bold. Bawdy. I made myself platinum,but I was born a dirty blonde. Tillie, a Bavarian wanna-be model/actress, and Battlin’ Jack West, a sometime boxer and more frequent street brawler, named their pretty blue-eyed daughter Mary Jane. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 17 August 1893, a few years after Katie was born and died,…
“… given a choice between hearing my daughter say ‘I’m pregnant’ or ‘I used a condom,’ most mothers would get up in the middle of the night and buy them herself.”
After a New York talent scout wanna-be spotted her picture in the window of her bro-in-law’s photography studio and dropped some hints, said bro-in-law and sister sent the 18 year old over the MGM’s New York talent office for a screen test.
Al Altman didn’t even bother to record her speaking, since her North Carolina accent was so thick he could barely understand her. But when Louis B. Mayer saw her screen test, he sent a telegram with the above quote, signing her to a standard MGM contract. And provided a speech coach.
“In one scene, when I was supposed to say, “In a pig’s eye you are,” what came out was, “In a pig’s ass you are.” Old habits die awfully hard.” ― Ava Gardner, Ava: My Story