Sunday, December 7, 2008

Just where did Stan place that egg?


▼ As you know, I love old things and local history (that's a pic of Newport Beach in the 50s above), and so, for a change of pace, I thought I'd indulge that interest today.

I came across this marvelous clip from the 1934 Laurel and Hardy film Hollywood Party. If you’re the impatient type, you might want to skip to 4:13, where the real fun begins, as Stan and Ollie encounter the wonderful (and skimpily clad!) Lupe Vélez:


Vélez committed suicide ten years later. Wikipedia offers this account of her notorious death at age 36:

In the mid-1940s, she had a relationship with the young actor Harald Maresch, and became pregnant with his child. Vélez, following her Catholic upbringing, refused to have an abortion. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child, she decided to take her own life. Her suicide note read, "To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe." She retired to bed after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. According to newspaper accounts, her body was found by her secretary and companion for ten years, Beulah Kinder.

Andy Warhol's film, Lupe (1965), is loosely based on this fateful night. Suggesting that she was found with her head in the toilet due to nausea caused by the overdose. Another report says she tripped and fell head-first into the toilet knocking herself unconscious and drowning. However, Kinder reports finding Velez peacefully asleep in her bed.

There is skepticism surrounding whether it was simply the shame of bearing an illegitimate child that led Velez to end her life. Throughout her life she showed signs of extreme emotion; mania and depression. Consequently it has been suggested that Velez suffered from bipolar disorder, which left untreated ultimately led to her suicide. After all, Velez was known for her defiance of contemporary moral convention, and it seems unlikely that she could not have reconciled an "illegitimate child."

The mortal remains of Lupe Vélez, are deposited in the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres in México City.



▼ If you love local history as I do, you really should visit the blog O.C. History Roundup, which is authored by local historian and archivist Chris Jepsen. Recent posts concern such subjects as the location of a “hanging tree” in Irvine (see) and Orange County’s worst aircraft disaster (in 1965, Loma Ridge, Irvine; see pic). I vaguely remember the latter event,  a big deal at the time.

I doubt that you’ll cotton to Jepsen’s politics (he's feuding with Gustavo Arellano), but you’re gonna love his old photos.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Check out Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" for all sorts of juicy LA history.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...