Contest Winner...And Preview of Coming Attractions

And the winner of a paperback copy of my time travel adventure novel Myths of the Modern Man is…..

BOB!

Congratulations, Bob, and thanks so much to everybody who entered.

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 As I’ve been touting for a few weeks now, I’m going to be spending 2014 discussing the career of Ann Blyth, not only  her films, but also her stage work, television and radio appearances.  Here’s a preview of the intro post…


...if you know Ann Blyth only through her frothy MGM musicals, you don't know Ann Blyth.  In dramas she has morphed into the epitome of hateful, sensual, heartbroken, and shamed.  If you know her only as the demon teen Veda in Mildred Pierce, you don't know Ann Blyth.  The same colossal greedy train wreck of a girl who spit infective at Joan Crawford and smacked her in the jaw also performed a night club act to enthusiastic crowds in Las Vegas, bringing them to tears with the sentimental "Auld Lang Syne" and sang at the California state fair.  If you only know her from The Helen Morgan Story or melodramas, you are missing her genuine gift for screwball comedy.  Sinking herself intellectually, just as much as emotionally into these roles, she swims against the powerful and unrelenting current of studio typecasting.

The scene of her debut was radio variety and drama, the true child of the 20^th century that, with few exceptions, became orphaned long before the century was over.  It trained her to use her voice, not only as a singer, but as a character.
 
The first Ann Blyth essay will be posted Thursday, January 2^nd. 

This will be my last post until then, because I’ve got some other fish to fry.  So I’ll say goodbye for now, and very blessed and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and of course, a very Happy New Year to all. 

Thank you for the pleasure of your company this year.

I’ll leave you with a holiday song from Ann Blyth and Perry Como, who perform “Winter Wonderland” here on Perry Como’s TV show, broadcast December 20, 1958.

See you in 2014.