CELEBRATION CONTINUES....

....of Birthday Girl Ann Miller, and one of our premier Patron Saints, who's birthday was Sunday. Screw the politicians, I'm a queen, and I'm thinking of declaring this week National Ann Miller Week. Get those huge wigs dusted off....and in the meantime, another of my favorite performances of hers, from Small Town Girl in 1953, and one of the most creative dance scenes I have even seen in a musical.

TOE TAPPIN BEAUTY

Here at the Casa du Borghese it is a special day indeed on this sunny morning! It's the 103 Birthday of one of our favorite and adored Patron Saints.... The Patron Saint of beauty, big hair and toe tappin'....Ann Miller!!!!!!!

I have LONG adored Ann Miller! I even tried to bid on one of her wigs once at an auction but was outbid by some older queen. I was prepared to blow the old queen too to get my mits on it!!!! But I digress. When I lived in Bucks County I met a queen at the Raven Resort who was a friend of hers and regaled us with a story of a Bucks County Fourth of July picnic, with an American Revolution theme, on one of the farms, and to the delight of the guest, danced all the way across a cornfield and into a barn draped in the stars and stripes, and called herself "Betsy Ross on steroids."

Ann Miller was a very iconic Hollywood dancer and famed for her rapid-fire tap dancing, which was at reportedly 500 taps per minute...and she was known as her nickname "Million-dollar legs." Some fun facts about Ann Miller

- She was a child prodigy who lied about her age to work, and was discovered by Lucille Ball in a San Fracisco nightclub.

-Her tap shoes named Moe and Joe are displayed in the Smithsonian.

- The Inventor of Pantyhose. Tired of her stockings tearing during strenuous dance routines Miller worked with a manufacture to create a one-piece pantyhose which she popularized. Drag Queens everywhere still thank her.

-At a young age she began dancing to strengthen her legs after suffering from rickets.

-A prosthetic nose? After an injury left her nose with a crooked scar, she had a prosthetic extension made to conceal it, which Louis B Mayer reportedly hid in his safe from her during a hostile dispute.

-Ann Miller had past life belief-she believed she was an Egyptian queen in a previous life and often joked was the reason she had difficulties in her romantic relationships.

-She hit Boadway success in 1979 when she starred in Sugar Babies with Mickey Rooney which had a ten-year run.

-She appeared in over 50 movies and numerous tv appearances, with her final role in David Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive where she played Coco. And who could forget the fabulous appearance on the Love Boat along with Della Reese, Carol Channing and Ethel Merman?

-About the only downside was she was a very staunch Republican, attending many fundraisers and galas, and campaigned for the likes of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush's. But I can overlook this, we can't all be perfect.

- One of her wigs once saved her life when she one night, hit her head on a steel beam in St Louis while preforming in Anything Goes.

- Even in the end while suffering from crippling osteoporosis she told friend Esther Williams "I can still tap, but who wants to pay an old lady to tap sitting down?"

Our candle is lit! Ann Miller would have been 103 today!

In honor for today, my two favorite scenes.

IN THREE WORDS

In this feature, each week I'll share a guest with you all, 

and you tell me in only three words what comes to mind.

In Three Words...

Jennnifer Coolidge 

HESTER FRUMP

If there is one thing I love, it's a campy, snarky, fashionable character. And as we are aware I watch very little American tv offerings, but one I fell in love with was Wednesday, a take on the life of Wednesday Addams. The first season was incredibly done. Plus, it had Gwendoline Christy. As if it could get any better, Burton went this season and added a Patron Saint of mine, the stunning Joanna Lumley to the cast as Hester Frump! A huge fan since the days of Jam and Jerusalem and, of course, Absolutely Fabulous...the actress can do no wrong. She has given a new life and purpose to a character we knew little of from previous incarnations of the show and movie, and grandma was basically nothing more than a bumbling mumbling side piece that time forgot in a gothic mansion. Lumley at 79, joined the cast at Tim Burton's request and so she lends her talents across this side of the pond playing Hester Frump as the wealthy and fashionable matriarch of the Frump family, and the owner of the largest outcast business in America, Frump Mortuaries. She is snarky, insulting, cold and sharp tongued, and is also the mother of Morticia Addams and Ophelia Frump. And while she has a good strong understanding relationship with her granddaughter Wednesday, she as a ghastly one with her own daughter Morticia. Staring with her disapproval of her marriage to Gomez. Needless to say, she is the first character in some time I have loved on a program. I dare say Absolutely Ghastly!

Her first appearance of the season was excellent! The only way to make me orgasm would be to add Helena Bonham Carter to the cast yet.

TONIGHT'S EXTRA SPECIAL JUDGE.....

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be in Luigi's cell with him running lines...

 

LET US PRAY

 The Casa du Borghese Altar of Patron Saints is almost complete!

While the Casa du Borghese has many Patron Saints, these are the most major ones....

Ann Miller, Patron Saint of huge, fabulous hair and Talented Taps.

Amy Winehouse, Our Patron Saint of Song, Libations and Wing Eyeliner.

Luigi Mangione- Patron Saint of Adorable Rogue-ness, Killer Smiles, and Antiheros

RuPaul, Patron Saint of Creativeness, Uniqueness Nerve and Talent.

Joan Crawford, Patron Saint of Style, Good Housekeeping, and Giving No Fucks.

And soon, the collection will be complete with the Ultimate Patron Saint....

Lady Bunny, Patron Saint of Filth, Mod Style, and Drag Queens.

Let us bow our heads...... 

A COLORFUL KALEIDOSCOPIC

And so, it has come to pass...a very rare bird, and of our Patron Saints at the Casa du Borghese, that of one fabulousness, in the form of Iris Apfel has blown the doors off Fabulon to enter it. Iris Apfel, an interior designer, art collector, fashion icon and designer, New York socialite, smart businesswoman and camp role model has passed on at the ripe age of 102 yesterday. Iris Apfel has been dishing a century's worth of advice to anyone who'd listen on how to define your own style and would take every opportunity she'd get to express her own joyous and creative point of view. And talk about Maximal style? She was the queen of laying anything and everything...a maximist to the extent and embodied her iconic fashion sense and employed her rich history of expertise in textiles that began when she was a young child creating schemes with her grandmother's fabric remnants. As a connoisseur of artistry, and textile maven herself, Iris's imaginable and dynamic taste is fervently infused in every pattern and color imaginable. Three worlds for Iris..Bold...witty and exuberant, not to mention eccentric. I had the pleasure to talk with her once, while working at Bloomingdales while doing a display as she walked past. She was tickled a young person even knew who she was I believe. But it would be unlawful as a gay man to not know who Iris Apfel was, at least in these parts. She was complimenting a display I was working on. I recall telling her of the finished display and how I might get a scold for doing what I wanted. I recall her advice being, "Color outside the lines sweetie, those that make their mark don't get there by coloring in the lines." And she was right. And if anyone lived by my favorite quote- " LIVE LIVE! Life's a banquet and some sorry suckers are starving." it was Iris Apfel. Even till her death she stayed colorful and took to Instagram in often colorful post, celebrating life. And if anything, she marched to her own drummer and didn't care of what people thought of her over the top style. Just because your in your elder years, doesn't mean living and having fun has to end. I couldn't agree more. One this rainy day, I'm sure New York feels ever gloomier.

Iris Apfel

August 29 1921- March 1 2024

INTO FABULON......

....Our Patron Saint Gina Lollobrigida 

" We are al born to die- the difference is the intensity with which we choose to live."

Here! Here!

July 4, 1927-January 16, 2023

CURRENT MOOD...

 I was at a 6 myself for the day.

You gotta love Ann Miller and her hair. 

If Beverly Hills zip code was 90210 then 90211 must have been Ms.Miller's hair. And while we're here....why not.....

ALL HAIL ANN MILLER

Ahhhhhhhhh, Ann Miller can always make everything better. With exception to the legend Cyd Chaise, Ann Miller may have been one Hollywood's best dancers in my opinion. And she was just deemed a Patron Saint here at the Cas du Borghese.

GET THE PARTY STARTED

Let's get this party started...finally, it's Saturday night.....Late night....with the fabulous, the legendary, and a Casa Patron Saint.... Dame Shirley Bassey! Grab a cock-a-tail and a mask.

WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST?

One of the most famous advertising campaigns of the 20th century began in MID 60'S: the series of full-page, black-and-white print ads for "Blackglama" furs, with the memorable, never-changing question: "What becomes a Legend most?"

The story goes that, in the 60's, the Great Lakes Mink Association, a group of about 400 mink ranchers, were looking around for an advertising firm that would help them "remodel public opinion," though the notorious red-paint attacks on fur-wearing women were still a few years off.   New York ad executive Jane Trahey conceived the campaign and it was executed by her associate, who later bought out the firm and continued with the campaign.  The "Blackglama" brand name was invented by Trahey, who also came up with the "legend" tagline, and the idea of spotlighting high-profile....legends, mostly from the movies and Broadway, swathed in a Blackglama mink garments, which they were allowed to take home after the shoot. It went on the be one of the most successful and long running ad campaigns.

Ann Miller

Roz Russel

Debbie Reynolds

Judy Garland

Marlene Dietrich

Beverly Sills

Carol Channing

Lucille Ball

Lena Horne

Diana Vreeland

Lana Turner

Carol Burnett

Peggy Lee

Tis fur season after all.

ENTERTAINING THE CRAWFORD WAY

As one of our Patron Saints here, Joan Crawford and I agree greatly with holiday entertaining style, especially the last tip. Take it from me, it works, and you'll even have the boys eating out of your hands!!

OUR NEWEST PATRON SAINT

1990 was a really important year for me musically. In 94 I came out, as in to gay clubs, (hell, I came out of the womb wanting a man), started my love affair with gin and rum and anything else wet , and fell instantly in love with club and house music, in addition to my love for the lonnnnng nights clubbing. For the first time ever, I started to empty out my piggy bank which paid for nights out and for two cassette tapes: Clivilles and Cole, and Deee-lite's World Cliché, and Madonna’s “Vogue” which to me all of these were the pinnacle of human musical achievement. But an amazing song was released, with a video that would provide me with enough giddy ’60s fashion inspiration and fly dance-move fabulousness to last a lifetime. That song was “Groove Is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite, and its lead singer, Lady Miss Kier, quickly became my own personal proto-Spice Girl, not to mention my major source of drag style.... the pop idol against which all other pop idols would forever be judged. Deee-lite and Lady Miss Kier would be my introduction to New York City night life, another idol, Lady Bunny and all the nights of labor with my good friend and sister Mame, on the club scene. Just thinking back gives me chills, seems like yesterday, I can still hear the thumpa thumpa of the music. My first musical love will always be house music.

Like most of us, Lady Miss Kier was from a small town.... in Youngstown, Ohio. She moved to New York to study fashion design at FIT and began selling her crazy, disco-inspired clothes to friends she met on the club scene., silver platform boots and blue glitter suits—and that was just for the dudes. One of her clients, the Russian DJ Dmitry Brill, convinced her to record a demo with himself and the Japanese DJ Towa Tei, and thus the three-headed hydra of disco-house-funk amazingness known as Deee-Lite was born, which gave us endless night of worshipping to the cool vibe house sound to this way cool group.

Adopting the name Lady Miss Kier and styling her band in addition to co-writing their songs, Kirby transformed herself into the ultimate club diva. A lot of people were working the colorful retro-’60s thing at the time, but she was the most fabulous of them all. With her penchant for skintight Pucci catsuits, oversize chunky cocktail rings, sculptural John Fluevog heels, and a teased-and-flipped hairdo, Miss Kier was largest-than-life in a scene where EVERYBODY was competing to look the craziest.

Can we also talk about her makeup at the time? With her white-powdered face, razor-sharp drawn-on brows, and three-inch fake eyelashes, Miss Kier was like a female drag queen. I could say a whole lot of Feminist Theory 101 stuff about how her over-the-top makeup was like an ironic commentary on the construction of femininity in our culture, but I’ll spare you my second-rate Judith Butler spiel and just say that she looked really freaking fabulous

I can also remember talking to her on two occasions, one as high as a kite and the other probably drunk and high. Once in Philly, and another time in Baltimere....yes, yours truly went all over the place to club. She was the most cool vibed person I ever talked too, laid back, extremely nice and kind hearted. I think I even adopted her dance after the second night. Even though it was before my time she was like a modern day Emma Peal. And gurrrrls could she ever spin for a club........... while I still enjoy going out, club music WILL NEVER be like this again.

A 3 Hour set by Lady Miss Kier kept the dance floor packed at this venue for a LGBT event a couple years ago. Excuse me now while I tear up the living room floor. This is my music!!!!!