Women For Freedom #43 Brigitte Bardot

French screen legend, Brigitte Bardot, was born on the 28th of September, 1934, in Paris. She has, in different ways, and for two very different sets of beings, been a great libertarian all her life. I believe her own words prove that:

“I’m a girl from a good family who was very well brought up. One day I turned my back on it all and became a bohemian ……. I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous and very unhappy …….. (but), have you ever heard of a good marriage growing in front of the cameras?”

“I absolutely loathe luxury. It is the one thing I cannot stand.”

“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen ………. I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals ……… I left a world in which I was a queen to enter one in which I’m a human being.”

“I am a native Frenchwoman and proud of it ……. (but)I mourn the fact that my beautiful country has deteriorated in every way ……… French courts are backward and politically correct, which is the height of stupidity ……. Only idiots refuse to change their minds ……. In a democracy one must have the right to express oneself and that’s what I do, even if it displeases.”

“Do you have to have a reason for loving? …….. When I love, I do it without counting. I give myself entirely. And each time, it is the grand love of my life …….. My wild and free side unsettled some, and unwedged others ……. They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself.”

Bardot understood the limits of freedom.

“Women get more unhappy the more they try to liberate themselves.”

But she found true love: “My favourite animals are dogs.”

Mans best friend.

And Brigitte Bardot’s.

God Bless Creation And All The Freedoms We Can Still Love.

Geoff Fox, 28th September, 2023, Hollywood Time, written Down Under

IWOTA # 18 YVONNE De CARLO

Yvonne De Carlo was born on the 1st of September, 1922, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She said things about the role of women that were more commonplace in her day, but badly needed now. For that I call her an indigenous woman Of the Anglosphere. (IWOTA)

Universal Pictures producer Walter Wanger described her as “the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Cameramen voted her “Queen of Technicolor” three years in a row.

In my childhood she was famous on television as the vivacious Lily Munster.

In the New York times, Bosley Crowther  wrote of her performance in “Salome, Where She Danced” (1945): “Miss De Carlo has an agreeable mezzo-soprano singing voice, all the ‘looks’ one girl could ask for, and, moreover, she dances with a sensuousness which must have caused the Hays office some anguish.”

De Carlo said, “I was named Margaret Yvonne. ‘Margaret’ because my mother was very fond of one of the derivatives of the name. She was fascinated at the time by the movie star Baby Peggy, and I suppose she wanted a Baby Peggy of her own ……. My mother was the shaping force in my life. Don’t ask me how but she always had money for my dancing lessons. She was convinced I was going to be somebody.”

and:

“I’m all for men and I think they ought to stay up there and be the bosses, and have women wait on them hand and foot and put their slippers on and hand them the pipe and serve seven-course meals; as long as they open the door, support the woman, and do their duty in the bedroom, et cetera.”

De Carlo was an active Republican who campaigned for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

God Bless Freedom And Women Who Understand Traditional Men.

Geoff Fox, February 3, 2023, Down Under

Previous Indigenous Women Of The Anglosphere include Shirley Temple, Mary Astor, Audrey Hepburn, Rosa Parks, Barbara Stanwyck, Tammy Bruce, Anne Boleyn, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Virginia Satir, Lady Gregory, Joy Davidman and Gertrude Bell

Amazing Facts #1 Ingrid Bergman Died On Her Birthday

Ingrid Bergman was one of her photographer father’s favourite subjects.

She once said, “I was perhaps the most photographed child in Scandinavia …..” and “I didn’t choose acting. It chose me.”

When she was two and a half years old her mother died and when she was 14 her father died. Later she said, “The theater was my mother and my father.”

and “I have had my different husbands, my families. I am fond of them all and I visit them all. But deep inside me there is the feeling that I belong to show business.”

She died at midnight on her birthday, August 29, in 1982.

Geoff Fox, August 29, 2023, Down Under

Women For Freedom #42 Jacqueline Susann And Ulla Jacobsson

In 1951, Swedish actress Ulla Jacobsson preceded Marilyn Monroe by three years in her free celebration of her female form on camera. In classical Latin her first name “Ulla” meant “any female”. She died in Vienna on August 20, 1982.

Jacqueline Susann, author “Valley Of The Dolls” and “The Love Machine” about fictional television producer Robin Stone, was born on August 20, 1918 in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

She wrote:

“Everyone has an identity. One of their own, and one for show.”

“Love shouldn’t make a beggar of one. I wouldn’t want love if I had to beg for it, to barter or qualify it. And I should despise it if anyone ever begged for my love. Love is something that must be given — it can’t be bought with words or pity, or even reason.”

“I’ve got a library copy of Gone with the Wind, a quart of milk and all these cookies. Wow! What an orgy!”

God Bless Beautiful Women who help to set us free ……

Geoff Fox, Down Under, 20th August, 2023, Wynnewood time

IMOTA #17 Will Rogers

Will Rogers died on August 15, 1935, at the age of 55, in a light plane crash in
Point Barrow, Alaska. He was the friend of all Presidents from Roosevelt Senior to Roosevelt Junior.

In 1926, English biographer John Carter wrote in the New York Times,: “Perhaps Will Rogers has done more to educate the American public in world affairs than all the professors who have been elucidating the continental chaos since the Treaty of Versailles.” FDR said about those views: “Will Rogers’ analysis of affairs abroad was not only more interesting but proved to be more accurate than any other I had heard.”

Damon Runyon said, “Will Rogers was America’s most complete human document. He reflected in many ways the heartbeat of America. In thought and manner of appearance and in his daily life he was probably our most typical native born, the closest living approach to what we like to call the true American.”

Because of Rogers’ sublime intelligence in the use of the English language, I name him an Indigenous Man Of The Anglosphere (IMOTA). Here is some of the proof:

“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

Will Rogers was a Democrat but said: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” and “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

He supported FDR but said: “Roosevelt wants recovery to start at the bottom. In other words, by a system of high taxes, he wants business to help the little fellow to get started and get some work, and then pay business back by buying things when he’s at work. Business says, ‘Let everybody alone. Let business alone, and quit monkeying with us, and we’ll get everything going for you, and if we prosper, naturally the worker will prosper.’ “

And: “If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.”

“Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.”

“The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don’t let it get the best of you.”

“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”

Geoff Fox, Down Under, 15th August, 2023, Point Barrow (Alaska) time

Previous IMOTA are:

1. John Wycliffe
2. Douglas MacArthur
3. George Pell
4. R.S. Thomas
5. Donald Trump
6. John Barrymore
7. William Shatner
8. Thomas Jefferson
9. Count Basie
10. Clint Eastwood
11. Walt Whitman
12. Brigham Young
13. John Wayne
14. Sitting Bull
15. Marlon Brando
16. George Gershwin

My Melting Pot #5 Betty Ford and Vivien Leigh

On this date in 1967 Vivien Leigh died and in 2011 Betty Ford died.

Scarlett O’Hara.

Blanche Dubois.

Alcoholism overcome.

Things and natures we cannot escape.

“Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show.” said Leigh.

And:

“You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can’t see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that’s me.”

Betty Ford ultimately understood a few things about women and being the best we can be.

Ford used her freedom.and spoke her mind.

She said:

“The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women.”

and

“It’s always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they’re about eighteen years old. If you haven’t made your points with them by then, it’s too late.”

“I have an independent streak. You know, it’s kind of hard to tell a independent woman what to do.”

Betty Bloomer at 14:

God Bless Freedom.

Geoff Fox, 8th August, 2023 Rancho Mirage time

August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s Deathday

In May 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang her legendary breathy version of “Happy Birthday, Mr President” to JFK at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Madison square Garden. Two and a half months later on this date, the 4th of August, at home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, she died.

In The Guardian, in 2016, David Thomson described her appearance in May 1962 with these words: “……. (she) stood there, with her massed blonde waves jutting off to one side, like the control on tower (of) an aircraft carrier, in a dress that could have been painted on her. ……. This is maybe her greatest moment – the most reckless – and she knows it, even if the summer of 1962 is her hell.”

Marilyn’s deathday is a legend.

So was she.

Because of the way so many of us men love beautiful women who appear to be free.

Lest We Forget.

Geoff Fox, 4th August, 2023, (Los Angeles time)

Government For Good #1 High Noon

On July 24, 1952, Stanley Kramer’s High Noon was released and subsequently won 4 Oscars.

Wikipedia reports that the film was “one of the first 25 films (selected) for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1989, the NFR’s first year of existence.”

As I see it, the greatness of the movie is in showing how good government depends on the performance of exceptional individuals and just how hard modern centuries make it for those individuals to want to stay in government.

The heroes we need are getting harder and harder to find.

Geoff Fox, July 23, 2023, Down Under

The Hearts Of Women #3 Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers captivated the world dancing with Fred Astaire.

She said:

“My mother told me I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months.”

“Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can’t talk and dance at the same time.“

“When two people love each other, they don’t look at each other, they look in the same direction.“

“I try to feed my hunger rather than my appetite.”

Ginger Rogers was born on this date 112 years ago in Independence, Missouri.

God Bless Ginger

Geoff Fox, 16th July, 2023, American time

The Hearts Of Women #2 Mary Philbin

Mary Philbin was born into a staunch Catholic family on the 16th July, 1902, in Chicago.

She never married her fiancee, jewish producer and talent agent Paul Kohner, who worked with many huge male and female stars.

Philbin’s Catholic family rejected the match.

Neither Kohner nor Philbin ever married. She lived as a recluse for most of her life.

They both kept each other’s love letters till they died.

God Bless Fidelity.

Geoff Fox, 16th July, 2023