I liberated these gardenias from a hedge in front of a dentist office.
I adore Gardenias. Their scent always reminds me of Gene Harlow who happened to be the daughter of a dentist. I’m also reminded of my eighth grade graduation where we each wore a gardenia corsage. I digress, back to Harlow.
You see, her funeral was the biggest ticket in town, M.G.M. made sure of it. Her service was held in the Wee Kirk O’ the Heather chapel located in Glendale’s very own Forest Lawn. The chapel was drenched with gardenias, ten thousand of them to be exact. Jeanette MacDonald sang “Indian Love Call” Harlow’s favorite song. I happen to prefer Slim Whitman’s version. In case you didn’t know, Harlow wrote a sexually explicit novel that the studio bought up in full and destroyed, she posed nude in Griffith Park, (bleached her pubic hair which was rumored to be the cause of her death) and was the inspiration for the character of Cat Woman in the Batman comic series.
……..
When V took to wooing me, he used to place gardenias across the dashboard of his 56 Chevy truck.
Ahh, the old dashboard covered in Gardenias ploy. What a honey dripper V must have been (or still is) and it obviously worked well. The shadowy photo is a perfect compliment to Gene’s glamor shot. The petals and her loose sleeve could be interchangeable. Nice. And to top it off, a beautiful song. I sat at my screen transfixed for a brief moment while watching the western scenery and listening to another ol’ honey dripper. I have to confess that I’m a bit afraid of Cat Woman although she does know how to make a plain black leather …um… cat-suit look pretty good.
And I had no idea that Jean was cross-gendered! Her story gets more interesting all the time…
OMG
“Harlow wrote a sexually explicit novel that the studio bought up in full and destroyed”
What a waste!
Oh how I wish I could lay back naked, in a bed of cut gardenias, soaking up their soft feeling, breathing in the tender smell of the flowers and read that novel. There just has to be another copy out there somewhere. No?
This is a vetty beautiful dreamy post. I’m just living in it.
Ye old George Burns told me that her mama went everywhere with her. All the parties included Harlow and Mama Harlow. Ah, George. He had an office on the lot next to the Chaplin Stage-I think it’s called Hollywood Center Studios. Anyway, in the afternoons, us interns would take turns sitting on his lap at martini time. Those were the days, my friend. He was a real sweet, smart little man.
Later, our mailroom guy, Vince, had his funeral at the Wee Kirk-it was quite lovely and befitting. That place is full of spirits, beautiful spirits. Harlow was a truly unique and every bit deserving of those gardenias, and so are you.
V is no fool.
the breadth of your knowledge never fails to amaze. So I guess this means she has a gravemarker and not a tombtone?
Ahhh. . . I can smell those gardenias. Intoxicating!
Cross-gendered, E? Really? Gossip, even now.
What a dreamy post. I want to read that novel, even if it’s bad. At this distance, it’s so hard to know what might have been on her mind.
Yes, I can smell your Gardenias, PA.
Let’s just say this smells much better than your post of a couple days back.
Slim Whitman is now my new guilty pleasure. Beautifully constructed.
Don’t you wish somebody kept a copy of that book – they would of today. deadly bleach – hmmm.
PA – your 1st photo of pilfered gardenias looks positively professional – would make a lovely painting.
& can I suggest that you pick up the “deposit” from a few day’s ago, we do it 2x a day for Amy.
She don’t look cross gendered to me. Is the comment because PA spelled Jean with the masculine spelling; Gene? Then, figuring you knew something I didn’t about those Hollywood types and their new-fangled spellings, I followed your lead, PA, and also misspelled it in my original remark-OR-and this can’t be true, she was a he? No way. I want to hear more from Miss Havisham about her intern days with George Burns.
trans– on or to the other side….on or as to change or transfer.
gender– a subclass with distinguishable characteristics, such as shape, rank, class, race or sex.
change sex.
However I believe your person wrote cross-gendered. A less specific term, but usually refers to more of a masquerade, like cross-dressing, or transvestitism.
The light floating across both the gardenias and Jean Harlow are beautifully similar. Add the yodeling of Slim Whitman and I’m in heaven.
At my 8th grade graduation ceremony, every girl wore a gardenia. A little to much of a good thing can be over-powering (and not in a good way).
Gardenia’s remind me of my grandmother and that is a lovely thought.
I looked up Jean and found a book written by her in the 30s and published in the 60s, titled Today is Tonight, a melodramatic novel which doesn’t sound very erotic from the one description on AM-a-zon. The W account of her death isn’t quite as scandalous as death by pubic bleaching, but I did read her tomb cost $25,000 back in 1937!!! She was entombed with a single gardenia in her hands.
I love Gardenias too. Nice to know how you and V courted many moons ago. Sounds like he was very romantic.
Gardenias were my Mom’s favorite flower as I recall.
“because PA spelled Jean with the masculine spelling”
That was all. All my information about her comes from this blog.
I love the smell of gardenias. It is the primary scent in “Marc Jacobs” perfume, which I have but seldom wear. As QV warned, one does not want to overpower, at least with fragrance.