CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion

"MY NAME IS JOHN KENNEDY, AND I AM THE MAN WHO IS ACCOMPANYING CAROLYN BESSETTE TO MILAN. I AM HONORED TO TELL YOU SHE IS MY WIFE." —JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. (WWD magazine, July 1999)

Seemingly measured and thoughtful in her fashion life, color actually had Carolyn’s full attention. Her wardrobe was a deliberate “absence of color,” a term coined by fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel when explaining the absolute beauty in black and white. Carolyn had once advised a former Calvin Klein colleague that if you can’t afford expensive fabrics or designs then you should stick to black. She even spoke about color during her brief interview with Glamour magazine in 1992, saying, “I like very classic colors, black, navy, grey and white. If I want to add some impact, I’ll do it with texture.” She didn’t mention beige though. Countless times, however, she chose to wear it in the form of pants, skirts, dresses, and coats while walking her dog Friday, running errands, or attending evening events, but she never publicly mentioned her love of the color. Privately, according to designer Stephan Janson, she expressed her preference for black and shades of brown while shopping for her Milan trip in 1997. 

There can be no doubt that beige seemed to be the color she chose to break and redirect her stream of black consciousness. At Calvin Klein, where Carolyn worked from 1989 to 1996, beige and all shades thereof—brown, khaki, camel, and ecru—were considered a color standard for the house. Calvin Klein archivist Jessica Barber says that most people associate black with the brand; she reasons this was because most leading fashion photography was being shot in monochrome leading to the mistaken color conclusion. The designer went as far as owning a Mercedes in brown; his stores all reflected similar shades, a natural, organic side to his vision. Beige as a color has long been synonymous with heritage, think a Burberry trench coat or riding jodhpurs. The color evolved from army camouflage to function for aviator Amelia Earhart, and by the time Richard Avedon lensed model Veruschka in 1968 wearing a beige YSL safari jacket complete with dagger and rifle, the color had accrued plenty of “maverick/explorer” connotations to it. 

Camouflage, adventure, and heritage are solid tags for beige and its variations. Carolyn never wore a full look in the color, but her equation of black plus beige or camel was a regular feature for her. It was significant enough for it to be chosen at her formal press introduction as the new Mrs. John Kennedy. She chose Prada, wearing a full look including runway model hair. In that moment, she was a picture of completeness, an authority, as her own woman who happened to marry a Kennedy. She is the one you are looking at, not John. It became a memorable image that she knew would be shared globally. Her colleagues at Calvin Klein were not surprised by the choice, affirming that everyone was wearing Prada or Calvin Klein in the office at the time. She stuck to what she knew and didn’t go off-piste for her first photo op. Just as Carolyn had opined on the color black and its ability to disguise cheap fabric, beige is the opposite. The color relies solely on garment construction and the silhouette it creates. Tacky textiles, flashy patterns, cheap textures, or insipid design elements do not belong to the house of beige; it is the epitome of luxury, and Carolyn, ever the keen curator of her image, knew that.

Wayne Scot Lukas (Celebrity fashion stylist): "Carolyn was larger than life. She made you feel like everything—she was like your big sister, your gay best friend. She would put pieces together in this “no fucks given” kind of way; it was incredibly sexy. When I first met her, she had this California girl look: curves, hair that tumbled down or was wrapped in a messy bun. She was just beautiful; she sucked the air out of any room she was in. She had a warm relationship with everyone. She would get close when she was talking to you—a master manipulatorbut you didn’t mind it happening to you. Carolyn created her looks so simply, but without her confidence and inner strength I feel like they would have been nothing. She dressed from the inside out and that’s what made her different. For the Met Gala in 1994 she wears this black slip dress; that’s it. For her, it was all in the details. She made fashion real and accessible, and no one could do sexy and pretty at the same time like her, no one. If she wore a CK wrap dress she would make it sit low and loosely tie it. Look at the tulle gloves she wore for her wedding—that’s Carolyn. The long tight boots with a long tailored coat—that’s Carolyn. You are either gorgeous or a master of minimalist style but usually not both unless you are her. She didn’t just break the rules of fashion minimalism. She rewrote them."

Sasha Chermayeff (Close friend of John Jr.): "We were in Martha’s Vineyard, and I was walking into the bedroom because John wanted to show me something. Carolyn happened to be lying there half asleep, curled up, her hair and face all crumpled up. She looked up and smiled at me—like this sleepy little kid, but innocent and beautiful at the same time. I couldn’t help it, and I breathlessly said, “Carolyn you are incredible.” John followed my stare, and said, “I know, she looks like that all the time.” I mean, when I remember that scene, she was like a reclining Velázquez, just so utterly beautiful, beyond words, almost unreal. Let’s not forget her inner beauty as well. My children found her eternally attractive."

In 1992, W magazine described twenty-five-year-old Carolyn as someone “with mannequin proportions,” and as a “sultry blue-eyed beauty” who sees herself as “merely a physically blessed real person, sort of.” She was just promoted to the Collection position at Calvin Klein at the time. She revealed how she decided against pursuing a career in teaching despite majoring in elementary education in college. “At the time, I felt a little underdeveloped myself to be completely responsible for twenty-five other people’s children, and to a large extent, I felt it wouldn’t be provocative enough for me.” The fairy tale of New York usually consists of the protagonist, a small towner, fervently dreaming of a better, starry life, packing their bags, taking the quantum leap and heading to the Big Apple. As her colleague Julie Muszynski remembers, “black leggings with a big red sweater—she could have worn a sack and it would look good on her.” Sue Sartor shared an office with Carolyn for a brief time and remembers “a super smart, stylish, compassionate, and very funny girl. She was always encouraging to everyone. I would ask her what pieces to spend my clothing allowance on, and she would always advise on the ones that would last, design and trend wise; she was a master stylist even then.”

Another staffer remembers that the designers in Zack Carr’s office wore Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto most of the time, an early brush for Carolyn with the Japanese avant-garde designers. Tony Melillo, a friend of Carolyn and Kelly Klein, remembers “people admiring her from day one. Calvin used her just like Kelly as a muse; he looked to them both to understand what was good and bad. As an insider I think he really enjoyed seeing Carolyn in her natural state—coming into the office, going out, different parts of her but still the same girl.” Clare Waight Keller, the former designer at Givenchy who started her career at Calvin Klein, recalls that Carolyn “would come into the office like she just rolled out of bed, and then when she had meetings, she would transform herself from this super cool street casual to the most elegant thing you have ever seen.”

Carolyn’s people, her friends and colleagues, echoed similar adjectives, smart, feisty, a force, kind, complex, witty, graceful, beautiful, and of course stylish; brush strokes used to paint a picture of their Carolyn, to us. She was a woman very much in her own right, the real deal, her sartorial choices were merely a mirror of this inner assuredness. A flicker of Carolyn passed my mind, her getting ready for an event; her Yohji Yamamoto armor attire in place, putting on her red lipstick to face the pack of photographers outside, a cacophony of shutters and flashing lights. It occurred to me that she wasn’t reclaiming her power in front of the cameras or to the public, she never needed too, she always had it. —"CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion" (2023) by Sunita Kumar Nair

"From Under My Hat" (1952) by Hedda Hopper

After John Barrymore had married Elaine Barrie, and I had become a Hollywood columnist, Mitch Leisen gave me a call to come to Paramount and be a member of his gang—Claudette Colbert, Jack Barrymore, Don Ameche, Elaine Barrie, and Billy Daniel—in a little opus called Midnight (1939). When I got the phone call I ran and I was there before the contract was dry. In Midnight I was a rather nice character (Stephanie) for a change. The engagement was pure joy from start to finish because of Barrymore’s fund of stories. 

Frances Marion wrote The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), which starred Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman. As she was going into Sam Goldwyn’s office for a story conference she noticed a rugged young man dressed like a cowboy leaning against the wall of the studio building. He was talking through the open window to Sam’s secretary. He was Marion’s type, she gave him a second look, and as she went through the door even risked a third. Inside, Sam was raging. He had been failed by his minions! The cast was assembled—all except a young steel-spring type to play the cowboy. How could he get star material without paying a fortune? Sam demanded. Whom could he get anyhow? Frances said, “I can get you a young man who won’t cost much—he looks like good material to me.” “Who?” Sam demanded suspiciously. “Hold your horses, Sam. I’ll let you know in five minutes.” Frances went out and said to the secretary, “Does that young man want to act?” 

I’ve heard a dozen people claim to have discovered him. Sure he would have been found eventually. Frances just beat everyone to it. His name was Gary Cooper. Some spy at Paramount saw the preview of The Winning of Barbara Worth. When it came time to make Children of Divorce (1927), with Clara Bow, they needed such a man as Cooper. He was sent for, interviewed, interviewed, and opined that he’d sure like to take a whack at it. Director Frank Lloyd said okay. It’s one of the few instances of Sam Goldwyn letting the other fellow get ahead of him. To this day he’ll thank you not to remind him that he was caught flat-footed. Throughout the years he’s had Coop in many pictures, but it still gripes him to think he let him get away without even a struggle. During the second day’s shooting I took Coop off-set and said, “You don’t know me from Adam’s ox, but I have a son—you remind me of him. He’d feel as you do having to play a silly scene like this. But why let it scare you? It’s not a matter of life or death—only celluloid. They’ve got plenty more to put in that box. Relax, boy! Get that poker out of your spinal column.” I even took him by the shoulders and shook him. He shuddered. “I can’t. I never did things like this.” 

Relax he could not, and Frank Lloyd, the gentlest of men, began to lose his temper. Clara Bow already had lost hers. I liked Cooper from the start, and said to Frank, “Look. There’s only one way you’ll ever get that guy through this picture. Get him into a romantic clinch with Clara. She’ll relax him—she’s the only one who can.” “Okay,” said Frank. “Go to work on it—it’s your idea.” “Who, me? My business is acting.” Too often my ideas turned and bit me! Yet the idea intrigued me, so I started to work on Clara. The idea shocked her out of a year’s growth. “Me—fall in love with that gawky lout who can’t act and never will learn?” Then she yelped, “Where did they find him, anyway?” “They lassoed him on the range in Montana,” I said, “and he’s pretty hot stuff. He’s going to be a star, too, you mark my words. It rushes." Even though Gary’s acting was horrible, they detected something on the screen. What Cooper had on screen, even then, was an inward force, a smoldering something. You felt, “Golly, if the guy ever opens up and lets go, he’ll singe the celluloid!” You still feel it in some of his scenes, but as Al Jolson might have said, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” 

The big aviation news of ’27 was Charles A. Lindbergh. After his breath-taking flight across the Atlantic, he came to Los Angeles and was given a party at the Ambassador Hotel, with Marion Davies as hostess. Marion Davies’ secretary, “Bill” Williams, happened by and yelled, “Hey! You belong inside.” I shook my head and pointed to my companions. “Bring ’em along.” I needed no more urging. The room was packed with stars, so I grabbed a small table and sat with my back to the crowd so Bill could watch the celebrities. When Charles Lindberg arrived, I put Bill in my place in the receiving line to shake the hero’s hand, and for twenty-four hours couldn’t get my son to wash his hands. I didn’t blame him; I felt the same way. When we pushed our way into the hotel lobby we learned that Lindbergh was upstairs talking to Mr. Hearst. My admiration for Lindberg has never diminished, even when he was purged by F.D.R. I believed Lindbergh, not our President.

I ecstatically phoned Frances Marion at San Simeon, where she was visiting Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Living in that cradle of luxury had changed Frances’ perspective. John Gilbert had begged Greta Garbo in vain to marry him. He even had a suite of rooms arranged in his house for her. According to hearsay, the black marble bathroom set him back fifteen thousand dollars. When it was finished he showed it to her. Later he described how she put her slender, beautiful hands over her eyes and murmured, “The marble—it is too shiny—” John Gilbert said he brought in workmen with chisels, who fluted the marble to take the shine off. 

Gilbert fell in love with Garbo. It would have been hard not to do so. Lionel Barrymore, in his book We Barrymores, says she “had the true nimbus of greatness; but she was difficult to understand." Gilbert was so hurt over Garbo’s refusal to marry him that when the famous stage star Ina Claire came to town to make a picture, he began wooing her like mad almost the minute he met her. In the beginning I think the idea was to make Garbo jealous, but he misjudged the distance. I don’t believe Garbo has ever been jealous of anybody or anything in her whole life. Perhaps she was as surprised as the rest of us, therefore, when we got the news that Ina and Jack had eloped to Las Vegas.

Things started rosy for me that year of 1929. I had a contract at a good salary and was making money in the stock market. I heard the shocking news over the radio before receiving a telephone call from my broker, Eliot Gibbons, who said, “It’s a washout, Hedda—everything’s gone. You haven’t a penny. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, the boat you’re in is crowded.” It was no consolation. Then I did something I haven’t been able to explain. I walked to the bookshelves, found my Oxford Book of English Verse, went to my bedroom, locked the door, sat down, thumbed through the pages till I came to Ode to a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley and read it straight through.

Marion Davies was on the line. “Will you come up to Wyntoon for a visit?” I said, “Thank you, Marion, I will.” Hours later I was on the train. Mr. Hearst’s mother had built Wyntoon, which looked for all the world like a castle on the Rhine. It took shelter under the long shadow of Mount Shasta, and rising behind the house was a virgin forest of pine trees. The air had a special elixir, born in the bluish folds of snow-capped peaks. Marion took the girls shopping at I. Magnin’s, and before she finished all six of us had new coats, dresses, hats, shoes, gloves, and bags. Marion loved to shop for her friends. Soon after we reached home, Wyntoon had burned down. A watchman had been left to guard things. Maybe a cigarette had fallen in the wrong place. 

I had a hunch that shenanigans like these put Dick Powell off Marion's company as much as her long romance with WR Hearst. Although I wasn't exactly bosom buddies with Powell, due to his allegiance to Louella, I knew enough about him through Marion's confidences. She talked of him in very lofty terms, saying he was an old-fashioned gentleman and a sweet young actor. I think they had a flickering, secret relationship that lasted until 1935; one of those hurried romances that Marion was so fond of having like her champagne parties. 

Eight weeks after my column started, Ida Koverman, then assistant to Mr. Big Louis B. Mayer, gave a hen party for me, which meant she was putting her stamp of approval on my new activity. She invited every female in town—Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald, Rosa Ponselle, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Sophie Tucker—they all came. All but one exception—Louella Parsons. At Paramount Studios, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Kay Francis competed for parts as sophisticated women.

When Joan Crawford turned out what I thought was her best performance in Mildred Pierce, I was the first to write that she should be rewarded with an Oscar. I knew about Joan’s early life—her ambitions, loves, disappointments. Many lesser actresses, who hadn’t given half her service, had received Academy Awards. I don’t say my plugging got her the Oscar, but it certainly didn’t hurt her. First news she made after winning was her divorce from Phil Terry. Louella got the story exclusively. Later I heard that Joan had said, “After all, Hedda’s my friend. She’ll understand.” I didn’t. We’ve since made up, but I never will understand why friendship isn’t a two-way street.

Sometimes, in my eagerness to help, I went too far. Joan Blondell needed a job when I happened to see her standing beside Benny Thau, a top MGM executive, at a cocktail bar one evening. I didn’t hesitate to put the bite on Thau. “Why don’t you give that sassy part in Clark Gable’s picture Adventure to Joan?” I asked. “She’s perfect for it.” He’d think about it, said Benny. The following morning he called me: “You sure put me on the spot last night. But I thought you’d be glad to know you got results. I’ve given Joan the part. If you hadn’t mentioned it before her, I never would have thought of her.” Joan Blondell, no introvert, when she came to Hollywood after a stopover in Las Vegas, she came by my house. Naturally we got on the subject of gambling. 

Joan said she’d never cared much about betting. Years ago while she was in Las Vegas with some friends who were losing their shirts she wandered from table to table, just to watch. An employee at a crap table said, “Come on, try a couple of throws. Risk ten bucks. It won’t hurt you.” She wound up losing over seven hundred dollars. She also lost his marriage to crooner and industry maverick Dick Powell. I knew Joan had a crush on Clark Gable, whose reign as "The King of Hollywood" had ended in 1942, after having enlisted in the air force. When Joan Blondell made Adventure (which was released December 28, 1945), she had already applied for divorce from Powell, so it was a sure bet she would finally have her "adventure" with Gable. The film earned a profit for MGM of $478,000 (more than $6 million worldwide according to studio records), but Adventure was a sound critical failure. 

Jimmy Stewart attracted my attention at the first reading. When it was over, I tracked him outside and said, “Why aren’t you in Hollywood?” “For what?” he said. “Pictures, of course.” He laughed in that usual embarrassed way of his, saying ruefully, “Waal, what would they do with this puss of mine? It’s no Arrow-collar ad.” I said: “You’re an actor. They could fix the rest. Pictures need a young actor with sincerity. I believe you’d do well.” Jimmy laughed it off. The play Divided by Three, with Judith Anderson and Jimmy Stewart, was produced by Guthrie MeClintic and had its rehearsals in New Haven. It was evident during rehearsals that Jimmy’s acting would get the sympathy of the audience and he’d steal the notices. So Guthrie came up with something. At the end of act two the action called for Jimmy to bring his fiancée home to meet his parents and the family’s best friend. Jimmy was to learn that the friend was his mother’s lover. 

Jimmy fell apart. He begged to be let out of the play. “I can’t do that, Mr. McClintic,” he said. “Under no circumstances could I bring myself to call any woman that—and my mother, never! Especially with the girl I love standing beside me.” “Try it out anyway at the dress rehearsal, Jimmy,” McClintic said soothingly. I remember that opening night in New York between the second and third acts when George Kaufman paced up nervously. I arranged for a fifteen-minute excerpt from the play to be put on NBC, thinking it might give it a boost. The stage manager obtained Miss Judith Anderson’s consent and delivered it to the Algonquin Hotel where Jimmy Stewart and I waited. All the curves were thrown in Divided by Three, written by Peggy Pulitzer (born Margaret Leech, married to wealthy Ralph Pulitzer).  It was a cinch the line would be at opening night in New York. That one line [you are a bitch!] killed Jimmy Stewart’s chances for success onstage. While the play itself wasn’t good, its chances were finished by that additional line. —Source: "From Under My Hat" (1952) by Hedda Hopper

"Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy" (new book)

The life and legacy of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, wife of John F. Kennedy Jr., are reexamined in this captivating and effervescent biography that is perfect for fans of My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy, What Remains, and Fairy Tale Interrupted. A quarter of a century after the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and sister-in-law Lauren, the magnitude of this tragedy remains fresh. Yet, Carolyn is still an enigmatic figure, a woman whose short life in the spotlight was besieged with misogyny and cruelty. Amidst today’s cultural reckoning about the way our media treats women, Elizabeth Beller explores the real person behind the tabloid headlines and media frenzy. When she began dating America’s prince, Carolyn was increasingly thrust into an overwhelming spotlight filled with relentless paparazzi who reacted to her reserve with a campaign of harassment and vilification.

To this day, she is still depicted as a privileged princess—icy, vapid, and drug-addicted. She has even been accused of being responsible for their untimely death, allegedly delaying take-off until she finished her pedicure. But now, she is revealed as never before. A fiercely independent woman devoted to her adopted city and career, Carolyn relied on her impeccable eye and drive to fly up the ranks at Calvin Klein in the glossy, high-stakes fashion world of the 1990s. 

When Carolyn met her future husband, John was immediately drawn to her strong-willed personality, effortless charm, and high intelligence. Their relationship would change her life and catapult her to dizzying fame, but it was her vibrant life before their marriage and then hidden afterwards, that is truly fascinating. Based on in-depth research and exclusive interviews with friends, family members, teachers, roommates, and colleagues, this comprehensive biography reveals a multi-faceted woman worthy of our attention regardless of her husband and untimely death. Release date: May, 21, 2024. Source: www.amazon.com

In the backseat of "99 River Street" and "Taxi Driver" (70th Anniversary of "99 River Street")

In 99 River Street (1953), directed by Phil Karlson (an underrated filmmaker who exposed crudely the American underworld's polluted atmosphere in the fifties with Scandal Sheet, Kansas City Confidential, The Phenix City Story, etc. We'll analyze two similar stories in the backseat of this underworld. Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is a washed-up boxer who lost his latest bout in the 7th round, when he was on the verge of becoming a heavyweight champion. As a result of that terrible match, he received in his right eye a pronounced injury so he had to abandon the boxing ring and he's now working as a taxi driver (the same occupation that Scorsese's antihero played by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver in 1976).

Ernie's wife Pauline (Peggie Castle), who craves the high life of mink coats and diamonds, berates him constantly for what she views as poor ambitions for their future. Ernie is saving up to quit his taxi. His goal is to open a gas station. Pauline has been seduced by a slick gangster (Victor Rawlins, played by Brad Dexter) who is an accomplice to a jewelry robbery valued at $50.000. 99 River Street opens on a magnificent boxing sequence, filmed through raw close-ups and a sequence from Ernie's brilliant past. His adversary's blows slam his brain; the knockout punch mercilessly damages his optical nerve. He's been married to Pauline for four not-so-happy years, and she's run out of patience with Ernie. She aspires to leave her job as a clerk in a flower shop and dreams of a cozy life in Paris.

Fearful that his marriage is coming to an end (he loved her once, but he'll admit later: "It fell apart"), Ernie looks for advice from his cabbie pal Stan Hogan (played emphatically by Frank Faylen). Stan realizes Ernie's mind is irremediably mired in discontent and exasperation, so he suggests Ernie sweet-talk Pauline into having a baby. Ernie's eyes fill with sad perplexity before replying dryly: "Sure, I'd like a boy like yours." More tense moments will appear throughout the film, ensembling a sombre portrait, interlacing seemingly intrusive scenes: When Ernie comes back to Paulman's gymnasium with the purpose of asking Pop Durkee for his approval of a possible comeback to the ring, it’s rather painful to observe. In another scene, we see Ernie soaked in a cold-sweat, unleashing his blinding anger on a shady character.

And then there's the delusory theatre scene with his love interest Linda (Evelyn Keyes), who embarks on his taxi intending for a personal victory. The cast makes terrifying justice playing wicked characters that exist in a world of distorting shadows: Peggie Castle, Jack Lambert, Brad Dexter and Jay Adler. Tracking their urbane nightmare, these shadows threaten to obliterate Ernie and Linda's frenzied ride across the city. The dim lights flicker amidst the umbrae like Driscoll's twitchy eye. Ernie is blunt explaining to an ashamed Linda: "Do you see that? That's a fighter's fist. It's dangerous, it can kill somebody, so when a fighter is arrested they don't fine him on the street, they put him in jail, and throw out the key". Some memorable encounters with greedy Broadway producers, and the final assault against Rawlins at the New Jersey's docks, expunge vitiated memoirs (that have plagued and rendered Ernie socially numb) from his garbled system.

Payne shines especially in these pivotal scenes: "The harder you're hit, the harder you have to hit.” The camera zooms in relentlessly on Ernie's eyes. For her part, Evelyn Keyes's character is the heroine who can switch off her personality and play a femme fatale to achieve her purposes. She confuses Ernie and the audience staging "They call it Murder" with a melodramatic performance bordering on the hysterical. Unembellished yet strangely poetic, 99 River Street procures with rare dexterity a tale of moral redemption and one of the most honorable examaples in the genre. Part of its far-reaching message is Karlson's trust in the American culture of individual effort and its condemn of those who look for an esay way to a palmy life.

Phil Karlson has been cited as influential of Martin Scorsese's approach in the grittiest aspects of his work. Karlson came from the Poverty Row studios and most of his films reflect this hard-hitting style. Although Kansas City Confidential is a more renowned thriller, 99 River Street is probably Karlson’s best accomplished film, a dissection of a man's soul through a hellish night. As Eddie Muller explicates in Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (citing Notes onf Film Noir written by Paul Schrader in 1972), The Sniper (1952) directed by Edward Dmytryk is another precedential for Taxi Driver (1976). Arthur Franz in a misogynist rage is equivalent to Travis Bickle in some respects: Both protagonists suffer from a psychopathological disorder, "the root causes of the period: the loss of public honor, heroic conventions, personal integrity and finally psychic stability."

In Taxi Driver, the misogyny is still latent, but it's only another syntomp of the driver's vulnerability. One of the most cringeworthy scenes takes place in a theatre that exhibits adult movies, where Travis ruins his date with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), whom he'd absurdly idealized. He pretends not to understand her discomfort, but he eventually sabotages the relationship. There is more cruelty carelessly inflicted on a independent woman (Betsy) and indirectly on himself than in 99 River Street. Instead, Ernie doesn't mistreat Pauline or Linda even when he's been deceived by both women. Travis is an unhinged Vietnam vet who's driving a cab in the night shift due to his insomnia. Squeamish, cocky and self-delusional by turns, Travis is isolated from the human jungle that clutters the sidewalks he passes over every day. He observes dispassionately the endless parade of pariahs, hookers and deviants, dreading he could turn into one of them. Harvey Keitel (playing a Thrasonical Sport) is Travis's imagined rival for the affections of Iris (Jodie Foster's teenage prostitute).

Travis's paranoia takes a turn for the worse after being disappointed by Senator Palantine. He thinks of himself as "God's lonely man" and he "got some bad ideas" in his head. Prey of an absolute loneliness, in his mind he has muted into an avenging angel. "Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me. Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere." One of the main differences between 99 River Street and Taxi Driver, besides the obvious changes to New York's downtown after two decades, it's a new feeling of contempt and disillusionment because of the Vietnam War, all mixed up with a ghoulish sexuality. While Driscoll is more of a hot-headed case whose essential character remains unalterable, Bickle's mind is more clearly psychotic, experiencing delirious bouts: "The idea had been growing in my brain for some time: True force. All the king's men cannot put it back together again."

Travis's crackbrained character is more modern in sensibility but as a final thought, he's kind of a symbolic figure while Ernie is more easily identifiable as an everyman (more in consonance with Robert Ryan's aging boxer in The Set-Up). A new lifestyle has been implemented in the big city, with its wide offer of enticing baubles and 24-hour live-shows. Travis is the living proof of how these changes in liberal attitudes affect the social sphere and result into a taxi-driver's epiphany as representative of the figurative manifestation of a collective death-wish. According to Scorsese: "I wanted the violence at the end to be as if Travis had to keep killing all these people in order to stop them once and for all. Paul saw it as a kind of Samurai 'death with honour' (suicide)." In Conversations with Scorsese by Richard Schickel, Scorsese discloses: "I always say, when I try to be amoral, I turn out to be immoral. In Taxi Driver I didn't enjoy shooting in those X-rated areas. And the film is very, very depressing."

Both Ernie Driscoll and Travis Bickle suffer from a major depressive disorder that turns them into hostile malcontents. Their traumatic encounters have thrust them into that frail position in relation with others. There are relevant differences in their ethical standpoints, though. Ernie is presented as a stubborn pugilist, a typical post-World War II dreamer who was tricked into believing that he'd inevitably become a champion. Karlson shows in the beginning of the film a boxing assault that renders Ernie doubly sightless. Ernie was predestined to lose (in the ring and in his marriage) because his life revolved in good measure around power, which inescapably led him to a moral stagnation. Ernie keeps his bad feelings on check, however hurtful it may be.

Travis, on the other hand, has come home to a post-Vietnam agitated society that frowns upon him and forces him to make a living in the middle of an urban jungle, sometimes more frantic than the combat field he left behind in Southeast Asia. Schrader's script suggest his experiences in the war have exacerbated Travis's condition, but I didn't see it developed in the film as central to his torment. He seems inexorably drawn to negative affairs that enhance his pessimism. His outward appearance is shabby, his mental health decaying, but he needs to see himself as the last man standing. At the height of his alienation we're shown how his life is disintegrating while he sleeps in a bunk bed, exercises fervently and talks to himself pointing with a gun at his image in the mirror: "Are you talking to me?"

Ernie's strungy build can be occasionally intimidating to others (especially to his friends Stan and Linda), but the script indicates he's deep down a nice man, unlike Travis, whose newly found obsession with working out and shaving his head only adds a new component of Nietzschean disfunction. John Payne's semblant is gentle, Robert De Niro's is crisp. Ernie never humiliates a woman deliberately, that would go against the accostumed chivalry of those men who had been educated by The Lost Generation and whose youth was marked by idealism. Travis is described by Schrader in his script as: "He has the smell of about him: Sick sex, repressed sex, lonely sex. He is a raw male force, driving forward; toward what, one cannot tell." Narrating his date with Betsy in Times Square, Schrader reveals: "there's also something that Travis could not even acknowledge, much less admit: That he really wants to get this pure white girl into that dark porno theatre."

On the contrary, we can't imagine Ernie telling jokes to a pimp or inviting a runaway girl to discuss her hip profession of selling sex to strangers (despite Travis's moralistic rant). Ernie shares the gallant view of women that would extent to the late 50's. "If I met a girl like that now, it'd be too late", he complains. We reckon Ernie is starting to forgive Linda and wants to give her another opportunity. He slowly grows out of his lethargy and imparts justice, fighting the cops and the crooks. He overcomes his own sorrow and emerges like a gas owner and an everyman in love with an ex-actress who's become his wife. Travis doesn't know how to treat a lady properly, he represents the advent of an upcoming generation of anti-heroes who get a hold on our shocked attention, projecting on the modern screen America's muddled conscience. Sexual obsessions and suicidal tendencies are habitual subjects in Hollywood of that era. Travis personifies the agonizing disposition of the working class man disconnected from his limiting stratum, cornered against a progressively decadent scenario.

Ernie is an extant emblem of the admirable American heroes (flawed, with selfish impulses, but essentially honest). Taxi Driver is by far the most acclaimed film, but 99 River Street celebrates unpretentiously values that now seem lost, encapsulating a time when heroes kept a sense of decency which normal people could respond to. Taxi Driver, instead, belongs to the 70's with its creative immersion in the auteur theory that distinctly marked a new period within the nihilist vision Hollywood would promote in the next decades. In the iconic finger/trigger moment of the bloodbath's aftermath, Scorsese subtly exposes Travis as remote, almost like another observer of the spree killing (just like one of us, ironic if we consider Travis is the perpetrator). 

That last scene inside the taxi proves how unreliable Travis's judgment is even after being lauded as a local hero. His final conversation with Betsy is misleading enough to make us think in the possibility of a dream as an alternate theory, and his upset look in the mirror after Betsy leaves confirmes our most obscure suspicions (something very characteristic of the noir genre). 

The happy ending of 99 River Street comes off a bit weird too (the possibility of a deception is always intrinsic in noir films, especially when happy endings are so scarce), although not nearly as surreal. Whereas John Payne's character finished his detour feeling exhausted yet unbeatable, Taxi Driver exhausts the audience instead, while Travis contemplates us from his blood-stained couch. 

Article published previously as In the Backseat: 99 River Street and Taxi Driver on the former's 70th Anniversary" on Blogcritics.

Debunking myths about Marilyn's last days

Jim DiEugenio: The whole Marilyn Monroe case became a sensationalistic industry in the mid seventies. And there was probably no person more responsible for that than Robert Slatzer. He literally made up this story about him being married to Marilyn, which was complete and utter BS. In fact he promised to pay a friend of his if he would lie for him about it to Anthony Summers. Well, the guy lied, Summers bought it, but Slatzer welched on the deal and did not pay him. So the guy then told the truth: that Slatzer made up a cock and bull story in order to sell his book. In  his volume, Murder Orthodoxies, Donald McGovern spent 20 pages utterly dismantling that piece of rubbish story. 

And I have to add that as bad as Norman Mailer's book was, Slatzer's was even worse. His book really broke the dam, and once it was out there, and went through a mass market paperback sale, all bets were off. Anything was now allowed. And I mean anything. Even space aliens. And Bobby telling Marilyn about how he was involved in Murder Inc. Which he was not. In fact, its ridiculous. But Slatzer printed that garbage. Thus the gates flew open. It was open season now on MM. She could be turned into anything you needed her to be: Mafia moll, UFOlogist, secret KGB spy, foreign policy expert for JFK.  I wish I was kidding but I'm not. Slatzer ended up selling two books and two documentaries out of his phony claims. Which turned out to be lucrative for him. Very bad for everyone else. Especially for the memory of Marilyn Monroe.  

Authors like McGovern and Vitacco-Robles have spent years and thousands of hours working on both MM's life and her passing. And they have done original research. That is they have interviewed many, many people. People likely do not know this, but the DA's office conducted a year long inquiry into these matters, including the charges made by people like Slatzer and Jeanne Carmen. Very similar to what Rothmiller comes up with more recently. DA Ronald Carrol wrote a 641 page report which refuted them specifically and in detail.  The MM nuts only mention a 27 page report. But that was  only the summary. Gary VItacco Robles petitioned the office for the full report. And he uses it in his book Icon. According to Mike Rothmiller, Bobby was in Brentwood not once, but twice that day! How, with the contravening evidence? Which as Don notes, Rothmiller says RFK was desperate for the diary, which did not exist. Her actual journals--which included poems--were discovered later in the Strasberg archives. As per the first detective on the scene, is Mike for real? Don McGovern proved that Clemmons was not just a fabricator but he was indicted on libel charges and forced to leave LAPD. Don proved that everything Clemmons said about the scene was false. The lie about the washer dryer, thus making Murray into some kind of unwitting accomplice was really kind of sick. 

As was the lie about there being no glass in MM's bedroom and it being neat. Pat Newcomb was a former student of Pierre Salinger. She was heartbroken after MM's death since she left the house that day over an argument about whether or not MM should pose nude in Playboy. She was against it. She was so broken up after her death that she left her job as a PR person and Salinger got her a position. Newcomb was not any kind of informant since there was nothing to inform about while she was there. Don McGovern describes how MM was positioned on the bed by the first group of cops to arrive after Clemmons left. And its not how Thompson describes it. Doug Thompson is an amateur. As for Rothmiller, he has joined up in the MM mythology/scatology industry. He tells us utterly nothing about JFK, RFK or MM. What he does is create false smears of them, which people who do not know anything about the case think are credible. When, in fact, that is the last thing they are. Its part and parcel of something I once called the posthumous assassination syndrome. Don McGovern demolished the Rothmiller story about MM and JFK having dinner during the second night of the 1960 Democratic Convention, when in fact she was not even in California! Rothmiller used Fred Otash? That seals it.  Otash was about as bad and amoral as they come. He made Spindel look like a decent guy. Wait until you see what I have on him in my upcoming article  "Joyce Carol Oates, Brad Pitt and the Road to Blonde."

And that whole thing about a press conference is even worse. Gary VItacco Robles interviewed the guy from her PR company and he said, nope. Not one word about it. This is what is called doing research for cross checking purposes. As per the Unheard Tapes, consider the way she was asked the question: "But, on the show, Summers did not ask Eunice if Robert Kennedy visited on August 4th: the term the author used was “that day,” along with “that afternoon.” We know that Robert Kennedy visited Marilyn, accompanied by Pat and Peter Lawford, on the 27th of June in 1962. Eunice Murray recounted the attorney general’s brief visit on that Wednesday for biographer Donald Spoto. The Lawfords arrived at Fifth Helena that afternoon to collect Marilyn, and Robert Kennedy was with them: Marilyn wanted them to see her new home. After a brief tour of Marilyn’s humble hacienda, the group proceeded to the Lawford’s beachside mansion for a dinner party. That June visit, residential tour and dinner party was the fourth and final meeting of Bobby and Marilyn.

There were no such questions in any literary form about MM's death until 1964. This was when inveterate Kennedy hater and professional Red hunter Frank Capell issued his pamphlet on the subject. Which no one today takes seriously since it is so obviously a political hit piece on RFK. Secondly, if say Allen Dulles or Curtis LeMay, had wanted to know where RFK was that weekend, they would have consulted with Hoover and Hoover's report said that he was in GIlroy with the Bates family.  That report included time of arrival and departure. So like with many things, what on earth  is Mike talking about?  The MM fables did not begin in earnest in any way until Mailer's book, several years later.  And then Mailer admitted on TV that he threw RFK in for one reason: he needed the money.

MM did not have "affairs" with either JFK or RFK. You can only adduce that if you rely on more jokester sources like the discredited David Heymann or Jeanne Carmen, both proven frauds. Don McGovern examined every major tenet of the Rothmiller book. It is not my opinion that RFK had nothing to do with MM's death.  It is an established fact that he was in Gilroy about 350 miles away at the time. And there is a plethora of evidence, including a series of photographs in time sequence, that demonstrate this beyond doubt. For many years on end, actually decades, cheapjack writers like Robert Slatzer and David Heymann simply manufactured a mythology that had no basis in fact in order to sell their pulpy books to an all too willing populace. What Don McGovern did was to carefully analyze the information in these books, compare them to each other, and compare them to the adduced record. The pills MM took were ingested, they were not injected or supplied by enema. And Don proves this scientifically. 

The mixture she took of Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate should have never been allowed by her doctors. There is no evidence that there was anything at all between RFK and MM. There is some evidence that there was a one shot encounter between JFK and MM, back in 1961. There was not any continuing affair. The work that has been done on this by skilled and professional writers uses the calendars that are demanded of the AG and POTUS, with the MM day books by Carl Rollyson and April Vevea. April Vevea has become a really good and valuable writer on the subject. And she has been one of the most proficient sources to effectively counter all the crapola that came from people like Slatzer and Mailer and Carmen. The difference being she does some careful and logical and fact based work. As per RFK and Gilroy, how much evidence do you want? Pictures, testimony, newspaper stories. As per Summers and Shaw, their books, for me, are like one step below people like Slatzer. Just take a look at how much Summers relies on Slatzer, Carmen and Smathers.  And I should also add Gary Wean. I actually sent away for Wean's book. And what Summers left out about this guy is the real story that you will hear soon.  Source: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com