Book Review: One Lifetime Is Not Enough by Zsa Zsa Gabor

 

(Sorry for the blurry pic, but you just had to see the cover!)

This book is a riot! I recommend it as a good bathtub / summer vacation read. Zsa Zsa is very candid and if even half the things she says are true one lifetime really isn't enough. Diamonds, men, celebrities, violence, wealth, all are an intrisic part of Zsa Zsa's life. It is truly like a soap opera, only better!

(Seriously!?)

I don't think this is in print anymore, but I picked up a copy at a local used book store for under ten bucks, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. If you find it, it's worth picking up for a taste of the lifestyles of the rich and somewhat famous in the 40's and 50's. And don't forget the healthy dose of cattiness thrown in for good measure!

Goodbye Norma Jean, or, Next to Cleopatra the Most Idolized Suicuide in History

Marilyn Monroe... the name inspires many things; beauty, lust, comedy, an unquestionable icon of the 50's, sex symbol.

Born Norma Jean Baker (later Norma Jean Dougherty),  Norma Jean was an orphan of sorts, moving from one foster home to the next. No one told her she was special, or pretty, she wrote in her biography "My Story". Her mother, who was in and out of mental institutions, was unable to care for Norma Jean, but also would not allow another family to adopt the child, leaving Norma Jean to a transient life that eventually became a marriage at 16 to a young neighbor named Jim Dougherty. She did not love him, she protested on her wedding day. He didn't seem to return the feeling either, as Norma Jean's early diaries speak of his trysts with an old girlfriend. But it didn't matter. The two were married and lived in Los Angeles. Jim was soon called to military duty, and while he was away, Norma Jean was discovered.

At first she worked in a factory for fifteen cents an hour until she decided to try modeling, which paid much better. Soon Norma Jean was able to leave her job at the factory and commit herself to her modeling full time.

It was during this time that the now infamous nude calendar photo was taken, for which she was paid $50 - exactly the amount she needed to get her car out of repossession.

For all of her sensuality on screen and in public, Marilyn herself describes her sexual desire as "non-existant", and even wonders in her memoirs if she is frigid, or even a lesbian, as she says "I did get a thrill from a well-built woman that I never felt for a man."
Though many other stars of the day write of Marilyn as a tart and even as the woman everyone in Hollywood was having sex with, Marilyn herself describes a far different picture - one of loneliness and fighting off "the wolves" as she calls them. She adamantly denies any affairs with motion picture moguls or her co-stars.

In one of the most chilling moments of her memoir, Marilyn has yet to become the star she will soon be, and has been fired by her studio for being "non-photogenic". She goes into a dizzying dispair, filling her days with keeping to her bed, and her nights with crying. She did not sleep. It is during this period that she writes, "and I suddenly realized, "I am one of those girls you find dead in a hallway bedroom with a bottle of empty sleeping pills in my hand". I wonder if she always knew. 

So what is it about this fragile blonde with the childlike innocence  blended with the sexuality of a rock star that so draws us to her, now some 50 years after her suicide? Was it the hint of madness, that glimmer of the young abused Norma Jean coming through her eyes that so captivates us? (In her book, she starts to speak of herself (Marilyn) and Norma Jean as two separate persons.) Perhaps it was the way she walked, talked and moved that was so sensual, even when her thoughts were as far from sex as possible - that sense of her as unpossessable that so draws us in. We've always loved Marilyn, and she always needed that love; the desire to be needed and wanted was a dominating factor in her personality. 

She needed to be needed so badly that I believe it drove everything she did in her life, and ultimately lead to her sad and lonley death in a little bedroom off the hallway with an empty bottle of pills beside the bed and the phone clutched losely in one hand.  

 Marilyn Monroe
1926 - 1962
died at 36 years old of a suspected overdose of a variaty of pills

(Marilyn's favorite photo of herself)

Sources:
My Story, by Marilyn Monroe and Ben Hecht

Fragments, Personal Notes and writings of Marilyn Monroe, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment

How to Be a 1950's Housewife (A Tounge and Cheek Tale)

How to be a 1950's Housewife

Originally found in a 1950's high school home economics textbook, teaching girls how to prepare for married life.

1. Have dinner ready: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him, and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.

2. Prepare yourself: Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work- weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.

 

3. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too.

4. Prepare the children: Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces if they are small, comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.

5. Minimize the noise: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, dishwasher or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

6. Things to avoid: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he's late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.

7. Make him comfortable: Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

8. Listen to him: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.

9. Make the evening his: Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment; instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.

10. The goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax.

Okay, now for a dose of reality. Let's face it - this just isn't appropriate advice for most American couples today. With the two-person income there's no time for all this coddling, cooking and so fourth.

But what if there was?

What would happen to your marriage or relationship if you quit your job and stayed home to run the house, took up cooking and cleaning and minding the children? Now, I'm not saying this lifestyle choice is right for everyone, and there are tons of blogs that cater to other ways of living. But here, I suggest, what would happen if you tried just a few of the things on the list above? What if you freshened up before your husband came home from work? What if you had dinner ready on the table, or at least take-out, nicely set? What if you made your partner feel like more of a priority in your life? How do you think that would impact your relationship?

Perhaps you could give it a try and see how your partner responded to the hightened respect and interest you've invested into the relationship. What's the worst that could happen? Even if your partner doesn't respond to your liking, you'll still have a cleaner house!

 

A Tale of Two Beds

Ozzy and Harriette did it. So did Lucy and Ricky, and Ward and June Cleaver. All of them had their own twin bed as opposed the couples sharing a single bed, which we see as common today. Were these shows portraying the truth? Did Grandma and Grandpa really have separate beds?

From everything I can find the answer is a definitive no. Most 50's bedrooms contained one large bed instead of two smaller ones, though I'm sure than there were some who stuck to the traditional separation during sleep.

It seemed that the sponsors who advertised during these types of family shows were afraid of offending their audiences with the insinuation that married folks actually did it. Thank goodness they were wrong! 

Here are some more images I've compiled of 1950's bedrooms for your delighted consumption:

Sex in the 50's

The contraceptive pill wasn't approved by the FDA until the early 1960's, so the control of sex, and there within, pregnancy, fell largely on women, changing the sexual freedom we enjoy in relationships today dramatically different. Or so one would think. Imagine how this affected dating and marriages. Would it make a man more likely to look for intercourse outside of the marriage, searching for sex without consequences?


Affair's in the 1950's: 

In his infamous report (first name) Kinsey found that one in four men admitted to having had sex with prostitutes and one in five women owned up to an extra-marital affair. 
How do those numbers correspond with the men of the 2010's? According to a 2007 MSNBC and iVillage survey, 44 percent of married men have an affair. According to MSNBC, men usually cheat during the third to fifth years if they are unsatisfied with their sex life.

Was oral sex more prevalent in the 50's than today? 
It's hard to say for sure, though the  term "giving head" was added to the American vocabulary in the 1950's. One could make the assertion that a woman might be more receptive to this type of sexual activity in preference to sexual intercourse as for the unmarried woman it saved her "honor" for marriage, and for both married and unmarried women presented no concern for pregnancy. 

Men's magazines and the introduction of Playboy will be discussed more in another entry, soon to come. 

Did grandma have more sex than me? 
(Reprinted from the original article by David Ward, in The Guardian, Friday 6 August 2004 01.44 BST)

"You may not believe this but Prima magazine says it so it must be true: married women have less sex today than their grandmothers did. The magazine said women in the 1950s had sex an average of twice a week. But a survey found two-thirds of today's women said they were too tired to manage that much. Cynics may say the fact that there was only one television station 50 years ago, which shut down at about 10pm, could be a factor. Prima's study focused on how women's attitudes towards love, sex and marriage had changed since the 1940s. It found that sex before marriage was now the norm, with four out of five couples sleeping together by the fifth date; but after marriage the passion died down." 

References:

MSNBC: Cheating Heart

We Had More Sex in the 50's. Survey Says

David Ward The Guardian, Friday 6 August 2004 01.44 BST

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-data.html 

The Nuclear Home: Interiors in the 50's

The  Atomic Ranch house is an American design that began in the 1920's but really had it's heyday with the post-war middle class in the 1950's. when it became so popular that nine out of ten new homes built were of the ranch style. It was these houses that many a 50's women called her home. She made her meals in it's kitchen, raised her children there, and even perhaps sewed her clothing in the home's den or spare bedroom.


Why Atomic you ask? Because of the bomb, darling. The nuclear bombs that ended the war had an oddly positive effect on the American socio-political thinking as a "nuclear optimism" infused the 50's with it's hope for an end to all war, and a belief that nuclear power would heal the sick and end our dependency on fossil fuels. In short, we'd won the war, the boys had come home, and now everything was going to be perfect.


The interior's of these houses took a dramatic turn from previous styles, though some vestigages of the old designs (art deco, craftsman, etc) can still be found. Lineoleum and plastics became a big part of the household furnishings, though you were as likely to find a carpeted bathroom as one laid in the more practical lineoleum. Let's think about that for a moment, shall we? What does it mean to carpet your bathroom, a clearly impractical design? Again, I return to this drive towards perfection. There was, I believe, another side to this perfection - a need to make it all look effortless. Perfectly manicured nails, elaborate hairdo's done just so, fancy house dresses and a well set table all were meant to represent the wealth and stature America, and therefore Americans, had achieved.


Now for what you've all been waiting for: The eye candy. Enjoy!

Blissful Domesticity

In the 1950's many women's desire was to be married and have a home and children to care for. In today's modern times, some women still desire this in one form or another - either to be a stay at home wife without children, or to work and yet have children, or any other combination. There are plenty of blogs out there for working women, and I think they are wonderful. This blog, however, is dedicated to and for the women of the 2010's who still longs for the trappings a 1950's woman enjoyed - domesticity, in all it's glory and goriness, and nights spent out dancing like the stars they so admired. (Lana Turner and Ava Gardner are a long way from the Paris Hilton's and the Lindsey Lohan's of today).

These women, and their husbands, went to nightclubs where drinks were served at their table, and the music was live big band, with dancing of actual dances, instead of the simple gyrating to the digital beat we find in "clubs" today. The women of the 1950's reveled in their glamour, and wore furs, diamonds and heels the way we wear t-shirts, jeans, and flip flops today.

I personally wish for a blending of the 1950's and today. I like equality, power steering, air conditioning and black Presidents. But I also enjoy a beautifully made perfectly tailored dress with a hem below the knees and a petticoat underneath, topped off with a perfect little hat and gloves. I like short, curly styled hair, and red lipstick. I like heels. I think Lana, Marilyn, Ava, Elizabeth and the rest were all some of the most beautiful women to ever have lived. Why? Because they worked at it. They perfected their glamour, refining it, playing with their looks and dress, but always remained beautiful. I strive for this too.