Jennifer Nicholson's Historical House of Mirth

SELLER: Jennifer Nicholson
LOCATION: Georgina Avenue, Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $7,995,000
SIZE: 3,437 square feet, 4 bedrooms 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Totally renovated gorgeous 1911 home on amazing apx 20,600 sq. ft. lot. Prime Georgina Ave. blocks from from the beach. 4BD, 3.5BA w/ plans & permits passed by the city & historical committee. Featured in House & Garden. Updated kit w/ tope of the line appliances, breakfast room & entertaining bar. 2BD up w/ sleeping porch, 2BD down. Exquisite LR, fam rm & ofc/sun room. Formal DR w/ French doors opens to extra-lg lush bkyd. 20car garage & artists studio. Completely remodeled designer home w/ Old World charm.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Jennifer Nicholson is a fashun dee-ziner who has enough capital and cajones to present her sorta sexy collections on an army of skinny bitches at the once mighty, now not quite so mighty, Bryant Park Tents in New York City. She also happens to be the eldest daughter of age-ed Hollywood Lothario Jack Nicholson who recently dropped her historical and well placed Santa Monica house on the market for an eye popping $7,995,000.

Property records reveal that Miz Nicholson purchased her symmetrical and soigne French Colonial style Santa Monica residence in July of 2003, right about the same time she sold a small ocean view house on Via De Las Olas in Pacific Palisades. Records to not disclose what Miz Nicholson paid for the Santa Monica property, but given its stellar location just spitting distance to the beach and walking distance to the 3rd Street Promenade and the charming and freaky amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier, Your Mama imagines that she paid handsomely for the 3,437 square foot landmark residence which historical information indicates was first located around the corner on San Vicente Boulevard before it was moved to its current location in 1952.

According to listing information, the good sized slightly shy of a half acre lot includes the lovely and charming main house, that in addition to the 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, includes formal living and dining rooms, an office/sun room, a top of the line kitchen with breakfast area and entertaining bar (whatever that is), and a family room. One of the more interesting and desirable features of the house, at least as far as Your Mama is concerned, is the upstairs sleeping porch which we imagine to be an excellent place to catch some afternoon shut eye with the smell of salt in your nose and the sea air on your skin. Completing the property is a detached two-car garage with an artists studio.

Clearly Miz Nicholson has a real flair for decorating. We're quite certain her verve and zest for ornamentation and exuberant texture is not every one's cup of tea. But we love it. We could never live among Miz Nicholson's organized chaos without having to be on a daily dosage of Diazepam, but we adore a house that has been infused with so much vibrant and individual character. This is not just any person's house, this is a custom made confection tailored to the current owner's interests, whits and whims. Brava Miss Thing!

Of course, Your Mama would go out of our ever loving mind trying to direct even Ezmerelda and Svetlana, our ferociously competent house cleaners, to properly dust that funky birdcage chandelier-thing in the dining room. And we are concerned that our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly would live in absolute fear of those leopard print Lewees, constantly worried they were tomcats on the prowl ready to devour their hot dog bodies at any moment.

But Your Mama is crazy in love with Miz Nicholson's happily insane sun room with the shell backed chair and the magnificent shell encrusted pedestals that look like something dredged up from the bottom of the damn sea. The kitchen cabinetry is a mite fussy for our favor, but the mirror patterned marble floor (is that marble?) has Your Mama peeing our pants with glee. Say what you will about Miz Nicholson's slightly disturbing Mao Tse Tung painting with the hot pink background or that wonderfully fucked up ship chandelier, but do not speak an ill word about that dee-voon kitchen floor or Your Mama will go all sorts of berserk on your tasteless ass.

A little research on the internets tells Your Mama that not long after purchasing the property Miz Nicholson drew up plans for a large extension at the back of the house. Because of the house's historical status, all sorts of preservationist hoops were required to be jumped through to gain approval for any sort of renovation project. It would appear from both the listing information and records we dug up online that Miz Nicholson and her team of people cleared all the necessary hoops and the long extension was approved and permits were issued.

The extension asked for would have included tearing down the existing detached garage and building an new one and then connecting the new garage with the residence via a long extension from the back of the house. Apparently the new square footage would have included a large(r) sun room. Presumably it would have housed rooms with other uses too, but Your Mama didn't end up get that bit of information sussed out.

Your Mama can't imagine why Miz Nicholson would go through all the damn trouble and considerable bother to get plans and permits for this rather extensive extension and then decide to sell the house. But people are funny and unpredictable, and who are we to question the fickle ways of a princess to one of Hollywood's most royal thrones? We imagine one of Your Mama's children knows the why, where, and who, and if you'd like to share, please email Your Mama and start sharing.

According to a snitch who like to whisper in Your Mama's ear, Miz Nicholson also maintains an ocean front condominium in Malibu, and we presume the lady has access to at least one of the four houses her father owns up on Mulholland Drive near Coldwater Canyon Lane, including big, fat and dead Marlon Brando's residence (all due respect) and scene of the murder that ripped the Brando family to shreds.

Wherever Miz Nicholson lands, whether it be on the east or west coast, we dearly hope she'll invite Your Mama over to view her new digs, because we know in our bones it's going to be a clever and captivating home that will have us swooning and sighing.

Mister Halloween

Happy Halloween all. Tallulah is out Trick-or-Treating, by which I mean she turned a trick she felt was quite a treat, and now she's out --- cold. So while she's napping, I'd like to tell you about the man who was Halloween Personified to me: Larry "Seymour" Vincent, who is 32 dead years dead, but forever alive in my heart.

I don't think I've mentioned that I've written and published a new book, The Q Guide to Classic Monster Movies. What? I have mentioned it? Okay. It's a Halloween-type book. I'd like to share with you the words found on the dedication page. They are:

Jerry Vance was born in Boston in 1924. Early in his career he adopted the name Larry Vincent, but when he died all too young at 50 in 1975, he was best known as Seymour, The Master of the Macabre, The Epitome of Evil, The Most Sinister Man to Crawl Across the Face of the Earth. And the Best TV Horror Host that ever was. He was also the first person to pay me to write jokes about horror movies, and he was my friend. I miss him still, and I dedicate this book to his memory.

A photograph of Larry and myself was supposed to appear on that page, but was cut without my permission, or indeed even any notification to me. I found out it was not in the book when the I received the first copy. This is one of several matters concerning the treatment my book received from it's publishers which have left me - let's say dissatisfied. Anyway, here's the picture that was supposed to be in the book.

A strange thing happened a couple days before the book came out. I was channel surfing one afternoon less than a week before publication day, and I came across an episode of Mission: Impossible from the third season, shot probably in 1968 or '69. This seemed like just the mindless white noise I wanted running. A few minutes into it, a door on the TV screen opened, and Larry Vincent stepped into the show and began playing a scene with Martin Landau.

I knew that Larry had appeared in an episode of Mission: Impossible, but not that I was watching that episode, so his appearance surprised me into happy tears. There was my long-dead friend, alive and acting with a future Oscar winner. And Landau's Oscar was for playing Bela Lugosi, an actor, and I use the term loosely, who is profiled in my new book, (Have I mentioned I have a new book out? Just checking.) dedicated to Larry. It was a wild series of accidental occurrences, but it felt to me like a ghostly visit from my friend, a Hello to acknowledge my posthumous gift. Incidentally, that episode, from season 3, comes out on DVD in December. I'll be buying it. So can you.

I'd like to share with you this Halloween an account of my friendship with this wonderful and funny man, which I wrote 7 years ago for the Local Legends webpage, about Los Angeles TV personalities of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Believe me, if there'd been no Seymour, there'd never have been Elvira.

Having been a big fan of Jeepers Creepers (A hosted horror movie TV show in Los Angeles from 1962 to 1965.), when I was ages 12 to 14, when a new horror host show, Fright Night With Seymour came on KHJ in 1970, I was excited to tune in, and quickly fell in love with Seymour's prickly sense of iconoclastic humor. I was in college at the time, and never guessed that before Seymour ran his course, I would become a part of it.

Seymour was so popular with us college kids, that we actually turned on the show and watched him, even at parties. I remember the night I turned 21, in May 1971, I performed as Puck in the closing night performance of our University production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, then went to the closing night party at the home of the girl playing Hermia in Hermosa beach, and very stoned, we all watched Seymour. We talked through most of whichever movie was running, and we ignored the commercials, but we all watched Seymour and laughed our heads off.

I first actually met Seymour that October, the night the opening day at Disney World TV special was broadcast. Seymour was hosting a special Halloween show at the Wiltern Theatre: a double feature of The Return Of Count Yorga & Night Of The Living Dead. Seymour did a monologue, including his infamous version of The Raven, then sat onstage with a microphone and made jokes all through the silly Count Yorga sequel. (Whatever possessed AIP to think that queeny Robert Quarry could be the next Vincent Price?) During intermission Seymour signed autographs in the lobby. Then he introduced the second feature, mentioning that jokes wouldn't be appropriate during George Romero's disturbing masterpiece, and left.

I stood in the fan line and got Seymour's autograph on my Seymour certificate and went home thoroughly entertained. Over the next couple years I attended several more Seymour appearances in movie theatres, and seeing some real dogs in the process. But the day came, in late 1973, when Seymour was announced to ride in the Westminster Founder's Day Parade, a parade which formed on the grounds of Westminster High School, from which I had graduated in 1968, just a half mile from my home.

I was working then writing radio comedy for "Sweet Dick" Whittington at KGIL (To this day, still a close friend), and decided to take a shot at getting a writing spot with Seymour. I was convinced I could write the character. I'd seldom missed the show, and felt I knew the character intimately by this time.

I found Seymour waiting around, just outside a classroom in which, a few years earlier, I had studied Moby Dick & Lord Of The Flies. I introduced myself to Larry Vincent, told him I was writing for Sweet Dick, and asked if he was looking for writers for his TV show. Luck was in. He was. He told me to call his office on Monday and set-up an appointment to come in and show him some sample material. He also introduced me to Lynda Vincent, his much-younger wife, who wrote most of the shows with him, and Gary Blair, the show's executive producer, who was also the voice of Herkamer Eugenski, the nasal voiced, whiny announcer for Seymour Presents on KTLA.

I made that call, come Monday, and Larry, who was as nice on the phone, as Seymour was prickly on the air, invited me to come down to the studio a few days later, on the day they would be shooting that week's show. I could show him my samples and watch a Seymour show shot. I was in Heaven.

The evening before my appointment, I sat down and made a stack of what I felt were my strongest radio sketches. Then I put paper in the typewriter, and wrote a sample Seymour sketch.

At that time, one of the most popular shows on the air on KTLA was Help Thy Neighbor. Neighbor was a morbid feel-good tearfest, on which down-on-their-luck sad sacks would come on, unload their sob story to the host, Larry Van Nuys, and then Larry would take phone calls. Viewers (The show was on live, 5 nights a week) would call in with one form of assistance or another to help the poor schmuck humiliating himself. It was creepy and smarmy, only slightly less horrifying then Queen For A Day. (At least everybody who came on got helped. They didn't kick 3 needy cases out empty-handed each day like Queen did.)


I felt that Help Thy Neighbor was ripe for the Seymour treatment. I wrote a sketch called Shaft Thy Neighbor, in which Seymour read a letter from a pathetic wretch who had been buried under the biggest pile of hard luck since Job, and then took calls from people who "Helped" him, by making matters worse. ("You will no longer have to work day and night at two jobs to support your wife and 14 shoeless children, because your bosses both phoned and fired you, your wife has left you for another man, and your children have all run away.")

When I got to the KTLA lot at Sunset & Van Ness (Just across the street from an apartment building, now demolished, in which I was to live in 1986-8. It's the apartment building in Pulp Fiction.) Larry brought me in to to see The Slimy Wall in the sound stage. To my delight, the Help Thy Neighbor set sat right next to the Slimy Wall, at right angles to it. My sketch could be shot on the actual set, just by rotating the cameras 90 degrees!

As we entered the studio, we ran into Larry Van Nuys coming out. As it happened, I knew Larry Van Nuys. Prior to his achieving 15 minutes of stardom with Help Thy Neighbor, he had been the next disc jockey on after Whittington each morning at KGIL. (Since leaving, he'd been replaced by Wink Martindale) Larry Van Nuys, seeing me, hollered, "Douglas! How the hell are you?", and grabbed me in a big bear hug and gave me a loud, sloppy kiss on the cheek, all right in front of Larry Vincent. I explained that I was there to try and land a job writing for Seymour, and Larry Van Nuys, on the spot, began to regale Larry Vincent with extravagant praise of my comic genius. This, I felt, didn't hurt at all

Larry Vincent explained that he had been actively trying out writers for sometime, to find someone to take the burden of turning out the scripts every week off his and Lynda's shoulders. In fact, the show I was going to see shot was written by a female guest writer, to whom I was introduced. I instantly envied and hated her.


Back in his office, I gave Larry my sample pile, with the Seymour sketch carefully buried at the bottom. I sat there as Larry read the pages. He started looking stern and detached, but quickly was laughing out loud, and mentioning how funny he found some of the words used. (I remember him saying he thought "Dreck" a particularly funny word, when it popped up in one of my sketches.)


Then he came to Shaft Thy Neighbor. "What's this?" he asked. I explained that it was a sample Seymour sketch I'd written the night before, to show how well I could write for him. He put his serious, detached face back on, but it didn't stay long. By the time he finished reading the sketch, not only had I been commissioned to write an entire script, but Larry bought the Shaft sketch on the spot.

The movie I was assigned to write a show around was The Leech Woman. Unfortunately, it was not possible for some reason, for me to see the movie before writing the script. (The evening my show was broadcast remains, to this day, my only viewing of The Leech Woman, a film of seminal importance to my career.) I looked the movie up in several guides, and read as much about it as I could, and went from there.



Since I couldn't write about the film's specifics, I wrote instead a series of parodies of other famous films & TV shows. My opening sketch was a take-off on You Bet Your Life. When Seymour said "Fringies", that turned out to be the secret word, and a rubber chicken came flying down from the eaves. Another sketch employed a huge photo of Banjo Billy I had seen on Larry's office wall, which, in my script, became Dorian Gray's portrait of Seymour. ("Many of you have commented on how I appear to be eternally youthful, how my classically chiseled features never show the wear of time.") Of course, when Seymour revealed the picture, he was livid. ("That can't be me! I want my money back! Eternal youth isn't worth that! Get me Dorian Gray on the telephone immediately!")

I had Seymour try to crash That Party Down The Block disguised as a mousekateer, wearing my own, personal mouse ears, and a furry shirt that had been part of a theatrical costume of mine. (Lynda Vincent provided the offscreen voice of Annette). Shaft Thy Neighbor was used, and, in my favorite sketch, a parody of Curt Siodmak's beloved Sci-fi nonsense Donovan's Brain, I had Seymour remove Eugenski's brain and put it in a fish tank. The disembodied brain instantly took control of Seymour, forcing him to tap dance and sing Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey. In the final scene, Eugenski's brain had been put in Seymour's body, so Seymour now spoke with his squeaky voice, while Seymour's brain squawked impotently from the tank. In short, since this might be my only Seymour script, I fired all my comedy guns.

I delivered the finished script to Larry at the Equicon science fiction film convention, that November. My relationship with Larry had already altered. It was no longer fan and celebrity. Larry let me hang with him throughout the convention, and we discovered that I had the ability to break Larry up as easily as he broke me up. We were to go on breaking each other up, for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, when the time came to shoot the script, Larry had bad news. KTLA had cancelled him. My script was to be his next-to-last show. Larry told me he was very happy with what I had written. He said they had auditioned dozens of other writers and every single one of them had had to be completely rewritten by Lynda and him to fit the character's speech patterns and stay in character, which meant they saved them no work at all. Mine was the only script anyone else had ever written for them that could be shot exactly as written, with no rewriting. The job would have been mine, except, there was now no job.


One change had been made. KTLA Standards & Practices decided that Shaft Thy Neighbor was dirty. (It was 1973. Dinosaurs still walked the earth) The sketch was changed to Shelf Thy Neighbor, which sounds similar, but which, you'll notice, makes no sense.

On KTLA we had a set time slot. The show had to end on time. As we shot the show, it soon became clear that my script was too long. Midway through shooting, the film editor went back to his lab and hacked a few more minutes out of The Leech Woman, to give us some more air time. (So disrespectful. Fortunately, the movie is crap) Even with the movie butchered to bits, there wasn't time for my brain switch ending. Seymour's brain would remain in his skull. Too bad.

My friend, the late David Tarling, came to the taping with me and took these pictures, now so precious to me. The one picture from that day that I no longer have, was a shot of Larry, Lynda, Garry and myself, lined up in front of the Slimy Wall. Months later, when I began working with Larry at his home on a projected record album, I was proud to see that picture of us framed on Larry's living room wall, where it remained until his death.

So, that was it, I thought. The day of the broadcast, in January 1974, I had friends over and we and my family all watched my first, and for all we knew last, show air. At one point, after an unseen, imaginary audience boos a particularly lame joke, Seymour said, "I didn't write that joke. I got it from Eugenski, and he got it from his writer, whom I've already fired." My mother broke up and, always willing to ally herself with anyone criticizing me, said, "He really let you have it for that one." I believe she was disappointed when I showed her that every word of that bit, including the booing sound effects, were in the script and were written by me. Mother was so hoping it was Larry departing from the script to humiliate me on TV.

Shortly thereafter, I was promoted to producer of The Sweet Dick Whittington Show at KGIL, which was now full-time employment, writing bits, booking the interview guests and setting up all the details of Dick's notorious live stunts. I became happily busy.

At the beginning of March Larry Vincent called me. KHJ had picked the show up. Back under it's original title Fright Night With Seymour, it was going back on the air in April, and Larry was putting me on staff to write half the shows. Best of all, our time slot was open-ended. It didn't matter how long we ran, so I could write as long a show as I wanted and we would do it all, without butchering the movies. You've heard of a dream come true? Well, this was one.

We shot every other Thursday afternoon, doing two shows in a session. Every other taping session I would be the author of the shows. The two shows in between would be by Larry & Lynda.

I would come in to the studio and sit in a screening room so tiny it made the Marx Brothers stateroom look like a stateroom, and a projectionist would run 16mm prints of my two movies. In this pre-home video Stone Age this was the only chance I had to see the films, though a couple, like The Incredible Shrinking Man, which was the best film we ran, I already knew fairly well. I took extensive notes of everything that happened in the movie. I wrote the scripts at my leisure, usually in my office at KGIL, turned them in, came in the day before taping and met with the projectionist/editor, with whom I would extract the film clips we would be using in the show. Since we literally snipped the clips out of the movie, and spliced them back in when we had shot the show, we were damaging the prints every time we used a clip. Naughty.

I came to all the tapings, whether it was my shows or not, for two reasons. 1. I often came up with tweakings for lines or bits on the set, and 2. Being with Larry was such a joy I wanted to be around all I could.

Larry was a great guy, and we became close friends quickly. Lynda & Garry were also terrific people, and we were a happy unit indeed. Larry had a temper. If somebody screwed something up, he would let them have it with both barrels, but he never simply got angry, and he never got angry without cause. In all the time I knew him, he never once raised his voice to me.

In May, Larry rode in the Strawberry Festival Parade in Garden Grove, not far from my folk's home in Westminster. I rode in the parade with Larry & Lynda, then we went to my parent's home for a huge home cooked meal. My 16 year old brother Duncan had, of course, told every kid for miles around that Seymour was coming to our house, so there was a small crowd of kids to greet us when we arrived. (Enroute, we had stopped at a K-Mart to pick something up, and Larry had been recognized, and started a small mob scene.) Larry & I got going at that meal, sharing increasingly ribald humor, while Lynda & my mother sort of smiled indulgently. (I remember one thing that broke us up being the idea of Larry playing Banjo Billy wearing, instead of Groucho glasses and fake nose, a dildo-nose & glasses. Well, it is a funny image, though Mother wasn't amused.)

We attended a Sci-fi/comics convention in San Diego together, during which, they ran Larry's ghastly movie The Witchmaker. Larry and I sat and made jokes aloud throughout the film to the delight of the audience.

(In an excessively weird co-incidence, at that time, I was working for Larry Vincent, who had appeared in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, and Sweet Dick Whittington, who appeared in The Thing With Two heads. Stranger still, now those two two-headed movies are available on the same DVD. It's like my 1974 life on one disc, with my one boss on side 1, and my other boss on side 2. Spooky.)

Killing two jobs with one stone, I booked Larry on The Whittington Show on KGIL one morning as an interview guest and sat back and listened to the comedy gold as my two bosses sparked and riffed together, the only time they ever met. (Needless to say, they both tried to top each other with tales of what an utterly worthless excuse for an employee I was.)

One time on the set, a sketch required Larry to wear a Sherlock Holmes-type deerstalker cap. He was wearing my own personal one. (I kept writing my wardrobe into the show) Larry was in place on the set, waiting for the scene to be slated when I strolled up to him and whispered to him that he had the hat on backwards. Now, of course, the front and back of a deerstalker cap are identical. It isn't possible to put it on backwards, though you can wear it sideways, as Harpo does in Duck Soup. Larry knew this, of course. But he strode mock-angrily off the set, and staged a pretend tantrum ("Why doesn't anybody check these details?") about almost being allowed to do the sketch with the hat on wrong, while he took the hat off, turned it around, and re-groomed.

May 1st, 1974 Doodles Weaver was on the set. He had recently released a record album called Feetlebaum Returns, and was now going to produce a Seymour comedy album. Larry and I were to write it. That evening I dined with Doodles and Walker Edmiston, and Doodles regaled us with tales of drinking with Bogart. Doodles was a great guy to hang with, but murder to work with. We argued about material constantly. Basically, I would write a Seymour piece and Doodles would rewrite it into a Doodles piece, and then, since Larry would be doing it rather than Doodles, it got changed back to my original version.

I remember one afternoon, sitting with Larry in his living room in Santa Monica, working on the album script, when Larry and I noticed something odd. Visible through his sliding glass door, a wrench was floating up into the air. Larry had an open toolbox on the porch, and we found a kid leaning out of the window of an upstairs apartment, with a fishing rod with a magnet on the line, tool fishing.

Larry was appearing six nights a week at The Mayfair Music Hall in Santa Monica most of that year. As it was easier than bringing people to the studio, I often took friends to the Music Hall to meet Larry and see him perform live, seeing and meeting guest performers as varied as Ian Whitcomb and the late, great Anna Russell. Bernard Fox, who more recently appeared in both Titanic and the Brendon Fraser version of The Mummy, was the Master of ceremonies for these shows.

Once Larry tipped me off that Mel Brooks was shooting a sequence for his new film at the Music Hall in the afternoons that week. I put on my "I Belong Here" expression and showed up, which is how I came to be present in the room when Mel shot the Puttin' On the Ritz scene in Young Frankenstein, a scene this blog's friend Ken Levine has listed as among the top 5 funniest scenes in movie history. (And I am inclined to agree.)

Another day, Larry told me about going into a bar the evening before. Rod Serling sat down next to him and ordered a drink. Slowly the two men noticed each other. "Rod Serling?" Larry asked. "Seymour?" Rod asked back. Turned out Serling was a Seymour fan too. Larry was just tickled by it.

On August 8th, 1974, we had just finished taping my scripts for Vincent Price's Diary Of A Madman & Son Of Godzilla, when a news bulletin came over the studio monitors. I stood next to Larry Vincent in the studio at KHJ and watched Richard Nixon resign. Larry was very depressed by the event, fearing it boded ill for America. I was ecstatic to see the old bastard fleeing in disgrace.

During my time writing for Larry I came up with two new characters for him to play on the show, a biker hipster called "Mr. Cool" and "Ranger Bob", a forest ranger who dispensed insane forestry advice. I also created Seymour's Fairy Tales in which Seymour told horribly warped new versions of old children's favorites.

And then Larry was hospitalized. The show was cancelled. Larry gave me the task of writing the last two shows. The next to last show, for the film Octaman was never shot. Larry was simply too ill to do it, so a show was cobbled together out of old pieces on video at the last minute.

Larry came out of the hospital on a four-hour pass to shoot the last ever Seymour show. I appeared on that show as a guy sent from the city to tear down The Slimy Wall. We opened the studio doors and moved the set out into the parking lot for the last sketch, pretending that we'd been kicked out of the studio.

There was one more show to do. Seymour was signed to star in Seymour's Halloween Haunt at The John Wayne Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, Halloween weekend. Since Larry was laid up in St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, and Lynda was concerned with taking care of him, I was given the assignment to write the Knott's show. Gary Blair was going to be out of town that weekend, so I was also assigned to oversee the show for Seymour Productions that weekend. Moona Lisa & Chuck Jones the magician were also in the show, Knott's informed us, so I wrote them in, meeting with Jones, who was also supplying illusions for the show. Moona Lisa was tremendously easy to work with, happy just to be part of Larry's show, and willing to do what ever I wrote for her, and demanding nothing. Charming.

That Thursday, I picked Larry up at the hospital in Burbank and drove him to Knott's Berry Farm, installing him in a suite at a hotel adjoining the park, before scurrying over to the theatre to oversee the tech rehearsal while Larry relaxed. My job at the park that weekend was really just to see to it that Larry had as easy a time of it as possible. I didn't know Larry was dying, but he knew.

Before I could leave the hotel room to go to the rehearsal (Lynda was already at the rehearsal.), Larry stopped me. "Douglas, I have to tell you something. You've been a good friend to me, and I appreciate it. I love you, my friend." And he hugged me. I was embarrassed and kept mumbling that I knew it and he didn't need to say it, but Larry said, "No, I do need to say it." I didn't know it then, that he was taking care of business, making sure he'd said the things he wanted to say to his loved ones while he still could. Though I was about as uncomfortable as I could possibly have been at the time, afterwards, in the years that have followed, I have always been very deeply glad that Larry made a point of opening his heart to me, and letting me know I had earned a place in it.

Doing the show turned out to be the best medicine for Larry. He rallied that weekend, and rose to the occasion so well. He enjoyed himself tremendously. Between performances we would go out on an electric cart, toodling around the park, going on rides. As Seymour he would elaborately take cuts in line. "Look over there!" he'd yell, pointing away, and then we'd sprint up to the front and push on to the ride. "So long, suckers." He would call as we rolled into the ride, and everybody had a great time.

Closing night Larry had pizza delivered backstage for everybody working on the show, out of his own pocket. He entertained the friends of mine that came to the shows in his dressing room. He seemed to have time and energy for everybody. I remember sitting in that dressing room, listening to him talk about his experiences understudying Kirk Douglas on Broadway, and about the time, as a college student, that Boris Karloff had come and addressed them.

After the weekend was over, Larry felt well enough to return home, instead of going back to the hospital. He seemed full of optimism, and spoke of plans to use Seymour in other ways, after we finished the album, which was only partially recorded. When my paycheck came, it was considerably larger than what we had agreed on. Gary Blair told me that Larry had insisted that I be paid an increased fee, because I'd done such a good job for him, and everything had gone so well.

But Larry's rally lasted only about a month and he was back in the hospital. I came to see him as often as I could, until he was moved into intensive care and only family could come. It was Gary Blair who finally told me Larry was dying. It seemed hard to believe. He was only 50. These days I am 57, and I'm way too young to die. For Heaven's sake, Tallulah is 110, and seems set on outliving all of us.

Finally the terrible day came. I was living in Redondo Beach, next door to my aforementioned friend David Tarling (Who also took the Knott's Berry Farm pictures above, of Larry's last-ever show.) and his wife Mary. (David would better Larry, or perhaps worse him, by dying at age 38.) When I got up one day, there was a note tacked to my front door that Mary had left before going to work. It just said three little words: "Larry is dead." The pain of that loss is still sharp today.

It just isn't right. Larry should still be here, crotchety and funny at 82. We should have had a lot more laughs together. I can't imagine what other paths my life and my career would have taken had Larry Vincent not died so young, but I know I miss my friend still. He leers down at me from pictures on my wall, and, thanks to his loyal, devoted fans who loved him too, I have audio tapes to hear him again, though I know of no existing video tape of "Seymour", but I never give up hope video will turn up. Meanwhile, I have my DVD of The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, and will get the Mission: Impossible DVD when it hits Amazon in two months, and he's in The Apple Dumpling Gang also.

(In Seymour's last TV show, shot shortly after The Apple Dumpling Gang, I had Seymour relate how a terrible tragedy occurred at Disney Studios while they were shooting the movie. Then we ran a clip from our movie that week, The Hideous Sun Demon, showing the monster catching a rat and squeezing it to death, while Seymour said, "A new security guard didn't recognize Mickey Mouse without his little pants and gloves.")

In 1976, in a conversation that will forever be one the supreme highlights of my life, Groucho Marx, or, as I think of him, God, told me he had seen some of my Seymour shows and that he thought I was a funny writer. Groucho was a Seymour fan!

In 1978 my first full-length stage play, an adaptation of Dracula, opened. The dedication in the program read: "This play is dedicated by it's author to the memory of Larry Vincent, better known to his fans as 'Seymour'. A great friend to horror, terror and things that go bump in the night, and a great friend to me."

"And now, the time has come for me to make that dread sojourn into the world that lies out there, beyond the slimiest of walls. Until next time, this is Seymour, wishing you and yours a Bad Evening!" I'll be waiting, my friend. Meanwhile, BOO!

A Little Cup of Fun

One of Your Mama's little buddies, a fine gentleman in lower Manhattan whom we'll call Mister Glass, sent us a link this morning to a genius post on the insanely sassy and New York centric blog Gawker. The high-larious post about high brow real estate brokerage Brown Harris Stevens (with luxe outposts in New York, the Hamptons, and Palm Beach, natch), reveals how the brokerage employs a coterie of well bred and well married agents to pull in the big bizness of the rich and filthy rich in some of the swankiest zip codes on the east coast. Here's a sample of one agent's bio:

Arabella Green Buckworth: "Arabella loves travel, literature, languages, art, classical music, and chess. She is married to an Australian philanthropist, and is step-mother to four handsome English gentlemen."

That's really her bio children. Really! Chess! That's just gorgeous.

Have fun.

Britney Gurl, You Oughtta Just Sit Tight

Lately there has been some stirring and disturbing tidbits about perpetually problematic pop star Britney Spears looking for a new damn house. In Manhattan Beach. Manhattan Beach!

Gurl, Your Mama does not know why you've got ants in your pants about where you want to be bunking down at night, but we do know your indecisive nature is a problem when it comes to those kids of yours. Between your Bev Hills house, your expensive lease job in Malee-boo and all the various and many hotels you book and don't sleep in, Your Mama thinks you would be all happily housed up. But alas...

Word of caution hunny gurl, you might want to consider looking elsewhere because from the sound of things those Manhattan Beach folks are not going to be rolling out the welcome wagon for you, your suspicious sounding entourage, or your fleet of Mercedes Benz's with all those paparazzi photogs attached to the bumper.

Seriously gurl, if you won't listen to your mama, than maybe you should listen to Your Mama and pick a damn house and stay there for a bit of time. You might find it does you some good to have an actual home rather than just a multi-million dollar crash pad. Think about it.

Tony Danza's Golden Extravaganza

SELLER: Tony Danza
LOCATION: Longridge Avenue, Sherman Oaks, CA
PRICE: $6,150,000
SIZE: 6,778 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Truly the Crown Jewel of Sherman Oaks! Stately Cape Cod traditional perched on a knoll & sited on 2.3 acres in sought after Longridge Estates. Completely rebuilt from the ground up in1997. Impeccable attention to detail, far too many amenities to list here. Very private, gated property includes guest house, pool/spa, pool house gym. Tennis court & batting cage. Perfect for the most discriminating of buyers seeking privacy.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Recently we received word from Scuttlebutt Sam, a San Fernando Valley denizen who pointed Your Mama at a Sherman Oaks listing the belongs to Mister Tony Danza. Remember him kids?

Just because we don't care for his right leaning politics, does not mean we would wish lunky and hunky Republican actor Tony Danza's house be knocked over in an earthquake. Which is exactly what happened in 1994 during the devastating Northridge Earthquake. Well, Your Mama doesn't know if the place actually fell over, but multiple sources report that the Sherman Oaks house he bought from actor Robert Urich in September 1986 for $1,556,180 was indeed destroyed. What a damn drag that must have been.

According to listing information, the house was rebuilt from the ground up in 1997, which we imagine was necessitated by the severe earthquake damage. An article from the late 1990s reported that he claims to have rebuilt the house to ve virtually earthquake proof and he was quoted saying, "In an earthquake, I shouldn't run out of the house–I should run into it." Your Mama does not know where Mister Danza and his family lived from 1994 to 1997, but perhaps it was up with gun toting Republican Charleton Heston in his colossal contemporary crib off of Mulholland Drive. Now babies, we don't have any proof of that Mister Danza and scary Mister Heston know each other at all, so don't go spouting any of that shit off to yer friends.

Mister Tony Danza, who became famous, and probably rich, playing a series of dumb guys named Tony in the 1970s and 80s (Taxi, Who's The Boss?), has recently become a thespian with his recent run on Broadway as Max Bialystock in The Producers. A wee bit of research on the internets tells us that he's continuing that role at Paris Las Vegas, which Your Mama presumes is one of those disturbing and flashy fantasyland casino hotels in Las Vegas where thousands upon millions of numb skulls smile and laugh and open their wallets and bank accounts for all the fat-cat casino owners to reach in and steal their hard earned middle class income that would be better off spent taking their children to museums. But that's a gripe for another day and another blog.

Anyhoo, Mister Danza has recently put his big and rebuilt Sherman Oaks estate on the market for a surprisingly high $6,150,000. According to listing information and property records, the 6,778 square foot "Cape Cod" style residence sits on a private 2.3 acre parcel in desirable Longridge Estates. Your Mama does not care how desirable Longridge Estates is, $6,150,000 for a house in Sherman Oaks seems ludicrous. All you San Fernando Valleyites simmer down. Your Mama is not knocking Sherman Oaks. We know that the quintessential suburban city is full of famous and well to do people living in lovely and expensive homes. But it ain't no Beverly Hills. Food for thought, the next most expensive Sherman Oaks house listed on the MLS is just four doors down from the Danza extravaganza, and it's priced at $3,750,000.

Listing information shows the family friendly property includes a gym in the pool house (the better to help middle aged Mister Danza keep his chest bulging and young looking), a guest house (always a nice feature for stashing the inlaws), swimming pool and spa (note the old school slide and diving board which must have survived the quake), tennis court, and a batting cage. Batting cage? How macho.

Inside the "Cape Cod" style house, which looks suspiciously un-Cape Cod like to Your Mama, we find a house bathed in gold fabric. We see gold sofas in the formal living room, a whole army of gold chairs standing around the dining room table, beige-y/gold colored furniture in the family room for watching Taxi reruns, honey gold colored butcher block counter tops in the kitchen. Gold, gold, gold! We did not manage to locate any photos of the master bedroom, but Your Mama would bet one of our long bodied bitches Linda or Beverly that there's a gold sateen duvet on the bed and dee-luxe gold terry cloth towels in the bathroom.

Despite the overdone gold color scheme, the 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom mansion still manages to look like a cozy family style home...like a place where people actually live. Not a place Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would want to live, but a place that real people actually live. So while the sad little wet bar in the family room makes Your Mama depressed and we have an unpleasant and inexplicable desire to know what that gold fabric on the dining room chairs feels like on our nekkid and prodigious booty, we give the Danza clan props for living in a house that does not look like an obscene decorator show house or a completely generic hotel room at a second tier Four Seasons Hotel.

However, one note about the backyard fencing, railing and chain link. All those ticky tacky barriers gives the place a white collar jail vibe, which isn't so good for getting well over 5,000,000 clams out of a super rich Sherman Oaks buyer. Surely a well paid landscape designer could come up with a better solution.

Your Mama wishes the Danza clan all the luck in the world unloading their rebuilt Sherman Oaks dream house. We think you're going to need it at it current asking price.

UPDATE: Well, it does appear that the Danza's have split. While we can find no indication that the soon to be ex-Mrs. Danza bought a house in Fryman Estates as was noted in the comments section, that does not mean she didn't, just that we cain't find it with our weary eyes and tarhd mind. However, property records do reveal that the erstwhile couple do own a 1,349 square foot 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom ocean front house on Malibu Road in, well, in Malee-boo of course.

Ring Around Parker Posey's Place

SELLER: Parker Posey
LOCATION: East 10th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $1,175,000 / maintenance $1,344 per month
SIZE: 3.0 room, 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
DESCRIPTION: Quiet and serene, this loft-like home occupies the entire top floor of a Greek Revival / Italianate landmark townhouse built in 1845...soaring ceilings, wide plank floors, exposed brick, a 15' skylight, a 6' high wall of multi-paned artist studio windows, a new kitchen and bath (with a claw foot tub), excellent closet and storage space and a washer/dryer. There is also a working, carved marble fireplace and the exclusive use of the roof. Pets welcome.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ever since Mister Max Abelson, boy wonder of the New York celebrity real estate gossips over at the NY Observer, wrote about indie film goddess Parker Posey selling off her long time East Village apartment, Your Mama has been inundated with emails and phone calls asking us for more information.

Well, we could hardly provide more information about Miz Posey or her very chic and arty little East Village flat that wasn't already covered by Mister Abelson, so we'll simply add our own little bit of nothing to the conversation about the actresses' top floor artist's aerie.

Located in a pretty row of Victorian townhouses, the nicely maintained but fairly non-descript celebrity friendly building sits East 10th Street at the western edge of the East Village. For those who don't know the East Village, the location is particularly prime as it's very close to the subway and the East Village dining institution Veselka is a two minute walk away. The excellent independent book store St. Mark's Bookshop is just around the corner and the impossibly cool St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery is just down the block where one can watch out of this world and non-mainstream poetry and dance, if you like that sort of thing.

Miz Posey's floor through 1 bedroom rides atop the same building that houses a couple other famous folks with downtown street credibility. Big Love second wife and East Village high priestess Chloë Sevigny owns the garden apartment, and former Smashing Pumpkins' James Iha owns one of the other coops in the small townhouse building that dates back to 1845 and does not include any luxury amenities such as a doorman or concierge service. The lack of dee-luxe services makes Your Mama wonder why the monthly maintenance, a somewhat steep $1344 per month, is so damn high. Given the modest size and modest neck of the woods, we would have expected monthly building costs to be under $1,000/month.

Your Mama is very pleased and impressed with Miz Posey's funky downtown decor. It looks like a pleasant and well curated mish-mash of items from the Avenue A flea, Las Venus (the old and wacky Las Venus on Ludlow Street and not the mid-century modern outpost), and any number of assorted thrift shops located in church basements around lower Manhattan. I don't care what anyone says, that gnarled wood coffee table is flawless, even if it is murder on the chins after a few drinky-poos at Parker's place.

The well-resolved floor plan works well for a single gal about the East Village or possibly a painfully hip couple who walk their dog to the filthy Thompkins Square dog run and spend weekends at their slightly disheveled and in need of repair farm in upstate New York, where incidentally, Miz Posey recently purchased a house from Tatum O'Neil.

Apparently there was a line a mile long to purchase Miz Posey's petite penthouse, because even before old-school East Villagers could stomach the loss of one of their most cherished residents, the itty bitty apartment, listed at $1,175,000, went to contract. No word on whether Miz Posey and her cute litte dog are leaving the East Village altogether or if the actress is simply trading up to larger digs in the 'hood. We hope the later, because once the old guard East Village artists start leaving the once boho neighborhood, it means that days of buying dime bags of weed on St. Marks and going on the nod in Thompkins Square Park are truly numbered.

P.S. Parker doll, if you're getting rid of the fabulous orange swivel chair, please let Your Mama know, because we are in love with that particular piece of second-hand pricelessness.

Mike and Irena Medavoy's Beverly Park Mini-Mega-Mansion

SELLERS: Mike and Irena Medavoy
LOCATION: Beverly Park, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $21,500,000 (reduced from $23,500,000)
SIZE: 10,769 square feet, 5 bedrooms 9 bathrooms (as per listing)
DESCRIPTION: Exceptional Hampton-Style Beverly Park Estate. Beautifully set on nearly 2 acres of rolling lawns. The best value in the area. Beautifully decorated & designed. Extraordinary 2-story entry. Fabulous living rm/projection rm. Study, double powder rms, sensational kitchen/family rm, & wonderful loggia out to the lush gardens, swimmer's pool, & guesthse. Amazing master suite w/beautiful dual baths. 3 add'l spacious family bdrms & maids. Excellent privacy in the most sought after gated community.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children just looove to hear about the residents and humongous houses of Beverly Park and when we can, Your Mama likes to feed the children just what they're asking for. So today we bring y'all some Beverly Park goodness to chaw on.

Only in uber posh and guard gated Beverly Park, where 20,000+ square foot steroidal houses are the rule rather than the exception, is a nearly 11,000 square foot house considered a cozy mini-mansion. But that's what Your Mama would have to say about big time film producer Mike Medavoy's modest by comparison mansion that Your Mama hears from our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills will soon be hitting the market with an ear piercing asking price of $23,500,000.

There's no question a man like Medavoy can afford to own and maintain a house in hyper manicured Beverly Park, where the lawns are always meticulously mowed, the hedges impeccably clipped and the swimming pools glisten like sunlight itself. After all, he's responsible for bringing any number of block buster films to the screen such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rocky, The Terminator, The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Thin Red Line and many, many more.

So the man prolly deserves his vast riches that in the year 2000 allowed him to build his dream house in one of the most exclusive and expensive developments anywhere in the world. The white clapboard and black shuttered East Coast traditional style with 10,769 square feet, sprawls across it's 1.8 acre lot that includes a double gated driveway, large parking court, and swimming pool and guest house complex, and an expanse of perfectly green grass. There is not, however, a tennis court, which for $23,000,000 would be a deal breaker for Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter who like to swing a racket now and again.

No official or new listing exists for the house that we've been able to locate, but thanks to our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills we managed to get a hold of a few photos and information from when the house was on the market a few years ago for $14,500,000 (reduced from $15,750,000). The pretty center hall quasi-Colonial 5 bedroom house includes 8 bathrooms (or nine according to old listing information), 6 fireplaces, a living room that converts into "one of the best screening rooms," and "one of the loveliest master suites" (again according to an older listing).

Your Mama is quite impressed with the bold color that the Medavoy's nice gay decorator used in the dining room. Never before have we seen or heard of a hot pink formal dining room, and honestly, we'd never have imagined we would have anything positive to say about a dining room with screaming pink walls. But we do. Maybe it's because we're having an off day or maybe it's because Your Mama has an unhealthy attraction to bright colors. We are not in love with the execution of this room, but children, try to imagine the space pushed beyond traditional towards something kooky and contemporary. Keep the ka-razy chandelier and the side table with the too cute topiary and the wacky sea sponge looking thing underneath. Whatever that thing is, we're coveting it. We don't understand the abstract artwork hanging on the wall, but it too can stay unless you can afford a subtle Rothko or glorious Gary Hume painting to replace it. Lose the carpet, paint the moldings and doors the glossiest white paint you can find, replace the very expensive but ordinary table with a big tacky Lucite thing and cover all those faux-Louis chairs in an even tackier shiny white patent leather. Now that would be a fucked up hot pink dining room even Your Mama could love.

We don't feel as forgiving of the study/library. Somehow the room appears remarkably bright for a room with coal black walls and Your Mama is quite certain every single object in this room cost at least $2,000, but it's a strange hodge-podge that isn't quite working for us. Could be the grainy photo or it could be that upsetting scroll/map thing on the wall? Your Mama is well aware that art is subjective, but we can only hope that particular piece was done by one of the Medavoy's grandchildren (if they have any). Please don't someone tell Your Mama that chicken scratch depiction of the earth is worth more than a Mercedes.

Your Mama doesn't have a clue why the Medavoy's would chose to leave the private and secure environs of Beverly Park. Maybe they're downsizing to a house in the flats? Maybe they're up sizing to something larger? Maybe they're tired of looking at the sculpture next door. Whatever the care, it'll be inneresting to see what rich and/or famous person steps up to buy this house.

Now, let's move on to some other Beverly Park bizness. There has been some discussion in the comments section of this blog about a Beverly Park house owned by Jeanette and Robert Bisno, who among other alleged infractions, famously ired their ridiculously rich neighbors with statuary that some Bev Park residents felt was suggestive, possibly vulgar, and simply did not conform to the 70-page homeowners covenants to which all Beverly Park properties must adhere. Well, wouldn't you know, the Bisnos' happen to live right next door to the Medavoys in their own 11,894 square foot mansion. Oh children, the rich people up in Bev Park were all up in arms over the Bisno's gates, garbage cans and motor court statuary. Just imagine the shock and nasty stares as resident slowly rolled by in their shiny Bentleys, the shunning and whispered mortifications. The whole uproar ended up in a convoluted lawsuit that involved such allegations by the Bisnos that the ruling judge was mentally incompetent and as such unable to decide the case effectively. Wow. These Bisno people must really have wanted that damn statue. We're not sure what the outcome of the statue wars was, but it does appear that the very expensive piece of outdoor art is still in place in the Bisno motor court. Which means it's probably still tied up in courts. What a stellar use of our over-burdened judicial system.

An excellent article from the New York Times reports that during the bickering the Bisnos were in the process of getting a dee-vorce. But the article also reports that the couple bought another vacant lot a few doors up from their current residence where they intended to build another dream mansion and take their naughty statue with them. We don't find any evidence of them buying a second lot up there, but then again, the real estate dealings of the super rich are often obscured and difficult to track, so our lack of evidence really means nothing.

One of Your Mama's readers has also suggested in the comments section that the Bisno house is in foreclosure. Your Mama can't find any evidence of that in our rather lax research, so we can't confirm or deny that bit of unpleasantness. It does appear that the house is heavily mortgaged, but honestly puppies, that does not mean a thing. Many, many vastly wealthy people borrow enormous amounts of money against their lavish homes for any number of reasons. We can't comment on the state of Mister Bisno's finances, because we simply don't know anything about them. What we do know is Mister Bisno is and has been a controversial figure anywhere you turn.

Moving on from the Bisno bizness...Of course by now, all the children know that Beverly Park is filled to the gills with the rich and famous including Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jami Gertz, Reba McEntire, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Reiser, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Avi Arad, Eric Schmidt, Martin Lawrence, Sumner Redstone, Barry Bonds, Michael Eisner, Samuel Jackson, Rod Stewart, porn king Norman Zada, Haim and Cheryl Saban, a couple of Saudi royals, Steve Udvar-Hazy, and of course, young Mister Russ Weiner, the Rockstar Energy Drink founder who is one of Bev Park's newest residents.

Mister and Missus Medavoy's little slice of residential heaven for the filthy rich is far from the only Beverly Park behemoth on the market. According to property records, mobile home maven Lee Kort is trying to get rid of a 3.35 acre lot for a shocking $49,000,000 (plans and permits for a 25,000 square foot house also available). Beer baron Adolf Coors owns a 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom monster mansion, dubbed "The Great 78," which backs up to the Medavoy mansion and is currently available for $34,000,000. George Santopietro, Vanna White's ex-huzband and current Bev Park resident, recently plunked a mammoth newly built spec-house on the market for a spine tingling $50,000,000. And the Moeljadi family have long been trying to unload their 20,612 square foot pile for $29,000,000. And these are just the houses Your Mama knows are on the market. You can bet that are at least 2 or 3 others that are quietly for sale for the right price.
YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: We take it back...after viewing more recent photos of the Medavoy mansion (above), we are not so keen on the dining room. It is not, after all, the modern and nutty color scheme we originally thought. The walls are not covered in unexpected hot pink paint, but rather with a light red damask wallpaper. Ugh. Dreadful. And in the study/library, we thought the walls had been painted a very progressive, if not particularly likable black. In actuality, they are green damask. DAMASK! On the walls! Yikes. We know damask wallpaper is not uncommon in a house with an old-guard sort of decor, but with all due respect and apologies to the Medavoys, damask wallpaper always reminds Your Mama of the "better" whorehouses in rural Nevada.

We realize many of the children relish in and prefer this traditional and safe form of interior decor, but Your Mama does not. Yes, it looks cozy and comfortable, which are indeed nice qualities in a house, but Your Mama gravitates to a more modern and eclectic sort of interior where one finds unexpected and quirky bits and pieces of person's life. But alas. That said, Your Mama will say, that to the Medavoy's credit, the mansion looks welcoming and not at all lavish and lurid in the way that many people, including Your Mama, imagine the homes in Beverly Park to be decorated. Remember Rod Stewart's obscenely over stuffed mess?

A Halloween Memory

Hello darlings. I thought that for a Halloween treat, I'd share with you the story of my greatest romance, taken from the pages of my beliked autobiography, My Lush Life, so you can share the story that has moved the hearts of upwards of 40 people worldwide.

Cheers darlings.

Chapter 13.

Countess Tallulah

Transylvania in the late twenties; has there ever been a more romantic setting? The forests, the mountains, the schlosses outlined against the sky in the moonlight, the bats, the wolves, the screams of the peasants, the streams of blood, the constant moaning in the background day and night, romance seems to waft through the air. And it was there, high in the idyllic Carpathians that I had the wildest romance of my very long life.

Lovely as London is, it held too many memories from two marriages back, so I gave it a miss this time out. For obvious reasons I also decided to skip Berlin, and indeed, Germany altogether. We sailed to France, where I was known as Le Sousé. We landed at Le Havre, then river cruised to Paris, lovely city, the wine so fine, the people so rude. Then we went by train to Cannes, then Nice, which was, then, by ship again, to Rome, where I was known as La Lushio. Oh, those Italian men were so forward. Poor Terrence’s tush was black and blue. Finally, we motored deep into Romania, where my fame had never been penetrated, so I could finally be incognito, arriving at last in the small, unspoiled Transylvanian village of Klotsburg, taking rooms at the local inn: The Nosferatu.

The Nosferatu was a simple, picturesque place, nestled against the towering Carpathians. Just outside, standing atop the mountain peak was the awesome sight of Schloss Tepes, a crumbling mediaeval castle so positioned that from late afternoon to sunset The Nosferatu was literally in it’s shadow. I point this fact out to the reader so you will understand my puzzlement when I tell you that no one at the Inn would acknowledge the existence of Schloss Tepes. I would ask "What’s the name of that castle, darling?"

"What castle?" the ones who spoke English would reply.

"The really big, crumbly one, just outside."

"There is no castle."

"That one, right there, dominating the landscape."

"Where?"

"The one you can plainly see through the window."

"I don’t see any castle."

"Look, let me move this garlic out of the way and you’ll clearly see it."

"DON’T TOUCH THE GARLIC!"

"All right, darling, but look. See the castle? You can’t really see anything else. Good God, look at the size of it!"

"I don’t see any castle."

And so it went. No one would admit to it’s existence, even though it commanded the view. These people had less truck with reality than Pete Moss. But the people were friendly, religious folk. Every last one of them was wearing an enormous crucifix. One terribly sweet ancient crone came up to us the first afternoon, trying to press crucifixes on us. "No, no," I told her, "I don’t want to buy any native crafts. But here, have one of my personally autographed pictures."

"No, no," the adorable, withered dowager replied, "Not for sale. A gift. For the lovely lady, the big man, and you."

A perceptive woman, she’d apparently seen right through Major Babs drag, something Terrence had yet to do. I found her description of Terrence as a "Big Man" odd though. He was actually very diminutive in height (Shorter than Major Babs) and slight, almost delicate of build. In fact, he always wore shoulder pads in all his blouses to give himself more heft. I still demurred from accepting the precious hags offerings, "You must understand, I’m a Christian Scientist, except for all the doctrines. We don’t wear those things."

"Please, glamorous lady," the insistent, cherished biddy continued, "Wear this for your mother’s sake. It will protect you."

That was, of course, absolutely the wrong thing to say to get me to do anything. I turned to Terrence and said: "Give the hag an autographed picture for her trinkets and get rid of her."

The one thing that seemed to be missing from the idyllic existence in Klotsburg was any kind of nightlife. Everybody just seemed to want to hide away in their bedrooms the moment the Sun set. It was only the gentle persuasiveness of Major Babs that induced the landlord to keep the bar room open after dusk so I could sample the charming local liqueurs. I was happily sampling a variety of interesting drinks when the main door suddenly banged open, though I had been positive that the landlord had bolted, barred and barricaded it the instant the Sun sank. Everyone in the room seemed to shrink back, and grab hold of their crucifixes.

Then into the room strode the most magnetic man I’d ever seen. He was tall, clean shaven except for a long white mustache, and clad from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere. His face was a strong-very strong-aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy mustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. His most striking feature was a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed to gleam red in the lamplight.

His eyes swept the room as the occupants shrank back from him. "Where is the American woman?" he asked in a commanding tone, with a rich, deep voice, colored by a tremendously sexy accent, "Ah, here you are, my dear."

When those bright red eyes fell on me, I felt a shiver run through my whole body. Drowning in those eyes, I felt an overwhelming desire to surrender to him completely. The man stretched out his hand towards me. Major Babs, who can sometimes be a little overzealous, stepped forward and grabbed the man’s arm saying, "Hold it right there, fella."

The man seemed merely to flick his wrist, but Major Babs went flying across the room, to land in an unconscious heap on the floor. The man took my hand and kissed it. A ripple of intense excitement flooded me. I noticed, oddly, that he had hairy palms, not unlike my stepfather, Maxie. He said: "Allow me to introduce myself, dear lady. I am Count Vlad Tepes, the traditional feudal lord of these peasants. I live in lovely Schloss Tepes, which you must have been admiring through the windows all day. Welcome to my homeland. Enter freely, and of your own will."

"Why thank you, Count darling," I replied, "You are most incredibly gracious. My name is Miss Tallulah Morehead."

"Not the Miss Tallulah Morehead, the great American motion picture diva?" he responded.

"Yes darling," I answered, "I had no idea anyone had ever heard of me in this remote corner of the world."

"Oh yes. It’s true," The Count went on, "That there is no cinema in Klotsburg. But I have been known to visit the cosmopolitan metropolis of London periodically, in search of fresh blood, and I have seen several of your most remarkable films."

"Well Count, allow me to introduce my companions. The gentleman you tossed across the room is my bodyguard, Illinois Smith. And this is Terrence, my personal assistant."

"A great lady of your international stature should not be staying in this hovel."

"Oh, I find this place quite charming and unspoiled. And besides, I’m traveling incognito."

"How wise of you. But please, you must allow me to extend the hospitality of Schloss Tepes."

"Oh no, I couldn’t," I lied, "I’m perfectly comfortable here."

"But I insist," the Count went on, "You would be doing me the highest honor."

"Well, since you insist, Count darling. Terrence, pack our bags. We are decamping for Schloss Tepes!"

"I am delighted, my dear," The Count replied, "I will return at once to my castle to prepare your rooms. My coach will call for you here in an hour." And with that the Count was gone in a swirl of black cape. I looked out the window but all I could see was the black hulk of Schloss Tepes looming in the moonlight, and a lone bat flapping its way towards that lofty peak.

As I watched Terrence pack there came a knock at my door. It was the Landlord. "Frau Morehead, bitte," He begged, "Do not go to the Schloss."

"Oh, so now you admit it’s existence."

"Yes, yes, but you must not go there!"

"Don’t be concerned, my good man. I’ll pay for the whole night. Really, this is not the way to compete."

"You don’t understand," the man went on, apparently desperate to keep my business. After all, how many glamorous movie Stars do you suppose he saw each year? "The Count, he is not a man."

"He looked like quite a well-set-up man to me, and I know a thing or two about men."

"But the Count, he is a Monster!"

"Is he really? Do you, by any chance mean he is a man of monstrous proportions? You whet my interest."

"No, I mean a real monster! A bloodthirsty berserker! Do you know what ‘Tepes’ means?"

"A big tipper?"

"No, it means ‘The Impaler’!"

"Vlad the Impaler, you say? You whet my interest even more. I used to know a man named Sherman Oakley, and you could have called him ‘The Impaler’ as well. Count Tepes sounds fascinating!"

"If you go there you will die!"

"Nonsense! You have no way of knowing it, but I’m a screen immortal!"

"I mean it! The Count, he will drain your blood!"

"I insist you stop maligning the Count this way. I don’t think he’d be pleased to hear the way you speak of him."

The landlord’s eyes bulged with terror, an effect I’ve always enjoyed having on unattractive men. "Please, please Frau Morehead, you will not tell him what I said? Please, I have a wife! I have a daughter! Please say nothing to the Count of what I have told you."

"All right, darling. Now be a lamb, and help Terrence take these trunks downstairs."

True to his word, the Count’s coach, what they called a calèche, drawn by four coal-black horses, arrived spot-on an hour after the Count’s departure. The Count’s driver and personal assistant, a runty gentleman named Renfield, loaded my trunks, and then Terrence and I traveled in the calèche while Major Babs followed us driving the rented touring car.

As Schloss Tepes loomed ever closer I looked at it with wonder. It was obviously very old, and not really in the best of repair. It was extremely massive but it’s battlements were broken and everywhere the stone work was crumbling. Not a single ray of light shone from any window. There was something about it, a haunted quality, that reminded me of dear old Morehead Heights, now so far away. I could almost picture the Headless Indian Brave wandering these corridors and feeling perfectly at home.

If I found Schloss Tepes homelike, Terrence had a very different reaction. The closer we got to it, the more Terrence shrank down in his seat, eventually starting to quietly whimper.

"Oh Miss Tallulah," Terrence finally begged, "Can’t we please go back to the inn? You heard what the landlord said. He knows the man. He must know what he’s talking about. I’m terrified! Look at this place. It’s so…so tacky!" Terrence, I’m afraid, was a style snob.

"Terrence," I commanded, "Butch up. And don’t embarrass me in front of the Count. Don’t you think he’s a fine figure of a man?"

"I think he’s scary."

"So do I! Scary in a sexy way."

"No, scary in a terrifying way. He makes my blood run cold." This was unusual. Normally Terrence and I had very similar tastes in men. (i.e. Anything human with a penis.) But there was no time to compare notes further as we had rolled into the Schloss’s roomy courtyard, with Major Babs and the car just behind.

The massive front door opened and the Count was standing there with a lamp, beckoning us in: "Welcome to my home. Come freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring."

"Thank you, darling." I said, laying a big kiss on our host, "Isn’t this just too charming and old world for words?" Indeed it was. The great entrance hall we were in didn’t look to have been dusted or swept in centuries. There was a spider’s web across the great staircase that must have been ten feet in diameter. Major Babs was looking about scowling while Terrence was trying to move about with his eyes closed.

"Sweet Heavens darling, I’d fire the maid if I were you. She’s not pulling her weight. That spider’s web is titanic!"

"The little spider spinning his web," replied the Count, although that spider looked to be a foot across to me, "To catch the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Miss Morehead."

"That’s as may be, but a little housekeeping goes a long way."

"I have no maid, I’m afraid. Just my ‘Personal Assistant’ Renfield and myself, two single men living alone."

"Oh really?" asked Terrence, perking up for the first time. Opening his eyes made him reel. He put out his hand to steady himself, then saw what he was touching and screeched.

"Ah, two bachelors sharing a home," I said, ignoring Terrence’s outburst as usual, "They’re always a little messy, although this place has world-class rot going on. What you need here is a woman’s touch. I’ll have Terrence whip this place into shape in no time."

The resounding noise of wolves howling suddenly filled our ears, followed at once by Terrence’s scream, before he fainted dead away into Major Babs’ arms. The Count said: "Listen to them, children of the night. What music they make."

"Frankly darling," I said: "I prefer a little Gershwin myself. So where are our rooms?"

The Count conducted us, Major Babs carrying Terrence, into a suite of rooms that were bright, clean and cozy. A blazing fire was burning in each room’s fireplace. And in one a feast had been laid out, including a collection of delicious-looking bottles of wine. The Count, perfect host that he was, immediately poured me a goblet of wine. "This is very old wine." He said.

"Aren’t you having any, Count darling?" I asked, noticing that he’d only filled one goblet. As a social drinker I never drink alone unless there’s no other social drinkers around.

"I never drink wine." The Count answered. Good God, a teetotaler! An abstainer! A freak! Maybe he was a monster! But no, a man who didn’t drink, however odd that was, but who served his guests such excellent wine as I was having was obviously highly cultured and civilized. I was already half in love with him. As I heard him say: "I have a whole cellar full of hundreds of bottles of this wine." I fell all the way.

So began our strange, nocturnal existence at Schloss Tepes. The Count was busy days but visited with us every evening. His native customs forbade him from eating with us, but Renfield prepared us delicious food, and there was a steady supply of the great wine.

After a rocky start, Terrence took quite a shine to Renfield. I didn’t see what he saw in the man. Renfield wasn’t too fastidious about his appearance or grooming, his posture was terrible, and then there was his diet. After Terrence told us what he ate, we were glad that he didn’t eat with us either.

The Count was a perfect gentleman. This made me a little suspicious at first, remembering how F. Emmett Knight had been a perfect gentleman from the day we met until the day he’d called me "The Whore Of Babylon" in divorce court. (What slander! I’ve never been anywhere near Babylon!) As far as I’m concerned the term "Perfect Gentleman" is a euphemism for "Boring Date". Between the way the Count never molested me and his roommate situation, I had my suspicions. Certainly Renfield was the merest whisper if ever there was one.

But it soon became apparent that the relationship between the Count and Renfield was strictly that of master and servant, however much more Renfield might have liked. And the Count’s romantic pursuit of me seemed genuine as well. Believe it or not, he just respected me too much to sleep with me before marriage! Go figure.

"The local peasant women," he told me one day after we’d been there several weeks, "They are like my cattle. But you are fit to be my Countess. Will marry me, Miss Tallulah?"

Well, who could resist? The fact was, I’d been head over heels in love with Vlad for some time, and couldn’t wait to be heels over head. I accepted at once and was delighted that he didn’t favor a long engagement either. We decided to be married the next night.

The following evening, in a stunning wedding gown I happened to have brought with me in my luggage, I became Countess Tallulah Morehead Knight Thalberg Tepes. The ceremony was performed by a crotchety old Romanian priest who appeared terrified. Major Babs was Vlad’s best man while Terrence was ring-bearer.

My first husband had been the merest whisper of a homosexual and hadn’t loved me. My second husband had been Louie B. Thalberg, and I can’t imagine what I’d been thinking. Now I was married for the third time to a dashing, romantic and mysterious Old World nobleman in what was a true love match. Alas, our flame burned too brightly, it could not last the night.

I can hardly bring myself to tell the sad, tragic tale of our wedding night. At the wedding feast Vlad, as was his custom, neither ate nor drank, but I more than made up for it, social drinking for two, if you will. I was celebrating at last finding the right man, and the wine and Champaign were flowing all evening. Renfield and Terrence were sobbing in each other’s arms all through both the ceremony and the feast.

Eventually Vlad and I retired to my boudoir to finally make love for the first time. With a name like "The Impaler", I expected Vlad to be a very different sort of lover than he turned out to be. Rather than impaling me, Vlad made love not unlike a lesbian. (I mean, of course, the way I imagine that lesbians make love. As the attentive reader knows, I have no first tongue knowledge of such things.) If I hadn’t seen the evidence with my own eyes, I might have thought he was another male imposter like "Illinois Smith".

But Oh My God, how that man could KISS! No man, before or since, has kissed me as deeply or as passionately. He didn’t simply nibble at my neck for a moment or so. He kissed my throat with a penetrating deepness for what seemed like hours, leaving me feeling both drained and filed with ecstasy. The hickeys he was leaving, which I could clearly see in the mirror above my bed, were not to be believed. (I could clearly see them because Vlad cast no reflection in the mirror to block my view of myself, yet another example of his modesty and consideration. Not being a narcissist he had no need to constantly view himself and simply refrained from casting a reflection.)

Finally, after what seemed like hours of ecstasy, Vlad rolled back off of me, seemingly satiated, his mouth smeared a bright red. "Vlad darling, is that blood on your mouth?" I asked, careful not to sound judgmental.

"You’re damn right it ish, Tallulah old girl." Vlad slurred back.

"Have you been drinking my blood, Vlad my love?" I asked, treading carefully, not wanting to offend him by belittling one of his native customs.

"You bet your shweet ash, Tallulah doll." Vlad garbled.

"How intensely kinky, my one true love."

"You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Tallulah baby. Wash thish." Then Vlad spread his arms so he was lying spread-eagled, naked, on his back on the bed, "Eh? How about them applesh, lady?"

"You’re lovely, my wild one, but what are you doing?"

"I’m turning into a bat." Vlad said, and then broke into a fit of giggles.

"Vlad darling, you’re in such a good mood."

"You probably think I’m batty!" Vlad roared, while laughing his head off, "Wait, wait, wait. I really can turn into a bat. I can. I just have to remember how."

"Vlad, my dearest, if I hadn’t been with you all evening and didn’t know for a fact that you drank no wine or Champaign tonight, I would suspect that you are drunk."

"Thash ridiculoush! I haven’t drunk any alcohol in over four hundred yearsh! Five hundred if you don’t count the crap we drank when I was alive. What did we call that crap? Oh yeah? Mead! Have you ever drunk mead?"

"No, I haven’t had the pleasure."

"Pleashure! Ha! Stuff tastes like bullpissh."

"My dearest darling. You are looped."

"Nonsenshe! All I’ve drunk tonight has been your blood!"

"That’s as may be, but I know drunk when I see it, and you are sloshed."

"Don’t tell my daddy." Vlad senselessly replied, followed by another fit of the giggles. Almost immediately after the giggles he began crying: "You can’t tell my daddy. My daddy’s dead!"

"I’m sorry, Vlad darling."

"I don’t want your pity!" Vlad screamed at me, then started crying again, "I killed my daddy a long time ago. I had to. He…he killed my mommy!"

"There, you see, Vlad, there is a silver lining."

"I loved my mommy!"

"Oh. How novel. I hope it didn’t stunt your emotional growth."

"Shtunt my emotional growth? That’sh rich! Do you know how many people I tortured and murdered when I wash alive?"

"Aren’t you alive now?"

"Over a hundred thousand people! I was mean. I wash the the worsht bad ash in Transylvania! I kicked Turkish butt from here to Conshtantinople!"

"Well I’m sure they deserved it."

"You’re okay, Tallulah," Vlad said, turning weepy again, "You’re really okay. You desherve a lot better than an evil old monshter like me. I’m shorry I ruined your life, Tallulah."

"Vlad darling, you’re just a little inebriated. You’ll feel better after you’ve slept it off. Here, watch the dawn with me."

"The Dawn!" Vlad screamed, "Oh no! Your blood! Ish your God damn blood! I drank your blood and got drunk for the first time in four hundred years! Sho drunk I forgot to get back to my…NO TALLULAH, DON’T OPEN THE CURTAINS!"

I didn’t think it was anything but drunken paranoia. I pulled open the drapes and the morning Sun streamed into the room. What I didn’t know was that my new husband had a rare skin condition. He was fatally allergic to Sunlight! I heard him scream and turned back. At first I didn’t see him. Then I realized that the smoldering pile of ashes smoking on the floor was shaped like my late husband. As I watched a breeze swept in through the open window (The schloss was built before the invention of glass) and blew my husband’s ashes away. Less than twelve hours after the wedding, I was a widow!

(Although oddly, the vivid and enormous love bites, or hickeys as they call them now, that Vlad had inflicted on my neck in the heat of his burning passion, had disappeared within moments of his death.)

Oddly, there wasn’t any trouble with the local authorities over the accidental death of Count Vlad Tepes. I didn’t really feel up to handling any details* , but Terrence, Major Babs and Renfield took care of everything. Not only was there no inquest, but the villagers of Klotsburg seemed glad to be rid of him.

Apparently Vlad wasn’t very popular locally. When given the death certificate I noticed an odd mistake: They had listed Vlad’s year of death as 1476. Not even close!

At the funeral a group of children sang a jolly song in their native language. The landlord of The Nosferatu translated it for me:

"Ding Dong, the Count is dead.
Which old Count,
The wicked Count,
Ding Dong the wicked Count is dead!"

I didn’t feel it was in the best of taste, but the children looked charming. I was given the Key to Klotsburg and declared their national heroine. I gave Schloss Tepes, which now belonged to me, to Renfield. It had been his home for so long and I had Morehead Heights after all. And It was to Morehead Heights I shortly returned, sadder but not wiser.

Ah, Count Vlad Tepes, others may revile you, but I will always cherish the memory of our oh-so-short time together. I will love you forever, my darling.