It’s time to play everyone’s favorite home game, “Clock the Drag Queen”!
These nine beauties attended the Jersey Couture Pop-Up Beauty Bar event last night in NYC. Can you guess which one is not a biological woman?! (click pic to enlarge, scroll down for answer)
Answers: (left to right) Sammi Giancola, Tracy DiMarco, Deena Cortese, Carmen Carrera, Johanna Sambucini, Tinsley Mortimer, Sandra Denton and Cheryl Salt James, Sharie Manon.
This magnificent building was located at 16th and Curtis Streets in Denver, built in 1881 for a then unheard of $850,000 ($19 million in today’s dollars) by one Horace A.W. Tabor, who made a fortune in silver mines. Look at this interior!
Cherry wood was imported from Japan and mahogany from Honduras, with 1,500 mohair seats facing a 72-ft. stage that was 50-ft. deep, with a giant painted curtain… seen here in glorious black and white.
The inscription on the curtain prophetically states:
“So fleet the works of man, back to the earth again.
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.”
Here’s another view of the building…
The Tabor was remodeled in 1921 for movies, and operated for nine years as the Colorado Theater, before once again becoming The Tabor. The great acts of Vaudeville played the stage. It was sold in ’49 for a million dollars. By the ’50s, it was facing the threat of demolition as the population departed for the suburbs.
It was torn down in 1964. Its giant curtain, too large to be displayed anywhere, was stored for years and disintegrated, and was later hauled to a dump. Today, the site is this:
…the Denver branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Florence Arto of Houston Texas was born in 1895. Her husband was film director King Vidor, who put her to work in silent films in 1916 as Florence Vidor. They had a daughter, Suzanne. Flo divorced King in 1925 and married famed violinist Jascha Heifetz.
Her career ended with the advent of sound pictures. She died in 1977 at the age of 82.
Here’s a trailer for her lost film, Ernst Lubitsch’s “The Patriot,” the last silent film of the era to be nominated for an Oscar.
And here’s Jascha now with a little Tchaikovsky, ya slobs.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the original Callista Gingrich, was spotted handing out medals to Royal Navy personnel, while wearing this positively witchy ensemble.
That’s Billie Hayes as Witchiepoo on “H.R. Pufnstuf.”
This colorized picture of Abraham Lincoln is mesmerizing to me. Just look at that Friday Face!
Here’s an oddly pertinent quote from Mr. Lincoln:
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.” –Abraham Lincoln in a letter written to William Elkin, 1860
The colorized version somehow makes him more immediate, more real, less mythical.
My favorite book as a first-grader was this one by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire:
I withdrew it from the school library time after time. Just a few years ago, I found one in a used bookstore that had been discarded from a library in Missouri. (The book is available on Amazon, just click the above pic.)
I was fascinated by this illustration and others in the book
Naturally, there were two things I loved at Disneyland: the Nickelodeon (long gone), and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln… the original (it’s been updated since 2001).
I know, I am a nerd, and Abraham Lincoln is today’s Friday Face.