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Monday, November 26, 2018

MODELS of INFLUENCE by NIGEL BARKER : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

MODELS OF INFLUENCE - 50 WOMEN WHO RESET THE COURSE OF FASHION by NIGEL BARKER.  (Can you identify the models on the cover photo?)  There are do many good pictures of the models in the book, but it's a wonder the editors could even choose which photos to feature!  Author Nigel Barker features a series of mini bios capturing the essence of each model and her contribution to the evolution of fashion, or perhaps that's fashion photography!

This book names fifty models who as the subtitle says, "reset the course of fashion," and you may be surprised when you read it that you know so many names and faces.  Is beauty a requirement?  Well, no!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Presence - something that captivates others - is more important!

Some of these woman are of personal fascination to me, so I'll name them! 

DORIAN LEIGH started modeling at the old age of 27 and had already lived a "full" life, married with children unhappily, and some say her whole life was tormented.  She was able to emote so many emotions silently.  She was modeling from about 1944 on and worked nonstop, never shunning lingerie in those days way before Victoria's Secret, when to do so was considered slumming.

BETTINA GRAZIANI, who was our Mistress of the Month in June of 2015, also makes the list and I'm going to do a little "update" on her start page excerpting from this book!  JERRY HALL, who was out Mistress of the Month in April 2011, also makes this list; did you know she was discovered when wearing a hot pink crocheted bikini?

DOVIMA; you must have seen the classic photo of her in a sleek evening gown and long while gloves with the two elephants.

CARMEN DELL 'OREFICE is a woman with almost prenatural beauty because she managed to keep it though into her natural gray hair.  She admits that she worked more in her old age than she did in her 1950's modeling days, and considers herself "still a work in progress," when modeling at age 82!

LINDA EVANGELISTA, who according to this book never wanted to do anything else but model and never has, "no skin care lines, no acting, no television shows, no tell-all books..." (page 27 of 125 on the e-book.)

STEPHANIE SEYMOUR, who went to Europe and where "two auspicious relationships mixing business and pleasure would change the course of her life.  First in Paris, at just 16 years old she started seeing Elite's owner John Casablancas who was tw3ice her age and married... (page 82 of 175 of the e-book.)

CLAUDIA SCHIFFER, who has done over 1000 magazine covers, with a bit of a resemblance to Bridget Bardot.

KATE MOSS, who is credited for "taking the snobbishness out of fashion," and is known for keeping her own counsel - despite her high living.

I could go on, because this book does include some of the latest, youngest models who are making their careers hot right now...


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

Friday, November 23, 2018

SHARING

I'll bet when you saw the word "sharing" on the headline of this post, you thought I'd post an affirmation/declaration about sharing men!  Well, SHARING implies an interaction between two people at least, meaning that if you SHARE a man, then those of you who share him know about each other, at least that you both exist.

Actually...

"It doesn't have to be THANKSGIVING for me to share."


Share what you have.  It doesn't have to be a material thing, but whatever it is,  a stick of gum or your win from the lottery, share it graciously.

This post originally appeared here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot Thanksgiving 2015.  C 2015

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

MONICA LEWINSKY IS STILL HEALING

VANITY FAIR - MONICA LEWINSKY on HEALING and MEETING UP WITH KEN STARR

I dedicated a month to Monica, who was not a Courtesan, not a Mistress in the best, classic scense, but did have an affair with President Bill Clinton when he was in the White House. He denied it because his definition of sex was intercourse.  Now with the Me Too Movement outing powerful abusers, Monica Lewinsky has entered a new phase of her healing.  And she writes a thought-provoking article about her life as it is right now.  Back when I featured Monica here at Mistress Manifesto Blogspot I said GET OFF HER BACK! Sure she was smart.  Sure she was young.  She knew what she was doing.  But being outed by a person posing to be a friend and putting the Presidency into question isn't something she took into consideration.

MARCH 2012 is where to find Monica Lewinsky in my archives.

EXCERPT: ... Given my PTSD and my understanding of trauma, it’s very likely that my thinking would not necessarily be changing at this time had it not been for the #MeToo movement—not only because of the new lens it has provided but also because of how it has offered new avenues toward the safety that comes from solidarity. Just four years ago, in an essay for this magazine (Vanity Fair), I wrote the following: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.” I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent. Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege. 

Monday, November 19, 2018

MICHAEL GROSS' book FOCUS - THOSE NAME MODELS! : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW


Makeup Artists (Bill King), Photographers (David Bailey, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Patrick Demarchelier, Editors, Models (Lauren Bacall, Dovima, Janice Dickenson, Jacqueline Bisset, Christie Brinkley, Gia Carangi, Nastassja Kinski, Miley Cyrus, Gigi Hadid), Department Stores (Henri Bendel), bookers (John Casablanca, Eileen Ford), Designers (CoCo Chanel, Christian Dior,  Clair McCardell, Perry Ellis, Halston, Givency, John Galliano), Stylists (OK, I'm doing a LOT of name dropping here but these names are just a few mentioned in the book!)  You may be surprised by how many of these professional's names you recognize, simply because you read the fine print on some of the ads in fashion ads in magazines. 


 


Michael Gross's book is on the evolution of the photographers and how they and the models they worked with evolved themselves and in and with fashion and the way this was part of and promoted the sexual revolution. This book focuses on the give and take - perhaps the balance - between the fashion photographer and the editor who places limits on what will be acceptable for the magazine layout and the models.  Sometimes the models went past their limits responding to the photographer. Sometimes a model became an inspiration or a muse. Sometimes a photographer had a whole posse of models the preferred to work with - and visa versa. It's about the days of analog fashion imagery, beginning with the 1940's, the "game changers" in those days before reality television and Internet media stars made the magazine and the inner layouts.  The book moves into what's happened because of digital photography and processes such as Photoshop, that can create scenes that never took place. 


"An open secret in the business is that magazines often dole out "pages" and "credits" based on the purchase of advertising pages and that photographers regularly shoot "musts" garments chosen by major advertisers.  But accepting these compromises has compensations.  Powerful magazine editors and stylists have long functioned as de facto agents for photographers recommending them to advertisers for higher paying jobs as a perquisite offsetting enough editorial payments and limited creative freedom."
Chapter, "Welcome to Terrytown,"  (regarding Terry Richardson, a photographer)
pages 50-51 of the e-book



In the epilogue, pages 114-115 of 120 of the e-book, there is a quote from Carey Franklin: "Fashion will pretend it's art instead of calling it what it really is - porno objectification of women all stylishly dressed up as womenswear marketing.  But then, women have gotten so used to seeing themselves with their legs wide open and their fannies hanging out, they have normalized it for themselves! What he (Terry Richardson) does behind the scene however is simply unethical."


Do magazine editors and fashion influencers only want beautiful women?  According to this book, Vogue magazine, when Diana Vreeland was the editor, chose models she preferred that photographers called "Vogue Ugly!"


Hey, there's a lot of mistress name dropping in this book too!  William Helburn was one of a few men who claimed they were sleeping with hot model Jean Shrimpton, "the shrimp," during the mods and rockers era.  In his case, Helburn was "dumped by his mistress Elsa Martinelli," for his involvement.  (Chapter "A Tableau of... in US pages 12-13 of 25.)


What made some these photographer's who became famous for fashion photography click (if you'll pardon that expression!) so that their work dominated.  Many of them were not sexually attracted to women. Some of them were S and M players who enjoyed making models do "edgy" things, such as when Helmut Newton had Jerry Hall lick the cowboy boots of a male model riding a horse (Chapter "An Intolerable and Mendacious Factor, page 26 of 37).


Then so many photographers, designers, fashion executives, and make-up artists and hairdressers, and a model or so, such as Gia Caragi, started dying of AIDS before it was understood, and until the late 1980's not even discussed. The cause of death was concealed even as insiders knew.  Photographer Bill King's extreme life style is rather detailed here, S and M and cocaine, and for all that he would not admit to being gay.  Yes, my readers, it was in that chapter that I became shocked.


This book is certainly worth of your fashion-conscious consideration as we here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot read up on fashion!


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Friday, November 16, 2018

THE WORLD OF FASHION : SPECIAL EDITION : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT

The world of modeling is fascinating to most of us, even those of us who are artistic but not especially fashionable.  I peruse though magazines such as Vogue and am excited by the ads and what they say about our Pop Culture.  I look at the fashion layouts, which, to the insiders who create them are called "stories" and see if I understand that story.

If you're like me and can't afford the most expensive selections from top designers, well, you read a fashion magazine and maybe you are impacted by the trends in your selection of color for your winter wardrobe, or you notice the change of shape in eyewear or the new heel for shoes, or update your hairstyle or your bag. Or you may read around the subject, reading books on cosmetics, hair, putting together classic looks to wear to work.

Now let's face the fact that fashion insiders all know what's ahead a year or more in advance and keep it a secret.  They may wear a trend the moment it appears but don't want to spoil the surprise. Even those on top of the subject know it's too soon to wear some things because if they did they'd be letting those of us who are on the other side as consumers would know what changes are coming.  Others in fashion determine their own style early and stick with it: consider Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor who has barely changed her hair in years. I hear that she has dozens of the same style shoes made for her.  Some of these fashionistas wear black and more black, as if their bodies were only the background for more exciting clothing that is offered for sale.  One day one of these people told me, "We consider models to be just hangars!"  I felt for the models.

I wonder about those few people in the world who have such influence on us - the world! They are powerful people and many of them are heterosexual women or gay men.

We women, whatever our sexual orientation, also look at those models and we notice their beauty and have our favorites.  (Kate Moss is mine! She once owned being a model without any agenda to also be a spokesperson or actress, but I hear her alter ego is actually a Rock Star!  Kate is known for keeping her privacy, making her more mysterious!)  Some women, like some of these models, starve themselves hoping to measure up (or is that down?) to be skinny enough.  One designer featured such unhealthy and famished looking boney teenager models in one spread I saw in a Vanity Fair magazine ad, that I pledged that I would never ever buy his clothing; he had to know better.  Does he even like women? Very thin women modeling clothes two sizes smaller than you aren't actually showing you what those clothes will look like on you, but it seems designers don't want the challenge to design for lovely women's bodies.

As the MeToo Movement exposes sexual predators and harassers and demands equal pay, I always think about the fashion world because for years I've heard that it's full of them.  I've heard that models find sexual demands to be simply the way it is; if you don't like that get out, if you don't comply you won't get booked. I wonder - is modeling so objectifying that a model looses her self worth as her looks and body are discussed in front of her as if she were not there?  Is that why there are always rumors of models who were or become prostitutes in Southern California?  Does a model go to Milan to become experienced sexually? One top model, who no longer needed the money, is rumored to have been selling herself to Saudi Royalty for $10,000 a night!
I'm going to be focusing on the world of fashion in the next few weeks as a special edition of Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, taking more time to do so because I have wonderful books to recommend to you, which, if you read them, will reveal to you the insiders world of fashion - photographers, stylists, magazine editors, and of course the models!

While you read these books (all available as e-books or audio books by the way) you might begin to understand that world without having to enter it.  Or you might "try on" what you read and decide this is the career for you!

I'm focusing on the modeling business because there are so many models who allow themselves to be Kept, particularly when they make it to the Big City (New York City, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan, London) and find themselves in the equivalent of a flop house for models. Starving is made easy by not having money for food.  (One ex-model told me she only ate when someone took her out to dinner.)  All that rushing about and unending feeling of competition with other women!

Every case is different, but as we know here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, Mistresses - Kept Women (Kept People) come from many different reasons why - from desperation to choice, from poverty to wealth, from the nunnery to the houses of prostitution.  Certainly equal pay or economic disparity based in sexism is a factor, but so are love and lust, which I predict will not go out of style!

So, stick with me over the next few weeks as we move through the holidays here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot!

Missy


C 2018 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

A REMINDER ON COMMENTS

I have left some comments unpublished because there was no reference for statements made that could be considered really putting someone in the shade. If you have information that is about one of my posts, please name or link the book, article, or say it is your opinion or experience, PLEASE.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

HOW TO HELP HER WITHOUT KEEPING HER : OPINION BY MISSY

Being Kept is a Relationship, even if the financial aspect of the situation lasts just a few weeks or months, as was the case when Cosmopolitan editor-to-be Helen Gurley Brown gave it a try early in her life - and hated it.  

I got a comment that I left unpublished, though it was a good comment, in which the person argued that an affair is a Relationship too.  Well, the definition of Relationship is broad, as is the definition of Friend. I can argue that traditional stay at home wives and mothers - whose numbers are quite dwindled - are also Kept Women.  It is from the Classic set up in which an unmarried woman does not earn income and is in waiting for the married Man who Keeps her, that we have a clearly defined Mistress.  These days there are a full range of Relationship Possibilities and so the definition is all over the place too.  Probably what is more common is that the woman does earn income, but not enough, and she has a man (or woman) who earns better and the financial help can be counted on for some time.  (And there are gay and lesbian people who are Kept and Keep too.)

I bring this up because a man friend who does not want to marry and who does not want his present Girlfriend whom he is Dating (his words) to be a Mistress, still wants to HELP HER financially.  He doesn't want to embarrass her.  He doesn't want to her to get the wrong idea that he is planning to continue this financial support or turn her into a Kept Woman, which he says she would hate.  He does not want to be thought of as a Sugar Daddy. So he asked me, "HOW DO I HELP HER WITHOUT KEEPING HER?"

The Question is trickier than it seems.  Do beautifully wrapped gifts appear?  Does he splurge on her for her Birthday or a Special Occasion?  Does he ask her, "Would you rather have new window blinds or go out to dinner or buy a new dress?"  (Which is NOT romantic?) 

As usual, I think a kind but honest conversation about it is the best thing to do.  Asking a person what they would like involves them in a decision and they don't go back to a store to return a gift to get the cash (though there are a lot of women doing that, as well as reselling their designer clothes!)

However, with the Holidays approaching, let me say that I think the Secret Elf who visits leaving unexpected cash can be a lot of fun.  (If you have a friend do the delivery, be sure they aren't the type to abscond with your gift.)  Secret Elf is a cash gift to someone that can be done anonymously.  Cash doesn't mean a Money Order, a Check, etc. There was a time when I played Secret Elf when I was visiting someone who I knew was hurting and I left some cash in their medicine cabinet in the bathroom.  Other people were there.  Who could she blame?

Another approach is the GIFT CARD.  In my opinion a romantic man should never give just the gift card.  Flowers, a box of Swiss chocolate, a hand made card or original poem and the GIFT CARD is much better.

It seems to me that a man shouldn't pay rent or medical insurance or set her up in business if his help is meant to be at whim or occasional. CASH or a GIFT CARD have destinations that are up to her.

Now WHEN you give a gift, also has something to do with what you are communicating.  MEN, whatever you do NEVER leave her in bed to go home and leave cash.  The implication is that the lovemaking is actually sex work.

Consider specific item contributions.  An upgraded cell phone or computer is usually good.  Also good, contributing in sneaky ways, such as when you are invited as the "plus one" to a wedding of one of her friends, suggesting you totally cover the gift that comes from the both of you.  That frees up some of her money.

I knew a Mistress of Sorts who never received gifts in boxes, cash, or anything new.  Her man, an antiques hound, furnished her entire two bedroom house with finds from flea markets!  According to her, they never even had sex, never even hugged. But they were very fond of each other and he was happy to help her in this way.

Missy


Sunday, November 11, 2018

WHEN THE LION ROARS

Image result for public domain vintage mgm lion

The Roaring Lion as icon of M.G.M. movie studios is well known.
Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer 
were Jewish immigrants to the United State
who made their way to Hollywood and became
important and powerful men.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

PROSTITUTION IN HOLLYWOOD DURING THE MGM - LOUIS B. MAYER ERA

According to E.J. Fleming, author of "THE FIXERS," a book that focuses on M.G.M. during the Louis B. Mayer era, when Edgar "The Bulldog" Mannix and his gentleman sidekick, Lee Strickland, did the cover-ups for the messy personal lives of actors, often due to their affairs, Hollywood had a number of houses of prostitution that were well known. 

Was Hollywood hyper-sexual?  Were the studios tied into these houses of prostitution where many a woman who came to Hollywood to be a star found employment?

Who used these prostitutes?  No doubt some of the regular customers were men in the business, including stars.

In the Chapter called The Golden Age of Trouble, he mentions a few of the more famous houses.

According to Fleming, Madame Billie Bennet ran a Greek Revival style mansion above Sunset that had 14 suites, a restaurant, and a bar.  She looked and spoke like Mae West and the studios lent Mae's actual costumes.  In the basement there was a wardrobe mistress, make-up men and hairdressers!  Her prostitutes were look-alike of actresses so that a John could hire someone who looked like Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Alice Faye, Carol Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Ginger Rogers, or Marlene Dietrich and indulge his fantasy of being with that star.  (Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn were never copied.) Some were "surgically enhanced." 

Similarly, there was T and M Studio, where there were "6 month option girls"  which means actresses who were hired for training by a studio and paid for 6 months, a time to prove themselves so their option could be renewed.  Not saying that Marilyn Monroe worked there, but she was one of those girls, and some biographies I've read about her suggest that she did work as a prostitute for a while.  Supposedly Groucho Marx was a regular customer.  

The House of Frances, owned by Lee Francis.  She had been a prostitute herself in  in San Francisco and Reno and then moved to LA where she owned several houses but her biggest was at 8439 Sunset Blvd.  She paid a lot of money to local officials and police, over 40% of her net and allowed the vice squad to "raid," but never arrest anyone.  She kept Russian caviar and French champagne and gave favors to reporters to keep her out of the paper.  By 1930 she bragged that she could satisfy any request and so to satisfy the request of a Middle Easterner she provided 100 blondes, who died all their hair blonde.  The prostitutes made about $1000 a week.  And the Johns were also Joans, such as Jean Harlow who is said to have paid $500 to take a customer home.  In the lobby of the five star hotel, stars like Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable might read the paper and drink coffee, while maybe Errol Flynn went upstairs.
In the late 1930's Madame Frances began refusing to pay bribes and on January 16, 1940 her house was raided, there were dozens of embarrassing arrests, and she was put out of business.

I hate to say this, but a prostitute working for a time in one of these places probably made much more than the option girls, even the starlets who got small part,

Meanwhile, there was a lot of sex, even orgies, for free to the participants.  According to Fleming, Edmund Goulding had a Beverly Hills mansion where movies stars and call girls even worked in choreographed Sadio- Masochistic sessions.  In Louise Brooks' 1978 interview, she mentioned the place.

There are so very many more options in education and employment than these not so distant days, but just recently have actresses begun to complain about sexual harrassment and rape by film studio executives and people employed in the business, and by the way, I believe Corey Feldman about boys being molested by some of them.

Have I tantalized you to read E. J. Fleming's The Fixers?


To read about LOUISE BROOKS, Mistress of the Month, go to archives February 2014.
To read about Kept Man PAUL NOVAK and MAE WEST, go to archives September 2017
You may also be interested in:
FAITH  Howard Hughes fifteen year old Mistress in archives May 2014
CLARA BOW, First It Girl and Mistress of Roaring Twenties film producer B.P. Shulberg in January 2016
MARILYN MONROE, Mistress of SuperAgent Johnny Hyde, in May 2016
or simply use the search feature to scan for posts about Marilyn.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

CAMILLE "TONI" LANIER MANNIX, THE GEORGE REEVES DEATH, and EDGAR J. MANNIX, MGM FIXER

THE FIXERS by E.J. Fleming is the primary reference for this month's posts.

Image result for fixers by e. j. fleming In May of 2013, I elected actor George Reeves, known for his television role as Superman, as Mantress of the month.  The mystery of his death - be it ruled suicide or possible murder - entails his involvement with the wife of MGM "Fixer", Edgar "The Bulldog" Mannix as a Kept Man.  Her name was Camille "Toni" Lanier when she was a Ziegfeld Follies Show Girl in New York, and she met Eddie in about 1932.  She made it to Hollywood in 1934 for a film.  She was called "legs," or "the girl with the million dollar legs," and when Eddie saw her, he had an assistant give her $4500 for the day's work.  Eddie had long been married to his wife Berneice who had refused him a divorce even though they had no children and he'd had another mistress, Betty Asher, the bisexual daughter of a director.  But when he met Toni, you could say he met his match.

Toni could swear like a sailor and was a drinker.  The Mobster Mickey Cohen (who obviously at least met her to say this) said she was the only person in Los Angeles with any balls!  "A female Eddie," Toni thought waiting around for filming was a bore and she walked off a set and headed for a vacation in Hawaii.  Mannix followed her there.  They came back with an agreement.  She'd be Eddie Mistress.  As his Mistress, she was seen around town with Eddie, went with him when he traveled on business for MGM, socialized and vacationed with his friends.  She got to quit the chorus line and the film business. She was not hidden yet his sidekick at MGM, his polar opposite, a gentleman named Strickland, did what he could to hide the situation, providing beards and a fake boyfriend. Eventually, Eddie got his divorce and married Toni.

This book is about "The Bulldog," and Strickland. Together they fixed things so that an actor's reputation wouldn't be ruined and put them out of work and the studio out of its investments and earnings.  The book begins with a story of how Hollywood grew, then follows some of the fixing these men did. Their cover-ups and machinations to preserve careers and the studios had more twists and turns than a soap opera.  Covered are the death of Director Thomas Ince on Hearst's boat, Charlie Chaplin's seduction of underage starlets, the star who had a baby elsewhere and then publicly adopted her own child, the strong possibility that Mistress Marion Davies did have at least one child with Hearst, and quite a bit about the role of starlets and models in prostitution.

For our purposes here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot I'm focusing on the Superman death mystery, and the possibility that Toni Lanier Mannix had George Reeves murdered.  Let's start with the fact that there was some funny business going on.  Eddie had not been faithful to Toni and they had their understanding that their marriage money could also be used so that Toni could keep George.  She bought a second house that George lived in where she was a lot of the time and she also visited him daily on set.  Together they did work for charities. No doubt this richer, older woman thought that she and George would marry after her husband died.  By 1959, at the time that Reeves met Leonore Lemmon in New York, Mannix was 68 and showed up at the studio a few days a month.  He still had connections on both sides of the law.  Sick with heart disease and emphysema, he and Toni loved each other but she was more a caregiver to him.  Let's say that it was within possibility that Eddie had a hit man kill George because he wanted him dead or Toni asked him to hire someone. Toni had spent a decade with George.

George Reeves had tired of his successful but limited role as Superman and an entertainer of children and physically he was no longer up to it.  He'd made good money but wasn't personally wealthy.  In 1956 George's mom showed up to tell him he had a million dollar inheritance coming.  The Superman role wasn't what he had in mind when he'd set out for Hollywood acting career. He returned to Hollywood from New York to tell Toni that he was going to marry this other woman.  Toni went crazy and she harassed him with phone calls and hang up calls, up to 40 - 50 a day.  There were close calls with his car, someone fuddling with the breaks, a series of accidents. Someone even called the newspaper the LA Examiner to report that the wedding had been called off. Someone stole his dog. George was unnerved with all this. 

Only 8 months since George had told Toni he was going to marry Leonore Lemmon he was dead. The author, E.J. Fleming, thinks it is this woman who killed George! 

While Toni raged, threatened to ruin George by claiming he was gay to the press and gossiped that Leonore Lemmon was a whore or said George was temporarily insane, the case could be made that she was.  George was a drinker, but he had the reputation as a man who was fun to be around, a nice man, who was generous with his friends. He was found dead in his upstairs bedroom of the small house they shared when Toni wasn't there, shot and killed, and the few party guests downstairs claimed they saw and heard nothing when questioned. Were the witnesses all too drunk?

So, the question is what did George, who anticipated having some money of his own and could finally quit Superman, see in this Leonore Lemmon?  My take on this is that she was a spit-fire, a younger Toni Lanier Mannix in terms of personality! 

Was it a case of incomplete police work?  The case was controversial in the tabloids and media. Other stars spoke up saying that the "indicated suicide" could not be possible.  His mother didn't believe it.  Toni even said he had been murdered and was so overwrought she was put under heavy sedation.  Lemmon broke into the crime scene and stole the $4000 in travelers checks they had purchased the day before, removed bloody sheet. There was a second autopsy but the body was embalmed without legal protocol.  Toni was the person who got Reeve's estate in his will, including the house back.  The author says that Leonore knew how to use a gun.  I question his notion that neither Eddie or Toni did know how to use one. It's not likely that this mystery will be re investigated, and no one ever confessed.

***

To read my posts from May 2013 about George and Toni, go to that month in the Mistress Manifesto Archives.  You may also wish to read July 2013, devoted to Mistress of the Month Marion Davies, Mistress of Publisher Randolph Hearst.  This November 2018 is a short month since we are revisiting George Reeves and coming into the Holidays.  Explore or revisit this blog for some fascinating profiles on Kept Men and Women!



Friday, November 2, 2018

TO MY DEVOTED MISTRESS MANIFESTO READERS!

I'll be publishing posts for November 2018 starting tomorrow.  I'll be splitting the month by first revisiting one of the Kept Men I covered a few years ago and then move into FASHION oriented six weeks into the New Year with an Honorary Mistress of the Month for December! 

What a fast paced year this 2018 has been, and as has happened before, just when I wonder if I'm going to run out of Mistresses and Mantresses to cover, I hear about more!   Do you know of a Kept Man or Woman I should be covering?  Are you a Kept Man or Woman? Please leave a comment with that information!  Books, links, etc. would be appreciated.


I encourage you to go through my archives to find so very many Kept people who have been covered over the years; I reworked the GUIDE in PAGES so it should be easy for you to scan through!

THANK YOU FOR READING MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT!

Thursday, November 1, 2018