Inger Stevens

            On Labour Day my left arm was more in pain than lately but I could still stretch as far as before.

            I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line of “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. 

            I translated the final verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (Woman Overboard) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing the song in English. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune a little too often. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I put my camera on the tripod so I could take photos of the pages of the first issue of Orgasmagazine, which I published 30 years ago on September 5.

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos at 18:10, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since August 15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:35. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video that I shot on August 22. I cut out most of my trip east on the south sidewalk of Queen and only kept the footage of street people. There are about 25 minutes left. 

            In my “Élisa (Gibson)” Movie Maker project I cut out all the songs that come before “Élisa”, but didn’t check to see if that’s the final take. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last four pork ribs while watching episode 2 of Checkmate.

            Frank and Betty Lyons are newlyweds on their honeymoon in a hotel in San Francisco. Betty is an heiress and her wealthy grandmother does not approve of Frank’s financial status so they are keeping their wedding a secret. A waiter is in the other room with the lights off and he steals some letters that are in a box. Later the phone rings and the couple find it odd because no one knows they are there as they have eloped. The person at the other end says he is Bill Adams, who served with Frank during the Korean Police Action. Frank doesn’t recognize Bill’s voice but accepts that it’s been a long time since he’s heard it. Frank had sent him a letter telling him he would be in San Francisco. Bill wants to talk about a business deal that he mentioned in a letter and so Frank reluctantly agrees to leave Betty for a few minutes to meet Bill in the hotel bar. Betty wakes up in the middle of the night to realize Frank never returned. She tries to reach Bill Adams’s room but finds there is no Adams staying at the hotel. The next day she calls the Checkmate detective agency on the manager’s recommendation. Don Corey comes to see her and asks her for her husband’s address book. They find Bill Adams in San Diego and learn he’s not the one who called Frank. Betty checks for Frank’s letters and finds they are gone. When Don hears about the waiter he goes to check with management. While he is gone a letter is slipped under Betty’s door warning her not to call the police or Frank will be killed. Betty meets Don in the lobby and she tells him she no longer requires his services. He deduces that someone contacted her and gets her to show him the note. Don’s partner Jed tells Don that he’s learned that last night someone who appeared drunk was taken out of the hotel by a bellhop and a cab pulled up right away for him to be put inside. While Don and Jed are talking, a man speaks to Betty from around a corner and tells her he can take her to Frank. She slips away from Don and Jed and is taken to a house outside of town that looks like the Psycho house. She sees Frank’s coat and runs to him but it’s someone else wearing it. He is Abner Benson, a convicted murderer who escaped from prison and now wants to get out of the country. Frank is brought out in a bathrobe. Benson plans to pose as Frank and use his passport to go to Hong Kong, which is where Frank and Betty were planning to travel. In this scenario he supposedly looks enough like Frank to pull it off but Betty has to come with him and pretend he is Frank. As Frank’s life is still under threat, Betty agrees. She is told that if she calls the police and Benson does not call the house every hour, Frank will be killed. Meanwhile Checkmate associate and Criminologist Dr. Hyatt is analyzing the handwriting of the note that was slipped to Betty. Don learns that Betty has returned to the hotel with her husband. Don goes to see Betty and meets the fake Frank. Benson claims he was the victim of a kidnapping but escaped. He says he’ll call the police shortly but when Don checks with the police later he never did. Hyatt is disappointed with how Don handled his inquiries when he talked with Frank. So Don says they can go talk with him now since they are supposed to fly for Hong Kong tonight. Hyatt tells “Frank” and Betty about his handwriting analysis skills which could be useful in tracking down the kidnapper. He has Betty write “Mary had a little lamb” and determines correctly that she has musical talent and that she is very agitated. He gets “Frank” to describe the man who wrote the note and it doesn’t fit with Hyatt’s assessment. He tells Don later the man is lying. He says anyone can tell that the note writer is right handed but “Frank” said he was left handed. They start to think that maybe “Fran’ is not Frank and that Betty’s agitation is terror. They go to the police and find Benson’s mug shot. Don and Hyatt decide to use Jed to pose as Bill Adams, since neither Betty or Benson have ever seen him. Jed comes to see Frank and Benson says he’s an old friend of Frank’s and they’ll take him to where he is. They drive to the house and in a cigarette package Jed is carrying a transmitter that emits a signal that Don and Hyatt are following. Jed is tied up at the house. Benson leaves his girlfriend Tina and one henchman behind to watch and eventually kill Frank and Jed while he leaves for the airport with Betty, who he also plans to kill after they get to Hong Kong. Don lures the henchman out of the house with a noise and knocks him out. He goes in the back and Hyatt goes in the front. Don calls the police and has them intercept Benson at the airport, bringing Betty back to Frank. 

            Betty was played by Inger Stevens, who came to the US from Sweden at the age of 10. At 15 she ran away from home and became a burlesque dancer. She returned home, graduated, then became a model and a chorus girl while studying at the Actors Studio. She did summer stock theatre and TV commercials. She made her film debut at 22 with a co-starring role in Man On Fire. She co-starred in Cry Terror, The World the Flesh and the Devil, A Guide for the Married Man, Hang ‘em High, Madigan, Firecreek, 5 Card Stud, House of Cards, A Dream of Kings, She became lovers with Bing Crosby (he wanted to marry her but she refused to convert to Catholicism), James Mason, Anthony Quinn, Dean Martin, Burt Reynolds, and Harry Belafonte. She attempted suicide on New years Day of 1959. She was nominated for an Emmy for a performance on the Dick Powell Show in 1962. In 1963 she starred for three seasons in the sitcom The Farmer’s Daughter. In 1970 she died of acute barbiturate intoxication.