Lana Turner

            On Sunday morning I finally memorized “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. That took a few months and it’s the longest song I’ve ever tried to nail down. Next I have to work out the chords and that may take a few weeks. 

            I’ve almost finished gathering all the images I need for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 238 pictures and probably only need about ten more. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune until the beginning of the last song. 

            Around midday I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been running all week and set the already clean one going. I’m using them less these days because of the slightly warmer and damper weather.

            I weighed 89.15 kilos before lunch. I had a lettuce, tomato, and avocado salad with the rest of my maple-Dijon dressing and a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

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

            I weighed 87.7 kilos at 18:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:18. 

            I tried once again to digitize the cassette tape with the Christian and the Lions rehearsal of “Me and Gravity” and “Shock Therapy” that has come out as noise each time I tried over the last few weeks. It didn’t work and so I tried it in Ableton but got the same distortion. After searching online for a solution I decided to try my cassette-to-MP3 converter one more time because I couldn’t find a recording from that cassette anywhere amongst the cassette to MP3 files. If that doesn’t work it might just be that this particular cassette is not digitizable. Apparently it’s possible for a tape to be audible without being digitizable. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, scallion, mushroom, tomato, and avocado salad with pomegranate zaatar dressing while watching season 1, episode 16 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            The first skit is the VIP interview with Julia Wild (a parody of Julia Child). She prepares coq au vin and pours about three bottles of wine into the pot while sampling until she’s sloshed and then blacks out at the end of the interview. 

            Frank Gorshin starts off singing “I Love You, You Love Me” by Harold Spina. Then he starts saying “I love you” in various voices like Boris Karloff, Howard Duff, and Joseph Cotton. And then he interacts with various costumed women with the voices of Anthony Newley, Jimmy Cagney, Richard Burton, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant. Then as Anthony Quinn he confronts a woman, grabs her neck, and her head comes off because she’s a mannequin. 

            Next Lana Turner does a recitation followed by a song and dance number with the show’s troupe of dancers. The melody for “Greensleeves” plays during the recitation about a night of dancing with a lover. Then she sings to the same tune, “Gone gone are the arms that clung, and the words of love that were sweetly sung… etcetera”. It seems like it was written just for this number. She waltzes with several men. 

            Then there’s another episode of Carol and Sis. Carol and Roger are not talking to each other after an argument and so Chrissie has to act as an intermediary. Then they start to argue again. Meanwhile Chrissie answers the phone and it’s the secretary from the Happy Marriage game show. They entered their names last week and now someone wants to come over and interview them to see if they qualify. Both Carol and Roger say forget it but when Chrissie tells them the prize is $950 they are all for it and get ready to pretend to be getting along. When he arrives they are over the top lovey dovey and then he leaves. When he’s gone they return to arguing but then he rings their doorbell again and they return to their act. He says he forgot his briefcase, which is very important because it contains the tape recorder that he uses to find out if couples really are happy together. 

            The final sketch is set in 1900, and it features Carol and Frank as newlyweds. Frank plays Jonathan Bluebeard who carries Rebecca over the threshold. The butler says, “Welcome number 13”. Then a woman named Zelda (played by Lana Turner) arrives and she and Jonathan begin passionately embracing and kissing. Rebecca asks, “Who is this?” and Jonathan says, “My sister”. Zelda explains, “We’re a very affectionate family”. Rebecca asks, “How long have you been apart”. “Since my last wife died”. “When was that?” “Yesterday”. Jonathan tells Rebecca to go freshen up and then he and Zelda plot her murder. A suit of armour holding a spiked mace has its arms raised and is rigged to swing the mace down when someone closes the door. They call for Rebecca and she comes. Zelda tells her she forgot to close the door and Rebecca turns to do it but the butler does it and gets knocked out. Then they try to drop a chandelier on her but it misses. Zelda tries throwing knives at Rebecca but they miss. They sit down to some wine and Rebecca’s is poisoned but she switches the glasses. But then Zelda switches them back and this goes on until Rebecca only pretends to switch the glasses and Zelda ends up switching them so she gets poisoned. Then Jonathan runs to attack her and falls out the window to his death. She then answers the door and it’s her lover played by Lyle Waggoner as she tells him they now have Bluebeard’s fortune. 

            The final song and dance number has Carol and Frank singing “By the Beautiful Sea” by Harry Carroll and Harold R. Atteridge. But the opening part isn’t from that song or any I can find so maybe someone from the show wrote it. All the dancers including Carol and Frank are wearing flippers. 

            Lana Turner was discovered while skipping classes at Hollywood High School and having a Coke at the Top Hat Café. An agent asked if she wanted to be in pictures and she said she’d have to ask her mother. She made her film debut at 17 in They Won’t Forget. After her appearance in Love Finds Andy Hardy she was nicknamed “The Sweater Girl”. She co-starred in Johnny Eager, Ziegfeld Girl, Somewhere I’ll Find You, Keep Your Powder Dry, Weekend at the Waldorf, Bachelor in Paradise, Witches’ Brew, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Honky Tonk, Rich Man Poor Girl, Dramatic School, These Glamour Girls, Cass Timberlane, Homecoming, The Three Musketeers, Betrayed, The Sea Chase, Who’s Got the Action?, She starred in Dancing Co-ed, We Who Are Young, Two Girls On Broadway, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Green Dolphin Street, Imitation of Life, Mr. Imperium, Latin Lovers, Flame and the Flesh, The Prodigal, Peyton Place (her only Oscar nomination), Madame X, Portrait in Black, Another Time Another Place, The Rains of Ranchipur, The Bad and the Beautiful, Slightly Dangerous, The Merry Widow, Latin Lovers, Marriage is a Private Affair, Diane, The Lady Takes a Flyer, By Love Possessed, The Big Cube, The Survivors, Persecution, Bittersweet Love, During WWII she was a popular pin-up girl and her image was painted on the noses of fighter planes. She sold war bonds in exchange for kisses and made $5.5 million for the campaign. She played Jaqueline Perrault on six episodes of Falcon Crest. She was married 8 times. In the late 50s she was in an abusive relationship with the gangster Johnny Stompanato. In 1958 her 15 year old daughter murdered Stompanato because he was beating her mother. Her autobiography was titled Lana: The Lady The Legend the Truth.