My Week with Marilyn kicked off a legendary trip back to a ‘Golden Age’ of film. Shot at Pinewood Studios in England, this homage is told from the vantage point of a lovestruck young man who worked on the set of the original 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, shot at the identical location, Pinewood Studios. It starred Sir Lawrence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. In My Week With Marilyn, the characters are very authentically portrayed by Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh. I feel the ’57 film shows the real Marilyn at her best.

To my surprise, my darling husband, Jered, invited me to a second movie! This time at Quentin Tarantino’s theater in West Hollywood, the New Beverly Cinema. Honestly, both movies were Jered’s picks; I was his date. Seated in the beautifully restored movie house QT owns, one feels a ‘going back in time’ experience. Even the popcorn is fresh, w/real butter.

Well, Jered fixed his eyes on a movie he had seen when it opened in 1966! The science fiction film, directed by Francois Truffaut and starring Julie Christie and Oskar Werner, started out with a bang – totally captivating. One of the highlights of the evening is that the film had been restored, so the reds were brilliant – just like an old technicolor movie! Fahrenheit 451, another Pinewood Studios masterpiece.

A beautiful face appeared in the crowd while viewing an exhibit at LACMA. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting an outstanding collection of mid-century art and design. Part of the exhibit was fashion. I asked my husband to start clicking away with his iPhone. Now I would have photos to send my friend Melissa who co-founded HiFi, an organization whose goal is to inspire, promote and sustain an integrated fashion community in Hawai’i. She would be thrilled to see a gold lamé one-piece bathing suit by designer Margit Fellegi from 1950-51. He captured that image and then on to, OMG, a polka-dot swimsuit jacket bathing suit ensemble. ‘Round every corner, a surprise awaited our eyes. I stood gawking over an Eisenhower jacket; nothing special to the average spectator, until I overheard an elderly woman say to her friend, “that’s an Eisenhower jacket!”. I’d been thinking it, but didn’t comment to my husband. Quietly, I interrupted her and chimed in, “I had one in a red tartan plaid”. The charming lady, with a very fifties perm in her hair (who knows, could’ve been natural; just reminds me of the perm my mother gave me when she lopped off my hair at age six. My God, I already had ringlets!), turned around to face me. I saw a clear, blue-eyed, chiseled-featured face, rather petite. She responded to my comment and said, “best thing about him!” Oh, so we’re already getting political, I thought. She made a reference to the atomic age during his presidency, which led me to divert to a phrase he coined, “Atoms For Peace”, a counter-culture statement attempting to alter the connotation from atom bomb and all things destructive to the Atoms from which we are all One! “Oh”, she said with delight, “I remember that”. Now, this darling woman had to be in her eighties, still bright and very involved with life. I continued to tell her of my son’s involvement with a musical group calling themselves “Atoms For Peace”. Well, she really lit up and replied, “music is the answer – the universal language”. Oh, dear God, can I take her home with me? We had such a moment and all over this little flesh-colored Eisenhower jacket. I was so intrigued by her, I forgot to photo the jacket. For your pleasure, though, here’s a sampling of what the bathing beauties wore back in the 50′s.

We all have it in us, so let’s tap into it! Seeing Harry Belafonte speak last night, I witnessed a man who listened to his mother at age seven when she took him aside to say “Harry, don’t you ever spend one day of your life without feeling like you are making a difference in somebody else’s life”. After hearing him speak from his heart for two hours, he was always filled with compassion and forgiveness, even though he suffered the same indignities his forefathers experienced just because of the color of their skin. These qualities fed him with the strength and courage to live by his convictions. Deeply a non-violent being, he successfully found ways to communicate with adversaries as well as solidify friendships with the likes of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King.

His amazing display of forgiveness demonstrates a trust in being in the right place at the right time. The gift of a ticket to the first theatrical play of his life lead him to become an actor. When the theater in Harlem ran out of funding during the WWII years, he discovered he could sing and, at the Vanguard in NYC, banned together with the likes of Charlie Parker to give birth to this nation’s first million-seller album, Calypso.

At 84, Harry is still going strong. He spoke for 2-hours without as much as a swig of water. Only at the end when people started filing up to meet him did he acquiesce and drink a bit of water.

Tim Robbins was his interviewer and opened with “Harry, the last time I saw you was in Sing Sing”. He was referring to a prison education program the two men were contributing to. They chuckled and Harry said, “One reason I accepted this speaking engagement was to be with you, Tim“. From that launch, they sat iconicly and humbly before witnesses of their genius. Names like Sidney Poitier and Eleanor Roosevelt sprang from the lips of Mr. B, addressing them with great admiration and true friendship. I am very familiar with Mrs. Roosevelt’s story. She, the ‘ugly duckling’, was raised in a very white, Anglo-Saxon family and sent away to school as an adolescent. In her family, blacks and Jews were treated with inferiority. Upon returning from several years away at school, she visited sewing factories as a humanitarian, breaking all family tradition. What she saw were sweatshops filled with mothers and daughters toiling over their sewing machines, some asleep from sheer exhaustion. These conditions touched her heart deeply. At the prime of her life, 18 yrs old, she started to open her mind to the prejudices she had inherited and began a life-long journey toward equality. Oh yes, the ‘ugly duckling’ was ugly no more. Her inner beauty reigned supreme over the veneer of awkwardness and even the sound of her voice. It was her commitment to forgiveness for all small-minded thinking that attested to her beauty and legacy. To have met her, must have been thrilling. Oh, Harry you are the man! Thank you for sharing you stories and your life with us. As my husband so eloquently expressed, “I felt like I was with him in Mississippi when he was talking about taking the $70k he had raised for ‘the cause’ to expel human suffering.” That’s when he had convinced his life-long friend, Sidney, to join him and they encountered the KKK. “That was serious”, Harry said with a shiver.

Harry Belafonte embodies revolution. Like Gloria Steinem, he lived through the 20th Century when all of our seeds of peace were planted. He admitted that we have been living in dormancy for decades. But now his renewed faith is the youth all over the globe watering and cultivating those dormant seeds. Just like the elephant that lives in drought, keeps visiting her watering hole and digs and digs until water finally appears. Relentless faith and forgiveness 24/7 and beyond, into infinity.

May we all live in finding forgiveness.

Mr. Belefonte’s new memoir is now available.

Autumn Leaves

My husband was planning a trip back East to visit his family last summer… alone! I said “Not this time! I have a feeling we’re going together and it will be work-related. Then I added, “Also, I feel it will be around the holidays.”

I don’t know how you manifest your thoughts (please let me know), but mine come from making little wishes. I really don’t expect a lot, although my goals are lofty by nature. Consequently, when you add up all your little wishes that have come true, you end up with one of magnificence. That is what happened in this case.

Within several days of this talk between husband and wife I received an invitation to attend an event in New Jersey! To boot, it was in November, close to Thanksgiving. I now want to publicly thank Tom Jeron, the producer of this Batman Expo for including me and making it possible for my husband and I to visit our family as well as reunite with our New York friends Rob and Nell and Stevie and Maureen.

During this trip I discovered Englewood, NJ where our hotel was located. A stroll into the charming downtown area proved to be enchanting. People were so friendly and the food – oh, you Italians feed my soul! I can now say I stayed in the same town where Tony Bennett lives. I still want to listen to his Duets II CD that is topping the charts. Now that I’m home, I will definitely spend an evening with Mr. Bennett and Friends.

One day for lunch we found an unbelievably great Chinese veggie place where I could swear they make their own tofu… like custard in the middle, lightly fried to a crisp on the outside, swimming in black bean sauce. Simply marvelous!

A million thanks to my fan and new friend from New Jersey, Matt, who became our personal escort for five glorious days. A big shout-out to his wife, Jeanie, and kids, Dan and Dana. Pizza tastes better with you!

Fans I met at the Expo, such as John Brown who builds Batmobiles and Irene who traveled two hours on a train from upstate NY to see Susie from the Batman episode The Joker Goes To School demonstrate the dedication these good folks have from the bottom of their lovely hearts. East Coast people are tough. They have to be to get through those cold winters and hot, humid summers. But what these people gave to me was Beauty and Joy. Red and gold leaves on sycamore and maple trees lingered as winter approached. As my husband and I traveled, the streets were lined with their magnificence.

I feel a little like Jimmy Fallon, if you follow him, thanking his Friday audiences. Thank you… for finding the little black dress at a boutique in Englewood called La Scala. Thank you… for a glass of pinot noir at Solaia Restaurant, next door to the Bergen Pac Theater. Thank you… to Matt for not getting upset when the coffee toppled over at Starbucks and drenched your jeans. Good thing you’re a diver because you didn’t complain in your ‘wet suit’. Thank you… to family and friends for sharing a bed and morning brew. With people like you I am a wealthy woman.

Happy Thanksgiving to You All

P.S. David Wild’s list of music for gift giving is worth looking over. Especially his comment from Jon Stewart.