Monday, May 28, 2007

Starlets & scofflaws

This blog is more than two years old, and I've yet to mention Lindsay Lohan and the Hilton heiress (such restraint!) ...until now. The Lohan was arrested for DUI or something and the heiress might be going to jail, or something, because she didn't pay parking tickets, or something. Whatever. The point is this wonderful article about silent screen star Bebe Daniels (whom my aunts lunched with in London in 1970; long story). A 19-year-old Daniels was arrested and jailed in 1921 after she was caught going 30 mph over the speed limit in Santa Ana. Read the article. All of it. The details are sensational. My conclusion: the intensity of our celebrity-mongering hasn't changed in 86 years, but the tone of it has. We tar and feather our mischievous/woebegone celebrities with extreme prejudice today. In days of yore, people were a mite more classy with the tough love.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

One has to register in order to read the LA Times Bebe article. Can the same article be found in a registration-not-needed location?

J.J. said...

I don't have to register to read it. That's weird. But registration should be free. Get un-lazy.

RC said...

you know, i don't think i've ever mentioned paris, but Lohan has received some comments on my blog (pluses and minuses) but the article you point out is really intersting as is your commentary.

Anonymous said...

While the lazy bloggers out there are just commenting on whatever celebrity news they're reading in The Onion, I really dug this post, J.J., which actually informed me about something.

I'd never heard of Bebe Daniels, but Pre-Code Hollywood is full of great stories like this. The audacity of a teenage girl to be driving over 30! Makes me wonder what they'll be up to 75 years from now.

J.J. said...

Seventy-five years from now, fetuses will have their own reality shows.