Vinterview 2 - Annora of Nora Finds / Hedy Lamarr

This weeks vinterview is with another good friend of mine, Annora of Nora Finds, a vintage blog by Nora, a Chinese Indonesian Australian now living in London. Nora is a lover of the bygone eras who enjoy thrifting and finding vintage treasures. As a vintage blogger Nora aims to bring the old school elegance to her modern wardrobe and busy life and hope to inspire others to adopt vintage. You can find Nora on instagram @norafinds.

Nora chose Hedy Lamarr as her vintage idol which I think is a great match as they both are scientists with beauty and brains! For those of you that don't know Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 9 November 1914 – 19 January 2000) was an Austrian and American film actress and inventor.

After an early and brief film career in Germany that included the controversial film Ecstasy (1933 – in which Lamarr is very briefly seen swimming in the nude and running naked), she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. There, she met MGM head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood, where she became a film star from the late 1930s to the 1950s.

Lamarr appeared in numerous popular feature films, including Algiers (1938), I Take This Woman (1940), Comrade X (1940), Come Live With Me (1941), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and Samson and Delilah (1949).

At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA, and Bluetooth technology, and this work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

And now to the interview. These questions were taken from a 1969 interview on the Merv Griffin show. 

You're beautiful
Why thank you - you’re not bad yourself.

Did you put on something new?
I always have something new. I like beautiful things and they keep showing up here and everywhere and I simply must surround myself with them.

Can I call you Hedy Miss Lamarr? Its a great name
It is indeed a great name - I do prefer Hedy than Hedwig. After all I’m not an owl.

Do you live in New York? Why are you here?
I wish I did - it’s such a great vibrant city and what a great place for a scientist and an actress to be. And why wouldn’t I be in New York - isn’t America the land of opportunity? Oh wait, that was pre-Trump wasn’t it?

Did you like pictures?
I loved pictures. It has always been my favourite mean to escape the real life. It’s always been a way for me to learn about other people, other lives, other cultures, and places outside my home.

You weren’t forced into it by your mother?
I was forced to do a lot of things by my mother, but pictures were not one of them. She’d rather me spending my time studying, practising the piano, or reading. Pictures were more of a reward if I did well in school.

Do you want me to tell you what your image is? its a glamorous beautiful internationally know star who obviously rides in limousines has great jewels and you don't scrub your kitchen floors
Well, image is a funny thing isn’t it. It’s only a glimpse into someone’s real life. I choose the image I want you to perceive and most of the time that is the image that sticks. Media doesn’t always show the real me, and it is so heavily filtered that you get to know *some* part of me, but not all. Do I have a glamorous life? Sometimes. Do I have great jewels? I sure do. Do I scrub my kitchen floors? Yes, but only because I have to. I don’t believe in paying someone to do something you can do better/ you enjoy doing. I love cleaning - I find it therapeutic. It’s about outsourcing what you don’t want to do and use the time to do something more enjoyable.

Isn't that what its all about?
It sure is. Isn’t that what we all want? Being happy? Making enough money to allow for our happiness?

Tell me something that I didn't know about you
I have a lot of sadness in me.

Of all the movies you made in Hollywood do you remember one leading man better than others?
William Powell was always a special one for me. We had great times making our movies and he is such a protector and a great friend to me. He was the Nick to my Nora - actually I wish I had played Nora Charles.

Do you have a desire to make films now? Would you like to go back? Have you seen any you'd like to do?
I’d love to. It’s always been on my bucket list to be a zombie. I’d love to be a glamorous zombie in a movie - or a zombie queen. They have vampire queens all the time but not zombie queens - I shall rectify that. I’d love to go back, I’d like to do an Alfred Hitchcock or a Stephen King movie actually.

And for a special treat you can watch the original interview here:

Thanks so much to Nora for agreeing to this interview!

Vinterview 1 - Ellen of a Wild Tea Party / Katharine Hepburn

Credit: Naomi Gall @lilajeanvintage
My first vinterview is with a good friend of mine Ellen of A Wild Tea Party. Ellen is a vintage blogger with a modern twist, a former magazine editor turned stylist and freelance writer, shoes are her life. On Ellen's blog you can find stunning outfit posts, fantastic hair tutorials and a whole lot more. You can find Ellen on instagram @awildteaparty.

Ellen chose Katharine Hepburn as her vintage idol. For those who do not know Katherine Hepburn was an American actress. Known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, Hepburn was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer. In 1999, Hepburn was named by the American Film Institute as the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while studying at Bryn Mawr College. After four years in the theatre, favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her early years in the film industry were marked with success, including an Academy Award for her third picture, Morning Glory (1933), but this was followed by a series of commercial failures that led her to be labeled "box office poison" in 1938. Hepburn masterminded her own comeback, buying out her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and acquiring the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she be the star. In the 1940s, she was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where her career focused on an alliance with Spencer Tracy. The screen-partnership spanned 25 years and produced nine movies.

Hepburn challenged herself in the latter half of her life, as she regularly appeared in Shakespearean stage productions and tackled a range of literary roles. She found a niche playing middle-aged spinsters, such as in The African Queen (1951), a persona the public embraced. Three more Oscars came for her work in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). In the 1970s, she began appearing in television films, which became the focus of her career in later life. She remained active into old age, making her final screen appearance in 1994 at the age of 87. After a period of inactivity and ill health, Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96.

Hepburn famously shunned the Hollywood publicity machine and refused to conform to society's expectations of women. She was outspoken, assertive, athletic, and wore trousers before it was fashionable for women to do so. She married once, as a young woman, but thereafter lived independently. A 26-year affair with her co-star Spencer Tracy was hidden from the public. With her unconventional lifestyle and the independent characters she brought to the screen, Hepburn epitomized the "modern woman" in the 20th-century United States and is remembered as an important cultural figure.


And now to the interview. These questions were taken from an interview on the NBC Today show with Katie Couric on 30th June 2003.  

What's your most intense memory? 
So going in hardcore for the first question I see... I am struggling to pick one. I have intense memories of plenty of things, so I will pick a pleasant one. I must've been about eight years old, and I was sitting on the swing attached to a pine tree that grew amongst thick green grass interspersed with the needles at a historical house next to the river at Sussex Inlet, singing 'You are not alone' by Michael Jackson and watching the way my feet swung up above the horizon of the river. I felt so free and relaxed, like I could fly. The river was so blue, and my uncle's dinghy was tied to the jetty, and when it was time to leave I had to avoid being headbutted by the goat -again- that was tied to a nearby tree. All that while my parents and relatives and their friends ate scones and drank milkshakes on the veranda.


Do you consider yourself beautiful?
There's no right way to answer that question. It's a can of worms. I will attempt it though.

As a teenager I always felt there were plenty of girls prettier than me because no one had ever told me I looked anything other than skinny (thanks mental health issues for a diet of tea and three chocolate Jaffa biscuits and whatever my mother cooked for dinner a day). It wasn't until I was an adult I mentioned how pretty I thought a girl I went to school with was and my mother blinked and was like, "You're far prettier!" which really threw me. That was the first time anyone had really said anything positive about my looks.  And then people started telling me how photogenic I am, and I hear it a lot, without blowing my own trumpet there. I guess, perhaps now as I grow into myself more I do like my face and think I am capable of taking a good photo. Beautiful though might be a stretch. That's very subjective to the viewer.


Makeup?
Yes. I like it. I like lipstick and mascara especially, and doing my black liquid liner on the train for a challenge. In my day to day and even for more formal things I really don't do too much. I've never gotten the concept of contouring right on my own face, and I think I always apply too little of my foundation. One day I will get it right.  Make up artists on the other hand delight me with what they do to my face.


But you do consider yourself a good actress, don't you?
My high school drama teacher was rather impressed by my enthusiastic 'Here!' at roll call, so, I am sure I am fantastic.

On a more serious note, in some ways perhaps I really am. I've mastered pretending I am a lot more together than I am thanks to dealing with mental health issues and having to get on with stuff when it's the last thing you feel like. But you don't get an Oscar for that. I think I am in front of the camera too. I'm communicating a visual story, whether it's just for my blog posts or for other people's products or creations. I have a lot of fun in front of a camera. I dance about between shots, even when the final product is quite serious.


In your book you write, "I loved Spencer Tracy. He and his interests and his demands came first. Food, we ate what he liked, we did what he liked. We lived a life which he liked. He didn't like this or that, I changed this and that. They might be qualities which I personally valued, it did not matter. I changed them."
What attracted you to Spencer Tracy? 
Yahoo! I wrote a book. Wait, what?

Personally, I found Spencer to be the opposite of attractive. Not my taste. But I did love his quiet comedic presence. I'd never actually do those things for any lover, so my book is full of lies, clearly. I fiercely value my independence in a relationship, and return the favour. It's fine for my partner not to want to do, like or eat the same things as me. In fact, I think it's healthy. This probably only worked for Katharine and Spencer because they didn't actually live together.


What do you think attracted Spencer Tracy to you?
He's never met me, but if he were alive and got to be in my presence, I am sure it would be the way my hair is wildly fluffy first thing in the morning, and I leave my tea bags in my cup far too long, and sing unreleased Lana Del Rey songs in the shower ("You call me sunshine, you call me lavender, you say take it off, take it off!"). I pout quite effectively when I'm annoyed, and I cook an excellent steak - no, really I do! Of course, it's been suggested it could've been my bum. But I put no stock in that rumour.


In the book you say you're still not sure if he was really happy, or if he really loved you. 
Well, that just speaks of my own insecurities doesn't it? You can never really know what anyone feels, you can only take their actions at face value (not their words, of course). And if someone seems to enjoy your company and you laugh together a lot, and they treat you with respect and kindness, than I guess that's love and happiness.  


Why did you think the on-screen chemistry between the two of you was so good?
Our on-screen chemistry, well, put that down to my perfume. I wear Lush Sikkim Girls or Anna Sui most days, though a friend kindly gifted me a bottle of Dita's perfume and I save that for special occasions. I used to wear Chanel No 5 a lot but it seems to vanish when on my skin and I don't see the point of spending money on perfume no one can smell on you.


Are you ever sorry that you weren't able to live together as husband and wife?
Look, I always thought I'd be married by my age, so it's pretty weird to be this age and realise my longest fulfilling relationship is with shoes.  I could actually build myself a small house with the shoe boxes. There's equity right there. Am I sorry I haven't married Spencer? Not at all. I think it's been good all round that I haven't co-inhabited with a corpse, in my real or shoe box house.


So there it is readers my first vinterview and what a fantastic one it is. Thanks to Ellen for a great start to the blog!

Welcome

Welcome to Vinterviews. Vinterviews is a vintage interview blog where I interview my favourite vintage guys and gals with questions from interviews with their favourite vintage idols be it silver screen stars, burlesque babes or musical melody makers.

The concept may seem a little confusing but it will become clear once the first interview is up. In the meantime why not follow me on the socials: