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Lolita, Errol Flynn and Chateau Marmont
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Intent on searching about movies related to conflictual mother/father/children's relationships, while reading about the recent film story of pianist Martha Argerich (written by her youngest daughter Stéphanie as "Bloody Daughter"), I landed on news about Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere"* and Hollywood's "Chateau Marmont," ** with various stories about actor Errol Flynn.
Five or six degrees of separation later, I discovered that Flynn was the first actor to be chosen to play Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita." ***
It was unnecessary to link this (fake) "Chateau Marmont" to Eric Veen's "Villa Venus" in ADA, following a vague sensation of its link to Nabokov's experiences in Hollywood. I have a hunch that Nabokov wasn't averse to movie-world gossip, although there are no direct links between Flynn, Marmont and him.
About the movie "Lolita", from Wikipedia:: Casting
"Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita, although it was James Mason who was cast in the lead, in part due to previous allegations of statutory rape that had been filed against Flynn.[ sources: The dame in the kimono: hollywood, censorship, and the production code By Leonard J. Leff, Jerold Simmons ; Robert Osborne (September 5, 2007). "Errol Flynn's daughter remembers notorious dad". Reuters. Retrieved February 14, 2010.]"****
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* - Somewhere (film); From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Directed bySofia Coppola, Written bySofia Coppola;StarringStephen Dorff .Elle Fanning .Michelle Monaghan ..Release date(s)September 11, 2010(Venice Film Festival) / December 22, 2010(United States)
"Somewhere is a 2010 American drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. The film follows Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff)...at the Chateau Marmont, a well-known Hollywood retreat. .. The film explores ennui among Hollywood stars, the father-daughter relationship and offers an oblique comedy of show business, particularly Hollywood film-making and the life of a "star". "Somewhere" was set in and filmed on location at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles.Scenes from the film are said to be inspired by the director's childhood experiences as the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola."
...........................................................................................................
** The real Hotel Babylon: A new film tells how the Chateau Marmont became a byword for Hollywood debauchery
by Gleny Roberts, 27 November 2010.
" Hollywood's most notorious hotel, the Chateau Marmont,[d]esigned as a reproduction French castle, it looks the epitome of respectability from the outside. And yet over the years it has become the ultimate hedonist's hangout. It has been witness to both terrible tragedy and wild joy. [ ] The actor and comedian John Belushi took a fatal overdose of heroin mixed with cocaine there in 1982 and Johnny Depp has boasted he made love to ex-girlfriend Kate Moss in every room[ ].Shady bestsellers have been written about the hotel, scandalous novels based there and pop songs ...Now, film director Sofia Coppola - best known for 2003's Oscar-winning Lost In Translation, which starred Scarlett Johansson - has made the Chateau the leading character in her latest movie, "Somewhere." But the hotel casts its sleazy spell on actresses, too.A 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson was so overcome by its heady atmosphere in 2004 that she couldn't wait to get upstairs with Puerto Rican star Benicio Del Toro and ripped off his clothes in the lift. 'We were making out or having sex or something,' she readily admitted later. So why does the Chateau trigger such legendary bad behaviour? [ ] Errol Flynn bedded his three wives there in quick secession - then moved on to Marlene Dietrich and a series of under-age nymphets. No one turned a hair. Clark Gable and movie co-star Jean Harlow (the original hot blonde) canoodled there while she was on honeymoon with her husband Chuck McGrew. He didn't suspect a thing.[ ] Rudolph Valentino, Hedy Lamarr, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Wilder - the list of celebrity visitors who have slept under the Chateau's roof is endless.[ ]Not content with just romancing the world's most desirable women, Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, on the hotel's upper floors, airline mogul Howard Hughes could often be found leering through a pair of binoculars at girls sunbathing by the pool [ ]... movie magnate Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, famously advised his hot-blooded starlets: 'If you are going to behave badly, be sure to do so in the Chateau Marmont.'[ ] Orgies with up to 50 girls taking part were greedily filmed at Marmont by Hollywood star Dennis Hopper. An undiscovered Marilyn Monroe ... Why has the management always been so discreet in the face of all this folly? The secret lies in the hotel's layout - they often don't know what is happening there at any given time.[ ] Sofia is, of course, the child of the famous director Francis Ford Coppola and as a youngster must have had ample opportunity to witness Hollywood's excesses. The plot of the film rings completely true therefore when Coppola's hero Marco opens his bedroom door to find a nude woman propped up against the pillows, hoping for a night of passion.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1333487/New-film-Chateau-Marmont-byword-Hollywood-debauchery.html#ixzz2WC7wq3fk
........................................................
*** Errol Flynn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 - 14 October 1959)was an Australian actor. He was known for his romanticswashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his playboy lifestyle. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1942.
He "was born in Hobart, Tasmania, where his father ...was a lecturer (1909) and later professor (1911) of biology at the University of Tasmania.[ ] His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but [ ]changed her name to Marelle.[ ] He was expelled from Shore for fighting and, according to his own account, having been caught in a romantic assignation with the school's laundress He was also expelled from several other schools he had attended in Tasmania.[ ]In the early 1930s, Flynn left for England, and in 1933 he secured an acting job[ ] During the filming of Murder at Monte Carlo, Flynn was discovered by a Warner Brothers executive, signed to a contract and emigrated to America as a contract actor.[ ]Flynn as Captain Blood Flynn was an overnight sensation in his first starring [ ] Flynn was a member of the Hollywood Cricket Club with David Niven. His suave, debonair, and devil-may-care attitude toward both ladies and life has been immortalised in the English language by author Benjamin S. Johnson as, "Errolesque," in his treatise on the subject, An Errolesque Philosophy on Life.
[ ] Flynn, famous for his athletic roles and promoted as a paragon of physical beauty, was classified 4-F - unqualified for military service because of not meeting the minimum physical fitness standards. This created a public image problem for both Flynn and Warner Brothers. Flynn was often criticised for his failure to enlist while continuing to play war heroes in films. The studios' failure to counter the criticism was due to a desire to hide the state of Flynn's health. He was also expensive -
in the late 1940s his fee was $200,000 a film. By the 1950s, Flynn had become a parody of himself. Heavy alcohol and drug abuse left him prematurely aged and bloated. Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita. Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film Cuban Rebel Girls. His final book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was written from August to October 1958 with the aid of ghostwriter Earl Conrad [ ]Published shortly after his death, the book contains humorous anecdotes about life in Hollywood as well as his youth in New Guinea. According to one literary critic, the book "remains one of the most compelling and appalling autobiographies written by a Hollywood star, or anyone else for that matter".Flynn had a reputation for womanizing. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape, The trial took place in January and February 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the charges. The incident served to increase his reputation as a ladies' man. The gossips took note of his friendships with Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río.[ ] In the late 1950s, Flynn met and courted the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland at the Hollywood Professional School, casting her in his final film,Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). According to Aadland, he planned to marry her and move to their new house in Jamaica, but during a trip together to Vancouver, British Columbia, he died of a heart attack at the age of 50. In a 1982 interview with Penthouse Magazine, Ronald DeWolf, previously known as L. Ron Hubbard Jr, claimed that his father had a strong friendship with Flynn, who was considered a family friend to the point of being looked upon as an adoptive father to DeWolf. He claimed Flynn and his father were alike, and engaged in various illegal activities together, including indulging in sexual acts with young underage girls and also drug smuggling. Flynn, however never became a practitioner of Hubbard's religious group,Scientology."
**** Another online version tells a different story about Flynn and Kubrick: "Kubrick considered Disney starlet Hayley Mills, of "Pollyanna" and later "The Parent Trap," but Walt Disney reportedly barred her from accepting[ ] A number of prominent British actors -- Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Noel Coward -- turned down the role of Humbert, fearing it would damage their reputations, before James Mason accepted the part. (Errol Flynn was interested, but only if his 15-year-old girlfriend Beverly Aadland could play Lolita; Kubrick wisely turned him down.) Completing the casting was Shelley Winters as the amorous Mrs. Haze and the chameleonic Peter Sellers as Humbert's elusive nemesis, Clare Quilty".
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Five or six degrees of separation later, I discovered that Flynn was the first actor to be chosen to play Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita." ***
It was unnecessary to link this (fake) "Chateau Marmont" to Eric Veen's "Villa Venus" in ADA, following a vague sensation of its link to Nabokov's experiences in Hollywood. I have a hunch that Nabokov wasn't averse to movie-world gossip, although there are no direct links between Flynn, Marmont and him.
About the movie "Lolita", from Wikipedia:: Casting
"Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita, although it was James Mason who was cast in the lead, in part due to previous allegations of statutory rape that had been filed against Flynn.[ sources: The dame in the kimono: hollywood, censorship, and the production code By Leonard J. Leff, Jerold Simmons ; Robert Osborne (September 5, 2007). "Errol Flynn's daughter remembers notorious dad". Reuters. Retrieved February 14, 2010.]"****
.
....................................................................................................
* - Somewhere (film); From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Directed bySofia Coppola, Written bySofia Coppola;StarringStephen Dorff .Elle Fanning .Michelle Monaghan ..Release date(s)September 11, 2010(Venice Film Festival) / December 22, 2010(United States)
"Somewhere is a 2010 American drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. The film follows Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff)...at the Chateau Marmont, a well-known Hollywood retreat. .. The film explores ennui among Hollywood stars, the father-daughter relationship and offers an oblique comedy of show business, particularly Hollywood film-making and the life of a "star". "Somewhere" was set in and filmed on location at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles.Scenes from the film are said to be inspired by the director's childhood experiences as the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola."
...........................................................................................................
** The real Hotel Babylon: A new film tells how the Chateau Marmont became a byword for Hollywood debauchery
by Gleny Roberts, 27 November 2010.
" Hollywood's most notorious hotel, the Chateau Marmont,[d]esigned as a reproduction French castle, it looks the epitome of respectability from the outside. And yet over the years it has become the ultimate hedonist's hangout. It has been witness to both terrible tragedy and wild joy. [ ] The actor and comedian John Belushi took a fatal overdose of heroin mixed with cocaine there in 1982 and Johnny Depp has boasted he made love to ex-girlfriend Kate Moss in every room[ ].Shady bestsellers have been written about the hotel, scandalous novels based there and pop songs ...Now, film director Sofia Coppola - best known for 2003's Oscar-winning Lost In Translation, which starred Scarlett Johansson - has made the Chateau the leading character in her latest movie, "Somewhere." But the hotel casts its sleazy spell on actresses, too.A 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson was so overcome by its heady atmosphere in 2004 that she couldn't wait to get upstairs with Puerto Rican star Benicio Del Toro and ripped off his clothes in the lift. 'We were making out or having sex or something,' she readily admitted later. So why does the Chateau trigger such legendary bad behaviour? [ ] Errol Flynn bedded his three wives there in quick secession - then moved on to Marlene Dietrich and a series of under-age nymphets. No one turned a hair. Clark Gable and movie co-star Jean Harlow (the original hot blonde) canoodled there while she was on honeymoon with her husband Chuck McGrew. He didn't suspect a thing.[ ] Rudolph Valentino, Hedy Lamarr, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Wilder - the list of celebrity visitors who have slept under the Chateau's roof is endless.[ ]Not content with just romancing the world's most desirable women, Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, on the hotel's upper floors, airline mogul Howard Hughes could often be found leering through a pair of binoculars at girls sunbathing by the pool [ ]... movie magnate Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, famously advised his hot-blooded starlets: 'If you are going to behave badly, be sure to do so in the Chateau Marmont.'[ ] Orgies with up to 50 girls taking part were greedily filmed at Marmont by Hollywood star Dennis Hopper. An undiscovered Marilyn Monroe ... Why has the management always been so discreet in the face of all this folly? The secret lies in the hotel's layout - they often don't know what is happening there at any given time.[ ] Sofia is, of course, the child of the famous director Francis Ford Coppola and as a youngster must have had ample opportunity to witness Hollywood's excesses. The plot of the film rings completely true therefore when Coppola's hero Marco opens his bedroom door to find a nude woman propped up against the pillows, hoping for a night of passion.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1333487/New-film-Chateau-Marmont-byword-Hollywood-debauchery.html#ixzz2WC7wq3fk
........................................................
*** Errol Flynn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 - 14 October 1959)was an Australian actor. He was known for his romanticswashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his playboy lifestyle. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1942.
He "was born in Hobart, Tasmania, where his father ...was a lecturer (1909) and later professor (1911) of biology at the University of Tasmania.[ ] His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but [ ]changed her name to Marelle.[ ] He was expelled from Shore for fighting and, according to his own account, having been caught in a romantic assignation with the school's laundress He was also expelled from several other schools he had attended in Tasmania.[ ]In the early 1930s, Flynn left for England, and in 1933 he secured an acting job[ ] During the filming of Murder at Monte Carlo, Flynn was discovered by a Warner Brothers executive, signed to a contract and emigrated to America as a contract actor.[ ]Flynn as Captain Blood Flynn was an overnight sensation in his first starring [ ] Flynn was a member of the Hollywood Cricket Club with David Niven. His suave, debonair, and devil-may-care attitude toward both ladies and life has been immortalised in the English language by author Benjamin S. Johnson as, "Errolesque," in his treatise on the subject, An Errolesque Philosophy on Life.
[ ] Flynn, famous for his athletic roles and promoted as a paragon of physical beauty, was classified 4-F - unqualified for military service because of not meeting the minimum physical fitness standards. This created a public image problem for both Flynn and Warner Brothers. Flynn was often criticised for his failure to enlist while continuing to play war heroes in films. The studios' failure to counter the criticism was due to a desire to hide the state of Flynn's health. He was also expensive -
in the late 1940s his fee was $200,000 a film. By the 1950s, Flynn had become a parody of himself. Heavy alcohol and drug abuse left him prematurely aged and bloated. Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita. Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film Cuban Rebel Girls. His final book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was written from August to October 1958 with the aid of ghostwriter Earl Conrad [ ]Published shortly after his death, the book contains humorous anecdotes about life in Hollywood as well as his youth in New Guinea. According to one literary critic, the book "remains one of the most compelling and appalling autobiographies written by a Hollywood star, or anyone else for that matter".Flynn had a reputation for womanizing. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape, The trial took place in January and February 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the charges. The incident served to increase his reputation as a ladies' man. The gossips took note of his friendships with Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río.[ ] In the late 1950s, Flynn met and courted the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland at the Hollywood Professional School, casting her in his final film,Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). According to Aadland, he planned to marry her and move to their new house in Jamaica, but during a trip together to Vancouver, British Columbia, he died of a heart attack at the age of 50. In a 1982 interview with Penthouse Magazine, Ronald DeWolf, previously known as L. Ron Hubbard Jr, claimed that his father had a strong friendship with Flynn, who was considered a family friend to the point of being looked upon as an adoptive father to DeWolf. He claimed Flynn and his father were alike, and engaged in various illegal activities together, including indulging in sexual acts with young underage girls and also drug smuggling. Flynn, however never became a practitioner of Hubbard's religious group,Scientology."
**** Another online version tells a different story about Flynn and Kubrick: "Kubrick considered Disney starlet Hayley Mills, of "Pollyanna" and later "The Parent Trap," but Walt Disney reportedly barred her from accepting[ ] A number of prominent British actors -- Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Noel Coward -- turned down the role of Humbert, fearing it would damage their reputations, before James Mason accepted the part. (Errol Flynn was interested, but only if his 15-year-old girlfriend Beverly Aadland could play Lolita; Kubrick wisely turned him down.) Completing the casting was Shelley Winters as the amorous Mrs. Haze and the chameleonic Peter Sellers as Humbert's elusive nemesis, Clare Quilty".
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/