The very best thing about writing romance is that I sometimes get to meet someone who changed my life. Someone who made me love romance and love writing and dream of someday, somehow, getting to write a romance myself.
This time last year, I had that chance in Boston, MA, when I had dinner with the incomparable, unbelievably talented Loretta Chase, who wrote my very favorite romance novel, Lord of Scoundrels. Mainly I stammered and hemmed and hawed, and I made a general fool of myself, but Loretta was very kind and very patient and pretended not to notice my general fangirling stupidity.
And now she’s offered to be a part of Girls Who Wear Glasses, my monthlong celebration of ladies in lenses in honor of the heroine of One Good Earl Deserves a Lover…and she’s chosen the very best kind of GWWG — the dumb blonde who’s not so dumb after all.
Welcome Loretta!
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One helluva girl who wears glasses!
In Born Yesterday, Judy Holliday plays Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde mistress of junkyard millionaire Harry Brock (played by William Holden), who’s come to Washington, DC to corrupt a few congressmen. Wanting to make the ex-showgirl fit into Washington society, Brock hires journalist Paul Verrall to decrease her stupidity and increase her refinement. It’s a Pygmalion story, yes, and Holliday makes it one you want to see over and over again.
Where to begin with her fabulousness? How about the New York accent and the amazing voice that goes up when you expect it to go down, and deep when you think it’ll go tinny. How about her direct approach to wooing Verrall—and his resisting her advances with the sweetest manly stoicism. Then there’s her self-awareness and lack of pretense. And the sharp, funny dialogue. But for girls who wear glasses, the great moment comes the first time she puts hers on, to read something to Verrall. It’s a seismic shift, in her, in the story, with the simplest message: She’s ready to see.
“You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over and keep the audience’s attention without extraordinary physical equipment,” Holliday said. I think she was the best dumb blonde ever, and she was really, really smart.
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Thank you so much, Loretta, for joining me! Your turn, readers! We’re offering up a copy of Loretta’s Silk is for Seduction…for a chance to win, please tell us your favorite classic film in comments! We’ll choose one winner on Friday (US Only)!
February 20th, 2013 at 9:24 am
I have always loved “How to Marry a Millionaire” with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall!!
February 20th, 2013 at 2:41 pm
Sadly I haven’t seen many classic films to have a favorite. Although I love Jane Austen films:Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, I also love Marry Poppins and The Sound of Music. I guess these are films that I would call classics for my generation?
February 20th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
I love film noire so my favorites include The Blue Dahlia and The Big Sleep.
February 20th, 2013 at 4:10 pm
Born Yesterday is such a good movie. While we’re on the subject of Judy Holliday, how about her role in George Cukor’s 1949 comedy Adam’s Rib? She plays the gun totin’ angry wife who shoots at (but misses) two-timing husband Tom Ewell. Katharine Hepburn is the defense lawyer. Spencer Tracy, Hepburn’s husband in the movie, is the prosecutor.
February 20th, 2013 at 4:16 pm
I love THE EGG AND I. It’s from 1947 and stars Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, along with the actors who played Ma and Pa Kettle. LOL I remember faking being sick in middle school so I could stay home to watch this movie.
February 20th, 2013 at 4:39 pm
I love Stage Door with Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn were in it plus a few more notable actresses.
They say Judy Holliday had a genuis IQ.
Carol L.
February 20th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
One of my favorite classic film is a foreign story called, “Mae Nak”. It is based on a true story in Thailand about a couple who had just gotten married. Not too long after the wife became pregnant the husband had to go to the army for war. While the husband was away, the wife gave birth but died in labor. After the war, the husband came back but no one told him his wife had passed away. The wife loved her husband so much she couldn’t leave him. So everyday she haunts their house and everyone in their village was afraid of telling the truth.
It is a very sad love story. I think that some people can view it as a scary movie, but I think its a romantic classic. Very sad but unconditional love.
February 20th, 2013 at 8:52 pm
Pride and prejudice with Laurence Olivier
February 21st, 2013 at 12:42 am
MILDRED PIERCE with Joan Crawford is great Film Noir, not exactly a love story.
Favorite movie–GONE WITH THE WIND.
Adore all movies Judy Holliday is in.
February 21st, 2013 at 4:00 pm
It’s often said, and I agree, that it’s not how it starts but how it ends!
My favorite is Wuthering Heights (1939) -
“No, not dead, Dr. Kenneth. Not alone. He’s with her. They’ve only just begun to live. Goodbye Heathcliff. Goodbye my wild sweet Cathy.”
No, I didn’t see it when it was first released (I’m old but not that old) but I do remember watching it on my black and white TV and reading it in the 1960′s when it was required reading my sophomore year in High School.
February 22nd, 2013 at 11:17 pm
I really love The Quiet Man with John Wayne.
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