Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical

In 1972, Pocket Books published Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical as a mass market paperback with the tag The Book of the Newest Broadway Hit. The tie-in contains the 1972 libretto of the musical, 12 black and white photographs from the production (Barry Bostwick, Adrienne Barbeau, etc.) and one color cover photo. You can download a PDF of this out-of-print paperback from here.

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Lizzie Borden: Dances (& Books & Operas) of Death

With the recent release of Lizzie Borden Took An Ax starring Christina Ricci (and it's spin-off fictional series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles), I thought it time to gather additional (digital) Lizzie ephemera to peruse. If you're interested in (one of) the most famous, unsolved murder(s) of all time here are some places to start, chronologically.

• At the time of the murder, Edwin H. Porter worked as police reporter for the Fall River Globe newspaper and published a book (in 1893) that many Borden aficionados consider definitive. A non-illustrated text version of the Fall River Tragedy by Edwin H. Porter is available. This link opens a PDF in a new window.
• This 1936 radio play is called Unsolved Mysteries: The Borden Case but manages to solve the Lizzie mystery by adding a tramp who makes his escape in the dark of night to the mix of people on 92 Second Street that fateful day. There is a narrator but no credits; the voice of Lizzie sounds strangely familiar.

• The Fall River Legend dance was choreographed by Agnes De Mille in 1945 and purports to tell the story of Lizzie Borden although De Mille has played with the facts by adding a minister boyfriend, subtracting Emma (the other dancer in the piece is young Lizzie, not Emma), and arriving at a verdict of guilty. Still and all, this Canadian production is a lively work with excellent performances and solid characterizations by the dancers.
  Unfortunately, this performance (starring Sally Wilson) is not complete; thus I took the partial Fall River Legend 3/3 and River 2/2 (a different company and performance) and edited them together so the complete Agnes De Mille ballet is easily viewable by watching Fall River Legend 1/3, Fall River Legend 2/3 and then the following two mashups (Mashup 1/2 then 2/2).
  River 1/2 is the first half of this other performance which was shot from a balcony. River 2/2 had some wonky editing that I fixed in the mashup. Props to the original posters of these videos.

  In 1968, Agnes De Mille published a book called Lizzie Borden: A Dance Of Death. This tome tells the story of how the ballet was created - with the first two chapters dedicated to Ms. De Mille's research on the murder and its aftermath. It is a fascinating book and, though out-of-print, should be readily available at your local library. The book also discusses The Case of Lizzie Borden, De Mille's 1957 television program in which the crime is reenacted. An excellent recap of the ballet and its accompanying Morton Gould score is available on DRAM Online.

• Agnes Moorehead starred as Lizzie in the 1952 episode of the CBS radio show Suspense called Fall River Tragedy. The radio play starts after the trial when Agnes (as Lizzie) reminisces about what happened. Flashbacks begin, the doctor testifies, Lizzie accuses Bridget of the murder (claiming not to have laughed), and Agnes does lip service to the sponsor as the telephone operator in the embedded commercials of the audio on YouTube. They also make liberal use of the infamous Lizzie Borden rhyme. The radio play is in two parts.

• Verdict In Dispute seems to have been published in 1950-51. It examines the verdicts of six infamous murder trials. The chapter on Lizzie starts on page 206 and is an interesting account of the trial with a final sentence that asks the reader to decide if the verdict was a correct one. At 50 pages of the facts, just the facts, ma'am, this text is much shorter than the more detailed Porter book referenced above.

• In 1965, Jack Beeson and librettist Kenward Elmslie premiered their opera Lizzie Borden: A Family Portrait in Three Acts. In the opera, Lizzie is the eldest of two children, her younger sister Margret (not older Emma) has a fiancé, and Abby Borden is portrayed as a servant in the Borden house before the first Mrs. Borden's death. None of this is true but the writers have used these extractions to fashion a tale to explain the violence of the act (and to create a good female goes mad scene). The New York City Opera performance captured by PBS is somewhat engrossing; it also seems more like a play with musical dialogue than an opera - not that I know anything about opera. Phyllis Pancella is very good as Lizzie, really emoting her (fictional) descent into madness. Lauren Flanigan as Abby is the perfect foil. Host Beverly Sills introduces the performance and even throws in a few bon mot about the historic murder. The original cast recording made in 1965 is available on YouTube and a DVD of the original cast's 1965 television production is available for purchase.

• For now anyway, you can view the pièce de résistance‎ of Lizzie-philia on YouTube: Elizabeth Montgomery in the 1975 TV movie The Legend Of Lizzie Borden.

  For decades, there has been talk that the European theatrical version of The Legend Of Lizzie Borden contained nudity cut from the American television version. I have seen both versions: the European version (from VHS) is about three minutes SHORTER (which could be frame rate differences) but the murder scenes are exactly the same - ie: neither of Elizabeth's breasts are visible.

  But with the release (on October 7, 2014) of the The Legend Of Lizzie Borden DVD, we finally have an answer to the 'European cut' question. The DVD is a full frame 1:37 transfer. But the film was shown on television and released on VHS in the more common (for the day) 1:33 aspect ratio. This cropped out top, bottom and sides of the original film. When I discovered this, I played Andrew Borden's murder (using my digital rip of the VHS tape) vee-r-rry slowly. Low and behold, at 1:24:20 and 1:24:26 you can make out the very top of Lizzie's areola. When you watch the DVD, nipples are clearly evident. Another Lizzie Borden mystery solved!


• Lizzie Borden Quarterly was a subscription 'zine published quarterly in the mid 1990s. It included articles on the house, surrounding area, new developments, books, and anything Lizzie related. All issues are available on archive.org.

• An 80 page comic book with a fancy name (graphic novel) called The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Massachusetts, 1892 was published in 1997. The story is told from the point-of-view of a fictional Fall River resident and acquaintance of the Bordens. The artwork is good and it tells a fairly-detailed version of the story but breaks no new ground.
• Lizzie Borden: The Musical by Christopher McGovern (book, music and lyrics) and Amy Powers (lyrics) premiered at New Jersey's American Stage Company in 1998 with Alison Fraser in the title role. (There is a cast recording available.) The musical then played a sold out run at the Norma Terris Theatre in 2001 with Christiane Noll as Lizzie.
• The Biography Channel series Haunted Encounters: Face To Face aired an episode on the present day haunting of the Borden house. In addition to confirming the presence of ghosts through electronic voice phenomena (EVP), the episode addresses (and affirms) the rumors of molestation that have encircled the family.
• Lizzie Borden: A Rock Musical (now referred to as Lizzie: The Musical) is a rock-show retelling of the bloody legend of America’s first and favorite axe-wielding double-murderess and Victorian hometown girl, Lizzie Borden. The team of Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Alan Stevens Hewitt and Tim Maner began writing the show as far back as 1990 but it was premiered in its current (and recorded) form in 2009.
• Lastly (although certainly not leastly) there's this Vine offering up the infamous Lizzie Borden rhyme with a modern twist.

This article was updated to reflect the DVD release on October 6, 2014.

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The Intimate Lives & Loves of Violet and Daisy Hilton³

Daisy and Violet Hilton are conjoined twins and talented musicians who became successful vaudevillians before going off to Hollywood where they made several films. In the tradition of Helen Morgan Cubed, the ladies' lives have been represented in an autobiography (a WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE* downloadable from this blog in PDF format), a movie and a musical.

• Movie: Chained For Life
• Book: The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters
• Musical: Side Show
• Freaks and Facts
• Music Clips from Chained For Life

Film: Chained For Life

Chained For Life is a vanity project designed as film noir that was released in 1951. I hesitate to call it exploitation because people exploit themselves. (Isn't that what we do?) It's not a very easy movie to watch as the sisters are ... um ... exploited with many of the plot points fictionalized from experiences in their real lives including a sham marriage and private paeans for love.

The story revolves around the vaudevillian Hamilton Sisters and Vivian's (Violet) murder of Dorothy's (Daisy) husband. The husband/nuptials are a sham having been perpetrated by (and on) the sisters for promotional purposes - although Dorothy does fall in love with the fellow. In one particularly fascinating scene, Dorothy dreams of being separate from her sister, dancing and cavorting with her lover in a garden.

Aped 47 years later by the creators of Side Show

Chained For Life begins as a cautionary tale with the judge who presides over the movie's murder trial introducing the story; it then flashes back to the events that lead up to the murder. Along the way, the film captures the singing talents of the Hilton sisters in three sweet duets: Every Hour of Every Day, Never Ever Fall In Love, and Love Thief. (Music clips are below and on YouTube.)

Best public copy; Amazon Prime version is good too

Book: The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters

The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters is also a vanity project - a slight autobiography written by Daisy and Violet Hilton to coincide with the release of Chained for Life. The first seventeen pages of the $2 trade-sized paperback are devoted to the Hilton's story with both sisters taking the pen; the concluding 33 pages are a novelization of the tale told in Chained For Life. Takeaways from the autobiographical section include:

• The sisters were born in Brighton, England.* No birth year is mentioned but there is a sentence that reads In 1929 we became legally of age. If this means 21, they were born in 1908. The twins early years were also documented in a medical journal article published in 1911 called The Brighton United Twins (PDF will download.). It discusses the medical details of the infant twins (they shared an anus, separation would cause death). Again, no birth year is given but a photo of the toddlers captioned Present day confirms their birth year as 1908.

• At two weeks old, the sisters were given to Mary Williams (Auntie) who raised (and beat) them. They lived above the Queens Head Pub in Brighton before moving to San Antonio, Texas. Auntie had five husbands and daughter Edith.
• During their youth, Daisy and Violet were trained to read and play music, recite, dance, and sing. Auntie (and Edith when the former died) managed their performing career which took off internationally and in the United States. They were headliners and played vaudeville with luminaries of the day like Harry Houdini, Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante.

• In 1927, unbeknownst to the sisters, Edith and her husband enslaved them in a guardianship. The Hiltons went to court in 1930 to get their freedom and dissolve any business arrangements that had been (illegally) put into place. This is when they found out about their birth home in the UK.
• The case was decided in the sisters' favor. All existing contracts were dissolved and they were given $67,000 in bonds, $12,000 in cash and $20,000 in personal effects.
• They crafted a revue in which they played violin, piano, and saxophone, did ballet and adagio dancing, and performed in sketches.

• Violet married as a publicity stunt in Texas (after 21 other states denied request for a marriage license). They were still married (at the time of publication) although Violet acquiesced that the marriage had no meaning and Jim could have a divorce anytime he asked.
• Daisy married a few years later for love. The sisters awoke on the tenth day and found the groom was no longer there. Daisy initiated divorce proceedings and they never saw him again.

Their story trails off in a few paragraphs following the second marriage disclosure but the tome is illustrated with stills from Chained For Life and, as mentioned, a quite detailed and well-written novelization of the movie's plot. The film and book could arguably be called one of the first film and book tie-ins.

WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE: I found a copy of The Intimate Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters, bought it (for 60 times $2) and scanned it. You can download the PDF from the Hilton Sisters folder on 4Shared. (The folder also contains a PDF of the Brighton United Twins medical journal article.)

Musical: Side Show

In 1997, Side Show opened on Broadway with Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley starring as Daisy and Violet (respectively). This musical version of the sisters' story has book and lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger, played 91 performances, and was nominated for five Tony awards (Best Musical, Book, Score and actresses). The New York Library for the Performing Arts Theatre on Film Archives has an archival video recording of the show.

Despite some soaring ballads, the lyrics often tread the same ground and the book has taken very great liberties with too many life points - including a puzzling swap of their side-by-side physical placement. (See Freaks and Facts below.) Their story is musicalized around love - something of which they didn't have (or get) so the story ultimately feels forced. The audience is asked to believe that not one but TWO men were capable of falling in love with the sisters prompting:

• A scene in which the musical Daisy dreams of being separated from her sister, dancing and cavorting with her lover in a garden. (Did they really just ape that scene from Chained For Life?)
  
  Norm Lewis played Porgy on Broadway in 2012
• A scene in which the phenomenally talented Norm Lewis electrifies (us and) the musical Violet with You Should Be Loved (soaring ballad), a juxtaposition which not too subtly equates the Hilton's struggle with the African-American struggle.

Who Will Love Me As I Am and I Will Never Leave You are two more soaring ballads, these sung by Skinner and Ripley as the Hilton sisters. They are both powerful songs and riveting performances. All of these songs were captured for an original cast recording which is still available. Last year director Bill Condon spearheaded a revival of the musical. This new version played in La Jolla, California and will be on the boards in Washington, D.C. in 2014.

Pretty fuckin' incredible

Freaks and Facts

Interestingly, the sisters' autobiography has only one sentence that refers to the performance for which they are most remembered. As Terry figured, the [marriage] stunt paid off. We went to Hollywood and made several films. One of those films was Tod Browning's film Freaks.

My assumption is that when the book was published and sold, Freaks had not yet taken its proper place in the cannon of American popular culture. The 1932 MGM film, based on the short story Spurs (available in PDF), concerns freaks in a circus side show and the normal circus entertainers who work with them. The sisters undoubtedly had no idea that Freaks would later (and further) cement their celebrity.

In Freaks, the ladies essentially play themselves. Daisy is on the right when watching the film (and looking at pictures of the sisters) and Violet is on the left. In most adult pictures, Daisy is blonde. This fact is altered in Side Show although I'm not sure what was gained by switching the placement of the twins in the minds of the audience. (Is it easier to remember which twin is which when their names are in alphabetical order?) Several times in the musical the girls sing the following patently false verse:

Daisy: I'm Daisy
Violet: I'm Violet
Daisy & Violet: We're nothing alike
Violet: I'm to your right as you watch our show
Daisy: She thinks she's always right. Not so. I'm Daisy
Violet: I'm Violet

According to The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins by Dean Jensen, the Hiltons' last public appearance was in 1961 at a drive-in cinema in Charlotte, North Carolina where their tour manager abandoned them. With no means of transportation or income, they took a job in a grocery store as a bagger and a checker. On January 4, 1969, after they failed to report to work, the grocery store called the police. The twins were found dead in their home, victims of the Hong Kong flu. The autopsy reported that Daisy died first; Violet died between two and four days later. They were buried in Forest Lawn West Cemetery.

I've mentioned how uncomfortable it is to watch the sisters but that's not because they were conjoined. The exploitative (there's that word!) nature of the people around them is horrifying and uncomfortable to watch. Freaks is different because they are portrayed as normal - which is how Daisy and Violet Hilton might've liked to be remembered.

Music Clips from Chained For Life

Every Hour of Every Day

Never Fall In Love

Love Thief

POSTSCRIPT: More photos can be found at the Daisy and Violet Hilton Petit Photo Gallery. During research, I discovered that Leslie Zemeckis made a biographical documentary in 2012 called Bound By Flesh. I couldn't find that the film is available so I wasn't able to see it.

*In England, the sisters' home was above the Queens Head pub; their manager chose this location for its proximity to the Brighton Train Station. They were born in a house on Riley Road on the outskirts of Brighton.

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The Myth³ of Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan is the flame who gave the term torch singer a light. Her voice can be described as a perfectly pitched, small, quivering soprano and fortunately, all of Morgan's recorded tracks (including classic interpretations of Bill and Can't Help Lovin' That Man from Show Boat) can be downloaded for free and added to iTunes. Unfortunately, there is not much verifiable information about Morgan's life itself - which began on August 2, 1900 and ended on October 9, 1941. There have been three attempts to define a history for Helen Morgan and these three all tell a different story.

• Television: Helen Morgan
• Film: The Helen Morgan Story
• Book: Helen Morgan Her Life and Times
• The Myths and the Facts

Helen Morgan sings Bill - Show Boat 1936

Television: Helen Morgan

Playhouse 90 was a late Fifties-era anthology that produced weekly 90 minute plays and broadcast them on (the somewhat new medium of) television. Helen Morgan, an episode of this series, was directed by George Roy Hill (who achieved great fame when he directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting) and the drama told its story from the perspective of Helen's mother, Lulu Lang Riggins Morgan. It is unfortunate that this drama has never been available for purchase because it is the best of the lot. Polly Bergen is a phenom as Helen, acting the woman from a naive teen with long hair to a bobbed, soused entertainer dying on screen. Her takes on Helen's classic songs are spot on; not imitations of the beloved recordings but intimate interpretations in a not dissimilar voice. Ms. Bergen rightfully won an Emmy award for her performance. It is riveting in spite of the kinetoscopic quality of the print. (If you're interested in a digital file of this historic program email me for a link.)

Film: The Helen Morgan Story

The Helen Morgan Story was released to movie theatres a few months after the telecast of Helen Morgan. Ann Blyth plays Helen and lip syncs to vocal tracks provided by Gogi Grant, a pop singer of the 1950s. Ms. Grant's tracks are a major problem with the film because she sounds like a pop singer of the 1950s - and a not very emotive one at that. Ann Blyth is fine during the earlier dramatic moments but her final moments are hysterically campy. The script is fictionalized (romantic lead/bootlegger/hottie Paul Newman, for example) and is more a remake of Love Me Or Leave Me (the Ruth Etting film biography with Doris Day and James Cagney) than an original. The film also glosses over Morgan's shining professional accomplishment: her performances as Julie LaVerne in Show Boat and, in fact, ends happily with a (fictional) testimonial dinner in her honor notwithstanding the fact that she died at 41 from cirrhosis of the liver brought about by her alcoholism. It's Hollywood claptrap.

Book: Helen Morgan Her Life and Times

Helen Morgan Her Life and Times was written by Gilbert Maxwell and published in 1974. A literary biography can tell a great tale of its subject but this is no literary biography. Maxwell details Morgan's affairs and marriages (seemingly) based on newspaper accounts and the book reads as such. It feels light - presumably because even forty years ago the myths around Helen had taken hold and information was scarce. The book does collate the facts on Helen's performing career, including whole chapters on all versions of Show Boat, her 1929 film debut Applause (directed by Rouben Mamoulian), the musical Jermone Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote specifically for Morgan Sweet Adeline (with hits Why Was I Born? and Don't Ever Leave Me), and the legal troubles stemming from her performances in the speakeasies of the Prohibition era. It's a factual read but full of holes.

Helen Morgan, Irene Dunne, Hattie McDaniel, Paul Robeson
Show Boat 1936

The Myths and the Facts

There are some common threads that can be found in all of these biographies. Helen was generous to a fault, spending all of her money on friends and acquaintances and ending up with nothing for herself. (Sure you'll make a million dollars and throw it all away says her mother, Lulu, in the television drama.) Helen was also revered by the underworld; once she started opening her eponymous nightclubs, many men of this ilk were enamored by her. Helen had a decade long affair with a married man although each biography identifies a different man. And according to Wikipedia, Helen had three marriages - the book documents two, the movie mentions one, the drama none.

Helen speaking with, and singing about, first husband Maurice Mashke, Jr.
Married in 1933, it lasted two years

Her father (or lack thereof) is painted in all three biographies as the source of her somber existence, life-long depression and inability to connect with the right man (as an adult). The television drama opens with Helen going to see her father for the first time in 19 years. According to the book, Lulu gave birth alone but Tom Morgan came back again. The cinematic Helen (in the film's only reference to her father) tells her married lover, Wade, that her father was around when she was 11.

The story in which the teenage Helen, as a Cracker Jack employee, put two prizes in each box because she enjoyed imagining the faces of the children was mentioned in all biographies but, not always dealt with is the myth that concerns whether or not Helen had a child. The television drama adds an unwed, pregnant showgirl who briefly gives her baby to Helen before siccing a shyster on her to get it back. (Lulu Morgan is given story credit on the drama which makes this particular tale all the more interesting.) Neither the film nor the book mention a child, an adoption or an abortion but interestingly, the comment (pasted below the break) was posted to a forum a few years back.

Helen Morgan had a baby girl on June 25th, 1926, and she gave up the baby for adoption. In Springfield, Illinois, in the presence of Rhoda Eisenberg (aunt of the adopting parents) Minnettee Groupe and Harry Hyman Haffner. This baby, named Elaine Haffner, married Norman Danglo (deceased) and they had four children, one of them me - Jeff Danglo. Both my mother and father related the story of how Aunt Rhoda told my mother the truth about her real mother when she was 30. My Dad secretly told me of how she walked around the house singing for a year - she had a pretty good voice. In 1980 or so, I wrote Aunt Rhoda and asked for a written account of what happened. She called my mother quite upset, "Why does your son want to know about that woman!" and I dropped the matter. She died 1985 or so. Anyway, I can't prove it but it's been our family story forever. JD

Most certainly all of these three biographies cement Helen's reputation as a piano sitter. How she began sitting on pianos though depends on the source. On television, Helen jumps on an upright piano in order to be seen and heard over the loud and boisterous speakeasy crowd; a very effective scene. According to the book, this is a fallacy proffered by Billy Rose and the truth is that an enterprising, unknown admirerer picked up Helen while she was performing to packed houses at the French Troc in Montreal when she was 12 years old. And in the movie, Morgan never gets off the piano. The curtain opens on Helen's first speakeasy performance with Ann Blyth already atop a grand piano and throughout the entire movie (including ubiquitous performance montages and sundry nightclub performances) Blyth lipsyncs from atop a piano leading one to believe something was amiss with her legs. (Ooops, that was Jane Froman.) Helen was also a scarf twirler and the television drama includes another effective scene in which a fellow entertainer hands Helen one to keep her hands busy.

Her film career is barely mentioned in either of the video biographies and there is nothing to lead me to believe (as The Helen Morgan Story would have me believe) that Helen ever tried to convince drunks in a dive bar that she was, in fact, a BIG star, or that she woke up in a mental institution taking a sealed hot bath à la Neely O'Hara in Valley Of The Dolls. (The book also scoffs at this travesty of a scene.) The 1957 film does have two wonderful scenes though: one is a rent party with a fun-loving bull dyke leading the dance with a surprising outcome, and the second is in a jail cell where Helen interacts with an unknown actress who gives a perfectly comic performance as a fellow inmate.

Helen singing It Can't Go On Like This from Roadhouse Nights 1930
Jimmy Durante is the waiter

It's unfortunate that Helen's life has been distilled to the myths presented in these biographies. Time will move forward and information will not survive its ravages but at least the work survives. The first time I saw Show Boat I was floored by this sprite - emotionally succumbing to the depths of her heights. Listening to her recorded tracks and watching Applause (and the myriad videos now available on YouTube) only cements Helen Morgan's status as a legend albeit the myth of a legend.

Follow Michael,'s board The Myth³ of Helen Morgan on Pinterest.

Lots more pictures of Helen Morgan on my Pinterest board.

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Sophie Tucker's Autograph

I was in a used book store in San Francisco many, many years ago and found an autographed copy of Sophie Tucker's 1945 autobiography (titled after her biggest hit song first recorded in 1911) Some Of These Days. I ran up to the front of the store to buy the book and told the old guy at the desk how excited I was to find an autographed copy. He laughed and replied Sophie signed so many of those books over the years that its the ones with NO autograph that are extremely rare.

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