Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs!"... the 1950s...

THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)... on a personal note, I was cast in the sequel made in 1958 with Kenneth Tobey, Beverly Garland, Gloria Talbot, Faith Domergue, John Hoyt, and Narda Onyx... it was called THE DEADLY WO-MANTIS (1958)... I got to play the title character!... well, until the Marines dropped an A-Bomb on me while I was eating Toledo... JEEESH!

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon’s “Hollywood’s Hysterical Histories!”…

Seen here is a rare photo of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, secretly visiting the set of GODZILLA (1954) on the first day of shooting. She had been in private negotiations with the director Ishirō Honda about starring in the film, but he carefully explained to her through translators that the only American in it would be a male reporter to be played by Raymond Burr. Apparently, Monroe laughed merrily and said “NO, Silly!!” She wanted to play the title character… GODZILLA! She revealed she had been coached for months by her mentor Lee Strasberg and had stayed overnight at the Cuddly Critters Petting Zoo … in their iguana cage! The staff, again patiently, granted that although she was quite convincing at stepping on toy skyscrapers in slow motion and roar-honking loudly on cue, she was still too attractive to play a dinosaur… even if she DID stop using moisturizer. She was devastated and returned to America heartbroken. She immediately married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. Who she claimed “looks a lot like Godzilla, especially when he just gets out of the shower!”…

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Just my opinion... BUT!"...

Sybil photo by Jack D. Pedota, styled by Susan Suka Taylor

1) Jar Jar Binks is one of the most loathsome characters in the history of fiction. Tedious, incoherent, and physically too ugly to live... as though Jabba the Hutt had finally taken a sh*t after two weeks of constipation... and it decided to talk.

2) Urkel... clear evidence that one last attempt was made in the 20th century to create a Steppin' Fetchit minstrel character to insult African Americans' intelligence and culture, (apparently with cooperation from some of them themselves...)

3) Aunt Alicia was right! "Bad table manners, my dear Gigi, have broken up more households than infidelity." Travel the country and watch how people hold their forks... and chew.

4) Perhaps this covid epidemic and all the obsession over cleanliness, contamination, and the transmission of germs and disease will finally convince people to keep their filthy feet off publicly used furniture and seating, especially in airports and in Starbucks!... then again... probably not.

5) The death penalty is not much of a penalty. We ALL die eventually, and most of us die rather badly. Very few people die peacefully in their sleep at a great old age, after a long, healthy, and problem-free life. So if we really want to punish someone, give him a life sentence in an appalling place with excellent medical care but unending squalor, deprivation, and despair... among his own kind.

6) Now that humans have developed simulated violence as entertainment, we watch "real housewives" instead of gladiators or chariot races. Their forlorn misadventures and mischiefs are like all reality television; a combination of metaphorical sword fights, joustings, fiery car crashes, and disembowelments. Sadly, we still seem to need "Ultimate Fighting Championships" and bullfighting.

7) All intelligence is not a matter of what one knows, but what one is curious to find out. The greatest minds through history have been insatiably curious, and usually felt at the end of their lives that they knew so little, and were filled with an overwhelming desire to learn more. Avoid anyone who is the dead opposite of this, especially in politics... or in your family… or in mine!

8) Kindness can be found anywhere and everywhere, and under the most surprising circumstances and from the most surprising sources... unfortunately monstrous cruelty can be found under exactly the same parameters. I have no idea what this means. But one must be ferocious... and be ready to do great and terrible things for one's loved ones… and for the causes one cares about.

9) It's better to know the worst in a situation, make arrangements and strategies that will serve you, and hope for the best in case things turn out better than you expected. In any case, remember to be Present, to be Mindful, and to be Grateful. Everything around us is Borrowed... only Borrowed.

10) In my experience, it seems that people through history who lived very long lives, weren't necessarily better off or even "happier". Indeed, many of them seem to have been full of turmoil, conflict and struggle, but... they all seem to have "burned" for something. They burned brightly for things they cared about. They were committed to things that mattered. They lived authentically and vividly, often at odds with most people around them. They had light coming out of them, and did not require others to provide their light, their truth, or their purpose... or even to validate the mystery of their existence... interesting.

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004)

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American screen and stage actor. He is widely regarded as having had a significant impact on the art of film acting. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." An enduring cultural icon, Brando became a box office star during the 1950s, during which time he racked up five Oscar nominations as Best Actor, along with three consecutive wins of the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's Hollywood's Hysterical Histories... Theresa "Tootie" Smith...

As a very young child, Theresa Smith (born to Alonzo and Anna Smith of St. Louis, Missouri, and nicknamed "Tootie"), began her career singing and dancing even in the cradle. Her first public performances were for friends and neighbors of her family often for holiday occasions where she would team up with her siblings doing impressions and various Vaudeville songs about exotic places or disreputable persons involved in piracy, white slavery, bootlegging, and even cannibalism.

Though seemingly humorous, there were dark undertones to these little showlettes, and frequently little Tootie would end up in some sort of altercation or violence, often in alleyways behind a theatre... or her nursery school. At the tender age of 7 she almost wed an indigent character actor from a local dinner theatre before her parents (usually absent and uninterested) interceded with local authorities to stop the marriage ceremony literally at the altar just before the groom could say, "I do!"... Little Tootie then descended into a bizarre nether-world of carny-shows and cult-films and political scandal... before she finally disappeared from all respectable society.

(Top row L to R: 1) Little Tootie singing with her older sister Esther whom she later hooked on heroin and marijuana and abandoned in a Women's House of Detention. Her brother Lon is seen accompanying the girls on his banjo. He was later drugged, abducted, and sold into white slavery by Tootie's 3rd grade boyfriend, possibly to Arabia, Madagascar, or somewhere in Akron. The banjo was never found. 2) Tootie at the age of 5 rescued by police from her agent (pimp?) after being robbed of her night's salary at Bluestein's Bimbo & Burlesqueerie in Poka-Ma-Hola, Arkansas. 3) Tootie with her almost husband, Edward "Big Ned" Bunsterston seen in this photo just after she pinched his bottom. 4) Tootie photographed with her doll/ventriloquist dummy Madame Shahtzi, a German fraulein known for her suggestive cabaret songs and off-color limericks about sailors and long voyages at sea without women-folk. Bottom row L to R: 5) Tootie with Mr. Ruffski, one of many animals from the local pound that she did cult-films with as the only human in the cast. Eventually church authorities interceded, and many of the animals were rescued to good and loving homes. 6) Tootie at the birthday celebration for the MGM studios. She was told by the secretary to LB Mayer, that if she would wait in his office, he might come by with a piece of cake and she could sit on his lap! 7) Tootie broadcasting as Wee Tootsen Stroodlehoff, the Nurnberg Nightingale, during World War I when she may have been a double-agent for the Kaiser. 8) Tootie reduced to being a hobo when she returned to the United States and was only partially cleared of sedition charges. 9) A photo taken in the 1940s of acclaimed Dr. Mary Edwards Walker... or a stage magician named The Magnificent Mr. Majooski, either of whom may or may not be Tootie disguised to conceal her true identity.)

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "St. Patty's Cinema"...

"When I tell you to ditch the shirt, you hop, ya hear me, my wild Irish Rose?... and ya better NOT be a leprechaun where it counts!"...

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy Birthdays on March 5th...

Clockwise from top left: James Sikking, Joan Bennett, Samantha Eggar, Dean Stockwell, Jack Cassidy, Virginia Christine, Rex Harrison, Henry Daniell, Henry Travers, and Elaine Page.

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "A Few of My Favorite Things"... John DiLeo's "There Are No Small Parts"...

You know when someone gives you a box of luxury chocolates, maybe for your birthday?... no, I'm talking about LUXURY chocolates! Not some past-its-freshness-date Whitman's sampler from the corner drugstore or a Fanny Farmer hand-me-down from Aunt Edith! I'm talking about Teuscher Champagne Truffles with NO crushed red velvet bow or a smirking bunny with a bent tinfoil ear... ok? You get the idea! Well, if you've ever had the delicious pleasure of that, you know that you savor each one you carefully lift from its pleated paper cup. You really look at it, maybe smell the deep chocolate perfume coming off it before you slowly slip it into your mouth. There's no racing through the box, wedging one after another, unfinished onto the conveyor belt of your gaping tongue and maw, right? It's an exercise in being present and appreciative of something truly wonderful...

Well! Having said all that, there is a newly published book by a truly wonderful writer and film fanatic who has over-ridden any restraint you might have to "savoring", blah, blah, blah! It's "THERE ARE NO SMALL PARTS" by John DiLeo; a collection of extraordinary essays on film performances of ten minutes or less that are unforgettable, perhaps even iconic, and that are immediately recognizable. Even if you "can't quite place the name" of the actor, you might be able to recite every line, and with the same cadences and emotions that earned them a place in this book! Reading these essays, starting with the first one of Elsa Lanchester's in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), you may find yourself gobsmacked by DiLeo's astute joy and celebration of each actor's incredible talent in such a small space; how can an artist render so much with so little? Well, that's genius for you! Eleven of these one hundred gems were nominated for Oscars, and two won, each with an onscreen time of less than 7 minutes! An Oscar in less than 7 minutes!!! Talk about nuance!

Reading some of these essays may bring you to knowing laughter, some may move you to tears, but all of them will certainly impress you with DiLeo's knowledge and discernment. I opened the book and sat stunned that he had chosen performances, one after another, that I had always treasured, even as a child. And how wonderful too, to see major stars take a brief turn "just for the fun of it"; Marlene Dietrich in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), Gene Hackman in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974), or Al Pacino in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019).

Back to the box of chocolates; I savor a box of Teuscher Champagne Truffles, one at a time, and certainly NOT finishing all of them in one sitting. Sadly, these essays are so delicious that many readers have stated that they opened the book... and read on and on, page after page, gorging themselves on his erudition, humor, wisdom, and on the combination of his subjects' brilliance and his for celebrating it... I am one of those readers!... wolfing down one after another, swearing to take a break, and making the mistake of "oh, just one more"! Why couldn't he have made it 200 performances??... Or is there perhaps a sequel?? (I hope, I hope, I hope!)... Thank God, gorging on John DiLeo is non-fattening. Oh, and when you've finished, you can start all over again!

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy, Happy Birthday to PINOCCHIO (February 23,1940)...

On February 23rd, 1940, Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures. It wasn't just the children who sat thunderstruck at the visuals, imagination, and deeply moving story of a little toy that wanted to "be real".... When Monstro the Whale swept onto the giant movie screens of America with surging waves and tiny seagulls skittering out of the way to emphasize the appalling scale, when the ironically named Pleasure Island towering over the boys began to whirl into a terrifying nightmare of glittering lights and donkey-ears, and when the final resolution of death and transfiguration took place with the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket standing by, gasps, screams, and tears flowed freely...

Whatever Disney's personal issues and prejudices were, his ability to mobilize the great talents that made one iconic piece of art after another at his studios remains fixed. 82 years later, even the stills from this and so many of his other films are spellbinding... "Cartoon"??? "Cartoon"... The word is laughable...

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's Silly Cinema Sequels!!...

EARTH vs. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956) starring Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor... the little known sequel to ALL ABOUT EVE (1950).

The story follows the tragic career of playwright Lloyd Richards, who, after the failure of his Broadway play "Tippy-Toes On The Back Staircase", loses his marriage to Karen, his friendship to Margo Channing, and any possible romantic involvement with Eve Harrington, Birdie Coonan, Miss Caswell, or Addison DeWitt. Unable to ever get another reservation at the Stork Club, he changes his name and goes out West posing as a scientist or a writer.. or... whatever. He remarries eventually and after a lackluster career with cacti and prairie dogs, he is attacked by aliens and flying saucers. Ray guns, brain-washing, and merriment ensue... along with some property damage. Interestingly, this is his second run-in with people from outer space... well, the third, if you include Max Fabian...

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]