Page 64 - Sonoma County Gazette 11-17

Wonderful Women
Old Hollywood
writers seem to be stuck on the Madonna/ whore syndrome. Women are either portrayed as virtuous, Stepford-wife types, supportive shadows or they are vixens,
Patti Lacey, a Sebastopol resident since1954, has danced in the lms of artists such as the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Ray Bolger, and many more. Now, at age 95, she’s full of joy and laughter, especially when reminiscing about old Hollywood.
femme fatales sexy, scheming and salacious. Another aspect of this phenomenon is the more
Misogyny has always been rampant in Hollywood. Producers, directors and screen
Born on Sunset Blvd. in L.A. in 1922, she began her career by dancing around her house as a four-year-old. Her mom enrolled her in dancing schools, gradually leading to performances on vaudeville stages. At age 12, she met Ray Hirsch, who had taught Judy Garland to dance at Hollywood High. Hirsch, a year older than Lacey, became her dance partner for years. She describes him in a recent interview as being “full of everything good.”
and Jennifer Laurence have publicly railed against the ordinary practice of paying male stars substantially more than female stars
A victory with Hirsch over 100 couples in a 1938 National Jitterbug Contest really kicked o Lacey’s career. That year, a photo of them appeared in Life Magazine, depicting Hirsch ipping Lacey upside-down with her legs showing. Lacey calls it “risqué, but not raw or against principles.” “They liked to see legs. I was proud of it,” she says, excitedly.
Now on DVD the glorious anomaly of Wonder Woman breaks the mold and makes its spectacular success even more delicious. The super hero concept that has been a trend in the last couple of years with reboots of Spiderman, Batman, and Superman, etc. now has an estrogenic champion. The darling of critics
practical consideration of monetary compensation for female actresses. Oscar winners Patricia Arquette
who are doing basically the same job. Then, of course, there is the Harvey Weinstein types to deal with.
Patty Lacey sitting with Harpo and Groucho Marx.
“They were into mischief. We tried to be ashy because that’s the way you win.” The duo signed with Columbia Pictures for a dance role in the 1939 Dagwood
at the time to be “crazy,” she says, danced by kids looking for notoriety and something unique.
This lm is also directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, who is best known for guiding Charlize Theron to an Oscar winning performance in Monster. In this piece she proves that a woman can manage an action-packed super hero/ heroine theme as well as any man.
and Blondie lm, Blondie Meets the Boss. “It worked out real nice,” she says, “Ray and I were like brother and sister.”
Gal Godot as Diana is a force of nature. Tall, willowy, a former Miss Israel, beautiful she is but it is her screen presence that is stunning. The camera loves her. She is of Polish, German, Czech and Austrian Jewish descent. Her maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors. She performed her obligatory military duty and studied law but is now following this more lucrative path. Here is what makes her extraordinary. When doing re-shoots for the lm she was ve months pregnant with her second child. That is truly astounding considering the physicality that was required. Gal in every sense is woman of wonder.
Jitterbug had become the style, and the area of Lacey and Hirsch’s greatest popularity. Mad Youth in 1940 gained the pair further attention. Lacey describes
it as “just crazy dancing, with a lot of jumping, with Ray landing on his knee.”
In Buck Private (1941) she met Abbot and Costello, who, she says, “joked and fooled around a lot.” The same year she did The Big Store with the Marx Brothers, including a scene playing cards with Groucho and Harpo (see photo).
Hollywood, at the time, had “motion picture studios all over the place,” Lacey says, but costs were high, which explains why many of the lms were shorts, sometimes lmed in two hours. “We were working, it was fun, and the money was very good,” but she also emphasizes that “dancing was a job, especially in lms.”
Hirsch taught her to jitterbug, a non- traditional dance
The scene opens when Diana,
our wonder girl, is living on an
idyllic island of all women which
is protected from intruders by an
invisible membrane. Her mother
is queen of the Amazons. When
an American pilot crashes into the
sea, Diana rescues him and when
encircled with the lasso of truth he
reveals that he is a spy working
against the Germans in World War I.
Diana feels that Ares, the god of war,
is responsible for the con ict and and
it is her destiny to save the world
from his wrath. Hence the seamless
blending of fact and myth. The
expository beginning is over shadowed by the bedazzling bombast at the end when Diana and Ares battle and she saves the Earth.
considered by many
and audiences alike, the lm did extremely well at the box o ce and will probably, after overseas receipts are tallied, generate proceeds in the hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions.
FREE Santa Rosa Symphony Tickets for First Responders and People who lost Homes
Santa Rosa Symphony is dedicating its 90th anniversary (2017-2018) Classical Series to rst responders and people who have lost their homes, and is providing them the opportunity to receive free tickets to the Choice Season concert sets that remain.
Interested parties may call the box o ce two weeks prior to any of the Symphony’s remaining six Classical Series Concerts for free tickets to the Saturday or Monday performance of those concerts.
In 1945, Lacey married and had two children, causing her to back o from Hollywood. When her husband was killed ve years later, she came with her family to live in a house in Sonoma County on land belonging to her dad.
She keeps in shape by going to the gym three times a week. Recently, she tap- danced on the dining room table, while being held by her son. “I could still do a routine but it would be corny,” she says.
“Dancing was my way of life – the way I was raised. Once it gets into your blood it’s wonderful.”
Watch Patti at: youtube.com/watch?v=Za5Tj3mO-NU youtube.com/watch?v=zi5gTWClCpE; youtube.com/watch?v=ksUcT7B-
64 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 11/17