“And that is how Madhavi was born . . .”—Prince Ilangô Adigal, Shilappadikaram (The Ankle Bracelet), trans. Alain Daniélou (New York: New Directions, 1965; orig. wr. ca. 171 A.D.), p. 27.
YOU WHO WERE LOVED ABOVE ALL OTHERS
Epigraph: “I, the servant of God, am thankful to Him . . .”—The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi, trans. Sir Richard F. Burton, ed. Alan Hull Walton (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1964; orig. trans. 1886; orig. wr. betw. 1394 and 1433), p. 73.
This page: Kathy Horvath versus Martina Navratilova—The New York Times, Sunday, June 4, 2017, sports sec. p. 6 (Cindy Shmerler, “The 1 in Navratilova’s 86-1 Season”). According to Louise Allen, The Lesbian Idol: Martina, KD and the Consumption of Lesbian Masculinity (London: Cassell, 1997), Navratilova was “a lesbian star.” Hence the sexualization of her persona, as when (p. 15) a certain young girl watched Navratilova on television and studied “where her thighs met the line of her underwear.”
This page: the anecdote about the studio writing Judy Garland out of Showboat—Information from Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 175.
This page: The straight man’s ability to see underground—Actually, an attribute of Lynceus. Apollonius of Rhodes, The Voyage of Argo (The Argonautica), trans. R. V. Rieu (New York: Penguin Classics, 1971, rev. of 1959 ed.; orig. wr. 3rd cent. B.C.), p. 39.
“And the cloud of the hymen is like a shining emerald.”—Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, ed., The Gnostic Bible (Boston: Shambhala, 2003), p. 463 (“The Paraphrase of Shem”: “Shem Ascends, In Mind, and Recites the Litany”).
“the ancient lyric” of “long-dead Anacreon”—Somewhat after David A. Campbell, ed. and trans., Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Loeb Classical Library LCL143, 1988), p. 235 (Anocreontea, 57).
This page: Sandra’s mermaid fantasies—Twenty years before he got bewitched by his true love, which is to say his daughter’s young governess, the Russian poet F. Tyutchev advised us to hide / your own dreaming because a thought expressed turns false. Sandra now lived what some hacks would approve of as “a rich fantasy life” while other hacks would pronounce it neurotic. Within Tyutchev’s nineteenth-century skull, secret feelings once rose in gemlike constellations where worms now patrol. He asserted that our selves were complete worlds—so stay in them and keep their contents quiet! What became of this philosophy once he said I love you to the beautiful Elena Deniseva? Fourteen years and three children later, she died. Did he then return to the starry nights within his head? And if so, how joyful was his solitude? I would submit that he found the darkness sad and cold. In the case of Sandra, dreamy images of mermaids were quite good enough for her time of life, but Neva might well spoil them forever.
CHILD STAR
Epigraph: “Association with women is the basic element of good manners.”—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections, ed. Peter Hutchinson, trans. Elisabeth Stopp (New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 5 (no. 31).
Epigraph: “Well, Judy Garland isn’t sophisticated . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 52 (James Carson, Modern Screen, January 1940).
“The Devil may shape a witch into a wolf . . .”—Johanna Sinisalo, ed., The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy, trans. David Hackston, p. 12 (Aino Kallas, Sudenmorsian [Wolf Bride], 1928).
“What color was your daughter’s hair?”—John G. Wilson, B.A., ed., The Trial of Jeannie Donald (London: William Hodge and Company, Limited, 1953), p. 68. This murder case informs several of the tropes in The Lesbian. The trial was July 16–19, 1934.
This page: Judy Garland used to envy Joan Crawford for her long, glittering fingernails—Information and direct quote from Schmidt, p. 104.
“Her hair is a little lighter with just the right touch of gold . . .”—Information and direct quote from Schmidt, p. 32 n (199).
This page: Attitude of Karen’s mother—Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays, ed. David Womersley (New York: Penguin Books, 2003; essays orig. pub. 1739–61), p. 250 (The Rambler, No. 148, Saturday, 17 August 1751): “The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with the aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.”
This page: that doublepage spread of Natalie Wood who in a dark outfit posed—Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016), p. 46.
This page: Description of the woman who had bitten her six-year-old daughter—Coal Valley News (West Virginia), Wednesday, September 4, 2013, p. A1 (Fred Pace, “Bloomingrose woman arrested on felony child abuse charges”).
“Now tell me this . . .”—Schmidt, pp. 4–5 (interview with Wally Beery, 1935, slightly abbreviated).
“Wait until you hear her sing . . .”—Schmidt, p. 6 (Wally Beery, “Shell Chateau Hour” interview, 1935).
“Judy Garland, child wonder of the screen . . .”—Schmidt, p. 7 (Victorial Johnson, Modern Movies, August 1937).
This page: at eight years of age the daughter of the Dragon King became a Buddha.—The Threefold Lotus Sutra, trans. Bunno Kato, Yoshiro Tamura and Kojiro Myasaka, with revs. (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Co., 1995 repr. of 1975 ed.; orig. mss. ca. 4th cent.?), pp. 212–13: “‘. . . Behold me become a Buddha even more rapidly than that!’ At that moment the entire congregation saw the dragon’s daughter suddenly transformed into a male, perfect in bodhisattva-deeds.” (For consistency I have capitalized the original “buddha” and “buddhas” throughout The Lucky Star.)
This page: The tale of the Queen of Spain—Somewhat after Italian Folktales, selected and retold by Italo Calvino, trans. George Martin (New York: Harcourt Inc., 1980; orig. Italian ed. 1956), pp. 345–47 (“The Palace of the Doomed Queen,” Siena).
This page: and there was even the time when she took her to the beauty parlor to get turned into a blonde.—Other child stars’ mothers did their respective best. Consider Natalie Wood’s mother, who, they say, chauffeured the sixteen-year-old to the casting couch at Château Marmont, where the director, “old enough to be Natalie’s father,” after penetrating the girl became a good influence who “taught the actress to trust her own instincts” (Bowman, p. 43).
“That’s how I see Hollywood . . . as the place that gives everybody a chance.”—Schmidt, p. 22.
This page: Memories of the Pacific campaign—Somewhat after Eric Bergerud, Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific (New York: Viking, 1996), pp. 413–14 (testimony of Bill Crooks, Australian Imperial Force), pp. 447–48 (testimony of Robert Kennington).
This page: The tale of Shirley Temple and Santa Claus—Paul F. Boller, Jr., and Ronald L. Davies, Hollywood Anecdotes (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1987), p. 153.
Natalie Wood: “Woman of the Year” at ten and “Child of the Year” at eleven—Bowman, p. 39.
WHEN AN INNOCENT GIRL ABANDONS HERSELF
Epigraph: “When an innocent girl abandons herself . . .”—Frank S. Caprio, M.D., Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism (New York: The Citadel Press, 1954), p. 144.
Epigraph: “Nobody ever taught me what to do on a stage.”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 182 (Michael Drury, Cosmopolitan, January 1951).
Lana Turner: “It’s very difficult, growing up in public.”—Schmidt, p. 142 (Adela Rogers St. John, Photoplay, April 1945).
“Christ Almighty, the girl reacted to the slightest bit of kindness . . .”—David Shipman, Judy Garland: The Secret Life of An American Legend (New York: Hyperion, 1992), p. 142 (Joseph Mankiewicz).
This page: the Country Women’s Festival in Mendocino—I am thinking of the one in 1974, mentioned in: Gay Lesbian Bise
xual Transgender Historical Society, San Francisco (GLBTHS). Linda Welcome papers (2008-12), carton 1.
YOU SEEM A LITTLE SAD
Epigraph: “And Virgo, hiding her disdainful breast . . .”—Emrys Jones, comp. and ed., The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 139 (from “The Mirror for Magistrates”).
Epigraph: “Ah, Catulla, dearest . . .”—Dudley Fitts, Sixty Poems of [Marcus Valerius] Martial[is] in Translation (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967 repr. of 1956 ed.; orig. wr. 1st cent. A.D.), p. 7, and facing Latin on p. 6 (“To Catulla,” VIII:54]). Fitts translated the original as “Ah, dearest, that you were less lovely or less vile.” Since the Latin reads: “O quam te fieri, Catulla, uellem formosam minus aut magis pudicam!,” I have inserted the woman’s name in my “retranslation” and swapped out Fitts’s period for an exclamation point.
This page: Footnote: Zeus’s abhorrence of murder and support of murderers—Information from Apollonius of Rhodes, The Voyage of Argo [The Argonautica], trans. R. V. Rieu (New York: Penguin Classics, 1971, rev. of 1959 ed.; orig. wr. 3rd cent. B.C.), p. 52.
“she had grown so accomplished at not feeling whatever pain inhabited her . . .”—Kristine L. Falco, Psy. D., Psychotherapy with Lesbian Clients: Theory into Practice (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1991), p. 30: “Before long, a lesbian who is used to monitoring her every word and passing for what is acceptable will be unable to determine what her own feelings really are.” I have heard a similar aphorism both from and about victims of rape and incest.
This page: The Madonna could restore the sight to any princess . . .—Information (slightly distorted by WTV) from Italian Folktales, selected and retold by Italo Calvino, trans. George Martin (New York: Harcourt Inc., 1980; orig. Italian ed. 1956), p. 513 (“Serpent King”).
“Don’t worry, Karen. You’re not a lesbian.”—Falco, p. 43, quoting “Elena’s” therapist: “Don’t worry, you’re not a lesbian.”
THE ISLAND
Epigraph: “It is more than a coincidence that inverts have a fondness for islands.”—Frank S. Caprio, M.D., Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism (New York: The Citadel Press, 1954), p. 65. I probably should have set this chapter in Los Angeles instead, for as the same source shockingly reveals: “While visiting Hollywood, California, I learned that the incidence of male and female homosexuality in this area is relatively high and is attributed to the influx of persons with artistic temperaments.” Who would have thought it?
Epigraph: “And from this moment on I shall strip myself . . .”—James M. Robinson, gen. ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, [3rd] rev. ed., trans. & introduced by members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project . . . (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990 repr. of 1978 ed.; orig. Coptic codices wr. bef.-during 4th cent.), p. 36 (“The Apocryphon of James,” bef. 314).
Judy Garland: “I’d like to have been part of that life where all women . . .”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 133 (Judy Garland, Movieland, December 1943).
This page: The magic doings on the island—Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, trans. J. H. Mozley (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press / Loeb Classical Library, 1936 rev. repr. of 1943 ed.; orig. Latin ms. ca. 70–90 A.D.), p. xiii (introduction): “It is unfortunate from the modern point of view that the epic convention demanded, or at any rate permitted, the employment of supernatural machinery to effect anything so human as falling in love . . . ,” p. 72+.
the girl would be a chosen instrument of hers to carry her love before woman and man . . . —Acts 9:15–16: “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles . . . ; for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
This page: And the old lady cut away from her the things which should be cut from her.—Cf. The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani, [trans.,] intro. and commentary by E. A. Wallis Budge (New York: Gramercy Books, 1999; orig. pub. 1895), p. 400: “And they have cut away from him the things which should be cut from him.” [This source henceforth cited as The Egyptian Book of the Dead.]
This page: whatever she could not cure in herself she must enlarge.—After Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo Sherley-Price (New York: Penguin, 1987 repr. of 1952 ed.; orig. Latin version wr. ca. 1413), p. 44: “Whatever a man is unable to correct in himself and others, he should bear patiently until God ordains otherwise.”
“Grant what no woman has seen and what has not entered into any woman’s heart.”—After James M. Robinson, gen. ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, p. 27 (“The Prayer of the Apostle Paul,” 2nd–3rd cent.): “Grant what no angel eye has seen and . . . what has not entered into the human heart . . .”
This page: When the old lady had done away the offensive thing which had been on the girl—Somewhat after The Egyptian Book of the Dead, p. 404 (“The Third Arit”).
“She shall have no inheritance . . .”—Slightly altered from Ezekiel 44:28.
Judy Garland: “I have a machine in my throat . . .”—Schmidt, p. xxiii. In those days most of us sought out love in the most crowded places—because while prowling for gemstones on that same cut in the mountain where rival rockhounds also pry decreases everyone’s probability of finding a lovely specimen, love-hunters actually increase each other’s likelihood of success. You see, most of us craved the same thing: ourselves, reflected in each other. One would think we could have won the prize by staying home and looking in the mirror—as I myself so often did, switching out the mirror for a rum and sodapop. But loving the lesbian taught me that self-love was too easy. As Judy Garland’s mother explained to the world (Schmidt, p. 14 [Helen Champion]): She’s worked hard because she’s so interested in getting ahead. Meanwhile the transwoman toiled to look even three percent worth loving; while poor Francine was condemned to balance out the cash register, and every day the stage hands had to paint the Tin Woodman’s face with ten dollars’ worth of genuine silver. What a world, what a world . . . !—But what was love, and how could we know it if ever we found it? Some say that fire is neither matter nor energy, but whatever arises between them. That description satisfies me far less than the fantasies I get when altering the colors of the flames by sprinkling in this or that chemical salt . . . —and to say that love is something which flickers between two people is to describe it only from the outside. If I could only be one of those two . . . ! . . .—In the darkness of those places, the ones in need were frequently prepared to need one another, but when their needs failed to complement what their adorable rescuers gave them, love turned sad or even dangerous. Many began by lying out of hope or longing, then lied out of cowardice. They might go on pretending to love when they were bored, repulsed or worse. Any romance might end monstrously, after which both perpetrators blamed each other. (Daily cost of the Tin Woodman’s facepaint—Schmidt, p. 44 [Judy Garland as told to Gladys Hall, Child Life, 1939].)
This page: the stone Etruscan woman who contains human ashes within herself—Circa 400 B.C. Several tomb-tropes in this book derive from visits to the Museo Egizio di Torino in 2009 and 2012.
This page: The assertion of Audre Lorde—Somewhat after Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007 rev. of 1984 ed.), p. 45 (“Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving”). On p. 59 (“Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”), Lorde writes: “To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, no matter how comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience, and to allow ourselves to be reduced to the pornographic, the abused, and the absurd,” which I have paraphrased in the old lady’s admonition to “never forget your feelings.”
IT’S ALL BEEN WONDERFUL
Epigraph: “It’s all been wonde
rful.”—Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters, ed. Randy L. Schmidt (Chicago: Chicago Review Press / An A Cappella Book, 2014), p. 216 (Roberta Orniston, Photoplay, October 1945).
Epigraph: “There is no law prohibiting a person . . .”—John P. Kenney, Ph.D., and John B. Williams, LL.M., M.S. and P.A., Police Operations: Policies and Procedures: 400 Field Situations with Solutions, 2nd ed. (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1968), p. 133.
This page: Biographical details on the young Judy Garland—Schmidt, pp. xv, xvii, 3 (Wally Beery, “Shell Chateau Hour” interview, 1935), 7; (Victoria Johnson, Modern Movies, 1937), 14; (Helen Champion, Screen Juveniles, 1937), 21; (Gladys Hall, Motion Picture, 1938), 36–37; (May Mann, Screenland, 1939), 58; (James Reid, Motion Picture, 1940).
This page: she had been well taught to take the wills of others for her own.—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Leo Sherley-Price (New York: Penguin, 1987 repr. of 1952 ed.; orig. Latin version wr. ca. 1413), p. 124: “Resolve to do the will of others rather than your own.”
This page: opener of all our locks—And here is an appropriate place to mention that a dozen-odd phrases concerning Neva have been looted, with and without further mutilation, from the “Accadian Hymn to Ishtar” in R. de Rohan Barondes, M.D., Garden of the Gods: Mesopotamia, 5,000 B.C. (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1957), p. 227.
Judy Garland: “I have a private instructor . . .”—Schmidt, p. 56 (James Carson, Modern Screen, 1940). Her name-switch was hardly unique. Natalie Wood, for instance, was formerly Natasha Gurdin, and before that Natasha Zakharenko (Manoah Bowman, Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life [Philadelphia: Running Press, 2016], p. 13).
BUT I FEEL LIKE A TERRIBLE PERSON
Epigraph: “Dr. La Forrest Potter of New York believes . . .”—Frank S. Caprio, M.D., Female Homosexuality: A Psychodynamic Study of Lesbianism (New York: The Citadel Press, 1954), 146.
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