TCM recently showed Pinky, a 1949 film with Jeanne Crain playing a young black woman returning home after passing for white in Boston, where she graduated from nursing school. This video of the complete movie is set to start at a point that I assume pushed the limits of what the censors allowed.
One of the assailants states the obvious. “What a build on her… oh, you’re pretty… you’re pretty… you’re real pretty.” Maybe it’s possible to be not only too white, but too beautiful for a role, because film critics have said Crain was miscast, despite her Academy Award nomination for best actress.
Director Elia Kazan was a founder of the Actor’s Studio, and he favored emotive acting, so of course he didn’t care for Crain’s understated portrayal of Pinky. But Crain was on the set before Kazan, who was hired after Ethel Waters had John Ford fired.
Newt Gingrich began the Republican descent into the party of culture wars during the 90’s, and Trump completed the transformation. I’m sure there must be white, college-educated professional men who know that Trump is a lying con man, but they liked his pro-business, anti-tax policies. I bet they secretly admire Trump’s swagger and his “grab ’em by the crotch” boasting.
Neither of the political extremes are going to accept any movement towards the other side. Trump’s hardcore base of working class supporters think of politics as Wrestlemania. So Democrats could likewise play rough and continue to call them willfully ignorant deplorable suckers, but that won’t help. What’s the alternative? “There, there, we know you’re disappointed. We’ll show you where you went wrong,” would be condescending. Maybe with Trump on the way out there are enough Republican moderates willing to risk coming out of hiding to make a difference.
Amy Coney Barrett being a Supreme Court Justice has me thinking that Roe v. Wade just might be reversed. This post was first published on July 9, 2011.
When I was in high school, my girlfriend and I were volunteers at a hotline for teens. The crisis center was funded based upon it being an anti-drug program. I had never taken any drugs, or even tasted alcohol, but most of the calls weren’t about drugs. We got our share of cranks, but there were legitimate calls, including suicide attempts. Some of the “crises” were minor, like the drunk kid who had been kicked out of his friend’s car for getting sick. He was on a pay phone and had no idea where he was. There were a lot of upset, sometimes distraught, girls who had been dumped by their boyfriend. And then….. there were…. the terrified girls…. who thought… they might… be pregnant. There were no home pregnancy test kits in those days, and all of the girls who called wanted to know how they could get tested without their parents knowing.
Roe v. Wade was decided right in the middle my senior year of high school, and I remember Betsy, the center’s director, holding a “very important meeting” to explain what it meant to us, as volunteers. Prior to Roe v. Wade we worked with a consulting physician who had an association with a Catholic service for girls in trouble looking for help. After Roe v. Wade we were introduced to another doctor, who said that abortion wouldn’t be the first option, but from now on it would be an option. Our job as teen peer volunteers was to get the caller talking on the phone with one of the adult counselors.
Most of my time at the hotline I spent just hanging around, talking with other kids and listening to records. A friend of mine who I met at the center, named Tom, attended the prestigious Groton School. He went on to Yale and then Harvard Law School.
[2020 note: Tom once dated Caroline Kennedy, who attended Concord Academy. There’s a story behind this, involving me and, in turn, my twin sister.]
For some reason, prep school kids were known for being into the Grateful Dead, and Tom was no exception. I bought their live “Europe ’72” album on his recommendation. But the records that are most indelibly associated in my memory with that time and place in my life are The Doors’ L.A. Woman…
Family lore isn’t always reliable, as Elizabeth Warren found out the hard way. With that understanding, my late father claimed that our family is descended from Phineas Pratt, who arrived in Plymouth in 1623.
