Dear Reader #182

Dear Reader,

Clara Bow’s twenty-first movie was Kiss Me Again, a silent romantic comedy direct by Ernst Lubitsch and released on 1 August, 1925. Clara played Grizette, a sexy Parisian secretary who bewitches her married boss. 

Lubitsch had the knack of sneaking material past the Hays Office censors. He used an audience’s imagination to make his suggestive point. 

In Kiss Me Again, Clara finally had a decent part in a decent movie. And she shone. Variety stated: “Clara Bow absolutely triumphs in the role of a lawyer’s steno.”

Meet My Ancestors

Sir William Denys aka Dennis, c1470 – 1533, of Dyrham, Gloucestershire, my 16 x great grandfather.

Sir William was a courtier of Henry VIII and High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1518 and 1526. In 1511, he was appointed an Esquire for the Body – a personal attendant – of Henry VIII. At this time, the king granted Sir William the honour to empark 500 acres of Dyrham, with exclusive hunting rights. Pictured, (Wikipedia), the charter.

In June 1520, Sir William was one of seven knights of the Gloucestershire contingent selected to accompany Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold when Henry met King Francis I of France.

Sir William married a noblewoman, Anne Berkeley. The couple had six sons and seven daughters.

Anniversaries

Married on 22 February 1868 at Ruhama Chapel, Bridgend, Glamorgan, my 3 x great grandparents Thomas Jones and Hannah Morgan. They had five children. 

Thomas started his working life as a “cow boy”. He then became a coal miner. The family moved around the Glamorgan coalfields, working at the various mines. Hannah disappeared from the historical record in the 1880s, while Thomas disappeared in the 1890s. With so much transience, their records appear to have been lost.

📸 Aberbaiden Colliery, one of Thomas’ places of work.

I’m organising the Golden Age of Hollywood Mastodon Mega Movie Poll. Here are the results from Week One.

Voted for by the movie lovers of Mastodon.

The format: 32 movies seeded and selected by the American Film Institute receive a bye to Round Two.

Round One: 64 movies selected by Mastodon movie lovers, matched when possible by era and genre.

“The real Clara Bow is not the madcap personality created by press and public. As a matter of fact, Hollywood’s hotcha baby would rather croon a lullaby than a torch song. It all goes back to the somewhat drab days of Clara’s youth – to a hungering, poignant desire for mother love that was never quite wholly satisfied. And that same childish hunger, long repressed, has developed in the mature Clara’s material instincts that will not be denied.” – Dora Albert, 1933.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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