From Sybil Bruncheon’s Merry Memoirs: It's all relative... or... whatever...

Helen Keller once said, “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”…

... well… I once cried because I had no mittens, and then I passed a man who had no thumbs. He couldn't tie his shoes, or button his shirt, or... uh... well, take care of... "business", and he happened to have been extremely well-built and handsome... and ...well, I struck up a conversation with him, and we... uh... hit it off. I treated us to lunch at a local cafe just outside the alley we met in, and we went off together to a cheap roadside hotel for a long weekend of rough sex and scintillating conversation! You know the type. Anyway, I decided to take him home, but on the way, as he put his big arm around me and stared into my eyes, he asked me why I was crying. I said, "Because I have no mittens.".... he stopped, turned me to face him and said as sweetly as possible, "But Sybil.... It's July...."

(Portrait by Olan Montgomery)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "MY MERRY MEMOIRS"... or maybe Dagmar's...

With many thanks to my friend Jonathan Boorstein for finding this old photo: That's my identical twin, Dagmar, who entered a skiing competition in Vroče Žemljice, the famous and glamorous resort in Slovenia. Drugged and drunk as usual, she got on the wrong train and overnighted South into Italy to Venice!! The one thing I can say about my sister is that she never sulks... she's unsinkable much like Mummie... we got that quality from our Mother, deranged as she was.. Anyway, Dagmar challenged all the local gondoliers to a race and managed to... um... "water-ski" her way around the canals and win an impromptu marathon against twelve of the burliest gondola-guys. Peggy Guggenheim's mansion happened to be the finish line, and she invited everyone in for an extended weekend of "dining and debauchery" as she called it... I DO remember Dagmar's outfit in this photo along with various striped shirts, trousers, and... ahem... "underthings" floating in the canal in front of Peggy's the next morning. A side note; Peggy didn't have a trophy she could give Dagmar so she gave her a small Picasso of one of his wives looking like a guitar with both eyes on one side of her face and screaming about something. It was gorgeous!... Can you blame me for stealing it from Dagmar's guest bathroom a week later?? Can you???

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... from Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"... In The Hood... or on it...

...It was in 1922, that the nice people at the Duesenberg motor company asked me to model for their lovely hood ornaments... I was to represent the Greek goddess of "Speed"! According to Bullfinch or was it Edith Hamilton?... whatever.... the goddess of "Speed" was named Methamfitriss!... or Podiatrixie!... or Quixi-tina.. something like that! And I had to model completely nude, which wasn't too disturbing... after all, I had modeled for public fountains, war medals for valor, and French playing cards! It was the 25 guys they had hanging around while I was being photographed... and the man renting the binoculars. That and the popcorn seller is where I finally drew the line... but they paid me an extra thirty bucks, so what could I say?... besides they told me my eyes would light up at night! What self-respecting star would turn up their nose at an offer like THAT????....(Jeeesh! Those wings itched!!)...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs... Kabooom!"...

The Hindenburg Disaster: May 6th, 1937; Darlings!!!! Mummie was digging through the attic as she always does right before anniversaries of major events in her life... (I don't know!... they bring out the Miss Havisham in me!)... and while rummaging through my steamer trunks, I found some old photos and treasures, including a photo of a silent film I had done with Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and Hester Xylph about the adventures of a young chanteuse who "Charlestons" her way around the world on a zeppelin! The original book was called THE GIRL WHO DANCED ON AIR! But the movie was retitled THE FLOOZY FLIES ON FRIDAY!! Here's my sterling silver cocktail shaker that L.B. Mayer gave me on opening night and the poster for the film!!!... I got so interested in air travel that I got my aviatrix's license and bought stock in a failing airship company and its fleet of three bi-planes and four old WWI zeppelins. I renamed it AERO-BRUNCHEON... ah, good times... good times!...

... sadly, right after the Hindenburg went down right beside our landing strip... well, you can imagine there was a big fall-off in ticket sales!!... I ended up wallpapering my ballroom with the beautifully engraved stock certificates. They were printed in the loveliest shade of sage-green... to match my eyes!... almost exactly! (ps. I adore Klieg lights for ANY occasion don't you!? That’s the poster for THE FLOOZY FLIES ON FRIDAY!… and look! There I am hanging from the gondola!!!)

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “Aren’t Families Funny?”… Elspeth, Egbert, Irina...et al.

We all have relatives that we love but still just drive us crazy, don’t we?... Take this old photo of my Grandmother Elspeth at a young age with her mother, my great grandmother Irina there on the right. Truth be told, it looks as if Irina is lecturing Elspeth (as usual!) on deportment, posture, penmanship, lady-like conduct, the proper wardrobe and accessories, clean gloves, table manners, letter-writing etiquette, thank-you notes, flower-arranging, embroidery vs. needlepoint, and properly filled out dance cards at cotillions. This was how they spent their days together, and indeed how most mothers and daughters spent their days in 1893.

 Interestingly, the two gentlemen to the left of them are Elspeth’s twin brother, Cedric, and his… um… “friend”, Horace Makeworthy, of the vast Makeworthy Mustard and Cough Syrup fortune… They are apparently remaining polite and silent as many “sensitive and single men” of that time did when in the presence of a self-possessed older woman… or a battleship, both of which my great-grandmother was mistaken for… frequently… at Bridge parties, and in harbors. This photo shows a typical day in London when Great-Grandma would commandeer members of her family to accompany her on errands, social calls, and shopping while her husband Victor would be at “the club” with his pals smoking cigars, wheeling and dealing, and regaling each other with adventures that probably never happened.

 Oh… and there are two other members of my family in the photo there too… Yep, there on the extreme left, peeking out from behind that street post, is cousin Egbert, who adored startling his relatives at the most inopportune moments by playing endless and often tragic practical jokes. He often would disguise himself as infamous murderers that had made the headlines of the newspapers and climb up trellises or hide in hedges to frighten everyone in the family… well, except for Great-Grandma Irina who was as deadly with a pair of hedge-clippers as she was with a frilly parasol. His favorite modus operandi was to skulk about at night dressed in a huge cape with a rubber knife and to jump out on unsuspecting victims and “stab them to death”. London, and indeed most polite society around the world, was still reeling from the unsolved horror of the Jack the Ripper catastrophe just five years earlier, so Egbert rocked with glee when his serial-killing pantomimes would send chamber maids, nannies, and ladies of questionable character shrieking in terror, if only for a few minutes, until they realized they’d been attacked by a giggling simpleton in a Vaudeville costume with a toy store knife.

Of course, Elspeth, after having been killed on numerous occasions, only scolded him, and Egbert was too wary of Irina’s deadly parasol. By the way, when Egbert was on his night-time forays into the world of mayhem, he called himself Knifey! He would scrawl “Knifey was here!” in chalk, or sometimes chocolate syrup near his latest murder, and he explained that his name as a serial killer should leave no room for confusion, especially if Scotland Yard were to become involved. He often reversed letters in “Knifey” or wrote one backwards or in lower case and upper case mixed to increase the sinister air about it all. You can imagine how vexed he was that Scotland Yard never attempted to solve any of Knifey’s murders… nor indeed, ever came to the house to express a passing interest. It only drove him to greater and more wanton stabbing incidents; in just one infamous week, he stabbed several of his younger sister’s dolls, a plate of cookies which he proceeded to eat, and various neighborhood cats (who scratched him rather badly, and who can blame them? Cats have very little sense of humor when it comes to rubber knives and play-stabbing!)  Great-Grandma finally ended his semi-appalling crime-spree when she pulled out a pair of sewing scissors and snipped his rubber knife in half just as he was about to stab her Charlotte Russe during tea.

You remember I mentioned there were two other relatives of mine in the photo; Egbert on the left, and on the extreme right… there’s Cousin Danny; perfectly lovely in so many ways, with quite an impressive stamp collection too, but unfortunately given to urinating out-of-doors… often in broad daylight. Oh well.

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From Sybil Bruncheon’s “My Merry Memoirs”... a fracas at Harry Winston’s!

I ADORE multi-functional jewelry! Imagine! This beautiful little pendant is also a music box! You know, I once had a lovely bejeweled brooch in the shape of an organ grinder monkey, complete with his little red marching-band uniform and cap, and holding a tin cup. One day, the pin on the back came loose, and I took it to Harry Winston for repair. While I was sitting with one of their master-jewelers enjoying my café au lait and croissant at his work-table, he suddenly gave a shout! Did I know that my brooch was a Swiss-made music box from 1805-1810?...I said "no!"...and he pointed out that the works were stuck from all the years of wear and tear. He took out a Q-tip and some solvent and began working around on the back, poking and prodding, and we heard a tiny "ping!" and some gears whirring.

My jeweler friend smiled broadly and sat back very pleased with himself! He pressed the monkey's tail which was hinged!!... and out came a deafening clock-work FART!!!… YES!! DAMMIT! A FART!!.... Harry was sitting nearby and yowled in rage! He barred me from the store for 30 days as a punishment!! "For Upsetting The Sanctity & High Aesthetic Standards of The Harry Winston Establishment in The Marketplace"!!!! That was put on my record there… permanently...

And when I was finally readmitted as a client (a PAYING and HIGHLY EXTRAVAGANT client!) instead of being offered Veuve Clicquot champagne and caviar blintzes at the diamond bracelets counter, a plate of stale fig newtons and a box of old and chipped topaz “friendship rings” was tossed at me… in a broom closet!!! Me! Sybil Bruncheon! Can you imagine!! JEEESH!

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From Sybil's "MY MERRY MEMOIRS - Hollywood's Hysterical Histories"...

About six years after Otto Preminger made LAURA (1944) with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Judith Anderson, and Vincent Price, he approached me with a sequel! I was so excited. And I was being offered the lead! But I asked him, "What about Tierney?"... he said that she would have to pass. She was busy with WHIRLPOOL... and Dana Andrews was doing MY FOOLISH HEART... and the others weren't "available" either. But I was still excited. It was a job, a real job, and right when the Hollywood blacklisting was picking up speed.

There were two great things about the project! One was the song, "Laura" by Raskin and Mercer. They were rewriting the lyrics to make it fit with the sequel. And the other great thing was that Vincent Price had agreed to be in it. And then I got the script over the weekend... it was set on the planet Neptune, Price was playing a mad-scientist who experimented in his garden, and I was to play his newest creation... LARVA!… and the new lyrics? JEEESH! (by the way, Vincent insisted that it could NOT be set on Uranus!!)

Larva is the face in the misty light, she flits here and there in the hall. You see her alone on a summer night as she crawls along the wall. Eight eyes and oh, how they twinkle so, eight arms to give you a hug. She gave your very first kiss to you, that was Larva, but she's only a bug.

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