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

Harp Pendant George Sweet (1325).jpg

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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Sybil Bruncheon's 31 Days of Halloween... MUMMIE MEETS THE MUMMY (1931)...

... My appearance in MUMMIE MEETS THE MUMMY (1931), directed by Tod Browning. It was Hollywood's first foray into the musical-monster-comedy genre and the budget was huge. I played a terribly glamorous lady-archaeologist who discovers that she is the reincarnation of the first lady-pharaoh, Queen Ma-Hotsa-Totsa. I am reunited with my lover from 3000 years before, Kare-Lees, the high-priest of Heepsa-Hummus. Sadly, our relationship ended on the eve of our wedding, when my handmaidens caught him trying on my bridal trousseau and turning my favorite bath mat into a pashmina! And then Kare-lees was turned into a mummy all wrapped in ace bandages and buried alive! Can you imagine?

Well, the film was full of musical numbers, tanna leaves, of course, incense burners, pyramids, cats, camels, feasts, orgies, and lots of oiled up muscular slaves, loincloths, stranglings, poisonings, people walking sideways… that sort of thing... oh, and way too much sand that just got in everywhere… if you know what I mean!! And then that awful Hays Committee decided that the film had... um... "deviant and morally questionable overtones that might upset or confuse impressionable persons and young men of delicate sensibilities". I'm sure I don't know what they meant... although my hand-hammered solid gold snake brassiere was a little too loose. But that nice Mr. Adrian adjusted it so that it wouldn't fall off during my dance of the seventy-two veils... no matter how frisky I got. Ah, good times... good times.

(Sybil’s necklace designed by Arthur DeCaprio)

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