Happy 75th Anniversary, "Jezebel"!

We all know the couple: the hot-headed lover who keeps testing the patience of an even-keeled partner who forever winks and smiles and puts-up-with. We've all been witness to it, and many of us have been or will be a part of that cycle--perhaps playing both parts in different relationships. And for those of us more apt to personally identify with the former personality than the latter, there is no greater fear than that of a partner who one day throws up their hands and says "I've had enough!"....and means it. Under the direction of the peerless Hollywood master William Wyler, Bette Davis and Henry Fonda play out such a scenario against the backdrop of Louisiana in 1852. The film was Jezebel, an Oscar-winning box office smash that opened at Radio City Music Hall on March 10th, 1938, launching Bette's reign as Queen of Hollywood.

Bette Davis on the role William Wyler's Jezebel played in shaping her future.

Jezebel is rightfully touted as an epic Southern melodrama, but its impact is derived from how easily its characters and relationships could be transplanted to any other time or place. This, among many other reasons, is why I consider it vastly superior to the classic film which it has always lived in the shadow of: Gone With The Wind. Last year, I wrote a 75th Anniversary tribute to Marked Woman, the unsung classic that began the greatest chapter of Bette Davis's career. William Wyler's Jezebel, released eleven months later, was the film that Miss Davis always credited with "making me a box office star", so I felt I should write another tribute. Alas, time kept that from happening. Instead, here's a recently discovered paper I wrote in high school for a favorite teacher, Mr. Raymond Carrey. Mr. Carrey was already a passionate feminist, but I hoped to expand his canon of great feminist texts by encouraging him to look at the films of Bette Davis in a new way. I'm happy to say he liked my work.

Robert Jeffrey 5/18/99

The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Studio System

            When I set out to research Hollywood’s studio system from its beginning to its ultimate demise, I had no idea that such a task would involve researching every single studio’s individual history. In spite of the fact that Hollywood’s studio system had always been a practice and an institution which I have found to be complex and fascinating, I had always been under the false impression that it was some kind of a sprawling Empire. I knew that there was a great deal of individual studios promoting their own stars and filmmakers, but what I did not know was that each individual studio began their own, private Hollywood journeys at different times and for different reasons. Therefore, I have decided that it would be best to pursue the rise and fall of The Warner Brothers Studio. In addition to the studio’s interesting timeline, Warner Bros. was well known at the time for making films that were about cultural significance as opposed to scope and glamour. “Warner’s….was more closely associated with realism and some excellent social-problem films,” said actress Agnes Moorehead at one time. “MGM was bigger, but today the critics esteem Warner’s highly.” (Hadleigh, 155)

            The Warner Bros. Studio came into the Hollywood power game relatively late. When the studio began to form, in the early 1920s, MGM and Paramount dominated the industry. (Schatz, 58) The studio that would be Warner Bros. was the  brain child of four brothers from the East Coast: Sam, Abe, Harry, and Jack. The brothers started out by distributing films during the period of 1910-1919, aided by the powerful Wall Street broker, Goldman Sachs. Sachs saw the potential for the film industry to become a major force in American economics, and was sure that he could propel the Warner Brothers ahead in this boom. (Schatz, 59)

            In 1920, the brothers emigrated to the West Coast, where they leased a facility for producing films. There, they produced several feature films. In 1922, the brothers moved on and bought a 10 acre plot of land, where they developed The Warner Bros. West Coast Studio. In 1923, the evolution of a studio was in full swing. The name of the studio/production company became “Warner Bros.”, and the brothers received a donation of half a million dollars from an LA banker by the name of Motley Flint. The money was split between upgrading the studio development, buying rights to several stage plays, and producing the first ever “Rin Tin Tin” movie, Where The North Begins. (Schatz, 59-60)

            The studio continued to grow and enjoy smashing success throughout the 1920s. By 1925, the studio had released more than 25 films, and signed several solid stars to contract. The studio upped its budget/production schedule to thirty pictures per year, and the studio expanded its distribution by buying more second-run movie houses (theaters in small, suburban areas with less splendor than first-run film houses) and by building several huge, extravagant first-run movie houses. (Schatz, 60-61)

            It was in 1927 that Warner Bros. forever changed the medium of filmmaking. In February of that year, several studios had announced that they would not be incorporating sound into their films for at least another year. The studios apparently felt that this was too risky a venture, and that the orchestration that accompanied films in first-run movie houses was appropriate enough. (Schatz 64) Warner Bros., in an attempt to compete with more well-established studios like Paramount, MGM, and Universal, opted to take a risk and woo a larger audience with the attraction that sound offered. The risk paid off. (Schatz 64)

            The studio’s first feature to offer sound was The Jazz Singer, a film that offered little plot but still a great deal of music and minimal spoken dialogue. The Jazz Singer was a box office phenomenon, earning a then-spectacular $3 million and prompting Warner bros. to churn out more “talkies”, as sound-capable films were called, so as to beat the other studios to the punch. Once again, their plans paid off, as the studio continued to soar as a result of this technical advantage over Warner Bros.’ competitors. (Schatz 64)

            The 1930s is considered by some to be the finest decade in American cinema. It was also one of the most influential. The ‘30s marked the beginning of Technicolor, the introduction of some of American cinema’s brightest stars, and the first time in American history when a nation of audiences could escape to a fantastical world of fiction and fantasy during the harsh reality of their lives. (Schatz 199) Coinciding with the public’s definitive embrace of American cinema was the beginning of the stars’ resistance towards the oppressive studio system. (Schatz 200) While numerous stars would take part in the rebellion against the oppressive studios, perhaps the earliest and most public rebel was screen legend Bette Davis.

            Warner Bros., not unlike every other studio, was willing to go far to publicize a new movie. In the case of the 1939 film Juarez, the studio reportedly paid a man to jump into a cab, tell the driver to “Take me to Juarez!”’, and then travel all the way to Juarez, Mexico. The next day, headlines appeared in newspapers proclaiming that “Fan Drives 2500 Miles to See Juarez!”. Such an extravagant and original publicity stunt was not especially uncommon during the era when studios controlled filmmaking. (Hadleigh, 198) However, controlling all aspects of filmmaking also meant controlling actors, and such a dominating presence was eventually resisted by actors hungry for artistic freedom.

            “Well, the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood was not necessarily that golden…it was damn trying at times,” said Bette Davis of her days as a young actress. “We were properties of Warner Bros. We were contractually bound. We were indentured. Of course, I fought to help end the feudal system…[Myself and other actors] fought to improve it, but the studio system was a form of slavery, undeniably.” (Hadleigh, 57) Davis’s sentiment reflected the view of many performers in Hollywood. Actor Tyrone Power once even compared Hollywood to “a gilded cage”. (Hadleigh 57) Unlike today’s studio system, in which actors are cast in individual pictures or perhaps commit to several films as part of a contract, in the 1930s the majority of actors worked for one studio all the time. The studio would “own” them for a certain period of time, provide them with steady work and a steady pay, and require them to comply with certain studio demands or risk suspension or revocation of contract. (Davis 30) In addition, female performers faced harsh punishments if they did not comply with certain “sexual obligations” that the studio had placed upon them. Furthermore, reporting such harassment could result in a woman’s career coming to an abrupt end, as Bette Davis would later describe in an interview:

I’m so thankful I never had to rely on my looks. I survived on talent and temperament. If I’d had to make it on the casting touch, I’d have screamed “Rape!” and that would have ended my career! Oh, it was terribly unfair—much more unfair on the actresses.

                                                                                         (Hadleigh 58)

           Although Davis did not detail the corruption of the studio system until later in her life in various interviews and publications, she ended up making positive improvements in the system—without even intending to. Her persistence and perseverance in the demand for challenging roles would go on to make her a star, and to eventually open more doors for actors and actresses to come. (Staiger 205)

By the time 1934 rolled around, Bette Davis had completed 21 films, most of them supporting roles with little depth. Tired of being written off as a supporting player in paper-thin roles, Davis fought hard for Warner Bros. to “loan her out” to RKO Pictures to make a film entitled Of Human Bondage. Although studios did, on occasion, loan a contract player to another studio for an individual film, this particular move seemed especially unusual because she was fighting hard for a non-glamorous role that had been turned down by virtually every actress in Hollywood. Whether it was out of having been convinced or simply tired of Davis’s persistence, Jack Warner, who at the time made the majority of decisions regarding the artistic side of filmmaking, allowed her to go. “Go ahead, hang yourself!”, he reportedly told Davis, referring to the fact that the role could very well end her potential career. (Wiley & Bona 53)

         To say the least, Jack Warner was wrong. Though Of Human Bondage was only modestly successful at the box office, critics and audiences hailed Davis’s performance as a revelation, with Life magazine going so far as to call it “probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress”. (Wiley & Bona 53) Davis’s rebellious tendencies would also yield two other smashing success stories during the 1930s. In 1936, still dissatisfied with her roles, Davis was suspended by Warner Bros. for refusing to work until demands were met for a new contract. During her suspension, Davis traveled to England to discuss a possible film contract with an independent production company. Warner Bros. successfully sued Davis to prevent her from signing. Bette was unfazed by the lawsuit, and immediately after returned to work at Warner Bros., no longer pleading for modifications in her contract. In retrospect, it is widely believed that the lawsuit was just what Davis wanted, for when she returned the studio began to offer her far better material, starting with a role in the film Jezebel. David was ecstatic about the role in Jezebel, which would offer her far more depth than many of her previous screen endeavors. The enthusiasm apparently translated to the screen as well. Jezebel, which predated the similarly themed Gone With The Wind, was an acclaimed box office blockbuster. The Southern epic earned Davis a Best Actress Academy Award and solidified her as one of the nation’s top box office stars. (Staiger, 79-80)

1938's Best Actor & Best Actress: Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous 

and Bette Davis for Jezebel

    In 1939, Bette Davis fought for a role in the film Dark Victory, the tragic and inspiring tale of a wealthy young socialite who is stricken with a brain tumor. The film was initially seen as being too dark and depressing, with Jack Warner proclaiming that “no one wants to see a story about a girl who dies”. However, the film was released, became a box office success, and earned Davis her third Academy Award nomination. (Hadleigh 95-96) Although it marked a tremendous personal achievement for Davis, it marked perhaps an even greater achievement for all women. Although pictures with strong female leads been successful in Hollywood throughout the 1930s, Dark Victory ushered in a period in Hollywood during the early 1940s when women did more than just make up a large portion of the box office: they controlled it. Dark Victory was written for and about a complex female lead, and explored numerous emotions that were not always typical of the glamorous leading ladies of archetypal Hollywood films. In the years to come, Miss Davis would lead the pack of numerous actresses who spoke directly to the emotions and plights of all women, at times delving into emotional territory that has not since been seen on the screen. (Hadleigh 111)

The 1940s offered a chance for Hollywood to become even more embedded in American society than ever before. World War II was going on at the time, and many actors, like most Americans, were feeling a great sense of nationalism. It was during this period that stars began to entertain troops in barracks, serving food and socializing at the Bette Davis-run Hollywood Canteen. It was also when celebrities began to promote the sale of war bonds, either through contractual obligation to a studio or, perhaps more commonly, through their own will to be patriotic. (Schatz 302)

Bette serving troops at The Hollywood Canteen

         It was also during this period, in 1940 in particular, that Hollywood began to incorporate non-white actors in significant roles in mainstream film. No example is more well-known or significant than the casting of African American actress Hattie McDaniel in the phenomenally successful Gone With The Wind. Segregation was still very firmly a part of society during the film’s release in 1939, so much in fact that McDaniel was excluded from the film’s Atlanta premiere. However, in 1940, she became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award. On February 29^th, 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first-ever African American to win an Academy Award. Presenter Fay Bainter, before announcing the award’s recipient, told the audience that the night was “a tribute to a country where people are free to honor noteworthy achievements regardless of creed, race, or color.” At the announcement of McDaniel’s name, she received the biggest cheer of the whole night, and called this “the happiest moment of my life”. (Wiley & Bona, 98-100)

         In spite of McDaniel’s achievement as both an actress and an African American, and Hollywood’s enthusiasm for her merit, Hollywood has since been accused of putting McDaniel in a stereotypical role that mocked her ethnicity as opposed to celebrating it. In addition, Hollywood took a great deal of heat for casting black actors and actresses only in roles that offered entertaining stereotypes to the studios’ target white audiences. Such an accusation is most certainly justified, but the situation of black actors in films during the 1940s actually exposes the dramatic differences between the mindsets of Hollywood filmmakers and actors and the studio heads. Hollywood was known for being a “safe” place for homosexuals, for most actors were far more accepting of this lifestyle than the majority of Americans. In addition, the majority of Hollywood personalities were open to equality and civil rights, even at a time when segregation existed and racism ran rampant in every city and town in America. Many of the studio heads were, on a personal level, sympathetic towards black actors, but felt the need to play to an audience that did not necessarily have as open a heart as the people who made up Hollywood. (Schatz 315) Such an example involved The Hollywood Canteen. Bette Davis, who was President of this establishment that provided entertainment and recreation for troops, refused to permit segregation of any kind. To anyone that dared defy her, she reminded them that “the blacks got the same bullets the whites did and therefore should have the same treatment.” (Davis 128) However, the studios feared the possibility of white troops being photographed with black hostesses, for if word got to the South, potential donors to the Canteen might back out. (Davis 128)

       Such a profit-over-humanity mentality hindered the beliefs of a slightly more progressive group of people, and thus many talented black performers were force to reduce themselves to stereotypes for the sake of “not coming on too strong” for the white audiences. Even though the casting of black actors in somewhat offensive roles was not the way to go about promoting equality, the awarding of an Oscar to Hattie McDaniel was perhaps indication of a desire for equality and acceptance, even if it was only within the confines of Hollywood. (Staiger 168)

         The 1950s offered far more progressiveness, but also a sense of independence that would ultimately lead to the fall of the Studio System. The extremely popular 1957 film Sayonara, which starred Marlon Brando and dealt with the then-controversial subject of interracial romance, earned supporting actress Miyoshi Umeki an Academy Award, making her the first Asian actress to earn the Oscar. (Sackett 131) Marilyn Monroe broke new grounds for actresses when she became the first woman ever to start her own production company. (Staiger 192) In addition, actors and filmmakers were becoming more independent, with only a handful of the decade’s top stars contractually attached to a studio. More and more actors and directors were free to work with whichever studio they chose, and this independence allowed for greater freedom both artistically and personally. (Schatz 417) Additionally, new, younger audiences were being targeted during this period with such teen-oriented films as the classic drama Rebel Without A Cause and popcorn hits like Beach Blanket Bingo. The studios were certainly not losing any money, and they still did exhibit power. (Staiger 299) However, this time the power was directed in the area of promotion as opposed to near-slavery. Studios spent a great deal of money producing documentaries to promote their films, and also sought out specific demographics to target at the box office. (Staiger 304)

My favorite scene from Rebel Without A Cause

    By the time the 1950s were over, so was Hollywood’s Studio System. Film historian Thomas Schatz made an interesting statement when he claimed that perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho was the ultimate symbol of the end of The Studio’s reign. He points out that Psycho was a low-budget film with a television crew and a tight shooting schedule, and that the film’s then-graphic violence and sexuality was a far cry from the films of the 1930s and 1940s when studios heavily censored their material. (Schatz 489-490)

         As ironic as it may sound, Bette Davis actually applauded many elements of the studio system in the later years of her life. Davis noted that while she was frustrated with the lack of work she was being offered in her first two years as a contract player at Warner Bros., those two years gave her a great deal of preparation and training for the later roles that would define her career. (Davis 113) She also noted the more positive means of promoting a film during the reign of the Studio System, making specific reference to Warner’s aforementioned promotion for the film Juarez. “It was wonderful, good fun, and lots of imagination. No need for vulgarity or sensationalism then.” (Hadleigh 198)

        In the four decades since the gradual demise of the Studio System, there has been a great deal of criticism and admiration for an establishment that created what are considered to be the finest American films of all time and perhaps the most globally successful stars of all time. To some, the studio system was an oppressive institution that treated actors as products to be sold and stifled artistic experimentation. In addition, some feel that the System promoted prejudice in America, and invaded the lives of the stars and filmmakers who worked for studios and had to fear that their personal endeavors could jeopardize a contract. To others, the studio system was a shrewd but brilliant part of America’s history which strove for artistic integrity, signed actors based on talent as opposed to box office success in previous films, provided all Hollywood players with steady employment, and which defined careers through the process of hiring writers to write roles for actors as opposed to simply casting any actor for any role.

       Performance artist Madonna once stated, in response to a great deal of anti-1980s sentiment during the past few years, that “As we move further away from the ‘80s, I think that we will grow to analyze and appreciate them.” Such is the case for the Studio System. Over the past few decades, the System has been slammed and celebrated by a wide array of people, but if nothing else, perhaps this criticism will lead people to appreciate the huge effect, whether it be negative or positive, that The System has had on American culture outside of film. During the 1930s, cinema played a vital role in helping audiences to escape from the reality of The Great Depression. In the 1940s, Hollywood was as actively involved with World War II as Washington, D.C. The System has also had effects on race relations, racial stereotypes, the changing roles of women, and the debate over artistic integrity versus profit. The Studio System built a Hollywood that has affected every generation through images and messages, but never to quite the degree that it did in the 1930s and 1940s. Oppressive or artistic, the studios have played a vital role in shaping America’s cultural landscape, and have left an impression that will affect many, many more generations to come. 

Works Cited

The Hollywood Reporter Book of Box Office Hits by Susan Sackett (1996)

The Studio System by Janet Staiger (1995)

Bette Davis Speaks by Boze Hadleigh

The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Thomas Schatz

Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona (1996)

This 'N That by Bette Davis (1987)

Addendum

Looking back, I can finally see the impact that my first year of college had on improving my work as a writer....such as teaching me how to properly cite my sources. Hopefully the provided links will compensate for the citation information I left out fourteen years ago! (Although I failed to note in my paper that that Madonna quote came from an interview with Q magazine in Spring '98.) I also made a few mistakes that I would like to apologize for. I am a lot more familiar with Hollywood's studio system (specifically Warner Bros.) than I was in 1999, and must acknowledge that a lot of the material I presented exhibited a decided lack of understanding. As a result, I also did not properly convey the details of the trial that ensued when Bette Davis took Warner Bros. to court in England. Worse yet, I erroneously stated that Jezebel was the first film that Bette made after said trial (it was Marked Woman) and my paper unintentionally suggested that her only notable '30s films after Of Human Bondage were the Oscar nominees Jezebel and Dark Victory. Perhaps this was because they were the only films she made in the '30s that were available on U.S. DVD back in early 1999, but it leaves me a bit red in 2013 all the same. 

I should also point out that (gulp) I wrote this paper before I actually saw Jezebel. I have loved Bette Davis since my childhood, when a combination of The Watcher In The Woods and her legendary appearances on the '80s talk show circuit made me an avowed fan. I vividly recall her death in 1989, but it was not until seeing a segment of the documentary The Warner Bros Story in 1996 that I became enchanted by her films and spent the second half of the '90s slowly absorbing them into my heart and soul. I first saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1997. I first saw All About Eve in 1998. I first saw Of Human Bondage, Now Voyager, and Dark Victory in 1999, and in 2000 I finally saw Bette's first two films with William Wyler: Jezebel and The Letter. Since then I've seen more films and telefilms and TV & radio show performances than I can even keep track of. But those early years laid the foundation, and this paper was written right in the middle of the important period in my life when I developed as a screenwriter and cinephile thanks to the inspiration and legacy of the immortal Miss Bette Davis. 

Confessions Of A Love Whore

During my freshman year at an all-male Catholic high school, I was infatuated with a straight classmate. As in past entries, I refer to him as "James", because he so strongly resembled my teen romance ideal: James Marsden. James was only in two of my classes, and we never hung out off campus because he lived in another city. Yet I spent the next several years of my life in love with him—even though I never saw him again after the ninth grade. 

Just over a year ago, I rediscovered a love letter that I wrote to James back in high school. I never sent it, but I decided to share it with the world, because  it captured being hopelessly in love and hopelessly sixteen in a way that is universally relatable regardless of gender or sexuality. I timed its posting with the anniversary of Madonna’s Confessions On A Dance Floor, because I love that album like no other and wanted to underline that with an extra special blog post. This year, as the first in a series of deeply personal new entries, I thought I would celebrate “Confessions Day” by sharing the sobering follow-up to my unrequited high school love story. For some of you, it may turn out to be as empathetic as last year’s post, if less nostalgic and more humiliating.

I was convinced that James had feelings for me during that first year of high school, based on many brief but seemingly revealing exchanges. Even accounting for my overemotional adolescent perspective, I don’t doubt I was a little bit right: he was straight, but there still appeared to be something between James and I when we were fifteen...despite of our lack of any physical contact. It was fleeting and youthful, so much so that it would not have lingered on in the memories of people like James who live and grow in the real world. But for a cinematically inclined escapist such as myself, the experience was an unbelievably potent high, and I refused to leave it in my past. So I shed any semblance of shame and relentlessly pursued this literal dream romance. That is, until what began so subtly in our freshman year of high school came to an operatic finish in our freshman year of college.

I spent my sophomore and junior years waiting for my secretly admired to phone me out of the blue, revealing he’d been in love and waiting for my call until it became unbearable to harbor his feelings any longer. After two years of that never happening, I spent much of senior year trying to arrange an opportunity to hang out, hopeful that we could reignite a friendship if I could hide my feelings long enough to make him fall in love with me. Every effort to see one another failed, and I should have left it at that. But I could not allow myself to believe that James would not love me one day. I knew that to an outsider (which, at thirty-one, is what I am today) all of this would appear crazy. But to my eighteen year old self, the craziness was precisely what made it feel so romantic. Or, should I say, “so romantic comedy”.

By the first year of the 21st century, everyone but James knew about my feelings for James. Endlessly bemoaning the hole in my heart took its toll on my social life in the first semester of college, and never more than on New Year's Eve 2000. I was lonely and depressed, so I deliberately avoided Midnight by sitting in a movie theater by myself for the late show of The Family Man. It was my second viewing of the Brett Ratner film in which Nicolas Cage was a wealthy businessman who found happiness in an alternate reality where he’d married and had children with his great love, played by Tea Leoni.  At that time, I was living a life of privilege and being afforded opportunities that I would not be able to fully appreciate until many years later. But I was consumed by the perceived void left behind when James went to a new school and I turned him into a benchmark which no other guy could match. I constantly dreamed of giving up all the monetary perks of my life in order to be with him, if only because such a sacrifice, I thought, would prove that my love had always been real.

My freshman year at Emerson College, and James’s first year in the military, both coincided with the peak of AOL Instant Messenger’s popularity. Somehow I got a hold of James’s screen name on there, and before long we were, like in my dreams come true, "talking" all the time. Right after Valentine’s Day 2001, following weeks of daily correspondence, I decided to throw caution to the wind and tell James everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. What I wrote was not that far off from my unsent love letter in its massive length and total shamelessness. But the difference was that what was sweet when I was sixteen was desperate when I was nineteen. I shared the unsent love letter with the world because I thought it was relatable for anyone who remembers being that age and feeling those feelings. But I cannot bring myself to ever re-read the one that I did send.

James did not get to read the letter for several days, during which time we continued chatting online regularly. Then, one afternoon, I decided to escape my anticipation anxiety with film that I felt paralleled my longing: John Cromwell’s 1934 Bette Davis-Leslie Howard adaptation of W. Somerset Maughm’s Of Human Bondage. It was my second viewing, having seen the film two years prior when I began appreciating the films that made Bette Davis a star. But that day, it was not a piece of cinema history. It was a piece of reflective glass, and it was my life that was being reflected. 

As soon as it ended, I went from my living room to my bedroom, where my pre-wireless laptop was connected to the modem. My AIM Away Message was onscreen, awaiting a response from James. That day, the message was a quote from Edgar G. Ulmer’s film noir classic Detour.

“That’s life: whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.”

There was no word from James when I got to my laptop, but seconds later, before I could look away from the screen, his response appeared before my eyes. I don’t remember all of what he wrote, except that it was the longest piece of text I’d ever seen on AOL Instant Messenger written by anyone but me. Only the Cliffs Notes version remains in my mind: that he appreciated my friendship and respected me tremendously as a person but that he didn’t share these romantic feelings and would not be comfortable continuing to communicate with me at that point in his life. He was never anything but respectful, kind, classy….all the traits that made me fall for him in the first place. He did not respond the way I had dreamed of, but he wished me well on the rest of my life journey. Had I respected his wishes, we might have crossed paths down the line and formed some sort of friendship as mature adults. I should have left things there, because his message, while unbelievably disheartening, gave me the chance to quit while I was (sort of) ahead.

Alas, I had to continue playing the role, in my mind, of the hopelessly-in-love ingénue who would stop at nothing until she won the heart of her leading man. We shared our last correspondence mere minutes after I’d watched Bette Davis die onscreen in Of Human Bondage, and yet I was still convinced that my relationship with James was following a screwball comedy archetype. At the time, I thought I was being quirky. I now realize I was overbearingly obsessive. I continued to send long emails. I uncovered his new AIM contact information after he changed screen names.  I even tried to buy his love the following Christmas by mailing him a gift: a CD book containing twenty favorite movies on forty Video CDs. The package, and its included letter, was opened and returned to me, minus any written response. From that moment on, I feared I was, to James, becoming the star of a different kind of film. The movie collection looked like a generous peace offering when I mailed it out. But it looked more like a threat than a gift when it was spat back at me. I trembled at the thought that James now saw me as Jessica Walter in Play Misty For Me, whereas all along I saw myself as Madonna in Who’s That Girl. Mainstream audiences clearly never appreciated the outrageous charm of Who's That Girl the way that I did. And James, clearly, did not find anything charming about my outrageous persistence.

Eighteen months after the worst Christmas gift idea of my life, I had finally purged this infatuation from my system. Prior to that, every few months I would find myself unable to resist emailing self-indulgent letters to James, letters that inevitably were really being written to/for myself.  With each letter I was deliberately inviting him to loathe me, instead of wanting him to love me. At that time in my life, the former came much easier to me than the latter, and I knew it would for James, too. I hoped we could share, if nothing else, that same contempt. As I grew to forgive and love myself for acting in such an over-the-top manner, I moved past that moment in my life, and opened the door to meeting my best friend and entering my first relationship. I don’t know if James ever did end up hating me, but I have often hoped that he forgot me.

The conclusion of my story about the young man I refer to as “James” may not be what some readers of last year’s entry had hoped for. It certainly was not what I was hoping for when I was a teenager. But today, I’m thankful for the way things turned out. In interviews collected in the book The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, Bette Davis told author Charlotte Chandler that “a watched telephone never rings”. I know that firsthand from the years I wasted as a lonely teenager relishing the role of “lonely teenager” far too much. Admitting my defeat forced me to finally acknowledge and improve upon the aspects of my personality that are adorable onscreen but destructive in real life. And, combined with my ABBA love, it gave me a unique appreciation that eventually lead to “Hung Up” becoming my favorite Madonna single of all time.