Tuesday, July 7, 2015

A Book Trailer & Preview of My Review About a Lost Powerful Film Heroine

I'm getting ready to review a biography of Living Large: Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason by Joseph P. Eckhardt. Earlier I sought out fat women in film and they are disappointingly few and far between, as I discussed on a Body Impolitic post. Nobody Loves a Fat Woman on Film.

This was so unlike the rich group of fat male character actors in film. at least there were enough big guys in film history that film critic, Dana Gioia invited them to a mythical banquet

I like to imagine these hefty heroes gathering in the afterlife. The feasting hall of their B-budget Valhalla is the original Wilshire Boulevard Brown Derby secretly rescued by Valkeries from the wrecking-ball. As they file in (to the accompaniment of Miklos Rozsa's "Bread and Circus March" from Ben Hur) for porterhouse steaks and lobsters thermador, cherries jubilee and baked Alaska...

No such banquet for the women.

And yet, and yet... By a wildly unpredictable path (which I'll describe in the review) I found out about Wilna Hervey. Seriously how could I have missed her? In a coincidence worthy of Carl Jung's synchronicity, I discovered that Wilna Hervey and her life partner Nan Mason are the subjects of a loving biography.

check out the trailer for Living Large, it got me a bit misty-eyed. More to come in my review on Body Impolitic soon!

Lovely trailer for Living Large

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