Feeling Like an Expert

I have a new feeling of expertise. It comes with an "Ah-ha!" moment. Not "ah-ha" as in Eureka! I discovered something! but "Ah-ha! I know better!"

Today I got the book I've been waiting a month for! Hooray!

Strangers in Hollywood is Hans Wollstein's 1994 study of Scandinavians in the movies from the silent era to the Second World War. It came all the way from a bookstore in Sussex, and it took a long route to get here. It's been traveling since January 10th.

I've been anxiously awaiting, in part to see what Hans actually said about Greta Granstedt. I knew, in outline. I knew in part what he'd written because it was featured on several web sites.
So I immediately turned to page 128 and began reading.

"Ah-ha!" I exclaimed. "He's wrong. She wasn't born in Malmö. She didn't make a film debut in Buck Privates. And she never played in Swedish language films, because she didn't speak Swedish."

Of course, I knew that Hans had retailed the story about Greta being born in Sweden. I'd even had a chance to correspond with Hans about the issue, and he reassured me that the information, while likely faulty, was from the studio publicist, which was why it was faulty.

This isn't the only published error I've found in the last two days. In a study of Hollywood Romantic comedy I found erroneous details about The Front Page. In a book about Howard Hawks (I think) I found errors in the description of the plot of Scarface. These weren't web sites by amateurs, these were books, written by professional researchers and writers. Errors!

Ah-ha!

There's the expert snobbiness coming out. Stay tuned for my post on Wikipedia.

Here's a clue, the next post will have to do with our academic prejudice against Wikipedia.

Excitement?

It's times like this that prove to me that my second career -- as an academic -- is the better career for me.

The past two days I've been rummaging around the dusty corners of the internet and peering into strange and curious volumes of forgotten lore, i.e., two volumes by Ben Hecht. And the finds! Remarkable.

I found, for example, that Greta Granstedt's second husband, Ramon Ramos was a Latin band leader and a tango instructor, and that Greta danced the tango with him in Miami. It seems likely that he met her when he came out to Hollywood and did some tango instruction for the "film colony" in the spring of 1933.

In the fall of 1933 she was in Miami, and featured for what were being called "Tea dances," which, the Biltmore publicist assured the public "were all the rage in Paris and other resort cities."

What does the Argentine tango look like? You can get a picture by watching Donny Osmond learn to do it for DWTS.

The pair were only a pair for a year, and then Greta was off to her fifth marriage.

Greta went on to marry Max DeVega, but that lasted for three years and was annulled, because Max was apparently still married to someone else. So, marriages one, two five and six were annulled. Marriages three  and four ended in divorce. But when Greta tied the knot with bachelor number seven, the papers carried the story that it was her second (though by even by a technical count it was her third) and his first.

Lucky Mr. 7/3, Arthur G. Forbes was eight years her junior. Together they adopted a child, whom they named Christopher Michael. When they divorced, in 1951, the court ruled the adoption valid and gave Greta custody of Christopher Michael, then 5.

Issues to sort out, things to find.

1. A photo of Ramon Ramos - which I might be able to do in Chicago, since Ramos opened the Camellia House at the Drake Hotel in the late 1940's. There has to be a photo of him, either at the historical society or in the photo archives at the public library.
2. Some notice of his disposition. I can track him to the early 1950's, but then he just disappears. I suspect that he went back to whatever Latin country he came from, possibly Argentina. Or maybe he returned to Miami and died in obscurity. So far, no search of obits has turned up one for the band leader. He may, if I'm reading the sources correctly, have been the band leader who introduced "The Mexican Hat Dance" to America.
3. What happened to Christopher M. Forbes? That one may be as hard to track down as the husband Arthur G. Forbes. The names are not as common as Ramon Ramos, but they are fairly common. He'd be 66 today, if he is alive. There was still a great deal of Greta's career ahead of her in 1951, so he'd have stories, if we can find him.
4. That London trip - it's listed on Ancestry.com, but I can't find anything else about it. She supposedly leaves London and arrives in New York in July of 1933. But when did she go to London? Why?
5. Broadway? Someone - and I'll have to look see who - wrote that Greta had a Broadway career. If so, when and in what shows? Given the number of movies she did for every year except 1933, it couldn't have been early in her career. It might have come in the 1940's, particularly in the immediate postwar era. Have to check Broadway show databases - maybe best plays for the late 40's.

So I've discovered lots of stuff that has led to lots of questions. And that makes me happy. I've also advanced  the Ben Hecht side of the research, finishing a major portion of Letters from Bohemia and some of A Child of the Century. I love doing this kind of digging. It makes me feel like I'm part of History Detectives.

Seque to Elvis Costello's song

The Garbo Effect

I'm fascinated by Irene's name change.

When did it happen? All indications are that she began to call herself Greta in 1927. It's the name she uses in her first picture, and the name she consistently uses in her film career.

The name change is related to the post from two days ago: how did Greta get to Hollywood.

But the question of the day is why did she choose the name Greta and why did she choose (if she did) to present herself as being from Malmö.

I contend that it is a sign of the Garbo factor.

We forget how popular and how influential Garbo was. From the time of The Temptress (1926) until her retirement from the screen, she was immensely popular and immensely influential. One of my favorite Garbo images is in a 1938 Walter Lantz cartoon - The Hollywood Bowl. All the stars are there. Garbo is a cigarette girl.

Then there's the 1936 Carole Lombard vehicle, The Princess Comes Across. Lombard plays a Brooklyn would be star who pretends to be Princess Olga of Sweden, crossing the Atlantic to become the newest star for Republic pictures (or some such film company). There's a murder mystery, a bit of big band music and a revelation that everyone is pretending to be someone other than the person they actually are.

When the boat lands in New York, Lombard's character has to address the press. She gets greeted by Mr. Gustafson and responds, in Swedish, "jag tackar dej. Jag är så glad . . ."

It was the last time I watched the film that I finally realized, "She's doing a Garbo imitation." Her accent, the pitch of her voice, to the accent, to the phrasing, to the look. Compare Lombard from the film with Garbo from approximately the same period.

Here's Lombard as she appears when she first gets on the board for America.

And here's Garbo. Not as glammed up as Lombard in The Princess Comes across, but notice the eyes, the mouth. The Lombard is a parody of the Garbo, and this Garbo is fairly typical of the images of her from the period.








So, did Greta decide to be Greta because of Garbo? I don't have evidence of Garbo's influence over Greta Granstedt. I'm speculating that she did decide that it was a good commercial move to be Greta from Sweden.

Even if you don't think Greta G became Greta G because of Greta G, do see if you can get a copy of The Princess Comes Across. It's a fun movie, a blend of comedy and mystery. See if you don't think that Lombard is doing a Gustafsson imitation. Yes, the fellow who greets Princess Olga has the same last name as Garbo, who was Greta Lovisa Gustafsson. Just a coincidence? I don't think so.

Historical Society Talk?

I'm supposed to talk to the Smoky Valley Historical Society tonight. The snow means I probably won't get a chance to do that.

Instead, I'll put a bit of my current research up as a blog post. Maybe I'll keep posting throughout the sabbatical, adding things as I discover new insights.

I'm studying the image of the Swedish American in American comedic films from 1931 to 1970, with a few outliers (Sweedie Learns to Swim in 1914 and The Producers in 2005). I don't know how long it's going to take to get a whole book done - I've a good idea of the content, but it take time to research and write.

During this sabbatical I plan on getting two major portions of the work done, and perhaps get to a third. The two I plan on getting done are The Front Page and The Garbo Factor - which is what I'm titling the section about Greta Granstedt.

The Granstedt section is going to offer considerable challenge.

For example, she was married 8 times, but I can find details about only one of her husbands, Max DeVega. That means some digging in archives. Yeah! I love digging in archives. But where? Probably in Los Angeles and I've no money to go to Los Angeles. Well, I guess I'll be recruiting family to help. We'll see what April and May bring.

The other, really interesting problem I've encountered early in the research is separating fact from fiction.

Hans Wollstein wrote about Greta in two books. In both he listed her as being from Malmö. Other sources listed her as being from Scandia, Kansas.

I contacted Hans and he said that the information he had was information that had come from the studios, and he didn't know which was the correct information. A bit of follow up and I found distant relatives who confirmed that Greta was, indeed, from Scandia. Her birth name was Irene, and she was one of four children.

The Granstedt family was one of the original five families who settled the area, a kind of colony of Swedes, who hoped to become a colony of Scandinavians (which is why the name Scandia.)

The other fact/fiction debate I've already encountered is how Greta got from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the start of her movie career (1927),

The common story is repeated on several web sites and in Brad Dimock's book about Glen and Bessie Hyde, a young couple who were lost on an attempt to run the rapids of the Colorado River as a honey moon trip. The story that Dimock tells and others retell is that Greta was working in San Francisco as an artists model. She shared a room with Bessie Halley, and the girls were joined by Greta's brother Theodore, jr. In July of 1927 Greta and Bessie decided to take a cruise to Los Angeles. On the way Greta decided to change the name she used from Eraine (a variant of her birth name) to Greta and to become a movie star. It was on this trip that Bessie met Glen Hyde, whom she subsequently married - and who disappeared six months after the cruise from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

That's a great story.

The problem is that it's contradicted by the story published in the Kansas City Star in early September of 1929, and reprinted on September 12, 1929 in the Belleville Telescope.

After Greta got herself exiled from Mountain View and was estranged from her parents (1923), she moved to San Francisco. That much there's agreement on. But here's what the 1929 newspaper article says about Greta's move to LA.

"Life thereafter was filled with ups and downs for the girl. Finally when nearly starving Miss Granstedt 'hitch hiked' from San Francisco to Hollywood with a girl chum, Geraldine Andrews."

Rather a large difference. I'm going to definitely have to do some digging. I've already tried to contact Brad Dimock through Facebook to see what his sources are. I know what I'd like to be true - which means that the opposite is likely the case.

A small, but interesting problem.

Super Silly God Talk

The Packers won. They were the best team in American football. 

Or were they?

One of the first interviews after the victory had a gem from one of the evangelical christians who drop to one knee after a touchdown, touch their foreheads and then point to the sky. Sometimes with a self crossing, sometimes without. Maybe often without. I tend not to pay as much attention to the alternative touchdown dance as the camera operators.

Most post game interviews are filled with cliches. We knew they were going to give us a run for our money. . . We had to pick back up the momentum . . . He's like that . . . 

At the end of the game yesterday, however, one of the evangelical types brought the god to it. "To God be the glory . . . " was his mantra. I think he said it two or three times. It left me wondering.

First, does this player, in his evangelical zeal, remember how god got the glory?

Usually god got the glory, in the old testament, by playing for the less well prepared, less well equipped, and less talented army. If god fought for the guys who had the talent and the arms and the numbers, where would be god's glory? It would have been hogged by a David or a Saul or a Solomon - and you know those guys didn't need their egos stroked. So god generally wanted to diminish the size of the forces so that his glory would be the greater. 

It's the same strategy that Henry V adopts on Saint Crispen's Day: 

"If we are mark'd to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more."

The apostle Paul says much the same thing when reminding the Corinthians of god's choice of them to be children. "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise . . . what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are . . ." It's the same impulse. All the glory to god, none of the glory to human strength and might and smarts and power and playbook.

So, what this Packer evangelical was saying was that nothing came from his team: that the Steelers were, actually and objectively, the better team, with all the equipment to overpower the Packers. The Packers were the lowest ranked team ever to make it to and win the superbowl. That's because that's the way god wanted it.

He's saying that there couldn't have been a less deserving team. God wanted the Packers to win. 

What's God got against the Steelers?

Does Las Vegas know about this? What happens to the odds makers if god's picking favorites? Should Lost Wages now stop calculating and start praying?

These are profound questions.

Or maybe the ritual post-game interview should be abandoned so players stop saying stupid stuff and we stop listening to it.

Where Does Your Opinion Count?

I like opinions. I have my own. I enjoy reading others' opinions. I enjoy exchanging opinions with those who are open enough to actually change their opinions - or with those open enough to change my opinion. I like opinions.

But I've come to recognize that there are places where uninformed opinions don't matter.

This thought came to me Saturday morning as I was watching a program on the History Channel on the origin and end of the universe. It was a mind boggling departure for the channel that used to be All Hitler, All the Time and is now "Monster Quest Plus." These seemed to be genuine explorations of actual science. The program featured actual astro-physicists who actually did calculations and study and knew stuff about how the current theories of the universe were formed and tested. It was an impressive popularization of science.

I realized that one of the discussions I've been in recently - a discussion about the inclusion of creationism in high school science curriculum - is a discussion in which a great deal of misinformation and opinion based on non-expert ignorance has been thrown about. There have even been a few young earth opinions.

Here were scientists who spoke knowledgeably about events billions of years ago, events we've just dimly come to understand. They actually knew something. But even if they didn't, the Universe is indifferent to their opinions. The age of the universe is not fixed by ancient texts reinterpreted in the 18th century. The universe is what it is, as old as it is, regardless of our opinion. This is a place where our opinion doesn't matter, and our uninformed, non-scientific opinion matters even less.

I also thought about the recent stories about the President's religion. One poll, apparently, says that a significant number of Americans believe that we should, somehow, exclude Muslims from qualifying for the Presidency. That opinion doesn't matter.

The reason it doesn't matter is because the Constitution excludes the criteria that is being set out in the minds of many poll takers. Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids a "religious test" for any office. To exclude anyone because of their chosen religion, or to chose only those of one or two faiths, is a clear violation of this article.

So, the opinion of 24% of the country who apparently think that that Jeremiah Wright flap was a clever ruse perpetrated by Obama - and who now think that Obama is a "secret Muslim" can and should join the rest of the nutbags in the Republican Party. Remember that 24% of the Republican party also thought/thinks that Obama is the Anti-Christ.

They're nuts. Their opinion, in fact, doesn't matter. The news reporters should stop reporting on this issue, unless it is to point out that the matter is irrelevant. The constitution rules it out of bounds! So, let's be strict constitutionalists and rule it out of bounds and get to talking about things that actually matter - like jobs and the jobs that have been outsource that Americans could now use!

Let's Be Careful Out There

Watching an NBC program just now. It was one of those spin offs of 48 Hours. "Someone like a Doctor, the state inferred," said the announcer.

No!

The State, in the person of the prosecutor, IMPLIED.

The message encoder Implies. The message decoder Infers. That's the meaning of the two words. I imply. You infer. That's the way it works and not otherwise.

And while we're on it - "Begging the question" does not mean "really wants us to raise the question." Begging the question means to argue in a circular fashion.

I really wish newscasters, some of whom must be intelligent, would get these two simple and unexceptional bits of English grammar correct.

And don't get me started on "sort of unique."

Reflections from Iceland (part 3)

You'll want to go to part one - they're out of order - sorry. I'm too lazy to fix the problem!

And the waterfall wasn’t far away. On the way from Reykholt to our next stop we, of course, stopped at a waterfall. This day it was Barnafoss, the Children’s falls. These falls are so named because of the legend of the death of two children in the glacial water of the falls.

This pattern was repeated all over Iceland: Educational institution; (we visited the following universities – either singly or as a group: Reykjavik, Keilir, Akurerie, Bifrost, Hvanneri, Iceland) high tech display or high tech manufacturing (DeCode, SET, Marel); thermal pools and power plants (Blue Lagoon, Heilsheidi, Orkuveita Reykjavik); visited lots of historical sites (Thingvellir, Viking Days, Culture house, Egil’s Saga); churches (Hallgrimmskirkja, Skalholt, Frikirkja). Of course, we also visited nearly a waterfall a day. The queen of the falls was Gullfoss, a part of the so called “golden circle” of tourist attractions.

Since we were not there as tourists you might assume we missed the tourist attractions of the “golden circle,” (Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss) as well as other touristy sites. You’d be wrong. We went whale watching, saw the beauty, bathed in the Blue Lagoon, one of us even flew over Eyafjalljokull and has pictures to prove it. We didn’t avoid the tourist spots; we simply added them to the educational and professional contacts.

That was Iceland: history, museums, hot pots and high tech. Oh yeah, and waterfalls.

None of this mentions the other reason to go to Iceland – the food and the people. Food, wonderful! Great fish dishes, stupendous lamb. The people – truly gracious Rotarians everywhere we went. But those things are just givens. Rotarians are always gracious hosts, and always serve their guests the very best food.

Reflections from Iceland (part 2)

From the old church we moved on to the graveyard beside the church. Among those interred in the graveyard was Snorri Sturluson, buried there in 1241. Beside the graveyard were the remains of Snorri’s 13^th century house. Snorri was one of the greatest of Iceland’s storytellers, relating the stories of the old gods, the Kings of Norway, and the rules of writing poetry. He was also a successful lawyer, elected the lawspeaker of the Althing, Iceland’s parliament, in 1215. He was something of an engineer, building the first “hot pot” outside his home in Reykholt. The “hot pot” was a thermal bath using geothermal water to make was is essentially a stone hot tub. The “tub” is still in existence, and still hot.

Snorri chose wrong, however, in the 1220’s. He allied with the King of Norway, Håkon IV, and advocated a union with Norway. Civil war followed. In the civil war Snorri found himself allied against Håkon, and in favor of jarl Skuli. Skuli lost the war. Snorri petitioned to return to Iceland and was refused. He went regardless of the King’s demand that he remain in Norway, an act Håkon found bordering on treason. Unable to trust Snorri, the King engaged in a plot against the great skald, and in 1241 one of Snorri’s opponents led a raid on his home in Reykholt, resulting in Snorri’s assassination.

After touring the remains of the home, the cellar where he was assassinated, the secret passage from the home to the hot pot, and the hot pot, Pastor Waage took us into the beautiful, modern church and museum display. Here the Pastor demonstrated the unusual singing style that was, and remains, common in Icelandic Lutheranism, inviting us to join him in the 100 verses (in Icelandic) in praise of Mary the Mother of God.

How is this typical of our month in Iceland, you ask?

As I said at the start it has all the elements of our four weeks in country, except waterfalls. Everywhere we toured we were surrounded by this amazing sense of the history of the country – both the thousand year history and the immediate history of life following the financial meltdown of 2008. This was the second most historic spot in our month in country (the most historic was Thingvellir, the site of the Allthingi).

It had a thermal pool. The pools of Iceland were a major focus. Several of the group made it part of their mission in Iceland to visit a pool in every town.  As far as I know they were successful. But even beyond the municipal pool, every home had its “hot pot.”

It had a “thermal” pool. This one was constructed in the early 13^th century, it was one of the first uses of geothermal energy in the country. That was a major theme of this trip. We visited thermal power plants in and around Reykjavik. We saw the pipes for hot water running across the hillsides outside Akurerie, we wandered into the steam outside Borganes. We even visited a hothouse heated by thermal hot springs, growing cucumbers in just six weeks.

It was connected to an educational institution, had a closed school on the grounds, and was an educational morning overall. Education was one of the major themes of the trip. Since four of the five of us are educators, we were introduced to schooling in Iceland everywhere we went. We visited a primary school in Hafnadfjördur. We visited a secondary school in Selfoss. We visited tertiary education all over the country. Education was a major part of our month in Iceland.

Finally, it was, despite being historical, supported by a high tech museum. In the new church, in the basement of the library, was a high, high tech display about Snorri and Reykholt. Truth be told, by the time we heard about the conversion of the Icelanders, the problems of the Reformation, and Snorri’s death, we did not have time to visit the museum display. But there it was.

(still more in the third post)

Final Thoughts from Iceland

I can tell you about just one site in Iceland and if I do it right all I’ll have to add is waterfalls.

Reykholt, a tiny village, not even a village anymore, near Borganes has almost everything we came to Iceland to experience. It has “hot pots,” or a thermal hot tub; a deep sense of history; both old and new educational opportunities and scenic beauty.

Our visit to Reykholt came during our fourth stop. First stop Keflavik, then Selfoss, then Hafnadfjordur, and then Borganes. Borganes is a thousand year old town, just slightly larger than my home of Lindsborg. The town was built on the site of Egil Skallgrimsson’s settlement. Like all of Iceland, it is a town steeped in history and more than willing to tell the story their part in the settlement of this ancient land.

On Tuesday, June 8, we travelled just a few kilometers out of Borganes to Hvanneyri  and the agricultural university there. It is an extremely small university, one of seven or eight “universities” in Iceland. There are only 300 students at the Agricultural University of Iceland, making it smaller than the smallest of our ACCK colleges.

From Hvanneyri we travelled inland along the fjord to the tiny village of Reykholt. There are probably 100 residents of the village, and on a high hill above the church is a beautiful school building, the former home economics school. In front of the school is a statue of Iceland’s greatest medieval writer and chieftain, Snorri Sturluson. This little village was the home Sturluson’s home – the home and the grave are beside the old church.

We were met at Reykholt by Pastor Geir Waage. Pastor Waage is an old school Catho-Lutheran clergyman. He began our visit with a lecture in the old church. The pews in this old church were older than old school. This part of the visit began with a long story about the coming of Christianity to Iceland in the year 1000. From there Pastor Waage gave us a second lecture on the coming of the Reformation to Iceland. Unlike the coming of Christianity in 1000, this change in religion resulted in death and violence – something we didn’t find out until we visited the church at Skalholt two weeks later. (After the arrival of Lutheranism in the 16^th century, the last Roman Bishop was executed at Skalholt.)

(more in the next post)