St. George Reef Lighthouse

High points (and pun slightly intended) were the lighthouses. Sigh. First, Point Cabrillo, just north of Mendocino, California. Darlingest little beacon. No tours (the tower was chained off) and the main floor is now a gift shop. DD and I romped around taking photos and complained because I’d left my wallet with DH, down the road.

Next was Battery Point in Crescent City. We stayed at (where else?) The Lighthouse Inn. Lovely people, and a lobbyful

The Glamorous, Success Author at Battery Point

of lighthouse pictures and artifacts. INCLUDING a huge wall mural of St. George Reef Lighthouse, which figures prominently in my new book, CAPE SEDUCTION! How hauntingly apropos. Staff was lovely. They agreed to display my rack cards!

Battery Point is a beautiful lighthouse, accessed only at low tide. DD and I took a tour. The docents were volunteers who get a month of lighthouse keeping at a time, and the waiting list is LONG. I passed out bookmarks and postcards to two very giddy lighthouse loving ladies.

Last was one of my favorites, Heceta Head Lighthouse in Yachats, Oregon. One of the most photographed beacons in the U.S. Another tour, lots of good info.

The Astonishing Heceta Head

Great gift shop (had my wallet this time!!) Could have stayed here all day. This lighthouse is on the cover of POINT SURRENDER. Heceta Head, by the way, is on tap for a major facelift next year. Needs it, badly.

Couldn’t see them all. Passed several up on the way, hopefully to be visited another time. I’ll be traveling back to my brother’s house in late August, at which time we’ll visit Point No Point Lighthouse. Can’t wait!

St. George Reef inside The Lighthouse Inn!

Evidence of decay. Still beautiful

Hollywood was wooing back the public with blockbusters like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo and The Three Musketeers. The beautiful people were “seen” at the Brown Derby and held their not-so-secret trysts at Chateau Marmont. They drove fishtail-finned Caddies and flew in the luxurious Douglas DC-6.

Darla Foster wanted to be in pictures. Just 21, she worked the circles, attached herself to the arm of any available actor with connections. On this night, March 20, 1948, one of her dreams came true as she sat at Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre watching Hollywood’s brightest accept their coveted Oscar statuettes. Later, at the Derby with her date, she met one of Tinsel Town’s favorite sons: the suave, slick headliner, Jordan Kent.

Darla’s life was about to take a sudden left turn as she found herself cast in Jordan’s next big film, about star-crossed lovers, a lighthouse and murder. Exciting fantasy, or true life?

CAPE SEDUCTION… available now for your reading pleasure!  BUY IT HERE:

There’s a hundred years’ worth of people worth talking about. Tune in Friday to see who I’ll profile!

I was curious about those born on this eeriest of holidays. Did (do) they suffer teasing at the hands of schoolmates? Did/do they worry that they were somehow flawed or subject to paranormal leanings? My mother was born on Friday the 13th, and she always spoke as if that fact had skewed her luck for life. She was a bit of a pessimist, to be sure.

Born today were:
Peter Jackson, New Zealand filmmaker, of the Lord of the Rings franchise, King Kong; Happy 47th, Peter! (For his birthday, he wants The One Ring…)

John Candy, Canadian actor much beloved in our household; favorites are Planes, Trains & Automobiles as the annoying but amiable shower curtain ring salesman, and who could forget his portrayal of Barf, the “mawg” (half man, half dog) in the classic Spaceballs? Candy was taken from us much too soon; he was 43 when he passed on 3/4/04, a victim of a heart attack.

Dale Evans, cowgirl extraordinaire and wife to sweetheart cowboy hero Roy Rogers. She really did write “Happy Trails To You.” 1912 – 2001.

And… Michael Landon, eternally youthful heartthrob of the Ponderosa. (“Little Joe’s” hair would be a good rival for Patrick Dempsey’s today…) Michael was born Eugene Orowitz to Jewish and Irish Catholic parents, grew up in the East. Many people remember him for that role as the youngest Cartwright on Bonanza, and probably even more think of Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie where he played one of TV’s most endearing dads.

But did you know he was married three times, and had nine children (including two step-children) that range thirty years in age? That his sports specialty was javelin throwing, which got him into UCLA on a scholarship? That he smoked up to 4 packs of unfiltered menthol cigarettes a day? (He later attributed his pancreatic cancer to years of poor eating habits, moderate drinking and, of course, the smokes. He was diagnosed just three months before his death at 54.)

He wore “lifts” when shooting with comparable giants Dan Blocker and Lorne Greene, his co-stars on Bonanza. It is said that he was devastated by the deaths of Blocker, and later, his Highway to Heaven co-star, Victor French. He counted among his close friends Johnny Carson, Ronald Reagan and Ernest Borgnine.

As to his stage name, Landon said he picked the name out of a Los Angeles telephone directory.

Landon is credited with saying, “I want people to laugh and cry, not just sit and stare at the TV. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think viewers are hungry for shows in which people say something meaningful.” I tend to agree, and would venture to apply his philosophy to today’s viewers as well.

As a young child, I had quite the crush on Little Joe. (I swooned over Pernell Roberts until I was told he wore a wig!)

Oh, and Patrick Dempsey? I just couldn’t resist. It’s the hair, you know. You’ll have to wait until January 13th for more on McDreamy.

Happy Birthday to playwright Eugene O’Neill, born this date in 1888. O’Neill, who spent much of his life plagued by depression and alcoholism, won the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature and a number of Pulizers for popular works such as Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, and Strange Interlude. Some of his plays were made into films The Iceman Cometh, Mourning Becomes Electra, and Desire Under the Elms to name a few. Sadly, O’Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying comic film star Charlie Chaplin, and both of his sons committed suicide as a result of various addictions they suffered. O’Neill’s spirit is said to inhabit a dorm room at Boston University, the former Sheraton hotel room where he died in 1953.

Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde would have been 154 today. The author of The Picture of Dorian Gray was born in Dublin, but left Ireland permanently when his then love interest became engaged to writer Bram Stoker (of Dracula fame). He later lived in London, Paris and U.S., and spent years in prison over issues arising from his many homosexual and bisexual relationships. Also famous for the play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Like O’Neill, Wilde’s Dorian Gray, his only novel, has been brought to the big screen more than once. Wilde succumbed to cerebral meningitis in 1900.

Called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education”, Noah Webster also shares this popular birthdate. The title is well-deserved; who hasn’t referred to a Webster dictionary in their lifetime?

While she is not known as an author herself, she plays one on TV: Angela Lansbury, sometimes better known as Jessica Fletcher from “Murder, She Wrote”, turns 83 today. Ms. Lansbury deserves a whole blog page onto herself, and will get one in the near future.