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Hollywood Filmmaker, Director, Artist, Screenwriter, Composer, Video Editor, Starstrom Productions
dolls film stuff carousels just junk?
I didn't wake up one morning and decide to become a collector. It started slowly, like a small, almost invisible dot on a face turning into an oozing pimple. One day I had an almost empty apartment, some years later, an overflowing selection of "things" in various sizes, organized into collections. People coming to visit me for the first time are stunned speechless! Some have actually picked up an object expecting to see a price sticker. In fact, I have been told that my home resembles an antique shop. My landlady once called the fire Marshall on me, claiming I was a dangerous pack rat. He came, looked around in awe, and said, "You do have a lot of stuff, but it's nicely organized. I love it!". So much for Ms Fu Manchu trying to evict me for the umpteenth time.
Actually, I grew up poor, owning very little. My family moved a lot, and when we moved, stuff got tossed. Even when I moved out on my own as a single parent and went to college, the most I had anything of was books, art and film supplies. Of course, Ricky had a collection of necessary toys.
I think most of my collections started when I was a Production Designer. With my meager budget for decor, I got familiar with most of the thrift stores in the LA area. Since my pay was also meager, I got to keep everything I bought for whatever production I had just finished. Just after my last job as a Production Designer, I had acquired two garage fulls of junk plus what I kept in my stuffed to the ceiling apartment. Lucky me! Since then, I've held several garage sales and dumped the leftovers. Now my collections all reside peacefully in our home and business.
I have over three hundred dolls of various types: porcelain, plastic and vinyl, cloth, paper, wooden, metal, stone, paper mache, straw, rubber, fuzzy puppets, clown dolls, ballerinas, Victorian dolls, action figures, TV character dolls and of course, Barbies. My biggest dolls are my life size mannequins that I created for a production, my smallest is a 5 cm stone doll. I started collecting these dolls only a few years ago, well, except for a couple of Barbies, and I swear most of them have just walked into the apartment on their own. The forefront left one is an inexpensive porcelain doll I bought from a drugstore one Christmas. I didn't like her badly made dress, so I designed and hand made a new costume for her. The two behind her are more expensive, collectors' dolls.
The doll below is Raggedy Ann, circa 1947. I found her in a dumpster after someone had moved, and I carefully cleaned her up. She was missing her pantaloons and her apron. I've replaced her underwear since, but have yet to make her a new apron. To preserve her value, I have to find white, faded cotton from around the same era. I also have a couple of newer Raggedy Anns of various sizes.
The three tiny dolls
on the right are porcelain, with stuffed bodies that I adopted
from the thrift stores. I have many old and newer little porcelain
dolls, as well as international plastic ones. Of course they're
all sitting on shelves around the apartment. As a child, I only
had two dolls. As a preschooler, a rag doll, Ida, and later, Senorita,
a composite doll my papa, who was a sea captain at the time, brought
me from Italy. When I reached puberty, Senorita disappeared (a
sad story). Maybe that's why I have so many dolls now. The ironic
thing is that I never played with my dolls as a child. I was more
of a tom boy type, mostly playing with boys because...well? Anyway,
when Senorita took a hike, I promised myself that one day I would
have more dolls than anyone I knew. I've kept that promise!
I have many old cameras, but the one on the right is my favorite. It's a wind-up 8mm movie camera. I know it works, but where on earth can I get film for it...and get the film processed? I also collect books on film, film posters, film reels and cans, old scripts, videos of favorite movies, as well as props and furniture that I have used on some of the productions I've worked on or designed.
I've always been fascinated by carousels. I think I've ridden on every famous carousel in the world. My favorites have been the one under the Eiffel Tower, the one in Central Park, New York, the one in Tivoli Garden's, Denmark, the one at Disneyland and Disneyworld and, of course, the much filmed carousel on Santa Monica Pier (on the right). For me, there's something magical about being on a carousel horse. Maybe it takes me back to some of the happy and carefree times in my childhood. Or, maybe I've just never grown up!
So, to capture that magic in miniature, I collect carousel things. Most of my carousel collection is porcelain, but the above is a hand painted wooden one. When I found it (again) in a thrift store, it was missing it's tail. Carl carved one for it and presented it to me on my birthday that same year. I also have other carousel items, like stamps, calendars, paintings, photos and a video clip. To keep my carousel collection company, I also collect a few rocking horses. The waltz you may have already heard (if you downloaded it), I composed for "Spooked!"
The watercolor on the left is one of my
first tries at watercolors. I meant it as just a sketch for a
larger painting, but liked it and eventually framed it. I never
did do a larger version. It now hangs in my collection of "carousel
things". It's also a part of my extensive art collection,
a bit of which you'll see on the next page. If you're really anxious
to see it, click
here, on "my art", and I'll zip you right to it! But, you'll miss the
rest of my wonderful junk!
To the left is an old phone, maybe from the forties, that I picked up at a thrift store in Palm Springs for five dollars. It's been rewired and works fine, although I don't use it. I much prefer the cordless variety. Actually, I have a phone collection too, but the rest of them are pretty worthless. In our six room apartment (including the kitchen and the bathroom) we have eleven phones (including our cell phones). Not all of them are plugged in: they're just there for decor.
Above, is my papa's old mandolin which I inherited
when he died. It's in terrible shape, strings missing, cracked
and warped, but every time I look at it, I get a lump in my throat.
I've hung it on my wall between old modeling photographs of Ricky
on one side, and me on the other.
There's more history about the mandolin and what it
means to me on the music page.
I guess because I'm a writer, I've also got a collection of various typewriters. The one on the right is my oldest. It's sitting, of all places, on an antique trunk under the table which holds Mimi, my first computer. The cables you see in the picture are Mimi's. Guess what? The old Underwood still works! I've even got ribbon for it...The trunk contains my two unfinished dresses and unfinished quilts. I guess I won't get around to finishing them until we move to a bigger place because that darned typewriter literally weighs a ton!
I have no idea how old the teddy bear on the left is. It has no markings on it. I believe it might have been hand made. Anyway, it's the only one of my large bear collection that reminds me slightly of my childhood teddy. Although my childhood toy survived my childhood, it burned along with our summer home the same year that Ricky was born. Ricky did meet my old teddy. I even have a super 8 movie of month old Ricky and the bear. The only other reminder of my bear is one old photo.
As well as the major collections, I have minor ones as well: calendars, comic books, stuffed lions, monkeys, owls, porcelain angels, cats (mot real ones), CD's, videos, stamps, coins, ships, cars, musical instruments, other music stuff, children's books, art books, candle sticks and holders, antique frames, costumes, butterfly jewelry, birds (also not real), masks, old dishes, maps and globes, thrift store needlework art, hand made pottery, baskets and woven things, old sunglasses, watches, clocks, tins, boxes and trays, brass wall plates, vinyl records, wool berets, TV Guides, seashells and polished stones. Then there are the orphan collections...like my two California raisins, my three Coca Cola things, a couple of antique trunks and suitcases, my few pieces of depression glass, some piggy banks, hurricane lamps and interesting key racks. I haven't added anything to any of my collections for over a year. I've been too busy editing and writing. Oh yes, there's always the temporary collections of dirty dishes and laundry, unpaid bills and filing.
