What's Up in Nitaville?

What's Up in Nitaville? is an announcement board for new additions and future plans for the web site, special Holiday pages, recent acquisitions to the collection, Nita movies on TV, research trips and special Nita moments for all of her fans.

• I'M BACK!! After a two-year hiatus, we are once again adding glorious new photos, posters, magazines and other acquistions to Nita's website. Look for the last update on the opening page and the lavendar "New" gif on the contents page to find the latest additions.

• TAKE A TOUR! Enjoy a walking tour of the historic Hotel Wentworth, where Nita lived after her husband died until her death in 1961. Walk in her moccasins.

• NEWEST ACQUISITIONS! Through the generousity of Mike Massenzio, we recently were able to obtain two vintage signed photos of the glorious Nita! These were in the the collection of the Natalie Hays Hammond Museum in New York. One is autographed to Natalie and the other, to her friend, Alice Laughlin. Both stunning photos are by Edward Thayer Monroe. These will join the other Monroe signed photo, inscribed to Ramon Romeo, as our most treasured Nita memorabilia. Watch for the new category, "Signed Portraits" under the Photos section!

  From my dearest friend comes the Christmas gift of a colorful halfsheet from "Blood and Sand." Thank you so much!!!

  On its way is the vampiest window card imagineable of Nita in a glorious gown from "Glimpses of the Moon."

• NEW VALENTINO BIOGRAPHY! Scheduled for a May release is Emily Leider's, Dark Lover. What WILL she say about Rudy's vamp? To find out, preorder the book at Amazon Books.

• NEW VALENTINO NEWSLETTER! The first issue will be mailed in April, with 3 issues in 2003 and quarterly issues thereafter. This will be a scholarly but fun, first class publication with contributions from published authors and serious memorabilia collectors. Look for an article on Rudy's favorite leading lady in a future issue! To subscribe, e-mail the newletter author, Donna Hill.

• NITA SPEAKS! We have just obtained a CD from Columbia University in New York which includes an interview with Nita! Commenting mostly about how she met Blood and Sand author, Vicente Blasco Ibanez, this "Fair Lady" speaks in a clipped, educated voice enriched with an enviable vocabulary. No wonder those Hollywood starlets hated her. This is a woman of substance with an acute sense of humor!

• A non-fiction book has been published with an entire chapter on Nita! The book, by Eve Golden and Bob King, is Golden Images: 41 Essays on Silent Film Stars. It is available now and can be purchased at Amazon Books and Barnes and Noble Books.

• And on the foreign front, a herald from Nita's 1929 Italian film, La Maschera d'Oro (The Golden Mask) has been discovered!

• Twenty-one new scene stills are here, including two from Nita's last film, "The Model From Montmartre!" All of the scene stills are being re-worked to give the illusion of watching the film in an art deco picture palace. This project is underway with several films completed. Get your ticket and check them out!

• We have just obtained two glass slides, from "The Marriage Whirl" and "Cobra," two fabulous lobby cards from "Don't Call It Love" and two French lobby cards from "Blood and Sand." Watch for these to appear as "Posters of the Month" and in the Gallery archive if you happen to miss the POM.

• One of the newest additions to the site is "The Men in Her Life," a work in progress, with photos and short biographies of her leading men and co-stars, friends and, of course, her husband, J. Searle Barclay.

• Photoplay books have just been added to showcase the artistic dust jackets and novels which include stills from her movies. Many of these are rare and hard to find and are the only link to the "script" of Nita's lost films.

• Nita's appearances in Broadway productions, often overlooked, at the beginning and end of her career will be listed and described. We have acquired the playbill from her 1952 play, In Name Only and the playbill from Firebird with Judith Anderson

• By a stroke of pure luck we found a signed "Happy New Year" card Nita sent to her theatrical agent, Sidney. The inscription just screams Nita! Sorry, but you will have to wait until Christmas 2003 to see this.

• We also have a 12-page, hand-written letter, on Hotel Wentworth stationary signed "Mitchell's Moonbeam MacNaldi MacLevine." This is a fascinating glimpse into Nita's life a year before she died. She speaks of parties she attended, old friends and her health problems, all related through the filter of her incorrigible optimism and totally wicked sense of humor. Excerpts from this letter or the entire letter itself will be on the web site in coming months.

• The Pleasure Garden (Silent, 1925) was shown at The Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, California, one night only on Friday, February 4, 2000, at 9:15 p.m. during the Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival. A Nita fan attended the showing and reports Nita received no billing as "The Native Girl"! Nita was still a major star in 1925. Why was she not in the credits? Did she play this small part just as a favor to Hitch? We will be researching this further and posting any information we can find. UPDATE! We have seen the film on VHS and Nita is nowhere! She is definitely NOT "The Native Girl"! Alas, the mystery continues...

• And speaking of Nita's films, now you can enjoy Nita in a sparkling print with DVD sound in Blood and Sand, Cobra and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

• Video clips of Nita's films will be appearing soon. You will get to watch the greatest vamp on celluloid in action!

• A research trip to New York City is definitely planned to gather information for the web biography. Nita is a ghost in most bios and little is known about her (apart from the few films which survived), particularly her marriage and her years in Europe. Newspaper archives, libraries and historical societies will be scoured to re-weave the threads of her life.

  This will be a dynamic site. We hope you will bookmark it and visit regularly. Be sure to use the guestbook to leave suggestions for enhancements.

  
  

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  These pages were originally created on July 10, 1999.
  All text and images on this site ©1999-2000 Gloria Bowman, unless otherwise noted, and may not be used or copied without permission.