14 December 2013

Jay Parsell (1937-1987)

I remember a longer view of the Audrey Totter mirror photo I postd earlier today.  I think it appeard in a Filmworks ad Richard Myers put in the Daily Kent Stater a hundred years ago. I liked it so that I collected many copies of the paper & cut out that photo.  I had an envelope of them waiting for use in an art piece which I never made.

I felt like a series of Audrey memorial collages -- held together by the use in each of that clippd image -- wd be fun to do today. but of course my search was fruitless. however in looking I came across this page from a 1987 issue of Newsweek:




it's the only photo I have of Jay Parsell who I met at the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt in 1975.  it was a dinner of the Society of Cinephiles & he was a publicist who was there with his friend Jack Oakie. a day or so later he took me to the Polo Lounge for the first time.  & then to Posh Bagel where I met a couple of his younger actor friends.  Robert McLane the year before was the star of "A Very Natural Thing" using the name Robert Joel.  Pamela Seamon the next year wd appear in "The Last Tycoon." (McLane died in 1992 & today Pamela Guest is a casting director.)

I'd see Jay on my Hollywood trips & one time I needed a belt for something.  he loand me one of his but I mistakenly packd it.  which was good because I still have it as a touchstone to my friend.

it appears in "What I Wore on the Blue Swing As 1999 Becomes 2000." & 7 years later there was this section of "Life is Art":

how many times
must I strike you
with Jay Parsell's belt?

I love how people & things connect.  my life & thus my work is full of those connections. so even tho I'm sad that Audrey Totter just died I'm happy to have been remembering Jay Parsell.

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