Nina Van Pallandt: Detachment is Another Way of Belonging

 

The beauty of detachment

Born 1934. At first it she was Nina Magdelena Møller. From Denmark. Then, after marrying Frederik Jan Gustav Floris, Baron van Pallandt, she became Nina, Baroness van Pallandt… or just Nina Van Pallandt. They formed an unlikely singing duo, Nina & Frederik. Sang folk music, including calypso (!?). Had chart success. Divorced. Nina became a film star. Frederick was murdered in a drug deal.

The future is calling me...

With Nina van Pallandt, the ciphers don’t line up, but still the lock opens. A mystery. We have an attractive woman who is way too European for the 1960s—and the 1960s loved all things European—or thought it did. Somehow, with that elegant poise, Teutonic mannerisms, and a royal title, maybe we understand the cultural confusion. But her awkwardness bespeaks knowledge, not nativity. It’s odd, but there’s an American vibe coming from her attitude, from the way she half-regards a threat; a rebellious nature not found down the cold corridors of the Danish Queens. Her spirit was not indolent.

Nina, a free spirit on a windy beach, the Pacific Ocean frames her figure. And that’s why Robert Altman chose her for The Long Goodbye, for the character Eileen Wade, because of her organic, outsider status. That slight, indeterminate accent that lets you know she’s a survivor. 'Yes', we feel,' she belongs in Malibu much more than Barbie'. A 1960s beach bunny wouldn’t have worked. Beauty isn’t symmetrical; it’s the appearance of symmetry. Meet Nina.

Eileen Wade. It’s her greatest role unless you count the earlier one—as a Danish folk singer married to a royal soon-to-be drug smuggler. Nina Van Pallandt proves that detachment is just another way of belonging.

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Diana Rigg: True to Her Own Spirit

In the 1960s, she looked like smart fun. Not so much sensual as kinetic... C’mon, catch up, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever... The promise of fresh excitement. Always on her way to somewhere else. Bright but unburdened. Diana Rigg came to prominence with a playful smirk that spread to a smile; with an independence free from rancor; with delicate femininity that could smash glass. 

Her role as Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers gave her firm footing. Somehow her Shakespearean training was perfect for a program that embraced theatre of the absurd, and sexual flirtation, often in equal measure. 

 It was said she squandered her fame on the theatre. No Bond girl ever tramped by limelight. But her spirit demanded independence. She would not subject herself to Hollywood strictures. Cosmetic surgery not required—for the theatre holds a mirror to the audience, not the performers. So, for the screen, it was bit parts to pay the bills. 

 Euripides, author of Medea, in which she played her greatest role, wrote, “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Diana Rigg was true to her own spirit. Her beauty is what that looks like.

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Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Cultured Queen of Branding

 

 

Gertrude Stein, reflecting on her childhood home in Oakland, California, famously said, ‘There is no there there’. When considering Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, that quote seems somewhat applicable.

Biographers have had a tough time with Jackie. She was manipulative and false; she was genuine and kind; she demonstrated women’s empowerment; she was a submissive cuckquean; she was little more than a hat rack; she was a style icon.

Where is the 'there'?

It’s this Zelig-like quality that perpetuates her persona. For millions of people, she is whatever they want(ed) her to be at any given moment. When she married John Kennedy in 1953, she knew the score. But it was worth the ride. The money, fame, and glitz. Then Dallas. And then a slow, five-year reinvention before shacking with Aristotle Onassis and big bucks.

She was vilified for selling out, for stamping on love with lucre, but the critics
undervalued her survival instincts. She needed that Fifth Avenue apartment to support her brand—for the brand was everything; it had been from the beginning. No one ever accused Jacqueline Onassis of being dumb.

She was the cultured Queen of Branding, years ahead of her time. It’s not so much what you do; it’s how you do nothing …because for such geniuses, for such existential sirens, there really is—and never will be—no there there.

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Ian Fleming: Master of the Sex/Death Ratio

 

Author Ian Fleming (1908-64) lived with the insouciance and bad behaviour reserved for those who have resigned themselves to an early death. Menefreghismo is an Italian noun which connotes one’s approach to life; it translates– roughly – as ‘don’t give a shit’. It’s hard to discern what held Fleming’s interest, but he certainly lived with a free form, unbridled, if not erotic, passion that seems awkward to a modern sensibility.

And that’s where James Bond comes in. Menefreghismo.

Ursula Andress & the ratio

Although about one half of the Bond novels were published in the 1960s, their genealogical roots are embedded in 50’s, and even earlier. That’s why a female character can be named ‘Pussy Galore’. Not a big deal at the time.

And that’s why James Bond, in books and films, was successful. Fleming knew how to balance the critical sex/death ratio like few authors before—or since. He was so good at it—and it is the ratio that gives the early films their life. When, later, the ratio became unstable, so began the era of Bad Bonds.

The ratio is based on the notion that the proximity of death heightens sexual tension—and, importantly, vice-versa. That’s one reason why you will never see a child in a Bond film—for a child is the strongest representation of Life we have. It just messes with the balance.

The ratio is based on post-WW II notions of masculinity and femininity. Small wonder Fleming was among John F. Kennedy's favorite authors. Times change. JB (James Bond) got the JB (Jason Bourne) reboot in Casino Royale (2006). Now it was mostly about hand-to-hand fighting, lightning cuts, and constant close-ups. However, the ratio did appear, however warily, when needed.

Ian Fleming died as he lived, fully aware that the ratio was unlivable. But longevity was never the point for Fleming, or Bond. It was to greet Death at his own door, look in his eyes, and say, ‘Your move’.

 

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Elizabeth Taylor: The Sublime Performance of Her Face

 

Perhaps it is the sublime performance of her face. Her perfect nose… violet/blue eyes that turn whatever color you want. Beauty is an accident that never waits to happen.

She remains a movie star, a celluloid daemon that only asks for light to live. We see her as a child, already fluent with assumed attitudes and false fronts. Then, a young woman, soon to mount the golden throne, unassailable, Cleopatra-like, the greatest of them all.

Then the illness, the awards, the husbands, the lovers—all that is demanded by a wayward congregation, always on tiptoes, eyes above the crowd, praying for just a glimpse of the Queen as she enters a long, dark limousine.

A better actor than accredited by critics, her supernova publicity was too blinding to clearly see a performance. Her fame exceeded skill, always a dangerous condition, but one that she embraced, selling toiletries one day, AIDS awareness the next.

For few ever had such a clinical understanding of Hollywood as Elizabeth Taylor. It used her, she used it. Simple, honest, and as coarse as the Hollywood sign itself.

Gratefully, movie stars cannot be manufactured. There are too many unknowns that must intertwine.  The magic remains with the magician. Those most committed to celestial heights embrace an entrepreneurial spiritualism. They just seem to know what to sell, when, and to whom.

Somehow, against all odds, Elizabeth Taylor discovered how to fall deeply and passionately in love with herself.

 

#elizabethtaylor #richardburton #cleopatra #miketodd #1960s #popculture #moviestar #michaeljackson