Friday, January 28, 2011

Maybelline Heiress says "let them eat cake," while filming at her fathers estate.

The Villa Valentino, Hollywood Hills, 1945. Rudolph Valentino's Statue, Aspiration symbolized aspiring to the stars and never giving up on your dreams. Photo below is of Tom Lyle's nephew Bill Williams with his girlfriend Pauline Mac Donald swimming in the pool.(My parents.)



30 years later, author Sharrie Williams and her father Bill Williams stood on his veranda overlooking his estate in Palm Springs, where Aspiration still looked up at the sky, ever reminding us to never ever give up on our dreams.

Excerpt from Sharrie's 1975 Diary.

My Dad and I stood on the veranda outside his master bedroom, waiting for the tub scene where Misty Rowe - playing a young Marilyn Monroe in Goodbye Norma Jean -would languish nude in a mountain of bubbles.  I was stoned out of my mind and relished my own role as daddy's little spoiled princess, while he fumed over his lawns being torn up with cables and trampling feet.

As we stood under the black and tan stripped awning, holding onto the black wrought iron railing, dad wanted to stop the filming and throw everyone off his newly landscaped estate.

 "What the hell am I going to do with all these god damned people ruining my fucking lawns." he said ready to throw me over the railing as well for getting him into this mess.

"Oh don't worry daddy," I said,in an arrogant tone - "Just let them eat cake," - in my best Marie Antoinette impersonation, looking over a swarm of peasants about to destroy Versailles.

He looked at me, gritting his teeth and said, " God damnit Sharrie, what the hell are you talking about - are you nuts?"  And of course I didn't have a clue what I was talking about and I was pretty nuts at the time! All I knew was this was my dream come true, and as I stared at Aspiration I hoped this feeling would never end.


More on the making of Goodbye Norma Jean in the next post.  You can also read about the sale of the Maybelline Company and how my dad's inheritance from the sale of the Maybelline co. affected my branch of the family in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.


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