Sometimes I cry, and sometimes I fly like a bird

Dream this with me: you and I, in that champagne bar in the sky [with a sweeping view of the Empire State Building]...

Louis Armstrong is at the piano.

With Grace Kelly in High Society

Ella Fitzgerald, in delicious Dior, is singing the blues [see (or hear!) playlist on the sidebar].

Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr are at the pool table with Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart, and when Ella starts to sing 'Hey There,' Sammy has to throw down his cue, much to the amused irritation of the rest of the Pack, and join in too.

Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra in Guys and Dolls

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca

Gene Kelly has already taken off his dinner jacket and is spinning Judy Garland, in a glittering evening gown, around the dancefloor. Rita Hayworth sways to the music by herself, until Robert Taylor swoops in for a waltz.

Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn

Kay Thompson is having a heated argument with Coco Chanel, punctuated by the occasional whole-hearted cackle.

William Holden is hurrying to fetch Audrey Hepburn, resplendent in Givenchy, another glass of pink champagne, but Carey Grant gets there first. Grace Kelly and her Prince join them to clink glasses with Audrey, and press her once more to come and visit them in Monaco after her next premiere.

Audrey Hepburn and Bill Holden in Sabrina

The Kennedys and Lee Bouvier - pug in tow - arrive with Sophia Loren, and Caroline Lee instantly throws out her arms, orders a cocktail, and announces her intention of another grand tour of Europe, this time with her exiled Swedish Prince. Does anybody want to join them?

Sophia Loren

Greg Peck doffs his hat in greeting to Ms Bouvier and the President, and raises his glass to you. "We'll be at the Cavalieri while I'm filming in Rome this summer, if you happen to pass through." And with that, he takes your hand and leads you into a waltz, as if you're already dancing at Castel Sant'Angelo.

With his gorgeous wife at the premiere of 'The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit'

I agree with every word: "he was my first love. i was about nine when i fell in love with him. i was skimming through the cable channels and ended up on amc, roman holiday was playing. i fell in love with both audrey hepburn and him. to this day, it's still my favorite movie and the actors, my loves forever. even at nine, i sobbed watching that ending and felt my heart ache for joe bradley as he walked away alone. the only thing that gets me is that they don't make men like him anymore. he was one of a kind and i could only dream of finding someone as amazing as he was. on june 3, the american film institute released a roster of the top fifty movie heroes of all time. atticus finch was no. 1. nine days later, gregory peck died at the age of eighty-seven. he was not only the last of the great hollywood heroes -- he was the best."

"He can be funny, which is fortunate; otherwise such perfection would be unbearable."
-Louis Jourdan

Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Italy - Roman Holiday is still my favourite movie of all time.

Lauren Bacall is smoking with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand. As the pair of illicit lovers lean in to whisper to each other, Lauren shakes her head as she surveys the room. "What a pack of rats," she says, fondly.

"Tough times don't last, tough people do, remember?"
-Gregory Peck

The same for golden times and golden people, too - as evinced by my favourite honourary Old School Hollywooders:

Mr James Marsden - of course!

Hugh Dancy

Beautiful Anna Friel

Katherine Heigl and Amy Adams in Vanity Fair

Amy Adams and the scrumptious Lee Pace in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

The swingin' crooner Michael Buble and the beautiful [and equally talented] actress Emily Blunt



The newly royal Olivia Wilde and her Italian film-making Prince - today's Grace Kelly!

However, wonderful Michelle Williams and the late, great Heath Ledger win the Stanley Donen-worthy award in terms of inspiration and bazazz:

Jackie Kennedy after her husband's assassination [quite literally moved me to tears]: "There's this one thing I wanted to say. I'm so ashamed of myself. Jack...everything he ever quoted was Greek or Roman... no, don't protect me now... one thing kept going through my mind, the line from a musical comedy... I want to say this one thing. It's been almost an obsession with me. This line from the musical comedy's been almost an obsession with me. At night before going to bed...we had an old Victrola. He'd play a couple of records. I'd get out of bed at night and play it for him when it was so cold getting out of bed. It was a song he loved, he loved `Camelot.' It was the song he loved most at the end... on a Victrola ten years old...it's the last record, the last side of' Camelot' ...'don't let it be forgot that for one brief shining moment there was Camelot.'"
At the end of the interview transcript, she penciled in: "And all she could think of was tell people there will never be that Camelot again."

"Let the skeptics snort about Camelot, but there was something during the Kennedy years that was magic."
-Hugh Sidney 1994

JFK and Marilyn Monroe

"I long for people through whom the Past with all its great lines remains wedded and related to us..."
-Had to get some Rilke in there

A song for your heart, and when it is quiet, I know what it means and I'll carry you home.

Do you ever get grey days and dark evenings, when all you wish for is somebody to say those words to you? For whatever reason, you feel the loneliness more than usual, and everybody seems far away, unable to understand or comfort even if they wanted to. At those times - when there is no one there to help - one must help oneself. Here are the things that never fail to cheer me from my 'mean greys.'

Dressing up to excess

"It was often an enormous help to know that you looked the part, and the rest wasn't so tough anymore."
-Audrey Hepburn

With Givenchy

"Do you love clothes? Fine, don't apologise. In a world with far too many Casual Fridays... look at it this way: You are injecting some verve (to quote Diana Vreeland) into the world. 'Clothes are positively a passion with me,' said Audrey... 'I love clothes so much where it is practically a vice.'" -Pamela Keogh on Audrey Hepburn

Sometimes it's enough just to dream of beautiful clothes - j'adore Dior couture for this spring!

"Clothes, as they say, make the man. But they certainly have, with me, given me the confidence I often needed."
-Audrey Hepburn

[Pretty underwear, too - I love Chantelle and Elle Macpherson Intimates. H&M also stock gorgeous and - hooray! - slightly cheaper smalls.]

"Dressing was important to her. It was like a little girl dressing up. She was herself, you know, she didn't become someone else. But she never lost the fun of dressing up."
-Rob Wolder on Audrey

Speaking of dressing up, I now officially have a tailor! A wonderful guy in the market-place is adjusting the floor-length, vivid green evening gown I found in a Dorset vintage shop for me - it is heavenly and just like Keira Knightley's infamous Atonement dress, but far too big at the waist and straps. I'm planning to wear it to the Queens May Ball! In the meantime, the other colleges have also begun advertising their themes; some of them look just fabulous!

Enthusing about sunny tomorrows...

Jesus have gone for an Oz theme, Pembroke 'Moonlight Masquerade,' and Downing's is Peter Pan's Neverland. However, I have to say that Corpus Christi have the most fabulous concept going:

Entertainment has yet to be announced, but in past years various colleges have managed to secure Snow Patrol, Supergrass, Razorlight, Amy Winehouse, Flight of the Conchords, Nizlopi, the Editors, the Kaiser Chiefs, The Feeling, the Mystery Jets, the Guillemots, Hot Chip, the Long Blondes, Dirty Pretty Things, the Klaxons, the Pigeon Detectives, Scouting For Girls and Dizzee Rascall... oh, the excitement to see what Queens have planned this time! My first real ball!

This song

Getting and sending packages in the post
Especially when they contain fashion magazines, or pretty jewellery, or B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful make-up.

Bear hugs

Writing this blog.

The camerado has even collaged some of her favourite bits onto her wall, which made my day!:-

Kindly friends bearing slices of chocolate cake...

...and eating this chocolate cake whilst watching old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, by candlelight. With strawberry-filled sparkling wine!

"Life should be bright – it should be beautiful and bubbly, like champagne… Is there any reason why – from now on – it shouldn’t be pink champagne?"
-Carey Grant, in An Affair To Remember

Holly Golightly: I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is, but I know what it's like. It's like Tiffany's.
Paul Varjak: Tiffany's You mean the jewellery store?
Holly: That's right. I'm just crazy about Tiffany's. Listen, you know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds? You mean, like the blues?
Holly: Oh no, the blues are because you're getting fat or it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Don't you ever get that feeling?
Paul: Sure.
Holly: When I get it, what does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness, the proud look of it - nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then... then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!
-Breakfast at Tiffany's

I caught a glimpse, but its been forgotten
So here we are again
I made a vow, to carry you home...
I really tried to do what you wanted
It all went wrong again
I made a vow, to carry you home...
-Bloc Party

You were happy once; you were sunshine and smiles and a brightness that radiated. You may be cloudy now, you may not want to sing. You may just want to fold inside of yourself, on the oldest couch you can find, by the biggest window, and watch it rain.
You used to find that little things made you happy; now you can’t even find the big things. Somehow, along the way, you lost yourself.
One foot in front of the other, sweetheart, and you will find your way back.
~

[Pictures from my heart]