Posted by 
vp19 on 2015.10.20 at 00:00
Current mood: 
jubilant
From her week handling publicity at Selznick International Pictures, Carole Lombard understood that typing and other office work isn’t all that easy. And that’s why I think she’d appreciate what went on yesterday at the House of Morgan — the British house of author Michelle Morgan, that is:
That’s Michelle’s daughter Daisy typing in “THE END” to conclude the first draft of her mother’s long-awaited Lombard biography, “Carole Lombard: Twentieth-Century Star,” which is scheduled to be released in early September 2016. Here’s what Michelle had to write about the momentous occasion at her Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=730984250&fref=ts):
About five minutes ago, I completed the first draft of my Carole Lombard biography!! Here is Daisy doing the honours of typing THE END for me. This project has been going on for almost nine years and during that time I had more than my share of rejections and false starts. But I never gave up and now I have a first draft (and wonderful publisher) to prove it. Things mean more when you work hard for them. As Carole once said, “I’m scared of getting things too easily. Houses built on sand — no foundations. I like getting them the hard way. I might as well – that’s the way I always get them.” Well this project certainly hasn’t been built on sand, and I’m really proud of it. Raising a glass to Carole this evening, then I begin the edits tomorrow!!
Michelle, those of us who have been waiting patiently for this project to come to fruition share your joy. It will be worth the wait.
Simply with the vast increase in research resources denied earlier Lombard biographers thanks to improved technology, Morgan’s book would be the definitive book on Carole. But then add her painstaking research skills and her ability to paint portraits of historic personalities as people first and foremost — a talent she’s most notably displayed in her books on Marilyn Monroe, someone too often painted in iconic, not human, terms– and this promises to be something special. (A disclaimer: Not only have I assisted Michelle with research, but I am going to be one of the two people the book is dedicated to; longtime Lombard expert Carole Sampeck is the other. Needless to say, both of us are thrilled.)
Congratulations to Michelle on a job well done — now get to those rewrites. Oh, and I would be remiss not to mention her latest book on another one of the great, but ill-fated funny ladies of classic Hollywood, Thelma Todd:
“The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd” is set to be released at the start of November; I’ve already glimpsed a few sasmple chapters at amazon.com’s site, and it’s your typical well-researched, smartly-written Michelle Morgan work. Robert Matzen, author of the Lombard book “Fireball,” says of this work, “’The Ice Cream Blonde’ is a riveting mystery about the death of Thelma Todd. It’s also an eerie exploration of the Todd dichotomy -— breezy comedienne on the one hand; serious businesswoman with underworld connections on the other. Highly recommended.”
If you’d like to pre-order it, go to http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Cream-Blonde-Mysterious-Comedienne/dp/1613730381/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid&sr.
And to Michelle, cheers from Carole:
Carole & Co. 