EW, GIRL COOTIES!

I drew this portrait of an adolescent Bambi and Faline, in the process of becoming quite "twitterpated". I noticed the original movie still on the back of an old record. It's water based marker and wax pencil. I don't illustrate nearly as much is I should, but I have to draw Bambi at least once every few years. He's like an old childhood friend.

Within the cocoon of cultural oppression beat the wings of artistic freedom.

Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen was born in Florida in 1911, and worked on the stage until her Hollywood debut in the late 1930s. She gained the moniker “Butterfly”, because she was fidgety; always fluttering with her hands. The film role for which she’s best remembered is “Prissy”, Scarlett O’Hara’s panicky maid in the 1939 classic Gone With The Wind.

Other notable roles included parts in The Women, Flame of Barbary Coast, Mildred Pierce, and the radio show “Beulah”. Unfortunately she never really overcame that stereotype relegated to playing maids and servants, but she was highly admired as a character actress, and provided some much needed diversity and comedy relief to what could otherwise have been some pretty one-dimensional films. In her personal life she was quite the scholar; she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from New York City College.

True to the famous quote by her character in GWTW, McQueen indeed knew “nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies”. She never married nor had any children.

Butterfly McQueen flew away for good in December 1995, at the age of 84.

“I never met a man I didn’t like.” Many people have made similar statements, but when Will Rogers said it, we believed him.

William Penn Adair Rogers was born in 1879 in Oologah Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and was both a cowboy and an Indian; part Cherokee on both sides of his family. As for the cowboy side, Rogers was a champion with a lasso, and even set some performance records. He started his modern entertainment career in vaudeville, and progressed to a few movies and wrote editorials for the New York Times. He was best known for his observational wit, and became the voice of the Everyman, with an iron hand of political and corporate commentary, cloaked in the velvet glove of his unique brand of homespun humor. “We only get to vote on some man;” he quipped, “We never get to vote on what he is to do.” The most significant thing about Rogers’ many quotes (and those tenuously attributed to him) is not just what was said, but that they’re more poignant today than ever.

America lost its most constructive critic in a plane crash near Point Barrow, close to Alaska, in 1935. Will Rogers was 55.

LARGER THAN LIFE

Towering (6'7") actor James King Arness was born in Minnesota in 1923, and as an adult he became a radio announcer, and eventually made his way to Hollywood. Arness first gained notoriety in Sci-Fi films like The “Thing From Another World”, and “Them”.

In 1955, CBS-TV planned a new television show, based on the popular Western radio program Gunsmoke. The lead role, of U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, was portrayed on radio by the incomparable voice actor William Conrad, but CBS wasn’t interested in casting the stocky, balding Conrad in the TV role. Actor John Wayne was approached, but he didn’t want the role, and suggested his friend Arness. The statuesque, rugged Arness was perfect, and for the next 20 years, personified the ultimate Western lawman. Gunsmoke became one of the longest running TV shows in history, and Arness then went on to portray more law officials in other shows, forever associated with the long shadow of authority.

James Arness died in 2011, at the age of 88. His younger brother was actor Peter Graves.