Top 20 for 4/20 Women and Weed Movies (Part 2)

I don't like many of the "Stoner Movies" that people like to list: I much prefer a good movie that has a pivotal scene involving pot's power to transform, and connect us to each other and our deeper selves. 

Here are the Top 10 movies that, to me, fit that bill (and include women).  Also see Top Women in Weed Movies #11-20 and the many Honorable Mentions below.

(Hint: just Google the name of the movie to find out what streaming services have it, and at what price.)

#10. The Breakfast Club (1985)
As we're all in detention right now, let's kick off this list with Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy getting over their hangups and bonding with their fellow detainees with the aid of marijuana (and music) in this classic teen movie. This was quite a breakthrough in the "Just Say No" 1980s, so enjoy the "Detention Dance" video (and go make one of your own).
Free with Hulu subscription. Rentable at from Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu. 



#9. Grandma (2015)
Unlike Tomlin's character in Netflix's "Grace and Frankie," where she's ridiculed by the alcoholic Jane Fonda character, in Grandma, Lily as the feminist poetess Elle is back in all her power, signified by the "Violet" tattoo she wears on her arm (the name of the character she played in 9-5). She takes down her granddaughter's asshole boyfriend and afterwards steals his stash, smoking it with old boyfriend and silver fox Sam Elliot. The film even has a bit of a poem by Tokin' Woman Anne Waldman, plus a final appearance by Elizabeth Peña (La Bamba), who died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 55 in 2014. (One more reason to be more like Frankie than Grace.)
Free with Hulu subscription, rentable on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play.

#8. Ricki And The Flash (2015)
Meryl Streep rocks as a rock singer mother who opens up communication with her estranged family assisted by a bag of pot she finds in the freezer. Directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Diablo Cody, the film re-unites Streep with Kevin Kline (Sophie's Choice) and also co-stars Rick Springfield and her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer. Streep and Steve Martin “poke smot” in the 2009 movie It’s Complicated, giving the movie an "R" rating due to a lack of "negative consequences." Reportedly Streep also smoked medicinal pot in One True Thing, a film in which she plays a cancer patient who takes her own life with an overdose of morphine (I guess that consequence was bad enough for the censors).
Rentable from Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube.


 
#7. Bull Durham (1988)
Oscar winner Susan Sarandon plays the philosophical pot smoker Annie Savoy who, after trying other religions, worships at "The Church of Baseball." She romances both ballplayers Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins, who she hooked up with after shooting. Pot is subtly depicted, as when she's left alone and puffs thoughtfully in her bed, and when she finds a roach on the floor after a date with Costner, musing, "This world is made for those who aren't cursed with self-awareness."
Free on Vudu and Tubi; rentable at YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.



#6. Peace Love & Misunderstanding (2011)
Jane Fonda plays a better Grace in this film than she does on the "Grace & Frankie." Here she portrays the hippie mother of an uptight attorney (Catherine Keener) who brings her two teenage children to their grandmother's house after her marriage breaks up. Grace, whose home reeks of pot, deals a little on the side and introduces her grandkids (Elizabeth Olsen and Nat Wolff) to the wonders of the weed. It's done intelligently, with Grace resorting to it before losing them to an evening of them closing down (as so many teens do). With Chace Crawford, who played the stoner on "Gossip Girl," and Rosanna Arquette, howling at the moon while wearing a pot-leaf necklace.
Available for rent at iTunes and for purchase on other platforms. 


#5 - Saving Grace
Academy Award-nominated actress Brenda Blethyn plays another Grace, a widow who grows weed to save her Cornwall home in this charming British comedy from comedian Craig Ferguson (who co-stars). It gets a little preachy in parts, as when Grace tries to smoke and gets ill, but it's hilarious when two old ladies from the town try making tea from her crop, and the ending is delightful. (I asked Ferguson at an pre-screening event if he'd been pressured to add "negative consequences" to the film. He said, "Oh yes, some wanted my character to die.")
Included with Hulu subscriptions; Available for purchase at iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.




#4 - Ride (2015)
Written and directed by actress Helen Hunt (Mad About You, What Women Want), Ride stars Hunt as a high-powered New York editor who follows her wayward son to California and ends up on a quest of her own, learning to surf and smoke pot (and fall in love with Luke Wilson). It's particularly gratifying to see Hunt depicting marijuana (mostly) positively, since in 1980 she played a schoolgirl who smokes pot and is unable to complete a book report in the sitcom "The Facts of Life," during the time when the US drug czar's office was offering advertising credits to shows with anti-marijuana messages.
Included with Amazon Prime, Vudu and Tubi subscriptions; Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and You Tube.




#3 - Annie Hall (1977)
Sweeping the Oscars in 1977 was this film starring Diane Keaton as a sweet but insecure pot smoker who tries to turn Woody Allen onto weed so that he can start to enjoy life (the original title of the film was Anhedonia, the inability to be happy). Having an argument about why she must smoke before they make love, she tells him if he'd only try it he wouldn't need so much psychotherapy. Keaton also smokes pot on film (in a bathtub) in 1982's Shoot the Moon. Also a nod to Allen's movie Alice in which Mia Farrow smokes opium and takes some trips of her own, Alice in Wonderland style.)
Included with Amazon Prime and Hulu subscriptions; Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.

 

#2 - Harold and Maude (1970)
The amazing screenwriter/actress Ruth Gordon plays Maude, an 80-year-old free-spirited woman who turns a young Harold (Bud Cort) onto marijuana, enabling him to open up to someone about the source of his strange behavior, and learn to love life. With a Cat Stevens soundtrack and Hal Ashby directing, it's probably no accident that this film is Cameron Diaz's favorite movie as the title character in There's Something About Mary (1998), since Mary and Ted (Ben Stiller) smoke a joint together after they reunite.
Included with Amazon Prime subscriptions. Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.  




#1 - 9 to 5 (1980)
Jane Fonda plays a naive woman who returns to work after her husband runs off with his secretary. Soon she and co-workers Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton have "an old fashioned ladies' pot party" and scheme to overthrow their sexist boss. In one scene Fonda announces to her ex-husband that she smokes marijuana as part of her awakening. It also contains an intelligently written scene where Tomlin and her son discuss drug use and moderation. Parton contributed the movie's theme song, and it and the film have become statements for women's empowerment.
On Hulu and Sling TV (subscription); Available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play & Vudu.


Also see: Top Women in Weed Movies #11-20 and:

Honorable mentions (click on the title links to read more):

- Madonna turns a spa salesman onto pot in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Philosophical musings ensure.

- Tina Fey and Margot Robbie puff a hookah in the excellent Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016).

- Andie MacDowell turns Chevy Chase onto pot and more in the Netflix film The Last Laugh (2019), also featuring Richard Dreyfus and Kate Micucci from "Garfunkel and Oates."

- Catherine Zeta-Jones is the hottest MILF ever shotgunning her young date in The Rebound (2009).

- Danneel Harris turns Kai Penn (Kumar) onto pot in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay; in A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas she convinces him not to stop smoking.

- Cameron Diaz lights up more than the screen in Bad Teacher where she opens up co-worker Phyllis Smith ("The Office") with a doobie. 

- Kate Winslet and Judy Davis bake "special" cakes for a neighbor in pain in The Dressmaker (2015).

- Liv Tyler turns on an ailing Jeremy Irons in Stealing Beauty (1996), wherein Rachel Weisz also tokes.

- Eva Amurri Martino, Sarandon's daughter, drives a pot dealer around one summer to make money for college in Middle of Nowhere (2008). The scene where he justifies his career choice is one of the most cogent arguments for legalization ever.

 - JoBeth Williams, Mary Kay Place and Gwen Close toke in The Big Chill (1983). JoBeth also tokes up in Poltergeist (1982), but then she pays.

- Karen Allen puffs with her college professor/lover Donald Sutherland, bringing the boys along, in Animal House (1978). She also smokes in a bathtub in Scrooged (1988). 

- Linda Cardellini is the life of the party in Grandma's Boy (2006), where Shirley Jones and Doris Roberts drink some interesting tea.

- I’ll See You in My Dreams (2015) features a pot party followed by a munchie run with Blythe Danner, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place and June Squibb.

- Elizabeth Moss brings a bag of pot on a retreat with her husband in The One I Love (2014), leading to some bizarre consequences.

- Charlize Theron turns Seth MacFarlane onto pot brownies in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), setting him up for his drug-fueled Native American vision quest that puts him on the right path.

See an almost-complete list by date of women and marijuana in Movies and on TV. 

Top 20 Women and Weed Movies (Part 1)

It's somehow fitting that this April, when the whole month is 4/20, we should be forced into being couch potatoes while safely sheltering at home.

Here then, for your home viewing enjoyment, is the first installment in our Top 20 Women and Weed Movies, most of which are available on streaming services. Pass the munchees, and watch 'em stoned for maximum diversion.




#20. Lady Bird (2017)
The movie that won Greta Gerwig a scriptwriting Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for best director depicts actresses Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein trying some "primo" and feeling the first effects, like getting the munchees and giggling joyously. Oh, and not feeling your arms. Seems the gals were subtly stoned on prom night too, leading to the line, "We ate all the cheese." Gerwig went on to direct Ronan in "Little Women," by and about Tokin' Woman Louisa May Alcott.
On Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. 




#19. The Family Stone (2005) 
Sarah Jessica Parker plays an uptight perfectionist who travels with her fiancé to meet his family at Christmas and loosens up with the help of the holy herb and her boyfriend's brother, played by Luke Wilson (ever the appealing stoner). Diane Keaton plays the cancer-stricken family matriarch who takes "special" medicinal brownies. SJP also toked on TV's "Sex in the City" and is one of the few actress who can actually play "stoned" (not drunk or stupid; more giggly and aware).
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services.




#18. How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Winona Ryder share an intergenerational joint on the front porch in this film, where Ryder's character comes home to write a dissertation on quilting while she ponders a marriage proposal. A rare appearance by Maya Angelou as the master quilter is a treat; Lady Jean Simmons also appears. From the book by Whitney Otto, based in a town called Grass, California.




#17. Being John Malkovich (1999)
Catherine Keener rolls a joint for her admirers Cameron Diaz and John Cusak in this audacious comedy that intriguingly explores the nature of consciousness, who controls it, and what it takes to break out of the confining mundaneness of life. I think my favorite moment is when it's revealed why a chimpanzee has post-traumatic stress. "You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey," Cusak tells him. "Because consciousness is a terrible curse."
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 


 

#16. Life of Crime (2014)
Jennifer Aniston stars as a society wife kidnapped by a couple of pot-smoking Detroit hoods in this Elmore Leonard film. Aided by a supporting cast starting with her heinous husband (Tim Robbins) and his scheming girlfriend (Isla Fisher, who played Mary Jane in the Scooby Doo movie and Myrtle in The Great Gatsby), Aniston has a little fun as a hostage laughing at the classic "Sanford and Son" scene involving marijuana. In the film, as so often in life, smoking a little weed leads to a woman looking at the world in a different, better way.
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 




#15. Finding Your Feet (2017)
This charming British film stars Imelda Stanton as solid senior citizen Saundra who moves in with her Bohemian sister Bif (Celia Imrie) after leaving her cheating husband. She soon joins a dance troupe and re-discovers life, love, and marijuana. "I'm not like you, Bif," Saundra protests. "I just can't open up like a lotus flower." With the aid of a little weed, she finds her footing and begins to flower herself.
On Hulu (subscription); rentable on other services. 




#14. The Time of Our Lives (2017)
Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine) plays Priscilla, a pensioner housewife out on an adventure with Joan Collins, in a tour-de-force performance as a faded movie star. Priscilla ends up smoking a joint "for her arthritis" with Franco Nero; both actors were 76 years old when they played the scene. Collins (Pauline, not Joan) also appeared in 2016's Dough wherein a bakery business suddenly becomes popular when it starts adding weed to its recipes.




#13. The Women (2008)
In this remake of a Clare Booth Luce–penned movie, Meg Ryan plays a cheated-on wife who goes on a retreat where she puffs pot proffered by a shamanesque Bette Midler, and subsequently finds her way to her own bliss. You'll have to go to the deleted scenes on the DVD to hear Ryan saying, "I'm really stoned." The all-female, star-studded cast includes Candice Bergen (who was the first medical marijuana patient on TV in "Murphy Brown"). Midler also inhales onscreen as Mel Gibson’s psychotherapist in What Women Want (2000), although the scene is sometimes cut when the movie airs on TV.




#12. Ocean's 8 (2018)
Rihanna smokes in more ways than one playing a Rasta computer hacker on the female A-list, multiethnic jewel-robbing team (Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kalig, Awkwafina, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne Hathaway) working to pull off a daring and intricate caper. It just goes to show you that girls can do whatever the boys do, even (or especially) when we're stoned.

#11. I Love You Alice B. Toklas (1968)
Breakthrough for its time, this Paul Mazursky film is really more of a male fantasy about a middle-aged man (Peter Sellers) who takes a walk on the wild weed side with Leigh Taylor-Young, who is luminous in her debut role as the hippie baker of brownies. Actresses Jo Van Fleet and Joyce Van Patten inadvertently get in on the brownie action, and this trailer is priceless. Mazursky brought out Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice the following year, where Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon partake (with no perceivable effects).

Also see: Top Women and Weed Movies #1 through 10, and some Honorable Mentions too.

Mark Twain, Fannie & Fred, and Hasheesh Candy in Old San Francisco

RICHARDS & CO., a San Francisco pharmacy that advertised Hasheesh Candy in 1872, was on the corner of Sansome & Clay streets on the outskirts of Chinatown, near the financial district and (today) the Transamerica Pyramid and Mark Twain Plaza. Clay was the street on which Twain was spotted after having ingested hashish in 1865. It's possible he procured his hasheesh from Richards & Co.

CF Richards & Co., wholesale drugs and chemicals, was defended by Twain for misinterpreting a prescription in 1864. It is depicted in William Hahn’s 1872 painting "Market Scene, Sansome Street, SF" (below), the first major painting of a contemporary California subject. It hangs at the Crocker Museum in Sacramento.

An interesting little advertising/PR campaign (or so it seems) appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1872. It began on September 19, with this item touting the medical uses of “magic” hasheesh conserves:

MAGIC CONSERVES – Debilitated, Hypochondriac Sufferer, physically and mentally in need of an invigorator, pleasant and harmless, use this Hasheesh Confection. For sale at RICHARDS’ corner Clay and Sansome. Price, #1 per box. Send for circular, P. O. Box 1733.

The following day, recreational use was included in this ad:

MAGIC CONSERVES – All who are afflicted use Hasheesh Confection and find relief. Those who seek for novelty use it for its exhilarating effects. Price $1 per box. Send for unique circular, P. O. Box 1733 or RICHARDS & CO., Druggists. For sale by druggists generally. 

One month later, on October 20, this item appeared just over the Church Notices:

ALL who have used the MAGIC CONSERVES (Hasheesh) speak of it in the most glowing terms. Two days later, another ad previewed a coming article: TRY THE MAGIC CONSERVES (HASHEESH), and if your dreams do not equal Bayard Taylor’s or De Quincy’s, write to Box 393.

FANNIE AND FRED 

On October 25, this curious personal ad was published:

Fannie—I DID TRY THE HASHEESH; I will be there to-night. FRED.

Perhaps Fred tried hasheesh at Fannie’s suggestion, or so it would appear. Or perhaps an inventive public relations person placed the ad themselves.

An ad the following day simply said:

OFFICE for MAGIC CONSERVES (Hasheesh), Box 393.

Finally, on October 27 a long article with copious quotes from Bayard Taylor appeared in the Chronicle under this headline:

PECULIAR DELIGHT. In the Realms of Bliss – Heaven on Earth—The Wonderful Hasheesh Candy—What the Great Bayard Taylor Says of it. 

Opera's Carmen, The Gypsy Drug Smuggler

A

Elina Garanca as Carmen with Roberto Alagna as Don José at the Met

s a treat for those of us (almost everyone, it seems) who are "sheltering in place" these days, the Metropolitan Opera is streaming, free of charge, an opera every night this week. Last night was Bizet's Carmen, the story of a tempting and  tempestuous Andalusian gypsy (more properly, Romani) who lures her soldier/lover Don José into the freewheeling world of a band of smugglers—but just what they were smuggling is not revealed.

Carmen is based on the 1845 novella by Prosper Mérimée, who traveled to Spain and its region in 1830, where María Manuela Kirkpatrick de Grevignée, the Countess of Montijo, told him a story that became Carmen.* Mérimée, also a noted archaeologist and historian, was studying the Romani people and so made the character one of them, of whom he wrote, "Their eyes, set with a decided slant, are large, very black, and shaded by long and heavy lashes. Their glance can only be compared to that of a wild creature. It is full at once of boldness and shyness, and in this respect their eyes are a fair indication of their national character, which is cunning, bold, but with 'the natural fear of blows,' like Panurge" [a crafty character in Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, thought to be about hemp].

"The men generally call themselves grooms, horse doctors, mule-clippers; to these trades they add the mending of saucepans and brass utensils, not to mention smuggling and other illicit practices," Mérimée writes. "The women tell fortunes, beg, and sell all sorts of drugs, some of which are innocent, while some are not."

Marion Sunshine and Marijuana

While putting together my list of Top Ten Marijuana Jazz Tunes by Women last year, I learned that the song "When I Get Low I Get High," recorded in 1936 by Ella Fitzgerald, was written by actress, singer and songwriter Marion Sunshine.

Sunshine is best remembered as a songwriter and performer who helped introduce Latin music to American audiences. The prestigious Julliard school of music offers a scholarship in her name.

Born Mary Tunstall Ijames in Louisville, Kentucky on May 15, 1894, Sunshine began performing on the vaudeville circuit at the age of five, along with her older sister Clare, who was dubbed Florence Tempest because of her more tempestuous personality (apparently Mary was the Sunny sister). Starting with the first Ziegfeld Follies in 1907, Marion appeared in a dozen Broadway shows through 1926.

Between 1908 and 1916, Sunshine also appeared in 26 short films, many of them with her sister and billed as "Sunshine and Tempest," the title of a three-reel Rialto short produced in 1915. A promotional article about the film extolls, "As motion picture players the charming young actresses are great successes. Their clear cut beauty, their alertness, and their ready intelligence gives them more than the average screen value."

After becoming involved with Cuban businessman and her future husband Eusebio Azpiazú in 1922, Sunshine began translating lyrics and writing songs for his brother Justo Ángel Azpiazú, better known as Don Azpiazú, a prominent Havana band leader. The 1930 rendition of "The Peanut Vendor," with English lyrics by Sunshine, became the first million-selling single in the history of Latin music. She and her husband engineered Azpiazu's 1931 tour, and she sang "The Peanut Vendor" with his band across the country. It may be Sunshine singing the song in this 1933 animated film.

"The Peanut Vendor" has been recorded over 160 times (Wikipedia), including versions by Louis Armstrong and Anita O'Day. Groucho Marx whistled the tune in the film Duck Soup (1933), Jane Powell gave it an operatic treatment with Xavier Cugat Luxury Liner (1948), Cary Grant sang a bit of it it in the film Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur on the piano, and Judy Garland sang a fragment in the film A Star is Born (1954). 

Nicknamed "The Rumba Lady," Sunshine co-wrote other rumba hits such as "Mango Mangue," recorded by Celia Cruz and Charlie Parker. Eating mangoes before smoking marijuana is said to improve the high, and the rumba was associated with marijuana culture in the 1930s: Louis Armstrong recorded a rumba version of "La Cucaracha" in 1935.

Men We'd Love to Toke With: Oscar Levant

Looking up Tokin' Woman Elizabeth Taylor on her recent 88th birthday, I came across this passage from her biographer Ellis Amburn: "Elizabeth sometimes ditched [second husband Michael] Wilding to slip off to Oscar Levant's Beverly Hills house with Monty [Montgomery Clift, a known marijuana smoker], where the pianist serenaded them with Gershwin tunes as they whiled away afternoons and early evenings.” It sounded like a stoner's dream date to me.

I'd seen Levant in "An American in Paris" (pictured), where he plays Gene Kelly's insouciant sidekick, uttering the unforgettable line, "It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."

High Maintenance "Backflash" Episode Illuminates the Life of a Lighter

If you're ever wondered what happened to the many lighters you've lost sharing a joint or a pipe with your fellow pot smokers, the current episode of the HBO series "High Maintenance" answers the question in sweet and thought-provoking fashion.

The "Backflash" episode follows a lighter through the many hands that hold it, starting with a couple of teenage girls who skip out of a religious campfire circle where a goofy hippie plays Joan Osborne's "What If God Was One of Us." They share a pipe wearing T-shirts that say, "His Universal Flame....Let Your Light Shine (1999)"

One girl ends up with the lighter, to which she affixes a picture of the sheroic vampire slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar in shimmering silvery garb, making her look like a fire goddess. The lighter then travels to the girl's waitress sister, a gay couple she waits on, a young black boy and his friends, and others, taking breaks sitting in boxes or drawers, getting stripped of its color (until it's an "unlucky white") and finally painted in a psychedelic pattern. As the series so often does, "Backflash" demonstrates how pot smoking brings people together in creative, weird and wonderful ways, as they pass the Universal Flame.

Hildegarde von Bingen and Hemp in Herstory

Women's Herstory Month 2020 got off to an amazing start as NPR's "Live From Here" featured a performance of a poem and musical composition Ordo-Virtutum from 12th-century German abbess, authoress and mystic Hildegarde von Bingen:


The segment also featured Sarah Jarosz singing "Wake Up Alone" by Tokin' Woman Amy Winehouse.

In my book (now available at Target!) Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory, Hildegarde is the sole link between the ancient healing goddesses and their cannabis medicine kits, and the rediscovery of hashish by Western adventurers who traveled to the Middle East in the mid-1800s.

Spartacus's Wife: The Woman Behind the Revolt

Jean Simmons with Kirk Douglas in "Spartacus" (1960).

It was sadly fitting that on the Day our Democracy Died we also lost Kirk Douglas, who helped break the Hollywood blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay for the 1960 film "Spartacus," telling the enduring story of the 73BCE Gladiator/slave revolt against the Roman empire.

I rented the movie, and was struck by the depictions of the communal nature of the former slave army: people pulling together, women making candles and weaving, etc. I was also struck by the lack of power among the women in the film: Spartacus's love Varinia (Jean Simmons) is a slave forced into submissive prostitution who ends up back in Roman clutches in the end. Simmons appears nearly naked in a bathing scene.

The herstorical facts are different: Spartacus, who came from Thrace, was married to a priestess from his tribe who inspired and aided in the revolt. According to history professor Barry Strauss writing in The Wall Street Journal:

Neither her name nor the name of their tribe survives. Only one ancient source mentions her existence, but he is Plutarch, who relied on the (now largely missing) contemporary account by Sallust. In his "Life of Crassus," Plutarch writes: It is said that when he [Spartacus] was first brought to Rome to be sold, a serpent was seen coiled about his face as he slept, and his wife, who was of the same tribe as Spartacus, a prophetess, and subject to visitations of the Dionysiac frenzy, declared it the sign of a great and formidable power which would attend him to a fortunate issue. This woman shared in his escape and was then living with him. (Plutarch, Crassus 9.3) 

Plutarch, and Strauss, pin her as worshipping Dionysus, the god of wine and liberating "frenzies"; but long before his cult appears, the snake was a symbol of the goddess religions. Scholars think the wines of ancient times may have contained entheogenic plants as well as alcohol.

2019 Tokey Awards

All winners qualify for a copy of "Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory." Write here with your address to claim yours. 

Tokin' Woman of the Year

At the age of 81, Jane Fonda has been getting arrested weekly to protest a lack of action on climate change, so much so that she has had to enlist her fellow celebs to get arrested in her place so that she doesn't risk missing filming for the new season of her series "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. That's right: Fonda is not only still politically active, she is still working. Take that, people who think potheads are lazy and don't care about anything.

"You don't mind if I turn on, do you?" Fonda asked Rex Reed before puffing pot on New Years Eve, 1969, the day she found out she won a much-deserved NY Film Critics Award for her performance in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? "Hey, it's no secret that I've smoked pot," Fonda wrote in her 2005 autobiography My Life So Far. She's been spotted (or smelled) in recent years taking a toke at Hollywood parties.

Fonda was the main force behind the 1980 film 9 to 5, where she plays an innocent office worker who finds her inner strength with the aid of weed and gal pals Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The film was a breakthrough in more ways than one: the first depiction on film of "an old-fashioned ladies pot party," it also lead to the formation of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union).

Fonda, Nicole Richie and Lily Tomlin share a joint in
a nice intergenerational moment on "Grace & Frankie"

I quibble with Fonda's Netflix character Grace, who denigrates co-star Tomlin's character Frankie for smoking weed while she herself downs alcohol and painkillers (and occasionally smokes pot herself). I liked Jane much better as another Grace, the hippie grandmother she embodied in the 2011 movie Peace, Love & Misunderstanding: her home reeks of pot, she deals a little on the side, and she introduces her grandkids (Elizabeth Olsen and Nat Wolff) to both protesting and the wonders of weed.

I recently listened to an interview Fonda gave at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1975. It was evident how thoughtful, intelligent and committed to both her art and her politics she is. She talked about how the Nixon administration tried to blackball her from the the movie industry due to her political activity, but she prevailed. It's nice to see prominent women now able to stand up for cannabis and causes, and stay in the public eye. And we all owe Jane a debt of gratitude for that.

At the 2019 PaleyFestLA panel with the cast of "Grace & Frankie," cast members remarked at their surprise that so many young people "really respond" to the show. "I think it's all the weed," actor Ethan Embry (Coyote) opined, to great laughter. Fonda was asked how she kept her energy up at her age. She replied that she sleeps nine hours a night, and then pantomimed taking a puff. Calming the applauding crowd down, she said, "It's called a Dosist. It's white, it has 200 hits, you can't smell it, and it works."

For being a true, pot-smoking warrior woman for the people and the planet who walks her walk and doesn't quit, we honor Jane Fonda as 2019's Tokin' Woman of the Year.

Read about our other Tokey winners:

Beauty Queens Support Marijuana Legalization

Reigning Miss USA Cheslie Kryst wowed the crowd at the Miss Universe pageant last night in Atlanta with a costume that gave homage to Lady Liberty, Lady Justice, Rosie the Riveter and Tokin' Woman Maya Angelou.

Kryst is a complex litigation attorney who supports marijuana legalization and has worked pro bono with clients who have served excessive time for low-level drug offenses. According to Insider.com, one such client was Alfred Rivera, who originally received a mandatory life sentence without parole for a low-level federal drug crime. Kryst noted how Rivera was sentenced to more time in prison than Brock Turner, the Stanford student who was convicted of raping a woman but only given 6 months in jail.

"Kryst said the criminalization of marijuana has also created a cycle in which people who have been convicted of low-level drug crimes can't reenter the job market," Insider reported. "I think there are many people who have just been pushed out of society," she said. "Now people won't hire them and so they don't have a job and now they have to do something, and maybe they turn to dealing marijuana because there's nothing else they can do. I just think there are so many other solutions that we have beside throwing people in jail for these low-level drug offenses."

Kryst has become a correspondent for Extra TV since moving to New York to become Miss USA. She made it to the top 10 of the 90-woman competition that was ultimately won by Miss South Africa Zozibini Tunzi.

Meanwhile, Miss Canada Alyssa Boston went all out last night, wearing a Vegas-style marijuana-themed costume in the competition. Boston told Vice,
"I think that's the biggest point, is to have somebody who's not in the industry talk about it and it could really open the eyes of a whole different group of people."

Last year’s Miss Universe winner, Catriona Gray of the Philippines, said she supported medical cannabis legalization. The country’s House of Representatives later passed a bill in favor of legal medical marijuana. In 2015, Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic said she supported legal weed in some circumstances; she was eliminated following that question round.

In 2011, Miss California Alyssa Campanella was given points for her answer in favor of medical marijuana on her way to being crowned Miss USA. She made it to the top 16 competing for Miss Universe.

The Miss Universe pageant was bought by Donald Trump in 1996; he sold it in 2015.

Elsie Sinclair: A Crusading Mother

Elsie Sinclair speaking at the 1971 John Sinclair
Freedom Rally in Michigan.

Poet, musician and activist John Sinclair has been in the news, as one of the first to purchase newly legal marijuana in his home state of Michigan.

Sinclair became a poster child for marijuana law reform when he was given a 10-year sentence for two joints, prompting Yippie! Jerry Rubin to organize an all-star Freedom Rally held on December 10, 1971 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

On the bill were Michigan natives Stevie Wonder, Bob Seeger, and Commander Cody (who did a soulful "Down to Seeds and Stems Again Blues"). Also appearing were VIP Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Steve Miller, Chicago Eight members David Dellinger, Renne Davis and Bobby Seale (ungagged), and, in his first American performance since the break up of the Beatles, John Lennon with Yoko Ono, who performed his composition "The Ballad of John Sinclair." Two days later, an appellate court freed Sinclair on bail.

Speaking at the rally in support of her son was Sinclair's 59-year-old mother Elsie Sinclair. She said, to cheers from the crowd, "I can tell you young people: you can teach more to your parents than your parents have ever taught you. I’m speaking from experience. I just read John's book Politics and Music and I didn’t dig the music but I dug the book. I’m beginning to dig the music."

"La Cucaracha": The Female Mexican Soldier

Most of us know the tune as one sung by Pancho Villa's soldiers:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
ya no puede caminar
por que no tiene, porque le faltan 
marijuana que fumar

The cockroach, the cockroach
Cannot walk anymore
Because she hasn’t, because she lacks
marijuana to smoke

See 13-year-old Judy Garland singing about "La Cucaracha" and marijuana in 1935 (above). 

Poster for the 1959 film based on the song

La cucaracha was a nickname for a female Mexican soldier, and legend has it that "marijuana" too was named for such a woman, since they were also called juanas.

According to the book Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History by Elizabeth Salas, soldiering has been a "traditional life experience for innumerable women in Mexico" since pre-Columbia times. "Women warriors, camp followers, coronelas, soldaderas, and Adelitas are just some of the names given to these women,” she writes. A footnote adds that Juanas and cucarachas were other names applied to women in the Mexican military, along with mociuaquetzque (valiant women), viejas (old ladies) and galletas (cookies).

Salas says "La cucaracha" is a corrido (Mexican folk song) that has its roots in nineteenth century Spain. Later, soldiers in Porfirio Diaz's army sang about "La cucaracha" to mock a soldadera that wanted money to go to the bullfights. "With the Villistas, 'La cucaracha' wanted money for alcohol and marijuana," writes Salas. "She was often so drunk or stoned that she could not walk straight."

Top 10 Rock & Reggae Marijuana Songs By Women

1. White Rabbit - Grace Slick
The bolero-inspired 60's anthem penned by Grace Slick brings back Alice in Wonderland with the lyric, "Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call." The Great Society first recorded it with Grace's powerful vocals in November 1965, a year before the Jefferson Airplane version (also with Grace) hit the charts big time.

2.  Mary Jane - Janis Joplin
Slick's fellow rock goddess Janis Joplin wrote the blues-inspired "Mary Jane" and sang it in the style of her idol Bessie Smith. The song laments the high cost of pot: "When I bring home my hard earned pay / I spend my money all on Mary Jane." Sadly for Janis, heroin and Jack Daniels were cheaper.

3. Stoned Soul Picnic - Laura Nyro
Prolific songwriter and pot-smoker Laura Nyro penned this classic in 1968. It became a hit for The 5th Dimension and was also recorded by Barbra Streisand. "Let's not rush it, we'll take it slow."

4. One Draw - Rita Marley
Rita Marley's 1981 song remains avant garde even today: it features schoolchildren telling their teacher about smoking ganga on summer vacation. "Hey Rastaman, hey what you say / Give me some of your sensi."

5. If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow 
This title track from Crow's 1996 album won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the 1997 Grammy Awards. “OK, I still get stoned / I’m not the kind of girl you take home.” Crow recently said at a concert that vinyl and weed would save the recording industry.

6. Legalise Me - Chrissie Hynde
This 1999 anthem by the righteous Ms. Hynde rocks out with Jeff Beck on guitar. "I'm just a farmer and I grow marijuana."

7. Stoned - Macy Gray 
In her uniquely wonderful voice, Gray produced a video where she smokes and watches Very Important Potheads on TV for this trippy 2014 track.

8. Right Hand Man - Joan Osborne 
From Osborne's 1995 debut album  Relish, which won multiple Grammy nominations, including best song for "One of Us" (parodied by Bob Rivers as, "What if God Smoked Cannabis.") "The sinsemilla salesman  / The cops on the block / They know what I been doin' / They see the way I walk."

9. Flava - Megan Trainor / Tenelle - Flava 
Written by Megan "All About The Bass" Trainor and recorded in 2013 by Samoan/American singer-songwriter Tenelle, "Flava" celebrates marijuana's various strains. "I can take a taste of the Sour D / but you wake me up from that Blue Dream..."

10. Faded by Design - Melissa Etheridge
"The legalization of plant medicine is ushering in a whole new era of understanding. 'Faded by Design' is a song celebrating that change," Etheridge told Rolling Stone.  "Don't call the doctor / the cure is in my mind."


HONORABLE MENTIONS

Stay High - Brittany Howard
Howard says the song is mostly about getting together with people you love, even though she wrote it after getting a marijuana delivery, her first time smoking "that good stuff," at her greenhouse studio in Topanga Canyon. She's fine with folks interpreting it as smoking the herb, but says, "If the only way you're staying high is by smoking weed, maybe reassess your life." 

Weed & Whiskey - Raelyn Nelson
A fun rockin' country tune from Willie's granddaughter. 

New America - Halsey
"We are the New Americana / high on legal marijuana." The video is about witch burning, which shows Halsey gets it.

Sinsemilla - Joss Stone
Sinsemilla / Sending me love

Higher - Hirie 
"White smoke fills the air / you know I love the way you take me there."

High By the Beach - Lana Del Rey
This music video has 108 million YouTube views.

Rihanna - James Joint
"I'd rather be smoking weed / whenever we breathe."

I Love You More - Sarah Silverman 
"I love you more than my after-show monster bong hit."

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome - Madeline Peroux
Cover of a Bob Dylan song I always thought was about pot. And don't get me started on those Rainy Day women.

What's Up - 4 Non Blondes (1991)
"And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high." This video, with dreadlocked lead singer Linda Perry, comes in at 774 million views.

Pass That Dutch - Missy Elliott (2003)
"Come on, pass the dutch, baby! / Shake-shake shake ya stuff, ladies!"

Addicted - Amy Winehouse (2006)
"When you smoke all my weed man / You gots to call the green man."

Why'd Ya Do  - Marianne Faithfull (1979)

"Why'd ya do it, she said, why'd you let that trash 

 Get a hold of your cock, get stoned on my hash?"

Dooo It - Miley Cyrus (2015)
"Feel like I am part of the universe / And it's part of me."

Lady Gaga - A-Yo (2016)
I don't really get it, but it has 22 million YouTube views.

Smoke the Weed - Sister Carol (2017)
From her weed-inspired CD, The Healing Cure.

Ooh LaLaLA - Hempress Sativa
The Real Thing

Dance Real Close - Jessie Payo (2019)
I first saw Payo perform this hauntingly beautiful tune as a busker in the 2019 movie The Last Laugh, in which Andie McDowell turns Chevy Chase onto pot, and shrooms. "Nobody's perfect / I know that I'm high as a kite."

Also see: Top 10 Marijuana Jazz Songs by Women 

Top 10 Marijuana Jazz Tunes by Women

 

 1. Gimmie a Reefer

Seminal blues singer Besse Smith was "a living symbol of personal freedom" and "smoked 'reefers' throughout her career." (Buzzy Jackson, A Bad Woman Feeling Good.) In 1933 she recorded the Kid Wilson song "Gimme a Pigfoot" and in the last verse she belts out, "Gimme a Reefer," as only Bessie could.

2. Sweet Marihuana
Written by Arthur Johnston and Sam Conslow, this classic was originally sung by Gertrude Michael in the 1934 movie "Murder at the Vanities" in an elaborate dance number. Later, the lyric was often changed to "Sweet Lotus Blossom," (Julia Lee recorded it both ways in the 40s). The original lyric was brought back in the 1970s by Bette Midler, accompanied by her music director Barry Manilow on piano. She recorded it on her "Songs for a New Depression" album and performed it during her 1999 Divine Miss Millenium tour.

3. When I Get Low, I Get High
Written by vaudevillian actress and songwriter Marion Sunshine, this song was recorded in 1936 by Ella Fitzgerald, whose musical phrasing on the song's title alone is a knockout (as is all of Ella's singing). A music video cover of the song by The Speakeasy Three wearing shimmering green gowns has 15 million YouTube views.

4. Why Don't You Do Right?
Originally recorded as "Weed Smoker's Dream" in 1936 by the Harlem Hamfats, the original lyrics are about a man enjoining his girlfriend to sell weed. It was recorded by the sultry soprano Lil Green in 1941, and brought success to Peggy Lee when she sang it in the 1943 film "Stage Door Canteen," in an arrangement by Very Important Pothead Benny Goodman. The song was sung by Amy Irving as Jessica Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," and Lana Del Rey covered it during her Endless Summer Tour.

5. Roll 'em
Jazz composer and Tokin' Woman Mary Lou Williams wrote this tune for Goodman's 1937 album "When Buddha Smiles." Williams "found marijuana calming, useful for reflecting and relaxing at times" and liked to smoke backstage with Billie Holiday.

6. If You're a Viper
This Stuff Smith song made famous by Fats Waller in 1943 was recorded by blues singer Rosetta Howard with the Hamfats in 1937. A "viper" was slang for a marijuana smoker, as chronicled by VIP Mezz Mezzrow in Really the Blues.

7. Jack I'm Mellow
Blues singer and actress Trixie Smith recorded this Gundy & House tune in 1938 with Sidney Bechet on soprano sax. Smith also recorded under the name Trixie Smith and her Down Home Syncopators, which was often Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra (where Louis Armstrong got turned on). In 2017, "Jack I'm Mellow" became the theme song for the comedy series Disjointed with Kathy Bates.

8. Knock Myself Out
In 1937, the hammer came down on gage, and this tune from 1941, recorded by Lil Green, takes a more moralistic tone than earlier, more celebratory recordings. After Peggy Lee's more uptempo, sweetened up version of "Do Right" eclipsed her own, Green tried to re-invent herself in a Billie Holiday style. She was signed by Atlantic Records in 1951 but died of pneumonia, at the (estimated) age of 35, three years later.

9. Twisted
British jazz singer Annie Ross penned the lyrics to "Twisted" in the bohemian year of 1952, and liked blowing gage with Sarah Vaughan. Ross dated Lenny Bruce and is shown here singing her song on Hugh Hefner's swingin' TV show. Joni Mitchell put the song on her "Court and Spark" album, complete with a cameo from Cheech & Chong).

10. Tea for Two
Jazz singer and convicted marijuana smoker Anita O'Day caused a sensation when she scatted her way through this classic at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, dressed like she was going to a tea party. As "tea" was slang for marijuana, one wonders what kind she was drinking. "You can swing, you'd better come with us," Goodman's drummer Gene Krupa told her when he asked her to join his band. He was so right.

Also see: Top 10 Rock & Reggae Marijuana Songs By Women

Country Music and Cannabis

"Met a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke."  -Wagon Wheel, the opening song for the series. 

Rosanne Cash: She Remembers Everything

Episode 6 of Ken Burns's remarkable Country Music series for PBS connects country music with the turbulent 60s. The soldiers who fought the Vietnam War largely came from the rural, working-class demographic and the soldiers were serenaded by political songs from Loretta Lynn and other country stars.

Kris Kristofferson is presented as the awesome poet that he is, elevating country lyrics to a whole new level. A Rhodes Scholar and fan of William Blake (he of the "Doors of Perception"), Kristofferson strayed from his Army career path after seeing Johnny Cash perform.

After breaking through with Tokin' Woman Janis Joplin's version of his song "Me and Bobby McGee," Kristofferson convinced Johnny Cash to record his song, "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Rosanne Cash tells the story of how her father sang the song's lyric as written on TV (in defiance of the censors): 

On a Sunday Morning Sidewalk 
I'm wishin' Lord that I was stoned....

As to Merle Haggard's famous song, "Oakie from Muskogee," which begins:

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD....

The story is told about how the song was written as a joke, but to Haggard's surprise it got adopted as an anthem by rural, anti-marijuana folks. Ray Benson from the pot-loving band Asleep at the Wheel is interviewed saying how shocked he was when the song came out, because, "Everybody in country music knew that Merle smoked marijuana."

Kristofferson joined Haggard to sing his own tongue-in-cheek lyrics to the song at the 2011 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco:

We don't shoot that deadly marijuana  
We get drunk like God wants us to do...

Also presented in the series is the amusing anecdote that when Willie Nelson's farmhouse burned down outside Nashville in 1969, all he saved was his guitar Trigger and a guitar case full of marijuana. This fact was confirmed by the Twitter feed from Nelson's cannabis brand Willie's Reserve: 

One guitar and a pound of weed! @WillieNelson #1969 https://t.co/8X1d99DTmI

— Willie's Reserve (@WilliesReserve) October 29, 2019

Nelson's broadening of the country music, working from his home state of Texas, is presented: his recording of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" is included, and he is credited with starting the long-running show "Austin City Limits." 

Nelson's collaboration with Haggard on The Outlaws record, whereby artists took control of their recording destiny outside the traditional Nashville system, is also covered. That album included Shel Silversten's song "Put Another Log on the Fire." Silverstein also penned Cash's #1 hit "A Boy Named Sue" and his other compositions included, "The Great Smoke-Off" and "The Perfect High." 

Guy Clark is shown in the episode singing his song L.A. Freeway:

If I can just get off of that L.A. Freeway
Without gettin' killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought...

Kacey Musgraves tweeted in 2016, after Clark died,




Even though many of the musicians interviewed were from Texas and cited Mexican music as an influence, few Latinx artists were included. One was Freddy Fender, whose career stalled after he was arrested for pot. A singer/songwriter not included in the series is Hoyt Axton, who was also arrested for pot and wrote songs about it.

Graham Parsons is shown in his pot-leaf-adorned Nudie Cohn suit, and the contributions made by his singing partner Emmylou Harris, who he converted from folk to country music, are stunning: Among them, she recorded an album in the Ryman Auditorium, which had been long closed but soon re-opened as the home of the Grand Ole Opry. These days, singer Jenny Lewis appears in a costume inspired by Parsons's suit.

Dolly Parton is given her due in the series. Finally releasing herself from her seven-year stint as Porter Wagner's "girl singer" by writing "I Will Always Love You" for him (and allowing him to produce the recording), Parton went on to a huge crossover career that included acting smoking pot in the movie 9-5 with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. (I rather doubt Parton smokes it outside of the movies though; when she sang lead on Neil Young's "After Gold Rush" in trio with Emmylou and Linda Ronstadt, she changed the lyric "I felt like getting high" to "I felt like I could cry.")

Carlene Carter is also interviewed, revealing that her grandmother Maybelle wanted to sing "One Toke Over the Line," thinking it was a spiritual. She wasn't the only one: Lawrence Welk aired a version of the song, and called it "a modern spiritual." (Too bad then-VP Spiro Agnew went on a rampage against it, essentially killing its radio airplay and halting the success of hard-working midwest band Brewer & Shipley.) Comedic country musician Jim Stafford did a parody of the Carter Family's song "Wildwood Flower" called "Wildwood Weed" in 1974.

These days, country music's women are starting to feel freer to use marijuana, and sing about it. Not falling far from the tree, Willie's musician daughter Paula Nelson was arrested for pot herself on 4/20/2014. Margo Price, who's been hailed as country's new star, is co-branding a strain of cannabis with Willie's Reserve and female farmer Moon Made Farms.

Some artists have their own clothing line or brand of shoes but all I ever wanted to sell was weed. Thanks to Willie Nelson & @WilliesReserve for makin my dreams come true. ✨🌈😭 “All American Made” Pineapple Wonder Sativa will be around all parts of California soon! pic.twitter.com/gZjq7Zfaot

— Margo Price (@MissMargoPrice) December 17, 2018

Kacey Musgraves says one of the first songs she wrote after she moved to Nashville was "Burn One With John Prine." She broke through to radio airplay with her song, co-written with Brandy Clark, "Follow Your Arrow":

Make lots of noise
Kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls If that’s something you’re into
When the straight and narrow
Gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint or don't (I would)
Just follow your arrow wherever it points. 

I also really like Clark's "Get High," in which she sings about a housewife who, "when the to-dos have all been done," sits down at the kitchen table and "rolls herself a fat one."

You know life will let you down
Love will leave you lonely
Sometimes to only way to get by
Is to get high 

But the song that really (country) rocks me out is from Ashley Monroe:

 

 And I love this one from Willie's granddaughter Raelyn Nelson:

The Highwomen, an all-female supergroup formed by Amanda Shires with Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby, made their debut at Loretta Lynn's 87th birthday celebration in Nashville, singing "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels." Written as an answer to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life," the song was originally recorded by Kitty Wells in 1952, and became the first song by a solo female artist to hit No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette covered the song for their 1993 album Honky-Tonk Angels; Wells makes a guest appearance on that version of the track. Source. 

No word on whether or not the Highwomen get high; their name is in homage to The Highwaymen: Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The lyrics to their song "Highwomen," a rewrite of the Jimmy Webb song "Highwayman," say: 

I was a healer
I was gifted as a girl
I laid hands upon the world
Someone saw me sleeping naked in the noon sun
I heard "witchcraft" in the whispers and I knew my time had come
The bastards hung me at the Salem gallows hill
But I am living still

Kate Chopin and An Egyptian Cigarette

Widowed with six children at age 32, Kate Chopin began a career as a writer in the 1890s, writing popular short stories that appeared in Vogue and The Atlantic Monthly, among others.

In 1897, Chopin wrote a story titled, "An Egyptian Cigarette," which was first published in Vogue on April 19, 1902.

The story begins:

So Long, Peter. Ride Easy.

Peter Fonda, who taught Jack Nicholson how to smoke pot (and smoked it himself) onscreen in Easy Rider, has passed away at the age of 79.

Fonda shared a screenwriting Oscar with Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern for the breakthrough 1969 film, which is listed on the American Film Institute’s ranking of the top 100 American films, and included in the US National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Rip Torn and His Hashish Connection

This week we lost Rip Torn, the versatile actor who during his career played three roles in "Sweet Bird of Youth," including (pictured) the role of Chance, the young gigiolo who tries to blackmail aging actress Alexandra del Lago over her hashish habit in one of the earliest mentions of marijuana on film. 

I found online this screen test of Torn, who portrayed the evil Tom Finley Jr. in the 1962 movie, playing Chance against Geraldine Page, the lead actress to whom Torn was married.

Tennessee Williams wrote the play for actress Tallulah Bankhead, and she performed readings of it before its production. Bankhead was the subject of scandal in 1951 when her former personal secretary claimed his job included procuring pot and rolling joints for her.