RIP Polly Bergen

Actress, activist and businesswoman Polly Bergen has died at 84. 

Bergen played an enlightened mother who bakes pot brownies for her cancer-stricken daughter on Desperate Housewives. During Episode 3, Season 4 of Desperate Housewives ("The Game"), Lynette (played by Felicity Huffman) gets seriously stoned on her mom Stella's baked goods. Spongebob Squarepants epiphanies, charades and platitudes follow. The show originally aired on October 14, 2007.

Not quite the square she often played, Bergen experimented with LSD along with Cary Grant and Esther Williams, as an aid to psychotherapy back when it was legal. 

According to film critic Rex Reed, Bergen was a women's rights advocate. “She and Gloria Steinem teamed up to raise money and educate people as to the needs of women,” Reed told the LA Times. “She went many times to the White House and spoke before the Senate and at other other functions. She encouraged people to vote -- that was important to her.” She knocked on doors for Hillary Clinton, and Planned Parenthood was a cause particularly close to her heart. Bergen had three adopted children. 

The brunette beauty is known for her role as a wife terrorized by Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear; she later appeared as Mitchum's wife in the miniseries "War and Remembrance." She was the first woman to play a US President, in 1964's Kisses for My President. When Geena Davis portrayed a woman president in the 2005 TV drama "Commander in Chief," Bergen was cast as her mother.

Bergen suffered from emphysema due to heavy cigarette smoking, which interfered with her singing career. She wrote books about beauty and fashion, and started a cosmetic company that she later sold to Fabergé. 

(I misreported here that Bergen played Johnny Depp's grandmother in Cry Baby. Instead, she played the square grandmother who gets corrupted by the "evil influences" of her town. Apologies to Susan Tyrrell, who played Ramona Ricketts so well.)

Myrna Loy and Marijuana

Loy (with back to camera) talks to a pothead with Columbo looking on. 

The 1972 season premiere of the popular TV show Columbo has an interesting exchange about marijuana, featuring movie queen Myrna Loy.

Loy plays a society lady who heads the local symphony board, interviewing a horn player who's been implicated in a murder. Asked about his shady associations, he says of his friends, "Well some of them have been busted for grass...I smoke grass sometimes, just like you drink gin. Didn't you ever have a drink of gin during prohibition when gin was illegal?" Her only response was, "Let's not get smart about how old I am."

Loy's earlier, exotic look in the pre-code days.

Born Myrna Adele Williams in Helena, Montana in 1905, Loy was 28 when alcohol prohibition ended in 1933. She began her career as a dancer during the pre-production code silent film days when she played exotic femme fatales. According to Wikipedia, she was an extra in 1925's Pretty Ladies, in which she and fellow newcomer Joan Crawford entered hanging from a chandelier. In 1929, she played Princess Yasmani, who heads a band of muslim rebels in The Black Watch, and a dancer named Azuri in The Desert Song, which was scrubbed of its sexual innuendoes and homosexual themes before it was re-released later.

Loy is most known for playing the urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies of the '40s, opposite William Powell as a hard-drinking, smooth-talking detective. In the 1932 film Jewel Robbery, Powell plays a thief who sends his marks into giggly submission by offering them his "herbal" cigarettes. "Now inhale deeply," he says to one victim. To another he says, "Two puffs and you'll be hearing soft music... the world will begin to revolve pleasantly."

Loy wasn't necessarily a pothead, but as demonstrated by her willingness to discuss grass (wearing bright green) in the Columbo episode, she was a human rights advocate. She was a personal friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, and stood up against the HUAC Hollywood witch hunt. In later life, she assumed an influential role as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. In 1948 she became a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so.

Columbo, which had a 13-season run, was conceived and written by Richard Levinson and William Link. In 1970, Levinson and Link penned the teleplay for the TV movie "My Sweet Charlie," starring Patty Duke as a bigoted, unwed pregnant teenager who encounters Charlie Roberts, a militant African American attorney falsely accused of murder, during a demonstration in rural Texas. The film was made on location in Port Bolivar, Texas.

According to Duke's autobiography, her friendship with Al Freeman Jr., who played Roberts, led to rumors of an affair. Marijuana was planted in Duke's Galveston hotel room by locals, though it was quickly determined not to belong to Duke. Texas governor John Connally intervened with local authorities to stop harassment of the production company and Duke (Source: Wikipedia). Freeman also appeared in Finian's Rainbow which Petula Clark said was fueled by "flower power." 

“Code of the West,” a documentary on the Montana medical marijuana debate that took center stage in the 2011 legislative session, premiered at the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, which sponsors live performances and alternative films for under-served audiences.

RIP Joan Rivers, Forever Outrageous

UPDATE 10/15: Rivers is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Joan Rivers, a breakthrough artist who was the first comedienne to perform at Carnegie Hall, has died at age 81.

As well as her stand-up career, which continued well past retirement age, Rivers was a prolific writer. She authored the films The Girl Most Likely To... and Rabbit Test, which she directed. She also wrote 12 books, starting with Having a Baby Can Be A Scream and the best-selling The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz. She appeared on the Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote her final book, Diary of a Mad Diva, on August 4.

"My heart is torn in half. She wasn't done," tweeted Sarah Silverman, who just showed off her vape pen before picking up a writing Emmy for her new HBO special. Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel traded insults in Joan's honor on a guest appearance where Silverman's "clutch cam" moment at the Emmys was reprised.

As self-deprecating as Phyllis Diller before her, Rivers was a favorite of Johnny Carson while telling jokes like, "At 30, a woman is an 'old maid'; at 90, a man is still 'a catch.'" But when Rivers accepted an offer for her own talk show on the Fox network, produced by her husband Edgar, Johnny never spoke to her again. Edgar committed suicide after Joan's show was cancelled, leaving her to raise their daughter Melissa alone. She did what she could after that, turning her shrewd eye outwards, and was open about the plastic surgeries she endured to stay viewable.

Rivers won an Emmy for her daytime talk show, and was nominated for Drama Desk and Tony awards for her performance in the title role of “Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts,” a 1994 Broadway play based on the life of VIP Lenny Bruce’s mother. Later, she won Celebrity Apprentice, headed the hilarious Fashion Police and did a reality TV show with her daughter Melissa.

It was on her reality show that Rivers smoked pot in 2012.  When TMZ asked her who else she'd smoked with back in the day, she replied, "Oh, Betty White, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby...we had fun."

Rivers and Lily Tomlin were the two females picked to honor Carlin after, a few days before his death, he was awarded the Mark Twain prize for humor. That night, she said of Carlin, "We met in Greenwich Village, but we couldn't pinpoint the date because he was high on acid and I was totally wasted."

“Can we talk?” was Rivers's catch phrase, and she talked up a storm about marijuana on an Access Live appearance (below), where she says she loves marijuana "because it makes you giggly," but that she rarely smoked it because "it makes you eat." But interestingly, a new study says that although females seem more sensitive to marijuana, it's males who most often get the munchees.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: "Life of Crime" with Jennifer Aniston

UPDATE 12/15: See deleted scene from Life of Crime where Aniston's character tries grass for the first time.

Tokin' Woman Jennifer Aniston stars in Life of Crime, the new film by Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty), in which she plays a society wife kidnapped by a couple of pot-smoking Detroit hoods.

Leonard told the LA Times in 2012, "Years ago, a reviewer for the Detroit News said my female characters were like [Mickey] Spillane’s. After that, I paid more attention. I don’t think of them as women. I think of them as a person and go from there. Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she’s the book,' and she becomes a main character."

Jen pulls off what could be a stereotypical role with pluck and heart, aided by 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). Also in the film are SNL's Will Forte, Mark Boone Junior from Sons of Anarchy, rapper Mos Def (aka yaslin bey), and John Hawkes as the crook with a heart.  

I particularly like the scenes where Aniston's character Mickey gives the Peeping Tom Nazi who has her imprisoned what he deserves, and where she has a little fun 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. Nicely, subtly done.

Why Take Marijuana (or Alcohol)? Researchers Want to Know

Maybe I'm just trying to make up for the bikini shot I posted last night (hey, it had pot leaves on it!) but I spent my Friday night wonkily reading results from some interesting research published in 1976, when marijuana was still spelled with an "h" (see above).

Researchers from Stanford University and the Veteran's Administration in Palo Alto put 220-item questionnaires into the mailboxes of an entering class of first-year law students and of medical students and house officers at the University hospital. The questionnaire asked respondents to rate each of 38 possible effects of marijuana or alcohol as a major reason to take it, a minor reason, not a reason, or having no effect. Forms were returned anonymously. The data gathered are based on the 51 respondents who used both marijuana and alcohol with a frequency of greater than once a month for some six-month period of their life. 

Ranked in order of the percentage who cited the effect as a major reason for taking the drug, marijuana’s top effect was “increases enjoyment of sights and sounds,” with 45% of respondents calling that a major reason for using it; this effect didn’t make the cut for alcohol users. The top reason for using alcohol was “increases my feeling of sociability,” which appears ninth in the rankings for marijuana.

Coming in at #2 for alcohol was “relieves anxiety or tension,” something not attributed to marijuana as a reason for use. For marijuana, “enables me to experience a different state of consciousness” was the #2 reason; for alcohol that was #6. “Makes me feel euphoric” earned large enough percentages to rank #3 on both lists.

The research was supported by a National Institute for Mental Health grant and the VA administration. It found that marijuana had several effects like, “enables me to think more creatively,” “enables me to get insight into myself,” and “provides philosophic or religious insights” which weren’t attributed to alcohol. "Marihuana is valued as a drug for experiencing and thinking about things in a new way," the authors wrote. "Since much of psychotherapy is based on helping people to achieve new perspectives and insights, marihuana might be considered as an aid for psychological problem solving and growth." 

While 17% of respondents said alcohol “makes me feel more attractive to others,” only 26% said alcohol “enhances sexual sensation” while 70% said marijuana did (as a major or minor reason). "When performance anxiety leads to male impotence or female frigidity, marihuana might enhance sexual sensation, permitting enough success to break out of the vicious circle of failure leading to anxiety leading to further failure." Take that, Viagra. (No bikini required.)  

SUBJECTIVE BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF MARIHUANA AND ALCOHOL

Walton T. Roth

Jared R. Tinklenberg

Bert S. Kopell

Dept of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Stanford University

And

Veterans Administration Hospital

Palo Alto

Supported by a NIMH grant and the VA administration.

Source:

The Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976

Edited by Sidney Cohen and Richard C. Stillman

Plenum Medical Book Co, NY and London

Beauty in a Bhang-Leaf Bikini

Dutch model and TV personality Sylvie van der Vaart (aka Sylvie Meis) has been spotted in a pot-leaf bikini (left).

Sylvie may have a medical reason to celebrate marijuana. According to Wikipedia, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. She reports she is now cancer free.

The bikini's fabric, with blue pot leaves, looks rather like the pot-leaf tie worn by Robin Williams on a 2012 TV appearance. 

"The world is changing… nicely," remarks cannabis historian Michael Aldrich.

Hempy Summer, everyone.

Stealing Beauty: Liv Tyler, Rachel Weisz, Jeremy Irons and Marijuana

Continuing in my series of B-movies on Netflix that have pot smoking in them, I viewed 1996's Stealing Beauty, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Liv Tyler (right) as Lucy, a 19-year-old American virgin who travels to an artists' colony in Tuscany in search of her father and her future.

Lucy encounters just about every archetypical male, including the gentle, dying writer Alex (Jeremy Irons), who needs the healing energy she and the marijuana she has brought provide.

"Excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to have any more of that exotic brand of cigarette I've been smelling, would you?" is the way Alex introduces himself to Lucy. Broaching the subject of sex as they smoke, he muses, "Nothing is more transporting...except perhaps good grass."

About her mother, Lucy asks, "She helped you fix this place up?" "Well, with a lot of hash breaks," was the response (from Irons's wife Sinead Cusak as Diana, the Earth Mother archetype). Also smoking in the movie is the terrific actress Rachel Weisz (left), as the sophisticate counterpoint to Liv's innocent character Lucy.

I'd rather expected the worst, a kind of Last Tango in Paris meets Lolita. But perhaps because Tyler projects a kind of calm integrity in her roles, the film is elevated to a rare coming-of-age story for a woman with heart and soul. Lucy's final encounter with Alex (involving marijuana) is particularly touching.

Irons, of course, is superb. On the Craig Ferguson show in 2012, he confided that he gets ill when he drinks but smokes marijuana in a manner "rare, you know, Friday nights." Countered Ferguson, "There's one of those every week. It's not that rare."

Discussing his breakthrough role as Charles Ryder opposite the alcoholic Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited, Irons said of marijuana, "it suits me a lot better, and I think does me much less harm."

Ferguson is famously on all the wagons, but he was superb himself in Saving Grace (2000), a film he co-wrote starring Brenda Blethyn as an English widow who grows marijuana to save her home, doubtlessly the inspiration for TV's Weeds.