OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Ravishing Rhonda Fleming!

Greetings, music-loving sloots, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with a flame-haired Hollywood beauty who acted, sang and danced up a storm, and though she was known as "The Queen of Technicolor" given her eye-popping beauty and luxurious red locks in a series of popular Westerns, today she's remembered most for her roles in B&W film-noir thrillers. I know you'll be excited to hear her sing, and you can, tonight only, at the Manor's exclusive "Dry Docking!" after-hours lounge and salad bar. Dress to impress, because our singing lass always knows what to wear, or not. Can you guess who it is?

If you guessed Rhonda Fleming, you're right! Collect your gift in the alleyway behind the north wing of the Manor (and bring lube). Anyhoo, our Rhonda was born Mary Louis in 1923 in Hollywood and trained in light opera while only a wee one, then entered - and won - several singing contests. It's no big surprise that she was signed by a studio while still a teenager, and from there, she starred in several popular movies, some of which featured her singing, such as "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," where she had a duet, "Once And For Always," with Bing Crosby. When she wasn't in movies, she was starring in popular B'way musicals, like "Kismet."

But for the most part, audiences and filmmakers enjoyed her the most in rough-and-tumble Westerns, like "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," where she starred alongside Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Fascinatingly, if you ask modern movie lovers what they know of Rhonda Fleming, they won't talk about her Westerns, or at least not right away, or even her singing, but her later career in a string of deeply cynical film-noir thrillers, the most prominent being her role as a gorgeous, yet scheming, secretary in "Out Of The Past." If you haven't seen it, treat yourself immediately. She's fantastic and so is the movie. 

Her voice remains, as well. You can't see her dazzling green eyes or her wilding of red hair when she sings, but you can definitely feel her. Give a listen to her gorgeous, sly take on "Let's Get Lost," which she performed in 1977 just after turning 54. She nearly reached 100, passing on at the grand old age of 97 in 2020. 

She only recorded one LP, titled simply, "Rhonda," which featured her inimitable versions of "Love Me or Leave Me" and "I've Got You Under My Skin," all of which are included in this terrif round up of her tunes right here: 

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Screen Archives/Getty Images; Everrett Collection