Peckerwood Manor

She was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke, daughter of Otto Ludwig Wilhelm Langhanke (sounds like she was as German-American, as I am) in 1906. Her childhood was not happy; her parents figured out very early that she could be a money-maker for them, so they pushed her into acting and basically kept her prisoner while she was funding their lavish lifestyle. Yet all she ever wanted was to be was a classical pianist. She practiced daily and she was very talented. In 1926 she was named one of the WAMPAS (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) baby stars. She was in good company. Among her fellow awardees were Fay Wray (Mrs. King Kong), Dolores Del Rio, Janet Gaynor and some little nobody named Lucille LeSueur, who'd just been given a new name by MGM, Joan Crawford. Mary was professional and popular with filmgoers, well on her way to a very successful career.  Young Mary Astor (via Getty Images) In fact, when she was earning $2,500 a week, her parents graciously gave her an...

It's almost Halloween, the season of slasher movie pajama parties, or if we're to believe Gen Z gays, they're strictly gay slasher movie pajama parties. Why? Because "slasher movies are gay AF!" Which, I have to say, I find both adorable - oh, you cute li'l gays - and mildly annoying, if only because slashers have historically been openly misogynist and vaguely Republican with respect to sex, or rather, punishing anyone who was sexual, or had sex, particularly women, with deaths both gruesome and titillating. The prime example of this is arguably the first slasher, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," the slashing death of Janet Leigh in the shower a  tour de force of masterful savagery and peek-a-boo nudity, and, yes, there's a cross-dressing villain played by Anthony Perkins, a closeted gay actor.  Low-budget mavens took Hitch's template and ran with it, creating a series of crude, slapped-together slashers which scant craftsmanship, much less...