May 13: Wizard of Oz

Christmas Day of 1984 and my family was celebrating at the Chaputs' house, which was about three blocks away. We enjoyed Christmas dinner and we did a small gift exchange and then the kids were banished to the basement so the parents could have some adult time.

On TV was The Wizard of Oz.

I was 11 and I was trying to convince myself that Wizard of Oz and its heroine, Dorothy Gale, was stuff for babies or girls. Star Wars was my thing, man, can you dig it?

But my attitude did not last. Somehow, I got drawn into Dorothy's plight. When our dad announced that it was time to go home, we elected to run instead of drive. We thought we'd make it home faster than our parents would in their minivan, and it turned out we were right. We left as soon as the next commercial break started and I believe we arrived home just as Dorothy was meeting the cowardly lion. I remember my heart pounding, my head aching from the Christmas cold I'd just breathed in, my winter jacket hot on me and my clothes itching with sweat. But I sat there with my younger sister and we watched that whole freakin movie and I knew that it wasn't cool for an 11-year-old to like it but, dang it all to heck, I darn well loved the heck out of that movie. (It was bloody easy to love the heck out of Judy Garland, who was beautiful in an innocent sort of way.)

Now, 30 years later, I still rank Judy Garland as one of my favourite onscreen performances by an actress (I am sexist but not racist in that I don't have a list of favourite performances by black actresses. So there.)

I'm going to have fun and just put up a bunch of pictures of my favouirte onscreen performances done by dames.

































Umm... yeah!!!

-

A note to teenaged girls regarding photo 6: The woman in that picture is Rita Hayworth and she is doing a dance number in a movie called Gilda. It is the sexiest scene in the history of motion pictures. Please note that Ms. Hayworth is dressed modestly. The only article of clothing she removes is one elbow-length glove. Know what her biggest weapon is? It's mystery!

Keep that in mind next time some pervert douchebag in Nicaragua wants you to show him your boobs on the webcam. 

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