Lobotomy Room

Born 94 years ago today: child actress turned volatile, hedonistic screen diva, AIDS activist, perfume brand magnate and definition of “movie star”, #ElizabethTaylor (Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, 27 February 1932 – 23 March 2011). Pic: Taylor in 1956 by Mark Shaw. #lobotomyroom #liztaylor #kween

Born on this day 112 years ago: actress Carroll Borland (25 February 1914 – 3 February 1994) who played Luna Mora, eerily silent vampire daughter of Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) in 1935 Universal horror movie classic Mark of The Vampire. #carrollborland #lunamora #markofthevampire #lobotomyroom #horror

Received a borderline spam email earlier from my pet insurance company notifying me that today (20 February) represents National Love Your Pet Day – an excuse to post a moody glamour shot of my intense and wilful fur princess, Eartha Kitten (aka That Bad Eartha). #earthakitten #britishbluecat #diva

A Date with Poison Ivy: My Epic Cramps Post I just got back from ten days in Canada on Friday 2 November. There’s not much to do in rural Quebec besides eat and sleep (I was aver...

Read my 1990 interview with Ivy here: tinyurl.com/n3v7bewk #thecramps #poisonivyrorschach #luxinterior #lobotomyroom #garagepunk #addamsfamilyofpunk #voodoobilly #punkabilly #psychobilly #rockabilly #rocknroll #rockabillypsychosis #badgirl #punk #punkrock #punkicon #punkpinup #filthelder #rolemodel

Happy 73rd birthday to #TheCramps’ fierce voodoobilly bad girl-guitarist extraordinaire-inscrutable dominatrix Poison Ivy Rorschach (née Kristy Marlana Wallace, 20 February 1953)! ). Pictured: portrait of Poison Ivy by Renaud Monfourny, 1990. Read my interview with Ivy here: tinyurl.com/n3v7bewk

Happy Pink Halloween! I mean happy #ValentinesDay! Why not extend the swooning romantic vibes until Thurs 19 Feb and join us at Fontaine’s in Dalston when the FREE monthly #LobotomyRoom film club presents Morocco (1930)? Starring #MarleneDietrich and Gary Cooper! Info: tinyurl.com/3k8r8he9 #precode

Happy 65th birthday to scowling, ultra-intense American hardcore punk Renaissance man (and tattooed muscle daddy icon!) #HenryRollins (b. 13 February 1961)! I’d argue Rollins is at his ferocious howl-of-alienation best on Hot Animal Machine (1987). Pic: Rollins photographed by Rick McGinnis, 1988.

Happy 93rd birthday to glorious mid-twentieth century screen goddess, “lavender blonde” and Candy Darling’s favourite actress - Kim Novak (née Marilyn Pauline Novak, 13 February 1933)! I love Novak best in Vertigo (1958), Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968). #kimnovak

Died 65 years ago today: trailblazing Chinese American screen diva of the twenties and thirties, stage and television actress and cabaret star #AnnaMayWong (née Wong Liu Tsong, 3 January 1905 – 10 February 1961. It’s somehow perfect that her Chinese name translates as “Yellow Frosted Willow”).

Released on this day (9 February 1980) by ZE Records: stark, eerie death jazz masterpiece Queen of Siam, the debut solo album by luscious No Wave death kitten #LydiaLunch, described by AllMusic guide as “a putrid classic of style and substance.” Pic: portrait of Lunch by Ebet Roberts, 1980. #nowave

Born 105 years ago today: scandalous golden age Hollywood screen diva and glamour icon Lana Turner (née Julia Jean Turner, 8 February 1921 - 29 June 1995). Pictured: Turner as pagan priestess Samarra in 1955 MGM biblical epic The Prodigal. #lanaturner #lobotomyroom #biblicalepic #exotica #kitsch

Born 95 years ago today: cinema’s quintessential doomed bongo drum-playing 1950s bad boy and personification of teenage angst, #JamesDean (8 February 1931 – 30 September 1955) – one of the most lusciously photogenic actors of all time. Pic: Dean during production of his final film Giant (1956).

Born 99 years ago today: ultimate black-clad, throaty-voiced, morbidly beautiful French beatnik chanteuse, actress, eyeliner role model, proto-goth and Morticia Addams lookalike Juliette Gréco (7 Feb 1927 - 23 Sept 2020). Pic: Gréco at the Bobino music hall in Paris in November 1951. #juliettegreco

Died on this day: statuesque #RussMeyer leading lady (John Waters describes her performance in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! "one of the best villains in screen history”), tassel-twisting burlesque queen and all-round ultra-vixen, the fiercely bodacious #TuraSatana (10 July 1938 - 4 February 2011).

BOTD: His Satanic Majesty, pioneering experimental underground filmmaker (whose work fired the imaginations of the likes of David Lynch, John Waters and Martin Scorsese), author, provocateur, Hollywood sorcerer and occultist #KennethAnger (Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, 3 February 1927 – 11 May 2023).

On this day 70 years ago (2 February 1956), wildly scurrilous scandal rag Whisper ran a lurid cover story exposé accusing television horror movie hostess #Vampira (aka #MailaNurmi) of casting a voodoo hex on #JamesDean and causing his fatal 1955 car crash! Scan via The Drunken Severed Head blog.

Happy birthday to high priestess of punk, the fierce and uncompromising #ExeneCervenka (née Christene Lee Cervenka, 1 February 1956)! The spooky poetess / twisted bride / voodoo dolly / intense frontwoman of definitive Los Angeles punk band X turns 70 today. Portrait of Exene by Jim Jocoy, 1979.

Died on this day: sultry #LizabethScott (29 September 1922 - 31 January 2015). For decades Scott was bedeviled by comparisons to the more famous Lauren Bacall but she’s been reappraised as one of the most haunting and enigmatic of 40s and 50s actresses and an essential figure in film noir. #filmnoir

Update! #ellenvonunwerth has disabled comments on her Instagram page and has locked her Twitter account this weekend! Obscurity beckons for this hack, the very poor man's Helmut Newton wannabe.

Interestingly, von Unworth isn't posting the Melania pics on her Instagram account. Almost as if she doesn't want anyone to know.

OTD: hard-living, tempestuous bad girl of rhythm and blues #EttaJames (née Jamesetta Hawkins, 25 Jan 1938 - 20 Jan 2012). I venerate her outrageous 1960s look of platinum blonde bouffant wigs and thick winged Cleopatra-style liquid eyeliner, when she looked like an escapee from a John Waters movie.

Born 80 years ago today: sensationally beautiful sloe-eyed burlesque dancer turned Russ Meyer glamazon Haji (24 Jan 1946 - 9 Aug 2013). The bodacious Haji graced five of Meyer’s sexploitation masterpieces - most famously, Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) (pictured). #russmeyer #lobotomyroom #haji

BOTD: French actress #JeanneMoreau (23 Jan 1928 – 31 July 2017), a powerful presence in mid-20th century European art cinema. My favourite Moreau performances would include Les Amants (1958), Diary of a Chambermaid (1963), Mademoiselle (1966), The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Querelle (1982). #kween

BOTD 80 years ago: twisted visionary, high potentate of cult cinema and the man Mel Brooks famously called “Jimmy Stewart from Mars”, #DavidLynch (20 January 1946 – 16 January 2025). Pic: “shattered glass portrait” of Lynch by photographer Jean-Christian Bourcart at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

The temperamental and intense Eartha Kitten "helping" me change the sheets on Friday morning. #earthakitten #thatbadeartha #britishbluecat #britishblueshorthaircat #catsoftheinternet #lobotomyroom

BOTD: the most feline of mid-20th century sex kittens, triple threat, sultry bedroom-voiced chanteuse, definitive Catwoman, gay icon and the woman described by Kenneth Tynan as “the vocal soul of every Siamese cat who ever lived” – the perennially fierce Miss #EarthaKitt (17 Jan 1927 – 25 Dec 2008)!

Died one year ago today: twisted visionary, high potentate of cult cinema and the man Mel Brooks famously once labelled “Jimmy Stewart from Mars”, #DavidLynch (20 January 1946 – 16 January 2025). Pic: portrait of Lynch and Isabella Rossellini by Helmut Newton, 1988. #lobotomyroom #cultcinema

Happy 85th birthday to mesmerizing screen diva and – as Bruce La Bruce puts it – the possessor of “one of the great faces of modern cinema” #FayeDunaway (born 14 Jan 1941). The 2024 documentary Faye by Laurent Bouzereau is a must-watch. Pic: the bitter tears of Faye Dunaway by Jerry Schatzberg, 1966

Died 20 years ago today: scene-stealing American character actress #ShelleyWinters (18 Aug 1920 - 14 Jan 2006), who progressed from blowzy sexpot starlet in the 1940s to earth mother of New York’s Actor’s Studio in the 1950s to hagsploitation scream queen in the 70s. Pictured: Winters in 1955.

BOTD: R&B queen Ruth Brown (12 Jan 1928 - 17 Nov 2006). I saw Miss Rhythm perform several times over the years at Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly weekenders. Even in declining health she rocked the house. “The doctors told me I’d never walk again,” she’d declare. “And here I am!” #ruthbrown #lobotomyroom