Thanks very much for your support, Joe. If anyone is interested, as Mongo, Joe has also posted a great spotlight on one of the best supporting actresses in the film, Eileen Heckart, which can be seen in his regular “In the Spotlight” thread at the Message Board for TCM, which he updates daily here.

Hi Medusa,
I love any Adah Isaacs Menken stories and think that she deserves more attention. What a great character. Too bad that Sophia Loren never seemed comfortable enough in English speaking movies to tackle a full length factual bio of the actress. Loren certainly had the appealingly grand style for it.

I agree that there are many historical figures from the 19th century who deserve to be featured on the screen. During the recent run for president by Sen. Clinton, every time I heard some talking head say that “Hillary was making history for women”, I thought of Victoria Woodhull (1837-1927). I kept wondering why her life hadn’t been adapted to the screen. She was, among other things, the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street and the first woman to mount a serious campaign for the presidency of the United States…in 1872! Of course, those pesky details such as her background as a con artist, a spiritualist, and an advocate of Free Love, among other things, also colored the way history saw her. On top of all that, she didn’t end in the gutter as a melodrama would have it, but in a vast estate in England as the respectable wife of a British banker!

Of course, it would’ve given the lads in the Production Code offices during the studio era apoplexy to see a screenplay that was written about her, though now that I think of it, someone like Preston Sturges might have been able to pull it off. I did hear once that Nicole Kidman was interested in the idea of telling her story, but, to be honest, I don’t think she could convey the audacious warmth, humor and vague air of mystery that Woodhull seems to have exhibited in her long life.