Fans,

I don't know whether it is appropriate to quote this here, but I know the Grayson fans will appreciate it.  It is a review of RJ Jamison's book by one of the Amazon Top 100 Reviewers, Kevin Killian, and was posted to Amazon in January of this year.  Killian's review reads in part:

I didn't like NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and as for DARK SHADOWS, I haven't seen many episodes, only the two films. I went into this book not knowing much about Grayson Hall except that all of my friends love her. As the story continued, I realized it was one I had read about already, to other actresses and women who grew up in a certain time. In fact, a lot of what happened to Grayson Hall (or Shirley Grossman) already had happened to Jacqueline Susann, the same sorts of trials and sorrows, especially in a theatrical world in which a certain kind of beauty was celebrated and those who lacked it had to use other sorts of skills to get ahead.

R. J. Jamison's research is pretty amazing, even though some of the gaps remain startling. Years go by without Jamison being able to account for what Grayson Hall was doing. But at a certain point in the late 1950s, we see all the disparate parts of her character come together and a star is born, sort of; she was a late bloomer and paid the price late bloomers do, all of a sudden producers look at you and you're playing Madwoman of Chaillot roles. It came to me that I had seen Grayson Hall on stage in the early 1970s, when I was just a boy, and I attended the legendary premiers of Genet's play THE SCREENS in an experimental production at the Chelsea Theater Center at the BAM. It was a scary show, and I didn't understand a word of it, and it seemed there were more people up on the stage than there were in the audience, but Grayson Hall made an impression on me; she frightened me with her deadbeat madness and her cigarette voice, like a man in drag. She was not on the side of the revolution--or was she? A committed actress, she didn't seek identification or sympathy from her audiences. Jamison's biography makes me want to seek out more of her work, even the SATAN IN HIGH HEELS Hall denied she'd ever made. <snip>

I'm envious of Killian's having seen her in that play!  This is the one where she spent much of the time on stage wearing bared fake breasts made of styrofoam into which knitting needles had been inserted.  Her makeup and wig for the role came out of some bizarre acid-laced space that takes up where kabuki leaves off...

G.

I heard a shockingly loud noise just a few moments ago and felt the Earth quaking beneath my feet--came over here and realized it was the sound of women and men all over America hitting the ground with a volcanic THUD as their senses left them from the onslaught of sheer, manly, unbridled, unexcelled, unexampled hardcore seven-oils-and-seasonings STUDLINESS that IS Quentin Collins in today's Photo.  Mercy Miss Percy!

This is the kind of thing that, in days of old, used to have "Weredoggie" writing long, passionate screeds about "chew-toys" and loud, forceful baying at the moon--and no wonder.

I am fanning myself as best I am able in the suddenly TORRID atmosphere in here--it's HOT! and so is he.

G.

The expression on her face!  Priceless indeed.

Custards, eh?  NOT tapioca.  That would be somebody else's bailiwick.

G.

Three cheers for tapioca!  *imagines debate on whether tapioca is best creamy and slightly runny, or thick and chunky; decides not to go there*

cackling provocatively,

G.  (with extra huzzahs once more for a most Mysterious Day!)

Hooray and Happy Day to El Misterioso Fabuloso!

May you have all that your heart desires on your special day and throughout the coming year... oh, and of course, an endless supply of tapioca pudding! 

cheers,

G.

I agree re Tony Peterson--another lost opportunity. 

I wish I could recall when we last catch sight of him, but I don't.   I presume that Jerry Lacy, as was the case with so many actors on the series, worked without a contract.

G.

I saw an article in the local paper, The Baltimore Sun, stating that it was going off the air.  I think there was an item about the cancellation in those typewriter-printed looking yellow pages that used to be at the beginning and end of TV Guide--the "New York Report" and the "Hollywood Report"--DS news would have been in the New York pages, of course.

I would try to describe how the news made me feel, but it would all sound absurdly melodramatic.  I do remember turning on the following Monday half hoping that it would show up as usual, only to have PASSWORD thrown in my face--a show I had actually enjoyed.  Until that moment.

G.