Scandalous Review: Hysteria

Hysteria (2012)

Directed by: Tanya Wexler

Written by: Jonah Lisa Dyer, Stephen Dyer, Howard Gensler

Running Time: 95 minutes

Cast
Felicity Jones as Emily Dalrymple
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Charlotte Dalrymple
Hugh Dancy as Dr. Mortimer Granville
Rupert Everett as Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe
Jonathan Pryce as Dr. Robert Dalrymple
Ashley Jensen as Fanny
Anna Chancellor as Mrs. Bellamy
Gemma Jones as Lady St. John-Smythe
Malcolm Rennie as Lord St. John-Smythe
Tobias Menzies as Mr. Squyers
Sheridan Smith as Molly the Lolly
Kim Criswell as Mrs. Castellari

What it’s about: The film, set in the Victorian era, is about the invention of the vibrator. The film's title refers to the once common medical diagnosis of female hysteria. Dr. Mortimer Granville gets fired from yet another hospital after he questions the father old-fashioned medical techniques of his superior who doesn‘t believe in the existence of germs. Granville moves in with his friend Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe, a rather eccentric chap who experiments with electricity and is madly in love with the new-fangled invention the telephone. After many fruitless interviews, Granville interviews with Dr. Robert Dalrymple who has built up a rather successful practice treating female hysteria. Darlrymple is desperate to hire another doctor since his practice continues to grow. It seems that ½ the women in London suffer from hysteria. After demonstrating the procedure, which basically involves masturbating the patient to orgasm, Dalrymple offers Granville a job.

Mortimer meets Dalrymple’s two daughters Emily and Charlotte. While Emily is the epitome of Victorian womanhood, demure, sweet, content to play the piano and practice phrenology, her sister Charlotte is a passionate, feisty, outspoken suffragette who works at a settlement house in the East End of London. Dr. Dalrymple insists that Charlotte suffers from hysteria since she expresses her opinions so freely. When Charlotte asks for money to pay for the coal the settlement house desperately needs, her father refuses.

At first Granville is a success, to such an extent that Darlrymple intimates that one day he might not only make Granville a partner but he might leave the practice to him, especially if he marries Emily who Granville has been courting. Unfortunately Granville soon has more patients than he can handle and begins to suffer from hand cramps which begin to affect his performance at work. Charlotte brings a woman from the settlement house late one night to her father’s practice for help with her broken ankle. Mortimer sets the ankle and he and Charlotte spar some more. Charlotte insists that Mortimer could make a real difference treating patients in the East End, rather that treating her father’s wealthy patients. She finds her father’s practice contemptuous. When Mortimer is unable to satisfy a patient, Dalrymple fires him.

At Lord Edmund’s, Mortimer discovers that his electric feather duster gives a great hand massager. It occurs to him that perhaps the massage function could take the place of the human in the treatment of female hysteria. Eureka! The vibrator is born.

My thoughts: Who knew a romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator could be not just funny but also give the audience a bit of a little history lesson about how women were treated in the 19^th century? I would have loved this film just because it features so many of my favorite British actors such as Jonathan Pryce, and Gemma Jones, not to mention the still very handsome Rupert Everett. The film treats a very serious subject, the treatment of female hysteria in the 19^th century, with humor, but it doesn’t miss the chance to point out not just the absurdities of the treatment of female hysteria but also how much damage was done to perfectly normal women.

The film is factual to a certain extent, women were really give manual massages to relieve the systems of hysteria in the 19^th century, some were even committed to asylums and given hysterectomies, and there really was a Mortimer Granville, actually his name was Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville (1833-1900) and while he did come up with a battery powered massager, he never intended it to be used on women. In fact, he was actually appalled that his invention was used for such a purpose. It’s ironic that masturbation in the 19^th century was considered sinful, but yet doctors used it to treat hysteria.

However, in this film Granville is set up as the harbinger of modern medical techniques. Although since he such an advocate for cleanliness to get rid of germs, you would think that he would realize that hysteria was just a catch-all diagnosis, instead of really treating what ailed women in the 19^th century. Even after inventing the vibrator, he still doesn’t realize that all he’s doing is just giving women the sexual satisfaction that they aren’t given at home. It’s up to Charlotte to say out loud what the audience already know, that women do have sexual feelings. Granville grows in the film from a man who while interested in modern medical techniques, is still somewhat trapped by the what was considered the traditional roles for men and women. At first, he has a hard time understanding what drives Charlotte to give up the world of an upper middle class young woman to help those less fortunate.

The film is ably directed by Tanya Wexler, and there is just enough seriousness to counterbalance the humorous scenes in Dr. Dalrymple’s office as well as the hilarious scene where Edmund and Mortimer test out their new invention on the housemaid Molly. All the actors are wonderful, but for me, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performance as Charlotte made the film. First of all her English accent is impeccable, and she manages to make Charlotte’s need to get up on her soapbox at every opportunity, charming not annoying which it could have been with a lesser actress. Her scenes with Hugh Dancy just sparkle, as she constantly leaves him flustered, at the same time opening his eyes to the possibility to women being the equal of men.

I suspect that this film will have more resonance for the women in the audience than the men. And I’m sure there will be people who wish that the story had not been framed in a traditional romantic comedy format. For me, I thought it was like having a really good historical romance novel with serious themes on screen, the type of story that I wish I had written. I do however wish that there had been some mention of the fact that Charlotte eschewed corsets and bustles in her work at the settlement house compared to her sister who wore costumes that often made her look like a rather fetching meringue.  There is a part of me that wishes that instead of Granville, they used a fictional character as the inventor of the battery operated vibrator but one can't win them all.

Verdict:  For a peek behind the velvet curtains of Victorian sexuality, I highly recommend Hysteria. Be sure to stay for the credits or you'll miss some fun bits!

The Queen's Lover

Title: THE QUEEN’S LOVER
Author: Francine du Plessix Gray
Publisher: Penguin
Pub Date: June 14, 2012

　 About the author: Francine du Plessix Gray has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker and is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, including Simone Weil, At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life, Rage and Fire, Lovers and Tyrants, and Soviet Women. She is most recently the author of the memoir Them: A Memoir of Parents. She lives in Connecticut.

What it’s about:   The Queen's Lover begins at a masquerade ball in Paris in 1774, when the dashing Swedish nobleman Count Axel von Fersen first meets the mesmerizing nineteen-year-old Dauphine, Marie Antoinette. This electric encounter launches a lifelong romance that will span the course of the French Revolution.

The affair begins in friendship, however, and Fersen quickly becomes a devoted companion to the entire royal family. As he roams the halls of Versailles and visits the private haven of Le Petit Trianon, Fersen discovers the deepest secrets of the court. But the events of the American Revolution tear Fersen away. Moved by the cause, he joins French troops in the fight for American independence. When he returns, he finds France on the brink of disintegration. After the Revolution of 1789 the royal family is moved from Versailles to the Tuileries. Fersen devises an escape for the family and their young children. The failed attempt leads to a more grueling imprisonment, and the family spends its excruciating final days captive before the King and Queen meet the guillotine.

Grieving his lost love in his native Sweden, Fersen begins to sense the effects of the French Revolution in his homeland. Royalists are now targets, and the sensuous world of his youth is fast vanishing. Fersen is incapable of realizing that centuries of tradition have disappeared, and he pays dearly for his naïveté, losing his life at the hands of a savage mob that views him as a pivotal member of the aristocracy. Scion of Sweden's most esteemed nobility, Fersen came to be seen as an enemy of the country he loved. His fate is symbolic of the violent speed with which the events of the eighteenth century transformed European culture. Expertly researched and deeply imagined, The Queen's Lover is a fresh vision of the French Revolution and the French royal family as told through the love story that was at its center.

My thoughts: Ever since I heard that this novel was being published, I couldn't wait to read it, so when I saw that it was featured on TLC Book Tours, I begged for the chance to review it.  As anyone who reads this blog know, I share a birthday with Marie Antoinette, so I'm a sucker for a novel that is about her or features her as a character.  I can say that I was not disappointed. The Queen's Lover is one of the best historical fiction books that I have read this year.  Told from the viewpoints of Axel von Fersen and his sister  Sophie, the novel offers a unique take of the story of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution.  Of course, von Fersen is not a disinterested observer, due to his deep love not just for Marie Antoinette but for the whole French royal family.

The beauty of this novel is that we not only get to know Marie Antoinette through Axel's eyes, but we also get to know Fersen on a deeper level than I've seen in a novel before.  One of the more enjoyable things about the novel is that we get to experience not just the French court but the Swedish court of Gustavus III Adolphus.  The differences between the extravagance and the decadence of the French court and the austerity of the Swedish Court is striking, although there are similarities in that both the Swedish King and Marie Antoinette loved theatricals and balls!

There is going to be a certain segment who are going to dislike this novel without even reading it, simply because it suggests that Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen consummated their relationship, that the book is called The Queen's Lover.  However, the book is so much more than the love affair, platonic or not between the two. The book is more about how swiftly events moved in the late 18th century, and how one wrong move tumbled the whole house of cards.  The style of the writing will also not be for everyone, it's a little bit old-fashioned, more reminiscent of the late Jean Plaidy's novels.

Of course there are events in the book that Fersen and Sophie didn't experience first hand. Remarkably du Plessix Gray manages to make those sections just as thrilling as those that Fersen experienced first hand.  The last section of the book is the saddest as Fersen tries to find some meaning in his life after the tragic events of 1793. Fersen isn't afraid to reveal to the reader his flaws, his need for women, his aloofness that leads to his downfall.

Verdict:  A deeply heartfelt and tragic novel about some of the most tumultous events in the 19th century

Lincoln Center Festival 2012 | Émilie

Sometimes you find the most interesting things in the oddest places.  For example, I was perusing Time Out New York at work today (because I was bored) when I saw an ad for The Lincoln Center Festival.  What really caught my eye was the title Emilie.  For some reason, I just assumed that it had to be about one of my favorite Scandalous Women, Emilie du Chatelet.  And I was right. 

Here is the description:

Émilie is a modern one-singer, multimedia tour de force about an extraordinary woman: French Enlightenment thinker Émilie du Châtelet. Émilie was many things: the brilliant physicist who first defined kinetic energy; mistress to Voltaire, among other luminaries; a prodigious mathematician and the translator of Newton’s Principia Mathematica; the author of a treatise on the happiness of women; a pioneer of what are now called financial derivatives, which she invented in part to pay off a $1 million debt to card sharks accrued in an unlucky night gambling—all achieved before she died in childbirth in 1749, when she was 42.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho is one of the most influential composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Her signature style was largely influenced by her years studying in Paris at IRCAM, where she learned unique techniques to blend live music with electronic effects. Here, she uses elevated speech and soaring melodic arcs to convey her heroine’s rumination on life and the universe, from the tiny new life inside her womb to the vastness of interstellar space, as Émilie struggles with her place in a universe larger than most of us ever contemplate.

World-renowned soprano Elizabeth Futral sings the title role with elegant depth and extreme technical skill, singing almost continuously for the entire 75-minute work. Futral unfolds her character under the direction of Marianne Weems, best known as the artistic director of The Builders Association, whose work exploits the richness of contemporary technologies to extend the boundaries of theater.

Doesn't it sound fascinating? I totally have to buy a ticket to see this.

May Book of the Month - Overseas by Beatriz Williams

Title:  Overseas

Author:  Beatriz Williams

Publisher:  Penguin

Pub Date:  May 10, 2012

What it's about: A passionate, sweeping novel of a love that transcends time.

When twenty-something Wall Street analyst Kate Wilson attracts the notice of the legendary Julian Laurence at a business meeting, no one’s more surprised than she is. Julian’s relentless energy and his extraordinary intellect electrify her, but she’s baffled by his sudden interest. Why would this handsome British billionaire—Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor—pursue a pretty but bookish young banker who hasn’t had a boyfriend since college?

The answer is beyond imagining . . . at least at first. Kate and Julian’s story may have begun not in the moneyed world of twenty-first-century Manhattan but in France during World War I, when a mysterious American woman emerged from the shadows of the Western Front to save the life of Captain Julian Laurence Ashford, a celebrated war poet and infantry officer.

Now, in modern-day New York, Kate and Julian must protect themselves from the secrets of the past, and trust in a true love that transcends time and space.

What are they saying:

"A sensational debut! OVERSEAS is a heady blend of wit, charm, and romantic sizzle, all wrapped around a tantalizing mystery that will constantly surprise and delight readers."
—Anne Fortier, New York Times-bestselling author of Juliet

“History meets romance meets suspense! Compelling, original and wildly romantic, Beatriz Williams’ prose is stunning and the plot edge-of-your-seat gripping. OVERSEAS is an absolute triumph—I loved every page.”

—Tilly Bagshawe, New York Times-bestselling author of Adored

"Overseas is one of those addictive stories that grabs you and doesn't let go. Beatriz Williams has an amazing storytelling talent."

 - Lauren Willig, author of the Pink Carnation series

Scandalous Women says:  OVERSEAS is the epic love story that Titanic wanted to be, if James Cameron weren't such a hack. Julian and Kate join the pantheon of romantic leads, next to Elizabeth & Darcy, Scarlett & Rhett, Jane & Rochester.

About the Author

Beatriz Williams A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA from Columbia, Beatriz spent several years in New York and London hiding her early attempts at fiction, first on company laptops as a corporate and communications strategy consultant, and then as an at-home producer of small persons. She now lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Mr. Harvey Weinstein
The Weinstein Company
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014

　
Dear Mr. Weinstein,

Congratulations on your recent Best Picture Oscar for The Artist. This makes the second year in a row that The Weinstein Company has won Best Picture! Not to mention sweeping the Best Actor and Actress awards as well. Along with Oscar nominations for Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, this has been a banner year for The Weinstein Company. Why waste time making sequels to Shakespeare in Love, and Bridget Jones’ Diary not to mention Scream 5? It’s time The Weinstein Company add another classy production to hopefully add more Oscar Gold. I’m talking about making a biopic about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.

The 19^th Century is totally hot right now, not to mention poets. John Cusack’s starring as Edgar Allen Poe in The Raven soon and did you see Bright Star? I’m telling you that The Barretts of Wimpole Street is even better than Bright Star because nobody dies! The love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning has all the hallmarks of a Weinstein production, British accents, gorgeous costumes, a tyrannical father, handsome young leading man, an invalid heroine, a secondary love story between Elizabeth’s sister Henrietta and her suitor, a dramatic elopement, and finally a happily ever after ending in Italy. There’s even an adorable cocker spaniel. But most important is the poetry. Robert fell in love with Elizabeth before he even met her because of her poetry.

The story has been filmed twice before, once in 1934 with Norma Shearer as Elizabeth and Frederic March as Robert (the film was nominated for Best Picture), and then in 1957 by the same director with Jennifer Jones, Bill Travers and Sir Ralph Richardson as Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, Elizabeth’s father (there was also a TV version made in Britain in the 1970's) but don‘t let that deter you! I’m sure that in the hands of a strong director and writer, this story can inspire modern audiences as well.

Screenplay:
A great film needs a great script. I suggest that you get Emma Thompson to write the screenplay. Remember she won an Academy Award for another 19^th century adaptation, Sense and Sensibility. If she’s not available, then let Julian Fellowes have a shot at it but he‘s kind of hit and miss. I love Downton Abbey, Gosford Park and Vanity Fair but his 4 hour production of The Titanic made me long for James Cameron’s version and I hated that movie.

Director:
It would be awesome if Ang Lee could direct the film. He did such a great job with Sense and Sensibility. Sam Mendes would also be a good choice, it’s time he tried the 19^th century on for size. Or how about Mira Nair? I really liked her direction of Vanity Fair. Another good choice would be Tom Hooper, Roger Michell (who directed Persuasion), or Stephen Daldry. Under no circumstances hire Joe Wright because he’ll completely cock-it-up, I can just see a donkey or a raccoon running through the parlor in the Barretts home or Robert showing up at all hours of the day and night.

Now here comes the important bit, casting the leads. Who plays Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning can make or break your film. I’ve given this a lot of thought.

Our Heroine: Elizabeth Barrett was 39 at the time she met Robert Browning in 1845. She’d been an invalid for at least 15 years, suffering from a variety of ailments for which she’d been taking laudanum and later morphine. According to Wikipedia, At about age 15 Barrett Browning began to battle with a lifelong illness, which the medical science of the time was unable to diagnose. All three sisters came down with the syndrome although it lasted only with Elizabeth. She had intense head and spinal pain with loss of mobility. She is described as having "a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam".

The role requires an actress who blossoms once she meets Robert, defying her father in order to marry the man she loves, even though she knows that not only will she be disinherited, but that she may never see her father again. My top choice for the role would be Sally Hawkins who was so fabulous in Mike Leigh’s Made in Dagenham, as well as Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Other good choices would be Emily Watson, Ann-Marie Duff (who has played both John Lennon’s mother, Margot Fonteyn and Elizabeth I), Helena Bonham Carter, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Ehle, or Kate Beckinsale (when was the last time she had a really great role and I‘m not talking Underworld or Underworld 3).

Emily Watson

Sally Hawkins

Ann-Marie Duff

Please don’t, whatever you do, cast Keira Knightly. I know she’s become the automatic go-to-girl for period films, whether she’s right for the role or not, but just say no! Other actresses to avoid Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, Hilary Swank, or Charlize Theron.

Robert Browning in his later years

Our Hero: Robert Browning, 33, was the son of a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England making £ 150 pounds a year. He was mainly educated at home, and left University after one year. He refused a formal career and ignored his parents' remonstrations, dedicating himself to poetry. He stayed at home until the age of 34, financially dependent on his family until his marriage. His father sponsored the publication of his son's poems. Browning traveled widely, joining a British diplomatic mission to Russia in 1834, later journeying to Italy 1838 and 1844. By the time Robert meets Elizabeth, he’s not only a published poet but also a man of theatre, having had several plays produced on the English stage.

I see Tom Hiddleston in the role of Robert Browning. He’s proved with his work in War Horse and The Deep Blue Sea, that he can handle both period pieces as well as serious dramatic roles. He also went to Eton has a double-first from Cambridge, so he definitely can handle the poetry. If Hiddleston is not available or interested, than another good choice might be James McAvoy (McAvoy is married to Ann-Marie Duff so if you cast them, you have the added publicity bonus of them playing two of the greatest poets of the 19th century who are also married).

The villain: Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, 50’s. Every story, particularly has to have a villain (think of Billy Zane in Titanic) or a third person in the love triangle. In this film, it is Elizabeth’s father who vowed to disinherit his children if they married. I leave it up to the screenwriter to fill-in the psychological reasons for wanting to keep his children single forever. The original film suggested that Barrett liked Elizabeth a little too much. I don’t know about that but the Victorians were a strange bunch. My top choices for this role would be Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons.

Jeremy Irons

Alan Rickman

Of course, I'm only a non-fiction author, what do I know about film? I do know what I like, and I think that if the Weinstein Company produces a film about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, they will have a surefire Oscar contender!

Who do you think would be good casting for The Barretts of Wimpole Street?



Sugartime - The Scandalous Romance of Sam Giancana and Phyllis McGuire

Love makes strange bedfellows doesn’t it? How else to explain the relationship between a short, middle-aged mobster and the lead singer of a wholesome singing group singing songs in perfect harmony? Was it there shared Midwestern backgrounds (he was from Chicago, she was Middletown, OH)? Retired FBI agent William Roemer, who tracked Giancana for years could never figure out what the attraction was between the two. "It's amazing that it ever took place," says Roemer, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 1995 to promote the HBO film about the unlikely romance. "He was just as ugly as he can be and he wasn't a cultured, refined man. I saw no redeeming human qualities about the guy. We put microphones in his headquarters and listened to him talk all the time. She had everything. She had beauty. She had money. Yet, she fell in love with this gangster. I could never figure it out. I have talked to her several times and she's a lady. She's refined and cultured. She's intelligent and articulate. He was just the opposite." Whatever it was, it kept gossip columnists in a tizzy in the 1960’s as the lovebirds criss-crossed the country from Palm Springs to Atlantic City, and the capitols of Europe.

So how did these two crazy kids meet? Why in Sin City of course, Las Vegas, Nevada to be exact. Word is that Giancana first caught sight of McGuire during her engagement with her sisters at the Desert Inn. Giancana was 52 and a widower, Phyllis was not quite thirty. Like a many, Phyllis had succumbed to the lure of the tables, racking up a hefty marker. Giancana went to Moe Dalitz, who ran the Desert Inn and asked how much she owed. Moe supposedly told her that Phyllis owed $100,000 (Sam's daughter Antoinette Giancana in her autobiography MAFIA PRINCESS claims that it was more like $16,000, still a hefty debt). Giancana is said to told Moe to “eat it,” meaning to forgive the debt. The gesture, along with a hefty dose of expensive flowers, seems to have done the trick. Sam and Phyllis soon fell in love. Years after Sam’s death, Phyllis admitted to writer Dominick Dunne that the two greatest losses in her life were her father and Sam.

Sam Giancana (1908 - 1975) was one of the Mafia’s most notorious and high profile figures in the 1950‘s and 60‘s. Born in Chicago to Sicilian immigrants, he’d clawed his way from a juvenile street crew up to the top of the Mafia food chain. In the film and book The Godfather, Johnny Fontane asks Vito Corleone to get him out of his studio contract. That scene was supposedly based on Giancana who allegedly forced band leader Tommy Dorsey into letting Frank Sinatra out of his contract early, so that he could expand his career. By the 1960’s he’d already been involved with Judith Campbell Exner,using her as a go-between himself and JFK, and recruited by the CIA along with other mobsters to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. Along the way, Giancana married and fathered three daughters.

While Giancana was going to the school of hard knocks and learning how to make license plates during a stint in prison, Phyllis McGuire (1931-) was growing up in Ohio along with her two older sisters, Christine and Dorothy. Their mother Lillian, a minister at the Miamisburg First Church of God, let them sing in church as kids. When Phyllis was 12, they signed a contract with Coral Records. That same year, they appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, where they performed for seven years. They made numerous TV appearances on all the popular variety shows of the period. Their recordings of "Sincerely," "Picnic," and “Sugartime" all sold more than one million copies.

At first Sam and Phyllis were able to keep their romance a secret, despite Giancana popping up wherever the sisters performed. The FBI knew about the affair but chose not to expose the relationship because they knew the publicity would be detrimental to Phyllis’s career. When Sam and Phyllis were photographed together at a nightclub in London in 1962, the picture was flashed around the world. The press, not to mention the public, were outraged that Phyllis could associate with a known mobster. Trying to do damage control, Phyllis gave a tearful interview to the powerful gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen swearing that she would never see Sam again which was a total lie. The publicity put a damper on her career for a time but there were other problems besides public opinion. While Giancana wasn’t faithful, he expected Phyllis to be. He suspected her of cheating on him with comedian Dan Rowan of TV’s Laugh-In. He even went so far as to try and get his CIA contact Robert Maheu to bug her hotel room to get proof.

There was also the Fed’s who’d been after Giancana for awhile. And now Bobby Kennedy was Attorney General of the United States, making it his mission to go after the mob, which was ironic since Giancana allegedly helped JFK get elected. The FBI trailed the couple were ever they went. ‘We lock-stepped him," Roemer recalls. "He was the only guy in the history of the FBI who we lock-stepped. I would stay half a step behind him and half a step to his left. No matter where he went, I would stay that distance from him. If he went to dinner I would go with him. If he went to the restroom, I would go right up to the next urinal. We got into some situations.” They bugged Giancana’s homes, listening in on the couple’s most intimate moments. In 1961, the FBI bugged their hotel room and knew that they would be stopping over in Chicago on their way to New York. At O'Hare airport, Giancana was kept at bay while the FBI talked to McGuire to see if she would cooperate with them instead of being subpoenaed to appear in front of a federal grand jury. Phyllis agreed to do what they asked, and they took the subpoena back, but she never kept her end of the bargain.

The mob wasn’t too happy about Sam’s relationship with Phyllis. Not only because they thought he wasn’t minding the store, but because it drew too much attention. In the end the relationship couldn’t last. Giancana was sentenced to jail for refusing to testify in front of a grand jury. As a result, Giancana was deposed as boss of the Chicago outfit. After his release, he fled to Mexico. After about seven years of exile, Giancana was arrested by Mexican authorities in 1974 and deported to the United States. After agreeing to be a witness in the prosecution of organized crime in Chicago, Giancana was murdered by an unknown assailant in his Chicago home while he was cooking dinner in 1975.

Phyllis McGuire, now in her eighties, lives in Las Vegas where she is said to be working on her memoirs. She and her sisters retired in 1968 but have done occasional public appearances since reuniting on stage 1986.

RMS Titanic on Scandalous Women Radio

Since today is Easter, there will be no broadcast of Scandalous Women radion next Sunday.  The show will return next week at the usual time of 4:30 p.m.

Next Sunday marks the 100th anniverary of the sinking of RMS Titanic  after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. The disaster caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. At the time of her maiden voyage, she was the largest ship afloat. To mark the occasion, Scandalous Women welcomes special guest Evangeline Holland of Edwardian Promenade to discuss one of the surviors of the Titanic, the fashion designer Lucile aka as Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon.

Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon