Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

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 S...

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 refi...

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

Title: Mr. Churchill's Secretary Author:  Susan Elia MacNeal Publisher: Random House Publishing Group Publication date: 4/3/2012 Bought by the Reviewer (aka moi) Pages: 384 Synopsis:  London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for codebreaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machi...

I am hopelessly addicted to the British show Supersizers Go.  One of my favorite episodes is Supesizers Go Regency.  If you've wondered what Jane Austen, Emma Hamilton or Mary Wollstonecraft actually ate, you have to watch this episode. I particularly liked Sue's reaction when she tastes the jugged hare! I think you can learn a lot about periods of history by examining what they actually ate. After watching these shows, I'm kind of happy that we live in the era we do!  Maggots in cheese? Ewww! Seriously they need to do an American version of this show. I would love to see Giles and Sue tuck into one of the enormous meals that Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell used to eat at Delmonico's or Rector's. Or imagine recreating the first meal that the Pilgrims ate with the Indians or a Ante-bellum Southern barbeque. The origins of Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola, Kellogg's corn flakes, Dr. Graham's crackers, all 19th century inventions that we still drink today.  W...

Tonight on PBS, American Masters is featuring 2 new documentaries, one on Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, entitled Margaret Mitchell:  American Rebel.  The second is entitled Harper Lee:  Hey, Boo. Check your local listings for the times. You can watch a preview of Margaret Mitchell here . According to the web-site  "Margaret Mitchell was no ordinary writer. The one book she published in her lifetime – Gone With the Wind – sold millions of copies at the height of the Great Depression in America and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, 75 years ago. With over 30 million copies sold to date, it is one of the world’s best-selling novels. Equally impressive, the film adaptation of Gone With the Wind broke all box office records when it premiered in 1939, and received 10 Academy Awards.But who was the creator behind two of the world’s greatest lovers – Scarlett and Rhett – and the tumultuous romance that left book readers and film viewers wondering about th...

Title:  The Kings' Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin Author:  Elizabeth C. Goldsmith Publisher: PublicAffairs Publication date: 4/3/2012 Pages: 288 From the inside cover: The Mancini Sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband’s property once married. Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular ...