Wednesday, May 25, 2011

'Letter from the West' on Gidget: "America’s Mermaid"

Deanne Stillman (truthdig):
There is a person who has a certain visceral reaction whenever she comes across another person or product carrying this name, whenever she hears or reads about its use. Sometimes she finds it funny and laughs out loud. Sometimes it breaks her heart but she doesn’t show it. Sometimes she’d like to file a lawsuit, but decides not to, because who wants to deal with lawyers? And sometimes she just gets tired, and doesn’t talk to anyone for a while. The person is Gidget—not any of the seven actresses who have played the perky beach bunny who occasionally surfed but more often ran after boys, but the real Gidget, from whose life all things Gidget have sprung. MORE...
Howie P.S.: In 1959, when the Gidget movie came out, I was a teenager in New York. By 1960 I was a high school senior in Los Angeles, heading to the beach often and every weekend. Oh, and the real Gidget is Jewish.

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