Rubbing Elbows: My Brushes with Celebrities chapter 8

My grandmother (mother's mother) had her own youthful wild and crazy days. She was a flapper girl and competed for money during the Great Depression of the 1920s.

Her partner was Andrew Tuohey. One night, he introduced himself to his brother, Harold, home from seminary school. Goodbye celibacy and hello love. They soon married and had 7 kids together. My mom was the second of them.

My grandma's idol at that time was flapper dancer Joan Crawford, which led her to the movies in her married life. She'd go with her lady friends to matinees and try to win dishes at the time.

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived with my mother, brother and me. Grandma loved having us cuddle up with her on the couch to watch the films of Crawford, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck and others. I essentially was weened on screen divas via our tv. Later in life, I transferred my worship to divas in the pop music industry.

My grandfather played the ukulele and could sing. At our house parties, he'd have his three sons join him in barbershop quartets Our home was full of entertainment and joy. We had a vinyl recordings, too, including 75 rpms. I grew up listening to songs like "When Veronica Plays the Harmonica" and "She Lived Next Door to a Firehouse."

So, I grew up in a house where entertainment was paramount. And I was drawn to that Hollywood fantasy world.

My mom took me to the movies and into Manhattan (only 20 miles away across the Hudson River) and we'd visit The Museum of Natural History, The Planetarium, Grant's Tomb, The Cloisters; my Aunt Ellen, her sister, loved to write and instilled that enjoyment in me, my Aunt Eleanor was an artist, and - as I wrote before - my Uncle Pat was a professional singer since childhood, my Grandma on my father's side took me to Radio City Hall to see The Rockettes and a movie.. How could I grow up unaffected and not enlivened? Impossible.Culture, high and low, was so deeply instilled in me.

And so my course was set. And the advent of the Internet suddenly made it possible to publish my own articles in a celebrity blog. I found my niche. My blog, Leave It to Beaverhausen, is now viewed internationally and I get up to over 13 thousand views a month. I found my niche at last.