Now Mary Magdalene has a great deal to answer for. Well in cinematic terms that is, as she was the archetypal "good time girl made good".
Mary also laid the blueprint for all of those movie fallen ladies that provided some sassy advice, acted as a heroic go between, and who provided a well needed contrast against a probably less exciting but more "virtuous" leading lady.
Sometimes tragic (remember Violetta Valery in La Traviata?) but always kind of likable, these characters are the ones you remember long after the movie, play or musical is finally over......they don't always have to be the prostitute either but they do have to have lived on the wrong side of the tracks for a while....just enough, that is, to be tarnished by the crappier parts of life's brickbats.
Here are a few of my tarty favourites
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| Gaye Dawn..the boozed up "hasbeen" singer from Key Largo |
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| Belle Watling.. in Gone With The Wind |
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| Vivian Ward, the tart that Made Julia Roberts a star |
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| One of my all time favs: Helen Ramirez from High Noon |
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| Gena Rowlands as the mobster's moll who saves the kid in Gloria |
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| The break your heart Dallas From Stagecoach |
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| Fantine from Les Miserables |
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| Iris Ferry from Attack On Precinct 13 |
Now I only got thinking about "Tarts with heart" after rubbing moisturiser on three of the most damaged of the "Crackhead whores" (like you do).....these three have been separated from the other rescued hens because their skin damage c/o the rampant rooster was the most severe.
Terribly sore and unkempt when they arrived, I placed them into a small run of their own and have hand fed them daily as well as treating their injuries with a daily dabbing of witchhazel and nappy cream.
oK, its all very labour intensive , but the effort has been worth it.
Subsequently the three have become wonderfully tame and placid and although still looking somewhat shopworn and haggard they have become my own "tarts with heart"
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| Ramirez and Dallas this morning |
Was Helen Ramirez Elvis Presley's real mother? I think we should be told!
ReplyDeleteI was driving down a back street in Hamburg once, and I couldn't believe how pushy all the whores were. They were running up to my van and hammering on the windows, shouting at me in German, and I just drove on. Then one of them shouted at me in English - "This is a one-way street!" Tarts with a sense of civic duty.
ReplyDeleteAnd there was me thinking a post about cooking.
ReplyDeleteThat is me. (Not the CWs but the other ones)
ReplyDeletePoor MM - got a bad rap that girl - but that's a story for another day.
ReplyDeleteBit of a Tart with a Heart yourself eh John?
Ah, the little tarts are lucky to have you attending to their needs!! They look great.
ReplyDeleteTom said 'and I just drove on'. Who's he trying to kid hehe.
ReplyDeleteI know I keep saying it, but your animals are extremely lucky to have someone caring for them the way you do John.
ReplyDeletePoor little girls. You are so good to them.
ReplyDeleteYou said you work one shift a week as a nurse - the other 6 days you are the doc in the field!
ReplyDeleteSixty thousand years of painful, hard evolution including a difficult climb out of the surf, a long fall out of the trees and goodness knows how many scorched foreheads as we invented fire. What do you do with it all? You pick up hens and rub Clinique on their backsides.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think it was probably worth it!
Your girls are certainly lucky 'tarts' John! Hope your day is a good one. :)
ReplyDeleteThis didn't do much for my lunch, but no doubt the chickens appreciate it....
ReplyDeleteowl
ReplyDeleteglad to have you aboard... and it wasnt clique..... it was Jo Malone
Never mind tarts with heart - give me the pure evil of Margaret Lockwood's Wicked Lady every time!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear the 'chicken tarts are on the mend.
ReplyDeleteNow for the human ones....never thought Julia Roberts could 'pull off' any role let alone a tart one.
i worked with disadvantaged people a long time ago, and there was an open and honest prostitute who was a regular in the building....she once told me that if i really wanted to help her then i should get her a new mattrass !! thats where her need was greatest ! ...last i heard was that she ended up in hospitaland eventually the morgue( after her ticker gave way due to the continuous misuse of illegal substances ....she was a pain in the arse to deal with but she did have a certain something that made her different ( and i dont mean the job she did )....perhaps she knew it herself and was frustrated that she ended up as she had so decided to embrace her fate rather than take steps back to somewhere she couldnt say she truly belonged.....so i suppose she was a tart with an honest heart ?
ReplyDeleteJason
ReplyDeleteI wonder who would play her in the mini series?
hard to say really....she had a querky look, almost a bit Zoe Wannamaker.....she had a real nasty side to her when she wanted but i never felt that was genuine, it was just defence in my opinion.....she had terrific intelligence, and by that i mean worldly intelligence and astute appreciation of the intricacies of people....she was a very interesting woman.....not in any way what you would call dull....in fact she would make a great person for a dinner party as long as the other guests were aware that at any moment she might hurl abuse at them and then in a different moment go give their partner a blatant come on....yes, she would be a great guest !!
ReplyDeleteJason's lady of the night sounds to me like a lot of seemingly respectable ladies at the dinner table...
ReplyDeleteyou may well be right fly in the web....the difference with her was that she knew her faults and had no pretence....thats what made her so memorable....( not that i am advocating prostitution as a career in order to make oneself more memorable )....but in this one instance, it did work out exactly that way !...good on the girl !
ReplyDeleteWhen I was (very) young I thought being a "tart with a heart" might be the way to go...problem was I had issues about being left all the time (and apparently issues with my imagination) and what in the heck was my mother allowing me to read (she really didn't monitor the books I got from the school library...ah ha). I love how you take care of the CWs...they are blessed to have you, anybody else and they'd have been in the stew pot.
ReplyDeleteThose tarts of yours have really landed on their feet, or should I say claws?
ReplyDeleteWhen you were done did you actually LIVE at the pictures?
weaver.....yes!!!
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteThere is heaven on earth, and it's your place, at least so far as animals are concerned.
Glad to hear the CWs are faring so well.
megan
I loved this autobiographical piece.
ReplyDeleteYou are the first person I know (except that I don't REALLY know you, do I?)... who rubs witch hazel and nappy cream on chickens.
I have been missing so much in life.
I'm a confessed lover of tarts.....Custard ones mostly.
ReplyDeleteThe clucky girls are so fortunate to have you to rub their sore bits.
~Jo
This was so touching - and you get something back from your CWs with their tameness don't you. Good review of cinema/theatre's tart with hearts.
ReplyDeletePS I can't understand why your Beautiful Friend would ever use the term misogynistic for you. You come across as having a very balanced and generous view of women. (But then I don't know you and she does!)
lady
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh
bel is the campest bloke out!!!
and yes.. he should know me better than that!
I have heard many actress say that they never want to be the good girl, the tarts are always the better parts. And so it is in life, our tartier moments are the most fun.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people out there that wish they were animals and you were taking care of them.. Such love and care you give to your animals.
ReplyDeleteHave a Great day~ ta ta for now from Iowa:)
There are a lot of people out there that wish they were animals and you were taking care of them.. Such love and care you give to your animals.
ReplyDeleteHave a Great day~ ta ta for now from Iowa:)
Oh, the ladies still look the worse for wear, but I didn't see them at first... Chickens are quite companionable if handled right, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that you named them after the gals!! It's like giving these wounded little girls a protective amulet to wear...naming them for the fierce and unapologetic that way. (Those are certainly all women I'd want watching MY back in a dark alley.)
ReplyDeleteDxxx
Ah, yes, the tart with a heart is the choicest part for any actress to play, but alas, I had a drama teacher who dashed my dreams years ago when he told me I was destined to always play the ingenue. The meanie.
ReplyDeleteAssualt on Precinct 13 - good movie made of a well written and believable John Carpenter story. The destruction of the American Homelands from within.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-H0atsgZro
Beautiful...but bitchy!
ReplyDeleteOur hero, John Grey, won the hearts
ReplyDeleteOf more than his feathered Tarts
By applying his own
Supplies of Malone
To soothe all those sore chicken parts
xx
Oops, sorry Bel, I was ignoring gender and declension (or something like that) ;-)
ReplyDeleteYour tarts with hearts look fair handsome maids although maybe a little featherworn!
ReplyDeleteMovies wouldn't be the same with out characters that arn't shiny and new!
ReplyDeleteI like this post and the blog. Glad I found you and will be coming back. Thanks for checking me out :-)
ReplyDelete