Palm trees soar over the grave, and Liz wears a black, purple, red, and yellow polka-dot dress. With the exception of a fat guy wearing Nike high socks, Liz, her research assistant Dan Johnson, and I are the only people in the cemetery.
She then lights sage. Liz comes from a ruling Hollywood family of the 20th century. Liz is at the cemetery to honor a woman who reined Hollywood before her grandfather, a madame named Cora May Phillips.
I had this fantasy that my dad had actually lost his virginity by my grandfather taking him to a brothel. Liz has made Cora and other real life s and s sex workers the stars of her historical novel Sporting Guide. Published by Regan Arts, the book mixes fiction with history and archival photograph. The roles of women in viceβand in running vice, and in profiting from viceβare instrumental.
Many of these women were loners. When Cora died, her insurance policy paid for her tombstone. Liz has always loved the sex industry. She grew up with four brothers and a much older father, the film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
At home, she came across Playboy magazines and movies about sex. When her family went to Paris, she begged her mom to take her to the Bois de Boulogne. She remembers learning about a Hollywood madam in the s. Sadly, her dad said he lost his virginity another way. At age 13, she started working at Planned Parenthood, answering phones. Later, she ran their media library and did peer counseling. How did people have sex in ? When we meet for lunch at Guelagetza, a Mexican restaurant in Koreatown, Liz has the eyes of a zealot.
