NitrateVille.com

You might recall well over a year ago I mentioned that a "revamp" was being done to Gloria Bowman’s old Nita Naldi site. Gloria’s site went AWOL after Yahoo killed off Geocities (also the first webhost for the RV website back in the old days). It took a little longer than I imagined, but I have to say, what a journey of discovery this has been. With the help of my fellow Nita aficionados and Daughters of Naldi Frederica and Harlett O’Dowd (and a cast of thousands), we’re proud to announce that the “official” Nita Naldi website is now live for your edification and amusement.

This website is still a work in progress as we’ve got a lot more material (and photos!) to add, but as you can see, there is plenty of meat.

One of the biggest thrills in working on this project is that we learned Nita has living relatives. They are thrilled with the site and have given us their approval. This is now the official family - sanctioned site.

Without further ado, here is http://www.nitanaldi.com where you will find just everything you want to know about Our Beloved Preceptress, Nita Naldi. (Genuflect)

BRAVO! What a beautiful site! Now that all this new biographical information has been confirmed, are you going to make sure the other online sources get corrected? IMDB? Wikipedia? Etc?

I sure wish the photos could be larger, but understand the concern of keeping the images protected.

She was a stunning woman.

Keep up the good work!

Martha

MarthaLayer wrote:
She was a stunning woman.

Martha

As we discovered, she was also a very intelligent, witty woman, who had a good time and did not take herself too seriously. She also never missed a chance to fling Bandini to the four winds, probably with a big grin on her face.

The biggest surprise was realizing that Nita Naldi and Kay Francis were schoolmates. Nita was 10 years Kay's senior, so I very much doubt the two ever later connected Katherine Gibbs and Mary Nonna Dooley. I had to keep it quiet until web-launch. Well, quiet outside of Scott O'Brien and the 3-4 million people in the metropolitan Los Angeles area who heard me scream when I spotted it.

There is more to come, our Harlett is digging up some fabulous information and photos on Nita's stage work. He just snagged photos of Nita in The Bonehead, which we put up this morning. I'm surprised you didn't hear Donna and I yelling over that hat. Clearly fruit-laden millinery was a theme in Nita's life.

Frederica wrote: There is more to come, our Harlett is digging up some fabulous information and photos on Nita's stage work. He just snagged photos of Nita in The Bonehead, which we put up just this morning. I'm surprised you didn't hear Donna and I yelling over that hat. Clearly fruit-laden millinery was a theme in Nita's life.

=^_^=

Well, for me the big surprise was Nita having a living (and breathing) family link and they have been utterly fabulous and suportive to us. I'm looking forward to meeting them early in 2011.

The connection at Holy Angels not only with Kay Fwancis, but Alice Brady and a host of other stage ladies.

As Joan mentioned, the variety of hats, including the earliest iteration I've seen of a grape-festooned hat is simply marvelous. When I saw the photos from The Bonehead, I squealed like a piglet with delight.

I've got a lot more imagery to scan and put up. Gloria's collection of material is still coming my way for scans and I've added a few new images to my own small collection of Nita.- memorabilia.

As I said, the site is and will continue to be a work in progress. I can only say, I'm in awe of the abilities of both Joan and Chris to ferret out the most amazing stuff.

Rudy fan,

Say, the Profile on the top of the page is magnificent! Where can I get a photo like that? Great site with plenty of interesting photos and information. What no Sally Lung??? That's the first thing I looked for! Whoops, OK, I found the 10 COMMANDMENTS stills! Sorry.

Folks - I'm sorry to do this, but those of you who've seen the most recent posts (removed by me) will know why I'm putting a temp lock on this thread. The other mods and I will discuss the situation and will then unlock it after our decision.

Danny

OK, we've ironed things out and I'm reopening this thread. Let's not veer into territory that doesn't involve topics of interest to the vast majority of Nitrateville readers.

Congratulations to all involved with the launch of the new site!

~Roger

It is a terrific site. Congrats to everyone connected with it.

In all our justifiable excitement about Nita’s edible chapeaux (thank heavens there aren’t a lot of photos of Nita’s shoes) I forgot to mention a few things we at Naldi HQ were interested in doing with this website. Some things we’ve achieved, some not so much.

Chris has decided to do essays on all of the plays in which Nita appeared. These will not necessarily be Nita-centric although she won't be left out. He can tell you more about what information he’s including, and we’ll announce as each essay is completed and uploaded. Obviously those essays will be of more interest to the theater peeps than to the film peeps, but I suspect there will be a flurry of fascinated interest when he does his essay on Worth a Million, in which Nita co-starred with (wait for it) Charley Chase.

In the hopes of making the site more rigorous than the average biographical website, I wanted to include graphics of all the references cited and other documentation such as film reviews, either as a pdf or a jpg. I also wanted to include other materials not sourced or used--fluffy publicity articles, etc. I have included a selection of articles, but I immediately ran into rights and privacy issues.

I have all the Variety reviews for Nita’s films, but since Variety just unveiled their entire archive online, I suspect they might be guarding their copyrights jealously. Wherever I could, I attached whatever film reviews I had, leaning toward reviews that were not available online. I wanted to put up more. Foo.

Public records proved troublesome. Court records are always public domain, so I could attach what was left of Nita’s bankruptcy case, in this case only the final judgment. Ancestry allows use of their materials as long as they are used in conjunction with a family history; that applied in this case so I included records I found on Ancestry. I ran into problems with vital records such as birth, death, and marriage certs. Until recently those were considered public record, but many states and individual counties are now beginning to reverse themselves on that issue due to privacy concerns and identity theft. I decided to err on the side of conservatism and did not put up scans, contenting myself with proper citations for each record. Double foo.

Ditto with books and periodicals--some of those are under copyright, and I’m not sure whether “fair use” would extend to what I wanted to do. Again, I had to content myself with a citation. Foo trifecta.

So although the site is not exactly as documentation-heavy as I’d originally envisioned, what is there is properly cited, and there is more documentation that you’d normally find on a website.

Never mind the chapeaux, I think her drink is more likely for some "experimentation".

rollot24 wrote:Never mind the chapeaux, I think her drink is more likely for some "experimentation".

We rigorously tested that, too.

Frederica wrote:I ran into problems with vital records such as birth, death, and marriage certs. Until recently those were considered public record, but many states and individual counties are now beginning to reverse themselves on that issue due to privacy concerns and identity theft.

Darn it. And I had all of the other material I needed for a fake Nita Naldi driver's license, passport, and Diners Club card.

Foiled again!

Frederica wrote:

rollot24 wrote:Never mind the chapeaux, I think her drink is more likely for some "experimentation".

We rigorously tested that, too.

Allegedly.

YUP OLE NITA IS BACKKKKKK

LouieD wrote:

Frederica wrote:

rollot24 wrote:Never mind the chapeaux, I think her drink is more likely for some "experimentation".

We rigorously tested that, too.

Allegedly.

Are you challenging the DoN to a drink-off? Name the time and place, buddy.

Harlett O'Dowd wrote: Are you challenging the DoN to a drink-off? Name the time and place, buddy.

Straight scotch whiskey at 20 paces (or places), you're on!

Straight Scotch ?? Hah !!! the DoN's use their Scotch to make tea with........ ..... nothing less than 100 proof white rum for those ladies. Just watch where they put their cigarette holders while you're drinking your turn....you have nothing to lose but your eyebrows.....they're fun gals but they play dirty. Allegedly.

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:

LouieD wrote:

Frederica wrote: We rigorously tested that, too.

Allegedly.

Are you challenging the DoN to a drink-off? Name the time and place, buddy.

Yeah, what he said. Throw your cocktail shaker into the ring, fella. You're in a world of hurt.

Penfold wrote:Straight Scotch ?? Hah !!! the DoN's use their Scotch to make tea with........ ..... nothing less than 100 proof white rum for those ladies. Just watch where they put their cigarette holders while you're drinking your turn....you have nothing to lose but your eyebrows.....they're fun gals but they play dirty. Allegedly.

Akshlly, vodka for me, with an occasional foray into bourbon and scotch.

Frederica wrote:

Penfold wrote:Straight Scotch ?? Hah !!! the DoN's use their Scotch to make tea with........ ..... nothing less than 100 proof white rum for those ladies. Just watch where they put their cigarette holders while you're drinking your turn....you have nothing to lose but your eyebrows.....they're fun gals but they play dirty. Allegedly.

Akshlly, vodka for me, with an occasional foray into bourbon and scotch.

But I was right about the cigarette holders ????

Penfold wrote:

Frederica wrote:

Penfold wrote:Straight Scotch ?? Hah !!! the DoN's use their Scotch to make tea with........ ..... nothing less than 100 proof white rum for those ladies. Just watch where they put their cigarette holders while you're drinking your turn....you have nothing to lose but your eyebrows.....they're fun gals but they play dirty. Allegedly.

Akshlly, vodka for me, with an occasional foray into bourbon and scotch.

But I was right about the cigarette holders ????

Absolutely. Foot long cigarette holders. Dangerous, spiky cigarette holders. Bejewelled cigarette holders. They don't necessarily hold cigarettes, but they are a required accoutrement.

Frederica wrote:

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:

LouieD wrote: Allegedly.

Are you challenging the DoN to a drink-off? Name the time and place, buddy.

Yeah, what he said. Throw your cocktail shaker into the ring, fella. You're in a world of hurt.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm up for the challenge. At the last Slapsticon I had 9 Glenlivet's at the post-dinner then a half bottle of Merlot while sitting in the lobby chewing the fat.

LouieD wrote: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm up for the challenge. At the last Slapsticon I had 9 Glenlivet's at the post-dinner then a half bottle of Merlot while sitting in the lobby chewing the fat.

Lightweight.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm up for the challenge. At the last Slapsticon I had 9 Glenlivet's at the post-dinner then a half bottle of Merlot while sitting in the lobby chewing the fat.

...mmmm... Glenlivet.

Penfold wrote:http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2010/12/ ... /#comments

WOOT!

more shameless self promotion:

The first essay detailing the history of one of Nita's stage ventures ...

in this case, The Bonehead

... is available on http://www.nitanaldi.com.

Essays on Nita's other film and stagework will be forthcoming. Oh, the vamping we have in store..


Direct link to The Bonehead is:

http://nitanaldi.com/?page_id=1679

Not only is Nita Naldi in the house, she is also in the news

http://www.examiner.com/silent-movie-in ... nita-naldi