Here's me now(ok this was shot in 2007 AND this is still what I look like)on a good day, at my new studio in Gastown. On not so good days I look older and more tired. I just thought with that 23 year old glamour photo at the head of this blog I better post a recent photo so no one gets a big shock if we meet in person! ; P

Paris 1979

I was nicely settled in to Parisian life as a year of ups and downs had finally slowed down to an exciting pace of interviews and some work for photo shoots and acting parts. My new French boyfriend, director Joel Farges, moved me from my overpriced, dark, roach infested studio in the 7th arrondisement ( the latin quarter where Anais Nin lived!) to his cottage style two bedroom house in the 13th quartier near the Place de Italie. It was far from my work scene but a beautiful little tree lined, salt of the earth ,working class neighbourhood and a big step up for me! The subway to the fashion center, was several miles away but only a few stops and about twenty minutes from my little love nest with my charming 32 year old professeur from the Sorbonne, turned independent filmmaker.

Joel’s study was crammed with back issues of Cahiers du Cinema. I immersed myself in them daily, in the early morning hours while Joel slept. I was a Canadian girl and a small town one at that. Even though I saw myself as a cinephile, I was only 24 and I was a commercial model. Seeing and loving Easy Rider, Unmarried Woman and La Dolce Vita in my mid teens and just before arriving in Paris, Klute, Night Porter, Cabaret and the original Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich ,were no match for Joel’s and his collegues expertise on the medium of independent film in Europe.

I soon learned the names and work of many of Joel’s mentors through Cahiers de Cinema and eavesdropping on the conversations between directors at the many dinners I accompanied Joel to (and was ignored through) at some heady restaurants whose significance eluded me till I was back home in Canada. Le Closerie des Lilas, La Coupole, Les Deux Maggots, other many out of the way but, star riddled boites, all steeped in writing and film history, with the likes of Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Laurence Durrell and Ernest Hemingway and Ava Gardner as their regular patrons, two generations before me. I read about them in the biographies of film stars that were my guilty pleasures. Film school wrapped in the soap operas of the relationships between directors, producers and stars/lovers.

One fall day, at the office where Joel housed his film production company, Dedale Films and his book publishing company(for mostly soft covered translations of scripts of popular films)Albatross Books, I was warming the receptionist’s seat since the regular girl was on vacation. That day Joel was excited because Jean Luc Godard was “coming to him” to take him for lunch and discuss contributing funding for Joel’s first feature film, Aimee, with Aurore Clement and Jean Sorel in the lead roles. Joel had been under Jean Luc’s wing since long before I met him. They met at the Sorbonne when Joel screened his first documentary, a French historical piece, called Les Guerres Civiles en France.

I had seen photos of Godard all over the “Cahiers” and knew about his life as father of the New Wave of Cinema, in France, in the late fifties, sixties and seventies. I didn’t realize how long ago some of those articles and photos were published and when he walked in an hour and a half before his scheduled appointment asking for Joel, I didn’t recognize him! I told him that Joel wouldn’t be back for more than an hour for a scheduled appointment and that he might be able to wedge him in right before that. I instructed him and his waify, young enough to be his grandaughter, girlfriend who remained draped across him for as long as I saw them, to go and get coffee or lunch on the corner and to come back and hope that Joel would have a moment for them. The dark guy in the dark glasses lowered them and grinned. “D’accord” said he “ a toute a l’heure”.( Alright then, see you in a bit).

An hour later, Joel returned, asking “Any news, anyone call“? So , I told him about the slouchy, old guy in the Ari Onasis sunglasses and skinny black eyed girlfriend who were waiting at the café on the corner to see if he could talk to them before his appointment with Jean Luc Godard. Joel lost it! “Slouchy old guy?! That was Jean Luc! How could you?!” He ran out the door to go and find them at the café. They all soon returned and Jean Luc immediately double cheek kissed me laughing and apparently “touched” by my small town unawareness, revelling in his anonymity, he took us for lunch at La Coupole and then seven hours later dinner at Le Closerie. That night I spied Jean Paul Belmondo and Marie France Pisier( a year before I had no clue who THEY were either!) at separate tables. The ivory linen table cloths to the floor, and crimson leather banquettes, ivory carpet, ivory walls, the “ black tie waiters”, bustling almost silently, sterling silver cutlery and candelabras sparkling in the glow of candlelight and the little yellow ”star” lights, all over the restaurant, made the whole dream like experience complete. Phew! Rescued by my ignorance and Jean Luc Godard’s willingness to see the charm in it.

My cover page PHOTO

The Photo I have shown here in Black and White is by Alex Waterhouse Hayward!
He shot it at my 4th avenue studio, in 1985, with my quartz( hot!) lights just like the ones used in the 1940's for glamour photography! He also forgot that their casing is burning hot, so when tapping one with his finger to move it, MAY have irrevocably altered his fingerprints! ; P

I DID post a photo credit right on the page with the photo! But, no matter where I put it on the editing page the text showed up across my face on the published page so I removed the credit! I WANT Alex to get ALL the credit for this lovely masterpiece. And here is a link to HIS blog where you will find more of the same(incredible photos) and some delightful writing of his, as well.

http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/2009/05/when-women-were-women-cars-were.html

Blogging Now because ...

Hello and Welcome





I am a photographer (among many other things) who is embarking on writing, producing and directing my first documentary while living on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada. In this blog I will share my process in this realm.

Here is a summary of the documentary story.

Walkover is a documentary, based on the novel WALKOVER, about a woman returning to the Burlesque scene after raising a child. The film reveals first time film maker, Page Turner's relationships with a new generation of Burlesque performers and the homeless women in the neighbourhood where she lives and works. Ms Turner, a photographer and performer, documents her move from the capital city of Victoria and her path of advocacy and activism for the rights of women and children entrenched in poverty in and near downtown Vancouver. She connects and performs with dancers who become her "soldiers" in an outreach army of "pin up girls with a heart" all of whom can identify with the disenfranchisement and judgement that isolates the homeless women they embrace.

"I worked as a bartender and later an exotic dancer and photographer, in the clubs on the downtown east side, in the eighties right up until Expo '86. I remember all the people huddled up outside on the streets after the mass evictions took place to turn rooming houses into tourist hotels. When I saw the same thing happening twenty years later as Vancouver prepares for the Olympics in 2010 I just had to capture it on film and speak out. I have been homeless through the years far too many times myself! I never dreamed I and others like me, a couple of rungs up from women living on the street, would experience homelessness with our families, because we want to rent ( and cannot afford to buy) a home that accepts children!

To expose and explore this pervasive situation of injustice I moved back to the neighbourhood where I was first homeless as a young teenager. Now my son is grown, I have returned to the Burlesque stage and filmed my live Rita Hayworth tribute show to include in this, my first documentary. Performing again and telling my story and the stories of "hidden homeless" women has rallied support and participation, from Burlesque Performers and Musicians alike".

Walkover includes an original Jazz and R and B soundtrack written and performed by Turner's saxophonist son, Sean Winter. The film also features cameo performances by renowned local blues performers at Vancouver's Yale Hotel, THE mecca for local and visiting Blues Artists for over thirty years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzPGAOCk39U

hello it's me!

Hey, Red here!

Your aspiring Dorothy Parker (who?lol) meets Erica Ehm type reporter of life on the edge ... between Gastown and the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver,Canada.

Or, as the manager of my landmark building, The Hotel Europe, says " the gateway between heaven and hell". My artist neighbours say, "It is debatable

which ... is truly which!"