Bedbound and Fancy Free

Cultural engineering proved to be an exciting craft for the Hollywood studio publicists who created endless stories to promote actors and actresses alike. It was reported that Jayne Mansfield made everything in her house pink. She had a pink heart shaped bath installed in her bathroom, along with a pink outdoor pool. She had a bespoke pink heart shaped bed in her bedroom in which she posed regularly for photographs. It was also reported that Peter Sellers of “Dr Strangelove” and “Being There” fame, would only sleep in a bed that faced in the East West position.

Lupe Velez insisted that all her photoshoots took place in her bedroom with full view of her polar bear skin rug which stood at the foot of her life size statue of the Madonna and Saints. She was especially proud of her 8 ft bed with its rainbow shaped head board, decorated in gold, silver and black lacquer. Unfortunately the publicity for this woman occurred in another age, where celebrity was no where near as powerful as it is today. When Lupe committed suicide, the famous bed only sold for $35.00. The great Harry Reichenbach created the myth that Mae West claimed she did her best work in bed, where she regularly entertained in her golden shell shaped vessel. It was reported that one of her sexual marathons lasted fifteen hours, and all her interviews took place while she was in bed.

Sarah Bernhardt, the famous silent movie actress of the 1900’s was given a quirky habit of always sleeping in a satin lined, rosewood coffin. She had suffered from TB when she was a child and wasn’t expected to live, so her parents had the coffin made for her. She survived the disease but kept the coffin and in later life had many a sexual tryst inside it. Having had over 1000 lovers in the coffin, she was eventually buried in it. As Jim Moran once famously said “there’s nothing more dismal than a fact”.