Concentric Circles of Zasu

When I was in middle school, a girl who worked on art projects with me had an obsession with the actress Zasu Pitts. I had no idea who she was talking about but acted as if I did. No slouch, the girl asked me, "So what are your favorite movies of hers?" Not missing a beat, I responded, "Oh, you know, the German ones." She responded back, "Oh, indeed, Von Stroheim and Greed." That ended the conversation, but the words Greed and Zasu stuck with me for years, years before we had imdb.com and Wikipedia. There was just something about someone named Zasu that stuck with me, especially when paired with a moniker like Pitts.

Only in my college years, would I have my first opportunity to see Greed on a big screen, albeit in a very poorly preserved print. But her portrayal of Trina did not disappoint me in this rarely afforded opportunity to finally see that face and personality paired with such an odd name. The passing this week of Leona Helmsley harkened back to that image of Pitts' character Trina as well as the miserly Hetty Green whose bio I've referred to earlier here.

What is it about greed in men that is so repulsive but fascinating when embodied in a woman? Of course, Pitts would go on to play mainly comic, light characters, but her early career always fascinated me. Only recently did I discover that she was born and spent her earliest years in Parsons, Kansas, where I have several family members. How fitting that like Louise Brooks, Kansas with its flat, abstract landscape produced a disturbed and distrubing artist.

Stranger still while researching a piece on Zasu for my vlog that I came across this embodiment of the name Zasu in, of all places, Melbourne, Australia. Sometimes sweet, beautiful madness smiles down on a flat landscape and transports its bent poets into great places.

Green with Greed

One of the various things that I actually cherish about travel is the time it affords or, perhaps more accurately, requires to maintain sanity by catching up on reading. This trip is no different, with five or six books pulled from the "when I get around to it" pile. There are a couple of the usual spiritually/getting one's life in order that I throw against the wall for their annoying simplicity. "If you are feeling stressed, it's a good sign that there may be too much stress in your life." Then I pick it up the next day, amazed by how profound it is. I'll refrain from going into all the details of those.

A somewhat trite but compelling read that I've always wanted to get around to diving into is a bio by Charles Slack on the life of Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street. A woman so miserly that she refused to take her son to a free clinic until his condition worsened to the point of amputation of his leg, she has been someone whose dark tale I've always wanted to know more about. So far it's worth the time but not exactly superbly written. Mean, greedy women of means have always fascinated me, much more than men of the same ilk. Mr. Burns on The Simpsons has his appeal, but a woman squirrelling away her fortune is just somehow more intriguing. No wonder Zazu Pitts, the San Francisco lottery winner hiding her winings from her man in Greed is just more example to cite for it's fascination.

Hetty's story really cries out for the proper over-the-top stage or film adaptation, though let's hope to God a musical version does not lure Stephen Sondheim out of semi-retirement.

Greed has always been the opposite of my compulsions, and perhaps that's why the Hetty Greens of the world hold so much lure. If I ever got into the billionaire category, I am sure it would be gone within months, although I'd have every edition of the Criterion collection and several warehouses full of doorknobs that I could give away to friends for decades to come.