Rule 5 Saturday - Mariel Hemingway Falls for O'Keefe Scam

This Rule 5 post not only named after but brought to you by Stacy McCain: You Had Me at ‘Mariel Hemingway’

When I learned that Mariel Hemingway was among the celebrities caught in James O’Keefe’s latest video sting, politics briefly disappeared into a sort of fog of nostalgic imagination: Mariel Hemingway!

Oh, that was a name to conjure with, back in the day! 

Essentially, Mariel, and several other Hollywood types fell for a fake middle eastern oil magnate promising to fund an anti-fracking movie, specifically for the purposes of discouraging America's development of oil and gas by fracking to preserve their market share.  It's certainly no crime, but it speak volumes to the intellectual dishonesty of the Hollywood left. Read the whole article for more information and links.

It wasn’t just her striking beauty, although Mariel’s face seemed as if it had been sculpted by an artist — such cheekbones! More than her mere beauty, there was a frisson of the taboo about Mariel Hemingway in the era of my youth. My senior year in high school, she made her film debut at age 15 (with her older sister Margaux) in the twisted psycho-thriller Lipstick. Then in 1979 — I was a sophomore in college — she played Woody Allen’s teenage lover in Manhattan (which, as weird as it seemed at the time, seems much creepier in retrospect). Then in 1982, at a time when lesbianism was still very much an exotic idea, she played a bisexual track star in Personal Best.

I'm a little older, and missed a lot of the movies in the 80s to graduate school, so she wasn't a big blip on my radar.

All of this is to explain why the name “Mariel Hemingway” pings a certain mental resonance, so to speak, even now that I’m middle-aged and she is, too. It’s strange how memory freezes an image, an idea, in the mind this way. When I was young, grown-ups would talk about Elizabeth Taylor as a famous beauty, and I just didn’t see it. Not until many years later, when I saw her in A Place in the Sun (1951) did I realize what all the fuss was about: Wow! Legendary hotness!

More legendary 80s hotness below the fold.

No lack of r-rated material to chose from; a sampling here, here, here and here.

Linked at Proof Positive in "Best of the Web*" (for the week) and at Blackmailers Don't Shoot in "Emilia Clarke Unleashes Dragons on Hollywood Boulevard." Also at Pirate's Cove in "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Memorial Day Weekend Edition" post up at The Other McCain.