Rave’s Written Gifts

Rave’s Autobiography, Part III, Beverly Hills High School in the 1930s

What Rave Might Say about Ana de Armas and Nudity in “Blonde”

Rave’s Autobiography, Part II, Beverly Hills High School in the 1930s

I won’t give the exact year, to keep Rave’s identity a secret, but she spoke and wrote often about her beloved Beverly Hills High School. She attended within a decade after it first opened. She loved to say…

Rave’s autobiography, Part I

Rave told me versions of this story again and again and again. She wrote many plays during the time I knew her, and apparently many more are in a storage unit her son pays for, but she never tried to have them produced. I once staged a reading of a one-woman show she wrote, and…

In the 1930s teens overdosed, too

This achingly sad story in the news today might seem like a problem that started in the 1960s and…

P.S.

Rave sent me little notes like this P.S. all the time. You can sense the plaintiveness in her tone. She struggled as long as I knew her with obscurity. She had wanted to be a successful playwright herself, and she did get one on Broadway (I won’t be too specific to preserve her privacy, but it is quite an…

Another version of the envelope story, Part I

Rave frequently started with “Hope you’re okay,” when she really meant “Why…

Dear S. —

I’ve been thinking about the screenplays I’ve collected over the years, and it occurs to me you should have them. You’re studying the subject you said, and I’d be so happy to know they were in good hands. Let me know if you’d like to have them — I’m off to the dentist today, kicking and screaming, but it has to be…