Category Archives: Chanel Bonfire

One minute and 45 seconds of LAS FLORES DEL VICIO, and believe me, that’s enough.



Mother ran off to Spain with her pals Win Wells (here in the blue and white shirt, and heavy eyeliner) and Silvio Narizzano (Director of “Georgy Girl”), to write songs for the movie. Carroll Baker sings one while she drowns in a fountain during a wild party. Dennis Hopper also starred. 

Oh, and quiz for the day: Who was originally cast in the Carroll Baker role but fired when she arrived in Spain too big to fit any of her costumes? 

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Carroll Baker, Chanel Bonfire, Dennis Hopper, drugs, Georgann Rea, Georgy Girl, movie shoot, Shelly Winters, Silvio Narizzano, Spain, Wendy Lawless, Win Wells

Spotify Playlist Added to Chanel Bonfire!

The first half of the list is 60s New York and early 70s London — my mother’s music.  Then we transition to the glam and glitter of my London experience and into the punk and new wave Boston rock scene of the late 70s that we listened to on WBCN.

I hope you like it.  Feel free to make your own variations on Spotify!



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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Astrud Gilberto, Chanel Bonfire, Cheap Trick, Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra, Georgann Rea, Peggy Lee, Roxy Music, Spotify, Spotify Playlist, Wendy Lawless

USA TODAY!  Today!

Chanel BonfireBy Wendy Lawless
Gallery Books, 295 pp.
*** 1/2
Wendy Lawless’s biting memoir recounts her unstable childhood under the care — if you’d call it that — of her neglectful socialite mother, Georgann Rea. With Wendy and her sister Robin as props in her glamorous world, Georgann is a larger-than-life terror in a string of darkly comic anecdotes. She locks her children in a closet for hours, forces them to give back their Christmas presents and kidnaps them from their father, and that’s all before puberty. Then mommy dearest gets overly friendly with the first boy Wendy says she has a crush on. Colorful locales, from Minneapolis trailer parks to lavish London town houses, flash by in this shocking story of two sisters’ survival despite their mother’s mental illness. It’s a quick but powerful read that you can only wish was fiction. — Lindsay Deutsch
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Gallery Books, Lindsay Deutsch, memoir, Rave Review, Simon and Schuster, USA Today, Wendy Lawless

Thanks to everyone who came out for the event in West Hollywood last night!  And thanks to BookSoup!  It was a smashing success.  Looking forward to Books, Inc. in San Francisco on March 9th!

I wish I could get to every indie bookstore, everywhere!  Darn those pesky kids and their breakfasts, lunches, school activities and suppers!  But if your book group is planning to read Chanel, I’d be happy to do a Skype Q&A with you!  Just let me know via my email: chanelbonfire@gmail.com  Thanks for reading!

<a href=”http://www.hypersmash.com”>HyperSmash.com</a>

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Book Groups, book readings, book signings, Books Inc., BookSoup, Chanel Bonfire, Indie Bookstores, San Francisco, Skype, Wendy Lawless, West Hollywood