Category Archives: Oliver Rea

Picture of Wendy Rea

Wendy Rea by Pedro Menocal

Pedro Menocal, Cuban-born portraitist to high society (and their horses), was in London in 1972 when he did Mother’s portrait (featured on the cover of Chanel).  He had done our, by then ,ex-stepbrother’s and ex-stepsisters’ portraits in New York so Mother had him do ours as well — me at twelve and Robbie at eleven.  It was during the phase between my stepfather Oliver Rea and Mother when they were happily living apart but kind of falling in love all over again.  Mother sent a note to The American School and told them Robbie and I were to be called Wendy and Robin Rea in an effort to further lock her self in with Oliver.  I supposed having our portraits done by the same artist who had done our stepfather’s other children was another way of strengthening the bond.  I would be officially known as Wendy Rea until I was twenty and changed my name back.
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  ASL, Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, London, New York, Oliver Rea, Pedro Menocal, Robin Rea, society portraitist, The American School in London, Wendy Lawless, Wendy Rea

Fashion Week

Fashion meant a lot to my mother.  She saw it as a visa that enabled her to travel from provincial Kansas City and Minneapolis to glamourous New York, London and Paris.  Couture and tailored clothes from designers and stores like Bergdorf Goodman became essential to the creation of her new selves: Mrs. Oliver Rea a chic trophy wife and then the ex-Mrs. Oliver Rea, swinging divorcee and jet setter.  

My stepfather facilitated this with open accounts anywhere she cared to dress.  I still have a couple of the most beautiful black Italian silk cocktail dresses with lead weighted hems made for her at Bergdorf’s.  

Fashion week or as it used to be called Press Week became something she paid attention to and looked forward to like the changing of the leaves in Central Park outside her windows in the Dakota.  Long after the apartment was gone however, the clothes still hung in her closets, reminders of Fall and Spring collections past.

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, Oliver Rea, Wendy Lawless

RIP Julie Harris

Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers, Julie Harris
Julie Harris, a great actress and one of my true idols, has died.  She was an actor who seemed to have not so much skin as a scrim which barely contained her soul, so available were her emotions.  She’s seen above with the author/playwright Carson McCullers and another great actress, Ethel Waters during the run of McCullers’ own adaptation of her novel “The Member of the Wedding”.  My stepfather Oliver Rea produced the play, which, while not her first appearance on Broadway, was the first big landmark in Harris’ brilliant career.  It was 1950, ten years before I was born, thirteen before the opening of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis which Oliver founded, and seventeen before he ran away with my mother Georgann and we moved to the Dakota.  When I began acting in the early eighties I used one of Harris’ character Frankie’s speeches as an audition piece for way too long–I so loved it and her.
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  "The Member of the Wedding", Broadway, Carson McCullers, Chanel Bonfire, Ethel Waters, Georgann Rea, Guthrie Theater, Julie Harris, Oliver Rea, Wendy Lawless

Rags to Riches

From Kansas City to Versailles in one blog post!

A much quicker version of my mother, Georgann Rea’s journey from Iowa orphanage to Kamsas City Plaza dweller to Minneapolis actor’s wife to Dakota dwelling Broadway Producer’s wife to wealthy American Divorcee in London!  Thirty years from there to here and in ten more she’d be broke again.  

Here we are on an ASL trip to Versailles.  Note the crazy 70s styling.

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  70s London, American Divorcee in London, American School in London, ASL, Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Oliver Rea, orphan, orphanage, Robin Lawless, The Dakota, Versailles, Wendy Lawless

Fatal Glamour

The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Designed by Ralph Rapson and completed in 1963 with one of the first thrust stages in America, designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch. 


Peter Zeisler, Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Oliver Rea — founders of the theater.

“Oliver Rea was a successful Broadway producer who, disenchanted with the New York theater scene, had moved his family to Minneapolis to found the Guthrie Theater, where he and Sir Tyrone Guthrie, a scion of the English stage, planned to produce serious classical theater….He wasn’t handsome but had a craggy allure and an air of mystery that mother found fatally glamorous.”  — Chanel Bonfire

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, modern architecture, Oliver Rea, Peter Zeisler, Ralph Rapson, Regional Theater, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, stage design, Tanya Moiseiwitsch, Wendy Lawless

Hotel Sydney Opera in Paris

The Hotel Sydney Opera in Paris!  Now a spiffy Best Western.  

With the much-cleaned air-shaft — location of the infamous Henry VIII chicken bone scene in Chanel Bonfire.

“Despite that our school French hadn’t included so much cursing, we were able to decipher that our window opened onto the air shaft where the hotel dried its clean linen.  We ran to the window and looked down to see white sheets stained with grease and strewn with chicken bones.” — Chanel Bonfire

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Posted by Wendy Lawless  Chanel Bonfire, Georgann Rea, Henry VIII, Hotel Sydney Opera, Oliver Rea, Paris, Robin Lawless, Wendy Lawless

Crazy double exposure picture of mother, on the landing strip in Morocco right before we left in a private plane to cross the Zagora desert, to Ouarzate. Love the English gent behind her…

Once the movie camera in her hands turned on in her purse.  It made for a very funny movie of her lipstick and compact in the dark interspersed with glimpses of the bright sky when she opened the purse.  Wish I had it but, as we know, there were very few survivors.

<a href=”http://www.hypersmash.com”>Hypersmash.com</a>
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Posted by Wendy Lawless  airstrip, Chanel Bonfire, double exposure, Georgann Rea, Morocco, Oliver Rea, private plane, Quarzate, Wendy Lawless, Zagora Desert