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All About Eve (Golden)

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Apr 15, 2025
3 min read

I found this picture of Eve Golden (reclining) from the Digital Transgender Archive. It shows her in an off-Broadway play in 1981. Eve hasn’t acted in some time, but she manifests the theatrical wherever she goes, and I love this photo because the natural structure of her face so closely resembles the aesthetics of the bygone times she chronicles so well. Did she walk out of a time machine? Well, she can’t have done, they didn’t have sex reassignment surgery back then. As I wrote in my Donahue piece, my first glimpse of her was not long after she’d made the transition, though I didn’t know who she was, or would be, and didn’t until very recently. Then later I knew her many books, and her celebrity obits, and in recent years it’s been my privilege to know her personally, and to swap intel, and gossip, and mean jokes with her almost daily (although most of the information and wit comes from her direction, which is why it is a privilege). You’ll find her referenced in nearly 50 posts on this blog, and there will be more, I know.

At any rate, I think of her as a sort of hero, giving where she falls on the timeline, though she’s far too old-fashioned to make the kind of hay about it that she otherwise might. She doesn’t dwell on her own story; she is fascinated by the lives of others. And she has known giants. She was friends with Lillian Gish for 20 years, and also knew Anita Page and Olivia de Havilland. These are the fringe benefits of longevity (theirs, not hers, I hasten to clarify). Eve has obviously interviewed dozens of other eminences for her many books, which include:

  • Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow (1991)

  • Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara(1997)

  • Golden Images: 41 Essays on Silent Film Stars (1998)

  • Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway (2000)

  • The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall (2002)

  • Vernon and Irene Castle’s Ragtime Revolution (2007)

  • Bride of Golden Images: Essays on Stars of the 1930s-60s (2009)

  • John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars (2013)

  • Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It (2021)

  • Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez (2023)

Several years ago Eve had a column in the L.A. Mirror called “Queen of the Dead”, wherein she eulogized stars big and small who’d recently passed. Prior to that she had a column called “Bottom Shelf” on the now defunct Movieline website. Today she channels that unearthly energy into Eve’s Obits, which has been a big boon to the content of this blog. If you’re the type to float the question “Who died?” Eve always knows the answer. Of late she’s been shopping around a hilarious novel that involves time travel, the Titanic,Marilyn Monroe, and the Kennedys, which I swear would make a killer motion picture.

Yes, Eve shares a birthday with the sinking of the Titanic! Anyway, I pretty much celebrate her every day, but today rates next level. And it’s what I would want someone to do on MY birthday! There is no better gift for an artist than more publicity!

Some gateways to the Golden-verse:

Eve has also called Youtube “the new vaudeville” more than once, so I guess I’d better start listening to her.

 
 
 

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