Book ian lee from the black, lagoon hollywood monsters and the lost legacy of Millicent Patrick. So i wrote a book called the lady from the black lagoon, hollywood monsters and the lost legacy of Millicent Patrick. Who the hell is Millicent Patrick . I like to describe her as the forest gum of the 19 fifties. Shes most noticeably designed the creature from the black lagoon, the pantheon of monsters. It was the last one to be included. Everyone has their own pantheon, you can come get me. Later in my opinion creature was the last. One she was one of disneys first female animators, shes an actress, she was an illustrator. Everything about Millicent Patrick was larger than, life the it has been the greatest honor of my life so far to tell you her story. If you read the book, you would know that there are pictures in there because Millicent Patrick lived in a very, visual cinematic life. I have a great treat for all of you. Ive got some photos that have never been seen before. I have hundreds of photos of them i was not allowed by my publisher to put in because we cannot fit 700 different photos in the book. So wed like to take you through wall telling you about Millicent Patrick and why shes a trail blazing artist and one of the most import women we have ever had in the Film Industry. I would like to take you through her life a bit with some awesome photos. Lets see if i can do it. Here is my girl. If craves was a tv show back in the 1920s, first castle wouldve been on it. Im not kidding you this is what it looks like. He was mericas first media mogul, not only did he have an incredible, amazing home, like people like charlie chaplain and Winston Churchill used to go and hang out at the ranch, as the would say. This is where Millicent Patrick grew up, because her father was a man named camille brassy, he was the superintendent of cash construction here for ten years. This is where she started. Life everything in washington wilsons life was bigger, more bombastic than we could. Dream so now this is where she and her siblings hung. Out the used to play here while her dad was getting into fights and trying to figure out how to make this. Thing Millicent Patrick was always a great artist, she was a amazing pianist, but when you come to Community College she decided she wanted to make a go of it. She decided to go apply for a scholarship to go to the shin art institute. I have been told im allowed to swear. Im making sure there are no children. She was just a complete bad. Just a year after women were allowed to vote in this country she opened up an article in Southern California that was about to change our schools. She run the school with an iron fist and an artistic flair. I want to show some unseen drawings of Millicent Patrick. That is your modeling. That is the really cool thing about this it is not just that she was created by but the thing number was really good at was working with students and teachers and lecturers, trying to get more cool people in for her school. One, day and earnest came to her from an upcoming movie studio and wanted to make animated films, and he really wanted to get his artist trained in a special way because at a vision for how to change animated films were made and how they looked. The man was called walt disney. You probably heard of him. This is early days in the world of disney, and you have all the money to train all these animators, but he knew they had to be trained. Differently you cannot take an animation course at school. You needed a training in a special. Way so he went to all these articles across Southern California and he said i cant pay you but i want to bring my students here in the also. No accepted for our lady melbourne. A pipeline formed between the institute and disney. Disney would bring in his buick driving students a down and wait for them while they were in class. He would hang out around the school. This is how the pipeline got formed because he got to see the best talent at the institute, and that included Millicent Patrick. He started hiring animators an artists, and while his animators were hanging out and learning things there, and sometimes instructors would come up and help him work on his films, so there was a close connection there, and he met Millicent Patrick. He was looking at her, art and Millicent Patricks art was very special in the way that she was able to convey a lot of movement in just a few. Lines that is perfect for animation, so he said, please come here work for me. He hired her to work in the into and pete. In the early days of disney, there are a lot of different stuff to animation. Theres a lot of different, tough animation. Theres a lot of things have to do. A lot of the animators were that they would shop with a camera and then be painted. They were 100 percent women. This is a massive building on the Disney Studio. Lot women were not allowed to go into the building. No. It was really discouraged at Disney Studios. She began as a painter and people noticed her skill at conveying all of this movement. So she became one of the very very first animators at disney along with a woman named marcia, jean and someone you may know pretty cool. You can see the style of these rabbits, white, and the first thing that Millicent Patrick worked on was this very ambitious new film that disney wanted to do and even by to these standards some executives would say this is a stupid idea, they wanted to do all these different short films that were set to classical pieces of music. And everyone thought it was a stupid idea it was like no you really wanted to this for the early days of animation still people still dont really understand it. People have to elevate the art form and thats how a movie called fantasia was born. And millicient was hired to be in the special effects department, this was a whole different type of movie and no one has ever seen anything like that before until the created a new way of animating. What disney wanted was a new look of pastel, how many of you have already seen fantasia . Lots of you. Fantastic. If you have it, he wanted the look of pastel but he can use pastel because its chalky and its gonna melt all over the place, but he needed to find out a way to paint in the way that looks like pastel, which is called a vex. Thats what Millicent Patrick they did, if you learn to look at the soft pastel effect it was used in fantasia. Lot so Millicent Patrick and james were hard to do that a lot. Before i show you the next side this is a big reveal, i want to show you, when i was a kid i watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and a lot of people now im a huge core fan and a lot of people want to know, you look like and a lady. Why are you into all this weird stuff . I tell them when i was a kid. My grandfather showed me fantasia. And i loved it. Its a fun movie. Fencing, brooms ok, fun, awesome, cool. Until it got to the mountain sequence and all of a sudden, gamechanger. It was a very first time art made me feel something that powerful, even though it was a terror, it was really affecting me and i knew something different. It was the very first time arent affected me in such a big way that it i thought about it afterward. I had really bad anxiety, ive always had really but anxiety it was the first time if you have anxiety you know what a vacation that. Is and i could, i fell in love. So when i found out that Millicent Patrick animated chernobog and it made me feel like i was on the right path, fun halloween fact, one of the models for if you look at his hand movements you can totally see that. I have seen the, picture i tried to put it in the book, the blond woman was the first credited woman. This is a picture of her at disneys studios with a woman named scott, so she was the first credited to, animator and as you see in the book if youve already read it, credit spectrum in movies were very difficult, credits in movies of animated films are even more difficult because theres hundreds and hundreds of people working on animated films and there are people working on the same thing at the same time. When youre talking about the first female animator you have to decide is this gonna be the first person who sign animated film on the big screen, a phone that was completed, its a big weird area so i dont feel comfortable saying that yes millicient was the first female animator and millicient was the first to pull the lever but millicient was one of the first. So thats where im gonna stand but i was one of the first women credited for being an animator for baby. In the disney world, there was a lot of turmoil happening in disney, there was a union strike and her struggle with migrants caused her to quit disney. She never worked in animation again. But she did, do take advantage of those good looks of hers and become a model. She was very good at it and she lived in los angeles at the time which is a great place if you want to get into the industry. A lot of pipelines are already in place for getting Beautiful People and putting them in front of various cameras. And she was very very good at it. She had the looks, she was a very gregarious person, she is a very charming person. She really loves being in this world, so thats the way that she said wade into modeling. When she was modeling she was still working on her art. She would sketch all the time, to portraits for friends, and one day when she was waiting after a trade show that she was just modeling, at literally waiting at the corner, waiting at the bus, a hollywood producer came up to her and i can make this up, a lot of millicients story people are like did you make that . Up no you cant make this up. He asked if she wanted to be in pictures and she said yes. So she learned a lot of work on the columbia hollywood background actress, she already always stood out in any scene she was and because she was very very beautiful. So thats how she got back in the some industry, so even while she was doing all of, this she was still modeling but she really loved being in front of the camera. She actually got her first taste of this when she was still working at disney. How many of you have heard or seen a movie called the reluctant dragon . So the reluctant dragon is a big commercial for a Disney Studio which is disguised its a time at disney and it just shows him. The whole part of the film is him going to disney to pitch walt disney. What a nightmare. Can you imagine he have to dig holes under the studio to get in. So hes trying to pitch them his idea to for a film but as he goes into this studio you see various shots and you see him moving around in the back a lot in one of those scenes where theres an animator sketching eight there is millicient she loved being on camera, as she got into the world of acting and background camera she loved it, she was a very big personality. While she was on set, if you are an actor or youve been on a set yourself you know theres a lot of downtime. That frees hurry up and wait was probably invented on a set. While she was doing that shes doing a lot of. Art she is doing a lot of sketching. It was her biggest passion. One day she was winning on a makeup chair and one of her favorite things to do was sketch portraits of her costars. And she absolutely loved doing it and she showed, it was a Universal Studios fomented all of these great sketches and she showed it to the man who ran the make of studio there. I want to take a, moment if you know you, know if you dont you dont. But, im always surprised that there wasnt a movie created about bed and his family. He ran the makeup and when i say makeup i mean beauty makeup but also anything you can put on a face was makeup. He came from the dynasty of makeup. Think the mob but with lipstick. This was a true dynasty. Her his father george was very well the man who created the idea of a Makeup Department. Back when george king to hollywood from the uk didnt have that. Black and white films all the actors and actresses put makeup on themselves. It can work because there was no quality control. So he came on to studio sets and said he would if i do . This and they insisted it would be in the scene. This okay that would be a good idea. He said okay ill do, it he started the idea of a Makeup Department and he had lots of sons and all of them went into makeup, and it became a dynasty. There is a certain point back in the forties and fifties when there was the west more weather heading almost every single Makeup Studio makeup wise. You dont want to mess with the west morris. They want from paramount to universal, warner brothers, they all ran the Makeup Studios there. So catching the eye of west more was a big deal. So he catch the sketches and he was completely blown away and wanted to hire her. The thing about biden west more and all of the west forces that they were Beautiful People. They actually credit they have their own book called the westmore book of beauty. If youve ever read a magazine person what shadow is right for your eye shape . They invented that. So they were beauty people, they had a massive salon on sunset boulevard was which was called the house of sunset boulevard. Everyone rich and famous with their. They were not much to people, they werent for, people they werent creature people. So bud really needed people onset who could do character people, and at the big Makeup Studio he wasnt doing a lot of the. Designing he was doing a lot of the admin work. He was a beauty got so he wanted someone whos crate of towns were very different from his own. So absolutely im gonna hire you. He became the first woman to ever be heard by a Makeup Studio at a Makeup Department at a big studio. The very first woman to do this. This was her in beijing. She was just so good. She was incredible. So she was the very very first one. This was a very interesting time in hollywood. This is the mid fifties, and we went from being afraid of europe to be afraid of space. We were just starting to be afraid of russia, spaceships, aliens, and all of a sudden we had this new thing called Science Fiction. In all the classic monster movies that universal built as its backbone for its Film Industry in thirties was like frankenstein, they had never done a Science Fiction movie before. Olive is under the kids one of the scifi so they have to decide how to make a scifi movie. That itself is a new thing because all of a sudden they have a new audience, that he never had to cater to before. Terrifying audience. Teenagers. You have this Massive Group of teenagers who had pocket money, who had time, this is one suburbs were a thing. They want to get those kids out of the house. The parents want to get them out of the house so the best place for them to be was the movies. So they want to make scifi movies for the kids to go to. So they started cooking something up. So millicient went from deciding beauty makeup on what she had been doing for a while at universal, they were happy with her work and they wanted her to design alien. So they took this very very beautiful woman, and she at the time was still doing background work. She was still doing acting, but she was transitioning to doing more and more work on the universal lot. It was more pay, i dont know if it was more fulfilling for her but it was a lot less moving around. So they came up with this idea for a movie they wanted to do called came from outer space. The treatment for it was written by an author that i love very much and many of you may know him as it was actually a very thinly veiled anti mccarthy movie, but bradbury wrote a treatment for it and if you know bradbury he can be verbose and not very thorough. So i had more nebulous in it and millicient had to design. It but she did. She designed the alien and it wouldnt well for universal, it was universal very very first Science Fiction movie. Its very cheesy as many 19 fifties scifi movies are. Id describe it as eyeball left in a bag that has. Legs but it was scary, it was really intense, there were a lot of people who were frightened by it and millicient was very creative, and innovative with her designs. Shes come up with all these different ways to figure it out and she came up with this massive designs that wed save and will get to leader. Well get to much later. I have a lot more to say about westmore, this is great, i want you to keep doing this monster. Thing we have a new movie that we want to do in this gonna be better and bigger and higher budget. Its called, im not gonna tell you because you have to read the book. But its not called creature from the black lagoon and she put her name. She would silliness from the black lagoon. But this monster that she was quick design was gonna be completely different. Theres a different wipe the creature from the black lagoon is still known and its the only classic monster that has never been remain even though i do in my heart. Ship of water would not exist, in the black lagoon. Hes only monster who had to go underwater, hes only universal monster who had to work as Different Actors and i had to go work in delight so millicient we had a program on this, one this monster had to be complete, detailed, a lot of technical elements to design. She nailed it. She really, really did. Its still one of the most famous monsters today. Even people who havent watched the movies today, you see a picture and you know when the black lagoon. And the reason why i think the design has stood the test of time is one because she had the disney training, so just a few lines, with just a few lines millicient could convey a lot of movement, she could convey a lot of emotion. Theres a lot of people nowadays who are used to high, technique cci, they see the film and they think is that a makeup . Articulated mask . No its just one piece, but because of the way that millicient designed it when the two actors ben and jim did it when you wear with a suit looks like makeup. And the other thing aside from that with disney was her incredible empathy. Millicient designed this monster wanting people to feel for him. So when you look at him youre scared by him, theres a lot of kids that ran out of that theater including alice cooper. But you want to understand him. He looks just human like enough, and it is very, if youve watched a lot of tv scifi movies, you are aware it all a very difficult to quit a monster that doesnt look silly. But no one was laughing at that creature except for by, but he also didnt like that design. I thought it was a ridiculous idea to put a monster alike down in daylight. No pun intended but he got a flop. But they still but at the movie, the producers loved it, everyone else that is gonna be great. So the film was shot. And people said taking some notice. They started doing test screenings and they did have at anything. People absolutely loved the film, and they loved the creature, that was the big thing. They absolutely loved the creature. This is bud westmore himself displaying millicients drawings. Millicients drawings. Those designs are creatures from, no one knows what happened to them. Im hoping that theres a collector somewhere who has been and is following a volcano and then theyll be released into the world but nobody knows where these wrongs are, if they didnt exist. Unfortunately i would give my, toes any amount of coast to see them. But this is millicient and bud working in the monster shop. So all of a sudden universal realize they had a hit with the film. So this is where millicient we would work every day, she marched in their every day in her heels and her pearls and her beautiful dresses. Millicient more address every day and she was completely cool with being the only woman, there she was unapologetically feminine and unapologetically herself. She loved the work, she love the, team she loved the designing. She even loved bud westmore, apparently from the beginning they got along very very well. So she adds paint to the suit, pat testa underwater. This is from a shoot called, this is from the tank test where they were testing it on the water in a universal lot. So this film, this turned coming up with ideas to promote it just like today. Milkshakes at mcdonalds, ridiculous toys, no social media back then but for sometime Universal Studios and other big movie studios came up with ways to try to sell their movie. Universalists was like how do we get people to like this movies how do we get people to see it and they came up with all these wacky ideas. One of the wacky ideas with someone on the universal Publicity Team said we have this beautiful woman, and shes very charming, very gracious, very well spoken why dont we get her to design her the thing, why dont we get her on tour and promote this movie. Promotion platform. And everyone was like this is fantastic. So the wheels started turning on the tour. This is one bud westmore common. Back then when you saw the movie the title that you will see at the beginning of the phone that was all the credits. Right now when you go to see a fun especially a new marvel movie there is a ten minute and crawl at the end of the movie, every Single Person who that of the movie has been credited. To be fair movies are very had to make and thats fair. But thats not working back then, so bud westmore at the head of the universal department got sole credit for everything everyone did on every single. Film back then there was no i am beady, no twitter, nothing to check so people werent even thinking about that. The public wasnt saying all the key person on this wasnt given credit. People dont even know. So he wasnt doing the designing, he wasnt doing consulting, he got credit for everything. And that suited him just fine. Thats a kind of person he was, and when he found out that all of a sudden they werent take this woman, and let everybody know that he didnt do the design for a design he doesnt even like he got really mad. Really, really matter. You sitting there and youre thinking, if you havent read this book youre like wow, this woman is amazing come, she did all these cool things, shes this trail blazing movie woman why doesnt she have a star on the hollywood walk of fame . This is why. So he kicked up a huge fuss at universal and they said well many of the plans in place will rebrand the tour. Instead of the beauty who created the beast it will be the beauty who lives with the beast and will pitch her as someone who takes care of all of the beasts. So she came from, she got demoted into this motherly rule, which is not a bad thing if she was the creature to the actual mom, but she designed him. And i dont know whether or not she knew what the rule was pushed to be but when they pitch that to her she agreed. So they were going to do after hours of trying to shun the, they brought all of the monsters out of the vote on this we really want to show off on a muster movie pedigree here. So millicient was slated to go all over the country, with all the masks, some of whom she designed, the one that shes wearing on her head is the one from dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde. She did other move monster movies as well, while this was happening. She was gonna display there and be like oh the beauty who takes care of them i guess im rushing at the white man scorching creature with missed. Not sure what she needs to do there. So she was slated, shes gonna go on this massive promotional tour all over the country, and the movie came out while this was happening. And before she left she had a moon meeting with bud and the people in universities where a promise and lie to everybody and tell them she did not designed this. She had a script that she had to read from and a chaperone with her to make sure that she stuck to the script. Every single thing that she did every move that she said said that bud westmore for the credit, shed other people that worked on it in jack and she wasnt allowed to take credit, because this is the 19 fifties and they were going to pair, well she did negotiate a higher salary, so good on you millicient, she had to live, so she did and she went on tour and did all kinds of free interviews, magazines, movies, interview spots, people were dazzled. People already fall in love with the reacher and she was getting fan mail because she was so friendly and smart and interesting and passionate, in the way that she talked about her work, in the way she talked about a creature, you could tell because she absolutely loved him. The problem was that people were starting to figure out that the me very quickly that maybe it wasnt bud westmore that design, this may be the woman that worked with the designer was the designer. I dont know how bud he could sweep this under the rug, so people started to make movies not just about the muster but just about her, there is this huge dichotomy between this beautiful woman in this monster and isnt it crazy, this beautiful woman, the monster, its almost like different people. And people were fascinated by her. So shes turn to clip some of the creatures. Back home in universal bud was mad, so mad that he would follow her progress across the country and you would find out what newspapers and radio stations and magazines she would speak to and demanded to ask what she said, what they were going to print, he was furious. This was all happening without her consent. She was still sticking to the script, she was still being chaperones, but people were so interesting in her and they were quickly realizing that she designed this without her saying it, completely not her fault. But in his mind as soon as millicient went off on her own shoes taking all the credit even though it was her credit to take. So while she was off having the absolute peak of her career, westmore fired her, and she never worked on the seams on the film ever again. She came back from her tour. She came back to los angeles and the film that she was working, on another silent scifi phone call the silent earth. She was pulled from her projects and she never worked on a universal movie and that we again. Thats why you dont know anything about Millicent Patrick, because there was no internet, no eye imbd, and after this, westmore quickly realized he had the opportunity to take credit for the monster he was a call this monster, i treated all myself, and that was it, there was no way to check, even though she still received fan mail because people excited by her in the reviewable all across the country who were so inspired by her, first six decades nobody knew anything. They did know she was still alive. Because of that no one could follow in her footsteps that includes me. When i first saw Millicent Patrick when i was 17 years old its a really interesting thing happened in the nineties. Imbd started up, and all of a sudden all these photos that have never been seen before and these cool behind the scene facts that no one had been able to share we have internet and post on Message Boards and yell on the internet and all these things we can do. Before so the hardcore phil nerd Start Talking about these things and creature became a beloved film, and people watched and people always want to know more about how he was created. So all of a sudden these pictures started to show up and the picture that i showed you with millicient painting the picture, not a post publicity shot, a picture of her on the set working on her work. That started floating around, and people knew her name but didnt know anything more about her. And im sort of the black sheep of my family and a cough, i didnt have any siblings who are into horror, i didnt have anyone to show me the way after i saw the film i had to figure out myself. I was a teenager, im a revamp law so i did my research, so i, thank you, shout out to the raven clause. Im a raven claw heavy spacer right now, since were in a library. So i wanted to do research, and ok i guess im glad to start with the universal classics, a have. Too so i started with the wolf, man a classic, then i got to the creature which was the last one, and i fell in love with him, the same way a lot of other people. Dead i love, i love john adams, i fell in love with a movie because i felt like a creature. I fell in love with him because, the way hes slums under julie adams in the movie thats how i felt, dating a hot person thats how i felt, i identified with him so strongly and i want to know more about him and it resonated with him, so i went online, again more raven claw, i wanted to know who made him, who designed him. I was scrolling through Google Images and i found this picture of a Woman Working on the ribbon. Suit up until then all my heroes were men. Baker, this, midall of these craters of monsters were all men. Never man, i never thought that i could be in that role because i was very into muster films and into reading scary things but i never thought that i could do that because i hadnt seen aware. That entire world, all the directors that i knew, it was all populated with people that look like me until i saw millicient. Here is this woman not getting coffee, not anyones assistant. She was does just doing her job and underneath the picture there is a captain that said Millicent Patrick, animator and designer. That was it. I checked wikipedia peaches and there is nothing about it online. There were scattered pictures and very unprofessional. Blogs so i was it, that was all it took. I was like i poked a hole in the small and also i could see the other side and she became a beacon and several years later i became a horror filmmaker, and she was the only role model i had and i clung to her. So im covered in tattoos as you might see. I have a tattoo of Millicent Patrick to remind me every single day that i belong in a horror Film Industry, even when i did feel, it even when people tried to make me feel like i dont, long i knew because Millicent Patrick, so a few weeks later i was at a party and a Literary Agency was accuse this woman they have tattooed on, you and i said Millicent Patrick, she designed a creature in the black lagoon. He said what happened to . Her eyes and nobody knows what happened to her. He said that would make a great book. And i said im not a, writer and he said while, ill send you stuff for a Nonfiction Book and you can figure it out. I thought, why not . I wanted to do this so bad, find out what to happen to, hurt no one in, you even all the blogs right about her were written by men, no one knew anything, so i just started, so if youre holding the book, if you have in your hands, i find everything, i found most of the details of her life, her death, her career, her personal life and she remained might hero throughout all of it. And youre probably wondering, this is great, this wonderful woman. She leaves this trail, that was 60 years ago, i just matter, i had friends of mine who werent monster people while i was working on, this imploring all of my savings and all of my time, moving to los angeles and doing this, like why are you doing this for this woman that you arent into, dont know anything about, this monster movie from the fifties, what does it matter . It matters because what happened to Millicent Patrick still, happens it happens as we speak right now. It has happened to me, it has happened every woman that i know in the Film Industry, it has happened to every woman in every industry, whether youre a plumber, a chef, the problems that caused Millicent Patrick him to lose her career are in place right now 60 years later. Its 60 years and we still havent had another woman design a monster for another major film. Think about that. 60 years have gone by and, new predator, movie new godzilla movie, still nothing designed by women, because millicient was hidden for so long and women like me didnt have a role model, and we know we could do this. We just had another oscar season for 2019 and they couldnt call a single woman to nominate for best director. And millicient was white, she had all the advantages that any white levy could have and she still got pushed. So if you are sad for millicient, beset or for all the other women out there who are black, who are gay, who are trans, who are disabled, who are fat, anything that the society didnt want you to be and you can get your foot in the door, and thats why Millicent Patricks matter so, much thats why we need to tell the stories, remember these people and show women that its a word that were living in this metoo era, i started writing this book before metoo happened and then it happened and my editor was like how fast can you right . I was like i dont know. And then should water happened i was ago no here we go. It was wonderful, so, great so happy about both of those. Then god. Really excited when i think about sheep of, water what was i talking about . Love the film. Its really change the landscape and im so happy that it is. Were not moving very far away from where we need to be, everything its changing the conversation, a changing. But what i want women and girls and everyone to know is that right now we need more film women film directors, painters, editors, any type of field that you can imagine, but we really need to know is that weve always been, here its not an interesting new thing for girls to be interested in art. Weve always been interested but we may not have always felt safe enough to say that we were or be in the spaces where those things were being celebrated. We might not have always felt okay with sharing those things and talking about what weve always always been here. And Millicent Patrick is living truth of that. She shows that we have a legacy here. Girls are the most important part of horror because horror happens two girls, in real life girls are the ones who are fighting horror, so girls are gonna be the ones who are running those films, directing those films, deciding those monsters, making these things, writing those commit books. Theyre the ones have to grapple with these things every single day and if we dont let them make these movies and designed these monsters and be up onscreen and behind that camera we cant show people how to fight the mess monsters and we can show them how to win. That is why Millicent Patrick its so important its my honor to talk about her today. Now were gonna take questions. Oh i get to pick the questions. I dont know if someone is coming up. Okay. I was just wondering if you heard anything from the west worse . If ive heard anything from the westmores, funny story about, that he until i finished the book and i am a huge cocktail nerd. Big bourbon drinker and i was going to me and my exboyfriend were driving to the los angeles liquor chain and i was going through the checkout line and buying my usual but load of buffalo bourbon. I checked dictated my book to buffalo bourbon. The guy checking out said oh you like creature from black lagoon and my boyfriend gets excited and hes like oh explain it its gonna be great. He loves those conversations itll areas. I said yeah, and he said my great uncle designed that monster. And it was one of those freeze frame moments where i was like how do i . There are several ways i can respond to this. The book cant come out yet. I still had a chance to reference the book and so i thought ok, so down the volcano of hatred, try to get information out of the sky. So i was like a who is your uncle . Great uncle named bud westmore . And he was like oh you are a monster, fan you know bud westmore. He was like hes the one. And its like you know im writing a book about the monster id love to get in touch with you because i havent been able to get in touch with the rest of the westmores envy like absolutely, i give you, him my email address he must have looked me because he never emailed. Me hes always like also things down here, but i do think its poetic justice that the guy who, the air of bud, so that was for you millicient. Great question. But i still to this day havent heard from, them bleep. But i have heard that Michael Westmore is a very nice person, so works in the field of makeup and is a fantastic person but hes never tried to get in touch with me. Now im ready. Important question. I thought of shape of water, when you talk about that it sounds like inaudible it is. Its basically black lagoon fan fiction. Because when people watch ship affection or black lagoon he always wondered why he didnt end up with julie adams. Your question, so he always wanted to write a world where that happened and thats worship of water came from. If youre interested in the i have a great quote. Actually the only man that i quoted in the terrible was from the design creature, the acid, and i have a great quote about millicients and how it affected him in the book. What is your opinion of inaudible laughs fantastic movie. laughs any other questions . At one point of the book you discuss inaudible flawed human being. Is that in the book or did you leave it out . No, i ended up not leaving anything out in the book, when i started reading the book i was very protective of millicient, shes my hero, ive never met her but she means a lot to me. When i uncovered things about millicient that were not fluttering and not nice and made her look like a bad person i struggled with putting this in the book because i really wanted to protect her. I was working so hard to make the world know about her and i wanted people to love her and except her, and if you like in the past three years of my life ive been carrying the banner of Millicent Patrick and get people to know this is a design of the, creature because there are still people who dont, Millicent Patrick is the creator of the creature, i still get asked that in interviews, no question, so i dont want to show any bedsides of her president want anybody to not like, her i dont want to give people any mission against her. But then i realized i was judging her just like i dont want her to be just by the. People and women are worth bringing up even if they mess up, even if they make mistakes, even if they make bad choices. None of those choices take away from what she contribute to our, film another them, do she still important, shes a human being, so its important for me to write about her as a flawed human. It made me stop judging, her it mean you stop judging myself, and i thought that maybe if i put that stuff in there may be, or someone that she looked up to board looked down to, so ultimately i didnt put anything out, i love everything in, they are even the back part of her life. This brings up an idea. Is this a question . I want to know what you think, characters separate from the work, this is a big topic, winter idea . Oh no. Thats the other thing. Sorry, spoiler. Millicient is that. There was a period of time where i wasnt sure if she was dead. I think would be different. One, i dont think that millicient the only thing different, she never assaulted anyone, millicient never did anything bad in that, way but if she did it would be in the conversation right now, but i think that we need to be responsible as. Consumers were living in this metoo era and people like what we do . What did we do with these people . You dont have to give the money. Its very complicated and theres a lot of great areas but ultimately, no, we cant separate the art from the artist. We really truly cant, and if there is someone who you dont believe in, will stop giving them money. If you find that a comic book artist assaulted a woman dont buy his comic book because youre not giving him any money in your showing the public should they should hire people like. That i think we really need to, start people are like theres nothing we can, do theirs if we can all. Do you put your money where you want things to happen. If youre living in a place and there is a director or someone working on set that you dont feel comfortable with, dont give them your number, dont talk about that. Dont give them your social media. And on the flip side if youre like oh i wish there were more female directors, go online, find out movies in your area that are being directed by female directors and go give them your money. Instead we have so much power as consumers and we cant live in this world war relay coal art reflects, what you make reflected who you are, so i really really think that we should be like oh well guys like woody allen, its find their classic artists. Will how many women out there arent allowed to be artists because of men . So thats my theory. So thats might very lukewarm take clearly. Lots of feelings. Two questions on a lighter no. inaudible okay thats a harder question does have two different pantheon. s word wont take this next . I will match them together for you benefit. I helped pick five favorite movies, horror movies, texas chainsaw massacre, the, king american werewolf in london, and a tossup between original both man, and the shining. I think them faded out. Okay your question, the version of the . Thing oh come on, theres only one. inaudible a horror movie that can scare me. That can scare you . Its an impossible question because horror is so, so subjective. Its like picking out your underpants for you like someone can try but core is the most subjective thing, its one of the most important subject and i think that it is. Steven king is the most popular author in this country and hes a former author, if you ever want to see a reflection of an era of societies fears or what theyre thinking worth a value watch the horror movies of that. Time its the last person of art where you can explore really stream, ideas and be really really political and people are like oh its just a horror movie. So what security you might not be, look im really afraid of snakes, terrified of sneaks, so for me a horror movies like the discovery channel. Whereas i can watch some other hormuz and im totally fine. So its a trick question and im calling you had on it. I cant pick. inaudible yes. I have no idea to do this. As someone who absolutely loves core, it seems like threw the ball was inaudible nice. What are your thoughts on the first adaptation of horror is inaudible is that like brats dolls . Barbie mixed with universal monsters. I was like oh we did have that when i was a kid. Pop its a popular variety. Barbies are already monsters, why do we need to make them scarier . Have you ever seen this culture of what barbie would look like in, relive six foot seven, terrifying limbs, we dont need to make barbie scarier. I dont feel comfortable speaking to that because of never seen them. I will say that right now we are in embarrassment of witches for young girls for horror stuff, there are so many low grade comics and movies and things that are, fine monster high, i dont know. Ill look them up later. One of the enduring parts of the book and thank you, thanks for following the entire book. That is the biggest part actually. I think its interesting im just curious if you could talk at all about what it feels like weve invested so much in a person youve never met, and then to meet the people who are the blood relatives . Are you married . Take what you met when you felt her family and amplify that by 1 million. Right. Not only was i trying to get them to like meets they would open up to me, looking like i do, strange lady that came into their home, it was so much pressure. I was very nervous, i wanted them to like me, i wanted them to, i never showed the tattoo i have of, her im assuming they saw it but ive never talked about, it even though ive never talked about the use of my own. Im strange. I dont want them to think that i was weird or obsessive. It was very nerveracking, there is a lot of pressure, theres still a lot of pressure, even now i have another unknown, unsung woman who worked on eve erie, very, maybe even bigger then creature monster movie and im hesitant to do it because youre an external her drive front of the person. Right now, it was so much pressure to convince them of the sincerity of the project, and hope that they would open their hurts, their home, and their archives to me, and i dont know if they had anything. It was a really fraught experience for me. I was very nervous, i covered up my tattoos and try to make myself look as normal as i could when i look like i do. It was tough, i was lucky, they were incredibly kind and so sweet. Fun fact, i changed all of their names in the book to characters from the wolf, men no ones pick that up which i find funny. But theyre all renamed. But yes, it was tough, i get really emotional about it because i miss her. Ever since i stopped writing the book shes not in my head every day. That was hard, its just weird, because she was like my body. Every day i have this framed, i have this photo, and this one above my desk because i had to move because im working on a new project, and like oh look into it today, saying goodbye was really tough, and when i started my new project i was like i need to feed myself, so everything in this book was a highly emotional experience. Youre cheating you had lunch with me today. I want to close with this last question. Do you think theres anything knew about millicient that will come out . Funny you say that. Last time when i facetimed into the Library Book Club thing, one of millicients husbands daughters contact me on facebook. So i stuffed email her back because ive been gone and stuff, but no, weirdly enough, i thought this book was going to come out and people come out of the woodwork. Millicients would be knocking on my door but not that many actually, i did a signing in california, and one of millicient thes best fronts agents was there and was really excited, he knew millicient, i gave him my email address and he never emailed me. I dont know why youre people my email address, ive had a lot of people who thought they had new information about her which wasnt new information about her. This new southern guy comes over to me and try to get me facts about the black lagoon as if i dont know. But so far, nothing but im very hopeful when i talk to this woman who really wants to talk to me that are gonna be able to get some new information. But if you read the book, if you have read the book you know there were a couple of places where i couldnt fill in everything that i want to, but im never want to stop looking for information about her. She isnt done, just because im done running this book doesnt mean that shes not my hero, im still hoping that someone will come out with this massive trove of her original creature drawings or someone out, there are a collector who doesnt want to share with the world will be objected by aliens and then we can all benefit from his basement collection. But so far that has not yet happened, and i hope for every day. I want to thank you all for coming out and listening to me speak, and for listening to me speak about millicient, and i what i hope you take out of it is that she affects your life in some way and i hope that if youre going to do something with your life you know that your home. Order by abolitionist on brown. And a model of abraham lincolns hand. Watch thursday night, beginning at eight eastern, enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend, on cspan three. Author, Paul Goldberg or, discusses this book ballpark, baseball in the american city. He explores the relationship between the American Cities in the growth of baseball, looking at the changing architecture and locations of ballparks over the years. And what those reveal about society and culture at large. The Kansas City Public Library hosted this event and provided the video. I want to thank the library for putting on this event, the library board, jonathan and the staff who work with us who she mentioned as well. The library is a