Robin, I was interested in seeing Hollywoodland until I saw the trailer and it looked a lot like the Bettie Page movie. Just kind of small and an HBO production and maybe a little thin. Caroline Dhavernas is in it though, dressed fifties! (There's a nice portrait of her in costume in the current Kirsten Dunst issue of Interview.) Also Diane Lane looks scrumptious and I'd like to see Robin Tunney in fifties drag too. I guess I've talked myself into it.
Going through the Crime Library I was reading the Fatty Arbuckle case. He got his start with this act:
In 1904, the young Arbuckle sang for Sid Grauman at the Unique Theater in San Jose. He was what was called an “illustrated singer.” As described in David Yallop’s The Day the Laughter Stopped, an illustrated singer was one who sang “while gorgeously-colored slides with the lyrics were projected on a screen . . . thereby ‘illustrating’ the song.”
It's like vidding in the Vaudeville era. Definitely belongs in the Encyclopedia of Lost Pop Culture. Reminded me that Jerry Lewis' first act was comic lip-syncing.