Remembering Hayden Panettiere

photo: Michael Sterling Eaton

Hayden Panettiere, 21 August 1989 to 16 August 2026. {ABC News 17 August}

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/hayden-panettiere-dies-at-36-030552157.html

source unknown

Rest in Peace, Hayden Panettiere. Taken from this world following an apparent heart attack, at merely thirty-six years of age. Apart from coming across a few pin-up images here and there, I cannot lay claim to any degree of familiarity with either her career or person, apart from what I have only just come to learn. Obviously, though, she was undeniably beautiful and still in the prime years of life. Show business is demanding even for the resolute and most level-headed of individuals; for those living with depression or addiction, it is all but impossible to endure. Marilyn was also thirty-six when her life came to its tragic end, and a great many others have succumbed earlier still. The ‘27 Club’ of musicians is all but one example. Godspeed.

photo: Ellen von Unwerth, GQ Nov. 2007

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Remembering Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten, 28 February 1960 to 14 August 1980. Playboy's Playmate of the Month for August 1979, she met a horrific end that hath been extensively documented elsewhere. We pause here simply to commemorate a young woman who appeared, for a time, to hold the world within her grasp. She merits remembrance for the promise of her life, and not solely for the violence that brought it to an end.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

H.G. Wells on the manner in which the world shall meet its end

photo by Kurt Hutton, c. 1940

“Mankind which began in a cave and behind a windbreak will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum.” — H.G. Wells, 21 September 1866 to 13 August 1946. Quote from The Fate of Man, ch. 26 (1939). 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The tragic life and death of Willy Rey, Playmate of the Month for February 1971

Playmate of the Month for February 1971, the flame-haired Dutch-Canadian model Willy Rey (née Wilhelmina Rietveld) was born in the Netherlands in August 1949 and emigrated to Canada whilst still a child. Characterised in contemporaneous accounts as ‘vivacious’, ‘sweet and innocent’, and ‘totally honest’, the young lady briefly achieved her long-cherished aspiration of modelling fame in the early 1970s, appearing in the pages of Playboy and across a range of print advertisements, including extensive work in Japan. By August of 1973, however, something had gone terribly awry, and Willy Rey succumbed to a fatal overdose of sleeping medication at her family's residence near Vancouver, a mere twenty-four years of age.

In an obituary published by the Canadian Press, her father was quoted as saying: “I wish there had never been a Playboy. She would not have become famous and I would still have my daughter.” In the months preceding her passing, she had, by various accounts, consulted ‘several’ psychiatrists, and was said to have ‘experimented with hard drugs’ and become ‘deep into God-Devil worship’ (the precise nature of which is anybody’s guess). I pray her father and loved ones found some measure of consolation in the years following her death. Whatever ultimately led to Willy Rey's tragic demise — and whilst deeper information about life and background proved elusive in my research — her beauty and her name endure through the body of work she left behind; and she merits remembrance as considerably more than merely the circumstances attending her final days.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

In remembrance of Loretta Young, 6 January 1913 to 12 August 2000. Photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise, circa 1928

Among Hollywood's most enduring leading ladies, Loretta Young enjoyed a career of truly remarkable longevity, spanning no fewer than seventy-three years. She entered the motion-picture industry as a child during the silent era, negotiated the arrival of talking pictures with seemingly effortless assurance, and ultimately appeared in well over one hundred films across four decades before embarking upon a career in television. Few performers navigated the relentless upheavals of twentieth-century entertainment with such grace or consistency.

Ms Young is, perhaps, most vividly remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in recognition of her performance as Katy Holstrum in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Throughout her career she cultivated a reputation for elegance, professionalism — qualities that, taken together, established her as one of the most respected and enduring luminaries not merely of Hollywood's Golden Age, but of American cinema itself.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

"Come and have a look"

photo: British actress Yvonne Romain; source unknown

I should like to invite the regular posters from the presently dormant Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels Facebook group — should any of you happen to see this — to join me over on Reddit at r/DollsFallen. The community is now up and running, and new contributors are welcome. Please do take a moment to familiarise yourselves with the posted rules before commenting or submitting content. My thanks to one and all, and I very much hope to see some familiar faces there.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Norma Shearer: Hollywood's First Lady in velvet

photo: Alfred Cheney Johnston, c. 1924. colourised via ChatGPT

Forever the patron saint of The Echo of a Distant Time and Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels. Goddess of the silver screen, Queen of MGM, and an enduring paragon of elegance whose intellect equalled her beauty. Norma Shearer was a pioneer before her time, remembered for luminous sophistication, quiet fortitude, and the timeless glamour that characterised cinema's Golden Age. Wishing the lady the happiest of heavenly birthdays; born in Montréal in August 1902.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Rhonda Fleming: born to shine in Technicolor

Queen of Technicolor: Celebrating the esteemed Rhonda Fleming, born 10 August 1923. Seen in her starring role as the female pirate Captain Rouge in The Golden Hawk (1952, Columbia). 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Announcement concerning the Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels group on Facebook

photo: Marilyn Monroe by Bert Stein, 1962

Sorry, folks, but the Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/886318992990373) is on pause until further notice — probably at least through the remainder of August and all of September. Facebook’s bots have been playing games with me, on and off, for the better part of two years, never once offering any explanation, and despite the fact that I have not knowingly posted a single thing that violated the platform’s bloody guidelines.

At present, I cannot even post in this very group, despite being its creator and administrator. More absurdly still, over the past several days I have also been rendered unable to approve posts submitted by certain users. Some I can approve; others I cannot. Once again, no explanation has been forthcoming.

I have simply reached the end of my patience, and so the group is being placed on pause.

My sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed here and helped Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels grow to more than 3,000 members. Somehow, we'll be back. Until then, I hope you'll continue following my work over at The Echo of a Distant Time: facebook.com/FloydEtcetera.

{photo: Marilyn Monroe by Bert Stein, 1962}

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Facebook: waiting for the exit

model Cara Delevingne for Playboy’s Summer 2026 edition

My patience with Facebook hath nearly reached its absolute limit. The bloody platform is no longer allowing me to approve posts submitted by certain users in my own group — Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels — and without explanation as to why. Even more absurdly, I myself have been rendered incapable of posting in said group (or in any FB group) since June — despite being its bloody creator and moderator. Again, Facebook hath never once condescended to furnish a reason. Bots are controlling everything, and are making simple existence increasingly difficult for human beings.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I am at the brink of dissolving the group altogether, and I continue to harbour the hope of leaving Facebook entirely by the middle of 2027. It is a wretched company, yet for the present it is still where the greater part of my audience resides. I pray they seek me out elsewhere. The sooner we each begin extricating ourselves from this putrid s**thole, the better for all concerned. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Robby Albarado, champion jockey: 11 September 1973 to 4 August 2026

Getty Images, c. 2020

A fond farewell to one of the great jockeys of our time: Robby Albarado dies, aged 52, following heart procedure. Fourth in all-time wins at Churchill Downs, among numerous other accolades. {Bloodhorse 4 August; photo: Getty Images}

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/293579/albarado-who-guided-curlin-to-two-top-campaigns-dies

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

An evening with Jean Hagen

Jean Hagen as nightclub singer Bella in Side Street (MGM, 1949).

Chicago-born starlet of the Golden Age Jean Hagen, 3 August 1923 to 29 August 1977. A versatile actress who ran the gamut from film noir to family sitcoms, she is perhaps best remembered for her Academy Award-nominated performance in Singin' in the Rain (1952), as well as for playing Danny Thomas's first wife on Make Room for Daddy. After overcoming alcoholism during her forties, Hagen appeared poised for a significant professional resurgence during the 1970s. Fate, however, proved unkind. She died of oesophageal cancer in 1977 at the age of just fifty-four. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The enduring grace of Diane Keen

photo: source unknown; colourised via ChatGPT

Renowned English actress Diane Keen, celebrating her 79th birthday today (born 29 July 1947 in London).

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Cherry-laced country dreams

photo: source unknown

Please be advised that The Echo of a Distant Time and Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels have a new home on Reddit. Visit reddit.com/r/DollsFallen and join today. {photo: source unknown}

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Peggy Fleming: America’s erstwhile queen of the ice

Getty Images

American figure skating legend Peggy Fleming, born 27 July 1948 in San Jose, California. Three-time world champion and gold medalist at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble. Remarkably, it was the only gold medal the US achieved at those games, and her success also revitalised US women’s figure skating after the 1961 Sabena Flight 548 disaster had taken the lives of so many of the sport’s leading figures. For years afterward, she was one of America's foremost sporting icons and a household name, and — though her fame hath naturally faded with the passage of time, this being a disgustingly fickle and wholly unappreciative nation of malevolent fools that loves to build public figures up only to tear them down — she remains one of the great pioneers of modern figure skating.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Sunshine, cherries, and smiles

photo: source unknown

Please be advised that The Echo of a Distant Time and Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels have a new home on Reddit. Visit reddit.com/r/DollsFallen and join today. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Diane Webber: pretty in pastel

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Saturday night at the diner

photo: source unknown

The irresistible charm and the enduring appeal of mid-century Americana. Whether or not the 1950s ever truly resembled the romanticised world we imagine today is almost beside the point. Chrome, polished paintwork, bright summer dresses, and playful confidence have continued to evoke an ideal of youthful optimism; alas, one that is forever lost to our timeline, and therein lies its abiding allure.

Follow x.com/DollsFallen for nostalgia and more piquant fare. Always in good taste, but 18+ ONLY.

JOIN TODAY: Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels group on Facebook (18+ ONLY) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/886318992990373

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Greta Granstedt: when every smile sold a dream

Swedish-American actress and model Greta Granstedt, 13 July 1907 to 7 October 1987. Never a headliner during Hollywood's Golden Age, yet possessed of a smile that still reaches across the decades. {photo: circa 1931–33, possibly by Eugene Robert Richee for Paramount Pictures}

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Remembering Jennifer Finch, 5 August 1966 to 18 July 2026

Getty Images

Rest in Peace, Jennifer Finch: L7 bassist dies at fifty-nine. {Billboard 19 July}

https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/jennifer-finch-l7-bassist-dies-1236297297/

L7 were a breath of fresh air in the early 1990s, one of a wave of intelligent hard rock bands who — however briefly — found a degree of success after years of gutter-trash hair metal dominating the airwaves. ‘Pretend We’re Dead’, their signature ‘hit’ song (not a commercial chart hit, but it received a reasonable amount of MTV exposure and airplay on rock stations such as WAAF here in Massachusetts), is far darker, heavier, and more lethal than anything any of the pretty boy cock rockers ever produced. They were a band that embraced the label of ‘punk rock’, but, really, the style of music they, and similar bands such as Babes in Toyland or even Hole, produced was in no way identical to the stereotypical three-chord tripe made by dudes with mohawks and safety pins sticking out of their noses. Informed by those punk rockers, certainly, but equally so by ‘60s garage rock and psychedelia, and delivered with a pointedly metallic sheen that owed an obvious debt to Black Sabbath. 

I do not remember exactly, but I believe I may have owned the record that produced ‘Pretend We’re Dead’ (Bricks Are Heavy) and perhaps one or two other L7 discs at some point. At one time, I had upwards of 1,200 CDs in my collection. It was ridiculous. I cannot honestly proclaim I kept much track of the women of L7 in the decades since — along with scores of other bands and artists from those halcyon days — but Godspeed to a woman who was part of a much-needed revolution in rock music, back when such things still mattered.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Remembering the great vaudevillian James Cagney, born 17 July 1899

Warner Brothers

“I still think of myself essentially as a vaudevillian, as a song and dance man. The vaudevillians I knew by and large were marvelous people. Ninety percent of them had no schooling, but they had a vivid something or other about them that absolutely riveted an audience's attention. Those vaudevillians knew something that ultimately I came to understand and believe - that audiences are the ones who determine material. They buy the tickets.” — the Hollywood god James Cagney, reflecting on his ‘schooling’ in the world of entertainment. (source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000010/quotes/)

Seen here with the goddess Jean Harlow in a promotional shot for The Public Enemy (1931, WB).

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Facebook: apparently this violates something

photo: source unknown

No firm decisions have been made, but I am about this close to shutting down the Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels Facebook group. Too much hassle.

Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, is presently not allowing yours truly to post in groups, not even in the one I created and operate, and offers scant details as to why. The sort of posts I see in all sorts of other groups and pages are somehow being removed from Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels. I am infuriated; traffic in the group hath been steady, and I am still moderating… for now. Thank you to those who are posting, but consider this notice that this group is an endangered species.

I have sought to make Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels one of the top groups of its kind on Facebook — and The Echo of a Distant Time, as it stands, is not too far from 10K followers — but if it never happens, it will not be for lack of effort on my part, or because I did anything wrong. It shall be because Facebook/Meta is a garbage company where customer support is non-existent and ever-shifting guidelines are enforced capriciously and unfairly.

So, kiss my ass, Facebook… and I highly encourage any and all reading this to begin to gradually wean themselves off this bloody platform. For I want off this infernal thing, but most of my readers are here and not on the other sites, and I would like to take as many as possible of them with me once I finally do shut this Facebook thing — not just the group, but everything — down for good. Am currently aiming for on or around 1 July 2027… an operation such as this must be wound down carefully. And if I do remain beyond that point, it will be very grudgingly and only because it remains the primary driver of all of my overall web traffic.

Make no mistake, I am beyond fed up and I strongly desire at this point for Facebook to go the way of Myspace. Not even Elon’s playground gives me a quarter of the troubles Zuckerberg’s does. F**k you and your harassment over NOTHING!

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

England’s World Cup dream comes to an end

Argentina 2, England 1. {ESPN 15 July}

https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/760515

Another dream in life dies, I shall never see my ancestral homeland win a World Cup. #ENGLAND fell to Argentina in the World Cup semi-final, 2-1. Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday. Massive respect to Lionel Messi, but I cannot possibly root for the Argentinians now. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Ally Sheedy: the quiet rebellion

Universal Pictures

Actress and writer Ally Sheedy in a promotional photograph for what is, arguably, her most celebrated role: the enigmatic Allison Reynolds in the 1985 coming-of-age classic The Breakfast Club. Born on 13 July 1963 in New York City, Sheedy brought remarkable depth to a character who might otherwise have remained a stereotype. In a film built around teenage archetypes, Allison emerged as the most complex figure of all — a young woman whose silence concealed intelligence, vulnerability, and a profound sense of alienation. One who hath always favoured emotional depth over glamour, Sheedy hath spent decades building a career spanning film, television, theatre, and writing, and today serves as a professor at the City College of New York.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Waiting for a reply

model Gabbriette Bechtel in Vogue

Modern loneliness does not always look lonely.

It may wear fashionable clothes. It may possess beauty, youth, money, popularity, or thousands of followers. It may appear in magazines and accumulate admirers by the score.

Yet it remains loneliness all the same.

The great irony of our age is that we have never been more connected, and never found it so difficult to truly reach one another.

A century ago, a young woman waiting to hear from someone might have stood at a window, listened for footsteps, or watched the postman's approach. Today she stares at a glowing screen.

The technology has changed.

The feeling has not.

The anticipation.

The uncertainty.

The silent hope that a particular name will appear.

Perhaps that is why photographs such as this resonate. Beneath the fashion, beneath the glamour, beneath the carefully composed aesthetic, there exists something recognisably human.

A moment of waiting.

And if there is one thing every generation understands, it is that.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The things we remember

photo: Penthouse Pet Shay Laren

Most of life is not composed of great events.

History books concern themselves with wars, elections, scandals, disasters, and triumphs. Yet when people grow older and look back upon their lives, they rarely find themselves dwelling upon such things. Instead, they remember fragments.

The way sunlight fell through a kitchen window on a summer morning.

A certain song playing from another room.

The scent of coffee. The sound of laughter. A glance over a shoulder.

Moments that seemed utterly ordinary at the time.

Perhaps that is why old photographs possess such power. They remind us that every era, no matter how distant, was once someone's present. Every faded image captures a moment that appeared no more remarkable than today does to us.

And yet, somehow, those are the things that endure.

Not the headlines.

Not the controversies.

Not the noise.

Only the light, and the memory of how it felt to stand within it.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Waiting for the exit

photo: source unknown

Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, is presently not allowing yours truly to post in groups, not even in the one I created and operate, and will not tell me why. I am infuriated; however, traffic in the group hath been steady, and I am still moderating. Thank you to those who are posting.

I do want to make Broken Dolls and Fallen Angels one of the top groups of its kind on Facebook — and The Echo of a Distant Time, as it stands, is not too far from 10K followers — but if it never happens, it will not be for lack of effort on my part, or because I did anything wrong. It shall be because Facebook/Meta is a garbage company where customer support is non-existent and ever-shifting guidelines are enforced capriciously and unfairly.

So, kiss my ass, Facebook… and I highly encourage any and all reading this to begin to gradually wean themselves off that bloody platform. For I want off the infernal thing, but most of my readers are there and not on the other sites, and I would like to take as many as possible of them with me once I finally do shut this Facebook thing down for good. Aiming for, let us say, 1 July 2027… an operation such as this must be wound down carefully. And if I do remain beyond that point, it will be very grudgingly and only because it shall remain the primary driver of all of my overall web traffic.

Make no mistake, I am beyond fed up and I strongly desire at this point for Facebook to go the way of Myspace. Not even Elon’s playground gives me a quarter of the troubles Zuckerberg’s does.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.