Norman Hill
By Sherrie Wilkolaski
I
t is with profound sadness
that we announce the
passing of Luxe Beat
Magazine Editor, Norman E.
Hill, beloved husband of
Executive Editor, Maralyn
Dennis Hill. “Norm” was known
for his active interest in all the
places he and Maralyn visited
-- and for the fine articles that
followed their trips. Maralyn
will be taking a few weeks “off
the grid” to mourn her best
friend of 25 years.
I’ve gotten to know Norm over
the last few years and both he
and Maralyn are like family to me.
I was lucky enough to spend time
with him the weekend before he
passed away and it was a day that
was filled with good times and
laughter.
Norm was know around the Luxe
Beat offices as “Eagle Eye”
because as an editor, nothing got
past him. From grammar to fact
checking, he was an editorial
machine. Norm loved history and
as you go through our past issues,
you’ll see he wrote on a variety of
subjects that were of interest to
him, from an historical
perspective. When I received his
article, Ragtop Romance of Mine,
which is his last article in this
issue, I was blown away. He really
went deep on this topic, from an
emotional standpoint, and I was
so impressed that he had peeled
back the layers of the onion to
share a unique part of himself.
Real Life
Wonder
Women
Born Norma Jean Miller in 1926,
Marilyn achieved some notoriety for
posing nude in an early Playboy issue.
Partly from this publicity, she later
starred in roles such as “Niagara”,
“River of No Return”, and then
“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” with
Jane Russell.
The film, “Some Like it Hot”, is
probably her best known role, where
she played Sugar Kowalcyk, the
beautiful, but alcoholic 1920s singer
in a girl’s band. As Marilyn developed
a reputation for being difficult to
work with and for perennial tardiness
to shoots, her final starring role was
with Clark Gable in “The Misfits.”
In her private life, it seemed that
Marilyn Monroe was searching for a
father figure. Her 1954 marriage to
Joe DiMaggio, twelve years her
senior, lasted only a short time. He
may have wanted her to give up or
curtail her career, to coincide with
the decline of his own. In any event,
she seemed to have feelings for
DiMaggio that continued after their
divorce. There were even rumors that
they would reconcile.
Her next marriage, to playwright
Arthur Miller, seems to have stemmed
from her attraction to his intellect.
But after their divorce, Marilyn
appeared more disturbed than ever
and, possibly, drug-dependent.
By Norman Hill
When writing about women in history,
it is virtually impossible to name all
women who have made a large
contribution to Western society. That
would take years of research and
selection. Instead, what I’ve done is
to note some whom I believe have
made a substantial impact and what I
call real life wonder women.
Julia Child
A great American chef, born in 1912,
was the first female to graduate from
Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. After Child
and her husband returned to the U.S.,
she wrote recipes for American cooks
to show how French cooking was
possible and practical in American
homes. In collaboration with two
other French women, she wrote
“Mastering the Art of French
Cooking,” a two volume book that
was the first to explain French
cooking in a step-by-step manner.
After appearing on TV to promote her
book, the PBS station set her up as a
host for the first television cooking
show, “French Cooking.”
When subsequently appearing on
more TV shows and writing more
books, Julia Child became the first
In the early 1960s, Monroe seems to
have carried on some sort of affair
with President Kennedy and, later,
with his younger brother, Robert. Her
1961 rendition of “Happy birthday,
Mr. President,” is still remembered,
but not positively.
and her husband received the 1903
Nobel Prize.
woman to be inducted into the
Culinary Institute Hall of Fame. In
2002, the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of American History installed
the kitchen where Child had filmed
three of her popular cooking shows.
Curie began teaching in Paris in 1900.
She became the first female full
professor of physics at the renowned
Sorbonne in Paris. She succeeded to
her late husband’s Chair, after his
untimely death in 1906.
After her death in 2004, the life of
Julia Child was celebrated in an
excellent movie. It showed how she
had brought both fun and fresh food
into the American kitchen.
The unexpected 1962 death of
Marilyn Monroe has never been
completely explained. Joe DiMaggio
showed special grief over the death
of his ex-wife and
Marie Curie continued work with
intricate scientific experiments.
After isolating pure metallic radium
in 1910, she received a second Nobel
Prize, this time in chemistry. She
continued to travel extensively and,
in the U.S. received numerous acclaim
and monetary awards.
Marie Curie
She is considered the greatest female
scientist, whose achievements
included discovery of radium. Born in
Poland in 1867, she continued her
education at the Sorbonne Institute
in Paris. While choosing her doctoral
dissertation subject, she focused on
invisible radiation from uranium salts.
By the time of her death in 1934,
Marie Curie had received 8 prizes, 16
medals and decorations, and 104
honorary titles and degrees.
After she married her husband, Pierre
Curie, in 1895, they continued this
study and made numerous
experiments together. By 1898, they
were able to isolate two new
radioactive substances, polonium and
radium. Despite considerable
skepticism from other scientists, by
1902, they were able to isolate this
radium completely. As a result, she
Marilyn Monroe
This beloved American actress
conveyed a sense of joyous life,
innocence and yet, sexuality on the
screen. Her qualities were widely
popular despite critical skepticism and
dismissal about her acting (and singing)
ability and her own tragic life.
1
2
History
Harriet Tubman
regularly sent flowers to her grave.
Born in 1905, Rand and her family
suffered under the Bolshevik regime
that followed the 1917 Russian
revolution. Partly due to the vagaries
of a vicious totalitarian regime, she
was able to obtain a 6 months
student traveling visa in 1925. By
leaving the Soviet Union and reaching
the U.S. (her real destination)
through Europe, she vowed to expose
the Communist regime. Rand adopted
her name, “Ayn Rand”, to protect her
family in Russia against retaliation.
Sandra Day O’Connor
She was the first female U.S. Supreme
Court justice. Born in 1930 on a ranch
outside El Paso, Texas, Sandra Day
O’Connor grew up knowing the land
and its people. Her early childhood
may not have been poor, but was
certainly not luxurious.
After graduating from Stanford in
1950, she became an attorney at a
time when there were few female
members of the bar. She then moved
to Arizona, and served in the state
senate from 1969 to 1974, including
the position of majority leader.
O’Connor then became a judge,
including a spot with the Arizona
Court of Appeals.
In 1981, President Reagan appointed
her to the U.S. Supreme Court, the
first female to hold that position. In
her opinions, she was considered a
moderate conservative on economic
issues, but more liberal on social
issues, such as abortion rights.
O’Connor retired from the Court in
2006, to care for her ailing husband.
Her well-written legal opinions and
integrity in the U.S. judicial system
will be long remembered.
Russian born U.S. author, who
developed the first complete
philosophical system, Objectivism,
since Aristotle, Plato, and Kant. This
was necessary to validate the
individualistic philosophy enunciated
in her fictional novels, Atlas
Shrugged, Fountainhead, Anthem and
Her writings and lectures drew the
wrath of Anthony Comstock. This man,
a vile maniac, was secretary of a
private New York organization, The
Society for Suppression of Vice. He
used his contacts with the Post Office
to seize Sanger’s material as illegal
and immoral. At one point, he
succeeded in having her imprisoned
for indecency. Later, after her release,
he realized that Sanger had become
sufficiently popular so that his further
harassment of her was unwise.
Along the way, “We the Living” was
re-introduced and became recognized
as a classic denunciation of all forms
of totalitarianism.
After writing her novels, Rand spent
most of her time writing
philosophical articles and speaking.
She was a frequent speaker at the
Ford Hall Forum in Boston. From her
writings and talks, she always drew
large crowds and volumes of written
comments. Some were filled with
admiration, others expressed almost
hysterical opposition. Her last public
appearance was at a Sound Money
conference in New Orleans in
November, 1981. At that point, her
health started to fail and she died in
March, 1982.
We The Living.
Today, it’s difficult to imagine Marilyn
Monroe growing old. She’ll always be
remembered for her beauty and a
wonder of what she would have been
like—or whether she would have
found happiness-- as an older woman.
Ayn Rand
Please join us in celebrating the
wonder that was Norman Hill.
Here are a select few highlights
of our favorite articles that he
wrote for Luxe Beat Magazine.
History
By the time of Sanger’s death in
1966, birth control pills had reached
the market. This revolutionized the
culture and, for the first time in
human history, made family planning
feasible. Although legalized abortion
followed seven years later, with Roe
versus Wade, Sanger’s primary
contribution to birth control was
already in place.
Ayn Rand’s influence on our culture
today is evident in many areas and
seems to be quietly growing.
Margaret Sanger
Her views on eugenics, forced
sterilization of undesirables, and
similar means of mandatory birth
control are unfortunate. But rejecting
these should not minimize her above
contributions.
Unfortunately, Sanger epitomizes the
concept of mixed premises, found in so
many people, both famous and obscure.
She possessed many admirable
principles, but at the same time,
advocated some that make one recoil.
U.S. author, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin
in 1852, depicting the horrors of
slavery. Its immense success in the
North showed that, even though
political practice hadn’t yet caught
up, Northern moral sensibilities were
starting to see that slavery,
somehow, must end.
She advocated and popularized birth
control and women’s control over
their own bodies and destinies. For
her views, she was denounced and
harassed by authorities and even
imprisoned briefly.
After marrying actor Frank O’Connor
in 1929, Rand struggled during the
30s as a screenwriter, playwright,
and then as an author, trying to have
We The Living (her Soviet expose)
published, despite critical hostility.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sanger later wrote that she was
struck by an episode when she was a
young woman. A male immigrant
whom she knew came to her, frantic
with desperation. He and his wife
already had several children. Her
physician had warned them that
giving birth to any more children
would surely kill the wife. The man
deeply loved his spouse and now had
apparently impregnated her again.
In the early 1940s, The Fountainhead
described a young architect of
unbending integrity, who succeeds
despite incredible obstacles from his
profession and society. After
numerous publishers had rejected it,
MacMillan decided to publish it.
Despite critics’ negative reviews, the
novel wound up a best seller. This led
to The Fountainhead being made into
a movie, with Gary Cooper and
Patricia Neal.
Stowe was the wife of a seminary
teacher and daughter of a prominent
New England minister. In her novel,
characters such as Tom and,
especially, Eliza, were based on actual
characters from the Underground
Railroad whom Stowe studied.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought slavery,
the Underground Railroad, and the
Abolitionist movement to the
forefront of American consciousness.
Much more than sermons and religious
fer vor from Abolitionist leaders, it
presented the journeys of escaping
slaves along the Underground
Railroad as romantic, as well as moral,
endeavors. The graphic depiction of
Eliza’s escape across the frozen Ohio
River, while pursued by slave
catchers, made many Northerners
seethe with indignation over slavery
in a way that previous writings and
sermons had not generated.
In those days, abortions were strictly
criminal and were often administered
by unsavory characters with little or
no medical or sanitary skills. Because
Sanger could offer no help, the couple
attempted to undergo one of these
abortions and the man’s beloved wife
died during the procedure. This
motivated Sanger to find solutions for
women to avoid unwanted childbirths.
Later, while working as a
screenwriter in Hollywood, Rand was
inspired to write Atlas Shrugged. This
project arose from her contemplating
what would happen if men of ability
decided to strike against a
collectivist society that claimed the
right to control their talents and
minds. It was then that she saw the
necessity for completely articulating
her philosophy, simultaneously with
writing the novel that depicted it.
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957
and remains a favorite on the New
York Times Best Seller List, being
outsold only by the Bible.
Initially, Sanger started to lecture
publicly on the need for birth control.
She apparently did not advocate
legalizing abortion, but instead, focused
on other means of birth control. Sanger
founded Planned Parenthood, the
organization that continues a primary
focus on this control.
3
Naturally, her novel was despised in the
slave states. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was
banned there and U.S. postmasters in
the South were diligent in keeping it
4
out of delivered mails.
Later, during the Civil War, President
Lincoln invited Stowe to the White
House. While uncertain, he may have
introduced her as “The little lady who
wrote the book that made this great
war.” She had.
Margaret Thatcher
She has often been called the “Iron
Lady” or, by the Soviets against
whom she stood up, “Iron Maiden.”
As U.K. Prime Minister, 1979-1990,
the first female in this position, she
brought her country out of dismal
status as a European sick man,
similar to current Greece. Against
strong opposition, even within her
own party, Thatcher promoted free
market principles. By selling off
money-losing state properties and
confronting Marxist labor unions,
she helped revive the U.K. economy.
Thatcher supported Reagan in
fighting Soviet ambitions, which
ultimately brought Cold War
victory. Also, she enhanced U.K.
morale by taking a firm stand in the
Falkland Islands conflict with
Argentina. Although the islands
were quite small, their psychological
impact was large.
A recent movie, “The Iron Lady,”
described Margaret Thatcher’s life.
Harriet Tubman
Born into slavery in 1822, Tubman
escaped from a Maryland plantation
to freedom in the North. She served
as a fearless conductor along the
Underground Railroad, not just with
finding shelter for escapees in
Northern cities, but guiding them
along trails in the South. Despite a
price on her head, she returned to
the South again and again to help
slaves use “Railroad” facilities to
reach freedom in the North. She
successfully freed several members
of her own family.
After the Civil War, later in her life,
Harriet Tubman founded and raised
funds for a home for indigent and
aged African-Americans in upstate
New York. When she died in 1913,
age 91, she had outlived her known
contemporaries, white and black,
who had served in the Underground
Railroad.
Unfortunately, Tubman remained
illiterate all her life, and her speech
patterns were always crude. Thus,
there are no personal memoirs of
her life and exploits. But her many
friends and colleagues, along with
people she rescued from slavery,
have assured her of a place in
American history.