Old Long Ago | Happy New Year from HDV!

Ambassador Winthrop Aldrich, ex-envoy to Britain chatting with Marilyn Monroe as her husband, playwright Arthur Miller looks on at April in Paris Ball, 1957.

Britt Ekland and Peter Sellers, 1964

AULD LANG SYNE | A New Year's Poem by Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wandered mony a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidled i' the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Peepol Undatha Stares | PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS!

HDV Salutes the Retro Lifestyle of People Under The Stairs

Bad Munstereifel + Exophthalmos = HEINO!

Heino is a German pop music singer who also performs traditional Volksmusik. Heino must wear corrective sunglasses for his exophthalmos. Exophthalmos (also called exophthalmia) is a bulging of the eye anteriorly out of the orbit. Exophthalmos can be either bilateral (as is often seen in Graves' disease) or unilateral (as is often seen in an orbital tumor).

Measurement of the degree of exophthalmos is performed using an exophthalmometer as pictured below.

Heino is considered by many an icon of kitsch in the English-speaking world. Heino resides in the small town of Bad Münstereifel where he owns a cafe, and plays his own music in the background.  Bad Münstereifel is a historical spa town in the district of Euskirchen situated in the far south of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In recent years, the unofficial Nintendo fan convention (NCON) has been held in the town's St. Angela Gymnasium.

Some of Heino's masterpieces are In einer Bar in Mexico, Carneval in Rio, Komm in meinen Wigwam, and Bier, Bier, Bier.  HDV has heard rumors of a "Cosmic Order of Heino" cult, but their current whereabouts are unknown.

Elvis and Me | Priscilla in 1972

Uncertain about who he was and where his career was going, Elvis turned to spiritualism in the late 60s, dragging an uninterested Priscilla with him.  In his search for a "higher state of consciousness" Presley became fascinated with the occult and metaphysical phenomena. During his spiritual quest everyone around them saw Presley's personality change dramatically from vibrant and playful, to passive and introverted. Presley went through a period of celibacy, in keeping with the teachings of an Indian guru. When they were in bed, Priscilla recollects, "he took his usual dose of sleeping pills, handed me mine, and then, fighting off drowsiness from the pills, pored over his metaphysical books." 

Priscilla was not interested, and recalled Elvis saying "Things will never work out between us, Cilla, because you don't show any interest in me or my philosophies."  When this phase of his life passed, she and Elvis had a bonfire and burned the stacks of magazines and books he had accumulated on the subject. They tried marijuana during this time, but did not like it as it made them ravenously hungry. Although Presley abhorred street drugs, they used LSD. While they both thought it had been an "extraordinary experience," they were afraid of it and experimented that one time only.

Sammy Davis Jr. Claus | Alka-Seltzer 1979

MERRY XMAS FROM HDV!

Message from the Queens | Freddie & Elizabeth Wish You A Merry Xmas

The First Televised Queen's Christmas Message | 1957

Somebody to Love, Queen - 1976

Hai Karate | Be Careful How You Use It

Hai Karate Aftershave Commercial, 1967

Smokey & The Miracles at the Apollo | You Got A Real Tight Hold on Me

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: You Really Got a Hold on Me + Bring it on Home to Me
Apollo Theatre, 1963

Ray Bradbury and the Prunes of Tomorrow

The Art of Christmas | Paper Santa

Happy Holidays from HDV!

TOMORROW! Andy Wolf Trunk Show @ HDV Beverly | December 17th 6-9pm

Andy Wolf Trunk Show at HDV Beverly
December 17th | 6-9pm

In conjunction with the Beverly Boulevard Holiday Shopping Event

Winter Wonder | Vintage Couple on the Mountain

In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.
-Albert Camus

Sweet Sweet Jane | Vintage Woman at Hollywood & Vine, 1944

Diligent secretary Jane Yaeger at a bustling Hollywood & Vine in 1944.

Death in the Afternoon | Hemingway at the Bull Fight

The American writer Ernest Hemingway aspired to be a matador. His novel The Sun Also Rises has autobiographical elements and includes bullfighting themes, as do his short stories The Capital of the World and The Undefeated. He also wrote two non-fiction books on bullfighting, entitled Death in the Afternoon (1933) and The Dangerous Summer (1959).

Introducing Andy Wolf

HDV is delighted to introduce the complete ANDY WOLF EYEWEAR collection. Visit the Los Feliz Boutique to try them, direct from Austria.

Dedicated Bowtie Devotee Arthur Schlesinger 1968 + 1999

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. was a Pulitzer Prize recipient and American historian who served as special assistant and "court historian" to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy Administration, from the transition period to the president's state funeral, titled A Thousand Days. In 1968, he actively supported the presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy until Kennedy's assassination in the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, and wrote the biography Robert Kennedy and His Times several years later.

If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.

-Arthur Schlesinger

Making a Spectacle of Herself | Susan Sarandon, 1982

Susan Sarandon, 1982

He's A Believer | Michael Nesmith's Blue Aviator, 1967

The Monkees, Daydream Believer Single, 1967

You once thought of me
As a white knight on a steed.
Now you know how happy I can be.
Oh, and our good times start and end
Without dollar one to spend.

But how much, baby, do we really need...

Your Eyes May Look | Jefferson Airplane, 1967

Jefferson Airplane, 1967

When the truth is found to be lies
And all the joy within you dies

Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love

When the garden's flowers, baby, are dead
Yes, and your mind, your mind is so full of red

Your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his
Yeah but in your head, baby
I'm afraid you don't know where it is

Tears are running, they're all running down your breast
And your friends, baby, they treat you like a guest

People Are Strange | Peter Sellers, 1964

General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.