Pendergast T., Pendergast S. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Volume 5: U-Z
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VALLEEENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
21
Marie Nyswander, a New York City psychiatrist, who warned of its
addictive properties. ‘‘Probably it would be very hard to find any
group of middle-class women in which some aren’t regularly on
Valium,’’ Nyswander declared. ‘‘Valiumania,’’ as a 1976 piece
authored by Cant in the New York Times Magazine was titled, termed
it the most profitable drug in history, and questioned whether it had
been ‘‘overmarketed’’ by Hoffman-LaRoche. Tellingly, only about
10 percent of prescriptions for Valium written in 1974 came from
mental health professionals; 60 to 70 percent of Valium prescriptions
came from the family doctor, gynecologists, or even more alarmingly,
pediatricians. ‘‘Women, mostly those over 30, outnumber male users
of Valium by 2-1/2 to one,’’ Cant pointed out.
Valium also began to appear as an illegal ‘‘street’’ drug around
1975, the same year overall tranquilizer usage in the United States
peaked. In 1978, it was estimated that about 20 percent of American
women were taking Valium; nearly 2.3 billion of the pills were
prescribed that year alone. The drug was so pervasive—and still
considered relatively harmless—that it began to enter the vernacular.
It was jokingly referred to as ‘‘Executive Excedrin,’’ and made its
way into comic scenes in movies such as Starting Over, as well as
Woody Allen films and Neil Simon plays. An autopsy report found it
in Elvis Presley’s system when he died in 1977.
A 1979 bestseller, I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, did much to
alert the public to Valium’s dangers. Its author, Barbara Gordon, was
a successful, educated Manhattan career woman who became hooked
on the drug over a nine-year period, and had to be hospitalized for her
withdrawal symptoms. Reports of ‘‘rebound insomnia’’ from even
light Valium usage began to appear in the press, and Senate subcom-
mittee hearings later that year received widespread media coverage.
Dr. Joseph Pursch—who, as head of the drug and rehabilitation
program at Long Beach (California) Naval Regional Medical Center
had treated former First Lady Betty Ford for her substance abuse
problems—testified on the dangers of Valium. Physicians publicly
confessed they had become addicted to the free samples mailed to
them by Hoffman-LaRoche. An executive at the company defended
the drug before the Senate committee, and asserted that its abuse was
not Hoffman-LaRoche’s fault, but lay rather at the feet of the doctors
who overprescribed it and in the percentage of patients who became
addicted to almost any substance. A physician also spoke on behalf of
Hoffman-LaRoche, and asserted with complete seriousness that ‘‘to
imply that the medicine is dangerous or highly addictive is not only
incorrect, but it is a great disservice to millions of people whose lives
are already troubled,’’ Time quoted Dr. Michael Halberstam as saying.
As a compromise, the Food and Drug Administration forced
Hoffman-LaRoche to include the caveat in its medical-journal adver-
tisements for Valium as well as in the information provided to
physicians stating that ‘‘anxiety or tension associated with the stress
of everyday life usually does not require treatment with an anxiolytic
drug.’’ This warning went into effect in the summer of 1980, but a
1981 report on the possible link between Valium use and the rapid
growth of cancer cells probably spelled a far worse death knell for the
drug’s popularity with the general public. The author of the study, Dr.
David Horrobin, claimed he was forced out of a job at the University
of Montreal because of his findings and his attempt to make them
public. By 1982, the most prescribed medication in America was
Tagamet, the anti-ulcer drug.
—Carol Brennan
F
URTHER READING:
Cant, Gilbert. ‘‘Valiumania.’’ New York Times Magazine. February
1, 1976, 34-44.
‘‘Danger Ahead! Valium—The Pill You Love Can Turn on You.’’
Vogue. February, 1975, 152-153.
‘‘The Drugging of America.’’ Science News. February 25, 1978, 119.
Kent, Letitia. ‘‘Leo Sternbach: The Tranquil Chemist.’’ SciQuest.
December, 1980, 22-24.
‘‘Tranquil Tales.’’ Time. September 24, 1979, 78.
‘‘Valium Abuse: The Yellow Peril.’’ Newsweek. September 24,
1979, 66.
‘‘Valium Alarm.’’ Time. January 19, 1981, 74-75.
‘‘Yellow Light for Tranquilizers.’’ Time. July 21, 1980, 53.
Vallee, Rudy (1901-1986)
One of the most popular American singers in the 1920s and
1930s, Rudy Vallee became a sought-after supporting actor in Holly-
wood films, an important pioneer in radio variety shows, and much
later a musical comedy star on Broadway.
Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, he was a self-
taught drummer in his high school band. In 1919 he began a self-study
Rudy Vallee
VAMPIRES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
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of the clarinet and saxophone, frequently spending six to eight hours a
day practicing, and within a year was performing publicly at the
Strand Theater in Portland, Maine. After a year at the University of
Maine, he transferred to Yale in the fall of 1922, where he earned
tuition by playing his sax at country clubs and college dances. While
playing with the Yale Collegians he began using a hand-held mega-
phone to amplify his crooning, light-tone voice. The megaphone—
similar to the ones used by cheerleaders—became his trademark and
was soon copied by other vocalists.
In 1924 Vallee dropped out of Yale and went to London, where
he played sax at the Savoy Hotel with Vincent Lopez and the Savoy
Havana Band. Returning to Yale, he continued his studies and
graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1925. Moving to
New York City, Rudy formed a small band called The Connecticut
Yankees, consisting of two violins, two saxophones, and a piano. The
primary purpose of the orchestra was to accompany their leader’s
suave, but somewhat nasal vocals. An engagement at the Heigh-Ho
Club in Manhattan in 1928 brought Vallee his first real fame. He was
soon broadcasting on radio as many as 25 times a week, beginning
each one with “Heigh-ho everyone, this is Rudy Vallee.” His sudden
success brought him engagements at New York’s Paramount and
Palace Theaters.
Rudy and the Connecticut Yankees went to Hollywood to film
Vagabond Lover in 1929, returning immediately to New York for
more radio work and regular appearances at Villa Vallee, a nightclub
Rudy owned. He soon evolved a busy routine, starting with daily
shows at the Paramount and other theaters, then nightly shows at the
Villa Vallee, and three broadcasts, along with recording sessions and
filming musical short subjects.
In 1929 Rudy also began broadcasting a weekly one-hour
variety show on NBC radio. Stars such as Fred Allen, Jack Benny,
Edgar Bergen, and Kate Smith made their debuts on Vallee’s
Fleischmann Hour and later became radio stars themselves. Other
outstanding guests included George Gershwin, George Burns and
Gracie Allen, Eddie Cantor, Red Skelton, and Fannie Brice. Vallee
also invited black performers, rarely used on network shows, to
appear, including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Maxine Sullivan, and
Fats Waller. At its peak, the show featured America’s top stars. On
December 13, 1934, for example, Vallee broadcast from the Radio
City Music Hall, featuring announcer Jimmy Wallington, guests
Henry Fonda and June Walker playing a scene from The Farmer
Takes a Wife, and interviews with Cole Porter, Buck and Bubbles,
William S. Hart, and Bea Lillie.
After ten years, Vallee ended his popular radio show. In 1942, he
played the bumbling millionaire in one of director Preston Sturges’
best films, Palm Beach Story, starring Claudette Colbert. When
World War II began, Vallee joined the U.S. Coast Guard Service and
led a forty-piece band on an extensive tour. He then returned to radio
in 1944, broadcasting for two years with co-star Monty Woolley.
Hollywood beckoned in 1947, and Vallee played light comedy and
character roles in such films as Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, with
Cary Grant and Myrna Loy; I Remember Mama, with Irene Dunne;
Unforgettably Yours, with Rex Harrison; and The Beautiful Blonde
from Bashful Bend, with Betty Grable. From 1961-64, he played in
the Broadway musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying, and his final film was the Hollywood version of that
show in 1967.
—Benjamin Griffith
F
URTHER READING:
Lackmann, Ron. Same Time . . . Same Station: A-Z Guide to Radio
from Jack Benny to Howard Stern. New York, Facts on File, 1996.
Ragan, David. Who’s Who in Hollywood, 1900-1976. New Rochelle,
Arlington, 1976.
Quinlan, David. The Illustrated Directory of Film Stars. New York,
Hippocrene, 1982.
Vampires
No creature haunting Western society’s collective imagination
has proven more enduring, more compelling, or more alluring than
the vampire. But it was only with the his transformation from
emaciated, plague-carrying ‘‘nosferatu’’ (literally, ‘‘not dead’’) to
suave, sexually appealing anti-hero that the vampire’s status as pop
cultural icon was assured. Authors and poets ranging from Byron,
Goethe, Baudelaire, and Le Fanu to Poe, Wells, King, and Rice have
made contributions to vampire lore. Dracula, the best-known and
most resilient vampire, has appeared in more films than any other
fictional character save perhaps for Sherlock Holmes. On television,
vampires have starred in dramas (The Kindred, 1996), sitcoms (The
Munsters, 1964-1966), soaps (Dark Shadows, 1966-1971), and count-
less made-for-television movies. On the radio, Orson Welles’ por-
trayal of Dracula for The Mercury Theatre in 1938 became an instant
classic. In addition, vampires have been made the subject of such
cultural castoffs as stamps, comic books, lunchboxes, breakfast
cereals, cartoons, role-playing games, and do-it-yourself makeup
kits—in short, just about anything capable of sustaining an image or
supporting a narrative.
In pre-Christian times, the vampire was a regular in Middle
European folklore. Typically portrayed as an unkempt peasant with
terrible breath and a craving for the blood of farm animals, his taste
underwent a profound change in the seventeenth century— instead of
sheep and oxen, he began turning to members of his own family in
search of nourishment. This shift in sensibility most likely occurred
because distraught villagers needed a face to attach to the deadly
plague infecting their neighbors.
The vampire entered the literary realm by way of German
gothicism: in Ossenfelder’s ‘‘The Vampire’’ (1748), Bürger’s Lenore
(1773), and Goethe’s The Bride of Corinth (1797) the once-shy
bloodsucker slowly made the transition to sexual predator. But the
first truly modern vampire appeared in John Polidori’s extended
revision of a fragment written by the English poet Lord Byron in
1816; amazingly, it was during the same session of story-telling at a
villa near Geneva that Mary Shelley conceived the plot of Frankenstein.
In Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), the dashing Lord Ruthven quenches
his thirst with the blood of attractive young women. To cash in on
Ruthven’s surprising popularity, a number of plays, burlesques, and
operas were quickly brought to stage in France, Germany, and England.
With the publication of James Malcolm Rymer’s 868 page
penny-dreadful, Varney the Vampire, or the Feast of Blood in 1847,
the vampire became a pop culture phenomenon. Many elements of
Varney’s comic-book adventures were appropriated by Bram Stoker
VAMPIRESENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
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Christopher Lee as the vampire Dracula in a scene from the film Horror of Dracula.
for use in his celebrated gothic novel, Dracula (1897). Female
vampires also came into their own around this time; Sheridan Le
Fanu’s novella Carmilla (1871) recounts a destructive lesbian affair,
a theme exploited years later in such films as Dracula’s Daughter
(1936) and The Velvet Vampire (1971), as well as in the homoerotic
vampire fantasies of novelist Anne Rice.
In preparation for his novel, Stoker read everything he could find
on vampires at the British Museum. He was fascinated by stories of
Vlad the Impaler, a fifteenth century Romanian prince with a pen-
chant for staking his victims. This real-life Dracula (Vlad’s father was
a member of the paramilitary group, ‘‘Dracul’’) provided Stoker with
a historical basis for his monster. Dracula effectively synthesized the
vampire legend’s major motifs (including shape-shifting, mind con-
trol, avoidance of daylight, lack of reflection, and talismans such as
garlic and crosses), and moved the Count out of his castle and into a
bustling urban locale. Stoker’s rendition of the vampire as a sexual
oppressor roaming the streets of London tapped into the public’s fear
of serial killers such as Jack the Ripper, who not 10 years earlier
murdered six women in the city’s East End.
In 1922, German director F.W. Murnau brought the folkloric
vampire back to life with his silent expressionist masterpiece, Nosferatu:
A Symphony of Horror. Max Schreck stars as Count Orlock, a gaunt,
bald, rat-like vampire who bears almost no resemblance to Bela
Lugosi’s suave, aristocratic Count Dracula. Four years before gracing
the silver screen in Tod Browning’s 1931 classic, Dracula, the
Hungarian-born Lugosi established his reputation as the world’s
leading vampire by starring in a Broadway production of Stoker’s tale
(a half-century later, Frank Langella would play the Count in a
successful New York revival). Lugosi’s exotic accent, distinctive
mannerisms, and sinister charm captivated audiences, and Universal
Studios contracted him to reprise his role in a slew of horror films.
Celluloid vampires suffered from burnout until 1958, when
Christopher Lee reprised the role of the Count in Hammer Films’
elegant bloodfest, Horror of Dracula. Numerous sequels, also star-
ring Lee, soon followed. Other notable vampire pictures include Carl
Dreyer’s Vampyre (1931), Roman Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Kill-
ers (1969), a 1972 blaxploitation film entitled Blacula, Werner
Herzog’s remake of Nosferatu (1979), campy satires by Mel Brooks
VAN DINE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
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and Andy Warhol, a porno (Dracula Sucks, 1979), Coppola’s big-
budget rendition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and a 1994
adaptation of Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Vampires even
turned up in such unlikely genres as science fiction (Lifeforce, 1985)
and Westerns (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, 1966).
Vampire iconography has exerted a powerful influence on
communal style and behavior. A whole ‘‘Gothic’’ youth culture,
complete with all-black clothing, somber music, and atmospheric
nightclubs, arose as an offshoot of punk in the 1970s, and an
underground cult of real-life blood drinkers has steadily increased in
numbers. The socially-revealing image of vampire as obsessive
blood-junkie has been thematized in such films as Deathdream
(1972), Martin (1978), and The Addiction (1995).
There are many reasons for the vampire’s enduring popularity.
While most monsters are portrayed as ugly, even grotesque, vampires
are often handsome or beautiful. They are surrounded by large and
arcane bodies of knowledge concerning their origins, powers, and
weaknesses. Foreign, well-traveled, aristocratic, charming, even mag-
netic, they possess an undeniable erotic appeal. What is more, they are
subversive, challenging traditional ideas about death, religion, sci-
ence, sexual mores, and patriarchy. And lest we forget, they have
what we all want: money, power, sexual attractiveness, and, above all,
eternal youth.
—Steven Schneider
F
URTHER READING:
Carter, Margaret, editor. The Vampire in Literature: A Critical
Biography. Anne Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1989.
Dresser, Norine. American Vampires: Fans, Victims, and Practition-
ers. New York, Norton, 1989.
Melton, Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.
Detroit, Visible Ink Press, 1998.
Pirie, David. The Vampire Cinema. New York, Crescent Books, 1977.
Silver, Alain, and James Ursini. The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu
to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. New York, Limelight, 1993.
Twitchell, James. ‘‘The Rise and Fall and Rise of Dracula.’’ Dreadful
Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror. New York, Oxford
University Press, 1985, 105-159.
Waller, Gregory. The Living and the Undead: From Stoker’s Dracula
to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Urbana, University of Illinois
Press, 1986.
Van Dine, S. S. (1888-1939)
The ‘‘Golden Age’’ of the detective novel is generally consid-
ered to have been the years between World Wars I and II. S. S. Van
Dine’s first Philo Vance detective novel, The Benson Murder Case
(1926), is often cited as the book that began this era. Although there
were only 12 Vance novels and his popularity fell as quickly as it rose,
Vance was by far the bestselling mystery character of his time. Born
Willard Huntington Wright in Charlottesville, Virginia, Van Dine
first became known as an editor and literary critic for the Los Angeles
Times and then for Smart Set magazine. By the 1930s Van Dine’s
following as a mystery writer was already beginning to fade. He
began writing for motion pictures and contributed a chapter to The
President’s Mystery Story, published by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935.
—Jill A. Gregg
F
URTHER READING:
Loughery, John. Alias S. S. Van Dine. New York, Scribners, 1992.
Van Dyke, Dick (1925—)
Dick Van Dyke is best remembered as a television comedian in
the 1960s and 1970s, but this performer’s career has included
everything from Broadway to motion pictures to drama, in which he
has excelled portraying likeable and sensible characters. His most
successful role was as the star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, an Emmy-
award-winning sitcom that appeared on the CBS-TV network from
1961 to 1966; he played the role of Rob Petrie, the head writer for the
Dick Van Dyke
VAN DYKEENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
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fictional ‘‘Alan Brady Show’’ who lives with his wife (played by
Mary Tyler Moore) and son in suburban New Rochelle, New York.
The show was unusual for a sitcom of the period in that it allowed its
star to portray a ‘‘TV Dad’’ both at home and at work while offering
an insightful, behind-the-scenes glimpse of a television sitcom from
the inside out.
Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, on December 13,
1925, the son of a trucking agent. His younger brother, Jerry, also
became a comedian. It was while he was serving in the U.S. Air Force
during World War II that Van Dyke began performing in shows; one
of his buddies, Byron Paul, later became his personal manager. After
a failed attempt, with a friend, to start an advertising agency after the
war, Van Dyke formed a comedy pantomime act, The Merry Mutes,
with his friend Philip Erickson. ‘‘Eric and Van’’ broke up in 1953 and
Van Dyke continued to appear solo in nightclubs around the country
until he became emcee of two daytime programs for an Atlanta
television station: The Merry Mutes Show and The Music Shop. In
1955, he originated a variety program he called The Dick Van Dyke
Show for a New Orleans television station, and went to New York as
emcee for CBS’s The Morning Show, following in the footsteps of
Walter Cronkite and Jack Paar. He was emcee of CBS Cartoon
Theater in 1956 and NBC’s Laugh Line in 1959.
Disappointed with CBS’s refusal to offer him a daily show, Van
Dyke appeared as a guest performer on a variety of television shows,
including The United States Steel Hour, but it was on Broadway that
he had his first major starring role. From April 1960 to September
1961, he attracted much critical and popular attention and won a Tony
award for the role of Albert Peterson in the musical comedy Bye Bye
Birdie. A month after leaving that cast, he debuted as TV writer Rob
Petrie in his own weekly TV sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show, which
premiered on October 3, 1961 with Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore
as the leads, and Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, and Richard
Deacon playing the supporting roles. The episode, titled ‘‘Head of the
Family’’ was the title of the pilot episode that writer-producer Carl
Reiner had earlier made with himself in the leading role—Johnny
Carson was also briefly considered for the part—until he agreed that
Van Dyke was a better choice. Reiner, who appeared on the show in
the role of Alan Brady, based many of the episodes on his own
experience as a writer for the 1950s comedy series Your Show of
Shows. The Dick Van Dyke Show was also a vehicle for the relatively
unknown Mary Tyler Moore, who had appeared mostly in commer-
cials before assuming the role of Rob Petrie’s wife.
The Dick Van Dyke Show stands as an icon to the times, a mirror
for the world of television in the early 1960s and for the suburban
lifestyle that was then somewhat more idyllic than it would become in
later years. It was popular largely because of Van Dyke’s ability to
play both light, sophisticated, domestic comedy and engage in
clownish, farcical pratfalls. The stories endure because they present
believable characters in unusual but ultimately explainable situations.
The producers and cast deliberately ended production after just five
seasons, and so the quality of this series remains consistently high
throughout; it won fifteen Emmys in five consecutive years.
Beginning in the 1960s Van Dyke starred in a number of
memorable films. He reprised his Broadway role in a film adaptation
of Bye, Bye, Birdie (1963), then played the Chimney Sweep alongside
Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins (1965). He next starred in Lt. Robin
Crusoe U.S.N. (1966) and Divorce American Style (1967), and played
an eccentric inventor in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). In 1971, he
tried a different type of role in the satire Cold Turkey, that of a
minister in a town undergoing withdrawal symptoms as it tries to give
up smoking for a month to win a bounty from a tobacco company.
Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke were reunited in The New Dick
Van Dyke Show in 1971 by a CBS network anxious to try to recapture
the viewers and quality of their first sitcom a decade earlier. By this
time The Mary Tyler Moore Show had become a hit, and the trend was
toward the sophisticated, more adult comedies, like the original Dick
Van Dyke Show had been. In The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Van
Dyke was cast in the role of Dick Preston, the host of a local talk show
in Phoenix, Arizona, and a happily married family man with loving
young daughter and college-age son. For the final twenty-four epi-
sodes, the scene shifted to Hollywood as Dick Preston accepted a
major role in a daytime soap opera. This venue seemed a more
deliberate attempt to duplicate the earlier show, with its faster pace
and more emphasis on behind-the-scenes banter among the perform-
ers, writers, and producer.
Despite these devices, The New Dick Van Dyke Show was not
overly popular with audiences and it was almost canceled by the
network until a flap over one episode in which the Prestons’ teenaged
daughter accidentally walked in on them while they were having sex.
Though the bedroom scene was not shown on camera, the network
refused to air the episode as it was filmed and Reiner quit. It was after
his departure that the show’s setting moved to Hollywood, and the
show’s new soap-opera situation, plus publicity over the earlier flap,
helped raise its ratings somewhat. By 1974 Van Dyke decided not to
continue the show, which still won an Emmy. He returned later in the
1970s with a briefly-running variety show called Dick Van Dyke and
Co. that won another Emmy for him.
Following this show, Van Dyke continued to make occasional
movies and is perhaps best known for a series of public-service
announcements aimed at fire safety for children that advised them to:
‘‘Stop, Drop and Roll.’’ He, along with Pearl Bailey and Hermione
Gingold, supplied voices for the British-made children’s movie
Tubby the Tuba (1977), and he appeared as the star of The Runner
Stumbles (1979) and in the supporting cast of Dick Tracy (1990). In
the early 1990s Van Dyke reappeared before television audiences as
the ‘‘Chairman’’ of Nick-at-Nite, the cable network program that
shows reruns of classic TV shows including his own 1960s series.
Around this time, he also appeared in episodes of the show Jake and
the Fatman and in several television movies. His most notable role in
this period was that of Dr. Mark Sloan in the hour-long CBS-TV
dramatic series Diagnosis Murder. In this show, Dr. Sloan is por-
trayed as a Los Angeles crime-solving physician with a police
detective son, played by Van Dyke’s real-life son, Barry. This show
captured a strong following and benefited from a new writing team
that allowed it to grow and expand. Despite its serious subject, the
show was directed with a playful and human feel that reflected Van
Dyke’s combination of sophistication and humor. In early 1999, he
was cast as Ted Danson’s father in a ‘‘Becker the Elder’’ episode of
another CBS-TV series, Becker.
—Frank E. Clark
F
URTHER READING:
‘‘Becker.’’ http://members.theglobe.com/Becker_TV/dickvan1.htm.
June 1999.
VAN HALEN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
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Castleman, Harry, and Walter J. Podrazik. Harry and Wally’s Favor-
ite Shows: A Fact-filled Opinionated Guide to the Best and Worst
on TV. New York, Prentice Hall Press, 1989.
Marc, David, and Robert J. Thompson. Prime Time, Prime Movers:
From I Love Lucy to L. A. Law—America’s Greatest TV Shows
and the People Who Created Them. Boston, Little Brown, 1992.
McNeil, Alex. Total Television: A Comprehensive Guide to Pro-
gramming from 1948 to the Present. 3rd edition. New York,
Penguin Books, 1991.
Putterman, Barry. On Television and Comedy: Essays on Style,
Theme, Performer and Writer. Jefferson, North Carolina,
McFarland, 1995.
‘‘VideoFlicks.’’ http:www.videoflicks.com. June 1999.
Waldron, Vince. Classic Sitcoms: A Celebration of the Best in Prime-
Time Comedy. 2nd edition. Los Angeles, Silman-James Press, 1997.
Van Halen
The rock quartet Van Halen exploded into the American main-
stream in 1978 with an eponymously titled debut album that soon
went platinum, thanks to its blend of musical experimentation and an
old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll aesthetic. Named for Eddie Van Halen, the
group’s guitar virtuoso, the band’s image promoted a hedonistic
lifestyle and immediately captured the imagination of many young
fans. Drawing from traditions of Southern blues, European baroque,
and 1980s America, the band, over the next two decades, weathered
major lineup changes and stylistic reinvention to remain one of the
nation’s most innovative musical groups.
Van Halen came together in Pasadena, California, in the mid-
1970s, one of the first of the new wave of West Coast hard rock and
heavy metal bands that had grown up on and would eventually replace
British acts like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. The band’s first
incarnation centered on Alex and Eddie Van Halen, sons of an
accomplished Dutch musician. The boys’ intense classical training
helped them produce distinctive and innovative music in an era when
many metal bands were surrendering to formula. The band added
Michael Anthony as bass player and David Lee Roth as vocalist and
gigged locally under the name Mammoth before choosing to call itself
Van Halen.
Van Halen paid its dues in the highly competitive Los Angeles
music scene, where it was discovered first by Gene Simmons of the
band KISS and later by a Warner Brothers executive. Its debut album,
with Roth’s lewd, growling vocals on songs like ‘‘Dance the Night
Away’’ and ‘‘Runnin’ With the Devil’’ grounded the band firmly in
blues and heavy metal traditions, while Eddie Van Halen’s creative
guitar work, showcased on the extended pseudo-classical solo ‘‘Erup-
tion,’’ appealed to other traditionalists.
The band’s next five albums all went multi-platinum, even when
the band experimented with organs, synthesizers, saxophone, and a
capella crooning, as on 1982’s Diver Down and 1984’s 1984. The
latter album showed the band’s more lighthearted, pop-friendly
approach, as with the single ‘‘Jump’’ and its video that took advan-
tage of David Lee Roth’s high-kicking manic stage presence. In 1985,
at the height of the band’s popularity, David Lee Roth left the group to
pursue a moderately successful solo career. Van Halen continued
with new lead vocalist Sammy Hagar, already well-known from his
work with Montrose and as a solo performer. The band released three
hugely successful albums with Hagar at the helm, maintaining its
exuberance while adding a nuance of socially meaningful music, as
with ‘‘Right Here Right Now,’’ a powerful song and carefully crafted
video about taking care of one’s own life in the midst of problems
abroad. In 1996, Hagar himself left and Van Halen responded by
releasing live and greatest-hits albums and attempting a reunion with
David Lee Roth at the 1996 MTV Music Video Awards. Van Halen
resurfaced in 1998 with new lead vocalist Gary Cherone; ‘‘Without
You,’’ the first single with this new lineup, debuted at #1 on the
Billboard charts.
Still, it is Eddie Van Halen who has been recognized as the force
behind most of Van Halen’s music. From the beginning, his technical
mastery and innovation set new parameters for the iconic Guitar
Hero. In his unending quest for superb sound, he rewired amps,
assembled guitars backwards, converted arias and concertos into
searing solos, and tapped the fret board of his instrument with both
hands at once. His solo on Michael Jackson’s smash hit ‘‘Beat It’’
gave the song a hard edge, a certain legitimacy in a decade where
dance and heavy metal fought for control of the airwaves. Eddie Van
Halen, who had married teen idol Valerie Bertinelli, spent the 1990s
overcoming substance-abuse problems, but he is remembered for
having provided the blueprint for rock idols of his era—beautiful,
long-haired, positive, and talented.
—Colby Vargas
F
URTHER READING:
Considine, J. D. Van Halen. New York, Quill, 1985.
Kitts, Jeff, editor. Guitar World Presents Van Halen: Eddie Van
Halen In His Own Words. Milwaukee, Hal Leonard Publish-
ing, 1997.
Morison, Buzz. The Mighty Van Halen. Port Chester, New York,
Cherry Lane Books, 1984.
Shearlaw, John. Van Halen: Jumpin’ for the Dollar. Port Chester,
New York, Cherry Lane Books, 1984.
Walser, Robert. Running With the Devil: Power, Gender, and Mad-
ness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover, Wesleyan University
Press, 1993.
Van Vechten, Carl (1880-1964)
Carl Van Vechten was, in the course of his lifetime, a music,
dance, and literary critic, a novelist, and a photographer. He was an
early aficionado of ragtime and jazz and during the Harlem Renais-
sance of the 1920s wrote numerous articles in support of the move-
ment. In his fifth and best-known novel, Nigger Heaven (1926), he
meant to portray the life of Harlem in a realistic and sympathetic
fashion. Though controversial, the book was generally praised by
white critics; it was condemned and dismissed by black critics
VANCEENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
27
Van Halen: (from left) Michael Anthony, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Sammy Hagar, 1987.
because of its ill-chosen title. Van Vechten sought to ensure that the
African American contribution to American culture would be recog-
nized and appreciated in perpetuity by founding, in 1941, the James
Weldon Johnson Collection at Yale University.
—Laural Weintraub
F
URTHER READING:
Kellner, Bruce. Carl Van Vechten and the Irreverent Decades.
Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1968.
Lueders, Edward. Carl Van Vechten. New York, Twayne Publish-
ers, 1964.
Vance, Vivian (1909-1979)
In the early days of television when millions of Americans
viewed small screen stars as personal friends, Vivian Vance became
the nation’s most celebrated neighbor. Vance, a Broadway veteran
with credits for Voice of the Turtle and Jerome Kern’s Music in the
Air, rocketed to stardom as Lucille Ball’s landlady and confidante on
the immensely popular I Love Lucy show. Her character, Ethel Mertz,
by nature homespun and pragmatic, wavers just enough in her resolve
to be cajoled into participating in the hair-brained schemes of Ball’s
antic Lucy Ricardo. She also struggles to pump life into her happy but
conventional existence with husband Fred (William Frawley). Vance
proved to be Ball’s ideal foil; their interaction helped make the sitcom
the country’s number one show from 1951 to 1957.
Vance’s perennial good cheer on screen masked her personal
frustrations and several bouts with mental illness. She resented the
ease with which the public accepted her as Ethel Mertz. ‘‘Ethel is a
frump,’’ she lamented. ‘‘She’s frowsy, she’s blowsy, and talks like a
man.’’ Vance also grew increasingly dissatisfied with co-star Frawley;
he was twenty-five years her senior and she complained, ‘‘He should
be playing my father.’’ Remarkably, the public remained entirely
ignorant of the backstage feud between Frawley and Vance. Even
after the secret leaked during the 1960s, an increasingly suburban
VANILLA ICE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
28
Vivian Vance and Desi Arnaz
America continued to view Fred and Ethel as representatives of a
bygone era of neighborliness. Ironically, Vance’s efforts on the I Love
Lucy show helped popularize television, then a fledgling medium, and
went a long way toward breaking down the traditional social patterns
which Fred and Ethel Mertz represented.
—Jacob M. Appel
F
URTHER READING:
Andrews, Bart. Lucy & Ricky & Fred & Ethel: The Story of ‘‘I Love
Lucy.’’ New York, Dutton, 1976.
McClay, Michael. I Love Lucy: The Complete Picture History of the
Most Popular TV Show Ever. New York, Warner Books, 1995.
Wyman, Ric B. For The Love of Lucy: The Complete Guide For
Collectors and Fans. New York, Abbeville Press, 1995.
Vanilla Ice (1968—)
White rapper Vanilla Ice burst on the music scene in 1990 with
his hit single ‘‘Ice Ice Baby,’’ a danceable tune with a bass line lifted
from the David Bowie/Queen collaboration ‘‘Under Pressure.’’ The
single, from the album To the Extreme, became the first rap song to
reach number one on the pop singles chart, where it stayed for sixteen
weeks. Critics slammed Vanilla Ice (whose real name is Robert Van
Winkle) for his rip-off of black culture, but apologists credited him
with bringing rap to a larger audience. Vanilla Ice’s popularity lasted
just a few months—long enough to earn him a starring role in the
movie Cool As Ice but not long enough to propel sales of his
subsequent albums beyond a small core of dedicated fans.
—Tom Pendergast
F
URTHER READING:
Bego, Mark. Ice, Ice, Ice: The Extraordinary Vanilla Ice Story. New
York, Dell, 1991.
Vanilla Ice. Ice, by Ice. New York, Avon, 1991.
Vanity Fair
The original Vanity Fair, superbly edited by the inimitable Frank
Crowninshield from 1914 to 1936, was the epitome of elan during the
teens and twenties. A unique amalgam of art, literature, humor,
fashion, and social commentary, Vanity Fair attracted a loyal audi-
ence and became the model of sophisticated success in the publishing
industry, even after it was felled by the Depression. Revitalized in the
early 1980s, the Vanity Fair of the late twentieth century is a slick,
celebrity-driven monthly that has become the last word on American
popular culture among the upwardly mobile. Amidst the celebrity
mania of the late twentieth century, Vanity Fair is the bible of
the stars.
Vanity Fair’s emergence during the teens, as a ‘‘smart maga-
zine’’ aimed at an urban leisure class, was the direct result of a
number of changes in America in general and in the publishing
business in specific. Following the Civil War, America underwent
many sweeping metamorphoses, among which was a gradual shift
from a rural society to an urban one. As the population became
gentrified during the second half of the nineteenth century, as rural
communities diminished and the cities grew, as Americans began to
conceive of themselves as a cultured nation, and as the upper middle
classes swelled and reveled in their new wealth, smart magazines
began to appear. According to George H. Douglas, ‘‘smart magazines
were written and edited for the leisured classes (although not neces-
sarily the very rich)—for sophisticated urbanites, the kind of person
who was well traveled, well read, well acquainted; for people who
wanted to be entertained, but on an exalted plane.’’ These magazines,
he added, were ‘‘general magazines intended for the entertainment of
cultural elites . . . rooted in . . . contrivances of humor, of gaiety, of
urbanity, of high style and fashion. The rich, it seemed, were not
usually interested in ‘uplift,’ in the birth pangs of reform and good
works; as often as not they enjoyed the demimonde, even low life;
they wanted to hear about the lives of actors, poets, of theatre people,
pugilists, polo players. They loved gossip and scandal.’’
Major changes in the printing process during the 1880s and
1890s made faster typesetting and printing possible, allowing for
more publications of higher quality. After the halftone process,
chromolithography, and rotogravure printing were invented, maga-
zines took on a new glossy format, filled with full-page color
illustrations and advertisements. The vast changes in advertising,
which metamorphosed from simple classified-type ads to colorful
images and slogans thought out by prestigious firms, contributed to
the evolution of a whole new kind of magazine, leading to an era
which Douglas calls ‘‘a renaissance or high-water mark of the
VANITY FAIRENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
29
Vanilla Ice
American magazine with many new giants entering the field, and
many older ones becoming bigger and more affluent than they would
have dreamed possible before . . . By the 1890s magazines had
become big business.’’
Into a field that included the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’
Home Journal, and Harper’s Monthly entered the first of these smart
magazines, aptly called The Smart Set and subtitled ‘‘A Magazine of
Cleverness.’’ A huge success during the first decade of the twentieth
century, this literary and artistic monthly catering to cosmopolitan
café society became a model periodical, featuring the writing of such
brilliant young literary bucks as H. L. Mencken and George Jean
Nathan, who later became its joint editors. The Smart Set set the tone
for all the smart magazines that followed.
Vanity Fair, the quintessential smart magazine, however, came
into being by a rather circuitous route. In the 1890s a publication by
the same name had a limited success in New York as a ‘‘peekaboo
magazine’’ of dubious quality. In 1913, Condé Nast, a successful
entrepreneur who had made his first success in the publishing field
with Vogue, a high-tone, women’s fashion magazine, bought another
fashion rag called Dress. He then purchased the rights to the name
Vanity Fair and, in 1913, put out the first issue of Dress and Vanity
Fair to limited success. It stumbled around for a year, without finding
its niche, until Nast brought in his friend Frank Crowninshield as
editor. In March 1914, Frank Crowninshield’s Vanity Fair found its
way to the newsstands where it made a very big splash.
In his first editorial, Crowninshield wrote, ‘‘Vanity Fair has but
two major articles in its editorial creed: first, to believe in the progress
and promise of American life, and, second, to chronicle that progress
cheerfully, truthfully, and entertainingly . . . At no time in our history
has the wonder and variety of American life been more inspiring,
and, probably as a result of this, young men and young women,
full of courage, originality, and genius are everywhere to be met
with.’’ With these young people as both audience and contributors,
Crowninshield set about to create a magazine that would chronicle the
cutting edge in art, literature, drama, sport, film, and dance.
Crowninshield himself was in his early forties, raised and
educated in Europe, of aristocratic background, but a working man
who had been the editor of a number of top magazines. He was also a
devotee of modern art—one of the organizers of the Armory Show,
Crowninshield had a superb art collection himself. Thus, he knew
how to appeal to the upper classes, the intelligentsia, and the avant-
garde. Under Crowninshield, Vanity Fair contained the writing of
such diverse young talents as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edmund
Wilson, P. G. Wodehouse, e. e. cummings, and Aldous Huxley, as
well as more established writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, art by
Picasso, Matisse, and Jacob Epstein, and photography by Edward
Steichen. As Cleveland Amory wrote in his introduction to an
anthology of the magazine, ‘‘Vanity Fair was a pioneer in so many
areas that it can be said to be a significant yardstick of American
culture. Not only did it publish many pieces by first-rate writers and
artists before—and after—they became known, but it set a new
standard for photography and picture journalism. Another thing it did
‘first’ was to give due recognition to Negro personalities and artists.’’
Although Vanity Fair never had more than 100,000 annual
subscribers, it succeeded largely by being unique. Charming, witty,
insouciant, aesthetically appealing, Vanity Fair was the genuine
article and thus attracted a loyal following. For young writers it was
the place to work, even if it paid less than other magazines. Dorothy
Parker, Robert Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, and Edmund Wilson
all found their start at Vanity Fair. A conversation piece among the
Smart Set, Vanity Fair was the place to find out who was who and
what was what, from articles on silent movie stars and dashing polo
players to photographs of French poets and English royalty. There
were essays by D. H. Lawrence and Harry Houdini, poems by
Theodore Dreiser and Amy Lowell, paintings by Raoul Dufy and
August Renoir, and, of course, Miguel Covarrubias’s wonderful
caricatures. Regular features included the yearly Hall of Fame,
a popular section on men’s fashion, humorous sketches, and
theatre reviews.
Throughout the Roaring Twenties, Vanity Fair was the most
successful of the smart magazines, but when the Depression hit in
1929, it began to slip from favor. As Americans struggled to make
ends meet, advertisements were withdrawn, and fewer and fewer
people wanted to read about café society. By 1936, Condé Nast
decided to merge Vanity Fair into Vogue, calling it a ‘‘heartbreaking
decision.’’ For more than forty-five years, all that remained of the
magazine was a memory.
In 1982, two years into the glamorous excess of the Reagan
years, Condé Nast Publications decided to reissue Vanity Fair as an
upscale publication for the elite of the eighties. The new Vanity Fair
hoped to follow the format of the original smart magazines. Initially,
however, it floundered, and many believed the magazine would never
be able to live up to the verve, wit, and genuine charm of its forebear.
VARDON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
30
In 1984, Tina Brown, the young Oxford graduate who had
resurrected London’s Tatler, was brought in to punch up the publica-
tion. Brown immediately put her mark on Vanity Fair, bringing in top
writers from around the world by paying them unheard-of six-figure
contracts. She turned her staff into stars and the magazine into a
money earner. Under Brown, the second incarnation of Vanity Fair
became a slick publication with a celebrity buzz. Its approach,
however, was formulaic. Filled with seductive advertisements for
luxury products, photographs of movie stars, articles about the rich,
the famous, or the bizarre, the new Vanity Fair’s audience purported
to be the Eighties Smart Set. In fact, the magazine became a mass-
market publication aimed at the entire upwardly mobile population of
the United States.
During the late eighties and early nineties, the covers of Vanity
Fair seemed to feature many of the same actors in various poses—
Demi Moore in multiple states of nudity, Tom Cruise with a sly smirk
or a toothy grin, Arnold Schwarzenegger clothed or unclothed, all
shot with Annie Leibowitz’s unerring lens. But by the mid-nineties,
with Brown departed for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair began to
compete with more cutting-edge magazines, such as Interview, by
featuring cover stories about young Hollywood. Where once Vanity
Fair signaled mainstream success, the magazine has now become a
star maker, as cover stories about Matthew McConaughey, Matt
Damon, and Renee Zellweger brought these young actors to the
attention of the mainstream and boosted their status in Hollywood.
If the original Vanity Fair set a sophisticated standard for
American culture, its second incarnation is the quintessence of late-
twentieth-century popular culture—slick, global, and all about money
and fame.
—Victoria Price
F
URTHER READING:
Amory, Cleveland. Vanity Fair: A Cavalcade of the 1920s and 1930s.
New York, Viking Press, 1960.
Douglas, George H. The Smart Magazines: 50 Years of Literary
Revelry and High Jinks at Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Life,
Esquire, and The Smart Set. Connecticut, Archon Books, 1991.
Handelman, David. ‘‘Run for Cover!’’ Salon: Media. http://
www.salonmagazine.com/media/1997/12/11media.html.
October 27, 1998.
Mitchell, Deborah. ‘‘Is Anna Wintour Really Worth a Million Bucks?’’
Salon: Media Circus. http://www.salon1999.com/media/1997/10/
27/money.html. October 27, 1998.
Vardon, Harry (1870-1937)
Golf’s first international celebrity, Harry Vardon may be best
remembered for something he popularized but did not invent: the
overlap golf grip that bears his name. Vardon’s name, however, was
well-known long before he became famous for the grip. Not only was
he the first Englishman to win the British Open, he claimed the title
six times, winning in 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911, and 1914. In
1900 Vardon added the United States Open to his list of major
championships, and was arguably the most famous golfer in the world
at the time. Although a bout with tuberculosis in 1903 affected his
health, his game was still strong enough to earn him second place in
the 1920 United States Open. Vardon’s legacy is tied to the Vardon
Trophy, emblematic of the lowest scoring average each year on the
Professional Golfers’ Association tour.
—Lloyd Chiasson, Jr.
F
URTHER READING:
Atha, Anthony. World of Golf: The History, the Classic Players, the
Major Tournaments. New York, Smithmark, 1997.
Browning, Robert. History of Golf. Norwalk, Connecticut, Classics of
Golf, 1985.
Concannon, Dale. Golf: The Early Days. New York, Smithmark, 1995.
Gibson, Nevin H. The Encyclopedia of Golf. New York, A. S.
Barnes, 1958.
Grimsley, Will. Golf: Its History, People and Events. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1966.
Varga Girl
During World War II, the Varga Girl pinup, with her long legs,
narrow waist, and ‘‘sumptuous’’ figure, was a major military morale
booster. As Jamie Malanowski notes, her image ‘‘hung in billets and
on bulkheads, was unfolded in foxholes, and was lovingly imitated on
fuselages throughout Europe and the Pacific.’’ Above all, the ‘‘Varga
Girl’’ was timely. Her success derived from the confluence of a
World War, the coming of age of ‘‘mass culture,’’ and changing
sexual mores. Drawn by Alberto Vargas, she was part of a new set of
myths, which Leo Lowenthal of the Frankfurt School called a
byproduct of twentieth century capitalism. Mass culture, according to
Lowenthal, was manufactured in assembly line style by agents of
mass media communication and was widely distributed.
Thousands of servicemen treasured the Varga Girl pinup. They
were the pleased consumers of a product ingeniously distributed by
Esquire magazine, which along with Life and Reader’s Digest had
been designated as wartime ‘‘morale boosters.’’ The upbeat image of
the Varga Girl provided a counter to the unpleasantness of the war and
the loneliness of the trenches. One letter written to the pinup’s artist
Alberto Vargas by a serviceman suggested that regardless of what
‘‘the girl back home’’ looked like, ‘‘we can see her in each of your
drawings.’’ As Kurt Vonnegut once observed, ‘‘The American male’s
capacity to make do with imaginary women gave our military forces a
logistical advantage I have never seen acknowledged anywhere.’’
The Varga Girl and her predecessor, the Petty Girl, evolved from
the more modestly clad Gibson Girl. Both ‘‘girls’’ were also directly
related to the women drawn by Raphael Kirchner for the turn-of-the-
century avant-garde publication, Le Parisienne. The airbrush tech-
nique used by George Petty and Vargas allowed the impression of
flawless women, suggestively clad and sultry-looking. In 1940, after
Petty objected to the high-handed manner of Esquire’s publisher
David Smart, he was replaced by Vargas. The Varga Girl (a name
suggested as more ‘‘euphonious’’ by Smart) became a monthly staple
in Esquire and in the popular ‘‘Varga Calendar’’ and other spin-
off products.
Although appreciated by a significant portion of the U.S. male
population, the pinup stirred up controversy in the areas of sexuality,
gender exploitation, cultural representation, mass (popular) culture,