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    The actress playing the "Topless Bird Lady" in the film Under the Silver Lake, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, comes from an influential Hollywood family. Her grandfather founded MCA, one of the earliest and largest talent agencies and entertainment conglomerates. Her mother, Jean Stein, came from wealth and wrote about growing up around the glamour of early Hollywood. Wendy Vanden Heuvel now runs a small theater company, though her role in Under the Silver Lake touches on themes about secret elite groups manipulating society through media and culture.

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    The actress playing the "Topless Bird Lady" in the film Under the Silver Lake, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, comes from an influential Hollywood family. Her grandfather founded MCA, one of the earliest and largest talent agencies and entertainment conglomerates. Her mother, Jean Stein, came from wealth and wrote about growing up around the glamour of early Hollywood. Wendy Vanden Heuvel now runs a small theater company, though her role in Under the Silver Lake touches on themes about secret elite groups manipulating society through media and culture.

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    The actress playing the "Topless Bird Lady" in the film Under the Silver Lake, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, comes from an influential Hollywood family. Her grandfather founded MCA, one of the earliest and largest talent agencies and entertainment conglomerates. Her mother, Jean Stein, came from wealth and wrote about growing up around the glamour of early Hollywood. Wendy Vanden Heuvel now runs a small theater company, though her role in Under the Silver Lake touches on themes about secret elite groups manipulating society through media and culture.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    14 views2 pages

    UTSL

    Uploaded by

    Marco
    The actress playing the "Topless Bird Lady" in the film Under the Silver Lake, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, comes from an influential Hollywood family. Her grandfather founded MCA, one of the earliest and largest talent agencies and entertainment conglomerates. Her mother, Jean Stein, came from wealth and wrote about growing up around the glamour of early Hollywood. Wendy Vanden Heuvel now runs a small theater company, though her role in Under the Silver Lake touches on themes about secret elite groups manipulating society through media and culture.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Family background of the actress playing 'Topless Bird Lady'

     
    Others
    The actress playing 'Topless Bird Lady' is Wendy Vanden Heuvel – she has 7 film
    related credits on imdb.com, only three of them being actual feature films. She is
    the artistic director of a theater company called 'Piece by Piece Productions'.
    From their website: 'Its mission is to produce film and theater that is socially,
    politically, and spiritually relevant to our times.'

    https://www.instagram.com/wendyvanden

    Here's where it gets interesting: Her grandfather was Jules C. Stein, the founder
    of MCA (Music Corporation Of America), one of the biggest entertainment companies,
    founded in 1924. From Wikipedia: 'Originally a talent agency with artists in the
    music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film industry,
    and later expanded into television production. MCA published music, booked acts,
    ran a record company, represented film, television, and radio stars, and eventually
    produced and sold television programs to the three major television networks,
    especially NBC.'

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCA_Inc.

    With all its different branches, MCA had a massive influence on American culture.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MCA_Records_artists

    From the New York Times: 'Invading Hollywood in 1937, MCA became the agent for such
    stars as Bette Davis, Betty Grable, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Eddie Cantor,
    Ingrid Bergman, Frank Sinatra and Jack Benny - perhaps half of the movie industry's
    stars. By the mid-1940's the organization began being called ''the octopus.'''

    https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/30/obituaries/jules-c-stein-85-founder-of-mca-
    dies.html

    Jules C. Stein owned a property called Misty Mountain – 1330 Angelos Drive, Beverly
    Hills – that resembles the house 'The Songwriter' lives in.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_Mountain

    It was later owned by Rupert Murdoch, who sold it to one of his sons in 2015.
    There's barely any pictures of it to be found online.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/66701431/rupert-murdoch-sells-
    beverly-hills-mansion-to-son-for-39msm

    Jean Stein, Jules C. Stein's daughter, mentions the house in her book 'West Of Eden
    – An American Place'. The book is described as: 'An epic, mesmerizing oral history
    of Hollywood and Los Angeles. In each chapter, Stein paints a portrait of an
    outsider who pins his or her hopes on the nascent power and promise of Los Angeles.
    Each individual’s unyielding intensity pushes loved ones, especially children,
    toward a perilous threshold.' In the book Stein writes about her upbringing: 'I had
    the sense that my world was make-believe.'

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/01/west-of-eden-jean-stein-review-
    american-place-hollywood-snakes

    Sidenote: Apparently Jean Stein had an affair with (married) writer William
    Faulkner, when she was 21 and he was 56. Someone knew about it and called Faulkners
    wife several times, offering more information for 500 dollars. The FBI got involved
    but nothing came of it.

    https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1991/07/31/fbi-files-dip-into-william-faulkner-s-
    alleged-love-affair

    In 2017 Jean Stein jumped to her death from the 15th floor of an Upper East Side
    building – she had a networth of 38 million dollars.

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/jean-stein-dead-edie-
    west-eden-author-dies-by-suicide-at-83-999091/

    Jean Stein was married to William Vanden Heuvel, who was an American diplomat,
    author and advisor to Robert F. Kennedy. He later established the 'Roosevelt
    Institute' – a progressive think tank. From Wikipedia: 'According to The Washington
    Post, the Institute's plan is firmly rooted in the conviction that more government
    can solve most of America's economic challenges.'

    https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/roosevelt-institute/

    Jean Stein and William Vanden Heuvel had two daughters, one being Wendy Vanden
    Heuvel, the other one Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Katrina is a publisher and the long
    time editor of 'The Nation', the oldest continuously published weekly magazine
    covering progressive, political and cultural news. She's also on the Council On
    Foreign Relations.

    https://twitter.com/KatrinaNation

    In 'Under The Silver Lake' characters talk about 'the elite', who secretly control
    the world and communicate through symbols and codes that 'regular people' don't
    pick up on – and it's insinuated that pop culture is manufactured to manipulate and
    distract. I'm not saying I agree with it, because that obviously would be crazy
    talk. Right. I just think it's interesting, that someone with Wendy Vanden Heuvel's
    background, would play the part she plays in a movie like 'Under The Silver Lake',
    especially when otherwise she rarely appears in films.

    Anyway, that's the rabbit hole I spend my sunday in :-) Love this subreddit, by the
    way.

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