PicoBlog

by T. Bloom [main image credit: Zillow]

Reader, I try not to pretend that my interests should be interesting to everyone. The more other people become interested in them, the less likely I am to feel needed. And I need to feel needed! We should just be glad the brunt of all this need is mainly borne by media and inanimate objects.

Last year I kicked up a little internet dust to see whether the owner and/or final resting place of “Nude Julia,” a nude painting of Dixie Carter that appeared in a memorable episode of Designing Women, could be determined. I ended up with very little to show for it except the dust, which I packaged entertainingly and posted here, on JUDGEMENT. I’d hoped that sharing my little gay-ass attempt at journalism might flush out the painting’s owner, but I’ve also grown addicted to fruitless enterprises over the years, so, either way, my disordered personality was sure to get something it craved.

Fast-forward to this May, when I checked the JUDGEMENT email inbox (an activity filed under “fruitless enterprises”) and found a note from someone claiming to know the owner and the exact location of “Nude Julia.”

It turns out the answer is both simpler and more complicated than I could have guessed: the painting never left the possession of the actor Hal Holbrook, Dixie Carter’s husband at the time of her death in 2010, and has remained in the home they shared together.

How do we know? Because it can be glimpsed in the Zillow listing for that residence, which ended up on the market this year following Holbrook’s death in 2021.

The painting happened to be spotted by one of Holbrook’s fans when the listing hit the market this spring, and then they happened across my article the following week. The system works! Sort of.

This explains some of the resistance I encountered in my Heritage Auction inquiries back in 2020. It wasn’t just some random seller whose identity they were shielding, it was a very big fish, someone with a personal connection to the item in question. In my pursuit to bother someone, anyone into talking to me, it never occurred to that the person I might be bothering was devoted widower Hal Holbrook.

In the last article I cited this bit of internet trivia: “As an amusement, the painting has since hung in Ms. Carter's bedroom suite, playfully draped with a chiffon scarf to cover her chest.”

At the time, I understood “has since” to mean there was simply a period of time when that was the case. I see now how the phrase could also suggest this is the painting’s current, enduring home — one simply needed to assume that said suite was in the same residence she shared with Holbrook, and conclude that the artwork had remained in his possession all these years since her passing. The answer was right in front of me! But celebrities often have several homes, and a lot can happen to a nude painting over the course of several decades. As an amateur grammarian, I feel I should be pardoned for assuming it had ended up elsewhere.

But look, even the scarf is still attached! How exciting! And this whole time, the painting has been less than twenty miles from where I’m sitting, frustratingly attainable.

Reader, I started to get… ideas. Could I see the painting in person? The Zillow listing assured that home tours were available for interested buyers. Surely it was no big deal to feign interest in an $8M Beverly Hills mansion, just to secure a private audience with an elusive relic of popular culture?

The phone number was right there, taunting. I felt myself at a dangerous crossroads between fiction and reality. Wasn’t this exactly the kind of scheme that one of the Designing Women ladies would have attempted? That sounded like something for the plus column, honoring the spirit of the pursuit, but then also… didn’t most of their exploits end in abject humiliation? Minus column.

This, dear reader, is the hazard of forming one’s young gay brain around comedic storylines involving wealthy, middle-aged Southern women. What is possible in life? What is impossible? I can never be 100% sure, because one episode ends with Julia Sugarbaker overcoming steep odds to have dinner with her heroes Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, but in another she spends an entire gala event at the Governor’s mansion with her head stuck between two slats in a banister.

What kind of story was I in, and who was in charge of telling it?

At earlier points in my life I would probably have booked the tour. In fact, I did go ahead and ask my boss, who has more home-buying experience, if she’d consider coming along to help the enterprise sound more convincing, but her extremely enthusiastic YES! only scared me further away from the edge.

Instead, I committed to the boring, professional route: I contacted the selling broker with a formal query explaining my interest as sanely as possible. This is Los Angeles, surely odd requests related to property and memorabilia must come up?

Here’s what I wrote:

Subject: 9100 Hazen Dr. question

Hi Jennifer, I'm an author writing about the history of a particular artwork that's on display in this listing for 9100 Hazen Dr. I wanted to inquire whether an on-site visit might be possible to view this painting in person, and also if I could speak with someone knowledgeable about it. Any chance you could connect me with the right party?

It would be terribly useful to me, and I promise not to soak up very much of anyone's precious time.

Very best wishes,

Tom Bloom

No response. I followed up a couple weeks later, trying to sound extremely genteel, and then once more at the end of May when I still hadn’t heard anything. That one flushed her out!

Not interested, please take me off your email list

Just like that — no sign-off, no acknowledgment, no ending punctuation. I’d have been left with more lingering respect for her if she’d ignored me entirely! But remember, we’re talking about a capitalist gargoyle who sells $8M mansions for a living. We can hope for the best, but expectations must always be held in check.

I couldn’t resist writing her again, just to be annoying.

I don't have a "list" but your lack of cooperation is duly noted. I'll be sure to cite that in my upcoming work, thanks all the same.

Pathetic of me, I know. Rejection is something I’m trained to accept quite gracefully, but unprovoked rudeness toward one who approaches with their hat in their hands? That bugs me. Whereas provoked rudeness is a queer tradition!

Even here I felt a strange sense of loss: we could have enjoyed 90 seconds of pleasant chit-chat, I would have flattered her endlessly, given her an interesting story to tell about her workday. Perhaps we could’ve met to visit the painting together, in which case I’d have brought her an expensive green juice and some wonderful fragrance samples to thank her for her time. But even a simple “I’m sorry, that won’t be possible” would have sufficed. Why, Jennifer, why?

So that’s basically where we’re at. I did not get to visit “Nude Julia” in person, and likely never will. That’s fine, it was never a serious ambition of mine; I simply needed to know, and now I do, all thanks to a friendly kindred spirit on the internet who took a moment to reach out. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

As for the Jennifers of the world, they have to live with the knowledge that most of the TV characters they admire would probably hate them. If this was an episode of Designing Women, Jennifer would likely have ended up being the recipient of a two-minute Julia Sugarbaker harangue.

But then, if this was that story, my boss and I probably would’ve pretended to be millionaires to take that real estate tour, likely ending up with one of our heads stuck in a fence.

So let’s call it a draw?

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