1. Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, who professionally used the mononym Cameron, was an American artist, poet, actress and occultist.
48 Facts About Marjorie Cameron
1. 2.
Marjorie Cameron appeared in two of Harrington's films, The Wormwood Star and Night Tide, as well as in Anger's film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.
3.
Marjorie Cameron was born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, on April 23,1922.
4.
Marjorie Cameron attended Whittier Elementary School and Belle Plaine High School, where she did well at art, English, and drama but failed algebra, Latin, and civics lessons.
5.
In 1940, the Marjorie Cameron family relocated to Davenport so Hill could work at the Rock Island Arsenal munitions factory.
6.
Marjorie Cameron completed her final year of high school education at Davenport High School.
7.
Marjorie Cameron was reassigned to the Naval Photographic Unit in Anacostia, where she worked as a wardrobe mistress for propaganda documentaries, and during this period met various Hollywood stars.
8.
In Pasadena, Marjorie Cameron ran into a former colleague, who invited her to visit the large American Craftsman-style house where he was currently lodging, 1003 Orange Grove Avenue, known as "The Parsonage".
9.
On October 19,1946, he and Marjorie Cameron married at the San Juan Capistrano courthouse in Orange County, in a service witnessed by his best friend Edward Forman.
10.
Marjorie Cameron wanted to visit England and meet with Crowley and explain to him Parsons' Babalon Working.
11.
Marjorie Cameron learned upon her arrival in Paris that Crowley had died and that she had not been admitted to the college.
12.
Marjorie Cameron found post-war Paris "extreme and bleak", befriended Juliette Greco, and spent three weeks in Switzerland before returning home.
13.
When Marjorie Cameron developed catalepsy, Parsons suggested that she read Sylvan Muldoon's books on astral projection and encouraged her to read James Frazer's The Golden Bough, Heinrich Zimmer's The King and the Corpse, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
14.
Parsons' and Marjorie Cameron's relationship was deteriorating and they contemplated divorce.
15.
Marjorie Cameron produced illustrations for fashion magazines and sold some of her paintings, including some purchased by a friend, the artist Jirayr Zorthian.
16.
Parsons and Marjorie Cameron had decided to travel to Mexico for a few months.
17.
Marjorie Cameron was rushed to hospital, but was declared dead.
18.
Marjorie Cameron did not want to see his body and retreated to San Miguel, asking her friend George Frey to oversee the cremation.
19.
Marjorie Cameron will be shut up and rightly so in a lunatic asylum as soon as she comes out in the open.
20.
Marjorie Cameron came to believe that Parsons had been murdered by the police or anti-Zionists, and continued her attempts at astral projection to commune with his spirit.
21.
In December 1952, Marjorie Cameron moved to a derelict ranch in Beaumont, California, about 90 miles from Redondo Beach.
22.
Marjorie Cameron became pregnant as a result of these rites, and termed her forthcoming child "the Wormwood Star", although the pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
23.
Marjorie Cameron was suffering from auditory hallucinations, frequent bouts of depression, and dramatic mood swings.
24.
Marjorie Cameron developed an interest in occultism and became intensely jealous of Parsons' continuing influence over Cameron, destroying Parsons' notes on the Babalon Working that she had kept.
25.
Marjorie Cameron again became pregnant, although she was unsure who the father was.
26.
Marjorie Cameron gave birth to a daughter, Crystal Eve Kimmel, on Christmas Eve 1955.
27.
Marjorie Cameron allowed her daughter to behave how she pleased, believing that this was the best way for her to learn.
28.
Around this time, Marjorie Cameron was introduced to the actor Dean Stockwell at a public recital of her poetry; he then introduced her to his friend and fellow actor Dennis Hopper.
29.
Marjorie Cameron was an associate of the artist Wallace Berman, who used a photograph of her on the front of the first volume of his art journal, Semina.
30.
In late 1957, Marjorie Cameron moved to San Francisco with her friends Norman Rose and David Metzer.
31.
Marjorie Cameron began a relationship with the artist Burt Shonberg of Cafe Frankenstein, and with him moved into a ranch outside of Joshua Tree.
32.
In 1960, Marjorie Cameron appeared alongside Hopper in Harrington's first full-length film, Night Tide.
33.
Marjorie Cameron was invited to appear in Harrington's next film, Games, although ultimately never did so.
34.
In October 1964, the Cinema Theatre in Los Angeles held an event known as The Transcendental Art of Marjorie Cameron, which displayed her art and poetry and screened some of her films; Anger arrived and disrupted the event by objecting to the screening of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome without his permission.
35.
Marjorie Cameron then launched a poster campaign, The Cameron File, against his former friend, labelling her "Typhoid Mary of the Occult World".
36.
Marjorie Cameron's health was poor, as she suffered from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, while hand tremors prevented her from being able to paint for four years.
37.
Marjorie Cameron became a regular practitioner of Tai chi, took part in group sessions in Bronson Park under the tutelage of Marshall Ho'o, and earned a teaching certificate in the subject.
38.
Marjorie Cameron was influenced by claims made in the writings of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas about a prehistoric matriarchal society devoted to a goddess.
39.
Marjorie Cameron aided Breeze in co-editing a collection of Parsons' occult and libertarian writings, which were published as Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword in 1989.
40.
Marjorie Cameron was acquainted with the experimental film-maker Chick Strand and appeared in the latter's 1979 project Loose Ends, during which she narrated the story of an exorcism.
41.
Marjorie Cameron died at the age of 73 in the VA Medical Center on July 24,1995, and underwent the Thelemic last rites, carried out by a high priestess of Ordo Templi Orientis.
42.
Marjorie Cameron's body was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the Mojave Desert.
43.
Marjorie Cameron preferred to be known by her surname as a mononym.
44.
Marjorie Cameron believed that both "passion and craft" could be seen in her draughtsmanship, but that it displayed "a guilelessness that is hard to relate to in our post post-ironic moment".
45.
Marjorie Cameron discussed her lost multi-coloured watercolour paintings that were featured in Harrington's The Wormwood Star, suggesting that they were akin to a storyboard for an unrealised film by the director Alejandro Jodorowsky.
46.
In 2007 a retrospective of Marjorie Cameron's work was held at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in New York City's Chelsea district, while that same year some of her works appeared in the traveling exhibition "Semina Culture", which was devoted to all of the artists who contributed to Wallace Berman's journal.
47.
Kansa had spent almost three years in the US researching the book, interviewing many of those who knew Marjorie Cameron, including several who died shortly after.
48.
Marjorie Cameron's aesthetic influenced the fashion world, designers Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor acknowledging Marjorie Cameron as a partial inspiration for their Skaist-Taylor label.