Photo: Image of a horse-drawn hearse, part of a group of five pictures listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $300.

Queen of the Dead – dateline December 19, 2011

•  Word has come in of the long-expected but still sad death of Christopher Hitchens, one of my favorite essayists, on December 15, at the far too young age of 62. He made Vanity Fair worth reading, and though I strongly disagreed with him on certain topics (really, you hate the Clintons and support the Iraq invasion that much?), his books God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice have honored places on my shelf (his expose of Mother Teresa’s deadly fanaticism and hypocrisy alone make him one of the more important writers of his era, up there with Jacob Riis and Thomas Paine). I’m sure his many enemies are rubbing their hands gleefully picturing him in hell—but as “Hitch” pointed out (to paraphrase Ethel Barrymore), “that’s all there is, there isn’t any more.”

•  I don’t know much of anything about German Marxist philosopher and writer Hans Heinz Holz, who died at 84 on December 11, except that he had an adorable  name. I mean, seriously, aren’t you picturing S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, in lederhosen, offering up a pretzel and a stein of beer? I am not letting the fact that he authored Weltentwurf und Reflexion: Versuch Einer Grundlegung der Dialektik ruin my mental image one bit.

•  Actress Jo Ann Sayers, 93, died in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 14. She was scouted by MGM and played small roles in such 1938-40 films as Young Dr. Kildare, Honolulu, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Women. Her biggest screen role was in Columbia’s The Man with Nine Lives, as Boris Karloff’s nurse/assistant. Sayers only appeared once on Broadway, but it was in the title role of My Sister Eileen, opposite Shirley Booth in the 1940-43 hit (sadly, the woman she portrayed, Eileen McKenney, died in a car accident with her husband, wonderful novelist and terrible driver Nathanael West, four days before the show opened, which rather put a damper on the proceedings). Sayers left the show—and the movies, too—in 1942 to marry. In later years, she co-founded the Children’s World Theatre of New York, was president of the Long Island Little Orchestra, and was a co-founder and president of the Pro Arte Symphony Orchestra; she also served on boards Columbia and Hofstra, and was vice president of the American National Theatre & Academy.

 •  I love the YouTubes. One reason? I had never heard of Polish pop singer Violetta Villas till she died (on December 5, age 73). So I YouTubed her, and yow! It’s like Jayne Mansfield, Charo and Judy Tenuta all had a baby—and it was a drag queen! A lovely voice, all wrapped in voluminous wigs, eye makeup, cleavage, and she’s as camp as a row of tents.

—Eve Golden