Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 336

At various points in Ann Dvorak’s life, if you had asked her if she would rather be an actress or a writer, she may have opted for the latter. Writing was a personal love of Ann’s and something she always engaged it. As a child she would fill reams of paper with poetry which she occasionally shared with her mother. She claimed to have worked on the newspaper at her private school and to have been briefly employed at the Los Angeles Times as a cub reporter after graduating.

There were occasionally rumors Ann’s writing being published including a book of poetry, an account of her eight-month honeymoon, and a play she had written about her parents called “Vaudeville Days.” Unfortunately, none of these projects came to pass. She finally fulfilled this personal dream during the Second World War where she wrote articles for a newspaper syndicate, a British publication, and even for a couple of American movie magazines. In fact, when she came back to the United States from England, she is identified on the ship manifest as being a writer.

In later life, Ann launched an impressively ambitions project called “Historical Digest,” where she penned an 18 volume history of the world and recorded herself reading it. Aimed at being a teaching aid for university courses, the opus was not embraced by the academic community. I still have hopes that a copy of “Historical Digest” will one day appear.

The above photo of Ann engaged in one of her favorite hobbies is from her honeymoon scrapbook.