who is alva starr?

Alva is the heroine of a Tennessee Williams play called “This Property is Condemned.” There’s a movie by the same name starring Natalie Wood, who was a beautiful woman. ~the credits include many other notables the details of which I won’t bore you with here~

I first saw Natalie play Alva on the Three O’Clock Million Dollar Movie when I was a kid. Alva is a typical Tennessee Williams heroine. Pathetic in many ways, but endearing and unforgettable. There’s some melodramatic ridiculousness, which is fitting for a daytime movie, but Natalie did Alva well.

My parents used to ask me to “do” Alva. Especially the scene where she tries to convince her sister that one of her fantasies had come true. Willie ~that’s her sister’s name because willie was expected to be a boy, but she wasn’t. they already had alva~ I knew every line, and was routinely humiliated in front of company with this.

Alva’s pretty good at fantasies. She had it whipped up in her head that her tryst behind the house in the back seat of a car was a romantic evening at a swanky hotel.

And she had Willie, and me, going for a minute there.

Alva moves to New Orleans about halfway through the film. New Orleans had been one of her fantasy places, and she finally made the 247 railroad miles, and moved here. Her enthrallment with the city was one of the things that got me started loving New Orleans when I was very young.