Marie-Clare Charba and Helen Hanft

TOM EYEN’s 1964 The White Whore and the Bit Player posed the question of identity in a media-saturated America through the metaphor of an insane asylum where superstar MARIE-CLARE CHARBA and hopeless movie hopeful HELEN HANFT envied, deplored, and repeatedly became each other.Photo: JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

TOM EYEN’s 1964 The White Whore and the Bit Player posed the question of identity in a media-saturated America through the metaphor of an insane asylum where superstar MARIE-CLARE CHARBA and hopeless movie hopeful HELEN HANFT envied, deplored, and repeatedly became each other. Photo: JAMES D. GOSSAGE.