Did you know? (E)

June 29, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  When British actor Benedict Cumberbatch used the term ‘coloured people’ on American television in January 2015, he inadvertently opened up a can of racist worms. It almost defies belief that this young man was attacked for using the term whilst in the middle of personally condemning the inequality that […]

Did you know? (D)

June 27, 2016 Alan Royle 3

    Recently I watched a British WW2 drama made in 1953 called Appointment in London (aka Raiders in the Sky). It was pretty good, too, although the final segment (a bomber raid on Germany) was drawn out far too long. The cast was first class with Dirk Bogarde, Ian […]

Did you know? (C)

June 25, 2016 Alan Royle 4

    The 1934 picture Bolero teamed Carole Lombard and George Raft for the first time. True to Hollywood form they were soon embroiled in a steamy affair. Raft was renowned in Tinsel Town for being a ‘sexual technician’. When asked by a reporter to name Hollywood’s greatest lover, Carole […]

Did you know? (B)

June 23, 2016 Alan Royle 6

  Jude Law’s marriage to Sadie Frost began in 1997 and ended in 2003. A contributing factor to the break-up was a near tragedy in October 2002 when Iris, their two year-old daughter, swallowed an ecstasy tablet she found on the floor at a children’s party and was rushed to […]

Jean Harlow – quite a woman.

June 21, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1911, 16 year-old Harlean Carpenter ran away from home to marry a 21 year-old businessman named Charles McGrew in 1927. The couple lived off his rather large inheritance for a couple of years, but it is believed that his drinking led to an […]

Did you know? (A)

June 19, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  Producer Robert Evans purchased the rights to F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby in 1971 with the intention of having his wife Ali MacGraw play Daisy in the 1974 production. However, while waiting for the script to be finalised, Ali went off and made The Getaway with Steve […]

The Magical Fifties.

June 17, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  I remember being taken in the fifties by my grand-parents to the open-air cinema nearby to watch black and white dramas starring the likes of Joan Crawford, George Raft, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Dana Andrews, Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Ida Lupino and many others. For some reason a handful […]

Jennifer O’Neill and ‘The Summer of ’42’.

June 13, 2016 Alan Royle 34

  In 1971 a 23 year-old unknown actress named Jennifer O’Neill made quite a splash, especially with teenaged boys, portraying the ‘older woman’ involved in an affair with a youth in a movie called Summer of ’42. The events in the picture are true, although the book of the same […]

OJ Simpson – Did he do it?

June 11, 2016 Alan Royle 16

  I wonder how many people outside American football fans know what the ‘O.J.’ stands for in Simpson’s name? He was born ‘Orenthal James’ in San Francisco in July 1947. His father was a well-known drag queen in San Francisco who separated from the boy’s mother in 1952. Mr. Simpson […]