DOROTHY LAMOUR (1914-96) In 1931, at the age of seventeen, Mary Slaton (later to become Dorothy Lamour) was crowned Miss New Orleans. Even as a child she had ambitions; not as an actress but as a singer. After her beauty pageant win, […]
CAROLE LANDIS: (1919-48) [Carole sought fame, like most actors and actresses, but her primary objective seems to have been to find genuine love and marriage and to raise a family. Sadly, that was not to be. Unable to conceive, due to endometriosis, luckless in her quest for true love, […]
CAROLE LANDIS (1919 – 48) In October 1942, the War Department organized its second entertainment troupe to go abroad, a tour that was intended to last for approximately five weeks. Carole Landis, comedienne Martha Raye, veteran actress Kay Francis and little known dancer Mitzi Mayfair volunteered. The tour would […]
Selecting the 20 actresses that I felt might be really likeable, decent people to get to know, proved to be far more difficult than choosing the men. Why? Because I had to differentiate between likeability and desirability, a problem that never reared its head with the men. Each time […]
If anyone epitomized the Hollywood studio system it was Darryl F. Zanuck. His rise to power is quite extraordinary given he was minimally educated and barely literate. Born in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1902 to an alcoholic father and the daughter of Wahoo’s only hotel owner, Darryl was abandoned by […]
The story goes that renowned Hollywood lawyer Greg Bautzer set his sights on Hollywood from the moment he earned his law degree, borrowed $5,000 from someone (we know not whom), and used it to purchase a fine wardrobe and to get himself the best table at the Brown Derby […]
From 1939 until 1984 Victor Mature appeared in 55 movies and one TV series, The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1966). He wasn’t very good in many of them, and no-one was more aware of that than him. My Darling Clementine (1946) and Kiss of Death […]
Part Two of ‘What’s in a Name?’ features some of the more stupid names thought up by the studios in their endeavours to create phony images for their stars. One of the silliest was the one they lumbered poor Ann Sheridan with – The Oomph Girl. She simply did […]
Oscar-nominated actor Frank Langella published his most entertaining biography titled, Dropped Names: Famous Men & Women as I Knew Them, in 2013. It is a scathing one that pulls few, if any, punches. Here are a few snippets from it, some of his observations down the decades, along with […]
Hollywood history is full of tragic stories, but that of Carole Landis (above) is more tragic than most. She was beautiful, friendly, gentle-hearted, popular, talented and smart. She was also a tomboy, liked men and having a good time, yet was naive and easily manipulated. And what Hollywood […]
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