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WAMPAS Baby Stars – PT5 (1926)

December 28, 2016 // 4 Comments

MARY ASTOR (1906-87) 1526 For some reason 1926 was quite a year for WAMPAS Baby Stars. Most of them ended up being major movie stars. Mary Astor is the first of these. Born Lucile Langhanke, her career started in 1921 and lasted over forty years and 154 screen credits. These included such classics as Red Dust (1932), Dodsworth (1936), [...]

‘Hollywood – The Skeletons Are Out’ – a sampling

October 19, 2016 // 0 Comments

My latest book is titled Hollywood: The Skeletons Are Out. It contains 1,200 direct quotes by actors and directors about themselves, their colleagues and their films. Here is a random two dozen of them: Young Joan Collins When Joan Collins was asked if she was ever unfaithful, she replied: ‘Yes, but only on location. I used to say, ‘it doesn’t count on location.’ Everybody was [...]

Did you know? – A Beautiful Mind, West, Ryder, ET.

October 7, 2016 // 0 Comments

Jennifer Connelly with Russell Crowe with Josh Charles Jennifer and husband Paul Bettany Reporters said Russell Crowe went after his co-star Jennifer Connelly on the set of this picture, much as he did when he would pursue Meg Ryan on the set of Proof of Life in 2000. He bought Ms. Connelly a car and diamond ear-rings which she wore to various awards shows. The couple were seen kissing and [...]

‘Night and Day’ (1946) – the worst biopic ever?

September 9, 2016 // 2 Comments

A couple of nights ago, around midnight, Foxtel showed the Cole Porter biopic Night and Day. I had seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never the lot. Why? Because it is bloody awful, that’s why! Nevertheless, I happen to think that Cole Porter is the best writer of popular songs in history, so I sat down to listen to a few of them again. His tunes and lyrics were as [...]

Actors marrying other actors – Pt 11.

September 7, 2016 // 0 Comments

BRUCE, Virginia GILBERT, John 1932-4 (div.) Virginia Bruce may have started out as one of the original 20 Goldwyn girls, along with Betty Grable, Paulette Goddard and Ann Sothern, but she soon showed she had talent. In all she chalked up 82 screen credits between 1929 [...]

SIX ENJOYABLE MOVIE DUOS – PT 1.

September 3, 2016 // 6 Comments

They say that movie ‘chemistry’ strikes every now and then, and when it does it lights up the screen. The people that make these kinds of decisions are forever mixing and matching, trying to find a combination that just ‘clicks’ with audiences. And it does not always have to be a guy and a gal. ‘Buddy’ pictures (male or female) achieve the same result – big box-office bucks. [...]

Actors marrying other actors – PT 5.

August 2, 2016 // 2 Comments

BAXTER, Meredith BIRNEY, David 1974 to 1990 (div.) BLODGETT, Michael 1995 to 2000 (div.) Meredith Baxter With David in Bridget Loves Bernie [...]

Did you know? (H)

July 7, 2016 // 4 Comments

David and Merle At the Hollywood Criket Club circa 1936 David Niven and the exquisite Merle Oberon were in the throes of their quite public affair when they starred together in the 1936 film Beloved Enemy. Merle was on the rebound from her romance with Leslie Howard, her co-star in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Niven had met her in London a few years earlier, before he was an actor and when [...]

THE ‘GIRL NEXT DOOR’ TYPES – PT 1.

May 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

There has never been a shortage of classical beauties, sex symbols, femme fatales, man-eaters and out and out dramatic or musical stars in Hollywood. Many of these ladies led headline-riddled lives, married multiple spouses, and/or embarked upon numerous affairs, not always exclusively with members of the opposite sex. Some had booze and/or drug issues as well. But there also existed a group of [...]

The enigma that was Howard Hughes

March 23, 2016 // 14 Comments

Howard Hughes was a Texan, a maverick movie tycoon who hit the movie industry like a whirlwind in the Roaring Twenties and remained a force for a couple of decades. At the age of 19 he inherited 75% of his family’s fortune. His father had patented the two-cone roller bit, which allowed rotary drilling for petroleum in previously inaccessible places. Instead of selling it, however, he chose [...]

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