SNIPPETS – PT2.

November 17, 2017 Alan Royle 0

Kate and Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement (1932) Kate Hepburn made her movie debut in the 1932 drama A Bill of Divorcement, in which the aging John Barrymore played her mentally unbalanced father. Known as ‘The Great Profile’, he invited her to his dressing-room where he promptly stripped naked […]

SNIPPETS – PT1.

November 15, 2017 Alan Royle 0

                             Annette Kellerman                                        and naked in Daughter of the Gods (1916) When Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman appeared naked in the […]

Darwin Porter – Believe him or not? PT 3

October 28, 2017 Alan Royle 4

The third and final segment regarding ‘Katharine the Great’, the controversial Darwin Porter biography of Katherine Hepburn. Eleanor Roosevelt *Eleanor Roosevelt had a heavy crush on Kate although it was not reciprocated. In the early 1940s the First Lady wrote her many passionate letters, but it was a one-way love […]

Darwin Porter – Believe him or not? PT 2.

October 26, 2017 Alan Royle 0

  Part 2 contains more of the revelations to be found in the Darwin Porter best seller ‘Katharine the Great’, his biography of Katharine Hepburn. Below are more random statements about the private lives of Miss Hepburn (and others). Judge for yourself how much you believe or do not believe. […]

A Snapshot of Kate Hepburn

October 12, 2017 Alan Royle 0

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)                    In 1937 Kate Hepburn purchased her Turtle Bay, Manhattan townhouse for $33,000, (it would be worth four and a half million dollars by the time of her death in 2003), and moved in with Howard Hughes at Muirfield […]

Random Snapshots – Vol. 3.

October 4, 2017 Alan Royle 0

Sharon Stone                     ‘Any man in Hollywood will meet me if I want that’, proclaimed Sharon Stone after achieving worldwide fame in Basic Instinct (1992). ‘No, make that any man anywhere’, she added. One of her former boyfriends was Hart Bochner, the […]

Darwin Porter – Can we believe what he writes?

September 28, 2017 Alan Royle 15

  Darwin Porter (1937 – ) I doubt if there are many more controversial contemporary writers than Darwin Porter. His supporters believe he is telling the real story of Hollywood in its so-called Golden Age; his detractors consider him to be little more than a peddler of sleazy gossip. I […]

PETER O’TOOLE – the actor and the man.

August 19, 2017 Alan Royle 4

  PETER O’TOOLE   (1932 – 2013)                                      Peter O’Toole hailed from Leeds in Yorkshire. He always maintained he was born in Ireland, but there are simply no records indicating that. As a teenager he started out as a newspaper copy boy, showed promise as a reporter, but was drawn to the […]

My Top 10 Movies of 1968.

January 27, 2017 Alan Royle 2

  #10 WHERE EAGLES DARE       Ingrid Pitt as Heidi                                            Schloss Werfen in the background Alistair MacLean wrote this screenplay in six weeks – and then he wrote the […]

Past Oscar-winners – some observations – Pt 3.

October 9, 2016 Alan Royle 0

    1949               All the King’s Men – Best Picture                         Broderick Crawford – Best Actor for All the King’s Men   Broderick Crawford Greg Peck as General Savage in Twelve O’Clock High Having seen all five nominated films for 1949, I am surprised that All the King’s Men came out on […]