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Did you know?

January 29, 2017 Alan Royle 5

  Mickey Rooney was at the top of the Hollywood tree in the thirties and lived his life in the fast lane. MGM’s publicity machine had him collecting stamps and coins like any other young American boy. It was even spread about that his favourite author was Eugene O’Neill. Randy […]

‘THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956).

November 18, 2016 Alan Royle 4

  Cecil B DeMille It has been 60 years since my grand-parents dragged me along to see CB DeMille’s The Ten Commandments at our local theatre. I think their plan was to give me a dose of good old religion, but all it did was scare the knickers clean off […]

Actors marrying other actors – Pt 11.

September 7, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  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 and […]

The making of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960)

July 17, 2016 Alan Royle 7

  The Mirisch brothers, Walter, Marvin and Harold, produced a number of highly profitable movies in the fifties and sixties – Some Like it Hot (1959), West Side Story (1961), The Pink Panther (1963) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) were among them. The Magnificent Seven and The […]

Tragic Hollywood – no end of stories.

December 12, 2015 admin 0

Louise Brooks once described Buster Keaton as the most beautiful man she ever saw. Be that as it may, he was certainly a comic genius. While other funny men relied on slow-cranking cameras and speeded-up images to get their laughs, he mostly worked at normal speed, much of his humour […]

Did you know? Points of interest. Pt. 20.

November 3, 2015 admin 4

    Mississippi-born Dana Andrews had 12 brothers and sisters, one of whom was movie actor Steve Forrest. Their father was a Baptist minister. In the 1940s and 50s Dana was a popular leading man for Sam Goldwyn and 20th Century Fox. A trained opera singer, he was put into […]

Did you know? Points of interest Pt.19.

October 30, 2015 admin 2

  There have been many, many Hollywood musicals made since talkies began, but those composed by the brilliant combination of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II hold a special place in the hearts of millions of movie-goers. Although both men created several musicals with other partners during their careers, together […]

Stolen Oscars? Pt. 3

September 24, 2015 admin 26

  Part 3 of ‘Stolen Oscars?’ looks at some of the individual Academy Award winners who, for want of a better word, purloined their statuettes. I shall start with the Best Actor category. 1930/1             Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul I haven’t actually seen any of the other nominated performances […]

A few snippets from Frank Langella.

July 20, 2015 admin 2

  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 […]

The best male voices in movies?

March 29, 2015 admin 7

There are several factors that come together to produce a motion picture star. Obviously, being able to actually act is a major component. Even so, I have no doubt there are countless great actors out there who will never, ever become movie stars, simply because ability on its own just […]