I read recently that ‘gay-gossip is the newest and most clever form of homophobia’. Nice try, but I’m not buying it. I am neither homosexual nor homophobic, but I am interested in subterfuge and in exposing old-time movie studios that made an art form out of gulling the public. […]
Mabel Normand was one of the wildest of the silent stars whose off-screen antics ultimately wrecked her career and contributed to her early death. Mack Sennett credited her with inventing the pie-throwing gag that came to be used extensively throughout the silent picture era, claiming she threw one in […]
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 […]
John Huston directed and Sterling Hayden starred in The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. At the time both were members of The Committee for the First Amendment, a group formed in September 1947 to support the Hollywood Ten and to oppose those who wished to blacklist actors, writers etc. who […]
In 1945 there were 7,000 TV sets in the USA. By 1950 there were 5 million! The first three shows to run weekly were I Love Lucy, Life with Riley and The Adventures of Superman. Most movie actors did not want to have anything to do with TV, convinced […]
One of Hollywood’s truly tragic stories was that of Barbara Payton, a pretty and talented actress who experienced both the highs and lows of life in Tinsel Town. Just sixteen years after starring alongside Gregory Peck in the western feature Only the Valiant (1951) she was dead. Her body was […]
Lord Richard Attenborough starred as the creator of Jurassic Park. Three of his family members lost their lives in Phuket, Thailand when the devastating Boxing Day tsunami hit the Pacific Rim in 2004. His daughter Jane, […]
When NBC first promoted the upcoming new series Star Trek in 1966 it was decided to airbrush Mr. Spock’s pointy ears out of all photos. Executives were concerned that viewers would react badly to a character with ears that resembled the Devil’s, although how anyone can confidently describe Old […]
Back when the studio system was in vogue, back in the ‘Golden Years of Hollywood, each of the ‘Big Five’ had its ‘fixers’, men whose job it was to keep scandal and bad publicity at bay; to do whatever it took to ensure that the paying public remained […]
It is difficult today for us to understand how the invention of moving pictures impacted on the public at the turn of the 20th century. After all, we have grown up with them. They are part of our lives and always have been. Back in 1903, however, they were […]
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