GEORGE RAFT (1901-80) He was born George Ranft, a native of New York City’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen, to German parents in 1901. His youthful passion for dancing, his snappy dressing and good looks made young George popular among the ladies in what many described was the […]
BETTY GRABLE (1916-73) Ascertaining the level of intimacy in many of Betty Grable’s relationships is not easy. Most people who knew her during her time at the top were impressed by her morality, convinced she was ‘more show than go’ in most of her romances. Of course, times and people […]
GOULD, Harold: Fans of the Academy Award winning Best Picture of 1973, The Sting, will recall Harold Gould in the showy role of Kid Twist. On television he was Martin Morgenstern on the sitcom Rhoda (1974-78) and Miles Webber (the steadfast suitor of Betty White’s character Rose Nylund) on another […]
Three of the film’s Munchkins Judy Garland recalled working on the set of The Wizard of Oz (1939) with The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), The Tin Man (Jack Haley) and The Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr). ‘Whenever we’d do that little dance up the Yellow Brick Road, I was supposed […]
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) could have been a really good romantic comedy. But it wasn’t and that is a pity. It boasts the services of three extremely desirable Hollywood women in the leading roles, Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe, and all three are terrific. […]
KIDS & JUVENILES – PT7 JUNE 28 2019 edited 1023 JACKIE COOGAN (1914 – 84) in The Kid (1921) Jackie Coogan enjoyed fame at three separate times in his life. The first was when Charlie Chaplin spotted him performing on a vaudeville stage and planned a movie in which he and […]
The war in Europe was underway in 1940 and causing the loss of the European market. President Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbour Policy’ of fostering friendship towards Latin American countries inspired Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox to look towards Mexico and South America as alternative markets for his studio’s films. […]
A scene from the 1952 feature Scaramouche Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer fought a duel early in Scaramouche (1952), and part of the sequence required Granger to lie on the wooden floorboards as an iron chandelier dropped towards him. It was rigged to stop just inches from his face. The […]
Many of the characters in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) are based on real people in Hollywood history. R.F. Simpson, the studio head, is a parody of L. B. Mayer; director Roscoe Dexter is a thinly disguised Erich von Stroheim; Dora Bailey is obviously a caricature of Louella Parsons; […]
Tea and Sympathy (1956) could have been a fine movie, but the Production Code Administration (PCA) and the Catholic Legion of Decency (CLOD) did all in their considerable powers to emasculate it. And they succeeded. No matter how many times the screenplay was rewritten, they continued to find it […]
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