UNEXPECTED ORIGINS? PT1.

UNEXPECTED ORIGINS? PT1.

March 28, 2022 Alan Royle 0

  I am mildly surprised every so often to discover that such and such an actor or actress was not born where I had always assumed he or she had originated. With that in mind I did some checking and came up with quite a few surprises. Some of these […]

WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT47.

WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT47.

May 14, 2021 Alan Royle 0

CLAUDE RAINS (1889-1967)                    The actor who was immortalized as Captain Louis Renault in the 1942 classic film Casablanca, was born in London in 1889. This meant, of course, that he was almost fifty years old when hostilities broke out between Britain and Germany in September 1939, far too old for […]

MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES – PT6

November 22, 2018 Alan Royle 2

    Elsa Martinelli as ‘Dallas’ in Hatari! (1962) Hatari! (1962) is not a great movie but it does have its moments. Well, to be entirely truthful, it has one memorable moment. Being a sucker for beautiful women, I am forever grateful for the bevy of stunning actresses Italy has […]

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MOVIE TRIVIA – PT61.

September 25, 2018 Alan Royle 7

Jane Wyman & Ronald Reagan Lew Ayres & Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948) Ronald Reagan married Jane Wyman in 1940, but by the time she made Johnny Belinda (1948) she wanted out. She was tired, she said, of her husband’s incessant talking, for one thing. Her unutterable boredom was palpable to […]

Five short stories Pt 1.

April 8, 2016 admin 2

  Canadian-born Florence Lawrence became the first movie star to be identified by name. Before that she was simply ‘The Biograph Girl’, and that suited her just fine, as it did all the other featured players in other companies. Nobody wanted to be named because it might jeopardize their stage […]

Did you know? Points of Interest Pt. 6

September 3, 2015 admin 6

  Ursula Andress says she lost her virginity at the age of sixteen in a photographer’s studio. Before her career began to blossom the Swiss beauty spent a week with Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardot, reputedly sharing their bed each night. After making several potboilers in Rome she was introduced […]

SPENCER TRACY – A nightmare of a man.

August 6, 2015 admin 41

  As an actor Spencer Tracy had few peers and cinema-goers adored him. Off screen he was a very ordinary human being, a man beset with all kinds of problems. He was a violent alcoholic his entire life and a rampant womanizer who had almost as many conquests to his […]

OLIVIA & JOAN -The feuding de Havilland sisters.

July 14, 2015 admin 0

  Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland were real life sisters who were born in Tokyo, and then moved to America. Olivia was born in 1916, Joan a year later. Max Reinhardt spotted Olivia in a college version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and was so impressed he placed her […]