Did you know? Points of Interest Pt. 14

October 12, 2015 admin 0

  Whenever Don’t Look Now (1973) is mentioned, the talk, sooner or later, turns to the controversy surrounding the four minute sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. For some reason scores of commentators insist that the scene was not simulated, that the actors really had sex on the set. Despite […]

Did You KNow? Points of Interest Pt. 12

October 4, 2015 admin 2

  When Patty Duke was just twelve years old in 1958 she appeared on the TV quiz show, The $64,000 Question, in the category of ‘music’. Pitted against child pop singer Eddie Hodges (he had a hit with a song called I’m Gonna Knock on Your Door around that time), […]

Did You Know? Shortcuts to an Oscar PT 1.

September 28, 2015 admin 0

  Since Academy Awards have been introduced there have been, by my count, 32 Best Actor or Best Actress Oscars won by players portraying someone with a medical condition or an affliction. No wonder actors go after these roles with a vengeance. They know that a strong performance will almost […]

Did you know? Points of interest. Pt 10

September 16, 2015 admin 2

  In 2010 Daniel Craig did something unique. He agreed to appear as James Bond before an estimated billion and a half television viewers in a sequence, opposite Queen Elizabeth II, as part of the Opening Ceremony for the London Olympics that year. ‘She was great’, he said. ‘A really […]

What’s in a name Part One?

August 2, 2015 admin 0

Back in the good old studio days it was customary for studios to come up with snappy nicknames for their female stars. Well, they thought they were snappy, anyway. For some reason these were seldom given to male actors, although that is not to say that some of these guys […]

GARY COOPER – The ultimate movie star.

June 13, 2015 admin 0

  He was born Frank Cooper in Helena, Montana, but his agent was born in Gary, Indiana, so his hometown was chosen for Coops’ Christian name. After all, the name Gary Cooper had a certain masculinity that Helena Cooper seemed to lack. A car accident in his youth broke Coop’s […]

Hollywood’s real-life war heroes ( PT 2 )

March 28, 2015 admin 1

Because of the research I do on movie stars and Hollywood in general, friends have asked me whether or not John Wayne was a draft dodger in the Second World War. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t the faintest idea. For every comment I have read that described him as […]