HEDY LAMARR (1914-2000) [On working with Clark Gable]: ‘Although I never quite understood his sex appeal, I thought he was one of the nicest people I’d met, and a great practical joker.’ Hedy & Robert Taylor in Lady of the Tropics (1939) [On Robert Taylor, her co-star in Lady of the […]
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) Clark Gable as Rhett Butler At the risk of alienating much of the English-speaking world, I must admit that I am not of that huge selection of movie fans who think GWTW is the be-all and end-all in Hollywood movies. It is an entertaining […]
LESLIE HOWARD (1893 – 1943) Once his scenes as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) had been completed, English actor Leslie Howard was quick to return home to Britain and offer his services in the defense of his homeland. However, he was almost 46 years old and […]
Down the decades I have developed a powerful dislike for certain actors and/or individual performances, players or portrayals that I felt detracted from some really good movies (and a few bad ones). So, I wrote out a list of the really irksome players (or moments) in all the films […]
Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard in Pygmalion (1938) The scene in both Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964) where Eliza accidentally swallows a marble during her elocution lessons was never part of George Bernard Shaw’s original story. In the 1938 film Wendy Hiller suddenly exhibited a pained […]
Darwin Porter is a prolific writer, a man who has been an entertainment columnist for The Miami Herald since he was 20 years old. He has written and sold more celebrity biographies than anyone else, yet he has his ‘knockers’, people who think he is little more than a sensationalist […]
I often watch movies over and over again, just for the pleasure of re-visiting an extraordinary performance. Occasionally, as for instance with Double Indemnity (1944), it is not only an individual performance, but a combination of strong acting from more than one player, a fabulous script, seamless directing, and a […]
It has been kindly brought to my attention that a piece of information I included in one of my books, concerning the disappearance of British actor Leslie Howard, was in error. Mr. Howard was aboard a civilian aircraft that was shot down by German Junkers over the Bay of […]
Even fans of Gone With The Wind do not think much of British actor Leslie Howard’s insipid performance in the picture. I certainly felt he was a much over-rated actor whose casting as Ashley Wilkes (a pivotal role) in GWTW almost ruined the movie. In my opinion, it turned […]
The chronic problem with casting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is finding actors who are both young and experienced enough in stage acting to carry it off. After all, in Bill the Bard’s play Juliet is just fourteen years old. MGM producer Irving Thalberg unwisely chose to tackle the problem […]
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