‘SPEAKING OUT’ – PT1

‘SPEAKING OUT’ – PT1

January 15, 2022 Alan Royle 2

  CAROLE LANDIS: (1919-48)                    [Carole sought fame, like most actors and actresses, but her primary objective seems to have been to find genuine love and marriage and to raise a family. Sadly, that was not to be. Unable to conceive, due to endometriosis, luckless in her quest for true love, […]

MOVIE TRIVIA – PT91.

December 20, 2018 Alan Royle 5

  L to R – James Darren, Greg Peck, David Niven & Anthony Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961) The problem with the WW2 action flick The Guns of Navarone (1961) should be immediately apparent to just about everyone. Of the six commandos sent to disable the mighty guns of the […]

MOVIE TRIVIA – PT82

November 26, 2018 Alan Royle 2

  Franciska Gaal The name Franciska Gaal is long lost to modern movie-goers. Her Hollywood screen career was very short indeed, only three pictures released just prior to the outbreak of World War Two. Born in Budapest, Hungary, the Jewish Franciska had enjoyed success in German cinema until Hitler came […]

More Movie Trivia

April 28, 2018 Alan Royle 1

   Clara Bow Silent star Clara Bow’s 1926 contract with Paramount guaranteed her a bonus of $500,000, a staggering amount of money at the time, if she could manage to stay ‘scandal-free’ for its tenure. She never even came close to collecting. Oddly enough, given her tawdry reputation, Clara had […]

Hollywood & Abortions

April 1, 2017 Alan Royle 2

  Over the past century or more that Hollywood has existed there has been no shortage of abortions performed on many of its aspiring young actresses. Unwanted offspring are not unique to the movie business, but they do tend to interfere with ambitions, not to mention reputations, more often in […]

The ‘Tarzan’ movies – PT 1.

March 6, 2017 Alan Royle 0

   It is nearly 105 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs published his first Tarzan book – Tarzan the Ape-man (1912). Over that period of time there have been no fewer than 50 Tarzan movies pumped out – 45 live action and 5 animated features. Nineteen players have portrayed the ape-man, […]

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 […]

LORETTA YOUNG – A good Catholic girl?

June 28, 2015 admin 4

  If Olympic medals were given out for hypocrisy, Loretta Young (1913 – 2000) would have won gold many times over. The studio blurb described her thus: ‘Her true beauty lies in her dedication to her family and her faith.’ About the only truthful word in that whole line would […]

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 […]