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 […]

CAROLE LOMBARD – The Profane Angel.

July 31, 2015 admin 1

  Finding really likeable movie stars from the studio era can be quite a challenge at times. Carole Lombard, however, courtesy of her brazen, down to earth approach to life, was a woman who enjoyed the trappings of fame, but never let them seduce her. And that made her a […]

The Studio System – the Big Five.

July 22, 2015 admin 7

  For several decades the ‘Big Five’ in Hollywood were MGM, 20th Century Fox, RKO, Paramount and Warner Bros. United Artists had its moments in the sun, as did Columbia, Republic and Universal, but they were not really in the same league as the others. Of the ‘Big Five’ only RKO […]

Carole Landis (1919-48) – she deserved better.

July 10, 2015 admin 16

    Hollywood history is full of tragic stories, but that of Carole Landis (above) is more tragic than most. She was beautiful, friendly, gentle-hearted, popular, talented and smart. She was also a tomboy, liked men and having a good time, yet was naive and easily manipulated. And what Hollywood […]

‘America’s Sweethearts’ – or were they?

July 2, 2015 admin 12

  Biographers have tried for years to figure out the relationship between singers Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. Most have given up. On the one hand we have Eddy, lifelong ‘sissy’, tied to his mother’s apron-strings, a bisexual man who definitely preferred male lovers to female ones, but who seemed […]

Samuel Goldwyn – Goldwynisms, real or orchestrated?

March 12, 2015 admin 2

  The most surprising thing about movie producer Samuel Goldwyn is that he had nothing at all to do with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio and its pictures. In 1917, while he was still Samuel Goldfish, he joined with brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn to form Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. He liked […]