Happy 100th birthday, Kirk… I think.

October 17, 2016 Alan Royle 8

  Kirk Douglas was born Issur Demsky in New York City to Jewish-Russian parents on 9 December 1916. Like Olivia de Havilland (in July) he will turn 100 in 2016. Back in 1958 his good friend Mike Todd asked him to fly to New York with him to celebrate Mike’s […]

The making of ‘West Side Story’ (1961)

April 20, 2016 admin 6

  It has been fifty-five years since Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet was re-located to New York City and transformed into the musical West Side Story. In place of the feuding Montague and Capulet families of Verona we are given two rival New York gangs – the Jets and the Sharks. […]

Natalie Wood – what happened?

February 28, 2016 admin 5

  Aboard ‘Splendour’ 17 Nov, 1981 It was November 19, 1981 when 43 year-old actress Natalie Wood lost her life off the coast of Catalina Island in Southern California. There have always been important details missing from the official account of her ‘accidental death’, but it has generally been accepted […]

Robert Wagner – matinee idol of the fifties.

January 19, 2016 admin 2

  RJ & Natalie, marriage #1 ‘RJ’, as Robert Wagner is known to most of his friends, was always destined to end up acting. As a boy he attended schools and Military Colleges with the offspring of movie stars and other celebrities. These included Charlie Chaplin’s son Sydney, Irving Thalberg […]

Joan Collins – England’s iconic beauty.

November 19, 2015 admin 3

      Joan Collins was born in London in 1933. Her father was a Jewish man from South African, a moderately successful agent whose later clients would briefly include The Beatles, Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey. Joan signed a contract in England with J. Arthur Rank at the age […]

Tragic Hollywood – Accidental Deaths ( Pt 5 )

June 1, 2015 admin 2

    In Part 5 of Accidental Deaths in Hollywood I look at five drownings, four actors who died from falls, and another who failed to survive a botched operation.     Jeff Chandler (1918 – 1961) Chandler only made about 50 movies, the bulk of them in the fifties, […]

ELVIS PRESLEY – Was he bisexual?

May 7, 2015 admin 76

  Nick Adams achieved brief fame in 1959 when he starred in his own TV series called The Rebel, which ran for 76 episodes over two years. By February 1968 Adams was dead from a drug overdose at 36, although it has been argued ever since that his demise may […]

James Dean – over-rated nobody?

April 15, 2015 admin 14

  James Dean’s mother died when he was nine. His father promised to attend the funeral, but never showed up, and Jimmy would resent him for the rest of his short life because of it. He once told Elizabeth Taylor of how he had been consistently molested by a trusted […]