Peter Lawford Peter Lawford was born in 1923, the son of Sir Sydney Lawford and his lover, a married woman named May Aylen. May’s cuckolded husband generously stayed with her until the baby was born, just so Peter would be born legitimate. All things considered, it was a most […]
(L) Hedda Hopper & Louella Parsons Beginning in 1912 with Photoplay, there have always been movie magazines, most of which relied almost entirely on being fed carefully orchestrated morsels of ‘facts’ about their stars by the studios’ publicity departments. The public was so hungry for ‘behind the scenes’ information […]
Gregory Peck & Ava Gardner in On the Beach (1959) When Ava Gardner came to Australia to make On the Beach (1959), she did not exactly endear herself to the nation when she remarked that Melbourne was the most appropriate place on Earth to make a picture about the end of […]
Leo McKern as Rumpole of the Bailey The Australian actor Leo McKern, best known for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey, once unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of ‘Pockets’ in Hatari (1962), the part eventually going to American actor Red Buttons. McKern always […]
There has been a number of mysterious deaths in Hollywood and the movie (and TV )business over the past hundred or so years. Over the next week or so I shall briefly look at the most interesting of […]
Here are a few unrelated ‘snippets’ from the good old days of the ‘Silent Era’. Some of them you may already know about; others you may not. But each one contributes to our knowledge and understanding of that long ago […]
When the studio system was at its peak in the thirties and forties, a ‘Gossip Columnist’ could wreck a career with just a couple of acid-laced lines. They did not even need to be true. Louella Parsons, the Hollywood mouthpiece for the Hearst empire of newspapers, became a most […]
Thomas Ince was a director of silent movies, in particular westerns. In fact, he was known as ‘the father of the western’, a man who produced and directed over 100 features up until his mysterious death in 1924, just three days after his 42nd birthday. The mystery revolves around […]
For many of Charlie Chaplin’s peers his seemingly effortless grace, style and timing were a wonder, but a source of much frustration. ‘The son of a bitch is a ballet dancer’, wailed comedian W. C. Fields after watching The Great Dictator (1940). ‘He’s the best ballet dancer that ever lived […]
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