Hollywood

The Sullivans
(Liberty Magazine, 1943)

In 1943, Twentieth Century Fox released a movie that told the story of one of the earlies heroes of the war, The Sullivans. These five Iowa brothers enlisted in the U.S. Navy just three weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack. Assigned to the cruiser Juneau, three were killed that summer during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (1942), and the two others died the next day. The nation as a whole was very moved by this saga and cherished their memory.


“Five unknown actors play the Sullivan lads. And because their faces are fresh and new, they seem amazingly convincing and real.”

Linda Darnell Downsizes
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Everyone on the home front was used to making sacrifices, and Hollywood star Linda Darnell (1923 – 1965) was no exception:


“Allowances must be made for Linda Darnell who has been sorely tried. Instead of six servants, she now has two – and she hears strange sounds from the kitchen that convince her she will soon be alone. Her chauffer has been drafted; her butler is working at Lockheed. Her flower gardens are a wreck because the Japs who once tended them are in internment camps… ‘Why, this gas rationing… it’s worse than being bombed!'”

Joan Fontaine Does Her Bit
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

Whether Joan Fontaine (1917 – 1913) was pressured into writing this bitter-sweet article by her studio or some other Hollywood entity – we’ll never know, but this piece recalls her earliest days in Japan, where she was born, and all the sweet smiles and kind words that all of us are peppered with during our formative years. So much for the sweet part of the article – then she recalls her return trip in 1934-35 and what a bunch of Fascist skanks they all turned into (Japanese-Americans also feel her back hand).

Hollywood Feels the Actor Shortages
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“What Hollywood is saying secretly and can’t say publicly is: The Armed Forces are taking away all our actors, all our technical men. Things are serious now; in six months they will be desperate. But if anybody in Hollywood got up and said that unless a great change in public policy is made, the movies might be out of business in six months…”


“[Movie stars have] a duty and Hollywood has a duty and they should be made to stick to it.”

The Government Film Business During WW II
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

“Government movies are now having their greatest boom in history. The boom is tied to the war, but many capital observers believe that it will continue into the post war era, and that the large-scale production of films by the Government telling the people what’s what and how to do it is here to stay.”

Oscars at War
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

War-torn Hollywood was at its best for the Academy Award Ceremony at the Coconut Grove Hotel in March, 1943. To no one’s surprise, Mrs. Miniver walked home with most of the most coveted trophies.

The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League
(Click Magazine, 1938)

The Los Angeles of the late Thirties was plagued by a small coterie of Nazis; they were not terribly visible, but they were around, nonetheless. From time-to-time real Fascists from Europe would blow into town and they would be met by such groups as the Jewish Labor Committee, the United Anti-Nazi Conference and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee. This article concerns another organization that worked shoulder to shoulder with these groups, but with a little more style: the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. The League was 5,000 strong (likely an exaggeration) and within its ranks were Hollywood notables such as Herbert Biberman, Robert Rossen, Francis Edward Faragoh, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo.

‘Hitler” of Hollywood
(The American Magazine, 1944)

Song and Dance man Robert Watson (1888 – 1965) was Hollywood’s-go-to-guy when they needed a fella to tread the boards as the Bohemian Corporal (Adolf Hitler). Throughout the course of his career he played him nine times.

When W.W. II Came to Hollywood
(Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

The attached article is but a small segment addressing the history of Hollywood during the war W.W. II years; clipped from a longer Photoplay Magazine piece that recounted the illustrious past of Hollywood some thirty-five years earlier.

After Pearl Harbor, the men really began leaving town. David Niven was gone now. So too, was Flight Officer Laurence Olivier. And more and more from the Hollywood ranks kept leaving. Gable, Fonda, Reagan, the well-knowns and the lesser-knowns. Power, Taylor, Payne, Skelton and many others…More Hollywood regulars went away, so other, newer newcomers had to be found to replace them because the box office was booming.

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