Hollywood History – Page 21 – Old Magazine Articles

Mother of the Year: Joan Crawford
(Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

This article, I’m an Adopted Mother, by Hollywood movie actress Joan Crawford (1905 – 1977) rambles on column after column about her four adopted children and the tremendous fulfillment they brought to her life. It was all a bunch of hooey, and we might have ended up believing it all, if it weren’t for her daughter Christine, who, in 1978, published a bestselling memoir testifying to the beatings that the movie star could be depended upon to deliver regularly; a first edition of the book is available at Amazon – it was titled Mommy Dearest

Mickey Cohen in Hollywood
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

Illustrated with a photo of L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen and his wife, this short column from 1949 summarizes one of the many shake-down schemes that the thug would employ to blackmail Hollywood actors during their weaker moments.

John Barrymore
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

John Barrymore (né John Sidney Blyth: 1882 – 1942) is said to have been one of America’s finest actors; co-star in an ensemble cast of thespians that consisted of his brother Lionel and sister Ethel, they were known around Broadway and Hollywood as the Barrymores. Today he is primarily known as the great-grandfather of Drew Barrymore (b. 1975). Although badly plagued by alcoholism, he managed to play his parts admirably – and those who knew him best both on the stage and off, remember him in this article.

A far more revealing article about Barrymore can be read here.

Marlon Brando
(Photoplay Magazine, 1955)

This is a three page PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE profile of method actor Marlon Brando (1924 – 2004) regarding the first eight years of his fame. Much of the column space is devoted to Brando’s friendship with Harry Belafonte and all the boyish pranks and general carousing that the two enjoyed during their (thankfully) brief salad days.

Samuel Goldwyn, Producer
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

Screen scribe Sidney Carroll put to paper a serious column about the productive life of Samuel Goldwyn (1879 – 1974) and all that he had accomplished since he co-founded Hollywood (along with Cecil B. De Mille) in 1913:

He has done many remarkable things in 30 years. He has made as many stars as any man in the business; he was the first to make feature-length films; he was the first to bring the great writers to Hollywood… Goldwyn is the greatest maker of motion pictures ever to come out of Hollywood [with the exception of The Goldwyn Follies (1938)].

Mary Pickford: An Appreciation
(Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

I haven’t a clue as to whether California lawyers had the Restraining Order as one of the tools in their arsenal back in 1916; but if they had, Mary Pickford might have chosen to deploy just such a legal measure in order to defend herself from this obsessed fan who wrote the following essay for the editors of MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE:

She is adorably feminine, from her curls to her toes. In Tess, Caprice, the forlorn waif of the desert island in Hearts Adrift, she is feminine in everything she does. She can storm, but she storms like a warm-hearted, human woman, not a virago; she can coquette, but it is never the cold blooded type of flirting; Mary Pickford couldn’t be cold blooded if she tried. Men of all ages, women of all types, children of both sexes respond to this wonderful little girl in a manner no other star is able to arouse. They are all good and have done some wonderful work, but Mary is child, sweetheart and friend of the whole world, and no one can ever take her place in our hearts.

Click here to read a 1923 comparison between Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford.

Charlie Chaplin Wanted to be Taken Seriously
(Current Opinion, 1922)

We have all seen it many times before: the well-loved, widely accepted comedian who decides that being adored by the masses is simply not enough. For too many comic talents, sadly, there comes a time when they slip on one banana peel too many and it occurs to them that they want the world to appreciate them for their ability to think. Comics who fill this description might be Al Frankin, Woody Allen or Steve Martin.

This article tries to understand why Chaplin wanted to play a tragic part in a 1921 London stage adaptation of William Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair’.
We have seen such behavior in comics many times before, they hadn’t.

John Wayne
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

The attached three page article about John Wayne appeared at the very doorstep of the Fifties – the decade that was uniquely hisown. The uncredited Hollywood journalist who wrote this column was doing so in order to announce to the reading public that Wayne was coming remarkably close to being the top box office attraction:

Wayne reached this eminence by turning out film after film for 18 years. Working with a steady, un-nervous strength for four studios: Republic, RKO, Argosy and Warner Brothers. – he shifts back and forth between Westerns, sea-epics and war pictures. With each movie he makes (most of them re-hashes of of standard action-film plots, but a few of them film classics), his fans grow.

Paul Terry: The Other Animator
(Film Daily, 1939)

A short profile on Paul Terry, torn from the pages of a prominent Hollywood trade rag:

During Paul Terry’s notable career in the film industry, he has produced more than 1,000 pictures. In October of the current year he celebrates 25 years of continuous work in the cartoon field, which he helped to pioneer.

Today, the fountain of Terry-Toons is a thoroughly modern studio in New Rochelle, employing some 130 hands, all skilled in the imparting of life, voice and voice expression to the characters created on the drawing boards.

Second Oscar for Tom and Jerry
(The Lion’s Roar, 1946)

All told, the animated cartoon series Tom and Jerry would be awarded seven (7) Academy Awards before Oscar’s attention turned elsewhere.

This 1946 article sings the praises of Fred Quimby (1886 – 1965), the animation producer who ran the shop at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio between the years 1937 and 1954:

Doff the cap to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Fred Quimby, producer of Tom and Jerry’, the only cartoon stars to have copped the coveted Oscar for two consecutive years. Even the distinguished Donald Duck has only been Oscarized once.

‘Tom and Jerry‘ reflect in broad comedy the faults and foibles of human beings, even as you and I. Here we have a thoroughly egotistical cat and a very shrewd mouse… a cartoon representation of the eternal conflict between HERO and VILLAIN. Toma always hopes to outwit Jerry who symbolizes the underdogs of the world.

This short notice appeared in The Lion’s Roar, which was the monthly publicity rag for M.G.M. Studio.