Shortly before his movie The Kid was released, Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977) wrote a few remarks on the discovery of Jack Coogan, and the picture built around him in the attached Vanity Fair article, The Marvelous Boy of the Movies.
‘The Marvelous Boy of the Movies” (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922) Read More »
Two months after James Dean’s fatal car crash, photographer Sanford Roth (1906 – 1962) penned this reminiscence of his unique friendship with this actor so many years his junior:
Dean was what Hollywood loosely labels a nonconformist, an individualist in the Brando stripe. He wasn’t easy to know.
Good-Bye, James Dean (Collier’s Magazine, 1955) Read More »
The years 1947 and 1948 was a rough patch for Hollywood – and journalist James Felton did a favor for all those geeky film historians yet unborn for documenting their myriad travails in the attached article. Aside from a major drop in box-office receipts, the most time consuming inconvenience involved U.S. Representative J. Parnell Thomas (1895 – 1970) and his cursed House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that threatened to reduce their profits to a further degree.
‘Panic in Hollywood” (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »
Those were the days when the talkies had taken over from the silent films and movie executives began a wholesale raid on the New York stage for promising young talent. It was fertile territory. In a comparatively brief period they signed Clark Gable, George Brent, Jimmy Cagney, Joan Blondell, Spencer Tracy Ginger Rogers, Humphrey Bogart, Francis Tone and a score of others. While I was in Broken Dishes I had been screen tested by Samuel Goldwyn for a feminine lead opposite Ronald Coleman…I reached Hollywood with my mother on December 13, 1930.
Bette Davis Tells All (Collier’s Magazine, 1955) Read More »
Two million Americans have as their principal form of visual entertainment nomad movies, run by some 3000 road-showmen who present their motion pictures in tents, auditoriums or churches. Few city folks realize that this is the way in which entertainment is brought to about 5000 U.S. towns of less than 1000 population… Road-showmen say that the favorite shows are fast-action westerns and occasional comedies. Mushy love scenes are box-office poison among their clientele. During harvest seasons, when customers can best afford the ten to twenty-five cents admission charge, these showmen take in between $75.00 and $150.00 a week.
These were not the only traveling entertainers during the Thirties: the Federal Theater Project also sent hoards of players throughout the nation to amuse and beguile – you can read about that here
Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.
Traveling Movie Theaters (Click Magazine, 1944) Read More »
This article was written by the silent film star herself for a fashionable American magazine concerning a few of the difficulties in the way of dress, make-up, manners and technique an actress might consider before portraying a child on stage or screen.
Mary Pickford Considers Her Rolls (Vanity Fair, 1920) Read More »
Back in the day, some wise old sage once remarked:
It’s Frank Sinatra’s world; we only live in it.
-in 1951, Nancy Sinatra certainly thought these words were double-dipped in truth; married to The Voice since 1939, she tended to their three children devotedly, yet she was served with divorce papers nonetheless in order that Ol’ Blue Eyes could go keep house with the twice-married starlet Ava Gardner (1922 – 1990). The attached article will tell you all about it; it’s a juicy one – filled hearsay, innuendo and the knowing words of a Vegas odds maker as to whether the marriage will last:
Will Frank turn out to be a better husband than Mickey Rooney or Artie Shaw? Will Ava have more luck with him than Nancy had?
(they divorced in 1957)
Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner To Wed (Modern Screen, 1951) Read More »
It was 1933 interviews like this one that made the studio executives at RKO go absolutely bonkers; what were they to do with Katharine Hepburn (1907 – 2003)? She simply refused to take all matters Hollywood with any degree of seriousness; although she hadn’t been a movie actress for very long at all, Katherine Hepburn was downright impious and goofy when reporter’s questions were put to her:
‘Is it true that you have three children?’ asked the interviewer.
‘I think it’s six,’ she answered.
Such responses served only to frustrate the members of the fourth estate to such a high degree and it seemed only natural that the fan magazine journalists would want to have the final word as to who Katherine Hepburn really was…
-But the Hollywood press did like her future co-star Carry Grant, click here to read it.
One of the First Katherine Hepburn Interviews (Collier’s Magazine, 1933) Read More »
A Photoplay Magazine interview featuring British actor Ronald Colman (1891 – 1958) in which the journalist attempted to dispel all preconceived notions that the actor was some sort of male Garbo and was, in fact, a regular guy.
Actor Ronald Colman (Photoplay Magazine, 1930) Read More »
A short notice from a Hollywood fan magazine announcing that Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley: 1913 – 1967), an actress largely unknown to U.S. audiences, had been cast to play the roll of ‘Scarlet’. Accompanied by two breathtakingly beautiful color images of the actress, this short announcement outlines her genetic makeup, her previous marriage to Leigh Holman, and her thoughts concerning the upcoming roll.
Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.
Vivien Leigh to Play Scarlet (Photoplay Magazine, 1939) Read More »
