A fabulous three page article from STAGE MAGAZINE on the early career of Cary Grant:
Cary Grant appeared in six Broadway productions and twenty-seven Hollywood pictures before anybody took notice. Then he played a dead man.
The world, with the exception of those bright eyed youngsters under the age of five, has waited pretty breathlessly for the reappearance of a forlorn little figure in a derby, baggy trousers, and disreputable shoes. The fact that his reappearance was to be under the sinister title, Modern Times alarmed not a few of us. This hapless creature, whose name by the way, is Charlie Chaplin, had come to mean an unchangeable element to us…Disguised in current mechanistic ingenuity, veiled in lukewarm disapproval of the plight of the working man, and tinted a slight shade of Red, it remain, delightfully and irrevocably, Chaplin.
The Time Magazine review of Charlie Chaplin’s film, A Woman of Paris, fell in line with many other reviews of the work: they all believed that Chaplin, as director, had moved the ball forward insofar as the development of film – and Time hoped that they had seen the end of Chaplin the clown. However, the 82 minute film was a commercial flop, primarily because he wasn’t in it (they chose not to publicize that he played an extra’s roll for one quick scene).
The first film Chaplin had directed was The Kid (1922) – and you can read about that here…
This, the much-discussed final speech in The Great Dictator, is more than a climax and conclusion to Chaplin’s newest film, it is a statement of Chaplin’s belief in humanity, a belief in which his creative powers and artistic development are deeply rooted.
Hope…I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -Jew, Gentile -black man -white.
This short column appeared in 1916 answering the question for so many concerning the salary of Charlie Chaplin who served as his own inspiration for his famous character, the Little Tramp.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Many a movie of the deep South has come out of Hollywood studded with ‘you-alls’ and trailing jasmine blossoms. Never before, however, has any studio had Gone with the Wind, already the most heavily publicized picture of the era, which, at long last, makes its film debut…For over two and a half years casting difficulties had beset the producers of Gone With The Wind. Most difficult was the part of Scarlet O’hara, green-eyed vixen around whom the 1,307 page novel revolves. With every leading lady in Hollywood under consideration, the studios tested and re-tested Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins, and Paulette Goddard. Even the 56,000,000 people reported by the Gallup poll to be waiting to see the picture began to get tired…
Another great Hollywood movie from 1939 was The Grapes of Wrath – click here to read about it…
In this article from a 1940 fan magazine, Clark Gable puts to rest some disturbing concerns numerous fans had concerning the human affairs that existed on the set during the production of Gone with the Wind. He additionally expressed some measure of gratitude for having landed the juiciest role in Hollywood at that time:
‘Rhett’ is one of the greatest male characters ever created. I knew that. I’d read the entire book through six times, trying to get his moods. I’ve still got a copy in my dressing room and I still read it once in a while, because I know I’ll probably never get such a terrific role again. But what was worrying me, and still is was that from the moment I was cast as ‘Rhett Butler’ I started out with five million critics.
Jack Wade, one of the many Hollywood reporters for Photoplay, must have let loose a big girlish squeal when he got word from the Selznick-International man that he would not get bounced off the set of Gone with the Wind
if he were to swing by to take a look.
First of all, a report on Vivien Leigh…Hollywood already agreed that she’s the happiest choice any one could have made. Even swamp angels from deepest Dixie put their okay on her accent…Clark Gable looks like the real Big-Man-From-the-South. In a black frock coat, starched bosom and ruffles, he makes a menacing, impressive Rhett, and he’s a little pleased about it, too.
