Hollywood History

William Holden
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The attached profile of actor William Holden (1918 – 1981) appeared in print when his stock was about to peak.


When the summer of 1956 rolled around, Holden was already a double nominee for a BAFTA (Picnic), an Oscar (Sunset Boulevard) and was the grateful recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor one year earlier (Stalag 17). In 1957 his performance in the Bridge on the River Kwai would bring even more pats on the back (although the Best Actor statue would go to Alec Guinness).


This five page interview tells the story of Holden’s initial discovery in Hollywood, his devotion to both the Screen Actor’s Guild and Paramount Pictures. His Hollywood peers held him in especially high-regard:

In a poll of Hollywood reporters recently he was designated ‘the best adjusted and happiest actor around’; by contrast, the same poll identified Humphrey Bogart as a total pain in the keister – click here to read that article.

REVIEWED: Broken Blossoms
(Current Opinion, 1919)

A 1919 film review of Broken Blossoms, directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess:

Broken Blossoms came to the screen a masterpiece in moving pictures. Bare narration of the story cannot hope even to suggest the power and truth of the tragedy that Mr. Griffith has pictured.


You can read more about Lilian Gish here

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Carl Sandburg on Charlie Chaplin
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

This poem was submitted to the Vanity Fair editors by an obscure film critic named Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967):

The room is dark. The door opens. It is Charlie
playing for his friends after dinner, ‘the marvel-
ous urchin, the little genius of the screen…’


Between the years 1920 – 1928, Sandburg served as the film critic for the Chicago Daily News.

Douglas Fairbanks on Hollywood
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

Attached is a very funny article written by the great matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks (1883 – 1939) concerning the predictability of silent films:

Whether eastern or western, the villain is never without a big black cigar. On the screen a big black cigar represents villainy; on the stage it represents General Grant.


Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.

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Douglas Fairbanks on the Writers of Silent Movies…
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

Yet another article from the dusty, moldy magazines of yore that illustrate how the silent film actor Douglas Fairbanks (1883 – 1939) would, time and again, bite that hand that fed him so generously: this is one more example in which Fairbanks points out the all-too predictable story lines of American silent movies.

A Sweep at the Oscars
(Newsweek Magazine, 1940)

On February 29, at the Academy’s twelfth annual dinner at the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood, Gone with the Wind surpassed [1934’s ‘It Happened One Night’] by winning eight out of sixteen possible prizes and garnering two special awards for good measure.

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Clark Gable: Cad
(Confidential Magazine, 1955)

We all know that there are two sides to every story, but not in this article. If the utterances of Clark Gable’s first wife (Josephine Dillon, 1884 – 1971) are true, then we have no choice but to believe that Gable was a real stinker.

When Miss Dillon left for Hollywood, he followed. A year later they were married in Los Angeles by gospel minister A.C. Smithers. Josephine traded the Dillon name to become Mrs. Clark Gable.
It didn’t take her long to discover quite a bit about her new young husband. He didn’t even have a grammar school education. He knew nothing about acting. And he was penniless. They lived in the money Josephine made as a dramatic coach. There wasn’t much of it, because her best pupil was her big-eared husband; his lessons were ‘on the house’. He sopped up what she knew like a sponge.

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D.W. Griffith in the ‘Vanity Fair Hall of Fame’
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

Sweet words of praise were heaped high for the silent film director D.W. Griffith when he was selected by VANITY FAIR magazine to be one of their anointed ones:

Because he was for many years an excellent actor and a leading man on Broadway; because he went into moving pictures as a an actor and emerged from them as a producer;because the greater the magnitude of the task ahead of him the more the prospect pleases him; because he invented the high-priced movies; because he has employed upwards of 5,000 people in a single scene; because he is an excellent musician and wrote the orchestral music for ‘Hearts of the World’, the most sensational moving picture of recent years.film production
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Where the Stars Dwell: Beverly Hills, California
(Coronet Magazine, 1953)

Times have changed: when this article about Beverly Hills first went to press, that famed little hamlet could support as many as ten bookshops. It is now barely able to support one:

Beverly Hills became famous in 1926 when, in one of the smartest publicity stunts of the century, the movie star Will Rogers was elected honorary mayor. Installed in drizzling rain, Rogers declared that all the budding town needed for progress was a little scandal and a few murders…


This was not a problem.


Beverly Hills Confidential: A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murdersstyle=border:none

The News from Talkie Town
(Theatre Magazine, 1931)

To a regular cinema-goer in the era of silent films, attendance at the motion-picture playhouse today is a continuously disturbing experience…The discovery that the shadowy images of the screen could be made articulate was as fruitful for exploitation to the captains of the cinema industry as was the realization that women would wear long skirts to the couturiers. …Paramount alone has already announced 243 releases for next season, double the number issued this year, and other companies are following suit.

Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.

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The Missing Star: Jane Russell
(Pic Magazine, 1943)

Those cheeky, ill-informed editors at PIC MAGAZINE impertinently protested that the Howard Hughes’ movie The Outlaw should have been in the theaters ages ago – failing all the while to recognize that the film had been released a week prior to the publication of their article.


But they made up for it by providing their readers with six seldom-seen cheesecake pictures of the star, Jane Russell.

What’s in that Brooklyn Water?
(Quick Magazine, 1952)

2013 marked the 100th year since the first film was made in Hollywood, and in that time one American neighborhood more than any other has consistently supplied the film and television industry with a seemingly inexhaustible pool of talent: Brooklyn, New York. From Clara Bow in the era of silent film to Gabby Sidibe in the digital – the talented sons and daughters of Brooklyn have made their way West and we have all been the beneficiaries.

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