Posts in category children of stars

« Older Entries

Scary Movie: Joe’s Pick and Frank’s — And Boo To You

Oct30
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Tomorrow’s Halloween.  And we all have a list of our favorite scariest movies. What are yours?

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here again. Joe’s not much into horror films but his favorite scary movie IS a classic, The Birds. He finds that Alfred Hitchcock film more frightening than any so called “slasher” flick.

The master of suspense really hit the mark with this one. If you haven’t seen The Birds lately, give it a whirl.  Recently the 1963 movie’s been getting some publicity since there’s a new film out on HBO about Hitch and his “supposed” obsession with the star of The Birds, Tippi Hedron.

Hedron, known today mostly as the mother of Melanie Griffith, was a model back in the late 50s.  She was Hitchcock’s choice to replace Grace Kelly, who’d bowed out of movies after pressure from the folks in Monaco, who didn’t think it seemly for their princess to be working. Hedron only made two films with Hitchcock.  She’s dreadful in Marnie, but passable in The Birds.  They, after all, are the real stars.

There are many things to admire about The Birds, including the special effects that impressed audiences long before GCI became part of Hollywood’s technological vocabulary.

Frank likes the fact that Hitchcock had the good sense to cast Charles McGraw, the toughest of the tough guys in Forties film noirs, as a grizzled skipper who scoffed at doom-and-gloom reports about those incoming birds. (He learned the hard way).

Just for laughs you might check out Mel Brook’s High Anxiety, which spoofs several Hitchcock titles including The Birds. In one chase scene, flying nasties pursue and drop you-know-what upon a fleeing Brooks. Upon its 1977 release, High Anxiety was billed as “a psycho comedy.”

A bit of a scaredy cat, Frank avoids contemporary horror movies post 1974′s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (which he liked). Still, there are two movies that frightened the dickens out of him, and that he still can’t bring himself to watch.

One is a classic, the only movie that actor Charles Laughton ever directed.  It’s 1955′s Night of the Hunter, in which a deranged preacher (Robert Mitchum) threatens an old woman (Lillian Gish) and two children.  The movie is beautifully shot, beautifully acted and scary as hell. Be sure to watch in daytime.

Mitchum reappears once more — this time as a vengeful ex-con seeking to wipe out the family of an upright Florida lawyer (Gregory Peck) — in 1962′s Cape Fear.  The movie was remade in 1991 by director Martin Scorsese with Robert DeNiro taking  the Mitchum role. Skip the remake and take a look at the original. It is a marvelously grueling picture, and one that you should see — once.

Don’t forget to “like” us over at Facebook: facebook.com/pages/ClassicMovieChatcom-Movie-Blog.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Tagged

MYSTERY MONDAY MOMENT — Minus Mom

Aug06
2012 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

OK, we admit it.

We cropped out the wife and mother in the above photo.  She was simply TOO recognizable.

Today’s challenge is to identify dad and the children. Can you?

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here with another goofy Monday exercise built around a period candid photo unearthed from our vast picture file.  Excuse the creative license with the above shot, but to include that other party would have made things way, way too easy.

Before we provide some clues as to who’s who above, let’s cover the two chaps pictured in last Monday’s shot — Author Meets Creation. Yup, the guy to the right is Sean Connery.  That was the easy part.

The distinguished looking fellow to the left may not have been immediately recognizeable. But the fact that he is shown chatting with Connery on a movie set was a HUGE clue.

He is novelist Ian Lancaster Fleming, the author of 14 novels beginning in 1953 featuring 007, aka James Bond of the British Secret Service.  The books, of course, inspired the continuing movie franchise, one of the longest lasting and most successful screen series ever covering nearly two dozen titles and employing seven actors in the principal role.

Of course, no one made the part more his own than Connery.  It may surprise you to find out that the  Fleming himself initially wasn’t thrilled with the casting of the actor as Bond. The aristocratic author was put off by Connery’s poor Scottish family backround.  David Niven or even Cary Grant were far more suitable as 007, thought Fleming.

He was wrong, and Connery never forgot the slight.  Years later he told interviewers that  a little of Fleming’s conversation went a long way.

Now, back to today’s mystery photo subjects.  The generous blokes that we are, we provide the following clues:

– The grinning fellow to the right was named Michael at birth in 1915.

–He married four times. His first wife was actress Lynn Bari. He was her second husband.

– The missing mom here was our man’s wife No. 2.  The union lasted 13 years and produced the two children seen here.

– The girl to the left became a pretty well-known show biz personality, although not as famous as her half sister.

So there!  Who are these people, and why are we looking at them?  As the French say, bonne chance.

 

 

 

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos

DID LORETTA YOUNG HAVE AN ILLEGIMATE CHILD?

Jan04
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Joe Morella, one half the classic movie chat team (Frank Segers is the other) here solo today to reveal some little known info on the movie star of the 30s and 40s and GIGANTIC TV star of the 1950s, Loretta Young.

Ever since Judy Lewis, Loretta’s daughter, died last month, Frank has been pressuring me to write about Young and Clark Gable, who Lewis insisted was her father.

OK, I give in. Today’s blog is the first of three on this long “forbidden” Hollywood topic. (Incidentally, that’s Judy on the left with her mother in the photo above.)

It should be noted, first off, that Lewis said Loretta admitted to her, after much badgering, that the rumors were true. That she’d become pregnant after an affair with Gable on location of the 1935 adventure drama, Call of the Wild.

BUT, Young never publicly acknowledged this.

After Judy Lewis published her autobiography – Uncommon Knowledge (1994) — Loretta didn’t speak to her for several years.  They did reconcile before Young’s death in 2000.

Others in Young’s intimate circle — which included her sisters Polly Ann and Betty Jane (known professionally as Sally Blaine) — never talked about Judy’s birth or “adoption.”

But one person who almost made it into the inner circle did  speak to me.

Years ago, when Ed Epstein and I wrote Loretta Young — An Extraordinary Life, I had the priviledge of doing extensive interviews with Tom Lewis, Loretta’s second husband and Judy’s adoptive father.

First some backround.  Loretta Young was a genuine star and all of 17 years old when she married actor Grant Withers.

They’d eloped (to Yuma, Arizona). Because Grant was a partier and heavy drinker, the “inner circle,” Loretta’s mother and two older sisters, didn’t approve.  The marriage lasted less than a year (1930 to 1931), but “thank heaven,”(according to Mama Young,) they’d only been wed civilly, not in a religious ceremony, so the marriage wasn’t recognized by the Catholic church.

As a divorcee and no longer under the influence of her strong mother, Loretta began a serious affair with Spencer Tracy, her co-star in 1933′s “Man’s Castle.” Ironically, she portrays a homeless waif in this melodrama set in the Great Depression, impregnated and abandoned by Tracy’s character, a shiftless wanderer.

The Tracy-Young affair was so public that the Bishop of Los Angeles had called them in and told them that as good Catholics they had to stop seeing each other.  They had been together for a year, and many thought Loretta was waiting for Tracy to divorce his wife and marry her. They soon made a formal announcement that their ‘friendship’ was over.

A few days later Loretta left for location shooting with Clark Gable.

A few months later it was announced she left for Europe and was very ill.  Rumors were rampant.  Was it Gable’s child? or Tracy’s? But, five months after she disappeared, Loretta was back and alone and ready to resume work.

Two years later Loretta, a single woman, adopted two little girls, three-year-old Jane, and two-year-old Judy.  Jane was soon returned to her natural mother, who’d supposedly changed her mind about giving the child up for adoption.  Judy Young became part of the close knit Young Clan (see photo below).

(In tomorrow’s blog,  Joe tells of his encounter with Tom Lewis, Judy’s adoptive father.  What he told Joe may surprise you.  Stay tuned.)

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

Answers To Our ACTOR QUIZ — You Heard It Here First!

Dec21
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to come clean.  We admit. We may, after all, have been too tough.

Our blog of Dec. 7 — Pearl Harbor Day, by the way — asked you to identify the two actors pictured above.

We also asked you to name the rare quality the two stars shared. We weren’t referring to wives, eye color, or birthplaces. Nothing so trivial.  The shared quality is truly unusual.  

Our faithful reader, Patricia Nolan-Hall (aka Caftan Woman), who is hard to stump, emailed:

Okay.  Part 1 of the question: (the actors are) Keenan Wynn (pictured above on the right) and Broderick Crawford.

Part 2:   Um, they were both on episodes of “Burke’s Law”. I’ve been in a “Burke’s Law” mood lately.  No? I didn’t think that would be it.

Crawford used to catch car thieves on “Highway Patrol” and Wynn tried to steal a flying car in “The Absent-Minded Professor.”  Yeah. I thought that was reaching.  Hey! Did Wynn ever play Harry Brock on stage?

Oh, heck, I give up.

Good try, Pat.  You came up with some possible connections between the actors than we had thought up.  What we DID think up is this:

The first names of both actors are their mothers’ maiden names.

Crawford was born in Philadelphia in 1910, the son of vaudevillians Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick. Wynn was born in New York City in 1916, the son of burlesque-tv comic Ed Wynn and actress Hilda Keenan.

Hilda Keenan retired after wedding Ed Wynn, but Helen Broderick went on to a fine career as a second lead-comic relief “dame” in many of RKO’s top hits of the 1930s.

While you indulge in an entirely justified, “of course moment,” let us tell you something about each actor.

Crawford was burly, fast talking and belligerent, ideal for roles as bad guys and cops. He won an Oscar for his memorable performance as a Southern political demogogue — evoking Louisiana’s Huey Long — in director Robert Rossen’s 1949 drama All The King’s Men.

Crawford was perhaps even better in George Cukor’s 1950 comedy Born Yesterday, costarring Judy Holliday.  Crawford supposedly based his loud-mouth lunk character in the movie on the mannerisms of Harry Cohn, the notoriously blustery mogul in charge of Columbia Pictures.

On TV, Crawford is best remembered for his “10-4″-spouting turns as Police Chief Dan Matthews in the late Fifties series, Highway Patrol. Our favorite Crawford story stems from his portrayal of bad-guy politician versus Clark Gable’s good-guy cattleman in MGM’s 1952 extravaganza, Lone Star.

The director (Vincent Sherman) and the cast (which included Ava Gardner) harbored no illusions about the quality of this overblown western. “It was a terrible picture,” Sherman later recalled. According Gardner biographer Lee Server, “Crawford was often in an alcoholic stupor while filming.”

In one scene, Gable on horseback confronted Crawford, demanding to know “what are we going to do about the people.”

Writes Server in Love Is Nothing, his 2006 Gardner biography:  Crawford was out of it, just couldn’t remember his line…Without breaking character, he screams, ‘Fuck the people!’ And he rides away on his horse…Ava just fell on her ass, screaming with laughter.

Keenan was in our opinion a solid, underrated actor.

He worked steadily in fims and TV, contributing excellent performances in two films that have definitely withstood the test of time, and are, therefore, classics:  Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) — Wynn played the Army colonel harassing Peter Sellers at a soda pop machine — and as the judicious, sympathetic land auctioneer in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (1968).

Offscreen Wynn is best remembered as the husband of Evie Wynn who divorced him to marry Van Johnson. (For more on that, see our April 12 blog, Was Van Johnson Gay?) It was the first of Wynn’s three marriages.

Ned Wynn’s, the actor’s son with Evie, wrote an extraordinarily whinny, self-pitying book (1990′s We Will Always Live In Beverly Hills: Growing Up Crazy In Hollywood) cataloging in unpleasant detail his alienation from his famous father. Keenan Wynn deserved better.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

PUBLISHED HERE FIRST

Sep08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

 

 

 

 

Hi, everybody, Joe Morella and Frank Segers back again with a special note to you.

We at Classic Movie Chat pride ourselves on bringing you photos that have never been seen before on any other blog.  In fact these photos have never been published before –ANYWHERE.

That’s because they are from a private stash, The Donald Gordon Collection.

You ask, who was Donald Gordon?

Donald was a young actor who found himself under contract at Columbia Pictures during World War II.

The studios in this wartime period were a bit less fussy about male hires, so Donald made the grade although he never quite made it big. He appears to have spent much of his time making friends on and off the studio lot, made easier by the fact that Donald was an outgoing, amiable type, easy to like.

And, if you were a friend, Donald took your picture. Then to seal the deal he had someone else snap a shot of him posing with his famous pal.

As you’ll continue to see on our blog in the coming weeks, the amazing informality – almost intimacy – of Donald with his subjects is a pleasure to behold.  No posed studio shots in full makeup, staged with the precision of a Swiss watch.

These were shots of some of Hollywood’s best-known personalities in mufti, so to speak, lounging around pools, front lawns, departing restaurants or in actual costume on the set.

The photo above of singer Allan Jones and his wife actress Irene Hervey– (parents of Jack Jones) and the snapshot of  MGM star Van Johnson were first seen on our site.

We hope that you will let others know about Classic Movie Chat as a great source of never before seen photos.  

Even if the picture running that day isn’t an original, you and your friends will be treated to what we hope you’ll find is an interesting picture, and tidbit about films and stars from Hollywood’s Golden Era.

Please tell us who your favorite stars are and we’ll try to run a piece about them AND a never before seen photo.


Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos - Tagged , , ,

SECOND GENERATION HOLLYWOOD

Jun28
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Many children of stars enter show business.  Some with great success, others with no success at all.  Few exceed their famous parents.

Hello Everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers her again with a photo of some famous parents and their successful offspring.  You know him as Jack Jones.

While not a movie star Jack had great success as a singer, sold millions of records, was a headliner in night clubs and was frequently on TV.

Most people don’t know that both his mother AND father were movie stars…genuine, name above the title, movie stars.

Can you recognize them? They’re pictured below in a never seen before snapshot taken by our old pal, Donald Gordon.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos - Tagged , ,

Jamie Lee Curtis’ Parents–and their woes

Jun23
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Ah, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis! The IDEAL Hollywood couple.  (Read on)

Hello everybody.  Morella and Segers back with more on Janet and Tony

Beautiful young movie stars such as Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, although supposedly living the life of marital bliss with two young daughters, were certainly susceptible to temptation and Hollywood gossip.  One name popped up as a real point of contention between them –Bob Fosse.

Although married at the time to actress Joan McCracken, Fosse maintained a  lady’s man reputation. He was hired as actor-choreographer to help Janet prepare for her costarring role in the 1955 musical, “My Sister Eileen,” her first movie assignment under a new Columbia Pictures contract.

Janet and Fosse worked together for nearly a month before shooting began. “I was walking on air.” An innocent kiss “turned out to be a little more than either of us bargained for,” Janet later wrote. “Still there was no denying that our friendship courted more than a business affiliation.”

Says Tony in his recent autobiography: “One weekend I came home and found a letter from Fosse to Janet. ‘I can’t wait to see you,’ it said. ‘When you’re coming, please let me know.’

“I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but it certainly looked like Fosse had written a love note to my wife.  I was wrecked. Even though Janet and I were distant, I became obsessed with the thought of Janet and Fosse in bed together; I imagined it over and over again, getting more upset each time.

“Sure, I had had affairs myself, but for one thing they always made me feel very guilty, and for another I made damn sure Janet would never find out about them.”  (Remember, all this was occurring only about four years into Janet and Tony’s marriage.)

To make himself feel better about things, Tony says he took off for a week at the Playboy mansion, located then in Chicago. “That weekend I met some very friendly Playboy bunnies, and I had not even the slightest pangs of guilt about having sex with them.”

In her book, Janet’s handling of the couple’s increasingly serious marital troubles is more general, describing their overall predicament as an emotional tumor that eventually metastasized.  ”Eventually” finally arrived at the time Tony signed on to costar with Yul Brynner in a dreadful costume drama, “Taras Bulba,” about Cossack life in 16th century Ukraine.

Among the “Taras Bulba” cast members was newcomer, Christine Kaufmann.  Her effect on Tony was intoxicating.  He wrote that his love scenes with the 17-year-old daughter of a German air force officer were for real. They were indeed. (Kaufmann became the second Mrs. Bernie Schwartz in 1963, a year after “Taras Bulba” was released.)

When shooting completed Tony returned to New York via ship and was greeted by Janet. “A different person came off that liner, someone distant, removed, polite but not in touch.  The journey on the train (back to California) with him was like being in solitary confinement,” she wrote.

The finale came in March 1962, the same year that Janet costarred in “The Manchurian Candidate.” Janet recalls Tony’s words: “’ I think we should get a divorce. I don’t want to be married anymore.’

Said Janet — “So the great love affair was finished, kaput, over. After ten and a half years this Cinderella and her Prince Charming didn’t ‘live happily ever after.’”

Said Tony — “I packed a few clothes, and after I walked out the front door to my car, carrying a small valise, Janet came and stood in the doorway, holding Kelly by the hand and Jamie in her arms.  She didn’t say much, but she was  crying, and when I saw the two girls, my heart was torn apart.

From Tony’s point of view, the end was bitter. “Janet and I had parted, and not on good terms.  Sad to say, Kelly and Jamie have always held it against me. It’s understandable. Janet had full custody of the girls… I’m sure she filled their heads with all sorts of negative stories about me.”

Janet’s second marriage to businessman Robert Brandt, begun almost immediately after the divorce became final, was a happy one.  The couple remained together until she died in 2004 at age 77.

Curtis’ marriage to Kaufmann ended badly. By the time he died in 2010 at 85, he had gone through a total of six Mrs. Bernie Schwartzs.

The final words go to Tony: “When I look back at all the challenges we faced,” he said, “what amazes me is not that Hollywood marriages fail at such an overwhelming rate; it’s that any survive at all.”

For awhile, though, Curtis and Leigh were one of the top 10 celebrity couples.

 

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

TONY CURTIS AND JANET LEIGH –a Hollywood Marriage

Jun22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

First, let’s set the pivotal scene….

The small wedding party gathered on a beautiful spring day outside the courthouse in Greenwich, Conn. The ceremony was delayed by the late arrival of  the best man, Jerry Lewis, who had earlier advised Janet and Tony against their marriage (but later recanted).

Hello Everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again.. Today, we bring you Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis in their own words.  He said, She said.

Janet said:

It was “short, sweet, sedate and solemn. We gave each other our plain gold bands, and I was Mrs. Bernie Schwartz…It was glorious, it was happy, it was fun, it was volatile, it was crazy – it was wonderful!…That set the tone for the rest of the day. And for a lot of years as well.”

Tony said:

“Despite all the warnings and naysayers, Janet and I were married one day after my birthday, on June 4, 1951, in the country outside New York City…Our wedding was a lot of fun. We had a wonderful dinner at Danny’s Hideaway, a trendy New York restaurant.”

Thus began one of the most celebrated star marriages in Hollywood history. Janet’s recollection of the day is emotionally effusive.  Tony’s is more self-centered and matter-of-fact.

Both accounts are contained in books each wrote decades after their wedding – Janet’s in “There Really Was A Hollywood: An Autobiography,” published by Doubleday in 1984; and Tony’s in his remarkably candid “American Prince: A Memoir,” written with Peter Golenbock and published by Harmony Books in 2008.

The groom was 26 at the time of the marriage, a teen-idol-in-the-making under contract to Universal Pictures. He had 10 undistinguished movie appearances under his belt including “The Prince Who Was A Thief,” a swashbuckler with Curtis co-starring opposite Piper Laurie.

He recalled that during promotional tours for the movie, “ the girls would scream” when he walked onstage. “It happened in every city. It was nuts. I couldn’t believe that I could generate that kind of response after nothing but bit parts and one starring role.”  But Curtis soon got used the idea. His career of was off and running.

Janet was a month shy of her 24th birthday when she married Tony.  It was Tony’s first marriage, but Janet had been wed before –twice. She’d eloped at 15.  Her parents had that annulled. Then as a 19 year old she married again.  But when she signed with MGM that marriage was dissolved too.

When she and Curtis wed she was the much bigger star.   She was such a hot property that even psycho-lecher Howard Hughes found himself making lavishly expensive but unsuccessful plays for her sexual favors – a practice he usually reserved only for the most established leading actresses.

Hughes wasn’t the only shady character in hot pursuit of Janet before the wedding.  Another suitor was Johnny Stompanato. Yes, THAT Stompanato — the gangster-lover of Lana Turner who was fatally stabbed by Turner’s daughter, Cheryl.

In 1950, Janet was starring in Hughes’ production of “Jet Pilot” at RKO studios, an ill-fated movie that took seven years to finally reach theaters. Perhaps symbolically, given the outcome of their marriage, it was also the time that Janet first met Curtis.

She was on loan to RKO from her home studio, MGM, and was moving in swift company – director Josef von Sternberg, leading man John Wayne and, of course, producer-studio-owner Hughes.

As Tony tells it, Janet, playing a Russian fighter pilot of all things, decided to attend an RKO publicity party directly from the “Jet Pilot” set. He was there as well. “She had her hair pulled back, making her look sweet and vulnerable, and, boy, was I stunned by the way she looked,” recalled Tony.

Janet was more specific. The RKO publicity party was held at Lucy’s, a popular Hollywood watering hole on Gower Street and Melrose Avenue. “The gathering was in full swing when we arrived.…At one point I was introduced to a devastatingly handsome young man – beautiful really – with black unruly hair, large sensitive eyes fringed by long dark eyelashes, a full sensuous mouth – and an irresistible personality…I didn’t forget him.”

Janet Leigh was at the peak of her beauty, as the photo above attests.

Throughout their ensuing courtship Tony felt somehow inferior. Janet, he wrote, “was someone I admired greatly, and I badly wanted her to admire me back.  She was better educated than I was, and I was honored that she wanted to spend time with me.” Then comes this confession:

“Janet and I had been nuts about each other when we first started going out.  We loved the sex, and we loved the companionship; but it wasn’t long before the differences between us that had seemed so exciting at first started to create friction…(Janet) had developed very firm ideas about how everything should be.”

Janet would criticize Tony’s manners at parties; would feel uncomfortable with the attention that came with celebrity while Tony thrived on it. She began, said Tony,  “bossing me around, just as my mother had bossed my father around.” Curtis suffered through a Dickensian New York childhood explaining why he never liked to be reminded about the old days.

In her book Janet glosses over or ignores outright the couple’s early differences.  Instead, she warmly recalls their foreign travels, the socializing with their famous friends (notably the Kennedys) and the movies they were working on. And, of course, the arrival of the couple’s two daughters, Kelly Ann and Jamie Lee.

But their children didn’t cement the crumbling marriage.


Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , , , ,

WHERE’D YA GET THAT NAME?

May20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody.  Mrs. Norman Maine is out looking for the man that got away. But Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers are here, still chatting about classic movies and movie stars.

We all know Whoopie Goldberg appropriated her name from whoopie cushion back when she was a stand up comic, and that Nicholas Gage (nee Coppola, he’s FFC’s nephew) took his from a cartoon character, Luke Cage.  But it’s fun to learn about actors who took their names from characters they portrayed.

Pictured above is Byron Barr.

You might remember him  as an extra and bit player at Warner Brothers where he was often unbilled or occasionally listed as Byron Barr.  But in the 1942 film “The Gay Sisters” costarring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent and Geraldine Fitzgerald, he played a character called Gig Young – and guess what? The studio and Barr decided they liked that name better than the Byron Elsworth Barr monicker he was born with in 1913.

Young certainly wasn’t the first nor the last actor to do this. It probably started with Moliere’s troupe, or maybe even the Greeks.  In Young’s case, he was under some name-change pressure unknown to his classical predecessors because another actor was billed at the time as Byron Barr.  (The Screen Actors Guild frowns on the use of the same name by any two performers.)

“The Gay Sisters” not only gave him a new name but provided Young’s career a much-needed push. As a result, he happily gave up his part time job as a gas station attendant to concentrate on making movies full time. After service in the Coast Guard during World War II, Young returned to Hollywood and carved out a solid career in mostly light secondary leading roles.

Back in 1934 a child actress, Dawn O’Day (who’d been born Dawn Evelyn Paris), starred in a film version of the classic “Anne of Green Gables,” and everafter called herself the name of the character she’d played, Anne Shirley.

Shirley didn’t make many films remembered today except perhaps for director King Vidor’s renowned 1937 tearjerker “Stella Dallas,” where she portrayed Barbara Stanwyck’s daughter; and in 1944, Edward Dmytryk’s hard boiled “Murder, My Sweet.”  In that, her last film, she played the “good” girl opposite  Dick Powell’s version of Philip Marlow.  Claire Trevor was her evil stepmother.

Shirley was married briefly to John Payne (who once had a flaming romance with Jane Russell) and their daughter, Julie Payne, became an actress.

YESTERDAY’S PIC:   A snapshot from the Donald Gordon Collection shows Dorothy Lamour signing an autograph for a fan. In the good ole days stars were always happy to meet and talk with their fans. (except Garbo, of course, who reputedly didn’t even talk to her co-stars.  Frederick March once said, “Making a film with Greta Garbo does not constitute an introduction.”)   Dottie loved her fans and they were devoted to her.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

NEVER BEFORE SEEN PHOTO OF…That Other Judy!

May16
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody, Classic Movie guys Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again.

Today we’ve decided to come clean and, in the immortal words of the late Howard Cosell, tell it like it is.  Ok, we admit it.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE JUDY IN OUR LIVES.

Of course there is the Frances Gumm of “Love Finds Andy Hardy,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “A Star Is Born.”

But today’s Judy (pictured above in a never-before-seen photo from The Donald Gordon Collection– we ran the full length picture last Friday) is known as the star of “Scatterbrain,” “Joan of Ozark,” “Singing in the Corn” and “The Wac From Walla Walla.”

We’re referring to Judy Canova.  Judy who, you ask?

We can’t blame you.  This Judy was not remotely in Garland’s league, not even close.  But she was an interesting figure at the margins of Hollywood movie making from the late 1930′s into the 1950′s, as well as a national radio and TV star right into the 1970′s.  At least give this Judy credit for professional longevity. (She died of cancer in Hollywood in 1983, just shy of 70.)

Like Garland, she came from a show biz family.  Her singing mother pushed the young Juliette Canova into a family act with siblings Anne and Zeke (and later, brother Pete). The act was known initially as The Three Georgia Crackers (no matter that Judy was born in Florida).

The ensemble played various vaudeville circuits in the southeast, and wound up doing radio shows in New York, eventually making their Broadway debut in 1934′s “Calling All Stars,” a musical revue that last all of 36 performances.

But the exposure was invaluable and Canova — always the comic standout of the family act — landed a solo berth on Rudy Valee’s radio show.  This in turn led to a 10-year stint as the house hayseed comedienne on bandleader Paul Whiteman’s radio series.

Of course, the public wanted to “see” their radio personalities.  Warner Brothers therefore hired her as a “specialty singer” to clown around in her first feature film, 1934′s “In Caliente,” a tuneful ditty directed by Busby Berkeley and costarring one of Hollywood’s more improbable romantic duos, Delores De Rio and Pat O’Brien.

In 1940, Canova downshifted to Republic Pictures, which churned out countless low-budget programmers, and began to receive above the title billing as a star.  She was teamed with the likes of Joe E. Brown (1942′s “Joan of the Ozark” and 1943′s “Chatterbox”), and comedian Jerry Colonna and Ann Miller (in 1942′s “True To The Army.”)  Endowed with a large mouth, rubbery face and an agile figure, Canova, mugged, yodeled, played guitar, joked and sang.  Like Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, Canova was a female performer with no compunctions about making herself look ridiculous to get a laugh.

Judy began her CBS radio program, “The Judy Canova Show,” in 1943.  Highly successful, the radio vehicle (later aired by NBC) gave her national exposure for the next 12 years. Also, Judy made recordings as a solo while she made movies.  By the time her film career ended in 1955,  Canova had appeared in about 25 pictures. After the mid-Fifties, when her radio show also ended, Judy made numerous guest shots on radio and TV shows pretty much playing herself.

Like Garland, Canova had multiple marriages (the former went through five; Canova stopped at four).  A product of her final marriage — to singer-radio personality Filberto Rivero from 1950 to 1964 — is Judy’s daughter Diana Canova, notable as an actress in her own right (although distinctly not of the hillbilly variety) in films (“The First Nudie Musical”) and on TV (including “Happy Days,” “Love Boat,” “Soap” and “Fantasy Island, among other programs.”)

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos - Tagged , , , , ,
« Older Entries