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Yes, she was a top leading woman…. at Republic. (That’s because Republic offered her $250 per week, $100 more than MGM proffered.) But back to the beginning. Frazee was born (depending on the source you believe) either in 1915 or 1918 in Minnesota as Mary Jane Frehse. And talk about a child performer: she and […]
So did you know much about the great “character actor” of the 40s, 50s and 60s? That’s him with Judy Garland in Presenting Lily Mars. (And despite conventional Hollywood wisdom of the time, Van Heflin in his day was a relatively good-looking dude.) Please note that we correctly use the phrase “character actor” when talking of, say, Guy Kibbee. […]
Seldom a leading man — in fact a character actor almost from his start in movies — Van Heflin was one of the stalwart actors of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Yet he still flies below the classic celebrity radar. One of our 2,000 followers on Twitter is a BIG Heflin fan, and keeps bugging us to write […]
No question that the studios had their leading men. Dick Foran started at Warners, but wound up at Universal. Nowadays, he is considered generously as a matinee idol of B pictures. His stock in trade? A big frame, genial face, genial onscreen personality and a pretty decent singing voice. He was once groomed at Warners […]
As our regular followers well know, we really do welcome getting e-mails and hearing back from readers. We enjoy receiving praise, of course, but also complaints — about our reviews, opinions, subject selections, picture selections, you name it. These reinforce the communal ideal of our site, dedicated to”chats” between like-minded classic movie fans. The rule […]
Last week we told you about TV writers paying homage to producer/actor Sheldon Leonard by using his names for characters in The Big Bang Theory. This week we want to tell you about Kirstie Alley’s new series on TV Land — Kirstie. In it she portrays a legendary Broadway star (think Margo Channing). She has an […]
As we mentioned in our March 4 blog — Is It WE KNOW ‘EM ALL (Or) WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE — we invited several fictional characters to a dinner party and asked you, our faithful readers, to guess which movie they inhabited and which star portrayed them. Hello, everybody. MR. Joe Morella and MR. Frank Segers […]
If we said George Bailey and Mary Hatch were coming over to dinner, you’d know exactly who we were talking about. Wouldn’t you? Gordon Gekko and Max Bialystock will be here too, but don’t let them talk you into handling your finances. Hello everybody, Joe Morella and Frank Segers back again with one of our […]
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today wrist-deep in our email bag, picking out the latest of our reader correspondence. Way back in July 14, 2011, we published a blog that asked this question: Susan Hayward — Forgotten Star? Judging from the emails we have received since then, the […]
On Oct. 4, 1937, a 24-year-old Hedwig Kiesler disembarked at Los Angeles’ Union railroad station. The once naked Ecstasy heroine (there’s our gal above) was conservatively dressed — wearing a light-colored, three-quarter length skirt and matching jacket. She was carrying a corsage of flowers. The newly christened Hedy Lamarr’s Hollywood movie career was about to begin. Hello, […]