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Has Hollywood ever presented a more wonderfully serendipitous combination of “bad girl” and top-name movie star than the subject of this week’s Monday Quiz? The most fevered of script writers couldn’t have dreamed up the sheer drama and melodrama packed into the not-so-private life of Lana Turner. She churned through multiple husbands via multiple (and […]
When she won the Oscar for Best Actress earlier this year Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) joined a select group of actors who have won Academy Awards in both leading and supporting actor categories. Blanchett followed the route of other contemporary actresses by first winning in the supporting category — then stepping up to The Best Actress […]
TCM recently ran one of the first all-talking pictures, Warner Brothers’ Show Of Shows. It was a revue of music, comedy and a bit of drama featuring all the stars who were under contract to Warners and First National in 1929. The film was mostly in black and white, but there were two sequences in […]
Recently one of our readers, Page, commented the following about Sal Mineo: Sal Mineo was a talented, rather understated actor. There’s a modern-day feel to him, and you can see the influence in today’s actors from the likes of this older generation, and he is no exception. Contrast was that Mineo was so young at that […]
As mentioned in our Monday Quiz preamble yesterday, the legend of Charlie Chaplin continues to live on even though he’s been dead for nearly 40 years. Critics still debate his legacy — as in, was Buster Keaton the real comedy giant of the early 20th century? — but few doubt Chaplin’s standing as the most internationally famous movie star Hollywood […]
Although he’s been dead for nearly 40 years, the legend of Charlie Chaplin continues to live on. Critics still debate his legacy — as in, was Buster Keaton the real comedy giant of the early 20th century? — but few doubt Chaplin’s standing as the most internationally famous movie star Hollywood ever produced. As classic […]
It should come as little surprise to our sophisticated readers that the stars we write about five days a week often are not personally the best of human beings. It also should not come as a big surprise that we write about them with admiration — for their work, that is. Usually press agents employed […]
Time to catch up on the latest batch of reader e-mails, one of our favorite pastimes. Occasionally we hear from a reader long after a blog in question has run. So much the better. For example, way back on Feb. 3, 2012, we ran a blog headlined WAS VAN JOHNSON GAY Continued, covering the actor’s […]
We enjoy receiving reader emails, and enjoy blog suggestions from readers even more. Thus, while thrashing around for this week’s Star of the Week, we were especially pleased to receive this timely recommendation from reader Samuel Cochran: Dear Joe and Frank, I recently watched ‘The Egyptian’ and read the IMDB bio on Bella Darvi. Talk about […]
As mentioned yesterday, Kirk Douglas began his movie career with a bang in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a provocative 1946 film noir costarring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin, and 95 film/tv credits later he is still going. Although it seems that many of us of a certain vintage have known Kirk Douglas forever (he turns 98 in December) we […]