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By the time Fred MacMurray, born in Kankakee, Illinois in 1908, emerged as one of Hollywood’s highest paid male movie stars in 1943, he probably long had gotten used to being taken for granted. Today, he is known primarily not as a movie star but as a prime-time tv sitcom luminary who became one of […]
Mike Sheridan, one of our regular readers, recently asked us about doing a blog on one of the biggest stars of the 1930s, the clotheshorse and queen of melodrama — Kay Francis. So here goes. There are few actresses who were as big in her time and have been so forgotten today. Kay Francis was […]
Today we are amazed at some of the contract negotiations between film stars and producers. But back in Hollywood’s Golden Age there were some pretty bizarre contract clauses too. Case in point is a story Joe loves to tell about Greer Garson in her heyday at MGM. That’s her above left with Janet Leigh in […]
Shots like the one above were common in the 1930s. Celebrities were often at some party, or studio affair and an enterprising photographer would gather them together for a photo the studio hoped would get into the newspapers. Remember there was no TMZ in those days. We can identify almost everyone, as can most of […]
Ok, we admit that there have been better-known female imports from France to Hollywood. Michele Morgan and Daniele Darrieux leap to mind not to mention the younger wave that arrived after the second world war. Our Monday Quiz subject was part of that second wave, and you can be forgiven if you don’t know a lot […]
When the suggestion was made to put together a Monday Quiz about today’s subject, Joe asked, “Denise Darcel? Really?” You can’t blame him. Darcel’s movie career was all too brief (a mere 14 credits over 15 years), and although she appeared with some of the biggest stars of the late Forties and Fifties, her Hollywood […]
When he died in 1985 at age 70 — more than four decades after Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons — Orson Welles as a director/screenwriter had a number of movie projects in the hopper in various states of preparation. Almost finished was what turned out to be his last movie, The Other Side of the Wind, which languishes to this day […]
Do you recognize the woman pictured in the photo above? Today young actors trying to break into films often start in commercials or do bits on TV series. But where could struggling actors get a break back in the Golden Age of Movies? Luckily there were dozens of small production companies which ground out countless […]
We’re fans of Alan Ladd (although we may be in a minority on this), and said as much in our Jan. 22 blog ALAN LADD — Forgotten Man Of Forties Noir. Thus it was gratifying to hear from a pair of readers — it’s always great to hear from readers — who obviously relish the actor, […]
So, how much did you know about Mr. Arkadin? Our Monday Quiz may have been a tough one especially to those unfamiliar with this 1955 Orson Welles movie shot in Europe. Welles plays a wealthy and super nasty financier obsessed with keeping his daughter in the dark about just how rotten he is. There’s a […]