One of the best character actors around. Over a career that lasted some 40 years and spanning about 150 screen and tv credits, Cecil Kellaway found himself usually turning up as a good hearted scamp with a twinkle in his delivery. He won two best supporting actor nominations for roles as ‘Horace’ the leprechaun in […]
You are browsing archives for
Month: February 2019
High on ‘HIGH SEAS’ — Most Underrated Fo
The 1940s was a decade awash in great musicals — Meet Me In St. Louis, Easter Parade, Going My Way, On the Town, Cabin in the Sky, Easter Parade, Take Me Out To The Ballgame, The Good Old Summer Time among them — adorned with established front-line stars such as Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Fred […]
LEWIS STONE Quiz — The Answers
How much did you remember about him? (What a dapper gent he was.) Did you know that the actress pictured above regarded our quiz subject as a favorite leading man? And, why, exactly did Stone, of all people, turn up pictured in that dated by still salacious tell-all Hollywood Babylon, published in 1975? Ok, on to […]
LEWIS STONE — A Long Career ( and Our Qu
Yes, he was Andy Hardy’s father. But he was so much more. A native of Massachusetts, he served his country in two wars. He was one of the finest actors to emerge from the silent era. His role alongside Emil Jannings in 1928’s The Patriot won him an Academy Award nomination. He has a credit […]
Second Tier — PHYLLIS THAXTER
Never a top leading lady, but a damn good actress. (There she is above with Randolph Scott.) Thaxter, who died (three months shy of her 91st birthday) in the summer of 2012, had long been out of the public eye and all but-forgotten by many, but make no mistake, she appeared in and sparked some […]
Could You Forget That KICK?
We didn’t include Charlotte Greenwood in our blog about Star Gestures or Shtick. But we could have. Greenwood, however had quite a career in musicals and comedies and, although she often worked in her high stepping, it is not in all of her movies. Born in Philadelphia in 1890, she worked vaudeville circuits before […]
Just How Good Was JAMES DEAN — Really?
Every so often we try to stir the pot of conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom has it that James Dean was a Hollywood acting wunderkind whose potentially dazzling career was brutally cut short nearly 65 years ago. Thus, today our revival of a blog we ran some five years ago that perhaps accomplishes our goal. […]
YVONNE DeCARLO Quiz — The Answers
How much did you know about our star attraction, Yvonne DeCarlo? She’s pictured above in virtuous mode in her personal favorite outing as Mrs. Moses (Charlton Heston) in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic, The Ten Commandments. She and DeMille, who was a big DeCarlo fan, became fast friends. The director had much admired […]
Leading Lady — YVONNE De CARLO — Our Qui
What a beauty. Sexy, too. And a solid actress as well. Her career extended over a half century, consisting of some 125 movie and tv credits. She was one of the few glamorous stars of the Forties and Fifties who made herself better a household name via a prime time television series. She started out […]
More Films for the Pre-Pubescent ‘Kiddie
Today, in our final segment on this topic, we soldier on with notations about the movies on British Film Institute’s list of 50 films recommended to see before turning the age of 14. Pictures from the 1940s include It’s a Wonderful Life, Britain’s Oliver Twist, Italy’s The Bicycle Thief, and France’s Beauty and the Beast. We […]