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It seemed she was in every movie made between 1937 and 1950. One is undoubtedly remembered most of all. That’s 54-year-old Billie Burke (above) portraying Glinda, the Good Witch of the North in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. No resemblance to her wicked counterpart played by Margaret Hamilton. Some film fans believe Burke to be […]
So, how much did you know about Joan’s “Noir” — in every sense — years? Above is yet another picture from our Donald Gordon Collection of Stars of the 1940s. As we have mentioned many times, Donald’s collection came to us upon his death via a circuitous route, and we are happily sharing his informal […]
Two quizzes in one week? Yes, but we really must tie up Joan Bennett’s career as both a blond star and as the brunette beauty seen above. Keep in mind that the change in Bennett’s hair color (she was a natural blonde) in the late Thirties signalled a shift in her screen image from seductive […]
How much did you know about Joan’s early years in Tinseltown? Here she is in all her blonde splendor. Did you know that she was a natural blonde? It was the later change to brunette that called in the consmeticians. Bennett’s career like Caesar’s Gaul is made up of largely three parts: blond ingenue, brunette […]
Did you know that Joan Bennett spent at least the first decade of her years in Hollywood as a blonde? She then changed stylists and emerged as a brunette. Why, you ask, should we care? Well, because Joan Bennett was one of the finest if largely unsung actresses of Hollywood’s classic period, and her output […]
She played Jimmy Cagney’s mother in one of our Fourth of July movie picks. We’re talking Rosemary De Camp here. Yup, she specialized in playing mothers — older, still a bit sexy and often possessing a sometimes ruthless intelligence. She’s shown below in one of her more benign parts, as the mother of rebellious tomboy […]
Who knows how it will fare in thirty years? — Orson Welles, 1983, on Citizen Kane. Joe was depositing a $300 check at the bank the other day and the 20-something teller asked “anything else?” When he said no, she […]
Last Friday, we provided a small appreciation of what turned out to be a very big career. And now, here’s a bit more. The former Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford, born in Canada’s Quebec province in 1916, began making movies in 1937. Glenn Ford’s father, a railroad executive, moved the family early on to Santa Monica […]
Yesterday we challenged you with a quiz centered largely on the career of one of the most amazingly productive people in show business, actor/producer/director Clint Eastwood. Ok, without further verbal folderol, here are the answers to our quizlet. (In putting together this exercise, we are indebted to author Marc Eliot’s useful 2009 biography, American Rebel: The Life of […]
Yes, he’s still working. And yes, he’ s mastered every aspect of filmmaking. One of the very few stars to start in TV then propel himself to the highest ranks of Movie Stardom. Over a 66-year career, Clint Eastwood has compiled an astounding record of 72 films as an actor, 45 as director and 52 […]