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Did you know he appeared in such A-list titles as 1942’s The Ox Bow Incident (his movie debut) and 1943’s The Song of Bernadette? Or, that he was in 1944’s Wilson? (To the left above is Alexander Knox playing the 28th U.S. president.) Or, that he costarred with the overpoweringly theatrical Tallulah Bankhead in the […]
We admit it – today’s quiz will really test your mettle. The subject, our man above, has most likely escaped the attention of even the most dedicated classic movie fan. But believe it or not he was a name-above-the-title star and a heartthrob of the 1940s.(See below.) Editorial observation: This rather stupid photo was used […]
We suspect your immediate response is — frankly, no! NOTE: she was always a second lead, but a beautiful presence. Let’s try to fill in a few blanks. Helen Vinson had a relatively short Hollywood career, covering some 40 titles over a dozen years ending in 1944 when she appeared in The Thin Man Goes […]
And singing star and radio star. In fact he was BIG in the mid 1940s. And famous for his many wives. At one time he was seriously ranked with the likes of — Frank Sinatra. In fact, Haymes had a career path that followed Sinatra several times. He replaced him as the singer with Harry […]
When you think movie star you don’t think of Maureen Stapleton. Yet she won an Oscar. (And an Emmy, and a Tony.) The Troy, New York native, born Lois Maureen Stapleton in 1925, was by any measure a superb actress no matter the setting. (Frank still recalls with great pleasure her moving Broadway stage performance […]
How much did you know about Mischa Auer (below, second from left) and Leonid Kinskey (above)? Both were Russian natives, born two years apart in St. Petersburg. Both were fascinating characters in their own rights, and had plenty of international experience in addition to long Hollywood tenures. Their parts were definitely supporting roles, usually brief. […]
The two character actors who specialized in portraying Russians during Hollywood’s golden age were Mischa Auer and Leonid Kinskey. Actually, they were both natives of St. Petersburg, Russia, born two years apart — Kinskey was the younger of the pair. (He died at 95 in 1998; Auer expired younger, at the age of 61 in […]
She made her start in serials, but progressed to features and had a lasting career. It says something that she is now described as singer-actress rather than the reverse. Born in Iowa in 1920 and raised in Texas, Constance Moore did indeed originally aspire to be a singer. In fact, her first show biz jobs […]
It is often cited as ushering in an era of screwball comedies. It was a runaway hit when it came out in 1936, and financially stabilized Universal Pictures, then under a new management wishing to broaden the studio’s remarkably successful propensity to horror films. Four of its principals were Oscar nominated in acting categories. This, […]
She lit up the screen in the early 1950s. When the former Camille Javal exploded onto cinema screens in the 1950s, she put SEX squarely on the movie map. First, a personal anecdote. Around 1957, Frank was a teenager trapped in a less-than-exciting summer job as a “dryer” in an assembly-line car wash in Yonkers, […]