Myrna Loy grew up in Los Angeles and when she was a teenager she posed for this statue outside the old Venice High School. Around the same age she was taking dance lessons with the famed Natacha Rambova, wife of Valentino. Myrna said of her, She was absolutely beautiful, the…
Category: Theater
“Before the days of auto-advance motor drives and today’s high-sensitivity digital chips, the motion-picture unit photographer had to plan his or her photographs with the discipline of a painter. Some of them still work that way. In any case, most memorable still photographs from motion pictures are created, not captured.…
I was reading the other day about Englishmen on secret missions in Afghanistan, and to my surprise, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) may have been there in the late 1920s, possibly working behind the scenes to bring down King Amanullah. Where did I find this intriguing bit of history?…
Ellen Terry (1847-1928) appeared on stage for seventy years. During that time she married twice, managed a theater, toured the United States, taught and lectured, corresponded with George Bernard Shaw, was painted by John Singer Sargent, and wrote a very interesting memoir. Most of the letters written to me I…
Marilyn Monroe — seen here being presented to Queen Elizabeth II — was very savvy about appearances; about what made people tick, and how fame blurred the picture. She struggled to balance her inner life against a manufactured persona. Everyone’s childhood plays itself out… I think to love bravely is…
In language gender is particularly peculiar. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? French children, for instance, are male even if they are girls, in English there seems to be considerable doubt, in German they are definitely neuter. Even more startling…