Tag: Movie Star

May 9, 2013 /

Some of Joan Crawford’s friends disputed the version of events presented in Mommie Dearest. Among them Van Johnson, Cesar Romero, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Sydney Guilaroff, Ann Blyth, Gary Gray, and in particular Myrna Loy, Joan’s friend since 1925, became staunch defenders. While acknowledging that Joan Crawford was highly ambitious…

May 7, 2013 /

Louise Dahl-Wolfe is credited with discovering Bacall while working for Diane Vreeland at Harper’s Bazaar. On a visit to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on February 10, 1945, Bacall’s press agent, chief of publicity at Warner Bros. Charlie Enfield, asked the 20-year-old Bacall to sit on the piano…

May 7, 2013 /

“I’m a storyteller – that’s the chief function of a director. And they’re moving pictures, let’s make ’em move!” Howard Hawks “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (based on the novel by Anita Loos) has been called Hawks’ only female “buddy picture”. Howard Hawks on the set of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” with Marilyn…

May 7, 2013 /

A friend asked me in the comments (http://skepperson.com/) if there were any similarities between the chapters of the novel I was posting and the real story of Bogart and Bacall. She asking if a story element, “sympathy as an aphrodisiac”, came into play with Bacall’s feeling for Bogart. I thought…

May 7, 2013 /

I understand Howard Hawks enjoyed talking to young people: And, mentoring talent: “We discovered Bacall was a little girl who, when she becomes insolent, becomes rather attractive. That was the only way you noticed her, because she could do it with a grin. So I said to Bogey, “We are…

May 6, 2013 /

THE NEW YORK TIMES Leo McCarey and Pearl S. Buck discuss her screenplay for, “The Bamboo Curtain”, 1961 May 5, 2013 Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data By BROOKS BARNES LOS ANGELES — Forget zombies. The data crunchers are invading Hollywood. The same kind of numbers analysis…

April 29, 2013 /

Claudette Colbert & The Magic of Cinema There are some actresses whose names you don’t hear much anymore. It’s something to do with the passing of time; some stars are well-remembered, others, though they may have been as good if not better, are relatively little remarked-upon. So, let’s talk about…