Tag: Movie stars

June 7, 2013 /

I was trying to figure out the Rat Pack’s enduring appeal, for men, let’s face it, predominantly men — at first I thought it had to do with nostalgia, and then I remembered an incident from my youth. My dad (truly a father of another era) took a friend and…

June 3, 2013 /

Scheduled for release by Columbia Pictures in early fall, Dr. Strangelove is being shot in England, it was explained, to accommodate Peter Sellers, who was unable to leave the country for domestic reasons. In addition to the President, the protean Sellers also plays the title role of a German scientist,…

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…

April 19, 2013 /
March 22, 2013 /

Rita Hayworth announcing her divorce from the Aly Khan at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1951. I think this image says it all concerning celebrity bust ups. Note the sterile neutral setting, the surround of journalists and photographers, the cornered actress — doing what’s required, but it must have felt…

February 22, 2013 /

Hermes Pan choreographed everything from “Swing Time” in 1936 to Elizabeth Taylor’s “Cleopatra” (including the spectacle – dancers, warriors, witch doctor’s, elephants, and zebras – that was Cleopatra’s procession into Rome). Pictured above with Ginger Rogers, he was a soft-spoken gregarious man who was loved by his dancers. Recently a…

February 22, 2013 /

Player? Serial monogamist? Peter Pan? Lothario? Why label? Some people’s libido does not wane with the years. Let’s just say a charming actor confided to me over lunch he absolutely loves women. I’ll say. After dating a cavalcade of beauties, and entering his fifth decade, his ardor remains fierce. While…

February 21, 2013 /

That’s the director, lurking in the background, with his trademark owl framed spectacles. When I was a tyke my father took me to a retrospective screening at the DGA of SOME LIKE IT HOT – a then elderly Billy Wilder and Tony Curtis presided. The screening was packed and the…

February 12, 2013 /

Doris Day: Bette Davis and her stand-in, Sally Sage, on “Now Voyager”: