• Gossip

    Gossip Friday: Hedda Hopper’s Academy Awards

    Since the Oscars are this weekend…. Famed classic Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper picks out her own “Superlative Academy Awards,” from March 1941 (I agree with the first one, anyway!): Best all-around man in Hollywood:  Clark Gable, because he has more reality and virility than any other actor on the screen. And because off screen he’s one of the best balanced men in Hollywood, a swell companion and an all-around friend. Best all-around woman in Hollywood:  Roz Russell, who’s had more hit pictures this last year than any other actress–because she’s the most civic-minded gal in town. She blends movies, society and citizenship. Most popular woman:  Dame Rumor. Have you got…

  • Gossip

    Gossip Friday: I’m with the Band

    From January 1941: Leave it to Hollywood to think up ways and means of having fun at parties. The newest is the musical instrument gag that develops into an amateur orchestra with big name guests furnishing the music, if such it can be called. Going on the assumption that everyone thinks he can play some instrument whether he can or not, the Jack Bennys, at a recent shindig, rented an assortment of musical noisemaners and bade the guests go to it. Clark Gable and Bob Taylor each grabbed a saxophone, Gracie Allen a flute, Barbara Stanwyck a trombone, Jack Benny a bass violin, while Mary Livingston snitched the drums. After…

  • Anniversary

    Where were Clark and Carole 70 years ago today?

     All dolled up and out on the town for a worthy cause! There’s Clark and Carole looking quite dashing, posing in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The occaison? An all-star radio broadcast for Greek War Relief that was held seventy years ago today–January 8, 1941. I love  all-star events like this because the pictures answer the questions of “Did so- and-so ever meet so-and-so?” For instance, the event was only one of two instances that I know of that Carole is pictured with Myrna Loy (and that’s Melvyn Douglas and Tyrone Power with them too): Carole, Myrna and Tyrone share a secret:The dashing duo with Dick Powell, Frank Morgan, Ann Rutherford and Shirley…