-
Gossip Friday: Something’s Missing
From December 1940: I knew something had been wrong with Hollywood these past few months. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. There didn’t seem to be any snap and pep in the place. Why there were days when everythings was as silent as the tomb. And just about as cheery. Now I know what was the matter and I am delighted to report that everything is inder control again. It was Missy Lombard–that charming screwball who has more humor in her little finger than an executive has in his entire writing department. Carole, the dope, went serious on us. No squeals and screams, no “simply out of this…
-
Carole as Her Own Critic
A brief photo-essay from Life Magazine, September 1940: This episode in the making of a movie is a dramatic moment rarely, if ever, photographed before. The movie is RKO’s version of They Knew What They Wanted, from the play that won Sidney Howard a Pulitzer Prize in 1925. The characters are director Garson Kanin, Actors Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton. For two months they have worked like beavers on what they beleive is to be a great movie script. They have had the usual quarrels. On location at Napa, Calif., 550 miles from home, they have run into the usual location troubles: bad weather, delays, throngs of bothersome autograph hounds.…