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Gossip Friday: Light a Match
From December 1938: Tyrone Power and Clark Gable exchanging reminiscences abut their South American travels at the Jack Benny party to Ruby Schinasi…”What gave you your greatest kick, Ty?” asked Gable…”At Colombia,” said Power, breaking into a grin. “The manager of the local theatre told me that he wanted to show me what happened when we made bad pictures in Hollywood…A picture was just starting, I won’t tell you the name of it, and it was pretty bad. All of a sudden, the audience started lighting matches and holding them up like torches. ‘You see,’ said the theatre manager, ‘if they don’t like a picture, instead of booing or hissing,…
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Salute to Heroes
From Movieland magazine in 1943: As you read this, our country will have been at war approximately two years and five months. To no community in our great land, has the war wrought more changes than to Hollywood. To the fight for freedom, Hollywood has given out not only its manpower and its money but its time, its talents, it dreams. The men are in uniform, but the girls have gone to battle in their own way, on bond tours in this country, over the air on Command Performance, out in the mud of the South Pacific, the fiery deserts of North Africa, the snows of Alaska on entertainment tours.…
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1939 Newlyweds
Since Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were married 74 years ago this week, here is a vintage article I found that lists the celebrity couples that were newlyweds in 1939. So let’s see who else would be celebrating 74 years together this year… Ronald Colman and Benita Hume They were included in this article, but apparently they were married in September 1938, so not sure why they were included but… Benita was Ronald’s second wife. They were married until his death in 1958, and had one daughter, Juliet. Nelson Eddy and Ann Denitz Married in January 1939, celebrated singer Nelson and Ann were married until his death in 1967. They had no…
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{The Brown Derby Restaurant} Part 1: The History
This post is Part One of a series of posts I will be doing regarding Clark Gable’s favorite restaurant in Hollywood, The Brown Derby. The Brown Derby Restaurant was a Hollywood standard. In its heyday, it was as famous and as symbolic of Hollywood as as the Hollywood sign or Grauman’s Chinese Theater. I don’t think I have read a single book on a Hollywood star yet in which the Brown Derby wasn’t mentioned, even in passing. A 1932 article described it as such: The Brown Derby is more than a Hollywood institution. It is not only a place to meet and talk over contracts and plan divorces and further romance under…
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1938: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Attend the Marie Antoinette Premiere
74 years ago this month, lovebirds Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were among the throngs of celebrities attending the world premiere of MGM’s Marie Antoinette at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood (no longer standing, sadly.) The film has been on MGM’s drawing table for years; a pet project of producer Irving Thalberg, who died in 1936 before a camera ever rolled on the project. His wife, Norma Shearer, was set to be the star of the picture. After her husband’s death, the project was shelved while Norma grieved and was ill with pneumonia. The film finally started production in December 1937 and was a lavish affair, with a $1.8 million budget–practically unheard…
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{Hollywood} Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Since there is no real “starting point” so to speak for my trip, and we visited five cemeteries, I figured best to start with one of them…. I like graveyards. My husband says that’s weird. I don’t think it is–and thankfully I brought a friend along to Los Angeles who feels the same way.There is something peaceful about visiting them, something about seeing that even though they are gone, people still have a small space on this planet. And, besides, this is the closest I will ever get to all the classic film stars! Hollywood Forever, originally titled Hollywood Memorial, was founded in 1899. It is typically the cemetery that people think of…
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72 Years Ago Today…
…Clark and Carole were married. Here is an interesting article I found from that year. It is a letter to Hollywood newlyweds, including Clark and Carole. It is interesting to note the fate of the marriages she mentions here. We all know, sadly, what became of Clark and Carole’s union. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Eppling Hartford were married for 49 years, until her death in 1988. They had three daughters: Daphne, Victoria, and Melissa. He remarried a few years later and remained so until he died at the ripe old age of 91. Tyrone Power and Annabella lasted nearly nine years, divorcing in 1948. Annabella did not remarry. Tyrone married twice…
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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…
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Gone with the Wind hits Los Angeles
The Los Angeles premiere of Gone with the Wind was 71 years ago this very evening. Jean Garceau, Clark and Carole’s faithful secretary, attended the event with them. Here is how she described it: The theater was decorated inside and out in keeping with the background and theme of the film. Huge searchlights probed the sky, bands played, streets were roped off and uniformed attendants held back the crowds as the police permitted only those cars with passes to draw up in front of the theater. A long flower-decked canopy extended to the sidewalk and a master of ceremonies stood there to welcome the stars, announce their names over a…
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Gossip Friday: Ann’s Ideal Man
A short article from June 1940 in which actress Ann Sheridan describes her ideal man: Right here I’d like to mention that I don’t go around describing, unsolicited, my masculine ideal to everyone I meet. What I mean is, I was asked by Movie Mirror to do this…so in describing the sort of man I would choose if I were to marry I’m contriving a sort of composite of several men I know and like and admire… He’d dance like Cesar Romero. The Romero dancing is in a class by itself. He’d have Joel McCrea’s physique–tall, square-shouldered, rangy and not an ounce of spare fat on him! I hate bay windows,…
