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{Hollywood} The Academy Library Clears Up a Clark and Carole–Gone with the Wind Mystery
People sure did look at me funny when I said that one of the things I was most looking forward to on my Los Angeles trip was a visit to the library. Sounds strange, but this is not just any library, it’s the Margaret Herrick Library, the library for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). If you’ve read a bio on a classic star (a reputable one, anyway) bet your bottom dollar they did their research here. They house thousands of original scripts, screenplays, correspondence, you name it. Many, many people have left their personal papers to the library, including Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Billy Wilder, Esther Williams, …
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{Hollywood} Warner Brothers Studios
All the major studios offer tours: Sony (formerly MGM), Warner Brothers, Universal, Paramount. We of course knew we wanted to do MGM (blog post forthcoming), since that was home to Clark and so many other of the “brightest stars”. We wanted to do one other one and it was a toss-up between Warner Brothers and Paramount. We ultimately picked Warner Brothers because it was the highest rated studio tour. We weren’t disappointed. It is a tram tour, but our guide was very knowledgable and I felt he mixed the old with the new quite well. We saw the set of Friends’ Central Perk, the outside set of ER, and heard…
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Gossip Friday: On the stage
From November 1936: …Which reminds me of a swell yarn about Clark Gable. He is one Hollywood star who has never gone swell-head and who never forgets his early struggle. He was making an appearance on Louella Parsons’ “Hollywood Hotel” show, which as you may know broadcats from the old Figueroa Playhouse in downtown Los Angeles, whose boards, at one time or another, have been trod by all the great theatrical personages of the last decade. At a break in rehearsal, Clark walked over to a corner of the stage, faced the empty orchestra pit, and started playing to it. “Whatcha doing?” kiddingly inquired one of the orchestra boys. “Doncha…
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{Hollywood} Clark Lived Here
Clark didn’t bounce around as much as many of the other celebrities of his day. So many Hollywood stars of his time period moved around so often it is hard to keep track. For example,the friend who accompanied me on this trip is a big Katharine Hepburn fan and we learned early in the planning stages that visiting each of her houses would be virtually impossible! Clark’s residences aren’t as numerous but unfortunately they’re not all still standing either. When Ria followed him to California after he made The Painted Desert, she rented them two apartments at Ravenswood Apartments, one for her and Clark and one for her two children, George…
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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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{Hollywood} I’m back!
Well I am back from La-La Land and I saw so much I hardly know where to begin. Unlike many people, whom we saw crowded on tour buses snapping photos of Ashton Kutcher’s house, we were looking for history. In our rented Kia, with Garmin as our usually-cooperative guide, we drove all over Los Angeles, to Brentwood, to Bel Air, to Beverly Hills, to Culver City, to Studio City, to Encino, to Glendale, to Santa Monica, to Hollywood. We drove up long, twisted, tiny roads just to peer over the fence of houses previously owned by Clark, Carole, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner and many more. We snuck around legendary hotels, snapping…
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Gossip Friday: Where Shall We Eat?
Since I’m in Hollywood this week, here’s an item form 1934 on where the stars eat in Tinsel Town: Well, you must be hungry. Should we stop at a drug store for a sandwich? Or, we have the choice of three famous restaurants–the Brass Rail, a beer parlor once owned by Zeppo Marx, which has been a haunt of picture people ever since; Perry’s, Hollywood’s newest restaurant; or Sardi’s, where caricatures of celebrities line the walls. At the latter you might see Jackie Cooper, Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin, King Vidor and Jetta Goudal, who go there all the time. The most persistent Sardi fans, however, are Busby Berkeley…
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New Content Galore and I’m Going Hollywood!
October is here and for me that means that I am heading off to Hollywoodland! I’ve planned this trip for a long time and I am very excited about all it will bring to the site. I will be tracing Clark’s footsteps all over Los Angeles and will be back bursting with new information, pictures and more, I hope! You can follow my travels beginning October 5 on the site Facebook page. In preparing for the trip, I wanted to clean off my desk so for the past month I have uploaded over 150 pictures in the gallery (log in and check out “Last Uploads”) and just today I have added…
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October Movie of the Month: Possessed (1931)
Joan Crawford is one of those actresses that people seem to either love or hate with no real in-between. Love her or hate her, she’s hard to escape if you’re a Gable fan, as not only is she his most frequent leading lady onscreen, she also was his romantic interest for many years off screen. You can read more about their affair here. Possessed isn’t the first film that Clark and Joan starred together in, but it is by far the steamiest. Having fallen head over heels in love (or maybe lust) by this time, their chemistry seeps onto the screen and is undeniable. Both were married at the time…
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Until Next Year, Carole…
As Carole Lombard month comes to a close, I’d like to thank everyone for the nice emails I have received about the content this month. Carole is one of the only golden age stars that I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say they didn’t like. It seems she was that way in person too; I don’t recall anyone having anything nasty to say about her. Carole was an important piece of Clark’s life for sure and her death singlehandedly shaped the rest of his life. I’m not so sure he would have joined the Army if not for her death, although Carole might have eventually talked him…