Category Archives: Ava Gardner

By Robert J. Avrech | July 4, 2012

July 4 In Hollywood

Tweet The photos seem to be from another planet, or at least a parrallel universe. It was not so long ago that Hollywood was institutionally patriotic. Studio photos always included an Independence Day shot, frequently an innocent piece of cheesecake. Because what’s more American than igniting fireworks while wearing a bathing suit. L.B. Mayer of [...]

Also posted in Hollywood, Joan Crawford, July 4th, L.B. Mayer, Rita Hayworth | Tagged Ava Gardner, Betty Boop, Joan Crawford, Liberty Bell, Madge Evans, Marian Marsh, Marilyn Monroe, Marion Shilling, MGM, Rita Hayworth | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 29, 2012

Friday Photos: A Star Is Created

Tweet Stars are not born; they are created through a long and tortuous process of trial and error. When conjuring our favorite star we remember an iconic image that captures that personae. When we think of Jean Harlow we see her glowing platinum hair, a fetching body draped in silk, and a come hither look [...]

Also posted in Brigitte Bardot, Friday Fotos, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Rita Hayworth | Tagged Classic Hollywood, Hollywood Glamour, Hollywood History | 10 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 15, 2012

Friday Fashion: The Female Animal

Tweet In last week’s Friday Fashion post we observed that designers frequently clothe women utilizing fur, feathers and animal patterns. For as long as fashion has existed, animal metaphors have been an indispensible part of the designer’s lexicon. Hollywood, during its golden age, a leading arbiter of taste, heightened and refined the animal analogy with [...]

Also posted in Clark Gable, Constance Bennett, Friday Fashion, Gene Tierney, Irene Dunne, Jean Harlow, Joan Bennett, Lupe Velez, Marlene Dietrich, Martha Hyer | Tagged Adrian, Constance Bennett, Costume Design, Edward Stevenson, Gene Tierney, George Hurrell, Glamour, Hollywood Glamour, Joan Bennett, Karen Singer Avrech, Martha Hyer, Robert Kalloch, Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 7, 2011

Ava Gardner: Situation Wanted

Tweet Great clip from The Bribe, (1949) a steamy film noir starring Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, Vincent Price and Charles Laughton. Taylor plays an FBI agent on a mission to break up an illegal war surplus racket. Ava’s an innocent femme fatale, the devil’s candy. Here’s the moment Taylor—and the audience—first lay eyes on Ava. [...]

Also posted in Hollywood, Rita Hayworth | Tagged Charles Laughton, Film Noir, Gilda, Irene, Robert Taylor, The Bribe, Vincent Price | 11 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 7, 2011

Not So Hollywood Wedding Night: Ava Gardner & Mickey Rooney

Tweet Hollywood, in its Golden Age, was a dream machine spinning images of adventure, glamour, and most of all, romance. MGM’s roster of female stars constituted the greatest collection of beautiful and talented women the world has ever known. One of the greatest was Ava Gardner. As an emerging starlet in the early 1940′s, before [...]

Also posted in Hollywood Wedding Nights | Tagged Ava Gardner, Classic Hollywood, L.B. Mayer, MGM, MIckey Rooney | 17 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | April 28, 2009

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner Shoot Out the Night

Tweet Ava Gardner, publicity still for The Killers, 1946. The love affair—and I’m using that term loosely—between Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra was doomed from the start. Both stars were emotionally immature with little impulse control. Both were alcoholics, and both had a history of affairs with equally unstable partners. And so The Voice and [...]

Posted in Ava Gardner | 4 Responses

How I Married Karen

The new book
by Robert J. Avrech

Available in All Major Book Stores

Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California
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I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
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2012
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audio-only mp3 [15MB]: Ninth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2011
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audio-only mp3 [18MB]: Eighth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2010
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audio-only mp3 [80MB]: Seventh Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2009
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audio-only mp3 [64MB]: Sixth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

2008
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audio-only mp3 [70MB]: Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture

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