Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Friday Fotos

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

April 9, 2021 by Robert J. Avrech 9 Comments

“I’d like people to remember me as someone who was good at his job and seemed to mean what he said.”
—James Stewart revisits one of the air force bases where he was stationed during his service with the United States Army Air Corps during WWII.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

March 5, 2021 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“Standing there in white shirt, beige slacks—with a peach complexion, light-brown hair, and the most incredible face ever seen by man—was Greta Garbo. I almost gasped out loud as Cole introduced me to her. No make-up—unmatched beauty. It was the only time I saw her at anything but a distance.” –
—Lauren Bacall, speaking of her encounter with Garbo at Cole Porter’s home.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 18, 2020 by Robert J. Avrech 13 Comments

“Becoming a sex symbol overnight shocked me. I didn’t know how to handle it and I kept all the unopened fan mail in the boot of my car because I didn’t know how to respond and thought it was rude to throw it away. Then my mother became my secretary and replied to the really inappropriate ones saying: ‘My daughter’s far too old for you. Go take a cold shower!’”
Diana Rigg, 1938 – 2020 RIP

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 4, 2020 by Robert J. Avrech 7 Comments

Sylvia Sidney, c.1934
“She was the only American film actress who reminded me of reality.”
—James Baldwin

Friday Photos:True Hollywood Confessions

August 28, 2020 by Robert J. Avrech 9 Comments

“It was a terrific strain making ‘Gone With the Wind,’ and toward the end our nerves were all shot. And no wonder! We worked under three different directors, first George Cukor, then Victor Fleming and finally, Sam Wood. No sooner did we get used to the ideas of one director than a new one was brought in, and we had to learn to work with each in turn.”
— Vivien Leigh

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.

Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City

NOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube

Sixteenth: August 25, 2019
“Torah Dedication in Memory of Ariel Chaim Avrech Z’L”

Blog Post | Audio: TBD

Fifteenth: June 10, 2018
Jackie Danicki: “Confessions of a Convert: A Humbling, Joyful Journey to Judaism.”

Blog Post | Audio: (94 MB)

Fourteenth: June 11, 2017
Daniel Greenfield: “Fighting Anti-Semitism and Defending Israel in the Age of BDS.”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Thirteenth: May 22, 2016Ben Shapiro: “How You Can Save Israel”

Blog Post | Audio: (70 MB)

Twelfth: June 7, 2015
Larry Elder: “The New Black Anti-Semitism”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Eleventh: June 8, 2014
Michael Medved: “Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel — And Conservatives Do.”

Blog Post | Audio: (97MB)

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: “The War Against Judaism on the University Campus.”

Blog Post | Audio: (16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: “The Mainstream Media’s Betrayal of Israel.”

Blog Post | Audio: (15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: “What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me.”

Blog Post | Audio: (18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: “Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion.”

Blog Post | Audio: (80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: “Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?”

Blog Post | Audio: (64MB)

Fifth: June 15, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl: “What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading: Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania.”

Blog Post | Audio: (70MB)