Seraphic Secret

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

Glamour

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“I was not a born actress. No one knows it better than I. If I had any latent talent, I have had to work hard, listen carefully, do things over and over and then over again in order to bring it out.”
—Jean Harlow

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Yul Brynner, 1949
“I am just a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy.”
In fact, Yul Brenner (b. Yuliy Borisovich Briner, 1920 – 1985) was born in the city of Vladivostok in the Far Eastern Republic, a puppet state controlled by Soviet Russia before being merged into the wider USSR two years later. He enjoyed telling tall tales and exaggerating his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born “Taidje Khan” of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin. In reality of Swiss-German, Russian, and partial Buryat ancestry. Wikipedia

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Flops are a part of life’s menu and I’ve never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.”
—Rosalind Russell

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Hidden Hollywood: Jorjett Strumme, Ten Years With Elizabeth Taylor

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Jorjett and Elizabeth Taylor, Italy, 1991

Jorjett Strumme had a fascinating life and career in Hollywood. I first met Jorjett when I discovered that she worked as an assistant to the great costume designer Helen Rose from 1981-1985, which I wrote about here.

Jorjett went on to work with costume designer Nolan Miller from 1982-1985. And then, Jorjett was Personal Assistant and Stylist to Elizabeth Taylor for ten years.

Over the past few months Jorjett has kindly responded to my questions about her years working for Elizabeth Taylor.

Midway through the interview Jorjett made it clear that she would not reveal any details of Taylor’s multiple marriages. So, if you’re looking for juicy Elizabeth Taylor gossip, this is not the place to find it.

We admire Jorjett’s insistence on respecting Elizabeth Taylor’s life and memory. In a world in which privacy is almost completely unknown, Jorjett’s loyalty is a rare and enviable quality.

This interview was conducted via email.

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“There’s a fine line between acting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and dead pan are getting by with it. I’ve seen a couple of them – I won’t mention names – with Oscars in their hands. I’d hate to see them on stage with a dog act.”
– Joan Blondell (1906-1979)

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