Category Archives: Hollywood Wedding Nights

Hidden Hollywood: Gloria Swanson’s Wedding Night

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: October 10, 2016

Between 1919 and 1921, Gloria Swanson starred in a series of wildly popular films for director Cecile B. De Mille in which the iconography of Hollywood glamour was formally codified. The titles of these films carry the whiff of scandal and decadence: Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), For Better, For Worse (1919), Male and Female […]

Also posted in Glamour, Gloria Swanson, Hollywood, Hollywood Moms, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography | Tagged Addie Swanson, Broncho Billy, Cecil B. DeMille, Gloria Swanson, Marriage, Rape, Stage Mothers, Sunset Boulevard, Wallace Beery | 5 Responses

Hidden Hollywood: Joan Fontaine’s Honeymoon from Hell

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 26, 2016

In 1939, Joan Fontaine, twenty-one years old, was slowly making her way up the Hollywood ladder. MGM signed Fontaine to play a small part in the high profile production The Women, directed by George Cukor, starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Paulette Goddard. For the young actress, it was a plum assignment. At […]

Also posted in Hidden Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Joan Fontaine, Olivia De Havilland | Tagged Brian Aherne, Joan Fontaine, Rebecca | 5 Responses

Hidden Hollywood: Ava Gardner and Mickey Rooney’s Wedding Night

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 12, 2016

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 she made a single movie the breathtaking Southern beauty was the talk of the town. Mickey Rooney was MGM’s golden […]

Also posted in Actors, Ava Gardner, Hidden Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Mickey Rooney | Tagged Ava Gardner, Bill Holden, Clark Gable, Frederic March., L.B. Mayer, Lewis Stone, Lionel Barrymore, MGM, MIckey Rooney, Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, Spencer Tracy, William Powell | 8 Responses

In Memoriam: Mickey Rooney, 1920-2014

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: April 11, 2014

At five feet, two inches, he was the biggest star in the world. Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr.) was probably the most talented star Hollywood ever produced. His astonishing career started in the silent era as a child actor. Rooney made the transition to sound with ease, and his career saw work in radio, television and […]

Also posted in Ava Gardner, Colleen Moore, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Mickey Rooney, Movies | Tagged A Midsummer's Night Dream, Andy Hardy, Colleen Moore, Drive a Crooked Road, Judy garland, L.B. Mayer, Lewis Stone, Max Reinhardt, Orchirds & Ermine, Puck, Quicksand, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Human Comedy | 9 Responses

Joan Fontaine’s Not So Hollywood Wedding Night

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 1, 2011

Also posted in Joan Fontaine | Tagged Brian Aherne, Classic Movies, Conrad Nagel, George Stevens, Gunga Din, Jean Negulesco, No Bed of Roses, Olivia de Havilland, Rebecca, Sibling Rivalry, The Women | 12 Responses

Not So Hollywood Wedding Night: Ava Gardner & Mickey Rooney

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: July 7, 2011

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 she […]

Also posted in Ava Gardner | Tagged Ava Gardner, Classic Hollywood, L.B. Mayer, MGM, MIckey Rooney | 20 Responses

Colleen Moore’s Wedding Night

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: March 14, 2008

Moore’s image of carefree flapper was at odds with reality. Flaming Youth was a huge hit and propelled Colleen Moore to international stardom—as she knew it would. Colleen was smart about her career. But like so many young, inexperienced Hollywood actresses, when it came to men her choices were based on on gauzy, romantic notions […]

Also posted in Colleen Moore, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars | Tagged Bard College, John McCormick, Silent Stars | 3 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
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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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

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)
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