Category Archives: Jean Harlow

By Robert J. Avrech | March 6, 2014

Hollywood: I Drive Therefore I am Free

Tweet The automobile represents freedom. You climb into a car and go, go, go, whenever and wherever you want. The car is modern man’s path to liberty. Contrast cars with trains. Railroads are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a government-controlled system that turns citizens into […]

Also posted in Friday Fotos, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Photography, Shirley Temple, Stars and Cars | Tagged Baby LeRoy, Cars, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Lillian Harvey, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Neil Hamilton, Pearl White, Rolls Royce, Seraphic Secret Baseball Cap, Shirley Temple | 17 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | October 25, 2013

Hollywood Hair: Leda Styled By Leonardo da Vinci

Tweet Years ago, on Shabbos evenings, when our children were little, I would frequently grab an art book, sit in my chair, and one of the kids would climb into my lap. We’d turn the pages, look at the pictures, and make up stories about the figures in the paintings. Ariel, Z’TL, was intrigued by […]

Also posted in Art, Ava Gardner, Hollywood, Leonardo da Vinci | Tagged Botticelli, Claudette Colbert, Grace Kelly, Greek Mythology, Hairdresser, Helen of Troy, Jan Steen, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Leda, Leda and the Swan, Louise Brooks, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, Norma Shearer, Peter de Hooch, Polydeuces, Raphael, Rembrandt, Sydney Guilaroff, Titian, Vermeer, Vivien Leigh, Zeus | 6 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | November 9, 2012

Hollywood: Buy Me, Be Me

Tweet Ever since there were movie stars there have been star product endorsements. Corporations and their advertising companies were quick to understand that those larger than life figures floating like angels on the silver screen were potent persuaders. Thus, the synergistic relationship between one product, the movie star, and a consumer product — cigarettes, perfume, […]

Also posted in Lillian Gish, Rita Hayworth, Star Ads, Tony Curtis | Tagged Advertising, Auto Lite Spark Plugs, Dorothy Lamour, Hollywood History, Jeris hair Tonic, Lucky Strike, Lux Soap, Robert Cummings, Van Heusen Shirts | 11 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | October 26, 2012

Friday Photos: Stars And Their Cars

Tweet Automobiles represent freedom. You climb into a car and go, go, go, whenever and wherever you want. The car is modern man’s most potent symbol of, and path to liberty. Contrast cars with trains. Trains and subways are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a […]

Also posted in Colleen Moore, Friday Fotos, High Speed Rail, Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, Stars and Cars, William Powell | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Al Jolson, Buck Jones, Buick, Cadillac, Cadillac Phaeton, Carl Brisson, Colleen Moore, Deusenberg, Freedom, Gary Cooper, Harold Lloyd, Isotta Fraschini, Jazz Singer, Mercedes, Mildren Davis, Open Road, Packard Special, Stepin Fetchit | 8 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 9, 2012

Hollywood Goes Kierkegaard

Tweet Hollywood stars are rarely known for their introspection. Most are working so hard at getting the right roles, staying on top, and being glamorous, there’s precious little time for self-reflection. For years, Seraphic Secret has collected choice quotes from a few thoughtful actors, and dropped them in a file labeled: “Hollywood Goes Kierkegaard.” “Men […]

Also posted in Hollywood, Kim Novak, Marilyn Monroe, Susan Hayward | Tagged Hollywood Glamour, Hollywood History, Hollywood Memoirs | 9 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 27, 2012

Friday Photos: The Not So Glamorous Family

Tweet Hollywood’s Golden Age, from the 20′s to the late thirties, was a dream factory. And glamour was the dream that was sold in every frame of every film. Studios tightly controlled the image of the stars they groomed and promoted, presenting them as glittering jewels, untouched and unsullied by the daily concerns of ordinary […]

Also posted in Colleen Moore, Friday Fotos, Hollywood | Tagged Alice Cooper, Anna Garbo, Charlotte Hennesy, Gary Cooper, Glamour, Greta Garbo, Hollywood Glamour, Mary Pickford | 5 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 6, 2012

Union Depot: Yearning For Zion In A Hollywood Classic

Tweet The camera swoops majestically through an enormous train station picking out individuals in the crush of humanity: soldiers, sailors, hookers, pickpockets, cops, Pullman porters, immigrants in peasant garb. This exhilarating opening is a tour de force of vignettes with characters delivering rapid fire dialogue perfectly timed to the swirling, unfettered movement of the G-d […]

Also posted in Hollywood, Israel, Joan Blondell, Kubec Glasmon, Screenwriting, Zionism | Tagged Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Hollywood History, Hollywood Screenwriters, John Bright, Pale of Settlement, Union Depot, Warner Brothers | 4 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 22, 2012

Friday Fashion: Being Gable

Tweet It’s often been said that every man wants to look like Cary Grant, while every man wants to be Clark Gable. A few months ago Seraphic Secret was screening one of our favorite Gable-Harlow movies, China Seas, (1935) the story of a brassy dame, a gruff sea captain and piracy on the high seas. […]

Also posted in Clark Gable, Friday Fashion, Hollywood, Men's Fashion | Tagged custom tailoring, Enzo Caruso, Hollywood Costume Design, Hollywood History | 14 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 Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Constance Bennett, Friday Fashion, Gene Tierney, Irene Dunne, 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

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.
Search Seraphic Secret
Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: "The War Against Judaism on the University Campus." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: "The Mainstream Media's Betrayal of Israel." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: "What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: "Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: "Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?" Blog Post | Audio (mp3 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 (mp3 70MB)
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