Seraphic Secret

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

Flashback: When Hollywood Celebrated Christmas

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Mary Pickford helps Hollywood celebrate Christmas, 1920s.
Mary Pickford helps Hollywood celebrate Christmas, 1920s.

There was a time when Hollywood openly and joyously celebrated Christmas. Now, among the Hollywood elite, the greeting I hear is “Happy Holidays.”

Look, we at Seraphic Secret are Orthodox Jews. This is not our holiday.

But we want our Christian friends to celebrate Christmas. The politically correct Happy Holidays shtick is another nail in the coffin of American culture; another instance where a minority of obnoxious liberals bully the larger culture into secular nothingness.

American Christianity is a unique force for good in world history. It is not the Christianity of Europe that is poisoned with genocidal Jew-hatred.

Hollywood used to celebrate Christmas using every tool in the cinematic playbook.

Before she achieved fame and immortality in King Kong (1933), Fay Wray was a struggling starlet. In this studio shot, she hangs a Christmas wreath c/1925. Her memoir On the Other Hand is one of the best I have ever read.

 

Myrna Loy with either Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, or Blitzen, 1920s. Confession: all reindeer look alike to me.

 

Silent star Clara Bow, 1920s.
Silent star Clara Bow, 1920s. A great pantomime actress, the coming of sound terrified her and she retired at age 32.

 

Anita Page, a huge star in the 1920s, turned down a marriage proposal from Benito Mussolini.
Anita Page, a huge star in the 1920s, turned down a marriage proposal from Benito Mussolini.

 

Carole Lombard, before she became a star. This photo is probably from the early 1930s.
Carole Lombard, before she became a star. This photo is probably from the late 1920s.

 

Anna May Wong was the first American-Chinese movie star.
Anna May Wong was the first American-Chinese movie star. Her career stretched from 1919 to 1960. One of her best roles is in Shanghai Express, where she plays opposite Marlene Dietrich.

 

Jean Harlow, a hugely talented actress, died at the age of 26, cutting short a brilliant career.
Jean Harlow, a hugely talented actress, died at the age of 26, cutting short a brilliant career.

 

Marceline Day was also a star of the silent era.
Marceline Day was also a star of the silent era.  She started as a Mack Sennett bathing beauty in 1924, but retired in 1932 when she found herself consigned to B westerns. One of her very best films is Captain Salvation, 1927, a lovely film with a strong Christian message.

 

Ginger Rogers is surrounded by Santas. Her real name was Virginia Katherine McMath. Her nine films with Fred Astaire have rightfully cemented her legacy as one of the great performers of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

 

Esther Williams comes out of the water long enough to celebrate Christmas, 1940s. Confession: I have never sat through an entire Esther William movie.

 

Agnes Moorehead, 1943, enjoying Christmas with her family in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

 

Unlike many Hollywood stars, Joan Crawford enjoyed posing for still photos. This Christmas photo is notable for its lovely simplicity.

 

Shirley Temple is featured in a Christmas photo that has a blessedly religious overtone.

 

At the of 14 Robert Mitchum was arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to a prison chain gang.

 

A Christmas surprise for Barbara Eden, 1960s. Her real name is Barbara Jean Morehead. Her memoir, “Jeannie Out of the Bottle” is quite good, especially when she discusses the death of her son Matthew Ansara (1965–2001) from an overdose of narcotics.

 

Piper Laurie, a Jewish girl whose real name is Rosetta Jacobs, trims the tree, 1950s. Her very best role was co-starring with Paul Newman in The Hustler, 1961.

 

Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino. She was an accomplished dancer before she became an actress. She made two films with Fred Astaire, and he claimed that she was his favorite dancing partner. In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which contributed to her death at age 68.

 

The Hollywood Christmas Parade, 1939

 

Christmas parade along Hollywood Boulevard, 1940s.
Christmas parade along Hollywood Boulevard, 1940s.

Karen and I, grateful to Christian America for the countless blessings of liberty, wish all our Christian friends a Merry Christmas.

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Comments

  1. I saw an old Vitaphone film of the Dancing Cansinos, Rita Hayworth’s parents. Very interesting.

    Clara Bow had serious mental problems. She was married to Rex Bell, and they are interred together but I think she lived alone the last several years of her life.

  2. I always enjoy the Christmas posts, Robert.

    So Barbara Eden’s real name was Morehead? I had a crush on her in my youth… gee, I seem to say that about a lot of actresses 🙂

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