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 (born Gladys Louise Smith, Toronto, Canada, 1892 – 1979) 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 (born Vina Fay Wray, Alberta, Canada, 1907 – 2004) 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 (born Myrna Adele Williams, Helene, Montana, 1905 – 1993) 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, (born Brooklyn, NY, 1905 – 1965) was a great pantomime actress, and one of the biggest stars of silent films. But the coming of sound terrified her, and her thick Brooklyn accent was considered declasse. Thus, she retired at age 32.

 

Anita Page, a huge star in the 1920s, turned down a marriage proposal from Benito Mussolini.
Anita Page (born Anita Evelyn Pomares, Queens, N.Y. 1910 – 2008)  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.
The great Carole Lombard ( born Jane Alice Peters, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1908 – 1942) before she became a star. This photo is probably from the late 1920s. Tragically, she was killed in a plane crash after a tour raising U.S. war bonds. Her husband, Clark Gable, never quite recovered from her early death.

 

Anna May Wong was the first American-Chinese movie star.
Anna May Wong (born Win Liu Tsong, Los Angeles, California, 1905 – 1961)  was the first American-Chinese Hollywood 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 (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter, Kansas City, Missouri, March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) a hugely talented actress, died of renal failure at the age of 26, cutting short a brilliant career.

 

Marceline Day was also a star of the silent era.
Marceline Day (born Marceline Newlin, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1908 – 2000) was 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 (born Katherine McMath, Independence, Missouri, 1911 – 1995) is surrounded by Santas. Her nine films with Fred Astaire have rightfully cemented her legacy as one of the great performers of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

 

Esther Williams (Inglewood, California, 1921 – 2013)  comes out of the water long enough to celebrate Christmas, 1940s. Confession: I have never sat through an entire Esther William movie.

 

Agnes Moorehead (Clinton, Massachusetts, 1900 – 1974) is enjoying Christmas with her family in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, 1943.

 

Unlike many Hollywood stars, Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur, San Antonio, Texas,  190? – May 10, 1977) enjoyed posing for still photos. This Christmas photo is notable for its lovely simplicity.

 

Shirley Temple (Santa Monica, California, 1928 – 2014) is featured in a Christmas photo that has, unusual for Hollywood, religious content.

 

At the of 14 Robert Mitchum ( Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1917 – 1997) was arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to a prison chain gang. Later, when a Hollywood star, he was arrested for smoking marijuana. He was a great actor, a great star, who made the hard work of make-believe look effortless.

 

A Christmas surprise for Barbara Eden, (born Barbara Jean Morehead, Tucson, Arizona, 1931). Her memoir, “Jeannie Out of the Bottle” is quite touching, especially when she discusses the tragic death of her son Matthew Ansara (1965–2001) from a drug overdose.

 

Piper Laurie, (Detroit, Michigan, 1932) a Jewish girl whose real name is Rosetta Jacobs, trims the tree. Her best role was co-starring with Paul Newman in The Hustler, 1961. But she’s probably best known as the crazed mother in Brian De Palma’s Carrie, 1976.

 

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino, Brooklyn, NY, 1918 – 1987) She was an accomplished dancer before she became an actress. She made two films with Fred Astaire, who 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. She’s best remembered for her role as the ultimate femme fatale Gilda, 1946.

 

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

  2. All wonderful shots of people who registered, and from a time when we all went to the movies and did not discuss cinema, smoke Gitanes, and venerate the left. It was also an era when we listened to the same radio and watched the same television shows. All gone now, just about people with jobs no one identifies with.

      • Your choice of words – “preening celebrities” – instantly brought to mind the likes of The Kardashians or, more recently, Tiger King. I cannot decide if people actually “relate” to these celebrities, or if watching the celebrities makes them feel better about their own dysfunctional lives.

        I know Kim Kardashian West is laughing all the way to the bank, but it all appears to be based on her celebrity name. Her previous notoriety was as Paris Hilton’s closet organizer and for her “leaked” sex tape. At least Joe Exotic (born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel) is behind bars, so there is still some sanity in the world.

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