Seraphic Secret

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

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Of the group of starlets only Marilyn emerged. Still photographers discovered her natural talent for flirting with the camera lens, and her blond looks of instant availability made her America’s most popular pin-up girl. Marilyn felt that the lens was not just a glass eye, but the symbol of the eyes of millions of men. She knew how to woo this lens better than any actress I ever photographed.”
—Philippe Halsman

Constantin Hansen
Danish painter (b. 1804, Roma, d. 1880, Frederiksberg)
A Group of Danish Artists in Rome
1837
Oil on canvas, 62 x 74 cm
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

 

 

George Hurrell
Basil Rathbone, 1937

 

Henri Matisse
Head of Lorette
oil on canvas,1916

 

Tatsuya Tanaka
Miniature Calendar

 

Rick McGinnis
Hamilton, ON, August 2017

 

 

“I once asked Barbara Stanwyck the secret of acting. she said, ‘Just be truthful – and if you can fake that you’ve got it made.’”
—Fred MacMurray

 

Laurits Andersen Ring, Danish artist (1854-1933)
Interior with Woman Reading

 

Brigitte Bardot performing Ballet on French TV, 1958

 

Erwin Blumenfeld
Powder Box Study
1944

 

Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Sylvette David 1954

 

Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Sylvette David, 1954

 

Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Sylvette David, 1954

 

Pablo Picasso Showing Sylvette David One of His Portraits of Her, Vallauris, France, 1954

 

Poster for His Supreme Moment, 1925, by Batiste Madalena, specifically for the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, N.Y.

 

“A face is like the outside of a house, and most faces, like most houses, give us an idea of what we can expect to find inside.” —Loretta Young

 

Laurits Andersen Ring, Danish artist (1854-1933): Outside the House
oil on canvas

 

“The Proposal #1,” Photographed by Sam Shaw, Central Park, New York, 1957
While walking together through Central Park, Sam Shaw asked Marilyn what she was learning at the Actors Studio. When she responded, “Improvisation,” he asked her to show him. Marilyn grabbed Sam’s newspaper and headed to a bench to read. Later she explained the couple’s intense conversation. Next to her, the man was asking for the woman to marry him. She said she would, but on the condition that he give up his livelihood as a bookie.

 

Two publicity portraits of Myrna Loy, for So Goes My Love, 1946.

 

Robert J. Avrech, “Untitled”
Acrylic, oil stick, on Baltic Birch, 8″ X 8″ 2017

 

Uncredited Photographer, Jewish Teacher with His Students, Samarkand, Uzbekistan c.1870

 

Ariel and Pinchas wish all our friends and relatives a happy and peaceful Shabbat.

 

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  2. When I was young, the only entertainment I was really exposed to were my parents record albums and the TV/movies they allowed us to watch. The first time I saw Basil Rathbone was in a Sherlock Holmes movie, and I thought he was almost unbearably dashing. When I saw “Captain Blood,” my good taste was confirmed. I’m quite sure I was the only 12-year-old girl in the late 20th Century listening to Jackie Gleason albums and carrying a torch for Basil Rathbone.

    • You were not alone. I kept hoping he would win at least one sword fight because he obviously was a much better fencer than all his opponents (except maybe for danny kaye). It seems in Captain Blood, they show Rathbone’s face so much more during the duel because flynn was using a stunt double.

      Mr. Avrech: Do you know anything about a director, Harry “Pop” Sherman? I came across an interview of Jane Wyatt where she mentions him:
      >>What Jane really remembers are the two westerns she made with Richard Dix in ‘43—“The Kansan” and “Buckskin Frontier”. “I loved those…they were Paramount outdoor specials, but released through United Artists. (Producer) Pop Sherman was awfully nice; always wore a hat. He enjoyed making westerns. He was an orthodox Jew who was very careful about his diet—no dairy products, no meat foods. Here I am a Catholic. It was Sunday morning and I wanted to go to Mass. We were way out on location, but he had a limo arrive and take me to Mass! He was fun, a colorful man, I loved Pop Sherman.<<

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