“The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually agent, actor, director, producer, leading man. And you are a star if you sleep with them in that order. Crude but true.”
—Hedy Lamarr
Edward Hopper, New York Office, 1962
Jiri Jenicek, Prague Rooftops, 1947
Frans van Mieris the Elder
Woman Writing a Letter
1680
oil on panel
Height: 25 cm (9.8 in). Width: 20 cm (7.9 in).
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Marlene Dietrich
by Arno Fischer
Final bow at her final performance, Moscow 1964
Art Deco Climax Model 60 Tube Radio, 1938
Dennis Stock
USA, 1952
Alternative movie poster for Rear Window by Adam Simpson.
“One of the things I always admired about Clark Gable was between scenes, he didn’t go lock himself up in his trailer. He would hang out with the guys, the electricians, they all loved him. He was not full of himself. It was nothing to come to set and find him straddling a bench, playing gin rummy with the crew.” —Ann Rutherford; as a teenager, Rutherford had a role in Gone With the Wind, playing Scarlett O’Hara’s (Vivien Leigh) younger sister Carreen.
Utagawa Kunisada, Heavy Snow at Years End, 1844. © Claude Monet Foundation – Giverny. Courtesy of Musée Marmottan Monet.
Rick McGinnis
Sunnyside Beach, Toronto, Spring 1997
Gerard ter Borch (1617–1681)
Woman writing a letter.
circa 1655
oil on panel
39 × 29.5 cm (15.4 × 11.6 in)
Myrna Loy takes a break during the filming of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, 1947
Charles Rennie Mackintosh wall clock for the Glasgow School of Art c. 1899. Oak with screen printed numbers.
Anne Frank
Amsterdam, 1934.
Notice the shadow of whomever is taking the photo, probably her father, Otto.
Alternative movie poster for The Birds by Flore Maquin
“It was easy to get used to having a name that wasn’t mine and had a better sound. The Veronica was supposed to stand for what was classic in my features and the Lake was suppose to suggest the coolness you got when you looked at them. So things got put together. I went down the assembly line. Dressed by Edith Head. Faced by Wally Westmore. Singing voice dubbed by Martha Mears…When the hair was over one eye, I became someone else… I personally have no existence… My real life, the only one that people believe in, is the life of the Veronica Lake character… Has she got a connection with me?… I’m small and suspicious and unsure, and she’s tall and poised and thoroughly experienced. The Army respects her, the Navy adores her, the Marines are nuts about her. No branch of the service recognizes me.”
– “ I, Veronica Lake: Constance Ockelman, Late of Brooklyn, Tells How She Became Hollywood’s Cyclops Cinderella,” Life Magazine, May 17, 1943.
Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid by Johannes Vermeer
c.1670
oil on canvas
71.1 x 60.5 cm
Photo by Francesca Woodman (Born: 1958, Denver – Died: 1981, New York)
Alternative movie poster for Vertigo by Laurent Durieux.
Fernando Lemos
Luz Teimosa, (Stubborn Light)
1949
Moira Dryer (Born: 1957, Toronto – Died: 1992, New York),
Portrait of a Fingerprint, 1988
Casein on plywood
48 1/8 × 61 1/4 × 4 in
122.2 × 155.6 × 10.2 cm
Portrait of Dorothy Catherine Draper. The earliest surviving photograph of a woman, 1839 or 1840. Photo taken by her brother John William Draper (1811–1882)
Willow Chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1904
Robert J. Avrech
Blue Doors
Souk, Jerusalem,2017
Pinchas Tzvi and Ariel Chaim wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.
Ed Ruscha, END, 1983, oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
NOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube
11 Comments
Didn’t Marlene Dietrich have some shows in the early 70s? Along with seeing Frank Sinatra in a Las Vegas performance, that is one of my minor regrets.
Growing up in Studio City in the 50s and being a kid, I doidn’t realize some of the childhood friends I had had fathers of such public figures. Walt Weiskopf – whose father was such a screen writer (I love Lucy is to his credit as just one example) and Brian Cerenni (father was Clark Gable’s physician)
We were just kids at the public school…
I do like those alternative movie posters!
If what Hedy says is true that is depressing – although I have long felt in the performing arts just having the talent isn’t enough. Still, in regards to a recent lewd studio mogul a young woman having to see him naked would indicate a tremendous drive to be in the movie business 😉
Still, on a serious note you wonder how many of them kept their dignity and refused to succumb to this vile behavior and thus are unknown today?
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Bill — luck and determination, along with whatever talent is play a significant part. But comparing today with the past in terms of behavior and sexual mores just does not work. The feminist movement has succeeded in its dirty work and the mantra of having it all. No one can, and if you change one thing, you change all in a kind of ripple effect. One salient example: At colleges and universities boys and girls had separate dormitories. They were never, on or off campus, roommates. Not so anymore. And the consequences are to devaluation. As I wrote before, Olivia, Bette, Myrna, Irene, Ginger, and many more, had not only talent, but dignity. If they slept with someone, it was not part of career manipulation but desire. People like Ashley Judd would have been given a chance, but when madness prevailed, that would be that. And correctly so. Were people like Harvey Hollywood in existence then? I don’t know, but this guy seems like one for the ages.
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re Bush — that should be ‘young’ virile…etc.
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I sometimes wish I lived in a world designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
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Tears for Anne Frank photo, smiles for Pinchas and Ariel’s photo.
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Well done, Robert.
Hedy Lemarr’s quote reminds us that the Hollywood casting couch has been around for a very long time, and where Harvey Weinstein ranked in that pecking order. Clark Gable always came across to me as a reluctant movie star. I’ve read several stories similar to this one. He apparently preferred hunting and fishing to the typical Hollywood star treatment.
I don’t think I’ve seen this photo of Myrna Loy before — sadly, after Hedy’s quote I find myself wondering how many “wolves” she had satisfy before she made it in Tinsel Town. Love the radio design and the alternate movie posters — let me ask you, Robert… were these contemporary to the movie (maybe posters that weren’t used) or are they more modern interpretations of what the posters might have been?Lastly, the photo of Anne Frank makes me sad. It is a reminder that a young girl, one who has never hurt or offended anyone, would be hunted, captured and ultimately die just because of her heritage is a sad commentary on our civilization.
Have a wonderful Shabbat, Robert.
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Prophet Joe:
The alternative posters are being done now. It’s a new art form. One of the freedoms these graphic artists have is they don’t have to abide by the rules set forth by the various Hollywood unions regarding size of credit on posters. Thus, because of the contracts with the various Hollywood guilds credits now take up as much as one third of every movie poster. As you can see in the alternative posters, credits are small, and used at the discretion of the artist. In short, these wonderful posters could never be used by the studios.
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You never heard Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne or anyone else with a shred of dignity speak abut themselves, or anyone else, as Hedy Lamarr has been quoted as doing. If people sleep with one another, they are not only adults, but enormously attractive young animals, and nothing wrong with any of that. Because that fat pig Hollywood Harvey, and his effeminate counterpart, Kevin creep, have been nailed to the cross, each and every observation and accusation does not warrant the same level of attention. For example, former President Bush, from his wheel chair, with wife by his side, no matter how creepy this demented old fella may seem, is no threat. And there has been no accusation levelled at him from the days when he was you, virile and good looking. Draw no conclusions from fools who self immolate.
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I disagree, Barry. I think the Hollywood Casting Couch has a uniqueness here. Sometimes women sleep with a man because they are attracted to the power and control he wields — Monica and Bill are probably a good example of this, but the same isn’t necessarily true in Hollywood.
This appears to be more of a “pay to play” de facto standard: “If you want to be a star in my show? Here’s what I need from you, baby…” and the young women hear that up and down the line — Agent, Director, Producer, Executive Producer, etc. They also hear from virtually everyone around them that “this is how it is and the way it’s always been” — as if knowing that Myrna Loy or Irene Dunn had to endure the same sort of humiliation makes these young women feel better about it!
This really isn’t (in my mind) a case of young, attractive, rising stars living a wild Bohemian lifestyle. It’s older men wielding enormous power over young, wannabe stars
for their own personal sexual satisfaction. Let’s acknowledge it for what it is… a predatory practice.
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What I wrote was not opinion and no one, absolutely no one, ever made a success by debasing themselves. As for Bill Clinton and Monica, he was a cool guy with considerable charm and presence, and she was impressed. I never heard her say a thing about undue pressure, but if you want to spin sexual attraction, I can tell you, better experience it first.
Oh, and successful people, in all walks of life, have appeal. Money, smarts, and presence. Smug and sanctimonious doesn’t work.
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There is no such thing as a reluctant movie star — and certainly Clark Gable was not of that ilk in any way. As David Selznick wrote — Clark probably knows down to the penny how much it is worth every time he shows his handsome head. The ‘reluctant’ construct probably evolves from the work of left-wing writers. Clifford Odets comes quickly to mind.
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