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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“They say the movies should be more like life; I think life should be more like the movies.”
—Myrna Loy

Compare and Contrast:
La Mousme by Vincent Van Gogh (1888); Jessica Chastain wearing Alexander McQueen, Vogue (2013)

 

Margie Cato photographed by Lillian Bassman, 1950

 

Portrait of a Bride (1500-1506) by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Painting on lime wood
41.9 x 33.5 cm

 

Art Deco
Vogue Red Blocks cup and saucer, Eric Slater, 1930-1931

 

Barbara Stanwyck photographed in the late 1920s

 

Alternative Poster for Psycho by Aleksander Walijewski

 

“Being an 18-karat manic depressive, and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.”
—Frank Sinatra
“Part of the syndrome is that I just would get very depressed, and I couldn’t handle things. I didn’t know what was wrong with me and didn’t have medication to take. I am more than bipolar. I am obsessive-compulsive. I’ve got lots of different things, but all are in check with treatment.”
—Kim Novak
Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak in The Man With the Golden Arm, 1955

 

Barthel Bruyn the Elder (1493–1555)
Portrait of Elisabeth Bellinghausen (c.1520- 1570)
c. 1538 -1539, oil on panel
34.5 × 24 cm (13.6 × 9.4 in)

 

Fiona Campbell-Walter wears a gown by Christian Dior in a 1951 photo by Henry Clarke

 

Crandall New Model typewriter, 1887

 

Milton Avery
Sunset Sea , 1960
oil on canvas
32 by 46 inches (81.3 by 116.8 cm)

 

Debra Paget, c. late 1940s

 

Compare and Contrast:
Mosaic of Empress Theodora at the Church of San Vitale (547); Dolce & Gabbana Fall Ready to Wear (2013)

 

“I have understood that the most important things are tenderness and kindness. I can’t do without them.”
—Brigitte Bardot

 

Adam de Coster (Mechelen 1585/6 – 1643 Antwerp)
A young woman holding a distaff before a lit candle,
oil on canvas,
52 3/4 by 37 3/8 in.; 134 by 94.9 cm.

 

Fashion photo by Gordon Parks for LIFE magazine, 1952

 

 

Side chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) for Hous’hill drawing room in 1904.

 

Richard Widmark to Jean Peters, Pickup on South Street, 1953, screenplay by Sam Fuller, story by Dwight Taylor.

 

1939 Delahaye Type 165 Cabriolet

 

The 1928 Cartier Tank á Guichet

 

Ingrid Bergman, before coming to America., c. 1930s

 

Seder Tephiloth mikol HaShanah [prayers for the whole year], according to the Ashkenazic rite with instructions in Yiddish. Printed entirely on vellum in Mantua by Venturino Roffi nello for Meir b. Ephraim and Yaakov b. Naphtali, 1558. (Kestenbaum & Company)
Robert J. Avrech
Beware the Evil Eye
Souk, Jerusalem
2017

 

Lawren Stewart Harris, born: 1885, Ontario, Canada, died: 1970, Vancouver, Canada. “Pine Tree and Red House, Winter City,” 1924

 

Celia Singer, Z’L,my mother-in-law, who passed away on Wednesday. This Kodak moment was taken when Celia was a teenager, growing up in Lowell, Mass. where her father was the rabbi of a congregation. The synagogue brought Rabbi Eliyahu Kahn and his family from Lithuania to America thereby saving their lives. Celia was seven years old when she came to America. Her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were murdered by the Nazis in 1941. My mother-in-law went to college and became a Social Worker. She was a loyal wife to Rabbi Pinchas Tzvi Singer, and devoted mother to their four children: Rena, Karen, Naomi, and David. Celia was a striking woman with blonde hair and flashing blue-gray eyes. I told her that she looked like Lee Remick. She said: “Does that mean you’re going to put me in one of your movies?” Rebbetzin Celia will be sorely missed by everyone who knew her.

 

Livia Yarden wishes all our friends and relatives a sweet and inspirational Shabbat.

 

Ed Ruscha, END, 1983, oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches

 

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Comments

  1. Last Sunday though TCM and Fathom events, I saw a digitally restored Casablanca on the big screen. What a treat. Ingrid Bergman always seemed like a tremendous screen presence with no scandals or tabloid stories.

    That 1928 watch seems just as stylish today.

    • You must be thinking about another Ingrid Bergman. Ingrid Bergman gave birth to Roberto Rossellini’s son and they were not married. It was a huge scandal. Bergman was barred by an act of Congress from working in America for many years. The tabloids feasted on her scandal for many years.

      • This is the Ingrid Bergman of Flatbush New York isn’t it? If so I was mistaken 😉

        I had just never heard of anything ever in the history unlike say Frank Sinatra, but I certainly defer to the professor

      • I remember it well. A miscarriage of logic, but at least in those days there was a sense of order and organization. Not much, but in many ways, despite the injustice, better than we have now.

  2. Touching tribute to your mother-in-law.
    Livia has that Shirley Temple look.
    The 1928 Cartier watch was functional until increased human life expectancy required larger size alpha numeric displays to assist the elderly (baby boomers).

    • In general, wristwatches were smaller in the past. If you try on a Cartier for men from the 20s, 30s, and 4os you’ll be surprised at its diminutive size.

  3. – A lovely photo of your mother-in-law, Robert,

    – I love the Art Deco cup design, but I don’t think it would be practical to use…

    – The photo of Barbara Stanwyck is interesting. Her hair looks a little “damaged” (for lack of a better word). The makeup looks like thick, perhaps for a B&W silent movie? Oh, and her lips look completely painted on. Not at all the fashionable, glamours photos I’ve seen of her elsewhere.

    – The Cartier watch is simply elegant.

    – What is there about the blue on the door you photographed? Do blue doors have some significance in the Mediterranean region? Whenever I see a door painted this color, my mind immediately thinks of Israel or Greece. Both seem to use this shade of blue…

    – Of course, BB and Myrna look ravishing, as always.

    – Thoughts and prayers…

    • That shade of blue is supposed to provide protection from the evil eye.
      The Stanwyck and Paget photos are remarkably candid and unretouched. I love their amateur quality.
      Greatly appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

  4. On looking at the Cranach the Elder “Bride” one word immediately cane to mind: RUN.
    I realize your intent on the compare and contrast of Theodora and Gabbana, but few people realize that Theodora was one of those women of the ages, like Eleanor of Aquataine.

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