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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“I was born at the age of 12 on the MGM lot.”
—Judy Garland

Ambrosius Benson (circa 1495–1550)
Portrait of Anne Stafford
circa 1535
oil on canvas
40.6 × 34 cm (15.9 × 13.3 in)
Saint Louis Art Museum

 

Emil Heilborn
At the Dog Races, 1934

 

David Hockney Photocollage
Pearblossom Hwy #1 1986

 

Carole Lombard, 1940, photo by Eugene Robert Richee

 

French poster for Hitchcock’s Notorious by Boris Grinsson

 

“You fight just so long and then you begin to worry about being washed up. You fear there’s one way to go and that’s down… I have no intention of ending my career in a rooming house, with full scrapbooks and an empty stomach.”
—Carole Landis
Carole Landis committed suicide 5 July 1948, at the age of 29.

 

Wenda Parkinson in a satin Molyneux gown poses with a 1907 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce. Photo by her husband Norman Parkinson for Vogue UK, April 1950

 

Veronica Lake, 1941, photo by A.L. “Whitey” Schafer

 

French poster for Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder by Boris Grinsson

 

Gene Kelly on the set of An American in Paris, 1951, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt

 

John McLaughlin, “#15-1958” (1958), oil on canvas, 60 x 38 inches, Daniel and Lauren Long, New York (courtesy James Corcoran Gallery, © Estate of John McLaughlin, photo by Adam Reich)

 

‘The head of publicity of the Hollywood studio where I was first under contract told me, “You’re a piece of meat, that’s all”. It wasn’t very nice but I had to take it. When I made my first screen test, the director explained to everyone, “Don’t listen to her, just look”.’
—Kim Novak

 

Portrait of Clara Serena, the Artist’s Daughter by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was probably painted about 1623, not long before the sitter’s tragically early death at the age of 12.

 

Suzy Parker turned from modeling to acting in 1957. This is a publicity photo for Kiss Them For Me in which she co-starred with Cary Grant.

 

Suzy Parker in a red sequined dress by Norman Norell
Photo by Milton Greene, September 1952

 

Rick McGinnis
Poppy bud, Macdonell Ave., Toronto, 2000

 

1938 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet

 

Jean-Loup Sieff
Claire Motte, French Dancer, Paris, 1960s

 

French poster for Hitchcock’s North by Northwest by Boris Grinsson

 

William Powell and Myrna Loy in a publicity photo for After the Thin Man, 1936.

 

Suri Srulovitch
Shabbat Candlesticks
Anodized Aluminum / Brass

 

Ariel Chaim and Pinchas Tzvi wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Bill – does your comment mean you are against success? Because that is the take away. As for Kim Novak, I am unimpressed with her comments.

  2. The only movie star I have known fairly well was Jane Russell. She had an odd relationship with Bob Waterfield but did well for herself in real estate. She finally married a man she thought would treat her the way she wanted but he died soon after their marriage. She lived into very old age. She died at 90. She married again but I never met him.

    She seemed pretty content with her life. Her family, siblings and mother were very important to her.

  3. I never will forget the biography you wrote about Carole Landis. I had never even heard of her before, and such a sad end to a vibrant woman. Never felt the same about Rex Harrison after that, either.

    How’d those kids get up on the fence? Wonder if the photographer helped them 😉

    Kim Novak – no wonder she just decided to disappear from Hollywood – move to first Big Sur, then Oregon. That is an industry that eats its own.

  4. The more I learn about Hollywood and the “Star” lifestyle, the more cynical I get about being a movie star. In recent posts, only Joan Blondell seemed to have a healthy attitude about being an actress. She saw it as a job to put food on the table and keep a roof over her head.

    Robert, I’ll give you credit for another Myrna Loy photo, but this is stretching it a bit. 🙂

    And the Cabriolet…. when I saw that photo my first thought was “that was what they should have used for speeder in Star Wars” — it just looks fast and futuristic!

    Nice photo of the grandkids, and I like the new closing graphic. Where did that come from?

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