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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“My mother wisely made very sure when I was young that I wouldn’t get big-headed about my looks. She said, “You have nice eyes, but they’re only nice as long as the expression in back of them is nice. And that depends solely on what you are as a person inside. You are not beautiful, but you can be attractive when you’re nice inside.”
—Elizabeth Taylor

Henri Matisse
“Woman in Green”
1909
Oil on canvas
65 x 54 cm

 

Photo by Regina Relang for ELLE magazine, 1952

 

French poster for This Gun for Hire, 1942

 

Carlos Perez Siquier
La Chanca, Spain, 1958

 

Gerald Murphy,
“Wasp and Pear,” 1929.
Oil on canvas, 37 x 39 in.

 

“I guess I was never impressed with myself as a performer. That’s just something that I learned when I was a child. Like breathing and eating. It’s just something I did. I was never impressed with myself being different than any other kid. Although I never knew what other kids were like. Children used to frighten me. Really, I always thought, they were strange creatures. Little creatures running around without any talent.”
—Donald O’Connor

 

“Children of the Painter”
by Heinrich Ehmsen
Oil on canvas, 95×76 cm
Germany, 1921

 

Dovima clutching pearls by Van Cleef & Arpels in a 1956 photo by Richard Avedon

 

This Bauhaus inspired watch by Nomos is yours for $1,930.

 

Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan in Tarzan and His Mate (1934), photo by Ted Allan

 

Poster for the haunting French film, Eyes Without a Face, 1960

 

June Havoc, sister of Gypsy Rose Lee, “Baby June” in the musical Gypsy, 1947.
After leaving her family’s vaudeville act, Havoc found success on the New York stage, most notably in Pal Joey on Broadway, and then came to Hollywood under contract to RKO in 1942, the same year as her Pal Joey costar Gene Kelly. She continued to act in films for the next 45 years. She died in 2010, age of 97

 

1957 Morgan Plus 4

 

“Because we are human; because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies; because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing; there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live.”
– Roger Ebert

 

“Memory of the Garden at Etten”
by Vincent van Gogh
Oil on canvas, 73×92 cm
France, 1888

 

Anita Ekberg, 1951 photo by Nina Leen

 

A page of the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra, printed by Daniel Bomberg in 1522 in Venice.

 

The Jackie Look: models wearing suits and pillbox hats designed by Oleg Cassini as popularized by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, photo by Yale Joel, New York, 1961

 

Lielle and Livia wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

 

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

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Comments

  1. When I was in college, we must have seen “A Place in the Sun” at least a dozen times. It was a cult movie for college boys in 1957.

    Then, in 1976, twenty years later,
    Lifeguard”     was another cult movie among doctor friends 0f mine.

    Not that we were unhappy with career choice, like lots of young doctors I know now, but it was a fantasy. I understand the studio wanted to make Sam Elliot into a sex star and he turned it down.

    I still will go to anything he is in, just like I feel about Kevin Kline. Both are favorites.

  2. I like the Murphy painting (although it’s not my favorite).

    I’d love to have the Morgan and I second Bill’s sentiment… you need one.

    Elizabeth Taylor is a classic beauty — she’s no Myrna or BB, but she is always a welcome sight!

    June Havoc is a new personality to me… interesting to learn about.

    Now about that watch…I love the unique design. The 2-4-8-10-12 number layout is a fascinating deviation from the norm. I looked at their web site and some of their designs mix Arabic and Roman numerals on the same face… maybe that’s just being different for the marketing opportunities. And in this world, $2K for a designer watch is a downright bargain!

    Your grand kids are adorable, but swim suit season is coming to an end!

  3. Wonderful pictures. I have always pictured Liz Taylor as having a level head, despite her background (a star since she was a young teenager). Don’t know if that is an accurate assessment, but there it is. Love the Spanish B & W photo, and the Matisse painting.

    You have **got** to get a Morgan Robert! Have you talked to Karen about this? 😉

    Years ago, when I still enjoyed going to San Francisco (not the cesspool it has become), I saw Showboat with Donald O’Conner at a play on Market St.

    Like Yul Brynner in The King And I , a signature role for O’Conner.

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