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

by 11 Comments

“I appeared with many leading men. But working with Cary Grant was different from working with other actors. He was much more fun! I think we were a successful team because we enjoyed working together tremendously, and that pleasure must have shown through onto the screen. I will always remember two compliments he made me. He said I had perfect timing in comedy and that I was the sweetest smelling actress he ever worked with.”
—Irene Dunne


Pablo Picasso,
Woman with a Fan (Femme à l’éventail), 1905
oil on canvas, 100.3 x 81 cm, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC..

 

Clark Gable serving as an officer during in WWII. He signed up for duty following the tragic death of his wife Carole Lombard, who was on a war bond tour when her plane crashed. Gable served with a bomber squad in Europe. Due to his fame, Hitler put a bounty on Gable’s head.

 

Original poster for the Universal Studios horror film, The Mummy (1932). Note that Boris Karloff is listed as “Karloff The Uncanny”.

 

Peter Keetman (1916-2005)
Steel Pipes, Maximilian Smelter
1958

 

The De Bethune DB27 Titan Hawk V2 Watch can be yours for about $38,000.

 

“I didn’t know I was doing film noir. I thought I was doing detective stories with low lighting!”
—Marie Windsor

 

Barnett Newman (1905-1970)
Untitled
1946
Oil on canvas
76.5 x 61.1 cm
© IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Generalitat Valenciana

 

Hitchcock poses with a Yiddish newspaper.

 

Georgia O’Keeffe
Wave, Night, 1928
Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 in.

 

Fred Stein
Children Reading a Journal, Paris, 1936

 

An Art Deco masterpiece, the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic.

 

Bill Brandt
The Morning Papers, 1936

 

Jean Patchett wearing a dress by Henri Bendel and jewels by Harry Winston in a 1948 photo by Horst P. Horst

 

Rules of the Game, 1939
Written by Jean Renoir, Carl Koch

 

Elegant Art Deco typography at Hoover Dam

 

“I’m sure there’s a big misunderstanding anyway, about what sort of a guy I am. I’m convinced the general idea is that I’m a suave Joe who just dances from here to there. A grinning goof and kind of a sucker for anything. Too lightfooted and lightheaded to know what it’s all about. Well, the answer is that I am not that way at all. I am really bad-tempered, impatient, hard to please, critical; and as Jimmy Cagney said to me years ago, “You know, you so-and-so, you’ve got a little of the hoodlum in you.” At the risk of disillusionment, I must say that I don’t like top hats, white ties and tails. I am always arriving at dinner parties not wearing a dinner jacket when I should, or vice versa. Also, invariably, I don’t know how to get there or what time to arrive. Things are always spilling on the tablecloth in front of me. Not always my fault, but nevertheless, there it is. Take beet sauce or beet salad. I have had some devastating experiences with beets. The carefree, the best-dressed, the debonair Astaire! What a myth! My hats are too small, my coats are too short, my walk is loose. I am full of faults. I have a sense of humor but it won’t always work for me. I am always blowing my top over the wrong things. I tell you, I am a very annoying guy.”
— Fred Astaire, from his autobiography “Steps in Time”, 1959

 

Joan Miró (1893-1983)
Painting
1927
Tempera and oil paint on canvas
972 x 1302 mm
Tate
© Succession Miro/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

 

Photograph for Vogue by Horst P. Horst 1946

 

Marilyn Monroe’s annotated Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book) is up for auction in November.

 

Walter Sanders
Posture Class for Girls at Barnard College, Students demonstrating the “drooping daisy” Exercise for Relaxation, New York, 1954

 

Maayan Ariel wishes all our friends and relatives a lovely and thoughtful Shabbat.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I too see Maayan growing up to a beautiful young woman. On Astair I can see that strain of nastiness in him. He was I believe an absolute perfectionist in his dance routines and demanded the same for his partners. At least that is the impression I have of him.

    And Gene Kelly in later years absolutely despised “Singing In The Rain”.

    I have always thought that Gable volunteered for the Air Force, with its devastating loses – to kill himself after the death of Carole Lombard.

    Love the photo of the children in 1936 Paris – and to think how awful Paris would become just 4 years later.

    And – was that you who took the picture of the art deco sign at Hoover dam? I have realized for some time that there is art everywhere in places most of us don’t see.

  2. Wow ! Maayan is growing up. Makes me think of Natalie Portman in “The Professional.” I have the Director’s cut that was severely cut for theatrical release.

  3. Robert,

    The Bugatti is very nice, but I’ll still take the 1936 Peugeot 402 Darl’mat Coupe from last week.

    I love the Art Deco font on the Hoover Dam signage, but I find it interesting that they spelled Restroom as 2 words — perhaps that has changed over time.

    Regarding the photo of Marilyn Monroe… what is going on with her eyebrows? And she looks tired to me.

    I really like the Georgia O’Keeffe painting . Beautiful.

    What does the newspaper headline say in the Hitchcock photo?

    Regarding Fred Astaire: there is no doubt he is a genius when it comes to dance, but when I watched his movies I always felt his suave veneer was just that… a veneer, not something deep or substantial.

    The watches you’ve been featuring are nice designs, but the pricing is ridiculous.

    Regarding Marie Windsor: I’ve not seen too many film noir movies, and I’m not at all familiar with the “Queen of the B’s” but any red-blooded American male understands what that poster is “selling” to the audience!

    I love the Steel Pipes photo — very cool.

    Why was Karloff called “The Uncanny”?

    Irene Dunne was beautiful and a conservative Republican. She wouldn’t make it today’s Hollywood! I remember reading that her father died when she was a teenager and he had given her this advice before he died “Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life’s great stores.” Sound like she had some good parenting — unlike many of the actresses you have featured.

    Have a wonderful Sabbath!

Leave a Reply