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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“Often a director, in a weepy scene, would ask me to visualize my mother dying so that I might cry easily. I couldn’t do it. The only way I could bring the tears was to think about something horrible happening to me.”
—Norma Shearer

The LaceMaker by Caspar Netscher (1639–1684)
1662, oil on canvas, 33 x 27 cm. Wallace Collection, London

 

Cat People, 1942, starring Simone Simon and Kent Smith, Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen, Directed by Jacques Tourneur, Produced by Val Lewton.

Frank Horvat
First Fashion Illustration with Mate Lorenzetti, Milano, Italy, 1950

 

1932 Ford 0032 Roadster
On view at the Petersen Automotive Museum, Los Angeles

 

“The modern girl is like Lindbergh, built for speed. We have tremendous vitality of body and complete emancipation of mind. None of the old taboos mean a damn to us. We don’t care.”
—Dorothy Mackaill, 1930
Her best film is the 1931 Pre-Code shocker, Safe in Hell,  in which she plays a prostitute who chooses the gallows rather than sleep with a corrupt policeman. Thus, presumably, she will be safe in hell.

 

French poster for Safe in Hell, 1931

 

William Klein
French actress Anouk Aimée and cigarette holder, 1961

 

Johannes Vermeer
The Lacemaker
1669-70
oil on canvas transferred to panel
23.9 X 20.5 cm

 

Paul Almasy
Paris, 1950

 

Magrette is a micro brand out of New Zealand. They are known for producing robust yet beautiful dive watches in a highly limited run. Their latest offering is the Moana Pacific Waterman Bronze. The pre-order price is $660.00. More information here.

 

Ava Gardner and Howard Hughes were dating in 1946.

 

Edward Hopper
Sunday, 1926
oil on canvas, 29 x 34 in. The Philips Collection, Washington D.C.

 

“I wanted to become a nun. I have become a screen actress. There is a wide channel separating the two. Who is to say which side of the channel was the right one for me?”
—Constance Bennett

 

The Lacemaker
Nicolaes Maes (Dutch, Dordrecht 1634–1693 Amsterdam)
ca. 1656
Oil on canvas
17 3/4 x 20 3/4 in. (45.1 x 52.7 cm)

 

Anne Frank, photograph inscribed with her wish, from her diary, to go to Hollywood, October 10, 1942

 

Rick McGinnis
Mexico, Bacalar Mural 2018

 

The great American-Chinese actress Anna May Wong and her brother Richard photographed by Carl Van Vechten on September 13, 1940.

 

Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) lighting Shabbat candles with her daughter, with a patriotic message to the IDF, 2014. Gal served her mandatory two years in the Israeli army as a combat instructor—after being crowned Miss Israel in 2004.

 

Wonder Woman Livia Yarden (trying out her Purim outfit) wishes all our friends and relatives a wonderful and meaningful Shabbat.

 

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Comments

  1. Two paintings of lacemakers me think of my great-great-aunt, Anastasia. I only just recently leaned about her thanks to the current genealogy craze. She was from Youghal, and listed as a “lacemaker” in the 1901 census. Apparently, the Presentation Sisters started teaching lacemaking to Irish girls as a way of earning some money during the Famine. They reverse engineered some lace from Italy to the point where Youghal lace became quite well known.

    The name Anastasia is odd, though. How did an Irish girl come to be called that? And apparently, there were a fair number of Anastasias born around the same year, 1880. I was VERY surprised at the number of little Anastasias born around 1880 ff. (Obviously, far too early for the Grand Duchess of Russia to have influenced the naming of little girls in Ireland.) I looked up a gazillion royal women for an Anastasia… Nope. Maybe there was an actress or singer of some fame during that time period who has since slipped into an obscurity such that do not warrant a Wikipedia entry…

    • The name Anastasia dates back to a 4th century saint in Dalmatia. The first wife of Ivan the Terrifying (“the Terrible” is a mistranslation) who bore most of his children was named Anastasia. Most often the name is associated with members of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

      • Anastasia is an odd name for an Irish lass, but for some reason, around 1880, quite a number of girls in Ireland were christened Anastasia. Usually, when an out of the ordinary name takes off like that, it had to do with someone famous.

        Not scads of Eastern Orthodox in Ireland in the 1880’s.

        • I don’t find it difficult to believe that the name of a Christian saint would be used to name girls in a Christian country, just because it was popular in Eastern Orthodox use. The name further means Resurrection, a concept not exclusive to Eastern Orthodoxy.

          Having only a minimal of Irish in my own genealogy, I haven’t done any such research to explain the confluence you mention of naming at that time. For whatever it’s worth to you, I found http://fhr.kiwicelts.com/Research/Gen_Nicknames.html referring to Anastasia in section 6 identified among the “Favourite Catholic Christian Names — For Girls”.

  2. Was the “Cat People” movie the inspiration for the “Cat Men” movie that was a plot item in “The Bad and the Beautiful?”

  3. The portraits are beautiful this week, Robert. The car is exceptional and I really like the watch as well.

    Rick, you have a wonderful eye for framing a photo — kudos.

  4. Livia is as cute as a button! (where did that saying come from?) I have wanted to see the Petersen for years; every time I have been through Los Angeles it is either closed (Monday), or being remodeled. Some cars from John Frankeneimer are supposed to be there. Love the Ford Roadster – modern, yet old.
    Like your picture too, Rick. Beautiful colors.

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