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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“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant. Let me expand a bit. I sense that you may feel that I am free of problems. Let me assure you that I have the same anxieties and insecurities as anyone… maybe more.”
—Cary Grant

Painting by Tobi Kahn

 

Vivien Leigh, 1940, photo by Laszlo Willinger

 

N. C. Wyeth, Saturday Evening Post, cover (Bucking Bronco), 1903. Courtesy of the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

 

Elliott Erwitt
Tahiti, 1980

 

1953 Morgan Plus Four Roadster

 

“I’m not sure whether I’m an actor who races or a racer who acts.”
—Steve McQueen

 

The Zodiac Sea Wolf dive watch is rugged, handsome, and exquisitely functional. And in the world of fine mechanical watches the Zodiac is not insanely expensive at $1,395.

 

Ava Gardner, 1949, photo by Arnold Newman

 

Japanese poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent, 1937

 

Brassaï
The Kiss, c. 1935-37

 

Photo by Rodney Smith

 

“Most people seem to think I’m the kind of guy who shaves with a blowtorch. Actually I’m bookish and worrisome.”
—Burt Lancaster

 

The Palais Bulles (Bubble Palace)is a house belonging to Pierre Cardin designed by Antti Lovag at Théoule-sur-Mer in the Massif de l’Esterel.
The Windows are reminiscent of a ship’s portholes.

 

Elizabeth Taylor, 1950. She was eighteen years old.

 

Félix Vallotton
The Ball (Le Ballon), 1899.
Oil on cardboard. 48 x 61 cm. Musée d’Orsay.

 

Greta Garbo’s custom bookplate.

 

Cubic Coffee Service
1927
Designed by Erik Magnussen
Silver with gilding and ivory
9 1/2 × 21 1/2 × 13 2/5 in
24.1 × 54.6 × 34 cm
Manufactured by The Gorham Manufacturing Company
RISD Museum, Providence

 

John Gutmann
Kids Reading Comics, San Francisco, 1938

 

Frank Lloyd Wright
Window from the Avery Coonley Playhouse, Riverside, Illinois, circa 1912
Leaded glass, wood frame
Dimensions: 17 5/8 x 33 5/8 in. (44.8 x 85.4 cm) excluding frame

 

Elliott Erwitt
California, 1955

 

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

 

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Comments

  1. I always wondered what Elizabeth Taylor saw in Michael Jackson – then realized both had no childhoods.

    Those Morgans are timeless (or more accurate, frozen in time).

  3. I was one of a group of perhaps a dozen of my fraternity brothers who saw “A Place in then Sun” maybe 20 times in one of the old downtown LA movie palaces. Elizabeth Taylor at 18 was in all our dreams.

  4. Happy Flag Day Friday, Robert.

    The Morgan Plus… please tell us this is your new purchase. 🙂

    I like the Zodiac watch. It has a nice clean design and I like the blue – it really pops against the band and the face. I prefer numbers over ticks marks and I’m a little surprised there is no calendar function.

    In regard to The Kiss… is that some sort of amusement park ride? And Rodney Smith’s fun taxi photo… any context to the photo?

    • Prophet Joe:

      I remember when Flag Day was actually a thing.

      The Morgan. Yes, my new (virtual) purchase.

      I have wanted a Morgan for about 50 years. Now that I can actually afford to make the purchase I have to step on the brakes (excuse the awful metaphor) and remind myself that I am a practical adult who is not going through a mid-life crisis.

      Really, if I bought the Morgan, Karen would seriously question my grasp on reality.

      Zodiac have other diving models with the day/date function. But I like the uncluttered dial. There’s something to be said for simplicity.

      The ride is a container on a pendulum that swings back and forth with increasing velocity and speed. The last time I rode one was when I was 7 years old. I vomited all over my mother. That was my first and last ride. I look at the couple in the picture and I wonder… how is it they are not upchucking all over each other?

      • Robert – I had tghe same automotive outlook as you – always be practical – until when I was 40 bought a 3 year old Toyota MR2. That car was like a big Go Kart – they made about 200,000 of them in 5 years.

        Believe me when you are near the end you won’t be wishing you’d bought that new Lexus.

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