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 9 Comments

“I know that if I were not a movie star, I wouldn’t get asked out much. I don’t pretend that I’m the life of the party. I never kid myself that I got into pictures on my looks either. I was the first of an era of more or less homely guys in the movies. ”
—Gary Cooper

Jan de Bray (1627–1697) “Pharaoh’s Daughter and Her Handmaids with Moses in the Reed Basket”
1661
oil on canvas
Height: 121 cm (47.6 ″); Width: 164 cm (64.5 ″)
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

 

The Orient Mako II is a handsome diver watch with a robust mechanical movement at the great price point of $165.00. More here.

 

Frank Paulin
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Times Square, New York City 1957

 

Rick McGinnis
Atlantic City Boardwalk, 2019

 

Frank Paulin
Makeup, Central Park, New York City, 1955

 

“I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realize that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn’t hit me. Every day I woke up, went to the film studio and just got on with it.”
—Joan Collins

 

Lawrence Fried
Audrey Hepburn Eating at the Horn and Hardart Automat on Broadway, New York City, 1952

 

David Silver
Sign Advertising a Long Gone Horn and Hardart Automat, Broadway, New York City, 2011

 

Berenice Abbott
At the Automat, New York City, 1936

 

Jan Steen
The Sick Woman
between circa 1663 and circa 1666
oil on canvas
Height: 76 cm (29.9 ″); Width: 63.5 cm (25 ″)
Rijksmuseum

 

“In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy?”
—Leslie Caron

 

Jan de Bray (1627–1697)
“Judith and Holofernes”
1659
oil on panel
Height: 40 cm (15.7 ″); Width: 32.5 cm (12.7 ″)
Rijksmuseum

 

Hudson Super Six Landau Sedan at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 1928.

 

Sue Lyon photographed by Bert Stern, 1960.
Sue Lyon (1946-2019) rocketed to celebrity when she was just 14 years-old in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962). Lyon next appeared in Night of the Iguana (1964) playing another teenage temptress. She had a starring role as a missionary in John Ford’s last movie, 7 Women (1966). She then co-starred with George C. Scott in a comedy, The Flim Flam Man (1967). She next played a smaller co-starring role in Tony Rome (1967) with Frank Sinatra. She appeared opposite George Hamilton as Evel Knieval’s wife in Evel Knieval (1971). There were a few TV roles in the 70s. Her last appearance was as a reporter in Alligator (1980). It’s safe to say that she will always be remembered as Lolita. Lyon was married five times and had one daughter. RIP

 

Town of Edinburgh. Penguins from the zoo taking their weekly walk. The director of the zoo walks them through the city every week in order to attract people to the zoo, Photo by Werner Bischof, 1950

 

Livia wishes all our friends and relatives a happy and safe Shabbat.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. My mother lived in NE Your in the 40s, and always mentioned the automats. That picture with Audrey – she must have just come to the US – Roman Holiday would be made about that time.

    Those penguins are hilarious!

  2. I’m afraid my geographic knowledge of LA is only from books, but I wonder if the restaurant was in the West Adams neighborhood? Bara had a house at 649 West Adams Boulevard, where she lived until her death. It’s now the property of a local college, I believe.

    • No, the restaurant is near the Glendale freeway where it heads south to Silverlake. I’ve forgotten the name of it. West Adams is where my fraternity house was in a house given to Iris Newmark as a wedding present from her father who owned Iris Foods. It was a gorgeous old house, gone for years now.

  3. Basinger is a wonderful writer. I highly recommend her book “Silent Stars.” She has the knack of describing a movie or an actor’s performance so vividly that you can actually picture it in your mind.

    And I would love to offer to buy Audrey Hepburn’s lunch at the Automat. What a lovely, lovely woman.

    Happy New Year, Robert, and many more.

    • Finished it. Now to choose the next. I don’t know much about silent stars but had an interesting experience last year. My daughter’s in-laws remodeled an old firehouse in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. We were there and there is a big poster of Theda Bara in the lobby of what is now a restaurant. It turns out that the firehouse was in the neighborhood where many silent stars lived before they moved farther west to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. She was not the only one. The firehouse was closed when a new larger one was built nearby. My daughter’s father-in-law bought the firehouse and remodeled it. He left the tower where they used to hang hoses to dry out. Neat place.

  4. Gary Cooper sounds like he is doing a bit of humble bragging there.

    I am almost finished with the Basinger book, “The Star Machine.” It is great as I am the age where I remember most of those actors. The only one I had not seen was Deanna Durbin. I have a DVD collection of William Powell movies including the entire Thin Man series. She makes good points about the different eras, Depression, War, postWar and how it affected movies and careers. I have a number of Depression movies on DVD. “My Man Godfrey” is the most typical but “Topper” and Merrily We Live” are others. The latter has the common theme of the guy who looks like a bum and turns out to be an eccentric author. Superman comics had a similar concept.

Leave a Reply