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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“All this publicity makes me a little shy and afraid. I’m afraid that people will expect too much of me, right now when I’ve only started my acting career.”
—Marilyn Monroe, 1950

Myrna Loy, MGM publicity photo, 1940s.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte’s three-chambered pistol.

 

Photo by Georges Dambier, 1949

 

Giuseppe Abbati (Italian, 1836 – 1868)
The Window
oil on canvas

 

Photo by Sergio Larrain
Passage Bavastrello, Valparaiso, Chile, 1952.

 

Ralph Goings (American, 1928 – 2016)
Burger Chef Interior
oil on canvas: 39 3/8 × 56 in.
1972
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

 

The 2020 Cartier Tank Asymetrique is an elegant nod to their Art Deco classic.

 

“I looked it at like this way. To get folks to like you, as a screen player I mean, I figured you had to sort of be their ideal. I don’t mean a handsome knight riding a white horse, but a fella who answered the description of an alright guy.”
—Gary Cooper

 

Elvis sharing a meal with his father Vernon and grandmother Minnie Mae. They are all buried together at Graceland.

 

Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman, Random Harvest, 1942
Screenplay by Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, Claudine West
Based on the 1941 novel Random Harvest
by James Hilton

 

1950 Ferrari 166 MM/212

 

Photo by Marc Riboud
California, February 2005
The accepted wisdom has been that the Drive-in is dead. But the Wuhan virus has resurrected these charming relics as an alternative to mainstream movie theaters.

 

Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967)
Drugstore, 1927
Oil on canvas
29 x 40 1/8 in.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

“You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.”
—Elizabeth Taylor

 

This miniature depicting Lot and his daughters (Genesis:19:31-32) comes from an illuminated bible produced in the Alsatian workshop of Diebold Lauber c. 1460. The sons born of this incestuous affair—Moab and Amnon—each went on to father a tribe, the Moabites and the Ammonites, who would vex the Jews of Israel down through the ages.

 

Lieutenant Bela Lugosi of the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I

 

Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton (1830–1896)
Portrait of May Sartoris
circa 1860
oil on canvas
Height: 152.1 mm (5.9 in) Width: 90.2 mm (3.5 in)
Kimbell Art Museum

 

Merle Oberon Photographed by Edward Steichen. Silver gelatin print, 1935

 

Omer Counter
Congregation Shearith Israel, 1730

 

Unidentified photographer
A police officer playing with children, New York, 1970

 

Pinchas and Ariel wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and virus-free Shabbat.

 

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Comments

  1. Nothing wrong with Hollywood. No more destructive than any other conglomeration of hard working, sensitive and extremely bright people. These pithy sentences polished for publication are not and should not be taken for any more than they are — space in someones gossip column, but fun to read.

  2. The pic from Random Harvest reminded me that my grandfather, who traveled a lot for his business, always took the train. He’d buy books to read during his long trips. I still have his 1941 edition of Random Harvest and his 1936 edition of Gone With The Wind. I liked the book, Random Harvest, better than the movie for reasons I can’t divulge unless you’ve seen the movie or read the book.

    • Larry, I have as you have read the book and seen the film, but my preference is the opposite; the film struck me as a near great work, whereas, the novel more workman like, and by that I mean Hilton kept me at arm’s length.

  3. Another nice Friday. Those little pistols were called “Pocket Murderers.” In England, there were no police until Peel established the Metropolitan Police in 1829. Any prosperous resident rode or carried a pocket murderer.

    Bela Lugosi Jr went to SC with me and was on the swim team. He looked just like that photo of his father.

    Drive-ins might make a comeback. The objection to the area required ignores the parking areas required for indoor theaters. Also indoor malls are dying and many have theaters.

  4. Not the blonde bombshell Monroe persona of a few years later.

    Thank you, Robert, for a Friday morning dose with Myrna.

    I love the Ferrari Egg, but I’d need Jeff Bezos-like income to lay down $5-6 million for it.

    The Abbbati painting is very realistic.

    The Burger Chef interior shows some common 70’s sights — orange and teal interiors and cigarette machines.

    I don’t know how well Napolean’s pistol shot, but it is definitely art.

    In the Hopper Drugstore painting, I note that Ex-Lax seems to be more prominent than prescription drugs.

    The watch is interesting, but I’m not sure…

    This Liz Taylor seems very different than the young, fresh teen you’ve posted before. Here she looks a little… hard. Hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hardened by Hollywood?

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