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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“Breasts and bottoms look boringly alike. Faces, though, can be quite different and a damn sight more interesting!”
—Lee Remick

 

1930 Cadillac V16 Roadster

 

Juvan, Norah & Ginette, Earlscourt, June 2020
Rick McGinnis writes: “I hadn’t shot a portrait in months when the lockdown entered its third month. Then I realized that the most appropriate subjects were the people on my street, with whom I had become familiar as we got used to each other’s very abbreviated routines. It took a couple of weeks to set up and shoot the series, posing my neighbours in the front or back doors of the homes where they’d been sheltering in place since March.” More plague portraits here.

 

Hilma af Klint (Swedish, 1862-1944)
Altarpiece Group X, No. 2
1915
Oil and metal leaf on canvas
93.75 x 70.5 inches
© Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk

 

“Lots of newcomers to films undoubtedly think that posing for photos is a waste of time. It doesn’t need to be. I have made a careful study of every single still picture that was ever shot of me. I wanted these stills to teach me what not to do on the screen. I scrutinized the grin on my face, my hair-do, my posture, my makeup, the size of my feet.”
—Joan Crawford

 

Therese Schwartze (Dutch, 1851–1918)
Three girls from the Amsterdam Orphanage
1885
oil on canvas
Height: 32 in; Width: 37.7 in.
Collection: Rijksmuseum

 

Nina Leen
15-year old Patty Duke, who played Helen Keller on Broadway in “The Miracle Worker,” with 81-year old Helen Keller during the filming of William Gibson’s adaptation of his own play of Keller’s story, 1961

 

Ophion, the independent watch company from Spain, produces distinctly Art Deco inspired dress watches. The movements are mechanical and precisely calibrated. This is their OPH 786 Vélos Radial Anthracite model. Information at their website.

 

Photo by Robert Doisneau

 

“I used to stand for hours listening to the minister talking from a box. I noticed it was never really a soap box but usually an empty soft drink crate on which he stood. The talk would be about God and the minister would call on his listeners to give Him their souls and their love. I watched the faces of the listeners when the minister would cry out how much God loved them and how much they needed to set themselves right with God. They were faces without any argument in them, just tired faces that were glad to hear somebody loved them.” – Marilyn Monroe, My Story, photo by Milton Greene, 1955

 

Tim Gidal (b. Ignaz Nachum Gidalewitsch; 1909–1996)
Jewish Boys, Poland 1932

 

Alfred Broge (Denmark, 1870 – 1955)
Interior with Woman
1912
oil on canvas
H. 52 W. 60 cm.

 

Break-up glasses with attached tear-drop, 1955.

 

As Lielle prepares the dough to bake into challah, she wishes all our friends and relatives the best Shabbat ever.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. To Lee: Depends on the gender as to whether they are interesting!

    Joan was smart! Do they even shoot movie stills anymore?

    I would say it is doubtful that those poor Polish boys survived.

  2. That Cadillac is beautiful. I’d love to hop behind the wheel and drive up to a summer cottage in Maine, passing a few Burma-Shave signs along the way.

    I never heard of “break-up glasses.” Was it a thing? It would certainly send some signals if your blind date showed up wearing them. . .

  3. Lee Remick, a good actress and great beauty, is as so many quotable film people, flat out wrong. Everything communicates sensuality; that is why relatively homely women can be enormously attractive

    • To be fair, Barry, she said “interesting”, not sensuous. A face does convey feelings much more effectively than beasts or bottoms do. 🙂

  4. A neurosurgeon friend of mine was born to Jewish parents on September 1, 1939 in Poland. What would you give for his chances? His parents got him to France during the war and his brother was born there. Eventually, they made it to the US and I met them in the 1970s. After he completed his Neurosurgery training, he served as Chief of Neurosurgery for the US Air Force in the early 70s. He decided he wanted to visit the place of his birth and, having obtained a US passport without his military status, he did travel to Poland and visit. The risks were enormous if he had been found out but he did it. He and his brother, also a neurosurgeon, practiced in Orange County. I assume he is now retired and haven’t seen him in a few years. Right after arriving in Orange County, he had his family lived with us for a few months. That is where I met his parents.

  5. Lee Remick is right, of course, but after all of these years, I still enjoy the “boring” breasts and bottoms too.

    I am still amazed by the design differences between this 1930 Cadillac and the sleek, Art Deco-inspired designs of the 1930’s — compare it to the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic just a few years later.

    Another nice portrait, Rick.

    Hilma af Klindt’s works are always interesting. Sometimes I’m not sure of the topic, but they are usually detailed and colorful. I read that in 1970 her nephew tried to donate a collection of her works to a museum and they declined the offer. 50 years later and now they have a room permanently dedicated to her art.

    I like that Ophion watch, but not so sure about the Break Up glasses.

    My last comment is about the Tim Gidal photo in Poland. In one regard it is just a simple B/W photo of some nondescript people in every day life. But taken in context, one can’t help but wonder if these boys survived the nightmare that awaited them. This photo was taken just a year after Tim’s older brother George, a photojournalist in his own right, died in a car crash.

    Have a wonderful weekend and a peaceful Shabbot.

    • Prophet Joe:

      You write: “My last comment is about the Tim Gidal photo in Poland. In one regard it is just a simple B/W photo of some nondescript people in every day life. But taken in context, one can’t help but wonder if these boys survived the nightmare that awaited them…”

      Exactly my thinking.

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