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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“You know what you can do with this.” -Myrna Loy to her movie studio when they sent her a letter reprimanding her for speaking out on behalf of German Jews. Her activism resulted in a loss of revenue for the studio when Hitler banned Loy’s movies in Germany.
“You know what you can do with this.”
—Myrna Loy to MGM when they sent her a letter reprimanding her for speaking out on behalf of German Jews. Her call against Jew-hatred resulted in a loss of revenue for the studio when Hitler banned Loy’s movies in Germany.

 

“Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain? And so crude a villain. Murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that. How should we be, with a civilisation that is so many times older than that of the west?“ —Anna May Wong, 1933
“Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain? And so crude a villain. Murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that. How should we be, with a civilisation that is so many times older than that of the west?“
—Anna May Wong, 1933

 

“I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses, and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.” -George Raft
“I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses, and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.”
—George Raft

 

“In my era, we had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I’d whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel (flaming red, of course) with seven red chow dogs to match my hair. Today they’re sensible and end up with better health-but we had more fun.” —Clara Bow in 1951 interview
“In my era, we had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I’d whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel (flaming red, of course) with seven red chow dogs to match my hair. Today they’re sensible and end up with better health—but we had more fun.”
—Clara Bow in 1951 interview

 

“Men like me because I don’t wear a brassiere. Women like me because I don’t look like a girl who would steal a husband. At least not for long.” -Jean Harlow
“Men like me because I don’t wear a brassiere. Women like me because I don’t look like a girl who would steal a husband. At least not for long.”
—Jean Harlow

 

“I didn’t show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.” —John Ford
“I didn’t show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.”
—John Ford

 

“I had become a new kind of sex symbol - the woman men wanted to go to bed with, but not until you married her. Sexy but pure. One thing I was careful about in those films was to avoid vulgarity, which I truly despise. I liked those scripts about the man-woman game as long as they were done with style and wit and imagination. In my vocabulary, vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.” —Doris Day
“I had become a new kind of sex symbol – the woman men wanted to go to bed with, but not until you married her. Sexy but pure. One thing I was careful about in those films was to avoid vulgarity, which I truly despise. I liked those scripts about the man-woman game as long as they were done with style and wit and imagination. In my vocabulary, vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.”
—Doris Day

 

Lee Remick in Anatomy of a Murder (1959, photo by Gjon Mili for LIFE) On her studio’s attempts to promote her as “America’s Answer to Brigitte Bardot”: “Anyone who’d want to build me up as a sex siren would have to be crazy. Why is it most actresses must be bizarre, vulgar or temperamental to make good copy? Everyone in Hollywood tells me I have to develop an interview personality if I want to keep the press happy. They want me to be something I’m not…I’m an actress and a woman and I hope, a lady. But I found being a lady is a hardship here. It’s not encouraged. What I should be is a glib person, quick on repartee, and full of colorful quotes I gleamed from the ‘Reader’s Digest’ just before the interview!’” 'All I need are one or two good quotes, either controversial or funny, and I’ve got a column,’ I said.“ ”'No,’ said Miss Remick firmly. 'I can’t think of one!’ Then she brightened, ’I have it,’ she said, ‘you can compare me with Greta Garbo. I have big feet too.’ —excerpted from Joe Hyman’s 1959 New York Herald Tribune profile, “Lee Remick Boasts Garbo Feet”
Lee Remick in Anatomy of a Murder (1959, photo by Gjon Mili for LIFE)
On her studio’s attempts to promote her as “America’s Answer to Brigitte Bardot”:
“Anyone who’d want to build me up as a sex siren would have to be crazy. Why is it most actresses must be bizarre, vulgar or temperamental to make good copy? Everyone in Hollywood tells me I have to develop an interview personality if I want to keep the press happy. They want me to be something I’m not…I’m an actress and a woman and I hope, a lady. But I found being a lady is a hardship here. It’s not encouraged. What I should be is a glib person, quick on repartee, and full of colorful quotes I gleamed from the ‘Reader’s Digest’ just before the interview!’”
‘All I need are one or two good quotes, either controversial or funny, and I’ve got a column,’ I said.“
”’No,’ said Miss Remick firmly. ‘I can’t think of one!’ Then she brightened, ’I have it,’ she said, ‘you can compare me with Greta Garbo. I have big feet too.’
—excerpted from Joe Hyman’s 1959 New York Herald Tribune profile, “Lee Remick Boasts Garbo Feet”

 

“Actors and actresses who say they never go to see their own pictures are talking through their hats. You don’t have to be a Freud to know that the most fascinating person in the world - actors or anybody - is yourself.” —Paulette Goddard
“Actors and actresses who say they never go to see their own pictures are talking through their hats. You don’t have to be a Freud to know that the most fascinating person in the world , actors or anybody, is yourself.”
—Paulette Goddard

 

Costume designer Edith Head, when reporters asked for some juicy anecdotes about Grace Kelly: “Grace doesn’t allow anecdotes to happen to her.”
Costume designer Edith Head, when reporters asked for some juicy anecdotes about Grace Kelly:
“Grace doesn’t allow anecdotes to happen to her.”

 

“Every young actress thinks she’s a tragedian - the more tragic roles, the more you cry, the more you suffer, the better an actress you are. But, when I got a little older, a little more mature, I wanted to get out of my image of "the victimized kid.” I began to say, “Wait a minute. There’s a thing called comedy that takes an even rougher intelligence and more technique and knowledge of the craft.” -Sylvia Sidney
“Every young actress thinks she’s a tragedian – the more tragic roles, the more you cry, the more you suffer, the better an actress you are. But, when I got a little older, a little more mature, I wanted to get out of my image of “the victimized kid.” I began to say, “Wait a minute. There’s a thing called comedy that takes an even rougher intelligence and more technique and knowledge of the craft.”
—Sylvia Sidney

 

“She was amoral. If she saw a stagehand with tight pants and a muscular build, she’d invite him into her dressing room.” —anonymous MGM executive “I find men terribly exciting, and any girl who says she doesn’t is an anemic old maid, a streetwalker, or a saint.” —Lana Turner
“She was amoral. If she saw a stagehand with tight pants and a muscular build, she’d invite him into her dressing room.”
—anonymous MGM executive
“I find men terribly exciting, and any girl who says she doesn’t is an anemic old maid, a streetwalker, or a saint.”
—Lana Turner

 

“To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.” —Hedy Lamarr
“To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.”
—Hedy Lamarr

 

“I have a gift for enraging people, but if I ever bore you, it’ll be with a knife.” —Louise Brooks
“I have a gift for enraging people, but if I ever bore you, it’ll be with a knife.”
—Louise Brooks

 

“I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it’s rather an attractive image.” —Richard Burton
“I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it’s rather an attractive image.”
—Richard Burton

 

“When you’re thirty you’re old enough to know better, but still young enough to go ahead and do it.” -Brigitte Bardot
“When you’re thirty you’re old enough to know better, but still young enough to go ahead and do it.”
—Brigitte Bardot

 

“Of the Swedes who made it big in Hollywood, Garbo was the star of the silent movies era; my mother, Ingrid Bergman, was the star of the sound era. That’s how the press classified them. When Mother first came to Hollywood, she immediately and politely sent Garbo some flowers and a note - she thought they could share some Swedish evenings: meatballs, aquavit, candles and relaxed conversation in their native tongue. Garbo sent a telegram accepting the invitation, but not until three months later, just as Mother was about to leave town. Mother told the director George Cukor, who was a friend of Garbo’s, about it and Cukor laughed. ‘Of course. Greta wouldn’t have sent the telegram unless she was certain you were leaving!’ -Isabella Rossellini
“Of the Swedes who made it big in Hollywood, Garbo was the star of the silent movies era; my mother, Ingrid Bergman, was the star of the sound era. That’s how the press classified them.
When Mother first came to Hollywood, she immediately and politely sent Garbo some flowers and a note – she thought they could share some Swedish evenings: meatballs, aquavit, candles and relaxed conversation in their native tongue. Garbo sent a telegram accepting the invitation, but not until three months later, just as Mother was about to leave town. Mother told the director George Cukor, who was a friend of Garbo’s, about it and Cukor laughed. ‘Of course. Greta wouldn’t have sent the telegram unless she was certain you were leaving!’
—Isabella Rossellini

 

“I’ll tell you one of the reasons I’m ready to leave [the movie business]. When I first came to Hollywood five years ago, my makeup call was at eight in the morning. On this movie it has been put back to seven-thirty. Every day I see Joan Crawford, who’s been in makeup since five, and Loretta Young, who’s been there since four in the morning. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to stay in a business where I have to get up earlier and earlier and it takes longer and longer for me to get in front of a camera.”
Grace Kelly confesses: “I’ll tell you one of the reasons I’m ready to leave [the movie business]. When I first came to Hollywood five years ago, my makeup call was at eight in the morning. On this movie it has been put back to seven-thirty. Every day I see Joan Crawford, who’s been in makeup since five, and Loretta Young, who’s been there since four in the morning. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to stay in a business where I have to get up earlier and earlier and it takes longer and longer for me to get in front of a camera.”

 

How Lauren Bacall perfected “The Look” “I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look. It became my trademark.”
How Lauren Bacall perfected “The Look”
“I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look. It became my trademark.”

 

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything. —Marilyn Monroe
“If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.”
—Marilyn Monroe

 

Livia and Lielle wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.
Livia and Lielle wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. The Friday photos are a highlight of the week.

    Charlie Chan was not a villain but he became a racist image and couldn’t be remembered.

    David Niven had a couple of racy anecdotes about Grace Kelly.

    I watched “Les Demoiselles de Montfort” again last night. Danielle Darrieux was gorgeous in that movie and was 50 ! I also love Francoise Dorleac and it was so sad that she was killed right after that movie. She was as beautiful as her sister.

  3. I too,really get a kick out of the picture posts. The George Raft quote ““I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses, and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.” reminded me of an interview with an guy 109 yrs old. when asked his secret of longevity he replied “I didn’t drink, gamble, or chase wild women…………….until I was 12.”
    On a side note I can’t watch gore (slasher movies) either, in person it doesn’t bother me. I often wonder if it’s because of my military past.

  5. “vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.”

    Amen. Too many entertainers go for the graphic, the gore, the explicit scene. I remember the “old movies” where assaults, rape or murder were implied in the plot, or if the film was really “explicit”, they portrayed the act by showing the actors’ shadows committing the vile act.

    Alas, in my teens I discovered that modern movie makers wanted to shock the audience with graphic, horrific scenes. As a teenager, I went to see Dawn of the Living Dead (or was it Night of the Living Dead??) and it was SO graphic, so repulsive to the soul, that I got up and left the theater about half way through the film. I believe that’s the only time I’ve done that. It affected me. To this day, I have no interest in the Zombie craze.

    Sadly, most creative types have lost the concept that one’s imagination is far more powerful, far scarier than the explicit scene. Too bad…

    Robert, another excellent Friday Photos edition. Of course, it’s always fabulous when you lead with Myrna! 😉

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