
A long time ago, in a universe far, far away, in a place called Hollywood, the movie studios and the actors who flourished in the dream factories, celebrated their love of America and enthusiastically indulged in overt displays of patriotism.
L.B. Mayer (b. Lazar Meir) the powerful head of MGM, was a pioneer of the motion-picture industry, and the man who invented the star system. Mayer adopted July 4th as his birthday. Scores of Hollywood historians get all snarky about Mayer’s birthday, claiming that he conveniently changed his birthday in order to cash in on a public identification with America.
What these historians fail to recognize is that Mayer probably did not know the date of his birth.
Mayer was born in Minsk, in the Pale of Settlement, where the exact birth dates of most Jews were rarely recorded. My paternal grandfather, Rabbi Shmuel Avrech, also came from the Pale. When asked his birthdate he would shrug and tell us in Yiddish—he barely spoke English—that it was sometime around Chanukah.
Anyhoo… back to Hollywood and patriotism.
During Hollywood’s golden age, studio photographers shot thousands of publicity stills featuring contract players celebrating America with creative displays of patriotism, and, of course some good old fashioned cheesecake.


















Happy 4th of July, everybody. For some reason, i keep losing my password to this website. I hope I remeber this one.
I had the same problem. I finally got back in and have tried to stay logged in ever since. Other than that I don’t know what to tell you. A good fourth to you too.
I have a very good memory for passwords, but this website keeps on losing/not recognizing mine. I think I may stop posting. It’s been nice knowing you all.
Happy 4th of July
If I may give a plug, I use 1Password, which will generate passwords as complex as you like and keep them handy for you–you only have to remember a single password. And, it has mobile apps so you can access your passwords from your desktop, tablet, or phone. They may even have a free trial period (I’m not sure). I’ve used it for the past five or six years, and don’t want to be without it.
Another option is to use a Mac, which is helpful for many reasons. It has “keyring”, a system tool that saves passwords for you for many contexts.
Re Leila Hyams. She has a more than adorable moment with Roland Young in Ruggles of Red Gap singing, and playing, pretty baby. Available on you tube.
I love “Ruggles of Red Gap”!
There is a nice book about the five Hollywood Directors who went to war in WWII. William Wyler was deaf the rest of his life from filming from the bomb bay of a B 25 flying over Normandy.
It’s really sad to see what Hollywood has become. Clint Eastwood seems to be the last one with a feeling of patriotism. Present company excepted always.
BTW, my father’s grandfather emigrated from the Pale. He came in 1900 at the age of 21 (born on July 6 — missed it by that much) and naturalized in 1906. I have a copy of his NY Naturalization record.
Great photos, as usual
I encourage you to stop linking to Wikipedia. It’s way too SJW converged to have support. Instead, link to Infogalactic (https://infogalactic.com/). They do not have the incredible biases. Here is an overview: https://infogalactic.com/info/Infogalactic and here is a link to the Pale: https://infogalactic.com/info/Pale_of_Settlement
Virtually all the studio heads were Jewish immigrants and they we so grateful to be in America. What the heck happened?
Good question — for a half baked sociologist to answer.