Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Bugatti

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Why, Mr. Goldfish, if my career depends on hiding the fact that I was born a Jew, I’d rather not have one.” — Carmel Myers‘ response to Samuel Goldwyn (real name Goldfish) after he suggested that she change her name because it sounded “too Jewish.” I write about the Rabbi’s beautiful daughter, here.

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“I appeared with many leading men. But working with Cary Grant was different from working with other actors. He was much more fun! I think we were a successful team because we enjoyed working together tremendously, and that pleasure must have shown through onto the screen. I will always remember two compliments he made me. He said I had perfect timing in comedy and that I was the sweetest smelling actress he ever worked with.”
—Irene Dunne

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“There’s a fine line between acting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and dead pan are getting by with it. I’ve seen a couple of them – I won’t mention names – with Oscars in their hands. I’d hate to see them on stage with a dog act.”
– Joan Blondell (1906-1979)

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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…the discussion of security prompted actress Ginger Rogers to tell the group and the President, “Oh, I get scared for him”, and turning to Reagan, she said “because I love you so much, and we who love you get scared for you.” “I think the press is terrible, she said. “They’ve not been very nice to our president.”
—Ginger Rogers
From a 1983 Washington Post article: “Reagan on the Press,” by Daniel Radcliffe.

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Fortunately, before I was due to make a final commitment to the Actor’s Studio, I was invited to sit and watch eight classes there. As I studied Lee Strasberg and his approach to his hapless students, I was appalled. One student was instructed by Strasberg to pretend to be a dog and lick the floor beneath his paws. He complied… I quickly concluded that the Actor’s Studio approach was not for me. I much preferred the Bette Davis school of acting. She was kept waiting one day to do her scene at the Studio while another actor interminably discussed his motivations for taking off his shoe, his mood, his emotions. In the end, an exasperated Bette burst out, “Just drop it on the floor. It’s only a goddamn shoe!”
—Shirley Jones, A Memoir

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