Seraphic Secret

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

Charlie Chaplin

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940) “Had I known of the actual horrors of Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator. I wanted to ridicule their mystic bilge about a pure-blooded race. The English office at United Artists were against my making an anti-Hitler film - until the war had started.” -Chaplin, quoted in My Life in Pictures (1974)
Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)
“Had I known of the actual horrors of Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator. I wanted to ridicule their mystic bilge about a pure-blooded race. The English office at United Artists were against my making an anti-Hitler film — until the war had started.”
—Chaplin, quoted in My Life in Pictures (1974)

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses by James Joyce. Photographed in 1955 by Eve Arnold. “She kept ‘Ulysses’ in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it–but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her.” —Eve Arnold.
Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses by James Joyce. Photographed in 1955 by Eve Arnold.
“She kept ‘Ulysses’ in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it–but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her.”
—Eve Arnold.

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Hidden Hollywood: Broncho Billy, Son of a Jewish Gun

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Max Aaronson, better known as Broncho Billy
Max Aaronson, better known as Broncho Billy

In 1965, a frail old man in a wheelchair appeared in the no-budget western, The Bounty Killer. For those of us who love movies, especially westerns, this is a bittersweet moment. Because the man who invented the western movie hero makes his last appearance on the silver screen.

That man was Broncho Billy Anderson.

But Broncho Billy, the first cowboy hero of the motion pictures was a Jewish kid from Little Rock, Arkansas named Max Aaronson, (1880 – 1971).

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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The great Olivia De Havilland just celebrated her a 100th birthday (1 July 1916). “I would prefer to live forever in perfect health, but if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise lounge, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword.”
Olivia de Havilland just celebrated her a 100th birthday (b. 1 July 1916).
“I would prefer to live forever in perfect health, but if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise lounge, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword.”

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions, How to be Beautiful

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Greta Garbo’s dramatic eye make-up was the inspiration for many a Hollywood starlet – including Marilyn Monroe – and not without good reason. To create the look, she would apply a super-thin layer of petroleum jelly over the eyelids, cover with neutral skin-toned powder all the way up to the brow line and blend a dark shade into the crease for a theatrical, deep-set appearance. She’d also line the upper lid with eyeliner made from a blend of petroleum and charcoal pigment, and finish with mascara.
Greta Garbo’s dramatic eye make-up was an inspiration to many of her female fans. To create the look, she would apply a thin layer of petroleum jelly over her eyelids, cover with neutral skin-toned powder all the way up to the brow line and blend a dark shade into the crease for a deep-set appearance. She’d also line her upper lid with eyeliner made from a blend of petroleum and charcoal pigment, and finish with mascara.

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