Classic Hollywood

Friday Photos: A Star Is Created

June 29, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 10 Comments

automotivator(102) — Brigitte Bardot before she became Brigitte Bardot. This photo was taken when she was a 15 year-old model for Elle magazine.

Stars are not born; they are created through a long and tortuous process of trial and error.

When conjuring our favorite star we remember an iconic image that captures that personae. When we think of Jean Harlow we see her glowing platinum hair, a fetching body draped in silk, and a come hither look that melts the soul.

We want to believe that stars were born fully formed. And when that image is challenged we feel disoriented if not slightly betrayed.

In truth, the best kept secret in Hollywood is how hard everyone works to perfect the images that are projected. I can testify from years of experience on location that we spend 80% of our prep time making sure the leading lady looks exactly as she should.

Clark Gable: A Child… A Bull… No Filth

January 12, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

John Lee Mahin (1902-1984) was one of the greatest screenwriters. His credits include some of Hollywood’s most enduring classics: Scarface (1932), Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), China Seas (1935), Wife Versus Secretary (1936), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) with uncredited contributions to, among others, A Star is Born (1937), Test Pilot (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Mahin was director Victor Fleming’s most trusted screenwriter and in one way or another Mahin contributed to nearly every Fleming film.

Mahin understood star power. He instinctively knew that Harlow’s hyper sexuality was best exploited through humor and naughty wisecracks. Thus Red Dust and Bombshell were Harlow’s very best pictures.

Mahin also understood raw male power. And during Hollywood’s golden age, no male star approached Clark Gable’s dominance. Women wanted Gable and men wanted to be Gable.

Friday Fashion: Mentioning The Unmentionables

September 2, 2011 by Robert J. Avrech 15 Comments

Legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head (1897 – 1981) was known for her even disposition, her practical approach to seemingly impossible problems and her ability to costume every genre of film: westerns, musicals, comedies, and biblical spectacles. In her long career she is credited with over 500 motion pictures, more than any other designer in movie history. She received an astonishing eight Oscars and thirty-three nominations for the award. Edith Head was the only Hollywood costume designer with public name recognition.

In 1967, she published a book, How to Dress for Success.

In this primer for ladies Head offers advice on dressing well with an eye towards getting a good job and, even more important, how to get and keep a husband.

My very favorite quote:

“Frequently at parties and premieres attended by Hollywood stars, visitors are shocked when they see the wives of our handsomest film stars. These men who work constantly with women who are the epitome of glamor, very often marry women who are quite ordinary to look at. The unknowing are inclined to ask “How on earth did she ever get him?” I can tell you because I know. She interested him more than any other woman.”

The book feels like a telegram from a bygone era. Head talks about “hunting for a man.” But rather than sit back and feel all superior Seraphic Secret finds acute wisdom in Head’s advice. For the most part—hostess pajamas?—her smart, no-nonsense approach to fashion is classic and timeless.

Here’s her advice on lingerie:

Friday Fotos: Mirror, Mirror

August 26, 2011 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

The business of creating glamour was hard work.

And the Hollywood still photographers employed by the studios did a great deal of the heavy lifting. Thorugh their craft they helped manufacture stars by producing shimmering, glamorous images that hinted at beings who were human gods.

Who has not seen the stunning George Hurrell photo of Jean Harlow in a white silk gown lying atop a white bearskin rug? Harlow glows with an intensity that burns into our collective consciousness.

One of the most interesting poses used by Hollywood photographers was the mirror shot.

We all gaze into the mirror with a mixture of fear and fascination. We prepare our face to meet another face. But Hollywood stars prepared their faces for projection on a giant silver screen to be adored—or rejected—by millions of unseen voyeurs.

The following shots are carefully posed, but the photos are not completely successful as glamorous portraits because quite frequently the stars themselves seem strangely removed from their own reflections.

The photos make us wonder: Do they see what we see, or do they perceive an entirely different image, something hidden, something secret?

Above, Brigitte Bardot doesn’t even confront her double. Not surprising in that BB was deeply conflicted about her beauty. Thus stardom and inner demons nearly destroyed her. She attempted suicide several times, and finally, emotionally exhausted, retired from the screen in 1973, age 49. Ever since she has devoted herself to animal rights. Her only child Nicolas-Jacques Charrier said of the mother who did not raise him: “My mother loves seals and I love a Norwegian.” Nicolas lives in Norway with his wife.

Gloria Swanson’s Not So Hollywood Wedding Night

August 4, 2011 by Robert J. Avrech 17 Comments

swanson by steichen 1924 — Gloria Swanson photographed by Edward Steichen, 1924.

In a series of wildly popular films Gloria Swanson made with Cecile B. De Mille between 1919 and 1921 the iconography of Hollywood glamour was formally codified.

The visual language of glamour—and it was purely visual, films were still silent—is characterized by stunning women wearing one gorgeous outfit after another, placed within elegant sets that defy practicality in favor of a dream-like universe. In De Mille’s Swanson movies, the decadent bathrooms were prominently featured; the massive sunken tubs, marble walls and floors made audiences gasp with pleasure.

Swanson’s costumes often weighed close to her petite 90lb. frame. But Swanson soldiered on bearing her burden with nary a complaint. For the sake of authenticity, De Mille accessorized his leading lady in wildly expensive jewels that only added to the fearsome weight Swanson had to bear with a regal posture.

For an army brat raised on spartan outposts in Key West and Puerto Rico, Swanson’s rise to superstardom—she was as big as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin—was a classic American dream, but played out in Hollywood, a peculiar universe in the process of inventing itself as the dream capital of the world.

But of course, the glamour machine that Swanson helped invent veiled some frightening scenarios. And Gloria Swanson’s hasty marriage to actor Wallace Beery was a gruesome nightmare. [Read more…] about Gloria Swanson’s Not So Hollywood Wedding Night