Seraphic Secret

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

Gail Patrick

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Photo by Eve Arnold, 1959.
“Alcoholism is an occupational hazard of being an actor, of being a widow, and of being alone. And I’m all three.”
—Joan Crawford

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Keaton had a great influence on me. A lot of his moves I intuitively copied in doing some numbers. I know I was thinking of him when I did a dance with a squeaky board and a newspaper. I didn’t look like him, but I often wish I did. He was a complete genius, and there was a lot of dance inherent in his movements.”
—Gene Kelly

Once again Friday Photos appears on Wednesday due to the last days of Sukkot which begin tonight and then run into Shabbat. Enjoy!

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Hollywood, what a place it is! It is so far away from the rest of the world, so narrow. No one thinks of anything but motion pictures or talks of anything else.” —Dolores del Rio
“Hollywood, what a place it is! It is so far away from the rest of the world, so narrow. No one thinks of anything but motion pictures or talks of anything else.”
—Dolores Del Rio

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Hollywood Friday Photos — Just Because

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Brigitte Bardot is either thinking deep thoughts or having a migraine.
This might be my favorite photo of Brigitte Bardot.  I’m pretty sure it’s a still from Contempt directed by the tedious and talentless Marxist Jean Luc Godard. Either BB is wondering how she got roped into a dopey art film, or she’s having a migraine.

This week Seraphic Secret has been preoccupied with, um, stuff. Hence, no time to post about the latest ObamaCare outrage, our government of the pen and by the phone, and of course, John Kerry’s startling and touching discovery of his Jewish ancestry.

Anyhoo.

It is Friday. Time to take a vacation from the weight of history.

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Friday Footwear: Hollywood Parade

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Gene Kelly comes face to foot with Cyd Charisse, “Singin' in the Rain,” 1952.

Glamour depends on mystery, the art of concealment. Hollywood stars of the past and their handlers understood that to maintain the image projected on the screen was a full-time job. Hard working stars like Joan Crawford never appeared in public less than impeccably turned out. Even at their most casual, Hollywood stars of the golden age projected an aura of easy elegance.

The other day I was shopping in Brooks Brothers on Rodeo Drive. A Hollywood star was browsing on the same floor. He was wearing ripped jeans, a stained T shirt, and grimy flip-flops. It’s a sad day in Hollywood when a lowly screenwriter—“shmucks with Underwoods,” said John  Ford Jack Warner—presents a more refined image than a million dollar an episode TV star.

Anyhoo, the following pictures stand witness to great stars who, right down to their spectacular footwear, understood and cultivated the art of high glamour.

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