Tag Archives: Glamour

By Robert J. Avrech | February 14, 2014

Classic Hollywood Passport Photos

Tweet If you want to torture yourself, take a look at your passport. Chances are you look pretty awful. With flat lighting, a grim full frontal pose, and that look of bafflement, your photo probably looks like a mug shot. Are glamorous Hollywood stars just like us when they submit to the artless lens of […]

By Robert J. Avrech | January 24, 2014

Teresa Wright’s Audacious Normalcy

Tweet Actress Theresa Wright (1918-2005), gained unusual clout in the early stages of her distinguished career when she insisted on a most unusual clause in her 1941 contract with Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn, a talented, but hard-headed Hollywood producer, desperately wanted Wright under contract, and so he swallowed his pride and allowed Wright’s clause to stand. […]

Posted in Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Teresa Wright | Also tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Ava Gardner, Dana Andrews, Hollywood Contracts, Joseph Cotten, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Samuel Goldwyn, Shadow of A Doubt, Teresa Wright, The Best Years of Our Lives | 15 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 27, 2012

Friday Photos: The Not So Glamorous Family

Tweet Hollywood’s Golden Age, from the 20’s to the late thirties, was a dream factory. And glamour was the dream that was sold in every frame of every film. Studios tightly controlled the image of the stars they groomed and promoted, presenting them as glittering jewels, untouched and unsullied by the daily concerns of ordinary […]

Posted in Colleen Moore, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Jean Harlow | Also tagged Alice Cooper, Anna Garbo, Charlotte Hennesy, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Hollywood Glamour, Mary Pickford | 5 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 15, 2012

Friday Fashion: The Female Animal

Tweet In last week’s Friday Fashion post we observed that designers frequently clothe women utilizing fur, feathers and animal patterns. For as long as fashion has existed, animal metaphors have been an indispensible part of the designer’s lexicon. Hollywood, during its golden age, a leading arbiter of taste, heightened and refined the animal analogy with […]

Posted in Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Constance Bennett, Friday Fashion, Gene Tierney, Irene Dunne, Jean Harlow, Joan Bennett, Lupe Velez, Marlene Dietrich, Martha Hyer | Also tagged Adrian, Constance Bennett, Costume Design, Edward Stevenson, Gene Tierney, George Hurrell, Hollywood Glamour, Joan Bennett, Karen Singer Avrech, Martha Hyer, Robert Kalloch, Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | April 6, 2012

Friday Fashion: The Exodus Edition

Tweet On Passover the Jewish people are instructed to envision that they are experiencing the Exodus from Egypt. During the Passover seder (meal) we reenact—through sacred memory animated by ritual—the passage from bondage to slavery. The Torah tells us that the Jews left Egypt with the spoils of their oppressors—compensation for 400 years of cruelty. […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Friday Footwear, Holidays, Passover | Also tagged Barbara Briones, Charlotte Olympia, Exodus, Fendi, Gio Dev, Gucci, Jerusalem, Ma'ayan Ariel, Manolo Blahnik, Passover Fashion, Seder, Shabbat, Stella McCartney, Tory Burch | 3 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | April 5, 2012

Hollywood Sells: Buy Me Be Me

Tweet Ever since there were Hollywood stars there have been star product endorsements. Corporations and their advertising companies were quick to understand that those larger than life figures floating like angels on the silver screen were potent persuaders. Thus, the synergistic relationship between one product, the movie star, and another product, cigarettes, perfume, makeup, whatever, […]

Posted in Hollywood, Movie Star Ads | Also tagged Advertising, Barbara Stanwyck, Bessie Love, Carole Lombard, Dolores Costello, Drew Barrymore, Raquel Welsh, Veronica Lake | 8 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 13, 2012

Friday Fashion: Hollywood on Parade

Tweet Seraphic Secret was glancing through the latest issue of the “National Enquirer” the other day—how else am I going to learn about what’s going on in Hollywood?—and was horrified to discover that this tabloid has a rather unhealthy fixation on celebrity photos that focus on cellulite, disheveled stars in flip-flops taking out the garbage, […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Hollywood | Also tagged Fred Astaire, Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood's Golden Age, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust, Mervyn LeRoy, Myrna Loy, National Enquirer, Random Harvest, Shabbat, Susan Peters | 14 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | December 2, 2011

Friday Footwear: Hollywood Parade

Tweet 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 […]

Posted in Friday Footwear, Hollywood, Movies | Also tagged Brooks Brothers, Gail Patrick, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Bern, Paulette Goddard, Rodeo Drive, Sabbath, Shabbat | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | November 4, 2011

Friday Fashion: Hollywood Hats

Tweet There was a time when wearing a hat was de rigueur. Fine millinery was considered a sign of good taste, good breeding and good fashion. Hollywood actresses were rarely seen in public without hat, gloves and a designer outfit. Those were the days when Hollywood insisted on projecting style and glamour. Of course, with the […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Hollywood Hats | Also tagged Audrey Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Hedda Hopper, Joan Bennett, Lilyan Tashman, Marlene Dietrich, Miriam Hopkins, Vivien Leigh | 14 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | September 23, 2011

Friday Fashion: Modesty Gaze

Tweet Seraphic Secret likes to follow trends in fashion. Our mission is to bypass the slutwear that parades as cutting edge design and focus instead on beautifully tailored outfits that are both flattering, ladylike, and modest. As always, we do not highlight pant suits; they are a crime of fashion. Speaking of crimes of fashion: […]

Posted in Friday Fashion | Also tagged Barbara Tfank, Burberry Prorsum, Carolina Herrera, Donna Karan, Fashion Crimes, Fendi, Giles, Jason Wu, Michelle Obama, Modest Fashion | 15 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 26, 2011

Friday Fotos: Mirror, Mirror

Tweet 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 […]

Posted in Brigitte Bardot, Hollywood Mirror | Also tagged Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Brigitte Bardot, Classic Hollywood, Helen Twelvetrees, Hurrell, Lillian Gish, Myrna Loy | 4 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 12, 2011

Friday Fashion: Hollywood The Old is New

Tweet Every once in a while Seraphic Secret come across a Hollywood photo that isn’t a burnished glamour shot but a portrait of the star caught in a more casual, more intimate moment. Quite often, the resulting look transcends both time and place in terms of fashion and style. Above, in the early 1950’s, is—who […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Hollywood | Also tagged Brigitte Bardot, Edith Falk, Jean Harlow, Jimmy Stewart, Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich, Retro-Fashion, Rudy Sieber | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 4, 2011

Gloria Swanson’s Not So Hollywood Wedding Night

Tweet 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 […]

Posted in Hollywood | Also tagged Classic Hollywood, Gloria Swanson, Hollywood Wedding Night, Silent Films, Sunset Boulevard, Wallace Beery | 23 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 15, 2011

In Search of Hollywood’s Sole

Tweet Hollywood glamour is most often, and correctly, associated with picture perfect faces, figures, magical charisma, and the stunning costumes worn by stars of the silver screen during Hollywood’s Golden Age. But then, as now, footwear was a vital component of the machinery of glamour.

Posted in Friday Footwear, Hollywood | Also tagged Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Classic Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Pickford, Paulette Goddard, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tony Curtis | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 8, 2011

Bag of Tricks

Tweet In Rear Window, 1954, Grace Kelly’s elegant Mark Cross bag emerges as something of a major character, a twin symbol of desire—Kelly cooly snaps opens the bag, unfurling a fetching neglige—and the domesticity Jimmy Stewart finds so intimidating. Women’s handbags are more than repositories of oh-so-necessary possessions but a reflection of a woman’s priorities […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Handbags | Also tagged Celine, Fendi, Grace Kelly, Hermes, Jill Sander, Jimmy Stewart, Karen, Klein Tool Bag, Mark Cross, Movies, Rear Window, Shabbat, Vuitton | 10 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 28, 2011

Michele Bachmann: Israel & The Glamour Quotient

Tweet Michele Bachmann (Republican, MN) is running for the GOP Presidential nomination. Karen and I have long been supporters of Representative Bachmann, proudly contributing to her campaigns. She is the anti-Obama when it comes to fiscal and social policy and especially in regard to America and Israel. Bachman was raised in a conservative Christian home […]

Posted in Michele Bachmann | Also tagged Hollywood, Israel, Jeremiah Wright, Jew-hatred, Obama, Sarah Palin, Vogue | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 15, 2011

Michele Bachmann: The Next Jew

Tweet Sarah Palin wore a Magen David to celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem. Naturally, liberals accuse her of Jew-hatred. Tweet The Selective Investigative Instincts of the Liberal Media When Sarah Palin burst upon the national scene and the liberal media attempted to destroy her Seraphic Secret observed that Governor Palin was being transformed […]

Posted in Michele Bachmann | Also tagged Abortion, Adoption, Blood Libel, Brigitte Bardot, Islam, Israel, Jeremiah Wright, Jerusalem, Liberal Media, Michele Bachmann Jew, Sarah Palin, Socialism | 32 Responses

How I Married Karen

The new book
by Robert J. Avrech

Available in All Major Book Stores

Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California
I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
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Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City

Eleventh: June 8, 2014
Michael Medved: "Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel — And Conservatives Do." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 97MB)

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: "The War Against Judaism on the University Campus." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: "The Mainstream Media's Betrayal of Israel." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: "What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: "Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: "Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?" Blog Post | Audio (mp3 64MB)

Fifth: June 15, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl: "What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading: Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania." Blog Post | Audio (mp3 70MB)
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