Glamour

She’s Got Greta Garbo Eyes

July 25, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech Leave a Comment

Generations of Hollywood actresses—including Marilyn Monroe—sought to emulate Greta Garbo’s dramatic eye makeup. To create her distinctive look, Garbo would apply a thin layer of petroleum jelly over her eyelids, cover with a neutral skin toned powder up to the brow line, and then blend a dark shade into the crease for a theatrical, deep-set effect. She’d also line her upper lid with eyeliner made from a blend of petroleum and charcoal pigment. And finally, Garbo finished her styling with mascara.

Friday Photos: Here, There, Everywhere

May 15, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 21 Comments

Ava Gardner on her glamorous image: “That ain’t me. I grew up one step up from a dirt farmer. I ironed, I picked cotton, I had one clean dress, and nobody paid one bit of attention to me.”

Chutzpah: George Stephanapoulos says there is no liberal bias in the media.

Enjoy the images.

Classic Hollywood Passport Photos

February 14, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

Here's Anna May Wong in the 1930s, in a studio publicity still. — Anna May Wong in a studio publicity still from the 1930s.

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 the passport photographer?

You be the judge.

Teresa Wright’s Audacious Normalcy

January 24, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 15 Comments

Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt, '48. — Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten in *Shadow of a Doubt*, ’43.

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.

But he never forgave her effrontery and ended their relationship in 1948.

Wright insisted on being normal. She was a serious actress, and a serious person. Muriel Teresa Wright knew who she was and never allowed herself to undergo a glamorous transformation like so many other young starlets—Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth—which led to stardom, but which, arguably, contributed to unhappy, unfulfilled personal lives.

Friday Photos: The Not So Glamorous Family

July 27, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

automotivator(105) — Jean Harlow as Hollywood wanted her to be seen.

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 life.

When Mickey Rooney informed MGM chief L.B. Mayer that he was going to marry a young starlet named Ava Gardner, Mayer’s anger was incandescent. Rooney was destroying the Andy Hardy brand. Never mind that Rooney was notorious for partying with high-priced call girls, Mayer understood that the carefully cultivated image of a clean living American boy was the reality for millions of movie fans.

Fans imagined their favorite stars as immaculate beings from heaven. And nothing could more quickly dispel this fantasy than the reality of a star with all too human parents.

Here are a few photos the studios did not want the public to see.