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

Ilse Bing

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

October 18, 2019 by Robert J. Avrech 3 Comments

“Virtue is not photogenic, so I liked playing bad guys. But, whenever I played a bad guy, I tried to find something good in him, and that kept my contact with the audience.”
—Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; Yiddish: ישור דניאלאָװיטש‎; December 9, 1916)

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

March 17, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“I was so tired of the parts I had to play. There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles.”
—Anna May Wong

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions, How to be Beautiful

February 26, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

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.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions, Self-Portraits, Early Selfies

February 19, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

“Never get caught acting.” —Lillian Gish — “Never get caught acting.”
—Lillian Gish

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.

Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City

NOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube

Sixteenth: August 25, 2019
“Torah Dedication in Memory of Ariel Chaim Avrech Z’L”

Blog Post | Audio: TBD

Fifteenth: June 10, 2018
Jackie Danicki: “Confessions of a Convert: A Humbling, Joyful Journey to Judaism.”

Blog Post | Audio: (94 MB)

Fourteenth: June 11, 2017
Daniel Greenfield: “Fighting Anti-Semitism and Defending Israel in the Age of BDS.”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Thirteenth: May 22, 2016Ben Shapiro: “How You Can Save Israel”

Blog Post | Audio: (70 MB)

Twelfth: June 7, 2015
Larry Elder: “The New Black Anti-Semitism”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Eleventh: June 8, 2014
Michael Medved: “Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel — And Conservatives Do.”

Blog Post | Audio: (97MB)

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: “The War Against Judaism on the University Campus.”

Blog Post | Audio: (16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: “The Mainstream Media’s Betrayal of Israel.”

Blog Post | Audio: (15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: “What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me.”

Blog Post | Audio: (18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: “Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion.”

Blog Post | Audio: (80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: “Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?”

Blog Post | Audio: (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: (70MB)