Tag Archives: Joan Crawford

By Robert J. Avrech | October 24, 2014

Hollywood in Stitches, Part I

Tweet “Hurry up and wait!” Anyone who has worked on a major Hollywood production is familiar with this ironic cry. There is a tremendous amount of down time on a Hollywood film. It takes hours to set up lights, rig camera and sound, and make sure the sets and props are in place. Thus, actors […]

Posted in Glamour, Hollywood, Hollywood in Stitches, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography | Also tagged Bette Davis, Busby Berkeley, Hollywood Stars Knitting, Ingrid Bergman, Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford, Notorious, Now Voyager, Sally Sage, Sylvia Sidney | 17 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 11, 2014

Silent Star Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part II

Tweet Part I here. Esther Ralston was blessed with a lovely, melodic voice, thus it’s something of a puzzle why Paramount dropped Esther’s option in 1929. Esther was a rising star who, between 1924 and 1929, starred or co-starred in twenty-five films. She was a natural for talkies. But the mystery is soon cleared up […]

Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Esther Ralston, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars | Also tagged Adolf Zukor, Anthony Slide, Dorothy Arzner, Gary Cooper, LB Mayer, Sadie McKee | 19 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | October 25, 2013

Hollywood Hair: Leda Styled By Leonardo da Vinci

Tweet Years ago, on Shabbos evenings, when our children were little, I would frequently grab an art book, sit in my chair, and one of the kids would climb into my lap. We’d turn the pages, look at the pictures, and make up stories about the figures in the paintings. Ariel, Z’TL, was intrigued by […]

Posted in Art, Ava Gardner, Hollywood, Jean Harlow, Leonardo da Vinci | Also tagged Botticelli, Claudette Colbert, Grace Kelly, Greek Mythology, Hairdresser, Helen of Troy, Jan Steen, Jean Harlow, Leda, Leda and the Swan, Louise Brooks, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, Norma Shearer, Peter de Hooch, Polydeuces, Raphael, Rembrandt, Sydney Guilaroff, Titian, Vermeer, Vivien Leigh, Zeus | 6 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | September 2, 2013

Hollywood on Hollywood

Tweet Labor Day affords us the opportunity to reflect on work, our jobs, present and past. Good jobs, bad jobs, we’ve all had our share of both. Work should set you free. Honest labor puts money in your pocket which allows you to spend that money as you see fit. Ideally, work infuses the individual […]

Posted in Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Labor Day, Obama Watch, Quotes, Torah | Also tagged Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Quinn, Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Hollywood Gossip, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, John Travolta, Judy garland, Kirk Douglas, Lawrence Olivier, Louise Brooks, Mae Clarke, Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift, Robert Mitchum, Rod Steiger, Shirley MacLaine, Steve McQ, W.C. Fields, Walter Matthau, William Holden | 18 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 10, 2013

Hollywood: Cheek to Cheek

Tweet During Hollywood’s Golden Age, studio photographers—usually anonymous—shot millions of photos of stars, starlets, and contract players. The photos were sent out to movie magazines, theaters, distributors, and movie fans who wrote to their favorite stars requesting autographed photos. Several genres of photos became the bread and butter of the overworked and immensely gifted photographers. […]

Posted in Hollywood, Hollywood Cheek to Cheek | Also tagged Ben Lyon, Clark Gable, Desire, East of Eden, Eugene Robert Richee, Gary Cooper, James Dean, Jean Harlow, Julie Harris, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Brian, Myrna Loy, William Powell | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 4, 2013

July 4th Classic Hollywood Style

Tweet A long time ago, in a universe far, far away, in a place called Hollywood, the engines of entertainment genius that were the movie studios, and the actors who were under contract to them, celebrated their love of America, and enthusiastically indulged in overt displays of patriotism. L.B. Mayer (b. Lazar Meir) of MGM, […]

Posted in Hollywood, July 4th | Also tagged Ava Gardner, Declaration Day, Independence Day, Jewish Hollywood, kaddish, L.B. Mayer, Leila Hyams, Madge Evans, Marilyn Monroe, Pale of Settlement, Patriotism, Phil Berg, Rabbi Shmuel Avrech, Sidney Kingsley, Timothy Oulton American Bed, yahrtzeit | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 4, 2012

July 4 In Hollywood

Tweet The photos seem to be from another planet, or at least a parrallel universe. It was not so long ago that Hollywood was institutionally patriotic. Studio photos always included an Independence Day shot, frequently an innocent piece of cheesecake. Because what’s more American than igniting fireworks while wearing a bathing suit. L.B. Mayer of […]

Posted in Ava Gardner, Hollywood, Joan Crawford, July 4th, L.B. Mayer, Rita Hayworth | Also tagged Ava Gardner, Betty Boop, Liberty Bell, Madge Evans, Marian Marsh, Marilyn Monroe, Marion Shilling, MGM, Rita Hayworth | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 8, 2012

Friday Fashion: The Female Animal

Tweet For as long as fashion has existed, animal metaphors have been an indispensible part of the designers language. Hollywood, during its golden age, a leading arbiter of taste, heightened and refined the animal metaphor with brilliant costume designers turning ravishing movie stars into expressions of animal desire.

Posted in Friday Fashion, Friday Footwear, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Myrna Loy, Silent Movies, Travis Banton | Also tagged Adrian, Carole Lombard, Cleopatra, Evelyn Brent, Greta Garbo, Joan Blondell, Josef von Sternberg, Letty Lynton, Marlene Dietrich, Robert Kalloch, Shanghai Express, The Torrent, Theda Bara, Twentieth Century, Underworld | 14 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | May 17, 2012

Movie Posters: Hollywood’s Golden Age

Tweet Have you looked at a movie poster recently and said to yourself: I really have to see that film. Doubtful. In the digital era movie posters are barely there, a minor and frequently mediocre—tedious star shots dominate—element in the white-noise media that is dominated by an ever-shifting social media. There was a time, however, […]

Posted in Hollywood, Movie Posters | Also tagged Ann Blyth, Elissa Landry, Gun Crazy, He Who Gets Slapped, John Dall, John Ford, John Gilbert, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier, Lillian Gish, Lon Chaney, Lorna Doone, Madge Bellamy, Mildren Pierce, Norma Shearer, Peggy Cummins, Ronald Colman, Stagecoach, The White Sister, The Yellow Ticket, Zachary Scott | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | February 3, 2012

Friday Fotos: Hollywood Stars and Their Cars

Tweet America has long had a love affair with the automobile. Cars are the ultimate expression of form, function, fashion—and speed. But most of all the car represents freedom. Try and remember when you were a teenager yearning for your driver’s license so you could hop into daddy’s car and go, go, go. It didn’t […]

Posted in Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Stars and Cars | Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, Cadillac, Clark Gable, Deusenberg, Friday Fotos, Hollywood on Wheels, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Packard, Pierce Arrow, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Stepin Fetchit, Tyrone Power | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 11, 2011

Not the Girl Next Door

Tweet A great deal has been written about the Hollywood glamour machine that flourished between the mid 1920’s and the late 30’s. But perhaps the most articulate—if somewhat caustic—meditation on Hollywood and glamour was made by Joan Crawford, a woman who worked harder at the business of stardom than most any other star of Hollywood’s […]

Posted in Hollywood, The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood | Also tagged Hollywood Glamour | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | June 26, 2011

Haunted Hollywood

Tweet In Seraphic Secret’s move to WordPress last week, this post was, for a while, lost in cyberspace. Due to the kindness and tech know-how of our faithful reader Alter Ben-Zion, we have been able to snatch this blog out of its spectral prison. Alter also sent all the comments and they are included. In […]

Posted in Joan Crawford | Also tagged Esther Williams, Hollywood, MGM, Movies | 21 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | November 24, 2010

The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s: ’30-’33

Tweet Clark Gable, the greatest male star of the 1930’s. Gable was glamorous yet rugged, a man’s man. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. We continue our decade-by-decade survey of The Twenty Greatest Movies. Last week we examined the 1920’s, the era of silent movies where a particular American vitality found expression […]

Posted in Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1930s, Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s | Also tagged Adrian, Bed of Roses, Ben Hecht, Bombshell, Charlie Chaplin, City Lights, Clara Bow, Clark Gable, Constance Bennett, Duck Soup, Ernst Lubitch, Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, Herbert Marshall, Jackie Cooper, Jean Harlow, Joel McCrea, John Barrymore, John Lee Mahin, Josef von Sternberg, Jules Furthman, Kay Francis, Marlene Dietrich, Marx Brothers, Mary Astor, Miriam Hopkins, Myrna Loy, Paul Bern, Pert Kelton, Possessed, Red Dust, Samson Raphelson, Shanghai Express, The Champ, Topaze, Troble in Paradise, Victor Fleming, Wallace Beery | 17 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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