Seraphic Secret

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

Lana Turner

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“When we were at MGM, we worked years before anybody called us stars. Louis B. Mayer brought us along in little parts – even ‘Love Finds Andy Hardy.’ Then, if we showed promise, he would put us opposite the established stars – like Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Spencer Tracy – who could lend us the power of their names.
“Then, when we became established, he would costar the rising young players with us.
“Believe me, when the time came for us to move from the featured players’ building into the building of the star’s dressing rooms, it was a thrilling event in your life. It was like entering a new kingdom in which you were the queen.”
—Lana Turner

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July 4th Flashback: When Hollywood Loved America

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Betty Grable wishes America a happy and meaningful July 4th. G-d Bless America.

A long time ago, in a universe far, far away, in a place called Hollywood, the movie studios and the actors who flourished in those dream factories, celebrated their love of America and enthusiastically indulged in unabashed displays of patriotism.

L.B. Mayer (b. Lazar Meir) the powerful head of MGM, was a pioneer of the motion-picture industry, and the man who invented the star system. Mayer adopted July 4th as his birthday. Scores of Hollywood historians get all snarky about Mayer’s birthday, claiming that he conveniently changed his birthday in order to cash in on a public identification with America.

What these historians fail to recognize is that Mayer probably did not know the date of his birth.

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Since my life has been wayward and impulsive, always a search for something that is not there, and then disillusionment, I believe I need all the excuses I can make.”
—Lana Turner

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Another thing I had to cure myself of was the desire for adulation, and the approbation of my fellow man. It started when I was a small boy and played football at school. If I did well they cheered me. If I fumbled I was booed. It became very important to me to be liked. It’s the same in the theater, the applause and the laughter give you courage and the excitement to go on. I thought it was absolutely necessary in order to be happy. Now I know how it can change, just like that. They can be applauding you one moment, and booing you the next. The thing to know is that you have done a good job, then it doesn’t hurt to be criticized.”
—Cary Grant

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“I loathe acting. I loathe what it does to my life. It cancels it out; you cannot live while you are working. You are a person completely surrounded by unbreachable walls.”
—Margaret Sullavan, via Haywire, one of the finest, if most depressing Hollywood memoirs I have ever read

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