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Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

March 2, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

“Out here in California, I knew as much as the rest of the girls in movies, which was nothing. The difference was I would take any part. I never sought to be a star. I didn’t mind being typed. I wanted to be typed. One of the greatest thrills of my life was hearing a director say he wanted a Lucille Ball-type for a picture. Of course, later it was different when they said they wanted a young Lucille Ball-type.”
—Lucille Ball

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

November 24, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“Mr.Hitchcock taught me everything about cinema. It was thanks to him that I understood that murder scenes should be shot like love scenes and love scenes like murder scenes.”
—Grace Kelly

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 29, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

“Marilyn was a very calculating girl. She was never late on *our* set, I’ll tell you that. She was trying to get me to go to bed with her while she was trying to get Howard [Hawks, the director] to do the same thing! We both knew it and—I can speak only for myself—it turned me off. Completely.”
—Cary Grant via An Affair to Remember by Maureen Donaldson and William Royce
Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant in a scene from *Monkey Business*, 1952.

[Read more…]

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

July 21, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

“I’ve had a beautiful life, I’ve tumbled into the most beautiful life in the world. I’d never change it.”
—Mary Nolan
In 1948, Nolan’s body was discovered in her shabby Los Angeles bungalow, dead from an overdose of Seconal. It was never determined if death was accidental or by design. She was 46 years old.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

March 31, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 10 Comments

“I walked on the “Philadelphia Story” (’40) set just as they were shooting the last love scene between Katie Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. I must say they were both in the mood–especially Jimmy, who had suggestions for improvement until they’d taken five takes. After each he sheepishly exclaimed, “And I’m getting paid for this!” I congratulated him on the improvement of his love technique and asked him to light my cigarette. His hand shook so much he could hardly manage it.”
—Hedda Hopper (1940)

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)