Seraphic Secret

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

Lielle Meital

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Nobody knows anything.”
—William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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In 1950 when 17 year old Elizabeth Taylor showed up in the Paramount lot to shoot A Place in the Sun, people were so astonished by her beauty that there was a subdued silence wherever she went. But then she entered the Writer’s Building and writer-director Billy Wilder glanced at her and cracked: “How the hell did she ever get into motion pictures?”

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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The head of publicity of the Hollywood studio where I was first under contract told me, “You’re a piece of meat, that’s all”. It wasn’t very nice but I had to take it. When I made my first screen test, the director explained to everyone, “Don’t listen to her, just look”. —Kim Novak
“The head of publicity of the Hollywood studio where I was first under contract told me, ‘You’re a piece of meat, that’s all’. It wasn’t very nice but I had to take it. When I made my first screen test, the director explained to everyone, “’Don’t listen to her, just look.’”
—Kim Novak

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Sukkot, The Past is Never Past

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A Yemenite Jew named Yehia holding a lulav and etrog—the four species— in a succah, Jerusalem, 1939.
A Yemenite Jew named Yehia holding a lulav and etrog—the four species—in a Sukkah, Jerusalem, 1939.

As Jews all over the world make last minute preparations for the holiday of Sukkot, here are a few wonderful pictures of Jews celebrating this joyous holiday in Israel (and Samarkand), a reminder that Torah Judaism is eternal. All photos are from The Library of Congress.

You will dwell in booths for seven days; all natives of Israel shall dwell in booths.

—Leviticus 23:42

On the first day, you will take for yourselves a fruit of a beautiful tree, palm branches, twigs of a braided tree and brook willows, and you will rejoice before the L-RD your G-d for seven days.

—Leviticus 23:40

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“For all actors know that truly natural acting is rejected by the audience. Although people are better equipped to judge acting than any other art, the hypocrisy of ‘sincerity’ prevents them from admitting that they too are always acting some part of their own invention. To be a successful actor, then, it is necessary to add some eccentricities and mystery to naturalness so that the audience can admire and puzzle over something different from itself.” -Louise Brooks, Lulu in Hollywood (photo via Kobal Collection, c. 1929)American actress Louise Bro. Photo by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928.
“For all actors know that truly natural acting is rejected by the audience. Although people are better equipped to judge acting than any other art, the hypocrisy of ‘sincerity’ prevents them from admitting that they too are always acting some part of their own invention. To be a successful actor, then, it is necessary to add some eccentricities and mystery to naturalness so that the audience can admire and puzzle over something different from itself.”
—Louise Brooks, Lulu in Hollywood, Photo by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928.

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