Tag Archives: Louise Brooks

By Robert J. Avrech | December 25, 2014

Flashback: Hollywood Celebrates Christmas

Tweet During Hollywood’s Golden Age, the studios, through newspapers,fan magazines, and trade publications, published photos of their stars celebrating Christmas. In this way, Hollywood — though founded by poor immigrant Jews — informed the public that the motion picture industry was in harmony with Christian America. Seraphic Secret — Karen and I — are Orthodox Jews. […]

Posted in Brigitte Bardot, Christmas, Holidays, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography | Also tagged Buster Keaton, Clara Bow, Cyd Charisse, Harold Lloyd, Hollywood Celebrates Christmas, Jayne Mansfield, Jobyna Ralston, Marceline Day, Mary Pickford, Maureen O'Sullivan, Priscilla Lane, Rita Hayworth, Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple Conservative Republican, The Cameraman | 9 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | February 14, 2014

Classic Hollywood Passport Photos

Tweet If you want to torture yourself, take a look at your passport. Chances are you look pretty awful. With flat lighting, a grim full frontal pose, and that look of bafflement, your photo probably looks like a mug shot. Are glamorous Hollywood stars just like us when they submit to the artless lens of […]

Posted in Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography | Also tagged Anna May Wong, Beauty, Glamour, Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Passport Photos of the Stars | 8 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, Joan Crawford, Leda, Leda and the Swan, 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, Joan Crawford, John Travolta, Judy garland, Kirk Douglas, Lawrence Olivier, 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 | June 13, 2013

How Hollywood Bobbed America’s Hair

Tweet Hollywood is the greatest propaganda machine the world has ever known. Audiences used to sit in a velvety dark theater, drinking in the silver images projected on the screen. Actors were larger than life, and the manner in which they were styled — wardrobe, makeup, and hair — influenced mass audiences the world over. […]

Posted in Gloria Swanson, Hollywood, Hollywood Hair | Also tagged Betty Compton, Colleen Moore, Dorothy Seastrom, Flappers, Hair Styles, Mae Busch, The Bob | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | December 7, 2012

A Bookish Chanukah and Christmas

Tweet I love books. Casa Avrech is stuffed with bookshelves that are, of course, stuffed with books. As much as Seraphic Secret admires and makes use of eBooks via Kindle and the iPad, there is still something about paper, binding, and the fragrance of a freshly opened page that is intoxicating. Books are the perfect […]

Posted in Books, Chanukah, Edith Head | Also tagged Edith Head, In the Shadow of Greatness, Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone | 16 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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