Tag Archives: Myrna Loy

By Robert J. Avrech | January 17, 2014

Barbara Stanwyck’s Secrets

Tweet The new Barbara Stanwyck biography, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel True, 1907 – 1940 by Victoria Wilson, is, with appendix, footnotes, index and acknowledgements, over 1,000 pages long. And it is just volume one. This first, full scale bio of Barbara Stanwyck is an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) study of Hollywood’s greatest actress. […]

Posted in Barbara Stanwyck, Book Reviews, Books, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars | Also tagged Abortion in Hollywood, Bette Davis Joan Crawford, Clifford Odets, Elsa Lanchester, Frank Fay, George Barnes, Gloria Swanson, Grace Kelly, Joan Blondell, Judy garland, Lana Turner, Louise Rainer, Nancy Bernard, Rita Hayworth, Victoria Wilson | 10 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 11, 2013

Hollywood: Cheek to Cheek

Tweet Commenting on yesterday’s Cheek to Cheek post, a faithful Seraphic Secret reader privately wrote that the lovely pictures saddened her. “Romance is gone,” she mused. “There are no contemporary Hollywood stars who can be photographed with such loving conviction.” Very true. Ever since movie stars first sat down with Johnny Carson and revealed themselves […]

Posted in Hollywood Cheek to Cheek | Also tagged Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Marion Davies | 13 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, Joan Crawford, Julie Harris, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Brian, William Powell | 13 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | December 31, 2012

Old Hollywood, New Year

Tweet Seraphic Secret works hard to favor the glass half-full view of life. When bad stuff happens, which it does all the time, we try not to plunge into a clinical depression. But let’s face it, 2012 was a difficult year for Conservatives — and for America. Obamacare has become the law of the land, […]

Posted in Hollywood, New Years | Also tagged Barbara Kent, Bette Davis, Debbie Reynolds, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Sari Maritza, Shirley Temple | 17 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | September 13, 2012

Ten Greatest War Movies of All Time

Tweet Last week, Seraphic Secret picked the Ten Greatest Movies of all time. Our ruthlessly reductive list eliminated dozens of great movies that we love. Ultimately, we decided on movies that we return to over and over again because there is always something new to see and because they never fail to entertain and astonish. […]

Posted in Great Movies, Ten Greatest War Movies, War Movies | Also tagged Akira Kurosawa, Come and See, David Lean, Duck, Duck You Sucker, Ennio Morricone, George C. Scott, Gettysburg, James Coburn, Jeff Daniels, Lawrence of Arabia, Malik Zulu Shabazz, Michael Caine, Patton, Rod Steiger, Sergio Leone, Seven Samurai, The Lighthorsemen, Winter War | 27 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 13, 2012

Friday Fashion: Hollywood on Parade

Tweet Seraphic Secret was glancing through the latest issue of the “National Enquirer” the other day—how else am I going to learn about what’s going on in Hollywood?—and was horrified to discover that this tabloid has a rather unhealthy fixation on celebrity photos that focus on cellulite, disheveled stars in flip-flops taking out the garbage, […]

Posted in Friday Fashion, Hollywood | Also tagged Fred Astaire, Glamour, Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood's Golden Age, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust, Mervyn LeRoy, National Enquirer, Random Harvest, Shabbat, Susan Peters | 14 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | December 30, 2011

Top 10 of 2011

Tweet If you’re as deeply involved in politics as is Seraphic Secret, if you’re a lover of Zion, as is Seraphic Secret, if you’re terrified of another four years of Obama, as is Seraphic Secret, well, you tend to walk around with a black cloud hovering over your head. But compiling a Ten Best List, […]

Posted in 2011 Top Ten | Also tagged Downton Abbey, Emily W. Leider, Flipboard, IDF Red Para Boots, Karl Marlantes, Killing Bin Laden, Lielle Meital, Ma'ayan Ariel, Matterhorn, Monalisa, Navy Seals, Niall Ferguson, Shabbat, The Artist, The Only Good Girl in Hollywood, The West and the Rest | 9 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | August 26, 2011

Friday Fotos: Mirror, Mirror

Tweet The business of creating glamour was hard work. And the Hollywood still photographers employed by the studios did a great deal of the heavy lifting. Thorugh their craft they helped manufacture stars by producing shimmering, glamorous images that hinted at beings who were human gods. Who has not seen the stunning George Hurrell photo […]

Posted in Brigitte Bardot, Hollywood Mirror | Also tagged Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Brigitte Bardot, Classic Hollywood, Glamour, Helen Twelvetrees, Hurrell, Lillian Gish | 4 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | July 21, 2011

American Showgirl Murdered in Gethsemane

Tweet It reads like the plot of a movie. A young, beautiful, restless American showgirl travels to the exotic east where she finds intrigue, romance—and a violent death. As reported on November 3, 1933 in the Los Angeles Times: (AP) Jerusalem, November 3 —Joan Winters, described as an American professional dancer, and an Indian Moslem […]

Posted in Israel, Joan Winters | Also tagged Arab Riots, Gethsemane, Joan Winters, Murder | 17 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, Joan Crawford, Joel McCrea, John Barrymore, John Lee Mahin, Josef von Sternberg, Jules Furthman, Kay Francis, Marlene Dietrich, Marx Brothers, Mary Astor, Miriam Hopkins, 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

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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