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.

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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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Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940) “Had I known of the actual horrors of Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator. I wanted to ridicule their mystic bilge about a pure-blooded race. The English office at United Artists were against my making an anti-Hitler film - until the war had started.” -Chaplin, quoted in My Life in Pictures (1974)
Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)
“Had I known of the actual horrors of Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator. I wanted to ridicule their mystic bilge about a pure-blooded race. The English office at United Artists were against my making an anti-Hitler film — until the war had started.”
—Chaplin, quoted in My Life in Pictures (1974)

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Marlon Brando applying his make-up on the set of On the Waterfront (1954, dir. Elia Kazan) “[In On the Waterfront] there was a scene in a taxicab, where I turn to my brother, who’s come to turn me over to the gangsters, and I lament to him that he never looked after me, he never gave me a chance, that I could have been a contender, I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum…It was very moving. And people often spoke about that, ‘Oh, my God, what a wonderful scene, Marlon, blah blah blah blah blah.’ It wasn’t wonderful at all. The situation was wonderful. Everybody feels like he could have been a contender, he could have been somebody, everybody feels as though he’s partly bum, some part of him. He is not fulfilled and he could have done better, he could have been better. Everybody feels a sense of loss about something. So that was what touched people. It wasn’t the scene itself. There are other scenes where you’ll find actors being expert, but since the audience can’t clearly identify with them, they just pass unnoticed. Wonderful scenes never get mentioned, only those scenes that affect people.” -Brando, quoted in Lawrence Grobel's Conversations with Brando (1993)
Marlon Brando applying his make-up on the set of On the Waterfront (1954).
“[In On the Waterfront] there was a scene in a taxicab, where I turn to my brother, who’s come to turn me over to the gangsters, and I lament to him that he never looked after me, he never gave me a chance, that I could have been a contender, I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum…It was very moving. And people often spoke about that, ‘Oh, my God, what a wonderful scene, Marlon, blah blah blah blah blah.’
It wasn’t wonderful at all. The situation was wonderful. Everybody feels like he could have been a contender, he could have been somebody, everybody feels as though he’s partly bum, some part of him. He is not fulfilled and he could have done better, he could have been better. Everybody feels a sense of loss about something. So that was what touched people. It wasn’t the scene itself. There are other scenes where you’ll find actors being expert, but since the audience can’t clearly identify with them, they just pass unnoticed. Wonderful scenes never get mentioned, only those scenes that affect people.”
-Brando, quoted in Lawrence Grobel’s Conversations with Brando (1993)
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