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.

Ori Resheff

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

June 1, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 6 Comments

“The bad girls were so much fun to play… The critics always said I acted best with a gun in my hand.”
—Audrey Totter

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

November 18, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 7 Comments

Anna Lee in How Green was My Valley, 1939. Lee was among the most prominent female members of the John Ford stock company. Ford's pate name for her was Boniface, her middle name (joanna Boniface Winnifrith). Ford's feelings for Lee were cemented when she had a miscarriage while shooting How Green Was My Valley, brought on, it was believed, by collapsing during the scene where she learns her husband has died. She hadn't told Ford that she was pregnant, but he nevertheless, blamed himself. The result was that on every picture Lee worked on with him, Ford would assemble the cast and crew, then ask her if she was pregnant. ”No sir,” she would reply. “I just wanted to make sure.” —Source: Print the Legend, by Scott Eyman — Anna Lee in How Green was My Valley, 1941.
Lee was among the most prominent female members of the John Ford stock company. Ford’s pet name for her was Boniface, her middle name (Joanna Boniface Winnifrith). Ford’s feelings for Lee were cemented when she had a miscarriage while shooting How Green Was My Valley, brought on by collapsing during the scene where she learns her husband has died. She hadn’t told Ford that she was pregnant, but he nevertheless, blamed himself. The result was that on every picture Lee worked on with him, Ford would assemble the cast and crew, then ask her if she was pregnant.
”No sir,” she would reply.
“I just wanted to make sure.”
—Source: Print the Legend, by Scott Eyman

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

November 4, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

Masayuki Mori & Machiko Kyō in Rashomon (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa) Marge: C’mon, Homer, Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon. Homer: That’s not how I remember it. —The Simpsons, Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo — Masayuki Mori & Machiko Kyō in Rashomon, 1950
*Marge:* C’mon, Homer, Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.
*Homer:* That’s not how I remember it.
—The Simpsons, Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo, American broadcast date: May 16, 1999

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 23, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 12 Comments

The Twilight Zone‘s crew looks on as Rod Serling performs his on-camera narration for the episode Static, 1961. “As I grow older, the urge to write gets less and less. I’ve pretty much spewed out everything I have to say, none of which has been particularly monumental. I’ve written articulate stuff, reasonably bright stuff over the years, but nothing that will stand the test of time. The good writing, like wine, has to age well with the years, and my stuff is momentarily adequate.” -Rod Serling, 1972 — The Twilight Zone‘s crew looks on as Rod Serling performs his on-camera narration for the episode “Static”, 1961.
“As I grow older, the urge to write gets less and less. I’ve pretty much spewed out everything I have to say, none of which has been particularly monumental. I’ve written articulate stuff, reasonably bright stuff over the years, but nothing that will stand the test of time. The good writing, like wine, has to age well with the years, and my stuff is momentarily adequate.”
—Rod Serling, 1972

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 9, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters: Hepburn: “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man…I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.” Walters: “Is that why also you wear pants?” Hepburn: “No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.” Walters: “Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?” Hepburn: “I have one.” Walters: “You have one.” Hepburn: “I’ll wear it to your funeral.” — From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters:
Hepburn: “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man…I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.”
Walters: “Is that why also you wear pants?”
Hepburn: “No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.”
Walters: “Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?”
Hepburn: “I have one.”
Walters: “You have one.”
Hepburn: “I’ll wear it to your funeral.”

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

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)