William Holden

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

July 7, 2017 by Robert J. Avrech 6 Comments

“It’s the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.”
—Tallulah Bankhead

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

July 29, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses by James Joyce. Photographed in 1955 by Eve Arnold. “She kept ‘Ulysses’ in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it–but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her.” —Eve Arnold. — Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses by James Joyce. Photographed in 1955 by Eve Arnold.
“She kept ‘Ulysses’ in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it–but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her.”
—Eve Arnold.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

February 5, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 10 Comments

“He is as tough as an old nut and as soft as a yellow ribbon…His image had as much impact in the world as many of our presidents have had, but Duke was a great actor, a great humanitarian, but always himself.” —Elizabeth Taylor — “He is as tough as an old nut and as soft as a yellow ribbon…His image had as much impact in the world as many of our presidents have had, but Duke was a great actor, a great humanitarian, but always himself.”
—Elizabeth Taylor

Hollywood on Hollywood

September 2, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 18 Comments

Jimmy Cagney and Mae Clarke having a great time working together, Lady Killer, 1933. — Jimmy Cagney and Mae Clarke having a great time working together, *Lady Killer*, 1933.

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 with a sense of self-worth and dignity.

In Judaism, work is viewed as a vital adjunct to the observance and study of Torah:

Im ayn kemach, ayn Torah.

If there is no bread [work], there is no study of Torah.

—Ethics of the Fathers, (Avos 3:21)

Thus, the Torah invests labor with a deep spiritual value.

But let’s be honest, in any work environment there is gossip. And office gossip can be terribly destructive.

Hollywood has always been a hothouse for nasty personal attacks. But in the past, these vendettas were usually reserved for post-career memoirs and late night interviews—Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, David Frost, etc—that today, appear sweetly disagreeable.

But in postmodern America, where traditional values of respect and restraint are not even a dim memory, Hollywood gossip has become an industry unto itself. Unsavory gossip is now mainstream, brought to you in the form of entertainment and reality shows—which are neither entertaining nor real.

America has even elected a president who regularly slings gossip disguised as social-political wisdom. Obama’s remarks about the “stupid” Boston police, about being Trayvon Martin’s father, even his off-the-cuff remark about a Syrian red line—these are instances of politics as gossip; an indication of the deep moral and intellectual corruption of Obama & Co., and of the liberal political class who are unmoored from the basics of a civil society.

Anyhoo.

Here are a few of Seraphic Secret’s favorite, and not-so-secret snipes—touchingly tame by today’s appalling standards—brought to you some of Hollywood’s best-loved stars about other best-loved stars.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Sunset Boulevard, Rashomon, Strangers on a Train

January 31, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 26 Comments

Gloria Swanson is ready for her close-up, Sunset Boulevard, 1950.

Call me lazy.

Or indecisive.

But Seraphic Secret has not updated our Greatest Movies list of each decade for far too long. We’ve covered silent films, the 1930s, and finally the 1940s. It’s time to head into the 50s.

This was an interesting decade. Hollywood’s studio system was a wheezing dinosaur. Television was thought to be killing the movies. And yet, as always, great screenwriters, actors, and directors pushed through the pervasive mediocrity and produced stunning masterpieces.

1. Sunset Boulevard, 1950.

Bill Holden was once asked what it took to be a star.

He answered, “It.”

“What’s it?” queried the puzzled interviewer.

“It is the lead role in Sunset Boulevard,” replied Holden.