 Enough wattage to light all of Hollywood. 
This promo image features U.S. actress Jane Powell, née Suzanne Burce, who started in show business as a child, as an adult appeared in films such as Holiday in Mexico, Rich Young and Pretty, and The Girl Most Likely, and eventually was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Powell played mostly wholesome good girls, which is why this striking shot of her in a skirt way too short for the period is such an interesting rarity. It was made in 1954.
 Best ever reason to brave crosstown traffic. 
Sultry Puerto Rico born actress Rita Moreno, who many remember from her role as Anita in the 1961 Hollywood adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, is one of the few performers to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards—i.e. the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy, and the Tony. She's also won a Golden Globe, been awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a National Medal of the Arts, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and been bestowed the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. There are even more awards, too numerous to list, and on top of all of them, she was also awarded some awesome genes, because not only is she very beautiful in the top photo from around 1960, but she still looks good today at age eighty-five.
 Each day presents an ocean of possibilities. 
Texas-born actress Mary Martin enjoys some time on the water in this Paramount publicity photo. Though she had no idea at this moment, her film, stage and radio career would profit her two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Yes, you can receive two. Hers are for film and radio, and we assume that puts her in rare company. This shot is from 1940.
 Focusing on what matters most. 
This unusual promo image of American actress Nancy Carroll, née Ann Veronica LaHiff, which features only her face in focus, was made by famed photographer Eugene Robert Richee for Paramount Pictures when Carroll was a contract star for the studio. Carroll appeared in movies like 1928’s Manhattan Cocktail, 1929’s The Wolf of Wall Street, 1932’s The Man I Killed, and dozens of others. Though she’s perhaps not widely known today, she was a blazing star, one of the biggest of her era, until Paramount dropped her for allegedly being difficult. After Paramount she was never an A-list actress again, but she worked until the 1960s and today has a plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This shot dates from around 1930.
 As the leaves fall from the trees, the clothes fall from the femmes.       
Above, French vintage of the best kind—scans from Paris Magazine #27, November 1933, with platinum-coiffed cover star Mary Carlisle, who was born in 1912, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is still alive today. You also get photography from Schall, Zielke, Jean Moral, Studio Manassé, and art from Yves Brayer.
 The best Show in town. 
Above is a March 1943 cover of the American cinema/celeb magazine Movie Show featuring Deanna Durbin, an actress who is little known to people who don’t watch old musicals, but who was a well-regarded performer in her day. She even won an Academy Juvenile Award in 1936 for her role in Three Smart Girls. Although that particular category of Oscar has been discontinued, Durbin hasn’t—she’s still around at age eighty-nine. Though her film career only spanned twelve years, her success was great enough to merit a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Movie Show also features Hedy Lamarr, Maria Montez, Ann Miller, all of whom you see below along with a pretty tasty Chesterfield ad. We’ll have more from this publication later.    
 Kicking ass and taking names. 
Today we have another copy of the tabloid Exposed, this one from March 1957 with a nice shot of actress and dancer Rita Moreno on the cover. The text beneath her claims she battles the cops, and inside she’s referred to as a “cop fighting wildcat.” Why? Because in June 1955 Moreno slapped an LAPD officer three times across the mouth and kicked him because he was arresting her boyfriend George Hormel II for marijuana possession. It’s lucky for Rita the taser hadn’t been invented yet. If it had, we suspect she would have learned the electric boogaloo the hard way. In any case, she got away with it and has gone on to sustain her screen and stage career over five more decades, winning multiple awards and earning a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
 
American actress Gloria de Haven, who earned one of Hollywood's ultimate honors—a star on the Walk of Fame.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1964—Warren Commission Issues Report
The Warren Commission, which had been convened to examine the circumstances of John F. Kennedy's assassination, releases its final report, which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy. Today, up to 81% of Americans are troubled by the official account of the assassination. 1934—Queen Mary Launched
The RMS Queen Mary, three-and-a-half years in the making, launches from Clydebank, Scotland. The steamship enters passenger service in May 1936 and sails the North Atlantic Ocean until 1967. Today she is a museum and tourist attraction anchored in Long Beach, U.S.A. 1983—Nuclear Holocaust Averted
Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov, whose job involves detection of enemy missiles, is warned by Soviet computers that the United States has launched a nuclear missile at Russia. Petrov deviates from procedure, and, instead of informing superiors, decides the detection is a glitch. When the computer warns of four more inbound missiles he decides, under much greater pressure this time, that the detections are also false. Soviet doctrine at the time dictates an immediate and full retaliatory strike, so Petrov's decision to leave his superiors out of the loop very possibly prevents humanity's obliteration. Petrov's actions remain a secret until 1988, but ultimately he is honored at the United Nations. 2002—Mystery Space Object Crashes in Russia
In an occurrence known as the Vitim Event, an object crashes to the Earth in Siberia and explodes with a force estimated at 4 to 5 kilotons by Russian scientists. An expedition to the site finds the landscape leveled and the soil contaminated by high levels of radioactivity. It is thought that the object was a comet nucleus with a diameter of 50 to 100 meters.
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