 Gloria Grahame's three-step plan for dealing with a problem—aim, fire, assess.   
These photos of U.S. actress Gloria Grahame come from one of our favorite old movies, the film noir The Big Heat, in which she starred with Glenn Ford. How many good films was Grahame in? Plenty, including The Bad and the Beautiful, Crossfire, the amazing In a Lonely Place, Human Desire, The Glass Wall, and Odds Against Tomorrow. Outside the drama/noir genres, she was also in It's a Wonderful Life, which is one of the most watched U.S. films of all time, and Oklahoma!. In The Big Heat she plays the prototypical film noir bad girl who wants to be good but has a hard time getting there. We won't say more. Just check it out. The photo is from 1953.
 It was a wonderful Life. 
An ethereal Gloria Grahame poses for a promo photo during a session that would produce a famous cover for Life. Grahame was a true great of acting who starred in the classics It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bad and the Beautiful, Human Bondage, and Oklahoma!, but who we prefer to remember for her film noir roles—among them: In a Lonely Place, The Big Heat, Crossfire, Sudden Fear, and Naked Alibi. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she took the town by storm and made an indelible mark in film. The above photo and cover below are from 1946.
 He who goes up must one day come down. 
This beautiful poster for Vicente Minelli’s 1952 drama The Bad and the Beautiful was made for the film’s French release as Les ensorceles. A behind-the-scenes look at the rise of a legendary Hollywood producer, the story is told in triptych, with each section focused on someone the producer betrayed during his rise to the top. The three sections are wrapped in a framing device wherein the betrayed have been called together to hear the producer’s pitch for working together again. Of course, all of them are too angry to consider such a collaboration—at least at first. The real attraction here is seeing 1950s Hollywood turn its camera inward for a look at the machinations behind the magic of movies. The cast—Kirk Douglas, Dick Powell, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, and Gloria Grahame—range from excellent to adequate, and the story of ruthlessness being rewarded in Tinseltown has a contemporary feel. The saying goes that it’s best to be nice to everyone you meet on the way up because you run into the same people on the way down. Doubtless that’s true, but even better advice would be to never come down at all.
Turning our attention to the poster, you may notice that the design was inspired by the promo shot just below. Except—hold on a sec. Is that Douglas and Turner? No, it isn’t. It’s Gilbert Roland and super hottie Elaine Stewart. The producers must have liked their dance bit so much they decided to use it as inspiration for the promo art, basically putting Douglas's and Turner's heads atop Roland’s and Stewart’s bodies. That’s like being left on the cutting room floor, but somehow even worse. In Stewart’s case at least, we will be sure to get back to both her head and body. Les ensorceles premiered in France today in 1953.    
 Having a merry go ’round in Hollywood. 
American actress and model Elaine Stewart first caught Hollywood’s attention as See magazine’s Miss See for the month of January 1952. She immediately launched a film career, winning small roles in seven movies that year, and eventually appearing in The Tattered Dress, Night Passage, High Hell, The Bad and the Beautiful and other productions, as well as in several television shows. This shot was made in 1954 when she was filming MGM’s musical classic Brigadoon.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1963—Ruby Shoots Oswald
Nightclub owner and mafia associate Jack Ruby fatally shoots alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters. The shooting is broadcast live on television and silences the only person known for certain to have had some connection to the Kennedy killing. 1971—D.B. Cooper Escapes from Airplane
In the U.S., during a thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper, aka D. B. Cooper, parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines flight with $200,000 in ransom money. Neither he nor the money are ever found. 1936—First Edition of Life Published
Henry Luce launches Life, a weekly magazine with an emphasis on photo-journalism. Life dominates the U.S. market for more than forty years, publishing scores of iconic photographs that remain some of the most recognizable ever shot, and peaking at one point with a circulation of more than 13.5 million copies a week. 1963—Doctor Who Debuts on BBC
The BBC broadcasts the first episode of Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell as a mysterious alien who time travels in his spaceship, the TARDIS. With his companions, he explores time and space while facing a variety of foes and righting wrongs. The show would become the longest-running science fiction series ever broadcast. 1963—John F. Kennedy Is Assassinated
In Dallas, Texas, U.S. President John F. Kennedy is killed and Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded as they ride in a motorcade through Dealy Plaza. Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the schoolbook depository from which the shots were suspected to have been fired, was arrested on charges of the murder of a local police officer and was subsequently charged with the Kennedy killing. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a patsy, but was killed by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be indicted or tried. Today, Americans who believe JFK was killed as the result of a conspiracy are routinely dismissed in the press, yet the vast majority of them believe Oswald did not act alone. |
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