Hollywoodland

October 31 2024

SQUASHED TOGETHER

Hello there, pumpkin. It's Halloween again.

Pumpkins are squashes, in case you ever wondered. And if you’ve ever wondered, we think Halloween is the most giving of U.S. holidays, because unlike Christmas your gifts go to strangers. We’ve cobbled together a collection of seasonal shots featuring Hollywood stars posing with jack-o’-lanterns, that yearly tradition we discussed a bit last year in another Halloween post. These pumpkins range from real, to plaster, to papier mâché, to paint, to shadows. There’s even a jack-o’-lantern house.

The stars are posted in the order of the keywords at bottom. Of special note are the last three: Peggy Ryan sitting on the identical pumpkin used by Ellen Drew for her Halloween shots (same prop department, we guess), Ava Gardner being her usual notable self, and finally, Gloria Saunders posed as if she’s about to let a scarecrow go doggy on her. Don’t judge us—you’ll think the same thing. Of all our previous posts along these lines, our favorite is at this link. Happy Halloween. Don’t eat too much candy.

Femmes Fatales

December 14 2022

A FINAL BOW

Well, you're right. I'm mainly angry at myself. But I'm going to take it out on you.

Pre-Code star Clara Bow looks mighty miffed in this promo shot made for her 1928 Paramount drama Ladies of the Mob, in which she plays the daughter of a lifelong criminal who falls in love with a crook and tries to reform him. Interesting trivia: because bullet squibs wouldn’t be invented until around 1943, for shooting scenes studios often employed marksmen to fire real bullets near actors. Both Bow and her co-star Richard Arlen were injured by ricocheting fragments. Which brings us back to the photo. We like to imagine Bow facing Paramount head honcho Jesse Lasky and saying, “Don’t worry, Jesse—I’m just going to shoot near you.”

Paramount Pictures, Ladies of the Mob, Hays Code, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Jesse L. Lasky

Hollywoodland

December 25 2018

MIDNIGHT IN BABYLON

Kenneth Anger explores Hollywood's darkest recesses in his landmark tell-all.

Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon is the grandaddy of all Tinseltown exposés. It was published in 1965, banned ten days later, and shelved until 1975. It’s exactly as advertised, outing everybody that was anybody for everything. Entire chunks are devoted to Charlie Chaplain, Lana Turner, Errol Flynn, Fatty Arbuckle and other cinematic luminaries. Some of its claims have been proved false—for instance the assertion that Lupe Velez died with her head in a toilet, and that Clara Bow screwed the USC football team (we doubt anyone really believed that one, even back then). But other tales are basically true, including accounts of various legal run-ins and feuds.

Anger’s writing is uneven, but at its most effective mirrors the type of pure tabloid style that influenced the likes of James Ellroy and others. Besides the salacious gossip the book has a ton of rare celeb photos, and those are of real worth. We’ve uploaded a bunch below. They came from a digital edition because our little paperback was too fragile to get on a scanner. By the way, don’t feel as if we’re working overtime on our website this Christmas morning—we uploaded everything in advance and are actually nowhere near a computer today. We’re glad you took a minute to drop by. Copious vintage Hollywood below.

Femmes Fatales

August 26 2010

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Your kiss is on my list of the best things in life.

Promo photo of American film actress Alice White, née Alva White, who appeared in around forty films, including the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, seen here circa 1928 in the mode of Clara Bow, to whom she was often compared.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Alice White, Clara Bow

Vintage Pulp

May 14 2010

WILD IS THE WIND

Hanging with Mr. Cooper.

We were just writing about Gary Cooper in our history text and… You do read the history text, right? Please tell us you read that stuff, because we really do work hard on it. Anyway, Cooper died fifty years ago yesterday, so we thought we’d share one of the posters we had sitting around. Above you see the Japanese one sheet for his 1953 western Blowing Wild, with Barbara Stanwyck and Anthony Quinn. We’ll get into Mr. Cooper a bit more down the line. We have to—we can’t possibly ignore a guy who Clara Bow said was “hung like a horse and can go all night.” And we also have to get into the story about how Lupe Velez stabbed him for drawing a face on one of her nipples. When you do something like that to a woman known as the Mexican Spitfire, you have to expect incendiary results, but we’ll explore that and other Cooper episodes soon.

Japan, Blowing Wild, Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez, Clara Bow, Anthony Quinn, Barbara Stanwyck, poster art, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

June 19

1953—The Rosenbergs Are Executed

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage related to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet spies, are executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York.

June 18

1928—Earhart Crosses Atlantic Ocean

American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, riding as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stutz and maintained by Lou Gordon. Earhart would four years later go on to complete a trans-Atlantic flight as a pilot, leaving from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland, accomplishing the feat solo without a co-pilot or mechanic.

June 17

1939—Eugen Weidmann Is Guillotined

In France, Eugen Weidmann is guillotined in the city of Versailles outside Saint-Pierre Prison for the crime of murder. He is the last person to be publicly beheaded in France, however executions by guillotine continue away from the public until September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to receive the grisly punishment.

June 17

1972—Watergate Burglars Caught

In Washington, D.C., five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. The botched burglary was an attempt by members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition. The resulting scandal ultimately leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and also results in the indictment and conviction of several administration officials.

June 16

1961—Rudolph Nureyev Defects from Soviet Union

Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The western press reported that it was his love for Chilean heiress Clara Saint that triggered the event, but in reality Nuryev had been touring Europe with the Kirov Ballet and defected in order to avoid punishment for his continual refusal to abide by rules imposed upon the tour by Moscow.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

TO DIE FOR