Sometimes, Academy Awards are given to the right actor in the wrong year. Then there are years when the top Oscar contender loses and never scores Hollywood’s most coveted prize.Read More
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In 1950, Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson launched big-screen comebacks in All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard with scenery-chomping performances that instantly made them front-runners in the Oscar race for Best Actress. If it was a monster movie, this clash of Tinseltown titans would be called Bette-Zilla vs. Swanson-Stein.Read More
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For me, the big downside to loving classic films is that all of the stars that I want to meet are dead. But once upon a time in Hollywood, I met one of the greatest.Read More
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For four glorious years (1930-34), Hollywood bucked its own prudish Production Code to release pics that were provocative then and still pack a wallop today. The best part? Women rule all of them: a naughty parade of complicated dames who smoke constantly, shag shamelessly, swipe gullible men away from “good-girl” wives, drink like it’s their job, and dare society to stop ‘em.Read More
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You’ve probably heard the Mommie Dearest and “No-wire-hangers!” jokes. Or rumors of her Dueling Divas feud with Bette Davis (who quipped, “She’s slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie”). But if you look beyond Joan Crawford: Glamorous Actress With Linebacker-y Shoulder Pads, you’ll find Lucille LeSueur: Damaged Survivor of a Wretched Childhood. Read More
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Most articles about her open with some variation on “Before Marilyn Monroe, there was Jean Harlow.” It’s true. Harlow was Hollywood’s first bombshell, a platinum blonde in skintight satin who steamed the screen in a run of glossy MGM pictures in the 1930s.Read More
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Clark Gable began the 1930s as a wannabe, but ended the decade as a “King.” Initially, he played tough guys, generating screen sparks with Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Jean Harlow. By 1939, he ruled Tinseltown in the role that was cast by popular demand: Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind.Read More
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