cherokee nation

for garbo

g.g.

the sum of its parts

while filming 'grand hotel', the reclusive garbo only spent off screen moments with co-star john barrymore. that's easy enough to comprehend. he just seemed like such a doll.

in the group shot, garbo's image was pasted in.












perhaps she simply wasn't willing to pose with joan crawford! in the image below she looks positively happy to be surrounded by men.

where was the applause?

a natural

garbo will be remembered as the most alluring female to ever grace the silver screen. her eyes alone brought such glamor to sorrow! her characters gave all of themselves to her lovers, knowing it could not last. if the endings were happy we'd have been deprived of witnessing those epic heartaches that she infused with so much emotion while barely moving a muscle.

off screen she was wonderfully natural. she wore comfortable walking shoes for her 4 mile a day strolls through midtown new york. she wore no perfume or deodorant. i would have so appreciated her!

film lovin'

peter bogdanovich turned 72 today: Serbian: Петар Богдановић, Petar Bogdanović, born July 30, 1939

he made his first picture in 1971. i didn't see his wonderful 'the last picture show' till a few years ago. i loved it. i think he and cassavetes were pals as peter is in the backstage scenes in the great cassavetes film 'opening night.'

check it out! he is making (acting) a new movie with Jerry Lewis, Claire Bloom and Ben Gazzara. yes!

photos: peter (lookin' like cassavetes in this snap)/timothy bottoms and cloris leachman in 'the last picture show'

direction

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later. -Stanley Kubrick

mm

she just knew a thing or two.

by way of illustration

a day in the park

you know how you go tho the store for milk and you come home with strawberries instead? i watched this film because i am a fan of 'downton abbey's' hugh bonneville. move over rover, let hardy take over.

i mean, it happens. some guys are just... forget about it. the entire movie is delightful. the cast is tops.

'Set on one sunny day on glorious Hampstead Heath (London’s ‘Central Park') it follows seven very different couples whose single stories really don’t link or overlap, but who share the recurring theme of trying to establish what makes a relationship work in their pursuit of love.'

this movie is 100 percent indie. they even distributed it themselves. encouraging.

family day in paris

the french singer

i was once standing in the magazine section at tower records in nyc reading an interview with johnny depp. it said he had a new girlfriend who was a french singer. i thought how cool it was that instead of a famous actress, he was now with an unknown chanteuse. how naive!

vanessa paradis has been royalty in france since her first pop hit at the age of 14. the song 'joe le taxi' was about a taxi driver named joe! amazing as it seems, when i toured france, joe was hired as our driver in paris. if not for his awesome reflexes we would have been in a crash. i kid you not.

anyway, i love so many of the recordings vanessa has done. her voice is lovely and aside from covering 'waiting for the man' which didn't really work for her, she has chosen great material. her performance in the gorgeous 1999 film 'girl on the bridge' is super. the gap between her front teeth makes her smile all the more charming.

she just completed a film called 'cafe de flore.' not only is the cafe a beauty, it is located smack in the middle of the latin quarter and has amazing food. it is steeped in 'histoires.' i want to see the movie when it comes out.... in paris.


photos: vanessa apres johnny/avant johnny/patti lee (new pal of johnny) at the flore

funny girl

this woman is ridiculously gifted. even if her films and music are not really my thing i had to post this terrific snap.

say it isn't so

this has got to be a series of stills from a silent movie, right?

the soubrette of satire

gentlemen prefer blondes
red headed woman
the women

those are just three great screenplays written by anita loos. she has a total of 136 screenwriting credits.

Between 1912 and 1915 she turned out 105 scripts, only four of which went unproduced. she would write 200 scenarios before she ever saw the inside of a studio. the 4'11" anita lived to be 93.



photo: anita with pal cecil beaton

team cillian

Christopher Nolan must have a good reason not to cast cillian murphy in his next batman film, 'the dark knight rises.' cillian's been is his last two so all i can think is one of them proved to be a bad loser while playing a game of jacks.

staying power

101 screen credits!! elke sommer is still working in her native germany. elke was a major sixties pin-up and went on to co-star with paul newman. she speaks seven languages and is a serious painter. quite a gal.

confidant

Once when she was depressed, Nils Asther asked her what the trouble was. “I had an awful row with God this morning,” she replied.

when in france

look at these two! actress Romy Schneider & Rudolf Nureyev having dinner together in Nice, 1963

comme des garcons: bardot

comforting insomniacs

by way of goodbye

truman capote went to japan to do a story on brando while marlon was there filming 'sayonara.' here's how the wonderful conversation ended:

Then, as I walked down the corridor, he called, "And listen! Don't pay too much attention to what I say. I don't always feel the same way."

all of the quotes in the next few postings came from that interview.

mouth of babes

"Too much success can ruin you as surely as too much failure."

"You know, it took me a long time before I was aware that that's what I was - a big success. Then, when I was in Streetcar, and it had been running a couple of months, one night - dimly, dimly - I began to hear this roar. It was like I'd been asleep, and I woke up here sitting on a pile of candy."

how bout a little rough house

how he broke his nose:

"In Streetcar, some of the guys backstage and me, we used to go down to the boiler room in the theatre and horse around. One night I was mixing it up with this guy and - crack! So I walked around to the nearest hospital. My nose was really busted. They had to give me an anaesthetic to set it, and put me to bed. Not that I was sorry. Streetcar had been running about a year and I was sick of it."

Recalling the incident, Irene Selznick, producer of the Williams play, said, "Suddenly his face was quite different. Kind of tough. For months I kept telling him, 'But they've ruined your face. You must have your nose reset.' Luckily for him, he didn't listen to me. Because I honestly think that broken nose made his fortune. It gave him sex appeal. He was too beautiful before."

heat wave

Brando had been in Japan for more than a month, yet even the film's director, Joshua Logan, was impelled to say, "Marlon's the most exciting person I've met since Garbo. A genius. But I don't know what he's like. I don't know anything about him."

beauties

hair today

it isn't that orson was not fond of rita's dark hair, he just didn't wanted moviegoers to make the normal associations with her past films. so, when they did 'the lady from shanghai' he had her go platinum.

to be or not to be

lady di did not make movies. marilyn did.

pinch me

that is a dress! not a skirt and sweater but a dress. they just don't make 'em like that anymore. or like audrey.

a shoe-in

if the marvelous french actor gerard depardieu took it into his head to run for president of france, the man would surely win. he is as beloved in his country as woody allen.

photo: gerard in younger days, before he racked up 189 screen credits. yes, 189.

here she comes

even translated, the title 'Houba! Le Marsupilami et l'orchidée de Chicxulub' is pretty much the same. liya kebede has only a small handful of films to her credit but she is already making a movie with the great gerard depardieu. ain't she stunning! originally put on the fashion map by designer/film director tom ford, she is a cover girl, actress, and health care crusader for women in her native ethiopia. a true role model.

all the worlds on one stage

originally built in 1903 as an opera house, new york's lyric theatre served as the stage for many shakespeare plays before becoming a cinema house in 1934. the theatre had entrances on both 42nd and 43rd street. how cool is that? they could shuffle the audience out one exit without the next crowd seeing the look on the faces of those leaving.

magnetic magnani

by way of illustration

stunner

'I didn`t want to be a boy; but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.'-janice rule

janice rule and ralph meeker once dated!

photo: martha hyer, brando, and janice