Good Old Hollywood

Julie Newmar

RubyDreams — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:05:24 -0700

BIOGRAPHYJulie's version ofaccurate nonsense
As an eleventh generation American and a Mayflower descendent, Julie Newmar has beauty, brains and a charming sense of humor. Born Julia Chalene Newmeyer in Los Angeles, her father, Donald, was an engineering professor, head of the Phys Ed. Department, and head football coach at LACC. He was on the U.C. Berkeley Wonder Team.
Her mother, Helen Jesmer, was a Ziegfeld Follies girl, said by Eddie Cantor to have the most beautiful legs in the Follies. From an early age, Julie studied classical piano, ballet, and every form of dance her mother would drive her to lessons for, graduating high school at 15, then spending a year in Europe with her mother and brother John. On her UCLA entrance exam, she scored a 99, staying only six weeks, switching to Universal Studios as choreographer, teacher, and dance double. Not yet 18, she was the original “Golden Girl,” a statue-come-to-life dancing in “Serpent of the Nile”, often times seen on MySpace, UTube, and was one of the brides in the classic MGM musical “Seven Brides for Seven “Brothers”.
“Silk Stockings” was her first role on Broadway at 19. Then the very “Stupefyin’ Jones” in “Li’l Abner”. She won a Tony for her first speaking role in the hit comedy “Marriage-Go-Round” (Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer). A contract with 20th Century Fox provided Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield-type roles in “The Rookie”, “The Maltese Bippy”, . . . . . . . In London, she played the ubiquitous love interest of Zero Mostel in the unfinished film “Monsieur Le Coq”. She also toured in the National Company, opposite Joel Grey, in “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off”. Her legs were insured for $10 million (except in the event of theft).
Making the transition to TV, Julie had many memorable song and dance routines (a Jonathan Winters Special, The Danny Kaye Show, Mike Douglas Show) but is best known for her comedic as well as supernatural roles. She was the complex and alluring motorcycle babe on two episodes of “Route 66” (a role created for her by Stirling Silliphant) and starred in a “Twilight Zone” episode as The Devil. She was claimed again by Jim Aubrey, President of CBS for the lead in “My Living Doll” as Rhoda the robot, still a cult sitcom favorite.
In 1966, urged by her brother at Harvard, she created the role of Catwoman in “Batman”. Her sense of humor and physicality made her this show’s most popular villain. Similarly popular was her appearance as April the Laundress in “The Monkees Get Out More Dirt”. On Wide, Wide World of Sports she made three parachute jumps. She was killed off in “Columbo” but slayed audiences as Lola in “Damn Yankees”. She was given a chapter in the book, “Mothers of Invention” for having created “Nudemar”, a new design in pantyhose, appearing in People Magazine.
In the 1980’s, Julie appeared in nine films of “presumptive” value while raising her son. She attended UCLA and took courses so she could more effectively run her own real estate business. In 1991, Julie took on the Rosalind Russel role in “The Women”, then astonished Broadway in a revival of “Li’l Abner”, 42 years after performing in the original production, same role, same costume, as Stupefyin’ Jones. She became a Paris model for Thierry Mugler and appeared among the fashion world’s most gorgeous divas in George Michael’s music video “Too Funky”.
Few women have had a movie named after them. Julie’s name literally became box office via “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar”, a film from Stephen Spielberg’s company. Literary types from John D. MacDonald to Harlan Coben have written characters based on Julie or alluding to Julie’s “special…beautiful and animated…incomparable feminine” personality. She was persuaded by Adam West to re-make Catwoman in his “Return to the Batcave”.� She also appeared in her own “A & E Biography”.
A feud over “quality of life” issues with neighbor Jim Belushi ended amicably in a historic and hysteric guest spot on “According to Jim”, which once again proved she’s as active and attractive as ever. Batman’s formidable feline, Belushi’s archly attractive enemy.

The Beverly Hills HOTel- Hollywood Glamour! yay!

Denise1212 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:46:46 -0700

Hey you guys Im planning to stay at the beverly hills hotel to celebrate my 18th birthday and i was wondering if you guys have any history details of the place or if you have suggesting on where i should visit that has old hollywood history. Thanks So much!!

Jane Greer

RubyDreams — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:31:38 -0700

Jane Greer (September 9, 1924 – August 24, 2001) was a film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past.
The five-foot five Greer began life as Bettejane Greer in Washington, D.C. A beauty-contest winner and professional model from her teens, Greer began her show business career as a big band singer.
Howard Hughes spotted Greer modeling on the cover of Life magazine of June 8, 1942 and sent her to Hollywood to become an actress. She married Rudy Vallee, her senior by 22 years, in 1943. Hughes lent out the actress to RKO to star in many films, including Dick Tracy (1945), Out of the Past (1947), They Won't Believe Me (1947), and the comedy/suspense film The Big Steal (1949), alongside Out of the Past co-star Robert Mitchum. Hughes refused to let her work for a time; when she finally began film acting again, she appeared in You're in the Navy Now (1951), The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), Run for the Sun (1956), and The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). In 1984, she was cast in Against All Odds, a remake of Out of the Past, as the mother of the character she had played in 1947. She also participated in an Out of the Past parody on TV's Saturday Night Live with Robert Mitchum. She also played the part of Norma Jennings' mother, Vivian Niles, in Twin Peaks.Jane Greer married Rudy Vallee in 1943, but they divorced the following year. She remarried in 1947, to Edward Lasker (1912-1997), a Los Angeles lawyer and businessman, with whom she had three children. Her son Lawrence Lasker is a movie producer who has co-produced several films, including WarGames (1983) and Sneakers (1992).

Edward Lasker had been an owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses since 1929, and Greer also became an owner of race horses under her own name. Among her graded stakes race wins were the 1966 Withers and Jim Dandy Stakes and the 1967 Fall Highweight Handicap with the colt Indulto.

Greer died of cancer at the age of 76 in 2001 and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Pan-Americana (1945) (uncredited)
Two O'Clock Courage (1945) (as Bettejane Greer)
George White's Scandals (1945) (as Bettejane Greer)
Dick Tracy (1945)
The Falcon's Alibi (1946)
Sunset Pass (1946)
Bamboo Blonde (1946)
Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
They Won't Believe Me (1947)
Out of the Past (1947)
Station West (1948)
The Big Steal (1949)
The Company She Keeps (1951)
You're in the Navy Now (1951)
Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1952)
You for Me (1952)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
Desperate Search (1952)
The Clown (1953)
Run for the Sun (1956)
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
Where Love Has Gone (1964)
Billie (1965)
The Outfit (1973)
The Shadow Riders (1982) (TV)
Against All Odds (1984)
Just Between Friends (1986)
Immediate Family (1989)
Perfect Mate (1996)

Jean Simmons

RubyDreams — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:27:07 -0700

Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE (born 31 January 1929) is an Oscar-nominated English actress. Simmons was named an Officer in the Order of the British Empire in 2003.Born in Crouch Hill, London, England, to Charles Simmons (gymnast) and his wife Winifred nee Loveland - Jean Simmons began acting at the age of 14.In 1950 Britain lost their young star to America - and Rank sold her to Howard Hughes who then owned RKO studios.In 1950, she married the English actor Stewart Granger, with whom she appeared in several films, successfully making the transition to Hollywood. She made four films for Howard Hughes, including Angel Face directed by Otto Preminger. In 1953 she made The Actress, starring alongside Spencer Tracy - a film that is one of her personal favourites. Among her best-known leading roles are The Robe (1953) The Egyptian (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960) (directed by her second husband, Richard Brooks), Spartacus (1960), and The Happy Ending, again directed by Brooks and for which she received her second Oscar nomination.By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in the well-reviewed A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, and thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt on the West End[4] . Doing the show for three years, she said she never tired of Stephen Sondheim's music; ' No matter how tired or 'off ' you felt, the music would just pick you up.' For her appearance in the mini-series The Thorn Birds, she won an Emmy Award. In 1985 and 1986 she appeared in North & South. In 1988 she starred in The Dawning with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant and in 1989 she again starred in a miniseries, this time a version of Great Expectations, in which she played the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother. Simmons made a late career appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" as a witch-hunt inspiring investigator named Admiral Nora Satie.She was married twice: in 1950 to Stewart Granger, divorcing in 1960, and in 1960 to director Richard Brooks, divorcing in 1977. Both men were significantly older than Simmons but she has denied she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just fourteen but she's said: "They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, soft-spoken man. My husbands were much noisier and much more opinionated ... it's really nothing to do with age ... it's to do with what's there - the twinkle and sense of humour." [5] And in a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film Yellow Pages, she had elaborated slightly on her marriages. "It may be simplistic, but you could sum up my two marriages by saying that, when I wanted to be a wife, Jimmy (Stewart Granger) would say:'I just want you to be pretty.' And when I wanted to cook, Richard would say: ' Forget the cooking. You've been trained to act - so act!' Most people thought I was helpless - a clinger and a butterfly - during my first marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was wrong and tried to make me stand on my own two feet. I'd whine :'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never be afraid to fail. Every time you get up in the morning, you are ahead." She has two daughters, Tracy Granger (born 1956) and Kate Brooks, one by each marriage. Simmons moved to the East Coast in the late 1970's, briefly renting a home in the Litchfield County town of New Milford, Connecticut. Simmons sought treatment for alcohol addiction in 1986 and currently lives in Santa Monica, California.
Sports Day (1944)
Give us the Moon (1944)
Mr. Emmanuel (1944)
Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945)
Meet Sexton Blake (1945)
The Way to the Stars (1945)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
Great Expectations (1946)
The Woman in the Hall (1947)
Uncle Silas (1947)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Hungry Hill (1947)
Hamlet (1948)
The Blue Lagoon (1949)
Adam and Evelyne (1949)
So Long at the Fair (1950)
Cage of Gold (1950)
Trio (1950)
The Clouded Yellow (1951)
Angel Face (1952)
Androcles and the Lion (1952)
Young Bess (1953)
Affair with a Stranger (1953)
The Robe (1953)
The Actress (1953)
She Couldn't Say No (1954) (AKA Beautiful but Dangerous )
Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
The Egyptian (1954)
A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)
Désirée (1954)
Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
Hilda Crane (1956)

The Big Country (1958)
Home Before Dark (1958)
This Earth Is Mine (1959)
Elmer Gantry (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
The Grass Is Greener (1960)
All the Way Home (1963)
Life at the Top (1965)
Mister Buddwing (1966)
Divorce American Style (1967)
Rough Night in Jericho (film) (1967)
Heidi (1968)
The Happy Ending (1969)
Say Hello to Yesterday (1971)
Mr. Sycamore (1975)
The Dain Curse (TV) (1978)
Dominique (1978)
A Small Killing (TV) (1981)
The Thorn Birds (TV) (1983)
December Flower (TV) (1984)
Midas Valley (TV) (1985)
Yellow Pages (1985)
North and South (1985)
North and South Book II (1986)
The Dawning (1988)
Great Expectations (1989)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1991)
Dark Shadows (1991)
They Do It with Mirrors (1991)
How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Daisies in December (TV) (1995)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) (voice)
Jean Simmons: Rose of England (2004) (documentary)
Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) (voice)
Through the Moebius Strip (2005)
Shadows in the Sun (2008)

Vera Miles

RubyDreams — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:53:46 -0700

Vera Miles (born Vera June Ralston; August 23, 1929) is an American actress known from such classic films as The Searchers, Psycho and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.Miles was born in Boise City, Oklahoma. She was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948.Her success as a beauty queen prompted Miles' move to Los Angeles where, in 1950, she soon began landing small roles in film and television. These included a minor part as a chorus girl in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), a musical starring Janet Leigh, with whom Miles would go on to co-star nine years later in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Psycho. Attracting the attention of several producers, she was put under contract at various studios where she posed for cheesecake and publicity photographs, as was standard procedure for most up-and-coming Hollywood starlets of the era. Under contract to Warner Bros., Miles was cast in films such as The Charge At Feather River in 3-D, but lost out on doing a big 3-D hit starring Vincent Price, House of Wax, for which she was considered. She once recalled: "I was dropped by the best studios in town." In "Tarzan's Hidden Jungle," filmed in 1954 and released in 1955, she played Tarzan's love interest (not named "Jane" in this film). In 1954, she wed the muscular actor who had played Tarzan, Gordon Scott. They divorced in 1959.

Legendary motion picture director John Ford picked Miles to star as Jeffrey Hunter's spirited love interest in The Searchers (1956), starring John Wayne. Widely considered one of the screen's definitive and most influential Westerns, The Searchers was recently voted by Entertainment Weekly as the "greatest Western of all time" and the "13th greatest film of all time." Although Miles' other films that year included Autumn Leaves with Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson, and 23 Paces to Baker Street with Van Johnson, it was The Searchers that accounted for a dramatic upswing in her career.

A year later, Miles began a five-year personal contract with Alfred Hitchcock and was widely publicized as the director's potential successor to the sophisticated and supremely elegant cool blonde Grace Kelly. Miles' new mentor directed her in the role of the emotionally troubled new bride of Ralph Meeker in a memorable episode of his popular television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (titled "Revenge"). Suitably impressed, Hitchcock directed her on the big screen in another strong performance as the emotionally devastated wife of Henry Fonda (who played a New York musician falsely accused of a crime) in The Wrong Man (1957). New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, writing of the performances of Miles and her esteemed co-star Fonda, singled out Miles' performance for greater praise, writing that she "does convey a poignantly pitiful sense of fear of the appalling situation into which they have been cast". Hitchcock responded not only to Miles' blonde beauty and intelligent sex appeal but also to her very obvious acting talent. He undertook a reinvention of his new star through grooming and wardrobe supervised by Oscar-winning costume designer Edith Head. In a 1956 feature article in Look magazine, Miles said of Hitchcock, "He has never complimented me, or even told me why he signed me." Hitchcock commented in the same article, "She's an attractive, intelligent and sexy woman. That about rolls it up." In a far more effusive mood, he told a reporter, referring to the similarities between Miles and Grace Kelly, "I feel the same way directing Vera that I did with Grace. She has a style, an intelligence, and a quality of understatement."
Production delays and her pregnancy (a son, Michael, with then-husband Gordon Scott) cost Miles the dual leading role in the project Hitchcock designed as a showcase for his new star, Vertigo (1958), a film considered by many to be one of the director's masterworks. Miles recalled that when she told Hitchcock that she could not star in his deeply personal and melancholic thriller for which costumes and makeup tests had already been completed, "He was overwhelmed." The director replaced Miles with Kim Novak, with whom he clashed. When asked years later about Miles by director François Truffaut in the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock explained their professional falling-out this way: "She became pregnant just before the part that was going to turn her into a star. After that, I lost interest. I couldn't get the rhythm going with her again." Miles reflected, "Over the span of years, he's had one type of woman in his films, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and so on. Before that, it was Madeleine Carroll. I'm not their type and never have been. I tried to please him but I couldn't. They are all sexy women, but mine is an entirely different approach."

In 1959, Miles and Van Johnson worked together again in Web of Evidence, which was adapted from A.J. Cronin's novel, Beyond This Place. A year later, Hitchcock cast her as Janet Leigh's sister Lila Crane in Psycho (1960), in which her character discovers the shocking truth about Norman Bates and his mother. Miles, while making the thriller, called it "the weirdy of all times". Despite her role being a supportive one, Miles' tense, tightly-coiled performance made a strong and lasting impression.

On January 7, 1960, Miles appeared as Jenny Breckenridge in the "Miss Jenny" episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater Western television series on CBS, opposite Ben Cooper in the role of Darryl Thompson and Jack Elam as Little Jimmy Lehigh.

She also co-starred with Susan Hayward and John Gavin in a glossy remake of the melodrama about adultery, Back Street (1961), directed by David Miller and based on the much-filmed 1931 novel by Fannie Hurst. Following another stint in another classic John Ford film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), opposite John Wayne and James Stewart (who compete for her attention), she won a Bronze Wrangler citation from Western Heritage Awards, which she shared with director Ford, writer James Warner Bellah and her fellow actors, including Lee Marvin and Edmond O'Brien. She would play opposite John Wayne again in Hellfighters (1968).

In 1962 and 1963, she appeared on NBC's medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour, in two episodes entitled "Beauty Playing a Mandolin Underneath a Willow Tree", as Kate Sommers, and "Ann Costigan: A Duel on a Field of White", as the title character Ann.

Miles' career took an unexpected turn when she landed her first roles at the Disney studio, in A Tiger Walks (1964), Those Calloways (1965), and Follow Me, Boys! (1966). She continued to play roles for Disney into the 1970s.

Miles then continued extensive work in television, before reprising her most famous role of Lila Crane in Psycho II in 1983. This sequel saw Miles' character vociferously protesting the proposed parole of Norman Bates (played, as in the original, by Anthony Perkins). In later years, Miles lamented that Psycho had become the film with which Hitchcock's name remained most associated with in the eyes of the public, considering that he had directed so many other superior films.

Throughout the 1980s and thereafter, Miles continued to work in both television and film until her retirement in 1995.
Miles resides in California and refuses any public relations offers (including interviews and public appearances) and has maintained a low profile since her retirement.

Miles' first husband was Bob Miles; they were wed from 1948-1954 and had two daughters: Debra Miles, born in 1950, and Kelley Miles, born in 1952.

After their divorce, she was married to Gordon Scott from 1954-1959, and they had one son, Michael Scott, born in 1957.

Upon that divorce, she was married to actor Keith Larsen from 1960-1971, and they had one son, Erik Larsen, born in Burbank, California on April 30, 1961. Larsen remarried after their divorce in 1971, but Miles remained single.

Marlene Dietrich

abarbielover — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:11:19 -0800

I recently purchased a 5-movie Marlene Dietrich DVD collection titled "The Glamour Collection," including Morocco, Blonde Venus, The Devil is a Woman, The Flame of New Orleans, and Golden Earrings. I really love these movies, and they are presented in glorious condition here.... Marlene was such a Goddess!!!

Attached is a painting I made of her... my favorite actress of all time!
Dietrich

Kirk Douglas

RubyDreams — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:30:25 -0800

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Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch December 9, 1916) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and film producer known for his cleft chin, his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as "sons of b*tches". He is the father of Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas. He was #17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time.
Douglas was born in Amsterdam, New York, to Bryna (née Sanglel) and Herschel "Harry" Danielovitch, a businessman.Coming from a poor family, as a boy, Douglas sold snacks to mill workers to earn enough to buy milk and bread. Later, he delivered newspapers and claims to have worked at more than forty jobs before becoming an actor.He found living in a family of six sisters to be stifling, "I was dying to get out. In a sense, it lit a fire under me."During high school, he acted in school plays, and discovered "The one thing in my life that I always knew, that was always constant, was that I wanted to be an actor."

Though he couldn’t afford tuition, Douglas talked his way into St. Lawrence University and received a loan, which he paid back working part-time as a gardener and a janitor. He was a standout on the wrestling team, and one summer he wrestled in a carnival to make some extra money.
His talents were noticed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where he received a special scholarship. One of his classmates was Betty Joan Perske (soon to be better known as Lauren Bacall), who later would play an important role in launching his film career.Another classmate was aspiring Bermudian actress, Diana Dill, who later became his wife. While doing summer stock theater during a college term break, he began using the name Kirk Douglas, which he would legally adopt.He also earned his first money as an actor.After graduating from drama school, Douglas made his Broadway debut as a singing telegraph boy in Spring Again.Douglas served in the United States Navy from the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 and received a medical discharge for war injuries in 1944. On May 3, 1943, Diana Dill, his former classmate, appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Seeing her photograph, Douglas told his fellow sailors that he would marry her, which he did on November 2, 1943. Their son, Michael Douglas, was born in 1944. They divorced nine years later.
Douglas was a major box office star in the 1950s and 60s, playing opposite some of the leading female actors of that era including Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck, Doris Day, Jeanne Crain, Rhonda Fleming, Virginia Mayo, Lizabeth Scott, Laraine Day, Jane Wyman, Eleanor Parker, Lana Turner, Kim Novak, Susan Hayward, Janet Leigh, and Jean Simmons.
Douglas married twice, first to Diana Dill, on November 2, 1943. The couple had two sons, actor Michael Douglas and producer Joel Douglas. They divorced in 1951. He then married Anne Buydens on May 29, 1954. They have two sons, producer Peter Douglas and actor Eric Douglas. Eric Douglas died July 6, 2004 of an accidental drug overdose.

In 1996, he suffered a stroke, partially impairing his ability to speak. On December 8, 2006, Douglas appeared on Entertainment Tonight, where the entire staff wished him a happy 90th birthday the night before. His son Michael, along with his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, were among the many celebrities who attended his birthday celebration. On the show, he discussed the books he has written, and the death of his son, Eric in 2004.
portrait of Douglas, titled "The Great and the Beautiful," which encapsulated his film career, art collection, philanthropy and rehabilitation from a deadly helicopter crash and the aftermath of a severe stroke, appeared in Palm Springs Life magazine in 1999. The article said "For years, this energetic performer could be seen jogging several miles to get his morning paper, playing tennis with locals or posing for snapshots and signing autographs for star-struck out-of-towners. He has been a veritable one-man tourist promotion over the past four decades, extolling the virtue of the city he loves to virtually anyone who'll listen".
Features
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Out of the Past (1947)
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
I Walk Alone (1948)
The Walls of Jericho (1948)
My Dear Secretary (1949)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Champion (1949)
Young Man with a Horn (1950)
The Glass Menagerie (1950)
Along the Great Divide (1951)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Detective Story (1951)
The Big Trees (1952)
The Big Sky (1952)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
The Story of Three Loves (1953)
The Juggler (1953)
Act of Love (1953)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
The Racers (1955)
Ulisse (U.S. title: Ulysses) (1955)
Man Without a Star (1955)
The Indian Fighter (1955)
Lust for Life (1956)
Top Secret Affair (1957)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Vikings (1958)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
The Devil's Disciple (1959)
Strangers When We Meet (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Town Without Pity (1961)
The Last Sunset (1961)
Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
The Hook (1963)
The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)
For Love or Money (1963)
Seven Days in May (1964)
In Harm's Way (1965)
The Heroes of Telemark (1965)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
The Way West (1967)
The War Wagon (1967)
Once Upon a Wheel (1968) (documentary)
A Lovely Way to Die (1968)
The Brotherhood (1968)
The Arrangement (1969)
There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
To Catch a Spy (1971)
The Light at the Edge of the World (1971)
A Gunfight (1971)
A Man to Respect (1972)
The Master Touch (1972)
Scalawag (1973)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973) (TV) (1973)
Posse (1975)
Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough (1975)
Holocaust 2000 (1977)
The Fury (1978)
The Villain (1979)
Saturn 3 (1980)
Home Movies (1980)
The Final Countdown (1980)
The Man from Snowy River (1982)
Remembrance of Love (1982)
Eddie Macon's Run (1983)
Tough Guys (1986)
Inherit the Wind (1988)
Oscar (1991)
Veraz (1991)
The Secret (1992) (television)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
Greedy (1994)
Diamonds (1999)
It Runs in the Family (2003)
Illusion (2004)

Van Gogh: Darkness Into Light (1956)
Rowan & Martin at the Movies (1968)
I just thought it was so sweet when Michael Douglas saw his Dad on the red carpet at the oscars that I wanted to do this!They are both such wonderful actors!

Sandra Dee

RubyDreams — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:37:05 -0800

Sandra Dee (April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005) was an American film actress.

Dee began her career as a model and progressed to film. Best known for her portrayal of ingenues, Dee won a Golden Globe Award in 1959 as one of the year's most promising newcomers, and over several years her films were popular. By the late 1960s her career had started to decline, and a highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin ended in divorce.

She rarely acted after this time, and her final years were marred by illness; she died as a result of kidney failure, combined with pneumonia.
Dee was born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck to John and Mary (née Cymboliak) Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. Her parents later divorced. Her mother was of Ruthenian ancestry. Changing her name to "Sandra", she became a professional model by the age of four and subsequently progressed to television commercials.

There was some confusion as to her actual birth year, with evidence pointing to both 1942 and 1944, however Intelius indicates 1942 (see Intelius search). According to her son Dodd Darin in his book Dream Lovers she was born in 1944, she and her mother having lied to everyone about her age so she could work.Sandra Dee made her first film, Until They Sail, in 1957, and the following year, she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress, along with Carolyn Jones and Diane Varsi. Her film career flourished, and she became known for her wholesome ingenue roles in such films as Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place, all in 1959. She later played "Tammy" in two Universal sequels to Tammy and the Bachelor in the role created by Debbie Reynolds.

During the 1970s she took very few acting roles, but made occasional television appearances. Her 1950s persona was the inspiration for the song "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee", featured in the 1972 Broadway musical Grease, and the 1978 film version.
Her marriage in 1960, at the age of 18, to Bobby Darin kept her in the public eye for much of the decade. She was under contract to Universal Studios, who tried to develop Dee into a mature actress, and the films she made as an adult - including a few with Darin - were moderately successful. They had one son together, Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell Darin). She and Darin divorced in 1967.Dee's adult years were marked by ill health. She admitted that for most of her life she battled anorexia nervosa, depression and alcoholism. In 2000, it was reported that she had been diagnosed with several ailments, including throat cancer and kidney disease. Complications of kidney failure, combined with pneumonia, led to her death on February 20, 2005, at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California. She was 62 years old, although some reports at the time indicated she was 60.

Sandra Dee is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, not far from her mother, Mary C. Douvan, who died on December 27, 1987.

Dee is survived by her son Dodd, her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters, Alexa and Olivia.
1994, Dodd wrote a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, drug and alcohol problems and her claim that she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Eugene Douvan.

Her life with Bobby Darin was dramatized in the 2004 film Beyond the Sea, in which Kevin Spacey played Bobby Darin and Dee was played by Kate Bosworth.
(voice in 1959 English-dubbed version)
Until They Sail (1957)
The Reluctant Debutante (1958)
The Restless Years (1958)
A Stranger in My Arms (1959)
Gidget (1959)
Imitation of Life (1959)
The Wild and the Innocent (1959)
A Summer Place (1959)
Portrait in Black (1960)
Romanoff and Juliet (1961)
Tammy Tell Me True (1961)
Come September (1961)
If a Man Answers (1962)
Tammy and the Doctor (1963)
Take Her, She's Mine (1963)
I'd Rather Be Rich (1964)
That Funny Feeling (1965)
A Man Could Get Killed (1966)
Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1967)
Rosie! (1967)
The Dunwich Horror (1970)
East of Marsa Matruh (1971)
Lost (1983)

Lana Turner

RubyDreams — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:34:35 -0800

Lana TurnerLana Turner (February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995) was an Academy Award-nominated American film and occasionally television actress. On-screen, she was well-known for the glamour and sensuality she brought to almost all her movie roles. Off-screen, she was-well known for her stormy and colorful private life including seven husbands, numerous lovers, and a famous murder scandal. Many of her roles and films are often regarded among Hollywood's best, including Ziegfeld Girl, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, Peyton Place, and Imitation of LifeBorn Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner in Wallace, Idaho, she was the daughter of John Virgil Turner, a miner from Hohenwald, Tennessee, and Mildred Frances Cowan, a 16-year-old Alabama native.
Until her film career took off, she was known to family and friends as "Judy." Hard times eventually forced the family to re-locate to San Francisco, where John and Mildred soon separated.

On December 14, 1930, John Turner won a bit of money at a traveling craps game, stuffed his winnings in his left sock, and headed for home. He was later found dead on the corner of Minnesota and Mariposa Streets, on the edge of Potrero Hill and the Mission District in San Francisco, his left sock missing. The robbery and murder were never solved. Soon after, Mildred Turner developed health problems and was advised by her doctor to move to a drier climate. She and her 10-year-old daughter moved to Los Angeles in 1931.Turner's discovery at Schwab's Drug Store has become one of Hollywood's most enduring show-business legends. The true story differs only slightly from that legend. As a 16-year-old student at Hollywood High, Turner decided to skip a typing class and buy a Coke at the Top Hat Cafe located on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and McCadden Place. There, she was spotted by William R. Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter. Wilkerson was attracted by her beauty and physique, and referred her to the actor/comedian/talent agent Zeppo Marx. Marx's agency immediately signed her on and introduced her to film director Mervyn LeRoy, who cast her in her first film, 1937's They Won't Forget. She also appeared as an extra that year in A Star Is Born-a part of the crowd at a boxing match. She also appeared in the Andy Hardy movie Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938).

Turner earned the nickname "The Sweater Girl" from her form-fitting attire in a scene in They Won't Forget. She reached the height of her fame in the 1940s and 1950s. During World War II, Turner became a popular pin-up girl due to her popularity in such films such as Ziegfeld Girl, Johnny Eager, and four films with MGM's "king of the lot," Clark Gable (the films' success was only heightened by gossip-column rumors about a relationship between the two). Lana even had a B-17-the Tempest Turner-named after her. After the war, Turner's career continued successfully with the release, in 1946, of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which co-starred John Garfield. The now-classic film noir marked a turning point in her career. Reviews of the film, and in particular, Lana's performance, were glowing. While not exactly giving up her pin-up credentials, Lana established herself as a skilled actress.
Turner was well known inside Hollywood circles for dating often, changing partners often, and for never shying away from the topic of how many lovers she had in her lifetime. Of her many love affairs, Turner reportedly once said "I liked the boys, and the boys liked me."

Turner was married eight times to seven different husbands:

Bandleader Artie Shaw (1940) Married only four months, Turner was 19 when she and Shaw eloped on their first date. She later referred to their stormy and verbally abusive relationship as "my college education".
Actor-restaurateur Josef Stephen Crane (1942–1943, 1943–1944) Turner and Crane's first marriage was annulled after she discovered that Crane's previous divorce had not yet been finalized. After a brief separation (during which Crane attempted suicide), they re-married to provide for their newborn daughter, Cheryl.
Millionaire socialite Henry J. Topping Jr. (1948–1952) Topping proposed to Turner at the 21 Club in Los Angeles by dropping a diamond ring into her martini. Although worth millions when they married, Topping suffered heavy financial losses due to poor investments and excessive gambling. Turner finally divorced Topping when she realized she could no longer afford to keep them in the lavish lifestyle to which they had grown accustomed.
Actor Lex Barker (1953–1957), whom she divorced after her daughter Cheryl claimed that he repeatedly molested and raped her.
Rancher Fred May (1960–1962)
Robert P. Eaton (1965–1969)who later went on to write The Body Brokers, a behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywood movie world, featuring a character named Marla Jordan, based on Turner.
Nightclub hypnotist Ronald Pellar, aka Ronald Dante or Dr. Dante (1969–1972). The couple met in 1969 in a Los Angeles discotheque and married that same year. After about 6 months of marriage, Pellar disappeared a few days after she had written a $35,000 check to him to help him in an investment; he used the money for other purposes. In addition, she later accused him of stealing $100,000 worth of jewelry.Turner met Johnny Stompanato during the spring of 1957, shortly after ending her marriage to Lex Barker. At first, Turner was susceptible to Stompanato's good looks and prowess as a lover, but after she discovered his ties to the LA underworld (in particular, his association with gangster Mickey Cohen), she tried to break off the affair out of fear of bad publicity. Stompanato was not easily deterred, however, and over the course of the following year, he and Turner carried on a relationship filled with violent arguments, physical abuse, and repeated reconciliations.

In the fall of 1957, Stompanato followed Turner to England where she was filming Another Time, Another Place, costarring Sean Connery, later of James Bond fame. Fearful that Turner was having an affair with Connery, Stompanato stormed onto the set brandishing a gun. Connery managed to land a single punch to Stompanato's jaw and took away his gun. Stompanato was soon deported by Scotland Yard for the incident.

On the evening of April 4, 1958, Turner and Stompanato began a violent argument in Turner's house at 730 N. Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. Fearing her mother's life was in danger, Turner's then 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane grabbed a kitchen knife and ran to Turner's defense.

Many theories abound as to what happened afterward, but it appears Crane stabbed Stompanato, killing him. The case quickly became a media sensation. It was later deemed a justifiable homicide at a coroner's inquest, at which Turner provided dramatic testimony. Some observers have said her testimony that day was the acting performance of her life.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Turner appeared in several television roles, most notably one season (1982–1983) on the series Falcon Crest as Jaqueline Perrault, but the majority of her final decade was spent out of the public eye.

She died at the age of 74 in 1995 of complications from throat cancer, which was diagnosed in 1992 and which she had been battling ever since, at her home in Century City, Los Angeles, California. She was, until her death, a very heavy smoker.

She was survived by her only child, her daughter Cheryl Crane, and Cheryl's life partner Joyce "Josh" LeRoy, whom she said she accepted "as a second daughter." They inherited some of Lana's sizable estate, built through shrewd real estate holdings and investments. However, the majority of her estate was left to her maid, Carmen Lopez Cruz.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Lana Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard.
[edit] Filmography
A Star Is Born (1937)
They Won't Forget (1937)
Topper (1937)
The Great Garrick (1937)
The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)
Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
The Chaser (1938) (Scenes deleted)
Four's a Crowd (1938)
Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938)
Dramatic School (1938)
Calling Dr. Kildare (1939)
These Glamour Girls (1939)
Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
Two Girls on Broadway (1940)
We Who Are Young (1940)
Ziegfeld Girl (1941)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Honky Tonk (1941)
Johnny Eager (1942)
Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)
Strictly G.I. (Short subject, 1943)
The Youngest Profession (1943) (Cameo)
Slightly Dangerous (1943)
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) (cameo)
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1944)
Keep Your Powder Dry (1945)
Week-End at the Waldorf (1945)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Green Dolphin Street (1947)
Cass Timberlane (1947)
Homecoming (1948)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
A Life of Her Own (1950)
Mr. Imperium (1951)
The Merry Widow (1952)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Latin Lovers (1953)
The Flame and the Flesh (1954)
Betrayed (1954)
The Prodigal (1955)
The Sea Chase (1955)
The Rains of Ranchipur (1955)
Diane (1956)
Peyton Place (1957)
The Lady Takes a Flyer (1958)
Another Time, Another Place (1958)
Imitation of Life (1959)
Portrait in Black (1960)
By Love Possessed (1961)
Bachelor in Paradise (1961)
Who's Got the Action? (1962)
Love Has Many Faces (1965)
Madame X (1966)
The Big Cube (1969)
Persecution (a.k.a. The Graveyard, The Terror of Sheba) (1974)
Bittersweet Love (1976)
Witches' Brew (1980)
Thwarted (1991

Rosalind Russell

RubyDreams — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:40:07 -0800

Rosalind Russell (4 June 1907 – 28 November 1976) was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as originating the role of Auntie Mame on Broadway and in film. She won all 5 Golden Globes for which she was nominated, and was tied with Meryl Streep for wins until the 2007 awards when Streep was awarded a sixth. Russell won a Tony Award in 1953 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town.Rosalind Russell was one of seven siblings born in Waterbury, Connecticut to Clara and James Edward Russell,[1] an Irish-American Catholic family. She was not named after the character from Shakespeare's As You Like It, but rather after the ship on which her parents had travelled. She attended Catholic schools, namely Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, before attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.Evelyn Prentice (1934)
The President Vanishes (1934)
Forsaking All Others (1934)
The Night Is Young (1935)
The Casino Murder Case (1935)
West Point of the Air (1935)
Reckless (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Rendezvous (1935)
It Had to Happen (1936)
Under Two Flags (1936)
Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 1 (1936)
Trouble for Two (1936)
Craig's Wife (1936)
The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937)
Night Must Fall (1937)
Live, Love and Learn (1937)
Man-Proof (1938)
Breakdowns of 1938 (1938)
Four's a Crowd (1938)
The Citadel (1938)
Fast and Loose (1939)
The Women (1939)
Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 10 (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Hired Wife (1940)
Screen Snapshots: Sports in Hollywood (1940)
Meet the Stars #1: Chinese Garden Festival (1940)
No Time for Comedy (1940)
This Thing Called Love (1940)
Breakdowns of 1941 (1941)
They Met in Bombay (1941)
You Can't Fool a Camera (1941)
The Feminine Touch (1941)
Design for Scandal (1941)
Take a Letter, Darling (1942)
My Sister Eileen (1942)
Flight for Freedom (1943)
What a Woman! (1943)
Roughly Speaking (1945)
She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945)
Screen Snapshots: 25th Anniversary (1945)
Sister Kenny (1946)
The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947)
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
Screen Snapshots: Famous Hollywood Mothers (1947)*The Velvet Touch (1948)
Tell It to the Judge (1949)
A Woman of Distinction (1950)
Never Wave at a WAC (1952)
The Girl Rush (1955)
Picnic (1955)
Auntie Mame (1958)
A Majority of One (1961)
Five Finger Exercise (1962)
Gypsy (1962)
The Trouble with Angels (1966)
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad (1967)
Rosie! (1967)
Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968)
Mrs. Pollifax - Spy (1971)
Probably her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphan nephew comes to live with her. When asked which role she was most closely identified with, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!" She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play in 1957 for her iconic role.Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as Auntie Mame when its Broadway musical adaptation Mame was set for production in 1966. She claimed to have turned it down since she preferred to move on to different roles. In reality, she did not want to burden the public with her growing health problems, which included rheumatoid arthritis.

Rosalind Russell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1708 Vine Street.
She married Danish-American producer Frederick Brisson on October 25, 1941. Fred was often referred to in Hollywood as "The Lizard of Roz". They had one child in 1943, a son named Lance. Her father-in-law was the successful Danish actor Carl Brisson.

Russell died after a long battle with breast cancer in 1976 at the age of 69, although initially her age was misreported because she had shaved a few years off her true age. She was survived by her husband and son. She is buried in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Her autobiography, written with Chris Chase, entitled Life is a Banquet, was published a year after her death. In the foreword (written by her husband), he states that Russell had a breakdown sometime in the early 1940s. Details are scant (perhaps in 1944, the year she made no films), but it indicates that her health problems can be traced back to the 1940s.

She was a classic talent.If you ever get a chance to view her work it is worth it for sure!!