Glamour of the Gods exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Photography by Karl StrussGloria Swanson, 1919
Photography by Baron Adolph de MeyerMary Pickford, 1920
Photography by Nikolas MurrayClara Bow, 1925
Photography by George HurrellClark Gable and Joan Crawford, 1933
Photography by George HurrellJean Harlow, 1933
Photography by George HurrellMarlene Dietrich, 1937
Photography by Gene KornmanRita Hayworth, 1939
Photography by Robert CoburnRita

Is it possible to have it all?

I'm writing this blog from my bed.  I've always had a very healthy relationship with it.  I absolutely love my sleep and so does The Actor.

To accompany this post I'm using some pictures of people in some rather fabulous beds I've collected.  I've used a picture of someone reading the paper - I used to read tons of papers an magazines but I don't have time anymore.  I don't know how everyone

Friday quotes - Joan Crawford

Photography by George Hurrell
"If I can't be me, I don't want to be anybody"
Joan Crawford(1905-1977)
I've long been a fan of Joan Crawford and she was a woman who took her career as a Hollywood star very seriously.  I loved her films and the amazing costumes, many of whom were designed by Adrian, which soon turned her into fashion icon.
Joan Crawford was born in in 1905, although the date can

Vintage Christmas pictures

Diana Dors, 1955


Leslie Caron, 1952

Photography © Underwood & UnderwoodMargaret O'Brien, 1943

Photograph © Bettman CollectionIda Lupino and Santa, 1942

Photograph © Bettman CollectionAudrey Hepburn, 1952

Photograph © Bettman CollectionGinger Rogers, 1950

Photograph © Bettman CollectionBoris Karloff and Ginger Rogers, 1932

Photograph © Bettman CollectionClaire Trevor, 1933

Photograph ©

Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and me

I love reading Chinese astrology books.  Don't worry I'm not going all Mystic Meg on you!  I became interested in Chinese astrology many years ago and have found it amazingly accurate when I've done readings for other people.

Born in January 1969 I just made it to being an Earth Monkey, if I was born a few weeks later I would have been a Rooster.  Chinese signs change with the Chinese New

Seven quotes for a Thursday afternoon - Part forty five

Photography by Alfred Eisenstaedt
"Glamour is what makes a man ask for your telephone number.But also what makes women ask for the name of your dressmaker"
Lilly Dache(1898-1989)



"I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual.  Beauty and feminity are ageless and can't be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won't like this, cannot be manufactured"
Marilyn Monroe(

It's a tie!

Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn win movie star poll

Of the six actresses (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Stanwyck, Hepburn, Carole Lombard, and Claudette Colbert), Stanwyck and Hepburn each received 30% of the vote. Davis received 15%; Lombard and Colbert both received 10%; and Crawford received 5% of the vote.

Oscar champ

Hepburn is the Academy Award champ, winning four competitive Oscars in the Best Actress category. Stanwyck never won a competitive Oscar, but was nominated for Best Actress four times, the last time in 1949 for Sorry Wrong Number. But the role that Stanwyck is most identified with is for her portrayal of the ultimate femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson In Double Indemnity.

Davis is "Dangerous"

Bette Davis won two competitive Oscars, and was nominated a total of 11 times for Best Actress (the first was a write-in nomination for Of Human Bondage). The award she won for Dangerous in 1935 was considered by many to be a consolation prize for losing the year before (Of Human Bondage was released in 1934).

Lombard and Colbert one-time neighbors

Before Carole Lombard married Clark Gable, she lived next door to Claudette Colbert. At the time, both were top stars at Paramount studios, often competing for the same roles. Colbert excelled at both comedy and drama, but received her only Best Actress award for It Happened One Night, costarring Lombard's future husband, Gable. Ironically, Lombard was offered the role of Ellen Andrews, wanted, but was committed to making a movie with George Raft. Lombard never won an Academy Award and was only nominated once for her breakout role as Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey. At the time of her death in 1942, Lombard was the highest paid actress in Hollywood with a bright future ahead of her. It's impossible to know what awards might have come her way had she lived.

Crawford: The movie star's movie star

By all accounts, Joan Crawford loved being a movie star. For years, she answered her own fan mail and autographed her own photographs for distribution, when a lot of other stars allowed others to forge their signatures. A major movie star since the silent picture days, Crawford remained a major force in Hollywood until the early 1960s. She won her only Academy Award for her performance as a self-sacrificing mother in Mildred Pierce, a role that was supposed to go to Barbara Stanwyck. Director, Michael Curtiz didn't want to work with Crawford. Desperate for the role, Crawford agreed to a screen test, which was unheard of for a star of Crawford's caliber, but it won Curtiz over.

Who’s your favorite?
Did the poll overlook your favorite movie actress from the Hollywood's golden age? Who would you have included, voted for?

Howard Hawks and "His Girl Friday"

Howard Hawks is one of the greatest American movie directors of all time. Adept at all film genres, Hawks excelled at fast-paced screwball comedies like Twentieth Century, Bringing up Baby, and His Girl Friday.

His Girl Friday was a reworking of the Ben Hecht Charles MacArthur classic The Front Page. By making Hildy Johnson a woman and the ex-wife of editor Walter Burns, Hawks thought the dialogue was funnier and added a dimension that The Front Page lacked. This was a pretty risky decision at the time, since The Front Page was considered a classic not to be messed with.

Hawks's risk paid off and the casting of Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson was inspired. In Grant's capable hands, Walter Burns is a more complex character than he was in the original. In The Front Page, Burns is a total cad. He wants to lure Hildy back to the newspaper business for completely selfish motives. In His Girl Friday, Walter wants Hildy back at the paper because she's a great reporter, but also because he's still in love with her. Russell's Hildy is the perfect Hawksian heroine: self-assured, smart, and independent. It's hard to believe that Russell was the eighth choice to play Hildy Johnson. Jean Arthur, Katherine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullivan, and Ginger Rogers all turned the role down. Hawks wanted Carole Lombard, who he directed to stardom in Twentieth Century, but she was too expensive, working as an independent actress. Joan Crawford was even considered for the role.

Russell was so put off by being eighth on the list (ninth if you count Crawford) that the first time she met Hawks, she showed up with wet hair. She soon discovered that Hawks wanted her to succeed in the role and after a few rough patches early in the shooting, she quickly gained confidence, going toe-to-toe with the more experienced Grant (His Girl Friday was his third film with Hawks).

As the story goes, Hildy quits the paper to marry dependable, but dull, insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Tired of being a "newspaperman," Hildy says she wants a normal life of domesticity, but Walter suspects she's fooling herself, so he plots to lure her back to the paper and into his arms.

Hawks was never one for depicting domestic married life on the screen, preferring to portray the chase and the buildup to marriage, and no one  showcased the chase better than Hawks. Since Hawks admired smart, funny women, his heroines are never given short shrift on film. From camera angles to screen time, Grant and Russell are treated equally. One of the reasons Hawks's films still seem so fresh and contemporary is due to his strong female characterizations.

Howard Hawks directed some of the greatest films of all time and His Girl Friday is one of his best.

His Girl Friday opened at Radio City Music Hall on January 11, 1940.