Hollywood is a company town, which means celebrity spawn often join the movie business. Think Henry, Peter, and Jane Fonda. Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. Kirk and Michael Douglas. But long before those famous clans made their marks, there were the Barrymores: a show biz dynasty that began in the 19th century and lives on in fifth-generation star Drew Barrymore.Read More
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The Best Years of Our Lives opened on November 21, 1946 and became an instant classic. Critics lavished praise. Moviegoers mobbed theaters, making Best Years the decade’s top blockbuster.Read More
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Love is an occupational hazard on film sets. Sexy actors spend endless hours, passionately smooching and faux shagging, in take after take. Every word they speak is witty or cool. Their hair and makeup are flawless. Their clothes are stunning. The lighting is flattering. Don’t even get me started on their movie-god bods. No wonder so many of them hook up on the job.Read More
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Art imitates art pretty frequently on stage and screen. It’s as if one business is the farm team for the other, with constant talent trades, back and forth – whether you’re talking actors, writers, directors, or composers. Hollywood takes material from Broadway and turns it into a movie. Broadway lifts stories from film and re-imagines them for the theater.Read More
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Growing up in a small town, local culture consisted of a drive-in theater (which featured more naughty action in the back seat of any given Buick than on screen) and a bowling alley (locatable beneath the toxic cloud of shoe deodorizer spray that hung over it).Read More
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Two gangster classics, released four months apart in 1931, didn’t just launch the careers of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. They doomed the pair to being typecast as tough guys. It didn’t matter that Cagney never actually said “You dirty rat!” on film, or that he won an Oscar singing, dancing, and playing Broadway legend George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.Read More
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I was late to the Liking Robert Mitchum Party. No particular reason why. His droopy eyes and “Whatever” nonchalance always made him seem supercool and timeless, but I usually land in the Humphrey Bogart-William Powell-Spencer Tracy fangirl camp.Read More
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MGM produced great musicals like rabbits reproduce themselves: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin’ in the Rain, and An American in Paris. RKO cranked out hits starring Astaire & Rogers (Top Hat, Swing Time, Shall We Dance), which didn’t just showcase Fred and Ginger’s fancy footwork, but boasted standards by the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin.Read More
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