Faces From The Past

Jetta Goudal, Dutch (1891-1985)

2009-06-08T07:49:00.002+01:00

Jetta Goudal, Stars of the Photoplay, 1924, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Jetta Goudal. Via Allure. Image from magazine Stars of the Photoplay, 1924. Click image for 560 x 811 size.

"Her 1927 lawsuit against Cecil B. DeMille set a precedent in establishing a star's rights. She did remain friendly with DeMille even after her victory. In later years she became active in Actors Equity's fight for the unionization of film actors. She became known as the "Joan of Arc of Equity."

"I am a perfectionist. Whether play or picture, while I'm in it I must give 100%. If my performance is not right, I would suffer more than anyone."

I don't like being called a silent star. I was never silent."

Simone Signoret (1921-1985)

2009-05-19T15:35:00.002+01:00

Simone Signoret, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

"French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, nr. 195. Publicity card for Les carbones Korès. Photo: Sam Levin.

French actress Simone Signoret (1921-1985) was given the ‘star build-up’ in the postwar years. She went on to become one of the great film actresses of the French cinema and won a BAFTA, an Oscar and many more awards.

For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards."

Geraldine Farrar (1882 – 1967)

2009-05-17T18:25:00.002+01:00

Geraldine Farrar with a pekinese, originally uploaded by punalippu.

"Famous as much for her soprano voice and her silver screen charisma as her scandalous love affairs, she inspired countless young female fans known as "Gerry-flappers" before her retirement from the stage in 1922."

Magda Schneider (1909-1996)

2009-05-14T11:43:00.002+01:00

qrt2215, originally uploaded by jtfmulder.

Singer and actress, mother of the famous Romy Schneider.

"Magda Schneider was born on 17 May 1909 in Augsburg, Germany and a singer, stage and film actress. After her graduation at a monastery school, she studied stenography and office management at a business school, but also attended ballet lessons and art courses at the Augsburg School of Music. Six months later, she gave her stage debut as soubrette at the Gärtnerplatz- Theater in Munich and was discovered by Ernst Marischka, who offered her a role at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. After her film debut Boykott (1930), she was type casted as the simple girl, dreaming of a happy life in movies such as Zwei in einem Auto (1932) or Ein Mädel wirbelt durch die Welt (1934). In 1933, she got to know Wolf Albach-Retty, whom she married four years later. Their children Rosemarie (aka Romy Schneider) and Wolf-Dieter were born in 1938 and 1941, but they divorced in 1945. After World War II, she appeared on stage and screen again, but was better known as ambitious mother, who urged on the career of her daughter Romy. In the 1950s, she played her mother or aunt in several movies such as Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (1953) or Sissi (1955). In the last years of her life, she had to bear the death of her grandson David in 1981 and her daughter Romy in 1982. She died on 30 July 1996 in Berchtesgaden, Germany."

Greta Garbo (1905-1990)

2009-05-06T13:32:00.002+01:00

The Mysterious Lady, 1928, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

"The Mysterious Lady, 1928. Original caption: USA: Greta Garbo and Eric Von Seyffertitz in with Conrad Nagel directed by Fred Niblo, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer picture. 1928 USA." Click image for 605 x 480 size.

Greta Garbo, born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, in Sweden.

""I smoke all the time, one after the other."

"Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction. You are never left at peace, you're just fair game."

"I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong."

"Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it."

"I don't want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures."

"There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead."

"If you are blessed, you are blessed, whether you are married or single."

"The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secrets elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won't bother me."

"Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening."

"There is no one who would have me - I can't cook."

"There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans."

"If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is."

"Your joys and sorrows. You can never tell them. You cheapen the inside of yourself if you do tell them."

"You don't have to be married to have a good friend as your partner for life.""

Pauline Frederick (1883-1938)

2009-05-04T04:36:00.002+01:00

Pauline Frederick, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

"As a child there were several things besides some well-known young medicines that I disliked to take, and one of these was a dare. When one of my playmates, whose favorite pastime was running off to the theater whenever we could save money enough to buy tickets and reproducing what we had seen on an elaborate home scale, said: "Polly, I dare you to go on the read stage," of course I just had to go. I had been studying singing, and succeeded in persuading the manager of a vaudeville house in Boston to hear a couple of my songs.

"I'll put you on for a week," he agreed, "and pay you fifty dollars."

This was the first money I had ever earned and it seemed like a fortune. My chums were there in full force that night waiting to see "Polly take her dare," and for their sakes I had to be brave about it, tho I can remember to this day how I quaked inwardly when I stepped out on the stage and saw the hundreds of eyes turned toward me. I thought each eye was saying:

"She never did this before," and it companion was answering:

"No, she never did."

Well, I managed to get thru my three songs some way or other, and after that it wasn't so bad. That first week gave me the courage to go further and, of course, "further" meant New York. It might be thrilling to tell of facing parental opposition and stealing away in the dead of night with five dollars burning in my pocket, and a great and noble ambition burning in my pocket, but I must forego the thrill, for this is to be a truthful biography. When I announced my intention of going to New York to take up theatrical work seriously my mother said: "If it will make you happy, go ahead, and I will go with you."

That mother has always been a great pal of mine. I really think she has had more ambition for me than I have had for myself. A girl who has this particular brand of mother can never realize how much she owes to her."

Ann Dvorak (1912-1979)

2009-05-01T22:14:00.003+01:00

Ann Dvorak, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via It'll Take The Snap Out Of Your Garters! blog. Click image for 500 x 667 size.

"In 1940, Ann temporarily put her career on hold to support her husband who was a British citizen and a member of the Royal Navy. Although she did make three films in England during this time, Ann devoted most of her energy to the war-effort as a member of the Women’s Land Army, an ambulance driver, a newspaper columnist and a BBC broadcaster. Returning to Hollywood in 1943, Ann soon filed for divorce from Fenton, referring to the broken marriage as a “war casualty.”

While Ann Dvorak has not survived the ages as a household name, she still managed to carve a small niche in the conscious of American pop culture. A discussion of “pre-code” films should always pay homage to Ann’s convincing death scenes, and her attempt to seduce George Raft in Scarface by suggestively slinking about in a revealing black gown has been shown to film students all over the country. While the films were not always good, her performances were always great. She could be tragic, (Three on A Match, G-Men) she could be loyal, (Bright Lights, Blind Alley, Thanks a Million) she could be funny (Merrily We Live, Out of the Blue) but above all she was always damn good (Scarface, A Life of Her Own, and many others)! Maybe some of the films are forgettable, but the personality she brought to all of her characters, as well as her own strong-willed personality, should never be forgotten."

Sappho (circa 630 B.C.)

2009-04-30T01:38:00.001+01:00

Charles-August Mengin, Sappho, 1877, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 454 x 729 size.

Charles August Mengin [French Painter, 1853-1933]

"One of the great Greek lyrists and few known female poets of the ancient world, Sappho was born some time between 630 and 612 BC. She was an aristocrat who married a prosperous merchant, and she had a daughter named Cleis. Her wealth afforded her with the opportunity to live her life as she chose, and she chose to spend it studying the arts on the isle of Lesbos.

She was one of the first poets to write from the first person, describing love and loss as it affected her personally.

That Sappho's poetry was not condemned in her time for its homoerotic content (though it was disparaged by scholars in later centuries) suggests that perhaps love between women was not persecuted then as it has been in more recent times. Especially in the last century, Sappho has become so synonymous with woman-love that two of the most popular words to describe female homosexuality--lesbian and sapphic have derived from her.

How well was Sappho honored in ancient times? Plato elevated her from the status of great lyric poet to one of the muses. Upon hearing one of her songs, Solon, an Athenian ruler, lawyer, and a poet himself, asked that he be taught the song "Because I want to learn it and die.""

Betty Bronson (1906-1971)

2009-04-29T04:25:00.002+01:00

Betty Bronson, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

"I always knew I wanted to be a movie star. I just wanted to be a good one. If you know Merton of the Movies, you will remember how every night, he prayed "Dear God, make me a movie star." Well I'm a Catholic, so I'm not permitted to be that familiar, but I did pray. "Dear St Genesius, make me a good movie star.""

Djuna Barnes (1892 – 1982)

2009-04-28T00:21:00.003+01:00

Djuna Barnes, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 387 x 541 size.

American writer Djuna Barnes.

"Djuna Barnes (12 June, 1892 – 18 June, 1982) was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style.

For a 1914 World Magazine article she submitted to force-feeding, a technique then being used on hunger-striking suffragists. Barnes wrote "If I, play acting, felt my being burning with revolt at this brutal usurpation of my own functions, how they who actually suffered the ordeal in its acutest horror must have flamed at the violation of the sanctuaries of their spirits." She concluded "I had shared the greatest experience of the bravest of my sex". Yet in other stories she mocked suffrage activists as superficial, as when she quoted Carrie Chapman Catt as admonishing would-be suffrage orators never to "hold a militant pose", or wear "a dress that shows your feet in front"."

Maria Adelaide de Lima Cruz

2009-04-27T08:33:00.003+01:00

Maria Adelaide de Lima Cruz (daughter). Click image for 414 x 553 size.

Maria Adelaide de Lima Cruz, mother and daughter with exactly the same name and vocation for painting.

The mother, Maria Adelaide de Lima Cruz was one of the first Portuguese cartoonists.

The daughter was a child prodigy, whose first art exhibit was at the tender age of 11, in 1920, and amazed the critics.

Image scanned from Portuguese magazine Ilustração Portugueza, No. 738, April 12 1920. Click for 1530 x 2305 size.

Alice de Azevedo (1885-1957)

2009-04-23T00:31:00.005+01:00

Illustração Portugueza, No. 182, August 16 1909 - 7, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image scanned from Portuguese magazine Illustração Portugueza, No. 182, August 16 1909. Click image for 1525 x 2305 size.

Alice de Azevedo Gomes de Bettencourt was a Portuguese sculptor, born in December 31 Dezembro 1895, died in June 11 1957. Her teacher was the great artist Teixeira Lopes.

She was married to the politician and diplomat Luís Teotónio Pereira, with whom she had six children.

Jack Pickford (1895-1933)

2009-04-20T05:25:00.002+01:00

PickfordJ, originally uploaded by Confetta.

Movie actor, brother of Mary Pickford, son of Charlotte Pickford Smith.

"Jack found boy-next-door success as Pip in Great Expectations (1917) and the title hero Tom Sawyer (1917), and went on to become a fairly popular star on his own. He even produced several of his own films. Some of his better films during this time included The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1920), The Man Who Had Everything (1920) and Waking Up the Town (1925), but a taste for the high life soon took over. A ne'er-do-well playboy and carouser, he aroused more public interest because of his scandalous off-camera life than in the light romantic films he appeared in. He picked up alcohol, drug and gambling addictions to accompany his partying lifestyle. First wife actress Olive Thomas, a heroin addict, committed suicide in 1920 after only four years of marriage, and his next two marriages-- to Broadway musical star Marilyn Miller and minor actress Mary Mulhern--would also end disastrously. All three wives were Ziegfeld girls at one time. By the late 1920s Jack was completely undependable and, with the advent of sound, his career ground to a screeching halt, despite ever-faithful Mary's continued attempts to rescue it. Jack's health deteriorated considerably after this letdown, with frequent bouts of syphilis adding to the complications of his long term substance abuse. He died young at 36. The cause was listed as "progressive multiple neuritis", but it was almost certainly precipitated by his chronic alcoholism."

Solita Solano (1888-1975)

2009-04-18T21:28:00.003+01:00

Solita Solano, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 551 x 737 size.

"Solita Solano, real name Sarah Wilkinson (born 1888 in Troy, New York, died 22 November 1975 in Orgeval near Paris) was an American writer, poet and journalist.

Sarah Wilkinson came from a middle-class family and attended the Emma Willard Collage in New York City. After the death of her father she left home and married her childhood sweetheart Oliver Filley. They spent the next four years in the Philippines, in China and Japan, where her husband worked as an engineer. They returned to New York in 1908 where she started work as a theatre critic with the New York Tribune and as a freelance contributor to the National Geographic Society. At this time she changed her name to Solita Solano.

In 1919 Solano got to know the journalist Janet Flanner in Greenwich Village with whom she started a relationship. In 1921 they travelled to Greece, where Janet was to work on a report for the "National Geographic" on Constantinopel. Solano had three books published, and as they were not very successful, returned to journalism. In the following year they travelled to France. In Paris they joined the intellectuell-lesbian circle of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Natalie Clifford Barney, Romaine Brooks and Djuna Barnes.

At this time Janet Flanner started writing, under the Pseudonym Genêt, the Letter from Paris, for the The New Yorker. After the outbreak of World War II Solano and Flanner returned to New York.

A few years later Solano left Flanner after she started an affair with Natalia Danesi Murray; meanwhile Solano fell in love with Elizabeth Jenks Clark. After the war Solano returned to France, where she died at the age of 87.

Au Café, famous photo by Maurice Brange, depicting Solita Solano and Djuna Barnes in Paris, 1922. Click image for 1494 x 1000 size.

Ruth Matteson (1910-1975)

2009-04-18T02:04:00.003+01:00

Ruth Matteson, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Photo via It'll Take The Snap Out Of Your Garters! blog. Click image for 500 x 650 size.

Françoise Hardy (1944-)

2009-04-17T02:19:00.003+01:00

Salut Les Copains, magazine cover, 1966, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 447 x 600 size.

"French singer, actress and astrologer.

Hardy signed her first contract with the record label Vogue in November 1961. In April 1962, shortly after finishing school, her first record Oh Oh Chéri appeared, written by Johnny Hallyday's writing duo. Her own flip side of the record, "Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles" became a success, riding the wave of Yé-yé music in France, with two million sales."

Marian Marsh (1913-2006)

2009-04-15T04:04:00.001+01:00

Via Allure

"She had appeared in 42 films.

In the 1960's Marian founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit, all-volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and beautification programs. "We planted palm trees along the West Coast and were the first to plant palms in the lower valley [Coachella] to Palm Springs. If you want to leave something behind, plant a tree!" she told author Dan Van Neste in a 1998 interview."

Kay Francis (1905–1968)

2009-04-13T23:57:00.003+01:00

Kay Francis, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 594 x 790 size. Photo Via Trouble in Paradise.

"Her ability to wear clothes made her an icon of the 30's, and she was especially appealing in backless evening gowns and hats that hid half of her face. Francis' detractors said she was a star just because women wanted to see what she'd be wearing next, but she was much more than that. Francis gives herself to the camera completely and you can read all of her emotions — she's usually slightly out-of-it and weary, and this functions as part of her open-faced charm. Also charming is her most notorious drawback, a lisp that turned all of her r's into w's, which made her easy to mock.

Kear and Rossman's book quotes liberally from Francis' diary, even using pull quotes from it on many of the pages, so that you feel their subject is talking directly to you. Kay repeatedly calls herself a bitch and a slut, proclaims her pooped-out boredom, and runs down her list of conquests. "Had merciless afternoon with Maurice (Chevalier)," she reports. "Four times in two hours." Her taste ran to talented directors too, like Goulding, Mamoulian, Lang, and Preminger. She could be generous: "Had to sleep with her because she wanted me," says one entry. Francis' ennui comes across in the book, but so does her sense of humor. "

Heather Angel, 1933

2009-04-12T04:11:00.005+01:00

Heather Angel poses as Easter Bunny, originally uploaded by normavalentine.

Heather Angel (1909-1986)

"She landed the leading role in the acclaimed The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932). Throughout the 1930s, Heather's services were in high demand. She kept very busy in such productions as Men of Steel (1932), Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933), Orient Express (1934), and Daniel Boone (1936). In 1937, she began playing Phyllis Clavering in the serial about Bulldog Drummond. Audiences delighted in catching the latest adventures of Drummond. After the last Drummond film, Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1939) in 1939, Heather went on her way in other films. Although she didn't have the leading role, she did appear in top movies such as 1940's Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940) and Pride and Prejudice (1940) and in 1943's Cry 'Havoc' (1943).

Tested for the part of Melanie in Gone with the Wind (1939), which was given to Olivia de Havilland.

Was the subject of Sonic Youth's 1998 song "Heather Angel" off their "A Thousand Leaves" record.

Heather witnessed the horrific stabbing murder of her third husband, Broadway, film and TV director Robert B. Sinclair, by a prowler at their Montecito, California home on January 3, 1970. The prowler turned out to be a University of California--Santa Barbara (UCSB) graduate student."

Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia, 1925

2009-04-11T23:32:00.004+01:00

Painting by Evgenievna Serebriakova, of Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia, Paris, 1925, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Zinaida Serebriakova (1884-1967)

Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia (1895-1970)

"She was the only daughter of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. She was also the only niece of Tsar Nicholas II, and the wife of the wealthy Prince Felix Yussupov, one of the men who murdered the starets Grigori Rasputin in 1916.

Her husband-to-be, Felix Yussupov, was a man of many contradictions: a man from a family rich beyond the dreams of avarice [5] who enjoyed dressing in women's clothing and had sexual relationships with both men and women, scandalizing society, [6] yet also genuinely religious and willing to help others even when his own financial circumstances were reduced.

In exile, Irina and Felix lived better than most emigrees following the Revolution. For a time they ran a fashion house called Irfe, named after the first two letters of their first names, Irina and Felix. Irina modeled some of the dresses the pair and other designers at the firm created. Later they lived from the proceeds of a lawsuit they won against MGM for making a 1932 movie called Rasputin and the Empress. In the movie, the lecherous Rasputin seduces the Tsar's only niece, called "Princess Natasha" in the film.[38] In 1934, the Yussupovs won a large judgment against the movie studio. Felix also wrote his memoirs and continued to be both celebrated and infamous as the man who murdered Rasputin."

Aldina de Sousa (?-1930)

2009-04-09T23:56:00.003+01:00

Click image for 550 x 679 size. Foto from Portuguese magazine Ilustração, No. 118, November 16 1930.

Aldina de Sousa was a Portuguese singer, stage and movie actress. She died very young, at the height of her fame and sucess.

Madame Brouillard

2009-04-08T16:30:00.003+01:00

Illustração Portugueza, No. 101, January 27 1908 - 33a, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 672 x 810 size. Scanned from Portuguese magazine Illustração Portugueza, No. 101, January 27 1908.

Ad for "Madame Brouillard", psychic. About 20 years after this ad she was exposed as a schizophrenic.

"The past, present and future, revealed by the most celebrated chiromancist and physionomist in Europe.

Madame Brouillard

Tells the past and present and predicts the future, with veracity and swiftness. Her predictions are incomparable. She has studied sciences, chiromancy, chronology and physiognomy, and applies the theories of Gall, Lavater, Desbarroles, Lambroze, and d'Arpenligney. Madame Brouillard has traveled across Europe and America, where she's been admired by her numerous clients of the highest order, for whom she's made predictions concerning the fall of the empire and all the events that followed. She speaks Portuguese, French, English, German, Italian and Spanish.

Daily consultations, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. in her office."

Leslie Brooks (1922-)

2009-04-07T00:07:00.003+01:00

Século Ilustrado, No.485, June 28 1947 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1140 x 1576 size.

American actress Leslie Brooks, "the sun kissed miss".

"Leading lady in Hollywood low-budgeters of the 40's as well as second lead in better features. Started in unbilled bit parts but moved eventually into second leads and almost always cast as provocative dames with evil intentions. The film career of actress Leslie Brooks lasted long enough for her to contribute several mesmerizingly bitchy performances."

Cecil Beaton, Madame Danilova, 1935

2009-04-05T15:02:00.003+01:00

Cecil Beaton, Madame Danilova, 1935, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Madame Danilova of the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, in 'Swan Lake'.

Alexandra Danilova (1904-1997)

"Lauded for her roles in Gaîte Parisienne, La Boutique fantasque and Le Beau Danube, Danilova also appeared in Swan Lake, The Firebird, Giselle, Coppélia and many other notable productions. Lifelong friend of and collaborator with famed choreographer George Balanchine, leader of her own world traveling ballet company in the 1950s and teacher at the School of American Ballet from 1964 to 1989, Danilova was a 1989 recipient of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in recognition of a lifetime of achievement and dedication in the field of ballet.

When Alexandra Danilova was born in 1904, ballet was popular in her native czarist Russia. In turn-of-the-century America, ballets were only rarely staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. These rare performances, invariably by European companies, failed to inspire the development of an indigenous ballet culture in America. Beginning in 1916, a series of innovative ballet companies, starting with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, began touring in the United States. These companies built on a repertoire of standard Russian classics such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. The last of these companies, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, finding itself stranded in America with the onset of World War II, toured more extensively than any of its predecessors. The company appeared to great acclaim in as many as 104 cities in one season. The many ballet schools and companies in America today owe much to the example of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and its outstanding performers, including the "waxen-legged" Danilova."

Beatriz Costa (1907-1996)

2009-04-03T11:15:00.003+01:00

Beatriz Costa, 1930s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 480 x 580 size.

Beatriz Costa (born Beatriz da Conceição; 14 December 1907 in Mafra - 15 April 1996 in Lisbon) was a Portuguese actress and singer. Often compared to the celebrated Louise Brooks, on account of her bob haircut, Beatriz was nevertheless a comedienne and singer, not a dramatic actress and dancer like Louise. However she too became a legend in her time, among the Portuguese speaking public in Portugal (Europe) and Brazil (South America). And like Louise she wrote several auto-biographical books that were a hit with the public and of great historical interest. Beatriz went into the show biz because, as she put it, she always wanted to be a clown.

Man Ray, Lee Miller

2009-04-02T10:48:00.004+01:00

Man Ray, Lee Miller, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Lee Miller (1907-1977)

She started out as a model for some of the most talented photographer of her day, and established herself as a famous photographer herself, creating images in the Surrealist style. She was a war correspondent, and photographed both for fashion, art and war scenarios.

Clara Bow (1905-1965)

2009-04-01T10:42:00.004+01:00

Cinéfilo, n.75, January 25, 1930 - 13, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 882 x 1235 size. Image: Clara Bow and Richard Arlen, in Portuguese movie magazine Cinéfilo, No.75, January 25, 1930.

Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1907 (possibly 1905)– September 27, 1965).

"This is how nice Clara could be to her fans. There was a kid who sent a letter to Paramount, lamenting the fact that his parent’s candied popcorn concession at Long Beach would soon go under owing to family illness and rising medical expense. Could Clara come down and help out? To the boy’s no doubt total shock, she did just that, showing up unannounced one Saturday morning to peddle the corn. All her idea too, not the publicity department’s. The 33,727 letters she received in May 1928 were no doubt sincerely felt. Nobody in the industry got more mail."

Click image for 517 x 768 size. Via Dr. X's Free Associations.

Anna Pavlova (1881 - 1931 )

2009-03-31T04:59:00.004+01:00

A gentleman who in his youth had the privilege of watching Pavlova dance said when she showed up on stage his first reaction was "How plain she is!" Minutes later he was in love. He said, "She created her own beauty".

N. & C. Hess, Anna Pavlova, 1920s. Click image for 424 x 614 size.

N. & C. Hess, Anna Pavlova, 1920s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

"Anna Pavlova was born in St Petersburg in 1881. She studied with the Imperial Ballet School attached to the Mariinsky Theatre. Her main teacher was Marius Petipa. She made her debut at 17, and by 1906 she had become the Mariinsky's principal ballerina. In 1907 she made her first foreign tour, and in 1908, on her second, joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

In 1912 she purchased Ivy House in Hampstead, England, where she established her own school of dance. She made her last appearance in St. Petersburg in 1913 and spent the rest of her career almost constantly on tour, bringing ballet to millions for the first time through the drawing power of her legendary name."

E.O. Hoppé, Anna Pavlova, Laurent Novikoff, Egyptian dance. Click image for 425 x 606 size.

Ernst Schneider, Anna Pavlova, Garden

Bébé Daniels (1901-1971)

2009-03-30T01:13:00.003+01:00

Bébé Daniels, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 426 x 600 size.

"In the over 200 films she made, Bebe Daniels performed all of her stunts.

She attended Sacred Heart Convent School in Los Angeles.

Cecil B. DeMille discovered her dancing at a restaurant and took her to Paramount Studios where she made ten times her old salary.

Among the twenty who comprised Paramount's "inner cabinet," Bebe Daniels was the only woman.

President Harry Truman awarded her the Medal of Freedom for her patriotism.

Her grandmother, Eva De La Plaza Griffin, was the daughter of a Governor of Columbia.

She was engaged to racing champion Charles "Fastest Human" Paddock in 1926 but called it off.

She first met future husband Ben Lyons in 1925 but she didn't like him and it wasn't until 1928 that the two would meet again at a Hollywood bridge party.

Her husband, Ben Lyon was the casting director at 20th Century Fox who signed and renamed Marilyn Monroe.

After her death, Bebe Daniel's collection of memorabilia was donated by Ben to the British Film Institute's archives. They possess three large scrapbooks containing news clippings from her early silent film days.

Her son Richard became a photographer for the British Film Institute.

"Bebe, Be Mine" was a popular song in the 20s and whenever Bebe would go to a cabaret, the orchestra leader would usually recognize her and start playing it."

Image via Trouble in Paradise. Click image for 574 x 458 size.

Greta Garbo (1905 – 1990)

2009-03-29T00:38:00.005Z

Greta Garbo and Rouben Mamoulian on the set of Queen Christina, originally uploaded by gferrara.

Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990)

The last image in the film Queen Christina is famous for its close-up of Garbo. It made people wonder what was going through her mind to get that look on her face. She was instructed by the director to think of nothing at all.

Brigitte Bardot (1934-)

2009-03-28T02:20:00.005Z

Brigitte Bardot, 1960s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 512 x 768 size. Via Musselsoppans Vänner.

From an interview with Jane Birkin by Elizabeth Curran, in Uncut magazine, May 2006:

"I later starred as Bardot's lover in the 1973 film Don Juan. It's a terrible movie, but I took it up for the charm of being in bed with Bardot. I can tell you that every portion of her body is absolutely perfect. I should know: I had a good look!

The film was directed by her ex-husband, Roger Vadim, who made her cry, saying she wasn't as beautiful as she used to be. I'm sure that because people judged her solely on her looks and she was slagged off for getting older that it turned her into a crazy person who belongs to the National Front and only talks to animals. Serge (Gainsbourg) was very sweet to her; he was a very forgiving man."

Lillie Langtry (1853 – 1929)

2009-03-27T00:47:00.003Z

Edward Poynter, Mrs. Langtry, 1878, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 456 x 546 size.

"Lillie Langtry (13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a highly successful British actress born on the island of Jersey. A renowned beauty, she was nicknamed the 'Jersey Lily' and had a number of prominent lovers, including the future King Edward VII.

The fictitious character Irene Adler, who bested Sherlock Holmes when he sought an incriminating photograph of her and a European monarch, is thought to have been based upon Langtry. Langtry was also the subject of The Who's 1967 recording, 'Pictures of Lily' about a young man infatuated by her image. A line from the song states 'She's been dead since 1929'."

Lévy-Dhurmer, Eve, 1896

2009-03-26T00:45:00.004Z

Lévy-Dhurmer, Eve, 1896, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 764 x 1000 size.

Eve (date of birth, beginning of time; death, a thousand years later)

The original woman and original sinner. Famous for her appetite for apples, especially if they happenned to contain more than nutritious properties.

Ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge and, along with her husband Adam, was banished from the Garden of Eden before she could also eat from the Tree of Life and subsequently become immortal. Some say God was just worried she would eat the whole place, leafs and all.

Was punished for her gourmandise with a hereditary tendency to gain extra weight around her thighs and abdomen.

Alfred Cheney Johnston, Gladys Glad

2009-03-25T22:13:00.003Z

Alfred Cheney Johnston, Gladys Glad, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 475 x 615 size.

Gladys Glad (1907-1983).

Married writer-producer Mark Hellinger in 1924. After a successful career as a Ziegfeld girl (1926-27), she started a beauty advice column for the New York Daily News, during the 30s.

Jean Harlow (1911 – 1937)

2009-03-24T02:22:00.004Z

Jean Harlow, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

She was very nice and friendly to all the people who worked backstage in the studio as lowly make-up artists, electricians, etc, and not a snob who only talks to other famous movie stars and powerful producers who could further her career. When she died so suddenly and abruptly all those lowly workers who had known her, and to whom she had shown kindness, attended her funeral, which was very unusual for a movie star, and is a testament to her democratic and unpretentious personality.

Coco Chanel, 1929

2009-03-23T00:31:00.003Z

Coco Chanel, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 768 x 1116 size. Image scanned from "Decades of Fashion" by Harriet Worsley.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (1883 – 1971)

"A woman without a man is nothing -- rien!"

From the book:

"This picture was taken in 1929, when Coco was forty-six, the year in which she opened an accessories boutique attached to her Paris salon. The pearls on the pin trimming her straw hat are extra large. Chanel played with oversized costume jewellery that did not pretend to be real."

Ann Sheridan (1915- 1967)

2009-03-22T01:09:00.003Z

George Hurrell, Ann Sheridan, 1938, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 478 x 599 size.

"Annie was one of those gals that smoked her lunch every day. Cagney used to watch her at the commissary and be fascinated. She’d order a plate of scrambled eggs, then push them around with her fork as she went through a chain of fags, lighting one after another despite Jim’s health warnings."

Bessie Love, 1925

2009-03-21T02:21:00.003Z

Bessie Love, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

(Photo by General Photographic Agency) Via It'll Take The Snap Out Of Your Garters! blog. Click image for 500 x 661 size.

Bessie Love (1898 - 1986)

"She got a well deserved Academy Award nomination for her performance in MGM's first all-talkie Broadway Melody (1929)"

How the same person can look totally different in three different photos!

Click image for 777 x 1000 size. Via Trouble in Paradise.

Click image for 777 x 1000 size.

Cecil Beaton, Gwili André

2009-03-20T02:06:00.003Z

Cecil Beaton, Gwili André, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 547 x 700 size.

Gwili André (1908 - 1959)

"Danish-born Gwili Andre was a blonde beauty who had the talent and the looks necessary for the big time, but somehow just couldn't put everything together and was mired in B pictures (e.g., Secrets of the French Police (1932), Roar of the Dragon (1932)) for most of her career. After retiring from the screen, she died in an apartment fire in 1959.

Her death in 1959 was a bizarre suicide after years of alcoholism and failed attempts to revive her stalled career. Alone in her Venice, California apartment she gathered together reams of publicity stills and promotional material from her early career and set it alight, allowing herself also to be consumed by the flames. She died later of her injuries."

Gladys Cooper, 1910s

2009-03-19T23:38:00.004Z

Gladys Cooper, 1910s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 618 x 900 size. Gladys Cooper (1888 - 1971)

"The actress Gladys Cooper, later to be the star of stage and screen in The Second Mrs Tanquery and My Fair Lady, wears a high-waisted Empire line evening dress in the new fluid, classical style. Although the fussy frills have gone, the surface of the dress is still intricately beaded. Feathers, tiaras and jewelled bands were often worn in the hair for the evening."

Scanned and quoted from the book "Decades of Fashion" by Harriet Worsley.

Marceline Day (1908 - 2000)

2009-03-18T04:52:00.003Z

Marceline Day, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via It'll Take The Snap Out Of Your Garters! blog. Click image for 500 x 689 size.

Marceline is famous for her appearance in the lost (although I've heard rumours it had been rediscovered!) 1927 horror classic London After Midnight, starring opposite Lon Chaney and Conrad Nagel, and directed by Tod Browning.

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, Madame Lenoir, 1785-1800

2009-03-17T05:43:00.002Z

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, Madame Lenoir, 1785-1800, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, Madame Lenoir, 1785-1800. Click image for 543 x 650 size.

My aunt Emilia was born when she was very young, hardly more than a baby. This led to a wild and adventurous life. Friends and relatives remarked on how much she lived right until the day she died. I wish I was there to see it.

Here she's holding one of her books, or so the legend goes. It could have belonged to anyone, really. I myself am more interested in that lovely bow on the sleeve of her dress. Was it hers, I wonder? I'll never know. One thing is certain, there was no make-up back in those days. Luckily she didn't have a mustache, a recurring problem in the women of my family.

Wherever you are, I hope you're alright, aunty, and that you didn't forget to return the book to the library. It's not with us, that's for sure, as we've looked and looked and we couldn't find it anywhere.

Yousuf Karsh, Audrey Hepburn, 1956

2009-03-17T00:06:00.004Z

Yousuf Karsh, Audrey Hepburn, 1956, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993)

"“Your heart just breaks, that's all. But you can't judge, or point fingers. You just have to be lucky enough to find someone who appreciates you.”

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”

“I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.”

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.”

“You can always tell what kind of a person a man really thinks you are by the earrings he gives you”

“I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.”

“My look is attainable. Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large sunglasses, and the little sleeveless dresses.”

“If I get married, I want to be very married.”

“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you're exactly the same.”

“There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion.”

“A quality education has the power to transform societies in a single generation, provide children with the protection they need from the hazards of poverty, labor exploitation and disease, and given them the knowledge, skills, and confidence to reach their full potential.”

“I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine.”

“I was asked to act when I couldn't act. I was asked to sing 'Funny Face' when I couldn't sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn't dance - and do all kinds of things I wasn't prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.”

“I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people's minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.”

“I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.”"

Olive Ann Alcorn, 1925

2009-03-16T10:01:00.004Z

Olive Ann Alcorn, 1925, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1407 x 1500 size.

Olive Ann Alcorn (1900 - ?)

"Olive Ann went through the local schools in St. Maries and graduated from the Denishawn School of Aesthetic Dancing. Olive Ann became such an outstanding student that she was also a part of the Denishawn Players that toured across the United States putting on performances in major auditoriums and theaters of the day.

Olive’s dancing skills must have caught the attention of some motion picture people, for she was hired to perform in her first movie called “Sunnyside” starring Charlie Chaplin. She portrayed a nymph, along with several other women, and appeared in Chaplin dream scenes. (...)

In May 1923 she performed in “The Illustrators Show,” a collection of small one-act plays. She performed in the “playet” called “Murder.” A review of that a month later in the Bulletin of the Art Center published in New York stated that “the little drama was acted with fine spirit and dignity, and the oriental dance by Olive Ann Alcorn which was introduced delighted the audience with its grace and the beauty of the performer.”

In the 1920s, Alcorn became a model at the Chatiau Art Studios. She appeared in many poses which were turned into postcards, some of which depicted her partially or completely nude. She also posed for photos contained in the nude art instruction book "Alta Art Studies Volume I" published by the Alta Studios of San Francisco, Calif., with photography by Xan Smith."

Max M. Autrey, Myrna Loy, 1930

2009-03-15T23:42:00.003Z

Myrna Loy., originally uploaded by carbonated.

Myrna Loy

"I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and above all, a true gentleman.
[On her work with William Powell]

The later ones {Thin Man pictures} were very bad indeed, but it was always a joy to work with Bill Powell. He was and is a dear friend, and in the early Thin Man films with Woody Van Dyke, we managed to achieve what for those days was an almost pioneering sense of spontaneity.
[on William Powell]

Life, is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.

I was a homely kid with freckles that came out every spring and stuck on me till Christmas.

It was a role no one could live up to, really. No telling where my career would have gone if they hadn't hung that title on me. Labels limit you, because they limit your possibilities. But that's how they think in Hollywood.
[On her "Perfect Wife" label]

Some perfect wife I am. I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg.
[referring to her perfect wife typecasting]

I admire some of the people on the screen today, but most of them look like everybody else. In our days we had individuality. Pictures were more sophisticated. All this nudity is too excessive and it is getting very boring. It will be a shame if it upsets people so much that it brings on the need for censorship. I hate censorship. In the cinema there's no mystery. No privacy. And no sex either. Most of the sex I've seen on the screen looks like an expression of hostility towards sex.
[speaking in the late 60s]

I rushed out of the projection room, ran home and cried for hours. I was really ashamed of myself. It was so awful...
[On her screen test for the film Cobra (1925)]

Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?
[Challenging MGM bosses in the 1930s]"

Image bellow scanned from the book "Decades of Fashion". Click for 316 x 973 size.

Lillian Roth and Frances Dee, 1930s

2009-03-15T21:28:00.003Z

Lillian Roth and Frances Dee, 1930s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Lillian Roth (1910 - 1980) was an actress, singer and stage performer, who became the first famous spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous.

"In late 1946 Burt booked a sober Lillian into New York's "Chateau Madrid." In January of 1947, they were married. With his support and encouragement, Lillian slowly worked her way back on the boards. She was held over for 4 weeks at New York's "La Martinque" followed by the "Five O'Clock Club" in Miami, Florida. An invitation came from The Tivoli Theatrical Circuit in Melbourne, Australia. They wanted her for a six months singing tour through New Zealand and Australia. On the ship Lillian and Burt met Reverend William James of Melbourne with whom they discussed AA. The minister asked if he could send them an addicted parishioner named Jack.

On their arrival from Auckland, New Zealand, to Melbourne, Lillian and Burt found Jack waiting backstage in desperate need of help. Inspired by their talks, Jack returned nightly and brought other alcoholics with him. Meetings were soon being held in her dressing room and at their hotel. Word of Lillian's membership in AA quickly spread. On each of their tour stops in Adelaide, Brisbane, and Sydney, she and Burt were deluged with calls and telegrams with requests for speeches at churches, missions, temperence leagues, and prisons."

Frances Dee (1909 – 2004)

""I wanted to give up my career when I married Joel, but he wouldn't let me. I thought marriage, a home, husband and family were all I wanted. Joel knew I was sincere in my belief but he was wise enough to realize that sooner or later I might miss my work and blame him."

One of the more memorable roles of her early career, a pre-Production Code film, was Blood Money (1933). Her biographer, Andrew Wentnik, said that, "When a friend recently admonished her for playing a prostitute in Blood Money (1933), she denied it saying, 'I played a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac, not a prostitute.'"

Legendary film critic James Agee said that Dee was "one of the very few women in movies who really had a face...and always used this translucent face with delicate and exciting talent". Pauline Kael, believed a close-up of Dee in So Ends Our Night (1941) was comparable to Greta Garbo's famous close-up in Queen Christina (1933).

Perhaps her most memorable film is I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Dee said she accepted the role in Jacques Tourneur's low-budget thriller because of the fee - she wanted to buy her mother a new automobile.

She retired in 1953 to devote herself to her husband and to raising their sons after making Gypsy Colt (1954) and Mister Scoutmaster (1953). Dee and McCrea, who retired from films in 1962 while still a star, devoted their time to cultivating their ranch in Thousand Oaks, California. They donated 75 acres of the ranch for use as park land in 1981, and Dee donated 220 of the remaining 300 acres to the park in 1995."

Alfred Cheney Johnston, Norma Shearer

2009-03-15T09:36:00.005Z

08 08 10 00 Shearer, Norma, originally uploaded by Johnny Mahoney.

Norma Shearer, 1902 - 1983.

"I had to marry a man bigger and more important in every way than myself. Only in such a marriage could I live without a sense of being cramped and confined."

"I would never consent to someone else playing me on the screen."

"I get whatever placidity I have from my father. But my mother taught me how to take it on the chin."

"Somehow or other I always got myself rigged up in something sensational."

"Never let them see you in public after you've turned thirty-five. You're finished if you do!"

"The morals of yesterday are no more. They are as dead as the day they were lived. Economic independence has put woman on exactly the same footing as man."

"A woman today is good, or she is bad, according to the was she does a thing - and not because of the thing itself."

"I always chose sophisticated parts because you can't really be interesting as a young girl or outstanding as an ingenue."

"Being a motion picture actress is the pitch of ecstasy."

"I can't do the Garbo or Dietrich thing."

"An adventure may be worn as a muddy spot or it may be worn as a proud insignia. It is the woman wearing it who makes it the one thing or the other."

"I'm afraid my legs are not my best feature, Mr. Hurrell."

"It is impossible to get anything made or accomplished without stepping on some toes; enemies are inevitable when one is a doer."

Andre DeDienes, Marilyn Monroe, 1948

2009-03-15T05:50:00.004Z

Marilyn Monroe - c. 1948 - pin up by Andre DeDienes, originally uploaded by Tinsel Town Tango.

Marilyn Monroe (1926 - 1962)

"• It's all make believe, isn't it?

• If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.

• I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.

• I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.

• I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometimes that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do. The best way for me to find myself as a person is to prove to myself that I am an actress.

• People respect you because they feel you've survived hard times and endured, and although you've become famous, you haven't become phony.

• Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer.

• I love to do the things the censors won't pass.

• What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can't I just be an ordinary woman? A woman who can have a family ... I'd settle for just one baby. My own baby.

• I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.... I guess I am a fantasy.

• A career is wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night.

• It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.

• My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation -- but I'm working on the foundation.

• Acting isn't something you do. Instead of doing it, it occurs. If you're going to start with logic, you might as well give up. You can have conscious preparation, but you have unconscious results.

• A career is born in public -- talent in privacy.

• My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!

• Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work.

• I'm for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them the individual comes out banged on her head. The artist is nothing. It's really tragic.

• Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul."

Mae West, Belle Of The Nineties, 1934

2009-03-14T21:56:00.003Z

Mae West, Belle Of The Nineties, 1934, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via Greenbriar Picture Shows blog. Click for 1024 x 812 size.

Mae West, [1893-1980]

"A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.

A hard man is good to find.

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.

A man has one hundred dollars and you leave him with two dollars, that's subtraction.

A man in the house is worth two in the street.

A man's kiss is his signature.

A woman in love can't be reasonable - or she probably wouldn't be in love.

All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.

Any time you got nothing to do - and lots of time to do it - come on up.

Any time you've got nothing to do and lots of time to do it come on up.

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous but they won't be avoided.

Don't keep a man guessing too long - he's sure to find the answer somewhere else.

Don't marry a man to reform him - that's what reform schools are for.

Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.

Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.

He who hesitates is a damned fool.

He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.

His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork.

I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you.

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

I believe that it's better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked.

I didn't discover curves; I only uncovered them.

I enjoyed the courtroom as just another stage but not so amusing as Broadway.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

I like a man who's good, but not too good - for the good die young, and I hate a dead one.

I like restraint, if it doesn't go too far.

I never loved another person the way I loved myself.

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.

I only have 'yes' men around me. Who needs 'no' men?

I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported.

I see you're a man with ideals. I better be going before you've still got them.

I speak two languages, Body and English.

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.

I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do.

I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.

I'm a woman of very few words, but lots of action.

I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.

I've been in more laps than a napkin.

I've been things and seen places.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

It ain't no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don't break any.

It is better to be looked over than overlooked.

It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.

It takes two to get one in trouble.

It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.

It's not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men.

It's not what I do, but the way I do it. It's not what I say, but the way I say it.

Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you.

Look your best - who said love is blind?

Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.

Love isn't an emotion or an instinct - it's an art.

Love thy neighbor - and if he happens to be tall, debonair and devastating, it will be that much easier.

Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.

One and one is two, and two and two is four, and five will get you ten if you know how to work it.

Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a ring.

Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is.

Personality is the most important thing to an actress's success.

Personally, I like two types of men - domestic and foreign.

Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important.

Save a boyfriend for a rainy day - and another, in case it doesn't rain.

Say what you want about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

Sex is emotion in motion.

She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I'm tired.

The best way to hold a man is in your arms.

The score never interested me, only the game.

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

To err is human, but it feels divine.

Too much of a good thing can be taxing.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

Virtue has its own reward, but no sale at the box office.

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

When I'm good I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better.

When women go wrong, men go right after them.

Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

Carole Lombard

2009-03-14T03:52:00.004Z

Carole Lombard, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 796 x 1024 size.

Carole Lombard (1908 - 1942).

"“A girl needs a strong defense,” said Carole some time ago. “When I was a youngster, tramping New York, looking for jobs in the show business, I found that men in the booking offices got ideas. I discovered that if I could startle them sufficiently, they soon got their minds back to business.” (...)

On one occasion a reporter dubbed her “The Most Startling Woman In Hollywood.” Carole ignored the article except to say:

“MAYBE it is true that I have a habit of being abruptly outspoken and not mincing my words. I’ve never believed in kidding myself by calling a spade a garden implement. But never in my life have I ever said anything for the purpose of embarrassing anyone, or for the effect of being called the most startling woman in Hollywood.”"

Franz Eybl, Girl Reading, 1850

2009-03-13T23:02:00.003Z

Franz Eybl, Girl Reading, 1850, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Art Inconnu. Click for 462 x 599 size.

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats

Eugene Robert Richee, Louise Brooks, 1927

2009-03-13T19:59:00.003Z

Eugene Robert Richee, Louise Brooks, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via killer bee sting. Click for 804 x 1024 size.

Louise Brooks (1906 – 1985).

""Isn't the family thrilled by your sudden success ?" I asked.

She looked at me carefully. . . . "They don't know about it," she drawled. She waited and then smiled.

"My mother and father separated when I was a kid," she explained. "My father thinks I'm terrible."

Her black eyes were languid.

"In our family," she said, "it was everybody shift for himself." She smiled once more and waved her little white hand to indicate her apartment. It is a Park Avenue apartment, and in Manhattan there is nothing more utterly utter than a Park Avenue apartment.

"Well," said Louise, "I have."

Brooks would prove over the course of her career that she was the consummate "honest crook." She was, as Ruth Waterbury put it, "exquisitely hard-boiled." As such, she risked puncturing the male version of the revue fantasy. Edmund Wilson pointed out there had to be a pretense of "dewy-eyed" innocence. Louise refused to pretend. She had taken her chances. So did tens of thousands of others who became chorus girls during the heyday of the revues.""

Mortimer Offner, Sylvia Sidney, 1930s

2009-03-13T08:53:00.005Z

Mortimer Offner, Sylvia Sidney, 1930s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via Trouble in Paradise blog. Click image for 573 x 700 size.

Sylvia Sidney (1910 - 1999)

""As long as I have got a brain and I can remember the lines and they pay me well, I will do it," she told The Times in 1992.

Asked if she had fun that year working in the feature Used People with Shirley MacLaine, she said: "What's fun about it? That's my job. I act. I work." (...)

Sidney was known by younger generations for her role as Juno, the grumpy social worker from the great beyond in the 1988 film Beetlejuice. She developed a deep affection for the film's director, Tim Burton. Discussing Burton with The Times in 1992, she said: "I think he is one of the most extraordinary talents. I wish he would stop making crazy movies and really make something."

A few years afterward, Burton specifically wrote the role of Grandma Norris for Sidney in Mars Attacks! When she was hospitalized after being hit by a car, he assured her that her role was secure even if he had to write in crutches or a wheelchair. She didn't need either. (...)

Sidney was also recognized for her needlepoint designs. She co-authored two books, "Sylvia Sidney's Needlepoint Book" in 1968 and "The Sylvia Sidney Question and Answer Book on Needlepoint" in 1975."

Mary Nolan, 1920s

2009-03-13T07:54:00.004Z

Mary Nolan, 1920s, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via Trouble in Paradise. Click for 543 x 703 size.

Mary Nolan (1905-1948):

"A Jazz-Age baby and party girl by nature, (...) made the fatal mistake of involving herself with a married Ziegfeld comedian and stirring up a major sex scandal. (...) Forced to flee to Germany to avoid the negative attention, Mary starred in a few films there under the new moniker Imogene Robertson. She weathered the storm for almost two years in Europe before returning unobtrusively to Hollywood films in 1927 under another new stage name of Mary Nolan. Mary proved a capable if not exceptional leading lady (...) Owned an antique piano once belonging to Rudolph Valentino."

Harold Pierce Cazneaux, Doris Zinkeisen, 1929

2009-03-13T07:03:00.004Z

Harold Pierce Cazneaux, Doris Zinkeisen, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 400 x 511 size.

"Doris Zinkeisen (1898-1991) was a painter, illustrator, constume and theatrical designer and commercial artist.

Doris (...) rose to major prominence during this period (1930s), for her costume design. Although she only worked on a handful of films, all of them are now regarded as British classics of the era and Doris is today best remembered for her work on these films. They included Bitter Sweet, Peg of Old Drury, Victoria the Great and the 1936 American screen version of Show Boat. She worked extensively on theatre productions with Noel Coward. (...)

During the Second World War (...) Doris was touring Belgium, France and Germany in her capacity as war artist. In 1945 she arrived at Belsen Concentration Camp immediately after it's liberation, in time to document the movement of 28,000 former inmates, attempts to care for and rehabilitate them, and the aftermath of the operation in which 13,000 of them who were beyond help died. (...)

Doris later wrote that "the shock of Belsen was never to be forgotten." (...) Doris was tortured for the rest of her life by her experiences at Belsen. Her son described the "heart rendrending" agony of the letters she wrote to her husband while working at the camp. She confided to her family that the sights she had seen had been terrible, but it was the smell of the place that had stayed with her."

Sisters G

2009-03-13T06:16:00.004Z

Sisters G, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via It'll Take The Snap Out Of Your Garters! blog. Click image for 500 x 675 size.

Karla and Eleanor Gutchrlein, better known as Sisters G.

Lupe Velez

2009-03-13T05:12:00.007Z

Lupe Velez, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Image via Fabulon. Click for 600 x 747 size.

From Lupe Velez biography:

"Arriving after many delays, Lupe was robbed of all her money the moment she stepped off the train. Finally, reaching the theatre, she was dismissed from the show for looking too young. Alone and broke, she found a part in a policeman's benefit show. There, Lupe was discovered by a producer who cast her in star Fanny Brice's Music Box Revue.

Soon, Velez was hired by the Pathe' Studios for their "Bathing Beauty" comedies and made her debut in a comedy short titled What Men Did To Me(1927). She was 19 years old.

One day that year, a talent scout brought Lupe and her Chihuahua to meet powerful movie star Douglas Fairbanks in order to win a role in his elaborate new film, The Gaucho (1928), which was to be shot in black and white with some sequences in color.

At first, Fairbanks thought Lupe too languid for the vivacious part. During the interview, a stagehand "stole" her dog as a prank. When Velez, barely five feet tall, discovered this, she beat the man mercilessly. Impressed, Douglas hired Lupe and gave her a five-year contract at his studio, United Artists."