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62: MGM Stories Part 7: MGM's children: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland
After Irving Thalberg’s death in 1936, Louis B. Mayer doubled down on "family entertainment" at MGM. To support this new wave of content, Mayer started signing younger and younger performers to groom...
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63: MGM Stories Part 8: Eddie Mannix
In the new Hollywood satire from the Coen Brothers, Josh Brolin plays a studio "fixer" named Eddie Mannix. The real Eddie Mannix was a New Jersey-born reputed gangster who rose through the ranks at MGM...
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64: MGM Stories Part 9: Spencer Tracy
When Spencer Tracy signed with MGM, he was a character actor better known for his problem drinking (and very public extramarital affair with Loretta Young) than for his movie hits. But the studio made...
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65: MGM Stories Part 10: David O. Selznick Part One: The Mayers and Gone With...
In 1930, after putting in time at MGM and RKO, Paramount executive David O. Selznick married Irene Mayer, the daughter of L.B. Mayer. Irene’s father would soon thereafter bring Selznick to MGM to fill...
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66: MGM Stories Part 11: David O. Selznick Part Two: Jennifer Jones and...
In 1941, Selznick signed a young actress named Phylis, who was then married to actor Robert Walker. Selznick renamed Phylis “Jennifer Jones,” and set to work turning her into a star, helping her to...
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67: MGM Stories Part 12: Lana Turner
The legendary "Sweater Girl" was one of MGM’s prized contract players, the epitome of the mid-century sex goddess on-screen and an unlucky-in-love single mom off-screen who would burn through seven...
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68: MGM Stories Part 13: Gloria Grahame
Gloria Grahame arrived in Hollywood in 1944, after Louis B. Mayer personally plucked her from the New York stage, and changed her name. But Grahame was the rare actress who Mayer didn’t know how to...
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69: MGM Stories Part 14: Elizabeth Taylor, The MGM Years
Elizabeth Taylor grew up on the MGM lot, spending 18 years as what she referred to as “MGM chattel.” The last four years of that 18 year sentence were arguably the most interesting. From 1956-1960, she...
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70: MGM Stories Part 15: Mayer’s Downfall
In the 1940s, Louis B. Mayer was the highest paid man in America, one of the first celebrity CEOs and the figurehead of what for most Americans was the most glamorous industry on Earth. In 1951, Mayer...
View Article71: The Blacklist Part 1: The Prehistory of the Blacklist
With America increasingly paranoid that it and the Soviet Union were destined to demolish one another through nuclear war, anyone who had connections to Communism was seen by some as a potential threat...
View Article72: The Blacklist Part 2: Crossfire – The Trials of the Hollywood Ten
In 1947, HUAC subpoenaed dozens of Hollywood workers to come to Washington and testify to the presence of Communists in the film industry.
View Article73: The Blacklist Part 3: Dorothy Parker
Much to the surprise of many of even her closest friends, beginning in the late 1920s the celebrated poet and New Yorker columnist became increasingly drawn to socialist causes.
View ArticleBlacklist Flashback: Bogey Before Bacall
Prepare for next week's Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn and John Huston episode with this look back at Ep 13.
View Article74: The Blacklist Part 4: The African Queen: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine...
With their career futures uncertain, the trio collaborated on the most difficult film any of them would ever make.
View Article75: The Blacklist Part 5: The Strange Love of Barbara Stanwyck: Robert Taylor
Barbara Stanwyck’s second marriage, to heartthrob Robert Taylor, didn’t make sense in a lot of ways, but the pair were united by their conservative politics.
View Article76: The Blacklist Part 6: He Ran All The Way: John Garfield
The biggest star to ever be blacklisted.
View ArticleBlacklist Flashback: Charlie Chaplin During World War II
In 1922, Charlie Chaplin was one of the most beloved men in the world.
View Article77: The Blacklist Part 7: Monsieur Verdoux: Charlie Chaplin's Road to...
The witch hunt that forced him to leave his adopted home, and Hollywood career, behind.
View Article78: Storm Warning: Ronald Reagan, the FBI and HUAC
From movie actor to politician, from Democrat to Republican.
View Article79: She: Richard Nixon + Helen Gahagan Douglas
From a Broadway and opera star to an exciting politician in the days of FDR.
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