Blacklist Flashback: Howard Hughes + Jane Russell
Ava Gardner gets violent, Hughes’ 15 year-old muse, and how Russell’s boobs did what the Spruce Goose couldn’t.
View Article80: Salt of the Earth: Howard Hughes + Paul Jarrico
The first screenwriter to be taken to court by a studio over his blacklist firing.
View Article81: The Blacklist Part 11: Born Yesterday: Judy Holliday
The one star who was subpoenaed to testify about her ties to Communism who was fully supported by her studio.
View ArticleBlacklist Flashback: Lena Horne During WWII
Stunning singer/actress Lena Horne was the first black performer to be given the full glamour girl star-making treatment.
View Article82: The Blacklist Part 12: Stormy Weather: Lena Horne + Paul Robeson
Horne, who from the beginning of her career had associated with leftists and “agitators,” got caught up in the anti-communist insanity. One of those agitators was Paul Robeson.
View Article83: The Blacklist Part 13: On the Waterfront: Elia Kazan
A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden were made possible because their director named names.
View Article84: The Blacklist Part 14: After the Fall: Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller considered Elia Kazan a close friend and collaborator, but when Kazan named names to HUAC, Miller broke with him and wrote The Crucible.
View ArticleBlacklist Flashback: Frank Sinatra through 1945
Sinatra’s rise to fame and his experiences during World War II
View Article85: The Blacklist Part 15: Frank Sinatra and Albert Maltz (Breaking The...
Sinatra's attempts to hire Hollywood 10 member Albert Maltz, plus his rocky relationship with JFK.
View Article86: The Blacklist Part 16: Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo, and Otto Preminger...
How did the Blacklist come to an end? If you ask Kirk Douglas, the end began with his hiring of Dalton Trumbo to write Spartacus -- or, rather Douglas flaunting of that hiring. Otto Preminger, who...
View Article87: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Douglas Fairbanks / Lucille LeSueur Goes to...
In order to understand Joan Crawford’s rise to fame, we have to talk about what Joan - born Lucille LeSueur, and called “Billie Cassin” for much of her childhood - was like before she got to Hollywood,...
View Article88: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. / Our Dancing...
Joan Crawford’s early years in Hollywood were like - well, a pre-code Joan Crawford movie: a highly ambitious beauty of low birth does what she has to do (whatever she has to do) to transform herself...
View Article89: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Clark Gable, Franchot Tone and Barbara Payton
By the mid-1930s, Joan Crawford was very, very famous, and negotiating both an affair with Clark Gable (her most frequent co-star and the only male star of her stature), and a new marriage to Franchot...
View Article90: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: The Middle Years (Mildred Pierce to Johnny...
Joan Crawford struggled through what she called her “middle years,” the period during her 40s before she remade herself from aging, slumping MGM deadweight into a fleet, journeywoman powerhouse who...
View Article91: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Bette Davis, "What Ever Happened to Baby...
Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has done more to define later generation’s ideas about who Crawford was than perhaps any other movie that she was actually in. Unfortunately, most of...
View Article92: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Mommie Dearest
The year after Joan Crawford died, her estranged, adopted daughter Christina published a tell-all, accusing her late mother of having been an abusive monster when the cameras weren’t around. Three...
View Article93: Peg Entwistle (Dead Blondes Part 1)
This season we’re going to explore the stories of 11 blonde actresses who died unusual, untimely or otherwise notable deaths - deaths which, in various ways, have outshined these actress’ lives. Today...
View Article94: Thelma Todd (Dead Blondes Part 2)
Thelma Todd - a curvaceous white-blonde who predated Jean Harlow - was a sparkling comedienne who began in the silent era and flourished in the talkies, both holding her own opposite the Marx Brothers...
View Article95: Jean Harlow Flashback (Dead Blondes Part 3)
Jean Harlow was the top blonde of the 1930s, and even though she didn’t survive the decade - she died in 1937 at the age of 26 - she’d inspire a generation of would-be platinum-haired bombshell stars....
View Article96: Veronica Lake (Dead Blondes Part 4)
Veronica Lake had the most famous hairdo of the 1940s, if not the twentieth century. Her star turn in Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels and her noir pairings with Alan Ladd made her Paramount’s...
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