Posts Tagged Hollywood

Samuel J. Seymour was five-years-old when he went to see Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. He saw a man jump on the balcony and was afraid the man might have hurt himself. The man was John Wilkes Booth, he jumped onto the stage after assassinating President Lincoln. This is Seymour on the February 9, 1956 episode of “I’ve Got a Secret.” The host was Garry Moore and the panelists included Bill Cullen, Jayne Meadows, Henry Morgan, and Lucille Ball. Seymour died two months later, 63 days after his game show appearance, on April 12, 1956. He was the last surviving person who had been present at Lincoln’s assassination.

In the article, “I saw Lincoln shot” by Samuel J. Seymour as told to Frances Spatz Leighton, Seymour recounted the fateful night.

All of a sudden a shot rang out – a shot that always will be remembered – and someone in the President’s box screamed. I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat. People started milling around and I thought there’d been another accident when one man seemed to tumble over the balcony rail and land on the stage.

“Hurry, hurry, let’s go help the poor man who fell down,” I begged.

But by that time John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, had picked himself up and was running for dear life. . . .

Only a few people noticed the running man, but pandemonium broke loose in the theater, with everyone shouting:

“Lincoln’s shot! The President’s dead!”

Snapshot of Seymour’s article. Photo Credit: The Milwaukee Sentienel

Click here for a closer view of the article.

(Found via Huffington Post/Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images)

“Friendship takes time and energy if it’s going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn’t last if you don’t give it proper appreciation. Friendship can be so comfortable, but nurture it-don’t take it for granted.”

- Betty White, actress, comedian and writer

(Source)

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

- Mae West, Actress

Courtesy of Slate:

This fall brings us two high-profile biopics about American presidents: Spielberg’s epic Lincoln, out this Friday, and Hyde Park on Hudson, which stars Bill Murray as FDR. This got us wondering: Which presidents have been portrayed on the silver screen the most?

We went to IMDb and tallied every portrayal of an actual American president in the history of the movies—including direct-to-video releases, animated films, and shorts. The movie president didn’t have to appear as the president to be included: Ulysses S. Grant, for instance, has often been depicted in his pre-White House years, and William Henry Harrison has only ever been portrayed on screen as the governor of the Indiana Territory and as a U.S. Army General fighting American Indians. (Which is more than his grandson can boast: The part of Benjamin Harrison has been played just once, and it was uncredited.)

We did not, by the way, include cameos by presidents playing themselves, or the cinematic use of archival footage. An actor or voice-actor had to be playing the man to get counted. And we did not count television portrayals.

The results? Lincoln blows away his presidential peers, with nearly twice as many depictions as the father of our country, who comes in second. On the other end of the spectrum, John Tyler, James Buchanan, and Warren G. Harding have, as far as we can tell, never been portrayed on film (not counting the recent online short, “John Tyler: Getaway Driver”). There’s still hope for them, though, as William Howard Taft could explain, if he wasn’t dead: Taft had to wait almost a century before someone played him in 2005’s The Greatest Game Ever Played.

Aisha Harris, Natalie Matthews-Ramo and Katie Kilkenny, “Presidents in Movies: The All-Time Leader Board,” Slate.com, November 8, 2012.

Promotional photos were often used in early Hollywood as magazine covers and as adverting tactics to promote actors. Often they were themed for various events and holidays. Since Halloween is in a few days, I’ve posted some Halloween-themed promotional shots from some of Hollywood’s most iconic stars.

Anita Page circa 1930. Photo Credit: She Blogged By Night

Judy Garland circa 1941. Photo Credit: She Blogged By Night

Mae West, 1934. Photo Credit: She Blogged By Night

Myrna Loy. Photo Credit: She Blogged By Night

Ava Gardner. Photo Credit: She Blogged By Night

(Photo by J. R. Eyerman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

An audience in formal attire and 3D glasses watches the premiere screening of film ‘Bwana Devil,’ directed by Arch Oboler, the 1st full-length, color 3D (aka ‘Natural Vision’) motion picture, at the Paramount Theater, Hollywood, California, November 26, 1952.

In an effort to entice people back into the theaters, 3-D movies, or as it was called back then – ‘Natural Vision 3-D,’ were created. Since television became increasingly popular, movie attendance sharply declined. “Bwana Devil” is considered to be the first full-length, color movie to use Natural Vision 3-D. While the critics disliked the movie, it was a huge commercial success and sparked the first 3-D craze in motion pictures.

Getty Images

Norma Jeane Dougherty, June 26, 1945

Norma Jeane Dougherty, June 26, 1945

Before she was Marilyn Monroe, a platinum blonde with her dress billowing over a subway grate, Norma Jean Mortenson worked as a “riveter” or a female war worker. When she was sixteen-years-old, Norma Jean married James Dougherty, who joined the Merchant Marines during the Second World War. Traveling to California, Norma Jean got a job as a munitions factory worker at Radioplane Corp., a company that built small remote-controlled aircraft used in military practice.

On June 26, 1945, Capt. Ronald Reagan of the U.S. Army`s 1st Motion Picture Unit (yes, Reagan – as in the future President Reagan) ordered army photographer David Conover to photograph women war workers. Conover later wrote about his experience meeting Norma Jean.

I moved down the assembly line, taking shots of the most attractive employees. None was especially out of the ordinary. I came to a pretty girl putting on propellers and raised the camera to my eye. She had curly ash blond hair and her face was smudged with dirt. I snapped her picture and walked on. Then I stopped, stunned. She was beautiful. Half child, half woman, her eyes held something that touched and intrigued me.

Marilyn Monroe with David Conover on set of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in 1952.

Yank, a weekly magazine published by the military during the war years, published Conover’s photographs, thus starting Norma Jean’s modeling career. After the photos were published, Emmeline Snively represented the young worker and encouraged her to dye her hair platinum blonde. In 1946, Norma Jean divorced her husband, stating that he opposed her artistic career. As her modeling career flourished, she soon turned to film and became the iconic Marilyn Monroe.

One could say that President Ronald Reagan indirectly discovered Marilyn Monroe…

Biography on Monroe.
Biography on David Conover.
Photos found here.

Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The caption that accompanied this image when it appeared in the January 23, 1939, issue of LIFE: “The top box-office star of Warner Bros., in blue slacks, skims through the morning newspapers in the playroom of her home. The walls are decorated with Mexican posters.”

LIFE

1935: American actor Shirley Temple presents the Best Actress Oscar to French-born actor Claudette Colbert (1903 – 1996) for her role in director Frank Capra’s film, ‘It Happened One Night’, Los Angeles, California. Colbert holds a fur coat over her arm, preparing to travel to New York City. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Photo Credit: Disney

Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, was married to Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse.  Taylor has been the voice of Minnie since 1986 while Allwine voiced Mickey for three decades, only two people have voiced Mickey before him – Jimmy MacDonald and Walt Disney himself. Allwine and Taylor were married from 1991 until Allwine’s death in 2009. Of their marriage, Taylor once stated,

Everybody goes, ‘Oh, that’s so sweet.’ When we got married, we kind of kept it quiet because everybody was saying, ‘Oh, Mickey and Minnie got married.’ It wasn’t Mickey and Minnie; it was Wayne and Russi. We wanted to keep it about us and not about the characters.

Taylor was also the voice of Scrooge’s grand nephews, the identical triplets - Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck on the animated television series DuckTales.

Dennis McLellan, “Wayne Allwine, voice of Mickey Mouse, dies at 62,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2009.
Wayne Allwine’s IMDb.com biography
Russi Taylor’s IMDb.com biography

Actress Carole Landis, a hugely popular pin-up “poster girl” among Allied troops, logged over 100,000 miles during the war, and spent more time visiting with servicemen than any other American actress. Amoebic dysentery and malaria were just two of the illnesses she contracted during her travels. She also battled depression for years, and committed suicide, at the age of 29, in 1948.

The German-born Dietrich is surrounded by two sailors, a soldier, and a Marine at a 1942 USO event at New York City’s Astor Hotel. A staunch anti-Nazi, she became a U.S. citizen in 1939 and was one of the first major celebrities to actively support the Allied war effort.

 

“Marlene Dietrich Plans the Next Leg of Her War Tour”

 

Dietrich peruses paperwork related to her wartime efforts in 1943. For the duration of World War II, she would tour relentlessly across the U.S., North Africa, and Europe in support of the troops. It was also during the war that Dietrich, raised in a Protestant household, lost her faith after hearing the “devout” on both sides of the conflict invoking God to aid their cause and destroy their enemies. “If God exists,” she later said, “he needs to review his plan.”

 

“Dietrich Signs Autographs at the Front”

 

Servicemen, like these G.I.s in Germany in early 1945, adored Dietrich — and openly admired her fearlessness when visiting troops far from the safety of Hollywood. A native of Germany, she became an American citizen in 1939. When asked why she had traveled to war zones to entertain and comfort Allied troops, she famously and simply replied, “aus Anstand.” “It was the decent thing to do.”

At an evacuation hospital near the Italian front lines, Marlene Dietrich sits on a piano while wounded troops gather around to listen to her sing, May 1944.

 

“Just After D-Day, Marlene Dietrich Invades France”

 

Dressed in a U.S. Army Air Force uniform, Dietrich waits to entertain American troops in France on June 10, 1944, four days after the Normandy invasion.

 

“Marlene Dietrich Swaps G.I. Boot for Gold Pump”

 

Dietrich pulls an awed serviceman on stage during a performance near the European front in February 1945, one of 500 USO appearances she’ll make during the war.

 

“Marlene Dietrich Gets a Hero’s Welcome in New York Harbor”

 

Sailors help Dietrich disembark the Queen Elizabeth liner upon her return from her USO tour in August 1945. For her war efforts, she would receive the Presidential Medal of Honor.