Joan crawford The Diva Pt.IV

Did You know?? She's quite Nice..

• Joan quietly turned over a percentage of her income to pay for medical aid for the underprivileged, and for twelve years supported a four-bed ward, for the use of her co-workers, at Santa Monica Hospital.

• Her 1930 Christmas present from husband Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was a portable dressing room, furnished by stepmother-in-law Mary Pickford.

• Joan was a jogger years before the word was invented. It was her habit, on the way to work in the morning, to stop her limousine, step out, and run for a mile or so with her chauffeur following at a discreet distance.

• In the early 1930s, tired of playing fun-loving flappers and longing for more dramatic roles, Joan wanted to change her image. Thin lips would not do for her, she wanted big lips. Big, full and ripe. Ignoring Crawford's natural lip contours, Max Factor ran a smear of colour across her upper and lower lips; it was just what she wanted. To Max, the Crawford look, which became her trademark, was always 'the smear'. To the public, it became known as 'Hunter's Bow Lips'. Crawford is often credited as helping to rout America's prejudice against lipstick.

• For Joan, her fans' adulation was the nectar of life and a sacred responsibility. Every piece of fan mail sent to her was answered, whether by herself (She even wore a special outfit to tend to the chore.) or by her hirelings.

• In 1928, when her determination and guts finally made her a star in "Our Dancing Daughters," Joan answered each fan letter personally, stamped the envelopes, and took them to the post office herself.

• Joan knew the birthday of every member of her crew and even their wives and children. At the end of her pictures, Crawford gave the entire production team gifts fashioned of sterling silver, with their own individual inscription.
  
  

Jake Won BAFTA

"Brokeback Mountain" took four awards including best picture Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards, And A surprise in supportting category.

Joan Crawford The diva PT:III

Did you know?? She like to drink.!!!

• Later in life Crawford became a very heavy vodka drinker. She always carried a flask filled with her drink of choice, and when dining out, 100-proof Smirnoff was always awaiting her arrival (despite her meticulous ways, she liked to stir her drink with her fingers). Heaven help the waiters if they brought her anything less than 100-proof; she had become an expert on vodka, and if the drink did not meet her standards, she would scream at them to take it back.

• Her flasks of vodka were covered with material to match all her outfits.

• Would not even walk into a hotel room unless it had a loaf of toasted French bread and seven packs of cigarettes (three opened) waiting for her. She also liked to know in advance the exact number of steps from the elevator to her hotel room.

• In 1946, although an Oscar nominee for Best Actress (Mildred Pierce), Joan was not present at the ceremony. She was at home in bed with the flu and a bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon. She listened to the show over the radio. When she was announced the winner, she exhaled with a scream that alerted the newsmen on the lawn below her window that she had won. Jumping out of bed, the ailing star then called for her hairdresser and makeup man, on call in the next room.
  
  
• During her marriage to Alfred Steele, Joan always referred to Pepsi-Cola as "our child.

• Adamantly refused to go on camera during her menstrual period.

• Her brother Hal died of syphilis in 1963. Joan did not attend the funeral.
  
  
  

Joan Creawford The Diva PT.II

Did you know??.......She kinda Crrrazy.!!

• Joan had a passion for cleanliness. She never wore a dress, a hat or a coat that wasn’t sent to the cleaners instantly after wearing it. She used to wash her hands every ten minutes and couldn’t step out of the house unless she had gloves on.

• Joan would never smoke a cigarette unless she opened the pack herself, and would never use another cigarette out of that pack if someone else had touched it.

• She used to follow guests around her house wiping everything they touched, especially doorknobs.

• Joan once lost a maid because she asked her to wax the tree outside her bedroom window.

• Joan's children were not allowed out of bed at night without permission. She kept Christopher hostage in his bed with her self-styled 'sleep safe,' a harness made of heavy canvas straps. When explaining to unsuspecting visitors why her young son was tied into his bed, Crawford replied, "Oh, he likes to kick off the covers and suck his thumb.

• When she stayed in a hotel, no matter how many stars it had, Joan always scrubbed the bathroom herself before using it. At home, after a workman had installed a new bathtub and toilet, then used them, she had the plumbing torn out and replaced immediately.
  

Janet New single will be release on april

Jermaine Dupri told the New York Times that Janet's new album will be titled "20 Years Old."

"Her album is going to be called '20 Years Old,'" he says, "that's how long it's been since she put out 'Control.'"

He also dismissed talk of Janet's recent weight gain. "She gained that weight for an indie role," he said. When pushed for more details about that role, he said that she was supposed to play a mother in the Deep South in a film that fell through.

Although the article does not mention the film by name, it is assumed that the film being referred to is "Tennessee." It had been previously announced late last year that Janet would be starring in this film with Macaulay Culkin and Martin Henderson.

...No details about the album have been officially confirmed by Virgin Records or by Janet herself.

International Bear Rendezvous,

The theme this year is IBRdi Gras
IBR 2006- International Bear Rendezvous, The theme this year is IBRdi Gras. Inspired by Mardi Gras... The International Bear Rendezvous is an annual gathering of bears and bear-lovers held in San Francisco. It is hosted by the Bears of San Francisco, who conceived of Rendezvous as a weekend of fun and fund-raising.

Joan Crawford The Diva of them all Pt. I

Joan Crawford was not an actress; she was a movie star. The distinction is a crucial one - she infrequently appeared in superior films, and her work was rarely distinguished regardless of the material, yet she enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in cinema history. Glamorous and over-the-top, stardom was seemingly Crawford's birthright - everything about her, from her rags-to-riches story to her constant struggles to remain in the spotlight, made her ideal fodder for the Hollywood myth factory. Even in death she remained a high-profile figure thanks to the publication of her daughter's infamous tell-all book, an outrageous film biography and numerous revelations of a her private life. Ultimately, Crawford was melodrama incarnate, a wide-eyed, delirious prima donna whose story endures as a definitive portrait of motion-picture fame, determination and relentless ambition.


Did you know??

• There was a saying around M-G-M -- Shearer got the productions, Garbo supplied the art, and Joan Crawford made the money to pay for both
• Joan Crawford has had the longest career on the screen of anyone who ever worked before the camera. Mary Astor made her screen début in September 1921 and retired from the screen in March 1965 and was therefore technically on the screen longer than Joan Crawford, but in roles of diminished importance.
  
  
• When she went to England in the mid-sixties to film "Berserk" she was welcomed by the British press as "Her Serene Crawfordship."
• Someone once commented "Joan, that red hat makes you look radiant." She replied "Why the f*** do you think I wear it!"
• Her poodle, Cliquot, usually ate white meat of chicken, ground sirloin, ice cream and ginger ale. He wore custom made jackets from Hammacher Schlemmer. They were red with black velvet collars with "CC" on them. They had heart-shaped pockets with Kleenex in them in case he had to blow his nose. And he had a rhinestone collar for evening.
  
  
• She insisted on her dishes being scalded before she used them-- although, being a perpetual dieter, she rarely had more than black coffee and soda crackers (spread with mustard) for lunch.
• Her Oscar for "Mildred Pierce" went on auction after her death and sold for $68,000. The auction house had predicted a top bid of $15,000.
• Made some sex films back in the Twenties, most notably a silent one-reeler tantalisingly entitled 'The Casting Couch'. It is alleged that after she became famous MGM shelled out over half a million dollars in an attempt to buy up every surviving copy of the film. When one possessor of some nude shots refused to part with them, his house was burned down three weeks later, himself being a casualty as well as the pics.
• When "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" was finished, Bette Davis referred to Joan and herself as "we two old broads." Joan sent Bette a note on her traditional blue stationery: "Dear Miss Davis. Please do not continue to refer to me as an old broad. Sincerely, Joan Crawford."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Gene Tierney

The second
half of this month there will have 12th of Gene Tierney Movie air on TCM and Fox Classic. Some are my favorite like "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ", "Night and the city" ,The Razor's Edge,Heaven Can Wait" and her oscar performance "Leave her to heaven" plus Biography and couple more. Check out Gene Tierney Schedule .. Here

I"ve never seen The shaghai Gesture Before .. Supposed tove Fabulous. Can't wait.!!

Widescreen War

No sooner than 20th Century-Fox announced the specifications for CinemaScope, Paramount Pictures pointed out lots of shortcomings and announced their new widescreen system, VistaVision. Both studios made dramatic claims about their systems. Which system was actually the superior one was difficult to decide.

Here is some gallery of Two big widescreen giant.



Cinemascope was 20th Century Fox's answer to Cinerama and debuted on September 16, 1953 with the Robe. The anamorphic principle is as follows: a cylindrical lens over a normal spherical lens squeezes a 2X horizontal picture onto a standard 35mm frame. When projecting through a complimentary lens, this produces a wide picture ratio of 2.55 to 1. with 4-track magnetic sound, or 2.35 to 1 with optical sound. (The original CinemaScope used a ratio of 2.66 to 1).

Vistavision :Paramount Pictures was the only major studio in the U.S. that didn't immediately embrace CinemaScope for use on its major productions. The studio preferred to stick with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 but sought ways to improve overall picture clarity and definition on ever increasing screen sizes. John R. Bishop, head of Paramount's camera and film processing departments acquired a William Fox "Natural Color" camera built in the late 1920's by the William P. Stein company. This camera exposed two frames of film at the same time through color filters. Bishop cut out the separation between the two frames, rolled the camera over on its side and fitted it with Leica 35mm still camera lenses. This camera, dubbed the "Lazy-8" because it pulled the film across horizontally in 8 perforation frames, provided a total negative area 2.66 times greater than the conventional 35mm camera with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

Happy Valentine everyone

Mamie..

" I had a nightmare ..I was a brunett"

Mamie Van Doren

WHO IS Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons???

Once upon a time there was a different Hollywood. High-powered producers, directors, or stars did not control it. The big studios were run by some of the most powerful men in Hollywood: Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, and Irving Thalberg; but they all cowered before two women: Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the two most powerful gossip columnists in history. Because of the power of their columns, Louella's in the Hearst papers; Hedda's in the Los Angeles Times, they were a force to be reckoned with whether you were a producer, director, established star, or budding starlet. If you were going to become anyone in Hollywood you would eventually have to pass muster by one of them and be favorably written about. If you were out of favor by them, you might as well get on the bus back to Podunk because you were never going to do more than wait on tables, pump gas, or become a hooker or a producer's wife.
(source from Mamie Van Dorn.com)

Judy Holliday video Clip

Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir

Click to listen!!!
Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir
Otto Preminger's 1944 "Laura" marks an important transition in film history. Visually it harks back to Hollywood's Golden Era, flooding with light elaborate sets and the glamorous stars they hold--but at crucial moments a noir vision bubbles up to artfully blemish this smooth facade. It is a classic love story--except that it hinges on forbidden fantasy and murder. It at once gives a coy nod to the parlor psychology of the "Thin Man" variety of mystery, and looks forward to the dark Hitchcockian psychological thriller. It is a Janus of a film, and it may be eternally debated whether its double vision signals an end or a beginning.

Drama Queen

just click and play

least talk about daddy ..I mean nominee

With 10 minute on screen lead him to his 4th oscar nomination (his first in supporting role) at 56 Hurt still look hot!!

Book:Gowns by Adrian: The MGM Years, 1928-1941

Adrian was a rare creature - having an accommodating personality, a canny marketing sense, and a signature design vocabulary - that made him invaluable to Hollywood's glamorous stars and legendary directors. His collaborations were major: with Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford, Judy Garland, Irene Dunne, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, Janet Gaynor, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, among others. Just as noteworthy were the star vehicles themselves, nearly 200 in all, classics many of them: Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, Riptide, Camille, The Wizard of Oz, The Women, The Philadelphia Story.

Gowns by Adrian: The MGM Years, 1928-1941 is the first comprehensive look at this prodigiously talented designer in his glory years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The result of more than 10 years of research, access to previously unavailable MGM personnel files, and containing many unpublished photographs and complete filmography, Gowns by Adrian brings us into the design studio and onto the sound stage and makes us privy to the everyday give-and-take between designer and star. For the reclusive Garbo, Adrian was the only designer who understood her wish to avoid revealing necklines or fur; Shearer was particular in another way: two versions of every dress were de rigeur before she would choose one of them; and Crawford, was there ever a star more demanding or more determined? As Adrian once exclaimed, "Who would have thought that my entire reputation as a designer would rest on Joan Crawford's shoulders!"

As author Howard Gutner makes clear in example after example, Adrian never lost sight of the character he was dressing or of his audience. "Screen presentation is vital and living. It is not a fashion magazine. It lives and breathes." Adrian wrote these words in 1936, and more than 65 years later we continue to believe him. He was a man concerned with modernity and credibility. Indeed, so popular were his costume designs that his clothes were regularly copied by the major department stores. (The “Letty Lynton”' dress, worn by Joan Crawford, reportedly sold upwards of 50,000 copies by Macy's alone.)

Whether it's the so-called kite lapels, the use of plaids, the ultra-wide belts, the crazy hats (so nobly defined by Garbo), or the soaring imagination that resulted in multi-tiered, heavily beaded, and embroidered confections, it's Adrian to whom we owe thanks. The arc of his design curve ended neither with his departure from MGM, nor with his death prematurely at the age of 56, but extends well into the present. Designers such as Geoffrey Beene, Halston, and Armani, to name a few, have all acknowledged his influence.

Adrian understood how Hollywood's finest could speak to the American woman on what has always been the most democratic showcase of all: the silver screen. Gowns by Adrian is a treasure chest of pictures and information, a book destined, like its subject, to become a classic

Did You Know?

"Chaplin and Hitchcock made their last movies at 77, Wilder his last at 75, Hawks at 74, Ford at 71 and Wyler at 69, but Cukor outlasted them all by embarking on RICH AND FAMOUS three months after his 81st birthday"

He was replaced as director of Gone with the Wind (1939) because of constant disagreements with producer David O. Selznick over the script and direction (not as rumour had it because Clark Gable considered him better suited as a so-called woman's director).

He was famous for the parties he threw later in life for large groups of directors, many parties being attended by other directing legends such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Luis Buñuel, and George Stevens.

Was voted the 18th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Enjoyed a successful working partnership with Katharine Hepburn, directing her in ten films over a period of 47 years

Godfather of Mia Farrow

"George Cukor"

One of Hollywood's brightest talents, (also one of the first openly gay director)George Cukor has often been dismissed as a "woman's director". Accurate or not, he was responsible for some of the greatest treasures of Hollywood's golden era.

Stage-struck from childhood, he haunted Broadway and got his first professional work as assistant stage manager in a Chicago company of "The Better 'Ole" (1919).

...Cukor made a handful of films (including Tallulah Bankhead's 1931 "Tarnished Lady", his first solo flight), before decamping to RKO over a disagreement with Ernst Lubitsch about "One Hour with You" (1932).... He fought to cast Katharine Hepburn in her screen debut, "A Bill of Divorcement" (1932), and went on to make another eight films (and two TV-movies) with her, including "Little Women" (1933), a sweet cameo of a film, and the financial flop (but subsequent cult favorite) "Sylvia Scarlett" (1936). He was loaned to MGM in 1933, where he marshaled such stars as Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery in the delightful "Dinner at Eight" (1933)--filmed in an amazing 28 days.

...His 1930s hits there included "David Copperfield" (1935), a lush if flawed version of "Romeo and Juliet" (1936), Garbo's transcendent "Camille" (1937) and the brittle all-star comedy "The Women" (1939). That same year, he was fired from "Gone with the Wind" and replaced by Victor Fleming--a move that caused much speculation and gossip (such as Clark Gable's demanding another director because of Cukor's homosexuality).

...Cukor made only a dozen theatrical films in the 1940s, but several were among his most fondly remembered and featured tour-de-force roles for top actresses. He directed Hepburn's comeback vehicle, "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), one of Joan Crawford's better performances, "A Woman's Face" (1941), Ingrid Bergman's Oscar-winning turn in "Gaslight" (1944) and the Tracy-Hepburn comedy "Adam's Rib" (which provided a wonderful part for neophyte Judy Holliday, 1949). But even the best of directors has his flops; Cukor's included Garbo's career-killing comedy "Two-Faced Woman" (1941) and Norma Shearer's "Her Cardboard Lover" (1942).

Despite his few ventures into film noir, Cukor was best known for a light-hearted mixture of sophistication and bandbox Hollywood corn at its best.... His amazing ability to coax performances from divas (male and female) made him both a valuable team player and the savior of more than one film career.

...Among his latter-day hits were three Judy Holliday vehicles, "Born Yesterday" (for which she won an Oscar in 1950), "The Marrying Kind" (1952) and the delightful "It Should Happen to You" (1954); the Tracy-Hepburn comedy "Pat and Mike" (1952); Judy Garland's comeback, "A Star is Born" (1954, his first color film and a musical remake of his 1932 "What Price Hollywood?"); and Audrey Hepburn's immensely popular "My Fair Lady", which won Cukor his only Best Director Oscar (1964).


AFI.com
Note: His unfair designation as a "woman's director" was Hollywood shorthand for the fact that Cukor was gay; in reality, he was a splendid director of both male and female actors, far more comfortable with pace and performance than visual technique, and his obvious skill and taste made him one of the aces of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Mr. Demille I'm Not ready for a high-definition close-up?

The unforgiving clarity of high-definition television has induced paranoia among celebrities obsessed with their appearance.
The technology produces images so sharp that even subtle imperfections, usually hidden by make-up or flattering lighting, are brutally exposed.

"With high-definition television facial imperfections and ageing signs are dramatically visible." You think Cameron Diaz is flawless until you see her in high definition. Heather Locklear was cited as "a classic case of the HDTV effect. In regular TV, she still looks great, sexy as ever. But in high-def, the ageing lines and wrinkles are everywhere." Top of his list was Teri Hatcher, the Desperate Housewives actress, who is described as looking "really desperate". According to Swann, celebrities who appeared flawless on high-definition television included Mischa Barton, Anna Kournikova, Eva Longoria, Catherine Zeta Jones and Jessica Alba.
here the list of a atar who look bad on HDTV.

More Holliday

• The character of "Lina Lamont" in the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain was written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green with their friend Judy Holliday mind. However a variety of circumstances prevented her from doing the film. Instead Jean Hagen, who had made her debut in the 1949 film Adam's Rib along side of Holliday, was cast.

• Among those who list Judy Holliday as one of their favorite actresses are Madonna, Catherine Deneuve, Winona Ryder, Pamela Anderson, Cathy Moriarty, Mia Farrow, Shirley MacLaine, Kristen Miller, Arte Johnson and Woody Allen.

• One of Judy Holliday's best friends in high school was Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith would go on to become a celebrated author of suspense novels like Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

• Judy Holliday was the first actress to ever be simultaneously nominated for Golden Globe Awards in both the "Actress in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy" and the "Actress in a Leading Role - Drama" categories. Stranger still was the fact that both nominations were for the same film, Born Yesterday.

• Judy Holliday won both the Golden Globe Award for "Actress in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy" and the "Best Actress" Academy Award in the same year for Born Yesterday.

• Judy Holliday was the first actress to ever be nominated for Golden Globe Awards in both the lead (Born Yesterday) and supporting (Adam's Rib) actress categories in the same year.

Did you know?

"You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment."

Judy Holliday

Despite her image of a "dumb blond", she was actually very smart. Her I.Q was measured at 172. She often said that it took a lot of smarts to convince people that her characters were stupid.

Listed by Madonna as one of her biggest influences Co-wrote and performed songs with jazz legend Gerry Mulligan for the album "Holliday with Mulligan".

According to her biographer Gary Carey, Holliday flummoxed the House Unamerican Activities Committee so much (by essentially playing her Billie Dawn character on the witness stand) she ended up being the only person ever called before HUAC who was neither blacklisted nor compelled to name names.

Stars of the Month “Judy Holliday”

Absolutely brilliant actress / comedienne / singer on stage and screen. Irresistably charming and truly zany. If you haven't watched her, you owe it to yourself to catch one of her films! Bells Are Ringing is great, and I highly recommend It Should Happen to You!

This spirited, intelligent actress of stage and screen played variations of the squeaky-voiced 'dumb blonde' role in a number of breezy comedies of the 1940s and 50s.But it took two Broadway shows, "Kiss Them for Me" and, notably, as the intellectually ambitious moll in "Born Yesterday", to make Judy Holliday a star.She returned to films with a memorable supporting role in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy, "Adam's Rib" (1949), then vaulted to stardom the following year when she recreated her stage triumph of "Born Yesterday" in George Cukor's film adaptation. As the airheaded mistress of a shady and rather dull-witted tycoon who turns the tables on him once she's educated, Holliday won an Oscar as Best Actress of 1950 (beating out Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" and Bette Davis and Anne Baxter in "All About Eve").

For the rest of the 50s, signed with Columbia, Holliday made a handful of films, delighting audiences as ditzy but surprisingly shrewd types in "The Marrying Kind" (1952), the delightful media satire "It Should Happen to You" and "Phfft!" (both 1953), "The Solid Gold Cadillac" and "Full of Life" (both 1956). Holliday's last film was musical "Bells Are Ringing" (1960). She returned to the stage in the straight play "Laurette" (Taylor) and the musical "Hot Spot" (1952). A heavy smoker, Holliday died of throat cancer in 1965 at the age of 43

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Happy Birthday

Clark Gable turn 104 today