Marsha Hunt, Ann Rutherford, Mark Vieira at Irving Thalberg Exhibition

Former MGM contract actress Marsha Hunt, Academy Special Events Programmer Ellen Harrington, and former MGM contract actress (and Gone with the Wind supporting player) Ann Rutherford at the opening of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences‘ new exhibitions "Art of the Movie Poster: Illustrated One-sheets and Design Concepts from the Paul Crifo Archive" and "Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920-1936," on Wednesday, September 16, 2009.
Photos: Greg Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Marsha Hunt

Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M author Mark Vieira

Miscellaneous items from the Irving Thalberg exhibition

Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936

The career of legendary production executive Irving Thalberg – Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" of the 1920s and early 1930s – will be explored in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new exhibition, "Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936," opening on Thursday, September 17, in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery in Beverly Hills.
"Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936" is guest curated by historian and Thalberg biographer Mark Vieira, whose Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M was profiled in the Alternative Film Guide several months ago and whose Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince is due out in early November. Admission is free.

Lon Chaney, [...]

QUEEN CHRISTINA – Greta Garbo, John Gilbert

Queen Christina (1933)
Direction: Rouben Mamoulian
Screenplay: H. M. Harwood and S. N. Behrman
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, David Torrence
 

 

One of the most ambitious productions of the early 1930s, Queen Christina remains surprisingly modern in its execution thanks in large part to Rouben Mamoulian’s assured hand. Those looking for historical accuracy in the film, however, will be greatly disappointed, for credited screenwriters H. M. Harwood and S. N. Behrman kept themselves busy concocting a highly fictionalized version of the Swedish queen; one who experiences an all-consuming and ultimately tragic love affair with a Spanish envoy. (Garbo biographer Mark Vieira explains [see below] that credited screenwriter — and close Garbo friend [...]

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS MADE REAL: IRVING THALBERG AND THE RISE OF M-G-M – Q&A with Mark Vieira

Author and photographer Mark A. Vieira (right), who’s been a friend for a number of years, has recently written no less than two books on Irving G. Thalberg, the young MGM mogul whose high-quality productions earned him both a reputation as Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" and a special place in Oscar history as the name attached to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Memorial Award given to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” Thalberg even inspired a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the unfinished The Last Tycoon.
Now, Mark’s two books may cover the same ground in terms of subject matter, but they’re radically different in terms of approach to same:
Hollywood [...]