Matthew Kennedy Articles

JOAN BLONDELL: A LIFE BETWEEN TAKES: Introduction to Q&A with Joan Blondell biographer Matthew Kennedy Why Joan Blondell? Actually, this book idea originally came from Joan's son, Norman Powell, who is a director and producer. I was writing a biography of the director Edmund Goulding a few years back, and Norman interviewed me for a documentary he was making on Old Hollywood. When we were [...]

Joan Blondell. Those who have heard the name will most likely picture either a blowsy, older woman playing the worldwise but warm-hearted saloon owner in the late 1960s television series Here Come the Brides, or a lively, fast-talking, no-nonsense, and unconventionally sexy gold digger in numerous Pre-Code Warner Bros. comedies and musicals of the early 1930s. Matthew Kennedy's Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes (University [...]

Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Dames Joan Blondell has always been a favorite of mine, much like fellow wisecracking 1930s Warner Bros. players Aline MacMahon and Glenda Farrell. The fact that Blondell never became a top star says more about audiences — who preferred, say, Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney — than about Blondell's screen presence and acting abilities. As part of its "Summer Under the [...]

Mai Zetterling, Tyrone Power. Two two co-starred in the 1957 drama Seven Waves Away / Abandon Ship. Tyrone Power IV: Bisexuality, Cesar Romero Rumors [Right: Tyrone Power in Jesse James.] The other thing that cracks me up — and I've done a study of this — if someone is outed as gay in a book, the next tell-all that comes out lists that person as [...]