Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller Pygmalion. George Bernard Shaw is tonight’s star on Turner Classic Movies. Major Barbara (1941), directed by Gabriel Pascal, and starring Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller,…
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Anna Paquin, Cindy Lauper, Whoopi Goldberg, are some of those featured in a new PSA for the Give a Damn campaign, started by Lauper’s True Colors Fund which fights for…
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Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Novarro, The Cat and the Fiddle Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro is a film star biography I wrote several years ago. The book tells the…
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Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson Twilight Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight book series has a number of elements in common with J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter novels: both book franchises involve teens, mysteries, otherworldly…
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Noel Coward with Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Boom! (top); with Marlene Dietrich, 1937 (bottom) Noel Coward – playwright, composer, director, actor, (purported) spy, nationalist, propagandist, semi-closeted gay guy…
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Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Howard Zinn, author of the revisionist tome A People’s History of the United States, died in Santa Monica, California, on Wednesday.…
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Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw in Love Story, written by Erich Segal. Erich Segal, whose screenplay and novel Love Story became worldwide hits, has died. Segal, who had been suffering…
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Milos Forman, Peter Shaffer: Oscar Winners at 25th Anniversary Amadeus Screening also featuring actress Sophie Winkleman and singer Bryan Adams.
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Author and photographer Mark A. Vieira (right), who has been a friend for a number of years, has recently written no less than two books on Irving G. Thalberg, the…
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Gay Murder and political life that rocked California + awards season juggernaut top WGA Awards plus Academy names Holocaust-themed drama producers.
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Malvin Wald screenplay: The Naked City 1948 with Barry Fitzgerald and Dorothy Hart. The Naked City (1948) screenwriter Malvin Wald Screenwriter Malvin Wald, who received an Academy Award nomination for…
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Celebrities in the 1930 Census Q&A: Greta Garbo, Gangsters Go Missing while Marie Dressler and Mae West Find Fountain of Youth.
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Marie Dressler in Dinner at Eight. It’s Oscar time. What better way to celebrate the 2008 Academy Awards than by having a q&a about the best actress Oscar winner ……
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Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek, Ellen Page and nominated directors: Oscar Nominees Luncheon plus humongous group photo.
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Golden Globe Awards: Non-English-Language non-ceremony shockers as less commercial non-Hollywood movies top several major categories.
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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Bernard Gordon, a blacklisted screenwriter during the McCarthy era and a leader of the protest against the honorary Oscar awarded director (and informant) Elia Kazan,…
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Mel Brooks biography: It’s Good to Be the King. James Robert Parish, author of countless film books (The RKO Gals, Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops), answers a few…
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Novelist and playwright Joseph Hayes, best known for his stage and film adaptations of his 1954 suspense novel The Desperate Hours, died this past Sept. 11 at a nursing home…
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Prolific author James Robert Parish answers a few questions about his latest tome, The Hollywood Book of Breakups. Unlike his previous book, Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops, an…
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Screenwriter and playwright Jay Presson Allen died of a stroke yesterday morning at her home in Manhattan. She was 84. The Ft. Worth native (born on March 3, 1922) wrote…
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Author Henry Farrell, whose Grand Guignol tales What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte? were successfully adapted for the screen in the 1960s, died…
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Brave Journalist vs. the Far Right: Good Night and Good Luck. with David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow. George Clooney’s black-and-white drama about television journalist Edward R. Murrow was the…
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Harold Pinter Nobel Prize in Literature Winner: Fiery Anti-US and Anti-Iraq War Acceptance Speech called for the arrest of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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John Fowles: The Collector, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus Author Dead at 79. Meryl Streep starred in film version of ‘French.’
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Gavin Lambert: ‘Inside Daisy Clover’ novelist & Natalie Wood + Norma Shearer + George Cukor biographer has died Novelist, biographer, film critic, and screenwriter Gavin Lambert died on July 17…
3D: Film history repeats itself. Picture above: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Rupert Grint. (Jaap Buitendijk / Warner Bros.). ‘Hatty Potter’ & ‘Clash of the Titans’ in 3D:…
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond: ‘Lost’ Tennessee Williams screenplay + Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Evans in interview with director Jodie Markell.
Leonard Schrader. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (website) will be paying tribute to screenwriter Leonard Schrader on May 15 and 16, with the screening of two of Schrader’s…
Marion Cotillard & Daniel Day-Lewis among British award winners 2008 London Film Critics’ Circle Award nominations: Dec. 14. 2008 London Film Critics’ Circle Award winners: Grosvenor House Hotel on Feb.…
Hedy Lamarr biography: Discussing Charles Boyer’s romantic interest in in Algiers. See previous post: Hedy Lamarr: Q&A with Author Patrick Agan: Part II Is it true that Hedy Lamarr refused…
Rudolph Valentino death, funeral, and legacy discussed in new book: The Valentino Mystique Allan R. Ellenberger‘s meticulously researched The Valentino Mystique: The Death and Afterlife of the Silent Film Idol…
Oscar-nominated gay author-screenwriter Gavin Lambert tribute includes I Never Promised You a Rose Garden + The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.