Category: Hollywood

12. HE THINKS HE’S BOGIE

Ars Notoria, 17th October 202517th January 2026

Still from Casablanca with Ingrid Bergmann and Humphry Bogart, photo Jean Beaufort Public Domain by NORMAN B. SCHWARTZ Humphrey DeForest Bogart (1899–1957) shared much in common with his co-star Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen. Both actors grew up in comfortable upper middle-class Episcopalian households with fathers who were society…

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8. MALE IMPERSONATORS

Ars Notoria, 3rd June 202511th September 2025

Cary Grant, RKO publicity still from Suspicion (1941) Public Domain “I used to go out with actresses and other female impersonators.“ ~Mort Sahl by Norman B. Schwartz Of all the occupations known to man, none has been more admired or reviled than acting. Once upon a time, society viewed acting as no…

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Cheryl Crawford

3. MYOPIC AMBITION

Ars Notoria, 7th January 20257th July 2025

The Group Theatre: Roman Bohnen, Luther Adler, Leif Erickson, Frances Farmer, Ruth Nelson, Sanford Meisner, Phoebe Brand, Eleanor Lynn, Irwin Shaw, Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman and Morris Carnovsky Elia Kazan—Rebel with a Cause by Norman B. Schwartz In 1898, the director Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1838) convinced a Russian medical doctor and…

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When Hollywood rewrote South African History

Ars Notoria, 11th October 202423rd December 2024

Hollywood’s Golem version of Mandela by Phil Hall The Western media approved of what seemed like Nelson Mandela’s overly conciliatory beginnings after his release in 1990 and later saw the reflection of their own intentions in the strategies and policies of Thabo Mbeki’s government, the government that followed Mandela’s. In…

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a statue in a city

1. ACTING PRESIDENTS

Ars Notoria, 9th October 20243rd June 2025

Bronze statue of FDR with his dog, Fala, Pexels by Norman B. Schwartz In his younger and leaner days, Orson Welles was summoned to the White House by the President of the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt greeted the actor, who he admired. “I am delighted to meet the second…

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‘It’s delightful! Very, very funny … Anyone with a true sense of him should find it wholly engaging!’

Stephen Fry

What would Oscar Wilde make of modern day Britain? And what would modern day Britain make of a latter day Oscar Wilde?

In this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, Dan Pearce brings the celebrated and notorious Victorian wit a century into the future, with great humour and a Wildean sense of mischief in his own right.

“J. W. Wood’s stories evince a gift for the quotidian, employing brilliant conceits and mischievous turns of phrase which enrich the writing at every point. Capturing the frustration of curtailed lives and the grim horrors of the corporate world, Wood presents a meta-fictional universe in which the rich realise their folly and we control computers, not the other way round.”

—Julian Stannard, award-winning poet and author of The University of Bliss (Sagging Meniscus Press, USA, 2024)

That Was Hugo Blythe MP is the professional journal, presented in diary form, of government researcher Alaric Casteele. Casteele’s diary is a skilful interchange between events in his domestic life, and his meticulous eavesdropping into the political intrigues levelled against his boss Hugo Blythe, a government minister pivotal in the New Labour project, climaxing as a general election approaches.

Delightful, informative and sceptical – but never cynical – The Rights of Man And Fish nods to Voltaire, Günter Grass and Paul Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, while maintaining a humour and breadth of vision entirely its own. Join Gisella as she finds out what makes the ideal society based on what she learns from a millennium of human error, intrigue and haute cuisine. Wittily illustrated by Pete Field, this work is a tour de force.

Congratulations to one of our regular contributors, Andy Hall, for winning the prestigious Trieste Photo Days award for best author. The competitions was judged by the renowned photographer Harry Gruyaert, who said:

'I chose this work because it's the kind of work I would have liked to have taken myself. His compositions stand out; he's pulling order from chaos and some of these images are truly powerful.'

Prospero in his cell busy indwelling, might have time to ponder the mystery of the myth that is Bob Dylan. He is concealed behind a dark blue velvet curtain embroidered in gold; Dylan with a megaphone standing on a stool, blown up from Minnesota.

Phil Hall

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© AN Editions 2025. All rights reserved. Materials on this website are free to download for personal use but must not be publicly disseminated, re-published or broadcast without permission. To seek permission, please use the Contact page of this website, or contact the author, artist, or photographer directly. No representation, warranty or covenant, whether express or implied, is made as to the accuracy of any information or statements contained in the Ars Notoria Magazine and AN Editions shall have no liability of any nature whatsoever for any inaccuracies.