Charles Chaplain as a young man Charlie Chaplin & Stan Laurel Norman B. Schwartz In September 1910, one of England’s most popular Music Hall acts, Fred Karno Company of Clowns, set off by ship to begin a scheduled tour of North America that would last twenty-one months. On board, there…
Category: Norman B. Schwartz
Bette Davis
14. Peons By the Pool: Standard Hollywood Contract
Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian in the Adventures of Robin Hood, (1938) Public Domain Wikimedia Commons by Norman B. Schwartz In the old days of the studio system, now long gone, the Big Five, as they were then called – MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, Fox (one day to unite with Twentieth Century…
Bogie
12. HE THINKS HE’S BOGIE
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…
Arrow Collar
11. Beating Around…
Prescott Sheldon Bush, Senator, photo Louis Fabian Bachrach Jr. – Bachrach Studios …the Bushes by Norman B. Schwartz They are one of America’s few dynastic clans, the first since the Adams family who can legitimately claim to have sent two presidents – George Herbert Walker Bush and his son George Walker Jr…
Black Jack
10. Gracious, Salacious & Rapacious?
Jacqueline Kennedy, photo Toni Frissell Library of Congress 1957 Jackie Kennedy, Before and After by Norman B. Schwartz Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady in the land, and the novelist and essayist Gore Vidal, shared one thing in common – a stepfather. Both Jackie’s mother and Gore’s mother were married to…
Alfred Hitchcock
9. IMMOVABLE OBJECTS
Hitchcock & Selznick by Norman B. Schwartz The irresistible force paradox, a law of physics, states that when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force, each is indestructible. When that happens, as the law was later interpreted by Miss Doris Day – well, something’s got to give. Without doubt, the…
Cary Grant
8. MALE IMPERSONATORS
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…
2001: A Space Odyssey
7. STANLEY STRANGELUCK
Sit back and look at pretty pictures: Barry Lyndon, (screenshot) Fair Use by Norman B. Schwartz Stanley Kubrick was born in 1928 in the Bronx. His father, a Russian/Polish homeopathic doctor, encouraged his precocious son’s interest in photography, buying Stanley his first Graflex, a bulky camera much favored by police…
Citizen Kane
6. WHAT A MESS!
Orson Wells as Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, Peppercorn-Wormser Film Enterprises, Wikimedia Commons Orson Welles, the Big Enigma by Norman B. Schwartz . To lovers of classic film, Orson Welles has always been an enigma, the BIG ENIGMA. Has there ever been anyone larger than life, not only in talent…
Dorothy Parker
4. MALEVOLENT MOVIE DESPOTS
Barney Balaban, Paramount; Harry Cohn, Columbia Pictures; Nicholas M. Schenck, Loew’s; Will H. Hays, and Leo Spitz, RKO. Back row, left to right: Sidney Kent, 20th Century Fox; N.J. Blumberg, Universal; and Albert Warner, Warner Bros., in 1938. Harris & Ewing, photographer – Library of Congress by Norman Schwartz Until recently, Hollywood was a patriarchal society…
Cheryl Crawford
3. MYOPIC AMBITION
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…
Actors' Laboratory Theater
2. MARILYN MONROE ASCENDENT
Marilyn Monroe starring in The Asphalt Jungle with Sterling Hayden (1950) by Norman B. Schwartz Because she was so convincing as the quintessential blonde bimbo, many to this day conclude that Marilyn Monroe must have been one. She was not. Neither was she the latter-day saint, the innocent victim of…
Acting
1. ACTING PRESIDENTS
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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